• Published 31st Aug 2018
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SAPR - Scipio Smith



Sunset, Jaune, Pyrrha and Ruby are Team SAPR, and together they fight to defeat the malice of Salem, uncover the truth about Ruby's past and fill the emptiness within their souls.

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Heart to Heart (Rewritten)

Heart to Heart

Nora Valkyrie was a fount of stories. Any meal or evening that was lacking in sufficiently lively conversation would be enlivened by a story from Nora to hold the world - or at least Yang, and Ruby and Jaune whenever they were around to listen - in rapture. There were tales of battling grimm in isolated forests, of following rivers through perilous wilderness, of hustling pool and cheating at cards in frontier towns, of taking on odd and hazardous jobs in embattled rural villages. So many stories, and all so well told.

Judging by the way that Ren was a fount of corrections to all of Nora's stories, it was clear to Yang that these incidents had not all happened precisely as Nora told them, but at the same time, Ren never outright called Nora a liar either, so something like all of these stories must have happened to the pair. Which was pretty amazing, really; they were only Yang's age, and yet, they'd already gone so far and done so much. It was Yang's ambition to travel the world when she got older, but Nora and Ren had already seen so much of the world before even arriving at Beacon. And yet, at the same time, if you thought about it too much, it was really kind of sad too. Nora never mentioned her parents or how she and Ren met; her stories always began with the two of them travelling together and ended the same way, like an episodic series with no beginning and no planned end. But it wasn't hard to guess what had happened, although Yang had no intention of asking for confirmation.

It was a little humbling to imagine. She'd thought that she'd had it bad having to take care of Ruby after Mom died and Dad sunk into grief, but having to do it without Dad, without a home, without any place to go... Yang didn't know if she could have kept herself alive in that kind of situation, let alone Ruby.

It was the kind of life she'd been setting herself up for with her obsession with Raven, once upon a time…

But she was older now, stronger and wiser… she just needed to know that Ruby would be safe and cared for when she left.

Which would be a lot easier if Ruby's team wasn't disintegrating around her ears.

And I hoped that Sunset might be someone I could trust with her. She seemed to care… even if she didn’t want to admit it.

Yang realised that, in her thoughts, she had lost track of Nora's latest story, which involved a lost temple and a whole bunch of beringels - creeps, according to Ren - who lived there and… something about a gem in an idol? If she'd been paying attention, she would have had the context, but it didn't really matter because Nora was interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Coming," Yang called as she leapt off the bed and crossed the floor in three brisk strides. She opened the door to find Ruby on the other side, head bowed and pressing her fingers nervously together.

"Hey, Yang," Ruby murmured. "Can I come in? That is, if you're not too busy or anything?"

Yang smiled with quasi-maternal fondness down upon her little sister. "I'm never too busy for you, Rubes. Come on in."

She put an arm round Ruby's shoulders and steered her into the dorm and towards Yang's bed.

"Heya, Ruby!" Nora called, waving from the far end of the room. "Great fight today, huh?"

"Yeah," Ruby agreed nervously. "You guys were really unlucky."

"You win some; you lose some," Nora said.

"You lose when you fight Nikos, anyway," Dove declared.

Ren finished cleaning his StormFlowers and began reassembling them. "You fought very well also, Ruby. You had me completely outclassed."

"Yeah!" Yang cried, slapping Ruby on the back. "If I didn't know you so well, you would have torn me apart, so don't sweat it."

"Right," Ruby agreed, though it was clear by her subdued tone that she hadn't been cheered up by this.

"Sit down, Sis," Yang said, gesturing to the bed. "I'll get you some hot chocolate." It was too late for coffee; Ruby wouldn't sleep, and it was nearly bed-time.

"Okay," Ruby said meekly as she sat down.

It didn't take Yang long to get back from the kitchenette, but when she did, she found that Nora - and Ren - had started her story again. Ruby's eyes were wide, and her mouth was agape as she leaned forwards, hands balled up under her chin, her whole body enraptured by Nora's tale of daring against the odds.

Yang stood in the doorway, watching, not wanting to disturb Ruby's pleasure by dragging her back to the issue at hand. She waited for a lull in the story to carry the steaming mugs across the room and press one of them - topped with whipped cream and marshmallows - into Ruby's hands. Yang smiled gratefully at Nora as she sat down beside Ruby and waited for her to say something.

Ruby sipped her hot chocolate and licked the cream around her mouth. "What am I supposed to do, Yang? It was bad enough when Sunset was mad at Pyrrha, but now, Pyrrha's mad right back at Sunset, and they won't even speak to each other!"

Yang nodded sympathetically. "Yeah, it sure is a pity someone had to spread the word of what was going on in your team across the whole of Beacon isn't it, Dove?"

Dove yelped. "I, uh, that is-"

"That was you!" Ruby cried.

Yang was almost certain that it was not, in fact, Dove; she suspected the gossip of being either Lyra or Bon Bon – or both of them; she wouldn't claim to know them that well – but Dove had taken the blame for it to protect them. It was gallant of him, she supposed, but it still didn't sit right with her.

And yet, when he shrugged apologetically and said, "What can I say? I'm an incurable gossip." She didn't contradict him. After all, accusing other people of being barefaced liars was how this whole mess had gotten started.

"But don't worry," she said to Ruby. "We've cured Dove of his incurable condition, and things that you say in this room are going to stay private from now on, right?" Mostly because I've banned Lyra and Bon Bon, and he'll have to go to their room to hang out in the future.

"I can keep my mouth shut," Dove said quickly.

"Correct answer," Yang said cheerily. "I really am sorry about this, Sis; it made a bad situation worse for you."

"But what am I supposed to do now?" Ruby asked. "I mean… I understand weapons, not people! If one of their weapons had a fault, I could fix it or just help Sunset or Pyrrha to fix it, but it's Sunset and Pyrrha that are broken! How am I supposed to fix them? Where do I even start?"

Yang had a couple of ideas, but they weren't notions that she would be able to just hand over to Ruby for her weapon-obsessed, slightly antisocial sister to put into practice. Yang looked down at Ruby, and for a moment, she saw not the fifteen-year-old badass who had already defeated the notorious criminal Roman Torchwick, but the little toddler in the back of a wagon on a cold day.

Ruby was in trouble, and it was up to her big sister to fix it, just like she'd promised that she always would.

"Don't worry about it," Yang said. "I'll talk to Sunset and… hey, Nora, can you have a word with Pyrrha?"

"Absolutely!" Nora agreed eagerly.

"Uh, Yang?" Ruby murmured. "Are you sure that-?"

"Don't worry; Nora's only crazy in battle," Yang reassured her. "Out of it, she really gets people." She pulled Ruby into a hug. "Don't worry, Rubes; I promise I'm going to make everything better for you."


The next day found Pyrrha in the library, researching for her Plant Science homework. The essay was due in a couple of days' time, and while she had the bulk of it written to an acceptable standard, she was here researching anything that she might be able to slot in before the conclusion for extra credit.

She needed to get high grades in the midterms if she didn't want to get an irate call from her mother, after all, and she genuinely enjoyed the subject, even in a purely theoretical form.

It would have been easier to concentrate if people had not been whispering about her from the shelves behind where she was sitting.

Pyrrha frowned. Whatever Sunset might think, she wasn't enjoying the current state of affairs any more than her team leader was. Now, in addition to the usual expressions of awe and desires for mementos and favours that she had had to bear for many years now, she was also being offered sympathy, which was more novel but no less unwelcome to her. She didn't want complete strangers to come up to her and tell her how sorry they were for what she had to deal with any more than she wanted to be told what an honour it was to meet her.

None of these people knew what had started the fight with Sunset, or else they wouldn't have been in such a hurry to press their unwanted condolences upon her as a new way of inserting themselves into her life and claiming a part of her for themselves. Pyrrha strongly suspected that when these well-wishers talked of her troubles, what they really meant was "having to live with a faunus, and be led by one."

It made Pyrrha uncomfortable, truth to tell. She wouldn't be so bold as to call herself a faunus ally, but she wasn't a bigot either. It galled her to be used as a cause célèbre for bigots like Cardin as though she were one of those poor girls killed by faunus who had their memories appropriated by the worst elements of the press.

The fact that she was being used in exactly such a fashion was enough to make her consider apologising to Sunset, if only to put a stop to this nonsense. However, Pyrrha had an uncomfortable feeling that Sunset would take any apology from her as a kind of vindication, one that she was not willing to give the other girl. She could see the smug, slightly sneering smile already in her mind's eye, and she had no desire to see it in real life too.

Not yet, at least. If things went much further, she might have to swallow her pride, much as she did not wish to. The alternative would be to perpetuate injustice to an unforgivable extent.

Pyrrha raised her head. The whispering that she could hear from the shelves behind her desk had stopped. She had been left alone it seemed. Finally, she thought with a quiet sigh of relief.

"You'd be amazed at how fast people can run once you point a grenade launcher at them," Nora Valkyrie declared cheerfully as she sat down at Pyrrha's table, propping her weapon - now in hammer form - up beside her. "I mean, you'd think they'd never heard of aura!"

Pyrrha stared at Miss Valkyrie, unsure of what she ought to say in reply. It was terrible; she ate with this girl every day, and yet now that they were alone, Pyrrha found that she didn't know her at all. All she could recall was that Nora told some wild stories and was very close to her partner. There was nothing else.

She had come to Beacon hoping to make friends, but she could not say that she had put all the effort into it that she might have done. She could have reached out to people like Nora if she'd only thought to, if she'd only known how. Not for the first time, Pyrrha wished that socialising came with a guide to follow.

Nevertheless, she needed to say something or Nora would think she was rude. "Did you, um, really threaten someone with your grenade launcher?"

"Only the ones who deserved it, spying on you like that," Nora said. "You didn't want them around, did you?"

"Oh, no," Pyrrha murmured. "I just… perhaps they didn't want any of the books to suffer damage. Some of them are quite old."

"I guess that must be it. The alternative is that all those trainee huntsmen were a bunch of cowards, and that's terrifying!" Nora cried, with more humour in her tone than fear. She paused. Nora folded her arms. "So, you don't like being famous, huh?

Pyrrha blinked. Where had… of course. "Ruby told you, didn't she?"

"She tried to," Nora said. She produced a bag of chips from somewhere and popped one into her mouth before offering the bag to Pyrrha.

Pyrrha waved it away. "Thank you, but I don't think we're supposed to eat in the library."

Nora ate another chip, but this time, she chewed quietly.

"Like I was saying," she said with her mouth full. She swallowed, and then carried on speaking. "Ruby tried to explain it, but I don't think she got all of the details. Point is, you don't like being famous?"

Pyrrha frowned. "No," she said. "I can't say that I do."

"Do you get hand cramps from the autographs?"

"No, it's not that."

"Does your voice wear out from talking to so many people?"

"I get a slightly sore throat sometimes, but no."

"Then what's the problem?"

"The problem… the problem is that I feel as though I've spent my entire life being what other people want me to be: a great fighter, a tournament champion, a symbol. I've never been allowed to be myself or even to find out who I am, let alone do any of the things that ordinary girls take for granted."

"Like what?"

Pyrrha paused. "I… I don't really know, that's how bad it is. I don't know what it is that I missed because I missed all of it. I just know that there must have been more to life than training and fighting and press appearances."

Nora leaned back in her chair. "I really wish that I could help you, Pyrrha, only I missed out on all that stuff too."

Pyrrha bowed her head. She didn't have to be particularly intelligent to work out why Nora had been denied an ordinary childhood; you just had to pay attention to her stories. "Are you telling me that I should get over myself, because I had it so much better than you?"

Nora snorted derisively. "No," she said with what seemed to Pyrrha to be absolute sincerity. "I'm saying we should start a club together! We'll find out all the girl stuff we missed and do it now. We should have slumber parties!"

Pyrrha couldn't help but laugh at that, even if - out of respect for the sanctity of the library - she kept it to a low chuckle. "That would be a lot of fun, I'm sure."

Nora grinned, if only for a moment. "But, you know, I get it. I mean, I didn't know who you were because we didn't have TV - or a house to put one in - but the point is it must suck to have everyone think they know who you are… and to not have any friends… if I hadn't had Ren, I don't know what I would have become. What Sunset said wasn't right."

"No," Pyrrha said. "Although, as boorish and upsetting as it was… that wasn't the last straw."

Nora cocked her to one side like a curious bird.

"It was when she accused me of having orchestrated this whole business, even after I denied it," Pyrrha said. "She called me a liar to my face."

Nora stared at her, a look on her face that suggested she was struggling to keep something bottled up. Then she cracked up. "Really? That's what you're upset about?"

"Yes," Pyrrha said. "Is that wrong?"

"I didn't have a normal childhood either," Nora said, "but even I know it's normal to get called a liar, especially by people who don't like you very much."

"Really?"

"Yes!" Nora yelled. "How do you think people used to react to my stories - you're a great audience, by the way - they told me to stop making things up! That's what upset you?"

Pyrrha looked down at the table, at her hands and the book on botany that lay open before her. If Nora was right - and Pyrrha had no reason to believe that she was not - then she'd been very foolish and behaved very badly.

Sunset is right; this is not Mistral. I should have borne that closer to the forefront of my mind.

Sunset had too, of course, but all the same...

"So, what Sunset said, that was normal?" Pyrrha asked plaintively.

"Welcome to the real world!" Nora yelled, slapping Pyrrha on the back hard enough to make her lurch forwards. "It sucks; you're going to love it."

"What should I do now?"

"What now? Oh, come on, Pyrrha, that's easy," Nora declared. "Now, you try and put your team back together."


"Yo, Baconhair!"

Sunset stopped; she turned around slowly, her eyes narrow and her face set in a scowl, to see Yang Xiao Long lounging against the wall with her arms folded.

The smirk on her face told Sunset that she was enjoying Sunset's reaction to the nickname.

Sunset glared. Yang didn't even blink.

"'Baconhair'?" Sunset demanded. First Torchwick, now Yang; what does it even mean?

"Yeah. You know, the streaks."

"My hair does not look anything like bacon," Sunset declared. "My hair is fire, beautiful and dangerous."

Yang smirked. "And it looks a little bit bit like bacon," she said. She peeled herself off the wall and sauntered down the corridor in Sunset's direction. Her hips swayed as she walked. "We need to talk."

"I'm a little busy right now."

"I'm busy too; everyone's busy," Yang said, closing in on Sunset. "But I'm making time for you, buddy. Come on, Oobleck's classroom should be empty."

"I don't-" Sunset began, and then stopped when Yang clasped her by the shoulder. Her grip was firm, with the promise of more firmness to come if necessary to carry that grip into painful territory.

"Listen," Yang said. "There are things that I will tolerate and things that I won't, and when it comes to my little sister, one of those lists is very short, and the other one is very long." Her eyes changed colour turning from purple to a blood red that seemed in the shadowy corridor to be almost demonic. "So either you come with me, and we can talk, or else we can 'talk,' understand?"

Sunset was reminded of the fact that Yang was a little bigger than she was, and broader in the shoulders, too. She was also reminded of the muscular definition of Yang's arms. She nodded silently, even as she mentally promised that she would pay the blonde back for this humiliation in the end.

Yang's eyes returned to their normal purple. "Great. Ruby said you were smart. Follow me." Sunset wasn't given the chance to respond as Yang bodily hauled her off down the corridor and into Oobleck's deserted history classroom.

Yang let go of Sunset long enough to hop onto Oobleck's desk, crossing her legs to hide her panties from Sunset's eyes.

Sunset sat down herself, on top of one of the long desks used by the students. "Okay, we're here. What do you want?"

"I want to talk about how you're going to be the team leader that my sister deserves."

"I don't need lessons in leadership," Sunset said, and it was only the memory of those red eyes that prevented her from adding "from the likes of you". She knew how to lead; she had sat at the hooves of Celestia and watched her do it. Now, yes, Sunset hadn't been acting in a very Celestia-like fashion lately, but that was because she hadn't been given the chance. If people would just pay attention to her-

"Yeah, because you're doing such a great job right now."

"It isn't my fault that Pyrrha's being a drama queen about this!"

There was pity in Yang's eyes. "Yeah, it is."

The pity was what galled Sunset most. She scowled. For a moment, she was tempted to say something cutting about how Ruby had come crying to her elder sister, and didn't that get old? But she didn't say it, because… because even trying to sow discord between Ruby and her sister would have been very cruel, and when it came to Ruby… Sunset didn't have the stomach for it.

What is this girl doing to me? "Ruby sent you, didn't she?"

Yang rested her hands on her knees. "You know, even though she got here early, Ruby's still waited a long time to come to Beacon. She's dreamed of this her whole life, ever since I used to read her-" she stopped abruptly. "She's dreamed of coming here her whole life; I'm not going to let you screw this up for her or make her four years here miserable because of your issues."

Sunset regarded the other girl evenly. In truth, what she hadn't said - what she had stopped herself from saying - was more interesting to Sunset than what Yang had actually said. Sunset had known since that first night that Ruby's mom - Summer Rose, the S in STRQ - was dead. What she hadn't known until Yang gave it away was that their dad was a deadbeat and the elder sister had been forced to step up and play mom to the younger. Their relationship was not what Sunset had first taken it to be.

Some sort of reply was necessary, so Sunset said, "You should be giving this talk to Jaune, maybe get him to do his homework once in a while."

"Jaune isn't the one Ruby's worried about," Yang said. "You are."

Sunset snorted. "Do you think I'm doing this on purpose? Your sister isn't the only one who wants to be here at Beacon. I've waited for this too."

"You've got a funny way of showing it."

"Stop sitting there so righteous and put yourself in my position for five seconds!" Sunset snapped. She got to her feet. "Have you ever wanted something so badly that longing for it consumes you? That getting it is all that you think about?"

Yang's expression was impressive. "Maybe."

"What would you do if you met someone who had that thing you want so badly, but who didn't appreciate it one damn bit?" Sunset asked. "Wouldn't that infuriate you?"

"Nope."

Sunset snorted. "Easy to say."

"It happens to me all the time," Yang said, in such a way as gave nothing away as to what it was she wanted except that it was commonplace. "You won't see me blowing up about it."

"That only means that you don't really want it that badly."

Yang smirked. "You have no idea." She looked at Sunset. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I don't want it as badly as I used to. But I did, once. I wanted it so badly that I did something stupid. Stupid like you probably wouldn't believe. And then I took a look around, and I stopped thinking about what I wanted for a moment and started thinking about what I had: Ruby, my little sister, my beautiful, kind… and now you've got her too, and I'm going to need you to take better care of her, or you and I are going to have problems. Look at what you've got, Sunset; look around and ask yourself if it's worth fighting with Pyrrha over what you want."

"Ruby isn't my sister."

"No, but she'll save you if you let her," Yang said. "That's just who she is. She'll save you like… like she saved me. You care about her, don’t you.”

Sunset scoffed. “No. Whatever gave you that ridiculous idea?”

Yang gave her a look of bemused incredulity.

“What?” Sunset demanded.

“Who are you trying to fool?” Yang asked. “If you didn’t care, then you would have let Ruby suffer in that locker room instead of getting your team moved so that she could have an easier time of it-”

“Much good it did me,” Sunset muttered.

“So seriously, who are you trying to fool?” Yang repeated. “Why the act?”

Because if I admit that I care, then it’s the same as going back to Equestria and admitting to Celestia that she was right all along, Sunset thought. “It’s none of your business.”

“Maybe it isn’t,” Yang admitted. “The point is… Ruby’s the bravest person I know. She’s selfless; she always puts protecting others ahead of herself, and that… that worries me sometimes. Especially now that we’re on different teams and I can’t take care of her. Ruby needs someone to protect her while she protects the world. Someone who has her back while she faces danger. I think that you can be you, Sunset Shimmer… but you need to sort out your issues with Pyrrha and clean up the mess that your team is turning into.”

Sunset pursed her lips together until she was almost pouting. She could almost buy into the whole pedestal that Yang was putting Ruby on, such was the effect that Ruby Rose seemed to have on those around her. But even if Sunset had managed to retain her usual cynicism in the face of Ruby's inexplicable effects on her… that didn't change the fact that Yang was talking a lot of sense. Twilight, Goodwitch, Yang, all telling her the same thing, all playing variations on the same melody. Sunset didn't like it but… but like she'd told Yang, Ruby wasn't the only one for whom Beacon was important. This was her last chance before that destiny train pulled away from the station. She could feel ignominious anonymity stalking her like a creature of grimm. Was she really willing to throw away her shot over this for Pyrrha's sake?

Sunset sighed. "Apologies don't come easily to someone like me. Making… friends comes even harder."

"You don't have to make friends with Pyrrha; you just have to get by for Ruby's sake," Yang said. "And maybe you don't have to apologise either, provided you understand. You and Pyrrha… maybe you're talked enough. Maybe it would be better if you talked in something other than words."

Author's Note:

Rewrite Notes: The biggest change is that the flashback has gone. Other than that, some minor changes to accomodate the fact that Ruby and Sunset are much closer now than they were at this point in the original.

Also, rather than Dove spilling the beans because he's a racist, Dove takes the blame for Lyra or Bon Bon because he's an absolute gentleman in this rewrite.

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