//------------------------------//
// The Lion and the Unicorn (New) 
// Story: SAPR 
// by Scipio Smith 
//------------------------------//


The Lion and the Unicorn


“The next match,” Professor Goodwitch said, “will be between Sunset Shimmer and Arslan Altan.”
Sunset rose to her feet, adjusting the strap that held Soteria’s scabbard across her back.
“Be careful, Sunset,” Pyrrha murmured. “She’s the one I warned you about earlier.”
It took Sunset a moment to remember back to the start of the semester; so much had happened since then. “You mean the one who doesn’t like me?”
“The one you gratuitously insulted, yes,” Pyrrha replied. “Don’t underestimate her. She’s come closer to defeating me than anyone else I’ve ever fought.”
Sunset frowned. “Including me?”
Pyrrha hesitated. “That… would be difficult to say for sure.”
“I’ll be fine,” Sunset assured her. “I almost beat you, and she’s not as good as you are, so I’ll have no problem.”
Pyrrha frowned a little. “I’m not quite sure that logic holds up.”
“You can do it, Sunset,” Ruby declared.
“Good luck up there,” Jaune added.
“Miss Shimmer?” Professor Goodwitch demanded. “Will you be joining us?”
“Coming, Professor,” Sunset said, turning away from her team and making her way across the darkened floor of the amphitheatre towards the stage. She leapt up onto said stage in a single bound, Sol Invictus held in her hands. She nodded her head to Professor Goodwitch. “Just having a quick strategy session with my teammates.”
Despite that ‘strategy session,’ Sunset was still the first one to arrive onto the stage, waiting expectantly for her opponent to show herself. The delay was – in Sunset’s opinion – almost certainly because said opponent was spending time in the dark getting her big entrance ready. 
Arslan Altan strutted onto the stage like a rock star, arms spread out low on either side of her as if she were running her fingers through water that only she could see or feel. Her olive green eyes sparkled with light from the cocksure smirk that besmirched her lips, and as she mounted the stage, a great roar of approval arose from the assembled Haven students. Fists were thrust into the air as voices cried out her name, called on her to kick ass, to win for Haven, for Mistral, to let the lion roar. Arslan’s smile widened, becoming a smile in truth instead of a smirk, and like a flower absorbs the sunlight so she seemed to drink up the energy and approval of the crowd, turning towards her supporters down below and in the gallery, raising her arms up high above her head to raise the volume up higher still.
“Quiet down, please, all of you,” Professor Goodwitch said, raising her voice above the tumult. She waited for the noise to die down, at least a little, before she added, “Miss Altan, please try to remember that this isn’t the Mistral Coliseum. In fact, that is something all Haven students should try to remember.” She swept her glare across them all, silencing the last of them who had dared to continue demonstrating their enthusiasm. “These bouts are not displays for your entertainment but for your education. Please take them seriously.”
“Believe me, Professor, there is nothing I take more seriously than a fight,” Arslan declared. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun, right?”
Sunset studied her opponent as Arslan began to limber up; she was about as tall as Yang and as broad in the shoulders as Rainbow Dash, not to mention darker than anyone that Sunset had seen outside of Atlas. She was dressed in a yellow-green robe with a white cuff around the one remaining loose sleeve on the right. The other sleeve – and much of the left-hand side of the robe – was absent for whatever reason, exposing the black tank top and pants she wore beneath, as well as the bandages around her wrist – and around her upper arm, above the elbow – in the place where Pyrrha and Blake wore their arm bands. A red sash, embroidered with an endless knot, was wrapped around her waist and dangled down almost to the floor. Around her neck, she wore a string of red beads- no, they were fire dust crystals, weren’t they? Something to be wary of, although Sunset couldn’t see any other weapon on her. Her hair was platinum blonde, cut short at the nape of the neck but worn in an untidy mop atop her head. 
She settled in a low stance, her knees bent and legs spread apart, her palms unclenched but poised to strike, one held before her and the other drawn back and level with her eyes.
“Are you ready, Miss Shimmer?” Professor Goodwitch asked.
Sunset’s fingers shifted upon Sol Invictus. “Ready, Professor.”
“Miss Altan?”
“Ready, Professor,” Arslan said.
“Very well then,” Professor Goodwitch said, as she retired nimbly from the stage. “Begin!”
Arslan had been standing poised to attack, but now, as the signal came to start the fight, one hand flew to the necklace of fire dust crystals around her neck, ripping one and flinging it across the stage at Sunset, igniting it with her aura so that a blazing fireball streaked towards her.
Sunset conjured up a shield, the barrier of green energy forming before her just as the fireball struck, beating upon her magic but not denting it; the fire blossomed upon the barrier, providing a harmless light show for a moment before dissipating into nothing.
The death of the flame revealed Arslan charging, one fist drawn back, the smile on her face replaced with a look of intense concentration as she swiftly – she was almost as fast as Pyrrha – closed the distance between them. 
Sunset kept her shield up. If Arslan wanted to approach just like Pyrrha, then she would begin just like she had with Pyrrha; she’d let her shield take the first punch and then erupt it outwards to knock the proud Haven challenger on her backside. And unlike Pyrrha, Arslan didn’t have a gun. 
She could already see how this battle was going to go. 
A roar ripped from Arslan’s throat as she swung her fist straight at Sunset’s shield. Her knuckles struck the gleaming green barrier, and Arslan’s aura dropped into the yellow as Sunset’s shield shattered into so many pieces like glass. 
Sunset’s eyes widened. She broke it… with her aura? But-
Arslan charged through, still yelling at the top of her lungs as she threw a second punch with her other hand, driving her fist straight into Sunset’s stomach. Shockwaves erupted from her hand, spilling off the stage and blasting across the watching crowd like a mighty wind as her aura dropped yet further. 
Sunset would have doubled over if it weren’t for her cuirass; even with the armour on, her body bent as much as she was able to, the force of Arslan’s aura-enhanced blow rippling through the metal and through her body too. She could feel her aura being mashed by Arslan’s strength, she could feel her insides being rocked by it, and she could see herself flying as the force of Arslan’s attack blasted her backwards.
Sunset teleported before she could be knocked off the stage and the fight ended before it began. Wherever she reappeared, she would still be suffering the force, so she reappeared in mid-air, her whole body flying, upside down, her hair askew. For a moment, Arslan didn’t realise where she had gone, and in that moment Sunset, spread out her hands and fired magical bolts from her fingertips, green darts rapidly spitting down at Arslan as Sunset flew overhead. 
Arslan shielded herself with both hands; that was as much as Sunset saw before the stage began to explode from the impacts all around her, showering Arslan with debris and obscuring her in the clouds of smoke from the explosions. Sunset risked a glance towards the aura board and saw that Arslan’s aura was going downwards. 
Sunset cast an anti-gravity spell on herself, beginning to right her body as she hovered in the air above the smoke, palms out, watching for-
Arslan emerged from out of the smoke, carried by a great leap up into the air, flying towards Sunset like a missile. Sunset fired a blast of magic from her palm, which struck Arslan square in the chest, hurling her back downwards towards the ruined stage, but as she fell, she threw a knife attached to a rope at Sunset. It didn’t strike Sunset, but the rope wrapped itself tightly around Sunset’s vambrace. As Arslan fell, Sunset was pulled down with her, pulled down towards the stage, pulled down to where Arslan – who had hit said stage with a thump that had knocked some more of her aura off – was waiting for her with a punch to the face. 
Sunset tried to block the blow, but it was hard to do when you were being literally hauled downwards towards your opponent, and the punch caught her square on the jaw, pounding her aura level down as Sunset was tossed aside, bouncing across the wreck that her magic had made of the stage before coming to a halt upon her back.
She knew from her fight with Pyrrha that she wouldn’t get the chance to lie down. She teleported to the other side of the stage; Sunset had lost her grip on Sol Invictus, but she summoned it with telekinesis into her hand as Arslan charged towards her. 
The weapon reached her sweat-stained hands just in time. Sunset brought the rifle up, her breathing heavy. She snapped off one shot, then another; Arslan rolled aside, tossing another fireball Sunset’s way, and then a second. Sunset conjured a shield which absorbed both blasts, then disrupted it without waiting for Arslan to break through – she didn’t know if Arslan still had the aura left for that, but she wasn’t going to take any chances – the magic rippling outwards in a wave that would have blasted Arslan backwards if she hadn’t already leapt back out of range, sending another fireball Sunset’s way as the shield’s effects vanished. 
Sunset threw herself to the ground – the part of the stage she was on now was largely untouched – and fired a third shot, which Arslan dodged. 
Arslan charged. Sunset scrambled to her feet and fired the three remaining shots in the chamber of Sol Invictus. Arslan dodged them all, diving and rolling out of the way before rising up to continue her rush towards Sunset. 
Sunset kept hold of the empty gun with one hand, as with the other, she ignited the fire dust layered into her jacket, the phoenix cape that would burn Arslan if she tried to strike her there. The flames of red and gold leapt up across her back and front, armouring her against an enemy who didn’t have the aura left to trade-off damage for damage like that. 
Yet Arslan kept on coming. 
Sunset extended the bayonet of Sol Invictus, the blade snapping outwards like a javelin as a spearshaft slid smoothly out from the stock of the gun. Arslan nimbly avoided the thrusting blade, her body twisting as she turned away, one hand snapping out to grab the shaft as it thrust past her. Sunset let go of the weapon, allowing Arslan to toss it aside. She threw her knife at Sunset, who blasted it away with a single blast of magic from her fingertip. More magical blasts split the stage where Arslan was standing. She leapt up, her whole body spinning, and began to descend for a kick aimed squarely at Sunset. 
Sunset braced herself, bringing up her vambraces above her head, and with a touch of her aura, she ignited the lightning dust infused within them. It crackled and sparked, hissing eagerly, waiting for the moment when Arslan’s foot would-
Miss it, descending past Sunset’s face, past her whole body, as Arslan landed on the ground right in front of her. 
She presented a perfect target. Sunset’s hand flew out: one blast, and she-
Arslan caught her with a spinning kick that cut her legs out from under her, the blow landing beneath Sunset’s jacket, where the flames did not protect her. Sunset yelped in alarm as the world flew sideways; she toppled over, long hair flying. She saw Arslan rise up over her, expression grim, fist poised to strike. 
She did not strike; she held her open palm just above Sunset’s flames, as if she were daring herself to see how close she could get to the fire. 
Sunset felt the blow nevertheless, a blast of Arslan’s aura hitting her in the chest, making her wince in pain, even through her breastplate, slamming her into the ground and making the stage crack beneath her. 
The buzzer sounded. 
“And that’s the match,” Professor Goodwitch declared. “Miss Altan, you are the winner.”
Sunset groaned as cheers rose from the Haven section of the watching students. Arslan remained standing over her, unable to keep a slight smirk off her face. 
“You were right,” she said.
Sunset blinked up at her. “Huh?”
“You were right, in Grimm Studies on the first day of semester,” Arslan explained. “I’m not Pyrrha Nikos. But I am Arslan Altan, the Golden Lion of Mistral, and don’t you forget it.” She held out one hand to help Sunset up.
Sunset took it. “You really have been carrying a grudge about what I said this entire time, haven’t you?”
“Of course I have!” Arslan declared, as she hauled Sunset onto her feet. “You insulted me!”
Sunset stared at her. She breathed in, and then breathed out again. She grinned. “Good for you,” she said, because it was nice to meet someone who held their pride as precious as she did and could remember the slights inflicted upon it for just as long. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
“That’s right,” Arslan declared. “You won’t.”
“Well fought, both of you,” Professor Goodwitch declared as she made her way back up onto the ruined stage. “Miss Altan, had you done any preparation for this match?”
Arslan hesitated a moment. “I, um, might have watched the video of Sunset fighting Pyrrha a few times,” she murmured.
“Make that a few dozen times!” someone shouted from out of the darkness. 
“Who’s side are you on, Reese?” Arslan demanded. 
“There is nothing to be ashamed of, Miss Altan,” Professor Goodwitch informed her. “I hope you don’t mind me disclosing to the class that you requested this fight.”
“It’s a bit late to object now, isn’t it, Professor?” Arslan asked. “But no, I don’t mind. I wanted to show her that I wasn’t some chump to be dismissed so easily.”
Professor Goodwitch nodded her head slightly. “Miss Shimmer, were you aware that Miss Atlan desired to fight against you?”
Sunset’s brow furrowed. “Pyrrha mentioned that she might, Professor.”
“And did you seek out any videos of Miss Altan’s fights to get a feel for her fighting style?”
Sunset looked down at the ground. “No, Professor.”
“No,” Professor Goodwitch repeated. “And that, more than any details of your individual performances, is why Miss Altan defeated you: preparation, forethought, planning. Having sought out a battle, Miss Altan researched her opponent and devised strategies to use against her, while Miss Shimmer did not. 
“In the field as huntsmen, you will not always know what you are walking into,” Professor Goodwitch continued. “Unforeseen variables will arise on your missions, grimm that you did not expect may show themselves, but there will also be times when the situation is not completely unknown to you: you are pursuing a criminal with a bounty and a record, certain grimm have been reported in the area, and so forth. In those circumstances, rigorous preparation can mean the difference between victory and defeat, even between life or death. Thank you both; you may step down.”



There were many differences between Pyrrha and Arslan, but the one that had always stood out the most to Pyrrha herself was the way in which Arslan relished what might be called the perks of fame. As Pyrrha spotted her great rival on the way to the dining hall, she was surrounded not only by her own teammates but by a veritable entourage of hangers-on, all dressed in the uniform of Haven  Academy. They seemed cheerful enough, given the way that they were all laughing at something that Arslan had just said – Pyrrha had been too far away to catch it – but as Pyrrha approached, she couldn’t help but wonder just how much of that was earnest laughter and how much of it was forced. 
Flatterers were, in her opinion, almost as much of a bane as being put upon a pedestal and out of reach of all genuine contact. 
“Arslan?” she asked, raising her voice a little to be heard over the hubbub. “May I have a word with you, quickly, before lunch?”
Many eyes turned to Pyrrha, not only Arslan’s but those of her team and those who thronged around her. Most of those gazes were respectful, some were even deferential – which made Pyrrha want to look away – but some verged upon hostility. Pyrrha couldn’t help but wonder what she’d done to offend them. 
Arslan herself did not look hostile, thankfully. She didn’t smile, exactly, although it seemed as though she might do so; she nodded. “Sure thing, P-money. I’ll see you guys inside, okay?”
“Are you sure?” asked one of her teammates, a tall, dark-haired young man.
“Yes, I’m sure, go on,” Arslan said, shooing them off with one hand before she strode off the path and across the grass towards where Pyrrha stood under the shade of a convenient tree. “Sorry about that,” she said, speaking softly as her entourage passed by. “Some of them…”
“Don’t like me very much,” Pyrrha murmured.
Arslan winced. “You can’t honestly be too surprised about that,” she said. “I mean, you did ditch your own kingdom.”
“Because I attended Beacon instead of Haven?” Pyrrha asked.
Arslan nodded, leaning her shoulder against the tree. “You can’t have missed the fact that it was a big deal when people found out about it.”
“I felt – I still feel – that it was made a much bigger deal of than it warranted,” Pyrrha replied, her voice even softer than Arslan’s. “Why should it matter where I choose to go to school?”
“Come on, P-money, you know how this works,” Arslan replied. “Everything that we do matters. Everything that you do matters most of all, because you’re the champ, and the princess, what’s more.”
“I’m not a princess.”
“Tell that to the press and the fans,” Arslan muttered. “Besides, if it doesn’t matter where you go to school, then why didn’t you go to Haven?”
“Because…” Pyrrha hesitated, choosing only the reason that Arslan would actually understand. “Because Beacon has a better reputation.”
“Yeah, and don’t we know it too,” Arslan said. “You could have changed that; people were expecting you to change that. This was supposed to be Haven’s year, like it hasn’t been in… ever. You and me, an all-Haven final, wouldn’t that have been something special for the folks back home?”
Pyrrha’s eyes narrowed. “You do realise that there is so much more to our education than the Vytal Festival? The tournament is an ornament to our time here, not the purpose of it.”
Arslan folded her arms. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you? I wasn’t certain, but you’re actually taking this seriously.”
Pyrrha blinked. “You thought that I was… what? A dilettante? Did you think that I was going to spend four years here and then retire to my family fortune?”
“No, I thought you were going to spend four years here, try and notch up a couple of Vytal victories, and then come back to the arena like me.”
“You’re not going to become a huntress?” Pyrrha asked.
“No,” Arslan said, her voice rising, her tone conveying just how absurd she found the idea. “Why would I?”
“Because you’re training to become one?” Pyrrha suggested, a little more sharply than she had intended.
“I’m here for the Vytal Festival,” Arslan declared. “There is no other reason. You have to be a student at one of the academies to compete, so here I am,” – she spread her arms out wide on either side of her – “a student. And I’ll be a student until my second Vytal tournament is done, and then I’ll-”
“Drop out?” Pyrrha asked. “Leave your teammates to carry on without you?”
Arslan frowned. “Are you judging me, P-money?”
“Yes, I’m afraid I am, and where does that name even come from?”
Arslan shrugged. “Does it bother you?”
“A little.”
“Good, that’s why I keep using it,” Arslan replied quickly. 
A sigh escaped from Pyrrha’s lips.
“Oh, don’t sigh like that; it’s not like any of the ways I tried to needle you ever caused you to slip up in the arena,” Arslan said. “I wish they had.”
“You do realise that we’re not in the arena now?”
“Oh, really, that explains the lack of a crowd.”
“My point is, can’t you please drop it?” Pyrrha asked.
“You think I’m faking this?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’ll never tell,” Arslan replied. She grinned. “Come on, Pyrrha, you know that if we break character, some of the magic goes away; who knows where a fan might be watching?”
Pyrrha sighed again. “You really don’t intend to become a huntress? You intend to go back to the tournament circuit?”
“And you don’t?” Arslan demanded. “You’re going to give up the arena, and all that you mean to so many people back home?”
“I’m going to defend humanity,” Pyrrha declared. “I’m going to defend the world against the darkness that surrounds it.”
“That’s what I said,” Arslan growled. “You just tried to justify it with a lot of fancy words.”.
“Are you angry?” 
“Yes, I’m angry; I’ve a right to be angry!” Arslan snapped. “You can’t do this to me, Pyrrha.” She stalked off, walking a few paces before turning around, a scowl upon her face. “You cannot do this! You can’t just walk away before I’ve beaten you!” She took a deep breath. “You know that I’m not entered into this year’s tournament.”
“Neither am I,” Pyrrha said.
“I know you’re not; that’s why I’m not entering either. Professor Lionheart told me that if I wanted it, he’d make special arrangements for me to fly back for the tournament, clear it with Professor Ozpin and everything,” Arslan said. “I told him, ‘thank you, sir, but no thanks.’”
“You didn’t want the special treatment.”
“That’s not it at all,” Arslan said. “You really don’t get it, do you? Three years in a row, I’ve placed second to you. If I won this year, and I didn’t face you, then the whole rest of my career, I’d have been dogged by people saying ‘oh, Arslan isn’t the real champ; she never beat Pyrrha Nikos’ or ‘the Invincible Girl would have taken it home again if she’d only bothered to show up.’ I stayed away because I didn’t want people to think that I’d won by default, that I waited until you were out of the picture to snatch the laurels that were rightfully yours. Only, that’s exactly what you’ve condemned me to do. That’s exactly what’ll happen when I finally take home the crown: I won’t be the Champion of Mistral; I’ll be the second place who hung around until the real champion quit so I could win by default. I didn’t think you hated me like that.”
“That’s not my intent,” Pyrrha said. “But it’s also not my fault.”
Arslan shook her head. “You always were an amateur,” she muttered. “A talented amateur, but an amateur nonetheless.”
“I intend to be a professional huntress,” Pyrrha replied.
Arslan scowled. “Why? Why would you want to walk away from everything you are for the sake of… of this?”
“Because it’s important,” Pyrrha said. “More important than any trophy or contest that I could ever win. Because I’m defending humanity, and what’s more important than that?”
“Come on, Pyrrha, you’re already a hero; we both are.”
“Is that so?” Pyrrha asked. “Is that really what you think? I… I’m afraid I can’t agree with you on that. I… I certainly won’t deny that I would like to be a hero, perhaps even the hero. I won’t even deny that that is my goal, but would I call myself a hero now? No. No, I would not; certainly, I would not accord myself that honour based upon my tournament victories.”
“Go on TV and tell that to all the kids who look up to you,” Arslan told her. “Stand on the stage at FanExpo and tell everybody dressed up like you that you’re not a hero and they’re a bunch of suckers for thinking differently. Does anybody get dressed up for a huntress? Does anybody wait in line to have their photos taken with huntresses?”
“Perhaps not, but huntsmen and huntresses save the lives of those who do not dress as them or wait in line for photographs,” Pyrrha said. “As we did over the vacation.”
“Yes, well, somebody had to do that, I will admit,” Arslan conceded. “And you did it very well, I’m sure, in that practically perfect in every way manner of yours that is so deeply and incredibly frustrating. My point is that it didn’t need you to do that; a lot more people could have taken care of that grimm than can get the crowd up on their feet like we can. Although… I have to admit there is one thing that has been eating at me about that grimm business.”
“Yes?”
“Why didn’t Professor Lionheart ask me for help?” Arslan asked. “I was home in Mistral for the vacation; I spent it with my folks in the new house I bought for them on the eastern slope.”
It was possibly rather rude, but Pyrrha couldn’t help but suggest, “Perhaps Professor Lionheart is aware that you’re not taking your studies particularly seriously.”
Arslan glared up at her for a moment. “I suppose I deserved that,” she conceded. “But if Professor Lionheart thinks anything bad about me, then he’s kept it quiet; every time he sees me, he fawns all over me, tells me how well I’m doing, what a great student I am. It’s all a bit much, to tell you the truth.”
“I can’t imagine what that must be like,” Pyrrha murmured.
Arslan let out a bark of laughter. “Okay, okay, you’ve made your point. I don’t know; maybe he just forgot where I live. It is kind of weird, though, right? I mean, I’m not the only student who lives in Mistral, and I’d have gone on a hunt with you.”
“It does seem a little strange,” Pyrrha conceded. “But we must hope that he has a good reason for his decisions. In any case, with what happened at Mistral – with what’s happening in Vale – we need more good huntsmen in Remnant now, not less. We might not be able to save the world, but we can at least save someone, and that’s something that I couldn’t say if I went back to the arena.”
“Huntsmen might be needed, but that doesn’t mean that you or I have to do it, or that what we do doesn’t mean anything,” Arslan said. “Yes, there aren’t real lives on the line, but so what? When we put on our costumes and step into the ring, we’re what every kid in Mistral aspires to be, and I don’t know about you, but that matters to me. 
“I didn’t grow up near the peak of the mountain; I grew up in the foothills, on the lower west side. Our next door neighbour sold drugs out of his bungalow until the Vacuan mob moved in and cut his fingers off. At night, we could hear battles between the Vacuans and the local crooks. There were days when my mother went hungry so that I could eat dinner. By rights, I should be dead or in jail or hooked on something, but I got out. And when kids whose mothers go hungry so that they can eat dinner see me fight in the coliseum, they know that they can get out too, that it’s not hopeless, that their lives can be better if they work hard and hold onto their dreams. That’s not nothing, and that’s something they wouldn’t get if I turned my back on it to go fight grimm.”
“That is… there is some force in what you say,” Pyrrha acknowledged. “A great deal of it in fact. So much that I apologise; I should not have been so disapproving… although-”
“You still don’t like it.”
“If you never had any intention of becoming a huntress, I think you should not have taken a spot at the academy which might have been filled by someone more committed to the cause,” Pyrrha said. “As things stand now, your teammates will face their final year – plus the rigours of the field – with only three people where there should be four.”
“Hmm,” Arslan murmured. “Right. I, uh… I didn’t exactly think of that. I… they’ll be fine. They’re all… they’ll be fine.”
“Perhaps,” Pyrrha murmured. “As for the rest… none of what you say applies to me. Compared to you, compared to most people, I grew up in unimaginable privilege. I can’t imagine that I’m an inspiration to-”
“Don’t be disingenuous; you know exactly how big of an inspiration you are to so many people,” Arslan said sharply. “You know how many people are going to be crushed when you announce your retirement?”
“They’ll recover in time, I’m sure,” Pyrrha said softly. She smiled slightly. “Especially since they will still have you to look up to.”
Arslan snorted. “Stop it, P-money, you’re going to make me blush.” She paused. “So, what did you actually want?” she asked.
“Hmm?”
“You asked me over here, and then we got sidetracked.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Pyrrha said. She let out a little nervous laugh. “I’m sorry about that.”
“No problem; it was probably my fault as much as yours.”
“I wanted to congratulate you on your victory,” Pyrrha said. “You fought very well.”
“I always fight well,” Arslan replied.
“I didn’t mean to imply otherwise,” Pyrrha said quickly.
“I know, I’m just messing with you.”
“Will that be an end to it?”
“Of me messing with you? Don’t be daft.”
“Of your grudge against Sunset,” Pyrrha clarified.
“Oh, sure!” Arslan declared. “She insulted me; I avenged the insult. We’re all square now. She’s not going to hold a grudge against me, is she?”
“I shouldn’t think so, no.”
“Good,” Arslan said. “Because I kind of like her.”
“You’re not the only one,” Pyrrha murmured.
“She’s pretty impressive,” Arslan said. “But all the same…”
Pyrrha frowned. “All the same what?”
“That sword she was wearing,” Arslan said. “People have noticed it. They say that it’s important somehow. Some relic of your family.”
“Soteria,” Pyrrha said. “It’s from the Great War; it was carried by one of the Imperial bodyguards. It… was a princely gift, of my mother’s to Sunset.”
“It’s an unpopular gift,” Arslan said. “People don’t like it.”
“Perhaps people should mind their own business,” Pyrrha said.
“Don’t look at me; I’m just reporting common room gossip,” Arslan insisted. “You want to be careful, Pyrrha; spitting on Mistral to attend Beacon, giving a family heirloom to an outsider-”
“I didn’t spit on anything, and my mother is free to bestow-”
“I’m just telling you what some people think,” Arslan told her. “Plus, you’re dating some Valish oaf-”
“Jaune is not an oaf!” Pyrrha cried, anger entering her voice now. “And I will thank you not to refer to him that way again in my presence, even if you are only repeating what others have said. He is good and kind and brave, and he is worth ten of any of those who slander him!” 
She covered her mouth with one hand, feeling a little embarrassed at the way that her words had run away from her like a train with no breaks. The very thought of what people might be saying about Jaune, how much they might be misjudging him, underestimating him… she could barely stand to so much as imagine it.
Arslan raised both hands pacifically. “Fine, if it means that much to you… you won’t hear the like from me again.”
“It does, he does,” Pyrrha said. “And thank you.”
“All the same,” Arslan said. “You want to be careful. I know you’ve never been big on brand management, but it’s not a good look to be seen to forget where you came from.”
“I’m not here to be popular,” Pyrrha said, “and I’m not going to let public opinion dictate my choices.”
“That’s all well and good, but there might come a time when you need the public on your side,” Arslan said, “and some won’t forget if you’ve delivered the Vytal crown to Beacon and Vale in that time.”
Pyrrha was silent for a moment. “Who knows?” she said. “You might defeat me and deliver it to Haven, in spite of me and my betrayal.”
A smile spread across Arslan’s face. “Well, you can bet your ass I’m going to try.”



“So,” Cinder drawled. “What’s it like to lose?”
“You ask me that as though it’s the first time I’ve lost,” Sunset replied.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen you lose,” Cinder said.
“It may surprise you to learn that my life didn’t start when I met you.”
“Really?” Cinder asked, as though the information was genuinely new and shocking to her. “Did it at least get more entertaining?”
The sun was going down, and the two of them sat on the cliffs not far from the docking pads. A Skybus took off not far away, its engines droning as it started its flight  for Vale; the sky was red as the sun descended, casting the Atlesian airships in a scarlet hue, as though the hulls had been drenched in blood. 
“It doesn’t bother me,” Sunset said. “Losing, I mean. Professor Goodwitch was right: she’d done her homework, and I hadn’t.”
“For what it’s worth, you ran her very close in spite of that fact,” Cinder murmured. “One more hit, and she would have been out.”
“But I didn’t get that one hit,” Sunset reminded her. “So… I’m not bothered about losing to Arslan Altan except…”
Cinder was silent for a moment. “Except?”
“Except that it shows that I’m not where I need to be,” Sunset declared. “I, we, have real enemies, serious enemies; they’re the ones it bothers me that I can’t beat.”
“I can understand,” Cinder said softly. “There is nothing worse than feeling powerless, living in fear of another and all that they might do to you and you would be helpless to resist it.”
Sunset glanced at her. “Need to vent about something?”
Cinder was silent for a moment. “No,” she said eventually. “Such things are behind me now. I merely meant to point out that I understand where you’re coming from.” Her lips twitched. “But that’s not the only thing that’s bothering you this evening, is it?”
Sunset snorted. “Blake isn’t very happy with me right now.”
“Because you tried to help her?”
“Because of the manner in which I did it,” Sunset replied.
Cinder hesitated. “You may have to explain this to me, because I don’t quite understand what you did wrong.”
“I think that if I completely understood what I did wrong, then I probably wouldn’t have done it,” Sunset replied. “But… well, there’s the fact that Lyra didn’t actually do anything to Blake, and even if she had, I’m not sure that Blake would have appreciated me taking action without asking her first.”
“You’re supposed to ask permission before defending her?”
“I’m not supposed to presume that I can act on her behalf as though I know her mind,” Sunset explained. “At least, I think that’s what it is.”
Cinder sighed, shaking her head sadly. “Such ingratitude. Such folly. If I were in difficulty, it would give me great comfort to know that you would come rushing to my aid the moment I required it.”
“Yes, well, Blake…” Sunset trailed off. Blake’s secrets weren’t hers to reveal. “Blake has her reasons.”
“It doesn’t make them good reasons.”
“Maybe, but so what?” Sunset asked. “Her wishes are hers, and she has the right to them.”
“So you’ll abandon her?” Cinder asked. “Leave her to face the slings and arrows all by herself.”
“If that’s what she wants.”
“Just because she wants it doesn’t make it good for her.”
“No, but… but if I do something without asking, again, after she’s told me… I’m afraid I’ll lose her,” Sunset muttered. “And that… that matters to me. That matters more to me than…”
“More than your desire to protect her?” Cinder asked.
“What’s the point in helping her if she doesn’t want anything to do with me afterwards?”
“Why need she know?” Cinder suggested.
Sunset frowned. Cinder’s words were certainly very tempting; they accorded so well with her own thoughts, they reminded her of the recording which she had on her scroll... but at the same time, they called to mind Blake’s own words, spoken in the laundry room. 
If you really are different from Adam, then I want you to promise me something.
“It’s all immaterial now,” she said. “I made a promise.”
“To Blake?”
“Yes,” Sunset replied. “I promised her that I wouldn’t do anything about this.”
“She needn’t know if you break that, either.”
“I’ll know,” Sunset said firmly. “I made a promise, I gave Blake my word; I won’t break that, even for her own good, I can’t.”
Cinder stared into Sunset’s eyes. “So you’ll give your life for those who matter to you, but you won’t break your word for them? Is this an ethical line, or… something else?”
“It’s an issue of trust,” Sunset said. “Blake trusts me to do what I say I’ll do, and if I stop, if she can’t rely on me, then… I’m Blake’s friend because she knows she can rely on me. Ruby, Pyrrha, Jaune, they all know they can rely on me. They can rely on me to fight with them, to fight for them, to protect them as best I can, to lead them as best I can, and to keep my word to them. I have to be reliable, even if it’s against my better judgement.”
“I… see,” Cinder murmured, her voice barely audible. She chuckled. “It is a pity, though; you enjoyed your taste of revenge, didn’t you?”
Sunset hesitated. “Yes,” she admitted. “But some things…”
Cinder waited for a moment. “Yes?”
Sunset pursed her lips together. What she was considering, what she had in her mind, it might be considered a breach of her promise to Blake. 
But, on the other hand, it might be considered nothing to do with Blake whatsoever. It might be considered to be helping Skystar. 
“Tell me something,” Sunset asked, “if your boyfriend were really a racist, and you had faunus friends, or relatives, wouldn’t you want to know about it?”
“I think I’d want to know everything about my significant other,” Cinder replied. “I’d want to know what they really thought… and what they were really capable of.”
Sunset nodded. “That’s what I was thinking. There are times when I wish someone would have told me what Flash really was before I got in deep with him. It would have spared me a lot of feelings down the line if I’d just avoided him.”
Cinder chuckled. “It’s funny, isn’t it, the way that men allow such small and petty things to distract them from some of the most excellent women in the world and fawn upon… decidedly inferior creatures for a host of small and superficial reasons?”
“I have plenty of superficial reasons, I will have you know,” Sunset declared, preening her hair with one hand. “But… thank you, for that.”
“I speak only the truth,” Cinder declared, “but you’re welcome anyway. But what does this have to do with Cardin or Blake?”
“I have a recording, of Cardin and his new best buddy Bon Bon expressing some vile and shocking sentiments towards Blake, not just on account of her past but also of her race.”
“And this will harm him because-?”
“Because his girlfriend has two faunus cousins, with whom she seems close,” Sunset explained. “Close enough, at least, that Cardin hides his true feelings on them and is afraid of what will happen to his relationship if he is discovered.”
Cinder grinned. “How delicious,” she declared. “Sunset, you mean to say you’ve been carrying that around in your back pocket all this time?”
“I’ve never had proof that would convince a lovestruck girl,” Sunset replied. “It seems that he’s finally figured that out and decided to call my bluff.”
“They’re very close?”
“Without a recording, it would be like trying to convince Pyrrha that Jaune was cheating on her.”
“Ah,” Cinder said. “A challenge indeed.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Sunset declared.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Cinder replied, looking like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.
“Good,” Sunset said firmly. “I mean it. They both… they’re both too invested in this; I won’t have it ruined for them.”
Cinder was silent for a moment. “I would never dream of crossing you like that, or striking against your team in any way,” she said softly. “You do believe me, don’t you?”
Sunset stared into her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “I believe you.”
“But your defence of love does not extend to Cardin?” Cinder asked.
“Nope,” Sunset said. “I’m going to screw him over and make sure that Skystar never wants to see him again.”
“She’ll be hurt,” Cinder pointed out. “As you were hurt when you discovered the truth.”
She wasn’t wrong about that, even if Sunset hadn’t thought about it that way until now. She hesitated, her hand freezing in the act of reaching for her scroll. She thought about how she’d felt when Flash broke up with her, when her world fell apart; there was definitely a part of her which would have rather gone on in blissful ignorance if it meant that she got to keep Flash by her side. “You don’t think that I should do it?”
“I didn’t say that; I just want to make sure you understand.”
Sunset inhaled, and then exhaled again through her nostrils. If she did this, if she exposed Cardin to Skystar by whatever means, then Skystar would be heartbroken; possibly, she would also be humiliated. Certainly, she would think herself a fool for not having noticed it before; Sunset knew that from experience. 
She thought of the First Councillor’s daughter: sweet and bubbly, her smile struck down and her eyes suddenly filled with tears. 
She thought of Skystar cowering away from Blake.
She thought of Cardin doing worse to Blake, and other faunus besides, and compounding his crimes with the sin of hypocrisy. 
Cardin deserved his comeuppance; he deserved to have Sunset give it to him. Sunset… Sunset wanted to give it to him. 
And Skystar… she’d thank Sunset eventually. 
Probably. 
Maybe, once she got over it. 
Sunset got out her scroll.