• Published 31st Aug 2018
  • 20,315 Views, 8,846 Comments

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.

  • ...
96
 8,846
 20,315

PreviousChapters Next
The Atlas That Can Be (New)

The Atlas That Can Be

Cadance’s office looked as though it was made of glass. The floor was so shiny that Rainbow could see herself reflected on its surface as she walked in, and it was the same with the walls too, like the whole office was one giant mirror surrounding her and the councillor. Cadance’s desk was made of metal and polished to a sheen as reflective as the walls themselves. The back wall was taken up with a giant window, out of which she could see the skyscrapers of Atlas stretching out towards the edge of the world, and the airships — military and civilian — flying over and around them like whales mingling with sharks.

An Atlesian flag sat in the corner of the office, there was a law school degree on the wall, and on the desk sat various little touches that mitigated against the impression of a glass box: photos in digital frames, a couple of trophies, an old chipped coffee mug and a model of an Atlesian cruiser.

Cadance got up from her chair as Rainbow Dash walked in, and the door slid shut behind her. “Rainbow Dash!” she said, as the smile on her face reached all the way up to her eyes. “Welcome home.”

Rainbow smiled. “It’s good to be back, ma’am,” she said, “but you don’t need to get up for me.”

“But I did anyway,” Cadance said. “Please, sit down?”

“That’s fine, ma’am,” Rainbow said, clasping her hands behind her back as she stood in front of Cadance’s desk.

“Suit yourself,” Cadance murmured. She did sit down, the smile still on her face. “So, how does it feel to be back home?”

Rainbow thought about it for a moment. “Beacon was nice, and the people we met were cool, and there were long stretches when nothing happened, but … then something would happen, and you remembered that this was a town with the White Fang running amuck. It’s good to be somewhere that can’t happen. It’s good to know that Twilight, and the others, are somewhere that can’t happen.” She grinned. “Plus, I’ve missed the cakes at Sugarcube Corner.”

Cadance chuckled. “How are you doing, Rainbow?”

“I’m fine,” Rainbow said.

“Really?” Cadance asked. “Twilight says that you’ve been subdued lately.”

Rainbow hesitated. “You’ve spoken to Twi?”

“I am her sister-in-law,” Cadance reminded her, not that Rainbow needed reminding. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine, ma’am,” Rainbow said. “It will be fine, anyway.”

Cadance raised one eyebrow. “You don’t have to say that if it isn’t true.”

“You’re on the Atlas Council, ma’am; you don’t need issues that I can take care of myself,” Rainbow said. “But … there is one thing — okay, there are two things, but you know about one of them already, so one other thing — that you could help me with, or that I could use your advice on.”

Cadance rested her hands upon the desk. “Name it.”

“Has Twilight spoken to you about Penny?” Rainbow asked. “She had doubts almost from the start; I didn’t take them seriously at the time, but since then, I … I’ve started to think she might have been right all along.”

“In what way?”

“So Twilight has spoken to you about this?” Rainbow asked.

“About Penny?” Cadance clarified. “No, I’m afraid she hasn’t. Enlighten me. Is something amiss with the project?”

“That’s the problem,” Rainbow said. “Penny is a person, not a project, and I … when we first moved in to Beacon, Twilight asked me if we had built a slave. I told her 'no.' I didn’t exactly blow her off, but I … well, I gave her an answer that seems … looking back, it seems like kind of an easy answer.”

“Which was?”

“That we wouldn’t be forcing Penny to do anything because she’d obviously want to fight for Atlas,” Rainbow said. She smiled sheepishly. “I think that, back then, I couldn’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t.”

“Has that changed?” Cadance asked.

“Atlas can still rely on my loyalty,” Rainbow assured her.

Ninety-five percent of it, anyway. Ninety-eight percent. Some pretty high percentage. If that train had been about to smash into Atlas, I would have stopped Sunset. If Rarity and Pinkie and Fluttershy had been in Vale — being onboard the Valiant doesn’t count — I would have stopped the train. Ninety-something percent. Yeah.

“But I understand why not everyone would feel the same way. I … I don’t want you to think that I’m making excuses for Chrysalis, but I understand a little more why some people hate us, even if we — as in all of us, as in you, as in Twilight, as in the girls and the General and people who haven’t done nothing — don’t deserve it. The point is that what I told Twilight back then, that it didn’t matter if Penny didn’t have a choice in the matter because she’d choose what everyone wanted her to do anyway … I’m not sure I believe that any more.”

Cadance was silent for a moment. “And what do you think that she would do instead?”

“I don’t know,” Rainbow admitted. “I haven’t asked her. Nobody has.”

“Then it’s a little early to be worrying about it, don’t you think?”

“Isn’t it time to think about it now, rather than when she decides what she wants and finds out that …” Rainbow trailed off.

“Put like that, you’re making me regret that the Council didn’t probe harder into the ethical ramifications of this before signing off on Penny’s creation,” Cadance murmured. “We were promised the future of warfare.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure — almost certain pretty sure — that Penny wants to be a huntress,” Rainbow said. “I’m just not so sure that it’s under the banner of Atlas.”

“Atlas paid for Penny’s creation,” Cadance reminded her.

“Atlas pays for the defence of most of Remnant; how much of that is really to our benefit?” Rainbow asked.

“Do you want to get into the cost-benefit analysis of all our military operations and the general benefits of maintaining life and stability across Remnant?” Cadance asked.

“I probably should,” Rainbow admitted. “But right now, I’d prefer to remind you of what you said when you were sworn in as a member of the Council: Let every nation and all peoples know, whether they wish us well or ill, that we shall support any friend, oppose any foe, meet any hardship, surmount any obstacle, bear any burden, pay any price to ensure the survival and the success of liberty.”

Cadance leaned back in her chair. “Yes,” she said softly. “Yes, I said that. And I meant it. Old Mantle sought to decouple life from liberty, thinking to preserve life by circumscribing it, by putting limits upon it, by chaining hearts and minds and souls in the name of safety and security. Now we know better. Now we know that life without liberty is … not worth living.”

“Then what about Penny’s liberty?” Rainbow asked. “How can we go out there to every corner of Remnant and fight for the freedom of all peoples when we’re forcing someone to fight for Atlas against her will? Councillor, I … I believe in what you said, I’ve quoted your words in defence of Atlas and what we do, I … I’d hate to see Atlas betray itself, and I’d hate to see it betray Penny.”

Cadance looked Rainbow in the eye. “What is it you want me to do?”

“Nothing,” Rainbow said. “I just want to know what … if this isn’t what Penny wants, then what does that mean? What will happen to her?”

“Doctor Polendina will have an opinion on that, I’m sure, and so will General Ironwood,” Cadance said. “Have you spoken to General Ironwood about this?”

“No,” Rainbow admitted.

“Why not?”

“The General has a lot going on,” Rainbow said. “I didn’t want to bother him with it.”

Cadance looked at Rainbow Dash in silence.

Rainbow shuffled uncomfortably on the shiny, reflective floor. “I … I was worried … I didn’t want to hear him say that he didn’t … I didn’t want him to betray himself.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Of course I trust him!” Rainbow cried.

“‘Of course’?” Cadance asked.

Rainbow sighed. “Ciel thinks I’m a fool. She thinks it’s never going to happen and I should forget about it — and probably encourage Penny to forget about it too, assuming that she’s even thinking about it. She thinks that … that Atlas won’t let Penny go. But every student has the right to quit the Academy at any time prior to graduation, every officer has the right to resign their commission—”

“But enlisted men don’t have that option, they have to serve until their term expires,” Cadance pointed out.

“Okay, but Penny isn’t enlisted, and she didn’t sign up for twelve years or six or even at all,” Rainbow said. “So what I want to know is, 'will she have the same rights as any other student or officer?'”

“I … don’t know,” Cadance admitted. “As I say, General Ironwood will have a view on that, as will Doctor Polendina, and it may in the end come to the Council to decide. And I can’t say for sure what that decision will be.”

“I see,” Rainbow muttered.

It was not the answer that she had been hoping for; perhaps it had been the answer she should have expected nonetheless, the answer that Ciel had been telling her to expect. After all, Ciel made very logical, very valid points; Rainbow had just been hoping that logic would yield in the face of the ideals of Atlas.

“But, if that is the path that Penny wishes to take, if she wishes to take off her uniform, then I give you my guarantee that the Council will hear her case, no matter who tries to stop it,” Cadance vowed. “I won’t let her be silenced. And, although a good arbitrator should try to reserve judgement until they’ve heard the arguments, on the basis of what you’ve said, I can also say that I am minded to take her side. Because you’re right: this is a matter of liberty and civil rights. Rights to which Penny is no less entitled than anyone else in this kingdom.”

“Really?” The grin spread across Rainbow’s face from ear to ear. “Thanks! I mean, thank you, ma’am, I … I appreciate that. If it comes to it, then I’m sure Penny will too, but right now … I’m glad you’ve got my back.”

“You’re doing the right thing,” Cadance said. “How can I not support that? How can I not support you when you’re trying to keep Atlas honest and true to itself? As a Councillor, that should be one of my highest priorities, alongside the defence of the Kingdom itself and its citizens.”

Rainbow nodded. “I knew that I could count on you. I hoped I could.”

“I’m sure that if you speak to General Ironwood, you’ll find that you can count on him too,” Cadance suggested.

“I … I’ll think about it,” Rainbow said. She paused for a moment. “I … I actually came in here to talk about something else, if you don’t mind? When I asked to see you, it … that thing that we—”

“The scar?” Cadance said.

“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “The brand anyway. I know that you’ve probably been really busy, but I wanted to see if you’d found anything.”

Cadance was still for a moment, and silent. “I have been looking into it,” she assured Rainbow. “Discreetly, of course. Not that you’d expect for something like this to be written down and archived, but I can find no evidence of this kind of mistreatment of faunus — employees or otherwise — by the SDC.”

“I know what I saw,” Rainbow insisted.

“And I believe you,” Cadance said. “Because I have found evidence of a cover-up.”

“But you just said—”

“Nothing,” Cadance said. “And that’s suspicious, don’t you think? I’ve looked back twenty years and can’t find any evidence of an Adam Taurus ever having been employed by the SDC. Based on what information is known about the man, it doesn’t seem he could have been employed before that, would you agree?”

“He didn’t seem that old,” Rainbow said, “Mid-twenties at most, so … yeah, that checks out. He … he spoke to Fluttershy, when she was held prisoner beneath Mountain Glenn. He told her that he started working down the mines when he was a boy.”

“If he was twenty-five, then that would make him ten fifteen years ago,” Cadance said. “Which, as you say, checks out. Of course, if workers were being abused by the SDC, then it would make sense that there would be no records of those employees. I thought perhaps to interview supervisors and managers from that period to see if any of them remembered Taurus or anything similar happening to other workers, but everyone I’ve been able to trace…”

Rainbow frowned. “What is it?”

“Everyone that I’ve been able to trace has died, either in one form of accident or another or by suicide,” Cadance said. “I haven’t been able to find anyone from that time alive.”

“It sounds like someone’s cleaning house,” Rainbow said. “When was the last death?”

Cadance was silent for a moment. “Two weeks ago.”

Rainbow’s eyes widened. “'Two weeks'? That’s—”

“After you asked me to look into this,” Cadance said.

“So they’re not just cleaning house; they’re doing it now?” Rainbow gasped. “I … Cadance, I’m sorry; I didn’t think that—”

“You don’t have to apologise—”

“The hell I don’t; I’ve put you in danger,” Rainbow spat. She put her hands behind her head, turning away from Cadance as she began to pace up and down the room. “I didn’t think that they would … what if they decide it’s easier to just take you out instead of anyone you might talk to?”

“I’m a Councillor of the Kingdom of Atlas,” Cadance declared. “It’s not that easy to just make me disappear.”

Tell that to Chrysalis. “I should never have got you into this,” Rainbow whispered. “If anything happened to you because you got on the radar of the wrong people, I … how would I explain that to Twilight? Maybe … maybe you should drop it. Drop it now, and maybe … maybe they’ll think that you gave up.”

“You brought this to me,” Cadance said. “You asked me to find out the truth.”

“The truth isn’t worth your life!” Rainbow insisted. “The truth isn’t worth one single life spent to bring it out into the open. Shining Armor can’t hold the truth at night. He can’t love it.”

Cadance stood up. “If what happened to Adam Taurus is just the tip of the iceberg,” she said, “if there are historic abuses that the SDC is covering up — or gods forbid, present ones — then revealing that is worth more than my life.” The sapphire heart around her neck, set in its gold necklace, glimmered in the northern sunlight. “People like Adam Taurus deserve liberty no less than Penny, no less than anyone else, don’t you think?”

“Yes, but—”

“Atlas failed Adam Taurus,” Cadance said. “And in so doing, we created a danger which we then unleashed upon the rest of Remnant, doing harm to those we claim to protect. The least we can do is not fail those who need our help and protection now, before they become more problems for the other kingdoms to deal with.”

“No matter the cost?” Rainbow asked softly.

Cadance smiled. “I’ve no intention of dying just yet,” she assured Rainbow Dash. “As I said, I’m glad that you wanted to see me about this, because I may need your help. As you say, it’s clear that someone is tying up loose ends before I grab hold of them; if I come across a viable lead, I may need you to go and chase it up for me, as someone who—”

“Can handle herself in a fight?” Rainbow suggested. “That’s a good idea. That’s the best idea.” Certainly, it was a better idea than Cadance venturing out to meet with people whom — if they were right — someone was already actively hunting.

“Something like that,” Cadance said. “Although, Rainbow Dash … there are people who would be upset if you died, too. Remember that, if I do send you a name.”

Rainbow grinned. “I remember it anyway, Councillor, but thank you.”

“No, thank you,” Cadance said. “For bringing this to my attention and for agreeing to assist me more directly while you’re here. I don’t have a name for you yet, but I’m hopeful. The last killing was two weeks ago, and I’ve been keeping on top of police reports: no suicides, no accidents. It could be that whoever is behind this feels that all of the toothpaste has been squeezed back into the tube, with no more work required.”

“And if they’re right?” Rainbow asked.

“If I have to, I’ll send you down to Mantle and get you to talk to ordinary mine workers, see if they recall anything untoward,” Cadance said. “They can’t kill everyone who was employed at that time.” She paused for a moment. “You said that he talked to Fluttershy; did he tell her anything?”

Rainbow thought about it for a moment. Had he? What had Fluttershy told her about their conversation? “Fern,” she said. “Calli Fern. That’s the name Adam gave of the person who did that to him.”

“You could have mentioned that before now,” Cadance pointed out.

Rainbow winced. “He wasn’t sure that was actually her name.”

“Even if it was only something like that, it’s still more than we had to go on before now,” Cadance said. “I’ll see what it turns up.”

“I appreciate it,” Rainbow said. “I appreciate … all of this. I may not like the fact that you’re putting yourself at risk at all, but at the same time, I do appreciate that you care. That you’re taking this seriously.”

“I don’t want Atlas to betray itself either,” Cadance said. “I … can I be honest with you, Rainbow Dash?”

“Of course.”

“I’m terrified by the thought of how high up this might go,” Cadance said. “I don’t want to believe that Jacques Schnee could be a party, because then I’d also have to wonder how much some of my fellow councillors knew, and … it would be so easy to dismiss this. It would be so easy to simply tell you that there must be an explanation, that this is just a case of one bad apple, if that, if it wasn’t just a tragic mistake made in the heat of the moment. It would be so easy to come up with a comforting formula that would let Atlas off the hook. But that wouldn’t actually help Atlas. What happened to that man, no matter his crimes, gnaws at the very foundations of this kingdom, and there is nothing that I take more seriously than that. And so, however much the potential answers terrify me, however high up this might go, I’m going to keep following this trail.” She paused. “I’m not sure that General Ironwood would agree with me on this point, but I’ve always believed that our highest duty is not to the Atlas that is but to the Atlas that could be, but which will never be if we accept the Atlas that is without challenging it to be better. If there is darkness in Atlas, then only by shining a light upon it can we become that which we can be.”

A smile pricked at the corners of Rainbow’s mouth. “You sound like Blake,” she said.

“Blake Belladonna?” Cadance asked.

“Yes, that’s right,” Rainbow said. “We met her—”

“At Beacon, where you helped her beat the rap for her membership of the White Fang and the Valish concocted a cockamamie story about her having been an Atlesian agent undercover,” Cadance said.

“I know how it sounds,” Rainbow said, “and when I first found out that she’d been in the White Fang, I was as mad—”

“You don’t have to explain yourself, Rainbow; that wasn’t the prelude to a reprimand,” Cadance said.

“Oh,” Rainbow said. “It’s just that, I thought that after what happened—”

“If I didn’t like it, I would have let you know about it before you brought it up organically,” Cadance said. She paused. “She’s not a member of the White Fang anymore, is she?”

“No,” Rainbow said at once. “Blake has proved where her loyalties lie.”

“Then why should I have a problem with it?” inquired Cadance. “She’s the daughter of Chieftain Belladonna of Menagerie, isn’t she?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then what was she doing in the White Fang?” Cadance asked. “What was she doing … anywhere but Menagerie?”

“Her parents went to Menagerie,” Rainbow said. “She didn’t. Blake didn’t agree with them on … she thought they were running away.”

“From?”

“The struggle for faunus rights,” Rainbow said.

“Some might say that she’s done that herself,” Cadance observed.

“No,” Rainbow replied. “She’s just learned to fight for them in a different way. A way with less actual fighting … well, okay, she’s a huntress, so there’s still going to be fighting, but less—”

“I get the idea,” Cadance assured her. “Is she in touch with her parents at all?”

“No,” Rainbow said, not mentioning the fact that she hoped that might change soon thanks to her meddling. Okay, Ciel, maybe I am a controlling person, but only when I know best.

“Hmm,” Cadance murmured. “That’s a little disappointing.”

“Why?” Rainbow asked.

“I thought we might have an opportunity,” Cadance murmured. “To open up a dialogue between Atlas and Menagerie. I’ve often thought that the fact that the only state that is governed by the faunus is also shut out of our system of international relations is … freighted with hopefully unintended subtext about the way that our societies view the faunus.”

“I think that if we want to help the faunus, we could start by looking at problems closer to home,” Rainbow murmured.

“Perhaps,” Cadance conceded. “All the same … to have the Chieftain of Menagerie’s daughter here in Atlas. I’m told that you want her to join us.”

“Twilight has told you everything, hasn’t she?” Rainbow asked.

“What did you expect?” Cadance responded. “Is it true?”

“I’ve decided not to encourage her any more, but, yes,” Rainbow said. “I think she could do a lot here, for the faunus and for Atlas.”

Cadance nodded. “Do you think that she’d meet me, if I asked her to?”

“I think she’d be delighted,” Rainbow said. “Do you want me to bring it up?”

“Yes, please,” Cadance said.

“Okay then,” Rainbow said, “I’ll—” Her scroll buzzed. “I’ll get that later.”

“Answer it, by all means,” Cadance said. “It might be important.”

“Are you sure?” Rainbow asked, and then when Cadance nodded, she said, “Thanks.” She pulled out her scroll and opened it up. “I’m afraid I’ve got to go.”

“So it was important,” said Cadance.

“Very important,” Rainbow agreed. “Penny’s back.”

PreviousChapters Next