What's Past is Prologue (Rewritten)
What’s Past is Prologue
“Over here, you ugly son of a bitch! Miranda, run!”
“Pearl, what the hell are you doing?”
“Get out of here, you dumbass; there’s a castle waiting for you!” Pearl laughed, high-pitched and clear, a warrior’s laugh. “Turns out, I really did like those stories after all! Come on, you mother, have a go!”
Miranda shuddered, her whole body shaking even as she clutched the blanket tighter around herself.
But then, her shudders had nothing to do with the cold.
She’d never seen a grimm before. She’d heard stories – you always heard stories – but she’d never seen one. In Alba Longa, the creatures of grimm were more myth than fact; the only people in town who had ever seen one were Mister Arc – Jaune’s father – and his sister Kendal, and neither of them talked about it.
After today, Miranda could understand why.
Everything was a bit of a blur. Her memory was… it was like it was a jigsaw that hadn’t been put together, or it had been put together and then taken apart again, all the little pieces scattered across the box. She couldn’t remember, she couldn’t piece things together, she couldn’t play out what had happened.
She couldn’t remember what they’d been doing in the shelter when they heard the grimm break open the outer door. She couldn’t remember the names of the other people who had been in the shelter with them, although they had exchanged introductions. That she remembered: the ridiculousness of it, everyone introducing themselves like they were at a university mixer, not huddling for safety in a concrete tomb beneath the ground.
She had flashes of memory, flashes that she wasn’t even sure she could trust. Had there been a guy in a clown costume in that shelter, or was her mind playing tricks on her? Had there been a man in a butcher’s apron, or was that… she had to be making that up, right? There was no way that had been real. That was… that was her mind, freaking out about… everything that had happened.
She remembered Pearl pacing up and down. She remembered… one of them had suggested doing some more work on their paper, but she couldn’t remember who.
But she remembered the sound as the beowolf ripped through the outer door. She remembered the lights flickering off, then on again. And she remembered the sight of the grimm.
She didn’t think that she’d ever forget what it looked like, the sound it made, the way it moved, none of it. She wouldn’t forget it until the day she…
Miranda shuddered again. After that, she… she didn’t want to remember. She remembered too much. She remembered running, she remembered hearing screams, she remembered the flashes from the detectives’ guns.
She remembered Pearl, oh god, Pearl. Pearl, with that stupid knife, facing off against the beowolf like she thought she was Pyrrha Nikos or something, the phoenix on her back almost glowing in the flickering light.
“Miranda, run!”
And she had run. She had run, and she hadn’t looked back. She had run and left Pearl to…
“Hey,” the voice of the nice detective intruded into Miranda’s thoughts. She pulled the blanket they had given her closer still as she looked up. The police officer was a faunus, with a horse’s tail drooping down to the ground beneath her legs. Her partner, a human man not much older than Miranda, stood a little way off.
The faunus officer had a kindly look on her face, and in her hand, she held a cup of something hot which she offered to Miranda.
Miranda clutched at the blanket with one hand, feeling the soft fabric beneath her fingers, and with the other, she took the cup. “Thank you,” she whispered. It trembled in her hand. “I… I’m the only one, aren’t I?”
The detective sat down on the bonnet of the car beside her. “You did the right thing,” she said.
“I ran,” Miranda muttered. “I left them all to… to face that thing.”
“You saved yourself,” said the detective. “No one is gonna blame you for that. No one has the right.”
“Pearl tried to fight,” Miranda said.
“Your friend was a hero,” said the male cop.
“That’s right,” the detective said, “she was. But not everyone can be a hero, and there ain’t no shame in that. There ain’t no shame in living, in wanting to keep on living. No shame at all. In that situation… you did the only thing that could be expected of you.”
Miranda sipped her drink. It scalded her throat. “Will… will it ever get easier?” she asked.
The detective didn’t say anything.
And that, in its own way, said everything.
Gilda looked out across the faces of the White Fang.
There were… not many of them left; she hadn’t done an exact headcount, but if there were more than two hundred of them, she would be pleasantly surprised. Not all of the missing had gotten on the train or died in the railyard when the grimm fell upon them; some of them had vanished after that, discarding masks and uniforms and slipping away. Some of them might come back, in time, and if Gilda had anything to say about it, they would be welcomed back with open arms. It was one thing, like Blake, to join the opposition and fight against those who had once been your comrades, but it was something else to decide that this fight just wasn’t for you anymore and retreat into a quiet, peaceful life.
And that was… that was okay. The struggle wasn’t for everyone, if only because it was a struggle; their lives were at stake, and before you took up arms, you had to be sure that you were willing to give your life for the cause of all faunus. Not everyone had that in them, and sometimes, people thought they did but then found out when the time came that they didn’t.
And that was okay. It did no good to shame such people, to hunt them down, to put their names on lists and mark them for death. So long as they didn’t buy their freedom with the names of those still brave enough to stand up and be counted, so long as they didn’t throw in with the oppressors… so long as all they wanted to do was live their lives and try to eke out as much happiness as they could under an unjust system, then who was Gilda to say that they were wrong?
Who was anyone to say that they were wrong?
God knew that she’d felt that impulse herself a few times already.
So that accounted for a few of those missing, though not as many as Gilda would have liked. It was sad but true that a good number, an overwhelming number, really, of those who were not here right now were dead, either from the grimm, or… no, it was mostly from the grimm. The news in Vale wasn’t reporting anything about a White Fang attack, only a grimm incursion, so Gilda had to assume that the grimm had caught up with the train, killed everyone on board – or so many as to make no difference; Dashie and Blake had survived, or at least, they weren’t being reported dead, unlike another student Gilda didn’t know, so maybe some of the White Fang had managed to make it out too – and then pushed on to Vale where they had been stopped.
Just like the White Fang themselves would have been stopped, just as Gilda had said all along, just as Adam had known all along, damn him. So did it really matter whether they had died by grimm fangs or Atlesian bullets? Maybe not, except that if they had been killed by the grimm, that was something else to go on the tally of Cinder Fall.
Adam hadn’t known about the grimm; Gilda had to believe that, she had to believe that he had not fallen so far. He might have been willing to sacrifice their comrades in a doomed gesture of defiance against Atlas and Vale, but to throw them to the literal beowolves? No, he wouldn’t have done that; even he would have seen the futility of that. The man she knew, the man she had followed into battle, the man who had let Fluttershy go because she stirred in him a memory of his youth, that man would not have condemned most of the chapter to such a pointless, bloody, painful death.
But Cinder would. Cinder would without a doubt, and Cinder was connected to the grimm; to Gilda’s mind, it was no accident that the grimm had fallen on them and started down that tunnel the moment that Cinder Fall had finally gone.
It was Cinder’s doing, all of it. Adam’s death, the slaughter of the chapter, all of it hers. They had been cursed from the day that she walked into their camp – even Blake’s departure had happened that same day, with all the consequences that had flowed from that.
Well, there would be a reckoning. Some day, somehow, Gilda would make her pay for what she’d done.
But that was in the future. For now, as she looked out across the faces of those who remained, Gilda was reminded that Adam had placed her in command, and although she didn’t expect the High Leader to let that stand, nevertheless, for the moment, she was the only person left who could command; everyone else who might have had a claim to lead was dead or in prison.
They stood in the foothills north of Mountain Glenn, amidst the beginnings of the high ground that would become the great chain of mountains that shielded Vale from the east. They had retreated here because the terrain would keep them safe from the grimm while they licked their wounds, although Gilda thought that the mass exodus of the grimm from Mountain Glenn to attack Vale might keep them safer than the ground. Still, it didn’t pay to be complacent. They would hole up here for a little while, tend to their injuries, take stock, and then move on once the heat had died down.
As they had fallen back, they had caught sight of two Atlesian warships headed for Mountain Glenn; if they’d gotten there, if they had caught the survivors of the White Fang out in the open, then things would have been even worse for them; Gilda wouldn’t have fancied the chances of so many as fifty people standing before her now; she wouldn’t have fancied her chances of being here herself. Those cruisers had turned away, but there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t be back or that they wouldn’t send scouting parties to hunt down the survivors. So the White Fang would hide, like a deer in the forest, until they were sure the hunters had gone.
But hiding would be a bitter pill for men and women who already felt like they had been defeated; who had been defeated. They had been defeated utterly, and they knew it as well as Gilda did. As she stood before them, as they stood before her with their masks off, she could see in their eyes and on their faces that they knew it as well as she did. Even Strongheart looked shattered by what had befallen them and the worse fate that had befallen their comrades. They were tired, they were frightened; if the city hadn't been emptied out of grimm, then Gilda was sure they would have been attracting some by the despair that she could see.
The despair that she felt.
Never before had the White Fang possessed such numbers, never before had the White Fang amassed such a store of arms and equipment, of dust and everything else. And they had thrown it all away. Most of the men were dead, and more had deserted.
In time, the ones that remained would prove to be… they would prove to have been hardened by this, fired by it, there would be very little else that could shock or shake them, but for now… now they were as fragile as thin glass.
And it was up to Gilda to strengthen them.
She glanced down at Adam’s body. She cradled him in her arms, his lifeless form unmoving. He was covered in a worn old cloak, so that nobody had to see his wounds or his dead face, but everyone knew who was underneath. They knew it from the sword which rested on his body; Gilda hadn’t been able to find the scabbard – there had been no trace of it – but she had found the sword, the red sword that had been Adam’s symbol. The red sword of the Sword of the Faunus.
She glanced down, and as she glanced, Gilda felt a surge of anger running through her for what he had done, for what he had allowed Cinder to do, for putting the White Fang in this position, for costing them so much… but at the same time, she felt a pity for him. He had been driven to his terrible mistakes, by Cinder but also by his own despair, by the loss of hope in what they were doing, the loss of hope that they could achieve anything.
Adam had had his faults, he had made his mistakes, but he deserved to be remembered for more than that; he deserved to be remembered for his valour in the field, for his victories that had inspired them all… for his kindness, in letting Fluttershy go. He deserved to be remembered for what he had been before he lost hope.
Just as the rest of the survivors deserved to have some hope put back in them before they began to despair as much as Adam had.
Gilda raised her voice, letting it carry across the air to all their ears. “I know that you’re tired,” she said. “I know that you’re hungry. Believe me, I don’t want to stand here giving a speech any more than you want to listen to one, so I won’t keep you long. But before we make camp, I want to say a few words.
“When we walked into Mountain Glenn, there were hundreds of us. More joined us there, eager recruits; perhaps some of you were amongst those who joined us later, perhaps you were there at the start, but you’ll remember that by the end, there were over a thousand of us underneath that city. Look at us now. Look around. Who… who could have imagined that such grief would come to us? Our champion, Adam Taurus, is dead, and many brave and loyal faunus with him.
“I won’t lie to you, I won’t say that they did not die in vain. They did, it seems to me; I cannot point to a single thing and tell you, no, their deaths accomplished that, and for that, their deaths were worth it. Not a single thing. They died in vain, but that does not mean that they died for nothing. They died for us, for all the faunus, for our cause, for our freedom, for all the things that brought you to the White Fang in the first place.
“How many of you know the story of the Shallow Sea? How many of you heard it as children?”
Some, including Strongheart, raised their hands; Gilda guessed that more – most – knew the story but were perhaps too embarrassed to admit it; it wasn’t in fashion with everybody these days.
“God did not simply grant us these wings, or these horns or ears or tails or anything else that makes us who we are. He did not give our ancestors these things like birthday presents, no; he tested them. He tested their faith, by summoning them to the magical island, by making them endure an arduous voyage, by demanding that they jump into the water and give up forever on being human. He tested their faith, and not all were found equal to the test.
“But just as God tested the faith of our ancestors, so he is testing us, and we will prove as equal to his test as the first faunus of old! Inspired by the memory of those we have lost, of those who came before and gave their lives, we will fight on! We will fight on and build a better world in memory of those who came before, of those who did not live to see it, we will march onward. Take it up with me men: onward!”
“Onward!”
“Louder so that God can hear you!” Gilda yelled. “Louder so they hear it in Vale and know that we are not defeated: onward!”
“ONWARD!”
“Onward,” Gilda agreed, her voice softening once more. She paused. “We will bury Adam here,” she said. “We will bury him and make a cairn over him to protect his body from the carrion eaters, and his grave will be a monument for all who died at Mountain Glenn, but before that, Father Arbaces, I must ask you to remove his heart… the bravest heart that ever beat for the faunus. Strongheart, when it is safe, you will find a ship to carry you to Menagerie, and you will take Adam’s heart there to be stored with the relics of the martyrs of our struggle, and you will tell the High Leader everything that has happened here and ask her to send us a new commander.”
Strongheart nodded gravely. “I would be honoured, Gilda.”
And because it’s such an honour, you don’t even realise I’m getting you out of the way and sending you somewhere safe, Gilda thought. “It’s an honour that you deserve,” she told her. She sighed. “I’m sorry; I’ve already kept you much longer than I meant to. Get some rest, all of you, eat, nap; I guarantee the struggle will still be here once your bellies are full.
“The road is long and hard, but I promise you, we’ll get there in the end.”
“Good evening, I’m Lisa Lavender bringing you a special report.
“Vale…” Lisa paused, her voice cracking. Cinder, watching, could not resist a slight smirk as the newsreader wiped at her eyes. “Forgive me, viewers; as a journalist and a broadcaster, I strive to report the news objectively, without prejudice or bias. However, there are times when that is difficult, and this… this is one of those occasions.
“The Kingdom of Vale was today the victim of a major grimm assault which managed to penetrate beyond the inner defences and into the midst of Vale itself. Using the old Mountain Glenn subway tunnel, it appears that the grimm were able to pass beneath the walls and enter the city. The barrier, with which the tunnel was sealed when Mountain Glenn fell, was destroyed by an explosion triggered by the White Fang.
“I don’t need to spell out for you, viewers, the potentially disastrous consequences that this could have had for this city and everyone living in it. If I seem a little shaken… this footage, taken from the air over the breach by our brave camera crews, should tell you why.”
The image cut from Lisa Lavender in her studio, to slightly shaky footage that seemed to have been taken from out of a Bullhead; the picture was sometimes interrupted by Atlesian airships darting to or fro into shot, sometimes filling the entire frame, but for the most part, it was possible to see what the camera was really trying to capture: the grimm, the horde of grimm, the great black tide pouring out of the ground in all their malice and their restless hate, filling up Lost Valley Square with their numbers, snarling and howling. One of the beowolves, an alpha judging by its size, looked straight up into the camera and bared its fangs.
Quite an impressive shot, I must admit, Cinder thought.
“However, tragedy was averted thanks to the intervention of the Atlesian military units under the command of General Ironwood who arrived in Vale some months ago along with the Atlas students here for the Vytal Festival. With the assistance of students from Beacon, Atlas, and Haven academies, Atlesian soldiers sealed off the breach, containing the grimm within Lost Valley Square until the VPD had finished evacuating all civilians from the surrounding districts. Once the evacuation was completed, Atlesian airships collapsed the tunnel with high explosives, eliminating the grimm below. Atlesian and Valish engineers are now working to fill in the collapsed tunnels with concrete, establishing a more secure barrier against a recurrence of this plot.
“First Councillor Novo Aris had this to say to the kingdom.”
Councillor Aris stood in front of a lectern set up in the middle of the street in front of the palace. She rested her hands upon it, looking as though she might collapse without its support. The axes of the Kingdom of Vale emblazoned upon the lectern looked rather inappropriate in light of Vale’s inability to defend itself without Atlesian help.
“I would like,” she said, “to thank General Ironwood and his gallant soldiers for their assistance in this, our hour of urgent need. I would also like to thank the police for their flawless handling of the evacuation. To the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives in this tragedy, you have the sympathies not only of myself, nor only of the entire council, but of the entire kingdom. All of Vale grieves with you.
“And I would like to thank all of you, the people of Vale, for the way that you have responded to this traumatic event: not with fear, or panic, but with calm and cooperation. To the terrorists who orchestrated this assault, I have this to say: you will not win. You will not make us live in fear. You will not make us cower before you and the threat of your actions. We will continue to go about our lives normally, and in complete freedom, and our military and law enforcement will hunt you down and bring you to justice.”
“Are you going to resign?” someone asked.
“I will continue to serve the remainder of my term as First Councillor,” Councillor Aris said, “and I will contest the next election as the leader of my party.”
“Is the Vytal Festival going to go ahead?”
“Yes,” Councillor Aris said bluntly. “As I said, we will not live in fear, nor will we deviate from the way we live our lives because of the threat posed by terrorists or by the grimm. We will hold a successful Vytal Festival and celebrate the cooperation between kingdoms that led Atlesian military and Valish law enforcement to work together to handle this crisis.”
The picture cut back to Lisa Lavender in the studio, if only for a brief moment. “However, Leader of the Opposition Orange Peel had this to say in response.”
Again, the picture cut from the studio to Orange Peel, who seemed more red than orange at the moment, addressing the camera. “I join with the First Councillor in giving thanks and praise to General Ironwood and his soldiers for their assistance in this matter. I join with the First Councillor in praising the response of law enforcement. I join with the First Councillor in grieving for the victims of this completely avoidable tragedy. But I must ask the First Councillor why is it that we were reliant upon the Atlesian military to defend Vale from these grimm? Why do we not have the tier one military capabilities to defend this kingdom, our kingdom, by ourselves? Why did this happen in the first place, why was this allowed to happen? From their inability to stop the dust robberies to this, the Council’s record on security is a litany of failures, and I think people will be asking themselves, do they trust this Council to keep our kingdom safe?”
“General Ironwood did not respond to request for an interview, but did issue this statement-”
Cinder shut her scroll with an audible snap. “Well, I think that went rather well, don’t you?”
“'Rather well'?” Lightning Dust repeated incredulously. “'Rather well'? You think this went well?”
Cinder turned around. Lightning and Emerald were sat together upon a fallen log. The sun was beginning to set, casting the world in shades of red and gold. She folded her arms. “You disagree?”
Lightning coughed into the back of her hand as she pushed herself up onto her feet. “Mercury’s dead,” she reminded Cinder. “Most of the White Fang are dead, and those that aren’t probably hate us. We’ve lost the Paladins, the dust, everything that we spent months working for, the whole plan-”
“My plan,” Cinder said. “Mine, and mine alone.”
Lightning snorted. “Your plan,” she said. “Your plan that has gone up in smoke with nothing to show for it.”
“Don’t be so quick to judge,” Cinder cautioned her. “Do you think you could have done a better job?”
“It’s hard to see how I could have done a worse job,” Lightning spat.
“Cinder has-” Emerald began.
Cinder held up one hand. “It’s alright, Emerald. Let Lightning have her candour.” She smirked. “Very well then, if you want to lead, if you want to serve our mistress directly, then kill me.” She held out her arms on either side of me. “Kill me and take the power for yourself.” She had no idea if it would actually work or not – they were in uncharted waters – but it didn’t really matter at the moment. She chuckled. “Are you surprised? Did you think that I didn’t know? Did you think that I didn’t see it in your eyes: the hunger, the lust, the desire? You want it, don’t you?”
“Of course I want it,” Lightning admitted, the words ripped from her throat. “Who wouldn’t?”
“Then take it,” Cinder urged. “Strike me down and become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.”
Lightning Dust hesitated. She looked at Cinder warily, even as she took a step forward. One hand clenched into a fist.
“Mind you,” Cinder murmured, “I feel I should warn you that I’ll only give you one chance.” The smirk on her face broadened. “So best not miss.”
Lightning swallowed. Cinder stared straight into her eyes. Her arms remained spread out, baring her chest for a blow. She had no weapons; she made no move to summon Midnight in either form.
She simply waited and stared into Lightning’s eyes, seeing her will… and her weakness.
Lightning looked away, turning aside with a wordless growl.
“Power belongs to those who are willing to risk everything to obtain it, Lightning Dust,” Cinder declared. “It belongs to me.”
Lightning snorted. “It still doesn’t change the fact that we’ve got nothing.”
“No?” Cinder asked. “When Pyrrha Nikos wins a fight in the arena, what else happens?”
“Someone else loses?” Emerald guessed.
“Precisely,” Cinder said, miming applause. “Clever girl, Emerald. One person’s victory is another person’s defeat. Today is General Ironwood’s victory, I admit, but then, that was inevitable from the moment that his ships arrived in the skies over Vale. The White Fang, the grimm, neither were ever going to be capable of defeating his forces in a fair fight. For all his many faults, and for all the faults of Atlas, General Ironwood commands a resolute army backed with many technological wonders. That was why we were planning to take his power away, but that… fell through, as you recall.” She grimaced at the memory. “Which is why, instead of stripping him of his power, we have enhanced it. We have given General Ironwood a great victory. He is the hero of the day. All of Vale praises and acclaims him. So who is the loser from his victory?”
“We are,” Lightning muttered.
“Vale,” Emerald answered. “They looked weak, incapable of defending themselves, reliant on the Atlesians to rescue them.”
“Correct again, Emerald,” Cinder said, smiling at her. “Councillor Aris can talk all she likes, but the truth is that she has been humiliated, the latest in a line of humiliations that we have inflicted upon her – why, it’s almost as if I planned this from the beginning – and for all her strenuous and doubtless sincere denials, I predict that she will be hurled from office in a matter of weeks.”
“How does that help us?” Lightning asked.
“It doesn’t,” Cinder admitted. “But it is a symptom of the political strife and turmoil that we have set in motion, and strife and turmoil do help us. Vale needs Atlas right now, it needs General Ironwood, but it will also hate that it needs them and resent that need. None more so, I think, than the Valish military who were, as they say, missing in action during this grave crisis. They will resent the impression that they were unnecessary and resent it all the more because they will half believe it themselves. With some careful prodding, and the help of the siren Sonata and our fortunately misguided friends amongst the grimm cults, we can turn that envy and resentment into something far more… sinister.”
Lightning frowned. “You think you can get Vale to start fighting Atlas?”
“I think that in a febrile atmosphere, mistakes can be made, and accidents can happen,” Cinder said. “And when emotions are running high, mistakes and accidents can assume a far more sinister aspect.” She paused. “Our enemies probably think the same as you, Lightning Dust: they think that we’re done, they think that we’ve had our shot and missed, they think that we no longer have the power to threaten them. So let them celebrate their victory. Let them relax their watch. Let them turn their gaze to the Vytal Festival and all its delights. And all the while, we will be there, just out of sight, hidden from their gaze by the shadows of their own complacency, working to destroy them.”
“Despite the best efforts of Atlesian troops and academy students, at least one beowolf did manage to escape the perimeter. This grimm entered an evacuation shelter and killed five people before being put down by two detectives of the VPD, Lieutenant Daisy Jo Martinez and Detective Mallard Carter. The VPD has released the names of the five victims: Stable Lloyd, 43, a carpenter; Lily Kolea, 34, a housewife; Ochre Kemble, 50, a butcher; Pearl Wheatley, 21, a waitress; Bruno Savonarola, 38, a clown and children’s entertainer. The families of the victims have been notified, and our thoughts go out to them, as well as to the loved ones of Sky Lark, 17, a student from Beacon Academy who has been reported missing after the battle.”
What were you in life, to be worth sacrifice?
“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.”
“Six lives,” Sunset murmured, as she closed her scroll.
“Huh?” Rainbow asked.
The two of them were sat together, on one of the docking pads, their legs dangling out over the edge, kicking at the empty air as they looked out over Vale, wounded Vale, frightened Vale, astonished Vale. Living Vale. Vale that had lost six lives because of her.
The sun was setting, and the world was cast in red and gold. In her colours, the fiery colours of her splendid hair.
Fitting, considering that she had done this.
Sunset had been here before: with Cinder, after the battle in the Emerald Forest. They had sat on this docking pad and talked about nothing and yet, at the same time, seemed to talk about everything.
Cinder.
She knew me so well. I never really knew her at all, but she knew me well enough to play me like a flute.
Sunset glanced at Rainbow Dash. “Six lives,” she repeated. “Five dead in that shelter, plus Sky, makes six.”
“I can count,” Rainbow said, in a tone of gentle reproach. “Higher than six, anyway.”
“Pyrrha, Jaune, Ruby,” Sunset said, counting them off on her fingers as she did so. “Blake, Applejack.” She pointed at Rainbow. “And you make six.”
“And you make seven,” replied Rainbow Dash.
“I don’t count, I didn’t do it for me,” Sunset replied quickly. She looked away. “I saved six lives down in that tunnel… and I got six people killed.”
Rainbow frowned. “And you think… what? That the gods decided to balance the scales?”
“No,” Sunset replied dismissively. “At least I hope not, I just…” She sighed. “I got six people killed.”
“And you saved six lives,” Rainbow murmured.
“It doesn’t actually balance out, does it?!” Sunset demanded. “And why are you being so nice about this, why aren’t you judging me like you normally do?”
“I don’t always-”
“Yes,” Sunset said, “you do. All the time. For everything. You’ve gotten on my case for stupid little things that hardly did any harm, yet now, when I have done something genuinely… six people are dead because of what I did, and you don’t seem to care at all.”
“If you think what you did is so terrible, then why did you do it?” Rainbow asked her. “If pressing that trigger was such a heinous act, then why didn’t you… not press the trigger?”
Sunset looked away from her. “You know why.”
Rainbow was silent for a moment. “Do you like slasher movies?”
Sunset glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. “Excuse me?”
“Slasher movies,” Rainbow repeated. “Masked killers with really complicated backstories-”
“Baroque methods of execution?” Sunset asked.
“I have to guess what ‘baroque’ means, but I think so, yeah.”
“No,” Sunset answered. “I can’t say I’m a fan.”
“Me neither,” Rainbow muttered. “Fluttershy is.”
Sunset’s eyebrows rose. “You’re kidding.”
“I know; it’s incredible, isn’t it?”Rainbow muttered. “I guess it’s all in good fun, so long as it’s all make-believe.”
“I’m not seeing the relevance at all,” Sunset pointed out.
“Sometimes, from what I haven’t been able to forget about some of those movies, the killer sticks the girl in a death trap,” Rainbow explained. “And she can only get out by, like… there’s someone else in the trap, or in a different part of the trap, and the only way to get out of the trap is for the girl to… to kill that other person. That’s… it’s not great, but we don’t blame the girl in the death trap for it, and we don’t call her a monster because of what she did. She’s still the one we root for because we understand that the monster is the one who put her in that position in the first place.” She paused. “Do you get what I’m saying here: those six lives lost are… as tragic as it is, that blood is on Cinder’s hands, not yours. She did this.”
“I pressed the trigger.”
“Because she backed you into a corner!” Rainbow exclaimed. “You were in a death trap, just like the girls in all those movies.”
“We put ourselves in there,” Sunset reminded her.
“And you didn’t want to, did you?” Rainbow asked. “I didn’t pay enough attention at the time, but… you looked ill, when we all talked about getting on the train, and then you were the only one who didn’t really sign up for the whole… sacrifice, thing.”
“Mmm,” Sunset murmured wordlessly. “You did.”
“I wasn’t planning on Applejack getting on the train,” Rainbow explained. “Or perhaps I was just trying to hype myself up after what Salem did to me. It was still affecting you, wasn’t it?”
Sunset closed her eyes. “I could hear her words ringing in my ears, taunting me, telling me that I… that I’d lose everyone. And then Ruby and Pyrrha and Blake, they were all so ready and eager to sacrifice themselves that I… if I looked sick, it was because I was being made sick by them, by how eager they seemed to throw their lives away without a thought-”
“For the people who loved them,” Rainbow murmured. “For the people who would be left behind to wonder why, and what the point of it all was, and whether the world wouldn’t be better off with them still in it.”
Sunset looked at her. “How… or should that be who?”
It was Rainbow’s turn to look away, refusing to meet Sunset’s gaze. Her own gaze swept outwards over Vale, heading towards the setting sun as it disappeared over the horizon. “Looking back… no, not looking back, I mean that if we’d known then what we found out later-”
“With the benefit of hindsight.”
“Yeah, that, with the benefit of hindsight… you were right,” Rainbow said. “Getting on the train was a bad idea. We should have gotten Applejack out and then hustled back to the airship, passed on the warning to General Ironwood via Twilight to get it there faster, and hoped that we made it back to Vale in time for the battle. But we thought that we were only up against the White Fang, and we had a plan to deal with the White Fang.”
“Block the tunnel with the engine,” Sunset murmured.
“Right,” Rainbow agreed. “And then get out again. There were risks, sure, we might not have made it back, but… but there are always risks. Risk… risk is our business. And if it had only been the White Fang we were up against, then it wouldn’t have mattered that the tunnel exits had been sealed off, it wouldn’t have mattered if you’d detonated the mine, because the White Fang could have sat and stewed on the wrong side of the engine until we filled the tunnel up again. But the grimm… once the grimm started to follow that train, it changed everything. If we had known that the grimm were going to come – although maybe we should have seen it coming – I wouldn’t have gone along with the plan. I mean, obviously, the engine didn’t hold the grimm for very long so… what do you think our chances were of getting out of that tunnel alive were if you hadn’t blown up that mine?”
“Ruby’s eyes-”
“We didn’t know that Ruby’s eyes would do that, and we don’t know how many grimm she could have taken out that way, maybe not all of them,” Rainbow replied. “Maybe not enough. And you know that. I don’t think so badly of you that I’d think you’d do what you did for no reason.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Sunset said. “You remember how Ruby got into Beacon early?”
Rainbow nodded. “She fought Torchwick.”
“I was there too,” Sunset said. “And I… when Torchwick took the shopkeeper hostage, I went for him anyway. I was willing to risk that man’s life for the chance to take down my opponent.” She sighed. “Professor Ozpin… he made it pretty clear that I’d made the wrong choice, but… but he told me that I could learn how to be a hero at Beacon, even if I wasn’t one yet.”
Rainbow snorted. “Maybe… maybe there are no heroes,” she suggested. “Maybe there are just… people, trying their best and sometimes… not getting it as right as they’d like to.”
“Pyrrha is a hero,” Sunset insisted. “So is Blake.”
“Okay, I’ll let you have that one,” Rainbow conceded. “Blake is a hero.”
“And a hero, a true huntress,” Sunset murmured, “would have sacrificed themselves, just like they were willing to do, just like they were still willing to do when the threat changed from the White Fang to the grimm.”
“Sacrifice, well,” Rainbow muttered. “We in Atlas like to think that we know about sacrifice-”
“You in Atlas like to think you know about everything,” Sunset pointed out.
“Yeah, okay, but here’s the thing about sacrifice,” Rainbow went on. “You can only do it once, so you’d better make it count, and you’d better make damn sure that it’s worth it, and if you’re going to send somebody else to lay down their life, you’d better make extra damn sure that it’s worth it because you bet your ass you’re gonna carry that weight!”
Rainbow scrambled up onto her feet, looking down on Sunset even as she cast a shadow over her. “Those guys at Appaloosa, they died for something: they gave their lives so that the evacuation could be completed successfully and all the civilians could get out. They didn’t hold the line just so that everyone could read about the Stalwart Sixth in history books and talk about how brave they were after the fact, about what model Atlesian soldiers they were, they didn’t do it for that! They did it for a good reason! They did it for the only reason worth doing it at all: to save lives. That is… that is the only reason.”
Her chest rose and fell. It was hard to be sure in the fading light, but Sunset almost thought that there were tears pricking at the corner of Rainbow’s eyes. “If you want to get yourself killed for… if you want to give your life fighting a battle that you can’t win to hold empty ground that isn’t worth squat anymore or because you’re too proud to turn and run from a fight or because somebody has filled your head up with so much garbage that you think it’s noble, then… then as far as I’m concerned, you’re no hero. You’re just a selfish ass who can’t think about all the broken hearts you left behind.”
Sunset was silent for a moment. When she spoke her voice was soft and gentle. “Who?” she asked.
Rainbow sniffed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said sharply. “Do you really think that, if you had told Cinder to take a leap, that would have been it? We would have been eaten by the grimm and eventually General Ironwood would have stood down the fleet because it was clear nothing was going to happen?”
“Cinder said it was the only trigger,” Sunset said.
“Oh, come on!” Rainbow snapped. “Use your head! This was Cinder’s plan. This was Cinder’s entire plan! Look around, Sunset, we won! Cinder had one shot, just one. Now the grimm are dead, the White Fang are broken, all of their equipment is lost, everything that she built up is gone, just like that. She’s done now, because this was her shot. Do you really think that she was going to let you throw it away? Do you really think that she was going to risk everything she’d work for, and for what? So that she could see what kind of a person you are?”
“She said-”
“Head games!” Rainbow snapped. “I’ve no doubt she would have let the grimm kill all of us down in that tunnel, but then she would have detonated the mine anyway, even if she had to walk down into the tunnel herself and set it off manually. This was going to happen.”
“Maybe it was,” Sunset agreed, and now it was her turn to climb to her feet. “Maybe you’re right, maybe the breach was inevitable, but… but it doesn’t matter if Cinder was going to do it anyway; she didn’t do it. I did.”
“Because of the position that she put you in, the position that we put you in.”
“The girl has a choice,” Sunset declared. “Nobody forces her to kill the other guy in the death trap; she could choose to let him live and escape. Saving life, isn’t that what you said was the only reason to sacrifice?”
“And I just got done telling you that we wouldn’t have saved anyone!” Rainbow snapped. “You asked me why I was being so nice about this, why are you being so hard on yourself about this?”
“Because I wasn’t thinking about any of that!” Sunset cried. “I wasn’t thinking through the implications, I wasn’t debating the ethics and utility and sacrifice, I was… I didn’t want my friends to die. That’s it. That was my thought. That was my only thought.” She shivered. “I didn’t learn to be a hero; I only learned to be selfish at one remove.”
“You learned to love,” Rainbow corrected. “There’s nothing selfish about that.”
“Doesn’t Adam prove that love can be supremely selfish?”
“Adam didn’t love Blake.”
“I think Adam loved her as much as anyone has ever loved anything,” Sunset replied.
“That’s not love,” Rainbow insisted. “And you’re not Adam.”
“Ruby, Pyrrha, Blake, they all would have made a different choice.”
“A stupid choice,” Rainbow muttered.
“A different choice,” Sunset repeated. “I took that choice away from them.”
Rainbow folded her arms. “A good team leader knows her teammates better than their mothers do and loves them as much,” she said. “The General told me that once, and there was a time when I… when I led Team Raspberry, I knew Applejack, Maud, and Spearhead so well I knew what they were going to have for breakfast before they’d even woken up that morning. I knew them, and I took care of them too: I covered for Spearhead when he started pillaging the weapons marked for disposal for his art projects-”
“What kind of art uses broken guns?”
“I’ll show you if you’re ever in Mantle,” Rainbow replied. “I took the team on an unscheduled field trip to help the Apples with the cider press; I knew there was an area with some cool rocks Maud wanted to look at, so I took a mission in the area and then we stuck around for an extra day so that she could study them. I defied express orders to fall back because I wasn’t willing to leave them behind because, believe it or not, I was a good team leader back then. I was a great team leader. Just like you. You love your teammates, I know that, everyone knows that, you take care of them-”
“Six people are dead,” Sunset reminded her. “Six people are dead, six lives lost, doesn’t that matter?”
“Yes, it matters, of course it matters, but it’s not your fault!” Rainbow insisted. “You didn’t plan this, you didn’t set this situation up, you didn’t send all of those grimm, you didn’t sic that beowolf on those people. We can’t save everyone.”
“It’s not like I failed to save them, though, is it?” Sunset asked. “I caused… their blood is on my hands, even if it is on Cinder’s too. That is the weight that I have to carry.”
“You don’t belong with Cinder,” Rainbow insisted. “You belong here. You’re not a hero like Pyrrha or Ruby… but that’s why they need you.”
“I wish I could believe you,” Sunset said, turning away from the other girl. “It would be so, so easy to believe you, to just tell myself that I did the best I could, that I did what a team leader is supposed to do, to say ‘well, wouldn’t any mother sacrifice the world for the sake of her children?’ And if no one had died, if we had gotten away with it the way that I hoped we would, then maybe I could believe it, but… let me ask you this, do you believe everything that you just said, or are you justifying yourself to yourself, because like me, the only thing going through your head at the time was that you didn’t want Applejack to die?”
Rainbow said nothing, and in saying nothing, she said everything.
“That’s what I thought,” Sunset muttered. Her ears drooped. “Six people,” she repeated. “I saved my team, but I cost Bluebell one of theirs. I can’t just shrug that off.”
“Then what are you going to do?” Rainbow asked.
“I… I don’t know,” Sunset admitted. “I… don’t know.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.063 seconds
Total duration
990 users online
225,818 hits today, 2,314,256 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
As usual, Cinder deludes her own views of the world. While her twisted mind automatically warping any view of the situation into how it may still benefit her is commendable, it is deeply counterbalanced by how she overlooks everything else, including her losses. The arrival of one of the Sirens is indeed a very formidable ace up her sleeve, but that is still the only card she has left while everything else is in shambles. Just like her multiple losses from the CCT Tower:
The Mt. Glenn attack failed. Roman Torchwick and Neo are now firmly working against her, which also deprives her control of the Vale criminal underworld and slush funds. The White Fang has suffered severe losses in personnel, equipment, Dust, morale and their leader. Gilda is a fierce warrior, but she has no sense of administration to help the survivors truly recover and rebuild in the coming months. The world is finally free of Adam's sense of ruthless spite towards anyone that every slighted him, Human or Faunus, and I doubt that any replacement that Sienna Khan sends will be as spiteful and bloodthirsty as Adam, let alone as tolerant of his 'mysterious human allies'. The White Fang resents Cinder more then ever now.
Cinder is right about one thing, to look at what was gained instead of what was lost. But she gained nothing today, whereas we ourselves have accomplished so much more. Not a single Huntress, solider or civilian was lost, which is a perfect victory. Several of our team members suffered a few deep scratches, but scratches can be mended. And Ruby Rose has awakened her Silver Eyes. Thanks to the hard work and sense of loyalty to one another that Rosepetal and Sapphire have demonstrated today, Cinder and the White Fang have only bloodied our nose and strengthened our resolve.
To rescue the world from dark mysticism and tyranny, and usher in a future brighter than anything we can imagine! From the last blade, to the last bullet, to the last minute, to the last man... we fight! We fight TOGETHER!
9572432
The hole in those defences is still there and is a drain of resources and manpower.
Filling those tunnels with atrong material so they don't gwt used again also won't be fast.
9572456
A hole that the White Fang currently lacks the resources and manpower to attempt to breach again, and won't be able to for months. They can't compete in a race with Atlas' resources and self-sufficiency, let alone with Vale support. It is logistics that win wars.
Seriously, it was Mercury who made the biggest impact on them today just by breaking Jaune's sword... and he nearly died for it. And unlike human lives, swords can be mended or even replaced.
Now that the Breach is dealt with, Sunset can now focus on the important things in life: confronting Ozpin on his knowledge about Equestria, deciding whether or not to introduce her friends to Celestia and Twilight (and opening the whole parallel universe personalities can of worms), and making sure said friends don’t tell anyone else about Equestria without her permission.
...
That and finding out what Cinder will do next as well as handling Rainbow Dash and her knowledge about Sunset’s ambiguous decision.
No wonder Cinder’s evil, she’s been reading the comments sections.
I am very interested to hear the conversation between Sunset Shimmer and Rainbow Dash about her decision to destroy the train's controls. Will this rend their (slowly mending) relationship asunder, or will it be the thing that finally brings them together as friends?
It's hilarious how in this story Cinder just comes across as delusional. The show establishes her as a major threat but in this story, it's become really hard to take her seriously anymore because of how she seems to think she hasn't suffered serious failures and that she can somehow make this all still work.
I look forward to Rainbow Dash confronting Sunset or the other way around. Her aggressive and cold response pretty much confirmed that she witnessed the conversation between Sunset and Cinder, as well as the aftermath. I think she didn’t tell anybody about what our local pyro did, because she, what a surprise, believes in loyalty. And Sunset Shimmer was Rainbow’s sister in arms during their mission. Still, that doesn’t mean she has to like what Sunset did. In fact, she has a very good reason to distrust her now, because no sacrifice is big enough for the Sunset Shimmer she witnessed, as long as her friends are safe.
9573667
As much as Cinder would claim that everything was going according to plan no matter what happened, in this case it really is: this is what she mapped out when her attempt to hack the CCT failed; losing Adam was unfortunate and unexpected, but everything else happened as she wanted. That's why, in previous chapters, she thought about allowing Sunset to grain transient glory from stopping the Breach, that's why she insisted that at least some of the Atlesians had to survive and that's why she was so anxious that Sunset didn't stop the train: she needed a public display that the Atlesians could step in and stop to germinate the idea of a false flag and engender hostility to Atlas.
9573890
It's still really dumb, it's like Zemo from Captain America 3 when you look at the end result his plan seems really brilliant. But then you look back and realize just how reliant the plan was on everyone acting a certain way and performing certain actions. Like what if Iron Man didn't follow Cap to that secret base at the end? What the hell was Zemo's back up plan? Just dumb stuff like that.
Cinder just ends up coming across as a pathetic villain desperately trying to make a last minute plan work and of course, she's gonna succeed because otherwise we have no story but it still becomes really hard to take her seriously when she goes "all according to plan" while standing over the beaten and dead bodies of her allies that such an outcome cost her.
Now, this isn't so much a criticism as it is an observation. I still like the story and I don't mind this portrayal of Cinder as she was never really an enjoyable villain, to begin with in my opinion. If she's gonna be a walking Xanatos Gambit so be it I'm mostly here for the other characters anyway.
9573890
That makes sense to me. I knew there was something I wasn't seeing about her plan but it would make sense that the answer was that it was to rile up a group of people I don't like thinking about.
9572725
Sorry it seems my wording was wrong. I meant to say that Remnant magic is a creation of the God of Dark just like the Grimm and that is why Ruby's eyes, which I know are from the God of Light, seems to hurt Cinder before her Grimm augmentation.
9573890
She is setting them up for the fall. If she has a recording of Sunset destroying the controls, Ruby using her her silver eyes, or even the knowledge about what penny is, all the fame and trust people have in them will crumble. The more loved they are by the masses the more hated they will be when Cinder makes it look like Atlas (who has freaking terminators) allowed the attack to occur for personal gain, made worse by the fact that beacon has a girl who can just take out Grimm on command (as far as they know).
seriously, all she needs to do is during the festival leak evidence that Ironwood knew about the attack ahead of time, and a convenient video of Sunset destroying the controls while Rainbow watches, and the people will be rioting. Throw in a Siren to amp up those feelings of betrayal and doubt and you could have a riot big enough to make the French revolution look tame... before the Grimm kill every one.
9574876
Now THAT would be a good plan, and i hope that is what happens. I've very little love for the obvious alt- right pop culture commentary here, but i do like this story. But as far as her current plan of appealing to the conspiracy minded? It's just dumb as is.
Now throw in what you're talking about and really challenge the higher ups in the kingdoms on an ideological level? That would make for a far more painful and impacting conflict than mere fighting or terrorism.
9573906
All we saw in Civil War was the part of Zemo's plan that worked out. To his credit, he figured out a way to divide the Avengers long-term, which he correctly deduced could only happen if they fought each other through psychological manipulation. He literally says exactly that in the film. Not everything did go according to plan, because he had to ask multiple people what happened on Dec. 16, 1991.
Let's consider what would have happened if Iron Man didn't follow Cap and Bucky. Zemo was already way ahead of them and knew exactly where he was going. We see his head through a window at one point, but there was plenty of time before and after that to sabotage their plane if he wanted to, stranding them in the frozen Siberian wasteland.
Who are they referring to
This is a good point
Regarding his appearance, it's kinda weird to see something refer to how he look "more red than orange" in a fanfiction where the counterparts of equestrians have normal skin-color except for some kind of Faunus (like the one who had fought Maria).
I potentially ship Sunset with Cinder, but i still want Sunset to turn her into a litteral bloody mess for this psychological torture, knowing full well Sunset's choice wouldn't matters.
11016312
I supposed that the red comment was highlighting that he was in the middle of a tirade. His speech was aimed to inflame the feelings of the people of Vale (so they want Novo head on a pike) and that works best when the orator himself is also highly animated while he talks, which would cause him to blush red.
11016312
I can't wait to see what Sunset thinks of how Princess Twilight made the same choice, surrendering her alicorn magic and the last known form of Equestria's resistance to Tirek in exchange for the safety of her friends. Even when they urged her not to.
And think of it this way. For all her cunning, Cinder is deluded and her perceptions are warped. She genuinely thinks that she has done Sunset the greatest favor in the world by forcing her true colors to emerge. In her own twisted way, she thinks herself a friend to Sunset... when in fact she has wounded Sunset far deeper than anything that Pheobe had ever done to Cinder. Is this what Cinder thinks that friends do to each other? Inflict worse torture that which they suffered and feared for so many years?
11016525
Yeah, i figured that, simply it was all i could think beside saying he had a good point.
What do you think of what i had said regarding Cinder and Sunset ?
I usually read the comments on spacebattles as well because they are extremely entertaining, and honestly, i agree with you regarding the shelter.
Like seriously, it's the Capital City of one of the 4 kingdoms, even a Elder Ursa shouldn't had been able to do that, also, shelters should be full of dust ammo with at least handguns to allow the civilians to protect themselves.
Apparently, in the original story there is a militarisation project, and while there was some authoritarian things which made it a problem, the militarisation itself was really needed.
Like holy shit, Vale is embarassing.
Also, i had seen you talk of a "aska" who is she ? Give the long version please.
11016695
Cinder see Sunset as a sort of mirror of herself, proud, powerful, ambitious, ruthless and furious.
What she want is a copy of herself, because she see herself in her.
Cinder Fall is a monster, who see persons as either things she must destroy or things she must own and be able to use as she wish.
Which is also why she love Sunset, because Sunset have a kind warmth which Cinder desire, she want Sunset to be her's, she want than Sunset be only kind to her, she is, in Cinder's eyes, her soulmate, a idea which clearly became more strong after the two literally shared their souls.
Cinder is a Yandere which had taken a bit of Sunset into her, creating between them stronger of a bond than that of lovers.
11016715
Lets see.
About your take on Sunset and Cinder, I think you are correct. Cinder is a selfish person, she always has been from the very start, even before she got traumatized by the Kommenos, and that translates into a highly possessive desire of Sunset, who is everything she wants.
About Aska, as I understand she is a shared OC between SAPR and StSDtD (I don't read Cody fic so I have no details from that side) and she is the adopted daugther of Ironwood. In SAPR she appears much later in the story, after the Fall of Beacon, and while we don't have the full details we know that she has a really strained relationship with his dad from what seems to be really bad communication between the two (as in, they still care about each other but aren't sure the other does too). There is also another adopted son, who is dead (the detonator of their current family situation), but as I said we still don't have the full picture in SAPR, just pieces here and there.
11016797
What do you think of what i had said regarding what Sunset should do once she truly learn than Cinder played mind games with her ? Which would meant than the guilt she had was based on lies.
Honestly, Sunset never enacted a true revenge throught physical means, on her own, on someone (against Adam, she shot him to save Blake) and her beating Cinder bloody is something needed.
Not as Cinder accepting being beaten like "i know i deserve it", but truly cathartic violence, because all this guilt ? This is something based on a mind game done by a sick, genocidal power-hungry cunt, and the "higher toad) road" of non-violence is a load of craps in some cases.
It's what Sunset should had done to Cardin, it's what she should do to Bon Bon, and after the personal suffering Cinder inflicted to her alongside against her friends would be sweet.
And really, Cinder suffering from the kind of mentality she wanted to foster into Sunset would be a nice payback.
Regarding the valish militarisation, do you agree with my pov ?
11016810
Rainbow already pointed out the obvious fact that there was no way that Cinder had no other way of activating the mine and Sunset didn't care, because she is more concerned about what being willing to choose like that says about her than about the situation itself. She isn't going to do anything to Cinder for this, at worst she will tell her how deeply it hurt her (which ironically could hurt Cinder far more, Cinder is hardened against physical pain, not emotional).
About militarization, Remnant should be far more militarized that what is shown in the show, the threat of the Grimm is a permanent shadow over their lives and it has been shown repeatedly that you need a serious investment in firepower to have any chance if you don't have huntsmen, and those are really low in numbers.
I get that Atlas is taking care of the heavy lifting, but Vale is being absurdly lax, which I blame on their current leaders. You need a single generation feeling safe for the entire defensive structure to fall into disrepair.
11016841
The thing is, Cinder revealing it, and thus revealing than she played with Sunset feelings, is far different, it's like in movies when someone need to hear it from the guilty because they care about the guilty after all, regarding Cinder, Sunset tend to be quite passive.
Honestly, i think than Atlas weakened their "allies" on purpose.
Remember, Atlas is strong, but ultimately, Vale crushed Mantle and Mistral (Vacuo never had a strong military power, so it was a help, but not too much either).
Let's be real, Vale should be as strong as Atlas, if Ozma hadn't messed up (and yes, forcing a abdication of all monarchies after a bloody war and during a Great Faunus uprising is stupid, especially since he had the political power to force a far better deal with the Faunus where they would have been more satisfied) and he then allowed Atlas, the successor state, to take over as the mightiest military power.
It is certainly due to the mines (especially the Schnee mines) than Atlas had a advantage, but the fact is, Vale was the leading state, and by his actions, Ozma allowed the kingdom to fall without preparing a proper administration, allowing a Oligarchic system and letting the most anti-faunus state to gain the upper hand, feeding into the nationalist narrative.
He likely was considered a hero to Vacuo, who at this point had been abused by the economics demands of business from Mantle and Mistral for decades, by demanding a general abdication, he stopped any chances than Vacuo became united throught hardship under a strong central leadershyp (because as it's turn out, central authority can became much easier to accept if the persons in power are liked) and/or to get special contracts which could have allow them to rebuild their territories.
I do not support the "evil Ozma" or "Stupid Ozma" usually, but damn, in this story at least, it is clear than he was the worst moron of the century the day he had broken the Four Monarchies this way and how the mess he caused allowed Broken Mantle to turn into Atlas, a state able to crush all 3 kingdoms with half of their forces (even if the others used all of their Huntsmens and Huntresses) when if Vale hadn't fallen like that, it could still give them a run for their money.
Also, did Ozma had childrens as the Last king of Vale ?
Edit : to be clear, if you think i am wrong, explain why, i would love to have a discussion about it.
Also, which chapter of the original talk in great length of that ? The rewrite had Cinder talking of how foolish giving up power was, but it's only because she is a power-hungry bitch, she don't see it outside of the "more power is always good" angle.
I would also love to hear Scipio's opinion regarding this.
...Yeah, considering that a single wolf was able to forcefully breach a shelter door, someone at the construction company was quietly funneling funds away from the project, likely under the logic of 'There's no way that the Grimm will get that deep into Vale... and if they did, shit has already hit the fan so hard the shelter likely isn't going to do shit anyway'. Someone is going to be lynched and if the First Councilor is smart she'll turn the greedy cheapskate who stole funds from shelters be a good scapegoat.
11016872
That sounds both paranoid and ignorant of the historical situation. That historical situation is that Mantle became the dominant military power is because they were the only kingdom who could. Vale might have won, but they lost so much population in the war that they weren't able to maintain all their possessions east of the mountains. Indeed, all the kingdoms lost so much that in her tutoring of Ruby in history Sunset speculates that humanity was on the brink of collapse. However, that war was fought on Valish soil, on Vacuan soil, and on Mistrali soil, but wasn't fought at all in Mantle territory, which means that they were the only ones left with the infrastructure to field a military.
So regardless of what the Last King of Vale did Mantle becoming the dominant military superpower was the only possible outcome available for the post-war geopolitical situation. The only question was whether the new Mantellian Century would be one of prosperity, or a hundred years of darkness. Given how all the kingdoms still have their political independence and are so prosperous that they now think of defense as something minor, I'd say that the Last King of Vale was successful.
11016797
Aska isn't an OC. She's actually a character from Cy Girls, which was a relatively obscure Takara-Tomy (Hasbro's partner company) property from the mid 2000s. It got a line of dolls, and a PS2 video game staring Aska as one of the two main characters in her quest for revenge against the people who killed her parents and the other members of the ninja clan Koryu. (Aska also was the Cy Girls representative in a fighting game that saw her in a roster that included Optimus Prime and other Hasbro characters.) In Spark to Spark, Dust to Dust (and probably SAPR too) what happened is that General Ironwood smashed into the lives of Aska and Kogetsu when they were still young and stopped Aska's quest for revenge early through the surefire coping mechanism method of brutally murdering the people who killed her family, and then he adopted the two and gave them a new family. However, as you might have been able to guess, their lives weren't a fairy tale with a happily ever after in either story.
11016966
Ohh nice, thanks for the trivia. Holly hell is that an obscure IP, Wikipedia barely has any info on them.
11016966
Again, i did said then if i misunderstood, then i would gladly accept a answer who would explain the problems.
Honestly, while i now agree on Mantle/Atlas dominance, which pretty much is like ww1 germany but less hurt, it doesn't change the fact than the general royal abdication caused a mess, and he still had enough influence go create a better situation with the Faunus.
I didn't talked of Mistral because the Monarchy there was screwed anyway from many accounts, and Pyrrha's ancestor couldn't had kept the throne, however, there is a difference between hegemony of one state and being so pathetic.
And let's be real the Grand Royal abdication was stupid, the states weren’t prepared for it, Hell, it's likely why the title of "Kingdom" for all was still kept.
If you know a fanfiction focus on this period, i would love to read it.
Seriously, this period is a gold mine of opportunities, even more the SAPR version frankly.
11016966
That's not entirely true, the Great War was never fought in Mistral (unless you count grimm destroying defenceless villages), the Mistralians were able to keep the war in Vale and Vacuo; however, the Faunus Rights Revolution was entirely fought in Mistral, so they got hit that way.
Now than i think of it, what will you write since now the story is (unfortunately) on Hiatus ?
11018697
I'm still writing this, I'm just building up a backlog of chapters.
Besides, you know what else I'm writing, I'm writing Concert of Europe because you asked me too!
11018738
Well, since it's a "one update every two weeks" thing at best per your own words, i didn't pay it much mind since i had not that much reasons to assume there would be a hiatus, and since there is no New chapters of "the Concert of Europe", i simply assumed it would stay the same.
Am i wrong ?
IE, i assumed you would focus on something else since you didn't announced anything like faster releases for the Concert of Europe nor did you gave me reasons to believe that.
11018763
Well, the alternating of the two weeks I'm writing something MLP related that is really something that only a small group of friends would be interested in.
But mostly I'm still going to be writing SAPR, just not publishing it.
Now than i think of it, does pictures/drawing of a persons change depending of The world ? If Sunset and Princess Celestia had a little portrait or picture of the two together (you know, like the one keep in things tied to the neck) would it had showed their human (well, more likely Faunus) or Equestrian looks when on Remnant ?
Is there some omakes, either written by you or by fans, with Sunset talking of Celestia to someone prior to the person knowing of Sunset true identity ? The moments when Sunset talked of Celestia to her friends without them knowing what Celestia (and thus Sunset) were had been among my favorites, and i would love to read something of what they thought about Sunset past and regarding what they knew of her adoptive mother and their relationship.
I asked this because it was something i just thought of (as for the omake bit, it's mostly because i really want to read bits of APR thoughts of Sunset past prior to knowing the pony part).
Also, is there a Page will all of the fanarts of the story ? I would love to see all of them.
Scipio, do you have a link to all the fanarts of the story ?
11020968
If you join this discord server, then they are held in a single channel there. Other than that, no, there isn't a single location where they're all stored.
Good job. It hit.
You did it, a masterpiece. I cried, full admittance. And you know what, Sunset knowing exactly the consequences this time. Oh that makes it all the worse. Not waiting months for someone to suddenly knock it over her head, but to be every last bit aware, her choice killed them. That talk between Sunny & Dash. Oh yeah, that hit home. Good job.
The fact that this is messing with Sunset so much shows she does care about people other than her friends more than she realized and also shows she’s more different than Cinder than she gives her credit for.
I definitely agree with RD that Cinder deserves most of the blame for the breach. I definitely think this more of a moral grey decision, but I suppose as far Sunset is concerned she sees it as nothing more than selfish.