Wanderer Above a Sea of Smog
“Ten-hut!” Sour Sweet snapped as the door slid open. The sound of the Shadowbolts' boots hitting the floor in perfect unison drowned out the lighter tapping of Principal Cinch’s heels as she walked into the room.
Cinch kept her face impassive and her voice devoid of any pride or affection as she strode down the line of the five huntresses: Sour Sweet, Sugarcoat, Sunny Flare, Lemon Zest, Indigo Zap.
Their expressions were stony and their eyes as hard as jewels. They did not look at her, even as her gaze fell sharply upon them. Their backs were straight; their postures and the placement of their feet and hands were perfect. Everything about them was perfect… except for their performance last night.
She reached the end of the line, stopping in front of Sour Sweet. “I am disappointed,” she declared, in a voice that was soft and quiet. She would not raise her voice; she would have no need to. Her words would be quite sufficient on their own.
Indeed, underneath the admirable military composure, she could see that her few words had already had some effect: Indigo had begun to clench her jaw, while Sour Sweet’s fists had tightened a little more than they had when Cinch walked into the room.
“We did manage to capture two of her lieutenants,” pointed out Indigo.
Cinch raised one eyebrow. “'Lieutenants,' Miss Zap? Remind me, how many members of the so-called Happy Huntresses are there in total?”
Indigo did not reply.
“Miss Zap,” Cinch said, “I await your answer.”
Indigo swallowed. “Four.”
Cinch nodded. “Do you think it is accurate to describe two members of a group of four as lieutenants of their leader? Would you describe yourself as a lieutenant of Miss Sweet?”
“No, ma’am,” admitted Indigo.
“Then I suggest that you reflect upon the meaning of words, Miss Zap, and choose yours with a greater sense of precision,” Cinch informed her. “I know that you would not attempt to so childishly exaggerate your accomplishment to me, so it must have been a poor wording, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Indigo said. “My apologies.”
“For your word choice, Miss Zap, or your actions last night?”
“Indigo did take down her target,” Sour Sweet said. “That’s more than some of us could say.”
“Quite so,” Cinch replied sharply. “You are correct, Miss Sweet; whatever credit was gained last night was gained by Miss Zap and by Miss Sugarcoat, who managed to detain two of Robyn Hill’s subordinates; that, Miss Zap, was the word you were looking for.”
“Yes ma’am,” Indigo said.
Cinch was silent for a moment. “Your target is a physically formidable specimen, Miss Zap, and yet, you took her down alone. For that, you are to be commended.”
Indigo’s face lit up. “Thank you, ma’am!”
“Did she give you any trouble?”
Indigo permitted herself a slight smirk. “No trouble at all, ma’am.”
“I’m glad to see that your skills in close combat haven’t atrophied since you left Crystal Prep,” Cinch said mildly. “Would that the same could be said for all of you.” She paused. “Miss Sweet, do you have anything to say in defence of your performance in this operation?”
Sour Sweet breathed in and out. “No, ma’am. There’s no excuse.”
Cinch was silent for a moment. “Robyn Hill has avoided capture by the garrison here in Mantle for some time. General Reeve’s forces – including another former graduate of our alma mater – have failed to contain or eliminate her, at great material and reputational cost to the Atlesian presence here. Which led me to offer your services. In spite of Robyn Hill’s reputation, she is not, after all, a Crystal Prep alumnus. I was confident that you, my Shadowbolts, would get the job done where inferior units and weaker huntsmen had failed. You have disappointed me. But not as much as the fact that both Robyn Hill and her last remaining subordinate were captured by Blake Belladonna.”
“Permission to speak, ma’am?” Sugarcoat asked.
“Granted, Miss Sugarcoat.”
“Specialist Belladonna was assisted in the capture by Specialists Dash and Apple,” Sugarcoat said, keeping her eyes forward. “As we’re being precise.”
Indigo’s eyes widened. Sunny made a sort of choking noise.
Cinch regarded Sugarcoat keenly, her eyes sharp behind her spectacles. The very faintest smile raised the corners of her painted lips. “That is correct, Miss Sugarcoat; Robyn Hill was defeated by three specialists. Just as she would have been defeated by three specialists had Miss Sweet, Miss Zest, and Miss Flare engaged her as was their intent.”
“That’s a very good point, ma’am,” Sugarcoat admitted.
“The numbers involved are not the issue,” Cinch continued. “Robyn Hill could have been brought down by a single huntress or brought down as wolves bring down a lion. The details are irrelevant, save that she was not brought down by a Shadowbolt.”
“You requested that Specialist Belladonna join us for this mission, ma’am,” Sugarcoat pointed out.
“I did,” Cinch agreed. “Because I hoped that she might learn something from you that she would not learn from Ironwood’s soft-hearted favourites. Instead, those favourites showed you up. And me, through association.”
“We’re sorry, ma’am,” Sunny Flare said. “It was not our intent to bring shame upon you or the school.”
“I should hope not, Miss Flare,” Cinch replied. “Miss Sweet, what are your opinions of Specialist Belladonna?”
“Her performance on this mission was undeniably superb; she’s a formidable combatant,” Sour Sweet said. She sniffed. “But that doesn’t change the fact that she doesn’t have the stomach for this line of work.”
Cinch had been afraid of that. “You think that Ironwood and his favourites have poisoned the well too thoroughly.”
“Definitely,” Sugarcoat muttered.
“We tried to explain to her the way the world works, and she flew into a rage at us,” Sunny added.
“She might not have been affected by the Canterlot crew,” Sour Sweet allowed. “But she cares so much that it doesn’t really matter either way; she’s useless.”
“Not useless,” Sugarcoat growled. “She still did what we couldn’t.”
Sour Sweet huffed but didn’t dispute the point.
“Miss Sugarcoat is correct, but I take what is clearly your broader point, Miss Sweet,” Cinch said. “In your opinion, she is nothing like Miss Amitola?”
“Not a bit,” Sugarcoat said.
That is disappointing, Cinch thought to herself. Allowing Ilia Amitola to slip through her fingers was one of her regrets: a ferocious fighter, a shining example of the natural savagery of a warrior race. She had hoped that the Warrior Princess of Menagerie might be cut from the same cloth, but apparently – and she trusted the judgement of her Shadowbolts in this – it was not so.
A pity. She might have approached the girl, offered her a place in the new, post-Ironwood order.
Save that it seemed such an approach would be rebuffed.
Very well. So much for Blake Belladonna. No matter, there would be recruits enough on Menagerie to swell and stiffen the Atlesian ranks in equal measure.
“Miss Sweet,” she said, “would you kindly venture an explanation for your failure to apprehend Robyn Hill? Preferably with reference to Specialist Belladonna’s success in the same task.”
Sour Sweet took a moment to consider it. “We didn’t give Robyn any reason to fight us, so she focussed on evading our pursuit,” she admitted. “Belladonna used a hostage to draw her out and engage her, at which point, her allies – which she didn’t tell any of us about, in a complete disregard of operational protocol and respect for the chain of command-”
“What is rule number one, Miss Sweet?” Cinch asked.
“Respect must be earned, ma’am; it cannot be assumed,” Sour Sweet recited instantly.
“Precisely,” Cinch said. “If you were not able to earn Specialist Belladonna’s respect, that may be another aspect of your performance which you wish to critique.”
“Based on what we observed, ma’am, I don’t think Blake could ever respect us,” Sugarcoat said. “Or vice versa.”
“I don’t know,” Indigo said. “That business with the hostage, that was colder than you’d expect from the way she was acting in the truck.”
“If it was intentional,” Lemon Zest muttered.
“That’s a good point,” Indigo admitted.
Sour Sweet cleared her throat. “To successfully complete the mission, we should have focussed our resources on capturing Robyn Hill’s subordinates and used them as bait to draw her into a decisive engagement.”
“Indeed, Miss Sweet, that may have proven effective,” Cinch said.
“It could hardly have been less effective,” Sugarcoat observed.
Sour Sweet struggled to control the frown upon her face.
Cinch was quiet for a moment, and in the quiet, she observed the five girls standing at attention before her. As a group, they were fairly typical of the sorts of girls who walked the halls of Crystal Prep: Indigo Zap came from what was called a ‘good family’; Sunny Flare’s parents were scientists working for the military; Lemon Zest had been adopted by a well-to-do human couple as an act of virtue signalling; Sour Sweet’s family owned vast chains of hydrofarms; Sugarcoat’s parents were successful physicians. Girls and boys just like them came up to her school every year: raw clay in need of guidance to shape it and fire to harden it. It was Cinch’s purpose to provide both, and that, she flattered herself, was what she did, and did well, too.
She took children, flawed and weak and still unformed, and she turned them into weapons for Atlas, the finest weapons that Atlas possessed. She ground the weakness out of them, drove out all fears save only the fear of her disapproval, expelled all compassion, all kindness, all empathy for others, and in its place, she set the will to dominate that had carried Atlas to greatness and to glory. They came to her as children, and they left as the rightful rulers of the world.
And yet, for too long, they had been prevented from taking their rightful place at the head of affairs by the follies of General Ironwood and his ilk. Not for much longer. With the help of Robyn Hill, she would soon be in a position to set right all that had gone wrong in Atlas these many years.
But right now, there were more immediate matters to concern herself with. Matters in which the Shadowbolts might still be of use to her.
Despite their failure to capture Robyn Hill, these five girls still represented some of the finest students to come through Crystal Prep during her tenure, and as they were some of the most recent alumni to become Specialists, their loyalty to her had not been worn away by time or exposure to weak elements and corrupting ideas.
They were still pristine, still pure, still Shadowbolts to the bone.
They were, as the saying went, just what the doctor ordered.
“What is past is past,” she said. “Learn from it, but look to the future, all of you. Resolving to do better next time will serve you better than recriminations on your next mission.”
Sour Sweet turned her head ever so slightly. “Our next mission, ma’am?”
“Indeed,” Cinch said. “I did not come all this way simply to debrief you more swiftly, Miss Sweet. I am here because I have a task for you, a task that is both secret and of great importance to the future of Atlas. No one outside of this room can know of this assignment. Do I make myself clear?”
“This is an off-the-books assignment, isn’t it, ma’am?” Sugarcoat asked.
“It is a mission for Atlas,” Cinch repeated. “Do you trust me when I tell you that?”
“Yes ma’am,” Indigo said firmly. “If you say it is for the good of Atlas, then it is for the good of Atlas.”
“I am glad to see that I still enjoy your confidence,” Cinch said calmly. “You will go to Mistral, and at the house of Lady Ming, a Councillor there, you will present yourself to an acquaintance of mine, a Doctor Arthur Watts, and place yourselves at his disposal. You will do whatever he requires of you.”
“'Whatever he requires,' ma’am?” Sour Sweet asked.
“Doctor Watts is a true Atlesian patriot,” Cinch assured them. “Whatever he requires, however it may appear, is for the greater good of our great kingdom; you may depend upon it.”
Sour Sweet nodded. “When do we leave, ma’am?”
“When I instruct you to,” Cinch said. “Prepare yourselves, but I must make some additional arrangements before you depart.”
She would need to speak with Turnus Rutulus once again.
Blake coughed, covering her mouth with one hand as she felt phlegm rise in her throat.
“Don’t spit,” Rainbow advised. “Swallow instead.”
Blake looked at her, eyebrows rising.
“Trust me,” Rainbow urged.
Blake swallowed. It felt foul and tasted fouler on the way down. “Why did I do that?” she asked.
“Because if you’d hocked it up, you’d have seen what colour it was and felt even worse,” Rainbow informed her.
Blake’s eyebrows rose yet further. “What colour is it?”
“You don’t want to know,” Rainbow replied. “But it’s a reason why I didn’t want to come down here.”
“I thought you just didn’t want to talk to Robyn Hill,” Blake muttered.
“I don’t,” Rainbow said. “But the other reason I didn’t want to come down here is that the air quality around here is garbage. It gets in your throat and nose and everything.”
“Air generally does that,” Blake observed dryly.
“You know what I mean,” Rainbow said.
Blake did, in fact, know what she meant; she suspected that she could have guessed what colour her mucus would have been if she’d expelled it. “You didn’t have to come,” she said. “Robyn called me, remember?”
“I’m not letting you meet her by yourself,” Rainbow said, as if the idea was preposterous. “It took three of us to bring her down the first time, remember?”
“She just got out of jail; I doubt she’s looking to start a fight,” Blake said.
“Maybe she’s emboldened by the fact that they just let her out without so much as a kick in the ass,” Rainbow responded. “Why do you want to talk to her anyway?”
Blake and a rather more reluctant Rainbow Dash had returned to Mantle after a summons from Robyn Hill, who had sent Blake a rather terse text message asking to meet at a rendezvous point set by Robyn herself. No discussion, just a location to go to and a request that she, Blake, be there. It was that which had brought them here, to the heart of Mantle’s industrial district, where the chimneys of the SDC refinery plants belched out vast quantities of smoke into the air, blocking out much of the sky above their heads.
Nor was it only the clouds that were obscured by darker clouds of industrial creation; the air around them was dirty with a brownish coloured haze, like wearing shaded glasses that cast the world around you in a different colour. The warmth of all the work being done and all of the machinery being employed to do it didn’t help much either. Blake swore that she could feel things touching her skin as she walked forwards, as though she wasn’t moving through air so much as wading through a porous substance.
She was going to need a shower when she got back to Atlas.
She coughed again, thankfully more mildly this time. “I want to hear what she has to say.”
“She wanted to take you hostage and bargain for the return of her comrades; what does she have to say to you worth saying?” Rainbow demanded.
“Why?” Blake suggested. “General Ironwood told me that she used to be a well-respected Specialist, that she could have been general herself one day if she’d wanted to be, so why would she throw all that away to become an outlaw?” She paused. “You told me once that you wanted me to lead Atlas, because you didn’t think that you could do it yourself.”
Rainbow didn’t answer immediately. She pulled a flask from out of her jacket pocket and took a drink out of it before offering it to Blake.
Blake took it. It was water, cool and clear and very welcome in this place. She drank probably a little more than she ought to have done before handing it back.
Rainbow screwed the top back on and shoved the flask into her pocket where it had come from. “I remember,” she said. “I’ve tried to improve since then, but… I still kind of think you should be leading this Mistral mission instead of me.”
“I think that I can guess why I’m not,” Blake murmured.
Rainbow frowned. “Go on then, guess?”
“General Ironwood doesn’t trust me to follow his orders the way that he trusts you,” Blake suggested softly.
Rainbow hesitated for a moment. A sigh escaped her. “You weren’t exactly subtle about disagreeing with him.”
“For reasons that I have clearly and vocally expressed,” Blake muttered. “So let’s not go over that again, but-”
“But here we go, about to go over it again,” Rainbow said playfully.
“Does it bother you that we might actually make things worse for Pyrrha?” Blake asked. “It sounds as if the situation in Mistral is very finely balanced. If we-”
“Stick our boots in?” Rainbow suggested.
“I was going to say 'disturb that balance,'” Blake replied. “But either way, we could cause trouble for Pyrrha. We could get Pyrrha into a lot of trouble.”
“What other choice is there?” Rainbow asked. “If Salem’s agents are observing any kind of balance right now, it’s only because they don’t feel strong enough to make their move yet – that, or they don’t have the information that we do. You know as well as I do that if they knew who the Spring Maiden was, they’d be all over that bandit tribe and damn the consequences. Provided they had the strength for it, which it sounds like they do.”
“So we have to get there first, no matter the consequences for Pyrrha?” Blake asked.
“They’ll kill Pyrrha if they get the chance,” Rainbow said sharply. “You know that as well as I do; the moment the balance of power shifts their way, they’ll tear her apart without any of the moral qualms that are keeping you up at night.”
“Aren’t we supposed to be better than that?” Blake asked.
“We are better than that,” Rainbow insisted. She frowned. “Look, I’m not suggesting that… maybe we’ll get to Mistral and find that Pyrrha has a plan that will save Mistral in such a tiptoe way that we never have to step out of line. Or maybe she can use us to take care of her problems and then hold up her hands and say that it was nothing to do with her.”
“I don’t think plausible deniability is Pyrrha’s style,” Blake observed.
“No, me neither,” Rainbow admitted. “But… you get what I’m saying, don’t you? They won’t hold back a moment longer than they have to.”
There was, unfortunately, no denying that. Pyrrha’s freedom was hedged about with restrictions, but those restrictions would hardly hinder the agents of Salem; as Rainbow said, if they were indulging them at all, it was only because it served their interests to do so. The moment it served their interests more to cast off all fetters on their conduct, they would do that too.
It seemed unlikely they would so much as hesitate to do so.
“Trust me,” Rainbow said. “I know Chrysalis. She can be cunning, sure, but she can also be cruel. And she certainly doesn’t care who gets in her way. Like I said, maybe Pyrrha has a plan, but if she doesn’t… I would rather get Pyrrha into some political trouble than stand aside-”
“Or leave,” Blake pointed out.
Rainbow winced. “I’m not going to leave until I’ve done everything I can,” she said. “And if that includes stepping on a few toes, then so be it.”
“That sounds very admirable,” Blake observed. “But the consequences-”
“What’s the alternative?” Rainbow demanded. “If we can’t do anything to beat Salem, then how are we supposed to beat Salem? If the best we can hope for is to wait for the other side to feel confident in breaking the stalemate, then Mistral really is screwed, isn’t it? I’m not saying that the first thing we do is go and hunt down the Spring Maiden, but we have to be willing to do something, don’t we?”
“I… yes,” Blake conceded. “Yes, I suppose you’ve got a point.” She smiled. “Maybe you are the one who should be leading this mission.”
“That’d be good,” Rainbow muttered. She blinked. “So what was your point again?”
Blake thought about it for a moment. “My point is: how can I, or anyone, make Atlas better unless they’re willing to listen to those who criticise the way things are now?”
“Just because they’ve got something to say doesn’t mean it’s worth hearing,” Rainbow said.
“Just because you don’t like what they have to say doesn’t mean it should be dismissed,” argued Blake.
“I guess,” Rainbow huffed. The two of them began to climb a set of metal stairs, a fire escape leading up the side of a tall building with a warning sign on the door. As they climbed, Blake saw the air begin to clear visibly around her, felt the difference in her throat and on her skin, like all the worst of the dust particles and the pollution was so heavy it was falling towards the ground, and by ascending, they, like Atlas, rose above it.
Maybe that was why Robyn had set the meeting on the roof.
As they climbed, Rainbow Dash turned back towards her. “Have you spoken to Sun since last night?” she asked.
“No,” Blake murmured. “Do we have to talk about this?”
That was a cue for Rainbow to turn around and keep walking, but she didn’t take it. Instead, as she continued to bar Blake’s way, she said, “You know, I’m pretty sure that he’d do anything you asked him too.”
“Just because that’s true doesn’t give me license to ask him to do whatever I want,” Blake pointed out.
Rainbow leaned against the outer wall of the dour, brown brick building – whether the bricks were actually brown or had been stained that way couldn’t be guessed at – they had been climbing.
“Part of me wants to tell you that you should drop him,” she said, “that you’ll… maybe not that you’ll never get to the top with a guy like that on your arm, but you could get there faster with somebody more… someone with connections, someone who knows the right people, someone who knows the right things to say. Someone who cleans up.”
“All the things that Sun isn’t,” Blake murmured. “Not that that ought to matter.”
“Maybe it shouldn’t matter, but it does,” Rainbow replied. “You know how much General Ironwood helped me out; that’s how this works: relationships, connections.”
“General Ironwood seems to have made it without a partner to help with that,” Blake pointed out.
“No partner is a different thing from the wrong one,” Rainbow said.
“Hmm,” Blake murmured. “You said that was something that part of you wanted to say.”
Rainbow nodded. “It is.”
“Is there another part?”
Rainbow looked away from Blake, looking out into the smog. “The other part of me wants to tell you that if you love him, you should go for it and not care what other people think, like Pyrrha. The other part of me wants to tell you that if you don’t… you’ll miss him when you don’t have him anymore.”
Blake’s brow furrowed imperceptibly. “Who was he?”
“Huh?”
Blake’s eyes narrowed. “Rainbow Dash,” she murmured reproachfully.
Rainbow was silent for a few moments. “His name was Kogetsu,” she said gruffly. “He died.”
Blake waited for Rainbow to elaborate in any way; Rainbow Dash stubbornly refused to do so.
“So,” Rainbow said. “Do you love him?”
Blake did not reply. She turned away and rested both her hands upon the warm metal railings on the outer edge of the fire escape.
She stared out into the smog.
“You know,” Rainbow said, starting to lean on the railings beside her, “the longer you don’t answer, the louder you answer.”
“When we met,” Blake said, “he was so sweet, so generous, so helpful, so… so everything. He was there for me when no one else was; he didn’t ask any questions, he didn’t ask for anything in return, he just… he just wanted to help. It was… like something out of a fairy tale.”
“But?”
“But I… I don’t feel… it,” Blake said. “I don’t… I never felt as though I needed to spend time with him, I never felt a longing if we were apart for too long, I never felt as though I couldn’t wait to see him again, like I needed to run to him.”
“That might be a good thing,” Rainbow said.
“But it’s hardly love, is it?” Blake asked. “Look at Pyrrha, look at the way she looked at Jaune, the way that her feelings were written on her face. I never-”
“Well, that’s because you’re not Pyrrha, isn’t it?” Rainbow interrupted her. “I never felt that way about Kogetsu either; it doesn’t mean that I didn’t care about him.”
I’ve never heard you mention him before now, Blake thought but didn’t say because it might – would, certainly – have sounded rude and unkind.
“But we had fun,” Rainbow continued. “We had laughs. We could talk to one another about stuff. I liked having him around, and… and I think he liked having me around too. I don’t know, maybe we weren’t in love either, but… but we had fun together, and that’s something, right?”
“It is,” Blake acknowledged. “And you’re right, I’m not Pyrrha, but… in the time that we’ve been apart, I’m not sure that I’ve thought about him.”
“Well, that… that’s not great, but nobody’s asking you to pine after the guy.”
“I would be willing to bet that he’s thought about me,” Blake murmured. “He deserves better.”
“What he deserves doesn’t matter if what he wants is you, does it?” Rainbow said. “So what do you want?”
Blake took a moment to reply. “I don’t want to hurt him,” she murmured.
“Then don’t,” Rainbow said.
“You said-”
“I know what I said, and what I said was true, even if it shouldn’t be,” said Rainbow Dash. “But you’re about to go on a mission to another continent where none of that is going to matter. And you’re only nineteen; nobody’s asking you to marry the guy.”
“He might,” Blake said darkly.
“And if he does, you tell him that you’re not ready and you want to just date for a bit longer and see how things work out,” Rainbow said. “I mean, you did have fun with him, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then have fun, until either it stops being fun or it becomes something more,” Rainbow said. “Like Twilight does it.”
“Has it ever become something more for Twilight?”
“No,” Rainbow allowed. “But she’s had a lot of fun.”
“Hmm,” Blake murmured. “I think I might ask Twilight what she thinks about all this.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” Rainbow acknowledged. “Just… don’t throw something away too quickly.”
Blake paused. “No,” she agreed. “I won’t. But we should probably get up on the roof now. Or is this just about delaying having to meet Robyn?”
Rainbow snorted. “Maybe a little,” she said, before turning her back on Blake and leading the way once more up the stairs.
They climbed the rest of the way, and as they climbed, they rose definitively above the smog, until by the time they gained the roof, they had risen above it as Atlas rose above the clouds, so that the dark layer of throat-staining pollutants gathered beneath them, a sea of toxins from which Blake was both glad to be free and apprehensive of descending into once again.
They found Robyn standing on the other side of the roof, her back to the both of them, one foot resting on the very ledge itself and a hand upon her hip. She too looked out towards the sea of smog that surrounded them, the waste of Mantle’s industries pooling like water all around.
She didn’t turn around, but as Blake and Rainbow Dash approached through the chimney stacks, she said, “I don’t recall asking you to bring a bodyguard.”
Rainbow scowled. Blake took another step forward. “Considering how we last met… Rainbow doesn’t trust you.”
“Is that right?” Robyn asked. “Or is it simply that you hate me because I betrayed the uniform?”
“Can it be both?” asked Rainbow, folding her arms.
Robyn was silent for a moment. “Do you mind if I call you 'Blake'?” she asked. “It rolls off the tongue more easily than 'Belladonna.'”
Blake hesitated. “Okay,” she allowed. “Can I call you Robyn?”
“It’s nicer than what a lot of your comrades would call me,” Robyn said. “Blake, do you know that every year, deaths from air pollution increase here in Mantle?”
Blake eyed the smog all around. “I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“It’s spreading,” Robyn said. “It used to be confined to the industrial districts – and the worst of it, that you can see here, is still confined here, but it’s spreading. It’s starting to block out the sky. It’s starting to poison the air. And it’s not just the refineries; it’s the trucks and the cars. Soon, it won’t be safe for children to play outside without poisoning themselves. Asthma diagnoses are also up year on year.”
Blake was silent for a moment. “That sounds… it sounds-”
“Terrible?”
“Like something the Council should take action on,” Blake said.
Robyn laughed bitterly. “You haven’t been here long enough, Blake, if you expect the Council to take action on behalf of Mantle.”
“That’s not fair!” Rainbow snapped. “A clean air law was passed the year before last.”
“So watered down as to be almost worthless,” Robyn replied. “Mantle is literally choking to death, and yet… and yet, if the refineries and the processing centres were to be shut down, if all of the chimneys ceased to billow, if everything that is poisoning the air were to disappear… Mantle would die anyway. This city is like a man who has a choice between starving to death or eating food he knows is laced with poison. He’s dead either way; it’s just a matter of how and when. And how much use can be gotten out of him by his jailer first, I guess.”
“You mean Atlas,” Blake said.
“I mean Atlas, I mean the SDC, I mean the military, I mean all of it,” Robyn declared. She turned away from the smog below her, and faced the two Atlesian specialists. “Rainbow Dash, do you remember when I came to your school to talk? To sell you kids upon what a great life it was in the Corps of Specialists?”
“I remember,” Rainbow murmured. “I was impressed.”
Robyn snorted. “I’m glad to see I made a good impression.”
“I’d better remember,” Rainbow said. “You singled me out afterwards.”
“That I did,” Robyn replied. “The General said you were one to watch out for.”
“Don’t call him that,” Rainbow snapped. “You don’t have the right, not anymore.”
“No,” Robyn murmured. “I suppose he isn’t my general any more, is he?”
“I should say not,” Rainbow growled, “and that’s on you.”
“Yes,” murmured Robyn, “yes, it is. I’m the one who walked away. That was my choice. How to handle it was everybody else’s choice.”
“What do you mean?” Blake asked softly.
Robyn stared at her for a moment. “What did I really do, to deserve to be vilified, reviled by my former comrades, to have ambushes laid to capture me?”
“You commit crimes!” Rainbow shouted, sounding incredulous that Robyn needed to ask.
“Or is my real crime that I dared to take off that uniform?” Robyn demanded. “Is it because I dared to walk away from paradise? We tell our children that Atlas is the greatest kingdom in the world, a shining city in the clouds, a beacon; we tell them that serving Atlas is the highest thing that they could ever do with their lives-”
“You make it sound so sinister,” Blake murmured.
“I went to a school and encouraged children to put on the white and die for Atlas; isn’t that sinister?” Robyn replied.
“Only two out of six did,” Rainbow muttered. “So either it’s not that bad, or you suck at your job.”
“The point is,” Robyn said, “that if Atlas is the greatest kingdom in Remnant, what does it say that there are people down in Mantle who want to leave it? That there are people who want to walk away from paradise? You can’t handle that, you can’t accept it, everybody should want to come to Atlas! That’s why you hate me: because I had the world offered me on a plate and had the temerity to refuse it.”
Rainbow scowled. “No, it’s because you betrayed good people like the General and spat on everything we stand for on the way out.”
“Why did you?” Blake asked. “Why did you leave the military? Why did you become an outlaw? Why did you decide to fight for Mantle?”
Robyn was silent a few moments. “When I came to your school, Rainbow Dash, I told you that the military was innocent of the broader crimes of the kingdom,” she said. “I told you that, whatever mistakes Atlas had made, whatever the SDC did, those mistakes and those disgraces didn’t touch the military. Our uniforms were spotless white, and the dust didn’t tarnish them. I was wrong. The military, the SDC, Atlas, it’s all connected; all part of a complex machine, each part feeding off the others. To be a part of any of it is to be complicit in all of it.”
“Do you really think that attacking the system from without is going to change anything?” asked Blake.
“Did you think that attacking the system was going to change anything when you were with the White Fang?” Robyn shot back with a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
Blake bowed her head, hugging her right arm with her left hand. “I… I hoped so, at first,” she admitted. She looked back up at Robyn, her ears drooping down into her wild black hair. “But I’m here because I realised that I was mistaken.”
“So you decided to work within the system?” Robyn asked. “To change it?”
Blake nodded. “I hope so, eventually.”
“'Eventually'? Some would say that justice deferred is justice denied.”
“Justice will always be denied if the only demands for justice come in the form of assaults on the state which can be endlessly repelled,” Blake countered. “And even if that weren’t the case, even if the White Fang could overthrow the kingdoms, even if you could bring down Atlas, at what cost? What about the lives lost, what about the lives ruined, at what point does it stop being justice and start to become revenge?”
Robyn frowned. “So you’re working within the system to save lives?”
“I’m a huntress,” Blake said. “That’s the heart of everything I do.”
“Of course it is,” Robyn murmured. She turned away and once more presented her back to the Specialists as she looked out across the sea of smog that gathered beneath her.
“Thank you, Blake,” she said quietly. “You’ve… helped me realise what I have to do.”
The forces of General Reeve were greatly preoccupied with trying to find the hideout of the Happy Huntresses, which they presumed to be some sort of secret base.
They were precisely wrong.
The hideout of the Happy Huntresses was a bar called The Green Tree, which Joanna had inherited from an uncle – yes, Joanna was, in terms of assets immediately on hand, the best off of the Huntresses by some distance, what with May having been disowned by her family. It was ‘closed for renovations’ and had been for some time; a small cut of the proceeds of their attacks upon Atlas went towards keeping the lights on and spared Joanna the need to work behind the bar, but for some reason, the fact that the bar was always closed had not raised any suspicions with the authorities.
Perhaps it was the fact that The Green Tree did look as though it could use some refurbishment. There was a crack in the wall that reached almost from floor to ceiling, and there were patches of damp on the floor from leaking pipes that ran along the ceiling. The tables and chairs were… not the cleanest either; there were stains on more of them than not. And the floor could do with a scrub. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t so hard to work out why people could believe that this place was closed for legitimate reasons.
Plus, it was a sad fact of life in Mantle that a lot of places had been closed for a long time – and without the excuse that outlaws were hiding out there – and there wasn’t a rush of anything to replace them. Small businesses were folding up left and right, the lots going vacant because nobody could start up any new enterprises to take over the space.
This whole city was going to become filled with charity stores and betting shops at this rate, unless something was done.
Fortunately, Robyn was able to do something now, and the only cost… the only cost… the only cost, it seemed, was the respect of certain members of her crew.
“You can’t be serious about this!” May cried. “You… you just can’t.”
“I can,” Robyn replied. “I might even go further and say I must.”
Joanna Greenleaf folded her arms; she was the biggest of the Happy Huntresses in every respect, towering over even Robyn and broader in the shoulders too. The arms which she folded were ripped and corded with muscle. Her tone was softer and more patient than May’s. “I’m not sure if I like this either, Robyn. I mean… Jacques Schnee? He’s the cause of half the problems in this town.”
“Doesn’t that just mean he has the power to solve them, given the right incentive?” Robyn replied.
“You’re taking a lot on trust,” Joanna muttered.
“Maybe I am,” Robyn allowed. “But hasn’t that always been so? What’s sustained us but faith?”
“Faith in you,” May said sharply. “Not in Jacques Schnee or Atlesian officers that we don’t know.”
“You don’t seem to have a lot of faith in me right now,” Robyn observed.
May scowled. “Do you really think that Jacques Schnee or whoever holds his leash is going to give a damn about Mantle once he gets elected to the Council? I know these people, Robyn; they don’t give a damn-”
“You think I don’t know that?!” Robyn interrupted. “I’m not some naïve kid, May; I know that Jacques Schnee hasn’t been struck by a sudden attack of conscience. I also know that that doesn’t matter; it is on the table, and we need to grab it while it’s there.”
“How long is it going to be there?” May demanded.
“Maybe not for long, which is why we need to grab it.”
“You know what I mean!” May snapped. “What makes you trust a word they say?”
“Because they need me,” Robyn said. “They need my help. I can swing this election for them; no one else can do that.”
“And when you’ve won the election for them?” Joanna asked. “What’s to stop them from selling us out, and Mantle too?”
Robyn leaned on the table in front of her. She sighed, and as she sighed, she closed her eyes for a moment. Perhaps I am being naïve. Perhaps this is just the last remnants of a part of me that was brought up to trust the system.
“Nothing,” she admitted. “But what’s the alternative? Walk back into our cells?”
“They’ve let us out now,” May pointed out.
“For now,” Robyn replied. “If I don’t give them what they want-”
May cut her off. “We got unlucky last time; next time, we’ll be more careful-”
“And then what?” Robyn said. “We keep doing what we’ve been doing, committing petty crimes and convincing ourselves that we’re making a difference?”
“'Convincing'?” May repeated. “What do you mean, ‘convincing’? We are making a difference!”
“Are we?” Robyn asked.
“Yes!” May shouted. “Every time someone walks out of the Doc’s clinic with a new prosthetic, that’s a victory.”
“A small victory,” Robyn muttered.
“Small victories are enough,” May replied.
“What if they’re not?” Robyn demanded. “We steal supplies, we redistribute what we can, and in the meantime, Mantle keeps on falling apart! What has changed since we started working together? What have we done? Reeve is still in the commander’s office, the air quality is getting worse, people are getting poorer, and there’s no sign that any of that is about to change… and it never was,” she added, looking away from her huntresses.
“Four people, even the best people that I’ve ever known, can’t beat Atlas. We can’t free this city, we can’t fix it; all we can do is…” She paused, unwilling to admit even to herself that she’d been wasting time. “I thought that if we raised awareness of the plight of Mantle that I could win election to the Council and start to work to change things for the better. But it’s clear from the polling that that isn’t happening.”
That, too, had been rather naïve hope. She did not, after all, have a well-funded campaign. She didn’t have a Hill for Mantle campaign headquarters with fifty interns badgering people on their scrolls to get out the vote. She didn’t even have campaign staff. All she had were three huntresses and a vanity born of the time when she had been the great hope of Atlas and all doors had lain open before her.
“You may not like this, May, but I don’t want to be fifty and still fighting these same battles. I don’t want you and Fiona to be my age and still be fighting these same battles. We need to work within the system.”
“The system is what caused all of these problems in the first place!” May yelled. “I’d rather fight for however long it takes-”
“This is not a game for a rich young girl to play!” Robyn snarled, rounding on her. “We are not here to indulge your adolescent rebellion while you work out your issues with your parents! This is not about how you feel, or how I feel, or how anyone feels about this. This is about Mantle and what is best for her.”
May’s blue eyes were wide. She took a step backwards, her mouth open. “'Adolescent rebellion'?”
I shouldn’t have said that. She didn’t deserve it. “May-” Robyn began.
“Well, thank you for telling me what you really think of me,” May said, turning away and beginning to walk rapidly towards the door.
“May!” Robyn called again, but it was too late; May had already made it out the door, slamming it behind her on the way out.
Robyn closed her eyes again. How the hell am I going to make that up to her? She shouldn’t have let her temper get the better of her. I could have sworn I used to be a better leader than this. She opened her eyes, glancing between Joanna and Fiona. “Fiona, you’ve been very quiet; what do you think?”
As Joanna was the tallest huntress, Fiona was the most diminutive by far, a small sheep faunus with ovine ears and white hair so fluffy it seemed almost fur-like. She said, “I trust you, Robyn; I’ll follow your lead. Although… you didn’t have to say that to May.”
“No, I probably didn’t,” Robyn admitted. “I’ll make it up to her.” I’ll try to, anyway. She forced herself to smile. “I’m glad you’re with me.” She glanced at the remaining member of the group. “Joanna?”
“Does it matter what I think?” asked Joanna.
“Of course it matters,” Robyn said.
“Does it matter enough that I could change your mind?”
“No,” Robyn admitted. “Sometimes, this team structure isn’t flat but mountainous, with me at the summit… but I’d like to know that you're behind me anyway.”
Joanna was silent for a moment. “Do you think this will work?”
“I don’t know,” Robyn replied. “What I do know is… I can’t win. I believe that this is the best way forward.”
“Then I’ve got your back,” Joanna said. “However this works out.”
“Thanks,” Robyn said. “I appreciate that.”
Joanna grinned. “Any time.”
“So… what happens now?” asked Fiona.
Robyn looked directly into the camera, hovering upon a drone at more or less eye level, and began to speak. “I’m not one for making speeches – perhaps it was a mistake to go into politics – so I’ll be brief. I entered this race for the vacant Council seat because I wanted nothing more than to represent the people of this great city of Mantle on the Council of the kingdom of which we are ostensibly a part. I was born here in Mantle; I grew up here in Mantle, and everything worth knowing, I learned not far away in Atlas but here, in Mantle, surrounded by the diverse, kind, hardworking people who make this city what it is. Mantle isn’t perfect, we all know that – that’s why I ran for office in the first place, to make it better – but for all its faults, I think that Mantle is still the greatest place on Remnant because it is home to the greatest people in Remnant.
“Mantle is more than just my home. It is my family, my song, and my soul, and nothing would have pleased me more than to represent her. Sadly, it has become clear to me that that is not going to happen, and therefore, with a heavy heart, I am withdrawing my candidacy for the Council seat. I would like to thank everyone who has supported me thus far, and I would like to tell them that although my candidacy is over, our struggle is not. I ran for the sake of Mantle, and I am withdrawing in part because I believe that there is a candidate in this election who will give Mantle the New Deal it needs to get back on its feet again and help all of you amazing people in this incredible city prosper as you deserve. It is for that reason that I am endorsing Jacques Schnee for the vacant Council seat,” – the reporter from ANN gasped audibly; Robyn ignored her as she went on – “and I urge everybody to get behind him, and let’s win this election for Mantle!
“Are there any questions?”