SAPR: Volume 2

[ScipioSmith]

Regrets​

Bon Bon scuffed her foot against the courtyard surface as she and Cardin left the tower, wandering slowly and forlornly back in the direction of school. She folded her arms. "Well… this sucks," she said.

"You have no idea," Cardin muttered. He'd been trying to get hold of Skystar since last night when this broke – since his mother, of all people, had told him that it was breaking – and she wasn't returning his calls, his texts, or his emails. It was… well, it wasn't looking good. Not least because he didn't even know what he was going to say if she did pick up the scroll. Please take me back? I didn't really mean it? That hadn't gone over too well with Professor Ozpin; he could only imagine how it was going to come over with Skystar.

"Yeah, I think I do, actually," Bon Bon replied. "Seeing as how, you know, I'm in this mess as well."

Cardin snorted. "Right, sorry. I mean that. I'm sorry that I got you into this mess."

"It's okay," Bon Bon replied. "I mean, it's not okay, but what I mean is that I got myself into this mess when I vandalised the Sapphire door. You know that this was Sunset again, right?"

"Does it matter who it was?" Cardin asked. "This isn't like what she did to Lyra, where if it came out that she'd done it, everyone would think she was a jackass for it; if it came out that she'd done this, the dining hall would probably give her a round of applause."

Bon Bon sighed. "Unfortunately, yes. Even more unfortunately, we'd deserve it."

"Is that what you think?" Cardin asked. "Because you're not a racist?"

"I'm not!" Bon Bon squawked. "You don't believe me?"

"I'm not sure you can call for wiping out a whole people like that if you really think that saying so makes you a monster," Cardin mused. "Even I was shocked when you said that."

"I didn't mean it!"

"You sounded like you meant it to me, and to Blake too."

"From what I hear, you managed to convince your girlfriend that you didn't hate her faunus in-laws for a while, even though you did."

"I never hated Silverstream and Terramar," Cardin insisted. Terramar… it had been nice to have somebody who looked up to him, who thought that he was cool. Maybe that was selfish, and it was certainly sad as hell, but at the same time… Terramar was a good kid, and Silverstream was just so darn nice that you couldn't dislike her just because she had wings. It was the other faunus, the ones who were all surly and moody all the time like Blake, or who were always staring like Velvet, they were the ones who rubbed him up the wrong way. "Of course, I'm not so sure that they'll believe that."

"Especially not since, Mister 'I was shocked at how awful you are,' you agreed with everything I said."

Cardin frowned. "No, I didn't!"

"Those were your exact words."

Thinking back, Cardin realised with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he might well have uttered the words 'every word she said is true.' Every word. Oh, God help me, Skystar must think… Silverstream and Terramar. "Well, I didn't mean it like that!" he cried. "I was pissed off and speaking… you know, generally. When I said every word, I didn't mean every actual word out of your mouth."

"Unfortunately, that's not how words work," Bon Bon informed him.

Cardin whimpered. "No matter everyone's making such a fuss, they think I'm a… how am I supposed to… oh, God. Everyone's taking it literally, aren't they?"

"Probably, yes," Bon Bon said, not without sympathy. "So," she continued, "what's our next move?"

Cardin's eyes bulged incredulously. "I'm sorry, our next move?"

"Yeah," Bon Bon said. "You know, how do we-?"

"There is no next move!" Cardin snapped. "Were you not in the same office that I was in just then? Did you not listen to the same headmaster that I did? We just got our asses kicked! We are this close to getting tossed out of Beacon on our asses! Now, maybe that doesn't bother you, because you can just transfer to Atlas or something and try again next year, but I actually want to graduate from this school at some point!"

Bon Bon was silent. "You could have thought about that-"

"I never said I was perfect!" Cardin shouted. "The point is… the point is that I'm done. Yes, I don't like a White Fang terrorist being here, yes, I'd like to see her gone, but I don't see that me getting myself expelled is actually going to do her any harm, and it's starting to look as though she's bulletproof, so why don't we just let it go, make the best of it, and hope that everybody forgets what we did sooner rather than later?"

Bon Bon was quiet. She didn't look at him; she just walked along with her arms folded. "I can't let it go," she muttered. "I just… I can't."

Cardin's jaw tightened. He didn't know whether to envy her resolve or pity her stupidity. Both, maybe? Either way, it didn't change his mind; he wasn't going to put what remained of his future on the line just out of some sense of loyalty to her. "I probably shouldn't say this, but… good luck," he said. "I think you'll need it if this is the road you want to go down."

Bon Bon's smile was wan, although Cardin wasn't sure why, because it wasn't like anybody was forcing her to do this, right? She could just give up, like he planned to do for his own good. Instead, she was choosing to keep on putting everything on the line to get at Blake – and for what? – but at the same time, she was acting like she was going to her execution. "Yeah," she said. "Don't I know it."

Cardin didn't know what to say to that – seriously, what was going on with her? – and to be honest, he wasn't interested in finding anything to say, or in saying anything else to Bon Bon either. He started to turn away from her, walking not straight back to the greenhouses, where Plant Science was in session, but towards the lawns in the direction of the docking pads.

"You're not coming back to class?" Bon Bon asked him, gesturing in the right direction.

"Not just yet," Cardin grunted.

"You just got told off, and you're already going to play truant?"

"I'm not ready to go back to class quite yet," Cardin told her irritably. "Just… you go; I'll catch up soon. There's something that I have to do first."

Bon Bon frowned. "How many times have you tried calling her?"

"What are you talking about?"

Bon Bon's eyebrows rose. "Come on, Cardin. Who your girlfriend is and why she'd be mad at you were both part of the article. That was the whole point of the article: First Councillor's daughter dates racist grandson of Lord Chief Justice, remember?"

"Yes, I remember, I've done nothing else but remember," Cardin snapped.

"So," Bon Bon insisted. "How many times have you tried calling her?"

Cardin sighed. "I've lost count."

Bon Bon winced. "Dude, I'm sorry to say this, but… it's over."

Cardin was silent for a moment. "I know," he replied. "But I need to… I have to try. At least… I need to hear her say it."

Bon Bon nodded. "I guess I can get that," she murmured. "For what it's worth… I'm sorry."

"It's not worth much," Cardin replied. "But… thanks anyway."

"Good luck," Bon Bon added, very quietly, as if she didn't expect that he would have any luck, or else maybe she thought that no amount of luck would save him, or maybe she just thought that if she sounded too enthusiastic, he'd think that she was inappropriately happy about all of this. Whatever the truth, she didn't say anything else but finally left him alone and headed off to Plant Science.

Cardin headed in the other way, crossing the empty courtyard as he pulled out his scroll and started flicking through the alerts on his social media feed. It was… not great. Besides the initial story itself… well, it was like Professor Ozpin said, but even worse. Councillor Aspen Emerald had felt the need to publicly insist that Cardin's grandfather was not a racist, but was 'a gentleman of immense courtesy whom I am proud to work alongside for the betterment of Vale'; that endorsement hadn't stopped Sir Orange Peel from calling for Lord Winchester's resignation – which was a bit bloody rich of him, in Cardin's opinion, considering that Peel had been saying things at least as bad as anything Cardin had said since the White Fang had started all their robberies. Councillor Leo Aquas had been a little less supportive of Cardin's father and had ordered an internal inquiry into racism and bullying at the Treasury. There were think pieces about endemic racism in the huntsman academies, former faunus students coming out of the woodwork to talk about how they, too, had been victims of racism… and there was the article that had started it all, about how Skystar was dating a racist and what did her faunus uncle and cousins think about that?

He didn't know, but he suspected that it was nothing good.

He couldn't get Skystar to reply to his messages, but he did have unopened messages from both his parents. He hadn't had the guts to look at what was in them yet.

How had he managed to mess this up so badly? His grandfather facing calls for him to quit – okay, they weren't serious calls, and it probably wasn't going to happen, but that wasn't really the point – maybe his father's job at risk too, all because of him. And Skystar…

He didn't realise how good he had had it until it was starting to look until he didn't have it any more. How had he become so consumed with petty jealousy, with envy of Jaune Arc and Sunset Shimmer, with anger at Blake Belladonna, how had he let all of that stuff get so big that he hadn't realised just how good he had it? Yes, he wasn't the best student at the school, sure, nobody was giving him special favours or opening up doors for him, and he knew that he didn't have one of the best partners in the school and certainly not the partner that he would have chosen, but so what? So what? Did Jaune Arc stay up at night worrying about how much he sucked? No! Because he was dating Pyrrha Nikos, the hottest student in school, and he was grateful for it! The guy was so grateful – and well he might be; she was way out of his league – that he was practically floating three feet off the ground most of the time. Cardin had found it insufferable, but why? It wasn't as though he didn't have anything of his own to be grateful for: an enviable social position as the heir to the Winchester family, an income that was almost sufficient to his needs – a gentleman's income was never quite sufficient – and a girlfriend who adored him.

Why couldn't he have been satisfied with that?

Of course, it had been partly for Skystar that he had tried to do this, but at the same time… she hadn't asked him to, and she certainly hadn't asked him to go about it like this.

When he and Skystar started dating, he had known that his attitudes might cause him problems down the line. That should have been a sign for him to do something about them, but instead, he had acted as though he could live a double life, the asshole at school and the model of tolerance with her.

How had he let it all come to this? How could he possibly have been so stupid?

Was there any way that he could make this right?

He tried to call Skystar again.

The 'ringing' icon rumbled on with no response. The scroll shook a little in Cardin's meaty hands.

Come on, come on. Pick up.

I don't know what I'm going to say but still, pick up, please.

Just talk to me.

"Stop calling me!" Skystar's voice squawked out of the scroll as her image appeared on the screen. Her usually immaculate face was blotchy with tearstains, her nose was running, and her big blue eyes were wet with tears that were still welling up with them. She was dressed, as far as Cardin could tell, in the turquoise dressing gown that he'd gotten her for her last birthday.

He couldn't tell if it was a good sign that she hadn't thrown it out yet or if it was a bad thing that she was so upset that she was still in her dressing gown at ten-thirty in the morning.

"Skystar," Cardin begged. "Please, just listen for a minute-"

"'Listen'?" Skystar cried. "Listen to you? Why, so you can lie to me some more?"

"Is that Cardin?" Silverstream's voice echoed out of the scroll from somewhere off screen.

Silverstream was there. Of course Silverstream was there, with Skystar in that state. He really should have seen this coming.

And yet, he was not prepared at all.

Skystar sniffed. "Yes," she said.

"Tell him for me that he's a big stupid jerk!" Silverstream screamed. "Actually, I'll tell him myself!" She elbowed her way into the frame, her violet eyes blazing with anger. "You're a big stupid jerk, Cardin Winchester!"

"If you'll just both let me explain-" Cardin began.

"What is there to explain?" Silverstream demanded. "Are you going to tell me that I should be grateful that you haven't murdered me already like you want to?"

"I don't want to kill you, or Terramar, or any other faunus; I was angry, and I didn't think about what I was saying," Cardin insisted.

"Should I be grateful that you don't want to kill me?"

"No!" Cardin yelled. "Please, whatever I said in there… I've never thought about you or your brother that way. You and Terramar, you're not like other faunus-"

"Cardin!" Skystar exclaimed. "That's a terrible thing to say!"

If he'd been speaking to someone else, Cardin would have asked why, exactly, it was such a terrible thing to say. He might have asked why it became a crime to say that water was wet. Some faunus – a lot of faunus – were not good people; they were cunning and conniving, callous and cruel; look at Sunset Shimmer for example, look at the White Fang. It wasn't wrong to say any of that just because it hurt some people's feelings, and it wasn't wrong to have negative feelings towards them because of the way that they behaved. Was it wrong to have negative feelings towards criminals?

None of that, however, was likely to get him back into Skystar's good books, and so Cardin showed a little wisdom – if only he could have started showing it sooner – and did not say it. Instead, he said, "I did this for you, Skystar."

"What?" Skystar and Silverstream both cried out at once, and both in the same tone of disbelief.

"Blake Belladonna is a dangerous criminal, you know that as well as I do," Cardin explained. "Your mom was worried that you'd be in danger if you came up to school with her around, so I tried to take care of it."

"Mom didn't mean for you to say things like that," Skystar insisted. "She would never mean that." She wiped at her eyes in a futile gesture since more tears simply welled up there immediately after she was done. "Cardin, I… I thought that I knew who you were."

"You do know who I am," Cardin insisted. "You know exactly who I am."

"No, I don't!" Skystar said. "It turns out that there's this whole other side to you that I never knew existed. You must think that I'm such an idiot."

"I've never thought that."

"Really?" Skystar demanded. "All that time that you were lying to me, hiding what you really thought, pretending to be someone else."

"I never pretended," Cardin said, softly, desperately. "I never… it's true that I act in a different way when I'm at school than I do when I'm with you, but that… that's the act, the me at Beacon. When I'm with you… that's the real Cardin Winchester."

Skystar sniffed. "I wish I could believe that," she whispered.

"You can believe it," Cardin declared. "What can I do to show you that you can believe it?"

"I don't know," Skystar said. "I don't know if there's anything that you can do, or anything that you can say. I thought I knew you. And I thought that you knew me too. I thought you knew that my family means everything to me. I thought you knew how much I love them."

"I do know that."

"And that's why you lied and pretended not to hate us?" Silverstream demanded accusingly.

"That… that's not what happened; that's not what I was doing."

"Cardin," Skystar said. "Do you believe that the faunus are the equals of humans?"

Cardin was silent for a moment. He couldn't lie, not to her, not any more, not like this. "Not all of them."

Silverstream growled wordlessly.

Skystar shut her eyes, cringing visibly on the other side of the scroll. "Cardin," she moaned. "I can't believe that you would-"

"Please, Skystar, don't say any more," Cardin begged. "Please, I… I'll do anything. I know that I'm not perfect, but if this means so much to you, then I'll fix it. I can change. Give me a chance to prove to you that I can change, that I can be better, that I can… that I can move past this. Don't… don't let this be the end of it. I know that I shouldn't have lied to you, but the reason I did it was because… because you mean so much to me. Because I knew that you would never look at someone who thought the way that I did, no matter what our families wanted. Because… because you mean so much to me, Skystar. Because… because I love you."

"I believed you did," Skystar whispered. "Just like I believe that… that you were one person who would never hurt me, ever. But that wasn't true either. I don't know what was true and what was a lie, but I do know that I can't trust you. Goodbye, Cardin, don't call me again."

"Skystar, wait-" Cardin cried, but it was too late. She had already hung up on him.

He called again. The scroll rang for a moment, and then a red exclamation mark flashed up on the screen informing him that he had been blocked by that number.

Cardin closed his eyes. He couldn't muster any anger or upset towards Skystar, or Silverstream. He deserved that. He didn't like it, not one bit, but he deserved it.

That didn't make him feel any less hollow inside. It was like he had been gutted, and everything ripped out of him. Everything good, anyway.

And it was all his fault. It was all, absolutely, his fault.

There were no tears. He didn't shout or scream. He just stared down at the now-blank scroll in his hands that did not even shake. What was he supposed to do now?

What was he supposed to do?

He was supposed to go to class now, but he didn't feel like it. He didn't know how he was supposed to attend lessons, pay attention to his teachers, take notes on things that didn't matter in the slightest any more. What was Plant Science when the light had gone out of the world?

With heavy, slow, ponderous, and solemn tread, Cardin made his way back towards the dorm rooms. He didn't actually return to his room, although he thought about it; he wanted nothing more than to lie on his bed with his head on the pillow, doing nothing, thinking nothing, becoming nothing. He wanted to sleep until this was all past, like the memory of a dream. He wanted to wake up in bed and find that it was all a dream and had been from the first, that he hadn't endangered his future and his family, that he hadn't lost Skystar. He wanted to wake up and find that this had all been some sort of cautionary tale, to teach him to appreciate what he had and make the best of it.

But, since he knew perfectly well that this was nothing of the sort, he did not go back to the dorm room; that would be the first place he would be looked for, after all. Instead, he went to the second place he would be looked for, the roof above the dorm, and lay spread out on the roof next to the pipes.

He was still lying there, some time later – he didn't know exactly how long – when he heard Weiss' voice calling in the dorm room down below.

"Cardin?"

She didn't sound as irritated as he'd expected her to be – irritated, sure, but not apoplectic, which was a surprise all things considered.

"Cardin," Weiss repeated, a moment before a squeak of alarm. There was a moment of silence, and then Weiss appeared, leaping nimbly from one glowing white glyph to another before jumping onto the roof itself. From the way that she flicked at her slightly frizzled bangs with one hand, he guessed that she'd tried to climb up onto the roof and lost her footing.

Lucky she had such a useful semblance.

"There you are," Weiss said, looking down on him. Somehow, she always managed to look down on him, even though she was half his size.

Cardin rolled onto his side. "What do you want?"

"I want you to come to class," Weiss told him. "If I don't bring you back, we'll both be in trouble."

Of course that was why she was here. "I don't feel like classes right now."

"That's unfortunate, considering this is a school," Weiss remarked dryly.

"Yeah, it's really unlucky," Cardin muttered. "Listen, I don't feel like being yelled at right now-"

"That's better, because I'm not here to yell at you," Weiss informed him. There was a moment of silence before he heard her sigh. "Ugh. Listen, we're probably both going to get into even more trouble at this point anyway, so let's just… I'm sorry, Cardin."

Cardin blinked. He rolled back over so that he could see Weiss sitting on a pipe beside him; weirdly, it didn't look as though she was mocking him. "You're sorry?"

Weiss sighed, and looked away. "Please don't ask me to repeat myself."

"I just… of all the things that I expected to hear today, that wasn't one of them."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Have you managed to get Skystar to answer you yet?"

Now it was Cardin's turn to sigh. "Once," he confessed. "Before she blocked my number."

Weiss winced. "I'm sorry for that," she pointed out. "And for… everything else besides. It's over, then?"

"It looks like it," Cardin muttered. "Unless you know a way that I can get her to take me back. Show her that I've changed."

"Have you changed?" Weiss asked.

"You don't think I can?" Cardin demanded, starting to sit up.

"I think that we can all change, thank goodness," Weiss replied. "But I'm not sure that we can all change that fast." She paused, her brow momentarily furrowing. "I'm also sorry that I allowed things to reach this point."

"You don't tell me what to do."

"No, I don't; that's the problem," Weiss said. "I've never been a good leader. For the most part, I've barely even tried to lead. I resented the fact that you were on my team, and I never sought to make us more than very reluctant teammates. It's little wonder that we haven't been assigned a training mission yet."

"It's still early."

"Iron and Sapphire both got a mission in the first week of semester," Weiss pointed out. "The divide between the teams that are considered likely to succeed and those that are not trusted by the faculty is quite clear. Made even worse by the fact that I can't really blame them. In Professor Ozpin or Professor Goodwitch's place, I'm not sure that I would trust us either. And, while this probably hasn't helped in that regard, as your leader, I shouldn't have let things get that far."

"Do you really think that you could have stopped me?"

"I think that I ought to have tried," Weiss replied. "Why did you do it?"

"Not because I'm an advocate of faunus genocide," Cardin declared. "And I don't think Bon Bon is, either."

"I don't care about Bon Bon," Weiss said quickly. "As far as I'm concerned, this is partly her fault."

"I went to her," Cardin informed Weiss. "I saw that she was… well, you know what Sunset did to Lyra-"

"Someone did that to Lyra," Weiss corrected him.

"Oh, come on, who else would have done something like that?"

"I'm not interested in throwing blame around without proof," Weiss told him, "and I don't think that you're in any position to be holding grudges."

Cardin snorted. "Believe me, I'm done with revenge."

"Good," Weiss said. "And you're done with Bon Bon too. You may have had the idea, but she didn't tell you what a bad idea it was, which means that she isn't good for you to be around. You still haven't told me why you did it."

Cardin did sit up now, and shrugged his shoulders. "It's like the headmaster said, the plan was to goad Blake into crossing the line."

"Why?"

"Because she's White Fang!" Cardin snapped. "I know, I know, you believe in second chances."

"Luckily for you, yes," Weiss said, as a touch of frost entered her voice.

"Is it really so hard to believe that a reasonable person could think that a former terrorist isn't the best person to have around?" Cardin demanded. "Is it really so hard to think that I might not be overreacting just because of Blake's race?"

Weiss was silent for a moment. She clasped her hands together and looked down at them for a moment. "Who raised you, Cardin?"

Cardin frowned. "What the hell kind of question is that?"

"Just answer it," Weiss said. "Please."

"I was raised by my mother; who do you think?"

"She had time?"

"What else was she going to do?"

Weiss sighed. "That explains so much." She shook her head. "I'm sorry, that was… not particularly called for. The point is that you had a stay-at-home mother to care for and look after you. That… was she a good mother?"

"She was the best," Cardin said. "If I didn't turn out perfect, that's my fault, not hers."

"Then you are very fortunate," Weiss said, "to have been raised by someone who loved you without-" She cut herself off, abruptly and with a look upon her pale face that approached shame. When she continued, it was from somewhere else. "I was raised by my family's retainers," she informed him. "My father was preoccupied with the affairs of the company, as you can imagine, and my mother… had her own distractions. My care, as well as that of my sister and brother, fell to the staff. In particular, my father's butler, Klein Sieben, and my mother's nanny, Laberna Seacole. Laberna, Miss Seacole as I suppose I ought to say, had looked after my mother when she was a girl, had stayed on in her employ, and then looked after my mother's children when we came along. Until my father dismissed her as the White Fang began to turn violent."

Cardin's eyes narrowed. "So, she was a faunus?"

"Yes," Weiss said softly. "She was. More importantly, she spent more time with us than she did with her own family; she was there for us more than our own family… and yet, once the White Fang started to turn violent, father showed her the door. And no reasonable person would say that he was overreacting."

Cardin frowned. "What happened to her?"

"I have no idea," Weiss murmured. "I've sometimes thought about tracking her down, seeing how she's doing now, but… what would I say? How would I even begin to make up for what my father did? Would she even want to have anything to do with me? After all, she was paid to care about me before; she'd be under no such obligation now."

Cardin was silent for a moment. "Look, that's… your old man should have had more loyalty to someone who'd been with the family for so long, sure." His own family did not have many servants – it was just too expensive to keep them in the modern day and age, not to mention the fact that not a lot of people actually wanted to work in service these days, and with so many modern conveniences and technological advances, there wasn't a lot of need for them anyway – but they did have a housekeeper, and when old Mrs. Byrd had gotten too old to carry out her duties, Father had found her a sinecure in the Treasury. She was nominally employed as Chief Messenger, with the tacit understanding that she would never be required to carry any messages. "But throwing her out just because she's a faunus isn't the same thing as an actual White Fang terrorist!"

"Former terrorist."

"You say that, but it's not as if you're eager to become buddies with her."

Weiss exhaled through her nose. "That… is true. Blake and I are not friends, and I'm not sure if we will ever become friends. But you don't have to befriend her either; you just need to curb your hostility towards her."

"Consider it curbed."

"Not just because you've suffered from your attempts at… whatever it is you were attempting," Weiss informed him.

"So you are asking me to like her."

"I'm asking you… I'm asking you why you want to become a huntsman."

"Huh?"

"Humour me," Weiss said. "You could have chosen to enter politics, law, or the Civil Service like your family."

"I still might go into politics when I get older."

"So being a huntsman is about what?" Weiss asked. "Raising your profile so that you can say that you've fought for Vale to make yourself more electable?"

"No," Cardin said quickly. "If that was all it was, I'd join the Royal Navy and serve out the minimum term in a position that guaranteed I'd never see combat. I want to become a huntsman because I want to see some action. I want to get stuck in, you know, against the grimm; I want to get stuck in for Vale. I want to have cool stories that I can bore my grandchildren with." Though who I'm going to have children with now is something I don't know. "I guess that I want… that I want people to hear those stories and think how brave I was, to go out and fight like that. I wanted people to think that I was cool." And they did: Terramar and Skystar. And I just had to blow it because I'm a dumbass.

He was a little surprised that Weiss didn't laugh, or call him pathetic, or give any sign that she found his paltry ambitions to be laughable. Instead, she stood up and turned her back to him, raising one foot and placing it on the pipe which she had previously been sitting on. "I want to restore my family's reputation," she declared.

Cardin, likewise, rose to his feet. "Your family's reputation," he repeated. "The Schnee family's reputation is-"

"One of rampant profiteering and a dubious regard for labour safety," Weiss said, cutting him off. "But it wasn't always thus. You know that my grandfather was known as much for his courage as he was for his business acumen. When he died, Councillor Bradley called him a model of Atlesian valour and an exemplar of the spirit that had made our kingdom great once more. It's hard to imagine anyone saying anything like that about my father… and I don't know if anyone will care enough to say anything like that about me when my time comes, but… but if I can make it so that it's at least possible that someone could say that with a straight face? Well, then that will be enough for me. I don't have to renew the glory of the Schnee name, but I should very much like to renew its honour." She turned around to face Cardin once again. "I don't know if I have it in me to become a great leader like my grandfather, but I think – I hope – that I can become a better leader than I have been so far." She smiled. "So, do you think that we can start over? I think… I think it might be the only way that either of our dreams can come true." She held out one hand to him. "I'm Weiss Schnee."

Cardin looked down at her small, pale hand. Start over? Wasn't it a little late for that?

Maybe, but at the same time, she was right: if they kept on as they were – if he kept on as he was – then there was no way that he was going to make it to graduation.

He had asked Skystar to let him prove that he could change. She wasn't willing to give him the chance… but maybe if he changed first, then she might be willing to take another look.

And if she didn't? Maybe just changing would be worthwhile. It wasn't as if being himself had done him many favours.

"I am not holding you back. Pyrrha isn't holding me back, Ruby isn't holding me back, Cadance- no one holds us back but us. If we have been deceived, it's by our blindness to our natures. If we have been restrained, it is by our unworthy hearts. But we can change, Cardin. Our hearts can mend, our souls can grow. I have to believe that we need not be these small and ugly things forever, or else... destiny is not beyond us, if only we can... there are lights that we can follow."

That had been what Sunset had said to him, in the forest. At the time, he hadn't understood what she was talking about; it seemed like nothing more than a bunch of nonsense, words spewed out without any meaning. But afterwards… afterwards, it was like she'd turned her life around, and look at her now: successful and loved by everyone.

If she could do it, then maybe he could do the same?

It couldn't hurt to try, right?

He took her hand. "Cardin Winchester," he said. "Good to meet you."

 

[ScipioSmith]

Two Lessons​

The BLBL dorm room was silent. And not the pleasant, comfortable kind of silent either. No, that would have been too lucky for Bon Bon, formerly known as Sweetie Drops. No, this was the kind of silence that felt like, if it were to be shattered, the shards would cut someone.

Bon Bon sat on her bed, resting her elbows on her knees, looking down at the plaid skirt of her Beacon uniform. She was very deliberately not looking at any of her teammates: not at Sky, not at Dove, and certainly not at Lyra.

She didn't need to look at Lyra to know the expression on her face. Sunset might have humiliated Lyra in front of the rest of the school, but Bon Bon knew her well enough to know that Bon Bon's actions had hit her far harder.

That was why she didn't want to look; no, she couldn't look.

And this is just a drop in the bucket; what's she going to think when she finds out what I really am?

Maybe I can argue incompetence? I never succeeded at anything I tried, so it doesn't matter?

…yeah, I'm not sure that's going to cut it.

Not to mention the fact that if I don't start succeeding at something, I'm probably going to die.

That was another issue weighing on her mind. While Doctor Watts might be a forgiving sort – might be; he had seemed genial enough in her youth, but that was before she found out more about his true colours – her new boss did not give quite the same impression. Mind you, Bon Bon wouldn't have expected her to give some of the orders that she'd issued to Bon Bon lately, so really, who was to say? Bon Bon's initial read on her seemed to have missed a few things.

That still didn't make her safe, though. So far, Bon Bon's record in fulfilling her mission was… pretty abysmal. She'd failed abjectly to get close to Pyrrha Nikos, or anyone of any relevance whatsoever; she was the leader of what was emphatically the D-team, and the only reason she wasn't beneath the notice of everyone was because of what she'd done to Blake. The only things that she'd managed to find out were common knowledge. It was… not a great track record; in fact, it was the kind of track record that could very easily end with someone finding her body in a ditch somewhere.

And now she had this. This thing, this new revenge by Sunset Shimmer – Bon Bon had no doubt whatsoever that it was her; it was right up her tricksy alleyway – that had brought down new troubles upon her head.

The dorm room had been her sanctuary. The team had been her sanctuary. No matter how hated she was by Blake's friends, no matter how badly she was doing in her mission, no matter how badly she seemed to be doing in school, her team, her friends, would always be there for her: Lyra, who had been by her side since Canterlot; Sky, who was game for just about anything; Dove, who had seemed like a part of the team long before he actually joined it officially.

They were her rock and her balm, and now both those things were under threat.

How did I let it come to this?

She knew how: she had followed her instructions. But what instructions! What sense did they make? What was the point of it all? She wondered if the only point was to land her in this trouble, to take away the one thing that she could rely on, to punish her for her incompetence.

If it was so, she felt appropriately chastised, and punished far more than she deserved.

Just because she had yet to notch up a notable success didn't mean that she deserved to have the only good things in her life right now taken away, did it?

Bon Bon found that her breathing was growing heavier. She needed some way to explain this. She needed some way to make it seem okay. She needed some way to make herself not look like a monster.

She needed an excuse, since she couldn't exactly deploy the truth as a defence.

She needed someone to say something and give her some sign of where she stood with them all.

Of course, she also feared what they might say because it would give her an indication of where she stood with them all.

"So," Sky said, breaking the silence, "are we just not going to talk about the fact that you're a genocidal sociopath?"

"I'm not a sociopath," Bon Bon moaned. "I'm not even genocidal. Wait, no, I didn't mean to say it like that; I mean I'm not genocidal; I do not support genocide in any way, shape or form." At least I hope I don't.

"Then why did you say it?" Lyra demanded, her voice sharper than her sword seemed most of the time.

Bon Bon ventured to look up at her. "I did this-"

"No!" Lyra snapped. "No, Bon Bon, you are not going to say that you did this for me. I never asked you to do this. I never asked for anything like this! I didn't ask you to paint Team Sapphire's door, and I certainly didn't ask you to out yourself as a racist! Have you always felt that way? The entire time we went through Canterlot, were you hoping for Rainbow Dash to die? Or Ditzy? Were you just pretending to be cool with faunus all those years?"

"I am cool with faunus," Bon Bon insisted. "And I never wanted Rainbow or Ditzy to die, or at least not just because they were faunus. I said those things to get a rise out of Blake!" She spread her arms out wide in exasperation. "I was acting! Why is that so hard for everyone to believe? Do you all really think that I… that I get off on the idea of mass murder or something? Just because of one thing that I said? Lyra, you've known me for years; do you really think that I could pretend to be someone else so seamlessly for all that time?"

Lyra frowned. "I… I don't want to think that," she said softly. "And… I guess you've never done anything racist before, at least not before the truth about Blake came out."

"The thing with Blake has nothing to do with race," Bon Bon vowed.

"Then what does it have to do with?" Lyra demanded.

Envy. The truth of the matter was that Bon Bon really didn't like Blake, and while she was acting on orders, the fact of the matter was that there were times when she came very close to hating the catgirl, just not because she was a catgirl. No, Bon Bon hated Blake because of how infuriatingly lucky she was. Here was a terrorist, a former member of the White Fang, someone who had killed people, someone who had waged war against humanity, someone who had – until recently – been an enemy of mankind in every sense of the word. Someone who deserved to rot in jail for what she'd done. And yet, because she mouthed a few pieties about being sorry and regretting it and all that kind of stuff, people thronged about her, lined up to do her favours, showered her with love and praise. Rainbow Dash had used her precious influence with General Ironwood to extend the wing of Atlesian protection over her; Sunset Shimmer, the most self-centred person that Bon Bon had ever met, had put herself out to join with Rainbow in getting her out of prison and accepted back at Beacon; Team Sapphire had accommodated her in their room; Team Iron had accommodated her in their team; Dove, who was supposed to be Bon Bon and Lyra's friend, had exchanged one of the best teams in the school for one of the worst in order to make room for Blake. Sunset had been willing to risk her reputation by resurrecting Anon-a-Miss to avenge a slight on Blake, of all people. Everyone loved Blake, everyone showered her with affection; the word was that she'd been offered the chance to transfer to Atlas at year's end. Everything that she had done, every sin that she had committed, all forgotten.

And for what? What did she have that made her so awesome? She'd been a rotten team leader, she'd never shown any sign of giving a damn about anybody but herself, she either said nothing or else stuck her foot in her mouth, she didn't look before she leapt, so why were so many people – people who ought to have known better – so enamoured with her?

And what stuck in Bon Bon's craw, what made her burn with envious rage at all the good things that had been bestowed on Blake, was the scratching sense in the back of her mind that if her own, comparatively minor, offences came to light, there would be no flood of people willing to forgive, coddle, and accommodate her for what she'd done – and she'd barely done anything!

Case in point: right now! Blake had committed murders! She had cut down men and women serving Atlas and the SDC and for these horrors, Atlas sought her services, but Bon Bon had said a few ill-judged words, and yet, she was the most monstrous creature to ever draw breath, a plague carrier who had to be shunned by all good and virtuous folk. So much for tolerance, indeed.

"It has to do with the fact that she's lucky," Bon Bon declared. "It has to do with the fact that she has been handed everything, in spite of what she is – a terrorist – and everything she's done. It has to do with the fact that I'm the bad guy for a few words when she is the reason why some poor kid doesn't have a father any more. It has to do with -- you know what this has to do with? -- it has to do with the fact that she's a bully. She's a bully with a persecution complex, and I can't stand it! Me and Cardin, were we bullying her? Two Atlesian students came to her aid and threatened to beat us up if we didn't make ourselves scarce, in our own laundry room! She's got General Ironwood and the Ace of Canterlot in her corner, and Sunset Shimmer lashing out on her behalf so that she doesn't have to get her fair hands dirty. She plays the victim, acts like a few words are an assault on the sanctity of her person, and meanwhile, what do you think she did in the White Fang? She picked on people who were weaker than she was: shopkeepers, security guards, ordinary people just trying to get by. People who weren't going to fight back against someone trained to huntress proficiency. Just people, like Granny Smith or the Cakes. She picked on them because they couldn't stand up to her, because she could. But sure, she's the victim in all of this, poor Blake. It makes me sick. I hate her – fine, I admit that – but I'm not a racist; I can get along with other faunus just fine. I only said the things I said because I knew it would push her buttons."

"And you wanted to push her buttons because…?" Sky trailed off invitingly.

Bon Bon twisted her body around. "Isn't it obvious?" she asked. "I wanted her to take a swing at me or Cardin so I could get her into trouble.

Sky was leaning against the wall of the dorm room. "Even though, with all the institutional support you've just described, didn't it occur to you that something like that would slide off her like water? I mean, do you think anyone would care if she punched you after you insulted her like that?"

"Rainbow Dash wouldn't care," Lyra murmured. "After you said that, she'd probably cheer Blake on."

"She would have cheered Blake on before I said that, because it's Blake," Bon Bon muttered.

"You're overreacting to this," Lyra insisted.

"She's become Blake's acolyte, and in the meantime, she acts like she doesn't know us at all," Bon-Bon protested.

"She'd probably rather that she didn't know you after what you said in the laundry room," Lyra declared.

"That still doesn't answer my question," Sky reminded them. "Why did you think you could get rid of someone who, and I want to point out again that you just proved you know damn well how many friends she has, is at the centre of such a wide and formidable network? Did you really think that a few petty incidents of harassment were going to make Beacon too hot for her?"

Bon Bon wouldn't claim to know what was going on inside the mind of her dear leader, but she was starting to think that it wasn't really about Blake at all anymore. It had started out as being about Blake, Bon Bon had been ordered to pass on the footage to the VPD in order to get Blake arrested so that she'd stop interfering in the operations of the White Fang, but now? Now, Bon Bon had begun to think that all of this wasn't about Blake so much as it was about making Sunset Shimmer mad. Of course, Bon Bon wasn't sure why Sunset needed to be enraged – still less enraged at Bon Bon – but it was about the only thing that made sense at this point.

For a given value of sense, anyway.

She sighed, and she didn't even have to fake it; she genuinely felt exhausted by all of this. "Someone had to do something," she said feebly.

"You did something, alright," Sky muttered. "You ruined your own life. And ours, for that matter."

"Sky, that's enough," Lyra whispered.

"You do realise that we're all tarred by association at this point?" Sky asked her. "Our lives aren't going to be worth living in this school. It doesn't help that your defence is, like, the worst defence in the history of defences."

"That's enough," Lyra said, more in weariness than in annoyances. "It'll be rough for a while, but it'll blow over. These things always do. Remember Anon-a-Miss? After a while, it just became something that had happened."

Bon Bon hesitated. "So… we're good?"

"Well, I think you're an idiot," Lyra said. "Which is a new thing for me, feeling like the smart one." She grinned. "Seriously, you shouldn't have done any of this stuff. I'm just glad you didn't do it to try and avenge me or something, because then, I would have felt guilty."

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. "I'm glad I could help."

"I think it's a little disturbing how vindictive you've been," Sky admitted. "But I'm glad that you're not… what you sounded like."

"Then you believe me?" asked Bon-Bon pleadingly.

"Don't sound so happy about it," Sky told her. "But, yes, I believe you. You're our team leader, and I'm not going to turn on you just because you made a mistake."

Bon Bon started to smile, but the smile faded as she remembered that she hadn't shown Blake the same loyalty; she wondered if Sky was commenting on that, but didn't quite have the heart to ask. He might think that she was a hypocrite, but at least he had her back still; that was the main thing. She looked at Dove, who had remained silent throughout, not a word passing his lips.

"You've been very quiet," she said. "What do you think about all this?"

"I'm new here," Dove said. "It doesn't matter what I think."

"That's not true," Bon Bon said firmly. "You're our friend, you've been our friend since the year began, and what you have to say matters to us. It matters to me."

Nevertheless, Dove held his piece. "I… I could believe that you meant those things you said."

Bon Bon's eyebrows rose. Maybe I should have known better than to ask. "Right… thanks," she muttered dryly.

"Do you two remember what a hayseed I was when I first got here?" Dove demanded, gesturing to both Bon Bon and Lyra from where he sat on his bed. "I'd never seen a faunus before I came to Beacon. I thought they were… I thought they were the strangest things I'd ever seen. Sunset really tore into me when she caught me staring at her pony ears at lunch on the first day of class. No faunus ever came to our village, which meant that the White Fang never came there either. I'd never even heard of the White Fang, and when I did… it's horrible, and it's the sort of thing that huntsmen should be fighting against, but at the same time… it wasn't something that I'd had to endure. Not like you two, in Atlas, or even Sky. I know that prejudice is wrong, and I know that as huntsmen and huntresses, we probably have a duty to stand against hatred and ignorance, but at the same time… if I'd had to live under the shadow of the White Fang, I don't think I can say that I wouldn't have started to feel… you know. And, thinking about what you said… I see where you're coming from. A huntsman of Beacon swears that his might will uphold the weak, but so many of our fellow students seem ranged around the strong."

"Did you miss the part where Bon Bon said she wasn't really a racist?" Sky asked.

"I heard," Dove said quietly. "And I'm glad that you don't want to kill everyone just because of how they're born. But I understand a little better now why you don't like Blake. Thank you, for sharing that with us, for trusting us with it."

"You're not going to do anything stupid, are you?" Bon Bon asked.

"You're asking that?" Sky demanded. "You, of all people?"

"I'm allowed to not want Dove to follow in my footsteps," Bon Bon replied. "Seriously, don't do anything about Blake; you'll regret it."

"I won't," Dove assured her. "I can see why you feel the way you do, but at the same time, I also trust… not Professor Ozpin, maybe, but I do trust our teachers. We've been put under our care because they've proven themselves worthy of that charge, and we have to respect that. If they think Blake deserves a place here, then I'm not going to disagree with them."

"Why don't you trust Professor Ozpin?" Sky asked.

Dove shook his head. "It's too long a story, and I'm not going to tell it now. The point is, you don't have to worry, I might see your point about Blake, but I'm not going to act on it. And I'm not going to turn away from you because of some words said in anger. I'm a member of Team Bluebell, your teammate, and your friend." He smiled. "You could say and do much worse, and you wouldn't be rid of me. I… I am at your service, in war and peace."

Bon Bon felt a little sickly to hear him say that; he had no idea what he was saying, what he might be getting himself into… and yet, there was a part of her which thought that he would say the same thing even if he did know, because that was the kind of person he was. She forced a smile onto her face. "You've got to start talking less like the girl from that book you gave to Ruby."

"Olivia? I wasn't talking like Olivia," Dove protested. "If I was talking like Olivia, I would say this." He rose to his feet, only to drop to one knee in front of her. "I know not the events that lie ahead, only a general foreboding of many storms of war to break upon our heads, yet not from fear of any thunderous clamour shall I break with thee. Verily, I say that not for honour nor renown would I be parted from you, because I-"

"Oh, stop it!" Bon Bon said, hitting him with a pillow snatched from atop her bed. "I get the point," she added as Sky sniggered.

Dove bowed to her as he rose to his feet. "There is something that we need to discuss," he said. "If you're sure that Sunset did this-"

"I'm sure," Bon Bon declared.

"Then shall I tell Pyrrha that our agreement is void?" Dove asked, glancing from Bon Bon to Lyra. "It… there is a part of me that thinks it doesn't seem right to associate with them after what their leader has done to you."

Lyra frowned. "That's just guilt by association, isn't it? As bad as… well, it isn't right."

"Or do you just want to learn from Pyrrha Nikos?" Bon Bon asked.

"Do you want me not to?" Lyra asked. "If you don't want me to, then-"

"No," Bon Bon said. "It's fine. Like you said, it isn't Pyrrha's fault or Jaune's. Go, both of you. Have fun. Or learn lots, or whatever. Don't worry about me."

Let me worry about me.

And whatever I'll be asked to do next.

XxXxX​

The sword flew out of Lyra's hand and hit the stony ground with a metallic clang.

Lyra sighed dispiritedly. "Great," she murmured. "Perfect."

"I'm sorry," Pyrrha apologized. "I should have-"

"Held back even more?" Lyra asked. "Don't pretend that you weren't holding back."

"Of course I was," Pyrrha replied mildly. "Do you think that I don't hold back when I'm with Jaune? Exerting all my strength against you might inflate my ego, but it will not help either of you to learn; it wasn't my intention to discourage you."

Lyra exhaled through her nostrils. "Maybe it wasn't," she said, leaving it unspoken but implicit that Pyrrha had managed to do exactly that regardless.

Pyrrha's arms fell, letting Miló and Akoúo̱ fall to her sides. They stood before the garages, bathed in moonlight, alone and unobserved; no one was taking their vehicles out for a spin on a school night. "Do you want to be a huntress?"

"Yes," Lyra replied immediately. "I'd like to be a great huntress."

"If that is so, then you shouldn't give up so easily."

Lyra bent down to recover her sword. "Why not?"

"Because if you do, then you will never become a great huntress," Pyrrha told her. "Or even a good one."

Lyra scowled. "What if I can't? What if Professor Goodwitch was just full of it when she said that those at the bottom could climb up and those at the top could fall? I've not seen much sign of it."

"Then you haven't been paying enough attention," Pyrrha said softly.

Lyra was silent for a moment. "I guess Jaune has been getting better," she conceded. "What's his secret?"

"He works hard," Pyrrha summarized.

Lyra winced. "Point taken," she said, twirling her sword experimentally in her hands. "All the same, he's not improving that much; does he ever wonder what the point is?"

"Sometimes," Pyrrha admitted. "That's why I asked Dove to help him tonight, so that he can see how much progress he's making against someone closer to his own level."

"While still being above it," Lyra declared. "You might disagree, but I don't think that he'll catch up to Dove, even if Dove is closer to him in skill than either of them are to you. Dove works hard himself, and he's stronger than he looks."

"So is Jaune," Pyrrha said.

Lyra smiled. "I don't suppose you'd like to bet on it."

"No, I'm afraid I wouldn't," Pyrrha said. "Jaune… might not appreciate it if he found out."

"Suit yourself," Lyra replied. "Dove might not like it either; I don't think he'd approve of gambling, so I probably shouldn't." She hesitated. "But all the same, I hope that Jaune doesn't surpass him."

"For the pride of Team Bluebell?" Pyrrha guessed.

"I suppose so," Lyra acknowledged. "But not just in the bragging rights sense. But there's a line between the chosen and the rest, and I think that I'd like to know that at least one member of our team was on the chosen side of the line."

Pyrrha's brow furrowed. "Do you really believe that?"

"Don't you?" asked Lyra in disbelief.

"You say that like I should."

"Because you ought to," Lyra said. "You're the princess of Mistral-"

"No, I'm not," Pyrrha told her. "Even my epithet remembers that I have no crown, and it's not a name that I'm particularly fond of in any case." If she had to be called something other than Pyrrha Nikos, then she would rather be the Invincible Girl than the Princess Without a Crown; the former name, at least, she had earned by her own skill in the arena; the latter was the result of nothing more than birth.

"You're the heir to the throne-"

"The throne is empty; Mistral has no Emperor now."

"You are living proof that some people are just born better than others," Lyra continued, unabated. "What are the odds that the last scion of the royal line would also become the Champion of Mistral? Not only the rightful inheritor of the kingdom, but also its greatest warrior too."

"That is just a title, not a truth," Pyrrha informed her. "And a title, what is more, for which I worked very hard to overcome some very challenging adversaries. I wasn't handed those trophies because of who I was."

"Don't Mistralians believe that those of high blood, with a family history of great and noble deeds, inherit the virtue of their ancestors?" Lyra asked. "The history and honour of the city passed down through generations?"

"That… is an old-fashioned belief," Pyrrha said. "But I suppose… I cannot deny that I feel something like it. For me, though, it is less of an entitlement than an obligation, to honour the line of my ancestors by doing as they did, taking up arms in a noble cause, fighting valiantly, defending those who shelter beneath my sword as a shepherd defends their flock. But it is still my choice. My… inherited virtue, if you wish; it inspires me, but it does not command me. And I do not believe that it makes me… it does not make me skilled."

"No?"

"No," Pyrrha repeated firmly. "Or else why is my closest rival in the arena a girl of no family, born in poverty, on the lower slopes of the mountain, who nevertheless has attained fame and glory and enviable prowess all through nothing but toil and sweat? Arslan is… far more admirable than I am, a better role model, an example to follow. If I discourage you by my mere existence, then look to her to be encouraged once again." She paused. "It is unusual to hear an Atlesian talk of inherited virtue in that way."

The corner of Lyra's lip twitched upwards. "I sometimes wish that I'd been born a Mistralian instead of an Atlesian," she confessed. "Heresy, I know; Rainbow Dash would freak out if she heard me say it."

Pyrrha smiled momentarily. "She loves her country very much."

"A little too much, don't you think?" Lyra asked.

"I… I'm not sure that it's possible to love too much," Pyrrha replied. "Whether we talk of love of country or of people. Love is such a gift, with the power to change, if not the world, then how the world appears to us. Is it ever possible to have too much of it?"

"I think it depends on how that love is returned," Lyra said. "If Jaune didn't give a damn about you, then yes, you could love him too much, and easily."

"You think that Atlas… doesn't love Rainbow back?"

"I'm not sure that our kingdom knows how to love."

"I'm afraid I don't know what you mean," Pyrrha admitted. "General Ironwood esteems her highly and rewards her loyalty with honour-"

"General Ironwood isn't Atlas, no matter what Rainbow or Twilight think," Lyra said. "General Ironwood is just one man. Those who call Rainbow Dash the Ace of Canterlot are just a handful of students who clustered around her and her friends. In Mistral, the deeds of the heroes of a thousand years ago or more will be remembered as long as the tales are told of their deeds to inspire future generations, but in Atlas, we don't even remember who led the armies of Mantle in the Great War. Our monuments are not to those who gave their lives but to the idea of them, the sons of the north who did their duty. Atlas doesn't know how to love because it expects devotion as its due; Atlas doesn't remember its dead because it expects its children to die for it. Rainbow can fight for Atlas until her body gives out, but Atlas will not remember her when she's gone."

Pyrrha was silent for a moment. "I must confess… as much as I think that my Atlesian friends would take issue with some or all of that, you make it sound… rather grim. I think that if Ruby were here, she would say the question of memory is irrelevant so long as we get the job done, but… I suppose I am sufficiently Mistralian that I'm not sure I could be satisfied with that. Is that why you chose Beacon instead of Atlas?"

Lyra nodded. "Atlas is… not for me. I don't think I'll ever go back. I may not have the skill to be celebrated in song, but I can at least write Dove's song, or Bon Bon's. In Atlas, we don't even do that."

"I'm a little surprised you didn't go to Haven," Pyrrha murmured.

"Maybe in another life," Lyra replied. "But Haven… it's just not that good, is it? I guess that's why you're here at Beacon, too."

"Beacon's pre-eminence is one of the reasons." Pyrrha admitted. She hesitated for a moment. "Thank you, Lyra."

"For what?" Lyra asked curiously.

"For not mentioning Sunset, or trying to turn me against her."

Lyra waved one dismissive hand. "I wouldn't do that. I don't like her, but you do, and if you've chosen her as a friend, then I'm not going to try and get in the way of that. We need our friends to get by in this world; taking them away from others is… it's just a dick move, isn't it?" She grinned. "Thank you for not mentioning any of the weird things that I believe in."

"It's not my place to comment," Pyrrha murmured.

"I suppose," Lyra said, "that I just want the world to be a little more… idiosyncratic, you know? That's another reason why I'd never go to Atlas; it feels like we're trying to make the whole world samey, you know? Identical airships, identical ranks of soldiers; instead of huntsmen and huntresses in cool outfits that speak to their souls, we get specialists in uniforms. It's all so… drab and boring. I'd like for something to shake it up a little, you know? Even if it is something bizarre like a magical talking horse coming to our world to save us all."

"I… think I understand, even if I do not share your wish," Pyrrha said gently. "And now, I think that we'd better try again, don't you?"

"I guess," Lyra replied. "I've probably stalled for long enough."

"You were stalling?"

Lyra looked abashed for a moment. "Yes," she said. "And you're about to see exactly why."

XxXxX​

Dove had his free hand tucked behind his back as he slashed downwards with his sword.

Jaune took the blow upon his shield, turning it aside and leaving Dove's guard wide open for his counterstroke, a diagonal cut of his own across his temporary sparring partner's chest.

Dove retreated in the face of the blow, scuttling backwards as Crocea Mors cut the empty air before him. Jaune followed up, his shield held before him, using it as a weapon, the way that Pyrrha had taught him, to lash out at Dove's face, forcing him backwards.

Dove fell back. If this had been Pyrrha, then she would have tried to manoeuvre around his shield and flank him, but Dove simply fell back in a straight line, allowing Jaune to pursue.

They sparred around the farm, swords ringing to disturb the chickens trying to sleep not far away; their excited clucking formed a backdrop to the struggle as though they were invested in it. In reality, they probably just wanted the two boys to shut up. It seemed that they would never get used to it, no matter how much time Pyrrha and Jaune spent there.

Jaune led with his shield again, thrusting it out, jabbing with his sword from over the top of his shield. Dove fell back, maintaining the curiously old-fashioned posture, one hand clasped him as though he were about to bow.

Jaune and Dove stared at one another, two pairs of blue eyes locked together.

Jaune lunged forward, teeth gritted, lashing out with his shield-

Dove brought his free hand and grabbed the lip of Jaune's shield, pulling it downwards and towards him. Jaune slashed at Dove's fingers with Crocea Mors, but though Dove grimaced, he endured the pain, pulling Jaune's shield and Jaune with it, pulling him forwards irresistibly – Dove was pretty strong for his size, almost as strong as Cardin – even as Dove sidestepped, tossing Jaune aside with such force that he was flung to the ground, rolling onto his side.

He had to get up quick; he had to be ready to-

Dove kicked him in the face as Jaune rose into a crouch, punting him flat onto his back as Crocea Mors slipped from his hand.

Dove stood over him. His expression was even for a moment before he held out one hand to Jaune. "Pyrrha never fights dirty when she's teaching you, does she?"

Jaune accepted his hand and allowed the stronger boy to help him to his feet. "No," he admitted. "I'm not sure if Pyrrha even knows how to fight dirty."

"Oh, I'll bet she knows, someone with her experience," Dove replied. "From what I have seen since coming here, there is little honour to be found in battle."

Jaune recovered his sword. "It depends, don't you think?"

Dove blinked. "How do you mean?"

"I mean that the cause is honourable, even if our methods aren't," Jaune said. "If we save lives, I'm not sure that it matters how we did it."

Dove nodded. "I agree," he said. "We should always strive to do the right thing, but the right thing should be defined by ends, not means. We do right by those we care for, by those we have sworn to protect… by whatever means." He hesitated for a moment and cracked a wry smile. "I'm not sure that Lyra would agree with me."

Jaune snorted. "I'm not sure that Pyrrha would agree either," he replied. "Mind you, I don't know. I haven't spoken to her about it. Maybe you're right, maybe she does have an arsenal of dirty tricks I haven't seen yet."

"Or maybe she is simply so skilled that she has no need of such," Dove said. "Unlike mere unskilled mortals like us."

"You're pretty good yourself," Jaune told him.

"So are you," Dove said.

Jaune shrugged. "If you say so. If that's true, it's because I've had a great teacher."

Dove chuckled. "Pyrrha said that you lacked confidence; that's why I'm here. To show you that you are making progress. How am I doing so far?"

"Not that great," Jaune admitted.

"Would you like to go again?" Dove asked.

"Sure," Jaune agreed, walking a few feet away from Dove before turning to face him again. Dove stood as he had before, his short sword held before him and his free hand clasped behind his back.

I won't make that mistake again.

The moonlight shone down upon them both. Jaune stared into Dove's eyes, trying to divine what he might do.

There was no one there to announce the beginning of their second bout; rather, they arrived at an unspoken mutual consent: they were both ready, armed and well prepared, and so they could and would begin.

Dirty tricks, huh?

Jaune charged with a great shout, throwing out his shield to his side, leaving himself wide open as he rushed forward, Crocea Mors raised overhead. Dove stepped eagerly into the opening, thrusting with the point. Jaune arrested his progress, or tried to at least, and brought his shield back to strike Dove on the exposed arm hard enough to knock him off balance. Dove stumbled, turning to present his side to Jaune, and Jaune brought Crocea Mors down in a slashing stroke that raked Dove down the flank.

He stepped back, bringing his blade up for another stroke.

Dove lunged at him, not with the sword but with his whole body, bulling into Jaune shoulder-first. Jaune would have looked to sidestep it, ideally, to flow around Dove like water, but he was too close and too fast for Jaune to get out of the way in time, and the best he could manage to do was check the attack with his shield rather than his body. Nevertheless, Dove pushed him backwards, Jaune's trainers making trails in the earth before him. Dove was bent down, almost bent double, jabbing at Jaune with his sword even as Jaune whacked him with his own blade.

Jaune quickened the pace of his retreat, hoping to use Dove's momentum against him the way that Dove had done to him, but Dove simply let go of Jaune's shield and allowed Jaune to retreat while he stood still.

Dove lowered his sword a little. "You learn quickly," he said.

"Thanks."

"No, I mean it," Dove insisted. "Lyra…" He trailed off.

"Like I said, I've had a good teacher," Jaune said. His eyes widened a little as he realised how that might sound. "I mean, not that I'm not sure you're a good teacher yourself, it's just-"

"It's fine," Dove assured him, raising his free hand. "I don't expect to be put on the same level as Pyrrha Nikos. That's the main reason I agreed to this: Lyra's going to get a better class of instruction for one night."

"Pyrrha knows what she's talking about," Jaune agreed. "She really knows… but I know from experience that there's nothing quite like being taught by a friend. Knowing that they're on your side… it's a big help."

"'Friend'?"

"We didn't start off dating," Jaune pointed out.

"True," Dove murmured. "Still, just because Lyra and Pyrrha aren't close, I hope that she gets something out of this. She… needs more than I can give her."

Jaune was silent for a moment. He wasn't sure what to say, what would be permissible for him to say, what Dove would take offence at. And besides, he really wasn't sure that he had the right to judge anyone else considering what a state he'd been in when he arrived at Beacon. "Are you worried about her?"

Dove huffed, turning away from Jaune, presenting his profile. "She's my friend; I wouldn't be human if I didn't worry," he declared. "I joined their team because I didn't want to see another friend disappear, to be left to wonder what had happened to them… without me. But I'm not Yang; I can't protect a whole team by myself."

"Lyra graduated from a combat school, right?"

"Yes, but…" Dove trailed off. "I worry anyway." He glanced at Jaune. "What's it like?"

"What's what like?"

"Not needing to worry about your teammates because they're all so much stronger than you?"

"You think that I don't worry about Pyrrha?" Jaune asked, an incredulous note entering his voice. "You think that I don't worry about all of them? Sure, they're all stronger than I am, but that doesn't make them invincible, and I know that. Ruby almost died last semester, and then… you've been to Benni Havens' right?"

Dove nodded. "Sure I have; we all like it there."

"I'm afraid that we'll end up like so many of those pictures on the wall," Jaune murmured. "With our smiles gone and empty spaces. That's why I train every night, so that I can pull my weight alongside the people who mean so much to me."

Once more, Dove nodded, but more slowly now, as if he was considering what Jaune had said. "You know what?" Dove said. "I think that's the best reason to be here, so help me. Maybe that makes me a poor fit to be a huntsman, maybe it makes us both a poor fit and we should be chastised for not living up to the ideals of the school and we should be eager to fight for all mankind. But I don't know all mankind, I can't imagine all mankind, I can't… I can't get my arms around it. So I'll fight for the people I know and care about, and good for you for doing the same."

"Uh, thanks," Jaune murmured. "I hadn't quite thought of it like that before, but… yeah, I guess that is why I'm here now." His childish dreams of comic-book heroism were gone now; he no longer thought that he could or would save the day simply by striding out onto the field. He was here for them, for Team Sapphire, for three great girls whom he was privileged to stand beside.

Maybe that wasn't the right thing, but it felt good enough for him.

Dove sheathed his sword upon his hip. "I don't know if you want to go again," he said. "If you do, that's fine, but before we do, can I… put a dampener on the mood for a second? You know that your team leader is Anon-a-Miss, right?"

"I know that's what Bon Bon said," Jaune replied, his voice chilling a little. "I don't think that she has any proof."

"Bon Bon isn't the type to make wild accusations with no basis," Dove replied.

"Apparently, she's the kind of person who wants to kill all the faunus," Jaune pointed out.

Dove cringed. "And you know that Sunset leaked that audio as well."

"Even if that were true, it still wouldn't be as bad as Bon Bon wanting to kill all the faunus, I mean… come on!" Jaune cried.

"I'm not defending what Bon Bon said; it was stupid and wrong, and if I was a faunus-"

"You don't have to be a faunus; you just have to know a faunus," Jaune replied hotly. "I didn't think you had anything against Blake."

"I don't," Dove insisted. "But Bon Bon… was an idiot, but she's my idiot, my friend, and so I won't turn against her or abandon her or… or judge her too harshly, even if others do. Even if she deserves it. Just like how you don't want to believe that Sunset is the one behind these leaks because she's your friend, and you don't want to judge her."

Jaune frowned. "What's your point? That what Bon Bon did is okay because-"

"No," Dove said firmly. "No, I'm not saying that. You won't hear me say that. But… I would like for this to be the end of it. I promise that I'll do everything I can to stop Bon Bon taking any more asinine actions against Blake, and I would like to know that Sunset is going to leave well enough alone for now. Standing up for her friend I can understand; tit for tat, I can understand; but it's done now. She's won. She's destroyed Bon Bon's reputation and made Lyra a laughing stock, which she didn't deserve, no matter what Bon Bon did. I… don't want to see that continue. I won't let it continue."

"You don't know that Sunset did this," Jaune insisted. "You don't know that Sunset did anything."

"Who else would have done it?"

"I don't know, that doesn't prove anything!"

"Can you look me in the eye," Dove said, "and tell me that you're certain that she couldn't have done this? That she wouldn't?"

Jaune said nothing. It was a harder question to answer than he would have liked it to be. He remembered how Sunset had reacted when Cardin had tried to blackmail him; sure, she'd helped him out of that particular spot, but she'd gotten very… very territorial about it.

"Cardin Winchester isn't going to get what's coming to him." That's what she said.

Well, that certainly came true in a big way, didn't it?

Dove gave a knowing nod in response to Jaune's silence. "That's about what I thought," he said.

 

[ScipioSmith]

No Peace for the Wicked​

Jaune and Pyrrha were training, and Ruby was in the dorm room still working on her coursework with Rainbow Dash. Supposedly, anyway; that was what they said she was doing, but as Penny had been with Rainbow Dash coming in as Sunset had been going out, she thought that there might be something more informal planned.

But, if Ruby wanted to have some fun, play some video games, or watch a show or something with her friend, then Sunset wasn't going to object. In any case, in anticipation of Ruby using the dorm room, Sunset had taken herself down to the library where she could work in peace.

It was dark. Mister Tukson – fancy him being here, the Beacon librarian – had retired to… wherever he went – Sunset presumed that he had some sort of grace and favour apartment somewhere on the campus – and there were no other students in the library this late. Most of the lights, which worked on motion sensors, had been turned off, and Sunset sat at a table in one of the rare patches of illuminated space, with darkness pressing in all around her.

It was quite cosy, really. It reminded Sunset of when she was a filly, studying magic by the light of her horn, sneaking into the palace library after hours, with only the guards on night patrol for company.

Funnily enough, studying magic was exactly what she was doing right now.

She had her books with her – the books on myth and legend that Twilight had given her – but they were not opened. Sunset would check details if she had to, but she trusted herself to remember most of the salient details.

Which was good, because the other piece to this puzzle was something that she didn't have written down.

It was written down, but not in a place that she had immediate access too.

Sunset hadn't spoken to her teammates about the things that she'd read about: the prophets or the Red Queens or whatever else you wanted to call them. She hadn't really seen the point; it didn't affect them, and there was little purpose in bringing up mysteries to which she had no answers and which had no relevance to the issues at hand. The pursuit of magic was Twilight's interest, and she knew all of this already and – presumably, Sunset hadn't talked to her about it – had all of the same questions and the same lack of answers that Sunset did. In any case, Ruby's only interest in magic was with her silver eyes, of which Sunset had no more information, and Jaune and Pyrrha had no interest in it at all.

So Sunset had kept her findings to herself; she was fortunate that Ruby was not so close-mouthed.

But then, everyone in the team was interested in Summer Rose and her magical eyes.

And what a story Ruby had had for them, about the latest entries in her mother's diary.

"Fire, wind, lightning, and ice?" Jaune said. "So, she wasn't using dust?"

"I don't think so," Ruby replied. "I mean, I guess she might have been, but that doesn't explain why my Mom sounded so impressed by what she did. I mean, Mom wasn't some ignorant yokel from the middle of nowhere… or at least, I don't think she was. Dad doesn't really talk about where Mom came from. He doesn't really talk about her at all." She bowed her head, momentarily falling silent.

Sunset and Pyrrha each reached out from where they sat on either side of Ruby to place a hand upon her shoulder. Pyrrha said, "From what you've told us, your mother seems to imply that she came from outside the kingdoms."

"I guess," Ruby said. "But even outside the kingdoms, they have dust, right? It might not be SDC dust, but they know what it is? I don't think that Mom would be gushing about something that's so… normal, you know? Plus, it doesn't say anything about her using a weapon to channel dust, just that she created fire and all the rest. And how would you use ice dust to freeze leaves? No, I don't think that's it, I don't see how it can be."

"It might be a semblance," Pyrrha suggested.

"A very versatile semblance, if so," Sunset said.

"Versatile semblances exist," Pyrrha countered. "The hereditary Schnee semblance, for one."

"Sure, but the Schnee semblance stands out because it's so ridiculous it isn't fair," Sunset said. "Most people aren't that lucky; that's the point."

"You… are not wrong," Pyrrha murmured.

"It's a pity that your mother didn't get the chance to ask this Auburn how she did it," Sunset said.

"Uncle Qrow needed help," Ruby replied, a touch defensively.

"I know," Sunset assured her. "But… all the same, it is a pity."

Jaune licked his lips. "Well… since somebody has to bring up the goliath in the room… could it be magic?"

Sunset blinked. "I can't say," she said, and she wasn't lying because she really couldn't say for sure, having no proof or firsthand experiences and nothing but myths to go on. At the same time, she could have said a lot more than she did say; she could have told them about the prophets and about how Auburn's abilities matched with the fantastical feats that were recorded of those chosen by God or the gods; she could have told them what she had surmised about the way the powers were passed on, based on all the stories taken together. She could have told them a great deal.

But she didn't, because she wanted to get it all straight in her own head first.

All she said was, "Certainly, you could produce a lot of the effects described using… my kind of magic. But I don't think that's what we're looking at here."

"Why not?" Ruby asked. "How do we know that Auburn wasn't… someone like you?"

One of these days, I'll have to tell you what I really am, and then you'll get it. "Because, amongst… amongst my people, powers are separated in ways that wouldn't allow for one person to do all of this." The wind was a pegasus power, as was the lightning, depending on exactly how it was conjured, while pyromancy was a unicorn technique. The only way one pony could deploy both was if Auburn had been an alicorn, and Sunset highly doubted that; she had never heard of any alicorn named Auburn, nor or any alicorn going missing. There hadn't been any alicorns bar Celestia in two lifetimes before Cadance's ascension; Sunset knew that for a fact. She had spent quite a lot of time researching the subject. "But it does sound similar to Twilight's story of her and her family being saved on the road by a mysterious woman wielding the power of the elements."

"Huh," Ruby said. "Do you think I should go and talk to Twilight about this then?"

"I… I'm not sure that's a good idea," Sunset said, remembering how Twilight had been quite dispirited about the whole business the last time they had spoken about it. "Leave it with me for a little bit, okay? I want to see if I can find a little more to go on."

Perhaps she ought to have told them that she already had more to go on. Perhaps that would have been the right thing to do? But why did they need to know? It wasn't as if any of them were particularly interested. If it had been Silver Eyes, then it might have been different; that was something that Ruby was interested in and that the others were interested in because it involved Ruby; if Sunset had more knowledge about that, then she would have told them all at once. Sadly, the books that she had found so far made no mention of them.

Knowledge of their existence had faded far more completely than knowledge of what, for want of a better word, Sunset was calling prophets; it sounded better than Red Queens.

If there was one thing that might make Sunset doubt her certainty that Professor Ozpin was at the sinister web of intrigue and malevolence, it was the fact that he had failed to make knowledge of prophets disappear to the same extent as the knowledge of Silver Eyes. Surely, a true spider could have done both?

But there were so many other things to make her suspicious of the man that this one thing hardly counted.

That was another reason why she had kept all of this to herself: her friends had made it clear that they found her suspicion of the headmaster to be risible, and she wasn't inclined to have another argument with them about it. She would just go her own way, following where the evidence led, until she reached the point where her proof became so incontrovertible that they had to believe her.

She felt as though she might be getting closer to that now.

When Sunset had finished reading through the mythology surrounding the prophets, their replacement by the Red Queens, and those queens' own fall, she had been left with the question of what had happened to their powers. The wizard and his five familiar-sounding companions had hunted down the tyrants who had, between them, held too much of Remnant under subjugation, and then after that… nothing. Magic had, to all appearances, gone out of the world. The Age of Magic had ended, and in its place, the Age of Heroes had begun, the age – if Sunset had understood the chronology that she was piecing together out of myths and legends and fairy tales – of the Mistraliad and The Song of Olivia, the age of great deeds and mighty warriors, when warring kingdoms rose and fell with dizzying speed, and when Vale established itself as the third great realm of Remnant. It was a world not yet dominated by dust-fuelled technology – that would come later, and the rise of Mantle would come with it – but a world in which kings and warrior princes dominated the battlefield and the political landscape, ruling unchallenged, doing as they wished with those over whom they ruled. Some were good and some were bad and some were ineffectual, but there were no old men to counsel them, no prophets to challenge them, no alternate sources of power and authority whom the people might look to. Magic was gone, and none now wielded it.

Except that was not so, was it? First, there was Twilight's account of her mysterious rescuer on the road, and then there was the account of Summer Rose, which was much more substantive, first in that it was not the fragmented memory of a child who had just taken a bump on the head, and second in that it put a name to one of these latter day prophets: Auburn, an old friend of Professor Ozpin.

The name Merida might also be relevant.

Sunset had already gone through the online yearbook of past Beacon students; there were a few too many Auburns, but only one Merida: Merida Heathermoor, who had dropped out of Beacon in her third year – a couple of years ahead of Team STRQ, which fit with Summer Rose's impression of her age – for reasons that went unstated; Sunset was not wholly unwilling to break into the archives to find out what those reasons were, but right now, she wasn't sure of their relevance. She was willing to hypothesise that Professor Ozpin had not held her quitting against her and had kept an eye on her nonetheless. An eye that was in some way connected to Auburn, one of the prophets.

Because magic wasn't gone; someone just wanted everyone to think that it was, to cast it into the realm of fairy tales and legends, to dismiss it as a childish fantasy.

And the worst part was that Sunset could see why.

Let's work this forward from the beginning. Four… let's call them four sets of wings – although we might equally call them four horns, but let's go with what I wanted to make myself an alicorn, not what Cadance got – to go around at any one time. The means of acquiring these wings, of ascending to power, has nothing on real ascension as far as a means of judging whether or not you deserve it, because… well, because there is no way to judge whether you deserve it. As far as I can tell, there's no attempt at that even made. The only criteria is that you need to be a young woman when you ascend, although the powers don't appear to fade with age.

You get your wings either by being closest to the person who had them last when they die, or you get them completely at random, or you kill the person who had them last.

And it's once people figure that out that the system breaks down and the prophets make way for the Red Queens, who acquire their powers through murder.

Seeing this, the old man – or the wizard – decides that the only way to get things back under control is to take back the magic through murder, the same way that it fell into the hands of the unworthy.

Although the extent to which any of these people could be said to be worthy is very much up for debate.

Anyway, he assembles a company of heroes, and together they hunt down and kill the Red Queens. At which point, so the stories go, the magic disappears.

Except not. Since four of the five heroes mentioned were female, it's a pretty good bet that they ended up with the magic after killing the Red Queens. Hurrah. Happy days are here again.

Until they die, of course, or are killed for the powers by more murderous opportunists.

Even the mightiest warrior may be felled by a single arrow, as Lady Nikos reminded me, and the fate of the prophets and the queens alike are proof that having this magic does not make you invulnerable.

So, what to do?

Apparently, the magic cannot be gotten rid of, however much you might want to; it's… it's like energy; it can't be created or destroyed, there will always be four prophets, four saints, four people empowered beyond the run of common men. That being the case, how do you stop the era of bloodshed from returning the moment the power passes to someone, for want of a better word, unworthy to possess it?

You convince the people who have the power now to lay low, you rules lawyer the succession criteria to ensure that the powers pass only to those you can trust to use them wisely – which is to say, not using them at all – and you hope that everyone forgets that this was ever anything more than a fairytale.

And the system has endured to this very day.

This, by the way, also had the advantage of answering the question that Rainbow Dash had posed at the Skydock when they had discussed the matter: if there were individuals with power, with magic, then where were they? Why didn't they show themselves and join the fight to protect humanity? Well, if Sunset's hypothesis was correct – and it seemed to fit the facts, to her mind – the answer was: because they were under strict instruction not to use them and had been selected, in fact, for their ability to resist the temptation.

Sunset had to admit that she could see the reasoning behind this course, but at the same time, as a unicorn, she could not help but be saddened by it. She knew what it was like to have to hide your magic away, to conceal a fundamental part of yourself, to be ruled by the fear of what would happen to you if your true potential, your true self, were discovered. However irrational it had turned out to be, Sunset had lived with that fear all through Canterlot and, with it, borne the resentment of having to pretend to be so much less than she was, to be so much less than those she knew full well that she was better than. She thanked Celestia that here at Beacon, she could be open about her abilities, that in her teammates, she had found friends who would accept her gift for the wonder it was, with whom she could be honest. She couldn't imagine having to hide for her entire life the way it seemed these prophets had to. It must have been – must be – unbearable suffering for them.

Surely, another way could have been found that didn't involve such complete denial of self? That didn't involve denying the world of a gift intended to make it better? Sunset had read the stories; yes, the deeds of the Red Queens were cruel and terrible, but it wasn't as if mankind had suddenly become much kinder and more compassionate in their absence. Men were just as brutal, treacherous, warlike after as they had been at the time, and as they had been before… but the prophets, so it went, had exercised a counter to that: they had been a light of hope and gentleness in an often savage and unforgiving world, and they had done much to bring people together, to spread… harmony amongst peoples and kingdoms.

In that, they came closest to resembling alicorns in Sunset's mind, and if they had not proved themselves worthy of the wings before they came to power, Sunset was willing to concede that many of them – those most remembered, at least – had proven by their deeds that they had not been poorly chosen.

All of that was gone now, and Sunset could not but find it a pity. Society moved forward, technology advanced, but some things – some fundamental parts of the souls of creatures and of the needs they felt – could not be changed. Equestria would be a poorer place if Celestia and Luna – and Twilight, if what Twilight said of herself was true, and, yes, okay, Cadance as well – were to disappear, still moreso if nopony else arose to take their place.

In just such a state lay the world of Remnant, devoid of anyone to show the way.

Devoid, at least, of anyone who was willing to do so.

But it had stopped magic from falling into the hands of evildoers, and Sunset supposed that might be enough for some people.

Of course, if it had been hidden completely, then Sunset would never have gotten wind of its continued existence in the here and now. Auburn, she could explain, or thought she could; by looking at the ages, she was convinced that the Auburn in question was Auburn Perry, who had had… an unhappy life, to put it mildly. She had been the only member of her team to survive to graduate from Beacon, and she died around the end of Team STRQ's first year – or the beginning of their second – of stomach cancer. She might have known she was ill when she set out on her mission with Team STRQ. If she did, it would explain everything: Auburn had been chosen by Professor Ozpin to hold one of the four magical powers, but she found out that she was dying, so they arranged to have her meet with Merida Heathermoor, whom Professor Ozpin regarded highly, so that she would be the one to inherit the powers when Auburn passed away.

And then Merida did nothing at all of note with them, Sunset thought. After all, there had been no magical warrior leading the defence of Vale at Ozpin's Stand, just huntsmen and huntresses and the headmaster himself.

It always comes back to Professor Ozpin, doesn't it?

Sunset's ears pricked up, literally in the case of the equine ears atop her head; she could hear footsteps in the hitherto silent library.

She twisted around in her seat and saw the lights begin to flicker on, triggered by the motion sensors as the owner of the heavy footsteps made their way through the stacks in her direction.

Sunset pushed back her chair and climbed to her feet – the lights directly above her, which had turned off during her period of nearly stationary thought, stirred to life once again – wondering who else was feeling the need to use the library at this hour and why they felt the need to disturb her.

It turned out to be Cardin Winchester, dressed in an old T-shirt and a pair of well-worn blue jeans that looked as though they were about to be worn through at the knees. Sunset, who had never seen him dressed in anything quite like that before, could only raise a single curious eyebrow.

He didn't get too close to her, keeping about six feet of distance – maybe a little more – between the two of them. He looked uncertain, and yet, at the same time, he managed to spit out, "Great, I found you."

Sunset's other eyebrow rose to join the first. That could mean a great many things, and yet, Sunset was not too concerned; it was only Cardin after all, and she had never found him intimidating. "What do you want, Cardin? Have you come to tell me that you're a disgusting racist, because I figured that out already." She smirked. "You might not know this, but I think most people have figured it out by now."

Cardin grimaced. "You're having so much fun with this, aren't you?"

"Am I enjoying your humiliation? Yes," Sunset replied. "You've had this coming for a long time, quite frankly, and I don't see why I should pretend otherwise."

Cardin was silent for a moment. "It was you, wasn't it? You were hiding somewhere, and you made that recording, and you sent it to that zine."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sunset lied. She wasn't about to admit what she'd done, however low the chances that anyone would judge her for it. "And, quite frankly, I think that the question of who took that recording and who distributed it is a little beside the point. You said those things, you and Bon Bon, and now, you have to live the consequences of that. Forgive me if I'm not overflowing with sympathy."

Cardin stared at her. "How is it that you have so many people thinking that you're such a good person?" he asked.

"I am a good person, to them," Sunset declared. "Good to my friends and fierce to my enemies."

"And what about the people in between?"

"What about them?" Sunset replied. "What do you want, Cardin? I'm a little busy, and I don't want to spend my night bandying words with you."

Cardin was silent. He looked down at his feet. As he stood, quiet and averting his gaze, something seemed to snap inside of him; his shoulders buckled as though beneath a great weight, and he slumped forwards a little. "I give up," he said.

Sunset's eyes narrowed. "You give up?"

"Yes!" Cardin snapped. "Skystar broke up with me, my father and grandfather's careers are at risk, people are starting to shun my mother, Silverstream and Terramar think I want to murder them, everyone thinks that I'm a monster… I surrender. You win. However you want to say it, I'll even get down on my knees if you want, but… just let me be. I won't do anything to you or Blake or Jaune or anyone else. You've beaten me, just… just please be magnanimous in that."

Sunset stared at him. He might not have physically dropped to his knees yet, but he had already done so metaphorically. He was, indeed, defeated; helpless and humbled before her as much as the sovereigns of Mantle and Mistral had been when they had descended into the dirt and laid their crowns at the feet of the Last King. A part of her, a very substantial part, felt jubilant at that. A part of her wanted to jump up and down in triumphant joy, punching the air. A part of her exulted in the fact that she had won! She had won!

Another part of her felt incredibly guilty. Another part of her focussed upon the first words that he had said. "Skystar broke up with you?"

"She loves her cousins like they were her own brother and sister," Cardin said. "Did you expect that she wouldn't break up with me? Isn't that part of the reason you did this?"

It had, in fact. Every word that he had said in that regard was true. She had hoped to break up his happy relationship, to show Skystar what kind of a man her beloved Cardy really was. But, now that it had happened… she was filled with a deep sorrow.

"Please, Flash, wait! Please don't leave me. I know that things haven't been perfect, but I can change, I swear! If you tell me what's wrong, then I can fix it! You… you're all I have."

"That's your problem, Sunset, not mine."

And he had turned away, leaving her outside in the rain, soaked through with no place to go and no one to turn to. It took a lot of self control not to shudder at the memory and to suppress the spike of anger that ran through her at what Flash had done.

She had brought that same grim fate on Cardin, and now… now, she regretted it. She regretted it so much that, for a moment, she came very close, within a whisker, of apologising to him, of telling him how sorry she was and promising to make it up to him.

But she didn't. She didn't quite have the weakness, or the strength. All she said was, "I didn't ruin your life, Cardin; you did this to yourself."

Cardin scowled, but nodded. "Yeah, I did," he admitted. "And I know that I don't have much left to lose at this point, but… please, I won't give you any trouble, and I… I don't want any more trouble either."

Sunset's expression was impassive. She had won, and yet, he wasn't making it very easy for her to enjoy her victory. The longer this went on, the more her glee was replaced with squirming guilt and a pervasive feeling of embarrassment. "I… haven't done anything to you," Sunset lied, "but… if I had done, it would stop, if your actions cease. I bear you no malice, Cardin, except that you went after my friends."

"I already admitted that I brought this on myself; isn't that enough?" Cardin snapped. He took a deep breath. "Did you mean what you said in the Forever Fall that day?"

Sunset blinked. "You mean-"

"You said that we could change," Cardin reminded her. "That we could become better than we were. Did you mean it?"

"Of course I meant it," Sunset murmured. "I still believe it." She didn't like seeing herself reflected in Cardin Winchester at the best of times, still less right now, when he had hit rock bottom and lost everything: his love, the respect of those around him, any good opinions that anyone might have had of him. It cut too close to home, reminded her too much of what it had been like for her at Canterlot, when even Flash had abandoned her to face the derision of the mob. But she had risen and enjoyed a sea-change in her fortunes and a lesser change in her attitudes. Perhaps Cardin could do – and enjoy – the same.

"Good," Cardin whispered. "I hope you're right." He paused for a second or two. "How… how do you make them like you so much? We're both jackasses, but you… what makes you better than me?"

Sunset wondered if perhaps he'd like the list alphabetically, but didn't say so because she knew what he meant, and honestly, she didn't have a good answer. What had she done to deserve the love of such excellent and virtuous people as Pyrrha, Ruby, Jaune, or even Blake? It wasn't as though she could blithely say that somewhere in her youth or childhood she must have done something good, because she'd lived through her youth and childhood, and there was nothing approaching goodness in it.

The question was not what made her better than Cardin but, rather, what made her more worthy to be loved than Cardin.

To which there was, really, no good answer at all. "I got lucky," Sunset said, because that was really all there was to it. She had gotten lucky that the three kindest people in the year had embraced her as their own, for all her faults.

"Lucky, right," Cardin muttered. He scratched the back of his head with one hand. "Well, I… I mean, I'll… uh, that is-"

"Off you go, Cardin," Sunset dismissed him, offering him a way out of a conversation that no longer had any road left in it.

Cardin looked for a moment as though he wanted to, or felt he ought to, say more, but in the end he did not; he simply turned away and walked away, his steps a little shuffling.

And with luck, I won't need to have anything more to do with him, Sunset thought.

She stood a moment, torn between her desire to jump up in the air in triumph and her feeling that she had done something wrong.

He deserved it.

But that doesn't mean that I should have done it.

I've beaten him at last; all my friends are safe.

Let's not pretend that any of this was necessary. Are you going to write to Princess Twilight about this? Or Princess Celestia?

…No.

Well, that says a great deal, doesn't it?

Shut up, I won. Get over it.

If only I could.

Sunset frowned and turned away, sitting down back at her desk. She didn't want to think about this any more. Now, where was she?

Ah, yes, Professor Ozpin.

That Professor Ozpin was deeply involved in this business was something that Sunset accepted without question. She did not for a moment consider the possibility that he might be a pawn of Auburn herself, facilitating without understanding. Frankly, whatever one thought of him, the headmaster had shown himself to be too canny for that, and that he should have intimate knowledge that he was keeping to himself made perfect sense when one considered that he was keeping what he knew of Silver Eyes confidential in the exact same way.

No, he knew the truth about these prophets, and he was keeping it from the general public; the question was why. Or rather, the question was whether there was malice in it.

Sunset was inclined to say that there was, but as she sat here in the library, as the light flickered off against because she was once more still and unmoving, Sunset had to wonder if that was true.

She could not deny that there were reasons to hide the existence of this magic from the rest of Remnant: look at what had happened when its existence had been widely known. It could be argued to be mere pragmatism, a decision made for the greater good; Professor Ozpin, like a father, knowing what was best for others better than they knew themselves.

Sunset had no ideological objection to such paternalist thinking; Equestria was built upon just such a maternalist attitude, after all: Princess Celestia sat on high, keeping her secrets, nudging Equestria and all the little ponies who dwelt in it towards their destinies in the name of harmony.

Sunset hadn't much liked that attitude when it applied to her, but time and distance had brought her to a point where she could admit that Princess Celestia meant no ill by it and only sought to do what was best by her subjects and by those she cared for.

Could she apply the same generosity to Professor Ozpin?

She found that harder to do, and not just because these lies and secrets affected her directly once again. Professor Ozpin had inherited knowledge of great light, and regardless of the intentions of those who had passed that knowledge down to him, it had been within this gift to open up the shutters and let the light shine out upon the world, as it had done in days of old. But he had not. He had continued with the old, long-standing policy, which was – to Sunset's mind – like asking Princess Twilight to bind up her wings and go about cloaked so that none might know that she was more than just a unicorn. Why? It was true that there were greater dangers here in Remnant – no one could ascend to become an alicorn themselves by killing another alicorn, and even if anypony could do so, such wicked crimes were just not committed amongst ponies – but there were other solutions to that: set true and valiant guards around them, range armies in their protection, lodge them in the hearts of mighty fortresses if you must, but do not hide them. None of the legends that Sunset had yet come across were clear on where, precisely, the magic had come from, but it had come from somewhere to be used for good. Sunset believed that too. She had to believe that. That was just how it worked: such gifts as were bestowed upon the one were gifted for the good of many; that was just the way of things. So it was in Equestria, at least – and Sunset's original sin had been to forget that – and she knew of no reason why it should not also be the case in Remnant. There were four gifts in the world that might have done much to bless the world, save that men had caused them to be hidden, and Professor Ozpin was the latest in a line of those who aided in that concealment.

That was malicious, in Sunset's view, especially when you took into consideration how much else he was hiding, like Silver Eyes and who knew what else.

And by what right?

Sunset's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of more footsteps approaching; it was not Cardin coming back; these footsteps were lighter, and faster too, a swift beat on the library floor like the rattle of a snare drum.

It turned out – as Sunset saw as she, once again, twisted around in her chair – to be Weiss Schnee. She was dressed in her silver-white huntress outfit, with a hint of red showing on the interior of her bolero as she advanced rapidly towards Sunset, taking a seat at the table next to her.

"Please," Sunset said, likewise returning to her seat, "have a seat."

Weiss did not respond to that remark; she simply said, "Ruby told me that I'd find you here."

"Ruby was correct," Sunset said softly, waiting for Weiss to get to the point. It was not that she objected to the company of the Schnee heiress in general – although they hadn't really spent much time together since… it must have been that trip into Vale when Blake got found out, unless you counted the battle at the docks. Anyway, the point was not that she didn't like Weiss – she could take her or leave her alone – but that she didn't really want to be disturbed. She had a lot of thinking to do.

Weiss clasped her hands together upon her lap. "Not many people use the library this late," she said. "Although I can't say that I blame you for wanting somewhere quiet to study, especially with what's going on in your dorm room."

I knew they weren't going to study. "What's going on in my dorm room?"

"Ruby, Penny, and Rainbow Dash are playing videogames with some girl over the CCT," Weiss explained. "I could hear her voice on the other end of their scrolls. I didn't recognise the game, but it seemed to involve ships shooting at one another."

"Hmm, that might be Juturna," Sunset murmured. "Juturna Rutulus, that is, some Mistralian socialite; she and Ruby hit it off over the vacation."

Weiss' eyebrows rose. "Ruby Rose hit it off with a socialite?"

"She's not entirely what the term suggests, but yes, it is a little surprising," Sunset conceded. "But it happened."

"I see," Weiss said quietly. Her snowy brow furrowed. "Rutulus… I could swear that I've heard that name before, but I can't quite recall… never mind; I'm sure that it's not important. Anyway, as I was saying, I understand that you might want some peace and quiet in here. Flash and I have been here this late studying some times."

I'll bet you have. "Studying," Sunset said through gritted teeth. "Sure."

Weiss' blue eyes narrowed. "Despite what you may think, there's nothing going on between us, not that it would be any of your business if there were."

Sunset ignored that last bit. "What, is he not good enough for you?"

"I'm sorry, do you want me to date your ex?"

"No!" Sunset cried. "But I won't have you saying he isn't eminently… dateable. It… would be… a slur on my excellent taste."

"Hmm," Weiss mused sceptically. "As a matter of fact… I don't disagree with you on that. Flash is, as you put it, eminently dateable. He is the kind of boyfriend that I would look for, if I were looking for a boyfriend." A soft smile played upon her features for a moment, and Sunset was forcibly reminded that Weiss Schnee was really quite astonishingly pretty. Lovely might be a better word for it. Small wonder Jaune had been besotted with her when the year began.

That all seemed so long ago now.

The lights went off, dimming due to a lack of motion beneath, but that hardly mattered because Weiss Schnee was light, a shimmering figure like the moon in human form descended amongst the mortals.

"However," she went on, "for the time being, I have no interest in such things. I'm here to become the best huntress I can, not to find a boyfriend."

"I see," Sunset said quietly, unsure if she believed Weiss or not.

Weiss drew in a breath. "Cardin was looking for you," she said.

"Cardin found me," Sunset replied. "But I can't believe that you were looking for me just to tell me that someone else was looking for me, especially not Cardin."

"Cardin and I are… starting over," Weiss informed her. "I'm going to be a better leader, and he is going to be a better teammate."

"That's… nice for you both," Sunset said. "I'm not sure what it has to do with me."

Weiss was silent a little while. "He thinks that you are the one who released that damaging audio."

"I do not admit that," Sunset said, leaning back in her chair a little. "But, as I told Cardin himself, if he hadn't said those things, then nobody could have released audio of him saying them."

"I'm not here to make excuses on Cardin's behalf," Weiss declared. "Whatever his motives, his words were absolutely reprehensible." She paused. "I'm not a bigot because my name is Schnee, and I resent that assumption and the assumption that I must agree with Cardin's professed sentiments because I am his team leader."

"That… is unfortunate," Sunset said. It had not been her intent to damage Weiss along with Cardin, although with hindsight, she could see how people might make assumptions.

"There's Flash, too," Weiss reminded her. "After what happened to his father and the way that it was seized upon by… some of the worst elements in Atlas… you can see how it looks."

Sunset winced. It certainly hadn't been her intent to get Flash involved in this. "That is… even more unfortunate," she said. "But I'm not sure what you expected me to do about it."

"That's not why I'm here," Weiss said briskly. "I have… spoken to my father. He assures me that SDC public relations will be taking care of such things."

"How fortunate for you," Sunset murmured. "I still don't see what this has to do with me."

Weiss stared at her. "I don't know exactly what Cardin wanted to speak to you about," she said, "but don't you think this feud between the two of you has gone on long enough?"

Sunset couldn't restrain a snort. "A feud, is that what you think this is?"

"Isn't it?"

"Can the jackal feud with the lion?" Sunset asked.

"You aren't a lion," Weiss reminded her. "Any more than Cardin is a jackal. You're both people, with exceedingly big egos. Although Cardin's seems to have deflated at the moment."

"I can't imagine why," Sunset muttered.

"Don't you think the time has come when you might deign to be magnanimous?" Weiss asked. "Cardin has been unpleasant, but in return you-"

"You really ought to have some proof before you accuse me of anything."

"In return, you have destroyed his life," Weiss continued. "It's gone far enough, don't you think?"

Sunset nodded. "As a matter of fact, I do," she agreed. "And I believe that Cardin feels the same way. But… none of this would have happened if he had left well enough alone."

"I'm aware of Cardin's faults, just as I think he is aware of them now and wishes to move beyond them," Weiss said. "But this is getting out of hand, and I want it done. I want what's best for my team-"

"So do I."

"And I think that we can get that without being at each other's throats. Don't we have enough enemies outside the school?"

"Probably," Sunset conceded. "As a matter of fact, Cardin already asked… for a ceasefire." She decided to spare his blushes in front of his team leader. "I believe that he has had enough of what you call our feud."

"And you?"

"As you say, I only ever wanted what was best for my team."

"I'm glad," Weiss said. "Then we are in agreement?"

Sunset nodded. "I never wanted to be your enemy," she said.

"Nor I," Weiss agreed. "I hope that circumstances do not force us into opposition." She paused, and for a moment, she seemed about to say something, but then thought better of it. "I'm glad we understand each other," she said, rising to her feet and, in the process, turning on the lights once more.

Sunset looked up at her. "I almost think we always did," she said.

Weiss considered that. "Perhaps," she allowed, before beginning to walk away. After but three steps, she stopped and looked back at Sunset. "May I ask you one more thing?"

"Why not?"

"How is it that you have taken to leadership so easily?" Weiss asked.

Sunset thought about it for a moment. What did make her a good leader? Was she a good leader? They had had a successful mission, that was something, but at the same time, there had been very little actual leadership involved. And yet, despite that, Sunset couldn't accept the idea that she was a bad leader; her team worked well together, fought well together; surely, she was entitled to a little credit for that? But to what did she owe it? Natural born talent? Her time studying at the feet of Princess Celestia? Or something… more prosaic?

"I got lucky," she said, just as she had told Cardin not too long before.

Weiss stared at her. "Yes," she agreed. "I suppose you did." She turned around and walked away. This time, she did not stop.

Sunset turned back to the table as soon as she was out of sight. What was I thinking of?

Ah, yes, Professor Ozpin. Always Professor Ozpin.

Professor Ozpin and his secrets.

By what right did he hoard knowledge like a dragon hoarding gold? By what right did he sit in his high tower, knowing so much and telling so little? Sunset had, with time and a great deal of distance, accommodated herself to the fact that Celestia had kept secrets from Sunset – and even more secrets from Twilight – for their own good and the good of Equestria. But Princess Celestia was an immortal alicorn, one who had ruled the realm wisely and well for more than a thousand years. She had seen the tides of history ebb and flow, she had seen society grow and bloom like a garden all around her, she had seen the ways in which ponies changed and the ways in which they did not. She understood, through long experience, the hearts of ponies of all kinds. What could Professor Ozpin boast of, to set against such wisdom and experience? In his whole life, he had made but a single move, and that the journey from his house to Beacon Academy, where he had remained for practically the rest of his adult life. If he knew anything about the world beyond the cloistered halls of Beacon, it would be a miracle. And yet, this man, a mere mortal and a mortal at that with no qualifications to be in such a lofty position, was the arbiter of all the world's mysteries, the man with all the answers which he refused to supply.

By what right? It was intolerable… and intolerably sinister, what was more. It was impossible for Sunset to see anything good or noble in the actions of Professor Ozpin and his predecessors. The others thought that she was paranoid because she didn't trust his silence over Silver Eyes; well, perhaps it could be argued that he kept silent because Ruby did. Maybe if she went up to the top of the tower and asked him the questions, then he would supply all the answers. Maybe, but Sunset doubted it. Because Silver Eyes were not the only secrets he was keeping; he was hiding much more than that, and much more important than that. Silver Eyes were a potent weapon, but magic… he was hiding hope as well, and that was harder to excuse, at least to Sunset's mind. How could people better themselves without symbols to inspire them? Where were they supposed to look for exemplars of…

Sunset stopped. Her eyes widened. No. No, she didn't want to believe that but… but now that the thought had occurred to her, she couldn't dismiss it. It was all too, much too plausible.

A system in which magic was bestowed upon the worthy, not by ethereal, numinous recognition of their worth but by appreciation of it by Professor Ozpin, who gamed the system so that his choices ascended in accordance with his will; it stood to reason, therefore, that you could predict his choices by looking at those in whom he took a special interest: like Team STRQ, like Merida, like Auburn.

And Raven said that it would start with missions.

He's going to grant these powers to Ruby, isn't he?

And Sunset didn't know how to feel about that. Well, no, that was not quite true; she felt a degree of jealousy at the idea that Ruby would be selected to ascend, but if she made the effort to look past her selfishness and think about it from the perspective of someone who wasn't obsessed with her own aggrandisement, she could admit that Ruby would be a very good choice. A near-perfect choice, in fact, to encourage and inspire people.

But she wouldn't get the chance, would she? Professor Ozpin would make her his prophet, and then he would lock her away or shove her into the shadows or whatever it was he did to keep them and their powers hidden, and Ruby… Ruby would be broken by it. Not immediately, but unable to help people, unable to pursue her dream of becoming a huntress, unable to be risked for fear that her powers would escape the grasp of Professor Ozpin, she would wither away like a rose starved of sunlight, her petals wilting until there was nothing left of them.

She couldn't let that happen.

But how could she stop it?

"You."

Sunset sighed and put her head in her hands for a moment. It's like Canterlot Central Station in here.

She ran her hands through her hair and looked up into the face of Phoebe Kommenos, dressed in the uniform of an Atlas student, looming over her and looking down. Her look was cold, and her eyes were as sharp as talons.

Sunset pushed her chair back a few inches. I didn't even hear her coming. It was... worrying, to say the least, that she could be snuck up on by someone like this. She did not like this girl. She wasn't scared of her, but… there was something about her that Sunset didn't like. Maybe it was just the fact that she had been able to so completely intimidate Cinder, but… Sunset didn't like the fact that Phoebe had been able to get the drop on her.

I would rather Cardin be able to sneak up on me than her.

Hopefully, it was just the fact that I was lost in thought and not that she's actually that stealthy.

Sunset hoped that she succeeded in keeping her surprise hidden behind a mask of calm. "Can I help you?" she asked softly.

An ugly smile crossed Phoebe's face as she sat down upon the edge of Sunset's desk. "You, help me?" She let out that grating, high-pitched laugh she had. "What an absurd idea. As if I need any help from a faunus, or from Pyrrha's team leader!" She laughed again. "I give you fair warning that I intend to make sure that our paths cross in the Vytal Festival, and when they do, then I will trample Pyrrha Nikos beneath my feet and triumph over her. You may depend upon it."

"It would be the first time, if so," Sunset murmured.

Phoebe's face flushed with anger. "Insolent-" She cut herself off and took a deep breath, visibly seeking to calm herself. "It's true that Pyrrha has been very fortunate in all our previous encounters. But then, she's a very lucky girl, isn't she?"

"Pyrrha is very skilled."

"Does her ghastly mother tell you to say that as a condition of her financial support?" Phoebe asked. She chuckled. "Yes, I know all about your little arrangement with the House of Nikos. Everyone knows that Lady Nikos has taken an interest in a little stray horse. I understand it makes for quite the amusing little anecdote at parties: the poor faunus, so desperate for acceptance that she mistakes a business transaction for acceptance."

I'm a pony, not a horse. Sunset pushed her chair back a little more and got to her feet. "Forgive me, my lady," she said, reaching for her courtly manners in order to show this woman that she was not an inferior just because she had ears and a tail, "but I am greatly preoccupied at present and have little time for the bandying of superfluous verbiage with you. If you will excuse me."

Phoebe gave no sign of moving. "From what I understand, you are an ambitious sort. From what is said of you-"

"And what has my lady heard said of me, and from whom?" Sunset asked. "I did not see you in Mistral when I was there."

"No," Phoebe acknowledged. "I didn't go home for the vacation. I prefer Atlas in the springtime: that crisp northern air. But I have friends amongst the other good families of our fairy city of Mistral: the Rutulus family, for one. From them, I heard that you had been… sponsored. What's it like being the teammate of the great Pyrrha Nikos?"

"It is a privilege to be the team leader of the illustrious Pyrrha Nikos, the pride and glory of Mistral reborn," Sunset declared. "She is well worthy of her reputation; in fact, she surpasses it."

"More flattery," Phoebe muttered. "One might almost think you were worried someone might hear you."

"I am not beyond flattery, my lady, but when it comes to our princess of the battlefield, my tongue speaks only truth, albeit truth spoken in a fair and gentle fashion, fitting for a fair and gentle subject of my speech," Sunset said. "Have you yourself not had opportunity often enough to taste of her skill upon the battlefield?"

Phoebe's eyes were unblinking. Her gaze moved nowhere away from Sunset's face. "I'm told that you are an ambitious girl, and yet I find before me a simpering toady. Is that what it does to you, to be too close to the Invincible Girl? Does it fill you with resentment, the way that she bestrides the world of our professions like a colossus, blotting out the sun to cast us all in shadow? Doesn't it irk you that all the glories of this world, all the deeds your team has accomplished in the field, accrue to her, and you are forgotten?"

As a matter of fact, it did, at least as far as the bit about accomplishments went; Sunset would have had to be a far humbler person than she was not to be a little annoyed at the way that she – and the rest of the team, but herself especially – were pushed to one side so that Pyrrha could hog the limelight. Yes, she understood that Pyrrha didn't mean to have that effect; it was an unfortunate side effect of being on the team with the Princess Without a Crown, and the many positives of being Pyrrha's team leader, of being her friend, more than made up for it.

And yet, it still made her feel a twitch of irritation every now and then.

Not that she was going to admit that to the little stirrer sitting in front of her. "As I said, my lady, I have little time for idle chit-chat."

"Then I suppose I'd better get to the point then, hadn't I?" Phoebe replied. "There's nothing that you can do for me, but I do want something from you: your sword, Soteria."

Sunset blinked. "My lady jests."

"Not on this occasion," Phoebe said. "Do you know what that sword is?"

"I am aware of its heritage, my lady," Sunset replied. "One might find it strange that Lady Nikos chose to bestow so venerable and esteemed a weapon upon a business transaction."

Phoebe's face was expressionless for a moment. "Well," she said, her voice sounding a little less sure of herself now. "I may have underestimated your… in any case, she had no right to place that weapon in your hands."

"Is it not Lady Nikos' own property, to do with as she will?"

"That sword belonged to Achates Kommenos, bodyguard to the Emperor," Phoebe declared. "It is true that he was sworn into the Emperor's service, and it is true that that blade was bestowed upon him by the Emperor himself, and for those reasons, the House of Nikos kept the blade as a treasure of their own house when the war was done. But I am Achates' descendant through his brother, Ilioneus; that blade is mine by rights. And yet, such is my generosity that I am prepared to buy it from you. Name your price."

Sunset laughed. "Would my lady have me put a price upon my honour? Upon my reputation? This sword was gifted to me, by the Lady of the House of Victory, that I might wield it in battle beside the heiress to that ancient name. What kind of ingrate would I be to sell this mark of Lady Nikos' esteem for mere lien? Think not, my lady, that simply because I am a faunus, or that because I am not Mistral-born, that I am some base creature, slave to ignoble sentiments; indeed, I will show you that a faunus from beyond the kingdoms may have as much gentleness about them as any noble in Mistral. Soteria is not for sale."

Phoebe growled. "Soteria is-"

"If it were truly yours, it would be in your hand," Sunset observed.

Phoebe leapt off the table on which she had been sitting. "Perhaps the Nikos family had the right to keep this blade for themselves," she said, "but they certainly had no right to bestow it at will, and certainly not to a beast like you. That sword is mine, and I will have it."

"I doubt that, my lady," Sunset declared, for what could she do? Steal it? Perhaps, but Sunset would know exactly where it had gone, and she would have to leave Vale in order to escape; Sunset wasn't sure exactly what being known as a thief – and a thief from the Nikos family at that – would do for her reputation back home in Mistral, but she trusted it would be nothing good. She could not get the blade unless Sunset relinquished it, and that she would not do.

Phoebe's lips curled into a sneer. "We shall see," she said, and thankfully, at this point, she decided to go, leaving Sunset alone once more. Except not completely, because she stopped and glanced back at Sunset over her shoulder. "You speak gently, it's true, but you are not of the Nikos family. You are a hireling, nothing more, and little better than a slave. Think on that and upon the fate of my illustrious ancestor." She snorted and disappeared into the darkness; the lights did not turn on for her, as though they could not sense her passing.

Sunset stared at her, brow furrowed. Lies. Lies and petty, empty words designed to wound her, the last shriek in retreat of someone who had failed to get their way.

And yet how many other Mistralians saw it so? They knew her not, they did not understand the terms of her arrangement with Lady Nikos… and yet, they judged her nonetheless.

It stuck in her craw.

Sunset shook her head. There were more important things to think of right now, by far: Professor Ozpin and his secrets and what plans he might have for Ruby.

Let's be fair here; I don't know for sure that he has any plans for Ruby.

He gave us a mission, sure, but he also gave a mission to Team YRDN, as was. Perhaps he means to ascend Yang or Nora.

That would be a mistake; Ruby's worth ten of either of them… in every way other than fighting men, I suppose. Anyway, it would still be a mistake.

But that doesn't mean that he won't or isn't making it.

If that was his plan, then Sunset was not so concerned; Ruby would probably find that a terrible thing to say, writing off her sister like that, but Yang… Yang didn't seem driven to help others in the same way Ruby was; she might not find cloistered anonymity so wearing upon her spirit. The same could be said of Nora, with an added dash of Sunset not really caring a whit one way or another about Nora Valkyrie. She was genial company at lunch and dinner, to be sure, but Sunset felt no especial connection with her and no desire to protect her from the malice of their headmaster.

And yet, the fact that Professor Ozpin might be seriously considering her for ascension only served to reinforce Sunset's view that this whole system was fundamentally broken. How could Nora deserve to ascend, or Yang for that matter? What had they done to prove themselves worthy of it?

I didn't ask myself any of these questions before I demanded my ascension.

Shut up, me.

Sunset sighed and once more ran one hand through her hair. This was getting nowhere; she needed to get it out of her head, she needed… she needed to talk to Twilight about this, see what the magic obsessive thought about it all.

She needed to get some sleep.

Sunset gathered up her things and left the library, crossing the courtyard towards the dorms. She stopped for a moment, looking up at the tall tower that loomed above the rest of the school and the emerald lights that glimmered in the darkness.

What are you planning, old man?

What fate do you have in store for us?

 

[ScipioSmith]

Secrets and Lies​

Sunset tied the red ribbon tied around her neck, putting the finishing touch onto her uniform. "Oh, just so you guys know, I'm not coming to breakfast with the three of you."

Ruby frowned. "Why not?"

"I'm taking Twilight to breakfast at Benni Havens'," Sunset replied.

Silence fell upon the other three members of the team. "By yourself?" Jaune asked.

Sunset blinked. "Yeah, why?"

"You're buying breakfast, and you didn't invite us?" Ruby demanded.

Sunset smirked. "You haven't done anything to earn it lately," she said. "Why, is there a problem?"

"No," Pyrrha said. "There's no problem, it's just… a little unusual. Is there a special occasion?"

"No, I just need to talk to Twilight about a couple of things."

"Magical things?" Ruby asked.

"Things that will be of interest to Twilight, but not the three of you," Sunset replied. "Anyway, that's that, so have fun, and I'll see you guys… later. Before class, hopefully." She paused. "Hey, Pyrrha."

"Yes?" Pyrrha asked.

"Soteria," Sunset said. "The sword that your mother gave me, its previous owner was Achates, yes?"

Pyrrha nodded. "That's correct."

"His surname wouldn't have happened to be Kommenos, would it?"

Pyrrha's brow furrowed. "Has Phoebe said something?"

"She came to see me last night in the library, blustering about her right to the sword," Sunset explained. "I think she was fairly upset that it was your family's to give in the first place, and even more upset that it was given to me, a faunus." She paused. "Is there any truth to it? Was it an ancestor of hers who wielded the sword for the Emperor?"

Pyrrha bowed her head. "It… is complicated."

"'Complicated' as in 'tangled' or 'complicated' as in 'awkward to talk about'?" Sunset asked.

Pyrrha pursed her lips together. "I… fear the latter. It is… not the finest hour of Mistral or my family."

Sunset's eyebrows rose. "You mean she really is entitled to the sword?"

"That depends upon your point of view," Pyrrha declared, looking up at Sunset. "Ilioneus Kommenos, Phoebe's ancestor, was a-" She cut herself off and looked guiltily at Jaune and Ruby. "While Achates was a trusted and honoured retainer of the Emperor, Ilioneus Kommenos fought for Vale during the Great War."

"There were Mistralians who fought for Vale during the Great War?" Ruby asked.

"And Mantleites, too," Sunset informed her. "They disagreed with their kingdom's policies on the suppression of culture and fled into exile in Vale. Vale's harbouring of such exiles was one of the causes of tension leading up to the Great War."

"Ooh, look at me," Ruby said. "I'm Sunset; I can recite from out of a textbook at the drop of a hat."

Sunset snorted. "Sorry."

"But Mistral wasn't suppressing culture, right?" Jaune said. "I mean, they only pretended to, didn't they?"

"Yes," Pyrrha agreed. "But Mistral in the old days… we of Mistral choose to remember the glory of our history: proud lords and just, warriors noble and brave, a grand old kingdom, proud of the heritage in which it is steeped. And all of that is true and may be true again… but there is another side to Mistral, one in which it is ill indeed to be caught on the wrong side of the shifting currents of power and influence. Ilioneus Kommenos fled to Vale to escape the waning of his fortunes in Mistral and was rewarded with a place of honour in the Last King's court. When the war was over, the King's favour was enough to see Ilioneus restored to his lands in Mistral… but he was regarded as a traitor by many, including my ancestors. It was not thought proper that the sword of a hero should be placed in a traitor's hands. Achates, after all, had fought for the Emperor and given his life in the cause against which his brother had fought. My ancestors felt it would be improper to give his weapon over to one who had fought against that cause and our kingdom."

"I see," Sunset muttered. "I… I can see why your forebears took that view. It wasn't a family sword, was it?"

"No, it was given to Achates out of the Imperial armoury by the Emperor," Pyrrha said. "That was the legal basis of our claim."

"Was it ever tested?" Sunset asked.

"No, none of the Kommenos family even raised the issue until Phoebe's mother," Pyrrha explained. "The Kommenos family is… somewhat reduced in status, and my mother always believed that Lady Kommenos wished for the sword to raise the family's prestige. Certainly, it would have been a great fillip for Phoebe to bear it in the arena. Can you imagine it: a would-be Champion of Mistral, bearing the sword which her ancestor had used to champion Mistral on the battlefield? It would have been quite the stirring spectacle."

"Until she lost," Sunset said.

"She might not have," Pyrrha replied. "The sword might have inspired her."

Sunset's eyebrows rose. "Pyrrha, I am willing to go along with a certain degree of romanticism – I am a romantic myself, after all – but let's not go crazy here. It's a sword. A venerable blade, and one which I am honoured to bear as a sign of your family's trust in me, but it's still just a sword. I couldn't beat you with it, and I'm pretty sure that preening wannabe couldn't either."

"Sunset's got a point," Jaune said. "I mean, if we were all as good as our weapons, then I'd be a better huntsman than you, and… well, you know."

"Perhaps I am exaggerating a little," Pyrrha admitted. "In any case, my mother was not above wagering Soteria upon the outcome of matches between Phoebe and myself."

"I think your mother was less 'willing to give the sword away' and more having some fun at the expense of Phoebe and her mother," Sunset suggested. "But at least she had faith in you."

"I suppose, in the arena at least," Pyrrha murmured. "In any case, you know the truth now, so… I suppose it's up to you whether you feel as though Phoebe deserves the sword."

"Of course I don't think Phoebe Kommenos deserves the sword!" Sunset exclaimed. "It's mine! Given unto me as a mark of my distinction." Made all the more precious because she had been given very few marks of distinction in her life. "I know… I know that it doesn't exactly make you feel great to see your mother favour me so, but I have been given very few marks of favour in my career, and so… to be recognised for my quality… it means a lot to me."

Since combat school, she had always shunted aside in favour of others, and frequently others who were – in Sunset's wholly objective opinion – less than her. She had been overshadowed and outshone, first by the Ace of Canterlot and then by the Invincible Girl. Her magic made up for her deficiencies in other respects, and yet, it seemed she lacked a certain glamour about her that drew men to her and won their hearts. They did not see her worth, nor recognise the talent she possessed. But with Lady Nikos, it was different; here was a lady of high birth and noble blood, wealthy and well-respected, blessed with such a daughter as might never again be seen in Mistral. And yet, Pyrrha's light had not prevented Lady Nikos from perceiving Sunset in a way few others did and honouring her with symbols of her respect. If Sunset gave Soteria away, she would throw away that symbol of respect as though it meant little to her, instead of meaning so, so much. As much to the point, she would insult Lady Nikos by doing so, and that, she was not willing to do.

"I will not give it up just because its previous owner has living relatives. I will not give it up out of obligation and certainly not for lien."

"My mother will be pleased to hear it," Pyrrha said.

"You could always tell her so," Sunset suggested.

Pyrrha sighed. "Sunset-"

"Okay, I'm sorry, forget I said that," Sunset said quickly, holding up one hand.

"I'm afraid… that may not be the last time you hear of this," Pyrrha warned. "Phoebe can be… persistent, if nothing else, and Arslan tells me that there are some amongst the Haven students who are not happy that Soteria was bestowed on you."

"Phoebe told me that people think I'm your family's hireling," Sunset remarked.

"Is that bad?" Ruby asked.

"Only for my self-respect," Sunset replied.

Pyrrha cringed a little. "I'm sure that mother would never have phrased your arrangement in that way."

"I know," Sunset said. "But it doesn't surprise me that people think that way. I suppose I'm not the sort of person who ought to attract the favour of the House of Nikos, am I?"

Pyrrha didn't seem to know how to respond to that. Her cheeks reddened a little, and she glanced away from Sunset.

"Sorry," Sunset repeated. "I didn't mean to… I just… anyway, thanks for explaining to me; it doesn't change my mind, but at least I understand. So… I should probably go; I'll see you guys later." She turned away from her teammates and took the first step towards the door.

"Sunset, wait a second!" Jaune called out and by his voice arrested Sunset's progress. "I was actually hoping we could talk… alone."

Sunset blinked. "'Alone'?"

"'Alone'?" Ruby repeated. "What's going on, Jaune?"

"Nothing," Jaune said hastily, and not particularly convincingly in Sunset's opinion, what with the way that his voice rose up an octave. "I just need a quick word. I'll catch up with you guys at the cafeteria."

"I'm sure we'll be fine to leave the two of them in peace," Pyrrha said, her voice sounding calmer once more, and more composed as she sidled past Sunset and reached the door. "I'll save you a seat, Jaune, but don't be too long."

Jaune chuckled. "I won't."

Pyrrha nodded. "Are you coming, Ruby?"

"Uh, sure," Ruby said, leaping over her bed. "Later, Sunset!"

"Later, Ruby, Pyrrha," Sunset said as they both took their leave and the door closed behind them. Sunset walked back her steps towards her own bed and leaned against the wall with one outstretched arm. She focussed her attention upon the awkward-looking Jaune. "So," she said. "What's going on, Jaune?"

Jaune dry-washed his hands. "Well… you see… there's something that I need to ask you, and… well, I don't really know… ugh, how do I say this? Did you leak that audio about Cardin and Bon Bon? Were you Anon-a-Miss?"

Sunset stared at him for a moment. He asked her that? He had the gall to ask her that? Yes, he was right on both counts, but that didn't mean that she wasn't a little upset about it. "I'm a little hurt, Jaune," she said. "I thought we were friends."

"We are friends," Jaune protested.

"After all I've done for you-"

"It's because of what you did for me that I know you could have done this," Jaune informed her. "In fact… you're the only person I can think of who might have done this."

Sunset did not reply. She felt her appetite start to ebb away as her stomach chilled noticeably. So, he suspected her. He thought her capable of such things. He could not think of anyone else who might be so capable as she was.

And here, Sunset had thought that she'd been changing for the better, that she had a fresh start here, that these new friends didn't realise what she was capable of.

Apparently, that was very naïve of her.

"You can't possibly be able to prove that."

Jaune's brow crinkled a little. "No," he admitted. "I can't. But my sister Aoko is pretty savvy with technology, and she probably doesn't hate me for coming to Beacon, so I bet if I ask her to look into this-"

"What do you want, Jaune?" Sunset demanded, as she flopped down onto her bed. With one hand, she reached out and grabbed her stuffed unicorn, feeling the soft felt fur beneath her fingers, squeezing the toy for comfort. "Is it lien? I don't have very much of that. Do you want your essays done for you? Do you want yours and Pyrrha's essays done for you so that you two have more time to-"

"Sunset," Jaune cut her off. "What are you talking about?"

Sunset's eyes narrowed. "I assumed you were about to blackmail me."

"'Blackmail?' Come on, Sunset!" Jaune cried. "This is me you're talking to! Jaune Arc, remember? Goofy guy with a heart of gold?"

"Did you just describe yourself as possessing a heart of gold?"

Jaune shrugged. "It's pretty shiny, don't you think?"

"I…" Sunset shook her head. "Well, if you didn't want to blackmail me, then why did you clear the room? If you wanted to call me out, then why didn't you do it in front of Ruby and Pyrrha?"

"Because I know that it matters to you what Ruby and Pyrrha think, just like I know that they wouldn't understand; they'd think you did something wrong," Jaune said. "And you know that too, don't you? That's why you don't want them to find out."

Sunset stared up at Jaune. When he had asked her if she was the one responsible, she had felt as though the floor had disappeared to reveal only an ocean beneath; now, Jaune was throwing her a lifeline. "I know that they wouldn't understand," she muttered. "They would see only a despicable act."

"Well, it was pretty rough, what you did to Lyra," Jaune said.

"And Cardin and Bon Bon?" Sunset asked. "Was it pretty rough what I did to them?"

Jaune hesitated. "I… I don't think it's my place to say whether a faunus ought to get upset about stuff like that."

"But you think it's your place to say whether a faunus should get upset about having the White Fang symbol painted on her door?"

"I think that it's my place to say that you shouldn't go around hurting people who have nothing to do with the thing that you're upset about," Jaune said. "Why Lyra? Why not Bon Bon?"

"I couldn't get into Bon Bon's scroll," Sunset explained. "It was too heavily protected."

"That's weird."

"Some people are security conscious, I suppose," Sunset murmured. "Why… why did you think it was me?"

Jaune folded his arm. "Something happened to Blake and then something bad happens to the people harassing her? It reminded me of what you did when Cardin did something to me."

"Right," Sunset whispered. She looked down at the floor. "Are you mad?"

"I'm… disappointed," Jaune replied. "I thought you were better than that. I thought you'd gotten better than that."

"I have gotten better," Sunset protested. "I'm not a bad person; I'm a good person who… occasionally does bad things. Which does not include what I did to Cardin, by the way; he had it coming.

"Doesn't it?" Jaune asked. "Are you sure that it doesn't?"

Sunset hesitated. "No," she admitted. "His girlfriend broke up with him."

"I can't say I'm surprised."

"Neither can I, but… I felt sorry for him when I found out." Sunset sighed. "I… you know, he came to see me last night to surrender. He waved the white flag and begged me not to do anything else to him. Promised that he wouldn't trespass against us."

Jaune stared down at her. "And did that make you feel better?"

"No," Sunset confessed. "Not the way that I thought it would."

Jaune was silent a moment. "Why?"

"Because they hurt Blake."

"I'm sure Blake's dealt with much worse than school bullies with loud mouths in her time."

"That doesn't mean that she should have to!" Sunset exclaimed. "What happened to it not being your place to decide what faunus should be mad about?"

"What happened to you being a better person?" Jaune asked. "What happened to you being past that kind of thing?" He frowned. "Is this going to be a thing now? Is this what you're going to do every time somebody says the wrong thing to Blake, or to one of us?"

"You say that like it's a bad thing for me to care about you all," Sunset snapped. "You make it sound like it's a bad thing that you guys matter to me. You make it sound like it's a bad thing for me to want to take revenge against any wrongs done to you."

"It kind of is," Jaune cried. "Don't get me wrong; it's great that you care, but… well… the way that you show it is… is this going to be a thing?"

"Come on, Jaune, I'm a lot of things, but a bully isn't one of them," Sunset said. "When have you ever known me to make the first move?"

"You didn't make the first move this time, but that doesn't make it any less…" Jaune trailed off.

"Less what?" Sunset asked.

"Less wrong?" Jaune suggested. "Okay, with Cardin and Bon Bon, it was complicated, but with Lyra? Are you going to go after Weiss because she's associated with Cardin?"

"Weiss and I are good now, and Cardin has given up."

"Until he annoys you again?" Jaune demanded. "Did Cinder have anything to do with this?"

Sunset got up off the bed. "What does Cinder have to do with this?"

"You tell me," Jaune said. "You've been spending a lot of time with her and… well, don't you think she's kind of creepy?"

"'Creepy'?" Sunset repeated flatly.

"She can be creepy to me," Jaune said. "The point is… I don't think that you would have done this before you met her."

"I make my own decisions, Jaune," Sunset declared. "No one is manipulating me or forcing me to do anything."

"Are you going to make your own decision to stop doing stuff like this?" Jaune asked. "Sunset… you're a good friend, to all of us. And you're right, it's not a bad thing that we can always count on you to help us out when we're in trouble. No matter what, we know you've got our backs, and that is… that's great. But you don't need to do this stuff, and I think you know that."

Sunset huffed and pouted her lips. She did know that, that was the worst part. Blake had told her so already, and Blake… Blake was right.

And she knew that she had done… well, she might not say that she had done wrong over Cardin, but she hadn't needed Blake to give her a lecture in order for her to feel guilty about it. Breaking up a relationship, that… that was just a wicked thing to do.

It was her decision and no one else's, and it had been a cruel decision.

They had both been cruel decisions. Cruel decisions which had belonged to an older Sunset, one which she had thought to leave behind.

She closed her eyes. "I… I am very fortunate," she said. "If you were not such a kind man, then you could have ruined me."

"I'm not that guy," Jaune told her.

"No," Sunset agreed. "You're a better man than that, and than me." She smiled wanly up at him. "It won't happen again. You call me out rightly for it, I… I'm not sure what I was thinking."

"Was it you thinking?"

"Yes!" Sunset said firmly. "Cinder had nothing to do with this." Okay, Cinder had helped her out with the technical side, but it had been Sunset's idea, and that was what mattered. "This was me. It was all me." She paused. "Thank you, Jaune."

"For what?"

"For reminding me of who I'm trying to be," Sunset told him. "And now…" She didn't really know what to say about now. She wouldn't do it again? Only her actions could demonstrate that. He had done her a service, but the fact was, right now, being in the same room as Jaune felt suddenly very awkward, embarrassing, almost shameful.

She wanted to get out; she just wasn't sure how to extricate herself from the situation.

"You should probably go," Jaune told her. "Don't want to stand up Twilight, do you?"

Sunset chuckled nervously. "Right," she said, and made her exit as swiftly as she reasonably could. It was only with great restraint that she didn't teleport out of there.

She left the dorm rooms and trudged across the grounds of the school towards Benni Haven's, passing students from all four academies headed the other way in the direction of the dining hall. There was no sign of Twilight Sparkle, and Sunset quickened her pace against the possibility that Twilight – not burdened with needing to discuss things with Pyrrha and Jaune – had gone on before her and would be waiting when she arrived.

She thrust her hands into her pockets. Jaune had been right to call her out. It was good that she had someone like that on her team, someone who wasn't… someone who didn't… Pyrrha and Ruby were too nice, was what Sunset was trying to get across inside her head. Which wasn't to say that Jaune wasn't nice as well; it was just… a different kind of nice, a less trusting kind. Yes, trust. That was the issue. It wasn't that Jaune was less forgiving than Ruby or Pyrrha – in fact, Sunset thought it likely that Ruby would be the least forgiving of anyone who fell short of her high standards of good conduct – but that he had, strangely for a boy who had lived his entire life in a backwater village, seen a little more of the world than the tournament champion or the huntsman's child. He was a little more willing to suspect jackassery; possibly because he'd been on the receiving end of it more often than either of the girls had.

They needed someone like that on the team. Sunset needed someone like that, someone who would call her out as he just had, but at the same time kind enough to do it in private and give her the chance to mend her ways without exposing her in front of the rest of their friends.

It occurred to Sunset that she had squandered just such a chance from Rainbow Dash, whom she hadn't spoken to since she had exposed Cardin and Bon Bon. She had no idea what the Atlesian huntress thought about that or what she meant to do about it. She hadn't done anything yet, but that was no guarantee she wouldn't. Perhaps Twilight would be able to shed some light on that front.

Either way, Sunset probably owed her an apology.

She would not, however, apologise to Bon Bon; she could accept that she'd been wrong without abasing herself before someone who had, quite frankly, had it coming.

And besides, to actually apologise to her victim would involve admitting guilt, and that could lead to all kinds of problems.

No, she would, as the saying went, keep moving forward, improving her future without stopping to make amends for her past.

As she walked down the gravel path towards the restaurant, Sunset wondered why it was that Jaune blamed Cinder for Sunset's behaviour. Yes, they had talked about what Sunset meant to do, and Cinder had even given her a hand with some of the technological aspects of it, but she hadn't pushed Sunset into any decisions. She had been a sympathetic ear but a largely compliant one, making the right noises but not putting any thoughts into Sunset's head.

Sunset made her own decisions, and she wasn't going to cut Cinder out of her life because she'd made some mistakes.

She was certain that, if she were to ask Princess Twilight about it, she would be told that blaming your friends for your own problems was a great big friendship no-no.

See how well I'm learning, Princess? I don't even need to ask you to hear your opinion.

Sunset pushed open the door to Benni Haven's and was confronted by the familiar sight of Fluffy the Beowolf; he wasn't a real beowolf, of course, any more than the ursa's head on the other wall above the fireplace belonged to a real ursa, but it looked real enough, and it gave the place a little bit of that hunting lodge character.

Besides, the team photos steadily engulfing the wall wouldn't have been the same without him; he elevated something that could have felt officious or perfunctory and made them fun.

Every team that came to Benni Haven's was invited to have their photo taken with the mock grimm, one copy going to the team themselves and the other being kept by the eponymous owner of the restaurant to hang on the wall as part of her constantly expanding collection. As Sunset waited – the restaurant was deathly quiet, and empty too; Sunset was the first and only person in here – she walked past Fluffy and looked at all the photos on the wall. The largest picture by far was, notably, the only one in which Fluffy did not feature: it was a photograph of Benni's own team, from her Beacon days before she retired to become a restaurateur. Sunset didn't look at that one long; her gaze was focussed on the more recent pictures, sweeping from frame to frame, over the quartets of smiling, laughing, joyous faces.

Team YRDN was there, in its old configuration, with Dove glancing up at Fluffy as if he was afraid the fake was going to come to life and try to bite his head off; Ren, standing at the edge of the picture, was managing the difficult feat of looking deathly serious even as he fended off Nora's attempts to drag him closer to the centre of the shot. Team YRBN didn't have a photo – they clearly hadn't come here with Blake yet – but the new configuration of Team BLBL did while, as far as Sunset could see, they hadn't had a photo taken while Blake was their leader.

Sunset felt a tinge of melancholy at the fact that Blake had no picture upon this wall. Team SAPR had one – their copy hung on the wall beside the door – with Jaune leaning on Fluffy and Sunset leaning on Ruby; the other three members of Team YRBN had one; Team RSPT had one, with Penny making peace signs with both hands while Rainbow beam proudly; even Trixie's team had one, with purple smoke pooling at the bottom of the frame suggesting Trixie had accidentally set a bomb off. But there was no Blake. There was no record of her here.

Okay, yes, there were records in the archive, but… this place was a record all its own, a place where you could look upon the faces of the huntsmen and huntresses who had come before – and wonder how bravely they fought, how fiercely they loved.

Sunset found herself wondering how many of them had been used by Professor Ozpin and how many had paid dearly for it.

"Sunset?" Benni said, coming out from the kitchen and into the restaurant area. "You're here early. All by yourself?"

Sunset straightened up and turned to face Benni Haven, a middle-aged squirrel faunus with a cybernetic arm and a big bushy tail that curled up at the top before it rose higher than her head. "I'm meeting someone here," she explained. "I thought she might be here already, but it seems I'm the early one."

"Well, you can pick whatever table you like," Benni told her, gesturing all around the empty restaurant. "Just the one other person you're expecting?"

"That's right."

"Well, you sit down, and I'll get you a couple of breakfast menus," Benni said. "You want a cup of coffee while you wait?"

"Can you bring a pot?" Sunset asked. "Hopefully, Twilight won't be too long."

"One pot of coffee coming right up," Benni declared. "Hey, Stan did you get that?"

"Yeah, I got it," replied a male voice from the kitchen. Benni's husband did all of the cooking, but Sunset had never actually seen his face. He was just an ethereal creature on the other side of the door, producing meals to order.

Sunset took a table in the back corner of the restaurant, sitting down with her back to the wall and facing the door so that she could see Twilight come in when she arrived.

Benni strode over to her with the morning menus, putting one down in front of Sunset and the other before the empty space opposite her.

"Thank you," Sunset said.

"So," Benni said. "What's up?"

Sunset looked up at her. "What do you mean?"

"Having breakfast alone, with only Twilight for company; you got something to talk about you don't want to share, right? Something going on?"

Sunset grinned. "You realise that if there was something going on, I probably wouldn't tell you."

"Hey, your secrets are safe with me," Benni told her. "Eight years, I've been running this place, and I've never spilled a student's confidence yet."

Sunset hesitated. Benni had been here for a while, both as a student and as the owner of this place; she had seen a lot of students come through here – although given what she'd just said about confidence, there would be limits to what she was willing to say. "You ever… have you ever noticed anything weird going on around here?"

Benni snorted. "Kid, this is Beacon Academy; it sometimes feels like weird is all there is around here sometimes."

Sunset rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sure, but you know what I mean, right? More than just the usual stuff, like…" She groped for a way to say 'magic' without actually saying 'magic.' "Anything strange, even for this place?"

Benni shrugged. "It depends what you mean by 'strange,'" she said. "You know Dove Bronzewing in your year, right?"

Sunset nodded. "I know Dove a little, sure." You don't mean to tell me that Dove's mixed up in this magic stuff, is he?

How can he be? He's not a girl.

"One time, when Dove and his friends were in here, I hear them talking about this girl, Amber. I tell them that I know who they're talking about; she hung around the school for about a year or so. Not a student, though. No team; I don't think she went to classes, judging by some of the times she turned up here, but she lived in the school all the same. That was a little weird."

"Did you find out what she was doing here?"

Benni shook her head. "Professor Ozpin told me that she was his niece. He brought her in here sometimes for dinner."

"Did you believe him?"

Benni nodded. "He treated her like family, although I never heard of him having any other relatives; still, the Professor is the kind to keep things close."

You don't know the half of it. "Maybe she didn't have anywhere else to go."

"Maybe," Benni conceded. "Sometimes, she'd come in here by herself; she was always… it was like she was scared of something. Scared of everything. Skittish like. I tried to talk to her, make her feel a little welcome, but she always… it was like she was scared of me." She chuckled. "Poor kid was even scared of Fluffy."

"Maybe there's a good reason she wasn't a student."

"Probably. Then, one day, she just… disappeared. Stopped coming around. No word or anything."

"It doesn't sound like you two were close."

"No," Benni allowed. "But she didn't tell Dove where she was going either; now that's a little weird, right?"

Possibly, but hardly the sort of weirdness that Sunset was interested in. "I guess," she murmured. "What about Professor Ozpin?"

"What about him?"

"I've heard that he has favourites," Sunset said. "Like Team Stark, back in the old days."

Benni was still for a moment, and quiet. At length, she nodded. "Yeah," she agreed. "I'd say that was about right for Team Stark. I mean, to be fair, we all knew that those four were something special even before they saved the day at Ozpin's Stand. Everyone – and I mean everyone, even the upperclassmen – looked up to Team Stark. They walked around the school like they owned it, and from what I heard, they'd been that way even in Freshman year. People recognise talent, and Team Stark had it to spare." She grinned. "From what I hear, people are starting to look at Team Sapphire that way, what with you catching criminals and stopping bad guys."

Sunset chuckled as she felt a faint blush rise to her cheeks. Ordinarily, she would have been quite content to drink deep of the flattery, but right now, she had other concerns on her mind. "And Professor Ozpin?"

Benni nodded. "Sure," she said. "Ozpin gave them more missions than any other team, and juicier missions too. Like… they were the only ones he could count on when things got really tough."

"So the headmaster does have favourites."

"There are favourites," Benni said. "And then there are favourites of favourites. Every year, there's one team that starts school that Professor Ozpin is particularly interested in, like last year, it was Team Coffee. But sometimes, it doesn't stay that way, like… maybe they're not as good as he thought they were going to be, I guess, or some other team with more motivation overtakes them. But other times, like with Team Stark, it's like he gets really interested, like he can see something in them. Of course, we could all see something in Team Stark, so that wasn't a big surprise."

Sunset nodded. Favourites of favourites, that made sense. Professor Ozpin would want to take some time to make sure that the ones he had his eye on were what he thought they were, the same way that Celestia had taken the time to decide that Sunset wasn't what she was looking for and Twilight Sparkle was.

What it also told her was that they might have to wait until second year to find out if Team SAPR was one of those special favourites, or if it was Team YRBN, or if nobody had impressed him enough at all.

There was a certain irony to the fact that the surefire way to protect her team from the Headmaster's machinations was to screw up, and that was something that Sunset's pride would not allow her to do. She was done hiding her light beneath a bushel, even for safety's sake.

"Thank you," she said. "I just heard a few things, and I thought you'd know the truth."

"It's what I'm here for," Benni said. "Now, I'll see how your coffee's getting on."

The coffee was done, apparently, because Benni brought the pot over shortly afterwards with two plain china cups, a very small jug of milk and a bowl of sugar cubes. Sunset poured herself a cup with ample amounts of sugar in it and sipped the hot, brown liquid while she waited for Twilight.

The door opened, and Twilight walked in, wearing a silly smile on her face as she looked down at her scroll; so engrossed in it was she that Twilight almost walked into Fluffy, stopping herself only just in time.

Sunset waved at her as Twilight looked around the restaurant.

"Hey, Twilight!" Benni hailed her. "Good morning."

"Good morning, Ms Haven," Twilight replied, as she jogged quickly across the restaurant and sat down in the free seat next to Sunset. "Sorry I'm late."

"It's fine," Sunset said. "I haven't been here long."

"Good," Twilight said. She looked down at her scroll again, and the smile returned to her face as she put the device away.

"What's got you in such a good mood?" Sunset asked.

"Oh, nothing," Twilight said, as she blushed furiously. "Just some texts from Neptune."

Sunset blinked. "'Neptune'? Neptune Vasilias?"

"Yeah," Twilight said, sounding a little embarrassed about it. "He, uh, he asked me out last weekend."

Sunset's eyebrows. "Really? And you said yes?"

"Why not?" Twilight asked. "He's nice, he's funny, he's-"

"A player?" Sunset suggested.

"I think that's just an act," Twilight replied. "I think he's a lot sweeter than he seems."

"Hmm," Sunset murmured. It wasn't really any of her business, but she was a little afraid that Twilight was setting herself up for disappointment here. As like as not, she'd catch him cheating on her before the year ended. He seemed that kind of guy; he didn't have any of his team leader's sincerity. Personally, Sunset wouldn't have trusted him as far as she could throw him without magic.

But it really wasn't any of her business, and if Twilight thought she could handle it, well, she was a big girl. And it wasn't what Sunset had asked her to breakfast for. "Well, best of luck," she said. "What do you want for breakfast?"

"Oh, um," Twilight looked at the menu in front of her. "Have you had the crepes here?"

Sunset ordered two sets of crepes with strawberries for herself and Twilight and, while they were waiting, asked, "How are things with Penny?"

"Do you mean herself or," Twilight's voice dropped a little as she leaned forward, "her swords?"

"The swords," Sunset murmured. "Although if you want to talk about anything else, that's fine."

"Penny's doing great," Twilight said. "Well, she's happy at least, and so far, her performance in every trial she's been engaged in has been exemplary. Her father is very impressed; so is General Ironwood and the authorities back home. On all the evidence currently available, the project is a complete success. I, on the other hand, am not a success."

"No more luck?"

"None," Twilight groaned.

"Maybe you should ask Ruby for help," Sunset suggested. "She was able to get that monstrous scythe to fold up; maybe she can help you shrink the swords?"

"Ruby?"

"She's smarter than she looks," Sunset informed Twilight. "Or acts, sometimes. The point is that she really does get this stuff; maybe she can be the fresh pair of eyes you're looking for."

"Maybe," Twilight agreed. "It's worth a shot at least." She hesitated. "And, have you thought anything more about-?"

"Don't," Sunset said firmly. "If my answer changes, I will let you know."

"Right," Twilight said softly. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Sunset told her. "Just… don't push it."

"I won't, and I am sorry," Twilight repeated. "I'm just… anyway, why did you-?" She stopped, as Benni brought their crepes over. "Thank you, ma'am."

"Don't call me 'ma'am'; I'm not that old," Benni said. "You girls enjoy it and let me know if you need anything else."

"Will do," Sunset replied, pouring herself another cup of coffee. "You were saying?" she asked as Benni retreated.

"I was about to ask why you invited me to have breakfast with you," Twilight said.

Sunset chewed on some crepe wrapped around a strawberry. The fruit was soft and gave way easily before her teeth, which didn't stop it from tasting good in any way. Once she had swallowed, she leaned forward a little, "I've been reading those books you gave me," she said, "and I think I know what happened to all the magic."

"Really?" Twilight demanded in a voice laced with sarcasm. "A mystery that has baffled a whole community for years, but you've got it all figured out just like that?"

"I'm smarter than anyone else," Sunset declared breezily, sipping some of her coffee.

Twilight stared at her flatly.

"Plus, I had some information that no one else had access to," Sunset explained.

"Hmm," Twilight murmured. "Go on, what happened?"

"Professor Ozpin hid it away," Sunset said.

Twilight snorted some of her coffee out of her nose and spent some little time getting the rest out before she was able to speak again. "Professor- that's ridiculous!"

"I thought that General Ironwood was the man you all admired so much you couldn't believe him capable of fault."

"He is," Twilight said. "I mean, he isn't-"

"Yes," Sunset said. "Yes, he is."

"Yeah, he really is," Twilight admitted. "But anyway, this has nothing to do with admiration and everything to do with the fact that he's not old enough. If you had read those books I gave you-"

"I did."

"Then you'd know that magic 'disappeared' centuries ago, maybe even longer; Professor Ozpin isn't nearly old enough-"

"Okay, so he didn't start it," Sunset conceded. "But he's the one doing it now?"

"Why do you think that?"

"Ruby's mother told me."

Twilight's eyes narrowed. "Isn't Ruby's mother dead?"

"She left a diary," Sunset explained. "Which I… came into the possession of in the course of a story which has no relevance to this matter."

"Please don't tell you found the journal of Ruby's late mother and kept it for yourself."

"Why does everyone always assume the worst of me?" Sunset demanded. "After all I've done for you people, why is it that I am yet denied the benefit of the doubt and continually must endure accusations-"

"Because the accusations are often true, Anon-a-Miss," Twilight declared acidly.

Sunset blinked, pursing her lips together. "Rainbow told you, didn't she?"

"Uh-huh," Twilight said flatly.

"How's she feeling about me right now?"

"Ambivalent," Twilight replied. "She doesn't like what you did, but… what Cardin and Bon Bon were saying to Blake… I think that it's hard for her to get too angry at you when she's so upset at Bon Bon." Twilight hesitated. "Bon Bon did say those things, didn't she?"

"Do you think that I could fake that? Well enough to fool journalists?"

"Probably not," Twilight conceded. "To think that Bon Bon could be so vile, could hold such horrible opinions. We were never close, but I thought we were all on good terms, and all the times she was being pleasant and polite to Rainbow Dash, she was secretly thinking stuff like that. I would never have believed it."

"I would," Sunset replied. "The only reason to be that self-righteous is if you want to distract attention for your own wickedness."

"Maybe, and maybe it was just my naivete showing that I didn't see it until it was obvious," Twilight murmured. "I just thought we were better than that now. I thought that wasn't who we were any more."

"People?"

"Atlesians," Twilight clarified.

Sunset shrugged. "Society can move as fast or as slow as it wants; there will always be those who refuse to move with it."

"I suppose," Twilight sighed. "Do you think this will affect Blake's view of Atlas?"

"I wish it would," Sunset muttered. "Sadly, I think the fact that Trixie and that other girl-"

"Starlight."

"Yeah, her, came to back her up will count for more than where Bon Bon was born." Sunset swallowed some more strawberry. "After all, she's Beacon's problem now."

"Lucky you," Twilight said quietly. "But, anyway, you were saying about the diary of Ruby's mother."

"Summer Rose, yes," Sunset agreed. "As I was saying before I was impugned, I did give it to Ruby, but she has kept me informed on what she's found out from it. That's how we found out about Silver Eyes; her mother wrote about them. Just like Summer also wrote about a mission that she and her team went on while they were students, to escort a woman named Auburn to a village out in the sticks. On the way, they were attacked by grimm, but Auburn defended them using ice, fire, wind, and lightning."

Twilight's eyes widened. "The same as when-"

"You were saved as a child," Sunset agreed. "Now get this: Professor Ozpin assigned that mission to Team Stark personally. He introduced Auburn to them as an old friend."

"That doesn't prove he knew-"

"He knew," Sunset insisted. "Else why would he have assigned Team Stark the mission? What did he think Auburn was going out into the countryside to do?"

"What was Auburn going out into the countryside to do?" Twilight asked.

"She found a young girl, a former student named Merida who had dropped out of Beacon, and took her away with her."

Twilight frowned. "But why?"

"Auburn died, no more than a year after that mission," Sunset explained. "Cancer."

Twilight's eyes widened. "In the legends, magic always passes upon death."

"And to the person the last wielded of the magic is closest to," Sunset added. "Or to whoever kills them, but if we assume that Auburn really did die of natural causes, then she went to collect her successor and keep her close until the end came."

Twilight's eyes flickered back and forth. She looked away from Sunset and down at the table in front of her. "So… when the Red Queens were vanquished-"

"My theory is that the heroes who killed them had come into possession of their magic."

"And in order to make sure that they or their successors were not hunted down-"

"They went into hiding, allowing the memory of magic to fade away," Sunset continued.

"Until the present day?" Twilight asked. "And Professor Ozpin knows about this? Why? How?"

"I can't answer how," Sunset said. "Perhaps… perhaps there is no one Old Man; there are a succession of Old Men who have been initiated into the world's mysteries, and he is the latest of them. The point is that he knows, he knows so much more than he is letting on, and he is keeping magic from the rest of us. He and those who came before are part of a conspiracy to make sure that magic is not seen in the world again."

"Then how do you explain my accident?" Twilight said. "Whoever our rescuer was, they used magic."

"Maybe they got tired of hiding?" Sunset suggested. "Maybe they didn't realise that you were awake and thought that nobody would see them cutting loose? Maybe their conscience wouldn't allow them to stand by and let a family die for the sake of their secret? But that was a one off-"

"It's not the only incident that's been recorded."

"Let me guess," Sunset said. "All isolated, just like yours; all with a lack of credible witnesses, just like yours; all completely deniable, just like yours."

Twilight nodded mutely. "Pretty much."

"So maybe they're not hiding it all the time, but they're not going out of their way to make a spectacle of themselves," Sunset said. "We're a long way from the prophets."

Twilight sagged in her seat. "Yeah, we are, aren't we?" She sighed. "Well, that's that, I guess."

Sunset frowned. "What do you mean, that's that?"

"Well, it would have been nice to be able to officially solve the mystery, but that can't happen-"

"What do you mean 'that can't happen'?" Sunset demanded. "We know what we're looking for now; we have to keep digging and-"

"And what?" Twilight asked. "If we're right, then magic disappeared for a pretty good reason-"

"There is no good reason for hiding what you can do," Sunset declared. "Still less for hiding who and what you are."

"Not even to protect yourself?" Twilight asked. "Or to protect others who would be in danger if the powers fell into the wrong hands as they did before? You have… everything that you've said makes perfect sense, and I believe it, but… with what you've told me, I'm not willing to go on, not now that I understand what happened and why. If you've read the account of the reign of the Red Queens, then you know what's at stake."

"This isn't the olden days; I don't believe that one person, even with magic, could just take over like that," Sunset said.

"It's too big a risk," Twilight insisted. "There are other mysteries to pursue, other questions to answer, phenomena that aren't – or don't seem to be – connected with the prophets or the Red Queens. But on this matter, we have to trust that Professor Ozpin knows what he's doing-"

"Why?" Sunset demanded. "Why do we have to trust him when he hasn't given us any reason to?"

"Because we have to put our trust in authority, or who can we trust?" Twilight asked. "If we can't trust our headmasters and generals, then… what, do we just make our own choices?"

"Oh, how terrible, we might actually have to think for ourselves."

"And when your thoughts conflict with Ruby's?" Twilight asked. "Or Pyrrha's? When you and Rainbow Dash butt heads with no one higher up to resolve it because you've rejected the notion of responsible authority, what then? Are you going to fight it out? Break heads to establish your dominance? Anarchy and barbarism, that's where this leads, we need authority, we need order-"

"You sound like a tin pot despot."

"And you sound like a savage!" Twilight snapped. She sighed. "I'm sorry, I just… I don't think we should risk breaking the world just to prove that we were right."

Sunset stared at her for a moment. "That's the difference between us, Twilight. As far as I'm concerned, a world where magic has been hidden like this is already broken."

 

[ScipioSmith]

Black Sword, Blue Eyes​

"Ruby, is something wrong?" Pyrrha asked as the two of them walked towards the cafeteria. The sun was up, the day was bright, Pyrrha could think of nothing that ought to be troubling Ruby, and yet, it seemed that Ruby was troubled. Her head was bowed, and she was playing idly with her fingers as she walked.

"Huh?" Ruby asked as they walked past Professor Ozpin – who nodded genially to them, which Pyrrha acknowledged with a bow of her head – going the other way. "No, sorry. It's just… I was thinking about what you said about Sunset's sword. About how the two brothers fought on opposite sides of the Great War. I was just thinking about how terrible that must have been for them."

"War has a habit of turning brother against brother, friend against friend," Professor Ozpin lamented. "All the moreso when ideology and the demands of faction mingle with the call of kingdom and comradeship." He smiled sadly. "Forgive me, ladies, I happened to overhear."

"That's quite alright, Professor," Pyrrha said, turning to face the headmaster as Ruby did likewise.

"So, it happened a lot?" Ruby asked.

"Regrettably often, yes, Miss Rose," Professor Ozpin replied. "With exiles from Mistral and Mantle, and of course, there were some amongst the Valish to whom the philosophies of Mantle and their emphasis upon the suppression of individual feelings resonated greatly."

"Uh, of course," Ruby said nervously, reminding Pyrrha that she had missed on a great deal of history by skipping two years of combat school. "I can't imagine anything that would make me fight against Yang."

"War is a terrible business," Pyrrha agreed. "That is why we train to uphold the peace that blesses our world."

"Of course," Ruby said. "I'm just saying that it would have been hard on them."

"No doubt, although neither of them left any testimony to that effect," Pyrrha said. "But, brave as Achates was, he was only human, and I am sure he felt the pang of separation from his family." She looked down at Ruby. "What do you think should be done with the sword?"

Ruby's eyes widened in surprise. "Why are you asking me about something like that?"

"Because you are righteous and kind, and you have a good heart," Pyrrha explained. "One that is not clouded by tradition or what my family has done in the past or Sunset's desire to hang on to the sword." She smiled. "So, what do you think?"

Ruby stopped walking, clasping her hands together for a moment as her lips moved without speaking.

"I think… I think that maybe your family should have given the sword to his brother," she said. "After all, the war was over; there was no reason to hold a grudge just because you'd fought on different sides. I mean it was still his family."

"You are… correct, of course," Pyrrha murmured. "But I don't think we should be too quick to judge those who came before us. I'm sure it must have been a lot harder to forgive and forget for those who had just emerged from the war."

"That's the other thing," Ruby said. "I'm not sure if they would have really wanted it. I mean… he was still dead. If Yang died… if I lost her, I don't think having Ember Celica with me at home would make me feel any better. I don't think having Mom's weapon would make me feel any better. Maybe that's why nobody made a big deal out of it at the time."

"You may be correct," Pyrrha said. "Although in Mistral, we certainly act as though it will bring comfort to those we leave behind to receive our effects." Her brow furrowed. "If I die-"

"You're not going to die, Pyrrha," Ruby declared, cutting her off.

"If I die," Pyrrha repeated. "Will you bear my circlet home to my mother, and Miló too, if it can be found? So that she might have something to remember me by?"

"Do you think it would make her feel any better?" Ruby demanded. "Do you think that having a circlet will make up for not having a daughter any more?"

"No," Pyrrha admitted. "Probably not." Although if she yet has Sunset, that might offer some consolation. She chuckled softly. "As I told you, you can see things much more clearly than the rest of us because you're an outsider to all this."

Ruby shrugged. "I just know a little bit about losing someone. Anyway, I don't think that the sword belongs to that Phoebe girl. It's all so long ago now, too long ago to suddenly insist that it matters. If it's been in your family since the Great War, you should be allowed to do what you like with it. And besides, she sounds like a bully."

"I fear that she can be," Pyrrha confessed. "Please, Ruby, if you can, stay out of this matter while Phoebe is around; I fear that she can hold a grudge against those whom she perceives to have wronged her."

"I'll try," Ruby said softly. "Is Sunset going to be okay?"

"I hope so," Pyrrha replied. "Sunset… can usually handle herself. Although I do wish that Phoebe hadn't brought her into this; I would tell her so myself, but it would do more harm than good."

"Are you one of the people she's holding a grudge against?" Ruby asked.

"Yes," Pyrrha replied candidly. "Phoebe… does not accept defeat in the same good sport that someone like Arslan does."

"Hey, guys!" Jaune called out as he jogged across the courtyard to catch up with them. "Thanks for waiting for me."

"No problem, Jaune," Ruby said, winking at Pyrrha.

Jaune grinned at her. "What were you just talking about?"

"Sunset's sword," Ruby explained as the three of them now – Jaune fell in easily in between Pyrrha and Ruby – started walking towards the dining hall, as more and more students from Beacon, Atlas, Haven, and Shade descended upon it from all four corners of the school. "And whether or not she ought to give it back."

Jaune snorted. "Even if she should, there's no way that it's going to happen," he said.

"No," Pyrrha admitted. "But I was hoping – and Ruby agreed with me – that Phoebe has no real claim upon the blade. Sunset is under no obligation to do other than what she wishes."

"Is there anything that she can do to take the sword away from Sunset?" Jaune asked.

"Legally, no," Pyrrha replied. "She could challenge Sunset to a duel with the sword as the prize of victory-"

"Like her mother tried to do with you?" Ruby asked.

"Yes," Pyrrha said. "But I think that, against Sunset, Phoebe would more likely have someone else challenge Sunset on her behalf."

"Why?" Jaune said, his brow furrowing a little. "Surely that would mean that whoever she got to do it would get the sword."

"Yes, but they could make arrangements beforehand," Pyrrha explained. "Or Phoebe could buy it from them once it had been won."

"Why not just challenge Sunset herself?" asked Jaune.

"Because…" Pyrrha hesitated for a moment. "Phoebe is very proud; I think that she would fear losing to Sunset, because she has never fought in the arena and…"

"And she's a faunus," Ruby murmured.

"Exactly," Pyrrha confirmed. "We Mistralians are supposed to surpass all others in single combat; if Phoebe is defeated by Sunset-"

"Would she be defeated?" The question came from Jaune. "I mean, is she any good?"

Pyrrha considered what she could say that would be both kind and accurate towards Phoebe Kommenos. "She is… not one of my great rivals," she admitted. "I think that Sunset would defeat her and, in so doing, destroy Phoebe's reputation, or she would fear it would be so. As I say, if she goes down that route, she will most likely use an agent."

"It doesn't seem to me like she has many other routes to go down," Jaune said as they neared the dining hall doors. "I mean, it's not like she has a deed or anything, right?"

"No," Pyrrha allowed. "But… there may be something else that I haven't thought of."

"I'm sure that Sunset can handle it, whatever it is," Ruby said, and on that, they were, all three of them, in agreement.

They entered the dining hall, picked up their trays, and joined the queue of students waiting in line for the counter.

"So, Jaune," Ruby said, "are you sure that you can't tell us what it is that you and Sunset had to talk about?"

"I'd really rather not," Jaune murmured.

"You know that if you're in trouble, Pyrrha and I can help out too."

"I'm not in trouble!" Jaune squawked. "I just needed to… please, Ruby, just drop it, for Sunset's sake."

"We won't pry into anything private, of course," Pyrrha said, a tad reproachfully. She hesitated. "But you're not in any trouble, are you?"

Jaune chuckled. "No, I'm really not in any trouble."

Pyrrha smiled. "I'm glad. Then everything went okay with Dove?"

"Ooh, right, you two switched partners last night, didn't you?" Ruby remembered. They had both been quite tired when they were done and hadn't talked at length about what went on. "How was that?"

Jaune shrugged. "Dove… he fights dirtier than you do."

Pyrrha's eyebrows rose. "How do you mean?"

"You fight… formally, I guess," Jaune elaborated. "But Dove, he… does things that might not be in the rulebook, like grabbing my shield with his bare hands to pull me off balance, or kicking me in the face when I'm down."

"I see," Pyrrha murmured. It was true that she never did anything like that when she sparred with Jaune, although it was not quite accurate of him to say that it was because they were not in the rulebook. There was less of a rulebook when it came to fighting in the arena than there probably was in Professor Goodwitch's class, but Chiron had taught her to fight with a certain dignity and poise, and the fact was that she was sufficiently skilled fighting in that fashion that she didn't need to stoop to low tricks… unless one counted the way she used her semblance.

Jaune, on the other hand, was not that skilled – not yet, at least – and Pyrrha was beset by worry that she had been letting him down by neglecting this area of his development. "Would you like me to fight dirty?" she asked. "Or show you how?"

"Do you know how?" Jaune asked, a touch of amusement in his voice mirroring that which was on his face.

Pyrrha hesitated for a moment. "No," she said, turning away from him briefly and focussing on the queue that was bearing her forwards towards the counter.

"Uncle Qrow likes to say that fighting fair is a good way to end up dead," Ruby said. "Maybe it's something you could both learn."

"Perhaps," Pyrrha conceded. "But from who?"

"Dove?" Jaune suggested.

"I can't train with Dove if I'm training with Lyra," Pyrrha pointed out.

"That's a good point; how was Lyra?"

"Lyra… would be much more skilled if she applied herself more," Pyrrha said quietly, and hoped she wasn't overheard.

They all got their breakfast – protein-heavy sausages and bacon for Pyrrha, cereal for Ruby, waffles for Jaune – and sat down at their usual table, which either by luck or habit was still free to receive them. Pyrrha sat down opposite Jaune, with Ruby sitting next to him.

"Guys," Jaune said, as he sat down. "There's something that I've been meaning to talk to you about – especially you, Pyrrha – for a little while, since we got back from that mission on the train. I think that someone might need to talk to Flash and find out what the story is between him and Sunset."

Ruby pursed her lips together. "Aren't they exes?"

"Yes, exactly, but I'd like to know what he did and why, and… and does he know how badly he messed Sunset up?"

"That's rather a harsh way of putting it," Pyrrha murmured. "Not least to Sunset herself."

Jaune took the opportunity of eating to not reply, or perhaps he simply couldn't reply because he was eating. In any case, it took him a few moments of chewing and swallowing before he said, "Did you guys know that Sun's teammates locked him out of their dorm room for a bit?"

"No," Ruby said.

"Blake mentioned it," Pyrrha said. "But she also said that they had relented and that Sun was taking his responsibilities much more seriously now."

Jaune nodded. "But before that, while you were all out, Sunset let Sun nap on the camp bed in our dorm room when she found him… on a sofa, I think. Anyway, she told him that he hadn't done anything wrong and that he ought to put Blake first above everything else, because that was what a guy was expected to do if he was in love."

Pyrrha pursed her lips together. The vision of romantic commitment outlined by Sunset was, she had to admit, a tempting one. As the current recipient of Jaune's affections – now and hopefully forever – there was something alluring about the idea of him devoting his life wholly, solely, and only to her, dropping everything and anything to time and again put her at the centre of his life.

And in the privacy of her own heart, she had to concede that there was something… rather magical about Sun stowing away on the RSPT airship to join Blake on her mission. Blake might have affected to be annoyed by it, she might have genuinely been annoyed by it, but at the same time, it was so breathtakingly romantic that it made Pyrrha sigh inside. She almost wished that Jaune were on another team so that he could chase after her.

Foolishness. Pure silly, feather-headed foolishness. If Jaune were on a different team, then he would never have seen Pyrrha Nikos, still less seen her as a partner in love as well as in battle. She would never have had the courage or the chance to let him know, in any way, how she felt. If Jaune were on a different team, then his responsibilities would be to that team, and anything he did to be with her instead would be placing his own prospects at risk for her sake. No, it would have been the most selfish thing in the world to allow him to do that.

Blake is very lucky, but so am I in other ways. In fact, I'm luckier, because I get to have my boyfriend right beside me and never feel guilty about it at all.

With Good Fortune, indeed.

More rationally, she could recognise that what Sunset was advocating was rather unwise. It was quite surprising to hear that Sunset had said this, although she didn't doubt Jaune was being honest with them. "Of course, if you had behaved-"

"That's what I said," Jaune declared. "She didn't really have an answer to that. And then she… I don't want to say she threatened me, but she kind of gave me the shovel talk about how I needed to treat you right, and if I was just messing around, then I needed to come clean about it and how you deserved better than that. And you do!" he added hastily. "I'm not trying to-"

"Jaune," Pyrrha said softly, reaching out to place her hand on top of his. "You don't need to defend yourself in front of me. I'm not afraid of any of that."

"Good," Jaune said, sagging with relief a little bit. "Because, honestly, I'm the…" He grinned, and Pyrrha guessed that he had been about to deprecate himself but had stopped because he could predict her reaction and wished to avoid the distraction. "The point is, I think this has a lot to do with how things ended between her and Flash."

"She has said some things about boys," Ruby agreed. "And there are times when… I mean, something hurt her; I just assumed that it was a lot of things from Combat School. Could it be all about one thing?"

"I'm afraid I have no idea," Pyrrha whispered. "He broke up with her because she was a faunus, didn't she?"

"Apparently, but if he was always like Cardin, why did he go out with her in the first place?" Jaune asked.

"Maybe it was all a game to him, hence why Sunset was worried about me," suggested Pyrrha.

"Perhaps," Jaune agreed. "I feel like… like someone should talk to him. He might not understand what he did."

"Well, what are you going to say?" Ruby asked.

Jaune started. "Me?"

"It was your idea!" Ruby pointed out.

"That doesn't mean I should get volunteered!"

"But you're the one who gets all this!"

"I have to agree," Pyrrha said. "Of the three of us, you are the one who seems to understand this situation best; in fact, I might say that you understand people the best out of the three of us. You see things that we don't."

Jaune stared at her. "Well… thanks, first of all, but second, if I'd know this was going to happen, I might have kept my mouth shut."

Pyrrha covered her mouth with one hand as a giggle escaped from between her lips.

Her laughter was cut off as Arslan Atlan slammed her tray down onto the table before she occupied the seat next to Pyrrha.

"Morning, P-Money," Arslan growled. "Oh, right, sorry: is this seat taken, and can I take it?"

"Um, I suppose you can," Pyrrha murmured. After all, there was no sign of Team YRBN or Team RSPT at the moment, and it wasn't the first time they had found those seats taken when they showed up. "Arslan, this is my teammate Ruby Rose and my…" She got butterflies in her stomach just thinking about saying it. "And my boyfriend, Jaune Arc."

"It's nice to meet you," Ruby said. "Who's P-Money?"

"I am," Pyrrha sighed.

Jaune frowned. "Why?"

"I have no idea."

"Pleasure, Ruby Rose," Arslan said casually, before affixing Jaune with a glare. "So… you're the boy, huh?"

"Is everyone from Mistral going to hate me for dating you?" asked Jaune, his eyes drawn to Pyrrha like a perplexed and worried magnet.

"I hope not," Pyrrha said. "Arslan, please stop it. Where is the rest of your team?"

Arslan growled. "My team and I are having a little bit of a fight. I'm not just over here because it's you but because I felt like your team leader- where is your team leader?"

"Having breakfast at Benni Haven's," Pyrrha explained.

"Without you?" Arslan asked.

"With someone else," Ruby explained without really explaining anything.

"What about Sunset?" Pyrrha inquired.

"Bolin is going to challenge her to a fight over that fancy sword your mother gave her," Arslan barked. "Phoebe Kommenos has paid him to do it. Little… I'd challenge her to a duel if I thought she'd accept."

"I'm not sure that you have cause," Pyrrha murmured.

"I have plenty of cause; she's slighted me!" Arslan snapped. "Just because I don't have ancestors stretching back to la de dah and ancient wars does not mean that I do not have honour. I am the Golden Lion of Mistral, and that is worth as much in the arena as noble blood and gilded circlets… no offence, Pyrrha."

"None taken," Pyrrha replied.

"She offered me money, you know," Arslan said. "She told me that since I'd already beaten Sunset once that I could do it again, and then she offered me money. Me! She offered me money for a fight as though I was some amateur hour part-timer with a side gig as a leg-breaker. The insult! I am a professional athlete! I have dedicated spoils in the Temple of Victory! And she offered me money. And then she put the lid on it by offering Bolin money."

"And he hasn't got your scruples," Jaune guessed.

"Unfortunately not," Arslan replied.

"Is he any good?" Ruby asked.

"Not as good as he thinks he is," Arslan told them. "He thinks he should be team leader instead of me, which tells me how cocky he is. But he knows what he's doing."

"So does Sunset," Pyrrha declared. "For the most part," she was compelled to add by honesty.

"Well, if she loses, then… well, she's lost," Arslan said. "And lost the sword as well. But you won't be able to say that I didn't warn you."

"I'll let Sunset know," Pyrrha said. "Thank you, Arslan."

Arslan shrugged. "I've never liked Phoebe," she muttered. "Never liked her, never rated her; the last thing I want to see is her getting the chance to gloat over getting one over on you and yours. That and, well, I kind of like your team leader, even if she did insult me."

"Really?" Pyrrha asked. "I mean, there's a lot to like about Sunset, but I wasn't aware that you knew her beyond taking offence."

"I can recognise someone who's had to struggle to get where they are," Arslan said. "I admire that." She paused. "I warned you that there was going to be trouble over this."

"Yes, you did, I admit," Pyrrha conceded. "You're not… I wouldn't want you to suffer for our sake."

Arslan snorted. "Only a little rich girl from the heights would think that having the likes of Reese and Bolin act disappointed in me was suffering," she declared. "No offence."

"Um, none taken," Pyrrha murmured. "Nevertheless, you may have put yourself on the wrong side of opinion with your fellow students, and I am grateful."

"Well, if you're looking for ways to make it up to me..." Arslan said.

Pyrrha's eyes narrowed. "Is there something that you want?"

"Not me, exactly," Arslan said. "You remember that documentary series we were in about the history of the tournament scene?"

"Ooh, you've made TV programs as well?" Ruby cooed.

"I didn't make it," Pyrrha explained quickly. "Current tournament fighters were asked to contribute talking head segments, about what it was like to fight, how it felt to walk into the coliseum, that sort of thing."

"Well, the producer called last night just before Phoebe showed up to ruin my evening," Arslan went on. "MBS are making a documentary about the Vytal Festival – to explain it for everyone before it all starts, you know-"

"Who doesn't know about the Vytal Festival?" Ruby asked.

"Uh, I wouldn't mind a primer," Jaune said.

"I was going to say 'kids,' but okay, it's for P-Money's boyfriend." Arslan said. "Besides, just because people know what it is doesn't mean that they understand the history and stuff. Anyway, Autumn Blaze is doing the voice over, but they asked me to host it… except what they really want is for the two of us to host it together, only all your calls go through your mother, and you're not talking to your mother at the moment, so the only way to get in touch with you was to ask me to ask you, so… what do you say?"

"I say that you should explain what you mean by 'hosting,'" Pyrrha replied.

"Just some scripted bits, taking the cameras on a tour of the Amity Arena, reading out the questions for some interviews with, like your headmaster," Arslan said. "I've been practicing my face for when the camera cuts to me when the interviewee is answering the question." Arslan proceeded to make ducky lips, squinting slightly as she furrowed her brow and nodded repeatedly, in what Pyrrha realised was supposed to make her look sage and understanding.

"I think you may need to work on that a little more," Jaune suggested, and Pyrrha was rather glad that he had said it and not her.

"But it sounds fun, doesn't it?" Arslan said. "Can I tell him that you'll do it?"

Pyrrha sighed. "I'm not sure that it's such a good idea; we're only students; doesn't it seem as though we're getting rather above ourselves?"

"We're not just students though, are we?" Arslan demanded. "Come on, Pyrrha, who has a better chance of winning than one of the two of us? I'll even flatter your ego – don't expect that to happen too often – and say that it's most likely to be you. How cool will that be for a trivia note: the presenter of this show went on to actually win the tournament?"

"I came to Beacon to get away from that sort of thing," Pyrrha reminded her.

"If you wanted to get away from the limelight, then what are you doing running around Vale busting robberies and nailing gangster kingpins?" Arslan asked sourly. "Face it, P-Money; you've only gotten more famous since you came to Beacon."

"That's different," Pyrrha said. "That was duty, and a public service-"

"And this is public service television; it's not as though I'm asking you to co-star in an original miniseries," Arslan said. "Look, I know that you don't like the fame, but the fact is that you are famous, and you do have fans, and so, that being the case, don't you think you have a duty to use your fame for the public good? That's why my fee for this show is going to go to Magic Mealtimes."

"Magic what?" Ruby repeated.

"It's a charity back home in Mistral," Arslan explained. "They deliver meals to schools to give to the kids who'd go hungry otherwise. It's a worthy cause, and it makes a big difference, believe me. Which is why… I didn't want to have to guilt you into this, but the production company has agreed to match my donation if I can get you on board, so what do you say?"

"Hmm," Pyrrha murmured, looking down at the half-empty breakfast tray in front of her. She looked around the dining hall, at all the students tucking in before the start of another day of exertion of the mind and body. She couldn't imagine what it must be like to arrive for classes with an empty stomach, a yawning that might not be appeased until lunch time, if then. She had never had to go hungry like that in her life; the wealth of the Nikos family meant that she had always been guaranteed a nutritious meal. That was why she didn't get involved in the work of charities like Magic Mealtimes: Arslan had grown up poor and hungry, so when she went on TV to promote the organisation people took notice. The same message from Pyrrha would have seemed like pious virtue signalling by comparison.

But this was not a direct endorsement. This was just an opportunity to do some good, and she supposed that it was all educational.

And she did owe Arslan for the warning.

"Very well," she said. "You may tell your producer friend that I'll do it. We'll do it together."

Arslan grinned. "Thank you, Pyrrha," she said. "This will be very classy, I promise."

"I might hold you to that," Pyrrha said with a slight smile playing across her face. "Although I'm a little surprised to see you excited about scripted segments."

"Oh, I'm sure I'll manage to punch up the lines a little," Arslan said airily.

"Excuse me," Cinder said, walking up behind Pyrrha. "Do you mind if I sit down?"

As there was still no sign of their usual companions – Pyrrha wondered what was keeping them – Pyrrha felt as though she had no choice but to say, "Please, be our guest."

Cinder smiled and chuckled ever so slightly as she sat down next to Arslan. Her brow furrowed slightly. "No Sunset?"

"She's having breakfast at Benni Haven's, with Twilight," Ruby explained.

Cinder's nostrils flared slightly. "I see," she murmured. "How very… selfish of her."

"Not really," Ruby replied. "She had something she needed to talk to her about."

"Indeed?" Cinder asked. "And what were you talking about, may I ask, before I so rudely interrupted?"

"My mother gave Sunset a gift when we were in Mistral last," Pyrrha began.

"Ah, yes, the famous blade Soteria," Cinder interrupted. "Yes, it is a subject of some talk amongst we Haven students. Lady Nikos does Sunset great honour, wouldn't you agree, Lady Pyrrha?"

"Just Pyrrha, please," Pyrrha whispered. "I believe I've mentioned that already."

"Oh, yes, you did," Cinder conceded with a little laugh. "How foolish of me to forget. Please forgive me, Pyrrha."

"It's quite alright, just… try and remember next time," Pyrrha urged gently. "The talk amongst the Haven students, is it as bad as Arslan says?"

"You don't trust me, Pyrrha?" Arslan demanded.

"Don't take it so personally, Golden Lion," Cinder said, her voice soft and soothing. "In matters such as these, it is always wise to get a second opinion." She smiled, a bright smile that yet had something sharp about it. "Not everyone cares, of course, but there are those who think it is rather unnatural that Lady Nikos should favour an outsider above her own daughter. I only repeat what others say, of course."

Jaune scowled. "Cinder, can I have a word with you? Outside?"

XxXxX​

The scowl remained on Jaune's face as he led the way out of the dining hall and into the morning sunshine in the courtyard beyond. His face might be thunderous, but his stomach was squirming a little. Cinder had that effect on him. There was something about her, the way she moved, the way she spoke… she was creepy, like he'd said to Sunset, and it was amazing to him that nobody else seemed to feel that way but him.

He couldn't help but think back to that night in Mistral, to the hunt for the Karkadann, when Cinder had stayed up all night as the fire died down before her.

"Some might even feel emasculated." That was what she'd said to him, when talking about being on a team with Pyrrha, and then to say that to Pyrrha herself?

'I only repeat what others say,' my ass, Jaune thought to himself. There was not a doubt in his mind that she was stirring the pot, and he thought she'd probably done it with Sunset as well, for all that Sunset denied it.

He wouldn't just stand by and let it happen. He didn't think that it would work, what Cinder was trying to do, breaking up their team, but that didn't mean that he was going to simply stand by and let it happen.

…Granted, he wasn't sure what he was going to do to stop her, but… but he was going to let her know that she wasn't getting away with it, and maybe that would be enough to get her to back off.

He kept on walking, looking up at the statue of the noble huntsman rising above him. Valour, like Professor Ozpin had said; he just had to tough it out.

Jaune turned around, to see Cinder very close by him, practically close enough to touch.

"So, Jaune," Cinder purred. "What is that you wanted to say but couldn't say in front of your girlfriend?"

Jaune took a step backwards, and then another for good measure. "Stop it," he said coldly.

Cinder looked at him blankly for a moment, before she started to giggle uncontrollably. "I was joking," she declared. "Don't tell me you're so uptight that you can't take a little harmless fooling around."

"It isn't funny," Jaune declared. "None of this is. And I want it to stop."

Cinder stopped laughing. "You want it to stop?" she repeated, her voice cooling rapidly. "And what is it, precisely, that you want to stop?"

"All of this," Jaune declared. "What you said, just then; you were trying to turn Pyrrha against Sunset."

"I was only telling what I had heard."

"I don't believe that," Jaune insisted. "Were you only repeating what you heard when you asked me if I felt emasculated? Or were you trying to make me feel it so that I'd pull away from Pyrrha?"

"Now why would I want to do that?"

"I don't know; why did you encourage Sunset to follow her worst instincts?" Jaune demanded.

Cinder was silent for a moment. "'Her worst instincts'? Since when is defending yourself an immoral instinct?"

"When-"

"When those that are being defended against, those who commit acts of aggression, are the ones with the power," Cinder growled. "When they make victims of those they consider to be powerless, when they take out their fears and frustrations on the ones beneath them, then the last thing they want is to be challenged. The last thing they want is for the underdog to bite back. And so they call it wickedness and villainy and name you foul for even considering it. And if you agree, then maybe I'm not the one that Sunset needs to be careful of."

"What Sunset did was wrong," Jaune repeated firmly. "What you encouraged her to do was wrong. Sunset isn't some powerless victim, and Bon Bon and Cardin aren't oppressors. What you did was wrong, and Sunset realises that now."

"Does she?" Cinder murmured, sounding almost disappointed to hear it. "And did Sunset tell you that I had put her up to those awful things she now regrets?"

"No," Jaune replied. "Sunset told me that it was all her own idea and that you had nothing to do with it."

For a moment, Jaune thought he saw relief blossom on Cinder's face, although he couldn't quite work out why. It wasn't as though he could get Cinder in trouble for what she'd done; even if Sunset did point the finger, it would still be Sunset that had done these things. So what did she have to fear?

Unless… could she actually like Sunset? Was she actually worried that Sunset had betrayed her?

But she's manipulating her!

"I… I see," Cinder whispered. "Sunset didn't say anything, but you… you saw it anyway. Because you see everything, don't you? Nobody's watching you, so you see it all with those blue eyes of yours."

Those blue eyes of his narrowed. "If you want to put it that way, I guess."

Cinder chuckled. "Let me tell you what I see," she said. "You may call yourselves Sunset's friends, but none of you really understand her. What she is. What she could be. I am the friend and ally that Sunset needs. I am the best friend that Sunset Shimmer could ever have."

 

[ScipioSmith]

Ditzy​

Sunset opened up her locker. Her weapons and her field outfit sat there, neatly folded or hung in the case of her clothes, waiting for her.

But it was Soteria that drew her eye: the black sword with the storied past that was suddenly causing her life a great deal of commotion. She would have been lying if she'd said that the weapon had been worth it in terms of anything that she had achieved with it so far, but that was almost irrelevant because physical achievements with the blade, while they might be nice, were not really the point. The point was that Lady Nikos had honoured her with this, and that honour would not be diminished no matter what Sunset did or did not do with the sword – unless Sunset failed to do something pretty drastic, like not save Pyrrha when she needed her.

But when was Pyrrha likely to need Sunset to save her?

Sunset pulled off her school jacket and hung it up inside the locker. As she started to undo the ribbon tie around her neck, she said, "So, after trying and failing to buy Soteria from me, Phoebe has resorted to paying someone else to fight me for it. That… that is pretty pathetic, I must say. Hardly the actions of a noble warrior and aspiring Champion of Mistral."

"I must agree with you," Pyrrha said as she tied her scarlet sash around her waist. "It is hardly the course of honour."

"I thought that she might challenge me to a duel herself," Sunset declared. "But I never thought that she would stoop to hiring another to be her champion. Is she afraid to face me?"

"She is afraid of the loss of face if you defeat her," Pyrrha clarified.

"Huh," Sunset murmured. "I would rather that she had been so afraid of me that she did not dare step into the ring against me, but I suppose I can take fear of loss. And she's right; if she faces me, she will lose."

"Do you know how good she is?" Jaune asked. "Or not?"

"I know that she's not nearly as good as she'd like to be," Sunset replied. That much had been obvious from what Pyrrha had said, and what she had not said. Phoebe, it was clear to her, aspired to the kind of greatness that Pyrrha possessed but did not have the raw skill – or the work ethic, probably – to actually achieve such greatness. And so, she was consumed with envy, a jealousy that twisted round and round inside of her like a parasite until she was made mad by it.

She reminded Sunset of… Dawn. Not of herself, obviously, for she had possessed the stuff of true greatness in her – as she was showing in this world of Remnant – and her own envy of Cadance had been driven not be inadequacy but by a lack of opportunity to shine as bright as she was able to, as bright as she knew that she could shine if only Princess Celestia would let her rise. Dawn, though, Dawn had never really been in Sunset's league, and she had known it too, and that knowing had eaten her alive.

Phoebe was lucky that Pyrrha was less proud and vainglorious than Sunset had ever been, else she might have taken glee in Phoebe's failures and served to make the wounds hurt all the more.

If she had, the lesson might have sunk in by now.

"What are you going to do?" Ruby asked.

Sunset took off her blouse and pulled her purple top over her head. "I'll accept this Bolin's challenge, and I'll beat him, obviously."

"You don't have to accept," Pyrrha counselled her. "Bolin has done nothing to personally injure you, nor you him. There is no cause that cries out for the restitution only a duel can provide."

"Maybe not, but if I refuse his challenge, then I'll look like a coward," Sunset replied. "People will say I did not fight because I was afraid to lose, the way that Phoebe shows that she is afraid to lose by getting someone else to fight on her behalf." She shook her head. "No, I will not make her mistake. I will meet this challenge and defeat anyone she hires to send against me."

"But, if you lose, then you'll lose the sword," Jaune reminded her.

Sunset affixed him with a firm gaze. "Then I will not lose," she said.

They all finished getting changed, and – dressed for action, if any of their names should be called up today – they headed out of the otherwise empty changing room and into the amphitheatre proper for Professor Goodwitch's sparring class.

Today, Team SAPR took their seats up in the gallery, looking down upon the stage and upon the benches around it where other students were gathering. Sunset spotted Trixie Lulamoon, the lights reflecting off the stars sewn onto her cape, leading her team to seats near the front. She also saw Arslan Altan and presumed that one of the two huntsmen nearby must be Bolin Hori, Phoebe's catspaw.

"Hey, guys," Yang said as Team YRBN took the row of seats above Team SAPR, "what's up?"

"Sunset's about to be challenged to a duel," Ruby explained.

Yang's eyebrows rose. "Again?"

"Don't say that like it happens all the time," Sunset complained. "I challenged Pyrrha once, as I was within my rights to do."

"Compared with the average student's total of zero, one is a big number," Blake murmured.

"I had cause," Sunset repeated. "Some people around here have no respect for tradition."

"Perhaps because tradition has little respect for some people," Ren suggested in a tone that Sunset could only think of as deceptively mild; he wouldn't have bothered to say such a thing unless something was bothering him.

"So, who's calling you out, huh?" Nora demanded eagerly. "And why? Come on, spill it, have you been naughty?"

It was ironic that she had, in fact, been naughty but that that had nothing to do with why she was about to get a challenge. "Someone wants my sword," she said, deciding not to mention that it had belonged to Phoebe's great-great uncle in case it moved them to take her side.

"They want to fight you so that they can take your stuff?" Nora demanded. "Rude."

"I feel like there's more to it than that," Ren said carefully.

"Not as far as I'm concerned there isn't," Sunset muttered.

"Alright, quiet everyone, settle down," Professor Goodwitch commanded as she strode into the amphitheatre, her heels clicking upon the floor, and walked up onto the stage. Her riding crop was held behind her back, clasped in both hands as she ran her owlish gaze over the assembled freshmen. "You all know the rules by now, so I see no reason not to dive straight into it. I trust that you are all prepared and ready." Her riding crop dropped to her side, held in only one hand as, with the other, she got out her tablet, balancing it in her left hand. With her right, she deftly kept hold of the crop and manipulated the device, running her fingertip across the screen and pushing buttons until she declared. "The first match will be between Bolin Hori and Trixie Lulamoon; please make your way up onto the stage without-"

She was too late to stop a flood of dark blue smoke from spreading out across the amphitheatre as Trixie let off one of her smoke bombs. She did not then manage to teleport up onto the stage, but at that point, so many students were coughing or spluttering that probably most of them missed her leap up from her seat, trip over the hem of her cape, get up, and then finish running up onto the stage and out of the cloud.

Apparently, she had failed to reckon with the students in the gallery, or she just didn't care about them, one way or the other.

Professor Goodwitch gave her a very frosty glare. "Miss Lulamoon, I believe I've made my views on your little theatrics perfectly clear."

Trixie laughed nervously. "Sorry, Professor. Some habits are hard to break."

Sunset's would-be – or soon-to-be, given that Sunset had already vowed not to refuse his challenge – opponent made his way up onto the stage in a less unorthodox manner. He strode up confidently, purposefully, the slightest trace of a confident smirk upon his face. Where the Great and Powerful Trixie was all show with her outfit, Bolin was dressed half pragmatically, in grey pants and vest, and half with an eye to fashion, with a pair of vivid yellow sashes around his waist and across one shoulder. His muscular arms were covered by dark, opera-length gloves, like Pyrrha's but with the fingers cut out, and in his hand, he held a wooden staff that seemed to possess no other qualities. Around his neck, he wore a string of grey beads; Sunset remembered that Arslan wore fire dust crystals around her neck and wondered if Bolin used earth dust the same way.

I guess I'll find out, won't I? Sunset thought. Lucky for me that he got called like this.

Bolin took up his position, the butt of his staff resting on the floor, golden eyes fixed on Trixie.

Trixie raised the gleaming white wand in her right hand; the tip glowed pale blue.

"Are you both ready?" Professor Goodwitch asked.

Bolin nodded silently.

"The Grrreat and Powwwerful Trrrixie is rrready!" Trixie proclaimed, flinging out her other arm so that her cape billowed out.

"Is she for real?" Yang demanded from behind them.

"Don't underestimate her," Blake murmured. "She's got it when it counts."

"Does it count now?" Yang asked.

Blake hesitated. "I don't know," she replied. "I suppose we'll find out."

Sunset leaned forward. Don't beat him too quickly, Trixie; I want to find out what he's got.

She was starting to think that it might be quite an 'if' whether Trixie could beat him or not; after all, assuming Phoebe wasn't a complete idiot, she wouldn't have hired someone who didn't stand a chance against Sunset; just because Bolin was only her second choice didn't mean that he was without skill.

All the more reason this match was a boon for her.

Professor Goodwitch stepped down off the stage with surprising grace, considering the drop she was navigating. Her head was bent down, and with her finger, she tapped a couple more times upon her tablet to cause the images of Trixie and Bolin and their aura levels – both green – to appear upon the banners that hung down the back wall. She turned to face the two combatants, her back to the rest of the students. "Begin!" she declared.

Bolin started the battle with a headlong rush, dashing straight towards Trixie, his legs pounding.

Trixie smirked triumphantly as she gestured flamboyantly with her wand. But she didn't aim at Bolin; rather, she aimed at the ground in front of her as a freezing blast leapt from the tip of her wand, a great cone of ice that expanded outwards from her weapon and across the floor, burying the black surface of the stage in ice and encasing Bolin's feet within its frigid embrace. And not just his feet, either, as the ice spread across the floor, so too it spread up Bolin's legs until it covered his knees. The Haven student was quite literally frozen, unable to move in any direction.

Sunset leaned back, folding her arms as her eyebrows rose. That's it? she thought as she watched him struggle against his imprisonment, heaving uselessly first with one leg and then another. That's the guy who's going to take my sword from me?

He's not much, is he?

Trixie clearly thought so too, because she laughed aloud as she ejected the ice dust vial from the base of her wand and inserted a lightning dust vial instead; the chilly blue glow at the tip of her wand was replaced with a sickly yellow light.

Trixie looked supremely confident now, and Sunset couldn't blame her; she had immobilised her enemy, and now, she could finish him off practically at her leisure. Sunset was a little surprised that Professor Goodwitch hadn't called the match already; it was all over bar the shouting.

Trixie's grin was savage as she raised her wand once more, and now, she aimed it square at Bolin. Jets of yellow lightning leapt from her weapon, snapping like wild hounds, cavorting over and around one another on their way to their target. Bolin spun his staff wildly before him, the wood whirling, but though he was able to catch some of the lightning upon his staff – so that it only lashed at his hands instead of his face and body – he could not stop all of it; the power of Trixie's dust penetrated his defences, whipping his face, his chest, his shoulders, snapping and crackling as it tore at him like dogs on a hunt.

But his aura barely dropped at all.

It should have dropped; taking a continuous blast of lightning like that should have been flaying his aura towards the yellow, staff or no. Instead, although his aura dropped, it did so only by a small amount and remained stubbornly in the green, and the high green at that.

Sunset's eyes widened, and a quick glance confirmed that her teammates were all similarly astonished. His aura levels must be almost on a par with Jaune's, and having a lot of aura was basically Jaune's thing. Whether Bolin was skilled or not remained to be seen, but the boy was an absolute beast when it came to how much he could take.

He stopped blocking with his staff, and as he raised the wooden weapon above his head, she could see that it was still hurting him to get shocked like that; his face was a rictus of controlled pain as the yellow lightning rippled up and down his form, but he bore it nonetheless as he brought the staff down upon the ice that held him captive.

Bolin's aura dropped by a larger amount than the lightning had degraded it as, with an aura-induced shockwave, the ice shattered. Bolin leapt forwards, staff whirling in his hands as he fell upon Trixie like a hawk.

Trixie took a step backwards, teetering upon the very edge of the stage. With her free hand, she reached for one of the purple pouches that she wore at her belt, pulling out another smoke bomb and flinging it down onto the stage. The fighting platform was engulfed in blue smoke, rising in curling clouds to conceal Trixie from view. Bolin landed amidst the expanding cloud, just about visible due to his height as he brought his staff down in a savage slash where Trixie had been just a moment before.

Trixie leapt upwards and out of the smoke cloud, her starry cape flying out behind her, her pointed hat wobbling upon her head, her silver hair askew as her jump carried her upwards into the air above the stage. Trixie reached into a different pouch, producing three fire dust crystal clasped between her fingers. They began to burn an instant before she flung them down like missiles to blossom in flame amidst the smoke. Bolin's aura dropped, but not by enough.

Trixie descended back onto the stage, and there, she began to slip upon her own ice, her arms flailing wildly as her high boots struggled for purchase. Bolin took his moment. He charged out of the smoke, crunching the ice beneath his feet, his staff whirling in his hand. He swung, a heavy, two-handed blow that struck Trixie across the head and caused the illusory Trixie conjured by her semblance to dissipate into thin air.

Trixie let out a triumphant shout as she flung more fire dust crystals – a whole handful of them this time – out at Bolin.

Bolin ripped one of the grey beads from off his neck and flung it down, ducking as he did so.

Trixie's fire dust crystals burst around him, flames erupting in a ring all around the Haven student. Trixie flung some more crystals for good measure, and Sunset suspected that she sought to blast Bolin clean off the stage where it wouldn't matter how much aura he had left.

But the only damage that Trixie's fire was doing was to the dome of stone that Bolin had formed around himself.

Earth dust, just as Sunset had suspected. It cracked and crumbled as the fires raged all around it, but Bolin's monstrous aura remained intact throughout the barrage.

The dome cracked, and a single good-sized boulder flew out of it to strike Trixie upon the temple. Her hat was knocked off her head; she staggered backwards as her aura dropped and was unable to react quickly enough as Bolin burst out of the dome and fell upon her.

At which point, it was all over, bar the actual beating of her aura into the red. Trixie had never had much talent for close combat.

Bolin, on the other hand, was talented, if not particularly sophisticated; he struck Trixie into the gut to make her double over, then swung his staff upwards to strike her in the face. He swept her legs out from under her to dump her on the floor, then just kept hitting her until the fight was done.

"That's enough," Professor Goodwitch declared. "The match is over, Mister Hori; you are victorious."

Bolin nodded. "Thank you, Professor," he said, and then he looked up, and it seemed to Sunset that he looked directly at her, a glimmer in his golden eyes that seemed to say 'you're next.'

Cheeky little-

"Are you sure you want to fight that guy?" Jaune asked as Professor Goodwitch gave the two of them her notes.

"Yes," Sunset said, sounding even more firm now than she had in the locker rooms. If she had feared to be thought afraid before, she was absolutely not going to back down just because she'd seen him fight. She would allow no one to say that she had run in fear of his prowess.

Not after the way he'd looked at her.

"I'm not Trixie," she added. "I can handle him."

"How?" Ruby asked.

"I… haven't gotten to that part yet," Sunset admitted. "But I'll find a way; you guys trust me, right?"

"We have every faith in you, of course," Pyrrha said. "Speaking as someone who has been on the receiving end of your attacks, they hit harder than I imagine Trixie's dust does."

"Hmm," Sunset murmured. "I'm not sure if that will work."

Pyrrha frowned slightly. "Why not?"

"This is a fight over Soteria, right?" Sunset asked. "That means that I should probably use Soteria."

Pyrrha raised one eyebrow. "You mean to fight him sword against staff?" She couldn't keep the scepticism out of her voice.

"I thought you had every faith in me?"

"I do," Pyrrha insisted. "But the sword is not your strongest weapon."

"But it is the object of this battle; that cannot be ignored," Sunset replied. How can I claim the right to Soteria if I do not wield Soteria? Sometimes, you had to accept a slight disadvantage in order to prove a point. Besides, she'd make it work.

Hopefully.

By now, Professor Goodwitch had finished advising the two combatants and putting the stage back into order. Her attention was once more upon her device. "That was a very good match to begin with, so let's carry on with… Pyrrha Nikos-" A murmur of anticipation ran around the crowd as Pyrrha got to her feet, waiting to see who her opponent would be. Penny, down in the lower level, stuck her hand up in the air and started bouncing up and down in her seat in an effort to attract Professor Goodwitch's attention.

Professor Goodwitch didn't look up to notice. "Against… Ditzy Doo."

XxXxX​

Pyrrha entered the lower level of the amphitheatre by the front, passing between the two rows of haphazardly placed benches as she walked with a steady pace towards the stage.

When the combat began, the lights dimmed, save for those on the stage itself, to encourage the students' attention that way. In a sense, it was more like being in a movie theatre than any arena that Pyrrha had ever fought in; under the light of the sun, a gladiator was expected to hold the audience's attention upon their own merits.

Still, in the current gloom, she could see none of the other students as she passed between them; they were vague shadows to her, dark silhouettes devoid of detail. In the dark, they could almost have reminded her of the grimm, save that they weren't trying to kill her.

No, they were just watching her instead. She could feel their gazes upon her, and self-consciousness made the gorget around her neck seem to heat up to an uncomfortable degree. They whispered too, though not loudly enough that Pyrrha could make out the words.

She had a reputation; that could not be avoided, but it didn't mean that she enjoyed the fact. She did not enjoy the high esteem that verged on awe in which she was held by some, but as she reflected upon Arslan's warnings to her, Pyrrha felt as though awe and respect might be preferable to being detested by her fellow Mistralians.

"Traitor!" someone hissed, as though to prove her point.

Pyrrha ignored the word and wished she could ignore the feelings that the word had roused in her. There was nothing she could do about it; she had no idea who had spoken or what in particular she had done – attending Beacon, dating Jaune, or something else entirely – to rouse their ire.

She could do nothing except pretend she had not heard, or that if she had heard, she did not care.

Pyrrha loved Mistral. She was not blind to its flaws; she saw as clearly as anyone the way that Mistral was too fond of the glories of its past to make any fresh achievements in the future. She loved it for the beauty of the mountainside city, for the gleam of the White Tower as it caught the light of the rising sun, for the gentle courtesy of so many of its people. The elder realm would always have a claim upon her heart and loyalty, but did that mean that she must devote her life to it wholly to the exclusion of all else? Did that mean that she was not allowed to go anywhere else, enjoy anything else, lest she slight Mistral's fragile pride in so doing? Was she not allowed to attend a school in Vale without insulting Haven? Was she not allowed to date a kind and honest Valish boy without emasculating all the young men of Mistral to a degree that cried out for vengeance?

She had not asked for Mistral's love; she had not asked for them to call her princess, to call her their pride, to speak of her as the rebirth of heroes whose stature she would not presume to measure herself against. She had won the title Champion of Mistral in the arena, but she had not thought it meant she was required to champion Mistral in all things and shun all traces of the foreign.

Others had chosen to place their hopes and dreams upon her shoulders, and now, they blamed her that she was not equal to a weight she had not sought to bear.

It was unfair.

And yet, at the same time, she was probably foolish and childish as well as selfish to think so. Her name was Nikos, she excelled in the public eye in a field in which so many Mistralians took pride; how could they not treat her this way?

She had asked for this; or at least, her mother had.

I would rather fight for you without your praise or eyes on me. And yet, for all this, I will go home once I have graduated and fight for you whether you watch me or not.

Unless… it occurred to Pyrrha that she hadn't actually discussed the future with Jaune at all; it had seemed too early, and she didn't want to scare him off. But what if he didn't want to go to Mistral? What if he preferred to stay in Vale?

She would not leave him. She could not leave him, not even for her home; her heart revolted against the notion.

Perhaps that did make her something of a traitor after all.

Pyrrha did her best to block out all such thoughts and focus solely on the battle ahead as she leapt up onto the stage, her red sash trailing behind her.

Ditzy Doo was already there, waiting for her; she was of a height with Sunset, or near enough, with flaxen hair worn long and loose down almost to her waist, and cut in an untidy fringe that covered her forehead. A tail of the same flaxen colour dropped towards the floor from out of her pants. Her eyes were golden and slightly misaligned, one looking up and the other downwards. Her other features were soft and quite small, particularly her button nose which was barely visible upon her face. She was dressed in a blue shirt with the collar undone and a green skirt with white bubbles on one side, which must have been her personal emblem like Pyrrha's spear symbol. She wore protective pads upon her knees and elbows, and bandages wrapped around her hands and lower arms.

"Hey there," she said, her voice soft but her tone cheery at the same time. "Let's do our best, okay?"

Pyrrha brought down her arms, and Miló – in spear form – and Akoúo̱ flew into her waiting hands. "Indeed," she murmured.

Ditzy didn't appear to have any weapons, but she bunched her hands into fists and raised them expectantly.

"Begin!" Professor Goodwitch cried.

Pyrrha dashed forwards, her armoured legs pounding as her sash flew behind her like a scarlet banner; she drew Miló back for a thrust aimed squarely for Ditzy's chest. Ditzy, meanwhile, did not move; she stood there, eyes unblinking, letting Pyrrha come on.

Pyrrha leapt and thrust her spear; the gleaming tip of Miló plunged forth.

Ditzy twisted like an eel, her body contorting with incredibly swiftness as she twisted out of the way of the oncoming blow. She balanced on one leg, her other limbs spread out as Miló flew past her, Pyrrha's arm extending outwards with it. Pyrrha began to snap backwards, using Polarity to more quickly reverse the momentum of her thrust, bringing up Akoúo̱ to defend herself-

Ditzy's fist snapped out, and Pyrrha found that she was too slow, just too slow, to bring up her shield to prevent a punch square to the face. Her aura absorbed the blow but not the force that threw her backwards. Pyrrha ignored the smarting of her face – and the gasps from some in the watching crowd – as she converted being knocked head over heels into a backflip that set her down upon her feet and facing her opponent.

So strong! And so fast too! I'm sure that Arslan never hit so hard.

Her face was still smarting; honestly, that had felt a little worse than getting hit with Sunset's magic.

Pyrrha flicked the hair of her ponytail out of her face as she threw her shield at Ditzy, Akoúo̱ spinning through the air at the level of Ditzy's midriff. Ditzy leapt, her tail wrapping around her waist as she spun in place, a smile that would have been comical in other circumstances plastered onto her face as Akoúo̱ began to pass beneath her.

She reached out and grabbed it with one hand, plucking it out of the air and barely seeming to feel the momentum at all before, still spinning, she threw the shield right back at Pyrrha.

Pyrrha stepped forward, leaning away from the oncoming shield even as she stretched out her left arm towards it. She wondered if anyone would notice the black outline surrounding her gloved hand as she activated her semblance, turning her shield aside a tad and guiding it to where she could 'catch' it on her gleaming vambrace.

She slung it swiftly onto her back as, in her other hand, Miló switched from spear to rifle. Pyrrha pressed the gun to her shoulder and let fly with three rapid shots. Ditzy was a blur of motion as she squirmed, her body twisting this way and that, avoiding all three rounds which slammed harmlessly into the forcefield that surrounded the stage.

Instinct made Pyrrha glance towards the aura levels underneath the portraits displayed upon the wall; her own aura was down, but still in the green. More interestingly, Ditzy's aura was down too, even though she hadn't been hit.

So, a semblance. Some kind of quick reflexes, and it burns aura – although she may be using her aura to strengthen her attacks too.

Some semblances were more aura-efficient than others. Pyrrha's ability to hide hers from general knowledge relied on the fact that; used carefully, it consumed practically no aura at all and was thus invisible from the perspective of anyone watching her aura level. That was how Sunset was able to conceal the fact that her aura didn't drop despite her throwing out magic all over the place – although the fact that poor Sunset rarely got through a fight with taking some very aura-depleting hits certainly helped in that regard as well.

Ditzy, it seemed, was not as fortunate as Pyrrha in that regard; her semblance helped her to escape harm, but it burned her aura – although less than taking the hits would have, admittedly.

Either way, it provided a path to victory for Pyrrha: so long as she could avoid taking too many punishing blows herself, she could force Ditzy to deplete her own aura into the red through use of her semblance.

That would make her the winner, but it would also be rather unsatisfying, both for everyone watching and, more importantly, for Pyrrha herself.

This was a challenge, and she wanted to rise to it, not cheat her way around it.

Miló shifted to sword form in her hand as Akoúo̱ resumed its place on her arm.

Ditzy waited, her wall eyes making it impossible to tell what she was looking at, but Pyrrha decided it was best to assume that she was focussed on Pyrrha herself. And yet she made no move to attack. It seemed that her semblance encouraged her to be defensive; unfortunately for her, that meant ceding the initiative in battle.

Pyrrha hesitated, her mind whirling with potential movements, the counters to those moves that Ditzy could make, and how Pyrrha could counter those moves.

Yes, she thought, that way.

Pyrrha charged once again, her arms pumping as her legs thumped the stage, her ponytail flying. Ditzy prepared to meet her, fists raised. Pyrrha led with Akoúo̱, drawing back her shield arm – the shield was a weapon, just as she had always told Jaune – before throwing it forward like a punch, aiming the edge for Ditzy's face. Ditzy dodged, as Pyrrha had expected she would, her semblance granting her speed and the agility to bend out of the way, her back arching.

She was still bending when Pyrrha slashed at her midriff with Miló.

It might have worked, and if it had worked, then Pyrrha would have been well-pleased, but she was not surprised when Ditzy leapt into the air, twisting yet further, turning and bending so that her Miló passed before her belly.

And as Miló passed, Pyrrha switched the weapon from sword to spear, her trusty weapon transition smoothly and, more importantly, swiftly, the point extending outwards to catch Ditzy too close for even her semblance to get her out of the way. Miló extended yet further with a bang as Pyrrha fired the weapon, flames leaping from the back as Ditzy was tossed backwards, hitting the stage and bouncing until she landed on her back near the edge.

Arslan and Sunset both cheered, and both were admonished by Professor Goodwitch.

Pyrrha leapt, the lights shining down from above glinting off her gilded armour, briefly silhouetting her like a falcon flying against the sun as she fell like thunder down on Ditzy Doo.

Her spear descended. Ditzy rolled out of the way, leaping up onto her hands and then using them to propel herself upwards, feet first, up towards the descending Pyrrha. Now it was Pyrrha's turn to twist like an eel, sash furling up around her waist as Ditzy's feet and legs flew past her.

Ditzy was still smiling.

And so was Pyrrha.

They both landed nimbly on their feet, and now – with her aura in the yellow – Ditzy went on the attack, her fists flying. Pyrrha took the blows on Akoúo̱, feeling the strength of her opponent reverberating through her arm. She swept at Ditzy's legs with Miló. Ditzy leapt up. Pyrrha drove forwards, lashing out with Akoúo̱. Ditzy took the blow with both hands, but with no feet on the ground, it still threw her backwards, although she rolled with it and landed on her feet.

Pyrrha charged, Miló switching smoothly from spear to sword in her hand. Ditzy charged to meet her.

Pyrrha did not have a semblance that granted her the ability to dodge hits with preternatural agility, but she was agile and swift, and she had been taught the importance of striking without being struck. And so, when the two of them came together, it was not as two bulls or stags battling for supremacy in field or meadow; rather, it resembled two dancers, moving in time and harmony with one another, never touching as they each dodged all the blows of the other. Between Ditzy's semblance and Pyrrha's talent and experience, there was simply nothing between them.

The smile faltered on Pyrrha's face, not because she felt in any danger of losing, but because she felt in grave danger of failing to win the right way.

She had to do something to break the deadlock before Ditzy's aura ran out, but what?

And then she had it.

Pyrrha threw her shield, casting it aside in a wide arc that – with a little touch of Polarity – curved around the stage like a discus. She slashed with Miló, aiming for Ditzy's neck and shoulder. Ditzy leaned back almost ninety degrees in another display of semblance-fuelled agility. Akoúo̱ flew back, heading first for the floor of the stage and then rising upwards towards Ditzy, who leapt up even as she remained bent over, her body straightening in the air as Pyrrha's stroke passed above her, and Akoúo̱, despite its rising angle, seemed poised to pass beneath and pose more danger to its mistress than her foe.

Until Pyrrha applied a touch of Polarity to drastically increase the angle of Akoúo̱'s ascent. The shield jerked upwards, and once more, it seemed that there was a limit to Ditzy's ability to get out of the way when something was too close. She started twisting, but too late, and Akoúo̱ struck her in the small of the back. Ditzy winced in pain, and Pyrrha brought Miló and both hands down hard enough to slam Ditzy into the stage and drop her aura into the red.

"And that's the match," Professor Goodwitch declared. "You are victorious again, Miss Nikos; congratulations."

"Thank you, Professor," Pyrrha said, as she slung Akoúo̱ and Miló onto her back. She bent down a little to offer Ditzy a hand up. "You fought well."

"Thanks," Ditzy said, accepting Pyrrha's hand. "I had a lot of fun."

"I'm glad to hear it," Pyrrha said, "because so did I."

 

[ScipioSmith]

A Matter of Pride​

The moon was out, and the stars surrounded her like courtiers around a princess as Beacon lay smothered beneath the shroud of night.

The lights of the Emerald Tower glowed softly in the sky high above the ground and were answered from an even greater height by the pilot lights of an Atlesian man-of-war holding position not far off the docking pads.

Fortunately, there were no smaller airships out flying patrol over Beacon at the moment and disturbing the air in consequence. It meant that, as Sunset sat out beneath the statue of the huntsman, the huntress, and the beowolf, she was not constantly disturbed by the whining of engines. Nor by any other sound; it was Thursday evening, dinner was done, and it was a school night – albeit the night before a shorter school day – and so there was no one around to bother her. Everyone was in their dorms, beavering away upon Professor Port's homework.

Right now, she had other opponents on her mind than the grimm.

Bolin Hori had delivered his challenge. Sunset had accepted, of course; she had promised that she would, and she was a mare of her word; at least, she tried to be. It didn't matter if she had given that word only in the presence of her three teammates; it was still her word nonetheless, and she had given it. She had given it, and she would hold to it.

Much though she might regret it now.

Bolin was not a poor choice on the part of Phoebe Kommenos. With his great store of aura alone, he might be able to withstand her long enough to beat her down, all the more so if she insisted on facing him with her sword instead of her magic.

Pyrrha was right; it wasn't her strong suit. And yet, at the same time, it felt… wrong, somehow, to fight for the sword and yet not fight with the sword. Why did she deserve Soteria if she disdained to fight with it?

What was the good of fighting with Soteria only to lose it through incompetence?

Especially when the sword was hardly hers to lose.

That was why she was out here in the courtyard, instead of in the dorm room with the rest of them.

Her friends. Those who lifted her up. Those whom she let down.

The potential loss of Soteria was only one reason why she was here; the other reason, and the reason why her magical journal was sitting in a satchel bag, weighing heavily upon one shoulder, was revenge.

Bolin was but a limb of Phoebe; he moved according to her designs, doing what she instructed him to do – what she paid him to do. Sunset supposed bitterly that taking money from just anybody in order to do whatever they wished of him was as good training for the life of a huntsman as anything else that Bolin might learn at Beacon or Haven.

That was a bitter thought, one that surprised her a little. After all, she was training to become a huntress too, and so were Pyrrha and Jaune and Ruby. Was that all they would become upon graduation? Hirelings for the rich and powerful, enforcers of their will, no matter how wicked?

No; no, that would not be their fate, not them. Ruby was too pure in heart to subjugate herself thus to the power of money; Sunset wouldn't be surprised if she never once took an official mission but simply roamed the land wherever her nose for danger took her, righting wrongs and slaying monsters. Pyrrha was fortunate enough to have no need to abase herself to earn a crust – provided that her mother did not tire of her stubbornness and cut her off – and Jaune would be similarly secure so long as he recognise how lucky he was and stuck with her; and besides, Sunset wouldn't be surprised if Lady Terri-Belle made another attempt to get Pyrrha for the Imperial Guard.

And as for Sunset herself… to be for sale was no more her destiny than it was Pyrrha's. Neither would choose it, neither would accept it, both of them understood that they had been fashioned for far greater things, however proud that might sound to outsiders.

Let Bolin Hori keep his lien. Let him make more of it on mission after mission of dubious morality; Sunset might walk a poorer path, but it would be paved with glory for certain.

It pleased her, at the least, to think so. Now… what had she been thinking about just now? Ah, yes, Phoebe. Phoebe Kommenos, who feared to face Sunset across the arena and so used a catspaw.

Sunset had expected a challenge from Phoebe herself, but it seemed that she had overestimated the other girl in every way except her cunning.

Sunset wished to strike back at her… but she had promised Jaune that she was past that now, that she had learnt her lesson.

It was one thing to say something to Rainbow Dash and then go back on it: Sunset didn't like Rainbow all that much; she was self-righteous and full of herself, and she had tried to bully Sunset into doing what she wanted. Jaune… Jaune was different. Jaune was her friend, and he had talked to her as a friend and persuaded her to turn aside from that road.

She… she didn't want to let him down. He was such a nice boy.

A nice boy with blue eyes, like Flash.

Lucky, lucky Pyrrha.

And yet, nevertheless, she felt within her a desire to get back at Phoebe somehow; defeating her pawn would not affect her at all, save for the frustration of not getting her hands on Soteria, and that didn't feel enough for Sunset. She wanted more. She wanted to make her… she wanted to warn Phoebe off.

But she doubted that Jaune would see it that way if she did anything.

Sunset sighed. It was hard work, maintaining the good opinion of good people.

It might prove to be even harder to maintain the good opinion of proud people.

Sunset got out her scroll. No, wait; there was a time differential, wasn't there? Mistral was several hours ahead of Vale, which would make it a very uncivilised hour of the morning in Mistral. She would need to wait until her morning and Lady Nikos' afternoon, to speak to her regarding… regarding the possible loss of the venerable black sword.

"Why don't you speak to me instead of my mother?" Pyrrha asked as she stepped out of the shadows and into the moonlight; it glimmered off her gilded armour.

Sunset rose to her feet, "Pyrrha," she said quietly. "What are you doing out here?"

"I think that the answer to that is a little more obvious than the question of what you're doing here, don't you think?"

Sunset snorted. "I wanted some privacy."

"Oh," Pyrrha said, her face falling. "Well, I can-"

"No, no, I didn't mean it like that; I'm sorry," Sunset said quickly. "Please, stay, and thank you."

The slightest trace of a smile pricked at the corners of Pyrrha's lips. She nodded, a barely perceptible gesture of her head, and took a step forward; her scarlet sash fluttered around her leg.

"Dressed for war," Sunset observed, gesturing to her battle outfit. "Do you expect enemies to fall upon us here?"

"I hope not," Pyrrha murmured, with more sincerity than Sunset's remark strictly warranted. "I would hope that if there is a single place in the world that can be called truly safe, then this is it."

"I think our world is not so grim that this is the only safe place in it, though, like you, I hope that it is among them," Sunset replied. She sat down. "I wasn't really expecting a serious answer."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"What for?" Sunset asked.

"Well, for… I'm not sure," Pyrrha admitted. "But I'm sure that there must be something. The truth is that I sometimes like wearing this, even when there is no battle to be fought. Is that so wrong?"

"No," Sunset replied quickly. "It's just… less practical than an outfit like Ruby's for casual wear."

Pyrrha chuckled. "That's true. But I'm not a particularly casual person, as I'm sure you've noticed."

Sunset shrugged. "It has occurred to me, I must admit." She paused. "I was out here-"

"Brooding?"

"Thinking," Sunset insisted. "Also, as you guessed, I was going to call your mother before I remembered the time difference."

"What were you going to tell her?" Pyrrha asked.

"The truth, that I may lose her sword," Sunset said. She hesitated. "How do you think she'll take it?"

"I… well…"

"Be honest."

"Honestly, I hardly think that she'll take it well," Pyrrha said. "But then… you know her better than I do."

"Don't start with that again," Sunset muttered. "You've known her your whole life; I've known her for a couple of weeks."

"I know," Pyrrha said with the slight trace of a sigh. "And yet…"

"Indeed, and yet," Sunset said. "It's funny: you envy me for your mother's favour, and I envy you for the light that shines so bright upon you and casts the rest of us in shadow. If only we could live each other's lives, we might be well-contented."

Pyrrha blinked rapidly. "You… you envy me?" she asked. "Still?"

"Always, I fear, at least so long as you are Pyrrha Nikos," Sunset confessed. "Do you not know that you are the girl who captured Roman Torchwick?"

Pyrrha tutted as she shook her head. "I did very little."

"And yet that is not what the stories say."

"Just stories-"

"Our lives are made of stories," Sunset declared. "They are what remain of us when we are gone. It doesn't matter whether Olivia was really the gallant knight of Vale or whether she was a fraud or whether she never lived at all, because Olivia exists not in the past but in that book in Ruby's room, and her deeds are the deeds that are attributed to her. That is her truth, that is the truth. And so, it doesn't matter who really captured Roman Torchwick, because it will be remembered that Pyrrha Nikos brought him in, and that will be the truth. And so it will be with all our deeds, which shall be your deeds, and we little more than… squires to attend upon you in your idle hours."

"We will remember what you did," Pyrrha argued. "And Ruby, and Jaune; those who were there will remember."

"While we live," Sunset replied. "As I said, stories are what remain of us when we are gone."

"When we are gone, does it really matter?"

"Not to you, maybe, but I'm not risking my life out of altruism," Sunset declared. "Or… something a little less unworthy."

Pyrrha chuckled, covering her mouth with one brown-gloved hand. The laughter died, and she looked suddenly rather nervous. "Sunset, do you… is it very hard for you to pretend to-?"

"I'm not pretending anything!" Sunset cut her off with a firm exclamation. "I'm concealing a little, but that's not the same thing. Are you pretending?"

"No," Pyrrha replied, sounding almost outraged by the suggestion.

"Well, then," Sunset said, "there you go. We both have things that are… best left unsaid, as a rule. It's not like I dislike you, not like I did. I understand that you didn't want this, I understand that you've earned it through your sweat, I understand…" She smiled. "I understand that there is so much in you that is good and noble, so much that is to be admired… or adored." She smiled sadly. "And yet, I cannot but detest the shadow and envy you that command the light." Her smile faltered into nervousness. "That… it's not unbearable for you to know that, is it? I would hate, I mean I don't want-"

"We can still be friends, if that's what you mean," Pyrrha said softly. "If that's what you want."

"Of course it's what I want," Sunset said. "Is it what you want?"

Pyrrha said nothing but reached out and took one of Sunset's hands in her own. "Perhaps, in our mutual envy, we might offer consolation to one another."

Sunset snorted. "Yeah, maybe," she said lightly. She glanced away for a moment, her eyes flickering up to the lights that glowed at the top of the tower. "If… if I lose your family heirloom, I apologise in advance."

"Surely, you're not contemplating defeat?" Pyrrha asked, in a tone more wry than Sunset would have expected from her.

She turned her attention back to her companion. "Listen to you. I'd be a fool if I didn't at least contemplate the possibility of defeat."

"Who are you, and what have you done with Sunset?"

"Shut up!" Sunset cried. "I can admit that I'm not invincible. Especially in front of the actual Invincible Girl."

Pyrrha groaned. "Please don't."

"I mean it," Sunset declared. "I mean… it's easy to admit that I'm less than perfect to you. I don't intend to lose the sword, but I can't deny the risk that I will."

"It's just a sword," Pyrrha assured her. "I won't think any the less of you if you lose one fight."

"But your mother will?"

Pyrrha did not answer. That was about what Sunset was expecting.

"The very honour that your mother did to me," she said, "by bestowing Soteria upon me, that very honour is the reason why I must fight. Lady Nikos'…" She hesitated, faltering, unsure of exactly how to describe herself in relation to Lady Nikos. "If I were too cowardly to accept Bolin's challenge, I would prove unworthy of her faith. I would prove unworthy to stand as your-"

"I have no need of a bodyguard."

"I was going to say 'companion in battle,'" Sunset declared heavily. "'Bodyguard'?" she chuckled. "I am no more your retainer than your mother's, Lady Pyrrha."

Pyrrha's face flushed, the red of her cheeks visible in the moonlight. "I'm sorry."

Sunset smiled. "Do you remember when you would not fight for me?" she asked. "You wouldn't obey my orders. You sulked like your namesake in the Mistraliad."

"Not quite," Pyrrha corrected her. "That Pyrrha sulked in her tent. I fought; I simply didn't fight according to your instructions."

"Not that it stopped you winning," Sunset muttered. "It made me feel rather superfluous. Do you remember what we were fighting about?"

"You… you had insulted me," Pyrrha replied.

"I had dishonoured you, and you could not abide it," Sunset corrected. "You could not bear the slight, not bear to follow a leader unworthy of your service. Just as I could not bear to simply hand over Soteria to one who is not worthy to possess it. My honour will not allow it."

"Is it honour that we speak of now, or pride?" Pyrrha asked.

"Can one have honour without a little pride?" Sunset replied. "If we have no pride in ourselves, how can we understand what we deserve from the world, what is beneath us, what is a level to which we ought not stoop?"

"Perhaps we should not concern ourselves with such things," Pyrrha suggested, "and simply endeavour to be kind."

"Even the kind should have some pride in themselves, or they will be trampled underfoot by those who do possess some self-regard," Sunset said. "In any case, I do not think I have it in me to be so humble. Nor do you, I think, although you come closer."

Pyrrha was silent a while. "No," she allowed. "Or else your slanders would not have bothered me as they did, when the year first began." She hesitated, turning her face upwards to stare at the moon above them. "Have you finished the Mistraliad yet?"

"I have," Sunset confirmed. "A little while ago."

"What do you think of Pyrrha?" Pyrrha asked. "The one in the book, I mean; I haven't started referring to myself in the third person."

Sunset considered it for a moment. "She is… not altogether sympathetic," she declared. "And, in truth, I don't think she's meant to be, or else the text would not be so impatient to remind us that, while Pyrrha broods in her tent, men and women are dying before the city walls as battle rages."

"Indeed," Pyrrha said. "In Mistral, we hold our pride, our honour, so sacred that it is acceptable to withdraw even from war if your lord and master does not treat you with the respect and courtesy which you are due, but on the other hand, to stand idly by in the face of battle, to turn away and refuse to fight when the enemy is at hand, that is utterly contemptible. We must fight, though we be outmatched, though it costs us our lives, as Juturna comes to realise before the end. The point is… I understand why you have to accept this challenge."

"'Always be the best, the bravest,'" Sunset recited, "and hold your head up high above all others."

"Indeed," Pyrrha murmured. "You would have made a very good Mistralian."

Sunset chuckled. "I did enjoy your home."

"You could always come back," Pyrrha said. "Not just for a holiday, but after graduation. Mistral needs huntresses as much as Vale, or Atlas, or anywhere else. You could make a home there, and Ruby too, if she would; she could fight for humanity as easily in Mistral as anywhere else, and… we could be together a little longer. What we have, what you've all given me… I don't want to lose it."

Sunset was silent for a moment. Live in Mistral? Well, why not? It wasn't something that she'd particularly thought about, but now that she did think about it, she couldn't think of any pressing objections. Where else was she going to live? Here in Vale? Back in Atlas? She had to settle somewhere, and Mistral was as good a place as any and better than most.

And Pyrrha was right; it would keep the team together.

That alone was enough to make it tempting, even beyond the delights of Mistral itself.

"I don't want to lose this either," she agreed. "And after all, Team Stark stuck it out after graduation, why not us? But all the same, maybe best not to mention it to Ruby just yet. A lot can happen in four years; it seems… a little premature to be making plans now."

Pyrrha nodded. "You're probably right," she agreed. "I'm probably getting ahead of myself again."

"You've already picked out a wedding dress, haven't you?"

"No!" Pyrrha cried, her cheeks reddening yet further.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," Sunset assured her. She grinned. "It might be something to be embarrassed about, but not ashamed."

"Please, stop," Pyrrha begged amusedly. "It's not… I'm not that bad, thank the sea and sky. Or at least… I mean, I feel that… in my heart, I-"

"You don't have to explain your feelings to me," Sunset said. "You love who you love, and that's all there is to it. I just hope that he's worthy of you."

"I hope that I'm worthy of him," Pyrrha insisted.

You really mean that, don't you? The princess of Mistral, and you're in awe of some Valish boy from the backwoods. Sunset shook her head. "Thank you," she said. "For coming out here."

Now it was Pyrrha's turn to smile. "Even the great warriors of old were rarely alone on the eve of a great battle."

"Although some were," Sunset pointed out. "Like another namesake of yours, the Empress Pyrrha the Second."

"A namesake and an ancestor," Pyrrha murmured.

Sunset's eyebrows rose. "Really?"

"According to legend, at least," Pyrrha said. "Our Mistralian 'history' begins with the founding of the city by Theseus, from whom I am, apparently, descended, but this is all long before written records, let alone accurate ones, so who can say for sure? But, by tale and by tradition, I am descended from Theseus and all of the Emperors and Empresses who followed in his line, including Polites, the only son of Paris to survive the Sack of Mistral and rebuild the city, and Pyrrha the Second."

"But not your other namesake, the Pyrrha of the Mistraliad."

"Um, her too," Pyrrha confessed. "Through her great-great-great-grandaughter, Hermione, who married the Emperor Neoptolemus. But, again, this is all myth… but then, according to you, that doesn't matter, does it?"

"Not particularly," Sunset replied. "And in any event, one only has to watch you fight to see that the blood of heroes runs in your veins."

Pyrrha ignored that and said, "I'm a little surprised that you know about Pyrrha the Second."

"Twilight gave me a book which recorded the story," Sunset explained. "It didn't say what happened to her child; I assumed-"

"Fearing the worst, her father smuggled Princess Juno out of the city ahead of the Red Queen's coming," Pyrrha explained. "She was given over to a kindly shepherd and his wife to raise as their own until she was old enough to choose her own destiny. When she learned of her true parentage, she raised an army from amongst the country-folk and retook Mistral."

"Then you know about the Red Queens?" Sunset asked.

Pyrrha frowned slightly. "There was only one Red Queen."

Sunset shook her head. "One bore that name, but there were others like her. I admit, I skimmed through some of it, but are there no more tales of Mistralian Emperors and Empresses being troubled by sorceresses or witches?"

"There are tales," Pyrrha agreed. "And tales of wise women counselling them in earlier days, besides, but… you believe them, don't you? Do you think that these tales… magic, like yours?"

"Not quite like mine, but magic," Sunset agreed.

"Or myth," Pyrrha countered.

"If magic is real, why should not tales be told of it?" Sunset countered. "Is it not as sensible to believe that the tales preserve some truth in them?"

"Perhaps," Pyrrha conceded. "But… I hope not."

Now it was Sunset's turn to frown. "Why not?"

"Because… because… do you remember when we spoke on the rooftop, and you told me that amongst your people, it is believed that everyone is born blessed with one gift, a supreme talent amongst all others?"

Sunset nodded. "Not just our supreme talent, for we may be blessed with many skills, but the skill with which we choose to make the world around us a better place. Our gift to the world."

"Our destiny," Pyrrha replied. She hesitated. "My gift to the world is in these hands. It may be nothing more than the stirring of my blood, but I have been blessed to be made skilled with sword and spear and rifle. I am a warrior, and I hope I do not flatter myself unduly to say that I am a good one."

"You're better than good."

"So I'm told," Pyrrha said. "The pride and glory of Mistral reborn, the Invincible Girl, the evenstar of our people. The second coming of my namesake." She gave a soft, slightly bitter laugh. "Which namesake would that be, the one who condemned herself to an early grave by her choices or the one who died alone, outmatched against a foe she could not hope to overcome?"

"You're not alone," Sunset reminded her. "You've got us."

"I know," Pyrrha said. "And I rejoice in it, but… my point is… I suppose this may sound as though I'm simply vain of my reputation after all, but… I could be as great as Pyrrha the Second, I could be as great as the Pyrrha of the Mistraliad, and all of it would come to nought if… if what you and Twilight assume is true… I barely bested you on stage, and in a real battle… what is my skill worth in a world of magic? If there are Red Queens in the world, then, or people like the Auburn that Ruby's mother wrote of, would it not be as futile to attempt to match them as it was for my ancestor to ride out for Argolis? I suppose that I would rather live in a world where I have something to contribute."

"Understandable," Sunset whispered. She had not considered that before now, and upon considering it… well, she was inclined to agree with Pyrrha. Not in the sense that she no longer believed that magic was real, but in that it might be better if it were not. The powers that Summer had spoken of, the powers of the prophets and the queens… it was hard to measure powers that she really possessed against powers that she was only reading about, but it was hard for Sunset not to fear that she might find herself overmatched if she found herself facing one of Ozpin's mages.

Her own unicorn magic presently put her in the top tier of students, even across all four academies, but if one factored in the powers of these Remnant alicorns, then she, Pyrrha, Rainbow Dash, Blake, Weiss, Yang, all of them who sat in the highest tier of fighting students would all be cast down. Rendered second-rate at best.

It was a thought that she had not considered before, and it was not a particularly pleasant one.

It was enough to almost make her dismiss the whole idea, but within her head, she found that she could not. There was too much evidence to be so lightly cast aside.

Not that she would have to worry about that if she failed to win this duel. Defeat at the hands of Bolin Hori would hurl into the second tier long before any magical powers revealed themselves.

Then I will just have to make sure that I don't lose, won't I?

"Maybe you're right," Sunset conceded falsely, more to put Pyrrha at ease than anything else. "There's probably no connection between what Twilight saw, what Summer Rose wrote of, and those old tales. And if there are… these powers have not been seen for years; why should they trouble us now?"

"Not when we have troubles more immediate by far," Pyrrha agreed.

"Are you talking about the White Fang or Bolin?"

"Either?" Pyrrha said. "You should come back to the dorm room, get some rest before your duel tomorrow."

"Not quite yet," Sunset said. "There's something that I need to do first."

"What?" Pyrrha asked.

Sunset hesitated for a moment. Did she want to tell Pyrrha the truth? Did she want to tell her about the journal? Did she want to tell Pyrrha what she was?

No, to that last question, but as to the others… how much did she trust her?

I trust her with my life. Just not all of my secrets.

But... perhaps I can trust her with some of them.

"This book," Sunset said, levitating out of her satchel, "it is a… I suppose you might call it a magic book. Well, it is a magic book; I can use it to talk to… to the person who replaced me back home."

Pyrrha stared at Sunset, her green eyes widening a little. "Your… replacement?"

"The one who fulfilled the destiny that I was unworthy of," Sunset explained, albeit vaguely. "We get on surprisingly well."

"Through a book?"

"A magic book, yes."

"My goodness," Pyrrha whispered. She glanced down at the journal in Sunset's hands. "That's the book that you-"

"Yes," Sunset said. "That's why I didn't want you to touch it; I was terrified that you would find out… well, the truth."

Pyrrha did not say anything for some time. She simply stared, a little at the book and a little at Sunset. "I… I can hardly believe it," she whispered. "May… may I… see how it works?"

"I… would rather you didn't," Sunset admitted. "It's all… a little personal."

I'm not ready for you to find out I'm not human yet.

"Oh, well, yes, of course," Pyrrha murmured. "I wouldn't want to pry. I will leave you to it." She stood up. "But you will be up to the dorm room soon?"

Sunset smiled slightly. "I promise."

"Good," Pyrrha said. "You'll need it. Goodnight, Sunset Shimmer."

Sunset nodded. "Goodnight, Pyrrha Nikos."

She watched her go, ponytail and sash alike swaying behind her as she walked, moonlight reflecting off those parts of her armour yet visible from behind.

She watched her go, and only once she was gone did Sunset turn her attention to the journal itself, opening up a page with blank space on it and beginning to write.

Twilight, are you there? Is it a good time?

She waited, but it was not Twilight's writing that ran across the page in response, but a hoof – or spell – in an old-fashioned and elegant cursive.

Good evening, Sunset. I'm afraid that now may not be the best time for you to speak with Twilight, but hopefully, I can offer you some counsel instead.

Sunset stared down at the page. She hesitated. The pen in her hand trembled just a little. It wasn't that she didn't want to speak to Princess Celestia; it was just that… it was just that she wasn't sure that she wanted to be as honest with Princess Celestia as she could have been with Twilight.

Twilight's opinion didn't matter to her as much as Princess Celestia's did.

But on the other hoof, it's not as though Twilight couldn't have told Princess Celestia some of this stuff anyway.

Of course, Princess, I'm delighted to hear from you. It's been far too long. But what are you doing with the journal again? Is Twilight in Canterlot?

No, we are all in the Crystal Empire for a summit with the Duke and Duchess of Maretonia; we are hoping to persuade them to enter into a trade agreement with us.

All? You and Twilight and Cadance too?

And Luna also.

Of course. Does it require all four princesses to negotiate with the duke and duchess of a little land to the west?

Maretonia may be small compared to Equestria, but it is a proud land; we honour them with the presence of all four princesses as a sign of respect. Although to know the fact brings Twilight little comfort.

She is ill at ease?

She feels ill-used, or little used, at least; she has become a princess, and yet, I fear it has not changed her life in the way that she imagined it would.

From what I understand, she doesn't have a life in need of changing.

And Twilight is not dissatisfied with her friends or with Ponyville, but I am afraid that she is beginning to wonder why she was granted wings and crown when she has yet had no opportunity to accomplish aught with them that she could not have done as a unicorn.

Sunset couldn't help but smile a little. Does it frustrate you that all your students are cursed to suffer impatience? Not that I mean to compare my flaw with Twilight's.

I take your meaning well, Sunset; I hope you do not take it amiss when I say that I am a little more sympathetic to Twilight's frustrations than your own.

Sunset chuckled. That's quite alright, Princess. From what you've said, Twilight's frustrations are more sympathetic than mine. She has ascended – and done so very young, at that – accomplished a feat worthy of honour and acclaim, and now she must ask herself 'now what?' It is a question that too few stories take up: what do we dream once all our dreams have come true?

Indeed. It is all very well to close off with 'and they all lived happily ever after,' but 'ever after' must still be lived, and take it from me, that 'ever' can be a long time.

Can Cadance give her no counsel? She ascended, and her destiny had not yet revealed itself by the time that I departed from Equestria; she must understand what it's like to rise so high and then find that there is nothing to do once you have risen.

We have all attempted to encourage Twilight, to remind her, as you say, that destiny may take its time slouching towards you, but it will arrive at the appointed time nonetheless. I am not sure how much good it did, but I will broach the subject with Cadance and see what Twilight's sister-in-law may do.

I'm just not sure that you can understand what it's like in the same way that Cadance can, or even I can. You fulfilled your destiny so soon, and all your life since has been spent in ruling the realm. You don't know what it's like to wait and fret and wonder when the promise of your life will be fulfilled.

If I made it seem like I was promising you something, I do apologise. It was not my intent to make everything seem so certain, so set in stone.

I'm not saying this to blame you, Princess Celestia; I'm just pointing out that, for me, it felt like everything up until my ascension – or at least up until the great task that I would accomplish to attain my ascension – was but a prologue, that my whole life up until that point would prove to be mere preparation for this trial. A trial that did not come. The prologue dragged on and on, filled with an ever-increasing array of forgettable minor characters whose stories were already moving while mine stood still. I felt trapped in amber, imprisoned in a cocoon from which I could not break free. I do not say that it is exactly the same with Twilight – she has fulfilled one destiny already – but it wouldn't surprise me if she feels much the same way.

There was a pause, before Celestia responded. You have grown very wise in your exile, little Sunbeam.

Sunset could not help but laugh. That is very kind of you, Princess, too kind by far. I may be able to appear wise when addressing the concerns of others, but in my own life, I am as headstrong and heedless as I ever was, as any of my friends could tell you.

I would dearly love to speak to some of these good friends of yours.

Sunset winced. And they you, but I fear that I am not quite ready for that yet.

I will not say I understand, but since I do not understand, I will not question your reasons. Have you any words that I may take to Twilight on your behalf? You may be able to give her as good counsel as Cadance.

My friend Pyrrha believes that we choose our own destiny; she calls it a goal that she has set herself. I know that Twilight did not choose her first destiny, but perhaps if she were to choose the second instead of waiting for it to find her, it might ease her sense of idleness.

You say that you are not wise, and yet, you have such excellent notions.

I am not sure that I would call it excellent; Pyrrha's idea of destiny is very similar to the notion of cutie marks: that our choices are as important as our abilities. Though I fear that the destiny Pyrrha has chosen is so remote that she is likely to die with it unfulfilled, though she lives for a hundred years or more.

Pyrrha is the one who wishes to save the world, is she not?

She is. A lofty task, even for so peerless a warrior as she.

And yet, in trying, she is likely to leave the world a far better place than she found it, and that is no dishonourable legacy.

Now it is you who speaks most wisely, Princess.

And what of you, Sunset? What did you wish to speak of? Have you chosen your destiny in this world of Remnant?

I fear not yet, for I am consumed with misgivings, pestered by troubles, and fear that I very nearly lost myself.

Lost yourself? How so?

Sunset hesitated. A part of her very, very much did not wish to disclose this to Princess Celestia. And yet, a part of her felt that she must confess it to someone, and she did not dare speak of it to Ruby or Pyrrha. I have been cruel and vengeful.

Sunset found that she could see in her mind's eye the disappointment on Princess Celestia's face as she wrote back. To whom? Ruby? Pyrrha?

No. To neither of them, nor Jaune or Blake either. To none of my friends. To some of my fellow classmates, Cardin Winchester and Bon Bon; they hurt my friend Blake, taunted her with the past that she wishes to escape, and so I hurt them in turn.

I see. Did Blake ask you to do this?

Blake would never do such a thing; in fact she was rather angry with me when she found out. I did this all on my own, for all that it was done on her behalf.

Why, then?

Because Blake deserves better than their insults, and I wanted them to stop.

I would tell you the ways in which you are wrong, Sunset, but I think you would not be telling me this unless you knew already.

You're right, I do know. At least I do now. Jaune made me see. He wasn't right about everything – he blames Cinder, another of my friends, although she had nothing to do with this – but he was right that I was more my old self than either of us would like. It worries me, Princess; I thought that my friends had made me a better person, but how can that be when I can so easily slide back into who I was before?

Who you were before, I'm sorry to say, would not have so quickly realised that she was doing wrong, Sunbeam, and that is a thought to take comfort in, if nothing else.

I hope you're right, Princess Celestia. I very much hope that you're right.

To care for your friends is right and good, but they are not yours that you must punish the things that are done to them.

I know, or at least I will try and remember it.

Do not despair from a single setback. You have already come such a long way; that you have faltered on the road only shows that you are as flawed as anypony is, even myself, or even Twilight Sparkle. So long as you understand why you faltered, then it will help you to avoid failing again.

My fault is my pride, and the difficulty is that I do not entirely wish to be rid of it, for all the trouble that it causes me.

Sunset, from what you have said, the trouble you have caused yourself is as very little compared to the trouble you have caused for others.

It was a gentle rebuke, but it was a rebuke nevertheless, and it stopped Sunset in her tracks. She… she had not considered that before, and that lack of consideration compounded the selfishness in her initial action. It was all very well to feel guilty about what she had done, but she had not done anything about it. She hadn't done anything to make amends; she hadn't even apologised.

Apologising would be difficult, not just because of her pride but because it would involve an admission of guilt, but she could make it up to Cardin somehow. She could help him get back together with Skystar, maybe. She could make right what she had broken.

She no longer wanted to tell Princess Celestia about her duel or her suspicions about Professor Ozpin; it would seem like more selfishness on her part, more distractions from the wrong that she had done.

That was not how she wished to be seen.

You chide me well, Princess; I will do better. I will fix what I have damaged, if I can.

I'm not sure how just yet, but I can give it a try.

I'm glad to hear it.

Sunset smiled with one corner of her mouth. It was good that I spoke to you, in the end, Princess Celestia. Twilight can't make me feel ashamed of myself the same way that you can.

I am also glad to hear that my words are still useful to you, Sunset.

Your words will always be invaluable to me. But now I have to go. It is getting late, and I need to think about how I can make it up to Cardin. Goodnight, Princess, and tell Twilight I wish her good fortune and great glory.

Goodnight and good luck, Sunset Shimmer.

 

[ScipioSmith]

A Matter of Pride, Part Two​

Sunset sat on her bed, with everyone else having departed for breakfast.

Today was the day. Today she battled for her honour and the honour of the House of Nikos.

A part of her didn't really know why she was so worried about this; she had fought the White Fang, she had helped capture Roman Torchwick, she had come face to face with Adam Taurus, the Sword of the Faunus, and survived having his blade through her gut. Why should some Haven punk hold any terrors for her?

He didn't. He held fears for her; there was an important distinction.

He held fears for her because there would be consequences if she lost this fight. Yes, nobody was going to die, but all the same, there would be consequences. There would be consequences because Soteria, her sword, the sword that had been given to her, would fall into the hands of one of Pyrrha's rivals, and the most unworthy rival at that.

Speaking of unworthiness, Sunset would prove herself unworthy of Lady Nikos' trust. That was her fear. That was why she feared Bolin Hori: because he would make a fool of a great lady, and the foolishness would be that she had believed in Sunset Shimmer.

There had been too much of that already. She had made a fool of Princess Celestia's faith in her through her malice; she would not do the same to Lady Nikos through her incompetence.

She hoped not, anyway.

Sunset had not gone down to breakfast with the others because it was now morning, which meant that it was noon or early afternoon in Mistral, and it was time for her to call Lady Nikos.

The scroll trembled in her hands a little bit. Not only because she would have to admit the possibility that she might lose Soteria, but also because… because, as much as she hated to admit it, the words of Phoebe Kommenos had struck home with her a little bit.

What had Lady Nikos said about her? How was she representing their arrangement? What was it that was allowing Phoebe to think of Sunset as Lady Nikos' hireling, her paid creature?

She was not Pyrrha's bodyguard. She was not a retainer of the House of Nikos; Sunset had made that fact perfectly clear. So where was it coming from?

What was Lady Nikos saying?

Sunset would have to ask her.

The answers weren't going to find themselves, after all.

Sunset got up off her bed. She was calling upon a lady, after all; the least that she could do was stand up straight.

She held the scroll up, before her face, so that she didn't have to look down; she would maintain proper posture for this.

The name of Lady Nikos was white; a green button glowed slightly underneath.

Sunset hit the button.

A line of dots ran briefly across the transparent screen of the scroll; the dial tone sounded as her device sought for a connection, and then the face of Lady Nikos appeared before her, sitting – judging by the background – in her study, where she had interviewed Sunset shortly after her arrival.

"Miss Shimmer," she said. "Good morning to you."

"Good afternoon, my lady," Sunset replied. "I hope I am not disturbing you."

"You are giving me an excuse to take a break from the accounts; that is not a thing to be sneered at," Lady Nikos replied calmly. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I fear that you will find little pleasure in what I have to say once I have said it, my lady."

Lady Nikos' eyes narrowed. "Is something amiss, Miss Shimmer? Is Pyrrha-?"

"Safe and sound and happy, my lady," Sunset assured her. "I regret that I am yet unable to persuade her to tell you so herself, but rest assured that my news does not touch upon her life or health, her happiness or her honour. All are intact and, in the case of happiness, blossoming here… with Mister Arc."

Lady Nikos harrumphed. "Mister Arc," she muttered. She looked away. "What is his parentage?"

"I fear, my lady, that I know not, save that he comes from a huntsman."

"That is not enough," Lady Nikos declared, "I must know more before I can," – her lips twisted in distemper – "before I can bear to accommodate myself to their relationship."

"My lady, I think that if you do not accommodate yourself to it, then you will lose your daughter," Sunset informed her bluntly. "Pyrrha… Pyrrha is resolved to pursue her own happiness, without reference to you or any other person wholly unconnected with her. She will have Jaune though all of Mistral frown upon it."

"Nevertheless, I charge you to find out more about him, where he comes and from what stock," Lady Nikos commanded.

Sunset felt her brow furrow just a little. "You charge me, my lady?"

"Does my choice of words offend you, Miss Shimmer?"

Sunset pursed her lips together. Now they were come to it, or close enough. "My lady," she said, "I think that we come to the true subject on which I called you. Today, I fight a duel, for possession of the sword Soteria which you bestowed on me in-"

"I am aware of Soteria and when I gave it to you," Lady Nikos said sharply. Her words grew claws as she said, "I very much hope, Miss Shimmer, that you have not wagered an heirloom of my line upon the outcome of a fight."

"The challenge was offered to me, my lady," Sunset replied, her own words a little sharp, if not so much as those that were offered to her. "And offered specifically for the sword."

"Who gave you this challenge?"

"Bolin Hori."

"Who?"

"Indeed, my lady," Sunset murmured. "A student of Haven Academy, here for the Vytal Festival; he is a member of Team Auburn, under Arslan Altan."

"Arslan Altan!" Lady Nikos exclaimed. "I fear you must explain further, Miss Shimmer; I have never heard of this Bolin Hori nor know of any reason he should have claim upon Soteria, and if Miss Altan wished it, I hope she would have the courage to challenge you herself."

"Miss Altan gave me warning of the challenge before it reached me," Sunset replied. "In this matter, Bolin Hori serves another of Pyrrha's rivals: Phoebe Kommenos."

Lady Nikos sighed. "Of course," she growled. "Phoebe Kommenos, who else would do such a thing? She lacks the courage to challenge you herself, so she suborns this Mister Hori into her service."

"I have heard she is paying him, my lady."

"Disgraceful," Lady Nikos muttered. "Is she a Kommenos or a Schnee?"

"I think that you do at least one Schnee a wrong to ask such a question, my lady."

"I do not much care if I malign twenty Schnees," Lady Nikos declared. "I would say that Atlas has been the ruin of Phoebe Kommenos, but she was never… it matters not. I did not think that she would be so bold."

"It was not her first choice, my lady," Sunset said. "Earlier this week, she sought to buy the sword from me." She hesitated, because now they were come to the crux, or one of the cruces, at any rate. "My Lady, I am afraid that I must ask you… what have you said of me?"

"What has Phoebe Kommenos told you that I have said of you?"

Sunset hesitated.

"Out with it, Miss Shimmer," Lady Nikos demanded. "If I am to be accused, let me at least know what I am said to have done."

"I am told that I am an accusing anecdote at parties, my lady," Sunset said softly.

Lady Nikos was silent for a moment. "The fact that Phoebe has gone to these lengths to obtain Soteria shows that it is reasonably widely known that you have it," she said. "Have any other Mistralian students given you trouble because of it?"

"No, my lady, but I am told that it is the cause of some resentment towards me… and towards Pyrrha."

"Pyrrha?" Lady Nikos asked. "How so?"

Sunset scowled. "They call her… between going to Beacon and dating Jaune, there are some who feel that she has forsaken Mistral. They call her traitor."

"And yet she still holds fast to Mister Arc?" Lady Nikos asked, sounding a little surprised to hear it.

"As I told my lady, it will take more than disapproval to make her break with her heart in this," Sunset said.

"Indeed you did," Lady Nikos agreed. "And yet…" It seemed to Sunset that, in spite of everything, Lady Nikos almost smiled. "I am impressed. I did not think she had such courage."

"Pyrrha is the bravest person I know," Sunset said; Ruby, who might have contested for the position, was in Sunset's view too heedless to be brave. You couldn't be brave if you didn't seem to care one way or another if you lived or died, and Ruby's protestations to the contrary were not entirely convincing – or Sunset did not find them so.

"I am glad to hear it, but that is courage on the battlefield," Lady Nikos explained. "Since coming to Beacon, she has shown more and more other kinds of courage. Courage I had not suspected in her. Forgive me, Miss Shimmer, say on."

"There is not much more to say, my lady," Sunset said, her voice taking on a hurt quality. "Save that I am a fool who has mistaken… who has mistaken a mere business transaction for acceptance."

Lady Nikos' green eyes softened, and in the softening, they reminded Sunset much more of her daughter than they had before. She took a little time to, Sunset supposed, gather her thoughts before she spoke in reply, "It is true that I described my gifts of lien and of Soteria to you as an investment," she allowed, "but it is also true that I have not been invited to one of Lady Ming's soirees since I rebuked her for mocking you in my presence."

Sunset's eyes widened. Her mouth opened just a little more than was warranted, and for a moment more. One of her own? A lady of her own class? She has been cut - or snubbed, at the very least - and for my sake? She did not know this Lady Ming, but Canterlot – old Canterlot – had taught her well enough to know what it meant to be pointedly removed from the invitation list, an unperson amongst the beau monde of the elite and the influential. If what Lady Nikos said was true, then she had suffered much more than her words might suggest. And all for my sake? "You… you defended me, my lady?"

"What the young Lady Kommenos says is, regrettably, the common opinion," Lady Nikos informed her, her tone brisk as if she wished to move rapidly on before Sunset's gratitude could prove embarrassing. Certainly, there was neither sorrow nor melancholy in her expression, as if she valued not what she had lost – or wished to cultivate the impression in Sunset. "Perhaps I should have told you of this; certainly, I should have foreseen it; in Mistral, the business of one great family is the business of all great families, entangled as we are in webs of shared history and – oftentimes – shared genealogy also. Has Pyrrha explained to you the Kommenos claim upon Soteria?"

"She has, my lady," Sunset declared. "It seems to me that a claim of blood opposes a claim of honour."

"Very elegantly put, Miss Shimmer," Lady Nikos said. "Clearly, the sword was recognised at Beacon, and from there, word returned to Mistral. I hope it does not offend you that I have been honest about our arrangement."

"It is not my place to forbid my lady to speak."

"Good, for I have spoken of it," Lady Nikos continued. "There are some who have seen it in a most mercenary way; there are some who have made sport of you, as they believe that I have made sport of you; but if there was any doubt in your mind, Miss Shimmer, let me be quite clear: I have chosen to sponsor you because I believe that you are a young huntress of the greatest promise, worthy to stand as battle companion alongside Pyrrha Nikos, the pride of Mistral. And I gave you Soteria because…" She trailed off, glancing down at her desk, seeming lost for words.

And yet, Sunset felt as though she understood her. "Because the road that Pyrrha has chosen is a long and dangerous one," she said, "and you fear that she may have need of an Achates along the way."

"An Achates?" Lady Nikos repeated. "No, Miss Shimmer, you are more than a bodyguard. A Camilla, perhaps."

Sunset made a noise that was almost a chuckle. "I would say that my lady did me great honour, save that Camilla died."

"Camilla did not have Soteria," Lady Nikos pointed out. "I give you the sword so that you may live… and so may Pyrrha."

Now, Sunset did chuckle. "Pyrrha… I must confess to you, my lady, that Pyrrha fears you care more for me than for your child. I wager she would not think so if she heard us speaking now."

"Pyrrha is my heir," Lady Nikos said. "My blood, and that of my late husband. The latest flowering of the line of Nikos and its greatest bloom in many a generation. However many of her choices I may disagree with, and however vehemently I disagree with some of them, she will always command first place in my affections, though the rest of Mistral should forsake her."

"If it helps, my lady, I think she is still loved by all save a few foolish malcontents," Sunset assured her. She paused. "My lady… my lady, if… it was never my intent… I do not wish to cause undue trouble for you; if it will help you, I will return Soteria to Mistral-"

"No, Miss Shimmer, you will not," Lady Nikos said. "I chose to bestow that sword upon you, and I will not be bullied into changing my mind by the disapproval of Lady Ming and those like her. The sword is yours, and so it shall remain… I hope."

"I hope so too, my lady," Sunset said, her voice suddenly a little hoarse at the declaration of faith that she had just received, a declaration that made her fears, sprung as they were out of nought by Phoebe's words, seem childishly groundless. "I think that I owe my lady more than two apologies, once for misjudging your intent and once for putting Soteria at risk."

"You apologise for that?" Lady Nikos asked. "What else could you have done?"

"Pyrrha suggested that I might refuse the challenge, there being no grounds for quarrel between me and Bolin."

"But you and I both know that was not an option, don't we, Miss Shimmer?"

Sunset smiled briefly. "I think that Pyrrha knows it too, my lady; she told me herself that she would not turn away from a fight, that no hero born of Mistral could. I am not born of Mistral, I know, but-"

"But I would not have bothered with you if I did not see something Mistralian in your soul," Lady Nikos informed her. "You have a sense of honour, a pride in yourself, that is reminiscent of the elder kingdom. I do not seek to flatter you when I tell you that you belong here in the east."

"And yet I am flattered nonetheless, my lady," Sunset told her.

"Why be flattered by the truth?" Lady Nikos asked. "You were challenged, and you knew, in spite of having every incentive to refuse it, that your only true choice was to accept and face the consequences."

"You seem remarkably sanguine about those consequences, my lady."

"That is because I expect you to win, Miss Shimmer," Lady Nikos declared. "Is this Mister Hori so skilled that you fear him?"

"He… has a great deal of aura, my lady, and I am not yet a master of the blade."

"Yet you have an exceedingly powerful semblance; counts that for nothing?"

"It would count for a great deal, my lady, but I feel I ought to battle with the sword."

"Pride is admirable, Miss Shimmer, but do not let it destroy you as it has so many heroes of our Mistralian past," Lady Nikos urged. "In battle, one ought to use every weapon at your disposal."

"If I do not trust the sword, do I not prove myself unworthy of it?"

"And yet you will have the sword still," Lady Nikos said.

"Mmm," Sunset murmured. "I am not sure, my lady." She paused. "My lady, if… if I should-"

"You will not lose, Miss Shimmer," Lady Nikos said peremptorily, as though that was the end of it. "I have faith in you."

Sunset felt her chin rise a little higher. "Then I shall not let you down, my lady."

Lady Nikos nodded. "Good day, Miss Shimmer," she said. "And good luck."

"Thank you, my lady, and good day to you." Sunset replied.

"And uncover Mister Arc's degree!" Lady Nikos reminded her.

"I shall, my lady, with all convenient haste," Sunset vowed, before she hung up the call.

Well, she could not lose now, that was certain. She could hardly have lost before, but now, she definitely could not lose.

And yet… and yet she didn't yet know how. Pyrrha, Lady Nikos, everyone told her that using the sword was a bad idea, and it was undeniable that she was better with her magic than with the…

Now hang on.

A smile began to spread across Sunset's face as she started to have an idea.

XxXxX​

Professor Goodwitch had not been so kind as to volunteer to give up her free time to referee another of Sunset's duels; instead, it was Doctor Oobleck who had been kind enough to take the duty on. He stood in front of the stage, sipping out of a mug which he held in one hand – a vacuum flask was in the other, presumably for when the mug was drained – watching from out of his opaque spectacles.

He said nothing as Sunset strode out of the locker room and onto the stage.

She had her weapons with her this time, not only Soteria but Sol Invictus as well; the sword was in her hand and the rifle was slung across her shoulder.

She glanced past Doctor Oobleck to the students watching on the bleachers; it was a smaller crowd than last time. Apparently, Sunset Shimmer versus Bolin Hori just didn't command the same levels of interest as Sunset Shimmer versus Pyrrha Nikos; Sunset chose to interpret that as saying more about Bolin than it did about her.

Still, the amphitheatre was not completely empty: her teammates were there, sitting on one of the benches closest to the stage, close enough that Sunset could make them out even though the lights were dim and would soon get dimmer still; Blake was sitting next to Pyrrha, although she was the only member of Team YRBN to have shown up; Twilight and Rainbow Dash represented Team RSPT, while Cardin flew the flag for Team WWSR.

Flash wasn't there. That… hurt, just a little bit, even though there was no rational reason why he should be here. But it still hurt that Cardin had shown up while Flash had not.

Of course, Cardin was probably there just in the hope of seeing her get her butt kicked.

Like I'd give him the satisfaction.

Sunset frowned at that thought; she was supposed to be making amends with Cardin, not continuing to hold a grudge against him; maybe he'd feel differently about her once she helped him get his girlfriend.

I'll need to come up with a plan for that once this fight is over.

Cinder was there, sitting near the back, a slight smirk upon her face, her eyes smouldering. They hadn't spoken since Jaune had accused Cinder of being behind Sunset's recent moral tremble; Sunset would apologise on his behalf if he'd said anything to her.

Bolin hadn't yet walked onto the stage, but his teammates were there, although Arslan looked less than enthusiastic about it and sat with a distance between herself and the other two. Sun was there too, sat behind Blake, and there were various other Haven and Atlas students that Sunset didn't recognise.

And there was Phoebe Kommenos, also sat near the back at the other side of the room from Cinder, a scowl upon her face as she waited for the dance to start.

There was even more blonde visible at the roots of her hair now; she must have decided to stop dyeing and go back to her natural colour.

A mistake, in Sunset's opinion; going back to blonde just made her look like even more of a spoiled little princess.

Sunset caught her eye and smirked at her. Phoebe's scowl deepened.

A cheer from some of the Haven students – led by the non-Arslan members of Team ARBN – drew Sunset's attention back to the stage as Bolin Hori emerged, twirling his staff in one hand. He leapt nimbly up onto the stage but didn't acknowledge his supporters down below. Despite the confidence of his posture, Sunset thought that she detected wariness in his face.

Or perhaps she simply hoped to see it there, to show her that she was respected as an opponent.

"Go Sunset!" Ruby cried out, to counteract some of the cheering from the Haven side.

Sunset turned and offered her a bow by way of thanks.

Doctor Oobleck took a sip of his coffee. "Miss Shimmer, Mister Hori, are you both ready?"

Bolin slammed the butt of his staff upon the floor of the stage. "I'm ready, Professor."

"Doctor, if you please, Mister Hori," Doctor Oobleck reproached him. "Miss Shimmer?"

"One moment, Doctor, if you please," Sunset said, as she knelt down and placed Sol Invictus and Soteria upon the floor of the stage. With her arms thus free, she shrugged off her leather jacket and dropped it down by her feet so that she stood in her T-shirt and cuirass, with her arms bare save for the lightning-dust infused vambraces upon her forearms.

It was at a time like this that she wished that she had a little more meat on her bones; if she had arms like Pyrrha, then it would have looked impressive; as it was, she just looked a little scrawny, especially by comparison with the absolute beefcake standing in front of her. Nevertheless, she slung Sol Invictus across her shoulder once again and picked up Soteria. She settled into a high guard, the black sword raised above her head.

Her tail twitched behind her. Bolin's eyes narrowed.

"I'm ready now, Doctor."

"Thank you, Miss Shimmer," Doctor Oobleck said. He took another sip. "Begin!"

Bolin hesitated for a moment, waiting, watching; watching to see what Sunset meant to do, she thought. He evidently suspected that she hadn't taken her jacket off because she was too warm.

"You don't deserve that sword," he spat at her. "That sword belongs to Mistral!"

Whether he actually believed it or he was just trying to rile her up, Sunset didn't know and didn't particularly care. She just smiled at him and, with a pulse of her aura, ignited the fire dust she had infused into the blade; the flames of crimson and yellow, like her hair, rippled up the metal, consuming the black until it could no longer be seen.

"Then come and get it," she purred.

Again, Bolin hesitated for a moment; yet by now, there were those in the stands who were calling for him to get on with it, to kick Sunset's ass, to show her who was boss. He had challenged Sunset, not the other way around; he had sought out this fight, he had taken money to fight this fight; having done so, he couldn't just stand around and do nothing because he was uncertain about what Sunset was up to.

And so he charged, his staff gripped tightly in both hands and held before him.

Sunset didn't move, except to let go of Soteria with her hands.

And seize it with her telekinesis.

The ebon hilt was surrounded by the green glow of her magic as the blade shot forwards, moved by Sunset's mind, directed her will, flying like an arrow straight as Bolin.

He faltered in his rush, his eyes widening in surprise. As the sword thrust straight and true towards him, he lashed out with his staff, knocking the weapon aside. Sunset redirected it, the point of the burning weapon swinging in the air as she lunged the sword towards him again. Bolin turned, and once more, he deflected Soteria away with his staff, only for it to come again, driven by Sunset's telekinesis as she lashed out with the sword at him from every angle, pinning him in place, forcing him to stand and turn, always turning, shuffling left to right and behind him as Sunset drove Soteria at him from every angle, and though he was always able to guard against it – Sunset's telekinesis wasn't fast enough to catch him out, unfortunately – she was able to hold him steady while being in absolutely no danger whatsoever.

And this was only the first part of her plan.

While Bolin was preoccupied by fending off Soteria, Sunset – still hammering him with the sword from every angle, still making sure he had no room to focus on anything but the sword that was aiming for him as though it had a mind of its own – knelt down and placed one hand – that hand was not wreathed in the glow of magic – upon her jacket where it lay on the ground.

A slight pulse of aura, a pulse a little larger than she strictly needed to hide the fact that her aura hadn't been dropping at all otherwise, and the fire dust infused within the fabric began to burn like an inferno. Sunset rose to her feet, and now, her other hand began to glow as well as she magically picked the jacket up off the floor and made it hover in the air beside her.

Using telekinesis on multiple objects at one was a little trickier, but there was room in Sunset's head for more than one thought at a time, and so it was not too hard to keep Bolin distracted by the antics of Soteria while, at the same time, moving her burning jacket towards him.

All she had to do was keep the sword attacking him from other angles so that he had his back to her and did not see his doom approaching.

Almost there… almost there…

"Bolin!" cried out one of his teammates, Sunset thought her name was Reese, "look out!"

Bolin turned, too late, his staff out of position to defend him as Sunset shoved the burning jacket forward and into his face. Bolin cried out in alarm as the flames began to consume his aura, devouring it like famished wild beasts; yes, he had a lot of aura, but that didn't mean that it was a pleasant experience to lose it to the flames that were pressed against his skin, against his face, his eyes, his mouth.

Sunset didn't want to suffocate him, so she pulled the jacket up above his mouth and nostrils, even as she wrapped it tight, like an oversized bandana, around his head, burning sleeves dropping down his neck and back. Bolin flailed wildly, pawing and clawing at the jacket as the flames burned him.

And, more importantly, as it blinded him.

And while he was blinded, while he was flailing around trying to pull the burning blindfold off his head, while he was helpless, Sunset struck with Soteria.

And this time, there was no staff to knock the flaming sword aside.

She slashed at him. She thrust at him. She sliced at his aura like a chef slicing up the pie for dinner, and while he was helpless, she whittled his aura down.

But slowly. So slowly.

Which was why it was a good thing that she didn't plan on taking him down into the red.

Bolin should have asked himself why Sunset hadn't cut his legs out from under him. It would have been so simple to do, after all: just sweep his legs; it wasn't as though there was anything that he could have done to prevent it. She could have cut his legs out from under him and dumped him on the ground, blind, and there cut his aura apart at her leisure.

But he had too much aura for that. Too much aura for Sunset to be certain that she would be able to get him into the red before he pulled the blindfold off, as he was close to doing now. Instead, she attacked him only from certain directions, prodding him, making him shy away from her blows. Blind and disoriented as he was, he never wondered just where she was leading him.

Some of them saw it; some of the other students watching the fight saw what Sunset was doing and tried to warn him about it, but their shouts were confused, and Bolin would have had to be a master of blind mare's buff to understand what they were trying to get across to him with their cries.

Bolin's aura was still in the yellow when he tore Sunset's jacket off – the fire had gone out; it was barely smouldering now – with a triumphant cry that died in his throat as he realised that he was perched upon the very edge of the stage.

With one last thrust of Soteria, Sunset pushed him off. He toppled and fell to the floor beneath with a thump.

Doctor Oobleck drained his cup of coffee. "Mister Hori, you have left the ring," he observed. "That means that you forfeit the match, and Miss Shimmer is the winner! Congratulations, Miss Shimmer!"

"Yeah!" Ruby cried as Pyrrha began to applaud. Jaune smiled appreciatively.

Sunset allowed herself a smirk of self-satisfaction as she walked across the stage and picked up her jacket. She didn't offer Bolin her hand or bow to him; he had taken money to try and steal something that had been given to her; as far as she was concerned, he wasn't worth her courtesies.

She caught sight of Cinder at the back of the auditorium, shaking her head as a fond smile played upon her face.

Pyrrha got up, and leapt up onto the stage to join her. "What happened to fighting with the sword?" she asked, amusement in her voice.

"I did," Sunset replied. "In a manner of speaking."

"You played to your strengths," Pyrrha said. "Well done."

"Honour is all very well," Sunset said, "but I couldn't disappoint your mother." She hesitated. "I think she's coming around to Jaune."

Pyrrha's eyebrows rose. "Really?"

"She wants me to find out his degree," Sunset explained.

Pyrrha rolled her eyes.

Their attention was both drawn by the slamming of the door as Phoebe Kommenos stalked from the hall.

XxXxX​

Phoebe stormed out of the amphitheatre. Pathetic! Absolutely useless! What a waste of lien!

If only Arslan had agreed to help her instead of standing upon her ridiculous morals! Little jumped-up gutter plebe had presumed to look down on Phoebe, just because she was wise enough to know better than to confront that faunus personally.

Damn that Sunset. She and Pyrrha, so close and chummy, it was sickening to her. Pyrrha had no respect for an elder of her own class, but she could smile and jest – at Phoebe's expense, most like – with a faunus!

Why was it always faunus? What did everyone see in these freaks, these hideous animals? General Ironwood looked with favour upon that ridiculous rainbow-haired braggart, and now upon that White Fang girl too. Rumour said that she was going to transfer to Atlas next year, her crimes forgiven because everyone was so in awe of her dazzling skill.

Turnus had his pet fox, whom he loved so well, whom he called a part of his family as though that was something to be proud of instead of cause for shame. When she had suggested – as a dear friend and a fellow admirer of Atlesian culture – that he ought to send her away for the good of his reputation… he had frightened her in that moment; she had honestly thought he might kill her.

She only wanted what was best for him. He was so strong, so masterful, and so commanding, so what did so excellent a man see in a faunus and in that insipid Pyrrha?

Why couldn't he see how she felt? Why did he prefer them over her?

Phoebe suspected that Camilla had some part in that; she was urging his suit towards Nikos instead of her, although Phoebe would have given him her hand gladly, while Pyrrha… well, she preferred to tart herself out to some Valish nobody.

That was what you got when you lay down with faunus, and especially faunus who dressed like that. Honestly, could those pants get any tighter? What was Lady Nikos thinking, bestowing Soteria upon someone of that race and that character?

Why had she found Sunset Shimmer more worthy to bear the Kommenos blade than the last of the Kommeni?

But she would have her revenge. On Sunset and Pyrrha and Arslan and the whole pack of them! She would have her revenge, and she would have her sword too.

And, thanks to the arrangements for the next grimm studies practical for the freshman year, she already knew how.

 

[ScipioSmith]

Hi everyone. I'm sorry to say that SAPR will be going on a semi-hiatus for the next week. That means that there will be no new rewrite chapter out tomorrow or Monday, possibly not Wednesday either. There will be a future chapter out on Thursday because I don't want to leave you hanging on that cliffhanger.

This is because work has become even more time-consuming than usual over the second half of this week, I got no writing done last night because I was working (it doesn't help that, thanks to our wonderful server system, things that take 2 hours during working hours can be done in 20 minutes at 8pm when sensible people have logged off), it's starting to look like it'll be the same story tonight and I might even end up working over the weekend to get this piece out of the way.

I'm sorry about this, but it would help me out a lot if I didn't have to worry about the fact that I'm not producing enough chapters at a fast enough pace on top of the worry I'm already feeling about the fact that I'm almost certain to miss my deadline.

 

[ScipioSmith]

The Lost Heir​

"I guarantee," Pyrrha said, "once it's done, you'll be glad you came."

"Okay, I'll take your word for it," Jaune murmured. "It's just that I've never been to a spa before."

"You're not going to get all macho on us, are you?" Sunset asked.

"No," Jaune replied quickly. "It's just not something that I ever thought about doing or going to."

"Well, Pyrrha's right," Sunset said. "Once all your treatments are complete, you will feel like a new person. And look like one too."

With the battle done, the three of them had headed down into Vale for the remainder of the afternoon, with Pyrrha having invited Jaune to join herself and Sunset at the spa. Ruby had been invited too but had begged off, claiming that she had stuff to take care of.

Sunset wasn't sure what that stuff was, but if Ruby didn't want to come, then no one was going to force her to. As much as the benefits of a spa day – or spa afternoon – were incredibly therapeutic in her opinion, it wasn't to everyone's taste.

If Ruby had other plans that suited her better, then fair enough.

A few people took pictures of them as they passed by; actually, no, that was not correct: people took pictures of Pyrrha, which may or may not have caught Jaune or Sunset in the frame.

Thinking about it some more, Sunset considered that some of them might be trying to get pictures of Jaune too, if only because – what with the fact that they were holding hands as they walked – it was pretty clear that he was Pyrrha's boyfriend. There was probably a market for that kind of thing in… in the kind of places that Sunset had used to break up Cardin's relationship with Skystar.

The thought made her feel a little bit ill, a cramping feeling in her stomach that she wished she could be rid of.

Unfortunately, she thought it likely that only making amends could permanently erase these feelings.

"Sunset?" Pyrrha asked. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes," Sunset said quickly. "Shouldn't I be asking you that, what with, well-" – a flash went off in Sunset's face, causing her to blink rapidly – "-that?"

"It's just that you looked a little upset for a moment," Pyrrha murmured. "As for the other, I'm sorry; I'm afraid it's an occupational hazard of being seen with me."

"Would you like me to take care of it?" Sunset asked. "Like I did in Mistral," she added, lest Jaune get the wrong idea about what she intended as she held up her hand, the green glow of magic covering her skin as she gathered power in her palm.

Pyrrha hesitated. "That would be lovely," she conceded, "but if nobody noticed me, I'm not sure how we'd get into the spa."

Sunset laughed as the magic dissipated in her hand. "True enough," she agreed. "I'm afraid you have to suffer for our sakes."

Pyrrha smiled. "Having someone whom I can suffer for makes it worthwhile," she murmured.

Nevertheless, Sunset and Jaune attempted to block lines of sight to her with their bodies as they made their way down the street.

"Don't you think it's weird," Sunset said, "how sometimes you get these people lying in wait for you, and other times it's like you're anonymous? It's as if someone is tipping them off about your whereabouts, but only some of the time."

"Perhaps someone is," Pyrrha suggested. "Or people are, at least; some journals will pay for that kind of information. It's easy money, I suppose."

"Fine, but who knew who'd say anything?" Sunset asked. Ruby, she discounted instantly; she would never do something like this, but then, who else? Could someone have bugged their room? But who? They didn't play host to the sort of students who would do something like that, so then could it be a cleaner? They might be looking for some extra lien, and it would explain why only Pyrrha's movements that were discussed in the dorm room were known.

I'll have a look when we get back.

Really, like I didn't have enough to worry about with-

It occurred to Sunset that if there was a listening device in the dorm room, then it would have picked up her conversation with Jaune in which she had tacitly admitted to being Anon-a-Miss and having screwed over Cardin.

Well, that could be… bad.

Unfortunately, there was little to be done about it now; the recording would already be in the hands of… whoever's hands it was meant to land with, and no amount of searching the room would stop it at this point.

And besides, rushing back to the dorm room would only tell Pyrrha that she had something to hide.

Relax, even if they did hear that, nobody cares about you.

Yeah, that makes me feel a lot better.

Sunset glanced at Pyrrha, squeezing Jaune's hand tightly as she adopted a composed, nigh-expressionless look for the cameras; her face was so fixed that she almost seemed more doll than human.

Is that really what I want?

Yes, yes it is.

Jaune also noticed Pyrrha's discomfiture; he could hardly have failed to do so, considering that it was his hand that she was clamped onto, and there was a definite air of hoping to change the subject in his voice as he said, "So, Sunset, all that worrying about the fight for nothing, huh?"

Sunset chuckled. "I wouldn't say for nothing," she relied. "If I hadn't worried about it at all, then I wouldn't have put enough thought into it to come up with that plan."

"It was an innovative approach to take," Pyrrha said softly. "I don't think that anyone was expecting it. You've never used your, uh, semblance, quite like that before."

Sunset shrugged. "And a good thing too, or he might have seen it coming."

"But why not?" Jaune asked. "In a real fight-"

"In a real fight, I can't win by ring out," Sunset reminded him. "I would have needed more than that to get his aura in the red, and I'd need more than that in a real fight too."

"Okay, but it has to be better than letting Adam Taurus stab you to get a hit on him," Jaune replied.

"Well… okay, you might have a point there," Sunset conceded.

"It does seem strange to utilise a technique that keeps you out of harm's way in a sparring match and not in a battle," Pyrrha agreed. "Our enemies outside the school are far more dangerous than those within. For the most part," she added quietly.

Sunset's eyebrows rose. "'For the most part'?"

"Oh, it's probably nothing," Pyrrha said, "but Phoebe can be very tenacious."

Sunset snorted. "That only matters if she's any good. I've seen no sign of that so far."

Pyrrha did not reply; perhaps she didn't want to insult a competitor, no matter how much they might deserve it. All she said was, "I'm just not sure this is over, as much as I would like it to be."

"What's she going to do, find someone else to take me on?" Sunset demanded. "At some point, that starts to look a bit ridiculous, don't you think? And even if she does, I'll take them on and beat them, just like I did today."

"I'm glad to see that it hasn't puffed your ego up at all," Jaune remarked.

"You like me because I'm full of myself," Sunset replied. "It's an inseparable part of my charm."

"'Inseparable' is one word for it," Jaune muttered.

By this point, they had arrived at the antique-styled spa and passed between the Mistralian columns and under the shadowed colonnade before they reached the glass doors which swung open automatically to admit them. Sunset hung back a little to let Jaune and Pyrrha go in first, and she was the last one to pass the doors and walk into the lobby. Soft ambient music was playing in the lobby, and the air conditioning meant that it was pleasantly cooler in here than in the street outside.

And Rainbow Dash was there, sitting on one of the comfy chairs, dressed in a dark purple bathrobe with a fluffy white collar and cuffs, with tortoise slippers on her feet, a soft smile upon her face as she leafed through a magazine.

Sunset stared at her. Her eyes widened. Her eyebrows rose. Rainbow Dash? Rainbow Dash? "Rainbow Dash?!"

"Gah!" Rainbow cried, almost leaping out of her seat as the magazine fell from her hands. "Sunset! Jaune, Pyrrha, aha, what, uh, what are you guys doing here?"

"The same thing as you, I guess," Jaune suggested. "I can't imagine there's much choice of stuff to do in a spa."

"Are you kidding, there's tons of stuff that you can do here," Rainbow exclaimed. "I mean, uh, not that I'd know much about that, because, you know, all of that frou-frou stuff isn't my kind of thing at all, aha, no sir. I'm just here to get a deep tissue sports massage."

At that moment, Twilight came out of the bathroom, wearing a light blue dressing gown with her cutie mark – okay, so it wasn't her cutie mark, but Sunset caught herself thinking of them that way sometimes – of the six-pointed star embroidered on the breast. "Oh, hey, you guys; are you here to get pampered pedicures, too?"

Sunset folded her arms. "'Pampered pedicures'?" she repeated, eyes fixed squarely upon Rainbow Dash. Perhaps she ought to have been more circumspect, considering that Rainbow Dash had been avoiding her for a little bit, and the last time they had spoken, they had not left things upon the very best terms, but come on, when was she ever going to get a chance like this again to needle the proud hero of the north? It was just too good to resist.

Rainbow's face fell. A sigh fell from her lips. "Well… just because a girl is an awesome daredevil doesn't mean that she can't take care of herself. And besides, one of the things that Atlas is fighting for is so people can enjoy the finer things in life."

"Really?" Sunset said. "That's what Atlas is fighting for? Spa days?"

"It's part of a long list of things that Atlas is fighting for, yes," Rainbow said, with a straight face and an utterly sincere tone.

Pyrrha covered her mouth with one hand as she chuckled. "You don't need to convince us, Rainbow Dash."

"I need to convince her," Rainbow said, pointing at Sunset.

"No, you don't," Sunset replied. "I'm just not going to let you live it down."

Rainbow huffed.

Twilight giggled. "You don't mind if we join you, do you?"

"Not at all," Pyrrha declared. "We'd be delighted."

And so, after changing into their robes – and in the process, reminding Sunset why Ruby probably wouldn't have enjoyed a trip here – they passed through the sweltering of the steam room, then to the mud baths, then on to the actual baths, before having their faces covered in green paste with cucumbers over their eyes, at which point, someone Sunset couldn't see played the xylophone upon her back while she lay on her front.

And then, when all of that was done, Sunset was able to lie on her back while the cream they had smeared all over her face worked its magic upon her pores and wrinkles.

Jaune sighed. "You guys were right; this really is relaxing."

"Sometimes, it's good to just be able to forget your troubles for a little while," Pyrrha whispered contentedly.

"You got a lot of troubles to forget?" Rainbow asked.

Pyrrha was silent for a moment. "No, thank goodness."

They sat together in companionable silence for a little while, or at least it probably seemed companionable to other people, but, with her teasing out of the way, Sunset began to find herself waiting for the other shoe to drop. Rainbow Dash, after all, knew the same thing that Jaune knew, and unlike Jaune, she had no reason to keep it to herself any longer.

She sighed. Well, she had no desire to spend all day – all spa day, no less; this was supposed to be relaxing! – waiting for Rainbow to do the dirty on her. Waiting for Rainbow to reveal her sins. Waiting for Rainbow to do something that was in between betrayal and justice, or perhaps both at the same time. Waiting for Rainbow to say something; let's put it like that.

She didn't want to spend all day waiting, and so she said, "So, Rainbow Dash, what do you think about that leak, huh?"

Twilight made a sound as though she was about to choke on one of her cucumber slices, but didn't actually say anything.

"Sunset, do we have to talk about that?" Pyrrha asked wearily. "We're supposed to be forgetting our troubles. I hardly think that is the sort of thing that Rainbow wants to be reminded of."

"Yeah," Jaune agreed. "It doesn't really seem like the sort of thing you'd want to talk about either."

"It's fine," Rainbow said. "I mean, sorry if you guys don't want to talk about it, but I won't be long. What do I think about the leak and all that other stuff…?" Rainbow exhaled loudly. "They had it coming."

Sunset would have blinked if she didn't have cucumbers over her eyes. "That's it?"

"What do you want me to say?" Rainbow demanded. "Were there better ways of handling it? Probably. But so what? Like Applejack always says 'Once the cider's been made, ain't no use sayin' you want apple pie.'"

"When has Applejack ever said that?" Twilight asked.

"Applejack says stuff like that all the time!"

"I'm going to tell her you said that," Twilight informed her.

"The point is, there are a few things where I draw the line and saying you want to wipe out the faunus is one of them," Rainbow declared. "Sure, it's not great that Flash and those guys are involved, but… when I think about what she said, I want to break every bone in Bon Bon's body. Because it's not just me; it's Scootaloo, and it's why Gilda joined the White Fang, and why Adam… sorry, guys, you don't want to hear this."

"No," Pyrrha murmured. "Please, don't stop on our account."

Rainbow was quiet for a moment. "None of you guys will get this, because most of you are human, and Sunset doesn't give a damn… but there are times when I wonder… how can I be on the right side when people like Bon Bon are on the same side as me?"

"Because people like Twilight and Applejack are also on the same side as you," Sunset declared.

Rainbow was silent for a moment. "Well when you put it like that, it sounds obvious," she muttered. She laughed, even if it did sound just a little forced. "Sorry. I didn't meanmind to bring down the mood."

"No, I'm sorry," Sunset said. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

"No," Rainbow said curtly. "You shouldn't have."

Silence descended upon the group once again, broken by a nervous-sounding Twilight asking, "So, aha, didn't Ruby want to come with you?"

"No," Sunset replied. "She had other plans. Didn't Ciel want to come with you? This seems like her thing."

"I get what you mean," Rainbow answered, "but someone has to keep an eye on Penny."

"And rank has its privileges," Sunset murmured.

"Don't say it like that!" Rainbow snapped. "Ciel volunteered; she's teaching Penny how to dance."

"Oh, how lovely," Pyrrha declared. "Is she excited?"

"You bet," Rainbow said. "I hope she can calm down long enough to actually learn something."

"She'll be fine," Twilight insisted. "Ciel is a very patient teacher. Where Penny's concerned, anyway. It comes with being a big sister, I guess."

"I don't know; not every big sister ever is patient and understanding of their little… siblings," Jaune said. "Penny's lucky to have someone like Ciel."

"We're lucky to have Penny," Twilight said. "She… she's going to be something one of these days. Oh, which reminds me, Pyrrha, Penny was hoping that she could sit in on your training with Jaune tomorrow."

"'Sit in'?" Pyrrha repeated.

"She just wants to watch," Twilight explained. "She doesn't expect you to actually teach her anything; she just wants to see how you do it."

"Although she wouldn't say no to tuition either," Rainbow added. "It's driving her nuts that Professor Goodwitch won't call her up to fight you in combat class."

"Yes," Pyrrha murmured. "I can't say that I hadn't noticed that."

Rainbow laughed. "Mind you," she said, "considering who you are, it's not surprising that there's a line all the way around the block who wants to have a crack at you, and the professor has to be fair about this stuff, I guess."

"There's a line?" Pyrrha asked, her voice surprised. "To fight me?"

"Well, yeah," Rainbow said, as though that should have been obvious. "What, did you think everyone was running scared because you're the Invincible Girl of Mistral?"

Pyrrha was silent for a moment. "Some do find my reputation intimidating," she pointed out.

"Come on, Pyrrha, give us some credit," Rainbow cried. "For some people, sure, the fact that you've never lost is going to be a downer, but for some of us, it just makes us even more stoked to take you on. Who wouldn't want to be the first one to win against the great Pyrrha Nikos, right, Sunset?"

Sunset snorted. "I wouldn't have said no to the honour," she said, understating just how badly she had wanted it at the time. "That being said, Dash, you're a fool if you think that you can succeed where I failed."

Rainbow scoffed. "Oh, you think you're so much better than I am just because you're flashing your magic all over the place all of a sudden?"

Sunset thought about it for a second. "Yep."

"Hmph. Enjoy it while it lasts, because you're on my list as well."

"Your list?"

"My list of awesome fights I want before the year ends," Rainbow explained. "You and me, head to head. I gotta say, I wish that you'd been this honest about how strong you are when you were at Canterlot."

"Why, would you have respected me more?"

"Yep," Rainbow replied.

"That was a pretty great fight today," Twilight added, "but neither of us were really able to work out what it was you were fighting about. Why did Bolin challenge you to duel?"

"Because someone was paying him," Jaune explained.

"Someone paid him?" Twilight repeated. "Someone paid him to challenge Sunset to a duel?"

"Indeed," Pyrrha murmured.

"That doesn't sound very honourable."

"No," Pyrrha conceded sadly. "It was not."

"But why?" Twilight asked. "Why would anyone want to pay someone else to fight a duel?"

"Because they were afraid to face Sunset themselves, I bet," Rainbow answered.

"I think so too," Sunset said. "What do you know about a third-year student named Phoebe Kommenos?"

Rainbow groaned.

"That bad, huh?" Jaune asked.

"Let me see," Rainbow growled. "She's rich, so she walks around like she owns the place, and she can be generous to her 'friends' as well, so she walks around like she owns the place surrounded by a crew of lackeys who laugh at her bad jokes and sneer at the people she doesn't like, and that seems to be pretty much everybody. She treats her partner like a servant, she looks at me like I smell bad, and she isn't even that good! She's a rotten team leader and a pretty bad huntress, too."

"Then how did she make team leader?" Jaune asked. "General Ironwood must have chosen her."

"Maybe the great General Ironwood gets it wrong sometimes," Sunset suggested.

"Her teammates… they let her walk on them," Rainbow said. "So it seems like she's a natural leader because she can make other people do as she says. That, and… well… she puts on a good face for the faculty: good grades, always well turned out, always polite, helpful. The professors think she's great because they never see the same side of her that she shows to us students.

"We've never been in the same year, so I don't have too much to do with her, thank the gods. Are you mixed up with her somehow?"

"The short version," Sunset said, "is that my sword used to belong to her great-great-uncle, who died in the Great War fighting for the Emperor of Mistral, Pyrrha's ancestor. Pyrrha's family took the sword as a memento of a valiant retainer of their house, but Phoebe says the sword should belong to her as the descendant of the dead man."

"I… can see where she's coming from," Twilight said softly, "but it seems like a very trivial thing to get upset about at this distance from the event itself."

"So she set Bolin up to fight you for it?" Rainbow asked.

"Yeah."

"You're not going to want to hear this," Rainbow went on, "but maybe you should just give her the sword."

"What?" Sunset said, her body shooting bolt upright as she ripped a cucumber slice off one eye so that she could glare at Rainbow, for all that Dash couldn't see her because she hadn't taken her cucumbers off. "Seriously?"

"It would get her off your back," Rainbow said.

"At what cost?" Sunset demanded. "My pride? My dignity? My sacred honour? That sword was given to me by Pyrrha's mother, by Lady Nikos, the rightful Empress of Mistral. I should be shamed if I broke faith with her and cast aside the token of her trust in me."

"You've read too many old books, if you can talk like that so easily," Twilight murmured.

Sunset ignored that. "The point is that I would insult someone whom I respect and who respects me, what is more, if I surrender that sword, and even if that weren't the case, I'm not going to be bullied by some gender swapped Cardin."

"I can respect that," Rainbow admitted. "But… I'm still not sure it's worth the effort and the trouble over a sword. Give it to her already, and you look generous."

"And I am sure that that kind of attitude would carry you all the way to the top in Atlas," Sunset said sarcastically, "but I could care less about getting on in the world, certainly not at the cost of my self-respect. I'm not going to humble myself in front of her to make my life a little easier any more than because Phoebe's ancestors fought in the Great War. And if she wants to start something, I'll take her on." She replaced the cucumber slices on her eyes as she leaned back on the recliner. "On a lighter note, and hopefully to bring the mood back," she said, "Pyrrha, I think your mother is starting to come around to the idea of you and Jaune."

Pyrrha's tone was less enthusiastic than Sunset would have liked. "Is that so?"

"What's wrong?"

"What's wrong is that that isn't the point," Pyrrha declared. "I don't need my mother to approve of my boyfriend; I don't need her permission to date Jaune, and I don't want her permission; I want and need her to accept my choices in my own life! Is that so very much to ask?"

"What if it is?" Sunset demanded. "Are you going to freeze her out until she comes to you on bended knee? I know that's not going to happen, and you know that isn't going to happen; your mother has too much pride for that. But for what it's worth, I really think she's trying to meet you halfway on this." She hesitated. "I've never liked the fact that you've fallen out with your mother, but I could understand why you were upset. But now… she's making a concession to you; don't you think the time has come when you might deign to be magnanimous?"

Pyrrha did not reply; instead, it was Jaune who said, "Pyrrha, maybe you should think about it."

"Jaune?" Pyrrha asked, surprised.

"Pyrrha," Jaune said, his voice as soft as the spring breeze, "the fact that you were willing to turn your back upon your mom for my sake… it humbles me, it really does. Choosing me over your family… it makes me feel so, so lucky and so, so small at the same time. But I don't want to be the reason why you don't have a relationship with your mom, and I don't want to be the reason you can't go home again, especially since I know what your home and your name and all the rest of it means to you. I don't want to force you to make that choice-"

"You're not."

"And I don't want you to start regretting the choice you made in ten years and start to blame me for it," Jaune continued.

Pyrrha was silent a moment. "Ten years," she murmured. "You… you think we'll still be together in ten years?"

"Well, maybe," Jaune said. "If we're both still alive."

Pyrrha let out a sort of giddy giggling chuckle. Sunset would have rolled her eyes if they hadn't been closed against the cucumber juice.

"You don't have to do what I say," Jaune said, "but if you want to hear Sunset out… it can't hurt, right?"

Once more, a silence fell upon the group, broken by Pyrrha asking, "What did my mother say?"

Sunset chuckled. "She wants me to find out about Jaune's pedigree and report back to her."

"My pedigree?" Jaune asked. "You mean like a Labrador or something?"

"Well, you have got that soft, floppy blond hair," Sunset said. "But no, she means your ancestors. Lady Nikos is hoping-"

"That you turn out to have a noble descent," Pyrrha interrupted. "Isn't it enough that you are brave and kind? Isn't it enough that I care about you, and that… that you care about me?"

"I kind of hope so, since I don't think I've got any noble ancestors," Jaune admitted. "My dad was a huntsman, but he retired to raise a family. My mom's side of the family are all farmers, just like… well, just like most people from where I come from. Alba Longa isn't a place where you find fancy people."

"Are you sure about that?" Sunset asked. "Because backwater farming communities seem like just the sort of place where you might find, oh, I don't know, the lost heir to the throne of Vale."

"What?!" Jaune exclaimed. "Uh, Sunset, what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about faking it so that you can appease Lady Nikos and get her to give her blessing to your being with Pyrrha obviously," Sunset replied.

"Giving away her sword is something that you would never even contemplate because you respect Pyrrha's mother so much," Twilight said, "but lying to her, oh, that's fine."

"It's not lying-" Sunset began.

"You're suggesting telling her things that aren't true; that is exactly lying," Twilight declared.

"Also known as storytelling," Sunset pointed out.

"Or fraud," Twilight said dryly.

"It would only be fraud if Jaune were trying to get something out of it," Sunset said. "But he's not; he doesn't want land or money, still less to actually take the throne; we just want to persuade one proud woman that this young man is worthy of her daughter."

"It should not require deception to persuade her of that," Pyrrha muttered.

"Yes, well, I'm sorry that your mother does not respect your romantic autonomy, but I am trying to do the best I can as both your friend and Lady Nikos' trusted woman," Sunset declared. "I know that you're upset, and I will even go so far as to say you've a right to be angry, but I don't like having to tell your mother that you still aren't ready to speak to her yet; it upsets her, and it makes me look bad. This is an opportunity for reconciliation, so will you please just consider it instead of standing upon your pride just because you're not getting everything that you want?"

Pyrrha sighed. "Twilight's right; it is lying to her; how can I reconcile with my mother through deception?"

"And how are you going to convince anybody that I'm the rightful heir to the throne of Vale?" Jaune demanded.

"Simple," Sunset said, "I'm going to use your sword."

"My sword?" Jaune repeated.

"Crocea Mors," Sunset explained, "is not only the name of your sword, but also the name of the sword wielded by Jaune of Gaunt, Duke of Westmorland, who was the fourth son of King Edward Farstrider, the first king of a united Vale."

"Hey, that's the guy from Ruby's story, right?" Rainbow said. "The Song of Olivia? She was in love with him, but he had to marry someone else because she wasn't good enough for him."

"Correct," Sunset said, "and it is precisely to avoid such a situation that we are going to fake Jaune's degree. Now, as I was saying, this Jaune of Gaunt helped expand his father's kingdom by leading the second expedition over the mountains and into the eastern lands beyond-"

"What happened to the first expedition?" Twilight asked.

"Between the grimm and the barbarians, they found it too hard going and had to turn back," Rainbow said. "They were almost home when the rearguard was attacked making its way up to the mountain pass; that's when Olivia died. Ruby's right; it is a really cool story."

"But Gaunt did what his father could not and claimed all the lands from the mountains to the sea," Sunset said. "He held it for a while, but the lands were lost when, after his death, his son marched west to take the throne of Vale for himself. His line held the throne, then lost it, then took it back and held it while the line lasted, but as far as I can make out-"

"How do you know so much about the Valish royal family?" Jaune asked.

"Because Cinder and I are going to see a couple of the Richard plays in the park tomorrow, and I wanted to know the history in case I couldn't keep up with the language," Sunset explained. "The point is that, as far as I can tell, the kings of Vale made a habit of bestowing Crocea Mors upon younger children of their family, but those cadet branches always failed, and the sword ended up back with the main royal line. Until it didn't. The last person known to bear the sword was Harry, Duke of Alexandria, who renounced his titles, lands, and claims in order to marry someone unsuitable."

"She wasn't good enough for his family?" Pyrrha asked.

"She was a Mantleite, a divorcee, an actress, and a faunus, so no, not really," Sunset replied. "They disappeared into obscurity to escape from the press, which is where the sword vanishes as well."

"It's a pity that they had to flee and hide, but on the other hand, I can't help but feel that they were very fortunate to be able to do so," Pyrrha murmured. "They had one another, after all. I hope they were able to make a happy life together."

"The point is, who is to say that those ten generations do not lead to Alba Longa and Jaune Arc?" Sunset asked. "Who is to say that we can't suggest they did?"

"You do realise that if the Duke of Alexandria renounced his titles, lands, and claims, then Jaune would not, in fact, be the heir to the throne, even if he really was a descendant," Twilight pointed out.

"That would matter if he were claiming the throne," Sunset allowed, "but the important point for Lady Nikos' benefit is that Jaune is of royal blood and a gentleman of the most august and venerable ancestry. With the throne defunct, the fact that Jaune cannot claim it is irrelevant; in terms of blood and descent and noble pedigree, he is nearly on a level with Pyrrha herself."

"You're starting to talk about this like you've already forgotten it's fake," Jaune said.

"I prefer to think of it as a story rather than a falsehood," Sunset replied. "It's not like you're lying to get Pyrrha to like you; she already does. It isn't even as though you're lying to get Lady Nikos to like you, because I honestly don't think she ever will. This is a matter of allowing Lady Nikos to save face both with Pyrrha and with high society. Now, is a little white lie really so high a price to pay for that?"

"I…" Pyrrha hesitated. "I will think about it," she said, in a tone that strongly suggested to Sunset that the answer would be 'no.' "Anyway," she went on, "Rainbow Dash, you were asking about Penny coming to watch our training tomorrow night? I'm afraid we got a little sidetracked. Personally, I wouldn't have any objections-"

"Me neither," Jaune added.

"But I'm afraid that Jaune and I don't train on a Saturday night because-"

"Oh, right, yeah, you have special lessons with Professor Goodwitch, don't you?" Rainbow asked.

"Yang and I, yes," Pyrrha confirmed. "But how did you know?"

"Atlesian intelligence is second to none," Rainbow declared.

"Ruby told you, didn't she?" Sunset guessed.

"Ruby told Penny," Twilight corrected. "And Penny became very jealous of Yang."

"Well, Professor Goodwitch let me and Blake watch the first session; maybe she'd let Penny come along on Saturday night?" Jaune suggested.

"You and Blake are Beacon students," Twilight pointed out. "For now, at least, in Blake's case."

"Yeah, but Jaune's right; there's no harm in showing up to see what she says," Rainbow said. "And besides, if it was about training up a Beacon winner for the Vytal Festival or something, then she'd be teaching Weiss too, so that they had more options. If she's focussing on Pyrrha and Yang, it's because they're the best. Well, Penny could be the best even if she isn't yet, so… why not?"

"Okay, but maybe you should actually ask Professor Goodwitch first before you just show up at the amphitheatre door," said Twilight.

"You're probably right," Rainbow conceded. "As usual."

Sunset lay back, and pondered exactly why Professor Goodwitch was giving private tuition to the two most talented students in the year, instead of those who might actually need it more.

Perhaps Professor Ozpin was involved. He could have put her up to it to hide his secrets, after all. Perhaps… perhaps Sunset had been wrong, and his interest was not in Ruby – that would explain why he had made no moves to enlighten her upon the subject of her Silver Eyes, as he had her mother – perhaps it was Pyrrha and Yang who interested him.

Could he mean for either Pyrrha or Yang to be his prophet? Surely, Merida could not be so old.

And if that is his intention, what can I do about it?

Do I have the right to do anything about it?

Possibly not. Probably not, in fact. While Sunset was certain that Ruby would hate the confined lifestyle which she believed Ozpin's magical girls were inured in, she was less certain about Pyrrha. It would mean giving up her destiny, to be sure, turning her back on saving the world… but Pyrrha's sense of duty was not as monofocussed as Ruby's own: many kings and princes had done their duty without venturing out onto the front lines of battle, and Pyrrha was sufficiently steeped in history and lore to know that. To keep great power out of the hands of evil might be thought an honourable charge, and if it meant toiling in obscurity, well… as Pyrrha herself had so recently said, she might think herself fortunate to be able to disappear with Jaune into hiding, free to live and love with no one to trouble them.

How exactly you would hide the Princess Without a Crown was something else, for surely Mistral would search for her. You could fake her death, but then…

Sunset was forcefully struck by the thought of Lady Nikos, receiving the sword and circlet of her 'late daughter,' hanging her death mask on the wall for however long the mother might outlive the child. Whatever the state of relations between Pyrrha and her mother now, Sunset was in no doubt that grief would fill up the house of the absent girl if Pyrrha were to perish or be thought to have perished. Philosophy would offer no consolation; the brave words of heroes long past would seem hollow in the extreme. Lady Nikos would be broken by these calamities: the extinction, as she would think, of her ancient line; the fall of her house; the death of her sweet child.

She loved her daughter and would remember it before the end.

Too cruel; too, too cruel.

Sunset forced her mind away from such things; this was no proper place for them. She was here to relax – they were all here to relax – and there had been too much serious talk already.

She twisted her body in place, searching as she lay for greater comfort, and tried to take her mind off of it all.

In this, she was less than wholly successful.