SAPR

by Scipio Smith


Twilight by Starlight (New)

Twilight by Starlight

Twilight’s drones hovered around the landed Skyray, maintaining a perimeter and scanning constantly for any sign of the creatures of grimm or the White Fang or any other intruder who might threaten them. Meanwhile, with the doors of the Skyray securely shut, Team TTSS and their guest, Twilight Sparkle, dined upon field rations torn from their packs.
It was not the best-tasting food in all Remnant – quite the reverse, in point of fact – but they were filling and nutritious, even if you didn’t really want to eat them. And Twilight couldn’t complain too much, because her hosts of TTSS had been considerate enough to let her take the mac and cheese, which was apparently recognised as the best of a set of okay-to-bad options, while they were stuck with the likes of beef goulash and pulled chicken in barbecue sauce which… apparently strayed from their namesake inspirations a little bit.
“The urrrrsa major advanced, grrrrowling in and snarrrling,” Trixie narrated, rolling her r’s like the tossing of a ship upon the stormy sea. “Grrrrrr,” she added, making a sound that was almost more like a purr than a growl.
Starlight watched all of this with a fond smile playing upon her face. Sunburst’s face was downcast; he picked at his food with a plastic spork. Tempest’s expression resembled that of a stone wall, every bit as flat and hard, except that a wall would not have suffered the slight twitching of one eye that betrayed the fact that she wanted to stuff food down her ears.
But then, she hadn’t been present for this particular action. Neither had Twilight, of course, but she had been in Canterlot at the time. Early last year, when Rainbow and Applejack – and Starlight – were still in their first semester at Atlas, Vice Principal Luna had suffered a nasty health scare: lymphoma, serious enough to put her in hospital. Serious enough to be touch and go for a while. Fortunately, she’d responded to treatment and gotten back on her feet with seemingly no long-term side-effects, but there had been a moment when it seemed like she might not make it.
Twilight wasn’t a doctor, but the whole community of Canterlot had rallied around Vice Principal Luna, and Twilight had sufficiently fond memories of the place – and of Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna – that she had gone back there to help out how she could. She’d run a marathon to raise money for cancer research – beating both Applejack and Rainbow Dash in a fluke upset – Pinkie had organised a bake sale, they’d all helped out around the school how they could to take some of the load off Principal Celestia.
Everyone had done what they could to keep Canterlot positive, but considering what was going on, it wasn’t surprising that a little negativity had slipped out. It must have been that negativity that brought the grimm. The creatures of grimm were very rarely seen in Canterlot – it was one of the luckiest places in Remnant in that respect – and it wasn’t as though a horde of them had descended upon the town, but Twilight knew that a few ursai had probed the edges of the town before the likes of Rainbow and Applejack had taken care of them.
And Trixie, apparently.
“The Grrrreat and Powerrrrful Trrrrixie was all alone,” Trixie declared flamboyantly. “But Trrrrixie was not afrrrrraid! With one swish of her wand, the Grrreat and Powerrrrrful Trrrixie-“
“Killed it,” Tempest said flatly. “As any one of us could have done.” She glanced at Twilight. “Even you, Twilight.”
Twilight thought about her encounter with an ursa in the Emerald Forest. “Maybe,” she said warily. “And I wouldn’t have done it with the same amount of flair as Trixie, I’m sure.”
Trixie’s face had gone distinctly sour when her story was interrupted, but she managed to muster a small smile. “Why, thank you, Twilight. It’s nice to hear someone appreciate Trixie’s skills.”
“I appreciate your skills; you’re a decent huntress,” Tempest said. “You’re just a terrible storyteller.”
Silence descended in the Skyray, like an embarrassing relative descending on a family gathering, one to whom nobody knows quite how to respond.
“So, um…” Sunburst began. “Twilight, what’s new with you lately?”
“Apart from the fact that the rest of my team has been assigned a mission to one of the most ominous places in Remnant, you mean?”
Sunburst winced. “Yeah… other than that.”
Apart from the fact that I just learned that the world is not quite what I thought it was? Apart from the fact that I just found out that the grimm have a leader providing them with intelligent direction? Apart from the fact that one of her servants just kidnapped my friends and I don’t know if they’re still alive or not?
Wow. A lot’s happened recently, hasn’t it?
“Not much,” Twilight said.
“'Not much'?” Sunburst repeated incredulously. “Come on, Twilight, everyone knows you got attacked in the tower!”
“She doesn’t have to talk about that if she doesn’t want to,” Starlight said softly.
“I’m sorry,” Sunburst said quickly. “I just-”
“I should see if I can reach Rainbow and the others,” Twilight said, getting to her feet and walking around Starlight to cross into the cockpit of the airship.
She settled down in the pilot’s chair. It felt weird to be there – the co-pilot’s seat felt like the more natural place for her to sit – nevertheless, she had flown them in, she was the pilot. Starlight, who was talented at everything she turned her hand to, had been her co-pilot, but Twilight had been the pilot for this flight, just in case they needed Starlight to do huntress things at any point that would take her away from the controls.
But the pilot’s seat felt strange to her. It was Rainbow’s seat, it didn’t belong to her, for all that the airship didn’t belong to Rainbow.
It was complicated, and it probably didn’t make a lot of sense, but it was how she felt nevertheless.
Still, Twilight sat down in the pilot’s seat anyway and fiddled with some of the controls on the board in front of her, setting the frequency and boosting the signal strength a little bit.
She grabbed the handset off the wall of the cockpit and held it up to her mouth. “Rainbow? Rainbow Dash, this is Twilight. I mean, Rosepetal Lead, this is Rosepetal Four, come in, over?” No response. Twilight took a deep breath in and out and pushed her spectacles back up her nose. “Rosepetal Lead, this is Rosepetal Four, come in. Rainbow, this is Twilight; can you hear me?”
Still no answer.
Twilight leaned back against the headrest, pressing against it as if she were trying to push it back. She took another deep breath, and then another. She closed her eyes. Calm. She had to stay calm. Just because they weren’t responding yet didn’t mean that there was anything wrong. Mountain Glenn was a communications dead zone; that was all. She just had to keep trying. She’d get a signal through eventually.
“You’re very brave,” Tempest said as she stepped into the cockpit. “You might not want to talk about it, but it bears saying.”
Twilight glanced at her. “My friend is somewhere in a dead city right now, while I’m safe back here with you four; why am I the brave one?”
Tempest settled down in the co-pilot’s chair. “I didn’t say that you were the brave one; I simply said that you were brave. One brave girl, among many.”
Twilight’s brow furrowed. “Sorry, I still don’t see it.”
“As Sunburst said, everyone knows you were attacked on Saturday night,” Tempest said. “Everyone knows that you nearly died.”
“Does ‘everyone’ really know that?” Twilight asked, faintly aghast at the notion.
“Everyone who matters,” Tempest said blandly. “Just as everyone who matters knows that you are not a fighter, and everyone who matters wonders just what you’re doing here, Twilight Sparkle.”
Twilight looked at Tempest and said nothing. There was nothing to be said, not about that, anyway. What was she supposed to say, that it was classified? That she wanted to retrain as a huntress? No, best to say nothing. Let the subject fall away. Make it clear that this, too, she did not want to speak of.
“And yet here you are,” Tempest said. “Not here in general; I mean here, specifically, out in the field. Your near death experience is but two days past, and here you are.”
“With you.”
“With us,” Tempest allowed. “But all the same, the world does not stop being a dangerous place just because we are in any part of it.”
“I feel safe with you,” Twilight said softly.
Tempest stared at her for a while, her face inscrutable. “No,” she said. “I don’t think that’s it.”
“You think I’m lying?” Twilight asked.
“Nothing so insulting,” Tempest replied. She paused for a moment, then raised her hand to her face and traced her index finger down the scar that ran down her face. “My life changed in a single moment the day I got this,” she declared. “Before I got the scar, I was somebody, and afterwards, I was somebody different. That’s how it works sometimes, isn’t it? Our lives can change in… in the blink of an eye.”
Twilight looked away. It wasn’t that Tempest was wrong; it was the fact that she was right. Not about the attack; that had been a lot of things, but life-changing wasn’t one of them. No, it was everything that followed on from the attack, everything that had come after, the revelations that had piled on top of one another like mountains, the revenge of Cinder, all of it in just one day. She wouldn’t go so far as to say that she was a different person now, but at the same time, she had gone through a door that she could not go back through again. She had taken steps that could not be untaken. She opened her eyes, and they would never close again in the same way. No matter what she did or where she went, she would never be able to forget what she knew now.
And if that was not some kind of change, then what was?
“What was it like?” Tempest asked.
Twilight glanced at her. “Changing?”
“To be in that tower, alone,” Tempest clarified. “Alone with someone who wanted you dead?”
Twilight squirmed. “I… I wasn’t alone for long,” she said, which wasn’t an answer at all, of course.
Tempest leaned forward in her seat. “I know what it’s like,” she said. “To be moments from death, to think that your life is already over. It’s… I wish I’d been there.”
“In the tower?” Twilight asked.
“We all wish that we’d been there in the tower with Twilight,” Trixie declared as she walked into the cockpit, trailed by Starlight like a shadow. “We all wish that we’d been there to give that little snake what for.” Her nostrils flared as she looked down at Tempest Shadow. “Go and check the perimeter.”
“Isn’t that what the drones are for?” Tempest asked.
“Stop bothering Twilight and do it anyway!” Trixie snapped, gesturing with one imperious hand towards the door.
Tempest held Trixie’s gaze for a moment, then she got up and brushed past her two teammates. One of the side doors on the Skyray slid open with a hiss, and Twilight heard, but could not see, Tempest leap down to the ground beneath.
“Sorry about that,” Trixie said, slipping into the seat that Tempest had recently vacated.
“It’s fine,” Twilight.
“No,” Trixie replied. “It’s not.” She folded her arms. “There’s nothing worse than someone who has lost their joy.”
“We should be better friends to her, Trix,” Starlight murmured.
“Why? It’s not like she wants our friendship.” Trixie responded. “I don’t know what she’s even doing here in the first place! She despises glory, she hates acclaim, and don’t tell me that she wants to help people when she doesn’t seem to like anybody.” She pouted. “And she looks down on the rest of us. One glance from her, and Trixie has to remind herself that she is Grrrrreat and Powerrrrrful, and not a fraud.”
“No one thinks you’re a fraud, Trixie,” Twilight assured her.
Trixie raised one eyebrow sceptically.
Twilight shifted in her seat. “Not once they got to know you,” she corrected herself.
“We don’t exactly make much of an effort with Tempest,” Starlight said. “And I include myself in that. I understand why we don’t, but still… not that that excuses what she did.”
“She didn’t do anything,” Twilight said softly.
“Were you uncomfortable?” Starlight asked.
Twilight hesitated for a moment. “Yes.”
“Then she did something,” Starlight said.
“She was right about one thing, though,” Trixie admitted. “We do wish that we’d been there.”
“Only… only because you weren’t there,” Twilight murmured. “Cinder… Cinder’s pretty strong.”
“So are we,” Trixie declared.
Twilight’s eyes flickered between Starlight and Trixie. It was true that Starlight was very good, but Trixie… Trixie was no slouch either; Twilight hadn’t lied when she said that the other girl was no fraud, but was she in Cinder’s league? When Rainbow Dash had barely managed to hold her own against Salem’s servant?
But then again, Rainbow didn’t have the ability to shut down semblances the way that Starlight did. Maybe they’d have seen how tough Cinder was without the ability to play with glass the way she was doing at the tower?
Maybe. Or maybe Trixie or Starlight could have gotten seriously hurt.
“Things worked out okay,” she said, smiling a little, or trying to, at least.
“Trixie supposes so,” Trixie conceded. “Have you had any luck reaching Rainbow Dash yet?”
Twilight shook her head. “Not yet.”
“Then Trrrrixie will let you get back to it,” she said, getting to her feet, her boots thumping a little on the floor of the airship. “After all,” she added, a smirk playing across her face, “Rainbow needs to be able to reach us when the time comes to holler for help, right?”
Twilight snorted. “I’ll be sure to tell her you said that.”
“Of course you should,” Trixie replied. “That’s why I said it.” She stepped out of the cockpit, pausing to say, “Starlight? Aren’t you coming?”
“Give me a second, okay, Trix?” Starlight said, her eyes not leaving Twilight.
“Okay,” Trixie replied. “But you’re the one who said she didn’t need to talk about it.”
“I know,” Starlight said, but nevertheless, she became the latest person to sit down in the co-pilot’s chair, perching upon the edge of it so that she looked as though she might fall off at any moment, resting her elbows on her knees, clasping her hands together. She glanced back into the main body of the Skyray. Twilight glanced back there to to see that it was empty.
“Where-?”
“They’re all checking the perimeter,” Starlight explained.
Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Because…” Starlight trailed off. “Have I ever thanked you for helping me out when I needed it, after my… trouble last year?”
“More than enough,” Twilight replied.
Starlight didn’t respond to that. “I know that certain things are classified,” she said, “and I trust you when you say that what we don’t know isn’t putting this team in danger. Because you’re my friend and I trust you. Just like you know that you can trust us, right?”
Not with this, Twilight thought. She had to admit, seeing the way that Sunset had dealt with the revelations around Salem, she thought that Trixie might take it all better than most – she and Sunset were alike in the size of their egos, if nothing else – but Starlight, well, no offence, but Starlight had already cracked under pressure once.
Starlight looked out of the cockpit window for a moment. “Some secrets…” she began. “You remember that… just before I had my… just before I went… just before that, that was when Vice Principal Luna gave everyone that scare, going into the hospital.”
Twilight blinked. “You know about that? Did Trixie tell you?”
“Not exactly,” Starlight muttered. “General Ironwood was…” She hesitated.
Twilight frowned. “Starlight, I don’t understand.”
“Does the term ‘Winter Maiden’ mean anything to you?” Starlight demanded, looking Twilight straight in the eyes.
“'Winter Maiden'?” Twilight repeated.
Starlight nodded.
“No,” Twilight said. “No, I’ve not heard that term before, what does it mean? It sounds like some kind of holiday thing, like the Amity Princess.”
Starlight’s smile was thin and a little drawn. “Not exactly,” she said. “It’s… it doesn’t matter. I’ll… I’ll let you get back to trying to raise Rainbow Dash.” She let out a little nervous laugh that began awkwardly and descended swiftly into excruciating by the time it was done as she got up and left the cockpit as quickly as she could.
Twilight pondered for a moment. Winter Maiden. No, she had never heard the term before. Why had Starlight expected her to, and what in Remnant did it have to do with Vice Principal Luna and her health?
She shook her head. She had more important things to think about right now. If need be, she could always ask Vice Principal Luna herself about it later.
Right now, she had a job to do.
She switched to a different frequency, and picked up the handset once more. “Rosepetal Lead, this is Rosepetal Four, do you read me?”


Starlight didn’t know whether to sigh with relief as she leapt down from the Skyray to the grass beneath her feet… or whether she ought to still feel concerned.
Relief, because it wasn’t what she had feared it was. She wouldn’t have been able to explain why she had thought that what Twilight and Rainbow were now involved in was connected to the existence of magic – Starlight felt kind of bad keeping that a secret from Twilight, what with the fact that she was so convinced, rightly, as it turned out, that it was real, even though some of her best friends didn’t believe her, but General Ironwood had been insistent that it had to be kept a secret – but, well, they were involved in something. And Twilight and Rainbow had been called up to the tower to see General Ironwood and Professor Ozpin the night after the dance and the attack, and they had both been there to tell Starlight…
“We are telling you this, Starlight Glimmer, because we believe that you are next in line to receive the Winter Maiden’s powers.”
“'Next in line'? What’s going on? I don’t understand, who are you?”
“We are the protectors of this world.”
Starlight shivered at the memory. Nobody knew the real reason why she’d run away. She hadn’t been allowed to tell anybody – which was part of the reason why she’d run – and so everyone thought that it was just the pressure of leading a team, the pressure of high expectations, maybe seasoned with the fact that people treated her like a potential villain because of her semblance.
None of that had been great, to be sure, but she could have lived with it. Being on her own with no friends at Atlas hadn’t been great either, but she could have lived with it.
But finding out that she was expected to take on the burden of… of magic, to be the Winter Maiden and spend her whole life hiding the fact, to both become something set apart from the rest of the world and at the same time be unable to express the whole of what she was… it had been too much for her. She hadn’t been able to handle it, and so… so she had run. She had run, and somewhere along the way, she’d lost her mind in the process.
It had taken the help of some very good people to bring her back from that.
“All you need to do is make a friend, and you’ve got six of them right here.”
“Your semblance sounds pretty cool, although obviously not as impressive as Trixie’s magic.”
“Starlight! I can’t believe it; it’s incredible to see you again!”
“Even though I’m not your partner, we have matching relics, so we’ll be on the same team, right?”
“Although your partner leaves something to be desired, The Grrreat and Powerrrrful Trrrrixie will ensure that your team does not! Join me, and together, we’ll be the grrrrreatest team there’s ever been.”
“Team Tsunami, huh? Listen, if you tell Trixie I said this, I’ll deny it, but between you and me… you got pretty lucky out there.”
A soft smile played across Starlight’s face. Yes, she had gotten pretty lucky. She hadn’t even had to explain herself to General Ironwood. She hadn’t spoken to him at all since arranging her deferral of the remainder of the year and trying again next year – this year – as a freshman cadet. He certainly hadn’t brought up the Winter Maiden again. Having shown that she was not suitable to receive the powers, the issue had been closed.
Next in line, my ass. You picked me because you thought I was good for it, and then you found out that I wasn’t.
Starlight felt a little guilty, sometimes, for the way that she’d handled it; not for not wanting to take on the burden, but for the fact that if Vice Principal Luna hadn’t responded well to treatment and made a full recovery, then someone else would have been tapped to take the Winter Maiden’s power instead.
Someone like Rainbow Dash. To be honest, Starlight was a little surprised that she hadn’t been General Ironwood’s first choice, what with Dash being the General’s protégé and all. It was one of the things that had convinced her that she had to get out: General Ironwood didn’t want Rainbow Dash to get this power, ergo these powers were not something to covet; she was being offered not a blessing, but a curse.
And yet, the General had gone to Dash for… something. Starlight didn’t know what. Twilight hadn’t been lying about not knowing what the Winter Maiden was; Starlight had been watching closely, and there was no deception in her eyes, in her face, her voice. Twilight wasn’t good enough a liar to fake that, not to fool Starlight.
She wasn’t involved in that business, and yet…
And yet, she was involved in something, Rainbow Dash too, and Blake. Something had drawn them to Mountain Glenn, something had led to the attack on the tower, something… something else was going on.
That was worrying, especially the fact that it meant – or at least strongly implied, that General Ironwood was keeping even more secrets than the existence of magic in the world.
Is there even more going on that I still don’t know about?
“Starlight?”
Starlight started a little bit as she noticed Trixie standing beside her. “Trixie,” she said. “I didn’t see you there.”
“I know; you were too busy brooding,” Trixie observed, a slight smile playing upon her face.
Starlight chuckled. “I guess,” she admitted.
“Worried about them?” Trixie guessed.
I’m worried they’ve gotten themselves involved in something too big for them. Something even worse than the Winter Maiden. “Yeah,” Starlight said. “I mean… the place they’ve gone isn’t exactly friendly.”
Trixie slapped her hand down on Starlight’s shoulder. “That’s why the Grrrrreat and Powerrrful Trrrrrixie and her glamorrrrous assistant Starlight are here, to rrrrrescue them if things get a little too much for Rainbow Dash.”
Starlight smiled, if only a little. “I guess,” she murmured, looking away from Trixie and up towards the night sky, where the shattered moon hung above their heads.
I just hope it’s enough.
She caught sight of Tempest, making her way around the rear of the airship. An uncomfortable frown creased Starlight’s face.
“Starlight?” Trixie asked.
Starlight glanced at her. “Perhaps you ought to apologise?” she suggested.
“For what? For stopping her from creeping Twilight out?” Trixie demanded.
“She might have had good intentions,” Starlight murmured.
“Trixie doubts that very much,” muttered Trixie.
“Trixie,” Starlight said reproachfully. She sighed. “Fine, I’ll go talk to her.”
“You’re wasting your time,” Trixie insisted, but Starlight ignored her and turned away, walking across the grassy field to intercept Tempest on her way.
“Hey,” she said, nervousness infecting her tone. “See anything out there?”
Tempest raised the eyebrow above her unmarked eye. “Some stars. A moon. Starling, isn’t it?”
Starlight let out a sort of nervous chuckle. “Yeah, I guess it is pretty quiet. We’re lucky.”
“We’re lucky we have the drones so we don’t have to depend on our eyes,” Tempest replied. “And yet, our glorious leader has us doing this make-work anyway.”
Trixie is giving Twilight some space,” Starlight declared. “She needs it, with everything that’s going on.”
Tempest’s eyes narrowed. “And what is going on?”
“What do you mean?”
Tempest snorted. “Just because you don’t like me, don’t take me for a fool, partner,” she said. “This is not an ordinary sort of mission.”
“I don’t dislike you,” Starlight said. “Although, if you think that I do, then I suppose that means that I’m doing something wrong anyway. I’m sorry; that was never the impression that I wanted to give. It’s just that-”
“I’m not the easiest person to be around?” Tempest suggested. “Believe me, I’ve noticed. And for what it’s worth, you don’t have to apologise; you can dislike me if you want. I might even prefer it. It’s more honest.”
Now it was Starlight’s turn to raise her eyebrows. “'Honest'?”
“What’s really going on here?” Tempest asked. “On this mission, I mean?”
“You think I know something you don’t?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you and Trixie to keep a secret from me,” Tempest replied. “Regardless, isn’t it obvious that this is not an ordinary mission? Why send students into a place like Mountain Glenn? Why send two teams? Why have a third team tied up in reserve? Why are we doing this instead of undertaking a real mission-?”
“You know the answer to that: we’re here because Twilight asked for us,” Starlight said. “Because she trusts us.”
“And you trust her?” Tempest demanded. “Even though you know that she is keeping things from you? Even though General Ironwood is keeping secrets from us?”
“I may not trust General Ironwood, but I trust Twilight,” Starlight replied. “She wouldn’t deliberately endanger this team in any way.”
“And yet, here we are,” Tempest said. “Ready to leap into action in grimm-infested territory.”
“That’s the job,” Starlight said. “It’s what we signed up for. You know what I mean; Twilight wouldn’t hold information back if that information would keep us alive. I trust her. Trixie trusts her. You should trust her too.”
“I don’t trust anyone,” Tempest declared. “I’ve learned the folly of it too well already.”
“Trust isn’t a folly,” Starlight said. “And neither is friendship.”
“The folly is trusting in friendship to last,” Tempest declared. “It may be a pleasant thing for times of peace, but when the chips are down, these bonds that you think you share will shatter like glass, and Trixie will turn on you to save her own hide. And Sunburst. And Twilight. Just as you will turn on Twilight and Rainbow Dash and-”
“That’s not going to happen,” Starlight’s voice rose a little as she insisted upon the point. “That will never happen.”
The shadow of a smirk flitted across Tempest’s features, gone so swiftly, Starlight wondered if it had actually been there at all, or if it had been her imagination all the while. “We’ll see,” she murmured. “Or not, if you’re lucky.”