Solid Skills (Rewritten)
Solid Skills
Rainbow Dash led the way.
Once they got into an elevated position to open fire on that grimm – if it was a grimm; position to open fire on whatever it was, anyway – then Penny and Ciel, with their long-range weapons, would be in a position to do all the work.
But before that, in the tight quarters of the building itself, they would be at a disadvantage. So Rainbow led the way, Unfailing Loyalty gripped tightly in her hands. Penny was behind her, with Ciel bringing up the rear.
Rainbow’s goggles were over her eyes, illuminating the darkness but doing so in shades of green.
She would have liked Blake to have come with them. She got why Blake hadn’t come with them – like Rainbow herself, she’d be a little useless once Ciel and Penny opened fire on their target – but if there was anything inside…
Rainbow’s ears drooped down into her many-coloured hair. If there was anything inside, she would deal with it herself.
Blake… Blake was a lot of things. Blake was smart, Blake was bold, Blake was righteous, Blake was inspiring; Blake was a lot more things than Rainbow was, but Rainbow didn’t need Blake to win a fight. She could do that just fine on her own.
That was one thing that she could do on her own.
Rainbow blinked as a vision rose to the forefront of her mind and had to be forcibly shoved back.
This mission had been… fraught, so far, in a lot of ways, and there were things that Rainbow wished hadn’t happened, but if she could only have changed one thing to have happened up until this point, it would have been Salem not showing her… face or whatever. Her tentacles. Salem not showing up at all would have been her choice.
Because Rainbow really hadn’t needed that right now. She hadn’t needed to see Atlas falling to the ground, crumbling as it descended, the tall glass towers toppling over and shattering into glittering fragments, the shadow over Low Town growing larger and larger until the ghetto beneath was obliterated by the weight of rock and metal crashing down upon it; she hadn’t needed to hear Fluttershy sobbing in terror, Rarity’s dying scream, Pinkie crying out for help; she hadn’t needed to hear Scootaloo begging for mercy. She hadn’t needed to see them die, one by one, by flames or fangs.
She hadn’t needed to be reminded that she was a fake.
“If Salem wants to kill my friends – if she wants Atlas – then she’s gonna have to go through me first. I’m in.”
That what was she’d said in the elevator, a couple of days ago now, when General Ironwood and Professor Ozpin had told everyone the truth about all this, about Salem, about what they were really up against. That was what Rainbow Dash had said, and now… and now that she had actually come face to face with Salem, she just felt really, really stupid.
'She’ll have to go through me first'? Seriously? As if that was going to be a problem for her.
Rainbow’s face twitched. She swore under her breath as she realised what she was doing. She couldn’t do that. She didn’t have time for that. She needed to focus. Her team was relying on her, Sunset was relying on her.
Ironic, since this was partly Sunset’s fault; what she’d said to Rainbow last night was mingling with the stuff that Salem had put into her mind, and it was all getting jumbled up, and she-
Rainbow swore under her breath again, more coarsely this time for extra emphasis. She really, really did not have time for this.
She had to focus. Focus on the fact that she could do this. Even Sunset had given Rainbow the credit that she was good at the things that she was good at, and this was one of them. And she wasn’t going up against Salem, she was going up against… she didn’t know what she might be going up against, but it was probably something mortal.
Something that would die if she shot or hit it enough times.
They reached the door in, or a door in. The building that lined the side of the street down which the green grimm stalked reminded Rainbow a lot of some of the better buildings in Low Town where she’d grown up; the construction values were arguably better, but it was the same kind of thing. She was expecting small apartments inside, not a lot of space.
She turned to Penny and Ciel behind her. “Okay, I’m going to go in first; you two are going to wait. When it’s clear, I’ll signal you to come in; don’t move until I say it’s clear.”
“What if you’re in trouble?” Penny asked.
“Then it’s not clear yet, and you need to wait until it is,” Rainbow informed her.
“But I-”
“It’s going to be tight in there, Penny,” Rainbow said. “Narrow corridors, small rooms; that’s not what you were built for.”
Penny frowned and pouted, but didn’t say anything. Ciel nodded her head silently.
Rainbow turned away from both of them, holding Unfailing Loyalty in one hand as she reached for the door handle with the other.
The door opened easily at her slightest touch. That was lucky, and a little suspicious.
Rainbow left Penny and Ciel waiting outside while she darted in. A long, narrow corridor ran down the ground floor of the building to her right, while directly in front of her was an elevator with an ‘out of order’ sign on the door which probably predated the fall of the city.
Rainbow kind of hoped so anyway, although if it didn’t… kudos to the janitors for commitment, she guessed.
There was a staircase next to the broken elevator.
Rainbow walked towards it, stepping gingerly across the tiled floor, wishing that she had a mask on against the amount of dust upon it – dust which she was stirring up.
There was no sign of anyone. There might be people in the rooms, hidden behind the closed doors on the left-hand side of the corridor, but so long as they stayed there, then they wouldn’t be any trouble for RSP.
Although, just to be on the safe side, Rainbow reached into a pouch at her belt and a took out a little gizmo that Twilight had come up with; it was about the size of a large marble, and it looked like one too, a glass sphere with a coloured ribbon forming a band within. What it actually was was a short range motion detector. Rainbow pressed down on with her fingers and thumb to activate it, then used the five-second activation delay to roll it down the corridor. It rumbled a little upon the floor tiles, but not much; you could barely hear it if you weren’t listening for it.
Now, if anyone would come down that corridor after they went upstairs, that sensor would start to scream the place down.
Unfortunately, she only had two to begin with, and that was one of them, so she would have to be smart about when to use the other one.
“Clear,” she hissed, retreating back towards the outer doorway and gesturing for Penny and Ciel to follow.
They did so, moving silently or as close to silently as they could get. Rainbow motioned with one hand for the two of them to wait at the foot of the stairs as Rainbow began to climb up them.
The stairs were even narrower than the corridor. Rainbow could imagine what it was like trying to get luggage up and down these stairs, and she could imagine that because she could remember what it was like trying to get luggage up and down narrow staircases. It was not fun. From what she could remember, it involved a lot of turning things on their sides and hoping that all your stuff didn’t break from being jangled and jumbled around.
The banister on the side of the stairs – almost unnecessary, with how tight it was; where was there to fall? – was wood, and the wood had claw marks on it. That was… something.
Still, at least that was the worst sign of any violence that they’d seen in here yet.
There was nothing on the stairs. There were no booby traps or tripwires, and when she got up onto the first floor, Rainbow checked the corridor and found, just like on the ground floor, there was nothing but a lot of closed doors on one side of the corridor as it advanced down the building.
And so it was with the second floor, as Rainbow advanced, calling Penny and Ciel to follow her once she knew that the coast was clear, until she got to the third floor, the highest floor, or at least the highest that the stairs went. There was a sign of a slope in the ceiling of the staircase, but even so, Rainbow wouldn’t have been surprised if there was at least some crawlspace up above for maintenance, pipes and stuff.
Nevertheless, that wasn’t somewhere they would be interested in going. This floor would be enough. From here, from one of the apartments on the left, Ciel and Penny could fire down upon the unknown grimm while being completely safe from its teeth and claws.
They just had to find a firing point now.
Probably somewhere in the middle of the complex; that would let them fire right down on it.
Leaving Penny and Ciel at the head of the stairs and rolling her second and last motion detector down the stairs to trigger if anyone started to come up after them, Rainbow moved down the corridor. She tried the first door on the left. It opened, revealing nothing but an empty room, abandoned in a hurry; the closet door had been left open, and stuff was strewn out of drawers as though people had been looking for the stuff they really wanted and leaving that which they could bear to abandon.
It was the same story with the next door. And the one after that. And the one after that. It was the same with every door which Rainbow checked: an empty room, abandoned – and abandoned in a hurry, what was more. Every room had been ditched, left in a mess as people grabbed what they could and ran.
That was the way it went when the grimm attacked. Official guidelines – at least in Atlas – said don’t bring anything at all, just run: run for the shelters, run for the airships, run for wherever it was the notices were telling you to run to. But people didn’t work like that: they ran, but not without grabbing a few things first. Sensible-seeming things, like lien cards, food, water, or a charge of clothes; sentimental things, like wedding photos or beloved toys for the children; things that were neither sensible nor sentimental, but which you grabbed anyway because you were out of your mind with panic and not thinking straight.
And that was your business, as long as you didn’t expect anyone to risk their lives to save you because you’d gotten into difficulty thanks to your mistake.
Anyway, the rooms were as Rainbow expected them to be, with all the signs of a rushed departure.
Until she came to the door that was locked.
That was not what Rainbow had expected. Yes, she supposed it wasn’t impossible that somebody had locked their apartment before they fled – people did strange things – but it wasn’t common in Rainbow’s experience. It was odd.
And because it was odd, it bothered her a little.
She hesitated, pondering what to do next. Not move on and ignore it. Something in her gut was telling her not to do that. Yes, it was possible the owner of the apartment had locked up before they ran away, but it was equally possible that someone had locked it from the inside. Not a grimm, but one of Cinder’s guys: Emerald, Mercury, or Lightning Dust.
Well, there was one way to have a look inside.
Rainbow glanced back down the corridor, to where Penny and Ciel were waiting. Ciel was beginning to look a little impatient. Rainbow ignored that. This wouldn’t take too long, and it didn’t sound as if they’d engaged the grimm down in the street yet.
She thought about asking them not to look, but that would sound really stupid, so Rainbow just hoped they weren’t paying that much attention as she got to work picking the lock. It wasn’t a skill that she advertised; in fact, Gilda was about the only person who knew she could do this and only because Gilda had taught her how in the first place. You picked up a few things, growing up where Rainbow had; she hadn’t been born in Atlas, after all.
All the same, she hoped that Ciel and Penny weren’t paying too much attention to what she was doing. It wasn’t exactly a respectable skill, and while Penny might not understand that, Ciel definitely would.
Not respectable at all.
But effective, Rainbow added mentally as the lock clicked and the door opened just a fraction.
Rainbow picked up Unfailing Loyalty where she had placed it down on the floor and pushed the door open with one hand. It opened silently, admitting her into a room that looked much like the others, had been abandoned much like the others, had a closet whose door was mostly shut, not quite like the others but nothing too unusual there.
Rainbow’s gaze swept the room, the barrel of Unfailing Loyalty trailing right and left. Everything was covered in a layer of dust.
Everything… except for the copy of X-Ray and Vav #1 which was sitting on the table, clean and mostly dust free.
As if someone had been reading it and then-
Rainbow started to turn, bringing her shotgun to bear on the closet.
The closet door flew open as Mercury Black leapt out, his leg shooting out in a kick to knock the barrel of Unfailing Loyalty aside. The shotgun went off, blowing a hole in the wall. Rainbow growled wordlessly as she swung the butt of the weapon, hitting Mercury in the cheek with it, but as she tried to hit him, he grabbed the gun with both hands.
Unfailing Loyalty went off again, blowing some holes in the floor between their feet as they wrestled for the gun, tugging it this way and that. Rainbow headbutted Mercury, but he did not let go. He cut Rainbow’s legs out from under her with a sweeping kick, knocking her to the floor.
Mercury smirked as he raised one boot to descend upon her face.
Rainbow rolled, sweeping Mercury’s other leg – the one that he was standing on – aside and dumping him down on the floor next to her. Rainbow grabbed him, meaning to get him in a headlock, but Mercury’s boots fired with a pair of loud bangs, and Mercury shot forward, propelled along the floor by the recoil out of Rainbow’s grasp.
The two leapt for their feet. Rainbow reached for her machine pistols. Mercury jumped up into the air, levelling his legs to fire two more shots which forced Rainbow to roll out of the way, ending up back in the doorway. She knelt, using the door as cover as she drew Brutal Honesty and fired a burst of bullets in his direction.
He didn’t flinch, she had to give him that; he took it on the chin – or in the chest – and barely let on that it was even denting his aura, let alone hurting him. He rushed her, though she fired again, and launched himself in a flying kick for the door that was her cover.
Rainbow rolled again, back into the room and out of sight of the corridor as Mercury’s powerful kick struck the door and half turned it into the kindling as the weapon in his boot fired. He turned, moving with the grace of a dancer on the stage, spinning on his toe, arms out for balance as he aimed a spinning kick at Rainbow’s head.
Rainbow hit the deck to let his leg pass harmlessly above her, before launching herself upwards to grab his leg – it felt weirdly hard to her touch – and, with all her strength, pick him and hurl him over her shoulder – his head hit the ceiling on the way – and face-first into the floor.
She aimed Brutal Honesty at him.
Mercury fired off his boots. The first one passed harmlessly between her face and her shoulder, but the second one hit her in the ankle, drawing a yelp out of her as she dropped to one knee.
Mercury pushed himself off his hands into the air, squirming there like a salmon leaping out of the river so that he landed on his feet, facing her.
There was anger in his grey eyes, but also wariness on his face as well. His first kick knocked Brutal Honesty out of her hand.
His second came for her face.
Rainbow concentrated her remaining aura – she thought she probably still had most of it left – in the palms of her hands as she caught his booted foot between them, taking the impact of the kick and the shot from his boots alike. It wasn’t great, but she’d had worse. It didn’t feel anything like as hard as taking Adam’s sword on her arm had felt back at the docks.
Outside, Penny screamed.
“Should we do something?” Penny asked, as they heard Rainbow’s shotgun go off inside the room that Rainbow had just entered.
“Rainbow Dash’s instructions were quite clear,” Ciel reminded her, her voice cool and collected. “We are not to enter until the room has been declared clear. Sounds of fighting are evidence that the room is not clear. Ergo, we will remain here as instructed.”
“'As instructed'?” Penny replied. “But Rainbow Dash-”
“Is our leader, chosen by General Ironwood himself to carry out this task,” Ciel declared. “We do not always see eye to eye, but her record in combat speaks for itself. She will prevail.”
“And what if she doesn’t?”
“Then what makes you think you or I could fare any better in the circumstances?” Ciel asked.
Penny pouted. It wasn’t fair. Even if there were things that she couldn’t do, situations where she wasn’t at her best, then, well… that wasn’t fair either! She had been created to save the world, that was what General Ironwood had said, that was what her father had said, and even if her father had been ignorant and General Ironwood had had to lie and she couldn’t literally save the world because Salem couldn’t be killed, then surely she should still be able to take on most bad guys, right? If she was supposed to be Atlas’s great new hope, its wonder weapon, then why did she have to stand out here like… like… she would ask Ruby or Pyrrha for some examples of people who had to stand outside in corridors later, but why did she have to stand out in this corridor while Rainbow Dash fought all by herself?
If I’m so great, why do they treat me like a baby?
And if I’m not so great, then… then what’s the point of me?
She had been created to save the world, that was what they’d told her. That wasn’t true. Nobody could save the world: not her, not Pyrrha, not Ruby, not all of them together and the whole Atlesian fleet. But surely, she could do something? She could fight, and she could win. She could protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. She could stand alongside her friends.
Except she couldn’t. Because they would never let her.
When everyone was in the forest when that exercise went wrong, Pyrrha and Rainbow Dash went to rescue Ruby and the others, but they didn’t take Penny with them. No, Rainbow told her to stay behind while he took Team Tsunami with them! It seemed that she trusted the Great and Powerful Trixie more than she trusted her own teammate!
And now, she was making Penny stand outside while she fought because she didn’t need Penny’s help for this.
What was the point of her? Yes, there was only one of her, and something might have happened to her in the forest, but there was only one Pyrrha Nikos as well, and nobody had told her that she shouldn’t go help her friends in case something happened to her! Sunset wasn’t telling Pyrrha to hang back because she was too valuable or because she wasn’t suited for this or that.
Because Pyrrha was the real deal, and Penny… Penny was only-
“Penny!” Ciel hissed.
Penny turned to face her. “What?”
“I think I can…” Ciel frowned. “I thought that I heard-”
A part of the ceiling just behind them exploded as a large, dark figure dropped down right behind Ciel. Ciel turned, too slowly as the figure – Lightning Dust, one of Cinder’s teammates, whose height and muscular build made Ciel seem slight by comparison – grabbed the barrel of Distant Thunder with one hand – the rifle boomed out once, blowing a hole in the wall but doing nothing to Lightning Dust – and Ciel herself by the other.
Lightning rippled across Lightning’s body; she was wearing a black bodysuit, with some kind of heavy backpack strapped across her chest, and from the pack emerged tubes filled with yellow liquid that bubbled away as it flowed through the tubes from the pack into her arms and legs. The yellow liquid seemed to bubble faster as the lightning crackled across her body and spread from her arms up the barrel of Distant Thunder and across Ciel, making her cry out, making her whole body spasm in shock as Lightning threw her aside, tossing her down the stairs where she fell, head over heels, crashing and thumping.
Rainbow’s motion detector began to scream as Ciel landed in a heap beside it.
“No!” Penny yelled, and as she yelled, the swords of Floating Array emerged from out of her own backpack, forming a tight halo around her. There wasn’t room in this tight corridor to spread them out further, but that didn’t matter because she only had one target, and she was locked on!
Her swords retracted into carbine configurations as she opened up with all her lasers.
Green blasts erupted from the muzzles of her weapons, all of them leaping straight towards Lightning Dust where she stood, wreathed in lightning, which snapped and crackled as it travelled up and down her muscular body.
She smirked and raised one hand.
Lightning burst there in great intensity, a miniature storm brewing in the palm of her hand, lightning rippling out beyond her fingertips.
She stood there, one arm out and steadied by the other, as the laser beams of Floating Array descended on her like a pack of dogs.
The lightning expanded outwards as all of Penny’s lasers were deflected away, bending off their established trajectories to blow holes in the walls, on the ceiling or…
Or down the stairs.
“Ciel!” Penny shrieked. She couldn’t… she might have just hit Ciel with her own lasers! Lightning Dust might have just made her hit Ciel with her own lasers, and she was still standing there with that smile on her face.
Penny’s swords snapped back into their blade forms, extending outwards to their full length. Penny threw out of one arm as her swords shot forwards, their wires extending.
She could do this, even in a confined space. This was just one of Cinder’s lackeys; she could take them on. She had been created to save the world!
Lightning Dust leapt backwards, backflipping down the little stretch of corridor behind her, her yellow and amber tail flapping in the air before she landed, arms outstretched, and grabbed two of Penny’s blades as they descended on her.
Lightning erupted from her hands, travelling up the blades and down the wires and all the way to Penny.
Penny screamed in shock as the lightning spread up and down her body, half-bypassing her aura and attacking-
ALERT: Malfunctions detected. Initiating internal diagnostic.
ALERT: Language centre compromised.
ALERT: Motor functions in left arm compromised.
ALERT: Motor functions in right leg ceased.
ALERT: Floating Array inoperable.
The blades of Floating Array clattered to the ground, their strings cut. Penny felt the same way as she dropped too, her leg giving way beneath her so that she fell onto one knee. Her left hand spasmed, and she couldn’t stop it.
She tried to speak, to call for Rainbow Dash, for Ciel, but… but the words wouldn’t come out; she could make sounds, but they were nonsense, gibberish, she wasn’t making any sense, she couldn't express herself, she was trapped inside her own head!
A coughing sound from Lightning Dust reminded Penny that that was the least of her worries.
Lightning Dust was doubled over, coughing and spluttering. When she straightened up, there was blood coming out of her mouth. She wiped it aside and looked at it with disgust on her face.
Then she looked at Penny, and the disgust turned to eagerness.
Lightning crackled in the palm of her hand once again as she began to advance.
Penny couldn’t walk. She couldn’t even stand up. She couldn’t move Floating Array; none of the swords would respond to command. With the hand that would still obey her, she tried to pull one of the swords towards her by the wire, but even if she did, how would she-?
Lightning raised a lightning-wreathed fist.
Ciel’s pistol barked in her hand as she fired once, twice, three times as she ran up the stairs, throwing herself against Lightning Dust, pressing the pistol into the side of her black bodysuit and firing it again and again-
Lightning consumed both their bodies, spreading from Lightning to Ciel. Ciel tried to hold up against it, she kept shooting, but eventually, the pistol slipped from her hands, and she cried out in pain, her whole body shaking.
Lightning grabbed her and slammed her face into the floor.
Penny tried to cry out, but only wordless nothing emerged.
A rainbow flashed before her eyes.
Penny!
I gotta end this quickly.
Rainbow pushed as she rose to her feet, not hard enough to knock Mercury down but hard enough to knock him off-balance, and as he was off-balance, she went for him.
More accurately, she slammed into him fast enough to leave a rainbow trail behind her as she bore him backwards with the force of her onslaught, carrying him before her, slamming him through the wall into the next apartment, and as she bore him back, her free hand, the hand that she wasn’t holding onto him with to prevent his escape, pounded into his stomach like a hammer, again and again, until his aura broke and his whole body sagged forwards with the sudden weakness that always came from a lack of aura.
He looked up at her, his breathing heavy, his mouth opened to say something.
He never got the chance to say it. There was a burst of fire from Plain Awesome, Mercury’s grey jacket was suddenly reddened with blood, and Mercury’s grey eyes widened with surprise as he toppled over onto the floor.
Rainbow didn’t waste another glance on him. He was her enemy, and now, he was dead. She had more important things to focus on.
Like her teammates.
How did they get behind us? The motion detectors should have-
She could worry about that later.
A rainbow trailed behind her as Rainbow rushed from the room and down the corridor.
She could see Lightning Dust, wearing something on her back that looked like it was pumping her namesake right into her veins; she could see Penny on her knees, her swords lying uselessly on the ground.
She could see Ciel, disarmed, prone, and helpless.
Her team. Her responsibility.
Rainbow accelerated, moving faster and faster, the rainbow behind her growing brighter and brighter as she blew past Penny, slamming into Lightning Dust just like she had slammed into Mercury.
She didn’t stop, she didn’t say anything, she just hit Lightning at top speed and bore her back like flotsam on the wave.
Rainbow snarled. Lightning snarled right back at her, lightning crackling up and down her body, crackling up and down Rainbow Dash’s body, tearing at her aura, biting it, ripping into it.
Rainbow could feel the pain through her aura, she could feel her aura dropping, even if she couldn’t quite feel how much of it she had left. But she didn’t care. She didn’t stop, she didn’t let go, because right now, she was more than just a huntress; she was an avenging angel!
And so she ignored the lightning that was rippling up and down her body as she bore Lightning Dust through the wall and leapt out, with her enemy, into the street.
The Wings of Harmony still worked despite the lightning; they too were protected by her aura for however long it lasted, and so, Rainbow spread her wings, the wings that Atlas had given her, and with those wings, she soared, and Lightning Dust and all her weight and all her lightning and all the way she beat on Rainbow Dash with both her fists was not enough to bring her down.
Lightning’s blows seemed almost petty, like a childish tantrum of a demand to be released until she saw how high Rainbow was flying: higher and higher, closer to the ceiling with its mock stars buried in the rock, so high that the undercity seemed so small beneath them.
The lightning died as Lightning Dust looked down. She looked back up at Rainbow Dash. “Do you expect me to beg?” she demanded.
“'Beg'? No,” Rainbow snarled. “I expect you to fall.”
She let her go, and as she let her go, she hit Lightning Dust square in the chest with an aura boom, putting all of the remaining aura that she had, every last bit of it into an attack whose sound echoed out across the city.
Blood splashed from Lightning’s mouth as she fell, and as she fell, her eyes were fixed on Rainbow Dash, and they were filled with hatred.
Rainbow didn’t care. Lightning Dust could hate her all she wanted; she wasn’t going to survive that drop, not after taking a hit like that.
Her whole body trembled with exhaustion as she swooped back down towards her teammates.
Exhaustion… and fear over what she’d find when she got to them.
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9536937
With the new chapter up, it looks like we got lucky. Maybe Mercury’s too busy with his Cinder sock puppet.
So, how long until Lightning Dust starts shooting coins?
Well, we've now established that Lightning Dust is basically Railgun. Now I kind of want to see Mercury's semblance turn out to be Accelerator's powers...
9537276
Just look it up! "Equestria Girls Spring Breakdown!" Available as of today!
9537277
All she needs is the love of a slightly perverted teleporter and a toy frog to lead her to the straight and narrow
Lightning Dust is totally like an evil version of Misaka Mikoto, the Railgun. Half expected her to fire a coin, but the end result was awesome.
So am I but for my oc I just have it where she uses lightning dust crystal to amplify her semblance to use that rail gun but almost every thing els is her
This chapter was very well done, an excellent parallel of the first meeting between Rainbow and Lightning over in Equestria. Once again, Lightning's own recklessness about risking her own health and safety was the final nail that did her in.
And that epic battle was indeed 20% cooler.
really : a certain railgun. the anime. i expected the coin
The lack of railguns is disturbing.
9537514
9538234
I couldn't think where she could be keeping a coin on a skintight suit of armour.
9537311
Volume 6 had a scene where Mercury tells Emerald he had a Semblance before his father stole it using his. And since Mercury killed him, he now has no Semblance to speak of.
Now I would love to see RSPT’s reaction to Sunset being a unicorn.
Now Lightning this is what happens when you pump an obscene amount of drugs into your system just to perform better. It's called doping. And it's not proving anything. Do you really think you could have beaten Rainbow without your dust doping? No!! Because she is bucking Rainbow Professionalism Danger Dash!
'Tis a shame they didn't bring Nora, I would love to see her beat the holy hell out of Dust.
Well, so long as Dust doesn't have a coin, or ballbarring or something.
So, did they get the idea to inject her with dust from Hazel?
9537311
Mercury had his semblance stolen by his dad. And since Mercury killed his dad, he's not getting it back.
9538810
Yeah, I know. But given how this story is already deviating from cannon, I just thought it a funny idea.
Gonna be honest, this was pretty underwhelming. Lightning just got her ass handed to her with minimal effort. And yeah, as soon as the iron dust came up, I immediately thought of Misaka. An angrier, more self-destructive, discount Misaka.
The editing really went downhill with this chapter. Hope everything is well with you? It's usually really good and sometimes near perfect, grammatically.
For example, this is a sentence fragment and the paragraph seems incomplete regardless:
Why didn't Rainbow Dash break the backpack? She had two really good opportunities. It's an obvious weak point from the first moment the tubes are mentioned, but she didn't even try.
9538274
The scales could be detachable metal. Depending on the scale shape and weight, they might be even better than coins, and LD doesn't seem like the type to care about sacrificing a bit of protection.
CSR rocks.
9558316
The liquefied Dust to her blood stream made me think of Bane from Batman. But that's probably because I have little to no knowledge on CSRG.
Spelling and grammar... again.
10320280
The story is currently being rewritten, and so that issue should be fixed when this chapter comes up for editing.
I'm giving the fight scene a much more in depth look (and will probably revisit others) after a discussion with Cody where we were wondering just what makes fight scenes in SAPR tick so well. I myself in particular always feel like the greater descriptions tend to slow down the flow, and while I noticed some of that here, it is definitely less than I might be used to from other stories.
One of the big things with this particular fight is that it firmly establishes Rainbow Dash as intelligent, but not all-intelligent. She does remember her boots being insulated, and quickly capitalizes on that, and also assesses Penny as a liability based on Lightning's reaction to her. However, it does not go so far as for her to notice Lightning's backpack, which Twilight points out to her (which makes sense, as it is the sort of realization that Twilight would have as the tinkering type).
Keeping us in Rainbow Dash's headspace also really helps grind the fight in a way you can't really do in animation or live action, as her thought process offers an additional ground to investment. Not knowing how this fight will turn out also goes a ways (which might be a bit detrimental with the end bit about Emerald, but I hesitate to call it a flaw outright). There is a big difference between Dash, who is thinking of how to overcome things, and Lightning, who operates more like a videogame boss (complete with weak point that needs to be identified) liberally applying power based on her believed superiority.
I do think Lightning might go a bit quick from being on the back foot to belittling Dash, but I can also appreciate things being quick, so I donno. Toss up on that one.
And while I commend Rainbow Dash for her tactical intelligence, her strategic mind is not working here in the same way we might expect Sunset (and, in this case, Twilight, who is at least questioning it). If they are being stalled, it might be prudent to assume they're stalling them from being rescued, but to that end the question would be why? The answer as we know, is that they're not: the rescue is (part of) the distraction, or at least ends up functioning in that fashion. Still, even if she had acknowledged the inference that something else was going on, there would be the question of 'what is RSPT to do about it,' while also considering SAPR is also working towards whatever that goal is. She could regroup with SAPR, but as of right now, there's nothing concrete to her reasoning to do so, while she still has her mission of Altesians (and Friends) to rescue.
She does end up considering a bit more at Penny's pushing, but I do get the feeling that at least Rainbow is more squarely focused on her friends than she might ought to be, purely from a mission standpoint.
What an odd thought from Dash. I can't tell if it's confidence, or a bit of a prelude to her later attitude towards Sunset after this operation.
Edit: I have no idea how I jumped ahead three chapters. This also explains the Emerald thing.
Gods damn, you just straight up killed Mercury and Lightning... well, I'm not sure if she's dead yet but damn she's going to be badly hurt if she isn't.
I'm not sure if Cinder's plan accounted for suffering these setbacks but... at the same time, as long as her plan is successful in the end I don't think she or Salem would really care all that much. Besides, even if Sunset hadn't been getting under Cinder's skin lately I think we can all agree that the only person on her team that she might have given a shit about losing is Emerald; That kind of devotion and loyalty isn't something you just cast aside on a whim after all.
Mercury is dead ? Oh shit, i liked him.
I hope Lightning is dead.
Although it was clearly hinted than she have far more chances of survival than he.
Even if Mercury dies here, I still really loved the lucid hallucinations he experienced in the first version of his father. Even though Cinder saved him, it really sold the weight of the moment.
Woah! That was unexpected! I had to re-read the section before and after to make sure I hadn't read something wrong there.
Killing off a major villain in a single sentence (I know he hasn't really done much in this story, but in RWBY cannon in general). That takes guts.
Ooh! maybe it's just one of Emerald's illusions, that would make...
...
well shit.
Interested to see how Cinder and Emerald will take their deaths now. I'm guessing Cinder might actually be pleased that Lightning is gone, she was already wary of her. Mercury on the other hand she might be a little disappointed to lose.
Emerald might seriously start doubting what she's doing though. She was already uncomfortable with the sacrifice of the White Fang members they were sending to their deaths, and now Cinder has sacrificed two of her direct subordinates for... what exactly?
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Well, Cinder plan was to slow the team down. She needs them alive for her plan but she also needs the train to go off first.
I don't really see how this event could shake Emerald faith in Cinder. The plan was clear and they were given every possible advantage, they should have been able to win that fight. Getting killed during a fight is an inevitable risk, and unlike Cinder plan with the WF (where they have no hope of survival) this plan was perfectly survivable.
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It could had work if Mercury and Emerald had been friends, but in canon they only became friend in volume 6 and it was also because Mercury gave her a reality check and Cinder wasn't there.
But here ? With Cinder having given little bits of kindness in the time period of volume 2 ? Nah, she would be disturbed, but ultimately, it wouldn't affect her that much.
Damm, this is the first named character to die, I believe.
It feels...very early.
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Something that I've come to feel is that Volume 2 is, in many respect, this fic's Volume 3. Not just because this is where people start dying, but also because it's where our heroes are confronted with the limits of their youthful bravado, they reach, as the characters keep reiterating, the end of vanity.
Volume 3 won't actually seem so bad by comparison.
Wow, that's a gutsy move removing a character like that, though I suppose in this story Lightning Dust pulls the weight of the sceptic to Cinder's plans.
man, they really should have fast-tracked that lighting conversion module for penny.
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Lightning can’t die yet, she still has her blaze of glory to do
I… huh. I think I’ll miss Mercury. I liked how he was characterized, and his later death felt impactful after all that happened in the Barbarian Kingdom. Ah, well.
That was a very surprisingly sudden death. Like, most deaths are, but dang. I wasn’t ready for that. Had to reread it like 3 times to make sure I got it all. Happened fast!
Oh dang, Mecury actually died. Kind of went out a bit easy ngl. Lightning I doubt is truly dead. Because remember in fiction if you don’t see the bad guy die from the fall then they are most likely not dead.
I think Rainbow is going about this the wrong way. While yes she has a specific skill set she’s good at like fighting she shouldn’t just focus on that and hope Blake carries her dream for her. She probably has the best resources any one of the 2 teams have. She’s got Ironwood backing her, Twilight’s smarts, and not to mention her other friends to potentially help her broaden her skill set. She should really use that to help herself a little.