//------------------------------//
// Threadneedle 
// Story: SAPR 
// by Scipio Smith 
//------------------------------//


Threadneedle


 

The Sheriff of Threadneedle was an old man, with silver hair that was receding backwards across his pate and a luxuriant moustache that drooped down on either side of his mouth like the tails of some kind of rodent. His face was lined with years, and as he made his way through the rural operations centre Cardin guessed that he had held this job for many years, long before all the recent changes that had overtaken Vale. 
He coughed into one hand to announce himself as he approached. “Captain Cardin Winchester, sir, Corps of Specialists.” He was wearing his uniform coat over his armour, little changed from when he had been a student except that there was now more of it, covering the areas that he had previously left unprotected: a plackart to cover his belly and more comprehensive cuisses to protect his legs. In a display of patriotism he had replaced the red sash he had worn previously around his waist with one that was green for Vale; he didn’t think it looked as good but it was important to show the right attitude in times like these. 
He held out his hand to the Sheriff as he approached. 
The Sheriff took a moment to put his broad-brimmed hat on his head before he got up from his desk – an untidy desk, covered with paperwork of various sorts – and held out his hand to shake Cardin’s. His grip was not the strongest, but not unsteady either. “Sheriff Butternut, darn glad to meet you, captain. Huh, Spring and Summer, it only seems yesterday when I’d have laughed you clean out of town if you told me that Vale would have its own army and a corps of specialist and all of this Atlas stuff. Yet here we are.”
“A lot’s happened in a short space of time,” Cardin said.
“You can say that again,” Sheriff Butternut agreed. He shook his head. “Sometimes it feels like the whole world’s gone nuts; other times it feels like it’s just falling apart. Anyway, what can I do for you, Captain Winchester?”
He didn’t seem to recognise Cardin’s name, which was – as far as Cardin was concerned – all to the good; he was starting to realise why people like Weiss and Pyrrha liked to go anonymous, or at least unremarked upon by people who knew them; that went double in his case since so many of his supposed achievements were, not to put too fine a point on it, made up. It would be refreshing to be judged on his merits in a place like this, a place which – judging by his walk through town after having dropped off Sunset’s team outside – didn’t get a lot of visitors.
“Actually, Sheriff, it’s how I can help you,” Cardin said. “I hear you’ve been having problems with the grimm.”
“Oh, that we have, Spring, Summer and Fall that we have,” Sheriff Butternut said. He began to walk away from his desk, leading Cardin back across the largely deserted operations centre – there was a middle-aged man in a cheap suit doing some filing on the other side of the office, but no one else present that Cardin could see – to a board with a map of the local area pinned to it. It was small scale, showing the village in sufficient detail that each house was individually rendered and the bars, the doctor’s office, the diner and the church Cardin had passed on the way down main street were all clearly marked out, but it also extended sufficiently around the town to show a ring of farms surrounding it, several of which had been marked by red Xs.
“It’s like they’re working their way around the north end of town,” Sheriff Butternut said, drawing Cardin’s attention to the fact that the red Xs started to the east and worked their way in upwards and to the west. “First they hit the Farley place, then the Brandy farm, then the Colton’s, then the Li family up here.”
“Any survivors?” Cardin asked.
Sheriff Butternut’s face tightened with pain. “Little Molly Farley ran all the way into town shrieking about monsters; that was the first we knew about all this, but by the time we got there…Mister Winchester, I’ve been doing this job for more years than I’d care to tell, and in that time I’ve seen a few things. Ten winters ago we had famished wolves come down out of the high country and that was bad, but I ain’t seen nothing like what I saw when we got to the Farley place. It’s a miracle that Li’l Molly was able to get away.”
“You don’t have a lot of trouble with grimm out here, Sheriff?” Cardin asked.
“No,” he admitted. “I know they’re out there, and I know that you don’t go hiking through the woods unless you want to meet one of them, but we don’t get much trouble from them around here. I guess we’ve just been lucky until now.”
Cardin nodded. Such situations were not impossible, especially in places like Patch which had a reputation for a pleasant, if slow, pace of living. In a nice town, where emotions didn’t run high and there wasn’t much to be afraid of, it was possible to avoid drawing grimm in with negativity, in which case the only thing to worry about was that some of them would just stumble across you. Sometimes that happened and sometimes it didn’t. Some places just got lucky, although Cardin couldn’t help but wonder if a huntsman had been protecting them up until this point, one who was either dead now or who had gone back to Vale due to the emergency there. It wasn’t likely that he would find out. “Any other survivors,” he asked. “Besides the little girl?”
Sheriff Butternut nodded. “We found Jen Brandy hiding in the cellar; she said her pa had told her to get down there and locked the door when they heard the creatures coming. Maple Colton got away too, we found her in the woods about a mile away from the property, scared to death. Cheng Li was the same: he ran away hid in the trees, they didn’t find him.”
It’s amazing that they didn’t, what with the amount of fear he must have been giving off, Cardin thought. “One survivor from every farm.”
“Right,” Sheriff Butternut said. “It might only be the one, but it’s something worth thanking Summer for in my book.”
“You a religious man, Sheriff?” Cardin asked. Religion was starting to make a comeback in Vale as people started to look for something to explain what had happened – or a way to stop it from happening again – but he would have thought the sheriff was too old to get swept up in that kind of thing, still less to have started talking like he’d been a religious man all his life. Unless he had been. 
The sheriff nodded. “This is a farming town, Mister Winchester; we pray to Spring for lambs, Summer for sunshine and Fall for a good harvest; it might be old-fashioned but it’s worked out pretty well for us so far.”
“What do you pray to winter for?” Cardin asked.
“To go away fast and not come back for a while,” Sheriff Butternut said. “Nobody prays to winter, we curse and bear it.”
“I see,” Cardin muttered. “So, all the survivors are in town now? How are they doing?”
“Shocked,” Sheriff Butternut said. “Molly Farley hasn’t said a word since we told her that Ma and Pa were gone, and Jen Brandy wakes up the whole street with her nightmares.
“After the Brandy Farm got hit I advised everybody to come on into town where it was safer; after the Li place I sent out the new soldiers I had to recruit on the council’s orders to flat out order everybody into town on account of the danger.”
“Is that where everybody is right now?” Cardin asked.
“It’s where they should be,” Sheriff Butternut said. “I haven’t heard back from the group I sent out to the Huang place.” He pointed to the next farm along from the destroyed Li property. “I thought it might be dangerous so I sent six boys down there, more than I sent anywhere else; I still haven’t heard back from them.”
“In how long?” Cardin asked.
“All day, they left in the morning.”
“Okay,” Cardin said. “I already have a team out there, I’ll tell them to keep an eye out for any sign of your people.”
“You really think that you can take care of this for us?” Sheriff Butternut asked. “This town…we’ve got a palisade and we keep the ditch dug to a decent depth, but if those monsters show up-“
“I understand,” Cardin said. “But my team…they’re some of the best around. They’ll keep this place safe, I guarantee it.”



“Who would seriously want to live in a place like this?” Sami said, as the team trudged through what had been an orchard; it was an orchard, although it was hard to tell from a casual glance since the leaves had not yet returned to the trees and there was still a dusting of snow upon the ground that stubbornly refused to yield to the advancing spring. Nevertheless, there had been a picture of a plum on the sign declaring that this was the Li estate and – combined with the fact that there were a lot of trees and no sign of any fields ready for the plough – Sunset felt it was reasonably likely that this was a plum orchard, and that the farm had produced fruit rather than crops. 
“It looks bad because the trees are dead,” Jack told her. “When the trees are in flower and the plums are growing-“
“Then we could eat them, seeing as nobody else will and I’m getting a little hungry,” Sami said. “But I still wouldn’t want to live in a place like this.”
They were moving in single file, with Sunset in the lead and Cinder bringing up the rear, having left the ruins of the Li house behind them as they followed what Sunset though might be tracks through the orchard to the west. She was no great woodsman, nor would she ever claim to be, but the snow – shallow though it was in places – looked to have been here for a while without being disturbed and so she thought that all the depressions in said snow were probably worth checking out. What was most interesting was that, amidst all the paw prints that suggested beowolves or ursai or both, there was something here that looked like hoof prints. 
Very big hoof prints. Could it be another karkadann, like she and Cinder had faced in Mistral (although whether Cinder had faced something that Sunset was reasonably sure – she hadn’t actually asked – that she had arranged was an open question)? Perhaps, and this time it had help. 
“I had a farm, once,” Jack said. “Or at least, my mother did. We had a cow.”
“Are you sure that wasn’t your mother?” Sami asked.
“Hey, watch your mouth!” Jack snapped. “That’s my mama you’re talking about. How would you like it if I started trash-talking your mom, huh?”
“My mom was a thief and a thug and the day she died was the best day of my life,” Sami said. “You can say whatever you like about her, I guarantee it won’t be as bad as she was.”
Jack stopped, turning in the snow to look at her. “You’re one messed up chick, you know that?”
Sami grinned. “All part of my charm.” She jumped a couple of feet through the snow. “Okay, farm boy, if having a farm and a cow was so good then why did you decide to start robbing people with that?”
Jack turned away and resumed following Sunset. “On account of some rich dirtbag stole our land out from under us, left us homeless so that he could make his fields a little bit bigger. That was my mama’s land, my land, and he just took it away from us with lawyers and big words and bits of paper. Well, I never knew any big words, and I didn’t have any bits of paper and I couldn’t afford no lawyers…but I had a gun, and so I thought that maybe I could make the rich pay for what they did with it.” He fell silent for a moment. “If we still had our land, I probably would have never done wrong. I would have stayed at home, been a good boy, caused no trouble to nobody.”
“Yeah? And you would have been boring,” Sami said.
“I would have been free,” Jack replied.
“Free and boring.”
“Better to be boring than in a cage,” Emerald said. “And even though it’s probably a lot of work, I’d say better to live in a place like this than to be living without a roof over your head, never knowing where your next meal is coming from. Right, Cinder?”
Cinder was silent for a moment. “It’s a life,” she said. “But not for everyone.”
“Better than this one,” Jack said.
“So is that what you’re going to do, when we’re done here?” Sunset asked, tearing her eyes away from the grimm tracks to look over her shoulder at him. She hadn’t asked them that before, and she kind of wished that she had now because this was a better side to Jack than any that she’d experienced yet. It was a pity that he couldn’t be like this more often. “You’re going to get a patch of land to call your own?”
“How?” Jack asked sourly. “The government took all my money away from me.”
“The money that you stole from other people, sure,” Sunset said.
“Everyone steals from someone else,” Jack said. “Only when the rich do it they call it fancy things that make it alright. And it’s not like you’ll let me make any money while we’re here.”
“I’m not going to let you rob corpses if that’s what you mean,” Sunset muttered. She turned away, shaking her head. The terms of their agreements stated that, if they survived, they would be released ‘at such a time as the Council judges that the safety of the kingdom shall be secured and the crimes of the prisoner expunged through their good service’ which was open ended, sure, but better than the life imprisonment that was the best that any of them could have looked forward to otherwise. But, while Sunset wasn’t sure what she would do if she ever got released – go to Mistral, maybe – she was more worried that if Jack or Sami ever got out they would just go right back to the things that they’d gotten locked up for in the first place. 
However, against that risk was set the fact that Cardin wasn’t a complete idiot. He wasn’t about to let them go only to wreak more havoc upon the Kingdom of Vale; if he didn’t trust them to behave themselves he’d never set them free. 
“Sure, I’d like some land,” Jack said. “A house, some woods with a stream flowing through them; maybe a vineyard; I could grow everything I needed and wouldn’t need to bother nobody.”
“Until your crops failed, and your animals died, and it would seem very tempting to just take what you needed from someone weaker than you,” Sami said. 
“Is that your plan, if you ever get free?” Cinder asked. “To resume your previous career where you left off?”
Sami said nothing, although her face said a great deal. “So what about you, boss?” she said, calling out to Sunset. “What are you going to do when your service ends?”
“They’ll always be another fight,” Sunset said. “Whether they’re making me fight it or just asking.”
“You’re such a teacher’s pet,” Sami said. “No wonder they put you in charge.”
Before Sunset could reply she was interrupted by a call on her scroll. 
“And I guess that’s the teacher now,” Sami said.
Sunset ignored her, holding up one hand to halt the others while she pulled out her scroll and opened it up. It was indeed Cardin, because who else would be calling her?
“Sunset,” he said. “Where are you?”
“Passing out of the Li land,” Sunset said. “The place was a wreck but we might have found some tracks.”
“Okay,” Cardin said. “Keep an eye out for any survivors. One person has survived every grimm attack around here so far.”
“That’s a coincidence,” Sunset said.
“I’m not so sure it is,” Cardin replied. “The first survivor was a little girl, there’s no way that she could have outrun a creature of grimm, and as for the others…how do terrified people with no training manage to hide in cellars or in nearby forests in the dark and not be found?”
Sunset frowned. “What are you suggesting? That the grimm are leaving one survivor at every location on purpose? Grimm aren’t that smart?”
“Aren’t they?” Cardin replied. “I looked into those Merlot files you suggested, and in Jaune’s home town the grimm-“
“Injured his sister but left her alive to draw other rescuers whom it could ambush, I know, they told me,” Sunset said. “But that was one of Merlot’s experiments, it was different than other grimm.”
“You said yourself that the facility was still there,” Cardin said. “Could someone have beaten us to it and restarted the experiments?”
“I hope not, it was bad enough the first time,” Sunset muttered. Then I had Ruby, Pyrrha and Jaune as well as Cinder; how am I supposed to repeat the trick with these guys?
“I’m just speculating, I know,” Cardin said. “But I think there’s something going on here, I just can’t work out what it is yet.” He frowned. “Is there any chance that it isn’t grimm?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well…doesn’t this kind of stuff sound more like bandits to you?” Cardin asked. “And I know that the little girl who ran into town was babbling about monsters but in the dark, fire and smoke and gunshots…people could seem like monsters to a kid.”
“I know what you mean, but the tracks we’ve found at the Li place seem to disagree,” Sunset said.
“Right,” Cardin said, sounding a little disappointed. “Keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll see if I can talk to any of the survivors, and if that doesn’t pan out I might come out and join you. Just be aware, the sheriff sent out a party of six soldiers to the Cheng farm to tell the family to evacuate into town; they haven’t reported in, so keep your eyes open for them.”
“I will,” Sunset said. “I’ll keep you posted if we find anything.”
“Right,” Cardin said. “Good luck out there.”
Sunset folded up her scroll. “Cinder, come up here a minute,” she crouched down, and waited for Cinder to make her way up from the rear of the column. 
“Yes?” Cinder asked, as she crouched down beside Sunset. She had exchanged her old red dress for something sleeveless, with a high neckline and a long black gloves – trimmed with gold – covering her arms. It was, of course, still red, and still gold-trimmed beside, but this new gown was so long that Sunset couldn’t help but wonder if she hadn’t been better off before the change. 
“Do you know of any grimm smart enough to leave survivors, and why?” Sunset asked.
Cinder smirked. “I love how you think of me as some kind of repository of grimm lore.”
“Well, you did work with them.”
“I served Salem, I didn’t memorise a grimm bestiary,” Cinder said. “I made use of the grimm as servants, and instruments in my plan, but I never bothered to get to know them beyond the common types. I certainly don’t know all the rare variants.” She paused. “Although I will say that I have never heard of any grimm that wouldn’t kill when it had the chance, unless it was being restrained by some…external force.”
Sunset frowned. “You mean-“
“Yes,” Cinder said. “Someone like me.”
Sunset cursed under her breath. “But…there aren’t any human tracks.”
“If I’m wrong then that’s a good thing,” Cinder said. “You couldn’t take someone like me with this team.” She snorted. “Not since you-“
“Don’t,” Sunset said. “Please, just don’t. Not right now, anyway.”
Cinder’s lips twitched upwards. “Okay, I’ll save that for later. So what’s the plan, fearless leader?”
“I never claimed to be fearless,” Sunset said, getting to her feet. “I just don’t have a lot left to loose. We keep following the trail, and whatever is waiting for us…we’ll deal with it.”
“No matter what it is?” Cinder asked.
“No matter what it is we’re better equipped to deal with it then the folks living around here, I’m sure,” Sunset said.
“That wouldn’t be difficult,” Cinder said.
“No,” Sunset agreed. “But that just makes it all the more true.”
So they continued to follow the trail left by the grimm through the snow, as they crossed out of the Li land and onto the land – marked by a boundary hedgerow that was leafless and resembled frosted-over brambles in its dormant state, and which something had bulled its way through, leaving an enormous gap through which the warriors could easily follow – owned by the Cheng family, which judging by the fact that it was yet more trees in neatly planted rows Sunset took to be another farm of fruit orchards of some kind. They followed the trail left by the grimm, Sunset had given up on trying to gauge just how many of them there were since it was possible that they could be hiding their numbers by moving in a column, stepping into one another’s footsteps (she wasn’t sure if grimm were smart enough for that, but if they were smart enough to leave survivors as part of a nefarious scheme then surely they were also smart enough to mask their strength). They followed the trail until they came to the Cheng farm. 
What was left of it, anyway. A truck was parked outside the farmhouse, with the back opened up and half-full with bags and cases, suggesting that the Chengs had been about to flee when the grimm had descended upon them; the prints descended upon the ruins that remained of the spacious farmhouse in a horde, the tight group in which they had moved collapsing into a mob that had moved out, breaking up to surround the house and its occupants and attack from all sides. 
Bodies littered the ground, their blood staining the snow; the small bodies of the Cheng children, the larger bodies of the adult Chengs and a couple of young men and a young woman in casual clothes whom Sunset thought might have been farmhands or other labourers, and the bodies of the local patrol in their blue valish uniforms. Sunset stood, frozen in place, her breath gently misting up as she stared at the dead bodies; one of the farmhands had an axe in his hand and it looked as though he’d been trying to protect one of the children, unfortunately for all Professor Port’s stories it wasn’t that easy for an ordinary guy with nothing but courage going for him to stand against the nightmares; the sergeant had collapsed against the side of the truck, his expression more startled than afraid; the little boy looked as though he had been trying to run away. 
“Search for survivors,” Sunset said. 
“What survivors?” Sami asked.
“At every farm one survivor has been left behind,” Sunset snapped. “Find them! Spread out!”
Jack, Sami and Emerald hastened to obey her, while Cinder lingered, staying close by Sunset’s side. “You can’t blame yourself for this.”
“I’m a huntress, I’m supposed to stop stuff like this from happening,” Sunset said. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t and would never be a real huntress, but she had committed herself to living and fighting as though she was so to arrive too late, to arrive only to find this…if only…she should have been faster. 
“You weren’t here.”
“Maybe I should have been.”
“You can’t be everywhere.”
“I did this,” Sunset snapped, gesturing at the death and devastation, the dead bodies surrounding the ruined farmhouse. “We did this, you and me, together! Everything that has happened to this kingdom has been because of the choices that you and I made, the selfish choices to put ourselves and one another and our own desires above everyone else. We did this. Doesn’t that…please tell me that you feel some remorse about it.” Sunset stared into Cinder’s eyes, searching for sorrow, imploring her to demonstrate some of the grief that she, Sunset, considered appropriate as they came across yet another consequence of their shared actions. 
Cinder closed her eyes. “The survivor, the lone survivor at every farm…who was it?”
Sunset frowned. “A child,” she said. “Or a young person at least, by the sounds of it.”
Cinder sighed. “Then it is them that I pity most. And if there is a child left alive here then it is them that I will feel the most sorry for.”
Sunset blinked. “For the living, not the dead?”
“You don’t know what it is to live without those you love,” Cinder declared harshly. “To have the arms that hold you suddenly ripped away to leave you cold and all alone. I know what that’s like, I know what awaits those children. I pity them because I know what lies in store for them, I know what they will become; better that they should be together in…whatever awaits us, if anything does. That is why I pity the living, not the dead.”
Sunset frowned. “I…what happened to you was…while there is life then there is the chance at love, I just…we did this, Cinder, you and I. We changed the world together and…we broke it.”
“I always meant to, and worse than it did,” Cinder murmured.
“Did you intend all of this?”
“I…I can’t remember if I didn’t consider it or I just didn’t care,” Cinder said. “Probably a combination of the two.”
“And now?”
“Now? Now…now I wonder why I thought the empty baubles that I coveted so much were worth it all. Why I thought they would fill up this…emptiness inside.”
“Cinder! Sunset!” Emerald called. “Over here!”
They both ran towards the sound of her voice, and swiftly saw why: she had found the sole survivor, not a child this time but a soldier, albeit a young soldier. He was up a tree, cowering in the branches, his face pale with a mixture of fright and cold, his weapon discarded on the ground amongst the tree roots. His eyes were vacant, and his lips were moving although Sunset couldn’t hear any sound. 
“Hey there,” Sunset called up to him as the five of them gathered around his tree. “It’s okay. You can come down now, we’re friends.”
He didn’t respond. He didn’t look as though he had even heard her, let alone comprehended her words. 
Sunset cupped her hands around her mouth and used a little touch of magic to amplify her voice. “Hello up there! The grimm are gone, you can come down now.”
There was still not intelligible response from the soldier up the tree. Sunset frowned. “Jack, get him down.”
Jack huffed, as though being asked to do something was an imposition for him, and slung his shotgun-axe over his shoulder as he rubbed his hands together. He pressed them together, palm against palm, as the gap between them began to glow with a faint green light. The earth cracked, the soil and frost bulging upwards for a moment before falling away as a thick vine, like a cable, rose up out of the ground and wound its way slowly up the tree like some kind of giant blind snake. The green stalk rose, seeming to probe the air as it rose, until it reached the insensible soldier up the tree, at which point it wound its way around his waist, plucked him out of the tree, and then bore him slowly to the ground.
Sunset caught him as Jack’s vine released him. She checked his collar, a lot of Valish soldiers had sewn their names onto their collars like they were back at school in case they didn’t make it. “Richard Burroughs,” she read out the name tag, which was exactly the kind of tag that mothers used to sew onto the possessions of their little colts and fillies at magic school, the exact kind. “Richard,” she said. “It’s okay now. You’re okay. My name is Sunset Shimmer, and I’m here to help you. Is there anything that you can tell me about what happened here?”
“A bunch of grimm showed up and ate everyone,” Sami said.
Sunset glared at her.
“Ruby,” Richard Burroughs murmured. “Rose.”
Sunset’s eyes widened. “What? What did you say?”
“Ruby…Rose,” Richard repeated.
“How?” Sunset demanded. “Where did you learn that name, what do you mean? What does Ruby have to do with any of this?”
“Ruby…Rose.”
“You’re not going to get anything out of him,” Cinder said. “It’s strange, but he isn’t going to explain it.”
“I suppose not,” Sunset murmured. “Okay. Let’s get him back to town, get him the help he needs. Then, maybe, hopefully, we can start to figure this out.”



As you might be able to tell, Princess Celestia, there’s a lot going on right now. My head is spinning from what I’ve learned about Professor Ozpin. Although I’d hate for you to think that I wasn’t grateful to find out that he was alive, because I am. When I thought that he was dead
Sunset paused, the pen hovering over the page of the journal. Writing to Celestia was both a balm to her spirit and a way for her to put her thoughts in order for her own benefit, but when it came to this, to how she felt about Professor Ozpin’s death and resurrection…it was still difficult for her to clear it up enough in her own head to set it down on paper. 
I’m glad that he’s still here, in some form.
I am glad to hear that you think so. I know you valued him more than you fear he knew, although for my part I think your fears may turn out to be groundless. Speaking as your teacher, I flattered myself that I always knew how you felt even when you struggled to express it.
When I was being an obnoxious, ungrateful brat, you mean? Please don’t answer that.
For myself I pity him, and his new host besides if I understand what you have told me rightly.
I’m not sure that I understand it right myself. 
The gods are cruel; immortality locked in struggle with a monster who cannot be defeated should have been curse enough – and would have been, for such a man as Professor Ozpin – without inflicting a second curse upon a succession of innocents in all of this.
Sunset frowned. Is that how you see your life, Princess Celestia? As a curse?
A curse? Oh, little sunbeam, my life is not a curse. My life has been a hundred hundred blessings following hard on one another’s heels, and my only selfish regret has been that each blessing has been far, far too briefly ephemeral for my liking. But for Professor Ozpin
Princess Celestia stopped writing for a moment. Sunset waited, looking down at the book, willing her teacher to continue. 
I have a confession to make, Sunset. I knew that Professor Ozpin was immortal long before you did.
Sunset’s eyebrows rose. You did? You only wrote to him once.
And that turned out to be sufficient. He had in him that which I recognised from long acquaintance in myself. She did not elaborate on what that might be, and Sunset was not sure if it was her place to enquire. 
You didn’t say anything about this to me.
It was not my place to reveal Professor Ozpin’s truth without his permission. I trusted that he had his reasons for keeping it from you. And then, when you told me that he had perished I believed you; not knowing the nature of his terrible curse I thought that, his body being destroyed, he had in fact died as I would die if my physical form were to be consumed thus by magic.
Sunset shivered. Please don’t say things like that, Princess. I don’t even want to imagine it. She sucked on the end of her pen for a moment. Sunset: Do you think that it was the nature of his reincarnation that cause him to keep it a secret?
Perhaps, although I think that perhaps Professor Ozpin would have kept a more conventional immortality a secret also.
But why? I can see why he would keep it from the world – although I have to admit that if he does want to keep it a secret then the kind of immortality that he has is a little more useful than yours. Can you imagine what you’d have to do pretend to be other people if you were living out a natural life?
I suppose I would have to continuously use magic to disguise my appearance, wearing a new form in public every day, seeming to age it before the eyes of my little ponies until I ‘died’ and was ‘reborn’ as another pony with another name. I can see it easily becoming rather tiresome.
I don’t see why he’d want to put the effort in. I mean, clearly he can’t help the curse that was laid upon him but why be so secretive about it. If he is and has always been the Old Man, going back through all the legends, if he has always led the circle that has been opposed to Salem, then he must have been pulling strings for thousands of years or more to help mankind fight against the creatures of grimm. Why would he seek to rule from the shadows where you rule in the light? I didn’t trust Professor Ozpin at first because, okay there were a lot of reasons why I didn’t trust him but one of them was that, compared to you and your wisdom acquired over the centuries, trusting a mere mortal man to order and direct our lives seemed so difficult; he couldn’t possibly have the experience necessary, the good judgement. If I had known then what I know now I might have thought better of him sooner. And I know that you’ll probably say that that was my problem, not his, and you’d be right but my main point is why all the secrecy? He could have been you, to all intents and purposes, an immortal ruler albeit a reincarnating one, ruling with the four Maidens ranged around him, all things done in the sight of men whom he could array to the best advantage of his endeavours. Instead he skulked in Beacon Tower, hiding the Maidens, keeping his wisdom hidden under a bushel, admitting only his closest confidantes to the secret. Why?
The answer seems perfectly clear to me: he did not want to rule.
Okay, but why not?
That I cannot answer so easily. I fear only Ozpin himself can give you that information.
If I ever see him, Sunset thought. And that still doesn’t explain why he wouldn’t tell us when he told us all of his other secrets, when we entered into his service. Did he fear so greatly how we would react to the truth about his immortality?
I think that Ozpin fears to grow too close to any of those who serve him. If you thought him aloof, or cold, then it was not because it was in his nature to be so but because he wished that it were. When I said that immortality was curse enough for Ozpin it is because he makes it so himself by fearing to care too much for those around him, knowing that he must outlive them all. I fear he has forgotten that, while it may seem a curse to outlive all our comrades, students and our friends, to know and love them in the brief-seeming moment allowed is the great blessing that makes our long lives bearable. As I told him: we are never truly alone, and though sometimes care can lead us to mistakes, without it we would make far more grievous errors.
I’m not sure how the errors that I made from care could have been made worse if I hadn’t cared.
I hope that you don’t mean that.
Sunset shook her head. I do and I don’t. I don’t regret caring about my friends, but I sometimes wonder if all the things I did to help them didn’t just end up making things worse.
No one can know what would have been, not even the wisest of us. That being so, one must accept what one has done and move forward from it. So how will you move forward, Sunset Shimmer; what will you do now that you know the truth?
[u]Nothing, if Ruby will go to Anima in my stead. If she will not then
It was Sunset’s turn to pause once more, struggling to know what were best to say next, what she ought to say next, what she could possibly say next. 
Professor Goodwitch has laid it on me to go to Anima and find Professor Ozpin, and my heart desires to do it, but I have made promises and pledges to Vale and to Cardin, how can I turn my back on that?
I must confess, I would very much like to speak with Ozpin again; he has a courteous manner and a gentle heart, for all he tries to harden it and hide it away behind a layer of ice.
Sunset could not help the slight smile that made her lips twitch upwards. Sometimes, Princess, I think you are my better nature; other times I think you might be my worst instincts made manifest.
You will not go then?
How can I, when so much of the damage suffered by Vale has been my doing, mine and Cinder’s together. What we saw, today at the farm, was just a taste of the evil that we unleashed through our combined selfishness. I am responsible for my actions and, as her keeper, I am responsible for Cinder’s too. Together we broke Vale, without us the days of peace would be rolling on and on without an end in sight; how can I simply turn my back on it when it is lying on the ground in pieces?
And what will you do if Ruby will not go?
I honestly have no idea whatsoever. I only know that I can’t just leave as though none of this is my fault. You can understand that, right?
I do. And I understand why you feel such a sense of obligation, but if what Professor Goodwitch says is true and Ozpin is in need then who will go to him if not you?
There must be some other way. Perhaps I could pay a courier to go to Mistral with a message for Pyrrha explaining all of this to her, if I could be sure that it would get there in time. Or maybe there is someone else who can go, an associate of Ozpin’s that Professor Goodwitch hasn’t thought of yet. Maybe. There must be something else. Some other way. There’s always another way, right? I hope so, anyway. I should go, thank you for putting up with all of my ramblings, princess.
It is always a pleasure to hear from you, Sunset; I wish you good fortune, whatever path you choose to take.
Thank you, Princess Celestia. That means a lot to me.
Sunset closed the journal, and put it away in her satchel. Since she was now a person of no fixed abode she had to carry it everywhere with her; on the one hand it meant that she didn’t have to wait until she got back to Beacon to talk to Princess Celestia (or Princess Twilight) but on the other hoof it also meant that there was a constant risk that she could lose the precious journal in battle. 
She’d just have to be careful, she supposed. 
“Hey, you!”
Sunset looked up. She was sitting outside the Threadneedle Doctor’s office, since this one-mule town was too poor to maintain any kind of hospital, waiting to see if the young soldier they had rescued – Richard Burroughs – would come round to the extent that he could explain to her how he knew the name of Ruby Rose, and why he had been babbling it like he had as though it was all he knew.
The person who had just yelled her name had just come out of said doctor’s office, and was standing on the wooden porch looking down at Sunset as she sat on the steps. Sunset stared at him. She didn’t recognise him, though he certainly seemed to know her; he was an older man, middle aged at least, with round spectacles, a balding pate and a walrus moustache covering his upper lip. He was wearing fingerless gloves and a chequered scarf that made him rather like an ageing librarian, and the finger he was pointing at her was every so slightly crooked. 
Sunset got to her feet. “Is there something I can help you with, sir?”
“Don’t you give me that you, you…I know who you are!”
I walk around the streets of Vale and nobody recognises me but I come out to the sticks and someone remembers who I am. “I’m sorry,” she said, feeling a little sorry for herself at the sinking feeling in her stomach. “Have we met?”
“No we most certainly have not!” the man barked at her. He walked towards her, shuffling across the wooden porch. “But I know who you are just the same. You’re…you’re Sunset Shimmer, aren’t you? You’re the one who caused the Breach you…you…you…”
His face was red and his breath was coming quickly and shallowly. He looked as though he might have a heart attack if this kept up. “Why don’t you sit down?” Sunset suggested, reaching out to help him.
“Don’t you touch me, you traitor!” he snapped at her. But he sat down on the porch step nevertheless. He took a moment to catch his breath. “I…I never heard about any prison breakout. What are you doing here, eh? What are you doing amongst decent folk? Why aren’t you in jail where you belong?”
“Belong?” Sunset murmured. “Horses belong free, but you stick them in stables and put tack and harness on them because they can be useful to you.” She sat down next to the man. “I belong in jail, but Vale has put a harness on me and sent me here because I can be useful to it.” She probably – almost certainly – wasn’t supposed to be so bald about it to random strangers, but he could cause as much trouble just from having recognised her as he could from knowing why he was able to recognise her, so what more harm could it do?
The man stared at her for a moment. “That…” he seemed to deflate visibly, his back bending and his whole body sagging forwards. “That makes sense. The Kingdom can’t spare anyone these days.”
“It makes so much sense that you’re the first person to actually care that you’ve seen me,” Sunset said, unable to resist pointing it out.
“That makes sense too,” the man admitted. “There’s so much going on that I suppose most have forgotten what a black-hearted reprobate you are.”
Sunset folded her arms and leaned ever so slightly away from him. “For someone who thinks so ill of me you’re showing a remarkable lack of fear at being in the presence of the infamous Sunset Shimmer.”
The man looked as though it had only just occurred to him that perhaps he should be afraid of her. He hesitated for a moment. “Was it you?” he asked. “Was it you who brought my son back?”
Sunset glanced at the wooden-fronted building behind them. “Richard Burroughs? He’s your son?”
The man nodded. “Caleb Burroughs. Was it you?”
“It was my team,” Sunset said quietly.
“Your team,” he repeated. “Are they all scum like you?”
“Believe it or not I’m actually the good one,” Sunset said.
“I don’t know whether to scoff or shudder,” Caleb said. “Why’d you do it, Miss Shimmer? Why did you sell us out?”
“I…I was trying to save my friends,” Sunset said. “I thought they’d die if anyone stopped the train. Somebody,” she raised her voice just a little for the benefit of Cinder, whom she knew to be nearby even if she couldn’t see her. “Convinced me that was the case. I didn’t feel I had any other choice: sabotage the train or everyone would die.”
“Everyone?” Caleb said incredulously. “What about us? What about me and mine? Aren’t we a part of everyone? Don’t our lives count?”
Sunset was silent for a moment. “I…I wasn’t…I wasn’t a very good person at the time.”
“That’s an understatement if ever I heard one.”
“I’m not asking for forgiveness,” Sunset said.
“That’s good, because you’ll not get any from me,” Caleb said. “Saving my boy, well, it might balance the scales but it doesn’t put you in credit.”
“You were there, weren’t you?” Sunset said.
“What makes you say that?”
“Most people have moved on,” Sunset said. “In order to still be so worked up about it you’d have to have some stake in what happened there.” She frowned. “But…nobody got hurt-“
“No, nobody got hurt, thank goodness,” Caleb said. “But between the grimm on one side and the bombs on the other I lost everything. I had a shop on that plaza square: Burroughs Bookbinders. I lived over the top of it, with my son and my wife and my daughter. Been there ever since they closed off the subway line when Mountain Glenn…well, you know. It’s all rubble and ashes now, and the insurance company wouldn’t pay out because they said I wasn’t covered against the grimm or the Atlesian military.”
“Maybe you could claim I was responsible and frame it as criminal damage,” Sunset suggested.
“I tried that when I heard the news about your arrest,” Caleb said. “The woman on the scroll laughed, said ‘nice try’ and then hung up on me.”
Sunset rested her hands on her knees. “I…I never thought about that.” One of many things that I didn’t think about.
“I’m not the only one, neither,” Caleb said. “Mrs Henderson, that new faunus couple just opened the bakery, Jeff who owned the bazaar; all wiped out, the lot of them. I had to move out here and beg my cousin to let us crash with him until we could get back on our feet, and I still don’t feel anywhere near it. I took a job as a filing clerk in the sheriff’s office, all I could get, but for the amount it pays…I haven’t even been paid for the last two months. I know that’s not your fault, but it wouldn’t have happened if you’d just done your job either. Why, I don’t know, it feels as though if you’d just done your job-“
“The world wouldn’t have come apart at the seams,” Sunset muttered miserably.
Caleb Burroughs was silent for a moment. “This isn’t the kingdom that I grew up in,” he said. “Taking my boy away to make a soldier of him like this is Atlas.”
“Is there…I don’t suppose there’s anything that I can do?” Sunset said. “To start to make it right?”
“No, frankly, no there isn’t,” Caleb said shortly and sharply. “Or…well…you must know someone high up, mustn’t you? Someone who got you out of prison?”
“I…suppose,” Sunset said. Cardin does, at least.
“Maybe you could ask about when we’re going to start getting paid again,” Caleb asked.
Sunset nodded. “I’ll mention it. And your insurance, too, that shouldn’t be allowed.”
“It is what it is,” Caleb said, getting to his feet. He began to walk away, stopping as his feet touched the road. “Thank you, for my boy. Have a nice night, Miss Shimmer.”
“You too,” Sunset said. “Hey, Mister Burroughs?”
“Yes?”
“Did your son know the name Ruby Rose?”
Mister Burroughs thought about it for a moment. “She was one of your team-mates, wasn’t she?”
“That’s right,” Sunset said.
“Richard followed the huntsmen,” Mister Burroughs said. “I can’t speak to which of you he knew or didn’t. Why?”
“Nothing,” Sunset said. That could explain that, she supposed. If he knew Ruby by reputation then…your mind went to some strange places when it was given enough of a scare. “Goodnight, sir.” 
She continued to watch after him as she felt, rather than saw, Cinder approach from out of the shadows.
“You take too much blame on yourself,” Cinder declared.
“Are you saying that I should blame you more?” Sunset asked.
“Would that make you feel better?” Cinder said, sitting down beside Sunset.
“Not really,” Sunset murmured. “I’d just blame myself for not doing to stop you.”
“Do you regret it?” Cinder asked.
Sunset turned her head to look at her. “Do I regret what?”
“Not stopping me,” Cinder said. “When you had the chance?”
Sunset blinked. “Did I ever have a chance?”
“Gods no, I would have kicked your ass in thirty seconds the moment I got serious,” Cinder said, a smile playing across her face. “And I wouldn’t have even needed the powers of a Maiden to do it.”
Sunset shook her head. “I…I should say something back right now, but the truth is…the truth is that I believe you. That’s...Pyrrha wasn’t the only one who was a little intimidated by you.”
“I know,” Cinder said. “Did you think that you were hiding that?”
“I…I might have hoped that I was,” Sunset said.
“You’re not as good a liar as you think you are,” Cinder said. “You can fool an honest man, but you can’t fool me.”
“Oh, yes, you have always seen right through me,” Sunset said in a voice loaded with sarcasm.
“I have…in the end,” Cinder insisted. She was quiet for a moment. “What’s happening to Vale isn’t your fault. You can’t take the sins of the world on your shoulders.”
“Then who will?”
“Nobody,” Cinder said. “But so what? Just because other people are too selfish or afraid to admit their own failings doesn’t mean that you have to bear them in their place? If you take that kind of attitude then you’ll invite men like that one just their to lay all their burdens at your feet and demand that you take responsibility for them.”
“He lost his whole livelihood because of your plan and my decision,” Sunset said. “How is that not our responsibility?”
Cinder hesitated. She sighed. “Alright, in that specific case…although that still doesn’t excuse the way he spoke to you. But what about everyone else who made a mistake or a decision that has led the world to this point? What about Ozpin? Why did he allow such a spirit of complacency to grow up in the kingdom that there was no emotional resilience in the face of danger? Why did he allow the power of Atlas to grow so great at the expense of all the other kingdoms?”
“That wasn’t his doing,” Sunset said.
“Wasn’t it?” Cinder asked. She rested her chin on her hand. “She hates him, you know.”
“Salem?”
“Mm,” Cinder murmured. “I didn’t understand it. It was a complete mystery to me: why should a god waste so much hatred on a mere mortal? It was like my hatred of Pyrrha but completely irrational to me, considering the vast disparity between the two of them. But now…now I begin to understand. He has been her opponent all this time, the grey spider sitting at the centre of the world-“
“Don’t talk about him like that,” Sunset said, with a little more sharpness than she intended. She softened her tone. “Please,” she said. “Don’t talk about him like that.”
Cinder didn’t seem to take offence. She barely seemed to notice. “You know what I mean,” she said. “For how many centuries has he directed affairs, opposing Salem’s will, moving his knights and pawns, guarding the four white queens. You and I we may have broken the world, but only because Ozpin had allowed it to become so fragile that one little shove was all it took.”
“That doesn’t actually help, considering we’re still the ones who gave it the shove,” Sunset said. 
“True,” Cinder said. “But I won’t blame myself for more than I deserve to take the blame for, and I don’t like to see you doing differently.”
The door from the doctor’s opened before Sunset could reply, and Cardin emerged onto the porch. “I heard shouting,” he said.
“Someone was giving me a piece of their mind, don’t worry about it,” Sunset said.
“They recognised you?”
“They also recognised why I was here,” Sunset said. “I told you not to worry.”
“I sometimes feel as though it’s my job to worry,” Cardin said.
“It’s a good thing you’re not out in the field where you’d bring the grimm,” Cinder said.
Cardin ignored her. Sunset ignored her too. “How’s the guy?”
“No improvement,” Cardin said. “I tried to speak to the other survivors and got nowhere with any of them. They’re all terrified.”
“I can under-“ Sunset stopped. Her eyes widened. “Terrified,” she repeated, as a chill of fear began to come over her in turn because she had the plan now, or feared she did.
“Sunset?” Cinder asked.
“Clever, clever monsters,” Sunset whispered.
“What?” Cardin demanded.
“Terrified!” Sunset yelled, getting to her feet. “All the survivors are terrified out of their minds and they’re all here and that’s probably making everybody else scared too.”
Cardin’s face paled. “You…you think they’re that smart? There’s no way that they’re that smart.”
“Except it looks like they are,” Sunset said. “Sami! Jack! Get over here!”
“Emerald,” Cinder called. “Where are you?”
The three of them emerged after a few moments, slinking out of the shadows as if they darkness had birthed them all. “What’s going on?” Emerald asked.
“We’re about to get hit it seems,” Cinder said. A smile fleeted across her lips. “We get to find out what that’s like from the other side for a change.”
“This isn’t funny,” Cardin muttered. “Get to the stockade, I’ll join you there in just a moment. Sheriff! Sheriff Butternut!”
The old sheriff, approaching down the street, stopped as Cardin jogged towards him. “Something wrong, Captain?”
“What’s the sturdiest building in town, sheriff?”
“Uh, most likely the old church,” the sheriff said, and a quick glance told Sunset that he was probably right. It was an old fashioned building, built when such things were built to last, with thick stone walls and stout wooden doors. 
“Get everybody inside there, bar the doors and windows, nobody comes out until I give you the all clear.”
“What’s going on? Is it-“
“I don’t know yet,” Cardin admitted. “But better safe than sorry.”
“Okay.”
Sunset led her team to the wooden palisade that marked the edge of Threadneedle, she was the first to climb the ladder that led onto the platform that sat atop the wall of wooden poles, from where she could look out across the deserted farmland beyond. Torches burned along the wall, giving a little illumination on the parapet but making it harder to see out into the darkness beyond that point. She could just about make out a ditch beyond the palisade, filled with sharpened stakes only a few of which had fallen down. 
In the town itself the church bells began to toll, calling the people to seek sanctuary within. 
Cardin joined the team on the parapet. “Do you see anything?”
“No,” Sunset admitted, squinting out and trying to see past the glare of the torches. “Sami? What do you see?”
“Oh, sure, because all faunus can see in the dark.”
“Do you see anything or not?” Sunset demanded.
Sami narrowed her eyes. “I can see…” she reached for her belt and pulled out her jagged knife with its antler handle. “Yep, looks like you were right boss.”
The breeze blew across the deserted fields, brushing through Sunset’s burning hair. For a moment more the sound of the church bells tolling deeply behind them was the only sound to disturb the stillness of the night. 
And then the howling began. 
It was beowolves then, not ursai. Ursai might roar but they did not howl in so distinctively lupine a fashion, and they never seemed to delight in making the heavens shake with the sound of their howling as the beowolves did. It did not quite have so great an effect; it sounded a much smaller pack than Sunset had faced in Vale, but it sounded enough to tear the town apart if they were not stopped. 
Good thing we’re here then, isn’t it?
Cardin carried a pistol now in addition to his mace, a pistol that was bigger than his meaty hand and looked so heavy that he couldn’t have lifted it without aura. He pointed it at a forty-five degree angle to his head, and pulled the trigger; there was a bang, and a fire-dust flare round shot from the barrel to rise slowly into the air, crackling like a firework as it began to descend towards the ground. 
In the red haze of light that it spread out like a little sun Sunset could see the beowolves: more than a score of them, less than two score; call it thirty over all; and in the midst of them a pegasus. 
Sunset wished that she didn’t have to call it so; it seemed an insult to the people of her home to misuse their name upon this twisted creature of nightmare in the same way that it would have done to call a karkadann a unicorn. But pegasus was the name given to it in the bestiaries, so what else was she supposed to call it for all that it was nothing like the pegasi she knew. It was, however, a horse like grimm with great black wings spread out on either side of it, and equine hooves that would have explained the tracks in the midst of the beowolf pack. It’s face was bone, and jagged teeth dropped and rose from its jaws, but there was little other bone visible on its black and oily form; it was about as tall as the walls of Threadneedle – although they only stood twelve feet high at most, so this grimm was still young, or Sunset though it likely so. 
But it would have been enough, had there been no huntsmen here.
Young as it is, did it come up with this plan?
There was no time to ponder upon that, for the grimm were charging now and by the light of Cardin’s flare Sunset could see that they were not alone; more beowolves were joining them, and ursai from out of the woods drawn by the fear of the survivors of the farm attacks, and even a nevermore – no, two! – swooping across the moon before diving down into the night sky, banking gracefully as they closed with the ground until they were flying just above the heads of the advancing, growing horde of grimm. 
The odds would have been pretty, well, grim if they had not been there. Now that they were there they could probably take on a force this size, but if they waited to receive them on the wall there was a good chance – considering that there were only six of them – that some grimm would breach the defences, enter the town, and do who knew what mischief before they could be hunted down.
Fortunately, Sunset had an alternative. 
She didn’t reach for her gun. Instead, she held out her hands towards the grimm and concentrated. It was a pity that she needed to concentrate, but while unicorn magic was second nature to her the pegasus powers she had only recently acquired took some work to get to grips with still. Especially when she was aiming for effects as spectacular as this. 
The grimm pegasus was charging now, shrieking as it came, but Sunset wasn’t too worried. She was about to show this pretender what real pegasus magic was all about. 
Real pegasus magic? Listen to me, when I was in Equestria I despised pegasi. 
But then, when I was in Equestria I despised pretty much everypony.
“Uh, boss?” Sami said. “What are you doing?”
“Something magnificent,” Cinder said. “Or making herself look slightly stupid, but I hope it’s the first one.”
Sunset glanced at her, and grinned just a little. 
Step one: pegasus power. Weather be at my command.
It took concentration. She was used to the feeling of magic at her fingertips – or horn tip – she was used to feeling connected to the flow of arcane energies; she wasn’t used to feeling connected to the wind and the rain as well, she wasn’t yet used to getting goosebumps before the storm rolled in, she wasn’t used to feeling the wind change before it happened, she wasn’t used to knowing that there would be no more snowfall before the seasons turned. She especially wasn’t used to being able to do something about all of those things if she really wanted to. But she was connected, and she could do something about those things, and right now she really, really wanted to. She hadn’t asked for these powers but she had, it seemed, sweated and toiled to attain them and so right now, when she needed them, she was going to get her sweat and toil’s worth out of them. 
The winds began to rise. Sunset – whose control over these powers was as less than perfect as her ability to get them working in the first place – was aiming to start the winds in front of her, and mostly they were just not all of them. She felt them on her back, blowing through her hair and making the torches on the wooden wall flicker, but far more she saw them blowing in the faces of the grimm, gusting at them, beating at them in an inexorable wave that halted their advance dead in its tracks. Beowolves standing on their hind legs were knocked over and skidded backwards in the dirt while the others got down on all fours to dig their claws into the ground. The pegasus folded up its wings and shrieked into Sunset’s gale, its cry competing with the howling of the wind. The nevermores were held in place, beating their dark wings just to stay in one place. 
And Sunset wasn’t done yet. She put more power into it, summoning not only wind but storm and tempest, conjuring black clouds in the skies above, dragging the condensation into place, compacting it, forming the clouds and crushing them together until they were sodden and unstable, then unleashing them all. Rain joined the wind to blow into the faces of the grimm, but not just rain; thunder rolled as lightning slashed down from out of the dark clouds to hammer the grimm like the fire of an Atlesian cruiser, lancing from the heavens to the earth in patterns like twisted swords and tridents and wicked spears, lightning up the darkness for a moment and then plunging all back into darkness once again. 
The torches had blown out, but Sunset still didn’t cast a nightvision spell upon her eyes partly because she wasn’t ready to try and intermingle pegasus and unicorn magic at the same time quite yet but also because the lightning strikes would have blinded her night eyes instead of lightning up the night for her to see that she had brought down the shrieking nevermores – one was ash already and the other was on the ground with what looked like an injured wing – and struck down beowolves and the pegasus was shrieking in what looked like panic as the lightning struck all around it and the grimm that it had mustered withered in the onslaught of the storm. 
Sunset’s companions on the wall could see that a pair of wings had appeared on Sunset’s back: a pair of wings of golden light, glowing like a setting sun behind her. 
Step two: unicorn magic.
Sunset left the clouds to spend themselves and the winds to crack their cheeks until there was nothing left – they began to die down as soon as Sunset took her attention away from them, but it would take a while for them to be fully gone; Sunset’s hand shook ever so slightly, and her knees trembled, but she ignored them both as she switched from the unfamiliar hilt of the sword that was her pegasus powers to the familiar blade that was her unicorn magic as she grabbed with telekinesis all of the wooden stakes in the ditch facing the oncoming – a little less oncoming now – grimm. Sunset grunted a little at the effort as she wrenched the stakes out of the ground, lifting them up into the air, levelling them like the hedge of spears that the phalanx presents to the enemy, then launching them straight ahead like a rain of arrows darkening the skies towards an oncoming enemy. Now she cast a nightvision spell, to let herself see the effects as the wooden stakes shot forwards, impaling beowolves and ursai, ramming into the pegasus’ knee, slaying small grimm and injuring the large ones. 
A barrage of magical missiles leapt from Sunset’s fingertips, raining down like artillery fire, the green explosions lighting up the darkness as the grimm howled in pain, dying or losing limbs as they scrambled to avoid Sunset’s fire which swept across the field. 
Step three: Earth pony stamina or else I’d probably have passed out by now.
She collapsed anyway, her knees buckling beneath her and forcing her to grab the wooden wall for support. Cinder grabbed her, taking her by the arm with one hand, her other hand hovering nearby at the ready.
“It’s alright,” she said. “I’ve got you.”
“And we’ve got this,” Cardin said. “I don’t know…I just don’t know, but nice work. Now come on, let’s finish them off!”
He didn’t wait for the others to follow him before he leapt over the wall. His first leap carried him easily down to the ground, while his second carried him just as easily over the now empty ditch as he charged the remaining grimm. Not waiting for the others was a mistake – had he forgotten that this wasn’t Team WSTW? He needed to spend the amount of time with them that Sunset had been forced to endure – but with Cinder glaring at them Emerald was the first to follow, then Jack and Sami after. Cinder waited with Sunset on the wall. 
“If you want to grab some glory,” Sunset murmured. “Don’t feel obliged to hold back upon my account.”
Cinder snorted. “Glory,” she said. “I think we’ve both had our fill of glory…and of the consequences from our seeking it, have we not?”
“Yeah,” Sunset said. “It got a little more trouble than it was worth, in the end.”
Cardin, Jack and Sami made short work of the remaining beowolves; Cardin set about him with his mace, bludgeoning the remaining grimm to death with mighty blows that crushed their skulls beneath the impact; Jack didn’t bother using his semblance, only his shotgun and his axe which took less effort on his part; Sami’s semblance was the uncanny – and frankly somewhat unnerving – ability to know exactly where to strike for a killing blow, and so with astonishing agility she leapt over lunging beowolves with a grace denied to the greatest of gymnasts, plunging her knife into the napes of their necks and slashing out their throats. Between Cardin’s powerful blows, Jack’s weapon, Emerald’s skill with her chained blades and Sami’s semblance they soon wiped out those beowolves who had survived Sunset’s power. The wounded nevermore perished under a combined attacked from Sami and Emerald as the latter used her chains to drag it down so that Sami could strike. Cardin charged a large ursa, covered in bone and spikes to mark its years, and knocked it off its feet before hitting it in the face until its bony mask collapsed and it began to turn to ash. 
Only the pegasus remained, and though wounded and bereft of all its followers it continued to attack, dashing forward with a furious shriek as its beowolves died around it, kicking Jack to the ground and trampling over him – it didn’t look as though it had broken his aura, but he would definitely be sore afterward – as it rushed towards the fall, its wings spread out on either side, its red eyes burning with wrath. 
It leapt, its wings carrying it as it flew towards the wall, the wooden wall which it was almost certain to break through if it struck.
Sunset raised her hand, and focussed her magic. 
Fail Safe.
Her hand glowed green, and the pegasus exploded as the magic that was sustaining it in such a monstrous form was disrupted by Sunset’s counterspell, releasing its essence of darkness in all directions as the vapour of the creature was cast to the four winds. 
Sunset sagged in Cinder’s arms as, her magic spent, she began to slip into unconsciousness. 



When she came too she was strapped into the co-pilot’s seat of a Bullhead. 
Cardin was in the pilot’s seat, and he glanced at her as she stirred to wakefulness. “Perfect timing, we’re almost there.”
Sunset blinked, and rubbed her eyes. It was day, the sunlight coming in through the front window. She twisted around in the seat so that she could look behind her and see that the main compartment was empty; they were the only two people in the airship. “Where’s everybody else.”
“Cinder’s herding the cats until you get back,” Cardin said.
“I see,” Sunset murmured. “And where are we?”
“On your way to see Ruby,” Cardin said. “I decided to drop you just a little way away, so you’ll have to walk about ten, fifteen minutes. I don’t know how they’d feel about a Bullhead landing on their front lawn.”
“That’s smart and considerate,” Sunset said. “Two things I never thought I’d…you know what, I don’t have the energy to insult you right now, especially when you’re doing me a solid favour. You didn’t have to fly me all the way out here.”
“No,” Cardin agreed. “But if I didn’t then I’d have to let you stay away longer while you walked all the way across the island. If I fly you over, and pick you up, I can get you back sooner.”
“Thanks,” Sunset said. “For letting me go at all.” She frowned. “You know, I didn’t ask this on the flight over, but when did you learn how to fly a Bullhead?”
“My parents gave me flying lessons for my sixteenth birthday,” Cardin said.
“Of course they did,” Sunset muttered. “How long do I have?”
“Two days,” Cardin said. “I’ll come back here with the team to pick you up, then we’ll head back to Vale.” He paused. “I won’t even pretend to know what it is that you need from her, but whatever it is I hope that you get it.”
“I appreciate that,” Sunset said. “I just…”
“What?”
I just wish that I knew whether I wanted to get it or not. I wish that I knew whether I want Ruby to agree to head off on her own all the way to Anima without a team to back her up, looking for someone she has no idea how to find, braving all the perils of this war again but this time doing so alone.
She could go to Mistral and try and get help from Jaune and Pyrrha but even that will be a perilous road alone. 
I’m not entirely sure whether I want her to embark upon it.
But I know that someone must.
“Nothing,” Sunset said softly. “How much further?”



Farmer Maggot was alerted to something strange first of all by the barking of his three dogs; Grip, Fang and Wolf were big Mistralian wolfhounds, the shaggy-haired beasts that some huntsmen used to help them hunt down and fight grimm; Maggot kept them because, living out a little closer to the middle of nowhere than most, he might have need of that kind of strength to protect himself and his family, and he might have need of the kind of awareness too that led to all three dogs, who had been dozing in front of the fire just a moment earlier, to rise to their feet and start barking fit to wake the baby and set her wailing as well. 
They were well trained dogs, and he knew that they wouldn’t bark at nothing; when he bought them as mere pups the fellow who sold them to him told him that they’d had their auras unlocked, so that they could sense wickedness as well as tear a beowolf’s throat out with their teeth. So Maggot didn’t scold the animals, or tell them to quiet down. Rather he motioned for his wife to take the little one upstairs while he reached for the .73 rifle that hung on the wall near his armchair.
It was then that he heard a sound like a discordant trumpet howling in the air outside loud enough to make the windows shake in their fittings. 
Farmer Maggot felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stand on end. He had never heard of any grimm that made a sound like that. 
He couldn’t see anything out the windows, and it wasn’t just the darkness of the night. It was as if there was a smoke beyond, as though his fields were burning except that he couldn’t smell any fire. He could only see a smoke that was making it impossible to see anything else. 
“Here boys, here, to me,” he murmured, as he loaded his gun and walked cautiously to the door, chaining it before he opened it just a crack, holding his gun out before him. 
He still couldn’t see anything beside the smoke, but he also could still not smell anything burning out there. 
But then, where was the smoke coming from. 
A light illuminated that thick, dark smoke, a light like a red flame, streaking backwards as though it was on the move. The smoke cleared a little, and Maggot thought that he could make out a horse, a giant horse wreathed in darkness. 
He couldn’t see a rider. 
“Rrrrruby….” Hissed a voice from out of the smoke. “Rrrrrrose.”
“Ruby Rose?” Maggot repeated. “You mean…you mean Tai’s little girl?” He knew the family just a little; when the girls were young their mother had brought them strawberry picking in his south field, paid a very good price for all that they picked too. That was a long time ago, of course, nasty business, but Taiyang himself sometimes came by to pick up a sack of carrots or some fresh mushrooms. 
He hadn’t been by for a while, but it had been little Ruby herself who had been last, poor lass. More nasty business, if he heard right. 
“Rrrrruby Rrrrrose,” the hissing voice repeated, and as it spoke the burning light in the darkness burned brighter than before, and his dogs let out a trio of yelps as though they had been burned and leapt backwards, retreating in the face of who or whatever was at the door. 
The gun dropped from Farmer Maggot’s hands as his arms became too weak to hold onto it. “That way,” he said, pointing out through the crack of the door. “You want that way.”
There was a moment of stillness, and of near quiet; then, with a sound of hooves thumping upon the ground, the light began to move away and the smoke began to clear, leaving only the dark of the night to contend with. 
Farmer Maggot sagged against the doorframe as a sigh of relief escaped his lips.
Only after a moment did he become aware that there were lights in the darkness, more red lights creeping closer and closer.
They were the eyes of beowolves.