Chrysalis
Blake folded her arms as she looked over Twilight's shoulder. "I'm sorry to drag you out of the lab like this," she said softly.
"Sorry?" Twilight laughed, twisting around in her seat to look at Blake. "Are you kidding? It feels great to be back out in the field again."
Blake frowned ever so slightly. "You're in an office," she reminded Twilight. A black-walled, black-floored and windowless office deep in the interior of the Mantle Command Headquarters building, in point of fact.
Twilight shrugged. "Closer to the field than I was," she said, in a quieter tone but with hardly less enthusiasm. "And who knows? I brought my armour with me, just in case." She added, nudging the grey box at her feet. "I've been making upgrades," she said, with a bright smile upon her face.
The corner of Blake's lip twitched upwards. "We'll see what happens," she said.
She hoped that General Ironwood would approve of the way that she had chosen to go about this assignment that he'd given her. He hadn't told her that she was allowed to drag Twilight out of the lab to do all the technical things that Blake couldn't - not that Blake was completely unskilled when it came to computers and the like, but there was a difference between being able to hack through a doorway in an SDC facility and being able to sift through all the security cameras in Mantle for any sign of Doctor Watts - any more than he had said that she could call up Rainbow Dash and Applejack and ask them to back her up on this; and, while neither Rainbow nor Applejack was doing anything else at the moment, the same could not be said of Twilight. Of course, the General hadn't actually said that she couldn't do any of these things either, and he had given her broad power and authority to request any necessary assistance that she required in the completion of her mission, but using that to second Twilight to Mantle HQ was perhaps not what he had had in mind.
It was, ironically, in part the powers that he had given her that had motivated Blake to do this; the fact that she had a note in her proverbial pocket - it was on her scroll if you wanted to be technical - giving her, a Specialist Junior-Grade, the right to requisition equipment, request assistance, perhaps even compel it depending on how you read into things, was frighteningly awe-inspiring to her. As a sign of the trust that General Ironwood reposed in her, it could scarcely have been clearer, nor could it have been clearer as a sign of the importance he attached to finding Watts. She didn't want to let him down. She would never have wanted to let him down, but especially not now when her first task for him came burdened with weighty import and expectations just as heavy. She'd always known that General Ironwood was putting his faith in her, but now that she felt just how much faith...she couldn't let him down.
And in any case, it was not mere laziness on her part that had prompted her to take this course of action to complete her mission. Perhaps General Ironwood really had meant for her to wear out her boots searching every street in Mantle by herself with her own eyes, but she kind of doubted it; it would be a very inefficient way of finding someone, especially since she hardly knew Mantle at all; she had hoped - and she had been right - that Twilight would be able to offer a more efficient way of getting things done. Similarly, while General Ironwood had assigned this mission to her and, it could be argued, her alone, Blake had chosen to approach her friends for backup on the grounds that she had little idea of how dangerous Watts might be; he might have no martial skills whatsoever, or he might be nearly as dangerous as Cinder Fall; if Blake confronted him alone and...failed to stop him, then he would be free to run riot in Mantle until General Ironwood sent someone else, but with backup, there were more chances to stop him and complete the General's instructions.
And, having decided that she wasn't going to go it alone, Blake's options for who she could approach for help were somewhat limited. There were only a few people in whom she could confide the whole context of her assignment, had the necessary skills and were available to help her out. Every decision that she had made so far had been a sensible one. Blake nodded to herself at that as she tried to push her concerns out of her mind; it was ridiculous to think that General Ironwood would trust her with an important mission and then not trust her to complete that mission in the best way possible.
That was how the four of them had come to be in this room, which Blake had requisitioned in the Mantle Command headquarters building, while Blake, Rainbow and Applejack waited for Twilight to do her thing.
The room was reasonably sized but bare, the black and windowless walls - Blake wondered if she'd been given an interrogation room - enclosing only a single table at which Twilight sat and worked. Twilight had set up a projector on the table and connected her scroll to it, so that she was projecting a baffling collage of hundreds, maybe thousands of images into the air before their eyes, every image constantly moving, changing, shifting position; even the picture of Doctor Watts himself which loomed - and leered - larger than any other image in the very centre of Twilight's projection was moving, switching from a front view, to profile, to the back of his head and then back again every couple of seconds.
Rainbow Dash paced up and down; when Blake gave her a slight glance, she stopped, but only to say, "So...what are you doing, Twi?"
"I'm running recognition software," Twilight explained. "Searching for Doctor Watts on all the security cameras in Mantle. If he shows up on any of these cameras, then I'll know about it, and so will you."
"You can do that?" Rainbow asked. "From your scroll?"
"Not ordinarily," Twilight said. "Only because the scroll is wirelessly linked to the servers here in the HQ."
"You know," Applejack observed from where she leaned against the wall. "When you put it like that, Twilight, it sounds kinda creepy."
"Only if you don't trust the authorities to use their powers with discretion and a due regard for the common good," Twilight replied plaintively.
"I trust some of the authorities," Applejack allowed. "I ain't sure that I trust everybody who might want to be the authorities."
"Who watches the watchers?" Blake murmured, her voice barely rising above a whisper.
Twilight heard her regardless and chuckled. "At the moment? You guys."
Blake snorted in amusement. She blinked, her ears pricking up a little as she had a thought. "Twilight, are those historic feeds?"
"No," Twilight said. "This is the real time information. If you want me to spool through the historic surveillance, I can run a program to do that, but it will take some time before it starts producing any output."
"Please, start it," Blake said. "If we can't find where Watts is now, then perhaps by identifying where he was, we can pick up his trail or work out what his objective is."
"Okay. Give me a second," Twilight said, and the images projected before their eyes were temporarily joined - and overridden - by a programming screen as Twilight typed in the necessary commands to start the historic search in parallel to the realtime one.
"So, no sign of him yet?" Rainbow said.
"No," Twilight admitted. "Not yet." She fell silent for a moment. "Does this seem odd to anyone else?"
"How do you mean?" Blake asked.
"I mean...Doctor Watts's hacking signature, for want of a better word, was found on the disabled defences that helped the grimm to infiltrate the Mantle sewers," Twilight said. "But if you wanted to sneak into Mantle, would you really use a method the grimm were almost certain to follow, thus revealing your activities? And to be so obvious about it too; I've read the report on the examination of the defences, and he didn't even try to cover his tracks."
"Our enemies are really bad at leaving their fingerprints all over the place," Rainbow said. "Remember the attack on the Vale CCT?"
Twilight shuddered. "I'm not likely to forget it."
Rainbow winced, but continued anyway. "The point is that the one thing you couldn't call it was subtle. These are the people who thought it was a smart play to launch a full frontal assault to plant a virus as though we'd never heard of a...that thing you did."
"A system scan?"
"Yeah, that," Rainbow said, nodding her head vigorously. "The point is these guys are as subtle as a beowolf trying to eat your face."
"Cinder was pretty short-sighted and full of herself," Twilight allowed. "But do we think so little of our enemies that they aren't capable of learning from their mistakes?"
"No," Blake said, bringing all eyes onto her. "We don't. They may have drawn attention to themselves by attacking the CCT, but they also..."
Applejack peeled herself off the wall. "You okay, sugarcube?"
Blake frowned in thought. "What's in Mantle?" she asked. "I mean, if you were an agent of Salem and you wanted to strike a blow against Atlas, why come to Mantle and not Atlas itself?"
"The security's tighter in Atlas," Rainbow said.
"It ain't no joke down here; look at all these cameras," Applejack replied, gesturing at Twilight's projection.
"There's a lot of damage that you could do here," Twilight pointed out. "If you sabotaged the heating grid, you could potentially kill the entire city or force its evacuation to other locations." Her eyes widened behind her glasses. "You don't think he's trying to sabotage the heating grid, do you?"
Blake didn't answer directly. She said, "What else?"
"He could try and shut this building down," Rainbow suggested.
Blake shook her head. "That's local. Is there anything here that affects the entire kingdom? The early warning system, communications, anything like that?"
Twilight shook her head. "All central systems like that are controlled from Atlas."
"Then why come here?" Blake repeated.
"What are you thinkin', Blake?" asked Applejack.
"I'm thinking that for all the times our enemies have been incredibly unsubtle," Blake said. "They've also proven themselves adept in using the feint."
"You mean this doctor fella ain't here, he just wants us to think he is? And chase our tails lookin' for him?" Applejack spat.
"I can't prove it," Blake admitted. "But...Twilight, while keeping up the facial recognition scans, can you...can you search for anything odd?"
"Odd?" Twilight repeated.
"I'm sorry that I can't be more specific," Blake said. "But I think that our enemy wants us to be looking at Mantle, which means that there is something else going on that we should be looking at instead...I just don't know what it is."
Twilight bit her lip. "I can actually think of one odd thing without searching. I got a notification this morning...let me back up a second...I...may have hacked the prison server in order to keep tabs on Chrysalis - don't look at me like that, Applejack; she tried to kidnap and replace my sister-in-law, she tried to brainwash my brother, I have a right to know what she's up to."
"She ain't up to nothing behind bars," Applejack said.
"That's just the thing," Twilight said. "I set my spyware up to notify me of any changes, and this is the first time I've been notified of anything: she's being taken from prison and transferred to Crystal City upon the orders of General Ironwood himself."
Rainbow frowned. "Why would General Ironwood send Chrysalis to Crystal City?"
"I don't know," Twilight said. "I...didn't have the courage to ask him because of how I shouldn't have this information, but...what if he didn't? What if Doctor Watts hacked the prison records too and ordered Chrysalis transferred so that he could rescue her. Salem has worked with the White Fang in the past."
"Can you check for a hack?"
"I can try," Twilight said.
"Do it; I'll contact General Ironwood," Blake said. She walked around the table, past Applejack, and close to the door out of the room. She pulled out her scroll and found General Ironwood amongst her contacts.
He answered promptly, his face appearing on her screen. "Belladonna," he said. "Any progress?"
"Possibly, sir," Blake said. "General, did you order the White Fang leader Chrysalis transferred from her holding facility to Crystal City?"
"Chrysalis?" General Ironwood repeated. "No. Why, and what does this have to do with Watts?"
"I think that Watts wanted us to be looking at Mantle to distract us from his objective," Blake explained. "Just like they used the grimm attacks on Vale to distract us from their objectives of extracting Amber and retrieving the Relic of Choice. And if you didn't order Chrysalis' transfer, then why is she being transferred?"
General Ironwood scowled. "I'll see if I can raise her transport and order it to turn around. In the meantime, you try and intercept the airship and, if this is Watts's goal, stop him."
"Yes, sir," Blake said. She pushed her scroll shut. "Twilight, have you found anything?"
"Not yet," Twilight murmured.
"Can you keep looking while we're in the air?"
"I think so," Twilight replied.
"Then grab your armour and let's move out," Blake declared. "Everyone, come on."
Chrysalis had no idea why she was being transferred, but after being stuck in solitary confinement ever since she’d been captured by that annoying little bookworm and her infuriating friends, she was willing to take whatever opportunity she could get to stretch her legs, even if it was only being walked – in shackles – out of her cell and being manhandled into a waiting Skygrasper where, guess what, more sitting down awaited her.
But even that wasn’t so bad. After being kept in a near lightless box with no windows, it was good to see the sun again, it was good to be able to see out of the cockpit of the airship, even if all she could see was the blue sky. Just because she was a mantis faunus and could see in the dark didn’t mean that she didn’t appreciate a touch of sunlight every now and then, the feel of it upon her face. When the androids walked her out of the prison towards the landing pad, and the chill wind had kissed her face and blown through her lank green hair, it had been the happiest moment since her capture.
It had brought a tear to her eye, or that might have just been the cold making her green eyes water.
Chrysalis could not feel the wind now, encased within the airship as she was, with her hands and her legs manacled and four Atlesian knights watching her every move, but at least she could turn her head a little and look out the cockpit window. It wasn’t as if there was much else to look at in this dull, grey airship.
When she had first been locked away by the Atlesian oppressors, she had made her own entertainment, but after the first few months, imagining creative and painful ways to murder Twilight Sparkle and take revenge on all the rest of those responsible for her undoing had begun to pall as ways of exercising the mind. After a certain point, you had to admit that you’d thought of all the really fun things you could do to her, or even to her corpse, for that matter. After a certain point, it all became rather dull.
After a certain point, the dawning realisation that you were never going to have the opportunity to do any of those gruesomely exhilarating things made imagining them feel not only pointless but vaguely counterproductive.
Not to say that her feelings of vengeful wrath had disappeared; given the chance, she would have gladly been revenged upon the whole pack of them, merely that she couldn’t allow herself to dwell upon that thought too much lest it lead her into despair.
They gave her no news of the outside world in prison; so Chrysalis had been left – in lieu of contemplating revenge – to imagine what might be going on beyond the walls of her little cell. The Atlesians had bound her within a walnut shell, but Chrysalis counted herself a queen of infinite space as she envisaged the triumphs of the White Fang’s cause, their inexorable rise from strength to strength, victory to victory. It was in Adam that she placed her hope. Sienna Khan was weak; she wasn’t willing to do what had to be done to lead their people to victory, she was too fearful of the drastic action that might invite a response, not realising that they needed to risk the response in order to gain the rewards worth fighting for. Sienna had failed to support Chrysalis’ plan properly, and in so doing doomed Chrysalis to ignominious failure from her lack of support; no, it was in the future that the White Fang must place its hope, that Chrysalis placed her hope. In young Adam Taurus and Blake Belladonna, the rising stars of their movement; it was those two, Chrysalis believed, who would lead the White Fang to greatness and the faunus to liberation. And so, as she wasted away in her solitary, lightless cell, Chrysalis whiled away the time consoling herself with fantasies of their triumphs and the downfall of Atlas.
Indeed, when her cell door opened, Chrysalis had for a moment believed that it might be Adam and Blake come to rescue her at the head of a mighty force of White Fang warriors…but that was just a dream, after all.
But at least she could see the sun again, for a little while. She might be on her way to who knew where, for who knew what purpose, she might be about to suffer yet more cruelties and indignities at the hands of the Atlesians, but at least she could see the sun again…for a little while.
Chrysalis was a woman of about thirty years old, with dark skin and green hair that had become long and slightly scraggly during her confinement, falling in stringy strands down her back and across her face. She had been born with an unusual number of animal characteristics even for a faunus – her gossamer wings, currently restrained from moving, and the fang-like incisors that gave her an especially bestial look when she snarled – that gave her a sense of being especially faunus. A faunus amongst faunus. Almost like a queen.
Small wonder that she had risen to leadership of the Atlas chapter of the White Fang, when nature itself had singled her out for greatness from the cradle.
And if she had not succeeded in her ambitions, then at least she had attained infamy; they would not forget the Canterlot Wedding in Atlas for a long time.
As she sat in the back of the Skygrasper, Chrysalis’ eyes narrowed. Something appeared to be wrong in the cockpit; although her android guards continued to stare at her, their mechanical faces impassive, up front, the pilots appeared to be concerned about something.
“-can’t get anything from Crystal City, or Atlas, or anywhere. Comms are down.”
“Could it be another failure?”
“When the CCT went down, they had time to transmit blackout protocol. Could someone be jamming us?”
“Who would want to jam our comms?”
The blue lights in the faceplates of the AK-200s flickered and turned red as the front two robots took aim at the pilots of the airship.
“What?” one of the two pilots cried, as he noticed the rifle aimed straight at him. “No-”
A fusillade of shots rang out. The cockpit window was stained with blood, blocking the view of the sky. That was unfortunate.
What was less unfortunate was the way that Skygrasper did not immediately begin to crash. Instead, it continued on its cause, straight and level, without disturbance.
One of the androids turned to face Chrysalis. She stared at it, her face impassive.
“So, you’re Chrysalis, former leader of the White Fang in Atlas,” issued a voice from out of the android; a male voice, older than Chrysalis herself, rich and slightly fruity. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
Chrysalis chuckled. “Of course it is. And you are?”
“I’m the person who’s controlling this airship and these androids. I’m the person who got you out of your cell. I’m the person who can decide your fate.”
“You are not the White Fang, then,” Chrysalis said, stating a fact, not asking a question. A White Fang rescue would never have couched itself in such terms.
“Indeed not.”
“Then I repeat my question: who are you?”
“My name is Doctor Arthur Watts, and I represent a very powerful interest who would like your assistance,” Doctor Watts said. “An interest who could be a very useful benefactor to the White Fang, if you wish her to be.”
“That is hardly in my gift to accept or deny,” Chrysalis replied.
“It could be,” Watts said. “Sad to say, but the White Fang is in something of a parlous state these days. Did they tell you that young Adam Taurus is dead?”
Chrysalis eyes widened. Adam, dead? Adam Taurus, the rising hope of the stern, unbending faunus, slain? Adam, their lord of war, their crimson sword, was dead? Even before Chrysalis’s capture Adam’s reputation had seemed unassailable; she had supposed that time had only burnished it yet further. “Dead?” she repeated. “How?”
“Murdered by the traitor Blake Belladonna,” Watts said.
“Blake?” Chrysalis cried. “Murdered by Blake?” She hissed in the face of the Atlesian knight, baring her fangs at it. “You lie!” she shouted. “Blake Belladonna was as much a hero to our movement as Adam was, she would never-“
“Quit?” Watts asked. “Join the Atlesian military? I’m afraid that’s precisely what happened. You think you know someone.”
“Why should I believe the words of someone I cannot even see, someone who hides behind a hacked android?”
“You don’t have to; I can prove it when we meet in person,” Watts said.
“Indeed? And when will that be?”
“Once I’ve confirmed that you are who I’m looking for,” Watts replied.
Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “And how will you determine that from so far away?”
There was a moment of silence. “What do you want, Chrysalis?”
“I want to see my people made strong and raised to rule over those who are less than they are.” The faunus were advantaged over the humans in so many ways, so why should they bow and scrape and beg for scraps from the table of those weaklings?
“No, that’s what a certain faction of the White Fang wants,” Watts said. “What does Chrysalis, and Chrysalis alone, want? What is your heart's desire?”
A slow smile spread across Chrysalis face. “You ask me what I want? I want all of those who locked me away to suffer and die at my hands. I want Councillor Cadenza and Shining Armour to scream in pain as I watch them die slowly for what they did to me. I want Twilight Sparkle to beg for mercy at my feet…but then I want to kill her precious friends one by one before her eyes until her pleas have changed from mercy to the sweet release of death and then, only then, will I deign to snuff out her life and end her misery. I want to be revenged upon the whole pack of them! That, Doctor Watts, is my heart’s desire.” She snorted. “So, what do you think? Do I pass your little test?”
Doctor Watts said nothing, but the Skygrasper began to descend towards the ground.
A moment later, the cuffs fell off her wrists and ankles to clatter to the floor of the descending Skygrasper.
Chrysalis rose to her feet, a little stiff from her long confinement, but with her aura once more unrestrained, she found the feeling coming back to her joints very quickly. She eyed the red-faced androids contemptuously as she made her way to the airship's cockpit, where the dead bodies of the two pilots sat slumped in their seats. She could destroy all four robots, she was certain...but she preferred to let this play out and see where the road led. Who knew, she might just take this Doctor Watts up on his offer after all.
And so she waited, watching out of the blood-stained windshield as the airship descended out of the clouds and set down upon the snow-covered ground, next to another airship of a unique design unknown to Chrysalis' eyes until this moment: sleek and black, made up of a series of sharp, angular sections quite unlike the usual boxy airship used in Atlas or Mistral, still less the bulbous Bullheads employed in Vale. It was as slender as a cigar, with no visible passenger capacity in the fuselage; rather, the cockpit consisted of two seats, one behind the other.
The back door of Chrysalis' Skygrasper opened with a hiss. The androids marched out into the snow, limbs clanking as they went, and after a moment, Chrysalis followed them out, blinking a little as the full force of the sun struck her dark-accustomed eyes.
A man was waiting for her, as slender as the aircraft that he stood beside, tall and sallow and dressed in a waistcoat and jacket which, combined with his collar unbuttoned and his tie worn loosely around his neck, gave the impression that he had just come home from a dinner party and was beginning to get undressed.
"Doctor Watts, I presume," Chrysalis said as she stepped down out of the airship and into the snow.
"I hope that my humanity doesn't offend you unduly," Watts replied. "Unlike the White Fang, my employer doesn't discriminate."
"Indeed?" Chrysalis murmured. "Then why is she interested in assisting the White Fang?"
"Her motives are her own," Watts replied blandly.
Chrysalis' eyes narrowed. "You serve someone without knowing what they want? And you expect me to do the same?"
"Why should it matter what she wants?" Watts answered. "All that really matters is what you want...and what you're willing to do to get it." He took a scroll out of his pocket. "We spoke of the White Fang earlier."
"You spoke much that I did not believe."
"Perhaps you will believe your own eyes," Watts replied, handing her the scroll.
Chrysalis snatched the device out of his hand, and began to read what he had placed there. It was human news, and thus propaganda, but at the same time...as Chrysalis read, eyes widening, a catalogue of betrayals and disasters so comprehensive she found that she could not tell herself that they were all fabrications: the White Fang in Vale defeated and Adam Taurus killed as he attempted to strike a blow against humanity; Blake, heiress to the Belladonna legacy and link between the past and future of the White Fang, had joined the Atlesian forces and was being feted by them; Atlesian troops on Menagerie! Chrysalis hissed with disgust. "I knew the High Leader was weak but this? To stand by and allow the occupation of our home? And Blake...this is no deception, is it? This is no deep cover to infiltrate Atlas and bring down our enemies from within?"
"Unfortunately not," Watts said. "You must understand, we tried to aid Adam Taurus in his assault on Vale, but young Miss Belladonna proved to be a considerable thorn in our side there."
Chrysalis growled. "Alas for the White Fang, that all your daughters have proved faithless." Why is it that conviction seems only to be found amongst our enemies?
"The White Fang needs leadership," Watts said. "Leadership that you can provide. It also needs a powerful backer."
"And that you can provide?"
"Indeed. Of course, quid pro quo, you'd be expected to take certain duties on board," Watts added. "But I guarantee that your revenge will be waiting for you at the end of the road."
"You guarantee it?" Chrysalis asked silkily. "That is a bold promise."
"My mistress never loses sight of what drives her faithful servants," Watts declared. "And those who serve her well, she well rewards. If you want to have your vengeance, if you want to see the faunus raised up high, then you will have no better chance than to come with me."
"And will I meet your mistress if I do?"
"Of course," Watts said. "I guarantee it will be an experience you'll never forget."
Chrysalis smiled. "Is this your airship, doctor? It is certainly a novel design."
"Yes, she is a charming thing, isn't she?" Watts replied. "A prototype of my own design. No carrying capacity or weapons, but faster than any airship in the skies and completely undetectable to scanners. I intended it to be a reconnaissance aircraft, but sadly, Atlesian military culture is far too self-righteously heavy footed to appreciate it: we're the good guys, we don't sneak around."
Chyrsalis' smile widened. "So tell me, Doctor Watts, who is that you covet revenge on?"
Doctor Watts looked at her, and his own smile peaked out from under his moustache. "Oh, no one in particular; his name is General Ironwood, you may have heard of him."
Chrysalis chuckled. "You may be a human, Doctor, but I think that you and I are going to get along rather well."
Blake struggled to prevent her shoulders from slumping under the weight of the shame she felt as she stood before General Ironwood - in his office, this time, not at his home; her sense of failure sought to distort her at-ease posture, robbing it of its necessary straightness. She could keep her back straight, just about, but she couldn’t prevent her ears from drooping down into her wild black hair. "We found the airship," she reported, her sense of incompetence making her voice soft and tremulous. "Along with four disabled knights and the dead bodies of the pilots. Twilight examined the airship-"
"And confirmed that it had been hacked, sir," Twilight said.
"But the tracks stopped after a few feet, there were some signs of another aircraft having been present; an aerial search yielded no further results," Blake admitted.
General Ironwood, sat behind his desk, nodded. "All early warning stations and coastal patrols were put on alert, and squadrons were dispatched from Atlas and Crystal City. None of them found anything; none detected an airship leaving our airspace." The General sighed. "Watts once designed an airship with stealth capabilities. Only two seats, he proposed it could be used to insert spies. I didn't see that the military had much use for it at the time - we were at peace with the other kingdoms, and spies and stealth aren't of much use against the grimm - but it would have been very useful to Watts in escaping undetected with Chrysalis."
Blake scowled. "I'm sorry, sir."
General Ironwood looked at her. "For what, Specialist?"
Blake blinked. "For this failure, sir. You ordered me to find Watts, and I failed you."
"We all failed, sir," Twilight said. "None of us-"
"This was my mission, I take full responsibility for the lack of success," Blake said quickly before Twilight - or either of the other two - could talk themselves into trouble.
"I ordered you to find Watts in Mantle," Ironwood said. "It was you who realised that he was never there at all."
"Not fast enough," Blake murmured.
"My error," General Ironwood said. "Not yours. I fell right into Watts' trap, just like he knew I would." The General got up, and turned his back upon the three huntresses and Twilight as he walked to the vast windows looking out over the breadth of Atlas, the glassy spires looming into the sky and the ever-vigilant cruisers hovering above them like guardian spirits. General Ironwood clasped his hands behind his back. "I'm a soldier," he said. "And an Atlesian soldier at that. I'm trained to see my enemy and take him out, to go to where my enemy is and confront him there, to put my body between humanity and harm. That's what I am...and that's what I've trained you to be. Shadows, deception..." he bowed his head. "Now more than ever, I feel the need of Oz's wisdom."
Blake looked down at her feet. It seemed wrong, vaguely indecent, to stare at General Ironwood when he looked so...so vulnerable like this, like eavesdropping on grief-stricken relatives in a hospital; it seemed wrong that the General, the man who seemed so solid it was as though he had been forged rather than born, the embodiment of the strength and resolve of the Atlesian forces, should be conceding to a flaw like this. Blake would rather that he had blamed her for her ineptitude than taken the blame upon himself if this was the result.
Rainbow looked as though she was nerving up her courage. She took a deep breath before she spoke, "Sir, we kicked Chrysalis' ass once before, and we'll do it again, even if she does have Salem behind her."
General Ironwood did not reply, but he did raise his head before he turned around to face the four of them once more. "Since we don't know where Chrysalis or Watts are now, I've decided to increase security around the council. From now on, Clover Ebi and his team will coordinate security for the council with Shining Armour and Winter Schnee."
"Thank you, sir," Twilight said.
"And I'm assigning you a bodyguard as well," General Ironwood continued.
"I'm not sure that's necessary, sir," Twilight replied.
"I think it might be," Applejack said. "You remember what she said as they were dragging her away, right? All those promises of revenge she was hollerin' on about?"
"I'm not a councillor," Twilight said. "I'm not even-"
"You're the one she blames, Twi," Rainbow said. "That's enough."
"Not to mention, Chrysalis isn't the only enemy who can hold a grudge, I'm not taking any chances," General Ironwood said. "From now on Rufus Madison and Sugarcoat will alternate in shadowing you, Madison's waiting outside."
Applejack began, "Sir, I'd be glad to-"
"I'm sure that both-" General Ironwood began, before his eyes flickered to Blake. "I'm sure that any of the three of you would willingly take on this assignment, and I know that some of you would ever prefer it that way, but operatives who know the truth about what's going on are rare, and if this action of Watts proves anything, it's that Salem isn't resting on the laurels of her victory at Vale. I need you all ready for when the other shoe drops."
"Are you sure you still want to rely on us when that happens, sir?" Blake asked.
General Ironwood looked into her eyes. "You aren't damned by failure, Belladonna," he said. "Any more than you would have been sanctified by success beyond all future reproach." He didn't look at Rainbow, but that didn't stop Dash from looking profoundly uncomfortable. "You went beyond the task I assigned to you and saw what I had missed. Do I still want to rely upon you? Absolutely. That's all, dismissed."
Rarity ran up a line of diamonds.
Weiss watched as the other girl ran around the cavernous hall, the diamond-shaped barriers conjured by Rarity’s semblance glowing in the darkness as the pale form of the reluctant would-be huntress climbed higher and higher, climbing very close to the vaulted ceiling of the gloomy, sepulchral chamber before she began her descent, skipping from diamond to diamond downwards towards the floor – and Weiss.
It was not exactly fencing training – although they had done some of that and would be getting back to that before the session was over – but it would help Rarity just as much, if not more, than the finer points of swordplay. It wasn’t too surprising that Rarity thought of her semblance only as a shield or a barrier – that was how she’d first discovered it, from what she’d told Weiss – but being Schnee and an inheritor of the hereditary Schnee semblance gave one a broad perspective on the versatility of semblances. Just because most semblances were not as, quite frankly, broken as that of the Schnee family, just because most people didn’t have effectively a dozen different semblances grouped together under the umbrella of the Schnee semblance, didn’t mean that they couldn’t find a greater variety of uses for them than, to be quite honest, most people did. So it was with Rarity: yes, use her diamonds as shields, take cover and shelter behind them, but had she ever tried creating more than one at once? It turned out she had, but only very small ones and purely for cosmetic purposes; still, it was a good start and led naturally on to making more full-sized, useful diamonds. Had she tried using dust to modify? No, she hadn’t, and it turned out that it didn’t work like that – these weren’t her glyphs, after all.
But if they weren’t as versatile as the things that Weiss could conjure up, that didn’t mean that Rarity wasn’t getting better at using them in a more creative manner, at conjuring them more quickly, making more of them, altering the angles at which she conjured them.
If or when she went to Atlas, all of this would stand her in as good or better stead than a little extra fencing practice with Weiss. Plus, she had to admit, it made her feel a lot more useful. A lot of people could have helped Rarity with her swordplay, but only a Schnee could have helped her understand her semblance in this way.
Rarity hopped delicately off her final diamond to land on her toes in front of Weiss. Her heels clicked upon the floor. She took a deep breath, her bosom heaving just a little; she was getting better, but it was still clear that using her semblance in this way was not second nature to her.
Nevertheless, she was getting better, and Weiss didn’t intend to be the kind of teacher who focussed on the negative as though the positive didn’t exist. “Your use of your diamonds is improving.”
Rarity took another deep breath. “Soon I’ll be at the Academy level?”
“To be perfectly honest, you could probably hold your own at this point against the average academy student,” Weiss said, leaving it slightly ambiguous as to how good the average academy student was. She was thinking more of people like Russell, or even Cardin. Not every student at the huntsman academies was a Pyrrha Nikos or a Weiss Schnee or even a Rainbow Dash in skill, courage, or commitment. Rarity’s swordplay and archery had gotten a little rusty in the two years since she’d been out of Combat School, but not that rusty. She didn’t need Weiss’ help to reach Academy beginner level. Although that didn’t mean that Weiss intended to stop seeing her, and not because it got her out of the house either; you could never improve too much, and you couldn’t always afford to sit around at Academy beginner level as though the world was automatically going to give you four years to improve. Duty might call much sooner than that.
“If you don’t mind me saying, darling, that sounds an awful lot like damning with faint praise,” Rarity murmured.
Weiss winced. “Am I that transparent?”
Rarity did not reply immediately. Rather, she walked across the immense hall to where a couple of water bottles were sitting on the floor. She picked one up and drank from it. “I take it that the average student is not up to your standards?”
“My standards aren’t the issue,” Weiss replied. “The standards of the grimm are.”
Rarity nodded, suddenly looking a little grim herself. “Of course. What’s it like, to fight them?”
Weiss frowned ever so slightly. “You must have seen a grimm at combat school?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve seen grimm,” Rarity murmured. “I nearly got swallowed whole by a lagarto once. But there was always Principal Celestia or Vice Principal Luna or one of the other teachers nearby. What’s it like to face them without backup? With only your own strength to rely on?”
“I’ve never done that,” Weiss said. “I always had my team with me. Or, Flash, at least. I was never alone.”
Rarity nodded. “But what I meant was-“
“I know,” Weiss said softly. “And it…I won’t lie, it’s not like Combat School. When you hear the beowolves coming for you…anyone who says they weren’t scared the first time wasn’t really there. But it does get easier. The more you see of them, the more you realise the average grimm has a very limited box of tricks, and once you figure those tricks out, you know how to beat them. Then there’s the problem that you’re always meeting new grimm and having to figure out their tricks while you try not to die…I’m not selling this very well, am I?”
Rarity chuckled. “Believe me, dear, the danger of this life has been made very clear to me more than once.”
Weiss smiled. “Twilight?”
“And Applejack,” Rarity said. “And Rainbow Dash for that matter, now that she’s snapped out of her funk. Applejack dissuaded me from going to Atlas in the first place, and she’s no happier to learn that I’m considering it again now.”
“But you’re still going to do it,” Weiss guessed.
“Yes,” Rarity replied. “Even though it’s dangerous, or…perhaps because it’s dangerous. Because the world is so dangerous that I can’t stand by, as little as a girl like me has to offer to Atlas or the world.”
“Don’t say that,” Weiss said. “Don’t even let yourself think it. Certainly don’t let anybody else tell you that. Don’t let them tell you that you’re not made for this, that you’re too small or too pretty or that a nice girl from a good family like you has no business learning how to fight monsters.”
“Are we still talking about me, darling?”
Weiss felt her face flush red with embarrassment. “Sorry,” she said quickly. “I just…there’s no such thing as a born huntress…well, except maybe Pyrrha I suppose. But if you put her aside and look at the kind of students who fill the academies, look at your friends, look at the people I went to Beacon with: farm girls, waifs and strays swept up from the streets of Atlas and Mistral, country boys with empty heads, wide-eyed dreamers, gentlemen, and princesses. None of them were born to be heroes - none of them were even born to be warriors - but they became both because they chose to stand up. And if you choose the same, then you have as much right to stand with them as anyone else, and don’t let anybody tell you different…even if you think they have your best interests at heart.” She stopped and felt that her embarrassment, far from being diminished, might have actually gotten a little worse now that she stopped and thought about what she’d just said. She coughed awkwardly into one hand. “Sorry,” she said again. “I didn’t mean to preach at you.”
“Actually, I thought you were rather inspiring,” Rarity said. “Have you considered going into politics?”
“No,” Weiss said quickly, as though the idea were an awful one. Then again, if I can’t be a huntress, it would at least give me a way to effect change in the world. Maybe I should give it some thought. “You’re giving me too much credit for dressing up a cliché.”
“There’s nothing wrong with dressing up, darling,” Rarity declared. “Sometimes dressing up well can be the most important thing in the world.”
Weiss chuckled. “I’m not completely unaware of that,” she said. She drew Myrtenaster from the blue sash tied around her waist. “Are you ready to resume?”
“Not quite yet, I beg you,” Rarity said, holding up one hand. “Give my aura just a little more time to recover from that abuse of my semblance.”
“Alright,” Weiss said. Using your semblance consumed aura, but exactly how much aura it consumed depended to a degree on how adept you were at using your semblance. Weiss could abuse hers to a degree that would have been reckless in many other huntresses not because she had an inhuman store of aura but because she was very well trained and greatly practiced in the use of her glyphs. Summons, on the other hand, still took their toll on her; she had yet to summon more than one at a time, while Winter could conjure up whole packs of phantom beowolves when the need arose.
“May I ask, what is this place?” Rarity asked, gesturing to the vast hall to which Weiss had brought the other girl to train. It resembled an ancient abandoned cathedral, with long glass windows embossed with a symbol that was not quite the Schnee snowflake but which greatly resembled it. It was a place of little light and many shadows, where Weiss and Rarity stood out as pale ghosts amidst the gloom, specks of white amongst darkness. “I’ve never been here before.”
“No, I don’t suppose you would have,” Weiss said. “But it has the space for us to train.”
“Ample space,” Rarity agreed. “But where is it?”
“This is a private facility owned by my family,” Weiss said. “It’s where I trained. It’s where…it’s where I met him.” She gestured with Myrtenaster, and a blue-white glyph formed upon the floor beside her out of which arose, head first, her immense knight, all clad in his bulky armour, wielding that sword that was taller than Weiss – and taller than Rarity too. He stood, looming over the two girls for a moment before he knelt, descending courteously to one knee and bowing his head before them.
Rarity’s eyes widened. “What is it?”
“This…this is a ghost,” Weiss said. “Or you might call it that. It’s one facet of the Schnee semblance: anything that we kill, we preserve an echo or a phantasm of it, and we can summon it to aid us in battle if we wish.”
Rarity nodded her head minutely. “Then…you killed this?”
“I believe the name of it was Arma Gigas,” Weiss said. “A grimm possessing a suit of armour.”
“And you killed it here? In this building?”
“Yes,” Weiss said softly. “That’s when I came by this scar.”
“But we’re in the middle of Atlas!” Rarity cried. “How did a grimm get all the way in here?”
“My father brought it here, to test me,” Weiss said. “To prove to him that I was ready to go to Beacon without disgracing myself, or him.” That was why she had brought Rarity here; it seemed appropriate that here, in this place redolent with memories, where she had proved herself ready to her father that she would, in turn, in this same place, help Rarity to become ready.
Rarity pursed her lips together. “That does not seem particularly…fatherly.”
“Perhaps not,” Weiss said softly. “But of all the things that my father has done, that is something that I don’t hold against him. Perhaps his motives were slightly self-interested, but I’m glad that I fought this battle, and not just because I eventually got this summon out of it. I did have to prove myself that night, in a way that I hadn’t before. When I came to Beacon, I knew that I belonged because of what I went through in this building.” She paused. “When I think you’re ready, I’ll have you fight the Arma Gigas too, my summons at least. Not because you have anything to prove to me, but because I think you should be able to prove it to yourself.”
“Very well,” Rarity murmured. “But I’m not there yet?”
“No,” Weiss conceded. “Not yet. But with time, and practice, you will be. Speaking of which,” she flourished Myrtenaster a little.
Rarity’s own epeé, a less sophisticated version of a dust blade but basically similar in its operation, was thrust into her belt. She drew it forth and held it before her, pointed towards Weiss. “Yes,” she said. “I’m ready now.”
Weiss stepped backwards, raising her rapier up high, the blade at eye level; Rarity held her epeé – which went by the simple name of Grace - in a low guard, her free hand tucked behind her back.
They stared at one another for a moment. Then Rarity came for her, her blade a silver sheen slicing through the darkness. Weiss stepped forward, Myrtenaster cutting through the gloom to clash with Grace in a clatter of metal upon metal. Their swords clashed, thrust, parry, riposte; Weiss retreated then came on again; Rarity fell back then countered. The delicate fencing blades sparked off one another again and again as first one combatant then the other pressed their advantage for a moment, then found said advantage reversed. They circled one another, dancing delicately across the great hall, two clashing points of light in a place otherwise consumed by darkness.
The corner of Weiss’s lip turned upwards in a slight smile. Something that sparring with Rarity had reminded her of was the extent to which her proper form had been allowed to decay over the course of a year at Beacon; classical fencing technique was not always the most effective technique when pitched against a horde of onrushing grimm, but Rarity had not yet found that out – or rather, she had not yet found that she could get the same or better results with a sloppier, quicker motion – and so, for all that she was a little out of practice, her footwork, her stance, her posture and positioning were in some respects better now than Weiss’s own.
But on the battlefield, you didn’t win by having the better form. Weiss started to change things up, altering her moves a little, descending from the level of the fencers’ handbook to that of the fighter on the streets of Vale, first introducing little variations to the moves, then allowing herself to slip more and more into the rhythms that she had fallen into at Beacon. Non-traditional moves demanded more than a rote response, and Rarity was discomfited, falling back before Weiss's onslaught as she tried to counter moves that couldn’t be parried by choosing one of the pre-learned stances, motions and blade positions. But she was fast enough that she was able to parry, even if only just about, and Weiss didn’t land a hit on her; she probably could have if she’d gone all out, but the point of this was to teach Rarity, not make her feel incompetent or satisfy Weiss's ego.
So she held back and let Rarity’s quick reflexes and keen eye preserve her, until the other girl started to get a feel for Weiss’s altered movements. Weiss could see the confidence returning in Rarity’s blue eyes as she returned to the attack, making up lost ground as it was her turn to drive Weiss back across the hall.
Sword clashed on sword, the rhythmic echo of the blades the only sound in the vast, cavernous space in which they duelled.
“Very good,” Weiss said. Now to take this to the next level.
Rarity, a slight smile playing across her face, lunged for her. Weiss sidestepped, grabbing Rarity’s outstretched arm with her free hand and pirouetting on her toe to throw the other girl with a startled squawk across the room.
Rarity kept hold of her Grace even as she struck the floor with a thump and rolled across it. She rose up on one knee, blade pointed at Weiss as a blast of fire dust shot from the sword. Weiss held Myrtenaster before her as she conjured a black glyph before her to block the blast harmlessly.
The chambers of her rapier circled until she had selected the proper type of dust for her purposes, conjuring a single blue-white glyph from which a laser beam burst forth to pound with effect upon the glowing diamond that Rarity created with her free hand held before her.
Rarity climbed upwards, leaping from diamond to diamond, her skirt bouncing slightly up and down; Weiss followed, jumping from white glyph to white glyph as they appeared in the air by her will. Rarity formed a road of diamonds in the air pointing towards Weiss. Weiss conjured a glyph above, angled downwards at Rarity, and leapt off it as a springboard to descend upon her opponent from above. Their blades clashed. They leapt apart, diamonds and glyphs appearing beneath their feet to steady them. They danced in the air, hurling themselves at one another as one footing disappeared and then another formed to bear them once the pass was done. Their swords rattled together with blasts of dust. More than once, they leapt past one another, slicing with their swords to carve off pieces of one another’s aura. They were the only lights in the darkness, they were shooting stars in the night sky, they were like two stones borne against one another by the current and then swept apart again as they gracefully clashed then split up, rising and falling, descending to the floor then climbing up again, until Rarity’s aura entered the red and Weiss called a halt.
“That,” Weiss declared, “was not bad at all.”
“But not good enough,” Rarity murmured.
“There’s no such thing as good enough,” Weiss replied, thrusting Myrtenaster into her sash. “There is only better than you were before.”
“I know what you mean, of course,” Rarity said. “But at the same time…in matters of life and death, there is such a thing as…well, there is certainly such a thing as not good enough, wouldn’t you say?”
“I suppose so,” Weiss admitted, “but I would also say that you passed that mark some time ago.”
“Darling, you are almost as generous with your praise as you are with your time,” Rarity declared.
“I’m honest, as a good teacher should be,” Weiss replied. “And as for my time, instead of letting you thank me for it, you should be letting me thank you for giving me something to spend my time upon. These sessions, they give me a purpose.”
She and Rarity went for coffee after their sparring session, followed up by a little light window shopping in the Cloud District; Weiss got the impression that Rarity couldn’t afford most of the things available in these high-end stores, not that she asked directly - that would have been rather vulgar - but that she liked looking at them purely as a way to see what was ‘in’ and what was not. Weiss, who could have afforded much more of what the two of them saw on offer, was at the same time not so interested in it, except that it was hard not to let Rarity’s enthusiasm for the subject become a little infectious as the afternoon wore on.
She caught sight of Whitley briefly while she was out; he was accompanied by Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon and lastly, at a discrete distance, by a man whom Weiss did not recognise: elderly, dressed in a well-tailored suit, with wisps of white hair clinging to an otherwise bald head. Judging by all the boxes he was labouring under and the fact that he looked too old to be a lesser servant, Weiss took him to be the young lady’s own butler. The two girls were laughing at whatever Whitley had just said, and none of them spotted Weiss or Rarity before they disappeared into one of the high end department stores.
Whatever Weiss might think about Whitley, about the way that he viewed his relationships – and everyone else’s for that matter too – she was glad that he wasn’t alone in the world. If only because it made her feel a little less guilty about the fact that she’d gone away to Beacon and basically forgotten about him for a year. She could tell herself it hadn’t done him any harm.
Thinking about relationships, Beacon and the people she’d hurt made Weiss think of Flash Sentry. She found her thoughts turning towards her former partner with a frequency that verged on regularity. The last she’d heard of him, he was going into the hospital to have his leg removed. She could have found out which hospital, she could have gone to see him...and there was a part of her that wanted to do exactly that. A part of her that wanted to rush to his bedside, confirm that he was okay; a part of her that wanted to throw her arms around him and tearfully confess how sorry she was for what had happened, not just in the battle but before, for the way that she had...a part of her that wanted to tell him how she felt. But she did not. She had not. She could not. She could not bear to tell him how she felt only to be rejected by him, and she felt that rejection was the most likely thing to come from it; after all, he’d made no more effort to contact her than she had to contact him, so he probably didn’t want to have anything to do with her now.
Perhaps if I’d been more open to the idea when he first asked…
I wanted to focus on my studies, and besides...I didn’t know what a great guy he was back then.
“Weiss?” Rarity asked. “Weiss, darling, are you alright? You look suddenly so troubled.”
Weiss blinked, recalled to herself. “I...no, I’m fine,” she said quickly. “I was just...thinking about someone, that’s all. Wondering if I could have handled things differently.”
Rarity smiled knowingly. “I’m sure you’ll get another chance.”
Weiss’ eyebrow rose a little. “Really? And what exactly do you think I’m talking about?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t presume to say,” Rarity said airily. “But I’m sure he’s a very lucky boy.”
Weiss felt her face redden. “That is absolutely...ugh!”
But alas, it eventually reached a point where Weiss couldn’t put off going home any longer, and it was time for her to return to the brooding emptiness of the Schnee Manor, where the spaces were nearly as vast as the cavernous hall in which she and Rarity had fought, and while they were not quite as dark, they were every bit as cold and empty.
When Weiss returned, there was a car outside the manor, this time a purple car with the letters CP picked out in gold lettering upon the door. Inside the house, there was no sign of Whitley - he clearly hadn’t returned from his own shopping in advance of Weiss - and there was no immediate sign of Klein in evidence either, or her mother. There was no sign of anybody as Weiss made her way through the house, her footfalls echoing down the empty corridors, passing by the vast empty rooms, feeling almost chilled by the cold blue décor that dominated the house. The whole place appeared absolutely deserted until she passed by the door of her father’s study, which at least had the sounds of voices issuing from it to indicate that someone was alive in here besides Weiss herself.
Nobody was shouting as her father had been shouting at General Ironwood when Weiss had interrupted them, but they were still speaking loudly enough that Weiss could hear them, and what she heard made her stop, and listen for more.
“You must understand, Mister Schnee,” the voice belonged to a woman, older, middle-aged at least. “There is a great constituency within this kingdom that is deeply concerned by the current direction of our leadership, a constituency that is crying out for a change of course before it is too late.”
Are you talking about the treaty with Menagerie? Weiss thought. Are you really that opposed to treating the faunus like equals? What is it about this that upsets you?
“The treaty with Menagerie is just the tip of the iceberg,” the woman continued. “The latest in a long line of misguided policies aimed at weakening our kingdom and strengthening our competitors.”
“I share your concerns, of course,” Jacques replied, “but I fail to understand why, if there is such a great constituency as you say, then it doesn’t do something to bring about this change of course before all the wealth of this kingdom and my company has flooded into the coffers of the faunus on Menagerie.”
“Because we lack the most important thing for the success of any great endeavour,” the woman said. “We lack a leader. Those whom I represent are loyal and dutiful servants of this kingdom, but though we have spent our lives in Atlas’ service, we are not the sorts who can inspire the masses to follow where we lead. For that, we need a more extraordinary kind of man than we can muster.”
“You mean you need me,” Jacques said, without a trace of modesty.
“You are the titan of our industry,” the woman declared. “And more to the point, you exemplify the spirit that has driven Atlas to its present heights, but which is now threatened by the policies of our present leaders. Let me ask you, Mister Schnee, did anybody help you on the way to your present success?”
“Of course not,” Jacques replied, as though the very suggestion that a man who had inherited his fortune and the leadership of his company through marriage might not have worked for every lien he had was somehow insulting. “I started work on the ground floor of this company and climbed the corporate ladder through hard work and effort. It wasn’t always easy, but I had determination and a solid work ethic.”
“Two things all too often lacking from the present generation of Atlesians, who seem to expect to have everything handed to them on a plate,” the woman said scornfully.
“Hmm,” Jacques murmured. “It’s ironic: we work hard so that our children may enjoy prosperity, only to watch as that prosperity leaves them incapable of maintaining the legacy that we bequeath to them. Nicholas Schnee understood that when he decided to leave his company to me, a self-made man capable of continuing what he had begun, instead of to his own daughter. I confess that when I look at my own children, I don’t believe that any of them are capable of leading the SDC to continued success.”
Weiss rolled her eyes.
“At my school,” the woman said, “I have done my best to inculcate a sense of hard work and accomplishment as exemplified by our motto, Semper Plus Ultra: always further beyond. But I fear it is the faunus of Menagerie, hardscrabble and barren land as it is, who will prove to truly embody that spirit of achievement and triumph over limitations while we in Atlas have grown soft in our prosperity and softened the other kingdoms through their reliance upon our military might. Why, look at this Warrior Princess that General Ironwood brought back with him from Vale: sprung from Menagerie, she is superior to any huntress in Atlas save for a handful of my most elite students. Mister Schnee, I fear we are paying to let a tiger in amongst the flock.”
Blake? Weiss thought. You’re using Blake as an example of…Blake is that good because that she’s good, not because there’s something special about Menagerie. She wasn’t even living there while she was training!
There was silence within the room, or at least Weiss could not hear anything. Then her father spoke.
“For my own part, I have often wished that there was at least someone on the council who understood business,” Jacques declared. “Who understood the extent to which the good of the Schnee Dust Company and the good of Atlas are intertwined. Even someone who simply understood that money doesn’t grow on trees and that I have worked hard for all the wealth and success that I enjoy. But to go into politics?”
“Atlas cries out for leadership,” the woman declared. “The hour has come, will the man be found?”
Jacques was silent for a moment. “You have given me a great deal to think about, Principal Cinch. I will give everything that you have said very careful consideration.”
“That is all that I ask, Mister Schnee,” the woman – Principal Cinch – replied. “The fate of Atlas rests in your hands. All of us who love our kingdom pin our hopes on you to make the right choice.”
Weiss decided that now would be a good time to leave, lest she be caught eavesdropping by her father. But as she walked quickly away down the corridor towards her own room, she was filled with a sense of great disquiet. Who was that woman, and what did she want from her father?
And why did Weiss have the feeling that the answers would mean nothing good for Atlas or Menagerie?
Chrysalis was not entirely sure where she was.
She was more certain that she didn't like it here.
This was an unnatural place, where the sun had failed and the world was cast into a permanent purple haze, a grim miasma that sapped the spirit; this castle to which Watts had brought her, this chamber in which she stood, though both were larger than her prison cell, they seemed to her almost as oppressive. This banqueting chamber - or whatever it's purpose; it had at least a table erected, and chairs of stone and crude wood set around it - had windows at least, but when she stood at the window as she was standing now, Chrysalis could see nought but a blasted land, devoid of life, where not even a bush grew. There was nothing here nor all around to be seen but barren rock picked clean of life.
Barren rock - and the grimm, who crawled with slow, uncertain, shambling gait out of the pools of darkness that lay scattered all about this castle and slouched about under the moon, joining the throng who had already mustered here like an army waiting on their queen's command. Some of them had been here for some time, judging by the size they had reached and the spikes and the armour plates that now protected them; others seemed as though they had spawned scarcely longer ago than those that Chrysalis was seeing enter the world before her very eyes. Was this the source of the grimm? Was this the place from which all nightmares originated?
"Quite a striking view, isn't it?" Watts asked from where he sat at the table, hands resting upon the rough, uneven wood.
Chrysalis turned away from the unholy sight. "Are they dangerous?"
"To us? No. In general...they are grimm."
Chrysalis walked lightly towards the table. "What does anyone who can command the creatures of the dark need with me or the White Fang?"
The doors at the end of the chamber swung open with a creak. "I hope you can appreciate that there are places a grimm simply cannot go," said the figure in a gown of black trimmed with scarlet who glided into the chamber; a five-pointed crown was set upon her head, the candle flames gleaming upon the metal. "There are powers that a grimm cannot wield. There are strategies a grimm cannot comprehend. For such things, I have a need for other servants."
Chrysalis stared. The creature who had just entered the room looked like she could have been the personification of death itself; she looked like a corpse, a woman who had drowned in a lake and lain in the water for too long undiscovered before she sprang into unnatural life once more as the veins that stood out so prominently upon her pale and lifeless flesh stirred to life. Her eyes seemed, from a distance, to be as black as coals set in that wan visage, it was only when she advanced on Chrysalis that the latter could see that there were red eyes burning in the darkness, eyes red as blood.
Watts rose to his feet. "Ma'am, allow me to present-"
"Chrysalis," the dead figure said. "Former leader of the White Fang in Altas." She smiled. "My name is Salem. Tell me, Chrysalis, why have you come?"
Chrysalis' throat felt suddenly very dry. "I was...I am here for power."
"And what would you do with power, if I gave it to you?" Salem asked, her voice calm and soft.
"I would take my revenge," Chrysalis snarled. "And I would take justice for my people."
Salem's lips twitched upwards. "Vengeance, justice. Yes. It is important not to lose sight of what drives us." She stopped, staring into Chrysalis's eyes; Chrysalis felt at once the desperate, burning desire to look away but at the same time an absolute inability to do so as Salem held her captivated by her gaze. "Yes," she said softly. "Well done, Arthur. This one will do nicely. Serve me well, Chrysalis, and my power shall be as yours...as shall all the vengeance you desire. But first, I ask you to prove yourself to me."
"How?" Chrysalis asked.
"Go to Mistral with Arthur," Salem said. "I have agents and allies there of dubious loyalty; you will remind them both that the friendship of Salem is not lightly thrown aside, nor is the bond between mistress and servant one that can be broken upon a whim." She paused, and Chrysalis understood that that was a message aimed at her as much as whomever resided in Mistral. "I also have enemies within the city, enemies whom I am loath to see continue to gather power against me. Eliminate them, and you shall have the first taste of the power you require to return to Atlas and throw down all those who wronged you."
That sounded promising. "And what manner of power will you grant to me?"
"In Mistral there is power you may take for yourself," Salem said. "You are not too old to become a Maiden yet, once Spring is found."
"Maiden? Spring?" Chrysalis repeated. "What are these things you speak of?"
Salem smiled. "Tell me, Chrysalis: what is your favourite fairy tale?"