//------------------------------//
// Over the Rainbow (New) 
// Story: SAPR 
// by Scipio Smith 
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Over the Rainbow


Blake Belladonna had never sought to be a saviour. She had never wanted to be celebrated for her role in events. Unlike Adam, she had no desire to be lionised as a paragon of her kind. She had been groomed for leadership, but if that task had fallen to her, she would – she hoped – have taken it up with all due humility, as a heavy burden to be dutifully shouldered, not a gilded crown to be eagerly snatched up.
All of which was to say that Rainbow Dash was quite wrong to attribute Blake's motives to some sort of saviour complex on Blake's part. Blake wanted to save people, yes, where they needed saving, but she had only ever fought because it was the right thing to do and because she had the strength to fight, not because she wanted to be celebrated for having fought. She wasn't trying to save Rainbow Dash to make herself feel better… or at least she wasn't doing it to make herself feel good. There was, perhaps, a nagging sense of guilt over those that she had left behind: Ilia, Strongheart… even Adam. She had left them all behind to sink deeper into the mire of bitterness, wrath, and the desire for revenge. She had sought to assuage that guilt by opening Rainbow's eyes more gently, rather than standing by and allowing her to suffer the more violent shock of the moment when the masks would fall and Rainbow would realise the fear and contempt in which she was held by her supposed friends.
Or perhaps… perhaps Blake was wrong. She was willing to concede that. Not being driven by any desire to puff up her own ego with accomplishments, she was willing to admit that Rainbow Dash might not need saving. Blake still wasn't sure how any faunus could be so blind or indifferent to the suffering of their people that they would willingly join the Atlesian military and become a party to that same suffering and oppression, but she could concede that Rainbow Dash's faith in her human friends might not be misplaced. Blake still thought Rainbow was quite wrong to serve Atlas, of course, and her faith in human politicians and authority figures to advance the cause was as naïve as her parents' belief in the power of non-violent protest, but she might not need rescuing in the way that Blake had first conceived of.
Rainbow Dash wasn't Ilia. She wasn't hiding what she was, passing for human amongst the humans. Sunset said that Rainbow had forgotten that she was a faunus, but… well, Sunset had her hangups, even as Blake did. Everyone was a product of their own past and saw the shadows of that past in the lives of others, whether they belonged there or not. Rainbow went openly as a faunus, which meant it was possible that those around her had accepted her as the same.
Rainbow wasn't Ilia, then, but someone who had imbibed the values of Atlas. That might arguably be worse. She would probably do more ill as a servant of Atlas and its malign influence upon the world than she would ever accomplish in the White Fang, even fallen as they were.
And yet there was not much Blake could do about it. Opening Rainbow's eyes to the evil of the Atlesian system would be much harder than opening them to the indifference of the humans around her might have been. Blake might know, in her gut, that Atlas was an oppressor of faunus, but it would be hard to get that across unless she intended to suddenly start bombarding Rainbow with facts about conditions in the Mantle mines.
Blake had left Adam behind because you couldn't help someone who didn't want to be helped, and there came a point at which you had to help yourself. She wanted to help Rainbow step out of the shadows, but she wasn't going to risk exposure for someone who seemed quite content in themselves and their cause, though it was the worst cause for which ever a faunus fought.
She would need to decide whether she wished to expend any further effort on the Atlesian faunus or not.
It was the day after her ill-fated attempt to talk to Rainbow Dash on the rooftop – regarding further interactions between them, there was also the question of whether or not Rainbow would allow her to say anything else – and Blake was sat high up near the back of the lecture theatre waiting for Professor Goodwitch to arrive for Leadership. She could see Rainbow Dash down below, sitting with Weiss Schnee. It made her feel a little ill, a faunus kowtowing to the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company like that. All that the SDC did, all that they took from the faunus, and still, people like Rainbow Dash were willing to forget it all in hopes of patronage and advantage.
Does she really believe that they'll ever make a faunus commander of the Atlesian military? That they'll ever give a faunus a seat on the Atlesian Council? How naïve can a person be?
"Good morning, students," Professor Goodwitch said as she strode into the hall, "I apologise for my tardiness." Her heels tapped upon the floor. She stopped, and turned to face the class. "Welcome to leadership, Miss Dash."
"Thank you, ma'am," Rainbow said, standing up.
Professor Goodwitch hesitated for a moment, and Blake thought she might protest the use of ‘ma’am,' but she did not and merely gestured for Rainbow to take her seat again.
"Miss Dash," Professor Goodwitch continued, "what, in your opinion, makes a good leader?"
Rainbow replied at once. "A good team leader knows her teammates better than their mothers do and loves them as much."
"That is a very good answer from General Ironwood," Professor Goodwitch said. "I would rather hear what Rainbow Dash has to say."
Rainbow let out a slightly self-effacing laugh. "I guess… trust?"
"Would you care to elaborate?"
"Your team needs to trust you to have their backs when things get rough," Rainbow said. "Otherwise, you can't trust them to do the same."
"And where does the authority of a leader derive?"
"From the General," Rainbow said, "and from that trust. Once your teammates know they can trust you, they'll follow you anywhere."
"And how do you establish that trust?"
Rainbow said, "Well, I guess that's where General Ironwood ordering your teammates to obey you comes in, Professor."
"Indeed," Professor Goodwitch said, in that even tone she often used during Leadership class to mask her personal opinions on any given subject.
Trust, Blake mused. How can you completely trust Atlesians?
And how can you be sure that they trust you?



"Sunset?"
Sunset looked up from her Plant Science homework to see Blake Belladonna walking towards her. The moonlight streamed in through the library windows.
"Blake," Sunset said evenly.
"I went to your dorm room," Blake said. "Ruby and Yang were there; they told me you'd be here."
"They were right," Sunset replied. Pyrrha and Jaune were training, and Sunset had let Ruby and Yang have the dorm room to read some more of their mother's diary while she retired to the library to get a head start on this week's homework. Plant Science was her worst subject, and her least favourite. It was an effort to get through each essay.
Blake hovered at Sunset's table. "Can we talk?"
"We're talking now."
Blake stared down at Sunset, not rising to the bait.
Sunset sighed. "What do you want to talk about?"
"Rainbow Dash."
Sunset rolled her eyes. "Did it not occur to you that I might have better things to do than talk about Rainbow Dash?"
"Please," Blake said. "I know that you went to combat school with her."
"So did Lyra and Bon Bon; why don't you talk to them?"
"Because you're a faunus," Blake said.
"Well that's… bluntly put," Sunset muttered. "Are you sure it's not because your team doesn't like you?"
Blake’s eyebrows rose.
"Don't look at me like that; what do you expect me to say?" Sunset asked. "Your teammates avoid you more than mine avoided me when I was an incredibly avoidable person! They spend more time with Dove Bronzewing of Team Iron than they do with you."
"I'm not here to make friends," Blake murmured.
"Are you here to make an enemy of Rainbow Dash?" Sunset asked. "I don't know exactly what you said to her last night, but she was still spitting blood about it this morning. I didn't tell you that she acted like a human so that you could go and tell her that I said so."
Blake winced. "I didn't mean to get you in any trouble. What did she do?"
"Blustered at me," Sunset answered. "Which I could have handled except that she was doing it in front of my team. I had to apologise before they started to think I'd done something wrong. I don't like having to apologise."
"I hadn't noticed."
"If you want to be sarcastic, you can find someone else to talk to about Rainbow Dash," Sunset informed her.
"Sorry," Blake murmured. "Can I sit down?"
Sunset sighed deeply. "Sure. Why not?"
"Thank you," Blake said quietly, as she took the chair on Sunset's right, pulling it out and sitting on it. She crossed her legs and waited for Sunset to say something.
Sunset did not do so.
"Sunset?" Blake asked.
I'd rather be doing Plant Science, and that's saying something, Sunset thought. "What do you want to know?" she asked.
"What was it like to live in Atlas?" Blake asked.
"I never actually lived in Atlas," Sunset admitted, "I lived in Canterlot. I never even saw the city of Atlas."
"But what was it like in Canterlot?"
Sunset paused, thinking about it. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Why not?"
"Because I can't tell what is my righteous anger and what is my folly," Sunset hissed at her. "Because I have sworn to reform myself, to live better, to be better than I was… and if I let my thoughts dwell upon Canterlot too much, I may forget why I made that vow."
Blake was silent for a moment. "I… I should probably tell you that you have a right to be angry-"
"Do I?" Sunset demanded. "Do I have the right to take that anger out on Ruby? On Pyrrha and Jaune, who have done me no harm? Do I have the right to let anger ruin my life as it has done these many years and leave me with nothing, nothing at all to show for it?" She shook her head. "I will not. I was blessed with teammates overflowing with compassion, and out of their compassion, they have raised me from the darkness. Perhaps there are things I could be angry about but… I dare not take the risk of plunging back into the depths."
Blake was silent for a moment. "I understand," she said. "That's what I was going to say: although I should say that you have a right to be angry, I understand why you don't want to give it purchase. I've seen anger, even righteous anger, anger for a cause that was indisputably right and just, corrupt good people, twist them until they… why do you think the White Fang gave in to violence? It wasn't just that they lost hope; it's that the anger in their souls became overwhelming. I'm sorry; I shouldn't have asked you that. I should have known better." She paused. "Do you want me to go?"
"I can talk about Rainbow Dash," Sunset said. "I think I can talk about Rainbow Dash."
Blake nodded. "Are you sure?"
Sunset also nodded, although it was a tight nod, as much a jerk of the head. "What do you want to know?"
"She is the faunus you were talking about, isn't she? The one who surrounds herself with humans?"
"She's the one," Sunset agreed.
Blake paused. "Can they be trusted? Her friends?"
"What do you mean by 'can they be trusted?'"
"I mean are they really her friends, or is this some sort of game to them?"
Sunset glanced at Blake, her eyebrows rising curiously. "Have you ever known any humans pull a long con like that? Come on, my boyfriend dumped me because I'm a faunus, and he's a bigot, and even I don't think he was playing with me for our whole relationship."
"I admit it sounds a little far fetched when you put it like that," Blake admitted. "So you think it's real, their friendship?"
"I think if anything is real in these four kingdoms, it's their friendship," Sunset replied. "That's what I envied about her, that she had such good friends, such loyal friends, such true friends, and they didn't even seem to care that she was a faunus."
"You're not doing so badly for friends yourself," Blake pointed out.
"That's why I said envied in the past tense," Sunset replied, "but yes, for whatever it's worth, I think they really care about her and her for them."
"Why?" Blake asked.
Sunset frowned. "Why what?"
"Why do they care about her, when she's a faunus? Why does she care about them when they're not?"
"Why do Pyrrha and Ruby give a damn about me? I don't know how the heart works," Sunset replied. "Call me… confused but grateful. As far as I'm concerned all of this stuff might as well be-"
"Magic?" Blake suggested.
If only you knew. I could understand magic. "Sure," Sunset grunted, "why not? Listen, I don't know Rainbow Dash's story. I was never even a hanger-on to their friend group. I was never close to any of the girls. They were already a clique by the time I arrived at Canterlot." She decided not to mention her failed attempts to break them up. "All I know is that Rainbow and Twilight are at the heart of it. They were friends before they met the others; together, they hold the rest of the group together, more or less. How did Flash put it? Ah, yes: 'Twilight is the heart of the group, and Rainbow is the soul.'"
"I see," Blake said quietly. "Why does she wear that uniform?"
"The Atlas uniform?" Sunset asked. "Why shouldn't she?"
"Because she's a faunus," Blake insisted. "Would you wear it?"
"I came to Beacon only partly because of what kind of a kingdom Atlas is," Sunset admitted, "and partly because I wanted to get away from my past and try for a fresh start where people like Rainbow Dash wouldn't recognise me. If I had been lauded and admired at Canterlot the way that Rainbow was lauded and admired, you bet your bottom lien I would have gone to Atlas."
"In spite of the way they treat the faunus?"
"Rainbow doesn't see it," Sunset informed her, ignoring the question as it applied to herself. "She soars too high for the suffering of the faunus on the ground to register. Listen, I told you that Twilight and Rainbow arrived at Canterlot together, that much was common knowledge even from people who didn't know anything other than that. Now, do you know that Twilight's father is a retired Colonel? That her sister-in-law sits on the Council? That General Ironwood is her godfather?"
Blake's eyes widened. "'Highly placed' seems like an understatement."
"And Rainbow is plugged in to all of that, through Twilight. Dash is General Ironwood's golden girl."
Blake leaned back in her seat. "No wonder she thinks she can fly all the way to the top," she murmured. "She is… not what I thought when I saw her in the cafeteria."
Sunset snorted. "She's a long way from Low Town, that's for sure."
"And yet she's still being used," Blake insisted. "Turned as a weapon against her own kind, made complicit in the sins of Atlas against the faunus."
"You mean against the White Fang?" Sunset asked. She didn't wait for a reply. "Let me ask you something: Why do you care so much? Why do you want to know about Rainbow Dash? Why do you give a damn whether she wears an Atlas uniform or not?"
"Because I thought she needed help," Blake said. "She reminded me of an old friend who I didn't help, and… I thought I could do better this time around." She got to her feet. "But Rainbow Dash isn't my friend, and although she still needs help – the Atlesians have got their hooks so deep into her that she believes that what she's doing is good and noble – it's not help that I can give. Thank you, Sunset. I'll let you get on with your work."



Blake left the library and was about to set off towards her dorm room when she found her route blocked by the diminutive figure of Weiss Schnee. In the dark of the night, the heiress was pure white, shining like a second moon descended from the heavens to better illuminate the world.
It was rather ironic, considering that her father's company routinely committed acts darker than any night. And yet, here and now, Weiss seemed completely removed from all of that. Out of darkness had sprung such beauty; it was also obscene that it should be so, an affront to justice.
Or perhaps it is perfectly just that she, who was not born guilty of her father's sins, shows in herself no trace of them.
Blake's brow furrowed. "Is there something I can help you with?"
Weiss put one hand on her hip. "I'm not sure. Perhaps there's something I can help you with."
"I doubt that," Blake murmured. "I'm not even sure why you'd think that."
"Yes, it can be odd when someone who doesn't even know you very well decides that there's something wrong with you and your life choices, isn't it?" Weiss replied. "Some people even find it annoying."
Blake looked away. "Are you here to tell me to stay away from Rainbow Dash?"
"I'm here to ask what's gotten into you," Weiss said. "I know that we don't know one another very well, and I admit that that may be in part my fault. I have been… a little distant from my fellow freshman."
Blake snorted. "So distant that, apparently, you haven't noticed that I'm not much of a social butterfly myself. Just because my team sometimes sits with Sapphire and Iron in the cafeteria doesn't mean I'm close to them."
"And yet you've fought with us," Weiss said. "You risked your own life to draw the grimm away so that Sunset, Yang, and I could finish the leader off. That was… very brave of you, and I don't think I ever thanked you for it."
"I didn't do it for your praise," Blake said, as she began to walk around Weiss and towards the dorm rooms.
"Have you hated Atlas all this time?" Weiss demanded of Blake's retreating back. "I'm trying to understand how you've suddenly gone from quiet to hostile."
Blake stopped. She looked back at the gleaming figure behind her. "I don't hate Atlas," she declared. "I hate the things that Atlas stands for, the institutions that Atlas upholds."
Weiss sniffed. "If you want to say 'the SDC' you can. I won't be offended." She paused. "I'm a little surprised that you'd care about offending me."
"I don't hate you, Weiss," Blake said, "and I'm not trying to go out of my way to be hostile. I just… I don't understand how she can wear that uniform and still look at herself in the mirror."
"She's a huntress in training, just like us," Weiss said.
"She's an Atlesian soldier!"
"So?" Weiss demanded. "You want to say that you hate the SDC, that's fine. I know what my father is. I know far better than you do, I'm sure. But the military is not the SDC."
"Yet it defends SDC facilities-"
"Of course they do, they're defending Atlas," Weiss replied. "That's like complaining that the Vale police enforce the law in Vale; it doesn't mean they endorse everything that goes on in Vale."
"Technological collaborations."
"From which the military benefits far more than the SDC; trust me, if my father could sever those ties, he would," Weiss said. "He only maintains that arrangement because it's politically necessary. I know there are those who say that the military are nothing more than enforcers for the SDC, but let me assure you, nothing could be further from the truth."
Blake was silent for a moment. "Your sister is a soldier, isn't she?"
Weiss nodded. "She's a Specialist."
"You didn't want to follow in her footsteps?"
The corner of Weiss' lip twitched upwards. "My father would never allow an Atlesian soldier to inherit his company. That should show you how he views the military. By becoming a huntress, I can fight for humanity and the honour of my family name while retaining my position as heiress and keeping the company out of… never mind. The point is that the huntsmen of Atlas are as upright and honourable as those trained at Beacon; none of them deserve to be castigated by you just because their jacket is white instead of black."
Blake was silent a moment. "Why… does it matter to you, what I say to this faunus who just happens to come from the same kingdom as you?"
"Why does it matter to you what this person you don't know chooses to do with her life?"
"Because I've known faunus from Atlas, and I had a hard time believing that Rainbow Dash could be sincere in her allegiance," Blake murmured. "I… might have been wrong about that." Now, while still believing that Rainbow was wrong in the flag to which she had pledged her life and honour, she could accept that she had done so earnestly.
"I was surprised to see Twilight and her team here," Weiss admitted. "Surprised enough to speak to my sister about it. She was… cagey about the details, but she confirmed that they're here with authorisation from General Ironwood, who holds Rainbow and Twilight in high esteem. With that kind of recommendation, I'm prepared to extend my trust."
"I'm a little surprised that you didn't know her already," Blake observed.
"I don't blame her for not wanting to attend those kinds of functions," Weiss said softly. "Atlas… isn't perfect. But those who serve and defend her shouldn't be condemned."
"Rainbow isn't going to have any more trouble from me," Blake assured her. "I'll leave her alone from now on."
"Or you could try getting to know her a little," Weiss suggested.
"Goodnight, Weiss," Blake said, resuming her journey back towards her dorm room.
She could accept that Rainbow did what she did for reasons that Rainbow believed in, but that didn't mean Blake had to like it.