SAPR

by Scipio Smith

Carry to Safety (New)

Carry to Safety

Rainbow started to unbuckle herself from her seat even before she had finished landing the Skyray. The door on one side of the airship had started to open already too, and Blake and Ciel leapt out without waiting for Rainbow Dash.

Which was charming, but understandable in the circumstances.

Rainbow had scarcely set the Skyray down — a little more heavily than she would have ordinarily liked, but she was in a rush — then she was up, out of the chair and heading for the exit herself.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Midnight cried before the android body of the autopilot slumped forwards, the light of its face plate disappearing.

Rainbow stopped for a second.

"Okay," Midnight said, her voice now coming once more from Rainbow's scroll. "You can go now."

Rainbow went, following Blake and Ciel out the door and quickly catching up with them as they headed down the light-strewn corridor towards the front line.

The Spider droids that had been silently waiting when they had first arrived here were now firing. Guns roared, and missiles burst in waves from out of the square launchers. Empty carousels were replenished with shells, while cranes hauled missile pods up to refill the spent launchers so they could fire again.

The sound of the guns drowned out every other sound on the battlefield, even the missiles, even the grimm on the other side of the line that the grimm were firing at. At least it did when they were this close to them.

But while the guns muffled sound, they didn't blind the huntresses. The flashes of the muzzles, or the fiery trails of the missiles, couldn't hide the sight of that dragon as it flew across the night sky, coming closer and closer.

Blake said something to her. Rainbow could see her mouth moving, but thanks to the gunfire, she couldn't hear what it was Blake was trying to say. She could kind of make out little bits of sound, but not actual words, nothing that meant anything.

"What?" Rainbow shouted.

Blake made a face which suggested she couldn't hear Rainbow either.

"I—" Rainbow began, before realising there was no point.

She shook her head, then waited until they had moved on, further down the way. They were walking not just towards an Atlesian line but behind one too: the colours, borne by a pair of android Knights, proclaimed them to be the Third Battalion; their battalion standard had a white polar bear upon a sky blue field with the III emblazoned on it.

Some of the soldiers of the Third were shooting, but it was sporadic, limited, not spread out across the whole line. That looked like it was because the grimm weren't attacking everywhere across the whole line; in fact, they barely seemed to be attacking anywhere at all; it was only the odd grimm that even showed itself to the guns of the Third.

Rainbow couldn't help but think that they'd had something to do with that. They and their Beacon friends, they'd killed the Apex Alpha and, in so doing, disrupted the horde on this side of the battlefield, taking the pressure off the Third and the Beacon and Haven students.

It was that side of the battlefield the dragon was coming in from.

But it would die before it got that far, it would be taken out — somehow.

As they had put a little distance between them and the Spider droid artillery, Rainbow turned back to Blake and said, "You were trying to say something before?"

Blake nodded. "I said that that thing is still coming."

"Yeah," Rainbow admitted. "Yeah, it is, but not for long now. It's like the General said: it's just a grimm, and we take out grimm all the time."

"Not a grimm like that," murmured Blake.

"But still just a grimm!" Rainbow insisted. "Have some faith. Our ships, our weapons, they'll get it done. I mean, they've held up so far, right?"

Blake hesitated, before nodding her head vigorously. "Right," she said.

They continued to move towards the line of the Fourth Battalion, passing down the line of the Third as they went. They passed the aid station, which had been empty when they had first come this way but wasn't empty now as medics worked to stabilise the wounded ready for evacuation; they passed Colonel Harper's command post, empty now except for the two Knights with the colours of the Battalion fixed to their backs; and they passed the mortars, firing away over the heads of the troops, just like the artillery, except a whole lot quieter.

As they approached the front, and the corner at which the lines of the Fourth and Third met, Rainbow could see Team TTSS standing amongst the soldiers of the Third; it was easy to spot Trixie by her distinctive hat and cape, both of them sparkling as the moonlight shone upon her moon and stars; Sunburst didn't have a hat, but his cape wasn't that hard to pick out amongst the soldiers either, even if Starlight was hard to make out, being dressed pretty much the same way as the troops around her. Maud was with them too, in her muted sweater, and so was—

"Sun?" Blake gasped.

Sun — Sun? Sun? Really? — turned their way, or Blake's way at least, and got a big grin on his face as he saw her.

"Blake!" he shouted, bounding across the distance between them. "Did you just get back? When I got here, Starlight told me that you'd just left, so, you know, I chilled out with them for a little bit until you showed up again."

"That— yeah, yeah, we just go back," Blake said. "But what are you doing here? I thought Team Sun was heading out to the Mistralian position."

"Yeah, we did," Sun replied. "But then I found out that the commander was going to leave you guys hanging and not even try to retake the line up here so that she could ambush the grimm, and I guess it makes sense why she would do that, but it didn't sit right with me, just letting the grimm get behind you, so I ditched my team—"

"Again," Ciel remarked.

Sun ignored her and continued on, "And I came over here to find you, see if maybe I could help you out a little bit. Only I was a bit late. Sorry about that."

"It's okay," Blake assured him. "The fact that you're here—"

"When you say that you came over here," Rainbow interrupted him, "what do you mean, exactly?"

Sun shrugged. "I left the Mistralians, and I came to you, what else?"

"Yeah, but how?" Rainbow asked, for clarity. "Did you go back, or—?"

Sun shook his head. "No, I just came straight here."

Rainbow blinked. "Straight … straight from the Mistralians? To here?"

Sun frowned. "Yeah. Is there something that you're not getting? Am I not saying it—?"

"Sun, did you come through the grimm?" Blake demanded.

Sun chuckled. "I mean, they were kinda getting in my way a little bit eventu—"

"Sun!" Blake cried. "You could have been killed! You could have been ripped to pieces! You could have been blown up by Atlesian missiles! Why would you take such an enormous risk like that?"

Sun wilted in the face of her anger. His voice went quiet, and pitiful, as he said, "To get to you."

Blake stood there, silent, mouth open but not speaking; probably because Sun had snatched the words and crumpled them up into a paper ball to throw in the bin. Or at least, he'd made it very hard for Blake to say whatever it was that she'd been planning to say next.

Her pale cheeks began to redden.

"You remain, as you always have been," Ciel declared, "an irresponsible, heedless, reckless young man, thoughtless in every sense of the word. And I dare say you will never change." She paused. "But I must admit that you have a good and valiant heart, and I suppose it is better to be of little brain and a good heart than to be of a hard heart, still less than a rotten one."

Sun grinned. "That's me: a good heart and a little— wait, did you just call me stupid?"

"I think you did that to yourself," Rainbow muttered. She patted him on one muscular arm as a smile spread across her face. "Pretty awesome job, all the same."

"Don't encourage this," Blake said, in a low growl that didn't match up with the colour in her cheeks. "Sun, at some point, you and I are going to have to talk about—"

The dragon roared, and though the grimm remained far off — albeit getting nearer, and bigger, with every passing beat of its wings — all the same, the sound of its roar split the night air, drowning out the roaring and the snarling of all the smaller grimm beneath that pressed against the Atlesian line. The sound of the roar swept over the battlefield like a mighty wind and tore the words away from Blake's mouth like stray papers picked up and scattered across town.

"But maybe not right now," Blake added.

They began to move once more, Sun joining them, falling in beside Blake, on the other side of her from Rainbow Dash. Together, they climbed up the metal steps driven into the dirt until they stood on the palisade, looking out at the grimm horde and the battle in front of them.

The grimm had fallen back; not too far, not enough to be out of range — that was why there was still so much shooting going on, both from the artillery and from the rifles up on the ramparts and the walls — but they had retreated; instead of pressing against the Atlesian line, they had scuttled back over the ditches the Atlesians had dug and which the grimm had filled up with still-living grimm. Rainbow found it hard to believe that they were still alive in there, that they weren't killing the ones being crushed underneath and constantly needing new grimm to top up the numbers as the grimm at the bottom turned to ashes. Or maybe they were topping the numbers up, replacing the casualties from shells and missiles that landed on them, and Rainbow had been too preoccupied with the ones getting past the ditch to attack their line to notice. Either way, the grimm that were filling up the ditch were still alive; every so often, she could see one of them twitching their legs or shaking a paw, and they were mostly escaping getting shot at because the grimm climbing over them to cross the ditch were more dangerous, and so, the priority targets.

But those grimm had fallen back right now, back across to the other side of the ditch, where they waited. They were still taking fire while they waited, shells and missiles exploding in amongst their black mass, bullets flaying them from the Atlesian line, but they stood off all the same, enduring the fire, absorbing it. It didn't hurt that these were often pretty big grimm — their front rank consisted of goliaths, and even the beowolves immediately behind were large and mature-looking — and so, they could take the fire without dropping dead from it, and only the artillery or the guns on the Paladins seemed able to really hurt them.

And so they waited. It didn't take a genius to work out what they were waiting for.

"Nice of you to rejoin us, Cadets Dash and Soleil," Colonel Harper said as she strode along the line towards them from the extreme flank of her battalion. She gave Blake a courteous nod. "Belladonna."

"Colonel," Blake said. "We were ordered—"

"Oh, I've no doubt that you were absent on duty," Colonel Harper said, smiling. "Don't worry, I wasn't accusing you of desertion. You'd hardly return, if you were. I trust that whatever your orders, you completed them successfully?"

"Yes, ma'am," Rainbow said at once.

"Then that's all I need to hear," Colonel Harper said. "Even if it is a pity that you couldn't take care of that thing while you were away." She glanced in the direction of the approaching dragon. "Does it trouble you, children?"

"No, ma'am," Rainbow said at once.

"A … little, ma'am," Blake admitted.

Colonel Harper looked at Blake. "A little?" she asked.

Blake hesitated, before she said, "Yes, ma'am. It's … very big."

Colonel Harper chuckled. "Yes, Belladonna, that certainly seems to be the case, doesn't it? And because of its size, because of its strength, because of its eruption upon us, I don't begrudge you a little apprehension." She patted Blake on the shoulder, and her voice rose louder. "But take heart. Every advantage that grimm possesses contains the seed of its undoing. It is large; therefore, it presents a bigger target, and it cannot manoeuvre nimbly. It is powerful, but it is alone, as such titans always are. It comes upon the battlefield suddenly, but that means that it was no part of the grimm plan for this battle, such as existed. Whether in the air or on the ground, we will dance around that sluggish behemoth, bombarding it with fire that cannot fail to find the mark, burying it with bullet and shell casings if we must, while it is unsupported by any grimm, none accompanying it to this fight, none knowing what to do about its presence here. Whether in the air or on the ground, we will teach this creature to fear the might of Atlas — for a few moments, before oblivion consumes it." She looked about to walk past Blake, when suddenly, she noticed Sun. She spoke a bit more quietly than she had done just a second ago. "It's Sun Wukong, isn't it? Of Haven Academy."

"That's right," Sun said. "Um, ma'am."

"I thought the Haven students were somewhere over to the right," Colonel Harper observed.

"I…" Sun started, and then stopped. He stepped behind Blake as though he was trying to hide behind her. "I thought that maybe you could use a hand."

Colonel Harper's gaze flickered between Sun and Blake. "I see," she observed. "Well, you've come to the right place, lover boy; we've certainly no shortage of targets." She raised her voice again as she strode past Blake and the others and down the line, saying, "Keep pouring it into them! Since they're so good as to provide us with a static target, let's not let their benevolence go to waste. Keep firing, don't aim for the goliaths, aim for the smaller grimm behind."

"I do believe," Ciel said softly as Colonel Harper walked away from them, "that you have just played your part in a piece of theatre, Blake."

Blake blinked. "You mean … that she was speaking to the whole unit, not just to me?"

"Precisely," Ciel said, as she raised Distant Thunder to her shoulder. Instead of aiming at the grimm in front of her, she turned, swinging the long barrel of her rifle down the line so that it extended past Rainbow Dash like a rail.

She fired, her large rifle roaring. A goliath jerked, its head twitching before it collapsed to the ground.

"She just said not to aim at the goliaths," Blake pointed out.

"Because so many of our small arms cannot harm them," Ciel replied as she ejected the spent casing to land at her feet with a thud. "Not an issue that affects me."

"Hey! Look who's come crawling back!" Neon said, as she appeared next to Ciel in a rainbow-coloured blur. "Nice of you to show up. You know, not that you were missed or anything."

She fired a couple of shots from her pistol at the grimm; Rainbow didn't see anything drop, but there were so many grimm, and they all blurred together so she might just not have spotted it.

"Soooo," Neon said. "Where did you go?"

A smile flickered across Ciel's face. "If I told you, you would think I was bragging."

"You do realise that acting like that also seems like bragging, right?" asked Neon.

"General Ironwood ordered us to kill the Apex Alpha of the horde on the other flank," Rainbow said.

Neon paused for a moment. "Yeah, Ciel was right, that did sound very braggy. Bunch of show-offs." She fired another shot from her borrowed pistol. "Did you do it?"

"Did we do it?" Rainbow repeated. "Yes, we did it, of course we did it."

"Woah, awesome!" Sun exclaimed. "That's your second one, right Blake?"

"'Second'?!" Neon exclaimed.

"I wouldn't say the first one counts," Blake said.

Again, the dragon roared, and as the dragon was closer, its roar was louder, sweeping across Remnant, drowning out the Atlesian rifle fire, drowning out the grimm, snatching away anything that Blake might have said about why the first Apex Alpha didn't count.

Their eyes were drawn upwards, to where the dragon was flying steadily towards their line with the inevitability of an avalanche rolling down the mountain.

"I … I don't suppose you feel like taking that one out as well, huh, Blake?" Neon asked.

"It'll go down," Rainbow insisted. "Our airships will bring it down, you'll see."

The dragon approached, getting larger and larger in their eyes, and as it approached, the Atlesian cruisers moved out to meet it. The ships of the Third Squadron, formed up in a line above their infantry, began to advance, wheeling to the left to present a line which, when it was completed and all four cruisers moved into position, would face the dragon head on. At the same time, the Fourth Squadron's Vigilant and Courageous also moved out, their point defence systems blazing in all directions around them as they pushed on through the flying grimm as if they were clouds. The Atlesian fighters seemed to redouble their efforts to keep the grimm at bay, driving them off the warships as the two cruisers swung to the right, positioning themselves to also face the dragon, angled inwards a little to achieve a shallow crossfire with the Third Squadron. Rainbow looked to the left, half-expecting to see a ship from First Squadron moving in to support, but she didn't.

But still, six cruisers: Vigilant, Courageous…

"Ciel," Rainbow asked. "What are the ships of the Third Squadron?"

"Daring, Endurance, Reliant, and Ardent are the cruisers," Ciel replied.

Rainbow nodded. "Thanks."

Six cruisers then: Vigilant, Courageous, Daring, Endurance, Reliant, and Ardent. Six ships, six symbols of Atlesian might and power and prowess in war and technology. Six Atlesian airships, six cruisers, six lords of the sky, six daughters of Atlas.

Six cruisers. More than enough to get the job done, no matter how big this grimm was, no matter how loudly it roared, no matter how much it gaped its mouth and showed its teeth, there was no way it was going to get past six Atlesian cruisers. Just looking at them, sleek and sharp with beautiful lines sweeping backwards, as lovely as any dress that Rarity had ever designed or sewed, made Rainbow's heart swell.

People said that the carriers were the pride of Atlas, and they were bigger, sure, but no; no, these cruisers, they were the real pride of Atlas and its military. The pride of Atlas and the guardian angels of the infantry, always watching over them.

Yeah, that grimm was gonna get it now. It had no idea what was coming.

"Is there any way of telling those ships apart?" asked Blake.

Ciel was silent for half a moment before she answered, "Do you see the ship on the far left of the line has a red stripe running down its underbelly? That is the Vigilant."

Blake asked, "Why does it have a red stripe?"

"Because it is commanded by Major Horatia Rouge, and it is a vanity of hers," Ciel explained. "Which means that the ship immediately to its right must be the Courageous of the Fourth Squadron." She paused, turning her attention to the Third Squadron ships on the right flank. "The Endurance, in the centre next to the Courageous, has the laurel wreath markings; they commemorate a successful visit to Mistral two years ago; she participated in and won the Ithome Run, a famous airship race in that kingdom." Again, she paused and must have been wracking her mind. There were subtle differences in the remaining three ships — Daring, Reliant, and Ardent — one of them still had its long range dust tanks attached to the engines, one of them had a slightly longer bow that sharpened to a point like a spear; Rainbow just couldn't use that to tell them apart.

"The Ardent is being used as a test bed for a ram as an offensive weapon," Ciel said. "One we may see some use tonight. I believe it is the Reliant that has not disposed of those dust tanks mounted to the engines; they are used by patrolling vessels that may not see a tanker in some time. Which means the last ship must be the Daring, with nothing outwardly remarkable about it."

Before anyone could say anything else, before they could speak a word, all six cruisers — the Vigilant with her red stripe, Reliant with her long-range tanks, Endurance with her Mistralian racing wreaths, Ardent with her ramming prow, Courageous and Daring whose only glories were that they were Atlesian warships made of northern steel — opened fire upon the fast approaching grimm.

Each cruiser mounted four heavy laser cannons beneath the bow, four red beans from each ship lancing out through the darkness. Not every single beam hit the target — two beams from Vigilant soared over the dragon's back, and all the beams from Daring passed beneath its neck — but most of the red lasers struck home, slamming into the black body of the grimm from all directions.

The dragon roared, but its roar seemed less angry now and more pained, hurt by the number and intensity of the blows being rained down on it.

Rainbow grinned.

"Yeah, that's it," Neon purred. "Scream. Scream for all the good it does you, you—"

“Language,” Ciel reproached her, before she’d even said anything.

The cruisers kept firing; those that had missed found their target, while some beams that had hit before missed as the dragon writhed and twisted in the air. Missiles spat from the flanks of every cruiser in swarms, streaking through the night towards their target.

The grimm kept on roaring. Its mouth was gaping wide open.

And there was a yellow glow coming from it.

"What is—?" Blake began.

A beam of its own erupted out of the dragon's mouth, a yellow beam as thick as … really thick and really bright, a beam of something that poured out of the dragon's mouth as it turned its head from left to right, sweeping its beam across the sky.

Missiles caught in the beam were consumed, disappearing in little puffs of fire.

Rainbow was astonished, staring with eyes wide up at the power that the dragon was putting out there, but the officers commanding the cruisers must have seen this coming because as soon as the dragon fired, the Atlesian ships began to rise higher.

The Vigilant, with its distinctive red stripes, managed to gain sufficient altitude that the beam swept harmlessly beneath it, not even scorching the paintwork, even while the Vigilant continued to target the dragon with its underslung cannons.

The Courageous wasn't so lucky; whether the systems were slow to respond or the CO was slow in giving the order, the Courageous didn't get high enough fast enough, and the beam of yellow energy — or whatever — swept across the underbelly of the ship.

They could see the explosions from the ground. The Courageous wasn't destroyed, but it was eviscerated: its lasers were gone, its lower engines were gone, the entire bottom of the ship had been ripped away; Rainbow and the others could look up into the ship from below. What remained of the vessel was blackened by the explosion, burning in places, and falling slowly down towards the ground.

It was only one ship; all the ships of the Third Squadron had, like Vigilant, gotten altitude in time to escape the blast, the yellow beam passing underneath them, but that didn't stop the dragon from roaring in what now sounded a lot like triumph. The grimm surged forward, wings beating furiously, neck and tail and even the big body twisting to avoid the beams from the remaining warships.

As the dragon came closer, the cruisers began to move, sliding sideways and backwards, opening up distance as well as positioning themselves on the flanks of the dragon instead of in front of it.

The dragon dived, looking for a second like it was heading down towards the ground, but no, it wasn't going that far. It only dived beneath the falling Courageous, using the remains of the ship to shield itself from Atlesian fire, and as it descended, it lashed out with its tail, plunging its claws into the bow of Courageous.

The dragon rose, tail bent backwards, back meeting the burned and damaged hull of the cruiser. For a couple of seconds, the dragon looked like it was straining, wings beating hard, a low growl coming out of its mouth, before it managed to not only push the Courageous back upwards but to move it by the grip of its tail-claws. The dragon's tail rose straight up like a cat, and at the end of its tail, it held the Courageous like a weapon in the hands of a huntress.

"Are … are there still people in there?" Sun asked, his voice shaking.

The question was answered by two sets of objects firing from the stricken Courageous. One was escape pods, metallic tubes with enough room for a dozen people in each one, rocketing out from the sides of the ship in both directions, narrowly avoiding the Atlesian ships around them. The nevermores and the griffons tried to close in on the pods, drawn by the emotions of the people inside, but the Atlesian fighters came to their defence, fighting in close around the escape pods even as the pod pilots tried to angle their vessels — not an easy task; they weren't designed to do much more than fall safely — towards the Atlesian lines.

The other set of objects were missiles, streaking out from the battered flanks of the Courageous to slam into the dragon's back. Explosions rippled up and down the black skin of the grimm, but it took no notice, it didn't even cry out in pain, it certainly didn't relinquish its grip on the stricken cruiser.

"Come on, what are you doing?" Rainbow growled. "Abandon ship with everyone else."

"They're being brave," Blake murmured. "As courageous as the ship itself."

"A kind of courage," Rainbow muttered.

The commanding officer had done the right thing ordering most of the surviving hands to abandon ship; they ought to have followed the order themselves with whoever was left aboard with them. This kind of 'fight her till she sinks' stuff would play well on the news, but come daybreak, Atlas would be down some experienced officers, and for what? The dragon didn't seem to feel it.

"May the Lady reward their valour," Ciel whispered. "And plead for them by God's throne."

Rainbow's brow furrowed.

The dragon roared, swinging its tail — how strong was that thing? — and the Courageous with it, wielding the ship like a mace aimed at the Vigilant.

The Vigilant danced away — Major Rouge was proving she deserved to put those stripes on her ship — slipping and sliding through the air, howitzers blazing as one-oh-five shells spat from amidships to hit the dragon square in the side. The dragon howled again, irritated maybe, hurt they dared to hope, while Rainbow and the others below could see the Courageous starting to come apart under the strain of being used like this. The hull was buckling; the whole ship was starting to bend in places.

The dragon turned, twisting in the air, firing its energy breath towards the Vigilant even as it swung the Courageous towards the Daring on its other side. The Vigilant kept moving, avoiding the deadly yellow beam just as it had avoided the Courageous.

"That's a lucky ship," Neon said as the Vigilant skated sideways, letting the dragon's breath fly upwards past the ship's flank, not even scorching the paintwork. And all the while, she kept on firing at the dragon, with every weapon that would hit it — but not hit the Courageous.

"No," Ciel said. "That is a well-handled ship."

The Daring was not so fortunate; the dragon raised the buckling hull of the Courageous over its deck and brought it down hard upon the Daring like a hammer. Rainbow and the others could hear the crack that echoed down to them; they could hear the groan of metal as clearly as they could see the nose of the Daring being forced downwards the ground.

The Daring tried to back off, unable to fire its lasers that were now angled beneath the dragon. The dragon didn't let up; it raised the Courageous and brought it down again upon the Daring. There was another, even larger crack, and shards of metal flew from the hull of the Courageous to fall down on the ground beneath — soldiers took cover from it — while the bow of the Daring sagged forwards; Rainbow couldn't see a fracture on the bow, but that sudden sag of half the ship certainly suggested there had been one.

The Vigilant and Endurance both brought their lasers to bear on the dragon, trying to distract it from the Daring, while Reliant worked its way around Endurance to try and find a firing angle. The dragon bore their fire, though it had seemed to hurt it earlier, now it endured it, drawing back the Courageous for another swing at Daring.

Ardent charged in. The ship with the long lance on its prow fired its lasers as it came on, but that mattered less than the way that it sailed forward, full speed, slamming into the flank of the dragon and driving its ram deep into the grimm’s black flesh.

A cheer rang out from the Atlesian line, the soldiers of the Fourth and Third shouting to the moon to will the brave ship on. Rainbow cheered as well, and Blake clasped her hands together; even Ciel smiled in glee as the dragon was knocked sideways, driven through by the relentless force of the Ardent's assault.

"That's it!" Neon shouted. "Stick it to it!"

The dragon howled, its body writhing on the stick as the Ardent pushed it on. Its tail bent, still gripping the Courageous in its claws — until it flicked the ship away, throwing it towards the Endurance.

The Endurance accelerated, showing the speed that had won it that Mistralian race as it shot forwards, and a bit downwards, letting the Courageous fly over it, showering fragments of metal from its crumbling frame down on the other cruiser before landing with a crash and an almighty explosion somewhere on the right of the battlefield.

The Ardent kept firing, as all the Atlesian ships that could bring their cannons to bear kept firing, but the Ardent also slowed, and Rainbow thought — or guessed — that she had put her engines into reverse to extricate herself out of the dragon.

The dragon was having none of it. Its body turned, twisted, shifted around the spike in its side until it could dig its immense claws — and the claws on its tail too — into the Ardent, puncturing the armour plating, holding her fast.

The dragon laid its long neck down upon the top deck, its head so close to the bridge that the dragon must have been able to see the crew within.

The dragon roared straight at the bridge, black globs of grimm goo flying from its mouth.

Then it unleashed its breath.

The back half of the Ardent was gone in an instant; the yellow beam of the dragon's attack was so bright that the Atlesian cruiser disappeared — and then, when the lighting of the beam faded, it was still nowhere to be seen. The dragon's breath had consumed it, bridge and engines and all, leaving only the narrow front half of the cruiser left, buried in the dragon by the spiked prow.

The dragon grunted with effort as it bent legs and tail to the task of extricating the forward half of the Ardent out of itself. Its tail did most of the work — it was the most manoeuvrable of its limbs — and it slowly but surely wrenched the forward half of the cruiser out of its black flesh.

The dragon stared down at the remains of the Ardent before flinging it away, not even throwing it at anything, just throwing it, getting rid of it like junk for the trashcan.

The dragon spread its wings out on either side as it let out an almighty roar, louder than any roar that it had made before, when it hadn't exactly been quiet. It was a roar that split the sky, a roar that made the ground shake.

A roar that made Rainbow's knees tremble.

She had told Blake that the dragon would be taken down. She had told her — she had believed — that Atlesian airpower, their military might and technological prowess, would triumph.

She had told Blake, and she had believed, that no matter how strong this grimm might be, Atlas would come out on top.

And now…

Now, two cruisers had been lost, a third was heavily damaged, and although the dragon had been wounded, that wound didn't seem to be slowing it down at all. What chance the rapidly diminishing number of cruisers would finish it off before they were wiped out?

Rainbow's breathing sounded heavy in her own ears. She glanced sideways and saw the soldiers around them with their eyes turned upwards, saw Blake and Neon, Sun and Ciel, all staring at the battle in the skies. Blake's mouth hung open; Sun's tail hung limp; Ciel's mouth was moving as she spoke under her breath, perhaps a prayer; Neon's knuckles were white. The soldiers looked, as Rainbow felt, nervous, uncertain; their guardian angels were being torn to pieces before their very eyes; how else were they supposed to feel?

The words of Colonel Harper rang hollowly in Rainbow's ears, and the Colonel offered no new words to replace them, nothing to chase away the shock felt by the huntresses or by the soldiers of the Fourth and Third.

The troops were silent; the grimm were silent too, their own faces turned upwards to watch the battle just as the Atlesians watched.

Even the sounds of the guns from behind, as the Spider droids continued to pound away, seemed lesser now, muffled, dimmed by the sheer presence of the dragon up in the sky.

The Daring tried to limp away; its back was broken, the bow listing alarmingly; it was a minor miracle — or a testament to the ship's engineering — that she was holding together at all and hadn't split in two already. Either way, she had no further part to play in this fight — unless the dragon wanted to notch up another kill.

Certainly, its gaze was turned upon the wounded Daring as she moved slowly — achingly slowly — back towards Vale, showing her engines to the dragon as she went.

The Reliant and Endurance closed ranks between the Daring and the dragon. They didn't fire but held their ground before the monstrous grimm, as if to say that if it wanted her, then it would have to get through them first.

After what she had seen, Rainbow feared that would be all too easy.

"'Play up, play up, and play the game,'" Ciel whispered.

The dragon laughed. Rather than roar or bellow or shriek, it laughed, a sound somehow harder on the ears than any louder noise it could have made, a harsh sound like a saw blade running back and forth against wood.

What was it laughing at? At the idea that Reliant and Endurance could stop it? At the folly of their even trying? Or was it laughing at Atlas, at their pride, at their superiority, at the fact that they had thought they could stand against a grimm of such ferocious might?

The dragon laughed, and suddenly, all the grimm were laughing too, laughing in front of the line where they waited, laughing on the flank where they began to creep back out of the darkness towards the Third's position, all of them laughing at the Atlesians who thought the battle had been turning their way.

Laughing at Rainbow Dash, who had believed it.

The dragon laughed, and then that harsh sawing laugh abruptly stopped, replaced with a high pitched keening shriek that made Rainbow and many others cry out in pain, that made her horse ears wilt into her hair — Blake's cat ears did the same — and made Rainbow want to cover her human ears with both hands. A shriek that made men and women drop their weapons and fall to their knees.

A shriek that carried within it all the sounds of the fall of Atlas and the death of her friends.

She could see … Rainbow could see the city plunging from the sky, hear the cries of the people dwelling in the city as it fell, and in the crying, she could make out those she knew: Rarity, Pinkie, Twilight.

She could see it, hear it, both so clearly, as clear as if it was happening right now, and all contained within the shrieking of the dragon.

The dragon stopped shrieking. The fall of Atlas immediately loomed less clear in Rainbow's mind — it was no longer right before her eyes — but it lingered just behind them, hiding in the shadows of her mind with hands outstretched.

The dragon roared, and all the grimm roared, all the grimm of both hordes, the one before and the one to the side, they all roared and bellowed and trumpeted as fiercely — no, more fiercely, much more fiercely — as they had done when the battle first started.

The dragon roared and dived. It was pursued by fire from the Vigilant, Endurance, and Reliant, but it ignored them all, tucking in its dark red wings to fall down through the night, right down on the Atlas line, only to open its wings again to slow itself and pull up just before it hit the deck.

It could ignore the remaining cruisers in part because all the other flying grimm still in the air had thrown themselves upon the airships with renewed vigour, all of them seeming to try and get at the Daring as it made its slow retreat away from danger. Endurance and Reliant, even the Vigilant, and all the fighters of the two squadrons were preoccupied trying to save the Daring and had no capacity left for the troops on the ground.

They were alone as the dragon dropped towards them.

Fire lanced up from the ground towards it: rifle fire, rockets, light support weapons. Ciel fired Distant Thunder, Rainbow blazed away with Brutal Honesty and Plain Awesome, Blake snapped shot after shot with Gambol Shroud, even Sun was firing the shotguns in his nunchucks, though the range was very long. Flynt was playing his trumpet from where he stood nearly right underneath the dragon's approach, Starlight fired with Equaliser, nobody but nobody was just standing there while the dragon fell on them. But so much fire was inaccurate, so many hands were shaking, Rainbow knew that her aim felt a little screwed up right now; falling Atlas kept reaching out and leaping in front of her eyes and throwing her off.

She knew she couldn't be the only one.

And even where the shots were well aimed, even where they hit the target, the dragon just took it all, soaking up bullets and rockets and whatever else as it dropped on them.

The dragon pulled up, claws outstretched at the ends of its massive legs. Those claws dug into the earth, tearing through the Atlesian rampart, knocking soldiers and huntsmen aside, seizing some of them in its grip.

Seizing Flynt, and Kobalt and Ivori too, all the members of Team FNKI except for Neon, who was with them instead of with her teammates.

"Flynt!" Neon shrieked, as high pitched and piercingly as the dragon had shrieked before. She leapt down off the rampart, not bothering with the steps, a rainbow streaking out behind her as she rushed at the dragon, firing her pistol at it as she charged.

The dragon ignored her. It swept onwards, dragging its claws through the dirt like the blades of a plough. The line of the Third was scattered as soldiers and students leapt out the way — Rainbow saw Trixie get clear, her moon and star cape flying behind her — or else got snatched up in the claws of the grimm. Paladins that stood their ground, or that were too slow to do anything else, were knocked aside with huge dents or gashes in their armour, arms or legs ripped off.

The dragon rose up off the ground, and as it rose, droplets of black, oily goo dripped from its jaws to land on the ground beneath it. The dragon took off, turning away from the Third Battalion and sweeping above the hordes of grimm. For a short while, those caught up in its claws could be heard crying out, could just about be seen thrashing and writhing in its grip.

Then there was no more sound, and no more sight of them.

There was no sign of Flynt, or the rest of Team FNKI. There was only Neon, standing alone on the battlefield, screaming wordlessly in rage and frustration.

Rainbow could not help, but … Rainbow could not help. What Neon was going through was a wound worse than any that could be taken on the body. It was not something that could be lessened, not by her, maybe not even by Ciel. It was something that—

It was something that would have to be dealt with later, because those puddles of black ooze that had fallen from the dragon like water dripping off a wet person come in out the rain were now beginning to turn into grimm. The pools were drying up, shrinking on the ground, and as they shrank, out of the black rose young beowolves and boarbatusks.

And from the corner of the line where the dragon had shattered the rampart with its claws, the grimm roared as they began to push through.

"Hold them back!" Colonel Harper shouted, her voice ringing out like a trumpet call. "Stand fast, Fourth Battalion! Stand fast and close the gap on them! Concentrate fire on the right flank. Through the wire!"

"Through the what?" Blake asked.

Rainbow didn't explain; there wasn't time. Colonel Harper's voice had rallied her, at least in part; falling Atlas still lingered in her mind, but the Colonel had pushed it back, or pushed Atlas up into the air once more, or … something like that. She couldn't say to herself that she wasn't rattled by the dragon's shriek, that it hadn't tangled her nerves, but all the same, she could still do this.

She took a deep breath.

"Ciel," she said. "Provide covering fire from here; try to intercept the grimm before they reach the breach in the rampart."

"Understood."

"Blake, Sun, you're with me," Rainbow said. "We're going to close that gap." And with those words, she led the way, leaping off the rampart as Neon had done before her and racing for the gap the dragon had gouged in the earthwork.

The soldiers could fire down into that gap, but to stand in front of it, or even in it, and stop the grimm getting through was a job for huntresses.

A boarbatusk, one of the ones sprung out of the pools of ooze dripped by the dragon — and just what was up with that? — tried to intercept her, charging across the open ground, grunting and squealing. It threw itself at her, white tusks gleaming in the moonlight. Rainbow grabbed one tusk as it charged and used it like gym bars, pulling herself up and over and onto the boarbatusk's back, where a single shot from Undying Loyalty to the back of its head was enough to finish it off.

Others of the newly spawned grimm were attacking the Third Battalion in the rear, at the same time as the grimm horde in front renewed its attack as though Rainbow and the rest had never killed the Apex Alpha.

That was … not good, but it was something that Trixie and Starlight would have to worry about for now; Rainbow's focus was on the grimm getting through the rampart. Troops were shooting down at them from above, unable to miss the tightly packed grimm, and Rainbow could hear the roar of Distant Thunder as it spoke, but the grimm were so many, tightly pressed together as they fought to get through the breach, that there was no way they could all be shot down from above.

Rainbow charged towards the gap in the Atlesian defences, clobbering a beowolf that tried to get in her way with Undying Loyalty. She charged, with a rainbow trailing after her like Pyrrha's sash, right into the black mass of teeth and claws that poured over the torn down mound of earth.

Rainbow fired her shotgun right into the face of a … there were so many grimm, and they were all so close together that it was hard to make out what was what, or else her head still wasn't quite right after the dragon, and she couldn't think that clearly. But did she really need to know what they were, the nature of the things she was killing? They were grimm, white in bone and tooth and black in a lot of other places, and Rainbow killed them all as best she could. She fired her shotgun into their faces, she hit them with the butt of her gun or with her fists, she kicked them. She didn't use aura booms, because this would be an awful place to run out of aura, and she was losing it anyway, losing it by nicks and scratches as the claws of the grimm reached out for her.

They nipped and nicked at her aura, but Rainbow fought on anyway. She emptied her shotgun and drew her machine pistols; she emptied those too and used her fists and feet, she stood her ground as the grimm pressed forward. Blake was beside her, using fire clones to blow up two or three grimm at a time, or ice clones to freeze them in place for Rainbow or Sun — he'd got there, too, his red staff spinning in his hands — to take care of; or sometimes she used earth clones to give herself or one of the others a temporary respite to hide behind and reload.

And when she wasn't using clones, she hacked away at the grimm with sword and cleaver. Her paleness under the moonlight shone like a deadly star amongst the dark night of the charging grimm.

And the soldiers fired down on the grimm from up above, and from the flank, the guns of the Fourth Battalion turned right to rake the grimm as they swarmed for the breach.

Then the dragon roared as it swooped down again, not heading for the same place, no, it was heading towards a different point on the line of the Fourth — towards Ciel's point, where she still stood and provided fire support with Distant Thunder.

The dragon opened its mouth and unleashed its breath, a beam of yellow slicing down to carve a corridor through the earth as the dragon flew towards the Atlesian position.

"Ciel, move!" Rainbow shouted, uncertain if Ciel could hear her over the roaring of all the grimm. "Blake, I'll be back." She started to move, to go to Ciel, but a beowolf grabbed her from behind and tried to pull her over. Rainbow flipped the young beowolf over her shoulder and crushed its skull with one foot, but a creep popped up from under the ground to wrap its jaws around her ankle.

Rainbow killed that too and started to move — she'd be back, she'd be back soon — but she'd lost time, and the dragon was moving so fast, and its energy attack swept on ahead of it, so bright it was blinding.

Rainbow couldn't see Ciel as the blazing yellow beam struck the barricade.

The burning light was all she could see.

---

The dragon was coming right at her, with a mouth large enough to swallow the world.

Ciel swung the muzzle of Distant Thunder around, her rifle roaring as she hit the dragon square in the forehead — to no effect.

The dragon came on regardless, unstoppable, inexorable, and like a vanguard came before it, that wall of deadly energy, that power that had torn through gallant ships and would do the same to her, no doubt, if she did not move.

Move, move, she needed to move. She needed to get away, to escape the oncoming storm, to escape the deadly energy. She needed to get off this rampart, she needed to move aside, she needed to flee, she needed to move.

She needed to move, but she could not. The dragon was looking right at her. As it flew forwards, as it sent its wall of energy running before it, as it swept towards the Atlesian line it loomed right at her. Its red eyes burned like dying stars, smouldering.

There were snakes, Ciel understood, that could hypnotise small birds, paralyse them so they could not resist the serpent's devouring maw.

Now, she was the small bird, and felt smaller still as the great maw rushed towards her.

And the beam that would devour her first rushed ever swifter.

It was coming closer and closer, and Ciel could not move. It was as the classic nightmare, the monster approaching, the legs frozen, the mouth stopped up. She could not move. None of the soldiers with her on the rampart could move. They were all transfixed, all standing there frozen as the grimm came on.

The light of the beam was so bright, so bright that it eventually even blocked out the sight of the dragon and its eyes; Ciel's legs and arms and will were all her own again — but it was too late; the beam was too close and moved too quickly.

There was a flash of rainbow light beside her, and Ciel felt herself violently shoved aside, thrown off the rampart, barely able to keep her grip on Distant Thunder.

Ciel looked up as she fell. Neon. Neon had pushed her out of the way and now.

The whole world seemed to slow as Neon hung, suspended, one arm outstretched to push Ciel aside, mouth open to frame a word Ciel could not hear, poised to leap aside but not quite away as the beam swept on.

The yellow beam consumed everything.

Ciel was blinded by the light. She lost sight of Neon and the rampart and everything else. She could see nothing; all of Remnant was lost to her save only the light of the dragon's breath.

"NEON!" Ciel screamed as she fell. She did not know what she hoped for in reply save something, anything, some answer that would show Neon was still here.

But there was no answer, none at all, no recourse for Ciel but to pray that Neon yet lived, because if not…

If not…

If not, and for Ciel's own sake…

Ciel hit the ground, landing heavily upon her back with a hard thump and a dent in her aura. The golden beam passed on, ravaging more of the ground, carving a trench through it, before the dragon ceased its onslaught and once more turned upwards and a way.

A wide breach had been blasted in the Atlesian rampart. The earthwork was gone, vanished utterly, and so, too, the soldiers who had stood upon it to repel the grimm. This breach was wider — far wider — than the breach the dragon had made with its claws, and flatter too.

Neon lay on the edge of the trench the dragon's beam had cut into the ground.

Ciel gasped in relief as she leapt to her feet. She rushed to Neon's side — only for that gasp of relief to be followed by a gasp of horror as she saw what remained of her friend.

Neon Katt's right arm and leg were gone, not even stumps remaining. Half her tail had been burned away, and half her body, her entire right side, had burn marks upon it, from her chin down to her thigh, blackened and charred.

And for my sake…

And yet, she lived. Her sea green eyes flickered, before coming to rest on Ciel.

"Neon!" Ciel managed to both cry and whisper the name, her voice trembling. She knelt down beside her, turning her head away for a moment to look for aid.

"Medic!" She yelled. "Medic!"

No one came. No help came. This part of the battlefield was empty, save for them; soldiers, Paladins, mortars, all gone, and only the two of them remaining.

Neon tried to speak, a cracking, wheezing sound emerging from her throat.

"Don't speak," Ciel told her. "Don't try to speak; save your strength. Medic! I need help over here!"

The only answer was the roaring of the grimm as they swarmed through the breach, through the gate the dragon had made for them. Beowolves and ursai and boarbatusks led the way, while the goliaths made the earth tremble as they came up behind.

Ciel bared her teeth in a snarl as savage as on any beowolf's maw as she picked up Distant Thunder and planted herself between Neon and the grimm.

"Stay away from her, you bastards!" Ciel shouted as she levelled her rifle.

She fired from the hip. At this range and with the grimm in front of her numerous, she could hardly miss. An ursa was blown away by her first shot. She worked the bolt, ejecting the cartridge and chambering a new round in a single fluid motion. She fired again. Bolt, aim. Fire. Bolt, aim. Fire.

The bolt locked, her magazine was out of rounds, the chamber was empty. No time to reload; the grimm were almost upon her. Ciel reached for the pistol she kept holstered underneath her skirt, but she had given that to Neon.

Ciel reflexively, instinctually, slung Distant Thunder across her back rather than simply dropping it; it was too long for her to wield reversed as a club.

She raised her fists instead, one foot stepping back as she shifted into a defensive stance.

I would rather stand before the Lady side by side with you than live a hundred years or more hereafter, Ciel thought.

The lead beowolf pounced upon her, claws outstretched.

There was another blurring flash of rainbow light as Rainbow Dash punched the beowolf in the face hard enough to shatter its skull.

She landed, poised on one toe, blasting a boarbatusk with her shotgun even as she kicked another away with her free foot.

She spared Ciel the briefest glance. "Get her to the aid station!"

"But," Ciel said. "To move her without—"

"There is no possible way you could make things worse," Rainbow snapped. "Now pick her up already! That's an order!"

Ciel did not disobey orders. She left Rainbow to fend off the grimm while she returned to Neon's side.

She still lived, God be praised, she still looked up at Ciel as Ciel knelt beside her and scooped her up in her arms. She felt heavier than she looked, heavier than Ciel had expected, but it was a burden that she was equal to, climbing to her feet and turning in the direction of the station.

Behind her, she could hear Rainbow's shotgun bellowing in counterpoint to the roaring of the grimm.

As she ran, trying not to jostle Neon too much, Ciel could hear not only Rainbow's shotgun, but gunshots in general coming from her left, from the right flank, where the Third Battalion was.

Of course she would hear gunshots from there, as well as behind. The grimm were attacking there too. God had laughed at their efforts to disorder the grimm there.

God had laughed at many of their efforts. Ciel hoped and prayed that, with the aid and imprecations of the Lady, He would like kindly upon every valiant son and daughter of Atlas slain this fight; she hoped that almost as much as she hoped that Neon would be granted a reprieve from judgement tonight and many years hereafter. But she feared that it would not be so on the basis of this reversal that had suddenly been visited upon them. Rather, it seemed that they were being punished for their hubris, brought low with dolorous blows to teach them wisdom and humility.

I will learn any lesson, my gracious lady, Ciel thought. I will learn any lesson, do any penance, render any service, but please, please, if there is mercy in you or love for men, let Neon be spared.

Her answer was a beowolf coming at her from the side. It was young, very young, practically devoid of armour; it must have sprung from a puddle of that black oily substance that dripped from the dragon as it passed by. Yet it had claws and teeth, and both were sharp, and Neon's aura was broken, and Ciel was encumbered.

As the beowolf sprang at her, Ciel was at a loss to do more than turn her back and shield Neon with her body.

She waited for the blow, for the claws to rake her aura, but they did not. The blow never came. Instead, the beowolf let out a startled yelp, and Ciel looked over her shoulder in time to see the beowolf, Blake's hook buried in its back, yanked off its feet and pulled towards a waiting Blake, who cut it in half with a swing of her cleaver.

Ciel did not thank her, though she deserved more than thanks; Neon had no time for it. Ciel left Blake behind as she had left Rainbow Dash behind, scrambling up the trail of lights with gunfire from behind and the side ringing in her ears. Up ahead, the Spider droids were continuing to fire, but their shells sounded as if they were landing closer now.

A squad of infantry ran past her, jostling her and Neon as they ran. They seemed disarrayed, panicked. Ciel could only hope it did not spread.

A Spider droid headed the other way, its gun barrels raised and its fists at the ready. The situation must have been desperate to bring the artillery in up close like that. But then, that was no especial news to Ciel, not anymore.

The aid station was up ahead; Ciel quickened her pace, hoping Neon would forgive, or at least endure, the rocky ride in service of a little haste.

She reached the white tents and burst inside. There were plenty of soldiers there already; the tents were about half full, with cases roaming across the full spectrum of severity.

But she couldn't see anyone as badly in need as Neon.

"Help!" She gasped. "For God's sake, someone help her."

"Let me see," said a sandy-haired man in a white coat as he strode forwards, in between a row of beds on wheels occupied and empty. As he got closer, his grey eyes widened. "What happened to her?"

"The dragon," Ciel said. "The dragon's breath."

"Put her down here," the man — the doctor, she supposed — gestured to a nearby bed. Ciel followed him and laid Neon down as gently as she could.

Neon was still looking at her, but her expression was … Ciel found it hard to make out if Neon had an expression, much less what it was.

She half-wished that Neon would not look at her, save that by looking, she showed Ciel that she was still alive.

How she must hate Ciel. Every misery and suffering in her life would be Ciel's doing.

If she had only let me die…

"We need to make sure she's stable," the doctor said. "Then get her to a medical frigate ASAP."

"You need to get everyone here airborne ASAP, Doc," Rainbow said.

She stood in the mouth of the tent, reloading her shotgun without looking at it.

Ciel swallowed. So, it had become so bad, so swiftly?

"What's going on?" demanded the doctor.

"The line is coming apart, sir," Rainbow said. "The grimm are through, and I don't think the Third is gonna hold either. You need to get everyone out of here."

"Some of these patients still aren't stable enough to be moved," the doctor protested.

"I'm afraid the grimm won't wait for you," Rainbow replied. "But I'll give you as long as I can."

"And I, too," Ciel said.

Rainbow's eyes flickered towards her. "Are you sure that you don't—?"

"This is what I can do for Neon," Ciel said. To the doctor she said, "Take care of her, please; she is … her worth is beyond diamonds or dust."

The doctor nodded. His face gave no clue to his thoughts, nor did he venture to enlighten her.

So Ciel followed Rainbow out the white medical tent. Once outside, she unslung Distant Thunder from over her shoulder and finally slammed a fresh magazine into the mag well.

Blake was waiting for them outside, and Sun Wukong too.

And also waiting outside was the sight of the battlefield on which she had turned her back to carry Neon to medical aid — though scarcely, as it turned out, to safety.

The state of the fighting that confronted her eyes … Ciel might not have said that the defence was coming apart, but word choice aside, it seemed hard to dispute Rainbow's grim prognosis.

The grimm were pouring through both breaches in the earthwork, more through the gap made by the beam, but that made by claws was not short of use either. Atlesian troops had abandoned or were abandoning the earthworks and the walls, ceding the Green Line to the grimm before they were flanked, encircled, and overrun. Ciel could see some efforts to establish a new line, but without the defences, that task was immediately made more difficult.

Even as she thought that, Ciel witnessed a Paladin try to intercept a goliath as it stormed forward through the ranks of the grimm. The Paladin fired its cannons and a barrage of mini missiles, all to no avail; the goliath came forward regardless. The Paladin's guns receded as it raised its fists.

The machine crashed with the monster, grabbing hold of its tusks, pushing against its might. For a moment, all things seemed to hang in the balance. Then the goliath flicked its head and pulled the Paladin off its feet before dumping it down onto the ground.

The goliath trumpeted loudly as it reared up, then brought its forefeet slamming down upon the Paladin's cockpit, crushing it beneath its monstrous bulk.

And on the flank, the Third Battalion was falling back in fits and starts, squads retreating in a haphazard fashion, some of them firing as they backed away from the grimm, others turning their backs upon their monstrous foes as they retreated, others looking at times to be in grave danger of being surrounded and having to fight their way out by the skin of their teeth.

Still others yet were less fortunate, falling beneath the tide of darkness and disappearing from sight.

It was a view as grim as the grimm themselves, a situation black as the oily coats of the dark creatures, as dark as the pools from which mote such monsters rose to take the Atlesians in the rear. The only chink of light in all of this was that there was no more sign of the dragon.

And yet, for all that the situation was grim and the battle had turned against them, nevertheless, Ciel felt … it was hard to put a word to how she felt. Balanced? Invigorated? Certain. Certain was the word; she felt certain.

Neon's life was in the hands of the doctors and nurses within the tent, and on the medical frigate when she made it there, but it was also in her hands. If she and her friends could defend this station until the wounded could be evacuated, then Neon would live. If not, then she would die.

It was as simple as that, and in that simplicity, all fear, all doubt, all nerves, and all confusion were banished. They had been slain as surely as if the dragon had turned its breath upon them.

Neon would not die; she would not allow it.

She knelt down and raised Distant Thunder to her shoulder.

"'Play up,'" Blake murmured. "'Play up, and play the game.'"

"Huh?" asked Sun.

"'The sand of the desert is sodden red,'" Ciel said softly. "'Red with the blood of the square that broke. The machine gun jammed and the colonel dead, and the battalion blinded with dust and smoke. The river of death has brimmed its banks, and Atlas is far, and honour a name. But the voice of a schoolchild rallies the ranks: play up, play up, and play the game.'"

"What's a schoolkid doing on a battlefield?" asked Sun.

Rainbow snorted. "They’re not a … never mind; Blake can read you the whole thing later. The point is … the point is, like Blake said, there's nothing else for it." She paused. "This time … this time, there's no choice. We can't go anywhere until the medical evac arrives, so … let's play."

Ciel closed one eye and took aim at an ursa major.

Distant Thunder roared.

---

Trixie thrust out her wand, a gust of fire leaping from the tip to incinerate a couple of boarbatusks that had been coming their way. The pig-like grimm squealed as the fires devoured them.

Behind her, Starlight fired five successive shots with Equaliser into the chest of an alpha beowolf before clubbing it across the face with the barrel to finish it off.

Sunburst levelled his staff, and a lot of the rest of the pack was blown away, lifted up by a gust of wind and thrown into the darkness somewhere. Somewhere else. Somewhere that was not where Team TTSS — and Maud — were.

One of the remaining beowolves in the pack jumped on Trixie from behind, making her stumble forwards — for a moment, before she felt the grimm pulled off her.

Maud held the struggling beowolf by its neck. Her face was impassive as she stoved its face in with a single punch.

"Thanks," Trixie said, straightening her hat back on her head. She looked around. The Third was falling back around them, in an order that … well, it varied a little bit, but it was all moving backwards, and for good reason. The grimm had gotten tired of their little passive moment and gotten right back to it — in fact, they seemed even fiercer than before, and even more coordinated. And it didn't help that there were grimm behind them, either from those pools of wherever they'd come from or from the fact that they'd gotten through the front line.

And it certainly didn't help that the dragon had ripped through their line just a while ago and taken a chunk out of it. Trixie had been lucky not to get snatched up in its claws.

A lot of others hadn't been so lucky. Team FNKI…

It was not a good situation, was the point, and if the Third was falling back — which it was — then it was no mystery as to why.

It was a little bit of a mystery where they were gonna fall back to, but that was something for someone higher up than Trixie to decide.

What she knew was that if her team didn't move, they were going to be cut off.

"Back," she said. "We need to move back."

It was just like the fairgrounds again, back and back, falling back in front of too many grimm to fight off, trying to do damage without being able to see it making any difference. Only, they didn't even have any fireworks this time, or any place like a carousel to fall back to, just … back.

But back they went, because it was a whole lot better than the alternative.

Back, with Starlight firing, with Sunburst wearing out his wind dust crystals as fast as Trixie went through phials of any kind of dust, with Maud hitting any grimm that got too close, with Rarity using her semblance to try and shield them from grimm teeth and claws. Back and back and always back, while the grimm moved always forward.

"Tsunami! Sabre!" Colonel Harper's voice cut through the battlefield, rising above the gunfire and the roars of the grimm. "Team Tsunami and Team Sabre, to me."

Trixie looked around. Colonel Harper stood at her modest command post, the command post at which she had greeted them all when the battle began. She was joined by a couple of officers, by the sergeant major who had led them down to the command post in the first place tonight, by the colonel's Mistralian orderly with their scimitar drawn, and by the two Knights with the colours set in their backs.

Colonel Harper held a pistol in one hand, but her sword was in its sheath, half covered by her blue cloak. The battle had not reached the command post — there were still troops and androids fighting in front of her — but Trixie didn't know how long it would stay that way.

"Come on," Trixie said, leading her team out of the line and towards the command post whilst it remained behind the line. She could see Team SABR doing the same, breaking contact and falling back as instructed.

The two teams reached the command post at more or less the same time, standing on either side of Colonel Harper and her party.

Colonel Harper looked from one team to the other. Her face was grave, as well it might be in the circumstances. There were lines beneath her eyes that hadn't been there when the battle began.

But despite that, when she spoke, her voice was as clear as a bell.

"Well fought, ladies and gentlemen," she said. "Now it's time to save the colours."

Nobody replied. To talk about saving the colours was to say that the battle was lost.

It was hard to argue with that.

Colonel Harper went on, "Lulamoon, Silverband, carry them to safety. The … honour of the Fourth is in your hands."

It was a great honour, to be chosen for this, for Colonel Harper to pick her, to ask for Trixie above all others.

It was a great honour, yet Trixie did not feel great and powerful in this moment, far from it. If she had been so great and powerful, the colours would not have needed saving, by her or anyone else.

And so her voice was small and grave as she said, "I will, ma'am."

"And I, too," Sabine added. "They won't get them."

Colonel Harper nodded. "Good girls," she said. "The colours!"

The faces of the two androids nodded forwards, the light disappearing from their black faceplates. The two standards on their metal poles rose up out of the backs of the Knights.

Colonel Harper reached out with her free hand and grabbed the Atlesian Colour by its pole, lifting it the rest of the way up out of the android's back. She rested the butt of the staff upon the ground even as she offered the flag to Trixie.

A breath of wind caught the standard and made the flag dance for a second. The Atlesian emblem rippled across the silk.

Trixie reached out with one hand, closing her fingers around the pole. She felt a charge run through her, an electric feeling, the responsibility of the moment shocking her so she would not forget.

Starlight's Equaliser transformed into its polearm mode with a series of clicks and snaps.

Colonel Harper nodded, then turned away, and did the same with the Battalion Colour, pulling it from its Knight and handing it to Sabine. Sabine looked a little nervous as she took it from the Colonel's hand.

Colonel Harper stepped back, eyes flickering between the two of them. "Tell…" she started, then trailed off. She shook her head. "Go," she commanded. "And God go with you."

"And the God of Animals with you, ma'am," Sabine murmured.

Colonel Harper didn't reply. She turned away and drew her sword with a flourish as she faced the grimm.

Trixie and Sabine locked eyes. They didn't speak. There wasn't much to say.

They both ran, with their teams around them. Team TTSS ran straight, while Team SABR veered off to the right more. That was smart; travelling separately, there was more chance at least one colour would make it, even if they were both ultimately heading the same way, towards Vale.

Trixie looked back, over her shoulder, to where Colonel Harper still stood. She was still, standing there with her sword in one hand and her pistol in the other, with her attendants around her as the grimm closed in.

Her cape fluttered gently behind her in the night breeze.

And the Atlesian flag streamed out as it was carried backwards in retreat.

Author's Note:

The chapter title has a double meaning, referring to both Ciel carrying the injured Neon to the medical station but also Trixie being handed the colours to bear away as the line breaks.

Parts of the battle chapters have been influenced by the movie Zulu Dawn, and that's particularly the case here, with Colonel Harper a mixture of Pulleine and Durnford.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the colours of a British infantry battalion were carried by a young ensign, and guarded by a veteran sergeant with a half-pike or a halberd; this is the only reason why Starlight transforms Equaliser out of gun and into polearm mode once Trixie is given the standard.

In the original, Neon died along with the rest of Team FNKI; obviously she's had much more presence in the rewrite, and been really so much fun that I couldn't bring myself to kill her off (not to mention how very cruel that would have been to Ciel) so she survives here, albeit sustaining some pretty serious injuries in the process.

The idea of the Atlesian ships having identifying markings came to me when I was wondering how I could possibly write the battle scene from the perspective of a character on the ground while having the individual vessels above be identifiable and not just 'the first ship', 'second ship' etc.