//------------------------------// // Chapter 41: Virtues and Elements // Story: Fillies and Monsters // by Solaris Vult //------------------------------// In the beginning… There was nothing, then the Father created the universe… It was a small universe, as Father was only so powerful, only a single world, with two moons, and a ring… These were all the planetoids in this little universe… Then, Father died. Father died to give his planet life, intelligent life, but Father was a complicated entity, and not all of him flowed into his creations… He had three children, three powerful, magical entities that could shape the universe to his will, two of them vowed to continue their Father’s legacy, and created the rest of the universe, separate from Father’s sphere of space, done out of respect for their creator… But the third, he simply stayed around Father’s planet, he didn’t like his own existence, he was entropy, he was Father’s desire to not exist given form, and his goal was to return the universe to entropic chaos from whence it came. He failed… He failed because Father had given his mortal creations the means to change the universe, six magical artefacts… And these were able to change this being, his memory wasn’t erased forever, it came back, but he was a different being now, closer to the mortal kind. When the third child was turned into a semi-mortal entity, around the same time there was much death and destruction on the Father’s world, and with that, most of the Father’s remnants were destroyed, so Father tried to reform himself, to return, but this was interrupted… Thus, the third child was given the title Traitor, as he was the one who set that chain of events into motion, given this title by his former brothers, who had sensed Father’s permanent death… Seeing no reason to keep the pocket world separate from their own, the two children warped it into their universe...  Those relics, those artefacts that could change reality, those eventually took on special properties by their users and were given the name of Elements… Each based on a virtue. But there are many virtues...  Diamond was lying in her bed, it was a long day, longer still after all that racket outside, with Blake and her teammates arguing, first from their room, then from outside… She was tired, she just wanted to sleep, perhaps then she would stop thinking about her one friend, the one friend who she left behind… Where are you, Silver Spoon, do you miss me? Repeated in her head over and over again, she hated Equestria, she hated living with her family, here she was free from that Celestia-Damned mother of hers, even her father wasn’t the best pony to be in the same room with, even if he was far more tolerable… But, going away from that took her away from her only friend… She just wanted to get through school now, she just wanted to complete it as best as possible so she could return to her world and finally see her friend again, she just hoped that those idiots she called teammates wouldn’t get in the way of that… Slowly, Diamond drifted off to sleep… She had dreamt the same dream for weeks now, wandering in a dark castle in the middle of the void. Leadership doubted in the comfort of her bed…. Sweetie Belle was sitting in the hospital bed, she was perfectly fine, her aura protected her from the worst of the faulty teleportation, but she would rather sleep here than with that pile of ponyfeathers she called a leader… She somewhat wished she ended up on a team with Ruby, Yang, and Blake… At least there she would be the obvious choice for leader, and she wouldn’t be stuck with a pony she hated… She opened up her spellbook, wanting to get her mind off Diamond, and returned to figuring out the teleport spell. After hours of sleepless study, she was getting no closer to comprehending the spell’s interlacing, it was an important part, as it made sure everything was connected, and the magical code was in the right order, acting as a moderator for the energy and keeping the spell stable… Last time, the safeties activated too late to ensure a safe teleportation, but no matter how hard she studied that part of the spell, it didn’t seem correct… Getting tired, she decided simply to lay back down and study the spell some more tomorrow… But then, she flipped the page, and saw another rather complicated spell pattern, but one with far less intricacy, as it didn’t deal with the translation of physical material, but rather with one’s consciousness… Haycartes' Method. Sorcery learned her secrets by the light of the moon. Apple Bloom was on the roof, a nice, quiet place, where they could train in peace… She let Jaune raise his sword, he charged, he was getting faster and stronger, she retaliated, putting only a portion of her strength into her punches, he dodged quite a few strikes and blocked one with his shield, and he knew when to counterattack. Apple Bloom missed a punch, and Jaune replied by thrusting his sword into her chest… Apple Bloom gave a pained grunt and fell back, hissing at the pain in her chest. Jaune rushed to her aid, realizing that he hit her in the same place Cardin did. Apple Bloom gritted her teeth, she was going to get that piece of crap back for that, somehow, without getting into more trouble… Determination vowed vengeance for herself and her friends. Scootaloo sat on the roof, somewhere else she heard the clash of fists and swords, someone getting a late-night training session done. Up above, she saw the stars, glittering… Somewhere, around one of them, was her home, her aunts, her parents, her Rainbow Dash. She was always alone, her parents were never around, she tended to avoid her aunts, but this was the first time she was so far from Rainbow, in truth, she always had a crush on that mare… She would fully admit that, not to her of course, the embarrassment would kill her, but none the less… Does Rainbow even know where she is right now, does she even care that her biggest fan and admirer was gone… Of course she does, silly filly, Scootaloo thought to herself… But that little doubt gnawed at the back of her mind… She closed her eyes, and, wordlessly said up into the sky; Celestia… Luna… Please, tell me that Rainbow Dash is safe, tell Rainbow that I’m safe, let us see each other again, some time, it doesn’t have to be soon, but some time, don’t let me get killed out here, in this strange and alien world... Camaraderie prayed to the stars above. Ruby sat in the corner of the room, to anyone else, they would think she was sleeping peacefully in her seat, but she wasn’t she was deep in thought… Visions, blurry memories, ones she bearly remembered, bubbled to the front of her mind… She did this, every night, trying to conjure up visions of her mother, but she could never form them… She knew what her mother looked like, she had seen pictures, but she wanted to know what happened. Why did you go off and die like that, she wondered… It was that question that sent her to Beacon, but now that she was here, she was no closer to the truth than when she wasn’t. She had even asked Glynda, but while she knew Summer, she didn’t have any answers… One day, one day she would figure out, but until then, she would train, she would become a huntress, hopefully, so she could figure out the truth, but even if that wasn’t possible, she would, at the very least, fight and die so others wouldn’t have to, she would protect people, that way no one else would lose their mothers and fathers. Purity sat in the darkness and questioned her future and past.  Weiss was reading what, to anyone else, would look like a folder of papers, but, in reality, it was much stranger… That Sweetie girl had given it to her when they returned to Beacon after that little excursion to Vale, and the contents of its pages had her confused and interested… She practised that telekinesis that Sweetie used all the time, even in class, writing with that strange green field… Weiss focused, formed the shape of the glyph in her head, and willed a pen she had lying on the bed with her to rise. A pale field of bluish-white formed around it, and it slowly started to rise, but it was hard, keeping the mental image of that glyph while pumping her aura into it, then, her concentration broke, and the pen dropped. She sighed, and tried again, but found her mind wandering… She wanted to be team leader, that much was true, but, seeing as that idiot had taken her place, she would just have to make do… She just hoped, at the very least, through trial and error, that Ruby girl would become a good leader. But, the thing that really intruded on her mind was that girl, Sweetie, what exactly was she, and why did she have this strange book… Her mind wandered all over the place, forming up crazy theories, perhaps she was one of those legendary Maidens, she didn’t look thousands of years old, nor did Weiss believe in that stuff any more, but she knew that legends and stories started somewhere, or perhaps Sweetie just had a better grasp of what a semblance was than even the atlesian science department, unlikely though… Hell, she could be some strange alien creature from another world disguised as a faunus, but that was stupid… Sitting there, in the corner of her bed, she pondered, but not finding any answers, all the questions pushing all the stuff about Blake to the back. Defiance wonders by the light of her soul. Blake was curled up in the corner of her bed, she just woken up and it was the very earliest hours of the morning, the echos of gunfire and screams still haunted her dreams, fears of failure, fears of that mask, pale white, fears of the White Fang, and that black suit and crimson blade, hunting for her… She was frozen, wanting to run, to flee Beacon, but she knew that they would stop her… Her eyes wandered to the other bed, with Ruby up top and Weiss on the bottom, both were sleeping peacefully, Weiss with a pile of papers in her hands… But how long would that last… Weiss had accepted her, even if she was White Fang, Ruby was one of the few people Blake would consider a good friend, well, other than that Sweetie Belle, but she was a fellow faunus, Ruby was human… Then, there was the sound of someone shifting up above, and a flowing curtain of yellow hair fell over the side of the bed… And, of course, Yang… She felt cold inside… The White Fang was bound to come, sooner or later, Adam, she knew, at the very least, was after her. So, how long would it all stay happy, could she protect her friends from what was her problem, and her’s alone. Justice fears her past failings. Yang was only half-asleep… In that restful period where you’re conscious, but you have yet to open your eyes or move out of bed, when you’re still somewhat in a dream and what you envision in your mind is far more vivid. She lay there, flexing the muscles in her arms just a bit, imagining punching a whole team from Mistral into submission, going on to the final round of the tournament like she had seen on the holovision. She stands there, her team, her sister, by her side, Ruby hugging her tightly as she holds victory in her grasp, the entire stadium cheering, Vale victorious… The look in her sister and dad’s eye when she finally wins… She used this vision of a potential future to push away the questions she had about her mother, and it worked, she tasted victory, if she could at least see her sister happy, she could live without the answer to that mystery. Strength dreams of glory and might and the joy of family. The sun was just starting to rise over the day… Classes would start back up in only three days, despite that, Jaune raised his sword and swung at a holographic training dummy, that of a beowolf… He sliced its digital head clean off in a swing, and for the first time in a while… He felt good. Next time Cardin came after him, he was going to give him a piece of his mind, and a sword to back it up… He hoped so, he hoped that he would get back at that jerk for what he did to Apple Bloom...  Willpower endures the blows of mediocrity to rise above it. Pyrrha sat on her bed, watching the sunrise… Nora and Ren were still sleeping, Jaune was in the yard below, training, and it brought a smile to her face, seeing that little boy getting stronger… She pulled out her own weapon and whetstone and started quietly sharpening it, she would need to keep herself in top condition too, particularly if she wanted to graduate and become a great warrior… Just thinking that though conjured up memories about her life in Argus, about being forced into Sanctum the moment she came of age by her father, her wish, as a child, to be a cook or musician, and how she practised with her harp when she was given free time, not that she had much, as she was constantly training, constantly fighting… No one would beat her, that was what her father wanted, no she would be invincible… Soon she found the little scraping against the stone to slowly form a tune, and she hummed along, the tool becoming an instrument… She was free now, she didn’t have to train, she could buy a harp at a store, one was sure to sell one… But what would her father say, what would her fans think, giving up the life of a warrior for one of music… No, that wasn’t what she was going to be, even if she wanted it… Her eyes wandered back out to the yard where Jaune was training… If only she was born in the lowlands of Mistral, in the rural farming towns, if only she was Jaune, living a life where one could rest safely, knowing that tomorrow won’t bring combat, blood, and potentially, death. She closed her eyes, and sound of metal on stone stopped. Sacrifice recollects on dreams shattered and a forgotten future. Silver Spoon was still asleep… Every night, since the moment she came to this school, all her dreams were the same, wandering some vast and empty desert… She had asked the other students, but they always had different dreams, often strange. She knew, just from the existence of Princess Luna, that ponies had a different relationship to dreams than most other creatures, and she wondered what about this place caused such a thing. The desert was vast, but not hot, it was rather cool, but bright, with the unrelenting sky a pure and blinding white… But, off in the distance, something, a glint of gold, caught her attention… She had wandered the dream realm for some time now, and sometimes, she would see a shape in the distance, but she would always be woken up before she got to it… Now, once again, she marched toward that strange shape, and it slowly resolved itself. It was a door, an ornate golden door, with a series of stone steps leading up to it from a stone monolith. But, it wasn’t the strange gateway, standing all alone, with no building to lead into or out of, that caught her eye, rather it was the glass orb encased in a framework of polished gold that she was most attracted to… The orb floated off its plinth, glowing with a soft blue light… She took the strange thing in her hands, it was light, almost weightless… Then, a moment later, she opened her eyes and saw the canvase, plaster, and wood walls of her dorm room, the rest of her team lying on nicely constructed bunks. Something was poking into her hand, and she opened her palm to see the strange trinket from her dreams, as small as a toy, resting in the hands… Once she opened them, it grew to the size of her head, luckily, no one else was awake to see this… She focused, and it grew smaller, without thinking, she stuffed it into a backpack and then went to go get dressed for the morning. Dreams uncover secrets not meant for her eyes. The vehicle was surprisingly smooth, smoother even than a pegasus chariot, when in one of those you could feel the wind on your mane, and your inertia being thrown around as you moved up and down and side to side… Here, you felt nothing, as if the clouds passing by were merely an image on a screen. Twilight was cuffed, a hard metal cuff without any dust inside it… The others, Rarity and Spitfire, were both cuffed but with those weird gravity-bolas, she remembered those agents calling them. They were clearly being taken someplace far, far, away… The trip had taken all night, but she could see the shape of a large, metal, and quite frankly, scary-looking airship ahead. She could easily escape, the cuffs were just metal, and had no magical dampening properties to it, even if they were cold-iron, like the rings used on unicorn prisoners, she would still be able to channel her powers, just not with any real precision. But, she waited, she didn’t have much of a plan to escape, although she was sure she could come up with one, she wanted to talk this out with whoever was in charge, and surely, aboard that airship was some form of authority… Whoever this “General Ironwood” was, she was certainly powerful, and she had managed to convince Spike to say hidden the entire time, Rainbow wasn’t aboard the vehicle though, Twilight wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Magic stalls as the rings of cause and effect twirl around in an unseen dance. Rainbow ran through the doorway, “Spike!” She yelled at the top of her lungs, the whole of the Laywind family was away, and it was easy to sneak in through a window left open. Spike was nowhere to be found, she cursed under her breath, then left the way she came, flying through the window, out into the cold Atlesian air… She would find her friends, she wouldn’t abandon them, let them get captured… After briefly swooping into Pietro’s shop, the man just getting off a call with his daughter, she got the name and location of where this “Princess Ironwood” or whatever she was called, was heading to, she was undoubtedly the one in charge, and the one who would have her friends all locked up… She would break them out, she would save them… With a beat of her wings, she shot off southward, a sonic boom following behind her, soon followed by a rainboom, as coloured lights danced across the ocean, a distant halo of light being seen in the early morning by the citizens of Atlas. Loyalty protects, charging into battle to save those closest to her Ozpin was sitting in his seat, the sun had yet to rise, and he flipped through the messages in his scroll… He was thinking of those girls, those faunus… Sweetie Belle with her strange semblance, and Apple Bloom with her incredible strength, despite her semblance being something else, that control over plants… But, his mind was derailed when he saw a new message appear on his scroll… Qrow… “The Queen has pawns…” His hands grew cold, he knew what that meant, there was an infiltrator, a servant of the Queen, here in Vale… He gave a sigh, it was very likely that she would set her sights on the city, just as one of the greatest holidays in this world was about to unfold… He would need to be vigilant, luckily, Ironwood had similar concerns, and he knew the general was only a few days away. He just hoped everyone would go peacefully… Corrupted Kindness worries about his friends and foes alike. Qrow set the glass on the table, slamming his lien down on the table and drunkenly wandering out of the bar… He put his scroll away, message to Ozpin had finally sent… He had been hanging around Mistral for the past few weeks, trying to catch the trail of those who attacked Amber, but the trail was hard to catch, not surprising though, this was one of her agents after all… But, no one, not even she, was perfect… And rumours had spread, just going off of what Qrow knew of this person, her semblance and clothing and hair colour, he had picked up this agent’s trail and knew that she had been going back and forth from Vale and Mistral frequently, and, knowing about the upcoming tournament, and Ozpin’s current headquarters, it wasn’t hard to figure out where the Queen’s pawn was to strike next. So, he walked down an alley, and a small blackbird was all that left… Heading west on the wind. Luck returns to his true friends and family. Ironwood stood on the bridge of his flagship, B-2, and watched the waves of the north ocean, glaciers floating on the sea, when a beep from his console told him of an arriving vessel, a manta-class AAC… He pressed the button, authorizing it to land in bay three… He had a very good idea of what that was, no doubt those terrorists that his Ace Ops had captured… He turned and walked to the door to greet his new prisoners. Corrupted Loyalty defends his kingdom at all costs. Penny walked into the CCTS tower, asking to make a call to “Pietro Polendia’s clinic in Atlas.” Once she walked over to the terminal the AI teller had sent her to, she sat down, and a second or two later, the monitor turned on, showing the face of her father, as happy as ever. She began, talking about her time in the city, and how strange everything was, all the unique people, and the wonderful weather… Talking on and on about all the things she had never seen before in her short life. Empathy rejoices in the simple act of life. Snow was heavy in the air, and a rock that had fallen on the track presented a mighty inconvenient obstacle for the Friendship Express… The engineer had to wonder how a rock had fallen onto the track when the nearby mountain was still too far away to be causing landslides. The passengers inside wondered why the train stopped, that was when there was a scream from the back of the train, and the door was smashed down, in walked a menagerie of creatures, dragon, diamond dog, hippogriff, led by a strange pony, with the hooves of a deer, shiny crimson scales on its back, a bright red and curly mane, and a crimson horn that looked more branched, like the antlers of a deer… Her black coat shined in the evening light, and she drew a sword, mounted awkwardly to her hoof, blade made of glimmering magical crystal, while the ponies handed over their valuables, that didn’t save their lives. Corrupted Hope ends the lives of others so she may persist. The sun had just set, made so by magic, the night was her sister’s domain, so with nothing else to do for the day, the Princess walked back into her chambers and drew up another scroll sent by her student… The read was fascinating, an explanation of something called “Atlas Academy” and the huntsmen who were trained there… Of how these warriors were trained to combat the monsters of their world and used this strange “Aura” magic and made their own weapons for the job, each unique in its own way… Celestia pondered, and her eyes wandered to her poleaxe, sitting in the corner of the room, a weapon she hadn’t used in hundreds of years… She lifted it, moved it around in her magic, and felt a nice feeling of remembrance wash over her as she reflected the ages long ago when she too was a warrior. She muttered to herself, then, made an appointment with the engineer, Wolfram, to talk about some upgrades. Light remembered her past victories and prepares for the battles of the future. Luna had finished her job, the last pony in the ream had been checked for nightmares, with all the new developments going on, there were a few more than the weeks before, but that only meant more fun to be had, slaying the phantoms that crawled in the back of a pony’s mind… But, alas, it was time for her to face her own phantom… And so, Luna crawled into her bed, and closed her eyes, getting what sleep she could… Not that she wanted it, she didn’t deserve to sleep peacefully, and her dreams were never peaceful, she had made sure of that, she would always remember what she did wrong so she could ensure it would never happen again… There, in the world of her mind, she sat, waiting for the astral beast to make its move… Around her, she saw Ponyville, she saw the ponies she loved so dearly ever since that first Nightmare Night, when she first bestowed this curse upon herself… She heard the howling of a beast, coming from her own flesh, and she could only watch as she descended on the ponies she loved, and, the Tantibus controlling her actions, she leapt upon her friends and subjects, and ripped them to shreds with claws and teeth, not resting until every one rested dead at her hooves. Darkness wills herself to suffer so she may never forget her failings. The bullhead sailed through the air on its magical engines, humming loudly, finally, it came to land and the doors slid open… That strange and pompous human, with the black hat, white suit, and bright orange hair that wouldn’t look abnormal on any pony, walked past the blue-haired White Fang girl, shouting half-insults at the faunus around him… It was some kind of dock, with dozens of massive containers with the logo SDC printed on the side. The tow cables were retrieved and the airships were hooked up, ready to carry off the cargo… Cozy Glow just watched, and held her pistol at the ready should anyone come and see what they were doing… She needed a way to become the one in charge of this little organization, she needed to find her power… As she looked around, a human, almost as short as she was, walked past her, with brown and pink hair, a white suit, and eyes that always seemed to swap colours… Cozy and this girl looked each other in the eyes for a moment, then she retreated back into the cockpit. Corrupted Beauty schemes and plots for power, waiting for her chance to strike. Cinder, scroll in hand, sitting in an old warehouse on the other side of Vale, smiled as she heard that their plan to steal that atlesian shipment went off without a hitch, she clicked her scroll closed… She was going to talk about the next phase of her plan with Roman in person… They had sewn enough fear with all their heists, a rise in crime rate always put the people on edge, and it had made her a nice profit, not that she cared about the money, but it was useful, bribery could get a person far… Now, it was time to advance, now that the festival was starting in just a few weeks… And that meant it was time to lure in some grimm attacks… She turned, looking at her two minions, Emerald and Mercury, and got to her feet, walking out of the building, the two following behind… Corrupted Magic proceeds with dark plans for the arcane. The pit was complete, at last, it had taken a lot of sugars, and plant matter had only so much glucose in it… This wasn’t Equestria where the sweets flowed freely, and so it was hard to find enough to complete even this small portion of the hive, but now that it was done, they could really get started… Chrysalis turned to her subjects, all gathered below her, in the caves beneath Mountain Glenn… “Fly! Gather all the sugars you can, bring them back to me so we make chitin for our hive! Bring it back so we may breed more of our kind! And capture as many of those monsters you can find, so we may feast on their magic.” As her words died out, every member of the hive, driven both by loyalty and the slight influence of the Queen’s will, flew from the cracks of the ceiling, off into the sky, becoming birds with flashes of green… Off to collect so the hive may grow. Unity builds and fortifies for future conquest. Sitting on her throne of black and violet crystal, the Queen saw through the eyes of the seer she had at her disposal, into the office of a man who was once one of Ozpin’s most trusted… A very good and obedient tool he was… But, the news was somewhat worrying, four students, powerful, with semblances so very rare, had become students at Haven… A potential problem, and so, with a simple command, the Queen told the lion to deal with them, one way or another, send them on a mission they shouldn’t return from, and if they do, send them to the tournament, where they will die to her pawn’s scheme. Corrupted Generosity plots the downfall of kingdoms. And Chaos… Chaos moves ever onward.