Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
When and if they become relevant. Any other answer would be a spoiler.
When and if they become relevant. Any other answer would be a spoiler.
Volume III: Episode 6: Esprit de Corps, Part I
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
(V3E5: Reunions | V3E6: Esprit de Corps, Part I | V3E7: Esprit de Corps, Part II)
Volume III: Episode 6: Esprit de Corps, Part I
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Volume III: Episode 6: Esprit de Corps, Part I
* * *
Ozma's tiny legs pounded across the ground as fast as he could go. His chest felt like it was going to collapse, his breath was ragged, his muscles screamed at him to stop, he could barely see straight. Despite everything, though, he kept running, he kept running and never looked back.
He could hear them even louder now, the thick panting and the awful howls. He was being pursued by a pack of Beowolves. They were getting close now, too close.
Oh why oh why had he tried to prove himself? No one was asking him to prove himself. He was seven! He was just looking to prove that he was as big and strong as everyone else, and now, he was going to die.
There was a sudden bright light, a sound like nothing he could even begin to describe, and a flash of pressure and heat.
Ozma stumbled and rolled along the ground. He had to get up! He had to live! He...
The little boy looked behind him and saw that the monsters were no longer there. In fact, a big part of the forest wasn't there anymore, dark wisps of smoke curling up from broken and burned logs. He was alone again.
The sudden eerie quiet of the night air was broken by the sounds of incredibly heavy steps through the bush. Ozma tried to hide himself and froze. He closed his eyes, hoping whatever was there wouldn't see him, and the stomping stopped.
"Are you all right?" asked an incredibly warm, kind, and strong voice that reminded the boy of his father.
He looked, shaking all over, and didn't know how to react. It was… it was a giant! It was a giant covered head to toe in gleaming metal armor that seemed to shift with his movements.
The covering on his mouth receded, and Ozma saw a big, soft smile on a face made of metal.
"Do not worry. The creatures that pursued you have been slain," declared the giant, kneeling down. "Are you hurt?"
"N-no," said Ozma in a jittery voice. "My name is Ozma. Who are you?"
"My name is Optimus Prime."
He could hear them even louder now, the thick panting and the awful howls. He was being pursued by a pack of Beowolves. They were getting close now, too close.
Oh why oh why had he tried to prove himself? No one was asking him to prove himself. He was seven! He was just looking to prove that he was as big and strong as everyone else, and now, he was going to die.
There was a sudden bright light, a sound like nothing he could even begin to describe, and a flash of pressure and heat.
Ozma stumbled and rolled along the ground. He had to get up! He had to live! He...
The little boy looked behind him and saw that the monsters were no longer there. In fact, a big part of the forest wasn't there anymore, dark wisps of smoke curling up from broken and burned logs. He was alone again.
The sudden eerie quiet of the night air was broken by the sounds of incredibly heavy steps through the bush. Ozma tried to hide himself and froze. He closed his eyes, hoping whatever was there wouldn't see him, and the stomping stopped.
"Are you all right?" asked an incredibly warm, kind, and strong voice that reminded the boy of his father.
He looked, shaking all over, and didn't know how to react. It was… it was a giant! It was a giant covered head to toe in gleaming metal armor that seemed to shift with his movements.
The covering on his mouth receded, and Ozma saw a big, soft smile on a face made of metal.
"Do not worry. The creatures that pursued you have been slain," declared the giant, kneeling down. "Are you hurt?"
"N-no," said Ozma in a jittery voice. "My name is Ozma. Who are you?"
"My name is Optimus Prime."
"What did you just say?" hissed Qrow.
The red and blue bot looked up at Qrow and answered, "When I told Ozma I had to return to stasis due to the lack of energon on this world, he was setting out to rescue a princess, Salem, from imprisonment by her father. I am asking how it went."
Ozpin felt the gazes of most of those present, the ones he'd brought into his confidence: Qrow, Taiyang, Glynda... even young Ruby. Only Yang seemed genuinely confused.
"It went… well," he said, forcing the words from his mouth. He shook his head bitterly, the joy at seeing his old friend alive overshadowed by the rising self-loathing. "Too well, perhaps," he admitted. He looked up at Optimus. "I suspect it would have been better for everyone if I had failed."
Those kindly blue eyes stared into his own for a long moment before closing as Optimus nodded.
"I understand, old friend," the Autobot leader said sympathetically.
"Do you?" Ozpin couldn't help snapping, his voice ragged as the guilt and hurt and betrayal came pouring out of him. "Do you really understand what it's like, Optimus? To have made such a mistake? To have someone you love turn on you? Betray everything? How could you possibly understand?"
Optimus looked at him silently for another long moment, weighing his next words, and in the silence, Ozpin felt the fury drain out of him again.
"Let me tell you about a gladiator from the pits of Kaon who took the name Megatronus."
Taiyang was surprised to feel his oldest daughter shift in his arm and turn around to look at the Bullhead that had brought them to that mountainside parking lot.
"Hey, Dad, are there any chairs or something in the airship?" she whispered.
"I don't think so," he whispered back.
"Then we better sit down on the ground, because this is going to take a while," muttered Yang as she proceeded to drop out of his grasp and onto the gravel with her legs crosswise.
"This is a story I should have told you long ago," lamented Optimus as he sat down himself.
With a glance at her, and then each other, Taiyang and Ruby followed suit.
"Long ago," Optimus began, "during the Rust Plague, Cybertron had resorted to a caste system in order to conserve resources to survive."
Taiyang felt his older daughter tense under his arm. "The Rust Plague was bad," she murmured quietly. "I've seen pictures. It was... bad." she repeated.
"What was supposed to have been temporary... lingered," Optimus continued. "As a young bot named Orion Pax, I was lucky. The caste I was in allowed me the freedom to explore my passions as a simple file clerk at the Library of Iacon."
"He loves books," Yang whispered. "You two'd get along great, Rubes."
"It was there, deep within the archives, that I learned how things were during the Golden Age, when freedom and liberty reigned." Optimus's voice sounded wistful, melancholy. "I began to publish articles criticizing our way of life, the injustices of our society, and the Council of Primes who ruled Cybertron."
"Bold." When had James come out of the Bullhead?
The big bot shook his head. "It is easy to be brave behind the anonymity of a false name, General."
Tai only briefly wondered how Optimus recognized James. After all, James was a public figure, and it was silly to assume these Autobots were isolated from the media, especially given what James himself had warned them about with the Decepticons.
"No, the brave one was Megatronus," Optimus continued. "He was a miner once, before he became a gladiator, but he made a name for himself fighting in the pits of Kaon. It was there that he spoke out against the Primes, challenging them openly. I sought him out, seeking to form a political alliance, to bring reform to Cybertron. We organized rallies, protest marches. We called ourselves... Decepticons."
Someone gasped. Tai wasn't sure who.
"Your leaders couldn't have been happy about that," Glynda observed astutely.
"No." Optimus shook his head. "They were not. Sentinel Major broke up one of the protests and arrested Megatronus, for which he was elevated to the Council of Primes as Sentinel Prime. As the apparent ringleader, Megatronus was sent to the mines of Tarn as a penal laborer." He paused. "But his message had been heard, and he found allies and followers in the mines, the seed of revolution. I smuggled them supplies and weapons. Megatronus shortened his name to Megatron, and under his leadership, they overthrew the overseers and took over the mines... and thus began the war."
To Tai's eyes, it seemed the big bot's gaze grew distant as he thought back to the past.
"We had much success early on, often without firing a shot," said Optimus. "The Council of Primes had ruled with a heavy hand, and people chafed under their authority. Eventually, the Primes sued for peace. Megatron and I were like brothers, and he entrusted me with the negotiations. I went to Iacon; I spoke before the Council about our beliefs, that freedom is the right of all sentient beings, that we were all individual autonomous robots. Autobots."
"How did they take it?" Tai found himself asking.
"Not well, unless I miss my guess," James said. "Politicians in power don't like uncomfortable truths that threaten that power." It was a stark reminder to Tai of the tangled mess James had found himself embroiled in.
"Just so," agreed Optimus with a nod of his head. "But the people believed. The Council implemented some of the reforms and even offered me a seat on the Council of Primes. I... declined. I felt that, if anyone, it should be Megatron who took that place." He looked up at the night sky. "Perhaps it was a mistake. Megatron broke the ceasefire. I tried to talk to him, put a stop to the fighting, but he declared me a traitor, refusing to believe I had declined to sit on the Council, and declared no quarter. Worse, in refusing to accept their offer, I had broken what little faith remained in the Council. What had been a struggle for freedom turned into anarchy as the government collapsed. Uprisings and massacres spread across Cybertron."
His head bowed in shame, Optimus continued, "Seeing what I had wrought, I retreated to the Library of Iacon. I had thought... I had thought I had caused enough harm with my mistakes, that it would be better if I stayed out of it."
"The Library," Ruby murmured longingly. "All those books. Did- did anyone try to take them?"
"Early on, some came for the knowledge, and they left with copies, freely given, but after a while… no one cared," was the sad reply. "While I sequestered myself, I searched for answers, delving even deeper into the archives. Outside, the war raged. My old friend fell deeper into darkness, growing cruel and tyrannical, becoming what we had fought against, and Sentinel Prime began to rally people to his banner under the Autobot philosophy he had once disdained."
"What did you find?" James asked. "In the archives?"
"A threat to Cybertron," Optimus answered. "A prophecy. I delved deep into the heart of Cybertron to deal with it and emerged as Optimus Prime, and when I returned, I found Sentinel Prime had fallen, leaving the Autobots leaderless. They turned to me."
"You kind of summed it up there at the end. When you told me that story, you went into a lot more detail," observed Yang. "I thought we'd be here for at least an hour."
"I did not feel that many of the details were relevant to the subject at hand," explained Optimus, briefly crossing his big metal arms.
"But you completely cut out the warlord era, or how you met Primus and were granted the Matrix of Leadership. It's the big emotional climax of the story that brings it all together," complained Yang.
"Ozma already heard that years ago, Sunfire," revealed Optimus. "I doubt that he needs to have the same story repeated ad nauseum."
Ozpin quirked a strange sort of smile. "Yes, but Miss Sunfire is right. It really is a climactic moment that now, seeing it in the greater context, really does wrap everything up in a neat little bow. Besides, it's been so many lifetimes since I heard it. What's one more telling for old time's sake?"
"Very well, I shall tell it at a later time," relented Optimus good-naturedly. "Though now I would like to sate my own curiosity. Tell me, Ozma, how did you manage to reformat yourself? All I've learned so far is that it is exceptionally difficult for such a thing to happen with the people of your world. Then again, so is the longevity you've displayed. I'm sure it's a very interesting story."
"Not very, I'm afraid," replied Ozpin with a snort. "After I freed Salem from her father's clutches, we spent a great deal of time traveling together, though we often came back to check in on the Ark. But I was too focused on adventure and grew reckless, and in my arrogance, I left myself vulnerable to a deadly disease."
Optimus shook his head. "Disease plays no favorites, old friend."
"Perhaps," Ozpin admitted. "I died. Salem... did not take it well. She… the humanity that was, the humanity of our time, is gone. The Brother Gods left Remnant, cursing us both with immortality, but while my soul reincarnates, she regenerates." He hung his head. "When I... when I first reincarnated, I looked for you, but... something happened. I could not find the Ark."
"Yes." Optimus nodded. "Much of the terrain has changed since I entered stasis. I thought it merely the passage of time. How long has it been, Ozma?"
"I must confess... I've lost track over the years," admitted Ozpin with a despondent chuckle. "As for the terrain: a relic left behind by the gods when they left Remnant was a lantern that can answer any three questions under certain restrictions every one hundred years. I asked it what happened in my absence, and among the many things shown was Salem… dropping a mountain on top of the Ark."
Yang let out a low whistle at that. "Ozpin's crazy ex has some moves."
"Yang!" chided Taiyang. "Don't make assumptions about that, especially about Salem. You never joke about her. Ever."
"It isn't a joke," said Ozpin, his words making them all very quiet. He slowly turned to look back at them. "I'm sorry, I… in a past life, I… we had children. Four wonderful little girls. They…"
Without prompting, Optimus kneeled down and put a gigantic hand on Ozpin's back. "You did everything you could to save them, old friend."
"If I had just left them alone, they would have survived," countered Ozpin. "I was too wrapped up in my own attack of conscience over Salem's dreams of conquest to really do what was right by them."
"Ozma, you did not slay your children," insisted Optimus.
"I don't think we should be here," whispered Yang. "This is a private moment. It feels wrong to be here."
"He was Salem's husband," muttered Taiyang, disbelieving.
"So what?" hissed Yang, bringing her father's gaze onto her. "Whoever she was, she turned evil, and by the time he noticed what was going on, it was too late. He's just like Optmius, only he's still hurting. Lay off him."
The blonde suddenly looked around and saw that all eyes were on her.
"You're surprisingly defensive about this," observed Ozpin in awe, having clearly overheard. "I doubt that you would be thinking that if you knew who Salem was."
"She sounds like another Megatron, and that's bad enough. So what?" countered Yang with a shrug. "She's not you, and I bet you've spent the rest of your life trying to stop her. Haven't you earned at least a little benefit of the doubt?"
"I think we all have earned an explanation though," countered James before looking at Ozpin very intently. "After all our long years of service, we have more than a few questions."
"As do we, General Ironwood," declared Optimus Prime, looking at him in turn. "Perhaps chief among them is why there are those in Atlas, especially the SDC, who have seen fit to ally with the Decepticons."
"It's actually a rather simple explanation," answered James shamefully. "The Decepticons came to us about a year and a half ago and offered us an alliance that would provide for a number of advances. The council voted in favor of it. I was the only vote against it."
"So for a few trinkets, you let SDC get fat selling people into slavery, throwing them into a meat grinder for a few bottles of energon," presumed Yang, her voice roiling with disgust.
James scowled. "What exactly was I supposed to do, Miss Xiao Long? Launch a coup and seize power? Declare martial law because I had suspicions that the Decepticons were up to no good?"
"Resign and refuse to knowingly send civilians to die," growled Yang, a touch of red coming to her eyes.
"He didn't know about those until we told him," said Glynda defensively, glaring at Yang through her spectacles.
Optimus spoke up. "We have intelligence that suggests that Winter Schnee is liaising with the Decepticons and has knowledge of their energon fabrication operations and the slave labor involved, and has been for some time. It is well-accepted that she is one of your closest confidants and most trusted subordinates, General. Given that, it seems unlikely that you were unaware," -- and here, the big red bot paused for a noticeable moment -- "unless, of course, she has gone rogue."
Surprising all save James, Ruby was the one to reply. "It's not like that! Winter's not… there's more going on here than meets the eye."
"And how do you know what's going on?" asked Yang with aggressive curiosity.
"I… I can't say," explained Ruby weakly, her head falling. "I've been sworn to secrecy."
"Oh." Yang's face was inscrutable for a moment, and then she smiled faintly. "Okay. Well, let me know if that changes, all right?"
"Of course," Ruby agreed, nodding fervently.
"On the subject of there being more than meets the eye going on, there is one question that has been bugging me," said Glynda suddenly, turning back to Optimus and Ozpin. "Sir, you clearly trust Optimus and trust him implicitly at that, something you don't do for anyone else. You knew about the transformers for eons now, so why didn't you say anything months ago? For that matter, Mister Prime, why do you allow such a careless, destructive, and aggressive fanatic as we've encountered among your followers?"
"I see you've met Cliffjumper." Optimus's eyes seemed to close. "He is eager and more suited to the open battlefield. Normally, his partner would... restrain his impulsiveness, but after a battle in Vacuo, he chose to strike out on his own. I was unaware he had returned to Vale."
"So the whole business about a state of war between the Autobots and the Huntsmen is…"
"Simple bluster," finished Optimus. "Cliffjumper has a tendency to act and talk without thinking. It is a tendency that has saved many lives from ambush and infiltrators over the course of the war and, thus, one he is disinclined to correct."
"You have no idea how much of a relief it is to hear that," said Ozpin with a deep sigh. "When we received the report from Team Coffee about their encounter with Cliffjumper, I had to believe that it was a confirmation of what I had feared for so long: that I had failed to protect you in your slumber so thoroughly that you had perished." He turned to look at Glynda. "That's why I kept silent about what I knew. What difference would it have made, save perhaps to snuff out hope for you all as my own hope was snuffed out?"
Optimus seemed to have become rather cross at that. "I will have to have a very forthright discussion with Cliffjumper about the effects his words and deeds have on others when he inevitably returns."
"Perhaps you should have had that talk long ago," Glynda said snippily, crossing her arms.
"I have," admitted Optimus. "But this time, I shall drive the point home far more forcefully. The consequences we have narrowly avoided are far more dire than he has ever risked before."
Glynda paused, and then nodded. "Understatement, I see. Very well, an additional question then. Have you seen the Vytal Festival Tournament broadcast earlier today? The messages sent out detailing Decepticon crimes and SDC complicity? What retaliation will the Decepticons mete out?"
"That will depend," Optimus replied. "Do you know who commands the Decepticons on Remnant?"
"Soundwave," James answered instantly.
Optimus nodded grimly. "I see. Given his predilections and Miss Weiss's decision not to name the Decepticons explicitly, if he has access to the CCT-"
"He does," James confirmed.
Optimus nodded again. "Then he will likely make an effort to suppress the information and redirect the investigation to scapegoats. Conspiracy theories and alternate speculation will already be cropping up from convincing but false users to distort the truth in the hopes of allowing the SDC to weather the storm."
James looked troubled, shaking his head. "Nothing like that's happened yet."
Optimus's expression seemed to darken. "That is most unlike Soundwave. Unless... unless he has determined the SDC is no longer of use to him. He tends to prefer subtlety, however. He may choose to do nothing except end his agreement with the SDC, perhaps even engineering their downfall in order to maintain secrecy. Or he may begin preparing to act openly, if he believes he would have a favorable advantage in open conflict."
"You mean war," Ozpin said softly.
Optimus nodded. "Yes, old friend, war, but even so, Soundwave is unlikely to launch an attack any time soon. Instead, he will likely try to engineer a conflict between their potential enemies."
"Between us, in other words?" asked Ruby with a hopeful smirk.
"Nah, Rubes, between the kingdoms," offered Qrow as he fingered his pocket for his flask of alcohol. "Salem's been at it for centuries. So why shouldn't the giant alien robot have a go of it?" He brought out his flask, unscrewed it, and looked deeply into the container with a melancholy expression. "It'll work too. Nothing the kingdoms love more than a good war. We'll all start killing each other over this, and the bad guys will come in to sweep us all away."
Qrow took a swig while others frowned at the display.
"He seems inebriated," observed Optimus with obvious concern. "Do you often bring him on missions in such a state?"
"He's always drunk," answered Glynda bitterly.
"James," Ozpin said quietly, "I would like some time to catch up with my old friend. I believe I'm in safe hands right now."
"Understood," the general agreed reluctantly with a slight but firm nod.
"Optimus?" Yang spoke up. "I, uh, about that family issue...?"
"Of course," the big bot replied. "Bumblebee?"
After a moment, headlights flared to life in the brush at the edge of the parking lot, and a canary yellow Folkcar drove out onto the parking lot. Yang's face split into a grin as she ran up to the car, whose doors popped open on their own. "Hey, Bee!" she cried cheerfully. She paused and looked back at Taiyang, Qrow, and Ruby, waving them to follow. "C'mon!"
Tai exchanged a look with his brother-in-law, but Ruby was already rushing to follow. Suddenly apprehensive again, the two men followed the sisters and climbed in.
"So," a voice emerged from the dash as the car started up, "my name's Bumblebee. Pleased to meet you."
It was dark when Thundercracker came in to land again. Unlike the previous times he had landed, he did not immediately taxi to be rearmed but instead returned to his hangar. The door was opened, and he taxied inside to find in addition to the ground crew the rest of Team APRC(T).
"Penny!" he greeted in surprise, the canopy of his Skystriker alt-mode flashing with his words. "Shadow! Mad Dog! Farsight! What are you guys doing here?"
The crew chief was shouting orders as the ground crew filled a gigantic mug with "Atlas Akademie" plastered on it up with energon.
"Thundercracker, recent events have raised several questions," began Aska in that accented voice of hers.
The blue and gray Decepticon transformed into his robot mode, and by his expression, he was obviously trying to keep it cool. It was something that Penny would have found charming once. Now she just wanted to wipe that stupid grin off his face.
"Oh, and what were those?" he asked calmly.
"Did you know?!"
Oh, Penny. It had to be Penny.
"No," he said honestly. "I did not know."
"Yet you appear unsurprised," Farsight interjected. "Has this happened before?"
He bowed his head, his optics dimming as he considered his response. "Many times," he admitted, looking up at them. "I'd hoped..." He trailed off and shook his head. "I suppose it doesn't matter now."
"How could you?!" demanded his Targetmaster partner as she stomped toward him, tears spilling from her optics.
"I'm just a soldier, a Seeker," he answered defensively. "I fly. I fight. I follow orders. That's it. This? This was a decision made way above my pay grade, enacted outside my purview."
That didn't seem to placate the coppertopped girl, as she backed away from him. Floating Array emerged from her backpack. For a moment, he thought -- hoped, even -- that she was going to attack him. That... that he could deal with a lot better than the hurt he saw on her face. Instead, she spun away and leapt into the air as the collection of swords combined into its hoverboard configuration and slid under her feet.
"Penny!" Farsight called, taking a couple of instinctual steps as the artificial human disappeared into the night.
"You are not just a machine, Thundercracker," Aska murmured. "You would do well to remember that."
No, he wasn't. Contrary to what organics tended to think, that wasn't something a transformer could forget. He knew full well he wasn't just a machine.
He was also a coward.
Kali Belladonna showed no outward expression as Professor Goodwitch finished her tale. It was well that she didn't, for the others in the room spoke well enough for her. Captain Brad J. Armbruster, the pilot who would fly back to warn Menagerie, looked as if his whole world had been turned upside down. And not in the manner which a pilot such as himself was used to.
"I hope it's not too late to accept Herc's offer to join the Survey Corps," he muttered, shaking his head ruefully. "Wonder if Wendall knows about this."
Kali, however, turned her focus to the other Huntsman Academy professor in the room. "This is quite a tale, General," she said, "much of it involving Atlas, yet you've been silent this entire time."
"I cannot legally confirm or deny any of what Glynda has said," he answered carefully. "Nor can I legally divulge any additional information I may or may not have. In the spirit of cooperation, however, I would recommend the Menagerie Defense Force be placed on high alert. Given the specific nature of today's events, the possibility exists that a... punitive expedition may be mounted against Menagerie."
"I see." Kali pressed her lips tight at that and nodded slowly. The general was clearly doing the best he could from a difficult position, and it sounded like these "Decepticons" were the spiteful type. She was all too aware of how far beyond reason and sense spite could drive a person. It was why she and her husband had left the White Fang, after all; they'd tried to guide them onto a different path, but one could not lead those who would not follow.
"If that's all, ma'am, me and my WSO can go get our Night Raven to fly within the hour. We'll be back in Menagerie with the rising sun," Armbruster declared.
Kali nodded. "Do it. I'll include a message for my husband to back up your report."
"As will I," announced Professor Goodwitch. "I've been preparing a blanket report, and hopefully, this will help Menagerie be prepared for the situation."
Ironwood cocked an eyebrow at her. "Did you happen to also include what we learned tonight?"
"No, but since Optimus sees no reason to hide anymore…" Goodwitch trailed off as she refocused on Kali.
"Let me guess, there's a Decepticon who defected," guessed Kali, based off the name, the previous topic, and the subtleties of their expressions.
"That is… rather more accurate than one might think," confirmed Goodwitch, arching an eyebrow.
Captain Armbruster let out a whistle. "Yikes, Missus B, remind me never to play poker against you."
"I would rather you didn't play poker at all," replied Kali with a sidelong glance before shifting focus back to the professors. "You said 'more accurate,' so it's not the full story. Explain."
"We don't have the full story ourselves-"
"It apparently goes on for hours," interjected Ironwood.
"-but the short of it is that one of the original co-founders of the Decepticons left the faction and, following a long series of convoluted events, eventually rose to become leader of the main opposing faction to them: the Autobots," answered Goodwitch. "A ship full of these Autobots crash-landed on Remnant thousands of years ago and has now woken up. They are led by that defector: Optimus Prime. We met with him just tonight, and he's now formed an alliance with Headmaster Ozpin."
"So now there's two warring robot factions?" asked Kali.
"Yes," confirmed Professor Goodwitch with a nod.
"Their war, our world," Kali mused. "And are these Autobots really any better?"
"Ozpin has reason to trust them," Ironwood answered cryptically.
That raised the hairs on the back of Kali's neck. Headmaster Ozpin was a well-respected and influential figure, certainly, but to defer so much to his judgment...
There must be something more going on here. She filed that thought away for later.
"Thank you," she said instead.
Just as she rose to leave, Ironwood's scroll buzzed. He glanced at it and frowned. "Excuse me," he said. "I have to take this."
Kali watched as he stepped into a corner and spoke hurriedly into his scroll, his expression darkening. Even with her secondary ears, she couldn't quite make out what he was saying, save for the general mentioning a name: Asuka.
But his actions spoke louder than words when he bolted from the room without so much as a by-your-leave.
Silas observed his quarry on the screen. He was aboard one of MECH's Whispers; the stealth airship, equipped with a complement of surveillance drones and the most advanced electronics they could get their hands on, was built to serve as a mobile observation and command center. It was hardly defenseless, of course, but it wasn't intended to fight.
They had other assets for that.
He glanced at another screen, which showed a top-down digital reconstruction of the area and the transponder tags of his men. They were in position.
"Alpha, Bravo," he spoke into the comm, "Target Papa is moving into position. Execute in your own time."
"Yes, sir," the two team leaders chorused.
Silas watched as the icons representing his men adjusted their position to account for the target's actual position and heading, the icon representing the target flying blissfully unaware into the ambush.
"Target Papa in sight," Bravo Lead reported. "Engaging."
Bravo had the hard part. They had to engage the target and draw its attention. Playing bait was always a risky mission, one for which they would be earning a bonus tonight.
He couldn't hear the staccato of gunfire or see the flash of lasers, not from here, but he could well imagine what was happening down there.
"Target Tango is on the move." That was Delta, observing the airfield.
"Alpha, Bravo, now," he ordered.
With that, Alpha engaged from behind. The electro-nets had proven useful before, and he was banking on that working here as well. Target Papa's icon seized up and then plummeted to the ground. He hoped the fall wouldn't damage it too much. He shifted his attention to Target Tango as it screamed through the air toward Alpha and Bravo's position.
"Charlie, moving to intercept."
Charlie was an unfortunate necessity. They had the firepower needed for Target Tango, but they were loud. Once they engaged, they would have to trade stealth for speed.
Target Tango, fortunately, was quite predictable. Charlie moved into position with their Skygraspers and deployed EMP warheads, supported by further electro-nets from Alpha and Bravo.
"Targets Papa and Tango subdued and secure, sir," Alpha Lead said. "Moving to extraction."
Silas breathed a sigh of relief and smiled.
A most successful mission.
"Uh, Bee, we just passed the infirmary," Yang pointed out. She, her sister, her father, and her Uncle Qrow were currently riding the Autobot through the Ark's hallways.
"Ratchet had him moved to a private room," Bumblebee explained. "It's just up ahead."
"So," Ruby said, her neck craning as she tried to take everything in, "Yang, you said there was a big family thing here. What's this all about?"
Yang looked over her shoulder at their father who sat in the back with Uncle Qrow. "You didn't tell her?"
"I figured it would be better to wait until we were about to meet him," he explained. "You know how she gets."
Yang chuckled and nodded. "I sure do. It- ah... Rubes. We have a brother."
The younger girl froze, silver eyes wide and staring at her before narrowing in annoyance.
"Okay," she said, "I know I kind of got carried away with the whole 'brother' thing a while back, but don't you think this is a bit much, Yang?"
"'Strue," Qrow interjected, sipping from his flask. "Raven had him before we came to Beacon."
Ruby didn't respond.
"Rubes?" Yang asked worriedly. Wait. What was that whining sound?
"...eeeeeEEEEE!" Ruby shrieked. "A brother? Seriously? Best! Birthday gift! EVER! What are we waiting for?!"
She exploded into a cloud of rose petals and flitted out of Bumblebee. She rematerialized next to a door up ahead and began bouncing on the balls of her feet. "In here?" she asked excitedly. "Is this the right door?"
"Yeah, it is," Bumblebee confirmed as he pulled up next to the door.
"Settle down, Ruby," her father said as Bumblebee popped open his doors. "He's not going anywhere." He paused and glanced at his older daughter. "Is he, Yang?"
"He'd better not," the blonde growled as she and the two men climbed out of Bumblebee.
The Autobot transformed into bot mode and reached up to a panel next to the door. "I'll stay out here, give you guys some privacy," he said as the door slid open.
"So, why didn't we know about him earlier?" Ruby asked as they walked in.
Qrow shook his head. "Raven said he was dead."
"She thought I was."
Ruby turned to the new voice, ignoring the hiss of the door sliding shut behind them. Reclining in the cot was a young man with dark red hair -- perhaps a few shades lighter than her own -- and blue eyes. An ugly scar marred his face over one eye, in the shape of a rectangle around the letters "SDC." He looked distinctly unamused.
"So," he said to Ruby, "you're actually real."
"Huh," Qrow said, peering at Adam critically. "Haven't seen you since you were a baby."
"Is that something that just runs in the family, Uncle Qrow?" Yang growled.
Adam ignored them, instead studying the younger girl as she stared at him, those silver eyes wide. Silver eyes, just like Summer Rose. Mother had mentioned them more than once -- the tribe had sung songs about them -- and in person, there was no mistaking them.
The bloodcrowned girl walked slowly towards the bed where Adam lay, her face impassive. The rest of her family followed in her wake, and eventually, she came to a stop right next to him. Her expression was still unreadable.
Adam raised an eyebrow at her. "If you're going to judge me, then at least-"
He was cut off by Ruby snapping out to embrace him, the softness of her face's skin standing in sharp contrast to his unshaven stubble, and in contrast to both were the tears that were slipping between them. "I love you, Big Brother. Don't you ever forget that."
"You just met me," he protested, old suspicions flaring, the hair on the back of his neck rising.
But then... this was the daughter of the fabled Summer Rose, with courage and kindness in equal measure, someone who was somehow, impossibly, strong enough... to be gentle.
"Doesn't matter," she mumbled, hugging him tighter.
Another pair of arms wrapped around them. "It really doesn't, Son. Welcome home."
He looked up at the blond man. "You are not my father." Adam didn't know who his father was, but given his mother was human, his father had to be a faunus, and this man certainly wasn't.
"No, I am your stepfather," the man countered. "Taiyang Xiao Long, Raven's husband."
"I didn't think he was the hugging type," commented Sunfire with obvious amusement.
"I'm not!" protested Adam as he began to squirm, struggling to escape the group hug.
"Eeyup, that confirms it. Branwen men are prickly like that," said a scraggly black-haired man who waved at him. "Since we're introducing ourselves, I'm your Uncle Qrow."
Adam could feel his eyes narrow slightly at that, because he certainly recognized the name. "How do I know you're the real Qrow and not just some random drunk taken off the streets?"
"You say that as though those two are mutually exclusive," Taiyang stated mirthfully.
Qrow glared at the blond man before shifting his focus back to Adam. "Your mom ever show you her... special gift?"
Adam's eyes narrowed. "There are a lot of things that might refer to," he observed noncommittally. "You might need to be more specific."
"I mean this," the man said before he vanished, replaced with a red-eyed crow perched on the end of his bed.
That... that was hard to fake. Few enough knew of Raven's-
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold the scroll!" Sunfire's -- Yang's -- voice interrupted his thoughts. "Since when did you have an alt-mode, Uncle Qrow?!"
The man, Qrow -- Uncle Qrow, Adam supposed -- popped back into his human form. "Since before you were born, kiddo."
"What?!" gasped the blonde woman. "You managed to hide the fact that you were an alien from us this whole time?"
Qrow sputtered and looked at her like she was crazy... a natural reaction to any of Sunfire's antics. "What?! I'm not an alien."
"But you have an alt-mode," pointed out the blond with wild gesticulations. "Neither humans nor faunus have alt-modes."
"It's magic," interrupted Adam, drawing the squabblers' eyes to him. "Mother has the same ability; she explained it was a terrible curse placed on her and her brother by some crazy old wizard on a damned fool idealistic crusade."
"Typically uncharitable of Raven," commented Qrow before taking a swig from his flask.
"Not entirely an inaccurate description of Ozpin, though," said an amused Taiyang, thankfully backing away. "From a certain point of view, anyway."
"Yeah, a terrible point of view," declared Yang with clear derision. "To chaos with the idea of insulting him. Ozpin is no different from Optimus, and he needs our support, not the condemnations of a coward and a thief."
Adam could feel the arms Ruby had wrapped around him constricting ever so slightly tighter, probably in response to what was being said.
"You can let go now," he told her bluntly.
"No, you've clearly been suffering from a hug shortage."
Not bluntly enough, clearly.
"Just like Weiss!"
Adam felt his brand new eye twitching. Urge. To kill. Rising.
"Where have you been all this time?" murmured Ruby. "You said Raven thought you were dead?"
"Yeah, kid, what's the story?" probed Qrow.
Adam's expression darkened as he looked at Qrow. "While you were away, someone in the tribe sold me off. When she came back, they told her I died. And when she found out otherwise, she came for me."
"And she never told me," Qrow muttered. "I thought we were family."
"To her, the tribe is family," Adam pointed out. "I don't think she sees family the way you do. Like how she always told me she gave each family member one save, and that was it. She never did say whether getting me out of the mines counted. But I guess leaving the tribe solved that issue."
"So why'd you do it?" Ruby asked curiously. "Why did you leave?"
"I was a faunus in a tribe of humans, a tribe that had already sold me into slavery once," Adam reminded her. "I'd seen what happened to faunus in the mines; I'd lived it. Mother may have saved me, but… I couldn't stop thinking about the ones she -- we -- left behind. And I wanted revenge. Probably more the latter than the former, and I think Mother understood better than I did what I wanted. She told me to make them hurt and not to expect any help from her."
"Yeah, that sounds like her," grumbled Qrow.
"What changed?" asked Ruby, and still, there wasn't any judgment in her voice, just a constant outpouring of familial love.
Adam looked up and met Yang's eyes, a calm and loving lilac that he never thought he would see expressed in a face like that. "I met Sunfire, we teamed up to stop the bad guys, and she stuck around. Her and the Autobots. If it hadn't been for them, I don't think I ever would have gotten into this situation."
That, somehow, got her to finally let go, and she rushed over to hug her sister. "Thank you, Yang."
The blonde returned the hug. "Anytime, Sis."
Silver eyes blinked, as if in realization. "Hey, wait a second, if you're Sunfire, does that mean that you're the one who saved me at the docks that night?"
Adam blanched in surprise, pointing a finger at Ruby. "That was you?! You're the one who I heard rushed into the middle of a three-way firefight? I've got to agree with my White Fang brothers who were there: you have got to stop running in like that. You could have been killed!"
The bloodcrowned girl slumped like a puppet with its strings cut. "Why is that what everyone in the world remembers about me?"
Sunfire clapped a hand onto Ruby's back. "Hey, don't worry about it, Rubes. As long as I'm around, you'll always have backup… apparently. I actually don't remember much about that night."
"Well, you were wielding a red sword, for one," mused Ruby aloud.
"You used my sword? You used Wilt?!" asked Adam pointedly. "Come on, Sunfire, you're killing me!"
"Hey, I didn't use it for anything you wouldn't have. Probably," Yang declared defensively as her eyes started to shift suspiciously.
There was a soft gasp from Ruby. "You use a sword? Can I see?! Please!"
"Sure, why not? Just as long as it's only looking," allowed Adam, to which the bloodcrowned girl let out a high-pitched squeal of delight.
"Oh, thank you, Big Brother! You're the best!" declared Ruby with a movie poster worthy smile.
"You are never this accomodating to me," whined Yang.
"I've been plenty accomodating with ignoring all the times you've punched me in the face," shot back Adam. "Besides, I want to find out what happened to my sword."
Yang coughed into her fist. "Well, Ironhide was able to pick up most of the pieces, and Ratchet was able to find more inside you, and, well, after sterilization, they put them all in… this!"
The blonde had walked over to a large, shining steel container in the room, only Adam saw that it wasn't a container at all but rather a comically-oversized surgical dish that had an equally large shrink wrap cover. The rest of her family seemed rather taken aback by it. He had a bad feeling about this.
When Sunfire finished dragging the tray over, Ruby lurched over to look inside and let out a gasp of despair. "Oh no, it's all in tiny little pieces."
Adam made to get up out of the bed but found himself wobbling. Without prompting, Taiyang reached out and grabbed hold of him. His voice was calm as he spoke.
"Easy there, Son. I got you," the blond assured him as Adam stood up with his bare feet on the floor.
"I can stand on my own," insisted the redhead hotly.
"Not with me around, you can't," said Qrow suddenly, prompting the others to look at him, and then he shrugged shamefully. "Sorry."
Taiyang snorted and rolled his eyes as they started to walk over to the oversized dish that was more of a kidney-shaped tub. "In case your mother didn't explain this to you, your uncle's semblance is bad luck, and he just can't keep it to himself."
"Oh, haha, very funny," complained the black-haired man. "You know, if that's the thanks I get, maybe next time, I won't save us all from Cobra."
"Who?" asked Yang in confusion, an expression mirrored by everyone else.
Uncle Qrow seemed rather defeated by that. "They're a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world."
"Oh, like MECH," answered Ruby and Yang in unison, which made them look at each other.
Before Adam could add his two cents about the White Fang, he reached the bin and looked down through the transparent covering to see that Wilt… was gone. The sword was destroyed utterly, shattered into a million and more different pieces. The most intact part of it happened to be the handle, which was still split such that it looked like a crushed log. Blush had fared somewhat better, but it was bent beyond use, likely a casualty of the artillery barrage that had ended the battle.
He laughed. Bitterly, hysterically, he laughed.
"You all right, Son?" asked Taiyang in concern.
"It's funny," he answered. "In a way, that sword was a symbol of my hatred, my vengeance, and I always had a feeling that it would come back to bite me in the end. Now it has."
"Actually," began Sunfire, ruining the moment in that typical way of hers, "if this sword hadn't taken the shot from Cinder's ridiculously overclocked nucleon charge rifle, you would be dead right now. Not to mention that you never would have gotten the DNA test that proved we were siblings if you hadn't been filled with so much shrapnel, and if that hadn't happened, I don't know how I ever would have been able to go back to Beacon."
Ruby gasped joyously. "Then this sword brought our family back together again! It should be reforged and remade into a new weapon!"
Taiyang patted Adam on the back. "Summer always used to say that there was a plan for us all, and though we couldn't always see it, things would work out in the end. Looks like she was right."
"I name it Kinfinder!" continued Ruby unabated.
"Summer… Summer Rose. I think... I think Mother regretted not bringing me to live with you while she was still alive," mused Adam, remembering pieces of a day so long ago when he had helped his mother bury a body.
"It's going to be a laser-sword. No! A sword-laser," the bloodcrowned girl prattled on.
"She would have adored you," said Taiyang with a wistful air.
"Hey, Big Brother," interrupted Ruby excitedly, drawing the attention of the menfolk. "Which do you like the sound of more: wind dust to create a giant tornado when you swing your sword or hard light dust to make a double sword, or would you want to try and find a way to do both? I have this friend who's a ninja from Atlas, and she has this sword that she uses that can switch between various kinds of dust, but she usually just sticks to fire and lightning dust, and neither of those are very elegant."
Adam looked from Ruby to the blonde smiling like an idiot next to her. "Your sister is very strange."
"You mean 'our sister is very strange,'" corrected Sunfire.
"Yaaang!" whined Ruby.
The rest of the family couldn't help but laugh at the display, and Adam found himself smiling for reasons he couldn't quite explain, feeling for the first time in a long time... content.
Penny felt her mind drifting out of a thick fog as her brain module rebooted and her optics began to refocus. It felt odd thinking about herself in such a way, as she always preferred using organic terms, even if they weren't the most accurate. Perhaps it was something coming back through her bond with Thundercracker? Or perhaps she had just been spending too much time around Farsight, since the blue-haired girl was a stickler for accuracy to an extent that Penny just found to be ridiculous.
Her thoughts came to a screeching halt as she realized that she was laying on a table in the middle of a large room with a bright surgical light overhead making it impossible for her to see outside its light. That alone would have been terrifying enough, but she could start to feel panic setting in when she realized that she had been tied down by metal bands to the table and that all her clothes had been stripped away. That panic reached a crescendo when she saw the masked men around her.
Suddenly, it all came crashing back. She'd been angry and gone out with her swords in hoverboard mode to do something, anything. She had been attacked by the forces of MECH, and she had used her scroll to call her team, and then… and then she was on this table, captured.
Penny tried not to panic, tried not to give into those oh-so-human-like instincts. Instead, she had the presence of mind to think back to her ninjutsu training. It was her worst subject, but she had learned several important things in there, like how to escape from individualized confinement. The first thing she needed to do was distract the guards, and once she was able to dislocate her wrist…
"Well, it seems our prisoner is awake," came the calm suave voice of an adult male.
Out into Penny's field of view stepped a man with fair skin marred by numerous scars on his visible face, with close shaved hair and dressed in a dark green jumpsuit much like the others in MECH. His expression seemed polite but disinterested. She found it to be profoundly unsettling, not like the unsettling she had overheard some of her fellow Atlas Academy students complain about where men and boys would be looking at them and trying to snatch glimpses of their reproductive organs like they were pieces of meat, however that comparison was supposed to make sense. This was much more clinical.
"What do you want with me?" asked Penny on instinct, dreading the answer.
The man shrugged. "A full body scan, copies of the technologies inside you, a lot of different things. Frankly, we've already done most of that, so we just need you to stay alive and be a good little hostage to hold over the Seeker."
A hostage? A hostage? Was that all she was worth now?
She was vaguely offended by that. She was the most advanced piece of Atlesian technology in existence, containing multiple breakthroughs that had never been seen before, a fusion of human knowhow with a complex alien technology, a testament to her father's genius... and this guy wanted to use her as a hostage?
He must have noticed her feelings somehow, because his next words made her energon blood run cold. "If it makes you feel any better, I can have you deactivated and taken apart after we're done with your friend."
"Don't you dare hurt Thundercracker!" hissed Penny, lurching up in her bonds.
"No, no, I think there's another use for you," continued the man, ignoring her outburst. "A little remodeling, a little reprogramming, and we'd have the perfect agent to infiltrate the Joes. Yes, that will work."
Penny felt her mind flatlining and fear flooding her anew. "'Reprogramming'?"
The man was utterly unmoved. "Don't worry. We'll give you a memory wipe when that happens. That way you won't feel conflicted about killing General Flagg and anyone who gets in your way."
Unconsciously, Penny began to feel tears welling up in her eyes. Father, Sun, Ciel, Ruby, Aska, Rufus, Father, Thundercracker, General Ironwood, Father, all her classmates, Neptune, Professor Snake Eyes, upperclassmen like Rainbow, Father, Teams ABRN and JNPR, children like Molly, everyday people who she'd interacted with, so many faces were falling past her eyes. So many friends, compatriots, family, fans, the events she'd participated in, the places she'd seen, the traumas she had endured, the promises made, the secrets shared, all gone like… tears in the rain.
Father… I never even got to say goodbye, Penny wept in her mind. I never even got to tell you that I loved you one last time.
"That's for the future, though. For now, we have a message to send to your Decepticon friend, to prove we're serious," said the man with wicked casualness before making a gesture. Into the light was wheeled, of all things, a giant industrial buzzsaw. The table she was on split apart, moving her left leg out on its own, and the buzzsaw was positioned over her leg, just proximal to her kneecap. The man spoke again then. "Scream. Or don't. No one cares either way."
The buzzsaw started up, and as the whirling of the blade filled the air, so too did Penny's screams.
(V3E5: Reunions | V3E6: Esprit de Corps, Part I | V3E7: Esprit de Corps, Part II)
- Author's Note 1 (Cyclone)
- Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett)
Next time, morning comes and several important conversations are had in "Esprit de Corps, Part II."
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Volume III: Episode 7: Esprit de Corps, Part II
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
(V3E6: Esprit de Corps, Part I | V3E7: Esprit de Corps, Part II | V3E8: Esprit de Corps, Part III)
Volume III: Episode 7: Esprit de Corps, Part II
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Volume III: Episode 7: Esprit de Corps, Part II
* * *
Aska "Roku" Koryu… Ironwood? Shadow. She was Shadow. Not only was it easier than dealing with her conflicting emotions and thoughts regarding fake surnames, dead surnames, and adopted surnames, it also felt… appropriate.
For so long, she had been apart from her fellows, a distant nun upon a mountaintop, but now their heart was missing, and it was time for the old nun to come down and live once more. Bladerider was gone, Mad Dog was directionless, and far too much had she relied on the burden of leadership being taken up by Farsight. Now, they were all frustrated and stuck waiting for that one moment when they would be able to rush out to the rescue.
For that reason, they were all sitting in one of the Bullheads that Beacon had been kind enough to offer -- with the fleet recalled back to Atlas, nearly all their Skygraspers and Skyrays had gone with it -- together with one of the teachers qualified to fly them, of course. Wild Bill was one of the best pilots in the world, and so to be flown by him was a great honor. They all just wished that it was under better circumstances and that there was a clean solution to their predicament.
Other Bullheads they had sequestered for the operation were still sitting with their bellies full of supplies, but no people to use them. There weren't too many people who knew about Thundercracker, and of those, the majority were faculty who were at that moment engaged in more public events with the Vytal Festival, though, of course, they were close by and ready to go at a moment's notice.
The secrecy, she had been told, was to prevent a panic from happening should it be revealed that an Atlesian student had been kidnapped during the Vytal Festival... which, considering all that had happened over the course of the last week, Aska was tempted to think was an overblown concern and that people might just think nothing of it. It was also to keep their enemies from knowing their movements and divining their next action... which, while theoretically applicable, she still found odd. After all, who wouldn't know how an Atlesian was going to react in this sort of situation?
She didn't, as it turned out, not really.
"Kids, I've got good news and bad news," declared Flint, having just walked up to the collection of loaned Bullheads and raising his voice just enough that everyone began to cluster around him. "As is tradition, I'll start with the bad news. The Council has...strongly advised that this operation be aborted. They've issued an official recommendation that search and rescue operations for Penny Polendina and Thundercracker are to be called off immediately. The good news is that it's because the Decepticons have declared Thundercracker MIA, presumed KIA. They want to cover up the whole affair, so they're not going to try and kill us today. Of course, it shouldn't be news at all, but General Ironwood is under no obligation to follow that 'advice' and has ordered the operation to continue."
Shadow noticed Farsight's jaw unhinging a sliver in a rare moment of surprise, but it was Mad Dog that gave a vocal reply.
"What?!" the redhead barked in surprise. "They… what? How can they possibly justify that? Unless…"
Wild Bill chimed in, adjusting his wide-brimmed hat to emphasize some expression that remained unreadable under his sunglasses. "It's cold. Think it could be a lie? They could have formed an alliance with MECH and used the occasion to kidnap Bladerider themselves. Playing the long con."
"Possible," admitted Flint. "But not likely. The Decepticons have always treated the Targetmaster project as a sideshow. Call it a gut feeling, but I think this is for real. In any case, I've got to get back to talk with Sparks, see if there're any updates on the secure line from Spirit."
With that, Flint left, and those at the Bullheads were left to their waiting once more.
"Well, that was shocking," Shadow observed dryly.
Farsight held her tongue, but her mind was clearly working in that mechanical fashion of hers.
Mad Dog, of course, had a mechanical mind too, which was not to say that his mind had been likened to a ballistics computer like Farsight's had, but rather that he had interests that were mechanical and a rather unique way of looking at both them and the world. "I don't get it. I mean, the Decepticons working with MECH kind of makes sense, but why would they abandon Thundercracker? And they would have had to, because that's the only way this makes any sense at all. MECH wanted live samples, the Decepticons let them have Thundercracker and Penny, and then they told the council to shut things down so that they're not discovered. I mean, it makes sense, but… why?"
"Because they have no honor," reasoned Farsight in a cold clear voice that made apparent to all her utter revulsion.
"That's my line," quipped Shadow cheekily.
"What other line is there to use?" asked Farsight rhetorically. "What else do you call it when a loyal soldier's life is spent as a simple entry fee to make a temporary alliance with thieves and murderers? They have so few, and yet, the lives of their comrades are worth so little to them."
"They are aliens," pointed out Wild Bill.
"If that was a viable excuse, then they are aliens to Thundercracker as well as to us," pointed out Shadow. "After all, he could not have fallen for that trap in the first place if camaraderie and loyalty meant nothing to him. No, this is an issue of the character of those in command and the weakness of those following those orders."
Wild Bill smiled. "Sounds like something your father would say."
"He's not-" began Shadow before cutting herself off and then frowning rather crossly. "Thank you, sir."
"So, nothing to do then but wait," summed up Mad Dog.
Shadow let out a short soft snort. "This is what we signed up for."
The hallway outside the infirmary was, perhaps, not the place that one would think family discussions of the happy variety would take place -- except, of course, for those instances in which a baby was born -- but that was indeed precisely what was happening. Indeed, the argument could be made that they were, in fact, celebrating a new addition to the family.
Ruby yawned.
Yang arched an eyebrow at her sister. "Were you up all night?"
"...maybe," the younger girl admitted, blinking blearily.
"Come on, Rubes," the blonde teased. "It was only one night. I thought you were made of sterner stuff."
Silver eyes glared at her. "Yaaang!" she protested. "We have a brother! We talked about his weapon, about life on Patch, about- about so much!"
Ruby slumped in a chair, having burned through her combined excitement at meeting her brother and planning his new weapon. She'd lost track of time, and right now, it was just the two of them in the room, the others having long-since retired for the night.
"Adam," she murmured quietly, "I... what was she like?"
Blue eyes met silver. "You mean Mother?"
"Yeah." Ruby nodded. "Yang... she spent so much time looking for her, but now.... now, she hates her and won't even talk about her, and- and I don't really know anything about her."
Adam considered that request for a long moment. "Ruby, the first thing you need to know is that Mother is... complicated." He hung his head. "If it weren't for her semblance, I'd question if she even cares. Or is capable of caring."
"She does," Ruby interjected quietly. "She cares."
He snorted. "How would you know?"
"I... I tried to track Yang down after she ran off," Ruby said. "I found a White Fang meeting, and she- she showed up. I later found out you were there. She was... why would she be there if she wasn't checking in on you, and why would she check in on you if she didn't care?"
"Perhaps she had an errand to run," he offered. "I am a convenient anchor for her semblance, after all."
"Then she left without doing it," she countered. "She showed up, we talked, and she left."
"Hmm," he mused. "Then perhaps she was there to talk to you. Mother was quite fond of Summer Rose, and you are her daughter."
Am I?
"Adam," she murmured quietly, "I... what was she like?"
Blue eyes met silver. "You mean Mother?"
"Yeah." Ruby nodded. "Yang... she spent so much time looking for her, but now.... now, she hates her and won't even talk about her, and- and I don't really know anything about her."
Adam considered that request for a long moment. "Ruby, the first thing you need to know is that Mother is... complicated." He hung his head. "If it weren't for her semblance, I'd question if she even cares. Or is capable of caring."
"She does," Ruby interjected quietly. "She cares."
He snorted. "How would you know?"
"I... I tried to track Yang down after she ran off," Ruby said. "I found a White Fang meeting, and she- she showed up. I later found out you were there. She was... why would she be there if she wasn't checking in on you, and why would she check in on you if she didn't care?"
"Perhaps she had an errand to run," he offered. "I am a convenient anchor for her semblance, after all."
"Then she left without doing it," she countered. "She showed up, we talked, and she left."
"Hmm," he mused. "Then perhaps she was there to talk to you. Mother was quite fond of Summer Rose, and you are her daughter."
Am I?
No way was Ruby telling her sister about that part of the conversation, not with how much Yang hated Raven.
"Anyway," Ruby said, stifling another yawn, "I'm gonna need to head back to Beacon for a bit to pick up a few things."
"Planning on staying here a while, kiddo?" asked her Uncle Qrow.
She nodded. "We've got so much to catch up on."
"We all do," the patriarch of the family agreed with a firm nod. "I'm just glad everything worked out as well as it did."
Yang snorted. "I don't see how it could have gone any better. I mean, can you imagine what would have happened if I'd told everyone about this from the beginning? I mean, Weiss knew people killed by the White Fang."
Ruby winced. "Forget Weiss. Think about Blake."
"I'm trying not to," Yang groaned, screwing her eyes shut. "Is she okay?"
"She's fine," Ruby assured her. "You were pretty exhausted, so you didn't put very much into that punch, really."
Yang's shoulders slumped in relief. "That's great to hear." She shook her head. "And yeah, I don't think we would have been working with Adam if I'd brought you in, and he'd probably feel betrayed again, and... yeah, no. Knowing Adam, I'm picturing missing limbs and dead bodies."
"All the more reason to treasure moments like this, when things turn out all right," Taiyang said solemnly. "Everybody knows that everybody dies. But not every day. Not today."
"Well," Yang said, straightening up and blinking rapidly, "we'll have Jazz take you guys back to Beacon to get your things. I'm gonna stay on the Ark for now, in case we get any leads on Cinder."
"Jazz'll meet us out front," Bumblebee added, transforming back into his Folkcar alt-mode.
The ride to the entrance of the Ark didn't take long, and when they got there, they were greeted by...
"Huh," Taiyang said curiously as they climbed out of Bumblebee. "That looks like my new car."
"Yeahhh," Yang said hesitantly, "about that..."
"Yang?" he asked sternly.
The Ferdinand 119 transformed into another Autobot. "Name's Jazz," it -- he -- said in the smoothest voice any of them had ever heard, bending down to extend a fist to Taiyang. "Pleased to officially meet you."
Taiyang put out his own fist and hit his knuckles against the Autobot's. "Pleasure's all mine."
As Pyrrha took a seat in the private comm booth in the CCT Tower, her mind was a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. Blake and Weiss's rather public calling out of the SDC yesterday had thrown the whole kingdom -- probably all of Remnant -- into turmoil, and it was hard to tell how things would turn out. Still, the die was cast. There was no going back now.
Ruby had called her scroll and begged off this morning's training session on account of "family stuff." She hadn't provided any details, but hopefully, that meant Yang would be back soon. Either way, Pyrrha definitely understood.
Family.
The canceled morning training session had left Pyrrha at loose ends, and she found herself thinking back to her own family. With all the uncertainty flying around... she needed a bit of stability. Besides -- a grin threatened to split her face in two -- with what Jaune had asked last night, she probably should tell them about it herself before the tabloids got wind of it.
She shook herself out of her stupor as the call tried to connect.
"Hello?" a comforting male voice greeted her. The call had connected audio-only for now.
"Hello, Father," she said.
"Punkin!" he cried jovially. "Hang on, let me..." He trailed off for a moment before the video feed went live, revealing her father's warm smile.
Achilles Nikos bore the look of an early retiree, still youthful in spirit, if not in years, with delight glittering in his hazel eyes and barely-visible stress lines encroaching on his face like the forward elements of an invading army. He still wore his red hair long, as he had in his youth as a tournament fighter and Huntsman, though now, he kept it tied in a simple ponytail.
"Is Mother doing well?" she asked.
"Tell Pyrrha I'm fine!" she heard her mother call out from a distance on the other end of the connection.
Her father turned to look over his shoulder. "Go back to bed, Lyta!" he scolded. "You heard the doctor! A week's bed rest!" He turned back to face her. "Your mother is fine, though. It's just a nasty stomach bug, nothing life-threatening. The doctor's got her on some antibiotics."
"That's wonderful news!" Pyrrha cheered. She'd known it probably wasn't anything truly severe, but she had still worried. "And how are the twins?"
"Slacking off, as usual, the lazy louts!" he replied loudly, the good-natured smile on his face belying his harsh words. "How have you been doing, punkin?"
With that, they descended into idle chatter, even as Pyrrha danced around her true reason for calling. Though he didn't mention her match yesterday, Pyrrha knew he'd seen it, that they all had, but he had long-since realized how awkward discussing her performance in the ring made her feel.
"So, just checking in on your old man, or did you have something you wanted to talk about, punkin?" he asked finally.
"A little both," Pyrrha admitted. She blushed and looked away awkwardly. "Father, um, there's this boy..."
"Jaune, right?"
Her head whipped back up. "You know?"
"Punkin," her father said patiently, "it's all over the news here in Argus, probably across Mistral. It's still all anyone can talk about. Didn't Joanie tell you?"
Pyrrha blushed guiltily. "I... haven't been answering her calls," she admitted. She had assumed, perhaps unfairly, that her publicist had been calling about some new endorsement or merchandising opportunities, what with the Vytal Tournament raising her profile again, and with everything that had been going on... "Things have been quite hectic lately," she said, then shook her head. "But that's what's leading the headlines? What about the tournament? What about Weiss's big speech?"
"This is Mistral, punkin. A big corporation being corrupt isn't news. A few of the local papers here in Argus ran some articles on it, but that's all. Besides, you know how the newsies get. You and the lost prince of Vale who managed to find a chink in the armor around the Invincible Girl's heart? That kind of story's irresistible to the gossip rags."
"He was never lost," Pyrrha mumbled in sheer mortification. She'd been away at Beacon so long, she'd forgotten how... intrusive the Mistralian media could be. That was why she had a publicist. "And he's not a prince," she added hastily after a moment. "He's very insistent about that."
"But he's your prince, isn't he, punkin?" her father teased. "So, what about him? He seems like a nice enough guy, and I know you wouldn't be acting this way if he was anything other than a perfect gentleman."
In other words, Pyrrha would have thrashed him if he'd gotten fresh. That... wasn't entirely true, she suspected. She probably would have been ecstatic if Jaune had tried taking, ahem, "liberties" with her, but she decided not to disabuse her father of his misconception.
She'd rather not risk becoming a widow before becoming a wife.
"He..." -- she hesitated, one hand reaching up to clutch at the ring hanging from her neck -- "heaskedmetomarryhim."
Her father blinked slowly, then tilted his head thoughtfully. "You aren't calling to ask for permission." It wasn't a question.
"No, Father," she confirmed.
"Are you calling for advice?" he hazarded.
"No, Father," she repeated, shaking her head. "I already know I'm going to say 'yes.'"
He arched a curious eyebrow. "'Going to'? Then why haven't you already?" he asked shrewdly. "Is something wrong?"
"No!" she blurted out. After a moment, she explained, "No, he... he made me promise not to answer him until the tournament was over. He... didn't want to pressure me. I just... I didn't want to blindside you with it."
Her father paused and studied her through the holographic display.
"Considerate of him," he said finally. "It's your life, Pyrrha, and it sounds like he makes you happy. We'll have to discuss where and when to hold the ceremony."
Pyrrha blushed. "I'll, uh, I'll talk to him about it."
"And call Joanie," her father added. "She's been running around in circles, trying to figure out how you want to handle this."
"I will," she promised. She had other reasons to talk to Joanie, anyway.
An earlier recording of Bianca Purezza's impromptu interview at Amity Colosseum was playing on Sour Sweet's scroll in Beacon's cafeteria.
"Miss Schnee-" began Bianca.
"Please, just Weiss, interrupted the heiress -- former heiress, rather -- on the screen next to her. "I have renounced my family name in protest of my father's actions."
"You renounced your name, and yet you still consider Jacques Schnee your father?" the reporter asked, curiosity -- real or feigned -- quite evident on her face.
"Unfortunately, biology is an immutable fact," Weiss said. "Now that I legally have no family, biology is the only marker that remains of what once was. Perhaps that will change in the future, but I find that unlikely."
"Very well, Miss Sch-Weiss, do you have any response to the claims that your allegations of slave labor camps have been falsified by Miss Belladonna?"
"By Blake?" Weiss arched her split eyebrow, drawing attention to the scar over her eye. "Don't be preposterous. I saw it with my own two eyes, one of which I almost lost passing the test my father set for me before he would allow me to go to Beacon… or anywhere outside his immediate sphere of influence."
Bianca blinked, surprised by the sudden revelation. "I… see. What test, if I may ask?"
"A one on one battle with an Arma Gigas."
"Oh." Bianca coughed. "Ahem. What about the claims that you've been unduly influenced by your teammate and her family's questionable prior affiliations?"
Weiss shook her head. "It doesn't matter."
"Pardon?" asked Bianca, clearly not anticipating that answer.
"It doesn't matter," Weiss repeated passionately. It doesn't matter what the press says. It doesn't matter what the councils or the SDC say. It doesn't matter if all of Remnant decides that something wrong is something right. If the Great War taught us one thing, it's that we must stand up for what we believe in, no matter the odds or consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell us to move, our job is to plant ourselves like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world: 'No, you move.'"
The video cut out as the news report switched to commentary, and Sour Sweet -- an indigo-eyed girl with rose-colored hair pulled back into a ponytail secured by a berry-themed tie -- closed her scroll to point it at Weiss for her declarative statement. "You really handed that reporter their behind," she said appreciatively before her tone shifted. "Now if only you could do it to the rest of them."
"Sour Sweet!" chided Twilight.
"What?" asked the leader of Team SSCL defensively. "I'm just saying that those snakes are dragging her good name through the mud, just like they've done to countless others, and it's good to see someone finally punching back. I want to see more of it."
Lemon Zest -- a faunus with secondary equine ears atop her skull that would have been visible coming out of her green hair had it not been for the headphones that covered both them and her human ears on the side of her head -- looked at Weiss curiously. "What exactly is your good name now?"
The snowcapped girl shrugged. "Just Weiss is good for now."
"Well, that's convenient," replied Lemon jovially.
It was the morning of the second- and fourth-year doubles matches, but few cared about that in light of the events that capped off the first-year doubles matches yesterday. Vale and Atlas were in an uproar, and reporters were running hither and thither to plaster themselves over the news and make their mark in the headlines. This, of course, had naturally led to the monochrome duo at the center of the uproar being hounded on all sides by swarms of jackals who wanted to ruin their lives for a quick lien, with the hordes held at bay only when Kali Belladonna's bodyguards had compassed around them with collapsible shield and stunner.
Naturally, of course, they were having a bad time of it, and the Shadowbolts swooped in to save the day. Twilight "Magic" Sparkle had seen Weiss's distress and recounted to them all how the snowcapped girl was her friend; the girl seemed to find friends in the most uncanny of places. Before the robotics expert could be given the chance to launch into a speech about friendship and helping others, however, the combined forces of Teams FIST and SSCL united to invite Weiss, Blake, and Blake's mother to breakfast. Team JSPR was conspicuously absent, and Sour hoped that Twilight hadn't seen fit to invite her other friends to join them.
This resulted in a scenario where the group of eleven were sitting down at the tables in the cafeteria, while the MDF pilots barricaded the windows and entryways to keep those accursed reporters out, and hopefully anyone else as well. It would have been fun and cozy had it not been for the game of musical chairs that they had had to play when trying to seat everyone. It had been simple, but then Twilight had revealed that she had put her dog Spike in her backpack again.
Blake, as it turned out, despised dogs, while Weiss and Lady Belladonna adored them. So Weiss and Twilight ended up flanking Lady Belladonna, with Weiss on her right and Twilight on her left, while Blake sat across the table from her mother and glared at Spike as he was scratched and petted and rubbed affectionately, her cat ears twitching in annoyance; she had taken to wearing her ribbon on the back of her head instead of over her faunus ears. On Blake's left were Sunny "Radstorm" Flare and Sour "Sakura" Sweet herself, while on her right were Indigo "Daiku" Zap and Sugarcoat "Straight Shooter" Plum. Next to Twilight was the married couple of Team SSCL Jet "Maverick" Set and Upper "Seal" Crust, while next to Weiss and across from Sour was Lemon "Reverb" Zest. If one ignored the armed MDF guards -- which they insisted on -- then it really did feel almost like they were back home in Crystal City at some family feast, right down to the wall of awkwardness that they all had to overcome before settling in.
Breakfast was a massive affair prepared by the Beacon cafeteria staff with a wide variety of options available, from pancakes and cold cereal to bacon and eggs to toast and sausage, with more exotic dishes available on order. All were fading in and out of conversation as they ate their fill.
"Hey," Lemon started again as she swallowed a bite of her omelet, looking around at them all, "you know what we should do?"
"Burn VNN to the ground?" asked Sour dryly as she slathered cream cheese on another bagel.
"Hey, my uncle works at VNN," Jet objected defensively.
Sour raised a single eyebrow at him. "You hate your uncle."
"Point," relented Jet after a split-second of thought, sending him back to his bacon and eggs.
"No, not that," insisted Lemon in an attempt to get the conversation back on track. "We should give Weiss here a callsign. You know, like what Team Apricot does with the people they press gang."
"What's wrong with just Weiss?" asked Blake defensively, because of course she did.
Lemon was quick to explain things, but to Sour's disappointment, she didn't use slow words. "Nothing, but it's a matter of perception. Both how others see you and how you see yourself. Take Twilight, for instance. People hear 'Twilight Sparkle' and they think of some geek with glasses, but when they hear 'Magic,' they think of friendship and technological wizardry."
Blake quickly glanced between Twilight and Lemon twice. "Why would 'Magic' make people think of friendship?"
In unison, the people not named Belladonna replied with, "Because friendship is magic."
Lady Belladonna chuckled at the display. "I take it this is something of an in-joke with your group?"
"In a way, although rumor has it that General Ironwood has been heard using it too," gossiped Sour. "But for us, it's just a reference to a song and dance number Twilight gave to rally us and our mortal enemies to fight together against a Grimm attack. It was actually pretty inspiring."
"Thanks, I got the idea from something Principal Celestia told me," said Twilight with a blush.
"It's a disgusting saying, and I've always hated it," Sour corrected herself with her finger pounding into the table.
Twilight pouted. "Must you always be so anti-Canterlotian?"
"I think I've heard of this," commented Lady Belladonna as she scratched under Spike's chin. "This is about that infamous rivalry between Crystal City and Canterlot, isn't it?"
"It is," muttered Twilight as she reached over and petted her dog's head.
"Forgive me for saying so, but shouldn't this feud have been buried when you all enrolled in Atlas Academy?" Weiss asked innocently, to which Lady Belladonna nodded along.
Sunny leaned forward in reply over her bowl of Pumpkin Pete's Chocolate Puffs. "With all due respect to you two -- and there is quite a bit due -- you don't know what you're talking about. The Canterlot students aren't like you or I; they're... savages."
The rest of the Shadowbolts nodded at that. Most of them, anyway. Twilight got a coy smile instead and quirked her eyebrow at Sunny. "And yet…"
Sunny seemed to remember something and then scoffed. "Okay, so they're noble savages."
"They're your moral superiors and the heroes of the story?" asked Blake with a smile that let others know she knew what she was doing.
Sunny's eyes boggled, and she moved her hands back and forth in denial. "No! Not that! I want to change my answer!"
Most of the rest of the table shared a big laugh at her expense, and the leader of Team FIST blushed like she was sunburnt while crossing her arms like she was some Great War era monarch.
"That's our Twilight, ever the peacemaker," lauded Indigo Zap while the laughter died off, and then she snapped her fingers and pointed at Weiss. "Hey, that's what your new callsign could be: Peacemaker!"
"No offense meant to her, but she's hardly made peace," countered Sugarcoat. "Though I'll admit that no one wants to be called Strifebringer."
"Certainly not!" agreed Lady Belladonna as Spike's eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he flipped over onto his belly. "Why not something like Sunshine? It is the best disinfectant, after all."
"That's like something a mother would call their child," pointed out Jet Set, completely missing the slight quirk on the edge of the older woman's lips. "No offense, Lady Belladonna."
"None taken," she replied, and there, she did smile.
"How about Sunstrike then?" suggested Upper Crust eagerly, but then again, that was in her nature and part of how she had gained the callsign Seal.
She had hidden it well, especially to someone outside her clique like Sour Sweet and her friends were back then, but Upper Crust was without a doubt the poorest person at Crystal Prep until her last year there. She had big dreams, though, dreams that involved her being one of those high flying types who dined with Schnees and got swept off their feet by charming magnates. She had been infatuated with a guy named Jet Set, the guy of her dreams, and when it seemed like he returned her affections, she was over the moon. In truth, Sour Sweet suspected that he had really only cared about her as a prop to offend his stuffy parents; he was a lot like Indigo that way, except that Daiku had enough sense not to lead a guy on and usually topped that by reacting to her parents with indifference. That all changed, though, after a fateful three-hour cruise, during which they'd been plunged into arctic waters, nearly been eaten by a Grimm, and were saved by a pod of humpback whales. After that zany adventure, Jet Set had popped the question to her, so that when they enrolled in Atlas Academy that year, they were one of the only married couples there, and they both seemed a lot better around each other. Of course, that story and that attitude of hers meant that she only had that callsign coming, even if it seemed pedestrian at first.
And hey, in a way, she had almost gotten everything she wished for: a husband who would be rich one day and eating with someone who had been a Schnee the previous morning.
Weiss shrugged. "It's fine, I suppose."
Upper pouted thoughtfully at that. After all, "fine" was fine, but no one chose "fine." People tolerated "fine," but no one wanted their choice tolerated; they wanted their choice celebrated.
"Maybe Rogue then?" asked Jet coolly, aloofly, and perhaps a bit insensitively.
Sour wasn't completely sure about some social norms, as evidenced by that big blow up between her and Lemon during their third year at CPCA. Her attempts to be kind in offering up necessary criticism while packaging it with positive expressions to make it more palatable and perhaps a little humorous had actually come across as cruel or mentally deranged. Things had certainly changed since then, however, and now that she was closing the book on her second year at Atlas Academy, she liked to think that she had learned a bit more humility and a few more social graces. Which was all to say that she was pretty sure that married couples were supposed to back up what the first one of them to speak said and not contradict them, but she was also pretty sure that Upper would immediately flip her position to whatever her husband's was, that Jet suspected this as well, and that this was all going to blow up into one of those "friendship problems" that tended to grow up around them like weeds.
"I don't know, Maverick; it seems a bit on the nose," said Sugarcoat flatly in one of her trademark cuttingly blunt statements that only she could pull off. With that said and Jet looking like he'd been shot through, she turned her attention to Weiss. "What I don't understand is why you would go and disown your own family. Stick it to the old man? Sure, Daiku does it all the time in a subconscious attempt to get her family to pay attention to her."
"Do I really?" quietly asked Indigo while looking around at the rest of them and getting a nod from Twilight. She hung her head.
Sugarcoat continued on without stopping. "But there's more than just your father in your family. Is your situation really so repugnant that you would cast away your sister, your mother, and even your younger brother?"
To others, it might have seemed like a merely provocative question, but to those who knew Sugarcoat, they could see the glint in her eye that was the tell that she was using her semblance and doing so with a purpose… as opposed to the paranoid killjoy way in which she usually used it.
"Hey, lay off her," barked Blake, turning on the bench to face the girl next to her. "This wasn't exactly easy for her."
Sugarcoat twisted in turn, and Sour didn't need to see her face to know that the bespectacled girl was glaring angrily at Blake. "Neither was faking your death to train under a kinslayer, but you certainly pulled that off. Didn't you, Genin Belladonna?"
Unseen to all but Sour Sweet, Lady Belladonna leaned over and whispered something into Weiss's ear. Sour could read lips, of course, just like many of the ninja course students, but the First Lady of Menagerie had thought to conceal her mouth from view with a forkful of pancake. Lemon could probably have overheard with her four ears, assuming of course that the sound amplification and filtering function of the headset she was wearing was turned on and not the MP48 player, but that was something to find out in a more clandestine manner.
"It wasn't like that at all!" hissed Blake angrily, sadly. "It was all one big misunderstanding."
"Which part? Faking your death or training under a kinslayer?" shot back Sugarcoat, and it was at that point when Indigo reached out and grabbed hold of the bespectacled girl by the arms.
"Straight Shooter, stand down and shut it off," ordered Sunny, her voice stern. "If you can't do that then pack it up. We can't have you ruining this like you ruined that dinner with the JAG."
Before anyone else could cut in, Weiss spoke up. "Sugarcoat, I can tell family is important to you, but this is the only move that I could make. I… I couldn't go on being a part of that nightmare. My mother is a drunk who can't control herself, my brother is turning into a little clone of my father, and my sister is the worst of them all. Winter Schnee knew about everything, including the hidden slave factories that not even General Ironwood had knowledge of, and she did nothing."
That glint was back in Sugarcoat's eyes, but things had shifted. "And how long did you stay silent before yesterday?"
"Too long," admitted Weiss regretfully, "but I needed enough information to get people to look into this and rip the veil of secrecy from the SDC that allows them to operate. I needed the information about StaffNet."
"And what led you to that information?"
"A question from Ruby," answered Weiss simply. "I don't see what-" She frowned, then shook her head.
Sugarcoat looked like she wanted to continue, but Indigo tightened her grip slightly, and something changed in the intense stare behind her spectacles. "I don't have enough information to continue."
"Sugar," Sunny interjected, "are you relapsing?"
Sugarcoat closed her eyes and shook her head. "Perhaps. Apologies, Weiss. Like you said, family is... important to me. I would hate to see anyone discard it while anything salvageable remains."
"There isn't. I've realized that for months. I've already shed my tears and come to terms with it," summed up Weiss, and then a smile grew upon her face. "Now, though? Now, I feel free. For the first time in my life, I don't have a sword hanging above my head, and neither is the weight of my father's shame holding me down. I haven't ever felt this happy."
The girl with the twin-tail hair frowned sadly as Indigo finally let her go. "If you feel like that, then your life must have been a living hell. And to think, that stuck-up Canterlot haridelle with the purple hair actually said she was envious of you."
"It's like Radstorm said, they're all a bunch of savages," chimed in Upper, and the rest of the Shadowbolts nodded along.
"You know, I'm beginning to think you're right," admitted Blake in a conspiratorial tone.
Twilight seemed rather perturbed by that, but then a cruel and wicked smile grew across her face as she spoke to Lady Belladonna. "You know, they have a whole song and dance number about how people from Canterlot Combat are savages..."
"It's a good song, because it's true," declared Lemon.
"...and the people in Canterlot have a song about how everyone from Crystal Prep is a savage," continued Twilight, her grin never faulting.
"What?! They stole our song?!" exclaimed Indigo as she almost leapt to her feet, her exclamation mirroring others around the tables.
"It was composed at the same time, actually," mused Twilight in amusement, putting a finger to her lips. "I think they made it off a template. Probably the same one CPCA used."
"My whole life is a lie," moaned Sour, putting her hands up to the side of her head.
"Now you know how I feel," blithely commented Weiss with a smile.
"Your lives are a lie?" asked Blake petulantly before hooking a thumb towards herself. "My death is a lie, and yet, that's all anyone can talk about."
"I saw your memorial last night; it was very touching," commented Lady Belladonna sweetly. "I lit a candle for you."
Blake groaned, burying her face in her hands. "Why is that still up?"
"Because you've lost one of your nine lives," quipped Lemon, waggling her eyebrows.
"Did you seriously just say that?" asked Weiss defensively with a glare.
"Nope, I just quoted that," corrected Lemon pedantically.
"It's true; that's the current talk about you on the forums for the Vytal Tournament," concurred Sour, holding up her scroll. "Two people have already gotten 'Eight-Lives Blake' tattoos, and someone's pushing hard for official merch with that title. There's already quite a bit of unofficial merch."
Weiss blinked slowly. "Blake, you need to talk to your agent."
"I don't have an agent," Blake pointed out with a confused frown.
"Then you need to get one."
"I wouldn't need one if it wasn't for this stupid rumor," complained Blake, slumping onto the table, shoving her plate of kedgeree aside. "Who started this anyway?"
"I have no idea; I don't think anyone does," answered Twilight in lamentation.
Blake glared at her. "Really? Are you sure? I remember you harassing me at the dance about it with your friends."
The Shadowbolts blinked and looked at each other in confusion... before realization dawned on them. Twilight hung her head and groaned.
"We told you those Rainbooms were a bad influence, Twi," declared Indigo, shaking her finger at her friend before looking at Blake. "Who was it? Boomer or Spurs?"
Blake thought about it for a moment. "It was a girl with multicolored hair and another with a really thick accent that made her sound like one of those Patch Rangers."
"Both of them!" realized Sunny, pounding her closed fist into the table with vigor. "Tell us, Twilight, what kind of peer pressure did they put you through to get you to go along with this?"
"They didn't!" protested Twilight, poking her fingers together in embarrassment. "I... may have mentioned it to them, and they charged off to confront her."
"They said I was cosplaying as a dead girl," complained Blake. "The one with the accent called me a liar several times."
"Applejack was just being… enthusiastic," defended Twilight sheepishly. "Besides, they backed right off once Mister Xiao Long explained everything."
"He explained everything about his brother-in-law!" Blake retorted. "Not me! I just took a leave of absence for special training! It was Qrow Branwen who faked his death!"
Lady Belladonna took a sip from her coffee. "Yes, that sounds about right."
"Wait." Weiss frowned. "Is that where that nonsense rumor started? The 'faking her death' bit, I mean."
There was a long pause at that, and Twilight ducked her head, hiding behind her massive stack of pancakes. "Oh, no."
"Bad. Influence," enunciated Indigo.
"If they were the ones spreading rumors about that… could they have been the ones spreading rumors about me dying in the first place?" asked Blake contemplatively. "That rumor did seem to spread among the second-years first."
"Blake, they didn't even know who you were until I-" Twilight stopped, eyes widening.
A dark air fell down upon the table, and it took someone on the edge like Jet to break the silence. "Until you what? Finish the sentence, Twilight."
"Until I told them who you were; I think it was around the time the second semester started," admitted Twilight, rubbing her arms in shame. "I was complaining to them about how I couldn't get close to Weiss to talk to her… because of you, Blake."
Sour Sweet cursed. "Why those little-!"
"They didn't do anything!" insisted Twilight desperately.
"Twilight, are you seriously going to sit there and tell us the Rainbooms wouldn't go behind your back to get revenge for you?" asked Sunny seriously. "You know how protective they get."
"I… uh… no," stammered out Twilight. Her head swiveled to Weiss and Blake. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so, so sorry about this."
Blake clearly warred with herself over accepting the apology. Given the hassle she'd been going through over it, Sour could understand. But still! It was Twilight.
"Apology accepted, Twilight," Blake said finally. "I was going a little overboard at the time."
"'A little'?" Weiss prodded skeptically, to which Blake blushed shamefully.
"Hey, Weiss, I've got to ask," Lemon suddenly said, "just how's the whole singing thing going to work out now? I mean, I remember you singing at the dance, and those were original songs. They were great, but you've said to the press you're breaking ties with the SDC's record label, so was that really our only chance to hear them?"
"No," answered Weiss succinctly before elaborating, "I used to hate singing, honestly, but writing and performing songs that were all my own was such a breath of fresh air that I've actually gotten interested in it again. I own the copyright on those songs, so I'll probably just self-publish once I have a business set up. I still want to dedicate my life to being a Huntress, but now I have something to do in my downtime."
The green-haired faunus girl grinned appreciatively at that. "Honestly, I've always preferred your more original work over your more formulaic songs anyway."
What's wrong with some pop music? wondered Sour idly as she reopened her scroll to check the news feed.
"Hey, maybe that could be your callsign: Songstress," offered Sunny with her right hand formed into a finger gun.
"She's so much more than just a songbird, though," Blake reminded them.
"Of course she is, and I'm so much more than just a nuclear physicist, but callsigns typically latch on to a specific marketable part of the personality that can be easily shouted in battle so that people are able to instantly recognize a name and get a read on who a person is and what they do," exposited Sunny evenly, prompting a snorted laugh from Twilight. "What?"
"You sounded like me just now," explained Twilight with her mouth shielded by her hand and her eyes filled with mirth.
"Whoa!" exclaimed Sour suddenly in shock, bringing all eyes onto her.
"What's wrong?" asked Blake.
Without delay, the berry-themed Atlesian began reading off what was on her scroll's screen. "'Breaking news in the SDC kidnapping case. Former Vale branch manager Joshua Joyce has been arrested and turned over to the Vale Police Department along with evidence that he orchestrated the kidnapping scheme as a means of indulging in sadistic urges. Security executive and arresting officer Calliope Ferny could not be reached for comment.'"
There was a derisive snort from Weiss. "Of course she couldn't be reached for comment. She's too busy getting ready to make sure that he's recorded as having committed suicide in his cell within the next few hours so that she can cover up her involvement in all this."
"You think she's involved in this?" Lady Belladonna asked politely.
The former heiress nodded firmly. "She's Father's right hand and his top troubleshooter. Emphasis on the 'shooter.' If you'd ever looked into her eyes... if there's anyone who has 'sadistic urges,' it's her." She shuddered and shook her head. "If Father wanted a clean investigation, he would have sent in a special investigator who wasn't even in the kingdom when it happened. Ferny's been in Vale well over a semester. It was her unit that shot Ruby. She thinks Ruby's part of the White Fang... along with Raven Branwen." She paused. "She also thinks Raven is Ruby's mother."
"Wrong sister, on both counts," Blake said, shaking her head. "Which is just weird. I mean, have any of you heard Yang on the topic? No one could be that passionate about faunus rights and not be a member of the White Fang."
Lady Belladonna and Weiss exchanged a look before looking at her and chorusing, "Blake, we're right here."
Blake bristled, but the Shadowbolts nodded along.
"I don't need my semblance to see the flaw in your logic," deadpanned Sugarcoat.
"Wait, so this 'Yang' girl is a member of the White Fang?" asked Jet, raising his hand.
"Is she the little girl who looks like an adorable little wolf pup I've seen hanging around you?" asked Lemon, holding her palm flat and at the point where someone would normally stand.
"No," Indigo said, shaking her head. "That's Ruby Rose, the girl Nora Valkyrie chased onto the Tapfer, remember?"
"Oh, right." Lemon nodded. She frowned. "Isn't she the one who ran into a three-way firefight and got shot?"
"That's Ruby. The SDC even tried to sweep their involvement with that under the rug by paying her medical bills," confirmed the snowcapped girl. "Yang is the blonde brawler."
"I remember her!" declared Twilight with a snap of her fingers. "It was back at the beginning of the semester when I first tried to ask Weiss how she was feeling and what went down at Park Place. She called me an interloper and then sicced Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie on me. I got a smoke bomb to the face!"
Blake winced. "Sorry again about that. She was probably just following my guidelines on what to do if Weiss started having an episode. I might have gone a little overboard."
Weiss blinked in shock. "You had actual guidelines set up?"
"Wait a second. I ended up breathing ninja smoke because you were being overprotective?!" shouted Twilight.
"Sorry?" Blake offered, shrinking back a little, her secondary ears pressing down against her head apologetically.
"That's… no, I'm sorry," Twilight admitted, her face falling. "Not just about getting upset about not meeting Weiss -- I've got overprotective friends, and I should have been used to it -- but also because I didn't stop them from making assumptions about you, both of you."
"What did they assume about me?" asked Weiss in a curious and joking fashion.
"That you... were a member of the White Fang," answered Twilight with twice the shame she had displayed since the last time. "That's... actually probably why Dashie got into that argument with you. She means well. She just..." She trailed off.
"Doesn't think?" offered Lemon helpfully.
"Not as much as she should," Twilight admitted.
"Well, this isn't just your burden to bear, Twi," interjected Indigo, reaching back around to scratch the back of her head. "Weiss, I bought into that malarkey, and I even called you a fanatic. That was wrong of me, and I'm sorry."
"So did I, and so am I," admitted Sunny, eyes downcast before switching over to her friend. "And Lemon, I'm sorry that I said you wouldn't be able to take a Schnee arguing for faunus rights. I became that which I hate, and I almost hurt you in the process."
Lemon Zest gave her a comforting smile. "Don't worry, girl. I forgive you. You haven't gone full Rainboom yet."
"Guess I might as well apologize for not speaking up at the time," said Sugarcoat.
"Well, I forgive you all," finally answered Weiss with an even smile that shifted into a questioning glance. "What I don't get though is how you guys got that into your heads in the first place."
"Twilight," answered Sugarcoat bluntly.
The snowcapped girl turned her head, and found herself looking at a Twilight, who was rubbing the bridge of her nose under her glasses. "We… we fell into a trap, Weiss. I'm sorry. Rainbow and AJ haven't liked you since I pointed you towards Park Place, so when you started being more vocal about faunus rights, the assumption was made that the only reason you were so passionate was because you were a member or looking to join."
Blake blinked. "Wow, irony."
"You... weren't entirely wrong," Weiss admitted. "I mean I did look into them after I found out about my sister, but that didn't last long for obvious reasons."
Twilight continued more contritely. "Oh. Well, when Rainbow went snooping around Tukson's Book Trade after you went there, she found some illegal White Fang pamphlets, and she really started pushing the idea that you were actually a member of the White Fang yourself."
Lady Belladonna stopped petting Spike just long enough to raise her hand. "Excuse me, but how did you know that these pamphlets were illegal?"
Twilight looked at her in confusion. "They were recruiting pamphlets. Rainbow recognized them, even showed some of them to us. They've been illegal for years"
"Illegal in Atlas," Lady Belladonna emphasized gently. "You said you found it in a place called 'Tukson's Book Trade'?"
"Yes?"
She smiled faintly. "Then it's likely they were kept in stock to sell to collectors, or perhaps for journalists or documentarians. Vale enshrines freedom of speech and expression. There are no such things as 'illegal documents' in Vale."
Sour Sweet blinked at that, and she realized she wasn't the only one. At a table full of Atlesians... it had been easy to forget that they were in Vale, and although the kingdoms shared many of the same laws, they didn't share all of them.
"So, Boomer burglarized an innocent bookstore and framed Weiss," Sugarcoat summarized. "By accident," she added quickly as Twilight's expression turned indignant.
"To think," said Sunny, shaking her head, "Rainbow Dash, using the power of the ninja for evil. Professor Snake Eyes would be ashamed."
For her part, Sour had her own thoughts on the matter. "Good grief, Twi. Times like this, I think you're too nice. You got hoodwinked by Rainboom propaganda and dragged your team down the rabbit hole with you."
"Although, really, Weiss? I'm pretty sure the White Fang doesn't recruit humans," pointed out Lemon.
"Speaking of which, I don't mean this to sound offensive, but what kind of faunus is Yang?" asked Upper meekly.
"Oh no. Yang's human," answered Weiss.
The whole assembly froze.
"I'm sorry, my ears must be acting up," commented Sour, reaching into one ear with a pinky finger. "Did you just say that a human is a member of the White Fang?"
"That is in fact exactly what she said," confirmed Lady Belladonna cheerfully. "It's not unprecedented, though she is the first human member since High Leader Sienna Khan took over five years ago. I was quite pleasantly surprised to learn the Vale chapter has gotten so inclusive."
"You're pleasantly surprised?" focused in Sugarcoat.
"Why yes," replied Lady Belladonna with that same smile. "After all, it's quite a step up from when Sienna was absolutely not personally ordering teams of assassins to kill one of my best friends because she was a human who advocated for faunus rights and, thus, didn't fit her narrative."
"Yikes," exclaimed Indigo. "That lady sounds like a real piece of work."
"Well, her best selling book is all about faunus supremacy and rule through fear," commented Weiss.
"But that just raises further questions," pointed out Lemon Zest. "Like, why would a human ever join the White Fang? Especially right now."
"Well, Lemon Zest, I'll answer your question with a question to all your friends," Lady Belladonna deflected before looking around at all of the other Shadowbolts. "Have any of you ever had someone accost or belittle you because you're friends with a faunus like Lemon?"
"All the time back at Crystal Prep," grumbled Twilight, her face falling.
"Yeah," Sour confirmed with a nod, thinking back, "there was this one clique... " She frowned. "Gosh, I don't even remember their names anymore." She looked around. "Anyone?"
"One of them was... Ilia, Ilia Amitola," supplied Indigo. "She was the dark-skinned brunette with freckles."
"Right," Sour growled as the name jogged a memory. "Her."
"I remember her group too, vaguely," confirmed Jet, shamefaced and clearly remembering that he was part of a different clique in school that wasn't the target of the walking negative stereotype brigade. "That must have been before Seal and I met you all."
"Eh, you're one of us now," Twilight reassured him with a friendly smile and a playful bop to the side with her forearm. "Shadowbolts forever, right?"
He and Upper perked up a bit at that, while Blake began to speak in a way that made Sour's ninja training throw up all sorts of alarm bells. "So, what about this 'Ilia' stuck out so much?"
Did they know each other? No, that was insane. Ilia hated faunus, so they wouldn't meet on positive terms, and Blake was a runaway ninja princess from Menagerie, which was both far above and far below the circle where they could logically have met at some point. It was possible, though unlikely, that she was merely trying to broach a sensitive topic. But why? Why try to dig into it at all?
Indigo, uncaring of the tells or unable to see them from where she was, answered the question. "I remember her because of when I first used my semblance."
That sent a collective wince through the rest of the Shadowbolts.
"Do I... want to know?" asked Blake, properly contrite.
"They- they stuck a shock collar on me," explained Indigo, reaching up to her neck to rub the spot where that hellish choker had been wrapped about all those years ago. "Ilia was in the back, just... watching and laughing." And then she grinned. "A lightning bolt in the face got her to stop laughing real quick."
Twilight turned to speak to Weiss and Kali more directly, though she was speaking to Blake as well in her exposition. "Daiku's semblance is a lot like Nora's. I wasn't there, but I hear it was quite the shocking experience." Jet rolled his eyes at the pun, while the bespectacled roboticist settled into a more relaxed and generalized stance. "As for me? Ilia once tore up some design notes I had for a new drone type. I was able to recover most of it, but that wasn't the first time, and it definitely wasn't the last."
"I remember when they stole my headphones," Lemon murmured. "They played keep-away until one of them smashed them. It was my birthday, and I had just been given them…"
"They used to find ways to trigger my semblance," Sugarcoat said. "Made it pretty hard to sleep."
Twilight scowled. "They did a lot worse than that, Sugarcoat."
"True," confirmed the fellow glasses wearer, "but I don't even want to think about the other stuff."
Sour didn't want to think about it either, but like a bad dinner it all came rushing back and suddenly she was back in the hallways of Crystal Prep. There were people all around them, staring at them with wide eyes. She was on the ground, and Sugarcoat had her head in her lap and was having a complete and total emotional breakdown, her tears and mucus soaking into both their uniforms. She'd been convinced somehow that three of her younger brothers and one of her younger sisters had been killed, and though they were on their way at that moment, Sugarcoat couldn't be reached to hear that. One group of students wasn't staring though; they were laughing, Ilia and her friends. They didn't know how, but they knew that they were behind this, so Twilight threw the first punch.
By the end of the brawl, they'd all taken a pounding, though Ilia's group had probably come off worse -- at least, Sour liked to think that they did. The only one that hadn't been harmed physically was Sugarcoat, just because she hadn't been able to move. Her parents had praised them when they had come though, said that they were happy that their daughter had such good friends. They'd all stood a little bit straighter after that, even if some of them needed to be braced to do so, and they wanted more than anything to help their friend and find out how this happened.
As it turned out, Ilia and her friends had angelstreeted Sugarcoat by setting up a series of fake messages, first from her family and then from emergency services. Her scroll had also been hacked in order to help with the deception. The trickery had been so thorough that Sugarcoat hadn't thought to question it, even with her semblance and all the resources available to her.
That had been a dark time for them, but they had survived.
"I got off lucky, I guess," Sunny murmured, clearly trying to shift the subject. "The pranks they pulled on me were pretty generic. Well, up until that thing with the horse." She shuddered. "That stuck with me for a while."
"I'll spare myself and others the details of what happened with me," Sour said. "Point is that Ilia, that whole group of them, were real terrors. People like her? They're the worst Atlas has to offer. We got lucky, since CPCA let us fight back, but that was the exception, not the rule."
"Saying all that out loud?" Sunny mused. "Yeah. I guess we answered why someone like Yang would join the White Fang. We're just lucky that Ilia left before school finished and the rest of that little band fell part, or we might have started thinking the same."
"Good riddance to bad rubbish," agreed Sugarcoat.
"Hear hear," Indigo cheered, holding aloft a glass. "Who needs bigoted jerks like them anyways? Small minded people who we've outgrown. They can't hurt us ever again."
"I never knew it got so bad," Blake said with quiet horror on her face.
"Yeah, well," Lemon interjected, "don't take that as judgment of Atlas as a whole. You get a few bad apples with every batch."
Twilight snorted. "Don't let Applejack hear you say that."
Lemon stuck her tongue out at the other girl.
Sunny reached over and patted Blake on the shoulder. "I know it sounds pretty bad, and… well, I'm not going to lie, you're lucky you're from a well-respected political dynasty where you never had to experience anything nearly as hard as that, but if you had it wouldn't have been the end of the world. Pressure makes diamonds, after all, and though things were difficult at Crystal Prep, that didn't stop the walls from shining in the light."
"Literally!" interjected Twilight.
"That's not-! I mean-!" Blake sputtered, then deflated. "Never mind."
"Hmm, so you're saying that Ghira and I should have sent her to Crystal Prep when she was younger?" asked Lady Belladonna with a big smile, much to Blake's abject horror.
The Shadowbolts all looked at Blake, each other, and then Lady Belladonna, expressing agreement the whole way.
"Sure, why not?" asked Twilight.
"A bit frilly now, but she would have been able to pull through," stated Sugarcoat.
"Oh, to have had a real life princess at our school," swooned Upper melodramatically.
"I'm not… well, not really. I'm only a princess from a certain point of view," Blake desperately tried to explain through a face that was turning red from blushing. "I don't think it would have worked out, though. I mean, I'm a big advocate for equal rights too."
She said this with a gesture at her ears, and Lemon's eyes narrowed as she muttered under her breath, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"And I just don't know if I would have fit in there," continued Blake in what was clearly an attempt by her to cover up a dozen different things at once. "I mean, my parents were the former leaders of the White Fang, and everyone -- rightly! -- hates them. The White Fang, I mean, not my parents."
Sour giggled. "Oh, but they're also the current leaders of Menagerie, which puts your family into a very exclusive and desirable club." Her eyes then narrowed, and her smile shifted into a frown. "Only an idiot wouldn't want to get on your good side."
"So, that group Ilia hung around with then," joked Indigo with a laugh, and if it was possible, Blake's blush got even deeper. "You're right though, Sakura. If Blake here wasn't able to join a clique on her first day, then one would have formed around her by the end of her first week."
Blake seemed rather conflicted now, but that just meant she was warming up to the idea.
"You could still have pushed for equal rights as a student at Crystal Prep or as a member of Atlesian society in general. Just look at Weiss," stated Sunny in a stern comforting tone that Sour recognized as her "leader voice," pointing at the white-haired girl who was looking very proud of herself at that moment. "I mean, didn't you hear that epic takedown she did a while back of Boomer? The crazy girl had actually talked herself into advocating against faunus rights, but Weiss spoke with such passion and clarity that everyone's hearts were stirred. It was really quite well done."
"I think it was based off one of your speeches," Sour commented to Lady Belladonna.
"Really?" asked the older woman, looking at Weiss along with Spike the dog. "Is that true?"
"Maybe?" replied Weiss with a blush. "I mean, if I did, it was probably just from memory because I had been binge reading so many of you and your husband's works at the time. You're a very good writer."
"If a little dry and uninspiring," critiqued Sugarcoat just before Indigo elbowed her in the gut. "Oof."
Lady Belladonna chuckled with nobility. "Well, I always was better at the personal aspects of politics."
"I've got it!" announced Twilight, holding up her scroll. "Firebrand. Weiss's callsign could be Firebrand! I mean, just listen to this: 'a person who is especially known for being passionate about a cause and stirring up trouble with fiery rhetoric.' That's totally you, Weiss. Oh, and it's also a piece of burning wood, but that's not important. The important part is that firebrands are also known for having fiery personalities, like you; you don't need to change a thing about yourself to fit it perfectly."
"Isn't 'firebrand' usually a disparaging term?" asked Jet worriedly.
"Only if you don't own it and make it yours," declared Twilight, giving a double fist pump as she did so.
"You know, this is going to sound weird, but I kind of like it," mused Weiss appreciatively.
"I have to admit, put like that, it really is pretty fitting," agreed Blake, putting a hand to her chin as she did so.
The rest of the Shadowbolts all voiced their affirmations.
"Well, that's as close to a consensus as I've ever seen," Lady Belladonna mused with a smile, and to her surprise, Spike barked happily. "Oh, scratch that, it seems like it is a consensus."
"The dog's not a voting party!" snapped Blake dramatically with the same finger that had been at her chin now outstretched in accusation.
"No, but Weiss is," countered Lady Belladonna goodnaturedly. "Do you still want it, dear?"
The snowcapped girl nodded. "I do. I like it. Firebrand. It has a great ring to it. You know, months ago, when I was last in Atlas, I thought myself very lucky to not have gone to that school, for I feared that I would have been saddled with a nickname like 'Snow Angel' or 'Ice Queen' for the rest of my academy days. I'm glad to have been proven wrong."
The Shadowbolts all looked at each other in confusion, and it was Sour that broke the- "'Ice Queen'? Why would anyone call you that?"
"Yeah, or 'Snow Angel'; doesn't really fit at all," commented Indigo with still visible confusion.
"Firebrand, has someone been calling you these names while you were here?" asked Upper in worry.
"That sounds pretty prejudiced," commented Lemon. "If Beacon has one, you should find the student affairs office and file a complaint. I've had to do it before, so I can walk you through the process. They'll probably do something if you make enough of a fuss, or at the very least, you should be able to challenge your tormentor to trial by combat."
"I think CPCA was the only school that had that outside Anima, and they stopped doing that in our last year there, remember?" pointed out Twilight.
"Oh, yeah." Lemon pouted. "Cinch really ruined everything."
"It was just Jaune," said Firebrand defensively. "And he stopped after that date. You know, the one date?"
Sugarcoat, surprisingly, smiled. "Well, everything worked out in the end. No need to beat yourself up, Firebrand."
"Hey, there's something else we can do for you," offered Lemon happily. "We can induct you two as honorary Shadowbolts!"
The monochromatic pair blinked, and Blake asked, "How is that supposed to work?"
"If you were real Shadowbolts, it would involve lots of invigorating paperwork," joked Twilight with a perhaps too excited a smile. "Cinch stabbed us all in the back though, so since the 'real' Crystal Prep is no more, and you're going to be honorary Shadowbolts besides, that simplifies things a great deal. Sadly."
"Just got to say the Crystal Preparatory Combat Academy motto, and you're in," explained Sour. "It's easy."
"Thank goodness, or it would have been far too embarrassing when they made us do it," complained Jet, and Upper nodded at that.
Firebrand's brow furrowed in thought. "I think I remember this." She put out her hand, closed her eyes, and recited from memory, "Semper Plus Ultra: Always Further Beyond."
Spike the dog barked happily, and Twilight let out a little gasp. "You remembered!"
The snowcapped girl smiled, and Blake's palm reached out to put itself on top of hers. The hands of the Shadowbolts that could reach out, either from where they were sitting or where they had stood up to bend over, joined them. Together, they all recited the motto again, but with more volume and excitement.
"Semper Plus Ultra!"
After that display of friendship and integration, there was another lull in the conversation between the Shadowbolts old and new, and Sour found her eyes drifting down to the newsfeed on her scroll again while everyone went back to eating. She soon after found her eyes boggling. What she was seeing just didn't make sense.
"This can't be real," she said aloud.
"What is it this time, Sakura?" asked Sunny in exasperation, to which Sour merely turned her scroll to show her what was on the screen. "Okay, yeah, I can see what you mean. That seems fake."
"What is it?" asked Lemon as well, and in reply, Sour activated her semblance -- Blossom Bypass, the ability to turn into a cloud of cherry blossom petals -- and passed over and above the table before reforming into herself on the other side and showing the scroll to her friend. "Huh, surprised I didn't see that coming."
"What?" exclaimed Sour. "How could you have possibly predicted this?"
Lemon shrugged. "I don't know, but with every other impossible thing happening this week, why can't General Joseph B. Colton return from the dead? At this point, I'm just wondering what's next."
"You gave her Grandma's ring?" Verte asked. "The ring our family's had since we split off from the royal family? That ring?"
Jaune groaned and facepalmed. "Oh, come on, Verte, not you too."
The two of them were spending the morning in the fairgrounds on Beacon's campus. The other sisters present wanted to play carnival games, and with the divide between the Huntsman-friendly games and the civilian games, it just made more sense to split off.
Besides, while Jaune loved his family, they were best taken in small doses.
The young Huntress-in-training flashed him a smug grin, knowing she'd scored a hit on him.
"So, judging from your grin, I assume she said 'yes,'" Verte mercifully said instead of pressing the point.
Jaune shook his head. "I told her not to answer until after the tournament's over," he said. "I just... I didn't want to put any pressure on her." He paused as he realized Verte had stopped walking. He turned to look back at her. "Verte?"
"You. Are. An. Idiot," she declared, jabbing a finger at him. "A noble idiot, but an idiot."
"Wha-?" Jaune blinked in confusion.
"But!" she continued. "That's probably why she loves you." She shook her head. "You two dorks really are perfect for each other."
Jaune couldn't help but offer her a goofy grin.
"Sooo..." Verte said leadingly, "gonna have the ceremony back home in Hinageshi?"
He blushed. "I told you, she hasn't given me her answer yet. She might say 'no.'" Verte snorted derisively. He ignored that as he continued on, "But yeah, I'd like that. It would make sense to go back to Mistral, since we're both from there, and I don't think she wants the kind of hullabaloo it would be if we did it in one of the big cities, like Mistral or Argus." He paused thoughtfully. "Though I wouldn't put it past her to prefer eloping here."
"Mom would murder you," Verte replied cheerfully.
"It'd be worth it," he offered with a shrug.
It was Verte's turn to facepalm. "You say things like that, and you wonder why I'm so convinced she's going to say 'yes.'"
Jaune shrugged. "I dunno. I'm worried she might think this would be moving too fast. That's why I wanted her to wait before giving me her answer."
Verte rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, Jaune. I've met her, remember? At this rate, she's going to die a heroic death by age twenty-five." Jaune bristled at the comment. "Oh, knock it off. It's not like you're not going to be right there, dying with her."
And... she was right, he had to admit to himself. After all, he reflected, it's what we signed up for.
"Anyway," she continued, "can you imagine the scandal if she didn't produce an heir for her family line before then?"
Jaune blinked in confusion. "What's so special about her family?"
Verte stared at her brother, then closed her eyes and groaned in exasperation, shaking her head. "You know what? Never mind. Have you considered that I may want little nieces and nephews by then? Or Mom and Dad wanting grandkids?"
"Um," -- Jaune held up a finger -- "Adrian-"
"More nieces and nephews and grandkids," she amended. "We're d'Arcs. Look at Mom and Dad. Look at us. Ask yourself: would we really be satisfied with just one?"
Jaune snorted. "I guess you're right. So when do we get to meet the lucky guy?"
"Huh?" Verte blinked in confusion, then her cheeks reddened. "What? There is no guy!"
"I dunno," he said, with an assumed thoughtfulness. "You seem awfully focused on adding new little d'Arcs to the family this morning. You sure there isn't some guy I need to give a shovel speech to?"
"Yes," she growled, grinding her teeth. "I'm sure. Hector's got a girlfriend back home, and Lauren and Alkim are together." She paused uncertainly. "Well, sort of."
He considered that for a moment, then cocked an eyebrow. "Together, but not together-together?"
"Yeah," she confirmed with a nod, then tilted her head. "That's a good way to put it, actually."
"It's how Nora describes her and Ren," he said, answering the unasked question.
She snorted. "Why am I not surprised? So, now that that's settled, are you convinced now what her answer's going to be?"
"I don't want to get my hopes up too high," he said defensively. "She's amazing, and maybe she wants to keep her options open."
"Are you serious, Jaune?" Verte sputtered. "Do you- who on Remnant is a more eligible bachelor than you right now? Spruce Willis? Alexander McCullen? Turnus Rutulus?"
"Maybe?" he said with a hint of confusion, only recognizing the first name. "I mean, I'm no one special."
"You are literally the last prince of Vale," she deadpanned.
"No, I'm not," he protested, then scowled. "And even if I was... that's not the sort of thing Pyrrha cares about."
"So you know what she cares about," Verte persisted, emphasizing her words with repeated pokes to his chest. "You know what she likes. What about that makes you think there's anyone else out there she'd be interested in? Face it, Bro. She's Pyrrha freaking Nikos. I get you've been living under a rock your whole life, but she's rich, famous, gorgeous, and impossibly nice. She could have any guy under the sun. And she chose you."
Jaune opened his mouth to argue, but words failed him. He still dared not get his hopes up. He was used to disappointment, used to failure; it was a constant that had accompanied him all his life. Pyrrha had believed in him -- had gotten him to believe in himself -- but the specter of that familiar traveling companion still haunted him.
But... maybe Verte was right. He closed his mouth and smiled, silently surrendering.
"Hey, Jauney!"
Aaaand just like that, his good mood vanished, and he sighed, shoulders slumping as he turned around. "Hey, Cardin."
To say that he and Cardin Winchester hadn't gotten off to a good start would be to vastly understate the situation. It had been a nasty mess involving bullying, fake transcripts, blackmail, rapier wasps, and an Ursa Major. Most people thought Cardin was racist against faunus, and yeah, he probably was, but he was also an equal opportunity asshole, as far as Jaune could tell.
He raised a curious eyebrow when he realized Cardin wasn't alone. A girl with brilliant cyan hair and matching eyes clung to his arm like a barnacle, an almost disturbingly cheery smile on her face.
"Oh, Cardy, is this one of your friends?"
"'Friend' might be, uh, stretching it? A little bit?" Cardin coughed.
"We're classmates," Jaune interjected, for once feeling sorry for the bully. "Name's Jaune, Jaune Arc."
"Oh!" the girl said, a hand coming to her mouth in surprise. "The prince?"
"No, that's- that's not a thing," Jaune denied, his smile turning plastic. "Cardin, what have you been saying about me?"
"Not me," the big guy grumbled. "Dad's been- Dad's been saying a lot of things. This is my, uh, my... girlfriend, Skystar."
"Pleased to meet you," Jaune said, extending a hand, which she took. She seemed a bit surprised when he simply shook her hand. "Oof!" He rubbed his side as Verte extracted her elbow. "And this is one of my sisters, Verte. She studies at Haven, leader of Team Vantablack. Verte, Cardin, leader of-"
"Team Cardinal, right," she finished for him. "I saw Arslan kick their butts in the four-vee-four round. What? You looking for another whupping?"
"Verte," Jaune said warningly. "Leave off. Cardin and I have come to an... understanding."
"You mean you kicked his butt already," she summarized.
Skystar frowned. "Cardy?"
"It's a guy thing!" Cardin said hurriedly. "You know, we josh around, mess with each other a bit... have a fight. It's all good, I swear!
Jaune quickly nodded in agreement. "Yeah. It's totally a guy thing," he concurred, nudging Verte with his elbow. His eyes slid over to Cardin, and he jerked his head to the side. "Cardin, can we talk?
"Sure thing."
"Verte, play nice," Jaune warned as he and Cardin stepped aside.
"Thanks for the save there, man," Cardin muttered. "I'm trying to be better, man. I really am."
"You really like her, huh?" the blond asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Cardin shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe? Her mom's the Prime Minister, and Dad introduced us."
"Yeah, about your dad," Jaune leaped on the subject, "why is your father talking about me and this nonsense with the Empty Throne?"
Cardin blinked. "My fath- Jaune, do you not know who my father is?"
"Should I?"
"Yes," Cardin ground out through his teeth. "He's the Lord High Treasurer. He sits on the Regency Council. How do you not know this?"
"I don't pay attention to celebrity news," offered Jaune with a shrug.
Cardin closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. "...of course you don't," he muttered. Opening his eyes again and lowering his hands, he explained, "Look, my dad got it in his head that if he puts your family on the Empty Throne, you'll remember who put you there."
"Oh, I would," confirmed Jaune, "and that wouldn't be a good thing."
"I figured as much," Cardin said, "but Dad... he's got ambitions, not just for him, but for House Winchester. Coming to Beacon was my ticket out... except we wound up as classmates..." He trailed off with an annoyed growl.
"What are you trying to say here?"
"Would you believe me if I said I was bullying you to try and sabotage my father?"
"Not a chance," Jaune answered instantly. "I'm not an idiot. You're just an asshole."
Cardin shrugged. "Eh, was worth a try. Anyway, Dad wants me to make nice with you, and... I do kinda want to be better. So I figured... I oughtta apologize for all the crap I pulled. I'm sorry, man."
Jaune sighed. "Apology accepted, I guess. What you can really do to help is figure out how to get that royalty nonsense out your dad's head."
Cardin snorted. "You think I haven't tried? I'll keep at it."
"You do that," Jaune said. "Now let's get back to the girls before they do something we'll regret."
They already had.
"Come on, give your favorite cousin some skin!" said Skystar excitedly as she held out both her hands to be swatted by the palms of Terramar and Silverstream.
Cardin noticeably went still at the sight of the two young faunus.
Was it because he was racist? Was it because he was seeing his girlfriend interact with people he didn't know? Was it because Silverstream was very prominently wearing an Arslan Altan shirt with the Golden Lion of Haven's grinning face and bulging muscles on display as she posed and flexed one of her biceps? There were probably a lot of reasons.
Luckily, Jaune was above it all.
"Hey, can I get your autograph?" asked Silverstream of Verte in a very subdued way. "I really liked your fight."
"Sure, anything for a fan," Verte said with an uncharacteristically soft smile that seemed like it was ripped from the stories of a fair queen.
Jaune had been wrong. He was not above it all.
General James Ironwood kept his expression neutral as he sat in "the hot seat," a simple if comfortable adjustable chair that sat in front of a simple desk in the middle of a room bathed in scanners and hologram projectors. Ozpin used the room to conference with the rest of the Valean Regency Council when he couldn't attend in person, just as Ironwood was now using it to communicate with the Atlesian Provisional Government Council. Last night's revelations, however… they made him wonder just who else the room had been used to contact. What other dark secrets was Ozpin hiding? Did any of them even matter while he was in this pit of vipers?
"And that's another thing, why did you fail to control Weiss Schnee and prevent her from tarnishing Atlas's stellar reputation with her emotionally unstable blathering?" demanded Councilor Sylvia petulantly.
"I am not her headmaster, I am not her father, and I am not her commanding officer. In what capacity am I obligated or permitted to control her?" asked General Ironwood rhetorically.
Councilor Sylvia's fist slammed into her own desk thousands of miles away in Atlas. "Fool! She is an Atlesian, and you are an Atlesian councilor. If you cannot control one little girl, then what makes you think you are the slightest bit qualified to command the armies of Atlas or her Huntsman cadets?"
"A valid point, but I think we're getting off-track," placated Councilor Camilla. "After all, we're here to discuss Ironwood's complete failure to protect the prototype and its Seeker partner, not his abysmal failure to prevent the Schnee girl's slander."
General Ironwood felt a familiar knot of disgust form in his gut. Their names were Penny and Thundercracker. Was it so hard to do them the common courtesy of remembering their names?
"Indeed. Now, while the loss of the prototype is regrettable, ultimately, it was both replaceable and expendable; it was a proof of concept that has largely served its purpose. It would be largely inconsequential, were it not for the fact that this is the latest in a long string of incidents where expensive pieces of equipment have been lost due to your bumbling incompetence," chided Councilor Sleet, and at this, General Ironwood clenched his fist in righteous indignation at the complete dismissal of Penny's life. "The real loss is that of the Seeker."
"You should be thankful that the Decepticons saw fit to overlook the offlining of their fellow," cut in Councilor Sylvia. "They might not care that he is dead, but they do care that you lost him. You've put our entire alliance in jeopardy!"
Ironwood resisted the urge to cut the transmission off, instead focusing on the impossible task of making the rest of the council notice the blindingly obvious. "I have what resources I have available -- limited as they are right now -- already looking for them. I will find them, and I will rescue them."
"Don't bother; they're almost certainly already deactivated by now," interrupted Sylvia dismissively. "Looking for them is just a further waste of resources."
He ignored her. "However, this council can do something right now to set the people's fears at ease. We can start an investigation into the SDC and their dealings. There's clearly something going on here that we haven't been aware of. We shouldn't allow ourselves to be taken advantage of like this. It would make us seem weak and ineffectual."
"And what should we do when Jacques Schnee stops all SDC business in Solitas in retaliation?" asked Councilor Sleet pointedly. "You might think yourself secure in Atlas, but Mantle relies on the SDC for much of its wealth. Going after them will only drive the already destitute citizens of Mantle further into poverty. But you'd like that, wouldn't you, General?"
"Of course he would," answered Sylvia, cutting Ironwood off from defending himself. "However, if they get uppity, we can just use it as justification to seize their assets and kingdom-ize the company. The SDC, like all businesses in Atlas, exists because we allow it. It will end because we demand it. If they try to retaliate against an investigation, we will have all the justification we need. No one will complain then, and seizing their assets will allow us to pay for all that we could ever want."
Ironwood hated Jacques Schnee, and he didn't care much for the SDC. It was an attitude fueled quite well by his continued efforts to dig into the Decepticons and by the few times he had interacted with Weiss. What he had done to that little girl… well, he never asked Glynda what she said during their sessions, but by how tired the blonde professor looked after each one, he felt he could guess that it was bad. Combined with some of the things Winter had let slip over the years, it didn't paint a pretty picture at all. If this investigation could only get young Whitley remanded to the care of just about anyone other than his parents, then Ironwood would consider it a partial success.
So it was quite a remarkable feat that Sylvia's words got him to feel sympathy for the SDC. What she was saying and proposing with such a thin pretext was so overtly self-serving and a perversion of what Altas was supposed to stand for, and worse, it wouldn't stop there; it couldn't stop there. It was the same sort of policy that had been pursued by the old Mantellian royal family, and it was a prelude that had been used as justification for the complete abolition of private property in the final days of the old regime as part of the blanket ban on self-expression. Every Atlesian child should have learned in their youngest days of school how terrible and wrong such a thing was, and yet, here was Councilor Sylvia, proposing it be implemented once more with all the flippancy of someone pointing out that it was sensible to wear a hat in winter. He should shoot it down on the face of it, but…
…but this might be the only way to motivate that nest of vipers to actually investigate the SDC and to shine a light on all the wicked darkness of the Decepticons.
"Hmm, you raise an excellent point," conceded Sleet. "Very well, let's do it. However, we'll have to engineer something to justify seizing them if they do comply fully with the investigation."
"No need. We shall simply tell the media that it was necessary, and they shall make up the reasons why. The people will believe them and, in turn, support us," reasoned Councilor Camilla. "I suggest we hold the vote on the investigation during the public session later today. That way the people will be able to see us taking a stand for them."
"Agreed," chorused Sleet and Sylvia.
Councilor Sylvia then continued on, Ironwood's opinion never being given nor asked for. "Now that that is out of the way, I suggest we move onto the next item on the list: punitive measures against Vale for their failure to censor the Vytal Tournament broadcast when- what is that racket?!"
The audio pickups were beginning to pick it up now, a rustling like an oncoming wave. He had heard it before, powerful and unstoppable, the sound of individuality giving way to the whole of humanity as an organism. It was a crowd.
The doors to the council chamber flung open, and in stepped the holographic image of General Joseph B. Colton with a gigantic mass of people packed in behind him. The councilors all stood up, Ironwood included, their attention drawn to the man of history in front of them. His vision picked up something else in the holographic faces that materialized on the edge of the room, and he was left honestly unsure how to feel about seeing Winter Schnee's face at the front of the crowd.
"Ah, Councilors," said the man in a voice that had been burned into the subconscious mind of every Atlesian. "You know, for a bunch of people meant to represent the people's interests, you're really hard to get ahold of."
"This is a closed door meeting. How did you get in here?" asked Sylvia with a carefully controlled tone of voice.
"I opened the door," Colton replied succinctly. "You sure you're qualified to be making major policy decisions?"
There was a flash in Sylvia's eyes, like she wanted to tear Colton limb from limb and feast on his entrails then and there, but it passed, and she continued with her even tone. "Very well. Why are you here?"
"I was told that the council was the only way to revoke my death certificate that didn't involve flying all the way to Vale and asking their parliament," explained Colton. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm not about to go groveling at the feet of a foreign government just so I can get my ID to not list me as past my sell-by date."
"It was a newer system that was meant to introduce 'bureaucratic clarity,'" explained Ironwood with a brief glare at Sylvia. "We've already had a number of complaints from immigrants and seniors who were not as expired as we were first led to believe."
"So it's a stupid system put in place by someone who's either an idiot or a saboteur. Get rid of it."
For half a second, Sylvia's face contorted into a mask of absolute hatred and rage, and then, just as quickly, it was gone, and she was calm again. It was then that Ironwood decided that while he had always admired Colton as a military leader and statesman, he now liked the man on a far more personal level.
Sylvia coughed. "That will take time. For now, at least, I think we can right your situation, oh honored general of renown. Councilors, I propose an immediate resolution to reverse Joseph B. Colton's death certificate, such that he never died, and to reactivate him with his full commission intact."
Ironwood felt like his jaw would drop. Sylvia? Actually doing something productive? Would wonders never cease?
"I second the motion!" declared Ironwood quickly, and hopefully before Sylvia changed her mind.
The vote was quick and -- in a rare showing -- unanimous in favor of the proposal. General Colton had all that was once his restored, to the great cheers of the crowd. The other issue that would come up though was… well, simply that General Colton had once been in a position very similar to Ironwood himself as Headmaster of Atlas Academy and Commanding General of the Atlesian Military, though he had insisted at the time this duality came into being that his position as headmaster was only temporary and that he would be happy to vote for a replacement during the next council session. Only, that session had never come, he had been lost, and as the city and the continent mourned his disappearance, the positions were once again separated until Ironwood himself.
When the appointment had happened, some had called him the second coming of General Colton, but Ironwood had rebuffed such lofty exclamations. Now, it seemed that the real Colton was back for another go around. Would that mean that Ironwood would be forced to give up his position?
On a personal level, James just didn't give a rat's behind. Colton had been good for Atlas and Mantle, and now, he was back and in good spirits. He had a feeling that everything would work out, and if that meant him transferring to another position in the military and hanging up his headmaster's robes? Well, that was just fine by him. A frontline position was more his speed anyway, and he would be happy to serve under Colton.
Besides, with more free time, perhaps he and Glynda could start…
His scroll silently vibrated, and he looked down at it to see a simple text declaring that there was an update on "her" status and that a brief was ready outside the door.
"I'm sorry, ladies, gentlemen, but I'm going to have to call a short recess," Ironwood declared before shutting down the whole room.
The cheering crowd and the other councilors disappeared, and Ironwood practically leapt out of his seat to stride across the room and open the door to find Flint standing a safe distance away on the other side. The beret-wearing professor/senior specialist seemed rather surprised by the speed at which Ironwood had appeared, but he shouldn't have been. After all, the safety of those under his command was always his top priority, second only to the mission.
"Please tell me you have good news," demanded Ironwood.
"Spirit tracked them down," reported Flint. "They're hiding in that old factory that started all this, and they're still there."
Ironwood exhaled sharply. "Recall the assault team members and enact the plan. We'll leave as soon as we're able."
"Yes, sir."
(V3E6: Esprit de Corps, Part I | V3E7: Esprit de Corps, Part II | V3E8: Esprit de Corps, Part III)
- Author's Note 1 (Cyclone)
- Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett)
Next time, the second year Vytal Festival Tournament fighters desperately try to compete for your attention with everything else that's going on in the story right now in "Esprit de Corp, Part III."
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Oh god the Fall is nearing
Jim Starluck
CO, ICS Vanguard
- Location
- Cincinnati, OH
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
Cody: There's a lot more than two halves at this point, but yes. Yang and Ruby are finally talking about giant transforming robots in disguise. There's still a lot for them to cover though.
Cody: Is it though? I mean, since when has the Transformers franchise ever been known for big epic set piece battles in the middle of cities that go on for a significant portion of the run time? . . . That was a joke.
How appropriate a response, since it's not just a reference to a line by Cap, but a reference to Cap making a reference (to Mark Twain).
Volume III: Episode 8: Esprit de Corps, Part III
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
(V3E7: Esprit de Corps, Part II | V3E8: Esprit de Corps, Part III | V3E9: Esprit de Corps, Part IV)
Volume III: Episode 8: Esprit de Corps, Part III
* * *
Volume III: Episode 8: Esprit de Corps, Part III
* * *
"Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen!" boomed Professor Port into the microphone from where he sat in Amity Colosseum's announcer's booth. "Today, we will be holding the second- and fourth-year doubles matches for the Fortieth Vytal Festival Tournament!"
"Now, we do realize that there have been a number of controversial events during the first-year doubles matches yesterday," Dr. Oobleck continued at his typical rapid-fire pace, "and the less said about the third-year doubles matches, the better, but despite the accusations made and investigations pending, the Vytal Tournament will continue on as scheduled."
"Indeed!" Professor Port bellowed jovially. "It'll take more than that to interrupt such a fine tradition as the Vytal Festival! We are, after all, a resourceful people, a resilient people, and the show must go on!"
Morning in the territories and settlements of Atlas continued on much as the previous night did-
"Down on the ground!" shouted Fluttershy as she slammed the unarmored hooligan with her aura-enhanced strength. He winced in pain as he hit the pavement. "Oh, I'm sorry," Fluttershy cried, her tone softening immediately. "I didn't mean to hurt you; we're just trying to prevent any disturbances and keep everyone as safe as possible. I'm sure you understand."
-strangely.
"Thanks for the help, girls. That should be the last of them," said Officer Copper Top of the Canterlot Police Department appreciatively as she handed the ne'er-do-well off to the policeman in the prisoner transport van.
"You can't protect the SDC forever!" shouted the new prisoner defiantly. "Starlight Glimmer is going to wipe the slate clean! Everyone will be equal! All will be-!"
The monologue was cut off by the soundproofed doors closing.
"Again, thanks," repeated Officer Copper Top. "If you girls want my advice? Enjoy the returning calm and take the day off."
With that said, the policewoman departed to the front of the van, and the vehicle was soon rolling along towards the nearest precinct building.
"Pfft, Equalism, what a load of hooey," summed up Pinkie Pie in what she felt was a very succinct manner.
"At least he didn't try to… you know, us like that Volcanist did," comforted Fluttershy with a suppressed shudder that the other two mimicked.
"It really does feel like the world's gone mad, doesn't it, darlings?" asked Rarity rhetorically as they began to walk down the icy sidewalk back to where their homes were.
"I just can't believe that there are people who want to disband the Huntsman Academies," lamented Fluttershy.
"I can't believe that they want to do that because the SDC was accused of operating slave factories. I mean, what sense does that make?!" complained Pinkie loudly with large gesticulations. "Where's the logic?!"
"There isn't any," replied Rarity in a voice that was beginning to show how tired she was. "Five hours ago, I was stabbing Grimm in the dark. Five minutes ago, I was trying to stop someone trying to firebomb a dust shop and kill us all. Why wasn't that man out on the front lines, fighting the enemies of mankind with the rest of us?"
"Because he's too busy drooling over those hussies, Starlight Glimmer and Robyn Hill," theorized Pinkie bitterly, throwing her arms behind her head as she did so. "I swear, those meanies wouldn't have a hundredth as many followers as they do if they weren't young women using their feminine wiles to steal away the hearts of young men. They're giving Atlesian women everywhere a bad name!"
"I don't know if I would phrase it quite like that," said Rarity with unsureness, though her tone changed at Pinkie's look, "but I do understand the sentiment."
"Ugh, let's just forget about it," moaned Pinkie. "It's the job of the regular police now. All we have to do is figure out how to spend our day off."
"Shower," answered Rarity instantly.
"Shower," agreed Fluttershy just as quickly.
"Shower," concurred Pinkie, rounding off the group. "What about after that though? Want to watch Twilight and Jasper's matches?"
"If the tournament is still on," allowed Rarity.
As luck would have it, the tournament was still on, and the Apple family was looking forward to having them at the farm for the viewing party after a very crazy night. So it was that they once more made their way to the barn, where they found all those who had visited before seated about and ready for the show. This was a great relief to them, not only because it promised some kind of normalcy, but also because none of them were missing any body parts.
"I never thought I'd see the day," said Granny Smith, the owner of Sweet Apple Acres and the head of that branch of the Apple family that included the leader of Team JSPR with a fair bit of reverence. "General Colton, back from the dead. Before he passed, my husband used to always insist that he was still kicking, but I admit that I didn't think so. Well, guess he got the last laugh on that one."
"Don't be so quick to think that this will end well," warned Vice Principal Luna darkly, seeming to loom over the drink in her hands. "With Colton back -- assuming he is the real Colton -- there's sure to be a power struggle between him and General Ironwood over the position of Commanding General. That will not be good for any of us."
Principal Celestia giggled. "Oh Luna, I think you might be surprised. I'm sure everything will work out fine."
Those eyes, dark as the night time sky, glared at the two older women. "I'm telling you, something bad is going to happen, and when it does, you can count me on General Ironwood's side."
Before they could inquire further, Pinkie entered the fray. "Oh, hey, girls, how's it hanging?"
Principal Celestia turned and smiled at the pink-haired young woman. "'Girls'? You've been out of school for how long, and you're already calling us that?"
"Why not?" asked Pinkie curiously. "I mean, what else would I call you? Oberst? I'm not in the military, and you're retired. Principal? Not in school. Missus? You're not married."
A most unladylike -- and almost certainly faked -- expression overcame Principal Celestia's face. "For your information, I'm married to my job. I have the paperwork to prove it and everything."
An involuntary laugh escaped Pinkie's lips. "Oh, Celestia, you're too funny to be married to your job."
"Pinkie Pie, I like the cut of your jib. Always have, really. Guess it comes with the territory of possibly maybe being a fourth cousin twice removed by a fifth cousin," said Granny Smith with a pointing finger.
"Ah, well, see you around then! I'll go join the others to watch those Crystal City savages get their big dumb faces beaten!" said Pinkie cheerily before skipping off.
As soon as she was gone, Luna's face fell afresh. "Death ekes ever closer to us."
Celestia sighed heavily. "Is this going to be like the day you retired at oberstleutnant?"
"I'm still not sure bringing me forward to the doubles match was such a good idea," murmured Lavi as they waited for the summons to the arena.
"It was either that or send the twins in," Rain reminded him. "They're good, but they lack... subtlety."
"Maybe," the sniper conceded, "but this kind of fighting isn't exactly my specialty. The twins are good at this head-on thing."
"I don't exactly trust either of them to comport themselves properly if they make it to the semifinals."
Lavi winced. He couldn't exactly blame him, given how... impulsive the twins were.
"Will the competitors from Teams Fairstar and Ruffle please make your way to the arena?"
His cat-eared team leader gave him a reassuring look as they began to walk down the tunnel toward the stadium. "Besides, as much fun as this is, Black Out, victory is not the mission. Remember that. No need to show this world everything we can do."
"Right." Lavi nodded, walking straighter as they emerged out into the arena. He cracked a smile. "With a pep talk like that, no wonder you didn't want the twins on this." There was no way the twins would be willing to hold back if it looked like they were going to lose; "restraint" was barely a word in their vocabulary. It just wasn't how they were wired.
Lavi studied their opponents as they squared off: Sunny "Radstorm" Flare was the resident radiation specialist whose expertise had proven unexpectedly valuable in the wake of the planet's first nuclear weapon going off, and it seemed she'd traded her signature radiation gun for a less lethal laser rifle; Twilight "Magic" Sparkle was a drone specialist and general techhead whose innovations were pushing the limits of drone technology.
"For our first second-year doubles match," boomed Professor Port, "we have Sunny 'Radstorm' Flare and Twilight 'Magic' Sparkle from Atlas against Rain 'Vanguard' Bailey and Lavi 'Black Out' Stall, also from Atlas!"
"Indeed!" Dr. Oobleck continued excitedly. "Although teams from the same academy are prevented from facing each other in the team matches, all bets are off for the match randomizer from the doubles round onward! This may be the first time two teams from the same academy will be facing each other in the arena in this year's Vytal Tournament, but it will most certainly not be the last!"
"To have it happen this early in the tournament is quite unfortunate for Atlas Academy's overall prospects for victory in the second-year bracket," Port commented jovially.
"Whoever wins," Doctor Oobleck continued, "Atlas loses."
"Or whoever loses, Atlas wins," Professor Port suggested.
"Excellent point!"
The holographic representations of the biome randomizers spun, finally settling on swamp and ice behind Lavi and Rain and geyser and gravity islands behind their opponents. Lavi tensed as the arena reconfigured itself to match. Game time.
"Three two one begin!" declared Dr. Oobleck, and Black Out tuned out the announcers.
He and Vanguard leaped backwards, diving into the swamp behind them. Black Out saw Radstorm shimmer out of view with her semblance, not unlike Vanguard's, though the circumstances precluded his team leader from using it, while Magic began deploying flying disc drones from her backpack, sending them forward to pursue them into the swamp. He brought Lea up to his shoulder, peering through the scope. Cutting edge optics swept across the arena, searching for any flaw in Radstorm's semblance. Seeing no sign of Team FIST's leader, he instead zeroed in on one of Magic's drones, a single powerful shot from Lea more than enough to punch through its aluminum frame.
"Aloysius!" Magic cried out in apparent anguish... just before Vanguard burst from the swamp again and closed the distance on her, slashing at her with Mouser, currently in dual claw gauntlet configuration. Magic shrieked in what looked like panic and scrambled away as her drones swarmed closer, almost colliding with each other as they jockeyed for a clear shot, a clear shot they wouldn't be getting if Magic couldn't get some distance.
Black Out filed them to the back of his mind as he returned to searching out Radstorm. Given the terrain arrangement, Radstorm could be moving through the gravity islands toward the swampy area he was holed up in, or she could be cutting straight across the center of the arena for the mostly open ice field. The geyser field was unlikely; her semblance, as impressive as it was, was unlikely to be good enough to compensate for-
There! His advanced optics picked up photons scattering across near-invisible dust particles in the air as Radstorm's laser rifle fired, lancing out towards the one-sided melee between Vanguard and Magic.
Trusting his team leader to hold his own, he traced back the shot, much to his disbelief. Incredibly, it seemed she had chosen to try and make her way through the geyser field; he could see her as her semblance took effect once more, concealing her against the background... but doing nothing to prevent the falling water from silhouetting her outline. It was the same mistake they'd made in their team match.
He hesitated. Or was it? Was this a trick? A holographic decoy, perhaps, intended to get him to reveal his location?
He mentally shook that worry off. That kind of doublethink second guessing would get him nowhere, and if it was a trick? Well, then it was a trick that was good enough to earn Team FIST their victory. Besides, decoy or not, what he had in his sights was shooting at Vanguard.
He took the shot. At this range, relatively close for Lea, the shot still hit slightly off from center mass due to Radstorm's evasive maneuvers. She spun with the impact, bleeding off energy and minimizing the drop in her aura, and allowed her semblance to drop.
Already, Black Out was moving to reposition as she brought her laser rifle up and began methodically sweeping a spray of laser pulses left to right in his general direction. He ignored the incoming fire and suppressed the instinct to take to the air. She didn't know where exactly he was -- that was why she was spraying fire around -- and so long as that held up, he had the advantage.
He dove behind a log and waited. The problem, of course, was that by moving, he was leaving traces of his presence. There was a balance to be found between moving quickly to escape the kill box she was focusing her fire on and moving stealthily enough to avoid being tracked.
As he shifted to a more discreet movement, crawling through the muck, he couldn't help but wonder where Magic's drones were. They would be the ideal solution to flushing out his position. Surely, they weren't all tied up with Vanguard, were they?
He quietly sent a request for an update on the drones' positions.
"They're currently occupied, trying to keep me from Magic." All right, maybe they were. Still, he could sense a bit of uncertainty in the reply.
Better to remain vigilant.
The unaimed laser fire had died down, leaving him with no cues as to Radstorm's position or whether she had been able to trace his position in turn or not. He considered his options as he neared the ice biome. The glacial plain boasted long sight lines and little concealment, but it also offered substantial hard cover in the form of large ice spires thrusting up toward the sky.
His gaze swept across the icy field, Lea instinctively tucked up to his shoulder. A laser flashed and chipped away at his aura briefly before he rolled away, swinging the bolt-action rifle around. The silhouette of Radstorm's shape was shimmering into nothingness... but she couldn't move that fast.
He fired, rather than take the time to center the shot, then feverishly worked the bolt and fired again. And again.
The shots weren't accurate by his standards; they weren't elegant, but they were fast and accurate enough. Three high-powered rounds slammed into Radstorm, causing her aura to dip significantly as she staggered from the rapid-fire impacts. The pain apparently disrupted her semblance, giving him time to center his shot, then fire again and again and again. Then three more rounds after that before he reached back for a pair of stripper clips.
The buzzer sounded.
"Sunny Flare has been eliminated by aura depletion!" announced Professor Port.
It sounded again.
"And just moments after, Twilight Sparkle has also been eliminated by aura depletion!" called out Dr. Oobleck. "Leaving Rain Bailey and Lavi Stall victorious!"
The battle over, Lavi blinked.
We won?
Rising to his feet, he stepped back into the arena's central octagon, shooting Rain a quizzical look as they accepted the cheers from the relatively few people in the stands.
"Something's not right," Rain murmured as they slipped within earshot. "Magic was too emotional and overprotective of her drones."
Lavi gave a slight nod of agreement. "Radstorm flubbed up, went through the geyser field. Rookie mistake, same mistake they made in the team round."
"Unless it wasn't a mistake," rumbled Rain.
Lavi had to agree. That made more sense than the two of them suddenly losing all tactical sense.
But why would Team FIST throw the match?
"Go, Lavi!"
The familiar voice derailed his worrisome thoughts, and his expression lit up as he swept his gaze across the stands, quickly zeroing in on a familiar face framed with brown hair and topped by a pair of rabbit ears. He smiled cheerfully and waved back at her.
Whatever Team FIST was up to, if it was a problem, they could deal with it later.
Rarity poured herself a cup of tea from out of a blue vacuum flask decorated with silver sparkles. She drank, feeling the warm liquid cascade down her throat. It was easier to drink than to confront her conflicted feelings on the matter: it was a pity that Twilight had lost, of course, but... well, quite frankly, the rest of that team were such a brute company that she was rather glad that none of them would be making it to the singles rounds. Imagine having Sunny Flare representing Atlas in the eyes of the world! Perish the thought.
But, all the same, it was a pity about poor Twilight. She'd done very well, but... these things happened, she supposed.
A little part of herself of which Rarity was somewhat ashamed felt as though it was a kind of payback for all the times that they had so gleefully humiliated Canterlot in the Friendship Games.
Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna were discussing something in hushed whispers, as though they had found something odd or strange about the fight, but Rarity couldn't pay too much attention to them because Pinkie was displaying a distinct lack of her usual, well, Pinkie-ness today. Her hair in particular was lacking a little of its usual voluminousness.
"Pinkie dear?" Rarity murmured, placing a hand on Pinkie's shoulder.
"Huh?" Pinkie gasped. "Oh, hey, Rarity. Pity about Twilight, huh?"
"Yes," Rarity murmured. "You're not still worried about her, are you?"
Pinkie smiled sadly. "I just can't shake it, you know? That feeling like when you're hungry but it doesn't get better no matter how much you eat. And I've been trying to eat."
"I've told you, there's nothing to worry about," Rarity reassured her. "Where would Twilight go, anyway? Cheer up, darling; soon, it will be Rainbow and Applejack's fight, and you won't want to be distracted for that."
"Hey, Radstorm, Magic, wait up!" came the worried voice of Lemon Zest as the group walked down the corridors.
Sunny turned around to meet the green-haired faunus and the rest of Team SSCL as they came running to a stop.
"What happened out there? Did something go wrong?" inquired Sour in one of her sugar-sweet kind voices before her expression shifted and the berry-themed girl leaned forward with rage on her countenance. "Did you throw the match?"
Her friend reminded Sunny of one of her surlier uncles after he had gotten a bit too much new wine into him when she got like that, and the leader of Team FIST wasn't afraid to let her amusement at that show in her face.
"Easy there, Sakura; your blood vessels are showing again," chided Sunny with a smirk. When Sour replied to that with a roll of her eyes, she decided to continue. "As for throwing the match, you should know that sort of thing is against the rules and can get a person barred from participating in future tournaments, right?"
"That's not a denial," pointed out Jet.
"No, it's not, but you should take as one," reasoned Sunny succinctly.
"You four should know that we always have the honor of the Shadowbolts at heart," said Twilight in that comforting tone of hers with a face as warm as honey coated toast in front of the fireplace.
"Well, yeah, of course we know that," confirmed Lemon with a sad smile. "Just… I don't know."
"What she's trying to say is that we're going to avenge you," promised Sour. "We won't let the Shadowbolts lose out there. We're going all the way to the top, and when we do… we're bringing you with us."
"Yeah!" Lemon declared eagerly, punching a fist into her other hand's palm. "You just watch, and we'll take those prizes."
"We'll be pulling for you," offered Twilight with a nod.
"That's right," confirmed Sunny.
With that, the two groups said their final goodbyes and went their separate ways. One walked toward conflict and the other toward revelation. They were some distance apart and out of sight of each other when anything else was finally said.
"Haaaaah," hissed out Twilight, tears in her eyes. "I don't know how much longer I would have been able to keep that up."
"Neither do I," confirmed Sunny with her own roiling emotions. "Let's… let's just go make sure Straight and Daiku have things packed and our transfer papers filed."
Twilight nodded and choked out, "No sacrifice, no victory."
"Coffee, coffee, coffee. You'll never find a more disgusting blend of arrogance and incompetence," dryly commented Sunset Shimmer as she rolled her shoulders.
"I hear that," agreed Lightning Dust. "Surprised Adel didn't put herself forward into the doubles match."
"No kidding," Sunset snorted. "She's got the ego for it."
Neither noticed the irony, and so, Sunset went on.
"Velvet Scarlatina, though… she's the real deal, and she's been getting better," admitted the fire-haired Havenite sourly. "So, she's going to be the first one we take out."
Lightning turned to glare at her. "So I'm going to distract the big guy with the sword while you snag all the glory taking down the wunderkind."
Sunset twisted to glare at her. "That's the opposite of what I'm proposing. You're faster, that's all, and that means you can end this quickly. I've spent a lot of time watching people, and Velvet almost always spends the fight in the background or fighting hand to hand until…"
"Until she does what she did in the four vee four," finished Lightning grumpily. "So you need me to take her down fast before she can pull something out of her hat. Yeah. I can do that. Been saving up for a moment like this."
At that, Lightning Dust took out some… well, some lightning dust, out of a pouch on her suit and flashed them before putting the crystals back into their pocket.
"Got more already in place. This suit is wired for destruction," continued Lightning as she rolled her shoulders much like her compatriot had done. With an expression turned melancholy, she looked down the corridor to the arena. "Hey, Sunset, do you think anyone's watching out there?"
"I'm still caught up on the fact that you used a magician pun about a rabbit faunus," answered Sunset flatly.
Lightning let out a nostalgic laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did. Seriously though."
Sunset turned to look down the hall as well. "I have no idea. It's been a busy two days, after all. People are probably still going gaga over that spoiled brat or that SDC exec getting arrested or General Joseph B. Colton returning."
"It is pretty hard to top Atlas's greatest hero coming back to life," agreed Lightning before shaking her head. "I hope there's someone watching, though. I want the world to see when we prove that Professor Lionheart made a mistake when he put this team together."
Sunset cocked an eyebrow. "Explain."
"Well, he was a traitor, right?" asked Lightning, and when Sunset nodded she continued. "So he was setting us up to fail. That's why our team is set up the way it is, why we're together at all. We're supposed to get each other killed."
"Come on, let's show them how great we really are!"
"Dusty, help me!"
"You took back Nafrot Hill, but I don't know if you have the strength to hold it now."
"You got my sister killed, butcher."
"Of course we'd be willing to have someone with such a prestigious record at Haven. It should be just a formality. After all, you proved who you really are during the recent Grimm incursion in Atlas."
"Dusty, help me!"
"You took back Nafrot Hill, but I don't know if you have the strength to hold it now."
"You got my sister killed, butcher."
"Of course we'd be willing to have someone with such a prestigious record at Haven. It should be just a formality. After all, you proved who you really are during the recent Grimm incursion in Atlas."
No, you were wrong, traitor, silently vowed Lightning. I'll show you and everyone else that my past is not today. Most importantly, I'll show myself.
"Is that why you were put in charge?" needled Sunset.
Lightning bared her teeth at her teammate. "Look at us, Sunset," she snapped. "Do you really think it would have made any difference which of us got named leader?"
"Between the two of us?" Sunset asked, a smirk crossing her face as she tossed her fiery mane. "Obviously, one of us was the superior choice, and the other-"
Lightning growled wordlessly.
Sunset rolled her eyes. "It could have been worse, I suppose. Lionheart could have made Sunburst the team leader."
Lightning snorted. "Or Trixie."
Sunset groaned, covering her face with one hand. "Gods preserve us. I guess Lionheart wasn't without mercy, even if he was worshiping a Grimm in the school basement." She chuckled softly. "To answer your original question: I actually think we'll get some crowd. We might even draw a few more eyes than the four on four."
"That wasn't what you thought yesterday," Lightning pointed out. "It wasn't what either of us thought."
"I've had a little more time to think about it," Sunset said.
"After everything that's going on, you think that people are going to care about us versus Team Coffee?" Lightning asked, a little incredulity creeping into her voice.
"I think it's precisely because of everything that's going on that people are going to…okay, maybe they won't really care, but they'll turn up anyway," Sunset explained. "The world's got so shocking and serious all of a sudden, people are going to want to escape from it all for a little bit; they might not like us, but they'll take what they can get if it means getting taken out of themselves."
"And not put back?" Lightning asked.
Sunset grinned. "Nobody ever wants to get put back into themselves once they've been taken out," she said. "Not if they can avoid it."
"Sunset, if we make it through this round-"
"When we make it through this round."
"I want you to go on to the singles. You're the most versatile among us, so you'll have the best chance against any other possible contenders we could run up against," finished Lightning, ignoring Sunset's confident statement.
"Will the combatants for Team Coffee and Team Dust make their way into the arena?" Doctor Oobleck demanded.
Lightning clenched one hand into a fist. "We're up," she said, anticipation lending her voice an edge.
The two of them strutted into the colosseum as though they owned it; they might not have been a crowd favorite even before Atlas decided to drop a few more bombshells and thin out the crowd -- although Sunset was right, the place wasn't as empty as Lightning had expected; apparently, people really did want to forget their troubles and watch a fight for a bit -- but that didn't change who or what they were. They were the supermodels of the huntsman world, and this was their catwalk. There was no way that Team CFVY could compare.
Velvet and Yatsuhashi made their way out confidently, but not as impressively as the DSST girls had managed to do. Bizarrely, Yatsuhashi decided to forego the usual pre-match stare-off; instead, sat down on the floor with his legs crossed and started to meditate.
Mistralians were weird, some of them anyway; Lightning had been living there for two years, and she still hadn't got used to all of their funny habits.
"Hey," Sunset called. "You know what they say about guys with big swords, right?"
Their caffeinated opponents looked more exasperated than annoyed.
"What?" Sunset said. "You can't just sit there and ignore us and expect me to take it."
Yatsuhashi sighed as the biome randomizers whirled away around them, eventually settling on geyser and gravity islands for Team CFVY's side of the battlefield, and forest and volcano for the side behind Team DSST.
Yatsuhashi picked himself up off the ground. The crowd hummed in anticipation. Most of them, as far as Lightning could hear, were cheering for CFVY.
Her tail twitched in irritation. Let them cheer. It didn't make a bit of difference to how this fight was going to play out.
"Three!" Professor Port boomed.
A ripple of electricity crackled up and down Lightning's bodysuit. Sunset pulled out her antique pistol and, with a flourish of her other hand, produced her short sword; all of the rounds in the former's magazine were filled with fire dust because Lightning wasn't the only one with a specialty.
"Two!"
Yatsuhashi gave his enormous blade an experimental swing through the air, a heavy whooshing following it.
"One!"
Velvet closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"Begin!"
Velvet flung out her arms, and in her right hand, Lightning could already see her weapon set to work, creating a copy weapon for her out of glowing blue light.
Like we're just going to sit here and give you the chance!
The two members of Team DSST raced forward; lightning cracked across Lightning's entire body, while smoke began to rise from Sunset as the flames consumed her. They were less like Huntresses and more like elemental demons out of some video game, spirits of fire and lightning, as they closed the distance with their opponents, both of them bearing down on Velvet, even as she tried to conjure a weapon in time.
The big guy tried to get between them, but although he was able to block Sunset's rush -- just about -- the lumbering ox was nowhere near fast enough to intercept Lightning too, and she slipped past him fleet as a thunderbolt. She left Sunset to it, wreathed in flame, dodging the heavy strokes from that great blade; Sunset was quick enough and tough enough, and even if he did land a hit on her, then her semblance would ensure he paid for it in kind. Lightning heard the snapping blast of Sunset's fire dust blade, the ring of sword on sword, even as she raced on, closing the distance with Velvet even as the latter tried to retreat to the gravity islands.
But Lightning was faster, and Velvet's weapon had only just finished forming.
She'd chosen the scythe from that first-year girl with the red hood -- Lightning hadn't paid that much attention to all of the first-year matches, but there were a couple of teams that everyone said were something special and Lightning had found her curiosity piqued; something about her rushing into a three-way firefight and getting shot? -- and while she might have been hoping to fend off Lightning with the greater reach, it was already far too late for that; Lightning was inside the guard of the over-long weapon, her fist wreathed in crackling sparks as she ducked beneath Velvet's stroke and drove said fist hard into the other girl's gut.
Velvet cried out. The scythe dispersed as she was thrown upwards and into the air by Lightning's blow, electricity crackling across her brown outfit. She spun in the air, throwing out her arms once more as she sketched new weapons into her hands: the Belladonna girl's blades; Lightning recognized them from yesterday. She flung out the sword, missing Lighting -- on purpose, Lightning realized, as the blade of light buried itself in the surface of the arena -- and Velvet used the ribbon to drag herself backwards, cleaver in hand, to slash Lightning across the side.
She landed in a crouch and was already switching weapons as Lightning unleashed a burst of electricity in her direction, snapping and crackling as it crossed the little space between them. Velvet conjured the Arc boy's sword and shield, covering herself with the latter as she took the lightning blast upon it. Since her weapons were made of light, not metal, she was better protected than she would have been with an actual shield, which was why Lightning went on the attack again, her whole body spitting electricity. Velvet stepped forward to meet her, thrusting her shield out -- she meant to hammer Lightning with it before following up with a blow from the sword in her other hand -- but Lightning nimbly stepped aside from the shield stroke, turning on her toe as Velvet's attack carried her past Lightning, exposing her to a blow to the small of her back-
-which didn't land, because Velvet twisted aside from the blow with a surprising nimbleness as, all of a sudden, it was Pyrrha frickin' Nikos's shield that she was holding in one hand and Pyrrha's spear in the other, and suddenly, she was moving with the speed and dexterity of the Invincible Girl herself, and it was Lightning who was on the back foot, literally stumbling backwards as she looked for an opening.
There wasn't one, and to be honest, there wasn't much of a window for Lightning to not get hit either, so Lightning stopped retreating and let the blow come.
And as the blow came, Lightning let her namesake explode out from her body, erupting in all directions, slamming into Velvet even as Velvet's blows slammed into Lightning so that they were both hurled backwards and away from each other, striking the arena surface and rolling away.
Lightning was a little quicker to regain her feet; her semblance had flickered, but she reactivated it quickly. It was a drain on her aura, but she was fortunate to have a lot of aura to drain; she was only just entering the yellow now.
Lightning glanced towards Sunset, who seemed to be holding off Yatsuhashi... right up until she wasn't. Sunset stopped, and on the big screens, Lightning could see that she looked confused, dazed; her semblance flickered out, the flames dying. And as Sunset stood there looking like she couldn't remember where she was or what she was supposed to be doing, Yatsuhashi hit her with a slashing stroke that would have sliced her in half if it hadn't been for aura; as it was, with aura, it just punted her into the geyser field as though she didn't weigh anything at all.
The blonde Havenite boggled and unleashed another surge of lightning as she sprinted across the battlefield to check in on her squad- teammate, her teammate.
"What… what the hell was that?" Lightning yelled as she came up next to where Sunset was getting to her feet in the middle of the geyser field. "Seriously, what was that?"
"I blanked out," Sunset muttered.
"What do you mean, you 'blanked out'?"
"I mean I blanked out; what else do you want me to say?" Sunset snapped.
"I want you to-" Lightning leapt aside, grabbing Sunset and throwing her to the ground as a thunderous shot made a chunk of the arena floor explode in a shower of splinters. Velvet had retreated to the gravity islands, and in her hands, she held a monstrously oversized rifle of the kind that Lightning thought she'd seen carried by one of the Atlas students.
"Ugh," Lightning grunted. "Just stick to the plan!" She surged to her feet and began to charge, trusting to her speed to let her dodge the shots from Velvet's gun.
"What plan?!" Sunset demanded, yelling after her.
"'Wha-'? The plan you came up with!" Lightning yelled back, and if they hadn't been in the middle of a battle, she would have stopped to tear her tail out in exasperation. "Come on!"
Yatsuhashi barred her way out of the field, but Lightning wasn't too worried about him. The big guy was strong, sure, but he was slow to make up for it. She dodged his first swing with ease; she could get past him and then-
And then…
And then…
What was the plan again?
A shot from Velvet's rifle slammed into Lightning's side, sending her spinning like a top as she was hurled backwards, landing with a thump at the edge of the forest biome.
"We need to take cover!" Sunset cried, dashing past Lightning and into the trees, leaving Lightning to follow as another shot from Velvet destroyed one of said trees with a single round, reducing it to splinters.
Lightning and Sunset retreated deep into the forest, using the screens as their guide to what was going on in the rest of the arena: Velvet was on overwatch, waiting with her rifle for either of her targets to emerge; Yatsuhashi was pacing back and forth, his sword swinging gently up and down in one hand.
"I blanked out too," Lightning admitted.
"That guy must have some kind of mind semblance," Sunset said.
"Greaaaat," Lightning bemoaned. "So what do we do?"
"We need to take him out, or he'll just keep hitting us over and over again," Sunset said.
Lightning looked down at her hands. I'll show you, Lionheart. I'll show you what I really am, and it's nothing like you could have imagined. "I'll take care of it," she said. "Once I've engaged him, you go for Velvet. Can you get there?"
Sunset considered it for a moment. "I think so."
"Okay then," Lightning said. She raised her fist. "Washouts for life."
Sunset boggled. "What did you say?"
"Come on, it looks really cool when the Atlas kids do it."
"I would rather die than call myself a washout," Sunset declared.
"Oh, come on, that won't make it any less true," Lightning snapped. "We- none of us could get into Atlas, so we wound up at Haven; the least we can do is start owning it."
Sunset rolled her eyes and bumped Lightning's fist with her knuckles.
"Say it."
"Don't push it."
"I'm not going anywhere until you say it."
Sunset exhaled loudly. "Washouts for life," she said, through obviously gritted teeth.
"Hell yeah," Lightning said, as she turned away and strode out of the forest.
Electricity wreathed her hand, stray bolts leaping out and to the ground, making a sound like the chirruping of a thousand birds as she broke from cover and sprinted across the central octagon. Her lightning scarred the surface of the arena as she charged, yelling at the top of her voice. Velvet fired at her, but Lightning was moving too fast, and the shots from the other girl trailed behind her as she rushed towards Yatsuhashi.
The big guy swung his sword at her, straight down in a cleaving stroke. Lightning blocked the blow with both her hands, her whole body shuddering to a halt, her arms and legs quivering as she pushed against his monstrous strength.
Gods, this guy is as strong as an Ursa Major.
Lightning considered herself to be no slouch -- she worked out twice as hard as any other member of her team, and she had aura to burn -- but this guy. This guy. Lightning could feel herself being pushed backwards, her feet slipping and skidding on the surface of the arena. She growled, her voice rising into a snarl as she pushed more and more power into her semblance, her whole body rippling with lightning that leapt past and through Yatsuhashi's blade to tear into his aura.
Sunset is counting on me.
I will not let my teammate down.
Not again!
Lightning threw back her head and roared as she put everything she had into her semblance, an explosive blast of thundering plasma that burst out of her in all directions; Lightning's suit sparked and fizzled as she overloaded it, the lightning dust crystals embedded into it exploding to tear her raiment to pieces. Her aura ran dry down to the very last drop, but even as the buzzer rang for her elimination, it was sounding for Yatshuhashi too as he was thrown, lightning snapping across his body, backwards across the arena, his aura dropping into the red.
"Double knockout!" Professor Port declared. "Lightning Dust and Yatsuhashi Daichi are eliminated simultaneously! I've never seen anything like it!"
Lightning knelt down upon the ground, panting heavily; the draining of her aura and the fact that she had broken her own suit -- the fact that she routinely pushed its capacity to its limits probably hadn't helped much -- meant that her movements were stiff and awkward. Her limbs felt heavy. She was so tired...
Nevertheless, she forced herself to watch as Sunset dueled with Velvet.
Sunset had gotten up onto the gravity islands, and now, she was consumed by fire once more as she hurled herself at Velvet, who was using the rapier of Weiss not-Schnee to fend her off. Lightning had to admit; the girl from Team CFVY was good. Really good. Her movements were as precise as the snowflake princess herself as she countered Sunset's strokes, blocked her shots. But she was having a hard time getting any hits in on Sunset, and she was getting hit by Sunset's fire dust, and it seemed like her semblance was pretty aura intensive, because she was in the yellow and dropping steadily.
Perhaps that was what inspired her to drop her hardlight weapon and pull out a knife from behind her back, slashing at Sunset's eyes as she counterattacked.
Sunset parried the knife with her short sword. There was a bang and a blast of fire dust as the knife flew out of Velvet's hand. Sunset leapt back, leveling her pistol and emptying the magazine into her opponent until the buzzer sounded.
"Velvet Scarlatina has been eliminated!" Doctor Oobleck declared. "The pairing of Lightning Dust and Sunset Shimmer are victorious."
Lightning couldn't help but smile as her gaze lingered on the victorious Sunset Shimmer and the defeated Velvet Scarlatina. We did it, she thought with joy. We actually managed to do it.
Sunset was looking up at the crowd and raising her sword, looking for all the world like one of those conquering heroes of Mistral's past that she admired so much. It should have vexed Lightning to have so much acclaim and praise fall upon someone else, but it was not so. Perhaps, she assumed, it was because so much praise was already falling upon her. She assumed, of course, because she found she was having trouble moving her head.
There was a flurry of footsteps, and then her vision was taken up by the profile of one of Beacon's medics as he looked down on her. "Ma'am, we have a stretcher for you. Can you move onto it under your own power?"
The smile continued but took on a certain cheeky quality. "You're really going to make the winner of the match move on her own?" Her voice was strained and hoarse for some reason. "In Mistral, I would already be on a palanquin."
The medic recognized something in her tone and smiled in turn. "Well, let's carry you away then, victor."
With that, Lightning felt herself being moved about, and soon, she was looking up at the sky from a very soft bed. She certainly didn't feel any pain. She was too cool for that. She was just lying down to enjoy the ride.
There was another set of footsteps running in, and then Sunset was in her field of view, walking beside the hovering platform. "By the gods, Lightning, what did you do to yourself?"
"Nothing, absolutely nothing," insisted the blonde faunus woman. "Just being carried around by a punch of hunky guys."
Sunset blinked in disbelief. "Are you crazy? In denial?"
"Oh, very much so," answered Lightning without delay or shame. "Say, speaking of which, my tail's still there, right?"
Sunset glanced to the side. "Yes."
"Good. Hate to end up like Berrytwist," said Lightning, even as she began to feel pain spreading throughout her body from the admission. "Girl was good, 'til she wasn't. Everyone thought she would win it all. Then she lost her squad, her tail, and her self-respect."
"Are… are you really doing this?" asked Sunset in even greater disbelief.
"Ma'am, would you like us to administer a sedative?" inquired one of the medics.
"Would I?!" replied Lightning happily, and with that, a hypodermic needle was quickly and expertly plunged into her skin.
"Apparently not," muttered Sunset as she watched her team leader get pumped full of drugs and carted off to the infirmary.
Velvet's ears drooped as she and Yatsuhashi made their way out of the arena. They'd been so close! She'd thought they'd had it! Yatsu's subtle use of his semblance had destroyed what little cohesion their opponents had had, and her own semblance, coupled with Anesidora, made her a fighter of unparalleled skill and versatility... but it just wasn't enough.
She'd been working on not relying so heavily on her semblance, but clearly, she still had a long way to go. Like Pyrrha's, Ciel's skill set had felt off somehow, and she was beginning to wonder if there was some underlying reason for it. Once she figured out what it was, she'd be able to compensate for it, she was sure.
She was startled to find herself swooped up into a hug, and she blinked a bit, before a smile split her face, piercing through the gloom at their loss.
"Hey, Lavi," she greeted her boyfriend shyly, wrapping her own arms around him. "I guess I won't be seeing you in the finals."
Lavi snorted. "I'm not heading into the singles rounds anyway," he said. "I'm more of a support guy myself." He tightened his arms around her. "It's okay, you know?"
"Hmm?"
"Losing," he clarified. "I mean, it's the Vytal Festival, just a tournament, really. Victory isn't the mission. Nothing really important was on the line, right?"
"Speak for yourself!" And that was Coco. "We wanted to win!"
As Velvet peered at the others, Coco held her hands up, palms facing backwards over her shoulders.
"Yeah!" the twins from Lavi's team chorused as they gave Coco simultaneous high fives.
The rest of both their teams were there, of course, and it was Rain who spoke up next, pointing back down into the arena. "There is always a price for victory. It's not always worth it."
Quizzically, Velvet turned her head and traced the direction his finger was pointing to see...
Lightning Dust on a hover stretcher, being gingerly carted out of the arena by a pair of medics.
Lavi, looking down in the arena himself, murmured quietly, "'No sacrifice, no victory.'"
Velvet leaned away for a moment to look at him squarely. "What was that?" she asked.
"It's something Magic says a lot," he answered. At her curious look, he added, "She's from Team Fairstar. It's... a family motto, I think?"
"A wise one," Velvet reflected. There were layers to it she could see. Sacrifice didn't necessarily mean in the moment, after all. Training was a sacrifice as well: of time, of pain, of resources. Sometimes, the sacrifice wasn't physical. Sunset and Lightning had swallowed their pride, and for some, that surely was as great a sacrifice as any injury.
"Besides," Lavi reassured her, breaking her thoughts, "there's still next time."
Velvet nodded. In two years, she vowed, we're taking that title.
"I must confess," Rarity declared, "that was a rather impressive display, albeit from a somewhat odious individual."
"Sunset... isn't the nicest person in the whole world," Fluttershy murmured, "but it seems that doesn't stop her being good at what she does."
"Maybe, but just think how much better she could have been if she hadn't been such a meanie-pants," Pinkie wondered aloud. "Maybe almost as good as Rainbow Dash!"
"'Almost,'" Scootaloo said with emphasis.
"Miss Dust deserves her share of the laurels and more," Principal Celestia reminded them. "Sunset struck the final blow, but it was Lightning Dust who gave her the opportunity. Which isn't to say that Sunset didn't do very well herself." A smile played across Principal Celestia's lips.
Luna chuckled. "You're proud of her, aren't you?"
"I'm proud of all my students, when they deserve pride," Principal Celestia replied, "but in Sunset's case... well, look at her teamwork in this fight, and in the one before that? Would you have ever thought it possible of the Sunset Shimmer we knew?"
"No," admitted Luna. "I would not."
"I'm very glad," Principal Celestia said, "that she seems to have found her place in this world."
In her mind, though, she struck a different tune. I'm sorry, my fateful student, my little sunbeam. I'm sorry that I couldn't give you the place you wanted. I… I pray that you really have changed, and that I will be able to offer you that spot in good conscience. Now that the general is back, we're going to need all hands on deck to push the darkness off Remnant.
"You realize we only get one shot at pullin' this off, right?" Applejack asked.
"I know it's a little bit of a long shot," Rainbow admitted. She grinned. "But how awesome is it going to be when we do pull it off, huh?"
Applejack shook her head. "Twilight would say that this is a nuts plan."
"Hey! My plans are not nuts," Rainbow replied. "My plans are crazy in all the best ways. I saw you do this at the summer rodeo last year."
"No one was trying to shoot me at the summer rodeo," Applejack pointed out.
"Nobody's going to be shooting at you now; they're going to be shooting at me," Rainbow reminded her. "Trust me, this is totally going to work, and more importantly, it's not like we have another way to get past her semblance." She folded her arms, and a scowl marred her features momentarily. "Besides, Twilight's playing for the other team on this one."
"She wouldn't like to hear you say that," Applejack said.
I don't like seeing her with them but it doesn't stop her. "Doesn't make it any less true," Rainbow murmured. "She belongs to them more than she does to us. 'Shadowbolts forever.'" She looked outwards, to where the light from the arena began to spill into the tunnel. Maybe a breath of wind got into the tunnel, but she felt... it was weird, like a chill.
"You okay, sugarcube?" Applejack asked anxiously.
"What? Yeah," Rainbow said quickly. "I just...never mind. Let's go. We can't keep the crowd waiting."
They walked out into the arena to the muted cheering of a muted crowd. Normally, the Amity Colosseum was full to the rafters, but today, there were so many empty seats that you could have turned up at any time and practically had your pick of where to go. It was all Weiss... Weiss's doing from yesterday; nobody cared about a few fights anymore when the SDC was committing war crimes... or whatever they were called when you weren't actually at war.
Rainbow couldn't really blame folks for not caring about the tournament much. She cared, because she believed in taking competition seriously and always giving her best, but she wasn't about to demand that everybody else care too, especially if they were just watching.
"Versus Sour 'Sakura' Sweet and Lemon 'Reverb' Zest, also of Atlas!" Professor Port declared, and Rainbow realized that while she'd been ruminating, she'd missed her and Applejack's names being called.
"Once again, two teams from Atlas will be pitted against each other," Doctor Oobleck said excitedly as the two members of Team SSCL made their way out of the other entrance and strode across the barren arena to confront Applejack and Rainbow.
Rainbow didn't like the Shadowbolts. And it wasn't just the fact that they were a bunch of jerks or that she didn't see what Twilight saw in the whole pack of them; there was something skin-crawlingly wrong about them. Every time she looked at them, she felt... it was like her equine instincts kicking in, like a wild mustang confronted by a pack of wolves.
How do you feel safe around these guys, Twi?
"Hey, you two," Sour said in a cheery voice. "Isn't it just great the four of us meeting up like this? It's going to be just like the Friendship Games all over again."
Lemon nodded, although how she could hear what her teammate had said when she had all four of her ears covered up by a set of chunky headphones, Rainbow didn't know.
Rainbow bared her gritted teeth just a little as a wordless growl escaped between them. The Friendship Games between Canterlot Combat School and Crystal Preparatory Combat Academy was a sore spot, one that had started long before any of them were born and would assuredly continue long after they died. Granted, her first time at them, neither side had exactly covered themselves in glory, and Twilight had called them all out on it. They'd parted ways then with an... understanding, even if they still didn't like each other. For Twilight's sake.
But the next three years of being consistently beaten into the ground had driven out what goodwill she'd had for them rather thoroughly.
For the honor of Canterlot, she thought, we cannot afford to lose this.
The biomes rose out of the ground on the four quarters of the arena: ice and geyser field behind Sour and Lemon; forest and wheatfield behind Applejack and Rainbow. They rose, grinding out of the depths of the arena, and locked into place with a series of clicking, thudding sounds.
I think we can work with this. Rainbow glanced at Applejack, who gave a barely perceptible nod of the head.
Barely perceptible, but Sour perceived it nonetheless. "Oh, look, I think they have a plan, isn't that precious? It's not going to work."
Lemon was standing to attention as if she was on the parade ground instead of the arena; there was just enough music leaking out of her headphones for Rainbow to recognize a Weiss Sch-... Weiss number... was that "It's My Turn"?
Nope. It's our turn now. This is Canterlot's vengeance.
We've come this far, and we're not going back.
Prepare yourself, 'cause we're- no, no, I need to focus.
So long as they don't notice the lasso on Applejack's belt, we'll be fine.
There was no sign that they noticed it yet.
"Three!"
Lemon swung her weapon -- a large, blocky sonic cannon named Housecrasher -- off her shoulder, holding it in two hands with a chainsaw grip like a rotary gun. Sour's bow, Tri-Cross Champion, fell into her hand.
"Two!"
Applejack pulled her One in a Thousand over her shoulder, holding it lightly in both hands. Rainbow produced her SMG, Red Shift, while her free hand moved to grip the hilt of her sword, Blue Shift. She didn't draw it, but she was ready to do so.
"One! Begin!"
Rainbow surged forwards, leaving a rainbow trail behind her as she accelerated across the center of the arena, charging straight for Sour before the latter could fit an arrow to her bow; she didn't stop to fire, she didn't draw her sword, she just ran-
A blast from Lemon's sonic cannon hit her square in the side, the sound waves like rings knocking her to the ground as she was sent skidding across the arena surface. Lemon had her weapon trained on Rainbow, ignoring Applejack even as the latter brought her rifle to her shoulder.
Applejack fired, One in a Thousand barking; Lemon's body glowed with a lime green light. There was a flash, a twinkle against that light, before Applejack had to duck hastily as her own shot was flung right back at her.
"And Lemon Zest has just used her semblance, Echo Shield," Professor Port informed the audience. "By burning up some of her aura, she can reflect attacks back at her attackers, like that bullet just now."
That was why she was ignoring Applejack; she could focus on keeping Rainbow away from Sour, smug in the knowledge that she couldn't be touched.
Except that, as Rainbow skidded along the surface of the arena into the field of tall wheat that lay upon the right-hand side of the arena, she thought that Lemon might have overdone it just a little bit.
Because now that she was in the wheatfield, she couldn't be seen, while she could see Lemon and Sour perfectly; thank you, those big screens that she'd never seen the point of up until now.
She could see both of her Shadowbolt opponents looking into the wheatfield as though they could see through it: Lemon swung her cannon back and forth; Sour had an arrow fitted to her bowstring.
Another sharp report from One in a Thousand alerted them both to the fact that Applejack was still around as her second shot rebounded off Lemon's semblance. Her aura wasn't at any kind of danger level just yet, but they must have worried that their plan was to make Lemon use her semblance until her aura ran out because both of them turned on Applejack.
That was Rainbow's cue to emerge from out of the wheatfield, Red Shift blazing as she sprayed fire at both of them. Lemon's body was covered in that lime green glow as Rainbow hurled herself back into the wheat and to the ground as her own bullets whizzed through the spot she had been standing, cutting through the stalks of grain like it was harvest time. Rainbow rolled to her knees, firing at Sour, whose body seemed to shimmer for a moment as she disappeared from view, transformed into a swirling cloud of cherry blossom petals through which Rainbow's bullets passed harmlessly.
"And Sour Sweet has also used her semblance, Blossom Bypass!" Doctor Oobleck proclaimed excitedly. "As you can see, she can transform herself into cherry blossom petals, although movement in that state is rather slow," he added, as Sour Sweet -- or rather, the petal cloud that had been her -- drifted slowly leftwards.
Lemon swung Housecrasher back towards Rainbow, soundwaves blaring forth as Rainbow retreated into the wheatfield; she sprayed the wheat with sound like it was pesticide -- and Rainbow was the bug, obviously -- trusting in her semblance to protect her from Applejack.
Applejack who had just dropped her rifle to the ground with a clatter.
Rainbow reached for the cluster bomb at her belt. Ninja training wasn't just about stealth or weapons or close combat; theatricality and deception are powerful agents to the uninitiated, as Professor Snake Eyes was wont to write. Rainbow had rigged this canister, painted in a distinctive rainbow pattern, and filled it up herself with a mixture of fire -- for ignition -- and earth -- for smoke -- dust crystals. Not even Twilight knew that she had this.
Until she threw it out of the wheatfield towards Lemon. The shadowbolt saw the bomb coming, her body flickering as green as her hair as she turned on her semblance to shield herself from the blast.
The bomb went off, the first charge scattering dust crystals through the air like candy from a smashed pinata as the canister burst; the dust flew outwards in a wide cloud before fire and earth dust crystals alike went off one after the other in a series of blinding flashes and clouds of dusty smoke that surrounded Lemon, blinding her in light and smoke alike.
Lemon was a tough nut to crack. You couldn't shoot her, you couldn't hit her; she'd just reflect it right back at you. You could try and make her use her semblance so much it went into the red, but unless you were really lucky, she'd put you in the red before you got the chance to do that, and Sour was there to back her up. But Rainbow had once seen Applejack lasso a long-horn steer -- she thought that was what it was called, all these cows tended to blur together a little bit -- blindfolded, and she'd thought, well, getting a rope put around you wasn't an attack at all, was it? What were you going to reflect back with that?
And so, while Lemon was blinded by the explosion, Applejack took out her lasso, twirled it a couple of times in the air above her head, and dropped it around the Shadowbolt with perfect precision.
Lemon had just about a second to realise what had happened before Applejack had wrenched her off her feet -- Housecrasher dropping from her fingers to land with a clatter on the arena surface -- and started dragging her by the aura-infused rope towards the edge of the arena.
Lemon thrashed in her bindings, having about as much luck as the average hog-tied varmint had in getting loose, even as her aura flashed green again and again with the use of her semblance. "Let go of me, you… you savage!"
"Nope!" Applejack said cheerily. "Settle down, sugarcube."
"This is such a Canterlot way to fight! Sour, do something!"
Sour began to reform, her cherry blossoms coalescing into a human shape, her bow -- Tri-Cross Champion -- raised and drawn back as she took aim at Applejack.
Just as Rainbow charged out of the wheatfield, firing Red Shift as she ran, her semblance's rainbow streaming out behind her.
Sour turned to meet her charge, her bow transforming into a staff as Rainbow drew Blue Shift in a slashing stroke that slammed into her opponent's weapon with a metallic ring and a shower of sparks. Rainbow stepped back, a grin upon her face as she swung her blade again. Once more, Sour parried... just about. Sour had always been the better shot -- which was why they'd tried pretty hard not to give her the opportunity to let fly -- but Rainbow was better in close combat than the other girl.
And they both knew it too.
"Oh, look at that, you think you can take me," Rainbow growled as she drove Sour back with a flurry of swift slashing strokes. "That's adorable."
Now it was Sour's turn to respond with a wordless growl as she was driven backwards towards the geyser field. She was parrying -- for now -- but every time she blocked a stroke, her window to do so closed, and if it kept on closing, Rainbow was going to land a stroke that she wasn't fast enough to block.
Rainbow slashed, stepping forward. Sour transformed into a cloud of cherry blossom petals through which Rainbow burst, scattering the petals around her before they began to reform, behind Rainbow. She turned, her body twisting, bringing Blue Shift around to parry the stroke from Sour's staff. Rainbow pushed back on her, shoving Sour back a pace and a little off-balance before slicing through her aura with a crosswise slash.
The buzzer sounded for Lemon's elimination as Applejack dumped her out of the arena.
We can smell your fear, we can see you sweat.
Hope you didn't spend money 'cause you're losing that bet.
Sour used her semblance once more, transforming into a petal cloud as she began to retreat, trying to put some distance between her and her opponent where her bow would serve better than Rainbow's sword.
But she was moving so slowly, and there was something Rainbow had always wanted to try. She dashed forwards, a rainbow trailing out briefly behind her as she burst at high speed through the midst of the cloud of cherry blossoms, scattering the pink petals in all directions as the wind of her passage blew them away. Sour's aura dropped into the yellow as she reformed, off balance and out of position, a dizzy look in her eyes. The rainbow wrapped itself around Dash like a cape as she stopped, spinning on her toe to land a solid kick into Sour's side that sent her flying with a cry of pain through the air to land with a thump... right on top of a geyser.
Rainbow hoped it would go off before Sour could get off, and she was not disappointed.
"Sour 'Sakura' Sweet has been eliminated!" Professor Port declared. "Jacqueline 'Spurs' Apple and Rainbow 'Boomer' Dash are victorious!"
"Yes!" Rainbow yelled, pumping her fist as she leapt into the air. You may have won the Friendship Games every single year, but we won this! You got nothing on us!
She turned, sprinting across the arena towards Applejack as the pair enveloped one another in a crushing hug. No matter what happened in the one on one round, they could take satisfaction from the fact that, here and now, in this fight, they had done Canterlot proud.
I wonder what Twilight's going to say about this?
"Woohoo!" Scootaloo cried, raising her hands up in the air. "Now that was a match!"
"She roped that Crystal Prep varmint like a no-good cattle rustler," Apple Bloom crowed.
And even that might be paying them too much of a compliment, Rarity thought as she rewarded her friends with a round of genteel, polite applause.
Confetti exploded upwards from Pinkie's seat, most of it covering the pink-haired girl. "Go, Rainbow Dash! Go, Applejack!"
How is your stomach now? Rarity almost asked, but it was too good to see Pinkie having recovered her usual high spirits without putting it in jeopardy by reminding her that she had been miserable just a little while ago.
So she just continued to applaud her faraway friends on a job very well done.
"Bravo, darlings, bravo," she declared. "Canterlot avenged and Crystal Prep put in its place at last."
And a Wondercolt representing Atlas in the final round with not a Shadowbolt to be seen?
Bravo, indeed.
Sunny "Radstorm" Flare tried to keep her face stoic as she marched with the rest of Team FIST through the White Fang base, their belongings piled into packs on their backs and the hoversled between the four of them.
The irony of their location was not lost on Sunny, her mind flashing back to earlier that day when Blake had declared that only a member of the White Fang could be so passionate about faunus rights. It was an unfortunate result of her royal upbringing, clearly, but she was a Shadowbolt now. She'd learn. A lot of people didn't understand them, didn't understand that a bunch of upper class kids from Solitas could be outraged at their fellow citizens being denied the meritocratic chances that others got and even form a bond of friendship with a laidback faunus girl from their own class…
The lilac-haired woman flinched away from the thought. Lemon and the others would be holding down the fort in Solitas, keeping their families safe. Sunny had to keep her focus on her mission, her mission to keep Twilight's genius out of reach of the Decepticons… and then swing back around to kick their big fat alien butts off of Remnant.
"So what do you think of our ride?" asked their guide, Twilight's cousin Spike, as opposed to her dog Spike, who was trotting along beside them.
Their "ride" as it happened, was an airship that looked vaguely like a Skystriker in principle, but different in form and function. Like a Skystriker, it had a prominent tail fin and truly immense wings built around a central body that made the whole thing look vaguely like a bird, but that was where the similarities ended. Unlike the Skystriker, this airship's tail fin was shaped like a T that reminded Sunny very much of a whale, quite like the flukes of the humpbacks that had saved Jet Set and Upper Crust from those Grimm and inspired them to get married before entering Atlas Academy. Indeed, the humpback whale analogy seemed especially apt, for the wings were mounted so high on the body that they formed a quite noticeable bump, as if the wings were a single piece and merely taped to the top as an afterthought instead of being built in. It was under those wings that were slung four prominent turbine engines, as opposed to the two internal engines of a Skystriker fuselage. And the fuselage of this craft was different as well, for instead of the rectangle and pen shape of the Skystriker, this craft's body was shaped vaguely like a short flute with the "mouthpiece" end in actuality being the cargo ramp and the other end being a rounded cap with a prominent transparent section on the lower half of the nose whose purpose she could only guess at.
"That's where the navigator sits," said Spike into her thoughts.
"Let me guess, your first question too?" asked Sunny.
"No, my first question was, 'how safe is it?'" corrected Spike, and to Sunny's horror, he kept talking to answer his own question. "Turns out, it's a prototype, so they're still working some of the bugs out. They've had some help with the design, though, so it should be as safe as any airship."
Sugarcoat looked up at the aircraft anew, and Sunny could already tell what she was doing.
"I'll talk with the engineers. They did a great job, but there's still room for improvement," commented the bespectacled girl. At Twilight and Sunny's looks, she explained, "I'm sorry about what I did this morning, but I'm also being honest here. This thing isn't half as dangerous as the ship we flew to Vale in."
"We flew in on the Furchtlos," Indigo reminded her coldly.
Whatever Sugarcoat might have said, the words died on her lips, and a frown crossed her face. Indigo did likewise, looking away in shame. Twilight and Sunny were at a loss of what to say. Spike the dog whined despondently. Luckily, Spike the human was on the bounce.
"Hey, you don't know what you don't know, and nobody knew where that Cinder lady went off to with the bomb," he told them compassionately. "Atlas, Vale, the White Fang, the Oktober Guard, MARS, who knows how many other people, people you've never heard of. Everyone was looking for her, and nobody could find her. And if you think that one more set of eyes would have made the difference just because they were yours, then Sugarcoat, I ain't going to lie to you, that arrogance is the first thing the teachers at Shade are going to try to beat out of you."
"I think the Grimm already took a pretty good stab at that during our final year at Crystal Prep," Sugarcoat replied bluntly before flashing a smile. "Thanks, though, I appreciate the reminder."
"Anytime," acknowledged Spike the human.
By now, they had gotten underneath the big fluke-like tail of the airship, and Sunny could look up and see an armored glass observation window below which was a ball turret with two double-barreled guns -- likely one-inch autocannons -- protruding from it. It was well armed, if nothing else, though there was a small part of Sunny that was worried about whether or not it would be enough.
They walked up a massive cargo ramp that looked to be made out of part of the tail and met with the loadmaster -- an uncommon position, but one that still existed in some airships -- and under his direction properly secured their belongings such that they would not accidentally cause the aircraft to tip over. The others that filed in -- Sunny recognized Colonel Brekhov, but the other faces were new to her -- did likewise, and together, they all took up seats near the front of the long circular interior, with Team FIST taking up those on the port side next to the wall of the fuselage and Spike the human sitting across from them with Spike the dog strapped into the seat next to him. Just when it seemed like they had everyone, a green VAMP rolled up to the rear cargo ramp that they had walked up and then likewise moved itself to be caught in mooring clamps on the wheels that the loadmaster ran forward to check. Sunny couldn't see the driver through the tinted windows.
Soon -- too soon for Sunny's tastes, and yet, at the same time, the wait was agonizingly long -- the ramp at the back raised up to close with a rather final clunk. The captain of the aircraft was speaking over the intercom in Metropolitan Vacuan, but she could only understand part of what was being said; Atlesian students, herself included, tended to focus more on languages out of Mistral and Vale when learning the minimum required to pass combat school. Twilight seemed much more attentive, but that was no surprise, not with her having family in Vacuo and presumably having learned the language for her own enjoyment.
The aircraft started moving, and just outside the few windows, she could see the light shifting as it exited the hangar. She looked down, and Sunny could see then that Sugarcoat's hand was trembling ever so slightly, though her face was impassive. Quietly but firmly, the leader of Team FIST reached out and embraced the hand of her compatriot. The shaking stopped, if only because of the iron grip of a friend.
"We'll go back for them," Sunny promised, her voice soft but resolute. "I have already given my promise that we shall return, and I always keep my promises."
"I… thank you, again," muttered Sugarcoat.
"Well, look on the bright side, you never really saw your family much while we were at Atlas Academy anyway, so being on another continent really won't change much," offered Indigo unhelpfully. "Unless something crazy happens and the CCT goes down or something."
Sugarcoat paused for half a second, exhaled, and then elbowed the goggled girl's gut.
As her teammate was letting out a hack and a cough, Sugarcoat sniped back, "Shut up, orphan girl."
"Don't get my hopes up," wheezed Indigo, earning herself another elbow, this time from Twilight.
"What a terrible thing to say," chided the lavender Huntress.
"Maybe, but it sure lightened the mood, didn't it?" asked Indigo rhetorically.
"Yeah, by ruining it," shot back Sugarcoat.
"It was a terrible mood; you're better off without it," insisted Indigo defiantly.
"Why I outta…" threatened Twilight, shaking her fist at her combative compatriot.
A few of the Oktober Guardsmen snickered or chuckled at their antics. This drew flushed embarrassment from Twilight, attempted stoicism from Sunny and Sugarcoat, and the world's biggest fecal matter consuming grin from Indigo. It also drew, to their surprise, a chuckle from the VAMP as its headlights flashed on and off.
"So, you four are the Atlesians I've heard so much about?" asked the VAMP.
Team FIST looked at each other in confusion. The Oktober Guard weren't ill at ease from this. Was this sort of thing normal in Vacuo? Did Vacuo of all places have some super-secret AI car program?
"I guess?" replied Twilight.
"Great! My name's Hound," the VAMP introduced itself before the wheel clamps unclamped, and the VAMP's body began to rise up and twist around in an incredibly painful-looking torsion that ended with a mechanical head popping up out of the front of the hood. "We really could use all the help we can in Vacuo. Things-"
"What are you doing?!" yelled the loadmaster with incredible volume as he stalked back towards the transforming robot that brought to mind all too clearly the descriptions of the Decepticons. "Get back in place! We are not crashing this thing just because you wanted to make an impression! Get back in there! Do you want to die?! This thing tips over in flight, and you'll be falling out the side into the mouth of a passing Grimm!"
The robot had already transformed back into a VAMP halfway through the loadmaster's rant, but he kept going until after the big guy had been locked back down again and then went away grumbling.
Sugarcoat looked at her friends, and then grinned smugly. "I was right, wasn't I?"
Spike sighed in defeat. "Guess it doesn't matter now. Team Fairstar, meet Hound of the Autobots. They've been fighting the Decepticons for close to ten million years, and I guess this is just one more battlefield for them."
"This planet is trying to eat us!" protested Hound.
Indigo shrugged. "Well, yeah. Why wouldn't it?"
The VAMP robot was silent for a moment before replying, "Maybe the others were right about people on this planet being crazy."
"Eh, you like us, I can tell," insisted Sugarcoat with that grin still plastered to her face.
"You said you needed our help in Vacuo?" asked Sunny pointedly, redirecting the conversation back around.
"Yeah. There's some weird stuff going on there," confirmed Hound eagerly. "There're sensor ghosts that appear and disappear, mysterious figures that stare at you from miles away, and there's a whole big area where strange occurrences just happen, like appearing back at the place you started at after traveling in a straight line."
"That's just the way the desert is, Hound," insisted Spike. "You'll get used to it eventually."
"That's a load of scrap," cursed the green Autobot. "I'm telling you, this isn't natural, and I've got the sensor logs to prove it. If we had some surveillance satellites in orbit, I'm sure we'd be able to figure it out. There's a doings transpiring."
"'Doings transpiring'?" quoted Sunny, putting her hand to her chin in contemplation. "Well, gang, it looks like we've got another mystery on our hands," she said to her team in a tone similar to what she said while selecting missions. With another glance to the side she added, "Okay, Magic, you can ask your questions now."
Twilight, whose eyes had been bugging out with barely restrained inquiry that was held in check by a bit lip and clenched hands, exploded forth in a flurry of excited questions for the Autobot called Hound. It was a familiar note to leave out on. As the aircraft rose into the air and began to climb tens of thousands of feet into the sky to fly back to Vacuo, Sunny couldn't help but feel like they could use a bit more of the familiar.
"Hey, Twi. It's me, Rainbow. Call me back when you get the chance."
There was a click, and Rainbow "Boomer" Dash felt the hand that held her scroll drop to her side. That was the third call she had made to Twilight since she and Applejack had kicked Shadowbolt butt, and still, the only reply she could get was an automated message that, "The number you are trying to reach is currently unavailable in your location. Please relocate or try again later." She was worried; they all were worried.
Luckily, they were on their way to get answers.
At the moment, Team JSPR was on their way back to the guest dormitory assigned to the Atlas students. Theoretically, they could have tried calling Twilight's teammates, but that would require them to have had any of their scroll numbers, which... they didn't.
"I don't like you hanging out with those Shadowbolts, Twi," Rainbow Dash murmured as they walked through the halls of Atlas Academy. "They're like a pack of tame wolves."
It was great that they got to attend the Academy with each other, but it was a lot less great that Twilight had wound up on a team full of those Crystal Prep jerks who set off Rainbow's nerves so badly. Not that she would trade her team for anything!
"Awoo," was Twilight's cheeky reply.
"Don't be a pest," rebuked Applejack with a scowl.
The bespectacled girl smiled sheepishly. "Sorry."
It was great that they got to attend the Academy with each other, but it was a lot less great that Twilight had wound up on a team full of those Crystal Prep jerks who set off Rainbow's nerves so badly. Not that she would trade her team for anything!
"Awoo," was Twilight's cheeky reply.
"Don't be a pest," rebuked Applejack with a scowl.
The bespectacled girl smiled sheepishly. "Sorry."
Team JSPR suddenly stopped in the hallway in front of the dormitory assigned to Team FIST, and Rainbow found herself unconsciously moving to the side, her team spreading out to flank Applejack. In the hallway across the dorm room door from them, Team SSCL -- lousy Shadowbolts! -- were similarly spreading out, the two teams instinctively squaring off against each other.
"What are you doing here, Canterlot scum?" growled out Sour Sweet.
Applejack raised an eyebrow. "We sleep here? This is where all the second-year Atlas students are crammed in."
Sour's eyes shifted, obviously defeated by superior Canterlotian logic. "Point."
"This is still Shadowbolt territory," protested Seal, one of the ancillary Shadowbolts who thought she was cool just because she managed to find the man of her dreams and settle down to get married before ever entering the academy. Not that Rainbow was jealous! After all, friendship was far better than marriage!...
...man, I'm glad I didn't say that out loud; that sounds pathetic, thought Rainbow in embarrassment.
"She's right," her husband said, backing her up. "Your dorm's down that way. Did you actually manage to get lost?"
"We're precisely where we need ta be, ya varmints," declared Applejack, hooking her thumbs into the small gap between her belt and her pants. "We're here to check on Twilight. She hasn't been answerin' her calls."
"You stay away from her," Sour hissed. If Rainbow hadn't known better, she would have thought Sour sounded protective of Twilight. "You've caused enough damage around here with your false accusations and rumor mongering."
They all bristled at that, but it was Flash that got the reply in first. "What are you talking about? We haven't done anything of the sort!"
"What do you call accusing Weiss of joining the White Fang?" barked Lemon.
"The truth, or close enough to it," bit out Rainbow, thoroughly done with those rich snobs from all the way over in Crystal City.
"Because she cares about your sorry hide, that makes her a terrorist?" demanded Lemon hatefully, her headset twitching back slightly as her ears tried to make some sort of expression of aggression. "Talk about ingratitude."
"What?!" Rainbow growled, tensing to attack.
"You heard her," said Seal. "Weiss is doing everything she can for the faunus, every faunus, including you. She doesn't deserve any hate or slander sent her way for any of that!"
"I didn't ask the Great Weiss Schnee to help me," the multicolor-haired faunus hissed. "I don't need some high and mighty type condescending to offer me assistance just so she can pat herself on the back and tell herself what a good person she is."
"You think it's an ego trip?" interjected Maverick incredulously. "Are you listening to yourself? Did you even pay attention to what she did yesterday? She disowned herself to expose the SDC's crimes!" he continued, his tone almost sounding jealous by the end of it.
Rainbow opened her mouth, but before she could unleash another scornful retort, she felt a hand on her shoulder.
"That's enough, Boomer," Applejack said warningly.
Rainbow turned in surprise. "But Spurs-!"
"Weiss gave up her family for this," her team leader interrupted softly but firmly. "Least ya can do is respect her sacrifice."
She felt her mouth run dry, but then she nodded and turned back to the Shadowbolts. "Okay, so the girl has guts; I'll accept that. That doesn't mean she's on the straight and narrow."
Sour snorted in bemusement. "What? Because she likes to read what the other side has to say? Because she visited a bookstore you decided to burglarize? Between you and Weiss, one of you committed a crime, and it wasn't Weiss."
The girl with the multi-colored hair felt her blood run cold at that. "What did you just say?"
"You heard us," said Lemon, living up to her Reverb callsign in the process.
"Lady Belladonna told us all about it," Seal informed them smugly. "In Vale, all speech is protected speech."
"And you listened to her?" asked Rainbow harshly. "A leader of the White Fang here on campus, and you're listening to her?!"
"Former leader of the White Fang and current First Lady of Menagerie," corrected Sour.
"I can respect that," said Applejack quickly, her hand tightening on Rainbow's shoulder.
"Besides," Sour continued, "Magic double-checked, just to make sure she wasn't mistaken. Lady Belladonna flew all the way to Beacon to check on her daughter. You know, the girl you accused of faking her death just because she left campus for special ninja training."
It was then that another person ambled up to the confrontation.
"Oh, hey, Maud," Sunburst Flare said with a cheerful wave. "Fancy meeting you here."
"Sunburst," Maud replied with a nod in greeting.
Rainbow frowned at the Haven student, then blinked at her deadpan teammate. "You know this guy, Maud?"
"We met through a dating app," Maud replied. "It didn't work out."
Rainbow.exe has crashed. Restart? Y/N.
Maud dated? Maud used a dating app?
"But we still remain friends!" Sunburst added cheerily, stroking his beard. "But... why is everyone standing outside Team Fairstar's room?"
"Your cousin isn't answering her scroll," replied Sour. "None of her team is, not Indigo, not Sugarcoat, not Twilight."
Rainbow.exe has crashed. Restart? Y/N.
Maud dated a filthy Crystaller?! One of those... those savages?!
"Oh, well, she's not answering my calls either, just straight to voicemail," confirmed Sunburst before walking between the two teams up to the door to Team FIST's room. "Maybe they left a note on where they were going in here."
With that, Sunburst waved his scroll in front of the lock, and the door hissed open without further ceremony. Maud followed him immediately inside. The rest of Teams JSPR and SSCL required half a second of stunned silence before following him in.
The room they found was… empty. There was not a soul there, nor was there any sign of there having been anyone there. The beds were immaculately made, the shelves were clean, and there was not a spec of any waste to be seen. There was nothing there… nothing, it turned out, save for four letters resting on top of a box.
With a blur of multicolored motion, Rainbow dashed for the letters, quickly picking out one labeled "From Twilight" in her handwriting and snatching it up, tearing the envelope open.
Before she could begin reading, the rest of the large group slammed in around her in a crowded effort to read all the letters at once. Somehow, someway, Rainbow managed to read Twilight's letter. Well, she and a few others she couldn't properly see.
Hey all.
I'm not sure who's going to find this first. I mean, Team SSCL, you guys are probably going to notice something's up first, but you're willing to trust us to stay safe. I appreciate that. And Team JSPR? I love you guys, but you do tend to be a little quick on the draw when you think something's hinky. Plus, you already know I've been poking around in some dangerous things.
If it's Professor Snake Eyes who's reading this, I swear, we filed all the paperwork ahead of time!
And Sunburst, if you found this while checking in on Radstorm, I guess I owe Straight twenty lien.
Anyway. We're headed off to Vacuo with my cousin Spike. There's a lot of bad stuff going down in Atlas, and we can't be anywhere near it when it all goes belly up. Besides, we all got jobs waiting for us when we get settled in at Shade; that'll be nice to put on the resume.
When things do blow up, though, we're confident that you eight (well, ten, assuming Weiss and Blake answer the call, but I bet they'll be pretty busy defending either Vale or Menagerie) will be able to save Atlas while we do our part in Vacuo. I'm sure you'll do great andwon't die horribly will make sure all our friends and family make it through all right.
And guys? Please, all of you, at least TRY and get along? For me?
Love,
Twilight
I'm not sure who's going to find this first. I mean, Team SSCL, you guys are probably going to notice something's up first, but you're willing to trust us to stay safe. I appreciate that. And Team JSPR? I love you guys, but you do tend to be a little quick on the draw when you think something's hinky. Plus, you already know I've been poking around in some dangerous things.
If it's Professor Snake Eyes who's reading this, I swear, we filed all the paperwork ahead of time!
And Sunburst, if you found this while checking in on Radstorm, I guess I owe Straight twenty lien.
Anyway. We're headed off to Vacuo with my cousin Spike. There's a lot of bad stuff going down in Atlas, and we can't be anywhere near it when it all goes belly up. Besides, we all got jobs waiting for us when we get settled in at Shade; that'll be nice to put on the resume.
When things do blow up, though, we're confident that you eight (well, ten, assuming Weiss and Blake answer the call, but I bet they'll be pretty busy defending either Vale or Menagerie) will be able to save Atlas while we do our part in Vacuo. I'm sure you'll do great and
And guys? Please, all of you, at least TRY and get along? For me?
Love,
Twilight
"I appreciate that she's confident we won't all die horribly," commented Seal after she had finished reading the message.
Rainbow looked over and glared at the ancillary Shadowbolt, who kept that same stupid grin on her face.
"Spurs," Sour said, her tone eerily calm, "what the devil is she talking about? What dangerous things has she been poking into?" She whirled on Team JSPR's leader as fury seeped into her voice. "What in the world did you drag Twi into?"
"She… we… listen, it's complicated," hedged AJ nervously.
"You…" Sour leaned in close to the blonde's ear, "bitch."
"Hey, you want to know what we were doing, Crystal Trash?" snapped Rainbow. "We were trying to follow a rabbit hole that started when Weiss Schnee used her as a meat key to get into Park Place and stir up trouble."
"Her callsign is Firebrand; I suggest you use it," Maverick snapped right back.
Sour held up her hand to stop him, and then her next words were constructed out of cold fury. "This was an internal Shadowbolt matter. Twilight's one of ours, and so is Firebrand. You overstepped your authority and your jurisdiction by sticking your noses into it."
"We were only following orders," insisted Applejack. "General Ironwood asked us to talk to her. He's the one that started us on this path."
"Well, then he overstepped his authority too," insisted Sour with a voice as hard and as cold as the armor of a northern Solitas bunker. "We Shadowbolts have grown up together, fought together, shed blood together. We're a family, and no one, not even a general, has any right to come between us, not like this."
Before the argument could continue, Sunburst suddenly spoke up very rapidly. "Oh hey, would you look at this! The letter underneath is from my cousin! I'm going to read it out.
"My friends,
"I must apologize for the suddenness of our departure, but it was necessary. We have learned that a great and powerful enemy has infiltrated the highest levels of Atlesian society, from the SDC to the government, and therefore, we can provide no details, for fear that such information might be unintentionally leaked onto the CCT network and draw their attention upon you.
"We have left for Vacuo to fight this great enemy with newly discovered allies, but do not fear. This is not goodbye; it is only farewell. We shall return, all of us shall return, for we cannot bear to be apart from you, our beloved friends, forever, nor can we stand to be apart from our families for the rest of our days. Please tell my parents that in person and tell my little sister to dry her tears.
"To my cousin Sunburst, know that I draw from your example the strength needed to set out on this journey. I will need that strength, for this cruelty strains my heart to leave you all now when the Shadowbolts have just grown by two.
"Team SSCL, watch after them and keep them safe, for they will be in far more danger than us in the coming time.
"Until we meet again, Sunny 'Radstorm' Flare."
Sunburst paused, shaking his head. "I still don't believe it. Vacuo? That just doesn't sound like Sunny at all. She hates sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere."
"Twilight did say that they had jobs lined up," pointed out Maverick.
The bearded Havenite shook his head. "No job is worth that much sand, not to Sunny. No, there's definitely something bigger going on here."
"Two more," said Flash in worry as Lemon took the next letter in the pile and opened it up.
Rainbow skimmed it. It was from Indigo, farewell, grand adventure, gonna be awesome, blah blah blah. A lot more upbeat than Twilight and Sunny's letters had been, so at least it wasn't all doom and gloom.
The next letter was from Sugarcoat and was less of a letter and more of a directory. As it turned out, the box the letters had been resting on was filled to capacity with more letters, and every single one of them was addressed to a different member of Sugarcoat's family. It was nuts! Just how many brothers and sisters and cousins and on and on did she have, anyway?
Oh, and there was a personal note in the letter. Rainbow didn't really get it, but it made the Shadowbolts tear up when they read it. Must have hit like a ton of bricks.
Rainbow shook her head as the crowd broke up, the two teams naturally gravitating away from each other. "Twi," she muttered, "why didn't you tell us?"
Flash answered quietly. "We were insisting Twilight keep her team out of it, so I guess she didn't want us to know when she brought them in."
CRACK!
Rainbow's semblance was speed, but without it, she was no faster than any other totally awesome Huntress, and she had apparently blinked at the wrong moment, because between one second and the next, Sour had crossed the gap between the teams and now stood, tears -- tears? From Sour Sweet? -- leaking from her eyes, open hand outstretched in a followthrough, and Applejack was on the floor, surrounded by cherry blossom petals, nursing her cheek.
Rainbow snarled, wishing she had her weapons. Instead, her hands rose, balling up into fists, and she could sense Flash and Maud moving to flank her.
"Stop," ordered Applejack. "Ah deserved that." Her voice dropped. "We deserved that."
The multicolored Huntress's head whipped around, and she stared at her team leader incredulously. "Excuse me?!"
"They're family," Applejack said simply. "Ah guess we were just too darn mule-headed ta see it."
"But-!"
"Dashie," Applejack interrupted, coming to her feet, "just imagine how we'd feel if Twi had cut us out like that. If she was a part of our team, even, and she chose to cut us out like we had her do ta her actual team? 'Twasn't right, what we did."
Rainbow snorted, pointing at the letters. "C'mon, AJ, none of 'em told Team Scarlet what's going on."
"Not in those letters," Lemon retorted confidently.
"They'll find a way to tell us what's going on," insisted Sour. "They're not going to leave us in the dark, not after all we've gone through together."
And... Rainbow couldn't help but believe her. The Shadowbolts... she'd never seen them like this before. The lack of condescending smugness was... downright unsettling.
"Yes, but how?" mused Sunburst, both literally and figuratively walking into the middle of the conversation with one hand stroking his beard. "I mean, it's not going to be any obvious place, and of course, they didn't tell me, so that leaves out any couriers at the school, which means…" The fire-haired man turned to face the rest of them. "Well, that just means we've got another mystery on our hands, gang."
What? Rainbow thought in confusion. Why does that sound like a canned line from him?
Whatever it was, it wasn't enough to stop Sour from compulsively looking at her scroll.
"We'll, uh, we'll leave you to it," said Applejack in a conciliatory tone as she motioned for the door.
They had barely taken two steps when Sour broke the short silence. "Firebrand was right."
Seal was the first to reply. "What do you mean?"
Sour looked up. "They just found Joshua Joyce dead in his cell. They're calling it a suicide."
"'Vacuo'?" Rarity repeated dumbly. "She left...to go to Vacuo? But why on Remnant would... there's nothing there!" She could have understood running away to Mistral; it would still have been a beastly thing to do, but at least she could have understood it: the sophistication, the glamour, the high society. But Vacuo? Vacuo? To abandon her friends for a patch of barren sand?
The world's gone completely mad.
"I... I can't believe she's gone," Pinkie sobbed, her hair deflating visibly as tears welled up in her eyes. "She... she can't be gone; this... this has to be... but pranks are only funny when everyone's laughing, and I... this is real, isn't it?"
Fluttershy nodded glumly. "I'm afraid so, Pinkie."
"But I was going to throw a welcome home party!" Pinkie wailed. "And then I wanted to hear all about it from everybody, and I was going to make a video of all the footage so that they'd all have something to remember the tournament by, and we were going to have ice cream, and... and why did she have to go?"
Fluttershy reached out and enfolded Pinkie in a hug, holding her close as the pink-haired girl sobbed into Fluttershy's chest. "I don't know, Pinkie," Fluttershy murmured, "but...we have to believe that whatever her reasons were, they were good and important. After all, Twilight wouldn't just leave without a reason. Twilight... wouldn't treat her friends that way."
There was a horrified gasp, and they saw then that Vice Principal Luna had become stricken with a terrified grief, her eyes locked on the image displayed on her scroll.
"No, General Ironwood… James," she muttered hoarsely. "No!"
(V3E7: Esprit de Corps, Part II | V3E8: Esprit de Corps, Part III | V3E9: Esprit de Corps, Part IV)
- Author's Note 1 (Cyclone)
- Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett)
Team FIST is flying off into the distance, but will return in a future volume. Next time though we'll find out just what happened to James Ironwood when he came face to face with oblivion in the final part of "Esprit de Corps."
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Volume III: Episode 9: Esprit de Corps, Part IV
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
(V3E8: Esprit de Corps, Part III | V3E9: Esprit de Corps, Part IV | V3E10: Finals)
Volume III: Episode 9: Esprit de Corps, Part IV
* * *
Volume III: Episode 9: Esprit de Corps, Part IV
* * *
Outwardly, General James Ironwood remained stoic as he marched to the air pads. Internally, however, he was on pins and needles. After all, two of his people had been kidnapped, were being kept in a fortified location, and the resources he had on hand were... scarce, to put it mildly.
There was some small part of him that pointed out that Thundercracker wasn't one of his, but rather an enemy agent. He ignored that, though. The Decepticons evidently had seen him as dead, expendable, but even if they hadn't, Thundercracker was under his aegis. If he was to die, it would be at Ironwood's hands, not the hands of MECH.
He wouldn't die, though, and neither would Penny. Not today.
The Bullheads were a motley collection that had been pulled together as quickly as any of the Atlesians dared, mostly from the Beacon hangars. They were armed, and they were armored, and that was better than any of them could have hoped when they first started that morning. Inferior though they may be to any Atlesian Skygrasper or Skyray or even the rarely seen and unobtrusive Skybird, these aircraft would still prove valiant steeds for the Academy faculty and support personnel in their mission to save their comrades from certain doom.
"General Ironwood! General Ironwood!" came the familiar voice of Ruby "Snapshot" Rose.
Ironwood turned and saw the bloodcrowned girl bounding over the surface of the airpad to meet him, cape flying up to reveal her weapon strapped to the small of her back.
"General Ironwood," repeated Snapshot as she finally skidded to a halt in front of him, barely seeming winded. "I heard from Glynda what happened to Penny and Thundercracker. I want to help."
"This is an Atlas operation, Snapshot," pointed out General Ironwood.
"In Valish territory," countered Ruby quickly. "You'll need a Valish representative, just like Targeter did for the mission to that bunker. I've fought MECH before, and I know about all of Apricot's secrets. Sir, I can help. This is what I signed up for.."
It was a logical argument, countered only by the fact that she was so young. Still, Farsight hadn't been much older when she had earned the Solitas Cross for her actions on the battlefield. Age was something that sadly meant little when the bullets were flying and even less to the Grimm.
And... it was her choice. Her skills and capability meant she wouldn't be a detriment to the mission, and she had already experienced the trials that came with the job.
Ironwood nodded. "Very well. You're with the rest of Apricot. Go."
With that, she sped past him to take up position in Team ARC's Bullhead. Ironwood was quick behind her. They had wasted too much time, and seconds counted.
The impromptu squadron of Bullheads rose into the air and sped off towards their quarry. As they did, Ironwood's scroll began to vibrate. He ignored it.
He was on a mission, and whatever else was going on could wait.
"So that was you?" asked Optimus in wonder as he sat with Ozpin upon a boulder in the mountain forests around Vale and looked out upon the vast city from under the cover of the trees.
Ozpin's scroll chimed. He ignored it. Whatever it was, it could wait.
"Indeed so," he confirmed instead, not minding at all that he had been up for over twenty-four hours and had spent much of that time talking. "I thought if I rephrased things in just such a way, I could get people to accept that freedom and liberty were better options to the autocracy that humanity had been mired in since it returned to Remnant. Turns out, I was right, and things started to improve. All those centuries of failure, and all I needed to do was appeal to what I thought were their worst natures."
"Things are often counterintuitive like that," observed Optimus in amusement. "I'm impressed, though; you came to that conclusion faster than I did, and with much better results."
"You say that, but I never got to finish my work as the Last King of Vale," lamented Ozpin. "The Council is a house of cards. I died before I could devolve power away from the throne, leaving the Regency Council to appoint its own replacements. If something were to happen to enough of them to reduce it below a quorum in a short enough span of time, there's no legal recourse to replace them without an actual monarch on the throne."
"Perhaps," Optimus allowed, "but fragile as it is, it is still better than what came before, is it not?"
"Yes," Ozpin conceded.
"Then you built them an example, a foundation -- unsteady as it is -- which can be reinforced and built upon," the Autobot leader comforted him.
"I... suppose you're right," Ozpin relented, then began pacing agitatedly. "It's just... the Council, Parliament, at times, they're just so selfish and short-sighted. They won't even support my proposals to fix these dangerous flaws in the system as it stands."
"With freedom comes the freedom to make mistakes," Optimus reminded him. "You have led your people into taking the first step. It is up to them to finish the journey. If you continue to pull their strings from the shadows, are they really any more free than they were before?"
Ozpin felt something drain from him as his shoulders slumped. "That's... you raise an excellent point, old friend. Perhaps I have spent too long in the shadows."
"Then perhaps it is time you step back into the light."
Ozpin's scroll rang, with a ringtone he unfortunately could not ignore.
"One moment, please," he said, holding up a hand as he pulled out his scroll.
"Of course, old friend," Optimus acquiesced, backing away and transforming to ensure he would not be caught on the scroll's camera, and if he did, it would be as an innocuous truck, albeit in an unusual location.
Ozpin answered the call and was met by an all-too-familiar face.
"First Minister Novo," he greeted. As per tradition, First Minister Novo Aris also held the office of Speaker for Parliament, the only seat on the Regency Council not to be appointed through the sovereign's authority, instead elected by Parliament. Although no law mandated the First Minister and Speaker for Parliament be the same person, tradition often held greater strength than written law. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"'To what-'?" sputtered the First Minister incredulously. "Do you have any idea what I just received, Headmaster? What the entire world apparently just received?"
Ozpin had a sinking feeling that, perhaps, he should have checked that earlier notification after all.
"I'm afraid I'm out of the loop, Madam First Minister," he admitted.
The tiny image of the First Minister gesticulated expansively. "Apparently, there's a powerful interkingdom conspiracy infiltrating up to the highest levels of government."
Ozpin's brow furrowed with concern. He'd heard whispers, of course, rumors mostly, but rumors were often the earliest warning one received when working in the shadows. "What sort of conspiracy?" he asked. "I'll see who I can spare to look into-"
"Yours!" roared Novo, interrupting him. "You and Ironwood and Lionheart and Theodore, running your own little shadow war against..." She paused. "Who are you fighting? Who the hell is backing that terrorist, Cinder Fall?"
Ozpin blinked. That... was unexpected.
He considered how to approach this. Denial? No, crazy theories were cropping all the time. The evidence must have been quite convincing for Novo to be confronting him about it.
"The immortal witch-queen of the Grimm," he answered finally. After all, perhaps Optimus was right. Perhaps it was time to step back into the light. Perhaps it was time to start trusting again.
She gave him a level stare, then shook her head. "Nope. I'm not even gonna dignify that with a response."
"Minister, I can explain," he continued.
"You can?" Novo asked, blinking in surprise. "Well, that's grand, because I want you in the Parliamentary Building first thing tomorrow morning to explain to the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the rest of the Regency Council, and all of Vale why you thought it was a good idea to run a global conspiracy out of your office."
Ozpin closed his eyes to center his thoughts and nodded before opening them again and looking Novo in the eyes. "I can be there within the hour, if you would have me." He lowered his gaze. "Add legitimacy with a swift accounting, no chance for a coverup."
"You're worried about that?" she asked. "How about you go tell your co-conspirator General Ironwood to quit having a pitched battle on top of a crime scene!"
Ozpin blinked at that. "I'm sorry; he's what?!"
"So you don't know everything," she snorted. "That gives me some comfort at least. Ozpin, do you know what platform I was elected on?"
He racked his brain. "If I remember right, you were-"
"Doesn't matter," she interrupted. "Doesn't matter because of everything that's happened in the last month. Do you know what's happened in the last month, Ozpin?"
"Well, it has been rather-"
"Everything!" she cut him off again. "Everything has happened in the last month, and most of it within the last week, and nearly all of it revolving around your school in some way."
"Madam First Minister," he defended, "my faculty and students are doing the best that they can."
"They're doing too much, too fast, and no one can keep up," was her reply. "Oh, and forget about chastising General Ironwood."
Ozpin blinked again. "Why-?"
"Because I just remembered: he's not our problem," she retorted. "He's Atlas's problem and a walking diplomatic incident the Atlesian Council just decided to deal with. That's how fast things are moving, Ozpin! Compared to all that, you are not that important. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a meeting with John about how we're going to react to zombie Colton and how we're going to handle it if he requests back pay for seventy years' pension."
"Good-" -- his scroll clicked -- "-day…" Ozpin sighed. "When it rains, it pours."
"Sometimes," consoled Optimus, "all we can do is hope to weather the storm."
The Bullhead's whining roar was all that General Ironwood could hear as the VTOL flew along through the sky at extraordinarily low altitudes; everyone else was silent. They were not, thankfully, silent due to fear; if anyone could pull off the sort of maneuvers that they were pulling, it would be Wild Bill, and they knew it. Instead, they were silent in determination, their minds fixed on the rescue of their comrades.
"What's the target area?" asked Snapshot, breaking the silence.
"The energon processing facility where this all began, the one plastered all over that message your teammates sent out," explained Ironwood succinctly as a bump of turbulence rippled through the VTOL's cabin.
Snapshot nodded. "Site Thirteen."
Aska -- Shadow; this was a mission, and Ironwood had to be professional -- perked up with interest at that. "You know the name of this destination?"
The Valish Huntress paused for a moment, considering her words, and when she answered, her voice was deliberate and slow. "My brother told me about it. Turns out, he was involved in the initial assault that brought that place crashing down."
"Wait a sec, I thought you said you didn't have a brother?" asked Rufus "Mad Dog" Madison, his voice slightly distorted by being filtered through the microphones and speakers of the new variant of his powered armor.
"Only found out about him recently," Snapshot replied, a strange mix of melancholy and joy in her voice.
"You're very lucky then," commented Shadow with a note of amusement in her voice.
"Indeed," agreed Ciel "Farsight" Soleil. "Not only have you found long lost family, but if he was involved in bringing this place down in the first place, then he sounds like a good and righteous man."
"He… I-I mean… Look, it's complicated," stammered Snapshot.
"What isn't these days?" asked Shadow rhetorically.
"Or any day," Mad Dog added.
Ironwood's eyes glanced back into the back where Snake Eyes was standing alongside Airborne. Was any of this having an effect on him? What would finally get him to make peace with Storm Shadow and end this madness?
"Still, whatever moral ambiguity needs to be sorted out, it is still good news, because now it can be sorted out," reasoned Farsight. "Penny will be overjoyed to hear this when we tell her."
Mad Dog's reply was fairly melancholy. "If we can tell-"
"When we tell her," interrupted Ironwood. "When. We are going to rescue Penny, and we are going to bring her home. Never for a moment anticipate failure."
Snapshot nodded. "I won't, sir."
"This is outrageous!" shouted Sylvia predictably. "Ironwood has gone too far this time!"
"Indeed. Between this and the credible accusations of treason, we must assume that he has gone rogue," agreed Camilla, putting on airs for the cameras.
The "this" in question was information leaked just a few minutes ago that showed that Ironwood was part of a vast international conspiracy between all the headmasters of the four academies. Why was this conspiracy in effect? Was this conspiracy actually just a clubhouse? How much power did they actually have? These questions and more were simply not being discussed, and there was no longer any time to ask them. The long built up avalanche had finally started; it was too late for the pebbles to vote.
"Most of the members of this conspiracy are Valish," pointed out Sleet, a story beginning to take shape in his mind. "In fact, his fiancée is Valish and also a fellow member of this conspiracy. No doubt, she seduced him into giving up all sorts of Atlesian military and Huntsman secrets. Atlas has been left weak and vulnerable because he couldn't keep it together."
"Perhaps that's why he had the Furchtlos destroyed," reasoned Sylvia. "To engineer a situation where its destruction would spur Atlas into a frenzy, so we would then attack any enemy of Vale that he could point to and say that they are the real enemy. It is good then that we did not fall for his lies and kept our composure. Now we see who the true enemy is."
"A thorough investigation will no doubt reveal that this 'Cinder Fall' person is one of the agents of this conspiracy, despite her claims to the contrary," agreed Camilla. "Assuming, of course, that she actually exists and is not an elaborate fiction. What real person could have evaded such a thorough search for so long?"
"Someone who was being fed inside information, of course," speculated Sleet.
And with that line, Ironwood's fate was sealed, and they could move on to delivering it.
Sylvia looked around the room with a grave expression. "It's clear now that there is only one course of action we can take, and it's the one we've long put off until now."
"Brace!" shouted Wild Bill as the Bullhead screamed along the ground.
It was practically kissing the dirt, but it was held steady and somehow didn't crash. Ahead of it was a set of doors built into the side of the mountain that had been sucked off their moorings and away from the tunnel they were blocking by twin strikes of gravity implosion missiles. Two more missiles were fired down that newly revealed dark corridor, followed by a third shortly after.
Flying nape of the ground at hundreds of miles an hour, the best pilot in the Atlesian military threaded the needle.
The thing that struck Ironwood about flying through that tunnel was how short it was. He wasn't given any time to contemplate the fact that mere inches separated the VTOL and all those onboard from oblivion, nor was he able to consider the incredible speed that they were going through it at. They were simply on one side of the mountain one moment, and then on the other side the next.
They were in a valley then, and ahead of them were the ruins of Site 13. A few figures could be seen moving around, barely, but there were scant seconds available to look. The timing had to be perfect for what came next.
"Jump!" ordered Airborne.
Ironwood leapt from the Bullhead, and instantly, there was a sudden yanking pain that felt that it would tear apart his body as his parachute rapidly decelerated him from hundreds of miles an hour to a near dead stop in the blink of an eye. Without his aura, he would have been a bloody smear on the ground, but with his aura, he was merely in incredible pain all over his body… even the parts that weren't there anymore. It was a situation that was no doubt being mirrored by all the members of the strike team, but for him, his mind was occupied only with himself.
He hit the ground, and with great speed, detached himself from the parachute harness even as he tucked into a roll. There were five men ahead of him in green and gray clothing, the uniform -- such as it was -- of MECH. He stopped his roll and drew his two sidearms: semi-automatic revolvers chambered for the .500 Bushwacker Magnum cartridge and loaded with semi-armor-piercing high-explosive rounds.
There was a pair of terrific fireballs and a thunder like the pounding of artillery. Once. Twice. Then the third peal was of a single quality.
The five men were taken off their feet and twisted in mid-air from the force of the impacts and the resulting blasts, spinning around with the visual indications of breaking auras almost lost. Break they did, though, and with their sundering, all manner of bludgeoning injuries were inflicted upon them by their hitting the ground. One was managing to get up though, his strength beaten but still able to fight.
His aura broke in finale a split second before he dropped to the ground from a severed neck.
The general looked up and to the side to see Snapshot on the roof of a building, already focusing in on another target. He wasn't sure how Qrow would take his niece being on the battlefield like this, but Ironwood saw then that she seemed to be born for the fight, and… and he could see why that scared Glynda so, and yet brought her great comfort still.
Ironwood moved to cover, taking shots at any agent of MECH that he could see. The rest of the impromptu fireteam followed after their own fashions, and in those brief seconds, he was able to take stock: no casualties, no visible injuries. It had been a textbook insertion so far.
"Snapshot, where is the most likely spot for the enemy to put their air defense controls?" asked Ironwood quickly, his gaze only briefly looking at the young sniper before shifting to look again for threats.
"It doesn't matter," reported Snapshot stoically, but loudly enough to be heard over the alarms now being raised. "I spotted airships under active camouflage netting. They can just network the base defenses to the airships' own sensor suites and then use them in combination with the weapons on the ships."
"That could work to our benefit," offered Shadow in a voice that was almost quiet. "If I can get to a network access point, then I can bring the whole system crashing down."
That idea brought back a microsecond brief flash of unpleasant memory for Ironwood of the day he had first found his children, and all the unconscionable things done to them in that wretched place. Just as brief, though, was the flash of acceptance. After all, this was the gift of her and her brother, the unique power passed on to them by their birth parents. To deny its use was sacrilege, and to deny to use it in the service of others was the height of blasphemy.
"Snapshot, Shadow, with me. Let's find an access point," ordered Ironwood. "Farsight, Mad Dog, go with Airborne and start hunting for base defenses. Snake-Eyes, do what you do best."
With that, the group split up. Snake Eyes bounded up and out of sight, and those ordered to take out the defenses stepped out of cover with Mad Dog in his Vulture Mk. II powered armor leading the way. Snapshot broke from cover and went back up to the roof of the nearest building with her semblance, Shadow used some ninja tricks of hers to do much the same, and Ironwood followed by recoil-boosting with his sidearms.
They moved across the base with the swiftness of a cast of falcons, moving in on a specific building that Snapshot had evidently remembered as the most likely spot for a network access point. It did not look too different from the other buildings around them, save that it was smaller, and its Cybertronian-sized door had been sliced rather cleanly in two with what looked like a simple plastic tarp set up to protect the innards from the weather. There were surprisingly few guards about the compound, and the upcoming facility was no exception.
Suddenly, they found themselves needing to hit the deck as machine guns formerly concealed opened fire. They dove behind the nearest piece of rubble as the ground churned around them, narrowly avoiding being shot. Above that din of overlapping booms, however, came a whooshing followed by terrific explosions as a multiplicity of missiles from Mad Dog's Vulture Mk. II armor descended upon weapon emplacements in destructive waves.
Ironwood took the lead next, recoil boosting across the distance to the building and through the tarp. He found in there two more MECH agents, which he quickly dispatched with a trio of shots each. Somewhere along the line, he had reloaded, but he could not recall having done so.
Next to him, a large door was open with a single man on a set of scaffolding built about what looked like a titanic computer. He aimed his blocky rifle at Ironwood and opened fire. Several rounds struck home and caused Ironwood's aura to dip before the MECH agent was struck in the back by a shaped charge, flinging him from the scaffold. He screamed as he tumbled through the air to land on the hard floor with a wet crack.
The general looked up and saw his daughter upon the scaffolding's top, looking down at the dead body on the floor. Both Snapshot and he were at her side within a second. She was shook up, trying to hide it, but…
"It's okay; you did what you had to," offered Ironwood firmly.
She was having a hard time processing it, so much so she was having trouble hiding it. "I…"
Snapshot's voice was clipped as she broke into the conversation. "Hey, figure it out later. This is the compound's main security computer."
"I… yes," said Shadow hoarsely with a nod as she turned around towards the computer. "Yes. I can do this."
Ironwood's daughter started to examine the giant computer controls, looking for an access point. She found it and then drew out a simple cable from a concealed location. Shadow then jammed it into the access port she had chosen and seemed to enter a sort of trance.
"What's she doing?" asked Snapshot curiously, her eyes scanning the room and entrance, carbine at the ready.
"Getting us in," answered Ironwood as he himself glanced about the room while trying to keep watch on his little girl.
The lights flickered, the ground shook with the staccato thunder of explosions, and then, very suddenly, the computer turned off. Shadow took the cable out of the access port, and her breath was ragged. Nevertheless, she stood up.
"The automated defenses are down, the network has been crashed, and I know where they are," reported Shadow quickly. "They're being loaded onto separate airships. Neither of them are there yet though, and Bladerider's closer. The rest of the ships have already left or are preparing to leave; they've been evacuating since yesterday."
"We'll regroup with the others and rescue her first then," decided Ironwood. "Let's move!"
Councilor Sylvia sauntered cheerily toward the stairs, nodding to her new chief of security as she passed him holding the door for her. "Zandar."
"Ma'am," he returned the greeting, closing the door behind them.
She continued down the stairs, whistling a familiar tune.
"You know," she said as she reached the bottom of the stairs to the basement where her "guest" awaited her, "I've always admired that little spider."
"The spider that always fails in the end?" sneered her guest from the chair she was bound to.
"Tsk," she tutted, leaning in. "Persistence in the face of adversity. I would expect someone in your position to understand the virtue of that, Councilor Sylvia."
Her platinum blonde hair had grown ratty over the years, her round face marred by cuts and bruises, her body the same as her face, but her voice was still defiant as ever. Her eyes, though… her eyes told a different story. Those shining silver orbs had grown dim, less mirrors and more metal lumps. That dead hope in those dull irises always warmed Sylvia's heart.
"It took some time, but my persistence has finally paid off," she taunted gleefully. "Thanks to the great General Colton so generously coming back from the dead, I've finally been able to remove the greatest obstacle from my path. Your General Ironwood can't stop me now."
Her lips curled into a cruel smile... before she heard something. It started deep and throaty, and it took until the bound Sylvia threw her head back before she realized her captive was... laughing?
"Something amusing?" she sneered.
"Just you," her prisoner answered. "It's been... what? Three? Four years? And what have you got to show for it?"
"My efforts are clearly too subtle for you," she snapped reflexively, defensively. She coughed and straightened her tie. "The Colton Walls will fall, Atlas's military will be purged, and I will stand triumphant."
"I bet that just endears you to the people," the annoyingly revitalized captive fired back.
The unbound woman turned. "Well, that's the thing," she said. "Your approval rating's higher than ever. Apparently, Atlas wants someone who looks like you but acts like me."
That her popularity had less to do with what she'd tried and more to do with the... less than ideal compromises she'd managed to push through was something she didn't feel inclined to tell her prisoner.
She chuckled at her helpless victim. She needed her alive for now, but that didn't mean she couldn't have fun. She savored the feeling of power... before the other Sylvia reared her head back and lunged. She blinked reflexively as a globule of saliva struck her cheek and dripped down onto the lapel of her pantsuit's jacket.
Rage contorted the free Sylvia's face for a moment, and she backhanded the prisoner. Fuming, she straightened up, whipping a handkerchief out from a pocket to dab herself clean.
"You really should be more careful with this new jacket," she said, trying to salvage some dignity out of it. "You paid quite a bit for it, after all."
The free woman finished cleaning herself, and her face grew a sadistic smile as she turned and started to walk away, throwing her voice over her shoulder to speak. "Ah well, if you're not willing to speak like civilized people, then I really must be going. After all, there's still so much work to be done if we're going to have the final solution to the Atlesian question ready in time."
"You won't win," declared the beaten and broken Sylvia as her eyes grew ever brighter.
The well-dressed Sylvia paused just as she was about to exit the room and turned around to face her captive. "What was that?"
"You won't win," repeated the imprisoned Sylvia, her eyes now shining defiantly like twin, unbroken moons. "The General won't give up so easily."
"Ironwood is no longer in any position to stop me," the free Sylvia reminded her with a sneer.
"Perhaps," agreed the prisoner before barking out a harsh and bitter laugh. "But in stopping him, you've just dug yourself in deeper. You were always going to lose eventually, but now? Now, you've invited the lion in for tea."
The free Sylvia looked at her for a moment in disbelief before scoffing, and as she turned back toward the door, she left one final parting shot: "Such heroic nonsense."
She slammed the door shut behind her, cutting off the other Sylvia's semi-hysterical laughter.
Heavy thuds echoed down the halls from the advance of the Vulture Mk. II's armored feet. They were soon joined by the booming cacophony of the autocannons mounted on each of the arms, the howl of the missiles leaping forward from each of the packs of projectiles mounted on each shoulder, the otherworldly noise of twin lasers mounted in a turret hanging beneath an armored glacis on the front. Return fire beckoned, but so too did the sound of rounds pinging off the impregnable defense of the one they called Mad Dog.
He was once more leading the charge, this time against a fairly motley collection of green and silver combat androids.
"I thought you said the automated defenses were down?" asked Snapshot pointedly as the group consisting of Team ARC and General Ironwood hid behind the power armored tinkerer.
"They are; these must not be networked," reasoned Shadow from beside her.
"They're learning from our playbook," observed General Ironwood before firing upon the androids.
There was an exit ahead, and they wasted no time running through it.
The area they found themselves in was a large room like a factory floor where a platoon of androids led by three human MECH agents were escorting a human-sized container on a hoversled. One of the humans was dressed in the familiar attire of one of the higher ranking MECH grunts, but the other two were dressed in clothing that wouldn't be out of place in a lab if it hadn't been for the color scheme. There was little doubt about it; these were Penny's captors.
The next words out of the mouth of the MECH grunt removed the rest of the doubt.
"Stay back!" barked the man while he and the androids raised their weapons, and the scientists cowered. "Another step, and the cute redhead gets a shaped charge lobotomy."
They froze, but they didn't lower their weapons.
"Now, we're going to walk right on out of here, get on our ship, and leave this all behind us," said the MECH agent slowly. "You just stay right here and stew on how you just weren't good enough to save your friend."
There was a flicker of movement near the entrance.
"That's a good little puppet," mocked the grunt as the group moved out of the factory floor. "You obey our orders just like you obey the orders of your alien masters, and everything will work out-"
A shining shuriken spun out from the dark of the roof to strike the hoversled in a very precise location, causing it to suddenly drop to the ground. The grunt looked up, and the Atlesians acted. Ironwood and Team ARRC opened fire with their non area-of-effect weapons, while simultaneously, Flint, Lady Jaye, Gung Ho, and Airborne -- all newly delivered with the second wave of Bullheads that had arrived after the air defenses came down -- came around the corner of the entrance to the factory floor with guns blazing.
Many of the androids whipped around to fire on the new attackers, even as those among them fell. Ironwood's group took the opportunity to start their own attack, unleashing a fusillade of death and destruction. The two attacks from two different angles with heavy ordinance turned what should have been a desperate fight into a glorified slaughter.
No sooner had the bullets stopped, though, than were the members of Team ARRC rushing over to the casket, no doubt fixated on the wish that it would not be an apt comparison to another kind of casket. By the time they arrived, Airborne and Gung Ho were already opening it up, while Flint and Lady Jaye swept the room and checked the bodies. From above, Snake Eyes dropped down in front of Ironwood.
"Good job," the general commented.
Snake Eyes nodded.
There was a gasp from Snapshot as she stood above the casket. "Penny! Your leg…"
"Friend Ruby? Friend Ciel? Professors?" rambled poor Bladerider in a disbelieving voice, now visible in the container with her left leg severed just above the knee and covered with a rubberized cap. "You came to rescue me?"
"The Atlas military never leaves a man behind, kid," quoted Gung Ho as he reached down to grab hold of her. "Now, we just got to get you out of there before some crazy booby trap goes off, and… wait a second; this ain't blood."
The perpetually open-shirted Atlesian had reached down and brushed his hand against some of the liquid collecting in the casket that had clearly slipped out from behind the cap somehow or otherwise had been there before. Gung Ho brought his hand up and sniffed the fluorescent pink liquid. His face warped in confusion.
"Smells like energon," he commented. "They do some crazy experiment on you, kid?"
"No, I'm just…" Bladerider paused briefly in horror. "A gynoid. I'm not real. I'm not-"
"Penny, we're in the middle of a combat zone!" blurted out Snapshot, and everyone glanced her way. "I'm sorry! I just think that we might not have time for an existential crisis."
"That's the right call," agreed Airborne, settling in on Bladerider's other side and helping Gung Ho pick her up.
"Why'd they take her leg?" asked Lady Jaye aloud. The brown-haired woman was the wife of Flint and seemed rather enraged about what had happened to Bladerider: small wonder why, with their daughter Marissa sitting back at Beacon's daycare center at that very moment.
"As an example to Thundercracker," put in Shadow. "While I was in the computers, I found out that MECH discovered Penny's nature during our last encounter with them. They were going to brainwash her into being an infiltrator and assassin."
The general nodded at his daughter. "Shadow, we'll debrief about what you found in the network later; right now, you and the rest of your team need to get Bladerider to safety." With that, Gung Ho and Airborne passed Penny off to Mad Dog's power armored hands. "Snake Eyes, you're with me; we're going after Thundercracker. Flint, you take the others and see what damage you can do to the other airships still on the ground. Schnell!"
And just like that, they all moved to follow his orders, with him and the ninja master running off on the other half of their rescue mission.
Raven Branwen had been asleep for but a few minutes before she was awoken by a sky shattering explosion.
In seconds, she was up and about, donning her clothing and weaponry at such speed that things seemed impossible to the normal man. Thusly, she sprang forth from her abode and out into the encampment. She found it untouched, and she was puzzled.
Then the whistling started, and the attack came screaming out of the stars. She looked up just in time to see the rocket motors of a dozen missiles twisting in a spiral pattern before they slammed into the ground. Where they impacted, fire and dirt erupted from the ground, sending men and tents and parts thereof flying into the air.
Her people were dying.
A dark shape passed overhead and vanished into the night sky. Her eyes narrowed, wings of fire flared from them, and her gaze pierced the darkness -- a useful trick Summer had mentioned to her before... before -- to identify their attacker: an Atlesian Skystriker, banking around for another pass.
Atlas? she thought incredulously. Had Mistral finally broken down and gone begging to their northern ally for help? Was this a consequence of Leo's shenanigans? Did they think she was in on his schemes?
As it screamed back in, the Skystriker blazed through the sky just above the treeline, laying down raking fire from its twin underslung cannons and leaving trails of fire and destruction wherever those deadly beams touched.
Raven curled her fingers, summoning the twice-stolen power she possessed. The elements were hers to command: fire, wind, water, lightning... earth.
A spire of granite thrust itself into the sky in the speeding aircraft's path, but rather than collide with it, it swerved and banked and shifted its shape to come rolling and skipping across the ground to a stop. After a moment, the Skystriker stood, now towering over them, the red, blue, and grey color scheme tinted in shades of orange from the fires that still burned around them.
She recognized him.
"Starscream," she hissed.
"Impressive trick, Raven Branwen," he sneered. "You almost got me. Earth dust, I presume?"
She said nothing. Let him think whatever he wanted to think. Instead, she focused on gathering yet more energy. The wings of fire streaming from her eyes grew brighter and larger, but the Decepticon didn't seem to notice.
"No matter," Starscream said dismissively. "You've caused me enough trouble. Tonight, you-"
She launched herself at him, Omen blurring out of its rotary sheath as she lashed out at him, again and again, battering his aura. He was tough, with aura reserves to match his size, but he was too big to dodge in these close quarters. Compared to her, boosted as she was with that stolen power, he was clumsy and slow, and even the blows he blocked carved away at his aura.
But he could get lucky. A stray backhand sent her flying, but he was unable to take advantage of the opening, for she could see Vernal rallying the tribe. Their weapons were a hodgepodge of firearms, of little use in a battle of this scale... but enough to distract him as she slashed at the air, opening a portal through which she passed, allowing the very momentum he had given her to carry her back into him at full force.
Omen's blade shattered, along with Starscream's aura.
"Aha!" Starscream crowed triumphantly. "My structural integrity field may have fallen, but it will regenerate. What will you do without a blade, hmm?"
Wordlessly, Raven sheathed Omen, activated the rotary scabbard, and drew it forth with a new blade.
"Oh," he said. "Oh, dear."
She smirked, savoring the crestfallen look on the Decepticon's face as she pressed the assault, hacking and slashing. Raising Omen up and leaping into the air, Raven brought the blade down in a powerful overhand blow. Starscream instinctively raised his right arm to block... and shrieked as her blade sparked and cracked and severed his forearm.
Raven discarded the broken blade and swapped it for another fresh one as she advanced. She'd need to get stronger blades if all transformers were this durable. Starscream tried to back away, but with a clench of her off-hand into a fist, a wall rose up behind him to cut off his escape.
Starscream brought his left arm up, the gun barrel attached to it gleaming in the fire light. It was too long and -- mounted to his upper arm as it was -- too unwieldy for him to effectively aim it at such close range. Still...
Omen's new blade flashed twice, severing the muzzle of the weapon, then the hand of that arm.
"No more, Raven Branwen!" Starscream pleaded as he cringed against the wall she'd summoned. "Grant me mercy, I beg of you!"
Raven didn't even deign his plea with an answer.
The strong live. The weak die.
She slashed again and again, replacing the blades as they failed under the impacts, until Starscream lay on the ground, his limbs severed, unable to even try to escape.
Raven stood on his abdomen, looking down on him. She'd been watching the Autobots and Decepticons in their battles, and even here, what Starscream tried to protect only confirmed it.
She tapped Omen's blade -- the sixth one for the night -- right on the center of his chest. "Right here, isn't it?" she asked rhetorically. "Your... 'spark chamber,' was it?"
Starscream's eyes widened, and Raven held up a fist, gathering and focusing the twice-stolen power at her disposal. Around them, small rocks and other debris trembled and danced, some even lifting off the ground as the air positively hummed with energy.
KRAKA-THOOM!
The night turned briefly to day, a lightning bolt more powerful than she'd ever before seen the need to create splitting the sky. Starscream howled as it struck his chest, piercing through the living metal, and as Raven blinked her eyes clear, releasing the magic at her command, she stepped forward and glanced down.
The bolt had carved straight through him, front to back, burning a hole that cored him. His eyes, once glowing red, were dim.
She let her shoulders relax as she hopped off and began to walk away, the fatigue finally catching up to her.
It was over.
She heard a ragged cheer and looked up, her gaze sweeping across the survivors of the tribe that gathered there, weapons in hand, with Vernal -- ever faithful Vernal -- in the lead, a rare smile gracing her face. A faint smile crossed Raven's own lips in reply.
They had been tested, and they had survived. They would recover, and they would rise from this stronger than ever.
The strong live. The weak die.
A gasp cut through the cheering, and Raven saw one of them -- Shay, wasn't it? -- pointing in horror.
Raven turned, eyes widening as she saw Starscream staggering to his feet, his injuries healing. Most of his limbs had reattached themselves somehow, and the hole in his chest was being filled up with some kind of syrupy gray substance that was launching itself from one side to the other like a lathe. Suddenly, the severed hand flew up and reattached itself to his wrist.
Starscream was once again fully armed and operational.
"You fool!" he taunted. "As you can see, not even destroying my spark chamber will kill me. My spark endures! I am immortal! I cannot be killed! Not even mighty Megatron can slay me!"
Raven froze as a familiar terror clutched at her heart, and she backed away, shaking her head in disbelief.
This couldn't- it wasn't possible!
And yet, as Starscream, laughing, rose to his full height, towering over them... it was.
She took another trembling step back, raising Omen before her. She screwed her eyes shut and brought the blade slashing down, cutting a tear in reality itself, then dove through.
"Fall back!" she heard Vernal order. "Retreat!"
And the portal closed.
They could see another large casket, like the one that had contained Bladerider multiplied a hundredfold, being loaded onto one of the airships. They had evidently been seen, too, though, and the mighty airship began to take off. Ironwood and Snake Eyes redoubled their efforts and soon were bounding across the remaining space between them.
With one final mighty leap, Ironwood came close to that airship, and then while in the air, he drew his sidearms and fired. The recoil propelled him into the sky and towards the ascending vessel. Again and again, he fired, and soon, he found himself flying through the narrow gap of the MECH ship's closing cargo door.
Somehow, Snake Eyes was beside him already, because of course he was.
Ironwood rolled to the side behind the giant casket, just barely dodging a single shot from an assault rifle.
"Everyone, get out of here!" barked the voice of a dead man: Colonel Leland Bishop.
There was a mad scramble of boots moving towards the front, and then there was only one set of steps against the metal.
"Colonel Bishop?" shouted Ironwood.
There was a chuckle. "General Ironwood? My, this is impressive. When was the last time you went into the field personally? It's been years, hasn't it?"
"I'm not rusty, if that's what you're implying," remarked Ironwood even as he quietly reloaded his guns.
"I'll be the judge of that, if you don't mind," commented that surreal voice.
Then, suddenly, there was a burst of automatic weapons fire.
"You brought Snake Eyes along with you? You brought a Joe?!"
Ironwood raised an eyebrow at the mad reply. "I think you've gone loopy when you went into hiding, Colonel Bishop."
Ironwood whipped out from around cover and aimed his primary sidearm at the -- slightly more beat up since the last time they had met -- face of Bishop. He fired. The rogue colonel dodged, just barely, and slid behind cover himself.
"Please, call me Silas," remarked Bishop. "If you're cavorting with the Joes, you might as well use the lingo."
"You're speaking nonsense," shot back Ironwood as he began to search for a way to get a drop on Silas; sure, he'd play that name game, for now at least.
There was another belch of automatic gunfire, and Ironwood leapt atop the casket to fire down at Silas. A round hit, and it sent him spinning into an immediate recovery that he used to open fire on the general. They both retreated onto opposite sides of the casket after that.
"I'm speaking the truth!" insisted Silas. "You're just too blind to see it."
"I see that you're just a thief looking for a quick lien," countered Ironwood with righteous fury. "That's why you created MECH."
"A temporary means to a permanent end," reasoned Silas. "I created MECH to protect Remnant from invasion."
Ironwood felt like laughing. "Nice try, Bishop, but the timing doesn't quite work out."
"Not the Decepticons, General," Silas scoffed. "We've already been invaded, years ago."
What on Remnant is he talking about? Ironwood wondered.
"Tell me," Silas continued, "does the word 'Equestria' mean anything to you?"
Ironwood looked over in confusion at Snake Eyes, who shrugged.
"Can't say it does," replied Ironwood, noticing in the gloom for the first time the controls for the cargo door and the casket's hoversled.
With a quick series of gestures, Ironwood directed Snake Eyes to take care of Silas while he took care of the mission. The ninjitsu professor nodded in assent. They weren't likely to get another shot at it, but Snake Eyes was the best, and he could get them that luck.
"Then you are just as ignorant as I thought you were," sneered Silas.
Snake Eyes leapt over the casket, and soon, the sound of clashing metal and hand-to-hand combat could be heard. Ironwood didn't waste any time, rushing towards the cargo bay door controls. He very nearly didn't stop, but he managed to slow down enough such that he didn't break anything and got a hold on the lever long enough to throw it down.
The doors were opening, and Ironwood used a recoil boost from one of his pistols to fling himself back to the casket. The wind was howling then, but he kept his focus on the mission. He hit the controls marked for release on the casket, and the top opened with a spring to reveal the surprised blue and grey face of Thundercracker.
"General Ironwood!" shouted the shocked Decepticon. "Why are you here?!"
"No man left behind, Thundercracker," replied the general, aiming his pistol at some of the bonds keeping the Cybertronian in place and studiously trying to ignore Penny's severed leg that someone had decided to duct tape to the floor of the casket on the other side of him.
"But General… I'm not one of your men," pointed out Thundercracker in what sounded like embarrassment.
Ironwood fired an SAP-HE round at the metal keeping Thundercracker's right wrist secured, blowing it apart. "That's where you're wrong. We're not leaving without you."
"'We'?" asked Thundercracker.
As if on cue, Snake Eyes went flying over their heads… to land crumpled on the floor.
"How…?" began Ironwood, trailing off to avoid the lid closing again.
"If you had focused your efforts and worked together instead of splitting your attention, you wouldn't need to ask that question," answered Silas, stepping atop the casket lid.
Ironwood dove towards the end of the casket that was furthest into the airship, the end with many controls for the hoversled it was mounted on. With a flip, Silas landed in front of him. Any attempt to go further into the ship to force a landing was out of the question now.
"But then again, you've always had that problem, haven't you, General?" continued Silas. "That lack of focus has kept you from following the leads and pulling back the curtain on what's really going on."
"I know exactly what's going on," retorted Ironwood, searching out of the corner of his eye for the right controls for what he needed.
Silas laughed. "You think that just because you know about magic, the Maidens, the Relics, and Salem, you know what's really going on? Did you think that just because that senile old reincarnating wizard Ozpin couldn't see past his stale game of chess that the real world didn't exist? You know nothing, James Ironwood."
Time seemed to freeze for James as his heart understood what Silas was saying, but his mind failed to comprehend it. "How could you know that?"
That bald, scarred head smirked. "I told you. I didn't stop digging, not for a long time. That's how I learned about G.I. Joe, an insidious conspiracy that's used as a puppet to control the world for invaders from a parallel world called Equestria. They control everything, and everyone, even you."
Ironwood shook his head. "No. No, that's not possible."
"Come now, James, you're too smart for that," insisted Silas, and then, the leader of MECH held out his hand. "Stop this senseless killing. Join me, and together, we can free this world as comrades in arms."
Ironwood's reply was to jam his right arm into the controls of the hoversled, sending out sparks and flames to burn his gloves and sleeves. He yanked out a collection of wires, and with that, the hoversled shot out the cargo bay doors. Revealed now was the mechanical nature of his right arm, a cybernetic replacement… just like everything else on the right side of his body. He hated seeing that, but he loved his men more.
Silas moved to seize a gun and strike the general down, but Ironwood was already running across the hangar to grab hold of Snake Eyes's limp form. The black suited ninja was thrown over his back, and he transitioned into a dead sprint. The salvos of fire came far too late.
Ironwood leapt out of the door of the ship, Snake Eyes's unconscious body still gripped tightly in his arms. As he was spinning around, he saw the ship they had just left fade from view. Because of course MECH had invisibility; that was just the sort of day he had been having.
He pointed one of his pistols, Due Process, down towards the ground and fired a gravity round to recoil boost and slow his descent. It worked, slightly. He was still falling far too quickly and picking up speed again.
He fired again, and again, and again, and it was at that point where he realized he was out of ammunition in the cylinder. He holstered Due Process quick as he could, shifting his position to place Snake Eyes above him as he groped awkwardly for his other pistol. The general would probably die, but if his men could live, then it was a fair trade.
It was a trade that never had to be made. Suddenly, and yet slowly, Ironwood felt his speed decreasing. His descent was getting more and more sluggish, until eventually he stopped.
He had happened to stop at just the right height to be face to face with a very pleasantly smiling Glynda Goodwitch, and that in turn brought joy to his heart.
"Hello again, James," she said sweetly. "Fancy meeting you here."
"Oh, you know, just thought I'd drop in," replied Ironwood with a shrug.
He was settled onto the ground of the valley in which Site 13 still sat, and with that, so too did he settle Snake Eyes to lie there. Ironwood stood up, and the first thing to catch his eye was that Aska was staring at him with unmasked awe. The second thing to catch his eye was the crowd of Valish soldiers with weapons drawn backed up by the Valish airships in the sky.
"Well, isn't that just adorable?" sneered the leader of the Valish forces as he stalked forward. "General Ironwood? I'm Colonel Jack Burns, National Emergency Strike Team. Would you mind telling me, in small words, why you thought it was okay to begin having a pitched battle over a crime scene that we were just about to comb for evidence?"
Ironwood straightened up and walked right up to Colonel Burns to look down on him. "I was rescuing my men, Colonel."
Burns's eyes narrowed and he flung his arm out to point at where Thundercracker was coming out of the casket that had evidently survived the fall. "That is not a man. That is a giant alien robot."
"Call him whatever you want; he's under my protection either way," retorted Ironwood. "You have a problem with that, you can take it up with the embassy."
There was a shift in Burns's position, and he pointed his finger at Ironwood's face. "Oh, I will. Count on that."
With that, the colonel turned and stalked back towards his soldiers and back towards the interior of Site 13, and when he had gotten far enough away, Flint came up with the most enforced stoicism Ironwood had ever seen on him.
"Sir, I…" began Flint in whisper, trailing off.
"What's wrong, Flint? Out with it," ordered General Ironwood.
Flint looked like he still had to steel himself after that. "Sir, I regret to inform you that the Provisional Council of Atlas has voted to dismiss you from your position as commanding general, to be replaced by General Joseph B. Colton, and to suspend you from your position as headmaster of Atlas Academy until such time as a suitable replacement can be found. The council has also voted to have you dishonorably discharged, and as such, you are no longer a member of the Atlesian military. We have also been ordered to place you under house arrest at Beacon Academy until you can be transferred to a prisoner transport for extradition back to Atlas, where you will be facing charges of conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to commit terrorism, conspiracy to commit mass murder, misuse of government property, several counts of first degree murder, kidnapping, falsifying documents, high treason, and several other crimes yet to be decided."
Ironwood's jaw flexed open and closed like a dying fish, his expression otherwise completely blank.
"Oh."
Raven staggered into the bar through the rolling, garage-style door; curious choice, that.
The mustachioed bartender was cleaning some glasses -- did bartenders ever run out of glasses to clean? -- and watching some news broadcast on the holographic display in the corner.
"-and in other news, Billy the Third escaped from his enclosure on the Beacon farm. He was quickly caught and returned to his enclosure, but not before wreaking havoc on the academy's vegetable garden."
Huh, Raven thought, the goat's still there.
At the start of their fourth year, she'd stumbled across some ancient rule granting the top-ranking fourth-year team the right to keep a goat on Beacon's farm. She'd been so tickled with the idea -- and it was another way to prove that Team STRQ was the best -- that she'd convinced Summer to invoke the rule in question. Besides, goats were good eating, if the need arose. She'd heard some third-year team talking about continuing it next year; apparently, they had, and they weren't the only ones.
Good times, she thought morosely as she planted herself on one of the round orange bar stools.
"What can I get ya?" the bartender asked, setting down the glass he'd been cleaning.
"Strongest thing you've got," she demanded, slapping some lien from a stash she'd raided on the counter. "Leave the bottle."
The bartender hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
"You got it." He reached down under the bar and pulled out a bottle and a fresh glass, setting it before her.
Almost before he let go, she snatched the bottle from his hand and tore the cork out with her teeth. Ignoring the glass, she began to chug.
The strong live. The weak die. The strong live. The weak die. The strong live. The weak die.
So why was she still alive?
Gen- no, James stared into the shot of whiskey in his hand, rocking it back and forth, sending the ice cubes clinking against the glass. Qrow Branwen hadn't been particularly subtle when he was hauling the non-alcoholic beverages out of this little hidey hole in order to replace it with harder stuff.
James had let it go. After all, while he was concerned about security for the Vytal Festival, enforcing campus rules -- unless it was his students breaking them -- wasn't his job, and it had seemed harmless enough. While he wasn't a lush like Qrow and would never drink while on-duty, James was no teetotaler and had shared more than a few drinks with his fellow comrades in arms.
Well, former comrades now, he supposed.
He threw his head back, chugging the whiskey, savoring the feeling as it burned its way down his throat, then lowered the shot glass to the table, gazing at it, debating whether to refill it or not.
So, this was how it ended. A lifetime of blood, sweat, and tears, all shed to protect the kingdom he loved, not just from the Grimm or terrorist groups like the White Fang, but also from threats like the Decepticons, no matter how hobbled he had been, and Salem, no matter that she was a threat almost no one in Atlas knew of... and this was how it ended.
Crack!
He blinked as he realized he'd let slip control of his cybernetic hand and squeezed too hard. The shot glass hadn't shattered, no, but it had certainly cracked. With a sigh of disgust, he shoved it aside and reached over to grab a fresh one, pouring himself another shot, not bothering with the ice this time.
But he didn't drink it, not yet.
He closed his eyes and let the tears fall.
"It's all right," a familiar voice murmured into his right ear as a warm weight fell across his shoulders. "We're here for you."
He blinked and looked to his right. It was Glynda, her arm wrapped around his shoulders in a side hug.
"'We'?" he repeated.
She nodded past him, and he looked to his left. Standing there diffidently were Aska and Kogetsu.
"Father, I..." Aska said hesitantly, trailing off. "I have not been a very good daughter, have I?"
"I haven't exactly been the best father," was the first thing he could think of to say. Ever since he'd taken them in, he'd provided for them, tried to be there for them, but duty always called, duty to Atlas, to the military, to the academy, to Ozpin. They understood, he thought, but it had put a strain on their relationship nonetheless.
Aska rushed him, wrapping her arms around him. "I am sorry!" she cried. "If I had done better, if I had kept Penny from being abducted-"
"Don't blame yourself, Aska," he said, shaking his head. "They would have found another excuse. It was only a matter of time. I only hope I have done enough "
"He is right, Sister," Kogetsu said as he, too, approached, stepping around the bar. His eyes scanned the selection, and his quick hands darted out, retrieving a pair of small saucers and a bottle of sake. "Let us not worry about fault now, or the future. Not tonight." He set them on the bar.
James cocked an eyebrow.
"No one should have to drink alone."
(V3E8: Esprit de Corps, Part III | V3E9: Esprit de Corps, Part IV | V3E10: Finals)
- Author's Note 1 (Cyclone)
- Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett)
Next time on Spark to Spark, Dust to Dust, the show must go on as the Vytal Tournament moves into the "Finals."
Last edited:
- Location
- United States
Starscream's immortality sounds like a horrible hybridization of nanotech and grimm shadow-stuff. That just sounds like a terrible idea.
Also, Silas thinking Equestria, land of friendship and magic, is some sort of shadow government string puller is fucking hilarious.
Also, Silas thinking Equestria, land of friendship and magic, is some sort of shadow government string puller is fucking hilarious.
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
Remember, it's not all sunshine and rainbows in Equestria. Every light casts a shadow, and the brighter the light, the deeper the shadow.
Cody: There's layers to this. Many many layers.
Starscream's immortality though… well, that just works in layers.
Metroidwave
Strength To Lean On
- Location
- Somewhere in Colorado
Does it? I can' t think of an instance of Starscream that actually had regeneration before. He just kinda refused to die, no matter how damaged his body got.
KnightDisciple
Brotherhood. Unity. Peace.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
"WHEN THERE'S NO MORE ROOM IN THE PIT, STARSCREAM RETURNS TO...other Pit what the Pit?"
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
The reason he regenerates is part of what makes it multilayered.
Err, okay?
Cody: That reference flew over my head.
KnightDisciple
Brotherhood. Unity. Peace.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
I was referencing a line from Dragonball Z: Abridged, during the last few episodes of the Frieza/Namek arc.
Volume III: Episode 10: Finals
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
(V3E9: Esprit de Corps, Part IV | V3E10: Finals | V3E11: A Day Off)
Volume III: Episode 10: Finals
* * *
Volume III: Episode 10: Finals
* * *
Glynda closed the door without making a sound, a feat made all the easier thanks to her telekinesis semblance. That same power helped her clean and smooth out her clothes to look at least somewhat presentable. Somewhat. She'd still need to get a fresh change of clothes after so long wearing the same outfit.
At least James had finally managed to fall asleep. He'd need his rest if he was going to beat back the lies and slander that threatened to end his family line with him. If he-
Glynda cut her own thoughts off, walking past the purposefully incompetent guard keeping his eyes down as she walked off down the hall towards her room. She needed to clean up as well. She wanted to sleep, but that was off the table.
She presumed that the reasons why would be reiterated by Ozpin when she found him near her apartment door.
"Ozpin," she addressed him, "what are you doing here?"
"Just informing you that the rest of the council wants you at the hearing too," answered Ozpin, standing up a bit straighter from where he had been at rest. "I wasn't able to get them to back off."
She knew that would happen, that it was the only thing that could happen.
"I have other duties to attend to," she deflected, knowing that it wouldn't work but still feeling obligated to try.
"Duties to your family?" asked Ozpin perceptively.
"A wife has certain obligations," she confirmed pridefully as she walked past him. "Responsibilities to her husband and her children."
"You're expecting me to remind you that you aren't a wife yet and list off all your other duties that take priority as the time, but I'm not going to do that," Ozpin informed her, and she found herself turning to look at him in curiosity. "The wording of the Atlesian Provisional Council's indictment of James and some of the things said by their members has the Regency Council much more amenable to our situation."
Glynda held back a laugh but smiled nonetheless. "In other words, Novo's taken personal exception to Sleet's implication that all the women of Vale are also women of the night, and so, she's willing to stand with us simply to slight the one who slighted her."
Ozpin smiled. "Sometimes, humanity's worst impulses are liberty's best friends."
"Perhaps," allowed Glynda, and then she frowned, "but I'm afraid that brings me little comfort while my betrothed is all but condemned."
"Then would it bring you comfort to know that I have a plan?" asked Ozpin with a stance that Glynda interpreted to be "mischievous."
"What is it?" asked the blonde woman in a tone that she hoped wouldn't bely her worry.
"The first plan is that we keep James pinned down here long enough for General Colton to sort this whole mess out, possibly by giving him a disease that is relatively mild but communicable enough that the Atlesians would be terrified to take him back," explained Ozpin.
"You said 'the first plan,' so I hope you have more than just that nonsense in mind," groused Glynda. "You show a lot of faith in General Colton."
"The second is that we convince the rest of the Regency Council, after the hearing, to grant him citizenship and deny Atlas extradition rights."
"That sounds like a good way to start an international incident and possibly even a Second Great War."
"The third is that we fake James's death and spirit him away to stay with the Autobots."
"That's…" Glynda paused, thinking over the idea in her head a few times. "Actually, that might work. You'd need to convince James to go along with it though, and of course, he would need to get some way to hide his identity. Not to mention the fact that Kogetsu and Aska will have to be informed about this, and you will need to find a replacement for me, because I'll be leaving with him."
"I can work with that," proclaimed Ozpin, bouncing up into the hall. "For now, though, we need to get to the Parliament Building to stop our own hides from getting tanned."
"I'll clean myself up then," said Glynda before opening the door into her apartment and entering.
It has been a while since we've been wrapped up in one of Ozpin's zany schemes…
"Ruby?" Blake asked gently.
"Hmm? What's up, Blake?"
Weiss was first in the shower, getting ready for the meeting Pyrrha had arranged for them. Blake would go next, but for now, this gave her the opportunity to confront their team leader alone.
"You've been staring at that spot on the wall for ten minutes now," she informed her. "Is there- how did things go with Yang?"
Blake knew Yang had turned herself in, and Ruby had been summoned for some sort of mission by the headmaster. Ruby had been out all night that night, and ever since coming back, she'd seemed... distracted.
It must be hard for Ruby, with Yang rotting in some prison cell somewhere. The guilt that struck Blake at that thought felt muted, though; it was just one more thing she needed to make up for, after all.
"Oh, yeah!" her team leader said, nodding with surprising enthusiasm. "It went great! Better than I could have imagined!"
"So what's wrong?" prodded the cat faunus. Better to get Ruby to voice it.
"Nothing," Ruby insisted, shaking her head. "It's just- I found out we have a brother."
Amber eyes blinked in surprise. "'A brother'?" She hadn't expected that. Was that what Adam had been holding over Yang to get her to cooperate while he indoctrinated her?
"Yeah," Ruby confirmed. "On Yang's mom's side." She frowned and fidgeted with her cloak. "It's just... he's done some terrible things. He's trying to be better, but... I don't think he really knows how. And I don't know how I can help."
Blake frowned. Well, she supposed she couldn't have been the only member of the White Fang to have second thoughts, and the White Fang weren't the sort of people to whom one would confide being half-human. She wondered if she knew their brother. She almost asked, but... Ruby looked so lost and worried.
It could wait.
"...Ruby," she said finally, "do you know why I chose to come to Beacon?"
"To become a Huntress," Ruby answered without hesitation.
Blake chuckled. "Well, yes, but do you know why I wanted to become a Huntress?"
"To make fairy tales come true," was the bloodcrowned girl's reply, her voice soft and wistful. "We talked about it before initiation, remember?"
Blake had actually forgotten that conversation, but with the reminder...
"Unfortunately, the real world isn't the same as a fairy tale," Blake pointed out.
"Well, that's why we're here!" the crimson-themed girl countered, undeterred. "To make it better."
"Well, that's why we're here!" the crimson-themed girl countered, undeterred. "To make it better."
"Part of it, I suppose," she admitted. "But I came to Beacon to become a Huntress so I could atone for what I'd done." She lowered her gaze. "I did a lot of terrible things with the White Fang myself, Ruby. I like to think becoming a Huntress will help make up for some of that. Your brother is probably feeling the same. He can be better, so long as he keeps trying, especially with you as an example to follow."
"You really believe that?" Ruby asked hopefully, silver eyes shimmering.
"Of course I do," Blake assured her, pulling her into a hug. "I have to believe that. About him... and about me."
Verte pounded on the door to Team JNPR's dorm room, stopping her fist in mid-air as the door opened to reveal Pyrrha's emerald eyes blinking at her curiously. Wait, was she wearing Jaune's Pumpkin Pete hoodie? No, of course not. That was silly. Pumpkin Pete was one of her sponsors; she probably had a whole closetful of their merch.
"Good morning, Verte."
"Morning, Pyrrha!" Verte chirped. "Hey, you don't need Jaune for anything before the singles matches start, do you?"
"No..." the redhead said hesitantly, shaking her head. "I, um, actually have to meet with Weiss and Blake; I have to introduce them to someone." She looked back over her shoulder. "Jaune? It's Verte."
Pyrrha stepped back out of the doorway, and Jaune slid in. "Hey, Sis," he greeted. "What's uuUPP?!" he squawked as she grabbed him by the collar and began dragging him down the hall. Jaune struggled a bit, forcing his sister to shift her grip, and as he bounced along, he shrugged and waved at Pyrrha. "Uh, I'll see you later, Pyr!" he called.
"Ow ow ow ow," Jaune deadpanned as Verte dragged him up the stairs -- bouncing off each step -- to the roof.
Throwing the door open, she hauled him up and pressed him against the wall.
"You knew, didn't you?!" she accused.
"About the headmasters?" he said. "Yeah, I knew."
"I mean about Lionheart!" she shrieked, shaking him back and forth.
His shoulders went slack at that. "No, that- that, I didn't know, Verte, I swear." He paused and hung his head. "I- I don't think even Ozpin knew. When he got the news..." He trailed off.
"So, he wasn't working for your conspiracy? Then who was he working for?!" demanded Verte.
"Salem, immortal witch-queen of the Grimm," answered Jaune instantly and honestly.
Verte glared at him in annoyance. "You're making that up."
"I really, really wish I was," he assured her. "The Seers are how Salem communicates with her agents. That's how we realized that Lionheart had been flipped."
"And how you knew to send your assassin after him," accused Verte hatefully.
"No!" exclaimed Jaune in shock. "Raven… Raven left years ago. I've never even met her. She's a bandit now and does whatever the heck she wants. We don't even have a way to contact her." He sighed. "None of us even knew about the Seer until the COPS called Ozpin to ask about it."
"You mean... you mean after..."
He nodded. "After he was killed."
Verte was silent for a moment, her mind working in that manic manner of hers, before she asked, "Did Lionheart know about you?"
Jaune shook his head. "No. I didn't even know about Lionheart until after he died. It sounded like he was pretty deep into Ozpin's confidence, though, so when he flipped-"
"You keep saying that!" objected Verte, giving him a shove. "What do you mean?! He was working for Ozpin until this witch lady you think exists-"
"She does," interrupted Jaune defensively.
"Shut up!" ordered Verte, giving him another shove. "Point is that Lionheart wouldn't just… Why are you the good guys? How do I know you guys aren't just as bad as the press and the Atlesian Council say you are?"
Jaune looked at her in shock and hurt. "Verte… it's me, Jaune! I'm not the bad guy here; neither is Ozpin or Ruby, and Salem certainly isn't the good guy. She controls the Grimm! That should be all there is to know about how evil she is and how little she cares about the lives of anyone. Cinder's one of her agents! You know, the one who blew up the Furchtlos?"
"Lionheart wouldn't work with someone like that!" insisted Verte. "You don't even have a reason for him to, do you?!"
"No," admitted Jaune. "No, I don't. None of us do. We have no idea why Lionheart betrayed us."
Verte's grip twisted his shirt. "Would Raven know?"
He blinked in surprise. "I... maybe? I don't know."
"It doesn't matter," Verte said with a weighty exhale. "I'll find out one way or the other when I take her life."
Jaune boggled. "What?! No! Verte, you can't!"
"Why not?" she asked derisively. "You've been living in Vale too long, Brother. Whatever those petty little men with their pretty little titles and promises of an Empty Throne say, we are not Valish. We. Are. Mistrali. Raven Branwen killed my teacher. There is only one response I can have for that: faida."
"A blood feud?!" Jaune sputtered. "No. No, Verte, that is not happening."
She paused, looking crestfallen. "You... you really wouldn't back me up on this?"
"First, what has Mistrali honor ever gotten anyone?" he asked rhetorically. "Second, when I said 'you can't,' I meant that literally. I've seen footage of Raven fighting, heard from people who have seen her fight; she'd kill you in seconds. And third... you know Ruby?"
She blinked in confusion. "Your ex? The one who ran into a three-way firefight and got shot?"
He stared. "How many exes do you think I have?"
"Well," she said with a shrug, "there's Weiss Sch- Weiss."
He groaned and closed his eyes for a moment. "We went on one date," he protested, then hung his head in resignation. "But yes, I am, in fact, talking about my ex who ran into a three-way firefight and got shot."
"What about her?" Verte asked, her eyes narrowing.
"Raven Branwen is Ruby's stepmother," Jaune explained, looking back up and meeting her gaze. He frowned. "Well, sort of. The timing is a bit backwards, and I'm not sure it actually works that way, but no one can seem to figure out a better word."
"Oh." She slumped, letting go of his shirt, then raised her head hopefully. "Vendetta?"
"That's still only going to get you killed in seconds."
She pouted.
When the Parliamentary Building had still been the Royal Palace, the Last King of Vale had renovated one of its ballrooms and the attached guest wing into the Parliamentary Chamber and then expanded it further. The massive room held seating enough for the Regency Council and a full assembly of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, along with their aides and attendants, members of the press, even a section for members of the common folk who wanted to view the proceedings.
Some might have said that it was a bit too much, but when he had had the renovations done, Ozpin's prior incarnation had been hopeful and anticipated that the population of the Kingdom of Vale would blossom such that every single seat in the massive auditorium would be filled by an MP from each of the settlements and districts in the land. The Great War had put an end to many of those ambitions, but since then, they had bounced back to even greater heights than they were at before the Great War… and yet still, there were empty seats.
Ozpin regarded the room and all those within it with a sense of awe. There was a sense of history here, of liberty soaking into the very wood itself. There was, perhaps, a fair bit of corruption mixed in, but that could be solved with elections. You couldn't pull off that sort of revolution in the old days without killing everyone, and that was just the way it had been. No more.
The headmaster's thoughts were suddenly broken by the sight of a shiny metal chrome dome near the front, and he decided to investigate.
"Destro, is that you?" asked Ozpin as he came to stand in the aisle next to where the man was sitting along with several men in suits wearing MARS pins.
"Ozpin!" greeted the head of the Mistrali Arms Research Syndicate jovially as he got up and reached out to shake the bespectacled teacher's hands, which Ozpin gladly indulged. "How have you been?"
"Oh, that answer changes from hour to hour these days," lamented Ozpin. "Yourself?"
"I was doing fine until this business with Cinder Fall started," admitted Destro. "She has humiliated myself and my company on the world stage with the Furchtlos and her little video release."
"It could be worse."
"True, I heard about what happened with Headmaster Ironwood. Nasty business that. Pass along my condolences to him, will you?"
"I thought your wife hated him?" asked Ozpin coyly.
Destro chuckled. "The missus can like or dislike anyone she wants, but she's not the one running the company. Ironwood has been a good customer in the past and a pleasant person to be around. It would be a shame if he were to lose his life because he was so blatantly framed for a crime he didn't commit."
"The Atlesian Council won't be happy to hear you say that."
Destro snorted. "If the Atlesian Council still have their jobs after this, I will be shocked. Better to make a deal with the winning side than someone who will be torn apart by an angry mob soon." He leaned in a bit closer to Ozpin. "Besides, Ironwood always paid his dues, while Sylvia still owes me two thousand lien."
"Sounds like a story, but it'll have to wait for now. I believe the session is about to begin," said Ozpin with a gesture with his cane to where the other councilors were getting ready.
He went to sit down at the central table, right next to Glynda, and Destro retook his seat. Before long, the other four members of the Regency Council filed in and took their customary seats at the table in front of the Empty Throne. At the center, of course, sat Regent First Minister and Speaker for Parliament Novo Aris. An empty chair stood to her right where Ozpin would normally sit when he attended these sessions. Further over from Ozpin's empty seat sat Regent Lady Mistress of the Posts Iris Arneaus. To the First Minister's left sat Regent Lord Grand Marshal John Keller, and to his left sat Regent Lord High Treasurer Felix Winchester.
The opening ceremonies, which everyone was quite familiar with, went completed without incident, and then they began. Ozpin was surprised, since it was going off much better than the time they had grilled that meatball production executive, which was just a mess from start to finish.
"I hereby call this inquiry to order," barked First Minister Novo with a snap of her gavel. "The objective of this inquiry is to begin an initial public examination of alleged conspiracy headed by Regent Headmaster Ozpin, which shall be done as quickly as possible. We have five other inquiries to get to this morning, so please don't waste our time, Headmaster."
Ozpin leaned forward slightly so that the microphone sitting on the desk picked up his voice. "I do not intend to, First Minister."
"That's good to hear," said Novo before glancing down at her notes and launching into the questions. "Headmaster, does this alleged conspiracy actually exist?"
"Yes, ma'am, it does," answered Ozpin calmly, and a murmur spread throughout the chamber.
Novo knocked her gavel again, and High Treasurer Winchester spoke next. "What is the purpose of this conspiracy? Are you truly trying to rule the world?"
"No," answered Ozpin calmly. "Our group is not trying to rule anyone, though I can understand why it can seem that way. Our membership does include several prominent members of the global community, after all. However, the purpose of our group is merely to defend the populace, much like normal Huntsmen but in a more secretive manner against the enemy… correction, one of the enemies."
The councilors all looked at each other, and Grand Marshal Keller took the next question with a great deal of interest. "Could you clarify? Just how many secret enemies are you fighting? Who are they?"
"As of this moment, Grand Marshal, we can safely say that we have engaged with no less than four ruthless terrorist organizations determined to rule the world that operate in secret," answered Ozpin, prompting more murmurs that he ignored. "We have already briefed yourself and the other councilors about one of them, and they have been marked as classified. The others are MECH, an organization of technology thieves that appears to be preparing for war with yet another conspiracy that remains unknown to us; Cobra, a rapidly growing newcomer that one of our agents has engaged independently; and the oldest enemy of them all, a nameless organization ruled by a woman known only as Salem that has found a way to control the Grimm, and in this manner, they have also become corrupt and obsessed with the destruction of humanity."
"That is… quite a lot to take in, if you'll excuse me, Headmaster," spoke John Keller.
"I apologize, Grand Marshal," replied Ozpin in that same even tone. "I must confess that perhaps the newer members of our organization might have rubbed off on me, for they found all of these revelations to be quite pedestrian and not in the least bit exciting. Even the reveal that magic is real mostly resulted in confusion over why I thought it was important."
"Excuse me, but did you just say that magic is real?" demanded Novo, leaning forward threateningly. "Are you mocking us, Headmaster? Might I remind you that you are under oath and that failing to tell the truth as best you are able is a criminal offense."
"Oh, no, I am being quite truthful," Ozpin assured them. "Women who can control the weather, men who can turn into birds, people who can shoot Grimm-melting laser beams out of their eyes, and many other things thought mere legends are very very real. Magic is real."
"And?" asked Winchester leadingly.
"And what, High Treasurer?" repeated Ozpin with a slight bit of confusion.
"And is that all?" finished Winchester. "With all due respect to you, Headmaster, I think your new recruits might be right. That all sounds very unremarkable, such that I am left wondering what exactly makes what you call magic so much different than a semblance that you think it is worthy of note."
Ozpin had to admit, he was starting to wonder what exactly Vale was putting in the water to make everyone so jaded, but he didn't express those feelings out loud. "Well, magical powers can be used in addition to a semblance and don't burn through aura."
That caused another murmur in the crowd, and the councilors briefly conversed between them.
"Very well, we are willing to concede that magic might exist and probably has some marginal utility," admitted Novo. "However, that begs the question of why you thought it was worth keeping a secret for so long."
"First Minister, Salem's modus operandi is to use deceit and manipulation to influence peoples and events," explained Ozpin honestly, and boy did it ever feel good to say all of this out loud. "Past experience has shown that if information is not handled with the utmost care and given only to the most reliable and trustworthy people, it results in certain defection to her faction. The most recent example of this was, sadly, Headmaster Lionheart of Haven."
"Do you expect the whole of Vale to bend the knee to this Grimm cult leader now, Headmaster?" asked Novo in a tone that oozed motherly disappointment.
Ozpin paused to collect his thoughts, and when he spoke, he spoke with both hope and shame. "For a long time, Councilors, members of Parliament, people of Vale, the answer to that question was emphatically 'yes.' It's what we all thought, and have thought for as long as our conspiracy of light has existed. The world, however, has changed, and is changing even now at a pace that none of us can anticipate. I had been counseled by an old friend thought dead but now returned -- and my, isn't that just a sign of the times that such a statement hardly seems odd? -- to reveal all that would be revealed and more, and though the message sent out by Cinder Fall and her villainous compatriots may have forced my hand, I now swing through with it gladly. So much darkness has been revealed of late, yes, but also so much light. The heroes of old are returning, just as new heroes are coming into their own. What better time is there to reveal these secrets?"
During the speech, the other councilors had glanced at the holographic clocks on their desk, and it was clear that they had found something disagreeable.
"Unfortunately, that time is later, as we're on a tight schedule," said Novo bluntly. "Now, moving on to the subject of the Furchtlos and the atomic bomb used to destroy it: Why was this ship being used to transport this 'Amber' person over Valish territory, and why weren't you better able to defend against this attack? Is there any validity to the reports that you were actually in collaboration with Cinder Fall to destroy the Furchtlos as part of a wider scheme?"
"No, First Minister, that is a complete fantasy," answered Ozpin, trying to keep what he was really thinking out of his tone of voice. "We did not in any way collaborate with Cinder. Amber was merely an innocent girl blessed with a power sought by people like Cinder."
"...this is that magic thing again, isn't it?" asked Novo in what might have been annoyance.
"No, actually, in this case, we believe that Amber's power was stolen using dark science," explained Ozpin without missing a beat.
"Does that require another explanation?" asked Mistress of the Posts Arneaus.
"Not at this time, no," declared Ozpin. "It might not even be relevant to this discussion. 'Dark science' is just the best explanation we could come up with given the nature of Amber's injuries following the first attempt on her life. To the best of our knowledge, what happened should have been impossible, so obviously, there is more at work here than we are aware of."
"Another thing you were not aware of is the location of Cinder Fall, the murderer who killed again after slipping through your clutches," accused Winchester derisively.
"Yes, yes, she did," admitted Ozpin. "Just as she slipped through the fingers of every lawman on Remnant, going all the way back to when she burned her stepmother and stepsister alive as a child. The simple fact of the matter is that though Miss Fall clearly had no idea the sort of power she was dealing with when she stole the atomic bomb, she is still a very smart, very dangerous person who is very good at avoiding her pursuers."
"And Amber was onboard the Furchtlos because…" began Arneaus leadingly.
"Because we felt that Beacon was no longer a secure position for her to be kept in her medically-induced coma, and with the failure to capture Cinder rapidly despite the resources poured into the manhunt, we felt it best to move Amber to the most secure location that could be found on Remnant: Atlas Academy," explained Ozpin.
"You put a lot of stock in Atlas and their vaunted military superiority, or perhaps you just put stock in your friendship with James Ironwood," observed Novo, and then for the first time that day, she turned to Glynda. "Professor Goodwitch, would you describe your relationship with James Ironwood as love at first sight?"
Ozpin kept his surprise in check. That was a rather sharp transition into a topic that seemed wildly off-topic.
"Madam Councilor, that is a private matter," Glynda informed her, the assembled crowd, and the TV cameras.
"Answer the question, Professor," insisted Novo.
"I… no. No, I would not say that it was love at first sight," replied Glynda, a very slight blush coming to her cheeks. "I first met him during my first Vytal Tournament. I had... affection toward another man, and it was James that pursued me. He continued to pursue me over the years, off and on, until I eventually reciprocated. Again, this is a private matter."
"It took years to win you over?" rephrased Novo pointedly, arching an eyebrow. "So do you really love him then?"
"Yes!" hissed Glynda with an ever so slight but noticeable note of fury to her voice. "I am engaged to marry him. I have sworn to be a loving mother to his two wonderful children and however many I might bear him in the future. I have comforted him in the dark and stood for him in the light. Where he goes, I go, though all the Creatures of Grimm may hound us. I have full confidence that he will win this battle against the baseless slander hurled against him by corrupt little fools who have never had the courage to do half of what he does. Yes, I love him, Madam Councilor. Is that enough of an answer for you?"
Novo nodded and looked down at her notes. "Yes, I think that will do nicely, Professor. Now then, Destro, what is the nature of this technological terror you've constructed?"
Ozpin could practically hear the whiplash in Destro's neck from that change in topic, or perhaps it was his own?
"You mean the nuclear bomb?" Destro asked rhetorically before continuing. "It is exactly what you described it as and more. It is the most powerful weapon ever developed by mankind. It is in fact a weapon so powerful that no one nation could possibly be allowed to have it. It is precisely for this purpose that myself and my wife, the Baroness, have devised a nuclear proliferation treaty to guarantee access to all kingdoms to this weapon. We at MARS are even going so far as to make the first delivery of these weapons to each kingdom free. That is how much we believe in peace."
All those assembled were openly staring at him.
"Laird Destro," addressed Grand Marshall Keller, leaning forward, "are you trying to turn this inquiry into a sales pitch?"
"Why, yes," answered Destro shamelessly. "Yes I am."
Ozpin heroically avoided groaning. It's going to be a long day.
"Like I said, this is a lot to take on based on overlapping thumbs and some 'um's' and 'ah's,'" the General said. "We're going to need more solid evidence than that, and no, her voting record isn't enough. People change their minds. Politicians lie."
"In her senior essay at Atlas Academy, she claimed that, 'a true Huntsman will always find a way for justice to be done,' and a few months ago, she said, and I quote, 'a true Huntsman cannot be found and cannot be trusted to perform law enforcement duties, which is better handled by police' minutes before -- and I'm not joking here -- voting to replace the Mantle Police with combat school students as a 'budget saving measure,'" stated General Flagg incredulously.
Colton made a conciliatory gesture. "Some people change their minds more dramatically and often than others. What about the DNA scan?"
"Sir," Flagg said, "we have access to the official medical records, but getting a sample from the councilor herself to compare it with is proving difficult. She's recently replaced her entire personal security detail."
Colton shook his head. "Not sure the official records will matter. If she's smart enough to pull this off for as long as you're saying, she's smart enough to have swapped them out at some point."
"But not the ones at Crystal Prep," Winter interjected.
The General looked over at her. "What was that, Targeter?"
"Crystal Preparatory Combat Academy, a prestigious combat school in Crystal City," she elaborated. "Councilor Sylvia is a Crystal Prep alumnus. They keep genetic samples on file for all their students for identification in case something happens."
"And those records are secure?" asked Colton curiously. "Why couldn't she have just switched those out too?"
"Crystal Prep's records are some of the most secretive and protected on the planet," Winter answered. "I only learned even about the genetic samples' existence myself after an unfortunate incident involving one my subordinates at the time who had graduated from there."
"And if someone there is on the take and switched them out for her?" prodded the newly reminted Commanding General, looking for a weakness.
"Not even the principal has full access to the medical records; CPCA is a very prestigious combat school, after all, with a very select student body who tend to come from wealthy and influential families," Winter assured him. "The principal, the dean, and the head nurse would all have to sign off on it to access them."
"How's the database secured?"
"Keycards."
Colton nodded. "You up for an infiltration mission, Targeter?"
"Me, sir?"
He looked around pointedly. "I don't see anyone else around here who managed to track me down and single-handedly penetrate the security cordon around me, do you?"
"So, who is it we're waiting for?" Blake asked curiously. Weiss had to admit that she was wondering too. After she'd asked Pyrrha for advice, she'd arranged for a meeting with someone here in front of Benni Haven's, away from the hustle and bustle of the fairgrounds.
Before Pyrrha could answer, a somewhat familiar male voice called out, "Hey there, Invincible Girl!"
They turned as one to see a shirtless, dark-haired man waving at them. He had a strong jaw and a chiseled physique and wore black trousers with a red sash over his left shoulder and a white bandanna around his forehead. He looked vaguely familiar, like she'd seen him in passing somewhere.
For her part, Pyrrha let out a long-suffering sigh. "Must you keep calling me that?"
"It's part of your branding," the man said as he walked up to them. "Trust me, the sooner you embrace it, the easier it gets." He looked over at Blake and Weiss, giving them measuring looks. "And you two must be the Princess of Pain and the Ice Queen everyone's been talking about."
"Firebrand," Weiss corrected primly. Since being granted the callsign yesterday, she'd made a few discreet calls to spread the word in the media.
The man smiled broadly and looked at Pyrrha, gesturing at Weiss. "See, Pyrrha? She gets it. You have to own your branding."
"Wait, back up," Blake sputtered, her ears flat on top of her head. "'Princess of Pain'?"
"Well... as Chieftain of Menagerie, your father is the closest thing to a king on Remnant these days," Weiss mused aloud.
Pyrrha coughed and said, "I met Mister Ito during one of my first sponsorship shoots. He taught me a lot about how this works. Since he's a Vale native, I thought he might know an agent he might recommend for you two."
"When you make a career out of sponsorships, you're entering a whole new world," Mr. Ito said. "I guess I should probably show you two the ropes."
Blake shook her head. "I- I wouldn't want to be a bother, Mister Ito."
Weiss rolled her eyes. "We'd be happy for the help, sir." She glared disapprovingly at Blake, causing the ninja catgirl's mouth to snap shut with an audible click, her next protest unspoken. That girl just did not know how to accept help sometimes.
"Please," he said, "call me Quick Kick."
"Here," Weiss said, dropping a big stack of folders on the desk in front of Blake with a loud thump and startling the cat faunus. The two of them had returned to their dorm after Quick Kick had given them a few pointers on handling the media and contact information for some agents he recommended.
"What's this?" Blake asked curiously.
"I've been analyzing Pyrrha's matches," the former heiress answered, "not just in Combat Course and the Vytal Tournament, but over the years in the Mistral Regional Tournaments. I figured it might help if you end up facing her."
Blake's ears perked up as she began leafing through the folders. "You really think I can win?"
"Oh, heavens no!" Weiss said blithely. "This is Pyrrha we're talking about."
Blake's shoulders slumped as she sighed. "I suppose you're right."
"I don't think she knows how to throw a fight, and she'd be offended if we asked," Weiss continued.
"Th-that wasn't what I meant," Blake muttered, her ears flattening on top of her skull as she glared ineffectually at her best friend.
Megatron eased himself back into his command chair. The report from Soundwave had been quite promising, as had the one from the engineering crew. It would soon be time to move.
He brought up the broadcast.
Might as well enjoy himself until then.
When Silverstream arrived back at the seats in the stands that she, sadly, shared with Molly, she had been expecting a bad reaction…
"Did you make that yourself?" snorted Molly.
…and she had been right.
"Yes," answered Silverstream defiantly. "Yes, I did."
What she had made was a black shirt with the purple Menagerite flower Weiss had revealed during her doubles match lit on fire with the word "Firebrand" written in fiery font beneath it. After she had found out about Weiss's new callsign, she had found the closest shirt to the design that appeared in her mind the instant she had seen that article and then set to work. It took her all night, but she finally had finished it early that morning.
She wanted to sleep so badly, but she also wanted to watch the Vytal Tournament and see Weiss's best friend bring home the glory. What she definitely didn't want to do was have to deal with Molly's pestering.
Molly's mom smacked her upside the head.
"Ow!"
Luckily, it seemed like neither did her mother.
"Behave yourself, young lady."
"Sorry, Mom," whimpered Molly.
As Silverstream sat down, though, she heard the most unexpected sound.
"It doesn't look half bad," admitted Molly sourly.
It was, just as surprisingly, pleasing to Silverstream's ears.
The mood in the barn of Sweet Apple Acres was mixed.
"Death stalks us at every turn," moaned Vice Principal Luna.
"The lucky ones are those who have passed," lamented Pinkie Pie.
"You two, I swear," complained Granny Smith. "One bad day, and you fall to pieces. Why, back in my day, we were lucky to have days that good. Every night, we'd say prayers of thanks that we all didn't die horribly that day, and the same in the morning, because we'd be lucky to survive the night."
"Ha! Luxury!" mocked Principal Celestia. "Why, back when I was a fahnenjunker, at least three men would die in my company on every field exercise, and we wouldn't be able to head back to camp until we'd completed at least a hundred."
The four ladies were all seated at a table at the back of the massive room, which was filled with every member of the viewing party that had been there in previous days, plus a few extras who had only come in to see the finals. Most were focused on their own conversations, but others were looking keenly on the holographic screen displaying a sports channel that dominated the display and several secondary sports channels playing below it that were just waiting to be enlarged. Other people were watching the tournament in their homes or attending other viewing parties, for the tournament was an important bonding ritual for the whole settlement to keep them together instead of fraying apart from petty internal political disputes.
"How can you possibly joke at a time like this, Sister, when the body politic is about to explode?!" demanded Luna in outrage, finally raising her head. "With Twilight Sparkle gone, civil war between Canterlot and Crystal City is now inevitable!"
"Yeah, stop being such a meanie pants!" objected Pinkie in a similar manner. "Can't you see that General Ironwood was the glue keeping us together? And now he's been framed for a crime he didn't commit and is going to be killed by those fools in the council!"
"I think you two got your scripts flipped there," observed Granny Smith.
"It's called empathy," preened Pinkie. "Maybe you should try it sometime."
"Ha! Oh, that burn stings, but I've had worse," boasted Granny Smith.
Celestia laughed, and then spoke with an upbeat tone. "I know things may look bleak now, but I think you should all be able to take comfort in the fact that we can do absolutely nothing to change our circumstances."
Luna and Pinkie both raised single eyebrows in unison.
"Hey, I know that look," chided Granny Smith. "Attempting to assassinate the council and the leaders of two of the biggest political parties in the kingdom won't get you anywhere."
"You mock, but what else are we supposed to do?" asked Pinkie. "Everything's changing so quickly. We've got to act now, or all will be lost."
"It's actin' this quickly that's gotten everyone into the mess they're in now," pointed out Granny Smith crossly. "Siddown and wait for a day or two. Both of you."
"How could you possibly recognize that look?" asked Luna in worried curiosity.
"Let's just say that this ain't my first rodeo, missy," preened Granny Smith.
"Riiiiiiiiiight," said Pinkie, raising an eyebrow. "That's not creepy at all."
"As for Twilight," started Celestia, changing the subject, "at the end of the day, her being at Shade is no different than her being away at Beacon like she has been for the last semester. If you're worried about her, you can just call her scroll when she lands."
"Do those even work in Vacuo?" asked Pinkie.
"Why, yes. Yes, they do," Celestia told her.
"Huh. Hadn't thought about that. Maybe she's got some zany explanation for all this," mused Pinkie.
"Or a perfectly sensible one," offered Granny Smith.
"What is sensible these days?" asked Luna, straightening up enough to reach out and take a glass full of hard cider that had sat there undrunk for quite some time. "Still, I'll play your game, old nag. I'll hold off on the over-the-top schemes."
"And enjoy yourself," added Celestia coyly.
Luna glared at her sister with the unremitting fury of a thousand suns for several long seconds before replying, "Maybe."
"Well, at least we know that Rainbow Dash will find a way to have a good time," preened Pinkie Pie, trying to regain some of her cheer. "I have a feeling she's going to be first up in the second-year semifinals."
Rainbow Dash paced up and down outside the tunnel leading into the arena proper, waiting to see if she would get called for the semifinals match.
At least I know I'll get a call eventually. Unlike from some people.
"You okay, Rainbow Dash?" Applejack asked. Her arms were folded, and she was looking as though she was starting to regret deciding to put Rainbow through to the semifinals.
"What do you think?" Rainbow muttered.
"There ain't no call for that," Applejack said, quietly but reproachfully. "Ah know yer upset-"
"'Upset'?" Rainbow repeated, rounding on Applejack. "I am not upset, okay? I'm angry. Twilight... Twilight's gone! She left! She left us! She left, and she didn't even have the guts to say goodbye to our faces." Rainbow growled in frustration. "And you know what the worst part is?"
Applejack folded her arms. "Ah think yer gonna tell me either way."
"This was always going to happen!" Rainbow shouted. "All that 'Shadowbolts forever' stuff. They always meant more to Twilight than we did. She was always going to choose them over us. She always did choose them over us." She ran both hands through her multi-colored hair. "When I think of the amount of time we wasted on that-"
"Don't say it," Applejack warned. "Don't finish that thought, Rainbow Dash, or Ah guarantee that you'll regret it once you cool off some."
"Why shouldn't I say it?" Rainbow demanded. "Why shouldn't I think it? She hung out with them-"
"They were her teammates."
"She let them laugh at us and insult us, and did she stop it?"
"She tried-"
"Oh, yeah, I'm sure she tried really hard," Rainbow snarled. "And now she's gone. Just like that. Face it, Applejack, she was never our friend at all."
"Ah don't believe that," Applejack declared staunchly. "Twilight left because she thought it was the right thing to do, because of the danger-"
"Right, the danger, because a bunch of camels are going to be such a big help in saving Atlas from a conspiracy that scared the Commanding General of the greatest military on Remnant, a conspiracy with the power to get Ironwood fired and put on the chopping block," Rainbow said derisively. "She'll show up again wearing a white sheet and leading an army on horseback to save the day. We had to spend half the night convincing Pinkie to stop crying because of what she did." Not that Rainbow had gotten much sleep for the other half of the night. In fact, she hadn't gotten any sleep at all. She had been maddened beyond sleep -- Twilight had murdered sleep -- all Rainbow could do was lie awake in bed thinking about what she'd done to them. In the end, she'd gotten up and gone for a run, and even that hadn't tired her out enough to persuade sleep to come.
"Rainbow Dash, you need to calm down-"
"I need to be more like you?" demanded Rainbow.
Applejack drew back. "What did Ah do?"
"Even if Twilight turned out to be a... I thought that you at least would have had my back instead of siding with the damn Shadowbolts!" Rainbow snapped.
"AH got yer back."
"It didn't feel like it," Rainbow said, rubbing her face reflexively.
"Ah got yer back when you ain't acting like a mule with a corncob up its rear," Applejack growled. "Now, Ah'll be rootin' for you from up in the stands, but Ah hope a water biome comes up; maybe it'll cool yer head a little." She pushed her hat back on her head, turned on her toe, and walked away, her boots stomping upon the arena floor.
"Yeah, you can leave, too," Rainbow muttered. She clenched her hands into fists and then unclenched them again. She blinked rapidly as sweat trickled down her brow. She couldn't get it out of her head: Twilight, the Shadowbolts, Applejack siding with them instead of with Rainbow Dash. Just thinking about Twilight's face got her so mad... and so sad, not that she'd admit that.
She didn't want to admit that Twilight probably wouldn't even need to apologise to get Rainbow to forgive her.
"And to start off the second-year semifinals are... Sunset Shimmer of Haven!" Professor Port announced, prompting cheers from the crowd that Sunset never would have gotten when the tournament started.
"~But you will remember me! Remember me for centuries!~"
She snarled as the ego-stroking music played. Of course the backstabbing gloryhound would choose something like that. Rainbow really hoped she got called. She had some issues that she'd enjoy working out on Sunset's stupid face.
"And Rainbow 'Boomer' Dash of Atlas!"
"Yesss," Rainbow hissed and began to walk down the tunnel towards the arena, for once ignoring her own music as it began to play...
"~Awesome as I want to be!~"
...because right now, she wasn't feeling so awesome.
"This match is over," Principal Celestia murmured as she watched the two contestants emerge from the two tunnels to take their places facing one another in the central octagon.
Her sister looked at her strangely. "It hasn't even begun yet," Luna reminded her. "Are you that confident in your former protégé?"
Celestia's brow was furrowed. "Look how distracted Miss Dash is. I suspect that neither her head nor her heart are in this battle."
"I wouldn't be surprised," Luna admitted, with a glance towards the rather listless and dispirited Pinkie Pie who sat at their table and had started the day as a grey and barely moving husk of a girl with dark bags under her blank eyes. Now, of course, she was fearfully unhinging her jaw -- probably -- to swallow a giant pink cupcake.
"This battle was over before it even began," Celestia said, and Luna found that she could not deny it.
Rainbow was pacing up and down in the central octagon, too distracted to pay attention to the biomes that rose to surround her; as the doubles round had escalated from the team round's two biomes to four, so too did the semifinals escalate to eight. Rainbow continued to pace while she waited for the fight to start, but Sunset stood stock still on the other side of the octagon. She wore an ugly smirk on her face as she waited, her eyes glinting with amusement.
"So, Sunburst told me that Twilight ran away to Vacuo," Sunset began.
"Shut up," Rainbow growled through gritted teeth.
"So much for the magic of friendship, huh?" Sunset continued. "So much for unbreakable bonds and all that other stuff. Only, the way I hear it, she didn't go to Vacuo by herself."
"Shut up," Rainbow muttered.
"She took her real friends with her-"
"SHUT UP!" Rainbow yelled, rounding on Sunset.
Sunset only looked more amused as the countdown began.
"Three!"
"How does it feel, Rainbow Dash?" Sunset demanded. "To be abandoned and betrayed?"
Rainbow growled wordlessly. She could feel her hands starting to itch as she reached for Red Shift and Blue Shift.
"Two!"
"How does it feel to have the people you thought you could trust turn on you?"
Rainbow could feel her breathing coming faster now. It was like there was a red mist in front of her eyes.
"One!"
"You know, it's funny," Sunset said. "I spent so long trying to break you guys apart, and you ended up doing it all on your own."
"Begin!"
"Fill your hand, you two-faced bitch!" Rainbow screamed, at Sunset and at Twilight both as she charged across the distance separating the two warriors, a rainbow trailing behind her as she raised Red Shift and sprayed fire at Sunset Shimmer.
Sunset produced her own blade, the shining metal flickering as she blocked Rainbow's shots, but Sunset nonetheless staggered backwards as at least a couple of Rainbow's rounds hit home.
Rainbow drew Blue Shift as she reached Sunset, slashing downwards at her opponent's face with the south Animan-style short sword. Sunset parried, the similar blades ringing as flames began to engulf Sunset's body. Rainbow kept on attacking, slashing wildly downwards and crosswise, driving Sunset back in a furious flurry of blows. Sunset retreated, parrying desperately, the blows of Rainbow's sword ringing on her own, losing aura slice by slice as Rainbow hurled herself upon her enemy.
Sunset was on fire by now, her semblance engulfing her. Rainbow could feel the flames upon her face, could feel the fire of crimson and gold biting at her aura as the flames rose and fell from Sunset's skin. She didn't care. She didn't care about Sunset's semblance. Sunset thought that it protected her, but Rainbow was willing to take the hit. She just had to rip through Sunset's aura faster than Sunset could burn through hers.
Rainbow didn't let up. The smirk had vanished from Sunset's face as she struggled to keep up with the speed of Rainbow's onslaught. Rainbow would-
'Least you can do is respect her sacrifice.' The words of Applejack turning on her, betraying her, siding with the Shadowbolts, flashed into Rainbow's mind. She blinked, faltering in her onslaught. Sunset noticed and stepped into the breach with a counterattack, slashing across Rainbow's body, slicing into her aura with her own sword. Rainbow's spine arched backwards, a grunt of pain escaping her lips. Sunset drew back for another slashing stroke. Rainbow leapt backwards, firing Red Shift as she spun in the air. Sunset knocked the bullets aside with her sword. She didn't draw her own pistol but simply charged towards Rainbow as the latter descended.
Red Shift was empty now. Rainbow cast the gun aside and landed, balancing one hand upon the hard grey surface of the arena. She would jump back again and-
'What in the world did you drag Twi into?'
Rainbow hesitated, screwing up her face with pain and anguish. Why, Twilight, why did you have to-?
The flames alerted her to Sunset's approach a moment before Sunset's blow struck her in the small of the back, bending Rainbow outwards as she was hurled like a football across the arena. She hit the ground with an "oof," bouncing and rolling towards the edge of the central octagon. She could feel the cold of ice against her leg.
Rainbow didn't get up. She lay on the ground, one leg shivering with the cold of the biome, with her head in her arms.
"-headed to Vacuo-"
"-love you-"
"-try to get along-"
"You've caused enough damage."
I wish I'd never met you, Twilight.
The flames had died down enough that Sunset's face was visible as she sauntered over.
"It hurts, doesn't it?" she asked in a voice that was utterly without pity. "The betrayal. The shock. You don't know who to trust any more, because if one person can betray you, then maybe they all can. If one person cannot be trusted, then can anyone? And then... then comes the rage. Do you feel it yet? Don't worry, you'll feel it soon. You'll hate her. You'll hate everyone. You'll want nothing more than to crush them, to stand above them and show them -- show everyone -- just how wrong they were to look down on you, to think little of you, to reject you."
"I'm not like you," Rainbow declared.
"No," Sunset agreed. "You're the one lying on the ground sobbing. You thought you were better than me. You thought that your friendship made you better. But look at you now: weak and lost and all alone. Now, do you want me to finish you off down there, or do you want to get up and see if you can't salvage a little dignity before the end?"
Rainbow lay on the ground, her breathing heavy. Her fingers closed around her blade. She scrambled upright, heading towards Sunset-
-who whipped out her antique pistol and emptied it into Rainbow's chest, knocking her onto her back and taking her aura into the red.
"Or, you know, that," Sunset said dismissively, as the buzzer sounded for her victory. She shook her head. "The Ace of Canterlot Combat School, Rainbow Dash. There was a time when I envied you. There was a time... a time when I dreamed of being you." Sunset's lip curled in contempt. "But, being awaked, I do despise my dream. Because I've outgrown you." She turned away, raising her arms up in the air as the cheers of the crowd descended on her head.
And Rainbow Dash lay on the ground, shivering as she felt the ice through the remains of her aura, and wondered... why?
Contrary to what Rainbow Dash thought, the reaction from the crowd was far from universally positive. To be sure, cheers arose from one section of the crowd, mostly consisting of Sunset's fellow Haven students, as the Mistralian academy had been taking a beating over the past few Vytal Tournaments, but the reactions from others were... mixed, to say the least.
"Truly, an uninspiring victory and a clear display of poor sportsmanship," commented a disapproving Professor Port. "The Grimm won't care what insults you visit upon them."
"A poor display by both competitors," argued Dr. Oobleck. "By the same token, the Grimm won't care if you're having a bad day."
"True, true," admitted Port reluctantly.
For her part, Velvet Scarlatina glared down into the arena, then looked over at her boyfriend.
"So, still say it's okay we lost to her?" she asked pointedly.
Lavi winced. "In the grand scheme of things, does the outcome of this tournament really matter?" he offered.
"Hmph!" was her miffed reply. "Rain better win his match and kick her butt in the finals," she declared.
"Rain will do his best," Lavi assured her hesitantly, "but that girl... she's strong. And ruthless."
"You're worried about him, aren't you?" she asked softly.
"You could say that."
Silverstream found herself leaning back in her seat. "That… was a little disturbing."
"Oh, come on," Molly cried. "'Disturbing'? That was just trash talk."
"She sounded like a supervillain!" Silverstream protested.
"Okay, it was very biting trash talk."
"Firebrand would never talk to an opponent like that," Silverstream declared. "And neither would Pyrrha Nikos, for that matter."
"Well… no," Molly admitted. "But the fact that she doesn't have class doesn't negate the fact that she still dominated that fight."
"I guess," Silverstream conceded. "I wonder what was up with that poor girl?"
"Something about that Twilight Sparkle of Team Fairstar," Molly replied. "The ones who lost to Team Ruffle in their doubles match. At least, that's what it sounded like from what Sunset Shimmer was saying. We'll probably never know for sure."
"No," Silverstream agreed softly. "Poor Rainbow Dash."
"Well, that was… a little disappointing," Rarity murmured, with genteel and ladylike understatement. That same understatement that was preventing much sign of her disappointment from showing upon her face.
"Rainbow Dash… lost?" Scootaloo asked in disbelief.
"She didn't seem to be hardly trying one bit," Apple Bloom complained.
"Now, girls, there's no need to be harsh," Fluttershy said. "I'm sure that Rainbow Dash tried her best."
"It didn't look like it," Scootaloo muttered.
Fluttershy's face fell. "She… she has a lot on her mind right now. We all do."
"But she was so excited about this!" Scootaloo declared.
"I know," Fluttershy said. "That's what makes it so terrible for her."
At the officers' table, Luna glanced at her elder sister out of the side of her eye. "Your prize student?"
"Former prize student," Celestia corrected primly.
"I do have to wonder what you saw in her," Luna muttered.
"She is tenacious and resourceful," Celestia said.
"Also cruel, vindictive, and certain things I cannot utter in the present company," Luna replied.
"That is why she is my former student," Celestia said. She frowned. "And yet… I cannot help but feel this is my fault. Oh, Sunset, what might you have become, had I only been a better teacher?"
"HA!" Megatron crowed, pumping his fist before pointing at the screen. "Now that's how you trash talk."
He found himself liking Sunset Shimmer. The girl had ambition, drive, and a ruthless streak that would take her far in life. Perhaps when they got around to conquering this world, he'd offer her an opportunity to channel that drive into something more productive.
Megatron considered that, then shook his head.
No.... no, she was far too much like him to risk leaving alive when the time came.
Pity, that. Still, it would be nice to meet with such a kindred spirit someday. Before he had her eliminated.
Sour "Sakura" Sweet had risen out of her seat and was now standing stock still, staring down into the arena, hands clenched knuckle-white on the backrest of the empty seat in front of her.
It kind of worried Jet.
"Sour?" he asked hesitantly.
"That slanderous, egotistical, unmitigated... witch," Sour hissed. "Where does she of all people get off calling Twilight a traitor?" The backrest in her hands crumpled. "Losing to Canterlot was bad enough, but to have someone like her go on into the finals?"
She looked to either side at the rest of the team, and Lemon met her gaze with a silent nod.
Upper spoke up at that, picking up on the atmosphere. "This slight against a fellow Shadowbolt cannot be allowed to go unanswered."
"No," Jet found himself agreeing. "No, it can't."
The Shadowbolts knew Sunset Shimmer, of course: arrogant, hypercompetitive, disdainful... she might have actually made a decent Shadowbolt if it weren't for the fact that she seemed to think that she -- alone -- was a clique, that people would somehow naturally find her worth following despite her never having done anything to earn any loyalty. Twilight had filled them in on even more details, and, well, even for a Canterlotian, she was pretty terrible, and she had been the principal's personal protégé... which pretty much said all that needed to be said about what Canterlot Combat School's values and standards were like, didn't it?
"You have a plan, Sakura?" Lemon asked.
"Maybe," their team leader said, stroking her chin thoughtfully. "I'm thinking we need to deflate that ego of hers a little. Teach her a little humility."
"I've got an idea," Upper broke in eagerly. "A friend of mine -- well, a friend of a friend -- is a first-year competing here. She's up for the singles rounds herself and a big-name tournament fighter in Mistral. What say we arrange an exhibition match after the Vytal Festival is over?"
Sour's lips curled into a vicious smile. "Sounds like an excellent idea if we can manage it. Go talk to your friend, see if you can get her on board."
"Count on it," Upper said with a nod. "If I know her at all, she's as offended by this as we are."
Pyrrha's parents had often told her that it was better not to open a day's combat. It was better, in fact, to go into the ring after a great fight, when the crowd would be warmed up and crackling with carry-over excitement.
It was advice that had applied more when she was younger and just starting out; by her last years -- not to sound too immodest -- it had sometimes seemed as though she could warm a crowd up quite quickly all by herself.
But now, as the second-year semifinals ended with a handy victory by Rain "Vanguard" Bailey of Team RRFL over the last Shade student still in the second-year bracket, as the cheers of the crowd continued to echo around the arena long after the fighters had departed, Pyrrha remembered her parents' words. They brought a slight smile to her face. It was certainly a better show to follow up on than the other second-year match, the thought of which turned her smile into a distasteful frown before years of PR experience smoothed out her expression.
Of course, there was no guarantee that she would be first up. Pyrrha's gaze swept across the other three competitors in the room.
Aska stood in one corner, calm and relaxed, her expression unreadable. Team APRC was acting like it had always been planned for Aska to advance to the singles rounds, but Pyrrha was sure she was a last-minute substitution. After all, Pyrrha had heard from Ruby, among others, that Penny had been looking forward to crossing swords with her in the arena.
Poor girl, she thought. Ruby had begged off attending the semifinals in order to visit Penny. At the infirmary. It wasn't hard to put two and two together.
Arslan, Pyrrha's perennial rival, leaned against one wall, arms folded confidently. It would be a shame not to meet her in the finals-
Pyrrha broke that thought off and mentally rebuked herself for overconfidence.
She glanced at the final contestant, Blake, who stood by the door leading to the tunnels that would take them to the arena.
The cat faunus looked nervous. "Blake?" Pyrrha asked softly as she stepped closer. "Is everything alright?"
Blake looked up at her. "Yeah," she said quickly. "Everything's fine."
That was... possibly not true, but Pyrrha appreciated Blake's desire not to trouble her right before a match. It was generous, and that generosity ought to be respected.
Besides, there would be plenty of time to badger her into revealing what the trouble was that evening, after the matches were concluded.
The voice of Professor Port boomed out over the intercom. "And our first set of contestants in the first-year semifinals are... Arslan Altan of Haven!"
"~It feels like I have lost this fight. They think that I am staying down. But I'm not giving up tonight. Tonight, the wall is coming down.~"
The cheering of the crowd seemed to redouble in volume, echoing down the tunnel towards their ears as her chosen song began to play. Arslan had started playing up the "underdog" angle two years ago, and it seemed to be working for her. The Golden Lion let out her own whoop of anticipation and gave her own last, measuring look at her competition before stepping out of the locker room they had all chosen to wait in with an enthusiastic run.
Pyrrha offered a smile but refrained from wishing her luck. It wasn't that she harbored any ill will toward her old rival -- she liked her a lot, actually, and considered her, if not a friend, at least a friendly rival -- but if it came down to supporting Arslan or Blake, she was afraid there wasn't really a contest. And of course, there was always a chance that-
"And Pyrrha Nikos of Beacon!" Professor Port added after a pause as Arslan's song began to fade and was soon replaced with her own.
This time, the noise of the crowd was a great roar, a thunderous sound that shook the very Amity Colosseum itself. Pyrrha could only imagine what the reaction back in Mistral was like.
Blake smiled thinly. "Good luck out there. Be sure to win one for Beacon, okay?"
Pyrrha smiled back at her and nodded. "Thank you," she murmured. "I'll do my best." She turned away from Blake and faced the dark tunnel leading out into the arena. As she strode through the darkness, her booted feet tapping upon the floor, she put aside Pyrrha Nikos and assumed once more the mask of the Invincible Girl. At the fork in the tunnel, she turned right, as the second contestant announced for the match; Arslan, as the first announced, would have gone left.
The timing, as ever, was perfect.
"~I am invincible! Unbreakable! Unstoppable! Unshakeable!~"
She wouldn't have thought that it was possible for the crowd to get any louder, but as she stepped out into the morning light, the thunderous cheers hit her almost like a physical wave, the floor beneath her feet trembling from the volume as the cheering somehow grew ever louder.
Not quite loud enough to block out the shrill cry of, "Hey, Pyrrha!"
Pyrrha turned to see her teammates of Team RRANNBWW -- or rather, her teammates of Team JNPR plus Sun, as Weiss was going to be watching from a VIP box with Blake's mother -- seated directly above the entrance she had just emerged from. It had been Nora who had shouted loud enough to get Pyrrha's attention, but now that they had it, it was to a rather different set of blue eyes that Pyrrha's gaze was drawn to.
Jaune smiled, a smile as bright as summer sunshine. "Kick some butt, okay?" he called down to her. "You've got this."
Pyrrha raised one gloved hand to her lips and blew him a kiss. This made the crowd roar with even greater passion as Pyrrha turned away and completed her journey into the central octagon.
Arslan was waiting for her, arms folded across her chest, a look on her face that was halfway between skeptical and amused.
Pyrrha's eyes narrowed. "Is something wrong?"
"Not wrong," Arslan replied, her voice bubbling with an undercurrent of amusement. "I've never known you play to the crowd like that before."
"I wasn't playing to the crowd."
Arslan's eyebrows rose. "Oh, really? What would you call blowing a kiss to your beau as you make your entrance? I'm surprised he didn't give you a favor to wear around your arm."
Pyrrha's mind went to the ring, safely stored for the duration of the match in one of the pouches on her belt. "Well..." she murmured, a faint flush rising to her cheeks.
Arslan's grin widened. "You're all in on this, aren't you?"
Pyrrha shrugged. "I love him. What else can I say?"
Arslan chuckled. "I swear, I could knock you out of this tournament here and now, and it wouldn't dent your spirits one bit." She paused, her face and voice alike becoming a little more serious. "Just to be clear, I am in no way asking for you to throw the fight."
"I would never insult you by even considering the possibility," Pyrrha replied.
Arslan paused for a long moment, giving her a piercing look, then gave a curt nod. "It's a pity, really. I was kind of hoping we'd meet in the finals. Keep my second-place streak alive, you know?"
"You may yet still," Pyrrha reminded her. It was one of many reasons she enjoyed going up against Arslan; too many of her opponents in recent years had given up before the fight had even started.
"Oh, believe me, I know," Arslan replied, cracking her knuckles.
"Let's at least have some fun with this, shall we?" Pyrrha suggested.
Arslan's lips peeled back into a ferocious grin. "Are you going to stop holding back?"
Pyrrha arched an eyebrow. "Are you?" She had not forgotten what Arslan had done to Carolina in the doubles round.
The biomes rose around them: mountain, gravity islands, ruins, a geyser field, plains, desert, water, and forest. Pyrrha saw Arslan glance left and right and guessed that her perennial opponent didn't intend to simply face her head on.
It would be a shame to waste this unique arena.
"Three!" Professor Port boomed.
Pyrrha slung Akoúo̱ onto her left arm, and Miló dropped into her right hand.
"Two!"
Arslan settled into a combat stance, hands balled into fists, legs spaced, her silhouette dropping as she crouched.
"One!"
Pyrrha brought up Akoúo̱ before her, Miló drawn back, ready to strike.
"Begin!"
Arslan ran to the right, arms swept back behind her, her moccasins making no sound as she dashed towards the forest.
Pyrrha ran too, running in parallel with Arslan's course, not closing the distance straight away, not until she knew a little more about Arslan's plan. Miló switched from spear to rifle in her hand, and Pyrrha slowed a little as she rested the barrel upon her arm and the slit atop Akoúo̱, using her shield as a rest as she took aim as best she could while moving. She fired. Her shot struck the arena surface at Arslan's feet, making the other girl jump but neither slowing her nor striking her. She kept on running. Pyrrha fired again, and this time, Arslan leapt before the shot, her body turning in the air as she flung Nemean Claw at Pyrrha. Pyrrha refrained from using her semblance. It wouldn't have done any good, as Arslan had reforged her weapon out of non-ferrous materials a year ago; they'd never talked about it, but it was clear that she, at least, had figured out Pyrrha's semblance. Instead, she took it on her shield, deflecting the knife away with a deft motion of Akoúo̱ before allowing Arslan to pull the dagger back upon its rope.
Arslan had never intended to do her harm with it; it was the distraction that she'd wanted and the distraction that she'd gotten. Arslan was able to make it to the cover of the forest, disappearing into the trees.
Leaving Pyrrha without much choice but to go in after her.
She switched Miló into its sword form as she strode forward, the light glinting off her gilded armor as she advanced at a slow prowl, like a majestic catamount stalking its prey upon the Illucyan Steppes of Anima.
Sword at the ready and shield held before her, she advanced into the forest. The grass, artificial or no, crunched beneath her feet. It was quieter than a normal forest. There was no sound of bird or beast. No sound, either, of her opponent in the battle. Pyrrha peered between the trees, trying to spot a particular dark patch of shadow, a tree trunk that bulged in an unusual way-
A rustling sound above was all the notice Pyrrha received a split-second before Arslan descended from the upper branches of the trees in which she had been hiding, dropping down on Pyrrha with one leg outstretched for a kick.
Pyrrha dropped to her knees, curling up and holding her shield before her. She felt Arslan's foot strike her shield like a hammer-blow, the impact shuddered down her arms and made her body tremble, but it did not knock her down nor move her from her spot.
Time slowed. Pyrrha could feel the impact of the blow, but Arslan was still poised upon her shield, face contorted, one foot drawn back and the other outstretched, arms raised above her head. And while she was thus, Pyrrha rose to her feet and flung her arms -- and with them, Akoúo̱ -- upwards and outwards, sending Arslan through the trees and up into the air with a startled cry of alarm.
Pyrrha burst out of the woods, standing on the edge of the water biome as Arslan flew. She switched Miló to rifle mode, took aim, and fired, but either her aim had been off or Arslan's twisting and turning in the air enabled her to dodge the shot, for it didn't seem to land. Arslan flung her knife again, this time burying the dagger in the mast of the ruined ship that rose out of the water in the center of the biome. Arslan used the rope to pull herself towards it.
Pyrrha leapt. She threw Akoúo̱ onto her back as Miló changed fluidly from rifle to spear, and Pyrrha gripped it tightly in both hands as her leap carried her up onto the top yard of the ship's mast, just as Arslan hauled herself down onto it.
The wooden beam creaked beneath their feet as they balanced themselves upon it.
"You've gotten faster," Pyrrha observed.
"And you've gotten stronger," Arslan answered.
Pyrrha cocked an eyebrow. "Shall we take it up a notch?"
"Give them a real show, you mean?" Arslan asked. "I still owe you a beating for last year."
Pyrrha blinked. "I'm sorry?"
"What?" Arslan scoffed. "You thought I didn't notice?"
Pyrrha flushed. Last year... last year was when Arslan had finally put a crack in the Invincible Girl's reputation, scoring the first ever hit on Pyrrha in the arena. Arslan... Arslan was supporting her family on her tournament winnings and merchandising income, and the impact that doing what some had called impossible would have on her brand's value... she needed that money far more than Pyrrha had ever needed her untouchable reputation, and besides, outside the Vytal Tournament, it was to be her last time in the arena.
It had seemed an appropriate way to mark her exit from Mistral's tournament circuit. She'd thought she'd been subtle about it. Apparently, she hadn't been quite subtle enough, not to someone as familiar with her fighting style as Arslan, at least.
She almost replied, but then, her eyes flicked to the screens above. Arslan nodded in understanding and continued, "Don't get me wrong, Pyr. I appreciate it. I really do. It's just the principle of the matter."
Pyrrha inclined her head and nodded back. "I understand."
They fell silent and stared into one another's eyes, and on some unseen signal, they charged. The wood continued to creak beneath their feet, the mast swayed gently up and down like a seesaw as Pyrrha and Arslan came together in the center. Arslan's fists flew outward; Miló traced a golden pattern through the air as Pyrrha twirled it in her grip, blocking Arslan's strokes and lashing out with blade and shaft alike. Arslan's punches were fierce and relentless, and Pyrrha was forced to retreat a step in the face of them before coming on again, driving Arslan back in turn with slashes of Miló. Both of them tried to sweep the others legs out from beneath them and send the other plummeting down into the water, and both leapt up over the blows to land once more upon the groaning wood.
Pyrrha pressed Arslan back, then Arslan leapt up and over Pyrrha's head, her body twisting in the air so that she landed facing Pyrrha, who had turned to receive the furious flurry of punches and kicks that Arslan unleashed upon her in even greater intensity than before.
After a moment, Arslan backed off into a crouch, to Pyrrha's puzzlement. For greater stability? No, Arslan's balance was impeccable, much like her own-
Her eyes widened when she saw Arslan reaching down to the yard they stood on with one hand, ill-concealed by her other hand. She barely had time to prepare herself before the wood they had turned into their arena exploded. Allowing the splinters to shave down her aura in favor of interposing Akoúo̱ between herself and Arslan, Pyrrha fell through the air, feeling Arslan's fists and feet batter against the round shield.
They hit the water, and with a little help from her semblance on her armor and weapons, Pyrrha vaulted out and toward the edge of the water biome, quickly reorienting to face her opponent.
Arslan surged forward. Pyrrha threw her shield at her. The other girl caught it in both hands, slowing her down enough for Pyrrha to escape the water and regain the central octagon, water dripping from her boots down onto the grey surface beneath her feet.
Arslan threw her shield right back at her. Pyrrha stretched out with her semblance and pirouetted into the air to "catch" Akoúo̱, turning again as she landed.
Arslan emerged from the water and strode onto the sands, dripping gently upon them.
Pyrrha charged, and as she charged, she switched Miló from spear to sword in her right hand. She charged into the desert biome, kicking up the sand as she went, slashing downwards for the crown of Arslan's head.
Arslan caught the blade between both hands, palms enfolding it. Arslan lashed out for a kick, but Pyrrha brought her shield down upon Arslan's leg for a crushing blow.
Pyrrha pushed herself forward, headbutting Arslan hard enough to send the Golden Lion of Haven staggering backwards as the buzzer sounded for her elimination.
Arslan let out a low growl of frustration as the cheers of the crowd began to fall upon Pyrrha Nikos like the gentle dew from heaven.
"I thought," Arslan said, shaking her head, "that I might actually have you this time by using the terrain. I guess I should have known better, huh?"
"The day you stop trying," Pyrrha said, "is the day both our lives become immeasurably more boring."
Arslan snorted. "Yeah, right, not with the world in the state it's in now." She held out her hand. "As always, you were superb."
Pyrrha placed her weapons on her back and took Arslan's hand. "And as always, you were formidable."
"I try my best," Arslan replied. "Now, claim your reward."
"'My-'?" Pyrrha began, before Arslan gestured behind her with a nod of her head. Pyrrha turned, and a smile blossomed upon her face as she saw Jaune running across the arena towards her.
"Woohoo!" Molly cheered. "And Pyrrha Nikos does it again!"
"Is it always that exciting when those two go head to head?" Silverstream asked.
Molly looked at her.
"I- I mean… not that I really care or anything," Silverstream added hurriedly.
Molly grinned knowingly. "Yes, it is always that exciting." She rested her chin in her hands. "It's a pity that they couldn't meet in the finals, but all the same… I think that was one of their best fights yet. Everyone who said that the biomes in the arena really add something special were right; you wouldn't get a fight quite like that in a Mistral arena." She folded her hands behind the back of her head. "And with Arslan Altan out of the way, Pyrrha Nikos has a clear path to the finals."
She didn't care if it was Blake Belladonna or Aska Roku; neither of them could stand up to Pyrrha Nikos.
The finals were over before the second semifinal had even begun.
"-and winning by aura depletion, Pyrrha Nikos will be advancing to the finals!" Professor Port roared over the tiny TV hanging in the corner of Penny's room in the infirmary.
Ruby looked up at it and watched as Pyrrha and Jaune ran to each other in the arena.
"What's wrong, Friend Ruby?"
"Nothing," Ruby lied, shaking her head, thinking about all the time she'd… it didn't matter now. She didn't know what she didn't know, and she'd made a mistake as a result. More than one, really, far more than one.
"It doesn't look like nothing," observed Ciel from the other side of the bed.
The three of them were in the infirmary, or rather, an isolation room that was part of Beacon's extensive medical facilities. Due to Penny's robotic nature, she would normally have been worked on on board an Atlas airship or other secure facility with the necessary equipment to work on her. However, with the global retreat of Atlas's forces, those facilities were in short supply, and so, Rufus "Mad Dog" Madison had elected to use the prosthetics repair equipment at Beacon and his own tools to reattach the gynoid's severed leg.
It worked, and they had been able to cover up it happening at all, but Mad Dog had insisted that Penny still remain off her feet for at least 24 hours to give the regeneration systems of her body time to smooth things over. After making that proclamation, he had gone to get some sleep after so long awake. With Aska competing in the tournament, that left the oldest and most taciturn human member of the team to watch over Penny while she rested, a task that Ciel was soon joined in by Ruby.
"Something is clearly deeply troubling you," continued Ciel, unabated.
"I…" began Ruby, trailing off and then looking into Penny's kind eyes. "I was just thinking that there's a lot I need to apologize for. Things I've done, things I've said… they weren't right."
"I see," Ciel acknowledged. "Then what is the problem?"
"I... I don't know what to do."
"If needs be done, then do so," Ciel said simply. "If you need to apologize, then apologize."
"Do I?" asked Ruby. "I mean, I just… okay, you remember when I was dating Jaune?"
"Oh, yes, it's hard to forget something so shocking," observed Penny.
"Yes, well, seeing him and Pyrrha out there… I can't help but remember how we started dating. I pushed him up against the wall and basically declared that he was taking me out, even though he was, like, really really nervous and uncomfortable. Is that normal? It feels like it's wrong," wondered Ruby aloud.
Ciel blinked very noticeably. "Yes, Ruby Rose, yes, it is wrong. That's how you started dating?"
"And continued," muttered Ruby, pushing her index fingers together. "That's... basically how all our dates started for the first few weeks."
"Are you sure that's wrong, Ciel?" Penny asked curiously. "Sun's relationship with Blake Belladonna would suggest otherwise."
The blue-eyed sniper looked at them with an expression that, though stoic, still carried with it a great deal of weight that made the other two people in the room flinch away. "It seems that you both have stumbled into a great deal of moral degeneracy."
"That seems a little harsh," objected Ruby, her eyes still looking away and down at Penny's covered legs.
"Look me in the eye and tell me that forcing someone into a romantic relationship is in any way right or proper," ordered Ciel. After a short time with no answer, she continued, "Poor observation and poor planning leads to poor results. Still, you know now what you were doing was wrong, and thankfully, Penny didn't act on any of her thoughts. Which means that this is something that you might be forgiven about."
"'Might be'?" asked Penny curiously.
"No one deserves to be forgiven," answered Ciel in a kindly tone. "No one. And yet, when someone comes to you and asks for forgiveness, you must forgive them."
Penny considered that, her nose wrinkling in confusion. "Wait. If they don't deserve it, then why should I forgive them?"
"If we all got what we deserved, the world would be a pretty terrible place," observed Ruby thoughtfully and picked her head up enough to notice Ciel nodding at her. "Jaune isn't the only one I need to apologize to."
"I suspected that was the case," replied Ciel.
"I got to go find Maple," said Ruby suddenly, getting out of her chair.
"Oh, you're going to see Maple? That's just lovely. I'll join you," cooed Penny excitedly.
"I… she's one of the people I need to apologize to," explained Ruby, turning her head to look at the coppertop and noticing her confused expression. "What?"
"Why would you need to apologize to her?" asked Penny. "That would mean you did something bad to her, and… she's Maple. Only the worst of the worst could possibly hurt her."
"Yeah, well, just count me among them then, because that's what I did," said Ruby, eliciting a gasp of shock from the bedridden redhead. "I thought she'd led my sister into a life of crime, and it was all a big misunderstanding, but I wouldn't listen, and I threatened her because of it."
"If you need privacy, we'll let you go," offered Ciel with a nod.
Ruby nodded in turn, but Penny spoke up in contradiction. "I'd still like to talk with Friend Maple after Friend Ruby's done talking to her. I still know the place from when we were volunteering here. We can wait out in-"
It was at that moment that Penny decided to slip out of bed and stand up, but no sooner had she done so than did her left leg seem to collapse, and she slipped. Ciel reacted precognitively, moving to catch her by leaping over the bed even before she finished standing up. Such was her speed that she was able to stop the coppertopped gynoid from hitting the floor, though they both still fell in a tumbled mess.
"Oh my gosh, Penny! Ciel! Are you two alright?" cried Ruby, rushing over to help them.
Penny had a pained expression and was clutching her left leg where it had been cut. "I… I don't know if I can stand."
Ruby hoisted Penny to a sitting position on the bed, and Ciel stood up with all due decorum. "But I thought Mad Dog fixed you?"
"He did!" replied Penny anxiously, leaping to the defense of her teammate verbally even while keeping both hands on her leg. "I... I don't know why this is happening. It just… why? Why is this happening to me?"
Ruby felt her heart breaking at the sight of her friend's confused pain. "I'll go get Mad Dog. Maybe the welds broke?"
"I'll call ahead," concurred Ciel, bringing out her scroll.
"No!" objected Penny. "Rufus needs his sleep, and he's too good at what he does for his work to just fail like that."
"If that is the case, then he's still the only one here with the knowledge to uncover what ails you," pointed out Ciel, who then looked up at Ruby. "Go."
Not wasting a second more, Ruby left the room, passed the armed guards, and then kicked in her semblance to make best possible speed to Team APRC's dorm.
I'm sorry, Maple. I'll say that to you in person soon, I swear.
"'Invincible' indeed," murmured Megatron approvingly. He sighed, a wave of melancholy washing over him. "So nice to see old rivals -- old friends -- come together again."
He had to admire Arslan Altan's fighting spirit. It took a strong spark to keep trying so hard and so earnestly after so many failures. In the end, after all, everyone got knocked down eventually, no matter how good they were. Getting back up again?
Well, that was how winning was done.
Blake stood in utter silence in the arena's central octagon. Most would say that that was on purpose, and Sun would have to agree. The difference was that he knew that it was deliberate on the part of his girlfriend, who was continuing to train as a kunoichi and was darn good at it.
With all the craziness that had been happening in the world, it felt good to have that bit of normalcy.
"And again, we keep having to say this, but Blake Belladonna is not dead!" proclaimed Port over the stadium's loudspeakers.
Though, with that thought, Sun wondered just what had happened to his life that such declarations counted as normal. After all, most boyfriends didn't have to deal with their ninja girlfriends having their fake deaths faked. Then again, most guys didn't have girlfriends who went off on darn fool idealistic crusades against their ex-boyfriends while under the impression that they alone could save the world from his evil schemes.
"That woman down there is the real original Blake Belladonna," insisted Oobleck. "She is not an actress. She is not a clone. She is not a robotic duplicate. She is not a spy. She is not a reincarnation. Honestly, people, the things that have been said about her…"
What people probably didn't say, even Sun himself, was that Blake was self-centered. She had a bad habit of making every problem in the world personal, but she was getting better. He liked to think that he was getting better too, because he had the exact same problem. What other conclusion could he come to after having ignored the affections of not one but two young women?
"Moving on, Miss Belladonna's performance throughout this tournament has been quite exceptional!" Port boomed. "With a combination of skill, agility, and her semblance, she has managed to avoid receiving so much as a single blow from an opponent throughout the team and doubles rounds!"
"Indeed, a feat that few can claim to match."
As the announcers continued, Sun could overhear a discussion behind him. "You know, I wasn't actually thinking about it before, but I think that Belladonna girl might actually be an animated statue of the real girl."
Sun rolled his eyes and looked at Neptune, seated next to him. "Still can't figure out which one to cheer for?"
"Blake, of course," Neptune answered. "She's your girlfriend, and you're my bro. Bro code."
"But Aska's my friend, and your friend too, Bro," pointed out Sun.
Neptune turned and looked at him with a long-suffering look of disgust. "Bro, why did you have to go and make things complicated?"
"I just wanted to make sure you knew all your options, Bro!" replied Sun defensively.
Whatever they were going to say next was interrupted by the announcers counting down to the match starting. The battlefield had landed on a combination of mountain, gravity islands, ice, ruins, plains, desert, swamp, and forest biomes, and both Aska and Blake were preparing themselves for battle in the central octagon. The go ahead was given, and the battle started.
No sooner had the battle started than did the contestants surprise the audience by both throwing down smoke bombs and disappearing from sight.
Sun's blue-haired companion sighed. "I don't know what else I was expecting."
"Well, they could have replaced themselves with cardboard cutouts," answered Sun. "I heard from Pyrrha that two ninjas did that in the Mistral circuit once. It took people twenty minutes before they figured it out. It then took them ten more minutes to figure out that the match had been decided fifteen minutes ago."
"Give us a moment, people. We're searching for the contestants as we speak," chimed in Oobleck over the speakers.
"Man, I hope that doesn't happen here," commented Neptune. "I mean, they have aura meters, right? So that's got to help."
Suddenly, there was a sky-shattering crack as from the forest biome a lightning bolt leapt up to strike the shield that enclosed the top of the stadium.
"That was Aska," they said in unison. Then, without looking, pointed and said to the other, "Jinx!"
"Yes?" came the voice of one of the Atlesian fourth-years from behind them.
Sun turned around and replied with great volume. "We just said something at the same time."
"My mistake," was her cheery follow up.
One of the ruined skyscrapers in that biome had a gout of flame shoot out of one of its destroyed windows.
"Aska again," murmured Sun.
"She's taken a few hits," observed Neptune, looking at the screen and taking note of the position of the aura status bar indicators. "I don't think Aska's managed to hit Blake once during this." As if on cue, there was a flicker of movement, and they briefly saw Blake standing on the edge of the swamp and perforated by shuriken... before dissipating into nothing. "Not the real one, at least," he amended.
Sun leapt to his feet and put his hands to his mouth to make a makeshift megaphone. "Come on, Blake! Win it for the home team!"
Scarlet looked up from his position in the stands next to them. "'Home team'? But we're from Haven."
"And we're visiting," pointed out Sun, looking back down at him. "Besides, if we follow that logic, we'd have to cheer for Sunset Shimmer."
"Well, why not?" asked Sage, the green-haired and often overlooked member of Team SSSN. "I mean, she's the best Haven's got right now, and I kind of want a win."
"Yeah. I say we go with Sunset Shimmer," agreed Scarlet, sitting up straighter between the two. "She's the best in Haven, and if anyone can get us a win after we've been kicked when we're down for so long, it's her."
A string of shurikens impacted the hard light shield in front of the stands before exploding like the world's loudest popcorn string.
"Uh, guys? This is the first-year semifinals, not the second," Neptune reminded them. "Those were earlier this morning."
He got a string of apologies and acknowledgments as they turned their attention back to the arena. Another cloud of smoke was beginning to blow clear, revealing the two kunoichi standing across from each other in the central octagon, hands on their blades at their hips.
"Oho!" Professor Port bellowed. "With both their auras as depleted as they are, it may very well come down to whoever lands the next blow!"
Sun glanced up at the holographic display hovering over the arena. Both aura meters were deep into the yellow, though not quite as dire as Port had made it sound. Sure, one good hit could knock either one into the red, but a minor hit would not.
He looked down as the two faced each other. As if on some unseen signal, they dashed toward each other with blinding speed, stopping when they had traded places in the arena, each with her blade out in the follow through.
He then heard Aska's voice, soft but picked up by the microphones and amplified over the speakers. "A cold wind blows south. Two warriors seek justice. This fight is over."
Suddenly, the Blake in the arena crumbled and faded away as Aska dropped to one knee, and the buzzer sounded, announcing the end of the match..
"And Blake Belladonna wins by aura depletion and will move on into the finals this evening!" boomed Professor Port.
"This ends the matches for this morning. Please exit in an orderly fashion so we may shut down for maintenance. The Colosseum will reopen at four o'clock this evening, and the finals matches will begin one hour later at five."
At that announcement from Dr. Oobleck, Sun vaulted out of his seat and created a pair of clones, which then launched him down into the arena. Amber eyes blinked in surprise as he engulfed her in a hug and spun her around.
When he finally set her down, she gave him an amused smile.
"No kiss?"
He blushed. "I, uh, I didn't want to presume." He paused. "That's the right word, right? 'Presume'?"
"Yes, Sun," she said with a giggle. "That's the right word." And with that, she pulled him into a kiss. After a moment, when she pulled away, she tilted her head and asked, "How'd you know where to find me?"
Sun shrugged. "I'll always find you."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
"WAHOO! Yeah, go get 'er, Blake!" shouted Silverstream at the top of her lungs as she stood up and brought her wings around to frame her face even as she cupped her hands in front of her mouth. "Blake! Blake! Blake!"
"Ugh, how can you be excited about that?" asked Molly in exasperation from back in her seat. "That was clearly a sad and tragic fight… the parts of it we saw, I mean."
"It was like something out of a movie!" replied Silverstream in excitement as she turned around. "How could you hate that? Firebrand's best friend, Blake Belladonna, just won the day handily and without getting hit a single time. A tension-filled ninja battle fought in the shadows, a climactic showdown, and at the end, the girl gets the guy. What's not to love?"
"You don't know that she didn't get hit," complained Molly.
"Uh huh, yeah, I do," bragged Silverstream. "Blake uses the same amount of aura every time she uses her semblance, and it recharges at a pretty consistent rate, which means that in any given battle she's in, you can calculate exactly how many times she's used her semblance."
Molly narrowed her eyes. "Why did you take something cool and make it sound boring?"
Silverstream pointed dramatically at her. "Aha! You said that it was cool! You like Blake Belladonna after all!"
"I do not!" insisted Molly. "I'm just really glad that we're not going to be going to war with Menagerie is all."
"Pfft. That was always a load of hooey, and you know it."
"Okay, yes, but that doesn't mean I have to admit it," huffed Molly, turning her head away and nose up in disgust.
Silverstream gave her a very flat stare, and then her expression changed to a more lively one. "So what was it that won you over about Blake? Was it the romance with the dashing Sun Wukong? Black Sun is adorable, isn't it?"
"'Black Sun'?" Molly looked up in disgust. "That's ridiculous. It should be called Eclipse."
Silverstream sat back down and glared at her. "Black. Sun."
"It's uncreative," countered Molly sourly. "Eclipse."
Molly's mother sighed. "Here we go again."
Thundercracker turned the broadcast off.
That should have been Penny out there, he thought morosely. But it wasn't, and it was his fault, no matter what the Atlesians -- from General Ironwood on down to the rest of Team APRC(T) -- insisted.
Oh, certainly, they'd assured him Ironwood would have gladly put himself in the crosshairs to save anyone else, and that, he believed. But if it hadn't been for Thundercracker, MECH wouldn't have targeted Penny in the first place -- it was him, after all, that they had wanted, not her -- and she wouldn't have been injured, and Ironwood wouldn't be facing charges.
He really wanted to blast that smug smirk off Silas's face with his incendiary guns. And those cronies on the Atlesian Council for good measure.
Thundercracker shook his head and shifted his weight.
I can't put it off any longer, he decided and activated his long-range communicator.
"Thundercracker reporting in."
"Thundercracker, acknowledged." Primus, it was Soundwave. Of course it was Soundwave. The Decepticon communications officer gave him the creeps. "Your survival was calculated as highly improbable."
"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence," he grumbled. "But for your information, I'm fine and back with the Atlesians."
"Understood," Soundwave said. "Continue current mission parameters and await further orders. Be ready to mobilize if needed."
"Copy that," he said, feeling his circuits tingle. "Anything else?"
"Negative. Soundwave out."
Thundercracker deactivated the long-range communicator and sat heavily down on the floor of the hangar.
'Be ready to mobilize.'
That wasn't good. It meant the higher ups were planning something, something soon. But what?
And more importantly... what was he going to do about it?
Megatron shook his head in disgust.
"Ninjas," he hissed, annoyed.
What else was there to say?
"Hmm," Luna murmured. "I would say that General Ironwood will be disappointed… but so much has happened recently that I doubt this will even register."
"It will register, at least to the extent that it registers with young Aska herself," Celestia said. "A parent always feels the disappointments of their children, even in the midst of their own most bitter travails."
Luna glanced at Celestia. "Speaking from your non-experience, Sister?"
"I suppose I am," Celestia murmured, sounding a little dispirited to be reminded of the fact. "However, that doesn't mean that I am wrong."
Adam and Yang sat at a table in the corner of the Ark's infirmary, eating lunch quietly.
"I watched your team match in the Vytal Tournament," Adam said, breaking the silence.
"Oh?"
"You were reckless," he said bluntly.
"Hey, I was worried about you!" she snapped defensively.
He snorted. "I can take care of myself."
"Yeah, good job with that," she snorted back. "Or was it my imagination when I hauled your shrapnel-filled butt in here?"
"Yes," he lied baldly. "It absolutely was your imagination."
She resisted the urge to punch him. Instead, she reached over and smacked him gently upside the head. "There's that bad advice from Raven again. Stop that." She paused, then tilted her head. "What about the other matches?"
He lowered his gaze, staring at his food as he poked at it with his fork. "Your teammate, Weiss... she is not what I expected."
"And Blake?" she asked tentatively.
There was a long pause.
"I'm... glad to see she seems to be doing better," he said finally.
Yang didn't know what to say to that, so instead, she turned her attention back to her own food. It wasn't exactly great stuff -- most of what was available on the Ark was canned food and travel rations the White Fang liked to stock up on for emergencies, as they never knew when they could safely resupply -- but it was serviceable.
"I taught her that move," he murmured. "That strike she used at the end of this morning's semifinals."
Yang blinked in surprise, then paused to turn it over in her head. Blake and Aska had charged past each other at high speed, each delivering a single, powerful attack with their swords, striking from the hip. It was, in fact, exactly like Adam's preferred fighting style. "Yeah, it's pretty obvious, now that you mention it."
"She was so young when we met," he said distantly. "I hardly paid any attention to her at all at the time. I didn't know who she was, who her parents were. Sienna Khan, though, she knew. She used Blake's presence to help legitimize her 'new direction' for the White Fang when she took over six years ago."
Wait, Yang thought, holding her tongue to not interrupt the moment. Blake's related to those Belladonnas?!
"I didn't really notice her until about three years ago," he continued. "We'd been in the same cell for a year by then, and she kept cropping up mission after mission doing something notable. She was good: well-trained, tough, talented, and devoted to the cause, but still a little rough around the edges. I showed her a few tricks, sparred with her, trained her." He scoffed. "For all that the media try to downplay our actions, keep our names out of the headlines to deny us recognition so they can keep painting the White Fang as a bunch of faceless goons, people still know what we do, who we are. Some had started calling me the Sword of the White Fang, like I'm some hero out of legend, but she... I thought she saw past that."
Yang reached out a hand and placed it on his, but he didn't even seem to notice.
"It was a year or so after that that we... grew close," he said, then fell silent.
"What happened?" Yang prodded after a moment.
He worked his jaw for a moment without speaking. "I... was afraid," he admitted finally, visibly forcing the words from his mouth. "I didn't... I was afraid of losing her. So I did everything I could, pulled every trick I knew, used every lesson I was taught to keep her close."
Yang held back a snark about how well that had worked out.
He glared at her. "Shut up."
"I didn't say anything!" she protested.
"You were thinking it," he said coolly.
Well, that's gratitude for you! she fumed.
He sighed. "But... I suppose that's why it hit me so hard when she left me on that train. I guess she went to Beacon after that." He smirked. "From there, I suspect you know more than I do."
"Not that much more," Yang retorted. "You saw my scroll gallery. Um, she did spend a few months on special training learning to be a ninja, though."
"...that does not surprise me in the least."
"You gonna watch the finals?" Yang asked, changing the subject slightly.
"Perhaps," he said with a shrug. "It's not like I care about any of the higher years, and I already know how the first-year match will go."
"You do?" She arched a curious eyebrow.
"It's Pyrrha Nikos," he deadpanned. "I have seen her fight. I would be hard-pressed against someone like her."
"...versus Rain 'Vanguard' Bailey of Atlas!"
Sunset twitched, glaring as her opponent emerged to face her, his obnoxious intro music blaring over the speakers. Something about the song just offended her.
I have a firm grip on my dreams, she silently retorted to the offensive lyric. She would always fight to keep them alive, and she found the idea that one could trade passion for glory downright insulting.
Her dreams were within her grasp now, after all -- some of them, at least -- a part of her destiny ripe for the taking, and only this miserable little nobody from Atlas stood in her way. The fact that he was stupid enough to pick a song with the wrong kind of cat was equally infuriating. What glory was there to be found against such a simpleton?
And simply due to scheduling, her fame would likely be eclipsed by the first-year finals match coming up next.
She sometimes wondered what would have happened if she'd taken a gap year before going to Haven, but the specter of being overshadowed by the likes of Arslan Altan -- the famed Golden Lion who had proven the lie to the Invincible Girl's moniker -- and Verte d'Arc -- the young prodigy let in a year early -- made it clear that that would have been a mistake. Or perhaps she might have been saddled with a team of incompetents like Nadir Shiko and forced to carry them to the lofty heights of mediocrity which would be their pinnacle. Or worse yet, she might have wound up on a team with both, her successes credited to the already-famous, her reputation burdened with the failures of the incompetent.
No, better what she had now: a team that competed with her, challenged her, pushed her to excel rather than drag her down, but without the baggage of preexisting fame to cast an unfair shadow over her accomplishments. A team that let her shine such that the world would have no choice but to recognize her glory.
"Three!"
She drew her sword. Evenstar -- short for Eveningstar, but that was too much of a mouthful to say all the time -- was a custom-forged short sword, patterned after the wakizashi from southern Anima that was so popular among those in Atlas's ninja program. Simple, yet effective. It wasn't like she could afford the overengineered monstrosities favored by some.
"Two!"
The Mantellian pistol on her hip was both more and even less special than that. Precision-engineered but mass-produced before the lead up to the Great War, it was a nameless relic of history distinguished only by its age, a four digit serial number, and a crest that had somehow avoided being struck when the world went crazy, handed down to her by-
Sunset slammed the brakes on that train of thought. She would receive no acknowledgement from Sunset, not even in the privacy of her own mind.
"One!"
She'd show them! She'd show them all!
"Begin!"
Sunset dashed to her right, dodging the double-blast of buckshot from Vanguard, and quick-drew her pistol, snapping off a shot as she dove into the concealment of the wheat field biome. As she considered her options, a klaxon blared twice, warning of an impending biome change; like in the semifinals, the arena was divided into eight biomes as compared to the four of the doubles round and the two of the team round, but unlike in the semifinals, they would change randomly throughout the match.
She looked up at the holographic biome randomizers and groaned as she saw the randomizer for the very section she was hiding in spinning.
Oh, come on!
Sometimes -- most of the time, actually -- it felt to Sunset like the whole world was conspiring against her. Why else would she be so consistently thwarted from her destiny? But she refused to be denied. Sheathing Evenstar and holstering her pistol, she bolted for the next biome, a verdant forest, and lunged the last few feet even as she felt the topsoil give way under her as the biome was lowered to be tucked away and replaced with -- she glanced up -- a swamp.
She caught the edge of the forest biome and hauled herself up, scrambling to avoid being caught out in such a vulnerable position. Once she regained her feet, she looked around. This part of the forest biome was dense with trees, the sky obscured by the canopy, which cast dark shadows around her.
Of course, as an artificial construct, it wasn't teeming with the insects and small birds that would normally call such an environment home, but that didn't make the silence any less eerie.
She drew her pistol again and began warily stalking through the forest, eyes sharp for an ambush, momentarily wishing she was a faunus, as those deep shadows loomed large and especially foreboding.
She stiffened as she heard a guttural series of purring clicks, then spun and snap-fired.
Something -- a rustle in the brush, a crunch of dried leaves, Sunset wasn't sure -- warned her to move, and she did, diving into a bush and narrowly avoiding Vanguard as he pounced at her from behind, the claws on his gauntlets extended, the built-in shotguns blasting the ground he landed on where she'd been just a moment ago.
"Ventriloquism, huh?" she observed. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you?"
"You have no idea," he rumbled.
A strange and almost mad smirk came to her face. "Good."
She seized the initiative and charged, pistol firing, and Vanguard leaped forward to meet her charge, arms crossed to catch her bullets on his gauntlets. Soon, they met in melee, sword against claw. Sunset slashed and thrust and parried, which Vanguard met with swipes and punches. Pistol rounds and shotgun blasts echoed as they fought.
Sunset frowned. "Are you holding back?!" she demanded.
"What makes you think that?" he asked mildly.
She snarled. "Don't you dare take me lightly!"
"Very well," he agreed... and caught her blade in his gauntleted right hand, tugging it toward him. Startled, she clung to her weapon and moved with it... and saw stars as his armored left fist smashed into her face. And then again. And again.
Stubbornness and will allowed her to keep her grip on Evenstar's hilt, and she activated the fire dust within it, igniting the blade with a brilliant flame that forced Vanguard to let go and fall back.
Sunset grinned manically, brandishing the blazing sword and using the back of her off hand to wipe the blood that had splattered from her nose and split lip, even as her aura sealed the wounds.
"Now that's more like it!" she declared as Vanguard brought his arms together, combining and reconfiguring his shot-claws into a staff that he twirled slowly with one hand, beckoning her with the other.
Before she could respond to the silent challenge, however, the klaxon blared twice more, and the forest biome beneath their feet began to shudder. They each bolted for the nearest edge of the biome, away from each other.
When next they clashed, it was on an ice biome on the other side of the arena. Sunset's footing was uncertain on the slick surface, but she was able to compensate. Infuriatingly, Vanguard seemed uncannily steady on his feet, gliding across the ice almost as though he were skating. He came in close, lashing out with his staff-form weapon, scoring light hits that nevertheless sapped at her aura, and when she struck back, he'd catch Evenstar's blade on the shaft of his weapon, flowing away with the impact
Sunset snarled and charged as he neared an ice spire, and he spun, leaping up it, twirling his staff as he fired a semicircle into the icy floor between them. She scrambled wildly and veered away into a savannah biome as the fire dust rounds burned and began to melt the icy surface beneath their feet.
Two can play, she thought as she quickly swapped magazines and fired a volley of her own fire dust rounds at the ice spire, just below where Vanguard clung to it. The panther faunus from Atlas leaped clear of the ice spire and landed on the edge of the savannah biome, splitting his staff weapon back into shot-claws as he pounced toward her.
She reacted on instinct, activating her semblance to its fullest and most powerful extent.
The dry grass around her spontaneously combusted, and the grass further out lit up. The fire spread across the biome rapidly, engulfing everything in its path. There was no way that Vanguard could possibly avoid it... which meant, somehow, that he would, and that would be his downfall.
Sure enough, his form came leaping through the flames, right onto where Sunset's last position was. She wasn't there though. Instead, in her place was a trio of earth dust crystals.
The royal era pistol gave a short snapping boom, and a fire dust round lanced out to hit the crystal bundle dead on and explode in a tower of rock.
She was already running out of the savannah biome when she fired and wasn't inclined to look back over her shoulder to see if Vanguard had gotten caught in her trap. She had a way to win the contest now. All she needed to do was stay one step ahead.
"Dust has many uses and many meanings associated with it," explained newly retired Oberst Celestia as she stood next to a rocky outcropping with a very young Sunset Shimmer, bundled in winter clothing. "However, the most important thing to remember about dust is that it is volatile. Every dust crystal or powder you handle is a dangerous and lethal substance that can cause you serious injury. You must treat it with respect."
Sunset climbed up the rock that passed for a mountain in the biome of the same name and delivered a swift kick to a spot near the middle, revealing that it had been a large wind dust crystal painted over. She reached out and grabbed hold of it before it fell into the flames and continued the climb. Because of course there were flames; as soon as she set foot in the biome and saw the grass and trees, she lit everything on fire to help with the smoke screen that was filling up the whole arena.
Newly minted Principal Celestia held up the clay that was standing in for plastic explosive and alternated pointing at the disassembled gun cartridge and the bundle of wires and batteries next to it. "When building an improvised explosive device, it's important to choose the right detonator. Now, impact or ignition detonators can be useful, but they have obvious drawbacks in how they're detonated. That's why I prefer electricity instead."
Storm clouds were gathering overhead, and there was about to be a discharge. Why? Well, the answer was easy to see once one cut off the top of the mountain biome with a sword like Sunset had just done. There were lightning dust crystals inside hooked up to a computer system, a situation she corrected with a yank.
"Gravity is perhaps the weakest of the four fundamental forces of the universe, but don't let that fool you," said Principal Celestia as she sat with a teenaged Sunset Shimmer at their house's table. "With creative enough application, even the weakest of forces can bring down the strongest of foes."
Sunset hoped the decoy fire she had started in the forest biome that had just cycled in was enough of a distraction. She had seen Vanguard had freed himself, and worse, he seemed to be able to see through the smoke. He couldn't see through fire, though, and while she had used that to make a second getaway, she was also using it as a false flag.
She wasn't in the forest at all. She was on top of one of the gravity islands, ripping open the top to access its innards. She just hoped all the smoke kept the cameras from seeing what she was doing until she was ready.
Sunset Shimmer held her breath as she heard her mentor's voice. She had come home early and snuck in using some of the tricks she'd learned over the years. What was going on?
"Daybreaker reporting in. They're off the trail," said Principal Celestia, throwing Sunset's mind into confusion. "I've made sure the local newspaper won't report on the dust deposit at all. We now have full, exclusive access to the region."
The flame-haired teenager felt her eyebrows shoot up, and she narrowly avoided crushing her application to Atlas Academy. What was going on? What was Principal Celestia doing?
"Yo Joe."
"Daybreaker reporting in. They're off the trail," said Principal Celestia, throwing Sunset's mind into confusion. "I've made sure the local newspaper won't report on the dust deposit at all. We now have full, exclusive access to the region."
The flame-haired teenager felt her eyebrows shoot up, and she narrowly avoided crushing her application to Atlas Academy. What was going on? What was Principal Celestia doing?
"Yo Joe."
She had just finished wiring up the bundle of dust crystals when Vanguard started to leap up towards her. Sunset didn't have time to think; she just had time to act, and when she had to act was on a razor's edge. She would have to rely on that intuition of hers.
"Good morning, Daybreaker."
"What did you just call me?"
"What did you just call me?"
When Vanguard was in the air, she leapt off the platform so that when he hit the floor, she was already gone.
He growled as, once more, Sunset Shimmer fled in complete countervalence of her psychological profile and everything known about her. Then he looked down and saw what had been done to the innards of the artificial gravity island. He saw especially clearly the dust crystals packed together and wired into a collection of wires that led into a cannibalized wrist watch.
"Oh, n-"
"Let me in! I'm the best fighter in the kingdom, and you know it. You need me."
"This isn't how it's done."
"Then change it! I'm more than ready to help rule the world from the shadows."
"This isn't how it's done."
"Then change it! I'm more than ready to help rule the world from the shadows."
BOOOOMMRRRRRRRRRROOOM!!!
A terrific explosion tore through the arena. The timer set off the lightning dust, which in turn activated the gravity dust and wind dust. The gravity tore up shrapnel and compacted the wind dust, which in turn caused a frighteningly powerful compression wave that blew away all smoke and battered the force fields protecting the bleachers with all manner of debris… and Vanguard.
A happy grin split the flame-haired youth's mouth as she was sure she heard a buzzer through the ringing in her ears.
"Why are you shutting me out? Isn't this what you've been training me my whole life for?"
"Sunset, I… I'm sorry. I've made a terrible mistake. As you are now, you could never be a part of G.I. Joe."
"...You're not the only one who made a mistake."
"Sunset, I… I'm sorry. I've made a terrible mistake. As you are now, you could never be a part of G.I. Joe."
"...You're not the only one who made a mistake."
Sunset Shimmer concentrated her aura in her head, healing as fast as she could. She could hear it now, the applause, the unmitigated adoration of the crowd raining down upon her. They loved her, they worshiped her, and though it was fickle, there was no lie in it, no hidden reality. She was their queen, and they were her serfs, and all was as it should be.
Victory would be hers forevermore.
She threw up a fist into the air, and using a special dust technique, she created a giant gout of blue flame that split and folded in on itself several times to create a towering winged lantern, the symbol of Haven Academy and the Kingdom of Mistral both, in the air.
Do you see me now, Principal Celestia? Do you regret not taking me seriously? Don't worry, if you don't now, you will.
"Sister?"
"Mm-hmm?"
"You're smiling," Luna pointed out.
Celestia chuckled softly. "Well," she said, "it isn't every day one gets to say that one taught a Vytal Festival champion."
"You haven't given up on her yet, have you?"
"I try my best not to give up on anyone," Celestia replied. "Especially those who were… dear to me." She began to clap. "Congratulations, Sunset Shimmer. I'm so proud of you."
I know we left on bad terms, but I know that someday, you will have what it takes to be a Joe.
Celestia kept her hands held at her sides as the elevator descended into the glacial ice.
"Trouble at home?" asked Alpine candidly.
"More than a little," admitted Celestia just as the elevator reached the bottom. "I hope this find is worth it."
"So do I," replied Alpine as he stepped off the elevator and started walking through the tunnel carved into the ice. "After all, this is the first time we've made a discovery like this."
Celestia followed him and soon found herself in a room with several other Joes that were working on monitoring the find. The find in question was… unlike anything she had ever seen before. It was creature about the size of a Beowolf frozen in an ice wall which had the body of a man, the claws of a Grimm, the mane and tail of a lion, the head of a cynodont, the fur of a bear, and the wings of a bat emerging from its back. Its eyes and mouth were closed, and its stance seemed to have been frozen in some sort of fall.
"Is it an NBE?" asked Celestia in both wonder and worry.
"No. It's completely biological," answered Blizzard, looking up from the computer on a portable table he had been monitoring, "and that's not the only difference it has with every other alien we've found."
Celestia's eyes opened wide in surprise. "It's alive?!"
"Got it in one," confirmed Alpine. "At least, that's what our instruments are telling us. That's why General Flagg has ordered our friend here to stay on ice for the foreseeable future, at least until we can figure out if he'll kill us all once he wakes up."
The retired oberst was inclined to agree with the general. This… this was the most monumental discovery in the history of Remnant. She just hoped in the end it would justify the hate she now saw in Sunset's eyes.
"Trouble at home?" asked Alpine candidly.
"More than a little," admitted Celestia just as the elevator reached the bottom. "I hope this find is worth it."
"So do I," replied Alpine as he stepped off the elevator and started walking through the tunnel carved into the ice. "After all, this is the first time we've made a discovery like this."
Celestia followed him and soon found herself in a room with several other Joes that were working on monitoring the find. The find in question was… unlike anything she had ever seen before. It was creature about the size of a Beowolf frozen in an ice wall which had the body of a man, the claws of a Grimm, the mane and tail of a lion, the head of a cynodont, the fur of a bear, and the wings of a bat emerging from its back. Its eyes and mouth were closed, and its stance seemed to have been frozen in some sort of fall.
"Is it an NBE?" asked Celestia in both wonder and worry.
"No. It's completely biological," answered Blizzard, looking up from the computer on a portable table he had been monitoring, "and that's not the only difference it has with every other alien we've found."
Celestia's eyes opened wide in surprise. "It's alive?!"
"Got it in one," confirmed Alpine. "At least, that's what our instruments are telling us. That's why General Flagg has ordered our friend here to stay on ice for the foreseeable future, at least until we can figure out if he'll kill us all once he wakes up."
The retired oberst was inclined to agree with the general. This… this was the most monumental discovery in the history of Remnant. She just hoped in the end it would justify the hate she now saw in Sunset's eyes.
Rain groaned, staring at the sky above. That had... hurt. A lot more than he'd expected.
A shadow cast over him, blocking his view. It was the twins. Great.
"Well, well," Thunder said, "you lost."
"Winning was not part of the mission," he reminded them.
"Neither was losing!" Lightning countered.
He heard footsteps approaching.
"You had one job, Rain!" came the unmistakable voice of Coco Adel. "One job! Wipe that stupid smirk off Sunset Shimmer's face! She's smirkier than ever now!"
This was going to be a long stretch.
"Okay, she seems a lot less evil this time around," Silverstream admitted.
"She wasn't given so much chance," Molly agreed. "That… was a pretty smart move of hers."
Silverstream nodded. "Of course, against a first-rate fighter like Firebrand or Pyrrha-"
"Did you just compliment Pyrrha Nikos?"
Silverstream's eyes widened. "No," she said quickly. She cleared her throat. "Against Firebrand, there's no way a trick like that would have worked, nor… any fighter with… a certain level of… raw talent."
"So… Pyrrha Nikos?"
"You didn't hear me say that."
Maple watched the fiery Haven lantern rise above the stadium with a sense of awe. She had never been much of a sports fan, but that? She had to admit that that was impressive.
And hey, her team leader was a faunus, so maybe she wasn't such a bad person? …Ah, who was she kidding? If she ever met that Sunset Shimmer person, she'd probably get chopped up into beaver tail soup.
"Maple?" came a tremulous voice that made her heart afeared. "Can I come in?"
Ruby Rose stood in the doorway with her head bowed, and instantly, the fear of her last encounter with the girl evaporated. It was stupid, but she couldn't stay mad at that face. It was Ruby, and that was all that needed to be said.
"Sure, come on in," said Maple with a wave as she got up off the bed. "It's not like it's a crowded room."
Ruby looked around at the minimal care room that Maple had been moved to and its lone other empty bed, and then as she stepped inside and closed the door, she spoke. "I'm sorry."
Maple wanted to reply, but she held her tongue in confusion.
"I'm sorry that I went and accused you of… I'm sorry," she got out, tears visibly coming down her cheeks. "You were innocent, and I wouldn't listen, and I…"
With two quick steps, Maple reached out and embraced Ruby. The little one stiffened in her grip, but the mechanic still held on. Small arms reached up to return the hug.
"It's okay, Ruby," whispered Maple. "I forgive you."
"How?" asked Ruby hoarsely. "How can you just forgive me like that?"
"You were worried about your sister. Besides, you're not the only one who's messed up in your life, and I've done far worse to far more people," explained Maple sadly. "I'd either hate myself or be a hypocrite if I didn't forgive you."
Ruby sniffed and let out a small chuckle. "I'm still sorry."
Maple sighed good naturedly and let go before walking back to her bed. "I know that mood. It's the same one your sister has when she wants to get something out but can't find the words. So, what is it?"
The bloodcrowned girl went over and sat in the chair besides Maple's bed, clearly deep in thought. "I met Yang again, and she explained to me what had been happening. How she had been fighting the good fight."
The mechanic stiffened involuntarily once more. That was a bad sign. Ruby? Sweet innocent Ruby becoming indoctrinated into the White Fang?
"Me and Dad, oh, and the headmasters and Glynda and Uncle Qrow too, all met Bumblebee and Optimus Prime," continued Ruby.
They had gone and revealed that? That secret was out? She hadn't heard anything about it on the news. Was that the one secret not getting publicized right now? But… if the headmasters were okay with things, maybe the Autobots would finally be able to rest easy. For now, at least. It was only a matter of time before humanity turned on them and created ruthless teams of killers to hunt them like animals… like they were faunus.
Ruby talked on. "And… I met my brother."
Maple's mind came to a screeching halt. Wait. She has a brother?! When did this happen?
"He's someone you know."
Who could that possibly be? Ruby's brother was a member of the White Fang? Was that entire family just a bunch of White Fang sympathizers?
"His name is Adam Taurus."
Maple sputtered and hacked. "What?!"
"I know, right?" cheered Ruby obliviously. "He's great! First time we met, we spent all night catching up with each other. I'm going to help him reforge his weapon. Dad and him get along great. Uncle Qrow… I love him, but he knew about Raven having a son all along, and he said nothing. That was not cool."
There was a throbbing headache making its way through Maple's skull as she struggled to make sense of everything that she had heard. "Raven… Raven Branwen?"
"Yeah," Ruby muttered sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head. "So, Adam is actually the son of Raven Branwen, and she had him when she was, like, sixteen before she went to Beacon, and she kept him with the tribe, and then some bad stuff happened, but then she rescued him and trained him in the art of the blade. After she had Yang, I mean, and then left to go back to her bandit tribe. Anyway, don't tell anyone; the important part is that we're a family again."
"Adam Taurus is your brother," repeated Maple dumbly.
"Yeah, I already- oh! Do you think he won't like it if I tell people about this? He won't, will he? Maple, you've got to keep quiet about this!"
"I am never going to speak of this again," muttered Maple, shaking her head with wide eyes. She gave a brief glance at the pain medications on the side table and wondered what exactly was in them. This was a very vivid hallucination.
Before Ruby could reply, there was a knock on the door.
"Come in!" Maple said extremely quickly.
The door opened to admit Ciel "Farsight" Soleil and Penny "Bladerider" Polendina, two Atlas students that had volunteered for medical duty after they had gotten back from their first missions. Maple remembered them because they were such an odd couple, a regular mismatched pair right out of a cop movie. She also remembered that little coppertopped bundle of energy asking Doc all manner of questions about his profession and her organs.
That girl should really keep to the Huntress track.
"Hello again, Patient Maple!" cheered Penny happily as she… was pushed in on a wheelchair by her friend… oh. "And hello again to you too, Friend Ruby!"
"Friend Penny!" replied Ruby. "You came!"
"Yes! I wanted to watch the Vytal Festival with friends, and we're just in time for the last finals match," explained Penny happily before turning to Maple. "How are you?"
"Fine," answered Maple in exasperation. "I'm perfectly fit, but the doctor wants to keep me under observation for a little while longer."
"An understandable precaution," said Ciel. "When last we saw you, you were still undergoing physical therapy and surgeries. You had your limbs shattered."
"Yeah, but… what's my business going to look like when I get back?" asked Maple worriedly.
"Better for having you there in prime condition to run it once more," replied Ciel stiffly. "I know what it's like to put all your dreams on hold because of a medical need, but I also speak from experience when I say that it does get better if you stay with it."
Maple nodded. "Let's just skip the pep talk and jump straight to the party, shall we?"
"Resourceful," observed Megatron. "This Sunset Shimmer continues to impress, and she certainly knows how to make a spectacle and play to the crowd."
"You think so, Boss?" Demolishor queried. "I mean, her semifinal match seemed to get mixed reception."
"It's because of her semifinal match that this was such an important move for her," corrected Megatron. "She's adjusting her image to counteract the negative reactions to that. Instead of whatever they saw that they disapproved of, what they see now is a champion representing Haven. Considering Atlas won the fourth-year, Shade won the third-year, and both finalists for the first-year are from Beacon, Sunset Shimmer has just turned herself into a symbol of national pride for Haven and Mistral with that stunt."
"Huh," Demolishor acknowledged, his brain module still clearly working through the lesson. "What about the other guy?"
Megatron's optics narrowed. "What about him?"
"He lost."
"Exactly."
The atmosphere in the stadium was thumping, and the crowd -- reinvigorated by a few hours resting or enjoying other, less martial aspects of the Vytal Festival -- was in an uproar that was, thankfully, distinctly positive. Pyrrha had already entered the arena to her intro music and the thunderous cheers of the crowd, and Blake waited anxiously for her own cue.
"And facing the fabled Invincible Girl tonight!" boomed Professor Port. "The Untouchable Girl! The Princess of Pain! Eight! Lives! Blaaake! Belladonna!"
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Blake squared her shoulders and marched out into the arena, her heart lifting at the cheers that greeted her. To be sure, the cheers of support weren't as great as what Pyrrha had received, but it still felt... nice. She thought back to what Quick Kick had told her. As ridiculous as the whole "Eight-Lives Blake" nonsense was, it wasn't going to go away. She had two choices: she could own it, or she could fight it, and if she fought it... she'd lose.
Her ears twitched, and she smiled, looking up at the crowd and offering a V for victory sign. The cheers redoubled.
Finally, she reached the central octagon and faced Pyrrha.
The two of them faced each other, sizing each other up.
"So," Blake said, "this is how it ends."
Pyrrha nodded. "One shall stand."
"One shall fall."
"Three!"
I can do this, Blake reassured herself, holding Gambol Shroud in one hand while the other discreetly palmed a smoke bomb. Oh, actually winning was... unlikely, to say the least, but she would at least put up a good fight.
"Two!"
I can do this, she repeated the mantra in her head. At the very least, she wouldn't have to worry about Pyrrha's semblance. At least, not unless she managed to push Pyrrha into being more overt about it, and if she did, she'd take that as a win in and of itself.
"One!"
I can do this.
"Begin!"
I can't do this! she panicked as Pyrrha shot off like a rocket, charging toward her with a thundering recoil assist from Miló.
Now, some people might suggest that a reformed criminal and former terrorist like Blake Belladonna ought not find the prospect of a seventeen-year-old girl charging at her with a cheerful grin to be all that frightening. After all, with her sordid history, she had surely faced much worse odds, outnumbered and outgunned by experienced security and military personnel backed up by heavy mech and air support and genuinely attempting to kill her, which was a far cry from a classmate and friend trying to defeat her in a nonlethal duel.
Blake would tell such people to go screw themselves. They had never faced down a charging Pyrrha freaking Nikos. They had not spent two semesters watching that very same Pyrrha Nikos utterly demolishing entire teams in Professor Goodwitch's Combat Course on a regular basis without even breaking a sweat.
She didn't even have time to arm the smoke bomb. Instinct took over, and she watched, wide-eyed, as Pyrrha handily used Akoúo̱'s edge to decapitate her Shadow before spinning on her heel, her gaze locking onto Blake.
For her part, Blake deployed the smoke bomb, concealing herself long enough to relocate and get a breather.
Pyrrha stalked through the arena and the varied biomes in an echo of her match with Arslan earlier. She was nearing the edge of a forest biome when Blake burst out of the foliage, lashing out with Gambol Shroud's two blades in a furious series of thrusts and slashes.
The redhead seemed caught off-guard, bringing Akoúo̱ up to defend just a hair's breadth too slowly, the cleaver blade biting into her aura over her left upper arm, even as she fended off the sword with Miló.
"And first blood goes to Blake Belladonna!" Dr. Oobleck's astonished voice came over the speakers excitedly.
A curious expression crossed Pyrrha's face, but she quickly overcame her surprise and began dismantling Blake's defenses, pressing her back into the forest. Blake activated her Shadow semblance again, leaving her clone to be impaled on Miló's spear form as she retreated once more.
This was her only real chance. Hit and run.
And so it went, again and again, with Blake emerging to ambush Pyrrha, with or without the aid of a smoke bomb, only to retreat once the Mistrali champion reoriented herself.
"She's toying with her," Megatron observed. "Ha! And she can't even see it. Very impressive, Invincible Girl. Very impressive."
"Astonishing!" called Dr. Oobleck. "It seems the Invincible Girl may have met her match!"
"Indeed!" agreed Professor Port. "Several minutes in, and Miss Belladonna has scored several blows on Miss Nikos, who has yet to land a single hit in return!"
"But this is a risky strategy," cautioned Oobleck, "as she can keep using her semblance repeatedly like this for only so long."
Tell me something I don't know, Blake thought uncharitably. She'd managed to bring Pyrrha's aura down near the yellow, but the use of her semblance had brought her own down to a roughly equal level, if not slightly below, just barely still in the green. Worse, Pyrrha was adapting terrifyingly quickly and was beginning to anticipate her ambushes.
The fact that the redhead still wore that cheerful smile didn't help at all.
It was time to change things up a bit. Blake lunged out for another series of attacks on the Mistrali champion, this time from the concealment of a swamp biome, and just as before, she activated her semblance when Pyrrha inevitably turned the tide.
The Shadow Blake left behind froze as Pyrrha thrust Miló's blade through its chest -- literally, as the ice dust she used in creating it activated -- and Blake struck, leaping out again to unleash another furious barrage. This was her best chance.
If anything, Pyrrha's smile got wider as she let go of Miló and backed away, adroitly parrying and deflecting Blake's blows with Akoúo̱ and occasionally with her free hand, but as skilled as Pyrrha was, she had only a small shield to defend herself with against Blake's two weapons.
Pyrrha was half-disarmed and on the defensive, so why did Blake feel like she was the one on the ropes? Was it nerves? The fatigue that was beginning to set in?
The redhead hopped back, and Blake reacted instinctively, hurling one end of her variant ballistic chain scythe on its ribbon tether at her. Pyrrha ducked and reached up, allowing the ribbon to wrap around her wrist, and grabbed hold of it.
"I must thank you, Blake," she said pleasantly, straightening up. "This has been wonderful. Shall we step it up a little?"
Blake blinked, her secondary ears flat against the top of her skull. "Wait, 'step it up'?"
It went rapidly downhill from there.
Minutes later, Blake found herself scrambling backwards into a building in the urban biome and up the stairs, frantically trying to parry or deflect Pyrrha's relentless onslaught. The two had rearmed themselves in the interim, but it was taking all she had -- and a few more expendable clones -- to stay ahead. Even the fire dust clone had barely slowed Pyrrha down. Blake had prepared the urban biome a while back and hoped that her preparations persisted through the two biome changes it had gone through.
This was her last chance. Her aura was nearing the red, while Pyrrha had just barely entered the yellow. She had to make this count.
The klaxon blared twice, warning of a biome change as Blake emerged onto the rooftop. A quick glance up confirmed that this biome was changing, and she hurled Gambol Shroud over to one of the floating islands in the nearby gravity biome. As she pulled herself away and out of Pyrrha's reach, she triggered the charges.
She risked a glance over her shoulder as the explosives blew, collapsing the building she had just vacated and throwing up a massive cloud of dust as the urban biome began to retract downwards.
Did... did I actually do it? she wondered in stunned disbelief...
...just before Pyrrha shot out of the dust cloud toward her, grinning like a maniac as she calmly reloaded Miló in mid-air and resumed firing to recoil boost herself towards Blake.
The raven-haired faunus's eyes went wide as she saw the tip of the spear come in and collide with her head, nearly taking off her friendship bow in the process. It was the first hit that had been scored on her -- the real her -- since she had completed her ninja training under Storm Shadow. Blake had almost forgotten what it was like to feel that sort of pain or the exhilaration that came from getting back up again.
Blake found herself smiling as well as she twisted around and deflected a pair of shots from Miló with Gambol Shroud's blades. Pyrrha started to run again, and the faunus kunoichi used her semblance to get out of the way and above and behind her opponent to fire off a flurry of shots from the pistol mode. Several of the rounds hit, but others were deflected as Akoúo̱ slid into position.
The pair became a whirling, twisting mass of limbs as they stabbed and slashed at each other, like twin wind spirits vying for strikes. And strike they did, their auras were both depleting rapidly as each fought for hits against the other. Every thrust was instinctual, every block was like lightning, and the fight became an almost impossible task to follow, though Dr. Oobleck put forth a valiant effort.
Then, suddenly, Pyrrha's weapons were knocked away to fall off the gravity platform they had found themselves on, and the sword blade of Gambol Shroud came to rest against the redhead's throat while Blake stood behind her. The Untouchable Girl had the Invincible Girl in a lock. It seemed like the fight was over, even as Pyrrha's hand desperately clutched around the ceramic cutting instrument.
"Want to compose a haiku like Shadow did?" asked Blake huskily, her tone laced with excitement.
"I wouldn't want to shame you by thinking this fight over before it was," was Pyrrha's panting reply.
There was a cracking snap, and Blake's eyes went wide again as Pyrrha somehow found the strength and the placement to shatter Gambol Shroud's blade, the ceramic breaking where a metal blade might have bent.
A huff, a kick, and Blake found herself knocked back while the machete-sheath of Gambol Shroud was taken from her hand. She had barely half a second to register that her own weapon was coming back at her in the hands of Pyrrha Nikos. A brief black out of the same time span followed as she flew through the air toward the center of the arena.
The buzzer sounded like rolling thunder throughout the arena.
"After such a brilliant match, Pyrrha Nikos of Beacon's Team Juniper stands victorious as the first-year champion of the Fortieth Vytal Tournament!" boomed Professor Port.
Lying on her back, staring at the sky from where'd landed in the central octagon, Blake couldn't muster enough energy to offer more than a mild, "Yay."
It was over. It was finally over.
She blinked as her view of the sky was interrupted by a concerned redhead looking down at her.
"Blake?" she asked. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah," she croaked. "Just fine."
"I'm sorry about Gambol Shroud."
"Don't worry about it," Blake said, holding up the weapon and activating a hidden catch that allowed the stump of the blade to fall free next to her. "Do you have any idea how often this thing breaks?"
Relieved, Pyrrha smiled brilliantly and reached down, offering her a hand up.
No one should be that cheerful after a fight like that, Blake thought sourly as she accepted it. The cheering crowd grew louder, and to Blake's surprise... a goodly amount of the cheers were not directed at the newly-minted and still-undefeated champion.
A lot of them were instead cheering for her.
"Blake! Blake! Blake!" came the repeated cheers.
Blake found herself smiling as the two of them raised their hands in triumph, causing the crowd to cheer even louder. It was only Pyrrha's grip on her hand and her depleted aura level that prevented her from bolting when the official sportscaster and cameraman approached them.
"Quite the crowning achievement to top off your career," the sportscaster said.
"Yes," Pyrrha agreed. "This was a wonderful match!" She glanced at Blake. "I had so much fun! We should do it again sometime!"
"Yeah, sure," Blake muttered. Let's not and say we did.
"Anything to say to our viewers?"
Pyrrha hesitated, then reached down to a pouch on her belt. "I have something to say to one of our viewers," she said, looking up past the camera to where most of the rest of Team RRANNBWW was seated before focusing her gaze on the camera. Extracting from the pouch a gold band with a sapphire set into it and placing it on her finger, she declared, "Yes, Jaune. My answer is 'yes.'"
If the crowd had been loud before, they were positively deafening now. Up above, the holographic display showing their aura levels -- now creeping back up as they recovered -- were replaced with a zoomed-in shot of Jaune, who looked poleaxed, a grin taking over his face before he vaulted over the low wall in front of him and down into the arena, running toward Pyrrha, just as he had after her match with Arslan.
"By the way, Blake," Pyrrha murmured quietly, her eyes fixed on Jaune as she resisted the urge to rush to meet him, "did you actually rebuild Gambol Shroud for this match? If so, I'm flattered."
Blake gave a slight shake of her head in reply. "Believe it or not, no," she said. "I've... had reason to slip my weapon past metal detectors in the past."
Pyrrha nodded and turned back to greet Jaune, squealing as he picked her up and pulled her in for a kiss.
Blake smiled, watching the happy couple... then jumped as a pair of arms snaked around her from behind. Turning, she found herself gazing into a familiar set of blue eyes.
"Hey there," Sun said.
"You startled me."
"Sorry about that."
"And they lived happily ever after," Molly declared.
Silverstream sniffed.
Molly half-glanced, half-glared up at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Happily ever after, with him?" Silverstream snorted. "I wouldn't count on it."
Molly frowned. "Something wrong with Jaune?"
"He broke Weiss's heart!" Silverstream declared. "I, as an expert observer of Firebrand's moods, can tell that she's still carrying a torch for him, but does he care? No, because he's already made his way through Ruby Rose to Pyrrha Nikos in the space of a few weeks. He's obviously an irrepressible phil-… cheating scumbag. Pyrrha ought to watch herself."
Molly snorted. "Like Pyrrha's in any trouble."
"Oh, you think she's so much better than Firebrand?"
"I think that after a fight like that, he'd have to be a fool to get on Pyrrha's bad side," Molly replied.
Silverstream considered that. "That's a fair point. She deserved the win." She hesitated. "Firebrand… couldn't have pulled it off with so much style."
"What was that? I didn't quite catch it."
"Well, don't expect me to repeat myself," Silverstream said. She fell silent for a moment before deciding that she might as well just go with it. She leapt out of her seat, her arms raised in the air. "YEAH! NICE ONE, PYRRHA!"
"Congratulations, Pyrrha," Weiss murmured wistfully as the display above the arena showed a zoomed-in close-up of the happy couple. "Good luck with your happy ending."
The VIP box was empty, aside from Weiss, Lady Belladonna, and her bodyguard detail. Weiss preferred it that way. Granted, she would have preferred even more if she was down in the stands, but VNN had cameras sweeping the stands looking for her, and the last thing she wanted was Maverick's uncle getting ahold of footage of her pining after Jaune when he was marching off to a brand new life with his brand new wife. Well, future wife.
Especially in Vale. The kingdom was a wonderful place, but ugh, some of the things the populace did was downright degenerate. She just knew that if people saw that, they would immediately assume that she was looking to become Pyrrha's "sister-wife," and that was just…
A shudder went through Weiss, and the others noticed it.
"Weiss, is something wrong?" asked Kali worriedly.
"Oh, nothing, just remembering something Ruby said a few weeks ago," replied Weiss before shaking her head. "Let's not talk about that. Please. I mean, Blake just fought in the championships, and we should be talking about that."
"Yes, she did very well, didn't she?" Lady Belladonna observed. "I'm so proud of her."
"She did," Weiss agreed. "Not many people can hold out so well against Pyrrha."
"What's she like?" the older woman asked. "Pyrrha Nikos, I mean. I'd like to learn more about my daughter's friends."
Weiss blinked in surprise, then looked thoughtful. "She's... really very sweet. Don't let the gossip rags fool you. That kindness? That generosity? It's absolutely genuine."
"Really?" Lady Belladonna asked curiously. "I would have thought her accomplishments would have engendered a bit of ego."
Weiss snorted. "She could use a bit more ego. With the way she was pining after Jaune for so long, it would have saved us all a lot of heartache."
"Would it now?" Lady Belladonna asked, an amused look crossing her face at the deer-in-the-headlights expression Weiss now wore. "Oh, don't worry, dear. I'll take you to Menagerie some time. I'm sure you'll meet some cute boys there."
That is such a terrible idea, Weiss thought. With her face, her hair, her eyes... for one thing, she wasn't keen on getting stoned to death. How could she expect anyone to look past what her father had done?
How could anyone, when even she couldn't?
Cardin was feeling a little uncomfortable. He and his father were alone in the VIP box reserved for the host kingdom's government, most of whom were tied up in the complexity of recent events. Regent Lord High Treasurer Felix Winchester had insisted they attend the first-year finals in person, needing to unwind after a lengthy discussion with the Grand Marshal and Destro over the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Of course, it was also for political reasons; with everything that was going on, the fact that his father had still made the time to show up to support Beacon would not go unnoticed.
Cardin wished Skystar was here, but First Minister Novo had had other plans, and thus, so did her daughter. He was glad Father had introduced them, even if it was blatantly political.
"My my my," murmured.the Winchester patriarch. "The boy has quite lofty ambitions, doesn't he?"
Cardin gave his father a sidelong glance. "Huh?"
The Lord High Treasurer gestured at the jumbotron display showing the kissing couple. "Do you not see it, boy?"
Cardin took another look in case the image had changed. Nope, just still Jaune and Pyrrha making out like the lovey-dovey couple they were.
"What ambition?" Cardin queried. "Jauney Boy's got about as much ambition as a rock. He's told me to my face that he doesn't want the throne."
"Of course he did," his father scoffed. "Refusing the throne only makes him look better to the public. Have I taught you nothing, boy? Perception is paramount in politics, and all men, above all else, desire power. This? This just proves his ambitions are greater than I had dared dream. Why else would he woo Pyrrha Nikos of all people?"
Because they're in love? Obviously, painfully in love? Cardin suggested silently. And Pyrrha's sickeningly sweet and nice to him on top of being a major badass?
He didn't get why Jaune would go for a girl who could kick his butt so easily. While blindfolded. With one hand tied behind her back. But to each their own. And he supposed if Jaune didn't like girls who could beat him up, that would have thinned his dating prospects to near nothing.
"Indeed," his father continued, "why come to Beacon instead of Haven at all if not to reconnect with and capitalize on his Valish roots?"
Probably because he was afraid his fake transcripts would get found out if he went to Haven with his sister, Cardin thought with a mental snort.
"Vale and Mistral," his father mused, "why, it would form the greatest power bloc since the Great War."
"Father," Cardin interjected, "Jaune told me he'd make anyone who put him on the Empty Throne regret it."
"Hmm?" The elder turned to the younger in genuine confusion, then shook his head. "Of course. Why settle for the Empty Throne when he could forge a new one?" he asked, waving at the happy couple.
Cardin sighed and gave up.
Rarity put her hands over her heart. "Oh, my," she declared, wiping a single tear from her eye. "I know that it's none of my business, but, oh goodness, I do love a happy ending." She sighed contentedly. "I wonder who they'll get to do the wedding dress? Oh, Pyrrha has such a gorgeous figure to work with, and that hair, and those eyes. Why, I can see it now: something slender, with a very narrow skirt and a side slit to show off those lovely legs of hers, and a sash around her waist as a reminder of her personal style, then-"
"Uh, Rarity?" Apple Bloom asked.
"Leave her," Sweetie Belle said resignedly. "You won't snap her out of it… and it's not like she's hurting anyone."
"Of course, I shouldn't presume on the style of the wedding," Rarity continued. "Mistral has a great many different cultural traditions-"
"Even though it felt like a foregone conclusion, that was still a surprisingly exciting match," Luna observed.
"Quite so," Celestia agreed. "The outcome was never in doubt, but Miss Belladonna didn't give up for a single second. Her courage was quite admirable."
"I can't wait to see what she wears!" Rarity proclaimed, throwing her arms out wide on either side of her. "Oh, I'm so sorry. Fluttershy, please forgive me."
"Oh, yeah! Go, Pyrrha!" cheered Penny happily, her whole face lighting up in joy.
"Wow. That was… exciting," mused Maple breathlessly.
"It was quite the sight to see," agreed Ciel.
"They really went all out," said Ruby with wonder.
"Indeed. Pyrrha earned that victory," stated Aska.
Maple's head turned to the side, and she let out a cry. "When did you get here?!"
"I was always here," Aska informed her calmly. "I am a ninja."
"But… what… how did you get in?" stammered Maple.
"I am a ninja," repeated Aska.
"Why…?"
Maple was interrupted by Ruby putting a hand on her shoulder. "Maple, she's a ninja."
The beaver faunus looked around at the faces of the others and found only pity. "Have you all gotten used to this?"
Ciel shrugged. "I am training in ninjutsu as well, so I know how a lot of it works. No mystery, no fear."
"I theoretically know how it works, but that doesn't help me in Ninjutsu Class at all," said Penny, her face falling. Then she perked back up. "That's why I prefer dance!"
Maple blinked. "Atlas has dance classes?"
"Oh, yes," began Ciel with what passed for a smile from her. "Atlas has a course on etiquette as part of its core curriculum, and several types of ballroom dance are a part of that. Penny's interest goes beyond the required though, and she's really more of an enthusiast."
The coppertop's smile grew that much wider. "It's true. I love to dance. It's such a wonderful and expressive art form."
As the green-themed girl gave an all-too-pleased sigh, Maple glanced at Penny's wheelchair once more. "Will you be able to again?"
"I think so," confirmed Penny with a nod. "Rufus says the best guess he has is that I have shell shock."
Shell shock, also known as post-traumatic stress disorder. Some others in the White Fang had it. Few would admit to it, and fewer still would get treatment for it. Maple hoped Penny wasn't one of those people. She didn't want a sweet little girl like her to miss out on her dreams without the chance to relax with her hobbies because some cruel soul had broken that part of her mind.
"Still, when I get back to Atlas, I'll be looked at by some specialists, and they might have a different diagnosis," continued Penny with a shrug. "That's later, though. Now, I want to talk about that crazy move Pyrrha did with Gambol Shroud!"
And so, conversation between the five women continued long into the night, broken only by dinner and dessert. It was, in their minds at least, a wonderful end to a grand day. And, perhaps, that was what they all needed the most.
"Congratulations to Sunset Shimmer and Team Dust!"
Pyrrha stood with the rest of Team JNPR in the center of Amity Colosseum and watched as Ozpin presented the crowns of victory to Team DSST. In all honesty, the crowning ceremony had been going on for a while now, with a great deal of pomp and circumstance that Pyrrha found immensely boring and oddly routine.
She still found Sunset Shimmer's triumphant smirk somewhat irksome as the Haven student stood in pride of place among her team and accepted the crown signifying her victory in the second-year bracket, but the minor irritation -- even combined with the boredom -- wasn't enough to dampen her mood.
This was the end of the Vytal Tournament after all, a victory well-earned and the beginning of a new stage in her life. She stole a glance past Nora on her right to their team leader. A stage of her life with Jaune by her side.
"Pyrrha Nikos and Team Juniper of Beacon!" Ozpin called, and Team JNPR stepped forward to take the place in the spotlight, now vacated by Team DSST.
"It has been my pleasure and honor to teach you -- all of you -- here at Beacon this past year," Ozpin began. "Tonight, it is you, Pyrrha, who triumphed, you who brought victory, you who will be remembered."
Pyrrha nodded wordlessly. What he said was truth, though it brought her no comfort; indeed, it brought her considerable discomfort.
Ozpin smiled. "But what we know, what most people overlook, is how much you rely on your team, both on and off the battlefield. Jaune, I have seen you grow into an exceptional leader. Nora, your energy and enthusiasm inspires those around you. Ren, your level-headedness and temperament give your team an anchor to cling to. All of you are valuable in your own right. None of us -- not even the greatest heroes of legend -- can go it alone. Remember that."
I will, Pyrrha thought, pulling off her circlet as they bowed their heads for Ozpin to place their own crowns of victory atop their heads. There was little chance she would forget that, not with the bonds she had forged with Team Rainbow over this past year.
"Congratulations to Pyrrha Nikos and Team Juniper!"
With that, they stepped back and out of the spotlight as Ozpin turned to address the crowd in the stands.
"In light of recent events, I think it is more important than ever that we remember the purpose of the Vytal Tournament. Like the Vytal Festival as a whole, it is a celebration of peace. This tournament gives a means through which our great kingdoms can compete in friendship, with our bonds of fellowship strengthened and comforted with the knowledge that our allies remain strong and worthy. I do not know what the future brings -- these are uncertain times, to say the least -- but I do know that we, the people of Remnant, will face these trying times with strength and unity as one."
The ceremony went on a little bit more after that, but Pyrrha did not pay too much attention to it. After all, she knew in her heart that the professor's words would ring true for Team Rainbow. And come what may, they would stand against whatever the universe could throw at them.
"So, what did you think of that last match, Lord Megatron?" Demolishor asked.
"It went about as expected," Megatron replied. "It took her long enough to get serious, but I suppose she was enjoying herself."
He shook his head.
It's been fun, but it's time we closed this book and started a new one, as Optimus Prime always used to say, he thought, and then he spoke aloud. "Demolishor, alert the crew to begin preparations for take-off. It's time we made best possible speed for Vale."
"You got it, Boss," replied Demolishor cheerily, obviously happy to get back into the fight. While he was performing his duties, however, there was an alert. "Uh, message coming in, sir. It's Cinder Fall again. It's about attacking the Vytal Tournament. Again. She seems angrier than ever."
Megatron smirked. "Belay my previous order. It's time we made worst possible speed to Vale."
Demolishor saluted. "Aye aye, Lord Megatron."
"And... where did you say this flash drive came from?" Prowl asked, accepting the device gingerly from Taiyang. The man had returned with Jazz with some supplies for his daughter and stepson and the flash drive. It appeared to be a nondescript portable data storage device of Cybertronian make with a standard dataport connector.
"Team Rainbow acquired it on an infiltration mission to a Decepticon facility several months ago," Taiyang answered. "According to the report, a Decepticon appeared to have detected them and deliberately left it vulnerable."
"Suspicious," Prowl murmured. "Did this Decepticon have a name?"
"Counterpunch."
The Autobot froze. "I see." He paused and plugged it into the computer terminal. "Well, no time like the present to see what we have here."
He watched as lines of code began to scroll across the screen, his optics widening as he took it all in.
"What is it?" Taiyang asked after a moment.
Prowl couldn't tear his optics away from the monitor.
"Everything."
(V3E9: Esprit de Corps, Part IV | V3E10: Finals | V3E11: A Day Off)
- Author's Note 1 (Cyclone)
- Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett)
- Author's Note 3 (Cyclone)
In our next episode, though the tournament is over, the Vytal Festival continues as people take the time to enjoy "A Day Off."
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Volume III: Episode 11: A Day Off
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
Lady Regent Councilor First Minister and Speaker for Parliament Novo Aris of the Mount Aris Arises repeatedly crushed a spring-loaded stress toy in her hand as Ozpin finished up his proposal. She did not look pleased. In fact, she looked at Ozpin as if she was going to burst into flames at any moment.
"Are you serious?" she demanded.
"James is a hero here in Vale," Ozpin reminded her. "We already have protests in the street over his arrest. Among other things. If we give him safe harbor, then-"
"Then the Atlesians might very well consider that an act of war," Keller interrupted. "Now, I have the utmost confidence in our troops -- they're good men: skilled, capable, well-equipped -- but our forces don't hold a candle to the Atlesian military. That's not a fight we can win, not today, not tomorrow. And that's completely setting aside these 'Decepticons.' What if they decide to make an example of us?"
"Optimus Prime has pledged to protect Vale if the Decepticons attack," Ozpin reminded them, "and they have recently acquired and shared with me critical information regarding Decepticon holdings in Valish territory. Arguably an act of war in and of itself."
"Can he be trusted to follow through on that?" asked Keller. "Not just in motivation among the men, but materiel as well."
"From what I understand, he's done more with less before."
"Uh huh," Novo said skeptically. "And what about the White Fang? We do have that report from Team Coffee regarding the Autobots working with them."
"A rogue agent, as I understand it," Ozpin assured her. "And you might recall, the White Fang's activities in recent months have been, overall, more peaceful... and more targeted when they haven't been quite so peaceful."
"You're saying they're causing the White Fang to turn over a new leaf?" Keller asked speculatively.
"I'm simply reciting data readily available to anyone here," corrected Ozpin.
"What are you thinking, Grand Marshal?" Novo asked rather pointedly.
"I'm thinking that we don't have the manpower or materiel to hit the Decepticons' network. We don't have the time to build up our forces. We don't have much of anything, truthfully. If we do this -- and we must do this -- we could use all the help we can get."
Novo sighed. "Well, I suppose we have a slight reprieve. There's been an uptick in Grimm activity up in Solitas, enough that they've halted all nonessential traffic, so the extradition request has been put on hold until they can get things secured anyway."
Team JNPR approached Beacon's administrative complex. This part of campus was one that students rarely had reason to venture to, but it was vital to the school's function. It was the bureaucratic heart beating at the metaphorical center of Beacon, the one that kept the paperwork filed and the school running; without it, the cafeteria's pantries would run bare, the Grimmoid training robots would lie in the broken heaps the students often left them in, the Bullheads would sit idle and without fuel.
This, however, was one of the few times they had reason to visit.
"Just be wary," Pyrrha murmured. "Certain PR people can be quite controlling and may try to push you around. Just remember that they need us and stand your ground."
Team JNPR, after all, were the 40th Vytal Tournament First-Year Champions, and with that illustrious accomplishment and title came certain obligations and opportunities. They were here to meet with the PR consultant who would be discussing sponsorship and merchandising deals with them.
Once again, Jaune counted himself lucky to have Pyrrha on his team. It was unlikely other teams would have the benefit of experience backing them up in this particular field.
What did I ever do to deserve someone like her? he wondered, not for the first time, nor, he acknowledged, for the last.
As they walked, he saw someone reading a tabloid, and the front page picture and headline caught his eye. He tilted his head and squinted to get a closer look. It was a shot of him and Pyrrha kissing -- after the finals match, if he wasn't mistaken -- with a massive headline reading "Royal Wedding?"
"Is that...?" he asked, trailing off.
"Oh!" Pyrrha said hurriedly, her face turning red. "It's just a tabloid, Jaune, nothing to concern yourself with!" She grabbed his arm and began tugging him along.
"Well, yeah," he agreed, "but come on, Pyr. I've never been in a tabloid before. I might have to hunt down a copy, just to-"
"Trust me, Jaune, you're better off ignoring them entirely," Pyrrha insisted quickly.
"All right, all right," he said with a laugh as they neared the building.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't the Pride of Mistral," a smug voice soured the mood. It was Lightning Dust of Team DSST, the second-year champions, who were exiting the building in front of them just as they reached the door. "I wonder if they'll still call you that with us around."
"Considering we're actually from Mistral, yeah, I think they will," Nora shot back blithely. "Maybe you can try for 'Pride of Atlas'?"
Team DSST's titular team leader scowled.
Trixie Lulamoon, however, zeroed in on Pyrrha. "Oh, the great Pyrrha Nikos. Hmm..." She smiled sweetly. "How does it feel, Princess, not being surrounded by your adoring fans?"
"Quite wonderful, really," Pyrrha answered brightly.
"Finally!" Sunburst exclaimed. "Someone who understands!"
"Don't encourage him!" scolded Lightning.
As the five of them bickered, the actual second-year singles winner, Sunset Shimmer, just arched an eyebrow at them before looking at Jaune.
"Not going to say anything?"
He shrugged. "They're my team," he said. "I trust them. Besides, a leader's got to know when to delegate."
That was his story, and he was sticking to it. Pyrrha and Nora could certainly handle themselves, after all, and he wasn't about to get in the middle of that mess.
"A wise move, Fearless Leader," Ren... praised? Jaune wasn't sure -- Ren was hard to read at the best of times -- but he was willing to take the compliment at face value.
"Maybe," Sunset said, "but doesn't your team have an appointment to keep? We rescheduled our consultation to get done early, but we were originally scheduled to start right around..." -- she paused and glanced at her watch -- "...now."
Jaune blinked and checked the time. "Oh, crap! Guys, come on! We're late!"
When they arrived at the designated office and opened the door, they were greeted by an office lined with shelves that held what looked like a lot of merchandise featuring Vytal Tournament contestants... and not just the winners either. Jaune saw what looked like cereal boxes for "Applejack's" and "Coco Puffs," featuring the team leader of that poor girl who'd lost to Sunset in the second-year semifinals and Coco Adel of Team CFVY, respectively.
Waiting for them was an older man with greying, not quite white hair and a full beard. He was broad-shouldered and powerfully built and dressed in a well-made suit.
"Ah, you must be Team Juniper," he greeted.
"Sorry we're late," Jaune apologized.
The man waved it off. "Don't worry about it. I'd say you've earned a night of celebration and sleeping in a little. I certainly didn't make the schedule. Speaking of which, congratulations, you two."
Jaune and Pyrrha blushed. "Thank you," they said in stereo.
The man chuckled, clearly amused. "Anyway, the name's Phil Demodocus; call me Phil. Now, I realize we're not going to get anything committed today -- if only because Miss Nikos will have to consult her own agent -- but we're here to discuss ideas, which ones you're interested in, which ones you're not, things like that."
"What's with...?" Jaune asked, waving at the shelves.
"Ah," Phil said, "we prototyped stuff for all the contestants. You don't have to win to impress the crowds, after all. I know there are at least half a dozen companies who've approached Miss Belladonna's agent, for example."
That's right. Blake had an agent now, recommended by a friend of Pyrrha's.
"So... what have you got?" Jaune asked.
Phil turned, reached into a box, and began laying a few of the prototypes.
"Action figures?" squealed Nora, grabbing the aforementioned action figures. "We get action figures?"
"With Kung Fu Grip," confirmed Phil as Nora began playing with them. "There's also a proposal -- and this one's going to all the participants -- for a fighting game."
"A fighting game?" Jaune asked.
Phil nodded. "Yes. We'd use motion capture to copy your fighting style into a database and generate the move sets from there. The story campaign would involve a Grimm cultist attacking the festival with an army of Grimm and attempting to bring down the CCT network."
"That sounds... interesting," Ren mused. "I wasn't aware fighting games had story campaigns."
"They do," Phil confirmed. "There's also a proposal for an alternate battle mode fighting Grimm, loosely based on your mission to Mountain Glenn. Possibly as a separate game, depending on how far they can stretch the game engine."
Jaune frowned. "Given how much of that mission is classified..."
Phil waved it off. "'Loosely based,' I said. They've got writers that can invent something. There's talk about going with a global kidnapping plot and unethical experiments in hybridizing Grimm with people."
"That doesn't even make sense," Nora protested, setting down her and Ren's action figures. "What would be the point? Why can't it be historically accurate?"
"Classified," Jaune reminded her.
"Historically authentic then," insisted Nora.
"That's part of the point of fictionalizing events," Pyrrha explained. "Less plausible storylines are less likely to get confused for reality."
"But… but…"
Ren put his hand on her shoulder. "Nora, let it go."
She crossed her arms and pouted. "I'll be back."
"Now, one of the things you don't get a say on -- since you already agreed when you entered the tournament; just the details need sorted -- are your cards for the Amity Arena scroll game," Phil said, then paused. "That you're getting them, I mean; you, of course, still get final approval, subject to balancing, on how the cards actually perform."
"All right, cool," Jaune said. "What have you got?"
"For you, Mister Arc," Phil said, seeming apologetic, "we're looking at a pretty basic melee trooper unit: well-balanced, not too strong, not too tough, but easily upgradable, the kind of card that forms the backbone of every deck. Mister Ren, your unit is looking to be more a single-target DPS unit: fragile, but hard-hitting. For Miss Nikos and Miss Valkyrie, we're looking at two cards each-"
"Why do we get two?" Nora interrupted curiously.
"We sell better," Pyrrha answered with the voice of experience.
"Quite so, Miss Nikos," Phil confirmed. "Moreover, your weapons are more versatile and lend themselves to greater differentiation. Miss Nikos, for you, we're looking at a melee card with mob clearing skill and a ranged card with an activated single-target heavy attack. Miss Valkyrie, your proposed melee card has an activated skill for dealing damage and sending a target flying, while your proposed ranged card has a very long range and wide area of effect at the cost of being relatively fragile."
He laid out large scrolls before them. "Here are the specifics, if you're interested. We're also looking for suggestions for legendary team attack cards, if you have any you're willing to divulge."
Team JNPR picked up the scrolls and began looking through them, murmuring quietly to each other.
"What do you mean I'm not immune to stun?!"
The mood in the guest dorm occupied by Team JSPR was... quiet, to say the least. Gloomy, to be more accurate. Maud was... Maud. Flash looked like he wanted to say something -- anything -- to break the silence but couldn't seem to find the words. Applejack just looked guilty, and as for Rainbow Dash?
Well, Rainbow was curled up on her bed, staring at the wall, unmoving.
There was a knock at the door. Rainbow ignored it. She heard footsteps approach the door before it opened.
"What are you doin' here?" Applejack hissed in a tone quite unlike herself. Well, unlike herself except...
"We're here to talk," Sour Sweet's voice answered.
...except when Shadowbolts were involved! Rainbow rolled over and sprung to her feet, hands balling into fists.
"What the heck do you think we have to say to the likes of you?!" she demanded. There, framed by the doorway, stood Team SSCL. Shadowbolts were easy to goad, CPCA's hyper-competitive culture making it hard for them to dismiss any perceived challenge or insult. And Rainbow could really use some stress relief right now.
Surprisingly, they didn't rise to the bait.
Sour hesitated, then glanced down the hall to her left and right. "Can we-? This is something that should be discussed in private."
Applejack's eyes narrowed. "How private?"
"We got a message from Twilight," piped up Seal.
You contacted them, Twi? Rainbow thought. The betrayal still hurt.
"Git in here," Applejack snapped, jerking her head to the interior of the room. Team SSCL filed in warily -- this was Canterlot territory, after all -- but none of them even flinched when Applejack slammed the door shut. "So talk."
"Why'd she send you a message but not us?" Rainbow demanded.
"Because she wanted to keep you safe," Sour spat, then closed her eyes and visibly tried to rein herself in. "Gods, you Rainbooms are such a- an influence on her," she grumbled in exasperation. "At least she isn't treating us like we need protecting."
Something about that stoked an ember in Rainbow's heart.
Sour frowned at them. "Have you even tried calling her after she landed?"
Rainbow blinked. "What?"
Team SSCL's leader rolled her eyes. "She went to Vacuo, not Menagerie. I know the jokes, but they are on the CCT network, you know. Just... don't talk about anything classified. Remember the General's orders last year?"
"Twilight found out who's been pulling the strings in Atlas," Lemon explained, dragging the conversation back on-topic. "The Council's sold out to a bunch of giant alien robots called the Decepticons. Some Vacuans got wind of it, and they're building an army to fight them. They're calling themselves the Oktober Guard."
Rainbow blinked. Then blinked again. Then she noticed Applejack looking at her. "What?"
"What was that ya said?" Applejack asked, arching an eyebrow. "About those 'camels' not bein' able ta help?"
Rainbow shrank back at the stares from the Shadowbolts.
"That's... wow, that's... that's something," Lemon commented. "I dunno what it is, but it's something."
"She's like a faunus version of Ilia?" offered Seal.
"Oh gods no," cursed Sour. "There's no way she's that bad. After all, she's nationalist, not racist. Civis Atlarus Sum."
That... that was probably the one thing that would bring Crystal City and Canterlot together, Rainbow had to admit. In the end, they were all Atlesian... as much as she hated to admit having anything in common with the Shadowbolts.
"So iffen Twilight didn't want ta tell us," Applejack drawled, "why did you?"
"Because," Sour said, "we think Twilight's... misguided... in trying to keep you safe by keeping you in the dark. You're in this already, and..." -- she hesitated, grinding her teeth -- "...you do deserve to know what this was all about." Wow. Was that... respect? "It's not like you were going to let it go, after all. Were you?"
Rainbow... hadn't actually thought about it since they'd found Twilight's message. Now that she did, though, she had to reluctantly admit that the Shadowbolt was right.
"The biggest thing to worry about," Sour said, "is the CCT. While no one knows for sure, it's a good bet these 'Decepticons' can tap into CCT communications."
"Hence Ironwood's orders," said Maverick -- Seal's husband, not that Rainbow was jealous or anything! -- crossing his arms and tapping two fingers against the limb under them. "He's been secretly working against the Decepticons this whole time, trying to keep us safe, but now them and their allies on the Council have finally found a way to do him in."
"There's more," Sour said. "The SDC's the main contact with the Decepticons. And if you remember what happened to Joyce..." She trailed off at the blank looks she got, then crossed her arms in annoyance. "He was a bigwig at the SDC here in Vale, and allegedly was involved in the whole kidnapping scheme. He 'committed suicide' in his cell, conveniently before he could incriminate anyone else."
"They're going to kill Ironwood," realized Flash aloud, his mouth agape.
Lemon pointed at him. "Got it in one. Why do you think he's not allowed any visitors or any communications devices while he's under house arrest? He can't talk to the media, he can't talk to his students, he can't talk to a lawyer or a cop, he's not even allowed to talk to his own family. Right now, he's got the teachers guarding him, but who knows when that might change? All these guys need is one infiltrator in the right position, and poor Professor Goodwitch gets to become a widow before she's a wife."
"That's another thing," spoke up Seal. "The Decepticons... they have these things called 'Pretender Shells.' They can pass for human or faunus or any biological species with them."
"So, we've got ta rescue the General," Applejack mused grimly. "Any other bombshells ya got fer us?"
"Just one," Seal said with a thin smile. "I've got an idea on how to take Sunset Shimmer down a peg. You want in?"
Rainbow frowned suspiciously. "Why do you care?"
"She insulted Twilight," Sour answered, "and that's not something we can just let go."
Well, maybe there were two things she could agree with the Shadowbolts on.
Team APRC(T) -- minus their P and T -- stood in an unused room in the hospital wing. Shadow had brought them there, and at that moment, she was living up to her callsign. The scant light from the cracks in the blinds was casting strange bars of darkness about that their team leader blended partially into with, the only stand-out part of her body being her light-skinned chin and red lips.
"We need to break my father out," Aska informed them gravely.
Mad Dog's eyebrows shot up, something he wasn't entirely sure was visible in the gloom. "Break him out? Do you know what you're saying, Shadow?"
"I know exactly what I'm saying," declared their leader. "We cannot allow him to be executed for a crime that he didn't commit."
Farsight spoke then, her blue eyes seeming to take on an unnatural brightness in the dark. "I understand your concerns, Shadow, and I am sure he will be proven innocent at trial, but we cannot attack our own teachers out of fear."
"'Trial'?" hissed Shadow in disgust. "'Trial'? They've denied him the right to a military tribunal. They're going to stick him in one of those civilian courts. They are going to have the verdict predetermined. They're going to kill him, Farsight. They're going to kill my father, your headmaster!"
"Have you sworn any oaths, Shadow?" asked Farsight with a strange note in her normal monotone.
"Only one," answered Shadow. "And that has been fulfilled."
"So have I." Farsight stepped closer to Shadow. "I swore an oath to serve the Provisional Government Outline of Mantle, not General Ironwood."
"When did that happen?" asked Mad Dog incredulously, prompting the two young women to turn and look at him in a very scary way. "Just curious."
"When Albion Mountain Combat Praxeum volunteered its classes to join in the defense of the inland sea settlements, we were made to swear an oath as part of the process to make us privates third class for the duration of the battle," explained Farsight.
"That battle is long over," pointed out Shadow. "Why not serve your commander?"
"Why do you insist on serving him?" asked Farsight. "A few months ago, you could not stand him, nor the thought of being related to him, and now, you are ready to possibly die for him?"
"...I was a fool," admitted Shadow. "I was a fool and could not acknowledge what was plain for all to see: James Ironwood is my father. Now, my whole being is finally in alignment, and I know that I must serve my father. I cannot do that if he has been murdered by corrupt parasites."
There was a moment of silence between the two, and Mad Dog wasn't sure if he should say anything. He was glad he didn't when the most shocking thing he had seen in years happened.
Farsight reached out and encircled her arms around their very confused team leader.
Shadow blinked several times. "What is this?"
"Your father is a good man, but he was clearly far too busy to give you the proper amount of hugs," Farsight mechanically informed her.
Shadow looked at Mad Dog in confusion, and he could only reply with a bewildered shrug.
"Mad Dog, you must embrace Shadow as well," Farsight ordered him.
"Oh, uh, okay," answered Mad Dog before wrapping both of them up in a perplexed hug.
"Do not be hasty in your actions," Farsight warned. "You are not the only one whose respect your father commands. There may yet be a peaceful resolution to this."
Things were going down the tubes in Atlas, and they were going down them fast. Perhaps no one was more aware of that than the Judge Advocate General of the Atlesian Armed Forces' Unified Judge Advocate General Corps, Colonel-Attorney Mi Amore Cadenza, better known to her friends as Cadance. She might not have been privy to some of the more classified goings on as others, but she was down in the mechanics of the system more than almost any other senior officer and so knew first hand just how much the Council had been abusing the legal system and the traditions of their society.
And the system was being abused. What other word could be used when the Commanding General of the military was not just dismissed but dishonorably discharged without trial, without even an investigation, by mere fiat of the council? What other word could be used when a decorated officer who had been in good standing and high regard until literally an hour before his discharge was being denied the right to be tried in a military court and instead being prosecuted by a civilian attorney who had donated substantial amounts of money to Councilor Sylvia's reelection campaign in a court presided over by a judge who had been appointed by that selfsame councilor?! The Provisional Government Outline of Mantle was being turned into a perforated wreck in front of her eyes, and she felt as helpless before it as when Principal Abacus Cinch had destroyed her old school.
Cadance's path to the JAG was rather roundabout and, in more sane times, probably wouldn't have ever happened. A graduate of Crystal Preparatory Combat Academy with a specialization in law, she had gone straight to Atlas Academy and continued with her studies in her preferred specialization there. When her schooling was complete, she had taken the bar exam and managed to become an attorney, following which she enlisted in the military and soon joined the JAG Corps, where she stayed for several years until her tour of duty was elapsed. Her run for the Provisional Council hadn't worked out, and she was invited to Crystal Prep to serve as dean. Being at her old school as a faculty member had been an… experience, one with more ups and downs than she could count, however short it was, but one which she was nevertheless sad to see end when and how it did.
She had always been an advocate of softening the culture of Crystal Prep to a certain degree, but when Cinch said one day that she was taking her advice, Cadance wanted to take it all back. The principal went far beyond any clique dispersal or anti-hall fighting measures and instead enforced a new policy which saw the margin for passing grades expanded to an absurd degree, physical standards reduced, and even the name of their sports team changed. The changes were coming too much, too fast, and when she tried to argue with Cinch to get her to stop, she was told that her only options were to shut up or get out. So she resigned and rejoined the military as a part of the JAG Corps once more.
She hadn't even been back there a single year before the Grimm started to swarm towards the northern sea and all those settlements around it. The whole of Atlas mobilized to save the day and suffered grievous losses in the effort. Among those lost were Cadance's commanding officers. It had resulted in a battlefield promotion to colonel-attorney, and when the week of hell had ended, she had found that she was the highest ranking attorney left in the JAG Corps.
Picking up the pieces after that had been difficult, but she had persevered. Then half a year later… madness, utter madness. Something happened with the Provisional Council, something that shook General Ironwood to his core, though he never said what. Secret projects were being approved left, right, and center; documents that passed her desk became ever more heavily redacted; and legal procedure was being overridden. And it only kept getting worse, leading to the situation she was in at that moment.
It was part of the reason why, when General Ironwood had asked her for her advice on how to handle Twilight after she had been suspected of pointing Weiss Schnee towards one of those new secret facilities, she had encouraged him to have Rainbow Dash and Applejack talk to her instead of just letting the matter go or having her team leader handle things like he had been planning to. Sunny Flare was good, one of the best students Cadance had ever had the pleasure of teaching, but she lacked the hyper-protective paranoia that Twilight's Canterlotian friends possessed. Cadance knew for a certain fact that they would take it as evidence of tacit permission to go down the seal hole and discover just what laid underneath the ice, and then they would bring it to light.
Obviously, that little gambit had not paid off as she had hoped, but there was still a chance that it would in the end. Team JSPR had a disciplinary record now related to snooping around on Beacon campus, and Team FIST had transferred to Shade just that week before leaving for Vacuo in an obvious zany scheme. Things were moving on that front, but they might not have been moving fast enough.
Cadance was broken out of her own thoughts by a buzzer on her desk and her assistant's voice. "Ma'am, General Colton is here to see you."
Her eyes went wide, and she moved swiftly to reply. "Send them in."
She got out of her chair and stood at attention, such that when the door opened and the most famous Atlesian in history entered her small office, she was quickly able to snap a salute. "Sir!"
The general acknowledged her with a salute of his own. "Grüße, Oberstrichter. At ease."
Some officers were surprised when the Mantellian names for their ranks were used instead of the Valish, but Cadance never was, thanks to her aunt having a habit for just such a thing. "Sir, to what do I owe this honor?"
"Need your help with a bit of a zany scheme," he said plainly. "The future of Atlas may depend on it."
"Sir!"
A party. They were throwing a party. Honestly, Cadance had to admit that it was certainly the kind of environment that would allow one the opportunity to get a DNA sample, but it still stuck in her craw that they were throwing a party while the world went insane.
She tried to maintain her composure as she mingled, making sure to occasionally spill a little from her champagne flute to continue the illusion of drinking. Approaching Councilor Sylvia was going to be tricky.
And through a gap in the crowd, she saw her target. Councilor Sylvia was... talking to General Colton? Who had just given her a hearty slap on the back that sent her staggering a little?
Colton looked up at her and nodded.
...that was it? Really? The world really had gone insane.
"Are you sure I can't convince you to return to Atlas?" Calliope Ferny asked. "I'm sure if I spoke to Mister Schnee-"
"Callie, no," Cala Brown said firmly, cutting off her sister. "Pulling strings to help myself would be unethical. Besides, the people in Vale need to see that we at the SDC aren't afraid of these baseless accusations."
At least... she hoped they were baseless. Still, what she had said was true. They couldn't afford to show fear... even if she felt it. That fear was why she'd already sent Chris and Little Callie on back to their second home in Atlas, even as she stayed here in Vale. It was why she had been living here out of her office for the past couple of days. It was why she was very tempted by her sister's offer.
Why didn't we buy that apartment in Mistral instead? They seem to be the only ones not going mad.
Said sister pursed her lips. "All right," she relented, "but I'm leaving Ender and Ransom here to serve as your close protection detail while I try to sort the rest of this mess out." Her gaze swept critically around the room, her disdain for the Vale branch's own security self-evident. "Don't do anything stupid, Sister. Stay safe."
"Of course."
With that, Calliope the Elder snapped to an about-face and marched out of the office.
Cala worried and irrationally wondered if that would be the last she'd ever see of her sister. After all, it was Callie who was marching out into an enraged city, while she stayed here, safely ensconced in her office, surrounded by armored glass and multiple layers of security.
You too, Sis.
"Ah, Targeter, you've returned," observed General Flagg as the white-haired interloper loped into the room deep within the secretive wing of a mostly classified medical facility.
Winter nodded as she brought out a tiny data drive. "This information was extremely hard to get, but yes, here it is. In and out without anyone noticing and without a trace left."
"Excellent," said Flagg, taking the drive into his own hand and looking at it strangely. "That's all that's on here, right? I'm not going to find anyone else's DNA but Sylvia's on this, right?"
"Of course, sir," Winter assured him.
"Good," acknowledged Flagg before he inserted the drive into the computer on the desk and began to access it. "I know it sounds absurd to a newbie, but we don't want to violate anyone's privacy anymore than we need to to do our jobs."
"It doesn't sound absurd in the least, sir," replied Winter.
Flagg glanced over his shoulder at her. "I can see why the General likes you, Targeter."
"Thank you, sir."
"That wasn't a compliment. I was just relaying… hello, what do we have here?" asked Flagg.
"What is it, sir?" inquired Winter curiously.
"We'll have to get an expert in here to confirm the results," reasoned Flagg, "because according to the computer, not only is the sample from CPCA you brought back different from the sample Colton got, but they're not even from the same race."
"What do you mean, sir?"
"I mean the Sylvia who attended Crystal Prep was human, but the Sylvia who's sitting on the council right now is a faunus."
The skyline of Vale wasn't the most appealing sight in the world, but it gained a certain appeal when viewed from the windows of the high-rise restaurant that Lady Belladonna had taken Weiss and Blake to. She had tried to invite Ruby and Yang too, but they had declined for a prior arrangement. What that arrangement was, the younger sister -- who was the one answering the call -- would not say, but she thought it was important.
Weiss really was really starting to get suspicious, but what could she do? Demand that Ruby tell her what was going on and get flatly denied? She knew how defensive Ruby got about secrets. And after what had happened first semester with Yang, she was a little leery about pressing on what was obviously a sensitive matter.
Nevertheless, put it all out of her mind was exactly what she did, for she did not wish to raise a scene that would offend the lady of Menagerie, especially not after she had gotten Weiss the lovely red and orange dress she was wearing at that moment for the formal luncheon. Blake, likewise, was wearing her own black dress that was a fair bit more sleek than what she wore to the Beacon Dance but which was still appropriate for both the location and her station. Lady Belladonna wore something similar to her daughter, but with gold accents in strategic points that matched the golden jewelry she also wore. Even the ever present bodyguard detail were wearing formal clothing, such that they looked just like they belonged along with everyone else.
The trick almost worked on Weiss too, almost.
"Weiss, chin up," ordered Lady Belladonna softly, and the snowcapped girl lifted her gaze from the floor in response.
An awkward exchange of glances rippled between Blake and Weiss at that, punctuated by the shame they both felt but knew they shouldn't but still engaged in anyway because they had a hard time getting over themselves. Such was the embarrassment that passed between them that they adopted the posture of those with rulers down their backs and those trying absurdly hard to avoid seeming like they didn't belong in a formal setting. The bodyguards, as always, kept their opinions to themselves, but the two friends could very well imagine what they were thinking.
It was then that the party approached the entrance to the restaurant, in the dividing line between the normal office space and the restaurant to the side and above. It was all quite impressive. The door to the restaurant even had a platinum leaf trim.
"Lady Belladonna, how did you get a reservation here on such short notice?" asked Weiss with no small amount of wonder. "I tried getting a table here months ago, and I was told that the waiting list was over a year and a half long."
Blake's mother smiled mirthfully and had an echo of laughter upon her lips. "The Belladonna name, it seems, hasn't been forgotten by everyone in Vale."
Weiss shot Blake a "really?" look, and the black-haired girl shrugged.
"But that name would mean nothing," continued Lady Belladonna, "without a kind and generous heart that speaks honestly with joyful laughter and loyalty to their friends. That is where the magic comes from."
The words tinged at something familiar to Weiss. "That is a lovely summation, ma'am."
"You can thank your Shadowbolt friends for that, especially young Twilight," admitted Lady Belladonna shamelessly. "I've used variations of that throughout the years, but she brought it into stark clarity."
"We would, but she left early," replied Blake. "Apparently, her and her team transferred to Shade, and they've gone to Vacuo. I'll be sure to tell Team Scarlet if I get the chance, though."
"Hmm, sounds like the beginnings of a zany scheme if I ever heard one," mused Lady Belladonna as they entered through the door.
Instantly, the music of wonderful Valish violins filled the air, and Weiss was taken back to a time oh so long ago when she listened to her sister play the instrument and thought it the most beautiful sound in the world. It was a good memory, perhaps the last one she had left. Just like those pleasant days, though, it didn't last.
"Hello, good sir," Lady Belladonna greeted the maître d'. "We should be filed under 'Belladonna.'"
The man, the human man, in his well-cut suit, looked at all of them from behind his stand and then looked Weiss in the eyes and delivered a line that she thought only existed in movies. "I'm sorry, but we don't serve your kind here."
"What did you just say?" demanded Weiss in a low and accusatory voice, stepping up and pointing at Lady Belladonna. "Don't you know who she is? She's the First Lady of Menagerie! She, her daughter, their guards, they don't deserve that kind of bigotry! This is a diplomatic incident in progress."
The maître d' looked confused for a moment, but only a moment. "Ah! I understand the confusion. I should have been more specific." His hand reached out and pointed directly at Weiss's face. "We don't serve your kind here."
Weiss felt the world give out from under her. "What?"
The maître d' sniffed. "We don't serve Schnees here."
Lady Belladonna took a slight sidestep into the conversation while Blake put her arm around Weiss's shoulder. "Then it's fortunate there aren't any Schnees in this party, isn't it?"
"Ma'am, I'm not blind," objected the man. "That's clearly Weiss Schnee, and her portrait's very clearly on our 'do not serve' list."
"You don't watch the news that much, do you?"
"No, I stopped after those yellow journalists fabricated the outrage over that pink slime years ago," admitted the man.
"Yes, that was a truly dreadful episode. It's a shame they settled instead of suing that network into the ground," agreed Lady Belladonna. "Tell you what, contact your boss, Mister Kos, and tell him that Kali Belladonna is here to see him."
He acknowledged, and in short order, the owner of the establishment made an appearance. In the scant minutes before he appeared, though, Weiss found herself sinking deeper and deeper into a powerful sense of humiliation. She wanted to apologize to Blake and her mother for causing them trouble, go back to her dorm, shut the door, and not be seen by anyone. She felt like such a stupid, stupid girl for putting herself out like that.
"Kali!" greeted the man that Weiss could guess was Mister Kos, walking up to Lady Belladonna jovially. "Kali, it's been too long. I must say, it was quite a shock to hear you were booking with us today. I hadn't heard you were in town."
"You should stay up with current events more, Colin," replied Kali with a smile. "It would make these appearances less of a surprise and make incidents like these less likely."
Mister Kos's eyes narrowed slightly. "What's happened?"
He looked to the side, noticed Weiss, and then whispered something to Lady Belladonna. She couldn't hear with her useless human ears, but she could very well imagine what was being said. It was something about her father, she was sure of it.
Lady Belladonna whispered something back, a very short conversation followed, and then the owner of the establishment talked to the maître d'. "Kerwin, remove Weiss Schnee from the list. If Kali Belladonna vouches for her, then that's all that needs to be said."
The maître d' nodded in assent and went about following those orders while the owner turned back to them. "I'm so sorry for the confusion, madam. We'll make sure our policies are more up to date in the future. Please, consider all expenses for this visit waived and allow me to escort you to your table."
"Thank you, Colin," replied Lady Belladonna.
A minute later, they were on the upper floor, seated at a table next to one of the panoramic windows, and the owner of the establishment had left after assuring them that a waiter would soon be there.
"I'm sorry," bit out Weiss now that they were alone, with even the bodyguards at different tables.
"Don't apologize, Weiss, you did nothing wrong," contradicted Blake with caring eyes before she turned to face her mother with far angrier eyes. "Mom, why are we still here? We should have left the moment Weiss was denied service. That's clear discrimination."
"And now the matter is settled," pointed out Lady Belladonna. "It was an insult, yes, but one borne out of ignorance and pain. With rage and retaliation, you can't fix that; you can only make it worse. It would have felt good to walk on out, but one gets further with friendships and a kind word." With that, she turned to Weiss. "But this is academic. In the immediate: how are you, Weiss? Blake was right to say that it wasn't your fault. You did absolutely nothing wrong."
"I'm fine, ma'am," Weiss lied, leaning on long years of experience in the social circles of Atlesian high society. Maybe if she said it enough, it would be true. Besides, this... it was hardly the worst thing she'd experienced, and surely, faunus had and continued to face much, much worse.
Lady Belladonna's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but she let it pass.
As they perused the menus, Lady Belladonna spoke up conversationally, "So, tell me, Weiss. Did you travel a lot before coming to Beacon?"
Weiss tilted her head and considered the question. "We... there are a number of Schnee estates across Solitas-"
"I mean outside Atlas, dear."
"I did accompany my father on a few business trips to Vale and Mistral," she said.
"Hmm." Lady Belladonna looked thoughtful. "That settles it, then."
"Settles what?" the former heiress asked, startled.
"Why, you coming with me to visit Menagerie," she said cheerfully. "I think you could do with a change of scenery. You could certainly benefit from a little more sun. You can invite your best friend too!"
"Mom!" Blake protested. "I'm right here!"
Weiss smiled at that. There were very few bright spots in her life right now, and her friendship with Blake was one of them. It was nice to know the feeling was mutual.
"Yes, you are, honey," Lady Belladonna said glibly, "instead of at home with your father like you should be."
"Mo-o-om."
"I realize Menagerie doesn't have a CCT Tower, sweetie, but we do have couriers making regular mail runs to and from Mistral. You could have written us. Like your friend Weiss here."
"I'm sure that you were never far from Blake's thoughts, ma'am," offered Weiss in an attempt to calm things down.
Blake flinched. "Actually, I… uh… hey! They have a fish platter here! Let's get that!" She paused and gave her mother a pleading look. "It's a traditional Valish dish! You have to try it while you're here, Mom."
Lady Belladonna kept staring at Blake until the younger woman wilted a little, then chuckled. "Of course, dear. How can I come to Vale and not try the local cuisine before we go home?"
"Mom," Blake murmured, "I'll visit, but... I'm coming back to Vale."
"Blake, sweetie," Lady Belladonna said, "I know you want to become a Huntress, but you can study in Menagerie and take the license test. It's not like the ADM is lacking in experienced personnel." She tilted her head slightly and gave a teasing grin. "Or maybe you could transfer to Haven? That's a little closer to home, and you could be with that cute boy of yours."
Blake flushed, and her ears flattened. "It- it's not like that, Mom! It's..." She paused. "My new agent told me I've... I've got offers. Offers for a lot of money and publicity. Apparently, I really impressed some people in the tournament."
Both Weiss and Lady Belladonna blinked at that.
She stared at them. "Don't you see?" she asked. "Publicity. I'm- I'm a celebrity now. This- this gives me visibility. I could become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. In doing so, I could do more for faunus rights than I ever could in Menagerie or the White Fang."
"I see," her mother acknowledged, then turned to look at the snowcapped girl. "What about you, Weiss?"
Weiss blinked. "Me? I've gotten a few offers to sing, but first, I'm going to need to get a new agent. I'll try my best to get the message out when I do get those jobs though."
"It's good to hear that you're getting job offers, but that wasn't what I was asking," Lady Belladonna clarified. "I was repeating the same thing I asked Blake: Would you like to come and stay in Menagerie for a while? More than a visit, I mean. As I said, I'm sure I can find you some tutors, and you'd still be able to test for a license and become a Huntress." There was something in the older woman's eyes, concern, caring, almost pleading.
"I..." Weiss blinked and took a deep breath to center herself. "I thank you for the offer, ma'am, but I... I have a responsibility to bring the SDC down."
"You sound like me with the White Fang when I came to Beacon," Blake pointed out. "You have to let it go. You are not responsible for the SDC's actions any more than I am responsible for the White Fang's after I left."
"Weiss," Lady Belladonna added gently, "you were not born guilty of your father's sins. Don't live as though you are."
"I…" Weiss found herself reeling. She felt strange, almost euphoric, but snug and protected at the same time. What was this feeling? What did it mean? Why did it feel so familiar and yet so alien?
"I don't want this to turn into a pity party for me," answered Weiss finally.
"So let's turn it into a group pity party," Lady Belladonna suggested, causing the two younger women to boggle at her. "After all, we all have reason to be pitied. You and your father, Weiss, and you and the White Fang, Blake."
There was a long, pregnant silence.
"And you, ma'am?" Weiss asked, as she was evidently expected to.
"Why, my lack of grandchildren of course!"
"Wow, this thing is huge!" cooed Ruby in wonder, looking up and about at the equipment in the partially active room in the Ark and especially the large, ring-like device that was the purpose for the room's existence.
"I mean, it's basically just a big door; it's not that big," commented Yang with a shrug.
"Technically, it's a bridge," corrected Bumblebee, looming over the others by virtue of his slight height difference, "a ground bridge."
"As opposed to what, a water bridge?" asked Uncle Qrow, who was thankfully in one of his more sober moods.
"No, as opposed to a space bridge," Yang cleared up. "That's the goal we're all working towards. If we manage to get a space bridge up and running, then we'll be able to open a portal to Cybertron and finally figure out what's changed since we've been away. If the Decepticons manage to get a space bridge first, though… well, they'll do the same thing we will, but it will be for evil!"
Taiyang looked between his eldest daughter and her robotic partner. "That's a lot of 'we's' in there, Yang."
The woman often known as Sunfire turned on him with a curious expression. "I guess? I mean, I am an Autobot. I have the rank and everything to prove it."
"But you're also a member of the White Fang," pointed out Ruby quietly.
"Yep," Yang agreed. "Got the mask and everything to prove it."
"I'm... sorry about your mask," Ruby said. "The one we broke."
"The one Blake broke," Yang corrected.
"Don't worry," Bumblebee interjected. "She's got, like, two dozen of 'em now. According to... your brother, they break pretty often anyway."
"So, Rubes," Yang said, "been meaning to ask: What's this about a 'Team Rainbow'?"
"Oh. Aheheh. Riiight..."
"-and that's what I've been up to with Team Rainbow!" Ruby finished.
"Magic?" Yang asked skeptically. "Grimm-melting laser eyes? Really?"
"It's all true," their father assured her. "I've been helping her make sure she can use them properly when she needs them."
"So, was there a reason you kept all this a secret from me, Ruby?" Yang asked.
"A lot of…" Ruby trailed off. "I... I didn't want to worry you."
Yang stared at her sister for a long moment, then said, "If you didn't want to worry me, you probably shouldn't have run into the middle of a threeway firefight and gotten shot."
"Oh, come on!"
The music strumming through the air was a waltz, one whose name Nora didn't know. Then again, you didn't need to know what the music was called to dance to it. Not that Nora was dancing. No, she was sitting in the corner, nursing a drink, as she watched Jaune and Pyrrha dancing.
She was also trying really hard not to remember that she was now alone in a booth with Ren.
Tonight was one of the many dances celebrating the Vytal Festival, and as the first-year champions, Team JNPR was all but obligated to attend. Fortunately -- or unfortunately; Nora was undecided -- it was the sort of dance that, despite the formality, a date wasn't expected, if only because of how close it came on the heels of the finals.
"They are remarkable dancers," Ren observed. Of course, Ren would be able to judge that. Dance and choreography was one of his few hobbies, though he didn't indulge in it much.
"They're in love," Nora pointed out. "I hear that makes quite the difference."
"Hmm," Ren murmured. "Indeed."
Nora looked over at him and pondered whether she'd be able to gather up the courage to ask him to dance.
Probably not.
"Hey there, kid."
Ruby looked up from the workbench and scowled petulantly. "Don't call me 'kid.'"
The flame-streaked Autobot shook his head as he sat cross-legged next to her. It still amazed her how articulate they could be.
"Not a chance, kid," he said. "Do you know how rarely I get a chance to call anyone else that?" He held out a hand. "Name's Hot Rod."
Sighing and turning, Ruby reached out and placed her hand on his finger, shaking it.
"What do you mean by that?" she asked curiously. "You're millions of years old!"
He shook his head. "Not really. We still don't know for sure how long we were in stasis, and I was only sparked a decade and a half or so before this mission came up," he said. "Usually, you need a couple decades more experience before you get assigned to a big mission like this, especially one with Prime himself leading it."
Ruby's lips twitched. "So, you're fifteen too?"
"I guess, kinda?" he admitted. "Something like that." He shifted his position and peered at the workbench. "So, whatcha workin' on?"
"Kinfinder," she answered, turning back to her work. "Adam's weapon," she clarified after a moment. "I thought I'd kill some time by working on it."
Yang and Bumblebee had gone off to help with the supplies, while their father and Uncle Qrow were discussing... stuff with Prowl and Jazz, leaving Ruby to her own devices.
"Can I help?" he offered. "I mean, I may be young, but I'm no slouch," he added proudly. "Designed and built my own weapon myself."
Ruby perked up and looked back at him. "Really?"
"Yeah." He nodded and snapped out what looked like a burgundy bow, except...
"No bowstring?" she asked curiously.
"Doesn't need one," he explained as he activated it, yellow energy flaring to life from it. "It's an energy bow."
"...that is SO COOL!"
Ruby found herself warming up to Hot Rod as they talked and bounced ideas off each other.
"What are you doing?" asked Adam as he arrived on the scene after an indeterminate length of time, his expression almost unreadable underneath his mask.
"Me and Hot Rod are designing Kinfinder!" explained Ruby with a smile.
Adam frowned. "Without my input?"
There was a sharp intake of breath from Ruby. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I was so excited that I forgot that… I'm sorry!"
"Am I missing something here?" asked Hot Rod in confusion.
Ruby looked back up at her partner in construction. "Weapons are a part of ourselves, and the weapon of a Huntsman is that and more. To start reforging my brother's weapon without his input is a grave insult."
Adam, it seemed, was not fazed. "Just don't do it again and go find your father. Me and the other Fang are moving out finally, and I'd rather you weren't seen by them."
The bloodcrowned girl looked at him, and the smile was back, but different. "He's your father too, Big Brother, but okay. I'll go talk to Dad about packing up."
With that, she was off like a shot, using her semblance to gain a great deal of ground towards where she was fairly certain she needed to be... only to round a corner and collide with someone.
Ruby blinked as she looked up at whoever she had run into.
"Who are you?" the White Fang member asked curiously, looking down at her.
"I'm Ruby!" she answered reflexively. "I'm, uh, Adam's sister!"
As she got up, Adam jogged up behind her, and the White Fang member studied her, then looked at Adam, then looked back at her.
He nodded.
"I can see the resemblance."
In Team CFVY's dorm, they and Team RRFL stood around one of the beds, upon which was laid out a map of Vale. Various locations had been marked out on the map in marker, and the two teams exchanged looks.
"So," Coco said, "this is it, huh?"
Lavi nodded. "Yeah. I think this is as close as we're going to get to all the White Fang bases in Vale."
"They've probably got a lot more safehouses and boltholes, mind you," Velvet said, "but... yeah, this is pretty much it for big meeting places and headquarters."
"We should turn it into the authorities," rumbled Rain. "The VPD and Headmaster Ozpin can handle this."
"No," Coco said, shaking her head. The other seven turned to face her.
"Are... you sure about that?" Fox asked, his blind eyes doing nothing to diminish the concern on his face. "Coco, we can't take on the whole White Fang on our own."
"No," she agreed, "but I'm not sure we need to. There's a lot of this secret conspiracy stuff going on, enough that I'm not entirely sure who's actually on which side... or even which side we should be on."
"So, what are you suggesting?" Reg asked, crunching on some peanuts.
"I say we sit on it for a bit," Coco answered. "Keep it quiet, figure out what the White Fang are actually up to before we commit to anything."
"Coco…" growled Rain in exasperation.
"Come on, Rain, don't be a tattletale about this," Coco accused. "What's the harm going to be if we wait a few days?"
Rain threw his hands up. "Fine. We'll wait to tell the headmaster and police, but I'm doing this under protest."
"Noted," was Coco's clipped reply.
Vale's naval forces were only a pale shadow of their former might before and during the Great War, back when they had been the Royal Navy. Since then, with the steady demilitarization, the Royal Navy's budget and responsibilities had been steadily cut, accelerating as the rising Atlas began shouldering more and more of the burden of the Four Kingdoms' military needs, until it had finally been folded into the Vale Coast Guard some fourteen years ago.
What little military Vale retained focused on the Royal Air Lancers and, to a far lesser extent, on the Royal Army, but now, with the new National Emergency Strike Team, there were talks about reviving the Navy, with some debate as to what would stay with the Coast Guard and what would go to the Navy... and indeed, what to call the Navy, given the distinct lack of a king.
It was that last that seemed like a bit of a bright spot to Captain Skip Stone of the VCGS Ward. Everyone -- even the mighty Atlas, who spent more on its military than everyone else put together except maybe Menagerie -- tended to shortchange the blue navy. It was a negligence that he had a feeling would be regretted in time.
"Contact, north-northeast," reported the lead sonar tech.
Captain Stone walked up to the man that had spoken. "What have you got?"
"No idea, sir," replied the tech, pointing at his screen. "Active sonar's picking up something big breaking through the thermal layer, though. Warbook can't identify it, but it seems to be nearly a mile long."
"'A mile'?" balked Captain Stone. "There's got to be some mistake. How many of the drones are reading this?"
The other techs chorused out their reports, and Captain Stone cursed. "Their heading is straight for Vale. No way we'll be able to scratch this thing with torpedoes either. Men, reel in our little fishing lure, but keep the drones out for now. Helm, make best possible speed for Cape Suzy. Comms, relay our logs to COMNORTH and tell them what we've found."
With the orders given, Captain Stone walked off the bridge.
"Sir, where are you going?"
"To look overboard!" he called back.
Sure enough, he looked out over the sea and saw an impossibly dark shape moving through the water, just where the sonar said it would be. With that sight, a chill went down his spine. He wasn't a rookie. He'd seen oceangoing Grimm, even fought with a Leviathan before; they didn't give him these chills.
That was no Grimm.
(V3E10: Finals | V3E11: A Day Off | V3E12: Leviathan)
- Author's Note 1 (Cyclone)
- Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett)
Join us next time as this brief respite ends with the arrival of a "Leviathan."
Last edited:
Volume III: Episode 12: Leviathan
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
(V3E11: A Day Off | V3E12: Leviathan | V3E13: Tools of Foul Play)
Volume III: Episode 12: Leviathan
* * *
Volume III: Episode 12: Leviathan
* * *
Vale's Strategic Defense Headquarters wasn't as impressive as the CIC of an Atlesian air cruiser, from which Vale's defenses would normally be coordinated. Funding to modernize the facility was going through Parliament in the wake of the recent... difficulties with Atlas, but it would be a long time before the lien would be freed up and longer still before any such modernization would actually be implemented. Other things -- like recommissioning old Royal Navy vessels into the Coast Guard (the only extant seagoing force Vale still had), upgrading the Royal Air Lancers' hardware, forming NEST, and reorganizing the Vale Home Militia -- had taken priority.
That said, the underground bunker was still perfectly serviceable.
"The Ward detected a large subsurface contact here thirty-five minutes ago," Admiral Brigham reported, sticking a pin in the map on the table. "Based on its speed and bearing, it should arrive on the coast north of Vale within the hour."
"And we still don't know what it is?" prompted Keller.
"Correct, sir," Brigham answered.
"Is it a Grimm?" asked General Morshower. "They've been getting sneaky. Something has been keeping that horde outside the walls in check, but they've been testing our outer defenses, slipping in at night to sabotage elements of it and attacking any effort to repair them." He shook his head. "This can't be a coincidence."
"Whatever it is, Captain Stone is adamant that it's not a Grimm," Brigham said. "Sonar analysis corroborates that; it's got an engine. Our best guess is that it's an Atlesian submarine, given its reported bearing."
"An Atlesian submarine?" Keller asked skeptically. "Of that size?"
"It's atypical of Atlas," Brigham agreed, "but it certainly would be in keeping with late Great War Mantellian wonder weapon projects."
"You mean the ones scribbled on the backs of napkins?" asked Keller incredulously.
"Of course not, sir," replied Brigham. "As we all know, our stalwart submariners made napkins a luxury item that would never be wasted on design paper by that point in the conflict."
Keller gave the admiral a stare so flat it could be used as a level. "Yes, as we all know. Personally, though, I think it's the Decepticons."
"The Decepticons, sir?" asked Brigham skeptically. "This would be atypical of their reported operations so far."
Suddenly, a major in the uniform used by the subsection of the Royal Army that manned the walls ran up to them. "Sirs, I'm sorry for the interruption, but radar's just picked up thirty-six contacts entering into the city's airspace. They slipped past our early warning system somehow. Warbook's identifying them as XP-14A Skystrikers, and their IFFs are identifying them as Erprobungsgruppe 14 of the Atlesian Air Fleet."
"How did you pronounce that without stumbling?" asked Keller seriously.
Before anyone could reply, a shout came echoing through the bunker.
"Incoming!"
"So, what's our next move, boss?" asked Ash expectantly as he sat down in the makeshift office with Adam. It gave him the chance to talk to him privately while Ratchet was busy tending to the walking wounded who had still not quite fully recovered upon leaving the Ark to return to Vale.
"The Autobots have given us intelligence on the entire network that the Decepticons have used to make energon. Unfortunately, there are two complications," explained Adam, trying his best to ignore the feeling of his eyepatch under his mask.
Yes, an eyepatch. Turned out that the outside world was just a little too bright for his brand new eye, and so, he had to cover it up. Problem was that the strap interfered with his mask, so he had to resort to tape and other methods to keep it in place.
"I don't like the sound of that," stated Ash worriedly.
"The first problem is that the intel is months old," Adam began, "and the second problem is that it's been shared with other forces aligned against the Decepticons, like the Huntsmen."
Ash slapped his hand against the table. "You've got to be kidding me! Who sold us out?!"
"The Autobots haven't sold us out," Adam calmly told him. "They're just sharing inform-"
"Don't you give me that!" shouted back Ash. "You know as well as I do that those Huntsman Academies are just as bad as the police. Heck, they are police! Worse than that, they're human!"
"The Oktober Guard is led by a human, and you didn't have any problem working with them," Adam reminded him.
"The Oktober Guard are from Vacuo and went back to Vacuo after… what? A few weeks?" replied Ash hotly. "Nobody cares what they do in Vacuo as long as they keep it in Vacuo and keep to themselves whenever they show their ugly mugs."
"This is ridiculous," sniped Adam. "In case you haven't noticed, we haven't got the manpower to take down this whole network ourselves."
"So we're just going to abandon our people to the humans?"
"We need to be practical about this. If the humans-"
Adam was cut off by a pressure wave knocking down the wall.
The leader of the Vale White Fang felt his head ringing as he lay in a heap some distance away, the sound around him muted, his own body moving sluggishly and feeling strangely distant. He closed his eyes and waited for it to pass. It was not the first time he'd been caught in an explosion, and he was well familiar with the effects.
Another explosion went off, shaking the ground. Adam opened his eyes, and as his aura went to work, the ringing began to taper off. He stood up and found himself in a world of fire that made his mind flash back to the docks so many months ago… except, of course, that it was early evening, not yet night.
He started to look around for survivors, and while he did so, he brought out his scroll and activated an emergency frequency that the White Fang kept isolated for just such an occasion. "This is Adam. Base Fifty-Seven is under attack. We-"
He was interrupted by another explosion.
"-We're losing Micheals!"
"-ase Ninety-Four is lost! We're-"
"-only one left-"
"Where's our backup?!"
The chatter was coming in hot and heavy now. Lines were opening and closing all over the network. Somehow, he was able to half pay attention while walking through the fiery ruins of the old warehouse.
Ratchet. He had to find Ratchet.
There was a crunch that he almost didn't hear, and he looked down to Ash's full face mask. He found the man soon after. He… he wasn't breathing, and there was steel… if it hadn't been for his body…
Adam crouched down and put his hand to his lieutenant's neck. He wasn't… it wasn't a surprise, but…
He made sure the transmission function on his scroll was disabled before speaking. "I'm sorry, Ash -- Walter -- you deserved a better leader than I."
It was something his mother had said long ago, quietly and under her breath when she thought no one was listening. He never told anyone about it. Yet still, talking to Ruby had brought it and other memories of her to the fore.
"You deserved better than a human like me, Walter Long," whispered Adam, releasing his own secret shame. His old lieutenant would have no more need for nicknames or aliases now, after all.
He stood up and continued to fight through the smoke and flames until he found the supine form of the Autobot. Shoving a crossbeam off the medic's chest, he looked down at him.
"Ratchet!"
The Autobot stirred and sat up. "What happened?"
"An attack," he answered. "Tend to the wounded. I'm going to get some altitude, see what's going on."
Ratchet nodded. "Right. I'll set up a triage, treat who I can."
Adam nodded and traversed up to the closest roof he could see. It got him up above the smoke and fire a little bit, enough that he could see out into the city. What he saw was shocking.
The warehouse wasn't the only place burning. All across the city, explosions could be heard, and smoke was pouring into the air. Most of the places were White Fang locations, many of them unoccupied at this time, but a few weren't.
Suddenly, he saw an aircraft swoop down from the sky to strafe the streets some distance away with laser fire for no discernable reason but destruction. It almost looked like one of those Skystrikers that he'd heard about, but instead of the normal Atlesian white, it was gray, red… and blue.
"It is I, Air Commander Starscream, of the Decepticon Seeker Corps! You thought you could steal yet more Decepticon property? Fools!"
Starscream. The Decepticons… the Decepticons were attacking Vale, and they were attacking civilians alongside the White Fang.
"I'm a murderer, Sunfire."
"No, you're not. You're better than that," she insisted. "Or at least, you can be."
"No, you're not. You're better than that," she insisted. "Or at least, you can be."
They were humans, nothing but…
Ruby's face, so full of love and compassion, stared back up at him in his mind's eye.
"Ah, damn it," he cursed, then activated the transmission function on his scroll. "Quiet!"
Remarkably, the line fell silent.
"Everyone, tend to the wounded, grab as many survivors as you can, and evacuate to one of the bases outside the city. If the one you reach is destroyed as well, keep moving on until you find one that's still standing," ordered Adam, silently relenting that most of the people under his command would follow no other order, now that the bombs were falling and the threat of the Autobots brought neither comfort nor fear in the face of the ongoing assault.
A few acknowledgements in the clear came out with spirit returning, and then suddenly, it was cut off by him.
"MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Congratulations, foolish humans! Oh, and the delusional humans in the White Fang who think kibble matters too. You are all under the effects of a device created by none other than me, Air Commander Starscream of the Decepticon Seeker Corps! The next step in the evolution of full spectrum jamming: MAXIMUM SPECTRUM JAMMING! Now, no one will be able to communicate without the leave of the Decepticons and me, Starscream!"
Adam snarled and looked up as one of the Skystrikers -- no, Seekers -- flew overhead.
"Adam!"
He turned at the sound of his name to see a familiar figure clamber up to the roof where he stood. "Vix?" He tilted his head curiously. "How are you still alive?"
Not just alive; the reindeer faunus didn't seem to have a scratch on him.
"Just lucky, I guess," Vix said with a shrug.
It was at that moment that Prowl poked his hand up with a wave. "I helped."
Vix stepped up onto the roof. "What now?"
Adam frowned and took another surveying look at the burning city.
"I need a weapon."
Captain William Lennox peered through his field glasses at the suspected White Fang base. So far, they didn't have enough evidence to move in, but he could be patient. The Grimm horde lurking outside the walls were still there -- watching, waiting, slowly picking apart elements of the outer defenses -- and it didn't seem like they were going anywhere. It suggested a level of planning and intelligence guiding the Grimm lifted straight out of ancient legends, but as unnerving as it was -- which was probably what the Grimm wanted, which only made it worse -- NEST had other jobs to do.
"Tonight," Fig announced. "Tonight is when it all goes to hell."
"You serious, man?" That was Donnelly.
"I'm tellin' ya," Fig insisted. "I can feel it."
As if on cue, something -- a lot of somethings -- began exploding around the city, including the car dealership under surveillance. Lennox looked up, checking around him.
The city -- or several parts of it, at any rate -- was on fire.
"Epps! Fig!" he called. "Get to the walls! The Grimm won't be able to resist this. We'll check on the Fang."
The two men named nodded and began running for the walls.
Lennox paused and looked up as something screamed overhead. It was the obvious culprits of the bombing run: several of the new Atlesian Skystrikers.
"Those are Atlesian airships," he muttered. "If they're attacking us... what the heck's going on in Atlas?"
Sylvia was alone again. She welcomed that time, that time when she could almost have some time for herself. Except not really, because there was a camera recording everything, a camera she couldn't get to and destroy.
She'd tried to keep hope for a while, tried to remember the words of the silver-eyed man who was like a father to her, but in the end, she succumbed to despair. She tried not to show it, but she did. She felt like such a shameful traitor.
Then… then the light came pouring back in with the revelation that General Colton had returned. She'd dared not hope for such a miracle in all her years, and yet, it seemed to be the case. General Colton and General Ironwood, two gallant heroes of the old and new Atlas coming together, were such a bright spot that she even dared to dream that they would do more than just defeat the bad guys, that they would save her too.
After all, they were true Huntsmen, and a true Huntsman would always find a way for justice to be served.
So she fanned those flames of hope, even lying in a dirty rag and chained to the floor as she was. They could beat her, they could kill her, but it would take a heck of a lot more than that to break her. She had to hold on. She just had to hold on.
The building shook, almost unnoticeable through the soundproofing that contained her screams, but still there. Her eyes widened, wondering what could have happened. Then there was the crash of the door coming down.
A drone flew down the stairs from the entrance and scanned around the room. Suddenly, it was followed by the rapid footsteps of a number of people. She struggled to get up, not wanting to meet them improperly, and succeeded.
They were soldiers, real Atlesian heroes…
"Ma'am, are you Councilor Sylvia?" asked the man in charge.
"I'm not much of a councilor," replied Sylvia with perhaps an unnecessary bout of dark humor.
The man in charge nodded, and another man produced a pair of power-cutters to begin cutting away the bars on her cage.
He spoke once more. "I'm Leutnant Falcon. I'm here to rescue you. Don't worry; Stretcher here's a medic."
Sylvia smiled. Hope didn't need to be stoked to maintain itself any longer.
"Thundercracker!" Starscream's voice rattled the Seeker's brain module through his long-range comm. "Get your miserable thrust nozzle moving! We're beginning our attack run now!"
"'Attack run'? What?"
The explosions he heard were answer enough.
"Oh, no."
He rose to his feet and peered out through the hangar doors, seeing the airbase had come alive. Men, women, and vehicles were racing around. Airships were powering up and taking off. Weapons were being armed.
And no one, it seemed, was paying any attention to him or his little hangar.
Thundercracker bowed his head and considered for a long moment before stepping out and taking to the skies.
Flash!
Velvet hoped her smile didn't look too awkward. She was more used to being behind the camera than in front of it, after all. A quick look at her boyfriend suggested he felt the same. They were with their teams at Benni Haven's, posing in front of Fluffy, the fake stuffed Beowolf, in order to have a keepsake to remember their time together after Team RRFL went back to Atlas.
As Benni transmitted the photo to their scrolls, Velvet suddenly frowned and looked towards the entrance, her ears perking up. "What was that?" she asked. It almost sounded like... thunder rumbling in the distance.
"Rain?" Lavi asked worriedly.
"I don't know," Rain muttered darkly. "But... I think we'd better-"
He was cut off as the Grimm incursion sirens began to blare. The eight Huntsmen exchanged looks before bolting from the homey little restaurant at the very edge of Beacon's property, each of them reaching for their scrolls to summon their rocket lockers and the weapons within them as they raced toward campus.
They had work to do.
Ruby and Yang were down by the docks in Bumblebee. Filling each other in on all the goings-on that they'd kept secret from each other their first year at Beacon was exhausting -- the whole "Decepticons harvesting villagers' souls for Vehicons" thing was a particularly nasty bit of news -- and they needed the time to unwind, to leave the shadow wars behind and just be a family again for a little while.
Qrow was supposed to have met them some time ago while Adam took care of White Fang stuff and their father handled some stuff at Beacon for Signal since he happened to be in town. Jazz and their father were then going to surprise and pick up Adam and meet the three of them for a family outing. Except Qrow hadn't shown up at all.
Still, the two of them were glad to reconnect, to just be sisters again for a little while. So, of course, that was when the city decided to start exploding.
Yang threw herself over her sister as the explosions started, but when there came a pause in the bombing and Bumblebee stopped rocking from the concussion waves, she sat back up.
"You okay, Rubes? Bee?"
"Not even a scratch," Bumblebee reported.
"Yeah, I-" Ruby froze, staring past her sister out Bumblebee's driver side window and across the sea toward Patch. "Oh, God, what is that?"
Yang turned and felt the blood drain from her face as she saw the gigantic shape, dark purple, shedding water as it slowly rose up into the sky. It could only be one thing.
"Nemesis."
"Took the word right out of my mouth, Bee."
Megatron grimaced as the bridge around him trembled with the effort to raise the once-mighty starship. Repairs to the Nemesis had been limited by time, resources, and botpower, and this new stress wasn't helping matters. The Predacons were manning the bridge for now, with the exception of Tantrum, who was in engineering, in order to free up additional botpower for the attack.
"Skybolt," he growled into the comm, "will she hold?"
"So long as we can maintain energon flow and don't torque off a Titan, we should be fine," came the reply from the engine room. "In other words, Lord Megatron, don't fire the warp cannons if you want us to stay airborne."
Megatron rose to his feet, just as another shudder ran through the ship. He grabbed a nearby console in order to keep his balance as a loose bolt fell from the ceiling, nearly hitting him.
"Wonderful," he muttered. "Demolishor, please deliver our gifts. Razorclaw, you have the conn."
"Aye aye, Lord Megatron!" came the reply over the comms from the fire control room where Demolishor was calibrating their weapons.
Portholes began dilating open across the hull of the ancient Decepticon starship, and pods very much like the rocket lockers used by Beacon began firing out and landing all across the city.
As soon as Megatron left the bridge, Razorclaw leapt up into the captain's chair, and the rest of the Predacons snapped to attention.
"Predacons, status report," ordered Razorclaw.
"We're holding steady for now, Captain," reported Headstrong from the helm.
"Captain, we are in what's known as a target-rich environment," replied Rampage from the bridge weapons station.
"Captain, I think you should know that the local population is mobilizing a significant number of ships, both oceangoing and airborne, into attack positions. My sensors read at least twenty, and that number is growing," read off Dive Bomb calmly from the science station.
Razorclaw put an actuator to his chin in contemplation for a moment and then opened up a channel to engineering. "Tantrum, can you wire the engines to make a short range 'hop' if we need it?"
"In the shape we're in? Captain, you can't just ask me to defy the laws of physics like that!" was Tantrum's pessimistic reply.
"Damnit, Tantrum. I'm not asking if it's possible; I'm asking if you can do it," snapped back Razorclaw.
The line was silent for a moment before Tantrum answered, "Maybe. I'll need time though."
"We'll get you that time. Bridge out," said Razorclaw before cutting the line and ordering the rest of the bridge crew. "Helm, take us in over the city; they should be a lot less eager to shoot us down if we'll land on their houses. Weapons, make it look like we're about to blow them out of the sky, but only use the minimum amount of force necessary. Science, keep your sensors sweeping for whatever trump card they have. I don't want it sneaking up on us. Orders received?"
"Aye aye, sir!"
"Good," acknowledged Razorclaw before sweeping his hand down and forward. "Now make it so."
"Mmm. Now this is a burger."
"Do you have to moan like that while eating your signature food, Deej?"
"Yes, Johnny," she said seriously. "Yes, I do."
Lieutenant Daisy Jo Martinez -- DJ to her friends -- was a mid-ranking officer in the Valish Police Department in charge of a small collection of other officers that she naturally had to join on patrol due to chronic manpower shortages. She had violet eyes, cream skin, and brown hair that was mirrored in her equine tail. Though it helped a statistically significant number of times in her job as a police officer, she was disinclined to lean on her race for anything, having been adopted by a couple of humans who were retired Valish military, married to a human in the Valean Coast Guard, and -- against all odds -- given birth to two human sons. Some people, though, insisted that her race mattered a great deal, and it was for that reason among many others that she hated the White Fang almost as much as she hated dirty cops.
Her partner was one of those dirty cops.
Officer Johnny Yuma was an ex-con, allegedly reformed, assigned to be Martinez's partner presumably because her superiors had a sick sense of humor and probably wanted to get back at her for busting that red ball protection racket case. A strong jaw and navy blue eyes did little to dull the stench of treachery that hung about him like a flock of seagulls, and what other smell could there be around a Patch Ranger turned train robber who then allegedly turned straight after running into his old partner while trying to rob the Silver Bullet Express in Mistral?
"I told you: I served my time, and now, I'm on the side of justice," said Yuma out of the blue.
"Huh?" asked Martinez, looking at her partner in confusion.
"You're easier to read than a maraca playing rattlesnake, pardner," answered Yuma in exasperation. "Can't say I wouldn't feel the same in your situation, but we still have to work together at the end of the day."
Martinez quickly -- and perhaps more than a little unsatisfactorily -- ate the rest of her burger and wiped her hands off before replying, "Listen, you and I might be stuck together in this forgotten corner of Vale that the commissioner uses as a dumping ground, but that doesn't mean I have to like it."
"You should be grateful," sniped back Yuma. "You got all the time in the world now to spend with your kids."
"And if the White Fang has their way, if they continue to grow because no one will stand up to them, then my kids won't have any time to spend with their own kids because the Fang will have strung them up or burned them alive," snapped back Martinez.
Suddenly, there was a thunderous crash that shook the building and made the people in the Burger Shed jump in their seats. Once more, Martinez was glad she always paid for her food in advance as she rushed from her seat and out the door. Yuma was close behind her, but considering what she could do, it was impressive he could keep up as well as he did.
They came out to the sound of people screaming and the sight of dust in the air. The reason for it was easy to see, even through the haze kicked up by its arrival. It was a large, humanoid robot with large metal claws for hands, and it was stepping out of the corner store that it had crushed with its landing. It was accompanied by a half-dozen old AK-90 combat androids that were stepping out of a large cylinder that had landed in the street next to it.
The big robot's right claw retracted, and the arm transformed into what looked like a cannon and snapped up to level at cars that had stopped on the other end of the street.
Martinez felt the concrete sidewalk beneath her disintegrate into something akin to sand as she leapt forward using her semblance, the one that some of her old colleagues called Horsepower. She went flying through the air and twisted so that she was landing feet first into the midsection of the giant robot. It tipped over with a banging crash, and instantly, she was upon it.
Behind her, she heard six sharp cracks from her partner's revolver, and the AKs collapsed like puppets with their strings cut.
She likewise drew her own pistol and fired a series of shots into the limbs of the assailant. It reacted somewhat to that, but it was only a distraction. The real attack came when she picked up a street lamp that had been knocked over by the initial landing and began to bludgeon the robot with it.
Her partner added his fire again to the mix, and soon enough, the aura of the machine -- a machine with aura! -- broke. In her combat-focused mindset, Martinez didn't notice; she just kept smashing. And when the bludgeon broke, she used her fists. Punching in deep, she tore open the chest of the robot.
As if a switch had been flipped, all combat stopped.
What Martinez saw inside shocked her to her core and left her with only one thing that could escape her lips.
"Doctor! We need a doctor over here!"
What was inside was the stuff of nightmares, but it wasn't something she could fix.
"I'm a doctor!" came the shout of one of the pedestrians rushing out of the street from the buildings on the side where they had been in cover. Yuma helped him up, and Martinez hoisted him onto the metal body. "Thank you, now… I can't… we need specialized equipment, not to mention… I've never seen anything like this before."
Yuma rushed over to the house that the doctor had rushed from and shouted to the first person he saw while pointing. "You! Yes, you! Go call emergency services and tell them everything that's happened and that we need a full medical team down here."
The person inside the house nodded and rushed towards the building's emergency landline.
There was another series of explosions off in the distance, some closer than others.
"Hey, cop lady!" came a young male voice with a Mistrali accent from the roof of one of the buildings, and Martinez looked up to acknowledge him, finding the voice to belong to a ten-year-old with a submachine gun slung over one shoulder. "My pa says we got four more of those pods coming down to the south."
"Thank you!" shouted back Martinez as she leapt down from the metal monstrosity to land on the pavement. South, south, south... but the only thing there is… oh no.
"We got big problems. All wireless transmissions are being jammed," declared Yuma as he caught sight of her even as a crowd was starting to grow. "Something wrong?"
Martinez whipped out her scroll and hit a few commands, projecting a holographic map onto the evening street beneath them, much to the interest of the civilians. "They're deploying south of here. The only thing that an attacker could care about that way is the Roxxon Chemical Plant, not just because of its critical industry, but also because it sits close to a cluster of irrigation pipes running to the agricultural districts."
"Bloody murder! You saying those robots are gonna poison the water supply and the crops?" asked one of the people in the crowd as they watched the holographic map change to highlight some of the things that the officer was talking about.
"It's the only thing that makes sense," reasoned Martinez before looking around at those assembled. "Now, me and Officer Yuma are going to try and fight our way to the chemical plant, but we could use some backup. Everyone is expected to do their duty, but… who here has a weapon?"
Another of those in the crowd scoffed and shrugged. "All of us. 'Tain't nobody around that's unarmed."
"That's fantastic news," said Martinez with a relieved smile.
"Well, what else kind of news would it be?" asked that same person rhetorically. "It's not like you lot were ever going to show up if there was a crime."
Martinez somehow managed to stay calm and only blow one blood vessel staying quiet.
All around the city, the same scene was repeating itself. Civilians and militiamen alike -- most with little or no aura training -- gathered together, either having retrieved personal weapons or lining up at militia caches to arm themselves. On the rooftops of certain buildings, people scrambled to man anti-air weapons ranging from quadruple .50-caliber machine gun turrets to 5-inch flak cannons and surface-to-air missile batteries. Augmenting the defenders' numbers were robots of all shapes and sizes, mostly built by Starhead Industrial Company: sleek canine robots loped into battle, nipping and biting at obsolete AKs, while towering bear and elephant robots grappled with Vehicons. Up at Beacon, even as students and teachers alike began mobilizing, robots built in the shape of Grimm for training were unleashed on the humanoid attackers in a bizarre, robotic reversal of the usual status quo.
The VCGS Hama was a fifty-year-old cruiser that had been reactivated and recommissioned after the Atlesian withdrawal in the wake of the Furcthlos's destruction. During the Vytal Tournament, she had been docked on the pier at the base of the cliffs below Beacon Academy to serve as heavy fire support should anyone attempt to... disrupt the tournament. Now, however, she was anchored at the southern fork of the river, in case the Grimm gathering outside the city caused need of her mighty guns to arise.
"Action stations!" barked Captain L. W. Wilder, the klaxons aboard the cruiser echoing the Grimm attack sirens wailing throughout the city. "Take those Skystrikers down!"
Her aging hull groaning, the Hama began to maneuver further up the river, and her weapons came to life, from her belt-fed .80-caliber anti-air autocannons on up through her automatic 3-inch and breech-loading 5-inch guns. Even her 8-inch dual-purpose guns began ponderously sweeping the sky for targets, speaking with deadly purpose whenever a Skystriker crossed in front of them.
For the first time in decades, Vale went to war.
Qrow Branwen staggered out of the bar -- at least, he was pretty sure it was a bar -- with what was probably a bottle of liquor. It was a little hard to tell, but there was still plenty of time to find out. After all, the morning was still young.
Wait. Was it still morning? It looked like it.
Looking down the street, he saw a trio of very nice cars transform and shift into giant robots. Those giant robots drew guns, or maybe their arms turned into guns. Anyway, they started blasting.
And as the screams and the fire filled the streets, Qrow could only sigh.
"Looks like it's going to be another one of those days."
With that, he cast aside the bottle of liquor and drew forth Harbinger, his sword-scythe-shotgun, and ran towards the attacking robots.
"I'm glad to see you're doing better."
Weiss blinked and blushed slightly, nodding. It was supposed to have been a private little get-together to give Lady Belladonna an opportunity to get to know her daughter's boyfriend a bit better, but it seemed Neptune was Sun's eternal wingman in more ways than one, as he had arrived with Sun at the teacher's lounge Headmaster Ozpin had been kind enough to lend them. The lounge had a spectacular view of Vale, but Weiss and Neptune were unable to enjoy it at the moment. Weiss had risen to retrieve more drinks from the kitchenette down the hall, and Neptune had kindly offered to accompany her.
"I- my father's legacy has been quite the weight on my shoulders," she replied. "I did not realize how much of a weight until I shed it."
"Looks like it's been good for you," Neptune said, his voice soft. "When I first saw you, all I could think was that you looked so sad, that you couldn't even smile. Now, it's like the difference between night and day."
She couldn't help it. She smiled. "Or ice and fire?"
He laughed. "Or ice and fire. And personally, I prefer the fire."
"So do I," she agreed.
They got the drinks and started the walk back to the lounge. As they walked, Weiss took the time to smooth out a crease in her combat skirt. She was sure the new outfit -- black with red and orange filigree in a fiery pattern -- that a member of Lady Belladonna's bodyguard detail had helped her pick out didn't need it, but for some reason, she felt compelled to look her best at that moment.
As they stepped back into the lounge, Weiss suddenly felt very self-conscious when she realized all three of the people in the room -- the three people who were supposed to be the center of this meeting -- were instead waiting and watching for them. Lady Belladonna had a distressingly speculative look on her face, while Blake looked distinctly... conflicted. Most annoying, however, was Sun, who had the smuggest, most self-satisfied grin on his face.
"You two sure took your time," Sun teased.
"Oh, knock it off, Sun," Neptune said, clearly annoyed, and for some reason, Weiss found herself smiling again.
"Now, where were we?" Lady Belladonna asked as Neptune and Weiss reclaimed their seats and set out the drinks.
Before anyone could answer, there came a booming, rumbling noise, and a series of bright flashes in the distance caught their notice. Weiss turned to stare in horror out the massive picture window overlooking the city, which was now blanketed with columns of smoke.
And diving through the smoke as they strafed the streets were unmistakable shapes.
"Are those the new Atlesian Skystrikers?" Neptune asked in confusion. "Why is Atlas attacking Vale?"
"Not Atlas," Lady Belladonna whispered in fear. "Decepticons."
"Who?" Neptune asked quizzically.
Weiss jumped, startled, as Lady Belladonna suddenly pulled her and Blake into a tight hug. "I have to go," she said, letting go and rising to her feet. She glanced at the boys as she ran out of the room, her bodyguard detail accompanying her. "Sun! Neptune! Keepmygirlssafe!"
"Can do, Missus B!" Sun called out to assure her.
"Did she say 'girl' or 'girls'?" asked Neptune curiously.
Sun shrugged. "Does it matter?"
"Let's go," Blake said, marching out the door. Weiss followed.
"Um, 'go'?" Sun asked as he and Neptune scrambled to catch up. "Go where?"
"We're getting a Bullhead, and we're going to help," she declared. Weiss nodded.
"Uh, Blake?" Sun protested. "Your mom-"
"She said to keep me safe," Blake interrupted. "She didn't say to keep me here."
"She's got you there, Bro," Neptune said. "Let's just go."
It wasn't long before the quartet was seated aboard a Bullhead, with Blake in the pilot's seat as she began powering it up. Weapons were ready, and so were they. They were helped along in that by the engines powering up and drowning out a good deal of the Grimm attack sirens that were still blaring all throughout the city. They saw a few other teams boarding other Bullheads, and rocket lockers were streaking through the sky overhead toward the city.
"Seriously? 'Team Brown'?" complained Neptune. "That's what we're going with?"
"Why not?" Sun asked. "B-W-W-N. Brown."
"Because that's just... ugh," Neptune answered, making a face. "Brown isn't even a real color. It's dark orange with context."
"I can't believe that that's what you're objecting to," Sun retorted. "LIke, aren't you wondering who the Decepticons are?"
"Are they the bad guys blowing up the city?"
Sun blinked at the blunt question. "Well... yeah."
Neptune shrugged. "Then that's all I need to know."
Sun raised a finger and opened his mouth, then frowned and lowered his finger. "Point."
Blake was rushing through her pre-flight checklist as fast as she dared, but as the Bullhead gently lifted into the air and toward the city, she was able to spare the attention needed to speak. "There's a lot of hot spots out there. Where are we going?"
"Comms?" Neptune asked.
There was a loud, ear-splitting squeal. "Jammed," reported Blake unnecessarily as she shut it off.
"Did you have to play that over the intercom instead of your headset?" asked Weiss in exasperation.
"Yes."
Weiss sighed and shook her downcast head.
"Have you got an idea of where we need to go, or have you just got complaints?!" snapped Blake, and then after a moment, she was much more conciliatory. "I'm sorry; I lost my composure there for a second."
"Then relax and remember that this is what we trained for," declared Neptune with a sweep of his hand in gesture to all that was seen in the canopy. "A breach of the city's defenses? Civilians in danger? Up a creek with water? This is what the Huntsmen were created for."
The snowcapped girl resisted the urge to remind Neptune that, no, this wasn't what Huntsmen were for; stopping things before it got this dire was what Huntsmen were for, was why the kingdoms poured millions of lien into the four Academies every year.
This... this was failure. It only remained to be seen how badly they had failed.
"Over there!" Sun called, pointing out the front canopy. Far ahead, over the ocean, an alien-looking airship loomed, moving ponderously to hover over Vale... and it was spitting out cylindrical pods to land in the city.
"Right," Blake said, nodding firmly. "I'll bet the jammer's on that airship. We take that down..."
"...the city's defenses will be able to coordinate," Sun finished.
"I feel like I should be the voice of reason here and point out that we're talking about flying through contested airspace to board a Decepticon mothership and destroy a device that none of us have any information on," Weiss objected. "A mothership, I might add, that is probably going to draw most of the city's anti-air fire and is going to be shooting back."
"Qui audet adipiscitur," said Neptune somberly, as if he was heroically steeling himself for the fight to come. At the curious expressions from Sun and Weiss, he explained, "It's an old saying my father had back when we were… well, that's not important. The important part is what it means: who dares wins."
"I'm coming up on one of those pods," Blake warned. "Let's see what- oh."
Weiss scowled at what they saw below. A dozen AK-130s marching down the street, wrecking anything in their path. "So that's where all those androids went."
"I could strafe-"
"We may need the ammo to breach that ship," Sun said, shaking his head, though Blake couldn't possibly see him.
"Look!" Neptune pointed. As the androids marched, another force emerged to oppose them, sixteen skeletons rising from the ground and meeting the androids with a charge. Machine guns fired, but for every skeleton that fell, another rose, and soon, they were fully engaged in melee. Behind the skeletons, they could see Team JAMM of Haven readying for battle while about a dozen civilians gave covering fire with an eclectic collection of firearms.
"Leave them to their jobs," Weiss said grimly, placing a firm hand on Blake's shoulder. "We've got our own to do."
Prowl roared down the streets of Vale as fast as he dared with traffic scrambling in the wake of the attack.
"The humans look like a tipped-over anthill," commented Vix.
Adam grunted wordlessly as Prowl swerved to plow into a pair of AK-130s as they jumped down to the street from a rooftop, knocking them to the side. A tractor-trailer going the opposite direction ran over them, and the Autobot kept rolling. It was just like during some of the more desperate sieges of the war; there was no time to stop and clear the road of debris... or the fallen.
"Nice hit," observed Vix.
"Sometimes, your own front grill can be your best weapon," replied Prowl, maneuvering onto the highway as he did so.
"I'd prefer to get an actual weapon," griped Adam, curling his hands around the steering wheel possessively. That was, after all, why they were going this direction; they were headed toward one of the White Fang's weapons caches, one that was only occasionally visited and thus, hopefully, one that hadn't been hit by the Decepticons.
Vix reached into his pants and pulled out a small pistol. "I got a Concordat Rainbow."
"I said an actual weapon," retorted Adam.
"Yeesh, alrighty then. Guy finds out he's got a-"
They were interrupted by the wailing of a siren, and a glance in the rearview mirror showed another VPD police cruiser roaring up behind them, lights flashing.
Adam glanced down at the dashboard. "We're speeding. Why does he care about speeding at a time like this?"
"Aren't we supposedly in a police car?" Vix reminded him.
"That's not-" Prowl was cut off as the police cruiser pulled up and brought its nose crashing sideways into Prowl's tail in a classic PIT maneuver, sending the Autobot spinning out of control.
They smashed off the highway and flew through the air. Feeling that the time for secrecy was past, Prowl transformed in mid-air and landed on the street below, with Vix and Adam in his hands. A few of the civilians left nearby seemed quite stunned by the display, but they would soon get used to it.
Almost immediately after, the other VPD car leapt from the highway and similarly transformed in mid-air to land dramatically just a few dozen meters away from them.
"Hello, Prowl," growled Barricade sadistically as he stared them down and brandished a studded mace. "Small universe, meeting my old partner in a place like this, isn't it?"
Prowl set the two White Fang members down and drew his tonfas, gazing into Barricade's optics, still searching for any trace of his old friend, the stuffy, by-the-book cop that had reined him in back at CySec before the war. And once again, he found nothing.
"Too small by far, traitor," he said.
Barricade's face twisted into a snarl. "Bold word, coming from you."
"Barricade, I-"
"You left me to die!"
"That wasn't how it went down, and you know it. You should know it."
"The only thing I know," Barricade said as he activated something on his studded mace that made it glow, "is that you and me, we're going to have an ending to things tonight."
"So be it," replied Prowl as his tonfas deployed with sparking electricity. "Adam, Vix, get out of here. This is something I need to do myself."
The civilians took that as their cue to leave as fast as they possibly could, and Vix couldn't help but stare at how everyone -- even the two guys with ten rocket launchers strapped to their backs between them! -- was going along with this.
"Are we really doing this?" asked the reindeer faunus in disbelief.
"Yes," was Adam's simple reply as he took off down another street.
Lugnut had a job to do, one he was uniquely qualified for. Well, he actually had two jobs tonight, and the other one was one His Gloriousness Lord Megatron would not entrust to anyone else, but that job would come later.
He was in his alt-mode, a bomber aircraft unlike anything seen on Remnant, as he flew behind the wave of Seekers at a much more sedate, subsonic speed but at a much higher altitude, far enough above the cloud cover to avoid easy detection, but as the Seekers below peeled off to strike their targets, he flew straight and true, for his target was furthest away, and as he approached it, he wheeled around and began to dive.
Streaking out of the sky like a meteor toward the southeastern part of the outermost wall protecting Vale from the Grimm, Lugnut transformed and drew back his fist.
"PUNCH OF KILL EVERYTHING!"
"I still can't believe we left him to fight that bastard on his own," cursed Vix furiously as he ran across the rooftops following Adam.
"He is a ninja," replied Adam casually before jumping across an alley gap to the next rooftop.
"That doesn't explain anything!" complained the reindeer faunus as he too landed, then looked up to see an old man in a flak vest and helmet setting up what looked like a stack of MANPADS with ammo. "Uh, hello. Got any guns?"
The old man shook his head. "No, just explosives. Gotta get them ready for when the flying Grimm manage to overwhelm the defenses and enter the city."
Vix let out a heavy sigh that made his lips flap. "Of course. Sorry for bothering you."
As he moved to run on to the next rooftop, the old man spoke up again. "Hey, aren't you folks supposed to be murderous anti-human terrorists?"
"Yeah, well, we got distracted, okay?!" shot back Vix.
The old man nodded. "Well, it happens. Best of luck to the both of you, ya hear? It's only going to get worse out here before it gets better."
The reindeer faunus shook his head and resumed his run across the rooftops, not following Adam at all but instead following the plume of smoke rising from where one of their holdouts once stood. Eventually, he had to leap down to street level to close the final distance to the car dealership which had been serving as a ground vehicle procurement and deployment facility, and he did so without thought. When he found his leader crouched behind one of the cars, he found himself growing rather worried though.
"What's wrong, Boss?" asked Vix. Adam merely pointed over the body of the car, and he looked over in the direction of the pointed finger only to curse and duck back down. "The fuzz."
Around the burning building that used to be the offices of the car dealership were scattered elements of the White Fang, but also firefighters, paramedics, and soldiers wearing the uniform of the Royal Army.
"Since when did they become a thing? I thought they were just weekend warriors!" asked Vix in exasperation and fear.
Adam shrugged. "Someone had to take over after Atlas left. Why not Vale's own military?"
"They're not supposed to have a real military!" harshly hissed Vix with wide eyes. "Now they do, and they've got our guys captured."
"Do they?" Adam asked. "I don't see restraints on anyone."
"And the armored truck?" Vix shot back. "That's a paddy wagon."
"No, that's Bulkhead."
"How can you tell?"
"A police van wouldn't look that nervous."
"Again, how can you tell?"
Instead of answering, Adam rose to his feet and walked purposefully toward one of the Royal Army officers.
Vix let out another curse and chased after his leader, hand ready to grab his hidden pistol.
The Royal Army officer he was walking to noticed them and snapped his rifle up before lowering it.
"Captain," said Adam evenly.
"Adam Taurus," greeted the officer in reply. "There's a warrant for your arrest in three kingdoms."
"Is one of them Vale?" asked Adam casually.
"Yeah, but we're in the middle of a level seven Grimm incursion; warrants are temporarily suspended for anyone helping in the city's defense," answered the man, whose nametag Vix could now read as Lennox. "You gonna fight the Decepticons?"
Vix could barely contain his shock, and while Adam had his mask, it was clear that he was surprised too. "I'm... looking for someone. But yes, I will."
"Not without a weapon you won't," said Lennox before flipping his rifle to the side and tossing it towards Adam.
The boss caught it and then proceeded to examine it. It looked like it was fully functional. Safety was on, but… an arm of the Valish government had just tossed a loaded weapon at one of the deadliest people in the White Fang and told him to use it.
Not that he was leaving himself unarmed, as evidenced by him pulling out another rifle from behind his back.
"Adam!" called out one of the White Fang who had been tending to the wounded, still in his hooded uniform and mask, as he ran up. "Uh, sir. Glad to see you. We, uh, haven't managed to evacuate like you ordered us to."
"The wounded are the priority," replied Adam sternly. "If you want to join in the defense of the city and get some payback on Starscream and his merry band of bombers, that's your choice. I don't think anyone will begrudge you the chance."
"We'd be idiots if we did," said Lennox simply. "We need all the allies we can get right now."
"I couldn't agree more," replied Adam before shouting to the big van. "Bulkhead, get ready to roll on out of here."
Then, just as Adam had predicted, the van transformed from what it was into the familiar-ish form of the big green Autobot engineer, Bulkhead.
"Oh, thank Primus," Bulkhead exclaimed. "I was so worried they'd figure out what I am and think I was a Decepticon."
Lennox cocked an eyebrow, not even having the courtesy to look fazed. "And you're using the White Fang as your character references?"
Bulkhead paused to consider that. "...I didn't think this through very well, did I?"
"No, but you should be fine, save for the endless ribbing," replied Lennox, his gaze switching between Bulkhead and the various White Fang members. "There's a lot of things going on right now, but do you think we could hitch a ride to the wall?"
"This is an outrage!" shouted Ambassador Fanfarinet of Vale in the chamber of the Atlesian Provisional Council. "The Kingdom of Vale demands to know why Atlas has attacked us!"
"We're still attempting to ascertain exactly what is going on, Ambassador, but the jamming is making that close to impossible," answered General Colton calmly. "The fact of the matter is that we have no idea what's going on right now."
"Lies and slander!" declared Councilor Sylvia dramatically. "This is clearly an attempt at world domination. All the praise has gone to your head, General Colton, and now you think that you are a god that can seize territory for your own aggrandizement and shatter the peace that has existed since the end of the Great War."
All those assembled looked at her in confusion.
"What," answered Colton flatly.
"I'm sure that General Colton had no idea that this attack was about to take place," placated Sleet.
"Then he is an old fool who has lost control of the military," hissed Sylvia. "I move that-"
"You'll not be moving anything anymore!" shouted General Flagg as the doors banged open to allow him into the room with specialists like Targeter and Duke flanking him.
"What?!" roared Sylvia in reply, and then her gaze briefly shifted to the live cameras in the room. "So, you admit it then, the military is planning to take over Atlas and then the world. Why else would you be here?"
"Because it's not their plan!" shouted a voice so very much like the councilor's as another figure came into the room that looked like Sylvia after being knocked around enough that the medic by her side was a necessary precaution. "It's yours!"
There was a series of gasps from many of the people assembled.
"What?!" repeated the Sylvia in a suit. "But how did you escape my dungeon?"
"The daring gallantry of Atlas's servicemen and women," replied the ragged Sylvia easily in a voice that seemed to be laughing at the danger.
"Hmm, how sickeningly poetic, but you're still too late," sneered the Sylvia on the council.
Still confused, Fanfarinet asked the obvious question. "I don't get it. How can there be two Sylvias?"
"She's a changeling!" declared the beaten Sylvia to the rest of those in attendance. "She takes the form of someone you know and gains power by feeding off your trust in them."
In reply, the eyes of the prim and proper Sylvia glowed a sickly green, and then she was engulfed in a towering inferno of emerald flames. She burned, and as she did, her body seemed to disintegrate. Her fair complexion was replaced by a deathly pallor, her hair become teal with holes cut out of its rattiness, tattered insect-like wings grew out of her back, her smile became fanged and maniacal, and her eyes changed from mirrored silver to a mucus-like green. Even her clothes had changed, becoming something much less suitable to a business formal environment.
She laughed, evilly and wickedly as she came down on those repugnant wings to land in front of the rest of the council. "Right you are, Councilor. After all, your earnest face and position on the council made it easy to gain all the power in the land. First, I did it because I led the Atlas chapter of the White Fang, but that fool I left in command ruined everything with her failure to keep secure one measly teenager in a cave with a box of scraps! Now I'm doing this because I'm the only one who can and because my control of Atlas is now complete. Thank you for this, actually. You have no idea how hard it was to restrain myself all these years. It feels wonderful to finally cut loose!"
"She was being restrained?" asked Duke incredulously.
"But you've already failed!" criticized Sylvia, the real Sylvia. "Now that you've been revealed, no one will follow you."
Another dark chuckle escaped the lips of the imposter. "Oh, but that's where you're wrong. The White Fang might have failed, but I have not been idle and have found new minions. The second are a group of mercenaries I hired who are skilled in these matters: the Dreadnoks."
On that cue, the doors on the side of the chamber burst down, and a group of thugs on motorbikes rode in to circle the real councilor and the military personnel, hooting and hollering the whole way while brandishing all manner of weapons from tire irons to flamethrowers.
"How could you let her escape?" she demanded.
"Oi, we left her with those tin men like you said to," one of them -- blond with sunglasses and a chainsaw -- retorted.
The imposter stared at him for a long moment.
"The first was Soundwave and the Decepticons," she continued, as if the brief interruption hadn't occurred. "They gave me the resources to seize the total control that so rightfully belongs to me."
She took out a hidden controller and pressed a button. There was a delay, and then suddenly, there was the sound of clanking steps and screaming voices. All across the city, similar situations were arising as legions of androids emerged from hidden caches and did their dark deeds, just like those that marched into the room and saluted in a terrible parody of soldiers.
"Hail to the Queen!" shouted the combat androids in unison. "Hail Chrysalis! Hail Queen Chrysalis! Hail! Hail! Hail!"
"Pretty slick," complimented Colton as he got up from his seat. "Don't you think the coronation's a bit premature, though?"
"Oh, General, ever the optimist," mocked Chrysalis. "It's just a shame that you had to live up to the legend. Why couldn't you be as corrupt and easy to manipulate as the other councilors? Sleet sold the kingdom out in exchange for keeping that affair secret from his wife, and Camilla just accepted bribes and support for her pet projects. It didn't have to be this way. Why did you have to be so noble?"
Camilla and Sleet's expressions were mixed, but they both seemed to know that they were finished.
Colton smiled cockily. "Just doing my job, ma'am."
Chrysalis's smile was far more cruel. "Then it is fortunate for me that dying is part of your job description!"
With that, Chrysalis pressed another key on the controls in her hand, and all the council seats exploded into fireballs and concussion waves, engulfing all those councilors who were still at their desks.
"No!" shouted Targeter in horror.
"I win," gloated Chrysalis before she laughed again, and this time, the mad sound echoed off the walls with wickedness and malice without respite.
Team JNPR was out on the town together on what was most emphatically not a double date. It was a bit delayed, but they were taking the night out to celebrate... well, a lot of things: their victory in the Vytal Tournament, a certain couple's upcoming nuptials, the intel on the Decepticons they were finally able to access.
So when the city started exploding, culminating in a brilliant flash over the southeastern defenses, they ran -- like any Huntsman would -- in the opposite direction of the bulk of the crowd: toward the signs of trouble, eventually taking the high road to bypass the aforementioned crowds of.civilians making their way to the shelters. Many of the civilians were armed, of course, but some were clearly more concerned with getting their unarmed fellows -- friends and family -- to the shelters first, where they would serve as a last line of defense. Other armed civilians were fighting through the waves of unarmed people to help with the defense, with markedly less success than Team JNPR, whose aura-infused leaps propelled them from roof to roof.
Finally, they spotted a familiar face directing militia members. Captain Lennox of NEST had evidently taken charge near the innermost wall and was coordinating a defense with the armed civilians, police, and military already there. It was no small feat with wireless transmissions jammed, but he seemed to be handling himself well.
They dropped down at an intersection near the gathering... as did an Atlesian team vectoring in from another direction. It was Ruby and Sun's friend Penny's team, Team APRC, though Penny, for some reason, was wearing a suit of powered armor much like Mad Dog's that they hadn't seen before. It was different in shape and color, but it still had that same overall bulky aesthetic. Even with the full helmet, the signature sword-hoverboard she rode in on made her instantly recognizable.
And then they saw the two White Fang standing near the familiar face.
The eight Huntsmen students shifted, drawing up their weapons. Jaune brought his shield up, while Pyrrha brandished Miló and Akoúo̱, the former in sword form. Nora brought Magnhild up in grenade launcher mode, while Ren had StormFlower leveled.
Aska brought her own sword up, while Ciel hopped back to gain some distance as she raised Distant Thunder. Missile pods on Rufus's shoulders opened up, and Penny's swords floated out to point at the White Fang.
And the two White Fang responded in kind. They seemed to be armed with standard-issue militia battle rifles; one of them wore a typical White Fang mask and had reindeer antlers sprouting from his head, while the other -- with bull horns -- had a fancier mask and was dressed all in black and red.
Around them, militia members and police officers raised their own weapons, though they seemed uncertain who to point them at.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Captain Lennox called, holding his hands up as he stepped out from between the two White Fang to stand between the two groups. "Cool it. We're all on the same side here tonight."
The bull faunus was the first to lower his rifle.
"He's right," he said. He reached over and to the other White Fang member's rifle and pushed it down. "The Grimm and the Decepticons are our enemy tonight, Brother."
Jaune felt a chill run down his spine. "How do you know about the Decepticons?"
"My sister and I fought them," was the answer.
Surprisingly, it was Ciel who lowered her weapon next as she tilted her head. "It seems Ruby was understating the situation if you are her brother, Adam Taurus."
"What?" the bull faunus -- Adam -- sputtered. "I was talking about Sunfire. I mean Yang."
The NEST soldiers and student Huntsmen did a double take and stared at him as his words registered.
"...but Ruby is Yang's sister," Penny pointed out as she and the other Huntsman students lowered their weapons. "So if you're Yang's brother, that makes you Ruby's brother too."
Adam scowled. "On Mother's side."
"Ya really think that's gonna make a difference?" Nora snorted.
"Wait, his sister's that little girl who ran into the middle of a three-way firefight and got shot?" asked one the militia members, who was quickly shushed by someone else. "I'm just saying, he really should have taught her to be less reckless."
Lennox sighed, then looked over at the eight Huntsmen. "All right, now that that's settled, what are you kids doing here? You're students, and this is only a level seven Grimm incursion. You should be heading to the shelters to help defend the civilians."
"With all due respect, sir," Jaune said, "that's not happening. It's only a level seven if you ignore the Decepticons, and I think we all know it's gonna get worse before it gets better."
At that, Ciel stepped forward and spoke, "'I may not see our glory, but I will gladly join the fight.'"
Her fellow students nodded in agreement, Nora punching the palm of her other hand.
Lennox scowled. "And the rest of the verse?"
At that, Ciel bowed her head silently.
Jaune felt Pyrrha's hand clasp his own, and he glanced over, smiling nervously. Blue eyes met green before she looked back at Captain Lennox and answered in Ciel's place with a strong and clear voice, "'And when our children tell our story, they'll tell the story of tonight.'"
Lennox nodded, then relented, "Pretty sure none of you have kids yet, so you'd all better make sure you live through this. Don't play hero."
The eight Huntsmen students chorused in agreement.
"Now, that thing blew a gaping hole in the outer wall," Lennox said, "but the second wall's holding. There are still survivors holed up in some of the fortifications beyond the outer wall."
"We'll get them out," Jaune declared. Team JNPR and Team APRC nodded in agreement.
"What I was hoping to hear," Lennox said. "Follow me."
But as he turned, Adam cut in. "There are other issues. My sister is out there, and the Decepticons will likely be targeting her." He smirked cockily. "She and I... we've caused them a fair bit of trouble this past year."
Jaune considered that, then nodded. "Okay, new plan. Apricot, you go with Captain Lennox. Juniper, we'll go with Adam and..." He trailed off, looking at Adam's companion.
"Vix," came the growled reply.
"And Vix," Jaune finished, "to find Yang and Ruby." At the curious looks, he added, "You're not the only ones who've been giving the Decepticons ulcers lately."
Adam frowned.
"And I know where they were planning on going tonight," he added.
"Fine," Adam growled. "Follow me. Bulkhead can carry us."
Team JNPR exchanged curious looks, and as they followed Adam, Jaune murmured to Pyrrha, "So, uh, that quote, what was that about?"
"Late in the Great War, four senior officers within Mantle's military conspired to overthrow the king and end the anti-self expression policies," she explained, keeping her voice low. "They failed and were executed for their efforts, but today, they are recognized and honored as Atlas's first Huntsmen. Those lines are from a play retelling their story; it's very popular in the Atlesian military and within certain circles in Mistral." She glanced at Nora. "I've always wondered: Were you named for that play? Or are you perhaps... related somehow?"
Nora shrugged. "Not a clue," she said quietly. "Never got a chance to ask."
Ren reached out and grasped Nora's hand comfortingly, and the team turned their attention back to the task at hand as they approached an armored truck.
"Bulkhead," Adam said, "we have some guides who know where Sunfire was heading today." He glanced at them and patted the truck. "This is Bulkhead. He's an Autobot."
Team JNPR immediately stepped back and drew their weapons again.
"He's on our side," Adam growled.
"Really?" Jaune asked skeptically.
"I, uh, I guess you're the guys who met Cliffjumper, huh?" the truck rumbled in response, sounding... embarrassed? "We're not all like that. I promise."
"Roger me! Wilco me! Anything! Hello hello, anyone?"
Tai gripped Jazz's steering wheel as the Autobot tried to get in contact with, well, anyone, but it seemed the jamming was quite thorough. They were driving westward on through the residential district, having just left Beacon when the attack started. This was more than just a Grimm incursion, after all, and if there was one place he wanted to be when the city was under attack, it was with his girls, making sure they were safe.
It wasn't that he didn't trust his girls to take care of themselves, even in the middle of an alien invasion, but his sister-in-law would kill him if anything happened to Ruby. Especially after she had run headlong into a three-way firefight and gotten herself shot.
"On your left."
High-beam headlights flashed as a vehicle pulled up alongside them from the south, and Tai reflexively glanced at it, giving a double-take when he realized who was in the armored truck.
"Bulkhead, it's good to see you," Jazz replied. "Who's with you?"
"Adam and Team Juniper," came Bulkhead's response. "We're heading out to find Ruby and Yang. We just came from the wall. Outer wall and defenses are down, but the second wall's holding."
"The Nemesis just came in from the ocean," Jazz noted. "There's probably going to be heavy fighting there."
It was at that point, the two Autobots slowed to a halt. Up ahead, part of the highway had collapsed; they'd need to find another way.
"Well, that's a bust, observed Bulkhead.
"Take that off-ramp," Tai suggested. "We can cut through Lost Valley Square and take the next on-ramp."
"You got it." The two Autobots made for the off-ramp, but as they entered Lost Valley Square, Bulkhead slowed.
"Hold up," the big green Autobot said. "You feel that?"
"Yeah," Jazz said as he too slowed. "What is that?"
As if in response, an explosion sent a geyser of earth and debris up from the ground in front of them, and three large shapes emerged. Jazz and Bulkhead both revved in reverse to get some distance before their doors swung open.
Taking the cue, the five humans and one faunus dismounted, allowing the two Autobots to transform.
"What's going?" Tai asked as the dust settled, revealing a trio of transformers -- Decepticons -- standing there.
"That's the Decepticon Demolition Team," identified Jazz. "Broadside, Sledge, and Wideload."
"Combat engineers," Bulkhead supplied grimly.
"Let's get moving!" one of the Decepticons roared, but the two Autobots, five Huntsmen, and Adam moved to bar their way.
"What's the rush, Broadside?" Bulkhead asked genially.
"Out of our way, Bulk," Broadside snarled. "Unless you want us all to get swarmed by the Primus-forsaken Grimm that'll be pouring through those old subway tunnels any minute now."
"So that was Cinder's plan," Adam hissed before crouching back.
"Adam, wait!" Tai called, but it was too late, as Adam had launched himself at Broadside.
The battle was joined, and Tai was left wondering why his kids liked throwing themselves into danger like this. Where had he gone wrong?
This was not the first time Colonel Sky Beak of Vale's Royal Air Lancers had fired his guns in anger, but it was the first time his targets weren't Grimm. It was also the first time he was doing so from the cockpit of a MARS Firebat; the Royal Air Lancers had only just recently received the new fighter craft. While he remained far more comfortable with the Longhorn, he could readily acknowledge that the Firebat was proving itself a superior airframe... for this situation, at least. The FV-27 Longhorn -- a sleek and slender little dogfighting airship based very loosely on the Bullhead -- was more agile, making it, in his opinion, still the better choice for fighting Grimm, but both the Firebat and the Skystriker he was pursuing easily outstripped the Longhorn in raw speed.
Now if only the guns worked as advertised.
He depressed the firing stud and sent twin streams of shells at his target. He was sure he had hit the Skystriker in front of him, but it remained frustratingly undamaged. The one-inchers he was firing were hardly small rounds, and he'd seen the specs on the Skystriker. The armor was tough, but to get it airborne on such a small frame, it couldn't be that tough.
Suddenly, a shape as black as night streaked over his right wing and past the Skystriker, releasing something as it passed. There was a brief rocket flare from the deployed payload before it struck the Skystriker in the nose and exploded, sending his target tumbling through the air and toward the city below.
"This is Crucis Two," came a female voice over his comms -- laser, of course, given the radio jamming -- as the black shape looped around at blinding speeds and began pacing his Firebat, resolving into the recognizable and simply gorgeous silhouette of a MARS Night Raven. "Hope you don't mind, but you looked like you could use the help."
"Much obliged, Crucis Two," he replied, suppressing the chill that ran down his spine. Crucis Two, after all, was the designated callsign for any aircraft carrying the First Lady of Menagerie. What was she doing in a furball like this?
Booming and zooming, evidently.
He broke off as a half-dozen of the Skystrikers flew past, pursued by a flight of five unfamiliar -- almost alien-looking -- aircraft, all painted in bright whites and reds.
And these airships didn't have any trouble chewing through the Skystrikers, he noted, as one of the Skystrikers' engines flamed out before the aircraft began heeling over into a nosedive.
Who are these guys? he wondered as the formation broke off and split apart. One of them fell in formation with him and Crucis Two's Night Raven.
"Silverbolt to Vale defenders," a male voice called over his laser comms, as if in answer to his silent question. "I'm one of five Aerialbots. We're here to help. Transmitting IFF. Please tag us as friendly."
Sky Beak checked his instruments and then lasercommed command to mark them as neutrals. They might be willing to help, but he still didn't know who they were. If they could pull their weight, that was a different matter.
"Silverbolt, this is Colonel Sky Beak; I've updated command, but given the jamming, I can't guarantee all our defenses will be immediately updated."
"Much obliged; now let's foil Starscream's plans," declared Silverbolt before pulling off for another attack run.
It was something of a sentiment that the Decepticon in question loathed, even if it was to be perfectly expected.
"Curses! Those Autobot fools are ruining my plans!" whined Starscream as he banked to the outskirts of the fight. "Even with my new Jet Vehicons, they are butting in far too much. Insolent fools!"
"Don't worry, Boss. With you on our side, I'm sure we'll win," Skywarp lied cheerfully.
"Of course I can win!" insisted Starscream. "Unfortunately, you scrapbrains will have to manage on your own. I have more important things to do."
With that, Starscream banked up and around hard before blasting off in a burst of speed, and it was as his form was retreating that something in Skywarp broke.
"That's it; I'm through taking orders from him!" yelled Skywarp defiantly as he lanced out towards one of the black enemies that had just pulled out of a dive.
The Decepticon Seeker flew out alongside the plane and then emitted a bright blue scanning beam that swept its foe from nose to tail. When it was completed, Skywarp began to break apart and reformat himself into a sleeker form. Within moments, the old Skystriker was gone, replaced by a recolored copy of the MARS brand Night Raven.
"Oh, that feels so good!" hollered Skywarp in joy as he rolled away and into the open air. "I'm free! I'm free!"
It was then that rounds from the locals' weapons began to ping off his aura.
"I'm under fire!" squealed Skywarp, accelerating away. "No. Can't run. Starscream's not here anymore, and I'm not following his plan. All down to the wire. Do or die... Let's get dangerous."
With that, Skywarp boosted back into the battle, rallying the other Seekers to his banner.
The Kingdom of Vale… did not have the best defenses. Oh, sure, they were decent; they might have even been considered good when they were first constructed. The trouble was that maintenance and upgrades for the massive walls and layers of defense outside the city just kept getting passed over in budgets for reasons that, while they had seemed good at the time, now appeared to just be a total waste.
The now was the Grimm flooding up against the defenses in a great black and white horde like a carpet of death. Everywhere along the line, attacks were taking place, but it was the point where the forces of NEST had made their stand that was facing the greatest concentration of Grimm. At least, that was the impression they had gotten before the landlines had been cut.
The fact that the landlines had been cut by a series of apocalyptically large explosions had certainly helped that impression along, though.
"Where's our air support?!" demanded Fig as he emptied the last of his laser rifle's battery into the closest oncoming Beowolf. "I'm out!"
"Man, the only thing I've been able to hear that isn't static is Starscream's recorded monologue!" shouted back Epps, his own rifle running low on ammunition too, judging by the coloring of the transparent window in the magazine.
They were there along with four other NEST soldiers in a pillbox and attached dugout that was being overrun by the Grimm, and the pillbox had been turned into a rubble pile five minutes prior when a Goliath had killed itself by tripping and falling into it.
The sun was setting at that point, casting long shadows across the broken landscape where once the multi-layered defenses of Vale had stood in front of three proud walls that were now so many craters.
"Oh, God," prayed Fig, not noticing -- though Epps would probably insist that he did -- that he was slipping into another language as he did so. "Oh, God, we ask that you send down your angels to save us and protect us from these demons of fear and despair. Oh, God, we ask that their aims be true and their hands swift. Oh, God, we ask that your holy spirit may come and fill our hearts with the courage to continue-"
"Look out!" called out Epps.
A Giant Nevermore was descending like a stone towards them now, claws outstretched and evil eyes glowing with wicked intent.
Its head exploded out one side, and it crashed into the ground short of the small hill that the dugout rested on top of.
Another series of booming cracks rang out, clear as a bell even amongst the sound of battle, and more Grimm fell. Streaking missiles and flashing lasers filled the air too, but it was that thunderous rifle fire that filled them with hope anew. Suddenly, the monsters that compassed about them seemed small and petty, and their wicked designs were seen to be thrown aside with but a pittance of effort.
It was into that where a young woman, with skin the complexion of the most heroic bronze and a golden bindi upon her forehead shining brightly in concert with sky blue eyes, leapt onto the battlement. She was carrying a massive anti-materiel rifle in her hands, and she stood with her back to the west. The light of the setting sun was brighter than any they had ever seen in their lives, and yet somehow still, her expression of kindness and protection was rendered in perfect clarity though her head was framed by a halo so bright that her black hair shone like the brightest stars.
"I believe it is time to leave," she said in a calm voice that carried to all their ears.
Without waiting for an explanation, the NEST soldiers began their fighting retreat back to what remained of the walls with cover from the woman and those three Atlesians who moved with her.
And as they moved out, Fig finished his prayer with wide eyes and a pointing finger. "Oh, there's a story behind this, I know it."
In the chaos of the battle, with fires raging, legions of Atlesian Knights wreaking havoc, and the Grimm now throwing themselves at the middle wall -- the outer wall having fallen after... whatever that was had blown a great big gaping hole in it -- nobody even noticed when six heavy vehicles that many had seen at a construction site for the past three weeks began to move. Hardly anyone paid any attention to them making their way past the inner wall toward the middle wall. Those few that did appreciated the bravery and efforts of their operators. After all, quick-setting cement, earthmovers, and similar vehicles could be used to shore up the defenses or seal any breaches, while those who operated them were unlikely to be trained Huntsmen; right now, anyone with those skills were in too high a demand to waste on something even as valuable as combat engineering.
Lennox walked up to the lead vehicle, a payloader, and rapped on the window as the little convoy ground to a halt at the outermost wall that still held. "Hey!" he called to the driver. "Back it up! This wall's holding, and you're just going to get in the way."
The hard-hatted driver turned his head slowly to look at him and... flickered?
"Wha-?"
Something massive struck Lennox across the chest, sending him flying. It would have crushed his ribcage if it weren't for his aura. Soon, he found himself looking up as the payloader -- indeed, all six vehicles in the convoy of construction equipment -- transformed.
"Decepticons..." Lennox muttered.
"Constructicons, actually. The name's Scrapper," the leader sneered at Lennox, then turned to his fellows. "Bonecrusher! Scavenger! Mixmaster! Hook! Long Haul! Merge for the kill!"
Lennox watched in terrified awe as the six construction vehicles -- the six Constructicons -- transformed, reshaping themselves and merging together until, where had stood a robot and five construction vehicles, there now stood a single humanoid robot, towering over them all, a head -- his head, that is -- taller even than the city walls themselves.
The nearest of which he was reaching toward, his hands gripping the top as he began to tear it down, ignoring the massed small arms fire coming from the desperate Huntsmen and militiamen manning the wall.
But a thunderous explosion sounded behind the robotic giant, at the inner wall, when the explosives the Constructicons had covertly placed over the past few weeks deep underneath detonated.
And as the titanic Decepticon tore the second wall down, the Grimm came pouring in around him, now with a clear path to the city itself, and Vale's defenders now had much more pressing matters to worry about.
Megatron smiled as he watched from the Nemesis's ventral hatch. He could sense the fear as Devastator began tearing open the middle wall, compounded by the breach the Demolition Team had broken into the very heart of the city, and that fear turned to barely controlled panic as the charges the Constructicons had painstakingly laid under the inner wall over the past month detonated, bringing an entire section of it crashing down and opening the way for any Grimm that slipped past the defenders to enter the city proper. Perhaps the defenders would rally, but the city would suffer.
Not that he cared what happened to the city of Vale. True, the White Fang that hid in the city had become a thorn in his side with their constant raids on SDC convoys, but that would no longer be a concern, and with the intel on their locations…
No, he didn't care. But there were those who would.
"Their defenses are broken!" he announced. "Let the slaughter begin!"
With that, he leaped from the ship and toward the city below.
"These things are annoying!" Yang complained as she punch-blasted another Atlesian Knight -- this one a positively ancient AK-90 -- to pieces, its red lights dimming, only to be faced with more. "How many of these things do they have?"
"A lot," Ruby answered as she cut down one, then shot another. "Like, a lot a lot. Weiss did some digging, back when we started looking into this, and when androids were decommissioned for new ones, they kind of... disappeared from the inventory."
"Wonderful," growled Yang. "You know, this would be a lot easier if Uncle Qrow hadn't skipped out on us!"
A pair of purple and black cars drove up as they finally dispatched the last of the reprogrammed combat androids around them, and Bumblebee turned to face them. "Vehicons," he hissed.
"Wait, Bumblebee!" Ruby called out. "They're-!"
"I know," Bumblebee nodded solemnly as he charged at them. "I remember."
Something tickled the hairs on the back of Yang's neck, and she looked around, then up, to see a transformer hurtling to the ground.
"Ruby! Bee!" she called out in warning.
The skydiving transformer -- black and gunmetal grey -- transformed in mid-air, just before impact, shaking the ground and leaving an impact crater. The Decepticon's alt-mode -- some kind of tracked vehicle with a turret on top that mounted a fierce-looking cannon -- crawled out of the crater toward them with a chilling inevitability.
"What is that?" Ruby asked in horrified wonder.
"I... I don't know," Yang said, shaking her head.
It was like nothing ever seen on Remnant, and it was so completely alien that she couldn't even think of a word for it.
"Megatron," Bumblebee supplied, throwing a Vehicon back.
Yang shook her head. "Things can't possibly get any worse."
As if on cue, the ground rumbled again, and water washed across their feet. The two sisters turned as a titanic, crocodilian head emerged from the water in the distance, followed by the rest of the Grimm as it plodded inexorably toward the city.
The Leviathan threw its head back and roared.
"It's worse," observed Ruby.
(V3E11: A Day Off | V3E12: Leviathan | V3E13: Tools of Foul Play)
- Author's Note 1 (Cyclone)
- Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett)
The battle is now joined, but Vale and Atlas aren't the only conflict zones. In the next chapter, the fighting comes home when Beacon plays host to "Tools of Foul Play."
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Volume III: Episode 13: Tools of Foul Play
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
(V3E12: Leviathan | V3E13: Tools of Foul Play | V3E14: Bonds)
Volume III: Episode 13: Tools of Foul Play
* * *
Volume III: Episode 13: Tools of Foul Play
* * *
The faunus Atlas student raced along, trailing a rainbow of light from her speed-boosting semblance behind her, but an Alpha Beowolf lunged toward her out of the shadows.
"Rainbow, get down!"
Without a moment's hesitation, the student Huntress dropped into a crouch, allowing her momentum to keep her skating along as Lavi fired his rifle over her at the Alpha. His hand blurred as he worked the bolt and fired again and again, the heavy rounds puncturing the Grimm's chest and sending it staggering back before it collapsed and began to dissipate.
Straightening back up, Neon "Rainbow" Katt spun around and gave him a wink and a thumbs up. "Thanks, cutie!" she called as she turned back to the fight.
"Uh?" Lavi blinked. "You're... welcome?"
Velvet scowled and gave him an arched eyebrow, to which he blushed and darted past her, thrusting with his bayonet-tipped rifle at a Creep that had slipped in close, impaling it.
"I'm not- it's not- Rainbow's just like that, Velv," he murmured in embarrassment as he withdrew his weapon from the dissolving Grimm and took stock of the rapidly thinning opposition. "She likes messing with people."
Team CFVY and Team RRFL had managed to link up with Team FNKI, a first-year Atlesian team, and together, they had battled their way almost fully across the parking lot toward campus. The Grimm had come swarming up from the Emerald Forest in numbers far greater than normal, overwhelming the concealed automated defenses and climbing over each other to get up the cliffs.
Velvet stabbed the last Beowolf with the bayonet Lavi had gifted her -- which she unfortunately still hadn't gotten around to renaming; a gift like this deserved to be renamed in honor of the giving -- and sighed, shaking her head. "I suppose you're right," she relented begrudgingly. She remembered how Neon had relentlessly needled Blake during the doubles round.
"Hey, come on, love birds!" Coco called out as she sent a hail of fire from Gianduja into the sky at a flock of Nevermores. "Get moving! We've got to get to the tower!"
The two of them nodded. It had been Coco who had pointed out that if anything could punch through the jamming, it would be the CCT Tower itself.
The three teams took advantage of the brief pause in the fighting to regroup and reload before pushing forward.
The Grimm attack alarm sounded loud and clear, even in this obscure corner of the academy.
"This could not have come at a worse time," cursed Flint.
The professor looked around to his compatriots, only two this time. Spirit and Gung-Ho were good sorts, the type of people you would want at your back. Which was exactly why none of them could be spared to continue watching James Ironwood's quarters; they needed to be out defending the city. However, they had to keep at least one guard there, or they would all be drummed out and hung right alongside their erstwhile commanding officer, possibly with the entirety of the Atlas faculty following along with them.
It was an insane thought, but considering that the headmaster was getting charged with treason for falling in love with a Valish woman, he wouldn't put it past the council these days.
"Spirit, you're with me. Gung-Ho, keep the headmaster safe," ordered Flint. The logic on it was simple: Gung-Ho was one of the toughest Joes around, so if things went for the worst, they'd need to make sure not a single black hair was out of place on James Ironwood's head, while Spirit was the head psychologist at Atlas Academy and would be invaluable in helping keep people from panicking during the attack or in getting control over those who were already panicking.
"Won't let you down, Flint," replied Gung-Ho with a salute.
With that, the other two Joes departed, leaving the perpetually bare-chested jungle warfare instructor alone to guard the door. Gung-Ho would do his duty, of that everyone was assured, but… but he didn't want to, and that was something everyone could agree on. Ironwood should still be the General and leading the troops into battle against the forces of the Enemy. Instead, he was locked up and being guarded by the very troops that wanted him to lead them, all because two little women and a small man didn't want one Eisenhans of a man to stand in their way.
"It's just like my mama always said, 'there ain't no justice for the just,'" quoted Gung-Ho sourly, his hand dropping to caress the handle of the .40 Auto semi-auto pistol in its holster in an almost melancholic fashion. "Guess I haven't exactly been proving her wrong like I said I would, am I?"
The hallway was silent, just as unwilling to answer his question as the sirens still wailing away outside.
Ironwood continued to search around the room for anything he could use as a weapon. He'd searched before and found nothing, but he was lowering his standards once again. Anything would do at this point.
His room didn't have much in the way of… well, much of anything, really. Just about everything had been removed to prevent the possibility of suicide. It was why the bed was just a simple futon. A camera in the corner was even watching him to make sure that the plain clothes he wore weren't used to hang himself.
Worst case scenario, he'd take off his arm and use it to beat the enemy to death.
It was quickly starting to look like the only case scenario.
Kogetsu had always complimented how the cybernetic replacement of his right side looked cool, but at that moment, Ironwood was more concerned about how he had turned down the chance to install a microrocket launcher in his wrist. Well, lesson learned; if he got out of this situation alive, the first thing he was going to do was install wrist rockets. All he would need to do is to schedule an appointment with…
…no. No, he had already promised what he was going to do once he got out. He was going to hug his family close, and he was going to finally marry Glynda… and then, after that, and after the wrist rocket installation, he was going to tell the council exactly where they could stick their-
The room exploded, and then all of a sudden, James Ironwood was lost to the world.
"What I don't get is, who would be attacking Vale?" Symphony -- that is, Ivori of Team FNKI -- mused aloud.
The three teams were exhausted, running on their last reserves of aura, but they were in the final stretch. The CCT tower was just ahead of them.
"Autobots?" Lavi suggested.
"Maybe," Coco murmured uncertainly.
"Whoa, hold up, " Flynt "Jazz" Coal interjected. "Who or what is an 'Autobot'?"
Most of them didn't notice Rain falling behind as he reached up and pressed his earpiece, but Velvet did, as did Blues -- Kobalt from Team FNKI -- and soon, the whole group had stalled to watch as he conversed with... someone.
"Someone got through the jamming?" Velvet asked, her spirits lifting.
Lavi shrugged and shook his head in confusion.
"Dunno how," Rainbow declared, tapping her own earpiece. "I'm not getting anything."
"Sir?" Rain asked, obviously startled. "But- yes, sir." His shoulders sagged a little briefly before squaring. "Understood, sir. Of course, sir."
Blues walked up to him. "Orders?"
Rain gave him a curt nod and answered simply, "Yes."
Rain's hand lowered from his earpiece... and blurred, reaching for Blues before drawing back. As the Team FNKI member sank to his knees, it took Velvet a moment to recognize the still-beating heart Rain held in his hand, ripped right out of Blues's chest.
"Team Ruffle," Rain ordered. "Terrorize."
The faunus Atlas student raced along, trailing a rainbow of light from her speed-boosting semblance behind her, but an Alpha Beowolf lunged toward her out of the shadows.
"Rainbow, get down!"
The student Huntress hesitated and nearly got her head taken off by the Alpha's meaty paw. As it was, she lost a chunk of aura as the blow sent her tumbling. The Grimm tried to follow up on the opening, but a trio of arrows seemed to sprout from it -- one in the chest, one the throat, one the eye -- and it collapsed and faded to smoke.
"Thanks," grumbled Rainbow "Boomer" Dash.
"You're welcome," Sour "Sakura" Sweet said sweetly as she stepped forward and continued loosing arrows at the Grimm, before her expression twisted into a critical snarl, "but when someone says 'get down,' you get down."
As Rainbow rose to her feet, she saw the Shadowbolt suddenly aim for the sky, loosing at a Giant Nevermore. The explosive-tipped arrow detonated and tore a wing off the flying Grimm, and before it dissipated, the Nevermore spiraled into the ground, crushing a pack of lesser Beowolves.
Sour smirked at her. Rainbow scowled. "That still only counts as one!" she declared indignantly. The Shadowbolt team leader just laughed and turned her attention back to the Grimm.
"Cool yer jets, Dashie," Jacqueline "Spurs" Apple -- Applejack to most people -- ordered as she smoothly reloaded One in a Thousand. "Ain't got time for countin' coup."
A giant slab of rock, propelled by Maud "Geode" Pie's semblance, flew through the air and flattened a dozen or so Creeps. Rainbow watched with satisfaction as Sour's jaw dropped.
"Or mebbe we do," Applejack amended.
Team JSPR and Team SSCL had made their way out of the Atlas dorms into the courtyard when the initial alarms sounded, but while many of the other students had headed for the Bullheads in order to help in the city, JSPR and SSCL had stayed behind.
After all, the Emerald Forest, filled with Grimm, bordered on the campus.
That was proving to have been a wise decision, as the Grimm began swarming up onto the campus after the Bullheads had departed with the first wave of students to help in the city. Almost as though the massive assault -- on a scale unseen in Vale since the Great War and somehow backed up by a level seven Grimm incursion -- had been nothing more than a distraction to clear the academy grounds of opposition.
Rainbow and Sour were focused on running around and plugging holes in the defense cordon they'd set up. Maud was primarily focused on crowd control, positioning chunks of stone to funnel the Grimm in.
Meanwhile, Jet "Maverick" Set was distracting the Grimm with the insubstantial clones from his semblance, Decoy. An Alpha Creep had managed to creep up on him, but he quickly deployed the shovel blade to decapitate it. His wife, Upper "Seal" Crust, flitted back and forth across the battlefield blasting away with her submachine gun, Close Enough, before seeming to vanish through the use of her own semblance, Blend, only to reappear elsewhere.
Battle couple indeed.
Not that Rainbow was jealous or anything.
Flash "Phalanx" Sentry was up front, living up to his callsign by holding one of the larger gaps with Rho Aias even as he lashed out with Caliburn in sword form. Applejack was with Lemon "Reverb" Zest near the back, blasting away with One in a Thousand and Housecrasher, the latter's cumbersome weapon proving itself invaluable as it pulped even the larger Grimm with sonic shockwaves powerful enough to pulverize stone.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a series of explosions elsewhere on campus, and a Skystriker streaked by overhead before looping back around.
"Clever," Sour mused respectfully, then snarled. "This was another distraction! They must be after the General! Jasper, go! We'll hold here!"
Rainbow's head turned toward the explosions and begrudgingly realized the Shadowbolt was right. That was the guest dorms assigned to the visiting faculty... the guest dorms where General Ironwood was being held under house arrest.
"Dashie!" Applejack called. "Go ahead! We'll catch up! Maud?"
Rainbow didn't see or hear what came next. She was already running, her semblance -- which she had modestly named after herself -- propelling her at a speed that couldn't be matched by any other Atlas student.
No matter what Neon Katt claimed!
Neon couldn't believe what was happening. Vanguard had just killed Kobalt, literally ripped his heart out! It was like a switch had been flipped, and Team RRFL had turned on them before anyone on Team CFVY or Team FNKI could react.
She had seen Flynt get hammered by Thunder to lie unmoving on the ground before Thunder turned and entangled Ivori's whip, pulling him in for a brutal beatdown. She'd lost track of Vanguard and Lightning, but Black Out -- Lavi -- was behind her, his arm wrapped around her throat in a choke hold. Lavi, sweet, shy, adorable Lavi Stall, who was so fun to tease and mess around with, who had arguably saved her life mere minutes ago, was now choking that same life out of her.
And in front of her, confronting him... was Lavi's girlfriend. Neon couldn't imagine what Velvet was feeling right now, but the sheer betrayal on her face spoke volumes.
"Why, Lavi?" Velvet demanded. "Why?l"
"Sorry, Velv." He actually sounded sincere, his hot breath tickling Neon's ear. "I have my orders."
"'Orders'?" Velvet sputtered incredulously. "To terrorize? What bloody kind of orders are those?!"
"My captain's orders," was Lavi's harsh reply. "Nothing personal."
"It feels pretty bloody personal to me," the rabbit faunus hissed, taking the words right out of Neon's mouth. Well, she would have, if Neon was in a position to talk. And Neon probably wouldn't have included the "bloody" part.
"It doesn't have to end like this, Velv," he insisted. "You could join us."
"Join you? Are you mad?" Velvet demanded. "After all this?"
"Knowingly or not, you and your team went out of your way to help us in our mission, got us the intel to make this strike against the White Fang possible," reasoned Lavi. "We could spin it easily. The White Fang are terrorists. You owe them no loyalty."
"The White Fang, yeah," Velvet agreed. "But your people aren't just attacking the White Fang. You're attacking Vale."
Lavi snorted. "Vale's been harboring the White Fang for months, maybe years."
"That's a bloody lie, and you know it!"
"Do I?" he shot back. "Coco didn't even trust your own headmaster. How could we possibly trust Vale's government?"
"Don't give me that!" Velvet snapped "If this were about the White Fang, about Vale, why attack Team Funky?"
Even with the edges of her vision turning black, Neon could hear him blinking. "You've... never actually listened to Neon talk about human/faunus relations, have you?"
Oh, come on! Neon thought, wishing she could speak to defend herself as consciousness began to fade. It was just a joke! I repeated. A lot...
The Skystriker flew back towards the ruined building that had been destroyed by the mighty genius of the Decepticons' top scientist and transformed into the one, the only, Air Commander Starscream of the Decepticon Seeker Corps!
Starscream allowed himself the chance to laugh at the misfortune of the pitiful fools that opposed him that they should find themselves in opposition to him. It really was humorous, and so he laughed again. Between himself, the Jet Vehicons, and Soundwave arriving soon, everything was going exactly according to the intricate plan that he laid out. Those fools, even those who thought they were his allies, had no idea how they were each playing a part of his grand plan to get rid of all of his enemies -- most of all, that insipid Megatron -- and become the new leader of the Decepticons.
So it was with great glee that he searched for General Ironwood amongst the rumble and found nothing.
"Yes!" Starscream crowed triumphantly at the burning husk of a building. "WIth Ironwood dead, nothing else stands in my- erk!"
He was interrupted by a rainbow racing across the ground and leaping into the air to kick him in the face.
It was with a great deal of decorum and grace that Starscream made a tactical retreat from his standing position to a more defensible prone before keeping his enemies off balance with an expertly timed multi-limb maneuver and flip just in the nick of time to make a stunning declaration. "Who dares?! Who dares to assault me, Air Commander Starscream of the Decepticon Seeker Corps, future ruler of all the Decepticons and the whole universe?!"
Rainbow let out a growl as she looked upon the giant robot that she had just easily toppled over and left scrabbling to awkwardly get up. She did not like it. She did not like it one bit.
"The name's Boomer, and I'm the Ace of Canterlot, you overgrown trashcan!" she belted out.
"Fool!" shouted the big red and gray robot, reaching out a big hand to grasp the air while the other pulled back in a fist that seemed to want to twist around the back. "You've only signed your own death warrant, for there is no way that you can stand against me! Air Commander Starscream o-"
The monologuing jerk was cut off by a giant slab of rock smashing into his head hard enough to shatter while tipping him over again. This, in turn, sent Applejack, Flash, and Maud flying through the air to enact their landing strategies. They had, of course, been riding on the back of the slab that Maud had sent flying through the air in a manner that needed no explanation.
The rest of Team JSPR came skidding back to stand in epic pose next to Rainbow Dash.
"Took you long enough," insulted Rainbow Dash.
"Quit yappin' and start shootin'!" shot back Applejack as she brought One in a Thousand up to her hip and started blasting on the move.
Maud brought her pickaxe down on ground with a thunder that could shatter stone, and did. So it was that she began kicking the rocks into the air with her semblance and likewise kicking out in a memetic while they were in the air to send them flying at their foe. Her face while this was going on was as impassive and somewhat bored looking as ever.
Flash rushed out in front of her with shield raised to absorb any shots from their hated foe.
Rainbow Dash, for her part, was off in a crack of her multi-colored semblance towards the big transforming bot, towards the Decepticon.
"Fools!" declared Starscream, bringing his shoulders and the guns on them up to aim at them. "Do you really think you can stand against me?!"
No, admitted Rainbow only to herself, but we've still got to try.
Caliburn barked with hot reproach in Flash's hand as he fired upon the countenance of Starscream with his transforming spear's integrated rifle.
Fighting a giant alien robot was definitely not how he anticipated his day was going to go when he woke up that morning, even with the looming spectre of the information that the Shadowbolts had shared with them. He also hadn't anticipated that he would get a cursory overview of the ranks of these robotic aliens, nor their factions and rosters. Needless to say, he certainly did not expect to learn all that he did while in a fight where his opponent just would. Not. Shut. Up!
"Accursed fiends! You can't stop me!" shrieked Starscream before firing another blast from his cannons from his position hovering in the sky.
Spurs dodged the blasts and fired off her own flurry of shots from her lever-action rifle before launching into another series of maneuvers with intent to dodge while reloading.
Somehow, somewhy, Starscream dropped back down to the ground and tried to engage them in melee.
"Why do you continue to resist? Isn't it obvious that you've been defeated by the great and powerful Starscream?!"
All that's obvious here is that you're dense in body and mind, cursed Flash mentally as he braced himself against the blow that came down and broke against his shield.
"What?!" shouted Starscream, nearly tripping over himself as his foot hit the student huntsman as if he was a great block of steel. "You dare?!"
"Dude, I'm just standing here," shot back Flash as he jumped back to give himself a little more space.
"Then you will stand and die like an Autobot, you biological blusterer!" declared Starscream before aiming his right shoulder cannon at Flash.
On instinct, the blue-haired Huntsman trainee brought his shield up to absorb the incoming blast from the weapon with his semblance. He had seen what it had done to the terrain and thought that he'd be able to take it. He thought wrong. When that energy beam hit him, he lost… everything.
It felt so strange for Flash, with his knees giving out and his mind afogged. Suddenly, nothing seemed to work. It was like his whole world had been… nullified.
Through his armor's padding, he felt something slam into him and drive him away from Starscream's follow up attack. He was sent skidding along the ground, but he was alive. He was even starting to recover when he noticed that the something that had hit him was actually a girl with hair the color of the blessed aurora.
"Boomer?" Flash mumbled in shock through a mouth that felt like it was full of cotton balls.
"I'm not going to let a friend die like that, Phalanx," declared Boomer resolutely, looking into his eyes with raw determination in her own.
"Oh, what a revolting display of loyalty," sneered Starscream as he dodged and deflected attacks from Spurs and Geode. "You'll never see me engaging in foolishness like that."
Then, all of a sudden, Starscream's head jerked back, and he let out a pained note as a boom sounded above even all the other din of battle.
"And that is why you fail, Starscream."
That voice, so familiar to them all, yet thought lost, filled even the weakened Flash with strength anew.
Team FNKI was down, but Team CFVY was still in the fight. Once, Coco would have attributed that to her team's greater experience or superior capabilities, but now, she knew better. Team FNKI had been blindsided by the sudden betrayal, caught off-guard at first, then stunned by the sheer impossibility of it as it sank in. If Team RRFL -- the traitors! -- had gone for them first, she had no illusions that they wouldn't have gone down just as quickly and easily.
She laid down a withering hail of fire from Gianduja -- she was using the expensive rounds now; if any situation called for them, it was this one -- while the rest of her team pulled the three still-breathing members of Team FNKI away. Symphony -- Ivori -- was in particularly bad shape, judging from the blood he kept coughing up; if he didn't get medical attention soon, he'd be joining Blues in the afterlife.
It was because she was firing on Team RRFL that she noticed it.
"They're heading for Beacon Tower," she observed with a frown. "But why? There's nothing there but the administrative offices and..." She trailed off.
"The CCT," Fox said.
"No," the quiet, horrified denial came from Velvet. "If- if the CCT goes down..."
"The whole network goes down," Yatsuhashi finished.
"Worse," Symphony coughed. "Without the CCT network... it all falls apart. International trade dies. The lien becomes worthless. Worldwide shortages of dust, ammo, everything needed to keep the Grimm at bay. Atlas starves. End of the world." A massive coughing fit wracked his body, causing him to curl up and convulse, spitting up blood. After a moment, he took a few deep breaths and said, "You have to stop them."
"But-"
"Go," he insisted, cutting Velvet off. "This is what I signed up for." He glanced at his unconscious teammates and clutched his whip. "I'll... I'll keep 'em safe. Go."
Coco hesitated, then nodded, turning toward Beacon Tower. "Come on," she ordered, a quiet fury settling over her. They'd learned a lot from Team RRFL over the past semester, lessons that made them a better team, a more effective team. It was time to show them how well those lessons stuck.
Fortunately, Team CFVY knew Beacon's grounds better, and they hadn't shown their erstwhile friends all the little secrets and shortcuts around here, if only because there hadn't been the time or occasion to.
So it wasn't long until they caught up with Team RRFL, though it would turn out to not be for long.
"There they are!" declared Yatsuhashi.
The traitors turned to face them.
"Well, well, well," replied Ferris. "Looks like Coffee's got some- what is that music?"
As if in reply, a green VAMP vaulted up over an embankment and hit the hammer brother in the head.
"Whoa! We got some air on that one!" cheered Tex, owner and operator of O'Malley's Bar and Grill, from the passenger seat of the VAMP before firing the shotgun in her hand at a passing Manticore and blowing its head off with an eight-gauge slug.
"I think I might have hit someone," replied Zach, leader of Team ZINC, from the driver's seat as he continued to speed around campus. "Looked pretty human to me."
"Eh. Atlesians barely qualify as human," was the dismissive answer from Carolina, the daughter of Tex and teammate of Zach, as she stood in the back with her feet firmly locked into a tri-barreled .50 rotary machine gun turret whose controls she held in her hands… and on her shoulders too, after a fashion.
"Honey, you can't just say that about other academies," chided Tex.
"Up yours!" snapped back Carolina. "You and Dad were barely around, and now you want to baby me?"
"We had responsibilities, and you know it," replied Tex, firing her shotgun at a Beowolf to punctuate the sentence.
"Oh, typical, Mom," rudely responded Carolina, breaking up her speech with a short burst at a small Nevermore. "You're not that special, you know that? Anything you can do, I can do better."
"Oh, so that's how we're doing it now?" asked Tex sarcastically. "You want to go, let's go."
"Can we not and say we did?" asked Zach as he aimed the VAMP to run over a Creep.
"No. She wants to dance? Well, I'm all for it. Let's…" Carolina trailed off as something caught her eye. "Wait, scratch that. There's Arslan Altan, and she's fighting a big one."
"Team Auburn's leader?" asked Tex rhetorically.
"Yeah, the one who pantsed me in front of a live TV audience," complained Carolina acidly. "Come on, let's steal her thunder."
"No, not in this tin can," said Zach, putting his foot down both literally and metaphorically.
The Golden Lion of Haven heard some foot-tapping music and a string of foul language that she would never say aloud for fear that she'd lose the children's demographic when the VAMP shot past her, but she paid it no mind as she went back to focusing on the target.
Arslan had spent years hiding her semblance, and while that deception had sort-of-kinda ended during her and Nadir's doubles match against Zach and Diet Pyrrha, she still preferred to rely on her fists, feet, and Nemean Claw in a fight, overcoming her opponent with the raw strength and speed she had honed over the years. It wasn't like her semblance was much use in the arena anyway, largely -- though not entirely, she'd learned -- blocked by aura. Even against Grimm, who lacked aura, it wasn't usually worth the aura expenditure; with her strength, lesser Grimm were too fragile to bother with.
She grinned ferally as she squared off against a rampaging King Beringel and dropped into a runner's crouch. They were in the courtyard in front of the cafeteria building, and Reese and Nadir were firing on the giant ape Grimm while Bolin covered their backs, keeping the Creeps and Beowolves off of them. Towering thirty-some feet tall, the King Beringel reared back and roared, beating its fists against its chest, shrugging off Reese and Nadir's shots.
Here was a rare opportunity for Arslan to really cut loose. A Grimm this old and powerful, even its "weak points" were hardly weak by conventional definitions. Luckily, she didn't work by conventional definitions.
With a crunch that cratered the walkway she crouched on, turning the concrete directly beneath her feet to powder, she exploded into motion, flying toward the King Beringel. As if sensing the threat she represented, it swung its right fist down into the walkway, smashing it and sending a shockwave across the ground. Arslan hopped over the shockwave and began running across the front wall of the cafeteria. The King Beringel swung again, smashing into the front of the building, even as Arslan kicked off, somersaulting over the Grimm's arm.
The Grimm roared and reached up with its other hand toward her, focusing on Arslan and ignoring Reese and Nadir's slackening fire as they shifted focus to the gathering crowd of lesser Grimm. Arslan hurled Nemean Claw out, her ribbon trailing behind it, looping it around the King Beringel's right bicep. With a quick tug, Arslan narrowly pulled herself out from between its fingers, twisting to plant her feet on its arm and running up the Grimm's arm to its shoulder.
It turned its head to face her, just as she activated her semblance. In her mind's eye, a spot on the forehead of its bone mask began to glow, and with a wordless roar, she pulled her fist back before hurling it at the glowing spot, throwing not only her prodigious strength but also her full body's weight behind the blow.
The bone mask cracked... then shattered, exploding violently, both outward to hammer at her aura... and inward, mulching whatever the Grimm had that passed for brains.
Shaking her head, she leaped off before the Grimm dissolved beneath her.
She turned to face the Grimm that continued to gather, barely held at bay by her team's efforts.
"Okay," she said. "Who's next?"
As if in response to her question, a pair of strange-looking purple and black airships came screaming in, only to slow to a halt and transform into a pair of giant robots, landing with heavy thuds before her, raising cannons and pointing them at Team ABRN.
Arslan cracked her knuckles and grinned.
Team SSCL was only one team, and holding the line was a fluid affair, considering they could only be in one place at a time. Much of their time was spent running back and forth to fend off overeager Grimm, but now...
"Decepticons," hissed Sakura as they pounced on a pack of Beowolves near the courtyard. The Decepticons were behind this, all of this, from the uneasy stirrings in Atlas to Twilight fleeing to Vacuo, and now this.
Two of the black and purple robots were engaged in combat with a Huntsman team, and though they were looking the worse for wear, they still seemed to be keeping the Huntsmen on the ropes.
"That's Team Auburn!" Seal called out in recognition.
"Let's go back 'em up, then!" Sakura roared as they finished dispatching the last of the Beowolves.
The four Shadowbolts bounded toward the courtyard, coming up behind the two Decepticons.
Reverb was the first to engage, firing Housecrasher at the alien robot on the left, hitting it in the middle of its back and sending it stumbling forward into the waiting reach of Bolin Hori, who began lashing at its face with precise, powerful blows from his staff.
Its fellow turned to face the new threat, and Sakura greeted it with an inflatable boxing glove arrow to the face that distracted it long enough for Seal and Maverick to move in.
"You focus on that Decepticon!" Sakura called. "We've got this one!"
Reese Chloris blinked at Sakura, then looked at Seal. "Upper, what the hell is a Decepticon?"
"That can wait!" Arslan snapped as she uppercutted her team's designated target.
"Oh, hey, Arslan," Seal greeted as she faded into visibility and fired at Team SSCL's target. "Been meaning to talk to you. Would you be interested in an exhibition match when you get back to Mistral?"
Arslan shrugged as she brought her hands up for a double axe handle. "Sounds like fun. I'll have to check with my agent to see when I can fit it in my schedule."
"Great!"
"Any reason you didn't ask me, Upper?" Reese asked, clearly annoyed, firing her twin folding revolvers. "I thought we were friends. I still remember playing tag with you back in Low Town. You know I'm always up for one of your zany schemes."
"We've been a little busy finding out about the conspiracy involving these Decepticons," Seal replied defensively. "I haven't really had the time."
"You're going to make it up to me, right?"
"Look, I'll have my mom bake you up some fresh Lake Colton fish and send it to you, okay?"
"Apology accepted."
Team CFVY had made it again and were now standing between Team RRFL and Beacon Tower, the two teams, erstwhile friends and colleagues, faced each other down. Coco stood across from Rain, Fox faced Ferris, Yatsuhashi confronted Reg, and Velvet...
Velvet faced off against Lavi, the sword bayonet weighing heavy in her hand. This... this was something she had to do herself. There was little comfort in seeing the conflict she felt mirrored in the expression on his face.
"You used us," Coco accused. "All this time, you used us."
"Did we?" Rain asked pointedly. "We actually like you, believe it or not, had high hopes. We all had roles to play, after all, but you... you went above and beyond. We were just here to observe, to gather intelligence."
"Intelligence we gathered for you," the fashionista hissed, balling her hand into a fist. "You said you wouldn't share that info."
"I said I wouldn't share it with the headmaster or the police," corrected Rain. "Perhaps the smartest move you made, actually. A conflict between the Vale authorities and the White Fang would have proved... useful, under the circumstances. I do appreciate your efforts with Cliffjumper, though. We've met before, and he's suspicious enough to have figured us out if he'd had the time."
"Yak yak yak," Reg mocked loudly. "Can we get to the smashing yet? I wanna see how strong Yatsu really is."
With that, he charged at Yatsuhashi with Smith -- his sledge-volver -- swinging. Yatsuhashi caught the hammer under the head with Fulcrum, meeting strength with strength. Again, Reg swung, and again, the big Mistrali parried. This repeated twice before, on the third blow, Reg fired, the revolver mechanism embedded in Smith's head blasting Yatsuhashi at point-blank range and sending him stumbling back and off his feet.
Elsewhere, Coco began spraying fire from Gianduja at Rain, who leaped and bounced around to evade, though some rounds still hit; so long as her ammo and his aura lasted, it was a stalemate. A closer range and mirrored but otherwise similar engagement occurred between Fox and Ferris, the two Fs balancing speed and agility against strength and power.
Reg shook his head and stalked forward toward Yatsuhashi with a sneer. "You worry so much about hurting people, you've forgotten you're training to be a Huntsman." He hefted Smith and swung it around to build up momentum for a powerful overhead strike. "Sometimes... hurting people is in the job description!"
Yatsu's lips peeled back in fury, and he lunged forward, under Reg's swing, tackling the smaller boy across his midsection, and as he did, his control... slipped, and his semblance -- Memory Wipe -- activated far more than it should. Where he usually only took seconds, this time, he took years.
Reg stumbled back, hand going to his head. "What the-?" he muttered, looking around in confusion. "Where the scrap am I?" He looked down at his arms. "Why am I in a Pretender shell?"
Velvet... Velvet and Lavi had not come to blows. Not yet. Instead, they paced back and forth, facing each other warily.
Velvet shook her head. "Was our- what about us?" she demanded. "Was what we had ever real? Was- was any of it real?"
Lavi flinched and didn't answer. Instead, he said, "Mission parameters changed. This was supposed to just be intel gathering. It wasn't- this wasn't supposed to happen, not like this."
Velvet's expression softened. "So you do care, after all."
Lavi gave her a sad smile. "Of course I care, Velv. I lo-"
Reg dodged to the side as Fulcrum swung down toward him, and he sneered. "You want a fight, big guy, you got it!" His skin began to tear as something blue and metallic burst from within. "Let's get ready to Rumble!"
At that point, the fighting stopped as everyone turned to stare at Reg, including his teammates, as he transformed before them, his humanoid body torn apart by the blue mechanical body beneath, even his eyes, always red, now seemed to glow with a preternatural light.
"Rumble, you idiot," Rain growled. He sighed. "I guess we're going loud. Frenzy. Laserbeak."
At that, Ferris similarly transformed, tearing through his skin, though his body was black and red, and his blue eyes glowed. Even in this form, it was clear that, aside from their color schemes, they were identical, still twins, even as machines. Rain himself took on a more extreme transformation, dropping to all fours as he shed his skin, emerging as a black and grey robotic feline with eyes burning a sickly yellow.
Lavi did not transform. Instead, he turned away to look back at Velvet, his expression weary. "Of course I care, Velv," he repeated, "but one thing organics have trouble grasping is that love does not conquer all. My name is Laserbeak, and I am over twelve million years old. I'll always remember you fondly, but whatever we have -- had -- could never last."
And with those words, Velvet's world shattered.
"If you won't join us, Velv, at least stand down," he continued. "Please," he begged, shaking his head, "don't make me kill you."
Velvet felt her lips twisting with fury. "Rrgh! Well, come 'ave a go if ya think yer 'ard enough!" she challenged as she lunged forward, slashing out with the bayonet that had once been his, slicing a shallow gash across his chest.
Lavi -- Laserbeak, Velvet reminded herself -- backed away, dodging or parrying her attacks, only occasionally striking back at her with his bayoneted rifle, but even then, many of her attacks slipped through, leaving shallow cuts and gashes on him... though how much difference that made when he was a robot in a fleshy skinsuit, she wasn't sure.
"Velvet, please!" he persisted. "Stand down! It doesn't have to end like this!"
"Laserbeak!" Rain's voice snapped as he continued to pounce around, evading Coco's fire, his sinuous, inhuman motions allowing him to slowly close the distance.
"Ravage, I-"
"Quit playing around with the squishy!" Rain -- Ravage -- snapped. "You're getting soft."
It was then that Velvet felt a spark of hope.
"Lav," she tried, holding out her hand. "You're right. It doesn't have to end like this. You don't have to do this. You can stop this. I mean, I wouldn't trade what we had these past few months for a million years alone. Was twelve million really any better?"
She almost didn't notice the 8x8 armored crawler arriving. Almost. There was no way she could miss it transforming into a blue, boxy giant robot.
"Ravage, Rumble, Frenzy, Laserbeak: Recall," it said in a creepy monotone. "Operation: Street Sweeper."
Lavi closed his eyes, blinking back tears, and slumped down for a moment. He opened his eyes and looked at Velvet, squaring his shoulders. "When Soundwave orders, I obey. I'm sorry, Velv."
And with that, he finally transformed, shedding his skin and letting out an ear-piercing shriek as he took to the skies in the form of a red, black, and grey mechanical bird..
Velvet pressed her lips together and sheathed the still-bloody bayonet in favor of Anesidora.
"So am I," she said, conjuring up a copy of Lavi's own rifle, Lea, and taking aim... only to blink in surprise as all four members of Team RRFL rushed to the big robot -- Soundwave -- and transformed into rectangular boxes, sliding themselves, one by one, into a compartment in Soundwave's chest cavity that opened up for them.
"What?!" barked Yatsuhashi in uncharacteristic shock.
"What's happening? Anyone want to give me a clearer picture of what's going on?" asked Fox, subtly reminding them that, despite how his skills and equipment offset things, he was still blind.
"We've been bamboozled by a bunch of VHS tapes!" exclaimed Coco.
"Mini-cassettes," corrected Yatsu.
"How can you tell?!" Coco demanded incredulously.
While the exchange took place, Soundwave dropped to one knee… and then unleashed the most thunderous and deafening sonic blast that any of them had ever heard. The cacophony even sent all of Team CFVY tumbling to the ground. Their auras preserved their hearing, mostly, but they had taken a beating, and as they stumbled upright, so too did their big blue opponent stand tall.
Then music, of all things, started to pulse out from Soundwave to fill the air.
"Megatron has ordered the Cross-Continental Transmit System offlined," announced Soundwave oh-so-casually in that electronic monotone. "Ravage: Eject. Operation: Blackout."
With that, the big robot pressed a button on his shoulder, and the panel on his chest sprung open to throw out a dark rectangle that transformed into the feline form of Ravage that sprinted on four mechanical legs towards the entrance to the CCT.
"Oh no, you don't!" hissed out Coco as she unleashed a barrage of fire from her rotary machine gun out to the rapidly advancing bot.
Several of the rounds hit home, and thanks to Coco's semblance Hype, they hit hard. Ravage was sent tumbling into the ground, but quickly rolled over and retaliated with a pair of missiles fired from his shoulders. Coco shifted her fire, and the missiles were destroyed in mid-air with a pair of booming explosions.
Fox was leaping in on a recoil boost from the tonfas attached to his arms; his Sharp Retribution brought him in for the kill, and his keen skill allowed him to strike a blow while deflecting another. He would have gone on for some time trading blows, but it was not to be. The short battle came to an end with a call from the overseer.
"Ravage: Return," ordered Soundwave, prompting the robotic panther to dart back to his master at incredible speeds before leaping into the air and transforming into his mini-cassette form and popping back into the big bot.
"We're not going to let you take down the CCT!" declared Yatsuhashi fiercely. "You can't just snuff us out!"
"Objection: Noted," commented Soundwave.
With that, the robot fired off a barrage of missiles from his shoulder launcher, and as Team CFVY dodged to avoid their concussive blasts, Soundwave leapt up to bring himself crashing down with a melodic thunder that sent terrific pulses of force out in time with the beat.
The lot of them were sent tumbling again along the ground, and as they once again regained their feet, none of them had time to talk. Instead, Fox activated his semblance, establishing a telepathic connection between the four Beacon students.
We could really use a plan right now, he sent.
Again, Soundwave put his hand to his shoulder and pressed that button. "Frenzy, Rumble: Eject, eject. Operation: Demolition."
The front chest panel opened twice, and each time, a mini-cassette was launched that transformed into the two human-sized robots that were once their friends… and their new piledriver arms which now began pounding the ground and making the very earth shake beneath their feet.
Quick and dirty? Stop them from bringing down the tower, ordered Coco quickly as Team CFVY braced themselves..
Simple plan, I like it, sent Fox. I don't think it could possibly go wrong.
It was at that moment that Soundwave once again pressed his shoulder. "Laserbeak: Eject. Operation: Dive Bomb."
Fox! chided Velvet mentally as she watched her ex-boyfriend be ejected from his master and transform into a robotic bird.
Plan still works! insisted Fox defensively.
James Ironwood didn't know how long he was out for, but he knew what had happened. The Decepticons had attacked. They had attacked Beacon, and they had destroyed the building he was in. Even the question of how he survived wasn't up in the air, given the big, strong arms wrapped around him.
"Gung-Ho, there are so many jokes that could be made about this situation," commented Ironwood dryly as his eyes searched the uncomfortably cramped and dark pocket.
There was an accented chuckle from what sounded like behind him. "Well, you're not going to be so unkind as to mention this to the others, are you, sir?"
"Don't call me 'sir.' I'm not part of your chain of command anymore," chided Ironwood.
A lengthy pause was his reply, as if Gung-Ho really needed to think hard about it. "Yer still headmaster, and I'm still a perfessor. Besides, sir, I wouldn't know what else to call you."
Ironwood had a brief flashback to an identical line from one of the members of Team Rainbow some weeks ago and echoed his reply from then: "No one ever does."
"Yeesh, not even your fiancée?" asked Gung-Ho with a verbal flinch. "That's rough, buddy."
An amused snort escaped Ironwood's lips before he got it under control. "Sitrep."
"The building came down, and I managed to shield us from it with Bulletproof," -- his semblance, Ironwood recalled -- "but in the tumble, we sort of became, uh, stuck," explained Gung-Ho, his tone becoming more sheepish as he went on.
"Hmm, I think I have a solution," mused Ironwood as he curled up his fists and brought them to his side. "It's a little something I learned in Mistral."
Many one-inch death punches later, Ironwood smashed open the last board that covered them from the burning twilight. They scrambled out and found themselves to have been reduced to rags, a far better fate than what happened to the building around them or even the whole of Vale. Fires burned in the distance; further still, the faint silhouette of a massive airship almost a mile long could be seen over the city; closer to them, Beacon was engaged in a terrible battle against the Grimm; and in front of them, four of his own students -- Team JSPR, he recalled; Cadenza had suggested he have them talk to Twilight after the Park Place incident, and they'd more recently gotten into trouble with Glynda -- were engaged in a life or death struggle with…
"Starscream," said Ironwood with a half-growl of fury and half-sigh of annoyance. "I've got to stop him."
A firm hand clamped onto his shoulder. "Whoa, there! Not without these and a plan yer not."
Ironwood turned around and found Gung-Ho offering him a pack that he had been wearing. The former general opened the bag and found his own revolvers still in their holsters. By the time he had finished donning them, he had a plan, which he swiftly related to his compatriot.
They needed to act quickly. Luckily, Starscream clearly did not feel the need to. He really did have a problem with monologuing.
"Oh, what a revolting display of loyalty," sneered Starscream as he dodged and deflected attacks from Apple and Pie. "You'll never see me engaging in foolishness like that."
Starscream's head jerked to the side as Ironwood shot him with Due Process. That felt good. That felt really good. It felt so good that it almost overcame a drop of the rage that was boiling within him at seeing the Decepticon.
"And that is why you fail, Starscream," spoke Ironwood with conviction. "Loyalty, integrity, compassion, selflessness, morale, camaraderie, all those virtues you sneer at. They're what bring us together, make us stronger than you could ever hope to be."
The battle seemed to stop for a moment, and even as the students turned and looked at the headmaster with hope in their eyes, so too did Starscream with hate and contempt in his optics.
"You," growled Starscream.
"Me," replied Ironwood with forceful levelness.
Starscream let out a mad chuckle. "So it's finally come to this. All your machinations to take my position away and install yourself have come to naught, and now I will have my revenge. I will personally offline you, and then no one will be able to speak ill of me, Air Commander Starscream of the Decepticon Seeker Corps!"
"You're delusional if you think I give a damn about you or the Decepticon pecking order, Starscream," he declared. "I just want you off my planet."
He kept his focus on the Decepticon, even as Gung-Ho crept around in his peripheral vision.
"You cretin!" Starscream cried, clearly insulted. "How dare you try to insinuate the humiliation I have suffered is but a mere side effect of your true efforts! I know the truth. Why else would you assign my humiliation to someone as powerful and skilled as Raven Branwen?"
The Decepticon Air Commander tried to lunge at Ironwood. Tried to, for while he was ranting at Ironwood, the concrete and stone paving he stood on had, under the control of Maud Pie, wrapped itself around his feet, and in the end, he stumbled awkwardly, wobbling desperately to keep his balance.
"What treachery is this?!" he demanded, twisting to and fro, looking around. As he finally looked behind him, he saw the fruits of the plan Ironwood had had Gung-Ho relay to Team JSPR.
Applejack hefted Gung-Ho, the burly trooper curling up as much as he could. "Ya'll ready?"
"Ooh-rah," was his only response.
Activating her semblance, Super-Strength, Applejack hurled the jungle warfare professor at Starscream. Gung-Ho, for his part, activated his own semblance, Bulletproof, becoming an invulnerable missile flying at incredible speeds toward the Decepticon.
And starting behind Applejack was Rainbow Dash, who was using her own semblance -- also named Rainbow Dash -- and a running start to get Flash Sentry flying at similar speeds, while Flash used his own Shock Absorption semblance to become... not quite invincible, but immune to the negative effects of impact, a benefit not shared by those that impacted him... or vice versa.
The two human missiles moving at high speed slammed into -- and through -- the Decepticon Seeker, punching clean through his midsection and flying over Ironwood to land behind him.
Ironwood relaxed slightly, letting the tension in his shoulders loosen as Starscream collapsed. The six Atlesians gathered around the Decepticon, and Ironwood nodded to each of them. "Good work, Gung-Ho, Team Jasper. This-"
He was interrupted as Starscream began to twitch and groan. The half-dozen Huntsmen backed off in amazement, raising their weapons, as the Decepticon pulled himself together. Literally.
"AHAHAHAHA!" Starscream crowed victoriously. "You cannot kill me! I am immortal!" He looked down smugly. "Surrender now, and I might be willing to-"
BANG!
Starscream staggered back in shock from the gunshot he'd just taken to the face.
"Maybe you are," Ironwood allowed as he strode forward and fired again, sending Starscream's head snapping back again. "But the things you've done... the torture, the experimentation, literally stealing people's souls? I'm going to enjoy killing you, Starscream." He began punctuating his words with gunshots. "Again and again and again."
"Then I'll just have to kill you first!"
With a gesture, Maud sent a rock smashing into Starscream's face... and then all the rubble around them began to levitate, whirling around and around in a titanic maelstrom of debris ranging in size from pebbles the size of one's thumb to sections of I-beams as massive as anything Maud had ever been able to move with her semblance, a maelstrom that engulfed Starscream and began battering him relentlessly.
The rest of Team JSPR stared in awed wonder.
"I didn't know you could do that, Maud," Applejack said.
"That's not me," came the matter-of-fact reply.
"Ah! Ah! Oof! Ow!" Starscream cried out. "Decepticons! Retreat!"
With that, he transformed and took once more to the skies, and as he did so, the tornado of terror slowed and stopped, the debris allowed to fall to the ground with a rattle and clatter. All throughout the campus, the other Decepticons did likewise by whatever means they could. It seemed that, whatever else Starscream lacked, he could at least get people to follow that order.
"Glynda, what are you doing here?" Ironwood asked as Beacon's Deputy Headmistress approached from the shadows at a brisk walk.
Suddenly, it all came together for Rainbow Dash. She knew a number of people with telekinesis semblances -- Twilight, for one -- but Professor Goodwitch regularly outstripped anything she'd seen anyone else do by far. By some silent agreement, Team JSPR and Gung-Ho stepped back as the betrothed pair reunited.
"Rescuing you," answered Professor Goodwitch primly.
Ironwood frowned. "While the city's on fire? Glynda, we talked about this."
"James-"
"You have a duty-"
"James, listen to me!" she snapped, her voice cracking a little. "The Decepticons have jammed all transmissions, including the CCT. We can't coordinate our defenses, and we're completely cut off from the rest of the world."
The Atlesian headmaster rocked back on his heels. "What?"
"We're cut off," she repeated. "Until we can stop the jamming, we can't contact the rest of the world, and..." She hesitated. "Think, James. If the Decepticons brought this much force to bear on Vale, what have they sent against Atlas?"
Maybe... maybe Twilight was right to head to Vacuo, Rainbow thought reluctantly. She didn't even want to imagine her friend out there in the chaos of the city or what was possibly worse going on in Atlas.
The headmaster paled, then shook his head. "No, General Colton can handle it. He'll keep things under control."
"We have no guarantee he's even alive," she reminded him.
Ironwood shook his head again. "He has to be. Atlas can't lose him, not again."
Rainbow Dash didn't even need to look at the others to know that they were thinking the same thing. She might not have been the best student of history -- in fact, her studies had barely been scraping by at times -- but even for her, the figure of General Joe Colton loomed larger than life. He… he was Atlas, a hero of legend whose example all tried to follow, who according to Twilight, had been prophesied to return just before Atlas's darkest hour. He wasn't supposed to… The Headmaster was right. He had to be alive. He was General Colton.
"James," Goodwitch said, reaching up to cup his face in her hands and hold his head steady, looking him in the eyes. "James, you're not the Commanding General anymore, but you're still Headmaster of Atlas Academy. As of now, you are the only member of the Atlesian Provisional Council we know is still alive, and until we can establish contact with the outside world and confirm otherwise, we have to operate on that assumption. Headmaster Ironwood, you are not expendable. You might just be the last hope the people of Atlas have."
"She's right, sir," Gung-Ho chipped in. "You might be all we've got."
"Headmaster," Applejack interjected, "Starscream came fer you. Specifically. Even iffen they aren't pullin' a full-scale attack on Atlas, this could easily be part of a decapitation strike. Leave Atlas vulnerable. 'Cept yer still alive. What say we work to keep it that way?"
"…You're right," Ironwood relented, his shoulders slumping. Rainbow Dash had never seen him look so... small before. He looked up, a hard glint in his eyes, and that moment of vulnerability passed. "You're right. But 'safe' doesn't mean 'idle.' Spurs, sitrep."
Coco had been having a bad day, a very bad day, and it was only getting worse. Granted, she had come out this time with a way to reduce the negative effects, but it couldn't last. She was about to run out of anti-air rounds.
No sooner had she had that thought than did the last missile in the barrage explode. She stopped firing immediately. Her trusty handbag/rotary machinegun Gianduja hadn't run dry, but she estimated that she had only a half dozen of the special proximity-fused high-explosive rounds left, not enough for another barrage of Soundwave's missiles or another strafing run by Laserbeak.
The battle had only been going on for a few minutes, but it felt like days. The ground around them had been torn up and vandalized, pock-marked by explosions and attacks that defied mortal comprehension. Team CFVY had been holding their own, but if she was tracking the beeps from her scroll right, their auras were running low. On top of that, she was running low on ammo, and she was sure Fox had to be as well. Velvet was now on the third copy of Rain's claw gauntlets, and she'd been burning through her pictures and hardlight dust at a prodigious rate.
I'm going to die, realized Coco with sudden clarity. I'm going to die, and I don't even know how to feel about that.
It was probably just the adrenaline. It couldn't afford to be anything but.
Suddenly, another thought came to her, and she realized her folly.
"You're just toying with us. Why?" she asked of Soundwave.
After all, even without his minions in Team RRFL, the big blue bot was something else. He was like a fully trained Huntsman, but stronger, faster, and with a much bigger arsenal. The way he commanded Laserbeak even reminded her of a Huntress who had come to Pharos Academy years prior and shown how she worked with a falcon to track and fight Grimm.
To her dismay, Soundwave answered, "To make you suitable for capture. I believe you will be very useful for the Decepticon cause. Just as you have been up until now."
Those words echoed what Rain -- Ravage -- had said earlier, and this time, the feeling of ice water running through Coco's veins was even greater.
"We won't tell you anything!" shouted Velvet defiantly.
"You are mistaken. I expect you to fight alongside us," elaborated Soundwave. "Lord Megatron has use for spies such as yourself."
Spies.
"We'll never join you!" declared Yatsuhashi with uncharacteristic fire.
"A complication the reprogramming will alleviate," Soundwave assured them.
Reprogramming?
"We'll die before we let you get your hands on our brains," insisted Fox. Sweet Fox, who was always trying to keep her down to Remnant, with her never listening.
Soundwave nodded once. "Objection: Noted."
With that, the Decepticon sent out another devastating sonic blast, sending them to their knees. Nevertheless, Coco brought Gianduja up to bear on him and sent a stream of ammo downrange. It was a short stream though; Reg's metallic fist saw to that.
Coco's aura broke as her face bounced off the ground. Her head spinning, she perceived similar things happening to the rest of the team. Then, the comforting telepathic touch of Fox's semblance left her mind, and she was all alone.
"Excellent," Soundwave complimented as he walked towards the disabled Huntsman trainees with big banging footfalls. "Ravage, take care of them. Operation: Containment. Frenzy, Rumble, finish this. Operation: Ruination. Laserbeak-"
Suddenly, there was a loud whining roar, as if from an engine, and then Coco was able to see a blue and pink motorcycle leap through the air to smash into Frenzy's head.
"Not again!" despaired the little Decepticon as he was flung to the ground.
The motorcycle whipped around, and as it did, its rider dismounted, allowing the motorcycle to… transform into a robot.
The robot was something else, with a feminine build to match her pink and blue color scheme. Her legs were thin things built around the motorcycle form's wheels. Her expression was visible, grim and furious. In her hands, she wielded twin pistols, and upon her shoulder pylons was emblazoned the logo that Cliffjumper had sported on his body too. It seemed then that this newcomer was an Autobot.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the rider was a member of the White Fang. Oh, that black hooded utility jumpsuit might conceal their identity somewhat, but that beaver-like faunus tail and Grimm-like mask gave it away, customized though that mask may have been with what looked like a microphone boom poking down from it. Their weaponry, though… well, it was distinctly unfashionable, which wasn't to say that their clothes were particularly fashionable to begin with, but that shotgun in their hands looked like something from a department store, and the few grenades on the suit's webbing looked like they might have come from the same counter. The monkey wrench just seemed like junk that was being carried around.
"Get away from them!" shouted the White Fang member in a fierce, feminine voice.
Any reply the Decepticons might have offered was interrupted by the booming of the shotgun and pew-pewing of the Autobot's pistols.
"Ack!" cried out one of Team RRFL as they were hit by lightning dust slugs.
"Arcee," greeted Soundwave. "You are too late. Our victory here is now inevitable."
"Not while I still function!" snarled the Autobot, the one Soundwave called Arcee, before shifting her fire.
Coco was a bit too out of it to follow what was going on, but she recognized that Team RRFL was retreating. She recognized that there was a great battle going on nearby. What she didn't recognize was the White Fang member standing protectively over them.
Her shotgun went dry, and she let out a baseborn curse before inexpertly shovelling shells into the gun's tube magazine with a snarl. "Why do you kids always have to jump in up to your necks like this?!"
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," moaned Fox.
It was with joy unlooked for that Coco realized that she could hear his words in her head as well as her ears. The White Fang woman didn't hear it though, merely resuming fire. Her technique could use some work… a lot of work, in fact. It was like she only visited the range every few months.
Then, all of a sudden, a loud shrill voice cut above all other sound.
"Decepticons! Retreat!"
"Was that Starscream?!" exclaimed the Autobot in amused shock. "You're saying your victory is inevitable when Starscream is in charge of this operation?"
Soundwave didn't reply. Instead, the music coming from him cut off, and he said, "Ravage, Rumble, Frenzy, Laserbeak: Return, return, return, return."
"You're not getting away!" shouted Arcee a split second before a booming snap of some sort sounded, followed by a hiss. "Argh! My optics!"
The White Fang member let out a particularly rural expletive, and Coco found enough of her strength that she was able to look up and see a large smoke cloud growing while their two saviors clutched at their faces.
"That hurt!" snapped the White Fang woman. "What was that?"
"Electromagnetic pulse mixed with a smoke grenade," reported Arcee sourly before walking back to them with an odd clacking gait and looking at them curiously. "You guys on the up and up yet?"
"Yeah, yeah, I think I can stand," replied Coco pridefully, and the others did likewise.
Velvet was looking at the newcomers with wide eyes. "You… you're White Fang, and… and an Autobot. Why did you save us?"
The beaver-tailed White Fang woman shrugged even as she was looking them over. "Somebody had to. I'd rather be home in my chair, but… well, why not us?"
"Yeah, kid," said Arcee with a hand on her hip. "It wasn't any big deal."
"They can't just be giving up, can they?" asked the White Fang woman as she walked past Team CFVY towards Beacon Tower.
"I wouldn't bet on it, even with Starstream calling the retreat," confirmed the Autobot. "Still, it will take them time to think of a new strategy."
"Then we got time," confirmed the White Fang woman before slinging her shotgun over her shoulder and gesturing to the doors of Beacon Tower. "We need to get these people out of here to somewhere where the 'Cons aren't gunning for them."
Coco looked in that direction and saw a number of faces looking with worry out of the transparent doors to the tower. With the chaos of everything happening and the potential end of civilization on Remnant itself looming over them, it hadn't occurred to her to stop and think where any civilians still on campus -- technicians, janitorial staff, guests visiting as the Vytal Festival wound down -- would have taken shelter. Beacon Tower was actually a pretty good choice... despite what had happened when Headmaster Ozpin had confronted Cinder Fall earlier in the semester.
"Right," she said. "Let's get to it."
She could worry about what came next after the civilians were safe.
Cinder rode through the skies over Vale, relishing the fires and destruction she could see in the darkness, and as she did so, she hungered. It was not a mundane sort of hunger. No food or drink could satisfy it; even the finest delicacies and the purest water tasted like ashes in her mouth. No, this hunger was something else, a constant companion gnawing at her insides, the price she had paid for Salem's blessing, the Grimm taint that gave her some of the strength she craved.
When she'd first seized a portion of the Fall Maiden's power, that hunger had grown, like the power wanted to be reunited, and once she had claimed the other half, the hunger had lessened to the familiar ache that clawed at her stomach from within.
She had what she wanted, the power of the Fall Maiden, but still... she hungered. Salem had led her to that power, and she wanted the Crown of Choice, so Cinder meant to deliver it to her. A bargain had been struck, after all.
Her thoughts were interrupted by an explosion that rocked the airship she was riding in.
"We're taking fire!" Lugnut -- the airship in question -- reported unnecessarily. "I'm-"
Another explosion cut him off, and they began to spiral down to the ground below. Cinder snarled as she hurled herself out of the falling Decepticon. The incompetent fool had had one job!
Columns of magical flame burst from her hands as makeshift rockets which she struggled to use to slow and direct her fall. It was awkward, unwieldy, and she found herself drifting wildly all over the place... just barely missing the landing pads. Eyes widening, she redirected those fiery blasts toward the side of the cliff, hurling herself away from it past the docks to over the water, before sending them downwards again to break the surface tension and slow her fall.
In a great billowing cloud of steam, she splashed into Beacon Bay, plummeting deep into the water. Moments later, she burst out of the freshwater depths, gasping for air, and began to swim toward the docks.
The attempt at flight had been... a mixed bag, but definitely promising. Something to practice later, she decided as she reached the docks. She was close enough. The switchback path up the cliffside was steep, but hardly insurmountable, and it wasn't like it would be that far to get what she sought on foot.
She clambered up onto the pier, only to stop and snap her head back as something flew past her. She turned, eyes narrowed, toward the cliffside and saw Ozpin standing partway down the pier, a steaming mug of hot chocolate in one hand, the other hand outstretched to catch his cane as it flew through the air and looped around back toward him.
"Good evening, Miss Fall. I regret to inform you that you've been expelled," the headmaster said infuriatingly mildly as he calmly took a sip from his mug. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
(V3E12: Leviathan | V3E13: Tools of Foul Play | V3E14: Bonds)
- Author's Note 1 (Cyclone)
- Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett)
Next episode the events of the volume come to a climax as our heroes are pushed past their limits in a grand test of "Bonds."
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Volume III: Episode 14: Bonds
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
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We'll be on in an hour to talk about the chapter with anyone who wants to.
This link is good for 1 day, but a permanent link is still available in the opening post.
Two dozen or so people -- both human and faunus -- huddled together in the back room of Tukson's Book Trade. The nearest shelter was packed full, and the next closest was where one of the pods launched from the airship menacing the city from above had landed. Hunkered down behind the counter, Tukson himself clutched a double-barrelled shotgun, peering cautiously over the countertop as a quartet of AK-130s trooped past on the street outside.
One of the AKs paused and turned to look at the darkened storefront. With the lights off, the tinted windows offered a fair amount of concealment, but it seemed not to deter the AKs as the other three androids stopped and joined the first one at peering into the store. The AKs raised their arms, transforming them into guns, and opened fire, shattering the picture windows and stitching rounds across the back wall. In the back room, someone screamed.
The androids marched in across the broken glass, and Tukson popped out, unloading one barrel into the first one. He switched targets and fired the other barrel, taking down the second one before ducking back down behind the counter. At this range, without aura, the androids fell easily, the armor-piercing sabot slugs he had loaded cleanly punching through armor designed to protect against knives, pistol-caliber ammunition, and only the weakest Grimm attacks.
As bullets hammered into the counter but failed to penetrate the concealed armor, he reloaded and reflected that there were some benefits to some of the rasher decisions of his youth.
The gunfire stopped, and one of the AK-130s vaulted over the countertop, only to take a slug to the chest. He waited, listening for the last AK's footsteps as it tromped closer.
A gunshot sounded, followed by a crackle and a thump on the other side of the counter. Tukson looked up to see a human woman, dark-haired and green-eyed -- it was Rebecca DuBois; she ran DuBois' Insights, a clothier across the street -- holding a large revolver in an isosceles stance. She smirked at him.
"Can't let you have all the fun, can we?"
The battlefield had shifted.
What was supposed to have been a simple smashing raid had turned into an extended dogfight above an urban area covered with anti-aircraft artillery. They'd shot down a few of the squishies' planes, but the locals had downed plenty of Starscream's new Jet Vehicons as well. What. A. Shock. Then the Aerialbots had joined the fight, and things really went sideways.
Starscream had bugged off somewhere -- which, in Slipstream's personal opinion, vastly improved their odds -- and Skywarp had apparently decided to reformat himself in the middle of a dogfight for some reason. The newly-reformatted Seeker lieutenant had taken charge, but at the moment, Slipstream was a little too concerned with staying alive to pay that much attention to Skywarp.
She was glad they at least had weight of numbers on their side; it gave the Autobots something other than her to shoot at. Back on Cybertron, the Decepticons had dominated the skies for millions of years; the fact that the Aerialbots were still alive after all that time was a testament to their skills.
It was almost certain that each of those five Autobots had more aerial kills than there were Decepticons on this entire wretched planet, and she had no intention of adding herself to any of their tallies.
She had Nova Storm flying her wing, as usual, and they were currently closing in on the tail of one of the Aerialbots, Air Raid.
The Autobot suddenly hit his air brakes and transformed, Slipstream and Nova Storm following suit a split-second later, arcing out to give him a wide berth as they maneuvered to flank him. Air Raid turned to Nova Storm and fired his torque rifle at the Seeker, but as Slipstream tried to capitalize on him turning his back to her, he turned again, riding the recoil of the blast away from Nova Storm and toward her.
Slipstream flinched and brought her arms up, receiving a battering from the Aerialbots' CQC expert that sent her tumbling through the air. She struggled to regain control, transforming back into her vehicle mode and hitting her afterburners. It meant leaving Nova Storm to the Aerialbot's tender mercies, but frankly, Slipstream was the one in his sights and vulnerable, while Nova Storm should be able to disengage more readily.
Within moments, Nova Storm was forming back up on her wing.
"Well, that was quick," Slipstream noted over their comms.
"The Autobot disengaged."
Slipstream mentally frowned. "That doesn't make any sense," she muttered as she began probing out with her scanners. "Where'd he-?"
Her thoughts were interrupted as another Aerialbot screamed past her, close enough that his jet wash sent a violent shudder through her airframe. She tracked the Aerialbot as he swooped onwards on a collision course with his fellows, none of them paying much regard to the dense air traffic as they seemed intent on colliding with each other.
Realization dawned on Slipstream as the Aerialbot leader, Silverbolt, began transforming mid-flight, stretching his arms out as two others, Slingshot and Skydive slammed into them, the impact causing Silverbolt to flip over, even as Air Raid and Fireflight rammed into his sides.
"Oh, no."
She could only watch in horrified wonder as the Aerialbots completed their transformation. One of the other Seekers, Sunstorm, leading a flight of Jet Vehicons, came screaming out of the clouds above, firing on the Aerialbots in a futile attempt to disrupt their merger, but it was too late.
A massive arm that had once been Skydive backhanded Sunstorm, sending him tumbling uncontrollably through the air until the smoke rising from the fires of the city below swallowed him up. The Jet Vehicons following him scattered, though one wasn't quite as lucky as the others as a mighty hand grasped it and squeezed, crushing through its admittedly minimal structural integrity field like it wasn't even there before negligently discarding the shattered remains.
On towering pillars of flame coming from the backs of his legs, a giant among giants now stood, his expression grim, his form steady, his power unimaginable. Five beings had become one and, in the process, achieved something which even now buoyed their allies and shook their enemies to their cores.
Superion.
The Enigma of Combination was one of the sacred artifacts of the Thirteen Primes. Like seemingly everything else, the legend had proven to be real and was fought over in the war long ago. The power represented by combiners was an alluring one, after all, and both sides had made use of it. Attempts to replicate its effects conventionally had been... less than entirely successful, as the medic Ambulon proved.
The Autobots had been able to use it to great effect, from Defensor to Superion. Superion, especially, had turned the tide of battle in the air more than once during the war. To be sure, the Decepticons had acquired access to the Enigma of Combination themselves for a while during the Battle of Scramble City -- the Stunticons, Constructicons, and Combaticans were among those who had benefited from that -- but when the Seekers' turn came up... well...
No one was interested in letting Starscream into their head. And the feeling was entirely mutual. The fact that personality clashes seemed to cause issues with the combiner's brain module -- with the Combaticons' strong camaraderie and ability to work well together, the bloodthirsty berserker Bruticus was perhaps the sanest Decepticon combiner -- just cemented the Seekers' position on the matter.
That, however, didn't mean Slipstream wasn't sorely feeling the lack here. She winced as Superion's massive hand caught another Jet Vehicon and squeezed, this time, throwing the shattered corpse into a mixed flight of Seekers and Jet Vehicons.
"Decepticons!" the Aerialbot combiner boomed, brandishing his stress fracture cannon. "Die!"
That was the other problem with Superion: He really, really liked killing Decepticons. As a Decepticon herself, Slipstream wasn't exactly eager to indulge him in his hobby, so she peeled off and kicked in her afterburners again. It was taking a toll on her energon reserves, but all the energon in the galaxy wasn't going to do her any good if Superion got hold of her.
Superion's stress fracture cannon spoke, splitting the air. The bolt struck a Seeker -- Slipstream wasn't sure who -- and sent him crashing to the ground, a wing shattered, but even as he did so, a flight of Jet Vehicons dove in at Superion from behind, blasters blazing, and with that, Slipstream banked back around.
Superion was a combiner, worth at least a dozen Seekers in a battle.
But there were a lot more than a dozen Seekers in the sky tonight.
She just hoped it would be enough.
It wasn't, but it didn't need to be.
"Skywarp to all Seekers, break off!" came the most welcome order possible at the moment. "Focus on the local fighters and SEAD. Avoid contact with Superion."
"So, here's the big question," began Neptune as the Bullhead continued to fly through the darkening skies of Vale. "How are we supposed to get on that thing without blowing up? Anyone got an answer for that yet?"
The thing in question was the massive Decepticon airship that was flying over the city. Occasionally, a fixture on the ground would fire up at it, and occasionally, it would fire back, but generally, both sides seemed pretty keen to not get into a situation that could lead to the mile-long monstrosity falling down out of the sky. The benefit of this was that they weren't likely to get hit while flying to it; the downside of it was that the vessel's gunners were wide awake and probably looking for boarders like them.
"What we need is a distraction," said Weiss, thinking aloud.
Sun perked up at that, and then cooled down. "Say, Weiss, I know you don't use your semblance much these days, but do you think that you could use that summoning ability to conjure up a copy of that Giant Nevermore you and Blake defeated during initiation?"
Weiss shook her head. "No, even before I started avoiding using my semblance, I was never able to use summoning."
"I guess you were never much of a Schnee then," commented Neptune.
The snowcapped girl's eyes widened slightly, and a blush came to her cheeks. "Thank you."
"I only speak the truth," replied Neptune before turning back to Sun. "What I don't get is how you know that, though, when it's never come up before."
"I read it in a fashion magazine once," explained Sun easily. "Penny gave it to me and asked if she would look good in it. The page she had turned it to was an expose about Winter Schnee and explained how her hereditary semblance worked. I remember it because, just before I was going to ask Penny why she wanted to join the military, Ciel came in and told us not to take her stuff."
Neptune and Weiss stared at him, and then the white-haired girl turned towards her palette-swapped counterpart in the cockpit. "Blake, how can your boyfriend be so smart and so dumb at the same time?"
"Hey!" objected Sun. "That's… totally fair, in retrospect."
"Hmm… boyfriend…" murmured Blake in thought.
"Have you got something?" asked Weiss hopefully.
"I was just thinking… I've told you about Adam before, right?" asked Blake contemplatively.
"At great length," acknowledged Weiss.
"Something I don't think I talked about was his semblance and how he could channel it through his weapon," continued Blake.
"He taught you how to do that," realized Neptune aloud.
"But how…?" began Sun before noticing his girlfriend tightening her grip on the controls. "You're going to use it on the airship."
"But that'll use up too much of your aura, won't it?" asked Weiss in worry.
"Oh, yes," confirmed Blake, "which is why I'm only going to get one shot at this!"
With that declaration, the Bullhead snapped down in a high-G maneuver that sent the other members of the team into the walls.
"Strap in!" yelled back the raven-haired girl far too late.
"Blaaaaaaake!" shouted Weiss in distress and fury.
Acting quickly, the three Huntsman students used their skill and semblances to make their ways to individual seats and buckle themselves in and quickly tighten their seatbelts for good measure. The craft was suffering one jerking turn after the other, at one point even going upside down. Then came the terrible climax when everything was… well, Weiss had experienced it during the Vytal Tournament and during training, but it was certainly a thoroughly indecipherable experience. What was more comprehensible though was looking into the cockpit and seeing an oncoming wall of steel.
"Blake!" shouted Weiss.
Even as the name started to pass her lips, though, the steel wall parted just enough to allow the Bullhead to fly on through. Then, no sooner had they passed through the wall than did the airship come to a halt so quickly that all the passengers felt the straps digging into their bodies like the diamond cord of a rock cutter. Perhaps somewhat anticlimactically, the craft then gently landed on the alloy floor that they had found themselves on.
"We're in," reported Blake evenly.
Neptune, who had been holding onto his seat so tightly that his hands seemed to have turned to chalk, let out a squeak of discontent. "What was that?!"
Blake got out of the cockpit and started walking into the cabin. "I noticed one of the turrets happened to have a disintegration beam. I also noticed that there was a malfunctioning door on the same side of the huil. So I moved us into an angle where we would be able to pass through the door when it was open, while also passing through the path of that disintegrator beam. It worked, the beam took out the copy of the Bullhead left behind, and now we're onboard."
"Why didn't you tell us that beforehand?!" demanded Weiss.
"There wasn't enough time," said the raven-haired girl simply. "Now, come on. We don't know when a Decepticon will show up next."
"Blake! Communication!" Weiss sputtered as she unbuckled herself. "We need to work on it!"
"Later," Blake shot back as she opened the side door and stepped out. "We don't have time right now."
Weiss fumed but couldn't disagree as she and the two Huntsmen piled on out in Blake's wake into the striking interior of the alien mothership.
"What a hunk of junk!" declared Neptune.
The other members of the team grimaced, but they couldn't help but agree with the sentiment. The Decepticon ship had clearly seen better days, and those days were long, long ago. Everything seemed to be in a state of disrepair, ongoing repair, neglect, or just barely functional. It was, all and all, a surprising state for their doom to be in.
"She might be a flying pile of scrap, but she can still do a lot of damage," commented Blake. "Now, let's find that jammer."
Chrysalis's laughter was still echoing throughout the council chambers, even and above the fires, the engines of the cycles, and against all odds, the smell of… of what used to be the councilors. A deep and black pit seemed to have opened up and was swallowing them all. All that Atlas ever was or ever could be… gone in an instant.
The Dreadnoks joined in the laughter of their employer.
"Oh, what's the matter? Ya gonna cry?" mocked the Dreadnok with the chainsaw.
"They can cry as much as they want," chimed in Chrysalis cheerfully, "just as long as they do it on their knees!"
Chrysalis laughed maniacally, and the Dreadnoks joined in once more, and so, too, did the robot army they had brought, adding an eerily synchronized undertone to the chorus of laughs.
"This is just too perfect!" cheered Chrysalis, pumping her fists in front of her in an expression that was positively giddy before turning around to walk to the back of the council chamber. "This is the day that I've dreamed of since I was small. In fact, I could almost sing about it."
"Aww, why 'almost'? You have a lovely singing voice," complimented the Dreadnok with the flamethrower on his back.
"True, but if you're going to compliment me, could you at least do it for something that you would have had a snowball's chance in Vacuo of finding out about?!" ranted Chrysalis, spinning around and glowering frightfully at her minions before turning back to continue her walk. "Still, maybe I should start singing again. Oh, but what to sing? What to sing? Something about the conquering of Atlas, obviously…"
Winter had nothing going on in her head, nothing at all. It was like the explosions that had killed the Atlesian council had in turn blown away everything that she could comprehend. She tried to think of a way out of it, some way they could continue on, but nothing came to her. It seemed completely hopeless.
Then, suddenly, General Flagg rushed towards the Dreadnoks circling them with a mighty shout that seemed to echo through the ages of, "YO JOE!"
He leapt out and upon the motorbike of the Dreadnok with the scrabbly gold necklace, grappling with him and wrenching his rifle up to fire upon the backpack of the Dreadnok with the flamethrower. The backpack ignited, and the Dreadnok threw it away before it exploded in a fireball amongst a group of the guarding androids. Flagg, not being idle, had no sooner shot the second Dreadnok than did he lift the first up and throw him at the one wielding a chainsaw to knock him from his bike. Taking hold of the controls of the bike he had commandeered, he drove it towards the bike driven by the pink-haired form of the sole female amongst the Dreadnoks, leaping from the vehicle just in time to avoid the collision and the following explosion.
The others left behind were not the types to stand about slack-jawed though, and so it was that when Flagg began his assault in earnest, so too did they rush out with their own shouts of, "Yoooo Joe!"
For some amongst the company, they were ignorant of those words or what they meant, but nonetheless, the shouts that came from their throats and the throats of others filled them anew with the will to fight on. Where hope had lain crushed just moments before, it now stood tall and proud, flanked by the resplendent forms of duty and righteous fury. Even the true Councilor Sylvia, though she had been a tortured wretch just an hour before, seemed to have become as strong as ten men and twice as strident!
In an instant, the tides had turned, and the hunters had become the hunted. Though it seemed impossible, the robotic assailants appeared to have been overcome by a tremulous fear, and their combat performance suffered. Shots were fired wildly, and all combat discipline amongst the wicked forces of those who sought to enslave Atlas evaporated as the struggle became a melee.
"What?!" snarled Chrysalis, whirling around to find her plans falling apart and the fist of General Flagg flying towards her face.
The punch landed squarely on her jaw, sending her flying to the ground and sending the control box for the androids spinning from her hand to clatter along the floor.
Chrysalis deployed a collapsible staff from a concealed position and swung the metal stick out to smash against Flagg's throat. The old man staggered from the hit but grappled the simple device all the same to prevent himself from being knocked away. The weapon became a prop between the two fighters, each jockeying for control of the other.
The short battle changed a few seconds into it, with Chrysalis letting go at the precise moment so that Flagg would overextend and stumble while she launched herself towards the control box still on the floor. She buzzed along with her wings but was stopped at the last moment by the staff being propelled at incredible speeds to hit her wings and clog up their flight patterns. She skittered along the floor and flipped over at the last second to see Flagg rushing towards her again.
Swiftly, she brought her gauntleted arms up and fired from concealed compartments two sickly green energy beams at the general. Flagg took the beams on the chest but reacted quickly to reply in his own account. He brought his arm up and deployed from a device strapped to it an energy shield that not only burst out to destroy his sleeve but also to protect himself from the energy blasts. Behind this energy field like a tower shield of old did the general advance forward through the beams until they cut off with an anti-climatic fizzle and Chrysalis was left to look at her now smoking gauntlets in frustration.
Close enough now, Flagg swept down and picked up the control box and, in a finish to the motion, hit the manual shutdown command.
"No!" shouted Chrysalis as the androids left in the room and across the kingdom turned off and collapsed like puppets with their strings cut.
"I win," said Flagg in mocking mimic of Chrysalis' earlier declaration.
BANG!
The shot, even amongst all the other discharges of weapons fire, rang out through the battered chambers. Flagg's aura flared, and the holdout pistol in Chrysalis's hand did likewise. The oversized round seemed to have briefly stunned him.
BANG!
His aura collapsed.
BANG!
His body jerked.
BANG!
Red droplets sprayed across the floor of the council chamber.
Flagg stood still for but a moment, as if time had not yet caught up to him. Inexorably though, time moved on, and so too did his fall. He hit the ground with a wet thump.
Breathing heavily, Chrysalis lowered the holdout magnum in her hand, and her look of rage changed to one of disdain.
"What useless sentimentality," she sneered.
Rapid clacking of heeled boots signaled the arrival of Winter Schnee with hate in her eyes and sword raised to strike. Chrysalis didn't even deign to gloat, merely throwing a shaped charge at the specialist. The blast connected and threw the albino woman back, but behind her were the rallying forces of the rest of her company.
"Dreadnoks, retreat!" called out Chrysalis.
"I thought you'd never ask!" cheered one of them as the two remaining Dreadnok cycles, piled high with their number, rushed past to allow Chrysalis to leap on.
As the Dreadnoks retreated, they deployed smoke dischargers, but even so, the swiftest of the company gave chase.
Winter was about to join them, a gravity glyph on the verge of forming to propel her and a fire of vengeance in her heart as she took sight of the body of General Flagg, when the comm set in her ear beeped. She took the call. What greeted her was a shock.
"Targeter, can you read me?"
"General Colton? You're alive!" exclaimed Winter in shock. "How…?"
"Holograms. I was never there," explained Colton quickly. "Listen, I know you're still upset after what just happened -- whole kingdom saw it -- but right now, I need your help. Chrysalis hired the Red Ninja Clan, and they've taken over the anti-gravity systems. Me and my squad are about to begin our assault. Get down here and reinforce us."
"Yes, sir. Targeter out," replied Winter, turning to find Sylvia looking at her with a mien full of righteous fury.
"I'm coming with you," declared Sylvia. "General Flagg saved my life; I feel I must avenge his."
Winter looked to see the medic of the company placing Flagg's body in a more dignified position signifying death and squashed the emotions she longed to show.
"Very well. Have you ever ridden a Nevermore before, Councilor?"
"We... should go," Bumblebee murmured as he backed away, shooing the Xiao Long-Rose sisters back behind him. He could feel his actuators trembling. The mere presence of the Decepticon leader was almost overwhelming, but thankfully, so far, it seemed that Megatron hadn't spotted them and seemed content with firing his turreted cannon at unseen targets down the road.
Megatron transformed back into bot mode, surveying his handiwork... then turned, glowing red optics fixing on the trio.
"Run!" Bumblebee ordered as he screwed his struts and charged, leaping toward the grey Decepticon. "I'll-urk!" He was interrupted as Megatron's hand blurred out, seizing him by the throat, catching him mid-leap.
"You'll what?" the Decepticon leader crooned as he held the Autobot off the ground. Bumblebee brought his energon battle pistol up, only for Megatron to bat it away with his other hand. "Hold me off? You?" He scowled disdainfully. "I should rip out your vocalizer for the insult, little scout."
"Let go of him!" blurted out Ruby, and terrible Megatron turned his optics upon her.
"No…" choked out Bumblebee.
"Ahh," Megatron cooed appreciatively. "You would be Yang Xiao Long and Ruby Rose. Your performance in the four on four match wasn't bad, though your teamwork could use some improvement." His optics shifted, and a cruel smile came upon his mouth. "But I suppose that's to be expected, given how little time you've spent together as a team. Nevertheless, it's so good to finally meet you... Sunfire."
Bumblebee looked to the side and saw Yang falter. She was off her game, and… Ruby… Ruby was shaking like a leaf and desperately trying to keep it under control… just like him. Primus, he'd never been so afraid in his life.
"It appears you all need a short, sharp lesson on combat," gloated Megatron.
Bumblebee felt himself tossed at the sisters with great force, flipping through the air and crashing against the ground hard enough to churn up the pavement.
"Very well. Class is now in session."
Bumblebee coughed but forced himself back to his feet, struggling as his circuits froze under the sheer oppressive weight of Megatron's presence. Ruby had already burst off to the side to land on top of a building and was firing at Megatron while running. Yang had taken the opposite route and was recoil boosting through the air while firing down upon the leader of the Decepticons. He drew his own backup blaster, opened fire, and watched in horror as the energy bolts scattered off the mad dictator's structural integrity field.
Megatron extended an energon flail from the huge fusion cannon mounted to his right arm and flung it around Yang, pulling her close, bringing the blonde brawler up to intercept Ruby's shot just as the silver-eyed girl fired.
"Yang!"
"Lesson one," Megatron said calmly as he flung the blonde, sending her spinning into Bumblebee with a wet chunk. "Check your targets."
While Bumblebee crouched down, trembling as he checked on his partner. Megatron retracted the energon flail, bringing the fusion cannon up, and fired at the building Ruby was perched on, sending her flying away while the building exploded to let forth screams of terror from the burning ruins of the buildings next to it.
"Lesson two," he continued. "Mind your footing." He tilted his head contemplatively. "And lesson three: You can't save everyone."
"Maybe not!" Ruby retorted bravely as she landed on the street and fired again, the round pinging off Megatron's aura. "But I can try!"
Megatron snorted. "And in so doing, you would simply doom the few you could have saved. Such heroic nonsense. I wonder, how many people just died because you chose their building to fight from?"
Ruby's only reply was another shot, one that would have taken out one of his optics had it not been for his structural integrity field.
As Megatron focused in on the little reaper, the pressure in the air seemed to relent a little, and Bumblebee's attention was drawn back down by a groan and a shudder. "Anyone get the number of the truck that hit me?" Yang moaned, shivering a little from the lingering effects of Megatron's malice.
"Not a truck," Bumblebee corrected absentmindedly, looking down at her. "A tank."
Yang stopped rubbing her head and looked up at him questioningly. "A what?"
"A tank," he repeated. "That's Megatron's alt-mode."
Further discussion was interrupted as Ruby was sent bodily flying past them, bursting into a cloud of rose petals to land and regain her footing.
"Ruby!" Yang cried. She snapped her head around to glare at Megatron, just as the Decepticon leader's focus shifted to the two yellow-themed Autobots, pressing down like a weight upon them. She hesitated, then her hair began to glow as she levered herself to her feet, shoving her arms into the ground, then fired gravity rounds from Ember Celica, launching herself at the Decepticon leader.
"No!" Bee cried out as Yang hurtled toward Megatron. She brought her arms up as Megatron backhanded her out of the air, catching the blow on her shot-gauntlets. She tumbled through the air, and Bumblebee took the opportunity to open fire. Megatron blocked his shots with his arm and sneered.
More gravity rounds sent Yang, now glowing brighter than ever, streaking through the air back at Megatron, who braced for her semblance-enhanced blow, the stored energy detonating against his forearms in a brilliant explosion that blinded Bumblebee.
When his optics cleared, he saw Yang fall to the ground, struggling to regain her feet again.
"Not a bad effort," complimented Megatron. "Lesson four: Know your limits."
He raised a hand, and another round from Crescent Rose pinged off his hand harmlessly.
"Lesson five," he said as he fired again, blasting Ruby from her newest roost. "Coordinate. Tell me, how long were you two running around each other, working at cross-purposes, blind to each other's activities?"
Those burning red optics turned to gaze on Bumblebee, practically pinning him in place. "And now for you, little scout."
It was then that a horn sounded, distant but growing closer, and Bumblebee smiled.
"Looks like your time is up, Megatron."
"Ah, yes," the Decepticon leader said, "it seems the cavalry is about to arrive." He smiled. "Excellent."
Signal lights flashed from the riverfront, and Captain Wilder stared at the repeating pattern. He could barely see the man standing by the signal lamp with a landline handset to his ear, a long cord snaking across the ground into a residential building. He glanced at his signaller skeptically.
"They want us to fire at the middle wall?"
The young sailor nodded. "That's what he's saying, sir. Emergency recognition codes check out."
Wilder closed his eyes as he considered. He had hoped to never have to fire his ship's guns into the city, but needs must. The two outer walls must have been breached, with something big and nasty about to make short work of the inner wall, something that needed some serious firepower to kill, firepower like the Hama's eight-inch guns or the fixed siege guns that were, unfortunately, unable to bear on the target area.
"Coordinates?"
The signaller spoke, waiting through the signal pattern and verifying it.
Wilder gave the order and passed the coordinates to his Weapons Officer.
"Firing ranging shots, aye."
Captain Wilder suppressed a wince as his order was acknowledged.
He would pit his gunnery crew's marksmanship against any other ship's, the Hama's fire control systems were quite capable, and they had a pretty good idea on the range, based on where in the city the target was. But "a pretty good idea" wasn't enough to start lobbing volleys of nine 8-inch armor-piercing shells into the city without verifying first.
So, ranging shots would be necessary. The colored smoke shells should be mostly harmless, but there was always the risk of the fire dust causing secondary fires or even just the sheer mass hurting or killing some unfortunate soul who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The great guns spoke, firing a volley into the twilight sky over the city. Moments later, the signal lights began flashing rapidly.
"Green smoke one hundred feet long, twenty feet off to starboard. Orange smoke fifty feet short, on target," translated the signaller.
"Adjusting... we have a firing solution."
Wilder gave a curt nod. "WEPS," he said, "fire for effect, all guns, maximum rate, four salvos."
The guns thundered, then again and again and again, sending three-hundred-pound shells screaming to a target, sight unseen, the nature of which the crew of the Hama remained unclear on, thanks to limits of time and the signal light codes.
Out near the inner wall, Lennox watched in frustration as the giant Decepticon turned, his attention drawn by fire from VAV X-Ray, one of the few Valish military air vessels in the city's vicinity. The shells struck the metallic titan in the side of his head and back, to little apparent effect, and he charged, leaping into the air to grab the low-flying airship. As he landed with an impact that caused the ground to tremble, he brought the airship down on his shoulders, snapping it in two.
"HAHAHA!" the green and purple Decepticon bellowed. "Nothing defeats the Devastator! Nothing! Prepare for extermination!"
The so-named Devastator turned and reached up a hand toward a turret that was blasting away at him ineffectually, covering the entire thing in his metallic paw, then squeezing and crushing it completely.
The monstrous robot ignored the small arms fire and even the heavier weapons some Huntsmen preferred. They'd managed to wheel around a 3.5-inch anti-air gun, but after a few shots, it had simply torn off a section of the wall and hurled it at the repurposed AA gun, wrecking it. The siege cannons meant to defend the city against Behemoth-class Grimm, of course, would have been ideal, but with where it had emerged, they simply couldn't be brought to bear.
There was only one mobile platform he could think of that had big enough guns that might work, and accessing the city's landlines to get in touch with someone who could contact the Hama through signal lamps had been... a challenge. Clutching the landline handset, Lennox watched and hoped and prayed.
With green and orange smoke shells still casting a dim and eerie light across the battlefield, the first true volley arrived, the eight-inch shells just barely clearing the inner wall before smashing into the giant robot's chest, sending him staggering backwards until he fell onto a section of the middle wall, where the second and third volley of shells struck him. With a snarl, the mighty combiner levered himself out and, now braced for the impact, faced the final volley as they exploded against his chest with no visible effect.
And he laughed.
"We're gonna need a bigger boat," Lennox hissed in frustration. A bigger boat, after all, could carry bigger guns, and it was pretty clear they needed bigger guns. He lifted the handset back up to his head. "Keep firing!"
As the naval shells kept raining down, he saw one of the Huntress students he'd met earlier joining the fight, a collection of swords floating around her, pointed at the metallic titan.
"Another power cable broke!"
"We need a fire extinguisher!"
"Isolate the break and reroute the power!"
The shouts from the semi-controlled chaos of the Decepticon ship filtered into the gap in the wall that Blake and the rest of her team were crawling through like mice. It was something that honestly made a little voice at the back of her head talk about how they should just let the Decepticons destroy themselves and get out of there, but an even larger part of her mind screamed at her about how they needed to strike now while the iron was hot and that they were the only ones who could do it. It was that voice that pushed her forward, deeper into the ship.
There was a slap to her hip, and Blake looked back to see Weiss glaring at her.
"What?" hissed Blake.
"Stop it," whispered back Weiss. "Stop doing that thing you do where you think that you're the only one who can save the world and so you do something stupid."
"Blake's not going to do something stupid," insisted Sun from behind Weiss.
"Yeah, I am," agreed Neptune from behind him.
"Yeah, Nep-what?!" reacted Sun.
"Stumbled over the catch for the panel we're on," explained Neptune.
There was a brief moment as the four Huntsman students were given a split second of looking at each other in the gloom before the floor gave out under them and they were sent screaming into the unknown.
"What was that?" asked one of the Decepticons out in the hall. He looked around for a few seconds with his blaster to his shoulder, and then he dropped his ready stance and began to walk off. "Must have been a loose vent."
The four Huntsman trainees rolled down through the bowels of the ship, tumbling down a series of slopes that seemed to be funneling them towards a frail looking grate that they hit at great speed-
"-information to Optimus."
-into the middle of a conversation, the four Huntsmen fell with remarkable grace for a tumbling mass of limbs.
"What the scrap is this, Punch?" demanded a rather aggressive voice. "Or should I say… Counterpunch?"
Blake rubbed her head and looked up to see them situated between two Cybertronians. One was the Decepticon who had left them that flash drive so many months ago during their infiltration of the underground base. The other… was Cliffjumper. She recognized him from the bodycam footage captured by Team JNPR during their mission to Mountain Glenn and beyond.
What was he doing there? Why was he there? How was he there?!
"What," came the flat reply from the mysterious Decepticon.
"Don't play dumb with me, Counterpunch!" ordered Cliffjumper, tightening his grip on his oversized hand cannon. "I should have known you'd go in too deep. Now you're actively cavorting with Huntsmen and turning them against your fellow Autobot. Disgusting. If Optimus knew what you were doing-"
"Does Optimus know what you're doing?" asked the so named Counterpunch.
Cliffjumper paused. "Well, no, but that's irrelevant. The point is that the Huntsmen and the Autobots are at war, and you're working with them."
"Uh, excuse me," spoke up Neptune, bringing both sets of giant eyes down to him and the rest of the Huntsmen. It was either the stupidest thing he had done yet or the smartest, and at that moment, Blake wasn't sure which one. "Who are you two? And what's an Autobot? Are we supposed to be fighting? I've never heard of you before."
Cliffjumper pointed another hand cannon down at them. "Don't play coy with me, Huntsman. You should know very well that your people have declared war on us. No doubt because we stand in the way of your pillaging of villages."
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" shouted Sun, jumping in front of Neptune. "Whoa. Let's not do anything hasty."
"Too late for that by a quartex," commented Counterpunch. "Come on now, Cliffjumper, we don't have time for your paranoid delusions."
Weiss raised her hand. "Do we have time for an explanation? We sort of fell into the middle of this."
"You gave us the flash drive back when we snuck into that base," remembered Blake aloud. "You're a spy, aren't you?"
"I can neither confirm nor deny that," replied Counterpunch, arms crossed. "However, if the information that was stolen was to find its way back to Optimus Prime, that would hardly be the worst thing ever. Now, Cliff-"
"You aren't paying attention!" Cliffjumper interrupted. "I saw them! Team Coffee was working with Soundwave's little minions, and when I realized what was going on, they opened fire on me! Wrecked all the anti-Grimm defenses I'd set up for Lower Cairn!"
"That isn't how they tell it," commented Blake out the side of her mouth.
"The report they gave said the opposite," revealed Weiss. "They claimed that you attacked first, destroyed the town's defenses, and tried to enslave the townspeople."
One of Cliffjumper's guns lowered. "Did they now?"
"Sounds like they were just trying to cover their own butts," commented Neptune wryly, putting his hands up behind his head.
"Cliffjumper, did you try any asset denial?" inquired Counterpunch.
"Of course," confirmed Cliffjumper, puffing up his chest.
Counterpunch sighed. "Okay, so they weren't completely covering their tailpipes. You five can talk that out later. Right now, we still need to get that jammer down, or things are going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better."
"And how are we going to do that?" asked Sun pointedly.
Cliffjumper snorted. "Sabotage, duh. I overheard that the jammer was made by Starscream, which means there's already a good chance that it explodes. All I have to is find the right tiny fiddly bits to upset, and the whole thing will live down to ol' Screamer's reputation, and he'll get the blame too. It's the perfect plan. All I need to do is find a way to get into those hard to reach areas."
There was a moment of quiet, and then Counterpunch pointed at the Huntsman trainees in what was probably annoyance.
"What?!" gaped Cliffjumper, clearly surprised enough that he actually put away his weapons. "I can't work with them; they're Huntsmen! Who knows when they'll stab me in the back? You can't trust them at all, Punch."
"Hey, we're plenty trustworthy!" complained Weiss.
Cliffjumper glared at them with renewed fury. "You Huntsmen are just one bounced check away from banditry."
"What's a check?" asked Sun, cocking his head.
"Kids these days," scoffed the red Autobot with a roll of his eyes.
Blake decided that was the moment to speak up. "Financial situation aside, we do have tiny hands, and we don't like the Decepticons-"
"I'll believe it when I see it," interrupted Cliffjumper.
Blake continued unimpeded. "-so we're the perfect fit to team up with. Assuming of course that you can remain hidden and not give us away."
"And what makes you think that you can remain undetected?" asked Cliffjumper snidely.
"I am a ninja," answered Blake bluntly.
Cliffjumper seemed taken aback and blinked in surprise. "Okay, so maybe you won't be completely useless. Assuming you can find a way out, that is."
"Assuming it hasn't been discovered, we can get out the way we came in," replied Blake confidently.
Cliffjumper grunted. "Shame I can't do that."
"Oh yeah, how did you get on?" asked Sun curiously.
"I swam, duh," was Clifffjumper's succinct answer.
Weiss cocked her head in confusion. "How…?"
"Just don't question it," interrupted Counterpunch. "Trust me, you'll be far less likely to overheat your brain module if you do. We've all learned to do the same."
Since taking to the skies, Thundercracker had steered clear of the main dogfight. So far, no one had challenged him on it, aside from a snide remark on his cowardice, but... well, that was Superion there, and even on the best of days, that was a fight he wanted no part in.
"Thundercracker." The directed transmission startled him out of his thoughts.
"What do you want, Skywarp?"
"Devastator's requesting air support. Some heavy artillery's annoying him, and we're kinda busy playing keep-away with Superion."
"Right right," Thundercracker grumbled, banking over to the breach in the walls that marked the gestalt's position. From up here, among the buildings and fortified defenses, even a gestalt was hard to pick out, but the thunderous sound of heavy guns drew his attention, and he saw a wet navy vessel in the river, its guns speaking with deadly intent. Tracing the arc of the surface combatant's fire, he finally spotted Devastator, shielding his face from- from a powerful green energy beam.
Penny.
For a moment, time seemed to slow down.
For as long as Thundercracker could remember, all he'd ever wanted to do was fly. The Decepticons had given him that. Ever since the war started, he'd followed orders, done what he was told. Except once. When they'd started bombing neutrals, he'd gotten in Starscream's grill and demanded a front line posting. He'd gotten it. At least the Autobots shot back. It was easier that way. Easier to keep his head down, follow orders, keep his brain module off- off what they were doing.
But now? Now, he realized he had a choice. Two lives lay before him.
It was no choice at all.
I'm going to regret this, he thought as he banked hard toward his target, picking out the target for his drone rockets. The heavy guided missiles weren't exactly suited for this kind of task -- they were designed for bunker busting at stand-off ranges -- but they would do the job. He hoped.
He fired. The two drone rockets expended only a tiny fraction of their fuel load before smashing into Devastator and unleashing a combined three tons worth of explosive power at point-blank range. The mighty gestalt staggered under the force of the twin explosions, but Thundercracker ignored him.
That kind of firepower wouldn't take down a combiner. That wasn't the point.
The Seeker -- Traitor, he reminded himself -- instead dove down to street level, converting into his bot mode to land on the street. "Penny!" he called, looking around.
"What do you want, Thundercracker?" The question was cold and hard.
He flinched and turned to see Penny in her Fracas suit standing atop the wall. The shoulder pauldrons on the suit were pitted and scarred, the emblems that had once graced them burned away in favor of a crudely painted Atlas logo. "Penny." He breathed a sigh of relief. "You're okay."
"What. Do. You. Want?" she repeated.
"Penny-" he implored.
"You lied to me!" she shrieked, cutting him off.
"I swear, Penny, I meant what I said," he answered desperately. "I didn't know-"
"Not about that!" she interrupted. "About the Decepticons! About who they really are! About who you really are."
Any protest died in Thundercracker's vocalizer. Instead, he said, "I've been in this war almost since the beginning, Penny. It's... easy to lose sight of how things have changed since then."
"How long, Thundercracker?" she demanded. "How long before they would have turned me into a weapon?!"
He stared at her incredulously.
"I mean against innocent people!" she amended. "How long before they- they reprogrammed me?"
"I wouldn't have let that happen!" he protested fiercely. "I said I'd protect you, Penny, and I meant it!"
She peered up at him hesitantly, and on some whim, her helmet's front retreated such that her hurt and hopeful expression could be seen. "You- you really mean it."
"Of course I mean it, Penny," he said. "You... the Decepticons gave my life meaning, Penny. The freedom to fly, the power to do what you want, they're tempting things when you have nothing."
She looked at him thoughtfully. "And now?"
"The only thing more dangerous than a bot with nothing to lose... is a bot with everything to lose."
"And what do you have to lose?" asked Penny curiously, the battle around them seeming to fade away.
He looked away. "Honor, respect... you."
Penny raised an eyebrow, not that he saw it.
"The real you, I mean. You're right, I could just take you to Soundwave, and he could have you reprogrammed into a loyal Decepticon, but that wouldn't be you," explained Thundercracker shamefully. "That wouldn't be the Penny who lights up the room with her smile. That wouldn't be the Penny who makes everyone want to protect her just by living her best life. That wouldn't be the Penny who keeps running forward, no matter how many obstacles get in her way." He turned to look at her again. "That wouldn't be the Penny who I consider my friend."
The coppertop smiled again. "Friendship is magic."
Thundercracker chuckled. "It sounds better when General Ironwood says it."
"Yes, but he doesn't say it nearly often enough, in my opinion," replied Penny. "You'd almost think he didn't say it at all."
"He can say it more after we save the day," declared Thundercracker, gesturing to the frantic battle that was still being waged all around them with thunderous explosions almost drowning out their conversation completely.
Penny nodded, and her helmet once again snapped to cover her face. "I'm combat ready."
"And so am I," declared Thundercracker.
With that, Penny leapt into the air on tongues of burning fire from her back, and her armored suit shifted and changed into the form of a giant pistol, a contortion that would be painful -- if not fatal -- for most people, but the coppertopped student inside was not most people. There were a few things notable about it, all quite academic, though, to those who saw it. All that mattered was what happened when Thundercracker's hand wrapped around the grip of Penny's new form.
Something happened then, and Thundercracker leaped into the sky with newfound energy and a pulse that seemed to brighten the dimming light like a sliding switch. It drew the attention of all the defenders remaining, and so too did it draw the attention of Devastator. The combiner looked upon the ascending pair, and a worried frown crossed his features.
"Thundercracker, what are you doing?" demanded Devastator.
"Binary!" shouted Thundercracker.
"Fusion!" continued Penny.
Devastator's face fell. "Oh no."
"Gyrocannon!" declared Thundercracker and Penny in unison.
Both their auras seemed to be rapidly pulsing in tandem with each other when Penny's gun form was pointed at the big combiner, and a final flash snapped out from her barrel. Time and sound seemed to stop, and then all at once, they came rushing back. A gigantic blue-green beam of unquantifiable energy like a torrent came out and lit up the evening to strike Devastator in the chest.
The ultimate Decepticon combiner howled in shock and pain as his structural integrity field, which had withstood so much over the course of the battle without fail, suddenly shattered into a thousand pieces, even as he himself shattered into six. The individual parts of the gestalt were sent flying through the air with smoke trailing from their bodies. Just like that, Devastator had been devastated.
Groaning, Scrapper got himself out of the comedic heap that he had landed in to hoarsely shout to the heavens. "You think that's enough to beat us? You ain't seen nothin' ye-"
The blast of a truck horn split the air and seemed to carry over all the sounds of battle, drawing the attention of all. The defenders appeared rejuvenated, the Decepticons paled, Thundercracker looked as if he was being torn in two. Even the Grimm reacted, briefly cowering as if the sound of the horn was a great offense to them.
"Oh, scrap this," cursed Scrapper in fear. "Constructicons, retreat!"
They transformed and did as ordered, fleeing with small arms fire peppering them the whole way.
Thundercracker trembled as he watched them go, but comforting words from his companion stopped those quakes. "Don't worry, Friend Thundercracker, we'll protect you."
The irony of the statement made Thundercracker snort in amusement. "Well, I suppose that's for the future. Right now, we still have a battle to win."
"That's right," agreed Penny, and then a brief pause precluded her panicked statement. "Oh no! Aska sent me back to get reinforcements!"
Thundercracker looked at the transformed pistol in his hand in equal panic. "What?! Penny, you can't just-! We've got to save them!"
With that, the pair transformed again, Thundercracker becoming a blue Skystriker with Penny's armored form as a gun pod mounted on one of his fuselage pylons, and rushed out the short mile until they ran into two more of the team.
Shadow was, true to form, darting and rushing between Grimm and killing them with devastating elemental attacks from her sword along with all manner of ninja trickery that made one's head spin trying to comprehend it. Most untrue to form was how she was interacting with the other defenders, communicating with them and trying to make best use of their supporting fire to take down the enemy. It seemed like she was finally starting to grow into her leadership role.
Mad Dog didn't seem to have any backup, but he didn't seem to need any. He was a one-man army, his powered armor tramping into the enemy lines with thundering autocannons, shrieking mini-missiles, and beating pulse lasers. The Creeps that came from below fared just as poorly as the Griffins that fell from the sky.
Farsight… Farsight couldn't be seen, and for a moment, Thundercracker despaired that she might have been lost. Then, a titanic explosion tore through a Ziraph some distance out, decapitating all three of its heads. As he flew over the battlefield on a strafing run, he then saw a figure with a satchel charge spinning it around to throw at a Goliath.
Penny gasped. "That's Ciel! I mean Farsight! What's she doing so far out ahead of everyone? That isn't like her at all."
"Does it matter?" Thundercracker asked as he banked around for a pass. "She looks like she could use some air support."
The variable aperture of Penny's Targetmaster mode blossomed open like a flower, and they fired, the beam dispersing to carve a wide swathe through the Grimm swarming toward Farsight. Thundercracker followed it up by transforming and using Penny as a pistol to take out more Grimm. He crouched down while his partner continued shooting and held out his hand for the blue-haired woman, who turned to gaze upon him.
"Come on!" he insisted. "Let's get out of here!"
Farsight's eyes peered into him, through him, in a way that he had seen before but always found really creepy.
"Tell me, Thundercracker," she asked, "have you figured out where your loyalties lie yet?"
"Yes! I'll explain later, but right now, we have to go!" insisted Thundercracker.
"Come on, Farsight!" cried Penny.
That did it. With a single hop, Farsight covered the distance between them and leapt into his hand. Thundercracker took that as his cue then to leap backwards with an assist of his engine feet and book it back to friendlier lines, even as fresh Grimm were nipping at his heels.
"What were you thinking, Farsight?" demanded Penny before unleashing a fusillade of energy blasts from her gun form. "You could have been killed!"
"Someone had to keep you kids safe while you retreated," explained Farsight as her perch crashed back into the ground.
"I'd just like to point out that I'm older than any recorded thing native to this planet," said Thundercracker before letting go of Penny. "So, technically, not a kid."
Penny fell to the churned up soil and transformed back into her power armored form. "I can still keep going."
"No, we've got to pace ourselves, or we're going to burn out our stru- aura," contradicted Thundercracker before firing off a shoulder cannon at the Grimm. "It looks like it's going to be a long night."
"Sticking around?" asked Farsight as she drew forth Distant Thunder from her back and braced it on his fingers.
"Why not?" asked Thundercracker, glancing back to where the defenders seemed to have rallied and were rushing towards them. "After all, this is what I'm signing up for."
The battle had already moved on by the time the giant ephemeral Nevermore that carried Sylvia and Winter arrived at the entrance to the tunnels that led directly to innermost workings of Atlas. Scattered combat androids could be seen all around, but while some were destroyed or damaged, most were shut down. Signs of battle were still about the place though, from small craters to unsightly splatters.
Sylvia tightened her wrap around Winter's belly as the Nevermore beneath them disappeared and they fell momentarily before landing on the back of a Pride Leader Sabyr that galloped through the open door to the innards.
She shouldn't even be able to stand after years of mistreatment and abuse and torture and all manner of unsightly vexations inflicted upon her, but instead, she felt better than she had since graduating Crystal Prep. She knew why too. It didn't make sense, but she knew why her strength was rushing back into her a thousandfold.
This was a day of destiny. She could feel the weight of history pressing down on her with the weight of ten million years, and with each crushing pound upon her back, she stood all the straighter. Every second counted, and she would not be found wanting!
More than that, she felt the obligation to make sure that General Flagg's death was not in vain. When no one else had realized what had happened to her, he had pushed and pushed, putting everything on the line to save her, to expose her kidnapper, and in the end, he had paid the ultimate price. Such a gift was non-refundable, and she had to use it as best as was possible so that she did not dishonor the real Atlesian hero who had purchased it.
The silver-eyed man who had been like a father to her told her that there would be days like this, days when purpose upon purpose would stack upon her, and he had told her in equal measure to prepare for them. He told her many other things too, after he had found her on the streets of Stratusburg when she was but a child, and those lessons came flooding back to her as the spectral Grimm beneath her pounded through the halls. She remembered his kindness, his wisdom, his skill, his determination, his virtue, but most of all, she remembered his smile and how he never stopped smiling, even at the end, when the dark hunters of the Enemy had caught up to them so soon after her graduation.
Too many. Too many brave and stalwart heroes had given their lives for hers. It was time she showed them that their faith was not misplaced!
They entered a large storage room, and suddenly, they were in the middle of a pitched battle. Valiant soldiers of Atlas on one side exchanged fire with ninjas in red gis on the other side, and in the middle of it all was General Joe Colton. The aged general fought with the strength of a hundred men and was dodging ranged fire while fighting in melee with no less than twelve shadow warriors who could not harm him, as evidenced when he caught the katana of one lightning strike in one hand and shattered it with his legendary Kung-Fu Grip.
"Idiots!" shouted a man with a painted face partially concealed by a hood from the back of the ninjas' lines. "He's just one man!"
"A better man than your men, clearly," quipped back Colton with equal volume as he sent the ninjas who had been attacking him flying through the air with a single roundhouse kick that connected with all of them.
He really was something else, something impossible, like a hero from another age… which he technically was, Sylvia supposed.
The construct landed behind the lines and dissolved under the guidance of Specialist Winter Schnee, the one they called Targeter. No sooner had they hit the ground, though, than did she run off to join the battle, sword drawn. Sylvia was left on her own, save for the brave soldiers around her.
One of them was a sniper, with an eye no doubt keen and true, who took his gaze away from the battlefield for just a moment to look upon her. "Ma'am, do you need any assistance?"
"No," she replied. "I can take care of myself."
It was then that a change occurred, and a glowing silver projection of herself grew outwards to stand more than thrice her prior height with the power of semblance: Mountain Maiden.
"But thank you all the same!" Sylvia cried back as her new form took great strides towards the enemy.
It wasn't all of her, not really. Her physical body still existed at the center of the projection. It was just that her aura had expanded out to take on the appearance of a giant copy of herself. It was an esoteric semblance -- and not one particularly useful in her chosen profession -- but she was certainly glad of it now.
Halfway across the battlefield, she reached down and took hold of one of the crates without explosive warnings. She lifted it into the air and gave it a spinning toss that sent it flying across the warehouse. It would have hit that villain directing the ninjas square on had he not dodged at the last moment.
"Enough of this!" he yelled, seeming to disappear from sight as he did so. "Red Ninjas, evade!"
On his command, the ninjas remaining threw down smoke bombs where they stood and covered the area in a cloud that the human eye could not penetrate. Luckily for the Atlesians, they did not solely rely on the human eye.
"They've retreated deeper into the catacombs!" called out that same sniper Sylvia had seen before.
Sylvia's projection shrunk and ceased, and so she was left on the same level as the others when she voiced a worrying observation: "If they keep going that direction, they'll hit the core."
"They already have," revealed Colton sourly as he picked up a fallen intermediate caliber select-fire rifle. "Thanks to Chrysalis's disguise as you, they've gained access to all sorts of places where only a councilor can go and then gone a little bit further with their own illicit skills."
"Move out!" ordered one of the soldiers; who it was in particular, Sylvia was ashamed to say she didn't recognize.
Sylvia followed along as the soldiers split off into the many corridors to give pursuit. This part of Atlas was less populated than the levels around it, but that didn't mean it was unpopulated. Numerous people, many of them farmers, had seen their foes pass by and were eager to point them out. This proved to be a liability when they caught up with their quarry and a running battle between guns and shuriken erupted, as there were more than a few of those civilians caught in the crossfire. Some of them brought out their own weapons, but this far into the bowels of the most well-defended kingdom on Remnant, they hadn't felt the need for more than holdout pistols that would be of little use against a trained ninja warrior.
The thunder of weapons fire echoed through the halls, but that echo eventually subsided for the contingent Sylvia was with when they broke through into a large room filled with plants. They had entered one of the hothouses that kept the city fed, with large trees growing throughout the room. A label just off the raised path indicated them as Orange family brand orange trees, though they were hardly weighed down with fruit to a great extent at that time.
Their enemy had disappeared, but that was a mere consequence of terrain. They would show up again; of that, Sylvia was certain. Villains like them could not resist a chance to strike at the heroes; it was as certain as the tides.
A glance up confirmed that suspicion.
"Winter! Above!" the silver-eyed woman called out.
The albino brought her swords up in a defensive position in time to catch the sword strike of a Red Ninja leaping from the trees, and then deflected it away. There was a battle cry, and more descended upon the rest of them. Combat was joined with all of them, but Sylvia could only focus on herself.
She rolled to avoid the nunchaku of her assailant and activated the power of Mountain Maiden once more. With one giant silver hand, she grabbed hold of the Red Ninja and was about to throw him into the ground like she was a petulant child with a toy that had lost its joy. Unfortunately, her opponent was a ninja, and he managed to disappear from her grasp just in the nick of time.
This wasn't the first time Sylvia had faced a ninja though, and so she was prepared when her foe came at her from behind to try and strike her. She was able to stun him with a back fist and then sweep him into the air with a giant low kick that sent him flying into one of the trees with his aura sputtering. Before he could recover, a swift punch from her sent him headfirst into the metal of the path with a reverberating clang.
He wouldn't be getting up from that any time soon, and as Sylvia looked around, she found that the others had defeated their foes as well.
"That was a dumb move, challenging a master of jungle warfare in a hothouse," said one soldier with a mustache and a hat bent one one side.
Sylvia wasn't sure that made sense, but she couldn't argue with results.
"Come on, there's more where this came from," said Winter.
Sylvia wished those words had not been prophetic, but they had. They fought a great number of foes on their way to the core. This continued down and down until they were nearing that all-too-important part of Atlas themselves.
BOOM!
Zartan wasn't exactly happy with the way this job was going. It had started off easy enough, infiltrating the Dreadnoks into key positions in the Council Guard, suborning some, ousting others, and arranging for the more principled and high profile Council Guardsmen to be transferred to irresistible postings. What, exactly, Chrysalis had wanted had been vague, except she seemed aware that her own long-term infiltration was under threat.
Colton's return probably had something to do with that.
Now, however, his Dreadnoks and the Red Ninjas he had hired were losing ground, and escape was looking... difficult. He glanced at Monkeywrench, who was hunched over a computer console, having accessed it with the good councilor's codes. That little distraction would be quite sufficient, even if it meant sacrificing a city of potential customers, but it seemed he needed more time.
His eyes tracked across the battlefield until they zeroed in on where Councilor Sylvia -- the real Councilor Sylvia, that is -- was clutching her head from the explosion of the micro-rocket he'd fired to get some breathing room.
He needed time, and if the councilor were in need of medical attention... well. On the other hand, while a wounded councilor would buy it for him, a dead one would likely earn him a few extra bullet holes, just to be sure. He glanced above her, to the pipes running along the ceiling. Who knew what chemicals ran through those pipes?
Zartan snapped his break-action micro-rocket launcher shut and raised it, aiming at the ceiling above the councilor.
"Nothing personal, Councilor," he said quietly. "Just business."
He fired.
Neptune nearly stumbled as another explosion shook the ship.
"I think we might have overdone it," he dryly commented.
"Nah, this is pretty standard for Starscream's mishaps," replied Cliffjumper.
They had just entered the corridor where they had left the Bullhead, and somehow, they hadn't been discovered by the Decepticons. To be fair, they had a lot of other things to worry about. Not to mention that Cliffjumper had let them ride in him while he was invisible and in vehicle mode for a while.
That had been awkward.
"You gotta be kidding me," commented Cliffjumper as he found himself looking at the Bullhead. "You came in on that hunk of junk?"
"Hey, she's not that bad," defended Sun.
"Certainly better than swimming," agreed Weiss.
"Can we argue about this after we get off the exploding ship?" asked Blake as she scrambled into the airship and then the cockpit.
The rest of the Huntsmen trainees followed her into the Bullhead… and so did Cliffjumper. The youngsters were left with about half a second of warning before the Autobot, in car form, came flying through the door to the cabin. Somehow, remarkably, they didn't get run over.
"Watch it!" complained Neptune.
"Hold on!" Blake shouted back over whatever was going to be said.
The engines of the Bullhead howled, and the VTOL lifted up into the air. It spun around and accelerated towards the malfunctioning door that had admitted them in the first place. It had started to close when they lifted off, but the craft was swift enough to just barely avoid being crushed, with a lick of flame from the thundering explosion escaping through that same gap on their tail.
Everyone in the Bullhead but Blake screamed as the aircraft dove down to the ground and twisted through the streets while performing an aileron roll.
"Land, Blake! Land!" shouted Sun as he held tightly onto the handle in front of Neptune and his blue-haired friend held onto him.
The craft leveled off, and with a groaning of what was hopefully not the inertial dampers, the Bullhead came to a stop on the street besides a ruined remains of the Blue Bridge that had once passed over one of Vale's large rivers. The landing gear had no sooner touched down than did the occupants scramble out of the vehicle. Blake followed at a more sedated pace.
"And you people call me crazy!" complained Cliffjumper as he transformed back into his robot mode.
"Look!" shouted Neptune, pointing back to the Decepticon ship floating above the city in the darkening sky.
Explosions rippled along the width and breadth of the vessel, and rays of light shined out of it in time with an ominous whine.
"It's going to explode over the city!" screamed Weiss in horror.
"Wait for it!" Cliffjumper declared, holding out his hand.
The noise and light built to a crescendo, and then, suddenly, when all seemed lost, everything stopped. A moment of tension held in the air, and so likewise did everyone watching hold their breath. Death was upon them.
Fewuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…
The sound, like air escaping from a balloon, echoed out from the Decepticon vessel.
Cracka-brak-brak-bawoosh.
A cringe-worthy noise of mechanical trouble followed, and then a giant cloud of black smoke shot out of a hatch on the top of the ship's nose briefly.
Then… nothing.
Everyone but Cliffjumper stared at the Decepticon ship.
"Ha! Told ya!" bragged Cliffjumper.
"What was that?!" shouted Neptune in confusion.
"That was a perfectly-executed Starscream screwup," declared Cliffjumper, brushing his knuckles against his front finish before blowing them off. "Big build up, big noise, but ultimately, minimal damage and a fizzle."
"But the explosions… 'minimal damage'?!" cried Weiss in frustration.
"Yep," replied Cliffjumper with a pop.
A set of TVs in a nearby store stopped projecting static, and a news report came on. "-breach has been confirmed! You heard it here first, people: a breach in Lost Valley Square-"
"Oh, will you look at that? Comms are back online," Cliffjumper smugly noted. "You're welcome."
The Huntsmen students wanted to complain, but before they could decide one way or the other, squealing tires alerted them to a newcomer, a red pickup truck. That newcomer transformed then in a leap to land near to them. Judging by the logo on him, he was an Autobot like Cliffjumper.
"Cliffjumper?!" he exclaimed in shock. "What in tarnation are you doin' here? No bot's seen chrome nor steel o' you since we fought the Predacons in Vacuo."
Cliffjumper turned in full to greet the newcomer. "I've been living on the edge, Ironhide, protecting those forgotten by the so-called defenders of this world. And that's including you."
Ironhide's eyes narrowed visibly. "Prime wants ta talk to ya, by the way. Something about you nearly starting a war. Said it would be a looong talk."
Cliffjumper seemed to pale a little, somehow.
"He said he was attacked first," Weiss said out of the blue.
Everyone turned to look at her.
"Really now?" drawled Ironhide.
"Yes, and… and I think he might be right," declared Weiss.
Neptune put a hand on her shoulder in comfort. Defending Cliffjumper might not have been the smartest idea in the world, and he didn't need to be familiar with the situation to see that, but it felt right. He backed them up, so they would back him up.
"Hmm," Ironhide considered, and then transformed back into a truck. "Something to talk about later. Right now, we still have a city to save and Deceptichops to bust."
With that, they all rushed back into danger.
"This is Hector Ramirez, live from Lost Valley Square -- and hopefully, recorded -- where three unknown robots appear to have created a breach right here in the heart of Vale."
The reporter was crouched behind a bus stop shelter as he narrated into the camera.
"It appears that two other robots, accompanied by the famed Team Juniper of Beacon, a Huntsman, and even a senior member of the White Fang are doing battle with these robots in an attempt to contain and seal the breach."
"Hey," complained a voice from behind him, drawing both Hector and his cameraman's attention, "I'm here too."
They turned to find an antlered reindeer faunus crouching behind the same bus stop shelter, clad in a White Fang outfit, complete with mask, and clutching a militia battle rifle. He peeked around the other end of the shelter and fired, though how much he was actually contributing to the fight was... debatable, given none of the hostile robots seemed inclined to notice.
Not that Hector was complaining. He liked being close to the action, not in it.
Hector ducked as something exploded, sending a piece of debris flying past his head.
He peeked around the bus shelter again, waving his cameraman forward. His eyes widened. "A breach has been confirmed! You heard it here first, people: a breach in Lost Valley Square has been confirmed. Grimm are entering the city! The robot saboteurs are now attempting to flee, but Jaune Arc, potential claimant to the Empty Throne, and Pyrrha Nikos, four-time Mistral Regional champion and this year's first-year Vytal Tournament champion are in hot pursuit, while the rest of the heroic Team Juniper and their allies attempt to hold back the Grimm and seal the breach."
"I'm sure it'll all be fixed in a minute," commented the White Fang grunt beside them.
The big green robot was knocked back on his keister by a colossal High King Taijitu barrelling out of the hole, black end first, widening it further with the bulk of its titanic circumference and followed by the far more raucous cries of yet more Grimm. Beowolves and Ursai clung to its scales, and in its wake, more Grimm -- Creeps and Karkadanns and Sleipnirs -- flooded out, followed by the slower, lumbering forms of Ogres and Cyclopes, themselves accompanied by the elk-horned Cerruns that, though capable of great speed, seemed content to stalk forward at a stately pace.
"Come on!" the White Fang leader bellowed at the High King Taijitu's black heads; it had three black heads, a sign of its age and strength, surely mirrored by the white end. "Hit me already!"
The High King Taijitu's black heads reared back, even as the white end slithered out of the tunnel and coiled around, presenting its three heads. One by one, the six heads lunged, striking the White Fang leader, who grunted but held his ground, blocking each blow with the battle rifle he held in his hands.
The rifle began to glow, brighter with each blow, and he swung it like a baseball bat. A flash of light blinded Hector as the White Fang leader struck, and the High King Taijitu recoiled, minus three heads: two black, one white.
"Tell me you got that," Hector begged, looking at his cameraman, who shot him a smile and a thumbs up.
Satisfied, he turned back to the action. The blond Huntsman was grappling with an Ogre, while the White Fang leader had transformed his rifle into its sword form and was dashing around, using it to skewer and slash the forefront of the Grimm incursion, alongside the less notable half of Team JNPR... Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie, that was it.
As the White Fang leader impaled an Ursa, however, a Beowolf slipped behind him and struck. He turned, just in time to catch the blow across his face, and though his aura seemed to hold, it still knocked him off his feet and sent his mask flying.
In the meantime, the High King Taijitu had recovered and was rearing back all its heads, zeroing in on the White Fang leader.
Before it could strike, though, gunfire sounded, first one, then a few dozen, then many more in a ragged volley. The thunder of heavier guns soon joined them, along with the whistle of a few rockets. Bullets and shells and rockets pelted the High King Taijitu before it could strike, causing it to rear back, until a pair of particularly loud cannons spoke, tearing the gigantic Grimm to pieces, the remains collapsing over the entrance, giving them a short breather..
"It appears reinforcements have arrived," Hector narrated into the camera. "The people of Vale have answered the call to arms with their personal weapons." He squinted. "And it appears a collector has brought out a pair of Great War vintage six-inch self-propelled assault guns too. Surely, with such a force, this Grimm incursion will be driven back!"
As if on cue, Jaune Arc and Pyrrha Nikos -- a couple who was dominating certain headlines -- returned, landing in the square.
The prince spoke. "They got away somehow," he reported grimly, shaking his head.
"Probably switched to their alt-modes," one of the robots -- the white one -- replied, his voice low and smooth. "Who knows what they look like now?"
"At least the breach seems to have been dealt with," observed the Champion of Mistral.
"No," the White Fang leader denied, shaking his head as he strode up, and Hector could see the brand on his face, three unmistakable letters. Silently, he waved furiously at his cameraman to get a close up. "This was only the first wave," continued the man with 'SDC' branded on his face. "Until we seal the tunnel, they'll keep coming. And we'll have to push them back pretty far, or they might surface elsewhere later, after undermining the foundations."
"You have a plan?" asked the prince.
The White Fang leader nodded, then turned to the crowd.
"Defenders of Vale!" he called, clearly well-practiced at projecting his voice to loud crowds. "My name is Adam Taurus, leader of the Vale White Fang. Once, I would have counted many of you among my enemies, but tonight, we face an enemy common to us all. The Grimm are coming, the same relentless tide that Huntsmen fight everyday, that others are fighting at the walls at this very moment, coming to kill us all and turn all we have built to ashes. Here we stand, with no walls, no battlements, no emplaced weapons to aid us."
He paused a moment, but before any real worry could find purchase in the crowd, he continued, "But Vale does not stand alone!" He gestured at the two robots, first the green one, then the white one. "Bulkhead and Jazz of the Autobots, experienced and talented warriors, enemies of the treacherous Decepticons, hail from the planet Cybertron." He then waved over to the prince's team. "Team Juniper, the Pride of Mistral itself, stands ready." Then the blond Huntsman. "Taiyang of Patch, skilled and brave. And I myself, born of Mistral, stand with you. It will not be easy, but the breach is small, a narrow tunnel which will force the Grimm into a killing zone, and if we push them back far enough, we can seal the breach far from any place that they could use to menace us again."
His gaze swept across the crowd, blue eyes seeming to challenge them, daring them to step up to the task before them... then he turned and ran, leaping into the hole from which the Grimm came.
At that, the green "Autobot" -- the one apparently named Bulkhead -- shrugged. "After a speech like that, I ain't stayin' up here." And matching actions to words with footsteps that caused the ground to tremble, Bulkhead jogged after Adam Taurus. He was not alone.
Hector stared, then turned back to the camera. "As you can see, Adam Taurus of the Vale White Fang is now leading the charge to push back the Grimm and seal this breach in the center of our fair city. Our hopes and prayers are with him, as they are with all the defenders of Vale."
He pulled out a pistol from under his jacket.
"Hector Ramirez, signing off."
"Beautiful, isn't it?" asked Megatron appreciatively.
Yang struggled to move in the grasp of the metal despot, but… she couldn't. His grip was too tight, but she still kept trying . She had to. Optimus was on his way, and she couldn't be a hostage to use against him.
"The Creatures of Grimm are pure evil," continued Megatron in that same semi-awed state. "They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity or remorse or fear... but this specimen is truly a cut above the rest."
Out in the ocean, the titanic form of the Leviathan Grimm plodded along, absorbing attacks to its bone-white armor that passed for skin as if it was nothing. Occasionally, the vile beast would unleash an energy beam that would sweep across a ship in the air or sea and send them down in flames. Still, the forces of Vale kept fighting, though that fight seemed impossible.
Megatron shifted his right foot, pressing it deeper into Bumblebee's chest. "Are you watching, Autobot? We wouldn't want you to miss any of the action, especially not when it was your own cowardice in speaking to the governments of this world that led to this."
Bumblebee didn't bother with a response. He just struggled all the harder, driven by the same feeling that drove Yang.
The leader of the Decepticons turned to look at Ruby caught in his other hand and smiled cruelly. "You of all Huntresses should be able to get out of this, but you don't know how, do you? You still haven't figured it out, even with all the evidence in front of you. If you had paid more attention to the Vytal Tournament like you were supposed to, perhaps you wouldn't be here right now."
Yang cursed ever allowing herself to get into this situation. It had all happened so fast, but she should have been faster. If she still hadn't been able to save herself, she should have at least been able to save her partner and her sister.
That heroic truck horn blew again, and this time, it was so loud that its position could not be mistaken. The familiar sound of transformation a second later confirmed it. Hope soared in Yang's chest at the two noises.
"Let them go, Megatron," ordered Optimus Prime seriously.
Megatron smirked. "Gladly."
When it happened, it happened all at once. Megatron shot his foot forward, kicking Bumblebee into the water. Then, simultaneously, he threw Yang and Ruby back into the city.
Yang skipped along the ground, her aura grinding away, before crashing through several abandoned food stands. When she eventually stopped, she was left a groaning mess that was struggling to get up. Get up she did, though, for she had people depending on her, and she was not about to let them down.
Stumbling to her feet, Yang felt her retinas burn from a sudden flash. It wasn't the same as when the atomic bomb had gone off, but it still… her mouth dropped.
Optimus Prime had engaged Megatron in single combat. The flash had come from the sudden impact of the glowing blue blade of Optimus's mighty two-handed rocket-propelled axe and the purple spiked flail that emerged from the barrel of Megatron's legendary fusion cannon. They struck out at each other again, and again, there was a flash and a booming crash.
On some unconscious level, Yang knew that she could never hope to participate in that contest of wills so ancient and powerful. They were both on another level. So she had to focus on what she could do.
She looked about and, with a horrified gasp, saw a torn and tattered red cloak catching the light of the setting sun. Yang ran to it, and as she ran, the air was torn asunder and howled with rushing wind that made her target flutter ominously. She was feeling out of breath by the time she reached the scarred raiment.
It was still attached, thankfully, to its owner. Her eyes were closed, but Ruby Rose was still gently moving in rhythm of her breathing. Not taking any chances, though, Yang dropped down to begin checking her vitals.
There were, thankfully, plenty of signs that she was stable. Which was good, because when Yang reached down to bring out her scroll and check their auras, she found that not only had she accidentally grabbed her burner scroll again, but that the cheap communication device had broken beyond all repair. It… pained her, strangely.
Luckily, she could sense an aura manually, even if she couldn't find her other scroll.
The thunder continued to rage, and yet even above that, words could be heard loud and clear.
"Prime! I knew it was you!" cried Megatron, deploying a blade from his left arm and parrying an axe strike. "I had to be sure though."
"So you attacked Vale?" asked Optimus in disgust before transforming into his alt-mode to duck under a strike and move behind his opponent.
"Of course!" confirmed Megatron, moving with swiftness to keep from being exposed. "I knew that if I ordered this city subjugated, then you would not be able to resist making an appearance, and now that you have, I don't have to worry about any part of this charade any longer."
"You're deranged," sneered Optimus, transforming again and taking aim with his ion blaster.
"No, Prime, I just know what I want and how to get it!"
Megatron transformed himself, absorbing quite a few blasts in the process and then unleashing a horrifically powerful single shot in return.
Yang turned away from the battle and back to her sister. She had to get her out of there and fast. She didn't have much time.
That point was underscored when Optimus's big form crashed along the ground, bringing him right next to where the sisters were. Yang turned and held in a gasp. There were a whole heap of fresh cuts and scrapes along the body of the leader of the Autobots. One of his tires was even torn!
"You should have just let me miss," declared Megatron, who was not looking much better, as he raised his fusion cannon and began to swing around the flail that came from it.
A yellow bolt of energy struck the ground between them, exploding with a brilliant flash.
"Insolent!" Megatron cried in anger.
For his part, Optimus took the opportunity to rise back to his feet, the dents and scrapes already healing from his aura, the aura that continued to amaze Yang with its power whenever she sensed it.
"I wouldn't be me if I did that," replied Optimus calmly.
"No, no, you wouldn't," agreed Megatron before whipping out his flail.
Again, the thunder of ages clashed above Yang's head, and this time, it was louder than ever. Loud enough, it seemed, to wake Ruby. Her silver eyes were open as big as pie plates, and she was starting to move, just as a shadow fell over them.
The two turned to see the familiar and slightly waterlogged forms of Bumblebee and Hot Rod, the former clutching his energon battle pistol, the latter with his energy bow out and glowing yellow.
"What happened to you?" yelled out Yang over the din of battle.
"There's Grimm Sharkticon things in the water!" complained Bumblebee. "The Decepticons really did a number on the defenses out there."
"Come on," Hot Rod insisted. "We need to get out of here."
"What?" balked Yang. "No! We've got to help Prime! This is what we signed up for!"
Hot Rod shook his head. "That's Prime's fight, kid. We'd better stay out of it. We'd just get in the way."
"He's right, Yang," Ruby said.
"Ruby?!" Yang snapped her head around to look at her sister, feeling betrayed.
"I know it's frustrating to run away from a fight, especially when your friends are in danger," Ruby said, "but you have to know when to pick and choose your battles, or worse things will happen."
Yang felt the anger fade as she looked at her sister in wonder. "How did you get so old so fast?"
Ruby shrugged. "It's not the years; it's the mileage."
The two Autobots transformed and popped open their driver's side doors. Yang immediately ran for the yellow Folkcar Bug that had been her partner for so long, but Ruby looked between them in indecision.
"If you're gonna ride, Ruby," Hot Rod said playfully, "ride in style."
"Hey!" Bee complained as Ruby ran for the flame-streaked sports car.
Once aboard, they sped out. This was not a fight the young ones could fight.
This was a fight for the old men.
While the battle in the skies and in the city raged, certain doom stomped inexorably toward Vale. The Leviathan waded through the water, its thick, corded legs creating wakes large enough to capsize smaller boats with each step. The coastal batteries thundered, pouring shell after shell after shell into it, and while they wounded the titanic Grimm, the injuries appeared superficial and seemed to slow it down not at all.
Today had been a day for firsts for Sky Beak. The Skystrikers -- which apparently could transform into giant robots? -- were fleeing the even bigger giant robot that was made from the five airship -- airplanes, he reminded himself -- that had flown in to help. That eased the pressure on the Royal Air Lancers, enough that he had managed to land and swap aircraft. He had traded his Firebat for an FV-27 Longhorn loaded with heavy ordnance and was leading a similarly-equipped ad hoc flight out to sea.
They had to stop the Leviathan. He glanced down as he flew over a quartet of VCGS cutters, their cannons blasting away to little effect. A brilliant flash of light up ahead drew his attention forward as the frigate in the Leviathan's clutches broke in half, its magazine detonating. He pressed on. Each of his flight's Longhorns was carrying four 5,000-pound bombs (once one discounted the gravity dust lightening the load). That came to 40 tons of high explosives in contact-detonated shaped charges.
He only hoped it would be enough.
It wasn't.
Oh, they'd hurt it, just as the Coasties and the coastal artillery were hurting it, but even as its thick bone armor blackened and cracked, even as chunks of obsidian flesh burned and sublimated away, it continued to plod toward Vale with an inevitability that sent despair clawing at the heart. They were hurting, yes, but at the rate they were going, it would reach the center of Vale long before they could kill it.
Then, as before, help arrived on wings of red and white. The five aces of the Aerialbots flew in an arrowhead formation towards the foul beast of the deep and unleashed a storm of projectiles and missiles and bombs and fantastic energies upon it. The Leviathan was bracketed with explosions just as before, and just as before, it kept on coming through the smoke of that which sought to destroy it.
In reply, the Grimm monstrosity fired off that horrific beam of energy from its mouth towards its attackers. The Aerialbots dodged in a perfect fan-shaped climb that left them arcing off in different directions before pulling back around to create five giant vertical circles in the sky. It seemed like they were going to crash together, but at the last second, they transformed and combined to form the super robot Superion.
The titanic form of Superion hit the water and then immediately leapt back into the air to deliver an uppercutting punch to the Leviathan's jaw with a sickening crack.
"Yes!" cheered Sky Beak's WSO with a fist pump. "I can't believe how satisfying that was!"
The Grimm staggered back and then spun in place at incredible speeds such that its large tail collided with the combiner and sent it spinning through the air. That particular combiner was not delayed in the counterattack though, for it was also a plane. With a KAFWOOOM of flame, thrust erupted from its feet to allow it to reverse direction and speed back to its opponent.
Superion deployed that massive pistol that once was part of its component parts and fired off a beam that hit the face of the Leviathan. The Grimm recoiled and was soon hit by a leaping kick right in the point where the beam had struck it. The super robot flew past, and the demon from the sea fell into the water but got back up.
"Come on!" cried out Superion, landing and adopting a fighting pose as he did so. "Is that the best you got?"
A good third of the bone mask covering the Leviathan's head shattered where it had been struck to reveal… a second mask. The Grimm's glowing eyes focused on Superion, and then it brought its fists together in an awful and terrifying boom. The knuckles bounced off each other, and then it whipped its head down and tail up such that its back was flat as a table before unleashing a beam more powerful than any before.
Superion barely managed to dodge, and the beam sailed out over the ocean to impact somewhere near the horizon and create a massive blast that almost made one recall the atomic explosion that had so impressed itself upon the world.
Before the Grimm could fire again or adjust its aim though, Superion came down upon its head with a flying kick. The combiner had leapt into the air on pillars of fire from the engines that had been repurposed into feet. The monster was driven into the sea, but it was far from defeated.
The battle raged on.
Meanwhile, in Sky Beak's Longhorn, the pilot and his WSO had taken notice of the commotion onboard the alien vessel and the return of communications that shortly followed. They quickly went about checking the progress of the battle and reattaching themselves to vital systems that they had not had access to for some time. However, it was not just them contacting others, for the same thing was being done to them…
"Hello, is this thing on?" came the absentminded-sounding voice from the comms.
"This is Colonel Sky Beak of the Royal Air Lancers. Identify yourself," demanded the Valish flight leader.
"Name's Wheeljack, and I'm the Autobot who's going to help save your tailpipes," replied the voice.
"Does this involve a zany scheme?" asked Sky Beak pointedly.
"No! …Well, kind of," admitted Wheeljack. "It's actually pretty practical compared to my usual plans. All we have to do is pin that monster in place and get accurate firing coordinates to the city's artillery."
"But even if we could stop that Leviathan, a fire control system of that scale is still months away from being ready," objected Sky Beak. Damn those peaceniks. I warned them about the budget!
Wheeljack's reply was eager and jovial. "Well, then today's your lucky day, Sky Beak, because the future is now, thanks to science!"
"Greetings," came another voice, far more stable and electronic-sounding than Wheeljack's.
"Sky Beak, meet Telatraan-1, the Ark's computer," explained Wheeljack. "He's going to help us save the city."
"Affirmative," agreed Teletraan-1. "Colonel Sky Beak, can you patch me through to your airships' sensors? I need positive idents on all artillery pieces available."
"If it'll kill that Leviathan? You got it," agreed Sky Beak, he directed his WSO then to patch him into the rest of the city's defenders. "This is Colonel Sky Beak to all elements; we've got a plan to save this city before the Leviathan in the harbor turns us all into chow. Sync your sensors with the connection we're forwarding to you."
The message went out across the tacnet, and soon, there was a flood of acknowledgements. With those acknowledgements, Sky Beak watched his sensors light up like a bonfire, and soon after, the holographic displays on his helmet and screens began displaying numerous markers. One of those markers was the big sick-looking purple one surrounding the Grimm.
"Superion, pin that monster in place and keep his jaw shut tight," ordered Wheeljack.
Outside, the combiner grappled with the Leviathan, holding onto its jaw like some sort of mad crocodile wrangler. Sky Beak's attention was drawn, however, to the markers he saw covering the city as well. They seemed to be the same as the Coast Guard ships and Air Lancer airships.
"Teletraan-1, you've designated civilian locations across the entire city. Explain," inquired Sky Beak. "Wheeljack said you were just going to use the military's guns on that thing."
"Incorrect," answered Teletraan-1 simply. "Wheeljack said that we were going to use the city's artillery. City, in this case, referring to a geographic location, not a political entity."
Sky Beak looked out across the city where with his keen eyes -- and his helmet's zoom function -- he was able to see hundreds of people turning everything from mortar tubes to emplaced big guns towards the bay.
Emerald Sustrai's cell trembled around her, the light flickering. Setting down the book she was reading, she uncrossed her legs and stood up from her bed; she actually had a pretty decent mattress, a reward for her good behavior. She looked up at the camera in the corner. "What's happening?" she demanded, hoping there really was someone on the other end of the connection.
Her cell had a solid steel door rather than bars. The cameras ensured she could be monitored without any direct contact with any prison guards to prevent her from using her semblance, and there was an intercom connected to the camera feed, allegedly with someone always assigned to it in case something happened. That didn't mean she hadn't been working on how to escape, of course, but it did complicate matters.
"I'm... not sure," came the reply.
She smiled. She recognized that voice. It was Reed. She didn't know what he looked like -- if they'd ever been in the same room, she didn't know it -- but she'd chatted with him from time to time. He was nice. He was friendly. He was the one who'd arranged to get her access to the prison's library. In short, he was a fool, if a potentially useful fool.
"Well, maybe you can-"
She was cut off by a loud banging on the other end of the connection.
"Wha- hey! You can't-!"
The line went dead.
"Emerald, are you ready to get out of there?" came the voice of Hazel Rainart over the line.
So, too, evidently, did Reed.
An eager smile came to Emerald's face. "Of course!"
"Come on! Come on!" cried Silverstream as she and her brother "Terry" Terramar carried the 4-inch artillery cartridge out into the backyard, struggling all the way with all 44 lbs of top-heavy shell and casing, even with four arms upon it.
Their family was really lucky -- their parents had said so a lot -- because their house was on a hill, and the geometry was off, so all the space wasn't used during construction of the neighborhood, and that meant that they could have a backyard. They said they were really lucky because of how they had gotten the house too, but Silverstream thought it wasn't too lucky the first time around that she didn't remember and didn't bother listening to all the other times they said it. Really, all that was important at that moment was that they had wheeled dad's anti-air artillery piece out of the garage and set it up to fire.
And fire they had, both at the passing enemy fighters and at the Grimm that were trying -- and failing quite badly -- to penetrate the city's defenses. When their dad got home, they'd be able to tell him all about it. They'd be the ones telling hunting tales for once, but before that could happen, they needed to restock their ready ammo.
There was a thud as they set the ammo down, and Terry let out a grunt. "Why did they make these things so heavy?"
A frightful roar came up from the sea, and Silverstream felt her blood run cold again. Again, because it hadn't been the first time. Why hadn't they been able to kill that Grimm yet?
Her mother put another shell down right besides theirs. That made twelve. They had twelve shots to use before they had to run back for more. Assuming they stopped to return to firing now, that is, and as the momentary rest gave Silverstream the chance to take stock of her aching arms, she found herself really wishing that they wouldn't go back for more.
A message notification sounded from their mother's back pocket, and she reached around to take out her scroll.
"They stopped the jamming?" she asked, opening her scroll and reading the message. "Silverstream, Terramar, get on the controls. Now."
They scrambled, all exhaustion banished by the urgent tone of their mother's voice. Terry took up the position of pointer, while Silverstream took up the position of trainer. They gripped their controls nervously as their mother read off a targeting solution. It was unusually accurate, but they all remembered the drills and not to question the solution in a combat situation like this.
"Elevation, set!" called out Terry.
"Traverse, set!" called out Silverstream immediately after.
There was a muffled clunk, and their mother called out. "Round loaded! Firing!"
BOOM!
Silverstream reached up and covered the ear protection she was wearing with her hands. It was an involuntary impulse that had happened after the only time that she had taken that protection off when they were firing the gun. Before they had left the range that day, her father had told her that some lessons only needed to be learned once, and he had been right.
"Silverstream, check for impact," ordered her mother.
The young faunus girl bounded out of her chair and ran over to the edge of the slope on their yard. She brought the electrobinoculars around her neck up to her eyes and looked out across the dark city with the night vision towards the coordinates her mother had read off. What she saw was… very strange.
A giant fighting robot that looked like it was made out of airships was wrestling with a Grimm Leviathan that looked straight out of her nightmares. The robot had managed to get the Grimm's mouth shut and was holding it closed while keeping it pinned. It didn't make any sense… but then the Grimm was lit up with hundreds of explosions, all centered around its midsection.
Even at the distance of her house from the shore, Silverstream still was able to feel those blasts every so slightly. She could certainly see them when they nearly blinded her. It made her wonder what Weiss would do in her situation, seeing her own actions contribute to that much destruction…
"Hit! No change! Keep firing!" she yelled back to her mother and brother.
The artillery piece boomed again, and again, and again. Each shot was slightly slower than the last, thanks to her mother's exhaustion with loading so many rounds over the course of this big battle, but they kept firing. Now that the solution was known to be good, they did so with far greater rapidity, but Silverstream was still looking through her binoculars to report when the shells hit after so long in the air.
Then, suddenly, she saw the Grimm Leviathan die.
"Cease fire! Cease fire! Cease fire!" she called out to her family, turning her head around to do so and briefly noticing that they had no ready ammo left anyway.
They obeyed, and Silverstream looked through the electrobinoculars again. The robot had leapt away, and now, shells were splashing down into the water to churn up the sea. She dropped those binoculars again and took in for the first time the smoke wafting across the city and how every gun she could see was pointing towards the same target.
They'd beaten it. Somehow, working together, they'd beaten it. She'd need to ask how later.
In that moment, though, Silverstream was just struck by the immense feeling of satisfaction, and she wondered if Weiss ever felt that good killing Grimm. She also wondered if her father would tell her she did good when he got home that day. Growing in prominence, though, was a desire to find out more about that giant robot, the one who had kept the Grimm held in place for so long and enabled them to do what they did.
Machine or not, that took guts in her mind.
"Duck!" came the shout over a megaphone, and the fighters in front dropped to a prone position as fast as they could.
The thunder that came after defied description, and so did the slaughter that resulted from it.
Taiyang Xiao Long looked from the concrete to see that the Grimm that had been advancing on them were no more, save for a pock-marked Deathstalker that was now missing its tail and illuminated by the headlights of the vehicles that had killed its comrades. Turned out that a pair of six-inch canister rounds did wonders to thin out the horde. They also did wonders to make him wonder why he didn't carry ear protection more often, because if he was able to hear anything at that moment, it would have been a miracle.
Then again, he didn't really need to hear to see the bright flash of Jazz's photon rifle putting a trio of holes through the eye of that remaining Grimm. Well, remaining for the next few hundred yards, at least. Those canister rounds might have been effective, but they were still subject to the laws of physics and lost their power after the first few bodies the round's ball bearing shot had to fly through.
They were up again, and his son was leading the charge. They'd been going for many miles, and still, he pressed on. He might have had some things to make up for, but Adam was nothing if not determined.
And boy, wasn't that the statement of the century? Not for the first time since meeting his boy in the infirmary did Taiyang wish that Raven had told him about Adam from the get-go. It wouldn't have been any hindrance to her attending Beacon, because the school already had a daycare center where he could have been cared for while they were away with classes or missions, cared for by people who had to have been better than literal backstabbing slavers. It wouldn't have been any hindrance to dating him either, as Taiyang had already accepted that she had not come from the most morally reputable background when he made the first move, and besides he loved kids. There had been no reason to delay the reveal at all, none.
Now… now there was so much that had been lost. Tai had never gotten the chance to teach his son how to shave, how to throw a punch, or how to talk to girls that weren't his sisters. More than the lost moments, though, was the damage that had been done because he hadn't been around to protect his son. Some monster had gone and branded his boy's face, he had been made a slave, and when he was finally free, he had been led down the path of being a murderer and a terrorist. Raven had cut him completely out of his son's life, and the results had been…
Taiyang forced himself to calm down and instead punch the head off some kind of leaping lizard Grimm that had been attracted to his fury. He'd heard before about certain cultures out there where it was considered healthy and expected for a man to beat his wife, and he had recoiled in revulsion then. It was a testament to how angry he was with Raven that he now had to force himself to feel that disgust again when the memory had come to his mind. The far more right and proper thing would have been to finally divorce his first wife and wash his hands of her, but… but he had promised Summer that he wouldn't, and he could deny his second wife nothing, even in death.
The memory of Summer cooled his temper and made him refocus on the events going on around him.
They were continuing the push, and those plucky citizens of Vale were right behind them to help knock back the Grimm with precise single shots. ATVs and motorcycles driven by the young brought supplies on small trailers up to the front and brought back to the initial breach the wounded and exhausted. Meanwhile, Bulkhead continued to work on the explosive charges that had been loaded onto a flatbed tractor alongside an old shopkeep which would hopefully save them all.
"How much longer, Jazz?" asked Taiyang in a yell.
"If our calculations -- and those old plans -- are correct, then we're just two hundred meters out," answered the smooth Autobot.
"Right," said Taiyang, and then he continued. "So... what's a 'meter,' anyway?"
"A little more than a yard, at least according to Yang," replied Jazz.
"Well, she's always had more of a head for languages than math, so I suppose it all evens out," reasoned Taiyang.
"I hope so. I'm running low on ammo," revealed Jazz before twisting around to look at the tractor following behind them. "Hey, Bulkhead, that bomb ready? We're almost there, and we need to be quick about this."
"Thanks for the help, Old Man Shopkeep," said Bulkhead to his partner before picking up a pair of very cobbled together looking explosives. "Yeah, I'm ready to go."
"Good!" cheered Jazz before looking at the self-propelled guns. "Hey, how many tracks you got left in those mixtapes?"
The commander of the one on the right, the grizzled old collector who owned them both, was the first to reply. "We have one canister round left, three high explosive, and two incendiary-smoke."
"One canister over here too!" said the commander of the one on the left, the collector's son. "We got two shaped charges, though."
"Perfect! Load those shotguns up and get ready for the signal," replied Jazz, gesturing down the tunnel. "Come on, just a little more!"
"You heard the bot: one final effort! Charge!" called out Adam, and the boy broke into a sprint with the rifle in his hands fully transformed into sword mode.
Taiyang shot after him. There were perhaps thirty Grimm that he could see clogging up the tunnel, and his son had been fighting far too long for that to be easy, so he'd be getting some help from his old man this time around.
And he'd be getting some help from others, as those behind charged after them.
"Hey, wait for me! I'm the guy with the bombs!" shouted out Bulkhead.
Adam hit the first Grimm that hadn't been blown apart by one of the enterprising snipers that had taken up residence on top of the artillery with a vengeance. Tai hit that same mass soon after. What happened next was a blur of fists, blades, and exploding Grimm as the dance of death moved down the line from one partner to the next.
Honestly? It was actually kind of fun. This was the biggest fight that Taiyang had been in in years, and he was doing it back to back with his own son. So it was with a smile and light steps that he bounced around the battlefield.
"Okay, we're here!" called out Bulkhead as he reached a certain spot shortly behind where the battle had moved. "Just give me a little time to set this up!"
He set down one of the large bombs and actually unfurled the other one to reveal something akin to a large flotation rope that he quickly began attaching to the wall.
The fight continued, but so too did the arguments.
"Bulkhead, what's the other bomb for?" asked Jazz.
"It's a thermobaric to kill all the Grimm in the tunnel," replied Bulkhead.
"What?! But we're in the tunnel too, Bulk!" objected Jazz.
"Not for long, we're not," was Bulkhead's answer.
Taiyang continued fighting, each punch taking out a Grimm, but now, the fight had become far more static. The only real change in the line was when Jazz ordered a retreat behind the SPGs, something everyone obeyed, followed by those six-inch howitzers blasting apart every Grimm for another few hundred feet.
"Reload with HE!" ordered the old collector.
"No need. I'm done here," reported Bulkhead as he drove the last of the explosive into the opposite wall from where he had started. "This tunnel's coming down, and we need to back up. Now!"
The SPGs threw themselves into reverse, and everyone on foot either latched on or started running themselves. Bulkhead and Jazz were leapfrogging cover fire, with Bulkhead having picked up the other bomb, but were clearly retreating all the same. Taiyang and Adam were themselves putting their best into fleeing in the most manly way they could, which just so happened to be like total cowards.
After they had some distance put between them and where they had been a moment ago, Bulkhead called out again, "Fire in the hole!"
With that, he pitched the bomb he had been holding in an underhanded lob that saw it fly through the air before eventually rolling along the ground towards the advancing horde. When it had passed the point where the other bomb was, Bulkhead hit a button on his wrist. It was evidently a detonator, because the next thing he knew, there was a terrific explosion, and the tunnel around where they had left collapsed to smother it. Then, shortly after, the newly created dusty hill of rubble shook slightly.
"And that's the end of that," said Bulkhead in satisfaction.
Cheers rose up among the assembled group, and a great rising spirit followed. Adam, though, he just seemed exhausted, if only for a moment. Taiyang could understand that.
"You did good, son," he said to him.
Adam looked at him in bleary confusion. "I'm not your son."
Taiyang seemed to consider that for a moment. "Hmm. Nope."
"'Nope'?" echoed Adam.
"Nope," repeated Taiyang. "I'm learning from James and nipping this in the bud right now. You're not getting rid of us that easy, son."
Adam shook his head and laughed. "Why is this so hard?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's because the day's not done," mused Taiyang with a smile. "Come on. Let's get out of this pit."
Adam nodded and followed him back towards the site of the breach.
Sylvia swallowed on instinct as the blue liquid rushed over her, and then, equally on instinct, snorted and tried to expel it as it flowed into her nose. Then, all of a sudden, it was over. She was being held up, soaked all over, by one of the soldiers that had been fighting alongside them.
"Ma'am, are you alright?" asked the jungle warfare specialist.
She blinked her big silver eyes and swept away more of the blue liquid. Was she alright? Why, yes, she realized suddenly. In fact, she was better than all right; she was all circular! She could feel an energy that she couldn't have even comprehended before exploding from each and every one of the cells in her body!
She was like a plant in a hothouse, a penguin in a fishery, a dingo in a nursery! She felt like she could run ten marathons from Argus to Mantle and back with no sweat whatsoever! She felt like she could indulge in all manner of youthful heroics and defeat every gang member in Mantle in single combat.
In fact, Sylvia could dare say that she had never felt this good in her entire life.
"Fine!" she said so quickly it was almost indecipherable. "Fantastic! Hey, what is this stuff anyway?!"
A wet slapping filled the air as her foot tapped the floor that was still covered in that blue stuff like a woodpecker in mating season.
Winter bent down and swiped a finger through the liquid before bringing it up to sniff it with a confused expression. "Energon. This is energon, but I've never seen it in this color except…" -- she turned to Colton with suspicious eyes -- "...Decepticon blood."
Colton gave her a look. "Listen, Targeter, if you want to hear the explanation for that, you can stick around for the aftershow, but right now, we've got to save the world from…" And here, the great General Colton looked confused as he turned towards where the others were working at a computer console. "Hey, what's trying to kill us?"
"Looks like they've planted a virus in the control systems before they got away," came back the reply. "They also blew up the backup servers."
"Uh huh." Colton nodded. "And what's this virus doing?"
The man at the computer console tilted his head to the side in a sort-of half-shrug. "Lowering the city into the lake. Which... will flood Low Town, at minimum. I can fix it, put in the new code I've been working on..." He trailed off.
"But?" Colton prodded.
"...but that would require a full system shutdown and reboot," he continued. "Which means taking the anti-grav systems offline completely."
He didn't elaborate further, but then again, given he was talking anti-grav systems, and they were on Atlas, the floating city in the sky, he didn't need to.
"Yeah, let's call that Option Q," replied Colton. "Give me another option, Mainframe."
Sylvia looked to the side, where there was a corridor that led all the way back to the edge of the city. Suddenly, like a thunderbolt, it was all clear. She knew what she had to do… and was at peace.
"Councilor, we should…"
The rest of what Winter was saying was cut off by the rush of wind in Sylvia's ears as she bolted from the room. She ran, and she ran, faster than she ever had before. Twists and turns, she followed until she saw a window and hit it like a glowing silver cannonball.
Whatever the window was made out of, it wasn't glass, but it got out of the way all the same. Just like that, and just as she planned, Sylvia was falling right out of the sky. It was the only way she could get enough space for what she needed.
A bright light shone, and in the span of a second, a large human woman made of silver energy appeared and grew to titanic proportions. Gigantic feet crashed into the water near the shore, and a new colossus now stood more than a mile high, with legs straddling much of the lake. And at the center of that silver giant was Sylvia, eyes now shining with the light of two unconquered moons.
A confident grin came to Sylvia's face, and the construct mimicked her action even as its shoulders and hands came up to support the weight of the gargantuan mountain of rock and steel that was slowly falling to the ground.
Sylvia's smile was bigger and more jovial than it had ever been before in her entire life.
This is incredible! she thought in wonder, even as she could feel the weight of the floating island pushing down the feet of her energy self. Whatever this energon stuff is, it's… it's incredible.
She was glad in that moment that she had forgotten how much Atlas weighed; it might have given her the impression that what she was doing was impossible. As it was, all she had to keep her focus on was supporting it and keeping her semblance running. That alone should have been impossible, but somehow, she knew it wasn't. Her aura was rushing out of her like water out of a broken dam, but behind that dam was the ocean!
Suddenly, the weight became multiplied a millionfold, and the balance shifted such that she had to rapidly adjust her stance to keep the island level.
They must be fixing the problem, she realized. I just hope they do it quick. This load is starting to get a little heavy!
She could feel her feet pressing further and further into the shores of the artificial lake, with the water now lapping at the bottom of her incorporeal shins.
Inside the energy construct, the physical body of Sylvia let out a cough that tasted like blood, and she realized that she had overestimated her expanded reserves of aura.
I always knew this would be a one way trip, she told herself, but it's not over yet!
The weight was becoming all-consuming now. It felt like her every muscle was exploding, and her aura was beginning to seriously split itself between both healing her and keeping her semblance active. With great willpower and using a technique she had learned long ago, she turned off her aura's healing and poured everything into her semblance.
It's like we always used to say at Crystal Prep: Always go further beyond and surpass your limitations! This mortal body is just one limitation that you're going to have to break through, Sylvia. Come on! For Atlas! For life itself! Semper Plus Ultra! Go beyond, Mountain Maiden!
Her vision started to fade red, and she could feel the mighty torrent of aura draining away to its last drops, but still, she held on.
If there's anyone out there in Heaven, please lend me your strength! Help me stand just a little while longer! Just a little longer!
Then, suddenly, the weight lessened and then began to lift itself off of her shoulders. That last little bit of strength came through for those last crucial seconds. When it passed, it was over, and Atlas was ascending back into its proper place in the sky.
When she realized this, all thought left Sylvia along with her semblance, and she fell out of the sky with thin red lines of blood streaming from her body. She was hurtling to the water below at terminal velocity, but she was at peace. Her work was finally done.
It was almost with gentle caring, then, that Winter "Targeter" Schnee yanked her out of her fall.
Winter looked down at the frail body lying in her arms, thin and weak from long-term malnutrition, muscles atrophied from disuse, and now, lacking the inner fire and mettle that her rescue had sparked within her. She hesitated for a moment -- her precarious perch atop her semblance's copy of a Grimm Manticore was hardly the best place for this -- but then reached down and checked the councilor's vitals, just to be sure.
The specialist bowed her head sadly as she directed her summon to fly back up to Atlas.
There were too many dead heroes. The least they could do was honor them.
'These are my jewels.'
As the stars began to emerge above them in the wake of the retreating sun, Ozpin leaned aside, dodging another jet of flame.
"Clearly, Miss Fall," he commented mildly, "Leonardo's standards have slipped quite a bit, judging by your performance tonight so far."
Cinder let out a wordless snarl of rage and frustration as she lunged toward him with her glass blade, which he deflected with Long Memory before reversing it and smashing her in the face.
It was taking him a great deal of effort, however, to maintain his unruffled presentation. There were some consequences of age, after all, that even the youth of a fresh, new body and the infusion of a young soul couldn't wash away. Like regret.
And magic. He'd given away so much over the centuries -- millennia? -- that he was now but a shadow of his former self in that regard.
Cinder recoiled, converting her retreat into a leap backwards which carried her into the air as shards of obsidian swirled gracefully around her. The black glass formed a bow in her hands as Cinder hung, suspended in the air for a moment, a single arrow nocked.
She let fly, the glass shaft descending like a lightning bolt, straight and true.
Ozpin parried it with Long Memory, the dart shattering into fragments.
Cinder landed with feline grace upon the ground, a smirk twisting features that had seemed a little twisted to begin with.
It was the smirk that gave her away, the smirk that warned Ozpin to turn around in time to see the arrow -- reformed out of the fragments he had broken it into -- flying back towards him. Ozpin's hand whipped out to catch the shaft in mid-flight.
His mistake.
The arrow burst, fragments of glass as sharp as razor blades slicing through his aura as they struck his face. He let out an involuntary wince before he noticed Cinder charging him once more out of the corner of his eye.
Her bow had split into a pair of scimitars, black as the night in which they duelled and glinting in the moonlight. She swung both blades in parallel. Ozpin parried, gripping his staff in both hands, but this time, Cinder was prepared for his counterstroke, and the handle of his cane passed harmlessly over her head, leaving him exposed for her slashing stroke aimed at his belly. He parried that too, his body moving at a speed that would have blurred the eye to witness.
Cinder growled in frustration as she aimed a kick at his thigh. The blow connected, but Ozpin was able to affect ignoring the pain that lanced through him as he drove Long Memory's point into her gut hard enough to make her double over... so he could slam it into her face as well for good measure.
Cinder retreated back a few steps, panting heavily. Her eyes smouldered like fire; they always had, but now, there was something different about them, a band of purple surrounding the gold.
She was his enemy. She was determined to see him dead, and doubtless many others too, others far more innocent than he was, and yet, all the same, he could not help but pity her for what she had done to herself in the name of power.
Cinder straightened her back, her chest rising and falling. Her lips twisted into a sneer. "You fight like she did."
Ozpin became as still as one of the graven images that filled the Vale History Museum's Hall of Heroes. "I taught her," he said, his voice soft against the din of the battle raging back in the city.
"Not well enough," Cinder taunted.
"Apparently not," Ozpin conceded. He swept his cane upwards, pointing the tip at her heart. "But I am not Amber, Miss Fall."
"No, she was stronger than you are, and I was weaker then," Cinder declared. Her glass swords disintegrated, although Ozpin knew that she could reform them at a moment's notice if she wished. Cinder reached into a pouch worn on a black strap around her leg and pulled out a vial filled with a glowing liquid that had, alas, become too familiar to him, though the amber color was off.
"Energon," he whispered.
Cinder chuckled. "Close, Professor. Nine out of ten." A spike jutted out of the vial in her hand.
Ozpin charged her, Long Memory thrust forth before him in an attempt to stop her from injecting herself. Too late, of course, far too late. All she had to do was jump away, and as she leapt, she jammed the vial into her thigh.
Cinder landed on one of the steps, a purple glow suffusing her, the light pumping through her veins. Her eyes burned with that eerie purple for a moment, so brightly that Ozpin expected her Maiden anima to glow purple, but they did not. They did not appear at all; she was holding her magic back.
For what, he could not tell, but he feared to know the answer.
Cinder growled, sounding more like a tiger than a person. She stared up at him, a feral smile upon her face. "Tell me something, Infinite Man, if I were to spare your students in exchange for your life, would you submit to me and bare your throat?"
"Don't believe everything you read, Miss Fall," Ozpin replied. "There's more to that story than meets the eye."
Cinder laughed. "Perhaps," she acknowledged. "History and memory are so malleable, after all. Besides, I'm going to kill them all anyway, all your little girls and boys, all the weapons that you hoped to forge."
"Not while blood flows in my veins," Ozpin declared.
"It is energex that flows in my veins now!" Cinder snarled. "And your blood will spill upon the ground soon enough." She leapt upwards, carried higher still by bursts of flame from the soles of her feet like rockets, pushing her higher until she was silhouetted against the moon, a black shadow against the broken silver.
Her bow of glass reformed in her hands, three arrows ready. She loosed them all, the obsidian darts flying down to strike the concrete pier around Ozpin.
Once more, Cinder's premature triumphant smirk gave her away, and Ozpin conjured up a shield just as the arrows exploded around him. He was surrounded by fire on all sides, but the bubble of grainy green light protected him as he knelt upon the ground, the tip of Long Memory resting upon the dock.
The winds rose around him. Ozpin looked up, and now, he could see the anima burning in Cinder's eyes, the fire leaping from them, fire that seemed even brighter for the contrast against the purple glow that was consuming Cinder's eyeballs.
The night was dark, but the skies had been clear; no more. Storm clouds arose, rumbling and growling, overhead; they snuffed out the stars, they blocked out the moon, there was no light in the sky but the fire burning in Cinder's eyes. All the rest was covered by the darkness that she hoped to make his shroud.
Lightning lanced down from the growling clouds, crooked spears of white that lashed the ground all around him, showering his shield with their explosions even as other strikes pounded directly upon the barrier that protected him.
Ozpin shuddered. He could have withstood such a barrage of the heavens once upon a time, but that time was passed now, and the store of magic that he had to maintain his shield was not unlimited.
The store of magic that he had for anything was not unlimited.
But with luck, it would be enough.
Ozpin dropped his shield. One moment, he crouched upon the ground, defenseless and unprotected as the lightning fell; the next moment, he blurred, his body seeming to ripple out of existence...
...before it reappeared suspended in mid-air, higher than Cinder.
He descended on her like an owl swooping down upon a field mouse scurrying through the grass. Long Memory lashed out; he thrust his cane again and again, hand and arm and weapon all alike moving as fast as thought to hammer at Cinder's face, her chest, her arms, her stomach, to strike her everywhere that he could reach. Cinder fell, and Ozpin pursued her, his magic controlling his descent so that he could assail her in her more ungainly fall, keeping up the pressure on her so that she couldn't-
Ozpin was struck in the back by a bolt of lightning; he could not restrain the cry of pain that sprang from his lips, nor could he stop Long Memory from faltering in his hand. Cinder escaped, fire springing from her hands to blast her out from under his assault.
She halted a few feet away, and a fireball leapt from her palm to strike Ozpin in the chest and toss him back down to the ground.
Now it was Cinder's turn to pursue. She caught him as he fell, slashing at him with her glass blades, moving too quickly for him to parry every stroke; she was faster now, and stronger too, and he could feel his aura diminishing with every stroke of her obsidian swords.
Ozpin hit the ground with a crunch, his aura shattering. He lay where he had fallen, his body wracked with pain, unable to move. Cinder landed atop him and kicked Long Memory away down into the water. Pointless, really; he couldn't have hurt her with it now even if he'd wished to.
Cinder appeared to regard him with something almost like the pity he had felt for her not too long ago. "The pillar of the world," she murmured. "How pathetic. You could have ruled the world, you could have been a god, and instead, you chose to give your power away to a succession of unworthy acolytes."
"Not unworthy," Ozpin groaned. "Worthier… than I."
"'Worthy'?" Cinder repeated incredulously. "Worth did not save her from me, nor did it keep her powers from passing into my hands. Meanwhile, look at you now: defeated, about to die at my hands. Rest assured that with this power, I will do all that you should have done, but dared not dream of." She joined her swords together, forming a bow once more. "Any famous last words for the great Professor Ozpin?" she asked mockingly.
"They will stop you," Ozpin whispered. "They have something you will never have, for all your power."
"Oh, really," Cinder drawled. "And what might that be?"
"Each other."
Cinder stared down at him. "Of all the ways to die," she muttered. "Preaching friendship. How… nauseating." She drew back her bow.
A swirling green vortex opened up directly in front of her, and she had just enough time to recognize the truck horn before her vision was consumed by metal.
Optimus glowered at his long since past friend. The street that they were fighting on had long since turned to rubble, but they hadn't stopped. They should have stopped -- he would have stopped -- but Megatron would not let up in the attack.
It was a decision that he was paying dearly for.
Megatron's right arm was knocked aside enough to give Optimus the opening to open fire with his ion blaster onto Megatron's chest. The dictator of destruction grunted and transformed into his tank form to retreat back. Optimus transformed too and, in the process, dodged a powerful fusion cannon shot that hit a ruined shop front without lethal effect.
It had taken many cycles for Optimus to learn how to sense structural integrity fields, but he had eventually gotten it right, and with that experience, he made sure to absorb the hits that could hurt another living spark and dodge the attacks that strike short of any life. The curious thing was that Megatron had been the one to teach him that skill all those megacycles ago, and he had used that same skill many a time to manipulate the flow of battle by purposefully targeting bystander and Autobot alike to force Optimus's hand. Now, though, there was none of that, and Megatron was conservatively fighting and wasting no energy striking civilians. It was something that the leader of the Autobots was only too happy to exploit once he had figured it out, but it did make him concerned as to what the cause was.
They transformed and entered into melee combat once more, and as they did so, Optimus asked a clipped question. "What are you doing, Megatron? Why are you here?"
"Isn't it obvious, Prime?" replied Megatron in amusement as he pressed his attack once more and punctuated his statements with strikes with the flail. "To conquer! To destroy! To reduce all that you have built to ashes! That is why I'm here!"
Optimus blocked or deflected every single strike. "No."
"'No'?!"
"That's not why you're here, Megatron," surmised Optimus, launching into his own attack with his axe that broke through his foe's defences and hit his arm with sparking effect. "Not in this condition."
"Ugh!" grunted Megatron as he backpedaled. "Some things are more important than your health, Prime."
"Like what, Megatron? Power? Control? Idle pleasures?" asked Optimus as he prepared for his next move while performing smaller moves. "All those vices of yours won't mean a thing if you're offlined!"
Optimus's next attacks with his axe were perfect, at least to those who saw the recordings later and knew how to analyze things. If the leader of the Autobots had been asked what had happened barely a minute after his moves had concluded, though, he would not have been able to impart a single detail. Every swing of his weapon or twist of his body was purely on what might be likened to organic instinct.
Likewise, Megatron's defense was part of a well-worn dance that he had performed countless times before. No doubt, he hoped that his counters would offer him the same protection they had in the past. They did not.
"Raaaagh!" the leader of the Decepticons screamed as he flew through the air to skid across the ground, digging a small trench in the pavement as he did so till he came to rest on the beach.
Optimus advanced. His old friend-turned-foe's body was sparking in several places, and as he got back up, it was easy to see where the battle was taking its toll in other places. His structural integrity field was doing its best, but it was clear that it was running low and taxed in other places besides. Only Megatron's skill in manipulating the light of his spark and prioritizing certain repairs over others was keeping him upright.
"It's the end of the road, Megatron," declared Optimus, heavy steps bringing him toward his quarry.
"Oh, Prime." Megatron shook his head as he braced himself. "You forget. I'm a Decepticon. I don't need... roads."
With that, Megatron's fusion cannon shifted and began to emit a purple glow from several slots as he pointed it down and slightly to the side. There was a boom, and seemingly simultaneously, the world became a vortex of rubble, sand, and sea water. Optimus's attention was drawn to the sky though, and as the blast of detritus subsided almost as quickly as it came, he saw flying through the air the form of the Decepticon despot. He was heading towards his ship, and doing so using a recoil boosting technique that warriors of this world seemed so fond of.
"Another time then," Optimus sighed before doing a comms check. "Optimus to Autobots, can anyone hear me?"
"I got you, Optimus," came back a reply from Arcee. "Glad to hear that the jamming is down for you too. Only other 'Bot I know of who doesn't have a full dance card, though, is Wheeljack."
"What is your current situation?"
"Running the perimeter," answered Arcee. "Starscream came and tried to off Headmaster Ironwood, but he failed, and now, the ol' tin schoolteacher's organized a defense to stop the Grimm and the 'Cons if they make another go for the CCT. Wait one…. Optimus, I've got eyes on Cinder Fall. She's dueling Headmaster Ozpin on the docks at the bottom of the cliff, and it looks like she's winning. Orders?"
A spike of dread shot through Optimus. "Prepare to designate a target. I am moving to assist Headmaster Ozpin."
"Acknowledged. ETA?" asked Arcee.
"Instantaneous," answered Optimus as he opened another channel.
"Got it. Instan- what?!" replied Arcee in seeming confusion.
"Wheeljack, this is Optimus Prime; is the ground bridge operational yet?"
"Uh, theoretically," replied the scientist whose reputation no doubt preceded him. "I'm looking at it on security feed right now, but I haven't tested it yet."
"You're testing it now," ordered Optimus. "Lock onto my coordinates and prepare to immediately redirect the bridge to the location designated by Arcee."
"Good thing we didn't buy this, or this would void the warranty," commented Wheeljack.
"This is so crazy, Cliff could have come up with it himself, but I got ya, Optimus," said Arcee.
Optimus transformed into his truck mode, and in front of him, a swirling green vortex appeared that he wasted no time speeding through.
The body of Cinder Fall flew through the air to skip across the water, but Optimus paid her no mind.
"Optimus?" gasped out Ozpin, looking up at him. "What are you doing here? Leave me!"
"Not on your life, old friend," declared Optimus just before a tower of steam erupted from the bay and the blazing form of their opponent flew towards them.
"PRIME!" she shouted in a familiar tone.
"This ends here, Cinder Fall," he replied, taking a defensive stance, interposing himself between Cinder and Ozpin.
Fire blazed in Cinder's eyes as a column of white-hot flames erupted from her left hand, engulfing her arm up to the shoulder and blasting toward Optimus. "I will destroy you!"
The Autobot leader crossed his arms before him, shielding his face and torso from the blast that battered against his forearms.
"You'll try," he said simply as he strode forward, ion blaster raised in one hand. The energy cannon belted out blast after blast of high energy particles, but the Fall Maiden, high on energex, was too swift, dodging this way and that, though she could not close the distance.
With a snarl of frustration, she fell back, and fire began to fall from her hands, coiling into blazing whips. She leaped forward, and as Optimus raised his ion blaster, she lashed out with the fiery whips, one wrapping around the barrel of the gun while the other wrapped around his wrist. With a twist, she yanked the blaster from his pained grip and pulled herself toward him.
Optimus stepped back, his hand retracting into his arm, slipping free of the magical fire's grip, to be replaced with a glowing orange-red axe blade. Cinder's eyes widened as he raised the energon axe and brought it down toward her.
The Fall Maiden flung her left arm out, blasting fire to propel her toward her right and out of the path of Optimus's blow, the unpracticed move sending her through the air to tumble uncontrollably across the pier. She struggled to her feet, swaying briefly as Optimus stared impassively down at her.
Cinder held a hand up in front of her face. A flicker of flame sputtered weakly to life in her palm.
"Stand down," he commanded. "It's over, Fall."
She clenched her hand, snuffing the flame out, even as she reached for another injector.
"Never!" she cried, jabbing not one, but two of the injectors into herself, and flames blazed anew around her hands as she augmented her magical flames with her Scorching Caress, using her semblance to a level she would never have managed before, to heat the very air around her to the point of spontaneously combusting.
A part of her was vaguely aware of her skin blistering from the heat, but she didn't care. She thrust both arms toward the Autobot, sending twin columns of white-hot flames crackling and popping toward him.
As before, Prime brought his arms up to block the fiery blast, the impact forcing him back a step before he stabilized his footing.
No! she howled silently, desperately, and redoubled her efforts, pouring more of her aura and magic into the attack, ignoring the smell of burning cloth and flesh. Not this time!
Unnoticed, the concrete pier beneath their feet began to crack under the heat. Cinder began to walk toward him, step by slow step as Prime slowly crumpled under the onslaught, curling away, then falling to one knee, all the while still keeping himself between her and Ozpin.
Without warning, the pier beneath them exploded.
Cinder cried out as the explosion tossed her around like a rag doll, curling up and flaring the flames around herself protectively, incinerating much of the shrapnel approaching her. Gasping and heaving, she pulled herself painfully to her feet, utterly exhausted.
Prime lay on his back, unmoving, and some distance away lay Ozpin in a heap, outside the apparent signs of the explosion. Had the Autobot thrown the headmaster clear? If so, he was a fool.
Steeling herself, she swayed unsteadily as she stalked up to Prime.
"I'll tear you apart with my bare hands," she promised as she clambered up the insensate Autobot.
Finally, she stood on his abdomen, reaching out a blackened hand to his chestplate, and pulled. After a couple of false starts, Cinder finally wrenched it open…
…and she screamed as her world turned white.
Somewhere in Anima, within the territory nominally claimed by the Kingdom of Mistral, Sideways looked up and to the west. A shiver ran down his central communications trunk. There was no mistaking that thin beam of light reaching up to the heavens and burning itself into his optics, nor the power it represented. He could feel Primus's essence, even from this great distance.
As the light faded, he relaxed slightly, just in time for the space bridge he was monitoring to reactivate on the timer Sixshot had set. Transdimensional energy crackled and leaped erratically, bathing him in an unnatural, pulsating blue light instead of the usual bright, oscillating yellow. Once the portal finally stabilized, the Decepticon ninja emerged from the rift in space/time.
Sideways cocked his head to the side. "Well?"
Despite his face guard, Sixshot gave the impression of smiling.
"Things're lookin' up," he drawled. "Folks on the other side, their global comm network just went kaput. We got ourselves an opportunity."
Sideways smiled, "Excellent news," he said. "I'm sure Lord Megatron will be most pleased."
And so, too, would Sideways, once he was on the other side of that portal, away from that accursed Matrix.
In the twisting sands of Vacuo, a cloaked figure walked through a forest of stony structures, her face hidden from view. Suddenly, she stopped, her body overcome by a sense that something important had just happened. So it was that she stopped her movements and turned her gaze to the east.
Glowing blue eyes saw a thin beam of likewise description shooting into the sky and were overcome with awe.
"What wondrous…" She trailed off, her voice overcome with emotion even as flames like wings sprang forth from her eyes. "I pray that the people of this world realize the miracle they have just witnessed."
In the frozen wastes of Solitas's farthest north, two figures stood watching the south where a bright beam ascended up into the stars. One was a young maiden of ethereal countenance, cloaked in blue over finely-crafted armor. The other was an apparent male of far more base description.
"Say, uh, that girl you keep going on about responsible for that?" asked the base companion.
The maiden's reply was said with the echoes of ages. "This action has shifted the balance of power on this world dramatically and set into motion events that will ripple out to affect the entire universe, but no. My beloved servant's fight was elsewhere, holding the line against the darkness as she has done before and will likely do again."
"Riiiiiiiiiiight," was his drawn out reply. "So, translated into normal speak, she was out getting tossed around by Grimm while meanwhile, the actual big heroic fight was happening somewhere else, probably nowhere close to her." He sighed in exasperation. "We're all gonna die."
The maiden snorted.
"What?"
"Shut up, old friend."
Ozpin looked up in wonder, mesmerized by the light piercing the heavens.
He had seen a great many things in his many lives. He remembered the time of gods and magic. But this... this, though it felt familiar somehow, was something beyond even his ken. It was a stark reminder that, though he may hold custody over the most secret of secrets of Remnant, there was a whole galaxy -- a whole universe -- that stretched far beyond Remnant, with secrets and mysteries he likely would never begin to comprehend.
It was humbling, but also, in a strange way, hopeful. It felt good to feel wonder again.
His body ached. The battle with Cinder had proven that he was more out of shape than he'd thought. Though his aura had recovered enough to save him from the explosion, having one's aura battered down in such quick succession twice was going to leave him sore in the morning.
Considering he wasn't entirely sure he'd see the morning, he'd chalk that up as a win. He forced himself to his feet and turned his attention to where Cinder lay. Did she yet live? It was unclear. Had the Fall Maiden powers already been passed on? Or... or would he have to seize this opportunity to...?
He couldn't finish the thought. Killing in battle was one thing, but slaying a helpless foe? Once, he might have countenanced that, but with the hope rekindled in his heart, he found the very idea abhorrent.
Before he could struggle with himself for very long, however, any such choice was taken from him as a metallic purple form burst out from the water, loping toward Cinder. Brutish arms reached down and scooped up the fallen Maiden before the figure -- the Decepticon -- transformed and rocketed away into the sky.
"Lugnut."
At the sound of Optimus's voice, Ozpin turned to his old friend, who had leveraged himself into a sitting position and closed his chest panel. The Autobot leader was watching the Decepticon as he shrank to a twinkle in the night sky.
"What?" Ozpin asked as he began hobbling over.
"That was Lugnut," Optimus clarified. "Megatron's most loyal servant. He does not trust her. But then, there are few he does trust."
Ozpin paused to digest that information. From what he knew of Cinder Fall, that just meant that Megatron was no fool. Hardly new information.
"Why did you come, Optimus?" he asked softly as he placed a hand on his old friend's knee. "I already told you that I'll reincarnate, no matter what."
Optimus turned his gaze away from the sky to look down at Ozpin, those kind, blue eyes offering comfort and security. "Because," he said sorrowfully, "I have buried too many friends already."
Ozpin lowered his own gaze. That was something he understood all too well.
Megatron strode onto the bridge of the Nemesis.
"Lord Megatron," Razorclaw said, rising from the captain's chair.
Megatron waved him back into the chair as he continued up to the main viewport. He had no interest in taking command personally, not just yet.
"Order a general withdrawal," he said, staring out the main viewport, a satisfied smile crossing his face as the power of Primus himself speared into the sky. "I have what I came for."
"Yes, Lord Megatron."
"Oh, Optimus, it seems you are stronger than ever," he murmured. "You have no idea how happy that makes me."
The time of secrets and lies has passed (mostly), and now everyone must adapt to a changed world now that everything is "All Out in the Open."
We'll be on in an hour to talk about the chapter with anyone who wants to.
This link is good for 1 day, but a permanent link is still available in the opening post.
(V3E13: Tools of Foul Play | V3E14: Bonds | V3E15: All Out in the Open)
Volume III: Episode 14: Bonds
* * *
Volume III: Episode 14: Bonds
* * *
Two dozen or so people -- both human and faunus -- huddled together in the back room of Tukson's Book Trade. The nearest shelter was packed full, and the next closest was where one of the pods launched from the airship menacing the city from above had landed. Hunkered down behind the counter, Tukson himself clutched a double-barrelled shotgun, peering cautiously over the countertop as a quartet of AK-130s trooped past on the street outside.
One of the AKs paused and turned to look at the darkened storefront. With the lights off, the tinted windows offered a fair amount of concealment, but it seemed not to deter the AKs as the other three androids stopped and joined the first one at peering into the store. The AKs raised their arms, transforming them into guns, and opened fire, shattering the picture windows and stitching rounds across the back wall. In the back room, someone screamed.
The androids marched in across the broken glass, and Tukson popped out, unloading one barrel into the first one. He switched targets and fired the other barrel, taking down the second one before ducking back down behind the counter. At this range, without aura, the androids fell easily, the armor-piercing sabot slugs he had loaded cleanly punching through armor designed to protect against knives, pistol-caliber ammunition, and only the weakest Grimm attacks.
As bullets hammered into the counter but failed to penetrate the concealed armor, he reloaded and reflected that there were some benefits to some of the rasher decisions of his youth.
The gunfire stopped, and one of the AK-130s vaulted over the countertop, only to take a slug to the chest. He waited, listening for the last AK's footsteps as it tromped closer.
A gunshot sounded, followed by a crackle and a thump on the other side of the counter. Tukson looked up to see a human woman, dark-haired and green-eyed -- it was Rebecca DuBois; she ran DuBois' Insights, a clothier across the street -- holding a large revolver in an isosceles stance. She smirked at him.
"Can't let you have all the fun, can we?"
The battlefield had shifted.
What was supposed to have been a simple smashing raid had turned into an extended dogfight above an urban area covered with anti-aircraft artillery. They'd shot down a few of the squishies' planes, but the locals had downed plenty of Starscream's new Jet Vehicons as well. What. A. Shock. Then the Aerialbots had joined the fight, and things really went sideways.
Starscream had bugged off somewhere -- which, in Slipstream's personal opinion, vastly improved their odds -- and Skywarp had apparently decided to reformat himself in the middle of a dogfight for some reason. The newly-reformatted Seeker lieutenant had taken charge, but at the moment, Slipstream was a little too concerned with staying alive to pay that much attention to Skywarp.
She was glad they at least had weight of numbers on their side; it gave the Autobots something other than her to shoot at. Back on Cybertron, the Decepticons had dominated the skies for millions of years; the fact that the Aerialbots were still alive after all that time was a testament to their skills.
It was almost certain that each of those five Autobots had more aerial kills than there were Decepticons on this entire wretched planet, and she had no intention of adding herself to any of their tallies.
She had Nova Storm flying her wing, as usual, and they were currently closing in on the tail of one of the Aerialbots, Air Raid.
The Autobot suddenly hit his air brakes and transformed, Slipstream and Nova Storm following suit a split-second later, arcing out to give him a wide berth as they maneuvered to flank him. Air Raid turned to Nova Storm and fired his torque rifle at the Seeker, but as Slipstream tried to capitalize on him turning his back to her, he turned again, riding the recoil of the blast away from Nova Storm and toward her.
Slipstream flinched and brought her arms up, receiving a battering from the Aerialbots' CQC expert that sent her tumbling through the air. She struggled to regain control, transforming back into her vehicle mode and hitting her afterburners. It meant leaving Nova Storm to the Aerialbot's tender mercies, but frankly, Slipstream was the one in his sights and vulnerable, while Nova Storm should be able to disengage more readily.
Within moments, Nova Storm was forming back up on her wing.
"Well, that was quick," Slipstream noted over their comms.
"The Autobot disengaged."
Slipstream mentally frowned. "That doesn't make any sense," she muttered as she began probing out with her scanners. "Where'd he-?"
Her thoughts were interrupted as another Aerialbot screamed past her, close enough that his jet wash sent a violent shudder through her airframe. She tracked the Aerialbot as he swooped onwards on a collision course with his fellows, none of them paying much regard to the dense air traffic as they seemed intent on colliding with each other.
Realization dawned on Slipstream as the Aerialbot leader, Silverbolt, began transforming mid-flight, stretching his arms out as two others, Slingshot and Skydive slammed into them, the impact causing Silverbolt to flip over, even as Air Raid and Fireflight rammed into his sides.
"Oh, no."
She could only watch in horrified wonder as the Aerialbots completed their transformation. One of the other Seekers, Sunstorm, leading a flight of Jet Vehicons, came screaming out of the clouds above, firing on the Aerialbots in a futile attempt to disrupt their merger, but it was too late.
A massive arm that had once been Skydive backhanded Sunstorm, sending him tumbling uncontrollably through the air until the smoke rising from the fires of the city below swallowed him up. The Jet Vehicons following him scattered, though one wasn't quite as lucky as the others as a mighty hand grasped it and squeezed, crushing through its admittedly minimal structural integrity field like it wasn't even there before negligently discarding the shattered remains.
On towering pillars of flame coming from the backs of his legs, a giant among giants now stood, his expression grim, his form steady, his power unimaginable. Five beings had become one and, in the process, achieved something which even now buoyed their allies and shook their enemies to their cores.
Superion.
The Enigma of Combination was one of the sacred artifacts of the Thirteen Primes. Like seemingly everything else, the legend had proven to be real and was fought over in the war long ago. The power represented by combiners was an alluring one, after all, and both sides had made use of it. Attempts to replicate its effects conventionally had been... less than entirely successful, as the medic Ambulon proved.
The Autobots had been able to use it to great effect, from Defensor to Superion. Superion, especially, had turned the tide of battle in the air more than once during the war. To be sure, the Decepticons had acquired access to the Enigma of Combination themselves for a while during the Battle of Scramble City -- the Stunticons, Constructicons, and Combaticans were among those who had benefited from that -- but when the Seekers' turn came up... well...
No one was interested in letting Starscream into their head. And the feeling was entirely mutual. The fact that personality clashes seemed to cause issues with the combiner's brain module -- with the Combaticons' strong camaraderie and ability to work well together, the bloodthirsty berserker Bruticus was perhaps the sanest Decepticon combiner -- just cemented the Seekers' position on the matter.
That, however, didn't mean Slipstream wasn't sorely feeling the lack here. She winced as Superion's massive hand caught another Jet Vehicon and squeezed, this time, throwing the shattered corpse into a mixed flight of Seekers and Jet Vehicons.
"Decepticons!" the Aerialbot combiner boomed, brandishing his stress fracture cannon. "Die!"
That was the other problem with Superion: He really, really liked killing Decepticons. As a Decepticon herself, Slipstream wasn't exactly eager to indulge him in his hobby, so she peeled off and kicked in her afterburners again. It was taking a toll on her energon reserves, but all the energon in the galaxy wasn't going to do her any good if Superion got hold of her.
Superion's stress fracture cannon spoke, splitting the air. The bolt struck a Seeker -- Slipstream wasn't sure who -- and sent him crashing to the ground, a wing shattered, but even as he did so, a flight of Jet Vehicons dove in at Superion from behind, blasters blazing, and with that, Slipstream banked back around.
Superion was a combiner, worth at least a dozen Seekers in a battle.
But there were a lot more than a dozen Seekers in the sky tonight.
She just hoped it would be enough.
It wasn't, but it didn't need to be.
"Skywarp to all Seekers, break off!" came the most welcome order possible at the moment. "Focus on the local fighters and SEAD. Avoid contact with Superion."
"So, here's the big question," began Neptune as the Bullhead continued to fly through the darkening skies of Vale. "How are we supposed to get on that thing without blowing up? Anyone got an answer for that yet?"
The thing in question was the massive Decepticon airship that was flying over the city. Occasionally, a fixture on the ground would fire up at it, and occasionally, it would fire back, but generally, both sides seemed pretty keen to not get into a situation that could lead to the mile-long monstrosity falling down out of the sky. The benefit of this was that they weren't likely to get hit while flying to it; the downside of it was that the vessel's gunners were wide awake and probably looking for boarders like them.
"What we need is a distraction," said Weiss, thinking aloud.
Sun perked up at that, and then cooled down. "Say, Weiss, I know you don't use your semblance much these days, but do you think that you could use that summoning ability to conjure up a copy of that Giant Nevermore you and Blake defeated during initiation?"
Weiss shook her head. "No, even before I started avoiding using my semblance, I was never able to use summoning."
"I guess you were never much of a Schnee then," commented Neptune.
The snowcapped girl's eyes widened slightly, and a blush came to her cheeks. "Thank you."
"I only speak the truth," replied Neptune before turning back to Sun. "What I don't get is how you know that, though, when it's never come up before."
"I read it in a fashion magazine once," explained Sun easily. "Penny gave it to me and asked if she would look good in it. The page she had turned it to was an expose about Winter Schnee and explained how her hereditary semblance worked. I remember it because, just before I was going to ask Penny why she wanted to join the military, Ciel came in and told us not to take her stuff."
Neptune and Weiss stared at him, and then the white-haired girl turned towards her palette-swapped counterpart in the cockpit. "Blake, how can your boyfriend be so smart and so dumb at the same time?"
"Hey!" objected Sun. "That's… totally fair, in retrospect."
"Hmm… boyfriend…" murmured Blake in thought.
"Have you got something?" asked Weiss hopefully.
"I was just thinking… I've told you about Adam before, right?" asked Blake contemplatively.
"At great length," acknowledged Weiss.
"Something I don't think I talked about was his semblance and how he could channel it through his weapon," continued Blake.
"He taught you how to do that," realized Neptune aloud.
"But how…?" began Sun before noticing his girlfriend tightening her grip on the controls. "You're going to use it on the airship."
"But that'll use up too much of your aura, won't it?" asked Weiss in worry.
"Oh, yes," confirmed Blake, "which is why I'm only going to get one shot at this!"
With that declaration, the Bullhead snapped down in a high-G maneuver that sent the other members of the team into the walls.
"Strap in!" yelled back the raven-haired girl far too late.
"Blaaaaaaake!" shouted Weiss in distress and fury.
Acting quickly, the three Huntsman students used their skill and semblances to make their ways to individual seats and buckle themselves in and quickly tighten their seatbelts for good measure. The craft was suffering one jerking turn after the other, at one point even going upside down. Then came the terrible climax when everything was… well, Weiss had experienced it during the Vytal Tournament and during training, but it was certainly a thoroughly indecipherable experience. What was more comprehensible though was looking into the cockpit and seeing an oncoming wall of steel.
"Blake!" shouted Weiss.
Even as the name started to pass her lips, though, the steel wall parted just enough to allow the Bullhead to fly on through. Then, no sooner had they passed through the wall than did the airship come to a halt so quickly that all the passengers felt the straps digging into their bodies like the diamond cord of a rock cutter. Perhaps somewhat anticlimactically, the craft then gently landed on the alloy floor that they had found themselves on.
"We're in," reported Blake evenly.
Neptune, who had been holding onto his seat so tightly that his hands seemed to have turned to chalk, let out a squeak of discontent. "What was that?!"
Blake got out of the cockpit and started walking into the cabin. "I noticed one of the turrets happened to have a disintegration beam. I also noticed that there was a malfunctioning door on the same side of the huil. So I moved us into an angle where we would be able to pass through the door when it was open, while also passing through the path of that disintegrator beam. It worked, the beam took out the copy of the Bullhead left behind, and now we're onboard."
"Why didn't you tell us that beforehand?!" demanded Weiss.
"There wasn't enough time," said the raven-haired girl simply. "Now, come on. We don't know when a Decepticon will show up next."
"Blake! Communication!" Weiss sputtered as she unbuckled herself. "We need to work on it!"
"Later," Blake shot back as she opened the side door and stepped out. "We don't have time right now."
Weiss fumed but couldn't disagree as she and the two Huntsmen piled on out in Blake's wake into the striking interior of the alien mothership.
"What a hunk of junk!" declared Neptune.
The other members of the team grimaced, but they couldn't help but agree with the sentiment. The Decepticon ship had clearly seen better days, and those days were long, long ago. Everything seemed to be in a state of disrepair, ongoing repair, neglect, or just barely functional. It was, all and all, a surprising state for their doom to be in.
"She might be a flying pile of scrap, but she can still do a lot of damage," commented Blake. "Now, let's find that jammer."
Chrysalis's laughter was still echoing throughout the council chambers, even and above the fires, the engines of the cycles, and against all odds, the smell of… of what used to be the councilors. A deep and black pit seemed to have opened up and was swallowing them all. All that Atlas ever was or ever could be… gone in an instant.
The Dreadnoks joined in the laughter of their employer.
"Oh, what's the matter? Ya gonna cry?" mocked the Dreadnok with the chainsaw.
"They can cry as much as they want," chimed in Chrysalis cheerfully, "just as long as they do it on their knees!"
Chrysalis laughed maniacally, and the Dreadnoks joined in once more, and so, too, did the robot army they had brought, adding an eerily synchronized undertone to the chorus of laughs.
"This is just too perfect!" cheered Chrysalis, pumping her fists in front of her in an expression that was positively giddy before turning around to walk to the back of the council chamber. "This is the day that I've dreamed of since I was small. In fact, I could almost sing about it."
"Aww, why 'almost'? You have a lovely singing voice," complimented the Dreadnok with the flamethrower on his back.
"True, but if you're going to compliment me, could you at least do it for something that you would have had a snowball's chance in Vacuo of finding out about?!" ranted Chrysalis, spinning around and glowering frightfully at her minions before turning back to continue her walk. "Still, maybe I should start singing again. Oh, but what to sing? What to sing? Something about the conquering of Atlas, obviously…"
Winter had nothing going on in her head, nothing at all. It was like the explosions that had killed the Atlesian council had in turn blown away everything that she could comprehend. She tried to think of a way out of it, some way they could continue on, but nothing came to her. It seemed completely hopeless.
Then, suddenly, General Flagg rushed towards the Dreadnoks circling them with a mighty shout that seemed to echo through the ages of, "YO JOE!"
He leapt out and upon the motorbike of the Dreadnok with the scrabbly gold necklace, grappling with him and wrenching his rifle up to fire upon the backpack of the Dreadnok with the flamethrower. The backpack ignited, and the Dreadnok threw it away before it exploded in a fireball amongst a group of the guarding androids. Flagg, not being idle, had no sooner shot the second Dreadnok than did he lift the first up and throw him at the one wielding a chainsaw to knock him from his bike. Taking hold of the controls of the bike he had commandeered, he drove it towards the bike driven by the pink-haired form of the sole female amongst the Dreadnoks, leaping from the vehicle just in time to avoid the collision and the following explosion.
The others left behind were not the types to stand about slack-jawed though, and so it was that when Flagg began his assault in earnest, so too did they rush out with their own shouts of, "Yoooo Joe!"
For some amongst the company, they were ignorant of those words or what they meant, but nonetheless, the shouts that came from their throats and the throats of others filled them anew with the will to fight on. Where hope had lain crushed just moments before, it now stood tall and proud, flanked by the resplendent forms of duty and righteous fury. Even the true Councilor Sylvia, though she had been a tortured wretch just an hour before, seemed to have become as strong as ten men and twice as strident!
In an instant, the tides had turned, and the hunters had become the hunted. Though it seemed impossible, the robotic assailants appeared to have been overcome by a tremulous fear, and their combat performance suffered. Shots were fired wildly, and all combat discipline amongst the wicked forces of those who sought to enslave Atlas evaporated as the struggle became a melee.
"What?!" snarled Chrysalis, whirling around to find her plans falling apart and the fist of General Flagg flying towards her face.
The punch landed squarely on her jaw, sending her flying to the ground and sending the control box for the androids spinning from her hand to clatter along the floor.
Chrysalis deployed a collapsible staff from a concealed position and swung the metal stick out to smash against Flagg's throat. The old man staggered from the hit but grappled the simple device all the same to prevent himself from being knocked away. The weapon became a prop between the two fighters, each jockeying for control of the other.
The short battle changed a few seconds into it, with Chrysalis letting go at the precise moment so that Flagg would overextend and stumble while she launched herself towards the control box still on the floor. She buzzed along with her wings but was stopped at the last moment by the staff being propelled at incredible speeds to hit her wings and clog up their flight patterns. She skittered along the floor and flipped over at the last second to see Flagg rushing towards her again.
Swiftly, she brought her gauntleted arms up and fired from concealed compartments two sickly green energy beams at the general. Flagg took the beams on the chest but reacted quickly to reply in his own account. He brought his arm up and deployed from a device strapped to it an energy shield that not only burst out to destroy his sleeve but also to protect himself from the energy blasts. Behind this energy field like a tower shield of old did the general advance forward through the beams until they cut off with an anti-climatic fizzle and Chrysalis was left to look at her now smoking gauntlets in frustration.
Close enough now, Flagg swept down and picked up the control box and, in a finish to the motion, hit the manual shutdown command.
"No!" shouted Chrysalis as the androids left in the room and across the kingdom turned off and collapsed like puppets with their strings cut.
"I win," said Flagg in mocking mimic of Chrysalis' earlier declaration.
BANG!
The shot, even amongst all the other discharges of weapons fire, rang out through the battered chambers. Flagg's aura flared, and the holdout pistol in Chrysalis's hand did likewise. The oversized round seemed to have briefly stunned him.
BANG!
His aura collapsed.
BANG!
His body jerked.
BANG!
Red droplets sprayed across the floor of the council chamber.
Flagg stood still for but a moment, as if time had not yet caught up to him. Inexorably though, time moved on, and so too did his fall. He hit the ground with a wet thump.
Breathing heavily, Chrysalis lowered the holdout magnum in her hand, and her look of rage changed to one of disdain.
"What useless sentimentality," she sneered.
Rapid clacking of heeled boots signaled the arrival of Winter Schnee with hate in her eyes and sword raised to strike. Chrysalis didn't even deign to gloat, merely throwing a shaped charge at the specialist. The blast connected and threw the albino woman back, but behind her were the rallying forces of the rest of her company.
"Dreadnoks, retreat!" called out Chrysalis.
"I thought you'd never ask!" cheered one of them as the two remaining Dreadnok cycles, piled high with their number, rushed past to allow Chrysalis to leap on.
As the Dreadnoks retreated, they deployed smoke dischargers, but even so, the swiftest of the company gave chase.
Winter was about to join them, a gravity glyph on the verge of forming to propel her and a fire of vengeance in her heart as she took sight of the body of General Flagg, when the comm set in her ear beeped. She took the call. What greeted her was a shock.
"Targeter, can you read me?"
"General Colton? You're alive!" exclaimed Winter in shock. "How…?"
"Holograms. I was never there," explained Colton quickly. "Listen, I know you're still upset after what just happened -- whole kingdom saw it -- but right now, I need your help. Chrysalis hired the Red Ninja Clan, and they've taken over the anti-gravity systems. Me and my squad are about to begin our assault. Get down here and reinforce us."
"Yes, sir. Targeter out," replied Winter, turning to find Sylvia looking at her with a mien full of righteous fury.
"I'm coming with you," declared Sylvia. "General Flagg saved my life; I feel I must avenge his."
Winter looked to see the medic of the company placing Flagg's body in a more dignified position signifying death and squashed the emotions she longed to show.
"Very well. Have you ever ridden a Nevermore before, Councilor?"
"We... should go," Bumblebee murmured as he backed away, shooing the Xiao Long-Rose sisters back behind him. He could feel his actuators trembling. The mere presence of the Decepticon leader was almost overwhelming, but thankfully, so far, it seemed that Megatron hadn't spotted them and seemed content with firing his turreted cannon at unseen targets down the road.
Megatron transformed back into bot mode, surveying his handiwork... then turned, glowing red optics fixing on the trio.
"Run!" Bumblebee ordered as he screwed his struts and charged, leaping toward the grey Decepticon. "I'll-urk!" He was interrupted as Megatron's hand blurred out, seizing him by the throat, catching him mid-leap.
"You'll what?" the Decepticon leader crooned as he held the Autobot off the ground. Bumblebee brought his energon battle pistol up, only for Megatron to bat it away with his other hand. "Hold me off? You?" He scowled disdainfully. "I should rip out your vocalizer for the insult, little scout."
"Let go of him!" blurted out Ruby, and terrible Megatron turned his optics upon her.
"No…" choked out Bumblebee.
"Ahh," Megatron cooed appreciatively. "You would be Yang Xiao Long and Ruby Rose. Your performance in the four on four match wasn't bad, though your teamwork could use some improvement." His optics shifted, and a cruel smile came upon his mouth. "But I suppose that's to be expected, given how little time you've spent together as a team. Nevertheless, it's so good to finally meet you... Sunfire."
Bumblebee looked to the side and saw Yang falter. She was off her game, and… Ruby… Ruby was shaking like a leaf and desperately trying to keep it under control… just like him. Primus, he'd never been so afraid in his life.
"It appears you all need a short, sharp lesson on combat," gloated Megatron.
Bumblebee felt himself tossed at the sisters with great force, flipping through the air and crashing against the ground hard enough to churn up the pavement.
"Very well. Class is now in session."
Bumblebee coughed but forced himself back to his feet, struggling as his circuits froze under the sheer oppressive weight of Megatron's presence. Ruby had already burst off to the side to land on top of a building and was firing at Megatron while running. Yang had taken the opposite route and was recoil boosting through the air while firing down upon the leader of the Decepticons. He drew his own backup blaster, opened fire, and watched in horror as the energy bolts scattered off the mad dictator's structural integrity field.
Megatron extended an energon flail from the huge fusion cannon mounted to his right arm and flung it around Yang, pulling her close, bringing the blonde brawler up to intercept Ruby's shot just as the silver-eyed girl fired.
"Yang!"
"Lesson one," Megatron said calmly as he flung the blonde, sending her spinning into Bumblebee with a wet chunk. "Check your targets."
While Bumblebee crouched down, trembling as he checked on his partner. Megatron retracted the energon flail, bringing the fusion cannon up, and fired at the building Ruby was perched on, sending her flying away while the building exploded to let forth screams of terror from the burning ruins of the buildings next to it.
"Lesson two," he continued. "Mind your footing." He tilted his head contemplatively. "And lesson three: You can't save everyone."
"Maybe not!" Ruby retorted bravely as she landed on the street and fired again, the round pinging off Megatron's aura. "But I can try!"
Megatron snorted. "And in so doing, you would simply doom the few you could have saved. Such heroic nonsense. I wonder, how many people just died because you chose their building to fight from?"
Ruby's only reply was another shot, one that would have taken out one of his optics had it not been for his structural integrity field.
As Megatron focused in on the little reaper, the pressure in the air seemed to relent a little, and Bumblebee's attention was drawn back down by a groan and a shudder. "Anyone get the number of the truck that hit me?" Yang moaned, shivering a little from the lingering effects of Megatron's malice.
"Not a truck," Bumblebee corrected absentmindedly, looking down at her. "A tank."
Yang stopped rubbing her head and looked up at him questioningly. "A what?"
"A tank," he repeated. "That's Megatron's alt-mode."
Further discussion was interrupted as Ruby was sent bodily flying past them, bursting into a cloud of rose petals to land and regain her footing.
"Ruby!" Yang cried. She snapped her head around to glare at Megatron, just as the Decepticon leader's focus shifted to the two yellow-themed Autobots, pressing down like a weight upon them. She hesitated, then her hair began to glow as she levered herself to her feet, shoving her arms into the ground, then fired gravity rounds from Ember Celica, launching herself at the Decepticon leader.
"No!" Bee cried out as Yang hurtled toward Megatron. She brought her arms up as Megatron backhanded her out of the air, catching the blow on her shot-gauntlets. She tumbled through the air, and Bumblebee took the opportunity to open fire. Megatron blocked his shots with his arm and sneered.
More gravity rounds sent Yang, now glowing brighter than ever, streaking through the air back at Megatron, who braced for her semblance-enhanced blow, the stored energy detonating against his forearms in a brilliant explosion that blinded Bumblebee.
When his optics cleared, he saw Yang fall to the ground, struggling to regain her feet again.
"Not a bad effort," complimented Megatron. "Lesson four: Know your limits."
He raised a hand, and another round from Crescent Rose pinged off his hand harmlessly.
"Lesson five," he said as he fired again, blasting Ruby from her newest roost. "Coordinate. Tell me, how long were you two running around each other, working at cross-purposes, blind to each other's activities?"
Those burning red optics turned to gaze on Bumblebee, practically pinning him in place. "And now for you, little scout."
It was then that a horn sounded, distant but growing closer, and Bumblebee smiled.
"Looks like your time is up, Megatron."
"Ah, yes," the Decepticon leader said, "it seems the cavalry is about to arrive." He smiled. "Excellent."
Signal lights flashed from the riverfront, and Captain Wilder stared at the repeating pattern. He could barely see the man standing by the signal lamp with a landline handset to his ear, a long cord snaking across the ground into a residential building. He glanced at his signaller skeptically.
"They want us to fire at the middle wall?"
The young sailor nodded. "That's what he's saying, sir. Emergency recognition codes check out."
Wilder closed his eyes as he considered. He had hoped to never have to fire his ship's guns into the city, but needs must. The two outer walls must have been breached, with something big and nasty about to make short work of the inner wall, something that needed some serious firepower to kill, firepower like the Hama's eight-inch guns or the fixed siege guns that were, unfortunately, unable to bear on the target area.
"Coordinates?"
The signaller spoke, waiting through the signal pattern and verifying it.
Wilder gave the order and passed the coordinates to his Weapons Officer.
"Firing ranging shots, aye."
Captain Wilder suppressed a wince as his order was acknowledged.
He would pit his gunnery crew's marksmanship against any other ship's, the Hama's fire control systems were quite capable, and they had a pretty good idea on the range, based on where in the city the target was. But "a pretty good idea" wasn't enough to start lobbing volleys of nine 8-inch armor-piercing shells into the city without verifying first.
So, ranging shots would be necessary. The colored smoke shells should be mostly harmless, but there was always the risk of the fire dust causing secondary fires or even just the sheer mass hurting or killing some unfortunate soul who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The great guns spoke, firing a volley into the twilight sky over the city. Moments later, the signal lights began flashing rapidly.
"Green smoke one hundred feet long, twenty feet off to starboard. Orange smoke fifty feet short, on target," translated the signaller.
"Adjusting... we have a firing solution."
Wilder gave a curt nod. "WEPS," he said, "fire for effect, all guns, maximum rate, four salvos."
The guns thundered, then again and again and again, sending three-hundred-pound shells screaming to a target, sight unseen, the nature of which the crew of the Hama remained unclear on, thanks to limits of time and the signal light codes.
Out near the inner wall, Lennox watched in frustration as the giant Decepticon turned, his attention drawn by fire from VAV X-Ray, one of the few Valish military air vessels in the city's vicinity. The shells struck the metallic titan in the side of his head and back, to little apparent effect, and he charged, leaping into the air to grab the low-flying airship. As he landed with an impact that caused the ground to tremble, he brought the airship down on his shoulders, snapping it in two.
"HAHAHA!" the green and purple Decepticon bellowed. "Nothing defeats the Devastator! Nothing! Prepare for extermination!"
The so-named Devastator turned and reached up a hand toward a turret that was blasting away at him ineffectually, covering the entire thing in his metallic paw, then squeezing and crushing it completely.
The monstrous robot ignored the small arms fire and even the heavier weapons some Huntsmen preferred. They'd managed to wheel around a 3.5-inch anti-air gun, but after a few shots, it had simply torn off a section of the wall and hurled it at the repurposed AA gun, wrecking it. The siege cannons meant to defend the city against Behemoth-class Grimm, of course, would have been ideal, but with where it had emerged, they simply couldn't be brought to bear.
There was only one mobile platform he could think of that had big enough guns that might work, and accessing the city's landlines to get in touch with someone who could contact the Hama through signal lamps had been... a challenge. Clutching the landline handset, Lennox watched and hoped and prayed.
With green and orange smoke shells still casting a dim and eerie light across the battlefield, the first true volley arrived, the eight-inch shells just barely clearing the inner wall before smashing into the giant robot's chest, sending him staggering backwards until he fell onto a section of the middle wall, where the second and third volley of shells struck him. With a snarl, the mighty combiner levered himself out and, now braced for the impact, faced the final volley as they exploded against his chest with no visible effect.
And he laughed.
"We're gonna need a bigger boat," Lennox hissed in frustration. A bigger boat, after all, could carry bigger guns, and it was pretty clear they needed bigger guns. He lifted the handset back up to his head. "Keep firing!"
As the naval shells kept raining down, he saw one of the Huntress students he'd met earlier joining the fight, a collection of swords floating around her, pointed at the metallic titan.
"Another power cable broke!"
"We need a fire extinguisher!"
"Isolate the break and reroute the power!"
The shouts from the semi-controlled chaos of the Decepticon ship filtered into the gap in the wall that Blake and the rest of her team were crawling through like mice. It was something that honestly made a little voice at the back of her head talk about how they should just let the Decepticons destroy themselves and get out of there, but an even larger part of her mind screamed at her about how they needed to strike now while the iron was hot and that they were the only ones who could do it. It was that voice that pushed her forward, deeper into the ship.
There was a slap to her hip, and Blake looked back to see Weiss glaring at her.
"What?" hissed Blake.
"Stop it," whispered back Weiss. "Stop doing that thing you do where you think that you're the only one who can save the world and so you do something stupid."
"Blake's not going to do something stupid," insisted Sun from behind Weiss.
"Yeah, I am," agreed Neptune from behind him.
"Yeah, Nep-what?!" reacted Sun.
"Stumbled over the catch for the panel we're on," explained Neptune.
There was a brief moment as the four Huntsman students were given a split second of looking at each other in the gloom before the floor gave out under them and they were sent screaming into the unknown.
"What was that?" asked one of the Decepticons out in the hall. He looked around for a few seconds with his blaster to his shoulder, and then he dropped his ready stance and began to walk off. "Must have been a loose vent."
The four Huntsman trainees rolled down through the bowels of the ship, tumbling down a series of slopes that seemed to be funneling them towards a frail looking grate that they hit at great speed-
"-information to Optimus."
-into the middle of a conversation, the four Huntsmen fell with remarkable grace for a tumbling mass of limbs.
"What the scrap is this, Punch?" demanded a rather aggressive voice. "Or should I say… Counterpunch?"
Blake rubbed her head and looked up to see them situated between two Cybertronians. One was the Decepticon who had left them that flash drive so many months ago during their infiltration of the underground base. The other… was Cliffjumper. She recognized him from the bodycam footage captured by Team JNPR during their mission to Mountain Glenn and beyond.
What was he doing there? Why was he there? How was he there?!
"What," came the flat reply from the mysterious Decepticon.
"Don't play dumb with me, Counterpunch!" ordered Cliffjumper, tightening his grip on his oversized hand cannon. "I should have known you'd go in too deep. Now you're actively cavorting with Huntsmen and turning them against your fellow Autobot. Disgusting. If Optimus knew what you were doing-"
"Does Optimus know what you're doing?" asked the so named Counterpunch.
Cliffjumper paused. "Well, no, but that's irrelevant. The point is that the Huntsmen and the Autobots are at war, and you're working with them."
"Uh, excuse me," spoke up Neptune, bringing both sets of giant eyes down to him and the rest of the Huntsmen. It was either the stupidest thing he had done yet or the smartest, and at that moment, Blake wasn't sure which one. "Who are you two? And what's an Autobot? Are we supposed to be fighting? I've never heard of you before."
Cliffjumper pointed another hand cannon down at them. "Don't play coy with me, Huntsman. You should know very well that your people have declared war on us. No doubt because we stand in the way of your pillaging of villages."
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" shouted Sun, jumping in front of Neptune. "Whoa. Let's not do anything hasty."
"Too late for that by a quartex," commented Counterpunch. "Come on now, Cliffjumper, we don't have time for your paranoid delusions."
Weiss raised her hand. "Do we have time for an explanation? We sort of fell into the middle of this."
"You gave us the flash drive back when we snuck into that base," remembered Blake aloud. "You're a spy, aren't you?"
"I can neither confirm nor deny that," replied Counterpunch, arms crossed. "However, if the information that was stolen was to find its way back to Optimus Prime, that would hardly be the worst thing ever. Now, Cliff-"
"You aren't paying attention!" Cliffjumper interrupted. "I saw them! Team Coffee was working with Soundwave's little minions, and when I realized what was going on, they opened fire on me! Wrecked all the anti-Grimm defenses I'd set up for Lower Cairn!"
"That isn't how they tell it," commented Blake out the side of her mouth.
"The report they gave said the opposite," revealed Weiss. "They claimed that you attacked first, destroyed the town's defenses, and tried to enslave the townspeople."
One of Cliffjumper's guns lowered. "Did they now?"
"Sounds like they were just trying to cover their own butts," commented Neptune wryly, putting his hands up behind his head.
"Cliffjumper, did you try any asset denial?" inquired Counterpunch.
"Of course," confirmed Cliffjumper, puffing up his chest.
Counterpunch sighed. "Okay, so they weren't completely covering their tailpipes. You five can talk that out later. Right now, we still need to get that jammer down, or things are going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better."
"And how are we going to do that?" asked Sun pointedly.
Cliffjumper snorted. "Sabotage, duh. I overheard that the jammer was made by Starscream, which means there's already a good chance that it explodes. All I have to is find the right tiny fiddly bits to upset, and the whole thing will live down to ol' Screamer's reputation, and he'll get the blame too. It's the perfect plan. All I need to do is find a way to get into those hard to reach areas."
There was a moment of quiet, and then Counterpunch pointed at the Huntsman trainees in what was probably annoyance.
"What?!" gaped Cliffjumper, clearly surprised enough that he actually put away his weapons. "I can't work with them; they're Huntsmen! Who knows when they'll stab me in the back? You can't trust them at all, Punch."
"Hey, we're plenty trustworthy!" complained Weiss.
Cliffjumper glared at them with renewed fury. "You Huntsmen are just one bounced check away from banditry."
"What's a check?" asked Sun, cocking his head.
"Kids these days," scoffed the red Autobot with a roll of his eyes.
Blake decided that was the moment to speak up. "Financial situation aside, we do have tiny hands, and we don't like the Decepticons-"
"I'll believe it when I see it," interrupted Cliffjumper.
Blake continued unimpeded. "-so we're the perfect fit to team up with. Assuming of course that you can remain hidden and not give us away."
"And what makes you think that you can remain undetected?" asked Cliffjumper snidely.
"I am a ninja," answered Blake bluntly.
Cliffjumper seemed taken aback and blinked in surprise. "Okay, so maybe you won't be completely useless. Assuming you can find a way out, that is."
"Assuming it hasn't been discovered, we can get out the way we came in," replied Blake confidently.
Cliffjumper grunted. "Shame I can't do that."
"Oh yeah, how did you get on?" asked Sun curiously.
"I swam, duh," was Clifffjumper's succinct answer.
Weiss cocked her head in confusion. "How…?"
"Just don't question it," interrupted Counterpunch. "Trust me, you'll be far less likely to overheat your brain module if you do. We've all learned to do the same."
Since taking to the skies, Thundercracker had steered clear of the main dogfight. So far, no one had challenged him on it, aside from a snide remark on his cowardice, but... well, that was Superion there, and even on the best of days, that was a fight he wanted no part in.
"Thundercracker." The directed transmission startled him out of his thoughts.
"What do you want, Skywarp?"
"Devastator's requesting air support. Some heavy artillery's annoying him, and we're kinda busy playing keep-away with Superion."
"Right right," Thundercracker grumbled, banking over to the breach in the walls that marked the gestalt's position. From up here, among the buildings and fortified defenses, even a gestalt was hard to pick out, but the thunderous sound of heavy guns drew his attention, and he saw a wet navy vessel in the river, its guns speaking with deadly intent. Tracing the arc of the surface combatant's fire, he finally spotted Devastator, shielding his face from- from a powerful green energy beam.
Penny.
For a moment, time seemed to slow down.
For as long as Thundercracker could remember, all he'd ever wanted to do was fly. The Decepticons had given him that. Ever since the war started, he'd followed orders, done what he was told. Except once. When they'd started bombing neutrals, he'd gotten in Starscream's grill and demanded a front line posting. He'd gotten it. At least the Autobots shot back. It was easier that way. Easier to keep his head down, follow orders, keep his brain module off- off what they were doing.
But now? Now, he realized he had a choice. Two lives lay before him.
It was no choice at all.
I'm going to regret this, he thought as he banked hard toward his target, picking out the target for his drone rockets. The heavy guided missiles weren't exactly suited for this kind of task -- they were designed for bunker busting at stand-off ranges -- but they would do the job. He hoped.
He fired. The two drone rockets expended only a tiny fraction of their fuel load before smashing into Devastator and unleashing a combined three tons worth of explosive power at point-blank range. The mighty gestalt staggered under the force of the twin explosions, but Thundercracker ignored him.
That kind of firepower wouldn't take down a combiner. That wasn't the point.
The Seeker -- Traitor, he reminded himself -- instead dove down to street level, converting into his bot mode to land on the street. "Penny!" he called, looking around.
"What do you want, Thundercracker?" The question was cold and hard.
He flinched and turned to see Penny in her Fracas suit standing atop the wall. The shoulder pauldrons on the suit were pitted and scarred, the emblems that had once graced them burned away in favor of a crudely painted Atlas logo. "Penny." He breathed a sigh of relief. "You're okay."
"What. Do. You. Want?" she repeated.
"Penny-" he implored.
"You lied to me!" she shrieked, cutting him off.
"I swear, Penny, I meant what I said," he answered desperately. "I didn't know-"
"Not about that!" she interrupted. "About the Decepticons! About who they really are! About who you really are."
Any protest died in Thundercracker's vocalizer. Instead, he said, "I've been in this war almost since the beginning, Penny. It's... easy to lose sight of how things have changed since then."
"How long, Thundercracker?" she demanded. "How long before they would have turned me into a weapon?!"
He stared at her incredulously.
"I mean against innocent people!" she amended. "How long before they- they reprogrammed me?"
"I wouldn't have let that happen!" he protested fiercely. "I said I'd protect you, Penny, and I meant it!"
She peered up at him hesitantly, and on some whim, her helmet's front retreated such that her hurt and hopeful expression could be seen. "You- you really mean it."
"Of course I mean it, Penny," he said. "You... the Decepticons gave my life meaning, Penny. The freedom to fly, the power to do what you want, they're tempting things when you have nothing."
She looked at him thoughtfully. "And now?"
"The only thing more dangerous than a bot with nothing to lose... is a bot with everything to lose."
"And what do you have to lose?" asked Penny curiously, the battle around them seeming to fade away.
He looked away. "Honor, respect... you."
Penny raised an eyebrow, not that he saw it.
"The real you, I mean. You're right, I could just take you to Soundwave, and he could have you reprogrammed into a loyal Decepticon, but that wouldn't be you," explained Thundercracker shamefully. "That wouldn't be the Penny who lights up the room with her smile. That wouldn't be the Penny who makes everyone want to protect her just by living her best life. That wouldn't be the Penny who keeps running forward, no matter how many obstacles get in her way." He turned to look at her again. "That wouldn't be the Penny who I consider my friend."
The coppertop smiled again. "Friendship is magic."
Thundercracker chuckled. "It sounds better when General Ironwood says it."
"Yes, but he doesn't say it nearly often enough, in my opinion," replied Penny. "You'd almost think he didn't say it at all."
"He can say it more after we save the day," declared Thundercracker, gesturing to the frantic battle that was still being waged all around them with thunderous explosions almost drowning out their conversation completely.
Penny nodded, and her helmet once again snapped to cover her face. "I'm combat ready."
"And so am I," declared Thundercracker.
With that, Penny leapt into the air on tongues of burning fire from her back, and her armored suit shifted and changed into the form of a giant pistol, a contortion that would be painful -- if not fatal -- for most people, but the coppertopped student inside was not most people. There were a few things notable about it, all quite academic, though, to those who saw it. All that mattered was what happened when Thundercracker's hand wrapped around the grip of Penny's new form.
Something happened then, and Thundercracker leaped into the sky with newfound energy and a pulse that seemed to brighten the dimming light like a sliding switch. It drew the attention of all the defenders remaining, and so too did it draw the attention of Devastator. The combiner looked upon the ascending pair, and a worried frown crossed his features.
"Thundercracker, what are you doing?" demanded Devastator.
"Binary!" shouted Thundercracker.
"Fusion!" continued Penny.
Devastator's face fell. "Oh no."
"Gyrocannon!" declared Thundercracker and Penny in unison.
Both their auras seemed to be rapidly pulsing in tandem with each other when Penny's gun form was pointed at the big combiner, and a final flash snapped out from her barrel. Time and sound seemed to stop, and then all at once, they came rushing back. A gigantic blue-green beam of unquantifiable energy like a torrent came out and lit up the evening to strike Devastator in the chest.
The ultimate Decepticon combiner howled in shock and pain as his structural integrity field, which had withstood so much over the course of the battle without fail, suddenly shattered into a thousand pieces, even as he himself shattered into six. The individual parts of the gestalt were sent flying through the air with smoke trailing from their bodies. Just like that, Devastator had been devastated.
Groaning, Scrapper got himself out of the comedic heap that he had landed in to hoarsely shout to the heavens. "You think that's enough to beat us? You ain't seen nothin' ye-"
The blast of a truck horn split the air and seemed to carry over all the sounds of battle, drawing the attention of all. The defenders appeared rejuvenated, the Decepticons paled, Thundercracker looked as if he was being torn in two. Even the Grimm reacted, briefly cowering as if the sound of the horn was a great offense to them.
"Oh, scrap this," cursed Scrapper in fear. "Constructicons, retreat!"
They transformed and did as ordered, fleeing with small arms fire peppering them the whole way.
Thundercracker trembled as he watched them go, but comforting words from his companion stopped those quakes. "Don't worry, Friend Thundercracker, we'll protect you."
The irony of the statement made Thundercracker snort in amusement. "Well, I suppose that's for the future. Right now, we still have a battle to win."
"That's right," agreed Penny, and then a brief pause precluded her panicked statement. "Oh no! Aska sent me back to get reinforcements!"
Thundercracker looked at the transformed pistol in his hand in equal panic. "What?! Penny, you can't just-! We've got to save them!"
With that, the pair transformed again, Thundercracker becoming a blue Skystriker with Penny's armored form as a gun pod mounted on one of his fuselage pylons, and rushed out the short mile until they ran into two more of the team.
Shadow was, true to form, darting and rushing between Grimm and killing them with devastating elemental attacks from her sword along with all manner of ninja trickery that made one's head spin trying to comprehend it. Most untrue to form was how she was interacting with the other defenders, communicating with them and trying to make best use of their supporting fire to take down the enemy. It seemed like she was finally starting to grow into her leadership role.
Mad Dog didn't seem to have any backup, but he didn't seem to need any. He was a one-man army, his powered armor tramping into the enemy lines with thundering autocannons, shrieking mini-missiles, and beating pulse lasers. The Creeps that came from below fared just as poorly as the Griffins that fell from the sky.
Farsight… Farsight couldn't be seen, and for a moment, Thundercracker despaired that she might have been lost. Then, a titanic explosion tore through a Ziraph some distance out, decapitating all three of its heads. As he flew over the battlefield on a strafing run, he then saw a figure with a satchel charge spinning it around to throw at a Goliath.
Penny gasped. "That's Ciel! I mean Farsight! What's she doing so far out ahead of everyone? That isn't like her at all."
"Does it matter?" Thundercracker asked as he banked around for a pass. "She looks like she could use some air support."
The variable aperture of Penny's Targetmaster mode blossomed open like a flower, and they fired, the beam dispersing to carve a wide swathe through the Grimm swarming toward Farsight. Thundercracker followed it up by transforming and using Penny as a pistol to take out more Grimm. He crouched down while his partner continued shooting and held out his hand for the blue-haired woman, who turned to gaze upon him.
"Come on!" he insisted. "Let's get out of here!"
Farsight's eyes peered into him, through him, in a way that he had seen before but always found really creepy.
"Tell me, Thundercracker," she asked, "have you figured out where your loyalties lie yet?"
"Yes! I'll explain later, but right now, we have to go!" insisted Thundercracker.
"Come on, Farsight!" cried Penny.
That did it. With a single hop, Farsight covered the distance between them and leapt into his hand. Thundercracker took that as his cue then to leap backwards with an assist of his engine feet and book it back to friendlier lines, even as fresh Grimm were nipping at his heels.
"What were you thinking, Farsight?" demanded Penny before unleashing a fusillade of energy blasts from her gun form. "You could have been killed!"
"Someone had to keep you kids safe while you retreated," explained Farsight as her perch crashed back into the ground.
"I'd just like to point out that I'm older than any recorded thing native to this planet," said Thundercracker before letting go of Penny. "So, technically, not a kid."
Penny fell to the churned up soil and transformed back into her power armored form. "I can still keep going."
"No, we've got to pace ourselves, or we're going to burn out our stru- aura," contradicted Thundercracker before firing off a shoulder cannon at the Grimm. "It looks like it's going to be a long night."
"Sticking around?" asked Farsight as she drew forth Distant Thunder from her back and braced it on his fingers.
"Why not?" asked Thundercracker, glancing back to where the defenders seemed to have rallied and were rushing towards them. "After all, this is what I'm signing up for."
The battle had already moved on by the time the giant ephemeral Nevermore that carried Sylvia and Winter arrived at the entrance to the tunnels that led directly to innermost workings of Atlas. Scattered combat androids could be seen all around, but while some were destroyed or damaged, most were shut down. Signs of battle were still about the place though, from small craters to unsightly splatters.
Sylvia tightened her wrap around Winter's belly as the Nevermore beneath them disappeared and they fell momentarily before landing on the back of a Pride Leader Sabyr that galloped through the open door to the innards.
She shouldn't even be able to stand after years of mistreatment and abuse and torture and all manner of unsightly vexations inflicted upon her, but instead, she felt better than she had since graduating Crystal Prep. She knew why too. It didn't make sense, but she knew why her strength was rushing back into her a thousandfold.
This was a day of destiny. She could feel the weight of history pressing down on her with the weight of ten million years, and with each crushing pound upon her back, she stood all the straighter. Every second counted, and she would not be found wanting!
More than that, she felt the obligation to make sure that General Flagg's death was not in vain. When no one else had realized what had happened to her, he had pushed and pushed, putting everything on the line to save her, to expose her kidnapper, and in the end, he had paid the ultimate price. Such a gift was non-refundable, and she had to use it as best as was possible so that she did not dishonor the real Atlesian hero who had purchased it.
The silver-eyed man who had been like a father to her told her that there would be days like this, days when purpose upon purpose would stack upon her, and he had told her in equal measure to prepare for them. He told her many other things too, after he had found her on the streets of Stratusburg when she was but a child, and those lessons came flooding back to her as the spectral Grimm beneath her pounded through the halls. She remembered his kindness, his wisdom, his skill, his determination, his virtue, but most of all, she remembered his smile and how he never stopped smiling, even at the end, when the dark hunters of the Enemy had caught up to them so soon after her graduation.
Too many. Too many brave and stalwart heroes had given their lives for hers. It was time she showed them that their faith was not misplaced!
They entered a large storage room, and suddenly, they were in the middle of a pitched battle. Valiant soldiers of Atlas on one side exchanged fire with ninjas in red gis on the other side, and in the middle of it all was General Joe Colton. The aged general fought with the strength of a hundred men and was dodging ranged fire while fighting in melee with no less than twelve shadow warriors who could not harm him, as evidenced when he caught the katana of one lightning strike in one hand and shattered it with his legendary Kung-Fu Grip.
"Idiots!" shouted a man with a painted face partially concealed by a hood from the back of the ninjas' lines. "He's just one man!"
"A better man than your men, clearly," quipped back Colton with equal volume as he sent the ninjas who had been attacking him flying through the air with a single roundhouse kick that connected with all of them.
He really was something else, something impossible, like a hero from another age… which he technically was, Sylvia supposed.
The construct landed behind the lines and dissolved under the guidance of Specialist Winter Schnee, the one they called Targeter. No sooner had they hit the ground, though, than did she run off to join the battle, sword drawn. Sylvia was left on her own, save for the brave soldiers around her.
One of them was a sniper, with an eye no doubt keen and true, who took his gaze away from the battlefield for just a moment to look upon her. "Ma'am, do you need any assistance?"
"No," she replied. "I can take care of myself."
It was then that a change occurred, and a glowing silver projection of herself grew outwards to stand more than thrice her prior height with the power of semblance: Mountain Maiden.
"But thank you all the same!" Sylvia cried back as her new form took great strides towards the enemy.
It wasn't all of her, not really. Her physical body still existed at the center of the projection. It was just that her aura had expanded out to take on the appearance of a giant copy of herself. It was an esoteric semblance -- and not one particularly useful in her chosen profession -- but she was certainly glad of it now.
Halfway across the battlefield, she reached down and took hold of one of the crates without explosive warnings. She lifted it into the air and gave it a spinning toss that sent it flying across the warehouse. It would have hit that villain directing the ninjas square on had he not dodged at the last moment.
"Enough of this!" he yelled, seeming to disappear from sight as he did so. "Red Ninjas, evade!"
On his command, the ninjas remaining threw down smoke bombs where they stood and covered the area in a cloud that the human eye could not penetrate. Luckily for the Atlesians, they did not solely rely on the human eye.
"They've retreated deeper into the catacombs!" called out that same sniper Sylvia had seen before.
Sylvia's projection shrunk and ceased, and so she was left on the same level as the others when she voiced a worrying observation: "If they keep going that direction, they'll hit the core."
"They already have," revealed Colton sourly as he picked up a fallen intermediate caliber select-fire rifle. "Thanks to Chrysalis's disguise as you, they've gained access to all sorts of places where only a councilor can go and then gone a little bit further with their own illicit skills."
"Move out!" ordered one of the soldiers; who it was in particular, Sylvia was ashamed to say she didn't recognize.
Sylvia followed along as the soldiers split off into the many corridors to give pursuit. This part of Atlas was less populated than the levels around it, but that didn't mean it was unpopulated. Numerous people, many of them farmers, had seen their foes pass by and were eager to point them out. This proved to be a liability when they caught up with their quarry and a running battle between guns and shuriken erupted, as there were more than a few of those civilians caught in the crossfire. Some of them brought out their own weapons, but this far into the bowels of the most well-defended kingdom on Remnant, they hadn't felt the need for more than holdout pistols that would be of little use against a trained ninja warrior.
The thunder of weapons fire echoed through the halls, but that echo eventually subsided for the contingent Sylvia was with when they broke through into a large room filled with plants. They had entered one of the hothouses that kept the city fed, with large trees growing throughout the room. A label just off the raised path indicated them as Orange family brand orange trees, though they were hardly weighed down with fruit to a great extent at that time.
Their enemy had disappeared, but that was a mere consequence of terrain. They would show up again; of that, Sylvia was certain. Villains like them could not resist a chance to strike at the heroes; it was as certain as the tides.
A glance up confirmed that suspicion.
"Winter! Above!" the silver-eyed woman called out.
The albino brought her swords up in a defensive position in time to catch the sword strike of a Red Ninja leaping from the trees, and then deflected it away. There was a battle cry, and more descended upon the rest of them. Combat was joined with all of them, but Sylvia could only focus on herself.
She rolled to avoid the nunchaku of her assailant and activated the power of Mountain Maiden once more. With one giant silver hand, she grabbed hold of the Red Ninja and was about to throw him into the ground like she was a petulant child with a toy that had lost its joy. Unfortunately, her opponent was a ninja, and he managed to disappear from her grasp just in the nick of time.
This wasn't the first time Sylvia had faced a ninja though, and so she was prepared when her foe came at her from behind to try and strike her. She was able to stun him with a back fist and then sweep him into the air with a giant low kick that sent him flying into one of the trees with his aura sputtering. Before he could recover, a swift punch from her sent him headfirst into the metal of the path with a reverberating clang.
He wouldn't be getting up from that any time soon, and as Sylvia looked around, she found that the others had defeated their foes as well.
"That was a dumb move, challenging a master of jungle warfare in a hothouse," said one soldier with a mustache and a hat bent one one side.
Sylvia wasn't sure that made sense, but she couldn't argue with results.
"Come on, there's more where this came from," said Winter.
Sylvia wished those words had not been prophetic, but they had. They fought a great number of foes on their way to the core. This continued down and down until they were nearing that all-too-important part of Atlas themselves.
BOOM!
Zartan wasn't exactly happy with the way this job was going. It had started off easy enough, infiltrating the Dreadnoks into key positions in the Council Guard, suborning some, ousting others, and arranging for the more principled and high profile Council Guardsmen to be transferred to irresistible postings. What, exactly, Chrysalis had wanted had been vague, except she seemed aware that her own long-term infiltration was under threat.
Colton's return probably had something to do with that.
Now, however, his Dreadnoks and the Red Ninjas he had hired were losing ground, and escape was looking... difficult. He glanced at Monkeywrench, who was hunched over a computer console, having accessed it with the good councilor's codes. That little distraction would be quite sufficient, even if it meant sacrificing a city of potential customers, but it seemed he needed more time.
His eyes tracked across the battlefield until they zeroed in on where Councilor Sylvia -- the real Councilor Sylvia, that is -- was clutching her head from the explosion of the micro-rocket he'd fired to get some breathing room.
He needed time, and if the councilor were in need of medical attention... well. On the other hand, while a wounded councilor would buy it for him, a dead one would likely earn him a few extra bullet holes, just to be sure. He glanced above her, to the pipes running along the ceiling. Who knew what chemicals ran through those pipes?
Zartan snapped his break-action micro-rocket launcher shut and raised it, aiming at the ceiling above the councilor.
"Nothing personal, Councilor," he said quietly. "Just business."
He fired.
Neptune nearly stumbled as another explosion shook the ship.
"I think we might have overdone it," he dryly commented.
"Nah, this is pretty standard for Starscream's mishaps," replied Cliffjumper.
They had just entered the corridor where they had left the Bullhead, and somehow, they hadn't been discovered by the Decepticons. To be fair, they had a lot of other things to worry about. Not to mention that Cliffjumper had let them ride in him while he was invisible and in vehicle mode for a while.
That had been awkward.
"You gotta be kidding me," commented Cliffjumper as he found himself looking at the Bullhead. "You came in on that hunk of junk?"
"Hey, she's not that bad," defended Sun.
"Certainly better than swimming," agreed Weiss.
"Can we argue about this after we get off the exploding ship?" asked Blake as she scrambled into the airship and then the cockpit.
The rest of the Huntsmen trainees followed her into the Bullhead… and so did Cliffjumper. The youngsters were left with about half a second of warning before the Autobot, in car form, came flying through the door to the cabin. Somehow, remarkably, they didn't get run over.
"Watch it!" complained Neptune.
"Hold on!" Blake shouted back over whatever was going to be said.
The engines of the Bullhead howled, and the VTOL lifted up into the air. It spun around and accelerated towards the malfunctioning door that had admitted them in the first place. It had started to close when they lifted off, but the craft was swift enough to just barely avoid being crushed, with a lick of flame from the thundering explosion escaping through that same gap on their tail.
Everyone in the Bullhead but Blake screamed as the aircraft dove down to the ground and twisted through the streets while performing an aileron roll.
"Land, Blake! Land!" shouted Sun as he held tightly onto the handle in front of Neptune and his blue-haired friend held onto him.
The craft leveled off, and with a groaning of what was hopefully not the inertial dampers, the Bullhead came to a stop on the street besides a ruined remains of the Blue Bridge that had once passed over one of Vale's large rivers. The landing gear had no sooner touched down than did the occupants scramble out of the vehicle. Blake followed at a more sedated pace.
"And you people call me crazy!" complained Cliffjumper as he transformed back into his robot mode.
"Look!" shouted Neptune, pointing back to the Decepticon ship floating above the city in the darkening sky.
Explosions rippled along the width and breadth of the vessel, and rays of light shined out of it in time with an ominous whine.
"It's going to explode over the city!" screamed Weiss in horror.
"Wait for it!" Cliffjumper declared, holding out his hand.
The noise and light built to a crescendo, and then, suddenly, when all seemed lost, everything stopped. A moment of tension held in the air, and so likewise did everyone watching hold their breath. Death was upon them.
Fewuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…
The sound, like air escaping from a balloon, echoed out from the Decepticon vessel.
Cracka-brak-brak-bawoosh.
A cringe-worthy noise of mechanical trouble followed, and then a giant cloud of black smoke shot out of a hatch on the top of the ship's nose briefly.
Then… nothing.
Everyone but Cliffjumper stared at the Decepticon ship.
"Ha! Told ya!" bragged Cliffjumper.
"What was that?!" shouted Neptune in confusion.
"That was a perfectly-executed Starscream screwup," declared Cliffjumper, brushing his knuckles against his front finish before blowing them off. "Big build up, big noise, but ultimately, minimal damage and a fizzle."
"But the explosions… 'minimal damage'?!" cried Weiss in frustration.
"Yep," replied Cliffjumper with a pop.
A set of TVs in a nearby store stopped projecting static, and a news report came on. "-breach has been confirmed! You heard it here first, people: a breach in Lost Valley Square-"
"Oh, will you look at that? Comms are back online," Cliffjumper smugly noted. "You're welcome."
The Huntsmen students wanted to complain, but before they could decide one way or the other, squealing tires alerted them to a newcomer, a red pickup truck. That newcomer transformed then in a leap to land near to them. Judging by the logo on him, he was an Autobot like Cliffjumper.
"Cliffjumper?!" he exclaimed in shock. "What in tarnation are you doin' here? No bot's seen chrome nor steel o' you since we fought the Predacons in Vacuo."
Cliffjumper turned in full to greet the newcomer. "I've been living on the edge, Ironhide, protecting those forgotten by the so-called defenders of this world. And that's including you."
Ironhide's eyes narrowed visibly. "Prime wants ta talk to ya, by the way. Something about you nearly starting a war. Said it would be a looong talk."
Cliffjumper seemed to pale a little, somehow.
"He said he was attacked first," Weiss said out of the blue.
Everyone turned to look at her.
"Really now?" drawled Ironhide.
"Yes, and… and I think he might be right," declared Weiss.
Neptune put a hand on her shoulder in comfort. Defending Cliffjumper might not have been the smartest idea in the world, and he didn't need to be familiar with the situation to see that, but it felt right. He backed them up, so they would back him up.
"Hmm," Ironhide considered, and then transformed back into a truck. "Something to talk about later. Right now, we still have a city to save and Deceptichops to bust."
With that, they all rushed back into danger.
"This is Hector Ramirez, live from Lost Valley Square -- and hopefully, recorded -- where three unknown robots appear to have created a breach right here in the heart of Vale."
The reporter was crouched behind a bus stop shelter as he narrated into the camera.
"It appears that two other robots, accompanied by the famed Team Juniper of Beacon, a Huntsman, and even a senior member of the White Fang are doing battle with these robots in an attempt to contain and seal the breach."
"Hey," complained a voice from behind him, drawing both Hector and his cameraman's attention, "I'm here too."
They turned to find an antlered reindeer faunus crouching behind the same bus stop shelter, clad in a White Fang outfit, complete with mask, and clutching a militia battle rifle. He peeked around the other end of the shelter and fired, though how much he was actually contributing to the fight was... debatable, given none of the hostile robots seemed inclined to notice.
Not that Hector was complaining. He liked being close to the action, not in it.
Hector ducked as something exploded, sending a piece of debris flying past his head.
He peeked around the bus shelter again, waving his cameraman forward. His eyes widened. "A breach has been confirmed! You heard it here first, people: a breach in Lost Valley Square has been confirmed. Grimm are entering the city! The robot saboteurs are now attempting to flee, but Jaune Arc, potential claimant to the Empty Throne, and Pyrrha Nikos, four-time Mistral Regional champion and this year's first-year Vytal Tournament champion are in hot pursuit, while the rest of the heroic Team Juniper and their allies attempt to hold back the Grimm and seal the breach."
"I'm sure it'll all be fixed in a minute," commented the White Fang grunt beside them.
The big green robot was knocked back on his keister by a colossal High King Taijitu barrelling out of the hole, black end first, widening it further with the bulk of its titanic circumference and followed by the far more raucous cries of yet more Grimm. Beowolves and Ursai clung to its scales, and in its wake, more Grimm -- Creeps and Karkadanns and Sleipnirs -- flooded out, followed by the slower, lumbering forms of Ogres and Cyclopes, themselves accompanied by the elk-horned Cerruns that, though capable of great speed, seemed content to stalk forward at a stately pace.
"Come on!" the White Fang leader bellowed at the High King Taijitu's black heads; it had three black heads, a sign of its age and strength, surely mirrored by the white end. "Hit me already!"
The High King Taijitu's black heads reared back, even as the white end slithered out of the tunnel and coiled around, presenting its three heads. One by one, the six heads lunged, striking the White Fang leader, who grunted but held his ground, blocking each blow with the battle rifle he held in his hands.
The rifle began to glow, brighter with each blow, and he swung it like a baseball bat. A flash of light blinded Hector as the White Fang leader struck, and the High King Taijitu recoiled, minus three heads: two black, one white.
"Tell me you got that," Hector begged, looking at his cameraman, who shot him a smile and a thumbs up.
Satisfied, he turned back to the action. The blond Huntsman was grappling with an Ogre, while the White Fang leader had transformed his rifle into its sword form and was dashing around, using it to skewer and slash the forefront of the Grimm incursion, alongside the less notable half of Team JNPR... Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie, that was it.
As the White Fang leader impaled an Ursa, however, a Beowolf slipped behind him and struck. He turned, just in time to catch the blow across his face, and though his aura seemed to hold, it still knocked him off his feet and sent his mask flying.
In the meantime, the High King Taijitu had recovered and was rearing back all its heads, zeroing in on the White Fang leader.
Before it could strike, though, gunfire sounded, first one, then a few dozen, then many more in a ragged volley. The thunder of heavier guns soon joined them, along with the whistle of a few rockets. Bullets and shells and rockets pelted the High King Taijitu before it could strike, causing it to rear back, until a pair of particularly loud cannons spoke, tearing the gigantic Grimm to pieces, the remains collapsing over the entrance, giving them a short breather..
"It appears reinforcements have arrived," Hector narrated into the camera. "The people of Vale have answered the call to arms with their personal weapons." He squinted. "And it appears a collector has brought out a pair of Great War vintage six-inch self-propelled assault guns too. Surely, with such a force, this Grimm incursion will be driven back!"
As if on cue, Jaune Arc and Pyrrha Nikos -- a couple who was dominating certain headlines -- returned, landing in the square.
The prince spoke. "They got away somehow," he reported grimly, shaking his head.
"Probably switched to their alt-modes," one of the robots -- the white one -- replied, his voice low and smooth. "Who knows what they look like now?"
"At least the breach seems to have been dealt with," observed the Champion of Mistral.
"No," the White Fang leader denied, shaking his head as he strode up, and Hector could see the brand on his face, three unmistakable letters. Silently, he waved furiously at his cameraman to get a close up. "This was only the first wave," continued the man with 'SDC' branded on his face. "Until we seal the tunnel, they'll keep coming. And we'll have to push them back pretty far, or they might surface elsewhere later, after undermining the foundations."
"You have a plan?" asked the prince.
The White Fang leader nodded, then turned to the crowd.
"Defenders of Vale!" he called, clearly well-practiced at projecting his voice to loud crowds. "My name is Adam Taurus, leader of the Vale White Fang. Once, I would have counted many of you among my enemies, but tonight, we face an enemy common to us all. The Grimm are coming, the same relentless tide that Huntsmen fight everyday, that others are fighting at the walls at this very moment, coming to kill us all and turn all we have built to ashes. Here we stand, with no walls, no battlements, no emplaced weapons to aid us."
He paused a moment, but before any real worry could find purchase in the crowd, he continued, "But Vale does not stand alone!" He gestured at the two robots, first the green one, then the white one. "Bulkhead and Jazz of the Autobots, experienced and talented warriors, enemies of the treacherous Decepticons, hail from the planet Cybertron." He then waved over to the prince's team. "Team Juniper, the Pride of Mistral itself, stands ready." Then the blond Huntsman. "Taiyang of Patch, skilled and brave. And I myself, born of Mistral, stand with you. It will not be easy, but the breach is small, a narrow tunnel which will force the Grimm into a killing zone, and if we push them back far enough, we can seal the breach far from any place that they could use to menace us again."
His gaze swept across the crowd, blue eyes seeming to challenge them, daring them to step up to the task before them... then he turned and ran, leaping into the hole from which the Grimm came.
At that, the green "Autobot" -- the one apparently named Bulkhead -- shrugged. "After a speech like that, I ain't stayin' up here." And matching actions to words with footsteps that caused the ground to tremble, Bulkhead jogged after Adam Taurus. He was not alone.
Hector stared, then turned back to the camera. "As you can see, Adam Taurus of the Vale White Fang is now leading the charge to push back the Grimm and seal this breach in the center of our fair city. Our hopes and prayers are with him, as they are with all the defenders of Vale."
He pulled out a pistol from under his jacket.
"Hector Ramirez, signing off."
"Beautiful, isn't it?" asked Megatron appreciatively.
Yang struggled to move in the grasp of the metal despot, but… she couldn't. His grip was too tight, but she still kept trying . She had to. Optimus was on his way, and she couldn't be a hostage to use against him.
"The Creatures of Grimm are pure evil," continued Megatron in that same semi-awed state. "They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity or remorse or fear... but this specimen is truly a cut above the rest."
Out in the ocean, the titanic form of the Leviathan Grimm plodded along, absorbing attacks to its bone-white armor that passed for skin as if it was nothing. Occasionally, the vile beast would unleash an energy beam that would sweep across a ship in the air or sea and send them down in flames. Still, the forces of Vale kept fighting, though that fight seemed impossible.
Megatron shifted his right foot, pressing it deeper into Bumblebee's chest. "Are you watching, Autobot? We wouldn't want you to miss any of the action, especially not when it was your own cowardice in speaking to the governments of this world that led to this."
Bumblebee didn't bother with a response. He just struggled all the harder, driven by the same feeling that drove Yang.
The leader of the Decepticons turned to look at Ruby caught in his other hand and smiled cruelly. "You of all Huntresses should be able to get out of this, but you don't know how, do you? You still haven't figured it out, even with all the evidence in front of you. If you had paid more attention to the Vytal Tournament like you were supposed to, perhaps you wouldn't be here right now."
Yang cursed ever allowing herself to get into this situation. It had all happened so fast, but she should have been faster. If she still hadn't been able to save herself, she should have at least been able to save her partner and her sister.
That heroic truck horn blew again, and this time, it was so loud that its position could not be mistaken. The familiar sound of transformation a second later confirmed it. Hope soared in Yang's chest at the two noises.
"Let them go, Megatron," ordered Optimus Prime seriously.
Megatron smirked. "Gladly."
When it happened, it happened all at once. Megatron shot his foot forward, kicking Bumblebee into the water. Then, simultaneously, he threw Yang and Ruby back into the city.
Yang skipped along the ground, her aura grinding away, before crashing through several abandoned food stands. When she eventually stopped, she was left a groaning mess that was struggling to get up. Get up she did, though, for she had people depending on her, and she was not about to let them down.
Stumbling to her feet, Yang felt her retinas burn from a sudden flash. It wasn't the same as when the atomic bomb had gone off, but it still… her mouth dropped.
Optimus Prime had engaged Megatron in single combat. The flash had come from the sudden impact of the glowing blue blade of Optimus's mighty two-handed rocket-propelled axe and the purple spiked flail that emerged from the barrel of Megatron's legendary fusion cannon. They struck out at each other again, and again, there was a flash and a booming crash.
On some unconscious level, Yang knew that she could never hope to participate in that contest of wills so ancient and powerful. They were both on another level. So she had to focus on what she could do.
She looked about and, with a horrified gasp, saw a torn and tattered red cloak catching the light of the setting sun. Yang ran to it, and as she ran, the air was torn asunder and howled with rushing wind that made her target flutter ominously. She was feeling out of breath by the time she reached the scarred raiment.
It was still attached, thankfully, to its owner. Her eyes were closed, but Ruby Rose was still gently moving in rhythm of her breathing. Not taking any chances, though, Yang dropped down to begin checking her vitals.
There were, thankfully, plenty of signs that she was stable. Which was good, because when Yang reached down to bring out her scroll and check their auras, she found that not only had she accidentally grabbed her burner scroll again, but that the cheap communication device had broken beyond all repair. It… pained her, strangely.
Luckily, she could sense an aura manually, even if she couldn't find her other scroll.
The thunder continued to rage, and yet even above that, words could be heard loud and clear.
"Prime! I knew it was you!" cried Megatron, deploying a blade from his left arm and parrying an axe strike. "I had to be sure though."
"So you attacked Vale?" asked Optimus in disgust before transforming into his alt-mode to duck under a strike and move behind his opponent.
"Of course!" confirmed Megatron, moving with swiftness to keep from being exposed. "I knew that if I ordered this city subjugated, then you would not be able to resist making an appearance, and now that you have, I don't have to worry about any part of this charade any longer."
"You're deranged," sneered Optimus, transforming again and taking aim with his ion blaster.
"No, Prime, I just know what I want and how to get it!"
Megatron transformed himself, absorbing quite a few blasts in the process and then unleashing a horrifically powerful single shot in return.
Yang turned away from the battle and back to her sister. She had to get her out of there and fast. She didn't have much time.
That point was underscored when Optimus's big form crashed along the ground, bringing him right next to where the sisters were. Yang turned and held in a gasp. There were a whole heap of fresh cuts and scrapes along the body of the leader of the Autobots. One of his tires was even torn!
"You should have just let me miss," declared Megatron, who was not looking much better, as he raised his fusion cannon and began to swing around the flail that came from it.
A yellow bolt of energy struck the ground between them, exploding with a brilliant flash.
"Insolent!" Megatron cried in anger.
For his part, Optimus took the opportunity to rise back to his feet, the dents and scrapes already healing from his aura, the aura that continued to amaze Yang with its power whenever she sensed it.
"I wouldn't be me if I did that," replied Optimus calmly.
"No, no, you wouldn't," agreed Megatron before whipping out his flail.
Again, the thunder of ages clashed above Yang's head, and this time, it was louder than ever. Loud enough, it seemed, to wake Ruby. Her silver eyes were open as big as pie plates, and she was starting to move, just as a shadow fell over them.
The two turned to see the familiar and slightly waterlogged forms of Bumblebee and Hot Rod, the former clutching his energon battle pistol, the latter with his energy bow out and glowing yellow.
"What happened to you?" yelled out Yang over the din of battle.
"There's Grimm Sharkticon things in the water!" complained Bumblebee. "The Decepticons really did a number on the defenses out there."
"Come on," Hot Rod insisted. "We need to get out of here."
"What?" balked Yang. "No! We've got to help Prime! This is what we signed up for!"
Hot Rod shook his head. "That's Prime's fight, kid. We'd better stay out of it. We'd just get in the way."
"He's right, Yang," Ruby said.
"Ruby?!" Yang snapped her head around to look at her sister, feeling betrayed.
"I know it's frustrating to run away from a fight, especially when your friends are in danger," Ruby said, "but you have to know when to pick and choose your battles, or worse things will happen."
Yang felt the anger fade as she looked at her sister in wonder. "How did you get so old so fast?"
Ruby shrugged. "It's not the years; it's the mileage."
The two Autobots transformed and popped open their driver's side doors. Yang immediately ran for the yellow Folkcar Bug that had been her partner for so long, but Ruby looked between them in indecision.
"If you're gonna ride, Ruby," Hot Rod said playfully, "ride in style."
"Hey!" Bee complained as Ruby ran for the flame-streaked sports car.
Once aboard, they sped out. This was not a fight the young ones could fight.
This was a fight for the old men.
While the battle in the skies and in the city raged, certain doom stomped inexorably toward Vale. The Leviathan waded through the water, its thick, corded legs creating wakes large enough to capsize smaller boats with each step. The coastal batteries thundered, pouring shell after shell after shell into it, and while they wounded the titanic Grimm, the injuries appeared superficial and seemed to slow it down not at all.
Today had been a day for firsts for Sky Beak. The Skystrikers -- which apparently could transform into giant robots? -- were fleeing the even bigger giant robot that was made from the five airship -- airplanes, he reminded himself -- that had flown in to help. That eased the pressure on the Royal Air Lancers, enough that he had managed to land and swap aircraft. He had traded his Firebat for an FV-27 Longhorn loaded with heavy ordnance and was leading a similarly-equipped ad hoc flight out to sea.
They had to stop the Leviathan. He glanced down as he flew over a quartet of VCGS cutters, their cannons blasting away to little effect. A brilliant flash of light up ahead drew his attention forward as the frigate in the Leviathan's clutches broke in half, its magazine detonating. He pressed on. Each of his flight's Longhorns was carrying four 5,000-pound bombs (once one discounted the gravity dust lightening the load). That came to 40 tons of high explosives in contact-detonated shaped charges.
He only hoped it would be enough.
It wasn't.
Oh, they'd hurt it, just as the Coasties and the coastal artillery were hurting it, but even as its thick bone armor blackened and cracked, even as chunks of obsidian flesh burned and sublimated away, it continued to plod toward Vale with an inevitability that sent despair clawing at the heart. They were hurting, yes, but at the rate they were going, it would reach the center of Vale long before they could kill it.
Then, as before, help arrived on wings of red and white. The five aces of the Aerialbots flew in an arrowhead formation towards the foul beast of the deep and unleashed a storm of projectiles and missiles and bombs and fantastic energies upon it. The Leviathan was bracketed with explosions just as before, and just as before, it kept on coming through the smoke of that which sought to destroy it.
In reply, the Grimm monstrosity fired off that horrific beam of energy from its mouth towards its attackers. The Aerialbots dodged in a perfect fan-shaped climb that left them arcing off in different directions before pulling back around to create five giant vertical circles in the sky. It seemed like they were going to crash together, but at the last second, they transformed and combined to form the super robot Superion.
The titanic form of Superion hit the water and then immediately leapt back into the air to deliver an uppercutting punch to the Leviathan's jaw with a sickening crack.
"Yes!" cheered Sky Beak's WSO with a fist pump. "I can't believe how satisfying that was!"
The Grimm staggered back and then spun in place at incredible speeds such that its large tail collided with the combiner and sent it spinning through the air. That particular combiner was not delayed in the counterattack though, for it was also a plane. With a KAFWOOOM of flame, thrust erupted from its feet to allow it to reverse direction and speed back to its opponent.
Superion deployed that massive pistol that once was part of its component parts and fired off a beam that hit the face of the Leviathan. The Grimm recoiled and was soon hit by a leaping kick right in the point where the beam had struck it. The super robot flew past, and the demon from the sea fell into the water but got back up.
"Come on!" cried out Superion, landing and adopting a fighting pose as he did so. "Is that the best you got?"
A good third of the bone mask covering the Leviathan's head shattered where it had been struck to reveal… a second mask. The Grimm's glowing eyes focused on Superion, and then it brought its fists together in an awful and terrifying boom. The knuckles bounced off each other, and then it whipped its head down and tail up such that its back was flat as a table before unleashing a beam more powerful than any before.
Superion barely managed to dodge, and the beam sailed out over the ocean to impact somewhere near the horizon and create a massive blast that almost made one recall the atomic explosion that had so impressed itself upon the world.
Before the Grimm could fire again or adjust its aim though, Superion came down upon its head with a flying kick. The combiner had leapt into the air on pillars of fire from the engines that had been repurposed into feet. The monster was driven into the sea, but it was far from defeated.
The battle raged on.
Meanwhile, in Sky Beak's Longhorn, the pilot and his WSO had taken notice of the commotion onboard the alien vessel and the return of communications that shortly followed. They quickly went about checking the progress of the battle and reattaching themselves to vital systems that they had not had access to for some time. However, it was not just them contacting others, for the same thing was being done to them…
"Hello, is this thing on?" came the absentminded-sounding voice from the comms.
"This is Colonel Sky Beak of the Royal Air Lancers. Identify yourself," demanded the Valish flight leader.
"Name's Wheeljack, and I'm the Autobot who's going to help save your tailpipes," replied the voice.
"Does this involve a zany scheme?" asked Sky Beak pointedly.
"No! …Well, kind of," admitted Wheeljack. "It's actually pretty practical compared to my usual plans. All we have to do is pin that monster in place and get accurate firing coordinates to the city's artillery."
"But even if we could stop that Leviathan, a fire control system of that scale is still months away from being ready," objected Sky Beak. Damn those peaceniks. I warned them about the budget!
Wheeljack's reply was eager and jovial. "Well, then today's your lucky day, Sky Beak, because the future is now, thanks to science!"
"Greetings," came another voice, far more stable and electronic-sounding than Wheeljack's.
"Sky Beak, meet Telatraan-1, the Ark's computer," explained Wheeljack. "He's going to help us save the city."
"Affirmative," agreed Teletraan-1. "Colonel Sky Beak, can you patch me through to your airships' sensors? I need positive idents on all artillery pieces available."
"If it'll kill that Leviathan? You got it," agreed Sky Beak, he directed his WSO then to patch him into the rest of the city's defenders. "This is Colonel Sky Beak to all elements; we've got a plan to save this city before the Leviathan in the harbor turns us all into chow. Sync your sensors with the connection we're forwarding to you."
The message went out across the tacnet, and soon, there was a flood of acknowledgements. With those acknowledgements, Sky Beak watched his sensors light up like a bonfire, and soon after, the holographic displays on his helmet and screens began displaying numerous markers. One of those markers was the big sick-looking purple one surrounding the Grimm.
"Superion, pin that monster in place and keep his jaw shut tight," ordered Wheeljack.
Outside, the combiner grappled with the Leviathan, holding onto its jaw like some sort of mad crocodile wrangler. Sky Beak's attention was drawn, however, to the markers he saw covering the city as well. They seemed to be the same as the Coast Guard ships and Air Lancer airships.
"Teletraan-1, you've designated civilian locations across the entire city. Explain," inquired Sky Beak. "Wheeljack said you were just going to use the military's guns on that thing."
"Incorrect," answered Teletraan-1 simply. "Wheeljack said that we were going to use the city's artillery. City, in this case, referring to a geographic location, not a political entity."
Sky Beak looked out across the city where with his keen eyes -- and his helmet's zoom function -- he was able to see hundreds of people turning everything from mortar tubes to emplaced big guns towards the bay.
Emerald Sustrai's cell trembled around her, the light flickering. Setting down the book she was reading, she uncrossed her legs and stood up from her bed; she actually had a pretty decent mattress, a reward for her good behavior. She looked up at the camera in the corner. "What's happening?" she demanded, hoping there really was someone on the other end of the connection.
Her cell had a solid steel door rather than bars. The cameras ensured she could be monitored without any direct contact with any prison guards to prevent her from using her semblance, and there was an intercom connected to the camera feed, allegedly with someone always assigned to it in case something happened. That didn't mean she hadn't been working on how to escape, of course, but it did complicate matters.
"I'm... not sure," came the reply.
She smiled. She recognized that voice. It was Reed. She didn't know what he looked like -- if they'd ever been in the same room, she didn't know it -- but she'd chatted with him from time to time. He was nice. He was friendly. He was the one who'd arranged to get her access to the prison's library. In short, he was a fool, if a potentially useful fool.
"Well, maybe you can-"
She was cut off by a loud banging on the other end of the connection.
"Wha- hey! You can't-!"
The line went dead.
"Emerald, are you ready to get out of there?" came the voice of Hazel Rainart over the line.
So, too, evidently, did Reed.
An eager smile came to Emerald's face. "Of course!"
"Come on! Come on!" cried Silverstream as she and her brother "Terry" Terramar carried the 4-inch artillery cartridge out into the backyard, struggling all the way with all 44 lbs of top-heavy shell and casing, even with four arms upon it.
Their family was really lucky -- their parents had said so a lot -- because their house was on a hill, and the geometry was off, so all the space wasn't used during construction of the neighborhood, and that meant that they could have a backyard. They said they were really lucky because of how they had gotten the house too, but Silverstream thought it wasn't too lucky the first time around that she didn't remember and didn't bother listening to all the other times they said it. Really, all that was important at that moment was that they had wheeled dad's anti-air artillery piece out of the garage and set it up to fire.
And fire they had, both at the passing enemy fighters and at the Grimm that were trying -- and failing quite badly -- to penetrate the city's defenses. When their dad got home, they'd be able to tell him all about it. They'd be the ones telling hunting tales for once, but before that could happen, they needed to restock their ready ammo.
There was a thud as they set the ammo down, and Terry let out a grunt. "Why did they make these things so heavy?"
A frightful roar came up from the sea, and Silverstream felt her blood run cold again. Again, because it hadn't been the first time. Why hadn't they been able to kill that Grimm yet?
Her mother put another shell down right besides theirs. That made twelve. They had twelve shots to use before they had to run back for more. Assuming they stopped to return to firing now, that is, and as the momentary rest gave Silverstream the chance to take stock of her aching arms, she found herself really wishing that they wouldn't go back for more.
A message notification sounded from their mother's back pocket, and she reached around to take out her scroll.
"They stopped the jamming?" she asked, opening her scroll and reading the message. "Silverstream, Terramar, get on the controls. Now."
They scrambled, all exhaustion banished by the urgent tone of their mother's voice. Terry took up the position of pointer, while Silverstream took up the position of trainer. They gripped their controls nervously as their mother read off a targeting solution. It was unusually accurate, but they all remembered the drills and not to question the solution in a combat situation like this.
"Elevation, set!" called out Terry.
"Traverse, set!" called out Silverstream immediately after.
There was a muffled clunk, and their mother called out. "Round loaded! Firing!"
BOOM!
Silverstream reached up and covered the ear protection she was wearing with her hands. It was an involuntary impulse that had happened after the only time that she had taken that protection off when they were firing the gun. Before they had left the range that day, her father had told her that some lessons only needed to be learned once, and he had been right.
"Silverstream, check for impact," ordered her mother.
The young faunus girl bounded out of her chair and ran over to the edge of the slope on their yard. She brought the electrobinoculars around her neck up to her eyes and looked out across the dark city with the night vision towards the coordinates her mother had read off. What she saw was… very strange.
A giant fighting robot that looked like it was made out of airships was wrestling with a Grimm Leviathan that looked straight out of her nightmares. The robot had managed to get the Grimm's mouth shut and was holding it closed while keeping it pinned. It didn't make any sense… but then the Grimm was lit up with hundreds of explosions, all centered around its midsection.
Even at the distance of her house from the shore, Silverstream still was able to feel those blasts every so slightly. She could certainly see them when they nearly blinded her. It made her wonder what Weiss would do in her situation, seeing her own actions contribute to that much destruction…
"Hit! No change! Keep firing!" she yelled back to her mother and brother.
The artillery piece boomed again, and again, and again. Each shot was slightly slower than the last, thanks to her mother's exhaustion with loading so many rounds over the course of this big battle, but they kept firing. Now that the solution was known to be good, they did so with far greater rapidity, but Silverstream was still looking through her binoculars to report when the shells hit after so long in the air.
Then, suddenly, she saw the Grimm Leviathan die.
"Cease fire! Cease fire! Cease fire!" she called out to her family, turning her head around to do so and briefly noticing that they had no ready ammo left anyway.
They obeyed, and Silverstream looked through the electrobinoculars again. The robot had leapt away, and now, shells were splashing down into the water to churn up the sea. She dropped those binoculars again and took in for the first time the smoke wafting across the city and how every gun she could see was pointing towards the same target.
They'd beaten it. Somehow, working together, they'd beaten it. She'd need to ask how later.
In that moment, though, Silverstream was just struck by the immense feeling of satisfaction, and she wondered if Weiss ever felt that good killing Grimm. She also wondered if her father would tell her she did good when he got home that day. Growing in prominence, though, was a desire to find out more about that giant robot, the one who had kept the Grimm held in place for so long and enabled them to do what they did.
Machine or not, that took guts in her mind.
"Duck!" came the shout over a megaphone, and the fighters in front dropped to a prone position as fast as they could.
The thunder that came after defied description, and so did the slaughter that resulted from it.
Taiyang Xiao Long looked from the concrete to see that the Grimm that had been advancing on them were no more, save for a pock-marked Deathstalker that was now missing its tail and illuminated by the headlights of the vehicles that had killed its comrades. Turned out that a pair of six-inch canister rounds did wonders to thin out the horde. They also did wonders to make him wonder why he didn't carry ear protection more often, because if he was able to hear anything at that moment, it would have been a miracle.
Then again, he didn't really need to hear to see the bright flash of Jazz's photon rifle putting a trio of holes through the eye of that remaining Grimm. Well, remaining for the next few hundred yards, at least. Those canister rounds might have been effective, but they were still subject to the laws of physics and lost their power after the first few bodies the round's ball bearing shot had to fly through.
They were up again, and his son was leading the charge. They'd been going for many miles, and still, he pressed on. He might have had some things to make up for, but Adam was nothing if not determined.
And boy, wasn't that the statement of the century? Not for the first time since meeting his boy in the infirmary did Taiyang wish that Raven had told him about Adam from the get-go. It wouldn't have been any hindrance to her attending Beacon, because the school already had a daycare center where he could have been cared for while they were away with classes or missions, cared for by people who had to have been better than literal backstabbing slavers. It wouldn't have been any hindrance to dating him either, as Taiyang had already accepted that she had not come from the most morally reputable background when he made the first move, and besides he loved kids. There had been no reason to delay the reveal at all, none.
Now… now there was so much that had been lost. Tai had never gotten the chance to teach his son how to shave, how to throw a punch, or how to talk to girls that weren't his sisters. More than the lost moments, though, was the damage that had been done because he hadn't been around to protect his son. Some monster had gone and branded his boy's face, he had been made a slave, and when he was finally free, he had been led down the path of being a murderer and a terrorist. Raven had cut him completely out of his son's life, and the results had been…
Taiyang forced himself to calm down and instead punch the head off some kind of leaping lizard Grimm that had been attracted to his fury. He'd heard before about certain cultures out there where it was considered healthy and expected for a man to beat his wife, and he had recoiled in revulsion then. It was a testament to how angry he was with Raven that he now had to force himself to feel that disgust again when the memory had come to his mind. The far more right and proper thing would have been to finally divorce his first wife and wash his hands of her, but… but he had promised Summer that he wouldn't, and he could deny his second wife nothing, even in death.
The memory of Summer cooled his temper and made him refocus on the events going on around him.
They were continuing the push, and those plucky citizens of Vale were right behind them to help knock back the Grimm with precise single shots. ATVs and motorcycles driven by the young brought supplies on small trailers up to the front and brought back to the initial breach the wounded and exhausted. Meanwhile, Bulkhead continued to work on the explosive charges that had been loaded onto a flatbed tractor alongside an old shopkeep which would hopefully save them all.
"How much longer, Jazz?" asked Taiyang in a yell.
"If our calculations -- and those old plans -- are correct, then we're just two hundred meters out," answered the smooth Autobot.
"Right," said Taiyang, and then he continued. "So... what's a 'meter,' anyway?"
"A little more than a yard, at least according to Yang," replied Jazz.
"Well, she's always had more of a head for languages than math, so I suppose it all evens out," reasoned Taiyang.
"I hope so. I'm running low on ammo," revealed Jazz before twisting around to look at the tractor following behind them. "Hey, Bulkhead, that bomb ready? We're almost there, and we need to be quick about this."
"Thanks for the help, Old Man Shopkeep," said Bulkhead to his partner before picking up a pair of very cobbled together looking explosives. "Yeah, I'm ready to go."
"Good!" cheered Jazz before looking at the self-propelled guns. "Hey, how many tracks you got left in those mixtapes?"
The commander of the one on the right, the grizzled old collector who owned them both, was the first to reply. "We have one canister round left, three high explosive, and two incendiary-smoke."
"One canister over here too!" said the commander of the one on the left, the collector's son. "We got two shaped charges, though."
"Perfect! Load those shotguns up and get ready for the signal," replied Jazz, gesturing down the tunnel. "Come on, just a little more!"
"You heard the bot: one final effort! Charge!" called out Adam, and the boy broke into a sprint with the rifle in his hands fully transformed into sword mode.
Taiyang shot after him. There were perhaps thirty Grimm that he could see clogging up the tunnel, and his son had been fighting far too long for that to be easy, so he'd be getting some help from his old man this time around.
And he'd be getting some help from others, as those behind charged after them.
"Hey, wait for me! I'm the guy with the bombs!" shouted out Bulkhead.
Adam hit the first Grimm that hadn't been blown apart by one of the enterprising snipers that had taken up residence on top of the artillery with a vengeance. Tai hit that same mass soon after. What happened next was a blur of fists, blades, and exploding Grimm as the dance of death moved down the line from one partner to the next.
Honestly? It was actually kind of fun. This was the biggest fight that Taiyang had been in in years, and he was doing it back to back with his own son. So it was with a smile and light steps that he bounced around the battlefield.
"Okay, we're here!" called out Bulkhead as he reached a certain spot shortly behind where the battle had moved. "Just give me a little time to set this up!"
He set down one of the large bombs and actually unfurled the other one to reveal something akin to a large flotation rope that he quickly began attaching to the wall.
The fight continued, but so too did the arguments.
"Bulkhead, what's the other bomb for?" asked Jazz.
"It's a thermobaric to kill all the Grimm in the tunnel," replied Bulkhead.
"What?! But we're in the tunnel too, Bulk!" objected Jazz.
"Not for long, we're not," was Bulkhead's answer.
Taiyang continued fighting, each punch taking out a Grimm, but now, the fight had become far more static. The only real change in the line was when Jazz ordered a retreat behind the SPGs, something everyone obeyed, followed by those six-inch howitzers blasting apart every Grimm for another few hundred feet.
"Reload with HE!" ordered the old collector.
"No need. I'm done here," reported Bulkhead as he drove the last of the explosive into the opposite wall from where he had started. "This tunnel's coming down, and we need to back up. Now!"
The SPGs threw themselves into reverse, and everyone on foot either latched on or started running themselves. Bulkhead and Jazz were leapfrogging cover fire, with Bulkhead having picked up the other bomb, but were clearly retreating all the same. Taiyang and Adam were themselves putting their best into fleeing in the most manly way they could, which just so happened to be like total cowards.
After they had some distance put between them and where they had been a moment ago, Bulkhead called out again, "Fire in the hole!"
With that, he pitched the bomb he had been holding in an underhanded lob that saw it fly through the air before eventually rolling along the ground towards the advancing horde. When it had passed the point where the other bomb was, Bulkhead hit a button on his wrist. It was evidently a detonator, because the next thing he knew, there was a terrific explosion, and the tunnel around where they had left collapsed to smother it. Then, shortly after, the newly created dusty hill of rubble shook slightly.
"And that's the end of that," said Bulkhead in satisfaction.
Cheers rose up among the assembled group, and a great rising spirit followed. Adam, though, he just seemed exhausted, if only for a moment. Taiyang could understand that.
"You did good, son," he said to him.
Adam looked at him in bleary confusion. "I'm not your son."
Taiyang seemed to consider that for a moment. "Hmm. Nope."
"'Nope'?" echoed Adam.
"Nope," repeated Taiyang. "I'm learning from James and nipping this in the bud right now. You're not getting rid of us that easy, son."
Adam shook his head and laughed. "Why is this so hard?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's because the day's not done," mused Taiyang with a smile. "Come on. Let's get out of this pit."
Adam nodded and followed him back towards the site of the breach.
Sylvia swallowed on instinct as the blue liquid rushed over her, and then, equally on instinct, snorted and tried to expel it as it flowed into her nose. Then, all of a sudden, it was over. She was being held up, soaked all over, by one of the soldiers that had been fighting alongside them.
"Ma'am, are you alright?" asked the jungle warfare specialist.
She blinked her big silver eyes and swept away more of the blue liquid. Was she alright? Why, yes, she realized suddenly. In fact, she was better than all right; she was all circular! She could feel an energy that she couldn't have even comprehended before exploding from each and every one of the cells in her body!
She was like a plant in a hothouse, a penguin in a fishery, a dingo in a nursery! She felt like she could run ten marathons from Argus to Mantle and back with no sweat whatsoever! She felt like she could indulge in all manner of youthful heroics and defeat every gang member in Mantle in single combat.
In fact, Sylvia could dare say that she had never felt this good in her entire life.
"Fine!" she said so quickly it was almost indecipherable. "Fantastic! Hey, what is this stuff anyway?!"
A wet slapping filled the air as her foot tapped the floor that was still covered in that blue stuff like a woodpecker in mating season.
Winter bent down and swiped a finger through the liquid before bringing it up to sniff it with a confused expression. "Energon. This is energon, but I've never seen it in this color except…" -- she turned to Colton with suspicious eyes -- "...Decepticon blood."
Colton gave her a look. "Listen, Targeter, if you want to hear the explanation for that, you can stick around for the aftershow, but right now, we've got to save the world from…" And here, the great General Colton looked confused as he turned towards where the others were working at a computer console. "Hey, what's trying to kill us?"
"Looks like they've planted a virus in the control systems before they got away," came back the reply. "They also blew up the backup servers."
"Uh huh." Colton nodded. "And what's this virus doing?"
The man at the computer console tilted his head to the side in a sort-of half-shrug. "Lowering the city into the lake. Which... will flood Low Town, at minimum. I can fix it, put in the new code I've been working on..." He trailed off.
"But?" Colton prodded.
"...but that would require a full system shutdown and reboot," he continued. "Which means taking the anti-grav systems offline completely."
He didn't elaborate further, but then again, given he was talking anti-grav systems, and they were on Atlas, the floating city in the sky, he didn't need to.
"Yeah, let's call that Option Q," replied Colton. "Give me another option, Mainframe."
Sylvia looked to the side, where there was a corridor that led all the way back to the edge of the city. Suddenly, like a thunderbolt, it was all clear. She knew what she had to do… and was at peace.
"Councilor, we should…"
The rest of what Winter was saying was cut off by the rush of wind in Sylvia's ears as she bolted from the room. She ran, and she ran, faster than she ever had before. Twists and turns, she followed until she saw a window and hit it like a glowing silver cannonball.
Whatever the window was made out of, it wasn't glass, but it got out of the way all the same. Just like that, and just as she planned, Sylvia was falling right out of the sky. It was the only way she could get enough space for what she needed.
A bright light shone, and in the span of a second, a large human woman made of silver energy appeared and grew to titanic proportions. Gigantic feet crashed into the water near the shore, and a new colossus now stood more than a mile high, with legs straddling much of the lake. And at the center of that silver giant was Sylvia, eyes now shining with the light of two unconquered moons.
A confident grin came to Sylvia's face, and the construct mimicked her action even as its shoulders and hands came up to support the weight of the gargantuan mountain of rock and steel that was slowly falling to the ground.
"Just keep smiling. Show the people that you're not afraid and that everything is going to be all right," said her mentor to her one day.
"But what if I am afraid, and what if it isn't going to be all right?" she asked back with a touch of the emotions she described.
He laughed. "Then you smile all the harder, because the people you protect have to believe that, even if you don't."
"But what if I am afraid, and what if it isn't going to be all right?" she asked back with a touch of the emotions she described.
He laughed. "Then you smile all the harder, because the people you protect have to believe that, even if you don't."
Sylvia's smile was bigger and more jovial than it had ever been before in her entire life.
This is incredible! she thought in wonder, even as she could feel the weight of the floating island pushing down the feet of her energy self. Whatever this energon stuff is, it's… it's incredible.
She was glad in that moment that she had forgotten how much Atlas weighed; it might have given her the impression that what she was doing was impossible. As it was, all she had to keep her focus on was supporting it and keeping her semblance running. That alone should have been impossible, but somehow, she knew it wasn't. Her aura was rushing out of her like water out of a broken dam, but behind that dam was the ocean!
Suddenly, the weight became multiplied a millionfold, and the balance shifted such that she had to rapidly adjust her stance to keep the island level.
They must be fixing the problem, she realized. I just hope they do it quick. This load is starting to get a little heavy!
She could feel her feet pressing further and further into the shores of the artificial lake, with the water now lapping at the bottom of her incorporeal shins.
Inside the energy construct, the physical body of Sylvia let out a cough that tasted like blood, and she realized that she had overestimated her expanded reserves of aura.
I always knew this would be a one way trip, she told herself, but it's not over yet!
The weight was becoming all-consuming now. It felt like her every muscle was exploding, and her aura was beginning to seriously split itself between both healing her and keeping her semblance active. With great willpower and using a technique she had learned long ago, she turned off her aura's healing and poured everything into her semblance.
It's like we always used to say at Crystal Prep: Always go further beyond and surpass your limitations! This mortal body is just one limitation that you're going to have to break through, Sylvia. Come on! For Atlas! For life itself! Semper Plus Ultra! Go beyond, Mountain Maiden!
Her vision started to fade red, and she could feel the mighty torrent of aura draining away to its last drops, but still, she held on.
If there's anyone out there in Heaven, please lend me your strength! Help me stand just a little while longer! Just a little longer!
Then, suddenly, the weight lessened and then began to lift itself off of her shoulders. That last little bit of strength came through for those last crucial seconds. When it passed, it was over, and Atlas was ascending back into its proper place in the sky.
When she realized this, all thought left Sylvia along with her semblance, and she fell out of the sky with thin red lines of blood streaming from her body. She was hurtling to the water below at terminal velocity, but she was at peace. Her work was finally done.
It was almost with gentle caring, then, that Winter "Targeter" Schnee yanked her out of her fall.
Winter looked down at the frail body lying in her arms, thin and weak from long-term malnutrition, muscles atrophied from disuse, and now, lacking the inner fire and mettle that her rescue had sparked within her. She hesitated for a moment -- her precarious perch atop her semblance's copy of a Grimm Manticore was hardly the best place for this -- but then reached down and checked the councilor's vitals, just to be sure.
The specialist bowed her head sadly as she directed her summon to fly back up to Atlas.
There were too many dead heroes. The least they could do was honor them.
'These are my jewels.'
As the stars began to emerge above them in the wake of the retreating sun, Ozpin leaned aside, dodging another jet of flame.
"Clearly, Miss Fall," he commented mildly, "Leonardo's standards have slipped quite a bit, judging by your performance tonight so far."
Cinder let out a wordless snarl of rage and frustration as she lunged toward him with her glass blade, which he deflected with Long Memory before reversing it and smashing her in the face.
It was taking him a great deal of effort, however, to maintain his unruffled presentation. There were some consequences of age, after all, that even the youth of a fresh, new body and the infusion of a young soul couldn't wash away. Like regret.
And magic. He'd given away so much over the centuries -- millennia? -- that he was now but a shadow of his former self in that regard.
Cinder recoiled, converting her retreat into a leap backwards which carried her into the air as shards of obsidian swirled gracefully around her. The black glass formed a bow in her hands as Cinder hung, suspended in the air for a moment, a single arrow nocked.
She let fly, the glass shaft descending like a lightning bolt, straight and true.
Ozpin parried it with Long Memory, the dart shattering into fragments.
Cinder landed with feline grace upon the ground, a smirk twisting features that had seemed a little twisted to begin with.
It was the smirk that gave her away, the smirk that warned Ozpin to turn around in time to see the arrow -- reformed out of the fragments he had broken it into -- flying back towards him. Ozpin's hand whipped out to catch the shaft in mid-flight.
His mistake.
The arrow burst, fragments of glass as sharp as razor blades slicing through his aura as they struck his face. He let out an involuntary wince before he noticed Cinder charging him once more out of the corner of his eye.
Her bow had split into a pair of scimitars, black as the night in which they duelled and glinting in the moonlight. She swung both blades in parallel. Ozpin parried, gripping his staff in both hands, but this time, Cinder was prepared for his counterstroke, and the handle of his cane passed harmlessly over her head, leaving him exposed for her slashing stroke aimed at his belly. He parried that too, his body moving at a speed that would have blurred the eye to witness.
Cinder growled in frustration as she aimed a kick at his thigh. The blow connected, but Ozpin was able to affect ignoring the pain that lanced through him as he drove Long Memory's point into her gut hard enough to make her double over... so he could slam it into her face as well for good measure.
Cinder retreated back a few steps, panting heavily. Her eyes smouldered like fire; they always had, but now, there was something different about them, a band of purple surrounding the gold.
She was his enemy. She was determined to see him dead, and doubtless many others too, others far more innocent than he was, and yet, all the same, he could not help but pity her for what she had done to herself in the name of power.
Cinder straightened her back, her chest rising and falling. Her lips twisted into a sneer. "You fight like she did."
Ozpin became as still as one of the graven images that filled the Vale History Museum's Hall of Heroes. "I taught her," he said, his voice soft against the din of the battle raging back in the city.
"Not well enough," Cinder taunted.
"Apparently not," Ozpin conceded. He swept his cane upwards, pointing the tip at her heart. "But I am not Amber, Miss Fall."
"No, she was stronger than you are, and I was weaker then," Cinder declared. Her glass swords disintegrated, although Ozpin knew that she could reform them at a moment's notice if she wished. Cinder reached into a pouch worn on a black strap around her leg and pulled out a vial filled with a glowing liquid that had, alas, become too familiar to him, though the amber color was off.
"Energon," he whispered.
Cinder chuckled. "Close, Professor. Nine out of ten." A spike jutted out of the vial in her hand.
Ozpin charged her, Long Memory thrust forth before him in an attempt to stop her from injecting herself. Too late, of course, far too late. All she had to do was jump away, and as she leapt, she jammed the vial into her thigh.
Cinder landed on one of the steps, a purple glow suffusing her, the light pumping through her veins. Her eyes burned with that eerie purple for a moment, so brightly that Ozpin expected her Maiden anima to glow purple, but they did not. They did not appear at all; she was holding her magic back.
For what, he could not tell, but he feared to know the answer.
Cinder growled, sounding more like a tiger than a person. She stared up at him, a feral smile upon her face. "Tell me something, Infinite Man, if I were to spare your students in exchange for your life, would you submit to me and bare your throat?"
"Don't believe everything you read, Miss Fall," Ozpin replied. "There's more to that story than meets the eye."
Cinder laughed. "Perhaps," she acknowledged. "History and memory are so malleable, after all. Besides, I'm going to kill them all anyway, all your little girls and boys, all the weapons that you hoped to forge."
"Not while blood flows in my veins," Ozpin declared.
"It is energex that flows in my veins now!" Cinder snarled. "And your blood will spill upon the ground soon enough." She leapt upwards, carried higher still by bursts of flame from the soles of her feet like rockets, pushing her higher until she was silhouetted against the moon, a black shadow against the broken silver.
Her bow of glass reformed in her hands, three arrows ready. She loosed them all, the obsidian darts flying down to strike the concrete pier around Ozpin.
Once more, Cinder's premature triumphant smirk gave her away, and Ozpin conjured up a shield just as the arrows exploded around him. He was surrounded by fire on all sides, but the bubble of grainy green light protected him as he knelt upon the ground, the tip of Long Memory resting upon the dock.
The winds rose around him. Ozpin looked up, and now, he could see the anima burning in Cinder's eyes, the fire leaping from them, fire that seemed even brighter for the contrast against the purple glow that was consuming Cinder's eyeballs.
The night was dark, but the skies had been clear; no more. Storm clouds arose, rumbling and growling, overhead; they snuffed out the stars, they blocked out the moon, there was no light in the sky but the fire burning in Cinder's eyes. All the rest was covered by the darkness that she hoped to make his shroud.
Lightning lanced down from the growling clouds, crooked spears of white that lashed the ground all around him, showering his shield with their explosions even as other strikes pounded directly upon the barrier that protected him.
Ozpin shuddered. He could have withstood such a barrage of the heavens once upon a time, but that time was passed now, and the store of magic that he had to maintain his shield was not unlimited.
The store of magic that he had for anything was not unlimited.
But with luck, it would be enough.
Ozpin dropped his shield. One moment, he crouched upon the ground, defenseless and unprotected as the lightning fell; the next moment, he blurred, his body seeming to ripple out of existence...
...before it reappeared suspended in mid-air, higher than Cinder.
He descended on her like an owl swooping down upon a field mouse scurrying through the grass. Long Memory lashed out; he thrust his cane again and again, hand and arm and weapon all alike moving as fast as thought to hammer at Cinder's face, her chest, her arms, her stomach, to strike her everywhere that he could reach. Cinder fell, and Ozpin pursued her, his magic controlling his descent so that he could assail her in her more ungainly fall, keeping up the pressure on her so that she couldn't-
Ozpin was struck in the back by a bolt of lightning; he could not restrain the cry of pain that sprang from his lips, nor could he stop Long Memory from faltering in his hand. Cinder escaped, fire springing from her hands to blast her out from under his assault.
She halted a few feet away, and a fireball leapt from her palm to strike Ozpin in the chest and toss him back down to the ground.
Now it was Cinder's turn to pursue. She caught him as he fell, slashing at him with her glass blades, moving too quickly for him to parry every stroke; she was faster now, and stronger too, and he could feel his aura diminishing with every stroke of her obsidian swords.
Ozpin hit the ground with a crunch, his aura shattering. He lay where he had fallen, his body wracked with pain, unable to move. Cinder landed atop him and kicked Long Memory away down into the water. Pointless, really; he couldn't have hurt her with it now even if he'd wished to.
Cinder appeared to regard him with something almost like the pity he had felt for her not too long ago. "The pillar of the world," she murmured. "How pathetic. You could have ruled the world, you could have been a god, and instead, you chose to give your power away to a succession of unworthy acolytes."
"Not unworthy," Ozpin groaned. "Worthier… than I."
"'Worthy'?" Cinder repeated incredulously. "Worth did not save her from me, nor did it keep her powers from passing into my hands. Meanwhile, look at you now: defeated, about to die at my hands. Rest assured that with this power, I will do all that you should have done, but dared not dream of." She joined her swords together, forming a bow once more. "Any famous last words for the great Professor Ozpin?" she asked mockingly.
"They will stop you," Ozpin whispered. "They have something you will never have, for all your power."
"Oh, really," Cinder drawled. "And what might that be?"
"Each other."
Cinder stared down at him. "Of all the ways to die," she muttered. "Preaching friendship. How… nauseating." She drew back her bow.
A swirling green vortex opened up directly in front of her, and she had just enough time to recognize the truck horn before her vision was consumed by metal.
Optimus glowered at his long since past friend. The street that they were fighting on had long since turned to rubble, but they hadn't stopped. They should have stopped -- he would have stopped -- but Megatron would not let up in the attack.
It was a decision that he was paying dearly for.
Megatron's right arm was knocked aside enough to give Optimus the opening to open fire with his ion blaster onto Megatron's chest. The dictator of destruction grunted and transformed into his tank form to retreat back. Optimus transformed too and, in the process, dodged a powerful fusion cannon shot that hit a ruined shop front without lethal effect.
It had taken many cycles for Optimus to learn how to sense structural integrity fields, but he had eventually gotten it right, and with that experience, he made sure to absorb the hits that could hurt another living spark and dodge the attacks that strike short of any life. The curious thing was that Megatron had been the one to teach him that skill all those megacycles ago, and he had used that same skill many a time to manipulate the flow of battle by purposefully targeting bystander and Autobot alike to force Optimus's hand. Now, though, there was none of that, and Megatron was conservatively fighting and wasting no energy striking civilians. It was something that the leader of the Autobots was only too happy to exploit once he had figured it out, but it did make him concerned as to what the cause was.
They transformed and entered into melee combat once more, and as they did so, Optimus asked a clipped question. "What are you doing, Megatron? Why are you here?"
"Isn't it obvious, Prime?" replied Megatron in amusement as he pressed his attack once more and punctuated his statements with strikes with the flail. "To conquer! To destroy! To reduce all that you have built to ashes! That is why I'm here!"
Optimus blocked or deflected every single strike. "No."
"'No'?!"
"That's not why you're here, Megatron," surmised Optimus, launching into his own attack with his axe that broke through his foe's defences and hit his arm with sparking effect. "Not in this condition."
"Ugh!" grunted Megatron as he backpedaled. "Some things are more important than your health, Prime."
"Like what, Megatron? Power? Control? Idle pleasures?" asked Optimus as he prepared for his next move while performing smaller moves. "All those vices of yours won't mean a thing if you're offlined!"
Optimus's next attacks with his axe were perfect, at least to those who saw the recordings later and knew how to analyze things. If the leader of the Autobots had been asked what had happened barely a minute after his moves had concluded, though, he would not have been able to impart a single detail. Every swing of his weapon or twist of his body was purely on what might be likened to organic instinct.
Likewise, Megatron's defense was part of a well-worn dance that he had performed countless times before. No doubt, he hoped that his counters would offer him the same protection they had in the past. They did not.
"Raaaagh!" the leader of the Decepticons screamed as he flew through the air to skid across the ground, digging a small trench in the pavement as he did so till he came to rest on the beach.
Optimus advanced. His old friend-turned-foe's body was sparking in several places, and as he got back up, it was easy to see where the battle was taking its toll in other places. His structural integrity field was doing its best, but it was clear that it was running low and taxed in other places besides. Only Megatron's skill in manipulating the light of his spark and prioritizing certain repairs over others was keeping him upright.
"It's the end of the road, Megatron," declared Optimus, heavy steps bringing him toward his quarry.
"Oh, Prime." Megatron shook his head as he braced himself. "You forget. I'm a Decepticon. I don't need... roads."
With that, Megatron's fusion cannon shifted and began to emit a purple glow from several slots as he pointed it down and slightly to the side. There was a boom, and seemingly simultaneously, the world became a vortex of rubble, sand, and sea water. Optimus's attention was drawn to the sky though, and as the blast of detritus subsided almost as quickly as it came, he saw flying through the air the form of the Decepticon despot. He was heading towards his ship, and doing so using a recoil boosting technique that warriors of this world seemed so fond of.
"Another time then," Optimus sighed before doing a comms check. "Optimus to Autobots, can anyone hear me?"
"I got you, Optimus," came back a reply from Arcee. "Glad to hear that the jamming is down for you too. Only other 'Bot I know of who doesn't have a full dance card, though, is Wheeljack."
"What is your current situation?"
"Running the perimeter," answered Arcee. "Starscream came and tried to off Headmaster Ironwood, but he failed, and now, the ol' tin schoolteacher's organized a defense to stop the Grimm and the 'Cons if they make another go for the CCT. Wait one…. Optimus, I've got eyes on Cinder Fall. She's dueling Headmaster Ozpin on the docks at the bottom of the cliff, and it looks like she's winning. Orders?"
A spike of dread shot through Optimus. "Prepare to designate a target. I am moving to assist Headmaster Ozpin."
"Acknowledged. ETA?" asked Arcee.
"Instantaneous," answered Optimus as he opened another channel.
"Got it. Instan- what?!" replied Arcee in seeming confusion.
"Wheeljack, this is Optimus Prime; is the ground bridge operational yet?"
"Uh, theoretically," replied the scientist whose reputation no doubt preceded him. "I'm looking at it on security feed right now, but I haven't tested it yet."
"You're testing it now," ordered Optimus. "Lock onto my coordinates and prepare to immediately redirect the bridge to the location designated by Arcee."
"Good thing we didn't buy this, or this would void the warranty," commented Wheeljack.
"This is so crazy, Cliff could have come up with it himself, but I got ya, Optimus," said Arcee.
Optimus transformed into his truck mode, and in front of him, a swirling green vortex appeared that he wasted no time speeding through.
The body of Cinder Fall flew through the air to skip across the water, but Optimus paid her no mind.
"Optimus?" gasped out Ozpin, looking up at him. "What are you doing here? Leave me!"
"Not on your life, old friend," declared Optimus just before a tower of steam erupted from the bay and the blazing form of their opponent flew towards them.
"PRIME!" she shouted in a familiar tone.
"This ends here, Cinder Fall," he replied, taking a defensive stance, interposing himself between Cinder and Ozpin.
Fire blazed in Cinder's eyes as a column of white-hot flames erupted from her left hand, engulfing her arm up to the shoulder and blasting toward Optimus. "I will destroy you!"
The Autobot leader crossed his arms before him, shielding his face and torso from the blast that battered against his forearms.
"You'll try," he said simply as he strode forward, ion blaster raised in one hand. The energy cannon belted out blast after blast of high energy particles, but the Fall Maiden, high on energex, was too swift, dodging this way and that, though she could not close the distance.
With a snarl of frustration, she fell back, and fire began to fall from her hands, coiling into blazing whips. She leaped forward, and as Optimus raised his ion blaster, she lashed out with the fiery whips, one wrapping around the barrel of the gun while the other wrapped around his wrist. With a twist, she yanked the blaster from his pained grip and pulled herself toward him.
Optimus stepped back, his hand retracting into his arm, slipping free of the magical fire's grip, to be replaced with a glowing orange-red axe blade. Cinder's eyes widened as he raised the energon axe and brought it down toward her.
The Fall Maiden flung her left arm out, blasting fire to propel her toward her right and out of the path of Optimus's blow, the unpracticed move sending her through the air to tumble uncontrollably across the pier. She struggled to her feet, swaying briefly as Optimus stared impassively down at her.
Cinder held a hand up in front of her face. A flicker of flame sputtered weakly to life in her palm.
"Stand down," he commanded. "It's over, Fall."
She clenched her hand, snuffing the flame out, even as she reached for another injector.
"Never!" she cried, jabbing not one, but two of the injectors into herself, and flames blazed anew around her hands as she augmented her magical flames with her Scorching Caress, using her semblance to a level she would never have managed before, to heat the very air around her to the point of spontaneously combusting.
A part of her was vaguely aware of her skin blistering from the heat, but she didn't care. She thrust both arms toward the Autobot, sending twin columns of white-hot flames crackling and popping toward him.
As before, Prime brought his arms up to block the fiery blast, the impact forcing him back a step before he stabilized his footing.
No! she howled silently, desperately, and redoubled her efforts, pouring more of her aura and magic into the attack, ignoring the smell of burning cloth and flesh. Not this time!
Unnoticed, the concrete pier beneath their feet began to crack under the heat. Cinder began to walk toward him, step by slow step as Prime slowly crumpled under the onslaught, curling away, then falling to one knee, all the while still keeping himself between her and Ozpin.
Without warning, the pier beneath them exploded.
Cinder cried out as the explosion tossed her around like a rag doll, curling up and flaring the flames around herself protectively, incinerating much of the shrapnel approaching her. Gasping and heaving, she pulled herself painfully to her feet, utterly exhausted.
Prime lay on his back, unmoving, and some distance away lay Ozpin in a heap, outside the apparent signs of the explosion. Had the Autobot thrown the headmaster clear? If so, he was a fool.
Steeling herself, she swayed unsteadily as she stalked up to Prime.
"I'll tear you apart with my bare hands," she promised as she clambered up the insensate Autobot.
Finally, she stood on his abdomen, reaching out a blackened hand to his chestplate, and pulled. After a couple of false starts, Cinder finally wrenched it open…
…and she screamed as her world turned white.
Somewhere in Anima, within the territory nominally claimed by the Kingdom of Mistral, Sideways looked up and to the west. A shiver ran down his central communications trunk. There was no mistaking that thin beam of light reaching up to the heavens and burning itself into his optics, nor the power it represented. He could feel Primus's essence, even from this great distance.
As the light faded, he relaxed slightly, just in time for the space bridge he was monitoring to reactivate on the timer Sixshot had set. Transdimensional energy crackled and leaped erratically, bathing him in an unnatural, pulsating blue light instead of the usual bright, oscillating yellow. Once the portal finally stabilized, the Decepticon ninja emerged from the rift in space/time.
Sideways cocked his head to the side. "Well?"
Despite his face guard, Sixshot gave the impression of smiling.
"Things're lookin' up," he drawled. "Folks on the other side, their global comm network just went kaput. We got ourselves an opportunity."
Sideways smiled, "Excellent news," he said. "I'm sure Lord Megatron will be most pleased."
And so, too, would Sideways, once he was on the other side of that portal, away from that accursed Matrix.
In the twisting sands of Vacuo, a cloaked figure walked through a forest of stony structures, her face hidden from view. Suddenly, she stopped, her body overcome by a sense that something important had just happened. So it was that she stopped her movements and turned her gaze to the east.
Glowing blue eyes saw a thin beam of likewise description shooting into the sky and were overcome with awe.
"What wondrous…" She trailed off, her voice overcome with emotion even as flames like wings sprang forth from her eyes. "I pray that the people of this world realize the miracle they have just witnessed."
In the frozen wastes of Solitas's farthest north, two figures stood watching the south where a bright beam ascended up into the stars. One was a young maiden of ethereal countenance, cloaked in blue over finely-crafted armor. The other was an apparent male of far more base description.
"Say, uh, that girl you keep going on about responsible for that?" asked the base companion.
The maiden's reply was said with the echoes of ages. "This action has shifted the balance of power on this world dramatically and set into motion events that will ripple out to affect the entire universe, but no. My beloved servant's fight was elsewhere, holding the line against the darkness as she has done before and will likely do again."
"Riiiiiiiiiiight," was his drawn out reply. "So, translated into normal speak, she was out getting tossed around by Grimm while meanwhile, the actual big heroic fight was happening somewhere else, probably nowhere close to her." He sighed in exasperation. "We're all gonna die."
The maiden snorted.
"What?"
"Shut up, old friend."
Ozpin looked up in wonder, mesmerized by the light piercing the heavens.
He had seen a great many things in his many lives. He remembered the time of gods and magic. But this... this, though it felt familiar somehow, was something beyond even his ken. It was a stark reminder that, though he may hold custody over the most secret of secrets of Remnant, there was a whole galaxy -- a whole universe -- that stretched far beyond Remnant, with secrets and mysteries he likely would never begin to comprehend.
It was humbling, but also, in a strange way, hopeful. It felt good to feel wonder again.
His body ached. The battle with Cinder had proven that he was more out of shape than he'd thought. Though his aura had recovered enough to save him from the explosion, having one's aura battered down in such quick succession twice was going to leave him sore in the morning.
Considering he wasn't entirely sure he'd see the morning, he'd chalk that up as a win. He forced himself to his feet and turned his attention to where Cinder lay. Did she yet live? It was unclear. Had the Fall Maiden powers already been passed on? Or... or would he have to seize this opportunity to...?
He couldn't finish the thought. Killing in battle was one thing, but slaying a helpless foe? Once, he might have countenanced that, but with the hope rekindled in his heart, he found the very idea abhorrent.
Before he could struggle with himself for very long, however, any such choice was taken from him as a metallic purple form burst out from the water, loping toward Cinder. Brutish arms reached down and scooped up the fallen Maiden before the figure -- the Decepticon -- transformed and rocketed away into the sky.
"Lugnut."
At the sound of Optimus's voice, Ozpin turned to his old friend, who had leveraged himself into a sitting position and closed his chest panel. The Autobot leader was watching the Decepticon as he shrank to a twinkle in the night sky.
"What?" Ozpin asked as he began hobbling over.
"That was Lugnut," Optimus clarified. "Megatron's most loyal servant. He does not trust her. But then, there are few he does trust."
Ozpin paused to digest that information. From what he knew of Cinder Fall, that just meant that Megatron was no fool. Hardly new information.
"Why did you come, Optimus?" he asked softly as he placed a hand on his old friend's knee. "I already told you that I'll reincarnate, no matter what."
Optimus turned his gaze away from the sky to look down at Ozpin, those kind, blue eyes offering comfort and security. "Because," he said sorrowfully, "I have buried too many friends already."
Ozpin lowered his own gaze. That was something he understood all too well.
Megatron strode onto the bridge of the Nemesis.
"Lord Megatron," Razorclaw said, rising from the captain's chair.
Megatron waved him back into the chair as he continued up to the main viewport. He had no interest in taking command personally, not just yet.
"Order a general withdrawal," he said, staring out the main viewport, a satisfied smile crossing his face as the power of Primus himself speared into the sky. "I have what I came for."
"Yes, Lord Megatron."
"Oh, Optimus, it seems you are stronger than ever," he murmured. "You have no idea how happy that makes me."
(V3E13: Tools of Foul Play | V3E14: Bonds | V3E15: All Out in the Open)
- Author's Note 1 (Cyclone)
- Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett)
The time of secrets and lies has passed (mostly), and now everyone must adapt to a changed world now that everything is "All Out in the Open."
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KnightDisciple
Brotherhood. Unity. Peace.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
Honestly a fantastic chapter all around, but this was the best part:
I'm not sure if this counts as "irony" or what but I love it.
I'm not sure if this counts as "irony" or what but I love it.
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
That was very intentional. I even went and double-checked the movie to make sure I got Kup's lines right.
Volume III: Episode 15: All Out in the Open
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
(V3E14: Bonds | V3E15: All Out in the Open | Interlude 3-1: Birthday)
Volume III: Episode 15: All Out in the Open
* * *
Volume III: Episode 15: All Out in the Open
* * *
Velvet sat in the darkness, staring down at the blood-stained bayonet, the gift she'd gotten from Lavi -- from Laserbeak -- oh so long ago. She'd never gotten around to renaming it, and now...
Deep inside, a part of her raged. It screamed at her to discard it, break it over her knee, something, and yet... and yet, she couldn't bring herself to do it, to sever that last link to such happy times.
Her vision blurred. She blinked, then noticed two droplets of something had splotched the blood on the blade. It took her a moment to realize they were tears, and as if a dam had broken, she began to sob, letting them fall freely, splashing the blood and making a terrible mess. She didn't care.
As she cradled the token of friendship -- of love -- in her hands, all she could feel was the bite of a cold, northern wind.
Nemesis glided through the darkness, deep beneath the waves. Down here, far beyond the reach of their prey, there were no Grimm to witness the alien vessel's passage. That might change, but for now, the Decepticons remained hidden, out of sight.
And within the slender hull of the titanic warship, Megatron glowered over his people, those that could fit within the dimly-lit cargo hold, at least. It was the largest compartment aboard Nemesis, glowing with the dim purple of the emergency lighting to conserve energon. The silence in the room was only broken by the low thrum of the engines, the faint scuffle as Decepticons shifted uncomfortably, and the dripping of a minor leak into a well-placed bucket.
"Prime lives," he declared, "and the years have been kind to him." An uneasy murmur washed across the room. "I have met him in battle myself."
"And yet, Prime lives!" screeched Starscream.
"Indeed he does," Megatron confirmed. "Tell me, Starscream, when you prepare to go to war, which do you send in first? The flag bearers or the scouts? This was a reconnaissance in force. Without knowledge of our enemy and his strengths, defeat would be certain. But with that knowledge, victory will be ours."
He let that sink in for a bit.
"As for the secondary objectives," he continued, "the Autobots' allies, the White Fang, were crippled in the initial stages of the operation."
"Thanks to my Seeker Corps, Lord Megatron!" Starscream boasted.
"Yes," Megatron murmured, "your Seekers performed very well." His optics drifted over to his most loyal subordinate and the quartet of MiniCons around him. "Though I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the intelligence provided by Soundwave's operatives. Without that, such a strike would have been impossible."
Soundwave bowed. "Thank you, Lord Megatron."
"But Lord Megatron," Starscream protested, "that fool Soundwave utterly failed in his mission to disable the CCT."
Megatron smiled and turned his attention back to the Seeker. "Ah, thank you for bringing that up, Starscream, for you see that all our failures tonight have one thing in common: you."
"WHAT?!" the Air Commander sputtered. "How could I possibly be responsible for the failures of all these fools?!"
"I'm glad you asked," Megatron sneered. "For Soundwave's attack, the answer is simple: you ordered a retreat when victory was still achievable. Likewise, Thundercracker's alleged defection was obviously something you pressured him into as part of one of your overly elaborate schemes to try and overthrow me."
"Lord Megatron, I would never-"
"Silence!" Megatron cut him off. "Did you think you could hide your ambitions? I'm no fool. As I was saying, Thundercracker will no doubt defect for real now, once he's heard that your little scheme has been exposed, which has cost us a valuable asset that proved its worth that you so repeatedly denounced when it prevented the Constructicons from completing their objective at the wall. Perhaps they would have been able to call for help that would have actually been helpful had your jamming not prevented anything but laser comms from getting out unless it went through you. Tell me, Starscream, how many clearance requests went unfulfilled, like the request for reinforcements at the breach inside the city, because you had abandoned your command to pursue a delusional grudge against a human you thought would take your job?"
"How-?"
"Ha! So you admit it then!" Megatron shook his head with disappointment. "Once again, Barricade's predictions came to pass, just as his predictions which anticipated the entire roster of our foe's forces." He turned to the former CySec officer. "Good job."
"Thank you, sir," Barricade said. "It was easy, once I knew the natives knew about magic."
Megatron's gaze swept back to Starscream. "Unlike you, he knows to finish a job before going after personal grudges."
"But my jammer-" Starscream tried weakly.
"Ultimately turned out to be a self-defeating failure, just like everything else you do, Starscream," finished Megatron.
Starscream scowled and squared his shoulders. "I deserve better than this disrespect. I am the leader of the Seeker Corps."
"Not anymore," Megatron declared. "You're being reassigned from the Seeker Corps -- and demoted -- immediately."
"Wha-I-no-how-?" It seemed Starscream's vocalizer was malfunctioning, judging from his incoherent blubbering that was changing into strangled coughing.
Megatron turned to the most recently reformatted Seeker present. "You're in command now, Air Commander Skywarp."
Startled, the new Air Commander stood still for a moment, then bowed, fist to his chestplate. "Thank you, Lord Megatron."
Thunk!
Megatron glanced back over to see Starscream on the floor, unconscious.
"Pitiful," he sneered.
The morning after the attack on the city of Vale, the rebuilding began. After the Decepticon ship had rocketed into the sky and arced off over the sea, forces were redirected to sweep away the Grimm and leftover drones still menacing the giant metropolis. Alongside the combat, firefighters and rescue workers, mostly volunteers, had worked to save people and prevent further damage to the city.
It was a grim reminder that life on their world was nasty, brutish, and short, but nevertheless, those same lives had to go on.
"I'm telling you, that was some incredible work you pulled at the breach," declared Lennox as he walked along the dusty sidewalk with his rifle slung across his chest, squinting in the early sunlight.
"I could say literally the exact same thing to you," replied Adam as he walked alongside the NEST soldier with an identical rifle slung across his chest, the morning light glinting off the sunglasses Lennox had given him.
"But you won't, because all I did was make a few phone calls," quipped Lennox self-deprecatingly.
Adam shrugged. "Well, if you say so. I, on the other hand, am going to enjoy being treated as the hero I am."
Lennox snorted. "Oh, I can believe it, just like I can believe that you're going to be eating those words soon enough. Well, soon in the grand scheme of things."
"Sounds like a lot of second-rate comfort to me," preened Adam.
The destination they were walking to was the Do Tell Hotel, which had been converted into an aid station at some point in the night to free up space at the nearby hospital for more serious injuries. Whether or not it was necessary, Lennox couldn't say, and he suspected that neither did the people who set up the station in the first place. However, he also thought the old adage stayed true that it was better to have something and not need it than need it and not have it.
"Okay, so Ruby's message said that they'd be here by now," announced Taiyang, speaking up for the first time in a while when they had gotten across from the building.
"And we are!" announced the crimson-themed Huntress that was Ruby Rose with a petal-filled leap to their side.
There was an exclamation of surprise from someone nearby, but the three Huntsmen were too seasoned to jump. After all, it was hardly a surprise if one was keeping an eye on their surroundings, and it wasn't like she had just appeared out of nowhere. The trail of petals leading to a blonde running towards them was clear proof that she was hardly that stealthy.
"Hey, kiddo!" greeted Taiyang, taking his daughter into a hug that she evidently could not escape from.
"Ack! Dad! No!" whined Ruby.
Lennox chuckled and glanced at the clearly offput Adam. "Your sister's pretty excitable, isn't she?"
Adam looked back at him with what was probably annoyance. "She's not my sister. She's my half-sister's half-sister. We don't share a drop of blood."
"Want my advice, Swordsman?" inquired Lennox, still trying to keep his voice low while the Xiao Longs did their thing.
"No," replied Adam.
"Smart move, but unfortunately, you're still getting it," shot back Lennox, and he could tell his opposite was rolling his eyes. "Don't throw this away. There's too many people who lose their families and then spend the rest of their lives pining for them back or a new one but getting neither. You got a chance many would kill for, and only you can make use of it, so don't waste it."
Before a reply could be made, Yang Xiao Long turned her attention fully onto the scene. It was a good thing that Lennox had caught their match in the Vytal Tournament. Identifying the two sisters would be a lot harder if he hadn't.
"Hey, Bro! How was your night?" asked Yang chipperly with an arm still around her father. "We fought Megatron and lived to tell the tale, so I'd say we're doing pretty good."
"I'll believe it when I see it," quipped Adam.
"Pft, give it time, and I'm sure someone will have it uploaded to the 'net," dismissed Yang with a wave.
"Where's Bumblebee and Hot Rod?" asked Taiyang. "Didn't you say that they were with you?"
"They sent us along ahead while they helped with some big clean up project," Ruby informed them. "And I mean really big. Huge, in fact. There was no way either of us could have gotten our arms around it."
There was a crash in the distance.
"That probably wasn't them," insisted Ruby instantly.
Lennox looked around. "Well, I certainly can't find any evidence disproving your theory there, but I still think we should look into it all the same. Later, after we get some rack time."
"I don't need sleep," declared Yang with dark rings clearly visible around her eyes.
"Yes, you do," Lennox said flatly.
"He's right, girls," agreed Taiyang. "Come on, the battle's over, and we've been awake for at least twenty-four hours. Let's get some sleep while we can."
"There's still work to be done," protested Ruby.
"It can be done by others more qualified than us," answered Taiyang.
"There could still be an attack," objected Yang.
"The front line forces can be people more rested than us," insisted Lennox. "Come on, there's an entire city of people ready to stand watch."
"Not a whole city," said Yang somberly.
"Bloodied though it may be, this outpost of civilization still stands," insisted Taiyang.
"And we should be there to clean its wounds," deflected Ruby. "We don't need to sleep now. Come on, Adam, back us up."
"Power naps," said Adam, seemingly out of the blue.
Taiyang blinked. "What?"
Adam explained. "I can teach you how to take two hour power naps so that you don't need to sleep anymore."
Taiyang looked at him as if his words had turned to babble. "What? No! That's crazy."
"It's perfectly sane," insisted Adam, looking at Taiyang in a much more focused way. "I've used it plenty of times, and I can tell you right now, the reported side effects of obsession, a fixation on fear, and dressing up in a costume and claiming to be the night are completely exaggerated."
"But Adam, you are obsessed, fixated on fear, and dress up in costume," pointed out Yang, clearly falling into an old habit. "Well, a mask, at least."
Adam's sunglass-covered eyes bore into her, but he avoided the obvious rejoinder. "But I never claimed to be the night."
"Didn't you call your semblance 'Moonslice' though?" asked Ruby curiously.
"Ugh, not you too," groaned Adam.
Before the conversation could continue, though, they were interrupted by the squealing of tires as a police car came to a roaring stop barely feet away from them. There was a loud thud from inside, and two cops could be seen scrambling out of the front seats. The driver got out first, a surly-looking lady faunus who looked like the demented fusion of a coast guard yeoman and an army drill sergeant; she was followed by the literal cowboy cop in the passenger's seat.
The driver had her body ready to spring into a combat stance when she started speaking to Adam. "You're under arrest."
Yang stepped protectively in front of her brother. "On what charge, donut dame?"
The officer seemed to boil with rage at those words. "'What charge'? What frakking charge?! How about we start with aiding and abetting terrorist activities and then work our way through 'til we reach frakking murder?"
Even Lennox was taken aback by the language, but the Xiao Longs seemed rather more incensed by it. Well, okay, Yang was incensed by it, Ruby looked worried, Taiyang looked stern, and Adam seemed to be sliding into some sort of angry bad boy persona. Then again, he was probably very angry, and he was definitely a bad boy, so maybe it wouldn't technically classify as a persona.
Still, things were bound to blow up, and that wasn't good.
Lennox stepped in between the two officers and the family. "Officer, I think you might be overstepping your authority."
"That's Lieutenant," growled the brown-haired horse faunus. "Lieutenant DJ Martinez, VPD."
"Greetings," he replied with a great deal of well practiced cheer. "I'm Captain Lennox. I'm with the National Emergency Strike Team, NEST. Don't know if you've heard of us or not; we're kind of the new kids on the block."
"I've heard of you. Now what the frak are you doing interfering in my job?" asked Martinez with narrowed eyes.
"Trying to help you," answered Lennox… mostly honestly. "I don't think you've realized that we're still under threat of Grimm attack, and that means, until the senior defense officer on station -- which I believe is the Grand Marshal right now -- puts an end to that state, you can't go and arrest people involved in the defense unless it's for a crime that they're actively in the process of committing."
Martinez got very close to his face. "If you think for one frakking second that I'm just going to let that murdering piece of shaz walk around like-"
Her partner put his hand on her shoulder. "Deej, let it go. Let's just do what we need to do and get back to the Forty-Seventh."
"Forty-Seventh, huh?" asked Lennox. "Now, how did you end up all the way over here?"
"The flow of battle, and arresting one of you're oh so great defenders for public drunkenness, indecent exposure, and other crimes," explained Martinez.
It was at that moment that the back door on the police car fell off, and out fell a disheveled man in cuffs and clothes that clearly weren't his own.
"Uncle Qrow?!" gasped Ruby in shock.
"Hey, guys," said the so-named Qrow with clearly far too much liquor in his tone.
"Oh no, not again," lamented Taiyang.
"When's the memorial?"
There were two orderlies in the morgue at that moment. Both were looking over at the drawers in which the two new famous additions to the Choir Invisible lay. They were at the end of their shifts and were already packing it in to head back onto the streets of Atlas.
"Next Wednesday. I hear an aurora's forecasted for that night. Rest of the week is supposed to be a time of mourning."
"So we got to keep these two stiffs on ice that whole time?" complained the first orderly.
"Dude! Have some respect!" hissed the second. "These are the two who saved Atlas."
The first orderly rolled his eyes as he grabbed his jacket. "Dead is dead." He glanced back at his coworker. "Gonna hit the bar. You coming?"
"Not tonight," came the reply. "You go on ahead. I'm going to do one last check and head home."
"Suit yourself," the first orderly said with a shrug and headed out.
Once alone, the other orderly turned to the two drawers, his face twisting into a scowl. He reached over and pulled one of the drawers open, revealing the still face of General Flagg.
"Ssso disssappointing," Pythona hissed, looking down at him. "Replacsssing you would have been invaluable, and you jussst had to get yourssself killed in public."
Straightening up and shoving the morgue drawer closed, she turned, schooling her disguised expression again, and began to make her way out of the building. She'd needed to make sure this wasn't some grand ruse, after all.
Pity about the man she'd replaced for such a brief infiltration, but his death would be overlooked and written off. After all, in light of recent events, he was hardly the only one who was going to drink himself to death this night.
She never noticed the rifle trained on her.
Peering through his scope from the rooftop opposite, Agent Novo -- a man with no connection to the current First Minister of Vale, so far as he knew -- kept tracking the target. It wouldn't be hard to put a bullet in her from this range, and it was unlikely she had her aura up, but that wasn't the mission. Silas had been very clear. The mission was to track her, sniff out her network of contacts and compatriots, and once that well of intel was finally wrung dry, then... then would be the time to strike and snuff out this little cell of Equestrian invaders.
"-imm activity remains at record lows as reconstruction continues. This morning, relief supplies and volunteers from Patch and Griffin Rock have arrived, including a shipment of Starhead Industrial robots for excavation, reconstruction, and security. In other news-"
Arslan heaved, sending the chunk of concrete that had once been part of the southeast middle wall sailing over the outer wall to disappear on the other side. Clean up and repair at the wall was moving in stages, from the innermost to the outermost, much like how civilization had first expanded into the wilderness against the Grimm, and they'd no doubt have to clean that same piece up later when they began rebuilding the outer defenses, but until they could get trucks through the roads, it would have to do.
She forced down the urge to issue a challenge as one of the Atlesian students proceeded to chuck an even larger chunk over the wall with a bored expression; the small cloud of smaller debris that followed made it clear it was some sort of semblance, assuaging her competitive streak.
"Arslan?" a familiar voice called.
She turned, then glanced at the supervisor overseeing the clearing work, who glanced over at the person who had called her name, then looked back at Arslan and gave her an approving nod.
With that, she jogged over to her old friend.
"Hey, Pyr!" she greeted cheerfully. "How's the heroine of the hour?"
Pyrrha blinked like a deer in the headlights. "'H-heroine'?"
Arslan nodded and pointed to where the portable radio set was still playing news and updates. "Well, yeah. I mean, most I did was kill a King Beringel in front of the cafeteria. You and your boytoy helped Adam Taurus seal a breach in the middle of the city. News has been talking up you three a lot."
"But... I didn't actually do all that much," protested the Vytal Champion. "I didn't even kill anything more dangerous than an Ursa Major." Her eyes widened, and she ducked her head apologetically. "I'm sorry."
"And that's why you two are the sidekicks in this particular story," Arslan teased. "So, what's up?"
Pyrrha looked down and began fidgeting with her sash. "I, um, I know we're not close-"
"'Not close'?" Arslan interrupted incredulously, arching an eyebrow. "Pyr, we're best friends. What the hell are you talking about?"
Pyrrha looked up. "We... are? I thought we were rivals. Well, friendly rivals."
Arslan nodded slowly in agreement. "Yes, Pyrrha," she said slowly, enunciating her words like she was talking to a small child. "That's what 'friendly rivals' means: rivals who are also friends."
Pyrrha looked at her, dumbfounded. "Oh."
Arslan snorted and shook her head. "You know, I hope you do realize what Jaune being your fiancé actually means." She paused for effect. "You do know what that means, right?"
Pyrrha blushed. "Y-y-yes. In fact, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. I was, um, I was wondering if you'd like to come to our wedding."
Arslan considered that. "Do I get to be the Maid of Honor?"
Coco could feel her heart clenching as she and her team stood in team name order across from Headmaster Ozpin in the remarkably corporatist office that he had been stuck with since the start of last semester. With everything that had happened… well, they knew why they were there. It was pretty hard to miss the inquiry or its purpose.
"To begin, I must commend you for cooperating with the investigation," said Ozpin as he stood on the opposite side of his desk.
He was alone for now; Professor Goodwitch was packing her bags for Atlas if she wasn't out in the city fixing things, and Coco was glad for that. She had always admired the older woman, even over the headmaster himself, but at that moment, she didn't think she could look her in the eye. She just didn't know if it was out of fear or shame.
"Optimus Prime has informed me that things have already been resolved for the Autobots, which just leaves you as the loose end," Ozpin informed them coldly, his voice lacking any of the usual warmth it had. "Now, if I was to mirror what was done on their end, it would be tantamount to a death sentence. After all, you'll be lucky to reach a hundred, never mind the hundred million it would take to complete such a punishment. Nevertheless, punishment still needs to be given out, as you four bungled a first contact situation and then covered it up by falsifying both your written and verbal reports."
The headmaster's words were as unto thunder in Coco's ears, each syllable hitting like an artillery strike.
Ozpin picked up a large folder marked "Confidential" in big red letters and began to flip through the pages. "Failing to communicate with mission control throughout the mission, opening contact with an alien lifeform with hostile displays, escalating tensions, opening fire first on the agent of an unknown faction, and that's just the highlights of what happened during the mission. When you returned, all of you lied to my face and told me that Cliffjumper opened fire first, when in fact, the complete opposite was true. In your written report, you further implied all manner of further crimes on Cliffjumper's part, from brainwashing and intimidation to slavery and kidnapping, all in a deliberately misleading manner, such that you might be able to claim any position you might like that could explain why the people of Lower Cairn have ceased all communication with Beacon and refused to allow any investigation of the town by our representatives, a situation, by the way, that is only now beginning to resolve itself with the personal intervention of Optimus Prime."
Coco knew what he was talking about, who he was talking about. The teams might have gone along with things, but she had been the one who had originated them. It was her fault; it was all her fault. People were dead, and a war had nearly started because of her.
Ozpin swept his gaze across them, judging them, his expression stern and disappointed. "It seems you have failed to learn any of the most important lessons we have tried to teach you since coming to this academy. This is the sort of behavior I might expect of first-year students; therefore, that's what you will be. If you feel that you would not like to proceed in your current configuration, then report to initiation in one week. Otherwise, you're dismissed."
With that, Ozpin sat back down in his office chair and put their case folder away in a drawer before taking out another piece of paperwork entirely.
Coco felt like the floor had just opened up under her. "I'm sorry, Headmaster. I don't understand. That's it?"
Ozpin looked back up at her. "Yes, Miss Adel. You're dismissed, which means that you're free to return to your dorm or do anything you like so long as you remove yourself from this office."
Coco could feel the eyes of her team looking at her like she had lost her mind, but she didn't care; her mouth was running on autopilot. "We lied to you about abandoning the matter too. I did. I pushed for an infiltration of the White Fang that led to the locations of their hideouts being tagged. Hundreds of people are dead because of me!"
"Miss Adel, on that matter, you are guilty of nothing more than trusting Team Ruffle and believing them to be your friends," explained Ozpin, his voice seeming to become compassionate and understanding in contrast to its previous tone. "They're spies; it's their job to do what they did. You should not feel guilty that they happened to be good at it. This is a school, Miss Adel, and you are still students."
His words were meant to alleviate her guilt, and in a way, it did. A sense of peace descended over her. She knew what she needed to do.
"Not anymore, sir," she said with finality as she reached inside her clothes and pulled out her Beacon-issued scroll and, more importantly, the Huntress Student ID on it to put it down on the table. "I'm... withdrawing from Beacon, sir."
She pivoted around and strode towards the exit without a second thought. If she still needed the scroll, Beacon could mail it to her parents for all she cared. The important thing was that it was done, and she finally felt that weight leaving her shoulders with the knowledge that she had done the right thing.
The elevator doors closed long before she found the moral courage to look anyone in the eyes again.
As Team BLDM stood over the lounging forms of three-quarters of Team DSST -- where Sunburst was, Bonbon didn't know, and he wasn't a part of this anyway -- in the common area of the guest dormitory assigned to Haven students, Bonnie "Bon Bon" Bonaventure wished she could be somewhere -- anywhere -- else right now. Well, technically, she could be, but she hadn't abandoned Lyra when things were against her; why would she now, when the tables had turned?
Well, sort of.
"~Say it,~" Lyra sang as she danced between Lightning Dust, Sunset Shimmer, and Trixie Lulamoon. "~Sayyy iiit.~"
Bon Bon couldn't blame her. A lot of people had bullied and teased her over her... unorthodox beliefs, once they'd come out, and these three had been among the most vocal of them.
"You called me mad!" Lyra happily declared with a manic smile as she moved about the room, gesticulating wildly. "You called me 'half-baked,' and 'out to lunch.' Which weren't particularly good insults in retrospect, but they hurt all the same! And they made me hungry!"
"Hey!" objected Trixie, affecting a wounded tone. "The Grrreat and Powwwerful Trixie did not call you any of those things!" She paused. "She merely observed that your theories were a little... improbable."
Lyra paused, then gave her a half-lidded look. "Ohhh, like your theory about a magic-using precursor civilization is oh so much more probable? I, at least, have evidence!" She glared at all three of them, even the pouting Trixie. "Say it."
"Fine," Lightning growled reluctantly, then her expression brightened, setting off warning bells in Bon Bon's head. "You... were..." -- she smirked -- "...almost right."
"Excuse me!" Lyra sputtered indignantly, hands on her hips as she rounded on Team DSST's leader. "The giant alien robots, the ancient conspiracies, the immortal queen of the Grimm! I had it all right!"
"Uh huh, right," Sunset said lazily from the loveseat she had commandeered. "Talk to us again when our 'magical horse counterparts from a parallel world' show up," she added with an infuriatingly smug smile.
"Lyra," Bon Bon said, placing a hand on her friend's shoulder. "Let it go."
"Oh no, we're getting this in writing this time," Lyra insisted.
"What?!" Sunset barked.
"You heard me. We're getting this in writing, so that when our magical pony counterparts do show up, we'll have incontrovertible proof that you said what you just said," proclaimed the mad mint maestro. "In fact, let's make it more interesting. I bet you a thousand lien -- or whatever equivalent amount in a currency or precious mineral of the winner's choosing -- that it'll be your pony counterpart who shows up, and she'll do it within the next year."
"Okay, you're on," agreed Sunset. "Get me a pen. I'm about to make some free money."
As the two went off hunting for stationary, Ditzy murmured, "I'm glad Lyra's feeling better. At least the secrets are all out in the open now, right?"
"Uh huh," Bon Bon lied with a nod.
Yo Joe.
Cinder Fall nursed her wounds. Lugnut, the simpleton, had been easy enough to slip away from, begging off for some privacy before she quietly made her way here to recover, to find the Seer and report to Salem... but the Seer was gone.
She hungered. The hunger had plagued her since she'd accepted Salem's blessing.
Briefly, in her naïveté, she'd thought it had been a mundane sort of hunger, but it was not so. Food and water tasted like ashes in her mouth, and once she'd seized half the Fall Maiden's power, the hunger only grew.
She'd thought it was the price of the Grimm implants she had accepted, exacerbated by the Fall Maiden's power seeking its other half, a hunger for completion.
But even now, with the full might of the Fall Maiden at her command, with that light having burned the Grimm infection from her, she still felt the hunger.
Now, with a sudden clarity of thought she'd lacked before, she understood. It was a hunger for power in its purest form, one that went beyond the psychological to the metaphysical.
And she knew how to feed it.
"Fall..." Cinder's head snapped up at the sound of her name. "Fall!" the gravelly voice called out again.
Staying in the shadows, she crept out until she saw who was calling for her. It was a transformer, colored in shades of gray, with a squarish body and a cannon mounted to his arm big enough for a person to climb down if they were feeling particularly suicidal. The distinctive purple Decepticon symbol was emblazoned proudly on his chest.
"Die!" she roared, conjuring a massive gout of flame. The attack on Vale had failed. The Decepticons had failed, had caused her to fail. That was unacceptable!
The Decepticon reflexively raised a hand to shield his face, but otherwise seemed unbothered, and as he turned his attention to her, she felt an oppressive weight fall upon her, a presence that filled her with a sense of dread she had felt only in the presence of one other before, but she forced herself to ignore it, to stand tall and proud in the face of such terror.
"Why throw away your life so recklessly?" the Decepticon asked, shaking his head, almost as if in disappointment. "You haven't even heard my offer yet."
"Who are you?" Cinder demanded.
"I... am Megatron."
"And what could you possibly offer me?"
With that, Megatron looked down at her, a knowing smile on his face, and raised a closed hand. "The only currency worth bartering in." He opened his hand, revealing syringes filled with a glittering amber fluid. "Power."
"...I'm listening," Cinder allowed, barely restraining herself from lunging forward to seize the energex -- the power -- in his hand.
"You have talent, Cinder Fall," Megatron said. "We could use someone with your skills among our ranks."
"I'm afraid I already have an employer," she deadpanned.
"Hmm, yes," Megatron acknowledged, "but I wonder... how will your master reward your failures?"
"And yet you want to poach me?" she retorted, suppressing the flinch as his words struck home.
"You failed through no fault of your own, to forces and machinations you had no way of predicting," Megatron reminded her, voice smoother, almost... silky. "You had what you wanted, the power of Autumn, but you followed your orders and suffered for it: your eye, your arm... other, less visible injuries, I'm sure."
"And you have use for a cripple?" she snarled skeptically.
"We can rebuild you," he assured her. "We have the technology. Can your master offer the same? Will your master recognize your loyalty in light of your failure?"
Cinder scoffed. "Salem has little tolerance for failure… but even less for traitors, and there would be no escaping her wrath. Even if she ignored the insult, with the Fall Maiden's powers, there would be no escaping her private little war with Ozpin. As far as I can tell, they're both immortal, and they've been fighting for millennia. They would hunt me down until I either died or chose a side... and then I would die anyway."
Megatron reached up and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Hmm, yes, that does complicate things slightly… I've some experience dealing with immortals. Starscream, for one." He shrugged. "Still, so what? Our space bridge is nearly complete. There are many worlds out there under Decepticon rule, Cinder Fall, quite a few with species like yours on them, where your talents would be appreciated, and not a one of them with these pesky Grimm."
Cinder froze as the implications ran through her head. "What exactly are you saying?"
"I'm saying, let your mistress and her rivals bicker over this pathetic little mudball," he declared. "I can take you far beyond the reach of this petty skirmish. After all, why settle for a mere planet when I can offer you the stars?"
Cinder considered that. Salem offered her power, both the personal power of the Maidens and dominion over what remained of civilization after she burned the world.
But... what Megatron was offering... indeed, why settle for one world when she could have dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?
"...where do I sign up?"
Thundercracker had expected many things when made his departure from the Decepticons. What he hadn't expected, but probably should have, was the paperwork. Mounds and mounds of paperwork.
"Okay, so, it's asked me this question already," he noted in confusion.
"They probably want it repeated to see if you give the same answer every time, or it's actually different in some way, or they just want the answer repeated in triplicate because they're bureaucrats," suggested General Clayton M. "Hawk" Abernathy, the officer who had flown all the way from Atlas with the paperwork to make sure they were all square before returning.
Thundercracker nodded in reply before going back to filling out the application for political asylum, having already filled out the other forms involved in defecting. "Yeah, it's probably the bureaucrat thing."
"Just be thankful you're not defecting to Mistral. It's a full twenty-step process over there," said Hawk in what was hopefully a joking tone. "I've heard about people going mad trying to complete it. Then again, there's a lot of people who apparently go mad while looking for forms over there, so who knows?"
"That sounds terrifying," commented Thundercracker as he continued along.
Eventually, though, the forms were completed, and Thundercracker was able to hand them off. It turned out to be just in the nick of time.
There was a knock at the hangar door.
"Come in!" declared Thundercracker. "We just finished up here anyway."
The big doors opened just enough to admit Ruby "Snapshot" Rose, who poked her head in to look at them. "Are you guys finished?"
"I did just say that," confirmed Thundercracker.
"Oh," replied Ruby, stepping fully into the room. "So, that's it then? You're part of Atlas Academy?"
"As soon as this paperwork is filed, yes," confirmed General Hawk as he put the comically oversized folder that the forms were in on a hover trolley. "He'll need a specialized curriculum, but that's easily manageable. This is hardly the strangest case that Atlas has handled. Three more years of legal training, and he'll have his Huntsman license. After that? Well, it's his life to live however he sees fit."
"That's… huh," Ruby started with a blink. "That's not at all how it usually goes in the movies."
"That's why they're the movies and not reality," commented Thundercracker. "They have to be interesting and make sense, after all. Real life doesn't play by those rules."
"Very true," agreed General Hawk, who then took a second look at Ruby. "Hey, I know you. You're that girl who ran into the middle of a three way firefight and got shot, right?"
The bloodcrowned girl let out a long-suffering groan and dropped her head. "Yes. Yes, that's me."
General Hawk chuckled. "Well then, I guess I better be off. Don't want to have this paperwork be out of order when you return."
With that, Hawk made his way to the door and exited out into the sunlight, pushing the hover trolley the whole way. Snapshot had stayed by the door, evidently so she wouldn't get in the way. The reason why was plain to see when the general got out, as she had her own trolley piled high with packages.
"Gifts for the road?" asked Hawk.
Snapshot nodded. "Mhmm. Team Apricot are my friends, and I wanted to get them something to remember me by, since there's no guarantee that we'll ever see each other again."
"A wise move," complimented Hawk, who continued after a brief pause. "Snapshot, I know the fact that everyone recognizes you as the girl who got shot wears on you, but that isn't the only thing you're known for."
"Well, yeah, I was on worldwide television during the Vytal Tournament," answered Ruby.
"Oh, no. When people see that match again, they're going to be looking at Miss Belladonna, not you," corrected Hawk.
"Oh."
"I'm talking about that mission you went on with Targeter and Apricot that found General Colton," he continued. "Do you realize what that means? For as long as there is a Kingdom of Man on the continent of Solitas, people will learn your name and speak it with reverence. You're one of the heroes of Atlas, or at least you will be, once the names of the team are released. Surely, that should be a salve for your ego."
Snapshot put out an upraised palm. "With all due respect, sir, I'd prefer to remain anonymous. The mission should stand on its own. I would just be an unnecessary distraction."
"Just like Farsight. She said something similar to Headmaster Ironwood when she got her chest full of medals. Instead, she had a private ceremony, and nobody told the press about it," Hawk informed her. "Though I do suppose I should give you the heads up that some people are pushing to give you some awards too, Snapshot. So do keep your schedule primed for a trip to Atlas in your future, will you?"
"Heh. Heh," Snapshot chuckled weakly as she scratched behind her head. "I'll see what I can do."
"Good enough for now," Hawk said before walking off. "Take care, Snapshot!"
"You too!" she called back.
Promptly, social niceties having been completed, she pushed the trolley into the hangar. Thundercracker didn't seem to have minded the delay and was cleaning his weapons. Proper maintenance was key, and that was something Ruby understood well.
"Hey, Thundercracker! How are you doing?" she asked in a chipper fashion.
"Restless. I'd rather be out there helping people than in here resting. Or at least flying," complained Thundercracker as his eyes traced over the lines of his weapon. "But they pulled me off rotation and told me to let others handle things for now. I've been through worse, and I can certainly keep going here."
"I feel exactly the same way," agreed Ruby with a smile. "I keep telling people I'm relief-ready, but they keep turning me away while telling me that I've been awake for three days straight. Pfft! As if I can't keep up with that."
"Ruby," Thundercracker began, pointing at her with his finger, "I'm a Cybertronian. I'm literally ageless. You're human, a young human; you need sleep to reset your brain module, or you'll go crazy."
"Bah!" dismissed Ruby with a wave. "I'm not crazy; that's crazy."
Thundercracker raised an eyebrow as a rear door to the hangar opened and the rest of Team APRC(T) filed in.
"Friend Ruby!" greeted Penny with a wave, though with slightly less enthusiasm than she normally had. The cane in her left hand she was leaning heavily on was a visible reminder of why.
"Friend Penny," replied Ruby. "Ciel, Aska, Rufus."
"Hey, you remembered my name," complimented the aforementioned red-headed young man.
"Of course I remembered your name," Ruby stated. "After all, you guys are my friends and, if I'm being completely honest, my reprieve from how crazy my life usually is."
Close enough now, Penny reached out and put the back of her hand to Ruby's forehead. "Hmm. You aren't running a fever, and my sensors aren't picking up anything unusual, but I'm still a novice when it comes to medicine. We should get you to a doctor right away, just to be sure."
Ruby brushed the hand away. "I'm not sick, Penny, I'm serious."
"And sleep-deprived," interjected Thundercracker.
"Hahaha, oh you," Ruby said crossly to Thundercracker with narrowed eyes before switching focus and expressions to joyfully address the others. "Anyway, I'm here because I got gifts for you guys! You know, to remember me by, since there's no guarantee I'll ever see you again."
"You needn't have done that, Ruby," insisted Ciel, but then noticing Penny's increasingly lamenting expression, she added, "however, we would not be adverse to receiving them."
Penny smiled cheerfully. "Thank you, Ruby. I am very pleased with… well, whatever you've gotten me. After all, it's the thought that counts, and I'm thinking positive right now."
"Well, hopefully, you'll still like your gift after you get it," said Ruby as she went to the trolley and began taking off a box. "I'll start with Thundercracker. Thundercracker, I got you a collection of classic Remnant movies and a projector to play them on. I figured that since you're joining us, you should know the story of people you're signing on with. You know, culturally, I mean."
Thundercracker gently took the offered gift. "Thank you, Ruby. That was very thoughtful of you."
"You're welcome," replied Ruby before moving on to the biggest box there, which she was almost able to get off without looking incredibly awkward. "For Mad Dog, I got you a new set of tools."
"Awesome!" cheered Rufus as he took the package from Ruby with a fair bit more skill then she had managed. "How did you know that my old tools were getting worn out?"
"You're an engineer," answered Ruby simply. "Also, I noticed the smoke when you tried to use them."
"Fair," Rufus conceded with a shrug.
Ruby got a locked long suitcase and a large ammo canister off next. "For Farsight, I made you a rifle and the ammo for it. It's a design my mom created called the XLHR-3, chambered for the .345 Rose cartridge. He doesn't have a name yet, so that's something you'll have to come up with yourself. Also, don't worry; the instructions on how to make the ammo are included."
Ciel gingerly took the cases. "Thank you, Snapshot. It's been a long time since I used anything in close to that caliber. It is sure to be an experience."
"Don't feel like you have to use it in combat or anything," offered Ruby. "After all, this is a gift; have fun with it."
Ciel nodded. "Very well."
"Bladerider," began Ruby, addressing the ginger gynoid who, by now, looked ready to vibrate through the floor with anticipation, "I made you a cloak, like mine."
Penny let out an exaggerated gasp as she took the box from Ruby's hand and opened it, swiftly taking from the container a thick and insulated cloak of a beautiful emerald green like the forest in summer, her cane clattering to the floor, forgotten in the moment. "Thank you, Ruby! Now I won't have to borrow someone else's when we practice cape dancing in etiquette class!"
With that, she immediately donned the cloak and proceeded to swing it about in a fluid and billowing manner that was clearly from a well-practiced routine. That lasted until she came upon Rufus, at which point, her left leg gave out, and she stumbled into his arms. Rufus caught her, concern growing in his eyes when she didn't step away.
"Well?" she prompted. "You're the guy. Lead."
Rufus blinked for a moment, then, with a shrug, began leading her into the dance even as Ruby handed out her last gift.
"And for you, Shadow, I got this book," explained Ruby as she handed the last box to the ninja.
Aska took the box and opened it to reveal the hardcover copy of My Life and Ventures Aboard Ship by… by Horatio Ironwood.
She looked up, her eyes, hidden as they were behind her ever-present sunglasses, betrayed nothing. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Well," began Ruby, a nervous blush coming to her, "I know you've had some trouble with your family, and while I heard that you and your dad had made up, I still felt like I should help in some way. So I looked up who Gen- err, Headmaster Ironwood was and who his ancestors were, and I found out about this guy. His life story seemed pretty cool too, at least from the encyclopedia article I was able to read. Left Vacuo before its fall to become an adventurer, ended up a trader, worked in an anti-pirate alliance, and had all sorts of adventures before moving to a town in Solitas that sadly doesn't exist anymore. I just hope you like it."
Aska's fingers brushed across the simple cover. "I have never heard about him."
"Hmm, that's strange," mused Ruby. "Then again, maybe it isn't. James doesn't seem like the kind of person who would approve of people leaning on the accomplishments of their ancestors."
"Must you call him that?" asked Aska. "He is still headmaster. He deserves respect enough for that."
"Oops, sorry. I guess I was just defaulting to what Glynda calls him," apologized Ruby.
"Apology accepted, Snapshot, and thank you," acknowledged Aska. "This gives me a sense of… continuity."
"Any time, Shadow."
"Hey, Yang, weren't we ordered to take a break?" asked Bumblebee curiously.
"No, I'm pretty sure we were ordered to fix a break, like in a water main," answered Yang before gesturing out over the river-spanning construction site that was once the Red Bridge, "or a water crossing."
Bumblebee looked at her, shrugged, and then continued on walking over to the site with the pile of girders on his shoulder. "Just as long as we got our story straight."
Yang followed along, her own girders balanced on her shoulders. "Relax. We got this~ We got this together."
A period of silence followed before Bumblebee asked, "Did... you almost break out into song there?"
"Yeah, but I couldn't think of any more lyrics," confirmed Yang. "Song writing on the fly is hard, Bee."
They set the girders down where needed and took directions from the construction workers on what to do next, or rather, how best to step aside to let them work. They were the experts here, after all, and it was important to follow along with those who knew what to do. It… it honestly really surprised Yang to see everyone be so accepting. It was like the idea of giant transforming robots wasn't remarkable at all.
"Wow!"
"Oooh-oh!"
"I can't believe we're getting to see a real live Autobot!"
She stood corrected.
Turning, she noticed three kids about combat school age standing twenty feet away on a sidewalk near the river, looking in wonder and joy at Bumblebee. One was a light-haired and -skinned boy wearing brown shorts, a white shirt, and a blue jacket. Another was a chestnut-haired girl wearing a red shirt and white pants. The last was a darker-skinned boy with likewise hair wearing an emergency yellow jacket with jeans.
"What? As opposed to a fake dead one?" snarked Yang.
The kids focused in on her now.
"Hey, I recognize you!" cried the yellow one. "You're Yang Xiao Long, from the Vytal Festival!"
Yang cocked an eyebrow, but before she could reply, the boy in blue spoke up. "You get to work with an Autobot? That's so awesome!"
Bumblebee looked down at Yang. "It seems our reputation precedes us."
The blonde cocked an eyebrow and replied thusly to the children, "Hey, kids, I don't mind the fanboying too much, but do you mind telling us who you are first?"
The girl shot to a sort of attention. "Oh! I'm so sorry! Please accept our apologies. My name is Alexis Thi Dang, and these are my friends Rad White…"
"Hello," greeted the boy in blue.
"... and Carlos Lopez."
"Howdy!" chimed in the guy in yellow.
"We're students at the Linkin Conflict Resolution Center," continued Alexis, "and we're sorry if we're bothering you; it's just-"
"It's just that this is the coolest thing ever!" cried Carlos.
"I gotta agree," said Rad. "Giant transforming alien robots? What could be cooler than that?"
"Any of the other crazy things that have been happening lately?" suggested Bumblebee.
Alexis sighed. "You sound like our classmates. They're all going on about magic or what's going on in Atlas or the atomic bomb or the queen of the Grimm. What's she got that I don't?"
"You forgot about Cobra," pointed out Rad.
"Come on, Rad, Cobra's not even a thing," complained Carlos.
"Well, I'm just glad that there's some people out there who appreciate the Autobots as much as I do," declared Yang with a smile. "After all, they're the coolest guys around. Well, except for Cliffjumper…"
"I'm tellin' ya, Prime, I'm real sorry about what happened earlier," declared Cliffjumper the previous day. "I get what you're saying, I do."
"Oh, I'm sure you do," replied Optimus Prime before handing him a human-sized broom and dust pan, "and you can show it by cleaning up the kingdom you caused so many misunderstandings with."
Cliffjumper took the broom and dust pan. "You got it, Optimus. I'll have this neighborhood cleaned up in no time flat."
"Cliffjumper," chided Optimus sternly. "The kingdom. Not the neighborhood, not the city. The kingdom."
Cliffjumper looked out across the city and gave a lamentable whimper.
"Oh, I'm sure you do," replied Optimus Prime before handing him a human-sized broom and dust pan, "and you can show it by cleaning up the kingdom you caused so many misunderstandings with."
Cliffjumper took the broom and dust pan. "You got it, Optimus. I'll have this neighborhood cleaned up in no time flat."
"Cliffjumper," chided Optimus sternly. "The kingdom. Not the neighborhood, not the city. The kingdom."
Cliffjumper looked out across the city and gave a lamentable whimper.
"…but he's been taken care of, and I'm sure he'll get off early with good behavior," finished Yang.
"You have a lot more confidence in Cliffjumper than I do," Bumblebee stated bluntly.
"Hey, he's not a Decepticon, so I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt," replied Yang.
Before the meandering conversation could continue, there was a whining roar as a blue and pink high performance motorcycle came around the bend and slid to a stop not four paces from where they were standing. The beaver-tailed rider quickly got off and reached for her helmet. The kickstand on the motorcycle, not so strangely, went off on its own.
"Yang!" greeted Maple Tapper Bricks as she advanced on her friend and removed her riding helmet to reveal her worried expression. "I'm so glad to see you! And Bumblebee, what are you doing just standing around?"
"What?" asked Bumblebee, strategically leaning against the nearest building in a way that wouldn't actually apply pressure. "Last I checked, this was a free kingdom. Can't a bot stand around without getting any gruff?"
Maple blinked at that response. The kids, however, gave a whoop of joy and rushed over to the motorcycle. They stopped, of course, at a respectable distance.
"Is that another Autobot?!" cried Carlos excitedly.
"It's gotta be," agreed Rad. "Why else would it be able to stand itself up?"
"Oh, she's beautiful," cooed Alexis.
"'She'? How do you know it's a girl?" asked Carlos. "Do Autobots have girls?"
It was then that the motorbike transformed before their very eyes, splitting apart and standing up to reveal the feminine form of the Autobot Arcee. "Bee, what did you do to these kids? And why are you leaning like that?"
"Woman's intuition," bragged Alexis to her friends.
"It's what all the cool kids are doing these days," said Bumblebee smoothly. "Thought I'd better start, since that's what we are: the cool kids."
Arcee sighed and put a hand to her forehead.
"What's… what's going on?" asked Maple, clearly flummoxed as she looked upon the scene developing. "They're taking this so much better than people should."
"Maybe people just had so much happen that it overloaded their usual responses," theorized Yang, looking at the same scene before shifting her gaze to Maple. "Or maybe people just aren't as bad as we thought."
Maple looked back at Yang. "Maybe…" She trailed off before shaking her head. "I'm definitely in over my head."
Then, suddenly, the beaver-tailed mechanic found herself recoiling from a great blonde mass that was now hugging her. "It's good to see you back, Maple."
Maple smiled and returned the hug. "Good to be back, kid."
"Raven?"
Raven stirred and tried to remember where she was. She found herself resting her head on her arms on the varnished wood of... a bar, was it?
"Raven?" the voice repeated.
She blearily looked around, seeking the voice. Finally, her eyes latched onto a familiar figure standing a deferential distance from her.
"Vernal?" she queried.
"Yes, Raven," was the reply.
"You're alive," she said dumbly, blinking in disbelief as she tried to wrap her head around that fact.
"Yes, Raven," she repeated. "It was difficult, but I managed." She lowered her gaze. "The rest of the tribe, however..." She trailed off, unwilling to vocalize the bad news.
Raven didn't react for a long moment, just continuing to stare at Vernal.
"Raven?"
The younger bandit's eyes bulged when Raven engulfed her in a hug.
"You're alive," Raven murmured again, holding her close. "You're alive."
"You're drunk," realized Vernal, her nose twitching at the alcoholic smell of Raven's breath.
"You're alive," repeated Raven.
Vernal frowned, then sighed and returned the embrace. "Yes, ma'am, I am."
"You know what I hate, Fluttershy?" asked Pinkie Pie as she trudged down the street.
"Uh, soggy cupcakes?" answered the slightly older girl nervously from her left.
Pinkie glared at her. "Don't joke about that. No, what I hate is the Grimm and how we have to keep going out to hunt them because the world keeps going crazy. Why didn't we just go and get our Huntress licenses again?"
"Our friends encouraged us not to, and we agreed that we were better off working at our passions," answered Fluttershy.
"Yes, dearie, but at this point, we do have to acknowledge that volunteering for the local Militz has turned into such a full time activity that we might as well take the, thankfully, metaphorical plunge and get our Huntress licenses," argued Rarity from Pinkie's right.
"You could just say 'militia,' you know," pointed out Pinkie with a raised eyebrow.
Rarity preened. "Yes, but with The General back in command, it's surely going to come back into style to talk Mantellian conversationally, and I want to get some practice in before everyone else catches on."
"Well, if you ever need some help, all you have to do is ask," offered Pinkie with a smile. "After all, I grew up speaking it, and so did Applejack for that matter. In fact…" -- and here Pinkie placed a hand to her chin in contemplation -- "why do we call it Mantellian at all? They hardly speak it in Mantle, so why do they get to name the language? Sounds to me like it's just more of thieving Mantle stealing and then acting like it was everyone else stealing from them, just like what they did to our defense budget!"
"Well, the kingdom was founded there," pointed out Rarity, "and could we please not get so political so early in the morning? What's gotten into you, Pinkie Pie?"
"Sorry, I guess I was just influenced by the sight of them," apologized Pinkie before pointing at a spot at the end of the street where a number of faunus were setting up a platform for a political candidate.
At least, they assumed it was a political candidate. With the battle and near destruction of Atlas just a few days prior, there were now three new vacancies on the Council that needed to be filled, and General Colton was keen to have them filled soon. It was something that they all agreed needed to happen, but what was confusing for them was that the candidate was coming out to their settlement. Wasn't the fight on the other side of the mountain range?
They got closer and were able to identify, then, a number of things about the rally that was presumably scheduled to happen too. They were representing something called the Truth and Reconciliation Party, which no one had ever heard of, and they seemed rather unsure of their place there. Not exactly a winning combination, as far as political campaigns usually went.
"Hello!" greeted Pinkie Pie cheerily. "Welcome to Canterlot! I'm sorry I don't have my confetti cannons ready, but I expended all my ammunition defending the city from yet another Grimm attack."
"Really, darling, we were taught in combat school that the cold was one of the protections Solitas had against the Grimm, but it's just been awful of late," complained Rarity.
"Um, hello there," offered Fluttershy.
The people who had been working on the stage looked at them as if they were all a little mad. One of them, though, a young woman in a fur-lined brown jacket, turned to walk towards them. She had white hair with purple tips, brilliant amber eyes highlighted by eyeshadow of the same purple as her hair tips, and feather wings of a moderate gamboge color emerging from her back.
"What do you want?" gruffly asked the woman when she had gotten close enough.
Fluttershy perked up at the voice. "Gilda?"
The woman focused in on her in turn. "Fluttershy?! What are you doing here?"
"I live here," answered Fluttershy honestly.
Gilda blinked. "So your family really wasn't from Atlas? You lied to me? How? Literally, how?!"
"Oh, we were from Atlas, but my parents thought that it was a bit too frightful," explained Fluttershy meekly. "We moved to Canterlot here after I came back from summer camp and explained how wonderful the ground was."
The woman seemed to contemplate that for a second. "Yeah. That checks out."
"She's a friend of yours, Fluttershy?" asked Pinkie excitedly.
"Oh no," Fluttershy replied with a shake of her head. "Gilda was always more Rainbow Dash's friend than mine. We met at a summer camp for disadvantaged Mantle children. My, uh, parents didn't want to make a fuss by sending me somewhere too fancy."
Rarity seemed like she wanted to object, but then backed down. "Actually, having met your parents, that makes total sense."
Pinkie did object though. "But Fluttershy, how can you say Gilda isn't your friend? She's Rainbow Dash's friend, and Rainbow Dash is your friend. That means Gilda's your friend too!"
Fluttershy looked quite surprised. "My goodness! You're right!"
"I don't think that's how that works," said Gilda with a hint of confusion.
"Oh, but it is, Gilda," insisted Rarity. "And if you're Fluttershy's friend, then that means you're our friend too, and friends help each other out. So what is it that you're doing, dearie? Tell us so that we can help."
There was a brief moment of silence, and in that brief moment, a clearly disgruntled worker on the stage unfurled a banner between two poles above it that read, "GILDA SWIFTWING FOR PROVISIONAL COUNCIL."
There was a sharp intake of breath from Pinkie Pie, and then a shout of excitement combined with a jump into the air. "You're running for the council?! That's amazingly awesomely spectacular! I can't wait till I have a friend on the Council that I can complain directly to about their job!"
Gilda blinked at her. "Uhhhhhh…"
Pinkie came down with a smile. "That was a joke, silly. Obviously, I'm not going to pester a friend like that, especially not when she's in such a busy position." Her expression darkened briefly. "Unlike my dark opposite in the valley next door, I actually know how to read the room."
"Your dark opposite?" asked Gilda in confusion before shaking her head. "Never mind. The point is, we haven't won the campaign yet. The Equalists and the Volcanists are both making pretty-"
Pinkie shot over to Gilda like a teleporting penguin going downhill and put her finger to her mouth and an arm around her back. "Don't finish that sentence! You are going to win, Gilda! You hear me?! You. Are. Going. To. Win! More importantly, they're going to lose."
Gilda and the rest of the work crew looked at her like she was mad... which she probably was.
"That's right! We're going to throw our all into it and give it that old Canterlot heave-ho," agreed Rarity with a pump of her fist. "That council seat is as good as won."
"We just met five minutes ago," Gilda pointed out desperately.
"We met a lot longer ago than that," Fluttershy said meekly. "Besides, it's like Twilight always said, 'the magic of friendship is unbound by time and relative dimensions in space.'"
And, just like that, a light seemed to have turned on behind Pinkie Pie's eyes. The other women had been right; she should just call Twilight, and there was no time like the present. They were still friends through and through, even separated by continents, and friends helped each other out. And right now? Right now, they had a friend who really needed their help.
"Oh, I almost forgot," Pinkie said aloud. "We need to call Twilight like right now, guys! We've got to introduce her to her new friend Gilda!"
"But I've never even heard of her before!" objected Gilda.
Fluttershy put a comforting hand on her shoulder to replace the forceful grip of Pinkie Pie as the excitable party planner yanked out her scroll with both hands. "Give it time."
The scroll seemed agonizingly long in its connection, but eventually, it clicked, and Pinkie got the first word in. "Twilight! I've got great news!"
There was a thunderous explosion in reply, and everyone in earshot suddenly crowded around the scroll as the camera on the other end showed the sky spinning around before settling at a canted angle showing the desert sands. There was yelling on the other end and sounds of arcane weapons fire that tore at the senses. More sounds beyond description flowed, like metal against metal, and rolling thunder such that it nearly deafened those watching in Canterlot.
Then, suddenly, a giant of a man with a dark beard and odd hat-helmet-thing picked up the scroll and began running with it -- after firing the rocket launcher he held to his shoulder, of course. "I'm sorry! Comrade Magic has dropped her scroll," he said, just before another barrage that sent the scroll shaking just enough to catch sight of a giant robot fighting off a swarm of familiar drones. It came back to refocus on his face quickly though, and he continued. "She will have to call you back!"
"Wait!" exclaimed Pinkie Pie. "Before you go, please tell Twilight and the others to tell all their friends and family back in Crystal City to vote for Gilda Swiftwing for councilor."
The man on the other end blinked in confusion. "What? Why?"
"Yes, dear, why?" agreed Rarity frostily.
"Because she's a friend of Rainbow Dash, and that means she's friends with us, and we're friends with Twilight, so that means she's Gilda's friend too, and our friend needs our help," explained Pinkie quickly.
The man, still in a run, laughed. "Is that so? Well, then she's a friend of Horror Show too, and I'd be happy to help her out. Catch you on the flip side, as you Atlesians say."
The line cut out, and with it, the picture.
"Congratulations, Gilda, you made a new friend," cheered Pinkie Pie, seemingly unaware of the battle she had just glimpsed.
"I have no words to describe this," summed up the befuddled political candidate.
"Anyone else find the name 'Horror Show' really ironic?" asked Fluttershy, and several of the workers nodded in agreement.
"Pinkie, dear, do you really think this is necessary?" asked Rarity with worry. "Do we really want to cross that line of asking for help from those brutes in Crystal City? We may never be able to turn back, once we do."
"Desperate times call for desperate measures, Rares," swore Pinkie dramatically. "Do you really want to live in a world where you can't get married because Robyn Hill has stolen all the menfolk?"
"What?" whispered Gilda in disbelief.
Fluttershy's reply was also whispered: "You learn not to question it after a while."
"Well, no," admitted Rarity. "Very well. I'm sold. We'll do whatever it takes to win Gilda that seat."
"Yes!" cheered Pinkie. "We're all in for…" -- and here, she looked back at Gilda -- "uh, what did you say your party was?"
"The Truth and Reconciliation Party," announced Gilda. "Or the Partei für Wahrheit und Versöhnung, if you prefer."
Pinkie cringed. "Okay, first thing we need to do is get you a better name. That one sounds like it came out of a machine translator."
As a discussion commenced, with Rarity joining in, Fluttershy couldn't help but worry slightly. "Oh dear. Here we go again."
* * *
Verte found her brother in Beacon's courtyard. The academy grounds looked a lot worse for wear after the fighting. She supposed it was a good thing this had happened after the Vytal Tournament, after classes for the semester had ended. There'd be time to fix things up.
He was standing in front of the statue that formed the centerpiece of the courtyard, and as she walked up to stand beside him, he didn't turn to look at her.
"You have anything like this at Haven?" he asked.
She peered up at the statue, a Huntsman and Huntress standing atop a rock -- the Huntsman raising his sword in victory, the Huntress resting her axe on the ground -- and a Beowolf lurking below.
"Not outside," she said with a shake of her head. "The Grand Hall has a statue of a chained woman holding up a balcony with the sun behind her, though. So anyway, who are they?" Her eyes drifted to the statue's sword. "I mean... that sword..."
"You know, I never asked," he said with a chuckle. "I suppose I didn't want to know. The sword is... probably just a sword. I mean, it's not like Crocea Mors is all that special, really. All the cool stuff's in the shield, after all."
Verte felt her cheeks puff out in indignation. "Not that special?" she objected, outraged. "It's our family heirloom, passed down for generations! Crocea Mors has history, Jaune."
"History doesn't kill Grimm," he reminded her.
She scowled. Nobody appreciated the classics anymore.
"How's your team?" he asked.
Verte felt the anger deflate out of her as she considered the question. "They're doing okay," she said. "A few scrapes and bruises, and Lauren took a nasty bump to the head, but other than that, we're fine." She paused as she considered her next question. "Did you know?" she asked quietly. "About the robots, I mean."
He didn't answer for a long, long moment.
"Yeah," he said finally. "Yeah, I did. But none of us saw something like this coming. It was all undercover stealth ops until the attack, real cloak and dagger spy game stuff."
She gave him a sidelong glance, studying his profile as he continued to gaze up at the statue. What he saw in it -- inspiration, courage, comfort -- she couldn't tell, but...
"We never gave you enough credit, did we, Jaune?"
He didn't answer, and for that, she was grateful.
"So, that's how the case against you looks at the moment," Colonel-Attorney Cadenza's holographic form reported with a professional smile, "in that there isn't one. You'll be able to walk back into Atlas Academy a free man."
James Ironwood resisted the urge to slump down in his seat in relief or jump for joy. It was honestly some of the best news he could have hoped for: the criminal charges against him dropped completely and no further charges being brought forward. Chrysalis's flunkies that were still left were tripping all over themselves to rat each other out and denounce her in the wake of the revelation that she was herself and not the person she had been impersonating for years -- which, really, explained so much about everything that had happened over the last few years -- and so, there was no will to continue the prosecutions that she and the deceased members of the council had started against him.
"Thank you, Cadenza," Ironwood said happily, shifting his shoulders slightly. "It'll be good to be back in uniform again."
Her smile cracked. "I'm sorry, sir, but that situation hasn't changed."
The joy that James felt within his heart died at those words. "I… yes, of course. A discharge enacted by the council can only be repealed by the council. I'm sorry; that was a foolish assumption on my part."
"Don't be so quick to throw it away. I'm sure once the new council convenes in three weeks, this will all be resolved within a day," comforted Cadenza. "In the meantime, there's still a lot to do. I… They're all coming back, right?"
"Yes," answered James solemnly. "We've almost managed to recover all of them. It was the third and fourth years that got hit the hardest, but things weren't nearly as bad as they could have been. We're all coming back together, one way or the other."
Except, of course, for Team FIST, given their transfer to Shade.
Cadenza nodded gravely. "Thank you, sir. I'll let you get back to your duties now."
"Good day, Colonel-Attorney," replied James, and the line cut out.
Cadance sighed as the holographic form of Headmaster Ironwood disappeared. He deserved better than what she was able to give him, but it was all she could do. She was just glad Chrysalis's power-mad incompetence and paranoia had resulted in her holding off on removing the headmaster position from him too. Perhaps it might have been better for him, though, if he had lost that position too, because though she hadn't mentioned it, public opinion on the streets of both Mantle and Atlas was still turning against him. She should have been honest, but she couldn't face piling more complications upon the man.
She also should have congratulated him on the engagement; that was just sloppy on her part.
The door to the conference room opened to admit none other than General Colton himself. At the sight of him, Cadance stood up like a spring and saluted. Hopefully, the General would have good news.
"Sir!"
"At ease, Oberstrichter," the General ordered, and she dropped her salute. "How did the meeting go?"
"As well as could be expected," reported Cadance. "I didn't bring up some of the things they're saying about him in the cities."
"The work of these Starlight Glimmer and Robyn Hill characters I've heard so much about?" asked the General as he approached.
"They're the ones who have been getting up on their soapboxes the most," confirmed Cadance. "Hill's been gaining ground stirring up trouble in Mantle, and Glimmer's been in Atlas itself lately, pushing her anti-academy rhetoric."
The General waved it off. "A lot of things have happened lately. Maybe they'll change their tunes once people have had a chance to calm down. After all, we're all in this together."
There was a part of Cadance that felt that such a sentiment was hopelessly naive, that there was simply no way to appease those hooligans, and… and she didn't get any further in her thoughts. Instead, she chided herself for her out-of-hand dismissal. If the General thought that they could sit down again as citizens of the same kingdom, then they could. Her husband always said that her greatest asset was her love and compassion, and for her to instead give in to her demons of hate and fear shamed her.
"It is as you say, sir," she said aloud.
The General looked at her curiously. "You were part of the prosecution on the Xanthi Massacre, right?"
Cadance nodded, the memories coming back to her of that trying time when she bore witness to such horror perpetrated by such people that it made her nauseous. "Yes, sir. I specifically requested an internship with the JAG Corps unit prosecuting the case as part of my studies at Atlas Academy."
"Brave thing that," noted the General. "It takes a lot of guts for someone to go against their own tribe for the sake of a foreigner."
"With all due respect, sir, those scum were not part of any tribe of mine," replied Cadance sternly. "They killed two hundred and twenty-six innocent civilians on the thinnest of excuses, and then they covered it up while trying to wrap other officers up in it. They were a malignant tumor within the military that needed to be cut out, and we did."
"Good answer," confirmed the General with a smile.
Cadance nodded. A test then, and she passed. A fitting maneuver for the man who was once headmaster of Atlas Academy.
"Thank you, sir," she said resolutely.
"'If Mantle is to be great, it must be good,'" quoted the General. "I meant what I said back then, and that incident is what proved to me that it had all panned out."
"Because we didn't just cover it up?" asked Cadance, leaning into the teaching experience she had.
"Exactly. That takes a lot of strength to fight human nature like that, but you did," complimented the General.
"Or it takes selfish actors with political motives just as wicked as those they condemn to act in ways that happen to be honorable," countered Cadance.
"Better a society that brings honor out of wicked men then a society that brings wickedness out of honorable men," replied the General.
"I'm not sure that still applies. We are not the same people we were when I was in the Academy," lamented Cadance, and then she stood up twice as straight. "But don't worry, sir. Even if the cities shall fall, the military will still back you, no matter what."
There was a chirping from the holoprojector, and an automated voice as well.
"Call for General Joseph Colton from Headmaster Ozpin in Beacon Academy."
"And that's my cue to leave," said Cadance with a smile. "Thank you for the talk, sir."
Joe watched her leave and then let out a heavy sigh. "What's a military without a people behind them?"
He sat down at the conference table and hit the command to accept the call. Technology had advanced so far in the time he had been away. So far, so fast, that it seemed like he had woken up on an alien planet, an alien planet where everyone worshiped him.
He'd read a story like that before -- Oz had recommended it to him -- but he never did get around to telling the Old Man that he didn't enjoy it.
The hologram of Headmaster Ozpin appeared across from him at his own desk with a smile and a greeting. "Well, hello there."
"Headmaster Ozpin, I presume," greeted Joe. "I have to admit, your reputation precedes you."
"As does yours," replied Ozpin jovially. "Though I have to admit that your reputation is a fair bit grander than mine. I'm just a headmaster of a school, but you, you're the General Joseph Colton. I don't think there's ever been any Atlesian living or dead that could possibly be as well-known and well-regarded as you."
There was something in that tone that set Joe off. If you were really my old friend, you'd know I don't like… oh, oh what's that? Is that a smirk? Oh you cheeky little… okay then, so maybe you could be the Ozma I know, or you could just be some jerk who likes pushing my buttons. Either way, this ain't the place to talk about it.
Ozpin's expression shifted. "I'm sorry. That was rude of me. I should be more considerate, especially given that we have a mutual foe."
"Which one?" asked Joe bluntly.
Ozpin pondered that for a moment. "Fair point. I have to admit that things have got a little complicated of late."
"Yes, and things have also gotten a little eavesdroppy of late as well," pointed out Joe. "Let's not dance around the issue, Headmaster. We have a pile of enemies, and we're pretty sure we're both on the same page about things, but we don't know for sure, and secrecy is of top priority for us. We're not going to get anything done just talking to each other over this fancy pants magic film-o-phone, so why don't you just fly up here to meet us?"
"Why don't you fly down here to meet us?" countered Ozpin.
"My schedule's busy," reasoned Joe.
"So's mine," replied Ozpin.
The two stared at each other for a long moment until they both got extremely bored and started looking at other things.
"So, uh, you got anything else to say then?" asked Joe.
"Not really," admitted Ozpin. "I have to admit that you're right about sensitive information and possible wiretapping by… well, any number of people really. That means we really don't have anything to talk about except scheduling a time to talk in person."
"Sad but true," concurred Joe.
"How about sometime next week?" asked Ozpin.
"Not a chance," Joe said, shaking his head. "Listen, you've got a secretary, right? I'll have mine get in touch with yours, work something out, 'kay?"
"You have a secretary?"
"I have a secretary bot. It's apparently the latest thing," bemoaned Joe. "It's not even a real robot; it's a computer program that nags you on your scroll. The future was supposed to be bright, Oz, not annoying."
"Yes, well, the latest thing in Vale is not to have secretaries at all," admitted Ozpin. "Though I have to admit that with Glynda running off to your kingdom, I might have to get one."
Joe heroically resisted the urge to groan. "Right then, this is going to be a bit of a nightmare."
"Maybe we'll be able to work something out after the election," mused Ozpin aloud. "How's that going, anyway?"
"Fairly well, actually. Thank goodness for small miracles, I guess," replied Joe. "Once I had those damn electronic voting machines melted down for good old fashioned metal ballots, that is."
"'Metal ballots'? Isn't that a bit primitive?" asked Ozpin with a curious note and what might have been humor.
Joe's eyes narrowed slightly. "I know that was a joke, but I still can't accept an insult from the profligate Valish upon my kingdom's systems."
Ozpin blinked in surprise. "Joe, you can't be serious. This meeting isn't being recorded, the encryption is the best we can get- you're Valish, for goodness' sake!"
"Good bye, Headmaster. Hopefully, we'll get to meet in person soon."
And with that, Joe cut the connection and sighed. He really was getting too old for this, too stressed. He was supposed to be holding it together, not lashing out like a damn boot.
Still, he had done just that. At least, it seemed, he had gotten some good information. That tone, that confusion at the end, meant that Ozpin was almost assuredly the same Ozma who had sent him off to war nearly a century prior. He had to be sure though. Really really sure. There was still a non-zero possibility that Ozpin could just be an imposter or a clone or just some random guy with a similar name who had gotten way over his head with the conspiracy nonsense.
Heh. If it was that last one, Joe felt that he could work with him even better then if it was Ozma. At least then, he'd be able to understand things on a more equal footing.
Still, it was probably Ozma, and he was just being paranoid, but it paid to be that way in their world these days.
He noticed a notification on the display in front of him and brought it up. Apparently Targeter was outside the door wanting to talk to him. Still, though she said it was urgent, she had still only opted for a silent notification.
Well, I can't fault her politeness, thought Joe before hitting the intercom for the door. "Come on in, Targeter."
Two guards were briefly visible as the doors swung open to allow Winter "Targeter" Schnee to walk in. She didn't look too different to how she normally did, but that wasn't saying much. The girl kept her emotions on a pretty tight leash.
As the doors closed, she snapped to attention and gave a salute. "Sir!"
"At ease, Specialist," he told her, and she relaxed slightly. "Let's skip to the chase. You're here about the energon you found literally flowing through Atlas's veins. Permission to speak freely granted. Let me have it."
Targeter's reply was simple and flat: "Why?"
"Hmm, guess I should have seen that coming," said Joe before standing up and walking closer to her. "Short answer? Knowledge about Cybertronians isn't exactly new on this world, but it's been a secret more closely guarded than simple things like magic or the living manifestation of every divorced man's fears. A secret research group in Mantle found one of their crashed ships during the last days of the war, and when I took over the occupation, that knowledge fell to me. We used the technology of these Non-Biological Extraterrestrials, as we called them, NBEs, to raise Atlas. It's Cybertronian anti-gravity technology and pure natural energon that keeps this place flying. Of course, it doesn't look like that at first; we spent a lot of effort covering things up so that no one would ever know how, only that the place was flying, which meant they could draw their own conclusions as to how."
"But... why, sir?" repeated Targeter. "Why go to all that trouble?"
Joe allowed himself a bit of a smile. "A couple of reasons. There's the one for public consumption: Atlas was to be a new beginning, a shining city on the hill, except we took the hill with us, a way for the old kingdom of Mantle to leave its dark past behind."
"And the real reason?"
Joe looked her in the eyes with that same smile. "You like fairy tales, Targeter?"
"Sir?"
"Ahh, blast it," cursed Joe, losing his composure and sticking his hands in his pockets. "The old man would ask what your favorite fairy tale was and go dancing around it all day. Straight facts. Salem is the immortal witch-queen of the Grimm. You've probably heard about her on the news, but what you haven't heard is that she's after a bunch of ancient relics created by the gods, one of which is the Staff of Creation. She wants to use it and the other relics to rule the world, or destroy it, or whatever crosses her mind this week to prove how evil and over her ex-husband she is. We had a different plan though. Okay, several plans. Original idea was to use the Staff to lift Atlas to do the whole 'new beginning' symbology I just mentioned, but this tech let us do it with something else."
Targeter looked thoughtful. "So that this Salem would still seek the Staff of Creation in Atlas, thinking that its power was responsible for its ascent."
And now Joe couldn't help but grin openly. "Bingo."
"So where is the Staff of Creation now?" asked Targeter curiously.
"Gone where she can't possibly get to it," answered Joe, not even bothering to hide his smug smile. "We strapped it on top of the biggest column of explosives we could make and set it off."
"What?! ...Ahem. Sir."
Whitley Schnee, son of Jacqus Schnee of the Schnee Dust Company, stalked through the dark alleyways of Atlas, his face hidden in the shadows of a hood. His destination was nowhere in particular. She would know where to find him. She always did.
"Whitley," came a familiar voice from behind him.
He turned and found her standing in the place he had just passed. She was tall, taller than him by at least a head or more, though he had never asked specifics. Her skin was a crisp brown, like the finest imported sugars. Her hair was gorgeous shades of purple with aquamarine highlights. And her eyes… her eyes were a strong blue that captivated his dreams, enthralled him, and made him want to follow her every whim and desire.
And she was smiling. By the gods, what a wondrous sight. It lit up his heart to see it.
"Starlight! I have good news!" he said excitedly.
She walked up to him, her shoes not making a single sound as she did so. "Oh, and what is that?"
"I've managed to divert more components for the production of Skylord airships to locations controlled by the Equalists," Whitley reported with the eagerness of a puppy learning a new trick.
"That's wonderful, Whitley! I told you your new position as heir of the SDC would pay off," the older woman huskily complimented him before coming close and grabbing hold with one arm around him and the dominant hand gripping his chin to bring his head up to face her looking down on him. "Now, that combined with my assured position on the council will allow us to do great things and bring true equality to the world. All we need is your father out of the way, and our positions will be secure."
There was some small part of Whitley's mind that let out a note of horror at the implication, that his own father should die by his machinations, but that part was ruthlessly annihilated by the other parts of his brain. There could be no room for doubt. He wouldn't allow it, not when Starlight was involved.
"I'll do anything for you, dear leader," answered Whitley, his voice subservient.
Starlight's smile grew thin and somehow more perfect. "~I know you will, Whitley.~"
There was a short sharp feeling, like something being sucked out of his soul, and Whitley let out a gasp. Starlight moved her hand from his chin, and he followed its very short trip with his eyes. A snowflake glyph appeared just above her fingers.
"Thank you, Whitley."
He blushed. She didn't need to thank him -- whatever he had was hers, after all -- yet still she did. That meant a lot to him.
He didn't even need his semblance, anyway. It was far more useful in Starlight's hands. She had said so, and she had been right.
Whitley wanted to stay there in her embrace all night, but she had a better idea.
"You need to go," she ordered softly, the glyph disappearing. "Your father's security chief will be back soon, right?"
"Yes, Wishbone will be here within a few hours," confirmed Whitley, his heart dropping.
"Then you better make sure you're not missed," she said as she released him from her grip, making him feel lesser for its passing. "Don't worry. We'll get to meet again very soon."
That made his heart soar again. Starlight Glimmer wanted to see him again. Him! Little unworthy Whitley Schnee! He had to make sure he had something for her next time they met.
After all, they were all in this to bring true friendship and equality into the world.
Lemon "Reverb" Zest held on for dear life as the eight-wheeled APC and attached trailer bounced through the forest on the way up to Beacon. The suspension seemed to be holding up quite well, but that didn't mean the occupants inside were. Though, admittedly, the designated Shadowbolt couple seemed to be holding up quite well.
"Eep! Don't let go!" pleaded Seal as she gripped her husband in a completely unnecessary move, considering the five-point harness she was wearing in her seat.
"Don't worry, honey, I got you," assured Maverick as he held under her from the seat next to her in an equally unnecessary move.
Lemon twisted her head around from where it had been glancing at the two lovebirds back to the dirt road they were traveling along, her graze sweeping across where Sour was driving the vehicle. She looked focused, completely in the moment and aware of everything that was happening on the road around her. That, and the fact that the control screens for the remote machine gun turret on top of the hull were still showing a fat lot of nothing for targets, allowed her to breathe a bit easier.
They finally hit a paved road and slowed down before turning onto it. It was a little indicator that Sour was indeed being careful, even if she did drive exceptionally fast. Not nearly as terrifying as Lemon's younger sister behind the wheel of a truck in mud season though. She was good, but Lemon still did not want to be in one of those articulated ore haulers when Pomelo turned them into a death-defying fear machine.
They rushed up along the road to Beacon, passing by several vehicles coming and going, until they reached the end. Driving through the parking lot, they eventually came to a spot where several other vehicles were being unloaded by volunteers and other students. They parked close to the unloading area, and a man in a reflective vest who looked like a civilian contractor ran up to them.
Sour kept the vehicle's combustion dust engine running and hit the emergency brake before opening the door. "One APC and trailer's worth of building material. I hope it helps."
"Thanks, Scarlet. You four better hit the hay while you still can," suggested the man. "Who knows the next attack could come?"
"Whenever it's least convenient. That's when," quipped Sour.
Lemon dropped out of the vehicle, and soon, the married couple followed. The four of them left the workers to their business and proceeded to walk towards the dorms and hopefully a place to lay their heads. Something, however, caught her eye, and she found herself tracking the new sight: a young Huntsman and Huntress -- judging from their weapons, at least -- stepping out of Beacon's infirmary building. Given their age, they were almost certainly students themselves, probably having just received bad news, considering where they'd emerged from and the way the green-haired Huntress clung sobbing to the dark-haired Huntsman's side.
Lemon felt the urge to help, to turn those frowns upside down. Once, she would have just jammed her headset on one of them with some rocking tunes, but... well... Twilight had been pretty good at explaining the need for a little restraint. Still, she couldn't just leave them like that, could she?
No, she couldn't.
She was already halfway toward them when she'd consciously made the decision.
"Hey," Lemon said as she slowed to a halt in front of them. "Trust me. It gets better."
The young Huntsman glowered at her, his face a thunderous stormcloud, while his companion tore her face away from his shoulder and glared at her with brown eyes, wearing an expression screaming that she had heard the same sentiment a thousand times already.
"What the hell do you know?!" the Huntress snapped. "You don't even know who we are."
"No," Lemon admitted, "but I'd like to. I'm Lemon Zest, from Team Scarlet of Atlas." She offered a friendly smile.
"Jack," the Huntsman said. "Jack Darby. This is Wallflower Blush. We're from Team Shadow."
Team Shadow? Lemon racked her brain, trying to recall if she'd ever seen them before.
"First-year Beacon team?" he added after a moment.
"Oh! Right!" Lemon said. They'd been in the Vytal Tournament, knocked out in the team round by Team JAMM. A ninja team, so she'd heard. She shook her head. "Sorry. You guys are..." -- she paused as she considered how to salvage this -- "really good at the whole ninja thing."
Jack growled. "We're not ninjas."
"I told you, Jack," Wallflower said. "Nobody cares about us."
"That's not true!" Lemon denied desperately.
"Is it?" Wallflower hissed. "Half our team is dead, and nobody even remembers their names! Come on, Jack. Let's go." With that, she took the lead, pulling Jack along and leaving a mortified Lemon in their wake.
"Well," Sour's voice came from behind her, "that-"
"Save it, Sour," she growled, holding up a hand. "I already know I screwed that one up."
"I can tell you how you screwed it up, though," offered Sour. "With citations too."
Lemon just stalked away in a different direction. "Can it. I don't need an essay from an unaccredited psychologist on how badly I messed things up. I definitely don't need you playing at being Twilight on top of that."
The sound of Sour's steps were shockingly vigorous, in that Lemon could hear her ninjitsu-trained friend at all as she caught up to her in front of Beacon Tower. "Oh don't pretend like if I had bent time to get my certification before finishing school that you actually would listen to me, or that if Twilight was actually here, you wouldn't be cross with her too."
"Come on, guys. Stop fighting!" objected Seal as she closed in on them. "Don't you guys remember? When we fight amongst ourselves in a non-competitive fashion, the Canterlotians win."
Lemon and Sour both turned around to stare at Seal's worried expression, and then they each turned towards the other.
Sour scratched the back of her head. "You can always try again late-"
"No," Lemon cut her off. "No, that's what the old me would have done. That's what Pinkie Pie would do. I'm getting better at figuring out when to leave well enough alone these days."
"Sometimes, that's just the wrong thing to say," offered a voice that Lemon had only heard in Vytal Tournament recaps.
She turned with the others to see a lewdly open-shirted man of blond description -- Sun "King" Wukong, of course -- alongside the roguishly-dressed visage of his teammate Neptune "Iceberg" Vasilias and their fellow Shadowbolts Blake and Weiss.
"Blake, Firebrand," greeted Sour Sweet, "how are you doing?"
"We just got back from a meeting with Lady Belladonna," answered Weiss primly.
"Oh, wow!" exclaimed Seal. "How did that go?"
"Well..." Blake began hesitantly.
"You're visiting Menagerie," declared Kali Belladonna, arms crossed.
"Yes, ma'am," Weiss responded, nodding agreeably.
"No," declined Blake, shaking her head.
Kali let out an aggrieved sigh. "Blake, why can't you be the obedient daughter for once? Like Weiss."
Blake stared. "Mom, are you... are you feeling well?"
"Yes, ma'am," Weiss responded, nodding agreeably.
"No," declined Blake, shaking her head.
Kali let out an aggrieved sigh. "Blake, why can't you be the obedient daughter for once? Like Weiss."
Blake stared. "Mom, are you... are you feeling well?"
"Better than our search for the other half of Team Sun," Blake finished.
"Oh no..." Seal said, hands going to her mouth in worry.
"I... I'm sure they're alright," Maverick said reassuringly.
At least Neptune isn't here, mused Scarlet David as he and his teammate, Sage Ayana, dangled, bound, over a tank full of sharks, being monologued at by a man with grayish skin, reddish eyes, and white hair, wearing a purple suit, crouched on the catwalk in front of them, knife in hand.
"-and this," the man hissed, "is what you get for messing with my business. Any last words?"
Scarlet's reply was to hock a blood-filled shot of spit into his face.
Seething, the man stood. "All right, then. I suppose you'll be sleeping with the fishes tonight after all." He turned and stormed away, hitting a switch before he left the room. "Ta ta!"
As the door shut behind the criminal, the chain holding the two Huntsman students began to lower them toward the tank.
"Well, this is another fine mess you've gotten us into," commented Sage dryly.
"Sage, for once in your life, will you shut up and let me think?!" shouted Scarlet as they continued on their slow drop to oblivion.
"-and this," the man hissed, "is what you get for messing with my business. Any last words?"
Scarlet's reply was to hock a blood-filled shot of spit into his face.
Seething, the man stood. "All right, then. I suppose you'll be sleeping with the fishes tonight after all." He turned and stormed away, hitting a switch before he left the room. "Ta ta!"
As the door shut behind the criminal, the chain holding the two Huntsman students began to lower them toward the tank.
"Well, this is another fine mess you've gotten us into," commented Sage dryly.
"Sage, for once in your life, will you shut up and let me think?!" shouted Scarlet as they continued on their slow drop to oblivion.
"Sage and Scarlet are tough cookies," King said, waving off the concern. "They can take whatever the world throws at them."
"Wouldn't be the first time you've left us in the lurch," pointed out Iceberg. "I'm sure they'll be fine."
"Anyway," Blake said, "the headmaster summoned me and Weiss to his office, so we should really get moving."
"Indeed," Weiss agreed. "Another time."
With that, the two honorary Shadowbolts strode into Beacon Tower, leaving their boyfriends and Team SSCL in their wake.
"Soooooo," began Maverick to Iceberg in a tone that was almost confidential, "you and Weiss? When did that happen?"
"What?" asked Iceberg dumbly before shaking his head. "What? No. We're not together like that."
Sour blinked in surprise. "You sure about that?"
Lemon almost wished that her old friend would go and start jabbering about what her analysis of the situation was, just to find out what she thought of things.
As it turned out though, Sour was mostly racking her head trying to remember all the times she had seen Iceberg and Weiss together. It wasn't often, actually. Heck, at the dance, Iceberg had gone with Bladerider of all people. They spent so little time together, and almost none of it was where the Shadowbolts could see.
Still, she had heard things…
"Hey, guys!" greeted a strong male voice of the fatherly description belonging to a blond-haired man walking up alongside a red-haired faunus who was positively broody. "How's it hanging on the fly side?"
"Please stop talking," begged the red-haired guy.
"Haha!" laughed the blond. "No."
"Hey, Mister Xiao Long, and…" King trailed off. "Who are you?"
"The name's Adam," answered the gruff redhead.
"He's my long lost son!" helpfully supplied Mr. Xiao Long.
"I… it's complicated," replied Adam, as if giving up on something.
"Eh, sounds par for the course with the Xiao Longs," commented King with a shrug.
Introductions were quickly made, with everyone in the large group giving their names or callsigns for identification. It was during that time that something notable was realized. Well, it was something notable to some, at least.
"You know, this is the first time in two years I've been in a gathering where there were more men than women," Maverick pointed out with a strange smile.
"Have we really been that bad, Maverick?" asked Lemon jokingly.
"Hey, sometimes you just need some guy time," Maverick defended himself.
"Tell me about it," agreed King.
Iceberg rolled his eyes. "You'd have it if you stopped ditching us all the time, Sun."
"Look who's talking, you... smooth... talker... you."
"Thank you, I try," preened Iceberg.
"That really the case?" asked Adam.
"Well, every lady I've seen him with seems pretty happy," commented Maverick. "Even if, apparently, they don't count."
"Hey, Penny was hurting thanks to the blond dufus here, so I had to do what I could, and Weiss… all I ever wanted to do was make her smile," explained Iceberg with a melancholy note. "And it worked! So ha!"
"Hmm, I might have to ask you about it," mused Adam aloud. "After all, my luck with women has been pretty bad lately."
"Why not ask your old man for advice, son?" asked Mr. Xiao Long.
"Would you have asked your father about this sort of thing?" asked Adam in turn.
Mr. Xiao Long considered that for a moment, but it was Maverick that replied: "I certainly wouldn't have. This is more of a friendship problem."
"Dude, that sounds so corny," pointed out Iceberg.
"See?! See what I mean?! I've been around the ladies far too long," proclaimed Maverick excitedly.
A few feet away the ladies were starting their own conversation, beginning with Seal. "Why aren't they just asking us how to deal with women? I mean, we are women."
Lemon shook her head. "It doesn't work like that."
"Why not?" asked Seal pitifully.
"I, um…" Lemon trailed off for a second before picking things up again. "Sakura, analysis!"
Sour looked back at her. "I'm not Sugarcoat. I can't just do that at the drop of a hat."
Seal just gave her puppy dog eyes while Lemon gestured to the guys' ongoing conversation.
"Ugh. Fine, I'll see what I can do," Sour said sourly as she crossed her arms and began to examine the men, particularly the brooding bad boy newcomer who, she wasn't ashamed to admit, looked like the sort of guy who could stumble into a woman and sweep her off her feet.
Maverick was... Maverick. Despite his occasional protestations about needing more male friends, he never seemed inclined to alter that state of affairs.
It was clear to Sour that King was an uncomplicated man. In her estimation, his assessment of Adam was... unreliable, to say the least. His teammate, Iceberg, was a little less of an open book. His charm was hiding something. Perhaps a self-esteem issue? Not relevant.
Mr. Xiao Long was an older man, of course, a Huntsman by trade, judging from how he moved. Or perhaps a Huntsman instructor, through she hadn't seen him around at Beacon this past semester. There was a hint of tragedy to him, though; it was a brave front over a hurting heart. Combined with his age and likely profession, he'd almost certainly lost someone.
That left Adam...
There was pain and anger there, but also regret and a hidden but heartfelt joy at fresh new emotional connections.
She'd seen this before: brooding bad boy criminal who's done some pretty terrible things in the past finds the love of a woman or a long lost family member and through that relationship gains the motivation to turn their life around. Friendship could also be a motivating factor, though, which meant the way he was hitting things off with the other guys was another positive indicator. Ideally, there would be multiple factors stacking on top of each other to make the choice to go straight more likely, but there would also be personality flaws and motivations to stick to the crooked and debauched path.
Something that could go either way though was Adam's clear desire to be lionized. Put simply, he wanted to be seen as a hero, and he could be led down one path or the other based largely on who was heaping praise upon him and who was delivering rebuke. It was an infantile way of thinking that spoke to a malformed childhood, and since his stand-up father apparently had just met him, that meant that his mother -- or whoever had raised him -- was responsible for that personality quirk and was probably someone who was distant or made her love conditional.
That would come with a tendency to become deeply attached to just about any emotional anchor, likely to an obsessive degree.
"We'd met through a, uh, a political action movement," Blake explained as they left the cafeteria. Somewhere along the line, after they'd settled on Weiss's -- Firebrand's -- callsign, the subject had turned to boys... and Blake's less-than-stellar history with them. "I thought he really cared about the cause, but then I realized... it wasn't the cause he cared about. It was the recognition. It made him feel good. I made him feel good. And when I doubted him..."
"Holy hammers," said Sour with wide eyes as realization struck her.
"What? What is it?" asked Lemon. "Are you ready to reveal your findings?"
"I think that's Blake's ex," elaborated Sour, nodding to Adam. In light of other recent events, she also had a feeling just which "political action movement" Blake had been talking about, but she could be wrong, and that wasn't important right now.
Seal's eyes went wide too. "Oh no! Didn't Blake say he was evil?" She reached for the concealed form of Close Enough. "We have to save the guys-"
Lemon stopped Seal's hand with her own. "Whoa there. Let's just play it cool."
"Right," Sour nodded, "and I'm all about cool."
"What? No. Sour!" hissed Lemon, but it was too late.
"Adam," Sour Sweet cut into the guys' conversation, her eyes studying him meticulously.
"What?" the redhead asked.
"Blake was wrong about you, wasn't she?" she said. "About your relationship with Yang, at least."
An eyebrow rose. "...what was she saying?"
Sour shook her head. "Unimportant," she said. That mental image was something she wouldn't want to inflict on Mr. Xiao Long. "What is important is that you move on. It would be better for your long-term health if you stopped obsessing over Blake."
Adam rolled his eyes. "I get enough of that from Yang, thank you, enough to get the message. I get it. Obsessing over her will ruin my life."
Sour shook her head again. He wasn't getting it. "No, I mean it would be better for your long-term health in that we won't feel obliged to hold you down while she breaks every bone in your body."
He winced. "That bad?"
"Son, she left you stranded on a train with a large amount of explosives and hostile androids in the middle of a Grimm-infested forest," Mr. Xiao Long said. "Your mother didn't do that to me."
"...point."
"Whoa, hold up," Sun sputtered. "You're Blake's ex? You're the obsessive manipulative bastard she's been raving on about?"
"What of it?" Adam asked guardedly.
Sun leaned in and squinted at him. "I mean... dude, I am not one to talk about 'obsessive,' but... I don't think you could manipulate yourself out of a wet paper bag. You come across as a painfully straightforward kinda guy."
"I don't know whether to be offended by that or to thank you for it," was Adam's stone-faced reply.
Sun glanced over at Mr. Xiao Long, then back to Adam. "And I'm pretty sure you're not sleeping with your sister."
"WHAT?!"
Yang felt a little... something, standing with her team and Team JNPR in the room Headmaster Ozpin had set aside as his office for the last few months. It wasn't uncomfortable, exactly, but it felt weird, and she was wondering why Headmaster Ozpin had summoned them all here.
The headmaster walked back and forth in front of them with slow, measured paces.
"Almost a year ago," he began, "I welcomed you and your classmates to Beacon Academy. Some months ago, you -- all of you -- began planning and executing missions, taking upon yourselves responsibilities far beyond your years and status as mere first-year students."
He paused and turned to face them all.
"I told you then that, in my estimation, you were already Huntsmen, that only the secrecy of your missions held me back from making that step official. The time for such secrecy, however, is now over."
As realization set in, Yang's eyes widened, and she looked back and forth at the expectant looks on the faces of her sister, her teammates, and the members of Team JNPR.
He chuckled. "Yes, Miss Xiao Long, that includes you. From Optimus's testimony, your work with the Autobots has been just as exemplary as that of your teammates... though I'd recommend including them in any future ventures."
Yang flushed but refused to shrink back at the reminder.
"Additionally," he added, "it so happens that you're on record as completing your coursework on contract law through independent study. I highly recommend you ensure that that's true before it comes up in your new career as a Huntress."
Ozpin opened the book he held in his hands, though when he spoke next, it was with a long-practiced ease, the words clearly familiar and comfortable to him, with no need of the book, yet with an inflection that added a weight to his words.
"A Huntsman is sworn to valor,
His heart knows only virtue,
His blade defends the helpless,
His might upholds the weak,
His life shields all others,
His word speaks only truth,
His wrath undoes the wicked."
He paused, and at the cue, Yang spoke, only dimly aware of her teammates echoing her words, "I, Yang Xiao Long, swear by the Huntsman code as my own. I am hereby sworn to valor, to speak only the truth, to use arms to defend the helpless, to use might to uphold the weak, to die so that others may live. My heart knows only virtue. My wrath will undo the wicked."
Ozpin smiled and nodded, picking up again.
"The right can never die,
If one man still recalls.
The words are not forgot,
If one voice speaks them clear.
The code forever shines,
If one heart holds it bright.
'Til all are one."
"'Til all are one."
Ozpin closed the book shut before him, another part of the ritual, as he raised his scroll.
"Please, present your licenses," he instructed.
The eight students held up their electronic student licenses, and with an entered command, the digital documents were replaced with fresh new Huntsman licenses.
Yang looked down, and she saw that her license... looked almost exactly the same. The only difference was that instead of the text at the top saying "STUDENT LICENSE," it now read "HUNTRESS LICENSE," a tiny difference that mirrored the surprising lack of difference she felt. She was a Huntress now. Shouldn't she feel different now? More accomplished? And yet... aside from that banner across the top, her license still had the same text everywhere else. She even had the same Class C restrictions, whatever those were… and that was a terrible thing to forget that moment. She hoped that Ozpin didn't notice that.
She looked up and caught the headmaster's eyes.
He totally did!
Acting casually, Yang slipped her scroll back into her pocket.
"Well, I guess that's my schedule for the next three years freed up," Yang declared with a chuckle as she put her hands behind her head. "That's it, right? No boot to the head or anything?"
Ozpin sighed. "Sadly, the ceremonial giant boot that is used to kick students off campus when they graduate was destroyed in the fighting. Rest assured, though, that it will be replaced, and I will be wearing it in time for the regular graduation ceremony. This time, it will be steel-toed."
It was hard to tell if he was joking or not.
Jaune let out a nervous laugh. "Well, good thing we won't be around for that."
Ozpin smiled. "So that you don't feel left out, Mister Arc, I could-" He was interrupted by a ringing like that from a scroll. "Excuse me for a moment. I need to take this."
Ozpin walked over to his desk and hit a command on his keyboard to reveal…
"OZPIN!"
"Ah, First Minister Novo, what a pleasant surprise!"
The holographic display of the traditional leader of the Vale Regency Council growled. "I thought we talked about doing things by the book, Ozpin."
"I think we'll let you be for now," declared Ruby softly as she directed everyone towards the elevator.
"Who was that?" asked Novo, the camera feed on her end evidently not allowing her to see them. "Is that Ruby Rose? You're that student that ran into the middle of that three-way firefight at the docks and got shot for her trouble, right?"
There was a note of strangled outrage from Ruby's voice, and she started pushing them. "Okay, we're getting out of here!"
"I knew it!" realized Novo. "A word of advice, Ruby. Stop doing stuff like that, or you'll end up just like Ozpin here: a loose cannon on the edge who thinks the rules don't apply to him."
"Listen, Madam Councilor, Grimm hunting is a complicated profession. We-"
The sound of the impending argument cut off with the closing of the elevator doors.
Ruby let out a relieved sigh. "We made it. A few more seconds, and they would have been confiding their deepest secrets with me, and that would be terrible."
"You have an interesting definition of 'terrible,'" mused Blake aloud.
Yang glared at her. Was she still peeved? Yes, yes she was. How could she not when Blake clearly hadn't learned anything?
Blake, as it turned out though, had learned a great deal. She had learned to center herself, to focus, to push beyond the barriers of the mind. It was that keen insight that allowed her to perceive that Yang had been hiding something from them this whole time, and she had been right.
Now, of course, Ruby had decided to welcome her back with open arms, and… well, Blake didn't really trust it. It might have been hypocritical of her, considering her own situation, but she hadn't been literally sleeping with the enemy while at Beacon. And Adam was the enemy; there was no doubt about that.
What they needed to do was strap Yang down and get her deprogrammed. The only issue was broaching the topic in a way that would actually make it happen. When she had asked Ozpin about it earlier, he had just told her to stop worrying so much.
When the elevator finally stopped, allowing them to step outside, she only took a half-step out before instinctively backing up, eyes wide, hand groping for Gambol Shroud.
He was wearing sunglasses instead of his mask. Had the battle gutted their security so much, thrown them into such disarray, that a pair of sunglasses were enough for him to slip through here? Into the very heart of Beacon?
She trembled. Beacon was supposed to be safe.
Blake was distantly aware of a swirl of rose petals bursting past her to impact the blond man standing next to him, but her focus was entirely on him. On Adam.
And even as Yang sauntered up to him, acting all friendly, Blake remembered who was behind her, and that realization broke her out of her paralysis.
"Weiss, run!" she called as she bolted forward, drawing Gambol Shroud and sending the weapon lashing out at Adam Taurus.
She liked to imagine his eyes widening behind those sunglasses as she brought her cleaver down toward his face, but the blade stopped short with a ringing impact.
Blake jumped back and looked incredulously at the betrayal. "Yang?"
"Stop," the blonde ordered, the blade from Ember Celica still extended. "It's okay, Blake. He's my brother."
Are you truly that far gone, Yang?
"Yang," she said desperately, "I know there's a kinship to be found in the White Fang, but-"
"No, Blake," Yang cut her off, "I mean literally, he's my brother. Well, half-brother."
"It's true," the blond man said, shifting his grip on Ruby, who had latched onto his arm.
"They have the same mom!" Ruby chirped.
"Biological mother, anyway," corrected Yang.
Blake tried to wrap her head around the new information as it assaulted her senses. She tried to make sense of it, but nothing was fitting together. It was just... nonsense.
"Your brother," she said finally, numbly.
Ruby nodded emphatically. "Our brother."
"Adam Taurus -- leader of the Vale White Fang and my human-hating ex -- is your brother." Surely, she was mistaken about what she'd heard.
Ruby kept nodding. "Uh huh."
Blake felt herself swaying slightly before darkness consumed her.
The gathered group looked down at Blake where she lay unconscious on the floor.
"She took that very well, all things considered," observed Adam.
- Author's Note 1 (Cyclone)
- Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett)
- New Fanart!
And so, Volume 3 comes to a close, but this isn't the end. The story will continue in Interlude 3 with a look at Adam as he comes to terms with the road his life has taken while his new sister celebrates her "Birthday."
Standing in the throne room of Evernight Castle, Emerald Sustrai knew fear. It had taken her, Hazel, and Mercury quite some time to return, for the dark continent of Drachyra was not easily traversed, less so for those bereft of resources as they had been when they fled Vale in the confusion of the battle, and yet, they had managed to beat Cinder here. With Hazel bowing and departing, that left her and Mercury to report their actions in Vale to their dark mistress directly. Their actions? No, their failure.
Oh, yes. Emerald knew fear, and its name was Salem.
Finally, fear spoke. "Your reports are... concerning. I am aware of these transformers, of course, but I find it troubling that it is only now that I learn the extent of how they have interfered with operations in Vale. Unfortunate too, as I have a response to them that I would have deployed had Cinder seen fit to keep me properly informed. Follow me." She turned and began walking to a side door.
Emerald glanced at Mercury to her left, and wordlessly, they followed their dark mistress through unfamiliar hallways -- past a heated argument between Dr. Watts and an unfamiliar cyborg -- until they finally emerged into open sky, but Salem kept walking. There were Grimm, of course -- this was Evernight Castle, after all -- but when it was clear their mistress had no need of them, they turned back to milling around, all save a particularly large Deathstalker that seemed entirely disinterested in them. Down a winding path they went, descending into a well-hidden cleft into rocky ground. Soon, the cleft became a tunnel, and in the darkness, Emerald began losing all sense of time and direction, only the sight of Salem's back serving to guide her.
Eventually, they emerged into the open again, and Emerald stared.
There were Grimm there. To be fair, there were Grimm everywhere on Drachyra, but these...
"I've... never seen Grimm like these before," she said wonderingly.
"And beyond these, you never will," Salem declared as she reached up to pet the smallest of these strange Grimm on the head.
There were six of them, each different. Though the one Salem was petting was the smallest of them, it still stood as tall as a Beowolf, leaner, but likely just as massive, for its posture had it leaning forward, a tail offering a counterbalance. It had rows of sharp teeth in its maw and claws on its forelimbs, but the huge, wicked-looking claws it bore on its feet were clearly its main weapons. With its build and posture, this was a Grimm built for pouncing on its prey and eviscerating them.
One resembling a Nevermore circled the sky above, but its wings lacked feathers, more like a Ravager's wings, and it had a very long and pronounced beak.
Three others were quadrupedal, each at least as massive as a Goliath. One had bony plates along its back that served no purpose Emerald could see and spikes on its tail. Another boasted a trio of horns and a bone crest that protected its neck. The third was easily the largest, towering over everything, with its long neck and tail seemingly the only weapons it needed.
The last one slumbered. It appeared to be bipedal, with powerful legs and a head easily five feet long. Its arms were short, stubby affairs, but given the size of its mouth, Emerald doubted it needed them.
Mercury scoffed. "They're big, but I've seen bigger. Like that Leviathan at Vale."
"Power is measured in more than size," Salem admonished. "Unlike any other Grimm, these... resisted my bidding." She gestured at the slumbering Grimm biped. "Even now, after millennia of effort breaking down their will, this one still fights my control. Awaken, my titan, and serve."
The sleeping giant stirred, looking around as if to get its bearings, before locking its gaze on the three humans before it... assuming Salem was human; Emerald wasn't sure about that. It threw its head back and roared, the force of the sound itself causing Emerald's teeth to chatter, and a massive gout of flame erupted from its mouth, stabbing into the sky. She jerked back in surprise as the Grimm suddenly lunged toward them with frightful speed for a creature its size. It opened its mouth just long enough to reveal rows of teeth like steak knives the size of bananas before snapping its jaw shut inches from Salem's face. The sheer force of the bite on thin air blew Emerald's hair back.
And then... it spoke.
"You... no... control... Grimm… lock."
Last edited:
Interlude 3-1: Birthday
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
(V3E15: All Out in the Open | Interlude 3-1: Birthday | Interlude 3-2: Red Like … Apricots?)
Interlude 3-1: Birthday
* * *
Interlude 3-1: Birthday
* * *
"You know, it's kind of scary how familiar we're getting with the route here," observed Ruby.
"I know, right?" agreed Yang.
The "here" in question was the Beacon hospital. After her fainting spell, Blake had been rushed there by her companions. The Shadowbolts had carried her there on a collapsible stretcher they had handy, while the others had followed behind. There were, of course, too many people for the hospital, so the doctor had told them to wait outside while he gave everyone's favorite femme fatale the once over.
"Don't worry. I'll send you a message when she wakes up," Weiss told the Shadowbolts softly. "Just get some rest."
"Hey, this isn't our first sled run," quipped Reverb. "Just don't be afraid to call if you need help foiling your assassins."
Weiss blinked. "But I don't have any assassins."
"You don't have any assassins yet," corrected Reverb before she and the others left.
"Well, that just fills me with confidence."
The snowcapped girl then looked around the room, now seeming just a little bit bigger than it did before. She knew everyone there quite well, even the redhead in the room. Yes, even Adam Taurus. At least, she knew enough from footage, from others -- mostly Blake -- but not from him.
She might not have been a Schnee anymore, but she had been at one point, and he deserved whatever apology she could give.
He also deserved all the threats she could give, but one step at a time.
With a solid back, she walked up to him and firmly declared, "Hello."
Adam looked up at her, his expression inscrutable behind his big sunglasses. "Hello."
It occurred to her suddenly then that, having renounced her Schnee name, it could be interpreted as insincere if she gave an apology.
Into that gap, Adam stood up tall from his seat, much taller than her, and spoke in a neutral tone. "So, you're Weiss Schnee, only without the Schnee anymore. When Yang said that you were on her team, I called her crazy."
Weiss blinked, surprised at the turn. "You did? That's…" She trailed off and sighed. "I suppose that's to be expected. After all, Lady Belladonna thought that message to her was a forgery before traveling here. I suppose Team Ruby really was unbelievable."
Adam nodded. "The giant alien robots were really far more plausible."
"Surprisingly, I would have to agree," Weiss said.
"Were you going to threaten me about Blake?" he asked suddenly, pointedly.
"I… not at the start of the conversation," admitted Weiss. "However, some of the things she has said about you and your prior relationship with her have been quite scandalous, and I just want to get your word that you shall be a perfect gentleman going forwards."
Adam glanced at the others, who were all looking at him in turn, before readopting that stoic expression. "I don't actually know what that means, but I'm not going to try and hurt anyone anymore."
"That will suffice," allowed Weiss.
After all, as she understood it, he had been raised by Raven Branwen, bandit queen. He must have gone through so much. It was a miracle he hadn't turned out worse, considering the influences in his life: a bandit tribe, a terrorist organization, the SDC...
The SDC.
Adam cocked his head. "Except that's not everything, is it? What else do you want?"
"I- Can I- can I see it?" Weiss asked timidly, her hand moving halfway up before she stopped herself. Don't be rude, Weiss, she reminded herself.
Adam scowled at her. "See what?"
She hesitated. "Your scar," she said finally. "Blake..." She trailed off at the look that crossed his face, a mix of emotions she couldn't begin to identify.
"So she told you," he said simply.
"I saw it on the news," Weiss said, declining to confirm or deny his statement. "I realize I'm overstepping my bounds by asking, but..."
"But some things don't feel real until you see them up close, in person," he finished.
"I'm sorry," she said, lowering her gaze in shame. "I should-"
"No," he cut her off. "I suppose... I suppose there's no harm."
She looked up expectantly, but he made no move to remove his sunglasses. Hesitantly, in fits and jerks, she reached up to his face, gently grasping his sunglasses by the end pieces and pulling them off his face.
Blue.
His eyes were startlingly blue, utterly beautiful, surprisingly gentle-looking, despite the perpetually angry -- or at least grumpy -- expression he wore. But they held her attention for only a moment before her own eyes were inexorably drawn to the ugly red scar branding his face over his left eye, the letters "SDC" unmistakable between a pair of horizontal lines, so clear that it sent a shiver down her spine as she calculated the long seconds he had to have been held down, pinned in place while someone -- one of her father's "valued employees" -- branded him.
Compared to that, the scar she wore so proudly over her own left eye felt... shameful.
A part of her wondered how his eye had avoided destruction by the brand, but only a small part; she was far more thankful that the wound, grievous as it was, hadn't visited more harm and mutilation on the surprisingly handsome young man before her.
Unconsciously, she let the sunglasses hang in her left hand as her right -- now free -- reached for the scar itself. "I'm sorry," she repeated.
His left hand moved with startling speed, one moment at his side, the next up by his face, wrapped firmly -- almost painfully -- around her wrist.
"You didn't do this," he hissed. "You are not a Schnee."
He was trembling, she realized. She could feel it in his hand, where it wrapped around her wrist. Why?
Setting that question aside for a moment, she met his gaze again and smiled bitterly. "But I was. I should have stopped this. I used to think I could fix things once I took over, but... but this isn't something that can just be fixed, is it?"
Adam's eyes bored down on hers for a long moment. "You're seventeen, right?" he guessed, breaking the silence. "Almost eighteen?"
"Eighteen, thank you very much," she corrected. What was this about?
"That means you were five, maybe six years old when this happened," he said bluntly.
Weiss's eyes widened as she ran through the math in her head.
"They did this to you when you were twelve?" she shrilled.
"Eleven," he corrected, his voice incomprehensibly calm.
Weiss looked away, unable to maintain his gaze. This, she reminded herself. This brutality is what I was defending, what I thought to redeem. I'm such a fool.
She heard him exhale loudly. "You really are just like Blake."
Despite herself, Weiss found herself smiling as she looked back up at him.
"Why thank you," she said primly.
With a wordless grunt, Adam shoved her away with one hand and snatched his sunglasses from her with the other, putting them on and adjusting them with exaggerated care before turning away.
Weiss was left standing there in the room as Adam left it, heading for parts unknown. She was left standing in a pile of her own shame and humiliation. She had screwed that up royally.
"Huh, that went better than I expected," dryly commented Yang.
"Yeah, I expected way more stabbing," agreed Sun.
The snowcapped girl sighed and palmed her face. At least I understand now why Blake fell for him. He's gorgeous! One of the most handsome men on the planet… and he was marred irreparably by the SDC, by my father. It would have been better that he should have burned down a museum, for far less would have been lost than with this atrocity. I wasn't able to stop it then, but I can stop it now, stop it before even more beauty is lost forever.
"The weak die; the strong live. Those are the rules. As everyone in this tribe has done for generations, it is time for you to prove which one you are."
"But-"
"Go on, boy. The first kill is always the hardest, and I can't have you freezing up when it counts."
"P-please! Mercy!"
SHINK!
"But-"
"Go on, boy. The first kill is always the hardest, and I can't have you freezing up when it counts."
"P-please! Mercy!"
SHINK!
With a horrified snap of consciousness, Adam awoke. His hands were trembling, he could feel sweat soaking into his clothes, and there was adrenaline running through his whole system like he was being stalked by a Chill. Once again, he had awoken from a nightmare.
His hand clenched in frustration.
It had happened again. Power naps, sleep, sedation; in a car, up a tree, in a motel, in a safehouse; nothing stopped it. He was plagued by nightmares wherever he went.
Ever since the battle in Vale had ended, they had hounded him, and every time, it was the same one. He'd long forgotten, but now, the memory rushed forth with crystal clarity. He couldn't remember the man's name. He couldn't even remember where the man had come from or how he'd come across them. But he remembered his face, pale and pleading as he knelt in a grassy clearing, surrounded and helpless. Or... he thought he did. Sometimes, the face he saw was different, people he knew, people he'd killed elsewhere, elsewhen, under vastly different circumstances.
He remembered the feeling of the sword pressed into his hand, his fingers, stiff and unwilling, being folded over it; the sound of the man as he whimpered and begged, too afraid to even scream; the pressure of flesh parting before the blade; the feel and smell of blood as it splashed across his face.
Adam swept his hand across his brow and in the process smeared sweat everywhere. He knew from experience the last few days that it was a fool's errand getting back to sleep, but at the same time, he needed to do something. He was so tired, and there was still so much going on.
The First Minister wanted to have a sit down with him for rather naked PR purposes. He had several interviews scheduled. Ruby's birthday was at the end of the week, and she'd invited him to come.
It was that last one that worried him the most. There were no doubt others who would be in attendance, others he might be more comfortable avoiding in general
Suddenly, unconsciousness took him once more, and so did the nightmares.
"Days since the Battle of Vale, and we are finally expecting a speech from local White Fang commander Adam Taurus. The up and coming leader has been credited as a moderating force in the organization and peace advocate who has driven efforts to deradicalize the Vale branch of the White Fang over the last year. A minority of critics have pointed to his criminal record and say that he was a key member of Sienna Khan's regime. Whatever his controversial past, though, one thing is for certain: the people of Vale are eager to hear from the man who has done so much to defend and rebuild this fair city. One can only imagine what he is about to say."
Lisa Lavender's voice continued on in the background, while in the proper part of the dressing room, Adam examined his suit. Taiyang Xiao Long was there with him, wearing his own suit while fixing his. It was most embarrassing, in Adam's opinion. He was just glad that no one was there to see him learning how to tie a tie from Tai.
"I look ridiculous," he declared, "and feel worse."
"You look great, and you should feel great," countered Taiyang immediately. "You're the man of the hour, after all."
Adam shook his head. "It should be Optimus making this speech, not me."
His... father... shrugged. "Yeah, well, for reasons known only to them, the public have decided they don't care about the Autobots and Decepticons. They care about you though, so knock 'em dead, kid.... Not literally, of course."
Adam scowled. "I'm not that homicidal." He paused. "Anymore."
"Most people would find that unsettling," dryly commented the blond.
"'Most people' is perhaps the least accurate description of this tossed salad of a family I have ever heard of," shot back Adam.
"You noticed!" the older Huntsman agreed cheerfully.
Adam's scowl deepened.
There was a knock at the door, and then Headmaster Ozpin poked his head into the dressing room. "How are things going in here?"
"Oh, we're doing just fine," replied Taiyang with a smile. There was a ringing in his pocket, and then he brought out his scroll. "Hold on, I've got to take this."
He exited out of the room, passing by Headmaster Ozpin as he did so. As the door swung closed, his voice could be heard on the other side. "Tudor! What a pleasant-"
Ozpin quirked a smile as he looked at the door. "That's either going to be a very short conversation, or a very long one. I'm glad she didn't see I was here, though. Summer's sister and I… Well, it's a long story, and more amusing for others than myself."
"Headmaster," Adam grunted, bringing the older man's attention to him. "What brings you here?"
"Just thought I'd check in on the man of the hour," the bespectacled teacher replied. "How are you feeling?"
"This is ridiculous," snorted Adam derisively. "Don't you people know who I am, what I've done?"
Ozpin leaned forward a bit on his cane with a catty smile. "Oh, we are well aware of your crimes, Mister Taurus -- the extent of them, if not the specifics -- but the people don't care."
Adam glared at the headmaster. "How can they not care?!"
Ozpin seemed unphased as he explained, "The short of it is that the media has a very limited attention span. The long is that you targeted the SDC, who's not exactly very popular in Vale right now, especially with Weiss denouncing her own family publicly; you turned the local White Fang away from violence, conveniently allowing them to ignore your role in taking them in that direction in the first place; and you helped save the city and sealed the Lost Valley Square breach. Right now, Vale needs a hero, and you're it. Congratulations."
Adam's anger flickered, and his gaze dropped. He shook his head. "I'm no hero. I'm just a man, and not a particularly good one."
Looking at the floor and lost in his own thoughts, Adam didn't notice Ozpin's lips twitch.
"No, I suppose you're not," the older man agreed. "Even so, I'd say it's a good sign that you can still remember that, even in the light of... all this. It gives me hope. For you, and for the future."
Adam scowled. "I was trying so hard for so long to be a hero, to do great things... I'm not liable to forget any time soon. And even if Vale can conveniently forget what I've done..." He trailed off and looked up, then shook his head again, unable to find the words.
"My advice?" Ozpin offered. "Don't think about it too hard. All you can do is keep moving forward. Don't try to be a great man. Just be a man and let history judge for itself."
The door opened again, and Taiyang came back in. "Okay, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that Summer's family is coming to Ruby's birthday party."
"What's the bad?" asked Adam.
"Summer's family is coming to Ruby's birthday party," repeated Taiyang.
"Ah, that makes sense," Ozpin agreed with a nod. "Very well, I shall leave you two to your contemplations for now."
Ozpin exited, and once more, Taiyang and Adam were left alone.
"Will you be coming?" asked the blond man softly.
Adam thought about that, but perhaps reached his conclusions a bit too quickly. "Maybe," he allowed reluctantly. Better than an outright denial which would likely result in him getting pestered about it.. "It's not like the rest of the White Fang have anything going on. We're just enjoying our first leave ever."
"Can't think of a better way to spend it?" asked Taiyang mirthfully.
"This is my first leave ever," repeated Adam.
"Ah, in that case, my advice is to sleep when you get to Patch. You're going to be surprised how good that feels after so long at work."
They finished up the last of what needed to be finished then, and left the private dressing room. It was nice for the people putting this together to make that accommodation, but… well, it still felt weird. It felt insincere. It felt some other third thing that swirled around in his mind as he passed through the building on his way to his destination and to any number of people.
Adam saw her then, that police officer who had arrested Qrow and threatened him. She was standing with a human man with blond hair and a Valish Coast Guard uniform, along with two young human boys with hair matching their parents. They didn't see him, not at first, and that was good. It gave him the chance to look for another way into the studio.
There wasn't one.
Especially not when he had been noticed by the Grand Marshal.
"Adam Taurus, just the man I wanted to see!" declared Grand Marshal Keller as he strode over to Adam and Taiyang with a smile on his face and his hand outstretched. "How's it feel, being the man of the hour? The big hero everyone's looking to?"
The policewoman had definitely noticed him now, and so had the humans with her. There was a snap of tension through the air, and then an eerie sort of calm. She wanted to get away with the others and quickly.
Adam took the offered hand and shook it. "Not how I expected things to go, if I'm being honest, but I'd be out of my mind to turn it down now."
Keller's smile took on a slight smirk briefly. "Well, if we're being honest now, I don't think anyone here was thinking last year that what's happened could even be possible, and yet, here we are. Speaking of which, have you met the new police commissioner?"
At that, Keller broke the handshake and walked a step or three to gesture towards the policewoman.
"Adam Taurus, meet Daisy Jo Hikaru Martinez, the new Commissioner of the Vale Police Department and the woman who saved the city from Decepticon sabotage. Along with her husband, Commander Micheal Hengst of the Vale Coast Guard, and their two children," Keller introduced them. "Commissioner, this is Adam Taurus and his father Taiyang Xiao Long, the Heroes of the Breach."
Neither Martinez nor Adam extended their hands, though Taiyang and Hengst did awkwardly shake theirs while exchanging platitudes.
"'Commissioner,' huh? Quite the promotion from lieutenant, isn't it?" Adam asked rhetorically.
"Why yes, yes it is," confirmed Martinez.
Keller's eyes darted between them, evidently picking up on the previous hostile relationship but choosing to keep the smile up. "It is a big jump, but Martinez has the cleanest record on the force, and right now, that's what's needed. The Council wanted a person who would clean up the VPD, and a hero like her fit the bill perfectly. As I'm sure Commander Hengst can attest to."
"Yes, sir," agreed Hengst, his back stiff. "And I'm not just saying that because she's my wife."
Taiyang cracked a smile. "Not that you'd need any other reason."
Hengst's smile returned a bit at that. "No, sir."
Martinez didn't take her eyes off Adam and spoke in very deliberate terms. "I assure you that the corruption issues of the past shall be dealt with. No crime shall escape our sight, and no criminal shall escape our might."
"Oh, then I suppose the SDC is about to be clapped in irons?" Adam asked with false curiosity.
"As many of the key movers and shakers we can get our hands on," interjected Keller, drawing their attention. "The SDC's been working with an actively hostile military power, after all. Shutting them down is a matter of kingdom security."
Adam looked keenly at him, his sunglasses glinting under the ceiling's illumination panels. "Really now?"
Keller nodded. "Mind you," he said, "the majority of their employees are probably innocent."
Adam rolled his eyes at the hint of warning in the Grand Marshal's words. "Of course," he agreed easily. "Most of their victims were their own employees, after all."
"I'm glad we all understand that."
"It's my sister you should really be concerned about," Adam said blandly. "Some of the things she's said..." He trailed off and shook his head.
Martinez's eyes narrowed slightly. "What has Ruby Rose said?"
Taiyang blinked. "Why do you think it was Ruby?"
"She once ran into the middle of a three-way firefight without backup and got shot for her trouble; that speaks to a very reckless mind," Martinez reasoned evenly.
"That… that's fair," admitted Taiyang. "Very well, I'll give her a stern talking-to so she doesn't do whatever it is she's talked about doing."
Adam facepalmed. How the little barnacle seemed to have gotten everyone convinced they were actually related was beyond him.
"The broadcast will begin in twenty minutes," came the announcement over the speakers.
Martinez leapt on that opportunity. "That's our cue to move. I wish you all luck in the broadcast. Good day."
Martinez and her family left, and Taiyang said, "I'm going to double check where we're supposed to be."
With him gone, Adam was just left to lament into his hand. "I was talking about Yang. Ruby and I aren't even related."
"No one believes it, son," said Keller bluntly. "Might as well get used to it."
The Inn Definite had seen better days, days where it wasn't condemned because of battle damage, but it still provided a good enough meeting place for the White Fang. Or, at least, it provided a decent gathering point for the remains of the White Fang in Vale.
It was an odd triumvirate that stepped into the darkened second-storey hotel room, the windows thankfully still intact. Vix, Maple, and himself, Adam. All members of the White Fang, and all friends of the shining blonde who was conversing with those left over in the lobby.
"Is that really all we have?" demanded Vix the moment the door was shut. "There aren't even a hundred guys down there! Where did they all go?"
"To ground, most likely," answered Adam gruffly.
"Tch. Cowards," sneered Vix. "Not that I can't understand where they're coming from. Humans looking up at us in admiration instead of fear? It's disgusting."
There was a big part of Adam, an old part, that agreed. There was a new part that was picking apart the problems with that position. Behind all of it, though, was a frightful specter wearing the faces of everyone who had died by his hand.
"Are you serious?" asked Maple in disbelief, her glare fixed on Vix. "'Disgusting'? As far as people out there are concerned, we're heroes. Heroes! Now you're saying that you only want to be a villain?!"
"Oh, come off it, beaver!" shouted back Vix. "Do you really think this will last? They're going to go back to keeping their foot on our necks, and then the only way out will be shooting our way out."
Maple's gaze shifted to Adam. "Surely, they offered us something, right, Adam? You've been rubbing elbows with them for days."
Adam nodded. "In addition to the blanket amnesty they announced, the Council's offering us pretty much anything we want as thanks for helping in the defense."
Technically, the amnesty -- for prior crimes only, of course -- applied to anyone who had helped defend Vale during the battle, not just the White Fang, but while it remained unspoken, it was clear to everyone just whose benefit it was mainly intended for.
"That's great!" cheered Maple. "What did you ask for?"
"Nothing," he said. "Yet. I haven't replied to them."
"Are you trying to choose something really good?" Vix prodded eagerly.
"I... have no idea what to ask for," he admitted.
Maple stared. "What?"
Adam looked away. "I always thought that we'd burn the old system down and create something new in its place, that it would be the province of other people, better people," -- people like Blake -- "to build what came after. I never considered the possibility that I could ever just get... given what we want."
Vix tilted his head back and forth, weighing it in his mind, then shrugged. "Makes sense. Figured things would just work themselves out once we put humans on the bottom."
"You didn't have a plan?" sputtered Maple, looking at Adam. She looked at Vix. "Neither of you two had a plan?!"
"Do you have any suggestions?" Adam asked. "Their gratitude won't last forever," -- Vix was right about that, if nothing else -- "so if you have any ideas, I'm listening."
She looked back at him but didn't answer for a long moment.
"What I have is a desire to throttle someone," she growled. "What I'm going to do is find a lawyer who can go through the Valish legal code with me so I know all the loopholes we need to close so that the bastards who've been screwing with us through them can't do it anymore."
"And when you find out there are no loopholes?" asked Vix mockingly.
Maple snapped her head around to glare at him. "Then it's a matter of enforcement, and we tell the government to shape up the police force and boot out the bigots and bums in favor of people who'll actually do their jobs."
"Tch. Like that'll ever happen," dismissed the reindeer faunus.
"Vix, that's enough," ordered Adam. "Things are bad enough as it is without you backbiting everyone." Privately, he agreed with Vix; the new commissioner spoke of intent, but he'd found that governmental intent rarely translated to effective or efficient action.
Vix threw up his hands but kept silent.
Adam glared at him behind his mask, but then shifted his focus to Maple. "Do it. No sense leaping before we look."
Vix seemed rather discontent at that, shifting irritably in his seat.
"Thank you, sir. I'll do just that," replied Maple.
"Okay," Vix cut in, "so most of our people went to ground, but have you heard anything from the other kingdoms?"
Adam inclined his head. "I'm still in contact with the Vacuan branch through the Autobots. Nothing of interest is happening there. I haven't heard anything from Mistral, and I received a message from Atlas."
Both of them perked up with interest. No wonder. Things weren't as bad for the average faunus in Atlas as in Mistral, but by the same token, the worst excesses in that northern kingdom were worse than the worst from the former slaver kingdom. And for all of Mistral's problems, it lacked the might of the Atlesian military; there were reasons Sienna Khan based herself in Mistral, not Atlas.
And given the news regarding Chrysalis's mad attempt to destroy the kingdom itself, well...
"The White Fang now has a voice on the Provisional Council."
Adam found it easy to hear the big metal footsteps in the empty hideout, and so, the voice that followed them was no surprise. Who else would it be?
"Adam, where are the rest of the White Fang?" asked the gentle rumble of Optimus Prime.
"On leave," replied Adam as he closed up the box he had been working with to turn and face the leader of the Autobots. "Nothing's happening right now, and we're not criminals anymore, so why not? Five years is a long time to go without a break."
Optimus chuckled. "I'll have to remember that the next time I'm stationed at an outpost for five hundred thousand years."
Adam winced. "Sorry."
"Don't be," Optimus replied. "It was a good time, or as good a time as any in this war." He paused, then added with good humor, "And I suspect our perspectives on time are a little... different."
"I suppose you're right," acknowledged Adam. After a moment, he said, "The Regency Council has granted us amnesty, you probably heard about that. What you might not have is that they've offered us whatever we want."
"This surprises you?" the big 'Bot asked.
"In my experience, people tend to be... ungrateful."
"That wasn't necessary!" Golden eyes bored into Adam accusingly, judgmentally. "This is the very reason they think they can treat-"
"And yet you fought to protect this city," Optimus observed. "Why?"
Adam opened his mouth in reply... then hesitated.
"I don't know," he finally admitted. "I just... it was..."
"It was the right thing to do," Optimus rumbled.
Adam frowned. He instinctively felt the need to reject the claim, but he could find no other answer within him either. Beyond, perhaps, that it seemed like a good idea at the time.
A pair of silver eyes flashed across his vision.
"It doesn't make any sense," he finally said, confusion evident in his voice. "I should have run -- that would have been the smart move -- but I didn't, because I mustn't run away."
"You are confused. You're confused because the person you are now is not the person you were a year ago, and you're just now stopping long enough to realize that," observed Optimus. "You now recognize who you were then, but fail to see how you have changed."
"I haven't changed that much," Adam insisted. "I'm no hero."
"Perhaps," Optimus acknowledged after a long moment. "I have misjudged people before, but I believe you are a better man than you were. A year ago, you wouldn't have said that."
"...no," Adam agreed hesitantly as memories of being cheered by his brothers and sisters of the White Fang flashed into his mind with a bitter taste soon following. "I suppose not."
"That's not all. There would have been no shame to flee before the odds you chose to confront that night," Optimus insisted. "And yet, you didn't. You say you mustn't run away. Why?"
Adam shook his head. "It would disappoint Ruby."
He froze, as if struck with terror. Behind his mask, his eyes were wide. He could not comprehend the words that he had just said.
"This… this never gets back to her," he ordered, his voice so very desperate. "I haven't even figured out how to tell her that I can't make that birthday party she invited me to."
The proud smile on Optimus's face was positively infuriating. "I think you should go. After all, you're taking a break now, aren't you?"
"No, I shouldn't," insisted Adam. "Don't you see? I'll never hear the end of it if I go, and I'll have to stay overnight in a cramped cottage where Taiyang, and Sunfire, and Uncle Qrow, and that little bloody barnacle will be crammed in alongside me. I heard they're even having more of the family coming. Not the Xiao Longs, something about a lack of convoys. The point is that I can't just fritter away my time talking to family when there's work to be done."
"Adam, you're taking a break," repeated Optimus, clearly very amused by it all.
"I can still help you!" declared Adam feverishly. "The Decepticons still need to be defeated. What's going on right now, anyways?"
"We're scouting out the positions that Beacon's intel provided to us. It will take some time to choose a suitable target," explained Optimus. "Two weeks, at least. Not to mention that we still have to find out where the Nemesis slunk away to."
"No," Adam declared firmly. "I'm not going."
"Glad you could make it, bro," Yang greeted Adam as he stalked in with a proverbial storm cloud over his head. "Figured you'd be busy with White Fang business."
He scowled. "My life doesn't revolve entirely around the White Fang."
Yang's reply came in the form of a derisive snort. "Name one thing in the last five years you've done that hasn't involved the White Fang."
He was silent a long moment, and Yang smirked victoriously. "You can't, can you?"
"I spoke with Optimus," he said finally. "A lot. Those conversations... they gave me perspective."
"What kind of perspective?" Yang asked curiously.
"He showed me how... narrow my worldview was, how much larger and more wondrous the universe is, that understanding is a three-edged sword."
"'A three-edged sword'?" Yang echoed. "How would you even use a weapon like that?"
Adam rolled his eyes. "It's a metaphor."
"Uh huh. For what?"
"Three sides to every story, Sunfire: your side, their side, and the truth."
"It's Yang," she reminded him. "You really should start getting used to it."
He grunted wordlessly in acknowledgement.
Yang shifted cheekily in the pause. "So, where's this sword, smart guy? Give me an example."
"Well, there's Blake and-"
"Okay,, yeah, I understand now," interrupted Yang in a slightly embarrassed tone. "But seriously," she pressed, "this isn't like you, Adam. Maybe the White Fang isn't all you care about, but it's still a big part of your life. I've... I've never seen you take a break before." She paused, then corrected, "Well, one that wasn't medically-mandated, anyway."
Adam was silent for a long moment, then asked, "Do you know why I joined the White Fang?"
"To fight for faunus rights," she answered, but her expression was suddenly uncertain. "Right?"
"That's what I thought," he said. "Now, I wonder if it was ever true, or if it was just a lie I told myself."
"What do you mean?"
"I think... looking back, I think I joined the White Fang because I wanted revenge," he elaborated, gazing out the window at the deceptively peaceful-looking front yard. "Against the SDC, against the humans, against the whole world. I just wanted to see it all burn. I just didn't really realize it."
That seemed to tamp down on the vivacious blonde's exuberance. "And now?"
"Now..." He trailed off, struggling to find the right words. "I was a child with a temper tantrum. The cause was an excuse, but now... now that I can feel it within my grasp, I'm lost."
He felt a hand come down on his shoulder comfortingly. "What do you mean?"
"You heard about the amnesty?" he checked.
"Yeah."
"The Regency Council's effectively handed us -- the White Fang who fought, I mean -- a blank check out of gratitude," he said, turning to face her.
Yang snorted. "I guess having the Grimm knocking on your door put things in perspective for them."
"Mm." He shook his head. "But now that it's within my grasp, I don't know what to ask for."
"You don't?"
He shook his head again. "Laws against racial discrimination have been on the books since the Faunus Rights Revolution. What's the Council going to do? Pass more laws? To do what?"
Yang's expression grew pensive and thoughtful. "I... suppose you're right. The problems we're talking about aren't things you can just fix by dictating from above, are they?"
"No," he admitted. "I suppose it was easier when I just wanted to flip the equation, burn it all down and rebuild with the faunus on top, but that's..." He trailed off.
"Wrong."
He nodded. "It's just revenge on a larger scale, an endless cycle." And that, perhaps, was what left a sour taste in his mouth. Too much of his life had revolved around vengeance. If it weren't for Optimus -- okay, and Yang -- where might he have wound up? He didn't like the answers he was coming up with. "Maple's started looking through the legal code, looking for loopholes we need closed. A crackdown on police and judicial corruption, for certain. But beyond that? I just don't know."
The two lapsed into silence for a moment.
"It's a start."
The voice of Taiyang -- of the man who styled himself his father -- startled Adam, and he and Yang both turned.
The blond man stood in the kitchen doorway, leaning against the frame, arms folded. "And sometimes, a start is all you need," he added. The older man straightened up. "At your age, it's easy to want quick and simple solutions, like in the movies and comics, but real life doesn't work that way. What you're talking about? It's not about laws; it's about culture. And if you want to make a culture change fast enough that you can see it happening? Well, there's generally a lot more blood involved, and it generally doesn't stick. People don't like being told what to do, let alone what to think. Causes pushback, retaliation, and you generally wind up right back where you started, except with a lot of people hurt and angry over it along the way."
"Mercy! Please!"
SHINK!
SHINK!
Or dead, Adam thought with a grimace.
"But they're wrong, and they're hurting people right now," countered Yang. "Were Maple and the rest supposed to wait while the police got around to changing their culture one day? If people don't like people telling them what to do, maybe they should stop being such scrapheads."
"Yaaaaaang!" moaned Ruby as she walked down from upstairs. "I thought we agreed, no politics in the house. I don't want this ending up like the time Aunt Tudor and Grandpa Hsienyang got into it over-" Silver eyes lit up, then vanished in a cloud of rose petals. "Adam! Adam! You made it!"
Adam felt all the air leaving his chest from the speed of the impact. "Wouldn't miss it."
"Thank you, big brother," said Ruby in the most sickeningly sweet happy tone he had ever heard. "Thank you so much."
Sunfire looked pleased as punch, and Adam really wished at that moment that there was some way to hit her without disturbing Ruby.
Adam glanced at Ruby, wondering what could have silenced the little motormouth, and found her staring. He followed his... sister's... gaze to a pair of figures removing their bags from an air taxi, each wearing a hooded cloak much like her own: one green, one yellow.
"Sunsprite! Auntie! You made it!"
With a swirl of rose petals, Ruby vanished from his side.
Adam blinked slowly, then looked to his other side at Yang. "It seems every time I turn around, I find myself with more family. I blame you."
She didn't even have the decency to deny it or be embarrassed. Instead, the blonde gave him a big grin and a friendly thump to his shoulder. "You're welcome."
"Tch," was his wordless response, only for her to tug at his arm.
"C'mon, let's go meet them."
"What?" he protested, then looked toward them, where three pairs of silver eyes looked at him, one eager, one measuring, one curious. "Fine," he grunted, yanking his arm free. He wasn't going to be dragged anywhere.
"Adam!" Ruby said excitedly as the air taxi left the ground behind. "This is Aunt Tudor and my cousin, Sunsprite! Um, on Mom's side. Auntie, Sunsprite, this is my brother, Adam!"
The green-cloaked older woman's measuring gaze stayed on him for a long moment. A lesser man may have cringed away, but he had stared down far worse than a disapproving look.
"They're roaming Huntresses," Ruby said, breaking the moment. "Tested for their licenses at Shade. They drop by when they can, but oh, I'm so glad you two made it! Things have been so crazy this year at Beacon-"
"Yes, about that," Sunsprite cut in. "You were accepted into Beacon two years early?"
Ruby nodded vigorously. "Yuh-huh! Even better!" She dug into her cloak and pulled out her scroll. "I'm already a fully-licensed Huntress!"
"You're just turning sixteen!" protested Sunsprite. "That is so not fair."
"Sunsprite," Tudor said warningly. "Don't pout. It's unbecoming."
"Yes, Mother."
"And Ruby, what is this I hear about you running into a three-way firefight and getting shot?"
"Oh, come on!"
They certainly were a classic pair, though Adam wasn't particularly keen on how they were looking at him. They were trying to hide it, but they were suspicious and uneasy around him. It wasn't hard to guess why. In fact, it was hard to guess why it wouldn't be. Still, despite them having many reasons, Adam didn't like it, and that meant he didn't much like them either.
His eye covering wasn't his Grimm mask that day, but he was thankful for it all the same.
"So, you're the new cousin," stated Sunsprite with a hint of wariness.
Tudor continued. "The real question is just who and what you are, Adam. I assume the relation is through Taiyang's first wife?"
"Very astute," he replied.
She gave a noncommittal shrug. "I know my sister, and I know my brother-in-law."
"So, Ruby," Sunsprite said, breaking the tension a little, "what's with the goggles?"
"Oh!" Ruby perked up, taking hold of the aforementioned goggles strapped across her forehead. "You like?" She pulled them down over her eyes. "They've got all sorts of awesome stuff in them: light amplification, thermal, ultraviolet, even an active ultrasonic system! They're a gift from Hot Rod." She looked around, then grabbed her cousin's hand. "Look! There he is!"
"WAHOO!" Ruby called, throwing her arms up as Hot Rod zipped down the roads at what was surely an unsafe speed. She glanced over at her cousin, who was wide-eyed but grinning.
She and her mother had taken the whole "giant transforming alien robots" thing remarkably well.
"Say, what do you two say to me taking it up a notch?" Hot Rod asked.
"Do it," Sunsprite said before Ruby could respond.
Ruby grinned.
Best. Birthday. Ever!
"Are they going to be all right?" asked Tudor curiously as she looked out the window at the three-way rumble that was developing on the lawn between Yang, Taiyang, and Bumblebee.
Adam snorted and shook his head. "Sunfire and Bee do this all the time. I can't see how adding him will change anything."
Tudor turned away from the window to look at him curiously. "You are incredibly reluctant to call them as they are."
Adam felt a spike of anger welling up inside him. He fought to keep it down, though. He was doing this for… why was he there again?
"And what are they?" he asked instead.
"They're your family," declared Tudor with certainty.
Adam blinked. "Excuse me?"
"They are your family," Tudor repeated, slowly and with a slight accent. "I should dare say that I am as well, given that I have neither choice nor objection in the matter."
"And you don't have any objections to having a faunus in the family?" asked Adam with an acidic edge.
Tudor stared at him with an indeterminate expression, and for a moment, Adam thought she was going to admit to it, and then the most bizarre thing happened. She began to laugh. That by itself would be unexpected, but not strange. No, what made it truly odd is that she laughed like the most stereotypical high-class noblewoman imaginable, all while doubling over and slapping her knee like the most stereotypical yokel ever.
Was he really the only sane person in this family?
...Oh no. He'd admitted to being in the family. They were corrupting him more than he even imagined.
"I'm sorry," apologized Tudor as her laughing died down. "It's just… that's such a cityslicker attitude to have."
Adam blinked.
On the couch, Qrow groaned in annoyance. "Here we go again. Tudor, stop it. The poor kid already got out of one murder cult; he doesn't need you dragging him into another one."
"The White Fang isn't a murder cult!" snapped Adam instinctively, and then the rest of what the Branwen boozehound said hit him as he turned to Tudor. "Wait, you're a cultist?"
"Tch, typical. You've always been so enamored with that vaunted Beacon Tower that you can't see anything else," growled Tudor at the uncle, and then to Adam, she said. "I prefer to think of myself and my compatriots as advocates."
"Advocates for what?" asked Adam, his mind flashing back to one particularly poignant conversation with Optimus.
"Settlement rights and culture," replied Tudor primly. "Life on the frontier gives one a different perspective on life, a more righteous perspective. Why then should they be subject to dictates and quotas by decadent city dwellers living thousands of miles away who take and take but give nothing in return but promises for help that never comes?"
"Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me," agreed Adam, things falling into place for him with some of the philosophies he had heard put into practice during the Golden Age of Cybertron, before the dark times, before the Empire.
"Exactly. We in the Villages of Vigilance believe in setting things right and defending what we have," elaborated Tudor, her expression mimicking many of the White Fang recruits Adam had seen who had finally gotten a chance to vent all their frustrations at humanity instead of bottling it up. "Take that racism issue. In Vale it's a bloody mess that's so tangled up in a dozen different issues that folks can't make sense of it save to hate their neighbors for immutable characteristics. Now, one of my comrades for example, both her husband and co-wife are faunus, and nobody has any issue with them. And do you want to know why, Adam? Because out on the frontier, if you let race bias you against potential allies or blind you to possible foes, you'll wind up dead, and you'll wind up dead quick. We don't have time for luxury beliefs."
Setting aside the useless jolt of bile he felt at the proclivities of people he didn't even know the names of, Adam found himself being drawn into the conversation. "But that's clearly not the case. Back when Ghira Belladonna was still in charge of the White Fang, we were getting shot at in the Mistral outback while he was pleading for peace."
Tudor had a glint in her eye when she looked at him. "You killed them. You personally. Good form and a righteous design on its own, but bad strategy for a civil rights movement."
Adam was taken aback by the response. "You… what?"
Qrow groaned as he stood up. "Look, kid, me and Tudor disagree on a lot of things, but I don't think even she's crazy enough to condemn you for self-defense. There's nothing wrong with that."
"No, but the media would condemn him because their cowardly black hearts cannot stand the sight of those more righteous than them," pointed out Tudor. "Politicians too, for that matter. Terrible people worried more about optics than the lives of others."
"You said it was a bad strategy, though," Adam reminded her, now thoroughly confused.
"Yeah, because that black-hearted media is always stupid enough to go with the easy story," elaborated Tudor. "If peaceful activists are attacked and killed, the media will pitch it so that the poor people are being oppressed and try to make the activists' agenda more popular, but if those same people defend themselves like they should, then they are considered butchers, and their whole cause is condemned."
Qrow gave her an annoyed look before turning back to Adam. "Anyway, point is that we don't have a problem with defending yourself. We have a problem with you following in my sister's footsteps. You've stopped doing that though, so we're good now."
"Just as long as you don't backslide into holding up little old ladies on the street for lunch money," snipped Tudor.
Qrow laughed.
"Why are you laughing?" asked Tudor. "I actually saw her do that during the Vytal Festival once. She only stopped when she saw me."
Adam flinched. "That sounds like her."
"It doesn't have to sound like you though," proclaimed Tudor. "You, at least, have the fire of a revolutionary spirit."
"He joined a terrorist organization!" objected Qrow.
Turned it into one, really, thought Adam sadly, deciding that perhaps it would be best not to bring that up.
"So his fire needs to be tempered. Were you so different?" Tudor asked rhetorically. "You found your cause. Why can't he?"
"Of course he can," agreed Qrow. "Just not yours, because it's a crazy, neofeudal, seditious, pie-in-the-sky, nonsense cause for spoiled little children who want to run away from home but don't want to give up their stuff."
"You dare?!" shouted back Tudor, again adopting that weirdly stereotypical noblewoman voice.
"Tudor, you know me. Of course I dare."
The rest of the argument was cut off by Sunsprite slamming the door open as she came in the house. "I have returned!"
Adam quickly bolted over to her. "Where's Ruby and Hot Rod?"
"Still having their fun," answered Sunsprite as she began to walk to another part of the house with a glance at the now silent "adults" in the room. "I came back to prepare for my part of the patrol tonight. When Uncle Xiao Long and Yang come in, then we will have further planning to do."
He followed her, and when they were in another room, she whispered to him, "Did they get political again?"
"Yes," answered Adam. "Thanks, I wasn't sure where that conversation was going."
"Anytime, cousin," replied Sunsprite with a smile. "In case you were put off, I would ask that you not judge all us frontier Huntresses by her boisterousness."
"I don't know," mused Adam. "Some of what she was saying made sense."
There was a strangled snort of laughter from her. "In that case, I'd ask that you not judge all frontier activists by her."
Adam smiled. "I'll be sure to meet some the next time I'm in the area."
If anyone had told Ruby exactly what her next birthday would entail the year before… she probably would have believed them for reasons beyond all comprehension, but if anyone else would have been told, they wouldn't believe it.
Yet here she was, stalking through the wilds of Patch with her back covered by a giant transforming alien robot wielding a giant transforming energy bow, and wearing a pair of the most advanced -- and, in her opinion, stylish -- goggles on the planet made by another giant transforming alien robot as a birthday gift for her.
She'd felt like the second luckiest girl on the planet, and then! Then they had found one of the last Beringels left on the island, and then she felt like the luckiest girl on Remnant!
And Hot Rod's energy bow! How awesome was that?! She wasn't so sure about its name, though. "Firebolt" sounded cool, but it was a bow and so fired energy arrows, not bolts.
Even if, she reluctantly admitted, "Fire Arrow" didn't sound quite as cool.
Curse you, Valish language, she ruminated. I'll get you next time. Next time.
"How are you enjoying the goggles?" asked Hot Rod.
"They're awesome!" gushed Ruby. "And so stylish too!"
"Glad to hear it. I might be a wiz when it comes to Cybertronian fashion," bragged Hot Rod as he smiled approvingly at the flame patterns on his arms, "but I was shooting in an electrical storm when it came to human fashion, and keeping Wheeljack reined in is a task all by itself some days."
"Hey, sometimes you hit something by blind firing," replied Ruby with a shrug… a split second before she snapped Crescent Rose up to shoot at something, but stopped. "Deer. Good thing I didn't shoot. I'm not sure about the etiquette about eating meat when around Autobots."
"Is it wrong?" asked Hot Rod curiously.
"Well, uh, kind of?" theorized Ruby. "There are people who think it's wrong to kill another living thing in order to live, so they only eat plants."
Hot Rod cut her off. "But aren't plants living things?"
Ruby paused in thought. "Well, yes, but that's different."
"How?" he asked, and at Ruby's uncomprehending blinking, he continued. "Sorry. I guess I just don't have the brain module for this stuff. As far as I'm concerned, though, you organics need to eat other organics in order to survive, so I can't really go around blaming you for something you can't change."
"Huh. I guess that makes sense," mused Ruby. "Never really thought about it before... Does that mean that I can go hunt that deer now? 'Cause I could really go for some venison."
"Hey, just because I'm tolerant doesn't mean I want to see you boring into another organic like an energy drill through a 'bot."
"I don't eat like that," protested Ruby. "Who told you I did? Was it Yang? …Adam?"
"Merely a logical deduction," Hot Rod defended himself. "Yang won't stop talking about you if anyone gets her going, but I've never heard of that going into your eating habits. Haven't heard about Adam saying anything about you. I don't even even think he knows about you running into the middle of a three-way firefight and getting shot."
Ruby let out a long-suffering groan as her heart dropped through the ground into the center of Remnant. "He knows. Everyone knows. Even Megatron knows."
Before a reply could be made by Hot Rod, a terrible noise rose up from nearby.
"That's a Bushwacker!" gasped Ruby in excitement. "Let's kill it!"
The little red reaper roared ahead with tremendous speed and a tornado of Petal Burst. Hot Rod followed behind at a more careful but still rapid pace, dodging trees as he went. Then, suddenly, they were upon it.
It was an abominable sight, the wicked combination of a gar, a gharial, and the landscaping department of a hardware store. The body was sixty feet in length and shaped much like a crocodilian, but was smooth and slick like a fish's. The head was shaped like an elongated cone, with helical ridges running up and down the length of it, and teeth in a long mouth that blurred and whirled just like the teeth of a chainsaw. All of this was toned in the oily black and bone white colors of a Grimm with hateful glowing red eyes.
"Oh, she's a beaut, isn't she?"
The essence of fear was perhaps a bit lost on Ruby Rose, however, so enthusiastic for her job was she.
"I got this!" called out Hot Rod as he let loose an energy arrow from Firebolt.
The Bushwacker was already in motion, however. Slapping its paddle-like tail to the ground, it propelled itself up into the air and out of the way of the loosed arrow. In the air, it twisted such that it was facing down, and thusly, it began to spin with sinful swiftness. It hit the forest floor nose first, and absurdly, it drilled through the dirt and disappeared down a collapsing tunnel in a tower of topsoil.
"It's going to come out from under us!" cried out Ruby as she flew up into the trees.
Hot Rod slammed his hand onto the ground and paused for a moment before leaping up into the air. The Bushwacker came spinning out of the ground just where the Autobot had been, leaping once more skyward. It was the opening needed for another arrow loosed from Firebolt to piece through the shoulder of one of its short stumpy legs and explode with a heroic snap, crackle, pop.
The Bushwacker came crashing to the forest floor with a horrid wail of pain, even as Ruby fired upon it from above. Rounds loaded with ice dust exploded upon the other limbs, encasing the three remaining legs in blocks of frozen water that fused with the ground and plants around them. Showing tremendous strength, however, it tore itself free and lashed out with an open mouth to bite onto the trunk of the tree Ruby was using as a perch.
With a loud whir and a torrent of sawdust, the Bushwacker bit straight through the thick trunk. Ruby jumped with her semblance even as the tree fell down… upon Hot Rod. The 'bot let out a cry and found himself pinned under the giant log.
The fiendish Grimm opened its mouth to bite again, this time upon Hot Rod, and found its maw filled with repeated explosions of ice dust. It struggled to close its mouth again, so filled with the aftermath of the cryogenic ammunition was it, but not for long. The fist of Hot Rod smashed into that icy jaw, and then the three "exhaust pipes" mounted to the forearm unleashed a torrent of superheated plasma straight down the throat of the monster.
The sudden freezing followed by the equally sudden heating caused a rapid thermal expansion beyond the speed of sound. In other words: a titanic explosion that tore the Grimm apart from the inside out.
"Whoa!" exclaimed Ruby as she fluttered to the ground in the all-too-quiet aftermath. "That was so cool! Here, let me help you with that."
She jumped up and dug the scythe blade of Crescent Rose into the trunk of the tree that had Hot Rod pinned. They counted down, and when the time was right, Hot Rod pushed while Ruby fired off a series of recoil boosts, the two together rotating the log off of him. This would have crushed the young Huntress like a mound of dough, but she was able to use her semblance to avoid such a fate.
"Thanks," said Hot Rod with a smile. "You know, it occured to me that I probably should have asked what a Bushwacker was before rushing in."
"It occurs to me that I should have told you regardless instead of rushing in," replied Ruby.
The two stared at each other for a long moment.
"We're not going to tell anyone about this, right?" asked Hot Rod.
"Oh, no," Ruby assured him.
The forest was remarkably quiet that night, and so it was easy for Adam to hear Ruby approaching from behind.
"Hey, why are you out here?" she asked, breaking the ice first so as to not alarm him.
"I needed some space to think," answered Adam honestly, "so I volunteered to cover the next watch."
He needed it, but he didn't want it. He felt like he was completely torn up inside. Nothing made sense; it was like he was in a dream world, and… and he didn't want to wake up. Because he knew that if he woke up, he'd be living in a nightmare.
"I came out to go on an extra patrol in case any Grimm are attracted to what's going on in the kitchen," Ruby stated as she came up alongside him.
Adam looked at her, back to the house, and then back to her. "What's going on in the kitchen?"
"Dad and Aunt Tudor are going at it," she answered nervously, drawing Crescent Rose in carbine form. "Yang and Sunsprite are trying to hold them back, but…"
Into the silence, Adam asked, "But what?"
Her shoulders slumped. "But I can't deal with all that. So I came out here."
Adam looked across the dark forest. "How many Grimm do you think will arrive?"
"I don't know," admitted Ruby. "The Rangers have been stepping up patrols after the battle, and the Autobots have been doing their own sweeps, so I don't know if any will show up. Still, there's no guarantee that all of them will be stopped, so I'll help stand guard out here."
"Feel free to," he said without moving.
Ruby nodded, snapped her new goggles over her eyes, and then sped off in a cloud of roses, leaving him alone.
Alone with his thoughts…
"Come now, boy. One good swing, and it's over. Put your back into it."
Unbidden, he could feel bile rising up out of his throat. There was a retching noise, but nothing was coming out. He was doubled over, and then suddenly, in a rose-scented burst, small hands were upon him.
"Adam!" cried Ruby. "Adam, what's wrong?!"
He snapped away from her, and in the process managed to hit his back on a nearby tree. He slid down, and Ruby crouched in front of him. Her face was creased with worry. His face was still concealed by the mask he'd traded his sunglasses for when he'd left the house.
Mother's visage flashed in his mind again.
He tore off the mask.
"Adam!" cried Ruby, her voice rising in concern.
"Why?!" he shouted. "Why are you treating me like this?!"
"What do you mean?" asked Ruby innocently, panickingly.
"Why are you so kind to me?!"
"Why wouldn't I?!"
"Because I'm a murderer!" admitted Adam, tears in his eyes. Silence descended upon them for a moment that seemed to last forever, and then his head fell with a sob. "I'm a monster."
Ruby's face had grown into a mien of compassion. "What happened?"
"'Wha-what happened'?" stammered Adam. "I killed someone! Defeated guards crawling away, civilians going about their days, soldiers in combat, I've killed so many I stopped caring. I- oh gods, I never even found out who he was."
"Who who was?" asked Ruby.
Adam's mouth twitched, but no sound came out.
"Please, Adam, tell me," begged the dark-haired girl whose silver eyes seemed to be gleaming like unbroken moons.
"I…"
"It's okay, Adam. Take it one step at a time."
"It was after Mother killed a woman named Robin Scheer," began Adam suddenly, his voice on autopilot. "She seemed... different, after that. Mother said that I was getting old enough that it was time I became a man. So she went out by herself and brought back a man. He was scared, he was begging for his life, but Mother had broken his legs so he couldn't run away. She told me to grab my sword, so I did, and when I came back with it, she told me to behead him. I hesitated, she told me I needed to do it, everyone in the camp was looking at me, so I did. I… I killed a man. I didn't know who he was; I didn't know anything. I still don't. I just- just killed him, and I kept on killing. She was right, Mother was right; the first time was the hardest. It just became so easy after that, until it was like nothing at all was happening.
"I'm a monster, an unfeeling mon-"
Ruby ceased her distance and wrapped her arms around his. "Stop it," she ordered. "Stop it. You are not a monster."
"How can you say that?" asked Adam pleadingly, blinking as tears came out of his eyes.
"Because…" Ruby trailed off as she pulled back to look him in the eyes. "Because if you are, then so am I."
Adam blinked in confusion. "How?"
"Hundreds of people are dead because of me," confessed Ruby, her voice cracking along the way. "Remember what I told you about our raid on Starscream's lab? He had captured the village of Darius, an entire settlement trapped in his lab, but… but because I rushed in like a stupid fool, we were only able to save four. The rest burned to death.
"I checked the last census numbers. Around four-hundred and twenty-one people lived in Darius. That's four hundred and seventeen people who died because I was an impulsive idiot. In the battle of Vale, people died because I didn't check my cover; I know they did."
"Ruby," interrupted Adam in bewilderment. "Ruby, you don't know for sure; you're making assumptions, and even if you weren't, there's a big difference between deliberate murder and unintentional deaths caused by enemy action. Starscream killed people at his lab, Megatron killed people in the city; you didn't. Those distinctions matter."
"Not to the people who die," insisted Ruby. "All that matters is that a life that could have gone on for many years… didn't."
"Optimus told me once that I should learn to tell the difference between what I can change and what I cannot," Adam said quietly. "That even in a hopeless battle, what matters is if I fight, why I fight, and how I fight. Those were the choices we made, Ruby, between good and evil. And I chose evil."
She reached over and took his hand into her own, giving him a faint smile. "And we can't change the past, Adam. But the future? That, we can change. All you can do -- all any of us can do -- is keep moving forward."
Wide, silver eyes met blue, begging -- pleading -- for him to understand, to accept her words.
And... he couldn't deny the truth of them. What use dwelling on the past? Perhaps in some other world, he had chosen to travel a different path, lived a different life, but even if so, it mattered not. For him, this world was the only one of consequence. The past was the past, not to be forgotten, lest it be repeated, but to be left behind nonetheless. Even so, he owed a debt to those he had wronged, and while it perhaps was foolish to flagellate himself in penance, if any called upon that debt...
"She's right, kid," a gruff voice interrupted his thoughts.
Adam looked up, and so did Ruby. They found a corvid standing on a tree branch above them. Then, in an instant, Qrow Branwen -- Uncle Qrow -- was standing before them.
When he spoke, his voice was calm and clear. "Figured Raven wouldn't have made an exception for you with our tribe's little 'coming of age ceremony,' but I didn't want to say anything."
Adam felt his lips tighten. "I see. And will you share with me what wisdom you have gained from the experience?"
Qrow snorted. "Experience, yeah, but 'wisdom' ain't what I'd call it. Truth is, kid, that little ball of guilt roiling around inside you? It sucks, but it's what keeps you from going back to what you were, to being the kind of man who'd do those things without hesitation. All you've gotta ask yourself is: is it worth it?"
Adam opened his mouth, then closed it, his eyes darting reflexively toward his half-sister's half-sister standing next to him.
Qrow continued, rolling his neck. "I figured the best thing I could do was take things one day at a time and try to leave this world a better place than I found it. Or at least do what I could to keep it from getting worse." He shrugged. "Don't know that that'll work for you. You seem like the kind of guy who needs something specific to shoot for."
"Well, it's not like there's a shortage of targets," quipped Ruby. "You know, between the Decepticons, and Salem, and MECH, and the SDC, and those people you upset, Uncle Qrow."
He pointed a finger at her. "Hey, Cobra really is a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world. If I hadn't stopped them when I did, then they could have caused all sorts of havoc."
"You forgot about the White Fang," observed Adam.
"What?" asked Ruby in confusion.
"The White Fang; you didn't list them as a possible threat," clarified Adam.
Ruby shrugged. "Are they a threat? I mean, you're the good guys now, right?"
Adam leaned back into the tree. "I don't know. Sienna's smart, but… Ruby, a lot of the people who survived the battle left because they didn't want to go legitimate. They were disgusted at the idea of helping humans, even against the Grimm."
"What? But... why? They're the Grimm!"
"Because we didn't sign up to help people," Adam declared. "We signed up to hurt people."
"I don't understand," admitted Ruby in clear confusion.
"Spite's a powerful thing, kiddo," said Qrow.
Adam sighed. "At the end of the day, I think I just helped turn the White Fang into yet another bandit tribe."
"Maybe," Ruby said, then darted toward him and wrapped her arms around him again. "But it won't happen again. I won't let it. I promise."
Adam blinked. "What?"
Ruby blushed furiously. "I can explain."
"No you can't, kiddo," offered Qrow with a shake of his head. "That sentence made no sense."
"It does too!" Ruby protested. "It, uh, it… okay, it's not as clear as it could have been. The point, though, is that I'm not going to let my big brother fall into darkness again. Same for you, Uncle Qrow."
The two older men looked at her in bemusement, and then Qrow reached down and gave her a headpat.
"Hey!" objected Ruby.
"Well, if it makes you feel better, we'll do the same for you," offered Adam jokingly.
"That's right, kiddo; you won't become a bandit princess on our watch," declared Qrow in good nature.
They laughed, and Ruby joined in the laughter on the outside, but on the inside, things were a different story altogether.
"Please, please, please be telling the truth. I don't know if I have the strength to resist by myself.
Of all the things Adam expected to see roll up to the house the next morning, a convoy of black vehicles sporting little Menagerite flags on the front was definitely not one of them. Of course, neither was Kali Belladonna and a cadre of bodyguards. It certainly wasn't that little annoying ex-Schnee that acted so much like Blake… who stepped out of the middle utility vehicle after her.
"I don't want to be here," he whispered to himself.
"Neither do I," revealed Yang, because of course the annoying younger sister had overheard that.
Adam groaned, but then said, "There's an irony here somewhere."
Yang cocked an eyebrow in confusion. "Eh? What do you mean?"
"For a long time, I would have done anything for Blake, to get her back. And now? I've gone and given her everything she ever asked for from me, and I didn't even do it for her," Adam said in a heavy tone that led into a short pause. "Well, almost everything."
"What didn't you give her?" asked Yang curiously.
Adam's declaration came with deadly seriousness. "I refuse to make tuna melts at two a.m."
Yang laughed.
"You think I'm joking?" he asked crossly.
"Sorry, sorry," Yang got out between laughs. "It's just… Don't worry about it, bro. They're probably just here to give Ruby some gifts. See?"
They watched and listened as the entourage walked up to the approaching bloodcrowned girl in question. Weiss handed her off a package, and Blake and her mother seemed to have gifts in hand as well.
"Here you go, Ruby; happy birthday," Weiss declared as she handed off a massive tome. "I hope you like it. Tukson helped me track down a copy."
"Oh wow!" cheered Ruby happily. "The Song of Olivia!. In leatherbound! This is incredible! It's just… thank you, Weiss."
"Just... don't end up like her, okay?" asked the snowcapped girl in a light tone.
"Pfft! Don't worry," insisted Ruby with a wave of her dominant hand while the other kept the tome close to her heart. "I've already done, like, three literary analyses of this story's e-book version; I already know that."
Weiss's expression instantly shifted to something far more accusatory. "Then why did you run into the middle of a three-way firefight and get shot, Ruby? Why did you run into the middle of that firefight?"
Yang barked out another laugh at her sister's misfortune as her head collapsed on top of the book. Adam hummed thoughtfully.
"Oh, relax," said Yang with one hand clapping his shoulder. "They'll be gone in a few minutes anyway."
Many hours later…
It was too crowded in the house now. Adam had mostly managed to evade... certain people... after they'd arrived, but once he'd had an opening, he'd quietly excused himself and stepped outside to get some air.
And if that meant he was able to avoid the crowded interior by standing on the roof, gazing at the sunset, so much the better.
"Adam."
He felt his fists clench at the all-too-familiar voice from behind him.
"Blake," he replied curtly.
"You've... been avoiding me," she observed as she crept up closer behind him. He refused to acknowledge the statement of the obvious, refused to give into the instincts telling him to turn around, leap away, attack, do something. Instead, he just silently fixed his gaze on the reddish horizon.
"I'm sorry," she blurted out
That got him to turn around, to see Blake standing just a few feet behind and to his right.
"What?" he hissed incredulously.
"I'm sorry, Adam," she repeated.
He stared at her, trying to comprehend what was going on. The sorrowful, regretful expression on her face was unmistakable. A part of him wanted to accept the apology at face value. It would be so easy to let her take responsibility, to lay the blame at her feet. To shed the sins of his past like a tattered cloak.
"There is a difference between what you can change and what you cannot," Optimus Prime said quietly. "In the end, the former is all that truly matters."
After a moment, she said, "I failed you. I-"
"No," he cut her off, stepping back and swiping his arm through the air. "No, you don't get to apologize to me."
She jerked back in surprise. "What?"
Adam took a moment to collect his thoughts, then shook his head. "You always took responsibility that was never yours to take, Blake. You are not responsible for what I did." He turned away to look back at the setting sun. He swallowed hard before forcing out the bitter truth he'd come to accept: "No one is, except me."
"If I had-"
"Had what?" he demanded, swinging around to face her again. "Punched me in the face?" He shook his head again emphatically. "No, Blake, you're too kind for that. You always were. It's one reason I-"
He bit off the words before they could escape, then turned back to the sunset once more.
Blake spoke up hesitantly. "One reason you... you what?"
"Doesn't matter," he said curtly. "Besides, while I'll admit it was effective on Sunfire's -- Yang's -- part, she had powerful friends, friends I couldn't fight, friends I needed. If you had struck me back then... I think I might've done something we'd all have regretted."
Assuming, that is, Blake would have lived to regret it.
"You wouldn't have done that." Her voice was quiet, gentle and kind, but wrapped around a solid core of certainty that she should not have, not about this.
"What makes you so certain?" Was there something else? Had she seen something in him back then that he couldn't see in himself now?
"If... if nothing else, I brought my name to the table. I gave you legitimacy among the White Fang."
Adam felt his face twist with annoyance. "There you go again," he spoke harshly, "taking responsibility that isn't yours to take."
"What?" she sputtered. "But I-"
"Are you even listening to yourself?" he hissed angrily, turning to glare at her again. "I had legitimacy because I had High Leader Khan's blessing, because what I did worked! Yes, sure, it was just an illusion, but none of us saw it that way!"
"I should have known better!" she protested. "I should have steered you away from that!"
"Now you're actively trying to blame yourself!" he roared. "Why? Do you actually like having a guilt complex?"
"Because I refuse to believe I fell in love with a monster!"
He froze, staring at her, losing himself in those golden eyes of hers, pleading -- begging -- him for... for something.
It would be so easy...
"Yeah?" he snarled. "Well. You did. Sorry to burst your bubble, but I think it's pretty clear you misjudged me."
With that, he turned and hopped off the roof.
"No! Adam, wait!"
He kept walking.
Kali's ears flattened against her head as she listened to the scene above and rubbed her temples in annoyance.
"Teenagers?" asked Tudor knowingly.
"I don't understand!" snapped Kali, bringing her hands down in a mighty chop as she did so. "She has a wonderful blond right in front of her who's willing to wait years to marry her, and she's still chasing after the bad boys!"
"Hmm," agreed Tudor as she walked up besides the gesticulating politician to offer some Apple Family brand Solesian cider that her brother-in-law probably wouldn't miss. "You could turn that question around just as well."
That sentence was said with a gesture towards Taiyang, who was chasing after Raven's boy with the sort of fervor that only came from trying to make up for lost time.
Kali took the cider and sighed. "Hopefully, her mood will improve when she gets back to Menagerie and away from these love triangles."
Tudor hummed in agreement again, and then, after a few seconds, turned her head for an address. "What if Weiss gets into a love triangle?"
The First Lady of Menagerie groaned.
The Huntress's scroll vibrated in its holster with a specific pattern.
"Excuse me," Tudor said, and with deftness downed the rest of her drink and swooped into a nearby bathroom to take the call "Ahoy-hoy."
"Tudor," the voice of Charlie Burns, Chief of Police for Griffin Rock, came over the scroll along with a video feed showing him in his home. "I don't suppose you've gotten the same job offer I have from the new commissioner of the VPD, have you?"
"That depends; is it the same job offer that Shipwreck and Taiyang have gotten?" asked Tudor in turn, her mind flashing back to the generically worded e-mail she had gotten at the same time as Taiyang.
Charlie's brows furrowed. "I've contacted two dozen other Huntsmen, and they've all gotten the same message. Tudor, whatever this Martinez woman is planning, I don't think it's a simple extermination mission or clearing out some bandits."
A few things clicked together in Tudor's mind. "No... no, I think that's exactly what she's going to be paying us all so much to do."
Judging by his expression, it clicked for him too. "My gods, that's insane."
"Many things are, until they happen," replied Tudor, and at that, she had to give one of her laughs that everyone complained were strange at the sheer absurdity of it all. "Oh, I had no idea the new commissioner was such a revolutionary."
He'd run all the way to the cliffs above the sea. It was quiet, and peaceful. If there were any vehicles anywhere, they were under the surface of the beautiful nighttime ocean that was illuminated by the reflected light of the rising broken moon.
In retrospect, it was amazing how much Yang had gotten wrong about him and Blake over the months before they'd realized the connection. In nearly all ways, she had been not only wrong but spectacularly wrong -- he made a mental note to rib her on that theory about Blake being an SDC turncoat -- and yet...
She was right about one thing, Adam mused as he took in the scent of the autumn forest. Blake and I really are bad for each other.
It had been hard, seeing her again, and his feelings hadn't changed, but on that rooftop, something had. He'd made a choice.
He felt free.
There was a crunch of leaves, a courtesy noise, and his remora of a would-be father came striding up to him.
"Why'd you follow me?" Adam asked neutrally, his gaze cast out onto the sea.
"We all heard you and Blake up on the roof," he said. "Besides, you're unarmed, and the Grimm are still out here."
Adam blinked at the obviousness of it, and the impending awkwardness of if he decided to return. "Oh."
"You know, there's some teachers who say that being a monster is a good thing," Taiyang suddenly said.
Adam looked at him in surprise and confusion.
The blond continued. "I mean, from a certain point of view, that's what a Huntsman is. We're relentless forces of death and destruction that deliver violence onto our enemies. The difference is that we've got our claws pointed at other monsters."
Adam scowled slightly. "I'm not sure I like that comparison."
"Well, I could have used the sheepdog analogy, but I didn't think it would work," admitted Taiyang, his head reaching up to scratch the back of his head as he did so.
Mirrored sunglasses turned to look at their companion more properly. "Why not? I like dogs. I definitely wouldn't mind being compared to them."
"It probably feels a lot better than the alternative," thought the blond patriarch aloud.
There was a slight jingle, and Adam turned around again to see Zwei bounding up to them. He gave a light laugh and bent down to pick him up. There was nothing forced about the smile on his face.
"Hey there, little guy!" Adam said with uncharacteristic cheeriness as he brought Zwei into his arms and got a face licking in reply. "Hear what I just said?"
"I think he was just worried about us going out alone," observed his mother's husband in amusement.
Adam brought one hand up to deftly scratch the little furball in his arms. "That's because he's a good boy, a very good boy."
Zwei barked in reply, and this time, his tongue knocked Adam's sunglasses out of place. The redhead just laughed. Then, very suddenly, a silence both happy and somber overcame him.
Out of the blue, he announced, "Hey, Dad, I'm getting this scar removed."
Taiyang Xiao Long felt like his heart was going to burst as he gave his answer. "Sounds good to me, son."
(V3E15: All Out in the Open | Interlude 3-1: Birthday | Interlude 3-2: Red Like … Apricots?)
- Author's Note 1 (Cyclone)
- Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett)
Next time, Ciel "Farsight" Soleil faces the ghosts of her past in her current friendships as her team and the famed Shadowbolts must come together to save the Council from yet another infiltrator even as the Kingdom of Atlas crumbles around them in "Red Like… Apricots?"
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Interlude 3-2: Red Like … Apricots?
Cyclone
Robotech Nerd
- Location
- Earth, Sol System
(Interlude 3-1: Birthday | Interlude 3-2: Red Like … Apricots? | Interlude 3-3: Homefront, Part I)
Interlude 3-2: Red Like … Apricots?
* * *
Interlude 3-2: Red Like … Apricots?
* * *
The first thing that Ciel Soleil noticed when she came to was the sun shining on her face at a low angle. Her eyes shot open, and her body tried to bring itself upright. The second thing she noticed was her brother Aurelien sitting beside her bed, reading a book as he often did. She tried to speak and got a harsh rasp instead. The third thing she noticed was that she was in a hospital room and that it was probably in Atlas, given the design.
Aurelien looked up from his book with wide eyes. "Ciel! You're awake!"
She gave the start of another reply, clearer this time but still not intelligible, and instantly, her brother put away his book and stood up to grab some water in a thin steel cup. He held it up to her mouth, and she drank eagerly from it. When she was finished, the cup was put away, and she was finally able to speak.
"Aurelien, why aren't you at work?" she asked with a slight tinge of disapproval.
"Boss gave me the day off so that I could watch over you," he answered evenly.
"Very well," she acknowledged, having conflicting moral sensibilities in her mind at that moment and no thought on how to align them.
Her brother Aurelien was much like her in terms of his appearance: brown skin, sky blue eyes, short navy blue hair that was almost black. However, while they had many similarities in appearance, they had little in common personality-wise. He was energetic in a crowd and sought to become a writer one day, while she was properly stoic and sought the military like all of their ancestors before them.
Ciel had worried about him becoming a man who lived by his wits, and so, she had arranged for him to get a job where he would be able to apply himself and bring money back to the family. He was more than twice as old as she was when she entered the workforce, but it was better than nothing. He had told her that things were going well, and so, she prayed to the Lady that her brother was being accurate, and that this giving of the day off was not a prelude to firing him.
He seemed to notice her expression. "Relax, Ciel. Sis, you almost died; why are you thinking about work right now?"
She realized at that point that she hadn't actually managed to right herself and that she was still lying in a bed. She also realized that she wasn't quite whole. Her body was stiffened by medical restraints, and there were breathing assists in her nose. Anything else that was wrong with her … she didn't know.
"Because it's important," she insisted in a stoicism borne more out of injury than her usual affectations to the Atlesian ideal. "People are depending on you, Aurelien, people at work and people in our family. You can't just abandon them."
Her younger brother blinked at her, seemingly stunned. "Sis, are you for real?" He shook his head. "What am I saying? Of course you are."
They shared a look, one borne from long experience that only comes from family. His expression changed. He seemed ashamed, hurt, but not about himself.
"Schwester, you've been in a coma for weeks now," he got out. "There have been so many funerals and memorials, and— and we didn't know if you'd make it!"
Something clicked in Ciel's mind from that. 'Weeks'?
"How long was I unconscious?" she asked, dreading the answer.
"Six and a half weeks," Aurelien answered.
That answer made her feel … empty. She'd missed … she'd missed so much. She'd missed the chance to say goodbye.
Things became a blur. The doctors came in, and they told her how long she would be with them. She didn't like the answer.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but you will not be well enough to apply to Atlas Academy this year."
All that work, all that effort, pushing and pushing to earn enough money to help at home and for combat school, all that work to perform well in class, all those sleepless nights, and …
… and here she was, stuck in a hospital bed instead of going to Atlas, becoming a further burden on her family instead of relieving them of another mouth to feed.
"Hey, Choirgirl."
The voice broke through Ciel's thoughts, and she looked up in confusion. Where had her brother gone?
She found herself looking at the smiling face of Neon Katt sitting where her brother once was.
Her friend, Neon Katt. She was sitting there in a for-once sensible number, looking for all the world like the respectable person she actually was instead of the shock-loving clown that she presented herself as. It was strange, but also welcome.
"You know I cannot sing."
She really had no idea why that was the first thing out of her mouth.
Neon snorted. "Not only can you sing, but you can dance too. The only reason you say you can't is because your standards are way too high."
"I do not think I will be dancing ever again," replied Ciel as she once again tried and failed to move her body.
"Why not?" asked Neon, as if Ciel had just claimed that a penguin couldn't swim. "You've got the best doctors in Atlas working on you. The way I heard it, you won't even have any scarring when they're done with you."
"No scarring? How is that possible?" asked Ciel in confusion.
"Are you really asking me that?" responded Neon in turn. "All I know is that Atlas gives its best for its heroines, and you're the biggest heroine there is, Ciel."
A thousand faces flew in front of her eyes, faces that would never be seen in life again. "No, I'm not."
I'm still alive.
Neon had something sad in her eyes. "You're my heroine, Ciel."
The redhead reached down into a pack that she had evidently brought with her and brought out a well-worn copy of the Epistles.
"Which is why, until you get better, I will sit by your side and help your recovery every step of the way," declared Neon with a smile. "You should be back at a hundred percent by next summer, and no arguments! I know you, Ciel. You're always willing to sacrifice for others, but you won't have others sacrifice for you. Well, too bad. I'm not getting into Atlas Academy without you."
Ciel stared intently at her, and then let out a tired exhale from her nose. "I am glad you did not use the 'I owe you' argument like Klara would have."
Neon coughed awkwardly. "Yeah, I don't think Klara's going to be making any arguments anymore. At least not until she gets cleared for those vocal cord implants. Shouldn't take too long though."
Ciel didn't like the sound of that. It meant there were delays in the medical process, likely brought on by the extreme number of casualties sustained during the battle. So why was she getting extensive treatment that would leave her without scars? What made her so special?
"Anyway, I thought to start off we could start with the Epistles, from the beginning," declared Neon happily as she opened up the book. "Now I know you don't like this translation, but this is what I own, and my Old Mantellian isn't nearly as good as yours. So we're going to hear the introduction before we go on to the actual letters."
"That is all right," Ciel assured her.
What would be the point? She couldn't turn away a gift, and suddenly, her prior issues with the translation seemed so petty. Why bother at all?
Neon's voice took on the quality of one not quite used to reading aloud as she began to teach Ciel those basics once again.
"'Long ago, before there was a Mantle, there was a woman, and she was the Lady of the North…'"
"I am Principal Cinch, and I'd like to welcome you all to Crystal Preparatory Combat Academy. It is your hard work and excellence that has earned you a spot here, but make no mistake. Your work is only beginning.
"We do not expect you to be perfect, not yet, but we will not coddle you. We will not hold your hands. We will expect nothing less than your best. Because this is no mere combat school; it is a preparatory academy, and no matter what career you choose to pursue, what we are preparing you for is excellence in the most important test you will ever face: survival against the Grimm.
"Semper plus ultra. Always further beyond. Remember that — and the lessons we teach you here — and you may actually live long enough to retire."
"We do not expect you to be perfect, not yet, but we will not coddle you. We will not hold your hands. We will expect nothing less than your best. Because this is no mere combat school; it is a preparatory academy, and no matter what career you choose to pursue, what we are preparing you for is excellence in the most important test you will ever face: survival against the Grimm.
"Semper plus ultra. Always further beyond. Remember that — and the lessons we teach you here — and you may actually live long enough to retire."
Lemon Zest would never forget that bracing opening speech. It wasn't inspiring. It was blunt and to the point — some would call it cold or harsh — but it set expectations realistically, accurately. There was an honesty to it that she had to admire, in making it clear just what they were there to study … and the consequences for slacking off that would follow them long after they left those prismatic halls. There wasn't any coddling at Crystal Prep, and it had, frankly, been a miserable experience, by and large — her friends and her music had been comforting and desperately-needed refuges at times — but it had toughened them up and made sure they were ready for the real world in ways a gentler curriculum simply couldn't.
As she paged through the latest Crystal Prep Gazette in the common room of her Atlas Academy dorm section, her headphones drowning out the news being projected on a screen on one wall, she couldn't help but start to wonder what had happened to that. Where once there would have been academic and athletic leaderboards and interviews with promising students, there were now opinion articles on fashion and entertainment, interspersed with cupcake recipes, of all things. The nerve of them.
And worst of all, plastered across the front, was a headline proudly announcing higher grades across the board. Lemon felt a heavy ball of fear rolling around in her gut that those higher grades weren't likely to be worth much when those kids faced the "most important test" Cinch had once emphasized.
They'd all hated the "new direction" Crystal Prep had gone, baffled as to why their highly respected — if not beloved — principal had suddenly started caring about things she never had, throwing away the core principles behind the curriculum she'd championed for decades to curry the kind of favor and goodwill she had long disdained as singularly unimportant to her task of preparing her students to survive the lethal world they lived in.
It was almost like—
Lemon's eyes widened in realization, her gaze drawn to the broadcast as it shifted to — according to the news ticker on the bottom — an update on the Chrysalis investigation.
Like she's a completely different person.
She had to tell her team.
The weather for the day had been scheduled as overcast, with light snow between 1600 and 1800 hours. The ethics of weather control aside, Ciel "Farsight" Soleil was perturbed by it. After all, if an aurora should cross the night sky at that moment, she felt her friend should see it, instead of having nothing but ghosts to focus on. There had been only 4 hours and 48 minutes of daylight before darkness had begun to descend upon the world, and that had been covered just as surely as that wondrous light would be covered now.
Her friend, Neon "Rainbow" Katt, was kneeling in front of the statue, in front of all the pictures of those lost in the battle. She wasn't alone — her teammate, Flynt "Jazz" Coal was with her, along with others — but as always, Ciel was worried about her friend. She had done that a lot over the years, but that had been before so much had been lost.
The plaza that they were in was deathly quiet, a consequence both of the overlapping evergreen trees surrounding it and the silence of those within it. The stones beneath her feet, large and gray, were also of a special construction that absorbed sound. Above their heads, sound might have been able to drift in from above, but none did, not really. It was like all the sound that could be was muffled such that only some faunus could hear when they turned their heads up and concentrated. Ciel had heard some propose theories on how this could be physically so, but she felt it more than a tad improper. The Lady had granted them a place of peace to mourn; was that not enough?
At the center of the circular plaza was an obelisk of hematite more than thirty feet tall which culminated at the top in a platform of smooth brass upon which was written in silver the words, "Das sind meine Juwelen" — "These are my jewels." On the platform were small statues of soldiers and civilians, all as young as Ciel had once been, all in as great a state of stress as her classmates had been before they'd either retreated or joined those whose pictures were now on the blood-stone. Standing amidst them was a marble statue of a woman clothed in simple garments, her eyes closed as if she was about to weep, her arms outstretched as if she was about to embrace all the other little statues, for they were her children, and she was their mother, all of their mothers.
The memorial of all those lost in the service of Atlas, and the statue symbolizing all of their mothers, had once not been unique. Once, the most common battle memorial in Mantle had been depictions of mothers weeping for their lost children and husbands. Then had come the madness, and so, in the name of safety, the people destroyed everything they could lay their hands on that made them feel. In the aftermath of the Great War, and as part of his efforts to reignite a culture long suppressed, General Colton had spent a good deal of his own money commissioning the plaza and everything in it.
He had spent his money well, for often, when Ciel looked up into that statue, she could not help but imagine her own mother weeping for her brothers. A terrible phantom of her mind in a new form, it filled her with despair. Only the knowledge that they, in truth, still lived banished such feelings. At that precise moment, though, she could only see Neon's mother, shedding the same tears as her daughter for her lost friends. Too many kids lost before their time, far far too many.
About the plinth were placed flowers and photographs and other such things. Some were simply left there, and others were taped to the stone itself. In every case, though, every frozen face would eventually be swept away by the winds to make room for more.
One day, Ciel and Neon's own pictures would likely grace the memorial, as nearly all Huntsmen and Huntresses of Atlas eventually did; that was what it meant to become a Huntsman or Huntress, after all: to die so that others might live.
She was glad that Neon was getting the chance to say goodbye, something Ciel hadn't gotten the chance to.
After some time, Neon stood up, said her goodbyes to Jazz as he stayed behind, and walked silently back towards Ciel, her head bowed and her wardrobe thicker than was perhaps necessary. The blue-haired young woman said nothing, though, and followed along with her friend. They passed on through the S-shaped path through the treeline and were a block away when words finally passed between them.
"Thanks," Neon said simply. "Thanks for coming, Ciel."
She inclined her head. "I could do nothing less."
Neon nodded rapidly in reply. "Thanks," she repeated. "Hey, uh, can we sit somewhere?"
Ciel gestured to a nearby bench in a smaller park, and they went to it.
When they sat down, there was another half minute of silence until Ciel spoke. "It hurts, but there is wisdom in doing this. You will feel much better later."
"I already do, believe it or not," answered Neon. "It's just so … Is this what you felt like?"
Ciel's neutral expression grew slightly more somber. "You were in the same battle I was."
"I spent the battle as a courier with rack time," countered Neon. "You were on the front lines, all of the front lines, all the time. You … saw a lot more people die than I did. I still can't get their faces out of my head, the smell…"
Ciel silently put her arm around the shoulder of the cat faunus and gripped hold, steadying her.
"I can't believe I was so stupid," bit out Neon. "I should have seen it coming. If I had paid more attention to the signs, I never would have trusted them, and Kobalt and Ivori would still be alive."
"Neon, cease your self-recriminations," ordered Ciel kindly.
Her friend stiffened and turned to face her, such that Ciel was forced to let go, her expression bewildered. "What?"
"Self-recrimination: the act of accusing or blaming oneself," defined the dark-skinned young woman.
Neon closed her eyes and sighed. "Why can't you just speak normally?"
"This is normal for me," deflected Ciel.
"Ciel, with anyone else at the academy, that would work, but I've known you since we were in combat school," Neon said. "I remember when you actually used to laugh at my jokes instead of just staring at me and then saying you found it acceptably humorous."
Dark eyebrows narrowed slightly over blue eyes. "I did not."
"Well, you laughed at some of them," insisted Neon with a shrug. "The point is that you've really become a wet blanket since you joined the Academy."
Ciel looked away, her mind flashing back to months of physical rehab. "Not since joining the Academy."
Neon's face fell. "Sorry, I should have realized. I should have realized back then when I visited you in the hospital."
"Do not apologize," begged Ciel. "Your visits were often the highlights of my week. You need not be concerned about that."
Neon grew silent for a moment before continuing, her legs crossed as she looked out into the street. "You remember when we were both working as maids at that hotel?"
"The only followers of the Lady of the North on staff," reminisced Ciel. "As I recall, that is how we became friends at first."
"Yeah, but I like to think that my winning personality kept you around," joked Neon. "But do you remember when we used to talk about our plans for the future? I don't remember any of those plans involving us becoming traumatized veterans before we turned twenty or even got married."
"Neither do I," admitted Ciel, "but that appears to be what has transpired."
"Yeah…" Neon trailed off, letting another thirty seconds of silence roll by before standing up off the bench and looking down at her friend. "I'm heading back to the Academy. You got anything else to do in town?"
Ciel stood up as well. "No. I am at your service today, Neon."
"Does that mean I can get you to come to one of my parties again?" asked Neon with a hopeful smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Do you want to throw a party?" asked Ciel in turn.
Neon's smile faltered. "I feel like I should, but it doesn't feel right."
"Then let us find something that does feel right," replied Ciel, her voice seeming kinder despite never wavering from its monotone.
"Okay, I admit it; I never would have expected signals to be that interesting," stated Neon as she and Ciel left the ancillary academy building on the campus's cityward side, and as they did, she gave a sad glance back to the building. In the weeks since their trip to the memorial, Neon had largely recovered and was back to her normal, exuberant self. "So I didn't want to broach the topic with her, but why does some cadet fresh out of combat school have Dial-Tone's callsign?"
Ciel nodded. "I believe she is Dial-Tone's sister, so it is possible that she wishes to take up the mantle to honor him."
Neon nodded. "I hope she succeeds. So! I've found out that in addition to being an amazing messenger girl, I also have a head for radios. If I was Mistrali, my callsign would be 'Iris.'"
"If you were Mistrali, you would not have a callsign at all," pointed out Ciel.
"No, I would have a codename, nobody would know who I really am, and I would work for the police," replied Neon with a smile. "But enough about me; you've still got to meet Penny at her dance class."
"Yes, I am surprised she is not using one of the dance studios on campus," mused Ciel as they started to walk towards their new destination.
Dancing, it seemed, was having a positive effect on Penny. It was proving to be a very effective physical therapy, and she was showing better and better results with each passing week. Though the specifics of the class, and of her treatment, wasn't known to the rest of her team. Such privacy was her prerogative though, and to be invited to her class was a show of trust that Ciel valued greatly from her best not-Neon friend.
"Maybe it's faunus temple dance?" theorized Neon. "I saw her reading a book about that while we were in Vale. Not like there's any classes for that at the Academy."
"True, but the same could be said for many of the dances that Penny studies," observed Ciel. "The selection at the Academy is dreadfully traditional."
Neon blinked in shock. "I'm sorry. Did I hear that right? Did you just say tradition is dreadful?"
"I did not," insisted Ciel. "I merely lamented the lack of selection when it comes to sanctioned artistic expression."
"Which comes from tradition," pointed out Neon with some slight humor, which might have gotten some kind of reaction from Ciel like a pout or giggle in days gone by but didn't anymore. "But whatever the case, let's go see what Penny's gotten into."
There was a sudden ringing from Neon's pocket, and she reached in to reveal her scroll that she activated automatically.
"Jazz! What's up?"
"Our homework," bluntly stated the dark-skinned man on the other end: Flynt "Jazz" Coal, the first of Aska's boyfriends to avoid running in fear from her father. His voice softened. "Rainbow… are you sure you're okay? You haven't forgotten about the assignment we have due, have you?"
"Noooo—" Neon caught sight of her friend's eyes. "Yes. Yes, I did. Don't worry though, Jazz. It's an easy one. We'll have it done in a flash."
"Really now? You know what to do during a thunderblizzard when you're cut off from support? 'Cause that's question one," incredulously asked Jazz.
Neon glanced at the building they had left. "As a matter of fact, I do. Don't worry; I'll be there in a jiff to tell you how. Rainbow out."
She shut down her scroll and turned to Ciel with a sad smile. "Looks like I'm going to miss Bladerider getting down with her bad self. Send me a video if you can, all right?"
"I will," neutrally answered Ciel, prompting Neon to dash off at such speeds that she left one of her signature rainbow contrails.
Ciel smiled fondly at her departing friend before continuing her trek into the city. Along the way, she passed through the gatehouse that separated the campus from the rest of the island that was named for it, scanning her ID and giving the guard her expected return time, as per procedure. The guard on duty was distracted, his attention seemingly focused on a news story displayed on his computer about protests in Sednashaffen where fishermen were complaining about the lack of loans to get through the winter.
She paid it no mind and focused on reaching the address that Penny had given her. As she walked, her attention was drawn to a pair of military police officers on a road she was passing by.
"How did he get a license to preach here?"
"Ask the new councilor, and be nice about it. This is getting good."
"What?!"
They had been clearly talking to each other. About what? Well, that was fairly hard to miss.
"And they keep doing it!" blared a white-haired man with a megaphone from atop a bench. "Should we be spending our money and blood on those ungrateful yokels?"
"No!" shouted back the crowd that had gathered around him.
"It's time we stopped those thieves from the outside!"
"Yes!"
"It's time we stopped those idiots from harming their kids by teaching them backward languages!"
"Yes!"
"It's time we stopped Academies brainwashing our young boys and girls into dying for a bunch of ungratefuls in lands no one's ever heard of!"
"Yes!"
"What even is a Canterlot?!"
"Yes!"
"We need to make them pay up for all the things they've taken from us, and if they won't give us what we want, then we need to take it!"
"Yes!"
Ciel had already started moving again, but she could still hear it clearly even a block away. That was … nothing. It had to be nothing. It was nothing. The council wouldn't listen to demagoguery like that.
She was walking faster then, almost too fast, and so she stopped and checked her location. Reaffixed, she made best possible speed to her destination. It thankfully wasn't that far, but she was definitely taking another route back with Penny.
In good time, she came to her destination, address precisely noted and no other possibilities around: "Bangal Bangle Bang Gal." Which was … well, a very evocative name. Certainly, with its explosively-formatted lettering, it was eye-catching. Ciel, however, found it to be a bit too reminiscent of some of the lewd discussions she had heard the boys engaging in back in combat school and in the streets of Mantle.
Besides, it didn't say that it was a dance studio, and that was just bad marketing.
The outer doors split apart to admit her, and as she stepped into the airlock, Ciel heard a tone, quickly followed by the outer doors closing and the inner doors opening. Looking about the inside, she found it to be luxuriously bare with little of note save for the desk at the other end with a plainly-dressed young woman working at it. She evidently was just finishing something up, because she got up and started to walk towards the entrance.
"Welcome to Bangal Bangle Bang Gal, formerly Heidi's Dance Studio. I am not Heidi; I am her sister, Beatrice," the woman introduced herself with an outstretched hand. "Secretary, media manager, accountant, substitute dance teacher, quartermistress, and door greeter. Are you here to visit, or do you wish to sign up for a class?"
Ciel took the hand to give a polite feminine shake that wouldn't break any bones.
"I'm Farsight, from Atlas Academy," she greeted in turn. "I was told to come here by one of the students, Bladerider."
There was a flicker of recognition in the woman's icy blue eyes. "Ah! The girl with the cane! Yes, Miss Polendina is one of our best students. I don't think that there's a style of dance that she doesn't take to like a penguin to water."
"So the fact that she uses a cane to walk around hasn't been an issue?" asked Ciel hopefully.
Beatrice shook her head. "No. Not at all. In fact, if I remember right, that was why she came here. Me and my sister, well, we had our own trauma, let's just say, and dance helped us deal with it. We try to pass that along whenever we can, and Miss Polendina is no exception."
Ciel let out a small breath that she hadn't known she was holding in. "That is good. She is very precious to us all. She … she is just a kid. She should not have had the things that happened to her happen."
Beatrice nodded and gestured to the nearby door to the side. "Would you like to see her? They're in the middle of a rehearsal right now. Third door on the left."
"I think that is what Penny wanted me to see," mused Ciel. "Thank you."
Goodbyes conveyed, Ciel walked through the nearby door and into the hall as directed, or at least what hall there was. Buildings in Atlas tended to be cramped, closed in, and otherwise small in order to minimize their footprint, instead reaching for the sky when more floor space was required, and this was no exception. It was also very quiet, because something else that Atlesian architects had become exceptionally good at — by preference, if not necessity — was soundproofing.
So it was that when Ciel opened the indicated door, she found herself hit by a melodic cacophony akin to an explosive shockwave. The inside was a studio much like those seen in that ballerina movie that Team APRC(T) had seen the prior month, though on one end, a platform had been slid out from the wall to create a kind of stage, and around on the floor were sitting a number of scantily-clad women. On the stage itself was a young woman — one Ciel was surprised to recognize, if only vaguely: Sour Sweet, callsign Sakura, second-year and leader of Team SSCL — in nought but a brassiere and briefs moving to the beat of tribalistic drums and string instruments, if by "moving" one meant gyrating and twisting and popping in a way that was far too reminiscent of the sort of places where soldiers lost their pay. The whole sordid affair ended with her collapsing onto her knees with her back bowed and head touching the floor, all quickly followed by the dying music being cut off by the whooping cheers of all the women on the floor.
A big woman with brown hair and a cybernetic hand stood up. "Good showing, Ms. Sweet. Work on your belly rolls and hold back on the pirouettes at the beginning, and I'm sure your showing at the recital will be spectacular. Polendina, you're up."
She sat back down, the dancer got off the stage, and out of the small crowd stood Penny upon her cane. Her normal bow was out of her hair, and she was dressed in much the same scant manner as the other people in the room, but it was certainly her. In her left hand, she held her cane, but in her right, she held an almost flail-like device with ribbons attached to the weights.
She got onto the center of the stage and turned around to face the crowd. Her green eyes caught sight of Ciel, and her smile brightened. Her cane was tossed to the side to be caught by one of the other girls, and she took one of the devices into her now free hand.
"Gloriana, track five!" Penny ordered.
Ciel had never known snare drums to be combined with Mistrali wind instruments, but she decided then and there that she didn't like it. She also didn't like what Penny was doing, moving and twisting about like a fish while twirling the devices around, which seemed to be giant streamers colored red and purple tied to handles that allowed them to be whipped around by centrifugal force. She also realized the origin story of two things: the coloring of the streamers was nearly identical to the coloring of Reginald, one of Penny's prized betta fish, and the movements she was executing on the stage were incredibly similar to her movements when using her weapons system, Floating Array.
Has she been doing this since the day I met her? thought Ciel in shock. She has … Who's done this to her? Who has taken her and led her into this debauchery to inflame men's loins?
She could no longer bear the sight, and in a split second of nerves, she snapped back into the hallway with the doorway closing behind her.
Ciel stood in the hallway a short distance from the door and controlled her breathing. Panicking would do her no good, and so she wouldn't; just like how she didn't panic during the Merinterieure Shore Evacuation. This was a battle to be fought with words, and though she knew just the basics of wordcraft, she knew a great deal about battle and its history. She just needed to come up with the right attack vector to convince her friend not to go down this road.
Suddenly, the door opened again, and Penny herself limped out of the studio to the sound of yet another strange song that was quickly cut off by the closing portal. "Friend Ciel, are you all right?"
Ciel could hear her breathing, deeply, slowly, like the routine of marksmanship. She shook her head. She still couldn't think of what to say.
Penny quirked her head. "You're stressed. I can tell. It's written all over your face. You didn't even stay for my whole performance."
Ciel could feel her throat tightening. "Penny, I–-"
"I've got it!" Penny cheerfully cut her off. "You're clearly working too hard, and you definitely don't have any hobbies …"
A spike of confusion shot through Ciel. I have hobbies.
"… So you should join our class!"
That confusion turned to fear. "No! Penny, I will not do this. You should not do this."
Penny frowned slightly. "Ciel, I— Oh! This is one of those things where you don't want to do something, but I drag you into it and you end up liking it, isn't it?"
"This is not like mahjong or anatomy lectures, this is serious! This is dangerous!" Ciel hissed.
"This is how I deal with things," explained Penny. "After all that's happened to me … I'm not going to give it up just because you're paranoid."
"It is not paranoia," Ciel countered. "I have seen how my brother Florentin looks at you when he thinks we're not looking. How do you imagine he would react to this?"
"Florentin?" Penny sputtered incredulously. "Don't be ridiculous, Ciel. He's … he's Florentin!"
"He is still a boy reaching into puberty, still has the same base desires all men struggle with, and you would tempt him with this?"
Penny rolled her optics. "You've been hanging around Mad Dog too much," she concluded.
"I have not," Ciel retorted, if for no other reason than the fact that Mad Dog barely interacted with any of them.
Penny reached and grabbed hold of Ciel's arm with a light-hearted smile. "Come on, loosen up! Come dance with us, and I'm sure you'll love it."
"No," insisted Ciel, resisting.
Two images flashed in her mind. One was real, one was imagined, but they merged together into one. A woman lying on the floor with blood everywhere, and her own body covered in scars.
Penny gave a firm tug. "Come on! Don't be like this."
"I said no!" shouted Ciel, yanking herself free from Penny's grip with such shocking speed and force that Penny found herself stumbling.
A pregnant pause filled the silent hallway, and unfortunately, it wasn't because her mother was thinking of what to say next. Penny righted herself, and she seemed hurt. Ciel couldn't decipher it fully though.
"Penny, pack your things. We are leaving," ordered Ciel with finality.
Now Penny was very clearly upset. "What?! You can't be serious."
"I am," confirmed Ciel. "You can't continue to engage in these salacious activities. The sooner we get out of here the better.
Penny was furious. "Just because you've lived a boring life and never really lost anything doesn't mean you have to invent these— these fantasies just so you can control me! I need this, you Safetyist robot!"
"Ciel, I think I need to lie down. Wake me when you need me."
"Ikiaq, come on, we need to go. Ikiaq? Ikiaq, wake up! Wake up!"
"Ikiaq, come on, we need to go. Ikiaq? Ikiaq, wake up! Wake up!"
Now it was Ciel's turn to be consumed with fury. Fury not just at Penny, but at the Grimm that killed so many of her friends, at the doctors who kept her sedated far too long, at herself for surviving. How dare she? How dare she insult all those who died?!
She could feel her hand rising to strike, but nothing came of it. Whatever Ciel had missed, whatever she had lost control of, it was now etched onto Penny's features. She was trembling, eyes wide looking at her in terror.
Ciel turned and stormed out of the building, her own blood at war inside her as she burned up.
"...so I tell this guy, I tell him, 'Hey, if you're looking for a mouser, look no further.'"
"Oh my goodness, what did he say to that?"
"'You're hired.'"
Ciel let out a strangled laugh. "How?"
Neon shrugged. "He was having a bad day, I guess. I wasn't about to let him down though, so I asked my dad if I could borrow one of his pistols, loaded it up with frangible canister rounds, and spent the night in the granary."
The two teenage girls were dressed in their maid uniforms and speaking as they went about their job with a deftness and swiftness that belied long hours of repetition. Their job in this case being cleaning up one of the suites in the hotel they worked at after the tenants had vacated the premises. It was hard work, especially since both their days had been spent getting beaten about in combat school, but it was something made easier with friends you happened to have something in common with. In the case of Ciel Soleil and Neon Katt, they were lucky enough to have two things in common: the fact that they were both followers of the Lady of the North, and the fact that they both were lucky enough to both be able to cover the shifts of two other maids who had night classes on the same day. They both considered the latter the blessings of the former.
"Didn't you get cold?" asked Ciel.
"I probably did, but I don't remember that. I did kill seven rats that night though. When the granary's owner came back in the morning, he asked me who I was and why I was stacking up rat bodies," explained Neon.
"He'd forgotten?!" exclaimed Ciel in bemused shock.
"Yep!" confirmed Neon. "Worked out for me though, because I was able to negotiate a better price based on what I had already done and him forgetting the original offer. The cute kitten eyes helped too. Made some good money at that job, which helped with the ammo costs."
"Okay, so that explains why you're trying to become a Huntress, but I asked you why you became a maid," pointed out Ciel in amusement.
"Oh, that? Well, after we moved away from Stratusburg, I found out the police guy in our new neighborhood didn't like faunus carrying guns, so I couldn't be a mouser anymore," said Neon in yet another tangent. "That's why I took up the nunchucks. Anyway, there was an old Vacuan lady in the neighborhood, and she hired me to help around the house. She taught me everything I know about the hospitality business. And partying. I had to move away to go to combat school, so I wasn't able to do that anymore, but I can work here."
"And you do a great job, but why don't you go to AMCP again?" asked Ciel. "We could go to school and commute together."
"Because Albion Mountain is known for, wait for it," Neon paused for effect, "training Alpenjagers. You can't roller skate up mountains, Ciel. You can't roller skate up mountains."
"You can if the skates have gravity dust," pointed out Ciel.
"Yeah, but it ain't very smart to train to do something you need a fat stack of lien to get started in when you're starting out at the bottom," countered Neon as she finished and took stock of the situation. "Huh. Done this so often, it's getting to the point where I don't remember doing it."
Ciel finished herself and started double checking the room. "I'm not going to complain. Another room done."
The human girl put her fist out, and the faunus girl replied by connecting her own knuckles to her friend's.
Neon looked down. "I don't know. I'm just not feeling it, Ciel."
Ciel shook her head in bemusement. "Neither am I. I guess neither of us are from Canterlot."
Neon picked her cleaning supplies up and started exiting the room. "'Canterlot'? I thought that came from Crystal City!"
Ciel shrugged as she followed with her own cleaning supplies in hand. "I can never tell the difference, to be honest."
Out into the hall they went, smiles on their faces. The building where they worked, The Griffon Impeller, was a moderately up-scale hotel for those who were looking to save money on rest in order to spend it in buckets on other things while skiing.
"I've been thinking about getting a face tattoo," mused Neon, bringing a hand up to her left cheek below her eyes. "Maybe a heart?"
Ciel paused, looked at Neon, cocked her head, and then shook it. "No."
"Oh come on!" complained Neon. "I'll look cute!"
"Debatable. I would say it will ruin your inherent cute factor," countered Ciel, to which Neon did an overdramatic flutter of her eyes and gesticulation with her hands. "Get a sticker instead. You can take it off whenever you want, and it will be cheaper, since you won't have to keep reapplying it every year due to your aura and natural healing factor making it fade."
Neon considered that for a moment, even as she took out her maintenance-level card key to open up the next room. "Okay, you make some good points. Sticker it is then. I guess it has its own youthful cha—"
Neon's sentence was cut off by a sharp intake of breath. The door had unlocked with a beep normally, swung open normally, and revealed a decidedly abnormal sight. The pair wasted no time in leaping into action.
The room was a mess: bedsheets everywhere, trash scattered about, and a few stains from unseemly bodily fluids. There were two half-naked people there, a man and a woman, both unconscious, with the man seemingly gripping onto the woman quite tightly. In front of them was a holo projector playing a looping projection of what looked like the woman gyrating in a quite lewd fashion and a collection of various paraphernalia, with the most prominent being two glasses with crystals forming on the rim.
Ciel got to work checking the vitals of the woman while Neon checked the man.
"I've got a pulse," reported Neon.
"So have I," replied Ciel. It was faint and slow, but it was there.
The two of them had run through what to do in this sort of scenario before, and so they acted without delay. Neon called hotel security while Ciel called emergency services, all while they continued to try and monitor the afflicted. It wasn't looking good.
"What's going on?" asked the manager as he came in with hotel security.
"They ingested a couple of ice whales and a bunch of other unknown drugs," reported Ciel as she pulled the woman's right eyelids open and shined a light on it to see a gold-lined orb bouncing around like a billiard ball.
"I got a vomit patch," reported one of the security guards, one of the new ones, as he then moved to act on it.
"No, don't!" shouted Ciel as she stopped what she was doing, and Neon moved— too late.
The patch hit the woman's exposed skin, and just as Neon's hand was coming down to rip it off, it activated. An electrical pulse surged out through the woman's body from the patch, activating the neurons that triggered the body's natural impulse to expel impurities. The woman's compromised body jerked and spasmed as the instinct seemed to fail, and then, with shocking brutality, it activated.
The woman threw up, and out came a vile concoction of bile, half-digested foodstuffs, crystals, and … blood, so much blood.
"Idiot!" cursed the manager. "You've turned her esophagus into shredded cheese!"
"I didn't know!" protested the rookie. "We don't have stuff like this in Sednashaffen."
Ciel tried to ignore them as she contacted the authorities to give an update, and Neon checked the vitals of the bloody woman.
"I have a pulse!" reported the red-haired girl with a joyous smile. "She's a fighter, that's for sure!"
"Oh, you better hope it stays that way," the manager threatened the rookie, jabbing a finger in his face.
Shortly, the sound of rapid boots on the floor came into the room, and then soon too did the forms of paramedics with a hover stretcher between them. Hot on their heels were the police. Their job as maids and first on the scene was finished.
It was later on when the police were finishing up that one of them, Officer Klinworth, stayed a bit longer to check on them.
"You girls feeling okay?"
Ciel nodded, and Neon answered vocally, "Yeah. I'm … I'm used to these sorts of things. I mean, not all at once, but there's a first time for everything, right?"
Ciel nodded. "It is the sort of thing one prepares oneself to expect when one lives in the poorer sections of Mantle."
The police officer shook his head. "When I was growing up, things in Mantle weren't like this. You could actually walk down the street at night without fear of … this." He gestured to the room where events had transpired. "It's all gone to pot since they moved the capital to Atlas."
Neon frowned slightly and asked, "Sir, is that woman going to be alright?"
Officer Klinworth shook his head. "No. Even if the doctors do manage to save her, the damage to her throat … Can you girls do something for me?"
"What do you need, officer?" asked Ciel.
"I need you to not end up like her. Don't do drugs, don't hang with the wrong crowd, and for the love of the Northern Lights, if some sleazeball offers you the chance to earn some easy money using your body to work a street corner or do a dance in some club, just say no."
Ciel glanced back at the room where so much blood had been split.
"Understood, sir."
"Oh my goodness, what did he say to that?"
"'You're hired.'"
Ciel let out a strangled laugh. "How?"
Neon shrugged. "He was having a bad day, I guess. I wasn't about to let him down though, so I asked my dad if I could borrow one of his pistols, loaded it up with frangible canister rounds, and spent the night in the granary."
The two teenage girls were dressed in their maid uniforms and speaking as they went about their job with a deftness and swiftness that belied long hours of repetition. Their job in this case being cleaning up one of the suites in the hotel they worked at after the tenants had vacated the premises. It was hard work, especially since both their days had been spent getting beaten about in combat school, but it was something made easier with friends you happened to have something in common with. In the case of Ciel Soleil and Neon Katt, they were lucky enough to have two things in common: the fact that they were both followers of the Lady of the North, and the fact that they both were lucky enough to both be able to cover the shifts of two other maids who had night classes on the same day. They both considered the latter the blessings of the former.
"Didn't you get cold?" asked Ciel.
"I probably did, but I don't remember that. I did kill seven rats that night though. When the granary's owner came back in the morning, he asked me who I was and why I was stacking up rat bodies," explained Neon.
"He'd forgotten?!" exclaimed Ciel in bemused shock.
"Yep!" confirmed Neon. "Worked out for me though, because I was able to negotiate a better price based on what I had already done and him forgetting the original offer. The cute kitten eyes helped too. Made some good money at that job, which helped with the ammo costs."
"Okay, so that explains why you're trying to become a Huntress, but I asked you why you became a maid," pointed out Ciel in amusement.
"Oh, that? Well, after we moved away from Stratusburg, I found out the police guy in our new neighborhood didn't like faunus carrying guns, so I couldn't be a mouser anymore," said Neon in yet another tangent. "That's why I took up the nunchucks. Anyway, there was an old Vacuan lady in the neighborhood, and she hired me to help around the house. She taught me everything I know about the hospitality business. And partying. I had to move away to go to combat school, so I wasn't able to do that anymore, but I can work here."
"And you do a great job, but why don't you go to AMCP again?" asked Ciel. "We could go to school and commute together."
"Because Albion Mountain is known for, wait for it," Neon paused for effect, "training Alpenjagers. You can't roller skate up mountains, Ciel. You can't roller skate up mountains."
"You can if the skates have gravity dust," pointed out Ciel.
"Yeah, but it ain't very smart to train to do something you need a fat stack of lien to get started in when you're starting out at the bottom," countered Neon as she finished and took stock of the situation. "Huh. Done this so often, it's getting to the point where I don't remember doing it."
Ciel finished herself and started double checking the room. "I'm not going to complain. Another room done."
The human girl put her fist out, and the faunus girl replied by connecting her own knuckles to her friend's.
Neon looked down. "I don't know. I'm just not feeling it, Ciel."
Ciel shook her head in bemusement. "Neither am I. I guess neither of us are from Canterlot."
Neon picked her cleaning supplies up and started exiting the room. "'Canterlot'? I thought that came from Crystal City!"
Ciel shrugged as she followed with her own cleaning supplies in hand. "I can never tell the difference, to be honest."
Out into the hall they went, smiles on their faces. The building where they worked, The Griffon Impeller, was a moderately up-scale hotel for those who were looking to save money on rest in order to spend it in buckets on other things while skiing.
"I've been thinking about getting a face tattoo," mused Neon, bringing a hand up to her left cheek below her eyes. "Maybe a heart?"
Ciel paused, looked at Neon, cocked her head, and then shook it. "No."
"Oh come on!" complained Neon. "I'll look cute!"
"Debatable. I would say it will ruin your inherent cute factor," countered Ciel, to which Neon did an overdramatic flutter of her eyes and gesticulation with her hands. "Get a sticker instead. You can take it off whenever you want, and it will be cheaper, since you won't have to keep reapplying it every year due to your aura and natural healing factor making it fade."
Neon considered that for a moment, even as she took out her maintenance-level card key to open up the next room. "Okay, you make some good points. Sticker it is then. I guess it has its own youthful cha—"
Neon's sentence was cut off by a sharp intake of breath. The door had unlocked with a beep normally, swung open normally, and revealed a decidedly abnormal sight. The pair wasted no time in leaping into action.
The room was a mess: bedsheets everywhere, trash scattered about, and a few stains from unseemly bodily fluids. There were two half-naked people there, a man and a woman, both unconscious, with the man seemingly gripping onto the woman quite tightly. In front of them was a holo projector playing a looping projection of what looked like the woman gyrating in a quite lewd fashion and a collection of various paraphernalia, with the most prominent being two glasses with crystals forming on the rim.
Ciel got to work checking the vitals of the woman while Neon checked the man.
"I've got a pulse," reported Neon.
"So have I," replied Ciel. It was faint and slow, but it was there.
The two of them had run through what to do in this sort of scenario before, and so they acted without delay. Neon called hotel security while Ciel called emergency services, all while they continued to try and monitor the afflicted. It wasn't looking good.
"What's going on?" asked the manager as he came in with hotel security.
"They ingested a couple of ice whales and a bunch of other unknown drugs," reported Ciel as she pulled the woman's right eyelids open and shined a light on it to see a gold-lined orb bouncing around like a billiard ball.
"I got a vomit patch," reported one of the security guards, one of the new ones, as he then moved to act on it.
"No, don't!" shouted Ciel as she stopped what she was doing, and Neon moved— too late.
The patch hit the woman's exposed skin, and just as Neon's hand was coming down to rip it off, it activated. An electrical pulse surged out through the woman's body from the patch, activating the neurons that triggered the body's natural impulse to expel impurities. The woman's compromised body jerked and spasmed as the instinct seemed to fail, and then, with shocking brutality, it activated.
The woman threw up, and out came a vile concoction of bile, half-digested foodstuffs, crystals, and … blood, so much blood.
"Idiot!" cursed the manager. "You've turned her esophagus into shredded cheese!"
"I didn't know!" protested the rookie. "We don't have stuff like this in Sednashaffen."
Ciel tried to ignore them as she contacted the authorities to give an update, and Neon checked the vitals of the bloody woman.
"I have a pulse!" reported the red-haired girl with a joyous smile. "She's a fighter, that's for sure!"
"Oh, you better hope it stays that way," the manager threatened the rookie, jabbing a finger in his face.
Shortly, the sound of rapid boots on the floor came into the room, and then soon too did the forms of paramedics with a hover stretcher between them. Hot on their heels were the police. Their job as maids and first on the scene was finished.
It was later on when the police were finishing up that one of them, Officer Klinworth, stayed a bit longer to check on them.
"You girls feeling okay?"
Ciel nodded, and Neon answered vocally, "Yeah. I'm … I'm used to these sorts of things. I mean, not all at once, but there's a first time for everything, right?"
Ciel nodded. "It is the sort of thing one prepares oneself to expect when one lives in the poorer sections of Mantle."
The police officer shook his head. "When I was growing up, things in Mantle weren't like this. You could actually walk down the street at night without fear of … this." He gestured to the room where events had transpired. "It's all gone to pot since they moved the capital to Atlas."
Neon frowned slightly and asked, "Sir, is that woman going to be alright?"
Officer Klinworth shook his head. "No. Even if the doctors do manage to save her, the damage to her throat … Can you girls do something for me?"
"What do you need, officer?" asked Ciel.
"I need you to not end up like her. Don't do drugs, don't hang with the wrong crowd, and for the love of the Northern Lights, if some sleazeball offers you the chance to earn some easy money using your body to work a street corner or do a dance in some club, just say no."
Ciel glanced back at the room where so much blood had been split.
"Understood, sir."
Sour "Sakura" Sweet's eyes darted around the library, the deepest and darkest part of the library which no one ever ventured to. Well, almost no one. Twilight always used to come down here to engage in her favorite past-time: reading, endless reading.
Sakura's heart ached for her friend, now in Vacuo, but comforted herself with the knowledge that the sweet bookworm wouldn't be involved in the dark business that they were about to do.
"There's no one else here," reported Rainbow "Boomer" Dash from beside her.
As she and Lemon took seats at one of the tables, with the two classmates they had called this meeting with taking seats across from them, part of Sakura realized that Twilight would probably be happy to see them reaching out across the divide like this, but to her, that just underscored how dire the situation was.
"So," Jacqueline Apple — Applejack or Spurs to… well, anyone who wanted to keep their teeth — said, "what's all this about? Ain't like you Shadowbolt types to call a meetin' with us of all people. Leastways not without Twilight draggin' you into it, that is."
The hostile tone in her voice was about what Sakura expected, but they could get through this. They had to.
"We called you," she said, "because you Canter lot know Crystal Prep better than almost anyone else, and you have the Gen- the Headmaster's ear. There's something fishy going on with Principal Cinch."
Spurs snorted. "Yer only figurin' that out now?"
"I'm serious," insisted Sakura. She hesitated, trying to figure out how to frame the situation. Might as well start from the beginning. "What happened with Councilor Sylvia got us thinking. Well, got Lemon thinking, actually."
Spurs cocked an eyebrow. "'Councilor Sylvia'?"
Lemon stepped in, thankfully. "She was a Crystal Prep alumnus. It brought things home," she said. "I don't always have music playing over my headphones, and even when I do... just because I can't hear doesn't mean I'm blind or can't read lips."
"Okay, so?" Boomer prodded impatiently.
"When I thought about what happened with Councilor Sylvia... a few odd things I've noticed over the past couple of years have started adding up," Lemon continued. "You know Principal Cinch has been putting Crystal Prep through a lot of… 'reforms.'"
"Oh, come on!" Boomer interjected derisively. "You're just upset Crystal Prep's started losing to Canterlot. People change over time. It doesn't mean she's been replaced by an evil duplicate."
Sakura surged to her feet and pounded the table with her fist. "That's exactly what it means!" she blurted out. "Look at those changes she's been making since we graduated! Lower entry standards, participation grades, laxer uniform regulations … she's turning Crystal Prep into … into another Canterlot!"
There was a long moment of silence, suddenly broken by the sound of chairs scraping along the floor as the two Canterlotians rose to their feet, expressions darkening.
"Yeah, no," Spurs declared, a scowl on her face that might well have been carved from stone. "We're done here."
With that, they turned and began walking out.
Sakura blinked. "Wha- hey! I'm serious!" she called after them. "We need your help."
Spurs shot her a venomous look over her shoulder and replied, "So'm I. Sounds t'me like yer already gettin' all the help we could offer ya. Goodness knows ya need it."
In the newfound quiet, Sakura sank back into her chair and dropped her head into her arms. "I screwed that up, didn't I?"
"Sugarcoat's not here," observed Lemon, "so I guess I'll say it: yeah, you did. Not that I did much better."
Sakura put her palm to her face and began to stroke the bridge of her nose. "Frag me with a grenade."
Lemon chose not to answer that. "Are you sure we need their help? Maverick and Seal are pretty good infiltration specialists. Better than me at least. They could probably get the job done."
"No, no," replied Sakura, shaking her head slowly while continuing to rub her nose. "We can't just go with 'good' on this. Cinch's service record might have more black than Blake's wardrobe—"
"Which, honestly, isn't saying much, if you think about it," mused Lemon with a shrug and a hand gesture.
"—but you don't get to be a Brigadegeneral by being a pushover," finished Sakura with a sigh. "You remember the one time we got to see her enter the ring? She took those guys apart."
"Those guys were twelve," pointed out Lemon in amusement. "But yeah, let's not tempt the scary BSD lady, or rather, the scarier person who's replaced the BSD lady."
The Office of Strategic Services — or more properly, the Büro für strategische Dienstleistungen or BSD — was the most secretive intelligence agency in Atlas, dedicated to advancing Atlas's agenda on the world stage in the most unlooked-for manner possible. This, to be blunt, made them absolutely terrifying. Even if only a fraction of the conspiracy theories about them were true, they were still not ones to be trifled with.
"If we confront her and she breaks out a robot army, this is going to go very badly for us," finished Sakura as she righted herself. "We need another ninja, and a good one too. So unless you can pull another one of Professor Snake-Eyes's star pupils out of your backpack and have them be trustworthy, we're out on the tundra without any sled dogs."
Maybe. Maybe not, mused their eavesdropper from the rafters.
Unseen and unlooked for, Rufus "Mad Dog" Madison lowered the book he had used his below-average ninja skills to get. There was a thoughtful expression on his face as he considered the possibilities. There was definitely something going wrong in Crystal Prep, and now the question became "who was responsible?"
Rufus "Mad Dog" Madison steeled himself as he entered into the room he shared with the rest of Team Apricot. He'd met some guys who thought that no one could possibly need reinforcement about being in a dorm with only women, but those were fellows of ill maturity who lacked experience or knowledge. Which was to say, they didn't know what it was like to live with three crazy women.
Yes, crazy. Shadow was some sort of weird ethnic supremacist who had in the last few months snapped her head around so fast it almost came off to become the world's biggest daddy's girl. Bladerider literally had a mental illness that it shouldn't have been possible for her to get. And Farsight had nearly the same mental illness that Bladerider had, only it had manifested in her acting like some automaton.
At this rate, the only thing keeping him sane was Thundercracker. And people outside the team, of course.
The door hissed open, and he found the room … well, about typical. Shadow was meditating with a sword in her lap, Bladerider was looking after her betta fish sorority in their aquarium, and Farsight was in her bed with the privacy blinds drawn reading a book that was most likely one of her religious texts. It was a state of affairs that had existed ever since the blue and green dynamic duo had come back from dance class with the blisteringly stubborn revelation that they had somehow hurt each other so badly that they could never talk about the incident ever again or explain themselves to the people around them, all while Shadow suddenly remembered that she was a sheltered high-class Atlesian who had no idea how to deal with the ground-dwelling Mantellian folk.
Lunatics, all of them. Still, they were his team, and he needed their help. Evil wouldn't stop its march just because the heroines had decided that common sense was for squares, like pants. Luckily, he still wore them, if only because kilts were inconvenient for maintenance work.
"We got a problem," he announced to the room.
Bladerider turned away from her fish to look at him with hopeful eyes. "What's the problem, Mad Dog?"
Where to even begin? Oh, right, the doppelgänger, he thought to himself, and aloud he said, "Lots of things; the kingdom is on the brink, after all."
"Is this where you try to convince us that magical talking ponies are trying to invade?" snarkily asked Shadow, breaking her meditation in order to stand up and look him in the eyes.
"Hey, just because Lyra and I compare notes a lot doesn't mean we come to the same conclusions!" he protested. Lyra was a nice enough girl, and discussing things with her was a joy — too many people were just blind to the patterns of the world around them — but she had some ... pretty crazy ideas. "Besides, this isn't something I dug up. Seems Team Scarlet stumbled across another doppelgänger situation."
"Zounds! Is it that nasty Chrysalis at it again?" asked Bladerider in worry.
He shook his head slightly. "No. This isn't that at all. This is probably more closely related to Cobra, but we can't know for sure until we catch the culprit."
"And who, exactly, is this culprit?" asked Shadow skeptically.
He looked upon her with deadly seriousness. "What do you know of Abacus Cinch?"
Shadow paused for a moment in contemplation before answering, "She is one of the people who come to my father on occasion to kiss up to him; she's meaningless."
"I don't think so," he said with a shake of his head. "After all, up until a few years ago, she hated your father with a passion so great that even the students at Crystal Prep, her students, noticed it."
Shadow frowned. "Her hypocrisy does not make her unique."
"No, but there are other indicators, big ones. She's implemented massive reforms in Crystal Prep's curriculum, reforms which seem to have adversely affected their performance in their annual Friendship Games against Canterlot Combat School, breaking their long-running winning streak. And despite her long record of competitiveness and obsession with excellence, she seems to have taken the losses in the last couple of years in stride."
"Is that not a virtue, though?" asked Farsight, breaking her silence even as she pulled back the privacy blind. "Defeat might not be something we should seek, but to show humility in the face of it is something to be admired."
And just as he had suspected, Farsight had her copy of The Epistles of the Lady of the North on her bed. It was the only logical conclusion. After all, given the tumult in her life lately, it was only natural for Farsight to seek comfort in the records of her prophetess. As well, she was a private person when it came to religion, making the privacy blind an obvious tell to what she was doing. Though the presence of Bladerider in the room did complicate matters, for while once before, the two would be as open as siblings, now they always wanted to get away from each other.
"If it were that simple, why hasn't she reversed the reforms that are causing them to lose?"
"I have heard some very nasty things about Crystal Prep," said Bladerider softly. "Maybe it's for the best that things have changed."
Shadow nodded. "Perhaps, but in any case, we can't afford to go off on some damn fool idealistic crusade because someone is acting a little oddly. Whatever Team Scarlet is up to, leave it to them. I'm sure they can handle it, and if not, I'd think any Atlas students would be wise enough to call in support."
We're their support! he fumed. It was happening again. Why didn't anyone listen to him?!
There was screaming, so much screaming. So much Grimm-attracting screaming. It hardened their hearts, made them do what had to be done.
They pushed them down the sloped floor, down into the rooms with the grated floors. They were naked and bald, and the people pushing them along hated them. Hated them for being unique in any way.
One with big green eyes and red stubble, nursing a newly broken leg, looked up with pleading fear. The doors were swung in to close them off. Ciel reached for the ignition button …
They pushed them down the sloped floor, down into the rooms with the grated floors. They were naked and bald, and the people pushing them along hated them. Hated them for being unique in any way.
One with big green eyes and red stubble, nursing a newly broken leg, looked up with pleading fear. The doors were swung in to close them off. Ciel reached for the ignition button …
Ciel shot awake in horror.
One brown hand came up to touch her forehead, and the gold bindi on it; she felt like she was burning up. Her breathing was erratic, her body was covered in sweat, and she was cold, so so cold. She climbed out of her bed, her socks hitting the floor with barely a sound as she stumbled toward their dorm's tiny bathroom.
Penny's dead eyes looked up at her from the dumpster behind a drug den…
The bathroom's sliding door opened just long enough for her to fall through. She hit the floor on two knees and one palm, her other hand gripping onto the edge of the toilet seat. She lifted it up and brought her head over the bowl in time for her dinner to come rushing up her esophagus.
Her mouth burned from the stomach acid, and her nostrils burned all the worse from the smell of the vomit. She couldn't stand it. She just couldn't stand it.
Penny screamed as the fires of the death camp melted her.
More bile came. Even with nothing left, her body was still finding ways to pump more and more out of her. Tears flowed out of her eyes.
"Not like them. Not like them. Not like them. Not like them."
She was talking into the toilet bowl, the rim pressing into her throat and distorting the sound.
Ciel shoving Penny into a truck to sell her to some nightclub in Vacuo.
Once again, she vomited, but less and less had come out this time.
"Not like them. Not like them. Not like them. Not like them."
Ciel's repetitions continued, even when she let out a cry and descended into sobs.
Outside the closed and mostly soundproof bathroom door, Aska took her ear off it and frowned, bringing her knees to her chest.
She should intervene, but how? It had seemed like all that was happening was that Ciel and Penny weren't talking to each other over some disagreement. Now? Now it seemed like things had escalated beyond that.
She just didn't know what to do.
She didn't know what to do, so she slunk away to her bunk above Mad Dog's.
In time, Ciel left the bathroom and went back into her own bunk. Then Mad Dog came home and changed before crawling into his bunk below Aska's. After that, Penny came in and likewise changed before climbing into her bunk above Ciel's, making a small note of displeasure along the way. Aska still hadn't fallen asleep when the rest of her team had.
Aska barely got any rest that night.
"Is there an issue with your medical textbook?"
Seated on the bed that had been assigned to her for their stay at Beacon, Penny looked up at Ciel. "What?"
"You appear quite distraught," her teammate elaborated. "Either it is something you are reading or something you are thinking or both."
"No!" Penny shook her head, then hiccuped. "The book is fine, great even! It's just …" She looked away.
After a moment, Penny was surprised as Ciel took a seat next to her on the bed, then reached up to Penny's chin, gently angling her head to meet her gaze.
"Penny, whatever is troubling you, I can assure you that I will do everything in my power to help you."
"Do you mean that, Ciel? Truly?"
Ciel nodded. "Yes, Penny."
"You won't judge me?" Penny asked, her voice small.
"No, Penny," Ciel assured her. "I cannot imagine why I would ever do that."
"It's just that I can't do this," Penny said, gesturing at her textbook, which she had open to near the end, in the chapter on reproduction.
Ciel considered the pages for a moment, then looked back at Penny. "You are infertitle?"
"I'm … not sure that's precisely the right word, but it's close enough, I suppose."
"Penny, it is nothing to be ashamed of," Ciel said, putting an arm around her shoulders.
"Doesn't your religion tell you to be vigorous in your reproduction? I can't do that. Sounds like something to be ashamed of."
"You clearly haven't read the copy of the Epistiles I gave you yet. If you had, you might have remembered her letter from Barrow, where the Lady recounted a woman who begged for a miracle, for her womb had been shut up. The Lady told her that with prayer and faith to God, anything was possible, but then she rebuked the woman publicly for not taking care of a pair of orphans who lived near her and her husband's residence. Adoption is not just an option, it is an honor."
"It's that simple?"
Ciel nodded. "It is that simple."
Seated on the bed that had been assigned to her for their stay at Beacon, Penny looked up at Ciel. "What?"
"You appear quite distraught," her teammate elaborated. "Either it is something you are reading or something you are thinking or both."
"No!" Penny shook her head, then hiccuped. "The book is fine, great even! It's just …" She looked away.
After a moment, Penny was surprised as Ciel took a seat next to her on the bed, then reached up to Penny's chin, gently angling her head to meet her gaze.
"Penny, whatever is troubling you, I can assure you that I will do everything in my power to help you."
"Do you mean that, Ciel? Truly?"
Ciel nodded. "Yes, Penny."
"You won't judge me?" Penny asked, her voice small.
"No, Penny," Ciel assured her. "I cannot imagine why I would ever do that."
"It's just that I can't do this," Penny said, gesturing at her textbook, which she had open to near the end, in the chapter on reproduction.
Ciel considered the pages for a moment, then looked back at Penny. "You are infertitle?"
"I'm … not sure that's precisely the right word, but it's close enough, I suppose."
"Penny, it is nothing to be ashamed of," Ciel said, putting an arm around her shoulders.
"Doesn't your religion tell you to be vigorous in your reproduction? I can't do that. Sounds like something to be ashamed of."
"You clearly haven't read the copy of the Epistiles I gave you yet. If you had, you might have remembered her letter from Barrow, where the Lady recounted a woman who begged for a miracle, for her womb had been shut up. The Lady told her that with prayer and faith to God, anything was possible, but then she rebuked the woman publicly for not taking care of a pair of orphans who lived near her and her husband's residence. Adoption is not just an option, it is an honor."
"It's that simple?"
Ciel nodded. "It is that simple."
Poke.
"Hey, you all right?"
Poke, poke.
"I'm awake!" Penny insisted as she bolted upright in her chair, looking around wildly. "I'm awake and combat ready!" She blinked at the person leaning over the table at her. "Rainbow?"
Behind the cat faunus, the pony faunus leaned out from among the stacks. "Yo, what's up, Penny?"
"Ah, sorry, Boomer," Penny said. "I was, um…." Her eyes darted over to the person directly in front of her.
Neon "Rainbow" Katt turned and gave Rainbow "Boomer" Dash a smug smile and a small wave, and Boomer responded with a scowl and a silent fume before turning and walking away.
Neon turned and, with a grin, planted herself in the chair opposite Penny after turning it backwards. "And before you say anything," she preempted, "I know she's going through a rough time. We all are." Her smile slipped. "At least she didn't lose half her team at Vale." She shook her head, as if to physically shake off the spell of darkness that had befallen her. "But if she's pissed at me, she's not stewing over what happened."
I suppose we all cope in different ways, Penny mused, her thoughts drifting to her own dance lessons. How did Ciel cope? Did Ciel need to cope? Somehow, Penny doubted it.
"So, anyway, Bladerider," Neon said, arms folded across the top of the chair's backrest, "you're into old Mistrali stuff, yeah? Maybe you can help me with this paper I gotta write for Lady Jaye's World Cultures class."
"Oh?" Penny tilted her head curiously. "Mistrali culture is quite varied; the kingdom has had a long history of expansion and contraction, conquest and civil war, and that's leaving aside the other historical kingdoms of Anima that have had similar histories and left their mark on Mistral. What is this paper going to be about?"
"The Mistraliad," Neon answered. "Reading it, the language is so flowery, I can't tell where history ends and legend begins." She paused. "Especially with the whole 'magic is real' thing."
Penny nodded. "Yes, it can be confusing. Historians have debated the subject for a long time, and they're probably talking about it even more now."
With that, the two of them dove into the material, bouncing off each other as they were absorbed in the subject.
"By the way," Penny asked about two hours later, "where did you hear about my interest in old Mistral?"
"From Ciel," Neon replied blithely.
Penny blinked. "You know Ciel?"
"We're best friends," was the reply. "You didn't know?
"No," Penny said, shaking her head. "I didn't."
I thought I was her best friend.
Suddenly, she wasn't so enthusiastic anymore.
History was without a doubt Ciel's favorite subject. She had a natural talent for math, being able to do range calculations in her head in seconds, but she had a passion for history. She loved burying herself in a good history book about nearly any subject, but especially military records … and fashion.
In that moment, for the first time ever, she wished that she was in another class.
"So it was that König Voan Rossa-Brücke implemented what he called the Emergency Safety Act of 2025," narrated Professor Dashiell "Flint" Faireborn from the front of the lecture hall. "Under this Act, all forms of self-expression were banned: art, fiction, religion, fashion, music. You couldn't paint pictures or write stories, you couldn't worship freely or wear what you wanted, and you certainly couldn't sing or dance."
Ciel cringed inwardly at the juxtaposition, which, while unintentional, made it abundantly clear that she was just as bad as the old König had been, and that she was oppressing her friend just as surely as that black-hearted tyrant had oppressed her ancestors.
"The theory was that such forms of self-expression led to disagreements and hurt feelings or caused offense, emotions which were all known to attract Grimm," he continued. "This was allegedly proven from the events surrounding the attack of the Grimm on Mantle's southeastern edge, but this was a falsehood as I have just finished explaining."
That had been a mess to untangle, but not nearly as bad as when the information had first been uncovered by General Colton and his investigators in the aftermath of the war. To have so much sacrificed was one thing, but to have it sacrificed to a false god was an altogether worse thing. So much lost, so much gone that could never be recovered, all for a theory dreamt up by a midwit who had never even seen the walls of the city.
"Of course, when less than a hundred percent of people obeyed every part of the edict, there were harsh punishments. These started with bans from public life and confinement to quarters, but then escalated to public humiliation and executions, then further on to enslavement. The slave trade, only recently made illegal in Vale alone, soon swelled in Mantle with the injection of many dissadents who were forced to work both in Mantle and abroad. Some victims were even 'reeducated' and given to Mistral nobility, including the royal family, as a means of furthering Mantle's cultural influence."
Ciel knew all that, she knew all that very well. She wasn't quite sure where they were now, but she knew very well that some of her mother's family had been shipped to Mistral as "livestock" for their Ministry of Agriculture. All part of a madman's attempt to stamp out the followers of the Lady, and of anyone who saw through his inhuman logic. She also knew what was coming next, and she flinched in horror.
"Towards the end of the war, things escalated beyond even that," Professor Flint continued seriously, his eyes drilling into each and every one of the students. "Any remaining undesirables that they could find were rounded up and put into immense fire dust furnaces to be burned alive. The last of these instances happened after the declaration of surrender by the royal family had been delivered to Mantle, with the full knowledge of the commander of the facility."
Bile rose up within her at that part of the lecture as memories flooded in. Her great-great-grandfathers on both sides had been at one of those furnaces, Number 3. Her great-great-grandfather on her mother's side had been one of the people who was stuffed into the fire-dust chambers to be incinerated. Her great-great-grandfather on her father's side … had ignited the dust.
She was the descendant of a mass murderer, a pawn of a mad regime that sought to wipe all humanity from humanity. The blood of a monster ran through her veins, so why was it any surprise that she was acting like a monster too? She was going and snuffing out Penny's self-expression just as surely as the Safetyists would do.
No!
She wasn't just the child of darkness. Her father's family was filled with righteousness and honor, of hundreds of years of valor, only broken by one black spot. And her mother's family … her mother's family had been the victims of that awful terror, and they wouldn't like her thinking this way.
From what her grandmother had told Ciel about her father, he had been a very traditional man, firm and stoic. Would he have approved of Penny shaking her body for a crowd? Most certainly not! He would have tried to discourage her, just as Ciel had done … hadn't she?
No, no, that couldn't have been the case. She must have been too cruel, or not harsh enough, or … or … or …
Ciel concentrated and cleared her mind.
"Which brings us on to the Deportation Crisis, or for those joining us from other kingdoms, the Faunus War or Faunus Rights Revolution," continued Professor Flint, having evidently already covered General Colton's arrival and the establishment of the Provisional Council. "For us here in the Northern Kingdom, the setup was much the same as in other kingdoms: the Council arranged for faunus citizens to be deported to Menagerie, and the faunus citizens rightly objected to this ill treatment.
"The difference comes in how it was handled, and how long it went on for. The conflict lasted only a few weeks thanks to the intervention of the newly reformed Mantle Heer under the command of General Colton. The riots were suppressed without death, the deportations were stalled and eventually overturned, and the council resigned over the incident. That is why the military is so greatly respected in Atlas, because when the rest of society was falling apart, General Colton and his forces kept their cool and set things right."
His gaze swept across the classroom.
"Remember that. To a lot of Atlesians, when the Huntsmen and the police and the politicians failed to keep the peace, the military succeeded, but the people of other kingdoms don't see things the same way. In Mistral, it was the military — sorry, the militia — that prolonged the conflict, and in Vale, guerilla fighting left the uniformed services entirely impotent."
Vacuo, of course, was … uniquely Vacuo.
"So, for those of you who came to Atlas from the other kingdoms, remember that," he continued. "To you, the military is a reminder of the Great War, but to Atlas, it's a symbol of law and order, as much a symbol of safety and protection as the Huntsmen and Huntresses you are all here to become. After all, in the end, we're all on the same side."
Again, Ciel felt a twisting in her gut.
One of the members of Team APDT — the one originally from Mistral, Peregrino "Summoner" Yù — raised his hand. "Sir, what will the role of the military be now that General Colton has returned? I heard that there was a prophecy about just such an event."
"Considering the military itself was shaped by the General," Professor Flint answered, "its role will likely remain largely unchanged. As for prophecy … Atlas isn't in the habit of changing policy based on prophecy."
Summoner's features creased slightly. "But the prophecy states that General Colton shall return in the hour of Atlas's great need. Is that not a reason for concern?"
Professor Flint looked at him curiously. "You don't think a shapeshifter nearly taking over the kingdom before trying to destroy the city was our darkest hour?"
"With all due respect, sir, when a blade is no longer needed, it is sheathed, or else deteriorates," elaborated Summoner. "General Colton is still here. Therefore, he is still needed."
It was at that moment that the timer for the class ran out, and a chime sounded.
"An interesting turn of questions, but it will have to wait for another time," announced Professor Flint. "Students, make sure to read archived news from at least five sources from the Deportation Crisis era tonight. It will give you a good perspective on how far we've come."
In a remarkable change from her usual pace, Ciel was storming out the door close to the front of the crowd. She had to get out of there, away from her past, away from those dark thoughts. They were illogical, they weren't right … but they were, and she couldn't run forever.
As Rufus "Mad Dog" Madison walked across the courtyard of Atlas Academy with Ciel "Farsight" Soleil, he considered how best to broach this sensitive topic. He also considered which sensitive topic to bring up. He was preferential to the silly feud she was having with Bladerider over … something. Finding out what it was about would be good too.
He considered what to do and decided that the direct approach was best.
"Farsight, why haven't you talked to Penny yet?"
The question seemed to take her off guard, judging by the sweep of her head that was slightly faster than normal.
"I cannot," Farsight answered. "The gulf that has come between us cannot be bridged, I fear."
"Not with an attitude like that you won't," he told her. "Listen, this has gotten out of hand. We hav—"
The words died on his lips as he caught sight of the woman who was stalking towards them with a laser-like focus. She was unmistakable: Robyn Hill.
She was a criminal and a politician, which were two strikes against her right there. Worse, she was someone who used her clout and connections as the latter to shield herself and her compatriots from the consequences of the former, having set herself up as Mantle's savior and entrancing the city's population to the point that they would forgive her any crime, making it politically expedient to "overlook" her felonious transgressions.
Anyone who put themselves above the laws, in his opinion, was exactly the sort of person who most needed to be bound by them. They were why laws existed, the ones laws were meant to protect everyone else from.
So what did she want with them?
"We should get out of here," he whispered to Farsight, even as he stepped around to place himself between the two with his back to the approaching councilor.
"Mad Dog, stay calm," Farsight told him, her eyes flashing with keen intent as they darted around before focusing on him again.
"I'm being plenty calm. We need to ge—"
"Well, if it isn't Ciel Soleil!" came the vexing voice of Robyn Hill. "The Hero of the Line!"
He cringed as Farsight slowly brushed him aside.
"Greetings, Councilor Hill," she began. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your presence?"
"The pleasure is all mine," the newly-elected councilor replied warmly.
You got that right, Rufus thought darkly.
"I just happened to be in the area and caught sight of you," Hill continued. "I know it's a bit belated, but I do want to thank you for your efforts at keeping the Grimm at bay during the incursion."
"Just doing my duty, ma'am."
"Don't give me that," Hill said, waving off the humble deflection. "You went above and beyond. I'd say that's one thing Gen— excuse me, Headmaster Ironwood and I agree on."
"As anyone would have in my situation," deflected Farsight.
"Maybe, but have you considered what it means for your neighbors?" asked Hill manipulatively — or at least Rufus thought it was nakedly manipulative. "You're the first Mantellian in a long time to finally be acknowledged for their accomplishments. You should be wearing your medals proudly, showing your fellow Mantellians that it's okay to be courageous while showing the Atlesians around you that the people of Mantle deserve respect."
"That's a pretty tribal way of looking at things," commented Rufus acidly.
Hill turned her uncomfortably smiling gaze upon him. "That's just the way the world is … I'm sorry. What was your name again?"
"Mad Dog," was the gruff reply.
"Of course," Hill answered with a shake of her head, still smiling. "What about you? Don't suppose they call you 'hero' in there."
"Farsight," was the blue-haired woman's answer.
"'Farsight'? I like it. Very forward-thinking," cooed Hill. "Still, I've got to admit that it really takes the fun out of things when everyone here already has a nickname."
"It is appropriately on-the-nose for those who know me," explained Farsight.
"I bet," allowed Hill. "Still, you get what I'm saying, right? You're bound to have had these Atlesians insult and attack you, and that's no good, but there are other Mantlites who suffer just the same but who don't have the courage to speak up. You could give them that courage."
"I … I'll consider it," relented Farsight.
"Hey, I'm not just making demands here," said Hill. "I'm doing my part too for Mantle, all the Sociale Arbeiter Partei, the Volconists, are. We've got new community centers opening up, and more people's police units are forming every week to keep the streets safe, and we're pushing for new transit lines, new schools, and more defense for the people of Mantle that we've had to do without for so long."
It was then that Hill whipped out a pamphlet and handed it over to Farsight. "Here, give it a read. It'll raise your spirits, if nothing else."
"Thank you," Farsight replied graciously.
"Don't worry about it," said Hill with a wave. "You take care now. I've got a whole list of things I still need to take care of. Catch you on the flip side."
With that, she turned and left.
"Can you believe that woman?" asked Mad Dog, his eyes on the back of Robyn Hill's head as she walked away. "What is she even here for? Probably going to demand Headmaster Ironwood move Atlas Academy back to the old crater, I bet."
"Hmm," was Farsight's simple reply as she started to flip through the pamphlet for the SAP that she had been given by the councilor.
Mad Dog twisted around to look at the brown-skinned woman whose rich blue eyes were mechanically moving from side to side as she read, and as he looked, confusion came upon him. "Can you believe that woman?"
Her eyes didn't leave the pages as she replied, "A new technical institute close to our home would help Tyson a great deal in his ambitions to become a mechanic, and a new transit system would help our neighbors commute to work."
Mad Dog put his hand on the pamphlet, forcing her to look up with one of her neutrally peeved expressions. "And redirecting the majority of the military to guard Mantle is going to leave us wide open for an attack by Cobra, which is just what she wants because she's one of their agents."
"That is quite an accusation," deadpanned Ciel.
"An— Come on, Farsight, Ciel, Miss Soleil, I told you all about this," Mad Dog reminded her, taking his hand off the pamphlet in the process. "The campaigns for the Volconist candidates, especially Robyn Hill, were backed by sizable donations from Extensive Enterprises and Arbco. Extensive Enterprises have had rumors of shady dealings swirling around the Undernet for years, and Arbco is literally an anagram for Cobra! Their logo is a snake, and their jingle is a song about it! Robyn Hill is clearly a puppet infiltrator that's going to destroy our defenses and leave us vulnerable."
Ciel raised an eyebrow. "Again, that is a very big accusation, but it is hardly plausible enough to be taken seriously without incontrovertible evidence."
"It's literally what happened just a few months ago, but in a snakeskin," countered Mad Dog.
"Just because it is possible does not mean it is plausible," retorted Ciel. "Companies make large donations to political campaigns all the time for reasons that are as varied as the people involved, and many names are anagrams for unsavory things. My given name is an anagram for 'lice.' Should you now check your scalp for my teeth marks?"
"I'm being serious, Farsight," insisted Mad Dog. "You should be as well, considering the stakes. You do know what those are, right?"
Ciel stared at him, her brow slightly knotted in what Mad Dog recognized as boiling fury. "During the Weltkrieg, my family on my mother's side were persecuted for their beliefs. They were driven from civilized society, had their land confiscated, imprisoned without cause, sold into slavery in foreign lands, and when there were no longer any more indignities that could be done to them in their native land, the Mad King disposed of them. My great grandfather's father was one of those people. They shaved and stripped him naked, packed him in with other believers of the Lady and other faiths onto a giant plate made of burn dust, and then set it off. My mother's great grandfather, and hundreds of others, were cremated alive in a giant oven, and the person who kept them there as the flames consumed them was my father's great grandfather. So yes, Mad Dog, I am very much aware of the dangers of blindly trusting in authority, and the dangers of someone who is unsuitable getting that authority."
She paused for a moment, and then turned away.
"Just because I care about the moral fabric of the kingdom and the people who live in it does not mean I am a tin soldier. Good day, Mad Dog," finished Ciel as she started to walk away.
Blinking in shock, 'Mad Dog' Madison finally came up with a reply. "Whoa! Whoa! Where did that come from?! A simple yes would have sufficed. Is this about what's going on between you and Bladerider?"
"Good day, Mad Dog," repeated Ciel as she picked up the pace a little.
Growling, Mad Dog brought his stiff hands up and raked them across his scalp in rage. "Am I taking crazy pills? One of Atlas' enemies has gotten a seat on the council, and no one cares!"
The clatter of wood rang through the air, and Penny bit back a flinch as the blocked sword strike drove the foot of her braced leg into the mat.
"Halt!" called out Aska, her team leader, as she stopped her follow up strike. "Don't block. We've been over this before; dodge or use a parry. Blocking is something fictioneers use because they are uncreative and stupid."
"They're called entertainers, Aska, and it is a valid profession," declared Penny defensively.
"In that there are people willing to pay them for it, yes," agreed Aska, "but we are to be Huntresses. Saving lives. That is our profession."
"Entertainers do the same thing," Penny argued. "In a roundabout way. They make people happy, and happy people attract less Grimm."
Aska's eyes, concealed by her sunglasses, looked at her consideringly for a long moment.
"Touché," she said. "You're getting better, but do remember that I'm Shadow while on the clock."
Penny nodded. "Got it."
Aska nodded in turn and continued walking to place her training sword on its stand. "Training's over. I'm Aska again."
There was a spike of heat, and Penny felt her brain module overheating, something that evidently appeared on her red face. "What?! Why…?" She exhaled and rubbed her forehead. "Why are we quitting early today?"
"I have an appointment today," Aska reminded her. "My new mother wants to get to know me and my brother better. I'm not sure why — our filecards should have been enough — but nonetheless, we shall make sure her review of Clan Ironwood is successful."
"'Clan Ironwood'?" asked Penny as she limped over to the stand herself.
"Yes," Aska confirmed, watching Penny put away her sword. "Are we not a clan as great as even the Arashikage? The greatest general of the modern age wedded to the greatest Huntress of her generation with their children of righteous darkness? Why should Aska Ironwood not be proud of her heritage?"
She'd heard it before, but in that moment, Penny felt that she couldn't hold back. "Aska 'Ironwood'? I'm sorry, but this is the third surname I've heard you have in the last year. Can't you just pick a name and stick to it? It's very confusing for the rest of us."
Aska frowned sternly. "Mad Dog and Ciel never have trouble remembering."
This time, a glower really did come to Penny's face. "Rufus is too polite to bring it up, and Ciel— Ciel's a darn robot! Of course she remembers; she's a passionless automaton with a computer for a brain."
Aska took off her sunglasses to reveal her blinking raw umber eyes. "Penny, you're a robot. You have a computer for a brain. For that matter, so does Thundercracker."
Penny tch-ed as she walked away. "That's different. We're people, we know how to enjoy the beauty of a good dance, we aren't simple calculators whose logic circuits explode at a simple belly roll. Stupid toaster can't even see that her alleged friend bares her stomach too. What? Does it not count if it's flabby and static?"
"That's uncalled for, Penny," objected Aska as she watched the redheaded gynoid angrily limp towards the door with no small amount of confusion.
Penny's head dropped slightly, her face no longer visible. "I'm sorry. I'll just get going and talk to Thundercracker. Maybe we'll work on a new combo attack or something. See you later, Sensei …"
"Just go with Shadow," offered Aska, to which Penny seemed to stiffen.
"Right. Bye, Sensei Shadow," replied Penny before leaving the dojo.
The black haired girl was left to stew in her own confusion alone. "That girl will never be a true ninja if she keeps being so unsubtle about her problems."
She considered the problem for a moment, and then snapped her fingers in realization. "That's it! I'll teach Mom and Dad ninjitsu! … Oh, and I'll ask them how to fix this team issue too."
The contents of Penny's stomach — more properly, her fuel extraction and processing bladder — did a little flip as Thundercracker dropped from the bottom of Atlas in his Skystriker alt-mode and then rapidly accelerated to gain enough speed to crest over the mountain to Mantle.
The gynoid's digestive tract equivalent was one of the most advanced energon production machines in the world, able to take nearly anything that she could fit in her mouth and turn it into the energon she needed to power herself. It was a great achievement and something she was truly grateful for, since it meant she could eat more than a glowing liquid diet, but there were times where she wished things were a bit more solid and a bit less unsettling. She could swear that she could hear the sloshing. She needed something to take her mind off it.
"Are you going to be alright, Thundercracker?" asked Penny suddenly. "In Mantle, I mean."
"I've been there before, and things didn't seem too bad," commented Thundercracker, his voice coming from the cockpit's speakers.
"They were afraid," reasoned Penny, her mind on other things, "but fear doesn't last forever. Soon it's replaced with anger and hatred and bigotry, and it doesn't matter how much effort you put into reassuring them because it just doesn't matter to them; all that matters is their stupid prejudices."
Thundercracker was silent for a full second before replying. "Penny, it's been astroseconds; have you tried talking to Farsight again?"
"What?! No!" denied Penny, pointedly ignoring what she had just been thinking about. "Thundercracker, we're talking about you right now. I don't want you to be hurt because you used to be a Decepticon. You deserve better than that."
"Oh, is that all?" asked Thundercracker. "In that case, I'll just drop you off at your dad's. Call me when you're ready to leave."
"Thanks, Thun—"
The floor suddenly dropped out from under her, and Penny found herself falling through the air towards the city of Mantle below.
"—DERCRACKER!"
As she plummeted through the sky above her hometown, Penny was struck by the sudden thought that this must have been what the Beacon students experienced when Professor Ozpin used his manapults to throw them into the Emerald Forest. It must have been quite the terrifying experience for them, but for Penny? Well, they didn't call her Bladerider for nothing.
The ten blades of Floating Array flew out of her backpack and snapped around in the air to come beneath her feet and interlock together into a surfboard of swords.
"Yahoo!"
Penny's cry of joy echoed all the way into the city streets, followed quickly by her laughter as she pitched and rolled like a leaf on the wind. Her heart was as light as a feather, and her smile was bright enough to light a thousand homes. In moments like this, in moments where the whole world was before her, she understood why her partner loved to fly so.
She brought the nose of Floating Array up and dove towards an artificial cloudbank to pull up at the last moment. Skimming against the manmade poofs of white, her swordboard dipped in at opportune moments to hew it apart. She was a dancer — and a fighter, though one sort of bled into the other, given how her weapon was controlled by body movements — but that didn't mean she was ignorant when it came to arts like sculpting.
Corkscrewing hither and thither, she surfed the clouds with the greatest of ease. This lasted for but a few seconds before she shot dramatically towards the ground and pulled up just before she hit the sidewalk. Floating Array disassembled itself from its swordboard form and collapsed into her backpack; dropping her feet lightly onto the concrete and to complete the motion, she took her collapsible cane off its leg holster and deployed it.
She turned and looked up to see her handiwork. The clouds had been shaped and formed, bent by her swordboard and skill into a fluffy sculpture of Friend Ruby's smiling face. It looked just about perfect.
"Nice wolf," complimented one of the bystanders who was looking up at the sky.
Wolf, Ruby, what was the difference? Was there really one? If there was, then this was just what some of her more painting-inclined classmates would call a happy little accident.
"Thanks!" replied Penny with a happy smile.
She had landed close to her and her father's home, and so it was a short walk on three legs to get to the clinic where they lived. This allowed her to take in the sights.
The rest of Mantle was just the same as it always was. Well, almost the same. There were a lot more posters and holograms of Councilor Hill everywhere, and while Penny could appreciate the enthusiasm, she found it a bit tacky to see the same five portraits of the woman on every wall. Still, the bird flags were a nice touch.
Then again … Penny paused, thinking back to Vale.
That Atlas was newer and flashier than Mantle made sense, since it had been built from the ground up just a few decades ago with the latest technology by necessity. Sednashaffen was better repaired because the Atlasmarine's primary shipyards were there, and they were rebuilding everything all the time anyways. Crystal City was cleaner because that was where the hoity-toity types sent their kids to get educated and the research departments sent their nerds to blow things up inside empty mineshafts. But Vale? Vale rather pointedly had none of those reasons, and yet was all of those things. If it had been like Mantle, it should have been a crumbling ruin, but it wasn't.
So what made Mantle, her home city, so different?
The door let out a chime when she came to finally enter the clinic, her home, or at least the ground floor.
"Salutations, Father! I have returned!"
From behind the desk on the side of the room, a dark-skinned man with a bushy gray beard looked up from behind his computer screen in confusion, and then a spark of joy went straight through him. "Penny? Penny!"
With the whirring of servo motors, her father, Pietro Polendina, came out from behind the desk on a chair supported by four insect-like mechanical legs. Why legs? Because wheels were for squares! At least, that was what her father always said before darkly mumbling something to the effect of "like pants."
"Come on, give your old man a hug," encouraged her father as he approached with a wave of his hands.
She gladly obliged, leaning over his mobility chair to give her father a one-armed hug and a chaste kiss to his forehead for extra love.
"Honey, what are you doing back in Mantle?" asked her father when they broke apart.
"Father, it's Friday evening," Penny informed him.
Her father blinked. "Really?" He tapped a button on the left arm of his chair, brought up a holographic screen, and used more buttons to shift through it until he brought up a calendar. "Huh. Well, I'll be. Still, you don't usually visit until tomorrow. Fortunate, though, considering the good … What's wrong?"
Penny's face fell. "I'm having problems with one of my teammates."
Her father's eyebrows furrowed, and his voice lost all of its usual joy. "What's that boy done?"
"What?!" exclaimed Penny. "No, Mad Dog's fine! I was talking about Ciel."
Her father blinked in shock. "…What? How is that even possible? Ciel treats you like the little sister she never had, and her family likes you almost as much as she does. Why in the world would you be having a problem with her?"
Penny started to do some slow mimic of pacing. "I invited her to one of my dance practices." She paused as she noticed the questioning expression beginning to form on her father's face. "The Bauchtanz one."
Her father nodded.
"She came in time for my dance, but she left partway through, and when I went to ask her what was wrong, she called my dance dangerous; she tried to get me to leave. I told her I wouldn't go and tried to explain how important it was to me. She wouldn't listen, and so I pointed out how she didn't have any room to talk because she hadn't lost anything like I had. She … I've never seen her that angry. I think she hates me now. She must; she hasn't talked to me since."
Her father had a hand to his chin in somber contemplation. "Do you hate her, Penny?"
"No," answered the redheaded gynoid. "I'm afraid, and— and angry! She won't accept what I do, but her best friend — apparently — is Neon Katt! That girl rolls around the battlefield with nothing covering her pizza dough chest but a double bra. She barely needs one! She's fine, but I'm being led into leading men into wickedness? Ciel is such a hypocrite!"
"So are you," her father said with a nod of the head.
"Dad!" objected Penny. "You're supposed to be on my side!"
"I am, Penny. Why wouldn't I be? After all, I'm your father," he pointed out. "However, being on your side sometimes means setting you straight when you're doing wrong. Now, let's go back a ways. You said that you told Ciel she hadn't lost anything?"
"I did," admitted Penny, "because it's true. At least … I thought it was, but I guess if she reacted so badly, then maybe she did lose someone?"
"More than one," father said with a sigh. "Do you remember when I had to go help with the Evacuation?"
Penny nodded. She did. The Merinterior Evacuation had been a grueling emergency around three years ago, when — without warning — a Grimm Tide had suddenly swarmed towards the Merinterior Sea, overrunning any settlements in the way. The Atlesian military had responded, of course, with troops and Specialists and air cruisers. And then they'd called in independent Huntsmen. And Atlas Academy students. And finally, even combat school students had been mobilized.
It had taken nearly a week before the Grimm Tide had died down.
Penny herself had missed it, largely because her body was not yet combat ready at the time. Father hadn't had a lot of time for her, so one of her late uncle's assistants, a teenager named Moondancer, had served as a sort of babysitter during that time. If nothing else, it meant that, unlike a lot of people who were wrapped up in the events of the time, all she cared about was trying to convince Moondancer to let her go outside, with little success.
A trip to the deserted rooftop had seemed like such a wondrous adventure back then.
"One of the things I did was serve as technical support on auto-docs used to help with the wounded," recounted her father as his eyes seemed to grow … distant. "There were so many. I've never seen bodies of so many sizes in such bad shape. Ciel, she was one of the worst, barely alive when they took her in. It was a miracle that she survived, a genuine miracle. It was like the thread she was hanging onto life with was held together by the gods themselves. The only reason she looks so good right now is because she got her medical treatment in Atlas."
"You never mentioned this before," pointed out Penny in a somber tone.
"It wasn't my place to mention it," explained her father. "Besides, I was just tech support. It wasn't like I was the guy who patched anyone up."
Penny processed that before giving her answer. "That still doesn't give her the right to deny me or anyone else our right to dance."
Before the conversation could continue, an alarm sounded.
"What's that?" asked Penny, her fingers twitching to call forth two swords of Floating Array from her backpack.
"Oh, that's the alarm I set to remind me to feed the betta fish," explained Father as he started to walk his chair towards the back.
"I can get it!" proclaimed Penny as she returned her armaments to her backpack and bolted through the door at the back of the clinic.
From there, it was a short few steps into the hall that divided up the various rooms. It had a great deal of technological flair but was still relatively stark in decorations. Stark, of course, didn't mean that they didn't have any at all.
Penny was skipping towards the door to the stairs when her eye caught one of the pictures on the wall. It was her father and … his siblings: his brother Japeth and his sister Rotola. They were her uncle and aunt, and they had both passed.
From what she had been told — not by her father, but by Moondancer — Penny had initially been the brainchild of Rotola, the sister, and she had poured her heart and soul into the project of creating an artificial intelligence capable of generating aura. Her brothers helped, of course, but she had been the driving force. Unfortunately, before the project could be completed, she fell to the family curse, a congenital disease that all three siblings had.
Pietro and Japeth continued on, vowing to finish her work. Then the curse got Japeth. Pietro was the only one left, and he was the one to finish Penny. He also adopted her, making him officially her father.
Penny always got confusing and funny feelings looking at the picture of Rotola, mostly down to the fact that the two of them looked exactly alike. In another world, another time, would they be mother and daughter? They certainly had the appearance of such. Should she go about calling her "mother" in this world, though they had never met?
Perhaps it was uncomfortable to look at because that smiling face which looked so much like her was a reminder that she would never have the time with her own father that so many other people enjoyed.
Quickly, Penny rushed out of the room and up the stairs towards her own personal room, running away from both the future and the past.
The problem was that when you avoided the past and the future, you were still left with the present.
When Penny came into her bedroom with all the force of someone with life nipping at her heels, the first thing she noticed was the copy of The Epistles that Ciel had given her after she had visited her home for the first time.
Her face … well, it didn't exactly burn, because her body didn't use blood and instead used energon as a blood analogue, but it still had quite a cross expression as she stomped across the room to the bookshelf with the full intention to throw Ciel's gift into the bin where it belonged. She stopped, however, as soon as she had the book in her hand after yanking it out by the spine. Put simply, as mad as she was, she knew that her father would be even madder if she mistreated a book.
So, instead of tossing Ciel's gift aside like she wanted to, she instead put it back into the bookshelf fore-edge out. Then she flipped around the books beside it so that it wouldn't be too obvious what was there. Penny had a good memory, and so she'd remember where everything was anyway, but she hoped her brain module didn't know that.
That finished, she looked around at the rest of the room. There was not a single point of free space to be had anywhere on the walls, which was in sharp contrast to the prevailing Atlesian styles. Two arching windows in one wall — with wrought iron bars with a twisting square cross-section to secure the room from unauthorized entry — allowed a striped pattern of light in from the outside; the opposite wall had a chest of drawers pushed up against it, on top of which sat a pair of aquariums housing some of her precious betta fish. Her bed was stuffed in a corner next to one window, opposite the door, with a faded poster of Pyrrha from her third tournament victory taped to the wall above its head. Crammed under the other window, at the foot of her bed, between the bed and her closet, was a small desk and computer terminal.
It was cramped and busy, and Aska had even commented that the lack of open space made her look like a poor person.
Well, she was from Mantle, and regardless of her student stipend, the rather substantial compensation her father received for his work, and the expansions of the Colton Walls, real estate was still at a premium in the old city. There just wasn't enough space, especially here in Oldtown, where some of the buildings — like the very one she called home — dated back to well before the Great War, having escaped the Mad King's "modernization" efforts. Their historical value limited what renovations and expansions were possible, even as the brutalist architecture that had displaced most of their brethren in the leadup to the Great War had been gleefully torn down around them.
The old-fashioned brick-and-mortar construction, the way each pane of glass in the window had thickened at the bottom, the smell of old wood and varnish, even the inconveniently-placed outlets and remnants of obsolete infrastructure ... it all gave the building a sense of age — of history — that Penny appreciated.
Her time would come. In the future. She was the future, in a very real sense. But the past informed the future. The past informed her. The Mistrali understood that in a way that, perhaps, most Atlesians, always chasing the future, didn't. Even most of her fellow Mantellians, who did look at the past, were seemingly stuck in the past, trying to bring it back instead of applying the lessons learned to forge the future.
She had never been to Mistral, but she wanted to. More than any other place in the universe, she wanted to go to Mistral. She wanted to witness the sand of the gladiatorial arenas kicked up, she wanted to feel her spirit lifted by the dancers of the theater, she wanted to see with her own eyes a land which played host to every type of environment across its vastness and played host to a people who were just as diverse.
Mistral, it seemed, had it all … except betta fish, which were native to Southern Sanus.
Cybertron was a close second, of course. She'd heard so much about it from Thundercracker, the Celestial Spires of Iacon, the great factories of the Tagan Heights, the Jekka Amphitheater of Tyrex, all part of a world that was ancient and steeped in history long before the earliest memories of Remnant ... but Mistral seemed more real. And though she'd never asked, she got the impression that many of Thundercracker's reminiscences were of a Cybertron already gone, long since ravaged by a war on a scale she still had trouble comprehending.
If she ever did go to Cybertron, she was half-afraid what she would find.
All of which were thoughts that flittered at the back of her mind as she went through the process of checking on her beloved fish in their two twenty-gallon heated aquariums. There were, of course, her prized betta fish, Jerry and Reginald, but since male betta fish had a disturbing habit of trying to kill each other in single combat like two Mistrali in a love triangle — she loved the culture, but unlike Aska, she was more than willing to acknowledge the flaws, and the occasional duel to the death over a lover's quarrel definitely qualified as a flaw — she kept them in different tanks. Of course, just because the betta fish had to be kept separate didn't mean that there couldn't be other tropical freshwater fish in the tanks as well.
"Salutations!" Penny greeted her fish. "I hope you're having a good time, everyone. I know that school keeps me away, but this time, I managed to get back in time for feeding, and you know what that means."
The ginger gynoid opened the refrigeration unit beneath the fish tanks and retrieved a cheerfully labeled can.
"Brine krill!"
She always liked to put a little pep into those announcements, and the fish seemed to like it, for when the dust-like food began to rain down into the water, they went all over themselves with joy.
"I love you guys," Penny whispered to them.
As she went about double-checking the temperature, the pH readings, and all manner of other life support factors, the back of her mind processed what to do next. She was tempted to go about checking her wardrobe or to do any of the other things she normally did when she was still living regularly at her home. However, somehow, she knew that by framing it as a temptation, she had already conceded that it was something she should not do.
"Stupid Ciel logic," groused Penny even as she, contemptuously, went about what she knew she must do and continue visiting with her father.
Her betta fish and friends were "green across the board," as Mad Dog sometimes said. It was a great comfort, but also not entirely unexpected. Compared to people, fish were amazingly easy to read and take care of. With her betta fish, Penny never had to worry about waking up one day to find out that Jerry secretly thought that she was a lady of the night, like her dad hadn't ever taught her better.
As she was walking back into the entrance, figuring that she would find her parental unit there, she heard a familiar voice besides her father talking.
"—I'll just start putting these away in the back."
Penny entered the lobby with all due flourish to find that, besides her darling father, there was also present Florentin Soleil, the nice young boy with swept back gun-blue hair who was almost as tall as Penny herself and had the out-of-place build of a Mistrali gladiator stuffed into a business casual dress shirt and slacks.
"Salutations!" she cheered, launching herself from the doorway to tackle the boy, wrapping her arms around him. Behind her, her abandoned cane clattered to the ground unceremoniously. "It is wonderful to see you again, Friend Florentin!"
"Oh, um, h-hi, Penny," he stammered, jerking his arms back and forth a bit before hugging her back stiffly. "It's, uh, it's good to see you again too."
She peered at him curiously, her optics scanning his face. "Are you well? You appear flushed, and your body temperature is slightly elevated."
His eyes darted around wildly for a moment before settling back on meeting her gaze, and he said, "I, um, did just carry a bunch of prosthetics from the end of the district."
Penny pulled back slightly, though still leaning on him to avoid putting pressure on her left leg. "The end of the district? That's where Marcie's Veterinary is, isn't it?"
Florentin nodded. "That's right. They had a bunch of parts for human cybernetics, and we-you-Mister Polendina had animal prosthetics, so we decided to trade."
Father's chair walked on over to them after a slight detour, with him having picked up her cane along the way. "It just made sense. Those prosthetics taking up space, and Marcie just got shipped a bunch of parts that she doesn't know what to do with. Making the trade was just … logical."
Penny gladly accepted the cane from her father and hopped away from Florentin. "We really need to get a better delivery service for our medical supplies."
"I've told you, Penny, we can't," her father said kindly, sadly. "It's a government-enforced monopoly. Coal Connections is literally the only people we can buy from. No one else can meet the stringent production quality regulations."
"But they're just so terrible," complained Penny. "They're always getting your orders wrong, they have terrible customer service, and the only good thing about them is that they're not actually related to Aska's boyfriend."
"Aska has a boyfriend?" asked Florentien in bewilderment. "Still has a boyfriend, I mean?"
"He hasn't run away yet," answered Penny cheerfully. "Now, what did the vet give us?"
"Oh!" Florentin exclaimed as he walked over to a nearby crate on a hoversled. "Mostly myomer bundles and steel skeletal supports, but we also got some plating and the new L5 neural connectivity implants."
"Really?" chirped Penny. "That's incredible! Do they have any notes about how they work? I've heard that they don't require any additional surgery, and they will be able to latch right on to the severed nerves."
"That's right!" confirmed Florentin in excitement. "I got a look at one of the manuals while I was loading them up. They're supposed to use a self-activating artificial protein to stimulate neural regeneration, which makes those new organic neurons connect with the artificial neurons in the implant."
"Goodness!" exclaimed Penny. "If they can do that, then why not just regenerate the entire limb?"
In her studies of medicine, Penny found that to be one of the most vexing problems. Human beings just couldn't regenerate lost limbs. Now, some faunus could regenerate limbs, just like some animals could, but figuring that out for working with humans was another matter entirely. The answer probably lay in genetics, but … well, Mountain Glenn hadn't exactly helped the funding issues the field always had.
"It's not exactly hypoallergenic," lamented Florentin. "Not to mention some of the other problems the manufacturer isn't advertising. We should probably read the manual thoroughly before doing anything with them."
The eyes on Penny's father shot open at that. "Oh no. I forgot to get that bread they stopped advertising when I was at the store earlier today. If I don't leave … sorry about this. Penny, Florentin, can you hold down the fort?"
Florentin shook his head. "No need, sir, I can get it for you. It's the one with brussel sprouts, right?"
"That's right," confirmed Father. "Thank you, Florentin; you're a godsend."
"No problem, sir," said Florentin with a cheer as he ran towards the door. He was already getting flushed again when he turned back for but a moment. "I'll be back soon, Penny!"
He really needed to take better care of himself.
"Be careful, Friend Florentin!" Penny yelled after him as he left the building with a great deal of speed.
Her father looked fondly out the door, and then at Penny. "He really likes you, but I'm sure you already knew that."
"Of course," confirmed Penny with a nod. "Why wouldn't he, after all? I've always treated him like a friend, and been friendly with his family too. Why wouldn't he consider me a friend in turn? Except maybe that I'm the boss's daughter, which gets into questions of fraternization that are above my pay grade."
That was a turn of phrase she'd heard a few times in the Soleil household, when she had been over at least.
"That's not what I mean," her father told her. "I mean he like-likes you. Fancies you, really. Romantically."
Penny stared at her father in confusion, and then laughed. Slowly at first, and then with mounting enthusiasm, she laughed.
"Oh, Father!" she cried. "You really are funny! Florentin doesn't feel that way at all. He's … he's Florentin."
Her father adjusted his glasses in his own tic of confusion. "Are you sure about that?"
Penny's laughter died down, though she was still clearly amused. "Father, I'm quite certain his identity is not in doubt."
"I mean, are you sure that he doesn't have romantic feelings for you?"
"Father! Don't be absurd! Florentin is just a friend. He knows that, I know that. The only people who don't know that are you and … and Ciel!" ranted Penny, growing quite upset in the process.
"Penny, think about this scientifically. How does he act around you?" asked her father calmly.
The redhead shook her noggin. "Well, quite flustered as of late, but that doesn't mean anything. Just because he's been nervous around me, and blushes whenever I get close, and w… Oh."
It was then that the wind seemed to be stripped from Penny's sails.
"Oh. He, uh, he really does like me in that way, doesn't he?"
"He's totally smitten with you," confirmed her father with a smile.
"But I … Oh no. Oh no. Oh no," repeated Penny with growing worry. "Father, I don't feel that way about him at all! He's a friend, nothing more. He's your employee. He's so very very young. He … he probably finds me physically attractive, doesn't he?"
Her father nodded.
Penny staggered over to a chair, where she collapsed into it and brought her hands up to cup her face. "Ciel was right. I … Ciel was right."
"About what, honey?" asked her father, and somehow, Penny knew that he already had the answer.
"She told me that my Bauchtanz could entice young men to think things that are most improper," she revealed sadly. "I didn't want to believe her, but if Florentin were to see one of my performances … How am I supposed to tell Florentin that I'm not interested? He's my friend. I don't want to break his heart like how my heart was broken with Sun, who … who was also my friend, my friend who I haven't talked to in months because I made a fool of myself when I didn't realize that he had already given his heart to another."
She revealed her face and heavy eyes to her father then.
"How do I make this right, Father?"
He answered in a somber tone. "Carefully, and with a great deal of thought."
Penny nodded. "Right. I should go then, so I'm not here when Florentin comes back."
"That sounds like a wise move, at least for now," her father allowed. "Stay safe, honey."
"Stay safe, Father," said Penny as she got up and limped away.
"I wonder what Thundercracker's up to?" asked Penny aloud as she exited the clinic. "Whatever it is, it's got to be easier than this."
Thundercracker roared through the sky on giant contrails of flame as burning hot energon was pushed through his jet engines at blinding speeds.
Come on, screamed Thundercracker in his mind. "Come on!"
His alt-mode's wings — now scrubbed of the Deceptibrands that he had worn for so long; he was still undecided what to replace them with — were swept back as far as they could go, his altitude was so high there was barely any air resistance, and even with every bit of force being extracted from the physics of his engines, it still wasn't enough.
"Mayday! Mayday! This is Convoy 4-12-756. We are under attack by Grimm and are unlikely to survive. Mayday! Mayday!"
No! Not on his watch! He wouldn't allow it!
He bent his elevators down and dove towards the ground. The altimeter was spinning, and his speedometer was rising. He could feel it now. Faster! Faster! With gravity helping, he eked more speed out of his body.
It still wasn't enough, though, so his blasters spun around, and loaded a special chambering. With a mighty BOOM! they fired off gravity rounds to accelerate even faster. Boosted by recoil, he fired again and again.
He could see it now, the flashes of light from the escorts as they fired on the convoy's attackers. Big black beasts circled them, dove upon them, struck them. There should have been more resistance, but there wasn't. They had struck hard, struck fast, and struck with surprise. Without help, the convoy would die.
Not today. Today, the convoy did have help.
Thundercracker's two blasters swung around, and he fired off pulses of fire to rake the winged demons' largest formations. They shrieked. They howled. They felt his wrath as they were split apart by beams of ancient energy powered by the blood of Primus himself.
They scattered, just as planned, and in response, Thundercracker pulled up hard. He slowed, he slowed remarkably quickly, and the wings came out. He could feel his body groaning, but he'd braked enough that he wouldn't overshoot the targets.
No, he wouldn't overshoot them at all. His aim would be true.
A Tyrex of bigly proportions was tearing into the hull of one of the escorts, wires and metal in its claws. It should have run, but the kill was too close for it to resist. The kill was the fire from the .80 rotary autocannon in the nose of Thundercracker's alt-mode, and the mix of armor-piercing and high explosive-incendiary ammunition that came with it.
The terrible Grimm roared for the split second before it was torn in two at the neck. Its fellows cried in surprise and turned towards Thundercracker with hate and rage, just as planned. They took flight, allowing the remaining turrets on the convoy's escorts and the transport airships themselves to open up.
Thundercracker twisted and turned, his three guns raking through the Grimm formations even as he dodged fire from the stricken airships. Caught in a crossfire, there was no escape. The fiends were turned to ash with a modicum of effort.
A terrible screech raced through the air, and Thundercracker turned to see, coming out from behind a mountain, the titanic form of a Heavy Giant Nevermore. The huge armored Grimm seemed tailor made for cutting through escorts like the damaged vessels trying to maneuver well enough to protect the convoy. Alongside it were flying a pair of the smaller and much more lightly armored Giant Nevermores, along with a whole murder of their tiny counterparts.
I'm going to need a bigger gun, reflected Thundercracker briefly.
Suddenly, four of the smaller Nevermores exploded as their flight paths were intersected by bright red lasers. Then another four, and another! All of them were coming in from several kilometers distant, along with a fusillade of supersonic missiles that exploded into black holes and lightning cyclones and even clouds of shrapnel.
"Thundercracker, Tapfer actual. Please stand clear of Grimm formation during bombardment."
The voice was cool and calm, coming from a division of four Skylord-class air cruisers. They had been closing in on the convoy since before Thundercracker had left Mantle air space, and it looked like they had finally caught up. They had also, sadly, aimed for the wrong target.
The Heavy Giant Nevermore had turned towards the oncoming ships, one of the Giant Nevermore escorts sacrificing itself to take a hit that had been meant for the big guy. Then, angled as such towards the soldiers of light, it thusly deflected coherent light and self-propelled projectiles off its heavily armored front … its armored front.
"Tapfer, Thundercracker. Be advised, I am commencing an attack run on the Heavy Giant Nevermore's rear."
His alt-mode pitched and rolled to bring it into line with the unarmored rump of the enormous fake bird, even as weapons fire continued to slam into the bony white plates that made up most of the leading edge of its wings and body.
"Negative, Thundercracker. We have Skystrikers inbound to flank. Break off your attack now."
From below came a frightful shriek, and a Giant Nevermore let loose a storm of its feathers as projectiles. In reply, Thundercracker lived up to his name, transforming into his robot form and clapping his hands together to create a booming shockwave that sent the feathers spinning away. It hardly deterred the Grimm that had fired them though, and the unholy black bird rushed up to strike him.
So it was then that Thundercracker drew the cannons from his arms and activated the ax function, driving them into the Nevermore's wings as it passed within striking distance. It was, in technical terms, a close shave. Too far, and he'd miss the mark completely; too close, and he'd be the world's biggest fly on a windshield. Luckily, he hadn't survived ten million years by being unskilled or unlucky.
THUMP!
He was on! Twin axes were buried deep into the flesh-analogue of the Heavy Giant Nevermore, holding him fast along with the feet that Thundercracker quickly dug into the vile feathers of the dark beast. Just in time did he do this too, for no sooner had he found his footing than did the massive wing he was on flap.
He held on for dear life, twisting the axes deeper into his foe as he was swung hundreds of feet down and then up, and then down again. Twice this happened before it returned to its level glide.
Thundercracker had to move quickly. Not only was he at risk of being flung away into the sky, but the deadly feathers that were so often used as projectiles were digging into his aura with annoying effect. So it was that he swung one ax over the other like an ice climber to move along the wing.
Another flap came, and once more, Thundercracker had to hold fast. For just one terrifying moment, however, he felt his feet leave the wing. A quick firing of his thrusters fixed that, though, and he was once more in position.
Here should be a good spot, thought Thundercracker part-way down the wing as he drove both axes into the wing and wrenched them apart, splitting open the wing and leaving space enough for him to fire off two of his drone bombs into the black flesh facsimile beneath.
With that, he let go, and as he tumbled through the air, he transformed back into his Skystriker alt-mode. A thought, an electric impulse, and then the transmission.
A pair of thunderous booms came out from the dark hole that he had dug in the wing, tearing it apart. The armored edge had survived, the tip and the root had survived, but it wasn't enough. With the loss of so much of its lift generating capacity, the Heavy Giant Nevermore flapped its wings in a panic, even as it tumbled to the ground.
It impacted off the surface of a mountain far below in a tangle of rocks and snow dust, disappearing into the cloud it created.
In the now friendly skies, Thundercracker felt himself giving the equivalent of a sigh of relief. Scanners were coming up green. The cheering over the radio probably helped too.
"Wahooooo! This is Convoy 4-12-756. Thundercracker, that was some of the greatest flying we've ever seen. Thank you! We'll be forwarding you a big commission for this."
"Think nothing of it, Convoy 4-12-756," replied Thundercracker easily. "This is what I signed up for, after all."
Another transmission came in, and this one was of quite a different sort.
"Thundercracker, Tapfer Actual. The hell were you just doing, Cadet?! The situation was under control, and your presence threw off the whole operation. You're not even authorized for solo missions!"
"Tapfer Actual, Thundercracker. I don't see the issue here. The Grimm were attacking, and I attacked back."
"The issue is that—"
"Tapfer, this is Headmaster Ironwood," came a new voice over the line. "Sorry about the mixup. Thundercracker here is authorized to go on excursions and even has a student license to go with it."
"Headmaster, do you have any idea what you just said?" asked the captain of the Tapfer, their voice growing cold again. "You've given an alien invader a Huntsman license."
"Gary, come on. You just saw what Thundercracker was willing and able to do, and it wasn't the actions of an enemy agent," protested Headmaster Ironwood. "Besides, his paperwork for defection is all in order."
"…Well, I suppose if their paperwork is in order, then that's all that's needed from the perspective of a Valish conspirator. Tapfer out."
Thundercracker hated when these sorts of situations arose. It was slightly different in context, but he had seen all of that before. He was just lucky that unlike the Decepticons or Mistrali, the Atlesians weren't ones to settle their disputes with violence.
"Sir, I—"
"Don't worry about it, Thundercracker. Your work was exemplary today. The convoy leader you saved is already trying to forward payment."
"Things went as well as they could have there," admitted Thundercracker, "but I'm worried about you. I don't want to bring further trouble for you."
"Don't worry about it," he admonished. "Captain Reinhold is just upset. He's hardly the only one."
"It isn't right, sir," protested Thundercracker.
"That will be all, Thundercracker," chastised Headmaster Ironwood. "Just … enjoy the rest of your weekend."
"Yes, sir," acknowledged Thundercracker, keeping his thoughts to himself.
The only thing worse than joining an organization you believed in on its deathbed was everyone knowing that it is so but not acknowledging it, or how easily it could be saved.
The former Decepticon mentally shook the gloomy thoughts off and angled upwards. Nothing cleared his head like flying, after all — the higher and faster, the better — and it was among the first things he'd done upon waking up on Remnant. He aimed for the sky, indulging in the feeling of the jetstream buffeting past him as the air thinned—
—Thundercracker's senses snapped to alertness, and he realized he was in a ballistic arc heading for a low mountain. Firing his thrusters and pulling his flaps up as far as he could, he pulled up hard and banked to skim past the mountaintop.
What had just happened?
Jet "Maverick" Set adjusted his tie slightly as they entered the offices of the Councilor for the Kingdom of Atlas. He tried not to show it, but he was a little nervous. After all, their dress uniforms might have been immaculate, and they might have scheduled ahead, but they were still going to a meeting with one of the six most powerful people in the world.
"Relax, we've been here before and will be here again," whispered his wife into his ear.
Maverick — he preferred that name; it was much more fitting to who he wanted to be — looked ahead to the backs of the other two members of his team, and then turned his head to his wife's smiling features. "Really? We've been to the Councilor's offices before?"
"No," she admitted with an ever so slight smirk, "but we have had breakfast with Lady Belladonna and her daughter."
That was true, Maverick realized. The six most powerful people in the world were, in order: Joseph Colton, Ghira Belladonna, James Ironwood, Robyn Hill, Gilda Swiftwing, and Starlight Glimmer. They'd already broken bread with the wife of the second most powerful person on that list, so what was a little meeting with the second least powerful? Nothing to get excited over, surely.
"You're right," conceded Maverick. "Just another day. I mean, what are they going to do, throw us out?"
"That's right."
Sour "Sakura" Sweet's palm came down on the desk with a loud "thwack!" "But we have an appointment!"
The woman behind the reception desk — a pale, gray-eyed faunus with red hair and giant black spider legs coming up from her torso — continued to look at them with that same plastic expression she had worn since they had come into the building. "And it's been canceled because of an urgent event that needs the councilor's full attention. You will have to resubmit your application to request a scheduling of an appointment at home using our convenient new online scheduler for requesting permission to schedule an appointment at one of our convenient new in-person scheduling offices."
Instantly, Sakura's fury morphed into an appreciative and enthralled expression. "Oh wow! You've really got the bureaucratic runaround down pat. I've got to hand it to you, genuinely, especially in regards to the redundant offices to repeat the same processes over and over again. However, I think that you could make the train longer if you introduced a variety of side-routes. Right now it's just a straight line, but if you introduce some needless complexity to the matter, it will keep people guessing, and thus extend the length of the process. Perhaps you could even put it all in the same building that has people going up and down ten flights of stairs during the process."
The receptionist blinked three times. "Are you well, ma'am?"
"Eh, this is normal for her," replied Lemon "Reverb" Zest with a shrug.
Maverick took note of a group exiting into the lobby and caught sight of the main woman herself, Gilda Swiftwing.
"Ma'am! Excuse me, ma'am!" he called out.
The whole room's eyes were drawn to him.
One of the bigger bodyguards was quite perturbed, his pointer-esque ears standing in place. "You dare?!"
Councilor Swiftwing held up a flat hand. "Jim, don't be so much of a stereotype. You, who are you?"
Sakura straightened up. "Ma'am, we're Team Scarlet; we called ahead for an appointment about now."
"We all voted for you," said Seal sheepishly.
"We're friends of Twilight Sparkle, if that narrows it down at all," offered Reverb.
Councilor Swiftwing tensed up at that. "And I suppose you think that makes us friends too?"
The whole of Team SSCL looked at each other in confusion.
"Uh, no?" asked Sakura, her bafflement continuing to show through. "Why would it?"
Instantly, Councilor Swiftwing's mood did a one hundred and eighty degree turn, and she snapped her fingers and pointed at the Atlesian team. "You four. I like you. Let's have that meeting."
Swiftwing turned back into the corridor, one of her aides protesting along the way.
"But Councilor, you have another meeting that is very urg—"
"Tell them I'll be late," shot back Swiftwing as she gestured for Team Scarlet to follow.
Follow they did, swiftly marching along behind the councilor as she very quickly led them up a flight of stairs and to an office. Her office, presumably.
"So, what seems to be the issue?" asked Swiftwing as she settled herself on the far side of the office's desk. Her chair had a very low back, giving her broad, feathered wings freedom to spread out comfortably.
Sakura was the first to answer. "Ma'am, we think the principal of Crystal Preparatory Combat Academy has been replaced with a duplicate."
Swiftwing raised an eyebrow. "That's a pretty big claim."
"But an entirely reasonable one, given the events during the Vytal Festival," broke in Maverick.
"Point," allowed Swiftwing. "All right, so what makes you think that this person has been replaced with a shapeshifter?"
Reverb brought out her scroll — a top of the line model with a true 3D hologram projector — and began to display relevant information as she spoke. "About three years ago, Principal Abacus Cinch underwent a radical personality and policy shift. You can see six photos here; one's from when she graduated Crystal Prep, the next is when she joined the military, and this one is when she retired as a Brigadegeneral. The last three are from when she was a principal, and there's no change except for the last one in the sequence. The photo previous was taken just before the last one."
It took a moment for Swiftwing to pick out what was wrong, and even then, she cocked her head to the side in obvious confusion. "She's … smiling? That's an issue?"
"Of course it is!" piped up Seal. "She never smiled in photographs before. Never! And that's not all; she also banned fighting in the halls."
"That's a bad thing?" Swiftwing asked in still greater confusion.
Sakura frowned. "You sound like the Canterlotians. We tried to tell them about this, and they didn't care. No evidence we brought to them of how wrong things were was enough; they were just happy that Cinch was acting like them now."
Again, something in Swiftwing's expression changed and became … regretful?
"I'm sorry," replied Swiftwing, shifting in her seat. "I shouldn't have done that. I'm new at this, but that's no excuse. I know what it's like to fight for years and years on something and for no one to listen to you, and it doesn't feel very good. You want someone to look into this? Give me a copy of your findings, and I will look into this, and I'll make sure the government and military does too."
Team Scarlet glanced at each other once more.
"That's about all we could hope for," revealed Sakura, who placed a small drive on the desk and moved to get up, something the rest of the team mimicked. "Thank you for your time, ma'am."
"Who are you?" asked Swiftwing suddenly, her gaze fixed on Reverb. "Sit down. You don't need to go right now."
They snapped to attention. "Lemon Zest, callsign Reverb; second in command of Team Scarlet, Atlas Academy."
"Sour Sweet, callsign Sakura; captain of Team Scarlet, Atlas Academy; genin rank."
"Jet Set, callsign Maverick; Team Scarlet, Atlas Academy; husband of Upper Crust."
"Upper Crust, callsign Seal; Team Scarlet, Atlas Academy; wife of Jet Set."
Swiftwing's eyes moved over all of them, and again settled on Reverb. "You are all very wealthy people. Zest Mining was one of the biggest contributors to my campaign. Why didn't any of you mention this?"
"Should we have?" asked Upper Crust.
Swiftwing waved them down. "If you had, we wouldn't be talking right now. So I guess how right it was depends on your schedule, because right now, I could use an excuse to get away from all this Council business for a while."
"I don't think we're that interesting," commented Sakura. "We've barely been involved in any conspiracies, and we haven't even threatened ourselves while dressed as each other."
"Pffft, big deal! Everyone's done that these days," replied Swiftwing dismissively. "What I care about is why you all voted for me."
Upper was the first to answer. "Well, you're the first person in government to actually listen to us, so I'd say that's a good enough reason."
"That's why you like me now, not why you voted for me," pointed out Gilda.
Reverb shrugged. "Crystal City's been trying to get a real voice on the Council for decades, and you looked like you had a real shot at winning; sometimes, you just need to roll the hard six."
The councilor studied them searchingly, then gave a short nod at whatever she saw. "I see. Well, I don't know how much I can accomplish — I only hold one seat, and the other four are pretty solidly from the Twin Cities — but I'll try to live up to the trust you've placed in me."
"Some would say that you're already doing better than your predecessor by not being a White Fang infiltrator," joked Seal with an awkward laugh. "But not me, because that would be falling into the stereotype."
"Of?" asked Swiftwing with a raised eyebrow.
"Oh, um—"
Maverick interrupted his wife with an arm around her. "My wife's from Low Town. That's not going to be a problem, is it?"
That was, in his considered opinion, a valid question. For all that they seemed like two different cities, Low Town was still legally a part of the city of Atlas. A small and poor part, granted, denied the rarified heights — both literally and figuratively — of the city proper, but as such, they were still entitled to vote for the Atlas seat as well as the kingdom seat. They were also entitled to the respect of neither, and they didn't get any either. The lone bright spot in the position of a Low Towner was that at least they weren't from Mantle.
Swiftwing shook her head. "Not at all. Like I said, I know what it's like to be the underdog. There's a meeting with city leaders coming up soon, and I'm going to make sure it takes place in Low Town and that we have a town hall with the people after."
Seal seemed taken aback. "Ma'am, you don't have to do that."
"Yes, I do," replied Swiftwing. "Don't think I don't know your type, Seal, and don't think I don't know what causes it either. That you or anyone else should feel so ashamed with coming from down below that they should hide their true selves, that you could even stand to live in a society that would make you like that, is unacceptable. This is Atlas, the kingdom of the future. We're supposed to be better than that."
"Can we be?" Sakura asked. "When we've fallen so far and been running scared ever since the Chrysalis incident? A lot of people think hope is gone, and there's nothing left but to toss the table over and grab whatever the Grimm don't eat off the floor."
Swiftwing reached out her hands, palms up, across the desk towards them. "Hey, do I still have a pulse?"
With slight confusion, Reverb reached over and put her fingers to one of the councilor's wrists. "Yes?"
"Then this fight ain't over yet," summed up Swiftwing as she pulled her hands back. "Things are looking bad out there, yes, but…" She paused and looked thoughtful. "I don't believe, despite all this, that the people of Atlas — of Solitas — have really lost their faith in the ideals we strive for or the qualities which make this a great kingdom. Not a bit of it. We're still the same people. All that has happened is that we have temporarily lost confidence in our own strength. We've lost sight of the banners. The trumpets have given an uncertain sound. It's our duty, our purpose, to raise those banners high, so that all can see them, to sound the trumpets clearly and boldly so that all can hear them, to remind the people of this kingdom that Atlas will always be Atlas."
Maverick felt buoyed by the councilor's words, and judging from her expression, so did Sakura.
"Thank you, Councilor," Sakura said gratefully. "You have no idea how much of a relief it is to know someone on the Council's fighting for us."
"Listen," the councilor said, glancing at the scroll on her desk, "I'm afraid I do have other business to attend to today, but if you have any further concerns, please, feel free to contact my office."
"Of course, Councilor," Sakura said as the team rose to their feet at the obvious dismissal, then turned to leave.
Gilda watched the door shut behind her guests, and after a long minute, her aide spoke up.
"Do you really believe all of that?"
"No," Gilda admitted. "But I'd like to." She shook her head and met her aide's gaze. "I need you to check in with the Vale and Mistral chapters. See if they have any information on this."
"Yes, ma'am," her aide replied. "And if they don't?"
"In that case, we'll just have to go investigate ourselves."
"Yes, ma'am." Her aide hesitated. "Do you really think...?"
"That it's Chrysalis again?" finished Gilda. She shook her head. "No. You joined after she started her last scheme, so you wouldn't know, but that shapeshifting trick of hers is actually her semblance, and there's an overlap in the time frame. For her to pull this off, she'd have to either be in two places at once or have some way of copying her semblance to someone else. I'm not ruling it out, but where would she find something like that?"
Starlight Glimmer, newly-elected Councilor of the City of Atlas, sneezed.
She shook her head and rubbed her nose, then turned to the young woman across the table from her.
"I'm sorry. Please continue."
Penny smiled as she finished the tour that the dance instructor, Heidi, had given her of the facility. It was grand. She'd practiced so much on her own, but now, she had a chance to learn from a professional. Well … okay, she learned from professionals at the academy all the time, but the number of dances taught there was quite limited. She wanted to stretch her wings and soar with all the exotic beauty the human body was capable of.
"So, you want to start with Bauchtanz?" asked Heidi.
"Ab-so-lutely!" confirmed Penny with an enthusiastic nod, her eyes flipping to where several other students were practicing just such a thing. "I'm just worried that my—"
"I've already told you, Penny, you shouldn't worry," interrupted Heidi in a comforting tone. "You're not the first person to have such problems and sought improvement through dance. And it's not just me and the other instructors, because even some of the students are adept at helping others."
"Oh, really?" asked Penny in joy. Things really were looking up.
Heidi nodded. "That's right. In fact, why don't I introduce you to one of them now? Sour Sweet!"
At that name, one of the women who had been practicing belly rolls stopped and quickly came over to them. Penny recognized her as Sakura, the leader of one of the best teams in Atlas's third year, particularly in the ninja course. It was definitely a surprise to see her there.
"Hey teach, what do you need?" asked Sakura, who also nodded at Penny. "Hey, Bladerider, how's it hanging? Leg still giving you problems?"
"Salutations, Sakura-senpai," Penny greeted with a smile that fell all too quickly, "and yes, unfortunately. No matter what anyone does, my left leg just refuses to work as it should."
"I'm sorry to hear that. It's always tough dealing with injuries, and even tougher dealing with it when it's all in your head. Believe me, I know that hard truth through experience," replied Sakura somberly with closed eyes and a nod.
"Sour Sweet, would you be willing to help her while she attends classes here?" asked Heidi matronly.
"Of course! She's already dropped the senpai bomb on me, so how could I not?" Sakura replied jovially.
"Really? Oh, that's just fantastic— whoa!" Penny shouted as she fell to the floor. When she hit, her head whipped around to find Sakura behind her and holding her cane. "Hey!"
Sakura's smile looked infuriatingly innocent. "I'm helping."
"So, you want to start with Bauchtanz?" asked Heidi.
"Ab-so-lutely!" confirmed Penny with an enthusiastic nod, her eyes flipping to where several other students were practicing just such a thing. "I'm just worried that my—"
"I've already told you, Penny, you shouldn't worry," interrupted Heidi in a comforting tone. "You're not the first person to have such problems and sought improvement through dance. And it's not just me and the other instructors, because even some of the students are adept at helping others."
"Oh, really?" asked Penny in joy. Things really were looking up.
Heidi nodded. "That's right. In fact, why don't I introduce you to one of them now? Sour Sweet!"
At that name, one of the women who had been practicing belly rolls stopped and quickly came over to them. Penny recognized her as Sakura, the leader of one of the best teams in Atlas's third year, particularly in the ninja course. It was definitely a surprise to see her there.
"Hey teach, what do you need?" asked Sakura, who also nodded at Penny. "Hey, Bladerider, how's it hanging? Leg still giving you problems?"
"Salutations, Sakura-senpai," Penny greeted with a smile that fell all too quickly, "and yes, unfortunately. No matter what anyone does, my left leg just refuses to work as it should."
"I'm sorry to hear that. It's always tough dealing with injuries, and even tougher dealing with it when it's all in your head. Believe me, I know that hard truth through experience," replied Sakura somberly with closed eyes and a nod.
"Sour Sweet, would you be willing to help her while she attends classes here?" asked Heidi matronly.
"Of course! She's already dropped the senpai bomb on me, so how could I not?" Sakura replied jovially.
"Really? Oh, that's just fantastic— whoa!" Penny shouted as she fell to the floor. When she hit, her head whipped around to find Sakura behind her and holding her cane. "Hey!"
Sakura's smile looked infuriatingly innocent. "I'm helping."
Penny barely trembled as she stood on the mat, hesitantly lifting her cane up. She'd call that a success.
"That's it," Sakura coaxed, nodding encouragingly. "Now, your right foot."
The gynoid grit her teeth, and hesitantly … tentatively … oh-so-slowly began lifting her right foot off the floor. She was trembling a lot more now, enough that she was starting to wobble dangerously, even aside from the phantom weakness she felt in the only leg now supporting her. She had to focus. It was one thing to fall because her leg gave out; it would be another thing entirely and all-too-embarrassing if she fell because she couldn't keep her balance.
Then the cane was snatched from her hand.
"Wha—? Hey!" she protested as she windmilled her arms and automatically dropped her right foot to the floor to stabilize herself.
Why did she keep falling for this?
"There," Sakura said, twirling her cane. "Now, you seem to be doing a lot better, even if it is taking a lot of concentration. I suppose it's time we begin more strenuous efforts."
"What?" Penny tilted her head with incomprehension.
"Defend yourself."
Penny shrieked and her optics widened as the other Huntress lunged toward her, swinging the cane like a club. She found herself scrambling back to get out of range of the first swing, buying time to get into something resembling a fighting stance.
"What the heck, Sakura?!"
Her ... therapist, for lack of a better word, only answered with a few more tentative swings, which Penny deflected easily. Barehanded combat was hardly her specialty, but like all Atlas students, she'd been taught the basics. On the third parry, she twisted her arm, trying to snatch the cane back, only for Sakura to draw it back, slipping it from her grasp.
She snarled.
"Give it back!"
"Come and take it."
"Come and take it."
Penny lunged forward, grabbing for the cane, and what followed was a furious exchange of strikes and parries, grabs and dodges, but Sakura kept the cane infuriatingly out of reach.
As they backed apart from each other and began circling each other, Sakura spoke.
"So, how's the leg?"
Penny's optics widened, and she looked down in surprise.
She looked up at Sakura and stepped toward her. "Oh, thank—!"
And that was when it all came crashing down. Or rather, her leg buckled, and she went crashing down. On top of Sakura.
"Oof," wheezed the other girl as her lungs clawed for air. "All right. We got you back on the leg, moving just fine, even fighting fit. Now we just gotta keep you there."
"…and with that, I have my first .345 Rose cartridge with a high-explosive shell," finished Ciel as she held the round in question aloft.
She was sitting at her field reloading bench in one of the more private parts of Atlas Academy's campus, though given the cramped nature of the island, that didn't say much. There were others in this work area, even if there weren't many, and they all kept to themselves so as to not bother each other. Even still, she had earbuds inserted so that no one else could hear what was being said by her companion being displayed on her scroll.
"You got it!" cheered Ruby "Snapshot" Rose with a thumbs up and a smile. "Man, I wish I could be there with you when you test fire it."
"Likewise," agreed Ciel, a fond thought coming to her mind for a moment before being dismissed in a wave of shame.
"What's wrong?" asked Snapshot suddenly.
Ciel's mind skipped a beat before she realized what had been said. "What do you mean, Snapshot?"
"You emoted," explained Snapshot timidly, "and I know you're not an expressive person. You haven't mentioned anything good happening, so something bad must have happened."
"I…" Ciel glanced around and saw that no one was listening in, turned up the sensitivity on her earbuds, and thusly whispered, "I fear that I have done something terrible. Penny has fallen into doing something unvirtuous, and my reaction has made things worse."
Snapshot blinked and then quirked her head in obvious confusion. "Huh? 'Unvirtuous'? Are we still talking about Penny here? What could she even think of that would be unvirtuous?"
Ciel blushed furiously. "It turns out Penny is performing Bauchtanz, and has been for months."
"What's Bauchtanz?" asked Snapshot curiously, and in one shameful moment, Ciel hesitated and gave the woman she was talking to an opportunity to live up to her name. "Yang! Yang, what does Bauchtanz mean?"
"WHAAAAT?!" came the shout from off screen to the right, the direction Snapshot was looking out on. "Who taught you that word?!"
"Farsight! You know, Ciel!" called back Snapshot just as loud, though with a different tone.
"Ciel?!" exclaimed Yang Xiao Long in shock, audibly scrambling over to where Snapshot was recording. "Ciel's doing Bauchtanz?!"
"No, Penny is!"
"Penny?! Penny is doing Bauchtanz?!"
"What's Bauchtanz?!" repeated Snapshot in exasperation.
"It's…" The tips of Yang's fingers were visible now on the right side of the screen. "It's an Atlesian word that translates to 'belly dance' in Valish. It's a kind of dance that a wife does for her husband in Mistral."
Mantellian, not Atlesian; that's our language, somehow popped into Ciel's mortified mind through the burning heat that was engulfing her head through her blush.
Snapshot's dominant left hand formed a fist and came down into her right palm. "That's it! Penny must be learning to do that so she can win Sun over!"
"Penny's into Sun?!" exclaimed Yang in shock.
"Uh-huh," confirmed Snapshot with an enthusiastic nod. "Don't worry though. I'm still with you, sis."
"I'm not— I mean— Do you think Sun would like it if I belly danced?" asked Yang with a nervous tone.
"I think he's obsessed with Blake," was Snapshot's incredibly blunt reply.
"It's not about Sun," muttered Ciel into her hands. "She says it's about her PTSD."
"Oh, that's so sad," lamented Snapshot, looking at the screen. "But it's not right to do private things in public. There's got to be a better way."
"She could get herself a man who's not Sun," offered Yang with what was probably a bitter note.
"That's it!" exclaimed Snapshot once more. "Yang, that's brilliant! Farsight, you've got to set Penny up with a date."
"I don't think that will work," insisted Ciel. "I haven't even talked to her since the incident. I think— I worry I have acted so terribly that I have lost her, and why shouldn't I have when I think like such a Safetyist."
Yang's head popped into frame. "Uh, do you want to turn people into automatons and take over the world?"
"No," answered Ciel.
"Then get over yourself, talk to Penny, and get that girl a mighty man of virtue she can settle down with," replied Yang with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
"It's not that simple," insisted Ciel.
"Sure it is," replied Yang with a smile. "In fact, to help you focus on that task, I'm going to kidnap Ruby."
"What?! Yang, no—"
Snapshot was suddenly cut off by her sister hitting her scroll's power button.
That … that was very odd, and Ciel wasn't sure that she could even follow up on their advice. Even if she could, would Penny even accept it? Her opening move probably destroyed any chance she had of reconciling with her in the future.
There wasn't any way out of this.
"So I hear you think Cinch is a bad guy."
Lemon looked up from her assignment to find one of the members of Team APRC — or was it APRCT? — looking down on her. It was, unfortunately, the crazy one. "Mad Dog" Madison had gained a reputation for straddling the line between genius and insanity, and it looked like she was about to find out which side of that line he had fallen onto today.
"Well, girl," amended Mad Dog as he took the seat opposite hers, "I think you're right."
Sweet blessed genius.
"What have you got?" asked Lemon with a great deal of interest as she shrunk the holographic screen of her computer to the size of a scroll.
"Not much more than what you've got, I'm afraid," admitted Mad Dog with a shrug. "What I have got are connections that can get us into her secret files."
Lemon's face lit up in comprehension. "Shadow."
"And Thundercracker," pointed out Mad Dog.
"Oh yeah, the Decepticon defector," mused Lemon. "Funny how he ended up on your team, isn't it?"
"It's not funny; it's nepotism," answered Mad Dog with … rather shocking honesty. "And it's that nepotism that's going to get us into position with no questions asked."
Lemon's left eyebrow raised. "But what if it's not questions they ask?"
Mad Dog shifted slightly. "Then we'll deal with it."
"I can't believe you talked me into this," groused Shadow in her standard accented voice.
She and Mad Dog were walking in their school uniforms towards a little building just off of the ground of Atlas Academy. If you didn't know what to look for, you'd almost miss it. If you were "in the business," though, then the building was both well-known and a possible destination for a good deal of your time.
It was the headquarters of the Huntsmen's Union, the Jägergewerkschaft.
"Just walk casually," whispered Mad Dog.
"That would involve me going in through the vents," hissed back Shadow.
Mad Dog silently nodded.
The pair entered instead through the front door, a double-sized entrance with the portal made of two solid-looking armor plates that parted with a hiss to reveal a second set of armor plates. Once the doors behind them had closed and the doors in front had opened, they … well, Shadow found herself taken aback. She had never seen such an opulent display of wealth outside of Vale or Mistral.
Wood. Everything was made of wood. The floors, the desks, the walls, the ceiling, the chairs, it was all wood! And it wasn't that cheap fake wood either, but real rich wood that had been intricately engraved and beautifully forged by master carpenters.
It was gorgeous, beautiful, and the smell!
They certainly knew how to make an impression.
One of the men behind the closest counter looked up. "Hey, I know you two. You're Mad Dog and the Big Guy's daughter Shadow, right?"
A familiar twinge of resentment built up inside Shadow, but she pushed it down. This was for the good of the kingdom, for the good of her kingdom. For honor's sake, she would bear any burden.
"Yes, we are," replied Shadow.
"Well, glad to have you in our establishment!" came a booming voice that seemed used to public speaking, and Shadow knew that it was so because she had heard his speeches before.
Into the lobby walked the suited form of Richard "Dick" Whittle, the leader of the Huntsmen's Union. He was clean-shaven and vaguely chubby of face, but underneath that pinstripe suit was undoubtedly the fit form of a Huntsman who had spent years in the field and was still active. His expression was welcoming, but for Shadow's part, she couldn't help but recall the many times he had locked horns with her father to such an extent that the walls seemed to shake from their arguments.
"Aska? Little Aska Ironwood?" he greeted as he came up to them. "And Rufus too! Oh, I haven't seen you two in years, and now you're here on my doorstep together? Or perhaps together-together?"
Shadow blinked behind her sunglasses, and Mad Dog's face twisted slightly in incomprehension.
"Well, we are on the same team," she answered with the certainty of someone taking a test for a subject that they hadn't known existed until then.
"Ha. No, I mean … oh, forget it." He waved off whatever he had been trying to get at and then put out his hand to shake theirs. "Put 'er there."
He took Shadow's right hand in both of his and shook before doing the same to Mad Dog's.
"It's good to see you two again, but let's not talk out here with the airlock open. We have a meeting room over here. Come on."
With that, he turned around and beckoned them to follow him, and they decided they had better do so. In hardly any time at all, they were stepping into a small room furnished with little more than two sofas and a low-sitting table between them, though like much of the rest of the building, the furniture was made out of wood, and the cushions were even made out of real natural fabrics. No doubt, this was done to underscore the wealth of the organization to those sitting in the seats.
"So how's your dad taking what happened in the council?" started Mr. Whittle softly. "Whole military sticking around Solitas? It's like we're living in the twentieth century again."
"He has sadly become used to such betrayals," replied Aska easily, even as she searched for the union boss's angle.
"Oh yeah, nasty business that," agreed Mr. Whittle with a nod. "They really did him dirty. Chrysalis sets him up in a classic frame job, those collaborators hung him like a picture, and then the new girls don't even have the courtesy to take 'em off the wall."
"To be fair, his discharge was changed from 'dishonorable' to 'honorable,'" offered Mad Dog in a way that made it sound like even he wasn't convinced.
"So they give him a kiss on the cheeks after they slapped 'em, big deal," groused Mr. Whittle with a shrug. "Look at me, going on like a little girl with an underdeveloped amygdala. Let's keep it classy. What are you two here for?"
"We were wondering if you had any jobs around Crystal City, the kind with a lot of space to move," asked Shadow discreetly. "If you catch my meaning."
His eyebrows went up. "Really now? Well, I'd like to help you out — really, I would — but things are pretty tight these days. Pickings are slim on the mission board, and while I might have something lying around, I can't just let it go to some students for free."
Shadow considered it a point in her favor that she didn't growl. "What do you want?"
"Just a little talk with your dad. We haven't talked in a while, and last time things got pretty heated," answered Mr. Whittle.
Shadow again raised her eyebrow. "And you can not ask my new mother because …?"
"Because, frankly speaking, your mother is terrifying," he answered without a hint of shame.
"He's not wrong," pointed out Mad Dog.
No she isn't, Shadow thought sourly. She is a wonderful woman with a most ladylike demeanor. I don't see why more people don't see that.
"What's this job that we're buying with my father's conversation skills?" asked Shadow sternly.
"A milk run," answered Mr. Whittle easily. "Some of the folks on the outskirts of Crystal City have reported Grimm, but the Grimm don't act like Grimm, see? So it's probably just some people getting jumpy, but jumpy people smell mighty tasty to real Grimm. So go out there, show the flag, and reassure people that there ain't nothin' to worry about. Easy and should be done pretty quick with four people, or five if you want to bring along the big guy."
"What about nine?" inquired Mad Dog.
"'Nine'?" shot back Mr. Whittle in surprise.
"It's strange that Crystal Prep did not handle this themselves," noted Shadow. "Usually, this would be a mission handled by the professors and students at the local combat school, or the militia."
"Yeah, well, Principal Cinch thinks it's none of her concern these days," replied Mr. Whittle with a shrug. "Shame. She used to be all over stuff like this. Always looking for a way to throw her students into the fire."
Mad Dog gave her an "I told you so" look.
"So, do you want it?" asked Mr. Whittle leadingly.
"Yes. Yes, we do," answered Shadow as she brought out her scroll, deployed it, and hit her father's speed dial. In but a moment, his face appeared on the screen.
"Aska! How are you doing?"
"Mostly fine, Papa. However, I have need of your help," answered Shadow in a completely different tone and even slightly different accent to the one she had been using to talk up until now. "We are in the middle of something vital, and Mister Whittle of the Huntsmen's Union has the next stage of the operation. He wants a conversation with you as payment for letting us have it."
Papa's dark eyebrows furrowed. "I can well imagine the things he'd like to talk about, but all right. You can tell him I'll meet him tomorrow at six forty-five, but only if you get what you want."
"Thank you, Papa. Give my regards to Mother," confirmed Shadow before cutting the connection.
"Adorable," commented Mr. Whittle. "Except for that bit at the end where you didn't let him say goodbye. That was kind of rude."
"Do we have a deal or not?" asked Shadow sharply.
Mr. Whittle fished out his own scroll. "Sure, sure. Don't worry about it."
He flipped through the menus with practiced ease and soon brought himself to a very technical-looking screen. With but a few presses, there was a note of confirmation, and a likewise tone sounded from Shadow's scroll. She looked down and saw a request to accept a mission of what had just been discussed, which she readily accepted.
"Pleasure doing business with you," said Shadow before standing up and turning to leave.
Dick Whittle watched them go with a polite smile and couldn't help but wonder what those two were getting up to. Probably another conspiracy, which is what the kids seemed to be into these days. Back in his day, everything was a straight up fight, no conspiracies whatsoever. Maybe a few hidden societies, a bit of unlooked-for magic, but not really any conspiracies.
Ah, well. Never let it be said that he couldn't get with the times.
He opened up the contacts of his scroll and made an audio only call to his feline friend, who picked up in seconds.
"Russet here," was the gravelly voice that came over the line.
"Russ, have you got that Equalist rabble rouser?" Dick asked with forced calm.
"In the bag," answered Russ.
"Good. When you put 'em to sleep, make sure it looks like the military tucked 'em in and the Volcanists made the bed."
"Will do."
Dick frowned as the connection cut. It was dirty business, but someone had to do it. Someone had to save the Kingdom from the people who would destroy it. These Grimm might wear human skin and work in the shadows, but he'd do them in all the same.
The civilian airship roared through the dim sky, part of a small convoy inbound from Atlas to Crystal City. Onboard were thousands of tons of consumer goods, dozens of dedicated crew members, and in one particular airship at the head of the formation was a very special cargo. That cargo was the warriors of light intent on purging the system of its corruption and purifying it for the righteous.
"And that's the plan. Any questions?"
The question was asked by Sour "Sakura" Sweet, captain of Team SSCL, as she stood over a holographic projection depicting Crystal City in the small and cramped room that had been given to them for the duration of the trip. The eight members of Team SSCL and APRC were packed in tight, and some were actually wading through the floating color map, with Thundercracker being represented by an image on a scroll held up by Penny "Bladerider" Polendina. They had just finished a briefing on the proposed plan to secure the data they needed to discover the true identity of this Principal Abacus Cinch and were all in agreement such that they all nodded their heads.
"Good. Now we'll go on to the team composition," continued Sakura. "Me and Shadow will infiltrate the home. Maverick and Seal will take the office. Thundercracker will be on overwatch. Reverb and the rest of Apricot will complete our official mission while being ready to respond. This should make best use of our available abilities. Shadow, any recommendations for the leadership of the backup team?"
Aska "Shadow" Roku/Koryu/Ironwood glanced around, which was hard to discern with her eyes covered by her trademark sunglasses. "Farsight."
Ciel "Farsight" Soleil didn't outwardly react, but she wasn't enthusiastic about that. She had led units in combat school and during the Evacuation, but that had been years ago and had resulted in no small number of casualties. Not to mention that there was this tension between her and Penny, with the ginger gynoid, perhaps rightly, being unlikely to be comfortable being under the command of her.
Sakura nodded. "I was thinking the exact same thing. Reverb, Bladerider, Mad Dog; any objections?"
Those three agreed, though Penny was more sedate than normal.
"Good," said Sakura. "With that done, make sure you're ready to move when we enter Crystal City airspace. Dismissed."
Nobody moved. Reverb coughed.
"Or, you know, move around slightly. There isn't a lot of space in here," remarked Sakura before shutting down the holograms.
Well, almost all the holograms. Thundercracker's holo remained active, and he stayed with Penny as she left the room. She clearly had something she needed to talk about, and it was likely about her situation.
This was going to be an issue. Ciel knew it, and she had to head it off. Before she could raise her voice, though, she noticed Aska exit the room with a brooding shadow about her. That was worse. If the public team tossed the pot, that was a potentially bad situation, but if the infiltration team on the home had problems, it would almost certainly be lethal.
Getting up, Ciel followed her team leader out of the rapidly emptying room.
Outside in the slate gray metal corridor, Ciel looked left and right for where Shadow had disappeared to. The left was clear, and to the right, at the end of the hall, a coppertopped head looked down at her scroll. Penny was engrossed in conversation of a likely distressing nature, and Ciel felt her heart ache for her.
She longed, oh how she longed, to just walk over and talk to her, but she couldn't. She felt she should apologize, she felt that she should rephrase her arguments in a more convincing way, but in the end, she could do neither. She couldn't betray her convictions, and she couldn't hurt one she had thought one of her deepest friends for so long.
She then remembered those times she had comforted Penny when she was in distress, and those times Penny had lent her an interested ear to things that she thought no other living being could be interested in. She didn't want things to end, not like this. She just wanted things to go back to the way they were, even though she knew that it was…
She walked the other way.
Ciel had passed two corners before she perceived someone behind her. She turned and found herself face to face with Shadow. It was perhaps the most she had ever lived up to her callsign.
"You really should have turned the other way," proclaimed Shadow, her arms crossed.
"I could not," answered Ciel simply.
"Why?" asked Shadow bluntly. "You two have been avoiding each other for weeks, and you haven't explained yourselves to anyone. Now we're heading into a possible combat situation, and as your captain, I deserve to know why my two best fighters have fallen out. I can rephrase it as an order if it will make things easier for you."
Ciel held her peace for but a moment, and then admitted to what had happened.
Shadow kept quiet until the end, but when it was finished, she spoke in an uncharacteristically compassionate voice. "So, how do you intend to resolve this?"
"I have not conceived of a solution as of yet," Ciel yet again admitted.
"Well, from where I'm standing, you have three possible solutions," Shadow mused aloud as she held up her hand. "The first is that we can file for transfer to another team, but I'd rather not lose either of you right before a mission. The second is that you can concede to her, but that will bring you no comfort and will just make things worse later. The third option is that you and Penny just talk to each other and work things out."
"What would I even say?" demanded Ciel more harshly than she meant.
"Focus on the positive," ordered Shadow. "She flung some pretty terrible insults towards you, but that was born out of momentary anger. Remember that she's always adored you since the day you two met, and nothing about you two have changed such that your differences have become irreconcilable."
"Except that I have revealed myself to be the worst of possible stereotypes for an Atlesian: cold, callous, and controlling," countered Ciel.
"Are you Mistrali? Speak clearly!" demanded Shadow in her typically thick Mistrali accent. "Though that does bring me to a simple truth that we all will have to acknowledge: Penny's not a little girl anymore. She's grown up quite fast, and it's time we started allowing her to make her own mistakes."
"And if she gets hurt? Or worse?" asked Ciel.
"Then we'll step in to save her, because that's what teammates do, but we can't stop her from learning lessons that can only come from pain," expounded Shadow, and then her line of questioning took a sidetrack. "Your file has photos of when you were in combat school, and Distant Thunder was a bolt-action rifle back then. Why did you change it to a semi-automatic?"
"I thought that the precision and stealth afforded by a bolt-action system was paramount," explained Ciel. "I learned during Evacuation that the time and inefficiency of movement it takes to cycle a bolt manually can be deadly."
"You learned because pain is an excellent teacher," said Shadow with all the tact of a blunt hammer.
Ciel stayed silent but didn't deny the words.
"We have, all of us, treated Penny like a little girl," continued Shadow. "We can't keep doing that, if for no other reason than the simple fact that she won't let us."
"…I do not think that I am going to be able to overcome that in the time it will take us to deploy," lamented Ciel. "Why did you suggest me as the leader when you knew of this conflict?"
"Because I knew you wouldn't let it affect you," answered Aska, "and because you are a natural leader."
"I'm not—"
"You are," Shadow cut her off. "You don't even realize it, but you step in to take charge of situations without even thinking, and people look to you for leadership without thought. That's what Bladerider does, that's what Mad Dog does, that's what everyone does, that's what I do. And why shouldn't I? The only reason I'm in this position is because my father was The General, the headmaster, the leader of his own team when he was in the academy, because I was expected to follow in his footsteps and because he wanted me to be like him. I'd be a fool to try to make irrelevant someone who is actually qualified, especially when they do the job themselves without asking. All I've really done as leader is give vague directions in battle and get us into trouble with zany schemes."
The reply came easily to Ciel's lips. "If it hadn't been for your leadership, the people of Sumire would be dead. I never would have been able to go to the lengths you did to prove King and Iceberg's loyalties, and so, it's almost certain that neither we nor anyone else would have been in a position to help those people. Their rescue justifies your position, and do not let yourself convince you otherwise."
Shadow pursed her lips. "Happenstance and luck," she countered. "The people of Sumire survived because of chance, not through any feat of mine."
"There is a saying, 'better lucky than good,'" Ciel quoted. "Aside from that, you and I both know what kind of leaders are traditionally held up as the pinnacle of Atlesian society, we both know why this team was created … and I think we both realize how Penny would have fared under a more … Atlesian captain."
Like me, she thought morosely.
Shadow placed a hand on her shoulder. "And that is exactly what I mean. You do not speak unless you have something to say, so people listen." Her expression softened. "And perhaps that is why what you said hurt Penny so much. If your friendship were not strong enough to survive the confrontation you fear, it would not hurt either of you this much. Go, Ciel, and talk to her." She smiled. "And remember, siblings fight all the time."
Ciel involuntarily glanced back down the hall to where she knew Penny stood, then turned to look at Shadow again … only to find an empty hallway. She arched an eyebrow, caught between being impressed and being annoyed. Shaking her head, she turned and walked away, hesitating at the T-junction that would lead her back to Penny…
… and turned toward the armory.
Coward.
Ciel walked down the patrol path winding around the pear orchard, just inside the defensive perimeter, eyes scanning outward. With her were Penny and Rufus, as well as Team SSCL member Lemon "Reverb" Zest; somewhere up above was Thundercracker, and the rest of the two teams were split between infiltrating CPCA and Principal Cinch's home.
"Anything?" she asked.
Next to her, Mad Dog shook his head. "I'm not picking up anything on my sensors."
"Nor am I," Penny confirmed. After a moment, she added, "Thundercracker reports the same."
That was … troubling. The mission they were officially here on called for them to investigate unusual Grimm sightings outside Crystal City; it was a convenient excuse to get them to the town, but they still needed to actually do the mission.
What was strange was that they were Grimm sightings and not Grimm attacks. Unusual behavior from the Grimm was rarely a good sign. It generally meant some variety of Elder Grimm was around, wrangling its lesser kin into something resembling discipline. And that made the Grimm exponentially more dangerous.
Assuming, of course, the sightings were not erroneous. Even if they were, as the mission briefing had assumed, simply patrolling and "showing the flag," so to speak, would be time well spent anyway; the worries and concerns that such sightings — real or false — could summon further Grimm to the area, after all, and the sight of Huntsmen could easily dispel such concerns before they turned possible falsehood into certain reality.
For her part, the last member of the ad hoc team, Reverb, seemed as interested in observing her temporary teammates as the surroundings, eventually pulling her headset off and drifting over to Penny.
"So," Lemon murmured quietly, "what's wrong?"
"'Wrong'?" Bladerider echoed, turning to look at her before her eyes darted left, then right. "There's nothing wrong." She hiccupped and pressed her lips together tightly, shaking her head emphatically.
Lemon frowned and bit her lip, pondering what to do. What would Twilight do?
Well, knowing Twilight, she would freak out and panic, then come up with some zany scheme that was overly complex and doomed to failure, right up until…
No, she thought, cutting that line of thinking off. Better question. What would Sugarcoat do?
"You're a really bad liar," she said finally. "Okay, listen, if you don't want to talk about it with me, fine, but you should talk to someone." She stole a quick glance over at Farsight. "Preferably your teammate."
"But I…" Bladerider trailed off, wringing her hands together.
"Look," Lemon said, "you're friends, right?"
Bladerider hesitated. "I thought we were. But then …" She trailed off again.
"Hey." Lemon reached out and placed an arm around the coppertop's shoulders. "Just because you had a fight doesn't mean you're not friends, all right?" She chuckled. "Goodness knows, my friends and I go at each other a lot, and we can get pretty vicious."
"Really?" Bladerider peered at her with a look that burned with curiosity. Oh, what charming naïveté!
Lemon nodded. "Really. Friends fight all the time. If you're not getting into fights with your friends, you're either not actually spending all that much time with them, or you're not being honest with each other. And what kind of friendship would that be?"
She pulled back and let the other girl consider her words, even as she took a moment to dwell on them herself. It was one of the many reasons those savages from Canterlot couldn't be trusted. Not only were they soft and coddling, but that always friendly attitude they put out, always getting along with each other, no cliques, no personal friction whatsoever, like the whole school was a hive mind of congeniality, it was so … so artificial, it was downright creepy at times. That they had agreed to play along with the fakery and play nice with them for Twilight's sake just made it worse.
Her scroll rang, breaking her out of her musings. Glancing at the caller ID, she answered, "Yo, Upp, what's up?"
"Lemon, it's Councilor Swiftwing," was the urgent answer. "She's been abducted!"
The home of Brigadegeneral (Retired) Abacus Cinch, Principal of Crystal Preparatory Combat Academy, was a fairly large log cabin with a steeply slanted roof covered in metal that allowed snow to slide off it in great sheets and create snow banks that piled up under the eaves and just managed to touch the edge of the wall with their bottoms. It was surrounded by an open field extending 500 feet in all directions that presumably would be filled with a garden in the green months, and on the edge of the square was a wall of thickly planted evergreen trees that would both reduce noise and offer a barrier to unwanted visitors. Of course, that wasn't all, for hidden across the property were a network of automated turrets, sensors, and booby traps that would ensure that any unauthorized visitors came to very quickly regret their lack of proper paperwork.
It was, in a phrase, a dilly of a pickle.
"And there she goes, away in her hovercar," observed Sakura as she watched the footage being routed to her scroll from the orbiting Thundercracker's gun cam footage from her position half buried in the snow in a nearby forest.
"I'll keep an eye out for when she returns," stated Thundercracker professionally. "School team, better stay on your toes in case she starts heading your way."
"Copy that; we're frosty," was Maverick's reply.
"No, we're frosty," muttered Shadow with a slight sour note from her snowy position to Sakura's left. "Thundercracker, Sakura and I are nearly ready to begin infiltration. Continue overwatch."
"Just as long as I get the payout from this mission," confirmed Thundercracker in what was presumably a joking manner.
"Why, Thundercracker, how mercenary of you," Seal said with her own note of amusement.
"I'm just saying, this sensor pod was expensive, and I've got to make the money back somehow," replied the ex-Seeker.
"Cut the chatter; we're going in," interrupted Sakura.
Thirty minutes later, they were inside.
Nothing looked out of the ordinary. The foyer and living room was about what she would have expected. Principal Cinch had always been a meticulous person, with a place for everything and everything in its place. Within her five ABCs of success — ambition, bravery, competitiveness, discipline, and excellence (Twilight insisted on adding "friendship" to the list) — discipline only ever took second place to excellence, and taking a place of pride along one wall of the living room was a trophy case, filled with trophies and awards.
Shadow, however, seemed distracted by the aforementioned trophy case.
"What is it?" Sakura asked, a flash of irritation coloring her tone.
"These awards," Shadow replied.
"Obviously," Sakura retorted, rolling her eyes. "Yes, yes, she's earned a lot. I know most people don't put it all on display like that, but—"
"No," Shadow interrupted, shaking her head. "These awards are all old."
That stopped Sakura short, and she turned her head to look. "What?"
"All of these awards are old," Shadow repeated. "There, this is the newest one, and it's dated April 5, 2119."
Sakura frowned. That was nearly three years ago. Sakura knew Principal Cinch had received awards since then, and while she'd left them off her ABCs of success, she'd clearly always valued pride and reputation, so to leave her more recent accomplishments hidden? That … that made no sense.
"That is strange," Sakura allowed, "but I don't see how that matters just yet. Let's keep going."
She found herself frowning in disappointment as they explored the house. Once they were past the more public spaces, it was clear that Principal Cinch's exacting standards were all just for show, judging by what she found tucked into an alcove in the hallway, just out of sight of the living room.
It was a shrine made of wood, painted purple and trimmed with gold leaf, ill-used and neglected, in contrast to the principal's strict standards, judging by the thin layer of dust coating every surface of it and the burned incense sticks left in place in the open burner in the middle. There were cold, half-melted candles flanking the dusty shrine.
The incense burner sat at the foot of the small gold— no, brass statue, the centerpiece of the shrine. It depicted a faunus with cloven hooves instead of feet and a pair of dragon heads instead of a human one; the right head — left when viewed from in front — was that of a Mistrali dragon, mustachioed and wise, crowned by a rack of antlers, while the left was that of a Valish dragon, sleek and sinister, boasting a pair of ram's horns.
"What is that?"
"It's the Two-Who-Are-One."
"'The Two-Who-Are-One'?"
"Yeah, you know the story of the Two Brothers? It's them, except there's a sect that believes they are both separate and the same, two sides of a coin, and that the faunus are the gods' chosen people."
Shadow peered. In the incense burner, alongside the partially-consumed incense sticks, was a partially-burned and folded piece of paper. An offering? Curious, she plucked it out.
"What is it?" Sakura asked as Shadow unfolded it and scowled.
"It seems to be a prayer," Shadow answered flatly, "seeking guidance on how to destroy my father. Why are we trying to help her again?"
"Because what's bad for your father's personal enemies might not be good for Atlas."
"I beg to differ," countered Shadow as she placed the prayer back in place as if nothing had changed. "Every time people have gone against my father and his wisdom, it has been disastrous for Atlas. This duplicate, whoever they are, may not be as much of a threat as they might first appear."
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Okay, we get it, you love your dad now. Now while I should just be happy you've admitted that we were right and that Cinch has been replaced by a duplicate, I can't help but point out that the only reason she's being nice to your dad is because she plans to put a knife in his back."
Shadow glared at her. "I am well aware of the situation. Just as surely as you must know that we must find out who this infiltrator serves before we can act with any sort of discretion."
Wordlessly, Sakura moved on to the upper floor and, there, the living quarters. What they found was disturbing on a level that was hard to quantify.
"It looks like no one's used this in years," remarked Shadow as she checked the bathroom and noticed the brown and black film that had built up in places where the water stood.
"Even the floor hasn't been cleaned," observed Sakura. "It's a good thing we were taught how to avoid leaving footprints."
Sakura then opened the door to the master bedroom and found more of the same. "Layer of dust on the sheets, but perfectly made. Principal Cinch always did know how to spitshine a billet. Looks like she did that one last time and never returned."
Shadow put in a call at that. "Thundercracker, you mentioned once that the Decepticons had a technology called 'Pretender Shell' that allowed them to pose as humanoids."
"Yeah, that's how Soundwave's Casseticons posed as Team Ruffle," confirmed Thundercracker.
"It looks like whoever replaced Cinch doesn't need to eat or sleep or drink or even clean themselves," explained Shadow. "Sound familiar?"
"No. No, it doesn't," said Thundercracker with a tone both worried and curious. "Pretender Shells don't just magically take away a transformer's need to eat and sometimes sleep and definitely clean themselves. Is it possible she's a ghost?"
Sakura and Shadow shared a look that conveyed a surprising amount of bewilderment despite the winter goggles covering their eyes and masks over their faces.
"Maybe," allowed Shadow. "We'll check the basement for dead bodies. School team, what's on with you?"
"We've got the data and are exfiltrating back to the rendezvous," reported Maverick.
"Understood," Shadow said. That done, they continued exploring the seemingly abandoned domicile.
The basement door was unlocked, and while they found no dead bodies, what they found in there was still mildly disturbing. Aside from what looked like souvenirs from Cinch's time in service, there was also a surprisingly large collection of memorabilia with an unusual focus.
"What's with all the faunus stuff?" Sakura murmured incredulously, staring at an ancient spear and shield set with a note indicating it had belonged to some now-extinct tribe of lion faunus. Next to it was a Mistrali rifle from the Great War that had also seen action in the Faunus Rights Revolution. Next to that was a collection of newspaper clippings regarding Menagerie. Below them were a hand drum and a number of small totems and other trinkets, next to a handwritten story titled The Shallow Sea.
Their examination was interrupted by Maverick over the comm: "Shadow, Sakura, something's going on at the Crystal Inn."
Shadow frowned. The Crystal Inn? She didn't know Crystal City like the natives did, but the hotel name sounded familiar.
"It's Councilor Swiftwing!" Maverick continued. That was where she'd heard it! The councilor was staying there during her — perhaps suspiciously timed — visit to Crystal City. "Someone's kidnapped her!"
The door to Cinch's office closed with nary a sound. All that ninjutsu training paid off, and it seemed like they were nearly home free. Now what they needed to do was get out of Crystal Prep without the security guards seeing them and without losing the flash drive they had spent all this time getting.
"I was always afraid of being called up here," revealed Upper "Seal" Crust suddenly and so softly, it sounded like the microphone she was wearing had just barely picked it up.
For Jet "Maverick" Set it was definitely a shock, since his wife had been close to silent ever since they got close to the building. Tactically, it was only wise that such a state of affairs continue until they were past the security cordon. Matrimonially, however, Maverick couldn't help but notice in retrospect all the various twitches that Seal had while they were initially infiltrating the place, and he suspected that she had some sort of trouble that she needed to talk out.
He opted for the safe option and touched her shoulder to gain her attention. Having gained such attention, he then made a quick series of hand gestures in the gloom, spelling out to her the necessity of silence until they exfiltrated. She nodded and then signed back a confirmation.
Dodging the guards was, as it turned out, fairly easy. It seemed like no one thought that anything suspicious was going to be happening, and so it was that they weren't looking for anything to upset that notion. It was, in the end, a fairly common problem that could be ruthlessly exploited by those from outside the normal paradigm.
It only worked once, but as long as no one found out you were doing it, you didn't lose any of your attempts.
With a pair of soft thuds, the married couple landed in an alleyway some distance away.
"Okay, we should be good to talk now," breathed Maverick as he took off his balaclava to expose his head to the cold dry winter air.
Seal did likewise, her long pale indigo locks spilling out as soon as the covering was removed. "I'm glad to be out of there."
Maverick was going through his breathing exercises, but still managed to speak. "Back in there, something shook you up. What's wrong?"
"It's …" Seal paused to get her breathing under control as well, closing her persian blue eyes for a few seconds before continuing. "It's just being back there. It brought up far too many painful memories … times I…"
Maverick wrapped one arm around her and held her tight, bringing them both to sit down on a snow-covered box that they were perhaps better off not knowing the contents of.
"Don't hold back," he told her. "Let it all out. You'll feel better."
"I don't think I will," replied Seal. "Walking through there, I just couldn't help but remember how miserable I was. When I first got there, I was so happy, and then everyone made me … and then I … I did the same things to others, hoping I wouldn't be on the receiving end then, but it didn't work."
"I'm sorry," Maverick said simply, in a voice devoid of feeling because … well, what was he supposed to feel? Shame? That made the most sense, and it was something he had gotten used to.
Strangely, Seal smiled. "Do you remember the day we first met?"
"I do," replied Maverick. "If I recall it was in chemistry, and you almost bounced over to meet me."
"You were the most handsome man I had ever met," explained Seal with joy. "Smart, calm, kind, strong, well-groomed, and the money didn't hurt either. How could I not fall in love with you?"
Her words sent a cold spike through his heart.
"Even when you found out I was from Low Town, you didn't disparage me," continued Seal unabated. "When you asked me to go out with you two months later, I was overjoyed. I felt like the happiest girl on Remnant, and nothing could get me down."
He couldn't take it, he just couldn't take it. He had to tell her the truth. Even if she hated him afterwards, and she would hate him.
He broke away and turned her around to face him. "Upper, I … I'm sorry. Back then, when we started dating, I … I didn't love you. I was just using you to offend my parents. I didn't really care about you."
To his shock, Seal's gloved right hand came up to caress his face, a soft smile upon her lips. "I know. I've always known."
Maverick felt himself unable to work his jaw, unable to think.
Seal continued, stroking his face as she did so. "I knew you were just using me as an act of rebellion, but you still defended me when your father called me a lakerat. You still made the bullying stop. I didn't care that you didn't care, because you were still the only bright spot in my wretched life. You were my star, my center of gravity, my whole universe, and I gladly orbited around you.
"You made my life worth living."
Maverick's arms snapped and brought Seal in for a nearly crushing hug. "I'm sorry," he whispered in her ear. "I'm so, so sorry. I don't deserve you. You're … I was lying back then, but I'm not lying now. I love you, Upper Crust. I love everything about you. Your body, your mind, your heart, your cooking—"
"My cooking?" interrupted Seal in surprise and amusement.
"It's really good cooking," insisted Maverick. "The point is that I've been a terrible husband to you. I haven't given you nearly the love and affection you deserve, and I don't do nearly enough to make you happy.
"The truth is, I started falling in love with you the day we were trapped on that sinking ship. Being alone with you, with death just seconds away, with the Creatures of Grimm closing in around us, it put things in perspective. If that pod of whales hadn't shown up …" Maverick paused to collect himself, the weight of mortality hitting him again as it often did when he remembered that day, and with a stray thought, he realized that she was hugging him too. "If those humpbacks hadn't shown up, or had shown up just a few seconds later, we'd be dead."
"But they did show up, Maverick," declared Seal. "It was a miracle, a gift from Heaven. We lived to see today."
"But we might not have," insisted Maverick. "That's why I asked you to marry me the day after. I didn't want to waste a moment more on childish rebellion, I didn't want to waste you, and I didn't want to give myself the chance to run away. But in all that, I never told you the truth, and for that I'm sorry. I— umph!"
He was cut off by his wife kissing him, passionately, joyfully, with the love and adulation that could only be achieved by two people who had become one, and when they separated with a pop, he found himself staring into those wonderful blue eyes.
"Stop apologizing," she told him. "I didn't marry you for your incredible ability to bootlick."
For some mad reason, the first thing to pop into his mind and out of his mouth was, "But you do admit, it is incredible."
Her reply was to playfully swat him on the shoulder, and he laughed.
"Hey, we've got some time, right?" Maverick asked her. "I've never been very curious about your life before, and I think that should change."
"What do you want to know?" inquired Seal.
"Two things right now. Firstly, your name, Upper Crust, what does it mean? Secondly, if you're from Low Town, how did you go to school in Crystal City?"
Seal huffed cheerfully. "The first one probably isn't what you were thinking. My parents named me after the layer of ice that forms over rushing water. It's quite fragile, but my hair reminded them of the way the water looked under it."
"Hmm. Well, one out of two isn't bad," commented Maverick. "You're anything but fragile, after all."
Seal blushed a little bit more than she already was in the cold. "As for the second, I stayed at The Crystal Inn. The alumni of Crystal Prep maintain a charity that rents out rooms to students who don't have homes of their own nearby. It was one of the things that convinced me that the school was a lot nicer than it ended up being."
"The building's still standing, so maybe it will become that way again," said Maverick hopefully before jumping off their snowy seat. "Until then, will you do me the honors of showing me your old home?"
"I'd love to," proclaimed Seal as she got up as well.
The two bunched up their balaclavas to act as hats, locked arm in arm, and simply walked out of the alleyway. They left and started to walk towards the hotel which, thankfully, was nearby. It really was a beautiful night for a stroll, and as he looked down at his lovely wife and had the sudden flight of fancy that he should get her one of those stylish new winter hanboks from that designer in Argus she liked. It would be a tight squeeze in the finances, but she deserved something nice.
All pleasant thoughts were driven from his mind, however, when they came around the bend to find the Crystal Inn swarming with faunus wearing the familiar uniform of Councilor Swiftwing's security detail, and there was a strong undercurrent of worry running through them.
On instinct, Maverick clicked on his comm and hissed, "Shadow, Sakura, something's going on at the Crystal Inn."
A moment later, the married couple jogged forward and were flagged down by one of the security personnel. "Hey, you, where have you been in the last hour?"
"A few blocks away," answered Maverick truthfully with a flag towards the school. "What's going on?"
The security man looked intently between them. "Hey, I know you two. You're part of Team Scarlet, the team that met with the Councilor recently, aren't you?"
"That's right," confirmed Seal. "What's going on? Has something happened to the Councilor?"
The guard glanced between them again before answering, "The Councilor has just been kidnapped."
Maverick froze, and Seal gasped. "Oh no."
"Damn it!" came Sakura's curse over the radio. "Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!"
Reverb resisted the urge to lecture Sakura on the necessity of keeping it together, mostly because she would make that switch herself on a dime.
"Maverick! Seal! Tell me you guys got the data," Sakura barked out.
"We got the data from her school computer," answered Maverick.
"Rendezvous with us at the designated waypoint I'm relaying to your navigation systems on a subchannel. That goes for everyone else save Thundercracker," ordered Sakura briskly. "TC, I need to use that fancy new sensor suite to find the trail of Cinch's aircar. Can you do it?"
"I can," confirmed Thundercracker.
"Make it so," Sakura politely insisted. "Let's move, people!"
"You heard her. Mad Dog, Bladerider, pick us up," began Farsight in a tone so cold and calm, it sounded like a stream of glacial runoff.
Their temporary team leader collapsed her rifle down into a much more compact size and then slung it across her front as Mad Dog went over and picked her up in his powered armor's big mechanical arms. He adopted a bridal carry, and she grabbed hold of him fast. Bladerider was moving to do the same.
"So, how fast can these bad boys run?" asked Reverb cheekily as she too was picked up.
Bladerider looked confused before her helmet snapped into place over her face. "'Run'?"
Instantly, Reverb felt her guts going into her back as the sky suddenly became several hundred feet closer. With a rushing roar, Bladerider had leapt into the air on bright white flames erupting from her Fracas armor's back and legs. Almost just as fast, the pair started to fall down like the heavy metal weight they were. Just as they hit the ground, Bladerider's armored legs compressed slightly, and then sprung out into another fiery leap as if she was a mechanical parody of a schoolgirl jumping from puddle to puddle in the rain.
It was exceptionally exciting, as evidenced by the whooping cheers Reverb was letting out.
"Whoo! Do it again! Do it again!" cheered Reverb as they came crashing down for the last time in a glade by Crystal Greens Road on the outskirts of the central city.
Bladerider's helmet popped open to reveal her smiling face. "Oh, I like you. You Shadowbolts are so friendly."
Reverb gave her a look like she had just babbled out nonsense. "Are you okay?"
"Uh, yeah?" answered Bladerider in confusion. "Why do you ask?"
Before Reverb could reply, the dark shapes of Sakura and Shadow leap out of the nearby trees and landed in crouches.
"Status report," ordered Sakura as she got up.
Reverb rolled out of Bladerider's arms and gave a salute, but it was Farsight who replied, "Ready to rock and roll."
It was a little bit disturbing how robotic that phrase, usually said with so much excitement, was. Which was probably why Farsight had won last week's anonymous online poll of "Member of Team APRCT most likely to be a robot." Which was surprising, considering that a literal robot was in the running.
The teachers hadn't been happy about that.
"Good, now we just have to wait for the married couple," said Sakura.
"Thundercracker, any updates?" asked Shadow with a hand on one ear.
"I've got a track on something. It's heading towards the south-southwest edge of the valley," reported the former Decepticon.
'South-southwest? thought Reverb with a cold chill mixing with a fiery ball in her belly. "I've got a bad feeling about this."
"There we go. Looks like the trail leads to the entrance to a mine," continued Thundercracker.
How dare she, fumed Lemon "Reverb" Zest, spare heir to the Zest Mining Company. How dare she!
"Thundercracker, stay on station and search for alternate entrances, but do not engage," ordered Shadow.
"Can do," replied Thundercracker.
It was a few fury-laced minutes later that a pickup truck roared up the road before screaming to a halt beside the designated waypoint. The driver's side window rolled down to reveal a familiar sight. An old man with a kind face turned up in determination.
"Get in, kids!" shouted Sugarcoat's great uncle Fig.
"Sugarcoat's Great Uncle Fig?" exclaimed Sakura, perhaps unnecessarily, in shock. "What are you doing here?"
The window just behind the driver's side came down to reveal Maverick with his wife behind him. "He was near the hotel, and when he found out we were Shadowbolts, he offered to help."
"Anything for friends of Sugarcoat," confirmed Sugarcoat's Great Uncle Fig.
"Where are we going though?" asked Bladerider.
Before anyone else could answer, Reverb replied with grave certainty. "The Mount Fetlock iron mine."
Sakura blinked. "I was going to answer 'to war,' but the mine works too."
At first glance, the mine looked quiet. Cinch's car was the only vehicle in the parking lot, but there was no sign of the principal herself. As they watched and digested the information from the files the married couple had acquired from Cinch's office — the goal of weakening Atlas's elite could not have been more clear — a small pack of Sabyrs languidly loped into the area, sniffing around curiously.
"Something's wrong," Lemon — Reverb — declared.
The joint team — minus Thundercracker, who was providing high-altitude overwatch and staying out of sight from the ground — was peering at the entrance to the mine from the edge of the forest, the evergreens beginning another attempt to reclaim the road leading to the vast, underground complex.
"Explain," said Shadow.
"This is an old Zest room-and-pillar iron mine," Reverb elaborated. "When my father shut it down, rather than harvest the supports and collapse it behind us, he decided to leave it open and convert it into an emergency shelter." She pointed to the small, personnel-sized door next to the main cargo entrance. "That door should be sealed, but you see the little green indicator above the handle? That means it's unlocked. Why would Cinch leave it unlocked like that?"
Locks were meant for more than just keeping out other people, after all. Many Grimm had the manual dexterity to open doors, but locks were a bit trickier. Granted, a lock wouldn't stop all Grimm — no static defense would — but it seemed like a spectacularly foolish move to leave a door unguarded and unlocked.
"Get down!" Thundercracker's voice crackled over the radio. "Incoming Grimm on your ten high."
The two teams backed away deeper into the foliage as, true to his word, a half-dozen flying shadows descended. Their winged equine shapes marked them as Pegasi, an unusual sight this far north. The six flying Grimm dove down upon the Sabyrs as — almost unnoticed — the handle of the door to the mining complex turned, releasing a pair of Griffons.
Surprised, the Sabyrs still put up a vicious fight, but attacking from two directions, the Pegasi and Griffons quickly made short work of their fellow Grimm. As the Sabyr corpses began to disintegrate, the Pegasi and Griffons looked around. Snapping their wings out, the Pegasi took the skies while the Griffons loped back into the mine, closing the door behind them.
The Grimm gone, silence descended upon the clearing.
"Did … did that just happen?" Maverick asked incredulously.
Grimm … fighting amongst themselves? That made no sense. For all that some of them looked like animals, Grimm weren't animals. They just didn't do that sort of thing.
"Something to puzzle over another time," Shadow declared. "If there are Grimm in there, we're going to have to fight our way in, regardless of what we might prefer."
"Shadow, dive back into Cinch's files, see if she's got any secret entrances," ordered Sakura. "Reverb, do you have any secret entrances?"
Shadow moved to do that thing she did with computers, while Reverb fished out her own scroll. "Of course. This mine was shut down pretty recently; Dad mentioned them to me at the time. Let me just double check the schematics."
The hidden entrance was a concealed door in a crevasse some distance along the cliffside; about eight feet wide, the tunnel it led to was narrow enough for a single Huntsman to defend but wide enough for a pair of Huntsmen to trade out and swap places. It was also far too small for Thundercracker to even think about squeezing into.
"I can play distraction," Thundercracker offered. "Come in the main entrance, raise some hell."
"Only when we call for it," declared Aska. "No point stirring up trouble until we need it."
Passing through the tunnel itself went without incident, with Reverb leading the way; the close quarters meant her firepower would be most useful up front where she had a clear field of fire for Housecrasher, as the sonic cannon, while powerful, lacked finesse. As she shifted to undog the hatch, she waved Seal forward to cover her with her submachine gun, Close Enough.
"Make sure you keep the maps downloaded to your scrolls handy. It's a maze down there," proclaimed Aska.
Reverb paused her work long enough to turn around and glare at Aska. "It's not a maze. It's a perfectly logical three-dimensional grid, simple enough to navigate."
Aska rolled her eyes behind her glasses. "It's still big. We're just lucky that Cinch's files give us a good idea of where she is."
"'In the darkest depths of the deep, where no light shines and hope grows dim,'" recited Sakura from memory. "Another indication that this isn't Cinch."
"She wasn't into poetry?" asked Mad Dog curiously.
"Oh, no, she loved poetry," Sakura said, shaking her head. "Crystal Prep didn't have much focus on the arts, but poetry was one exception. She was just terrible at it."
"I thought we agreed never to speak of that again," hissed Maverick.
"I'm not speaking of that; I'm just stating a fact," Sakura defended herself mildly.
"Still too close to that," insisted Maverick.
"Okay, okay, I'll drop it," Sakura placated.
No, please, do go on, Aska begged in her mind.
Before things could continue, Reverb and Seal finished, and the way was opened to a stairwell that plunged down into darkness.
'Darkest depths,' indeed.
"Everyone have their optics?" Aska checked, receiving a chorus of confirmations even as she checked her own. The latest in night vision optics technology, the goggles were remarkably lightweight, with a light-amplification setting and an infrared setting, the latter aided by an infrared spotlight affixed to the forehead.
Growing up, Aska and her brother Kogetsu had not had very many experiences with fiction, certainly not as much as some other children, and when they did, it was almost always their father taking time out of his busy day to read them a story. At the time, she had resented the lack of time, but looking back on those days, it was clear to her that he was doing all he could. His face never looked so happy as when he was reading them tales of the Weisswald or the adventures of Friedrich von Ägir.
Very occasionally, however, they would go to see a movie. There was one in particular that stuck in her mind: Rebirth of a Kingdom, an adaptation of an alternate history novel in which Mistral won the Faunus War and became much more revanchanist, spending years building up their military, and even staging a coup in Menagerie to install a puppet chieftain, all in preparation for a war against Vale that they would have won if it hadn't been for the gallant Atlesians sweeping down from the north to save their allies and finally free the world. It was actually pretty confusing, and apparently was a poor adaptation of the source material, but it did have very nice effects. One of those effects was the striking image of Atlesian mechs relieving the beleaguered Freeport resistance, with very audible whirs and thuds.
Real mechs were much quieter than that, something Aska was very grateful for; as they descended down the concealed passage into the mountain, neither Bladerider nor Mad Dog made a sound even as the heavy suits of powered armor moved quite rapidly. They would be a key force multiplier in those enclosed spaces, able to sweep aside Grimm with but a glance thanks to their advanced weapons systems. A point of pride to be sure, for the two advanced fighting systems were at Aska's command, and she had great experience working with them, something the elder Team SSCL could not boast.
At length, they came to a concealed exit and opened it to reveal an uninhabited side tunnel deep inside the mine. It was quite dark, but not completely dark. They would have to go deeper.
Of course, as Reverb revealed in the briefing and with her family's maps, there was only one place that the description could have referred to.
"Careful everyone," quietly spoke up Bladerider as she raised one power-armored hand, "there's ice on the floor up ahead."
She was getting better at this. She wasn't yelling or using her normal speaking voice. It still might have been better to use a text message wired to their scrolls and HUDs though. As it was, they would be very lucky if no one heard that.
"This shouldn't be here," hissed out Reverb. "There's either new water coming in, or worse, they've pumped all the water out."
As it had been explained to them, the deepest and darkest place in the mine could only be the lower levels. As part of the process of shutting down the mine the lower levels had been filled with potable water to allow for longer stays in the shelter, and as part of that process, the electrical systems had been removed.
Any further speculation was cut off by a Grimm, a small Griffon, coming around the far corner.
For Aska, time slowed down. She drew a throwing knife, perfectly balanced, and threw it with expert accuracy. The blade hit right in the black flesh between two white armor plates on the breast, and upon sinking into the darkness, the automatic acceleration system activated and fired the blade deeper into the body, whereupon the gravity explosives activated and created an expanding cone of shrapnel.
Simultaneously, an arrow from Sakura's bow struck the eye of that tiny Griffon and expanded with a specialized head like a flower of death to exit the head through a much bigger hole than where it entered.
The twin assaults had their desired effect, and the Grimm silently dropped dead … and lingered. It didn't dissolve like every other Grimm to die. It stayed there and lay, a horror in their sight as terrifying as the cry that rose up from further down the tunnels.
The cry … Oh no.
"Go loud!" ordered Sakura. "Go! Schnell! Schnell!"
This mission had just become impossible, but that was Team Apricot's stock in trade.
Rufus "Mad Dog" Madison was used to solving the unsolvable.
The day he first heard the concept of the scientific method was the day the world finally made sense. His father was a huntsman, and to his son the world seemed like a terrifying place full of incomprehensible horrors. Then he was given a tool, a device like a shovel or hammer that he could use to dig away at the darkness that surrounded him. Finally, slowly but surely, he had understanding, and from that understanding came power.
Rufus "Mad Dog" Madison was used to being weak.
When he was a child growing up in Atlas, he spent much of his time reading and experimenting and planning, trying to figure out what made things tick. He didn't have many people that he knew, but he did have one friend, and his name was Albert. Albert was a tegu faunus from the next apartment over, and like him, he didn't like to go outside, but one day, he did go out onto his balcony at the same time Rufus went out onto his, and that was that. They tried to do everything together, being way too starved for attention and holding onto their friendship like it was the only meal for miles; they even went outside together to finally do things that other kids did. It was wonderful, right up until the end.
Rufus "Mad Dog" Madison was used to being a coward.
One day when they were out trying to climb a tree in the local park, some fops from out of the area came over and harassed them. They didn't like Rufus being friends with Albert, and they really didn't like Albert being friends with Rufus. He never figured out why. Rufus couldn't understand anything they were saying, and for the first time in his life didn't want to understand. He and Albert just ran away, back to their homes, much too slowly and far too directly. The next day, Albert's parents found him lying in the street with his head cracked open, they screamed, Rufus saw the guys from before nearby, and when the MP asked him if he saw anything or knew anyone who could have done this, he said nothing. He couldn't even raise his voice to avenge his only friend.
Rufus "Mad Dog" Madison was used to being betrayed.
After Albert was murdered and his heartbroken parents moved away, he fell into a depression, one that lasted for years. Until one day, his father decided to take him on a mission with him to an SDC training ground, a safe place for them to reconnect and for him to teach his son how to defend himself. He had a partner on that mission, an alligator faunus named Jake Featherston, and he was the first person since Albert that Rufus opened up to. He was also the person who sold them out to the White Fang.
Rufus "Mad Dog" Madison was used to being helpless.
They came in the dead of night, through an unlocked door with pistols drawn. They killed people that night, but Rufus didn't find that out until later. All he knew when he woke up was that the White Fang had captured him and his father to be their slaves, and he was told as much by a chameleon girl who was far too cute to be as evil as she was. He found out a lot working in their workshop, what had happened and how it had happened, where his father was being kept, what excuses the White Fang used to sleep at night, how much that chameleon girl liked bullying him, and how to free himself.
Rufus "Mad Dog" Madison was used to being feared.
When his project was done, he wore it himself and finally took care of himself. He strode through the tunnels of the White Fang's underground cave network in the first iteration of his Vulture series of powered armor, chopping down White Fang left and right with thundering ballistics, screaming missiles, and blinding energy weapons. In those tunnels, the Mad Dog was born in fire. He also managed to rescue his father and escape, which was pretty good for a first day on the job.
Rufus "Mad Dog" Madison was used to being a man.
When he got back to civilization with his dad, he had changed, radically. He didn't just want to understand the world; he wanted to save it. He had realized much about life, and he had learned that the ability to act conferred the duty to act. He couldn't just stand aside while evil just grew stronger, lurking in all the dark places people refused to look, and thanks to the Vulture, he didn't have to. He got in shape and applied for Atlas Academy as soon as he could, in the Huntsman course.
Rufus "Mad Dog" Madison was exactly where he needed to be.
The staccato booming of the autoshotguns on the arms of the Vulture Mk. IV filled the tunnel with deafening shockwaves as packs of Grimm were blasted apart.
"Golf down," reported Mad Dog, trying and failing to keep the grin out of his voice. "It's just like mowing the grass."
He had actually somehow missed ever seeing someone mow any grass anywhere, but one should never let ignorance get in the way of a good analogy.
"They're still not dissolving. Why aren't they dissolving?" asked Seal aloud. "Why are they playing dead? How are they playing dead?"
"Maybe they are dead, but they're not Grimm," mused Mad Dog as he rapidly cycled through data from his sensors and possibilities in his mind. "This could be a Decepticon plot, but that's unlikely. It's more likely that it's …"
"And there's also the changelings," Lyra Heartstrings of Team BLDM of Haven continued to monologue. "Not much is known about them, obviously, except that they can shapeshift, of course, and are led by Queen Chrysalis, allegedly. Personally, I think that Chrysalis business is a little out there, since they're not from as reputable sources as the ones describing them as bright and colorful, and— Hey! Are you listening?"
Mad Dog looked up from his first Beacon Academy breakfast with a tired expression. "Partly. You're debating the reliability of sources that both have yet to result in repeatable results."
Lyra pouted in a way that was almost cute, almost. "You big meanie. You're really no different from the others. Well, when you run into Grimm that don't act like Grimm, or something like that, don't come crying to me."
Mad Dog looked up from his first Beacon Academy breakfast with a tired expression. "Partly. You're debating the reliability of sources that both have yet to result in repeatable results."
Lyra pouted in a way that was almost cute, almost. "You big meanie. You're really no different from the others. Well, when you run into Grimm that don't act like Grimm, or something like that, don't come crying to me."
"… Mad Dog? Mad Dog!" shouted Shadow, catching his attention. "What are these things likely to be?"
He shook his helmeted head. "I don't want to talk about it."
He wasn't sure that he could comprehend that crazy conspiracy theorist being right at this moment.
"Come on! The central shaft is just up ahead!" encouraged Reverb.
Mad Dog took up the lead, the myomers in his powered armor driving him forward. Meanwhile, Bladerider easily took up the rear on the flying blades that she rode on. Everyone else was in the middle somewhere, the specifics of which were displayed on a screen on his helmet's internal user interface projections that compressed many data points into one system he called the "mini-map."
Such inventiveness — and lack of creativity, it had to be admitted — was one of the things that Mad Dog tried to bring to the table for his team. He wasn't as athletic as Shadow, nor as skilled as Farsight, nor as versatile as Bladerider, nor as wise as Thundercracker, but he could make stuff, and he was smart. In fact, he was so smart that he made or modified just about every piece of equipment Team APRCT used, equipment like Penny's Fracas suit.
They bounded into the central shaft and took stock of the situation with rapid eyes. Two Grimm were spotted and taken out with pulses of coherent light from his and Bladrider's weapons. It allowed them to reach the safety rails around the edge and look down to see …
"Grimm! Light 'em up!" ordered Mad Dog.
The twenty mini-missile tubes on each of his Vulture armor's shoulders erupted in fire and spat forty clever projectiles that rocketed into the air and then curved down into the shaft to blast apart the Grimm lying in wait below and flying up to meet them. Bladerider likewise took up position alongside him and sent out Floating Array, the blades transforming into their laser projector forms to slice and flash evaporate targets from afar. The shaft was thus briefly filled with light and smoke and fire, and thanks to the advanced sensors in the Vulture Mk. IV, he knew it was safe to jump before the aftermath had cleared from visual.
Feet first into hell, finally leading the way.
Joy really was doing what you were good at in a useful way.
Upper "Seal" Crust dusted herself off after completing her landing strategy onto the frozen floor of the shaft.
A frozen floor, now that was strange.
OK, it wasn't that strange. They had been briefed before that the lower levels of the mine had been turned into a fresh water reservoir in case of the mine being used as a shelter, but what they hadn't been briefed on was that the underground cistern had frozen into a solid block of ice. That was pretty strange, considering that the ground beneath the permafrost was usually warmer than freezing and that the temperature in the Pferd Valley was actually higher than normal due to the region being geothermically active.
The presence of the ice itself was odd, the ice being exactly level with the ground around it was bizarre, but the perfectly circular hole cut into the middle of the ice that led to a second shaft was just plain weird. So was the silence that choked the room. There were small craters in the ground and smoke in the air and black parts of Grimm scattered to the side tunnels, but overall, it seemed like there was a gap in the action.
Something tickled the back of her head, something magical.
"Do you remember hearing tales of the Weisswald when you were a child?" asked Upper aloud.
"Yes, and my father traveled there once," revealed Shadow in stunning admission. "He never did find his way out."
A moment of silence followed that was broken by Mad Dog. "But we've met your dad. He's our headmaster. How does that make sense?"
"He was thrown out," explained Shadow. "Was that not obvious?"
"By who?" Mad Dog demanded.
"By the elk. Do you have wax in your ears or something?" shot back Shadow. "Now, come on. The rest of you guys get into the elevator and find the councilor."
Upper couldn't help but ask, "Aren't you coming with us?"
"No," Shadow replied simply. "Someone has to hold the line at this chokepoint. There will be more points down there that will need to be guarded. If we don't have guards, we'll have no way to get out. Thundercracker is outside, and I'm here."
Bladerider looked worried even in her power armor, and managed to sound like it too. "Aska, you don't have to do this. At least have some backup."
"We don't have the numbers," insisted Shadow. "Don't worry. I'm Atlesian; we don't die for no reason."
She turned to look at all of them. "The reason I die will be you all taking too long. Schnell!"
With that declaration, they all piled onto the platform on the side of the ice hole and hit the button to start lowering the elevator down … down … down into the cylinder.
Bladerider again lived up to her name and flew along just above and besides them. No doubt, she was looking down to see any foes that might be waiting for them. There didn't seem to be anyone down there.
When the elevator reached the ground … still no one.
The bottom of the shaft was carved out of the ice, too. In fact, everything was carved out of the ice, except for a few stones that seemed like pebbles and the lights in the walls. It was like something out of a movie or video game.
"Only way through," remarked Sakura with a gesture to the sole tunnel visible in the ice. "I smell a trap."
"What do we do?" asked Upper.
Sakura smirked. "Spring the trap."
Maverick frowned. "This feels all too familiar."
They walked through the ice tunnel in a formation similar to what they had used above, and everything was going swimmingly until they realized that the lighting fixtures in this part of the tunnel were actually bioluminescent beetles dug into the ice.
"What the—?"
The exclamation was cut off by a terrific crack that snapped the nerves of those who heard it in twine, and then, all at once, it happened.
The ice beneath their feet gave way, and in the blink of an eye, they all found themselves sliding down separate tunnels of ice. Upper Crust found herself cut off from her husband, and she desperately tried to stop herself. In so small a space, though, at such high speeds, with a nearly frictionless surface around her, there wasn't much that she could do. What she could do was whip out her submachine gun, Close Enough, deploy the bayonet, stab it into ice, and pray that the aurora would grant her strength even in the dark of the mountain.
The sound the blade made in the ice wasn't the most pleasant, and her arms were given an extremely painful yank, but she did stop.
"Ow …" Upper Crust grit her teeth and let her aura do its work to heal her injuries almost instantly before activating her commset. "Honey? Anyone? Can you hear me?"
Nothing but static greeted her, which was disconcerting, as it most likely meant they were being jammed somehow.
Louder, she cried, "Jet, where are you?!"
Like sunshine on a cloudy day, a distorted voice replied, "Fghj-Sea-Is tha jude?"
"Sakura?" asked Upper Crust, barely recognizing the sound. "Sakura, what's happened?"
"I cannae dear-hsstyvtxgg. Tunnel. Come down."
On instinct, Upper Crust retracted the bayonet and started the slide down again, this time at a more reasonable pace with more braking from her limbs, and activated night vision mode on her eye protection. When your team leader gave an order, you listened, and luckily for Seal, her fellow Shadowbolt hadn't let her down yet.
Presently, she came to the end of the tunnel to find herself in another ice room. Sakura was already there, standing ready. It was easy to see why, too, for again, there was one of those bioluminescent beetles bored into the wall, glowing faintly.
"I think we sprung the trap," commented Upper Crust dryly as she got up.
Sakura looked at her with what was presumably a glare underneath the balaclava and goggles, but didn't say anything in reply. Instead, she said, "They haven't killed us yet. That's not a good sign."
Upper Crust felt a spike of worry at that, but she tried to keep it down. If she had just been the socialite and trophy wife that she always wanted to be, then it would be considered acceptable for her to worry, but she wasn't. The way to advance in Atlas was so often to join the military, and so, she had worked to earn a scholarship to Crystal Prep, a combat school. She could have just left it at that, let her then-boyfriend enroll in Atlas Academy's officer track and get a rearward job that would get them clout at parties and a safe stock of easy money, but that's not how life worked out.
When the Merinterieure Shore Evacuation had taken place, it wasn't just the Grimm on land that had gone wild; every monster in the sea had decided that a thousand miles was a short commute through the Channel. Upper Crust and Jet Set were caught in the middle of that, and they would have been dead if the sea life hadn't gotten whipped into a frenzy too. They'd been saved by a bunch of animals, and … and as she had looked into the eyes of that humpback whale that was carrying them to safety, it seemed to be telling her that she was meant to do more with her life, that she was to finish her training and save other lives as she had been saved.
So she had become a Huntress trainee, and she had learned their ways. One of those ways happened to be controlling your emotions, preventing them from ruling you or attracting the Grimm. Another was trusting your teammates to do their jobs. Both those precepts screamed at her that she was to let her husband and Reverb do their jobs while she did hers, but even still, she couldn't help but worry about her beloved.
"Do you hear that?" asked Sakura aloud.
Upper Crust kept quiet and focused on the sounds around her. She could hear it. There, beneath their feet, was the sound of ice breaking away.
They were coming up through the floor.
Both of them jumped to the sides with their weapons drawn towards the floor. There was about a second more of the sound increasing in volume from the center of the room. Then, suddenly, the walls behind their backs exploded.
"Ahh!" Upper Crust let out a cry as she twisted around and tried to fire Close Enough at what was coming out of the wall. She had been too slow, though, and it reached out with one big inky paw to knock her to the ground.
It was a Grimm, or something like it, some sort of mutated Beowolf, looking vaguely more canine than lupine. It leapt at her to tackle her to the ground. It barely succeeded, but Upper Crust had managed to stab it with her bayonet.
A normal Grimm would have been hurt by that, and a normal Grimm definitely wouldn't have done what came next.
"Pretty human pretty lost," said the Grimm. Said the Grimm. "We take you to Mistress. She expecting you."
Upper Crust's training and years of experience failed in an instant, and she screamed.
I should have asked Mad Dog to stay with me, realized Aska silently as she heard the lift reach the bottom.
And yet, here she was, alone against impossible odds, holding the line so that her fellows could escape. It was like something out of those Mistrali legends she read while she was in her rebellious phase.
Oh gods, did I just think of it as a phase? Aska thought in shock. I can't have just thought that. It wasn't a phase; it was a momentary lapse in judgment that lasted for a few years while I was a teenager, which is different.
Well, if it was a momentary lapse in judgment, then this was another moment, because this was definitely a very Mistrali plan she had. The proper thing to do, the Atlesian thing to do, would have been to have one of her heavy-hitters hold the line alongside a long-distance sniper who could make use of these giant tunnels at the very least. Farsight and Mad Dog, that's who should have been there.
Instead of doing the sensible thing, however, she was there doing the nonsensical thing, and it was too late to change anything … probably. Though that did raise the question of why Sakura or any of the others hadn't stopped her.
Something clicked in her mind, something that smelled treachery, and her limbs blurred to open a comm line. None responded; she got only static, that is, until she got to Thundercracker's line.
"Shadow, what's happening?" asked Thundercracker.
"Thundercracker, something has happened. I have been unable to contact the rest of the team after they descended further into the mine. I suspect we are being jammed," explained Aska.
"Why aren't you with them?" inquired Thundercracker with piercing insight.
Aska's response outran her brain. "Because I'm an idiot! I'm holding the line at the bottom of the central shaft alone. Someone has to, and I decided to do it in the most foolish way possible."
"I'll go down and help you," offered Thundercracker.
"No, someone has to keep the exits clear," Aska replied with an aggravated sigh, and then a flutter sounded through the mine. She looked up. "Thundercracker, I'll have to call you back. I have nine Griffons inbound, and they're armed."
"Stay on the line," begged Thundercracker.
Aska wanted to cut the line … but that wouldn't be very Atlesian of her.
"Copy," she replied.
The nine Griffons were smaller than normal, but the same could be said for all the ones they had faced this night. What they also were was covered in bone white armor, with large voluminous wings that helped slow their weighty descents, and in their foreclaws, each clutched a large, double-bladed sword. When they landed, those wings collapsed down into their bodies, and toothy, evil grins were upon their beaks.
Aska gave her own bloodthirsty grin. "I am Shadow. I can kill each of you in twenty seconds AND I WILL!"
With that shout, Aska shot forward as swift as the dawn she was named after. She leapt at the first Griffon with hands outstretched and gravity dust activating to increase her momentum. She collided with the Griffon's head and squashed it beneath her hands, in the process reversing the polarity of her gloves' gravity and using the head as a springboard.
Aska landed on the ground behind the Griffon, and a moment after she did, the headless body of the monster slumped backwards onto her back. With the strength of a ninja, she slumped it onto her shoulder. With that same strength, she raised the Griffon above her head and crushed it, shattering armor and making it leak some indescribable fluid in sheets that fell off her aura like rain.
"That's one," Aska said with a grin.
She threw the Grimm aside and charged forward at number two. Aska tackled it into a crater that had been left by the earlier bombardment by Mad Dog and Bladerider and drew forth from its back scabbard Magorox, the Magoroku Exterminate Sword. She stabbed the vibrating blade down through the head of the Griffon, cutting out through the upper jaw as she did so. The Griffon struggled for a moment, and then fell still.
Aska got up and came out of the crater, sword still in hand. She ran towards number three and got in low as the Griffon was preparing to strike. In one swift movement, she sliced through its right arm, knocking it to the side and sending the massive bladed weapon it had been holding flipping through the air to land in a crack vertically.
The ninja forced the disarmed Griffon to the ground and brought Magorox back again. It was at that time, the worst of times, that out from the hole in the middle of the room, a terrible echoing cacophony of battle sounded. Aska looked that way for but a moment, a split second, but that was all that was needed.
The Griffon reached over her right arm and grabbed her face with its left claw, the only claw it had left. It gripped her head hard, and Aska dropped Magorox for her counter. She moved her arm, dug her boots into the ice, and twisted in the Grimm's grip. She got the claw off, slid around, got it into a headlock, and between her left and right arms, she created enough force that a wet crack was soon her reward, along with the third Griffon going limp.
She looked up just in time to see number four falling down upon her. Aska reacted quickly, rolling to the side and out of the way. The Griffon came down onto the ice with a heavy landing that sent tiny icy shards into the air.
Aska finished her roll next to the giant blade and, with one smooth motion, brought it up to deflect its identical twin wielded by the fourth Griffon. The two heavy blades collided, and both wielders were forced back from the recoil of the clashing blades, with Aska's digging itself back into the ice such that it needed to be lifted out once more. Each of those weapons must have weighed more than either of the wielders put together, and handling them was as much an exercise in physical prowess as it was skill.
The blades struck again, and Aska could feel the force rippling through her whole body. It was madness, the weight of the things, the impossible weight which made even flying with them as the Griffons had done something beyond the natural. Or maybe it was natural, and that was what shook her.
Again, the blades clashed, and Aska decided that it was definitely the recoil that was shaking her. She had placed her left hand further down on the blade itself though, in a technique mimicking half-swording, that gave her the critical control she needed. This time, it was the Griffon's blade that was forced into the frozen ground. It gave Aska the opening she needed to bring her blade down with incredible force onto the Grimm's torso, severing it in half.
The momentum of the swing sent the upper body of the fourth Griffon spinning through the air, its severed torso standing in black bloody testimony to her victory. She wasn't done though, and neither were they.
She brought the blade down in a low swing that cut close to the ice and through the left leg of the fifth Griffon that had been sneaking up behind her. It was knocked onto the ground, but Aska wasn't out of danger yet. The sixth Griffon came in from the side and leapt up to tackle her in a move reminiscent of what she had done earlier in the fight.
Aska grappled with the Griffon, lifting it up and bringing its head in line with her shoulder. It was there that a concealed spike launcher was kept for just such an unusual fight. Mad Dog had said that it was impractical, but he was proven short-sighted when seven spikes rushed out of their concealed hiding locations with a bang to penetrate the skull of the Griffon grappling with her. They brought its body with them as the momentum of their launch carried them to land in front of Aska, still embedded in the sixth Griffon's head.
She got up and sprinted at ninja speeds and hit the seventh Griffon hard enough that it buried itself into the stone of the wall. She gripped it hard and dragged it out through the stone on its way out. Her mind was simply elated, running off of adrenaline and the high of victory.
"I can't lose, because Mama is waiting for me!" Aska cried as she threw the seventh Griffon through the air to hit the eighth. "I finally have a family!"
She sprinted across the distance between and, along the way, leaned down to pick up Magorox.
"You're the last one!" she shouted.
Aska thrust with the sword and struck in the center of the seventh Griffon, driving it clean through into the chest of the eighth behind it. She activated the fire dust function on the sword and screamed a battle yell as the flames began to burn away at the Grimm. Victory was so close, she could taste it.
A sudden premonition, an effect of the ninja training deep within her, alerted her to look to her side. She saw then one of the blades flying towards her at incredible speeds, and she acted on instinct. Aska brought up her hand and projected out her aura to stop the missile in its place, visibly distorting the air with the rare technique.
It worked, and for a moment, the blade stood frozen in the air as it hit the makeshift shield. Then it shifted, changing shape right in front of her eyes like it was more liquid than metal until it settled into the shape of an organic tuning fork with very pointy prongs. Against all known functions of the universe, it started to force itself through with tiny thrusters built into it that seemed to be breathing air.
Aska had just enough time for her eyes to widen in shock and realization before the bident breached her aura and shot through to hit her in the chest.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"
Aska screamed a horrible agonizing scream, a terrible thing which shook the walls of the mine as she fell onto her back and was pinned by the weight of the spear that drove itself into ice and stuck her to it.
No, not like this, she thought in the midst of a sea of pain. I can't fail the mission. I can't dishonor my family!
She tried to grab hold of the bident, tried to move it at all, even as she could feel the blood flowing out of her, all to no avail. Then, all around her, she heard the most sickening sound she had ever heard in her life. She looked around and saw a new kind of horror.
The Grimm, the nine Grimm that had attacked her, were pulling themselves together and regenerating. One was already standing, without its weapon because that was the Griffon that she had missed and that had struck her. The rest saw their wounds close, their necks snap back into place, their body parts regenerate, or in the case of the bisected Grimm, it literally crawled across the floor and stuck itself back on its lower body.
They weren't totally restored; they still had very visible wounds. They just didn't care. The sixth one even still had the spikes in its head. It was a horrific mockery of healing that these abominations were performing.
And they were all grinning, and the moment Aska saw those toothy grins, she felt true fear, for she knew in her heart what they had planned for her. The Creatures of Grimm regrew their wings and descended upon her. Aska didn't even have time to scream in rage or fear before the feeding began.
In this air of horror, the thunder cracked.
Thundercracker listened to the battle going on at the other end of the comm line and decided that there had got to be a better way to do this. Ironwood had told him that he was part of a team once, and General Hawk had said something very similar. To be an Atlesian meant never being alone.
And they weren't alone, even out here.
He placed a call to Swiftwing's security detail and stood on pins and needles as he listened to Shadow fight for her life. They answered swiftly. "How did you get this number?"
"From you guys!" shouted Thundercracker. "This is Thundercracker of Team Apricot, Atlas Academy. We've located Gilda Swiftwing's kidnappers, and have engaged them in combat at the old Mount Fetlock iron mine. Send backup now!"
The pause that came lasted only a moment. "Copy that, Thundercracker. We are sending reinforcements."
"I can't lose, because Mama is waiting for me!" declared Shadow at the other end of the line.
No! She's gotten overconfident, she… he noticed at that time that there was a patrol of Skygraspers closing in, and he needed to act now, which meant reaching out. "Air Patrol 87, this is Thundercracker of Atlas Academy. We have a serious Grimm infestation at the Mount Fetlock iron mine and are in need of immediate assistance."
"Copy that, Thundercracker," was the immediate reply.
Good. We're covered. Now to save Shadow, he thought in relief.
He dove toward the mine and started with his incendiary guns, melting and weakening the blast doors that had been built and rated to resist much heavier ordnance than he generally carried, then followed them up with a salvo of missiles, chasing his own weapons toward the mine entrance.
The missiles struck and detonated, obscuring the mine's entrance with billowing smoke and flame and shrapnel, but Thundercracker ignored it, trusting his weapons and flying into the explosion, the heat from it blinding even his thermals. On the other side, he burst out of the smoke, flying over swarms of Grimm that looked up at him, perhaps in confusion, a few leaping up toward him but unable to catch him as he blazed past, a few even scorched by his afterburners.
There were flyers, though, Pegasi and Griffons in the main. Those on the ground that clawed at the air toward him were too late and left in his wake, but a few from higher perches were able to trade their scant altitude advantage for enough speed to catch him as he passed them, hooking forelegs around the leadings edges of his wings or finding purchase with their claws in the nooks and crannies of his fuselage.
The hitchhikers reared back, hanging on, only to strike down with claws and beaks and hooves, the relatively tiny blows chipping away at his structural integrity field.
With a growl of annoyance — and regretting not taking up Mad Dog on his offer to install an electrification system into his fuselage — Thundercracker spun into a high-speed aileron roll, and most of the Grimm clinging to him — including all the Pegasi, which lacked grasping appendages with which to find proper purchase — found themselves flung away, unable to react to the sudden shift in momentum, but a few stubbornly stayed on, even as he leveled out again.
He could stop, transform, and scrape them off … but Shadow — Aska — needed him, and besides, if he slowed, let alone stopped, far more would swarm him.
Up ahead was a turn in the tunnel. He banked ninety degrees and pulled up, barely making the turn … and scraping a few of the Griffons off his belly.
As he kept flying deeper into the depths, he considered that.
Oh, Primus, this is stupid, he thought as he shifted toward the edge of the tunnel again.
He was no Knock Out, but even he was going to appreciate a good buffing when they got back from this.
For the Griffons clutching to his wings and dorsal surface, it was both easier and harder to scrape them off. Easier, because the ones clinging to his wings and tail fins were inherently further from his fuselage, but harder because it required a bit more clever geometry to deal with the fact that those parts of him were more than just flat surfaces.
He suppressed a wince as he pulled up toward an icy stalactite, maneuvering breathtakingly close such that it passed barely above his canopy and then between his tail fins to knock off one particularly clever Griffon.
Now free of the Grimm that had taken him for a ride, Thundercracker turned his attention back to the tunnel in front of him … the rapidly shortening tunnel in front of him.
Scrap! he thought as he pulled up into a sharp half-loop, flaring his thrusters as the entrance to the main shaft flashed by beneath him. Mere meters from the end of the tunnel that stood ready to teach him a short, sharp lesson in physics, his thrusters finally overcame his momentum, shooting him back toward the main shaft, and he transformed before leaping down the vertical tunnel, incendiary guns pointed down and blazing at the tide of black and bone that blocked his path deeper into the mine.
Finally, he burst down out of the bottom of the shaft, specks of black flesh and white bone trailing in his wake. It was taking awfully long for the fragments of Grimm to dissipate, but he paid it no mind as he focused on his surroundings … on the cluster of Griffons feeding hungrily on something that was obscured by their bodies, a bloody pool of red growing from under them.
He raised his incendiary guns and fired, incinerating a pair of Griffons with one shot and three Griffons with the other.
As one, the remaining Grimm turned to him, revealing what he feared: Aska, lying broken beneath them. As one, they lunged toward him, some of them clutching weapons, heavy two-bladed swords of a strange design.
He kept firing, burning down the Grimm as they approached, and stomped forward.
Standing over Aska's supine form, he scanned the area for threats one last time before crouching down beside her. She was pinned in place by an odd two-pronged weapon.
"You haven't died on me, have you?" he asked.
No response.
He grimaced. "Let's get out of here and get you some medical attention, Shadow," he said as he tuned his incendiary guns down low, just enough to melt a perimeter in the ice around her, carefully cutting away a section of it to support her as he gently picked her up, along with the ice beneath her. "Those patrolling Skygraspers I radioed should be here pretty soon."
At that, he looked up, ready to rocket back up the shaft, when something burst out of the side of the shaft about halfway up, some sort of tentacle-beaked worm thing that filled his vision as it dove toward him.
On instinct, Thundercracker dropped to one knee, cupping his precious cargo in his hands and tucking her against his chest, curling up as tight as he could to shield her from the inevitable impact.
As Penny was falling down that icy tube, she found herself being very suspicious of how it was big enough for her powered armored form to fall down it but not big enough for her to deploy her weapons. With a sigh, she realized she was being kidnapped again. If MECH was at the bottom of this shaft, she was going to be very peeved.
There was no band of green and black masked men waiting for her at the bottom. In fact, there was no one, just an empty icy chamber with one side missing from which could distantly be heard the sound of water against ice. There were also several small holes in the walls, one of which Penny had fallen out of.
It was out of another closer to the ceiling that Ciel fell, slowly, in a very controlled and graceful manner. Seeing that, Penny was struck by the sudden thought that it was a shame that she didn't want to be a Bauchtänzerin. Beauty and skill in one flowing package that could eclipse all Penny's troupe had it not been constrained in one tightly-wrapped stiff package.
"Salutations," greeted Penny softly as Ciel dusted herself off.
The human girl gave a slight and overly formal bow of the head. "Greetings."
Cycling through her comm lines, Penny came to a depressing conclusion. "It looks like we're being jammed, again."
"Any sign of MECH?" asked Ciel mechanically.
"Not yet," replied Penny. "Think they've teamed up with Salem?"
"It is more likely that Salem has simply bought a jammer off the open market from a place like MARS. They have been utterly naked and shameless in their lack of both morality or discretion," theorized Ciel as she drew forth Blitzjager and walked towards the obvious exit. "We should explore the area."
Penny fell in behind her, Thundercracker's words from the transport coming back to her for the fourth time that night. He had told her to just put her emotions aside for the mission, but she was having trouble doing that, never mind putting herself into mission mode. How was she supposed to do that when they still had this cloud hanging over them?
Looking ahead, there was a bend in the tunnel, and the sound was becoming steadily louder. So it was that they rounded the bend and found themselves in a long chamber, one that had clearly been hollowed out by the icy river that cut through it about fifty feet beneath the precipice that they were looking out over. The chamber curved further down the way, but visible along the way was how the precipice they were on continued to hug the wall with perhaps three or four feet maximum clearance.
The water down below had a temperature that was sure to induce hypothermia, was filled with ice chunks, was likely not deep enough to catch a fall from that height, and was flowing into another section of cave that meant there would likely be no air downstream. It was, in other words, a deathtrap full of deadly danger. They had to avoid any risks of falling in there at all costs, and that meant …
Penny looked at Ciel, who had evidently figured things out as well.
"I'll take the cliff; you take the air," offered Ciel, who turned in place and began walking towards the precipice.
Penny nodded and deployed from the Fracas armor Floating Array, which combined into its swordboard form beneath her feet and allowed her to fly out over the river while Ciel walked alongside it.
They had to fix this gulf between them. Somehow, someway, they had to set things right. They couldn't continue on like this, but what other choice did they have? Neither of them would budge, and for good reasons.
Personally, Penny thought she understood a lot better why Ciel was the way she was, but Penny still couldn't give in to her demands. She just wanted to dance. She couldn't deny herself that and all the benefits it brought.
Again, her bad leg itched.
In the wacky color palette of her armor's optics, Penny could see Ciel's covered form looking at one of the bioluminescent beetles that had embedded itself in the wall.
"We are on the right track," she remarked. "They are obviously using these to light the tunnels that they use, or else using them as a trap. In either case, these appear to be a sort of organic technology, not like the Grimm at all."
Penny activated Fracas's optical zoom function and found herself agreeing. Not only was the color palette all wrong, but part of the head looked like a button, and the creature seemed to be fed by an internal heat similar to an engine which produced light outside the visible spectrum. It was an utterly bizarre and alien way of doing things, and for the life of her, Penny couldn't figure out why.
With a cry and a roar, the peace was interrupted from both sides, and suddenly, they were engaged.
Penny's armored feet were locked into Floating Array as she drew forth two more of her weapon's swords while flipping around in the air, decapitating the Pegasus that tried to strike her in the back with one smooth maneuver and two simultaneous cuts.
Golly! That was sensational! cried Penny in her mind, even as she transformed the swords into their laser gun forms with a flourish and then destroyed another two Grimm with green light.
That was too easy! … In fact, it was. On the cliff face, Ciel was engaging with the Grimm as well. She was using Blitzjager like a polearm, spinning the five-foot-long firearm in her hands, shouldering it just long enough to fire from one side before switching to the other while using the heavy weight of the weapon as a club to smash in the faces of monsters and knock them off the edge. That alone would have been impressive but was made worrying by the simple fact that the fight on the ledge seemed to be a distraction for her, because her real focus was the flying enemies attacking Penny.
Instantly, Penny felt a spike of resentment. She could take care of herself! She was combat ready! She had been eliminating Grimm that whole time. She didn't need Ciel to take care of her!
She might as well have recalled Floating Array and dropped into the freezing water beneath her, for it would have had the same feeling as that thought. Penny knew for certain then that Ciel didn't really hate her as she had feared weeks ago, but still cared … enough even that she was willing to risk herself to keep Penny safe.
Her suit's sensors picked up a large shape moving in the water, a Grimm of some sort. Penny directed some of her weapons to fire at it, reducing the size of her board as green lances penetrated the water to strike it down, but to no avail. In but an instant, she saw the great beast rising up from the water, a giant worm with a tri-pointed jaw that split wide apart to reveal three barbed tongues that lashed like whips through the air.
She knew that the aerial Grimm, the Griffons and the Pegasi, were going to exploit any opening she left, but she didn't have a choice. If that thing caught her, she was a goner, and that left her only one option. She activated her suit's jump jets and transformed all of Floating Array into a series of guns pointed in front of her that could be combined to form a compound laser, and they did so. She fired, trusting Ciel to cover her, and filled the cavern with a blinding green light that burned straight through the foul worm.
It fell back into the water, its upper body a smoking wreck, and so too did another Grimm. A Pegasus, in two pieces, had fallen onto Penny's back, clearly having been the target of Blitzjager. Penny cast it off, but in that time, two more of the small Pegasi began to grapple with her. Her cover had disappeared, and only a glance confirmed why.
On the ridge, Ciel had just finished reloading when a Griffon came in to strike her, claws out. Ciel swung Blitzjager like a club, but the Griffon dodged at the last possible moment, the hardened stock passing within less than an inch of striking it. The claws of the Griffon reached out and laid hold of Blitzjager, trying to yank it out of Ciel's iron grip, jerking and twisting it from side to side.
Something changed in Ciel's body, and Penny knew that her semblance had activated behind her goggles, and she could now see the future. In a flash, Ciel let go of Blitzjager at the right moment to cause the Griffon grappling with her to stumble, while at that same moment, she drew her sidearm, an old Colton .45 Automatic, and fired.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The Grimm fell back on the ledge, still clutching onto Blitzjager, and the weight of it made the foul creature slip over the edge.
Ciel didn't even pause; she just snapped her pistol up and fired twice at the Grimm that had been behind the Griffon while delivering a powerful backhand to strike down the one that had been coming up behind her. With another sweep, the pistol delivered twin pinpoint shots into the eye sockets of the two Pegasi that had been grappling with Penny, neutralizing them. The slide locked, and the final round in the magazine went straight into the solar plexus of the Grimm that been trying to grapple with her from behind in a shot that was blindly aimed while, simultaneously, the magazine was ejected out the bottom of the grip of the pistol.
The older girl spun around like she was on the ballroom floor, smoothly inserting a new magazine and releasing the slide of the pistol before finishing her rotation. The Grimm that was now missing its back was thrown aside, and into the opening Ciel now fired with near supernatural accuracy. Again and again, the horse-like Grimm fell as she walked forward and emptied her magazine.
Penny saw that, and like Ciel had before her, she tried her best to defend her fellow from attacks from her rear. She made most of Floating Array a swordboard again and fired her lasers down at those coming up the rear even as she continued to fight those in the air. There were a lot more than what she expected, given all the carnage that they had participated in over the course of the fight.
Ciel finished reloading again, her motions efficient and mechanical, and aimed her first new shot up at the ceiling. She fired, hitting the base of an icicle and making it fall from on high.
As she was walking past one part of the wall, it burst out to reveal a tunneling Grimm, a Beowolf variant of some kind, that reached out to grab Ciel's leg. Something that almost sounded like an "Aha!" sounded out just before the icicle speared the Grimm through the head and pinned it to the ground.
Penny had probably just imagined the sound, but it was kind of a funny situation.
Ciel reloaded again, and Penny knew she was getting low on ammunition. She could only carry so much for her backup weapon. After that, she would be down to CQC, which she was good at, but it just wasn't quite as good as a gun.
It was at that moment, while Penny was occupied, that another Grimm, tall and lanky like some sort of athletic Yeti, came out of the previously made tunnel to strike at Ciel. It worked.
It grabbed hold of Ciel's head and slammed her against the ice cavern's wall with a terrific crack. Having been used up so much with her semblance, alongside all the fighting of the last few minutes, her aura collapsed. He slammed her again. Then, finally, threw her unconscious body over the edge.
Penny saw this and acted on instinct. She dipped her bladeboard down and kicked in her jump jets, speeding after her teammate. She was far too close to the water when she caught up with and caught Ciel in her armored arms in a dipping maneuver that was designed to hopefully reduce the shock of being caught by something so hard.
Water sprayed up as she skimmed those icy depths, even as she curved back up to the ledge. The eyes of the Yeti that had so callously thrown Ciel over the edge widened just before Penny jumped off of Floating Array so that all ten blades could stab into it and then throw it overboard, so it went flying to the right and over somewhere Penny didn't care about.
She set Ciel down onto the icy floor and checked her vitals with her suit's sensors. The older girl was unconscious, but her skull was still intact, which meant that she probably had just suffered a concussion which could be fixed once her aura was restored.
To … someplace bad with the mission! Ciel was hurt, and even if they were supposed to be having a spat, she couldn't just leave her there! She had to get her out of there!
Calm yourself, Penelope, came a feminine voice from everywhere and nowhere.
Who was that? Was that Penny's own mind? It didn't sound like it. It didn't sound like anyone she knew either. No one called her Penelope, not even her father except when he was exceptally disappointed.
Be at peace, Penelope. Ciel will survive this, and so will you, the voice continued. Keep calm and stand your ground.
It was then that Penny noticed that the Grimm still in the cavern were moving incredibly slowly, so slow they were almost standing still, and yet, she wasn't.
You can do this, Penelope. I trust you to keep her safe.
"Who are you?" asked Penny, her voice tinged with … wonder?
You know who I am, the voice declared, and you know what you must do.
Suddenly, the world snapped back to normal speed, but Penny did not. She moved, and Floating Array moved with her in a whirlwind that swept out and knocked all of the Grimm out of the air. Those on the ridgeline were likewise cut to pieces.
Penny allowed herself a cheerful smile. That had turned out quite wonderfully. She had been practicing that move for a while, but she didn't think she could pull it off under live fire conditions. Turned out, she was wrong. Oh! And she managed to find Ciel's pistol; she'd be happy about that.
She gave the recall gesture for the blades, and after they had folded up back into the Fracas armor, she ran a gloved finger over the inscription on the pistol. It looked to be written in that language Jaune's sister was always declaring superior to Valish, but she said a lot of things like that.
Ice cracked with the sound of claws scraping into it, and Penny looked up just in time to see that same gosh-darned Yeti climbing back onto the ridge. Didn't she already kill it? It must have survived somehow, but there was an easy fix for that.
Penny brought Ciel's pistol up into a Weaver stance and pulled the trigger. The Yeti jerked back from the booming bullet blasting its cheek and leaving a large crater, but it did not fall. Penny fired again and again, until she had emptied the entire magazine, each time blowing a huge crater in the chest of the Yeti. It was like shooting clay blocks with Mad Dog, only less fun and more deadly. With the eighth round, the Yeti fell backwards onto the ice, dead.
Penny didn't sigh like a human being, because at the end of the day, she wasn't one, but she did like to imitate such gestures at moments like this.
The moment didn't last. The Yeti, against all logic, began to reform. The craters filled in, and within seconds, it was whole once more. It then sat up at the waist and started to get up.
The coppertopped gynoid held up the pistol, giving it and the Grimm a brief glance of disbelief. It had regenerated! That type of Grimm shouldn't have done that, but it did, and if it did, then that meant that all the other Grimm that hadn't disappeared during the attack …
Penny's head whirled around just in time to see the Griffon that Ciel had been grappling with lean over the edge with Blitzjager in hand. It fired, and almost instantly, Penny got a short, sharp lesson in why Ciel liked .80 Colton as a cartridge. It hurt!
It fired again and again, staggering Penny, but she wasn't down yet. She just needed to call forth Floating Array, and this would be done. One of the stumpy Beowolves that came out of the wall unfortunately had a solution to that problem, though, and it came in the form of a nut-thing that exploded outwards into a hundred wraps of green tape.
Suddenly, in addition to her aura being at critical levels, Penny got to enjoy the feeling of having her body wrapped up like a pre-Vacuan royal in a burial tomb. She tried flexing and moving to get out of it, but whatever it was had seized hold of her far too properly. She couldn't escape, even inside her powered armor.
Worse, she was able to hear a distinctive voice cut off far too soon.
"Ugh," Ciel moaned. "Wha—?"
The sound of those wraps being used again filled the air.
Penny squirmed helplessly as she was carried in a fireman's carry. When exactly Grimm started using tools more complex than the occasional scavenged weapon was … a deeply concerning question, to be honest, but she was more focused on the strange, tapelike bindings that practically mummified her in her Fracas suit. Even the suit's advanced optics were unable to penetrate it, for the green bands were wrapped tightly around her, including over her visor.
She'd tested her bonds, and they were surprisingly secure, even with her suit's enhanced strength, though she wasn't willing to risk burning out the myomers by overriding the limiters again just yet; she'd tried that briefly earlier and hadn't gotten any detectable result. Still, there was no reason not to keep trying. She might be weakening them over time, after all, even if she couldn't really tell, considering how unfamiliar the material was.
After several minutes, she felt herself dumped on the ground and roughly maneuvered into a seated position. The sounds of others being similarly manhandled — Grimmhandled? — around her caused a sinking feeling in her magna fuses. Especially the particularly loud clanking and scraping sound of something — or someone — metallic and significantly larger than a human being moved around.
"That's good enough," a severe female voice declared. "Let's see their faces. Or faceplates, I suppose."
And then she could see, as a Grimm — a type she didn't recognize that looked more like a bipedal canine of some sort — cut a section of her bindings away from her visor with a delicacy she hadn't thought a Grimm capable of. Then again, the Grimm here had been acting exceptionally atypical for quite some time.
They were in a large, well-lit cavern. Or, at least, Penny thought it was a cavern. It was hard to tell, for the walls were almost entirely concealed beneath a sickly green growth, some sort of plant or fungus, she couldn't tell. Vines laced across the walls, some of them branching out into glowing orange-red pods that lit the cavern with an eerie reddish tint.
The first occupant she noticed was the towering form of Thundercracker, his bindings looking far more cumbersome, while some sort of giant worm Grimm wrapped itself around him to further secure him. To either side of her were the rest of Teams APRCT and SSCL too. Over to the left, bound up against the wall was Councilor Swiftwing, her head hanging, eyes closed.
Standing in front of them was the subject of their investigation, Abacus Cinch. And flanking her were various Grimm: a whole pack of the bipedal canines, a couple of really huge Ursai, but mostly Griffons, Nightmares, Pegasi, and even a few Karkadanns.
"So, you can control Grimm," Sakura spoke up from off to Penny's right. "You must work for Salem. Still think we should be okay with this, Shadow?"
Aska did not reply, and Penny twisted her head to look at her team leader to her left, beyond Sakura's line of sight. Aska looked pale, her cheeks sunken, her eyes closed, the only sign of life her thready breathing. Part of the cocoon she was wrapped in seemed a bit too red.
"'Salem'?" Cinch echoed with a derisive sneer. "The so-called witch-queen? Don't be insulting."
Penny stared. But … that didn't make any sense. Salem ruled the Grimm.
True, there had been those who had tried to control the Grimm in some fashion, whether through certain promising semblances or complicated training tools and methods or even cybernetic implants, but they had all failed. The test subjects had a tendency to get loose, take over the base, and kill all their guys.
Such projects were astonishingly self-correcting.
"Salem is a timid fool," Cinch continued. "She commands the greatest army on Remnant, and yet, she is content to skulk about in the shadows."
"Oh, yes, I see your point," Sakura said sweetly. "Of course, you're doing the exact same thing."
Cinch whirled around and glared at Sakura. "We do not command such an unstoppable army." She smiled. "At least, not yet."
A familiar voice cut through the exchange.
"Who are you?" asked the newly awakened Councilor Swiftwing, her eyes narrowed not out of grogginess but out of deadly intent.
"Dangerous question, that," observed Cinch as she focused in on the councilor with an inscrutable expression. "After all, who are you?"
"I am Gilda Swiftwing, Councilor for the Kingdom of Atlas."
Cinch smiled smugly. "Oh, don't be silly. After all, Councilor Swiftwing is right here."
With that, she gestured off to her left — Penny's right — and the Grimm that stood there parted, revealing … Councilor Swiftwing? This Councilor sauntered out up to her bound counterpart, a confident smile on her face.
"Don't worry," the free Councilor said, placing a hand on the other Councilor's cheek, "we'll make sure you're in a more secure facility than Cinch's counterpart. Wouldn't want anything … unexpected to happen to you, after all."
Swiftwing flinched away from the touch in disgust. "You'll never get away with this."
"And why not?" asked Cinch. "Are you putting stock in G.I. Joe?"
Penny looked around in confusion at the name. No one else seemed to recognize the name either.
"General Colton—"
"Is our puppet," declared Swiftwing, cutting off Swiftwing. "He just doesn't know it. Unlike you."
"Everything that has transpired here tonight has done so according to our design," announced Cinch.
"You're a bunch of damn liars," hissed out Thundercracker. "You think you're special? You think you've got it all figured out? Well, I've been around the galaxy a few more times than you have, and let me tell you that you people always talk a big game, but in the end you don't know nothing. Whatever you have planned for this world, it's just a blip on the radar."
Cinch looked up at him in amusement. "Oh, the Cybertronian. Revolting. Bits of metal that decided to get up and take a walk. Tell me, when Primus created you, was he blind, or did he just get a kick out of making your kind so disgusting? It's fitting for the metallic equivalent of head lice."
Thundercracker's eyebrows, or the plates that looked like them, rose. "What are you talking about?"
Cinch shook her head. "You really don't have a clue what's going on. You Cybertronians think your issues are so much larger than anyone else's, but the fact is, this world — this entire reality — is nothing more than a stepping stone toward our true prize. Like everyone else on this wretched planet, you're just children, stumbling around in the dark, pawns in a game you can't possibly hope to comprehend."
"And you can?" asked Sakura in disbelief. "You can fake it real good, but you can't even make a proper Beowolf or Karkadann."
"Hey!" cried one of the stumpy Grimm. "We're not Beowolves; we're diamond dogs!"
"Yeah!" agreed one of the Nightmares. "And we're earth ponies! Oh, and pegasi and unicorns too. Sorry."
"At least, that's what they were originally modeled after," continued Cinch. "When our masters came to this world and created the synthoids, they already had a number of basic templates beyond the infiltration models. Some of these were based off of lesser creatures from their homeland, easily modified without the need to capture a Grimm and study it like you foolish people of Remnant do."
"And what is their homeland?" asked Maverick.
Mad Dog groaned. "I have a feeling I know. Lyra's never going to let me hear the end of this."
"You've said that before. Who are these people?" demanded Seal.
"Now now, children," chided Cinch. "Let's not fight. After all, we're all on the same side here."
"Go shove it up your fake tailpipe, you thieving harpy!" cursed Reverb. "The real Cinch would never say something like that!"
"Yes, she was quite the character," the fake Cinch concurred. "She was … Well, she was more White Fang than human, twisted and evil. I'd like to think I've made the world a better place than she ever did, and your synthoid copies will do better than you all did, I'm sure of it."
"Well, except for you," cheekily commented the fake Swiftwing with a gesture at Thundercracker. "You're sadly going to become a tragic casualty of this attempt to rescue me, but don't worry, I'll make sure you're remembered right up until this kingdom goes splat."
"Many different creatures call Equestria their home," observed Cinch — or the synthoid pretending to be Cinch, at least; the Cinchoid? – as she looked at Thundercracker, "but never has it seen one such as you." She smiled. "I'm sure our researchers back home will be delighted to meet you."
"The dream of Atlas is not so easily extinguished," proclaimed Ciel in a tone that struck straight through Penny's body, that seemed to strike through all of their bodies. "Many have tried, and all have failed. You shall be no different, and you know it."
The Cinchoid actually seemed a little bit paler at that. "Ahem. Yes, your words are quite inspiring, almost magical, but the fact of the matter is that we don't want to snuff out your dreams. In fact, we want to encourage them. Your dreams are the gateway to a world of bloody evolution."
Penny knew what they were talking about, even if they didn't say it. "Mind scans. You're going to hook us up to some machine and download everything we know so that you can imitate us better."
"Miss Polendina, do be more precise in your wording next time," chided the Cinchoid like she was actually an old school marm. "After all, Equestria is a magical place, and we have many more ways of making you talk than … machines. In truth, we'll be doing you a favor. We're going to make all your dreams a reality."
"Isn't that wonderful, Gilda?" asked the fake Swiftwing cheerfully. "We can finally make Dashie understand. We can finally achieve everything we ever wanted. Well, almost everything. No one ever really gets everything they want, after all."
"Now isn't that the truth?"
Out of the shadows stepped the last person Penny expected to see, the last person she ever wanted to see.
Silas stood there with a smile that was all business and held up what looked like a remote. "So long, snakehead."
He pressed one of the buttons on it, and instantly, amazingly, their captors — the Cinchoid, the Swiftwing double, even the Grimm — all melted before their very eyes into puddles of gray goop.
"Messy," commented Silas before waving in a cadre of masked men in green jumpsuits. "All right, boys, let's go! We've got a lot to get, and not a lot of time to get it in."
As his men began rushing around, tearing at the walls and packing things up, Silas turned to the prisoners.
"How?" Penny demanded. "How did you do that? Is this— is this some sort of trick?!"
"A command signal," he answered congenially. "Our people managed to acquire the code recently. Unfortunately, there's no guarantee the next batch will be vulnerable to the same code."
Penny seethed.
"Now," he said with a long-suffering sigh, "what to do with you?" He began to pace in front of them. "I suppose I could just kill you all, but that would be such a waste." He looked up at Thundercracker. "Even dissecting you would hardly yield much useful information, considering what we managed to salvage from the Battle of Vale."
"So what will you do?" Ciel asked, her voice low and quiet.
"That is a good question," Silas said. He beckoned one of his men over and murmured quietly into his ear. The man nodded and approached the prisoners; Penny, who was the closest, leaned back and futilely tried to wriggle away.
"Now, now," Silas said. "We've already got everything we need from you, Bladerider. There's no reason to be upset."
"You took my leg," hissed Penny. "I haven't been able to walk right for months!"
"Well, now that's strange. You got it back, after all," mused Silas before shrugging. "Still, you shouldn't be so emotional about it. It was nothing personal, just business. Anyway, let my man approach. He'll be rigging a solvent to deal with those bindings around you once we've had time to depart."
Penny found herself disinclined to acquiesce to his request.
"Apply it to me," Sakura interjected. Penny looked over. The team leader's head was bowed, her hair hanging down, obscuring her face, until she looked up at Silas. "Shadow's in need of medical attention, and I'm the senior cadet. They're my responsibility."
Silas locked eyes with her for a long moment, then looked at his man and nodded, and the man turned to Sakura's bindings.
"And if you're wondering why I'm freeing you," Silas said, "the fact is, now you know what MECH stands against, a threat no one on Remnant either knows about or is willing to acknowledge: an infiltration and invasion that reaches up into the highest ranks across Remnant. What you saw here were just their minions. Their masters are a race of highly-advanced snake people from a parallel world called Equestria."
He swept his gaze across them. "None of you have any reason to trust us," — he met Penny's eyes — "and some of you, it seems, hate us, but the fact is, we all have a common enemy."
"And you really think we'll side with you on this?" Thundercracker rumbled.
"Of course," Silas confirmed easily. "I don't think anyone here thinks such an infiltration of the highest ranks of the government and military can mean anything good for the Four Kingdoms, especially after what happened with Councilor Sylvia. And in your particular case, Thundercracker, either your loyalties to Atlas are true, in which case, there's no greater patriot than an immigrant who believes in his new country, or they're not, in which case, you won't want any competition muscling in."
"Sir, we've got what we came here for," announced one of the MECH troopers.
"Excellent," cheered Silas. "Well now, we'll be going. Don't want to be here when Swiftwing's bodyguards come calling for her in a few minutes. I'll see you around, Apricots. Maybe next time, you'll be on the right side."
He and his forces left, leaving Penny to fume. Into those dark thoughts, Councilor Swiftwing spoke.
"He's wrong, you know," she said calmly. "You nine are on the right side, don't let a villain like him make you think differently."
Ciel felt that she had spent enough time in hospitals to develop an opinion on them, and yet, she felt that she still could not give a firm answer on that question. The healing was good, but in that particular moment, she could not help but be disturbed by the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitors. This was especially because of who those monitors were connected to.
They were in the intensive care unit of Crystal City Hospital, in a room that was occupied in most part by a singular hermetically sealed pod that contained within it all the life support needed to keep its occupant alive. It was another of the medical innovations that had come about because of the Merinterieure Sea Evacuation, or at least, that's what Penny had said. One life support pod looked much the same as the rest to Ciel, and all she really cared about was that it meant that her team leader would have a faster recovery than she did.
Aska was in that pod, and she still hadn't woken up. Until she did, though, her team stood watch, and her new mother had arrived to maintain her own vigil. Headmaster Ironwood had been delayed by business, but it was understood that he was endeavoring to fly there as soon as he could and might already be on his way.
It was no doubt that the Headmaster was in terrible pain over this, being constrained by duty and yet knowing full well what had happened to his daughter. Thundercracker had saved her as quickly as possible, but she was still being eaten. It was only thanks to her being tightly bound in those wraps, and Penny rushing to act as medic immediately upon being freed herself, that Aska was able to survive long enough to be medevaced to the hospital by Councilor Swiftwing's valiant guard detail. Even if she were to awake, the damage meant that she would be in recovery for weeks and months.
Mrs. Ironwood's face was stoic as she looked down upon her adopted daughter's pod and her comatose face. It was strange, for despite the violence that had been visited upon her, she looked positively peaceful. It likely helped the mood of her mother, but if it didn't, Mrs. Ironwood was not one to complain. She had done exceptionally well in her role as a teacher in Vale and had likewise excelled in her new role as the wife of the headmaster of Atlas Academy, naysayers be scorned.
Stoicism aside, there was no doubt in Ciel's mind that Mrs. Ironwood wanted Aska to wake up, because that's what she wanted. It did not matter if she didn't emote like a normal person; she still felt that longing sensation to see a friend recover. She didn't want Aska to end up like her.
Suddenly, Ciel saw through the transparent top of the pod that Aska's eyes were fluttering open. She was awakening! What were the odds of such a thing happening right when she was thinking about it? … She already had the answer, but it was irrelevant. Aska was awake!
Aska's eyes opened fully, and a smile came to her lips. "Hallo, Mama. I guess I messed up again."
It was obvious to Ciel, but hopefully not to Aska, that Mrs. Ironwood was holding back a great tide of relief at her words. "Aska, save the analysis for another time. Just … thank you for waking up. Your father is on his way with Kogetsu. I'll call them and let them know you're awake."
Ciel felt that now was perhaps the time when they needed privacy, so she stepped up to the pod to deliver her farewell. "Ma'am, I'll take my leave now."
Mrs. Ironwood nodded. "Thank you, Farsight. Please let the others know that Aska is awake."
"Yes, ma'am," replied Ciel with a salute. Before she left, she leaned over the pod and said, "It is good to have you back, Captain."
Then she left, and before she exited the room, she heard the dialing of Mrs. Ironwood's scroll. Ciel did leave, though, and before hearing anyone speak. It was a time for other people, not her.
As she was walking through the hospital hall to the nearest waiting room, Ciel was surprised to see coming towards her none other than Flynt "Jazz" Coal and Neon "Rainbow" Katt. They had said they were coming, but it was unusual for them to arrive first for anything.
"Hey, Farsight," greeted Jazz. "How are things here?"
"You are in luck," Ciel told him. "Shadow has just awoken from her slumber. Her mother is with her now, and they are in a call with Headmaster Ironwood."
"The Old Man and Professor Goodwitch?" asked Jazz rhetorically. "Blast. That's terrifying, but it'll be even more terrifying if I show fear. Wish me luck, girls."
"Good luck," Neon and Ciel echoed at different volumes as Jazz continued on to Aska's room by himself.
"So," Neon began when he had left, "I hear that you got hit in the head pretty bad during the mission."
"It is nothing, certainly compared to Shadow's injuries," Ciel softly explained even as she felt the familiar sensation of her own chest exploding. "No kid should have to suffer like that."
"This is what she signed up for," Neon pointed out. "It's what we all signed up for."
"Very true," Ciel relented. "She is not a kid anymore."
"Well, at least in our culture," mused Neon. "I've heard about some Mistrali cultures where you're not considered a real woman until you've had a baby, and you're not officially married until that happens either."
"Another indication that no matter how many cultures Mistral pulls out their hat, they shall always be inferior to Atlesian culture," declared Ciel in her normal tone.
Neon snorted, stifling a laugh. "Seriously, Choirgirl? And people call me the firebrand."
"No, they call Weiss 'Firebrand,'" corrected Ciel.
That broke Neon, and she dropped onto the ground with hands on her chest, doubled over laughing. Several other people who were in the hall looked on in confusion, annoyance, and some amusement. None came up to them, though.
So Ciel crouched down and shook Neon's shoulder slightly. "Come now. It was not funny."
"Oh— but— it was!" Neon gasped in between breaths of hysterical laughter. "It's funny, 'cause it's you!"
"Excuse me, Miss," came the voice of a doctor, more specifically the doctor who was the relative of the person who had driven them to the mine, Doctor Gardenia Plum. "Are you in need of medical assistance?"
Neon waved her off. "I'm fine!"
Doctor Plum pursed her lips and then looked at Ciel. "Very well, then are you well, Miss? Such loud noises in an enclosed space could cause your cranial injuries to go into relapse."
Neon got very quiet very quickly.
"Oh, it seems that the issue has resolved itself. Very well, take care, children," said Doctor Plum before continuing on her way.
Neon gave a little pout as she stood up, with Ciel following. "Shoot. She really knew where to strike to shut me up."
"You need not hold back on my account," offered Ciel.
Neon shook her head. "No can do. If there's anyone on Remnant I'm holding back for, it's you. … And my parents. And my siblings. And I guess it would be pretty gauche, as you say, to not do that for my teammates."
"I would say that," confirmed Ciel with a nod.
"Okay, so theoretically, there are a lot of people I would hold back for, but practically, at this moment, I can only think of you. So from a certain point of view, I was right the first time. Listen, the important thing is that you be straight with me, Ciel; how's Shadow doing?"
"She is awake and seems in good spirits," reported Ciel. "However, the damage is so great that it is likely that she will need some time to recover. She will though. She is strong and has a good family."
Ciel noticed then that the rest of her team was coming round the bend. Penny and Mad Dog walking side-by-side, both in spare Atlas Academy uniforms, and with Penny holding onto Mad Dog with the left hand and leaning into him while carrying her collapsible cane in the right hand. They were sporting the same neutral expressions they had had for the last few days.
"Hey, Mad Dog, Bladerider," greeted Neon with a voice gaining back its usual level of pep. "You guys here to see Shadow?"
"Why yes, yes we are," answered Penny before letting go of Mad Dog and deploying her cane. "Thanks. I think I can take it from here."
"She up yet?" asked Mad Dog hopefully.
"She is," answered Ciel.
Mad Dog's whole body seemed to exhale in relief. "That's great to hear. If anything happened to her … Well, it's all in the past now, and we've got enough problems on our hands that still haven't been taken care of."
Penny seemed just as relieved. "That's wonderful. I had been so worried since the mission. I didn't think that she'd pull through."
"But she did, in no small part thanks to your medical skill and acumen," proclaimed Ciel. "You should gain confidence from this event."
"I heard something about that," said Neon. "Team Scarlet has been pretty tight-lipped about the mission since they got back to the academy, but it's clear some serious stuff went down and that you guys handled yourselves pretty well, especially you, Bladerider."
Penny blushed slightly. "Hey, Ciel, can I talk to you for a minute, alone?"
Ciel nodded and touched Neon's shoulder briefly. "I shall return."
"Try not to get yourself wrapped up in another adventure in the next five minutes, Choirgirl," Neon replied.
"'Choirgirl'?" quoted Mad Dog in disbelief before shaking it off and offering his arm to Neon.
"Why, so gallant!" proclaimed Neon in faux joy even as she took the arm. "You know, I don't really— Have you been working out?"
"Why yes, yes I have," answered Mad Dog with a smile. "Now, when was the last time you had a blood test?"
"Say what now?"
Ciel walked with Penny through the halls at a sedate speed, keeping pace with the coppertop as she carried on with her cane, until at last they came to the waiting room. There weren't any people there, remarkably, making it the perfect place for a private conversation. Still, though, they sat down in chairs facing each other at the far end of the room in front of a picture window overlooking the city and the mountains beyond.
There was a tension between them, a tension that had gone on far too long, a tension that needed to be resolved, and yet … She's just a kid. She shouldn't have to shoulder this responsibility.
She's grown up a lot, right in front of your eyes. She can take responsibility, and so can you.
Ciel could feel the words starting to come out of her mouth when she was interrupted.
"I'm sorry," Penny declared suddenly, her eyes looking at the floor and then slowly going up, her face framed by the bright moonlight outside. "I'm sorry I tried to force you into getting involved in Bauchtanz. I'm sorry for insulting you. I'm sorry for thinking that you hadn't suffered, or that my suffering somehow gave me license to judge you regardless. I'm sorry for dismissing your concerns about your brother, and I'm sorry for not figuring out he had a crush on me sooner. And I'm sorry it took me so long to get over myself."
Ciel was taken aback by those words, floored, utterly … relieved. It was like a great burden had been lifted off of her. It made finally getting out what she was going to say anyways much easier.
"Likewise, I must apologize to you, Penny," began Ciel. "I was wrong to try and force my ways upon you instead of discussing things, I was wrong to lash out at you, I was wrong to stay silent for so long, and I was certainly wrong to let my personal feelings hamper the mission. I almost got both of us killed because I was unwilling to confront the issue sooner."
"I'm just as guilty of that," lamented Penny. "I shouldn't have ever let things get that bad. I should have said something sooner. I shouldn't have forced that burden onto you, Ciel."
"It was no—"
"Don't lie to me!" Penny exclaimed at perhaps too loud a volume. "Not now. I'm a fool, not blind. You were clearly hurting just as I was, and I didn't say anything. After all the times you cared for and comforted me, without asking for the slightest thing in return, I couldn't return the favor. I was too focused on the assumption that I had already lost your friendship to notice that I was throwing it away."
"I forgive you, Penny."
The coppertop was taken aback in shock. "What? How can you …? Just like that? How can you do that?"
"I cannot do anything else," answered Ciel simply. "I cannot not forgive you, Penny. The Lady will not stand for it, and I do not want to. I want to forgive you, Penny, with all my heart, and I want you to forgive me.
"I acted like the worst stereotype of an Atlesian. I was cold and cruel, and I sought to stamp out your free expression like I was a wretched Safetyist. I became no different than my great-grandfather who … who murdered so many of the faithful. I wanted to protect you, but instead, I became what I should have protected you from."
"I forgive you, Ciel," Penny said abruptly.
Ciel felt tears running down her cheeks as the last of that terrible weight left her. "Thank you. Thank you so much, Penny. Thank you."
It was done, finished.
Though, perhaps not quite over.
"Ciel, you seemed personally knowledgeable about this sort of thing, enough to develop a bias," noted Penny. "What happened?"
Ciel took a moment to gather herself. "Several events. Mantle has been in decline for many years, and some girls are tempted to sell their bodies to make a quick lien. Those poor unfortunate souls often dance just like what I saw you doing. In one particular instance that haunts my memories, Neon and I found one of those women having drunken illicit substances while we were working as maids. She nearly died in our arms."
Penny flinched. "I … I understand why you thought you were protecting me now. I can't even deny that it might have an entrancing effect on people, because I definitely want it to. I want to be seen and admired for my dance, and I want to be seen as beautiful doing it. I want it like that because I'm tired of this stupid body of mine only getting me into trouble, just to end up discarded over and over again. I didn't just want cute guys to see me as beautiful either; statistically, it's more likely to be friends," — she looked at Ciel — "and family. I wanted people like you to think I'm beautiful, just in a different way to how I wanted Sun to see me as beautiful."
Ciel let out a breath. "Thank you for your candor, Penny. I am sorry, however, as I fear that I shall meet myself before I watch one of your dances."
"And I'll meet myself before I hold you to that," concurred Penny with a sad smile that lasted for about a second before she suddenly looked very confused, looked up while silently mouthing what she just said, and then nodded with a much more confident expression. "Anyway, just because we don't share every interest doesn't mean we can't still be friends. You do still want to be friends, right?"
Instead of replying verbally, Ciel launched herself across the gap between them and engulfed her teammate in a hug.
"Oh my. This is very strange," observed Penny in a confused tone as she found herself nearly toppled over in her chair. "Is something wrong?"
"No, nothing is wrong," declared Ciel. She pulled away slightly and moved her hands to Penny's shoulders. "My new baby brother, Norman, is due to be born soon. When it happens, I want you to be there for it."
"Really? Ciel, is that even allowed?"
"As a close family friend, of course it's allowed," clarified Ciel. "Which is what you are. I do not want there to be any illusions between us. I do not want there to be any notion that just because I have no taste for this activity of yours that I have no taste for you, or that I do not want you in the lives of myself or my family."
Penny found herself, as the Valish said, floored. "Th-thank you, Ciel."
The blue-haired girl nodded. "Bitte. Now, let us get back to the others. Shadow needs our support too."
So it was that the two teammates got up and left the room, lighter than when they came in, and in their minds as they left, they had but one thought.
Well done, my disciples. You are almost ready.
* * *
- Author's Note 1 (Cody MacArthur Fett)
- Author's Note 2 (Cyclone)
Next time on Spark to Spark, Dust to Dust, Weiss and Blake arrive in Menagerie admidst rising tensions and confront a champion of the White Fang as the Belladonnas adjust to the changes in their world. Tune in next time for "Homefront."
(Interlude 3-1: Birthday | Interlude 3-2: Red Like … Apricots? | Interlude 3-3: Homefront, Part I)
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Silas stood in darkness, illuminated only by the faint blue glow coming from within the two coffin-like pods that flanked him and the multicolored indicator lights on both the pods and the console that connected them.
It was unfortunate when they'd lost the DNGAS all those many months ago, but they'd been able to scan it, and while replicating it had taken some time, they'd also managed to make some improvements on it. The added functionality of the new prototype had, in fact, been a surprisingly small iteration on the DNGAS's existing functions.
Speaking of prototypes …
He glanced to the pod on the right and the still, lifeless figure within. The underlying theories were sound, the technology had been proven to work — albeit not within MECH's control — and so far, nothing seemed out of place, but what they were doing here … it had never been done before. Who knew what was normal?
His gaze shifted to the pod on his left and the peaceful-seeming face of the figure within, and he smiled.
"Thank you for your service, Ms. Cinch," he said quietly. "Your contribution will help save Remnant."
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