SAPR

by Scipio Smith

True Mettle (New)

True Mettle

Now, isn’t this interesting?

Cinder held up the object that she had discovered during her investigation of the forest around the site of the attack on Twilight Sparkle. It looked like a box, a metal box, painted in forest camouflage, all greens and browns and black lines in an asymmetrical riot that made it hard to spot amidst the undergrowth. It was about as large as a decently-sized box of teabags and with what might have looked like air-holes peppering the surface of the box.

Of course, Cinder recognised it as not just a box, but a sophisticated grimm lure from Atlas. If she were to crack it open – and she was strongly tempted to do just that – she would find a perfume-like store of pheromones waiting within, gradually being released out into the air to draw the grimm with the promise of humanity.

She had found three of these things so far, and alongside them, she had found, concealed with some degree of care, a large number of more primitive baits and lures, as if the student who had been assigned to distribute them up and down the path had dumped their entire load here to be done with it.

What elevated it out of sheer laziness, of course, was the presence of these Atlesian toys along with them.

Someone had wanted to draw in grimm and had gone to some effort to make sure that enough grimm were drawn in.

And Cinder felt that she had a fairly good idea of who that someone might be.

“Phoebe,” she murmured as she crushed the lure-box she was holding in one hand, turning it into a crumpled pile of scrap metal within her clenched fist. “Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe. What am I going to do with you?”

It was all about that wretched sword, of course. Poor Phoebe, so long spent lusting after that black blade, only for the one who had denied her the sword to casually give it away, and to a faunus no less. Cinder cared little for Mistralian traditions, still less for the pride of the House of Nikos or the dignity of the House of Kommenos, but she would admit that it had pleased her to see Sunset strutting about with that ancient heirloom across her back, if only to imagine that apoplexy that must be choking Phoebe every moment that Sunset had the sword and she did not.

It seemed that she had underestimated the lengths to which Phoebe would go to get the sword. Trying to kill Sunset by stealth, well, that was hardly honourable, but then, the Mistralian honour was nothing more than a bad joke anyway, wasn't it? But risking all of the other students along with Sunset, just to claim an antique bauble from a bloody corpse? What a low, vile thing to do.

But then, Phoebe had always been a very low, vile person, hadn’t she?

Please, Phoebe. Please. I’ll be good, I swear.

Cinder closed her eyes, and her grip upon the ruined box in her hand grew tighter still as the metal groaned and squeaked as she crushed it.

Cinder could hear the crying in her head, the sobbing, the groans of pain as she-

Cinder’s eyes snapped open, a wordless growl escaped her as her hand began to glow white hot, melting the twisted metal that she held in her grasp so that its molten fragments slipped through her fingers to land in dribbling lumps upon the soil before her.

Cinder snorted in frustration as she hastily piled some dirt upon them, lest they start a forest fire.

She forced those memories down, down and down into the dark and murky recesses of her soul. They did her no good upon the surface. She had no need of them. All of that… all of that was past her now.

But Phoebe Kommenos always seemed to bring out the worst in her.

Cinder brushed her hair irritably back behind her shoulder. She had no doubt that Phoebe had done this. No proof, admittedly, but no doubt either. She could not conceive of anyone else who would want to do such a thing; it was not as though Phoebe would be constrained by the fear of collateral damage, and it was not as though she was above paying to win either. In fact, Cinder would go so far as to say that what successes she had accrued in her meagre career she owed entirely to paying to win, either in the form of better equipment than her opponents or simply paying them off.

She relied entirely upon the wealth she had inherited from her late mother to grease her way in life, whether in buying victories one way or another or in – as far as Cinder could see – buying friends with the largesse that she could demonstrate to those who laughed at her feeble jokes.

It must gall at her then, that the things that she really wanted were all the things that money could not buy her: a triumph over Pyrrha Nikos – any sort of tournament triumph, really – the sword Soteria, any sort of real respect from anyone.

And so she had sought to buy another triumph, to use Atlesian technology to summon enough monsters to win a battle she could not win on her own.

If it didn’t work – and Cinder honestly hoped that it would not work – then it would rather prove her point once more about the folly of relying upon these Atlesian tricks.

Phoebe had done this; Cinder would lay odds upon it in the sure and certain knowledge that her bets always came up.

The question – the real question – was what would Cinder do about this fact? What would she do about Phoebe?

Kill her.

Cinder sighed. That would be… very lovely and thoroughly deserved, but it was too soon. The last thing she wanted was a manhunt on Beacon campus.

And besides… she looked down at her hands, and scowled at the slight tremor that had come over them. Just thinking about… just thinking about confronting her…

Cinder was very glad that nobody could see her at the moment.

Another option was the profoundly safe bet of turning in a couple of these technological lures as evidence to the proper authorities. Let Professor Ozpin and General Ironwood investigate their way to the answer that was staring Cinder in the face. She doubted that Phoebe was intelligent enough to have concealed the transactions whereby she had obtained these devices. The trail would lead back to her, and she would be expelled at best, if not facing criminal charges.

That did not please Cinder. The last thing she wanted was for Phoebe to be stuck snug in a cell, enjoying room and board at the expense of the Valish taxpayer. She wanted… she wanted Phoebe to suffer. She wanted her to be defeated in the Vytal Festival; she wanted Phoebe to be humiliated by Pyrrha one last time, on the grandest stage in all of Remnant, before the eyes of the entire world. She wanted Phoebe to lose, to suffer the ultimate defeat, before…

Cinder clenched her hand into a fist. By that point, she would be able to do what must be done. By that point, she would have mastered all her childish fears.

I am the storm. I am the east wind that will sweep through Remnant, and I am not afraid of Phoebe Kommenos.

I will not be afraid.

She would do… nothing, much. She might send Lightning Dust – the most thuggish of her crew in appearance and manner, plus Phoebe would hate being menaced by a faunus – around to have a word with her, persuade her to let it lie from now on.

She didn’t want Sunset as part of this ridiculous, petty vendetta.

For that matter, she wanted noble Pyrrha to stay reasonably safe too.

Yes. Yes, that was the best way. She would handle this privately, and actually privately – not Sunset’s definition of ‘privately,’ which seemed to involve your deeds becoming an open secret around the school.

“Cinder?” Twilight called, and besides her voice Cinder could hear her crashing through the undergrowth with all the subtlety of a goliath. “Cinder?”

Cinder stood up, and slinked out from behind a tree. “Yes? Here I am.”

“Oh. Right,” Twilight said. “What are you doing?”

“Oh nothing, much,” Cinder replied. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter,” Twilight said. “I’ve got some news, great news.”

---

Ruby’s aura was broken.

And Blake fought on.

The grimm had attacked not long after – by the sound of it, at least – they had come after Sunset and Arslan. Sunset had dropped her scroll, Blake and Ruby had begun to discuss what it meant, and then there had been no time to think of anything but their own situation.

As beowolf after beowolf emerged from out of the trees – with the occasional ursa to switch things up, how fun – Blake found herself thinking that maybe Professor Port had gone just a little bit overboard when he was setting up this test.

Still, they hadn’t done badly at first. Ruby had been magnificent, cutting through grimm by the half-dozen at a time in great swings of her scythe, gunning them down with shots from Crescent Rose. They had been holding their own, and the only reason Blake thought of it as holding their own and not as winning was that the grimm just kept on coming, replenishing their numbers as fast as they could be cut down.

And then Crescent Rose got stuck in a tree.

That was always a danger with weapons as big as that one, and in conditions as cramped as a forest. Ruby had, in fact, sliced through a couple of trees in the course of this battle – and an old statue of a robed woman – when they had been unfortunate enough to get in her way, but this was a particularly old and stout oak, and Crescent Rose had stuck in the wood point-first, unable to cleave through the wood but stuck too fast for Ruby to get it out again before the grimm were on her.

Blake should have been closer to her. She had been in the midst of a rampage, and she had allowed her bloody swathe through the beowolves to carry her too far from Ruby’s side. The first thing she had known of Ruby’s distress was when she cried out for help, and Blake had turned to see that one of the beowolves had got Ruby’s cape between its teeth, dragging her to the ground and holding her fast, her tiny fists meaning as little to it as tossed acorns.

And while it held her, the other beowolves closed in.

Blake had rushed back to her immediately, carving a path through any beowolf or ursa to stand in her way, using her shadow clones to leapfrog past opponents, flying into the grimm whose claws rose and fell, rose and fell on Ruby Rose.

She had cut them down, one and all, bursting amongst them with an angry cry like a lion amongst the buffalo of the plains, but it was too late. She had been too late.

Not too too late, thank whatever god had made the faunus and whatever god or gods watched over Ruby Rose. She was not dead. She wasn’t even injured bodily. But her aura was gone, and she was out like a snuffed candle. Her eyes were closed; she lay on the ground with her head lolling slightly to one side, arms stretched out limp by her side.

She looked incongruously peaceful for the desperate circumstances in which they found themselves.

Blake had dragged her to a hollow in the treacherous tree that had trapped her scythe, laying her there to limit the number of directions from which the beowolves could approach, and then she had planted herself before Ruby like a mother bear protecting her cub from the spears of the hunters.

She fought on. She fought on to protect Ruby until… until Sunset came. Yes, Sunset would come. Sunset would come because Ruby was in danger, and Sunset would not be blind to that nor be forestalled from coming to Ruby’s aid, though grimm or armies stood between them. And until she arrived, Blake would protect Ruby.

Until she arrived… or even if she didn’t, then Blake would still protect Ruby. Until whatever end.

And so she fought. She emptied magazine after magazine from Gambol Shroud, she slashed with her sword, she hacked with her cleaver, she buried her hook in the black flesh of the grimm. She used her clones, although more sparingly than was her wont because she dared not let the grimm get close to Ruby. So she fought, and so the grimm came, running out of the trees without end, as though they were being drawn as much by Blake’s anxiety as by any bait Professor Port had laid out. Perhaps they were, but there wasn’t much that Blake could do about that.

She just had to fight and keep fighting.

And so she fought, though the grimm kept coming and they got luckier and luckier with their blows. So she fought while her aura level got lower and lower. Blake did not even consider the possibility of retreat. She would not allow Ruby to die, nor even come to harm, not while she lived.

Blake stood in front of Ruby with her legs spaced apart and Gambol Shroud in pistol mode. She blazed away, shot after shot leaping from the flashing muzzle with a series of staccato snapping sounds, the rounds slamming into a pair of beowolves, two of a trio of the closest creatures, striking them down before the third of their number lunged at her. It passed through a shadow clone as Blake reappeared above the grimm, throwing down her cleaver to strike like a thunderbolt clear through the neck. It began to turn to ashes as Blake landed on the ground once more. Gambol Shroud switched from pistol to sword smoothly in her hand in time to bisect the beowolf that tried to pounce upon her from behind.

Another grimm dashed past her, aiming for Ruby, growling in anticipation – but Blake flung out her hook and buried it in the beowolf’s leg, dragging the creature with her ribbon back towards her where she despatched it with a single smooth stroke of Gambol Shroud.

One of the creatures pounced on her, bearing Blake to the ground, but she sent it flying upwards with a powerful kick, leaping first to her feet and then after her prey, driving the black blade of Gambol Shroud up into its chest until the tip of the sword pierced its back.

Her weapon transformed from sword to pistol as she fell, spraying fire across the edge of the path at the grimm still coming from the edge of the woods. She could feel herself getting low on aura, so the more of these monsters she could kill before they got close, the better.

Blake landed, legs spread out, knees bent; she lashed out with her cleaver to split the skull of a beowolf that got too close. But, as she struck at that grimm, another leapt at her, too fast and too close for her to get out of the way; she had to burn aura in order to evade it, reappearing beside the grimm, severing its head with her cleaver scabbard-

But as she struck, she had no time, and insufficient aura remaining, to escape the other beowolf that came at her from the other direction.

It bore her to the ground, her aura shattering as she struck the earth with a thump and a cry of pain that was drawn out as she was dragged along that ground by the beowolf that pushed her with its forepaws, pressing them against her shoulders, its claws pricking at her skin sharply enough to draw blood but not firmly enough to do much more than that.

With her aura gone, what it was doing felt like quite enough.

The beowolf dug its claws in just a little deeper; the pain of it was like fire burning in Blake’s blood, and she howled at it, she howled as the grimm bent down and snarled into her face.

Blake grimaced and bared her teeth right back at it as she buried her hook in the side of its neck.

The beowolf let out a startled yelp of surprise, its open mouth frozen in a look that Blake could only find to be confused before it turned to ash.

Blake climbed to her feet. Yes, without aura, she wasn’t moving as swiftly or as fluidly, she wasn’t able to simply backflip with acrobatic grace the way she could have without. Yes, her shoulders were throbbing with every prick that the beowolf’s claws had dealt to her; yes, she could feel the warm blood running down her body; yes, the pain was like someone yelling into both her ears, constantly seeking her attention no matter how she wished to concentrated on other things; but she still got up. She could still get up. She could still fight.

And she had vowed to fight. She had vowed to protect Ruby. Not ‘until her aura ran out’ but absolutely; Ruby was down, but Blake would fight on, though her aura too was shattered.

While there was breath in her, she would fight on.

She started to run, trying to ignore both the pain and the heavy breathing both at the same time; she ran towards Ruby, scooping up Gambol Shroud from where she had dropped it – it was still in pistol mode, thank goodness – and she opened fire upon the grimm who, ignoring Blake, thinking little of her, dismissing her now that she was without aura, had begun to bear down upon her temporary partner.

Blake opened fire, and as she opened fire, she roared in anger, roaring like the beast that so many had dismissed her as or accused her of being, roaring like a lion to scare away the jackals. She roared and she fired and she planted herself once more between Ruby and all harm like a stone wall and she blazed away, blasting the grimm to ashes until she had no more rounds left in Gambol Shroud’s magazine.

And no more mags in her pouches. That had been the last one.

The beowolves – twelve of them in all, and they seemed to have stopped coming for now – waited, watching her warily, and yet at the same time, Blake could also sense an anticipation rising from them; they knew – either they had seen or because they could sense it – that she had no aura. They didn’t anticipate that she would, that she could, provide much opposition to them now.

Maybe they were right. Maybe it was pointless. Maybe she would die swiftly, and Ruby would die soon after.

Or maybe not. Maybe Sunset would come. Maybe some other unexpected stroke of luck would swing her way.

It didn’t matter. She would fight regardless. She faced the beowolves with Gambol Shroud’s pistol turned sword in one hand and its cleaver in the other regardless. Not because it was fun, not because it was easy, not because it was glorious, not because there was a greater good or a cause worth dying for, but because it was right. Because there was a life at stake.

Because who she was was where she stood, though where she stood be where she fell.

The grimm advanced slowly, soft growls rising from their throats.

Blake waited for them, legs bent and poised to spring.

The beowolves rushed, and Blake rushed to meet them, charging straight into the centre of the pack which closed around her. She drove Gambol Shroud through the centre of a beowolf’s chest above its armoured bony plates, but a set of claws raked her back from behind, slashing through the metal plate she wore on her back to scar her skin. Blake cried out, stumbling, but still had the strength to slash in turn at the forepaw of the nearest beowolf; she didn’t sever it, but she made it recoil. She tried to ignore the claws that raked her shoulders, lashing out with her cleaver; maybe she killed one, maybe she injured one, maybe she did nothing at all; it was hard to tell. The world had shrunk to a black mass around her, to a few bony masks snarling into her face, to the space that she could swing her weapon. She threw her hook and thought she got one. It was so hard to tell. Hard to concentrate through the pain.

They raked her leg. Blake couldn’t restrain the shriek of pain as she collapsed onto her knees, but she held it together long enough to stab one of them through the gut. She knew she killed it, she saw it die, she tried to take advantage of the momentum of the kill, but her leg was burning, it wouldn’t support her weight, it crumbled beneath her as she tried to stand.

She was struck across the neck and face, knocked to the ground; she could feel the blood; it felt… it felt so warm.

Her vision was… starting to blur. The beowolf that loomed above her was indistinct, hard to make out; it was just colours without any real shape.

It was getting hard to see anything at all.

Green. Green light. So bright. Blinding.

And then there was only darkness.

---

Bursts of magic flew from Sunset’s palms, striking down beowolf after beowolf, starting with the one that was straddling Blake but showing no mercy to any of them, slaying them all, one after another, and none of them even got close to her.

She didn’t have a lot of magic left – she’d used a fair bit of it getting here – but that didn’t matter; what mattered was killing the grimm before they killed Blake, and if she had to use all of her magic to accomplish that, then she would.

And she did. The grimm died, and Sunset had no time to consider the state of her magical reserves as she rushed to Blake’s side.

Ruby, it seemed, was basically unhurt. She was unconscious, and her aura was down, but it seemed that her aura breaking was the extent of the damage. Blake, on the other hand… they had really done a number on Blake. Her clothes were torn to shreds, and the fair skin beneath it was not much better: she had a nasty wound to her neck and the bottom of her face; she had scars raking down her sides, gashes on her leg; what remained of her white waistcoat was soaked with blood.

“Blake?” Sunset cried, as she knelt down beside her. “Blake? Blake, if you can hear me, say something.”

Blake did not reply.

Sunset tore off her jacket, draping it over Blake like a blanket and pressing it down, trying to smother as many of Blake’s wounds as she could reach – and see. She used telekinesis – might as well use the magic while she had it – to press the jacket down everywhere equally. Leather wasn’t the best for this, but her tank-top wasn’t really big enough.

Sunset held her vambraces to Blake’s mouth; it misted up from her breath, but only slightly. Blake was still alive, but only just.

Sunset pressed the jacket down harder. “Come on, Blake. Stay with me. I need you to fight for just a little longer, okay? Come on, you can’t die before you’ve achieved equality, come on.”

“Ruby?” Jaune’s voice echoed through the trees. “Blake?”

Oh, thank Celestia. “Jaune!” Sunset yelled. “Over here, quickly!”

“Sunset?” Jaune cried in disbelief.

“Yes!” Sunset shouted back. “Come on, Blake’s hurt!”

“Blake?” Jaune repeated, still with the incredulity in his voice, but he came nonetheless, emerging out of the trees and onto the path, with Flash Sentry just a step or two behind him.

Jaune’s eyes widened as he saw Blake. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Sunset replied. “Can you do your thing?”

“What about Ruby?” Jaune asked, looking around for her.

“She’ll be fine, I think,” Sunset replied, taking her jacket off Blake so that Jaune could get a better look at her. “Blake needs you more.”

“Right. Okay. Sure,” Jaune said, and it was his turn to rush to her side now, even as Sunset took a step away. He knelt down beside her and held his healing hands over her, and the shining light spread from his palms to engulf her with its golden glowing embrace.

“Thank you,” Sunset murmured. Jaune didn’t reply; he was too busy concentrating on his work.

Sunset left him to it; he had had his semblance for long enough, he was perfectly capable of doing what needed to be done. Sunset walked towards Ruby, scooping up Sol Invictus and Soteria – she had discarded them to take on the beowolves – as she did so.

“Sunset,” Flash said.

Sunset stopped, looking at him. “Hey, Flash,” she muttered.

Flash looked at her for a moment, then looked away, and then looked back again. “I’m glad you’re alright,” he said.

Sunset hesitated. “Mmm. Likewise,” she said quietly.

Flash blinked. “Where’s the girl you were with? Arslan, was it?”

“I… I don’t know,” Sunset admitted. “We got separated. I had to find Ruby.”

“You left her?” Flash demanded.

“She volunteered, I had to make sure that Ruby was okay, and Blake,” Sunset insisted. “Once I’ve made sure they're safe, I will go back and look for her.” She knelt down beside Ruby, checking her more thoroughly for any injuries. She couldn’t see any. It seemed that being knocked out really was the extent of it.

Sunset guessed that she had Blake to thank for that.

I don’t know how I can begin to thank you properly for that.

“What does safe look like right now?” Flash asked.

“I… I don’t know,” Sunset admitted.

“Jaune and I-”

“Jaune can’t fight while he’s helping Blake,” Sunset declared.

“And you don’t trust me,” Flash said.

“Not as much as I trust myself,” Sunset replied. “No offence.”

Flash didn’t reply to that, perhaps because he had no reply and perhaps because they were both immediately distracted by the sound of something else approaching.

Sunset snatched up Sol Invictus and immediately ran to put herself between the new intruder and Jaune and Blake.

“Stay where you are, Jaune; I’ll cover you,” Sunset said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I won’t,” Jaune said, and he even sounded sincere about it.

Sunset raised her rifle to her shoulder; out of the corner of her eye, she saw Flash coming to stand beside her, shield up and spear resting atop the rim of Rho Aias.

The ursa lumbered out of the woods, its arms swaying slightly by its sides. Its movements were stiff, a little sluggish, and instead of a roar, a sort of barely audible moan escaped its bleach bone jaws.

It took one single, solitary, halting step forwards before it collapsed onto the ground.

It did this because it had Miló buried in its neck.

“Sorry I’m late,” Pyrrha said, snatching up her weapon out of the disintegrating ursa as she strode forwards.

“Always glad to see you, Pyrrha, you know that,” Sunset said, evident relief breaking in her voice as she lowered the muzzle of her rifle. “Surprised, but glad.”

“Once I knew something was wrong, I couldn’t just wait,” Pyrrha replied. “How’s Ruby?”

“Unconscious, but unhurt,” Sunset said, stepping aside. “Blake, on the other hand…”

Pyrrha gasped, her eyes widening. “What did she-?”

“Protected Ruby, I think,” Sunset murmured. “We won’t know until she tells us; she was… when I got here, she was almost done. If Jaune hadn’t shown up…”

Pyrrha nodded. “How is she, Jaune?”

Jaune glanced up at her. “I… I think she’s stabilising?” He ventured. “I don’t know; it’s really hard to tell.” He paused. “What’s going on up there?”

“I… don’t really know,” Pyrrha admitted. “Or rather… when Cinder and I left-”

“Cinder’s here too?” Sunset asked.

“I left her with Twilight; Sage is also wounded,” Pyrrha explained. “No other students are being dropped into the forest. I think something must have gone wrong somehow.”

“Tell us about it,” Sunset said.

“And with the nevermores, I suppose it might be too dangerous. But what I don’t understand is that the Atlesian airships are covering Beacon, but not attacking the grimm over the forest. Or in it. They’re not doing anything to help us,” Pyrrha continued.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Flash said.

“Twilight can’t explain it either,” Pyrrha added.

“So what you’re saying is that we’re on our own?” Sunset asked.

“I’m afraid so,” agreed Pyrrha.

Sunset made a sound that was halfway between a growl and a wince. “Okay. Now that you’re here, can you stay here? Arslan stayed behind to buy me a little time to reach Ruby, but now that you can protect them, I should go back and try to find her.”

Before she could, before Pyrrha could agree, before any of them could do anything, they were disturbed by the sounds of howling beowolves filtering through the trees towards them.

The howling of a lot of beowolves.

“Oh no,” Flash moaned. “They must have followed us after all.”

“You brought them here?!” Sunset snapped.

“If we hadn’t gotten here, Blake would be in real trouble,” Jaune reminded her.

You could have left him, Sunset thought, but did not say because… because she didn’t actually want Jaune to leave Flash behind, and if he had done so… she probably would have gone back for him before she went back for Arslan. Such was the hold that he had on her still. “How many?”

“Too many,” Flash replied. “More than I’ve ever seen in one place before.”

To Jaune, Sunset asked, “Can you move Blake?”

“I don’t know,” Jaune moaned. “I can’t tell.”

Sunset glanced at Ruby, lying beneath the tree as though she were sleeping beneath its leafy bower. “Pyrrha, get Ruby up into that tree and stay there until… until help arrives; it's bound to eventually.”

I may not like Professor Ozpin, but he wouldn’t let the students he’s taken an interest in die, would he?

Maybe if we did, it would prove that we weren’t that interesting after all.

The three of them formed a line, a little line, a meagre line, but the best line that they could muster in the circumstances. Pyrrha’s Miló was in rifle mode, ranged alongside Sol Invictus; Flash kept his Caliburn in spear configuration, and Rho Aias held before him.

The howling of the beowolves grew louder and louder; the three huntsmen could not see them yet through the trees, but they could hear them and measure their approach by the cacophony they made, a swelling sound of bloodlust that grew louder by the moment until-

Until for one brief and shining moment, the howling of the beowolves was drowned out by the whining of an engine as an airship passed overhead, casting its shadow over the trio, then over Jaune where he tended to Blake, before it flew away, banking swiftly to return towards them. And as it banked, Sunset could see it clearly: an Atlesian Skyray painted in bright cyan, with the cloud and rainbow lightning bolt of Rainbow Dash painted proudly on the nose.

Comments

[Kiue Jin]

Rainbow you glorious bitch! I'm not sure how she's going to do against the Nevermore's but anything to keep them out of the fight in the forest is a boon at this point. It's bad enough as it is.

[Mastermind4892]

I see that Ironwood found a loophole by giving military aircraft to his students. No matter the world you live in Rainbow Dash, you will always be Wonder Bolt material!

And since Twilight was also in grievous danger, her ego won’t make her insufferably smug about her ‘awesome heroics’ for once.

[Sr Face Tear]

10777933
not military, this is Rainbows personal vehicle, first described in... the chapter "The Soul of the Weapon" I think. at least I'm pretty sure it was said this was hers.

[JMP]

10778315
I mean....Rainbow is military. She's not a full-fledged solider yet, but she's not a civilian. So Rainbow showing up isn't exactly the Atlesian military helping, but it's also not not them helping.

[Raul]

And then Crescent Rose got stuck in a tree.

… that’ll do it. I was wondering what cowed Ruby, but god damnit it would be a tree. Trees OP, pls nerf

[Luviere]

Sunset tore off her jacket, draping it over Blake like a blanket and pressing it down, trying to smother as many of Blake’s wounds as she could reach – and see. She used telekinesis – might as well use the magic while she had it – to press the jacket down everywhere equally. Leather wasn’t the best for this, but her tank-top wasn’t really big enough.

Ok, hold up. I've been thinking, but, shouldn't Sunset have some form of healing magic? Even a slow regeneration spell would be good, and she should know of one.

[Scipio Smith]

11713205
Healing magic doesn't seem to be a thing in MLP; across 9 seasons I can't recall a single instance of it.

[sonicandmario826]

11713556
I could see it being a thing, but the most I’ve seen is zecora’s potion fixing apple blooms chipped tooth.

And maybe Discord pulling himself back together after coming apart, but that is discord.