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SAPR: Interlude 2 - Atlas (RWBY/MLP)

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Chapter 31 - Conversation with the Principal
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    • Conversation with the Principal​


    Rainbow Dash had never been in the staffroom at Canterlot Combat School before. This was not the circumstance under which she'd envisaged that she would get to see inside of the staffroom.

    It was not as nice as she would have expected.

    It wasn't bad, by any means; it was a comfortable kind of room, with a cool blue wallpaper on the walls and soft chairs in a variety of colours — Principal Celestia was sitting on a green one and Vice Principal Luna a blue one, while Rainbow, Blake, and Penny were all together on a beige settee, with Penny in the middle — and the light green carpet didn't look too worn down. On the other hand, it was not exactly the retreat of luxury that Rainbow might have been expecting. Where was the snooker table? And why was the coffee machine kind of … average?

    "Because this is a school, Rainbow Dash," Vice Principal Luna reminded her. "Any budget should be spent on the students first, staff second."

    Rainbow winced. "Was it that obvious, ma'am?"

    "A little," Vice Principal Luna said, although she smiled as she said it to show that she bore no malice. She and Principal Celestia were both wearing trouser suits, neither of them armoured for the hunt, with Principal Celestia wearing a gold jacket over her white and purple blouse and purple pants, while Vice Principal Luna wore a blue jacket over a lavender blouse and dark blue trousers.

    Rainbow drank some of the average quality mocha from out of the machine, the little polythene cup compressing between her fingers just a tiny bit. "So … you know about the portal. You've always known, haven't you?"

    "We would be poor guardians of it if we did not," Vice Principal Luna declared.

    "Obviously, as Principal and Vice Principal, our foremost responsibility is the education of the students," Principal Celestia said, "but one of our secondary duties, along with the defence of Canterlot, is to monitor the portal through to Equestria and ensure that nobody goes through it."

    "You failed," Penny pointed out.

    "Penny!" Rainbow hissed.

    Principal Celestia smiled. "It's quite alright, Rainbow Dash. Miss … Polendina, wasn't it?"

    "Yes, ma'am," Penny said. "Penny Polendina, at your service."

    Principal Celestia nodded. "Miss Polendina is correct. We were remiss in our duties."

    "Although in our defence, the portal is not supposed to be active at the moment," Vice Principal Luna added. "The portal only activates for three days every thirty moons, and it is ten moons still until it is next due to open."

    Rainbow glanced at Blake and Penny. She opened her mouth, but then stopped herself, and then said, "How much do you know about what lies on the other side of that portal?"

    "Not as much as you who have just been there, I'm sure," Vice Principal Luna murmured.

    "We know that it leads to a place called Equestria," Principal Celestia said, "inhabited by creatures who resemble ponies, although they are a sentient race capable of speech and intelligent thought."

    "They don't really," Blake said. "Resemble ponies, I mean. From what I could tell, the equine similarities are very vague."

    "Really?" Vice Principal Luna asked. "You see? That was not something we knew."

    "But they do call themselves ponies," Rainbow said. "And they, the ponies, managed to work out a way to activate the portal outside of that thirty moon period."

    "They did? Fascinating," Principal Celestia said, leaning forward a little. "They did this with some of their magic, I suppose?"

    "You know about that too?" Rainbow asked.

    "One can hardly be set to guard a magic portal without being told that it is magic," Principal Celestia pointed out. "Although I don't understand why the ponies of Equestria would want the ability to activate the portal at will."

    "Basically … so that we could visit," Blake said.

    Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna glanced at one another.

    "A great honour was done to you, then," Vice Principal Luna declared.

    "We're very aware," Blake said.

    "Although it begs the question," Vice Principal Luna went on, "of how you three knew about the portal."

    Rainbow felt her mouth go dry. Just because they knew about the portal didn't mean that they knew about Sunset, and she wasn't about to drop Sunset in it by identifying her to people who didn't know and who might do … she didn't know what they would do if they found out that Sunset was from Equestria; that was why she didn't want to say anything.

    "Was it Sunset Shimmer who told you?" Principal Celestia asked.

    Rainbow let out a gasp.

    "No," Penny said, before hiccupping. She clasped her hands to her mouth.

    Principal Celestia chuckled. "We would be very poor guardians indeed if we did not know that someone had come through the portal from Equestria into our world, no?"

    "You knew that too?" Rainbow cried. "All this time? All the time she was here?"

    "How do you think she was able to attend Combat School?" Principal Celestia asked. "As a visitor from Equestria, she had no papers, no identification, nothing."

    "I…" Rainbow trailed off. "I guess I hadn't thought about it."

    "We arranged for them," Principal Celestia said. "Discreetly, of course."

    "You arranged for them," Vice Principal Luna said. "Don't share the credit, Celestia … or the blame."

    "'Blame'?" Principal Celestia repeated. "And what blame would that be, sister? From what I understand, Sunset Shimmer has done rather well for herself at Beacon, just as I thought she would."

    "My sister has a soft spot for hopeless cases," Vice Principal Luna said.

    "Sunset's not so hopeless anymore," Blake pointed out. "Her team is favourite to win the Vytal Festival."

    "Hang on, hang on; I can't let that stand," Rainbow said. "Penny is going to win the Vytal Festival this year."

    Penny shook her head. "I don't think so," she said. "I'll try my best, but I'm just not on the same level as Pyrrha."

    "Which proves my point," Vice Principal Luna said. "The possible victory of Sunset Shimmer's team, much though it may be expected, is due to her teammate, not to her."

    "But even so," Blake began. Her eyes narrowed. "Do you have money riding on this or something?"

    "No, just bragging rights," Principal Celestia said. "An admission that she's wrong is harder to pry out of Luna than any amount of lien."

    Vice Principal Luna huffed. "I will admit that I'm wrong when I see some evidence of it," she said. "But leave that for now; the fact remains that we have always known that Sunset Shimmer came from Equestria originally."

    "And yet you allowed her to attend combat school?" Blake said. "Why?"

    "Why not, if she wished to do so?" Principal Celestia replied. "And besides, where better to keep an eye on a stranger from another world than at our school?"

    "One thing I don't understand," Penny said, "is why the portal is being kept a secret."

    "Many things are kept secret," Vice Principal Luna said. "For many different reasons."

    "But why this secret?" Penny demanded. "For what reason?"

    "Was it for the protection of Equestria?" Blake suggested.

    Penny looked at her. "What do you mean, Blake?"

    "You saw what it was like, Penny," Blake said. "You saw how peaceful Equestria was, how peaceful all the ponies living there were. You heard what Twilight said, about peace and tranquillity twenty-two twenty-sixths of the time."

    "Very specific," Vice Principal Luna murmured.

    "I know," Blake said in reply, before returning her attention to Penny. "The point is that Equestria is a peaceful land, much less prepared for conflict than we are here in Remnant; that was clear enough just from one day spent there. If grimm were to get through the portal, then the bloodshed could be terrible before they were brought down, and while that is unlikely … we are not always a peaceful people. The history of my race and our subjugation proves that, and so does the colonisation of Vacuo. Imagine if the people of the past, less enlightened in their attitudes, less tolerant of difference, had known about Equestria. Is there any doubt they would have invaded for their magic, for their natural resources?"

    "You really think so?" Penny asked.

    "I don't see how it can be doubted," Blake replied, a touch of sadness in her voice.

    "But people aren't like that anymore, are they?" said Penny.

    "That's right," Rainbow said. "We've … evolved since then, but … the thing about secrets, Penny, is that after a certain point, it's hard to stop keeping them, even if the reason you started keeping the secret doesn't apply anymore. Not least because, after that certain point, it becomes less about the original secret and more about admitting that you've been lying for all this time."

    "And, while Miss Belladonna raises a good point, that is not the only reason for secrecy," Vice Principal Luna added.

    Blake's eyebrows rose. "There's more?"

    "Relations between Remnant and Equestria have never been normalised," Vice Principal Luna said. "And so, contact between our worlds has consisted of individual travellers — small groups, at best — crossing from one world to the other. It is a sad fact that most of those who have crossed from Equestria to Remnant have been … unsavoury, at best."

    Penny frowned. "You mean like Sunset was when Rainbow Dash knew her?"

    "We mean evil, Miss Polendina," Principal Celestia said.

    Penny blinked. "'Evil'? But there is no evil in Equestria!"

    "Twenty-two twenty-sixths of the time," Blake murmured.

    "It is hard to piece together, and something that perhaps Miss Shimmer could shed more light on," Vice Principal Luna said, "but as far as can be determined, it seems that Equestria would send their monsters and their villains here to Remnant, as an alternative to dealing with them themselves."

    "That doesn't sound right," Penny said. "They didn't seem like the sort of people who would do things like that."

    "Remember what Princess Celestia said," Blake reminded her. "The Equestria that we saw was the work of many hooves over many generations; it's possible that this was the practice of an older, less savoury, less advanced Equestria."

    "It does appear to have tailed off over time," Principal Celestia said. "Miss Shimmer was the first to come from Equestria in quite some time, and she … look how far she has come." She smiled. "All of which is a very long way of saying that I hope that we can count on your discretion with regards to the portal and what lies on the other side of it."

    "It's Sunset's secret to tell, not ours," Blake declared. "If she wants to reveal it, she can, but we won't do so on her behalf."

    "Very good," Principal Celestia said. "That, I think, is the most that we can ask of you. Are you planning to fly back to Atlas tonight? It's getting late."

    Rainbow drained the remainder of her mocha. "I'll be fine, ma'am," she assured them both. "There's nothing like a trip to another world to invigorate you and leave you pumped up."

    Principal Celestia laughed. "Be careful then, and fly safely."

    "Thank you, ma'am," Rainbow said, as she got to her feet.

    "One more question, if I may, ma'am," Blake said, as she remained seated. "You said that you had been set to guard this portal? Set by whom?"

    "I'm afraid that's classified, Miss Belladonna," Principal Celestia declared. "I'm sorry."

    XxXxX​

    The staffroom door swung shut as the last of the three young huntresses took their leave.

    Celestia and Luna sat quietly, waiting for the three to make their way a little way beyond the door, down the corridor leading to the exit.

    "We were fortunate," Celestia said.

    "'Fortunate'?" Luna asked. "The Equestrians can now open the confounded portal whenever they wish, making our task harder, and you call that fortunate?"

    "No, I call it fortunate that they opened the portal for Rainbow Dash," Celestia said. "We can count upon her discretion, and although I don't know Miss Belladonna or Miss Polendina … I have a good feeling about them both."

    "You are not alone in that," Luna replied. "Ozpin and James both trust them, so we should be able to trust them also."

    "One of these days, you'll have to tell me how you know that," Celestia said, glancing at her younger sister out of the corners of her cerise eyes.

    Luna smirked. "The Lady moves in mysterious ways," she said.

    "Speaking of which," Celestia said, "you didn't mention—"

    "No," Luna said. "I didn't."

    "I know you didn't," Celestia pointed out. "I was just curious if there was a reason why."

    "It wasn't relevant," Luna said. "Was it? And they clearly haven't been informed of everything by James. If he doesn't wish them to know about that, then who am I to reveal that information?"

    "And yet you gave Rainbow Dash that book," Celestia murmured.

    "'Book'?" Luna asked. "What book is that, sister? I've no idea what you are referring to."

    "In Search of the Lady of the North?" Celestia prompted. "I know that it's missing from our library, and although I don't have your sources of knowledge, I think that you gave it to Rainbow Dash when she was last here. Although I'm not entirely sure why."

    "I thought she might get something out of it," Luna said mildly. "And her teammate Miss Soleil certainly would. She, for one, deserves to know, and so does Rainbow Dash."

    "What happened to it not being your place to reveal that information?"

    "I have revealed nothing," Luna declared. "If Rainbow Dash chooses to read a certain book and draw certain conclusions, then what fault is that of mine?"

    Celestia shook her head. "You have grown tricky, and a little rebellious."

    "I went to Beacon to become a huntress," Luna declared. "I wished to become an adventurer, to travel the world protecting the innocent, punishing the guilty, righting wrongs and bringing hope. Instead—"

    "You are a guardian," Celestia said. "You protect the world by protecting your secrets … and your powers."

    "I did not seek to become a guardian," Luna insisted. "I wish these powers had never come to me, to chain me here and bind me to this place. Quite frankly, Celestia, I feel I am owed a little rebellion from time to time."

    XxXxX​

    The city of Atlas rose high above the earth, and Atlas Academy rose high above the rest of Atlas. Higher than the houses of the great, higher than Schnee Manor, higher than any other building in the whole of Remnant rose the great tower of glass and steel. Atop it, out on the roof, one could see the whole of Atlas spread out beneath you — at least Blake assumed that you could in the daytime, when the sun would illuminate everything it touched. Now, at night, she could only see the lights down below, and they seemed dim and distant and illuminated very little; it was as if she was looking out not at a city but at a field of stars in the darkness, or perhaps a mirror to the night sky above them.

    Here on the roof, it was cold; the warmth of the heating grid struggled to reach so high up, and so, Blake shivered a little.

    It was enough to make her wonder what Rainbow Dash was doing up here.

    Yet, here she stood, standing on the very edge of the roof, with only a shining metal rail and a thin sheet of plexiglass between her and a very long drop, standing with her arms folded, looking out across the city at night.

    "You look as if you're posing for a photoshoot," Blake observed as she shut the door leading inside — the door she'd just come out of — behind her.

    Rainbow glanced over her shoulder at Blake, her face looking almost as if it might crack up for a moment, but it did not. "I'm just … thinking," she said.

    "What about?" Blake asked.

    Rainbow didn't answer, but said, "What are you doing up here?"

    "Looking for you," Blake replied. "I'm surprised you're not trying to get at least a little sleep."

    "I'm still a little wired," Rainbow said. "Either it's what happened today or the caffeine or both. I don't think I can sleep just yet."

    "You could go down to your room and hang out with Penny," Blake suggested. "Since she doesn't sleep either."

    "If you think that I should go to bed, why haven't you headed back to Fluttershy's place and gone to bed yourself?" Rainbow asked.

    "I wanted to talk to you," Blake said, walking lightly across the rooftop to where Rainbow stood. She did not join her at the very edge, but rather, stayed a few steps behind, her view obscured but her risk of falling along with it. She half turned away from Rainbow, presenting her side to Rainbow's back. "I … I wanted to talk about today."

    Rainbow was silent for a moment. "It was quite a place, wasn't it?"

    "Yeah," Blake agreed. "I'm … pretty jealous."

    "Yeah," Rainbow repeated. "Me too."

    Blake looked at her. "Really?"

    Again, Rainbow looked back at Blake. "Yeah!" she declared, as though it should have been obvious that she would feel that way. "A world with no grimm, no Salem, no ever-present threat to guard against; who wouldn't want that? If I…" She trailed off as she looked away from Blake, turning her gaze once more outwards across the illuminated darkness.

    "If I had one wish," she said, "if the skies opened and the voice of that God of Light Professor Ozpin talked about came down and said 'you can have one wish, any wish you like,' then I'd wish for a world where Scootaloo and Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle and kids like them could just be kids, you know? Where Scootaloo wouldn't need a scooter that turns into a gun, or Apple Bloom wouldn't have to worry if her sister isn't going to come home one day, where nobody would have to be scared of the grimm. Where people can just live. A world like they have."

    "Is that why you were acting weird today?"

    Rainbow turned around. "You thought I was acting weird?"

    "A little bit," Blake said. "Sometimes."

    Rainbow snorted. "I was … I was prepared for Sunset to have exaggerated," she said. "But when we got into that throne room, and we saw — you saw — those stained glass windows of Princess Twilight, I thought 'here we go, this place is no different from us after all.' And then … when Princess Twilight explained it, when she talked about that night on the hillside watching the shooting stars." Rainbow glanced away. "She's right, you know. That stuff … it means more than all the rest of it."

    "I'm sure it does," Blake murmured. "I mean, by the time I graduate, what am I more likely to remember, some grade I got, some mission I went on … or sharing a meal in the Team Sapphire dorm room?"

    "Exactly," Rainbow said, and for a moment a smile illuminated her face. "And we'll make plenty more memories just like that up here in Atlas next year, better ones!"

    Blake smiled. "Sure we will."

    Rainbow nodded, but the smile faded from her face. She blinked, and Blake almost thought that there were tears gathering in her eyes. "I … I'm eighteen years old," Rainbow said. "And I've already buried one … one comrade, and I've seen another lose his leg. This life … I really, really envy them that they don't have to go through that."

    Blake glanced down at the blue tiles of the roof. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "Maybe you could have asked about them."

    "What do you mean?"

    "You could have asked Princess Twilight; maybe she could have found out about the other them, the other versions of your friends."

    Rainbow shook her head. "I'm glad that finding out about the other you, and the other Adam, brought you some … I'm glad that it made you happy," she said. "But I … I can't think what good it would do me. He's still dead, the one I knew, and it wouldn't make me feel any better to know that in some other world, there's another version of him that's doing good, living his best life. It would just make me feel … I wish we could have what they have." She paused for a moment. "There is one question I regret not asking."

    Blake took a step closer to her. "What's that?"

    "If they know of any way to kill an immortal," Rainbow said softly. "I mean, they have people there who can't die — Princess Celestia is one of them, apparently — so maybe they know of something that can be done, some weapon or magic that Sunset could—"

    "I think if there were such a thing, then Sunset would know it, and if she didn't know it but thought that her teacher might, then she would ask them," Blake pointed out.

    Rainbow scowled. "You're probably right."

    "So why didn't you ask, if you wanted to?"

    "I didn't want to bring down the mood," Rainbow replied. "It didn't seem … in that world that was so peaceful, it didn't seem right to talk about death. It would have felt wrong, disrespectful."

    "I understand what you mean," Blake murmured. "It wouldn't have felt right, to have brought talk of war to Equestria. It would have felt like bringing war itself." She walked to the rails and rested her arms upon them. "Although," she went on, "while I understand your point, I'd settle for having their racial harmony."

    Rainbow snorted. "Yeah, a nice and easy goal for you."

    Blake chuckled. "Many hooves and many years, but it got done." She looked at Rainbow Dash. "It got done. And who knows, maybe there is a way? Maybe we don't have to kill Salem; maybe we can lock her in an inescapable cage or … I don't know, something. Or maybe the sky will open, and the God of Light will come down to give you that one wish."

    Rainbow grinned. "Many years," she murmured. "And many hooves."

    "But worth it," Blake said, holding out one balled up fist.

    Rainbow bumped it with her knuckles. "Yeah," she agreed. "Totally worth it."
     
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    • Chapter 32 - The Wrong Chair, Part One
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    • The Wrong Chair, Part One

    ​

    Ciel looked down at the box in front of her.

    A collection of antique watches gleamed within. There were nine of them, all told, marking anniversaries in five year intervals from ten years of happy matrimony to fifty. Mrs. Peterson and her husband had never gotten to fifty-five years; according to Mrs. Peterson, her husband's years in the mines had caught up with him before their years of marriage; he had died before their fifty-third anniversary.

    "Me?" Ciel asked. "You … you want me to take them?"

    Father Gregory had once been a muscular, athletic man; he had been a soldier, and one of his eyes was cybernetic, a very bright and unblinking blue that sat opposite his remaining natural hazel eye; there were scars running across his face surrounding said cybernetic eye as a sign of how he had come by it and lost his own; since leaving the military and devoting himself wholeheartedly to the Faith of the Lady, he had let a little of his muscle fall away and allowed his waist to expand somewhat, but he still filled out his robes very comfortably indeed. His head was bald, his jawline firm, and his nose was rather sharp. As he had just finished officiating Mrs. Peterson's funeral, he was dressed in the full ceremonial regalia of his office: robes of midnight blue trimmed with silver at the sleeves and collar, a chain of gold around his neck, a ceremonial dagger at his waist. A shepherd's crook, made of dark wood and rather stout-looking, leaned against the wall just behind him.

    It gave Father Gregory both hands free to hold out the little box of varnished elm inside of which lay Mrs. Peterson's prized watches.

    Neon's mother had booked a bar not too far from the church for Mrs. Peterson's funeral reception, and in the common room, the congregation — the only people who had shown up for her funeral were those, like the Soleils and the Katts, who had known her through the church; none of her neighbours had bothered to show their faces — moved and talked and reminisced and gradually reduced the buffet down to nothing. On the other side of the room, Neon was telling the story about the time the two of them, and Florentin, had made her a feast for Winter's Dawn.

    "So what are we going to do?" Neon was saying. "I mean, I could have carried her down those stairs to the hall, but the doctor says that she's not to be moved, and we didn't want to make her worse, so, what are we going to do? Well, Ciel and I look at each other, and we agree that if we can't bring her down to the feast, we'll just have to bring a feast up to her—"

    Ciel's lips twitched upwards in a smile. That was … a happy memory. Yes, it had meant that she and Florentin had been unable to spend Winter's Dawn with the rest of their family, and Neon had been unable to spend it with hers, but nevertheless, them cooking together, setting the table, cleaning up afterwards, staying up with Mrs. Peterson to witness the first dawn of winter's turning … that was a happy memory. Cooking and preparation had ruined the dress that she had been wearing — she had gone there to see if Mrs. Peterson needed any help getting down to the congregation feast, not to prepare one herself — so for dinner, she had, with Mrs. Peterson's encouragement, put on an old dress that had belonged to Mrs. Peterson herself, although it had been many years since she wore it last. Neon had dug out the old gramophone from the back of one of the cupboards, and they had listened to old songs on records so old that they kept sticking. It had become a bit of a game for the four of them, guessing where the record was going to stick next and then listening to the same words repeated over and over again with the loser being the person who broke first and admitted they couldn't stand it any longer.

    A great deal of fun had been had by all of them, and none moreso, she hoped, than Mrs. Peterson, which had made it all worthwhile, of course.

    Ciel recalled her mind to the present, to Father Gregory, to where the two of them sat alone in a secluded corner of the bar … and to the box that he was holding in his hands, held out to her in offering.

    "The investigation, such as it was, is over," Father Gregory reminded her. "It isn't needed as evidence—"

    "That does not mean that it belongs to me, Father; I am no kin of hers," Ciel declared. "Her son—"

    "Moved to Vale some years ago, and passed away just a couple of years ago now," Father Gregory said. "Cancer, I believe. Esmeralda met her grandchildren only on a few occasions, and her great-grandchildren never."

    "Nevertheless," Ciel replied. "They are her heirs."

    "And Mrs. Peterson's will leaves her estate, such as it is, to the church," Father Gregory said.

    Ciel's eyebrows rose. "To the Church? Everything?"

    Father Gregory chuckled. "I was as surprised as you were when she told me. She invited me to come over for a cup of tea; I assumed that she just wanted a chat and some company. She did, but … she also told me that she'd decided to change her will and leave everything to the Faith. She was at great pains to explain that it wasn't much, of course, but … even the income from renting her apartment out will bring in a little lien which the Lady can find a use for. But as we talked, she asked me if I might remember a few small bequests, amongst which was to give her watch collection to you. She told me that you had admired them on several occasions, and she thought you might appreciate them."

    And so, here they were, looking up at her from out of their varnished wooden box: nine watches, all of them similar in style, all with rather thin and slender straps — although the fact that they were all metal made up for that in part — with small faces, much smaller than Ciel's thumb; she wondered if one of the reasons why Mrs. Peterson had stopped wearing them was that her eyes gotten too bad to read them.

    It was not a problem that Ciel's eyes had yet; even at this distance, not wearing any of them, she could read the time on all of them.

    One was silver, and one was gold, or at least, they both appeared to be so; one had a button that appeared to be made of pearl, while others seemed to have tiny rubies or sapphires set around the watch face; although Mrs. Peterson had confessed to Ciel that they were not real rubies or sapphires any more than it was real pearl. On one watch, the hands were made of crystal, and on another of coral, and those were real and probably made them the most valuable watches in the box.

    Ironically, they were the two that Ciel liked the least.

    She felt … she half wished that she had refused them more vehemently, not allowed Father Gregory to prevail upon her. It made her feel … it made her pursuit of Mrs. Peterson's killer feel like she had done it to recover her own property.

    She hoped that God and the Lady would understand that it was not so.

    And it also made her feel … Mrs. Peterson had wanted her to have them, perhaps, but Ciel did not feel as though … she had not known her that well; they were not related; on what was this gift merited? A few kindnesses, some conversation, what was that to deserve this?

    She almost felt as though she ought to sell them to raise money for Alain, but of course, there was no way that these would pay for all the treatment he required, and in any case … that had not been what Mrs. Peterson would have wanted; to have done so would have been to spit upon her wishes and her memory.

    She had, for whatever reason, given these watches to Ciel; the least that Ciel could do was properly appreciate them.

    She took the dainty silver watch out of the box and clasped it around her wrist above her glove.

    It looked … rather nice there, if she did say so herself.

    She left her room and was approaching the stairs when she heard a knock on the door.

    In fact, it was too persistent to be a knock; it was more of a banging.

    "I will get it," Ciel called out as she walked briskly down the stairs, her skirt shaking around her somewhat as he did so, crossing the hall towards the door.

    Whoever was on the other side of the door continued to bang upon it.

    "Hold on!" Ciel cried out to them as she reached the door, scowling somewhat as she opened it, prepared to give whoever was on the other side a piece of her mind.

    It turned out to be Neon, with a grin on her face as she said, "Can you come out and play?"

    Ciel looked at her somewhat coldly. "Was there really any need for you to half break the door down?"

    "I did not half break the door down," Neon said. "Look, the door is right there; it's fine."

    "You could have knocked once like a normal person," Ciel pointed out.

    "I wanted to get your attention," said Neon. "I've got a great idea; step outside, and we can talk about it."

    "Is there any reason why you cannot step inside and we can talk about it?" asked Ciel.

    "Because if your mother hears us talking about this, she'll think it's stupid," Neon admitted cheerfully.

    "That does not inspire a great deal of confidence," Ciel murmured.

    "I promise, this will be worth your while," Neon insisted. "It's not for us; it's for Alain. Now come on."

    Ciel hesitated. The fact that Neon had admitted that people might not find this to be the great idea that she had proclaimed was not a great start, and she found it hard to imagine what idea Neon could have had that would get the money for Alain's medical treatments — not least because Neon was basically a decent, honest person, and it would never occur to her to do anything criminal — and yet … and yet, Neon would never joke about something like this either; she wouldn't pretend to have an idea without actually having one. And Ciel would welcome anything at this stage.

    There was no harm in listening to what Neon had to say. No harm at all.

    "Very well," she said. "Hang on a moment."

    She walked briskly back up the stairs to grab her purse, hanging it off her shoulder by its chain, then — returning downstairs once more — she pulled on her cloak, clasping it around her neck.

    "I am going out with Neon," she declared.

    "Have fun!" Mother called to her in reply.

    That remains to be seen, Ciel thought, as she stepped out of the door, pulling the key out of her purse to lock it behind her.

    The house was not too warm, but nevertheless, the chill air of Mantle's streets struck her sharply.

    "So," Ciel said, as she turned to face Neon, "what are you wearing?"

    "It's a catsuit!" Neon declared gleefully. "Pretty cool, isn't it?"

    Ciel could not help but stare at it. Neon was wearing … well, she was wearing a catsuit, just as she had proclaimed, of which the only good thing that Ciel could find to say was that it was not so skintight around the crotch that Neon's crotch was plainly visible. Upon her feet, she was wearing red high-heeled boots with a thick trim of white fur around the top; the legs of her catsuit were that same white until about the thighs, where they became pink up to the crotch area — this part of her legs also had zips up the front and black laces, although Ciel could not have said why. The torso, shoulders, and sleeves down to below the elbow were neon blue, with a white belt passing beneath her breasts, and the gap between what would have been a low sweetheart neckline on a dress and the collar around her neck was black, while her sleeves were white below the elbow.

    She was wearing gloves, trimmed with white fur, with feline-looking claws at the fingertips and what were supposed to look like paw pads on the palms and fingers.

    The whole thing — aside from the fur — appeared to be made of some kind of rubbery substance.

    "You almost look as if you are on your way to a rather specific sort of club," Ciel said dryly. "But then … the cat claws…"

    "Nya!" Neon laughed, making a cat-paw motion at Ciel with one hand.

    "One hesitates to think what Blake would say if she saw you wearing that," Ciel observed.

    "Blake would say something as humourless as she is, no doubt," Neon replied. "The fact is, if I want to wear something stupid, then I can. Didn't our ancestors fight a war for the right to wear dumb outfits?"

    "No, they didn't," Ciel replied. "Our ancestors fought on the other side."

    "Speak for yourself, human," Neon declared, mocking fondness about her tone of voice. "My ancestors died so that I could wear this."

    "And I am sure they are very proud to see that their sacrifice was not in vain," Ciel said.

    Neon sniggered. "How are you?"

    "I am," Ciel let out a sigh. "I am better than I was."

    "But are you good?" asked Neon.

    Ciel hesitated for a moment. "No," she admitted. "I am not sure that I am. But I am better."

    Neon nodded. With both hands, she reached out into the recesses of Ciel's cloak to take her hands in turn, drawing them out and into the light. "Well, I — I hope — am about to make things even better," she said. She glanced down at Ciel's wrist. "That's … one of Mrs. Peterson's watches, isn't it?"

    Ciel drew her hands back, covering the watch with one hand.

    "Hey, hey, I'm not judging," Neon assured her. "I just asked."

    "Do you think that it may be too soon?" asked Ciel,

    "I think she left them to you so that somebody would start wearing them again instead of sticking them in a box under the bed," Neon replied.

    "In truth, I am not certain they were meant to be worn," Ciel said. "They were gifts, after all."

    "Gifts of a thing that were meant to be worn," Neon pointed out. "Maybe not all the time, but not never; and then they were given to you, to be worn." She paused for a moment. "It suits you."

    Ciel's hand fell away, revealing the watch once more. "Do you think so?"

    Neon nodded. "It goes with your old-fashioned style."

    "I will take that as a compliment."

    "It was intended as one," Neon said.

    "Then I thank you for it," Ciel replied.

    She hesitated, anxious to get on to the topic of Neon's visit but at the same time fearing to be disappointed by whatever it was that Neon had come up with or thought that she had come up with.

    She was not sure how much disappointment she could bear.

    "You … you spoke of Alain?" she asked.

    "Yeah, Alain, I know how we can get the money for Alain's treatment!" Neon said eagerly. She pulled out her scroll from … somewhere Ciel found she did not even wish to speculate, opening it up and holding it up so that Ciel could see it.

    Displayed upon the screen was a wanted notice for a certain Feathers Markinson, a chicken faunus with a bright red crest upon his head, the only thing upon his head, which was bald otherwise.

    There was a reward attached, of three million lien.

    "We're going to catch this guy and use the reward to save Alain!" Neon proclaimed.

    Ciel's brow furrowed. "How?" she asked.

    "Well, I don't know yet; don't leave me to think of everything!" Neon replied. "But you need three million lien, and this is a way that we can get three million lien, no?"

    Neon's logic was inarguable. The apprehension of this miscreant would be a way to obtain the required funds, if they could do it. Of course, that might be quite an if.

    It might even be quite a dangerous 'if.'

    "What is this fellow wanted for?" asked Ciel. "Do you know?"

    "I thought you might ask that," replied Neon. "He's a thief."

    "'A thief'?" Ciel repeated. "A substantial reward for a thief."

    "He hits high value targets," Neon explained. "Apparently, he burgled the Marigold family up in Atlas, stole Mrs. Marigold's jewellery box. Similar stuff in Argus too, and most recently, here in Mantle…" Neon trailed.

    Ciel frowned. "Neon?"

    "You know the new hotel, the place my mom works?" Neon asked.

    Ciel nodded. "Yes, you explained that it was close to … Lady, Neon, he didn't—"

    "Break in and rob the safe, yeah," Neon muttered. "Nobody can work out how he did it."

    "How can anyone be sure it was him?" asked Ciel.

    "He let them see him on the security cameras for a second," Neon growled. "Right before the cameras went dead. Arrogant little … I'm gonna kick his ass for that."

    "How's your mother?" Ciel reached out for Neon's hand. "She is not … I hope that she has not been blamed for this."

    Security was hardly the responsibility of the manager, but at the same time, some owners might find a faunus employee a convenient scapegoat.

    "They're having an internal inquiry into why none of the security systems worked," Neon said. "But Mom's not too worried about it. Everything worked the last time it was tested, and security doesn't answer to her anyway."

    "All the same, I imagine that if he could be caught and all his stolen goods recovered, it would make things considerably easier," Ciel said.

    "Well, it wouldn't hurt," Neon admitted. "But mostly, it's the money."

    "That is certainly a temptation," Ciel allowed. "But … the police—"

    "If the police could catch this guy, they would have done it after he robbed the Marigold house in Atlas," Neon said.

    "Then what chance do we have?" Ciel asked.

    Neon was silent for a moment. "The Lady teaches us that valour and resolve are all, isn't that right?"

    Ciel hesitated for a moment. "That is so, yes."

    "'Say not that a thing cannot be done,'" Neon said. "'Say not that a battle cannot be won. Take heart, set yourself to the task, fight with the utmost courage and through—'"

    "'And through thy faith it shall be done, and all victories shall fall to thee,'" Ciel finished the quotation. "'For with faith, all things are possible.'"

    Neon nodded. "The Lady is waiting to send us a miracle. We just need to put the work in to earn it. And three million lien falling into our laps sounds pretty miraculous, don't you think?"

    Ciel snorted. "Yes. Yes, it does, rather."

    Neon smiled. "So, what do you say? Are you willing to give this a shot?"

    What do I have to lose? What does Alain have to lose? Ciel nodded. "Where do we start?"

    "You're the clever one; you tell me."

    Ciel rolled her eyes. "I think … I think … I think that if we are to do this, it would be as well to have some assistance," she declared. "Let me make a call."

    XxXxX​

    "Do you really think that you'll need all your weapons?" Blake asked.

    Rainbow glanced at her. "You brought all your weapons," she pointed out, her eyes flickering from Blake's face to Gambol Shroud worn across her back.

    "True," Blake allowed. "But I don't have quite so many as you."

    "Look, Ciel didn't say exactly why she needed our help," Rainbow said, "but she said that she needed our help, mine and yours, Twilight's, which means I'm fairly sure that there's going to be trouble of some kind; so, yes, I've brought all my weapons. I'd rather have them and not need them than—"

    "Need them and not have them, right," Blake said softly.

    "Mmm," Rainbow murmured wordlessly.

    She really didn't know why Ciel had called; she'd just said that she needed Rainbow's help with something, that it would be good if she could get down here to Mantle, and to bring Blake and Twilight with her. And so, here they were, Rainbow, Blake, Twilight … and Penny.

    Penny was walking at Twilight's side, her head turning this way and that, looking up at the dark sky that hovered over them like a shroud, looking at every part of Mantle that was visible to the eye as the four of them walked through the streets. She had been talking to her … to her Dad, to Doctor Pietro, for a little while now, but this was her first time down in Mantle itself, the place where he called home.

    Rainbow had actually been about to fly her down here to visit him when she got the call from Ciel. Ciel hadn't asked her to bring Penny, but with Penny being there … it would have been impossible to lie to her even if Rainbow had wanted to, impossible to pretend that Blake and Twilight were coming to Mantle just to escort Penny to say hi to her Dad. And so they had told her the truth, that something had come up and Ciel needed their help, and once she heard that … Penny insisted on coming with them.

    Rainbow was … well, she wasn't entirely sure just how she felt about that, but depending on what kind of trouble it was that Ciel needed help with, she wasn't feeling great about it. Yes, Penny wanted to help, and that was nice, but the last time that Ciel had needed Rainbow's help in this town, it was because an old woman had gotten her head bashed in by a burglar. Rainbow didn't want Penny to see that side of life. It was bad enough that she was seeing Mantle.

    Of course, Blake was seeing Mantle too, and that wasn't something that Rainbow was thrilled about either. She wasn't thrilled about the way that Blake's eyes seemed to narrow as she looked about the city; she wasn't thrilled about how much Blake was taking in; she wasn't thrilled about the way her lips were pursed tightly together; she wasn't thrilled about the fact that Blake was here, period.

    Rainbow hadn't wanted to show Blake this. Which she was aware made it sound as though she wanted to … what was the word, to do with museums, curate; it made it sound as though she wanted to curate Blake's experiences of Atlas so that she only saw the good bits before she decided to commit. That was … not entirely wrong; the reason why she didn't want Blake to be down here was because Mantle was a complete dump and a really terrible advertisement for Atlas, but at the same time, she had taken Blake down to Low Town; she had shown her that things in Atlas weren't perfect; it wasn't as though she was trying to uphold the lie that everything in Atlas was shiny and awesome and had no flaws at all.

    That didn't mean that she wanted to draw attention to all of the most glaring warts upon the skin of the kingdom. Especially since … look, you could show an outsider like Blake Low Town, and they would get it. The problems with Low Town were what the problems with Low Town looked like: a bunch of faunus were forced to live in a crater underneath the city with no light and bad housing, and it sucked, and something needed to help them out. Or help them up, maybe.

    But Mantle was different; as an outsider, you could look at Mantle and think that its problems were the same as Low Town's problems: neglect, abandonment, nasty Atlas leaving people behind. But they were not the same, not the same at all. Rainbow Dash had grown up in Low Town, and she could say for certain that it was full of go-getters — like her — who could rise as high as anyone in Atlas if only they were given the opportunity. Mantle, on the other hand … Mantle was the kind of dump where people would murder their neighbours for a quick payday, and you couldn't fix that with opportunity.

    Honestly, Rainbow Dash wasn't sure that you could fix it at all; this was Ciel's home and all, but maybe the best approach would be to ship all the people out to different cities — not the same city, but split them up to different places so that they could become accultured to the way that other people lived instead of bringing their culture with them — and then just bomb the whole place. Let the earth exhale.

    Looking around, it was hard to see that anything of value would be lost.

    Every time I visit here, I think that Rarity did the right thing by getting out. Every time she visited here, she marvelled anew at the fact that this place, this … this place with all its grime and dirt squalor and barbarity could produce someone so classy, elegant, and generous as Rarity.

    It was pretty amazing that it had turned out someone like Ciel, to be honest, but the time spent on military bases probably helped.

    But it was hard to explain all of that to someone like Blake.

    Especially the whole 'bomb the place' thing; that was hard to get across without sounding like a psycho.

    "I don't know what Ciel's trouble is," Blake murmured, "but this city certainly is troubled."

    Rainbow sighed. "I mean … at least they're not faunus, right?"

    Blake glanced at her. "So it's fine that the kingdom is neglecting its citizens so long as it's doing so on an equal opportunity basis?"

    Rainbow shrugged. "You can't call it racism."

    "No," Blake allowed. "But there are other things that you could call it instead."

    "This … this isn't the same as Low Town," Rainbow said. "This isn't Atlas' fault."

    "Isn't it?" Blake asked. "How is it not the same as Low Town?"

    "Because the people in Low Town are all right," Rainbow declared. "You've been there, you know that; the worst is … Grandpa Gruff can be a bit short and sharp, and there are a few idiots down there who listen to the White Fang too much, but honestly, can you blame them with the way they live? People here…" She glanced at Penny, and at Twilight who stood beside her. Rainbow beckoned to her. "Twilight, don't fall behind, come closer."

    "Why?" Twilight asked.

    "Because it's not safe," Rainbow said.

    Twilight took a couple of steps closer to Rainbow Dash, looking anxiously to her left and right as she did so.

    Bringing Twilight down here was another … Rainbow had done it, because Ciel had asked, and if it had turned out that Twilight was vital but Rainbow had left her behind, then she would have felt bad, but that didn't mean that she liked the fact that Twilight was here. Someone like Twilight Sparkle didn't belong in Mantle; a star like her shouldn't have to fall to the ground; it couldn't … it couldn't sparkle properly in all this smog and soot and dirt. She was too precious to be dirtied by the roughness of this place. She wasn't even wearing her armour. Rainbow hoped the fact that Ciel had asked for Twilight was a sign that it wasn't another murder they were here for, but … she didn't like Twilight being here, just out in Mantle where anything could happen; she could attacked or kidnapped by the Happy Huntresses or … or anything. She didn't like it.

    She didn't like this. She didn't like these three people being in Mantle, being able to see Mantle.

    Some people thought that the only reason Rainbow Dash could love Atlas was because she hadn't seen the seamier side of it; that was a load of nonsense; Rainbow had seen the worst of Atlas — she'd grown up there — she was just able to look past it all and love the greatness of Atlas anyway without getting all bitter like Gilda had.

    Ciel, Rainbow assumed, could do the same; you had to have that ability to grow up here in Mantle and still be an upright Atlesian patriot like her.

    She was … a little concerned that her three friends down here might not have the same ability.

    "Why wouldn't it be safe?" Penny asked. "I mean, this is an Atlesian city, isn't it? Although it doesn't look at all like Atlas."

    "It's not at all like Atlas, Penny; that's why," Rainbow said.

    Penny frowned. "Why … why does Dad want to live here? Did Father make him live here; did he exile him from Atlas, and this was the only place he could go?"

    "I doubt it, Penny," Twilight replied. "Doctor Polendina is influential, but he isn't that influential, and besides, if he really wanted to, Doctor Pietro Polendina could move to a lot of places besides Mantle. Vale would be happy to have such a renowned scientist living and working there. Do— Your Dad's presence must be by choice, because he wants to be there."

    "But why?" Penny asked again. "Why would he want to stay in a place like this? It's … it's so awful!"

    "Perhaps that's why he wants to stay here," Blake suggested. "To help make it a little less awful."

    Penny was silent for a moment. "But Rainbow said it wasn't safe down here? Is my Dad safe? Is he going to be okay?"

    Rainbow didn't respond. It was true that Doctor Pietro hadn't come to any harm so far down here in Mantle, but Rainbow wasn't sure exactly how long he'd been down here. Had he only come here since his brother had kicked him out of the lab, or had he been working here part time before that? Either way, he was an old man; an old man who couldn't even walk by himself. What was to stop someone breaking into his clinic looking for … pills or parts or something and then killing the old man to cover it up? It wouldn't be surprising in this town.

    I'm so glad Rarity got out of here. I'm so glad that her parents and Sweetie Belle moved to Canterlot.

    I wish Ciel was out of here.

    I wish this place didn't exist, and then I wouldn't have to bring Blake or Twilight or Penny here.

    "Rainbow Dash?" Penny asked again.

    "I don't know, Penny," Rainbow admitted. "I … the last time Ciel asked me for help down here, it was because someone had died. An old woman, someone Ciel knew from her church. Someone had killed her in her own home, and we found out that the person who'd done it had done it because she had a few … a few little valuables, not worth very much, but… worth a fortune in this town. They'd killed her and stolen her stuff so that they could sell it for a few lien. That's the kind of place Mantle is; that's what makes it different from Low Town," she said to Blake. "In Low Town, things were rough, but we never turned on our own … until I turned my back on my own by going to Atlas and looking back." She shook her head. "But there's none of that here; there's no … no community spirit here; there's just … rats, crawling all over one another to get ahead."

    "Get ahead?" Blake asked. "Or stay alive?"

    "Does it matter?" Rainbow asked. "It doesn't excuse—"

    "If you create the conditions where survival is a struggle, you can't act shocked when people struggle to survive," Blake said. "It's like high-born Mistralians complaining that the lower slopes are full of crime and disorder when the reason it's like that is because all of the wealth of Mistral flows upwards and away from those same slopes."

    "This is not the fault of Atlas," Rainbow insisted.

    "Councillor Cadance seems to disagree," Blake pointed out. "At least in part. You seemed to, in her office; you said that if the police had done their jobs and investigated that murder, then it would have helped to restore trust in Atlas amongst the people here." She paused. "I think it's going to take more than that."

    "I think so too," Rainbow agreed, although only in a soft voice. "I'm just … not sure that it's worth it."

    "What do you mean?" Blake asked.

    "I … I don't know what I mean," admitted Rainbow Dash. "I just know that it's easier to stand in Atlas and talk about how to help Mantle trust Atlas more than it is to stand down here and look around and realise … how much I really want to get back to Atlas and away from here."

    Blake didn't smile.

    "There will always be some places that are better off," Rainbow said. "And some that are worse."

    "I know," Blake said. "I've spent enough time in Mistral to know that."

    "Although Vale seems to have managed to not be so bad," Twilight pointed out.

    "Maybe they have something to teach … us," Blake suggested quietly.

    Rainbow's eyebrows rose. "'Us'?"

    Now Blake smiled, if only slightly, a faint turning upwards of her lips. "I'm not someone who changes her mind easily, in case you hadn't noticed," she said, "but you can't just give up on a part of your kingdom. This place obviously needs help, and just because it's hard is no reason not to try. Councillor Cadance understands that."

    "And you do, too," Rainbow said.

    "And you?" Blake asked.

    "People who want to be helped deserve to be helped," Rainbow replied.

    Blake's eyes narrowed.

    "You are the one who has pushed me to think about our people," Rainbow declared, feeling a slight surge of irritation towards Blake's high-mindedness. "I was always aware that I had to work harder than some, be better than some, because of these ears on top of my head, and thanks to you, I understand that there are faunus who work even harder and barely make it off the starting line because of how the odds are stacked against them. Why shouldn't that count for something? Why should we be no better off than these people who tear each other to pieces?"

    Blake walked towards her. "I … I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't … it wasn't my intent to make you feel judged, personally. But you … you have changed me, as well. I … I'm less angry than I used to be, and considering what I did with that anger, that's probably a good thing. But you've also helped me see that the interests of humans and faunus are connected, bound together. We can't just seek to protect our own or improve the lot of our people, whether the faunus or Atlesians or both. Think about Equestria, how they were able to produce a paradise, but only by recognising that paradise has to be for everyone, or it isn't a paradise at all. Atlas can be that too, I think we both believe that, but … it's clear to me that Atlas can never fulfil its promise while places like this are left behind."

    Rainbow nodded. "So … what's the answer?"

    "I don't even know what the problem is yet," Blake admitted. "You've got more of an idea on that front than I do."

    "What about my Dad?" Penny asked.

    "It … would be better if he moved back to Atlas," Rainbow said, "but at his age … that's for him to decide, not us." She turned to face Penny. "Are you sure that you wouldn't rather go and visit him?"

    Penny shook her head. "If Ciel needs help, then I … I want to help her."

    "She didn't ask you to," Rainbow pointed out.

    "I know," Penny said sharply, not without some sore sourness in her voice, "but I'll help her anyway. Then, maybe we can see Dad afterwards."

    Twilight smiled. "Sure thing, Penny. I'd like to see him again myself."

    Rainbow considered reminding Penny that when she transferred to Beacon, she would have all the opportunities she could ever want to wander round cities getting in trouble as she liked, but she would find it much harder to see either of her fathers … but she didn't, because if Penny wanted to help Ciel, then that was her choice, and if this was the kind of situation that required Rainbow, Blake, and Twilight's help, then it might be that they would need all the help they could get.

    "Okay," she said. "I'm sure Ciel will be glad of the assistance once we get there. Speaking of which, we should probably keep going. We're probably keeping her waiting as it is."

    Not being too familiar with Mantle, Rainbow had to get out her scroll every so often in order to check that they were going the right way to their destination — and also to check that they were only using the main roads, because she didn't want to risk the Mantle side streets — or risk anyone seeing what the Mantle side streets and back alleys were like. The main roads were not great, but at least it was only garbage piled up in places instead of people.

    Eventually, the four of them arrived at a diner, a place that didn't look as dingy and miserable as Rainbow Dash might have expected, with the illuminated sign for the name of the place mostly working. The windows were clean enough to see Ciel and Neon sitting in a booth by the window, and for Neon — what was she wearing? — to see them too. She waved at them with a … was she wearing a glove like a cat paw? With claws?

    Nevertheless, despite her surprise at the interesting choice of outfit, Rainbow waved back, and led the group inside the diner.

    XxXxX​

    "Look, here they are!" Neon cried, as she waved out of the diner window with one hand clad in a ridiculous glove.

    She hadn't even taken them off inside.

    Ciel looked up as the door into the diner opened, and in walked Rainbow Dash, Blake, Twilight, and—

    "Penny?" Ciel asked.

    "Hello, Ciel," Penny said, waving her hand but only slightly.

    Ciel's eyes remained on Penny, and not on any of the others, even as they drew. "I … am surprised to see you here. I did not … I did not ask for you."

    "No," Penny said. "You didn't."

    I didn't think you'd want to come, Ciel thought, but did not say; to say it would have sounded even worse than not sending for Penny in the first place.

    And so a silence descended upon the group, even as the four who had arrived from Atlas — Penny included — squeezed onto the seats on the other side of the booth from Neon and Ciel.

    "So," said Rainbow, seated next to the window opposite Neon, with a good deal of forced jollity in her tone, "Neon, I wasn't expecting to see you here."

    "What are you talking about, Dashie? Of course I'd be here to help Ciel out," Neon said, putting a clawed hand upon Ciel's shoulder. "After all, Ciel and I are friends."

    "What are you wearing?" Blake asked.

    Ciel sighed. You would have been better off not asking.

    "It's a catsuit," Neon said, repeating the catpaw gesture from earlier. "Nya nya!"

    "I don't…" Blake trailed off for a moment, blinking rapidly, before she rallied to say, "How can you wear something like that?"

    "I admit it's a little uncomfortable around—"

    "I'm not talking about that," Blake declared. "I'm talking about turning yourself into a walking stereotype!"

    "Says the person who loves tuna," Rainbow muttered.

    Blake tilted her chin, with the side-effect of sticking her nose in the air, as she declared with some asperity, "That … is completely different, and of a completely different order to … this."

    "What's the matter with this? It's an outfit," Neon said. "No one is going to have their minds changed about the faunus by what they see me wearing. You, both of you, need to lighten up a little. You can't change the world; all you can do is laugh at it."

    "I disagree," Blake said. "We can change the world, but we have to try."

    Neon sighed. "So earnest. Such a drag."

    "But thank you for coming," Ciel said, a touch of wryness entering her voice, despite the circumstances. Once more she looked at Penny. "All of you."

    "Of course," Penny said, a smile upon her face.

    Neon snorted. Nobody made an issue of it.

    "If you need help, then we're all willing to do whatever we can," Twilight said. "Although I'm not sure … you don't need me to hack into Mantle's security cameras again, do you?"

    Blake looked at her. "Hack into Mantle's security cameras?"

    "It was only very briefly," Rainbow assured her.

    "That doesn't make it any less surprising," Blake replied.

    "That probably won't be necessary this time around," Neon said. "Not least because he turns the cameras off."

    Twilight frowned. "Who turns the cameras off?"

    Neon put her scroll down on the table, open, with the picture of their quarry displayed upon the screen. "Feathers Markinson," she said.

    Rainbow stood up and leaned over the diner table. "I've seen his wanted poster around, last time I was down in Mantle."

    "Who is he?" asked Penny. "Is he dangerous?"

    "He's a jewel thief," Neon said. "And no, he's probably not dangerous; he doesn't seem to have done anything violent in any of his heists."

    Blake placed her hands upon the white plastic table. "Why do you want to catch a jewel thief?"

    "For the reward money," Neon admitted. "We need it for…" She glanced at Ciel.

    Ciel bowed her head, resting her elbows upon the table. "My brother is sick," she said. "Alain, my youngest brother, he … he requires treatments costing three million lien, three million that we do not have. If we can apprehend this fugitive and claim this money, then … but without, then … then I fear that…"

    He will die. She did not want to say it. She could not say it; the words stuck in her throat. Her whole body trembled, and trembled all the more as she closed her eyes, unable to look at anyone.

    "I am sorry to ask you to involve yourself in something that is none of your concern," she said, "but such is the seriousness of the situation, so much is at stake that I fear we are not adequate to the task, and so I ask you, I beg you—"

    She stopped as she felt hands upon her, arms wrapping themselves around her, a forehead pressed against her own.

    "You don't need to beg," Penny said gently. "You don't even need to ask. Of course we'll help you, Ciel."

    Ciel opened her eyes. It was Penny holding her, Penny embracing her, Penny whose eyes were so big and so close to her own.

    "You will?" Ciel asked, in a voice that was almost a croak of surprise. "But I … but why?"

    Penny blinked. "Because you need us," she said, as though it was the easiest thing in the world to understand. She smiled. "Don't worry, Ciel; everything is going to be alright."

    Ciel drew in a deep, if somewhat ragged, breath, and then let it out again. "Thank you, Penny," she said. "I … I am glad that you are here."

    "Do you need us, though?" Rainbow asked. "Do you really? Why don't you just ask General Ironwood for help?"

    "My parents would not take such charity," Ciel said as Penny's arms fell away from her.

    "They wouldn't take it?" Rainbow repeated. "Their … their pride is more important than their son's life?"

    "You do not understand what it is like—"

    "I understand what it's like to be poor," Rainbow said sharply. "I haven't forgotten, but if I needed money for something that important, I'd get down on all fours and beg like a dog for it if I had to."

    "Well, Ciel's folks won't; it is what it is," Neon said. "It may not be good or right or ideal, but it is. It's what we have to work with. If we want to get this money, we have to come by it … semi-honestly, at least. So, are you going to help us catch this guy or what?"

    "Yes, of course I'm going to help you," Rainbow said. "I'm not going to walk away; I just think it's a bit stupid that you have to go to these lengths. What's the good of having friends in high places if you can't ask them for favours when you really need one?"

    Some people might call that corruption, Ciel thought, but she knew that if she voiced that thought out loud, then Rainbow would bristle at the implications, and rightly so. All she said was, "It is perhaps a pity that my parents do not feel the same way you do."

    "We'll do everything we can to help you, obviously," Blake said. "And I suppose it's clear now why you wanted Twilight's help."

    "For my computer skills," Twilight said. She got out her scroll and placed it on the table next to Neon's. "And I also brought Midnight too, just in case."

    "I have heard everything," Midnight's voice issued out of the scroll, "and although I concur with Rainbow Dash's assessment of the situation, I stand ready to do my part."

    "But how?" Blake asked. "Where do we even start? It seems that we have an aim, but do we have a plan?"

    "We know that he's still here in Mantle, because he robbed somewhere here very recently," Neon said. "I don't think that he'll have left that quickly."

    "Why stay, if he has what he came for?" asked Penny.

    "To wait until the alarm dies down?" Neon suggested.

    "Or because he isn't done yet," Rainbow said. "Where did he rob the last time?"

    "A hotel safe," Neon muttered.

    Rainbow frowned. "Was there a lot in there?"

    "Does it matter?" Neon asked.

    "It matters if he thinks he's done or not," Rainbow replied.

    "You said that he was a jewel thief," Blake said. "Were there jewels in the safe, do you know?"

    Neon shook her head. "Just lien."

    "Practice run," Blake said softly.

    Ciel's brow furrowed. "Practicing a theft?"

    Blake nodded. "Start off with a low priority target as a proof of concept and capability, before moving onto the real target. Stealing lien from the hotel is appreciated, I'm sure, but more importantly, it proves to them that they can hit their real goal."

    "Which we don't know yet, but it would be good if we could figure it out, because I doubt a jewel thief with a three million lien bounty is going to trying to fence what he steals in low-end pawn shops," Rainbow said.

    "But what would a jewel thief be doing in Mantle in the first place?" asked Twilight. "I mean … no offence, but it isn't exactly awash with glamorous socialites."

    Neon's eyes widened. "The museum!" she cried.

    Ciel looked at her. "The Mistralian exhibit!"

    "Would one of you care to explain?" asked Blake.

    "The crown jewels of Mistral, some of them at least, have been loaned to Atlas by Mistral," Neon explained. "They're been on tour all around Solitas and now they're here in Mantle, at the museum."

    "Crown jewels, huh?" Rainbow said. "Well, they'd be a score for a jewel thief."

    "How would you sell anything so recognisable?" asked Blake.

    Rainbow shrugged. "I suppose when you're a master jewel thief, you get to know how this stuff works, contacts and such. The point is, it seems like a likely target." She fell quiet for a few moments, tapping her fingers upon the tabletop. "Okay," she said, at length, "here's what we're going to do."

    XxXxX
    ​
    Author's Note: I will be away on Friday and so the next chapter will be out on Monday 31st October
     
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    • The Wrong Chair, Part Two

    ​

    "Comm check," Rainbow said, tapping her earpiece as she spoke. "Everyone, report in."

    "This is Neon, there's nothing to see here," Neon answered from down below. "The museum has just shut its doors."

    "Keep patrolling around the outside; shout if you see anything suspicious," Rainbow instructed.

    "Aye aye, captain," Neon replied.

    "This is Blake; they're putting the garbage out here at the back entrance," Blake said. "I don't think there's anything suspicious about that."

    "I don't know," Neon said. "The prices they charge in the museum café are a little suspicious if you ask me."

    Rainbow snorted. "Focus, everyone," she instructed.

    "Yeah, yeah, don't say 'focus' like we didn't all hear you just then, Dashie," said Neon.

    "I can think it was funny and inappropriate at the same time," Rainbow said. "Twilight, how are things at your end?"

    "I'm monitoring Mantle's security cameras for any sign of the suspect," Twilight said. "So far, no luck."

    "And I am inside the museum's own security system," Midnight chimed in. "I will inform you if there are any system failures — provided those failures don't take me out too."

    "Don't joke about stuff like that, Midnight," Twilight said.

    "Why not?" Midnight asked. "Would you miss me if I wasn't here?"

    "Of course," Twilight said. "Where else would I get my sarcastic commentary from?"

    "I hardly know whether to be amused or affronted," Midnight declared.

    "You're a really big help, Midnight," Twilight said. "And I mean that sincerely. I'm lucky to have you."

    "Thank you, Twilight Sparkle," Midnight said. "I think that you are my new favourite."

    Rainbow frowned. "Wasn't Twilight always your favourite?"

    "I told you that you used to be my favourite, Rainbow Dash."

    "Yeah, but I always knew that was a lie," Rainbow said. "I thought Twilight was your favourite for sure."

    "And what would make you think that?" Midnight asked.

    "Because…" Because she is you. "Okay then, who was it really?"

    There was silence on the other end of the line.

    "Midnight?" Rainbow asked.

    "A lady does not tell," Midnight said.

    "What?"

    "Focus, Dashie," Neon said, a touch of amusement entering her voice.

    "Okay, fine, I deserve that," Rainbow huffed. "Ciel, Penny, can you see anything from where you are?"

    "We can see a lot," Penny said. "We can see the whole main street and lots of side alleys and all the people and—"

    "However, we cannot yet see anything relevant to our intentions here," Ciel interrupted. "Unfortunately."

    "Give it time," Rainbow told her. "The museum only just closed, remember; he's not going to try anything while they're still shutting up shop; most of the staff won't have left yet; they'll still be … taking the garbage out, like Blake said, sweeping the floor, that kind of thing."

    "Then why are we here?" Neon asked.

    "Because if we wait until the time when a thief is likely to show up, then he might see us setting up," Rainbow explained, again. "We need to be in position before he gets here. Speaking of which," she tapped the side of her goggles, increasing the magnification to times four, turning in place as she swept her eyes across all of Mantle that she could see from her lofty perch on top of the museum.

    The Museum of Mantle was one of the oldest buildings in the whole of Mantle; it had once been the royal palace, back when Mantle had been the capital of the kingdom instead of a has-been also ran, and parts of it had been burnt down in the revolution that followed right after the end of the war, when the Commune tried to take over the city. More of it had been wrecked when the army suppressed the Commune, but what was left had eventually been turned into a museum.

    Rainbow thought that was kind of cool, but at the same time kind of odd. Like, it was really pretty cool, when you thought about it, that the actual building itself had as much history as the things that were stored inside of it, but at the same time … well, it was kind of odd when you thought about what kind of history it was. Madness, death, executions … and now, old vases.

    And old jewellery too, of course, Rainbow thought. She wondered briefly what the old residents of the palace would have thought of that, the king who had tried to abolish self expression and the communards who had wanted to abolish property.

    They'd all be turning in their graves.

    Regardless … yes, regardless of what they would have thought about the kind of things that were now being stored beneath what had been, for a little bit at least, their roof, the Museum of Mantle was a tall edifice of white marble, and unlike a lot of places in Mantle, it was kept reasonably clean, although the amount of maintenance need to keep the marble from fading from white to a dull grey had proven beyond it. It was almost tower-like, at least what remained of the old building was, rising to a high pinnacle, a brass spire reaching up towards the sky. It was beneath the spire that Rainbow stood at the moment, high above the rest of the city, looking down upon the rest of Mantle from her high perch, like an eagle nesting at the top of a particularly tall tree, ready to swoop down the moment she saw a particularly appetising field mouse.

    Or a chicken.

    Rainbow's plan was pretty straightforward, having divided assignments amongst the group based on their skill and abilities — Neon and Blake on the perimeter; Ciel and Penny keeping watching from a different and more accessible vantage point, a roof overlooking the main road to the museum; Twilight watching the city's security cameras from inside The Bus; Midnight inside the security systems of the museum itself; Rainbow up here on the highest pinnacle — they were going to wait for their quarry to make an appearance and then nab him.

    Admittedly, they didn't know he was going to show up tonight, but then, they didn't know that he wasn't going to show up tonight either. They didn't know when he was going to strike.

    They couldn't even say for definite that he was going to strike here at all, although it seemed a pretty good bet that he would, because there was no more tempting target than this in the whole of Mantle.

    If he didn't show up tonight … then they would have to come back tomorrow, and the night after that, and the night after that until Feathers Markinson showed himself … or it became undeniable that he wasn't going to.

    If that happened … if that happened, then Rainbow Dash would get the money herself, never mind Ciel's parents and their working class pride. It was all very well for Sunset to talk about how 'pride is the one thing that nobody can take away from you,' and maybe it was, but you couldn't eat it, you couldn't take it to the bank, you couldn't exchange it for life-saving medicine.

    Rainbow had meant what she'd said in the diner: if Scootaloo had been dying, then there was nothing that she wouldn't have done, no humiliation she wouldn't have put herself through, in order to get her the help she needed. The alternative was … unthinkable.

    Rainbow hadn't known that Ciel's brother was sick. She'd known that Ciel had six brothers, but she hadn't known that one of them was fatally ill. It seemed like Ciel had wanted to keep it private, but that was no excuse. She ought to have known, even if it meant that she had to go snooping around to find out.

    She could make up for it by helping to save him, if not this way, then by whatever means necessary.

    For crying out loud, there was enough money in Atlas to pay for this; admittedly it wasn't something from which Atlas as a whole would benefit … or would it? Who knew what Alain — yes, she knew their names; she just hadn't known he was ill — would become? Who knew what he would do with his life if he was allowed to have one? He might become almost as great a scientist as Twilight, or compose a song that would inspire generations of Atlesians, or … anything, really. That was the cool thing about being a kid; you could be absolutely anything, provided you were given the opportunity.

    And making sure you got those opportunities was the job of those who came before.

    So even if Feathers Markinson had taken off from Mantle and high-tailed it to Vale or Mistral or somewhere, Rainbow would get that money for Ciel, even if she had to spend the rest of her life paying back Twilight's parents and Councillor Cadance and everyone else she'd borrowed from to scrape it together.

    But, in the meantime, she was on top of the roof of the museum, her magnified goggles allowing her to see what was going on in the world down below, watching, waiting. Hoping.

    "I've got movement down here," Blake said.

    Rainbow turned that way, looking down towards the southeast, where the back door of the museum, the one that wasn't open to the public, the one that lay behind a set of wrought iron gates, was located. Blake was down there, lurking in the shadows, able to see everything that was going on even as darkness fell on Mantle.

    "You're talking about the armoured truck, right?" Rainbow asked as she watched the black van-like vehicle drive up through the streets towards the back gates.

    "Right," Blake confirmed.

    "I guess he would need something to put all the stuff he steals, unless he wants to carry it away in a sack," Rainbow murmured.

    "Shall we move in?" Neon asked.

    "Penny and I are out of position here; we can't see anything," Ciel said. "We're repositioning now."

    "Negative, not yet," Rainbow said. "We don't know that this is Markinson; we don't know this is a getaway vehicle; we don't want to move in or reposition, and it turns out to be caramel shortbreads for the café. Blake, what does that van look like to you? I can only see the roof from up here."

    "Hard to say," Blake replied. "The windows are dark; it's got a logo on the side. It doesn't look like a bakery."

    "What does the logo look like?" Twilight asked. "Can you take a picture with your scroll?"

    "Maybe," Blake said. "It's strange, it's … grotesque, honestly; it's a person with eyes all over their body."

    "Hmm," Twilight said. "I'm sending you an image now; is that what you're seeing?"

    There was a few moments of pause, before Blake said, "Yes, that's it."

    "It's not our guy," Twilight said. "That's the logo of Argos Panopticon Security; they're a private firm hired to provide security for the crown jewels by the Mistralian authorities."

    As Twilight spoke, a man in a suit emerged from the back door of the museum, buttoning up his long dark coat as he did so, and walked out towards the gate beyond which the van waited. He waved with one hand, and as he reached the gate, he pressed a button which caused the gate to swing open inwards. The van drove in, parking just outside the back doors as the man in the suit and coat shut the gates after them.

    The doors of the van opened, and a half dozen armed men disembarked, all wearing black, with forage caps and what looked from up on the roof like submachine guns held in their hands.

    Leaving their vehicle, they followed the man from the museum inside.

    "Looks like we've got competition," Rainbow said. "Six men, too uniformly equipped to be huntsmen, I think, but they probably have some training. Midnight, can you see what they're doing in there?"

    "Give me one moment, Rainbow Dash," Midnight replied. A moment passed, and then another.

    "They are moving into the rooms where the Mistralian jewellery and gowns are being exhibited," Midnight said. "No, wait. Three men are remaining in those rooms, one on the entrance, one on the exit, and one patrolling."

    "And the other three?" Rainbow asked.

    "Seem to be patrolling the rest of the museum's seventh floor," Midnight said.

    "Reasonable," Rainbow murmured. Half their numbers to stop people from getting close to the exhibits, the other half in case they did.

    "What does this mean?" asked Penny.

    "It means that we have competition," Rainbow replied. "If we let these guys catch this thief, then we won't get the reward for Alain. That said, it doesn't change our operational plan: they're inside, we're out here, so if we all look alive and do our jobs, then we'll still spot Markinson before they know he was anywhere nearby. So stay sharp, everyone. We've got a long night ahead of us."

    XxXxX​

    Ciel looked at the world through the scope of her rifle.

    Ciel hadn't taken Distant Thunder home with her — unlike in some kingdoms, Atlas operated strict licenses on who could have or carry weapons, and Ciel's student license did not allow her to carry her weapon in Mantle; she, and everyone else, was breaking the law at present. It was something that she probably ought to have felt more guilty about than she did; perhaps Rainbow's argument for arming the people of Mantle had affected her more than she thought, or else she simply wanted to accomplish so much, she was prepared to break the law for Alain's sake — but Rainbow had brought it down from Atlas with her.

    And so Ciel lay on her belly upon the roof of a three-storey Strunk and White's — a bookstore — that sat on the main street leading to the museum. She lay on her belly, her chest resting upon a pillow she had borrowed from home — one of her pillows, lest she be accused of taking one of her brothers' — and through her scope, she scanned the street beneath her.

    It was dark and quiet. The sounds of traffic off in the distance were a mere background hum, and only the sounds of the trains passing by only a moderate distance behind her disturbed the stillness of the air at all. Darkness had fallen ere the museum closed its doors to the public, and they were a few hours past that point by now. Night was well and truly upon them, and while parts of Mantle were doubtless still alive, this part of the city had well and truly died. The road that led to the museum, the road that passed this very large bookshop — and the old-fashioned record shop, and the cafes — was wide, with two lanes for traffic and broad pavements for pedestrians on either side, but all of those were quiet now. There was no one around, except Neon, who could be seen lurking in the shadows if one knew where to look.

    Ciel kept looking, never taking her eye away from the scope of her rifle, seeing the world that way — and through the single lens of the multi-purpose sight that she was wearing on a band around her forehead and which fell down to cover her shooting eye.

    It had several modes, but right now, Ciel was using the night vision, casting the empty street into shades of green.

    It was simple to see the world like this; not green, necessarily, but through the scope of a sniper rifle. It was easier than looking at it in the round.

    You didn't have to worry about what people thought of you when you were viewing them through the scope of a rifle.

    Or when you couldn't see them, because your world had shrunk to what could be perceived through said scope, and had no room for copper-topped androids.

    "Ciel?" Penny said.

    Of course, just because you couldn't see them didn't mean they weren't there, or that they were without other means of getting your attention.

    "Yes, Penny?" Ciel responded, her voice soft, barely disturbing the cool air.

    "Why don't you look at me?" Penny asked plaintively. "Why haven't you said a word all night?"

    What would we talk about? You're leaving. It sounded petty and childish in Ciel's head, but, well, it was how she felt, and why shouldn't she be allowed to be petty and childish just this once? Why did she have to be so terribly grown-up all the time? Just because she was the eldest of seven siblings didn't mean that she had to be the grown-up in every relationship.

    Except it … did, didn't it? At least when it came to Penny, young as she was. And so Ciel said, "I … am endeavouring to concentrate."

    "There's nothing here," Penny pointed.

    "There may be something," Ciel said.

    "And you'll see it whether you talk to me or not," Penny said. "You don't even have to look away; just say something."

    "What is it you would like me to say, Penny?" Ciel asked.

    Penny let out a sort of wordless growl. "This isn't fair!" she snapped. "You're acting like I did something wrong!"

    "No, I'm not," Ciel said, but the words sounded feeble even to herself.

    "Yes you are," Penny insisted. "Otherwise you wouldn't be sulking like this."

    "I am not—"

    "Then what would you call what you're doing?" Penny demanded.

    Ciel was silent for a moment. In fact, she stayed silent for longer than a moment, making no reply at all to Penny, letting the silence stretch out because … because there were no good answers here. Either she agreed that, yes, she was sulking, or she told Penny that the reason she hadn't been talking to Penny was that she felt … she felt as though there was nothing to say between them.

    She did not take her eyes off the scope, watching the street instead of watching Penny.

    "Ciel?" Penny prodded.

    "I am surprised you want me to speak to you," Ciel muttered.

    "That isn't fair," Penny said.

    "Is it not?" Ciel demanded, still not looking away from her scope. "You are the one who made our friendship conditional on me helping you do what you wanted."

    "I want to be free!" Penny cried. "I want to be free to make my own choices, to do what I want instead of what other people have planned for me; if you don't think I have the right to that, then how dare you call yourself my friend? How dare you?"

    Again, Ciel did not reply. Penny's own response … was difficult to argue with. With the heart … it had felt like blackmail, emotional or otherwise. But with the head … Penny could hardly be said to be wrong, could she? 'A real friend would help me escape from the chains of slavery.' Well … yes. Yes, they would. There wasn't a lot you could say against that. It was difficult to argue that, no, actually, there were friends worth their salt who would refuse to help liberate their so-called friend from bondage, because the law or because of societal expectations or because they believed slavery to be philosophically justified.

    'When God is silent, heed the words of the King,' the Lady said, in her epistle to the men of Mantle, appropriately enough. 'But when God speaks through me, let the thunderous sound of His Word drown out the king and all his trumpets.' What Ciel had always taken that to mean was that the laws of the state held no import when they came into conflict with the laws of her faith. Others, braver and wiser than herself, had seen it thus: in Mantle's palace, in what was now the museum around which they all kept watch, the last king of Mantle had burned his Warden of the West to death for refusing to renounce her faith.

    'I am the King's good servant,' she had said, before they put the torch to her pyre, 'but I am servant to the Lady first.' So they had lit the flames, and two hundred men, good men no doubt, according to their lights, had watched her burn alive because the king commanded it so.

    Compared to that, what reason had she for allowing Penny's situation to continue for as long as she had? What did she risk, by helping Penny to escape from circumstances she found intolerable? How could she justify it, to Penny, to the Lady, to God?

    "My Lady, I held the whip over a slave because General Ironwood commanded that I should. "

    "And how loud does General Ironwood speak, that he roars louder than the thunder of His Word?"

    "My Lady, I was unwilling to help a captive escape, because it pleased me to have them near at hand, and I did not wish them to go far."

    "And why was your pleasure more important than their liberty?"

    "My Lady, I took her desire for freedom as a slight against me and was petulantly aggrieved."

    "Wherefore are you so proud, that such weighty questions must turn around your feelings?"

    I must repent ere I be damned for this.

    Distant Thunder trembled a little in her hands. "I … I'm sorry, Penny," she whispered. "I have been … a poor servant. I have walked so proud and held my head so high and thought myself so very moral, and yet, I have forgot what are amongst the most fundamental teachings of our faith."

    She paused, and as she paused a ragged sigh escaped her lips. "'For there is no slave in the House of God, and in His sight, all men are equal. Therefore I charge you see to it that as you are equal in the next life, so be you equal in this: keep no man in chains, deny none their liberty, let all be free to seek His Word.' Words I should have heeded."

    "You didn't think of it that way," Penny said.

    "Do not make excuses for me, Penny; it is unseemly that they should come from you, to whom I have…" Ciel trailed off for a moment. "I should be begging forgiveness of you, not lying here in petulant silence."

    There was a pause for a moment. "So you were sulking," Penny said, with just a hint of a triumphant note.

    The corner of Ciel's lip twitched upwards into a smile. "Yes," she admitted. "Amongst other things. Penny?"

    "Yes, Ciel?"

    "Why are you here?" Ciel asked. "In Mantle, I mean? Why did you come? The Lady knows you have little cause to help me."

    "Don't I?" Penny asked.

    Ciel briefly looked away from her scope and the little world that it encompassed to look at Penny. She was … she was astonished by the look of disbelief on Penny's face; her question had not been spoken sarcastically; there was nought in her face but confusion.

    "You are … we are … I do not deserve your friendship," Ciel said, ever so softly, like a breath of mist upon a pane of glass.

    "You thought you were doing the right thing," Penny murmured.

    "It is true that I, not seeing Atlesian service as a burden, did not see how it might seem burdensome to you, but that is no excuse," Ciel said. "Right … moral right does not care how I see things, what I thought I was doing; it does not depend upon majority vote or orders from above — unless by 'above,' one means the powers of Heaven. Right is … right, as the Lady lays down for us. And yet, Rainbow Dash, godless as she is, has done more for you than I who call myself faithful." She looked away, back into the scope of Distant Thunder. "I will be humble after and seek for grace. I should have taken you away from Atlas as soon as I could."

    "And go where?" Penny said.

    "To Beacon, as you wish."

    "I didn't know that I wanted to stay there then."

    "And yet you fled," Ciel pointed out. "I should have thought what it meant when we set out to bring you back. I should have realized that it made me a slave catcher."

    "Don't be so hard on yourself," Penny urged. "I don't blame you. That's not what this is about. What's past is … it's past. It's over with. It's all done now. This last year has been … wonderful. The friends I've made … I wouldn't risk that by changing anything, even if it meant that I was free earlier. If being free meant that I didn't meet Ruby or Pyrrha or Sunset, then … then I'm glad you came to get me. Although, yes, I'm also glad that Rainbow is team leader instead of you, because you would have taken me back to Atlas, wouldn't you?"

    "Guilty," Ciel muttered.

    "You didn't think of it … you didn't think of me … I understand," Penny said. "Just like I understand that there are a lot of practical issues with me not being part of Atlas anymore. Maybe I won't be able to be maintained, maybe I'll break, piece by piece, until nothing works."

    "You should not speak so glibly about—"

    "But everyone dies, don't they?" Penny asked. "Ruby is going to die, and Pyrrha and Sunset; you, Rainbow Dash, General Ironwood. I don't think I'd want to live forever, getting all of my parts replaced over and over again, living on when everybody else is gone."

    "I am sure that you would have no trouble making new friends," Ciel pointed out.

    "But what if I don't want to?" Penny asked. "What if I'd rather…"

    "Die?" Ciel asked.

    "Death … could be a grand adventure, don't you think?" Penny asked. "The point is that … I don't want you to feel bad about what you've done; I just … I just want you to understand why I'm doing this, why I want … what I want. I want you to understand why I … why I don't love you, the way you'd like me to."

    "In your position, I would not love me either," Ciel admitted. "And yet … and yet, I think that you must love me more than I deserve or—"

    "Sunset says that love has nothing to do with what we deserve," Penny said.

    "Does she?"

    "Yes," Penny replied. "She says it to Jaune."

    "However she intends it, that cannot help but sound harsh," Ciel remarked. "For all of Pyrrha's fine qualities, Jaune is … a fine young man, possessed of many excellent qualities of his own, for all that he lacks skill."

    Penny was quiet for a moment. "Do you like Jaune?"

    "Certainly not, and I should certainly not admit it if I did, involved as he is," Ciel said sharply. "But he is a gentleman, and one cannot help but admire that in this day and age. He hardly…" She chuckled. "He hardly deserves to be told that he does not deserve Pyrrha, as Sunset's statement implies. And yet … and yet, it is a comforting thought, in general, I must confess."

    Once more, she paused briefly. "Thank you, Penny."

    "For what?"

    "For coming," Ciel said. "In spite of everything. I am … I'm glad you're here."

    "I'm glad to be here, too," Penny said. "I meant what I said in the diner; if you need help … just because I can't be the little sister you wanted me to be doesn't mean that we can't be friends, even friends who live in different kingdoms. I could call you."

    Ciel closed her eyes for a moment. "I … I would like that, Penny," she said softly. "I would like that very much."

    XxXxX​

    "Rainbow Dash, I've got something on the cameras."

    "Which direction? Is it our guy?" Rainbow asked.

    "No," Twilight replied. "It's … Doctor Polendina."

    "Dad?" Penny asked.

    "Which Doctor Polendina, Twi?" asked Rainbow.

    "Pietro."

    "Right, that's obvious," Rainbow muttered. What would the other Doctor Polendina be doing in a place like this?

    Well, he might be coming to skin me alive for bringing Penny to Mantle, but other than that…

    "What about Dad?" Penny demanded. "Is he okay?"

    "He seems to be," Twilight said cautiously. "He's … on his chair."

    "You mean like sitting down on the street?" Neon said.

    "It's a walking chair," Twilight explained. "It has legs, and a semi-autonomous guidance system connected to the CCT that means that, for longer journeys, Doctor Polendina doesn't need to drive the chair himself but can simply program in his destination, and the chair will convey him by the swiftest route."

    "Fancy," Neon said.

    "You know a lot about it," Blake observed. "Did you help with the programming, by any chance?"

    "I was able to do my part, yes."

    "That's great," Rainbow said, "but … I suppose it is kind of strange that a man his age is out and about at this time of night, but it's not like there's a curfew. So—"

    "It's strange that Doctor Polendina is on his way to the museum," Twilight said.

    "What?" Rainbow said. "Here? Are you sure about that?"

    "I'm positive," Twilight replied. "I've been monitoring Doctor Polendina for some time as he passes from camera to camera, but I didn't say anything until I was sure that he was headed in your direction. It's weird, right?"

    "Yeah," Rainbow murmured. It was weird, if only because everything around here was closed at this time of night. "Where's he coming from?"

    "The direction he's approaching from will bring him down Thermidor."

    Thermidor Road was the main road that approached the museum from the front. Rainbow was already facing that direction, so she tapped the side of her goggles once to increase the magnification yet further, casting her gaze out across Mantle in the hopes of spotting the good doctor before he actually turned onto the road itself.

    Even at high magnifications, she wasn't getting a brilliant view, but she thought that she could see him — a man in a personalized robot chair was pretty distinctive. It was like Twilight said; he was heading their way.

    Although he hadn't actually reached Thermidor yet, it was possible that he was just out for a stroll, in a manner of speaking. After all, just because he couldn't walk or run long distances didn't mean that he had to confine himself to his clinic, never seeing the sights or feeling the air on his face. What was the point of having a robot chair to carry you around if you let yourself become a prisoner in your own home anyway? Maybe he wanted to go out at night because there was no one else around to get in his way or make remarks about his chair, or just because he liked to look up at the moon. It was a free kingdom, after all.

    But at the same time … something about this … the fact that he was on his way here, in their direction. It didn't feel right.

    Rainbow considered having Penny run down and intercept her Dad; he'd love to see her, and if he really was on an innocent and unassuming walk, then they could go together.

    And if there was anything shady going on, then Penny would be in the middle of it.

    "Twilight, is Doctor Polendina alone?"

    "I … think so?" Twilight replied.

    "You think so?" Rainbow repeated. "Is there anyone else there, or isn't there?"

    "I can't see anyone else," Twilight said, "but … I don't know; I sometimes think there's movement in the shadows, but it's too dark for me to make out."

    "Don't these cameras have any night modes?" Rainbow demanded.

    "No."

    "That's a lot of good at night, isn't it?" Rainbow grumbled.

    "There is something else," Twilight said. "Something strange."

    "Go on."

    "Doctor Polendina has his Handy Hands attached to his chair."

    There was a moment of silence.

    "His … Handy Hands?" Blake asked.

    "They're a pair of robotic hands fitted onto a unit that can be attached or detached from the back of Doctor Polendina's chair or worn like a backpack," Twilight explained. "They have a long reach, so they can be used to get jars off the top shelves or reach into distant nooks and crannies. They're very useful, but why would he be wearing them outside?"

    "Maybe he forgot to take them off after he put the cookie jar back?" Neon suggested.

    Rainbow frowned. "Midnight, what's the situation inside?"

    "Unchanged," Midnight replied. "Everything seems normal, and the mercenaries from Argos Panopticon are continuing their patrols."

    "Okay, thanks," Rainbow said softly. "Neon, Blake, keep an eye out; don't get distracted. Twilight, don't focus too much on Doctor Polendina; we still need to be looking out for Markinson."

    "What about Dad?" Penny asked.

    "We'll keep an eye on him, Penny," Rainbow assured her. "In fact, I've got both eyes on him right now."

    Doctor Polendina moved inexorably in their direction, carried by his chair step by step towards the museum. As he got closer, Rainbow could see him in more detail; she could see what must be the Handy Hands, actually a pair of claws — three claws on each 'hand' — attached to what looked like a canister fitted to the back of Doctor Polendina's chair.

    As he got closer, Rainbow could also see that Doctor Polendina had his eyes closed, and he was slumped forward a little in his chair.

    "Twilight," Rainbow said, "does Doctor Polendina look asleep to you?"

    "Yes," Twilight said. "Yes, he does. He must have programmed his chair to take him … to where you are, and then fallen asleep."

    "Hmm," Rainbow murmured, beginning to doubt that Doctor Polendina had programmed his chair to take him anywhere, because not only was he asleep, but he was also wearing his pyjamas: a string vest and a pair of white boxer shorts with big red dots on them. Which, first of all, the fact that he was walking around in his PJs, and second of all, it wasn't exactly warm out here at night; it probably wasn't healthy for an old man to have so little on.

    Rainbow could believe that he wanted to go out for a walk; she could believe that he might programme his chair to take him for a walk and then fall asleep — it was late, after all. She couldn't quite bring herself to believe that he would go out dressed for bed without putting so much as a coat on first.

    And he was definitely coming this way. In fact, he had turned onto Thermidor Road already and was advancing straight towards the museum.

    "What do we do, Dashie?" asked Neon.

    "Penny, get down there, wake your Dad up, and take him—" Rainbow stopped.

    She stopped because Doctor Polendina had stopped, about halfway down the road, halfway to the museum. He was on the actual road part of the road and would have been at risk from the traffic if there had been any traffic to speak of. He was standing there, or rather, his chair was standing there, while Doctor Polendina continued to slump and slumber in his seat.

    "Everyone hold," Rainbow ordered. Perhaps this was the destination, and the chair would soon turn around to take him home.

    It did not move.

    "Movement," Ciel hissed. "Someone approaching … target sighted!"

    "Confirmed," Rainbow said, because she saw him too: Feathers Markinson, instantly recognizable with that chicken crest on his head; the beady black eyes on the picture were not as visible when you were looking in night vision, but all the same, it was definitely him. There was something familiar about him, and not from his wanted poster either. Rainbow couldn't work out what it was.

    It didn't matter. He was there, and he was starting to walk towards Doctor Polendina. At this point, it didn't matter why Doctor Polendina was there; if they let him get to him, then he could take the doctor hostage or he could just get hurt.

    They needed to stop him now.

    "Neon, grab him now!" Rainbow snapped.

    "Copy that," Neon said.

    There was a rainbow blur, a streak of spectral light that lit up the darkness, a brilliant white that cut through Rainbow's night vision, as Neon closed the distance to the target faster than a speeding bullet.

    With one fist, she hit Feathers across the jaw, knocking him to the ground and his crest right off his head. It landed on the road beside him, revealing—

    Rainbow's eyes widened. "It's the penguin?!"

    "What?" Blake demanded. "'Penguin'? What's going on?"

    "Markinson, he's not a chicken faunus at all," Rainbow said. "He's a penguin faunus wearing a fake chicken crest. He's also Doctor Polendina's lodger; that's where I recognized him from."

    "Huh," Neon muttered as she rolled Feathers over and pinned both his arms behind him. "Clever. A lot of people don't look beyond faunus traits."

    "They do," Rainbow said. "It's just that they're kind of a big deal, so … never mind. Ciel, call the police; Penny, go—"

    Neon squawked in alarm as one of Doctor Polendina's Handy Hands rotated to face behind the doctor and his chair, shot out and grabbed Neon by the throat, yanking her backwards and up into the air before slamming her down, head first, into the road.

    Feathers, his captor lifted from off his back, sprang to his feet and started to run.

    "I have a shot," Ciel said dispassionately.

    "Don't shoot him; if you do that, you'll be getting a murder charge instead of a reward," Rainbow said. She leapt off the roof of the museum, her Wings of Harmony unfurling out of her backpack to spread out on either side of her, catching the Mantle air as she fell with style towards the streets below. "Neon, are you okay?"

    Neon groaned wordlessly as the Handy Hand picked her up and slammed her down into the road a second time, even as Doctor Polendina's chair began to walk towards her. "Am I allowed to break this thing?"

    "No, Doctor Polendina still needs it for the tall shelves," Rainbow replied. "Midnight, can you lock the museum down?"

    "Is three the first digit of pi?" Midnight replied. "Yes, yes it is."

    "Great," Rainbow said. That would stop the mercenaries from getting out and interfering. "Once you've done that, I think that Doctor Polendina's chair has been hacked, so I need you to get in there and … counterhack it."

    "You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?"

    "Just fix the chair," Rainbow said. "Blake, come around the front; there's no point in you hanging around the back anymore."

    "Understood," Blake said. "I'm on my way."

    "Neon, I'm going to need you to tough it out for a little bit, okay?" Rainbow said.

    "Sure," Neon groaned, as she was dragged across the tarmac towards Doctor Polendina's chair. Said chair stepped forward, planting a leg upon Neon's stomach, pinning her to the ground. "I'm doing awesome here."

    "Ciel, keep him in sight; Penny, stay where you are for now," Rainbow ordered.

    "Why?" Penny demanded. "I can get him."

    "You should be there for your dad, Penny," Rainbow said. Also, I'm almost certain that Markinson hacked his chair, and I don't want to put you up against someone like that. She didn't actually know if it was possible to hack Penny, but since Penny's systems could be overridden — she'd seen Twilight do it, if only with Penny's consent — she couldn't say that it was impossible. And she'd hate to find out for sure because Penny actually got hacked by some low-life jewel thief.

    She would have told Penny all of that, except that Neon didn't know that she was a robot, and it wasn't a great time to fill her in.

    Rainbow levelled out, the jetpack of the Wings of Harmony firing as she ceased to fall and began to fly instead, soaring above Thermidor Road. Feathers Markinson was below her, running down said road. He was like a mouse, and she was the owl on the prowl.

    Nevertheless, because she didn't want to find herself being grabbed by the ankle by the other one of Doctor Polendina's Handy Hands just as she was about to grab their quarry, Rainbow didn't immediately swoop down upon him. Rather she let him run, putting distance between himself and Doctor Polendina — putting too much distance for the Handy Hand to help him now.

    Feathers looked up and behind him; Rainbow didn't know if penguins had good night vision or not, but he seemed to be able to spot Rainbow Dash, because he reached into his jacket and pulled out a pistol.

    BANG!

    The roar of Distant Thunder shattered the night, temporarily blotting out the sounds of the trains rattling by. The gun in Feathers' hand disappeared, although the word didn't do justice to how much it seemed to hurt Feathers himself, who stumbled, clutching at his hand, although he didn't yell or cry or make any sound of pain.

    Nor did it slow him down for long; he picked himself up again quickly and resumed his attempted escape.

    "Nice shot, Ciel."

    "One tries one's best," Ciel murmured.

    Rainbow swooped down upon her prey; there was no way that he could get away from her on foot.

    A transit van screeched out of the night; it was white, unmarked, and most bizarrely of all, there was no driver in the cab, and yet, it burst into view, back doors open, beating at the sides of the van as they flapped backwards and forwards. The van slowed at the entrance into Thermidor Road; it didn't stop, but it did slow down; it slowed down enough for Feathers to throw himself into the back of the van — which looked otherwise empty from what glimpse Rainbow could catch of it — before the doors slammed shut behind him.

    Rainbow landed on the roof of the van just as it accelerated away, leaving the museum behind and heading in the direction of the railway line.

    "Twi," she said, "I need you to send Blake directions to the nearest level crossing; Blake, get there, and if necessary, I'll meet you there."

    "I am inside Doctor Polendina's assistive devices," Midnight declared. "However, there is no sign of any virus present."

    Makes sense. "Thanks, Midnight. Penny, wake your dad up, walk him home, make him some hot cocoa, and put him to bed. Ciel, go with her."

    "But I—"

    "I've got this, and I've got Blake to back me up if need be," Rainbow said. "Neon, do you think you can catch up with a speeding van?"

    "I'm a cat, not a dog, Dashie," Neon grumbled. "But I'll give it a try."

    "Thanks," Rainbow said.

    Not that I'll need the help, if I can end this now.

    She knelt on the roof of the speeding van, clinging to it with one hand. Her other hand, she balled into a fist, and without even needing to focus her aura — still less to use an aura boom of any size — she punched a hole through the flimsy metal. She wrapped her fingers around the edge of the hole she had made and began to peel away the metal of the roof, like peeling away the tin foil around a roast bird.

    The van swerved sharply, veering hard to the right, and Rainbow lost her grip on the tear in the roof as she needed both hands to keep from being thrown clear across the road into the buildings beyond. She clung on, her knuckles turning white, and she did not let go.

    The hard right turn became an equally hard swerve to the left, and this time, Rainbow found herself holding onto entirely the wrong side of the roof.

    Rainbow curled into a ball as she was thrown clear, but she felt the impact nonetheless, her aura dropping as she bounced and rolled across the tarmac. She rolled upright and onto her feet in time to see Feathers' van speeding away, heading towards the railway line once more.

    Rainbow gave chase, a rainbow trail bursting out behind her, illuminating the streets of Mantle as she pounded down them in pursuit of the van. Once she had closed some of the distance, Rainbow switched to the Wings of Harmony once more, choosing to burn dust instead of her aura as she flew low level — very low level; her feet were barely off the ground — behind the fleeing van. It was a little slower than running, but she wouldn't run out of aura this way, and she wasn't worried about the van with Feathers in it getting away.

    She had a pretty good idea where he was going.

    Feathers didn't seem much interested in throwing her off course. He made a few swerves, turned an unexpected direction a couple of times, and once or twice, Rainbow had to fly up to get vantage enough to spot him again, but he always went back to the same way that he'd been going before: towards the railway line.

    They were almost at the crossing now; the barriers were down at the point where the road met the rails, and there was a train approaching: a big, automated SDC freight train heading north towards Atlas, carrying a cargo of dust for the big elevators up to the city in the clouds.

    There was no sign of Blake, which was unfortunate.

    As the van approached, screeching up to the barrier, the train which had been thundering down the line, pounding at the rails, seemed to Rainbow Dash to slow down just a little bit.

    The van reached the barrier, and as it did so, it spun to a halt, tyres screeching, leaving black marks upon the road; the rear doors flew open, and Feathers leapt out, ducking beneath the barrier and throwing himself at the oncoming train, grabbing the metal ladder and pulling himself up onto one of the rear cargo cars, disappearing inside.

    Rainbow landed upon the roof of the caboose, folding her wings up behind her.

    "What took you so long?" Blake asked.

    XxXxX​

    Blake allowed herself a degree of amusement at the look of surprise on Rainbow's face.

    "Blake?" she said. "How did you—?"

    "Instead of directing me to the crossing, Twilight led me to the closest point on the railway line, and I boarded the train there," Blake explained. She smiled. "I do have some experience with this kind of thing."

    "Yeah," Rainbow muttered. She paused for a moment. "You know, sooner or later, we always seem to end up on a train, don't we?"

    "Perhaps it's a sign we should take up trainspotting?"

    Rainbow snorted.

    There was a jolt, and the rail car they were on began to slow down — as the rest of the train began to move away from it.

    "Gotta move," Rainbow said, and she and Blake leapt the growing distance onto the next car, leaving the rearmost car on the train behind them, gradually slowing to a halt upon the rails.

    "Twilight," Rainbow said, "inform the authorities there's a stranded railway carriage stuck on the line, someone should clear that up before there's an accident."

    "Understood; I'll let Rail Traffic Control know."

    To Blake, Rainbow said, "I'm pretty sure that this guy has a hacking semblance. That's how he took control of Doctor Polendina's chair and got his getaway van to move without a driver and detached the last car of this train."

    That will be why you kept Penny far away, I suppose, Blake thought. She'd attributed it simply to Rainbow's protectiveness, but it turned out there was a sound reason behind it. Blake wouldn't want to take on a hacked Penny in a fight, nor would she wish that kind of violation upon the other girl.

    Of course, Rainbow's assumption also raised the question of train security. Blake drew Gambol Shroud. "So what you're saying is that we might have to do this the hard way?"

    "Don't be so dramatic," Rainbow said, as she drew Blunt Honesty and Plain Awesome from their holsters at her hips. "But … yeah, pretty much."

    Blake's lips twitched upwards. Well, it won't be the first time. With a single swing of Gambol Shroud, she sliced open the lock that secured the rooftop hatch, then bent down to open it up.

    Rainbow went first, dropping down into the railway car, with Blake following.

    The hatch banged shut after her, enclosing them both in darkness.

    A darkness in which Blake for one could see the Atlesian AK-130s lining the walls.

    "Haven't you replaced all of these with the new models yet?" Blake asked.

    "It's an unmanned train running between Atlas and Mantle; these units will be the last ones to be replaced," Rainbow replied. "Besides, it hasn't even been a year since the 200 rolled out; give it time."

    The faces of the AK-130s began to glow a bloody red, illuminating the robots and the car; the light died down a little as, one by one, the visors on the androids slammed down, leaving only a crimson slit burning like fire.

    The androids stepped down off their docks, moving to surround Blake and Rainbow Dash.

    "Intruder, identify yourself," came the demand in that tinny, robotic voice.

    "Get down!" Rainbow snapped, and Blake ducked as Rainbow began to fire, spraying rounds in all directions from her machine pistols, turning in place to sweep her weapons across the androids.

    Some went down, riddled with bullets; others, though damaged and pockmarked by the fire, transformed their arms into three-barrelled rotary machine guns and took aim.

    Blake sprang at them like a tiger, Gambol Shroud in one hand and her cleaver-scabbard in the other, cleaving one android into three with a succession of rapid slashes, then cutting another in two down the middle with a downward stroke.

    One android, its arms transformed into blades, lunged at Rainbow Dash, who grabbed one arm, wrenched it off the AK-130, then used the arm blade to stab it through the face.

    The androids rushed at them with blades or stood off and fired at them with guns, but it didn't really matter; Blake and Rainbow destroyed them all just the same: shooting them, cutting them to pieces, beating them into submission with their bare hands, that last being more Rainbow Dash than Blake, for obvious reasons.

    It was funny; their fighting styles didn't really match up — Rainbow, for all the speed of her semblance, had a stolid quality about her fighting; she preferred to meet force with force rather than using any finesse — and Blake couldn't say that they were in sync the way that she and Adam had been; she couldn't predict exactly what Rainbow was going to do next, nor could Rainbow predict what she could do in such a way they found themselves combining attacks without needing to be instructed. But despite that, they found themselves falling into a routine as they cleared out each train car or each flatbed in turn: Rainbow would take the lead, guns blazing, battering down the first wave of the android opposition to them until she ran out of ammunition and had to reload; when that happened, Blake would take over, leaping ahead to cut a swathe through the ranks of the outdated androids, firing until she got too close, then switching Gambol Shroud back to sword mode to cleave her way forward; Rainbow followed her at that point, mopping up any androids that she had left behind in her headlong rush.

    It was not difficult; in fact, it was so not difficult that Blake had time to realise just how … how comfortable she felt, doing this, with Rainbow Dash.

    With her new partner.

    They fought their way forwards through the train, with no sign of Feathers Markinson even when they came to the last car; from here, Blake thought, it would be nothing but flatbeds until they reached the engine itself.

    This last car was empty.

    Except, as Blake already knew, that meant that it was not.

    Blake looked up, snapping off two shots from Gambol Shroud as the spider droid dropped down from the ceiling, landing heavily upon its four claw-like legs, unfolding itself to its full, large height.

    "I'll buy you some time!" Blake cried.

    "Buy me some time for what?" Rainbow demanded as she leapt past Blake, one fist drawn.

    Oh. Yeah. Right.

    Rainbow roared wordlessly as she punched the spider droid square in its face; there was a thunderous crack, a shockwave that brushed over Blake's face and sent her hair flying in all directions, and the spider droid shattered into fragments that clattered to the floor of the train car.

    "Impressive," Blake said as Rainbow landed. "How's your aura?"

    "Low," Rainbow admitted. "But I'll be okay. Come on, he doesn't have much further to run at this point."

    They burst out of the train carriage. Feathers Markinson stood on the edge of the next car, a flatbed half-loaded with SDC crates.

    The coupling between their two cars detached, and the part of the train that Blake and Rainbow Dash were on began to slow down as the last remaining part of the train, still attached to the engine, began to pull away.

    Feathers watched them both dispassionately, his face, his little black eyes, without expression.

    "Rainbow!" Blake cried. "Give me a boost!"

    "You got it," Rainbow said, making a cradle with her hands.

    Blake put one foot into the impromptu stirrup Rainbow had made. Rainbow threw her up and across, and as she gave Blake a push, she concentrated all the aura that she had left into her hands to propel Blake upwards and forwards, strengthening Blake's leap to carry her across the burgeoning gap, over Feathers' head, and land on the flat car behind him.

    Blake didn't know if there was anything left on this part of the train for him to hack, but she wasn't going to take any chances; with one hand, she grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, hauling him backwards away from the gap; with the other hand, she hit him hard enough to knock him out with a single punch.

    As he hit the ground, Blake tapped her earpiece. "Target is secure, awaiting pickup. Ciel? It's going to be okay. We got him."

    XxXxX​

    Author's Note: This will be the last update for a month as I'm taking a break to do NaNoWriMo for the first time in several years; the next update will be on Friday 2nd December
     
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    • Chapter 34 - The Ones Who Walk Away From Atlas
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    • The Ones Who Walk Away From Atlas

    ​

    "How are you feeling, Dad?" Penny asked, bending down and placing a hand upon Pietro's arm.

    Pietro chuckled. "Well," he said, "that's the funny thing about getting your chair hacked while you're sleeping — I've been on this big adventure, and I never even noticed it happening. So most of what I feel is just a little bit of a fool for taking a lodger in." He coughed. "And a little bit cold, I suppose."

    "Here, drink this, Doctor," Ciel said, stepping out of the pantry with a steaming hot cup of something cradled in both hands. "It will warm you up a little before bed."

    "Thank you," Pietro said, accepting the cup from Ciel's unprotesting hands. "It's Ciel Soleil, isn't it?"

    Ciel curtsied. "Indeed, Doctor, we have met before, when I was … assigned to Team Rosepetal. And this," she gestured to Neon, who was leaning against the wall of the clinic with her arms folded across her chest, "is my good friend, Neon Katt."

    The legs of Pietro's chair whirred and whined and thumped upon the floor as Pietro turned around to face Neon. "I'm sorry about my Handy Hands throwing you around, I—"

    "Weren't in charge of them at the time, I know, Doc; it's fine," Neon said. She grinned momentarily. "Maybe upgrade your antivirus software though, huh?"

    "As Rainbow Dash has explained, Feathers Markinson possesses a hacking semblance," Midnight declared, her voice seeming to issue out of nowhere; Penny wasn't sure exactly where she was right now. "No amount of antiviral protections would have sufficed in this instance."

    Neon blinked. "So … with a semblance like that, it's impossible to keep him out?"

    "I believe so, yes."

    Neon's eyes widened. "So … what you're saying is that we should be really, really glad that he only wanted to use it to steal things and not to take over Atlas or join the White Fang or something."

    Or join up with Salem, Penny thought.

    "You make a very good, if very frightening, point," Ciel murmured. "Thank the Lady for petty ambitions, it seems."

    "Will we be able to hold him?" Penny asked. "If he can hack anything with his semblance, what's to stop him from opening his cell and walking out?"

    "Guards with guns," Neon suggested.

    "He will probably spend the rest of his life with his aura suppressed," Ciel said. "Unfortunate for him, but for the public good."

    Pietro drank some of his hot drink. "This is very nice, Miss Soleil, thank you."

    "I am glad you like it, Doctor," Ciel replied.

    "It's making me feel better already," Pietro added. "Although it doesn't make me feel any less of a fool. Having a wanted criminal under my roof the whole time!"

    "He wore a disguise," Penny pointed out. "Everyone thought that he was a completely different kind of faunus to what he actually turned out to be in the end. How were you supposed to know any better?"

    Pietro chuckled once again. "Just because I wasn't the only one to get taken in doesn't mean that the taking feels any better, darling. Just because I wasn't the only one fooled, it doesn't stop me feeling any less of a fool for being part of it."

    "If I may, Doctor," Ciel said, "if you had not taken in this felon as your lodger, we might not have been in a position to apprehend him and secure the reward money. So, in a way, you have done me and my family a great service."

    "All things as the Lady wills," Neon murmured.

    "I certainly hope so," Ciel said softly.

    "I know you're only trying to make an old man feel better," Pietro said, "but I appreciate the effort."

    He looked at Penny. "I'm glad to see you; I'm even more glad that you came down here to see me, although I do wish that it was under different circumstances."

    Penny smiled down at him. "Well, that was the plan, but I'm here now, and I'm sure that Rainbow will bring me back down for another visit, for as many visits as we like, before I have to go back to Beacon."

    "That would be wonderful," Pietro said. "I'd like to have a chance to actually talk to you without feeling so…" — he let out a great yawn — "without feeling so tired."

    "Are you finished with your drink, Doctor?" Ciel asked.

    "Oh, oh, yes, thank you; it was delicious," Pietro said, "even if it is making me drowsy."

    "I would hardly want to keep you awake, Doctor," Ciel said, recovering the cup smoothly before Dad could drop it. "Penny's presence notwithstanding, it is the time of night for drowsiness."

    "And yet you haven't had to stifle a yawn once," Pietro pointed out. "Oh, to be young again."

    "Do you want to go to bed now, Dad?" Penny asked.

    Pietro hesitated for a moment, and then nodded. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I think that's probably—"

    "Doc?" The door opened, and a woman walked into the clinic; she was tall, with a long, sallow-skinned face and short hair of very pale blonde pinned up behind her head. She was dressed in a long coat of black and grey that swished around her as she walked, and it was open to reveal a blood red shirt beneath. "Doc, I heard you'd got into some trouble, are you—?" She stopped, one hand clenching into a fist and coming to rest upon her hip. "I see you've got company."

    "Robyn," Pietro said, "this is my daughter Penny, and—"

    "We've met before," Neon said, almost growling. Her tail was rigid behind her as she peeled herself off the wall and moved to stand between this woman — Robyn, Dad had called her — and the others. "What are you doing here, and what do you want?"

    She smiled. "No need to be so hostile, kid. There aren't any murderers here. Are there?"

    "Dad?" Penny said. "Who is this?"

    "Robyn Hill," Robyn announced. "Leader of the Happy Huntresses, Protector of Mantle. I'm a little surprised you haven't heard of me."

    "Your poor ego," Neon muttered.

    Am I supposed to know who she is? Is she famous? Why don't I know who she is?

    "Penny has been staying in Atlas with her … other father," Pietro said. "This is her first time in Mantle."

    Robyn's eyes narrowed. "You got screwed on the custody, huh, Doc? Although I've got to say I'm surprised; I didn't realise you'd been married."

    "I've been able to keep my private life pretty private," Pietro said. "I guess I'm lucky to not be good-looking enough to be worth anyone's time trying to turn me into a celebrity."

    Robyn let out a bitter laugh. "You're not wrong, there. First they stick you up on a poster, and then…" She half-turned away from them. "And then the only way is disappointment."

    "You speak as though you were not responsible for your own actions," Ciel observed.

    Robyn glanced at her. "I made my choices," she said, "I decided for myself what actions I would take. But the choice to judge me for those actions? That was made by others, not by me."

    What actions? What choices? Penny wondered, wishing that she had all the context she was clearly missing.

    Robyn looked at her. "I know that these two are fine Atlas gallants, but what about you?"

    "I've been at Atlas this year," Penny replied. "Well, actually, I've been at Beacon all of last year, but I was at Beacon as an Atlas student, but we've been at Beacon because of the Vytal Festival, where all the students from the different schools—"

    "Attend the host school for second semester, yes, I remember how that works," Robyn cut her off. "I know that at your age, everyone older than twenty looks ancient, but I promise, I'm not that old." She sighed. "Ten years ago, when I competed, the tournament was held in Atlas, so I was unfortunately denied the benefit of any time away. A pity. I would have liked to have seen Mistral or Vale when I was still your age. But you are an Atlas student, yes?"

    "Sort of," Penny said. "I'm planning to transfer to Beacon next year."

    Robyn's eyebrows rose. "Are you now?" she asked. "And you admit it openly in front of these two?" she gestured to Ciel and Neon.

    "Robyn," Pietro murmured. "Maybe—"

    Penny frowned. "'Admit it'? Why wouldn't I?"

    "To spare yourself the obloquy and the hostility that is about to descend upon you?" Robyn suggested. "To spare yourself the harassment, the ridicule?"

    "What are you talking about?"

    "She is generalising from her own experience," Ciel said sharply, "and editorialising to a grotesque extent to boot."

    "No one is allowed to walk away from Atlas," Robyn declared. "No one is allowed to walk away from paradise; no one is even allowed to want to. Everyone should want to be a part of Atlas, and if you don't … that's unacceptable."

    "Do not compare your situation with Penny's," Ciel snapped. "You did not just transfer schools in between years; if you had wanted to see Mistral so badly, you could have studied at Haven, and nobody would have batted an eye, but instead, you betrayed your oath, your uniform, your duty, and General Ironwood. And one day, you will suffer the consequences of that." She paused for a moment. "Now, did you have any business here, or did you simply come to bandy crooked words?"

    Robyn chuckled. "'My oath, my uniform, my duty, and General Ironwood,'" she mused. "One of those things … but leave that. It's late, I can see that I'm bothering you, and … I didn't come here to pick a fight. But Doctor Polendina is an important figure in this community, many people with prosthetics and disabilities depend upon his help, and as a leader of this community, that means that I'm entitled to take an interest in his wellbeing. So how are you doing, Doc? I heard you got into some trouble?"

    "I suppose I did," Pietro said, scratching the side of his face with one finger. "Although to tell you the truth, I was asleep for most of it."

    Robyn laughed. "That's the best way to spend a crisis, I'm sure. Provided that you wake up and it's all been resolved satisfactorily."

    "It was," Pietro assured her. "My daughter and her friends took care of me."

    "I see," Robyn murmured. "Then it seems I owe you thanks, and I will thank you in the best way that I think I can, by leaving you alone." She turned away and headed towards the door. "Take care of yourself, Doctor; remember that we need you down here. I'll see you around."

    She pushed open the door, admitting a blast of cold air into the clinic, and waved with one hand behind her as she stepped out into the street.

    The door shut behind her.

    Neon folded her arms. "I do not like that woman."

    "Who is she?" asked Penny. "Do you all know her? Why didn't I know her?"

    "Because you're not from around here, probably," Neon suggested. "If you lived in Mantle, you'd know who Robyn Hill was. Everyone knows who Robyn Hill is down here."

    "She is a vigilante," Ciel explained. "She and her companions—"

    "I know that she's not very popular in Atlas," Pietro said, "but here in Mantle … sometimes, it seems like she's the only one who gives a damn about what happens down here."

    Ciel pursed her lips together, but rather than saying anything, she checked the time on her watch. "This hardly seems the hour for a political discussion, certainly not one in which tempers may become heated and passions aroused. I promise not to poison Penny's mind against Robyn Hill if you would wish it otherwise, but Doctor, I think it is probably past your bedtime."

    "You're not wrong," Pietro said. "You're not wrong."

    There was a small elevator in the back of the clinic, and Dad's chair began to carry him that way, legs plodding forwards, whirring as they moved, thumping on the floor. Penny followed him, her own steps lighter, leaving Ciel and Neon behind — the elevator wasn't big enough for all of them — as Pietro moved out of the public facing areas and into the back of the building that was his workspace and his home.

    The elevator was more like a cargo carrier than any of the lifts at Beacon, just a square platform to stand on and a hole cut in the ceiling for it to rise up through. Pietro's chair carried him onto said platform, and there was room for Penny to squeeze in there as well before the elevator carried them both upwards, the floor beneath their feet rising, the hatch in the ceiling opening, until they stood in Pietro's bedroom.

    The lights were off, and the curtains were drawn, and the whole room was dark.

    "I'll get the lights," Penny said, moving quickly to the door and pressing the switch upon the wall next to it.

    The lights turned on, revealing a room that was filled with robots or robotic devices, from the android standing by the wardrobe to the hands and claws suspended from the ceiling over the bed, to the large, round, white, capsule-looking thing sitting in the corner.

    "What's that, Dad?" Penny asked, pointing to it.

    "Hmm? Oh, that's something I worked on a couple of years ago," Pietro said. "When activated, it moves around the room picking up clothes, and then it washes and dries them afterwards, and you can collect them from a hatch in the top. A perfect solution to the problem of laundry. At least, I thought so."

    Pietro pressed a button on the wall near his bed, and at once, the array of robotic hands upon the ceiling stirred to life and got to work, pulling back the red blanket and the white sheet from this bed even as the bed itself descended lower towards the floor. The bed descended, but Pietro's chair rose, or at least the rear legs did, pushing upwards while the forelegs dropped down, as if the chair was trying to bow in some way.

    More robot hands gripped hold of Pietro, holding him steady, almost carrying him as, with trembling legs, with a whole body that seemed to be quivering with effort, he pushed himself up and out of his chair.

    "Dad, do you need any help?" Penny asked.

    "I do, sweetie, but not from you; don't worry yourself," Pietro told her. "That's why I built all of these things, to help me out." It took a mere three steps to cross from chair to bed, but nevertheless, Pietro seemed to struggle with every step, despite his robotic assistants. He closed his eyes and screwed up his face as though the very act of lifting up his leg was painful for him. But, supported by all his robot helpers, he covered the distance and sat down heavily in bed, the mattress crumpling beneath his weight.

    The bed began to rise again as the robots helped Pietro get his legs into bed and covered his body with sheets and blankets.

    Pietro's breathing was heavier than it had been before. "Penny," he said softly.

    Penny crossed the room to stand by his bedside, even if she had to squeeze past his chair to do it. "Yes, Dad?"

    "Thank you," he murmured, "for being there when I woke up."

    Penny smiled down at him. "I'll be here when you wake up in the morning too."

    "'In the morning'?" he repeated. "But—"

    "I'll be here," Penny repeated, before she bent down and kissed him on the forehead. "Goodnight, Dad."

    Pietro smiled and closed his eyes. "Goodnight, Penny."

    Penny watched him. It only took him a few moments to start snoring, so she was pretty sure that he had fallen asleep.

    Penny turned the lights off as she left the room, plunging it into darkness once again, and then took the stairs back down, stepping lightly — almost skipping — down the wooden steps, her hands held out on either side of her.

    In the time that she'd been gone, Rainbow, Blake, and Twilight had arrived, all of them standing downstairs with Neon and Ciel.

    "How is he?" Twilight asked as she caught sight of Penny; she spoke very quietly, her voice a whisper.

    "He's asleep now," Penny replied, speaking equally quietly. "I think he'll be fine." She hesitated for a moment. "I … I want to stay with him tonight, though. I … I am going to stay with him tonight."

    Rainbow also hesitated for a moment, but nodded. "Okay. We'll all stick around for tonight and go home tomorrow. There are some sleeping bags in The Bus; I'll get them out."

    "Thank you," Penny said.

    "It's not a problem," Twilight said. "You want to make sure that he's okay. So do we."

    Penny smiled. "Did you take care of everything? Did you turn in Feathers Markinson?"

    Ciel held up a gold lien card, a smile of her own upon her lips. "Three million lien," she said. "Gratefully received from Blake."

    Blake chuckled. "It's from all of us."

    "But you got the last punch, so you got to hand the money over," Rainbow said. "You also got to be the one photographed collecting the reward."

    Blake shook her head. "They should have given us time to get everyone together if they were going to do that, instead of springing a photographer—"

    "I did not do this for the glory of the capture," Ciel said. "This is … the only reward that I require. Alain is safe now, and I … I must go at once, and tell my family. It may be too late to start making the arrangements, but…" She wiped at her eyes with one hand. "I am glad to have the money in hand and content to leave all the glory to you, Blake."

    "That doesn't mean I want it," Blake replied.

    "Take it anyway," Rainbow said. "Making a name for yourself now will only help in future. Something like this … it absolutely cannot hurt for you to be associated with the capture of a thief who preyed on the elite of Atlas. It absolutely cannot."

    XxXxX​

    This time, Cadance didn't have Shining Armor in her office with her when Rainbow Dash and Blake arrived; she was alone, standing, facing the window looking out across the city. As the door slid shut behind them, she turned to face them both, showing off her rose-coloured jacket and pencil skirt.

    I've spent way too much time with Rarity that I know what that is.

    Cadance clasped her hands together. "Hello again, you two," she said, a smile upon her face. The ever-present sapphire heart she wore around her neck glistened in the bright light reflected off the walls. "It seems that you can't keep yourselves out of the fight. I think you may need to remind yourselves what 'vacation' means."

    "It wasn't really much of a fight, ma'am," Rainbow pointed out, clasping her hands behind her back.

    Cadance chuckled. "I might have to take umbrage at that aspersion cast on the quality of our androids … but we are phasing that model out in any case. So, how did you enjoy your adventure down in Mantle?"

    "It wasn't much of an adventure either," Rainbow pointed out.

    "Although," Blake murmured, "I am a little surprised that you heard about it, Councillor."

    "What you did may seem small scale to a huntress," Cadance replied, "but as a story, it has a number of enticing ingredients: a large sum of money, a notorious criminal, a huntress making a name for herself — or two, a situation in Mantle which, I must admit, doesn't paint the authorities in the very best light … and a sick child. That is right, isn't it, what I'm hearing?"

    Rainbow nodded. "Ciel, our teammate, has a brother," she said. "He's sick, very sick … we took down the guy to get the reward money for Ciel to pay for his treatments."

    "I see," Cadance murmured. "Your loyalty is to be commended."

    Rainbow shook her head. "Any team leader — any team — in our position would have done the same. That's what being on a team means."

    "I'm not so sure you're right," Cadance said. "Although I certainly wouldn't object if you were." She paused for a moment. "How is the boy?"

    "We just heard from Ciel," Rainbow said. "He's already in the hospital."

    "It's amazing how quickly you can get things moving when you have three million lien to spend," Blake observed dryly.

    Cadance's lips twitched upwards for a moment. She reached for the scroll on her desk, pressing a button on the screen to bring up a hologram of a woman with pale skin and blonde hair, with features that were possibly just a little bit too sharp.

    "The infamous jewel thief Feathers Markinson was arrested in Mantle last night after being handed over to the authorities by Blake Belladonna and Rainbow Dash. Belladonna, a former Atlesian special agent whose deep cover within the White Fang was blown months previously by the Valish authorities, has returned to Atlas to recuperate until the start of the Vytal Festival later this year. Here she is, receiving the three million lien reward for the capture of this miscreant, who has been wanted in Atlas since breaking into the home of the Marigold family."

    The picture changed from the reporter herself to a picture of Blake taking the reward money.

    Rainbow grinned and patted Blake on the shoulder.

    Blake gave her a dirty look in return.

    Look, do you want to get on or not? If so, learn to take all the credit you can get.

    The picture returned to the reporter, joined by small profile images of Blake and Rainbow in the top right hand corner.

    "There is no confirmed information from the police as to whether Markinson has given up the whereabouts of the items previously stolen from the Marigolds and others, but we imagine that officers are attempting to persuade him to give up that information by any means. What we do know is that the reward money of three million lien for the capture of Markinson has already been spent on medical treatments for the younger brother of a fellow huntress, a comrade of Belladonna and Dash, although we don't yet have the names of anyone involved. Belladonna and Dash, of course, were both involved in the front lines of the Atlesian response to the Breach in Vale, they were both cited in despatches by General Ironwood as a result of that action, and we contacted General Ironwood to ask if their actions in Mantle last night were sanctioned by him and to what purpose. A spokesman for Atlas Academy responded."

    The next image to appear about Cadance's desk was that of Major Schnee, looking straight ahead and a little uncomfortable as she spoke in a flat, monotone voice. "Atlas Academy does not condone vigilantism in any shape or form; however, we are pleased to note that whatever else these reports may indicate, they demonstrate that the values of comradeship, loyalty, and honour are alive and well in Atlas Academy."

    "However, not everyone had their heart warmed by these events."

    Rainbow groaned. "Don't tell me that they—"

    Yep. It was Robyn Hill's face popping up next. Rarity had once described the Hero of Mantle's style as 'hobo chic,' and Rainbow Dash … she could see the hobo, but it was the chic that she was having a little bit more trouble with. Anyway, there she was, and Rainbow couldn't help but think there was an irony in someone who ought to be in jail talking about someone else who actually was.

    "Who is that?" Blake asked quietly.

    "Robyn Hill," Rainbow growled. "She—"

    "Shhhh," Cadance murmured gently. "Later."

    "Obviously, I will never shed any tears for the removal of a criminal from the streets of Mantle," Robyn began, which made Rainbow snort loudly, "but I just want to say two things. The first being, of course, that while we don't know if this was an official sanctioned operation or not, we do know that two of the huntresses involved are known to enjoy the favour of General Ironwood, and I think that reasonable and intelligent people can draw their own conclusions from that. Just as I am sure that reasonable and intelligent people can see this and draw their own conclusions from the fact that an operation can be mounted to catch someone who has stolen jewellery worth more than the average citizen of Mantle will make in a year, will make in ten years of hard work, to protect even more staggeringly expensive jewellery on loan from a foreign kingdom … but you can't get an officer to respond when you've been burgled, you can't get the streetlights repaired so you have to walk home in the dark, you can't get a doctors' appointment, you can't get seen in the ER without waiting for hours in pain. We're told that there is no money, there is no resource, but apparently, there is resource to deal with a problem that affects Atlas. And I don't need to tell you what that says about where our leaders' priorities are; I think you can work that out for yourselves.

    "And the second thing that I want to say is about the boy. We've all heard by now that the reward money for the capture of this thief has gone to pay the medical expenses for the sick relative of a friend of the huntresses involved. A little boy. And that's very nice of them, I don't deny that; we should all be so lucky to have friends like that. We should all be so lucky. But not everyone is, and I think that people need to ask themselves why this little boy had to rely on a group of family friends getting together to catch a wanted criminal in order to get the healthcare he needed. What if there hadn't been a Feathers Markinson around? What about everyone else who doesn't know a group of huntresses willing to do them a favour? This is why we need single payer—"

    Cadance turned off the hologram.

    "I mean … she's got a point," Blake said.

    "I know," Cadance murmured. "I've attempted to reform our … unfair healthcare system in the past, but not all of my fellow councillors have agreed with me. If Robyn Hill can create a sufficient degree of outrage off the back of this case, then she may have done me a favour. I certainly think the time is right for another attempt, because you're both correct; the current state of affairs is … indefensible."

    "Have we caused any trouble, ma'am?" Rainbow asked. "For you or General Ironwood?"

    "You did what you had to do," Cadance said. "For a friend. I would never ask you to do anything else."

    "That isn't the question I asked, ma'am," Rainbow pointed out.

    "No," Cadance replied. "It isn't." She paused for a moment. "Jacques Schnee has been on the scroll complaining about the damage to his androids. He wants someone to pay for the destruction of property."

    "What did you say?" asked Blake.

    "I reminded him that he was the richest man in the world and that he could eat the damages, and it would barely amount to a decimal point on his balance sheet," Cadance said. "I then suggested that persecuting a hero who has … spent years undercover serving with a notorious terrorist organisation in order to defend Atlas might not be the best look, publicity-wise." She glanced at Blake. "No offence."

    "None taken," Blake murmured. "How did he respond?"

    "By demanding to know what he paid his taxes for," Cadance said. She smiled. "To which I could only reply that if he wanted to take that line, then I would, of course, support him … after a full and comprehensive audit of his accounts had been carried out to ensure that he had, in fact, paid all his taxes. And, you know, I think he realised at that point that we both had better things to do with our time and energy."

    Rainbow let out a sigh of relief. "Thanks, ma'am," she said. "I appreciate that."

    "We both do," Blake added.

    "Don't mention it," Cadance said lightly. "In politics, you don't often get the chance to enjoy yourself, but having the opportunity to stick one to Jacques Schnee … call it my guilty pleasure. Except I don't even feel very guilty. As for General Ironwood, by the time that you see him again, I doubt he'll even remember this happened." Once more, she paused. "Blake, how did you find Mantle?"

    Blake didn't reply for a second. "Who was that woman?" she asked. "Some kind of politician?"

    "She'd like to be," Rainbow muttered. "That was Robyn Hill. She's a huntress, sort of; she's an Atlas graduate, used to be an officer—"

    "Not just any officer," Cadance said. "She graduated from Atlas top of her class, won the Vytal Festival tournament ten years ago. Meteoric rise through the ranks—"

    "You don't need to praise her, ma'am; she doesn't deserve it," Rainbow said sharply. "Whatever she did, whatever she was … she left all that behind. She threw it away, turned her back on everything. Quit the military, settled in Mantle … now, she spends her time mouthing off to anyone who'll point a camera her way about how terrible Atlas is. That's when she isn't carrying out vigilante justice or just straight up committing crimes."

    "She has yet to be found guilty of anything," Cadance said gently.

    "I saw her kill someone with my own eyes," Rainbow insisted. "And yes, the person killed was a murderer, and they had it coming, and I'm not losing any sleep about it, but … everyone knows that she ambushes supply trucks, everyone knows that she raids caches."

    "What 'everyone' knows doesn't matter," Cadance replied. "Innocent until proven guilty."

    "She's a disgrace," Rainbow said firmly.

    "She was rising high?" Blake asked.

    Cadance nodded. "People were talking seriously about her as the next commanding General, once General Ironwood retires."

    Blake's brow furrowed. "Then to leave that behind … she must have very strong convictions. You don't have to agree with them, but … believe me, it isn't easy to turn your back on the group you belong to, especially when you know that all of your friends and comrades, everyone you know, will hate and revile you for it. You have to really believe that what you're doing is right, and that what you've been doing … whatever she is or does, I have no doubt that she believes in it. And, quite frankly, I can see why. Mantle does feel neglected."

    "Because it…" Rainbow trailed off. "I hate to agree with Robyn Hill on anything, but she's kind of right about the cop thing."

    "Yes, you've mentioned that before," Cadance murmured. She put one hand on her desk and sighed. "When I first went into politics, I thought that I would be able to solve problems. Instead … the problems are more clear to me than ever, but the solutions remain tantalisingly out of reach. I have a friend, an ally, Ivy Brown; she's going to run for the Council in the next elections; if she gets elected then, with General Ironwood's support, we'll have four votes on the council, a majority."

    "But how long until new elections?" Blake said. "And are you just going to wait until then and do nothing?"

    "We have to have faith in the system, even if that system is preventing any progress at the moment," Cadance replied. "The day that we stop believing that democracy can work is the day we lose it. That said … it takes a very brave soul, politically, to argue against increases to the law and order budget, so I plan to bring a motion to the next council session for emergency increases to funding for the police and the courts in Mantle, citing the rise in vigilantism. Because you're both right, Mantle is neglected, and I fear … Robyn Hill has three followers right now; what if she were to have more? We need to learn the lessons of the White Fang and address the issues that lead to violence, because if we don't … if we don't, we'll just be storing up so much more trouble for ourselves in future. Trouble I fear we won't be prepared to deal with when it comes."
     
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    • Chapter 35 - A Discovery of Maidens
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    • A Discovery of Maidens

    ​

    Rainbow Dash got out her scroll.

    We're ready, she texted.

    There was a pause, lasting a few seconds, in which not very much happened, before the scrolls of Twilight, Blake, Penny, and Rainbow herself — everybody who was gathered in the RSPT dorm room in Atlas — began to buzz.

    One by one, they answered, and one by one, they were pulled into a group chat with the members of Team SAPR.

    "Hey, everyone!" Penny cried cheerily. "Pyrrha, Jaune, how was your trip?"

    "Never mind the trip," said Rainbow. "How was your fight?"

    Pyrrha raised her chin proudly. "Although Cinder yet lives, nevertheless, I defeated her, and only the intervention of Salem through the grimm allowed … I'm not sure 'allowed' is the right word; apparently, she did not particularly wish to be saved."

    "So she says," Ruby pointed out.

    "You don't believe her?" asked Sunset.

    "Why should we?" Ruby replied.

    "What reason does she have to lie about it?" Sunset asked. "If she didn't care about the duel and set up an escape hatch, she wouldn't care what Pyrrha thought about the way the duel ended, right?"

    "Cinder spoke to you?" Blake inquired.

    "She called to apologise about Salem interrupting the duel," said Sunset.

    "If that's what happened," Ruby said.

    "Regardless of whether or not Cinder was prepared to accept death or not, the fact of the matter is that she is still alive," Pyrrha said, "but the other fact of the matter is that she was at my mercy, and that, while not the outcome I most desired, is nevertheless an outcome I will accept, and gladly. I feel restored by this, if that makes sense."

    Blake nodded. "It does. Sometimes, we just need to be reminded — to be able to remind ourselves — that we can achieve something."

    "I bet you were so cool, Pyrrha," Penny declared. "I wish I could have seen it."

    "Maybe you can," Jaune said. "Arslan Altan has the whole thing on video."

    "Really?" Penny gasped.

    "I still haven't decided whether I want to release some or all the footage, to prove that the fight actually took place," Pyrrha said. "If I do not, there will be those I'm sure who call me a liar, but if I do … I would have to have Arslan edit around the use of my semblance, for a start."

    "I think you should do it," Blake said. "Nobody died, so there's nothing traumatic in there, and as you say, there will be people who claim that the fight didn't happen; some things have to be seen to be believed, and considering that defending your reputation was a reason why you did this, I think that you should give people as much reason to believe you as possible."

    "Whatever you decide to do, I'd love to see that video," Penny added.

    Pyrrha chuckled. "All right, Penny; I'll speak to Arslan about her sending it to you; Blake, thank you; I'll consider your advice very carefully."

    "Congratulations on your victory," Twilight said.

    "Thank you, Twilight."

    "Mhm," Rainbow muttered.

    On the other end of the line, Jaune and Pyrrha were visible sitting together; Sunset and Ruby each occupied her own square on the screen — Rainbow fiddled with the settings in order to eliminate the views of Twilight, Blake, and Penny, who she could, after all, see perfectly well right in front of her — but Pyrrha and Jaune were not only sat together but appeared to be using one scroll between the two of them. From what Rainbow could see of their arms, they were both holding onto it, which was … just incredibly sappy in all the best and worst ways.

    Given what Pyrrha had been up to, Rainbow couldn't help but find it a little … insincere. Okay, maybe not 'insincere' exactly, since she believed that Pyrrha really did love him, but … that stunt with Cinder had been stupid, reckless — no, the fact that it had come off didn't change that fact — and just, what would have happened to Jaune if she'd died? Had she thought about that?

    Caring about someone didn't just mean sitting side by side or going to visit his folks; it meant thinking about the people who cared about you before you took chances. It meant making sure you came home, for the sake of the people who were waiting for you there.

    What Pyrrha had done was … Rainbow was disappointed that she'd done it, and to be honest, she was disappointed in Sunset as well for letting it happen.

    She wasn't in love with the way that Blake had thought it was a good idea either.

    "As for our trip," Pyrrha went on, a bright smile blossoming upon her face, "it was wonderful, Penny; thank you for asking."

    "Yeah, it was pretty great by the end," Jaune agreed.

    "Pyrrha got on the family photo," Sunset added, sotto voce, grinning out of one corner of her mouth.

    "Nice," Twilight said. "You must have really made a good impression."

    "Is this a big deal?" asked Penny.

    "It means they're married already," Sunset said.

    "Sunset!" Pyrrha cried reproachfully. "It means that … it means that Jaune's family accepted me as Jaune's girlfriend and that they approve of his choosing me. It's a great honour."

    "By the time we were done," Jaune said, "my family approved of a whole lot of things that they hadn't before. It was … I'm glad I went home, and I'm really glad that Pyrrha came with me."

    "That sounds excellent; I'm so happy for you!" Penny cried. "I recently improved relations with both my fathers as well."

    "Both your fathers?" Ruby asked.

    Penny nodded. "I was created by two brothers, both brilliant scientists; one is my father, and the other is my dad."

    "It's a good job you're a robot, or that would be very uncomfortable to hear," Sunset muttered. "But in the past, you've only talked about one father."

    Penny hesitated for a moment. She was sitting on one of the bottom bunks, her back hunched slightly; Twilight was sat in a chair by the desks against the wall, while Blake and Rainbow Dash were both standing, both leaning against the walls, with Blake stood by the door and Rainbow by the window.

    "My Dad … he had a falling out with my Father," she explained, her voice softening, becoming quieter. "Dad didn't want me to become a huntress or be used by the military; he wanted me to be able to make my own decisions. So my Father threw him out and made it impossible for him to see me."

    "I'm so sorry, Penny," Ruby murmured. "That sounds awful. But you saw him anyway, right?"

    "Recently, my Dad made contact with me," Penny explained, "and I've been down to Mantle to visit him, and after Rainbow and Blake rescued him from his lodger who turned out to be a thief—"

    "He what?" asked Sunset.

    "It doesn't really matter," Rainbow told her.

    "He's such a kind man," Penny said. "I believe that he truly wants what's best for me."

    "Unlike your Father," Ruby said, in a voice that was almost a growl.

    "Father is…" Penny trailed off. "Even Father and I understand one another better than we used to." She beamed. "That's why I'm going to be transferring to Beacon next year!"

    "What? Really?!" Ruby cried. "You're going to be staying at Beacon permanently?"

    "Not permanently, I hope," Penny replied. "Only until I graduate; although I suppose it is possible that I could fail my classes and have to resit years, the chances of me failing so often that I would never graduate are—"

    "Ruby didn't really mean 'permanently,'" Sunset explained. "Only until graduation."

    "That is a very short definition of 'permanent,'" Penny pointed out.

    "But is that allowed?" Ruby asked. "Are they going to let you do that?"

    "I don't know," Penny admitted. "And I won't know until I try."

    "But what are you going to do when you get here?" asked Pyrrha. "What team are you going to be on—?"

    "I'm transferring to Atlas next year," Blake pointed out. "Penny could take my spot on Team Iron."

    "'Transferring,'" Pyrrha murmured. "So, you've made your decision then."

    "Yes," Blake said. "Yes, I have. This kingdom is certainly not without its problems, but I believe that I can do more good addressing those problems, and the problems of the rest of Remnant, here than anywhere else that I might go."

    The corners of Pyrrha's lips twitched upwards. "You know, Blake," she said, "I think you're more determined to save the world than I am."

    Blake chuckled. "I suppose I've always been … not necessarily an optimist, but I've always been possessed of oversized ambitions. And something about this place…"

    "It's the lack of oxygen at high altitudes going to your head," Sunset muttered.

    "Sunset," Pyrrha chided her gently. To Blake, she said, "Have you found your place in the world?"

    Blake smiled. "Yes. Yes, I really think I have."

    "Then we are all very happy for you," Pyrrha said. "Just as we all hope that you can find the same thing here at Beacon, Penny, regardless of the exact nature of your circumstances here."

    Penny nodded. "That's all I want right now: a chance to find out who I am and what else I want for myself, instead of having other people decide it for me."

    "And you'll get it, Penny, I promise," Ruby vowed. "It's what you deserve, what everyone deserves: a chance to find their own way, even if it means making mistakes."

    "Speaking of which," Sunset said, "I've got a favour to ask of you, Rainbow Dash."

    Rainbow's eyebrows rose. "What is it?"

    "Ruby and I made a friend recently," Sunset said. "Her name's Leaf Kelly—"

    "Sunset," Ruby said, "what are you doing?"

    "Nothing wrong," Sunset replied defensively. To Rainbow and the others, she went on, "She's coming to Atlas, and I was hoping you could keep an eye on her for us, for me, make sure that she gets settled in okay."

    "Who is this girl?" Blake asked. "Is she in some kind of trouble?"

    "She's just a girl, and she's not in any trouble that we know of," Sunset said. "Although she'll be in trouble once her mother finds out she's gone. No, it's just that she's running away to Atlas without much money or any kind of plan, and I…"

    "Sunset thinks she's making a mistake," Ruby said.

    "She is making a mistake, by any objective measure," Sunset replied. "Nevertheless, I accept that she has a right to make that mistake because I am an open-minded team leader who takes on board the perspectives of her friends and teammates and certainly doesn't just dismiss them with a blithe certainty in my own rightness." She paused, as if daring anyone to contradict her. "But I don't see that there needs to be a tension between letting her do this thing and taking steps to make sure that it goes okay. I mean, Rainbow, we both know that the streets of Atlas aren't paved with gold, right?"

    Rainbow nodded. Atlas might be — Atlas was — forward-looking, but just because it didn't fetishise its past the way that Mistral did didn't mean that it was without traditions to take pride in, and one of those traditions it was proud of was being a kingdom of immigrants; from the first settlers who sailed north in search of a land free from grimm and who carved out a home for themselves amidst the ice and snow, Atlas and Mantle had been built and renewed over the generations by fresh blood coming from all parts of Remnant to be a part of the greatest kingdom. Some, like Blake, came because the ideals of Atlas spoke to them; others — the majority — came because Atlas promised jobs and opportunity not to be found in stolid old Mistral, empty Vacuo, or stagnant Vale. In Atlas, you could strike it rich.

    Or you could remain very poor, and a lot — most — of those who set out with big dreams and high expectations did just that.

    Rainbow thought about Gilda, railing against everyone who was 'keeping us down,' joining the White Fang to fight back; when your dreams felt as far away as Atlas was from the ground, it was easy to become bitter and for that bitterness to lead you to some dark places; she thought about Mantle, about the old woman killed in her home and the hopeless boy who had killed her and been killed in turn.

    She thought about herself. Life … life could be tough around here, if you didn't have some good friends to rely on. Life could be tough, and the nights could be cold.

    "Sure," she said, "I'll keep an eye on her. Give her a hand getting settled in."

    "Thanks," Sunset said. "That makes me feel a lot better."

    "I'm sure she'll appreciate having someone to help her navigate a new city," Ruby added.

    Sunset looked at her.

    "What?" Ruby asked. "Did you think I was going to object or something?"

    "I … wondered if you might," Sunset admitted quietly.

    "You're not going to tell her mom to stop her leaving, are you?" Ruby asked.

    "No."

    "Then what would I complain about?"

    "You wanted to tell her parents and stop this girl from getting away?" asked Jaune.

    "That would have been a rather cruel thing to do to a friend, I must say," Pyrrha murmured.

    "See? Even Pyrrha agrees with me!" Ruby cried. "Pyrrha never agrees with me over you!"

    "Sometimes, you just have to run away from home," Jaune declared. "Yeah, I suppose it can be rough on your family with them not knowing where you are, but it can be the best thing that ever happened to you. You can finally find out who you are, where you belong, what you're capable of. Like Penny, like you, you ran away from Equestria, right?"

    "Yes, and I … I admit that I do not regret it, but … I'm just glad that she won't be alone up there. Thank you, Rainbow Dash."

    "It's no trouble," Rainbow said. "When's she getting here?"

    "Her airship leaves … tomorrow, actually," Sunset said. "It's a good job that we called."

    "Okay, I'll check when it's going to get here and be at the Skydock when she arrives," Rainbow promised. I might ask Rarity to join me; she knows her way around the city better than I do. After all, Rarity lived here full time, while Rainbow was a more intermittent visitor, and confined what was more within the Academy for large amounts of the time when she was here. In consequence, she didn't know her home as well as she perhaps might have done if circumstances had been different.

    "We can all help, I'm sure, if necessary," Twilight said.

    "Although I'm not sure that it necessitated you calling us all like this," Blake pointed out.

    Pyrrha laughed nervously. "This … it isn't actually why we called you."

    "Where's Ciel?" asked Ruby.

    "Ciel's in Mantle, with her family," Penny replied.

    "That's unfortunate; we wanted to tell you all of this at once," Sunset said.

    "You'll have to fill her in," Jaune said. "We'd ask you to remember to, but I don't think there's much chance you'll forget once you hear what we have to say."

    "Way to set big expectations," Rainbow remarked. "So, what's this about?"

    The four members of Team SAPR hesitated for a moment.

    "Do you all know the Story of the Seasons?" Pyrrha asked.

    "I do!" Penny cried. "It was in the book Blake gave me."

    Pyrrha smiled. "Did you enjoy it?"

    "It was okay," Penny replied. "It wasn't one of my favourites."

    "Really?" asked Rainbow. "You didn't like it?"

    "I didn't say that," Penny said. "I just said it wasn't one of my favourites. It was okay. It was fine. It just didn't speak to me very much. I couldn't really understand why the old wizard was willing to just sit around his house without doing anything. He could have left any time he wanted, with or without the sisters."

    Twilight frowned. "Which story is this?"

    "Come on, Twi, you know the one," Rainbow said. "The Story of the Seasons, with the old man living alone in the woods and the four sisters who visit him. Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, remember?"

    If asked, Rainbow Dash would have strenuously denied that she was one for fairy tales, but that particular story … she really liked it. She thought it was a story about how far you could get with a kind word. Plus … she would never, ever admit this out loud, but in her head, every time she heard that story, she imagined the four sisters as Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy.

    Of course, part of the reason Rainbow would never say that out loud is that there was no room for Rarity, and there were times when Rainbow felt as though she'd be a better fit for Winter than Twilight, for different reasons, but mostly … yeah, sorry, Rarity.

    "Oh, right, yes, I remember the one," Twilight said. "Sorry, I'm not much of a fan."

    "A little surprising," Sunset murmured. "You never considered that clues to magic might be found in fairy stories?"

    "No," Twilight said, "I—" Her eyes widened behind her spectacles. "You mean that—?"

    "This particular story is not just a story," Pyrrha explained. "It contains truth, the origin of the four Maidens: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall."

    "'Maidens'?" Blake repeated.

    "We didn't ask who chose the name or why," Sunset said. "But what we do know is that they are the magic in this world, and Professor Ozpin — and General Ironwood and the others — have been protecting them all these years."

    Now it was the turn of the Atlesians to fall momentarily silent.

    General Ironwood knew. He knew all along what Twilight was searching for, and he never told her. It probably shouldn't have surprised her, all things considered, but Rainbow couldn't help but find that rather rough on Twi; yes, in her head, she got it, there were a lot of reasons to keep it secret and no good reasons to tell her anything, but all the same, in her heart, it felt rather rough on Twilight.

    Beyond that, it was … kind of hard to think, honestly. Twilight was right. Twilight had been right all along. Magic was real — magic had been real for some time, thanks to Sunset — but this other kind of magic, the magic that Twilight had seen as a kid, that was real too. Magic was real and … themed after the seasons? How did that work? And General Ironwood was protecting them, but how? How did you protect someone whom most people didn't know existed?

    The secrecy is the protection, I guess. Although it wasn't what Rainbow Dash thought of as protection: guards, walls, weapons.

    Twilight said, "So, the person who saved my life and my family—"

    "The Winter Maiden," Ruby said. "Professor Ozpin told us so.

    "Winter Maiden," Twilight murmured. "Wait a second, I…"

    "Twilight?" Blake asked as Twilight trailed off into silence.

    Twilight shook her head. "It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

    Rainbow's eyes narrowed. Don't tell me you're going to start keeping secrets now, too.

    "I … I don't understand," Penny said. "So … the fairy tale is true? An old wizard gave his power to the four sisters?"

    "Yes, Penny, that's right," Pyrrha said. "Because he was moved by the kindness they had shown him."

    "Where did the old man's powers come from?" Blake wondered aloud.

    Sunset shrugged on the other end of the line. "Does it matter? Where does my magic, and all the magic of my people, come from? Magic … magic is. Speaking of which, how's Spike?"

    "Having a lot of trouble not talking," Twilight said. "He's with Fluttershy at the moment."

    "We should get back on topic," Rainbow said. "What is it that you don't understand, Penny?"

    "Just that it's been … that fairy tale must have happened so long ago," Penny said. "What does it have to do with now?"

    "The power passes on," Jaune explained. "There are always four maidens, and when one of them dies, her power passes on to a new host."

    Twilight gasped. "So the prophets and the saints—"

    "Maidens," Sunset said. "And the Red Queens too."

    "Red who?" Rainbow asked.

    "The Red Queen was a bandit who killed the Empress of Mistral and briefly overthrew the Nikos dynasty," Blake murmured.

    "Also a Maiden, it seems," Pyrrha said.

    "The summary of it is that, as Jaune says, each time a Maiden dies, her magic passes on to someone else," Sunset said. "As myths and legends record, for a time, the four Maidens lived more or less openly amongst men, continuing the work that the first four sisters had been charged with: sharing their gifts with the people of Remnant, bringing them together, spreading the light of hope. Until Salem put it into the first Red Queen's head to kill a Maiden for her powers, which she did."

    "If a Maiden is killed, her powers pass to her murderer?" Blake asked.

    "Professor Ozpin says that it's a little more complicated than that," said Ruby.

    "But basically, yes," Sunset said.

    Blake frowned. "That seems like a very flawed system."

    "Tell me about it," Sunset muttered. "I've been saying that ever since I read Twilight's book. It's—"

    "Insane?" Blake suggested. "It incentivises the very worst people to do terrible things and grants power to precisely those you would least want to have it."

    "Which is exactly what happened," Sunset said. "One by one, all of the Maidens were hunted down and killed, and their powers went to people you really wouldn't want to have them. Until…"

    "Until the Red Queens were hunted down in turn," Twilight said.

    Sunset nodded. "By our predecessors, basically, and by Professor Ozpin's. From what Professor Ozpin explained to us, the leader of the group, as well as fighting Salem, always had a responsibility to the Maidens as well, to introduce them to … well, the fact that they had magic now, to teach them how to use it, explain to them what it was to be used for. Eventually, one of them decided that enough was enough and that the powers of the Maidens were too dangerous to be out in the world. I don't agree, but—"

    "But it's easy to see why they thought that way, considering what happened," Jaune added.

    "And so, the four Maidens have been kept secret ever since," Ruby said. "The powers still pass on, but instead of being sent out into the world, they're kept … well, we don't exactly know where they're kept. My Mom and Dad and their team met a Maiden once; they escorted her on a mission to find her successor—"

    "How can you find a successor to powers that won't pass on until you die?" asked Blake.

    "Uh, I think they'd chosen her to get the powers and were taking her somewhere to make sure she would," Ruby said. "Somehow, Professor Ozpin wouldn't tell us exactly how the powers pass from one Maiden to another, so we're still missing some detail on that part. The point is, the Maidens still exist, but nobody can know that in case Salem tries to hunt them down."

    "Didn't they think of trying beefed up security?" asked Rainbow.

    "What's more secure than secrecy?" asked Blake in turn.

    "An armoured warship and a big gun," Rainbow replied.

    "Someone who isn't being hunted doesn't need protection," Blake pointed out.

    "Someone can't be protected properly if nobody understands they need protection," Rainbow shot back. "Say that Salem found out who the Winter Maiden is; Atlas couldn't protect her because Atlas wouldn't get that she was being hunted."

    "By that argument, everyone should know about Salem, too," Blake said.

    "That's not the same thing at all," Rainbow said. "We don't need to know about Salem to fight the grimm when they come."

    "What about fighting someone like Cinder?" Blake pointed out.

    "Well, okay, but even so, we can still fight Cinder provided that we know her target; if she were going after a Maiden, how would we know, when we're not even supposed to know they exist?"

    "Apparently, Professor Ozpin and General Ironwood know, and presumably, they'd recognise if they were under attack," Blake said. "Speaking of which, how is it that you know all of this secret information?"

    "Well, we had a lot of the information already," Sunset said. "The fairy tale, the myths and legends from the books you gave me, Summer Rose's account of her mission with Auburn."

    "And I … I got a visit from Raven recently," Ruby said quietly. "She … she said a few things, and one of them was to mention the four Maidens. She didn't explain what they were, but … we were able to put it together."

    "We went to see Professor Ozpin, and he confirmed what we had surmised," said Pyrrha.

    "And gave us permission to tell you," Jaune said.

    "Thanks," Rainbow said flatly. "I mean that, even if I don't sound like it." She glanced around the room, at Penny, Twilight, and Blake. "Would you guys mind giving us some time to talk this out amongst ourselves? I'm sure you all know what you think about this, but … we're still figuring it out."

    "Of course," Pyrrha said softly. "You can always call if you want to talk more."

    Rainbow nodded. "Later, guys."

    "Goodbye!" Penny cried cheerily.

    The four members of Team SAPR hung up.

    Rainbow Dash put her scroll away and clapped her hands together. "Okay then," she said. "What do we think about this?"

    "I would just like to say," Twilight said, in a very mild and gentle voice, "that I WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG! HAH!" She beamed triumphant, for a few seconds at least, before her face fell. "And … I can't tell anyone about it. Not even our friends. Wow, this sucks."

    "We're all very sorry that your opportunity to gloat has been curtailed," Blake said dryly.

    Twilight snorted. "I know, I know, but … it would be nice to share this with other people, you know."

    "Speaking of sharing with other people," Rainbow said, "what is it that you didn't want to say in front of the Sapphires?"

    Twilight blinked. "I don't know what you—"

    "Yes," Rainbow cut her off. "Yes, you do; come on, out with it."

    Twilight looked away, glancing down at the floor. "I … I'm not sure if I ought to say," she murmured.

    "Twilight," Rainbow urged. "It's us. We're all in this together, right?"

    Twilight hesitated. "Well … it's just that … I think that I might know who the Winter Maiden is."

    "Really?" Penny asked. "Who?"

    "Just as importantly, how?" asked Blake.

    "I really don't know if I ought to tell you," Twilight said.

    "They're not going to be in any danger from us," Rainbow insisted. "We're the good guys. And … you know, if I was one of these Maidens and had to hide my powers, I wouldn't mind if someone else found out and I could talk to them about." She paused, frowning. "But I thought you didn't recognise the woman who saved your life?"

    "No, it isn't her," Twilight said. "She … she must be dead." Her head bowed a little, and she clasped her hands together upon her knees. "No, I think … I think the new Winter Maiden is Starlight."

    "Starlight Glimmer?" Blake said.

    "Do we know any other Starlights?" Twilight replied.

    "No," Blake admitted, "but … really? I've never seen her demonstrate any magical powers."

    "It sounds as though that's kind of the point," Twilight said.

    "What makes you think it's her?" asked Rainbow.

    Twilight pushed her glasses back up her nose. "When you were in Mountain Glenn, I was waiting with Team Tsunami in case you needed backup. On that night, before we talked, Starlight took me aside for a talk of our own. She knows that something is going on with us, she's not stupid, and she knew that there was more to the Mountain Glenn mission than she'd been told." Twilight took a breath. "She asked me if the term 'Winter Maiden' meant anything to me."

    "That doesn't mean she is the Winter Maiden," said Blake.

    "It's a pretty strange phrase to use in any other context, don't you think?" demanded Twilight.

    "It proves that she knows about the Maidens somehow," Rainbow agreed. "It doesn't prove that she's the Winter Maiden herself. I mean … if she is the Winter Maiden, then what's she doing as an Atlas student? Blake says that secrecy is the best security, that the Maidens can't be targeted if nobody knows who they are, but even if we buy that … in Starlight's case, what security? She could die on any mission, and then what? The powers pass on to … whoever? To the person who killed her, maybe, even if they didn't know about Maidens, when they killed her. And yeah, I know that Starlight's a hard case, and it would take a lot to bring her down, and even more with Trixie by her side, but she's not invincible. If keeping the Maidens safe is that important … my issue with magic has always been 'if it exists, why not use it?' After all, magic is a weapon, no different than a gun or a semblance, and I know that because the Winter Maiden used it as a weapon to save Twilight. But if the magic of the Maidens is so powerful a weapon that the risk it would fall into enemy hands outweighs any consideration of the benefit that could be gained from using it on the front lines — and whether I believe it or not, it seems like the General feels that way, or at least Professor Ozpin does, and the General isn't going to go against him on it — if preventing the loss of the Maiden powers really is priority number one … General Ironwood wouldn't send the Maiden into battle. I don't buy it; it doesn't make sense to me."

    Twilight's brow furrowed. "Then … how did Starlight know?"

    "You could ask her," Penny suggested.

    Rainbow laughed. "Yes, yes, Penny, I guess we could; that is a very good point. Not over the scroll, though; we'll talk to her in person when we get back to Beacon."

    The corners of Blake's lips turned upwards. "What do you think about all this, Penny?"

    "I … I feel sorry for them," Penny said.

    "'Sorry for them'?" asked Twilight.

    "Having to live their whole lives a secret," Penny explained. "Never able to tell anyone what they really are, what they can do, about their magic. It must be very hard on them. I think they must get very lonely."

    "Just because they have to hide their powers doesn't mean they have to be alone," Rainbow said.

    "If nobody knows who you really are, then you're always alone, no matter how many people are around you," Blake murmured.

    "You feel the same way, huh?" asked Rainbow.

    "Whatever the intentions of the old man in the story, which — admittedly, upon the evidence of a story — seem to have been benign," Blake said, "the fact remains that his intervention was unnecessary, and this system, whatever good it may have done in days gone by, has become something cruel."

    "This system saved Twilight's life," Rainbow pointed out.

    Blake cringed. "I didn't mean to suggest that—"

    "I know," Twilight assured her. "We both know."

    "I wasn't accusing you of anything," Rainbow said. "I was just pointing out that … even if they are forced to hide, Twilight's example shows that they're still able to get stuff done."

    "One example," Blake said. "How many other times have the Maidens shown themselves recently?"

    Rainbow glanced at Twilight.

    "Not many," Twilight admitted. "Or else tracking magic wouldn't be so hard."

    Blake nodded. "I have to admit that … perhaps my attitude is a little coloured by the fact that I don't see the need for these Maidens in the first place—"

    "You don't?" Rainbow asked.

    "You do?" responded Blake.

    "People need heroes," Rainbow said.

    "Heroes, yes, but not magic," Blake replied. "People that others can look up to and aspire to be, but … what good is a hero if the thing that makes them a hero is something you can never become or possess? What kind of an inspiration is someone whose accomplishments come from a power that can never be yours? A hero is … a hero is someone who shows others that anyone can be a hero, if only they have the courage and the commitment. Someone … someone like…" She trailed off and didn't finish whatever it was that she had been about to say.

    "But what about Equestria?" Penny asked. "Princess Twilight got wings to show that she'd become a hero. How is this any different?"

    "You said it yourself, Penny; Princess Twilight became a hero," Blake pointed out. "She didn't start off as an alicorn; she was just a unicorn like any other who achieved great things and was rewarded for it."

    "The four sisters were rewarded," Rainbow pointed out.

    "But since then, it appears that the Maiden powers just bestow themselves, even upon murderers," Blake replied. "The point is that in the present day, those girls — and judging from the name, it appears that they are all girls — who are unfortunate enough to receive this magic … it traps them. It cages them. It binds them to a life from which they cannot escape, a half life, lived forever with one foot amidst shadows and secrets. I … I can't believe that they find any joy in it."

    "You find joy where you can," Rainbow said. "Even in a hard life. Just because things are hard doesn't mean that it's unrelenting misery. I admit that you don't make it sound good, but … I'm sure there's happiness and laughter in there too somewhere. With someone."

    "Not that we'll know for sure, seeing as how we don't get to know who the Maidens are," Twilight pointed out.

    "Yeah," Rainbow agreed. "Yeah, we'll never know for sure."

    "Are you going to tell Ciel about all this?" asked Penny.

    "Yeah," Rainbow declared. "Yeah, the next time I take you to visit your dad, I'll swing by her place and fill her in."

    "How do you think she'll take it?" asked Twilight.

    "Stoically, like she takes everything else," Rainbow said. "But what she'll think about it…" She let out a kind of laugh. "I honestly have no idea."
     
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    • Chapter 36 - Leaf in the North
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    • Leaf in the North

    ​

    The cardboard sign had Leaf Kelly scrawled on it in block letters and blue felt pen.

    Rainbow held it up above her head as she stood on the concourse of the Skydock and watched a column of people flow out of the lounge, having just disembarked from the most recent airship to touch down.

    "Do you see her yet?" Penny asked.

    "We don't actually know what she looks like, remember?" Rainbow reminded her.

    "Sunset could have sent you a photograph," Rarity declared. "If only for convenience's sake."

    "Maybe she didn't have one," Rainbow replied. "I mean, it sounds like they haven't known her for very long." She paused for a moment. "Thanks for coming down here like this, by the way, and on your day off too."

    "Oh, think nothing of it, darling, nothing at all," Rarity said lightly.

    She was wearing a maroon trenchcoat that covered her up from the neck down to the knees, with only a little bit of a burgundy skirt and the black stockings that covered up the rest of her legs down to her high heels showing beneath it; a salmon-coloured belt clinched in the coat around her waist, and the pussy bow around her neck was of the exact same colour. Her face was overshadowed by the broad-brimmed burgundy hat she was wearing, with another salmon-coloured ribbon wrapped around it, tied into a bow at the back.

    Rarity waved off Rainbow's thanks with a black-gloved hand. "Anything for you, of course, not to mention that I'm always glad to help a newcomer settle in here amongst the clouds. Why, I remember when I first arrived in Atlas; if it hadn't been for Twilight's help, I would have ended up … well, one shudders to contemplate."

    "You arrived in Atlas?" Blake asked. "I thought you must have been born here."

    Rarity chuckled. "Well, that's very kind of you to say, dear, but quite incorrect. I'm actually from Mantle by birth."

    "From Mantle?" Blake repeated, incredulousness filling every syllable. "You … from Mantle?"

    It was difficult to be sure because of the way she was wearing her hat, but it definitely seemed to Rainbow as though Rarity was smiling.

    "I'm so glad that you're surprised, darling."

    "Why?" asked Penny. "Are you ashamed of coming from Mantle?"

    "Yes," Rarity said. "You must excuse the uncharacteristic bluntness, but there aren't many ways to mince that particular word. Suffice it to say that if you were not our friend, Blake, and if Rainbow Dash did not vouch for you, Penny, I would certainly not admit the fact that I am not, in fact, a thoroughbred daughter of Atlas. I will not, for example, be admitting as much to young Miss Kelly when she graces us with her presence, and I trust that I can rely on your discretion on this point."

    "I'll keep your secret, of course," Blake said, "but—"

    "But why are you ashamed?" asked Penny. "I mean … what's wrong with Mantle?"

    "You know how you think you'll be happier at Beacon than at Atlas?" Rainbow asked. "Well, it's like that Rarity; she thought she'd be happier in Atlas than in Mantle, and she has been. Sometimes, there's nothing more to it than that."

    And sometimes, there is, but I don't want to get into an argument right now; it would be a fine thing for this Leaf to show up and find Blake and Rarity having a row about the state of Mantle.

    "Oh," Penny said. "Right. I see. I'm sorry; I didn't mean to—"

    "It's quite alright," Rarity assured her. "We all have our own views, after all."

    Blake chuckled. "I suppose we are among the last two people to be lecturing about the evils of moving away in search of … anything really; fulfilment, a better life, the achievement of our goals."

    "If it were that bad, we wouldn't be here in the first place," Rainbow reminded them all. "Although to be honest, I'm still not sure why you two decided to come."

    "I want to meet another of Ruby and Sunset's friends," Penny declared.

    "Although I'm still fairly new to Atlas myself," Blake said, "that doesn't mean that … well, perhaps it's precisely because I'm still fairly new to Atlas that I want to help out a fellow newcomer if I can."

    "Where do you think she is?" Penny asked, standing up on her toes in order to see a little better over the crowd of people still spilling off the airship and into the Skydock. "What if she missed her flight?"

    "I'm sure that if she'd missed her flight, Sunset would have called again to let us know," Rainbow replied. "Don't worry, Penny; she'll be here. There are a lot of people who have to get off this flight, you know."

    A movement in the crowd caught Rainbow's eye, or rather, a lack of movement; there was a girl who had broken away from the crowd just a little bit, standing and … yep, she was definitely staring right at them. Staring up at the sign that Rainbow was holding in her hands.

    She stared, she looked around, and she looked at them.

    She stared, and then she began to make her way towards them. She looked to be about Rainbow and Rarity's age, maybe just a little older — and older than Sunset or Ruby, and definitely older than Penny, not that that was hard — with soft brown hair dyed a luminescent blue at the tips, and piercings in both her human ears and in the squirrel ears that poked up out of said soft brown hair.

    Sunset hadn't actually mentioned that Leaf was a faunus. Not that it was a big deal that she was, obviously.

    She was dressed in a light brown puffer jacket, which was unzipped so that Rainbow could see the airy, gauzy orange dress that she was wearing over the black and grey plaid dress beneath; black tights covered the gap between her skirt and her steel toecapped boots, which went almost up to her knees.

    There were also a couple of piercings in her nose. She walked with a slight hunch to her, like she didn't want to be seen, like she was being furtive about something, or perhaps it was just the weight of the back that she had slung over one shoulder. Either way, she walked over to them, looking left and right as she did so as though she thought someone else might be coming over to them instead; she didn't stop until she was pretty much standing right in front of them.

    "So, um…" she began haltingly, hesitantly. "I, uh, I mean—"

    "Are you Leaf Kelly?" Rainbow asked, lowering her handmade sign.

    "Yeah," Leaf confirmed. "But—"

    "We're friends of Ruby and Sunset too!" Penny proclaimed. "Salutations! It's a pleasure to meet you!"

    Leaf blinked her brown eyes. "Ruby… Ruby Rose and Sunset Shimmer?"

    "Uh huh," Rainbow said. "Since you're new here and all, they asked if we'd help you get settled in."

    "Oh," Leaf said. "Oh, wow, that … that's nice of them. I didn't think that they … you know, I think that might be the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me. Or … maybe it's this, since you guys don't even really know me."

    "But we'd like to," Penny said.

    Leaf laughed softly. "Well…" She held out her hand, the one that she wasn't using to hold onto her bag, and gestured to encompass herself. "I'm Leaf Kelly."

    "And I'm Penny Polendina."

    Leaf grinned and held out one balled fist. "Nice to meet you, Penny Polendina."

    Penny beamed and drew back her own fist.

    "Penny!" Rainbow said urgently. She didn't want to break Leaf's hand or anything, after all.

    "Oh, right," Penny said, and she very slowly, very gently, brought her knuckles into contact with Leaf's hand.

    "I'm Rainbow Dash," Rainbow said, before Leaf could start to wonder what was going on there.

    "I'm Blake."

    "And I'm Rarity, darling; it's a pleasure to meet you."

    Leaf bumped fists with Rainbow and shook hands with Blake and Rarity. "So, if you know Sunset and Ruby, does that mean that you're all Atlas students?"

    "I am," Rainbow said. "Blake is gonna be, Penny is but isn't gonna be for much longer, and Rarity isn't."

    Leaf nodded a couple of times, looking upwards as though she was committing it to memory. "Right, well," she attempted to salute, although she got the angle of her hand completely wrong, presenting the flat of her palm to them instead of the edge.

    "You really don't need to do that," Rainbow assured her. "In fact, it's kind of disrespectful."

    "Oh, sorry, I didn't—"

    "I know, I know; I'm just saying that you don't need to do it," Rainbow told her. "Anyway: welcome to Atlas!"

    Leaf grinned. "Thanks. You wouldn't believe how much I've been looking forward to this."

    "Oh, I think I might have an idea," Rainbow replied.

    "Do you think Atlas will be so much better than Vale?" Penny asked.

    "I know it will be," Leaf declared. "Isn't it?"

    "I think the most important thing that matters isn't where you are," Penny said, "but where your friends are and whether you're surrounded by good people who care about you."

    "That … sounds nice, if a little bit sappy," Leaf said. "But if you don't have that where you are, and you don't have that anywhere else either, then all that you can do is look at where you are and say … is this where I want to be? And if it isn't, then you have to ask yourself where it is that you want to go instead. That's what I did, and that's why I—"

    Her scroll began to buzz.

    "Oh, for—!" she got the device out of the pocket of her puffer jacket, putting her bag down on the ground at her feet for a second as she did so, and opened it up.

    "Stop calling me and stop sending me messages!" she snapped, swinging violently across the screen to delete the notifications.

    "Who is it?" Blake asked.

    Leaf sighed. "Who isn't it?" she responded. "My mum, my stepdad, my ex. 'Where are you? Call me back?' No."

    "You're just going to ignore them?" Rarity asked. "Without saying anything?"

    "Yeah," Leaf said. "I don't want to … I can't deal with mum right now, and I don't … I don't want to hear her screaming into my ear in the middle of the skydock, and I don't think anyone else really wants that either."

    "I admit, that does sound like a good way to get security involved," Rarity murmured.

    You could send them a text, Rainbow thought. Not too long ago, she wouldn't have had a leg to stand on when it came to this, but she had written to her parents since then — she wondered if they'd gotten her letter yet; how long did it take to get a boat to Menagerie these days? — and so, on that basis, she could say that Leaf was being a little bit of a jerk.

    Well, so it seemed, at least. She didn't know Leaf's mother, or her stepdad, or her ex. They might have all been complete jackasses who deserved to get cut out of Leaf's life. They might be the reason Leaf had run away to Atlas, to get away from them.

    And so, not knowing exactly what the circumstances were like and not wanting to act like a jerk herself, Rainbow didn't say anything.

    Blake, on the other hand, reached out and placed a hand upon Leaf's shoulder. "Are you okay?"

    "What? Yeah," Leaf said immediately. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be okay?"

    "I … I don't know," Blake admitted. "I just … I guess I just wanted to make sure."

    "I'm not running away, if that's what you think," Leaf insisted. "I mean, I suppose I am running away, but I'm not running away from anything, I just … I'm running away to something, towards something, or at least, I hope I am. I'm not entirely sure what it is yet, but…"

    "Well, if you need help finding it, that's what we're here for," Rainbow said. "How was your flight?"

    "Pretty good, when I wasn't getting spammed with messages," Leaf said. "They're pretty comfortable, those airships, aren't they? A bit more expensive than I thought; I can't believe you have to pay for food on top of your ticket. Shouldn't that stuff be all included in the price?"

    "But then how would people who have more money get better food than everyone else?" Rarity asked dryly.

    Leaf snorted. "I have to say, that hologram that 'welcomed' us all to Atlas … that's kind of freaky."

    "It is, isn't it?" Blake asked. "When I got here, it suggested that I find a place to stay, since I didn't have one lined up."

    "Ah, I actually do have a place to stay lined up, so I got told that I should take a cab to a public elevator to get there," Leaf said. "Although the flight cost more than I thought it would, so I'm going to need to find a job faster if I'm going to make the rent on this place."

    "Well, why don't we take you down to this place you have lined up to drop your stuff off, and then afterwards, we can help you find a job or start looking for one?" Rainbow suggested. "Rarity, you can help with that, right?"

    "Yes," Rarity said. "Yes, I think so. Where is it that you're staying, darling?"

    "Um," Leaf looked at her scroll, swiping more carefully across the screen, and with less sign of bad temper now. "I am staying at … right, apartment six-forty-five on Grey Seventeen."

    "Ah, yes, Grey Sector, I know it," Rarity said. "The places there are often rather affordable. But there's no need to get a cab, no. I'll get you a travel pass — that'll be on your scroll; you can top it up once you start earning — and we can take an elevator down to Blue sector, get the subway until we're above the right zone of Grey sector, and then take the elevator from there down to Grey Seventeen."

    "Are you sure?" Leaf asked.

    "I do know my way around the city," Rarity observed.

    "Right," Leaf agreed, a slightly sheepish smile on her face. "Sorry. I … yeah. So … am I going to be living underground?"

    Rarity glanced at Rainbow Dash. "Yes, yes, you will; was that not clear when you signed up for this place?"

    "Probably," Leaf admitted. "I … I was willing to take anything to be honest; I just wanted to be here and away from Vale."

    "I see," Rarity murmured. "Well, speaking personally, although I wouldn't object to having a place with windows — and I will have one, one day, I guarantee it — there's nothing horrendous about living belowground. Living underground in Atlas is still living in Atlas, after all, and the elevators ensure that the surface is never far away. Now, shall we be going?"

    "Sure," Leaf said. She picked up her bag and once more slung it across her shoulder. "Hey … is this place as great as it looks in the pictures?"

    "Oh, yes indeed, darling," said Rarity.

    "It's better than the pictures," Rainbow said.

    "I … agree with Penny," Blake murmured. "It's the people that make a place what it is." She smiled. "But, as I'm sure you'll find out, the people can make this place very good indeed."

    "I think I might be finding that already," Leaf said. "I'm honestly starting to wonder if I slipped and fell off the edge of the city getting off the airship, because there is no way that four complete strangers took the time out to help me get settled in here."

    "Well, it's not like we had anything better to do," Rainbow said.

    Leaf snorted. "Seriously?"

    "Seriously?" Rainbow asked. "Sunset and Ruby are good friends of ours, and when they asked us to help you out, we couldn't say no, right? Now, come on, grab your stuff, and let's get moving."

    Leaf had already grabbed her stuff, so it was just the matter of getting moving. Rarity led the way, her heels tapping upon the pristine white floor of the concourse — an army of those squeaky little mouse droids ran up and down, dodging around or even between the legs of people in order to keep it that way, vigorously scrubbing away even the slightest hint of a stain anywhere visible.

    "You'll get used to those," Blake murmured as Leaf stared at one of the little droids that went rolling by.

    "Are they everywhere?" Leaf asked.

    "Robots are everywhere," Blake replied. "This is Atlas, after all."

    Leaf smiled. "Yeah," she said. "This is Atlas." She raised her arms up in the air and raised her voice to shout. "This is Atlas!"

    "We know it is; we live here!" someone yelled at her.

    "Shut up!" Leaf shouted back.

    Rainbow shook her head as Rarity led them out of the skydock, through a door which brought them not onto the car park but onto one of the streets running alongside the dock. The skies were clear; all the clouds had, for today, been banished from them. The air was crisp and even, but not too cool, even though it wasn't warm by any means. A cruiser glided past overhead, with a couple of Skydarts flying escort on its flanks.

    As they walked towards the nearest elevator, they passed by the robots working on the roadside; they passed beneath the shadows of the buildings rising up all around them, the sunlight gleaming off the glass and steel. They passed beneath the airships zipping to and fro overhead.

    Leaf stopped for a moment, turning in place, arms out a little on either side of her.

    "This," she whispered, "this is going to be so brilliant."

    XxXxX​

    The fact of the matter was that it was kind of easier to move around Atlas underground than it was above it.

    It wasn't that overhead was completely devoid of public transport — there was the monorail that ran around the edge of the city, that cut through the centre of it as well to pass by Atlas Academy — but it was also a little bit limited in where it went, there were only so many stops, and there was a lot of Atlas that it didn't service at all; also, it was elevated above the ground, so while it was quite literally 'above ground,' it wasn't exactly on the surface.

    Rainbow thought it was probably a question of space; if you wanted to put a good tram line or something like that on the surface of Atlas, you were going to have to clear up a lot of space that was already being used for homes, stores, stuff, labs, stuff like that. Whereas, in the Underground, there had been more room to say that public transport was going to be included as part of the package.

    It probably didn't hurt that it was inherently hard to move around underground on account of all the rock in the way, so you had to put something in there.

    Whatever the exact reason, Atlas had a lot of subways. Layers and layers and layers of subways, more layers than a wedding cake of subways. There was one that ran close to the surface — the Nicholas Line — that was probably the most convenient way to get between one place on the surface and the other if you didn't have a car, and then underneath that, there were all the lines serving the different levels dug into the rock of Atlas, all the way down to the half-completed Brown levels where they'd just sort of given up digging halfway through and left the whole thing unfinished. Nobody lived down there, but there were all kinds of urban legends about what you might find if you climbed down a disused elevator shaft all the way down to the abandoned layers of the city: ghosts, mutants, and a subway train rattling down the abandoned tunnels, carrying passengers who had climbed aboard but could never get off.

    All of the levels and all of the lines — not the ghost line, obviously, the actual lines with actual subway trains running on them — were accessed via elevators going down from the surface, although they didn't all go down all the way. So Rarity brought Rainbow, Blake, Penny, and Leaf to an elevator going down as far as the Blue levels, which were the second layer of the Underground — White being the first — and coincidentally the level on which Rarity lived.

    "Although of course I live on the highest level of Blue, darling," Rarity said. "I practically live in White, really."

    "Is that just a status thing, or does it actually matter?" Leaf asked.

    Rarity hesitated. "I'm afraid it does matter somewhat, yes … you'll see for yourself when we reach your apartment."

    The elevator was large, almost industrial in size, although it was meant for people; it's just that it was meant for the large crowds of people who might want to come up to the surface on their commute to and from work on the surface; that was Rainbow's best guess as to why the elevators only went to certain levels: to control the crowds at key times.

    However, this wasn't a key time, and the five of them pretty much had the elevator to themselves, with cavernous space as they got inside, each of them using their scrolls to scan in, paying the fee with the credit they'd already put there.

    They could have spread out as much as they wanted, but there wouldn't have been much point to that, so they stuck pretty close together anyway, just without needing to press close shoulder to shoulder like they would have in, say, the elevator leading up to the headmaster's office at Beacon — or even in Atlas, for that matter.

    "Blue Seven, please," Rarity said, in a clear, crisp voice, and the great doors of the lift slid shut with a quiet that always surprised Rainbow Dash. The light in the elevator was a soft ambient blue as it began to move downwards.

    "Is it alright if I smoke?" Leaf asked.

    "Smoking is not permitted anywhere aboard Transport for Atlas vehicles or facilities," said the mechanical voice of the elevator.

    Leaf's whole body jolted as though she'd been shocked; she nearly collided with Penny; her ears pricked all the way up and her eyes widened. "Did that … did it just hear me?"

    "Yep," Rainbow said. "The whole transport network is monitored by…" — she searched for the words — "responsive virtual intelligences."

    "What does that even mean?"

    "It means they're always listening, and they respond," Rainbow explained.

    Leaf looked up at the ceiling of the lift. "So … if I, like, if I say anything good about the White Fang, are they gonna call the cops on me?"

    Rainbow's eyes narrowed. "Are you going to say anything good about the White Fang?"

    "No," Leaf said. "I'm not political. I just … I don't like the idea of a bunch of computers spying on me."

    "It's for everyone's own good," Rainbow said.

    "That's what my mum says," Leaf muttered.

    "They're only here to help," Rainbow insisted. "Like … How do I get to Blue North?"

    "To reach the northern quadrant of the Blue Zone, disembark on level seven and take any north-bound Sinclair Line train headed for Morden."

    "See?" Rainbow said. "Helpful."

    "Mmm," Leaf murmured wordlessly. "It's not … it's not everywhere, is it?"

    "No," Rainbow replied. "Only in the transport facilities, although other public buildings might have something like it."

    "But they'll let me smoke in the corridors, right?"

    "Yeah, sure, if you really want to."

    "Thank gods, because I'm going to start shaking," Leaf muttered. "The only place I could smoke on the airship was on the open deck, which was also freezing." She paused for a second. "Rarity … can I ask you something?"

    "Of course."

    "Why are you dressed like Shadow Spade?"

    Rarity gasped. "Why, thank you for noticing, darling! It's nice to see someone who comprehends." She glanced at Rainbow Dash. "Yes, I've come up with a little line in tribute to Remnant's greatest detective; are you a fan?"

    "I've read the books; I don't know if I'd call myself a fan," Leaf said. "I wouldn't dress up as her, but she is pretty cool. I like the way she doesn't take any crap, you know? Her pride is such that you'll treat her like a proud woman—"

    "Or you'll regret you ever saw her," Rarity finished for her. "Yes, I, too, admire her confidence. The confidence to confront the crooked head of a mining corporation armed with nothing but the truth — and a gun in her purse."

    "That's not confidence; that's courage," Rainbow said.

    "Doesn't one follow from the other?" Rarity asked.

    "Not necessarily, I think you can be brave without being confident," Rainbow replied.

    "Who is this Shadow Spade?" Penny asked.

    "A detective," Rarity explained. "The greatest detective, walking the mean streets of Mantle in the years after the Great War — that's another thing that appealed to me; for all the problems of that era, those postwar fashions really were something, no?"

    "I prefer the ones where they're more straight up mysteries," Leaf said. "Not so … dark, you know, less of the grim Mantle stuff. Like Crooked House, where she goes to Argus and has to work out who murdered the rich grandfather before he could cut off all his children and grandchildren, or Elephants Can Remember, where…" She chuckled. "Okay, maybe I am a fan."

    "And there's nothing wrong with that," Rarity assured her, "nothing at all. I see what you mean, by the way; our friend Fluttershy also prefers the cosier mysteries, but I find that they lack just a little of … sharp edges of the more socially conscious novels. I think it has something to do with the author becoming very successful and spending so much more time hobnobbing with other wealthy and successful people … but then, who could possibly begrudge her that?"

    "Plus, you know, it makes sense," Leaf said. "Throughout the books, Spade becomes more successful so it makes sense that eventually she's able to get out of Mantle and start working for a better class of client."

    "Oh, I understand it perfectly well — it's an explicit parallel with the rise of Atlas after the war — I'm just not so much of a fan of it," Rarity said.

    "Fair enough," Leaf said.

    "Who here understands what they're talking about?" Blake asked.

    "Not me," Penny admitted.

    "I do, kind of," Rainbow said. "Rarity and Fluttershy tried to get me to read these books, and … I didn't like them. They're not fair."

    Leaf looked at her. "What do you mean 'they're not fair'?"

    "She means she couldn't work out who did it," Rarity said.

    "You're not supposed to be able to work it out," Leaf said.

    "Then what's the point?" Rainbow demanded. "What is the point of a mystery story where you can't solve the mystery yourself ahead of time?"

    "Don't listen to her, Leaf darling," Rarity insisted.

    "It's okay, Rainbow Dash," Penny said. "I've been trying to read The Mistraliad, but I'm not getting it either."

    "Really?" Blake asked. "That's … very ambitious."

    "What's The Mistraliad?" asked Leaf.

    "It's the foundational Mistralian epic," Blake explained. "A tale of arms and passion."

    "It's also Pyrrha's favourite book," Penny said. "I thought that if we read it, I could talk about it. But I'm afraid I'm not enjoying it very much; it's hard to understand all the words, and everyone is so … so mean to one another."

    "You want my advice, Penny?" Rainbow said. "Try The Song of Olivia; it's Ruby's favourite, and it's way easier to read, and the language is a lot simpler. I took a look at it for our essay we did for Doctor Oobleck, and it's actually really good. She's like a soldier in shining armour."

    "But isn't that really hard to come by?" Penny said. "That's why Dove's gift meant so much."

    "In hard copy, sure," Rainbow agreed, "but there's an e-version that … okay, the pictures are placed right on top of the text sometimes, which is really unhelpful, but you can read eighty, ninety percent of it just fine, and depending on how you tab back and forth across the pages, you can reveal stuff from under the pictures as well — the placements change; I think it's just really badly formatted. Anyway, the point is that you can read enough of it to talk about it with Ruby."

    "Okay, now I don't understand what you're talking about," Leaf said.

    Rainbow laughed. "Sorry. So, anyway, what kind of job are you looking for here in Atlas?"

    "I don't know, really," Leaf admitted. "Whatever I can get. What kind of job should I look for?"

    "That depends," Rarity said. "Do you have any skills that you could put to work?"

    Leaf shrugged. "I can ride motorcycles pretty well, does that count?"

    "It … is a skill, certainly, although I'm not certain that it's an employable one."

    "You could be a delivery driver?" Rainbow suggested.

    "Oh, no, that's a terrible job," Rarity declared.

    "At least it is a job," Rainbow countered.

    "If you call having to be on-call at all hours to dash to and fro, collecting or dropping off, and all for a pittance a job, then yes, I suppose it is," Rarity murmured.

    "It would be an idea, except I don't have a bike," Leaf said. "I sold it for a little extra money to get here, and I don't think I have enough to get another one right now."

    "Well, what do you like?" asked Blake.

    "Motorcycle racing?" Leaf suggested.

    "You have to be pretty good at that to do it professionally, and you still need a bike," Rainbow said.

    "But don't worry," Rarity said. "I'm sure that, with our help, you'll come up with something."

    The elevator came to a halt, and the doors opened to let them out on the seventh level of the Blue Zone.

    The Atlesian underground was nothing like Mountain Glenn; when they were constructing Atlas, nobody had had the idea to hollow out the whole rock and build a parallel city underneath with big towers and a lot of space overhead and just copy everything a normal city would have, just above ground. Here in Atlas, everything was corridors; tunnels had been dug through the rock and stone, but they were just that: tunnels. Everything in the Underground was one storey; there were no towers, no houses, there were just doors opening to reveal shops or apartments, none of which were any taller than the rest.

    Which wasn't to say that everything had just been left with the rock hanging out, no; all the tunnels had been finished with steel or stone, so that the edges were smoothed off, all the walls inside were proper walls like you'd get in any other building; if it wasn't for the lack of natural light or windows, you wouldn't be able to tell you were underground at all.

    It was warm down here; it got warmer the further down you got, it got warmer, and it got a little louder too, as you could hear the thrumming of the immense dust engines that kept Atlas in the air. The corridors were illuminated with long tubes running along the edges of the ceiling, giving off a soft blue light.

    Rarity led them to the nearest subway station on the Sinclair Line — the trains there were blue as well — and they got off one stop before changing onto the Sheridan Line heading west. They got off that train at one of the last stops, before getting another big elevator down to level seventeen of the Grey Zone.

    They didn't have this lift all to themselves, but it still wasn't too crowded, and it emptied out as most of the people they were sharing the lift with got off before they reached Grey Seventeen. Honestly, the whole Underground was pretty quiet at this time of day; while there were some shops and businesses down beneath the surface — casual restaurants for the inhabitants, grocery stores, conveniences — most people worked up on the surface, in the towers of steel and glass, under the sun, returning underground only to sleep and possibly spend their off-work hours.

    Rarity was one of those, after all: her boutique wasn't underground; she just lived there.

    In the Grey Zone, the lights were not grey, because that would have been too dingy and depressing to contemplate; in fact, it was brighter down here than it was in the Blue Zone. Brighter and warmer too, although not uncomfortably warm — well, not unless you had wrapped up for the surface, in which case, you might want to go home and change promptly before you sweated too much. The engines hummed down here in the deep, and the walls of the corridors seemed to vibrate with the humming.

    There were a few people down here, and a few robots too, with claws at the end of one arm and bin bags clutched in their other hand, or else the ever-present mouse droids. At one point, they had to squeeze around one of those big walking batteries on legs as it waddled past, making little 'gonk' noises as it did so.

    Still, collectively, they all kept the place clean; that was what Rainbow always appreciated about the Underground whenever she went down to visit Rarity: how clean it all was, how looked after; there wasn't any graffiti on the walls; there wasn't any mess. Now, the fact that there were robots taking care of the place meant that it didn't say as much about the people who lived down here as it did about the folks who lived in Low Town, but she'd take it over the grime of Mantle any day.

    "Does anyone else want a cigarette?" Leaf asked.

    She was answered by a chorus in the negative.

    "Sunset didn't want one either," Leaf pointed out. "Is this just a health thing, where you all have to keep fit to hunt grimm?"

    "In my particular case, I'd rather not stink up my apartment," Rarity said. "Something which you might bear in mind yourself, once we get there."

    They arrived outside of apartment 675, easily identifiable by the number on the grey metallic door, and although the doors on either side were pretty close, nobody commented upon what that might mean for Leaf.

    Rather, as they approached, Rarity gestured towards the electronic reader on the wall.

    "If you've made all the arrangements in advance, and nothing has gone wrong," she said, "then you'll be able to swipe your scroll here to get inside, and so long as you keep up with the rent, you'll always be able to swipe your scroll to get inside."

    "What if something has gone wrong?" Leaf asked.

    "Then we've wasted a bit of a trip, and we'll have to take you to see whoever you rented the apartment from to get it all sorted out," Rarity admitted.

    "Right," Leaf murmured. "I thought there might be someone here to … give me a key or something."

    "Oh no, no, no, darling," Rarity said. "This is Atlas, after all."

    Leaf smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, it is, isn't it." She took a step forward and took her scroll out of the pocket of her puffer jacket, holding it up to the reader beside the door.

    The door slid open, to reveal — sort of, the lights were off so it was kind of dark in there — a small room, about the size of an Atlas dorm room, maybe a little bit smaller, with a bed built into the wall on the left hand side and a door at the back leading into the en suite toilet and bathroom. On the right side of the room was a sink, with a small worksurface where you could put a microwave or a hotplate or something — although there wasn't one there right at the moment. In fact, aside from the bed, there wasn't a lot in the apartment at all. It clearly wasn't somewhere that came fully furnished.

    "It's a box," Penny said.

    "It's not that bad," Blake said, not really sounding as though she believed it. "It's … cosy."

    "It's tiny!" Penny declared.

    "Yeah," Leaf said, "it is." She stepped inside, and the lights flickered on, illuminating the smallness and the emptiness. "But you know what? It's mine." She turned to face them all, spreading her arms out wide as she dumped her bag on the floor. "It's mine! This is my place! My space! And yeah, sure, there isn't a lot of space to go around here, but all the same, it's mine! No Mum coming in whenever she feels like it, no more having to follow anyone else's rules. This is my place, and only mine."

    "That's the spirit, darling," Rarity said. "And remember: in Atlas, the only way is up."

    Leaf grinned. "I know that Sunset thought I was a complete moron doing this," she said. "Coming to Atlas, running away, she thought that I should stay home and stick with my mum, play it safe, not take any risks. And I guess it must sound pretty stupid to you guys, coming here without a job and only a little money and … no idea what sort of job I should get, but … I'm not stupid. I'm not completely stupid. I knew that I wasn't going to be moving into a palace when I got here. You get what you pay for, and I'm … not paying very much. But, you know, once I start making money, I'll be able to leave this place behind for somewhere better."

    "That's … still optimistic," Blake murmured.

    "But true, darling," Rarity insisted. "Very true."

    "It's why I left," Leaf said. "I don't want to live my whole life knowing that each day is just going to be more of the same dull nothing for no reason. That's what my ex didn't get, that's why I had to … anyway, the point is that I'm glad to have something to work towards."

    Rarity smiled. "Why don't we get something to eat and we can discuss what kind of job you could get?"

    "Yeah, sure," Leaf agreed. "Where are we going to go?"

    "There was that burger place just around the corner that we passed on the way here," Rainbow suggested.

    Rarity gave her a little bit of stinkeye at that, but come on, they didn't really want to make more elevator rides and subway journeys just to get to somewhere nice. They wanted … well, they wanted fast food, in every sense.

    And so they went to the Snowburger around the corner, which was kind of small, like a lot of things in the Underground, and clearly more meant for stuff to be taken away than eaten there, but it did have two small tables, one on either side of the door in front of the counter, and since that was more than Leaf's new apartment had, the five of them took one of the tables and put their plastic trays of burgers and fries down in the middle of it.

    It was a little bit crowded, but it was better than all eating standing up or sitting on the bed.

    Rainbow started to unwrap her burger from its paper wrapping; to Leaf, she said, "You sure that you don't want more than that bag of nuggets? You don't get a lot of them."

    "It's fine," Leaf assured her. "Smoking kind of kills my appetite anyway. I don't feel like a lot."

    "Okay," Rainbow said.

    She took a bite out of her burger, and for a moment, there was quiet around the table as everyone chewed on theirs. These Snowburgers weren't the best, and Rainbow honestly preferred Burger Bar because they didn't put so much dressing on the burgers, but it filled your stomach, and it didn't taste bad, so that was that.

    Plus, the fries were the best you could get in a fast food joint in Atlas.

    She swallowed. "So," she said, "you ran away to Atlas to get away from your parents?"

    Leaf swallowed a nugget. "From my mum," she replied. "My dad … mum kicked Dad out a while back, moved in with Daniel afterwards. Daniel and his two kids. Now, I don't want you to think that I hate them or anything, but … it's Angie, you know, she's so put together and talented, and it's all 'why can't you be more like your stepsister?' Because we don't share the same genes, okay; she was born better than me, so can you just leave me alone?" Leaf sighed. "This probably makes me sound—"

    "Nah, don't worry about it; it's fine," Rainbow assured her. "I wanted to get away from my parents too."

    "Me three," Blake murmured.

    "And me," Penny said.

    Everyone looked at Rarity, who was rather fastidiously plucking a chip from out of the paper bag.

    She looked around, blinking owlishly. "I don't know what you're all looking at me for; I get along with my parents," she said. "They don't understand me, it's true, but they understand that I'm doing what I want and that I'm happy, and that's all that matters for both of us."

    "Lucky you," Leaf said. "Really, you're really lucky, you get that, right?"

    Rarity smiled. "I'm well aware, yes, but thank you for reminding me."

    The corners of Leaf's mouth jerked upwards for a second. "What about the rest of you?"

    "My father wanted me to do what he wanted," Penny said.

    "My parents and I … had a falling out," Blake explained.

    "My parents praised me too much."

    Leaf blinked. "Okay, one of those things is not like the others."

    "Yeah, I know; it makes me cringe looking back; I didn't know how good I had it," Rainbow admitted.

    "But Rainbow isn't the only one to look back and realise that, as much as we didn't realise it at the time, our parents had our best interests at heart," Blake said,

    Leaf's eyes narrowed. "Tell me this isn't leading up to some kind of 'call your mom because it's not actually her fault'?"

    "I wouldn't presume to know your circumstances," Blake said. "I suppose I'm just warning you that we might not understand them as well as you might have hoped."

    Leaf shrugged. "And what about you, Penny?"

    "My father … my father cares about me, in his own way," Penny admitted, "but that doesn't mean that everything he did is suddenly okay, and it doesn't mean that I'm not going to do what I think is best for me, not what he thinks is best for me."

    Leaf nodded. "Exactly, see? Penny gets it." She popped another nugget into her mouth. "I know that my mum doesn't hate me. I know that … she probably is worried about where I've gone, and I'm probably being a bit of a jerk by not answering any of her messages, but … she wants to control every part of my life. For my own good, she says, but what's good about making me miserable? What's good about making me do things that I don't want to do, and that sounds childish, but it isn't? I'm willing to work, I know that Atlas doesn't owe me anything, but it's my choice. I'll choose what I do, without someone over my shoulder telling me that's too dangerous or that's not good enough or why couldn't you have applied yourself in school so you could aim higher than that?" She paused. "Speaking of which, how many jobs are done by robots in this city? I mean it looks cool, but does that mean that there are no cleaning jobs or anything like that?"

    "I've never seen any," Rainbow admitted. "How about you, Rarity?"

    "It is androids, I'm afraid," Rarity murmured. "Or else people taking on the work as part of their other duties. Coco and I clean the boutique before closing, but that doesn't create a job for anyone else. That being said, there are plenty of things that robots don't or can't do, even if we're talking about entry level: shop assistant, waitress, that sort of thing."

    "What about the military?" Leaf asked. "I kind of always wanted to go to one of your academies and become a huntress, but I'm too old for that now, especially since I didn't go to combat school or anything. But what about the regular military; you don't need any qualifications for that, right?"

    "It depends on which branch of the military you want to sign up for," Rainbow said. "You want to be a pilot, you want to be aircrew, you want to do most of the jobs on a warship, then you need to have passed your sixteen plus exams. If you want to do certain jobs like cook, or if you want to serve in the infantry, then you don't need any qualifications, but you do need to be able to read and write, and if you don't have the exams, you'll never be considered for officer training. Also, infantry service is longer than any other branch signing on for the first time."

    "How long?" Leaf asked.

    "Eight years for the infantry compared to six years for pretty much anything else," Rainbow said. "Of course, a lot of people sign on again after their initial term expires, especially officers, so it doesn't make a whole lot of difference."

    Leaf nodded. "Eight years," she murmured. "That's a lot of time for something that I might not like or be any good at."

    "It's a worthy cause," Rainbow told her. "But yeah, you're right; eight years is a long time; there's no getting around that."

    Rarity delicately ate another fry. "Do you have a CV?"

    "Yeah," Leaf said. "There's not a lot on it, but I've got one."

    "And I think that I saw an employment agency a little way down the corridor as we were coming down from the elevator," Rarity said. "Why don't you see if you can get on their books, and maybe they'll have a job for you, if only one you can take until you find something you prefer?"

    The others couldn't exactly go in with Leaf to what was essentially a sort of job interview, so they waited outside the Proactive Recruitment agency office while Leaf, having brought up her sparse CV upon her scroll, went in.

    They waited quietly, at first at least, the silence broken only by the humming of the engines down below.

    "Rarity?" Penny asked.

    "Yes, darling?"

    "How did you get your job?"

    Rarity chuckled. "In a rather old-fashioned way, I must admit. We're forever being told that you're not supposed to just walk into a place and ask if they're hiring anymore, but … that's what I did: I walked into the boutique and asked if Prim Hemline could use an assistant. Of course, this was only after the last dozen places I'd tried had told me to get out, but nevertheless, I persisted. It wasn't as though I had anything better to do."

    "Do you know why it worked that time and not before?" asked Blake.

    "Luck?" suggested Rarity. "Perhaps Prim was simply feeling generous that day. She put me through my paces, asked me to arrange a display, tested my knowledge of fashion and technique. And then she agreed to let me start before she'd even checked my references. Believe me, I know how fortunate I am."

    "What would you have done if it hadn't worked?" Penny asked. "If you hadn't been able to find a job?"

    "Well, I could always have applied for Atlas," Rarity replied. "I am a graduate of Canterlot Combat School, after all."

    "Hmm," Rainbow mumbled wordlessly but with clear disapproval.

    Rarity chuckled. "Yes, I thought that might get a reaction out of you."

    "You know, people who didn't know you might almost think that you don't like the huntsman academies," Blake observed.

    "What?" Rainbow snapped. "What are you talking about? I go to a huntsman academy!"

    "That you don't want your friends to go to," Blake pointed out.

    "It's not just her," Rarity said. "It was actually Applejack who made the decision for me that I wasn't going to go to Atlas." Rarity's voice slipped into a very bad impression of Applejack's distinctive accent. "'Now listen up, Rarity, you ain't got no call to be risking your neck out on the battlefield, you hear me? We both know you ain't the type for it, and we both know that you don't want to be the type for it neither.'" Rarity's usual accent returned. "The irony, of course, being that Applejack doesn't really want to be the type for it herself."

    "She isn't?" Penny asked.

    "Nah," Rainbow acknowledged. "Applejack would much rather spend all her time on the family farm, pushing a plough or feeding the pigs."

    "But she doesn't," Blake murmured. "Why?"

    "Courage?" Rarity suggested. "Duty?"

    "But why is it a burden that she has to bear against her will, but you aren't allowed to take up even if you wanted to?" Blake clarified.

    "Because Applejack's strong," Rainbow declared. "The strongest person we know, and not just physically either. Maybe she doesn't enjoy the huntress life or the military life, she doesn't love the fight, but … but she's got a talent for it, and so … so she puts that talent to work. For her sister, for her family, for all of us."

    "Because if somebody has to, it might as well be her," Rarity said softly.

    "Because that's who Applejack is," Rainbow added. "Someone who takes the burden on her shoulders."

    "Like you?"

    "Well," Rainbow said, looking away, "I try to be."

    Blake smiled out of one corner of her mouth, before she looked at Rarity once more and asked, "And you … you seriously considered it, becoming a huntress?"

    "I did," Rarity confirmed. "There are times … there are times when the world seems very safe and secure, and then there are other times when it seems as though Atlas has need of every sword that can be laid at its feet, and at those times, I think, well … why not mine? The former times have been predominant over the latter recently, but … I still have my sword, and I'm not out of practice in how to use it, if need be."

    Blake grinned. "And so, feeling that way, it didn't bother you that Rainbow and Applejack took it upon themselves to make that choice for you?"

    "They wanted what was best for me," Rarity said, "and while I can appreciate Leaf's desire for freedom, the fact that my friends wanted to give me the benefit of their, admittedly heavy-handed, wisdom and advice didn't offend me. The truth is that it would be rather hypocritical of me to take offence at their not wanting me to go to war; I feel the same way about Twilight. We're none of us very good at minding our own business. Of course it … it does leave me in the position of waiting."

    "'Waiting'?" Penny repeated.

    "Waiting to see if my friends will come home hale and hearty or in body bags," Rarity said. "In that sense, I envy you, Blake: you get to die alongside your friends, rather than live without them."

    Blake shook her head. "No."

    Rarity's eyebrows rose. "No?"

    "No," Blake said again, putting one hand on Rainbow's shoulder. "I get to make sure my friends come back."

    "Hey hey hey, I saved your life in Mountain Glenn, remember?" Rainbow reminded her.

    "And you do the same for me," Blake added.

    "That's right, I do," Rainbow muttered.

    Rarity smiled. "Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I suppose you do."

    Just at that moment, Leaf emerged, beaming.

    "Great news!" she cried.

    "Did you get a job already?" asked Penny.

    "No," Leaf admitted. "The agency said that they didn't have anything for me, but after she'd talked to me, the woman said that there was another agency, a specialist agency, that would like to talk to me, so she set me up with an interview with them tomorrow."

    XxXxX​

    "And they found you a job?" Rainbow asked. "Already?"

    "I know, it's great, isn't it?" Leaf replied.

    It was tomorrow — it was the next day — and Rainbow sat on Leaf's bed, the foam mattress crinkling beneath her; it was just the two of them; Rainbow had swung by to check up on Leaf that evening before heading back to Atlas in time for curfew.

    "Yeah, that's really good," Rainbow agreed. "I don't know whether to say lucky you or good on you, but either way, congratulations. So, what's the job?"

    "I'm going to be working for the SDC," Leaf said.

    "Really?" Rainbow murmured, some of the enthusiasm deflating out of her.

    Leaf frowned. "What's wrong with the SDC?"

    The memory of Adam's branded face flashed in front of Rainbow's eyes. That doesn't follow; I'm sure they don't recruit the people they're going to brand like cattle through recruitment agencies. "Nothing, I just … they don't always have the best record for treating their employees that well, and … faunus—"

    "I need something," Leaf reminded her, "and they can't be that bad. I mean, they employ people all over Remnant; who'd work for them if they were that terrible?"

    People who didn't have any other choice. People like you. "People who need jobs?"

    "Okay, that's fair, but I read the contract … some of it," Leaf said. "It's six months' work; maybe it won't be great fun, but if it's really that bad, I'll quit and come back here."

    "'Come back'?" Rainbow asked. "Where are you going?"

    "Out to the mines … somewhere," Leaf said. "They did say where, but I … it's not Mantle, it's … I didn't recognise it. It must be somewhere out in Solitas. The point is that I'm going to be living out there for the six months, accommodation provided. That comes out of my paycheque, but … there's not much alternative, is there?"

    "I guess not," Rainbow agreed. "So you're going to be a miner?"

    "Not necessarily; the lady at the agency said that they need all kinds of people," Leaf said. "Not just miners, but clerks, cooks, porters. I thought robots could have done that, but it seems they need people to carry stuff and load it onto trains."

    "Sometimes people are easier to direct than robots," Rainbow said.

    Six months. It's only six months.

    Six months in the middle of nowhere controlled by the SDC.

    The SDC that…

    This wouldn't be bothering her if it wasn't for that brand. Six months? Six months was nothing. So the SDC owned her — okay, that was a really unfortunate turn of phrase — for six months; Atlas owned Rainbow for four years, and more than that if she then signed on as a specialist. Atlas would own Blake once she transferred. There was nothing evil or wrong about letting someone else, or an institution, have power over you, provided it was your choice and you felt as though you got something out of it, even if that something was money.

    You could argue that any job involved letting someone else have control over you, if only during work hours.

    This wouldn't be bothering her if it wasn't for that brand.

    But she had seen the brand. She didn't know how common it was, she didn't know how rare it was, she didn't know … she didn't know anything; she only knew that she had seen it with her own eyes, she knew that it went on, she knew all the leads that might have revealed more had been severed, and she knew that it made her skin crawl at the thought of someone working for the SDC.

    She had agreed to look after Leaf, on Sunset's behalf. It would be a pretty poor way of doing that if she let her get branded by the SDC, but on the other hand, how likely was it that they recruited people to be brutalised like that in the way that Leaf had been recruited? A lot of people worked for the SDC, and they didn't have their faces branded. It just didn't happen for them.

    It was, she supposed, rare enough that it wasn't public knowledge that it was going on. Which was … comforting, she supposed.

    And it was Leaf's choice. If she wanted to take what was, to all appearances, a perfectly legitimate job offer, then who was Rainbow to stand in her way?

    Especially considering that Leaf really didn't like people telling her what she could and couldn't do.

    "Listen, good luck out there," Rainbow said. "But will you do me a favour?"

    "Sure, what?"

    "Give me a call when you get there, and every so often, let me know how you're doing," Rainbow said. "That way I can tell Sunset and Ruby that you're okay, maybe even that you're thriving, and that I'm keeping an eye on you like I said I would, and Sunset won't get mad at me."

    Leaf laughed. "I wouldn't want to get you into any trouble with Sunset; she seems like she can be a bit of a pain. Sure, I'll call you, and you can call them, and I'm sure that we'll both have nothing but good news to report. I mean, everything's turned out great for me so far, right?"
     
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    • Chapter 37 - Distress Call
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    • Distress Call

    ​

    Rainbow's scroll buzzed.

    It was one-thirty in the morning.

    Rainbow Dash was not a morning person. She never had been, but with discipline and by virtue of polishing her boots and pressing her uniform the night before, she could dig deep and present herself for an early morning inspection with the appearance of a bright eye and a bushy tail.

    Not a real tail, in her case, but you know.

    But there was early morning inspection hours, and there was one-thirty in the morning.

    Rainbow groaned groggily, wordless mumbling sounds emerging from her mouth as she blinked her eyes. It was dark in the dorm room; the only light was coming from her scroll as it vibrated on the desk on the other side of the room.

    Rainbow rolled over and waited for it to stop.

    It didn't.

    "Rainbow Dash," Penny said, "I think someone's trying to call you."

    She sounded irritatingly alert and awake, but of course Penny didn't need sleep, did she?

    It occurred to Rainbow that she would need to find some way of faking it at Beacon. Or else tell her teammates, whoever they turned out to be, that she had absolute insomnia and simply could not sleep under any … no, that would kill you, wouldn't it? She'd have to tell them she had insomnia at night but that she napped during the day somewhere she wouldn't be found.

    Or she could tell them the truth, if she trusted them and it was allowed.

    Or she could throw Sunset off the cliff and take her place, because the only way Penny was going to break into Team SAPR was over Sunset's dead body.

    Rainbow made a note to herself not to do much thinking at this time of the morning; the ideas she came up with were stupid.

    The scroll kept buzzing, which wasn't making Rainbow's incipient headache any better. She felt groggy, her mouth was full of gunk, her eyes needed rubbing.

    And who in Remnant was trying to call her at one-thirty in the morning? No one she knew. She hoped it was no one she knew. It better be no one she knew.

    Unless Atlas was actually under attack and it was all hands on deck to repel boarders, then no one had any business calling her at this hour. And she knew it wasn't an attack because her scroll would have been blaring a siren.

    Not to mention she would have heard the sirens outside.

    It wasn't any of her friends either, since it wasn't using any of their ringtones. It wasn't anyone who had a custom ringtone set.

    It was probably some Mistralian call centre trying to sell her something.

    Or it could be that Gilda had forgotten the time difference and needed another favour.

    "Rainbow Dash?" Penny asked.

    "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm getting up; I'm going to answer it," Rainbow said. "Mind your head, Penny."

    Rainbow rolled out of bed quite literally, landing on her feet with a thump. She rubbed her eyes with one hand as she staggered across the room, not bothering to switch on the lights as she picked up her scroll.

    It was a voice only call. Rainbow was too tired to speculate on what that might mean.

    She answered it.

    "Rainbow Dash? Thank the gods, it took you long enough!"

    "Leaf?" Rainbow said. "What…? Do you know what time—?"

    "Rainbow Dash, I need your help," Leaf said, the words tumbling out of the scroll. "They took my scroll; I had to sneak into the foreman's office to call you, but there are patrols, and I don't know when someone will come."

    "'Patrols'?" Rainbow repeated. "Who took your scroll, what—?"

    "This place isn't what I thought it was," Leaf said. "It's not what they said it was, they took our scrolls, they took our clothes; there are people who have been here for years, and from what they say, they're the lucky ones. Rainbow, they mark us! It hasn't happened to me yet, but I've seen it on other people's bodies, on their faces; they … you have to come get me, please."

    "I will," Rainbow promised. "Where are you?"

    "I don't, um … let me see if I can find a—"

    "What are you doing in here?" the voice that spoke over the line was gruff, male, and raised in anger.

    "I was … looking for the bathroom, and I got lost."

    "We'll see what the captain has to say about that; come on, you filthy animal."

    "Let go of me!" Leaf cried. "Get your hands off—!"

    The call went dead.

    The dorm room, too, was silent.

    Rainbow stood still, the scroll held in her hands for a minute, before she threw it down onto the desk and let out a wordless growling of frustration as she kicked the wall.

    She had … she should have … she should never have let this happen! She knew that the SDC was up to no good, she knew about Adam, she knew what they did, and yet, she had let Leaf sign up to work for them anyway. She had seen what the SDC was capable of, she had heard from Cadance about the silencing of witnesses, and yet, she had let Leaf place herself in their power. She had told herself that … what? That they didn't have very many slaves? That not everyone who worked for them ended up with a brand on their face? That Leaf had signed a contract, so everything would be okay?

    What an idiot. And now…

    The memory of Adam's face, with those three letters seared into his flesh, rose to the forefront of her mind.

    "Rainbow Dash," Penny murmured, "what's going on?"

    Rainbow closed her eyes for a moment. Leaf's call had banished tiredness, though she would rather have been tired and not got the call.

    "The Schnee Dust Company is … involved in some bad stuff, Penny," she said. "They … they're mistreating people, and it seems like Leaf is caught up in it."

    "But we're going to rescue her right?" Penny asked. "I mean, you promised."

    "I did," Rainbow agreed. "And I meant it. We … I didn't want to get you involved, but—"

    "But I am involved," Penny said. "Because Leaf is a friend."

    Rainbow smiled tightly, although she didn't know if Penny could see it with the lights off.

    "No, I'm not asking you to sit this one out," she agreed. It was a lot harder to do when Penny was right there as the call. "No, we are going to go to work, we're going to find Leaf, and we're going to save her and everyone else who's in trouble alongside her. Because … because that's what we do: we save lives, we say nothing's gonna hurt you tonight."

    Penny was silent for a moment. "So how do we find her?"

    Rainbow thought about it for a moment. "We ask a friend on the inside."

    XxXxX​

    Tap.

    Tap.

    The eyes of Weiss Schnee opened onto darkness. Complete darkness, thanks to the excellent quality of the curtains and the fact that it was … she checked the time on her scroll which sat by her bedside.

    It was two-fifteen at night.

    Well, technically, it was morning, she supposed, but it hardly felt right to describe it thus. It was dark out, it was an uncivil hour to be either up or out, it was night time.

    She wondered why she had woken up at this time. For all that she was not too pleased to be home, that hasn't manifested itself in uneasy sleep or restless nights. Quite the opposite, in fact; she had slept more soundly since returning from Beacon than she had done before she left for Beacon.

    She credited Beacon itself with that, or rather, the knowledge that it was waiting for her. She might be back here for a little while; she had somewhere to go. More than that, she had a path to walk, a path that led her out of isolation.

    So why had she woken up? What had disturbed her rest?

    Tap.

    Ah, yes. That.

    There was a sound, and it sounded as though it was coming from the bedroom window.

    Tap.

    Weiss sat up, raising her head off the nigh-incomparably soft pillow — whatever else might be said about this house, it could not be denied that the furnishings were first rate — and looked towards the window.

    "Lights," she murmured to the darkness.

    The lights came on, springing to life in all of their intensity.

    Weiss squinted against the sudden brightness. "Brightness nought point four," she said, and the lights dimmed to a level which her unaccustomed eyes could better accommodate.

    Tap.

    What was that sound? A bird, tapping its beak against the glass. A very persistent one, if so.

    Annoyingly persistent.

    Weiss threw back the covers and got out of bed, her pale blue nightgown falling down below her knees to completely cover her as she walked towards the window. Weiss tugged idly at the lace collar around her neck before she threw back the curtains.

    It was night, or at least it was that part of the morning early enough to be considered night, and being so, it was dark out, but with the curtains drawn, there was enough moonlight for Weiss to be able to see out across the spacious gardens of Schnee Manor.

    Her grandfather had loved the gardens. He had created them for himself, and in his latter days, with his health infirm and his great expeditions behind him, he had busied himself with pottering about the grounds, tending to his hollyhocks.

    Father didn't have time for the garden, and much of it had fallen into … not disrepair, exactly — the lawns and the hedges were well tended to — but they were only there to look well-tended, preferably from some distance away; there was no care or passion put into it. Not much colour either; the flowers had gone, too much effort to maintain.

    Weiss's mother used part of the grounds for her own purposes; it was home to a menagerie of exotic creatures she had collected from all over Remnant. Some of them she had captured herself, others she had paid for; either way, she brought them here and put them in cages so that she might look at them from time to time and admire the colour and the thickness of their fur, the beauty of their shape, the sleekness of their form.

    Weiss could not believe that the pleasure Mother got from her gazing was worth the misery endured by the creatures in their cages.

    She knew what it was to be confined, and it was not pleasant.

    Tap.

    There was no bird in front of Weiss's window, tapping on the glass with its beak. Instead, someone was throwing pebbles up from below to strike said window. A small pile was developing upon the balcony.

    Weiss opened the full length window and, stepping around the pebbles in her bare feet, stepped out onto the little balcony.

    Blake and Rainbow Dash stood down in the garden below, accompanied by Penny Polendina, Rainbow Dash's — exuberant, if Weiss remembered her correctly — teammate. It looked like Rainbow was just about to throw another pebble at her.

    Penny waved.

    "What are you doing here?" Weiss hissed, her voice hushed so as not to wake her father. It was not likely they would, but if they did, then Weiss would not be returning to Beacon, and all three down below would be arrested for trespassing. "Do you know what time it is?"

    Rainbow glanced at Blake and whispered something.

    Blake shook her head.

    Rainbow looked back at Weiss and put one hand to her ear — her human ear — miming not being able to hear her.

    Weiss frowned and spoke a little louder, though not much. "What do you want at this time of night?"

    Penny shook her head. Rainbow still had one hand at her ear.

    Weiss rolled her eyes. "Come up here!" she hissed, gesturing towards herself with one hand.

    They might not have been able to hear her, but they got the message of her actions, at least. Weiss took a step back as Blake drew her sword from across her back.

    The black sword transformed smoothly into a pistol, bound by a length of black ribbon to a hook. Hook and ribbon alike whirled in Blake's hand before she cast them off, flinging the hook upwards to catch the edge of Weiss' balcony rail. Blake leapt, running lightly up the wall, pulling herself up the ribbon until, with a final hop, she cleared the rail and landed nimbly on the balcony.

    "Weiss," she said softly. "It feels a little late for 'good evening' and a little early for 'good morning,' doesn't it?"

    "It feels a little early for any of this," murmured Weiss.

    Blake smiled slightly, but made no reply.

    Penny was the next one up, clearing the distance on a single jump which carried her up over the balcony with time and space enough for a showy backflip before she landed, a little too heavily for Weiss's liking, upon the balcony proper.

    "Hello, Weiss Schnee!" Penny said in an enthusiastic stage whisper. "It's nice to meet you again!"

    "I would say likewise under different circumstances," Weiss said softly. "Could you please keep your voice down?"

    "Sorry."

    Rainbow Dash also jumped, eschewing the jetpack that she was wearing — and a good thing too, considering the noise it probably made — and although she didn't jump as high as Penny, she jumped high enough to grab the balcony rail and pull herself the rest of the way.

    "Your security sucks, by the way," Rainbow said. "Do you even have security?"

    "Rainbow Dash," Blake murmured.

    "It might be someone less well-intentioned than us, next time," Rainbow pointed out.

    "There are supposed to be some androids patrolling the grounds," Weiss said. "Evidently, there aren't enough of them." She paused long enough to scowl. "But that isn't really the point, is it? The point is, although I certainly don't object to seeing you again, this is hardly the sort of hour at which one expects to receive visitors."

    "We know," Blake said, "and we're sorry."

    "But we need your help," Rainbow added.

    Weiss's brow remained firmly furrowed. "Come inside," she whispered, turning away from them and walking into her bedroom, leaving the cool of the night air behind.

    The others followed. Rainbow, the last one in, shut the window after her.

    Weiss walked across the room to where a red dressing gown, trimmed with white fur, hung on a hook. She lifted it off the hook and draped it around herself.

    As she was tying the sash around her waist, Weiss turned to face the others once again.

    "What's going on?" she asked.

    "A friend of ours," Rainbow said, "took a job with the SDC."

    "But tonight, she called Rainbow Dash for help," Penny said. "She said that they'd taken her scroll and her clothes, and she had to sneak into someone's office to call! Then someone found her and dragged her away."

    Weiss stared at them, silently for a moment. "They took her scroll?" she repeated. "Why would they…?" She trailed off. "You think that—?"

    "We don't know," Blake said. "But it doesn't sound good, does it?"

    "No," Weiss admitted. "No, it does not."

    She thought about what she'd been told, about the branding, the mutilation. A part of her still didn't want to believe it. She didn't want to believe that the Schnee name, her grandfather's name, the name that he had made a byword not only for dust or wealth but also for probity in business, could have fallen so far into such disgrace.

    She didn't want to believe that her father, cold though he was, cruel though he could be, was such a monster.

    But, as Blake said, it did not sound good.

    "What can I do?" she asked.

    "We don't know where our friend is," Rainbow said. "We were hoping that you could help us access the records and find her."

    "Access … you mean the Schnee Dust Company records?" asked Weiss.

    "That is why we're here," Blake murmured.

    "I…" Weiss trailed off for a moment.

    They were talking about employment records, details of work placement, where someone was based, what job they were doing. She didn't have access to any of that, just because she was the heiress … she didn't work for the company yet. She could attempt to browbeat an employee into giving her the information, as she had done before when working with the VPD, but not at this time; all the offices would be closed.

    "What makes you think that what you want to know exists on the records?" Weiss asked. "If this friend is being held against her will, then—"

    "She signed a contract," Rainbow said. "I think there must be some part of this that's legit, a real job. Obviously, some of it isn't, but … the only other idea I have is to break into the office of the first job agency to find out the name of the second agency to break into their offices; I was hoping that this would be faster."

    Weiss pursed her lips. "So if I mentioned waiting until morning—"

    "Leaf is in trouble now," Rainbow said. "The longer we wait … I don't know what'll happen to her."

    "Leaf," Weiss repeated softly. "Is that her name?"

    "Yes," Penny said. "She only just got here."

    "What a fine welcome to Atlas," Weiss muttered. She glanced at Blake. "Is this changing how you feel at all?"

    "I always knew what this company was," Blake said quietly, "but I also know the company is not the kingdom."

    "No, thank goodness," Weiss murmured. "You could ask Councillor Cadenza to subpoena the records you're looking for."

    "Assuming they aren't destroyed," Rainbow said.

    "Twilight then," Weiss suggested. "If she can—"

    "So there's nothing that you can do?" Penny asked, sounding rather dispirited about it.

    Weiss did not reply. In some ways, perhaps in most ways, there was nothing she could do. She simply didn't have access, and everyone who could have given her the information they wanted was asleep. She could tell them, and it would be disappointing, but it would be true. They would have to find another way.

    And there were other ways. Some of them were not without their drawbacks — going through public channels meant a risk that someone would catch wind of it and move their friend or delete her file if a file existed, and more surreptitious approaches had their own drawbacks, but there was no reason not to try them.

    She could tell them that, and it would be true, but…

    But they had come to her. They had come to her for help to fix a problem with the SDC. Her grandfather's company, her family name was being soiled by wickedness, and they had come to her to help them do something about it.

    It felt wrong then, to simply turn them away, to apologise and spread her hands and say that there was nothing she could do. Even if there was nothing she could do, as a Schnee, she had a responsibility to try.

    Else how could Blake trust that she really was the one to redeem the company and the name of Schnee?

    "This … is a longshot," Weiss said. "But it's the only thing I can think of. Now follow me and be absolutely silent. If we're discovered … nobody make a sound, understand?"

    They all nodded silently. Weiss waited a moment to speak until she realised that they had taken her instructions to begin immediately.

    "Yes," she said quietly. "Just like that. Keep it up."

    She led them out of her room and onto the corridor beyond. The lights were not completely extinguished here, but they were very dim, little lights that cast long shadows on the wall as the four of them emerged from what felt now like the relative security of Weiss's bedchamber.

    Weiss was a Schnee, and as a Schnee, she had been taught and trained to maintain her posture at all times, even in battle; nevertheless, at this moment, Weiss found herself like to crouch down and slink like a thief.

    She didn't of course; one had to keep one's dignity, and it would hardly have done her any good in any event, but … nevertheless, she felt the urge.

    She led the three of them through the great corridors of the immense Manor. Rainbow and Penny seemed in awe of the sheer grandiose scale of the place, gawking like yokel tourists on their first trip into the big city, even as they followed in Weiss' footsteps. Blake seemed to be a little more sanguine about it, but a twitching of her feline ears betrayed a touch of nervousness.

    Weiss couldn't blame her. She felt more than a touch of nervousness herself. If her father caught her—

    Weiss was prevented from imagining the potential consequences of discovery by the sound of footsteps coming the other way down the corridor — from the direction of Father's study.

    Weiss let out a gasp despite herself. Father was awake? He had been awake all this time, and now he was coming this way? Coming this way and about to catch her with three intruders in the house.

    Weiss couldn't think. She couldn't plan, she couldn't look for an escape, there was … there was nothing. Shock and fear rooted her to the spot as the footsteps drew closer and closer, until Klein rounded the corner and came to a stop in front of them.

    He stared at Weiss and her companions.

    A smile spread out beneath his walrus moustache. His eyes turned bright blue as he winked at her.

    And then he turned around and walked away.

    Weiss let out the breath she hadn't realised she had been holding onto.

    She remained where she was, and all the others too, until the sound of Klein's footsteps had died away; then and only then did she lead the others the test of the way to her father's study.

    The door was unlocked, it opened at Weiss's touch, and she led them inside.

    Compared with the oversized magnificence of the rest of the house, Father's study was rather ordinary in scale, being a little smaller than a Beacon dorm room. Behind the desk on the back wall hung a giant portrait of Father himself, from his younger days when his moustache was black — and rather thinner and more pencil-like than it was now — and his cheekbones were sharper, sat behind the desk. He actually looked rather dashing, like an old-fashioned movie star, a fact which almost excused the monstrous vanity of the thing and of its placement directly in view as one came through the door. The left-hand wall was completely covered with bookshelves, while a chess set, set up for a new game, sat upon a little table by the door.

    This was where the SDC was run from. From this room, her father controlled the wealthiest conglomerate in Remnant. From this room, he wielded more power than any king of old or Councillor of today.

    From this room, it seemed, he brutalised faunus and made them slaves in all but name.

    Perhaps, at least, though Weiss yet hoped it was not so.

    Weiss walked briskly — she had no desire to linger here — across the room and sat down behind Father's desk of polished walnut. Father's portrait looked down upon her, even as the others crowded around her.

    Weiss opened up the terminal on the desk. Luckily, Father was still signed in to his account.

    Of course, he had been away from the desk for so long that it required his password.

    "Do you know the password?" asked Blake quietly.

    "No," Weiss replied, equally softly. "That's why this was always a longshot."

    She rested her fingertips lightly upon the desk. Could she guess the password? She had come here to try, but she didn't have unlimited attempts, two at most. At three tries, the account would lock, and Father would know that something had happened when he tried to start work to— in the morning.

    What could it be? What could Father's password be?

    Winter? Whitley? Weiss? No. No, that would imply that he cared about them, or ever had. Willow, her mother's name, was out for the same reason.

    The password was as likely to be a random string of numbers and letters as the name of anyone in his family.

    He didn't care about any of them. They were all just … means to an end for him.

    "Is this your father, Weiss?" Penny asked.

    Weiss glanced over her shoulder, to where Penny was looking at Father's portrait. "Yes, that's what he looked like when he was a young man."

    "You know," Rainbow murmured, "your father is … a jerk, to put it mildly, but I can see why your mom married him. He was a handsome dude."

    Weiss snorted. "He certainly wants people to think so." She stopped, her eyes widening.

    "Could it be that simple?' Weiss whispered.

    "Weiss?" Blake asked, putting one hand upon her shoulder.

    Father didn't care about her. He didn't care about either of his daughters, or his son, or his wife.

    But he cared very much about himself.

    Weiss looked at the portrait once again. That was what Father had looked like on the day he had married Mother … and taken control of the Schnee Dust Company.

    Weiss' fingers tapped upon the keys as she entered the day of her parents' wedding, the day that Jacques Gelé had become Jacques Schnee, richest man in Remnant, into the password.

    Weiss held her breath and pressed enter.

    The password screen disappeared, replaced by a desktop with files already open and everything spread out before her.

    Weiss could not cry out in triumph, she could not laugh; all she could do was let out a little ragged gasp. "I did it."

    "Yeah," Rainbow said, patting her on the back. "Yeah, you did. Good job, Weiss."

    "My job isn't done yet," Weiss reminded the other girl. With a few clicks, she opened up the Human Resources directory, complete with a search function for names. "What's the full name?"

    "Leaf Kelly."

    Weiss typed in the name Leaf Kelly and pressed enter.

    She was almost surprised there was a result, but there was: a file appeared on the screen, complete with a photograph of a squirrel faunus with numerous ear piercings.

    "Is that her?" Weiss asked.

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

    "Okay," Weiss said. "According to this file, she's employed as a hauler at Ramshead. Yes, it would be somewhere like there."

    "You know the place?" Rainbow asked.

    "It was discovered by my grandfather, during his first expedition," Weiss explained. "It's in the interior, the central mountains. Grandfather mined the surface level dust, but although he was certain there was a lot more dust to be found below, he didn't pursue it "

    "Doesn't sound like Nicholas Schnee," Blake observed.

    "He didn't think it was worth it," Weiss said. "Between heavy grimm activity and the difficulties of reaching the dust … there were other, easier yields to chase."

    "So we have a place where the mining is hard, the location is out of the way, and the grimm make mining even more dangerous than usual," Rainbow murmured. "Sounds like the kind of place to—"

    "Use slave labour?" Blake suggested.

    "Something like that," Rainbow grunted.

    "For whatever it's worth, she's set up on the payroll," Weiss said. "Albeit with heavy garnishing. Almost none of her notional pay survives the deductions."

    "Hmm," Rainbow murmured. "Ramshead, huh? Thanks, Weiss. Thanks a whole lot."

    "What will you do now?" Weiss asked as she shut down programs so that Father wouldn't know what she'd done.

    "I'm going to wake up Cadance, tell her what's going on," Rainbow said. "Wait, no, first we're going to get out of your hair, then we're going to wake up Cadance. Leaf … I wish this hadn't happened to her, but she might just have given us the lead to blow this thing wide open."
     
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    • Chapter 38 - Adam's Last Victory
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    • Adam's Last Victory

    ​

    "I remember," Blake said, "that there was a time when you told me that being in Atlas meant there was more backup available than to huntsmen from other kingdoms."

    "That's right," Rainbow replied. "I did say something like that, and I think the carrier and full cruiser squadron behind us backs me up."

    "Mmm," Blake murmured, committing to nothing. "Explain to me then, that being the case, why we have to go in by ourselves?"

    "Because I want to be sure that this is what we think it is before I drop the heavy end of the hammer on it," Cadance's voice came over the comm from the CIC of the carrier Jeffrey Sinclair, one of the ships of Third Squadron holding position out of detection range of Ramshead. "If I send in a battalion of troops to what turns out to be a perfectly legitimate SDC mining operation, then Jacques Schnee will skin me alive and use me as a throw rug — and he'll deserve to."

    Blake's eyes widened. "Ma'am, I—"

    "That's right, girls," Cadance said, a touch of amusement tickling her voice, "I can hear you."

    Blake cringed. "Sorry, ma'am."

    "Oh, don't mind me; I'm just glad that I could clear that up for you," Cadance said. "How's it looking, Rainbow Dash?"

    Rainbow didn't reply for a moment as she looked out of the cockpit towards their destination. While Cadance was holding her ships back until or unless they were needed, Rainbow, Blake, and Penny were approaching in The Bus. After all, the SDC was not an enemy of Atlas, and this was not an off the books facility; there was nothing that anyone could find strange about an Atlesian airship flying overhead, and once Rainbow requested clearance to land and refuel, well, no one could find anything strange about that, either.

    If they objected to her landing request, that would, itself, be pretty conclusive proof that there was something fishy going on at Ramshead.

    But for now, there had been no communications with the surface; they were probably hoping that Rainbow would just fly on by. They were still some distance out, but not so far that Rainbow couldn't see what Ramshead looked like spread out beneath them.

    The grimm trouble that had led Nicholas Schnee to declare the site not worth bothering with had led the SDC of today to erect black metal walls to surround the mining colony on three sides; only the side that butted up against the mountain, and the tunnels that led into the mountain to the mines within, was not walled off. There were towers built into the walls, and androids crewed the searchlights and the heavy weapons that were mounted on said towers.

    Although both lights and guns were facing outwards at the moment, it occurred to Rainbow Dash that walls like that, while keeping the grimm out, could also serve to keep the … the 'workers' in. Although, even if they did get out, there weren't many places they could go; it was a long way across the tundra to Atlas, Mantle, or anywhere else.

    Within the walls, Ramshead looked a dull, grey, dreary place, devoid of amenities or joy of any kind. The buildings were low and dark, some long and some squat, but all low; only the great dust storage tanks had any elevation at all. All the buildings were square too, all save for a single round, windowless structure that seemed sunk into the earth. A single spur of railway track led through the walls — via a gate which could be closed so as not to leave a permanent gap in the wall — towards, presumably, Mantle and the refineries there. A docking pad near the centre of the settlement already had an airship docked there, a Skyray with the SDC snowflake on its wings.

    In the time it had taken to assemble the assault force, the sun had risen over the horizon, bathing Ramshead in a cold light, and in that light, Rainbow could see people, so small from up here, beginning to move through the town, emerging from the long, low blockhouses to move in a mass like a river towards the mountain tunnels.

    "It's hard to say from up here, ma'am," Rainbow said. "It looks miserable, but we won't know if it's anything worse than miserable until we get down there."

    "Understood," Cadance said. "Remember, the go-word is 'Canterlot'; say that, and I send in the troops. The abort word is 'Chrysalis'; say that, and we stand down."

    "Acknowledged, ma'am," Rainbow said. "We're going to go silent for now. We'll contact you once we've assessed the situation."

    "Copy that, Rainbow Dash," Cadance said. "Good luck out there."

    "Thank you, ma'am." Rainbow tapped her earpiece, turning it temporarily off. Blake and Penny did likewise.

    "I'm a little surprised the Councillor came herself," Blake observed.

    "She wants to see this through," Rainbow said. "We both do." She glanced at Blake. "Are you okay?"

    Blake looked away, a frown besmirching her features. "I … I keep thinking about the other Adam, the one in Equestria. The one who's marrying that other Blake, the one who is somebody. I know that Adam, our Adam, from this world, made his own choices and has to shoulder the blame for them, but at the same time, I can't help but imagine what he might have been, might have become, if his face … if he hadn't been … if things had been different."

    She paused for a moment. "We might not stop it completely here, today, but if we can spare that fate … I might not be fine, but I am ready to do some good."

    Rainbow nodded. "Penny?"

    "I'm ready," Penny declared.

    "Okay then," Rainbow said. "Let's do this." She pulled a microphone off the wall beside her and spoke into it. "This is Atlas Echo One-Eight-One to SDC facility requesting permission to land, over."

    There was a moment of silence before any response crackled over the speakers.

    "Echo One-Eight-One, what is the reason for your request, over?"

    "We're low on fuel; I'm worried we might not make it back to Atlas," Rainbow said. "Requesting permission to land and refuel."

    There was another pause, longer this time, a pause which dragged, which devoured the moments.

    "What do we do if they say no?" asked Penny.

    "Say it's an emergency and land anyway," Rainbow said. "What are they going to do, shoot down an Atlesian airship?"

    "Can you be sure they wouldn't?" Blake asked.

    "They wouldn't dare," Rainbow declared. "It would be the end of the SDC if they did."

    "Echo One-Eight-One, you are cleared to land on the docking pad, over."

    "Acknowledged, Control; we owe you one," Rainbow said into the microphone before she replaced it back in its cradle on the wall. "See?" she said. "What did I tell you?"

    She began to guide The Bus down in a gentle descent towards the docking pad, the mining colony at Ramshead getting larger and larger beneath them as the airship descended upon it.

    "Now, once we get down there, they might keep a watch on us, make sure we don't stumble onto anything they don't want us to know," Rainbow said. "In which case, Blake, you're the stealthy one, so you'll have to sneak away somehow and find Leaf or any evidence that justifies calling in Cadance and the cavalry."

    "What happens if we can't find anything before the airship is refuelled?" Penny asked.

    "Then … then I'll sabotage The Bus and give us an excuse to stick around for longer," Rainbow answered.

    It would be a wrench to do it, especially since she'd have to do something that wasn't an easy fix, but it wasn't as though they could just leave with the job undone. At the very least, they needed to find Leaf and get her out of here, and preferably rescue any other faunus being held captive against their will.

    The buildings of Ramshead were life-sized now, but they still looked squat and small and mean as The Bus made its final descent upon the docking pad. Rainbow set her down next to the SDC Skyray, feeling the slight jolt of landing before she cut the engines.

    She unbundled herself from her seat, Blake doing likewise as Penny retreated from the cockpit to make way for them. Rainbow grabbed Undying Loyalty from where it leaned against the cockpit doorframe and slung it across her back.

    The three of them lined up together, side by side, as Rainbow hit the button to open the side door.

    The door slid sideways, revealing three figures standing on the tarmac waiting for them, all three of them wearing white uniforms with the snowflake of the Schnee Dust Company upon their breasts.

    Rainbow really didn't like the fact that SDC Security wore the same colour uniforms as the Atlesian military; it was a cheap shot for everyone who wanted to say that there wasn't any difference between them.

    Two of the three who greeted them were men, their faces impassive, with shotguns in their hands. The central figure was a woman, a dog faunus about Cadance's age, with terrier ears coming out of her short blonde hair — dyed blonde, judging by the hints of black and white just visible at the roots — which she wore in a pixie cut. The long sleeves of her uniform bulged with concealed muscle, as did her grey pants around the thigh area. Her collar was trimmed with gold braid, and although she wasn't carrying any weapon that Rainbow could see, nevertheless, Rainbow kept her eyes upon her, rather than on her gun-toting companions.

    "Rainbow Dash, I presume?" she said, a smirk upon her face. She glanced at Blake. "And Blake Belladonna too, a pleasure that is no less welcome for the fact that it should have been expected."

    Rainbow leapt down out of the airship. "You know who we are?"

    "Your actions have brought you to general notice," the woman said, "and I've been expecting you." She held out one hand. "I'm Calliope Ferny, head of Schnee Dust Company Security."

    "'Head'?" Rainbow repeated. "Head at this facility?"

    "Head absolute," Calliope corrected.

    "This … this is our teammate, Penny Polendina," Rainbow said. "I'd have thought that the absolute head of security would have a big office in Atlas instead of being out in a place like this."

    Calliope chuckled. "Well, if I'd wanted to spend time in a big office in Atlas, I wouldn't have gone to work in Security, would I? Besides, I wanted to be here to roll out the welcome mat for you."

    Rainbow licked her lips, "I don't know—"

    "I suppose this is about the time one of you claims to need a bathroom break and then sneaks off to try and snoop around?" Calliope said. "Why don't I save us all some time? I've known you were coming ever since Miss Kelly was caught misusing company property last night. I don't know what you expected to find out here, but if you'll come with me, I'll put your mind at ease regarding any concerns you might have."

    "Can we see Leaf?" Penny asked.

    "No," Calliope said softly. "No, you can't."

    "That would go a long way towards easing our concerns," Blake said firmly.

    Calliope snorted. "I'm sure it would," she said, "but Miss Kelly is in solitary confinement after her little stunt of last night; if she were removed now, it would … it would have generally deleterious effects on discipline; I'm sure that, as soldiers of Atlas, you can understand that."

    Rainbow folded her arms. "And I'm sure you understand that we've got absolutely no reason to take your word for any of this."

    Calliope was silent for a moment. "Come with me," she said again. "You cannot speak to Miss Kelly, but I will show you her and answer any questions you may have."

    Rainbow hesitated. This was not going at all the way that she had expected it to, but the more she thought about it, the more she thought she should have expected it to go this way. Leaf had been caught calling someone, calling Rainbow Dash; of course they had to have expected to come out here looking for her. Well, they might have assumed she couldn't locate Leaf, but apparently, Calliope Ferny wasn't that complacent. She had come out here just in case they found it, to intercept Rainbow and her friends, to … Rainbow was reminded of the horror stories you heard about nursing homes, how they cleaned up the old folks before their families came to visit to hide how badly they were being looked after the rest of the time.

    Is that what Calliope Ferny had come here to do? Clean up before visitors?

    Rainbow thought about the brand on Adam's face. How was anyone supposed to clean that up?

    By stopping them from seeing anything like it, maybe.

    But they weren't going to have much luck getting away from her — any of them, even Blake — while she was standing right in front of them and on her guard, so Rainbow said, "Sure, we'll come with you." She glanced at Blake and at Penny where they stood on either side of her. "We'll all come with you."

    Calliope smiled thinly. "I'm so glad. I'm sure that we can put all this to bed without any further misunderstandings."

    She turned her back on them and began to stride away, forcing them to move briskly to keep up with the pace she set with her long legs.

    Calliope led them across the settlement, passing the last of the throng of miners entering the tunnels under the watchful eyes of uniformed SDC guards. The guards, Rainbow noted, did not, in many cases, carry guns; rather, they held shock batons in their hands, glowing with yellow lightning dust.

    It wasn't a great look, but there was no sign of any of them actively mistreating the miners: no beatings, not even raised voices.

    No doubt, Calliope had put them on their best behaviour.

    "Is there any reason your men are watching the workforce like they're prisoners?" Blake asked.

    "You won't be aware of this," Calliope said, without breaking her stride, "but the Atlesian worker is the worst idler in the world. Even those like Miss Kelly who come from other kingdoms eager to work swiftly become infected with the laziness of their Atlesian colleagues. They need careful, constant supervision in order to get a hard day's work out of them."

    "That's … debatable," Rainbow murmured.

    "Perhaps," Calliope allowed. "But the SDC has the right to manage its workforce as it sees fit. Within the bounds of the law, of course."

    "Of course," Blake muttered.

    "Why are they all wearing jumpsuits?" Rainbow asked, watching the workers in their identical dark blue outfits shuffling along into the mines.

    "Why do you wear a uniform, Rainbow Dash?" asked Calliope. "It promotes discipline, a sense of unity, togetherness. Management practices which, again, can be disputed but are not, themselves, illegal."

    Calliope led them into one of the smaller buildings, an office, with a large desk taking up most of the back wall and row after row of monitors took up the entirety of the wall on the left as they came in. Not all of the monitors were working, some were black and dead, but others showed people entering the tunnels, some boarding or aboard trains to carry them deep into the bowels of the earth; others still showed those who were already at work, digging precious Dust out of the cold hard rock. On the screens, people — not all faunus, some of them human — could be seen working in the kitchens or cleaning up in the empty bunkhouses.

    On the cameras, Rainbow and the others could see that the employees slept in the large buildings with no rooms, no privacy — not even a screen visible to separate one sleeper from the other, not even a bed, just row after row of groundsheets and blanket rolls laid out on the floor.

    "Cosy," Blake muttered.

    "I'm sorry that we don't put our employees up in hotels, but we aren't running a holiday camp here," Calliope replied. "Besides, is it much worse than your dorm rooms?"

    "Our dorm rooms have beds," Rainbow pointed out.

    Calliope smiled. "Here at the SDC, we believe that uncomfortable sleeping arrangements provide an impetus to get up and go to work in the morning."

    The smile lingered upon her face, stretching it out in a way that seemed a little unnatural, and frankly just a little bit creepy, before she said, "Now, you're anxious about the fate of Miss Kelly; well, here she is." She leaned back and picked up a small black control from off the desk, pointing it at the bank of monitors.

    All of them, even the ones that had been blank before, changed, displaying a single larger than life image of Leaf. She was … they couldn't see where she was, but she didn't look too happy to be there, her mouth twisted with disgust, her eyes wide and darting every which way.

    "Leaf!" Penny cried. "Let her out!"

    "No," Calliope said flatly. "Miss Kelly has violated the terms of her employment with the SDC—"

    "Then fire her," Rainbow said.

    "Let me make myself very clear," Calliope said. "You have no authority here; that I am deigning to indulge you, to explain to you, is a courtesy, nothing more."

    That, Rainbow thought, and you want us to go away and stop looking too deeply into this.

    "Leaf said that you took her scroll," Blake said. "And now you're punishing her for making a call to Rainbow Dash."

    "That was clearly stated on page twenty-four, section one hundred and nineteen, subparagraph three of the contract signed by Miss Kelly prior to taking up her employment here," Calliope said. "Personal scroll use is strictly forbidden on company time or facilities, and this entire town is a company facility."

    "So she can't use her own scroll, and she can't use a company device," Rainbow said. "Sure sounds like you want to stop anyone from getting word out from here."

    "Miss Kelly isn't here to have an active social life," Calliope said. "She's here to work. That's what we pay her for."

    Blake folded her arms. "Is she getting paid?"

    Calliope scoffed. "Of course she is. Miss Kelly, like all our employees here at Ramshead, receives her contractual salary. Minus income tax, legally-mandated pension contributions, contributions towards her legally-mandated health insurance, and contributions to help cover the company's corporation tax … really, if you think that Miss Kelly isn't keeping enough of her own money, I suggest you take it up with the Council, not with me."

    The smile returned to Calliope's face. "Oh, and there are additional deductions for room and board here, but wage garnishing of that nature is perfectly legal, provided it can be justified."

    "You're charging her to sleep on the floor with a whole bunch of complete strangers!" Rainbow snapped. "I don't think I'd call that justified."

    Calliope shrugged. "Nevertheless, she is getting a place to sleep and two meals daily."

    "And after six months, she'll be let go?" Blake demanded.

    Calliope nodded. "Unless, of course, she decides to sign an extension to her contract. Many do. Some even transfer from the mines to my Security division. Most of the guards you see outside were once workers here, or at a facility just like this one." Calliope paused for a moment. "You might not like the look of this place. Miss Kelly might not be enjoying herself, but she signed a contract stipulating all of the conditions of her employment, and everything here is perfectly legal."

    "Is branding your employees like property legal?" Blake growled.

    Calliope's eyebrows rose. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

    "Then you won't mind us taking a look around," Blake said. "As a courtesy."

    Calliope was silent for a moment. Her blue eyes flickered from Blake to Rainbow Dash.

    "You're very brave, Miss Belladonna," she said softly.

    Blake snorted. "Should I be scared of you?"

    "Not me, no," Calliope said. She gestured towards Rainbow Dash. "I was referring to your new partner here. Not everyone would throw in with a jinx without reservations."

    Rainbow's eyes narrowed. "What are you—?"

    "'A jinx'?" Blake repeated. "What are you talking about?"

    "Has Miss Dash told you about Team Raspberry?" Calliope asked. "One comrade missing a limb, another traumatised—"

    "But none of them dead," Blake declared. "Thanks to Rainbow Dash."

    Calliope smirked. "She hasn't told you about Kogetsu Koryu, then?"

    Rainbow sucked in a sharp intake of breath. She … how could she … how could this woman…?

    "Who?" asked Blake

    Rainbow felt her insides turn to ice; Blake … she didn't want Blake to find out about this, and certainly not like this.

    "Shut your mouth," she snarled. "Don't talk about him."

    "So you didn't tell her about the last person to put their faith in you," Calliope said. She chuckled. "It's ironic, isn't it? Your semblance is super speed, but you weren't fast enough to—"

    "SHUT UP!" Rainbow yelled, decking Calliope Ferny across the face hard to send her staggering backwards, hard enough that when she collided with the desk the desk was shoved backwards.

    "You don't talk about Kogetsu!" Rainbow roared, her hand still balled into a fist. "Keep his name out of your mouth, understand?"

    Calliope's face was hidden behind her hand as she clutched at her jaw, but when she looked at Rainbow Dash, there was a triumphant glee about her smile. "That's assault," she said. "Either you leave this facility at once, or I'll have you arrested."

    For a moment, silence reigned.

    Then Rainbow grinned as she tapped her earpiece, turning it on. "Canterlot."

    Calliope blinked. "'Canterlot'? What are you talking about?"

    "Oh, I'm just giving the code for a squadron of Atlesian warships to descend on this location and tear it apart," Rainbow said casually.

    Calliope's eyes widened. "You … a … what?"

    "I got to hand it to you; you had me going for a second," Rainbow said. "Maybe this was all legal, and there was nothing we could do about it. But then you resorted to a stunt like that to try and get rid of me, and you know what that says? It says you've got something to hide, and I can't wait to find out what it is."

    The smile slid off her face, leaving only a hard scowl behind. "And for your information, his name was Kogetsu Ironwood."

    XxXxX​

    Rainbow wrenched the door open. The room inside was dark, so dark that, past the little light coming in from the corridor, she couldn't see anything at all.

    "Leaf?" she called. "Are you in here?"

    "Rainbow Dash?" Leaf replied cautiously as she stepped into the light.

    Rainbow grinned. "You can come out now," she said. "Atlas is here."

    Leaf stared at her for a moment silently. Then she said, "Took you long enough."

    Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Just … come on," she said, gesturing out the door as she stepped back from it.

    Leaf ran to the door as though she were afraid that Rainbow was going to slam it in her face if she moved too slowly. She emerged from the solitary confinement cell. "Blake, Penny. Hi, I … you all came?"

    Penny nodded. "We wanted to make sure you were okay."

    Leaf made a kind of hoarse sputtering noise with her throat as she looked away. "You guys … you're really kind people, you know that? Thanks for coming."

    "Don't mention it," Rainbow said. "I kind of feel like we should be thanking you."

    "Thanking me," Leaf said. "Why?"

    "Without you, we never would have found this place," Blake said. "Without you, we never would have rescued all of the people here."

    "All the people here?" Leaf said. "Just the three of you?"

    Rainbow chuckled. "No," she said. "We had some help. Come on outside; we'll show you."

    They led Leaf out of the building on which she had been held and out into the grounds of the Ramshead facility. The Atlesian warships of the Third Squadron hovered overhead, casting long shadows across the open ground and the squat and grey and dreary buildings. Mighty Paladins, clanking and thumping, stomped between the buildings, while Atlesian soldiers moved here and there or manned the wall against sky grimm drawn by the sudden negativity.

    Said negativity, if it came, would come from the SDC guards who had all been disarmed and were kneeling on the ground under the watchful eyes of Atlesian troops and Paladins. Other soldiers were leading labourers out of the mines or tending to the worst injured or affected of them.

    Not every worker had an SDC brand upon them, but many did. Strangely, so did some of the guards. Apparently, Calliope hadn't been kidding when she said that they started off as…

    As slaves. The SDC had been keeping slaves right here in Solitas, and no one had realised it.

    Not all the workers here were faunus, but all the ones with the company name burned into their skin were.

    All the ones marked out as property were.

    But they had stopped it. She and Blake had stopped it, Cadance had stopped it, Atlas had stopped it.

    And now justice would be done, by Atlas, in the eyes of the world.

    She had to remember that; she had to hold onto that.

    "Wow," Leaf said, looking around. "You brought all this … for me?"

    Rainbow smiled. "Civis Atlarum Sum."

    Leaf frowned. "I have no idea what you just said."

    "It means you're under our protection," Rainbow said. "Because you're one of us."

    "Rainbow Dash," Cadance called out as she approached. As she drew closer she said, "Miss Leaf Kelly, I presume?"

    "Uh, yeah," Leaf said.

    "Councillor Mi Amore Cadenza, at your service," Cadance said, holding out her hand. "On behalf of Atlas, I am truly sorry about all of this; you should never have had to suffer this."

    "C-councillor?" Leaf stammered. "I, um…" She saluted.

    "You still don't have to do that," Rainbow murmured.

    "Right," Leaf muttered. She took Cadance's hand. "Sorry, I just … a Councillor?"

    Cadance smiled. "And, as I said, a contrite one."

    "There wasn't really much suffering," Leaf assured her. "Thanks to Rainbow, Blake, and Penny."

    "Yes, they're very good on that regard, aren't they?" Cadance said. "Nevertheless, Atlas owes you an apology and a debt. An apology, for the fact that you were put in this situation, and a debt for enabling us to uncover something that has eluded us until now. It will take some time, no doubt, to establish everything about how this system of abuse was propagated, everyone who was involved, any other facilities, but already, we have found a great deal, and it would not have been possible without you."

    Leaf looked down at the ground. "That's, um, that's really nice of you, and I appreciate it, but … I have to make rent, so is there any chance that Atlas's gratitude could take the form of some money? And soon?"

    Cadance laughed. "Yes, Rainbow told me that you recently moved here looking for work. I think that Atlas gratitude can stretch as far as covering your expenses until you find your feet here. I'll have someone from my office get in touch to arrange it." To Rainbow, she said, "How does it feel?"

    "It feels." Rainbow paused for a moment. "It doesn't feel anything," she admitted. "Because what we've stopped … it should never have been allowed to happen in the first place."

    Cadance gave a slight nod of her head. "I suppose I can understand what you mean by that," she murmured. "Still, this is good work. We've taken another step towards the Atlas that can be. Blake."

    "Ma'am."

    Cadance turned away and left them once more to their own devices.

    "You're gonna stick around here, then?" Rainbow asked. "You're not going to go back to Vale?"

    "No," Leaf said at once. "But … I am going to call my mum. Thinking about it in that cell … I don't want to leave things … I want to talk to her."

    "That's a good idea," Rainbow said softly. "Whatever happens, at least you gave her a chance."

    Silence fell briefly upon the four of them.

    Blake frowned a little. "Penny, can you look after Leaf for a second? Rainbow and I need to talk privately."

    "Of course!" Penny declared enthusiastically. "Would you like something to eat, Leaf?"

    "Uh, sure."

    "Then come with me! The soldiers have set something up over here." Penny took Leaf by the arm and led her off in the direction of the field canteen the troops had set up for the liberated labourers.

    Rainbow and Blake were left alone.

    And Rainbow had a pretty good idea of why Blake wanted to speak to her alone.

    It didn't mean that she was looking forward to it.

    "Kogetsu … Ironwood?" Blake murmured.

    Yep, there it was. Rainbow supposed it was inevitable, after what Calliope Ferny had said.

    She didn't want to talk about it. She didn't like talking about Kogetsu; she didn't like thinking about Kogetsu.

    Rainbow considered telling Blake that it was none of her business; Blake would, she was sure, accept that and back off ... even as curiosity and doubt niggle away at her.

    She would find out sometime, if not from Rainbow than from someone else, maybe someone less trustworthy.

    Best to get it over with.

    Besides, it was Blake; if anyone deserved to know the truth, she did.

    "He was the General's son."

    "I didn't know he had a son," Blake murmured.

    "A son and a daughter," Rainbow replied. "Their … their blood family was wiped out, when they were young; General Ironwood adopted them both."

    "So … Koryu, that was their birth name?" Blake said. "It sounds Mistralian."

    "It was," Rainbow said. "It is. An old Mistralian warrior clan."

    Blake frowned. "General Ironwood told me … the General told me about a young student of great promise who…"

    "Yeah," Rainbow said, her voice hoarse. "That, uh, that was, um…"

    She reached around behind her, into a pouch she wore at her belt, and from that pouch, she got out her wallet. From her wallet, she got out a picture, well-worn from being folded and unfolded so often, a picture of four people at a fairground. Rainbow was one, Twilight was another, and with them was a slender boy with a thin, delicate, pretty face, with jet black hair kept out of his face with a neon blue sweatband tied around his brow. He was holding a stuffed bear, smiling, standing almost side by side with Twilight, while Rainbow stood behind them, looming over them, her arms around their shoulders and necks as she grinned.

    Off to one side of the picture, her back half turned on the others, glaring at them over her shoulder, there stood another girl, with long brown hair, all dressed in pink, with a sword across her back.

    "This was taken at the last Vytal Festival," Rainbow said, handing Blake the picture. "Kogetsu is the one holding the bear. I won that in some shooting game, one of the toy pistol things, you know?"

    Blake nodded. "And the other girl?"

    "His sister, Aska," Rainbow said.

    Blake's eyes narrowed. "Is she—?"

    "Dead? No," Rainbow said. "She went back to Mistral. Atlas wasn't good enough for her."

    Blake frowned. "So she went to Haven instead?" She sounded sceptical, and rightly so.

    Rainbow laughed bitterly. "Oh no, not for her, not for the last Koryu. She had to complete her training under a sensei out in the wilderness somewhere, for authenticity or some pretentious garbage like that." Rainbow paused for a moment. "We didn't get on."

    "I'd never have guessed," Blake muttered dryly.

    Rainbow snorted. "Twilight told me that I should be more understanding, that I should have some empathy, that I should think about what it was like to come to a strange new place that was different from what I'd known before. But I didn't need to think about that; I knew what that was like, I lived that, and I was appropriately grateful for the opportunities that I was given."

    "And Kogetsu?"

    "Kogetsu," Rainbow sighed. "Kogetsu was nice. Sweet, kind, smart. He used the name Ironwood when his sister wasn't around to scold him for it. He was sure to graduate top of his class from Apennine Combat School. But … he listened to Aska too much. She's the one who filled his head about the clan and tradition and Mistralian honour; she was the one who kept at him for being too Atlesian, for forgetting who and what he was. For being too close and too nice to a lowlife faunus like me. It hurt him, it got to him, I could see it, but … Twilight told me to leave it alone, told me it wasn't my place to get in the middle of a family issue like that. I wish … it's about the only time I wish I hadn't listened to Twilight."

    "He didn't run," Blake murmured.

    "He didn't retreat when he was ordered to," Rainbow corrected her. "Everyone was falling back; the combat school students were supposed to assist in the evacuation, not fight. When the grimm broke through the front line, they were engaged, but the evacuation was proceeding, and so they could get out of there. Kogetsu wouldn't go; he knew there were reinforcements en route to retake the town, and he thought that he could hold the relay tower until they arrived. A Koryu doesn't run, doesn't turn his back on the enemy, doesn't give ground." Rainbow paused, her whole body shuddering. "I was with the reinforcements. Even as our air support was starting to burn through the horde, General Ironwood ordered me to get to Kogetsu. I … I promised him I would."

    'I'll bring him home, sir, I promise.'

    "But … it's like Calliope said: I wasn't fast enough. By the time I got there … I found half a dozen beowolves of the apex alpha's guard, all of them alpha sized themselves or near enough." Rainbow closed her eyes. "I was in time to save his body, but…"

    Eyes closed, Rainbow felt rather than saw Blake pull her into an embrace.

    "That wasn't your fault," Blake insisted. "It sounds as if he made his own choices, for better or worse."

    "I was supposed to save him," Rainbow whispered. "I was supposed to be fast enough to save him."

    "And I was supposed to be gentle and kind enough to save Adam, " Blake said. "To gentle the monster inside the man by loving him."

    "That's ridiculous," Rainbow snapped.

    "And what you're saying isn't?" Blake replied. "Does General Ironwood—?"

    "We don't talk about it," Rainbow said. "Ever."

    "But if he blamed you," Blake pointed out, "he wouldn't have given you Rosepetal."

    Rainbow didn't respond to that. "Blake, will you promise me something?"

    "That depends," Blake replied. "What promise do you want?"

    "Don't do something stupid, don't … just live; for Atlas, for us. 'Cause you've got so much to live for."

    "I know," Blake said softly. "And because I know, I can promise with a light heart."

    Rainbow smiled. "Hey … you know what?"

    "What?"

    "Adam…" Rainbow murmured. "I never would have gone down this road if it wasn't for him, if I hadn't seen that mark on his face. This … this is his victory."

    "Huh," Blake murmured. "I … I guess it is. Adam's last victory over the Schnee Dust Company.

    "Thank you, Rainbow Dash."
     
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    • Chapter 39 - Calliope's Confession
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    • Calliope's Confession

    ​

    There was screaming coming from down the hall.

    Mother and Father were screaming at one another. They hadn't done that in a while.

    They hadn't done that, that Weiss could recall, since her tenth birthday party. Father had arrived late; Weiss had been disappointed; Mother had been upset. What had started as an expression of her disappointment had turned into a screaming match in front of all the — increasingly embarrassed — guests, while Weiss huddled against the wall, crying, covering her ears with both hands trying to block out the sounds of them shouting at one another, while Winter cradled her younger sister in her arms.

    It hadn't been enough to block out the noise. It hadn't been enough to stop her from hearing Father declare that he had only married Mother to get control of the Schnee Dust Company.

    It was, perhaps, a little thing to some people, but to Weiss … there was always — and probably would always — be a part of her that somewhat resented the fact that those words — spoken without shame, out loud, and in front of witnesses — should not have damaged Jacques Schnee. He had just admitted that he had married for her money, and nobody cared. Nobody thought it worthy of comment, let alone of approbation. Perhaps they weren't even surprised. Perhaps they had all known, and only Mother was shocked to discover it.

    Perhaps that was simply the cost of doing business in Atlas.

    It was, she was sure, a little thing; there were those for whom the price of doing business in Atlas was much higher than for either Weiss or her mother. But it irked her nonetheless.

    In any event, there hadn't been a lot of shouting in the Schnee manor after that. Mother had retired to her menagerie, and to the collection of expensive Mistralian vintage wines — the best wines in the world were Mistralian, or so they said; Weiss wondered idly if Pyrrha's family was amongst the great landowning families who profited from her mother's predilections — to which she was always adding but which never actually got any bigger. Father had been content to leave her to it, knowing that she could buy wine like it was water and exotic animals as though they were pet shop gerbils, and she still wouldn't dent the monthly profits of the SDC.

    Mother didn't show herself much, not in Atlesian society, not in the house, not in the lives of her children. She might as well have been dead for as present as she was; she was little more than a ghost, an idea, a memory, someone talked of occasionally but never seen, someone who had once existed but who never had any influence upon the world they lived in.

    Nobody seemed to care about that either. Weiss thought for a moment about those awful rumours that someone had tried to spread about Pyrrha — the rumours that were still being spread, even after Pyrrha had put her life on the line to scotch them; now, they were saying that Pyrrha and Cinder had arranged to fake a fight in order to give Pyrrha cover; Weiss wasn't sure how many people believed that, but someone was definitely trying to make people believe it — and could not help but compare it to the lack of any such rumours surrounding her parents.

    In her father's case, the rumours could have even been true, or at least contained a kernel of truth, which was more than could be said about some rumours, but, again, nobody seemed to care.

    They cared now.

    There was a risk, of which Weiss was aware, that these thoughts might make her seem callous, self-centred, perhaps even bitter that the abuse of faunus labourers had attracted more attention than the plight of her own family. It was … well, maybe it was slightly the case, emotionally speaking at least, but she understood why it was the case.

    This was … bigger than the Schnee family.

    The screaming coming down the hall wasn't the only sound, as Weiss sat against the wall in Whitley's room. Her parents were screaming, and she was once more sat against the wall, her knees up in a most unladylike manner. This time there was no Winter to take her in her arms; rather, Weiss had one arm around Whitley's shoulders, holding him against her side, his head resting on her shoulder as they both tried to pay attention to Weiss' scroll over the sound of their parents' yelling.

    "The cost of shares in the Schnee Dust Company fell by a colossal nineteen percent today as law enforcement agents raided the company's head offices here in Atlas in connection with the revelations of illegal working practices and abuse carried out at SDC facilities. So far, at least one member of the SDC board of directors has been arrested, but the authorities have said that the investigation is still ongoing.

    "The Schnee Dust Company said in a statement that it was cooperating fully with the authorities.

    "Fears of the collapse of the SDC has caused instability across the market; gilt yields have risen seven points off the back of concerns about the viability of the Atlesian economy without the SDC—"

    "What do you think will happen?" Whitley asked.

    "To who?" Weiss asked. "To us?"

    "To all of us," Whitley replied. "And to the company."

    Weiss squeezed his shoulder. "Don't worry," she said. "The innocent have nothing to fear from the law."

    Whitley glanced up at her. "Don't they?" he asked, in a voice that sounded inordinately sceptical.

    "No," Weiss declared. "And I know that, because I have worked with the Valish police."

    "Of course you have," Whitley muttered. He paused for a moment. "What makes you think that Father is innocent?"

    Weiss drew in a breath and then let it out. She breathed in and out once more before she said, "Father has his faults, as we both know, but I don't believe that he would be guilty of something like this. Has he ever gone out of his way to hurt you?"

    "No," Whitley said.

    "No," Weiss agreed. "Me neither. Because Father … is not a cruel man, except casually. At least … I think that if he was deliberately cruel, we would see it more often. Feel it more often. What's going on, what they found … feels too malicious."

    "So Father just didn't know that it was happening?"

    "It's not ideal," Weiss murmured, "but it's not something that he can be punished for. I'm more worried about the reputation of the company. Regardless of who knew what and who was responsible and who wasn't, this happened at an SDC facility, maybe more than one. The company, the company that our grandfather built, will be forever associated with this. Forever tainted with this. Perhaps not forever, but it will take years, at least, to live this down. Our name will be stained with this, even though Father didn't know, even though I'm sure he'll suffer no legal repercussions, nevertheless, this will be what people think of when they hear the name Schnee."

    For now, at least. For some time to come, no doubt. But in time, when they hear the name Schnee, they'll think of my accomplishments, of all that I have done and all those I have saved and served and the huntress that I have become.

    Watch me, Grandfather; I shall glorify our name once more.

    Whitley snorted. "You would care about something like that, my big sister with her head in the clouds."

    Weiss raised one eyebrow. "Some might say that it's not a bad thing to have one's head in the clouds, up here in Atlas."

    "You know what I mean."

    "No," Weiss said. "I don't."

    "Just that you would care about the Schnee name and the damage done to it."

    "It's our name," Weiss reminded him. "Don't you care about it?"

    "It's a name," Whitley said. "It doesn't mean anything except money, and ruthless acquisition of the same."

    "That's not true!" Weiss insisted. "The Schnee name stands for courage and hard work."

    "Once, maybe," Whitley replied. He paused for a moment. "What if it doesn't work out the way you think it will? What if Father isn't innocent, or what if he is innocent but they blame him anyway? What if … what if it all comes tumbling down?"

    Weiss hugged him a little tighter. "It'll be okay," she said. "No matter what happens, it'll be okay."

    "It will for you," Whitley said sharply. "You're leaving."

    Weiss' lips tightened. That was … unfortunately true. Not unfortunately in the sense that she didn't want to leave, but unfortunate in the sense that she couldn't deny what Whitley had said. She was — she would be — leaving, returning to Beacon for the Vytal Festival, and then for another year.

    That was what she wanted, but at the same time, it would also involve leaving Whitley. It would always have involved leaving Whitley, but … but if, like he said, it all came falling down, then she would be leaving Whitley with … with what?

    No father, no mother really, no Klein — he could hardly be expected to stay on if the family was thrown onto the crust of humility — no house, no wealth, no company. No … nothing. Winter would be fine, she had her own career in the military, and General Ironwood did not seem the sort of man to hold the crimes of her family against her; Weiss had Beacon, her team, the life of a huntress ahead of her, but Whitley…

    "What if … what if I didn't go?" she asked.

    Whitley blinked. "What do you mean?"

    "If … if it comes to it," Weiss said. "If Father is implicated, or if things start falling apart then … then I won't go back to Beacon and leave you to face all of this."

    Flash, she was sure, would understand. With so many younger siblings, she felt reasonably sure that Russel would understand too, and probably Cardin. And if they didn't understand, well, then … that was too bad. It wasn't her first choice, by any means, but what kind of huntress would she be if she turned her back on her own family when they were in need?

    "I'll stay," she said, "and … take care of you."

    Whitley stared at her for a moment. "You … you'll take care of me."

    "Yes," Weiss said. "I will."

    Whitley frowned with one eyebrow while lifting the other. "How?" he asked.

    Weiss' mouth opened, but no sound emerged, because she hadn't actually thought that far ahead. "Well … I suppose I could always … get a job. Isn't that what people do? I could become … a waitress or something."

    "You're going to become a waitress?"

    "Or something!"

    Whitley snorted. "I can't see it."

    "Oh, really?" Weiss replied. "Well, if the idea of me providing for us both is so ridiculous, perhaps I should leave you to fend for yourself." She chuckled. "Except I wouldn't do that. I would never do that."

    "'Never'?" Whitley asked.

    Weiss hesitated for a moment. "Whitley … if anything happens, if anything goes wrong … you can always call me or Winter, you know that, right?"

    Whitley was silent for a while, before he said, "But you think that it won't come to that?"

    "No," Weiss said. "I'm sure it won't. I'm sure … everything won't be fine, everything won't go back just the way it was, but … it'll be okay. I'm positive that it will be okay."

    XxXxX​

    From the other side of the one-way mirror, invisible to the prisoner on the other side, Blake watched Calliope Ferny.

    She did not look like a monster. But then, few monsters ever did, certainly not before you got to know them.

    And yet, she was a monster, Blake was absolutely and utterly convinced of that.

    How could the mother of monsters not be one herself?

    Adam.

    …the engagement of Miss Blake Belladonna and Mister Adam Taurus…

    …far from unexpected…

    …with grim determination worked his way up to the top.

    Her Adam, Remnant's Adam, could not have had the exact same life that his Equestrian counterpart had possessed, even with the best will in the world: there was no Belladonna Corporation in Remnant, Blake wasn't a society beauty making her debut; and no faunus, however hard working and determined, would find it so easy to climb from the bottom rung of the ladder to the upmost. At least, Blake thought with a glance towards Rainbow Dash, and to Cadance beyond her, not without friends in high places to help the climb.

    And yet, Adam could have been more than he became, the difference in the lives of the two, the greater success of the Equestrian Adam, surely, they were proof of that. He could have been more, he could have been somebody … somebody like the person Blake had thought he was, or perhaps even better still.

    He might not have been as successful as his pony counterpart, but he could have been loving, he could have been kind, he could have been…

    He could have been someone that Blake could love.

    And they could have been happy, even without being the darlings of the Manehatten social scene.

    But it was not to be, and it was not to be because of Calliope Ferny, sitting in that room, and those like her.

    Because it had not been in Adam Taurus to be happy. Such an emotion was not left in him. Joy had not been in Adam, not ever while Blake had known him. The most he had ever exhibited in that regard was a certain grim, sardonic humour. He did not laugh loudly; he did not smile delightedly; not even a great victory could rouse him to more than a smirk. He could be charismatic, intensely so, and his commitment to the cause was undeniable, but … he could not be happy, and so, he could neither make Blake happy nor be made happy by her.

    There was too much anger in him. Too much hatred, too much pain.

    And Blake thought that pain had started when he had been branded on the face like property.

    As she watched Calliope through the one-way glass, Blake's hands curled into fists.

    "Hey, Blake," Rainbow's words were soft, and her hand on Blake's shoulder was gentle. "You okay?"

    Blake turned her head to look at her. "I … no," she admitted. "No, I don't think I am. I … was just thinking about Adam."

    Rainbow frowned. "Of course," she murmured.

    "I was thinking about his other self," Blake said quietly.

    Rainbow glanced at Cadance, who was a few feet away, talking on her scroll. Rainbow kept her own voice low as she said, "You mean the pony Adam."

    Blake nodded. "I was thinking … about the kind of life that Adam might have had if … I don't know, perhaps I'm reading too much into it."

    "Why, because he was always violent, always ruthless; we know that isn't true," Rainbow said. "And even if we hadn't gone to Equestria to prove it, I … I don't think that we're born certain to turn out the way we do. Otherwise … we're made by the things that we see, the things that we do … and by the people that we meet, most of all. I wasn't so different from Gilda growing up. Heck, I probably wasn't that much different from Adam when he was a kid. But I met Twilight and Rarity and Pinkie, Fluttershy, Applejack, the General … they made me who I am today; they still do, because I carry a piece of all of them inside of me, always. I met them, and so I turned out like me, with a lot of help from them. Adam … Adam ran into that. And the rest is history."

    "Not quite," Blake murmured. "He ran into me as well."

    "You know that's not what I meant," Rainbow said.

    "Because after a certain point, people stop being changed?" Blake asked. "They become fully formed?"

    "Some people harden faster than others, if only because the oven is hotter," Rainbow said. "Just because Adam didn't spring out of the ground just like he eventually ended up doesn't mean that you have to kick yourself for not changing him into something better. Just because people can change doesn't make it easy, and it doesn't mean you have an obligation to change people." She gestured to Calliope. "Let's keep the blame where it belongs, okay?" She grinned. "And give ourselves the credit for putting a stop to this before any more Adams got made."

    Blake nodded, a slight smile crossing her features. "Right."

    She returned her attention to Calliope, who hadn't moved in the entire time that Blake had been watching her or talking with Rainbow Dash. She hadn't so much as fidgeted.

    Calliope Ferny was sat in a pristine white interrogation room, the walls made up on rectangular white panels, each panel projecting part of a hardlight shield that surrounded the interior of the room, light green hexagons surrounding her like the bars of a cage, slightly clipping Blake's view from without — although not so much as to seriously obstruct it. Calliope's hands rested upon a table as white as the walls which sat in front of her, and she kept her head looking straight ahead of her, eyes fixed upon the door.

    She did not move an inch.

    Blake's brow furrowed. "What do you think made her this way?"

    "Huh?"

    "You just said we're the sum of the places we've been and the people we've met," Blake reminded her. "Who do you think she ran into?"

    "Cadance got hold of her files; I took a look at them," Rainbow said. "Her parents died when she was a kid, but after that … there's a gap before she shows up in SDC security; maybe something happened to her in that time."

    She paused for a moment. "I've got to say, I … I'm not … I kind of hope that we don't have to put Weiss' father in prison; it would be a horrible way to repay her for her help, not just with this, but in Low Town too."

    "We can't let Jacques Schnee escape justice just because we like Weiss," Blake replied. "But … I agree. I … before, I would have been thrilled at the idea of bringing down Jacques Schnee, letting the whole SDC crumble around him, fall apart, fall to the ground. But now … now, I'd like for there to be a company left for Weiss to inherit. A company for her to redeem, as she wishes."

    Rainbow nodded. "I'd like that too. Not least because if the SDC goes down, it sounds as though it might take Atlas down with it."

    Rainbow gestured with her head towards where Cadance, standing in the metallic corridor, was speaking into her scroll.

    "It will stabilize, Ivy; stop panicking," Cadance said. "Yes, of course the markets are jittery, the markets always hate the unexpected, but once it stops being unexpected, then the fluctuations will stop too, and everything will become priced in. No, I can't tell you how this is going to end, because I don't know. I'm about to interview Ferny. I'll let you know how it goes." She hung up, putting her scroll back into her purse as she turned around and walked towards Blake and Rainbow Dash. "Sorry about that."

    "Is everything okay, ma'am?" Rainbow asked.

    "It will be," Cadance assured them both. "If a slight economic downturn is the price for justice, for proving that, in this kingdom, the faunus, and the workers, are just as much under the protection of Atlesian power as anyone else, then it's a price that I, for one, will gladly pay." She smiled. "You did good work, Rainbow."

    Rainbow looked down at the ground. "All I did was say a word."

    "Not just now," Cadance said. "You brought this to my attention, you chased it up, and in the end, you found the location, not me. All of this is thanks to you."

    "No, ma'am," Rainbow replied. "I couldn't have done it without help."

    "None of us can," Cadance said. "Now, would you both like to come in with me? Let me do the talking, but … I wouldn't mind having you in there."

    "Of course, ma'am," Rainbow said.

    "Thank you," Blake said softly.

    Cadance nodded to both of them, then turned away, leaving them to follow in her wake. Her high heels tapped lightly upon the metal floor of the corridor as they walked around the cell to the door.

    Cadance held her scroll in front of the scanner mounted to the wall, and the door slid open. As it opened, Blake could see the hardlight barriers that surrounded Calliope Ferny dissolving, if only temporarily, to admit them into the room.

    Calliope smiled. It was faint, and only out of one corner of her mouth, but she smiled all the same.

    Cadance stepped into the room. Blake and Rainbow Dash followed, taking up positions on either side of the door as said door slid shut, and the hardlight shields reappeared, the hexagons stitching themselves back together until the entire chamber and all its occupants were once more enclosed.

    Cadance walked forwards, sitting down at the table opposite Calliope.

    "Councillor Mi Amore Cadenza," Calliope said. "I am honoured."

    "I wish I could say the same," Cadance murmured. "You've been apprised of your rights?"

    "I have."

    "Then you know that you're entitled to representation from a lawyer," Cadance said.

    "I don't want a lawyer; I don't need a lawyer," Calliope said. "I want to make a deal."

    Cadance was silent for a moment. "'A deal'?" she repeated.

    "You've got me dead to rights," Calliope declared. "I was there, at the scene of the crime; I tried to get your girls behind you to leave before they found any evidence. I knew what they were looking for. There's no getting away from this, and I'm not going to waste anyone's time with pointless tactics that won't accomplish anything except to inflate some lawyer's bank balance. I played, I lost, and you can lock me up and throw away the key." She smirked. "I don't guarantee I won't try and escape later, but I won't resist while you stuff me in the box in the first place."

    "Which raises the question of why I should offer you any sort of deal?" Cadance asked. "After all, as you've pointed out, I can nail you to the wall already."

    "Then it's a good thing the deal isn't for me, isn't it?" Calliope asked. "I'm willing to give you everything: the names of all the other executives involved in our little scheme, all the bank accounts that we used to launder the money we garnished from our employees, all of the remaining sites where faunus labourers are … indentured."

    "You mean enslaved," Blake growled.

    "As you like," Calliope said, her tone not changing in the slightest. "The point is that I can let you bring this whole thing down, rescue everyone—"

    "Can you give me Jacques Schnee?" Cadance asked.

    Calliope chuckled, leaning back in her chair as she tucked her hands behind her head. "Mister Schnee wasn't involved. Ever. He didn't know about the working conditions; he didn't know about the money; as far as he was concerned, these were legitimate SDC mining sites, and the employees there were having their wages garnished for completely legitimate and legal purposes."

    "And he never asked any questions?" asked Cadance. "He was never suspicious."

    "There's so much wool in Mister Schnee's head, it's child's play to pull it over his eyes," Calliope said. "No, he was never suspicious. Why would he be, so long as the company was fantastically profitable and the money kept rolling in?"

    Cadance was silent for a moment. "Why?"

    Calliope's eyebrows rose. "Why what?"

    "Why give up your co-conspirators? Why confess everything? What do you want?"

    "My sister, Calla, had nothing to do with this," Calliope said, leaning forwards now and resting her hands on the table once more. "Calla would never involve herself in anything like this. She is … my better half. She doesn't deserve to be harassed, to have her life pulled apart looking for evidence of crimes that aren't there. I want it written down and signed by you that there will be no charges filed or investigations opened into Calla Ferny-Brown. Absolute immunity, or you won't get a single word on record from me."

    "If she's innocent, then what does your sister have to fear from an investigation?"

    "Nothing," Calliope said. "But I don't want her subjected to the indignity, to be forced to live with the fear of prosecution. She deserves better than that."

    What about the people you abused? What about their indignities? What about their fear? Did you ever think about that? Blake thought, and only with some difficulty restrained herself from speaking.

    "That's all?" asked Cadance.

    "What can I say? I love my family," Calliope said. She smiled. "So, do we have a deal?"

    XxXxX​

    "You're agreeing to this?" Blake demanded. "She's getting everything she wants?"

    "She's going to prison for a very long time, and so will a number of other people besides," Cadance corrected her as they stood outside the cell. "And in return, she is getting precisely nothing, except that an innocent woman will not get into any trouble with the law. Which is how things are supposed to work anyway."

    "As you said," Blake replied, "if she's innocent, then she has nothing to fear in any case. What if she is involved? What if she's the mastermind behind it all?"

    "That's speculation," Cadance said. "There's no evidence—"

    "Because you haven't investigated yet!"

    "Blake!" Rainbow cried. "Cool it, okay?"

    Blake took a deep breath. "I'm sorry," she said, "but … I think it's too soon to be rushing to make a deal with this woman instead of trying to make as many arrests as possible on our own, with no strings attached."

    "And if this were purely a historic offence, then you would have a point," Cadance said, "but you heard Ferny: there are more facilities, more faunus suffering abuse and waiting for rescue. Isn't it more important that we get to them, even if one woman gets let off the hook for her crimes?"

    Blake hesitated for a moment. "I'd like to have both," she muttered.

    Cadance chuckled. "I can understand that," she assured her, "but the guiding principle of the legal system is that it's better that a hundred guilty men go free than a single innocent man be wrongfully punished."

    "That's why, when a jury is split evenly, the accused is always acquitted," Blake murmured, "because mercy should always take precedence over punishment."

    "In Mistral, that is the system," Cadance said. "Here in Atlas, the jury must return a unanimous verdict in order to convict."

    "Is that difficult?"

    "Not if you make your case," Cadance replied, "or have a confession from one of your lead suspects. Even if Calla Brown is involved in this somehow, letting one woman off the hook in order to bag a sackful of criminals and rescue who knows how many faunus from … from what is, let's not beat around the bush, slavery … that's a deal that I'll take gladly."

    "If Calliope Ferny had asked to be set free as the condition of her deal, would you still have made it?" Blake asked softly.

    "No," Cadance said at once. "I might have discussed less serious charges against her, but I would never have let her walk, not after catching her red-handed." She smiled. "I want to wrap this up, but not at the expense of justice."

    "But you do want to wrap this up," Blake pointed out.

    Cadance hesitated for a moment. "The markets are flailing at the moment. They're not sure what's going on, so they're assuming the worst. Certainty will restore confidence, and confidence will restore stability; that's politics, I'm afraid; you have to keep one eye on what the market is saying."

    Blake nodded. "I understand, ma'am; believe me, I don't want to bring down Atlas' economy. I'm sorry for snapping at you before."

    "Don't apologise for being passionate," Cadance said. "Without it—"

    "It wasn't my passion that brought this to light," Blake said. "It was Rainbow Dash's."

    "It was a stroke of luck," said Rainbow Dash.

    "Nevertheless, you still shouldn't apologise," Cadance declared. "Without passion to move you along, where will you go next? Now, are you both ready?"

    "I'd like to ask her something, ma'am," Blake said. "If I may."

    Cadance was silent for a moment, her face expressionless and hard to read. "What do you want to ask?"

    "I … I want to ask about Adam," Blake said.

    "Blake," Rainbow murmured. "Are you sure that—?"

    "I want to know," Blake insisted. "I want to know … how it started."

    I know how it ended, after all.

    Rainbow's brow furrowed, and she pursed her lips together, looking troubled, but said nothing else on the matter.

    Cadance hesitated for a second, before she nodded. "Very well," she said. "After I've got everything I need from her, then you can ask, but until then—"

    "Let you do the talking, ma'am," Blake said. "Understood."

    "Actually, I'm hoping that she'll do the talking," Cadance said and tucked the sheaf of papers — Calliope's deal — under her arm as she once more used her scroll to open the door.

    Once more, the door slid open as the shields dissolved around the room. Calliope Ferny did not appear to have moved an inch since they left said room, not even to have turned her head in the slightest. She showed no reaction until Cadance, Rainbow Dash, and Blake walked back in.

    The door closed behind them, and the shields went up once more.

    Again, Rainbow and Blake took up their positions on either side of the door while Cadance walked to the table and sat down opposite Calliope.

    She put the papers down on the table between them. "Your deal, signed by me on behalf of Atlas."

    Calliope began to reach for them, but hesitated. "You don't mind if I—?"

    "Please," Cadance said gesturing at the deal. "Read it. Read it in more detail than the contracts you had vulnerable, desperate people sign."

    "You make me sound like some kind of predator," Calliope said.

    "Aren't you?" asked Cadance.

    Calliope smiled and reached for the paperwork, turning it around so that she could read it, and then, well, reading it, flicking from one page to the next.

    When she was done, she pushed the deal aside. "Thank you, Madam Councillor," she said. "You are a woman of your word."

    "I try," Cadance said. "What does that make you?"

    Calliope smiled. "Why? A good Atlesian, of course."

    "'Of course?'" Cadance repeated. "After what you've done, what you've presided over, you claim, you have the audacity to sit there and say that you are a good Atlesian?"

    The smile didn't waver from Calliope's face. "And how do you think that Nicholas Schnee made his money, Councillor? Do you think that all those Vacuans were happy to see him buying up their land, getting rich off their natural resources? Do you think that the Valish enjoyed seeing the people they'd defeated in the war outpacing them in wealth? Do you think he achieved his position through probity and square dealing? No, he was ruthless and exploitative, just as we are all taught to be—"

    "That's not true," Cadance said.

    "Isn't it?" Calliope demanded. "Then why do we admire wealth more than virtue, success more than character? Why does every child growing up in Mantle or Low Town dream of making it up to Atlas one day and living like the glittering elite? I did what I had to do to prosper, and I didn't care who I had to step on to do it. I'm a good Atlesian, I'm the best Atlesian there is, and certainly the most honest."

    Rainbow snorted.

    Calliope's eyebrows. "I think one of your pets disagrees with me, Councillor."

    "They're not my pets," Cadance said flatly. She paused for a moment. "And Rainbow Dash can speak for herself."

    Rainbow folded her arms. "You're right, I disagree. Because you're wrong."

    "Am I?" Calliope asked. "You think you know better than me what Atlas is?"

    "I do know better than you," Rainbow insisted.

    "Why, because you've spent a couple of years in the Academy?" Calliope replied.

    "Because you can't buy your way out of this," Rainbow snarled. "If you're so great at being an Atlesian, if everyone in Atlas thinks like you, then why are you sitting in a cell, begging to get your sister off the hook while you stare down the barrel of life in prison? If you were right, then you'd be out of here already. But you're not, because you're wrong about Atlas. This kingdom stands for something, and you are going to find out just what happens to those who stand against what Atlas stands for."

    Calliope's face was impassive, but her terrier ears flattened down against the top of her head, the way that Sunset's ears frequently did whenever she was upset in any way. Blake wondered if it was the same with Calliope Ferny, if they might not offer an insight into what she was feeling that she would rather they didn't possess.

    "You think you've won, don't you?" she asked, in a voice that was calm but brittle at the same time.

    Rainbow shrugged. "It certainly looks that way, doesn't it?"

    Now it was Calliope's turn to snort. "See how much, or how little, people care once the price of their stock options stabilises, and then tell me if you still feel that way."

    "You think people won't find what you've done to be awful?" Rainbow demanded.

    "People don't find Mantle awful, except as far as they don't want to live there," Calliope said.

    Unfortunately, she had a point about that. But, Blake remembered, Rainbow also had a point; ultimately, the operation of Calliope and her fellow conspirators had been stopped, people had been rescued, more people would be rescued, other people would be arrested. Rainbow was right. Calliope's money had not protected her from those who believed in certain principles of justice.

    But those principles weren't doing anything to help Mantle. Or Low Town, for that matter.

    But they do exist, and since they exist, then dedication towards them can be renewed.

    Blake was coming to view Atlas as a city of two halves, not in the sense of the rich and the poor — although Atlas and Low Town qualified as such — but rather … Atlas was like the man with two souls, each fighting for control of the body politic.

    On the one hand, Rainbow Dash, General Ironwood, Trixie, Starlight, Twilight and all the rest of her and Rainbow's friends, Councillor Cadenza; the military and the Academy, chiefly, but also those who were in some way associated with them, or simply those who were generous and good-hearted. It was the side of comradeship, loyalty, of a great and formidable instrument made up of many thousands of people all working towards a common purpose greater than any of them. It was the side of action and resolve, but also of integrity of principle.

    And on the other side … the squalor of Mantle, the existence of Low Town, the vast wealth of Jacques Schnee, the unabashed villainy of Calliope Ferny. On the other side was money, pure and simple, greed … ruthlessness and exploitation, just as Calliope had said.

    Two sides of Atlas, fighting for control of it.

    Weiss will bring the SDC from one side to the other, if she is allowed.

    More to the point right now, the fact that Calliope Ferny is sitting here proves that the dark side does not hold sway.

    Just as Rainbow said.

    Calliope returned her attention to Cadance. "So, Councillor, what do you want to know?"

    "Who is the ringleader in all of this?" Cadance asked. "Who started it?"

    "Those are two different questions," Calliope replied. "I am the ringleader right now, because none of this would be possible without my security guards. But it didn't start with me; it was going on in some fashion when I was a child."

    Cadance paused for a moment. "Were you…?"

    Calliope reached up, and started undoing her shirt, unfastening the buttons until she could shrug one light blue sleeve off her shoulder, revealing the letters 'SDC' seared into her flesh.

    Calliope smiled. "The foreman of my work crew liked me, so he put it somewhere I could cover it up, at least some of the time."

    Since she was a child? How long ago was that?

    Cadance was silent for a moment. "Where you kept at a distance from Mantle and other cities, the way—"

    "The way that I do it now?" Calliope asked. "No. It wasn't so organised back then, or at least, I don't think it was. It was … a group of foremen who wanted the power. Mister Legree, our site manager — we worked at the Saar Pit, just outside of Mantle, but not too far away — was an old fossil, so old that he could still remember the old days, before the war. He handpicked people to help him keep acting like it was the old days."

    "And nobody knew?"

    "Nobody knew, or nobody cared; I don't know which it was," Calliope said. "What I do remember is that our working crews were the hardest-working in the whole SDC; not surprising since we were working longer hours, sleeping in the pits with our tools for company, snatching a few hours in the dark and the cold before waking up to do it all again. What I remember is that, as people died — and they died quickly too, from overwork or scurvy or taking their own lives because death seemed preferable to life in darkness — the foremen and the manager were getting lavish bonuses for exceeding their production quotas. So long as the dust flowed, I don't think anyone would have cared how it was being extracted or how many people were dying to get it out of the ground." She paused a moment. "The work was dangerous. Most people didn't last very long, which was the way they wanted it, of course."

    "But you survived," Cadance said.

    "Like I said, my foreman liked me," Calliope replied. She smirked. "I'm not sure he liked me so much after I drove a pickaxe into his skull, but he didn't last long after that to have changed feelings. There was a boy called — what was his name? — Adam."

    Blake stiffened, her ears pricking up involuntarily.

    Calliope glanced towards her. "You … you know him, don't you?"

    Blake licked her lips. "I … I knew him," she murmured.

    "So he's dead then," Calliope said. "I always wondered what happened to him." She paused for a moment, her gaze switching back and forth between Blake and Rainbow Dash. "Let me guess: you found out about the brand on his face, and you … you thought that you could blame it on me? You thought you could find a monster to bear that crime and all the other crimes of Atlas." She snorted. "Sorry to disappoint you, but Adam and I were … we were at the dustface together, literally. The foreman wasn't kind to him, but … he was strong; he was a survivor, like me. We planned to escape together, and he did escape; I never saw him again. How did he die?"

    "He … he joined the White Fang," Blake said.

    "And Atlas killed him," Calliope murmured. Her eyes narrowed. "No … you killed him."

    "That's enough," Rainbow growled, taking a step forward, her hands clenching into fists. "Get back on topic."

    "This is why I never saw the point of the White Fang," Calliope said. "Fighting for people who are too weak to fight for themselves, who are so shackled by petty morality that they revile those who fight for them, call their own defenders terrorists. You may as well look out for yourself, work for yourself, and let the moralists eat virtue and drink from the cup of good behaviour, if they can find it."

    Blake's ears drooped down, even as her head bowed. So … that was it? That was all?

    Of course it was. She wasn't Pyrrha; there wasn't a single villain that she could fight; there wasn't anyone whom she could challenge to single combat to best and in the besting make her problems go away. She was confronting something larger, more protean, a creature with many heads and many different forms that would not be easily slain.

    But she had always known that and made her peace with it. But still … it would have been comforting to have brought the blame for Adam home to roost on somebody's still living head.

    "They should have killed me after that," Calliope went on, "but the guard who was assigned to take me out and put a bullet in the back of my head … I guess she liked me too. In a real way, this time, not just in a 'hide the brand on my skin'—"

    "Where did the brands come from?" asked Cadance.

    "They were for branding crates," Calliope explained. "Cargo. Property. Shows you how they saw us, huh? But Eva was … different. She let me go home, to my sister; I didn't tell Calla about where I'd been, I told her not to worry about it. Of course, without me around, she'd ended up in the foster system … at first, I wanted to take her away from there, but … she'd ended up with a nice family. A prosperous family, whose work kept them in Mantle — the father was a middle manager at the SDC refinery — but they lived in a nice high rise above the haze, and they were going to send Calla to a fancy private school in Atlas. I couldn't take her away from that. They could offer her a better life than I could. And that's what it's all about, isn't it? Having a good life. If you don't have to fight for it, like Calla didn't, thanks to her foster folks, then great. If you do, like me, then you fight for it."

    "No matter who you hurt," Cadance said.

    "It's a fight," Calliope replied. "Hurting other people is kind of inevitable."

    "So you went to work for SDC Security," Cadance said.

    Calliope nodded. "That's right. I climbed the ranks. I killed everyone who'd ever been involved in the Saar Pit, and I made connections with other departments, other rising stars. Eventually, I became head of security—"

    "And decided to do to others what had been done to you," said Cadance.

    "Oh, I did much more than that," Calliope said. "This wasn't just a matter of one site manager, a few pliable or corruptible foremen, and tamed guards; I built a network. I'd had a lot of time, as I was climbing the corporate ladder, to think about what I was going to do and how to do it. I set up a dummy recruitment agency, with links to real recruitment agencies who would screen out the people that I was looking for: hopeless cases, people without families, people desperate for work, people who'd newly arrived in Atlas—"

    "People who could disappear without causing a fuss," Cadance said flatly.

    "Precisely."

    "Did the legitimate recruitment agencies know what you wanted these people for?"

    "If they worked it out, it's not because I told them," Calliope said. "The explanation was that we wanted people who could work away from home for a prolonged period of time: no children or parents to look after, nothing holding them down. If they thought our criteria for that was a little odd, nobody questioned it. The heads of personnel, payroll, and legal were all involved, along with subordinate members of their departments. Personnel drew up the contracts for the workers, including the right to garnish wages to cover necessary expenses. Legal reviewed the contracts and signed them as legal, so we'd be covered unless someone actually went to one of our facilities and had a look around. Payroll ensured that everything looked right on the internal payslip records."

    "What was the point of all this?" Cadance asked.

    "Money," Calliope said simply.

    "Doesn't an SDC executive get paid enough?"

    Calliope chuckled. "Okay, maybe it wasn't just about the money. It was … kind of fun, too. Sneaking around Mister Schnee's nose. Hiding the truth. It was exciting. But mostly, it was all about the money. There were two stages, really, the first being that we were garnishing a lot more money out of the nominal wages of our employees for accommodation and food than we were actually spending on them, and keeping the rest. Nevertheless, it looked as though a lot of money was being spent on these people, so that reduced the number of questions being asked. The rest of their wages, what wasn't being garnished away, was being paid into bank accounts controlled by myself and my co-conspirators, from where it was distributed amongst us each month."

    "And what did you bring to the table?" Cadance asked. "Payroll, Legal, Personnel—"

    "They needed my security guards to maintain the facilities," Calliope said. "I knew them, I knew which ones would be willing to go along with this and which ones would have an attack of conscience and so had to be kept well away. Plus, it was my idea in the first place; none of them would have come up with it on their own. And I chose the sites. I selected locations where dust had been discovered, but it had been judged too difficult or expensive to actually mine it there. I was the one who went to Mister Schnee and proposed that we should have a go anyway. Every time, I promised that it could be done cheaply, that the reward would be worth the expense, and he agreed. He'd agree to anything so long as you told him that the reward would be worth the expense.

    "Of course, once we'd got the people out there, we kept on extending their contracts, or rather, they kept choosing to extend their contracts, completely voluntarily, of course. At least as far as the company records were concerned, anyway. One thing I will say is that I didn't work them to death the way that Mister Legree worked so many of us to death at Saar Pit. I worked them hard, yes, but some of them lasted for years. Some of them even joined Security. Does that surprise you?"

    "A little," Cadance murmured.

    Calliope smiled. "Despite the circumstances, I think we formed a connection, those workers and I. They understood that I didn't hate them; they understood the lesson that I'd learnt at Saar Pit, that if you are willing to work hard and not have too many qualms, you, too, can achieve great success in this, the greatest of kingdoms."

    "Until you get caught," Rainbow muttered.

    "Mantle was once defeated in war," Calliope reminded them. "Humbled and brought low. And in that spirit, it seems to me that, as a good Atlesian, the only thing for me to do is … rise again."

    Rainbow snorted. "I don't see that happening."

    "No, I didn't expect you would," Calliope said. "But that just means that it will be all the sweeter when I do."
     
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    • Chapter 40 - Look Down
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    • Look Down

    ​

    In Atlas, prison cells had — with exceptions, for prisoners like the hacking thief recently brought to justice by Rainbow Dash and Blake — moved from metal bars to walls of hard-light powered by dust, but in Mantle, at least in the rear areas of this particular Mantle police precinct, the cell door was still a row of cold, grey metal bars, a design almost as old as civilisation itself.

    On the wrong side of the bars, sitting with her legs spread wide open on a narrow bench backing against the wall, sat Neon Katt.

    "Hey," she said.

    "'Hey'?" Ciel repeated. "Is that all you have to say for yourself?"

    "No, I've got plenty to say for myself; I just thought I'd start with a 'hey,'" Neon replied. She grinned. "You know, if you were really my friend, you'd be in here with me instead of on the other side of that door."

    Ciel didn't deign to dignify that with a response. She folded her arms. "Dare I ask?"

    "I saw some cops breaking up a protest in support of the strike, outside the technical college," Neon said, "and I thought to myself 'those cops don't look like they need any help, but those kids sure do.'"

    "And that's why you were arrested for assaulting a police officer," Ciel said, her voice as flat as a well-maintained road.

    "Considering that no less than four cops pinned me to the ground and knelt on top of me — including one on my neck, if you please — I think I have a pretty good claim to be the real victim here," Neon said. She leaned forwards. "The law doesn't arbitrate good and evil: just because something is legal doesn't make it right; just because something is illegal—"

    "Does not make it wrong, yes; I am aware," Ciel murmured, thinking about Penny and her situation and the way in which Ciel had allowed herself to be complicit in a grave injustice. The very thought of it made her shiver. I can only hope that my regret is sufficient to constitute repentance. "Even so, attacking the police—"

    "Who were attacking unarmed protesters," Neon said. "Kids our age, Florentin's age, with placards and voices, and the cops were laying into them with batons and gas—"

    "'Gas'? Ciel repeated incredulously.

    "You don't think they would have got me without gas, do you?" Neon asked. "I yelled at the kids to run, and then I held off the cops until I couldn't breathe any more, couldn't see because of the stinging in my eyes; that's when they brought me down."

    "Are you alright?" Ciel asked. "Have you seen a doctor?"

    "No," Neon admitted. "But I feel better." She coughed, although it was hard to tell — even after Ciel's long acquaintance with Neon — if she was really coughing or pretending to in order to make light of the situation. Neon leaned forwards, her knees resting on her legs. "As huntsmen, we have a responsibility to protect the weak and the powerless. As a follower of the Lady, I am instructed to follow the tenets of our faith—"

    "I am not sure what the Lady has to say about strikes," Ciel pointed out.

    "The Lady has a few things to say about slavery," Neon replied. "Ciel, I love you, but you cannot make me feel bad about this. Just because I'm in a cell doesn't mean that I didn't do what was right."

    "'And they who believeth in me, though they be cast into a bondsman's cell, shall enjoy the liberty of heaven,'" Ciel whispered. She paused for a moment. "As a matter of fact, I'm not here to rebuke you. In truth…"

    She trailed off, her sense of obedience to the law and to the lawful authorities warring in her heart with Neon's call to a higher, more natural justice.

    In many ways, this was all the fault of Blake and Rainbow Dash, although one might not, indeed one ought not, to call it fault. The glory of Blake and Rainbow Dash might be a more apt descriptor, the latest glory in a series of glories that had crowned Blake's brow like Mistralian laurels and rendered her resplendent.

    The latest exploit in which they both had shared had been, of course, the assault they had made upon the Schnee Dust Company, the revelation of Calliope Ferny's … some, including Neon just now, called it slavery; others called it a trafficking ring; the mildest word for it was 'exploitation.' Distant mines had been raided, faunus rescued, and now, some of those faunus were returning to Mantle with their bodies — sometimes even their faces — branded with the letters 'SDC,' and tales of their harsh treatment, going back years in some cases, upon their tongues.

    The effect in Mantle — the effect upon Mantle — had been electric. For a start — and this was by far the most minor impact of their actions — it had made celebrities of Blake and Rainbow Dash; it no longer mattered that Blake was a Menagerie-born transplant or that Rainbow Dash embodied every negative stereotype of the Atlesian officer who could not look at Mantle without their lip curling into a sneer; had they returned here, there wasn't a bar in the city where they wouldn't have been stood a round on the house — if they'd been old enough to drink, anyway. Long black wigs, and wigs in all the iridescent colours of the rainbow, were now a common sight in toy and novelty shops; Ciel herself had made a pair of blue cardboard ears and stuck them onto an old hairband for Alain to go along with his rainbow wig. Meanwhile, Father Gregory had asked Ciel if she could get one — or better both — of the new heroes to put in an appearance at the church fete to help raise money for the food bank, since it would be an even bigger draw than the tombola prizes.

    Ciel had told him she would consider it; she knew that she really ought to ask them both — it was for a good cause, after all — but the thought of how insufferable Rainbow Dash might be about it was almost enough to make her recoil from the notion.

    In any case, the effect upon Rainbow and Blake's personal popularity was, however meteoric, rather a secondary concern. The main effect of their actions, of the revelations they had brought to light and of those they had liberated coming home to Mantle, was to stir the city out of grim despondency and rouse it to outrage, even fury.

    There were limits, it seemed, to what this city would tolerate.

    The employees of the SDC had been the first to go on strike. They had no union — efforts to create one had always failed — nevertheless, they had voted — by a simple show of hands in the yard, admittedly — to down tools and then proceeded to do just that. The wholesalers had closed, the refineries had fallen silent, the picket lines had sprouted up as from out of the rock and stone. That would have been quite enough, but the railwaymen, the bus drivers, the firefighters, even the nurses and the teachers had walked out in sympathy with the miners.

    Sympathy strikes were as illegal as wildcat strikes, but — as Neon and Penny had both separately pointed out for Ciel — just because something was against the law did not make it immoral. And besides, there came a certain point when the number of people breaking the law approached or surpassed the number of people obeying it, and law itself became something farcical and worthy of mockery.

    Ciel thought — feared, perhaps — that they might have passed that point already; at any rate, it could not be far off.

    It felt like anarchy; on every street corner, it seemed that there was some new demonstration — a picket line here, a protest there, a rally by Hanlon Fifestone in the middle of the street — some of which ended up clashing with the police and the garrison; the news had managed to find a few people who did not want to strike, but who felt unable to go to work or who had suffered the consequences for trying. And yet, at the same time, could she really say that they did not have cause? The mask had fallen from the SDC, and a savage face stood revealed behind it.

    A savage face … or a branded one.

    If people had had enough, could they be blamed? If people wanted justice, was that wrong? If people only wanted to use the outrage to advance their own positions, then did their positions not deserve advancement?

    Could these actions really be condemned, on moral rather than strictly legalistic grounds?

    "People all over Remnant require dust," she said. "It is the lifeblood of our world."

    "Then people all over Remnant can push the SDC to settle the strike," Neon retorted.

    Well … quite. To condemn the strike as causing disruption was to ignore not only the fact that disruption was the entire point, but also that Jacques Schnee could bring an end to all of his disruption simply by agreeing to the demands of the strikers.

    "They're not even asking for anything unreasonable," Neon went on. "At least, I don't think so, anyway: SDC Security disbanded, workers' representatives on the board, an end to wage garnishment, and improvements to working conditions. I don't see anything wrong with any of that." She got up and started pacing back and forth in her cell, swinging her arms like a pair of pendulums. "What they've done … what Dashie and Blake found, it's wrong, Ciel; it's evil." She looked at Ciel. "You get that, right?"

    "Of course," Ciel said. "Those responsible have been arrested—"

    "And now we want to reckon with the system that let it happen."

    "'We'?" Ciel asked.

    "I'm from Mantle," Neon reminded her. "And so are you, for that matter."

    "I am aware of that."

    "Then answer me this," Neon said, "when did this city last feel so alive as it does now, so full of purpose as it does now? Mantle has been on the down for years, and people have been just letting it happen — you only have to walk the streets to see that — but now? Go out now and then come back and tell me that Mantle is in decline. Tell me that people are lying down and taking it without a fight. I don't recognise this as the city that let old Mrs. Peterson die alone and didn't care to catch the guy who did it; this is…" — she slammed her fist into her other open palm — "this is a city that's gotten up off the floor and put up its hands for a few more rounds. I think this might be the best thing that could have happened to Mantle. Which is ironic, considering it was Dashie who did all this."

    Ciel snorted. "I wonder how much she would appreciate that." She paused. "I must admit, there does appear to be more … it is a small thing, but I saw people cleaning their windows on my way here."

    Neon nodded. "I think that if we win this fight, there's going to be a lot more pride in Mantle than there was before."

    "The way you say 'we' makes you sound like Robyn Hill," Ciel murmured.

    "No, I'm not," Neon replied. "If I were sounding like Robyn Hill, I'd be ranting and raving about how awful Atlas is for keeping us down. I'm from Atlas, but I'm also from Mantle, and I'm also a faunus. I contain multitudes. The point is that all this has given Mantle something to fight for, and fighting has given Mantle something to believe in."

    "Or at least a reason to believe in itself," Ciel suggested.

    "Like I said, this isn't the city where an old woman was left to die," Neon said. "This, now, this is the city where everyone came together to fight for what was right because they understand we only win when we stick together. Which is kind of the most Atlesian sentiment they could have, really. The power of sheer numbers. Tell me I'm wrong."

    "About the power of sheer numbers?"

    "About any of it," Neon said.

    Ciel was silent for a moment. "I cannot," she said, "at least, not easily, not with a clear conscience. It is … disturbing, the heavy handedness with which the police will act, considering their inaction in other areas." They would not investigate a murder, but they will assail unarmed protesters with all the force at their command. Are they officers or law or tools of the powerful?

    "However," she went on, "there is one area for which I feel I can chide you, despite your seeming sure that is impossible."

    Neon's eyebrows rose. "Go on, give it a try."

    "Your mother has no idea where you are," Ciel declared.

    A whimper escaped from Neon's lips. "That is … that is below the belt," she said. "You haven't told her yet, then?"

    "Not yet," Ciel said. "She called me, as it happens, worried sick because you didn't come home last night. She'd hoped that you were with me and had forgotten to tell her so. I told her that you weren't with me but that I would find you. I was worried sick myself, with all of this … everything that's going on, I thought you might have gotten into trouble."

    "I kind of did," Neon said.

    "Yes," Ciel agreed. "Yes, you did."

    "But for a good cause," Neon added.

    "Probably, yes, but I'm not sure that your mother will see it that way," Ciel murmured.

    "No, she won't; I can hear the lecture already," Neon muttered. "Throwing away my future."

    "Criminal record," Ciel said.

    "After all she's sacrificed."

    "Don't think before you act," Ciel said.

    "What would my father say if he were alive to see me now," Neon said.

    "Surely, she wouldn't go that far," Ciel said.

    "Oh, she definitely would," Neon replied.

    "That … is a little harsh, if so," Ciel said softly. "Although, everything else seems much like what I would hear from my mother if our places were exchanged on either side of these bars. Except … I fear that that would never happen."

    "Don't be too hard on yourself," Neon said. "If you'd been in my place, in the moment, all your concerns, all your doubts, they would have fallen away, and only the action, only the clarity of what was going on, who was right and who was wrong, would have remained."

    Ciel glanced down at the grey floor beneath her feet. "You are … very kind to say so," she murmured. Although I'm not so sure you're right.

    "So … are you going to tell her?" Neon asked. "My mother, I mean?"

    The door to her cell slid open.

    "You can tell her yourself," Ciel said, "when you tell her that you have to go to Atlas to report to Major Santiago at oh-seven-thirty hours for disciplinary action."

    Neon blinked. "I'm … going to Atlas?"

    "You are very lucky," Ciel declared. "You are not being charged with any offences; rather, the police have agreed to allow this to be handled as a matter of school discipline. Although, if you escape a stint in solitary confinement, it will be a miracle."

    Neon stared at her. "I … I can walk out of here? Like the Mistralian prisoner?"

    "No," Ciel said. "You can walk out of here and onto an airship bound for Atlas."

    Neon snorted. "Chance would be a fine thing; the skydock staff are on strike too; there are no airships flying."

    Ciel rolled her eyes. "Then I'll call Rainbow Dash and have her come here to pick you up," she said. "It is a right and proper thing to stand up for what is right, even if it leads to punishment; however, you still have to actually suffer punishment."

    Neon sighed. "I suppose I'll have to console myself with the knowledge that I'll be rewarded for my virtues in the next life." She stepped out of the cell. "So how did Major Santiago find out that I was in here?"

    Ciel didn't meet Neon's eyes. "I really cannot imagine."

    She felt, rather than saw, Neon put one arm around her shoulder. "Oh, I think you can imagine pretty well."

    Ciel hesitated. "I … may have pleaded with her for assistance when I found out that you were being held in custody. It was … the least I could do, after all your … everything."

    They walked out of the police station, ignoring the desk sergeant who was giving Neon a dirty look, and out onto the streets of Mantle. The air was brisk and bracing, a chill that struck Ciel's face as soon as she emerged back into it.

    Distantly, from some way off, the sound of a rally or protest drifted through the air, the repetitive chant seeming very quiet now, although it must be very loud indeed to be heard from a distance as it was.

    "The miners! United! Will never be defeated!

    The miners! United! Will never be defeated!"

    "You see?" Neon asked. "Where would you have heard something like that around here before now?"

    "I do wonder what has caused it," Ciel murmured. "Not the outrage, but the confidence."

    "The SDC has been wounded," Neon said. "It doesn't seem invincible any more. People are thinking that if two kids can damage it, why can't a whole city?" She took her hand off Ciel's shoulder and slipped both arms around Ciel's right arm. "So," she said, "where to?"

    Ciel looked at her. "Do you not think that you should go home?"

    "Probably," Neon muttered. "But you'll come with me, won't you?"

    Ciel continued to look at Neon.

    "Don't give me that look!" Neon replied. "My mom loves you. She thinks you're a good influence on me. She might not be so hard on me if you're there to back me up."

    "Ah, so you want me to be your shield," Ciel said.

    "A little bit," Neon replied, without a trace of shame. "Plus, she'll be really grateful to you for getting me out. She might even make that butter chicken you like."

    Ciel sniffed. "You have no need to bribe me," she said stiffly. "But … if you were to invite me to dinner, I would not say no."

    "No. Of course you wouldn't. You're too polite."

    "So long as you promise that I will not get caught up in a family argument," Ciel said.

    "Weeeeeeell," Neon said, drawing out the word as she and Ciel set off in the direction of Neon's home, Neon still hanging on Ciel's arm, "I … well, besides the whole 'getting arrested' thing … can I tell you something?"

    Ciel looked at her. "You can tell me anything."

    "Can I tell you something that my mother is going to hate?" Neon asked.

    "You can tell me anything," Ciel insisted.

    Still hesitated, her whole body squirming a little against Ciel's arm. "I … I am considering — only considering, mind — but I'm thinking about, maybe—"

    "You do realise that I am not your mother," Ciel said.

    "I know!" Neon cried. "But you're not going to want to hear this either."

    Ciel breathed in and out. "There is absolutely nothing you could say that would change the fact that you are my best friend and I love you."

    Neon closed her eyes for a moment. "Okay," she said. "I'm thinking about not joining the military after graduation."

    Ciel could not keep her mouth hanging open, though she felt that it was to her credit that that was all the reaction that she gave. She did not stumble, she did not squawk, she did not make any other vocal sound of displeasure, her eyes didn't widen.

    Inside, she wanted to do at least a little of all those things. You too? First Penny, and now you as well?

    Is everyone going to turn against Atlas?

    Is everyone … going to leave me?

    That was unfair on Neon, very unfair, but … they had planned to be on the same team together when they went to Atlas. Obviously, circumstances — Ciel's injury which forced her to sit a year out — had gotten in the way of that, but Ciel had had the idea that after they had both graduated, they might be in the same unit, sister officers as it were. Specialists working together, or maybe lieutenants in the same company or battalion.

    To find that Neon didn't want that … hurt, even if perhaps it shouldn't. It shouldn't, but it did. Maybe it wouldn't have hurt if it hadn't come so hard on everything happening with Penny, but it did, and so it did.

    Ciel was filled with a spike of resentment towards Rainbow Dash, who had gained in Blake a friend and partner, while she, Ciel, was losing everyone.

    To lose Penny could be attributable to Penny's choice, but to lose Neon as well was starting to look like there was something about Ciel that pushed people away.

    "Don't look at me like that," Neon said.

    "Like what?" Ciel thought, worried that she hadn't hid her expression as well as she had thought.

    "Like … that!" Neon cried, waving her hand in front of Ciel's face. "This isn't anything to do with you."

    "Is … is it not?" Ciel asked softly. "First Penny—"

    "Hey!" Neon snapped. "Don't compare me to that two-faced bitch, okay? I don't deserve that."

    Ciel frowned. "And Penny does not deserve such language."

    "Doesn't she?" Neon demanded. "She puts on that happy, clappy, cheery, bouncy, smiley act in public and then kicks you to the curb. When I think about how she makes you feel, I want to kick her ass. If we were Mistralians, I would have called her out by now."

    "I am very glad that you have not," Ciel replied. "Penny … there is more to the story than you know."

    "Then tell me the rest," Neon urged.

    "I cannot," Ciel said.

    "Can't or won't?"

    "It's classified," Ciel told her.

    Neon frowned. "Seriously?"

    Ciel nodded. "Seriously."

    Neon blinked. "I … ooookay. I knew there was something odd about your team. Huh. Okay."

    She looked away for a second, and a silence fell between them, interrupted only by the sounds of their footsteps upon the pavement and the chanting of the crowd that was growing ever more distant.

    "The miners! United! Will never be defeated!"

    "I would love to serve alongside you," Neon said. "But … I just think—"

    "Are you trying to tell me it's not me, it's the military?" Ciel asked.

    Neon grinned. "Kind of, although it isn't really the military either. I meant what I said; this isn't some Robyn Hill thing where I denounce the military and Atlas and spit in the General's breakfast or whatever. This is…" She fell silent for a moment. "What is the point of going out and setting the world to rights when there is injustice and tyranny right here at home?"

    "'Tyranny'?" Ciel repeated.

    "Just because the tyrant is a boss instead of a king, does that make him any less of a tyrant?" Neon asked. "People have been suffering under the SDC just as much as they ever did under the kings of Mantle. It's not as obvious suffering as burning someone alive, maybe, but … it's still suffering, and people are dying just the same, and even if they weren't … my point stands. When our own kingdom is so … first, take the log out of your own eye, then take the speck from your brother's eye."

    Ciel nodded. "The epistle to the people of Crossed."

    "Doesn't it seem like we've been plucking the specks from other people's eyes for a while?" Neon asked.

    "That depends on what you mean," Ciel replied. "If Mantle's problems could be solved by huntsmen, then Robyn Hill would have cleaned up this city by now. What is it you actually plan to do, if not join the military?"

    Neon shrugged. "I thought about joining Thornmane's Guardians."

    "I see," Ciel murmured. "At least you are not planning to become an outlaw, I suppose."

    "But you don't approve."

    "No," Ciel said.

    Thornmane's Guardians were, as the name suggested, the creation of retired Major Bran Thornmane, a former Specialist, former commanding officer of the Ninth Battalion, who had founded Atlas' first private security company, importing the model that proved so hardy in Mistral. The Guardians offered settlements, particularly small villages that might either struggle to afford to have a huntsman come out and serve them, struggle to persuade him to stay very long if he did, or have difficulty getting one to arrive in time, a permanent presence, a single defender — a guardian, hence the name — to stave off threats to the safety of these places, while Thornmane himself maintained a reserve of skilled personnel for occasional huntsman work but also to reinforce any particularly threatened area where a single guardian was insufficient to the task.

    As Ciel understood the business model, the idea was that the more prosperous settlements and better paying jobs would subsidise the protection of the poorer places.

    It was … not an unworthy cause, and certainly, it was better than simply complaining that the military could not be everywhere. But, at the same time…

    "You could do so much more than sit on your tailbone in an out-of-the-way village getting fat and forgotten," Ciel said, "and how would that help Mantle in any case? I understand your reasoning, and if you really believe that you can do more good outside of an Atlas uniform, then very well, but please, for my sake, think about how exactly any other path you might take will actually address the issues in this city."

    Neon grinned. "I could get in more fights with cops, and they couldn't even arrest me for it."

    Ciel sighed. "First of all, I think they could, and second of all, please don't descend to becoming an outlaw. Avoiding such was the great merit of becoming a Guardian."

    "Okay, okay," Neon said. "I … guess you've got a point. Now that Blake and Dashie have done their thing, it's not like there's an enemy here who can be beaten up. It just … it felt okay to walk away when all that seemed to be waiting for Mantle was everything getting worse and worse until there was nothing but a pit of people moaning softly. But now that the city is crying out its rage, now that you can hear the people sing … it feels like quitting." She paused. "Oh, and by the way, that's not hyperbole; they were actually singing before the cops started in on them. Do you want to hear it?"

    "Not particularly, thank you, although I have no doubt it was very stirring," Ciel said, before Neon could get started. "I … understand; for a long time, I have wanted nothing more than to get away from here, perhaps to get my family out. But to change a city … that is not work for me. I have not the mind for it, nor the temperament; leave that to other hands. Is that really for you? And how?" She ventured a smile. "Also, your mother will no doubt kill you. Either that, or die herself of a heart attack brought on by too much apoplexy."

    Neon sniggered, leaning against Ciel's shoulder. "Yeah, okay, I don't need you to tell me that. She wants me to become a respectable officer, and I still might! I'm not saying that I've made my mind up; I'm saying that I'm thinking about keeping my options open more than I was before. Hey, Ciel?"

    "Yes?" Ciel asked.

    "How do you think all of this will end up?" Neon asked. "The strike, and everything else?"

    Ciel looked across the street, to where a couple of children were playing in Blake and Rainbow Dash wigs. "I think," she said. "I think that our friends might just have made a change that will last, but how much of one … I cannot say."

    Neon lived in a nicer part of Mantle than Ciel did these days; in as much as there were any nice parts of Mantle, Neon lived in one. Management in the hospitality industry paid better than serving in the military, it seemed. Mantle was basically structured in three or four rings, with the central areas of the city, the areas closest to the industries, being of somewhat poor quality, the poor quality of which Mantle was infamous in Atlas, if not in Remnant; then there was a sort of middle ring, a band surrounding the centre which took the form of what might have been called suburban had they not been so thoroughly urban in location, if not in character; then there was the outer part of the city, closest to the walls and thus closest to danger if the walls ever came down, and thus home to the very poorest, the most recent arrivals in Mantle, the new immigrants who headed north in search of jobs.

    It was in the prosperous band sandwiched in the middle where the Katt family made their home, in a neighbourhood of detached two-storey houses with cladding over the walls to conceal the stonework, albeit the cladding was getting a bit dirty and showing it on account of the white colour which had probably been a mistake. It was not immune to the general Mantle malaise, by any means — the windows in this part of town could do with a good clean — but there was a car on every driveway, and there was a driveway, which was more than most homes in Mantle could say.

    Speaking of the windows, the Katts' next door neighbour was out cleaning theirs, while his children borrowed his bucket of water to fill their water pistols.

    "Take this, Blake!"

    "You'll never get me, Rainbow Dash!"

    "Are they fighting each other?" Ciel asked softly.

    "Who else are they supposed to fight, I guess?" Neon murmured. "Who do you think would win if they did fight?"

    "Blake," Ciel said immediately.

    "You said that really fast," Neon declared. "Where's your sense of loyalty?"

    "First of all, Rainbow would never go all out against Blake," Ciel pointed out, "and secondly, even if she did, she couldn't hit Blake if she wanted to; Blake's clones give her an insurmountable advantage."

    "There's more to a fight than semblance, you know that," Neon insisted. "If she wanted to keep swapping out clones, she'd burn through her aura, and if she didn't, then Dash would beat her down." She paused. "Not that it'll ever happen."

    "No," Ciel agreed. "No, it will not."

    The door to Neon's house was red, a striking contrast to the white cladding over the walls around it, but which matched the colour of the four-door car out front. Neon fished her keys out of one of the pockets of her parka and opened the door with a series of mild clicks and rattles.

    The walls in the hall were a grey blue, while the carpet was simply grey, and with the light from the open door blocked by Ciel and Neon, the room looked darker than it need have done.

    As Ciel shut the door after her, she heard footsteps stamping quickly down the stairs.

    "Neon!" Jade Katt cried as she rushed down the stairs. She was roughly of an age with Ciel's own mother, shorter than either Ciel or her own daughter but not by a great deal, with jade green hair cut around her shoulders and big blue eyes set in a round face. A feline tail as green as her hair emerged from underneath her skirt, waggling furiously as she descended into the hallway. "Neon, you're home!"

    Neon smiled. "Hey, Mom."

    Mrs. Katt reached the bottom of the stairs. "Don't you 'hey mom' me, young lady; don't you know how worried I've been about you?! No idea of where you might be, no word on when you'd be back; I called your—" She noticed Ciel, and her expression softened at once. "Oh, hello, Ciel, dear."

    Ciel curtsied. "Mrs. Katt."

    "Oh, please, how many times? Call me Jade; you're old enough now," urged Mrs. Katt. "How's your mother, love? How's your brother?"

    "Alain is responding well to treatment," Ciel said. "Mother is with him at the hospital, more often than not."

    "Of course she is," Mrs. Katt replied. "That's wonderful to hear. I've been lighting candles in the church for him."

    "Your concern is very much appreciated," Ciel said. God and the Lady may not appreciate it, but we certainly do.

    Mrs. Katt smiled warmly. "Thank you for looking for Neon; I felt better already when you told me that you'd go and look for her. I don't suppose you can stay for dinner? I'm making biryani."

    Ciel smiled and bowed her head. "It would be my pleasure, Mrs. Katt."

    "Oh no, it's always my pleasure having you around," Mrs. Katt assured her. The smile slid off her face as her attention returned to Neon. "But as for you—!"

    She grabbed Neon by one ear, dragging her protesting daughter — who, though she might protest, did not meaningfully resist; it was her mother after all — out of the hall and into the living room.

    The carpet was grey in here as well, and the walls the same blue grey, but the large window admitted enough light that it did not seem so dark. A large picture of Neon's late father hung on the wall facing the door, beaming down upon anyone who walked through the door, his portrait garlanded with yellow flowers.

    An icon of the Lady sat on a small table underneath, with candles burning on either side of it.

    In a padded armchair in the corner, beside the window, sat Neon's paternal grandmother, Cerulean Katt, although the cerulean hair for which she had been named had mostly turned to white by now. A pair of cat ears emerged from out of that same hair.

    "Ceru!" Mrs. Katt cried as she dragged Neon inside. "Look at the cat that came back at last!"

    Cerulean's ears twitched. "Neon!" she shouted. "You didn't think to call! Your mother and I have been so worried about you!"

    "I'm sorry, Nana—"

    "I thought that you'd been kidnapped by robots!"

    "That was in Low Town, not Mantle, Nana, and Rainbow Dash and Blake took care of it," Neon said.

    "Or had been taken away by the SDC."

    "Blake and Dashie took care of that too, Nana," Neon said a little wearily.

    "Then where have you been?" demanded Mrs. Katt.

    Ciel looked away, her mouth tightening.

    Neon straightened her arms at her side, not looking at either her mother or grandmother. "I … I … I was … I got arrested."

    There was a moment of absolute silence in the room; as the faces of Jade and Cerulean slid into shock and horror, the beaming smile upon her father's face seemed almost inappropriate.

    "You WHAT?!" they both yelled.

    "Are you trying to throw away your future?!" Mrs. Katt shouted. "After all that I have sacrificed—"

    "And there it is," Neon muttered.

    "What did you say?!"

    "Nothing, Mom, nothing at all!"
     
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