They marched out of the airship and awed at the massive series of structures that was Beacon Academy, a large tower standing in the center, various pendulums glowing inside. Ruby and Yang had trotted up ahead of the rest, meanwhile, as they disembarked, Apple Bloom found a hand tapping at her shoulder, she turned to see a tall girl with brown hair and a head adorned with rabbit ears, “Hello?” Bloom asked.
“You were that red-haired girl on the news, you were with those others who stopped the White Fang attack yesterday,” She asked in an accent that almost bordered on a Canterlot accent.
“Yeah, so?”
“I wanted to say thanks for standing up to that man back there, on the airship.”
“Who? That jerk who pulled my tail?”
“Yeah, it was impressive, the way you just lifted him off the ground like that.”
Apple Bloom blushed, “Yeah, I guess I am pretty strong, compared to most folks that is…”
“Well, I’m glad to see there are still faunus in the world like you, willing to stand up to humans like him, but still caring enough to stop that horde of White Fang maniacs yesterday.”
“Well, wouldn’t you have done the same?”
“Most faunus are either too scared to stand up for themselves or so crazy they go around slaughtering all the humans they can, I would have stood up to him, but I’m not very good in a fight without my weapon, and I don’t want to be lumped in with the White Fang radicals.”
“Well, the name’s Apple Bloom, good to meet you.”
“Velvet… Velvet Scarlatina.”
Closer to the courtyard, Ruby started hopping around excitedly as she geeked out about all the student’s weapons. The others caught up once she had been dragged away from visually molesting a sword with fire dust crystals in it by Yang. “Easy there little sister, they’re just weapons…”
“Just weapons! They’re an extension of ourselves, a part of us, they’re sooo cool!”
Behind them, Sweetie Belle muttered, “You’re sounding a bit like Scootaloo whenever Dash shows off a new trick.”
Yang chuckled, “Well, why can’t you swoon over your own weapon-”
“I adore my Crescent Rose! But the other ones are cool too, it’s like meeting new people, but better…”
“Well, why don’t you make some new friends of your own, I’m sure you aren’t the only gun nut in this place.”
“Why would I need more friends when I have four new ones right here,” She said, pointing at the fillies.
“Well, having more friends never hurt anyone…” Yang sighed, looked off to a woman in a brown sweater with a brown fur collar and black scarf and beret, waving, “Well, I have some old friends to catch up with, see you girls later.” She waved goodbye as she moved toward some of her old friends. “Hey Coco, haven’t seen you in years, not since you left signal-” Her voice trailed off as she ran away from Ruby.
Ruby sighed. “Welcome to Beacon,” She muttered, as Scootaloo placed a hand on her shoulder. Up above somewhere came the cawing of a crow.
There came a sigh from behind them, “Get out of my way!” And the fillies turned to see a girl with stark white hair in a stark white dress. She marched forward with a trolley of luggage behind her. The girls moved to let her pass, but when trying to do so, Ruby tripped on an uneven flagstone and fell face-first into the pile of white briefcases. Sweetie Belle winced as she stared at those cases, there was dust in there, lots of it, she could feel the familiar magical pressure, and she had enough experience with it to know how volatile it could be at times.
“Rude,” Scootaloo muttered.
“What are you doing!” The girl shouted at Ruby, “Give me that!” She pulled a briefcase from the pile, “You could have blown us all up!”
“Uhh…” Ruby moaned.
“Hey! It’s not her fault that she fell,” Scootaloo returned.
“Do you have any idea the damage she could have caused,” She stared at the girls, before sighing, “Bunch of dumb faunus children… This is dust, mined and purified from the Schnee quarry! Purified! These aren’t your average crystals or powder, they’re much stronger and much more volatile!” Seemingly to illustrate, she pulled a vial from her case.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I don’t know what went wrong, I-” Ruby sputtered.
“You could have gotten us all killed, imagine what could have happened if all these vials and crystals went off at once!” She shook the bottle in the air, and despite the cork, some fine particles of dust crystal started to drift around her, but she didn’t seem to notice as she ranted.
As much as this girl reminded Sweetie of Diamond Tiara, and not in a good way, she couldn’t help but agree, the energy stored in even a single briefcase was devastating should it go off… But at the same time, what kind of idiot would carry around so much volatile material.
“You little brat!” Scootaloo shouted, “You don’t have the right to go yelling at people just because they trip!” She marched up to the girl, who looked shocked at Scootaloo's attitude.
“And what gives you the right to talk to me like that! Do you even know who I am!”
“Should I! All I see is some bratty little girl yelling at a friend, I couldn’t care less about who you are!”
“I am Weiss Schnee! Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company!” She said, waving that vial of fire dust in the air. Scootaloo simply marched up and slapped the vial out of the girl’s hand. As it flew through the air, Sweetie’s eyes went wide, she raised her hands just in time to catch the vial in a telekinetic grip, the dust inside turning minty green in colour.
Weiss and Scootaloo both growled at each other, but both turned to stare at Sweetie, now holding the vial, “Both of you! Shut up!” She yelled, “You nearly just blew us all up!” She held the vial and pointed it toward them both, “So stop fighting before you set off one of these vials!”
Weiss snatched the vial from Sweetie’s hand, before scoffing and marching away, followed by a few butlers pulling her trolley of dust cases. Once they had gotten Ruby back to her feet, the fillies all marched over toward the amphitheatre, a large glass-domed circular room with bleachers around an open stage… It looked to Scootaloo more like the old gladiatorial arena in Cloudsdale than an assembly hall at a school, with a large raised platform in the back with an ornate backdrop.
As they filed in, Yang called from somewhere in the crowd, “Ruby! Over here! I saved you a spot!”
Ruby turned to the Crusaders, “Oh, hey I got to go, I’ll see you after the ceremony,” leaving the fillies to stand in the back. A dozen or so more minutes passed as the last few students found their way into the structure, Jaune was the last to enter and moved to stand next to the fillies.
There was some general chatter throughout the room, “How’s your first day going little sister,” Yang said to Ruby.”
“You mean since you left me with the girls and we got into a fight with a brat.”
“Wow, fighting already?”
“Yeah, she kept on yelling at me and Scootaloo, and it looked like they were legitimately going to draw their weapons before Sweetie stepped in and stopped them.” As they talked, the large wooden doors of the hall closed behind them.
A voice echoed from the stage as Ozpin walked to address the crowd, “I’ll keep this brief…” He said, adjusting his tiny glasses that Diamond knew were simply there to make him look distinguished, as they were way too small to actually be of any use... She had seen numerous Canterlot nobles wear similar. “You have travelled here today in search of knowledge, to hone your craft and acquire new skills, and when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people… But I look amongst you and all I see is wasted energy, in need of purpose, direction. You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far, it is up to you to take the first step.”
As Glynda moved to continue, Scootaloo muttered to herself, “That’s a bit insulting…”
“Demeaning, I agree,” Diamond continued.
Glynda spoke up, “You will gather in the ballroom tonight, tomorrow your initiation begins, be ready. You are dismissed.”
With that, the door opened again and students started filing out, there were still a few hours in the day, and the fillies planned to use that time to explore their new school. “There’s something here,” Sweetie said once they left the building.
“What do you mean?” Asked Apple Bloom.
“Something magical, and powerful, it’s underneath us… Somewhere, it feels like it’s here, but not.”
As she talked Diamond noticed it too, there was a pressure, a tingling feeling, the same feeling that one got when near powerful magic, she had only felt this pressure once before, and that was when Princess Luna showed up for Nightmare Night two years ago… It was somewhere below them, but not, as if the source of the power was everywhere and yet nowhere at the same time.
“Do you think it’s anything we should be concerned about?” Diamond asked.
“No, it seems safe enough, I just wonder exactly what it is…” Sweetie said, pausing, “I’m going to find a library, see if there are any books on Beacon and what we should expect of tomorrow…” She trotted away.
“I’m going to grab something to eat, I’m starved,” Scootaloo muttered, marching off in another direction. Apple Bloom and Diamond nodded, marching off after the filly.
That night, everyone gathered and laid out sleeping bags on the floor of the Ballroom. The Crusaders were already asleep. Yang and Ruby wandered off to talk to some other girl, leaving Diamond alone. She missed her friend, Silver Spoon, she missed her father, she missed the other ponies in Equestria… But she was here now, no time for regret. And so she let herself drift off to sleep.
There was a pressure in the back of her head and an unseen presence in the void behind her, she was in a castle, not a beautiful marble palace like Canterlot, but rather a dark and gloomy bastion, large black spires extending outward over the endless nothingness, a roiling ocean of fog below them, and a dark starless, moonless, sky above her… Eerie rifts opening in the heavens and letting dim pale-blue light through.
There was something here, something powerful, just beyond her perception… This dark gothic castle was a maze, a trap, one she needed to find her way out of, but for what reason she couldn’t fathom. “Luna!” She called into the darkness, only to receive the loud silence in reply…
Silver Spoon had reached Haven, but, to her shock, she couldn’t find them… Not a single one of her friends, not Diamond, not Sweetie, not Scootaloo, none of them… They were somewhere else, perhaps at that school Pyrrha was going to. As she let herself drift off to sleep, she cursed Discord for separating them… She would find them eventually, she wasn’t going to let Diamond go off on her own.
She found herself in a vast and endless expanse of ever-shifting sand. The dunes seemed to move on their own in random patterns, the sky above was a burning white, and she felt nonexistent heat burn at her skin. Nothing in this place felt right, it felt completely alien, and the magical pressure she had sensed earlier was stronger here than ever… She first noticed it as Lionheart gave his speech… There was magic in this place, powerful magic, it reminded her of what she felt whenever Celestia came to visit Ponyville.
And so she wandered in the endless desert.
Apple Bloom couldn’t sleep… That dream, the one of the dark castle in the middle of an endless void, still chilled her bone. Every time she drifted off to sleep in this place, she found that while details changed, for the most part, the dream remained the same… She wasn’t going to get a good nights sleep in Beacon. And so she sat there while everyone else slept. Grunting with the effort, she pulled herself up and found her bags on the raised platform where everyone else’s was, and slowly she retrieved her potion kit… She would need ingredients and a base, like water, and so she snuck out of the room to search the campus for anything that she could use.