You’re Not So Tough Now You’re In Our Town
As Team RSPT exited the battlefield, they were met in the corridor beyond by a large crowd: Rainbow’s friends, Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, and Team SAPR.
“That was awesome!” Pinkie cried, pumping her pom poms up and down in the air.
Rainbow grinned. “I couldn’t have done it without you cheering me on, Pinkie.”
Pinkie’s smile squeaked audibly. “C is for Rainbow Dash, right?”
“No,” Penny said. “At least, I don’t think it is.”
“It’s a private joke, Penny,” Rainbow told her.
Scootaloo pushed forward between the older not-quite-adults, with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle following a little behind.
“That was amazing, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo cried. “The way you were like wuh-wuh-wuh—” She started boxing with the air, throwing out punches with her right hand and her left, jabbing at imaginary foes that only she could see. “Although I kinda thought you might use your guns more.”
“It might sound strange, but I can do more damage with my fists,” Rainbow said as she knelt down and put a hand on Scootaloo’s shoulder. “Plus, it made for a cooler-looking fight, didn’t it?”
Scootaloo chuckled. “Yeah, I guess it did. I got some great pictures too, including the one where that other guy is up in the air as you hit him.”
Applejack took a step forwards, one hand lightly brushing over Pinkie’s shoulder as she advanced on Rainbow Dash. She smiled as she held out one hand, touching the brim of her hat with the other. “Congratulations, Rainbow.”
Rainbow kept one hand on Scootaloo’s shoulder, even as she reached upwards and outwards to take Applejack’s hand with the other. “Thanks.”
Applejack nodded. “And you too, Twilight.”
Twilight laughed lightly. “I didn’t really do anything.”
“Yeah, you didn’t,” Sweetie Belle added. “It was like you weren’t even there.”
“Twilight didn’t get eliminated in any way,” Applejack pointed out, “so Ah’m inclined to call that one a win myself; it’s not like this is your natural habitat or nothin’.”
Rainbow looked behind her, where Twilight stood a little diffidently, hands clasped in front of her.
“How does it feel?” she asked. “Having fought your last fight?”
“Like I maybe should have made it a little more memorable,” Twilight suggested. “But mostly relieved.” She paused. “Yeah, definitely something like ninety-nine percent relieved. It’s over, and done, and I will never volunteer for anything so stupid ever again.”
Rainbow grinned. “I’ll hold you to that.”
“We could be asking you how it feels, darling,” Rarity said, “to have upheld the honour of Atlas after a somewhat dismal start to the tournament.”
“Not to mention put some pep back into the Atlas crowd,” Blake added.
Everyone fell silent for a moment, listening to the roaring of the crowd above them.
“You’re not singing anymore!
You’re not singing anymore!”
Rainbow laughed. “That … feels pretty good, I have to say.”
“As a sensation, it is … far from unpleasant,” added Ciel.
“'Far from unpleasant'?” Neon squawked, her voice rising above the members of Team SAPR as she pushed her way through the crowd. “'Far from unpleasant'? Only you could make winning your first match in the Vytal Tournament — and scoring the first win for Atlas into the bargain — sound like going to the dentist’s. Can’t you just say you’re happy and you had fun?”
Ciel glanced away, and downwards slightly at the metallic floor beneath her feet. “I am … proud of myself.”
“That’s more like it!” Neon shouted, dashing forward the remaining distance between them, briefly trailing a rainbow, until she was close enough to wrap one arm around Ciel’s neck and pull her in. “Although, I should warn you, enjoy that warm feeling while it lasts, because I will be outshining you like the sun outshines the moon when it’s my turn.”
A smile pricked at the corners of Ciel’s lips. “I hope so, and look forward to seeing it with my own eyes.”
“You should be proud,” Ruby said. “Just because it may not seem like the biggest deal compared to some of the stuff that you’ve done, you should be proud anyway. You too, Penny, that was incredible out there!”
“I, um…” Penny hesitated. “I’m not really sure what I did.”
“Well,” Pyrrha said. “How did it feel, when you threw off Atalanta’s semblance? What was going through your mind, or your soul?”
“I…” Penny paused. “I was enraptured by that marble she threw; I didn’t even notice that those skeletons were attacking me—”
“We noticed,” Sunset said. “You gave us a bit of a scare there for a second.”
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it.”
“We know, Penny, we know,” Sunset assured her. “Just … go on, keep answering Pyrrha; I shouldn’t have interrupted.”
“All right,” Penny murmured. “I was looking at the marble, and thinking about how I only wanted to look at it, but then … it was as if I remembered that that wasn’t what I wanted to do, or at least, I remembered that I wanted to decide what I wanted to do and not have anybody make that choice for me. And just like that, it was like it didn’t affect me anymore, and I could break it.”
Pyrrha nodded. “I see.”
“What?” Penny asked. “What do you see?”
“Pyrrha,” Sunset said, “You’re on the verge of being smug, just tell her.”
“I’m sorry,” Pyrrha said, her cheeks reddening. “I didn’t mean to … I think, Penny — in fact, I’m fairly sure — that you have just found your semblance.”
Penny gasped. Her green eyes widened. “My … my semblance? You think I’ve found my semblance?”
“It’s difficult to think what else it could be,” Pyrrha said.
Penny’s eyes widened even further, which Rainbow wouldn’t have thought was possible, although she could get why; finding your semblance was kind of a big deal, after all; it … some people held that it told you a little bit about who you were; others said that it only manifested once you already understood yourself well enough that you didn’t need it to tell you who you were, you saw yourself reflected in your semblance; other people said that was all nonsense and semblances were halfway to completely random, which was a little bit boring if it was true.
“I found my semblance!” Penny cried. She started leaping up and down. “I found my semblance!”
Ruby laughed for joy as she rushed forward, throwing her arms around Penny as the two of them bounced up and down, locked in embrace. “Congratulations, Penny; we’re all so happy for you.”
“But…” Penny stopped. “What kind of semblance do I have? I could ignore Atalanta’s semblance, but … is that it?”
“Almost certainly not,” Ciel said. “Few semblances are that specific.”
“If you want to find out what your semblance can and can’t do, then you need to try it out,” Ruby said. “When I first found my semblance, Yang had me running up and down outside our house all day so that we could work out how fast I could go, how easy it was for me to change direction, that kind of thing; we should do that.”
“I’m sure that we all want to see Blake’s match,” Pyrrha said. “But after that … there isn’t another fight that I couldn’t miss until Team Auburn versus Team Coffee, and there are four fights between Blake’s fight and that, so after this next match is over, why don’t we all go back down to Beacon and find somewhere we can explore Penny’s new semblance a little?”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Penny said. “That is, if you all don’t mind.”
“It’s no trouble,” Pyrrha said, smiling.
“We’re happy to help you,” Ruby added. “Plus, it’ll probably be a lot of fun.”
“Did I hear that right?” General Ironwood asked. “You’ve found your semblance?”
“Officer on deck, ten-hut!” Ciel declared, disentangling herself from Neon as they both came to attention, booted feet slamming onto the floor beneath them.
Rainbow stood to attention too, and so did Applejack — and Blake. The others did not, but they did make way for the General, parting like the clouds before him as he walked down the corridor, hands clasped behind his back.
“Uh … yes, yes, sir,” Penny said. “At least … we think so. Or other people do, and I trust them.”
“No, it makes sense with what you did out there,” General Ironwood said. “Congratulations, Penny. And you too, Soleil, Dash; you did well out there.”
“Thank you, sir,” Rainbow said. “We did our best.”
“And your best was good enough,” General Ironwood replied. “I know that I shouldn’t take these things too seriously, but I’m glad you were able to deliver a win for Atlas.”
“It was our pleasure to be of service, sir,” Ciel murmured.
The General nodded. “Don’t worry, I won’t bother you any further; I just wanted you to know that I’m proud of you.” He turned his back on Rainbow and Ciel, but looked at Blake. “Belladonna?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Best of luck.”
Kali raised the opera glasses to her eyes. “You’ll have to forgive me, Councillor,” she said, “but I’m afraid that this is a match that I don’t want to miss a minute of.”
Cadance chuckled. “Of course. Your daughter.”
“Yes,” Kali said. She was silent a moment. “Councillor — Cadance; do you have any children?”
Cadance thought about the fact that she’d missed her period this month; she hadn’t taken a test, or been to a doctor yet. She didn’t want to get her hopes up, especially when it was still possible that she was simply late for some reason. And yet, all the same, she couldn’t help but wonder. “No,” she said. “I don’t. Not yet, at least.”
Kali looked at her — neither team was yet on the field yet, to say nothing of the match beginning — with a smile on her face. “You’re still young, of course.”
“That’s very kind of you to say.”
“But tell me, Cadance,” Kali said, “if you had a child of your own, how would you feel about them being forced to sign away their freedom either to a jail or to a military, regardless of their feelings on the matter?”
Cadance looked at her guest. “I would probably take it with less equanimity than you’re displaying.”
“I suppose that being Blake’s mother has prepared me to accept things which I can’t change,” Kali said. “I couldn’t stop her joining the White Fang … why should I be able to stop her joining the Atlesian forces?”
“A decision that Blake is making voluntarily, irrespective of how she first came into our orbit,” Cadance pointed out.
“Yes, I know,” Kali acknowledged. “I asked Blake why she would want to fight for Atlas, and she told me that I was wrong about them, that the Atlesian military was full of good people.”
“Blake’s right,” Cadance said.
“I know,” Kali said. “I spoke to one of them, Rainbow Dash, the leader of Team Rosepetal. I asked her why a faunus would want to fight for Atlas, and she told me, in a few more words, that it was out of a mixture of pride and loyalty. But what she didn’t tell me, what perhaps neither of them could tell me, is why those good people whom Blake praised so highly would fight for Atlas and why it would matter to someone like Rainbow Dash whether a place like Atlas thought well of her or not, whether it had any regrets about its decision to give her a chance or not.”
“Atlas is not the enemy of the faunus—”
“It was never a friend of the faunus, as I remember,” Kali said.
Cadance was silent for a moment. “I’m sure you’re right,” she said, “but I think … I think that sometimes we fight for the Atlas that exists in our hearts rather than the one that exists in the skies above Solitas.”
Kali looked at her.
“Please let me explain,” Cadance said. “This isn’t a fairytale, nor a dream spun from thin air; this other Atlas, this better Atlas already exists in potential, like a sleeping giant that can only awaken if we will it so. A kingdom that does more good to its friends than it asks from them in return; a kingdom that makes its friends by conferring not receiving favours; a kingdom where all its citizens alike, from the lowest to the highest, take care not only of their private but also contribute all they are able to the public good; a kingdom where we rely upon our hearts and hands, where we live at ease and yet are as ready to face peril as any warriors trained from early youth. A kingdom that is thrown open to the world. A kingdom of harmony.”
“Such a city would be the school of Remnant, if it existed.”
“It can exist,” Cadance insisted. “Its foundations are already laid in Altas if we are only bold enough and good enough to build upon them.”
Kali chuckled. “I don’t know about Rainbow Dash, but that is surely the kind of idealism that appeals to Blake. She wants to change the world.”
Cadance smiled. “If more people believed it could be done, perhaps the world would change.”
Kali chuckled. “You remind me that you’re almost as young as my daughter and her friends, just as Blake reminds me of her father when we were her age.”
“You think that it’s inevitable that she’ll lose her idealism as she gets older?”
“You don’t?”
“I hope not,” Cadance said. “It would be better if she could prove you wrong, don’t you think?”
Kali considered that. “That … that would be wonderful, you’re right. Those students whose impressive display we’ve just watched, are they friends of yours? Your interest went beyond Atlesian loyalty.”
Cadance nodded casually. “Twilight is my sister-in-law — I’ve known her since she was very young — and Rainbow Dash is a friend of the family. They were both bridesmaids at my wedding.”
“Actually, only Rainbow Dash was a bridesmaid,” Shining Armor interjected from his place standing guard over his wife. “Twilight was … the best girl, I guess?”
Kali chuckled. “Well, to somebody, I’m sure she is. But in that case, didn’t you want to go and congratulate them on their performance?”
“Yes,” Cadance admitted. “Very much so, especially after what Rainbow did out there. But, however close we may be, I’m still an Atlesian councillor, and I don’t want to make things awkward. So I’ll leave them to their friends for now. Shining Armor and I can catch up with them later on.” She frowned ever so slightly. “Why do you ask?”
“I was just wondering if Blake would want me down there to congratulate her when she wins,” Kali said. “Do you think she would even want me to be watching her now?”
“Would it change anything if you knew for sure that she did?”
Kali paused for just a moment. “No,” she conceded. “I wouldn’t miss this for all of Remnant.”
They had lost their seats as soon as they got up from them, and so it was a bit of a struggle to find enough seats for SAPR, RSPT, the Canterlot girls, and the little sisters to all sit together, with some walking up and down the stairs, and even having to search in different parts of the vast coliseum, before they finally found a row of seats devoid of people and were able to claim them quickly before anyone else realised that, actually, this Beacon team — including but not limited to the Warrior Princess of Menagerie, as they were calling her in Atlas — was going to be a fight worth sticking around to see.
“How do you think they’re feeling?” Pyrrha asked as she sat down on the aisle seat.
“If Yang was nervous at all, she wouldn’t let on about it,” Ruby said. “Nora … pretended to be nervous, but I think she was only kidding around.” She smiled. “I mean, it’s not like they’d really become social outcasts just because they lost a fight.”
“You’d hope not,” Jaune muttered. “It wouldn’t exactly be very friendly.”
“So,” Rainbow said, looking at her scroll, “which fights are you guys interested in watching? I mean, Sapphire’s fight is the last one of the day—”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Sunset said. “We’ve got Team Pastel.” It was kind of weird to think that they were going to be going up against Cinder’s stepsister, the source of all her pain.
Do you know that’s coming, Cinder? And if so, what do you think about it?
And no, no, I am not going to arrange for her to meet an unfortunate accident in the arena.
Although, come to think of it, I don’t know if you’d really want me to. You’d probably rather do it yourself.
For myself, I’ll settle for beating her.
Her confidence — and she did feel confident — did not dispel the sense in her stomach of how weird it was that things should have fallen out this way.
Rainbow snorted. “You got lucky with that draw; they shouldn’t give you much trouble.”
“I don’t know about that,” Sunset replied. “We’ll win, but I don’t know about that.”
“What is Phoebe’s team like?” asked Pyrrha.
“As far as I can tell—” Sunset began.
“You can go over that yourselves later,” Rainbow said. “For now, I want to work out who's watching what fight. So we’re all here for the Iron against Bronze fight and then … Pyrrha, you said you want to watch Team Auburn.”
“I do,” Pyrrha agreed. “I feel that it would be disrespectful to Arslan not to. Of course, I don’t expect anyone else to feel the same way.”
“I’ll watch it with you,” Jaune said. “I mean, we may as well.”
“Me too,” Sunset added. “I want to check out what she’s got.”
“I’m not that fussed about that one,” Rainbow said, “but after that, we have Team Wisteria against Team Indigo, which I definitely want to see, and I think Blake will as well, and after that, it’s Team Tsunami; who wants to see Trixie and Starlight fight?”
“Yep,” Twilight said.
“Ah wouldn’t mind,” said Applejack.
“Yeah, that sounds fun,” Apple Bloom said. “Trixie always puts on a show.”
“I’d like to see that too,” Sunset said. Not just because it would enable her to check out the competition, but also because she felt that she kind of owed them her support after the help they’d been to her at Arcadia Lake.
“Team Funky is fighting second to last, is that not so?” asked Ciel.
Rainbow scrolled down her list. “Yep, that’s right. They’re up just before Sapphire and Pastel.”
Ciel nodded. “I cannot miss that.”
“Are there any other matches that people want to watch?” Rainbow asked. “Ruby? Jaune?”
“Um…” Ruby hesitated. “I might watch Team Wisteria, but … no, not apart from that.”
“That’s a no from me as well,” Jaune added. “I might not even bother watching Team Wisteria.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing, but okay,” Rainbow said. “Girls, how about you? Any other fights that I haven’t mentioned already?”
“I don’t think so,” Fluttershy said quietly.
“None are particularly coming to mind, darling,” Rarity added.
“Then we’ll have a lot of time in the afternoon between Team Tsunami and Team Funky’s fights if we want to meet up at the fairgrounds and have some fun,” Rainbow said.
“Shouldn’t it be Twilight doin’ the schedulin’?” asked Applejack.
“Hey, this is not scheduling,” Rainbow retorted. “If it were scheduling, I would be telling you where in the fairgrounds we were going to go and when, which I’m not; I’m just suggesting something that we could do if we wanted to.”
“It might be nice to get to know Blake’s teammates a little better, say thanks to ‘em,” Applejack said. “We don’t know much, or any at all, honestly—”
“Do you think that we’ll get to meet her mother?” asked Rarity. “Because meeting a queen of sorts would be rather—”
“Settle down, Rarity,” Applejack drawled.
“Aha, I mean that it would be wonderful to meet the mother of our good friend, Blake, of course,” Rarity said, with a touch of nervous laughter in her voice.
“As I was sayin’,” Applejack went on, “we don’t know Blake’s Beacon teammates; are they any good?”
“Of course they’re good!” Ruby declared. “They’re really good.”
“And they’re going to walk this match,” Sunset declared. “I’ve been studying the other teams, and Team Bronze … it’s kind of appropriate they’re named that because iron is superior to bronze in every martial respect.”
“Are they bad?” asked Rainbow.
“They’ve got three close quarters specialists and a sniper,” Sunset said. “I don’t think their close quarters specialists are on a level with Iron’s four close quarters specialists, and I don’t think their sniper is good enough to make up for it.”
“Overconfidence can be a grave weakness,” Pyrrha warned.
“The leader of Team Bronze fights with knuckle dusters, the leader of Team Iron fights with sawn-off shotguns strapped to her wrists,” Sunset said. “At some point, it stops being overconfidence and becomes plain fact. Watch, and you’ll see that I was right about this.”
Since Ozpin didn’t have a specific job for him to do right now — with all of Team SAPR and Team RSPT up in the coliseum, Ozpin was watching over Amber himself — Qrow had retired to a bar in Vale that he knew called, appropriately enough, Crow Bar. It was a tiny little place on the docks, with an open front and a bar barely big enough for four guys to sit side by side. That was one of the things he liked about it; it was quiet, not the kind of place where a lot of people came and certainly not at this time in the morning.
Of course, the downside of that was that when the barkeep was looking for somebody to shoot the breeze with — he probably thought he was doing his job by being friendly, but couldn’t he spot a guy who wanted to drink alone and in silence when he saw one? — there wasn’t a whole lot of choice when you were the only guy in the bar.
And so, as the television switched between reminding everyone of the result of the match that had just gone and previewing the match that was about to come, the bartender leaned on the bar opposite him and said, “You know, I’m not sure about all these Atlas types around here, but those kids weren’t half bad.”
Qrow snorted. Ironwood might think a lot of those four brats, but he was considerably less impressed. “They got lucky.”
A decent opposition — by which Qrow meant his memories of Team STRQ in their prime, memories that were still too raw to dwell on for very long but vivid enough to still recall that they had been an unstoppable force of nature when they were together — would have made mincemeat out of them.
Of course, if Summer were still here, she would have told him not to be such a sour jackass to those kids; she might have told him that it was no shame if they wanted to carry a new addition to their group around on their shoulders, if they wanted to have a picnic on the grass, or if they acted like one big happy family.
After all, Team STRQ had been the same once. There was a time when they had all believed their team would last forever.
That was one of the reasons he didn’t like to think on those days too much; he didn’t know whether Summer’s memory was the better angel on his shoulder or whether she was a fool who had died believing in dreams and empty sentiments.
Would you tell Ruby to go for it, or would you tell her to grow up? I wish I knew.
I wish I knew what you’d say to me.
I wish you were still here.
But when had wishing for something ever gotten him anyplace? About as often as believing in one another and standing together as friends had gotten Team STRQ any place.
“You didn’t like them?”
“Huh?” Qrow asked.
“The Atlas kids, you didn’t like them?”
Qrow shrugged. “You don’t like having Atlas in town?”
“I know they say they’re here to keep us safe,” the barkeep said. “But I don’t know; there’s an awful lot of them, and I guess things are safe, but … what if they decide not to go home when the danger is passed? I mean, things have gotten a lot calmer lately, but they’re still here. Or maybe things are calmer because they’re still here, I don’t know. Smart people handle all of this stuff; there’s probably nothing to worry about … but I can’t help but worry, you know.”
“Trust me, I know,” Qrow muttered.
“But then I see kids like that, and I think, you know, they’re not so bad,” the barkeep said. “Like I said, I just don’t know what to think.”
“You’re probably not the only one,” Qrow said. All over the city, people who don’t know what to think, waiting for something to push them one way or the other.
But where’s the shove going to come from?
Qrow finished his drink and motioned for another. He wasn’t going to find the answer sitting in here … but he would get to watch Yang’s fight in relative peace and quiet.
“Turn it up a little bit, will you?” he asked. “I want to hear this next one.”
“Sure thing,” the barkeep said. “You rooting for the Vale kids?”
“Oh, you bet,” Qrow said, not seeing the point in telling the guy that two of those ‘Vale kids’ were from Mistral and another from Menagerie. He didn’t want to talk any more politics, and he didn’t want to do any more work; he just wanted to watch his niece kick some ass.
Are you watching this too, Raven? Did you steal someone’s TV and a generator, and you’re sitting in camp right now watching the festival with a hundred thieving murderers? Or if I went up to the coliseum, would I see a bird perched on the roof looking down?
Whichever it is, I think we’re about to see something pretty cool.
Gilda found Ilia in the attic of the safehouse, all alone unless you counted the spiders whom Gilda couldn’t see but who no doubt infested all those cobwebs that ran between the slanted roof beams.
Ilia was sitting on an upturned trunk that looked a little dusty and kind of small to sit on, looking at her scroll.
“Are you watching Blake’s fight?” Gilda asked as she climbed up the ladder and stood on the chip board that served for a floor, keeping her back bent and her wings tucked in behind her.
Ilia jumped, her whole body turning blue as her head whipped around to look at Gilda. “I … no, I … well, yes, but … I’m only doing it so I can get a look at how she fights now. It’s been a while since I saw her in action last. Since we’re going to fight her at some point, I need to know how strong she is now.”
“Yeah, that sounds fair enough,” Gilda muttered. “That’s why I watched Rainbow Dash’s fight just a little while ago.”
The blue colour did not entirely vanish from Ilia’s skin, but it did fade a little. She kept her eyes on Gilda and did not take them away.
Gilda, for her part, turned away from Ilia for a second to pull the ladder up after her and shut the attic door with a soft thump.
“Hopefully, that opens from the inside,” Gilda remarked. “If not, we’ll just have to break through the ceiling.”
“What are you doing?” asked Ilia.
“Saving us both from eyes who wouldn’t understand the importance of an accurate assessment of enemy capabilities,” Gilda said. “Coming up here was a good idea; I should have thought of it myself.” She grabbed another of the old trunks that littered the attic and dragged it over to where Ilia was sitting. Then she sat down upon it, wings unfurling ever so slightly so that they came close to touching Ilia’s shoulder.
“You don’t have to do this,” Ilia murmured.
“As the leader of this operation, I think I do,” Gilda replied. “It’s important that I know what we’re up against.” She ventured a small smile. “Who knows, it might even be fun.”
"Ooh, here she comes! Here she comes!" declared Leaf, bouncing up and down on the sofa just a little bit.
"Down, girl," Veil drawled, a smile playing across her features.
Leaf rolled her eyes. "Well, excuse me for being excited that someone I know, someone who rescued me, is going to be on TV fighting in the biggest deal ever. Clearly, I should be apathetic about this whole thing."
"I didn't say that," Veil insisted. "It is actually pretty cute to see you like this, so cute that I have to make fun of it just a little." She paused. "What's she like, the Warrior Princess?"
Leaf thought about that for a second. "Quiet," she said. "She lets Rainbow Dash do a lot of the talking, or at least she did when I met her. Whether that's because she's the strong, silent type or because she was as new to Atlas as me, I don't really know." She paused. "Two bigshots, two heroes, two people who know councillors and generals, and … and they took time out to help me when I arrived. To help me. I mean … who am I? I'm nothing to them; who does that?" She grinned. "I get the feeling that if they were here, they'd say 'Atlesians do that', but—"
"They're giving this place too much credit," Veil remarked. "They know Councillor Cadenza, right?"
Leaf nodded. "Yeah."
"Yep, she likes to talk about how great this place is, or could be," Veil remarked, "and don't get me wrong, they're good words, but … I don't hardly recognise the place she's talking about sometimes, and sometimes, it feels like the people who live in the place she's talking about aren't hardly human at all. We've got a lot of cool toys up here amongst the clouds, but as people, we're no better than anybody else."
"Except for Blake, and Rainbow Dash," Leaf said.
Veil smiled. "Well, everywhere you go, there are people who stand out above the rest. Maybe Councillor Cadenza spends too much time with them, and that's why she thinks we're all so marvellous." She leaned back on the sofa. "But if your princess friend is as good a fighter as you make her out to be a person, this should be quite a fight. I hope it's as good as the last one."
Blake was standing in the corridor leading out into the arena, cast in shadow by the tunnel ceiling above her, waiting, when she was joined by Yang, Ren, and Nora.
"Here you go," Yang said, handing Blake her weapon. "One Gambol Shroud, as requested." She grinned. "No hot sauce."
Blake snorted. "Thanks," she said as took her weapon from Yang's outstretched hands and slung it across her back, where Gambol Shroud magnetically attached itself to the metal plate on her back. "How are you feeling about all this?"
Yang's eyebrows rose. "Are you asking me if I'm nervous?"
"You," Blake agreed. "Or anyone."
"We're not nervous," Nora said. "What have we got to be nervous about? It's only our entire futures on the line."
"Whatever claims might be made for this tournament, I'm not sure it's quite that important," said Blake.
Nora shrugged. "Maybe not. But if you take it seriously, you won't slip up from not caring."
"We'll be fine," Yang assured them all as she limbered her arms, stretching first one and then the other. "Trust me, we've got this."
"You've been studying the opposition?"
"Nope," Yang replied. "I've been studying us. There may be a team or teams out there who are better than we are, but I know for sure that some Shade team nobody had ever heard of before five minutes ago isn't one of them. I mean, look at us. We may not be the most conventional team of four that has ever walked through the halls of Beacon, but look at what we've got. We've got a thunder goddess who can bench press ten of herself and hit like a truck—"
Nora made a sort of cackling chuckle as she pumped her arms, showing off her guns.
"We've got basically a ninja," Yang went on.
"Well…" Ren murmured, rocking one hand side to side equivocally.
"A warrior princess," Yang said, winking at Blake, "and me, whose awesomeness doesn't need explanation or qualification, right, guys?" She grinned, as she put one hand upon her heart. "So really, what are they going to bring that could make us come out in a sweat? We've got this. We just need to believe in ourselves."
"That's the spirit!" Sun said loudly as he stepped out of a nearby service doorway and into the tunnel. "Just believe in yourselves, and everything will work out fine."
"Oh, hey, Sun," Yang said. "I'd ask what you were doing here, but I think I can guess."
"Well, you know," Sun said, folding his arms, "I was in the neighbourhood, and I thought I'd—woah!"
He attempted to lean nonchalantly against the tunnel wall, arms folded and one foot crossed behind the other with a sort of self-conscious coolness that would, to Blake's mind at least, have prevented him from looking actually cool even if he hadn't misjudged the distance, lost his balance and fell, squawking with alarm, to smack his head against the corridor wall.
Blake winced as she walked between Yang and Nora to reach him. "Are you okay?" she asked as she held out her hand to help him up.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine," Sun assured her as he took her hand, although he was rubbing at his forehead with his other hand. "What's aura for, right?"
"True enough, I guess," Blake agreed. "Congratulations, by the way, on your victory. You had a good match out there just a little while ago."
Sun flashed his teeth at her, his smile causing his eyes to light up. "I knew that I heard you cheering for us."
Blake chuckled. "I doubt that very much," she said. "I'm not sure that Sunset or Applejack heard me cheering, and they were sitting right next to me."
"Well, I heard you," Sun said. "Like you were whispering in my ear."
"I'd have to be whispering in your ear for you to hear it," Blake said, amusement in her voice. "But either way, you did well."
He had done rather better as a fighter than as a leader, failing to corral Sage and Scarlet into really following his lead, but it would have been cruel to have pointed that fact out, especially since they had won the match regardless.
"Thanks," Sun said. "You'll hear me, I promise. And not as a whisper in your ear either; you'll be hearing me loud and clear!" He paused. "But not so loud that it gets distracting or anything, because I wouldn't want to throw you off your game, just loud enough that you know that I'm there, or I will be there, up in the stands. I guess, what I'm trying to say is—" He cupped her cheek with one hand, and kissed her. "Knock 'em dead out there."
"Nice way of wishing someone luck," Nora remarked.
Blake felt her cheeks heating up ever so slightly as she took a step backward. "I'll … try not to disappoint you."
This time, Sun managed to lean casually upon the wall, and as she stepped back from him, he waved to her with his tail, which snaked into view from over his shoulder.
Blake smiled, then turned away as the four members of Team YRBN — for now — stepped out of the tunnel and into the arena.
They emerged out of the shadow and into the light to the sound of applause falling upon them like rain.
“Team Iron of Beacon!” Professor Port declared. “Team Bronze of Shade!”
The applause was redoubled at the announcement of their names as the two teams made their way to the central hexagon and squared off against one another.
Brawnz Nii had hair that began dark but turned — first slowly and then all at once — to grey, slicked to the left so that it covered one side of his face while leaving the other mostly bare. His purple eyes were set in a firm face with a square jawline, and his arms bulged somewhat with muscles, easy to view since he was wearing a sleeveless top that started grey and graduated to purple by the time it reached his waist. Bronze kneecaps were strapped around the knees of his black pants, and around his hands he had a pair of fairly thick-looking metal slabs with small claws extending just past his knuckles.
Roy Stallion was a dark-skinned youth, his brown hair worn in dreadlocks combed back behind his head, wearing a green vest over a black t-shirt, with white pants, black fingerless gloves upon his hands, and white vambraces upon his upper arms; those same vambraces also held his weapons, a pair of bronze-looking spinning discs like miniature buzzsaw blades.
Nolan Porfirio had hair of dark red, worn long and untidy, falling down across his forehead and almost obscuring his pink eyes. He wore a white shirt with a black hoodie over the top and then a blue denim vest worn over that, making him look a little bulkier than he probably was. His pants were burgundy and artfully ripped in a way that looked like deliberate choice, not accident. Like his teammate Roy, he wore black fingerless gloves, although unlike him, Nolan had no vambraces, and his only visible weapon was the cattle prod he was holding in his hand, twirling with his fingers.
May Zedong was the only female member of the opposition team, strands of dusky rose hair peeking out from under a black beanie hat pulled down so low that it hid one of her light blue eyes from view completely. She wore a red and white striped jacket and blue tracksuit pants, and a black scarf wrapped around her neck. She had a sniper rifle with a long, slender barrel slung across her back.
As they had done for the RSPT fight, and all the fights before that, the biome selectors rolled for each half of the battlefield, producing a lush thick forest that rose out of the depths of the arena behind Team BRNZ, while the image of a palm tree and a beach presaged the rising, behind Team YRBN, of a scene straight out of a pirate story: the gutted wreck of an old-fashioned sailing ship, a rich blue ocean, and a sandy beach spotted with the occasional palm tree. The ocean predominated, covering most of their half of the arena without much promise of dry feet or sure footing.
“I guess we’re going forwards then,” Yang declared. She grinned. “The best way to go. Most of the time.”
“Three,” Professor Port called out. “Two … one … begin!”
Three members of Team BRNZ — Brawnz, Roy, and Nolan — began to charge across the centre of the arena towards Team YRBN; the fourth, May Zedong, broke for the cover of the trees behind them.
“Nora,” Yang called, pointing to the gap between Brawnz and Nolan.
“You got it,” Nora said, converting Magnhild into its squat grenade launcher form nestled in her arms. The explosive canister traced a pink trail behind it as Nora fired at a low angle towards the three Shade huntsmen.
They split up, Nolan going one way and Brawnz and Roy going the other; the grenade exploded in between them with a bang and a cloud of pink smoke. Two more grenades burst from the mouth of Magnhild to further drive the three Shade students apart.
Yang glanced at Blake and nodded. Without another word, the two of them charged for Nolan, trusting Ren and Nora to handle Brawnz and Roy for at least a moment.
Blake drew Gambol Shroud from across her back as she charged. She reached Nolan first, slashing crosswise and forcing him into a desperate parry with his cattle prod. She pushed forward, using a sequence of shadow clones to leap forward without Nolan being able to see it, much less respond. With every clone she left behind, Blake closed the distance yet further, sending Nolan stumbling further backwards to get away from the swift strokes of her furious blades. As his aura was carved like a joint of ham, he had no chance to do anything but desperately, futilely attempt to defend himself.
A shot landed near her feet, chipping the ground in the centre of the arena. A second shot dispelled the shadow clone that Blake had left in her place as she got out of the way. A glint of light from the trees was the only thing that revealed the presence of May Zedong and her sniper rifle there.
Before Nolan could take advantage of his reprieve, he was forced further back by a pair of blasts from Ember Celica, neither of which hit him but which did make him dance a little as Yang put herself between Blake and Nolan.
“Blake, get the sniper,” Yang ordered.
Nolan hit her in that moment of distraction, slamming his cattle prod across her face like a stun baton, following up with hitting her across the side and on the leg before driving his cattle prod into her gut and turning it on. Lightning rippled up and down Yang’s whole body, snapping and crackling like a pack of hungry hounds upon the hunt. Yang tensed for a moment, and then her hair began to glow more golden than the sun as smoke started rising from her body.
“Oho, looks like Yang Xiao Long has just activated her semblance,” Professor Port said jovially.
Blake ran, ignoring both Doctor Oobleck’s explanation of what Yang’s semblance was and the sounds of Yang getting to work on Nolan behind her — she sounded as though she was having fun, even if he wasn’t — as she ran, back bent and arms swept back behind her, towards the thick forest that covered BRNZ’s half of the arena.
The forest where May Zedong was hiding.
Shots flew out of the trees, shots that were a little slower for coming from a different location each time: May was changing her position so that Blake couldn’t use the source of the fire to work out where she was. That was a smart move, even if it did mean that she was slower to shoot, but since she was only hitting Blake’s shadow clones as Blake bore down upon her, then a higher rate of fire wouldn’t have made much difference, as every shot she fired simply dispelled the fake Blake and revealed the actual Blake somewhere different — and closer to May’s position.
She couldn’t see May, and May was smart enough to keep moving to make herself harder to find in the thick foliage.
Unfortunately for her, Blake had an answer to that particular problem. Gambol Shroud was empty right now, but as she began to slow down, Blake reached into her tailcoat pocket and pulled out a magazine of fire dust rounds, which she loaded as soon as her weapon switched to pistol configuration.
The klaxon blared out loudly behind her.
“Nolan Porfirio has just been eliminated,” Doctor Oobleck declared as the cheering from certain sections of the crowd intensified.
Nice going, Yang, Blake thought as she started to run across the front of the forest, firing at random into the tops of the trees with her fire dust rounds, strafing back and forth until she had emptied the entire clip.
Possibly, May thought that she was desperate, firing blindly until she hit something.
She probably realised what Blake was really up to once the trees started to catch fire.
Blake changed Gambol Shroud back from a pistol into its black sword form and watched, still and silent, as all the trees before her began to bloom in shades of gold and crimson like so many candles.
Any second now.
May stumbled out of the blazing forest, coughing a little and rubbing her one visible eye against the smoke that was beginning to rise from the burning trees.
And as she emerged, Blake was on her.
May was unprepared, she had no close combat weapon, and although she tried to parry with her sniper rifle, Blake had landed three slashing strokes upon her before May took her first clumsy swing with the butt of her rifle.
She hit nothing but a shadow clone as Blake appeared behind her, sending her flying forwards with a kick to the small of the back. Blake left a clone behind as she raced forwards, appearing in front of May before she hit the ground, dealing out another kick that sent her flying upwards as Blake followed, leaving clones behind as she rose up one slash with sword or scabbard at a time, as though each motion was a step up a ladder, one, two, three, before the dispelling of her last clone revealed her hovering on top of the helpless May who could only watch, wide-eyed with horror, as Blake brought her foot down on her stomach hard enough to send the Shade student slamming down to earth with a resounding crash.
The klaxon sounded. “May Zedong has just been eliminated,” Professor Port said, to even more cheering from the Beacon-supporting section of the crowd.
Blake left her lying on the ground as she headed back to where her teammates were still fighting on the edge of the ocean. Yang was still on fire as she battled against Brawnz Ni, the leader of the opposing team. It wasn’t that he wasn’t getting any hits in — Yang’s aura was in the yellow — it was just that he was also taking hits, and Yang was simply hitting harder than he was, culminating in Yang punching him in the gut so hard that his feet left the ground and following up with a blow down on the top of his head that sent him into the ground and bouncing along it until he reached the very edge of the arena. The klaxon sounded and Doctor Oobleck announced his elimination.
That left only Roy Stallion, who seemed to be sweating a little as he tried to keep out of the way of Nora’s hammer while using his discs — they flew and then returned to him — to keep Ren at a distance and constantly dodging.
“Blake,” Nora called. “Hit me!”
Blake turned Gambol Shroud to pistol mode and loaded a magazine of lightning dust. “Copy that,” she murmured as she snapped off two shots that struck Nora square in the abdomen.
Gasps rang out from the crowd across the arena as Nora was thrown backwards.
“It looks as though Blake Belladonna just fired on one of her own teammates!” Doctor Oobleck cried. “Have we ever seen anything like this in the Vytal Festival before?”
“Perhaps not, Professor—”
“Doctor!”
“—but then, we haven’t had a semblance quite like this one in the Vytal Festival before,” Professor Port declared as Nora got up, grinning like a fiend as lightning crackled across her body. “You see, Nora Valkyrie’s semblance allows her to store the raw power of electricity in her muscles, greatly increasing her strength in the process.”
“Wait, wh—?” was as far as Roy Stallion got before Nora was in his face, still grinning as she swung her hammer straight into his gut hard enough to fling him out of the arena and plaster him face-first against the shield protecting the crowd.
“And with that final knockout, Team Iron wins the match.”
Qrow allowed himself a triumphant smirk as he put down his glass. “Now that was a match.”
But maybe try and do it without getting hit so often next time, huh, Yang? Not all your enemies will give you the chance to come back at them the way those guys did.
It worried him a little bit, that Yang would get so used to taking hits to fuel her semblance that, in the end, when she met someone whose blows she couldn’t shrug off, she wouldn’t know what to do.
But he was sure Tai had raised her to fight smarter than that. For now, he could take pride in a fight well won.
If only he didn’t have to wait until the very end of the day to see Ruby in action too.
“Yes!” Kali cried as she leapt her feet, the opera glasses clattering to the floor as she clasped her hands together. “Great job, Blake!”
Cadance smiled. “She really was very good.”
“Her father would be proud,” Kali said as she sat back down in her seat. “At least … I hope so.”
Cadance pursed her lips together for a moment. “This isn’t anything like the kind of life you wanted for her, is it?”
“No,” Kali admitted. “But then … if it’s the life that she’s chosen, then who am I to question it? I didn’t…”
Cadance waited for her to finish. “Kali?”
“I was just going to say,” Kali murmured, “that if I didn’t question her previous choice of life, then how can I question this one? It isn’t the life that I, or Ghira, wanted for her, but … she’s become a fine young woman, and I’m glad of that … and proud of it too.”
“Are you going to go down and see her?” Cadance asked.
“No,” Kali said. “Like you, I’ll leave her to her friends for now. I’m sure they want to celebrate after that swift victory. Are all the battles ended so quickly?”
“Drawn out fights are rare,” Shining Armor said. “But you’re right, that was fast.”
“Is that because Blake and her teammates are that good or their opponents were that bad?” Kali asked. “Excuse the question; I’m not very experienced when it comes to this sort of thing.”
“Team Bronze weren’t great,” Shining Armour admitted, “but that isn’t to say that Team Iron weren’t pretty good: tough and coordinated. If they always fight like that, then—”
“Then they’ll be able to manage without Blake?” Kali asked.
Shining Armor smiled slightly. “Yes, I think that’s fair to say. Blake played her part in this victory, but equally, she’ll be able to leave the other three behind without any worries or regrets.”
“Well,” Gilda said, “Blake certainly hasn’t lost her touch.”
“No,” Ilia said, smiling slightly. “No, she hasn’t.”
Gilda sighed. Blake and Dashie. We’ve really got our work cut out for us, haven’t we?
“YES!” Leaf shouted. “Now that was incredible, wasn’t it?”
Veil nodded. “She was pretty cool.”
“Mhmm,” Leaf agreed. “There’s just one problem.”
“'Problem'?” Veil repeated. “What problem?”
“The rest of the day’s going to be really boring now until Sunset and Ruby’s fight,” Leaf said. “There’s no one else I want to see.”
“That was an amazing fight, Yang!” Ruby cried, trailing rose petals in her wake as she ran towards Team YRBN, catching them just as they exited the arena. “You’ve gotten so strong.”
Yang grinned. “Well, I’ve got to give the folks something to talk about while they wait around all day for you to show up.”
The rest of Team SAPR, Team RSPT, and the rest of Blake’s Atlas friends all followed Ruby towards Team YRBN at a slightly slower pace.
“You were pretty good too, Blake,” Sunset said. “Neat trick smoking out their sniper like that.”
“Not as cool as what you did with the clones,” Rainbow said. “But more awesome if you stop and think about it.”
“Indeed, you were very impressive,” said Rarity.
“If that is the final act of your time at Beacon,” Ciel said, “it is, I daresay, a full stop of which you need not feel ashamed.
“C is for Blake!” Pinkie cried, waving her pom-poms in the air.
“Thanks,” Blake said. Her smile had a slightly sheepish quality about it. “I just hope that they don’t need the forest terrain again.”
“Aw, don’t worry about a little thing like that, Sugarcube; Ah’m sure they’ve thought of everything, and it’s already taken care of,” Applejack declared.
“I’m not even sure they ever re-use the scenery, it’s so usual for it to be damaged in the fighting, so there are plenty of replacements for each variant available,” Pyrrha said with an undertone of amusement in her voice. “You all did wonderfully well; congratulations.”
Ren scratched the back of his head. “I don’t think that I added that much to proceedings.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Ren,” Nora said cheerfully. “Just because you didn’t get the knockout blow doesn’t mean you didn’t do anything. That guy would have been too fast for me without you helping me out.”
“Hey, Blake!” Sun cried, leaping out of the stands and down to the tunnel mouth to join them, causing the others to scatter a bit so that he wouldn’t land on them as he slammed down onto the floor.
“Dude!” Neptune called down from above. “You could have just walked down there to be there to meet her!”
“That wouldn’t have looked as cool,” Sun protested, before he turned his gaze on Blake. “Although my entrance still didn’t look as cool as that win out there.” He looked at Yang. “You should seriously consider—”
“No,” Blake said. “No, she shouldn’t, not when … Nora deserves this more than I do.”
“I don’t know about ‘deserve,’” Nora said, “but I definitely want it more than you do.”
“Are you sure?” Sun asked Blake. “Because you’d look really cool out there?”
Blake smiled. “Perhaps I’d rather just look.”
Sun chuckled. “Well, if there aren’t any other fights you want to look at right now, I thought that maybe we could take a look around the fairgrounds together.”
“That sounds great,” Blake said. “And we will, later this afternoon. Right now…” — she looked at Penny, who was starting to fidget impatiently, playing with her hands, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet — “we all promised to help Penny work out the limits of her semblance.”