SAPR

by Scipio Smith

Who Do You Trust?

Perched upon a rock, her rifle resting upon her shoulder, Sunset watched as Ruby sat and talked with her cousin and… the other Sunset.
She couldn’t hear what they were talking about, worse luck.
No, wait, that was… not right of her to think that way. She shouldn’t want to hear what they were saying. She shouldn’t want to eavesdrop on their conversation.
She did want to eavesdrop, but that didn’t make it right.
She just wished… she didn’t know exactly what she wished, to be honest, except perhaps that Ruby had never met her cousin and Sunset had never met her other self.
Not that it would have helped much.
The fault is not in them but in me. If I had been a better friend to Ruby in the past, then I wouldn’t feel as though I was at risk of losing her now.
“Are you genuinely worried about her?” Cinder asked. “Or are you just jealous?”
Sunset glanced at her. Cinder sat upon the grass, her legs folded, her head resting against one of the wagons of the Frost Mountain Clan. Sunset was sure that it couldn’t be comfortable. “Don’t feel obliged to keep me company,” Sunset said.
Cinder raised one eyebrow. “Is that a polite way of you telling me to go away and leave you to brood?”
Sunset snorted. “It’s a way of me telling you that you don’t have to stick around here while I… spy on Ruby. You can go somewhere else, if you’d rather.”
“And where would I go instead?” Cinder asked.
“You say that as if you’ve nowhere else to go,” Sunset replied. “I notice that you’ve been spending a lot of time with the old woman lately.”
Cinder nodded, acknowledging the fact. “Athelwyn… has been kind to me,” she said softly. “She is helping me with…”
Sunset waited for her to continue. “You don’t have to tell me, of course, but you needn’t be ashamed of… whatever it is.”
“What makes you think that I’m ashamed?”
“The fact that you’re not saying anything,” Sunset pointed out.
Cinder shrugged. “It’s something… Princess Twilight suggested,” she murmured. “I’m getting back into sewing.”
“'Sewing'?”
“That tone of voice is why I didn’t say anything,” Cinder pointed out.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to- but clearly I did, for which I apologise,” Sunset said, holding up both hands. “I just… I don’t know really; I thought you’d… I thought you hated everything about that part of your life.”
“Don’t expect me to start suddenly sweeping floors or scrubbing pots,” Cinder declared. “Well, not for pleasure anyway. But sewing… perhaps I ought to feel the same way about it, perhaps I ought to consider it just another aspect of my servitude, but for whatever reason, I do not. I… even back then, it brought me peace. I could appreciate the beauty in what I was doing… even when those would wear it had no beauty in themselves. There was a joy to be had in creation that was different from all my other chores.” She paused. “It may seem absurd, but Princess Twilight suggested that… I should try and recapture that. I think she was right.”
Sunset smiled softly. “Good for you,” she said. “You… you’re finding out who you are now.”
Cinder chuckled quietly. “I don’t know if I’d go that far. Sewing does not a personality make.”
“Tell that to Rarity,” Sunset muttered.
“Don’t expect me to start calling you ‘darling’ any time soon,” Cinder said.
Sunset sniggered. “I wouldn’t necessarily object if you did,” she said lightly. “But I won’t listen out for it.” She sighed. She hesitated. She knew what she had to say, but… but that didn’t really mean that she wanted to say it. “Listen, Cinder… if you don’t want to stay here, then… I mean if you don’t want to…” Sunset ran one hand through her fiery hair. “If you don’t want to stay with me – with us – then you don’t have to.”
Cinder stared at her, silently, her eyes intent. “Am I not bound to the service of Vale?”
“We’ll say you died,” Sunset replied. “Like Emerald or Sky.”
“Cardin might not agree with that.”
“I’ll handle Cardin.”
“And where would I go instead?” Cinder asked.
“I don’t know, anywhere you like,” Sunset replied. “You could stay with the Frost Mountain Clan, you could… anywhere you wish. The world is spread out before you.”
“Are you saying that you want me to go?”
“Of course not,” Sunset said quickly. “I don’t want to lose you; I… I’m offering to set you free. I have no right to hold you here, and I will not.”
Cinder’s lips twitched upwards. “It is not your will, like a great chain, that holds me here; it is yourself. No, I will not leave you, not while you have need me. I don’t need to get away from you in order to find out who I am… at least, I don’t think I do. At least, I hope that I do not.” She snorted. “Besides, can you imagine me referring to myself in the third person and dropping all my prepositions?”
“I think you might have enjoyed referring to yourself in the third person once upon a time. I’m a little surprised you didn’t. Cinder Fall has come!”
Cinder snorted. “The Fall Maiden has come.” She sat silent for a moment. “Cinder not leave Sunset,” she said. “Cinder stay.”
Sunset smiled. “Sunset glad to hear it.”
Cinder held her gaze. “You never answered my question,” she reminded her.
Sunset frowned. “Which one?”
“Is it jealousy?” Cinder repeated. “Or are you genuinely worried about Ruby?”
Sunset hesitated. “Can it be both?”
“It can,” Cinder agreed. “Is it?”
“I… it depends,” Sunset conceded. “I do not trust myself.”
“Your other self?”
“Both,” Sunset admitted. “I do not like her being around… Vesper, but the truth is that I should like her being around me just as little. I… don’t deserve her, but I dislike being reminded of that fact by her cousin, of whom… I am more jealous than fearful.” Sunset shook her head. “What am I doing, Cinder?”
“You’re leading us,” Cinder reminded her. “You’re taking us to find Professor Ozpin and defend him.”
“Professor Ozpin doesn’t need me; he needs Ruby,” Sunset said. “He needs Pyrrha. He needs people he can count on. He needs… Professor Goodwitch only came to me because I was the only person who would take her calls. I… ever since the Battle, I’ve been… going through the motions, almost. I do things because I ought to, because I’ve promised that I will, because people expect me to. Meanwhile, all my own ambitions have turned to ash, and my goodness, this is some self-pitying garbage, isn’t it?”
“Is that what you really think?” Cinder demanded. “You would encourage me to find myself, but you would begrudge yourself the chance, the right, to do the same?”
“I have-”
“Done nothing worse than I,” Cinder pointed out to her. “If I deserve the chance to live again, then so do you.” She frowned. “Is there nothing left that brings you joy in this world?”
“I… I’m not sure how much there ever was,” Sunset admitted. “I wanted renown, I wanted glory, I wanted to shine above all others… but that in which I sought to shine brought me no joy.” She sighed. “Do you think that matters? I don’t think I’ve ever asked Ruby if she enjoys fighting, but… I don’t think I have ever seen her take especial glee in the act. She loves not the scythe for its sharpness but only that which it defends. But I loved not that which it defended, only myself and a handful of others.” Sunset’s frown deepened. “Do you think that if I could open my heart to the world, I would feel more content in my situation?”
“If you think Ruby is content in her situation at present, then you are a fool,” Cinder said dryly.
“Of course not,” Sunset replied sharply. “I just meant… I’m not entirely sure what I meant.”
“How can you be sure what you mean when you aren’t sure what you are?” Cinder asked. She paused. “Was there anything that brought you joy in the other world from whence you came? The world you fled from?”
“Not a lot,” Sunset confessed. “Not enough for me to figure out where my special talent lay, my purpose, my gift to the world. I liked to sing; I still do-”
“You rarely do,” Cinder pointed out.
Sunset grinned briefly. “It isn’t so acceptable to just burst into song whenever you feel like it in this world,” she reminded Cinder. “Not to mention… it hasn’t exactly been the right moment for it lately.”
“I’d ask when will be the right moment for it,” Cinder said. “But… not right now.” She glanced over Sunset’s shoulder, and Sunset turned to see Sunsprite Rose walking towards her, her yellow cloak swirling behind her.
Sunset rose to her feet, Sol Invictus gripped in one hand.
Sunsprite regarded her coolly out of her one eye. “You have ceased to spy upon Ruby, then?”
“I wasn’t spying,” Sunset replied defensively. “I was… keeping an eye on her, that’s all.”
“Ruby has no need of you to keep an eye on her while she is with me,” Sunsprite replied.
“She’s not with you now,” Cinder observed casually.
“Cinder,” Sunset said gently. She looked Sunsprite square in the face. “You are correct, of course.” She didn’t quite apologise, but she left the notion of an apology floating in the air between the two of them.
Sunsprite’s expression did not soften. “Do you hate me, Sunset Shimmer?”
“Hate you?” Sunset repeated. “No, I do not hate you.” She looked away. “I have no cause to hate you that I do not have to hate myself the more. The truth is that I was never Ruby’s sister, and I was a fool to forget that.”
“Indeed,” Sunsprite declared. “Speaking for myself, I find you absolutely unfit to be in Ruby’s company.”
Sunset blinked in surprise. Her ears twitched in annoyance. “I was about to ask you to take good care of her-”
“I need no leave or request from you to do that,” Sunsprite said sharply.
“But I’m not sure that I’ll be so generous now,” Sunset muttered.
“For someone who has known Ruby for so little time,” Cinder said, climbing to her feet, “you seem to consider yourself an authority on who she ought or ought not associate with.”
“I am her cousin, her kin,” Sunsprite replied. “We share a bond of blood and magic. A bond so unique that you could not possibly comprehend it.”
I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Sunset thought. “I do not trust you with Ruby because of your damn silver eye, but because you are her cousin. I thought you cared about Ruby for more than the magic in her line.”
“I do care for Ruby,” Sunsprite said. “But I also care for Freeport, and Estmorland, and all the people of this realm that my queen is forging out of this wilderness. A realm I fear for while you are within its bounds.”
Sunset closed her eyes. Her shoulders slumped. Of course. Of course it had come down to this. “You know what I did,” she said disconsolately.
“I know that you were willing to sacrifice a kingdom for the sake of-”
“Of Ruby,” Cinder pointed out. “Your cousin, bound by blood and magic, whom you claim to care for.”
“I care for Ruby,” Sunsprite repeated. “As I care for every living soul in Freeport, and for those souls, I would sacrifice Ruby as I would sacrifice myself.”
“Now I’m the one starting to have doubts about whether you are fit company for my friend,” Sunset murmured.
Sunsprite snorted. “So you admit it, then? You would sacrifice Freeport for Ruby’s sake.”
“I did not say that,” Sunset replied, “but nor would I so casually talk of casting aside her life.”
“Not even in sacrifice for the greater good?”
“I don’t believe in sacrifices,” Sunset declared.
“Clearly you did.”
“I am not that which I was.”
“Am I expected to simply believe that?” Sunsprite demanded. “The beowolf grows his spines, but he does not change them.”
“That is because the beowolf is a monster without a soul,” Cinder said. “Sunset is not such.”
“Again: am I expected to believe that and trust in you, though the lives of every man, woman, and child in Freeport rest upon my choices?” Sunsprite said, her voice rising.
“I bear no malice to any man, woman, or child in Freeport,” Sunset declared.
“Yet you bear them no love, either,” Sunsprite replied.
“What is that you think Sunset is going to do to you and your town?” inquired Cinder.
“I know not, which troubles me,” Sunsprite growled. “Based on what I know of you, it might be almost anything.”
Sunset’s hands clenched into fists. “At least I don’t talk so blithely of throwing Ruby’s life away as though it means nothing at all!”
“And at least I do not risk millions of lives as though they mean nothing!” Sunsprite hissed through gritted teeth. “The defence of Freeport is mine, and I will not see my city fall through your selfish conduct-”
A horn sounded, one of the Rangers upon the rampart of stone blowing to split the night air and strike the stars and shattered moon above.
Once, twice, three times, they wound the horn, each time blowing a long and dolorous note until, after the third time of sounding, the horn fell silent.
“What does that mean?” Cinder asked.
Sunsprite scowled, and a single word dropped from her lips, “Grimm.”

Crescent Rose was out in Ruby’s hands as soon as Vesper spoke the word, and she didn’t wait for the Sun Queen to act before she was heading towards the ramparts, rose petals like the blood that might be spilled this night trailing behind her. She reached the walls, the crumbling walls of overgrown white stone that were all that remained of the ancient ringfort that once had stood there. She leapt up onto the wall, Crescent Rose unfolding, and looked out into the darkness.
She could see them there, illuminated by the light of the broken moon that shone down upon them: the creatures of grimm, swarming in a great horde towards the hill upon which the Rangers and the Frost Mountain Clan were camped. There were beowolves and ursai, and amongst the press of smaller grimm walked larger karkadanns, grimm like horses with mouths full of cruel fangs called sleipnirs, towering grimm with horns like elks called cerruns, bipedal ogres and cyclopes lumbering forward and making the earth shake with their tread. For it was a horde in truth. A horde of grimm, no mere pack under the command of an alpha. Not, perhaps, the largest horde, nothing like the group that had attacked Beacon, but still a horde capable of sweeping aside the Frost Mountain Clan and leaving only bones behind.
Ruby tightened her grip on Crescent Rose, her weapon unfurling with clicks and snaps and hydraulic hisses. That would not happen. No matter what, she would not allow Yona to die, nor to lose everything so young. The Frost Mountain Clan would see the dawn.
She would make sure of it.
Perhaps if they killed the apex alpha, like Sunset, Yang, and Weiss had done on that leadership exercise in the Emerald Forest so long ago, then the horde would disperse. It was risky, and with prey so close by, there was no guarantee that it would work, but the chances of fighting off so many grimm just by defending this place, strong though it may be, were likewise risky, and if there was a chance that it might even reduce the odds against them, then surely, they had to take it? They had no allies coming, they had no Atlesian air support, they couldn’t fall back and tell themselves that the Valish military or the navy would take care of it before it reached a populated place. The populated place was here, and so was the battle. Throwing the dice was about all that they could do, but where was the apex alpha? Where was the grimm who had gathered this horde in place? Where was the…?
Ruby’s eyes widened as she saw it: there, far off, well at the rear of the horde, not guarded by any honour guard of grimm but at the same time needing none; she could just about make out the strange grimm, the talking grimm imbued with magic who had attacked her home and driven her in flight from Patch to Vale. The beast was wreathed in smoke, but that very smokescreen was so memorable that she recognised the beast at once.
She could make out its eyes, the crimson anima that burned like a maiden’s magic, blazing in the shadows.
By now, the camp was stirring behind her. The three blasts of the horn had stirred a hornet’s nest, and in the camp of the Frost Mountain Clan, the warriors were arming, pulling on mail shirts and taking up shields and spears, while Rangers snatched up their Great War guns, loading magazines and chambering rounds into the antique weapons.
“Rangers! To arms!” Sunsprite called, her assault rifle in one hand. “To the walls, now!”
“Shieldwall!” Prince Rutherford bellowed. “Archers to wall!”
“Huntsmen, to me!” Sunset bounded across the camp until she was standing on top of the stone wall alongside Ruby, looking out across the grimm horde to where their old friend from Patch waited. She cursed under her breath.
“What are we going to do, Sunset?” Ruby asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Sunset replied. “But… but he’s just standing there at the back for now, so let’s worry about the grimm that are actually getting close, and then we’ll worry about him later, okay?” She placed one hand on Ruby’s shoulder. “We’re going to get through this.”
“I know,” Ruby agreed. “Whatever it takes.”
Cardin and Taiyang joined them at the wall, although they did not climb up for a better view.
Cardin began to say, “What’s going-?” and then he saw exactly what was going on. “Ah, hell.”
“A taste of it, to be sure,” Cinder said, shards of glass forming a bow in her hand. “Do we have a plan?”
“Kill them before they get up to the top of this hill, if possible,” Sunset said.
Cardin grunted. “Hey, old man, did you ever wish you had a gun?”
“Only every time anybody called me ‘old man,’” Taiyang replied.
The Rangers rushed to the rampart; a couple of had bows, one had a crossbow, two were working a great war-era Valish light machine gun, setting up the weapon upon the wall, with its straight magazine sticking up from out of the top of the receiver; most of them had rifles, short-magazine, bolt action, over eighty years old, some of them, with bayonets – again, a mixture of sword bayonets almost two feet long and shorter knife-like blades only half the length – fixed and ready if, or when, the grimm got close enough. Even Vesper Radiance was amongst them, wielding a rifle with an unusually pale stock, almost white, which stood out amongst the other Rangers; it seemed to almost gleam under the light of the moon. The Rangers formed a skirmish line along the wall, while the warriors of the Frost Mountain Clan pressed in behind them, their painted shields, decorated with ravens and yaks’ heads and fire-breathing monsters, locked together in a wall of overlapping protection. Archers stood before the wall, and the front rank of warriors had spears ready to throw.
Of the Valish company, those who could fight from range – Ruby, Cinder, Sunset, Torchwick, Jack – stood at the forefront, while those who could not – Cardin, Sami, Neo, Taiyang, Lyra, and Bon Bon – were at the rear, the last line of defence between those of the Frost Mountain Clan who could not fight and the grimm. The young and old of the clan huddled amongst the wagons, including Yona, while their oxen lowed and the horses of the Rangers whinnied in alarm.
The grimm advanced in a growling, snarling mass, their red eyes gleaming in the darkness. They would be led by younger, weaker grimm to test the strength of their defences, but even those young, weak grimm could kill if they got amongst people with no aura and little training.
They all had to be killed if these people were to be protected.
Torchwick tipped his hat. “Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve been a wonderful audience.”
“Shut up and fight!” Sunset snapped.
The foremost grimm had reached the first step in the hill and began to climb up the artificial incline towards the summit.
Sunsprite climbed up onto the wall and ran across the ancient, crumbling, vine-covered rampart to stand beside Ruby. She spoke softly, in a voice so quiet that few even nearby could have heard them.
“I… have never learned how to use our… gift,” she admitted. “I am hoping that it is different with you.”
Ruby winced. “I’m afraid not. I know the theory, but not how to actually… get it to work. Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I had no grounds for expectation,” Sunsprite replied. “Very well. We must do this the traditional way. Rangers of Freeport! At will, aimed rapid fire, commence!”
Sunsprite put her assault rifle to her shoulder and began to blaze away at the black mass of targets down below. The light machine gun barked, the weapon shaking as it stuttered forth fire upon the grimm. The archers and the crossbowman let fly. But it was the rifles that were the most impressive; though most of them were bolt action weapons, nevertheless, the Rangers worked them so swiftly and fired so rapidly that it was as though there were twenty machine guns up upon the hill instead of one; the air was filled with the rattling fire of the rifles, the click-clacking of the bolt-action chambers as the Rangers worked their antique weapons blending together in an incessant sound. Ruby, Sunset, and the others added their own fire to the fusillade, and the archers of the Frost Mountain Clan let fly as well. Arrows and bullets alike flew down the hillside. Cinder’s glass arrows glinted as she shot them; Torchwick’s cane barked ordinary bullets, less powerful than his rockets but with a faster rate of fire; Ruby fired, aimed, and fired again.
The juvenile grimm who made up the first wave were met with fire and arrows descending. The bullets and the deadly darts tore through their black flesh, smashed through their underdeveloped masks of bleached bone, cracked spikes and armour plates before the grimm turned to ashes down on the lower slope. They fired, the grimm died, and the defenders on the wall cheered and cursed.
But the grimm kept coming.
Not yet the karkadanns or the cerruns, not yet the ogres or the cyclopes, still the beowolves and the ursai came on howling, running across the ground, churning up the land with their claws as they rushed forward, kicking up dirt, howling ever louder the closer they got. They were bigger now, and older; there were alphas and ursai major amongst them, distinguished by their greater size and developed bone structure; they all swarmed forward, trampling upon the ashes of their younger and more foolish kin who had been the first to fight and the first to fall.
This was how it was with grimm hordes; Sunset had explained that after her mission in the forest, teaching her what Professor Port had failed to get across: first, the small fry to test the strength of the defences, then the larger and more powerful grimm. This was not a typical horde – its atypical apex alpha had no bodyguards and seemed to be brooking no small or weak grimm to hide at the back of the pack – but that much had not changed. The grimm that came next were larger, stronger, and more dangerous.
Nevertheless, the defenders of King’s Camp met them with fire and with arrows. The rifles rattled rapidly, and the machine gun blazed away as the grimm tore at the earth in their zeal to climb the hill. Sunset’s Sol Invictus snapped, and Crescent Rose roared. Torchwick switched to his rockets, which exploded amongst the packed ranks of the grimm. But these grimm were better armoured than the ones before, more of their bodies were covered in bleached white bony armour, and so many arrows glanced off, and so many bullets seemed to not even faze the monsters, and even as some died, others continued to climb up the steps of the hillfort.
Murmurs of disquiet began to run through the ranks of the defenders.
“Hold fast!” Sunsprite roared. “For Freeport and the Queen, hold fast.”
“Stand firm!” bellowed Prince Rutherford. “Protect your children!”
The sound of a lyre being gently strummed disturbed the sounds of fighting; it came from Lyra, who had no gun but who did have a harp, who plucked upon that harp as the grimm climbed up the hill in the teeth of all that the defenders could throw at them.
Ever more quickly, she strummed, until she was playing a rapid, bouncing tune, and as she played, Ruby felt a fresh strength in her limbs, and the warriors behind her seemed to find fresh courage and resolve as, behind them, Lyra began to sing.

Hands worked more swiftly upon rifle bolts, weapons were reloaded more swiftly; arrows flew thicker, the arms of the archers a blur. Sunset seemed to be glowing as she reloaded Sol Invictus twice as quick as she had done before. With such a greater rate of the fire, the charge of the grimm began to falter as the volume of shot with which they were deluged found the mark.

The grimm howled in outrage as they began to struggle, those behind struggling over the wounded in front, grimm turning to ashes before their eyes, dying amidst the fire as they strove to gain the higher steps. They died in fire. They died of arrows. But as the great equine grimm that spoke and wielded magic watched from so far off, they kept on coming.

So Lyra sang, but they were already dancing with Sal o’ the Shadows this night, or at least with some of her innumerable minions. And they kept on coming. The beowolves and the ursai died scaling the hill, but now, the larger grimm – karkadanns, cerruns, cyclopes, ogres – had reached the base of the hill, and Ruby wasn’t sure they could shoot anything heavy enough to stop them.
They didn’t even have anything heavy enough to stop all the beowolves and the ursai. They were dying, yes, as much from volume of fire as anything else, but they kept on coming all the same, and the alphas and the ursai major who posed the biggest danger were the hardest to shoot down.
Ruby felt her hands begin to tremble. She was not afraid for herself, but she was terribly afraid for Yona, for Yona and her brother and sister and all the others of the Frost Mountain Clan who might… no, that would not happen. Not while she could prevent it.
If she could prevent it.
Ruby fired her last shot in her current magazine, blowing the head off a beowolf. She didn’t reload, instead she – to Sunset and to Sunsprite both – yelled, “I’ll be back!”
She turned away and felt her whole body transform into rose petals as she flew over the head of the Rangers and the warriors of the clan in their shield wall, flying in a red blur through the dark of the night with the howling of the grimm at her back.
It was… it was amazing. It must have been an evolution of her semblance, because Ruby had never felt anything quite like this before. She had left rose petals behind, but she hadn’t transformed into them like this. She felt as though she were in a hundred different places and in no place; she was flying without a body… she wished that she could have experienced this in less urgent circumstances.
She reformed, stopping and returning to herself both almost at once, before the wagons of the Frost Mountain Clan. “Yona?” she shouted. “Yona, where are you?”
“Here, Yona is here, Ruby,” Yona replied from underneath one of the wagons. She was huddled there with her siblings in her arms, the smaller children clinging to her for comfort. “Ruby not fight in battle?”
“Ruby fight, I mean I’m going to go back to fighting in a second,” Ruby told her. “But before that, there’s something that I need to do, if you’ll let me. Yona, do you want to be able to protect your family?”
Yona nodded. “Ruby, is fight going badly?”
“No, Yona, it’s not, but if it does… do you trust me?” Ruby asked.
Yona nodded again, without hesitation. “Yona trust Ruby.”
“Then close your eyes and concentrate.” What Ruby was about to do was probably not the right thing, or at least not exactly; it was kind of personal, and she didn’t really know Yona that well, but if the grimm broke through, then at least she’d have a fighting chance.
Ruby reached out and placed one hand on Yona’s shoulder. She closed her eyes in turn.
For it is with courage that we overcome all obstacles.
She channelled her aura through her arm, sending it pulsing into Yona like a charge of electricity moving through a circuit. Ruby felt the power rushing out of her, her own aura depleting.
Through this, we bloom like a flower in sunlight, our beauty in our strength revealed.
Ruby’s aura plunged through the girl before her, searching for the core of her soul. The world disappeared around them; there were no grimm, there was no battle, nobody was wondering where she was or what she was doing. There was only Ruby… and there was Yona, as Ruby’s aura made contact with her soul.
Illuminated with valour and endowed with strength, I unleash your soul, and by my hand, I arm thee.
The darkness was lit up by a light, a blaze of light coming from within Yona. Ruby gasped for breath as she recoiled back a step.
Yona glowed brilliantly with the newly acquired light of her soul. “Ruby?” she asked. “What Ruby do?”
“What I had to,” Ruby declared. “I need to get back. Keep your family safe, okay?”
Ruby turned away without waiting for a reply from Yona. She turned back to the battle to see the warriors of the Frost Mountain Clan hurling their spears down as the grimm covered the last few feet of ground separating them from the old stone rampart.
They were led by the largest ursa that Ruby had ever seen, a towering giant of a grimm covered in so many protruding spikes of bone that it looked as much like a porcupine as a bear. The bleached claws jutting out of its paws were as long as the blades of swords, and bullets ricocheted harmlessly off its armour.
Sunsprite stood before it, her assault rifle cast aside, a machete-like blade gripped in both hands.
The ursa growled as it raised one paw to swat her aside.
Ruby struck before it could, her body turning to rose petals once more as, in a swirling cloud of crimson, she soared from the wagons to the forefront of the battle line. The world was slow around her, and she was swift, as swift as air itself before she reformed, her body returning to normal as she slammed into the ursa’s chest hard enough to rock it back on its heels. The immense grimm was pushed back so far that it lost its balance on the slope and tumbled backwards down the stepped hill... and Ruby with it.
She and the grimm fell together, the grimm howling in pain as its great spurs cracked and splintered on the ground. Ruby tried to strike at the ursa as they fell, but she was getting banged around so much – tossed from the earth and stone to the ursa’s chest, her aura dropping a little every time – that it was hard to focus, let alone get Crescent Rose in the right position.
They reached the base of the hill. Ruby rolled to her feet, lashing out with Crescent Rose to slice two nearby beowolves in half. But she was in the midst of the horde now, and all the grimm were turning towards her, including the giant ursa which climbed ponderously to its feet.
There was a crack and a burst of green light as Sunset appeared above the ursa’s head, her black sword Soteria aflame, screaming in fury as she sliced off the ursa’s head.

Sunset roared as she teleported to Ruby’s side, her sword ablaze. She bellowed in anger as she cut off the ursa’s head and landed amongst its ashes, because she would suffer no harm to come to Ruby, not from these fell beasts.
Sunset’s rings of iron and gold fitted snugly upon her fingers; the golden band glimmered in the moonlight, but it was the iron ring that she made use of now, the strength of an earth pony magnified immensely. She was so strong now, and so swift. She could feel the power coursing through her muscles, stiffening her sinews more than Lyra’s semblance had achieved or ever could have. By Celestia, she could take on Pyrrha with this kind of strength, take her on in a contest of sheer brute strength and still prevail.
Certainly, she was a match for any beowolf or ursa.
Ruby watched, wide-eyed, in awe of Sunset’s might as she wielded her burning sword with a strength and speed that she never would have possessed without this borrowed power. The ursai and the beowolves lunged at her, but she would suffer none of them to reach Ruby, not a single one. Soteria traced flames in the air as she hacked and sliced, smashing bony plates of armour to pieces to cleave the oily black flesh beneath. She cut off heads, she hacked off limbs, alphas and ursai major fell before her might because she was strength, she was speed, she was everything, and these creatures, these wretched, miserable things could not compare.
They were not her real opponent. Her real enemy, coward that he was, was staying out of the battle, watching as his minions great and small fought on his behalf. She could see him over there, watching her as the grimm closed in around her, but not fast enough. All she needed to do with her earth pony strength and speed was clear a little space around Ruby, and she had done that. A little space in which to concentrate, to gather the power of the gold ring, the power of unicorns, the magic greater than any she could wield alone.
Magic that would be sufficient to deal with even a horde such as this.
With the immediate threat of the grimm closest by dealt with – by killing them all, every last one of them – Sunset gathered magic to her. So much magic. So much power. So much strength at her command. She glowed with it. She blazed with it. Her name was Sunset, but in this darkness, she was the very sun itself. She was the light in darkness, and the darkness would fear her.
Or it would die.
And die it did as the magic erupted out of her in all directions, Sunset’s custom dispelling failsafe racing like wildfire away from her in all directions, seeking out the grimm and breaking the spells that held their destructive natures together. One by one, before they could cry out, they were reduced to nothingness, a whole great horde falling by her hand in no time at all.
She should use this power more often. She should not flinch from it. Had she not done good work? Had she not done a hero’s work this night? Had she not saved a clan from destruction and rescued Freeport’s vaunted Rangers from annihilation too?
All the grimm were destroyed, all save for the one who had brought them here, the one who had tracked them all the way from Vale. The one who stood far to the rear of the field, wreathed in smoke and shadow, watching them with his one red eye.
Sunset watched him in turn, her teeth bared in a snarl.
Come. Come try me now, as your two fellows did. Come, try me and see why your sister fled in terror of my strength!
Things will not be as they were on Patch.
It seemed that the great grimm did not doubt it, for like a coward, it turned away, the smoke that spewed forth from the monster concealing it as it slunk away into the darkness, hidden even from the moonlight, hidden to be sure from Sunset’s eyes.
She did not pursue. She had no need to. He could not frighten her, not any more. While she possessed these rings, she was invulnerable. There was neither man nor woman nor grimm under sun or moon could equal up her power.
By Celestia, that proud and arrogant Sunsprite Rose would not dare speak to her now as she had before the battle began! She would not have the nerve to trespass against Sunset now that she knew what Sunset truly was!
She was tempted to walk back up that hill- no, she would fly up the hill, and she would show that great child of duty, that born and destined warrior, just who and what she truly was!
Sunset turned, and she was still baring her teeth in a snarl as she looked up the hill to see everyone staring down at her. Well might they stare. Sunset was so far above them as to be-
“Sunset?”
Sunset turned. Ruby was standing there, staring at her. She was still holding onto Crescent Rose. She looked… she looked nervous.
Nervous… of her?
Why did Ruby look nervous of her?
Why shouldn’t she look nervous? Why shouldn’t she be afraid?
Because she’s my friend.
She is no friend to me.
“What?” Sunset barked at her.
Ruby took a step back. “Sunset… this is what we talked about, isn’t it? When you told me that you might… that you had something to power up your magic, but… but at a cost?” Her silver eyes glanced towards the rings on Sunset’s fingers. “It’s those rings, isn’t it?” Ruby’s chest rose and fell rapidly. “You can take them off now. You don’t need them anymore; you can take them off.”
“No!” Sunset yelled, because of course Ruby wanted her to take them off, of course Ruby wanted to take her power away, Ruby wanted to make her weak and pliable so that she could use her as she always had!
No. Ruby isn’t like that. That’s not why-
Ruby is exactly like that! I save her time and again! I sacrifice for her, I give up everything for her, and all I get in return is disapproval!
Because of the things that I’ve done-
What I’ve done? What I’ve done is cast all my hopes and dreams and dear ambitions aside because of her, and what has it gotten me? I am a hollow shell because of her, and all for what? All I asked for in return was her love and friendship, and she is too mean to give me that! She prefers her precious cousin over me? Then so be it!
No, Sunset thought. No, you’re wrong, you’re wrong, you don’t… but it was so hard to resist the anger, the resentment, the almost hatred of Ruby that flowed from the rings… no, not from the rings, from herself, from herself and the feelings that she had stuffed away into the darkness in the deepest pits at the bottom of her soul.
Now she had dragged them out and into the light, and she could not put them back again.
She was not Ruby’s sister, and she never had been. So why should she bother playing a role for which she garnered no applause?
“Sunset,” Cinder said, her voice soft as she walked down the hill, leaping from step to step until she was standing in front of Sunset. “Sunset, look at me.”
Sunset did look at her. She looked at Cinder, who had never doubted or betrayed her, at Cinder who had only ever been grateful for all that Sunset had done for her, and she felt the scowl die on her face.
“Sunset,” Cinder repeated. “Take off the rings.”
“But I-”
“The battle is done,” Cinder insisted. “Please.”
Sunset looked down at her hands. The rings made her strong. They made her powerful.
They made her fearful, and Cinder had asked that she take them off.
A simple request, from one who had done so much for Sunset.
A simple request that she could not refuse.
Sunset closed her eyes and clenched her teeth and pulled the rings off her hands.
She felt diminished. She felt her strength leave her in such a rush that she swayed on her feet, unable to stand. Cinder took a step towards her, ready to catch her, ready to support her as she always had, but Sunset held up one hand to stay her. She was not quite at that point, not yet.
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “I’m okay.”
“Are you?” Cinder asked. She held out one hand. “Why don’t you let me hang onto those for now?”
Sunset’s hand closed around her rings. She hastily shoved them into her pocket. “No,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
Cinder’s eyes narrowed. “If you’re sure.”
“I am,” Sunset said, with a little more certainty than she felt. She looked at Ruby. “Ruby… I-”
“It’s fine,” Ruby said, even though she didn’t sound fine; there remained a wariness in her silver eyes when she looked at Sunset.
Sunset… resented it, but at the same time… at the same time, she couldn’t blame her.
She looked up the hill. Sunsprite turned away, her yellow cloak swirling behind her. But Vesper Radiance remained, perched on the top of the ancient rampart.
Watching.