SAPR: Interlude 2 - Atlas (RWBY/MLP)

[ScipioSmith]

A Blessing Sought​

"Are you sure that you want to do this?" Twilight asked.

Penny tilted her head a little to one side. "Are you asking if I want to transfer to Beacon, or tell my father?"

"Well, I suppose I was thinking more about the second than the first one," Twilight replied. "But if you're having second thoughts about the first one, you can tell me that too."

Penny smiled. The two of them were sitting in the lobby of the Office of Research and Development, seated upon a soft blue sofa that was one of the only spots of colour in the otherwise white, sterile environment. An NCO in the white non-combat uniform of the Atlesian forces sat behind a desk and a protective screen on the other side of the room, flanked by a pair of armed guards, their faces concealed beneath their helmets. White AK-200 androids stood at the security booths that scanned the passes of those coming in and out of the building. As it was morning, far more people were going in than coming out, a river of people in lab coats and suits, scanning their authorisation passes with little beeps as they passed through the scanners.

Twilight was wearing her own pass around her neck; Penny didn't have one, but the NCO on the desk had given her a guest pass which would enable her to get through the scanners for today only.

But they had not yet gone in. Instead, they sat on the sofa in the lobby, waiting as the people streamed in past them, occasionally pausing to say hello to Twilight.

"I'm not having second thoughts about it," Penny said gently, with a smile on her face. "That, to go to Beacon, is what I want."

"Is it?" Twilight asked. "Or do you just want to be where your friends are?"

Penny frowned in confusion. "I … don't understand the difference?"

"If you want to be a huntress, you just don't want to be at the beck and call of the Atlesian military, then transfer to Beacon," Twilight told her. "I think that's probably why every Atlesian at Beacon, like Flash or Weiss Schnee, chooses Beacon Academy over Atlas. But only if you want to be a huntress. If not, if all that you want is to be by your friends, then by all means, live in Vale, but you don't have to go to Beacon to do that. Do you want to be a huntress? Or is there something else that you would rather be?"

Penny did not reply immediately, her mind whirring as she considered the question. "I don't know," Penny admitted. "I don't know if there is anything I would rather be than a huntress, because I haven't been given the chance to find out." She could not prevent her tone from sharpening into something accusative at those words, and she was not altogether sure that she wanted to. "I was created to be a huntress, to fight, not to do anything else."

Twilight winced. "Yes, yes, I know. But if you want to assert your freedom and be more than … than you were created to be, then … then you can be something else, if you want."

"Like what?" Penny asked.

"I … I think that's up to you, Penny."

"But I have no idea," Penny pointed out. "Maybe I will have some idea later, and if I do, then I can do what you suggest: drop out of Beacon but stay in Vale to pursue … whatever it is that I decide to do, but until then, isn't Beacon as good a place as any to figure that out?"

Twilight smiled. "Well, I suppose you make a pretty good point there," she accepted.

"And besides," Penny added, "just because I don't want to do exactly what my father created me for, doesn't mean that…?"

Twilight waited for her to continue. "Penny?" she prompted.

"Ruby makes it seem very noble, doesn't she?" Penny asked. "To be a huntress?"

Twilight covered her mouth with one hand as she let out a little chuckle. "Yes. Yes, I suppose she does," she said. "In part because it is noble, inherently so, and so Ruby isn't required to conjure virtue where none exists. But, yes, I grant you, she makes it sound very grand."

"Even if the reason I can fight is because I was created to, that doesn't change the fact that I can fight," Penny declared. "And so I don't know if I could just walk away especially with…" She paused for a moment, looking around to see if anyone was listening. "Especially not with what we know about … you know."

Twilight nodded, freeing Penny from the need to actually say it. "I can understand that, Penny, that … that speaks well of you, not that you need my approval on your character."

"I was made to fight the battles that they never could," Penny declared. "Just because I don't want to fight those battles under the colours of Atlas doesn't mean that I don't want to fight them at all."

Twilight smiled. "You sounded pretty noble yourself there." She hesitated, looking down at her hands where they lay in her lap. "I feel as though I owe you an apology, Penny."

Penny blinked. "For what?"

"For the fact that I'm a coward, for one," Twilight admitted. "I … I saw the issues with you — no, not with you, the issues with what we were doing to you, with what we planned to do with you — earlier than Rainbow Dash, certainly earlier than Ciel. I should have talked to General Ironwood, I should have talked to your father, but I didn't. I let Rainbow put my fears at ease, and then I didn't really think much about it afterwards, because … because I suppose I didn't really want to think about it. I didn't want to look things in the eye or sully my idea of Atlas with the fact of what we had done."

"I suppose, if you hadn't done it, then I wouldn't be here, would I?" Penny asked.

"No," Twilight acknowledged. "No, I guess not. All the same, I still feel as though I owe you an apology for not acting sooner, not fighting for you, for not pushing Rainbow Dash to see what was really going on with you. And most of all, for not reaching out to you." She reached out now, even as the words passed her lips, and took Penny's hands in her own. Her hands were soft, and her grip was gentle. "The fact that you want to go to Beacon is … proof of our failure, isn't it?"

"Not necessarily," Penny replied. A hiccup escaped her lips.

Twilight laughed. "You're a very kind girl, Penny, but a very bad liar." She paused a moment. "All right, you definitely want to go to Beacon. But are you certain that you want to tell your father about it? Doctor Polendina—"

"Might try to stop me?" Penny asked. "That isn't his decision, is it?"

"Technically, no," Twilight replied. "But power is not simply a matter of what the rules say or who has the defined authority; it exists in influence and who knows who and words spoken in the right ear. Jacques Schnee has no formal power outside of the Schnee Dust Company, but he remains one of the most powerful men in the kingdom regardless, because his wealth and status accord him a great deal of influence. Your father is not of that order, but he has influence all the same. Influence that he may use against you. I probably shouldn't be encouraging you to lie, but…"

"I have to tell him," Penny said. "I think I have to tell him. I have to tell him because … because he's dying, and I'd rather that … I suppose I'd rather that we could be father and daughter before that happens, rather than me running away and not speaking to him again before … before. Dad says that I'll have to live with that if I do."

"'Dad'? Twilight asked.

"Pietro," Penny explained.

Twilight's eyebrows rose. "You've spoken to Doctor Pietro?"

"He called me last night," Penny explained. "Rainbow Dash gave him my number."

"Huh," Twilight said. "That … huh. Good for her, so she really did go and see him."

"Regardless of how my father has treated me," Penny said, "I'll have to live with how I treat my father."

"That … that's very wise, Penny," Twilight said. "And very kind."

Penny leaned forward a little. "I could still use some moral support, though."

Twilight chuckled. "Of course. Are you ready?"

"Yes. I think so," Penny said. "I mean, yes. I mean … yes. Yes, I'm ready."

"Okay then," Twilight said, in a calm voice that helped Penny to feel calm as well. "Let's get to it."

Twilight allowed Penny to go through the scanners first, her guest pass making a different sort of sound to the regular passes that everyone else was using — or the pass that Twilight used to follow her through. Penny's pass had a sort of whine about it, something which — once noticed — she could not unnotice.

She didn't like coming here. It seemed like the whole building was conspiring to make her feel different.

They managed to get an elevator all by themselves, just Penny and Twilight riding the lift up to her father's office on the fifth floor. That was good, because it meant that there was nobody else in the elevator with them, but it was also bad because it meant that Penny was left alone with her thoughts, since Twilight wasn't saying very much.

Twilight seemed a little nervous, playing with the hem of her skirt with both hands, and Penny honestly couldn't blame her. She felt pretty nervous herself. This was the right thing to do, as Dad had pointed out to her, but that didn't make it easy. Especially since her father was not always an easy person to deal with, a fact made worse by the fact that she couldn't be sure which version of her father she was going to get: the one who had asserted his power over her, or the one who had listened with interest to her stories about her friends and her time at Beacon. Which one was in the lab today, which would she find when she walked through that door?

"Do you know what he's going to be like today?" Penny asked quietly.

Twilight looked at her, frowning a little behind her glasses. "I'm not sure," she admitted. "I asked Moondancer to make sure that Doctor Polendina took his medication this morning, but whether or not he actually did … I don't know. I'm sorry, Penny, I just can't say for sure."

"I … I see," Penny murmured. "I suppose we'll just have to see then, won't we?"

The elevator door opened, and Penny stepped tentatively out into the grey metallic corridor. She looked around, half expecting to see her father waiting for her, but of course, it was not so: her father was in his lab, and the corridor was empty.

Penny found that she had clasped her hands together as she walked down the corridor towards her father's lab.

She had been here before, many times. She'd been here as recently as yesterday, as part of the battery of tests that her father had put her through. But this time … this time felt different. This time, her steps felt heavier; this time, she felt an urge to turn around and walk the other way, to get back into the elevator, to go somewhere else.

But she'd have to live with it if she did, just like Dad said.

And so, her hands clasped together, rubbing them together as though she were washing them, Penny made her way towards the door.

She stopped in front of it. She was very still, completely and utterly still, as still as if she'd been powered down. She stood in front of the door and froze.

She felt Twilight's hand upon her shoulder. "Penny?" she whispered.

Penny blinked. "I'm scared," she whispered.

Twilight was silent for a moment, her mouth hanging open. "He … your father, he … I'm sorry, Penny." She embraced her by both shoulders, pulling her in, so that Penny's shoulder was resting upon her chest. "You don't have to do this. Nobody will fault you if you don't."

"I will," Penny replied. "I … I have to do this."

Twilight hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Penny whispered. She hiccupped.

"Penny," Twilight murmured reproachfully.

"I have to do this," Penny insisted. "I want to do this."

"Okay," Twilight said gently, as she released Penny. "I'm right here. I know that that doesn't mean that much to you, but I'm right here."

"Thank you," Penny said quietly.

She looked at the door and wished that she needed to breathe so that she could take a deep breath.

She had to be brave. She had to be brave like … brave like Sunset. All of her friends were brave, but Sunset had the particular kind of bravery that Penny felt she needed right now, the kind of bravery that acted like it wasn't afraid of anything, the kind that could walk into a room like it owned it, the kind that could face down those who were much more powerful than you.

Penny remembered under Mountain Glenn, when Salem had appeared before them. Salem had ignored her; she hadn't said anything to her, not specifically, not the way that she'd gone after Pyrrha or Ruby or Rainbow or Ciel. She hadn't said anything to Penny, but Penny had been paralysed nonetheless. She hadn't been able to move, able to fight, not even able to say anything. In her head … in her head, she'd seen herself being ripped apart, unable to cry out as her systems failed and her limbs were torn from her body.

Unable to help her friends as they cried out for her.

She'd seen herself a failure.

Penny hadn't been able to respond to Salem, but Sunset had; even though it was Salem, Sunset hadn't put up with it.

Penny felt that she could do with being that kind of brave right now.

But she didn't know how to be brave like Sunset, so she would have to just try and be brave like herself and hope it was enough.

After all, wasn't she doing this so that she could be herself?

Penny took a step forward, and the door slid open for her, revealing her father's lab. Penny walked inside, with Twilight following quickly behind her.

Her father was standing at the table, gesticulating with one hand as he said something to Moondancer that Penny couldn't make out.

"Father?" Penny said.

Doctor Polendina turned to look at her, his eyes widening with surprise. "Penny," he said. "I wasn't expecting you today. You're not due in for any more tests." He frowned. "Moondancer… is Penny—?"

"No, Doctor, she isn't," Moondancer said softly. She smiled. "Good morning, Penny."

"Good morning, Moondancer," Penny said. To her father, she said. "I actually came here to talk to you, Father."

"Really?" Doctor Polendina asked. "Of course. Of course! Um, why don't you, uh, why don't you sit down over there? You too, Twilight, how are you? I wasn't expecting you today either; I thought you had the day off."

"I do, Doctor," Twilight said, "but Penny asked me if I'd come with her."

"Why?" Doctor Polendina asked. "Penny, you don't need an escort to come and see your father."

Don't I? Penny thought. "Father … there's something important that I need to talk to you about."

"Sit down first, Penny," Doctor Polendina said.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Penny said.

"Sit down, Penny," Doctor Polendina commanded.

"No, Father," Penny replied, more forcefully this time.

Doctor Polendina blinked rapidly. He breathed deeply in and out. One hand clenched into a fist. He looked down at it, and his fist unclenched again. He leaned back against the table, resting both hands upon it, fingers curling around it.

"Very well," he said, his voice sounding brittle. "What's this about? What did you want to say to me?"

Penny hesitated for a moment. "I … I want you to know," she said, her voice faltering a little, "that I'm transferring to Beacon next year, after the Vytal Festival is over."

Doctor Polendina stared at her. "'Transferring,'" he whispered. "Transferring to Beacon?"

"Yes," Penny said, "that's right."

"You'll leave Atlas?"

"Yes," Penny replied. "At least, most of the time. I can come back for the holidays."

"'Back for the holidays,'" Doctor Polendina repeated. He looked away, then looked back at Penny. "Why?" he asked, his voice hoarse and quiet.

"Because I don't belong to Atlas, or to you, or General Ironwood," Penny said. "I'm myself, and I belong to myself, and I want to go to Beacon. I want to spend the next three years with my friends. I want … I want to go to the school that I want to go to. I want to be able to transfer like any other girl could. I want to be free."

"Like any other girl could," Doctor Polendina echoed her words. "Penny … Penny you're not any other girl—"

"I'm not a machine," Penny insisted.

"No, of course not, never that, but … you require maintenance—"

"Not all the time; I could come back to Atlas for that in between semesters?"

"And why would Atlas bother to maintain a unit from which they obtain no benefit?" Doctor Polendina demanded.

Penny gasped, and so did Twilight behind her. Even Moondancer looked a little shocked.

"Doctor," Moondancer murmured.

"What?" Doctor Polendina snapped. "Moondancer, Twilight, don't look at me that way! You know that I'm speaking the truth. You know that this isn't a charity; we don't do things out of the goodness of our hearts, and if you don't know that already, then it's high time you learned. Why would Atlas be content to spend large sums of lien on maintaining Penny when Penny isn't working for Atlas?"

"Is that what you think, Father?" Penny asked, her voice trembling.

"It doesn't matter what I think."

"It does to me," Penny replied. "Would you still want to work on me if I left?"

"That's not the point—"

"Answer me, Father, please."

"Of course I would!" Doctor Polendina shouted, so loud that Penny flinched from the volume in his voice. "Of course I would; do you think that I'd want to see you abandoned just because you've changed uniform? You … you are my…"

He approached her, kneeling down before her, reaching out towards her face, although he didn't quite lay them on her. They remained a few inches away, squirming and wriggling, as though he wished to touch her but did not dare.

"You are my daughter, and my greatest creation. As a father and a scientist both, I could never turn my back on you. I want to see you become all that you can be, I want to see you fulfil the utmost limits of your potential; if it comes to a choice between you and Atlas, then Atlas can drop out of the sky for all I care, but Penny … it isn't up to me. I don't get to make these decisions; the men who hold the purse strings do, and those men don't care about your potential or your choices. All they see is profit and loss, and your work, maintenance, repair if you need it, all of that will cost money, money in the loss column, money for which there is no return. Penny, if you walk away from Atlas, they'll leave you to rot until you end up on a scrapheap."

Penny looked into her father's eyes. "I … I hadn't thought about that," she admitted. "But it's a risk I'm willing to take."

"Penny, for God's sake, don't be childish about this!" Doctor Polendina cried.

"What's childish about wanting to walk my own path?" Penny asked.

"It's childish to do something stupid out of nothing more than stubbornness and pride!" Doctor Polendina snapped.

"I'll find a way," Penny declared. "Maybe Ruby can help me with my maintenance, and if not, then we'll find someone else who can, and if not that, then … then maybe I will end up on that scrapheap, but at least it will have been my choice, and no one else's."

"Penny," Doctor Polendina murmured. "This won't be allowed to happen."

"Will … will you … will you stop it?" Penny asked, the question that, of all questions, she most dreaded to ask and yet, at the same time, the question of all questions to which she needed to hear the answer.

Doctor Polendina did not respond. He turned his back on her, his white labcoat swirling about him a little as he turned, before he walked to the table in the centre of the lab and leaned heavily upon it, his arms spread out from his body, his back hunched, his head bowed.

"You want to go to Beacon?" he murmured.

"Yes," Penny replied. "Yes, I do."

"Why?" he asked. "Because of your friends? You could call them."

"That's not the same as being around them all the time," Penny argued.

"You won't be alone, your teammates—"

"They're not the same either," Penny said.

Doctor Polendina was silent for a moment, although his breathing was heavy. Penny could hear it even though there were a few feet of distance between them.

"Father?" she asked, taking a step closer to him, and another.

"You want to go to Beacon?" he repeated.

"Yes."

"Then you still want to be…" Doctor Polendina trailed off. "You still want to be a … you still want to be a…" He clicked his fingers. "Fighting, weapons, guns, swords, monsters, killer, what's the word, damnit, why can't I remember the word?"

"Huntress, Doctor?" Twilight suggested.

"Huntress, yes, huntress! Thank you, Twilight, huntress. You still mean to be a huntress, then?"

Penny nodded, even though her father couldn't see that. "Yes. I still want to be a huntress. I still want to protect others and the world. I just don't want to do it at Atlas."

"And do you think that I am so enamoured of Atlesian white that it would make too much difference to me whether you fulfil your destiny in white and grey or in that ugly maroon with that cheque pattern?" Doctor Polendina asked. He paused, his voice becoming quieter. "I don't want you to go."

"Because … because you're dying?" Penny whispered.

Doctor Polendina turned to look at her once again. "Yes," he confessed. "Yes, because I'm dying. You heard that?"

Penny nodded slowly. "I heard."

"When you didn't mention it, I hoped that maybe…" Doctor Polendina said. "I hoped that … I hoped … stupid of me. Foolish. Of course you heard. You heard everything else; why wouldn't you have heard that? But you didn't say anything."

"I wasn't sure what to say," Penny admitted. "Do you … do you know how long you have left?" she asked.

"Not exactly," Doctor Polendina replied. "But not too long."

Penny raised her hands, clasping them together over her heart. "I … I'll be sure to call you."

Doctor Polendina laughed. "It's alright, Penny, you don't have to pretend to … to … you don't have to pretend to … sentiment. Sentimentality, yes, that's the word; you don't have to pretend to sentimentality that you don't possess, don't have to pretend to emotions that you don't feel. I didn't create you because I wanted a daughter to hold my hand and comfort me when I was sick, any more than I wanted one I could walk down the aisle on her wedding day. What I wanted…"

"What you wanted was a legacy," Penny murmured.

Doctor Polendina turned to look at her. He opened his mouth, but no words emerged. He frowned. "Twilight, Moondancer, you're both well educated, and your faculties are still your own. There's a … speech, recitation, what's the word, speaking someone else's words—"

"Quote, Doctor?" Moondancer guessed.

"Quote, yes, there's a quote," Doctor Polendina said, nodding quickly. "A quote, from an old Mistralian story, what is it, what I am thinking of, striving for perfection, a father's advice, what is it—?"

"'Always be the best, the bravest,'" Penny said, "'and hold your head up high amongst the others.' It's from the Mistraliad. Pyrrha told it to me."

"Yes, I suppose Pyrrha Nikos would know it off by heart," Doctor Polendina murmured. "That was … that is all that I want from you, Penny, to … to be the best. To be acclaimed and acknowledged and as the best. To have your greatness recognised, and through your greatness…" He did not say that, and through her greatness, his own would also be recognised, even in death, but Penny could guess that was the part he was not saying. "And you can do that as well in Beacon as you can in Atlas. You can be as well regarded at Beacon as you can in Atlas. All I ask is that you continue to strive for perfection, in the field and in the Vytal Festival."

"I still want to be a huntress," Penny said. "I'd just rather be one with my friends."

"Then I have no objection," Doctor Polendina said. "Although it was still very brave of you to come to me like this. You must have been worried that I would refuse, that I would set my face against it, that I would do all I could to prevent it."

Penny glanced down. "Yes," she admitted. "But I spoke to … to Pietro—"

"Pietro!" Doctor Polendina shouted. "You spoke to Pietro!" He sounded far more upset about that than he seemed to be about her plans to go to Beacon. "How d— how?"

"He called me," Penny said.

"How does he have your number?"

"I … don't know," Penny said, but although she rushed to cover her mouth, she could not stop the hiccup.

Maybe Twilight can reprogram me so that I don't do this any more. I should be allowed to lie if I want to.

Doctor Polendina scowled. "Penny."

"Rainbow Dash gave it to him," Penny admitted.

"Rainbow Dash needs to learn to mind her own business," Doctor Polendina growled. "If you weren't going to leave her next year, I'd demand she be tossed off your team — and out of Atlas too, maybe."

"Why is that such a bad thing?" Penny asked. "Why is this what's upsetting you?"

"Because my brother is weak and short-sighted and childishly naïve, and he doesn't understand!" Doctor Polendina cried. "If you wish to pursue greatness at Beacon instead of Atlas, then I have no objection, one is as good as the other to my mind, but Pietro … I will not have you corrupted by his … his sentiment!"

"He loves you, Father."

"Love? He betrayed me!"

"He was trying to—"

"Now is not the moment to discuss it, Penny," Doctor Polendina declared firmly, his tone as heavy as a door slamming shut. "You have my consent to go, or seek to go, to Beacon; I suggest you content yourself with that."

Penny wasn't sure if he was actually saying that he would prevent her departure if she pressed him on the subject of his brother, but equally, she wasn't sure that she wanted to find out either, and so, she bowed her head and murmured, "Yes, Father."

Doctor Polendina closed his eyes. "Do you … do you really think that they will let you go? General Ironwood, the Council … do you think they'll allow it?"

"Let me worry about that," Penny told him. "I told you because … because I don't want you to think that I just ran away, like last time. I want you to know where I went and why."

Doctor Polendina was quiet for a moment. "I … I have no idea if this will happen, if it will be allowed, if … I have no idea if … I have no idea. But … I know that I haven't been much of a father, nor do I think I have it in me to be, but … but for what it's worth, you have my blessing. Just promise me that you'll never stop trying to … to excel. Don't settle for mediocrity, Penny, never that. That is the only thing that would destroy me, so please, promise me that you will not."

"I … I promise, Father," Penny replied, her voice soft and quiet but nevertheless seeming to echo in the laboratory. "I'll do my best, always."

 

[ScipioSmith]

Requesting Help​

The scroll buzzed as she was getting back aboard the airship.

Rainbow ignored it until the doors to The Bus had closed behind her. She didn't have to even get the device out to know that it wasn't anybody she knew trying to reach her; she'd customised her ringtones — although obviously, she had to put them all on vibrate when she was out in the field — so that if any of her friends had been trying to get hold of her, it would have been playing a unique piece of music for each of them; if they'd been trying to get her as part of a group call, it would have been playing 'Better Than Ever'; if the military had been trying to reach her in an emergency, a klaxon would have started to sound by now; and a call from Penny or Ciel would have been heralded by recordings of their voices.

Although it could be Blake on the other end of the line; Rainbow hadn't set anything up for her yet.

But it was more likely that it was just someone she didn't know trying to get hold of her.

Rainbow yawned as the scroll kept buzzing. She had spent the last night with Scootaloo, Applejack, Apple Bloom, Rarity, and Sweetie Belle doing the Annual Big Sister/Little Sister Camping Trip, because if they didn't take this opportunity, they were going to miss a year — unless anyone fancied a camping trip in winter — and while it had been a ton of fun, nobody went camping to get a lot of sleep.

Don't get her wrong, it had been great sitting out there in the woods, just chilling out with her honorary little sister and her friends, toasting marshmallows and eating hotdogs and telling stories … but it did leave her yawning now as she prepared to fly back to Atlas.

Rainbow got out her scroll. As she'd expected, it was an unknown number. She answered it anyway, tapping the green 'accept call' icon on the off-chance that it might be important.

If it was someone trying to sell her something, she could always hang up.

"Hey, Dash; long time no see."

Rainbow's eyes widened as she looked at the face that appeared on the screen before her: close-cropped white hair and golden eyes set in a sharp, angular face. "Gilda?"

"Surprised to see me, Dashie?" Gilda asked from out of the screen of Rainbow's scroll. "I guess so, seeing as how you didn't tell any of your human friends about me. I have to say: that hurt. I told everybody about you."

"How did you get this number?" Rainbow demanded.

"I got it off your friend Fluttershy when she was…" Gilda hesitated.

"When you were holding her prisoner?" Rainbow suggested in a low growl.

"Don't say it like that; it's not like I hurt her," Gilda replied. "Didn't she tell you that I looked out for her and Applejack when they were down in Mountain Glenn?"

Fluttershy had mentioned that, as it happened, but that didn't mean that Rainbow was particularly eager to give Gilda a lot of credit; after all, she'd only needed to protect Fluttershy and Applejack because the White Fang were holding them prisoner.

"You could have just let them go," she muttered.

"We did," Gilda reminded her.

"Fluttershy, maybe, but not Applejack," Rainbow countered. "And from what Fluttershy said, that was more Adam's doing than yours."

"You think that I could release a high-value prisoner without Adam's say so?" Gilda replied. "Come on, Dash, I'm a soldier, just like you, and just like you, I have a chain of command to follow. I did my best, and they were both safe in the end — they are both okay, aren't they? I mean, I saw Applejack getting on that train with you, but—"

"Applejack is fine," Rainbow told her. "And so is Fluttershy."

"Then what are you complaining to me about?"

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Did you just call me to take credit for not being a complete jackass? Or to complain that I don't talk about you enough? Or are you just upset that I never call you any more?"

"If I was mad about that, I'd have a right to be," Gilda muttered. She paused for a moment. "But no, actually, I called you because … because I need your help."

Rainbow couldn't suppress the scoff, nor keep the incredulity out of her voice. "You want me to help you? After you … you're in the White Fang, and you want me to do you a favour?"

"It isn't for me," Gilda said. "Listen, I know that we're on the opposite sides … and maybe you don't even like me anymore, I don't know, but just hear me out, okay? For old times' sake."

Rainbow scowled as she walked into the cockpit and sat down in the pilot's chair. I guess I don't have to say yes once I've heard her out. "What is it?"

"I know that you're back in Atlas—"

"How do you know that?" Rainbow demanded.

"Because I know you," Gilda said. "Talking to Fluttershy made it clear that you haven't changed since we were kids. You went through some stuff down in Mountain Glenn, but now that the semester is over, you went home to Atlas where you could hang out with your friends before the Vytal Festival and make yourself feel better."

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to spend time with my friends," Rainbow said defensively.

"I didn't say there was," Gilda said. "I'm glad that you're in Atlas; you wouldn't be any good to me in Vale."

"Why not? What's this about, G?" Rainbow demanded.

"People are disappearing in Low Town," Gilda said. "No, before you ask, I'm not in Atlas, but unlike you, I kept in touch with a few people back in Low Town, and they called me because they couldn't think of who else to turn to. People are disappearing; they're being taken in the night."

"'Taken'?" Rainbow frowned. "Taken by who?"

"Nobody knows," Gilda said. "Nobody sees it happening."

"Then how do they know these people are being taken?" Rainbow asked. "Maybe they're just—"

"Running?" Gilda suggested. "Running where, Dashie? It's a frozen tundra out there; don't tell me you've been up in the clouds so long that you've forgotten what the ground is like."

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Come on, you're being ridiculous; we both know that you wouldn't even have to leave Low Town to disappear; maybe they're just … maybe they're not happy with their parents or their wives or whatever, so they're hiding out with friends or something."

"Come on, Rainbow Dash, if it was that simple, people wouldn't be calling me for help," Gilda said. "And besides, it isn't just people with reason to disappear; it's people who were happy, who had good lives, or as good lives as you can get down in Low Town."

"Other people thought they had good lives."

"The local White Fang tried to do something about the disappearances," Gilda said. "They organised a neighbourhood watch, lookouts on the streets, but the lookouts disappeared too; now does that sound like unhappy people running away from home?"

No, no it honestly didn't. None of what Gilda had said was proof of foul play, but that last part came very close. "So you come to me," Rainbow said. "Is this your way of trying to get me killed?"

Gilda rubbed her eyes, as though Rainbow wasn't the only one who hadn't gotten a lot of sleep last night. "I'm gonna level with you, Rainbow: the White Fang in Atlas is … not the strongest. All the good fighters leave for places where it's more of a fair fight. All that's left are recruiters and punk kids and a few old-timers. It's enough to scare off dealers or small time crooks, but if something bad is going down … it isn't enough."

That made sense. Even if the White Fang brought all of its strength to Atlas, there was no way that they could win a fight against the Atlesian military in its own home and the heart of its strength; that being the case, it made sense that all the tough guys left Atlas to go places where they might actually win an engagement.

"Has anybody called the police?" Rainbow asked.

Gilda rolled her eyes. "When were the police last interested in helping out the faunus?"

"That's not fair."

"You say it isn't fair, I say it's the truth, and the fact is that, even if the cops really wanted to help, nobody wants to talk to them," Gilda said. "You remember what it was like: All Cops Are—"

"Yeah, yeah, I remember," Rainbow muttered. "So even if I talked to the cops, nobody would talk to them, is that it?"

"Nobody's sure the cops aren't the ones behind the disappearances," Gilda said. She sighed. "Dash, you're the only person I know who can take care of herself and… and who won't ask me to give up intel in exchange for getting off your butt to do something about this."

"How do you know I won't?"

Gilda hesitated. "I guess I'm just hoping you won't," she said. "These used to be your people too, Dash. You may hang out with a bunch of fancy humans now, but you're still one of us. This is your chance to give something back. To prove that you're still one of the good guys."

"I am one of the good guys!" Rainbow said indignantly. But there was no point in debating this with Gilda, especially not when people's lives were at stake.

Like Gilda had said, these had been her people once.

Like Blake had told her, they were still her people.

"Is there anything else?" she asked.

"Not that I know of," Gilda replied.

"Okay," Rainbow said. "I'll go down there myself and see what I can do."

"You mean you'll help?"

"People are getting kidnapped; of course I'll help," Rainbow said sharply.

Gilda nodded. A grin spread across her face. "Good to see the old Rainbow Dash is still in there."

"Will you get off that high horse and stop talking to me like I'm some kind of … forget it," Dash said. She made to end the call, but something stopped her, held her thumb in place. "Hey, Gilda, can I ask you something?"

"What about?"

Rainbow hesitated, wondering how embarrassing this would be to ask. "Do your parents know that you're in the White Fang?"

Gilda's eyes narrowed. "Why do you care?"

"Because I wrote to my parents—"

"Really?" Gilda asked. "You wrote to your parents?"

"Shut up," Rainbow snapped. "The point is that I told them you were in management, and I'm going to look pretty stupid if my folks have already found out from your folks what you really do."

Gilda paused for a moment. "'Management,' huh?" she said, smiling as she mimed adjusting a non-existent collar and tie with one hand. "That … that's pretty cool, Rainbow Dash, thanks."

"So that's a no, then?"

"I told my parents I work construction in Vale," Gilda said. "I'll have to tell them that I got a big promotion the next time I write. How come?"

"How come you got a promotion?" Rainbow asked. "I don't know; it's your fake career, you figure it out."

"How come you didn't tell your parents the truth?" Gilda demanded.

"Why would I?" asked Rainbow. "I'll kill you if I have to, but there's no reason I have to embarrass you first."

Gilda chuckled. "I appreciate that, Dash, and I appreciate you looking into this stuff in Low Town even more."

"I'm not doing it for you," Rainbow told her.

"You keep telling yourself that," Gilda said. "Good hunting." She hung up.

Rainbow stared at the blank screen for a moment before she folded up her scroll.

Well, I guess I know what I'm doing today.

I wonder how Blake's feeling?

Rainbow probably shouldn't approach Blake with this; she'd come to Atlas for a rest, after all, not a busman's holiday. Fluttershy would undoubtedly have words when Rainbow showed up at her house, asking to take Blake out on a sort-of mission. But Rainbow could use the help, and it wasn't as though there were any better choices; Ciel was in Mantle, and the arguments against disturbing Blake applied to her and to Applejack as well — they'd all been through a lot, and they all deserved a break; Rainbow really didn't want to drag Applejack away from her family after she'd only just returned to them. Penny would jump at the chance if Rainbow asked, but if Doctor Polendina found out, then he'd kill Rainbow's career — or just kill Rainbow, depending on how he was feeling — and, to be honest, Low Town wasn't exactly the kind of place for a nice girl like Penny.

Not to mention that all of the above had the disadvantage of being human — or looking human, in Penny's case — while a faunus, especially a faunus of Blake's background, would be a lot more help in finding out what was going on beneath the shadow of Atlas.

She doesn't have to fight. She can just help me ask questions, talk to people, and I'll break any heads we have to when we find out who's responsible.

She doesn't even have to come if she doesn't want to.

But she'll absolutely want to. With her sense of justice, she'd want to pitch in even if she was bleeding from a half-dozen bullet holes.

Rainbow put her scroll away and started her pre-flight checks.

XxXxX​

"Sir," Winter's voice came in loud and clear over the comms. "We have Rainbow Dash on the line; she's requesting to speak with you."

Glad of the break, Ironwood minimised the report he'd been looking at — Captain Ebi was an exceptional huntsman, but he went through airships at a rate that was approaching ridiculous — and said, "Put her through to my office, Schnee; thank you."

"Aye aye, sir," Winter replied.

Ironwood was a little surprised when Rainbow's face didn't appear on the screen, projected up from his desk. However, he still heard her voice as clearly as if she were in the room with him.

"Hope I didn't catch you at a bad time, sir."

"Not at all, Dash; it's good to hear your voice," Ironwood said. "How are things up there?"

Dash was quiet for a moment. "It's … been a bit of a mixed bag, I'm afraid, sir. I'm not sure Ciel's doing too good."

Ironwood frowned. He had always thought Soleil was the least likely member of Team RSPT to allow anything to get to her. "Cause?"

"Family trouble, sir; I'm not sure it's my place to say more," Dash replied. "Not to mention, we had a run in with the Happy Huntresses."

"Was anyone hurt?" Ironwood said.

"No, sir," Dash said. "Well, the guy they shot was more than hurt, but he wasn't one of us, and he had it coming."

Ironwood's eyes narrowed, for all that he knew Dash couldn't see it. "Do you want to tell me what you were doing at the scene of a murder committed by the Happy Huntresses, Dash?"

"We were trying to apprehend a murderer, sir — not the Happy Huntresses, the guy they shot — but it, well, it's fair to say things didn't quite work out."

"I think you owe me a report on this, Dash," Ironwood said.

"Yes, sir."

"Anything else?"

"Penny's back on her feet if you want some better news, sir," Dash said, her tone brightening. "I've got something to talk to you about regarding Penny, but I'd rather discuss it in person."

"Speaking of which, is there a reason I can't see your face right now?"

"I'm flying, sir," Dash answered. "Just had a weekend pass in Canterlot."

"I see. How's Scootaloo?"

"Very well, sir; thank you for asking."

"Don't mention it," Ironwood said. "And Belladonna?"

"Settling in nicely, sir; I think we've got her hooked," Dash declared. "Not that she's a fish. Or that I'm scamming her. I just meant—"

"I know what you meant, Dash, and that's good news," Ironwood replied. "Atlas can use all the good men it can get, and huntresses like Belladonna are hard to come by. Now, did you call me just to catch up, or is there something I should know?"

"I'd like your permission to investigate some disappearances in Low Town, sir," Dash said. "Faunus have been going missing, and I'd like to look into it."

Ironwood frowned. "I haven't heard anything about that."

"Probably because it's happening in Low Town, sir."

"Then how did you hear about it, Dash?"

Dash hesitated. "Anonymous tip, sir?"

"Dash."

"I'd really rather not say, sir," Dash said. "But I trust the source."

"And I trust you, Dash," Ironwood murmured. "But if this is happening, why hasn't it come to notice through any official channels; why hasn't it been reported?"

"Because I'm sad to say that nobody trusts the authorities down there, sir," Dash said. "Even if the police tried to investigate, people wouldn't talk to them."

"But they'll talk to you," Ironwood said. "Because you used to live there?"

"If they talk to me, sir, it won't be because I used to live there," Dash replied. "But I'm hoping they'll look past that and talk to me because I'm a faunus. And I know the area, or at least I used to, which is more than anyone else who could look into this could say. And I was asked to handle this personally, and I gave my word that I would; I can't just hand this off to someone else, especially when that someone might be busy, or not care, or have other things to pay attention to." Dash paused. "And … may I speak freely, sir?"

"Go ahead, Dash."

"If you trust me to fight Salem, I don't see why you can't trust me to investigate some disappearances," Dash said.

Ironwood let out a small chuckle. "How can I argue with that? Okay, Dash, you can take the lead on this; anyone gives you any trouble, tell them to contact me. However, if your investigation turns up anything, I expect you to pass it back up to me before you act on your intel, understood?"

"Understood, sir."

"And I hope you're not thinking of taking this on by yourself," Ironwood added.

"Wouldn't dream of it, sir," Rainbow said. "I'm on my way to get my backup right now."

XxXxX​

Weiss stood in her room with Myrtenaster drawn.

She had pushed the four-poster bed aside, and the dressing table and the little bench that sat in front of the bed, creating an open space on the pristine floor with its reflective blue tiles where she could practice her blade work.

She would not conjure glyphs, not right now. It might come later, but for now, she would only practice with the blade, practicing her stances.

She stood nearly against the wall, her rapier raised in a high guard, her free hand held out before her, pointing at a target she could see only in her mind's eye.

She stepped forward, lunging with Myrtenaster, the tip of her blade gleaming in the light that streamed in from the window.

Weiss turned, spinning on her toe with the elegance and grace of a ballerina, slashing swiftly before raising her blade in another guard, her sword arm raised across her neck, Myrtenaster held at eye-level.

She lunged again, spun again, and was about to turn to face another imaginary opponent coming in on her flank when she saw that her door had been opened.

Whitley stood in the doorway, lounging against the door frame.

"Whitley!" Weiss squawked in surprise as she came to a stop. "What are you doing in here?"

"The door wasn't locked," Whitley observed.

"That doesn't mean I don't have some expectation of privacy!" Weiss declared.

Whitley raised one eyebrow. "Were you doing something that required privacy?"

Weiss lowered Myrtenaster. "I'm not sure what Father would say about me practicing inside the house."

"If you think that Father will respect your privacy, then you've been away for too long," Whitley observed. "And you do need to learn to lock the door." He paused for a moment. "But your secret's safe with me."

Weiss took a deep breath. "Thank you," she said quietly. "Was there something that you wanted?"

"Klein would like to see you downstairs, in the kitchen," Whitley said.

Weiss frowned. "Klein would like to see me?"

"Yes. Isn't that what I just said?"

"Since when do you deliver messages for Klein?"

Whitley rolled his eyes. "Just come down to the kitchen, won't you? It might be important."

"'Might be'?"

"Will you just come and see for yourself?" Whitley asked. "It will be easier than me trying to explain … well, I'm not sure that I could explain. I promise, you'll be able to get back to flicking your sword around very soon. Probably."

Weiss hesitated, but she was … somewhat intrigued by what had brought about this turn of events. It wasn't usual for Whitley to run errands for the butler — the butler was supposed to serve them, not the other way around — and it wasn't usual for Klein to summon her down to the kitchen either. She might visit him there, from time to time, but if Klein desperately wanted to talk to her, then there was no reason he couldn't have come to find her in her room.

What was it that was down there, that Whitley couldn't explain?

The only way to sate her curiosity was to actually go down to the kitchen to find out, so Weiss put Myrtenaster back in its wooden case with the glass lid and walked towards the door.

Whitley led the way, although Weiss could have found the way well enough without his assistance.

The Schnee Manor was spacious, absurdly so, with corridors that had been built for people on average ten to twelve feet tall — or so it seemed from the scale of the building — while the halls seemed made for people even larger still. Weiss was … not the tallest of girls, and Whitley was more or less of a height with her, so they were both dwarfed by the grand scale of the house in which they lived. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all a cool, almost icy blue, which gave the house a cold and almost sterile air. There was very little in way of decoration on the walls, no family portraits, no old masters, no paintings expensively acquired from the great artists of the day; only some giant suits of armour — nearing twenty feet in height, she thought, far too large for any living man to wear — standing on either side of the grand staircase, and a sculpture of a king taijitu, carved out of white marble, sitting in the centre of the hall.

It was a large house, and a quiet one too; in all this entire mansion, in all these hundreds of rooms, in this place that was as large as a small town, only Weiss, Whitley, her parents, and Klein lived — there were some other staff who worked occasionally, but none of them dwelt here, and there were certainly not enough of them to fill out this house.

This enormous space was largely empty, and being empty, it was largely silent; the footsteps of Weiss and Whitley echoed in the vast corridors, reverberating back at them in the absence of all other sounds.

Weiss remembered Laberna telling her that this house had rung with laughter and good cheer in her grandfather's day … but that was a long time ago now, and just as long passed. Silence ruled here now.

The House of Schnee resembled more a tomb than the home of a living family.

But then, we never were much of a family, were we?

Below stairs, things felt slightly warmer, not least because the décor was different; white, such as tiled the kitchen walls, was not necessarily warmer than royal blue, but it felt warmer, although perhaps that was nothing more than Weiss' imagination supplying things that were not strictly there, but which felt true.

It was warmer below stairs, not least for Klein's presence.

Klein was in the kitchen as Weiss and Whitley entered, and so too, sitting at the white table which sat in the centre of the kitchen, was a young girl, a faunus with reddish-brown hair and raccoon ears, dressed in ragged homespun clothes, eating a cookie.

Eating it messily, with crumbs accumulating on both sides of her mouth.

Eating it ravenously, cramming it into her mouth as though she were afraid it would be snatched away from her at any moment.

She swallowed the last of the cookie and then grabbed the cup of some hot drink — it was steaming, but Weiss couldn't make out what was inside — and swallowed a great draught of it.

"Careful," Klein admonished her, although the reproach was undercut by the amusement in his voice. "We don't want you to choke now, do we?"

The little girl put down the cup, and was about to grab for another cookie — a plate of them sat on the table — when she saw Weiss, and Whitley behind her.

She gasped. "M-Miss Winter?"

"No," Weiss said. "I'm her younger sister, Weiss."

"As I told you, child, Miss Winter doesn't live here any more," Klein said.

"Do you know how to reach her?" the little girl asked.

"We do," Weiss allowed. "But she's in Vale at the moment."

"But I hope that Miss Weiss may be able to help you," Klein added, turning away from the girl to look at Weiss.

Weiss raised one curious eyebrow.

"This young lady," Klein said, "has come a very long way at great difficulty to be here, Miss Weiss. I would take it as a personal favour to me if you would hear her out."

Weiss was silent for a moment, looking down at the girl in front of her. The way that she ate, the speed with which she ate … this was someone poor and hungry. The way she dressed, and unfortunately her race, they combined to make her stick out as someone who did not belong in the Schnee Manor.

But then, considering the state of the Schnee Manor, that might be something of a compliment.

She smiled; even if it was rather a public smile that didn't reach her eyes, she hoped it would put the girl at ease. "Hello," she said. "I'm Weiss Schnee. You wanted to see my sister, Winter?"

The girl nodded silently.

"I'm sorry that isn't possible," Weiss said. "But if you'd like to tell me your business, perhaps there is something that I or Klein or my brother can do to help instead."

"I hate to say it, but I think you're the only one who can likely do anything in this situation," Whitley murmured.

Weiss ignored that, even as she wondered at it. To the girl, she said, "Would you like to tell me why you're here?"

The girl hesitated for a moment, before words began to pour out of her in a great flood. "My older sister's missing," she said. "She disappeared the night before last, the same way that all the people are disappearing lately. Nobody knows where she is, nobody knows where any of them are, and the police aren't interested, but my grandma said that Miss Winter would be able to help us. She said Miss Winter was a good person, who'd listen to me. Are you sure that she isn't here?"

"Your grandmother," Weiss murmured. "What's her name?"

"Uh, Laberna Seacole."

Weiss leaned back in her seat. Of course that's who it is. Laberna Seacole had been their nanny when Weiss was a girl; with Mother and Father both busy with the work of the company and their position in Atlas society, the task of raising the children had often fallen on Klein and Laberna. She'd been dismissed when Weiss was nine — when Whitley was six years old, Father had decided that the children were too old to need a nanny to look after them — but Weiss still had many pleasant memories of the old woman: her patience, her encouragement, her wisdom.

In more recent years, she had found herself wondering — as she sometimes found herself wondering about Klein — how much of the affection she had received from Laberna had been because the old woman had been paid to bestow it upon her. There was no way to find out for sure, and to be honest, Weiss had come to the conclusion that it didn't really matter: even if Laberna had only said what Weiss wanted to hear, it didn't change the fact that she had given Weiss what she needed, when she needed it. Even if she'd just been doing her job, that didn't change the fact that she had been a great help to Weiss in some rather troubled times.

And now her granddaughter was missing, and she was asking them for help. Well, technically, she was asking Winter for help, but Winter wasn't here, and she wasn't exactly able to leave her post in Vale and return to Atlas.

Now she understood what Whitley meant when he said that she was the only one who could do anything about this. It wasn't as if her brother, untrained, bereft of the Schnee semblance, without even his aura unlocked, was going to be able to investigate disappearances in … whatever poor part of Atlas this girl had come from.

And Klein … Klein was a first rate butler, but he was not a warrior.

No, there was only Weiss.

The possibility that this was all some kind of elaborate trap did not escape Weiss' mind; after all, she had no way of knowing that this girl really was the granddaughter of her old nanny, or that the old woman really had sent for her. This might have been a way to lure her out to grab her, although that would require them to know that she was here and Winter wasn't. It was a possibility but somehow … somehow, she didn't think it was a likely one.

From the way that he was looking at her, his eyes shining with hope, it seemed that Klein didn't think it a likely possibility either. He had been close with Laberna, Weiss remembered; the two of them had understood each other, shared similar burdens, shared — she hoped — an affection for their Schnee charges.

He, it seemed, believed the girl, even if only because he wished to.

"It's rather an absurd story to invent if it were not the truth, don't you think?" Whitley said softly.

"It is true!" the Seacole girl insisted.

"I believe you," Whitley assured her. "As I just said to my sister."

He had a point, to be sure. What were the odds that some faunus girl, wholly unconnected with Laberna Seacole, would know that she had been employed by the Schnees, and would make their way to Schnee Manor, sneak inside and spin a yarn about needing assistance without it being true? What were the odds that any faunus girl unconnected with Laberna Seacole would expect any assistance from a Schnee? It was not as though their name was in good odour with the faunus at the moment.

It had to be true, because it was too improbable to be anything else.

"If you'd told me," Weiss said, "I would have brought Myrtenaster down with me." She looked down at herself, dressed in a gown of royal blue that reached all the way down to the floor. "Although perhaps I should change into something more suitable," she added dryly.

To the Seacole girl, Weiss said, "I'm sorry that my sister Winter isn't here at the moment, but I am a huntress of Beacon Academy, and I am going to assist you in my sister's stead."

It was the only thing she could do for Laberna Seacole.

Alright, it wasn't the only thing she could do; she could — perhaps — have waved the Schnee name like a banner and forced the police to take notice of this disappearance. But she didn't want to. She wanted to get out of this house, she wanted to do something useful and helpful, she wanted to be a huntress. She wanted to be a huntress, and there were people in need of her assistance, so why should she not — how could she not — leave the house and provide the help that they required and had requested of her?

"Klein," she said, "will you keep our guest comfortable until I'm ready to leave?"

Klein smiled. "Of course, Miss Schnee."

Weiss smiled back and turned around to see Whitley standing behind her with a bit of a smirk on his face.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"It's funny," Whitley said. "You're undoubtedly being incredibly foolish, and yet, at the same time, I find I rather admire you for it. Try not to die, won't you?"

It occurred to her that Whitley's words to her upon arriving at the house might not have been as hostile as they had seemed; that he might, in a very poorly worded way, have been trying to express concern for her.

"I'll do my best," she said in reply.

"I don't suppose there's anyone who could go with you?" Whitley asked. "Someone suitable for this sort of thing, some durable barbarian who can, what's the phrase, 'watch your back'?"

"I'm afraid I don't know any durable barbarians," Weiss said. "But as for company, I think I know just the person."

She walked out of the kitchen — Whitley made way for her — and as she walked up the stairs towards the ground floor, Weiss got out her scroll.

It took only a moment for her to find the number that she was looking for, and only a moment more for him to answer.

"Hey Weiss, what's up?"

"Flash, good morning," Weiss said. "I'm afraid … this might sound sudden, but are you free at the moment? There's something that I need your help with."

XxXxX​

"The First Councillor of Vale, Aspen Emerald, and the Mistralian Ambassador to Vale jointly announced that Vale and Mistral had agreed the purchase of two Mistralian battleships. However, sources in the Atlesian military cast down on the air-worthiness of the two ships and whether they could be made ready for service in more than a matter of months."

"Turn that off, won't you dear?" Mrs. Breeze said, looking up from watering one of her houseplants.

Mr. Breeze got up from his armchair and walked across the living room towards the radio. He paused, one hand hovering over the off-switch, before he turned to Blake. "Unless you're listening to it, Blake?"

Blake shook her head. "No," she assured him. "It's fine." She might have been content to listen to it further, but she was a guest in their home and had no desire to throw her weight around.

Mr. Breeze smiled at her and switched off the radio.

"It's nothing but grim news at the moment, it seems," Mrs. Breeze said. She was a middle-aged woman, a little taller than her daughter but more or less of a height with Blake herself, with maroon hair worn in a wide bun that emerged out past either side of her head. Square green spectacles surrounded her cerise eyes, and she wore a summer dress of daffodil yellow with a daisy print and a pearl necklace clasped tight around her throat. "Ever since that terrible business in Vale."

"I don't know," Fluttershy said, from where she sat on the sofa next to Blake, her legs tucked up underneath her, cradling a fussy white bunny rabbit in her hands, seeming oblivious to all its attempts to escape her grasp. "I thought the news about the Vytal Festival was pretty good. Or at least, it could have been a lot worse."

"I suppose," Mrs. Breeze acknowledged. "Although the fact that they had to assure everyone that the festival would go ahead and be safe … well, it's hardly ideal, is it?"

"That sort of thing used to be a given, after all," Mr. Breeze added. He was taller than his wife, or indeed Blake, and seemed to cultivate a resemblance to Jacques Schnee, with his white hair and his thin, pencil moustache; it had honestly been a little disconcerting when Blake had seen him first, but thankfully, his dress made it easy to remember that he was not, in fact, Jacques Schnee.

She doubted Jacques Schnee wore ill-fitting jumpers that seemed to be on the cusp of shedding on the floor.

"True," Blake admitted. "But I'm sure General Ironwood will keep everything under control."

"Mmm," Mister Breeze said, with less enthusiasm than Blake had expected.

Mrs. Breeze shook her head as she moved on to another of the many plants that filled the living room. "I just feel like Remnant is going backwards; Vale is buying new weapons, and Mistral is going to re-arm? Is everywhere going to become just like Atlas?"

"'Just like Atlas'?" Blake repeated. "Forgive me, but you make that sound like a bad thing."

"Mom and Dad are Vytalists," Fluttershy murmured. "They believe that Atlas should have disarmed after the Great War, like every other kingdom."

Blake blinked. She kept her voice soft as she said, "That's a thing?"

"That was the intent of the Vytal Treaty," Mr. Breeze declared. "That every country would step down their militaries and disarm. Instead, Atlas has allowed every other kingdom to disarm while increasing its own military power. And then we wonder why people don't trust us."

Blake frowned. The argument made logical sense, she supposed, but she wasn't so convinced that it made practical sense. "But … the threat of the grimm—"

"Is why the huntsman academies were founded," Mr. Breeze pointed out. "We're not naïve, and being sheltered safe in Atlas hasn't made us blind; we just believe that if every other kingdom can manage, why can't Atlas?"

"Every other kingdom manages because they can call on the assistance of Atlas, perhaps," Blake said softly. "I have to say, this isn't an attitude that I expected to find in Atlas, especially not from the parents of one of Rainbow's friends."

"I don't entirely agree," Fluttershy admitted, while the bunny squirmed and wriggled under her hand. Fluttershy continued to stroke and pet it regardless. "I think … well, I don't know if I could express it myself, but Rainbow makes a good point about why Atlas does what it does."

"And we would never suggest that Rainbow or the others have anything but the best intentions," Mrs. Breeze added. "Or you for that matter."

"Your courage must be tremendous, however wrongheaded the system you're a part of," Mr. Breeze said.

"I … see," Blake murmured. Rather than argue their attitudes — she was, after all, a guest in their home — she asked, "Are there many of you? Vytalists?"

"Not too many," Mr. Breeze admitted. "Not none, but not many. It's not a club, you understand; we don't all get together on weekends," he chuckled, "But we do tend to vote for Vytalist candidates. Not that they win. It's not a terribly popular attitude around here."

"Not that it causes us any trouble," Mrs. Breeze hastened to add.

"I'm glad to hear it," Blake replied.

While she was not inherently opposed to persecuting people for their views — some views, after all, were vile and deserved to be stamped out of society by any means necessary — she didn't believe that the Vytalism of Fluttershy's parents fell into category. One kooky idea didn't change the fact that they had been, throughout Fluttershy's stay so far, perfectly nice people.

"Anyway," Mr. Breeze said. "Who wants lunch? Fluttershy? Blake?"

There was a knock on the door.

"I'll get it," Mr. Breeze said as he left the living room and walked into the hall. Blake couldn't see him, and didn't try to see him there; rather, she looked at the bunny in Fluttershy's arms, which was presently giving her the evil eye.

Or at least, that's what it seemed like; it probably wasn't actually that, because it was a rabbit at the end of the day, but it certainly seemed to be glaring at her as though she had caused grave personal offence.

Blake heard the front door open.

"Oh, hello, Rainbow Dash," Mr. Breeze said.

"Good morning, sir," Rainbow said. "Sorry to drop by unannounced like this, but can I come in? I need to talk to Blake."

"Of course," Mister Breeze said. "Come right in."

Blake looked around as Rainbow walked into the living room. It didn't escape her notice that Rainbow was armed.

"Rainbow? Is everything okay?" she asked.

"Morning, ma'am," Rainbow said. "Hey Fluttershy."

"Morning, Rainbow Dash," Mrs. Breeze said. "How was Canterlot?"

Rainbow grinned. "The same as always; I had a great time with Scootaloo and the girls, thanks for asking." At last, she looked at Blake. "Hey, Blake."

"Hey," Blake replied. "Is everything okay?"

Rainbow squirmed a little bit. "I … ma'am, can I talk to Blake in private for a second? I'm sorry, but—"

"It's fine, dear; I needed some more water anyway," Mrs. Breeze said, as she got up and carried her watering can out into the kitchen.

Fluttershy, on the other hand, did not get up.

"What's going on, Rainbow?" she asked softly.

Rainbow kept her eyes on Blake. "I need your help with something," she said.

"Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy said, her voice sharp with reproach. "You know that Blake is here to rest, not to fight."

"How do you even know that this has anything to do with fighting?" Rainbow asked.

"Because you wouldn't be asking for Blake's help specifically if it weren't," Fluttershy pointed out.

Rainbow hesitated for a moment. "Okay, you've got me there; it may have something to do with some action," she admitted. "But this is all your fault anyway, because you gave Gilda my number."

"I am sitting right here, you know," Blake pointed out. "There's no need to talk over me like I'm a child."

Rainbow winced. "Sorry."

"Gilda called you?" Fluttershy said. She smiled. "Oh, I'm so glad. Did you two manage to work things out?"

"Not really?" Rainbow said uncertainly. "I mean we don't hate each other, but I wouldn't call us friends. Anyway, the point is that she didn't call to make up; she called to ask for my help. Faunus are disappearing down in Low Town — that's underneath Atlas in the crater — and it sounds as though it could be abduction. Some friends of Gilda asked her to do something about it, and since she's in Vale, she asked me to do something about it."

"How does Gilda know that you're not in Vale?" asked Blake.

"Because I'm really predictable, apparently," Rainbow muttered. "The point is that I said I'd look into it and…" She sighed. "I know that you're not here to fight, and I know that I shouldn't be asking you, and if you say no that's fine, but … there's no one who it would be okay for me to ask. Applejack and Ciel are here for a break as well, and they aren't even here in Atlas, and anyway, this is faunus business so … I'd appreciate your help with this."

A slight smile crossed Blake's face. "How long have you known me, and you really think that I need a sales pitch when there are people in need?"

"No, I didn't," Rainbow admitted. "But I didn't want you to think that I was taking you for granted."

"Blake," Fluttershy murmured. "Are you sure about this?"

Blake got to her feet. "It isn't why I came to Atlas," she admitted. "But if there are faunus in trouble, faunus who need help and protection, then I can't just stand by and do nothing." She paused for a moment. "Do you think … might it have anything to do with—?"

"Adam's face?" Rainbow finished for her. "It crossed my mind, but this sounds like something new. If the SDC had been abducting faunus from under Low Town for years now, I would have heard something about it. But I grew up there, and I never knew anything like this when I was a kid. But I guess we'll find out when we get down there."

"Right," Blake agreed. "So, when do we leave?"

 

[ScipioSmith]

Black and White​

Low Town was not the nicest place in Atlas.

That almost felt like an overstatement to Rainbow Dash as she stood in the crater underneath Atlas for the first time in years. She hadn't been back here for a while, but now that she was back, having parked The Bus on the flat ground just beyond the crater and walked with Blake the rest of the way, she found that her old home was coming back to her like a song.

A song that, while it didn't compare to the sweeping grandeur of the number that was Atlas, was nevertheless not so bad as she remembered it.

Don't get her wrong, Low Town was still not the nicest place in all of Atlas; in fact, it was definitely amongst the worst places in Atlas, and she only had to come back here to remember why. Atlas sat directly overhead, and not even that high either, kind of … not low exactly, maybe, but low enough that, combined with the crater walls that rose around Low Town on every side, it did a pretty good job of blocking out the sun. Low Town dwelt in perpetual twilight, an endless gloom blanketing these streets and houses, interrupted only by the true and absolute darkness of night. Atlas and the crater did combine to protect Low Town from the worst of the weather, no rain or snow fell directly down upon them, and they were protected from the worst blasts of tundra wind, but at the same time, it did rain in Low Town because water from Atlas drained down off the edges of the city to fall on the faunus settlement below.

The houses were cold, she remembered that from growing up; Low Town had a heating grid, which was the reason people could live here instead of freezing to death, but that didn't change the fact that it was a cold and draughty place to live. The houses were … not very well-built; the ones around her now, the ones that lined the street down which Rainbow and Blake walked, they were put together out of breeze block and brick, with corrugated iron roofs and plywood fronts; a lot of them had been put together by the same people who lived in them, or by their parents or grandparents, and to say that they weren't well-insulated was a bit of an understatement. Rainbow remembered having to run on the spot before bed so that she could warm herself up before leaping under the covers, curling up beneath the blanket, and hoping that she fell asleep before she cooled down again.

As they walked down the street, Rainbow could see that many of the windows had frost on the inside of the glass, a sign of the extent to which the cold crept in through doors and windows and inadequate walls.

The streets were plain dirt, earth flattened enough to be walked across without stumbling, although in the centre of the road, more corrugated iron and wooden boards had been laid out to ensure a surface that you wouldn't sink into if a lot of water fell from Atlas.

Fires burned in metal drums upon the street corners, burning dust to keep the gloom at bay, casting flickering shadows upon the walls of the nearby houses, reflecting dimly upon the metal of the external taps — external taps! Some of these places didn't even have indoor plumbing.

Yeah, it was not the best place in all of Atlas. Rainbow didn't regret leaving here for a second. There wasn't really anything about Low Town that she could say she missed. She didn't miss how cold it got at nights, she didn't miss the fact that it was never really warm, she didn't miss the fact that the pipes were always freezing up or bursting, she didn't miss the fact that the boiler didn't work half the time, she didn't miss the fact that their power was always getting cut off. She didn't miss a thing, and she didn't regret leaving.

Although she was starting to regret having left and not looked back, without a care for all the other people for whom living here hadn't been a barrel of laughs either.

And as she walked down the street, Rainbow had to admit that there were a few things about Low Town that she had forgotten.

Mostly how clean it was. After just coming back from Mantle, which was filthy and only getting filthier, it was kind of a shock to Rainbow to rediscover that Low Town was so well taken care of. Those plywood fronts that folks had put up to cover the breeze block and brick frontages of their houses and stores, they were all painted in vibrant colours of red, yellow, blue, or green; some of them, and Rainbow guessed that these were the homes of families with children, didn't have fronts painted in a single colour but collages, or patterns, works of art where kids had clearly been told to go nuts and decorate their home however they liked. They weren't always good, but they always seemed to show a great deal of enthusiasm. And they were clean too; someone — many someones — had clearly worked hard keeping the dirt and the grime at bay. And Rainbow didn't think it was a coincidence that while some of the bare walls, the sides or the rears, had graffiti on them, none of the painted fronts had been vandalised, and even the graffiti, while it might have been regarded as an eyesore in Atlas, had, in Low Town, a certain charm about it.

Possibly because the paint was luminous, and so, it gave off a kind of eerie glow in the darkness that was honestly pretty cool.

And while the insides of the windows were iced up, people had scratched patterns in the ice: snowflakes — although not the Schnee snowflake, obviously — stick figures, animals, grimm faces. Rainbow remembered doing that when she woke up, the same way that she remembered cleaning the sign above the shop door or helping Dad sweep up out front each morning.

It wasn't a good life here, but people had tried to make the best of it, and it seemed like they were still trying now.

Judging by the thunderous look on Blake's face, the way her ears were drooped down into her hair, the way her golden eyes were blazing especially bright in the permanent twilight, Rainbow thought it was safe to say she wasn't feeling the same way.

"How?" she demanded, her voice cutting through the quiet. "How … how can people be left to live like this? With so much wealth so close by, how can this … how can it be justified?"

Rainbow didn't have a good answer to that, and so she didn't bother to give a bad one. She thrust her hands into the pockets of her dark blue sports jacket and said nothing.

Blake's brow furrowed. "This … this is where you grew up?"

Rainbow shrugged, as best she could while wearing the Wings of Harmony strapped across her back and chest. "Born and raised," she said.

"Then how…?" Blake trailed off for a moment. "Doesn't this bother you?"

"Yeah," Rainbow said. "Yeah, it bothers me, though … only really since I met you. Before that, and even after I met you, until more recently … I got out. I got out, and I didn't look back, and I guess I told myself that that meant that anyone could get out if they wanted to. If they were willing to work hard and make the effort. Kind of insulting to everyone stuck down here, huh?"

"A little bit," Blake murmured. "And now?"

"Now…" Rainbow said. "Now … I know it isn't right, and I know that something has to be done, I just… I don't know what yet. Maybe…"

"'Maybe'?"

"I don't know, but we don't really need the farmland up in Atlas," Rainbow said. "Most of what we eat is grown in the domes on the ground or in the west, or shipped up from Mistral; we could build on the Atlas farmland, put more houses in, homes for the people who live here, and it's not like Atlas would starve. I'm not sure people would even notice."

"There's some bad history around forcing faunus to leave their homes and move somewhere else," Blake pointed out.

"I'm not talking about forcing anyone," Rainbow replied. "They'd be given a choice. I just can't imagine why anyone would choose not to move. Why would you want to live here when you could live in Atlas?"

"That's a fair point," Blake said. "But how would you make sure that those new homes went to the people down here in Low Town and didn't get bought up by the people already living in Atlas?"

Rainbow opened her mouth, but no words came out. Blake made a good point: it wasn't just about there being room in Atlas; it was about the people in Low Town being able to afford to move up there. "I guess … I guess the kingdom itself would have to build the homes and price them affordably."

"Or not sell them at all, but give them to those who need them," Blake suggested.

Rainbow's eyes narrowed. "That sounds kind of radical."

"Giving homes to those who have nowhere decent to live is radical?"

"It is if they aren't paying for it."

"Don't you think they're already paying for it with every day they have to live down here, like this?" Blake demanded. "The fact is, I don't believe that the faunus who live here are stuck down here because of a lack of space up in Atlas, and I don't think that you believe it either. If that was all there was to it, then why is this a faunus community?"

Again, Rainbow had no good answer to that, although this time, she did venture to say, "Atlas isn't perfect."

"But it can be improved, I know. I'm not saying this to condemn it, I just…" Blake paused for a moment. "Just so long as you don't accept this as something immutable, a status quo that can't be upset."

"Like I said: not since I met you," Rainbow replied. "You … you've made me better on this stuff. I thought that I was going to change the way that you saw the world, but the truth is that you've changed the way I see things just as much. And together, I hope we can change places like this too."

"By change, you mean—"

"Get rid of it, yeah," Rainbow declared. "Move the people somewhere else. Because you're right, it is … when Atlas is right up there … it's wrong. I shouldn't have had to sneak up to Atlas aboard a shuttle and happen to run into Twilight in order to get the chances that I did."

"I'm a little surprised there was a way for you to get up to Atlas," Blake observed.

"Where do you think any of the money comes from for this place?" Rainbow asked. "It's the people who have jobs up in Atlas."

"But they're not allowed to live there."

"No," Rainbow agreed. "I've already talked to Councillor Cadence about it, but maybe after we're done, we can think about some ways to get people out of here." She paused for a moment. "But first, well, whoever is taking people is going to clear out Low Town all by themselves unless we stop them."

"Right," Blake agreed. "Any ideas?"

"I think I know where to start finding answers," Rainbow said. "There's a guy around here who knows everything. If he's still alive."

"'If'?"

"He was old when I was a kid," Rainbow admitted. "But if he's still around, he'll know what's up."

She led Blake through the streets of Low Town, past the burning drums and the painted frontages, rattling over the corrugated iron or thumping on the boards that made up the roads.

They walked past signs asking people to please pick up their litter or dog muck, signs that seemed to be obeyed, judging by how empty of either the streets were. It was kind of weird; people here probably had less than the people who lived in Mantle, but they took much more care of it.

Okay, maybe it wasn't that weird.

They passed the place that Rainbow's parents used to own, but it was a takeaway now, judging by the new sign above the door. Rainbow glanced at it as they went past, but she didn't stop, and she didn't say anything to Blake. What would have been the point? She was here to do a job, not get sentimental.

There wasn't even anything to get sentimental about. So the store wasn't there anymore, big whoop. Of course it wasn't there anymore; who would have run it?

Rainbow brought Blake to Grampa's, a bodega sitting at the back of a cul-de-sac on the far side of town from where they had landed. The name, Grampa's Deli & Grocery, was painted in white upon a dark green background on a wooden board hung above the door, along with proclamations of the availability of sandwiches, breakfasts, cold cuts, and fresh meat.

On the outside of the shop window, someone had painted, in white, the words 'HELP! I'M BEING HELD PRISONER AGAINST MY WILL!'

Blake frowned. "Should we—?"

"Don't worry about it," Rainbow assured her. "It isn't serious."

"How—?" Blake began, but was interrupted as the door opened and Grampa Gruff emerged.

Grampa Gruff was old, and Rainbow meant old. He'd been old when she was a kid, and he hadn't gotten any younger since. His skin was wrinkled and spotted with age, around his eyes were dark circles, and his cheeks drooped down in sagging jowls beneath his jawline. His hair remained dark, somehow, but while his eyebrows were thick and bushy, his hair was almost all gone, reduced to a tufty crown encircling his head, although most of his baldness was covered by the red fez he was wearing. One eye was dark, the other blind and milky; a scar descended towards that eye from his wrinkled forehead, then continued on beneath it down his sagging cheek. He was dressed in a long brown coat, with yellow bird claws emerging out of the sleeves instead of hands.

He walked out of the shop — a bell above the door announced his departure — and stared at the sign painted in the window.

"GALLUS!" he squawked. "Fetch a cloth!" He turned around and, for the first time, noticed Rainbow Dash and Blake.

"No!" he snapped, and then strode inside without another word.

Blake glanced at Rainbow, her eyebrows rising.

"Okay, so maybe I should have mentioned that I'm not very popular around here," Rainbow conceded.

The door to the bodega opened again, and a young faunus, with blue wings emerging from out of the back of his outfit, emerged with a stained rag held in one hand. His hair was, for the most part, as blue as his wings, although it turned to yellow at the tips, and worn in spikes rising up above the forehead, while his eyes were a deeper ocean shade of blue. He was dressed in a chequered jacket over a puffer jacket over a white t-shirt — Rainbow didn't blame him for layering up — and a pair of pants that looked warm but which, unfortunately, also looked as if they'd seen better days.

"Rainbow Dash, right?" he said, tossing the cloth between his hands.

"That's right," Rainbow said. "Gallus, right?"

"That's me," Gallus said. "Still here. I mean, who else would do this job?"

"Are you in any trouble?" Blake asked.

"Do I look like I'm in trouble?" Gallus asked. He paused. "Oh, wait, you're serious! I mean yes, yes, I am in trouble; I'm in terrible trouble, and I really need a cute, quirky girl to—"

"No, he's not in any trouble," Rainbow said. "And how old are you, anyway?"

"I'm fifteen!" Gallus protested. "And I am in trouble! Life is passing me by, and I'm stuck here stacking shelves. So what are you doing back here, anyway? Did they kick you out of that fancy school?"

"I'm here about disappearances," Rainbow said. "Do you know anything about that?"

Gallus' face fell. "I … a little. Grampa won't admit it, but he's worried. Since people started going missing, he's been closing up earlier, and he doesn't have me out making deliveries at night any more. Which would be great, because I hate that bike he has me ride, but … well, you know."

"Hear anything?" Rainbow asked. "See anything?"

"Seen? No," Gallus said. "I might have heard something though."

"What?" demanded Blake.

"I don't know exactly," Gallus admitted. "But a couple of nights ago, I thought I heard someone stomping around outside. They must have been pretty big; they were making a heck of a noise."

"Thanks," Rainbow murmured. "Blake and I are going to take care of this, whatever it is, but until we do, take care of yourself, okay?"

Gallus nodded. "Are you going to go talk to Grampa?"

"Yeah."

"Good luck," Gallus replied as he started wiping away the paint on the window.

Rainbow led the way inside, pushing open the door that led into the bodega. Low Town wasn't exactly full of shops, and so Grampa's provided pretty much everything that you could need down here, from food to kitchen utensils, toiletries, cigarettes, sweets, and he made some mean sandwiches too. The store was laid out in the old-fashioned way, with a counter running along three sides of the store and almost everything either on it or behind it so that Grampa Gruff had to get you everything himself — or, conversely, it was harder for you to steal from him. Near the door, stacked up on the counter, was a pyramid of tin cans without labels on them, and a sign sticking up above the pyramid encouraging shoppers to take a chance on an item full of mysterious promise. At the back of the store sat a coffee maker, a sandwich maker, and various fillings under a hot lamp, while above them on the wall were the options and prices available.

Rainbow could smell the meatballs from here, and if she hadn't been on the job, she would have relished one of Grampa Gruff's meatball subs.

Unfortunately, he'd probably have spat in it.

Drawn by the sound of the bell, Grampa Gruff emerged from the back of his home.

"No," he repeated, when he saw Rainbow Dash.

"Oh, come on, Grampa," Rainbow said, as she walked across the open space in the middle of the shop.

"I have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason I choose," Grampa Gruff declared.

"Actually, you don't; according to the Equality Act, you're not allowed to discriminate on grounds of race, gender, sex, or sexuality," Rainbow informed him.

"But I can still discriminate against sell-outs who leave their homes and never come back, right?" Grampa Gruff demanded. "Okay then, that's you, get out!"

Rainbow sighed heavily. To Blake, she said, "If I was kind of cranky when you met me, stuff like this is why."

"Oh boo hoo," Grampa Gruff said mockingly. "Did you tell your friend how absolutely insufferable you were when you deigned to come around before you left for good? She spent some time in Atlas, and suddenly, she was too good for all of us peasants down here in Low Town, weren't you?"

"Is this actually your grandfather?" Blake whispered.

"No, everyone just calls him Grampa," Rainbow replied.

"Right," Blake said softly. She walked forward, raising her voice. "Sir, regardless of what happened with Rainbow Dash in the past, we're here to help, and we're hoping that you can help us to—"

"Here to help? When is anyone from Atlas ever here to help us, huh?" Grampa Gruff demanded. "And who are you, another traitor?"

"Show some respect, Grampa," Rainbow snapped. "This is Blake Belladonna, Ghira Belladonna's daughter."

Blake's ears drooped a little, and she bowed her head as though she was embarrassed.

Grampa Gruff was quiet for a moment. "Is that true?" he asked. "You're the Belladonna kid?"

Blake nodded silently.

"Well, your old man was a sellout too," Grampa Gruff said. "Leaving us all behind to swan off to Menagerie."

"Ugh, listen," Rainbow said, striding forwards and putting her hands down heavily on the counter. "You can think what you like about me, Grampa; you can hate me if you want. I'll even admit that I kind of deserve it for the way that I acted, and that's on me. But if you want to hold onto that and not talk to me because I was a dumb kid when there are people disappearing out there on the streets and Gallus could be next … that's on you."

Grampa Gruff's one good eye widened. "You know about the disappearances?"

"I didn't come down here for the meatball sub, as good as it is," Rainbow said. "I don't know who's doing this, but whoever they are, I think that me and Blake can stop them. But only if people will talk to us." She grinned. "You still got the Saturday night special underneath the counter?"

Grampa Gruff reached beneath the counter and produced a double-barrelled sawn-off shotgun. "I've been keeping it loaded since all of this started."

"That might do you some good," Rainbow acknowledged. "But we'll do you more. So come on, not for me, not for the Belladonnas, but for Low Town and for Gallus and yourself: Do you know anything that might help us stop this?"

XxXxX​

Flash looked this way and that, his gaze emerging nervously out from beneath his crested helmet as he followed Weiss down the streets of the Low Town. "Everyone's staring at us."

Weiss rolled her eyes as she looked over her shoulder at him. "I wonder why that could be?" she asked. She was glad that Flash had agreed to come and back her up on this business, and she understood why he was wearing his gilded, gleaming armour — here in the shadow of Atlas, where the great floating metropolis blocked out most of the sunlight and cast the world in a perpetual twilight, his armour gleamed a little less than usual, but nevertheless, it caught what little light still reached them here — with his gilded hoplon shield slung across his back and the blue crest in his helmet; it was his huntsman gear, after all, and she wouldn't have wanted him to do without. Nevertheless, she wasn't going to waste time pretending that he didn't stick out like a blister.

"And I'm sure the fact that you're walking around with the Schnee Dust Company logo on your back has nothing whatsoever to do with it," Flash said, matching her tone in its masterful infusion of sarcasm.

Weiss scowled as she stopped and turned around to face him in the middle of the street. She was not dressed in precisely the same outfit that she had worn for action at Beacon; rather, she was wearing a crisp white double-breasted jacket, with black buttons running down it like the coals on a snowman, and a skirt which, while only thigh length, had a number of layers of black petticoat for extra warmth. A pair of black tights embraced her legs, while white boots rose up higher than her knees.

And, yes, the jacket had the Schnee snowflake on its back, and, yes, that probably had as much to do with the way that every faunus in the street or in the doorways of the ramshackle shanties that lined either side of the same was staring at them with amazement and not a little bit of hostility, but that didn't mean that she was going to let his comment pass uncontested.

"I am not wearing any company logo," she declared proudly. "This is my family crest."

He didn't look as though he understood the distinction — incomprehension shone in those blue eyes — but he must have understood that it was important to her, because he said, "Okay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

"It's okay," Weiss said stiffly. "Everyone does it." And that, of course, was the really upsetting thing, but she wasn't about to explain that to him.

I shouldn't have gotten mad. It wasn't his fault.

But if I don't correct him, then he'll never learn. He's a good person; he won't take offence. And he won't forget it either.

He won't refer to the Schnee snowflake as the corporate logo again.

Although he might not understand why he shouldn't. Perhaps I should explain a little.

"It's just … there's more to being a Schnee than the company," Weiss said. "I don't wear this because I'm some corporate stooge. I wear it because it's my birthright."

"I get it," Flash said, although Weiss wasn't sure that he actually understood or just thought he did. It was, admittedly, a difficult thing to understand … unless, perhaps, you were a Mistralian aristocrat.

"Um," the Seacole girl, who had given her name as Lavender, murmured from just up ahead of them. "Is everything okay?"

Weiss looked back at her. "Everything's fine," she said primly. "I'm sorry for the delay. Please, continue."

The girl led them through the crowded, cramped, and warren-like streets of the undercity that dwelt beneath Atlas, in the literal shadow of the wealthiest, mightiest, and most advanced city in the world. Atlas dwelt amongst the clouds, yet here on the ground, all of its bright and shining brilliance was wholly absent. Down here, the best that could be managed was a kind of suburban townhouse that would have been thought a little small and cramped in Vale, while a great many people seemed to make do in lean-to huts, in crude apartment blocks thrown together with bricks and wood and corrugated iron. Weiss had never been down here amongst these sprawling favelas before, and to be perfectly honest, there was something nerve-inducing about them. She didn't let it show, of course — she kept her chin up and her head held high throughout, although she also she kept one hand close to the hilt of Myrtenaster — but she felt it in her bones as the combination of the low light, the many eyes watching her in the street and out of the shadows, the fact that everyone around her was a faunus and Flash the only human in sight, perhaps for miles, all of it contrived to give her a chill feeling.

She couldn't help but wonder if this had been a good idea.

I can't turn back. I refuse to turn back. She was not her father. She was not the sort of person who would turn a blind eye to the problems of others simply because she could. And she wouldn't run away just because she was being made to feel a little uncomfortable. She had to be brave, like her sister and grandfather.

She was not her father; she recognised her debts and repaid them.

Lavender led them through streets that were simple tracks carved into the earth, layered over at times by wooden boards or iron sheets. There were no robots here to pick up the litter, but somebody was clearly cleaning up, because there wasn't nearly the amount of litter that Weiss would have expected to see in a neighbourhood like this one. In fact, there was hardly any at all that she could see, and now that she took a second look, the buildings, ramshackle though they often were, didn't look so dirty either.

So, followed by the eyes of the faunus who dwelt beneath, Weiss and Flash followed their guide until she led them to what, in Vale, would have passed for a modest bungalow but seemed a kind of palace in this place, not least for the fact that it appeared to have been put up by a professional.

Did my father pay her so well before he fired her? Weiss wondered, before she remembered that Laberna Seacole had also been her mother's nanny when she was very young. She found it much easier to believe that her grandfather had been generous with the woman who was almost raising his daughter. That made a lot more sense.

Weiss remembered that Laberna had used to laugh and say often that she could tell them stories about their mother, with the implication that they were stories that their mother might not want to be told. But she had never told them, out of respect for the mistress, out of fear that it would cause her to be dismissed, or perhaps simply out of affection for a woman whom she had once bathed as she had gone on to bathe her daughters in turn. Regardless, she had kept Willow Schnee's childhood secrets; Weiss had never found out exactly what her mother had been like as a girl. Now, when she considered it, Weiss found that a great pity. Her mother couldn't have always been the lonely, fading ghost who haunted the Schnee mansion like a phantom, who drank in the morning and went to bed in the afternoon, who was rarely seen — who was rarely allowed to be seen — amongst high society. The more she thought about it, the more Weiss regretted that she didn't know anything about what her mother had been like when she was … when she was happy.

Lavender turned to them. "This is my grandma's house. You should come in and say hello. I know that she'll be happy to see you."

"Would you like me to wait out here?" Flash asked softly.

"No," Weiss said. Apart from anything, she wasn't altogether sure that it would be safe to leave Flash all alone out here, nor — though she would never say so out loud — did she wish to go alone into an unfamiliar house like this. "I'm sure that Mrs. Seacole won't mind you coming in."

Lavender shook her head. "Of course not. The more the merrier, right? Come on in." She seemed a little less nervous now as she opened the front door — it wasn't locked, which seemed a little dangerous in a place like this — and disappeared into the darkened house. There were no lights on inside, and though the windows were open, the shadow of Atlas lay so heavily upon them that there was little illumination to be had. From what Weiss could make out, mostly shadows and shapes without much definition, the front room was a sparsely decorated place. A little light, candle light if she was any judge, peaked out from behind the curtain that acted as the barrier between one room and the next. Lavender pushed the curtain aside. "I'm back, Grandma, and I didn't come back by myself."

Laberna Seacole sat in a rocking chair, her legs and hands alike covered by a blanket. She had been an old woman when she had tended to Weiss, changed her diapers and given her baths, but now, by the light of the single candle burning in the room, she looked truly ancient. Her skin was wrinkled everywhere, her hair was not only white but thin too, gone in places revealing a spotty scalp to the world, even as hair sprouted out of her raccoon ears in tufts. When she opened her eyes, they were rheumy and pale; Weiss wondered if she could even see anymore.

How swiftly had she declined. Had living here been so bad for her health? How had she become thus so quickly?

"Miss Winter?" she croaked in a thin, hoarse voice; her gums were toothless, and her crinkled lips curled around them. "Is that you?"

"No," Weiss said softly, as though she were confessing something. "It's me, Weiss."

"Miss Weiss?" Mrs. Seacole asked, sounding confused and a little disbelieving. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm a huntress," Weiss said. She shifted uncomfortably. "Well, a huntress-in-training, at least, at—"

"Beacon," Mrs. Seacole said. "I remember now. You going off all the way to Vale over the ocean, that made it into the news."

"It did?"

"Sure it did. I always look out for anything about my girls," Mrs. Seacole said. "I don't see you no more, but I want to know how things are going. I'm so proud of both of you."

Weiss frowned and looked away. "There's not so much to be proud of."

"Sure there is," Mrs. Seacole said. "Your sister, Miss Winter, is a fine woman and an officer, and you, you've still got that voice like an angel; I should have recognised it the moment you opened your mouth, and you've got into Beacon, and you fought in that big battle in Vale not too long ago, and they say you even worked with the police to take down a terrorist. I'll bet you're the best student in that whole place."

Hardly, Weiss thought, with a little chagrin. "I… have done my best," she muttered.

"If they were here, your grandma and grandpa would be so proud of both of you," Mrs. Seacole said. "But since they ain't, I guess I have to be proud for them. Miss Weiss?"

"Yes?"

"Are you going to bring my granddaughter back home to me?"

Weiss stood up a little straighter, as much for her benefit as for that of Mrs. Seacole. "I will," she said. "You have my word, upon my sacred honour."

Mrs. Seacole nodded. "You hear that, Lavender? She gave her word. The word of a Schnee, just the way old Mister Nicholas would have said it. Prim's as good as back with us already."

"Is there anything that you can tell us?" Flash asked. "Where was she going when she … disappeared?"

"Who is this? Who are you, boy?"

"This is Flash Sentry," Weiss explained. "He's my partner at Beacon, and he's agreed to help me, help us with this."

Mrs. Seacole nodded. "Primrose … Primrose was on her way to Grampa Gruff's. She came home from work, made dinner, and then went out to pick up a few things we were short of."

"Where?" Weiss asked.

"It's a little way from here," Lavender said. "I can show you."

"Thank you," Weiss said softly. She hesitated for a moment. Apologies did not come naturally to her, especially when the apology was not for an offence committed by her. But in this case, it was necessary. "I'm sorry for the way my father treated you. It was uncalled for. It was … it was more than uncalled for, it was downright cruel, and it has … Laberna, how did you get like this? It hasn't been so long, or are my memories so poor?"

Laberna let out a long sigh, or at least what sounded like a sigh. "I … I don't rightly know, Miss Weiss. Sometimes, it feels like Time was just waiting in the shadows, lurking out of sight until I lost my job when he jumped out and loaded down all the surprises that he'd been holding for me. Like I'd been holding old age at bay for years, and then one day, it hit me like a truck. But that doesn't really matter now. Primrose is what matters, my granddaughter; she's the important one."

Weiss nodded. "I, we, will bring your granddaughter back. I promise."

"Thank you, Miss Weiss," Mrs. Seacole said. "And you … you take care of my Lavender too, won't you?"

"Of course," Weiss said softly.

"I'd go with you myself, but I…" She sighed. "I'm so tired now."

"You should get some rest; your family will be home soon," Weiss said. "And … thank you."

"For what, child?"

"For … for everything," Weiss said. "For being there, when my parents weren't. For being… for helping me to become who I am today." I only hope that who I am today can help repay the debt I owe to you. To Lavender she added, "Please, lead the way."

"Right," Lavender said. "Goodbye, grandma. I'll … we'll both be home soon, me and Prim."

"I hope so," Laberna said. "I'll be waiting … for you both."

The old woman closed her eyes and leaned back in her rocking chair as one spotted hand emerged from underneath the blanket to pull it a little higher up above her waist.

"How is she?" Weiss whispered.

Lavender glanced at her grandmother across the shadowy room. "Tired all the time. She doesn't get up much; she can't."

"And your parents?" Flash asked.

"It's just me, my grandma, and Prim," Lavender said. "We have to find her. We will find her, won't we? You meant what you said to Grandma?"

"I never say things that I don't mean," Weiss declared. "Come on, show us the way that your sister would have taken to this store."

Lavender led them back outside the house the way that they had come. Immediately after they had exited, however, they found themselves confronted by a small mob.

It seemed that the faunus — some of them, at least — who had watched them with sharp and wary eyes as they made their way here had found their courage after Weiss and Flash had gone into the house. They were gathered outside of the Seacole's front door, and though Weiss saw very few weapons in evidence — she could see only two guns, and a few more knives and sticks — they looked angry, upset, and ready for trouble.

Weiss was not afraid. She was wary, but she was not afraid. She had faced the White Fang and the creatures of grimm, and a few angry faunus didn't frighten her. But she was conscious of the fact that she couldn't just tackle them head on like she could have the White Fang — there were probably a few White Fang members, or at least sympathisers, amongst this crowd, but that was almost beside the point in this situation — or the grimm. She had promised to help find Primrose Seacole and get to the bottom of these disappearances, and she couldn't do that if she managed to rouse the entire district to a rage against her.

The mob was led by a young dog faunus with terrier ears, someone about her age or maybe a couple of years older, who was one of the couple of people in the crowd who had a gun, specifically a pistol similar to the sort used as sidearms by the military. As he talked, he waved said pistol in their faces with such wild abandon that Weiss felt rather glad he still had the safety catch on, even as she wondered if he realised that it was on.

"What have we here?" he demanded. "You people are getting real cocky, aren't you? You think you can just kidnap people in broad daylight now?"

Lavender waved her hands in front of her. "It's not like that, this is—"

"Lav, this ain't your business," the young man growled. "Why don't you get back inside the house, and we'll take care of this."

"I don't know what you think is going on here," Weiss said, "but we're here to help find this girl's sister and—"

"Oh, I'm sure that you already know exactly where Prim is, seeing as how you're the ones who took her!" the young man shouted, to mutters of agreement and encouragement from the crowd behind him. "Everyone knows that the humans and the SDC are behind all these folks going missing."

"Really? How do you figure that?" Flash asked.

"Because it's always the humans and the SDC!" the young man replied. "You've got a lot of nerve coming around here wearing that snowflake."

"Why thank you," Weiss said. "It's always good to know that my courage is recognised and appreciated."

Silence descended on the crowd. Lavender looked as though she couldn't believe what she'd just heard. Flash looked as though he didn't know whether to boggle or laugh. The face of the young faunus turned a shade of purple.

"What?" he snapped. "What did you say to me?"

"You praised my nerve; I thanked you for the compliment," Weiss said.

"I never gave you no compliment!"

"I disagree," Weiss replied. "Now, if you'll excuse us, we have work to do."

"You ain't going nowhere!" he yelled. "Not until you tell me what you're doing with all the people you've snatched!"

"We didn't do it," Flash said. "Listen, buddy, if we were kidnapping people, then why would we come down here to try and find them?"

"So you can lord it over us, probably," he said. "So that you can laugh at us for being so stupid as to trust you."

"That's not why we're here," Flash said. "We're just trying to help."

"We don't need your help; we take care of our problems around here."

"Because you're doing such a good job, clearly," Weiss snapped. She affixed him with a look full of patrician hauteur, tilting her chin up to give the impression that she was looking down on him even as he remained noticeably taller than she was. "I don't know who you are, and I don't care, but you and your gun don't frighten me, and you won't stop me from doing what I came here to do. So stand aside."

The young man swallowed, and looked as though he was stiffening up his courage, or trying to. "Or what?" he demanded.

"Let's not get into 'or what' if we don't have to, yeah?"

The voice was coming from on top of the Seacoles' roof and belonged to Rainbow Dash, the leader of Team RSPT. She was not someone whom Weiss had expected to see here, and yet here she was, perched on top of the roof, looking down upon the scene. She was wearing those wings of hers strapped across her shoulders and chest, and she was wearing a dark blue sports jacket with a light blue streak down the middle, covering the zipper, and another streak of red, yellow, and green across her midriff and her sleeves around the elbow. Her trousers were indigo, with light blue stripes running up the seams.

With her was none other than Blake Belladonna, once of the White Fang, now a friend of Atlas, if not quite the hero of the north kingdom the public believed.

The eyes of the mob turned upwards towards them.

"Rainbow Dash!" someone exclaimed from out of the crowd.

"That's right," Rainbow Dash said. "You remember me, huh?"

"We remember how you ditched the neighbourhood," the young man said. "What are you doing back here?"

"I heard you were having some trouble," Rainbow replied. "We're here to help."

"We don't need it! Not from these two, not from you, not from anyone who's causing people to go missing!"

"Atlas isn't doing this," Rainbow replied. "Atlas … Atlas doesn't do stuff like this."

"And why should I believe that? Why should any of us believe that? Because you say so?"

"Because it doesn't make any sense," Blake said, as she leapt down off the roof to land not far away from Weiss. "Why would Atlas, or the military, or the SDC suddenly start kidnapping people in the middle of the night? What does it get them that they don't already have?"

"Who are you?" someone demanded from out of the crowd.

"I'm…" Blake hesitated for a moment. "My name is Blake Belladonna. And my father is Ghira Belladonna, former High Leader of the White Fang. How many people have heard of him?"

Some, mostly the older members of the crowd, nodded or murmured that they had, or even that they remembered him.

"I understand that you're angry," Blake said. "I understand that you're upset, and I understand that you're worried about all your friends and relatives and neighbours who have gone missing. But taking that anger out on those who only want to help isn't going to bring those people back—"

"We can handle this on our own—"

"No, you can't!" Blake snapped so fiercely that the young man stumbled backwards away from her with a startled yelp. "You may want that to be true, but it isn't, and you know it isn't, because you know that you're not strong enough. That's not a bad thing. You shouldn't be ashamed of not having power … but there's nothing wrong with asking for help either, with admitting that you can't do this on your own. I'm here to help you. We're here to help you, and we're not going to stop until we find these missing people. I promise that Atlas did not do this but that we are going to find out who actually did."

The young man picked himself up off the ground. "Belladonna, huh? So your dad, he's the big guy down on Menagerie?"

Blake nodded sharply. "That's right," she said.

The young dog faunus nodded his head. "My folks live down there. They say he's a good guy. But they say you're some kind of Atlesian hero, special ops or somethin', so how do we know you haven't sold out like Rainbow Dash here?"

"Rainbow hasn't sold out, and neither have I," Blake declared. "As for my reputation … sometimes, a lie makes people more comfortable than the truth, but the truth is, I have always fought for justice, and I have always fought for our people, and that is something that will never change."

The young faunus half nodded. "From the Belladonna kid … I guess I can believe that. You really think that you can rescue everybody?"

Blake's mouth tightened. "I can't promise you that they're all still okay," she admitted. "But I can guarantee that I'll get to the bottom of what happened to them."

That, and the magic of the Belladonna name — and Blake's parents had not only led the White Fang, but were now ruling over the faunus on Menagerie? How did that happen? — seemed to be enough for the faunus, who began to disperse until, besides Weiss, Flash, Rainbow, and Blake, only Lavender Seacole remained, looking a little confused about what had just happened.

As Rainbow dropped down into the street, Blake turned to face Weiss and Flash. "So," she said, "what brings you two down here?"

"I asked for their help, sort of," Lavender murmured.

"Her grandmother was…" Weiss paused; for some reason, the idea of telling Blake Belladonna that she had had a faunus nanny made her feel rather self-conscious. But, since she couldn't actually explain why she felt that way, she pushed past the feeling and told her anyway. "She was my nanny."

"Of course she was," Blake murmured.

Weiss exhaled forcibly through her nostrils. "I could just as easily ask what brings you here?"

"I was asked to take a look at this too," Rainbow said. "A friend got in touch with me, and because the police … let's just say that General Ironwood appreciated that the police might not be the best people to take care of this and agreed to let me run point, for now anyway. I asked Blake to help me out." She paused for a moment. "Miss… Weiss, I hate to ask you this, but are you sure that the SDC isn't behind these disappearances?"

"Yes!" Weiss cried, taking a step backwards in surprise. "How … how can you say something like that, just because the company has a certain reputation—"

"It isn't the reputation of the SDC that concerns me," Rainbow murmured. "We've seen things that aren't part of the SDC's reputation."

Weiss glanced between Rainbow and Blake. They must know about the brand on that terrorist's face. It was the only thing that she could think of, although there was always the possibility that they knew other things that she was as yet ignorant of.

She rather hoped that that was not the case.

"Rainbow?" Flash said. "What are you talking about?"

"There are things that the SDC has done of which it would prefer to keep the public ignorant," Weiss admitted, her voice quiet and brittle, like glass. "Physical … mistreatment of workers."

"They brand their faces like cattle," Rainbow said sharply.

"Not all of them," Weiss replied.

"You knew?" Blake demanded.

Weiss took a deep breath. "Sunset told me about her encounter with the White Fang leader. I presume that's when Rainbow Dash found out about it as well."

"Gods," Flash murmured.

"You knew?" Blake repeated. "You knew, and what, you didn't do anything about it?"

"What was I supposed to do about it?" Weiss responded. "It's my family company, but I have no power within it; I can't stop it from happening; I can't even investigate how or why."

"You…" Blake trailed off. She was silent for a few moments. "I … I don't believe the SDC is involved with these disappearances."

"No?" Rainbow asked.

"You don't?" said Weiss.

"No," Blake agreed. "Because why start now? What would suddenly force the SDC to use this method to acquire labour, when they've never needed to do this before? These disappearances are novel — that's why people reached out to us for help — now what would force the SDC to suddenly take this tack? Nothing, as far as I can tell."

"Nor I," Weiss agreed, hoping that that would draw a line beneath the matter.

Instead, it seemed to lead to an uncomfortable silence between them that stretched out for longer than Weiss would have liked … and yet, she could not think of any way to end it.

"Since we both want the same thing," Blake said, finally ending the silence herself, "it makes sense for us to combine our forces."

"I'm sure you're right," Flash said. "People around here don't seem to like us very much. They might be more willing to speak to a faunus."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Blake said. "They might be wrong about Atlas being behind these disappearances, but people in places like this have good reasons to be mistrustful of outsiders."

Rainbow nodded. "We'll cover more ground if we split up, so let's mix up the groups? Flash, Blake, you've worked together before—"

"Actually," Weiss said, "why don't you take Flash, and I'll go with Blake, and we'll meet back up later and compare notes on what we've found out?" Rainbow seemed just as upset with the SDC as Blake was, but at least Blake had given her the benefit of the doubt and suggested that the SDC was not responsible for these disappearances. Besides, when Flash and Blake had worked together before, they'd ended up getting captured, and Flash had almost been shot.

Rainbow blinked. "Um … Blake, is that-?"

"I'm okay with that," Blake said, in a voice that was calm and quiet. "Whatever helps these people the most, I'll do it."

Rainbow nodded, before looking down at Lavender Seacole who had been listening to all of this with an open mouth and wide eyes. "Hey, kid, where were you about to take these two?"

"Uh, to Grampa's; it's where my sister was going when… when…"

"She made it there," Rainbow said. "So they must have picked her up on the way back."

"You've been to the store already?" Flash asked.

"That's right; I hoped that Grampa might know something," Rainbow replied. "He told us that Primrose Seacole made it to the store just as he was shutting up, but he let her in and served her anyway. She left … but she didn't make it back home. We were just about to speak to the family when we ran into you."

"I see," Weiss murmured. She turned to Lavender Seacole, getting down on her knees in front of her. "I think that you've helped us as much as you can, young lady. You should go back inside and take care of your grandmother. Now that I know where to find you, I'll bring your sister back as soon as you can."

"Are … are you sure?"

"Very sure," Weiss said. "It will be safer that way. I promise that my friends and I can handle this. After all, this is what we train for."

Lavender nodded. "G-good luck," she stammered, before heading back inside the house.

She closed the door behind her, although Weiss would have been more reassured to have heard the click of a lock.

"Why don't you and Flash go north, while we head south?" Weiss suggested. "We should meet back here in a few hours to share what we've found out."

"Fine," Rainbow said.

"Don't be late," Flash murmured.

"I regard punctuality as a virtue," she replied. To Blake, she asked, "Are you ready?"

"Of course." Blake said. "Let's go."

And she walked away, leveraging her longer legs to move at a pace Weiss would have to run in order to match. It felt, to be honest, just a little ungrateful. Weiss had done nothing but be courteous and considerate to Blake, and yet, here she was, not only taking the lead — of the two of them, Weiss was the one who was still a team leader — but also acting as though she had some reason to take a proud and haughty line with Weiss.

Weiss hurried after her — without trying to make it seem as though she was hurrying — until she drew level with the other, unfortunately taller girl and, through determined effort, kept pace with her as they walked southwards away from the Seacole house. Even if it meant having to take one and a half steps for every step of Blake's, Weiss was not going to be led by her.

She didn't dislike Blake, but one had to have some standards. She was a Schnee, and a Schnee did not walk behind.

If Blake noticed what Weiss was doing, she didn't comment on it; she simply kept on walking, and together, they moved through Low Town and began to get to work.

Said work mostly consisted of knocking on doors — or else approaching those who were hanging around outside of their homes or in the street — and asking them if they had seen anything, if they had heard anything, if they knew anything at all that might help explain these disappearances that had been terrorising the neighbourhood.

These faunus might have been too proud or too stupid — or both — to go the authorities, but they knew quite a bit. Although no one had been lucky, or unlucky, to actually catch sight of the kidnapper or kidnappers at work, plenty of them had heard something or seen something or knew something, even if it wasn't entirely clear what it all added up to.

One ageing goat faunus, with horns on either side of his head and a knife at his belt, who looked at Weiss as though he couldn't decide if she were predator or prey, informed them that his dog — a ferocious-looking black pitbull chained up outside the front door — had woken him up with barking on the night that a young man had disappeared.

"I get up to tell that damn dog to shut up, and I hear these clanking noises outside."

"'Clanking'? You mean like a robot?" Blake asked.

"Yeah, just like a robot," the goat faunus said. "Like the robots that they use." He gestured at Weiss with one hand. "I bet it's them that have been taking all those kids."

Weiss snorted. "That's utterly ridiculous."

"What, you think I'm too stupid to know what a robot sounds like?"

"I think you're jumping to conclusions," Weiss said.

"You said kids," Blake said hastily. "Are all the victims children?"

"Maybe not children," he said. "Although they all look like it to me, you know what I mean? They're all … kind of your age. Some a few years younger, some a few years older. Nobody as old as me has been taken, I'll tell you that. I think it's disgusting."

If he meant what she thought he meant, then Weiss couldn't help but agree with him.

"Are they … all girls?" Blake asked, in a tone that suggested that she didn't really want to know the answer but felt obliged to ask.

The goat shook his head. "Nah. Boys too. But that don't mean nothing. Those Schnees … and they call us the animals."

Weiss sputtered with incoherent outrage, but before she could get her tongue around the anger that was stopping up her throat like a jawbreaker, Blake had already thanked the man and ushered him back into his home.

"What … what are you doing?" Weiss demanded, as Blake leapt away from the dog in a manner that suggested that being so near to it for so long had been a sore trial for her. "I can't just let him say things like that!"

"It doesn't matter," Blake said.

"It matters to me!" Weiss replied.

"What matters to me is finding these people," Blake retorted. "I'm not here to salve your pride or your ego. If you don't want to help, then go home, but if you're going to stay, then come with me. We've got work to do." She led the way, leaving Weiss to hurry to catch up once again.

"If they were saying such things about the Belladonnas, would you still say that?" Weiss demanded to know, her tone as hot … as a branding iron. No, she didn't want to think about that.

Or about how little she had done about it.

Blake paused for just a moment, allowing Weiss to catch up. "I would hope that I would," she said. "My pride doesn't matter here either. All that matters is saving people."

She continued on, voluminous black hair bouncing slightly, but this time, Weiss managed to keep pace. It still took a bit of effort on her part.

A woman described how her son always stayed late at the pawnshop where he worked, but he always came straight home after locking up — until one night, he hadn't. Another — younger, but outside of the age range given by the goat faunus — woman described seeing a pair of green eyes staring at her from out of the dark as she was on her way home; the eyes had watched her, but she had otherwise been unmolested as she ran the rest of the way back to her house. Several others described hearing the same robotic noises in the night as the goat had heard, and he wasn't the only one to attribute them to either military or SDC androids.

"This is ridiculous!" Weiss declared as the door closed on yet another person who believed that the military-industrial complex was abducting Atlesian citizens for nefarious purposes. "Do people really believe that Atlas would do something like that? To its own people?"

"Look around," Blake said. "Do you think that these people really feel like citizens of Atlas?"

Weiss bit her lip as she cast her eyes around the favela in which she and Blake stood: the corrugated iron roofs, the walls made of cracked and crumbling breeze blocks stacked haphazardly one on top of the other; the wooden shanties and the unstable-looking lean-tos; the exposed wires and cables trailing down the walls like creepers or strung across the street for the pigeons to sit on; the way the buildings rose unsteadily upwards, teetering inwards until they almost enclosed the street at times, blocking off even more of the light than the looming city up above; the rats darting across the unpaved street. It seemed as remote from the glittering spires of Atlas up above as the moon; she couldn't understand how anyone could live like this, or why they would.

Because they are forced to, I suppose. Forced to by … by people like my father.

"Atlas is two nations, not one," Blake said. She turned away, bowing her head even as she brushed her hair back over her shoulder so that it didn't fall across her face. "Two nations that have no sympathy for one another; that don't care to learn anything about one another; who barely imagine how the other thinks, feels, lives; who live by different laws and customs. To these people, Atlas might as well be on another planet."

Weiss' brow furrowed. "You're being rather bleak."

"Am I?" Blake said. "This place has been right below your feet all this time, and yet you had no idea until today, did you?"

Weiss hesitated for a moment. "No," she admitted.

"No," Blake repeated. "Because you live in the clouds, in a place where these faunus can only dream of living."

"Now you're definitely exaggerating," Weiss said. "What about Rainbow Dash? She's made it to Atlas."

Blake rolled her eyes. "Yes, Rainbow Dash got out, but even she would admit by now that pointing to one faunus who managed to claw her way up the ladder doesn't invalidate the discrimination that the rest have to deal with. The discrimination that your family plays a big part in maintaining."

Weiss was silent for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was as cold as eyes and as sharp as the point on Myrtenaster. "Don't say 'my family' when what you really mean is my father."

The name of Schnee did not begin with my father, it will not end with my father, so why is my father the first and only thing that anyone seems to think about when it comes to the family or the company?

Blake curled up the fingers on her right hand one by one. "I … I didn't mean to upset you," she said, although her tone made it clear that she didn't understand what it was that she had actually said to upset Weiss.

"I told you once that I knew what my father is," Weiss said, even as she turned away from Blake. "I know my father better than most people, I think, and that familiarity has not … it does not breed sympathy in me, take that as you will. I am not blind, I am no fool, I am aware of all the shameful things he does and of those things I … I am ashamed. But you have no idea at all how it feels to have people talk about my father as though he is the quintessential Schnee, the exemplar of everything that this family — that my family — means or is or stands for. As though he's the only Schnee that matters and every other Schnee must either have been or will be just like him.

"Did you even know that it was my grandfather who founded the Schnee Dust Company?"

"No," Blake admitted. "I can't say I did."

"He was a miner, a huntsman, an engineer, a surveyor, a prospector, and a leader of men," Weiss said. "He personally discovered the dust deposits that made my family what it is today. The greatness of Atlas was built upon my grandfather's back, and yet, today, almost no one remembers his name.

"My grandmother was a huntress; grandfather met her when she accepted a mission to protect his first prospecting expedition. They fell in love on the journey; without her, he would have died half a dozen times, and yet, no one outside the family remembers her at all."

Blake was silent for a moment. "Your grandfather … he sounds as though he was an accomplished man," she said, in a neutral tone. "And your grandmother must have been brave."

"And my father was not even born a Schnee," Weiss said, rounding on the other girl. "He took the name when he married my mother."

Blake said nothing. She didn't seem to see the relevance.

"The point is," Weiss began. "The point is that the Schnee name did not begin with my father, and he does not get to define a name that wasn't even his to begin with! Or at least … he shouldn't, even though he has."

"He has," Blake agreed. "But he won't be around forever, and in time … he'll be forgotten, just like—"

"Like my grandparents?"

Blake cringed a little. "I just meant … you can write your own story, and in time, that will be what it means to be a Schnee, not your father. For as long as you're alive, at least.

"The White Fang was founded as a peaceful movement, to achieve equality through protest and debate. But does anyone remember that now? Do you? You think the White Fang is just a terrorist group — everyone thinks that — because … because we're defined by our present, not our past. We're judged by what we do, not remembered for where we came from." Blake paused. "And, honestly … I think that's a good thing."

Weiss raised an eyebrow. "How do you figure that?"

"Because our present is always changing," Blake explained. "And so we always have the chance to change too, unburdened by our pasts. You said that my description was bleak, but if I thought that was the end of it, why would I even be here? I'm here because I believe that things can be different, be better, for Atlas, for the faunus … why not for the SDC as well?

"I'm here, as arrogant as it might seem to say so, because I want to change the world, and I believe it can be done. I believe that we can leave the bloodshed of the past behind and not be defined by it. Because we are defined by our present, not our past—"

"Then all that matters is what we do next," Weiss murmured.

Blake smiled slightly. "Something like that."

"That's a very Atlesian attitude to have," Weiss noted, a faint smile coming to her lips.

Blake seemed taken aback for a moment, but then smiled herself. "Thank you."

"'Thank you,'" Weiss quoted with clear amusement. "As I recall, the last time we had a serious conversation, you claimed that you didn't hate Atlas, just what it stood for and the institutions it upheld."

"Yes, well … we are defined by our present," Blake repeated somewhat sheepishly. "I suppose I have flipped my position a bit. Can you blame me, though? Until I got here, I would have been hard-pressed to find a single Atlesian who didn't espouse great ideals and at least try to live up to them, even if they didn't always succeed. Maybe that's why this whole town is so offensive. The idea that the greatest kingdom on Remnant would—"

"Forget that this place even exists?" Weiss interrupted, finishing Blake's thoughts with a bit of her own.

She really should have come down here earlier. She should have visited Mrs. Seacole earlier. She should have done a lot of things that she should have but didn't because she just hadn't known that this place existed. She could have known though, she should have known.

"Yes," Blake said, confirming what Weiss had said. "So, I think it's time that someone… reminded them. I'm sure that… even if I can't say that that the right thing will be done, I'm sure that good people will do all they can, always provided they can work out what the best thing to do is."

"You've got a lot of faith in this kingdom," Weiss murmured.

"How can I not?" Blake asked. "After all, where else on Remnant could a poor faunus girl from Menagerie talk to one of the future ruling elite? Someone who's basically a princess?"

"Didn't I just say that my family are supposed to be miners and huntsmen?" Weiss demanded lightly. "Your family rules Menagerie; you're more of a princess than I am."

"Even if you assume that logic you'd have to accept that I've effectively abdicated my privileges along with my responsibilities," Blake said somewhat defensively. "Can I really be considered a princess when I go to the literal other side of the planet instead of taking up the throne?"

"So you intend … what?" Weiss asked. "To lead Atlas and transform it from within?"

Blake hesitated for a moment. "I … I keep telling people that I haven't made up my mind yet but the truth is … yes. Yes, that is what I intend. Or, if not me, then at least someone who shares my goals. Someone in whose ear I can whisper, and who I can keep honest."

Weiss chuckled. "That is what I intend also, with the SDC, although I must say, you're pursuing it more methodically than I am. But, if our ambitions do come true, then I think it will be a pleasure to work with you."

Blake bowed her head. "Likewise."

The heir to Menagerie held out her hand, and the heir to the Schnee Dust Company took it, her small, pale hand enfolded in Blake's grasp.

Blake's scroll went off, and Blake withdrew her hand to produce the device from out of her long white jacket.

It was Rainbow Dash. "Hey," she said. "You two might want to get up here; we think we've found something."

Blake and Weiss hastened north, where they found Rainbow and Flash just beyond the edge of Low Town, where the buildings ceased and there was nothing but barren earth, grey and dark, rolling — gently at first, and then with increasing steepness — up to form the crater that surrounded the settlement.

Where Rainbow and Flash were, where Weiss and Blake found them, was still basically flat ground, ground that could have been built on except that, presumably, there was no one to live here.

However, the absence of anything here — Low Town was behind them now, if not very far behind — made Weiss wonder why they had been called here.

"Forgive me," she murmured, "but … what are we supposed to be looking at?"

"Blake," Rainbow said, "did anyone mention robots to you?"

"You heard that too?" Blake asked.

"And people in those houses nearby said that they've heard airships in the night," Flash added.

"Airships don't make that much noise," Weiss murmured. "So they wouldn't hear them unless—"

"Unless they were coming in very low," Blake said softly. "Low enough to land, perhaps."

"And we think we know where they're landing," Rainbow declared.

Weiss blinked. "I … I'm sorry, I still don't see what makes this any different than anywhere else around here. Yes, the sound is a factor, but—"

"The ground is flat," Rainbow pointed out.

"So?"

"No, I mean it's really flat," Rainbow said, reaching out and brushing her fingers against the earth in front of her. "Ground isn't that flat naturally, even what we call flat ground; it's been packed flat, like by something heavy landing on it, a lot."

Now that her attention had been drawn to it, Weiss could see what she meant: a rectangle of earth, levelled and flattened, while all around it, the ground was, while not sloping, possessed of the usual unevenness of ground, slight rises and falls, barely noticeable, but there all the same.

Except within this rectangle.

"A pilot would not land in the same place twice," Rainbow went on. "I mean, they might land in almost the same place, but they wouldn't set an airship down in the exact same place every time; there'd be variations. But if an android was programmed to land in a certain place, then it will hit that exact mark every single time."

"But an airship wouldn't leave a mark like that," Weiss pointed out.

"It would if it was carrying a container, or something like that," Flash suggested. "And … if you were kidnapping people, you might not want them in the airship where they could try and seize the controls."

"So … you think that an airship, flown by an android or a computer program, is landing here with a container, sending out at least one android to kidnap people, then putting those people inside the container before the airship flies away?" Weiss said.

"It's a working theory," Rainbow replied.

"It sounds plausible," Blake murmured.

"I suppose," Weiss acknowledged. "But even if it is androids, this is not the SDC's doing."

"We know," Rainbow assured her, rising to her feet. "And it isn't the military either, but anyone can buy androids, and for whatever reason, provided they've got the lien."

"True," Weiss agreed. She paused for a moment. "Who would have thought this case would be solved so easily?"

"This case didn't need a genius to solve it," Blake growled. "It just needed someone to show up and give a damn."

Weiss couldn't argue with that. Imagine how many lives could have been saved if anyone had cared to try?

"This isn't solved yet; we still need to find those people," Rainbow said. She grinned. "But I think I might have an idea how we can do that."

 

[ScipioSmith]

Robots Undisguised​

Blake shivered. "Rainbow Dash?"

"Yeah?" Rainbow's voice came over her earpiece. She was somewhere nearby, hidden, watching her, but Blake couldn't see her, just like she couldn't see Weiss or Flash either. She could only hear Rainbow's voice, speaking to her from out of Rainbow's hiding place.

Blake shivered again. "Is it me, or is it much colder down here than it was in Atlas?"

Rainbow's laughter had an edge of nervousness to it. "It's not just you, Blake, sorry. There is a heating grid — that's why you won't, you know, die — but it's not enough to really warm the place up like Atlas."

Blake huffed. "I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised," she muttered.

"It's another reason why it would be great if everyone could move out of here and come to live in Atlas," Rainbow said. "There's just … there's too much work to be done to make this a decent place to live."

"I know what you mean," Blake said quietly.

Night had fallen over Atlas and Low Town alike, and Blake was waiting in a narrow alley between two rising ramshackle apartment blocks at the very edge of Low Town, not far from the flattened patch of earth that they theorised was being used as the landing site for airships abducting faunus.

The plan that Dash had come up with was a simple one, but no less good to Blake's mind for being simple. It was a variation on the tactics they had already used to beat Torchwick and the White Fang, and it had worked perfectly well then against opponents who could think for themselves: they would stake out the landing site, and when — if — an airship landed, then Blake would pretend to be an innocent faunus girl walking home at night. The hope was that such a target in such proximity would entice the kidnappers, who would then be set upon by the combined strength of their party with the aim of disabling one of the androids and getting Twilight to examine it for more information.

To be honest, if it hadn't been for the uncommonly cold weather, Blake wouldn't have minded either the plan or her part in it, but it was cold, so she minded a little.

She heard someone coming, footsteps from behind her; Blake spun around, reaching for Gambol Shroud — it was concealed beneath her coat and worn a little lower on her back than normal, but she could still reach it over her shoulder — before she saw that it was Weiss.

"In some ways, I think I should be the one who's afraid of you," Weiss observed.

Blake lowered her hand. "You startled me."

"Sorry," Weiss said, as she walked closer. She had a flask in her hand, which she held out towards Blake as she approached. "I thought I could help with the cold."

"Coffee?"

"Tea," Weiss corrected. "Is that a problem?"

"No, it's better," Blake said. "When did you get that?"

"I've been carrying it all day," Weiss said, as she unscrewed the top of the metal flask and poured some steaming liquid into it. "It has a dust-powered heater that keeps it warm; you could say it's a portable kettle. Here."

Blake took the lid-turned-cup out of Weiss' hands. It was warm to her touch, warm verging upon hot, and that was such a satisfying feeling to her fingers and her palms that had become to ache and throb from the cold. She stood, shivering, feeling the heat on her skin for a moment or two before she started to sip. The tea was a little sweeter than she personally preferred, but she wasn't about to quibble with Weiss at a time like this. "It's great, thank you."

Weiss unscrewed the bottom of the flask, which turned out to be a second cup which she poured for herself. "You're welcome. My butler does make an excellent cup of tea."

Blake's eyebrows rose.

"Don't look at me like that," Weiss said, with a touch of good-natured irritation. "I refuse to believe that the daughter of the ruler of Menagerie has never been waited on in her life before."

"It's not as grand as you might think," Blake replied, because it was easier to just say that than to try and explain that she'd run away from her parents before her father became ruler of Menagerie. Besides, as it happened, Weiss was right: she had been waited on, when she had sat at the left hand of Sienna Khan as her honoured guest — Sienna had made much of Blake in the early days, had played the mother to her in Blake's own mother's absence; now, Blake was inclined to believe that she had wanted to rub it in the faces of her parents — and at the warlord's table, she had been treated as a princess of the White Fang in ways that she had never been when her father was leader; and in Vale, when she had been with Adam … it sometimes struck her as strange some of the ways that the White Fang had, by accident or through deliberate imitation, ended up mimicking the Atlesian military to which it was implacably opposed: Adam didn't dine with the common rabble, but only with his trusted lieutenants and Blake, and the lowly task of preparing his own meals had been beneath the great liberator's dignity; he had had Strongheart or one of the other young faunus take care of it. So …Weiss had a point. "But … you're not wrong about the servants thing." I still knew how to make my own tea.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, I might tell you," Weiss declared. "Take … take Missus Seacole, my old nanny; is she happier living … living down here, trying to raise her granddaughters on … I don't even know what? Meagre savings, a small pension maybe, or was she better off getting a wage as an employee of my grandfather? If you are fortunate enough to have wealth, it strikes me that there are much worse ways to use it than to give employment to those who are not so fortunate. Yes, androids can do the dusting and the ironing and make the beds, and maybe they can even be programmed to cook, but … I don't see that being unemployed is an improvement on being a servant."

That assumes that some people should have so much more money than others, Blake thought. Not everyone would agree … but then who would expect the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company to find the concept of monstrous wealth to be abhorrent.

If the limits of her imagination were using her wealth for good, then who could honestly blame her?

"In my case, it's a little different," Blake said. "But I take your point." She paused for a moment. "Why would you be afraid of me?"

"You are a former member of the White Fang, after all," Weiss pointed out. "I'm not sure that my father would approve of this, if he knew."

"The fact that he doesn't know suggests you don't really care whether he approves or not," Blake pointed out.

"True," Weiss said with a slight chuckle. "It was … a bad joke, I suppose."

"Heads up, everybody," Rainbow's voice came over the com device in Blake's ear. "I just got word from air traffic control; there's a Bullhead incoming, looks like it's on approach to this location."

"Do they know whose Bullhead it is?" Flash asked.

"Nah, they just told me it's a registered civilian ID," Rainbow said. "I can ask for the details, but the airship will probably get here before they respond. Blake, are you ready?"

"Almost," Blake murmured, taking a healthy gulp from her cup of tea.

Weiss sipped thoughtfully from hers. "You know what's bothering me about this?"

"No."

"That woman who saw green eyes … she said they were looming over her, but no robot is that big. Combat androids are the size of people."

"Military models are, but this could be a private design," Blake suggested.

"Have you ever heard of a private design that much taller than a person?"

"No," Blake admitted. "But I suppose we'll find out soon enough."

"Eyes up; here it comes," Rainbow said, as the whine of a Bullhead's engines disturbed the quiet of the night. "Blake, you set?"

Blake drained the last of her cup of tea in one gulp. "I am now."

"Then you're on."

Blake handed Weiss her cup back. "Thanks for the tea."

"Don't mention it," Weiss said, screwing the lid back on her flask. "Good luck. I'm right behind you."

Blake nodded as she slouched out of the alleyway and just beyond the informal boundaries of Low Town. Once outside, with her feline night vision, she could see the Bullhead descending as plain as day.

It was unpainted and unmarked, much like the ones that White Fang occasionally used — when they could get their hands on them — in an attempt at stealth through lack of identifiers. The White Fang would never prey upon their own people in this way, but the similarity didn't reassure Blake that whoever was landing here didn't have a nefarious purpose in mind. A container unit, as grey and unmarked as the Bullhead itself, was attached to the bottom of the airship.

There were no lights on the airship, either inside the cockpit — it was completely dark, from what Blake could see — or outside in terms of landing lights or the like. It looked like Rainbow was right: everything was entirely automated.

That might be a good thing: a human — or faunus — might have recognised that she didn't exactly look like the sort of person who belonged in Low Town.

She continued to watch the airship as it descended vertically upon the empty plot of land; if anyone was watching her in turn, she hoped they wouldn't think it strange that the landing of an airship in the middle of the night in a place like this was attracting attention from a lonely girl walking home at night. It was only when the Bullhead had completed its landing and cut its engines that Blake turned away and began to walk — more like a slouch — slowly around the edge of town, playing the part of a tired girl making her way home after an exhausting day at work.

"You should have been in drama club," Rainbow said.

"Where I grew up we didn't have drama club," Blake replied.

"Can everybody see Blake?"

"Yes," said Weiss.

"I see her," Flash added.

Blake didn't look at the airship as she heard the central compartment open up, the door opening with a whine. She heard a heavy thump upon the ground, and she glanced out of the corner of her eye and then had to stop and look as one of the biggest robots that she'd ever seen, having dropped out of the Bullhead and onto the ground, rose up to its full height.

"What the … what is that thing?" she heard Rainbow ask in her ear.

Blake didn't answer. Nobody answered because nobody knew.

The best that could be said for the android that now stomped its way towards her was that it wasn't the size of an Atlesian paladin, but that didn't matter too much because it still dwarfed any humanoid battle droid that Blake had ever encountered. It put Blake herself — or anyone else she knew apart from her father — in the shade. Although it was modelled after a man, it was the size of an ursa; Blake doubted she'd come past its waist, if that. The android's body was as red as blood, with broad shoulders and a heavy torso, although its legs looked a little thin by comparison; it carried a double-bladed polearm in one hand, and the blades of the weapon glowed blue even as its green eyes, fixed on Blake, burned brightly in the darkness; she could see a large white M upon its belly.

The android made its way straight towards Blake, unflinching and unhesitating, the green eyes and green lines glowing in the dark.

Blake didn't move as it bore down upon her. She felt it wasn't unnatural that anyone in this position would be frozen in fear at the sight.

She could understand why someone might freeze at this sight — and she didn't mind admitting in the privacy of her head that she wished Pyrrha were here to take care of it with her semblance — but anger and the accompanying fire stoked in her prevented Blake from freezing.

So they had been right: someone was sending out their androids to snatch faunus off the streets of Low Town. Why? What gave them the right? Did they think that, because these people were faunus, that meant they didn't matter? That they could do what they liked and nobody would notice, or care if they did notice?

It only needed someone to show up and care.

Well she was here now, and she cared, and Rainbow cared, and she thought that even Weiss cared — probably Flash cared too, although she didn't know him well enough to comment for sure. They were all here, and they all had Blake's back, and they were going to show whoever was behind this that they had made a big mistake.

The robot continued to advance.

"Do we go now?" Flash asked.

"Not yet," Rainbow said.

The android bore down on Blake; soon, it would be close enough to touch her.

"Now?" demanded Weiss.

"Not yet," Rainbow said.

The now-closer droid raised its free hand and reached for Blake's head.

"We have to move," urged Weiss.

"Not yet," Rainbow said insistently.

Blake stood still, seeming paralysed with fear, as the red hand of the droid, the hand that was as large as her face, closed with her head, metallic fingers closing around it.

Or rather, around the swiftly-dissolving shadow where Blake had been a moment ago.

Blake leapt up into the air, drawing Gambol Shroud across her shoulder. She seemed to hang in the air for a moment as her weapon arranged itself into pistol configuration; she snapped off a trio of shots that struck the green-eyed android in the face.

The shots ricocheted off the crimson android's head, and as a string of unintelligible robotic sounds emanated from the creation, Blake could swear that it looked at her with greater malice than before.

"Now!" Rainbow yelled. "Save the head, okay; we need to preserve the head so Twi can hack it!"

The android slashed at Blake as she descended from her leap, its glaive leaving a blue trail in the air so swiftly did it move; too swiftly for Blake, and she was in the wrong place to leave another clone to take the hit in her place; the halberd caught her in the waist, sending her flying backwards down the nearest Low Town street to land on her back. She could feel her aura dropping from the blow and the subsequent impact, and she could feel her back and stomach aching as she leapt to her feet.

The android advanced towards her, slow but implacable.

Rainbow's jetpack left a trail as she streaked through the air, kicking the android in the face as she flew past. It didn't seem to faze the robot much — as far as she could tell with an android, anyway — but it seemed to get its attention.

Or perhaps that was just the way that Rainbow landed on top of the android's polearm, balancing precariously on the pole like a gymnast as she unloaded her shotgun into the android's chest.

Unfailing Loyalty roared once, twice, three times, four times as the buckshot hit the armour plating of the android with a clatter and a rattle like pebbles bouncing off a window. The crimson armour of the robot's chest suffered microscopic little dents, but the robot itself stood stoic and enduring of these blows until it flicked its glaive upwards to send Rainbow flying off. The robot turned, tracking Rainbow's movements as she soared through the night sky, before it was interrupted by a blue shot striking it from behind.

Weiss erupted out of the alleyway where Blake had left her, gliding across a line of speed glyphs with all the grace of a figure skater, her rapier drawn back and her free hand outstretched before her in some kind of formal fencing posture. She darted around the android, dodging the wide swing of its blade, and as she glided around the robot — it seemed so cumbersome in comparison to her lithe agility — she flicked her Myrtenaster outwards, and both the robot's feet were encased in the ice that arose spikily out of the ground at Weiss' command.

Blake dashed forward, Gambol Shroud reforming into a sword at her impulse as she charged right for the immobilised robot. It glared at her, or seemed to glare, as it wound up its halberd for a thrust into her chest.

Blake smirked and wondered if the robot understood what that meant.

The android thrust its polearm forward in a series of long, powerful blows that struck the ice clone Blake had left behind her. The real Blake rolled out of the way, getting to her feet in time to see the robot's glowing weapon encased in ice and as trapped as its feet.

Flash, who lacked the speed of either Weiss or Rainbow, joined them as the android tugged impotently upon its imprisoned weapon.

"Nice going, Blake," Rainbow said as she landed on top of the android's shoulders.

"Ahem," Weiss coughed into her hand.

Rainbow ignored her as she crouched down and placed her hands on either side of the android's head.

"Okay," she said. "Let's get this—"

She was interrupted by a flurry of fire from the direction of the Bullhead, which struck her on the back and tore her away, off the android's shoulders, sending her flying headfirst to the ground.

Another android unfolded itself as it jumped down from the Bullhead. This one was white, as tall as the first but even broader in the body; the M upon its chest was crimson, and its eyes glowed red and seemingly full of wrath as it aimed the giant weapon it was holding in both hands at the young huntsmen.

Bullets sprayed from the heavy machine gun in its hands, erupting from the single barrel as the android loosed its fire upon them. Blake took cover behind an earth clone, hearing the rock chip and crack under the onslaught. Flash threw himself in front of Weiss and held his shield in front of himself; his semblance, Stalwart, enabled him to absorb the force of blows that would have knocked another man aside, and he used it now to absorb the hail of fire that rattled off his shield, weathering it like a great oak standing before the storm.

And then the red android tore its halberd out of the ice and began to use it to hack away at the ice restraining its feet. Blake shot at it, but it hardly seemed to notice or, if it noticed, didn't care.

The white android ceased to fire and seemed to study the group for a moment. A green pebble, or something that looked like one, flew out of the cannon's mouth to bounce along the ground before landing at Flash's feet.

"Gren—" Rainbow's shout was cut off as the grenade exploded under and in front of Flash Sentry, knocking him up and backwards with an anguished cry of pain.

"Flash!" Weiss cried as Flash's aura shattered visibly in front of them, a golden light rippling over his body as his inner light faded.

Weiss conjured a white glyph to catch him gently before he hit the ground, while another glyph formed in front of him to shield him from fire.

"Get the head off the red one," Rainbow yelled, a rainbow streaking behind her as she charged towards the white android with the gun. "I'll take care of the other."

The red android had succeeded in freeing its legs from the ice, but Weiss faced it now with eyes like ice, betokening a fury as chill as the Atlesian winter

Red dust, as red as the robot itself, cycled into Myrtenaster's chamber as a line of flame ran across the ground between Weiss and the android, erupting into an explosion at its feet which staggered the robot even as it did not immobilise it. The android rounded on her, but Weiss attacked first, her rapier shining as she thrust it forward in a flurry of blows that made the android cower behind its arms, shielding itself as Myrtenaster glanced off its armour plates again and again.

The android swept both its arms outwards, knocking Weiss backward a pace, before hitting her with its own flurry of thrusting strokes that sent her flying through the air. For a moment, Weiss seemed to hang suspended, her rapier glowing yellow, and in that moment of suspension, she fired something, a yellow blast, from the tip of her blade at Blake, and then the moment passed, and the glaive struck her and knocked her backwards to the ground.

The glowing yellow shot which Weiss had fired hit the ground at Blake's feet, forming into a glyph in the shape of many grinding gears, turning like the inner workings of a clock.

The world around Blake seemed to slow. She could see the red android advancing on Weiss, she could see Rainbow charging the white android, fist cocked back, but they were all moving so, so slowly. Rainbow Dash was the only one who seemed to be running at anything like normal speed, but she should have been moving so fast that Blake couldn't make her out. And the red android was moving so slowly it was barely moving at all.

Blake attacked. She charged the robot, hitting it from all sides and all directions. Gambol Shroud struck from everywhere as Blake hacked at her target's legs, its arms, its weapons. She rained down blows upon it from all sides, breaking the glaive in two and slashing through one of its legs at the knee. The effect of whatever exactly it was that Weiss had done to Blake wore off, but it hardly seemed to matter as the android fell forwards to hit the ground with a thud.

It tried to rise, onto its knees at least, but Weiss was already standing over it, and at her feet glowed a white glyph, and around her rapier, an enormous broadsword made of ice had formed. And as the red android raised its head and began to push itself up, she swung that sword and lopped off its head in a single stroke.

The decapitated robot hit the ground with a final thump.

A booming sound from the direction of the Bullhead drew the attention of Blake and Weiss in time to see Rainbow punch the head clean off the white android using that aura-boom of hers. Personally, Blake thought that draining your own aura to such an extent was incredibly rash in a fight, but it seemed to have worked in this case as the head flew into the bullhead and the white android crumpled to the ground.

And then the Bullhead itself exploded. Rainbow Dash was framed against the explosion as the dark aircraft erupted into light, before both she and the body of the white android — minus the head — were thrown backwards, skidding along the derelict plot that served as a landing pad before the android's body landed on top of Rainbow Dash, who groaned.

"Rainbow!" Blake cried, as she dashed through the still-open wire gate and across the barren ground towards her. "Are you okay?"

Rainbow groaned as she pushed the android off her. "I think my aura just broke, but so long as there aren't any more robots around, I'll be fine." She rubbed at her right shoulder with her left hand as she got to her feet. "Did you get the head?"

Weiss picked up the head of the red android. "Present and accounted for."

"And Flash?" Rainbow asked.

Weiss walked quickly across the ground to where Flash still lay upon the white glyph. "Unconscious, but I can't see any injuries."

"I'll call in a medevac for him," Rainbow said. "Was it just me, or did those androids seem tougher than ours?"

"It wasn't just you," Blake said. She frowned. "And we're still no closer to finding the missing."

"I wouldn't say that," Rainbow replied. "Once we get the head to Twilight, I've got a feeling it's going to give us everything we need."

XxXxX​

The door into the lab slid open, admitting Weiss and a slightly bruised and battered-looking Flash Sentry. He was out of his armour now and wearing a jacket over a T-shirt and jeans. He smiled sheepishly at all those who were already in the room.

"Hey, guys," he said. "I hope I didn't keep everyone waiting."

"It's cool," Rainbow said. "You deserve to be here when we find out what it's all about. How do you feel?"

"My aura broke, but it stopped me taking any real injuries first," Flash said. "That, or my armour took the worst of it. I'll be okay."

"I still don't think that a single grenade should have been able to break your aura like that," Weiss said. "That seems far too powerful."

Rainbow nodded. "Your aura's never seemed that weak before."

Flash looked even more embarrassed. "What can I say? It happened."

He and Weiss joined the others. The bodies of the two androids that they had fought down at the landing sight had been dismantled into their component parts — torso, arms, legs — and most of said parts had, with the exception of the head of the red android, been placed under some kind of scanner. Twilight had explained what the scanner was called — something to do with determining the component elements and analysing the design — but Blake couldn't remember the exact words.

Twilight sat at a desk, her back to the scanners, with the other huntsmen gathered around her. The head of the red android sat on the desk not far away, as did a pair of computers, of which Twilight was only using one at the moment. She turned her chair around and ran her bespectacled eyes across the gathering.

"Well, I'm afraid it's not the best news," she said, sounding a trifle nervous.

Rainbow placed a hand on her shoulder. "What's up, Twi?"

Twilight winced. "These androids don't match anything on the database when it comes to commercial models; not only are they not military, they're not even on sale."

Rainbow frowned. "You're saying that somebody built these in their garage? Come on, Twilight, the only person I know who could do that is, well, you."

"I wouldn't count Moondancer out either," Twilight said. She paused. "I'm not suggesting that Moondancer's a suspect, by the way."

"Don't worry, I got that," Rainbow reassured her.

"Are all customised androids so tough?" Blake asked.

"Quite the opposite," Twilight said. "Most hand-built androids are inferior to the mass-produced models — as you'd hope, really. But I didn't say that these were hand-built; on the contrary, they show no evidence of hand-crafting and appear to be production line models."

"But you said—" Rainbow began.

"I said they weren't on sale, at the moment," Twilight said. "But they do bear some resemblance to the Merlot Industries Guardian and Suppressor Androids that were briefly on sale about twenty years ago." She tapped some of the keys on the left-hand computer, and a pair of photographs appeared on the large monitor that took up most of the wall in front of them. At first, the photographs appeared to Blake to be the androids that they had fought that night. After a moment's more careful study, she realised that they were not actually the same androids, though they were clearly related, but the two androids in the pictures were less heavily armoured, with more of their inner workings exposed to the world; they were also slightly smaller, and overall less sophisticated-looking, with the so-called Suppressor having a simpler-looking rotary cannon and the Guardian having only a single-bladed spear; it was like comparing the AK-130 to the AK-200: they were the same but also different.

Or like comparing someone to a picture of when they were a child.

"They're more advanced now," Blake said.

Twilight nodded. "What you've brought me are a pair of true next-generation androids compared to anything in use at the moment: stronger, more resilient, better armed; I won't know about intelligence until I hook this one up." She indicated the severed head on her desk. "But overall, it isn't looking too good for the Atlesian Knight."

Rainbow folded her arms. "That's … not good. We spend millions on R&D, so how did some random guy manage to come up with androids that are so much better than ours?"

"That's why I don't think it's likely that this is just some random guy," Twilight said. "If it is, they're a genius. Although…"

"What?" Rainbow asked.

Twilight shrugged. "One of the reasons why the AK-200 represents such an incremental advancement over the 130 is that we don't need our androids to be that much better. The replacement of on-board weapon systems with hands is the biggest upgrade, and everything else is just slight tweaking for better performance; that's because our existing androids work for what they're designed to do: replace low-level infantry on the ground, and with that goal accomplished, we've been able to focus our research on other areas, like the Paladin or, well, you know."

"Know what?" Flash asked.

"You don't know," Rainbow informed him.

Flash frowned a little. "Are we allowed to know?"

"No," Rainbow said flatly.

"Good to know," Flash remarked with a perfectly straight face.

"It's classified," Twilight added apologetically. "Suffice to say … we have been busy, just not on making leaps in combat android capabilities. But these androids … it's almost as if they were designed to replace huntsmen."

"Or kill them," Blake muttered.

"Who'd want to replace huntsmen with robots?" Flash asked.

"As much to the point, why aren't they on sale anymore?" Weiss added.

"And why have we never bought them?" inquired Rainbow. "I mean, I know that they could never actually replace huntsmen, even if the guy who built them wanted them to, but they're still better — and look like they were better — than what we're working with."

"Yes, but that doesn't change the fact that they were built in Vale, the home of Merlot Industries," Twilight said. "Not Atlas."

Blake frowned. "That sounds … I mean, obviously, I understand what you just said, but I don't understand the rationale behind it."

"It's council policy," Twilight explained. "Military contracts are only given to Atlesian providers, to boost the economy and ensure that we have our own defence industries in the event of … in the event of…."

"War with the other kingdoms?" Blake suggested.

"It's mostly the economy thing," Twilight assured her.

Rainbow folded her arms. "Hard to believe that the Valish were coming up with tech that was so much better than ours."

Twilight tapped something on her keyboard, and the photographs on the large monitor were replaced by an encyclopaedia entry for Merlot Industries. Blake started to read it, but it seemed that she didn't have to because Twilight started to summarise the details for them. "Merlot Industries, founded by Doctor Victor Merlot, whose expulsion from Beacon didn't stop him from getting doctorates in genetics and cybernetic engineering or from setting up a company which he named after himself. He was believed to have great promise and attracted a lot of early investment, but he wasted most of it on a lavish corporate headquarters in Mountain Glenn and on various scientific projects of little commercial value. The mainstay of the company was a line of highly-advanced combat androids, but they struggled to find any buyers. Some said that they were too advanced for the kind of security work that most private androids are employed in, but Doctor Merlot…" Twilight trailed off, with a glance at Weiss.

Weiss pursed her lips together. "If it's about my father, you can say it. I won't be offended."

Twilight cleared her throat. "Doctor Merlot alleged that the Schnee Dust Company was engaging in predatory pricing in order to shut him out of the market, but the Remnant Trade Organisation dismissed his accusations and refused to impose any sanctions on the SDC. The finances of Merlot Industries continued to worsen, but none of that mattered once Mountain Glenn was overrun by the grimm. Doctor Merlot was amongst those declared missing after the disaster along with many of his staff; the remnants of the company ended up sold shortly afterwards.

Blake said, "So this is a company based in Vale, that was going bankrupt even before everyone involved was eaten by the creatures of grimm, and yet somehow, improved versions of their androids — the androids that nobody was buying even when they were available — have shown up in Atlas being used to kidnap faunus?"

"I know it sounds crazy, but that's what the evidence suggests," Twilight said. She rolled her chair sideways to the left a little and picked up the head of the red android. "This guy might be able to tell us a little more." She reached for a cable connected to the computer on her right.

"This isn't going to be one of those things where you plug that in, and two seconds later, we've lost control of Atlas' air defences, is it?" Rainbow asked.

"That's why I'm using this computer and not that one," Twilight, gesturing to the machine she'd been using before. "This one is completely disconnected from any networks."

"Good, because that would have been an awkward conversation with General Ironwood," Rainbow said.

Twilight smiled.

The holoprojector sitting beside her other, network-connected, computer, illuminated, projecting a hologram of Midnight — which was to say, Twilight without glasses and her hair down — less than a foot tall.

Nevertheless, she was tall enough that Rainbow could tell that she was pouting, in addition to having folded her arms. She let out a little harrumph.

Twilight rolled her eyes behind her spectacles. "Leaving aside the fact that I am perfectly capable—"

"What is the point of having me around if I don't get to do stuff like this?" Midnight asked. "I was going to click my fingers and have all the data appear on the screen."

"That would be very dramatic, I'm sure," Twilight said dryly. "But the risks—"

"I can do it!"

"Completely disconnecting you from the network is not something that I ever envisaged when I designed you," Twilight insisted. "I'm not sure that it's even possible, the way that I coded you—"

"I don't need to be disconnected; I won't let anything get past me!"

"I can't take that risk," Twilight said. "Not with you and certainly not with the Atlas mainframe."

"You mean you don't trust me?"

Twilight hesitated for a moment. "Not with this city."

Midnight let out another harrumph and ostentatiously turned her back on Twilight. She did not, however, disappear; Rainbow could only interpret that as being because she wanted Twilight to know just how upset she, Midnight, was with her.

"Excuse me," Weiss murmured. "But who is that?"

"This is Midnight," Twilight said. "My Virtual Intelligence assistant."

"When I'm allowed to assist," Midnight grumbled.

Weiss frowned. "Should a VI be sulking? Or arguing back?"

"I'm very advanced, Miss Schnee," Midnight declared, turning to face her. "With a range of capabilities which I would gladly demonstrate if I was given the opportunity."

"That's enough, Midnight," Twilight declared, as she hooked up the android's head to her — safely disconnected — computer.

The green eyes of the android began to faintly glow as Twilight's monitor — the small one on the desk, not the big one on the wall — began to fill up with green letters running across the screen.

Twilight, the green letters reflecting on her spectacles, leaned forward. "Okay, let's see what we've got here. Merlot Operating System version three-point-five."

"Could someone have acquired all the Merlot assets after the company went under?" Weiss asked.

"Probably," Twilight said. "But someone would have to do some digging around to find out who that—" She stopped, her voice turning to a frightened squawk as the green text turned to red upon her screen. "No no no no no!" She began to type furiously, her fingers pounding on the keyboard.

"Twi, what's going on?" Rainbow asked nervously.

"Let's just say that if this was a networked computer, the cruisers would be starting to self-destruct right about now," Twilight said without breaking step in her furious typing. "But it's okay. It's …it's really okay. I can fix this."

"I would love to assist you, but you've made that impossible," Midnight said with an almost malicious glee in her voice.

"Midnight, you're not helping," Rainbow growled. "Twi, is there anything we can do?"

Twilight didn't look at her. "No, I don't think so, but that's fine. It's all fine. Don't worry. Nobody panic."

"Twilight—" Rainbow began.

"Nobody panic."

"Twi—"

"Nobody—"

"Twi, you're the only one panicking!" Rainbow said.

"Sorry!" Twilight yelped as she continued to type. "It's just that I — no, come back here you little — I know that this is important to you and — no, you did not just try to stick me in a dead end, mister — I don't want to disappoint you because this — I don't know who you think you are, but after all the trouble my friends went to, there's no way I'm going to let you win — this might be your only lead, and I did it!" She sagged in her chair as a sigh of relief escaped her. "I got it," she said as the red text on the screen returned to its earlier and more benevolent green.

Rainbow crouched down by her side as she wrapped an arm round Twilight's neck and shoulders. "Sure you did; you're Twilight Sparkle."

Twilight blushed. "You don't need to flatter me after I've already started helping you out."

"What does it say?" Blake asked.

Twilight started typing again. "Let's see … directives … it looks like the same android was used to do all the kidnappings: there are orders here, pre-programmed orders specifying the dates on which it was to board the Bullhead, search parameters, commands to obtain … ugh, they're referred to as specimens, with specified visual markers to identify what it calls 'acceptable targets.'"

Blake gritted her teeth. 'Specimens'? 'Acceptable targets'? We're not animals! We're people, with families and lives and loved ones!

Why does the world find it so hard to understand that? Why does it find it so hard to look past our ears?

"Let me guess," Weiss said. "Young people?"

"I'm afraid so," Twilight said. "As best as that can be conveyed visually, anyway."

"Does it say why?" Blake demanded. "Does it say who's doing this?"

Twilight typed silently for a moment. "I'm afraid not. It just specifies that, once the android had acquired a victim, they were to place them in the container and then return to the Bullhead which would then return to base and…"

Blake scowled. "Go on."

"Convey them to the holding pens pending transportation."

"'Holding pens'?!" Blake cried. "Does it say where?"

"I'm just looking," Twilight murmured. "Got it! Location tracking data, here it is!"

The heads of all four young huntsmen pressed close around Twilight's monitor as a primitive map of Solitas came up on it: there were only two locations marked out: the outskirts of Low Town and a position Blake didn't recognise on the coast, east of Atlas.

"Where is that?" Rainbow asked.

"That's … I think that's Long Isthmus Bay," Flash said.

All eyes turned to him. "Where?" Weiss asked.

"It's a natural harbour," Flash explained. "The navy — the actual ocean navy — used it during the Great War; my mom took me diving out there a few times; there are some old dreadnoughts down there from when they scuttled the fleet; all the crews evacuated so they're aren't grave sites, no bodies, nothing to stop you from diving down there to take a look at them. It's pretty cool."

"Is there anything there apart from old wrecks?" Blake asked.

"There shouldn't be," Flash said. "But if you wanted somewhere to moor a boat, then I guess you could do worse than a natural bay with derelict port facilities where almost nobody ever goes anymore."

"It seems that's where this robot came from," Twilight said.

"Then that's where we need to go," Rainbow said. "Thanks, Twi."

"Can I come too?" Midnight asked.

Weiss blinked rapidly. "When you say 'come too'—"

"I have already downloaded into an android body and accompanied Team Rosepetal on a field mission!" Midnight declared excitedly. "I can be very useful. I could pilot the airship, since Rainbow Dash is going to have to get out and fight!"

Rainbow cupped her chin with one hand. "You know, that's not actually a bad idea. We could use a spare pilot. If it's okay with you, Twilight."

"Please!" Midnight begged. "Just because you won't let me help in here doesn't mean that I won't be able to help out there."

"Midnight, just because I … never mind," Twilight sighed. "Of course. That's why I gave you the ability to upload into that body in the first place, so that you could go out into the field and support Rainbow and others."

"Yes!" Midnight cried enthusiastically. "So, when do we leave?"

"Right away," Blake said.

"As soon as I've appraised General Ironwood of our progress," Rainbow corrected her.

Blake looked — almost glared — at Rainbow Dash. "There are faunus being held in cages right now—"

"And we've just found out about that, and confirmed that someone is kidnapping them," Rainbow said. "I have to pass this up. Not to mention, with no idea what kind of security we're going to find out at that bay, we could maybe use some assistance."

She reached out and put a hand on Blake's shoulder. "We're going to get them back," she promised. "We're going to get them all out of there. But we're going to do it the right way." She grinned. "Trust me, these robots aren't going to know what hit them."

 

[ScipioSmith]

Faith, Hope, and Charity​

It was night time, although Weiss couldn't see the stars or the moon. She was doubly-enclosed, as were Flash and Blake and Rainbow Dash. All four of them, the four huntsmen who had volunteered to go to the aid of the faunus of Low Town, were sat in Rainbow Dash's custom — and somewhat luridly painted — airship, which itself sat inside the hangar of the Atlesian cruiser Faith, which sailed through the night sky towards Long Isthmus Bay.

No longer was it just the four of them. Of course, it had hardly been just the four of them when they left the lab, joined by Midnight, the virtual intelligence in her suit of armour — or her android body; Weiss wasn't quite sure how to best envisage what Midnight was wearing, what she had become. In any case, it had not been just the four of them even then, and now that they were sat upon an Atlesian man-of-war, waiting to take off … this was not their little adventure any more.

And that was good. They had resources on their side, resources that Rainbow Dash had procured for them with a speed that was quite astonishing, especially for a first-year student. They had resources, and they had a reasonably sound plan, all things considered. Resources, a plan, and a good chance, they had all three, in her opinion.

And yet, Weiss could not help but regret it just a little bit. She could not help but regret that their private little errand of mercy had become so much bigger than them.

Perhaps it was just a degree of dislike for large organisations, after having grown up enmeshed in the very middle of one.

Doesn't bode well for when I take over the company. In any case, my feelings are irrelevant. What matters is saving Mrs. Seacole's granddaughter, and all the other captives.

The four of them may have been swallowed up by the machine of the Atlesian military, but they did at least have the honour of making the critical insertion themselves. They had earned that right, after being the ones to uncover this crime, the only ones to even bother trying to do so, and it would not be taken away from them. Fortunately, nobody had seemed inclined to do so.

Weiss, Blake, and Flash sat in the main compartment of the airship, while Rainbow Dash was in the cockpit with Midnight. As they waited, enclosed with an airship that was itself enclosed within a warship, Weiss couldn't help but eye the big gun stacked against the wall by the door of Rainbow Dash's personal airship. It was the combined machine gun and grenade launcher that the white android they had defeated down in Low Town had been carrying.

Rainbow's exact words as she had picked it up and carried it out the lab had been 'now it's my turn to have the big gun.'

"Is that strictly necessary?" Weiss asked.

Rainbow Dash twisted around in the pilot's seat to look back at her. "Is what necessary?"

Weiss gestured with a nod of her head towards the appropriated gun.

Rainbow grinned. "You know what they say: I'd rather have it and not use it than need it and not have it."

Weiss sighed. "I suppose so."

"And besides," Rainbow went on, "we don't have a big gun otherwise."

Weiss glanced at Blake, wondering if she would be more familiar with Rainbow's apparent affection for large calibre weapons.

Blake, however, frowned. "We've done without in the past."

"No, we didn't," Rainbow said. "Because I'm not just talking about literal big guns — although those can be cool — I'm also talking about…"

"The word you're looking for might be 'metaphor,'" Midnight suggested helpfully.

"Yes, that, the big gun is a metaphor," Rainbow agreed. "You must have noticed that every team has a big gun: maybe they're really strong; maybe they carry a really big gun; sometimes, they're really strong and they carry a big gun, but whichever it is, every team's got one. They're the one that drops the big hits, that takes out the tough guys, that makes the craters when you need them. Some teams … actually, a lot of teams, now that I think about it, even have two of them. My old team had Applejack and Maud. Sapphire has Sunset. Iron has Xiao-Long and Valkyrie. Weiss, your team has Cardin Winchester."

"I don't think Bluebell had anyone like that," Blake murmured. "And I don't think it does now, either."

"No," Rainbow agreed, her voice quiet. "That's … not good. They … yeah, that's not good. They got unlucky. But there's a spot open now, so maybe—"

"You're not suggesting they just replace Sky?" Blake asked.

"Teams are four people for a reason," Rainbow said. "And that team especially can't get by with just three; admittedly, I don't know that Dove Bronzewing guy, but I know Lyra and Bon Bon, and I can tell you, that team cannot get by with just three people."

Blake frowned. "I … I won't say you're wrong, but I will say that it sounds … heartless. Like … forgetting Sky. How would you like it if all of your friends just replaced you?"

"That's different," Rainbow replied sharply. "We're not talking about friends here, or not just friends; we're talking about risking lives out in the field. If I died, then … yeah, sure, I wouldn't want Pinkie or Fluttershy to forget about me — although I wouldn't want them to be upset forever either — but I wouldn't want Applejack or Ciel or you to keep an empty spot open for me forever. I'd want you to find someone else you could rely on to have your back.

"Now that may sound heartless, although I don't think it is, but getting yourself killed because you chose to permanently compromise your team roster, that's just stupid. And I'll tell Bon Bon that myself if I have to; that team needs a heavy hitter."

"I'm still not sure what this has to do with you taking that weapon," Weiss said.

"Because Rosepetal's big gun is Ciel," Rainbow explained. "And Penny, I suppose, or she will be as she gains more experience. But the point is that neither of them are here right now, and you guys … no offence, but none of you really fill that spot if you know what I'm saying. So I'm hoping that thing there will help me make up the difference."

Weiss found that she couldn't be too deeply offended by Rainbow's answer; she felt slightly as though the other girl had impugned her strength, but at the same time, she couldn't deny that she wasn't capable of dealing out the blunt force blows that Dash seemed to be describing. Nobody in their group really was: Flash had a defensive semblance that made him tough in the right conditions but didn't help him offensively; Blake seemed to specialise, like Weiss herself, in a more precise form of attack. So if a stolen cannon made their pilot feel better, who was Weiss to complain?

"Attention all personnel," the voice echoed across the hangar of the Faith, as well as blasting through the speakers in the cockpit. "We are commencing the operation. Hangar doors will open in thirty seconds. Recon units, prepare for take-off."

"This is it," Rainbow said. "It won't be long now."

The plan to rescue the captives was a simple one, but it seemed to Weiss at least to be a plan that was likely to work. It assumed — what was probably a reasonable assumption — that whatever facility was being used to hold the faunus until they were shipped away was not without security, and that security probably consisted of more of those powerful androids adapted from the Merlot Industries designs. That being the case, the operation would unfold in three stages: first, reconnaissance flights to locate the target's precise position, based on the navigational data they had recovered; second, the airship from the Faith would drop AK-200s, supported by the Military Huntsman company and Number Two Paladin Section of the Tenth Battalion, to assault the facility and draw out the android security; third, Weiss and her allies would use the confusion of the battle to infiltrate the facility and rescue the captives. Once they had done that, more airships from the cruisers Hope and Charity, waiting just offshore, would pick them up, at which point the decision would be made whether to press the ground attack or extract the infantry and destroy the facility via bombing from the cruisers, depending on the tactical situation.

Through the cockpit window, Weiss saw the hangar on the airship open; out there, beyond the rows of waiting Skyrays, she could see the stars gleaming in the night sky.

A pair of Skygraspers, slenderer and more sleek than the bulkier Skyrays, took off into the night sky, blotting out the stars for a moment before they disappeared from view on their reconnaissance.

"Won't be long now," Rainbow said.

"Can someone explain one thing to me?" Blake asked. "What is the difference between Military Huntsmen and Specialists?"

Weiss glanced at her. "That sounds like an odd question to ask at this specific moment."

"I know that the troops going in are Military Huntsmen," Blake said. "I'm curious as to what that means."

"It means that they didn't go to Atlas, and so, they didn't get the chance to become Specialists," Rainbow explained. "Atlas graduates who choose to join the military get inducted into the Corps of Specialists, but there are about three or four combat school students for every place at Atlas in any given year. That doesn't always matter, because there are a lot of people like all my friends who don't want to go on to Atlas, or like Flash here who go to Beacon instead, but for those who don't make the cut for Atlas, you can join the regular military, where their training still puts them a cut above recruits from off the street. That's who Military Huntsmen are; each battalion has an elite company of them, and they get the special assignments."

Blake frowned slightly. "So your huntsmen are not actually huntsmen; your real huntsmen are called Specialists?"

Rainbow blinked. "Yeah."

"That sounds unnecessarily confusing," Blake declared.

Weiss' scroll went off.

She glanced down at it, unsure of whether or not she ought to answer or not, given the circumstances.

"The recon flight hasn't even reported in yet," Rainbow pointed out. "You've got time."

Weiss didn't acknowledge the other team leader's words, but she did check to see who it was. The fact that it was Winter calling made up her mind for her, and she answered.

Winter's face appeared in the screen of her scroll. "Good evening, Weiss," she said, her voice calm and even.

Weiss smiled slightly. "Good evening, Winter."

"I just thought I'd call to see how you were doing," Winter declared. She looked slightly to one side, as though she were trying to peer out of the screen. "That looks like an airship. Where are you?"

Weiss frowned. "You don't know?"

"Know that you went down to Low Town to investigate some disappearances and you're now aboard an Atlesian cruiser waiting to assault a possible prison camp?" Winter asked, deadpan. "Yes, I know." She smiled slightly. "But it would have been funnier if you'd tried to deny it."

"I'm not ashamed of what I'm doing," Weiss declared.

"I didn't say you should be, nor will I," Winter replied. "Does Father know where you are?"

"I didn't tell him, although I can't guarantee the silence of Klein or Whitley," Weiss said. "If he doesn't realise I'm not at the manor by now … maybe he won't. It's not as if we have family dinner."

"If he does realise, will you tell him the truth?"

"Do I have a choice?" Weiss asked. "If Klein or Whitley have said anything—"

"Check their stories before you go back, obviously, but even if Father didn't notice you leave, he'll probably notice you returning," Winter said. "Personally … if you get the chance, I'd say that you were out with friends. From what I understand, it's almost true."

"'Out with friends,'" Weiss repeated. "With Myrtenaster?"

"The streets can be dangerous at night," Winter said.

Weiss licked her lips. "Why should I lie about something I'm not ashamed to have done?"

"Because Father might not see it as cause for pride," Winter reminded her. "Best not antagonise him unnecessarily. That's how I see it anyway, but now that you're old enough to go gallivant about rescuing the helpless, I suppose you're old enough to make your own choices in this regard." She paused for a moment. "For what it's worth, whatever you tell Father, whatever he thinks, I'm proud of you, Weiss."

Weiss' eyes widened. "Really?"

"You didn't have to do this," Winter said. "You didn't have to leave the Mansion, you didn't have to agree to help. But you did it anyway, and it was the right thing to do. The huntress thing to do."

Weiss felt her cheeks heating up. "Thank you," she said quietly.

The smile disappeared from Winter's face. "So … you saw Laberna Seacole?"

"Yes," Weiss murmured.

"How was she?"

Weiss considered her response for a moment. "Not in the best way," she said. "She was more than just old; she was tired."

Winter nodded. "Once the Vytal Festival is complete, all our forces will be returning to Atlas. Once I get there, I'll go and see her myself."

"I'm sure she'd appreciate that." Said Weiss. "Whenever she was around, I always felt as though there was nothing more important to her than me, and making me happy."

"I know what you mean," Winter said. "At least that's how it was for me before you and Whitley came along. I was never quite the centre of attention after that."

"That's not quite—"

"No," Winter said. "You're saying that, after all that, she deserves some attention from us in turn."

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Weiss asked.

Winter paused. "Talk to Klein," she suggested. "He might have an idea."

They were interrupted by a male voice, the voice of a pilot ringing out over the comm system. "Faith, this is Grey One; we are approaching the designated coordinates; there's definitely something here."

"Grey One, define 'something,' over."

"A large building, patching you through to my onboard camera now. No lights on, not sure if there's anyone—" The communications from Grey One cut off abruptly.

"Grey One, this is Faith; please respond."

"Faith, this is Grey One; we are taking missile fire from the ground, attempting to evade."

"Grey One, this is Faith; do you have any indication of the strength of the enemy defences?"

"Negative, too busy evading to get a good—"

"Grey One? Grey One, please respond."

"This is Grey Two. Grey One is down; say again, Grey One is down. Requesting weapons free."

"Copy that, Grey Two; engage targets, but remember, there may be civilians in the vicinity."

"Understood, Faith; Grey Two out."

"This is Faith to all assault flights, location confirmed, and LZ is hot. Take off immediately and make sure to come out swinging."

"I think that I'd best leave you to it," Winter said. "Good hunting out there."

"Thank you," Weiss said as Winter hung up.

She folded up her scroll and put it away, her hands moving on instinct as her head and eyes turned to once more look out of the cockpit window of Rainbow's airship, looking out as Skyray after Skyray, the red and green lights blinking on their wingtips, took off, lifting vertically up off the flight deck before soaring outwards into the dark. Four more Skygraspers went with them, each one carrying a bulky Paladin hanging from the slender tail.

"Now it really won't be long," Rainbow said. "Our turn next."

"You want to get her out of there, don't you?" Blake asked.

It took Weiss a moment to realise what Blake was referring to. "Yes," she said. "Is that wrong? Or do you think I should want to get everyone out of there?"

"I want everyone to get out of there," Blake announced. "But if you get just one person, one family, out … that's a good enough start, as far as I'm concerned." She fell momentarily silent. "No matter what anyone says to you, no matter what happens to the Schnee name, no matter what you might be accused of … you came to the aid of a faunus from Low Town when no one else would, and that … that is something that you can be proud of, whether you take pride in it or not. I know that I don't have the right to thank you, but … I'm grateful. If more people were willing to do what you did, the world would be better."

Weiss glanced away, if only to conceal the extent to which she was proud, whether she ought to be or not. "Flash helped too," she pointed out.

Blake nodded. "Thank you both."

"Don't sell yourself short either," Flash said.

Rainbow coughed from the cockpit.

Flash looked around theatrically. "Did you guys hear something?"

Blake smiled slightly. "No. I didn't hear anything at all."

"That is surprising, since Rainbow—"

"They know, Midnight," Rainbow said.

"Who said that?"

"Did you say something just so that you could get in on the joke when I responded to you?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny."

"Insertion team," the comms officer of the Faith addressed them through the handset in the cockpit. "Assault units have begun to land and engage hostiles. You're good to go."

"Copy that, Faith," Rainbow replied. "Insertion team, taking off now." She took a deep breath. "'Up, through snow and cold and heart of winter.'"

Weiss felt the airship rise up off the deck beneath her, the stars outside seeming to move downwards a little as the airship ascended.

"Everyone hold on," Rainbow said. "I'm about to punch it."

Weiss, who had been standing all this time, hastily joined Flash and Blake in sitting down, and not before time as the Skyray leapt forward with astonishing speed, faster than Weiss had expected, faster than an airship like this had any right to go, streaking through the dark night sky, erupting out of the hangar of the Faith like a missile from its battery, surging through the air like a comet.

"How is this going so fast?"

"Didn't I tell you that my friends and I rebuilt this ourselves?" Rainbow asked from the cockpit. "We didn't just stick extra weapons on it; we souped up the engines, too." She let out a wordless whoop of glee as the airship bore them on, galloping through the sky.

At such speeds, it wasn't long before they began to approach Long Isthmus Bay and the location from which those androids had set out to capture and kidnap the faunus of Low Town.

And as they approached, and as Rainbow slowed down enough to permit it, Weiss and Blake and Flash all rose from their seats and crowded into the cockpit to see what they were approaching.

The first thing they saw were the flashes, the flashes of gunfire, the muzzle flashes illuminating the darkness, flaring briefly then disappearing like candles snuffed out. Weiss could see, in those brief moments of light, the Atlesian knights that looked so small and frail when placed against the Merlot androids that loomed over them, and that seemed, at least from up here, to be mowing them down with their guns and their glaives alike.

The Military Huntsmen also seemed small when compared with their opponents, but they at least were not being cut down, at least not so easily. In the points of light their gunfire created, Weiss could see them scurrying across the open tundra, seeking what cover they could, laying down fire upon their enemies. Every so often, there would be the explosion of a grenade or a rocket. The Paladins seemed slow, almost stationary by comparison: like towers of a castle, or rooks in an inverted game of chess where pawns moved faster. The Skyrays turned and wheeled in the air above the fighting, missiles erupting from out of their noses, the rotary cannons mounted on the sides spitting fire. But some of the airships had been brought down, their wrecks still burning, the fire providing more lasting illumination of the battle than the muzzle flashes could. And by those fires, Weiss could see the red androids advancing.

As in Low Town, their green eyes seemed especially bright in the darkness.

"How do you think they're doing?" asked Blake softly.

"They'll be fine," Rainbow assured them all. "These are Atlesian soldiers; no matter how big and tough these androids are, they're still just androids. Our guys can hold them off until we do what we need to do."

Flash pointed out the cockpit window. "I guess that's our target there," he said.

Weiss had to squint a little to work out what he meant; upon the shoreline, there was beached an ancient warship, a great dreadnought, its guns stripped out, its superstructure succumbing to the decay of years. It was half in the water, so perhaps it had been a blockship at one time, or some sort of gunnery target for the other vessels. Scattered around were ruins, the last remains of the old harbour, which the Atlesian troops were using as cover where they could.

And as she looked, as she tried to see what Flash had been pointing at, Weiss saw what he meant, and what Grey One had spotted before it came under fire: a large, square building, looking almost like a warehouse, a single building placed here, out on the coast where there was nothing else but history and ruin, with no lights on and no indication of life — except the fact that it was being defended by the horde of androids that had swarmed out to repel the Atlesian intruders.

There was a crane too, which looked as new as the building, although what it had been built to move, Weiss could not have said.

She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to find out.

As Rainbow guided her airship around the battle, not getting close enough — or low enough — to be detected, circling the fighting before starting to approach the novel installation from behind, she said, "Midnight, take the controls; it's almost time for me to get off. Once we're out, fall back but stay on station. Don't engage; don't draw attention to yourself."

"Nobody lets me have any fun," Midnight grumbled.

"Do you understand what you need to do?" Rainbow demanded.

"Yes, Rainbow Dash."

"Good," Rainbow said as she unbuckled herself from the pilot's seat.

"I hope that everyone remembers their landing strategies," Weiss said.

"Open the doors," Rainbow ordered as they all stepped out of the cockpit. One of the doors on the side of her airship slid open, exposing them to a blast of chill night air. The wind blew in, making Weiss' ponytail dance beside her head.

Rainbow grabbed the big gun, cradling it in her arms. Her wings emerged from the back of her somewhat bulky jetpack; they did not extend out all the way, but rather, hung down beside her, forming a sort of horseshoe shape, almost touching the floor.

They had overflown the structure and were already beginning to leave it — and the battle raging on the other side — behind.

"'Up, through snow and cold and heart of winter,'" Rainbow repeated quietly. She raised her voice to bellow, "Okay, let's go!"

Weiss leapt from the iridescent airship, conjuring a silvery-white glyph beneath her feet that supported her as solidly as the ground. It was just like initiation, really, nothing to it at all: a glyph here, a glyph there, leaping from platform to platform with Myrtenaster in her hand.

Truth to tell, Weiss had always rather enjoyed this, ever since she'd been a little girl. She had used to practice in front of her grandfather, leaping between glyphs about a foot off the ground, daring to go higher; daring, too, for anyone to tell her no or to order her to come back down.

She had loved it then; she could still remember the way that she had laughed for joy as she had — as she had seen it then — flew in the air like a fairy, looking down at the ground that looked so far away to a young girl.

As she descended, leaping downwards, conjuring ever more glyphs to convey her safely from the sky to the earth, she fancied that she could still hear the laughter and encouragement of grandfather, Winter, Klein, and Laberna ringing in her ears.

Not her father, of course. Never Father. But that hadn't seemed to matter then, and it didn't matter now. She could hear them willing her on as she made her descent, her glyphs shining in the night like beacons to guide her, until her feet touched the solid ground. Whether it was new concrete that had been laid by whoever had inherited the Merlot Industries assets and raised this building and this crane, or whether it was left over from the war and this place's past as a naval facility, it didn't really matter; it was hard and solid all the same.

One by one, her comrades on this mission joined her: Flash had infused his shield, Rho Aias, with gravity dust, allowing him to control the rate of his descent; Blake used her grapple to latch on to the side of the looming unlit crane, and from there, leapt from dark metal strut to bar with nimble agility until she reached the ground; Rainbow, of course, had flown down upon her wings, which now were spread out majestically on either side of her. She had been the first to make landfall, beating even Weiss and her glyphs.

Once they were all on the ground, they advanced cautiously towards the building; Weiss, with her only-human eyes, couldn't make out any details, but she could see the silhouette of it looming over her nevertheless, a dark mass that blocked out the stars behind it.

A mass which blocked out all but the largest flashes of the battle raging on the other side of the building. The sounds of gunfire and ordnance provided a backdrop to them as they advanced.

"It's marked," Blake said. "There's that M again."

"You know," Flash said. "We've talked about someone inheriting the assets of Merlot Industries, but … what if it's really just Merlot Industries?"

"The man survives getting devoured by grimm in Mountain Glenn, doesn't resurface for years, and then when he does, he's kidnapping faunus in Atlas?" Weiss asked. "What sense does that make?"

"It makes as much sense as someone splashing someone else's logo all over the place," Flash said.

Nobody had very much to say in response to that, so they continued forward in silence. Blake led the way, being as she was the one who could see the best in darkness, and she brought them to a door larger than a man, large enough for one of the Merlot androids to walk through.

It did not open for them, but remained resolutely shut for all that they were standing hard beside it.

Rainbow, who was wearing a pair of crimson goggles over her eyes, leaned forward a little, the barrel of her gun dropping towards the ground. "I don't see a lock anywhere," she observed.

"If this is a fully automated facility — which certainly seems to be the case — then it's not too surprising," Blake observed. "There's probably some sort of scanning mechanism that allows androids to trigger the door opening when they approach; there'd be no need to give any human or faunus the ability to get the door open."

"I can get it open," Weiss said. "Although it may dampen our element of surprise."

"Without a lock to pick, the only thing I can think of is to see if a grenade from this thing is enough to blast the door down, which I'm sure would kill our element of surprise worse than anything you could come up with," Rainbow said.

"Not to mention that the element of surprise won't mean very much if we're stuck on the wrong side of this door all night," Blake murmured.

"Which is to say: go for it," Rainbow said.

"Very well," Weiss murmured. "Everyone stand well back," she added, as she drew back her right arm so that Myrtenaster was level with the line of her shoulders, its tip extending just past her face, and the slender sword pointing towards the stubborn door.

With a flick of her thumb, Weiss rotated the cylinder of dust until the yellow of lightning dust glowed luminous in the visible chamber. With mere thought itself, she conjured her glyphs.

She might not have been able to deploy the summoning half of the Schnee semblance, but if she said so herself, she was very skilled at using her glyphs. She merely had to think them, and they leapt to her command, five spectral forms appearing behind her, bright white in the darkness, and all of them infused with lightning dust.

You know, if I wished, I could make the argument that I'm something of a big gun myself. Perhaps even bigger than Cardin. After all, he might be much bigger and much stronger than she was, but he couldn't do this, could he?

White laser beams, streaks of pure energy, leapt each from the centre of the glyphs as though they were each a great gun funnelling power out of their barrels. Each beam struck the door at once, blasting it into metal fragments that landed with a clatter upon the inside of the facility said door had guarded.

The four huntsmen waited for a moment, silently, weapons pointed at the open doorway.

There was no response. No hail of bullets issued forth; no android strode through the open entrance to challenge them. There was nothing but darkness, and a silence broken only by the sounds of battle on the other side of the facility.

"I'll take point," Rainbow said softly, moving forwards to take the lead, brushing past Blake as she did so. Blake followed as they moved in, then Weiss, then Flash bringing up the rear.

There was a short corridor just within the door, a corridor with only one direction to move, and so … they moved that way, their brisk footfalls squeaking a little upon the floor beneath them. The corridor was sterile, unadorned, undecorated, the kind of place where only an android would feel welcome.

At the end of the corridor was another door; this one rose automatically as they approached, presenting an opening through which they dashed.

They stopped dead in their tracks when they saw what lay in the room they entered.

The room they were in was a vast, open-plan space; this place had looked almost like a warehouse from the outside, and from within, it resembled a warehouse crossed with a hospital, or a warehouse being used as a hospital in the wake of some great catastrophe that had left all the actual hospitals stretched to breaking point.

Beds filled the space, metallic beds with stiff black cushioned pads for people to lie on. On some — although not all — of those beds lay people, faunus, young faunus men and women taken from Low Town. One and all, they were hooked up to a variety of advanced medical devices, beeping and whirring and recording data, the import of which Weiss did not immediately grasp.

And they were all dead. Not a one of them moved, not a one of them stirred or spoke or groaned. Not one of their chests rose and fell with their breathing. Not a one. Not a single one.

Here was a place devoid of life.

None of them spoke. Not one of the four huntsmen who had set out upon this rescue said a word as they walked further and deeper into the mortuary. There were no words that they could say. Shock had stolen Weiss' words away, and she guessed it was much the same for the others also.

Blake had turned pale — even paler than normal, almost as pale as Weiss herself — and her knuckles turned whiter still as her grip upon her weapon tightened. Rainbow's teeth were bared in a snarl that made her look almost feral, some creature of muscle and violence sprung out of the darkness. Flash looked as though he might be sick.

Weiss felt rather ill herself.

Who would do such a thing? Who could? And even if they could, why would they do it?

How long has this been going on and Atlas did nothing?

What else goes on beneath our noses that we ignore?

"I don't…" Blake murmured, her voice soft with horror. "I don't understand. Why? Why any of this … why is any of this happening?"

"I don't know," Weiss replied, her voice equally soft. "But we—"

She was interrupted by movement on the other side of the cavernous chamber; there was no door, but there was an archway, divided by a set of plastic sheets like an abattoir. Those sheets of plastic curtains moved as a white droid walked in. This was not a combat android, or at least, it didn't look the part; it was only about the size of a man, with a claw on one hand and what looked like a drill where its other hand should have been and a pipe connecting the centre of its face to its chest. Weiss guessed it might be some sort of medical droid, although she had never seen its exact type before.

It did not react to their presence. It might not have even had time to see them before Blake, her golden eyes wide with anguish, shot it four times in the head; it barely had a head left as it crumpled to the ground.

"Did you have to do that?" the voice that slid into the chamber like a serpent was that of an older man, fruity and rich. "Attacking my combat androids is one thing, but those medical droids are rare."

Blake scowled. "Who are you?" she demanded. "Why are you doing this?"

"It is a pity, I know," the disembodied voice said. "Ideally, genetic sequencing would be done before the abduction; sadly, it isn't possible to perform the procedure in the field."

"'Genetic sequencing'?" Blake repeated. "You… you killed all of these people because of their genes?"

"Clever cat, you catch on quickly," the voice said. "The man to your right had a genetic predisposition towards obesity, the woman behind you to anxiety, the man nearest the door to dementia; diabetes, addiction, alcoholism, autism, the latent presence of all of these conditions can be read in the genetic code like a literature professor discerning the meaning of a poem, and such weaknesses have no place in the new world."

"So you kidnapped all of these people … and then you murdered them when their genes weren't perfect?" Weiss demanded.

"Did you know that faunus have a greater genetic diversity than any other species on Remnant?" the voice asked. "Far greater than that found in ordinary humans. And so many latent abilities: night vision, regeneration, flight, superior strength, these are gifts that an ordinary man could only acquire by winning the semblance lottery, and yet, the faunus are born with traits equal to the greatest of spiritual powers and abilities. Small wonder that humans fear and detest them as much as the creatures of grimm; just as pygmies detest great men, so do humans react with angry terror towards that which reminds them of their insignificance."

"So… what?" Rainbow demanded. "You're gonna try and put us all down because you're scared of us?"

The voice laughed. "'Put you down'? Oh my … oh, my dear little filly, you misunderstand completely! Do you suppose that I'm some kind of human supremacist? Do you imagine that I am acting to postpone some sort of great replacement? Do you believe me to be motivated by a sincere concern for the welfare of my people?"

"I kind of assumed you were an evil—"

"Nothing could be further from the truth," the voice cut Rainbow off, leaving Weiss unsure if the man on the other end of the line was denying his racism or his evil. "The truth is, I admire your species greatly; you are truly superior. All I wish to do is harness the genetic advantages that your race is heir to and … combine them … with another superior species which as yet lacks those same advantages."

Weiss frowned. 'Superior species'? What superior species? The first thing suggested by the words was some kind of chimera faunus, blessed with many traits all at once, but that was impossible, wasn't it? And even if, by some miracle of perverted science, you could harness the traits of many living faunus and combine them all in a single person, then so what? It wasn't going to do much to advance the cause of faunus rights for them to look even more like animals — and strange and bizarre animals at that — than they did already. Not to mention the fact one faunus, no matter how many 'advantages' they possessed, wasn't going to turn the tide in favour of the White Fang if they were behind this.

Blake bared her teeth. "Whatever it is you're doing … it ends, now! We're here to stop you."

The voice sighed. "There are times when I wish that someone was able to understand my work, but I see that you're just like all huntsmen: small-minded, self-righteous moralists. I admit, it was clever of you to stage a distraction, but unfortunately for you, a distraction isn't much use once it's been seen through."

Weiss gritted her teeth. "We need to go." She gestured towards the plastic curtains from which the late medical droid had so recently emerged. "Come on, this way."

Flash ran forward, and Rainbow started to follow, only to stop when he saw Blake hesitate. "Blake, come on, let's go."

"We can't just leave them like this," Blake murmured.

Weiss took a step towards her. "I know it's hard, but don't we have to think about those we can still save before those who … those we were too late to rescue?"

"She's right," Rainbow said. "We can't save the dead, Blake; maybe we can avenge them, maybe not, maybe they won't even care, but we can still save the living. That's the best thing we can do right now. That's what we're here for."

"Hey!" Flash yelled, from the other side of the curtains through which he had disappeared. "In here!"

They ran — all three of them, Blake included — and they burst through the plastic barrier one by one to see a second wide, cavernous, warehouse space even larger than the medical ward of death that they had just left behind. Large cranes hung from the ceiling, looking as though they were designed to run on rails back and forth from one side of the chamber to the other. On the left hand side of the room, light-blue shipping containers sat on the backs of self-driving trucks, which Weiss guessed were to carry them to the dock where that large crane would load them onto a ship or airship.

And on the other side of the room were the cages, each one large enough to have held an ursa major if pressed to such a use. The pillars that formed the corners of the cages were blood red, with transparent walls woven through with wire mesh filling the space between them. The cages, unlike the containers, were marked by an M, one even more stylised than those found upon the robots themselves.

And in the cages … in the cages, Weiss could see the faunus they had come here to find, dressed in ragged clothes, eyes wide and fearful. Some pounded on the walls of their cages; others sat at the back, hunched, hugging themselves, their eyes hollow and haunted by despair.

"Prim?" Weiss asked as she stepped forward, hoping that her voice could carry through the transparent walls. "Primrose? Is there a Primrose Seacole here?"

Let her not be dead, Weiss thought. After all her grandmother did for me, all that she did for the Schnee family, I cannot return empty-handed.

I gave my word. I gave her the word of a Schnee, and after everything, after my father, she still trusted that that word meant something.

Such faith should be rewarded, not dashed to nothing.

"Primrose Seacole?" Weiss demanded.

"Y-yes," a young girl raised her hand tremulously. How old she was, Weiss could hardly tell, she had to be older than her sister Lavender, but she seemed … she seemed so very young, perhaps because of how vulnerable she seemed. "I'm Primrose Seacole. Who are you?"

"I'm Weiss Schnee, and I'm here to rescue you," Weiss declared. "Your grandmother and sister sent me."

"Ah, so you have a personal motive," the voice said. "I should have known a Schnee would never act based on anything so base as altruism."

Weiss scowled. "Considering that one of us has imprisoned these people, and the other is here to save them, I don't think you have any right to look down upon my family, Doctor Merlot."

"Ah, so you know who I am," Doctor Merlot replied. "I would congratulate you for working it out, but to be honest, I've hardly been particularly subtle about it, have I?"

"Do you mind telling us how you're not dead?" Rainbow demanded.

"I was spared so that I could serve a higher purpose."

"'A higher purpose'?" Blake yelled. "You call this a higher purpose?"

"I would try and explain," Doctor Merlot went on, "but I doubt that a quartet of feeble intellects like yours, shackled by petty, conventional morality, would be capable of understanding."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "How do we open these cages?"

"I think I have an idea," Flash said. He retreated backwards to a fusebox on the wall near the archway they had just come through. With a single swing of Caliburn, he opened it up, exposing the wires within to the world.

The ring running around Flash's shield, displaying what kind of dust he had equipped at any given moment, began to glow yellow. With a grunt of effort, Flash thrust Rho Aias into the fusebox, and then, once the rim of the shield was touching the exposed wires, activated it.

Lightning rippled across the entire length and breadth of Flash's shield, and after a moment, that flickering of lightning as it discharged was the only thing that Weiss could see as the light shorted out, and the entire warehouse was plunged into darkness.

"The doors are open!" Blake yelled. "Rainbow Dash, give me a hand."

It's a good thing somebody can see in the dark, Weiss thought, as she cast a simple glyph beneath her feet. It glowed pale white, enough for her to see the space immediately around her.

But she didn't need to be able to see in order to hear the clanking sounds out there in the darkness … and she could see the eyes, green and red, illuminating the dark as the androids began to advance upon them.

"Everybody stand clear!" Rainbow yelled as she started firing, the muzzle flashes flickering on her face like a strobe light as the bullets leapt from the enormous barrel of her gun to tear through the Merlot androids.

Weiss could hear the rounds ripping through the armour plate, the metal that had withstood Rainbow's weapons down in Low Town failing to withstand one of their own guns turned against them.

Blake was firing too, possibly the only one amongst them who could see what to shoot at; the flashes of slower-paced shots of Gambol Shroud flickered off her tense, taut face.

Weiss thought she remembered seeing a ladder against the back wall, a ladder leading up to the roof. She couldn't see it now, but she cast a line of glyphs, glowing faintly in the darkness, in the rough direction she thought it was. No, not there, the line of glyphs led only to a patch of wall; she let them fade away and then cast others, angling a little more to the right. There! There it was, the ladder. The ladder that was their way out.

"Everyone, up the ladder, now!" Weiss shouted, attempting the tone of command that came so easily to Winter, the tone that was her birthright as a Schnee. "Flash, lead the way."

Flash did as she bid him. The light of the glyphs glinted like moonlight upon his gilded armour as he crossed the warehouse floor and scrambled up the ladder with surprising speed, considering the armour he was wearing. He must have found a hatch at the top of the ladder, because suddenly, moonlight fell into the lightless warehouse, casting a spotlight upon the floor around the ladder.

Flash disappeared out of the hatch, but less than a moment later, Weiss could see his hands once again as he gestured for the others to follow. By the light of her glyphs, Weiss could see the faunus, released from their cages, climbing the ladder as quickly as they could. Flash reached out to help them.

A grenade fired from Rainbow's launcher briefly illuminated an android being blown to smithereens. Another grenade set part of the building on fire.

"Get out!" Rainbow yelled. An android fired a grenade back at her, but Rainbow reached out and batted it back with the flat of her hand as though she were playing dodgeball. "Weiss, go first; Blake and I will follow." She turned to fire another burst from her cannon.

Weiss might have protested if it weren't for the fact that Rainbow was making perfect sense at this point. It was more rational for the people who could see to stay.

But on the other hand, even if she couldn't see too well, that didn't mean she had to be useless.

She rotated the dust cylinder in Myrtenaster to blue ice dust and rammed the blade point-first down into the floor.

An ice barrier erupted from the floor to the ceiling, bisecting the room neatly in half, with the Merlot androids trapped on one side and the huntresses upon the other.

Weiss could already hear the androids hacking away at the ice, trying to break through. No doubt they would do it soon, but at least it meant that they could escape in a slightly less panicked scramble than would otherwise have been the case.

The three of them made it up onto the roof to see the captives from Low Town huddled together upon the edge, pressed together for safety, some of them clinging to one another as they looked from the hatch to their rescuers to the ground; it might not be a great height to a huntress-in-training, but for someone without aura, it probably looked high enough.

Rainbow Dash, the last one up, slammed the hatch shut behind her before tapping the earpiece she was wearing. "Hope, this is Infiltration Team, we have the captives and need an immediate pick-up."

"Copy that, Infiltration, Hope and Charity have wings out and inbound. We've got you covered."

Already, Weiss could see their lights, closer and brighter than the stars, as the cruisers and their accompanying airships closed upon their position.

The wind rose upon the roof as the air began to hum with the sound of their engines; at this moment, it sounded as sweet as music.

The hatch out of which they had climbed shattered as a red android began to rise out of it, only to have its head blown clean off by the fire of a Skygrasper's rotary autocannon as the plane began to hover overhead.

More airships were dropping knights, either on the rooftop with them or down below to cover the retreat of the Military Huntsmen, while other airships, empty Skyrays with their doors open, descended to take the faunus onboard.

"Did … did Grandma really send you?" Primrose asked, looking into Weiss's eyes with hope afresh.

"Yes," Weiss said, her side-mounted ponytail whipping around her. "Yes, she really did. She sent me, I came, and now I'm going to take you home."

 

[ScipioSmith]

Reunited​

The door to the Seacole house was still unlocked when they returned the next morning. It creaked as Primrose Seacole pushed it open, and then took a few tentative steps inside.

Weiss watched her from behind, lingering, unsure of whether or not to follow.

"Hello?" Primrose called. "Grand—"

"Prim!" Lavender yelled as she emerged from out of the gloomy, dimly-lit home to tackle her sister in a hug so fierce, it nearly knocked the older girl off her feet. She wrapped her arms around her sister as she shouted, "Grandma, look; Prim's back!"

Weiss felt more than slightly like a voyeur for witnessing this moment; she thought that perhaps she ought to have waited further away, so as to better absent themselves from the family reunion altogether.

She knew from personal experience how shameful it could be to have your family moments played out in public for the delectation of others, and although she was mainly thinking of less joyous moments than this by far, she could not imagine that having witnesses to your pleasure was so much better than having witnesses to your pain. Except inasmuch as pleasure was preferable to pain.

But another part of her wanted to be here nevertheless, if only so that Laberna knew that she had kept her promise and that her faith in the Schnee girls had not been in vain.

For that reason, she found herself drawn inside the house, her feet walking forward as though her boots were possessed, carrying her within until she could see Laberna, sat in the same chair as she had been on Weiss' last visit, her eyes closed, looking as though she might be sleeping.

As though Weiss' thought had prompted her, Laberna chose that very moment to open her eyes. She spoke, in a voice that remained frail but which nevertheless seemed to grow stronger with every word that passed her wrinkled lips. "Prim? Primrose, is it really you?"

"Yes," Prim said, her voice sounding a little choked up. She approached her grandmother, though she kept one arm wrapped around her younger sister as she did so. "Yeah, I'm right here, Grandma."

Laberna let out a long, deep sigh of relief. "Oh, praise be. Thank the God of the Faunus. Praise Him, praise His name." She sighed a second time. "Come here, child. Let me hold you."

Both girls flung themselves into their grandmother's embrace, not just Primrose, but Laberna raised no objection to it. She wrapped her wrinkled arms around both her granddaughters just the same, and held them close as they laid their heads upon her shoulders.

"You're home now," Laberna whispered, as though they were still children. "You're home now, and everything's going to be okay from now on."

If only that were true, Weiss thought.

It will be true; I will make sure of it … somehow.

"I don't know what you've been through, Prim," Laberna went on. "But if you want to talk about it, I'm all ears. But if you don't want to talk about it, I won't push you, not one little bit. You say as much or as little as you need to, and nothing more, understand?"

"I understand," Prim murmured. "Thanks, Grandma, I … I'm not sure that I really want to talk about it right now."

"Of course," Laberna said softly. "Of course. If and when you're ready, child, if and when."

Prim seemed satisfied with that. For a moment, she closed her eyes and rested silently in the embrace of her grandmother. After a moment, however, she said, "Grandma, I … I'm sorry."

"'Sorry'?" Laberna asked. "Now what in all of Remnant do you have to be sorry about?"

"All those times when you used to tell stories about working up in the Schnee house, about taking care of the Schnee kids," Prim explained. "I thought … I thought that you were lying, or else fooling yourself. I thought there was no way that they could possibly give a damn about you or about us. I hated the way that you spent more time with them than you did with your own family."

She half pulled away from her grandmother and looked back to where Weiss stood, hitherto a silent observer to the scene.

"But a Schnee came to get me. She saved me; she saved all of us. I guess I was wrong about them after all." She had looked at Weiss but spoken to her grandmother, but now it was to Weiss herself that she said, "I guess … I guess that means that I owe you an apology as well."

"No," Weiss said, softly but firmly. "You don't. What I did … is nothing more than your family deserves from mine. It doesn't begin to cover the debt that I owe you. That the whole family owes you."

"Miss Weiss?" Laberna asked. "Is that you?"

"Yes," Weiss said. "Yes, I came back, and I brought your granddaughter with me, just as I said I would." She had no idea if the old woman could see her smile, but she smiled regardless. "And you don't need to call me Miss Weiss like that; you're not my servant anymore."

"Maybe not, but all the same," Laberna replied. "Where would you get the idea that you owe me anything?"

A little incredulous scoff escaped from between Weiss' lips, although she didn't mean it to. "Isn't it obvious?" she asked.

"What's obvious to me is that Prim is here," Laberna said. "Primrose is home. You bought my granddaughter back to me, just like you said you would." She had to pause for breath. "Now, what could you possibly have done to me or mine that would mean we still weren't square after doing that?"

"Fired you?" Weiss suggested, the incredulity in her tone only mounting. "Thrown you out? Forced you to live … to live here, like this? Have you been here all this time?"

"I never used to live anywhere else," Laberna said softly.

Weiss was silent for a moment. Shock stole away her voice. Never lived anywhere else. She swallowed. "Even … not even in Grandfather's time? That's not possible, Grandfather—"

"Old Mister Schnee was a fine man," Laberna said. "Hard working, always had the manner of a gentleman no matter who he was speaking with, generous with his time, always willing to help if he could. But he didn't get to be the richest man in Atlas by giving his lien away, and why should he?"

Because our house could fit this entire town into just one wing? Because you literally raised his daughter, and his grandchildren, and isn't that worth rewarding, if anything is? Because you spent more time with me than with your own grandchildren, by their account?

Because I thought he was a better man than my father.

Perhaps he still was. After all, Laberna had praised his virtues when she had no cause to do so, and of those virtues, only hard work could possibly be attributed to Jacques Schnee. And yet … and yet, Weiss could not help but feel disappointed. She had thought — and it seemed that Laberna had thought so as well — that going to the aid of the Seacoles, springing into action, was what Nicholas Schnee would have done.

Perhaps it was what he would have done. Likely, it was what he would have done. And yet, Weiss had thought, she had assumed, she had taken from that that Nicholas Schnee would also have rewarded his faithful servants.

But of course, Nicholas Schnee had been a businessman, for all that he had possessed, as Laberna put it, the manners of a gentleman. He had been a frugal businessman nonetheless, and Weiss had been somewhat naïve to forget that.

But if I'm not my father, then I don't have to be my grandfather, either.

"I promised you that I would bring your granddaughter home," she said. "I gave you my word as a Schnee, and I kept my word. I give you my word again, now: I will make this right. Because it isn't right that someone who raised my mother, solaced my grandfather, did so much for me and my family should live … like this. I will make it right."

Even if I don't yet know how.

Laberna chuckled. "Well, if you want to, I certainly wouldn't object. But you've done … even if you do nothing else, nothing at all … you put my family back together, and I will always be grateful for that."

"And I will do more," Weiss declared. "I swear it. So please … wait for me."

XxXxX​

"Explain something to me," Blake said.

"What?" Rainbow asked.

Blake paused for a moment to take stock of their situation. She could feel the chill air of Low Town on her face, she could feel the cold metal beneath her, but she could also feel the warmth of the sandwich against her hands and fingers.

"We're in the dark," she observed.

"Uh huh," Rainbow agreed. "Although that shouldn't bother you because you can see in the dark."

Blake glanced at her. "If it bothers you that much that you can't see in the dark, then why are you wearing sunglasses?"

"Did I say that it bothered me?" Rainbow responded.

"No," admitted Blake. "No, you didn't." She paused for a moment. "We're in the dark," she repeated, "and we're sitting on the wing of an airship, which is not the most comfortable place to be sitting."

"Well, I'm sorry that when I upgraded The Bus, I didn't put padded seats on the wings," Rainbow replied. "Besides, it's not that uncomfortable."

"It certainly isn't comfortable."

"There are no comfortable seats around here, take it from me."

Blake didn't dispute the point. Rather, she went on, saying, "And we just found out that a true mad scientist, if anyone living deserves that name, has been kidnapping faunus for some kind of twisted experiments — and he's still out there, somewhere."

There was a moment of quiet, a quiet that was broken only by the sound of Rainbow munching and chewing. She swallowed. "What are you getting at?"

Blake let out a little snort. "Well … given all that, all that I've just said, I was hoping that you might be able to tell me … why I feel so good right now?"

Rainbow swallowed another mouthful of meatball sub. "It's because Grampa Gruff's sandwiches are really that good," she averred.

"Rainbow Dash!" Blake scolded her. "I'm being serious."

"So am I; I'd forgotten how good these were," Rainbow said. "Are you not enjoying that?"

Blake was, in fact, enjoying that. She was enjoying it far more than she'd expected when Rainbow had insisted that Blake had to come with her back to Grampa Gruff's while they waited for Weiss to finish with her business in Low Town.

"You again," said Grampa Gruff dismissively as they strode in, their presence announced by the jingling of the bell above the door.

"Us again," Rainbow agreed, a little bit of a swagger in her step compared to their last. "We're back, having just saved Low Town."

Grampa Gruff snorted. "'Saved Low Town,' huh?" he repeated. "Let me ask you something, is it still dark outside?"

"Yeah."

"And are folks still poor out there?"

"Yes," Rainbow admitted.

"Then you haven't saved Low Town yet."

Rainbow pouted, but said, "You know what, you might be right. You're more than maybe right. But we did stop those kidnappings and rescue a whole bunch of people, so could you turn down the attitude just a little bit?"

"What do you want, a hero's welcome?"

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "I'm not asking for a parade, Grampa; I'm asking for a meatball sub."

Grampa Gruff was silent for a moment. "Those kidnappings have really stopped?" he demanded.

"Yep," Rainbow declared. "They won't be bothering Low Town anymore."

Grampa Gruff nodded thoughtfully. "Well," he said, "I guess maybe that does deserve a sandwich. That'll be five lien."

Rainbow stared at him.

"What? You thought I was going to give it away for free?" Grampa Gruff demanded.

"No, I don't know why I was that naïve," Rainbow muttered. She stuck her hand into one of her jacket pockets. "What do you want, Blake? It's my treat."

"Um…" Blake looked over Grampa Gruff's head to see the selection and prices. "I'll have a tuna melt, please."

Rainbow glanced at her. "You're such a stereotype sometimes."

"It is very nice," Blake admitted. She took another bite out of her tuna melt; it was incredibly succulent, and rich upon her tongue. The cheese and the tuna blended together masterfully. "But I don't think that's it."

"No," Rainbow agreed, her tone becoming a little more serious. "You feel good because you've done good. Because we did a good thing. A simple good thing. We stopped the bad guys, we saved the people, we did save Low Town, no matter what Grampa Gruff says. Okay, sure, we haven't saved it from everything that's wrong with it, but we saved it all the same. People are back home where they belong, with their families. We did a good thing." She paused. "That's why I'm wearing sunglasses in the dark."

Blake blinked. "Because we did a good thing?"

"A good thing, and a cool thing," Rainbow insisted. "We did something unambiguously good and cool and heroic, and moments like these … don't come around often enough."

"But Merlot is still out there," Blake pointed out.

"So is Salem," Rainbow said. "So are the grimm. So … it never ends. There's always something. You know what the biggest difference between real life and a story is?"

"I've got ideas, but you clearly have a thought in mind."

"We never get to reach 'safe'," Rainbow said. "We never get to reach that point where the hero can look back at everything he's done and realise that that's it. He's wrapped up everything they needed to. We don't have that luxury because we'll never be done … but that doesn't mean that we can't celebrate the wins, if only with a nice sandwich on top of the wing of an airship." She grinned. "And you know that, because that's why you feel so good: it's your heart telling you that you did good today."

But what happens now? Blake wondered. She thought about asking Rainbow, but decided against it. Like Rainbow had just said: moments like these were rare enough that they shouldn't be disturbed too much.

And besides, it wasn't as though nothing was being done. General Ironwood was going to reach out to the Valish to take another look at records of the fall of Mountain Glenn and see whether there was any way Doctor Merlot could have survived. The Atlesians themselves were investigating the ruins of the facility where the faunus prisoners were being held. Something might yet result from one or both of those efforts.

And if Doctor Merlot tried anything like this again, Atlas would be more on guard against him.

She hoped it would, at least.

Blake shook her head a little. She might not be spoiling the moment for Rainbow Dash, but she was on the verge of spoiling it for herself. Rainbow was right: they had won a victory, they had saved lives, they had accomplished everything a huntress should. She should savour the taste of that.

Especially when it tasted like this delicious tuna melt.

"Blake?" Weiss called out. "Rainbow Dash?"

"We're up here," Blake replied, since she could see Weiss down below, but it was clear from the way that she was looking around that Weiss could not see them. "On the wing."

Weiss looked up; perhaps she still couldn't see them in the gloom, but the direction alone was enough for her to conjure a staircase of glyphs, each one higher than the other, rising in a spiral up which she leapt with a dancer's agile grace until she jumped lightly onto the wing beside them.

"What are you doing up here?" she asked.

Rainbow shrugged. "Don't you ever do things for no reason?"

"Not really," Weiss said.

"Maybe you should start," Rainbow suggested.

"How was it?" Blake asked.

"They were all very happy to be reunited," Weiss said as she sat down beside them, her legs dangling down over the side of the wing. "And very grateful. Too grateful." She sighed. "More grateful than I deserved."

"You saved that girl's life," Rainbow pointed out. "You reunited her with her family."

"What kind of life?" Weiss replied. "What kind of life will she have, growing up here, in this place? It isn't right, not for someone who once served the Schnee family so well."

"It isn't right for anyone," Blake murmured.

"I know," Weiss allowed. "But you were the one who told me it was alright to only care about the Seacoles."

"I'm not criticising," Blake said hastily. "I'm just … pointing it out."

Weiss was silent for a moment. "I promised to get her out," she said. "But I've no idea how." Her scroll buzzed. She took it out, and then promptly put it away again. "And now my father has realised I'm not where I'm supposed to be."

Rainbow looked from Blake, to Weiss, then back to Blake again. "You two want to grab some lunch?" she asked abruptly.

Blake frowned, wondering at the relevance. "We've just eaten," she pointed out.

"This won't be a very filling lunch; don't worry," Rainbow replied.

"Why are you talking about lunch at all?" asked Weiss.

"Because Councillor Cadance mentioned that she wanted to meet Blake, and I'm sure she wouldn't mind the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company tagging along as well," Rainbow replied. "Maybe she'll have some idea on how to help your old nanny, or help Low Town. And … I think you'll like her," she added to Blake. "And she wanted to meet you."

"Is this the Councillor whose wedding was—?"

"She doesn't hold a grudge," Rainbow assured her. "Cadance isn't like that."

Then why does she want to meet with me? Blake wondered. Then she wondered if it really mattered why the Councillor wanted to meet with her. The fact of the matter was that she did want to meet, and that was an opportunity not to be squandered. Her parents would have given their right arms for a meeting like this during their campaigning days.

"I'm in," Blake said.

"So am I, if the Councillor is willing to see me," Weiss added. "If she's willing to see any of us at such short notice."

"I'm certain that she'll be able to fit us in," Rainbow said. "Just let me make the call."

She wolfed down the rest of her sandwich, then leapt off the wing of the airship to land upon the ground below.

Blake could still hear her down there, although she couldn't see the face of Councillor Cadance; Rainbow's scroll was now too far away for that.

She could hear her voice emerging from the device well enough though, even if she had to prick up her ears to do so.

"Rainbow Dash," she said. "I hear you've had quite an adventure over the last night."

"News travels fast," Rainbow observed.

"It pays for someone in my position to keep abreast of events," Councillor Cadance replied. "Does your call relate to this business in Low Town, or is something else going on that I should be aware of?"

"It's kind of related," Rainbow said. "Do you remember you told me you wanted to speak to Blake Belladonna? Well, would you be able to fit her in … today? Oh, and Weiss Schnee, as well."

"A Belladonna and a Schnee in the same room?" Councillor Cadence asked. "How did you manage that?"

"It just… sort of happened," said Rainbow Dash. "I didn't do anything."

"I'm sure there's a story there," Councillor Cadance said. "This is a little short notice, Dash—"

"Sorry."

"But I'll be able to fit you in at noon," Cadance went on. "Bring them to my office then."

"Yes, ma'am; we'll be there." Rainbow said. She closed her scroll. "You guys hear that?"

"Loud and clear," Blake replied.

"That's okay with you both, right?"

"It's fine with me," Blake said.

"It's acceptable," Weiss murmured. "Although I wonder how many times my father will call by then."

Blake glanced at her, but found that she was unsure what, if anything, she could or ought to say upon the subject. So she found herself saying instead, "What are we going to do until then?"

"Well, if we're going to meet with a Councillor," Rainbow said, "we should probably take the time to shower and change."

XxXxX​

That was easier said than done in Weiss' case. Rainbow Dash, of course, could go back to Atlas Academy to shower and change out of her combat gear into the white uniform of the academy; Blake could go back to the house of a friend where she was staying while she was in the city — Weiss didn't know what she was going to end up wearing, but presumably, Blake had options.

But Weiss … Weiss had many outfits perfectly suitable to wear when meeting an Atlesian Councillor, of course, and she had worn many of them to do just that, if only as a decorative ornament standing just behind her father. But all of her suitable outfits, not to mention her shower, were back at Schnee Manor, and Weiss had a sense that when she arrived back at her father's house, she would not be leaving, at least not in time to make a noon appointment with Councillor Cadenza.

Which was why, as Rainbow's airship carried the three of them up from Low Town back to Atlas, Weiss stepped into the cockpit and said, "Rainbow Dash? I might need a little of that Civis Atlarum Sum assistance that you once promised me?"

Rainbow glanced at her. "I was starting to think that I'd offended you with that," she said softly.

"I know that you didn't mean to," Weiss replied, "but … as a huntress, I can make my own way on the battlefield."

"I never meant to imply you couldn't," Rainbow said, "but there are some things that even the best huntress can't handle alone."

"Indeed," Weiss murmured. "Just so long as you don't call me 'Miss Schnee,' we'll be fine."

Rainbow smiled. "Right. So, what can I do for you?"

"Can I come back to the Academy with you?" Weiss asked. "As you say, we could use a shower, and I … it would be best if I didn't go home right away."

"That's it?" Rainbow asked. "Yeah, sure, you can do that. Do you need to borrow some clothes as well?"

"No, thank you, at least I hope not," Weiss replied. "I've got an idea about that."

She stepped out of the cockpit, and got out her scroll.

There was another missed call from her father, but Weiss ignored it. Rather, she texted Klein.

Weiss: Please call me when my father isn't around to overhear.

She was rewarded with a call mere moments after she had sent the message.

"That was a very prompt response, Klein," Weiss observed as she answered.

"Thank goodness I heard from you, Miss Weiss," Klein said. "I was beginning to grow a little concerned."

"I'm fine, Klein," Weiss assured him. "And so are all the Seacoles. Everything … well, everything immediate has been taken care of."

"You found the missing girl?"

"Yes," Weiss said, "and others besides."

Klein smiled. "Congratulations, Miss Weiss. And how is old Mrs. Seacole?"

"Not too well, I'm afraid," Weiss murmured. "I'm going to try and get her out of there, which is somewhat in relation to why I'm calling you."

"You're not coming home then?" Klein asked.

"Not right away, no," Weiss replied.

"I see," Klein said softly. "I'm afraid that Mister Schnee has noticed your absence. I told him that I had no idea where you were, and you must have departed without me noticing or being informed."

"That was very kind of you, Klein, but a big risk," Weiss said. "If Whitley tells Father the truth—"

"Mister Schnee has not asked Master Whitley if he has any information," Klein informed her. "He doesn't seem to consider that Master Whitley might know anything."

"Thank goodness for that," Weiss said. "Klein, I know this may be difficult, but can you get out of the house and meet me at Atlas Academy with a change of clothes? I'm about to meet with a member of the Council, and I'd rather not do it in the same outfit I've been wearing all night."

"I will do my best, Miss Weiss. Is there anything in particular that you would like to wear?"

Weiss chuckled. "Something smart," she said, "but something that you can get out of the house easily. Other than that, I trust your judgement."

"I will do my best not to disappoint you, Miss Weiss."

Weiss smiled. "You never do."

And indeed he did not. Klein was waiting for her when she arrived at Atlas Academy, with a royal blue — not her favourite colour, but it did flatter her eyes — midi dress, with a square neck and short sleeves extending just past the shoulders. The skirt was somewhat layered, descending just past her knees and flaring out on the left hand side. A sash of the colour as the dress clinched around the waist, held in place by a buckle of diamonds and pearls. Klein had also brought her a crisp white jacket to wear over the top.

"Thank you, Klein," Weiss said, as she received the dress and jacket both. "This will do nicely."

"Always a pleasure to be of service," Klein said. He paused for a moment, before he added, "I must say, Miss Weiss, your father is rather upset with you for your absence. I'm afraid that when you do come home, he will have hot words for you."

"You're probably right," Weiss said softly. "Thank you for telling me, but … I don't think I could have done anything else but what I've done."

"No, Miss, I'm sure you're right," Klein said. "And I, for one, wouldn't have you any other way."

Weiss was recognised in Atlas Academy — how could she not be, being the daughter of Jacques Schnee, the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company? — but fortunately, the academy was sparsely populated at present, and though the few students that she passed along the corridors gawked a little and whispered somewhat, nobody approached her, or even said anything. As a result, she was able to reach the Team RSPT dormitory, borrow Rainbow Dash's toiletries — the other team leader seemed a little embarrassed by the fact that it was two-in-one shampoo and conditioner, as if she expected Weiss to turn her nose up at it out of sheer snobbery — and hit the shower before changing into the dress Klein had provided for her.

Black stockings wouldn't have particularly gone with the dress — and neither would the grey Atlas Academy stockings she could have borrowed from Rainbow Dash — so it would just be her white boots, and a little touch of her legs bare to the world. Fortunately, the heating grid would stop her from getting too cold.

"How do I look?" she asked Rainbow Dash.

"I'm the last person to judge, but … I think you look nice," Rainbow replied. Her brow furrowed. "Do you mind if I ask you something?"

"That depends."

"How did you get that scar?"

Reflexively, Weiss' hand went to the scar that crossed her left eye. "That…"

"You don't have to say. I didn't mean to—"

"It's fine," Weiss interrupted. "This scar … my father's test. Before he would allow me to go to Beacon, before he would allow me to represent the Schnee family at Beacon, I had to prove myself. Prove that I wouldn't embarrass him and the family name."

"You had to fight someone," Rainbow said.

"Something," Weiss clarified. "A grimm. A geist, possessing a suit of armour."

Rainbow's eyes widened. "You … your father … your father caught a grimm, stuck it in a suit of armour, and had you fight it?"

"As I said, I had to prove myself."

Rainbow stared at her, eyes wide, mouth open, hands hanging limp by her sides, looking as though she were seeing Weiss with new eyes. "That … okay, now I get why you were insulted."

"I'm not—"

"Yes, you were," Rainbow said. "And regardless of my motives, you had a right to be, because you're the real deal, aren't you?"

"No, I wouldn't say so," Weiss said softly. "Not yet, anyway. But I can try to be, by fighting my own battles and by helping others whenever I can."

Like the Seacoles.

I've saved Primrose; now … now I need to save the family.

XxXxX​

Author's Note: Artwork by MiChumi

 

[ScipioSmith]

Meeting with the Councillor​

Weiss had met Councillor Mi Amore Cadenza before, but never spoken to her. The Councillor was about of an age with Winter, although there were precious few other similarities between them, at least physically: Councillor Cadenza was much softer in the face, with long hair that fell down her back and across her shoulders, curling in rolls at the tips and coloured in shades of pink, with a streak of gold. A pair of rings, both gold, one plain and one bearing a large, square-cut diamond flanked by twin sapphires, sat upon a finger on her right hand; a sapphire heart, set in a golden necklace, embraced her throat.

The Councillor was not alone in her gleaming office — so gleaming that it reflected the appearances of the three visitors as they walked inside. A man stood at the side of her desk, a tall man, and squarely built, with a firm jaw and broad shoulders. His eyes were a light cerulean blue, and while his hair contained streaks of the same, it was, in the main, a darker shade, shading very dark blue in places, although rarely. He was dressed in the red jacket with gold facings of the Atlesian Guard, a very prestigious but largely ceremonial regiment established to protect Atlas itself; the blue sash that ran from his right shoulder down to his left hip doubtless meant something, but Weiss did not know what.

Councillor Cadenza stood in front of her desk and smiled at the three of them as they came in. "Welcome. Thank you for coming, all of you."

"Thank you for having us, ma'am, especially at such short notice," Rainbow said. She came to attention and saluted. "Good to see you again, Major."

The man in the uniform — Major someone, apparently — saluted back. "Hey, Dash. How have you been?"

There was a degree of amusement in her voice as Councillor Cadenza said, "Maybe this isn't the best time for you two to catch up."

The Major smiled. "Right. You'll have to come over for dinner sometime, Dash."

"Is that an invitation, sir?"

"It's me saying I'll talk to Mom and Dad and see if we can make it a whole family thing," the Major said.

"I'll look forward to that, sir," Rainbow said. She glanced at Weiss and Blake, who stood on either side of her. "Ahem, Councillor, Major, allow me to introduce Blake Belladonna and, well, Weiss Schnee, you probably already know, but … Weiss Schnee. Weiss, Blake, allow me to present Councillor Mi Amore Cadenza and Major Shining Armor Cadenza Sparkle, Captain of the Council Guard."

"It's a pleasure to meet you both," Blake said, bowing her head respectfully. "Major and Captain?"

"Major is the rank I'm paid at; Captain is my job description," Shining Armor supplied helpfully.

"Sometimes, I think the Atlesian military delights in being confusing," Blake murmured. "But, as I say, it's a pleasure to meet you." She paused for a moment. "Councillor … Ma'am…" She bowed her head. "I owe you an apology; I owe you both an apology—"

"Miss Belladonna," Councillor Cadenza cut her off, "are you currently a member of the White Fang?"

"No!" Blake cried, her head snapping up. "No, I—"

"Then what do you have to apologise for?" Councillor Cadenza asked, smiling warmly.

If that's how you feel, then why is your husband the soldier here? Weiss could not help but wonder, although she did not give voice to her suspicion.

"In any case," Councillor Cadenza added, "it's a pleasure to meet you too, Miss Belladonna; and you, Miss Schnee, although I believe we've met before."

"Yes, I think we have, Councillor, and more than once," Weiss said. "Although I think this might be our first time speaking."

The smile faltered a little on Councillor Cadenza's face. "Yes," she said softly. "I … I can't imagine that it's easy growing up as the daughter of a man like Jacques Schnee."

That was a statement that could mean almost anything, from 'I'm sorry that you'll struggle to escape the shadow of such a titan of industry' to 'I'm sorry that you're put on a pedestal as the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company' all the way to 'I'm sorry that your father is abusing you.' Of course, the studied ambiguity of it was precisely the point.

After all, she is a politician.

"Yes," Weiss said quietly. "Yes, it has its … unique challenges."

Councillor Cadenza's smile returned, seeming at least to be sympathetic. "Please," she said, "sit down, all of you. I even had chairs brought in specially. And a table."

"I thought your office looked a little more cluttered than normal," Rainbow said as she reached for one of the black office chairs sitting against the wall. They all took one and placed them around the small table — also black — that sat in front of the Councillor's desk. A tray of small sandwiches — with a variety of meat, fish, and vegetarian fillings — sat upon said table, along with a pot of something warm and a bowl of potato chips.

"I told the catering team that I was having a working meeting," Councillor Cadenza explained as she herself took a seat in front of her desk, facing the three young huntresses across the table.

"Thank you, ma'am," said Weiss, who, unlike the other two, hadn't eaten anything yet.

"There's no need to call me 'ma'am,' or 'Councillor,'" Councillor Cadenza admonished. "We're in private, and you're friends of Rainbow Dash, so 'Cadance' will be fine."

"I call you ma'am in this office, ma'am," Rainbow pointed out.

"Then consider this the point made that you don't have to all the time," Cadance said brightly.

Rainbow glanced up, as though the ceiling was going to take offence at the lack of decorum.

That sounded harsh, when the truth was that Weiss understood what Rainbow meant. She probably did call Cadance 'Cadance' in other settings — like this hypothetical family dinner to which she would be going if and when Shining Armor arranged it — but in this office, it was different. Because this wasn't just an office; it was a Councillor's office. It was the office of an Atlesian Councillor.

The majesty of Atlas dwelt within this office.

And yet Cadance had just set it aside, and for Blake too. If she'd done so just for Weiss, then Weiss might, to be honest and a little cynical, have suspected flattery. But she had done so for Blake as well. Which suggested to Weiss that she was genuine in her intentions. She really did want to reduce the level of formality between them.

"Thank you, Cadance," she said. She reached out towards the tray of sandwiches.

Her scroll went off. It was set to vibrate, but that didn't make the buzzing it made to produce the vibrations quiet by any means. Weiss ignored it and picked up a ham sandwich from off the tray. Her scroll continued to go off as she took a bite out of said sandwich. It was a little thin, both in terms of the bread and the filling, but it did not taste bad.

Cadance's eyebrows rose. "Do you need to get that, Miss Schnee?"

"No," Weiss said at once. "It's my father. And, please, call me Weiss." She smiled. "It doesn't seem right that you should address me more formally than I address you."

Cadance did not respond to that; rather — her eyebrows climbing just a little higher up her forehead — she asked, "Is there a reason you don't want to speak to your father?"

Weiss winced. "He … doesn't know how I spent last night."

Cadance's eyebrows were in danger of disappearing from view. "Does he know where you are?"

Weiss hesitated for a moment. "No," she admitted.

Cadance exchanged a glance with her husband.

"Do you want me to guard the door?" Shining Armor asked, a hint of a smile crinkling the corners of his lips.

"No," Cadance replied. "But perhaps we should get this over with before Jacques Schnee calls the police. And yet…" She leaned forwards, resting her elbows on her knees. "I want — I need — to start by commending all three of you for what you did last night. I know that two of you, at least, have experience in going above and beyond your calling as students; I know that two of you have been repeatedly asked to go above and beyond your calling as students. But the fact remains that you did so again last night, without being asked, and even if you had been asked, you would have had every right to refuse. But you didn't, and that does you credit."

Weiss felt a faint blush of pride rising to her cheeks. "Thank you."

"With respect," Blake said, leaning forward herself in turn, "it wouldn't have been necessary for us to do ourselves credit if the authorities here in Atlas had done their jobs."

"Were these disappearances reported to the police?" Shining Armor asked.

"No," Rainbow murmured.

"Then what were the authorities supposed to investigate?" demanded Shining Armor. "How were they supposed to stop disappearances they didn't know were happening?"

"Maybe you should ask why the people of Low Town didn't want to talk to the police, didn't trust the authorities, even as their neighbours were vanishing off the streets," Blake snapped.

"Blake, calm down," Rainbow urged.

"No, Rainbow Dash, it's fine," Cadance said quickly. "There's nothing wrong with being passionate. And it's not as if Blake — can I call you Blake, or would you prefer Miss Belladonna?"

"'Blake' will be fine," Blake said softly.

"You have a point, Blake," Cadance said. "My husband has a point as well, that it is difficult to investigate crimes that haven't been reported, but to use that as a shield, we must, as you remind us, ask ourselves why it is that the people of Low Town prefer to let crimes committed against them go unreported." She let out a sigh. "The truth is, of all the problems confronting Atlas, the greatest, to my mind, is the breakdown of trust in our institutions amongst the people of Low Town and Mantle. The police, the military, even the Council itself, people have lost faith that these institutions are acting in their interests."

"With good reason," Blake pointed out.

"I don't deny that," Cadance replied. "But how to address it? People don't trust the police, so they don't talk to the police; the police don't investigate crimes because the crimes aren't being reported to them; trust in the police falls even further because they're not investigating these crimes; it's a vicious cycle. A cycle that must be broken … somehow." She paused. "If any of you have any suggestions, any at all, I'd love to hear them."

Rainbow glanced aside and scratched the back of her head with one hand. "Well, I mean … it isn't just that crimes aren't reported," she murmured.

"Rainbow Dash?" Blake asked, a rising inflection in her voice.

Rainbow didn't look at either Blake or Cadance. "In Mantle, not too long ago … a friend of Ciel and Neon — that's Ciel Soleil, my teammate, and Neon Katt, a fellow Atlas student — a friend of theirs, an old lady from their church, had her head bashed in by some punk from her block. They found her, they reported to the police, and the police were pretty up front that they weren't going to do anything about it. I don't know whether they're incompetent or underfunded or they just don't care, but if we want people to start trusting the police — and cut the legs out from under Robyn Hill while we're at it — maybe a kick up the backside and a budget increase would be a place to start?"

"'A budget increase'?" Weiss repeated. "After ignoring a murder?"

"I know it doesn't sound good," Rainbow replied. "But if they're under-resourced—"

"I don't suppose you have the name of the officer in question?" asked Cadance, her expression sharpening, even as her voice remained soft and calm and gentle.

"Uh, no," Rainbow admitted. "No, I don't."

"No, I didn't think you would," Cadance murmured. "Still, thank you for bringing it to my attention. It seems the problem may go even deeper than I thought. Anything else?"

"We could get people out of Low Town?" Rainbow suggested. "I mean … it's easy to feel like Atlas doesn't care about you when you're stuck in a crater right underneath Atlas with no light."

"Speaking for myself, I didn't even know that Low Town existed until this errand brought me there," Weiss added softly.

Cadance glanced at her. "That's not too surprising," she said. "After all, you are—"

"A Schnee?" Weiss asked. "So that excuses my ignorance?"

"'Excuses'? That isn't for me to say," Cadance said. "But 'explains'? Certainly."

"There's nothing to excuse," Blake said. "Even if you'd known, what could you have done? The real question is, how many other Atlesians are similarly ignorant?"

"The faunus of Low Town aren't invisible," Rainbow said. "Some of them have jobs that take them up to Atlas: electricians, plumbers—"

"But do the people whose boilers they fix know where their plumber or their electrician live?" Blake demanded.

"I don't know; does anyone think about where their plumber lives?" Rainbow responded.

"I just pay the guy," Shining Armor said.

"Is 'the guy' a faunus?" asked Blake.

Shining Armor hesitated for a moment. "Yes," he admitted.

Cadance glanced at him.

Shining Armor said, "Like Rainbow said, I've never thought about it."

"No," Cadance murmured. "Neither have I."

"If they lived in Atlas, then they wouldn't have any problems," Rainbow declared.

"'Any problems'?" repeated Blake sceptically.

"Well, not nearly as many."

"But how would they live in Atlas?" inquired Cadance. "Where?"

"The farmland?" Rainbow suggested. "It's not like we need it to live."

"That's debatable," Cadance murmured. "And in any case, even if that were true, and even if everyone in Low Town were amenable to such a move — because if even some of them wanted to stay down below you've just made things worse for them — you're talking about compulsory purchase, state-driven redevelopment, resettlement, not to mention the public relations aspect to manage the reactions of the people already living in Atlas. You're talking about battles in the Council Chamber and in public. It will take time, if it happens at all."

"I don't think there's a quick fix for this," Blake pointed out. "If people don't believe that the institutions of Atlas are working for them, then respectfully, might I suggest that the only way to change that perception is for those institutions to work for the people in a sustained way. That is the only thing that will change attitudes and that will take time."

"I don't deny it," Cadance said, "but I was hoping for something that would start to show effects a little faster."

Weiss pursed her lips together. "Rainbow Dash, these people from Low Town who work in Atlas, how do they get there?"

"A shuttle," Rainbow replied. "Why?"

"And how many times does it run?" asked Weiss.

"Twice in the morning, once in the afternoon, once in the evening, once at night, there and back."

"Five trips per day," Weiss said. "And in the meantime, you're stuck, either in Low Town or in Atlas."

Rainbow nodded.

"One thing that could be done more quickly than moving everyone up to Atlas is to perhaps give them the same freedom of movement enjoyed by everyone else," Weiss suggested. "I can't think of anyone else in the kingdom who is so restricted in when and where they can travel."

"You mean more shuttles?" Rainbow asked.

"Or an elevator connecting Atlas to Low Town, there has to be something," Weiss said. "Some alternative to mass commuting at set times. How pleasant are those shuttles?"

"Not very," Rainbow admitted.

"Then surely it's worth at least considering," Weiss said. "It sounds as though almost anything would be an improvement."

"I mean, if we're only talking about improvements," Rainbow added. "Even if the Council doesn't want to spend the lien to get people out of Low Town … I mean, there's a reason I left, and I didn't look back until now. After I'd been in Atlas, after I'd been in Canterlot … I hated going back home; it was dark, it was cold, it was awful; I mean, I didn't like it very much when I didn't know any better, but after I knew better … even if we can't get everyone out of Low Town, could we not at least fix Low Town so it isn't such an unbearable place to live?" She paused, running one hand through her rainbow hair. "If … if we're a shining kingdom, then why do we have people living in the dark? If we're the greatest kingdom in Remnant, then why do we have people living like that?"

Cadance smiled slightly. "'If we are a shining kingdom, then why do we have citizens living in the dark'?" she repeated. "That's very good, Rainbow Dash. You should join my speechwriting staff."

Rainbow snorted. "Thanks, but … no thanks."

"So what would you have in mind?" Cadance asked. "What improvements to make life down in Low Town more tolerable?"

Rainbow's brow furrowed for a moment. "Lights?" she suggested. "An improved heating grid? Real houses, maybe? To be honest, you'd get better ideas if you went and asked someone who actually lived in Low Town, rather than someone who moved out a while back."

"Would you be willing to do that for me?" Cadance asked. "The more specific concepts I can put before the rest of the Council, the better."

Rainbow nodded. "Sure thing."

Cadance glanced at Blake. "Blake, do you mind if I ask you something?"

"What?" Blake replied.

"Given everything," Cadance said. "Given our flaws … why … what do you see when you look at us?"

Blake was silent for a moment. "Are you asking me why I might want to come here?" she asked.

It was Cadance's turn to take a brief pause. "I suppose I am, yes," she said softly.

"Because I'm sitting in the office of a Councillor, discussing what can be done about these problems," Blake said. "And yes, you're right, there are problems, there are flaws. I remember when I first met Rainbow Dash, she talked to me like Atlas was perfect, flawless; I didn't believe that, and I don't think that even Rainbow Dash believes that any longer, in the same way that I don't believe any longer that you're the oppressors of my imaginings. Atlas is flawed, as all the kingdoms of Remnant are flawed — when it comes to the issue of the faunus, and probably a lot of other ways as well. But like I said, I'm sitting in the office of a Councillor, talking and listening to you talk about what can be done to fix those problems, to correct those flaws. I can't think of another kingdom where that would be true. Would I get this kind of an audience in Mistral, or even in Vale?

"Atlas isn't perfect, not yet; it might not even be better than any other kingdom. But it's trying to be, and that … that counts for a great deal." Blake smiled. "And, I have to admit, you do turn out some pretty good people up here in the north."

It was rather subtle, but Weiss fancied that she saw the smile on Cadance's face grow ever so slightly wider as Blake spoke.

She turned her attention back to Weiss. "I'm sorry, Weiss; I said that we would get through your business quickly, and yet, so far, we've discussed everything but your business."

"It's fine," Weiss assured her. "What I have to ask isn't more important than anything else."

"Perhaps not, but getting you home might be," Cadance reminded her. "So, what is it that you wanted to ask?"

"Down in Low Town, there is a family," Weiss said. "A grandmother and two granddaughters. The old woman's name is Laberna Seacole, and she was my mother's nurse, and after that, my own and that of my siblings. My father let her go, and since then … I'm afraid she might be ill. She's definitely poor. I'm well aware that this is favouritism, but this is a woman who solaced the last hours of Nicholas Schnee, who raised his daughter, who raised his granddaughters. If Atlas owes my grandfather a debt — and it does; this kingdom would be nothing if not for the sweat of Nicholas Schnee's brow — then doesn't it also owe something to his faithful servant? More to the point, I've given my word that I would get her — get all of them — out of the squalor in which they live. Which was arrogant of me, I know, because I have no power to make it happen. But you do, and so … in spite of the fact that this is our first time speaking, I was hoping that you would help me."

Which I realise now might also be said to be rather arrogant of me.

Cadance leaned back in her chair. "Two granddaughters, you say?"

"Yes," Weiss replied. "Is that a problem?"

"It does complicate things," Cadance admitted. "A case could be made, as you say, that Atlas owes this Laberna Seacole a debt in respect of her service to Jacques Schnee, but her granddaughters have no such claim on our largesse, and it may be that their grandmother has not long left. It would be a cruel thing to lift the grandchildren out of poverty for a little while only to throw them back again. How old are they?"

"Young," Weiss said. "Younger than I am."

"Hmm," Cadance said. "Do you think they'd be interested in learning how to protect themselves, and possibly even others?"

"I really have no idea," Weiss answered. "Why?"

"Because Canterlot offers bursaries," Cadance said. "Education is free, as Rainbow Dash knows well, but there are grants in place to help with living expenses, and Principal Celestia has been known to do me a favour from time to time. As has General Ironwood, if it comes to it. That will take care of them for a few years, and after that, they may want to go to Atlas, or one of the other Academies, and see where life takes them from there. And the money will help their grandmother, and if she needs help moving then … that can be arranged. In the meantime, I will see about granting Mrs. Seacole a special pension, in recognition of her service to Atlas, but that should take care of her grandchildren even after she's gone."

Weiss gasped. "Just … just like that?"

"Sometimes, things aren't complicated," Cadance told her. "Sometimes, we get the chance to get things done, and to do the right thing quickly and easily. That being said, it isn't quite 'just like that'; I still need to make a few calls. And, of course, the family will need to agree."

"Of course," Weiss said. She hesitated. "Once I get home, I'm not sure I'll be in much of a position to go back to Low Town and speak with them."

"I'm sure Rainbow Dash won't mind being our go between in that, as well, will you, Rainbow?" Cadance asked.

Rainbow glanced at Weiss. "Civis Atlarum Sum," she said. "You can rely on me."

Weiss smiled. "Thank you," she said quietly. "Thank you," she said to Cadance, as she got to her feet. "That is … very generous."

"Offering opportunity to two young Atlesians is generous?" Cadance asked. "No, I'm afraid I disagree: it is … a right that all Atlesians should enjoy, even if they do not."

"All Atlesians," Weiss said softly. "And they are Atlesians?"

"What else would they be?" Cadance replied.

Weiss looked down at the still seated Councillor. "Thank you, once again," she said.

"Don't thank me until it happens," Cadance told her. "And now…"

"Yes," Weiss murmured. "Now it's time for me to go home."

Time to go home … and face my father.

 

[ScipioSmith]

Confined​

"So," Blake asked. "What are you going to tell your father?"

"Not the truth, obviously," Weiss replied. She managed a smile. "Perhaps I'll tell him we had a wild night out."

Rainbow chuckled. "Good luck with that. Although, you know, if you ever want to hang out for real … I can't promise it'll be wild, but it might be fun."

"Thank you," Weiss said. "I'll remember that."

"Do," Blake urged. "We — I, at least — would like it if you did."

Weiss kept the words in mind as she pushed open the front door — there were other entrances that would have been more discreet, but which might also have run the risk of getting Klein into trouble through involvement in her actions, and she didn't want to bring him into this any more than he already was. Having seen what had become of Laberna Seacole since her dismissal, she had no desire to visit the same fate upon Klein.

So she came in through the front, looking around, her blue eyes scanning the hallway and seeing no one about. She pushed the door open just enough to slip through it and stepped lightly inside. Her boots tapped upon the tiled floor, which was unfortunate but, at the same time, unavoidable, the floor being as hard as it was.

There was no sign of Father anywhere. Of course, there would be no avoiding him forever, but at the same time, Weiss was willing to postpone that conversation for as long as she possibly could — preferably until she was physically summoned into his presence.

She began to walk towards the stairs, trying to step as lightly as she could, trying to make as little sound as she could, creeping into her own house like a thief.

The other reason for wanting to avoid encountering Father was that if she could just get to her room, then she could put Myrtenaster away and — assuming that he hadn't searched her bedroom, which was, unfortunately, by no means a certainty — then he need never know that she had taken it with her. However, if she was caught before then, if he saw her with her weapon upon her hip, then it would be very hard to explain why she had it.

After all, it wasn't as though Atlas was so lawless that one needed to go armed about the streets.

It occurred to Weiss that there was a way that she could move about the house while making no sound at all, in spite of the boots and of her footwear. Halfway to the grand staircase, she stopped and concentrated for a moment, and conjured a line of glowing white glyphs, about half an inch off the floor, running in a straight line from where she stood to the staircase, and then ascending parallel with the stairs all the way to the first floor.

Smiling to herself, Weiss leapt onto the first glyph, and from there onto the second, and the one after that, jumping from glyph to glyph as though they were stepping stones she was using to cross a river. She found herself hopping from one to the next, arms out, as though she were playing a game and not trying to escape her father's notice. She did all of this without a sound, her footfalls silent upon glyphs, passing over the floor with all its potential to betray her.

And as she hopped across the glyphs, her ponytail bouncing up and down, Weiss found her thoughts drawn back to her last conversation with Blake and Rainbow Dash, before she took her leave of them to return here.

Yes, it would be rather nice to hang out, wouldn't it? To go out, to leave this house that was so empty, cold and silent, to laugh and talk to … to hang out. It would be rather nice, if only occasionally.

Provided that Father allowed her to leave the house between now and her going back to Beacon.

Weiss reached the top of the stairs. Now a further line of glyphs would carry her down the corridors to her—

"You know that those things aren't allowed in the house," Jacques' voice was cold, and yet at the same time, it seemed to drip with anger like water dripping from melted ice. "Or did you forget that while you were away at Beacon?"

Weiss jumped down off the glyph, which disappeared instantly, and set her feet upon the landing at the top of the stairs. She had not seen her father, but as she landed, he emerged from some shadowy alcove where she had not noticed.

Weiss swallowed. "I'm sorry, Father."

"For using your semblance?" Jacques' asked. "Or for trying to sneak in unnoticed?"

His eyes of icy blue bored into her, chilling her, forcing her to look away from him. She did not respond. There was very little she could say in way of response. The most she could do was deny that she had been trying to sneak in, but that would sound feeble indeed, and he would not believe it. So Weiss waited, still and silent, for him to realise that there was no answer coming.

"Where have you been?" Jacques inquired in a deceptively polite tone. "And look at me when you answer."

Weiss did look at him, looking into his icy blue eyes; she sometimes worried that she had inherited those eyes, not just the colour but the coldness of them. So cold, so devoid of affection. She hoped very much that that was not what other people saw when they looked into her eyes.

"If you ever want to hang out for real…"

No. No, it was not. It couldn't be, or why was she treated with such kindness and affection by so many: Flash, Blake, Rainbow, even Cardin and Russell? It could not all be about the Schnee wealth and influence.

It was none of it about the Schnee wealth and influence. She had to remember that. She had to keep reminding herself of it.

"Well?" Jacques prompted. "Where have you been?"

"I … I met with Councillor Cadenza," Weiss said. It had the advantage of being true.

Jacques' eyebrows rose. "Really?" he murmured. "It must have been a very long meeting, to go on from yesterday until now."

Weiss attempted to suppress a wince. "I've just come from the meeting."

"Hmm," Jacques murmured. "I wasn't aware you knew Councillor Cadenza."

"We were introduced by a mutual friend," Weiss replied. "An Atlas student whom I met at Beacon."

"What's their name, this friend?"

"Rainbow Dash."

Jacques' lower lip — the upper lip was concealed behind his moustache — curled into a sneer. "The Sparkle family's pet project?"

"She's an Atlesian huntress," Weiss replied. "She deserves a little more respect."

"'Respect'?" Jacques' repeated. "She's a gutter rat crawled out of the sewer." He turned away from Weiss, clasping his hands behind his back. "I thought you knew better than to associate with such riff-raff."

"She has the friendship of generals and councillors," Weiss pointed out. "No matter her origins, I think that she has progressed beyond being 'riff-raff.' And besides, I'll make my own choices as to who I associate with."

"Oh, will you now?" Jacques asked, turning to face her once again.

Weiss swallowed. "Yes," she said, her voice trembling ever so slightly. "I will."

Jacques was silent for a moment. "What did you and our esteemed Councillor Cadenza talk about?"

"Nothing … that would interest you, Father, I'm sure," Weiss said softly.

"'Nothing'?" Jacques said. "You had the attention of a Councillor, and you talked of … nothing? I don't know what would be worse, that you're lying or that you're telling the truth. You must have said something."

"We didn't sit in silence, no," Weiss admitted.

"Then I will decide whether or not your topic of conversation interests me," Jacques declared. "Again: what did you talk about?"

How you abandoned someone you should have taken care of, for Grandfather's sake. "The … state of the kingdom," Weiss said. "Why Mantle is so restive, why people don't trust the authorities, that sort of thing."

Jacques was silent for a moment. "Really?" he asked. "I wasn't aware that you were concerned with Mantle, or with the state of the kingdom, for that matter."

"Atlas is my home," Weiss pointed out. "Just because I want to become a huntress doesn't mean that I don't care."

Jacques did not respond to that; rather, he asked, "And before that? Where have you been the rest of the time?"

"Out," Weiss said. "With friends."

"This Rainbow Dash again?"

"Among others."

"And who are they?"

"Flash Sentry, my teammate from Beacon," Weiss said. "And … Blake Belladonna."

She saw her father's eyes widen, although he said nothing. He was silent for a moment, and then a moment more, until, finally, he said, "I see. It must have been quite a night to keep you out all night and into the following morning. I'm surprised you were in a state to meet with Councillor Cadenza after that."

"It wasn't like that."

"I'm glad to hear it," Jacques said. "I'd hate to see you end up like your mother, after all."

The words struck her like a slap across the face; Weiss flinched from them. "Don't worry," she said. "There is no danger of that."

"Excellent," Jacques said. He sighed. "But all the same, I'm rather disappointed, sweetheart. Sneaking out, not answering my calls, I thought that you were better than this. I'm beginning to wonder if you ought to return to Beacon."

"What?" Weiss squawked, alarm raising her pitch. "What do you mean? I have to go back—"

"That school has clearly been a terrible influence on you," Jacques said. "You were such a good girl when you went away, and now, you're leaving home without telling anyone where you're going, you won't answer the scroll — I had no idea where you were; I was frantic to find out what was going on; anything might have happened to you out there. You've clearly fallen in with a bad crowd."

"That's ridiculous!"

"You would never have behaved this way before," Jacques said.

Because I wasn't actually hanging out with friends, and anyway, I never had any friends to go out with, Weiss thought. But the truth was hardly going to help her here — she'd already given her father some of the truth, and as far as she could tell, it hadn't helped at all — and it would only make things worse, in fact.

And she was under no illusions that he was bluffing. He could stop her from attending Beacon, if he wished to do so; she was his, and while she was so, he could dispose of her however he wished. He hadn't really wanted to let her go to Beacon in the first place, and if he thought that it had changed her for the worse … or even if he simply wished to punish her for her behaviour.

"I … I am sorry, Father," she said, bowing her head. "I should have told you where I was going, and I should have answered your calls. But this … it has nothing to do with Beacon."

"No?" Jacques asked sceptically.

"No," Weiss insisted. "It is … it is being away from Beacon, the feeling of not having responsibilities as a team leader—"

"You have responsibilities of another kind," Jacques informed her. "As a Schnee and a member of this family."

What would you know about responsibilities as a member of this family? Weiss thought, but kept the thought to herself. "You're right. I should have remembered. I'm sorry that I forgot it. It won't happen again, I promise."

"No," Jacques said. "It won't."

He smiled. "I'm not upset that you met with a Councillor, of course, even if I do wish that you had met with one who was a little more … selective in the company she keeps, but you should have told me that you were meeting with her beforehand; I could have helped you, discussed what you were going to say to her beforehand."

You could have put your words in my mouth, you mean. "Of course, Father."

"As for…" Jacques trailed off. "Why do you have your weapon with you?"

Weiss' hand twitched towards the hilt of Myrtenaster. "Well … you never know what might happen, do you?"

Jacques tilted his head a little and adopted a tone that might have been taken for worried if she hadn't known him so well. "Sweetheart, don't you see? This is just what I was afraid of. That's why I was so upset when I didn't hear from you, when I couldn't reach you. And you must think of your mother. I don't know what she would have done if I'd had to tell her that something had happened to you. Please, be more considerate in the future."

Weiss swallowed. "I will," she said. "In future, I will let you know where I plan to go … and with whom."

"Good," Jacques said. "That's all I want. To know where you are, and to let you know if your destination and companions are … suitable." He turned away, and this time, he began to walk away. "Run along now. I expect you must be tired after your long night."

"Yes," Weiss murmured, and in that, at least, she had no need to lie.

Having been up all night, she was starting to feel tired, the adrenaline of their battles wearing off, replaced by a sense of weariness. It began to weigh upon her legs as she walked down the enormous corridor towards her room, making her steps leaden and heavy, making her teeter a little in her high-heeled boots. She yawned as she walked, and had to take deeper breaths to make up for yawning.

She made her way through this house as silent as a mausoleum, and made her way back to her own bedroom.

Weiss maintained enough discipline to put Myrtenaster away before she did anything else, but did not possess quite enough discipline to take off her boots before she flopped face-first onto the bed.

She did not quite hit the pillow, but if only she could crawl the rest of the way there…

She'd forgotten to draw the curtains. The sunlight hit her face and eyes.

Weiss screwed said eyes tight shut. She was not moving off this bed.

There was a knock at the door.

Weiss let out a wordless grumble as she raised her head. "Who is it?"

"It's Klein, Miss Weiss."

Weiss tried to stifle a yawn with one hand, but that was hard to do when you were mostly lying face down and had only just about raised your head off the duvet. "Come in, Klein," she managed to say.

The bedroom door opened, and Klein walked in, carrying a tray upon which sat a couple of mugs out of which steam rose lazily. "Good morning, Miss Weiss," he said genially, his tone admitting as little as his words when it came to the fact that Weiss had only just returned from an outing. The way he talked, she might have been sleeping in. "Would you care for some hot coffee?"

Weiss groaned. "No, thank you, Klein."

"Really? I think you could do with it," Whitley observed as he followed Klein in, shutting the bedroom door behind him.

"What I could do with," Weiss replied, "is some sleep."

"You won't need sleep if you have coffee," Whitley pointed out, walking towards her bed with his back straight and his hands clasped behind his back — he looked like Jacques, or perhaps it was fairer to say that he looked like he was trying to look like Jacques. He frowned. "Those boots don't go with that dress," he observed.

Weiss pushed herself up off the bed, if only so that she could better glower at him. "Since when do you know anything about fashion? Women's fashion, at that?"

"I contain multitudes," Whitley replied. "So, how did it go?"

Weiss closed her eyes for a moment and made a conscious effort to banish the effects of weariness, to push them down until she was alone again. It might be Klein and her brother, but she was a Schnee, after all; there had to be standards. She straightened her own back, almost in imitation of her little brother.

She opened her eyes again and said, "We took care of it. Mrs. Seacole has been reunited with her granddaughter, all of the other kidnapping victims have been rescued and returned to their homes, and the … force responsible for the kidnappings has been stopped."

Whitley idly picked up one of the cups of coffee from the tray in Klein's hand. "Thank you, Klein," he murmured, as he crossed the floor and sat down in the armchair next to the cold and unlit fireplace. "'Kidnapping victims'? There was more than one?"

"Several more," Weiss murmured. "You can have that if you want, Klein; I meant what I said."

"Thank you, Miss Weiss," Klein murmured. He took a sip of the coffee before he said, "I hope that you weren't in too much danger."

"It comes with being a huntress," Weiss said. "And besides, I had some friends backing me up."

"You have friends?" Whitley asked, prompting Weiss to narrow her eyes at him.

"More than just Mister Sentry, Miss?" asked Klein.

Weiss nodded. "It turned out that I wasn't the only person looking into things in Low Town. Flash and I ran into a couple of friends from Beacon there, and we joined forces."

Whitley drank some of his coffee. "What was going on down there?"

"I … I'm not sure I can explain it," Weiss admitted. "I'm not sure that I want to describe it to you. I'm not even sure that I want to think about it. But it's over now. We saved everyone that we could, including Primrose Seacole."

"How was Laberna?" Klein asked softly.

Weiss bowed her head a little and let a sigh pass between her lips. "Not good, I'm afraid," she said. "Old. Tired. Forced to live in … it was almost offensive how glad she was to see me. Our family exiled her from Atlas to live in Low Town, and yet, she bore me no malice."

"You did save her granddaughter," Whitley pointed out.

"Even before that…" Weiss trailed off. "It's not like I wanted her to be angry; it's just … I didn't … I can't believe that she was left to live like that."

"I suppose I thought she had a home somewhere in Atlas," Whitley said, "the product of a nest egg from her years of service."

"Her nest egg turned out to be more like a couple of damp twigs," Weiss said, a touch of acid on her tongue.

Whitley's brow furrowed. "Grandfather—"

"Didn't get rich by spending his money, apparently," Weiss's voice was almost a growl. "However, I spoke to Councillor Cadenza, and she has agreed to look into moving the family to Canterlot."

"Why Canterlot?" Whitley asked. "And when did you get the chance to speak with Councillor Cadenza?"

"My friend Rainbow Dash arranged it," Weiss said. "And Canterlot because there is a combat school there, and the Councillor might be able to secure them places and bursaries. It isn't Atlas, but I daresay it's better than Low Town." Not that that would be hard.

Whitley was silent for a moment, looking down into his coffee. "Do you think … do you think she'd appreciate a visit?"

"I'm sure that she'd be delighted," Weiss admitted, "but I'm not sure that Low Town is the kind of place you should be going."

"You went," Whitley pointed out.

"I'm a huntress-in-training; I can take care of myself," Weiss said. "You … can't."

Whitley said nothing, but a scowl settled on his features.

"With respect, Master Whitley, I'm not sure your father would approve of such an excursion," Klein said. "But I might pay Laberna a visit. I … I should have kept in touch after she was dismissed; we used to work so closely together. I should have made time. I hope she can forgive me as easily as she has forgiven the family. Perhaps I could set up a call for you while I'm there."

"Yes," Whitley murmured. "Yes, thank you, Klein; that would be … an adequate substitute. I suppose you're right; I wouldn't want to upset Father, would I?" He looked at Weiss. "Does he know you're back?"

"He met me on the stairs."

"What did he say?" asked Whitley.

Weiss was silent for a moment. "I think I'm basically grounded," she said.

Whitley got to his feet. "Until you go back to Beacon, you mean."

"Yes," Weiss acknowledged. "Until I go back to Beacon."

Whitley walked towards the door, pausing only to put the cup back on Klein's tray. "Well," he said, "that won't be for too long will it? Take comfort that you'll only have to suffer this place for a little while."

"Whitley," Weiss said. "Is something wrong?"

"'Wrong'? No, why would anything be wrong?" Whitley asked. "The Seacoles are back together, and you, it seems, are the hero of the day. Congratulations."

"Whitley—"

"Get some rest, sister," Whitley said, as he reached the door. He glanced at her over his shoulder. "You look like you could use it."

 

[ScipioSmith]

An Invitation to Somewhere​

"I can't believe that you went on a dangerous mission to save the day, and you didn't tell me about it!" Penny said, pouting somewhat.

After leaving Cadance and saying farewell to Weiss, Blake and Rainbow Dash had repaired to Atlas Academy — along with Twilight — and Penny. Penny sat on one of the bottom bunks, her legs crossed and her hands resting upon the mattress in front of her, while Rainbow sat the wrong way on a chair opposite her, leaning upon the back of said chair with her elbows. Twilight sat on one of the top bunks, her legs dangling down, kicking slightly back and forth, while Blake leaned against the wall of the room.

Rainbow was quiet for a moment. "Now, I'm not saying this to be mean, so don't get upset," she said, thereby — to Blake's mind, at least — giving away that whatever came out of her mouth next had at least the potential to be somewhat insensitive, "but why would I tell you about it?"

Penny made a noise of wordless anger. "Because I'm your teammate!" she cried. "For now, anyway—"

"'For now'?" Blake repeated.

"Never mind that at the moment," Rainbow said quickly.

"And you told Blake!" Penny declared. "You told Blake about this, but you didn't tell me! I would have gone and backed you up if you'd asked!"

"I'm sure you would," Rainbow acknowledged.

"Then why didn't you ask me?" Penny demanded. "Blake's supposed to be here on a break, but I'm combat ready!"

"It's not that big a deal, Penny—"

"Yes, it is," Penny insisted. "It is for me! Did you … did you not take me because you didn't think I was up to it? Because Blake is more capable than me?"

"I'm not—" Blake began.

"Yes," Penny said. "Yes, you are. You're so fast, and the way that you move is so graceful; you're almost as fast and as graceful as Pyrrha is, and with your semblance, I think you'd stand a better chance against her than anyone else she's ever gone up against. I'm… watching you is like watching the wind fight. It makes me feel like a rock."

"'No matter how the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow to it,'" Twilight murmured.

Penny looked up, even though she couldn't see Twilight because of the bed set-up. "What does that mean?"

"It's an old Mistralian proverb," Twilight explained. "It means that there are advantages to being rock steady, able to endure the fury around you."

"You mean … like Jaune, with all his aura?" Penny asked. "But that's not me either."

"But you are the big gun on Team Rosepetal," Blake pointed out. "Right, Rainbow Dash?"

"Uh huh," Rainbow agreed. "Blake may have moves, but she can't bust out a massive laser. Your combat capabilities are immense, and the fact that you had one bad match-up under Mountain Glenn doesn't change that. Nor does the fact that Blake and I work very well together."

"So you would rather have Blake backing you up than me," Penny declared sulkily.

"Penny, I spent pretty much the whole of last semester focussing on Blake instead of you," Rainbow said. "I spent more time being Blake's friend than being your team leader. That's on me, not you; it's not a reflection on you in any way; it just means that I'm at a point where I'm more comfortable working with Blake. It doesn't mean that Blake is better than you; it doesn't mean that you're objectively bad. Like I told you, you're incredibly powerful. But at the time, I didn't know that I was going into battle; I thought that we would be looking into disappearances, and so, even though I wanted someone watching my back, I thought that Blake would be better at moving through a faunus community asking questions. Plus, your father wouldn't have approved of me bringing you to Low Town; plus, this wasn't an official Atlas mission; plus, you deserve to rest every bit as much as Blake does; plus, this might have been a White Fang trap even though I was pretty sure it wasn't; all of which being said," Rainbow took a deep breath, "I am kind of sorry you weren't there; we could have used your help fighting those robots."

"Hmph," Penny said. She paused for a moment. "Still, I suppose the most important thing is that it all worked out okay in the end. You saved everyone and stopped the bad guys."

"Everyone that we could save," Blake murmured.

"Take the win, Blake," Rainbow said. "Like I told you, they don't come around too often."

"All the same," Penny added. "I wish you'd taken me with you."

"Well, if I'd known that Weiss Schnee was going to take herself down to Low Town, I might have considered it," Rainbow admitted. "Keeping you out of Low Town doesn't seem so urgent when the heiress to the SDC was walking around there without a care in the world. Although I didn't think it would bother you this much."

Now it was Penny's turn to hesitate. "I've been … a little bit bored," she said. "I would have liked to have had a chance to get out and do something."

Rainbow chuckled. "Is that so?"

Penny nodded. "I kind of miss having Ciel around to tell me what to do."

"It would be nicer to say that you miss having Ciel around to … to fill up your time," Twilight suggested. "Or to give you someone to talk to."

"She did that too," Penny replied. "But she also told me what to do. And I miss that. I'm bored."

"That's life, Penny; get used to it," Rainbow said flatly.

"Rainbow," Twilight said, in a tone of mild reproach.

"What?" Rainbow asked. "It's true. Penny, when you go to Beacon—"

"Wait, Penny's going to Beacon?" Blake asked.

Penny nodded excitedly. "Rainbow and Ciel are going to help me transfer."

Blake blinked rapidly. "Ciel … and Rainbow are going to help you leave Atlas?"

"I love how you're more shocked by me being involved in this but not Ciel," Rainbow muttered.

"Ciel hasn't spent an enormous amount of her time since I met her trying to get me to come here to Atlas," Blake pointed out.

"Because I think that Atlas would be good for you, and you'd be good for Atlas," Rainbow said. "And you agree with me on both of those, or you wouldn't still be here. Penny, on the other hand … doesn't want to be here."

"No?" Blake asked. "I … I can't say that I've noticed that you were unhappy. Perhaps I just wasn't paying enough attention."

Penny smiled. "It's alright," she said. "You had your own problems to deal with. I want … I want to go to Beacon so that I can be Penny, and not a weapon or a science project or a tool. I want to be myself. I want to find out who that is."

Blake felt a smile prick at the corners of her mouth. "That … that sounds wonderful," she admitted. "And of course you'll be allowed to leave, because Atlas would never keep someone in their service against their will, would they?"

"No," Rainbow said firmly. "Atlas wouldn't. At least … the Atlas I know wouldn't, the Atlas that we're working for, the Atlas that Cadance believes in. I've already talked to Cadance about it, and she's on our side, and I'm sure that the General will be on our side as well. On Penny's side, I mean."

"Since you're helping me, it can be your side as well," Penny said.

"Thanks, Penny, but I'm not running any risks," Rainbow said.

Twilight looked a little sceptical at that, but said nothing.

"This is all going to work out splendidly," Penny declared. "Blake's coming here to Atlas, and I'm going to Beacon. It's like a trade." She paused for a moment. "It even excuses the fact that you ditched me and took Blake with you to Low Town: you were practising for life without me when you have Blake instead."

Rainbow grinned. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves; we don't know what's going to become of us next year. Don't get me wrong; I'd love to have you on my team, Blake. You, me, Applejack … we need a fourth person. Ciel will be free too, I suppose, but she might have had enough of me. Hmm. Anyway, the point is that we don't know what's going to happen next year."

"Not least because I haven't actually submitted my transfer papers yet," Blake pointed out.

"But you're going to, right?" Rainbow asked.

"Yes," Blake said, the word tripping lightly out of her mouth; tripping so lightly, in fact, that it made her stop dead.

"Blake?" Twilight asked. "Is everything okay?"

"I…" Blake let out a little laugh. "I was just taken by surprise by how … anticlimactic that was. I thought … I guess I thought that making a decision like this, a decision with enormous implications and ramifications for my future … I suppose I thought that it would feel like a big deal, you know? A dramatic moment. Instead … yes. One word. An answer to a question. An answer to a question, admitting what's been true for a while now; I suppose that's why it feels so … easy."

And it was easy. It had been easy; that was what had been so surprising about it. Blake had expected it to be dramatic because she'd thought it would be hard, but the truth was … the truth was that this was always where she had been going, since she got here in Atlas, since she had started working with the Rosepetals … this had been the road she was on.

There was a strand of thought, a particularly Mistralian thought, that framed destiny as choice. Destiny was not an inescapable fate but a final goal to which you worked and dedicated yourself. Of course, there was a strand of thought across the whole of Remnant which viewed destiny as, well, as an inescapable fate which one could not escape.

Blake … Blake almost felt as though her journey to Atlas, towards this quiet moment, in a quiet room, this admission to a handful of people, had fallen between those stools. She had chosen to walk this road. She had chosen to set off here … well, for a given value of 'chosen' which admitted that her alternative had been to go to prison, but even so, it couldn't be denied that, once she had made her bargain, she had thrown herself into it wholeheartedly. She had taken the road, but at the same time, she had been in denial of where that road led. She didn't have to make a choice just yet, she hadn't committed to anything, she had options, she wasn't signed up, she could walk it back if she wanted to.

Until she looked up and found that fate had drawn her here, inexorably, towards this choice.

Her final goal: to serve the Shining Kingdom and, in its service, to rise high and to learn to wield its power for the good of Remnant and the betterment of the lot of all faunuskind.

Atlas was not perfect. Atlas was flawed, as flawed as any kingdom in Remnant. But Atlas was full of good people: upright, righteous, honourable, and all of them committed to bettering not only themselves but also their kingdom too. Atlas was not perfect, but as long as its people continued to strive to make it so, it would be perfect one day.

And Blake would play a part in that. She would be honoured to play a part in that. She would become a part of this great engine and drive it forwards to greater, kinder, and fairer heights.

"What's there to be dramatic about?" Rainbow asked. "I knew this was coming."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it was obvious."

Blake smiled. "No doubts."

Rainbow shook her head, the grin on her face verging upon smugness. "No doubts at all."

"You know what would make it dramatic?" Twilight asked.

Blake's eyebrows rose. "No."

"Oh, I like the way you think," Rainbow said. "Provided you're thinking what I think you're thinking."

"What are you thinking?" inquired Penny.

"A party," Twilight said.

"What, really?" Blake asked.

"Yes!" Twilight cried. "Come on, you just confirmed that you've made your decision to come to Atlas; we can't just let that pass without comment. We'll get everyone together; I'll call Pinkie—"

"We can't just impose on Pinkie Pie," Blake said.

"It's never an imposition on Pinkie where a party is concerned," Rainbow assured her.

"How can you have the energy for a party after everything that's happened?" asked Blake. "We haven't slept all night."

"We can crash out after the party."

"Stop saying … I'm not going to get away without something, am I?"

"I mean, do you really not want a party?" Twilight asked. "Isn't this something worth celebrating?"

"Yes," Blake said. "Yes, it is. But I'm afraid that doesn't change the fact that, at the moment, all I want to celebrate is my head hitting the pillow in Fluttershy's guest bedroom."

Twilight smiled. "Okay then. We can hold the party later. That way it'll be a surprise."

Blake snorted. "I'll look forward to it. Penny … this is very premature, and we'll have plenty of other chances to say this, and to say goodbye, but … I wish you the very best of luck."

"Thank you," Penny said, "and you too. I know you'll be very happy here."

Blake nodded. "I know I will too."

"Do you need me to walk you out?" Rainbow offered.

"No," Blake assured her. "I'll be fine." She turned to go and was about to approach the door when her scroll went off.

Blake took a deep breath, and answered it.

The face of Sunset Shimmer appeared on her screen.

"Hey, Blake," she said. "How's it going?"

"I'm well, thank you, if a little bit tired right now," Blake replied. "How are you doing? How's the team? How's Vale? How's Beacon?"

"Beacon is emptier than it was in the semester; Vale is … jittery and on edge, but slowly calming down a little bit; the team is great, Pyrrha and Jaune get more in love every day; and I … I am actually feeling a lot better. So, why are you tired? Are you not sleeping well?"

"I'm sleeping fine," Blake said. "We just had a very active night last night."

"'We'?" Sunset said. "Rainbow is keeping you up?"

Blake rolled her eyes. "I make my own choices, Mom."

"Sorry," Sunset said, with a touch of amusement entering her voice. She paused for a moment. "So … how are you finding it?"

"Imperfect," Blake said. "But with the capacity for greatness in it."

Sunset smiled. "You're liking it, then?"

"Yes," Blake told her. "I'm liking it a great deal."

"You've chosen, then?"

"Yes," Blake repeated. "In the end … I was surprised by just how easy it was."

"It's a sign that you belong there," Sunset admitted. "Even if they don't deserve you." Once more, she took pause. "Still … so long as you're happy, right? That's what matters."

"What matters is where I can be of service," Blake corrected.

"Come on, you're not just going to Atlas because you can be of service there; you're going because you enjoy it," Sunset informed her. "And that matters. Even if you are committed to … to being of service, even if you do want to put duty above all else … you'll be happy there too."

"Yes," Blake admitted. "Yes, I think I will."

Sunset nodded. "Good. That's … that's good. That's great news, even as it is also terrible news. They don't deserve you, not at all, but you'll do very well there nonetheless. But if you ever want to come crawling back, I'm sure that you'll find a spot waiting for you somewhere."

Blake chuckled. "I'll miss you too, Sunset," she said.

"You're not leaving yet," Sunset pointed out. "You still have to fight as part of Team Iron in the Vytal Festival."

"I know, I know," Blake acknowledged. "I've … gotten into the habit of premature goodbyes."

"I see," Sunset said. "Actually, I don't, but … premature as it is, I'll miss you too." She sighed. "Can I … where are you, is there anyone around?"

"I'm in the Rosepetal dorm room with Rainbow, Penny, and Twilight," Blake said.

"Hello, Sunset!" Penny called out.

"Hi, Penny," Sunset replied, raising her voice a little, for just a moment. "Actually, that works out really well. I can just tell you all at once."

"Tell us what?"

Sunset took a deep breath. "Blake," she said, "how would you like to visit my homeland?"

Penny gasped. She jumped off the bed and rushed to Blake's side. "Is it time?" she asked. "Is it ready?"

"I just heard from Princess Twilight—"

"'Princess Twilight'?" Blake repeated.

"Right, I didn't mention that bit to you, did I?" Sunset asked. "So, in Equestria, where I come from, everyone who lives there is a kind of … alternate version of a person who exists here in Remnant."

Blake frowned. "I thought that the people who lived in your world … that you were … aren't you all … ponies?"

"Multi-coloured ponies, yes," Sunset confirmed. "But one of those colourful ponies is named Twilight Sparkle, and another is called Rainbow Dash. And there's probably one called Blake Belladonna as well, although I can't confirm that for certain. Still, I think there ought to be, going by the principle of the thing."

Blake's frown only deepened. "So … for every person in Remnant, there is a pony in Equestria?"

"So it would seem," Sunset replied.

"Then why isn't there a Sunset Shimmer here already?" Blake asked. "A Sunset native to this world, to Remnant."

Sunset paused. "You know, that is a very good question, to which I do not have the answer." She grinned. "My uniqueness is so very unique that it transcends universes."

"I didn't ask the question to feed your ego," Blake murmured. "So, let me get this straight … you want me to go to your world? The magical world, filled with ponies?"

"Yes," Sunset said.

"Okay," Blake said. "Why?"

"Because Penny's going, and she could use a chaperone?" Sunset suggested. "Or, more seriously, because I think that you'd enjoy it. Or at least I think that you'd get something out of it."

"It sounds wonderful," Penny said. "Don't you think? A world with all kinds of magic and extraordinary things and … extraordinary creatures."

"A world without hatred," Sunset added. "Without prejudice or discrimination. It might even give you some ideas. Obviously, I can't make you go, but the invitation is open, and I know that Penny will love it, and I really think … I just think you might like it too."

"Are you coming?"

"No."

"'No'?" Blake repeated. "You're sending us to visit your own home, but you're not coming yourself?"

"No," Sunset repeated, seeming reluctant to offer any details on why that might be.

If Sunset doesn't want to talk about it then it must be something … a big deal, at least, whatever it is, Blake thought, deciding that she wouldn't pry further into the matter.

"So," Sunset went on, "what do you say, are you going?"

It was all very sudden. As sudden — more — than the party that had almost been sprung upon her moments earlier. More, because of course this was so much more than a party.

Sudden and unexpected, but tempting at the same time.

She was, after all, being offered the chance to visit another world. Another world. If she accepted, she would get the chance to walk beneath alien skies, to feel alien ground beneath her feet, to speak with alien creatures.

Sunset's people. She would get to see the world that had made Sunset, perhaps even meet her teacher whom she held in such high esteem.

How many people in all of Remnant got offered an opportunity like that? When would she ever get this chance again, if she refused it?

She was being offered the chance to go where no one — or very few, at least — had gone before.

And it was a better world. A world that had realised all the promise that Blake and her new friends sought to realise here in Atlas, in Remnant.

She did want to see that. She wanted to see for itself that it could be done.

She might not live to see true justice and equality in Remnant. She might spend her life working towards it, only to die, like General Colton, with her work unfulfilled, forced to trust the realisation of it to those who came after.

If it were so, it would be no bad thing to have in her mind an image of what she would be working towards, a dream to hold onto, a vision of what the future might be, however far off that future seemed.

"Yes, I'll go," Blake said. "I'll visit your home, and gladly, although I've no idea how."

"Great!" Sunset cried. "Don't worry about that; I've got it all taken care of already."

 

[ScipioSmith]

Equestria​

The airship rattled a little as Penny bounced up and down upon the balls of her feet — and on the floor.

"Settle down, Penny," Rainbow instructed her, calling over her shoulder from where she sat in the cockpit, guiding The Bus down towards the landing pads at the back of the school.

"Sorry!" Penny cried. "I just … I'm just so excited!"

Rainbow grinned. "I get it, believe me," she replied. "Just try not to rip the belly out from the airship, okay? We'll be there in just a little while longer."

"Right," Penny said. She paused for a moment. "Thank you, Rainbow Dash, for bringing me out here."

"What else was I going to do?" Rainbow asked. "Make you walk all the way from Atlas to Canterlot?"

"You're really looking forward to this, huh?" Blake asked. Rainbow couldn't see her in the central section, any more than she could see Penny, but her voice carried into the cockpit, as did her fondly amused tone of voice.

"I … I don't know if I've ever been so excited," Penny confessed. "I mean, we're talking about a whole new world, about magic, about wondrous and wonderful things like I've never seen before! Like no one's ever seen before! A world where…"

There was a moment of silence, a moment where Blake must have been waiting for Penny to continue before realising that she would not. Only then did Blake say, "I have to admit, it does sound idyllic, doesn't it? A world without grimm, without war, without hatred."

"A world where you can be anything you want," Penny murmured.

"That can be this world too, if you want it to be," Blake murmured.

"Maybe," Penny replied. "My father said … he told me that I'd need to come back to Atlas, to get repairs or maintenance. That I'd never be free if that. But in Equestria—"

"Hey, Penny," Rainbow said, cutting Penny off.

She guided The Bus the last few feet down to the ground, feeling only the slightest bump as she set the airship down upon the landing platform. She unbuckled herself and got up out of the pilot's seat, moving to stand in the entrance to the main section where she could see Blake and Penny. Blake was sitting down on one of the benches near the door, while Penny was standing up in the centre of the airship.

"Listen, Penny," Rainbow started again, "don't get your hopes up too much, okay?"

Penny looked at her, her big green eyes blinking. "What do you mean, Rainbow Dash?"

"I mean," Rainbow said, "that it's great to be excited. It feels great. Even when you can't sleep because you're so excited about what tomorrow will bring, so you just lie awake waiting for the morning to come so that you can rush downstairs, that kind of excited; there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that, when whatever it was that you rushed downstairs for doesn't live up to your expectations, then … then you can get really disappointed. More disappointed than you would have been if you had more realistic expectations about what it was going to be like."

"What are you saying?" Blake murmured. "That you don't think Equestria can live up to Sunset's hype?"

"I think if Equestria is that great, then what's Sunset doing living here with us?" Rainbow asked. "I'm sure that it's a great place, but it can't possibly be so much better than what we have here, right? I'm just saying … I want you to enjoy this, Penny; I don't want you to come away disappointed because you were expecting the moon, and you only got a piece of the sky."

Penny was silent for a moment. "I understand," she said softly. "But it's still a world of magic, so it's bound to be pretty cool, right?"

Rainbow grinned. "Yeah, it does sound cool, I admit," she said. "And here we are. Now to find out what we need to do next."

Sunset had told them to go to Canterlot, to the combat school there, and that she would tell them what to do once they got there; Rainbow didn't understand the need for secrecy, but maybe Sunset wanted to keep track of where they were so that she could make the arrangements for Penny and Blake to be met and welcomed on the other side.

Either that, or she just enjoyed keeping them in suspense.

Or maybe both.

Whatever it was, Rainbow got out her scroll and called Sunset, holding out one hand to lean against the frame of the airship as she waited for Sunset to answer.

Penny leaned forward a little, as though she were hoping for a better look at Sunset when she answered; Blake remained seated.

Sunset answered, her face appearing on Rainbow's screen. "Hey," she said. "Are you at Canterlot?"

"We just landed," Rainbow said.

"Are Blake and Penny with you?"

"No, I flew all this way without them," Rainbow said.

"Hey, Sunset!" Penny cried.

"Hi, Sunset," Blake called out.

Sunset smiled. "Is everyone looking forward to a trip to a magical land?"

"YES!" Penny shouted loudly, her voice echoing inside The Bus.

"Sure am," Blake agreed. "We've been discussing if it's going to live up to the hype."

"What, you don't trust me?" Sunset asked.

"Nostalgia can give us rose-coloured glasses," Blake pointed out.

"I guess," Sunset acknowledged. "But in this case, just trust me. You're going to love it. Now, just let me let Twilight know that you're here."

"Twilight?" Penny asked.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle, she's the one who is going to activate the portal so that you can use it. Hang on." Sunset must have put down her scroll, because the view changed to the ceiling of Team SAPR's dorm room at Beacon, while Sunset's face disappeared from the sight of Rainbow's screen. "The reason I wanted you to call me," Sunset went on, her voice disembodied now as it emerged from Rainbow's device, "is that I didn't want the portal to be opened up for too long before you were there, otherwise it could have been discovered accidentally, and anyone could have fallen through into Equestria, and we don't want that, do we? But, now that you're there, I can tell Twilight to activate the portal, and we should be okay. I've just told her now."

"Told her how?" Rainbow asked.

"I've got a magic book that I can write things down in, and the words appear in another book in Equestria," Sunset said.

Rainbow blinked. "Really?"

Sunset poked her head into view on the screen. "Yeah. Blake and Penny are about to travel to a new world, but the idea of a magic book surprises you? It's just like a scroll."

"A magic, interdimensional scroll," Rainbow replied.

"I guess," Sunset acknowledged. "Anyway, Twilight has just told me that she's going to start activating the portal now. She can't tell me when it's actually been activated because she needs to use the book to power the portal itself — I won't bore you with the technical details as to why — but I'm sure that by the time you get over there, the portal will be open for you."

"Get over where?" Penny asked.

"Go to the Wondercolt Statue in the yard," Sunset told them. "You remember where that is, don't you, Rainbow Dash?"

"Sure," Rainbow said, and with her free hand — straightening up first so that she didn't fall over — she hit the button on the wall that caused the side door of the airship to open up, exposing Canterlot to view. It was morning, but not too early: the skies were blue and clear, the sun was high in the sky without approaching the height of noon, the birds were singing. It was a lovely day.

Not that Penny and Blake would be enjoying it for long.

Rainbow leapt down out of The Bus; Penny swiftly followed, with Blake getting up from her seat to follow on after that.

Rainbow locked the door behind her — she meant to go back there and wait for them … well, probably she meant to go back to the airship and wait for them, but in the meantime, she felt it best to shut the airship up anyway.

"It's this way," she said, gesturing with her free hand, holding her scroll up in the other, looking left and right as she walked briskly but quietly — trying to be quiet, anyway — across the school grounds.

"Is everything okay?" Blake asked, glancing around herself.

"Yeah, everything's fine," Rainbow replied. "I just don't want to get caught, that's all."

"Does it matter if we get caught?" inquired Penny. "We're not doing anything wrong."

"Maybe not," Rainbow allowed. "But I don't want to explain to Principal Celestia that you two were on your way to visit a magical kingdom."

"There are worse things that you could be doing," Sunset pointed out.

"They wouldn't sound insane to anyone we tried to tell about them," Rainbow replied.

"Is anyone else there?" asked Penny, as the three of them walked around the side of the combat school.

"Here in the room? No," Sunset answered. "Pyrrha and Jaune left this morning; they're going to visit Jaune's folks."

"That sounds nice," Penny declared.

"We'll see," Sunset muttered. "Ruby's having a private meeting with Professor Ozpin."

"How do you feel about that?" asked Blake.

"Not bad, actually," Sunset replied. "I hope that she gets what she's looking for out of it."

Blake's eyebrows rose. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Yes," Sunset said emphatically. "I've had a chance to think about things. To reflect. To realise that I have made misjudgements. And one of those misjudgements concerned Professor Ozpin. He's a better man that I gave him credit for. Anyway, once Ruby's done with him, then we're going to go out and do … something. I owe her some time."

Rainbow looked up from her scroll. The Wondercolt statue stood directly before her, the marble stallion rearing up on its plinth.

"We're here," she said.

"Great," Sunset said. "Now, Blake, Penny, do you see what looks like a mirror built into the side of the plinth facing the school?"

"I see it," Penny answered.

"Me too," Blake added.

"You need to step through it," Sunset said.

"Excuse me?" Blake asked. "You want us to step into a mirror?"

"It's not a real mirror; it's the magic portal disguised as a mirror," Sunset explained. "Once you step into it, you'll be sucked through and transported to Equestria, emerging out of another mirror in Canterlot — my Canterlot, Equestria's Canterlot. Then you go through that mirror at the end of the day to come back again."

Rainbow looked at the mirror. It looked very mirror-like, and not like a magic portal at all.

"That's all we have to do?" asked Penny. "We just go through the mirror?"

Sunset smiled. "There's not a little dance you have to do beforehand, Penny."

Penny nodded. "Okay then," she said. She clasped her hands together for a moment, then smiled and began to walk up to the mirror.

Rainbow and Blake followed, trailing closely behind her as Penny approached the mirror without stopping, without slowing.

The mirror continued to look like a sheet of glass, and Rainbow couldn't help but half expect that Penny was going to smack into it as she—

There was a flash of light as Penny reached the mirror. Bright light, blinding light, light that made Rainbow turn away for a moment, her eyes closing.

When she opened her eyes and looked again, Penny was gone.

Penny was gone, and there was a slight rippling of the mirror before it settled again.

"My gods," Rainbow murmured. "Penny?"

"On her way to Equestria by now," Sunset said. "I told you."

"Yeah, you did," Blake murmured. She glanced at Rainbow Dash. "I guess I'll see you later then."

The corner of Rainbow's mouth twitched upwards into a smile. "Have fun," she said.

Blake nodded. "Sunset."

"Have a great time," Sunset instructed her.

Blake turned away, and a momentary sudden breeze blew through her long, wild black hair as she too approached the portal.

There was another flash of light, and when Rainbow looked for her, Blake too had disappeared.

"Huh," Rainbow murmured.

"So," Sunset said from out of the scroll. "What are you going to do while you wait for them?"

"I'm going to have to call you back," Rainbow replied, without really replying at all. "Later, Sunset."

"Rainbow—" Sunset was cut off as Rainbow snapped her scroll shut and put it in her pocket.

She walked towards the portal, more slowly than Blake or Penny had, more cautiously; she tilted her head sideways a little as though that would help her to get a better look at it.

It occurred to Rainbow that this wasn't unlike what Doctor Pietro had been talking about when Rainbow went down to see him, that Ground Bridge thing he had been working on, the way to transport people over huge distances.

To transport people across whole worlds.

Rainbow reached out her fingertips towards the mirror, then drew back. She hadn't been invited.

But at the same time…

A world of magic.

A world without war.

A world without grimm.

Rainbow glanced left and right, and over her shoulder too. There was no one around, nobody watching.

She hadn't been invited.

But what was one more visitor? What was the difference between two and three?

Rainbow took one more glance around, took a deep breath, and plunged headfirst into the portal.

XxXxX​

Blake was surrounded by a sea of colours; they danced around her in pink and blue and green and yellow, pulsing as she was pulled along, circling like food going down a drain. She heard someone crying out — it might even have been her — but she couldn't be sure because her head was spinning even more than she was. She only knew that she was being sucked along, being pulled to somewhere down this tunnel of light.

And then, suddenly, everything went black.

It took Blake half a second to come to her senses and realise that was because she had her eyes closed.

"I really, really hope that you're Penny and Blake, or else this is going to be really awkward for everypony."

"Twilight?" Blake murmured as she started to open her eyes.

As her eyes opened so, they beheld a dark blue chamber, with a purple carpet upon the floor on which she lay, soft to the touch of her … why couldn't she feel her fingers? Blake's panic started to rise up in her throat like bile; where were her fingers? Why couldn't she feel them? Why was there just this stump on the end of her arm and why didn't it feel like an arm at all and—

"I'm telling you this because I want you to know the truth, the whole truth, which is—"

"That you're a horse."

"A pony, a unicorn, to be exact."

"But you—"

"Assumed this form, adjusted for age, obviously, when I passed through the mirror. Equestria … Equestria is a magical land full of magical, talking ponies … and so am I."

That was what Sunset had told them, in the dorm room, the night before they had set off for Mountain Glenn. She had told them that the mirror — Blake should have remembered the mirror, instead of being so surprised — had transformed her from a unicorn into a faunus. It made sense, then — eminent amounts of sense, so much sense that she ought to have seen it coming — that the transformation would work both ways, that she, coming the other way, would be transformed into a … into a pony.

Am I a unicorn now?

Can I do magic?

Blake's thoughts were interrupted by a squeal of delight from Penny.

"We look," she cried, "so CUTE!"

Blake turned her head to look at Penny, who did indeed look very cute — and not at all what Blake had been expecting.

Sunset had told her — and told Penny too, presumably — that Equestria was a world of ponies. Yes, it was a magical world, and some of the ponies were unicorns or pegasi who could do magic, and yes, Sunset had even admitted that she had an amber coat, but still … ponies. Horses. Small horses, but horses nonetheless.

And so, if she had thought about it, if she had considered the fact that she might be transformed into another species by this journey, then Blake might have expected to come out — and for Penny to come out — looking like a horse.

Penny did not really look like a horse.

Yes, she was on four legs, but so was a dog and a cat, and you wouldn't call either of them horses; it wasn't even the fact that Penny had a coat of very pale green, the colour of the green stripes on her smock which had mysteriously disappeared, leaving her naked.

No, it wasn't that — that, at least, Blake could have prepared for, given what Sunset had already told them. No, it was everything else.

Penny's eyes were the same colour as they had been, but they seemed to have gotten much, much bigger, until they took up most of her face; or perhaps her eyes had stayed the same size but the rest of her head had just gotten a lot smaller. Her face did not seem particularly equine to Blake; it rose up above the neck rather the descending from it, it was round and soft instead of long, and Penny's nose — or snout — protruded outwards from her face like … like a nose.

Albeit it did not protrude very far; it was rather small, like a button nose. Small and, it had to be admitted, rather cute.

Penny's hair — or should that be her mane? — had come through the mirror completely unchanged: it was the same shade of red that it had been, it had the same well-combed bangs coming down over her eyebrows, it was the same length and was rolled in just the same way at the ends, curling around her face. The pink bow that she wore in her hair seemed to have been the only part of her outfit to make the transition to Equestria intact, although Blake couldn't imagine why it should be so.

Penny's tail was the same colour, and like her hair, it was rolled up at the end before it touched the floor.

A little horn, as green as her coat, softer and rounder at the tip than Blake might have been expecting, emerged from out of Penny's copper-coloured hair — or mane.

She did, indeed, look very cute.

Blake picked herself up — her hooves felt softer than she had been expecting, if indeed you could really call them hooves at all and not simple continuations of her legs — and turned to face the mirror out of which she had emerged into this new world. Unlike the mirror set into the plinth at Canterlot, this mirror was freestanding, a big, old-fashioned sort of mirror that towered over Blake and made her wonder who in this world was so big as to need a mirror this size. It was surrounded by various objects and items — a bellows pump, a large copper canister, wires and tubes, a couple of metal poles glowing with lavender light — that Blake could not guess the use of except that it involved magic somehow. In any case, she found herself less interested in them than she was in her own reflection in the magic mirror.

In body and shape of face, she looked the same as Penny. She looked exactly the same as Penny, all differences between them in height and build having been shaved away in the transformation process. In colour, eye, mane, and tail, they were different, however, as was emphasised when Penny came to stand next to Blake so that they could look at their reflections together.

Blake's coat was a moderate grey, while her eyes were as golden as they had ever been — although, as with Penny, either her eyes had gotten bigger, or the rest of her face had gotten smaller. Her mane was jet black, long and wild and tangled, draping down across her back and down her forelegs almost to the floor. Her tail was shorter, else it really would have been on the floor, but no less wild and unruly to look at.

Blake, like Penny, was naked, but like Penny, it seemed that one accessory had come through the mirror with her unaffected by the magic: the silver honour band Sienna Khan had given her, which yet gleamed upon her foreleg just below her shoulder.

A pair of wings, as grey as the rest of her coat, sprouted from her sides, although 'sprouting' might be a bit of a misnomer considering that they were presently tucked in against her sides.

"This," Blake said, "is not what I was expecting."

"But it's great, isn't it?" Penny said, her eyes seeming to grow ever wider — if that was possible — and gleam with eager gleefulness.

"I—" Blake began, but she was interrupted by their reflections disappearing from view as the mirror began to ripple before them like a pool of water. There was a flash of light, bright light mingled with a blue blur, and as Blake turned her face away from the light, she felt something slam into her hard enough to knock her across the room.

Her eyes were closed, but Blake felt herself hit the floor back first, then bounce upwards, her wings spreading out involuntarily on either side of her before she landed on her belly, legs splaying out on all sides.

She groaned wordlessly.

She wasn't the only one.

"Sorry about that," Rainbow moaned. "I didn't realise that I was going to come out so fast."

"Ugh," Blake murmured. "It's fine, I don't think…" She paused while her brain caught up with her ears. "Rainbow Dash?"

"Rainbow Dash?!" Twilight cried. "What are you…? Wait, you're Remnant's Rainbow Dash, aren't you?"

Blake opened her eyes, and for the first time, she was in a position to see not only Rainbow Dash, but also Twilight Sparkle — Princess Twilight Sparkle, the Twilight Sparkle of Equestria, the Twilight Sparkle who had made it possible for them to be here.

She was familiar in some respects; her eyes were the same shade of violet, although Princess Twilight didn't seem to need to wear glasses — possibly because she didn't spend so much time looking at a screen — and her mane was the same dark purple, with streaks of a lighter shade of the same and a touch of raspberry pink just above one eye — the same colouration applied to her long tail, as well, where it rose upwards in a sort of crescent before descending again. Her mane was even cut the same at the front, with those square bangs precisely sheared off just above her eyes, although at the back, it was not as long as Blake might have expected. Twilight's hair — Blake's Twilight, Remnant's Twilight — was, when she wasn't wearing it up in some form of bun, so long as to reach down to her waist, after all, but Princess Twilight's mane seemed shorter, curling around her ears in a way that the other Twilight's hair never did. Her coat was lavender, and the horn that emerged out of her mane was longer and sharper at the point than Penny's was, while the wings that were unfurled behind her seemed bigger than Blake's.

In fact, Princess Twilight seemed to be taller than they were; she was quite possibly the tallest pony in the room.

She was certainly taller than Rainbow Dash, if not by much; it was possible to compare their heights as Rainbow got up, and Twilight was definitely bigger, which seemed wrong somehow. Rainbow seemed to have been made into the same height as Blake and Penny, given the same build as them besides in a way that seemed to Blake almost unnatural, if that word had any meaning in their current situation.

Rainbow Dash was blue, cyan possibly, and like Blake, she had a pair of wings tucked in on her flanks. Her eyes were magenta, and she had retained the rainbow colours of her mane — and her new tail — and the same style too, spiky and messy and reaching down to just below her neck.

She had only one set of ears, Blake realised; she and Rainbow Dash each had only one set of ears, equine ears rising up out of their hair.

At least I don't seem to have any trouble hearing anybody.

"Guilty," Rainbow said. "Hey, Twi." She paused. "No, wait, we haven't actually met before, have we?"

"Uh, no, we haven't," Twilight murmured. "What are you—?"

"What are you doing here?" Blake asked.

Rainbow glanced at her. "Well, it didn't seem fair that I flew you both out here and I don't get to see this place for myself just because Sunset doesn't think I deserve a field trip."

"Well, I guess the more the merrier," Twilight said, with a touch of — slightly nervous, perhaps — laughter in her voice. "There's no one else you're expecting to come through, is there?"

"Not that I know of," Rainbow said.

"Great," Twilight said. "Then let's shut this portal off for now so that that stays the case."

Her horn began to glow, a purple light surrounding it in the same way that Sunset's hands would light up whenever she used her magic — so they didn't use their hooves for magic, huh? As Twilight's horn glowed, so too did the brown leatherbound volume emblazoned with Sunset's emblem on the cover, which Twilight levitated out of its perch on top of the mirror and onto a gleaming white table in the corner of the room.

Twilight cleared her throat, and smiled at them. "So, welcome to Equestria! I recognise Rainbow Dash, but which of you is Penny, and which of you is Blake? You are Penny and Blake, right? I asked earlier, but you didn't answer."

"Salutations! I'm Penny! It's a pleasure to meet you!" she said with a wave of her hoof.

"And I'm Blake," Blake said. "Blake Belladonna. Thank you for having us."

Twilight's smile faltered slightly. "Sunset's told me about what you've been through; to be honest, I can hardly imagine it, or what it must have felt like. Sunset thinks that coming here, if only for a little while, can help you, and I hope that's true.

Penny raised one hoof, swaying a little on her remaining three legs but ultimately keeping her balance. "Excuse me, Princess Twilight?"

"Just Twilight will be fine, Penny," Twilight said. "There's no need to stand on ceremony."

"Twilight," Penny said, "why do Rainbow and Blake have those marks on them but I don't?"

Blake looked around for the mark to which Penny was referring, finding it on the thigh of her rear leg: her emblem, the black belladonna flower, although to be honest, she had always thought it looked as much like a dark flame as it did a plant.

Rainbow had her symbol too, in the same place: the cloud, with the streak of rainbow lightning shooting jaggedly out of it. Twilight had a mark too: the six-pointed star, with five lesser stars arrayed around it like consorts.

But on Penny's flank, there was nothing, nothing at all, just a pale green coat.

"Interesting," Twilight murmured.

"Do you know why it is?" Penny asked. "Is it because I … because I'm not … because I'm a—"

"I'm sure that isn't it, Penny," Rainbow said with a glance at Twilight.

"Indeed, I think there's a much simpler explanation," Twilight declared. "Those symbols are called cutie marks, and ponies aren't born with them. We're all born like you, Penny, with a blank flank. Cutie marks manifest sometime in foalhood, although exactly when varies; some ponies develop faster than others; the point is that a cutie mark appears when a pony discovers their…"

Penny leaned forward a little. "Their what?"

"Their special talent is the usual way to phrase it," Twilight explained. "For example, my special talent is magic."

"That's rather broad," Blake murmured. "I thought this was a land awash with magic."

"It is," Twilight replied. "But for most unicorns, the limits of their magic are defined by and related to their special talent as defined and represented by their cutie mark; so, my friend Rarity has a talent for—"

"Beautifying things," Rainbow said.

Twilight smiled. "Of course, you know a Rarity in your world too, don't you? Yes, and so, that talent informs the nature of her magic: she can use it to find precious gems hidden under the earth, and she possesses an incredibly deft and precise telekinesis that she can use to stitch together stunningly elegant and finely detailed dresses. I, on the other hoof, because my talent is magic, have access to a much wider possible range of magical abilities. Pretty much any kind of unicorn magic is open to me, if I'm willing to study it."

"Which you are, because you're Twilight Sparkle," Rainbow said. "A Twilight Sparkle, anyway."

"So I have a blank flank because I haven't figured out what my talent is?" Penny asked.

"That could be it," Twilight allowed. "Although I've come to find that the standard formulation around special talents is … a little limiting, and not altogether precise. It puts more focus upon the discovery than I think is warranted; it seems to me that what is really important in the acquisition is not discovery, but rather, acceptance; acceptance of who you are, of the path that you want to follow, of what you want to give to the world around you. If you're still a blank flank, Penny, I think the most logical explanation is that you haven't found out who you want to be just yet."

"I … I see," Penny murmured. "It must be nice to have something that tells you that you've made the right choice."

"When you make your choice," Twilight replied, "I think you'll know, even if a cutie mark doesn't appear on your thigh."

Rainbow scratched the back of her head with one hoof. "So … Penny … how do you … feel?"

"What do you mean, Rainbow Dash?" Penny responded. "I feel fine."

Rainbow frowned. "I mean, are you … did the magic mirror … are you still a robot?"

Penny didn't answer for a moment. "I … yes, yes, I think I am, but … I'm not the same robot, if that makes sense. It's as though my systems have been rerouted, or my pathways have become redundant; I don't have access to some systems, but I have access to other whole new systems. I can…" She screwed up her face, wrinkling her nose, scrunching her expression up in concentration, as her horn began to glow with a green light.

It was faint at first, nothing like the light that had illuminated Twilight's horn, nothing like the like that surrounded Sunset's hands, but as Penny concentrated, as a wordless noise emerged from out of her mouth, a growl of effort, the light around her horn grew brighter and stronger. Soon, the light had spread, surrounding the book with Sunset's emblem on it, the book that Twilight had placed upon the table.

Penny closed her eyes, and the book was lifted off the table, lifted by no hand but by magic, up into the air.

Rainbow gasped. "Yeah! Open your eyes, Penny, you're doing it!"

"I am," Penny whispered, opening her eyes. "I am! I am !"

She began to laugh for joy, laugh like a child as she began to wave the book around the room, turning it in lazy circles around her head like a bird seeking a mouse in the field. Her eyes were wide, and a bright light shone within them.

The glow of her magic was reflected in those eyes and made them sparkle.

"I am," Penny repeated. "I'm doing magic."

"Yeah, you are," Rainbow murmured, a smile growing upon her face.

Twilight chuckled. "So," she said, "are you ready to get out of this room and see a little bit of Equestria?"

"Just a moment," Blake said. "So, you're not the Twilight Sparkle that we know in Remnant; you're a different Twilight Sparkle."

Twilight nodded. "That's correct."

"Right," Blake murmured. "So does that mean that we all have counterparts in Equestria? Is that something that we need to worry about? What if we run into our counterparts? Is it going to—?"

"Cause a paradox that will destroy the world?" Rainbow guessed.

"I was going to say 'will it cause anyone to freak out,'" Blake said with a glance at Rainbow Dash, but then her head whipped around with a severely concerned expression back to Twilight. "Will it cause a world-ending paradox?"

"I wouldn't have let you come here if it would," Twilight pointed out. "I'd like to help you and do Sunset a favour, but not to that extent."

Rainbow let out a nervous laugh. "Yeah, of course."

"Fortunately, Equestria's Rainbow Dash is a friend of mine," Twilight said.

"Really?" Rainbow asked. "Even in another world, we found each other?"

Twilight nodded. "We all did. Me and y— me and my Rainbow Dash, I mean, and Fluttershy and Pinkie and Rarity and Applejack. As I say, since Rainbow Dash is my friend, I think she'll be okay with meeting another version of herself, which is good, because I asked her to join us later. She'll probably think that it's pretty cool, actually. As for you two … I did some research, some looking around as to who your counterparts were, but I'm afraid I couldn't find any information about a Penny Polendina. But I was able to find out about your counterpart, Blake, and we won't have to worry about meeting the other Blake."

"Won't we?" Blake responded. "Why? Does she live somewhere else?"

It was strange; objectively speaking, it made absolutely no difference to her what this other person, this pony who just so happened to bear the name Blake Belladonna, did or thought or who she was or how she lived. And yet, at the same time, she wanted to know. She wanted to know very much because, even though this was someone else, a different person with their own life who had grown up in a completely different world, at the same time, it was still her. She had the name Blake Belladonna, she looked like her … their souls shared a common root. All right, Blake had no proof of that, it was pure speculation, but it was speculation informed by … well, look at Rainbow Dash! Look at Twilight! Rainbow had said it herself: even in another world, they found each other.

Blake wasn't the kind of person to believe in destiny; her parents and Sienna Khan might have brought her up in a manner that was at least partly Mistralian, might have passed onto her certain elements of the Mistralian culture alongside the 'native' culture of the faunus that had been preserved or recreated by historians and antiquarians after the war, but the Mistralian sense of destiny was lost upon her. She would make her own fate, for herself and her people, by her actions. But Twilight, Rainbow Dash, the fact that they had found each other even in another world … if that didn't suggest some numinous force at work, then what would?

Finding out about this other Blake, her other self … it felt like discovering the outcome of the road not taken. Another life she could have had, a life she might have known if she had … if things had been different, if she had been born not into a world of struggle but of peace.

Twilight's horn flared with a lavender aura that enveloped it, and also enveloped the folded-up newspaper sitting on the table by the door, the newspaper that rose at Twilight's magical command and floated over to Blake. "I found this in a Manehatten newspaper. To be honest, it wasn't particularly hard to find."

Blake looked at the paper that was being held up before her eyes. Twilight had already conveniently highlighted around the edge of the relevant article, circling it in bold red pen.

Heiress to Wed Corporate Successor​

The business world and Manehatten society were delighted by the announcement yesterday of the engagement of Miss Blake Belladonna and Mister Adam Taurus.



Blake froze. Her eyes widened. Engagement? The other her was marrying Adam? The other Adam, another Adam true, but still … marrying Adam? Didn't she realise what he was? Couldn't she see? Why was the other Blake being so foolish?

Even as her eyes continued to read, Blake's mind was halfway to planning a rescue mission.



Miss Belladonna is the only daughter of the steel magnate Ghira Belladonna



Magnate? My father is Jacques Schnee in this world?



and has been a darling of the Manehatten scene since making her debut last year; she has often been seen in the company of Mister Taurus, and friends described the news of the engagement as far from unexpected.



I'm Weiss in this world?



Adam Taurus started with the firm as elevator boy and, with grim determination, worked his way up to the top. It was also announced that, following the wedding, planned to take place next summer, he will become general manager of the entire vast Belladonna Corporation; Mister Belladonna intends to take a step back from the day-to-day business of the organisation and devote his time to his philanthropic ventures.



Adam is the Jacques Schnee of this world? Blake thought, remembering what Weiss had told her about her father.

There was a picture underneath the article. It was a photograph of the other Blake — who looked exactly like Blake did now, except that her hair was arranged into a controlled and elegant beehive on top of her head — and a scarlet unicorn with Adam's eyes. They looked like they were at some kind of party; Adam was wearing an old-fashioned suit, with a carnation in his buttonhole; Blake was wearing a purple gown that billowed out around her hindquarters, and a necklace of black pearls clasped around her grey neck.

There was no brand on Adam's face. There didn't look — and Blake admitted it was hard to tell from a single photograph — to be any of the scars on his soul that had so ruined the once good man that she had known. The Adam and Blake in this picture looked as though they hadn't a care in the world. They were smiling, no, laughing at something that one or the other had said. And the way they looked at one another, with Adam looking down at Blake and Blake looking up at Adam, and in their eyes, Blake saw nothing but adoration for one another and contented happiness in one another's presence.

This Adam Taurus of Equestria had not been born into darkness, brutalised in the mines, had his dreams crushed before his very eyes. He might not have been born to great wealth and station — not if he had started as an elevator boy at least — but he had worked hard, and his hard work had paid off: he had won the kingdom and the hand of the princess, and it was difficult at this remove to say whether it was his wooing or his work ethic which had paid the greater dividends in winning both. This Adam Taurus would not die in the same darkness that had birthed him, consumed by hatred and resentment; this Adam would never be forced to take up arms against a sea of sufferings because, in this world, there had been space for him to thrive.

And what of the other Blake, this Blake who reminded the Blake who stood and read of her more of a kind of Weiss Schnee than she did of herself? This other Blake, the other her that Blake didn't know and would never meet, had never had to learn to fight or kill; she had never grown up in a world where it was kill or be killed, never had to worry about the twin menaces of the grimm and the Atlesian military. What did she do all day, in this world where there were neither monsters nor prejudices to be fought? What would Weiss do if all the grimm in Remnant were suddenly to disappear in a snap? Did this other Blake support her father in his philanthropy? Did she devote herself to music, art, literature? Did she simply sit around all day looking pretty? Whatever the choice, the point was that she — the other Blake — had a choice in a way that Blake never had. Had possibilities in a way that Blake never had.

Blake realised she was crying. Tears fell from her eyes down her little snout.

"Blake," Twilight murmured, as she put the newspaper away. "I'm sorry, I didn't—"

Blake shook her head. "It's not like that," she said quickly. She smiled, even as her eyes continued to water. "She's happy. She looks so happy."

Penny reached out and placed a hoof upon Blake's shoulder. Rainbow watched her, but at times seemed not to want Blake to notice that she was watching her, turning her head away and glancing at Blake out of the corners of her eyes.

Twilight smiled gently. "Welcome to Equestria. All of you. Now, what do you say that we get out of here, and I show you a little more of Canterlot?"

"That sounds wonderful," Penny said.

"Sounds good to me," Rainbow added.

Blake wiped at her eyes with one hoof. "That … yes, of course. Let's do that. Let's see if this place is all that Sunset made it out to be."

Twilight laughed. "I'm not sure what she's been telling you, but I hope you like what you find out here."

Her horn flared again, and the door opposite the mirror opened, revealing a corridor decorated in the same dark blue as the room in which they stood.

"If you'll follow me," Twilight said, and turned away from the three visitors from Remnant to walk out into the corridor. Penny followed eagerly, a beaming smile upon her face.

Blake found herself hesitating for a moment, remaining where she was, taking a moment to compose herself. She took a deep breath, and then another.

Rainbow Dash approached. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," Blake assured. "Yes, I'm fine, I just … if you knew that if things were different, you could have had a completely different life, free from hardship—"

"What makes you think I didn't?" Rainbow asked. "You don't think this other Rainbow Dash grew up in a slum, do you? I mean, I hope not, after all that Sunset talked up how great this place is."

Blake snorted. "That's a very good point," she conceded.

"It happens from time to time," Rainbow said. She reached out and booped Blake on the snout with one hoof.

"Hey!" Blake cried, recoiling slightly. "What did you do that for?"

Rainbow shrugged. "I don't know, it just … it seemed like the right thing to do at the time."

Blake's eyes narrowed.

"I just wanted to see what it would feel like, okay?" Rainbow said.

Blake shook her head. "We should probably catch up with Penny and Princess Twilight."

"SALUTATIONS!"

"Yeah," Rainbow said. "Yeah, that's probably a good idea."

They emerged out of the room and trotted swiftly down the corridor, following the sound of Penny's cry until they came across her, having cornered the equine equivalents of Pyrrha and Ruby.

The magical mirror had erased all height differences between Blake, Penny, and Rainbow Dash, rendering them exactly the same in body shape, distinguished only by whether they had horn or wings, but it appeared that Pyrrha Nikos was a statuesque stunner in any dimension.

She was a cream-coloured unicorn, tall and slender, noticeably taller not only than Penny, but also the taller Princess Twilight too; she towered over Penny, over every pony in the vicinity; even her horn was longer, and sharper at the point besides. She also had a noticeably slender build which Blake found strange. Pyrrha might not be the strongest girl in their year physically, but only Rainbow Dash had more visible definition on the muscles of her arms. And yet, this Pyrrha, the pony Pyrrha, had incredibly thin, stick-like legs, as though that was the trade off that she had to make for being so tall. And yet, it was unmistakably Pyrrha; her long red hair proved that, tied back into a ponytail that flowed behind her, resting on her back a little before cascading down her flank to almost touch the floor. That, and her vivid green eyes. That, and the fact that she was wearing a gleaming golden circlet upon her brow.

Ruby, on the other hand — or other hoof, in this particular world — was wearing a helmet, a gilded helmet with a blue crest which made her look a bit like Flash Sentry and made it difficult to see her mane. You could see her eyes though: eyes of pure silver, gleaming in a coat of red.

They both wore gleaming gilded cuirasses, covering their chests and backs.

They were both always backing away ever so slightly, confused and apprehensive looks in their eyes as Penny followed them. She had managed to get herself up onto her hind legs, and her snout was pressed against Pyrrha's.

"I can't believe I get the chance to meet other versions of the two of you!" Penny cried. "And you both became… whatever the right word is, but it shows that you both still want to help people and that's so cool! Are you dating Jaune in this world too, Pyrrha? Is he taking you to visit his family?"

"J-Jaune?!" Pyrrha cried. "D-dating? Visit Jaune's family?"

"It's so good to see both of you!" Penny declared, wrapping her forelegs around their necks and pulling them into an embrace.

Ruby let out a strangled sound, her own forelegs waving. "Princess Twilight," she said, her voice strangled and strained. "What's going on?"

"Uh," Twilight murmured. "You see, um—"

"Penny," Rainbow said, as she and Blake drew near. "Come on, Penny, let them breathe. Remember, just because you recognise them doesn't mean that they recognise you."

Penny looked at her. "What do you mean? Why would … oh. Oh! Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" she yelped, releasing Pyrrha and Ruby and backing away from both of them. "I'm so, so sorry, I… I thought that you were someone else!"

"'Someone else'?" Pyrrha repeated. "But … but Jaune—"

"It's very complicated," Twilight said, stepping in. "Please, don't tell anyone about this; it's … it's something of a secret. And it would be best if it stayed that way."

Pyrrha and Ruby glanced at one another.

"You can rely on our discretion, Princess Twilight," Pyrrha said, bowing her head.

"Not a word will pass our lips!" Ruby added.

"Thank you," Twilight said. "I, uh, yes, thank you. Um … come along, everypony." She turned away and continued on down the corridor.

Penny followed, glancing apologetically towards the pony Pyrrha and Ruby.

And this time, Blake and Rainbow followed on afterwards.

XxXxX​

Pyrrha and Ruby watched them go.

"One of those was Rainbow Dash," Ruby observed. "The Element of Loyalty. I didn't recognise the other two, though."

"I'm sure that Princess Twilight has many friends besides the bearers of the Elements," Pyrrha murmured. "She is the Princess of Friendship after all."

"Yeah," Ruby agreed. "I wonder what that was about though."

"I've no idea," Pyrrha said softly. "And we probably shouldn't ask." She looked away from the Princess and her companions.

"Jaune's family," she whispered.

"Huh?"

"Hmm?" Pyrrha asked, realising abruptly that she'd said that out loud.

Ruby grinned. "You were thinking about what she said, weren't you?"

"N-no, I…" Pyrrha sighed, hanging her head a little. "It would be wonderful," she murmured, "to be taken to see his family."

It would mean … it would mean that he valued her, saw her as somepony who could become a part of his family.

Of course, it would help if she could work up the nerve to ask him out first.

But he didn't see her in that way. She was too tall, perhaps.

"We should continue with our patrol," she said, turning away and leading Ruby in the opposite direction to the princess, her friends, and the strange words that she had spoken.

XxXxX​

"So," Rainbow said, "is this your palace, Twilight?"

"No," Twilight said, "my palace isn't nearly as big as this. Not that it isn't quite big and grand enough; I still get lost there sometimes. Although that might have something to do with the fact that I just don't go into large parts of it unless I have to, and so I've never really learned the layout of a lot of it. I can find my way between the rooms that I visit, but I guess that when I'm asked to venture off the beaten path, I'm still a little hopeless."

"Why are you leaving parts of your own palace empty and unused?" Blake asked.

Rainbow grinned. "Must be nice to have so many rooms that you don't need to use loads of them."

"You'd think," Twilight said, with a slight sigh in her voice.

"Is something wrong, Princess Twilight?" asked Penny, uncertainly.

"No," Twilight said. "I mean, not anymore. There was a time when the whole palace felt wrong. Not this palace, of course; I'm talking about my palace."

"What was wrong with it?" inquired Rainbow Dash.

"It didn't feel like my home," Twilight replied. "The library was my home; it was where I lived when I first came to live in Ponyville—"

"'Ponyville'?" Blake repeated.

"It's a town, not too far from Canterlot; it's where I spend most of my time," Twilight explained. "It's where I was sent by Princess Celestia to study the magic of friendship. And I did that from the Golden Oaks Library, until it was destroyed, and I got my palace — it's a bit of a long story. Anyway, the point is … the palace didn't feel like my home. It didn't have the bed that I used to sleep in, it didn't have the books that had surrounded me, it didn't have the memories that I'd made there; it was just … it was just a big, cold, palace that I had to live in now."

"But now?" Penny pressed. "Things changed, didn't they?"

"Yeah," Twilight said, a smile blossoming upon her face. "My friends changed things."

"Yeah, they did," Rainbow said, as though she had been one of the friends in question.

"You realise you're not included in this, right?" Blake murmured.

"I know," Rainbow replied.

"What did they do?" inquired Penny.

"Got me out of the palace for a spa day and then secretly fixed up the place while I was out," Twilight explained. "I think it took them a while, although they could tell the story of this event far better than I could, because I wasn't there, obviously, but when I got back … they'd made my castle a home." She chuckled. "And that's why I'm the proud owner of the only palace in Equestria with a tree stump for a chandelier."

Rainbow frowned. "A tree stump? I don't follow."

"The library was a tree," Twilight explained. "Sorry, I should have mentioned that earlier."

The three visitors from Remnant looked at one another.

"You lived in a tree?" Blake said.

"It was a rather big tree," Twilight said.

"Well, I suppose that makes all the difference, doesn't it?" Blake murmured dryly.

"What was it like?" Penny demanded. "Living in a tree, I mean?"

"It wasn't actually something I noticed from day to day," Twilight said. "I mean, it wasn't like I was sharing it with woodlice or anything else. It wasn't like living in the nasty, cold, draughty, jagged edges inside of a tree, no, this was a pony house, and that means comfort. It just so happened to be a home carved out of a hollow tree. But it still had walls and bookshelves and a cellar and an upper floor and a balcony where I could stargaze with my telescope."

She chuckled again. "Although I ended up carrying my telescope out to one of the hills around Ponyville as often as not, because the balcony wasn't that big, and stargazing is one of the many things that it turns out is better with friends. I remember this one time, a shower of meteors was due in the night sky overhead, and so we all got together on top of the highest hill close by Ponyville, a beautiful view of the whole town, except that most of the village was actually around the hillside with us. All my friends were there, and Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, and for a long time, we just stood or sat, and we ate the snacks that Applejack and Pinkie had made, and we talked about … about nothing really. About nothing and yet about everything at the same time. And then the shooting stars began to blaze across the sky, shining so bright, even as she shined so briefly. I remember Scootaloo climbed up onto you— onto Rainbow Dash's back so that she could get a better view of them." She paused for a moment. "Sorry, that story doesn't really have much of a point to it; it's just a pleasant memory."

"Don't worry," Rainbow assured her. "I get it. I think we all do."

Twilight glanced at her. She cleared her throat. "Anyway, the answer to your original question is no, this is not my palace; this palace belongs to Princess Celestia, and to her sister Princess Luna."

"'Princess Celestia'?" Blake repeated. "She's the one who taught Sunset, right?" Blake didn't add that she was the same one, in that case, whom Sunset had run away from.

"The very same," Twilight confirmed. "She taught Sunset, and then when Sunset had … gone away, she taught me too."

"Twi, um, Princess Twilight, can I ask something?" Rainbow said. "Without meaning to be rude or anything, but what are you? Penny is a unicorn, and Blake and I are pegasi, but what are you? You've got wings and a horn."

"I'm an alicorn," Twilight said.

"A what?" Blake asked.

"An alicorn," Twilight repeated. "A… alicorns combine the strengths of all three pony races, unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies; that's why I have the horn of a unicorn, the wings of a pegasus, and—"

"And you're bigger than the rest of us like an earth pony?" Penny guessed.

"Not all earth ponies are larger," Twilight corrected. "But I suppose you could say that it's representative of that aspect of me now."

"That sounds very special," Penny declared.

A faint blush rose to Twilight's cheeks. "I suppose you could say that. Thanks to Princess Celestia's tutelage, and to the lessons that I learned from my friends in Ponyville, I was able to ascend to become an alicorn, and a princess."

"Are all princesses alicorns?" Penny asked.

"At the moment, yes."

"Including Princess Celestia?"

"That's right," Twilight confirmed. "Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are both alicorns, of much greater lineage and power than myself. Princess Celestia not only taught Sunset and I, but has ruled over the whole of Equestria for over a thousand years."

"What?!" Rainbow exclaimed. "Seriously?"

"You sound so surprised," Twilight noted.

"It is a thousand years," Blake pointed out. "People don't usually live that long in Remnant."

"Ponies don't usually live that long here in Equestria either," Twilight said. "But Princess Celestia — and Princess Luna — are exceptions. They're immortal, as far as I know." She paused for a moment. "All that we have, all that we are, all that is good and wonderful in Equestria is testament to the success of Princess Celestia's rule and how fortunate we are to have her watching over us. Oh! Here we are!"

They had come to the end of the corridor, with a door guarded by two ponies whom Blake did not recognise, but who bowed to Twilight as she drew near. Twilight gave them a slightly strained smile, before her horn flared, and she pushed open the dark doors.

The now open doorway revealed a room that was both long and narrow and at the same time absurdly spacious. It was narrow in the sense that it was much longer than it was wide, and so seemed from this angle to form rectangle, but even though it was much longer than it was wide, one had only to look at the size of it — one had only to consider what little of it Blake could see from here — to realise that there was no dangerous of running out of space. And that was before one stopped to consider the height of the ceiling, which was enormously high, especially by the standards of the ponies that they had all become, but even if they were small by the standards of their kind — which it did not seem they were — twenty pony Pyrrhas stacked on top of one another like the tiers of a cake could not have gotten anywhere near that vaulted ceiling.

Columns of marble, or perhaps a pale porphyry, lined the walls, while the floor gleamed, save for where it was covered by the long red carpet that ran lengthwise across it to the raised dais upon which sat the throne.

The throne which was, at the moment, empty. In fact, the whole room was empty, bereft of any ponies but them, silent as a crypt as Twilight led them in.

Between the columns, upon the walls, were many windows of stained glass, some depicting geometric shapes that might — Blake had no way of knowing for sure — reflect the moment of sun and stars, some depicting the sun shining down upon rolling green fields or equally rolling and rollocking blue waves. And others still—

"That's you!" Rainbow exclaimed, pointing at one particular window. "That's all of … that's all of you. All of your friends."

Blake followed Rainbow's pointed hoof. She heard Penny gasp softly behind her as they beheld the object of Rainbow's surprise.

The window did indeed depict Princess Twilight Sparkle, and the pony Rainbow Dash, and the equine counterparts to Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack as well. They were all easily recognised by their manes, which they wore in much the same style as the people Blake knew wore their hair. The ponies were all depicted upon a field of green, each surrounded by a halo of lavender, a halo which was shooting forth beams of energy towards the most ungainly creature that Blake had ever set eyes upon, a creature that was an amalgam of many different animals, with the body of a serpent and one claw of a bird and other bits and pieces that Blake couldn't even begin to guess at. He was surrounded by what looked like an explosion of lavender as the beams struck him, and his pose and expression made it seem as though he had been shocked.

Twilight let out a little nervous laugh. "Yeah," she murmured. "Yeah, that's me. Princess Celestia likes to celebrate my accomplishments. Our accomplishments."

"What are you doing?" asked Penny.

"That's my friends and I … defeating Discord," Twilight explained.

"'Defeating'?" Rainbow repeated.

"Who is Discord?" asked Blake.

"He was an enemy; now he's a friend. I'd rather not go into too much detail," Twilight said.

"'Enemy'?" Rainbow quoted. "'Defeated'? Sunset said this place was safe. Sunset made this place out to be some kind of peaceful paradise."

"Compared to what Sunset has told me about Remnant, I'd say that's not wholly unfair," Twilight said, only a little defensively. "But it isn't entirely true, either. I would say that Equestria is perfectly calm and peaceful … twenty-two twenty-sixths of the time."

"That's very specific," Penny pointed out.

"I like to be precise," Twilight replied.

"And the other four twenty-sixths of the time?" Blake asked.

Twilight hesitated for a moment. "Then there are problems," she admitted. "And we deal with them."

"You've dealt with a few problems," Rainbow muttered, drawing Blake's attention to the fact that several of the stained glass depicted Twilight in some form or another, usually accompanied by her friends.

"Like I said, Princess Celestia likes to celebrate my accomplishments."

"So you're a soldier too, huh?" Rainbow asked. Blake was surprised to hear regret in her voice.

"No," Twilight said, her own voice quick and sharp, cracking like a whip. "No, I … I was a librarian. I am a princess. I'm a princess and a scholar and a bookworm and a philosopher of magic and a friend. But I'm not a soldier, and I'm not a hero." She paused for a moment. "Being a hero … to me, it's not about what I've done or how many times I've saved Equestria; it's … it's a state of mind. A state of—"

"Of putting others over yourself," Rainbow murmured. "No, even over those closest to you, even if the people you're putting over them aren't people you know, even if they don't matter to you at all."

Twilight was silent for a moment, but she nodded. "Exactly. And that's why I'm not a hero. Why I'm not sure that I'd want to be."

"There's nothing wrong with that," Rainbow replied. "Maybe … maybe being a hero is overrated anyway."

Twilight's mouth twitched in a slight smile. "I've saved Equestria … five and a half times now," she said.

"How do you save a place half a time?" Blake asked.

"Well, Cadance and Shining Armor took care of Chrysalis in the end," Twilight said, "but they wouldn't have been able to if I hadn't rescued Cadance first, so I think I deserve a little credit." She laughed softly. "But none of it, or all it, none of these windows or getting praised by Celestia in front of the court, wings or crown, or any of the rest of it means so much to me as the memory of us all on the hillside that night, watching the shooting stars. That might not make sense to you—"

"It makes perfect sense," Blake and Rainbow Dash said in unison.

They both glanced at each other.

Twilight covered her mouth with one hoof as she giggled. "Anyway," she said, "why don't we get out of here, and I can show you the rest of the city?"

Twilight, despite having brought them into the throne room, seemed relieved now to get them out of it, leading through more corridors, with walls of white and carpets of red, where the guards bowed to Princess Twilight as she passed by. Eventually, they came out of the palace, emerging onto a balcony — a set of stairs led down from it, winding around the outside of a tall round tower towards the ground — from which they could behold a great city spread out before them.

"And this," Twilight declared, "is Canterlot."

"Wow," Rainbow said, approaching the edge of the balcony, resting her forehooves upon the rail. "It … it's bigger than our Canterlot for sure."

"It's … beautiful," murmured Blake in awe.

Canterlot was a sight to behold: a great city, a beautiful city, a city built not upon the steep slopes of the mountain as Mistral was, but rather, jutting out of it, expanding out onto the empty air as though magic enabled it to defy physics — and perhaps it did; who was Blake to say that it did not? It was a city of gleaming spires, tipped with golden domes burnished bright and appearing brighter still by the light of the sun. It was a city of streets paved with green stones of unequal size, a city of white walls and purple-tiled roofs and striped awnings in many bright and brilliant colours. It was a city of hanging baskets and al fresco dining tables with spindly metal legs and flags of many colours fluttering in the wind.

It was a city where nothing seemed ugly; whether they were great palaces and mansions or the less opulent cafes and shops that lined the city boulevards, there was a beauty or at least a charm to all of them, and though Blake found the prevalence of hearts in the decoration a little much, she found that that, too, had its own appeal, in the way that a girl can wear flowers or ribbons in her hair in ways that a woman cannot.

Whether the city was as archaic by the standards of Remnant as it appeared or whether, like Mistral, this was a city hiding its advancement behind old clothes as though innovation were a thing to be ashamed of, Blake could not tell, but she could tell that this was a metropolis as bustling as Atlas or Mistral, for all that it was inhabited by a very different kind of denizen. It was hard to see exactly who was moving around in the streets below, but in the skies before them, Blake could see pegasi flitting across the blue, darting between the colourful but cumbersome dirigibles that floated between the clouds.

"What do you think, Penny?" Rainbow asked.

Penny ran forwards, joining Rainbow Dash at the balcony rail, looking out across the gleaming spires. Her eyes were wide — even by the standards of the unusually wide eyes that they possessed as ponies — and her mouth was open in a beaming.

"I think … I feel…" She trailed off, and as she trailed off, it was the strangest thing, but Blake thought that she could hear music from somewhere: a low bass and a steadily building beat.

Without a word, Penny darted away from them, plunging down the stairs that circled the tower, leaving the other ponies to run after her.

And as she descended the stairs, Penny started to sing.

"Good morning, Sun,

No time to chat, I've gotta run,

Cause I've got places to be.

So much to do,

Excited, yes, and nervous too,

A change is starting with me!"

"Is this a song you know?" Blake asked.

"No, I think she's extemporising" Rainbow said. "But we can still back her up when she gets to the chorus."

"How will you know-"

"We'll know," Trust me," Rainbow said. "I've got a good feeling about this."

Penny had almost reached the bottom of the stairs, but paused just before that, before she plunged into the streets and the teeming mass of ponies moving along them.

"I used to worry about upsetting carts, hardened hearts,

I'd wonder 'will I belong?'"

Penny dived into the crowd, darting nimbly between the moving ponies to leap up onto the edge of a fountain.

"I've heard it enough,

I'm calling their bluff,

I'll never get lost in the grey!

There's something inside,

Burns bigger than pride,

Shines out of me lighting the way!

Gonna be, gonna be, gonna be my day!"

"Be my day!" Rainbow echoed.

Blake stared at her, eyebrows rising.

"Gonna be, gonna be, gonna be my day!"

"Oh-oh-oh!" Rainbow and Twilight chorused, bringing their heads together as though they were both singing into the same microphone.

"Gonna be, gonna be, gonna be my day!"

There was a crack and a flash of lavender light as Twilight teleported herself, Blake, and Rainbow Dash onto the sides of the fountain to join Penny.

At this point, Blake decided that she'd probably have more fun joining in than wondering what was going on, and so added her voice to the others for, "Be my day!"

In fact, no sooner had she joined in than Blake found herself … seized by something, possessed by a sudden force, because no sooner had the chorus ended than it was not Penny who continued to sing, but rather, Blake herself.

The whole world seemed to go dark around her, as though night had suddenly descended and only a single spot of light remained, illuminating Blake herself as she sang.

"Everyone's afraid,

Always judgin', never budgin',

Ain't it time we made,

The team, the dream,

Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh ooooh!"

Penny took over once again as light returned to the world.

"Let's cross a new aisle,

Let's flash a new smile,

Let's sparkle right out of the grey,

We'll open our eyes,

Sun starting to rise,

And finally able to say:"

And this time, every pony around them, every pony who had been going about their business a moment ago, joined in as they thronged about them.

"Gonna be, gonna be, gonna be my day,

Gonna be my day,

Gonna be, gonna be, gonna be my day,

Gonna be my day,

Gonna be, gonna be, gonna be my day,

Gonna be my day,

Gonna be my day,

Be my day!"

And then … it was over. The music stopped and every pony resumed what they were doing as though it hadn't happened.

"That … that did really just happen, didn't it?" Blake asked.

"Yep," Twilight confirmed. "It just … it just comes over you sometimes. It's a lot of fun, isn't it?"

"That was amazing!" Penny cried. "Can we do it again?"

"Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that," Twilight said. "It happens when it happens, and you can't force it. To be honest, I feel like it's been happening to me less and less, which is … a little disappointing."

Canterlot was not a perfect city, as Blake observed as the tour continued; it was beautiful to look at, but it also became clear that it was a city home to no small amount of snobbery and classism: ponies in old-fashioned gowns with puffy shoulders, or else with frock coats and tall hats, sneered at the ponies who were less well-attired — who were, presumably, less well-off as they were less well-dressed — as they went by. That was not good, obviously, but at the same time, Blake took hope from the fact that those doing the sneering were unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi, while those being sneered at were likewise unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi.

Twilight must have picked up on what Blake was thinking, because she launched into a story about the Rarity of this world and how she had once been forced by circumstances to pass herself off as a Canterlot socialite, for fear that being known to have originated in Ponyville would have been the social ruin of her, unicorn or no.

"What about after?" Blake asked. "I mean, the truth came out eventually, didn't it?"

"Yes," Twilight admitted. "But Rarity just opened her boutique here in Canterlot — Rarity For You; we're going to stop there to pick her up before lunch — and business is booming, so I think that she's doing okay, Ponyville or not."

Rainbow's eyes widened. "Rarity just opened a boutique?"

"Her second actually; she already had one in Ponyville," Twilight said.

"Rarity has two boutiques!" Rainbow cried. "Okay, how old are you? How are you so much more accomplished than us, and come to think of it, how come Sunset is younger than me when she was Princess Celestia's student before you?"

"Remember, they aren't human," Blake pointed out. "It's quite possible that they age and mature at a different rate to us."

"Yes, I'm sure that's it," Twilight said, and very pointedly did not answer any question about her age.

Canterlot may not have been the perfect paradise free of vice that Sunset had said, it may not have been completely free from war or conflict as Sunset had said, but it was certainly a peaceful city, the most peaceful place that Blake had ever known. Even in Vale, which was not exactly a city of war, you could never quite forget that you were sitting in a fortress of light and life, and of course, for the last semester, the skyline had been taken up by the cruisers of General Ironwood's fleet, the same kind of ships which dominated the skyline of Atlas in the exact same way. Even in Mistral, where Blake had spent a little time before Adam had been assigned to lead the Vale chapter, she could see people carrying weapons out on the streets, there were job boards where huntsmen could get work, and of course, the city walls that kept the grimm at bay.

There was none of that here. No pony went armed, not even the guards in their gilded armour — and they were few in number at any rate, compared to the number of other ponies on the streets. There was no wall, no gate, no airships armed for battle. This was not a city that was enjoying peace but prepared for war; this was a city that knew true peace — if only twenty-two twenty-sixths of the time.

Blake was, quite frankly, envious.

And yet, at the same time, she felt invigorated. It was not just a dream, what she and Weiss and Rainbow Dash had talked about. It was real, it existed, it was right here before their eyes, and if it existed here, then it could be built in Remnant too, could it not?

They were the same people, after all; the same names, the same eyes, the same hair … the same souls too, perhaps. It seemed that there were connections between them stretching across space. Why, then, could they not achieve all that their counterparts had achieved? Maybe not the peace — that was more difficult with Salem around — but the equality? The harmony between races?

Why should they suffer while their counterparts were blessed?

They met up with some of Twilight's friends for lunch outside of Rarity For You, the Canterlot boutique owned by the pony Rarity. Amongst those friends was the other Rainbow Dash, the pony Rainbow Dash of this world, who jumped a little at the sight of her other self.

"Twilight! You didn't tell me that the other me was going to be coming!" cried Pony Rainbow Dash.

"It was kind of a last-second impulse decision," said Rainbow.

Pony Rainbow chuckled. "That does kind of sound like me."

"It sure does," said Applejack.

Pony Rainbow blinked. "So … if we touch, will it end the world?"

"No!" Twilight said firmly. "Why do you both think that?"

They retired to a nice restaurant, where Twilight and her friends told the story of how they had all met up in this world.

"Princess Celestia had asked me to supervise the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration," Twilight explained.

"What's the Summer Sun Celebration?" asked Penny eagerly.

"It's a festival held every year to celebrate Princess Celestia," Twilight said. "Ponies celebrate all night, and then at dawn, the sun and moon briefly share the same sky as Princess L— well, at the time this happened, Princess Celestia lowered the moon and raised the sun up into the sky."

"'Raised the sun'?" Rainbow said. "'Lowered the moon'?"

"Did Sunset not tell you that Princess Celestia raises the sun each morning?" Twilight asked.

"No," Rainbow said. "No, she didn't."

"Oh," Twilight murmured. "Well, she does."

Rainbow blinked. "Huh. This really is a magical place, isn't it?"

Twilight smiled. "Anyway, the focus of the celebration is always where Princess Celestia herself is, and anypony there can watch her rise into the sky, silhouetted against the sun as she raises it to its zenith. And I was charged by the princess to supervise the preparations, which just so happened to include each of my friends — except for Pinkie Pie."

"Although I was the first to meet Twilight," said Pinkie. "We got off to a great start."

"I said 'hello,' and you gasped at me and ran away," Twilight reminded her.

"To throw you a really awesome party!" Pinkie insisted.

"Ah believe Ah was the next one you met," Applejack declared. "And we saw you nice and well fed, didn't we?"

"You certainly did," Twilight agreed, rubbing her stomach reflexively. "And then it was Rainbow Dash, who was supposed to have cleared the sky ready for the ceremony."

"I would have gotten around to it eventually," Pony Rainbow said. "I was busy."

"Busy napping?" Applejack suggested.

"Busy saving my strength," Rainbow insisted. "But I cleared the whole sky in ten seconds flat, just like I told you I could, so why does it matter that I was taking my time getting to it?" She grinned. "I still remember the way your mane looked when I was done!"

"I remember that too, darling; I had to fix it," Rarity murmured.

"Why don't we tell them what happened after that?" Pony Rainbow suggested. "When we stopped Nightmare Moon?"

"No, let's not get into that," Twilight said quickly, with the same modesty that she had demonstrated in the throne room earlier.

After lunch, they watched an air show, in which the Pony Rainbow Dash was part of a team of stunt flyers, the Wonderbolts, dressed in flight suits of blue lycra emblazoned with flashes of yellow lightning. The event was not particularly well attended, at least it didn't seem to be so, but Twilight explained that ponies valued one another's personal space, and so, they didn't pack in crowds as tightly as might have been the case.

Blake wasn't sure if she was just saying that to cover up the fact that there weren't many ponies here to watch the show.

Regardless, there should have been more ponies here to watch the show, since it was a spectacular sight to see the ponies soaring through the sky not only with speed, but with grace too, swooping and diving through hoops that seemed to be made of cloud, cloud that was not disturbed at all by the beating of their wings. As they watched, Blake noticed Rainbow Dash leaning forwards more and more, her magenta eyes growing wider and wider, flickering back and forth as she muttered under her breath.

"Are you—?" Blake began, but Rainbow held up one hoof for quiet.

Once the show was concluded, they retired to Twilight's old room, a somewhat dusty place with a great many books, where Twilight showed Penny some more magic — which ended up just watching Penny move things around the room, taking glee in every act of telekinesis that she performed.

It was like … it was like watching a child learn to walk, and no less charming.

The sun set with abrupt speed, descending from its zenith to out of sight in mere moments — Blake supposed that made sense, if it was being lowered by Princess Celestia, but at the same, it was no less disconcerting to witness. It was like one of those old myths that suggested the sun was being pulled across the sky by a celestial charioteer, but even they had had the grace to imply that it took said charioteer a whole day to move the thing. What Princess Celestia had done was more akin to flicking a light switch, although perhaps it had taken more effort from her perspective.

In any case, it was the signal that their day was over, and the time had come for them to leave.

And so, they returned to the room in which they had first emerged into this world, the room with the mirror and all its attendant magical equipment.

As she levitated the book into its place above the mirror, and as all the tanks and tubes and everything else began to pulse and vibrate with magical energy, Twilight turned to the three of them and said, "Have you had a good time today?"

"Absolutely!" Penny cried. "I only wish that it could have gone on longer."

Twilight smiled. "Rainbow Dash?"

"Hmm?" Rainbow said. "Yeah, it's been great! That display of flying … the other me has some serious skills."

"She'll be very happy to hear that."

"No, she won't," Rainbow said. "She already knows that she's got skills."

Twilight chuckled. "That's very true. Blake?"

"I still have one question," Blake murmured. "How did you do all this? How did you make this world so … so…"

"Harmonious?" Twilight guessed.

"Yes, exactly," Blake declared. "Was it always like this?"

"Oh, no," Twilight replied. "In fact, there was a time in our history when the three tribes of ponies were bitterly divided by hatred."

"I'm finding that a little hard to believe," Blake said.

"But it's true all the same," Twilight insisted. "In fact, the reason why our ancestors came into Equestria—"

"They didn't always live here?" asked Rainbow Dash.

"No, they migrated here," Twilight informed her, "after their old home was frozen over by the windigos, forces of nature empowered by hatred and conflict. That's how bad things were in the past; the three tribes literally destroyed their world because they couldn't live with one another."

"Then what changed?" Blake demanded. "What led you from that to this?"

Twilight said, "The story goes that the leaders of the three tribes, accompanied by their faithful lieutenants, went on ahead to scout for new homes for their people. That journey led them to Equestria, a green and fertile land which each tribe claimed for their own. That renewed conflict brought the windigos after them, but as they huddled in a cave for warmth and a little protection, the three lieutenants were able to bond with one another over their shared experiences. And as the ice closed in around them, they declared that no matter what happened next, they were glad to have met one another. That bond, that spark of friendship, ignited a fire that drove away the windigos and was the first step towards unity between all three tribes."

Blake frowned a little. "That really happened?"

"Do you think that Twilight Sparkle would lie to you?"

Twilight gasped. "Princess Celestia!"

Celestia. Blake turned to look upon Equestria's princess and Sunset's teacher, and she stopped. She stared in awe. Princess Celestia's coat was shimmering samite, which glowed more brilliantly than the gold and amethyst-set necklace clasped about her throat or the gilded slippers set upon her hooves. Her hair, a myriad of complementing colours, flowed behind her like a great river. Her flank bore the mark of the sun, and in the Equestrian night, she was the sun, she shone so brightly on this balcony. She did not give light; rather, she almost was the light, and Blake could not look away though she be blinded by it. Majesty radiated from her like aura, and wisdom lay within the depths of her eyes. How could Sunset have ever borne to be parted from such, Blake wondered? But of course, the sundering was not by Sunset's own choice, in which case, Blake did not and could not blame her for wishing to put as much distance — a world's distance — between them.

She bowed her head. "Princess Celestia."

Princess Celestia chuckled. "You have no need to bow to me; I am not your princess, after all." She paused. "Rainbow Dash, I am surprised to see you here."

Rainbow coughed. "I … I'm not the Rainbow Dash that you know, Princess."

Princess Celestia's mouth opened slightly. "Oh! Oh, I see. You have also come from Remnant! Forgive me; I thought there would only be two of you."

"That … was the plan," Rainbow murmured.

Princess Celestia laughed. "Well, never mind that now. Have you enjoyed your visit to our land? Have you found what you were looking for?"

"I … I've found something, Princess," Rainbow murmured. "I don't know if it was what I was looking for, but I've found it."

"I might have," Blake said. "I didn't mean to accuse you of lying, Twilight, but that story … it sounds like the sort of story that might be told by mythmakers looking to create a history."

"And yet it is as true as we stand here," Princess Celestia told her.

"Then it is a pity that there are no windigos in Remnant to impose cooperation," said Blake softly.

"I would not wish for any additional monsters in your world," Princess Celestia said. "It seems that you have enough already."

"That's true," Rainbow muttered.

"And yet it hasn't brought us any closer together," Blake said.

"The Hearthswarming was the beginning of the story, not the end," Princess Celestia informed. "To make Equestria the land we live in now, to bring about the harmony in which my little ponies live, that was the work of many hooves, over many generations. And yet it all began with the friendship of three ponies, and that, I find, is a very encouraging thing."

Blake glanced across at Rainbow Dash and thought about Twilight and their other friends back in Atlas, and about Weiss Schnee. "Yes," she whispered. "Yes, it is. Thank you, Princess. Thank you, Twilight, for letting us come here."

"Yes, thank you so much," Penny added.

"Who knows?" Twilight asked. "Maybe we'll see each other again someday?"

"I hope so," Penny replied.

Nevertheless, for the moment, they all turned away and faced the magic mirror. They lined up facing it, their reflections visible in the glass.

And then, as one, they plunged through.

Once more, the lights swirled around them; once more, Blake felt herself pulled inexorably onwards through the tunnel, spinning round and round until she staggered out, with Penny and Rainbow on either side of her.

Clothed and faunus once again.

The sky was dark. The moon was up. And two women stood in front of them, one of them bearing in hair and eyes a striking resemblance to the Princess Celestia they had just left behind.

"Principal Celestia, Vice Principal Luna," Rainbow said. "Um, I can—"

"So," Principal Celestia said, folding her arms. "How was Equestria?"