//------------------------------//
// Callisto (New) 
// Story: SAPR 
// by Scipio Smith 
//------------------------------//


Callisto


As the city rises all around us, it has been suggested that now might be a good time for me to admit that I was wrong. The disastrous consequences of our choice to settle here, rather than in a tighter and more defensible location further north, have not materialised. There have been grimm attacks, but the huntsmen assure us that they are quite manageable. 
Cinder snorted. How very optimistic of them.
Our success here is the talk of Vale, it seems, and Balin is the hero of the hour. He has been appointed Lieutenant Governor of our new city, and there is talk of reviving the honour of knighthood to reward him for his lifetime of service to the kingdom. 
I do not begrudge him the acclaim; he has spent much of his life labouring in the Survey Corps for little reward; he has surely earned this, if any man has. I can admit to being wrong. Balin – Sir Balin, as we may soon have to call him – chose the bolder course, and his boldness has been rewarded with great glory. 
And, it seems, that same boldness has also rewarded Vale with rich new lands to call its own, or perhaps to call its own once again, for Balin is at pains to remind us that this land was once a flourishing part of the Kingdom of Vale. 
And so it shall be once more, it seems. 
Listen to me, I am becoming an optimist in my old age. 
I am still not sure about the name ‘Mountain Glenn,’ though.
Work above ground and below continues apace; the geologists say the rock beneath our feet is far more malleable than they had anticipated. They are racing to excavate as much as they can beneath us, so that they may shore it up and prevent subsidence when we build above. Otherwise
“Boring,” Cinder murmured to herself, turning the page and skipping the discourse upon engineering and how to safely build one city beneath the other without the city above falling on the city below. Fascinating to a certain type of person, perhaps, but of no interest to her. She was reading this account for darker news. 
And she found it, just a couple of pages on, mere days after Crozier’s optimistic account of the progress of the nascent colony. 
We lost Graham today. 
He had ventured out with a small party to scout the area around the lake to the south. It is some distance from the city, but Balin wishes to spy out the farthest reaches of potential expansion in each direction before we must say ‘this far, but no further.’ And, if we could reach the lake, it would not only free us of a dependency on Vale for fresh water, but also provide a very charming place to live upon the shore. 
In any case, Graham was sent out to explore the area; according to the huntsman who went out with him, they had reached the lake itself when they were set upon by a grimm and poor Graham was killed. The huntsman, Bryant, says that the grimm looked like an ursa as best he could tell, but that it moved too quickly to get a good look at it. According to him, it killed Graham and then disappeared again. 
If true – if Bryant is not covering for some shame or disgrace on his part – then it is not only faster than any ursa I have ever fled from, but it behaves differently too. I have never known a grimm to kill only one man of a party and then retreat, ignoring the rest. 
It seems a more dangerous adversary than any other grimm that has troubled us yet, and Balin is determined that it will not venture closer to the colony. He has ordered five of our huntsmen to kill this creature with all due dispatch. 
A smile spread across Cinder’s face as she turned the page. The next couple of entries were filled with rather tedious business of the continued expansion of the colony, but a few days after the death of poor, unfortunate Graham, there was another entry which only broadened the smile on Cinder’s features. 
Today is a black day. 
Today, I must record the loss of our lieutenant governor, Sir Balin. When visiting the hunting party seeking for the grimm not far from the lake, the group was once again set upon by the creature, and in the confusion, Sir Balin was killed, along with the huntsman Bryant. Of Sir Balin, only his leg was recovered. We have interred him with as much honour as we can. 
Vale will no doubt send us a new governor, but as this colony is still under the jurisdiction of the Survey Corps I have ordered that the southern boundary be pulled back and defences be erected far from the lake.
With good fortune, this creature, be it ursa or else, will not venture closer, or if it does will be discouraged by more than a small group of huntsmen. 
Cinder nodded. It was the wise course, in the circumstances; not quite wise enough, of course – it was still constrained by the hubris of choosing to establish so large a settlement here in the first place – but within the limits of that overarching folly, the decision had its wisdom. 
And their defences had kept that particular grimm at bay, for a time; Cinder knew that because that grimm had come to her, when she had first visited this place to make sure that it was suitable for her needs. Callisto had come before her in the dead streets, sensing the mark of her mistress, and bowed to her, and requested that it be allowed to rend and kill on her behalf and for Salem’s glory. 
It had had some interesting, if bloody, stories to tell.
Suffice it to say that the grimm that Crozier wrote of was not quite an ursa. It was… something a little different, something older, and with age had come the wisdom to, say, kill one man and then depart before the others could react. 
How will you react, Sunset? How will you react when Jaune or Ruby disappears before your eyes? How long will you put your mission on hold to look for them?
How much of them will you find?
Of course, it might not be so in this case. The skill of Sunset and the others might yet surprise her. 
Either way, she hoped they would at least get a shock out of it. 
Just so that they didn’t think Cinder was going easy on them. 



Sunset was starting to suspect that Cinder had brought them here to Mountain Glenn in order to grind down their spirits. 
Forget its advantages as a hiding place, forget that it had an underground city where the White Fang could lurk in, Sunset would genuinely not have put it past Cinder to have chosen this battlefield solely with an eye to how it would make her opponents feel. 
At least when she had reason to suspect it would make them feel as grim as the creatures that haunted this necropolis. 
Pyrrha had already spoken last night of the way that this city – this rotting carcass of a city, this ruin that once had been a city – encouraged a melancholy within her soul. Sunset had felt the same, but she had possessed some hope that that was as much the darkness talking as the place itself and that the dawn would bring hope and a revival of their spirits. 
With a little hindsight, it was clear that a little sunlight was not going to make up for the fact that they were moving through a dead city full of dead bodies. 
Does not this city mock ambition?
So Pyrrha had spoken, and the answer remained no less true now than it had been last night. It did, indeed, mock ambition: the ambitions of those who had built this place and so erected a trap for thousands of their fellow citizens, the ambitions of those who had flocked here hoping for a better life but found only death… the ambitions of those who ventured here now, thinking that they could derail the plans of an immortal queen of the grimm. 
Plus… the fact that there were skeletons in the street, their skulls grinning up at them… it was just plain creepy. 
Sunset let none of this show upon her face. At least, she hoped that she did not. She was the leader of Team SAPR, and with Rainbow having gone off on a jaunt with Blake – yes, it was a good idea, and they were the two probably best to do it; that didn’t stop Sunset being upset at it – she was the only leader that they had. Professor Goodwitch, who had offered no leadership so far, didn’t count in Sunset’s book, and wouldn’t count unless she, Sunset, did something wrong. 
Like show that this place was getting to her. 
My demeanour must be all cheer. That, or words to that effect, was what she had said in Professor Ozpin’s office when he had challenged her before setting out. Again, with a little hindsight that probably could have become foresight if she had thought about it long enough, that seemed a rather… unhelpful thing to say. 
Good cheer would feel very false in such a place as this. It would seem… well, it would seem put on, a mask worn to hide her true feelings, and nobody else would be inspired by an obvious mask. 
It had to at least seem a little like her real face in order for it to gain traction with the others. 
Not that she could show her actual real face, either. Her real face in this place would have been downcast. 
Understanding what Mountain Glenn was had not prepared her to walk its streets, under sun or moon – although walking them under moon had had the advantage that she couldn’t see very well what she was walking through, and it was easier to avoid thinking about what you couldn’t see; yes, the dark had its own terrors, but they were not so nightmarish as the real thing in Mountain Glenn. Knowing that it had been a great settlement, a colony that had fallen to the grimm, had not prepared her to see what those cold words entailed. This place had died, and those who lived here had died with it. 
They had died and lain here, waiting for someone else to disturb their rest, to walk their streets, to look upon them with revulsion. 
There was nothing like this in Equestria. There were ruins, to be sure, ancient places that had once been thriving, inhabited settlements, but they were ancient, and time had worn away the rough edges of what it meant for these places to be abandoned, leaving only sanitised stones whose stories spoke of gentler things than overrunning ravaging hordes of monsters. 
There was nowhere like this. Nowhere it was not even safe to return to bury the dead. Nowhere that so many had perished at once and just lay on the ground, their bones picked clean, bleaching under the harsh light of the sun, mocking and warning the huntsmen in equal measure. 
It pricked her conscience. In the dark of the night, she had rather blithely dismissed the idea that she needed or ought to care about those for whom a huntress fought; in the dark of the night, she had found herself entertaining spite at the notion that those she did care for should die for the sake of the little people of Vale. Now, under the light of the sun, the dead of Mountain Glenn judged her for such thoughts, staring into her soul with the unseeing sockets of their skulls. 
“Look at us,” they cried, for though they had no tongues, they spoke with most miraculous voices, “we are the past, and we are the future; we are the dead of Mountain Glenn; we are the dead of Vale-”
Vale is not yet fallen, Sunset thought. 
“We are that to which you would condemn the folk of Vale,” they replied. “You would make of Vale just such a ruin as this.”
That is not so, Sunset thought. I do not seek to visit death and downfall upon any place.
“But you will not sacrifice to save it.”
Why should I so? Sunset demanded of the dead whose whispers filled her mind. What were you in life, to be worth sacrifice?
“I was a carpenter.”
“I was a housewife.”
“I was a butcher.”
“I was a waitress.”
“I was a clown.”
“We were those who trusted huntsmen to keep their vows.”
Sunset suppressed a shudder. The huntsmen of Mountain Glenn were true to their oaths and paid the price for it. It follows not that I should follow in their steps. I ask again, wherefore should I esteem the lives of Vale above the lives of my dear friends?
“Should Vale fall, then it will be a black thing for the huntress who failed to defend it. And at the world’s ending, all the souls shall rise for judgement and cry out ‘I died on such a day because I put my faith in Sunset Shimmer, and Sunset Shimmer proved faithless’.”
Sunset’s face twitched with a momentary flash of irritation and indignation combined. Maybe it was so. Perhaps it would be so. And yet, if she subscribed to the logic of sacrifice, if she allowed these brilliant lights to cease to burn, if the Evenstar of Mistral faded from the night sky, if the shadows claimed Blake and all her promise, if the Rainbow ceased to Dash between the clouds, what then? What would be lost? A kingdom would live, but at what cost if another kingdom should lose all history and virtue that resided in the last of its noble line? If the faunus who might transform Atlas for the better found themselves, not even graves, but merely resting places amongst the dead of Mountain Glenn, what then? Was not the world greater than the Kingdom of Vale? Did it not furnish her excuse enough to justify her instincts?
Why do I think thus? Why do I accept already Professor Ozpin’s logic? Why do I pay heed to silent voices?
“You feel it coming. You have felt it since you arrived in this city. The moment of decision approaches.”
Be silent! If you must disturb our minds and dampen our spirits then have the dignity at least to do so quietly!
I will have all things that I desire. I will order all things as I will. I will save Vale without sacrificing a single life amongst this party, just as I vowed to Professor Ozpin I would. 
Harken to me, you dead of Mountain Glenn! Mark me with your sightless eyes! Observe me, as your cold equations are defied and denied and rendered as nothing by the magic of a unicorn! 
I was not made for servile submission. I was not born with such a spirit as will bow to the decrees of… any other being. Not even Princess Celestia, wisdom and power so mixed in her that nature might say to every world existent ‘here is one worthy of obedience!’... not even her did I obey. Even she did I defy when she commanded me to put on humble garb and lower my proud head and bend my prouder knees in supplication. I would not do so, not even for her and all the love I bore her still; I will not do it for Professor Ozpin nor for you bleached and rotting bones! 
I was not made to accept, but to choose; I was fashioned by the hand of nature to decide my fate, and I choose to have my victory and my friends along with it. 
I was born with the power to reshape the world. 
And I shall do so.
The dead of Mountain Glenn were silent in response. She had robbed them of their tongues as she had robbed them of their power. The miasma of this place receded; though Mountain Glenn retained the power to chill her yet, the fire of her own pride and passion warmed her heart against it as once the fires of friendship had warmed the hearts of ponies ‘gainst the windigos. 
That was what she needed to convey to the others; as their leader, she needed – she had a responsibility – to set a fire in them such as she had ignited in herself. 
“Halt!” Sunset called, raising a hand just as she raised her voice, letting it shatter the silence of Mountain Glenn and echo off the houses of the dead.
Sunset turned to look behind her; she had chosen to place herself at the centre not only because it suited her abilities but also because it enabled her to be close enough – in the intent, at least – to everyone to observe them and see how they were faring in this soul-destroying place. 
The poisoned atmosphere of Mountain Glenn was affecting everyone, as if there were some magic on this place, a curse upon the very stones; Celestia knew – or did not know; Sunset had no idea how she could begin to explain such a place as Mountain Glenn to her old teacher; she was not sure she wanted to – what it would be like once they got underground. 
Her task was to do something about the situation now, and do enough that the fire she sparked would burn on even once the sun had failed and they were plunged into the darkness of the underworld. 
Jaune and Pyrrha both looked back at her to see why she had called the halt; Sunset marked their faces, the pallor of Jaune’s face, the tightness marring Pyrrha’s lovely features; she tried to ignore Professor Goodwitch’s frown; the professor would see what she was about soon enough; her gaze passed over Ruby before Sunset turned back to look at Ciel and Penny. 
Ruby, in Sunset’s opinion, was dealing with it the best, or at least she was appearing to deal with it the best, which might not be the same thing at all. In either case, Penny was quite clearly suffering the most at the hands of their gloomy surroundings. She could not turn pale, as Jaune had done, but her hands were meekly clasped before her and her head kept bowing in spite – it seemed – of the fact that she was trying to prevent it. Her expression was downcast, her mouth hanging somewhat open, the light of her eyes dimming. 
It was not so surprising; she looked as young as Ruby, she acted younger still and was, in fact, even younger than her actions might suggest. None of them here had seen death on this scale, but Penny could hardly be old enough to have comprehended the idea before she was confronted with it. 
And she didn’t take the stuff about Salem that well, either. That probably isn’t helping. 
Sunset’s brow furrowed. It was unfortunate that it was Penny, whom Sunset knew little and had spent no time with outside of group gatherings of the whole two teams, who needed her assistance first. In the absence of her actual team leader – thank you, Rainbow Dash – it fell to Sunset to pick her up, but how? How should she approach this?
Penny glanced at her partner for help, but Ciel was murmuring something to herself, words that Sunset could not make out; it seemed that she was fighting a battle of her own and had nothing to spare to aid Penny in her struggle. 
The same could be said of Pyrrha, and it would be unfair to ask Ruby for help just because she appeared to be holding it together best of all. That ‘appear,’ after all, might be doing a great deal of work. 
No, this was Sunset’s task. A leader’s task. 
Sunset walked away from Ruby, past Professor Goodwitch, past Ciel; she walked to the rear of their little column until she stood in front of Penny. Penny seemed not to notice her, with her head bowed and her eyes turned down, clutching her hands together. 
Silently, Sunset reached out and clasped Penny’s hands in her own. Through the gloves she wore, Penny’s hands didn’t feel like Sunset had expected them to: not so hard, not so obviously artificial. 
If she hadn’t told me so, I wouldn’t guess she was a robot at all. 
Which is the point, I suppose. 
Penny looked up into Sunset’s face. “Sunset?”
Sunset smiled at her. “Hi, Penny,” she said. She paused for a moment. “It’s not easy, is it?”
Penny hesitated. She hiccuped. “I don’t-”
“Nobody here thinks any the less of you, Penny,” Sunset assured. “Nobody likes it here. I’m not sure that anyone should. If you could skip merrily through this place, you wouldn’t be… human,” she finished, because as much as it might not be technically correct, there was no other way to finish that sentence that actually stood a chance of working. 
Working for Penny, or working for Sunset. She had to stop thinking about Penny as a robot; it wasn’t helping her relate to the other girl any more – strange, considering that they actually had ‘look human but aren’t really’ in common – so it was best to ignore and treat her the way that Sunset would treat anyone else. 
Only, you know, actually be nice to her. 
Penny’s mouth flattened. “But I’m not human, am I?”
Sunset hesitated for a moment. “Do you want to hear a secret, Penny?” she asked. She leaned forwards and whispered into Penny’s ear. “Neither am I.”
Penny gasped. Her eyes widened. “Really? No, that’s not possible! You must be lying!”
“Can’t you do a thing where you analyse my heartbeat and realise that I’m telling you the truth?” Sunset asked. 
Penny’s vivid green eyes darted up and down for a moment, something mechanical whirring behind them. Said eyes grew even wider. “Really?” she repeated, with even more wonder in her voice than there had been before.
“Really,” Sunset agreed. “Only keep it to yourself, please; you’re the first person outside of my teammates and Blake to find out.”
Penny nodded eagerly. “Your secret’s safe with me,” she whispered. “But… why would you tell me something like this?”
“Because it doesn’t matter,” Sunset said. “You, me, we’re not human, but so what? I yet feel pride as Pyrrha does, you still love like Ruby does… and we both feel fear, and doubt, and despair gnawing at our hearts within this place.”
“You feel it too?” Penny asked softly.
“That which I see in your eyes would take the heart of me,” Sunset told her.
Penny hesitated. “So much death,” she whispered. “So much destruction.”
“It upsets you,” Sunset said; it was a statement, not a question. “Use it.”
“Sunset?”
“Use it,” Sunset repeated. “If this upsets you, then think about what will happen to Vale, or Atlas, if we don’t stop it. This is what our enemies would visit upon Vale; this is what will befall all the kingdoms if we don’t draw the line here. Use this, Penny, think about this, think about all that will happen if we fail… and let it give you strength so that we do not fail.
“This is the consequence of defeat, Penny: Vale shall become another Mountain Glenn. But if we succeed, then you will have proved your worth to all those who doubted you. General Ironwood thought that you needed Rainbow Dash to babysit you, to be there to pick up the slack in case you didn’t measure up, but he won’t be saying that when we get back to Vale, having stopped the White Fang dead in their tracks. Your father thought you needed protection, he wasn’t sure that you were suited for the field, but today is the day you prove him wrong.” Sunset raised her voice so that everyone could hear her. “We will earn our loved ones cheers on our return!” She quietened again, and once more spoke so that only Penny could hear her. “So what do you say, are you ready?”
Penny paused a moment, then nodded. “Combat ready.”
Sunset grinned and patted her on the shoulder. “Good girl,” she said.
“Sunset,” Penny said quietly, as Sunset made to turn away. “If you… if you’re not… then what are you?”
The grin widened upon Sunset’s face. “Awesome,” she said, and then she really did turn away, although only to walk the couple of steps separating her from Ciel Soleil. Distant Thunder was in her hands, but folded up for ease of movement, so Sunset could approach without the long barrel of the rifle getting in her way at all. Ciel’s expression was inscrutable, and the only sign that she was in any way discomfited by Mountain Glenn was the way that she was muttering to herself. 
“'Though I walk in darkness, thou art my light; for thy teachings illuminate my path, and thy radiance surrounds me and keeps me from all evil-'”
“A prayer?” Sunset asked.
Ciel frowned. “Yes. Or one might call it a catechism.”
“Is she with us even in this place, your Lady of the North?”
“If the Lady’s power reached no further than the north, then we would be truly forsaken,” Ciel replied. “It is true that I am far from home, but God lies in all realms, and the Lady is God’s intermediary, who acts for us on His behalf and pleads to him on ours. She will not abandon us now, not even in this domain of evil.”
“Evil, you call it?”
“What else should I call it?” asked Ciel.
“Tragedy?” Sunset suggested. “Misfortune.”
“Misfortune and tragedy occurred here, but that is not what has tainted these very stones,” Ciel replied. “Evil has done this.”
“And yet the Lady’s light will shield you from its malice?” Sunset asked.
“Faith is my shield, and duty is my armour,” Ciel declared. “You need have no fears for me, Sunset Shimmer. Nor any fears about my conduct,” she added.
I hope so, Sunset thought. “I am glad to hear it,” she said. “I will leave you to your prayers, then.” She walked back down the line the way that she had come, once more passing Professor Goodwitch who seemed a little less puzzled now by what Sunset was doing.
Ruby was next, in the centre of the column, Crescent Rose held in carbine configuration in her small, pale hands. 
“Ruby,” Sunset murmured. 
Ruby looked up at her, able to muster a slight smile upon her face. “Hey, Sunset. You don’t need to worry about me, either. I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?” Sunset replied. “You don’t need to pretend if you’re not.”
“I’m okay,” Ruby repeated. “This place… it makes me sad, but it doesn’t get me down. It makes me stronger, because it’s what we’re fighting to prevent.”
Sunset snorted. “Spoken like a true huntress. You really are a special one, aren’t you?”
Ruby looked away, a splash of colour rising to her cheeks. “Thank you,” she said, “for helping Penny. I was starting to get a little worried about her, but… but I didn’t know what to say.”
“Really?” Sunset asked, a little surprised. “You could have just told her what you told me.”
“Maybe,” Ruby conceded. “But I didn’t know it would work. How did you know it would work?”
“I didn’t,” Sunset admitted. “But I had to try something, given that I'm the team leader and my esteemed colleague has absented herself.”
“She’s-”
“I know, I know,” Sunset said. “Let me complain anyway.” She paused. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
Ruby nodded. “I’m fine, Sunset, really. Go check on Jaune and Pyrrha.”
Sunset clasped Ruby warmly on the shoulder and continued down the line. 
Jaune was pale and shivering; Sunset didn’t think the cold was responsible for either condition. 
Of course, of all of them, Jaune was the only one she knew had seen a man die. 
“Hey, Jaune,” she said quietly. “How are you doing?”
Jaune blinked rapidly. “Professor Goodwitch… she really helped me out after, you know,” he said. “And it’s not like I haven’t seen death before; I come from a farming village, for crying out loud, I know what bones look like. I just… there’s so much.”
Sunset nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think about how this might affect you.”
“It’s affecting everybody, right?” Jaune asked. “Even you?”
“As your inspiring leader, I cannot confirm that,” Sunset said dryly. She hesitated. Jaune’s situation, his… what had happened to him went deeper than you could magic away with a few well-spun words delivered in the classical format. 
She had sufficient respect for him, and his reasons for being here, not to ask if he wanted to turn back. It would demean him and show that she did not esteem him as a part of the team. That… wasn’t true any more. It was true that the greatest part of his value to the team resided in his semblance, but the fact was that he did have value. 
And he was the one who saw what Cinder was, while I was blind. 
I didn’t admit that.
“You were right, Jaune,” she said.
That must have seemed quite abrupt to him, because it took him a moment to respond. “Sunset?”
“Don’t expect me to repeat myself.”
“I heard you just fine, I just… right about what?”
“Cinder,” Sunset said softly. “You saw… what she was doing to me.”
Jaune’s brow furrowed. “I thought that you still-”
“I do,” Sunset confirmed, before he could say it. “I still… but she is our enemy, and you saw that before I did.” She paused. “You have sharper eyes than I do, sometimes. I need that. I need you to see what I miss.”
Jaune was silent for a moment. “Are you trying to make me feel needed?”
“Is it working?” Sunset asked. “I know that I can’t change what’s happened to you, or talk you into not feeling it any more, but… I’m trying my best here.”
“I know,” Jaune said. “And I appreciate that.” He was the one who put his hand on her shoulder. It was steadier than it had looked. “I’m right here, Sunset. I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t think I could handle it.”
“And now that you’re here?” Sunset asked.
Jaune glanced at Pyrrha, who looked as though she was pretending not to listen to their conversation, but might actually not be listening to their conversation – it was Pyrrha, after all, and eavesdropping was so frightfully impolite. “I can handle it,” he declared. “I don’t like it, and I’m looking forward to going home, but I know we have a ways to go yet, and I’m prepared to go wherever it takes.” He smiled. “To earn our loved ones’ cheers, right?”
Sunset chuckled. “Okay. If you say that you’ve got it under control, then I trust you.” She glanced at Pyrrha, then back to Jaune. “This will all be over soon,” she promised him.
“I hope so,” Jaune said quietly. 
Pyrrha was the last. Pyrrha, at the head of the column. Pyrrha, the tip of the spear, standing with her back to them all, her shield held at her side and her spear held tight in her hand, her red hair and crimson sash both blown sideways by the breeze so that they seemed like banners, and Pyrrha herself stood as still as the pole from which those flags might fly. The sunlight glimmered off her gilded armour and off the circlet bound about her brow. 
She did not belong here. None of them belonged here; this was a city made for those who were dead, and the dead kept it, and any living man who ventured here was a trespasser by definition – but Pyrrha seemed to belong here even less than most of them. She was a creature of another world, thrust into this time and place from out of the pages of some dusty epic full of old deeds and even older values. So noble a thing did not belong here in this squalid place, this home of ruin, this place befouled by evil. She was too noble for it; she gleamed like a pearl amongst swine, and like that pearl, none could look at her and not be struck by how out of place she was. 
Sunset stood beside her, silent, not immediately speaking, waiting instead for Pyrrha to speak. 
“There has been no trouble,” she murmured.
“No,” Sunset replied. “Rainbow and Blake have laid out a clear path for us.”
Pyrrha nodded. “I would almost have preferred a battle to this… this brooding melancholy.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “A disquiet follows my soul.”
Sunset’s brow furrowed. “You’re not the only one.”
“You hide it very well,” Pyrrha whispered.
The corner of Sunset’s lip twitched upwards. “I’m the team leader; that’s my job.”
“Then should you really be telling me otherwise?” Pyrrha asked, a note of playfulness entering into her voice. 
“You’d know if I was lying, I think,” Sunset replied. “And besides, I have to acknowledge the difficulties of the situation before I can convince you that it’ll be alright in the end. That’s paragraph two of the five-point speech.”
“Did Professor Goodwitch teach you that, or have you read Miltiades?” Pyrrha asked.
“I read Miltiades,” Sunset said, “but not until after Professor Goodwitch mentioned him.” She took pause a while. “You know why we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves yet.”
“I am aware,” Pyrrha said softly. “And yet… is it so wrong of me to wish for something to take my mind off all of this? When battle begins, it consumes my thoughts; there is little room for aught else. Yet now… with the way ahead decided for us and no sign of any foes, I find there is much room for much else.” She sighed. “This is a foul place. In this place…”
“We bring our perils with us here, I think,” Sunset said softly, sparing Pyrrha the need to continue. “That is why Ruby has taken no hurt from it.”
“And yet Penny has?” Pyrrha asked.
“Penny is not Ruby, for all that she is innocent,” Sunset countered. “Innocent, but not free from… you remember how she took the news about Salem.”
“Ah,” Pyrrha murmured. “Yes, I think I see what you mean. This place, it… it speaks to me of the futility of struggle, the inevitability of… Sunset?”
“Yes?”
“What is paragraph four?” Pyrrha asked. “What is the part where you tell me how we’re going to win? What is the part where you inspire me? I think I’d like to hear that now, if you don’t mind.”
“You’re not going to like it,” Sunset warned her.
“I like very little about any of this,” Pyrrha said. “Say on.”
“My pride armours me,” Sunset said. “Perhaps the Invincible Girl would be less vulnerable to this place than Pyrrha Nikos is.”
Pyrrha was silent a little while before she said, “Sunset, I fear that the Invincible Girl has seen nothing in this place but has proved to her that no one is invincible and that all her glories and her triumphs are but worthless empty baubles, counting for nothing in the face of the true savagery of the world.”
“And what is the White Fang but the true savagery of the world?” Sunset demanded. “What is the true savagery that brought down this place but the grimm whom we have faced, and bested, more than once? You are not some naif plucked from the Colosseum to join us here, full of tournament-bred arrogance and arena-insulated ignorance about the way we do things! You are the girl who leapt from the cliffs to come to our aid when we were sorely besieged by the grimm, you are the girl who ventured forth from Mistral when none other dared defend the city, you are the girl who has fought the White Fang more than once, and they have not touched you. That is who you are, that is your invincibility, and I dare these dead men to mock it with their dusty tongues! You are the pride of this team and the greatest warrior to step forth from Mistral in more than a generation! That is what I would have you remember, that is the pride in which I would have you armour yourself. That is how I have protected myself from the malice of this mausoleum. Does that help you at all, or are you too humble to a fault to even entertain the notion of acknowledging your own skill?”
“I am not so humble,” Pyrrha reminded her. “I am aware of my own skill, and I will even own a certain pride in what I can do well, but-”
“If the ability to triumph in combat against one enemy or a small number is of no use, then we are all done for,” Sunset pointed out. “You are not unique in that respect. Not even Rainbow Dash would claim to be able to triumph against an army alone. But you are not alone.”
“No,” Pyrrha acknowledged. “No, I am not.” She took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling. “And as you rely on me to be your spear, I shall not fail you.”
“I never thought you would,” Sunset assured her. She held out her hand. “We will be the greatest huntresses of our age when we triumph here. No one of our years will have done such a thing.”
Pyrrha took her hand, and clasped it warmly. “So long as we have protected those who shelter beneath our shields, that will suffice for me.”
Sunset smiled, before she returned to her place in the centre of the formation. 
She thought she saw a faint smile on Professor Goodwitch’s face. 
Sunset did not acknowledge it. That would have been terribly bad form. Instead, she merely raised her voice and called out, “Forward!”



Cinder kept the journal tucked beneath her arm as she walked through the White Fang camp. 
Adam’s shoulders, she noticed as she approached him, were not quite so straight as they had been last night. They were more hunched, more bowed with shame; as well he might feel ashamed for this rank disobedience. If Emerald had not come and told Cinder what was going on, well… her plans might have been thrown into complete disarray.
He had no right to do what he had done; he had no right to put his… his conscience – since when did he even have a conscience? She had sought him out in the first place because he was a bloodthirsty monster with no morals! – above her goals. 
She had thought that Adam’s wrath, his need to strike back at those who had wronged him, his obsession with Blake, his hatred of Sunset and Rainbow Dash, all these qualities made him easy to manipulate, but it seemed that there were yet parts of him that she had not seen, and those parts threatened to make him ungovernable. 
She could have killed him for what he had done. There was yet a part of her that wished to kill him. But he was, for the moment, yet useful to her, or more to the point, she could not yet afford to do without him. Gilda had made it abundantly clear that she didn’t trust Cinder an inch – as well she might not; she was wiser in this than her chief by far – and as much as she had made herself unpopular amongst the rank and file, that unpopularity would be as nothing compared to the outrage that would ensue if Cinder burnt Adam alive the way she wanted to. 
If she did that, then all of Gilda’s offences would be washed away, and she would take control of the White Fang in Vale and turn them squarely against Cinder.
She could not allow that. And so, against that eventuality, she was forced to retain Adam’s services for the time being. 
Fortunately, the time was soon at hand when she could do without him, and the rest of these idiots besides. 
If there was something that she perhaps ought to thank Twilight for, it was for bringing that parting of the ways so much closer.
Dealing with Adam was… rather tiresome, in many ways. She would not be at all upset to see the back of him. Or simply not to see him again. 
Chastising him for his recent transgression had been enormously satisfying. 
“Start up the jammer,” she commanded. 
“You told us to leave it off before,” Adam pointed out.
“And now I’m telling you to turn it on,” Cinder informed him magisterially. “I do not think it meet that our… guests should enjoy the luxury of communications.”
“Communications are bad enough here as it is,” Adam muttered.
Cinder raised one eyebrow.
“But it will be as you wish,” Adam added, sullenly.
Gods, you’re a petulant child sometimes, aren’t you?
“Good,” Cinder said. “How is the loading of the train progressing?”
“As fast as possible.”
“Also good,” Cinder replied. “They’ll be here soon.”
Probably.



Pyrrha stopped.
There had been a barricade before them. Pyrrha could tell because they had found their route blocked by similar barricades before – blocked in the sense they could not continue; of course, Rainbow and Blake had already marked out alternatives for them, shortcuts through buildings or back-alleys – and it was clear from the remains that this had been such a barricade. The street in front of her was littered with debris, corrugated iron sheets and solid-looking metal plates and beams of wood and metal that had propped it up. 
However, it no longer blocked the street but only littered it; it had collapsed, parts of it shattered into pieces, others simply unmoored and left to fall. Either way, it presented no obstacle to them. 
Not anymore. 
Which was why Pyrrha had stopped. 
Everyone else had stopped as well. Pyrrha could hear footsteps scraping on the surface of the road behind her, before she caught sight of Sunset out of the corner of her eye. 
“Something wrong?” she asked.
Pyrrha gestured towards the barricade with Miló. “That barricade is down, we could go through there.”
“I see that,” Sunset said.
“So why have Rainbow and Blake marked out that we should go through that electronics store?” Pyrrha demanded, gesturing now towards the splash of fresh white paint on the door of the aforementioned electronics store, advertising great deals on trade-in video games.
Sunset understood her point at once: the barricade must have been there when Rainbow and Blake passed this way, only to have been destroyed since by… something else. 
“Make ready!” Sunset called, unslinging Sol Invictus off her shoulder. “Close up.”
Pyrrha could hear Crescent Rose unfolding its thorns with a series of mechanical clicks and hydraulic hisses behind her. She heard their footsteps as they closed up on the head of the column.
Sunset tapped two fingers to her earpiece. “Twilight? Twilight, can you hear me? Twilight?! Blake, Rainbow Dash, are you there?”
“Can you not get through?” Pyrrha asked.
“No,” Sunset growled. “Perhaps they started jamming us, but why now?”
“It’s a little surprising that they haven’t done it before, right?” Jaune said. “I mean, they’ve known we were here since last night; that’s why they let Fluttershy go.”
“Good point,” Sunset allowed. “But they didn’t start jamming us then, so why start now?”
“Maybe they only just remembered,” Penny suggested hopefully.
“Or maybe they only wanted to cut us off now,” Ruby muttered.
Sunset’s tail twitched back and forth as she looked left and right, glancing up at the flat roofs of the shops on either side of them. Pyrrha looked too. She could see nothing and hear nothing. 
But something had broken down the barricade. 
“Okay, here’s what we do,” Sunset said. “We continue on the route that has been marked for us because… because it is the route that has been marked for us. However, there is a fair chance that something has gotten between us and the scouting party, and so for that reason, I’ll take the lead from now on.”
“You put me in the lead when you don’t believe there’ll be actual danger and then take the lead the moment it seems there might be?” Pyrrha asked.
Sunset looked at her. “I will not ask you to go first into the dark.”
“I am the best suited here to go first into the dark,” Pyrrha replied. “At close quarters, I am more capable than you are; your semblance requires range.”
Sunset did not take her eyes away from Pyrrha. “I will not ask you to do what I am not willing to do myself.”
“What you are willing to do is not always what you should do,” Pyrrha insisted. “And you do not need to ask.”
Sunset scowled. “If there is a grimm behind that door, if it is smart enough to work out what the paint means-”
“Then I will speak to it,” Pyrrha declared. “And speak with greater eloquence knowing that you are behind me.” 
Sunset hesitated, so Pyrrha pressed home her advantage, “You reminded me that I am no longer a tournament fighter new to the battlefield; then let me remind you that we are not some new-founded team placed together yesterday by Professor Ozpin. You have no need to prove your valour, to me or anyone here. A leader need not always lead from the front, not even in Mistral.” Pyrrha smiled. “And we are not even in Mistral.”
Sunset smiled and sighed both at the same time, or near enough. “You speak near as well with your tongue as with your spear,” she said. “Very well. Jaune, back up Pyrrha, I’ll be right behind you.”
Jaune nodded. “Of course,” he said, with a glance her way. 
Pyrrha smiled at him. 
“But we are going to change things up at the rear,” Sunset insisted. “Since it seems that we have more to worry about ahead of us than behind, Ciel, you’re our new rearguard; Penny, you’re with Ruby behind me.”
“Understood,” Ciel murmured.
“I’ll do my best,” said Penny.
Pyrrha changed Miló into sword mode in her hand; as a blade, the weapon was shorter, and in what might be the tight quarters inside the shop, where there might well be a grimm – and it would have to be a reasonably old grimm to be clever enough to work out what the white paint meant – waiting to pounce on her as soon as she walked through the door, then she would be glad of a shorter weapon. 
She approached the door cautiously. She could hear Jaune’s breathing behind her. She could feel the breeze upon her neck above her glimmering gorget, kissing her skin and brushing her hair gently aside. She could feel her hair too, the loose strands of it tickling her back and shoulders. 
With Akoúo̱ clinging her to her arm, she pushed at the door. It stuck a little, which might have been an argument against the idea of a grimm lurking there, save that if this place did not have a back entrance, then Blake and Rainbow Dash would not have sent them this way. 
A little extra force, and the slightest touch of her semblance to the hinges, and the door gave way before her, exposing… very little actually, on account of the darkness which shrouded the interior. 
Shelves had been knocked over, scattering circuit breakers and extension leads and gaming consoles across the floor. A few shelves stood near the back of the room, but not many. The air was stale and musty, but Pyrrha could not see any sign of death in the place. 
Mind you, it was so dark that just because she couldn’t see it was not to say that it was not there. 
What she could see clearly was the splash of white paint on the door; apparently, it was luminescent on top of all its other qualities. 
Pyrrha stepped towards it heavily, she would have to admit. She was not Blake; though she strove to move with grace, that grace did not possess a feline aspect; her steps, if they did not resound, nor were they silent. Her enemies would always hear her coming. 
It hadn’t seemed to matter until now. 
So she walked forward, tramping objects under foot, hearing Jaune do likewise behind her. 
In fact, as the others followed, Pyrrha was… not comforted, precisely, but any shame she might have felt was lessened by the fact that nobody else was moving silently either. 
With the exception of Professor Goodwitch; Pyrrha couldn’t hear her at all. 
She had almost reached the other door when Penny hissed, “Wait!”
Pyrrha half-turned towards her. 
“I can hear something,” Penny whispered, pointing above them.
The eyes of the entire group turned upwards, to the ceiling that hung over their heads, the dead lights and the metal grill and everything else above them. 
Pyrrha could hear nothing. But she trusted Penny. If Penny could hear something, then Pyrrha did not doubt her. 
She waited. They all waited. Sunset pointed her rifle up at the ceiling. Ciel did likewise, and Ruby as well. 
For a moment, the world was still, and in the darkness, there was nought but silence. 
Then the roof collapsed, a hole torn violently through it as sunlight and the sound of a great bellowing roar streamed in from above them. Penny dived forward, bearing Ruby to the ground and shielding her friend beneath her body as wood and metal and cement debris rained down upon it. Jaune shielded himself, but still went down on his backside with a squawk of alarm beneath the force of the deluge. Pyrrha was too far away from the opening, but Sunset-
There was a cry as Sunset was seized by some dark shape and borne upwards, Sol Invictus falling from her grasp and clattering to the ground as she disappeared out of the hole in the roof. 
“Sunset!” Ruby cried.
Distant Thunder roared, the sound of the blast echoing in the room as the muzzle flash of the great gun lit up the darkness. Ciel’s shot punched a second, lesser hole in the roof, but Pyrrha could not see that it had done anything else. 
“Don’t shoot!” Pyrrha yelled. “You might hit Sunset!” For her part, she hurled Akoúo̱ upwards towards the hole, and then, as it reached the gap that had been torn by their assailant, she used Polarity to pull herself up, almost flying through the air until she could reach out and grab the hole, hauling herself through it, backflipping as she went, hair flying around her like dancing flame as she landed nimbly on the roof of the building. 
Akoúo̱ flew onto her outstretched arm as she faced their opponent. 
It was an ursa. At least she thought it was an ursa at first, but its head was not exactly right; it didn’t look quite like any ursa that she had faced before; the bony skull was shorter, more… more human, in a bizarre fashion, not quite a man’s skull – perhaps a man’s skill that had moulded and misshaped in some way – but more that than the head of an ursa. 
It was more armoured than any ursa – even an ursa major – that Pyrrha had ever heard of; it had no spikes, no elongated spurs of bone, but it was covered almost completely in bony plates; there was barely any black to be seen. How could so armoured a grimm move so silently? How was it they had not heard it coming from halfway across Mountain Glenn?
That hardly mattered now; what mattered was that the creature had Sunset’s neck in its teeth and was shaking her like a rat, her limbs flailing wildly as it shook her up and down, its fangs crushing her throat and her aura with it. 
Pyrrha reached out, stretching her semblance forth and latching onto Sunset’s cuirass, her vambraces, the studs of her jacket, anything metal that she was wearing, anything that she could grab hold of with Polarity and pulling it with all the strength that her soul gave her, pulling against the strength of this grimm, pulling Sunset out of its jaws and towards her. 
Sunset’s eyes bulged as she was torn between the two powerful forces, each determined to keep her in their grasp. 
Polarity won out. The soul won out. The light won out against the darkness as Sunset was wrenched out of the grimm’s toothy grip and flew through the air into Pyrrha’s outstretched arm. 
Pyrrha let Sunset down gently on the roof. Then she slung Akoúo̱ onto her back, formed Miló into spear form, gripped it tightly in both hands, and charged, the red and gold of her weapon blurring before her as it spun, her scarlet sash trailing behind her like a banner as she leapt across the gap in the roof to confront the grimm. 
Its eyes burned like fire as it growled at her. Pyrrha stared right back, silent, her face as grim as the grimm that opposed her.
Its jaws snapped shut on empty air. It had taken Sunset by surprise, but Pyrrha was not Sunset, and she was not surprised. As soon as her enemy began to move, she moved, rolling aside, Miló scraping down the grimm’s armoured flank, the metal scratching against the bone. Of course it did; she didn’t have the raw strength to smash through the plate of so well-protected a grimm as this. 
But there were gaps between the plates, like the gap into which she thrust Miló, shoving the weapon with all her strength.
It barely penetrated the grimm’s armour before it got stuck, wedged between the two plates of bone, unable to move forward, unable to move back; Pyrrha had no idea if she had even penetrated to the black flesh beneath. 
She would have to use Polarity to get her weapon back and then-
Something struck Pyrrha in the flank, knocking her off her feet. The grimm, its neck had grown, or rather, it had grown a neck, a long black neck that stretched around its bulky body to slam into her. 
Pyrrha tried to get to her feet, but the grimm, its neck growing even longer, coiling like a serpent, stretched out to clamp its jaws around her foot, fangs scraping against the gilded metal of her greaves. Pyrrha cried out as her aura dropped, her cry becoming elongated as the grimm with its unnatural neck cast her bodily into the air and hurled her off the roof. 
She flew across the street. She flew beyond the street, and as the air rushed past her, as she spun head over heels, as she tumbled and fell and the world span around her, Pyrrha could barely think to use Polarity to slow her descent. She tried to reach out for any metal that she could find, but it did not stop her from crashing through the wall of a building and into a decaying dining room, the places still set for a meal that would never be served. 
Pyrrha lay on the floor for a moment, reaching for her scroll to see how much damage had been done to her aura. It felt as though it had taken quite a hit. 
She heard the sound of gunshots, the high-pitched crack of Crescent Rose mingling with the boom of Distant Thunder. 
There was no time to check her aura. 
Pyrrha leapt to her feet in a smooth, fluid motion. She started to run, her arms pounding, running out of the abandoned house, hair and sash flying after her. She couldn’t hear Crescent Rose any more. 
Pyrrha hit the door that stood in her way head on, smashing it off its hinges as she tore, heedless, through a sporting goods store. She burst out into the street – just as Ciel slammed into the wall beside her hard enough to crack and dent the stones beneath her. 
The front of the electronics store had been destroyed. The grimm, whatever kind of grimm it was, had descended through the roof – of which nothing now remained – to engage the rest of the team. 
The grimm was on its hind legs now; even its belly was armoured, all of it covered in plate, protected as any knight of old would have envied. It had one massive paw placed upon Penny’s back, pinning her down face-first so that she could not bring Floating Array to bear. The other paw was crushing Ruby beneath its weight, heedless of her attempts to push it off or scrabble out from under it. 
Only Sunset and Professor Goodwitch were still on their feet. Professor Goodwitch flicked her riding crop back and forth, and yet, her telekinesis seemed to do nothing to it, as if it was too big for her semblance to touch it, too heavy for her to move. 
As if it was immune to such things as it was immune to the bullets of Ruby or Ciel. 
Sunset faced the creature, ears flattened down amongst her flaming hair, bolts of magic flying from her hands, one after the other, to strike the beast upon its chest, but she might as well have been spitting for all the good that she was doing. 
It had Jaune in its grip. He was caught in its jaws, its human and yet inhuman mouth embracing him. Only his aura – and that armour that seemed so inadequate now – stood between Jaune, sweet Jaune, her Jaune, and being snapped in two.
Not while I draw breath.
Pyrrha let out a wordless roar as she thrust out with polarity, seizing Miló in her semblance grasp and pushing it with all the might her soul commanded downwards, through its armour, into the grimm. 
It was a hard struggle. The gaps between the armour were tight, and there was little room to move. But Pyrrha was insistent. She would not lose. She would not lose Jaune. She would not lose Ruby or Penny. She would not lose. 
Miló moved. It moved slowly, but it moved. 
The grimm turned its head towards her. 
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Sunset growled, and she ceased to fire magic at the creature of grimm but rather grabbed its head in telekinesis, enshrouding it in the light of her magic, holding it in place. “Keep doing what you’re doing, Pyrrha,” she yelled. She held out her hands, and the grimm’s grip upon Jaune in its jaws loosed a little. 
“Professor, get Jaune!” Sunset yelled.
Professor Goodwitch obeyed, flicking her riding crop to yank Jaune free and dump him on the ground safely away from the grimm. 
“I’d love to let you catch your breath, Jaune, but I think Pyrrha could use a bit of a boost,” Sunset said.
Jaune did not need telling twice. He did not wait to scramble to his feet, to rush first on all fours and then on two to Pyrrha’s side. 
“Are you alright?” they asked each other at once. 
“I will be, once everyone is,” Jaune said, and without another word, he placed his hands upon her shoulders, and a golden light spread out from his hands and from his fingertips to envelop Pyrrha with its glistening cloud. 
She could feel her strength returning, not only returning but increasing; this was the strength that had allowed her to move an entire train; this strength allowed to press down on Miló with even greater force, her enhanced might pushing against the tight-knit armour of the grimm. 
The grimm began to moan as Pyrrha’s spear descended. 
“I’m sorry,” Pyrrha said through gritted teeth, as with her strengthened semblance, she lifted Crocea Mors from off the ground, plucked Soteria from out of its sheath on Sunset’s back, and hurled them both like javelins into the grimm on either side of Miló, pushing down with all three weapons, pressing them home, driving them beyond the armour and into the vulnerable flesh beneath. 
The grimm was howling now, pricked with pain, but the green light of Sunset’s magic enveloped it, and now, Professor Goodwitch stood with her arm outstretched, and it seemed that, though she could not move the creature, she could hold it fast. 
She could prevent it escaping as Pyrrha drove three blades into it until they were out of sight. She could no longer see them – they had disappeared beneath the bony plates – but she could still feel them, and with her semblance, she could move them inside the grimm’s body, turning them in circles, spinning them in arcs, slicing through whatever they found. 
The grimm let out a low and almost mournful groan before its whole body and all its armour turned to ash. 
Sunset summoned Soteria into her grip. 
Pyrrha brought home not only Miló but Crocea Mors, which she presented to Jaune. 
“I’m sorry for not asking permission,” she murmured. 
“I’ll let it slide in an emergency,” he said lightly. 
Sunset knelt by Ruby’s side. “Ruby, are you okay?”
Ruby coughed. “Yeah,” she gasped. “Mostly.”
Sunset nodded, patting her on the shoulder. “Jaune,” she said. “Do you have enough aura to take care of everyone?”
“Sure,” Jaune agreed. “I’ve got more than enough.”
“Good,” Sunset said. “Because I think we might be just getting started.”