Team Roster
What with how their mission was a secret one, going to Sugarcube Corner to discuss the team roster was, unfortunately, out of the question, and so it was with coffee from the vending machine out in the hallway and toast from the cafeteria a couple of flaws down that Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Blake sat down in the room that Rainbow and Blake shared in the academy to hash out their next move.
Blake’s Peace Tree, the sculpture made out of bullets and guns that Spearhead had given her, cast a shadow over them from where it sat in the corner of the room. Rainbow sat on her bottom bunk bed, while Blake sat on the desk on the other side of the room, her legs dangling slightly, not quite touching the floor. Applejack sat on a chair, her hat pushed so far back on her head it looked like it was about to fall.
Rainbow drank some of her coffee. It wasn’t that great. She’d definitely had better. Still, it was warm and brown and she needed something to pick her up in the morning.
“Okay,” she said. “The first thing that I think we ought to do is think about who else we want for this mission. Who else we’d like.” She paused. “And are we going to sound them out before we give their names to the General.”
“What if we sound ‘em out and the General says no?” Applejack asked.
“What if the General says yes and they say no?” Rainbow replied. “Either way it means we have to go back and think about it some more, but if we only offer General Ironwood names that we know will come along then he can tell us who he finds acceptable. I don’t think we can give him the twenty names on our longlist and ask him to give us ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for all of them. Especially since we’ll probably have to justify our choices.” She drank some more of her coffee, and then got out her scroll.
“What are you doing?” Blake asked.
“I’m going to make notes so that we can justify our choices,” Rainbow said.
Blake’s eyebrows rose.
“Don’t look at me like that, it makes me feel guilty I didn’t do stuff like this before.”
“Possibly you should have,” Blake murmured.
“You sound like Sunset,” Rainbow muttered. Nevertheless, she kept her scroll out and she opened up the notepad app. She’d been given a second chance by General Ironwood and she wasn’t going to screw it up. She would be conscientious, hard-working, and one hundred percent by the book. The model team leader, just like Sunset had urged her to be.
“I am not the fighter that you are, either. Without my magic you would kick my ass, I admit that. I will never be the fighter that you are but you will never be fit for command, not while you take your skills for granted and indulge your weaknesses.”
Okay, Sunset probably hadn’t had ‘one hundred percent by the book’ in mind, but she had told Rainbow to shape up, and this was what Rainbow shaping up looked like.
Taking my own notes. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
“Have you given any thought,” Blake murmured, “about what we talked about last night?”
Rainbow smiled, if only a little bit, “Last night we said what we meant. There’s nobody here but us, and there are no listening devices, you know that. You mean have I thought about telling Pyrrha the truth?”
“If we’re going to say what we mean,” Blake said archly. “Then have you thought about telling Pyrrha that our orders include leaving her to die and taking Mistral’s Relic?”
“It’s not Mistral’s Relic, they’ve got no more right to it than we do,” Rainbow replied.
“That’s… debatable,” Blake said.
“That ain’t what we’re here to debate,” Applejack reminded them both. “Have you thought about it, Rainbow?”
Rainbow was silent for a moment. One hundred percent by the book. “Blake,” she said. “Do you remember when we were at Beacon, we had to pair off with students who weren’t on our team to write reports on stories for Legends class?”
Blake smiled softly. “I remember. I got paired with Pyrrha,” she said. “She wanted to do the story of The Shallow Sea.”
Rainbow frowned. “Isn’t that a faunus story?”
“It is, although it’s popularity is in decline amongst our people,” Blake explained. “But Pyrrha had had it from her trainer, a faunus, and apparently she loved it. She loved the idea of transformation. Becoming her true self.” The smile faded from her face. “You know, when I think about it, what’s happened to her is… quite sad.”
“Sad?” Rainbow repeated. “She became the Fall Maiden in the end, just like she wanted, and she didn’t have to climb into any creepy machines to do it.”
“That doesn’t mean that she hasn’t paid for the power that she now possesses,” Blake insisted. “Just because she didn’t suffer the loss of her soul, or have her personality overwritten, doesn’t mean that…” she paused for a moment, looking down at her hands as she clasped them together in her lap. “Pyrrha wanted to be seen for who she was, not what she was, but that… that will never happen for her now, will it? She’ll always be what, not who? She is the Fall Maiden, the Champion of Mistral in truth as well as in title. She will never escape a pedestal that high.”
“There are worse things than to be praised for the good that you’ve done,” Rainbow replied.
“Of course there are, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a bad thing, especially when it is a thing that you’ve sought to escape,” Blake insisted. She sighed. “I wonder how lonely she feels, up there.”
“She’s got that boy Jaune, seems like,” Applejack reminded them both. “And from what you two have said, from what little I saw of ‘em, they’re pretty sweet on one another.”
“You’ve got no idea,” Rainbow said, a grin sprouting upon her face.
“And this pedestal, well, I guess I can see it form what you’ve been sayin’, but it sounds like it ain’t stopped him from puttin’ a ring on her finger, even if it is only the engagement ring so far,” Applejack added. “I don’t mean to say that it’s nothin’ at all, and I won’t claim to know her well enough to say if it’s the sort of thing that would upset her or no, but just remember that she ain’t alone no more.”
“No,” Blake allowed. “No, she isn’t. Is that enough?”
Applejack leaned back in her chair. “My Ma and my Pa came from different families.”
She paused, her eyes widening a little bit as she realised what she’d just said.
“I mean of course they came from different families, I don’t want you gettin’ no ideas about us Apples, now!” she wagged her finger at Blake. “I know what some people think of us country folk and it makes me just about mad enough to want to kick somethin’!
“Anyway, what I was tryin’ to say is that my Ma and my Pa came from families that, well, they didn’t traditionally see eye to eye, the Apples and the Pears. I don’t know how it got started but by the time my folks were around our age it had been goin’ on so long it was just one of those things. Until my Ma and Pa, well, they fell in love, that’s about the long and the short of it. Fell in love, and got themselves married in a hurry before my grandpa – on my mother’s side – could take her off to Mantle with ‘im. She had to leave her whole family behind, her Pa, she even changed her name from Pear Butter to Buttercup so nobody would know who she used to be.”
Applejack fell silent for a moment. “I ain’t sure how much my granny took to havin’ a pear daughter in law, at first; I guess it might have been kind of hard for her at first. But she had my Pa, and he had her, and they loved each other and that was enough. It’s always enough, havin’ the one you love right by your side. So don’t worry too much about Pyrrha now, sugarcube, so long as she’s got him and he’s got her, things won’t be so bad for ‘em.”
She chuckled. “Sorry, Rainbow, you were about to say somethin’.”
“Uh, yeah,” Rainbow murmured, scratching the back of her head. She looked down at the scroll in her hand. Unfortunately she hadn’t started to make any notes yet, and she thought that perhaps her point had not been note-worthy material. She finished off her coffee while she tried to remember what it was she’d been about to say. Something about the Legends class exercise where they- yes! That! “I got paired with Ruby,” she told the other two. “And she wanted to do this book that she had-”
“The Song of Olivia?” Blake guessed.
“Yes, that one,” Rainbow said.
“Never heard of it,” Applejack said.
“It’s an old Valish story, but copies are quite hard to come by these days,” Blake explained. “It was a gift to her from one of our classmates, Dove Bronzewing.” Blake’s brow furrowed, and she glanced away.
Applejack’s voice was soft. “I take it that he didn’t make it?”
“You could say that,” Blake replied, in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. “Poor Dove. He deserved better.” She shook her head, as if she could dispose of the errant thought that way. “Sorry, Rainbow Dash, I keep interrupting. What were you saying?”
“I guess I’d better explain quickly to Applejack,” Rainbow said. “This book that Ruby had is about a knight. Well, she starts off as a shepherdess, but she hates that and she wants to become a knight, so when the wizard gives her a magic sword-”
“What does she need a magic sword for?” Applejack asked.
“I asked that too, Pyrrha told Ruby that it showed that she was worthy,” Rainbow explained. “Anyway, the point is that she becomes a knight and she serves the king, and I said to Ruby that she sounded more like a specialist than a huntress, because she takes orders from her king instead of just doing whatever she wants.”
“And now we get to the point,” Applejack declared.
“Exactly,” Rainbow agreed. “Ruby and I… we got to talking on it, about the way that Olivia acts when the king – or his son, who becomes king later – orders her to do something that she doesn’t like.” Rainbow chuckled. “Ruby, she asked me what I’d do if General Ironwood ever turned evil.”
“Now why would she ask a fool question like that?” Applejack said.
“I don’t believe that the General has suddenly become an evil man,” Blake said. “But I can see how his actions might seem… I can see how his actions might seem to someone who didn’t know him the way we do.”
“General Ironwood is doing what he thinks is right,” Rainbow insisted.
“I know,” Blake said. “But that doesn’t mean that he’s doing the right thing.”
Rainbow couldn’t argue with that, as uncomfortable as the thought was. She didn’t like to think of General Ironwood, who had been such a towering figure – in every sense – of her youth, as being flawed, as being fallible, as being capable of making mistakes. He was the General, high in the tower or on the bridge of his flagship, able to see the whole board with a clarity that they on the ground could never equal. The idea that he didn’t see any more clearly than them, or not clearly enough to make the right calls, the idea that nobody understood what was going on, nobody could make the right calls… it was, in its own way, more disturbing to think about than the immortality of Salem.
“I told Ruby that we had to trust,” she said. “I told her that we had to put our faith in General Ironwood, that he understands more than we do, that he sees better than we do, that he knows better than the likes of us what needs to be done.”
Blake was silent a moment before she said, “And now?”
Rainbow ran one hand through her many-coloured hair. “You know, when Olivia is young and stupid and she gets a command that she doesn’t like, she runs off and does the thing that she wanted to do in the first place. But when she’s older, and wiser, she talks to the king, alone, and changes his mind.”
“You hopin’ to change General Ironwood’s mind?” Applejack asked.
“No, I’m hoping to persuade him to let us tell Pyrrha the truth,” Rainbow replied. “She doesn’t want Salem to win any more than we do, she’ll understand… probably. She’ll understand about the Relic, anyway… I think.”
“I think you might be right,” Blake agreed. “She is noble enough to accept on her own behalf what seems… monstrous to do to her. But, what if General Ironwood refuses?”
“Then we keep our mouths shut,” Rainbow said.
“Just like that?” Blake said.
“Just like that,” Rainbow replied.
“Because of trust?”
“Because we’re soldiers, and that’s how this works,” Rainbow reminded her. One hundred percent by the book.
“Now,” she said, raising her voice a little bit, “we should probably get started on discussing who we want, and I’ll start off, we should take Ciel. Blake and I have worked with her before, she knows exactly what we’re up against, and we could probably use a sniper.”
With one finger, she tapped Ciel Soleil, worked with her before, knows the truth, sniper skills into the notepad on her scroll.
“I ain’t got no objection to that,” Applejack said. “We won’t even have to tell her about Salem and all the rest.”
“Is this kind of mission really for her, though?” Blake asked.
“Is it for any of us?” Applejack replied. “Is it for anyone that you could think of? Anyone that we’d want to go into battle with?”
“I… no, I guess not,” Blake confessed.
“This isn’t going to be an easy mission,” Rainbow said. “But Ciel’s got the mettle, she’ll deal with it… the way that we’ll all have to deal with it one way or the other.”
“Ciel, then,” Applejack said. “You got any other ideas?”
“One or two,” Rainbow said. “Lycus Silvermane.”
Applejack frowned. “Who?”
“From Team Pastel,” Rainbow explained.
Applejack blinked. “Phoebe’s team?”
“Phoebe turned out to be… even worse than anyone suspected,” Rainbow said. “But her team were her victims, not her allies, they’re not like her.”
“What are they like?” Applejack asked. “I don’t know ‘em. I didn’t think you knew ‘em either?”
“I don’t,” Rainbow admitted. “But I know that Lycus has an appearance-changing semblance, just like Chrysalis, which might come in handy in Mistral. And I know that we don’t have the luxury of restricting our choices to our best friends; this is a mission, not a vacation.”
“This is a mission where we’re going to be all alone in a foreign kingdom with only one another to rely on,” Applejack began.
“One another and Pyrrha’s group,” Blake corrected.
Applejack was quiet for a moment. “Well, maybe,” she allowed. “For a while, perhaps.”
Blake bit her lip. “I guess.”
“My point is,” Applejack continued. “What you call only pickin’ our friends, I might call pickin’ folks we can rely on to watch our backs when things get tough. Sure, that sounds like a handy semblance to have, but apart from his semblance I don’t know this boy from anyone you could bring in off the street in Atlas and I’m sorry, but I’m not sure that I can put my life in the hands of somebody I don’t know like that.” She paused. “I’d like to ask Maud, someone I’ve worked with before.”
Rainbow winced. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to… I guess we kind of take that year at Beacon for granted, don’t we?”
“I do sometimes feel like I missed a lot more than a year’s schoolin’, yeah,” Applejack replied.
“Sorry,” Rainbow said again. “I don’t… I’m sorry, I’ll try and remember. As for Maud… I mean, yeah, she’s plenty strong. I’m not sure she’d appreciate finding out that we’ve been keeping this a secret from Pinkie.”
“That’s the part that you're worried about?” Blake asked. “Not how she’d react to finding out about Salem and all the rest?”
Rainbow waved one hand dismissively. “Maud would be fine with all that. Maud’s fine with just about anything. If you count not havin’ a reaction as fine.”
“Maud has reactions,” Applejack protested. “Just little itty bitty ones. She’s kind of like Big Mac in that regard.”
Rainbow nodded. “I thought they’d make a cute couple.”
Applejack shook her head. “Nah, he needs someone to bring him out of his shell, and Maud needs… well, I don’t rightly know what Maud needs but it ain’t a boy who can’t string two words together without a break between ‘em. Anyway, I hope you remember that time that she got swallowed up by a bushwhacker and busted her way straight out again? Seems to me that we could use someone like that.”
“We could,” Rainbow said. “But so could Team Tsunami, they’ll be a man down again if we steal Maud.”
“I was going to throw Starlight’s name into the ring,” Blake offered. “And maybe Trixie, too.”
“We can’t leave Sunburst on his own,” Rainbow said.
Blake shrugged. “Sunburst wouldn’t have been on my list but is there any reason we can’t put the whole of Team Tsunami down on the list and offer them to General Ironwood for approval? We all know them, I certainly trust them, they’ve had my back before, and yours; and Applejack, you said yourself, you’d worked with Maud. And if we can have a team of more than four then is there any reason we can’t go as high as eight?”
“I don’t know,” Rainbow murmured.
“They’re talented enough,” Blake insisted. “And if we are going to talk about… if we really are going to kill the Spring Maiden then isn’t Starlight an obvious choice? Her power is absorbing and assimilating other people’s powers, she could probably pick up the magic-”
“No,” Rainbow said firmly. “Whatever else, we aren’t using Starlight for that. In fact… I don’t really want Starlight at all. Not for this.”
Blake blinked in confusion. “Why not?”
Rainbow got to her feet. “Because… I haven’t actually asked her this, because I don’t know how to put it without giving away that we know things… I mean she already thinks that we’re up to something, but this would really prove it… but I think that Starlight has already been considered for something like that. Probably for that reason.”
Applejack took the hat off her head. “What makes you say that, Sugarcube?”
Rainbow hesitated for a moment. “When Team Rosepetal and Team Sapphire were on our mission to Mountain Glenn, Team Tsunami acted as our back-up with Twilight. They were in a second Skyray, away from the city, waiting in case we needed them. That first night, just after we landed… I should back-up for a second and say that from the moment they found out we were going into Mountain Glenn Starlight thought there was something screwy about all this. Why us, why students, that kind of thing.”
“She is a smart cookie,” Applejack muttered.
“I know,” Rainbow murmured. “Anyway, she tried to find out from Twilight what this was all about, and she dropped the words ‘Winter Maiden’. Now, Twilight didn’t know what that meant at the time, and neither did I, but-”
“Now we do,” Applejack said.
“Uh huh,” said Rainbow Dash. “Now, we don’t know who the Winter Maiden is, but based on what happened with Pyrrha, and based on what happened with Starlight, I think I can guess how it went down. The Winter Maiden, maybe the same one that saved Twilight on the road all those years ago, she started dying; maybe she got attacked like Amber, maybe she was just old, I don’t know. Either way, they needed to find a new Winter Maiden, so the General and Professor Ozpin and whoever else – Principal Celestia, maybe – they picked Starlight to inherit the powers. She’s smart, she’s strong, and like you said, Blake, she can pick up new powers like it’s nothing at all. Why wouldn’t they pick her? Only Starlight didn’t feel the same way.”
“Her big freakout,” Applejack said.
“Her what now?”
“The reason Starlight had to retake her first year,” Rainbow explained. “I don’t want to talk about her behind her back, but-“
“She left Atlas without telling nobody where she was goin’, had to be tracked down, and when she was finally found in the middle of nowhere she was…” Applejack trailed off. “That is to say she was…”
“Crazy,” Rainbow said.
“Rainbow Dash!”
“What else are we supposed to call it?” Rainbow asked. “The point is, everyone thought that it was just the stress of being team leader and the expectations that people had from someone of her talent and the way that other people didn’t like her because of her semblance-”
“That sounds quite enough,” Blake murmured.
“Maybe, but I think being asked to become the Winter Maiden had something to do with it,” Rainbow said. “I mean, how else would she know about that? We weren’t told about that until we needed to know, so why would Starlight get told before us except-”
“Except that they wanted to make a Maiden of her,” Blake concluded for her. “It makes sense. Everything makes sense.” She sighed. “If you’re right, that means the Winter Maiden is only about the same age as we are. I wonder who they found to take the powers instead?”
“That’s one of those questions that we could guess all mornin’ and never know if we’d gotten the answer right,” Applejack said. “We ain’t gonna find out who the Winter Maiden is until the General decides to tell us.”
“The point is that Starlight doesn’t handle pressure very well,” Rainbow declared. “And this mission… I think we can all agree it’s gonna have a lot of pressure.”
“No doubt about that,” Blake muttered.
“So we can’t take Starlight,” Rainbow said. “And we can’t take Team Tsunami away from Starlight because it wouldn’t be right, and also because without Starlight it wouldn’t really be Team Tsunami now, would it? I’d love to have Starlight, I’d like to have Maud, I wouldn’t even mind having Trixie, but Tsunami is one of those teams where… where what you get out isn’t the same as what you put in. The four of them together make something more than you get out of them alone.”
“Like Team Sapphire,” Blake murmured. “I see your point, it wouldn’t… it wouldn’t be right or effective to split them up.” She leapt down off the table. “Okay then, here’s my next suggestion: Weiss Schnee.”
“Weiss?” Rainbow repeated. “Weiss Schnee?”
“She’s talented, she doesn’t have a team to worry about leaving behind, and it’s not as though she has anything better to do,” Blake said.
“She ain’t a Specialist,” Applejack pointed out. “Heck, she ain’t even a huntress.”
“She’s as experienced as we are,” Blake declared. “At least, she’s as experienced as the average specialist our age who got accelerated graduation after Vale – a battle she fought at just the same as us. If she had gone to Atlas she would absolutely be a specialist and a huntress by now.”
“But she ain’t,” Applejack said. “And I reckon her pa has somethin’ to do with the fact that she ain’t.”
“Which is the other reason you’re throwing down her name,” Rainbow said. “Isn’t it?”
Blake chuckled nervously. “Am I that transparent?”
“Maybe not if I didn’t know you,” Rainbow replied. “But I do know you, and ever since Sunset and I rescued you you’ve wanted to turn that around and rescue everybody else that you possibly could.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Blake asked.
“No, but like I said, this isn’t a mission where we can take our friends.”
“Weiss has the skill to keep up with us, to be useful on this mission,” Blake insisted. “Yes, I have ulterior motives, yes, I think that it would be good for Weiss to get out of her father’s house, and yes, I think she’ll welcome the opportunity, but I wouldn’t be suggesting if I thought Weiss couldn’t pull her weight, and I certainly wouldn’t be suggesting it if I didn’t think Weiss could survive the battles ahead. She’s a fighter, she might not have gone to Atlas but neither did I. The only difference between us is a technicality.”
“And the fact that she was never interested in going to Atlas,” Rainbow pointed out.
“Blake’s got a point, sugarcube,” Applejack said. “And it ain’t like the military never works with ordinary huntsmen neither. It don’t happen too often, but it happens.”
“But we’re not talking about just a job, here,” Rainbow said. “Are we sure that she’s going to be able to follow orders? Orders that she might find uncomfortable?”
“Isn’t that the question hanging over everyone that we might think of?” Blake asked, in a soft voice. “I trust Weiss to do the right thing.”
That’s not the same thing, is it, which is why you’re not leading on this mission, Rainbow thought. But, if they couldn’t trust Weiss to make the hard choice, well… General Ironwood didn’t trust Blake to make the hard choice either, that was why he’d made Rainbow team lead even though Blake was better suited for it in every way – every way except obedience.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll add her to the list.” Weiss Schnee: Experienced huntress, highly skilled, versatile semblance.
“Ah suppose,” Applejack added. “That if we are helpin’ Weiss Schnee escape her home and run off to meet up with some old school friends in Mistral, well… it might make us seem less like General Ironwood’s agents, maybe.”
Rainbow snorted. “I’m not sure we’ll fool Chrysalis, but someone might buy it, sure.”
They talked over some more names, but without really settling on any of them. Nobody quite fitted, no one was quite right, no one met all the criteria: they had to be good, because they were going up against some powerful enemies; they had to be someone that they could all trust, because at the last resort they’d only have each other to rely on; and they had to ideally be someone who could lift right out, who didn’t ruin a team by their absence, who weren’t going to leave their comrades in the lurch by disappearing like this.
As it turned out, that was quite a challenging set of boxes to tick. Not many managed it: Ciel – and even that was going to be a bit of a blow to Penny – and Weiss were the only two who did.
It didn’t feel great to have come up with so few names – so much for starting over with her best foot forward – but Rainbow comforted herself with the knowledge that they couldn’t take a whole army to Mistral, so maybe five people was about right.
Now they just had to get clearance from the General for Weiss… and make sure that Weiss herself was on board with the idea.
Weiss lowered Myrtenaster. “You’re improving,” she said.
Rarity lowered her épée in turn. “Why, thank you, darling, do you really think so?”
Weiss nodded. “Certainly. Your technique is stronger and you’re getting better at balancing your weapon with your semblance.”
Rarity laughed. “That’s kind of you to say, but I’m certainly not you in that regard.”
“And I’m not my sister, Winter,” Weiss replied. “We’re none of us perfect, and we all have someone to catch up to. That’s why we keep practicing.”
“I’m not sure that I’ve provided you with sufficient challenge to actually improve yourself, darling, as much as you’re improving me,” Rarity replied.
That was… not entirely false, but Weiss didn’t want to hurt the other girl’s feelings by confirming it out loud. “I’m just glad that I have the chance to feel useful,” she said. “Do you know that Flash is on a special assignment for General Ironwood?”
Rarity’s eyebrows rose. “No, I didn’t.” She smiled. “But then, I’m not his girlfriend, am I?”
Weiss laughed a little. “All that means at the moment is that he told me that he’s too busy – for anything! While I, on the other hand, have time for everything.” She paused. A sigh escaped her lips. “There are times when I almost wish that my dream was something more acceptable to my father; that way I could pursue it.”
“You don’t really mean that,” Rarity said. It was a statement, not a question.
“No,” Weiss admitted. “But… I envy Blake. I envy all of you, getting to do the things that you love, but I envy Blake most of all because she’s making a real difference. No offence.”
“None taken, darling,” Rarity assured her breezily. “Speaking of which, hello there, you two!”
Rarity waved, and the direction of her wave drew the attention of Weiss to the doors leading out of the changing rooms and into the main combat area of their sepulchral training space. Blake and Rainbow Dash had just come through those doors, Blake walking a step behind Rainbow as they approached Weiss and Rarity.
Rainbow waved back. “Hey, Rarity. Weiss. How’s it going?”
“Better than expected, thanks to my excellent teacher,” Rarity said. “And how are you two? Blake, how was your mission in Mantle last night?”
Blake didn’t meet Rarity’s eyes. “It was… an experience.”
Weiss folded her arms. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” murmured Blake.
“Obviously that’s not true or you wouldn’t be acting like this,” Weiss declared in a slightly tart voice.
“How much do you know about Mantle, Weiss?” Rainbow asked.
“Practically nothing, I’m afraid,” Weiss admitted.
“Well, if you ever see it, it might be a lot for you to take in as well,” Rainbow replied.
“Ah,” Weiss murmured. “Something else to make me ashamed of my family name and what my father has done to it?”
“This isn’t about the SDC,” Blake said quietly.
“Most things in this kingdom are about the SDC, one way or another, I’ve found,” Weiss said. “You don’t have to keep quiet on my account, I thought you understood that by now.”
“It isn’t entirely about the SDC, although the company isn’t helping,” Blake responded. “It’s the fact that there’s no alternative to the SDC, it’s the fact that the people down there think more of a vigilante group than they do of the military, it’s the fact that Atlas seems to have abandoned Mantle-”
“I thought there was a military garrison?” Weiss asked.
“There is,” Blake admitted. “But it’s almost as if… it’s like Atlas is maintaining the shell of Mantle, but doesn’t care that the egg inside has gone rotten, if that makes sense.”
“As the only person here who was actually born in Mantle, I’m afraid that makes perfect sense to me,” Rarity observed. “Very few things made me happier than when my parents were able to move to Canterlot. It’s a much better environment for Sweetie Belle to grow up in.”
“You don’t really talk about Mantle much,” Blake observed.
“I happened to be born in Mantle, darling, in much the same way that a man may have the misfortune to be born in a stable,” Rarity declared. “It does not make him a horse, and it certainly does not require him to reminisce about the smell of straw. I have been an Atlesian lady in my heart, since I was old enough to understand what that was.”
As someone who knew more about Atlesian ladies than any of the other girls gathered here, Weiss rather hoped not. It was true that Rarity shared, or appeared to share, some of the superficial – in every sense – qualities of that type. But there was also more to her than that, as the time Rarity practicing with Weiss showed, if nothing else did. She hoped, she very much hoped, that Rarity did not lose sight of that.
“I imagine,” she said delicately, “that that… was not an attitude that endeared you to everyone living in Mantle.”
Rarity let out a little titter of a laugh, “Well, I… let’s just say that I was very glad to find in Canterlot a degree of acceptance that I had found somewhat lacking elsewhere.”
“But you can’t deny that Mantle has its issues,” Blake said.
“Mantle has made itself distant, miserable, and hard to love, and it blames the world for that,” Rarity said. “But, I don’t suppose I can deny that not all of its problems are self-inflicted. Mantle needs something beyond the mines that it can rely on; ideally something that would brighten up an oppressively dreary place. Unfortunately I can’t think what that something might be. Very little makes as much money as dust mining, after all.”
“Unfortunately, as you say, that’s true,” Weiss murmured.
“It’s a tough one,” Rainbow admitted. “But we didn’t actually come here to talk about Mantle. We came here to talk to you, Weiss. Alone, sorry Rarity.”
“Quite alright, darling,” Rarity said, sounding not at all put out by this. “I’ll be in the changing room, if you need me. Thank you again, Weiss dear.”
Weiss smiled. “Always a pleasure, Rarity.”
Rarity’s heels tapped on the floor as she walked towards the same doors that Rainbow and Blake had lately emerged from. Rainbow watched her go. Only when the changing room door swung shut behind Rarity did she ask, “How’s she doing?”
“She’s got a talent for it,” Weiss said. “It’s almost a pity it’s not her primary passion.”
“Maybe,” Rainbow muttered, sounding like she didn’t really agree with Weiss about that.
“So,” Weiss said. “What can I do for you?”
“Come to Mistral with us?” Blake said.
Weiss’ eyebrows rose, even as her heart began to rise with it, “Excuse me?”
“We’re putting together a team,” Rainbow explained, “for a mission for Atlas outside the kingdom. We can’t tell you much, but-”
“You don’t have to,” Weiss said, “I’m in.”
Rainbow blinked. “Well, I can give you more detail than that.”
“Unnecessary,” Weiss replied. “You had me at ‘outside the kingdom’. Actually no, you had me at ‘Mistral’.”
“Just like that?” Rainbow asked.
“If you didn’t know how desperate I was to get out of Atlas then why did you ask me?”
“I thought that you might like to get away from… everything,” Blake replied. “But don’t accept too hastily. This is going to be-”
“Dangerous?” Weiss asked. “Oh, well, in that case, I’ll just stay at home and gather dust like one of Father’s sculptures, because it isn’t as though I was training to be a huntress or anything.”
Blake cringed. “I understand, but I didn’t mean it like that,” she assured Weiss. “This isn’t just going to be a normal mission, this is… it’s hard to explain at the moment but it’s an extraordinary assignment, fraught with extraordinary peril.”
“I don’t care,” Weiss declared. “I don’t care if it’s dangerous, I don’t care if it’s the most dangerous assignment in the history of Atlas, I don’t care if it’s a borderline suicide mission so long as I get to do something!”
She turned away from them both, stalking a few paces across the hall. “You two have no idea what it’s like. I listen to you talk about how you feel inactive, about how bored you are waiting for General Ironwood to unveil his plan and I want to strangle the pair of you because any time you like you can just wander down to the nearest job board and find yourself an assignment to pass the time,” she rounded on the pair of them as she continued, “while I, who studied for every bit as long as you, Blake, and whose skill is not incomparable to either of yours, am reduced to… I am an ornament to my father. I stand by his side and I look pretty. I sit at his table and I look pretty. The only time I am permitted to open my mouth is when he requires me to sing prettily like a trained bird… a bird in a cage. So take me to war, take me to my death, at least let me be useful in the days before.”
“What about Flash?” Blake asked softly.
Weiss’s brow furrowed. “Flash… has his duty,” she replied. “He’ll understand that I have mine.”
Blake and Rainbow shared a glance.
“Okay then,” Rainbow said. “General Ironwood will have to approve your presence, and we can’t tell you what this is about until he does, but… welcome aboard, Weiss.”
Weiss ignored Rainbow’s outstretched hand, instead crossing the space between the two of them to throw her arms around the necks of Blake and Rainbow Dash.
“Thank you,” she whispered to them both. “Thank you so much.”
Because thanks to them, she would be free.
General Ironwood looked up from his scroll. “Weiss Schnee?”
Rainbow stood at ease in front of the General’s desk. She sneaked a glance at Major Winter Schnee, from where she stood at General Ironwood’s right hand. Her expression was… hard to read. Rainbow looked back at the General himself. “And Specialist Ciel Soleil, sir.”
“Soleil is granted, I already told you that, although I’m glad you have reasons beyond the fact that you know her,” General Ironwood replied, the words galloping out of his mouth as though he was eager to move on. “But Weiss Schnee? Explain.”
“Sir, the only reason that Weiss isn’t a huntress is that she chose Beacon instead of Atlas,” Rainbow said, looking over General Ironwood’s head, about a foot over it, to a point on or just outside the window. “If she had been an Atlas student like me – or even someone who wanted to become an Atlas student like Blake – she’d have been graduated, the same as me, same as Applejack, same as Blake, same as Starlight, same as-”
“You don’t have to name every student to have been graduated early, Dash,” General Ironwood informed her. “Your point is taken.”
“Is it well made as well, sir?” Rainbow asked.
General Ironwood was silent for a moment. “To a point,” he conceded. “Although her misfortune does not prove that she has the skills to become a huntress.”
“Perhaps not, sir,” Winter interceded. “But I’m prepared to vouch for Weiss upon that point.”
General Ironwood shifted a little in his seat as he looked up at her. “You are prepared to vouch for her?”
“I know that I might seem biased in her favour,” Winter allowed. “But I hope you can grant me the respect of a professional opinion on this, sir.”
General Ironwood hesitated for half a second before he nodded. “Very well, what is your professional opinion, Major?”
“That she has the potential to be stronger than I am, sir.”
Rainbow saw her own surprise mirrored on General Ironwood’s face. “Is that so? But you say potential. You mean she’s not there yet.”
“She hasn’t surpassed me yet, sir,” Winter clarified. “She’s already a highly capable fighter.”
General Ironwood looked back at Rainbow. “Is that your opinion too, Dash?”
“I… admit that I haven’t fought beside her too often, sir,” Rainbow admitted. “But the times I have fought with her, she’s more than pulled her weight. At Beacon she was considered one of the strongest. And, well, the Schnee semblance gives her a lot of tricks.”
“Indeed,” General Ironwood murmured. “But leaving aside her individual prowess, do you think that she compliments the other members of your team?”
“Yes, sir,” Rainbow said. “Applejack and I are both stand-up fighters; Blake can do that too, but she can also fulfil a recon role. Ciel can provide long-range cover. Weiss can fight, but she can also provide support with… with her semblance, again. There’s nobody else I can think of who can do that quite like she can.”
“You don’t seem to have been able to think of many people,” General Ironwood observed. “This is a short list.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is there really no one else?” General Ironwood asked.
“We considered Starlight Glimmer and Team Tsunami, sir,” Rainbow replied. “But I think we both know why that isn’t a good idea.”
General Ironwood looked into Rainbow’s eyes. “Have you spoken to Glimmer?”
“She… dropped a hint, sir, to Twilight, at Mountain Glenn.”
“What kind of hint?”
“Winter Maiden, sir,” Rainbow said.
General Ironwood’s eyes didn’t leave Rainbow. “The Winter Maiden is classified, Dash,” he said. “Glimmer should have remembered that.”
“I don’t have any details, sir.”
“Good,” General Ironwood said. “And you haven’t shared any details with her without my authorisation.”
“No sir.”
“Also good,” General Ironwood said. “That being said, you’re correct in the case of Glimmer, and it would damage the efficiency of that team to make any more personnel changes. As for Weiss Schnee… do you think that she can be trusted to follow orders?”
“Yes, sir,” Rainbow said. She swallowed. “I think Pyrrha can be trusted, too.”
General Ironwood frowned. “Pyrrha Nikos?”
“Yes, sir,” Rainbow said. “I’d like to… I’d like to come clean with her.”
General Ironwood inhaled deeply. “No,” he said.
“Sir, I think that she’ll understand,” Rainbow protested. “She knows what’s at stake, she knows what’s really going on-”
“I can’t take the risk, Dash,” General Ironwood responded. “What if she doesn’t understand, what if she turns you away, what then? I can’t take the risk because of what is at stake.”
“Sir,” Rainbow said, “Pyrrha is…” Rainbow struggled to find the words to describe exactly what Pyrrha was. The most sacrificing person I know who isn’t actively trying to get herself killed, was the honest answer, but hardly something she could say to the General. “She’s one of the most sacrificing people I know.”
General Ironwood’s expression fell. His mouth turned downwards, and his eyes softened. “I would have said the same about Ozpin,” he murmured. “In fact I would have gone further, he was – he is – the most sacrificing man I’ve ever met. And because he was so sacrificing he gave up his own life and handed Salem one of the four relics. We can’t let that happen again.”
“Sir-”
“Your request is denied, Dash,” General Ironwood said firmly. “I’m not asking you to like it, but your request is denied. Understood?”
Rainbow swallowed again. “Yes, sir.” One hundred percent by the book.
“As for Weiss Schnee,” General Ironwood said, returning to the topic at hand. “How do you think she’ll handle the news?”
“She knows that something is going on, sir,” Rainbow said. “She doesn’t know what, but she’s not stupid. She knows that something’s up, and she wants to do something about it.”
“And how would you get her father to approve you taking her away on a mission to Mistral?” General Ironwood asked.
“I was thinking about not telling him, sir,” Rainbow said.
Winter smiled. General Ironwood let out a slight chuckle.
“Honestly, Dash, I think that’s probably your best option. In fact it’s probably your only option.”
“I don’t see why I need her father’s permission like some old-fashioned boyfriend. He doesn’t own her, sir,” Rainbow declared.
“No,” Winter agreed, “he does not.”
“I see that I’m outnumbered by the two of you,” General Ironwood observed.
“We didn’t plan this, sir,” Winter assured him.
“I’ll take your word for that,” General Ironwood replied. He paused. “Very well. You can take Weiss Schnee, if you want to.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Thank you, Dash,” Winter said. “And good luck.”
“With the mission, Major?” Rainbow asked.
“With getting Weiss away from our father.”