Ruby had crafted some holsters for the fillies’ weapons, Scootaloo now had Fire and Flames mounted across her breast by a bandolier she wore underneath her jacket, Both Lapis Luminatus and Applebuck were mounted to their users’ backs, and finally Diamond had chosen to wear Silverglow on her belt like a traditional longsword. Based on the designs, Ruby had also crafted extra clips for the girls to use should they ever need to reload in combat, although only Apple Bloom really needed this as her weapon was the only one that used actual ammo, but she had also made spare dust canisters for Scootaloo’s pistols.
Scootaloo wore her spare canisters on her belt, two for each gun, and Apple Bloom wore her extra ammo-drums on her back alongside Applebuck. Although the girls wanted to go to the dust shop, there was some other shopping needing to be done first, so they all walked off the ship in a line, Ruby leading the way, and the people all around them staring at the girls’ weapons in awe and envy.
Their first stop was someplace called the Games Corner, where Diamond hoped to get her own copy of The Great War, and Ruby could introduce the others to Heroes and Huntsmen and Battlemace Forty-Two-Million.
The four ponies stared at Discord, “Discord, so… You finally going to let me see Scootaloo yet?” Rainbow Dash said, angrily.
“Soon enough… But first, there are a few things I should tell you about this alien world, things the fillies have learned already that I feel you should know too.”
“What are they?” Asked Rarity.
Discord smiled and they all vanished into the realm of non-reality. Here, it was an eternal void of white nothingness, although, in truth, it wasn’t white exactly, as in this realm colour was merely a creation of one’s perceptions. Here, Discord appeared as he did when on Remnant, taking the humanoid form, glowing rainbow-pink, and bearing his mismatched horns atop his head.
Here, the ponies awoke to find themselves in unfamiliar bodies, devoid of fur asides from atop their heads, with arms and legs designed for bipedalism. They all still had their wings, Twilight even had her ears and tail too, although Spitfire and Rainbow Dash only had their wings and nothing else from their original pony forms, and Rarity still had her tail too. Everyone was a little to busy staring at Rainbow’s wings to comment on anything else, her wings were large and looked more aquiline, like that of a griffon, rather than that of a pegasus, and her feathers were a rainbow of colour, just like her hair.
“Awesome!” She said, staring at her new wings, “I hope they stay this way when I’m a pony again!”
“What exactly are we!” Rarity practically shouted.
“Humans!” Discord said, “Well… Mostly, you’re Faunus, a sub-species of Humans, who are the primary inhabitants of the planet Remnant. And to answer your question, my little Rainbow Dash, I can make the changes permanent if you want.”
“Fascinating,” Twilight said, raising her arm and inspecting the claws at the end.
“Anyway, time is chaos, so let’s get on with it…” Discord continued, reaching out a hand that broke into four and from there broke into eight, touching them on the chest and head, although Spitfire and Rarity didn’t like the way he grabbed at the lumps they had on their chest, “Abbera Kadabra, Bibbity Bobbity Boo! Here are some magic words to unlock your aura too!“
With that, the women started glowing, Rarity and Spitfire were brilliant points of cyan and orange light respectively, Rainbow Dash glowed all colours of the rainbow and was noticeably brighter than the other two, who were already glowing like bonfires… But that was nothing compared to Twilight, who glowed like a brilliant purple sun.
“What was that?” Dash said once Discord had retracted his arm.
The girls approached a building labelled: Scroll Workshop. Inside, they found hundreds of scrolls on display. “Remember,” Diamond Tiara began, “Let’s get the cheapest ones we can find, we still need money for dust and ammo.”
“I wonder if we can have them painted to match our hair colours?” Sweetie asked.
“I want mine in rainbow!” Scootaloo shouted.
“Bronze is nice,” Apple Bloom added.
“We can paint them ourselves later,” Ruby continue, “Let’s just get you some so we can call each other when you’re in Beacon.”
“I never thought about painting my scroll… I kinda want a yellow scroll now,” Yang commented.
The girls approached the desk while Ruby and Yang stayed behind, the woman at the desk turned to them, “You look like students, going to Beacon I presume?” She said.
“Yes… Does that matter?” Diamond asked, sceptically.
“Well yeah, all students going to Beacon need their scrolls, that way they can keep track of their aura and call their lockers, we offer a generous discount for students… I heard you talking about scroll colours, and for some extra lien I can have them painted the way you want.”
“How much extra?” Diamond said.
“Just twenty per scroll… The scrolls themselves, the models the students use, cost around five hundred lien, and they’re the cheapest models, but with the discount that’s two hundred per scroll, so that’ll cost you eight hundred and eighty.”
Apple Bloom looked at her money, Discord had given them three thousand lien, Apple Bloom was fairly sure that her sister didn’t actually give Discord that many bits, so Bloom was a little hesitant to use the money, knowing that Discord had probably just made some of it from nothing… But they had already spent around two hundred lien at the game store, so she wasn’t too bothered by it at this point. She handed over the money and they were asked to return in two hours for their custom scrolls.
They were marching down the street, the sun was high in the sky, but was starting to grow a bit lower, when they saw a familiar name on a sign: Tukson’s Book Trade. As they walked in, a familiar voice greeted them, “Welcome to Tukson’s Book Trade, home to every book under the sun.”
“Hello again Tukson,” Diamond said.
“Hello! I didn’t expect to see you again… Uhh, Diamond, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, Diamond Tiara,” She shook the man’s hand, “Thank you, you allowed us to spend the night in a hotel and not on the street,” She turned her head, “Like some people I know,” Staring at Scootlaloo.
Tukson chuckled, “Well, if you ever need anything, my shop’s open.”
The fillies spent the time looking around Tukson’s shop. Sweetie bought a book on dust, a book on aura, a book on the grimm, and a series of novels called: The Man with Two Souls. Scootaloo approached the counter with a pile of comics named: GenLock, and Red VS Blue. Diamond bought a pair of history books, one about the Great War, and the other regarding the kingdoms of Remnant. Apple Bloom didn’t buy anything. With a discount, it all came to a hundred and twenty lien.
As they left, a woman with black hair and a bow walked in, and behind them, they heard Tukson say, “Ah, Blake, welcome back.” With some time to kill before their scrolls were finished, they opted to grab some noodles first, and so they ate as Scootaloo browsed her comics.
Glynda had spent her day calm and relaxed for the first time in months. She had gone to her favourite restaurant and met one of her favourite students at a clothing store in the town square. Next, she had some wonderfully rejuvenating coffee at one of her favourite cafes in town.
Currently, she was sitting in the Crow Bar, watching the news on the holographic display in the corner. There was some strange happenings going on in Mistral, apparently, there had been several huntsmen who had gone on missions and not returned, one or two was to be expected, but this time the casualty count was five. There was the same old news coming out of Vacuo, nothing new ever happened in Vacuo, just bloodshed and violence. In Atlas, general Ironwood revealed some information regarding the development of some new security androids, the AK-200s, saying that the first prototypes were proving successful, and that production models were going to be revealed later in the year.
The news switched back to the Atlesian Regional Student Tournament, and Glynda watched the trainee huntsmen fighting for a few moments before she moved to leave, paying the bartender and offering a generous tip.
Of course, the peace wasn’t destined to last, even with the little bit of alcohol she had in her system, she could hear the sounds of gunfire in the distance. With an angry and weary sigh, she drew her riding crop from its holster on her belt, channelled her aura into her feet, and jumped into the air, landing on the roof of the building. In the distance, she could see someone being chased across the roof of a building by five figures.
She leapt across rooftops to reach them and figure out what was going on, meanwhile she pulled her scroll from her pocket and called Ozpin.
Ruby and the fillies walked into the dust shop right as night had fallen, they all had their scrolls, and Ruby even took the chance to get the one she had painted to match her cloak, Diamond was the only one who had her scroll the standard Atlesian White now. They marched into From Dust till Dawn, what was originally going to be their first stop ended up as their last.
“Mister White!” Ruby said, gleefully.
“Ah, Ruby, I see you brought your new friends too.”
“Yep, we’re here for dust powder and dust rounds… I’ll be needing some thirty-millimetre and fifteen-millimetre rounds, and four half-sized canisters of fire dust…” She turned to Diamond Tiara, “Hey Diamond, what kind of dust do you want for Silverglow?”
“I’d like Electricity, Gravity, and Ice.”
“Two full canisters of electric, gravity, and ice dust.”
The shopkeeper, Mister White as Ruby called him, nodded. “And how many rounds do you want?”
“Three standard clips for Crescent Rose, one gravity clip… So about forty-five standard and fifteen gravity fifteen-millimetre rounds… As for Apple Bloom over here,” She pointed to the redhead, “Do you want any dust rounds, or just the standard?”
“I’ll try high-explosive shells and gravity shells.”
“So forty standard, twenty combustion dust, and twenty gravity dust.”
“A bit on the expensive side today, eh…” White replied, pulling the various full and half-sized canisters from behind the desk, “These are for the dust powder, and I’ll go unlock the ammo dispensers for you.”
“Thank you, sir!” Ruby said.
With that, Ruby and Apple Bloom walked over to the dust rounds isle, as Diamond and Scootaloo went to the wall-mounted powder dispensers. Their weapons already had dust loaded… After seeing how well it worked against the grimm, Diamond had opted to load Silverglow with lightning dust should they be attacked by oceanic grimm on the way to the city, but Ruby had told her how rare such occasions were. Once they had filled their canisters with the chosen dust types, they put them into their pockets and moved to check on the others.
Sweetie Belle was still fascinated by this place, enraptured by the magical energies that radiated from every little dust shard. She found herself in the back of the store, where there were a few sample crystals on display. She looked at a dark blue crystal and focused hard, feeling the magic flow and mingle with her own and that of the environment, she raised her hand and telekinetically lifted the crystal to get a better feel of it… As she did so, the crystal turned the minty green of her magic and aura. “Hey, come check this out!” Came Ruby’s voice from one side of the store, and it broke her concentration. The crystal fell to the ground with a pop.
“Oops…” Sweetie said, placing the crystal back on the stand.
Apple Bloom and Ruby went over to the magazine stand as Ruby pulled out a magazine that read: Weapons Today! And flipped through the pages, showing all the weapon models to the fillies.
“Interesting designs,” Sweetie commented.
“Cool,” Scootaloo said, “But I still like my guns better.”
“I bet Applejack would like that one,” Apple Bloom said, pointing to a page.
Diamond scoffed and turned around, wanting to hurry up their visit and pay for their things already, but that’s when she saw a man in a black suit with a red tie and glasses approach. She placed a hand on Ruby’s shoulder and they all turned around to face the newcomer.
“Alright, kids… Put your hands where I can see them,” He said, drawing a long red sword from a hidden sheath.
“Are you, robbing us?” Ruby said, a little cockily, but mostly confused.
“Yes!” He said.
“Oh…” Ruby replied. Suddenly, all the girls drew their weapons. Applebuck in its hammer form, Silverglow in sword mode, although the energy field wasn’t activated, Diamond didn’t want to kill the man, Scootaloo raised both her pistols at once, and Sweetie simply raised her hand, telekinesis already coming to the front of her mind.
“What the-” Was the man’s only words, staring at Sweetie’s glowing hands, as a wave of magical force sent him flying out the distant window.