Arc 1: Initiation
Sunset Shimmer looked out the window of the airship. 'This is the day I've been waiting for.' she thought to herself. 'I can't believe it, that day has come. I'm actually heading to Beacon Academy.' Sunset could hardly contain herself. She squealed a little bit and briefly pranced in place. She stopped when she caught herself fangirling and glanced around to see if anyone saw that. It didn't look like anyone did. She overheard someone talking about wanting to have normal knees. On her other side, Sunset noticed a boy with pink hair lying face-down on the floor, groaning.
“Why does mom hate me so much?” Sunset barely made out of what he grumbled.
Sunset snickered to herself, not at the boy's agony, but at the memory of her feeling much the same way in the past ten months. Her training to inherit One For All was definitely such a challenge she felt she could get away with calling it a Year of Hell.
Celestia was riding on a segway in her true form as Sunset was jogging behind her, looking horribly exhausted.
Sunset collapsed mid-stride, tripping over her tired feet, her arms shaking like she was in an earthquake in the struggle of trying to pull herself up.
'Why do I hate myself so much?' Sunset thought as her face laid on the gravel path.
Celestia quickly noticed that Sunset was no longer jogging directly behind her. “Come on, young lady, you won't become strong enough to inherit One For All if you lay face down in the dirt like that. We only have six months until-” then Celestia noticed her horrible shaking. “You're overdoing it, aren't you?”
Sunset said nothing as she panted, straining herself to stand up, barely looking at Celestia with one open eye.
“I designed the Valean Dream Plan so that your progress would be swift but manageable,” Celestia got off the segway and stepped closer to Sunset, “if you overwork your body like this, you risk more damage than progress. Why are you doing this?”
Sunset grit her teeth and mustered enough strength to lift an arm and punch the ground, or at least enough to emphasize her frustration.
“Because,” Sunset said hoarsely, “I don't merely want to succeed. I want to surpass. I want to show the world what I am capable of!”
Celestia stood in front of her pupil in stunned silence before inflating into her hero form. “Yes!” Celestia shouted. “That's the spirit!” she then picked up the tired Sunset onto her feet. “I may have to rework the entire plan from this point on, but hey!” Celestia knelt to face Sunset eye to eye, “You are demonstrating what it truly takes to be an excellent huntress.”
Sunset smiled genuinely but weakly as she wobbled in place.
“Now, let's get back to it!” Celestia cheered. “These three miles aren't going to walk themselves!” she then patted Sunset heavily on the back, who then fell forward, landing face-down into the gravel again. “Or maybe I should just carry you, at least part of the way.” Celestia amended.
Sunset was pulled from her thoughts when a news program began to play on a holographic screen inside the ship. The reporter talked about peaceful faunus right revolutions turning violent and then about a dangerous man by the name of Roman Torchwick on the loose. The news was suddenly interrupted by a hologram of a blonde woman wearing a white collared blouse and a black corset with four gold buttons.
“Hello.” the woman said.
“Who's that?” Sunset overheard someone say.
“I am Glynda Goodwitch.” the hologram seemed to respond.
Glynda then gave a brief speech about what the new students can expect and when and where official initiation will occur.
Beacon Academy came into view out the windows, and everyone on board crowded the windows to get a better look.
“Wow.” a girl with black hair with red tips wearing a jacket with a red hood said as Sunset took place next to her.
“I know, right?” Sunset said in agreement, looking to the red-themed girl, exchanging a smile.
A taller blonde and yellow themed girl looked over the red girl at Sunset and let out a soft chuckle, “The view from Signal ain't got nothing on this.”
All three girls heard someone gagging and looked to see a blonde boy in knight-like armor with a black hoodie underneath it hold his hands over his mouth as he staggered away from the window, desperately trying not to throw up.
“I guess the view isn't for everybody.” She said as the boy darted past them. “I'm Yang, by the way,” she said as she held out a hand to Sunset.
“Sunset Shim-”
*Bleaugh!* the blonde boy interrupted Sunset's introduction when he threw up on Yang's shoes.
“Aw, gross! He got it on your shoes!” the red girl screamed.
“Grossgrossgrossgrossgross!” Yang exclaimed in kind.
“Ew, getawayfrommegetawayfrommegetawayfromme!” red said as both she and Sunset were backing away from Yang and her barf covered boots.
Thankfully, they landed shortly after the whole “Vomit Boy” incident as said Vomit Boy ran out of the airship and made a mad dash to the nearest open trash can and threw up again.
Sunset empathetically patted Vomit Boy on the back, then wandered towards the main building of Beacon Academy.
“Wow,” she said softly aloud as she was subconsciously being pulled by the crowd closer to the building before realizing she was too close to take it all in and started pacing backward.
She was pulled from her admiration when she heard an explosion, tripped over her feet, and began to fall backward.
Time slowed down to a crawl as the sky consumed her vision. 'Well, I guess I'll die here.' she thought just as her fall was cushioned by a huge stack of books being carried by a small boy.
“Why don't you watch where you're going!?” a female voice shouted at Sunset as she laid on a pile of books, wincing in pain as a book managed to land on her face. Sunset was thankful that the collection of books was large enough that she did not receive any blunt force trauma to the head from the concrete but would have plenty of bruises across her back from the books' sharp-ish edges.
“Gee Twilight, I'm fine, thanks for asking.” came a muffled, sarcastic young male voice from underneath the pile.
Sunset was startled by realizing where the second voice came from and jumped up, weirdly sending two or three books flying an incredible distance given the minuscule force that should have been enacted upon it. Sunset did not pay any attention to physics breaking around her as she dug through the books and found the small boy that had been carrying the absurd amount of books and pulled him out.
“I am so sorry!” Sunset shouted as she dusted the boy off. “Are you Ok?”
The small boy had lime green hair, wearing a purple t-shirt with a slightly off-purple and asymmetric design of a dragon's head, and reptilian frills behind his ears. When Sunset stepped back, he threw both hands in front of him, palms facing upwards, and looked to Twilight.
“See?” he said, “Common courtesy.” he then relaxed his arms and faced Sunset, bowing slightly. “Much better, now that you asked. Emotionally, if not physically.” he beamed a smile at Sunset, then turned to Twilight, the same smile now carrying a sense of smugness or sarcasm.
Twilight rolled her eyes as she brushed her dark blue hair with a reddish-pink highlight; her pony ear twitched. She wore a light-blue cardigan sweater underneath a lavender jacket, a purple skirt, and a pair of heeled boots.
Twilight stared at the boy for a moment. “Are you going to pick those up or not, Spike?”
Spike's smile vanished into a neutral expression, and he turned to pick up the books scattered across the ground. “You know,” he said, “you could help, Twilight. Your semblance is telekinesis, after all.”
“Yes, but it's nothing like what you read in your comic books, Spike. There's a fine limit in how much I can lift.” as she was talking, a couple of books at a time began to glow a faint pale pink and organize themselves into organized stacks.
As everything was being put together, another girl walked up to them, holding what Sunset presumed to be another of Twilight's books. She was also a faunus with pony ears and had a lighter shade of purple from Twilight's hair but with a cyan highlight. She wore a traditional Eastern Vale dress with a sash of two purple stripes and a cyan stripe, matching her hair, tied around her waist, and wearing a pair of purple gloves.
“'Prophecies and Predictions'?” The girl read the title of the book then looked to Twilight skeptically. “You look like the intellectual type. Why do you have a book like this?”
Twilight's face reddened, and she quickly snatched the book away from the new girl. “Because... I have a friend who won't shut up about something from this book becoming true, and I need to use this to find evidence to prove her wrong.”
Spike quirked an eyebrow at that statement but then shrugged it off and picked up the finished stack of books, walking over to Twilight for her to place the last one on.
“Those books were written by and for people desperate for attention and refused to be productive members of society.”
Twilight puffed up her cheeks and slammed the book on top of Spike's stack, nearly knocking him off balance, and stormed off.
“Bye,” Sunset said to Twilight and Spike.
“Bye,” Spike replied, unable to face her.
Twilight continued walking away in fuming silence.
Sunset turned to face the other girl, but she was also walking away and was too far for Sunset to catch up to her before it seemed like she was stalking her. So, since that whole debacle is now over, she sunk to her knees and laid backward, closing her eyes to shield them from the sunlight.
“Uhg, that was embarrassing.” Sunset groaned to herself.
The sunlight was suddenly obscured, and Sunset opened her eyes to see a boy holding out his hand. He had messy brown hair and wore a red t-shirt with blue sidings and a black spider on the chest, blue jeans, a pair of red and white sneakers, and fairly bulky-looking gloves with bandages wrapped around them and halfway up his forearm.
“Hi, I'm Peter,” he said.
Sunset took his hand and pulled her up to her feet. “I'm Sunset.”
Peter smiled at her. “Nice to meet you.”
Peter and Sunset started to walk around campus. They ran into a couple of other new students, the red-themed girl from the airship, Ruby, and the blonde-haired boy who threw up on the ship, Jaune.
“I'm just saying motion sickness is more common than you think,” Jaune said argumentatively.
“I'm sorry 'Vomit Boy' was the first thing that came to mind,” Ruby said jokingly.
“Oh, yeah?” Jaune retorted. “How about if I started calling you 'Crater Face'?”
“Hey! That was an accident! And that girl was really, really mean!”
“'Crater Face'?” Sunset inquired.
Jaune looked up from teasing Ruby. “Hm? Oh, yeah. She tripped over some rich girl's stuff, and then she sneezed, and then she exploded.”
“There was dust involved.” Ruby added testily before retelling the whole story, “... and then she was waving a leaky dust vial in front of my face, and the stuff got into my nose, and my sneeze must have- kinda- set it off. There was fire, and I think there was some ice.”
Peter whistled. “Wow. I didn't think dust was so sensitive that literally, a sneeze could set it off.”
They all chuckled. Sunset then felt it was appropriate to tell the group the story of her encounter with Twilight.
“I guess we can then call you... 'Facebook.'” Jaune quipped.
“Please don't.” Sunset whimpered.
“Well, now that the three out of the four of us have an embarrassing nickname. Let's see if we can find one for you, Peter.” Jaune said almost sinisterly, Ruby joining him in his evil smile.
Peter quirked an eyebrow and smirked.
Jaune didn't waste any time in coming up with one. “'Nightmare shirt.'”
“...What?” Peter said as he looked down at his shirt, seeing nothing wrong. “Why?”
“You have a giant spider on your chest. Those things are the stuff of nightmares.”
“Wha- spiders are cool!” Peter retorted.
“No, they're not! They are creepy little crawlies.”
Peter reacted like someone poured cold water down his neck. “'Creepy- little- crawlies'?”
“What? Too childish?” Jaune asked obliviously.
“Yes,” Peter said firmly.
“How about... 'Spider-ling'?” Ruby asked.
Peter frowned slightly. “That's already the nickname Mr. Stark gave me.”
Ruby and Sunset's eyes widened. “Stark?” they said in unison. “As in Tony Stark?”
Peter took a step back. “Y-yeah. He's the only reason why I'm able to come here to Beacon. He gave me a scholarship.”
Ruby's eyes sparkled as Sunset's maintained their wideness.
“How did you get a scholarship from Tony Stark?” Ruby asked breathily.
Peter smirked. “From these bad boys.” he showed them the back of his hands.
“Your hands?” Ruby asked, tilting her head.
“No.” Peter pulled off a glove and showed them the piece of equipment underneath the bandages. “I call them web-shooters. Designed them myself.”
“What do they do?” Jaune asked.
Peter threw out a hand away from the group and pressed his middle two fingers against his palm, and a string that looked a lot like giant spider silk flew out from his wrist.
“That's amazing,” Ruby said in wonder. “Ooh, let me show something I designed. It's not anything scholarship worthy, but I am very proud of it nonetheless.” Ruby then whips out the hunk of red and black metal that was strapped to her back as mechanical transforming noises resonated, and it fully extended into its true form as she stabbed the weapon's blade into the ground.
“Whoa! Is that a scythe?” Jaune said, a little scared.
“Yep. It's also a fully customizable, high impact sniper rifle.”
“A what-now?”
Ruby pulls a rack. “It's also a gun.”
Sunset walks up to Ruby to admire Ruby's weapon, 'Crescent Rose,' caressing her hand over the intricate machinery.
“How about you, Sunset? I see you're carrying something.” Ruby chirped.
“Oh, uh. I-it's not as impressive as either of yours but- uh...” Sunset pulls out her weapon of mostly red-orange and yellow colors as it transforms as well; Jaune jumped back again, “It's also a scythe.”
“Copy-cat.” Ruby playfully jeered.
“B-but this one actually turns into a shield. I'm not very good at designing firing mechanisms.”
“It's still cool, though,” Ruby said encouragingly. “I like how you have a sun emblem at the end there.”
Sunset felt a pang of embarrassment when Ruby pointed out the sun symbol at the head of her scythe. She wanted to be like Celestia so much that she even copied Celestia's personal emblem. Thankfully, a sun is generic enough, and her symbol is different enough that no one seems to notice the inspiration.
“Were you going for a Celestia inspiration?” Ruby asked.
'Rats' Sunset chided to herself. “Y-yeah. I'm a huge fan.”
“Cool,” Ruby said, smiling brightly. “Jaune, what about you?”
Jaune was caught off-guard by this. “Oh! Uh- mine is definitely not as impressive as any of yours, but...” he pulls a sword and scabbard off his belt, pulls the blade out, and the scabbard folded out into a shield.
“Ooh.” Ruby and Sunset said.
“Mine's actually a hand-me-down. It was my great-great-grandfather's who fought in the Great War.”
“Sounds more like a family heirloom to me,” Ruby said, causing Jaune to deflate a little. “But I like it!” Ruby proclaimed genuinely. “Not many have an appreciation for the classics.”
Peter and Sunset concurred with Ruby's statement.
“Yeah, classic,” Jaune said softly.
They were interrupted when they could hear someone panting. They looked around and saw a pink-haired boy running towards them.
“I'm not too late, am I?!” the pink-haired boy said when he got close enough to speak to them. “For initiation? Oh, mom's gonna kill me if I'm late.”
Peter pulled out his scroll and looked at the time. “Oh, crap! It starts in like four minutes! We need to get there fast!”
Everyone started to panic.
“Which way is it?” Jaune asked Ruby.
“I thought you knew!”
“No, I was following you!”
“AHHH!” everyone screamed in unison.
The pink-haired boy then stretched his back as he seemed to have regained his breath. “Alright, follow me.” He ran past them and threw his hands out behind him, the sound of mechanical shifting, followed by an explosion as he launched himself into the air towards the main building.
“Ok, now he's just copying Yang,” Ruby said as she pulled out Crescent Rose and followed the boy in kind, firing her rifle-scythe to launch her into the air.
Peter shrugged. “When in Rome. Come on, Sunset, I'll give you a hand.” he held out a hand to Sunset again. When she took it, he pulled her in close and threw a web at a tall structure, and they began to swing across the campus.
Jaune was left alone as Sunset's surprised screams began to fade from the distance.
Jaune lifted his hands. “No one's going to help me?” he dropped his hands and shook his head as he began to jog in the direction everyone else left. “That's fine,” he said sarcastically. “Just leave little Jaune to fend for himself. 'Last I saw him, he was enjoying his time alone.' Yeah, Peter and Sunset are probably making out by now. Stupid little spider-ling.”