Necropolis (Rewritten)
Necropolis
It was not the best reason; in fact, as reasons went, it was a lot worse than the fact that there was no way they could beat Atlas in a stand-up fight for finding this whole plan to be a complete nonsense, but Gilda would readily admit – at least to herself – that she just plain didn't like basing out of Mountain Glenn.
It was the world's largest tomb, and it gave her the creeps. And the fact that the creeps were giving them some space right now didn’t actually help her mood very much.
From what she understood, which wasn’t much, Vale had built two cities at Mountain Glenn: one up top on the surface and one below by building on all the caves that were already there to create a vast hollow under the surface that they could build a second Mountain Glenn inside. It made a kind of sense, she guessed, what with the subway tunnel that they'd built to bus everybody in and out of the city, but even in its prime, she wouldn't have wanted to live out her life here. She didn't want to be here now. It was airless, perpetually in darkness – and just because she had the eyes of a bird of prey and could see in the dark didn't mean that Gilda didn't like to see the sun, feel the warmth of it slapping her face on a hot day, feel the wind through her feathers. There could have been none of that here, even when this was a living, breathing – breathing stale air that had been trapped underground for too long, but still – city. And Gilda's discomfort was made worse by the feeling she had that the undercity would have been the place where all the faunus lived because they couldn't afford to live on the surface.
She was surprised that Atlas hadn't had the idea of doing that. It would be a big win for Robyn Hill: hey there, everyone, look how much more room there is in Mantle now! Pay no attention to the noises coming from the basement; that’s just the faunus in their caves.
The fact that there were some – and there absolutely were some, and Gilda would call a liar anyone who claimed there weren’t – who would say that this giant cavern was the proper place for the faunus only increased Gilda's discomfort with being here. They were not rats, to skulk in darkness, to crawl through tunnels and to hide in caves. They were men, with as much right to the sunlight and the blue sky and the wind on their faces as any human. Some of them might be born into darkness, but that didn't mean that they had to make their homes in it.
At the moment, Gilda was standing on top of what had been some kind of tower block not far from the commercial rail yard. Beneath her, she could see the Atlesian Paladins, their stolen wonder weapons that would in no way be enough to turn the tide against all of the existing wonder weapons that Atlas already had at its disposal, loading dust bombs onto the rear cars in preparation for the attack. She wasn't sure exactly when the attack would take place, but the word said that it would come soon: in the next few days, tomorrow, even today. Much sooner than originally planned. Cinder wanted to step up the timetable. She'd screwed up at Beacon, so now, the White Fang had to work harder to pick up the slack.
All around her, the lifeless crumbling city of the dead stretched as far as she could see, black stone towers rising out of the earth, climbing upwards out of the rock below to reach like so many desperate hands for the rock above. Streets that had once teamed with life now lingered silent and abandoned. Apartment blocks that had once housed hundreds of families now crumbled into dust like ants’ nests after the exterminator has paid a visit, their shattered windows staring out like the eyeless sockets of blind men with only darkness visible behind. Instead of the sounds of cars, trains, motorcycles, footfalls, conversations, instead of any of the sounds of life, there was only the dim humming of the elevators the White Fang had repaired and reactivated to get all of their gear down here, the sounds of rats scurrying around amidst the ruins, and the distant growling of the grimm who lurked on the outskirts of the under-city on the off-chance that any humans should return.
Gilda’s wings ruffled in the cold. Wasn’t it supposed to get warmer the further down you got? Then why was it so cold down here in this vast cavern? It was as if she could feel the breath of all the ghosts upon her feathers. Or perhaps it was just the foreboding that she felt, as enormous as the under-city itself, that felt like ice upon her skin.
She felt so cold. So cold and so filled with dread it was a wonder that she wasn’t attracting grimm.
Yet she was not. Nobody was. Gilda was standing on the roof of this tower as a sentinel, with the rifle that she had temporarily borrowed from Applejack in her hands – it was a really nice gun; it was going to be a real wrench to give it back, but give it back she would, or she would be just another thieving faunus – as she scanned the derelict deserted streets around her, but there was no sign of any grimm. They avoided the White Fang camp as assiduously as they avoided the old Merlot Industries complex – although what they were afraid of there, no one could say, certainly not the White Fang patrols who had been sent out to investigate but never returned; suffice to say that the White Fang also avoided the place and leave it at that.
That refusal of the grimm to trouble them in their base might be bad for the plan, considering that the whole point was that they were going to lure grimm into Vale once they busted a whole in the defences, but for right now, it was certainly good for all the vast numbers of White Fang that were mustering amongst the ruins. Prepping the train was hard enough without having to stop every five minutes to fight off grimm.
Perhaps that was why the creatures had stopped bothering them once she showed up. Perhaps they could tell that Cinder didn’t want her plans to be disturbed.
That woman… the dead city wasn’t the only thing giving Gilda the creeps.
She wondered if she’d been assigned watch up here to get her away from Applejack so that she couldn’t interfere with whatever Cinder had planned for the Atlesian huntress. She hoped not. Not that she trusted Cinder not to be so devious, but she still hoped that Adam was better than that. How much better, she wasn’t sure and wasn’t prepared to bet on, but… better.
He was still good enough that he had let Fluttershy go, for no reason and for absolutely nothing in return.
And that means he’ll keep Applejack alive for now.
I hope.
There was, of course, a difference that Adam had made quite clear: he had finally been won around to the idea that Fluttershy had no place in this war. Gilda would have been a little put out that it was the fact that Fluttershy liked birds that swung it rather than anything she’d said to him, but she was willing to take what she could get. Fluttershy was safe; that was what mattered.
Applejack was different… barrel of apples. Applejack was a huntress, and Adam had made it clear that a huntress was fair game.
Gilda could understand his reasoning, but that didn’t mean she liked it very much.
After what she had seen last night, Gilda almost found herself – and this was something she hadn’t thought that she’d ever admit to – hoping in Cinder. After all, Cinder, although she hadn’t seemed to like the idea of letting Fluttershy go, had gone along with it in the end, and she hadn’t even taken payment for it when she could have done. It seemed… it was almost like she had something to prove.
Gilda could relate to that. She had something to prove as well.
I still hate her guts, though.
One good deed didn’t make her forgiven, not by Gilda; Gilda wasn’t sure that she could ever forgive Cinder Fall for what she was about to do to the White Fang.
But perhaps she might not murder Applejack while Gilda wasn’t there.
She wasn’t there because someone had to keep watch, and it might as well be her. Protecting Applejack didn't excuse her from duty, after all.
But Gilda still would have rather been down there; apart from anything else, when she was down with Rainbow’s friends – Rainbow’s friend now, the other one having gone free – she didn’t feel quite so oppressed with dread.
Down below, as well as an absence of grimm, Gilda could see the White Fang hard at work preparing for their attack: Paladins picked up dust containers and bombs that would have taken many men to move if they could be moved at all; those with engineering training worked on the train; those without any training trained with their weapons under the direction of the more experienced fighters. Adam was everywhere, giving encouragement, exhorting to effort, his red sword held aloft above his head as a symbol of strength and of defiance both.
The White Fang prepared for its attack. Its glorious, forlorn, doomed attack. Watching the preparations going on down below, Gilda couldn’t escape the feeling that it was all going to end in terrible tragedy.
She rubbed her eyes with one hand. Fear would not let her sleep. It was her constant companion in this place, and it would not let slumber come anywhere near her skull. How she wished she could be out of here.
This place was made by those that are dead; let them keep it.
Gilda heard something, a scuffing sound behind her. She spun, the stolen rifle rising to her shoulder, but it turned out to be Strongheart, coming up onto the roof from inside the tower.
Gilda sighed as she lowered her gun. “You scared me there.”
“Who did you think it would be?” Strongheart asked plaintively. “There’s only us here.”
“For now maybe. For how long?”
“Huh?” Strongheart asked as she approached. “What are you talking about?”
Gilda frowned. “I’m not sure myself. But I… I’ve got this feeling, you know. Like something’s coming, and we’re not ready for it.”
Strongheart frowned. “One of the captives is gone, isn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
Strongheart waited for a moment. Gilda didn’t say anything, so Strongheart demanded, “Did you let her go?”
Gilda snorted. “If I had, do you think I’d still be breathing?”
“That’s not an answer,” Strongheart insisted. “You saw Adam going in to the house where they’re being held, you followed him-”
“And what do you think, that I overpowered Adam?” Gilda asked. “That I let one of the prisoners go but left the other because I didn’t like her face?” She paused for a moment. “Adam let her go.”
Strongheart’s eyes widened. “No!”
“Yes,” Gilda insisted. “And that’s a good thing.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Gilda repeated. “Because she wasn’t a fighter, she wasn’t looking for trouble, she just had the bad luck to run into Cinder on the road, she wasn’t any part of this! Do you think Adam should have killed her instead?”
“My mother wasn’t part of this,” Strongheart whispered. “But the humans killed her anyway.”
Gilda winced. “I won’t defend that,” she said, “I can’t. But if we start killing every human we can kill, without worrying about whether they deserve to die or not, if we don’t… if we don’t discriminate, then where does it end?”
“In fire,” Strongheart whispered. She hesitated. “Why… why did Adam let her go?”
Because Adam used to like birds, Gilda thought. That sounded strange when said out loud, so she tried to put it a little better. “Because he found a spark of kindness in himself that the world hadn’t extinguished yet. Because he found that Fluttershy wasn’t so different from us, even if she is a human. Because… because he recognised that it was the right thing to do. He let her go, sent her back to her friends-”
“'Her friends'?” Strongheart repeated. “They’re here.”
“Somewhere up top, yeah,” Gilda acknowledged. “And Adam sent her back to them. Didn’t ask for anything in return. Not a thing.”
Strongheart was silent for a moment. “So… what you’re saying is that we’ve been nicer than our enemy has ever been to us, but we’ve got nothing to show for it?”
Gilda snorted. “Sounds about our lot in life, don’t you think?”
“Isn’t that supposed to be what we’re fighting against?”
“We’re fighting for Cinder Fall now, whatever that means,” Gilda replied.
“Adam-”
“She has Adam right where she wants him; he just doesn’t see it,” Gilda insisted. “Just like he didn’t see Blake losing faith until it was too late.”
“Blake betrayed us!” Strongheart snapped.
“That’s my point: Adam didn’t see it coming; even though he was closer to Blake than anyone, he had no idea what she was thinking.”
“Adam’s our leader,” Strongheart declared. “He knows what he’s doing; we need to trust him!”
“We don’t need to follow him off a cliff, and he has no right to ask it!” Gilda snapped. “And she certainly doesn’t.” She rested her borrowed rifle on her shoulder. “Adam… Adam’s a good leader. I still believe that. He’s our lord of war. Bravest guy I’ve ever seen. But if he goes up against Ironwood head to head, Ironwood will crush him, and us with him.” She frowned. “And I think Cinder knows that. Maybe she’s even counting on it. I don’t know what her plan is, but it isn’t for us to overthrow Vale. Do you really want to die?”
Strongheart hesitated. She trembled, either from fear or from the cold. “No,” she admitted. “But I will if I have to, for the White Fang and the faunus. Like my father did.”
“We help the faunus and the White Fang more by living to fight another day,” Gilda muttered. She turned away from Strongheart for a moment and wandered to the very edge of the building.
Strongheart joined her, or almost joined her. Conscious of the fact that she didn’t have wings, she didn’t risk a fall in quite the same way. “Why did you protect those humans? They’re… they’re human.”
“They are,” Gilda agreed. “But they can’t make me the bad guy. Only I can do that.”
“They wouldn’t protect you if you were their prisoner.”
“That’s what makes them the bad guys instead of me,” Gilda said.
Strongheart shook her head. “I don’t get it. Adam… Adam hasn’t led us wrong yet. Blake betrayed him, but that’s her fault, not his; she was so… she had everybody fooled, she fooled me, how was he supposed to not be fooled by her when he loved her the most of anyone in the whole world? This is the right thing we’re doing here.”
“Because he says so?”
“Because we have to do something!” Strongheart cried. “We’re all fighting desperately to protect the things that we care about, but what good is fighting to protect when our feelings are the only weapons we have? So what if Cinder’s weird and creepy? She’s got the power that we need and Adam knows it. He knows it just like he knows the way to victory for us. I’m willing to fight, even if it is dangerous, even if I die; we’re all willing to give our lives for freedom. Are you?”
Gilda rounded on her. “I have scars from when my aura broke, but I kept fighting. Against Atlas, against the Schnees, against all of them. I’m not a coward.”
“Then why-?”
“Because I wouldn’t give a single life for a pointless victory, and certainly not for a glorious defeat,” Gilda said. She sighed. “I want to trust Adam. I want to put my faith in him and in his vision. I want to believe that he’s the best of us, the greatest faunus, the one who’s going to lead us to the land of milk and honey. I want to trust Adam. But I can’t trust her. And while she has her claws in him, that means that I can’t trust him either. And this place… we should have left this place to the ghosts.”
Strongheart fell momentarily silent. “So what happens now? If the enemy is here, does that mean they’re going to come down after us?”
Before Gilda could answer, Strongheart was answered instead by a fusillade of shots echoing across Mountain Glenn, breaking the silence that prevailed within the city of the dead.
“I think that’s them now,” Gilda declared. “And they don’t sound too pleased to be here.”
“Well, this place looks nice,” Sunset said as she strode into New Street Station, her boots crunching on the broken glass beneath her feet. “Very hypermodern.” She wasn’t actually a fan of the style – she preferred classical architecture – but this was hardly the place for truthful opinions about construction styles. Rather, this was the time to show that, in spite of their difficulties on the way here, she was completely refreshed, with not only her aura restored – courtesy of Jaune – but her good humour as well.
“That being said,” she went on, “I’m not sure that I’d recommend a visit. It’s practically the only thing in this city that’s not a dump. It just isn’t worth coming here.”
Rainbow Dash smirked as she peeled herself off the wall and walked across the empty concourse towards them. “We were wondering when you’d decide to show up, weren’t we, Blake?”
Blake rolled her eyes and shook her head.
Sunset vaulted over the ticket barriers. “We might have been here sooner if your directions were better.”
“Oh, I’m sorry that the safe route was a little…” Rainbow trailed off for a moment. She walked towards Sunset, leaning forward. “What’s the word I’m looking for?”
“Circuitous,” Sunset whispered.
“Thanks,” hissed Rainbow, before she raised her voice, “I’m sorry that the safe route was too circuitous for you.” She folded her arms. “Blake and I actually had to work to get here.”
“Oh, you think we were just strolling along, do you?” Sunset asked. “Let me tell you something, because you didn’t clear the route properly, we still had to fight our way through.”
Rainbow was silent for a couple of seconds. “Was this after they started jamming communications?”
“You know about that?”
“Of course we know about that,” Rainbow said sharply. “I mean, not that Twilight’s drones were going to be of much use underground, but…”
“Is there a point,” Pyrrha inquired politely, “at which Team Tsunami will come to aid us, if we send no word?”
“By now, they’ll have reported the loss of contact to General Ironwood,” Rainbow replied after a fashion. “But without a request from us or an order from the General, they won’t undertake a rescue mission.” She paused. “Not for another few hours, anyway.”
Professor Goodwitch arched one eyebrow. “Meaning, Miss Dash?”
Rainbow managed to muster a slight grin. “Meaning… if I know Trixie, when it eventually comes down to a choice between sitting on her hands and doing something, she’ll do something. Just as soon as she’s talked herself round to the idea.”
“Really?” Professor Goodwitch murmured. “And the rest of her team will go along with this?”
“Starlight will agree it’s the right thing to do, Sunburst will go along with them, and Tempest will huff and puff, but she won’t actually try to stop them,” Rainbow explained. “You know, I don’t think they’re actually going to join the military when they graduate.”
“No?” Sunset asked. “What are they going to do instead, join the Happy Huntresses?”
“Nah,” Rainbow replied. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if you heard about a group called the Great and Powerful Huntresses running around making noise in Atlas in a few years’ time. In a legal way. Mostly.”
“Is that a fact, Miss Dash?” Professor Goodwitch said softly. “That’s certainly interesting to know.”
Rainbow glanced at Sunset.
Sunset shrugged. “Maybe she’s thinking they made the wrong choice.”
Rainbow’s eyes narrowed.
“I’m just saying,” said Sunset.
Rainbow snorted. “So, what kind of trouble did you run into?”
“A unique kind of grimm,” Sunset said. “Like an ursa, but worse. A lot worse. It was so well-armoured as to be almost impregnable, could move silently on top of that, and it could extend its neck out and let it swing around like a snake.”
“We ran into some chills,” Rainbow said flatly.
Sunset stared at her. “Okay, that is worse,” she admitted.
“And there may be more,” Blake declared, stepping away from the wall against which she had been leaning. “After all, Mountain Glenn is the perfect home for them.” She hesitated.
“Blake,” Rainbow said. “You don’t have to-”
“Yes,” Blake said. “I do, this is important.” She closed her eyes and looked down at her feet for a moment. “A chill… it possessed me.”
Sunset’s eyes widened. Blake… Blake had been possessed? A chill had gotten Blake? Blake, they had almost lost Blake? She rounded on Rainbow Dash. “And you let this happen?”
“Sunset-” Blake began.
Sunset ignored her, jabbing a finger into Rainbow’s face. “This is the last time that I leave Blake alone with you, how could you-?”
“Sunset Shimmer!” Pyrrha’s voice was stern and unexpectedly loud; it sliced through Sunset’s shouting like her Miló sliced through most grimm. Her eyes were hard as steel; just looking at them was enough to make Sunset’s ears wilt. “I hardly think,” she continued, in a voice that was clipped with anger, “that Blake needs you to turn this into some kind of competition about who cares more about her. Shame on you.”
Sunset took a step backwards. Her throat felt very dry, as though a sudden heatwave had begun. “I-”
“Everyone here cares about Blake,” Pyrrha said, her voice quieter now but not much softer, as she crossed the concourse to where Blake stood. Only then, as Pyrrha put her arms around Blake’s shoulders, did her voice soften. “How are you?”
“I’m fine now, Pyrrha, really,” Blake murmured.
“Are you sure?” Pyrrha asked. “Because if not-”
“I’m fine,” Blake insisted.
“How are you fine?” Penny asked. “Chill possession is supposed to be irreversible. Even when the chill leaves the victim’s body, it… it kills the victim.”
“That’s not true,” Ruby replied. “Uncle Qrow says that you can save the victim once the chill has gone if you have the proper tools.”
“It turns out you can also… exorcise the chill, for want of a better word,” Blake said, “with a concentrated pulse of aura applied to the victim, as though you were-”
“Unlocking their aura for the first time,” Jaune finished.
Blake looked at him. “Exactly. It’s how Rainbow was able to drive it out of me. And if anyone else is possessed-”
“We can save one another the same way,” Pyrrha said. “That… that’s quite ingenious, Rainbow Dash; how did you devise such a strategy?”
“Uh… I didn’t,” Rainbow said.
“I do not remember this method being taught at Atlas,” Ciel pointed out.
“No, it’s not,” Rainbow admitted.
Sunset’s eyes narrowed. “So where did it come from?”
“You don’t want to know,” Rainbow replied.
Jaune frowned. “Wasn’t that in Daring Do and the Adventure of the Azure Amulet?”
“You read Daring Do as well?”
“Of course!” Jaune cried. “Who doesn’t?”
“Those of us who missed that reference, apparently,” Ciel declared. “Rainbow Dash, you hazarded Blake’s safe recovery on a method suggested by a-”
“It worked,” Blake pointed out. “Here I am, still me: Blake. That being the case, I’m not inclined to look too closely at the means of my salvation. Just so long as we now know how we can save each other, if we need to.”
“But let’s all try and avoid getting possessed, if we can,” Sunset said. “A. K. Yearling may have done her research, but I’d rather we didn’t have to go around sort-of unlocking one another’s auras.”
“Indeed,” Professor Goodwitch concurred. “That being said… Miss Dash, that was good, quick thinking on your part. Many huntsmen would have allowed the… dubious origin of such a method to sour them on the attempt. You were willing to take a chance, and because of that, you saved a comrade. I imagine James will be quite impressed.”
Rainbow’s back stiffened. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Is that the way down?” Sunset asked, gesturing to the hole in the wall which opened into a void of gaping blackness.
“Yep, that’s the one,” Rainbow said.
Sunset approached, followed by the others. “A lot of steps,” she said, glancing at the sign.
“Uh huh,” Rainbow agreed.
“Come with me,” Sunset said, drawing Rainbow off from the rest of the group, putting one hand around her shoulder to steer her closer to the emergency stairwell. “Have you had a look down there?”
“I’ve taken a look, but even with my goggles on, I couldn’t see much. We agreed not to go down there until everyone made it here.”
“I know,” Sunset said. She paused. “Thank you, for saving Blake.”
“I’ll always save Blake,” Rainbow said.
Sunset grinned. “And I’m sorry for the way I acted before. You know… it’s stuff like this that is why her ex wants to murder us both.”
Rainbow chuckled. “I can live with that.”
“I’d rather he didn’t,” Sunset muttered.
Sunset let her hand fall from Rainbow’s shoulder and stared into the dark void. Adam was waiting down there, with his terrible red sword. Cinder was waiting down there, with her smiles and her cruel words and her pain and all her many schemes. The host of the White Fang was waiting down there, and a greater host of grimm besides. Everything was waiting down in the darkness. Everything they had come to fight, everything that desired to fight them, glory and good fortune, death and infamy, they were all waiting down below.
Destiny was waiting for them down those stairs.
Now is the moment to stride to our glory and to our destiny.
And yet.
And yet.
And yet, Sunset did not wish to stride, not now. She was overcome by a sudden sense of dread that chilled her spine, that froze her feet, that set her whole body trembling.
If she descended into the darkness, she would find her fate, and it would be an ill-fate.
All her pride, all her bravado, it was stripped away from her in that moment, blown away by the chill wind that seemed to issue up from out of the dark.
This was no place for her. It was made by those who were dead, and the dead kept it.
“Sunset?” Pyrrha asked softly. “Is everything alright?”
Sunset looked at her, she forced herself to look at her, and the sight of Pyrrha’s fair face, her gleaming armour, the sight of her in all her glory drove away the momentary affliction that had stricken Sunset so.
She could not turn away. Everyone was counting on her. More to the point, they would not turn away, and she would not forsake them.
Now is the moment to stride to our glory and to our destiny.
“I’m fine,” Sunset lied. “But I am also going first down the steps, because it’s a deep dark hole, and I have a duty of care. And I will brook no argument in this.”
Pyrrha was silent a moment as she stared into Sunset’s eyes. “Then you shall receive none,” she promised.
“Then with you behind me, I shall walk without fear,” Sunset declared. That was another lie, but it sounded very grand.
The others stacked up behind her. It was the order that they had been before, except that Sunset was in the lead with Pyrrha behind her. Rainbow and Blake were left to take up positions at the rear.
After dealing with chills, Sunset was inclined to say they’d earned a break at the back.
Sunset raised Sol Invictus to her shoulder, switched on the flashlight she had tapped to the barrel – to the side of the barrel; hopefully, it wouldn’t obstruct the movement of the bayonet – and cast a nightvision spell on her eyes.
The world turned green before her, and she could see a little into the blackness of the staircase.
She could not see much, but what she could see was happily devoid of peril.
Sunset took her first step, then another, then another, descending the stairs into the dark. And teams SAPR and RSPT – and Blake and Professor Goodwitch – followed her until they passed out of mortal sight.
It was not the stairs that really bothered Sunset. Yes, there were a lot of stairs, and it took some time to descend them all, but she could handle stairs. Canterlot had been a city of stairs, built as it was into the side of the mountain with no elevators of the sort that people in Remnant took for granted. No, she could handle stairs; she wasn’t some cloistered scholar who only walked from one bookshelf to the next, after all.
No, it was not the stairs; it was the dark. If she had been walking up stairs that wound about the side of a mountain, or even going the other way, with the sun on her face and the wind kissing her cheeks, blowing through her hair, then she would have borne it without complaint.
But they were not rising, and there was no sun. They were descending, descending deeper and deeper into darkness, and the more steps they climbed down, the less light reached them from the sunlit station above, until they were plunged into complete darkness, with only the light of Sunset’s torch to light the way and only what her magical eyes could show her else.
The dark pressed all around her, cloying, grasping, and worse than that, enshrouding; Sunset found herself reaching for the walls every so often to check that they were still there. There were times when she imagined that she might step into a void, a nothingness, with neither stair to bear her nor indeed anything for her to fall into.
She, and all her friends, had been consumed by darkness, descending towards a thing they could not see, leaving all light and hope behind.
The only sound in the whole world were their footsteps on the endless stair, echoing into the nothingness.
Then Rainbow Dash started to sing.
With chapters still blank insi-i-ide,”
“Tell me she’s not,” Sunset muttered.
“It’s the book of our lives,
And the story is ours to write.”
“It would appear that she is,” Ciel murmured.
“Ours to write,” Penny added.
“How do you even know these lyrics?” Ciel demanded.
“I thought that was obvious,” Penny replied. “Didn’t you?”
Rainbow went on, her voice echoing through the darkness, in some ways seeming almost to drive back the darkness. “Some pages fade,
While others are black-”
“And whi-i-ite,” Penny finished the line for her.
“And the story begins,
Again every time we try,” Rainbow sang.
“Every time we try!” trilled Penny.
“Come on,” Rainbow cried, “you can guess the words!”
Sunset rolled her eyes, but nevertheless, a smile pricked at the corners of her mouth as she took a less than literal stab in the dark.
“And hope shines eternal,
“And friends are all I need.”
“All I need,” Blake’s voice was soft, but as clear as a bell.
“And hope,” Rainbow joined Sunset for this line, “shines eternal.”
“Shines eternal,” Blake and Penny echoed.
“And the future is always bri-i-ight,” Sunset sang.
“When you’re here with me.”
“Yeah!” Rainbow cried. “Take it away, Blake.”
There was a pause, before Blake did indeed take it away with a voice like syrup being poured over pancakes.
“I’ve fought the darkness
And come out the other side.”
“Other side,” Sunset and Rainbow chorused.
Rainbow picked it up. “For the rainclouds will clear,
The way for the-”
“Sunny sky,” Sunset and Blake chorused.
Sunset could hear Pyrrha taking a breath behind her. Her voice, when it came, was untrained and wobbled a little on the notes, but the fact that it was Pyrrha’s voice meant that it couldn’t have sounded bad even if she’d wanted it to. “I’ve been afraid,
And stayed through the longest-”
“Ni-i-ight.” This time everyone, even Ciel, everyone except Professor Goodwitch who probably thought that they’d all lost it, took up the song, individual voices lost in a more or less harmonious melody.
Jaune’s voice broke out from the others, and Sunset would have almost believed that he did have training, the way that he was hitting every single note pitch perfectly. “But morning still comes,
And with it, it brings a light.”
“Yeah, it brings a light,” Rainbow’s voice rang out.
“And hope shines eternal.” Once again, all voices joined together, chasing away shadow and fear both at once.
“And friends are all I need.”
“Yeah, they’re all I need!” Sunset declared.
“And hope shines eternal,
And the future is always bri-i-ight,
The future is always bri-i-ight,
Yeah, the future is always bri-i-i-ight,
When you’re here with me.”
They dissolved into laughter, all of them, and somehow, the stairs no longer seemed so dark any more.
“Miss Dash,” Professor Goodwitch said, “I do wonder what they are teaching you at Atlas Academy.”
Rainbow laughed. “Don’t worry, Professor; I learned that one from my friends.”
“The risk that anyone might have heard us,” Sunset said, “is a lot less than the risk that… that I wouldn’t have been in a fit state to do anything by the time I reached the bottom of the stairs. Thanks, Rainbow, I needed that.”
And indeed, she was able to descend the rest of the way with a lighter heart by far, armed and well-prepared for whatever awaited them.
They reached the bottom of the stairs to find themselves in another concourse, darker – obviously – and more grimly functional than the one that they had left behind. The concourse above, with its glass skylight and stores on the upper balcony level, had possessed pretensions to be something more than just a train station, to be a place that could be enjoyed and, on some level, appreciated. This place, with concrete columns holding up the ceiling and grey concrete beneath the feet, seemed to aspire to be nothing more than a place people passed through on the way to catch their train.
That being said, as Sunset flashed her torch around, she could see a couple of modest coffee stores and a first class lounge for if you really couldn’t bear to mingle with the commoners – and who could blame you if you didn’t? There was also a sign to ‘Exit this way for Lower Levels and Nightmarket.’
“Why do you they call it Nightmarket?” Penny wondered aloud.
“Probably because it is dark,” Ciel replied. “Not very imaginative.”
“It’s a little more imaginative than calling it ‘underground market,’ right?” Jaune asked.
They followed the signs, leaving the subway station behind as they emerged into the Nightmarket itself. A host of stores spread out before them: media stores, candy stores, newsagents, toy stores, cards and wrapping paper stores, bookshops, pharmacists, beauticians; the map of the mall on the wall near where they came in proclaimed that there were two movie theatres in here, and supermarkets both budget and high-class, along with cafes, restaurants, and even dust and arms dealers.
If there was anything left in those last places after the White Fang had been here for a while, Sunset would be very surprised.
Her brow furrowed as she concentrated on the map. “If I remember the blueprints of the city correctly, if we head out through the west exit, then we’ll have a straight shot to the rail yard.”
“A direct route? Doesn’t that mean we’ll be spotted?” Blake asked.
“Not necessarily,” Sunset replied. “And if we try and take an indirect route, we might get lost in this place.”
“True,” Blake murmured.
“We’ll just have to watch out and avoid any patrols or guard posts,” Sunset said. “We can take short detours if we have to, but following the straight line is our best shot.”
Nobody demurred with that, and so, the group moved through the abandoned shopping centre, disturbing the long-settled dust with their footsteps.
There were no dead bodies here; at least, there were none that Sunset could see. Perhaps, when the undercity fell, things had been a little less panicked. Or perhaps there had simply been time to flee from the shops to die elsewhere.
She was very glad that they would not have to move down the tunnel which had connected Mountain Glenn to Vale; she could only imagine how many lost souls waited there, banging their hands upon the barrier, pleading for salvation.
Her whole body shuddered at the thought.
There were no dead here, though, only empty shops, doors still open, barriers still raised, all looking as if they were open for business, the cashiers and assistants having simply all stepped away on a break for a moment. The must-have toy sat piled in a central display in the toy store, the latest bestseller sat proud in the bookshop window, all the passing trivialities which nevertheless added up to a picture of a society extinguished, gone in a sudden flash, erased and yet left standing all the same, as though some god had simply annihilated all human life yet left all things nonhuman to stand in testament to their follies and their pride.
It was a little better than dead bodies, but that did not make it good to look upon.
There was no sign of any grimm here – until they reached the western exit, the doors they hoped to use to enter the city proper, and found a reasonably sized pack of beowolves lurking about as if on guard, rustling amongst the debris, growling and prowling but never straying far from the doors.
“Well, isn’t this a coincidence,” Sunset muttered.
“You think they’re here to guard the doors?” Blake asked.
“I think,” Sunset said, raising Sol Invictus to her shoulder, “that someone wants us to make some noise.”
One or two of the beowolves raised their heads towards the group, snarling at them, signalling the rest of the pack.
Pyrrha formed Miló into rifle mode. “It seems that we have little choice but to oblige.”
Rainbow Dash slung her shotgun over her back and drew her machine pistols. “Okay, let’s kick these doors in and get this party started.”
The beowolves charged.
They were met with fire and death.
Now all of Mountain Glenn would know they were here.
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Cortana, these coordinates are underground!
She's showing herself this early? I truly didn't expect this to happen.
Oh F
me, man! This is NOT good!
Salem: I am not so bad
Rainbow: Are you kidding me? Look at your face. You LOOK evil!
Like Theseus, we go forth with weapons drawn and hearts ablaze. Ready to descend, to finish the mission and to slay the Minotaur. But instead, nothing is what seems. Instead, the Minotaur is waiting for you to descend into the jaws of its labyrinth, watching with terrible purpose.
The dark abyss peers into you. And she is smiling.
Oh..........shit............ this isn't gonna end well.
I've said it before, I'll say it again, if it weren't for the whole "attacking human cities with grim" thing, Salem could very easily be made out to be the hero of her story. If she can come up with some sort of reasonable explanation for it (attacking the God's supporter's power base or something like that), she could potentially justify herself, despite her evil appearance. She probably won't turn anyone with one conversation, but there are already embers of doubt against Ozpin, especially in Sunset, and Salem is gonna throw some gasoline on them here!
"Talk" oh dear. I do wonder if she had a similar talk with Raven once upon a time.
Salem wants to talk? I wonder why. It should be obvious to her that nobody of Team Sapphire wishes to play for Team Salem.
9520747
Yup.
9520791
One of my minor peeves with RWBY is the way that the heroes are rarely allowed to confront the villains (to the extent of not even knowing who the villain was until the end of V3, and now by the end of V6 they still haven't seen Salem yet outside of Emerald's illusion and the flashback. That's the reason all this is stuff is moving up to happen much faster.
9522096
Maybe, but you'll never know if you don't ask.
Cue the ‘awkward conversation with your ex’s friends.’
“Sooooo... this weather’s been crazy lately. And all these these grimm attacks, am I right? By the way, how’s Ozpin?”
9520747
You reminded me of this song and how appropriate it will be for what's coming.
Assault on the Control Room, one of my favorite levels.
This chapter really needed some scene breaks. There are two particular instances where the narrative jumps suddenly. One:
Two:
You forgot all of the chapter divisions in this chapter
Just sayin'
Please fix it and thank you for listening
The story is amazing though I would like to read them descending from their ship guns blazing; no parachutes, just raw ability to slow their downfall. I imagined this a lot :v
Uuuughhhhhhhhhhh...
OKAY. Let's suspend our logic and common sense in favor of cheap Hollywood drama. I mean sure, if the ship's bullets are strong enough to wreck whatever Paladins are made of, maybe they're able to pierce however many dozen meters of solid rock there are between the surface and the undercity. I mean, I don't have a master's in engineering, but I'm pretty sure you would actually need one to pull this off with equipment better suited for the job. What I do know is that you'd need proper measurements and impact angle for this kind of thing.
Am I being nitpicky? I think I might.
I can just imagine a Micky Mouse joke here.
I've only put this up against team SAPR and their own philosophies just now, but it's a pretty interesting contrast. Ruby, up until last chapter, would not even recognize the possibility of failure or defeat. Pyrrha is similar, though is a bit more aware of it as a concept, but hasn't been on the back foot very often in her life. In retrospect, at this point in the story, the one time we might consider her being on that back foot is in her duel with Sunset, ironically enough. Jaune... well, he's better than the Saturday Morning Cartoon thought process he arrived with, and he has actually killed someone, but I have a hard time nailing down exactly where he'd stand. And Sunset, well... Sunset at the start might absolutely do so if that pointless victory elevates her, maybe. But I'm not sure, I'm not convinced she has ever deviated so far from Equestrian values to allow for someone to die when she could stop it, not before, and not after this. I admit that it's open to interpretation, and she is the most grey character of SAPR by far.
Gilda having to go up, and being let go by Rainbow Dash, has really given her a bounce back from the peer pressure of the rest of the White Fang, in particular Adam. Knowing what happens with her in the future, she is very well done throughout the story thus far, and at the very least through part one (I don't think we've gotten much of her in part two at the time of this writing, but hey, I haven't read part two quite so many times over as part one!
).
I will note that the lack of transition from the White Fang to Ceil is fairly jarring, or at the very least sudden. It feels like there should be a line break there. (Also true with the heroes to Cinder's team, but not making an additional point for it.)
I have always enjoyed the exchange, but it echoes well with what comes up in the more immediate future after the Mountain Glenn arc.
For every time I've read through this, this never really hit me. Penny actually hits on this very thing, just not quite the way they were intending to use the tunnels. (And why would they/how would they guess specifically that? If they knew Cinder could influence Grimm maybe, but I'm not sure anyone suspects Cinder of being able to do that at this point. Perhaps just Torchwick, if Cinder wanted to show off, but she's generally reserved enough to hide her hand so not likely.) Very interesting...
It's very interesting reading this after the fact, because in a lot of ways, for all that we might consider her growing and changing in the future, this mindset still remains.
In the past, I've always just kind of taken this as an ominous tone, a cliffhanger, and just let it hang there at face value. This time, however, I asked myself: 'why?' And, in the grander scheme of things, I can really only point to one option, and it's one that feels weak, and I think will actually transition into some greater thoughts when the mentioned talk actually comes. For the moment, I will say the relevant info to this chapter: Salem might want to influence some division in the ranks, similar to what happened with Raven. I feel it's very arrogant on her part though, with not much chance of success, and especially not enough to impact this mission. They all are too young and idealistic at this point, and she is not meeting them directly, but by proxy. She doesn't carry the gravitas she would in person. Perhaps this is merely a want or desire on her part then, but I don't see why she would interfere.
So yea, I'm with Cinder. No, Salem, this ain't obvious. Why you want to give a villain speech offering temptation (which I'll touch on then) when for everyone else working for you has come to you themselves from what we can tell, is strange.
Once again, I wonder where Daring Do is here on Remnant. She’s most likely in Mistral somewhere with all the mountains and forests with ancient ruins. The deserts of Vacuo are also a safe bet, after Mistral.
Those first few paragraphs do feel very redundant considering previous chapters.
'I wouldn't give a single life' eh? Gilda sounds like Sunset, not willing to sacrifice anyone.
I'm glad the whole group (minus Goodwitch), sang along. Since it's not the Rainbooms, it didnt matter who sang what (despite the fact that, canonically to EqG, Sunset starts off 'Hope shines Eternal'). Given the fact that Equestrians seem to burst into song at the drop of a hat, Sunset might've been reminded of home a bit.