• 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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Defined by Choice (Rewritten)

Defined by Choice

Sunset teleported onto the roof of the engine, at the very head of the train, wobbling a little as it careened – somebody really had their foot on the accelerator, or whatever it was they used to get a train to speed up – down the track and down the tunnel heading for Vale.

She could hear the sounds of gunshots behind her, and she only needed to look around to see her teammates and her friends still fighting their way to the front of the train to join her. Rainbow Dash, with her wings, was closest, but all of them were still a way off yet. The White Fang were not skilled, but they were numerous, and they had deployed a lot of Paladins to keep SAPR and Rainbow Dash from reaching the engine. Sheer numbers were turning it into a slog, coupled with the sheer length of the train itself, both of which were reasons why Sunset had, in spite of her reluctance to abandon the others, teleported beyond the fighting to the engine itself.

She had taken longer to do it than she probably should have done – she had stayed in the fighting longer than literally anyone other than her had wanted her to. By the time that she had broken off to head for the front of the train, Sunset had gotten the distinct impression that it was only the fact that Pyrrha was a perfect lady that was stopping her from smacking Sunset upside the head and yelling at her to get a move on.

Of course, to Sunset, she had moved too fast, not fought for long enough. She wasn’t entirely sure how long she had fought for – ten minutes? twenty? longer? – but it had been too long for her friends and not long enough for her. She had hoped that they would win through together, brush the resistance of the White Fang aside and make it here all as one.

Unfortunately, with the White Fang’s numbers – and number of Paladins more importantly, and the fact that they needed to preserve at least some of Jaune’s aura to boost Pyrrha enough to move the train, which meant that everyone else had to preserve their auras so they didn’t need to call on him too much – meant that it was not to be. Eventually, even Sunset had been forced to admit that.

Still, she was here now, and Vale hadn’t fallen yet. She was here now, and all she had to do was actually get into the engine, hit the brake, and all the plans of Cinder Fall and the White Fang would come screeching to a literal halt.

The roaring of the horde of grimm who were chasing the train echoed off the walls of the tunnel as an enormous mass of nearly every kind of grimm native to Vale chased them down the rail line.

The thought of what would happen if that horde of grimm caught up with them – as would inevitably happen if Sunset stopped the train – sent a shiver down her spine.

Yes, the plan was that Pyrrha – boosted by Jaune – could then grab the train and move it off the rails and wedge it sideways to block the tunnel, but how long would that last? It was one thing to talk about it holding back the White Fang; it was one thing to think that if they jammed it properly, even the Paladins would have a hard time freeing it, but all those grimm? Would they not simply tear through the metal, rip the engine apart with their teeth and claws, rip and bite and batter their way through that human work until they had gotten through it and could reach the people on the other side?

Sunset wasn’t a coward. She was not a coward. She wasn’t afraid to fight; she wasn’t even afraid to die in a good cause.

But she was afraid, she was very much afraid, of losing the people who mattered to her in one fell swoop.

“You will watch your friends die all around you.”

“You will be powerless to help them.”

“They will be taken from you in an instant.”

“One by one, they all shall fall: to darkness, and to me.”

I don’t want to be alone again.

Maybe it would be better to- no. No, she couldn’t think that. The others… they were all so noble and determined to do the right thing no matter the circumstances, no matter the cost; there was no way they’d ever forgive her if she did something like that. There was no way that they’d ever forgive her if she even suggested it.

She would have to stop the train and take the consequences, whatever they might be.

However dire they might be.

She swung down off the roof and onto the back of the engine. The cab itself was sealed off by a pair of very solid-looking metal doors, but nobody seemed to have actually locked said doors, and they opened as soon as Sunset pushed the green button on the right-hand side.

The armoured door – the pointless armoured door, unless there was a lock and somebody had just forgotten to engage it – slid open, to reveal a single faunus, an elephant perhaps, judging by the tusks growing out of his mouth, whom Sunset was quickly able to incapacitate with a single blast from her palm as he was turning around.

She strode into the compartment, leaving the door open behind her for her allies to join her, and in a few strides had made her way to the control panel at the front of the train. There were no windows, but a monitor connected to some cameras mounted to the front showed her the monotonous tunnel before her as the train ate up the track with ravenous speed.

There was some sort of trigger sitting on top of the control panel, a black, hand-sized wand with a red button at the tip. Sunset eyed it for a moment but didn’t touch it; she had no idea what it did; for all she knew, it was a failsafe that would blow up the whole train for… reasons. Best to let it alone and hope that if it was left alone, it wouldn’t do anything. Ignoring it, Sunset looked down at the complex controls on the panels below, all the levers and buttons and dials spread out before her. Who knew that a train would be so complicated? She was expecting… start and stop, honestly; it wasn’t as if this thing could be steered. There were a lot of readouts, speed and stability and so on, and what looked like even more indicator panels that weren’t lit, possibly because nobody was in a station anywhere sending signals to the train.

Honestly, if Sunset hadn’t spotted the red button marked ‘EMERGENCY BRAKE,’ she wouldn’t have known where to begin with stopping this thing. She wasn’t sure that anybody other than the absent Twilight would have had a clue.

Well, time to stop this train, I guess. Stop the train and… and take what comes.

Here goes.

Sunset’s fingers moved gingerly towards the big red button on its yellow-and-black plate.

She hesitated. Her fingers stuck, trembling in place as though her fears had made manifest and grabbed her by the wrist to prevent her touch.

She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to stop this train, not yet, not without more of an idea of how they were actually going to survive once the train was stopped.

She didn’t have that idea… but she had to do it anyway. She had to because… because what else was she going to do? And how would she explain it?

She had to do this for the others. Even though it was for the others that she didn’t want to do it yet – or at all.

Sunset breathed in and out. I have to do this. If I don’t do this, they’ll never forgive me.

They won’t be around to-

Look, one of them will get here themselves, then they’ll push the button, so unless you want to have to explain why you stood here not pressing a button, why don’t you just push the damn thing and get it over with?

It’s like getting an injection. It won’t hurt as much as you’re afraid it will.

Sunset’s fingers shifted forward millimetre by painful millimetre.

“Congratulations, Sunset,” Cinder’s voice oozed out of a pair of speakers mounted to the front wall and into the compartment, accompanied by the sound of some decidedly sarcastic clapping. “It took you longer than I was expecting. I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark and guess that you were dawdling because you didn’t want to leave your teammates to fight on without your brilliant leadership. Still, you got here in the end.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. She guessed that under more normal circumstances, the speakers that Cinder was using would be part of a system to communicate between the train and either the station or some kind of HQ, and therefore, she spoke in the assumption that there was a microphone somewhere around here that would pick up her words.

“Hello again, Cinder.”

“I’m sorry that I’m not here to greet you in person,” Cinder said, “or to congratulate you for getting this far.”

“If you wanted to see me again, you could have shown yourself in the street earlier,” Sunset pointed out. “But you decided that you’d rather dance with Pyrrha instead of me. I’m hurt.”

“Aren’t you going to thank me for sparing her life?” Cinder asked. “I know that you’d be terribly upset if she were gone.”

Sunset snorted. “‘Sparing her life’?” She repeated. “The way I heard it, you ran off once you realised how outmatched you were.”

Cinder was silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice had acquired a sharper edge. “Is that what Pyrrha told you? Did she tell you that I was outmatched by her?”

“No,” Sunset said quickly; clearly, she had pricked Cinder’s pride more sharply than she had intended to, angered her in ways that she hadn’t meant to; that anger might be visited on Pyrrha when next they met if Sunset let it stand. “Pyrrha is very disappointed in herself that she didn’t skewer you on Miló’s tip. I just got the impression… I mean you did quit the field.”

“As I said,” Cinder pronounced, “I had no desire to cause you the pain of Pyrrha’s passing. That does not mean that I was losing. As for Pyrrha’s disappointment, tell her not to take it too hard… she never stood a chance of overcoming me.”

“Really?” Sunset asked dryly.

“I fought that battle with one hand behind my back,” Cinder declared. “As Pyrrha will discover if she is so bold as to cross swords with me again.”

“I’ll bet,” Sunset muttered. “Listen, Cinder, I don’t mean to be rude, and normally nothing would please me better than to while away the time talking to you, but I’m a little busy right now, so-”

“Oh, I know exactly what you’re doing,” Cinder said. “You’re about to stop my train. And I put so much effort into getting it ready.”

“How do you-?” Sunset stopped, looking up. There were cameras mounted in the corners of the compartment’s ceiling. “Oh. Right. Did you call to beg me not to interfere with your plans?” Strange, how much easier it was to banter with Cinder about stopping her plans than it was to actually stop Cinder’s plans.

Cinder chuckled. “I don’t beg, Sunset, not anymore. And you do realise that the train is only the more minor element of my plan. Stopping the train does not stop my plan. For that matter, running the train does not guarantee my plan either.”

“So there is a mine,” Sunset said. “You’ve used all the stolen dust to mine the end of the tunnel, and you’re going to blast a way into Vale. We weren’t sure.”

“Really?” Cinder asked. “What else did you think that I might have in mind?”

“We thought that you might be planning to ram the train through the barrier,” Sunset explained.

“That would be rather hazardous for anybody on the train, don’t you think?”

“Do you care?” Sunset asked. “After all, you’re not on the train.”

“I care about you,” Cinder replied. “Do you think that I want you to slam into the wall in front of you at high speed?”

“You didn’t know that-”

“Sunset,” Cinder cut her off, in a tone that suggested Sunset was being very dense and that she, Cinder, was going to explain to her how the world worked. “I invited you here to Mountain Glenn. I allowed you to come down into the undercity when I could have buried you beneath waves of grimm up on the surface. I delayed you just long enough that the White Fang could finish getting the train ready to move… and then I allowed you to proceed onwards so that you would reach the train in time to board it. Everything has proceeded as I have foreseen.”

“Apart from the way that your cover was blown, you got chased out of Beacon, and we found your virus on the CCT, so whatever you were planning to do with that isn’t happening anymore,” Sunset pointed out. “You didn’t foresee that with your oracular wisdom, did you?”

Cinder sniffed. “Nevertheless,” she said, gliding over what Sunset considered to be some excellent points on her part, “the fact remains that I wanted you on this train, and here you are. And I have no desire to bring you all this way merely to kill you on impact.”

“That and the White Fang might have had some misgivings about getting on a train that was going to ram a wall with them inside,” Sunset muttered.

Cinder chuckled. “There is that too. Telling them that we were going to blow a breach in the defences which would then be exploited via the train made them feel much safer.”

“I take it that you didn’t tell them about the grimm?” Sunset asked. “It seems to me that knowing that a horde of grimm was going to follow them up through the breach might also have caused a few misgivings.” It’s given me enough.

Once more, Cinder laughed. “Adam believed that the White Fang were going to emerge from out of the tunnel and overwhelm the defences of Vale with the advantage of surprise, laying waste to the city and lighting a beacon of resistance against the corrupt order of the world.”

“He did know that there’s an Atlesian fleet in the skies over Vale, right?” Sunset asked. “You know that, right?” She paused. “The grimm… not attacks, the… that’s the thing, they didn’t attack, not in Vale, not in Mistral, the grimm who were menacing the towns and villages in Anima when we were there on vacation, that was you, wasn’t it? And the grimm threatening the outlying settlements in Vale, that was also your doing; you wanted to get the huntsmen out of Vale and scattered across the kingdom.”

“Very good, Sunset; you’re finally starting to put it together,” Cinder said. “Yes, I arranged for the attacks in Anima because I wanted to weaken the city's defences. I knew that Pyrrha would be coming home for spring break, and I wanted to see her in action for myself.”

“And yet, you still thought that you could take her in a fight,” Sunset observed.

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” Cinder declared airily. “And, as you have also guessed, it was also my idea to menace the settlements in Vale; not destroy them, although the grimm could have fallen upon these poor, out of the way places before any help could reach them, and doesn’t that tell you something about the callousness of Professor Ozpin and the Council-?”

“Get to the point, Cinder,” Sunset said tersely.

“The point is, as you’ve already worked out, that I wanted the huntsmen out of the way,” Cinder said.

“It must have been quite annoying when the Atlesians showed up to take their place,” Sunset observed.

“To an extent,” Cinder admitted. “Although the idea of defeating the great General Ironwood and his vaunted army does have… a certain appeal.”

“You think you can win?” Sunset asked incredulously. “You can blow a hole in the defences, but the moment the White Fang or the grimm come up through that tunnel, they’re going to be under fire. We got Twilight a message, everyone is going to know that you’re coming.”

“Has this time in Mountain Glenn not taught you how easily a city may fall?” Cinder asked. “Has the sight of this dead city not shown to you that death and destruction will always triumph, that against the ferocity of the grimm, no wall or army can stand forever, or even for long? Have you not beheld, with your own eyes, the nemesis that will always descend upon the hubris of men?”

“Vale hasn’t fallen yet,” Sunset countered. “Even Mountain Glenn didn’t fall in a day, and Vale and Atlas will fight to protect Vale itself much harder than they fought for Mountain Glenn.” She paused. “The fall of Mountain Glenn was followed by Ozpin’s Stand, where the horde of grimm was turned back and shattered because Vale will not be allowed to fall.”

“If you believe that,” Cinder said, “then there’s no reason not to detonate the mine, is there?”

Sunset blinked. “What? 'Det-'…” Her voice trailed off as her eyes were drawn once more to the trigger sitting on top of the control panel. “That is the detonator for the mine?!”

“You sound so surprised.”

“I am surprised; it’s the detonator for the mine – the thing that your plan actually depends on, even more than this train; the thing which, if it doesn’t go off, then everything you’ve done has been for nothing – and you just left it here.”

“I have faith in you, Sunset,” Cinder said.

Sunset’s ears flattened down on top of her head. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s quite simple, really,” Cinder explained. “I wanted you to come here. I wanted you to get on this train. I knew that you would make it to the front of the train where I have left – for you – the only detonator. You’re going to deliver me my victory, Sunset; thank you, I’m so touched.”

Sunset scowled. “What makes you think-?”

“Because I know you,” Cinder said. “I know you, Sunset Shimmer, I know you as I know myself. Ever since the moment we met, I…” She hesitated, but when she spoke again, her voice was clearer and stronger than before. “You have a choice to make, Sunset. Before you sits the only trigger to the mine at the end of this tunnel. You can let it sit there, harmless and inert; you can destroy it; you can throw it off the train, and perhaps a beowolf will eat it. You can do as you like and my mine, all of my dust that Torchwick and the White Fang so patiently gathered for me, will sit uselessly at the end of that tunnel, and everything that I have done will be for nothing. Vale will be safe. You’ll have done your duty like a true huntress! And you will die down here. And Pyrrha will die, and Ruby will die, and Jaune and Blake and Rainbow Dash, you will all perish down here in the dark, with no one to comfort you and no one to see and no one to ever find your body. Whether you stop the train or not, eventually, you will run out of rail and be left with nowhere to go, and the grimm will find you.”

Sunset’s tail twitched. “The emergency escape-”

Cinder laughed. “Sunset, please. I had the emergency escape hatches blocked. It turned out I had some dust left over that I didn’t strictly need for the main mine.”

Sunset’s eyes widened. “You… you’re lying.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Sunset,” Cinder said, with a terrible earnestness in her voice. “Not now, not when you know the truth about me, about who I am, where I came from, who I serve. I’m not lying to you-”

“No, you’re just trapping me and my friends in a tunnel with a horde of grimm, thanks a lot!” Sunset snapped.

Cinder’s voice remained calm. “I’ve left you a way out,” she reminded Sunset. “All you have to do is pick up that trigger, detonate the mine, and the way will be open to you.”

Sunset’s chest pushed against her cuirass; she wanted to breathe deeper than she could. “And the way… and the way into Vale will be open to the grimm.”

“If you’re right about the prowess of the Atlesian forces, then that won’t matter,” Cinder said.

“According to you, it will,” Sunset pointed out.

“I could be wrong,” Cinder allowed. “It has, after all, happened before. Perhaps I’m wrong now. Perhaps the gallant students of Beacon and all the flowers of the north and their technological marvels – and we mustn’t forget all the king’s horses and all the king’s men of the Valish Defence Forces – can put a stopper in this particular breach before the tide comes in. Or not. The question is… does it matter?”

“Of course it matters!”

“Does it?” Cinder asked. “I’m sure that it matters to somebody, but does it matter to Sunset Shimmer? Does it matter to you if Vale falls or no, so long as Pyrrha and Ruby and the rest survive? Does it matter to you if people that you don’t know, that you wouldn’t know if you passed them in the street, die so long as your dear friends, the people you live with every day, the people who share your life, survive?

“You have to choose, Sunset. I’m giving you this choice; it is my gift to you and you alone. You can die down here, like every preening, self-righteous huntsman in history, or you can prove to me that I am not mistaken in you. Prove yourself a survivor, prove yourself worthy of life, prove yourself worthy of my interest. Prove that you belong with me, not them. And in so proving, save them all. Choose, Sunset, and in the choosing, define yourself.”

Define herself. Yes. Yes, it would. Sunset could feel the truth of Cinder’s words, feel the weight behind them settling upon her shoulders. She could feel… she could feel destiny hovering above her.

Ponies had… ponies had a woolly conception of destiny in many ways. They used the word imprecisely, using it to refer to a number of different things, things for which other words might have suited better. Sunset was wont to throw around ‘destiny’ in place of ‘fate,’ out of a mixture of familiarity and simple aesthetic considerations: her inescapable doom, the glory that was laid out for her, that which was promised and which would be hers… but only if she worked for it. Only if she strove for it. In that regard, although she – and she suspected that Cinder was the same way – hugged the notion of a destiny like a comfort blanket, holding to it in the dark times when glory and renown seemed so very far away – she could not escape from the more common usage of ponykind.

Every pony had a destiny, and usually one bound up in their cutie marks. It was the only one you had, it was set out for you when you were born by numinous and inescapable workings… but you had to choose it. It wouldn’t fall on you from a great height, it wouldn’t reveal itself to you in a moment of searing clarity imposed from without, you had to come to the realisation of your own will, of your own volition. Nevertheless, it was the only destiny that you would ever get, and although you could tarry on the road to get there, although you could waste as much time as you liked, although you could take as long as you pleased to sniff the flowers along the way, it would still be waiting for you. No other would take its place.

Like Pyrrha said, it was the final goal you worked towards.

If she did not take up the trigger, if she let the barrier stay up, if she protected Vale, then that would be her final goal, the destiny towards which she had been working ever since she arrived in Remnant.

It would be her final goal because she would get no other. The grimm would devour her down here, and all her friends besides.

And if she did otherwise? If she did as Cinder wished, if she blew the mine, if she exposed Vale to the horrors of a grimm attack… then, too, she would have chosen. She would be defined. She would have made her mark, whatever befell.

Destiny drove her on. She could feel its wings beating, feel the storm around her. But what was destiny driving her on to?

That… that was her choice.

And hers alone.


Cinder paced up and down, casting her eyes down to the detonator – identical twin to the one in the railway car – in her hand.

When she had told Sunset she wasn’t going to lie to her… that was not quite true. She had been mostly honest with Sunset: there really were no other ways out of the tunnel; it really was a question of die down here in the dark or blow the mine and live. The only area where she had been less than completely truthful was in the matter of Sunset having sole discretion over whether or not Cinder’s plans succeeded.

She was not willing to go quite so far. While Cinder hoped, fervently, that Sunset would choose life and show Cinder that she was who Cinder thought she was, Cinder was not prepared to hazard all her plans, so patiently laid down and so quickly and – if she said so herself – cleverly adapted to changed circumstance upon the risk that Sunset might turn out to be nobler than Cinder thought, that the influence of those like Pyrrha and Ruby and Jaune Arc might prove stronger than Sunset’s own inclinations – or that Cinder had misjudged Sunset completely.

She wanted to know the answer. She wanted to find out who Sunset was, she wanted to be proved right in her surmises, but there was something much bigger going on here. There were plans of a scale far greater than Sunset Shimmer or Team SAPR or any of them.

Plans greater than Cinder herself. She was not the first to stand at Salem’s right hand; she was determined to be the last. To that end, she would bring down Vale and topple the towers of Haven, Atlas, and Shade in turn and lay the relics at Salem’s feet, she would assume all the four powers of this world, she would gain all that she had sought and do all that she had promised, and she would not let Sunset Shimmer stand in her way.

If Sunset proved too noble. If Sunset’s worry about what her friends would think of her proved stronger than her desire to live, if she did not behave as Cinder thought she would and hoped she would… then Cinder would detonate the mine anyway and open the way into Vale for her grimm horde.

She hoped, fervently hoped, it would not come to that.

Come on, Sunset. Don’t make me use this. Pick up the trigger. Blow up the mine. Prove yourself.

Prove me right.


Sunset stood in the centre of the cabin and stared at the trigger in front of her.

Her hands trembled, but she made no move to take up the trigger, still less to use it.

She just stood and stared at it as though it were the bomb, not the trigger, and it would explode if she took her eyes off it.

Sunset’s body was still, save for the trembling, but her mind whirled within her head.

If she… if she did this, if she picked up that trigger, if she pushed the red button, then she threw the dice. She threw the dice with all of Vale at stake. Perhaps it would be alright, perhaps General Ironwood’s ships would blaze fire enough to burn away the grimm, perhaps Professor Ozpin would stir from his high tower and show just why he was so admired throughout Remnant, perhaps the soldiers of Vale would show the spirit of their ancestors in the Great War and triumph over the nightmares. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Perhaps the iron might of Atlas and the courage of the students would prevail over the ferocity of the grimm. Perhaps virtue against fury would advance the fight and in the combat then would put to flight, as the Mistralian piece of doggerel went, proving the old valour was not dead nor in the hearts of men extinguished.

Perhaps, perhaps.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps the grimm would overrun Vale, just as they had Mountain Glenn, and in twenty years, the bones would line the streets, their empty sockets staring out and their tongueless mouths crying out.

“I was a carpenter.”

“I was a housewife.”

“I was a butcher.”

“I was a waitress.”

“I was a clown.”

“We were those who trusted huntsmen to keep their vows.”

Sunset shuddered. The dead of Mountain Glenn become the dead of Vale indeed. But Vale is not yet fallen. Vale may not fall.

If she picked up the trigger, then she threw a dice, but if she let it lie…

If she let the trigger lie, if she did not blow up the mine, then…

Then it would be the bones of her dear friends that would lie in this tunnel until they turned to dust, if indeed the grimm left bones.

If they left anything at all.

“Pyrrha has such fire in her. Such strength. I felt it from the moment she was born. I felt… drained. I knew then that I would give my husband no other children, for all the strength that was in me had passed into Pyrrha. I gave strength to Mistral… and kept none for myself. And yet… she is all I have, Miss Shimmer, and yet, she has ventured forth upon the path of a huntress, where the road ahead is uncertain.”

“They looked for her coming from the White Tower, but she did not return by mountain or by sea.”

The words of Lady Nikos echoed in her mind. Pyrrha was the last of her line, she carried the history of her people within her veins, in her was born again the antique valour of a kingdom, she was their Eventstar… and that star would be snuffed out, swallowed by a beowolf unless Sunset detonated this mine.

She is all that remains to her mother.

Lady Nikos gave me Soteria that I might protect her.

Sunset had promised Pyrrha that if she fell in battle, then she would carry her circlet home to her mother, but nobody would ever carry Pyrrha’s circlet anywhere if Pyrrha died down here in this tunnel, devoured by the grimm.

Once again, the vision that Salem had shown her flashed before Sunset’s mind, all of the visions: Pyrrha’s death, Ruby’s death, Jaune’s death, Blake’s death. And all their deaths would be so much worse, down here in the dark, down here with no one to see them die and no one to recover aught of them for mourning or for burial.

No one would carry Pyrrha’s circlet home to Mistral; perhaps there would not even be a circlet left, even if there were somebody to carry it. The shattered fragments of Jaune’s familial sword would lie in the darkness for all eternity, and the family that he had left behind would wonder forever what had become of their vanished son. Perhaps they would wait and wait, until the disappearance of Jaune Arc was told as a sorrowful tale long past or a ghost story to scare the children: the boy who stole and ran away from home and was never seen again, so eat your sprouts and go to bed.

And Ruby… Ruby was her mother’s only child. Ruby too might be the last of her line, the last of a line of silver-eyed warriors, blessed with the magic to defend the world against the monsters, a magic that she had not yet even unlocked, still yet begun to master. If she died, if she perished down here in this tunnel, then all that promise, all that potential, would be lost.

The same could be said of Blake and Rainbow Dash: promise, potential… love. If Sunset did not blow up this mine, if Sunset condemned them all to death in the darkness, if the grimm devoured them here, then it might comfort Lady Nikos, General Ironwood, Yang and Ruby’s father away on Patch, it might give them all some consolation to know that their girls died bravely, doing their duty to the end; it might give them comfort to know that those they loved gave their lives like true huntresses, following in the footsteps of Summer Rose.

Perhaps General Ironwood would stick Rainbow’s picture up on These Are My Jewels along with all the other poor souls who gave their lives for Atlas; perhaps Lady Nikos would hold her head up high and tell passersby that a huntress would understand that there wasn’t really a choice to make and a huntress is what she always wanted to be.

Perhaps Yang would shrug her shoulders and get on with things because that was life, after all, and wasn’t that a risk they’d all signed up for?

Or perhaps Lady Nikos would sit alone in her study, surrounded by testaments to the skill of a daughter slain and sink into her grief and waste away amidst the crumbling of a house whose future had been stolen away.

Perhaps Yang would weep oceans of tears beyond counting and leap down in the empty grave in place of Ruby.

Perhaps Twilight’s heart would shatter, and all the air would fly from Pinkie’s hair like joy flying from her soul, and she would wait forever in Sugarcube Corner for Rainbow Dash to come in and place her usual order, and think of a joke that would make Rainbow Dash laugh… only to remember that Rainbow Dash would never walk through that door again.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

They were daughters, and they were sisters. Jaune was a son and a brother both. They were loving and beloved, beloved by those close to them and by those who knew them only by their famous names.

If they died… if they died, then the world should be lost, shattered for so many.

If Sunset picked up the trigger, then she rolled the dice for Vale, but if she did not… if she did not, then she destroyed whole worlds beyond doubt.

All of these thoughts crowded into Sunset’s mind, and yet… and yet… and yet, none of them mattered.

They could have been one and all of the basest stock imaginable, they could have been detested and despised by everyone outside the contents of their own teams and yet… and yet, they would still have been beloved by Sunset, her teammates, her friends, hers and dear to her and hers to lead and hers to protect.

What was the kingdom of Vale when set against that bond? What were the people of Vale, shadowy and indistinct within her mind, mere numbers, when set against their faces emblazoned in her thoughts and in her heart?

She had promised Lady Nikos that she would fight by Pyrrha’s side and protect her, inasmuch as so great a warrior required protection. She had sworn, down in the dark in the face of Salem’s visions, that she would protect them not only from their enemies but from their nobler natures, their hearts so heroic that they would lead them all to early graves.

She had sworn to do whatever it took to bring everyone home safe.

Professor Ozpin had told her she would have to sacrifice one, or she would lose all. She had refused to acknowledge it then, and though she had spoken with more arrogance than wisdom, still she refused. She would not sacrifice one for all, nor all for kingdom.

She did not love the kingdom of Vale. She did not hate it, she had no personal cause to wish it ill, she was not without some little feeling for a few of those who lived within it but she did not love it. She loved them, behind her on this train, them she loved without condition.

Them she loved more than the world itself.

Whatever it takes.


Cinder watched Sunset, still and silent, her expression giving no sign of what she intended.

She frowned. Had she misjudged? Had she been wrong? Had Sunset been someone fundamentally different all this time?

Her thumb began to move towards the trigger.


Perhaps I love not wisely but too well, but so be it! Though it be madness, let love guide my hand!

Sunset reached out, her hand briefly glowing green as telekinesis summoned the trigger into her palm.

Her fingers closed around the wand.

She pressed down upon the trigger and rolled the dice for Vale.

Whatever it takes.

The explosion shook the tunnel, the sound of it echoing up through the dark hole, momentarily drowning out even the roaring of the grimm behind them. Fire like a yellow flower blossomed briefly in the monitors in front of her, displaying what could be seen in front of the train, and then winked out again.

Apart from that, nothing changed. It might have seemed as though nothing had happened.

And yet, something had happened. Destiny had happened. Sunset… Sunset had defined herself.

Whatever it takes.

Celestia forgive me.

“Congratulations, Sunset,” Cinder said. “You’ve proved yourself a survivor, just like I knew you would.”

Sunset bowed her head. “I did what I had to do.”

“You did,” Cindeer agreed. “But somehow, I wouldn’t expect Ruby to agree with you.”

Sunset closed her eyes for a moment. “She can hate me if she wants; she’ll be alive.”

“But why should you bear hatred?” Cinder asked. “Why should you endure censure, judgement, hatred from the likes of Ruby Rose? You did the right thing!”

“I don’t-”

“Be honest, Sunset; if you didn’t feel the same way, you wouldn’t have done it,” Cinder said. “You feel it too, don’t you? Why should you give your life for a host of rude mechanicals and unlearned labouringmen, why should your life be held cheaper than those of the multitudes as numerous as ants? You don’t belong here, Sunset, not with these huntsmen so self-righteous, not with these nagging scolds who hold that what you are is wrong, who demand that you debase yourself and mutilate your noble spirit to fit yourself into their boxes. You don’t belong with them, Sunset; they don’t deserve you. You belong with me, here, where I won’t-”

BANG!

The gunshot startled Sunset so much that she jumped as the speaker set in the ceiling exploded in a shower of sparks and metal. Sunset turned to see Rainbow Dash, a thunderous look upon her face, stride into the cabin, her Wings of Harmony folding up behind her as she aimed one of her submachine guns at each speaker and camera in turn and, each with a single precision shot, destroyed them all. The bangs seemed as loud as the explosion of the mine in this enclosed space until Cinder’s every eye and tongue in this place was blinded and plucked out.

Only then, as Rainbow holstered her weapon, did she look at Sunset.

Sunset swallowed. “Rainbow Dash, I…” Her words fell away. She said nothing further. What could she say? What could she offer to defend herself? She cared more for those on the train than those without. All else was… rationalisation, justification, excuse. All else was… scarcely worth saying.

Silently, Rainbow Dash advanced upon her, bore down upon her, cast a shadow over her.

Sunset felt her whole body tremble.

Rainbow said not a word as she reached out and plucked the trigger from Sunset’s unresisting hand.

And Rainbow was still as silent as the grave as she turned away, strode almost to the door, and tossed the trigger out of it and into the darkness of the tunnel.

Sunset blinked in amazement. “Rainbow Dash?” she murmured.

"If time unwound, and you were put in the same position again, you'd do that again, wouldn’t you?” Rainbow asked, in a voice surprisingly soft and free of condemnation.

“And yet, I’m not sure I have it in me to do anything else,” Sunset replied.

Rainbow Dash paused for a moment. A smile that seemed almost improper at this time and in this place, fleeted across her face. “Because in this world that would rather ignore us, we’re so blessed as to find people that can see us.”

Sunset’s brow furrowed. “It sounded better when I said it,” she muttered. “But… yes. You can judge me if you want-”

“No,” Rainbow cut her off. “I won’t.”

Sunset stared at her amazedly. “You won’t?”

“No,” Rainbow repeated. “Because… because it wasn’t my choice to make. And although… although I hope I wouldn’t have done what you just did… I can’t say for sure that I wouldn’t.”

Sunset didn’t know what to say; she had no idea how to respond. Nothing that she could say seemed adequate, let alone appropriate. So instead, she asked the only question that mattered now. “Can Atlas stop them?”

“Yes,” Rainbow replied. “Absolutely.”

Sunset had no idea if Rainbow was right, or if she even believed it herself. But Sunset hoped, she very much hoped, that Rainbow was right.

Because she had thrown the dice, and she would do it again.

Whatever it takes.

Celestia, forgive me.

Author's Note:

I hope that nobody is too disappointed that I didn’t show the fight through the train, but after four chapters of fights and with the Breach coming up I didn’t really want to nor feel the need to write another fight with a bunch of nameless White Fang goons and paladins.

On the other hand, I really wanted to write this chapter, and in particular the Sunset and Cinder bit, it’s something I’ve been looking forward to for a while. I’ll admit that it started out as a way to have my cake (get to write a version of the Breach, since as a scenario it’s too cool to miss out) while not having the heroes seem like they failed to stop the train due to ineptitude.

I like it even more now, though, for what it says about Sunset’s morality. It’s been a while since we saw Sunset do anything really self-centred like this, but I don’t think it’s inconsistent (I really hope not, since this attitude will inform a lot of her decision-making during the Fall Maiden plot later on) since she’s always put her team/friends first. I hope that this also contextualises some of Sunset’s hostility towards Ozpin a little more: it’s not that he’s evil (although I’ll admit that I was onboard the Evil!Ozpin train until volume 6) it’s that he and Sunset just can’t agree on what good looks like right now and Sunset, picking up on Ozpin’s utilitarian big-picture morality, finds it off-putting because it threatens her deontological selfishness.

Rewrite Notes: What is there to say about this chapter? The most iconic, in some ways, certainly the most controversial chapter in the fic. What is there to say about it?

The big change here is that the nature of Sunset's dilemma changes; using a mine instead of will she or won't she stop the train avoids the question of why everybody doesn't die in the crash, and having a trigger makes it harder for anyone to work out what she did.

Also, there's some ambiguity about whether Sunset or Cinder actually hit the trigger first.

The biggest change, though, is Rainbow being 100% on board with Sunset on this one, to the extent of covering up her action.

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