//------------------------------// // Chapter 39: Detainment // Story: Fillies and Monsters // by Solaris Vult //------------------------------// Four ponies-turned-faunus were walking through the warmed streets of Mantle, chatting to one another by the glow of the heating vents, one was carefully licking at an icecream cone, another was bragging about how she took down five nevermores in just a few minutes, the other two were politely following behind… The only one who had her weapon was the rainbow-haired one, the other girl, wearing glasses under a heavy robe that seemed just a little off to anyone who stared too hard at it, seeming to ignore the flow of the wind and cast strange shadows, not that people were paying any attention to them, other than the two on the roof of the nearby building. Both had their weapons on their backs, one tall, thin, pale, and calm… The other large, tan, and muscular. They had reinforcements if they needed them, but between the two, they had no doubt they could capture a few unlicensed huntsmen. They both pulled a pair of gravity bolas from their equipment belts and took careful aim at the people below, “Three…” Vine began. “Two…” Elm continued. On the count of one, both flung their weapons at the targets, followed quickly by tossing their second set at the others… From hearing of the purple-haired one’s abilities… They targeted her, and the one with the weapon first. Spitfire listened to the conversation, but a wooshing noise caught her attention, four purple balls twirling through the air, followed by another four, were heading their way... She had just seen them when one set struck Twilight and Rainbow dash, wrapping around them and rendering them immobile. Spitfire leapt out of the way of the one heading toward her, long military training had rendered her reflexes impeccable, and her pegasus agility allowed her to dodge the thrown weapon with ease. Rarity had a much more, unicornish, way of dealing with a thrown object… The balls stopped mid-air, glowing in a pale blue field, then flung back the way they came. Twilight growled, and, feeling the magical energy right behind her, no doubt what was holding the device around her torso, she let her illusion drop and fed magic into the dust crystals inside the metal spheroids… There was a loud popping-snapping noise, a flash of violet light from the balls, and they both cracked, going inert, and falling away. Twilight turned to destroy the devices holding Rainbow still, while the other two kept on the lookout for whatever attacked them… Meanwhile, on the top of the apartment, Vine stood, shocked, to see his own bolas sent flying back at him, he leapt, using his semblance to avoid the attack, he stretched up into the air and shot a vine-arm at the woman who sent his bolas back at him… Rarity was struck to the ground by a magic arm, glowing a bright gold, she felt the magic coursing through it, it wasn’t too different than telekinesis, and Rarity was good with telekinesis… She planted her arm on the magical limb holding her to the ground and pumped her own power into the limb. Vine suddenly felt his arm tingle, and a blue light spread up his vine-arm at a rapid pace… Finally, his semblance seemed to shatter, and he fell to the ground, his arm numb, he reached out with his other hand to prevent himself from smashing into the ground, meanwhile, Elm had already jumped down to the street below. Rarity grabbed some rocks from the street and flung them far up into the air… A woman, large and carrying a massive hammer, smashed down into the street, Rainbow had already been freed and flew up into the sky, readying her assault rifle and taking aim, but, the magic-hands guy grabbed Rainbow from behind and started to pull her toward him, but a slash of purple magic severed the arcane limb, and the pale man recoiled in pain, clenching his arm. Right as the hammer woman charged the group, Rarity conjured a magical shield, she wasn’t good with it, but Twilight, seeing the woman with the hammer about to strike, poured her power into the shield too, their magical auras combining to form a bright indigo colour, the woman’s hammer struck the shield, Rarity screwed her eyes shut and let out a grunt of pain, but Twilight held… Then, the rocks Rarity had chucked into the air came falling down like a hail of razor-sharp fragments. The hammer woman tried to shield herself with her hammer, but some still struck her, falling so fast they made tiny craters in the ground and many caused yellow sparks to shine off the woman’s flesh. Once the hail had stopped, Twilight dispelled the shield in an explosion of force, but the woman stayed rooted to the ground with some strange spell on her feet. A magical arm reached out for Spitfire, but the moment Twilight turned, the pale man pulled his arm back, and leapt into the air on golden feet, grabbing nearby chunks of rock and flinging them at the ponies, but, with two telekinetics, the rock attacks where sent back at the man throwing them… Elm ran from these powerful huntresses, and climbed up a nearby building, once on the roof, she took aim with her rocket launcher… The rainbow-haired girl aimed up with her assault rifle at Vine, and dozens of blasts of light struck the man, he grunted, but they weren’t particularly powerful, there were a lot of them though, and each took a chunk of his already damaged aura. Elm targeted the woman, the one who shot the rocks into the air and had deflected every attack Vine threw at her. Rarity, seeing the trails of smoke and fire heading her way, raised a hand and caught the things that had been shot at her, they were little metal canisters, with pointed heads and fiery tails, much like metal fireworks… She had worked with gold and silver plenty, and the metal these things were made from wasn’t too different, she pulled and twisted, warping the metal and twisting it into strange shapes… There was magic inside, those dust crystals that the humans used for everything, but she was good with magic, and while certainly not Twilight, who was currently flying up into the air to fight that chalky human stallion, she twisted the dust, changing its properties into something a little more flashy and beautiful… Elm froze as she saw her rockets frozen in mid-air, then warp into strange and complex patterns, finally forming into the shape of a tall and elegant golden horse with a crystal horn and wings, glowing with pale blue energy… She ducked as that horse statue was sent in her direction, but the thing exploded into a flash of light and cold that stunned her... when she opened her eyes, she was buried up to her neck in ice, and the side of the building she was standing atop was covered in a sheet of frost. The purple and pink haired woman flew up on glowing purple wings and grabbed Vine in a field of violet energy that felt a lot like his own semblance, then the woman moved one of her arms out and snapped a finger, suddenly his limbs stiffened, he couldn’t move a muscle in his body, and he blacked out. Roman Torchwick was standing in a warehouse in the west side of Vale, not too far from the docks, he looked at his scroll… New orders from Cinder? On the holographic display it said something about the White Fang. He picked up the device to inspect it closer, “RT, WF queen’s pawns, Crystal, SBS, Atlas, intercept. WF assist.” Roman looked at the screen a bit closer… He didn’t like the idea of working with those animals, but if that’s what Cinder wanted… He sighed, there was a second message, a few lines of coordinates, one was the dust shipment coming in from Atlas, no doubt the other was the rendezvous location where he would meet the White Fang. He sat up, took his cane in his hand, and wandered to his airship parked just outside the warehouse… The repairs from when those faunus foals scrapped the thing were a pain in the ass, it needed a new engine, and all that came right out from his pocket… Whatever, once that atlesian dust shipment was his, he would have more than enough money to make up for that, Cinder’s plan, something about sewing fear, would be a step closer, and, of course, she would take a large chunk of the profit for whatever her master wanted… He sighed, almost lamenting his situation, as he walked into the cargo hold. “Take us up, we’re heading here!” He said to the pilot, a small girl with pink, white, and brown hair and eyes, showing her the coordinates on the scroll. Blake was quietly reading a book in the empty hall, next to her was Sweetie Belle, reading the same book… It had become a bit of a habit, ever since they first discovered that they were both literature fans. Blake sped up a bit in her reading to catch up to the faunus girl, that way they could read and share their opinions and reactions to the events of the book, both at the same time. Sweetie muttered something, “Well, that was dumb on her part…” “Yeah,” Blake chuckled a bit, “Well, let’s hope she doesn’t do more dumb things in the future, she nearly exposed Osely’s secret…” Blake’s mind thought it funny how the protagonist of The Man with Two Souls was so similar to Ozpin… But, the sound of Sweetie closing her book caught Blake’s attention. “Well, that’s the end of chapter thirty-nine,” She muttered, “I’m tired, want to pause here?” She said. “Sure…” Blake muttered… “And,” She paused, “How’s Apple Bloom doing, I hear she got in trouble with Cardin’s team…” “O-Oh, yeah, a broken rib and cracked arm, she’ll be fine though, only a few days of keeping her aura strong should do the trick, at least that’s what the nurse said, I’ve been helping her too, with my semblance, but I’m not really that good with healing…” “At least Cardin’s team were given detention for the whole month, and refused entry into the tournament… I guess that means another team will just have to take their place,” She said, looking up at the girl. “Hmm…” Sweetie said, “That tournament thing sounds fun… But I’ll need to talk to Diamond about it.” “Yeah… I-” She paused for a second, “It must be hard to be a faunus, constantly persecuted the way you are…” “I don’t think so… Sure, plenty of humans are mean to us, but those people are all just piles of ponyfeathers, just ignore them, and if you can’t, just fight back…” “But aren’t you afraid of being labeled a threat because of that, just look at the White Fang…” “Sure, there are bad faunus too, there are bad people in the world, that I know quite well…” She muttered darkly, flashes of the changelings in Canterlot coming to mind, seeing those ponies killed, seeing those ponies fight back and kill the changelings… Scootaloo didn’t want to talk about it, and Applejack had spent weeks consoling Apple Bloom after that, but Sweetie was a big foal, and while it was scary, terrifying,  she didn’t let it worry her… She was a big foal, she was a big foal, she was a big foal… She wasn’t going to let the memory get to her… Seeing Sweetie’s expression, Blake stood up, concern on her face, as she walked up and said, “I-I’ve seen some bad stuff too, if you want to talk about it-” “N-No, I’m a big foal, I can take it…” Blake frowned, “Still…” Blake was impressed with this girl, she seemed to young and naive, but at the same time, that innocence seemed to be her greatest strength, Blake could never imagine what it must be like, to so simply ignore all the hate she must have gone through, being a faunus in a distant village outside of the kingdoms, where people, constantly worried about grimm attacks and burdened by a life of farming and trade, tended to be far more discriminatory. Sweetie turned her mind to Diamond, Silver Spoon, Luna… “But,” She said, resolutely, “I also believe that the worst monster can be redeemed, I know plenty of pon- people, who came back from being evil… These White Fang, these bad humans, I know they can change…. I-” She paused, “I just don’t know how…” Blake smiled, “Well… That’s the question, isn’t it…” She turned and waved to Sweetie as she walked back to the dorm, Sweetie walked out another way, not wanting the awkwardness of ending their conversation and leaving the same way. Elm felt the ice around her warm, then dissipate and give way to a cold wetness and a soft pressure across her entire body that tingled slightly… She opened her eyes, weary, with vague memories from the fight beforehand slowly becoming clearer in her mind… She saw a woman, a faunus, with purple and pink hair, a pair of glasses, and a long set of robes for the cold… Her hand was glowing with violet energy, and the word was covered in a light violet haze. Elm muttered, finding it hard to open her mouth with the pressure all around her, “W-What do you want!” “We just want to know why you attacked us…” The woman muttered. “W-Why? You’re unlicensed huntsmen.” “We’re not huntsmen?” Another voice said, this one coming from a rainbow haired woman with a large set of rainbow-feathered wings. “Y-You’re not? Then why are you carrying weapons, why did you go to help fight off the grimm?” “I didn’t think you needed a license to protect people…” Another faunus woman said in a disapproving tone, coming from a girl with pale skin, and dark indigo hair. “Well, who sent you?” The first one continued. “Why should I tell you that!” “To get this whole thing sorted, if we apparently need these licenses, then we will simply get them…” “G-General Ironwood…” Vine said… He was held in a blue field coming from the pale faunus girl, “He gave us orders to search for the ones responsible for a large explosion detected out in the tundra, believed to be terrorist activity…” “Vine!” Elm shouted, “Do not give these dissidents information!” “Oh, that would be us,” The purple one said, “I umm…” She blushed, “I might have put a bit too much power into my semblance and blew up some, Grimm, I believe you call them… Oh, then these guards showed up and attacked us, I put one to sleep, I… Umm, don’t know what happened to the other.” Elm’s face wore a look of shock, she tried to move her arm to touch her comms earpiece, trying to call for reinforcements, but the field around her was simply too strong... Vine said, “Then, we have orders to arrest you.” “Hmm… I don’t think we did anything wrong, I’m sure if we talk to this Ironwood, we can get everything sorted!” “You’ll have plenty of chances to talk to him in prison…” Came a voice from behind everyone, a voice Elm and Vine recognized. Clover launched his fishing rod forward and wrapped the hook around the hooded girl with violet hair, it shocked her, and the field holding Elm vanished. Elm rushed forward and moved to slam her hammer into the one holding Vine in that strange semblance, but she turned and a blue field erupted around her hammer, and it didn’t budge… Then there was a shout of “Stay!” and the field around Elm’s hammer dissipated as the pale indigo-haired woman froze solid. The rainbow girl leapt into the air on her rainbow wings, and Vine raised his arms to grab the woman out of the sky, but she was fast, fast enough to give Harriet a run for her money, and in a streak of multicolored light, she flew off. Vine swore under his breath, but the final woman, the one with orange hair and orange wings, who had been silent this whole time didn’t even move to do anything… She simply crossed her arms and sighed, muttering something under her breath as Clover walked forward and placed the gravity bolas around her hands. Vine said, “Careful with the purple-haired one,” Pointing at the girl in the robe who was currently wrapped in Clover’s cable, staying quiet but carrying a disgruntled look, “She did something to the gravity bolas, she was caught for a period of time, but broke free…” “Hmm…” Clover said, “Some more conventional handcuffs then,” He finished, drawing some spare metal cable from his belt, used whenever his fishing rod broke.