SAPR

by Scipio Smith

Rising Temperature (New)

Rising Temperature

Nora slurped loudly from the large slushy she gripped in both hands as she walked down the street.

“Is it me, or did the guy who sold this seem kind of rude?” she asked

“Probably just having a bad day,” Ruby said.

“I guess,” Nora murmured, before putting her lips around the straw again and slurping even more of her orange and mango drink, making the level in the plastic cup drop dramatically.

Yang tucked her hands behind the back of her head. “So, what do you guys want to do first?”

Nora stopped slurping and raised her hand in the air. “Ooh, we should totally check out the new axe-throwing place that just opened up. You throw axes.”

Yang grinned. “That does sound pretty cool. What do you think, Ruby?”

Ruby nodded. “Sure, why not?”

“Ren?” Yang asked.

Ren shrugged. “If you’re all happy, then I am happy.”

“That’s not exactly a full-throated endorsement,” Nora pointed out. “Is there something that you’d rather do instead?”

“Why make it a question of 'instead'?” Yang asked before Ren could respond. “We’ve got all day, after all; it’s not like we need to get back to Beacon for anything. If there’s anything that Ren wants to do, then we can do that too. Something caught your eye, Ren?”

Ren was silent for a moment.

“It’s not one or the other, really,” Yang insisted. “You can say what you want to do and not feel bad about it.”

“Then I wouldn’t mind visiting the Escape Room on Mortimer Row,” Ren said. “It’s supposed to be very challenging.”

“Aww, I’m no good at those things,” Nora moaned.

“And I don’t have the best record at things like axe throwing,” Ren pointed out.

“Settle down, children; like I said, it isn’t one or the other,” Yang declared. “How about you, Ruby?”

“Huh?”

“What do you want to do today?” Yang asked.

“Hmm,” Ruby murmured, cupping her chin with one hand as she thought. “Well…” She paused, catching sight of a series of posters plastered to the sides of the building she was passing by. She turned away from Yang and the others to get a better look at it.

The poster had a red background on which was depicted an android, bulkier than an Atlesian combat droid, wearing a sparkling red jacket, while its chest had been painted to look like a white shirt and a red bow tie. The robot was also wearing a top hat, while its face had been painted to resemble clown makeup, with a bright red smile stretching in an exaggerated U across its face and a red nose that looked like it was flashing.

Behind the android that was at once ringmaster and clown were pictures of a robot elephant rearing up and a robot lion baring its teeth.

“'Starhead Industries presents,'” Ruby said. “'Remnant’s first ever robot circus. See robots like you’ve never seen them before.' Hey, that sounds like it might be fun.”

“A circus?” Yang said, a little sceptically.

“A robot circus,” Ruby corrected her, turning back to the rest of the group. “Even if it isn’t great, it’ll be cool to see how they got all of the different robots to work. I wonder if they’ll have robot clowns, because programming humour must be really hard.”

“Maybe they’ll just have scary clowns,” Yang muttered. “But if that’s what you want, then sure, we’ll fit that in.”

The four of them were in Vale, where the day was bright, and — despite the fact that summer was drawing to an end and fall was rapidly approaching — the day was pretty warm. The city bustled around them, pretty much back to its former busyness after the shock of the Breach had temporarily driven people off the streets and into the shelter of their homes. It seemed like Councillor Emerald’s insistence that everything was going to be okay had done the trick, or maybe it was the arrival of General Ironwood’s reinforcements, or maybe it was just the fact that nothing bad had happened since the Breach that had made people feel safe again.

Either way, it seemed like everyone was out and about today, on the streets, in their cars, coming in and out of the subway stations; street vendors took advantage of the last days of the hot weather to hawk ice creams out of vans or little stalls, along with lemonade, or slushies like the one that Nora was drinking so rapidly despite its size.

With Sunset, Pyrrha, and Jaune all away, Ruby had joined the members of Team YRBN who weren’t called Blake for a day out, and the four of them ambled idly down the street, without much purpose or direction — until now, anyway.

“You don’t like circuses, Yang?” Nora asked.

“I’ve got nothing against them,” Yang replied. “I just think … they’re a bit for kids, you know?”

“Not necessarily,” Nora said. “We used to get all adults showing up sometimes, didn’t we, Ren?”

“On occasion, yes,” Ren agreed.

“'We'?” Ruby asked.

Nora gasped. “Did I never tell you that Ren and I used to work in a circus? Does that mean that I never told you about Ethel either?”

“Who's Ethel?” asked Yang.

“First things first,” Nora replied, skipping ahead of the others for a few steps, the strings of the bow at the back of her waist streaming out behind her, then whirling around her body as she turned back to face the rest of them. She started walking backwards, arms spread out on either side of her. “So, this all happened … a couple of years ago, right, Ren?”

“That’s about right, yes.”

“Ren was determined to get to Beacon Academy,” Nora said. “He had his heart set on it, didn’t you, Ren?”

“Beacon’s reputation is unparalleled,” Ren murmured. “I believed that we would receive a far higher standard of education here.”

“But to get there, we had to make enough money to afford to get to Vale,” Nora declared. “So, we got jobs at the circus! Ren never got any further than the monkey cage,” she added, laughter in her voice. “But I loved it there: the bright colours, the sounds, the animals, the costumes. It was awesome!” She twirled on her toe, humming a tune as she did so.

Yang chuckled. “What did you do in the circus?”

“We did everything,” Ren said.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Nora agreed. “We used to clean out the animal cages, we helped to set up the big top, Ren cooked.”

“You weren’t performers, then?” Ruby asked, a little disappointedly.

“Oh no, we got to be in the show too,” Nora declared. “Why, they said that Ren was the best natural whiteface clown they’d ever seen.”

“Mmm,” Ren murmured.

Ruby frowned. “Which is the whiteface clown?”

“The one who gets hit in the face with the custard pie,” Ren informed her dryly.

Yang blinked. “Were you an actual circus clown?”

“I took some lessons, under duress,” Ren said. “I never performed.”

“But I threw knives!” Nora said. “I was awesome at it.”

“I was the target you practiced on; we never performed that either,” said Ren.

“And we helped with the cannon trick.”

“We brought down the big top by using too much dust in the cannon,” Ren admitted.

“Pssh, anyone could have made that mistake,” Nora said. “Besides, it was totally worth it.” She sighed. “It was a magical time, but sadly, it wasn’t to last forever. After seven weeks of continuous rain and no business, that circus had to fold up; the owner was flat broke. So, to pay everyone in place of the money they were owed, he decided to divide up the show, so that everyone would get something valuable in place of money. He put all the items in a hat, and what each one of us drew, we got.” Nora paused. “I got the flea circus. I wonder whatever happened to those fleas.”

“I prefer not to think about it,” Ren muttered as he started scratching at his chest.

“And Ren,” Nora went on, “drew Ethel, the human chimp. She read, wrote, played the piano, and milked a cow. And wore a pretty cute tutu as well.”

Yang glanced at Ren, who said nothing.

“I liked her,” Nora continued. “I liked her a whole lot. I feel like we got each other, you know? But, Ren had a point that we couldn’t exactly take her with us on our journey, and that if we sold her to a zoo or something, we’d have enough money to make it to Vale. Ren planned to put Ethel in a crate he was making himself, but the lion chased us off before he could finish it.”

Yang and Ruby both looked at Ren, who still said nothing.

“The night was dark,” Nora said. “They usually are, after all.”

“Except in summer,” Ruby pointed out.

“Right,” Nora conceded. “Anyway, there we were, me, Ren, and Ethel, wandering the streets of Mistral together with a lion on the loose. We could have really used a place to stay, so Ren said to me ‘let’s get a room.’ And I said, ‘Alright, let’s get a room with twin beds.’ ‘Why twin beds?’ asked Ren. ‘One for me,’ I said. And then Ren said, ‘But I can’t sleep with the monkey!’ And I said, ‘Oh, she won’t mind.’ And then I turned to Ethel and asked, ‘You don’t mind sleeping with Ren, do you?’”

Yang was staring at Ren by this point, waiting for some correction that didn’t come. “Did … did that actually happen?”

Ren sighed. “Yes.”

“You really worked in a circus?”

“Correct.”

“And you really got a human chimp in place of payment?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Huh,” Yang said.

“Did you manage to sell her?” asked Ruby.

“She grabbed a gun and shot her way out!” Nora said.

“We got the gun away from her fairly quickly,” Ren corrected.

“How did she manage to get a gun in the first place?” demanded Yang.

“The owner of the boarding house burst in on us with it because he thought Ren was having an affair with his wife!”

Ren sighed. “Unfortunately, that is also true.”

Yang blinked rapidly. “Do I want to know how?”

“In a staggeringly unfortunate coincidence, his wife’s name was also Ethel,” Ren explained.

“Oh,” Ruby and Yang said at the same time.

“Yeah, that would explain it,” Ruby added. “That was unlucky.”

“You two,” Yang said, putting her hands on her hips, “have had a weird, wild life.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Nora said, winking.

Yang shook her head. “Okay,” she said. “So we’ve got axe throwing, escape room, and the robot circus where hopefully we don’t get stuck with a flea circus or a robot human chimp. I wonder what that would look like? Anyway, we’ve got—”

“What about you?” asked Ruby.

Yang looked at her. “What about me?”

“What do you want to do?”

Yang grinned. “I want to make sure that my sister and my friends have the best day, that’s what I want to do.”

“Come on, Ruby’s right,” Nora said, as she fell back into line with the rest of them. “If we’re all getting to do something we want, it’s only fair that you get to do something you want to do as well.”

“Well, if you’re going to twist my arm about it,” Yang said, “we’ll go dancing. Probably best to save that for the end of the day, though; anywhere that’s open earlier will be dead before nightfall. Which means we still have axe throwing, escape room, and the robot circus. Hmm.” Now it was her turn to touch her chin with her fingers, tapping them beneath her lower lip. “Why don’t we hit the escape room first, then the circus, then we can throw axes after dinner and find a cool club for a while before crashing back to school? Does that sound like a plan?”

“Fine by me,” said Ren.

“Sounds great!” Nora cried.

“Sounds like it’s going to be great,” Ruby added.

“That’s settled then,” Yang said. “Lead on to this escape place, Ren. Although, fair warning, you’re probably going to have to do most of the problem-solving yourself.”

“Is that so?” Ren murmured. “We’ll see.”

They walked a little further on down the street. As they walked, their footsteps thumping dully against the paving slabs, Ruby began to hear police sirens sounding not too far away.

“Do you guys hear that?” Ruby asked. “Do you think someone might be in trouble?”

“If they are, it’ll be because they deserve it,” Yang replied.

“You know what I mean,” Ruby said as their steps carried them before the mouth of an alleyway adjoining their street. “We should check it out; maybe we can help.”

“Sure,” Yang agreed, “if we can work out where it’s—”

Sun burst out of the mouth of the alleyway, almost colliding with Yang, who stepped nimbly aside to let him, stumbling to a stop, trip over his own feet and fall flat on his face.

“Sun?” Ruby asked.

Neptune followed Sun out of the alley. “Hey, guys,” he said, waving his hand. “What’s shaking?”

“Do you know anything about those police sirens?” Ruby asked.

Sun groaned wordlessly as he picked himself up off the ground.

Neptune laughed nervously. “They, uh, you see, it’s a funny story—”

“No, it isn’t,” Sun growled.

“No, you’re right, it isn’t,” Neptune admitted. “They’re after us.”

“They’re after you?” Ruby gasped.

“We didn’t do it, I swear!” Neptune protested.

“Didn’t do what?” Yang demanded.

“We didn’t do anything!” Sun cried. “We just … never mind, we gotta go, come on man!”

He took off, with Neptune following after him, darting across the road, weaving between the traffic and dashing into another alley on the other side of the street.

Ruby and the members of Team YRBN watched them go.

“Huh,” Yang said. “I wonder what happened there?”

“Do you think they really didn’t do it?” Nora asked.

“You don’t think they’re guilty of anything, do you?” Ruby asked.

“We don’t know either of them like you do,” Ren pointed out.

“I don’t know them very well,” Ruby murmured, “but I’m sure they wouldn’t do anything to get the police called on them.”

“The police do frequently get called to arrest people for … specious reasons,” Ren allowed.

“Well, if we want to find out what’s really going on, there’s one way to find out,” Yang said. “Hey, boys, wait up a second!”

She started to run across the road, waving to the traffic which slowed or halted to let her pass.

“Thank you!”

Nora looked at Ren. “I guess the escape room is going to have to wait a little bit,” she said.

Ren sighed, but when Nora began to follow Yang, he followed her without any hesitation.

Ruby went too, of course, and the four of them caught up with Sun and Neptune not too far away, having followed them through a tangle of back-alleys and narrow streets between the buildings, even as the sounds of the police sirens faded into the distance behind them.

The boys paused, halfway up a fire escape leading onto the roof of a building — Ruby couldn’t tell what it was, since they were behind it — with a water tower up on that roof. On said roof, the sun was shining, but Sun and Neptune paused only halfway up the metal ladder, Sun half draped across the safety rail while Neptune sat down upon the slightly rusting metal step.

Sun glanced at them. “You didn’t have to follow us,” he pointed out.

Yang grinned. “We were curious,” she said. “It would have been bugging me all day to know why the cops were after you. Especially for something you didn’t do.”

“We didn’t do it,” Neptune insisted.

“Then why were they after you?” Ruby asked.

“You were probably in the wrong place, weren’t you?” Nora guessed. “Somebody didn’t like the look of you in a nice neighbourhood.”

Neptune looked at her. “What makes you say that?”

Nora folded her arms. “You think it’s only faunus that happens to?”

“It wasn’t that,” Sun murmured. “Or … maybe it was that, kind of, but…” He sighed.

Yang stepped forward, stepping around — half over, really — Neptune to climb the steps, which rattled beneath her booted tread, until she was standing beside Sun, just lower than him upon the fire escape.

She reached out and put a fingerless-gloved hand upon his shoulder. “Hey,” she murmured. “I know that you don’t have to talk about it, but … it might help if you did?”

Sun glanced at her, and then glanced away.

Yang nodded. “Well, it seems like you lost them, so maybe—”

“He told me to go back where I came from,” Sun murmured.

Ruby blinked. “Who?”

“We don’t know,” Neptune said. “Some guy. We were minding our own business, and suddenly—”

“Suddenly, this guy shoves a thousand lien into my hand and tells me to go back to where I came from,” Sun said softly. “And I told him thanks, but you know it’s only ten lien for the airship back to Beacon, right?”

Yang chuckled. “What did he say to that?”

“He yelled that I was a thief and I’d stolen his money,” Sun said.

“We tried to give it back to him, but he just kept yelling,” Neptune added. “And then someone called the cops. You know the rest.”

“That’s awful!” Ruby said. “I can’t believe people would do something like that.”

“Can’t you?” Ren asked. “I can.”

Sun looked at them. “Did you … but you’re not—”

“No,” Ren agreed. “We’re not. But we’ve been outsiders before. The fact that we weren’t faunus didn’t help us very much.”

Sun scowled and tapped the railing with both hands. “It’s never happened to me before,” he said.

“Being offered money, or chased by the cops?” Ruby asked.

“It’s not his first time being chased by the cops,” Yang said.

Sun laughed. “They were sailors, not cops, remember?”

Yang nodded. “Yeah, that’s right; they were sailors off the boat.”

“It’s not either of those, anyway,” Sun went on. “I mean, it is my first time being offered money, but … it’s also my first time … dealing with … that, you know.”

“Really?” Ruby gasped, then covered her mouth as she realised how that sounded. “I just … I just meant, in Mistral—”

“He wasn’t actually in Mistral for very long, remember?” Neptune said. “He hopped on a boat to come here.”

“So, in Vacuo, it isn’t that bad?” Yang asked.

“In Vacuo, the strong survive,” Sun declared. “If you’re strong enough to live, then you’re allowed to live, if not … it doesn’t matter whether you’re a human or a faunus.”

“Kind of rough on the people who aren’t strong enough to survive,” Nora murmured.

“They get treated the same all over; it’s just in Vacuo, nobody pretends to care,” Sun said, his tongue sharpening. His brow furrowed. “Sorry, I … I just…”

“It got to you,” Yang murmured.

“People have treated me differently because I’m a faunus before,” Sun admitted. “But never … that. That’s a whole new—”

“Brazen level of jackassery?” Yang suggested.

Sun looked at her and managed to smile. “Yeah,” he said, “something like that.”

“I thought Vale was supposed to be tolerant,” Nora said.

“It is!” insisted Ruby.

“Apparently, not for everyone,” Nora pointed out, gesturing towards Sun.

“That was just…” Ruby trailed off for a moment. “I mean, it was awful, but it was just one guy—”

“And the cops that they called on us,” Neptune pointed out.

“They didn’t know what was really going on,” Ruby replied. “They just got a call about a thief.”

“That’s true, I suppose,” Neptune admitted. “Didn’t make it nicer having to run away from them.”

“No,” Ruby murmured. “No, I guess not.” Her voice rose. “But my point is … my point is that stuff like that, well, it just doesn’t happen here, not in Vale.”

“It did,” Neptune said bluntly.

“But Ruby’s right, what you just said is kind of, well, it’s a little much, isn’t it?” Nora pointed out. “The people who tried to run me and Ren out of places never gave us any money to get rid of us. You wouldn’t believe it in Mistral or Atlas, let alone in Vale.”

“I get what you mean,” Sun assured them. “Lots of folks here in Vale have been nice and friendly, just like its reputation.” He grinned. “Perhaps we just ran into the one guy in Vale who really hates faunus? The one guy stupid enough to believe that we all moved here from Menagerie?”

“Yeah,” Yang agreed, a mixture of lightness and uncertainty in her voice. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s it.” She paused for a moment. “So … are you okay?”

“Uh huh,” Sun said, as he turned to face her. “I’m fine. I’m always fine.”

“Really?” Yang asked. “'Cause you know, it’s okay to admit when you’re not.”

“Why?” Sun asked her in turn. “Why do you care?”

Yang smiled. “'Cause sunshine is in my name,” she said, with a brightness in her voice that verged on excessive. “And … because Blake isn’t here right now, so if you want to lean on someone … you can lean on me, if you want to.”

Sun chuckled. “Blake … isn’t the kind of person you lean on.”

“No,” Yang agreed. “No, I guess not.”

“But thanks anyway,” Sun told her. “I’ll keep it in mind … but right now, I really am fine.”

“I’m fine too, if anyone cares,” Neptune added. “Unless being not fine is going to get me a hug from a hot girl, in which case, I am so totally not fine. I am so far from fine that I could walk five hundred miles, and fine would still be way over … I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

“A little bit, yeah,” Nora said.

“First of all, you’re not the one who just became a victim of racism,” Yang said. “And second of all, aren’t you dating that Atlesian girl, what’s her name—?”

“Twilight Sparkle,” Ruby said.

“It’s just a hug,” Neptune said.

“It’s not happening,” replied Nora.

“So, anyway,” Yang said, “what are you guys up to? Or were you up to? What are you up to?”

“Not much,” Sun said. “We were just going to see what happened.”

“We sure saw what happened,” Neptune added.

Yang glanced at Ruby and her teammates. “Well, if you want,” she said, “you can always come along with us.”

“Where?” Neptune asked.

“An escape room, a robot circus, axe throwing, and a hot dance club,” Yang declared.

“That sounds like a full day,” Neptune declared.

“It’s not completely full if there’s anything you want to do as well,” Yang replied. “Book your slots before they fill up.”

“What’s a robot circus?” asked Sun.

“It’s like a regular circus, but with robots,” answered Yang.

“Okay,” Sun said, “next question, what’s a circus?”

Silence greeted this question.

“You don’t know what a circus is?” Ruby asked.

“We never had them in Vacuo,” Sun told her.

“Okay, you have to come with us!” Ruby cried. “This is going to be great. You’ll get to experience all the fun of a regular circus and a whole bunch of cool robots!”

Sun looked at Neptune. “What do you think, man?”

“Yeah, sure,” Neptune replied, getting to his feet. “I mean, why not, right? It’s not like we had anything cooler lined up.”

“Next stop: the robot circus!” Nora declared, pointing her hand into the air.

“Ahem,” Ren said.

“Next stop: the escape room,” Yang corrected. “Don’t worry, Ren, I hadn’t forgotten.”

“What’s an escape room?”

“Did you have any entertainment in Vacuo at all?” Yang demanded.

“It’s a room you get locked into, and then you have to escape,” Neptune explained.

“Huh? That’s easy; I’ll just break down the door,” Sun said.

“That’s not the point,” Ren said calmly. “The point is to escape through solving puzzles and displaying mental agility.”

“Mental agility, huh?” Sun repeated. “Is that why we’ve never been to one of these things before?”

“No, we’ve never been to one of these because if we did, Scarlet would try and leave you locked in,” Neptune explained.

Neptune, Yang, and Sun trooped down the stairs of the fire escape, making the metal shake and rattle as they came to join the others. As she led them all out of the side alley, Yang got out her scroll, bringing up a map of all their destinations — all save the club, because she hadn’t chosen it yet — that they were going to visit throughout the day.

“Seriously, guys,” she said to Sun and Neptune, “if there’s anything that you want to do, just let me know, and we’ll find some way to fit it in. Anything at all. Almost anything.”

“We’ll give it some thought,” Neptune assured her.

“You know,” Nora said, “Ren and I used to work in a circus.”

“Really?” Neptune asked.

“I still have no idea what that is,” said Sun.

“That’ll make the story even better,” Nora assured him. “Now, this all happened a couple of years ago—”

She repeated the story as they walked down the street, and this time, Nora and Ren’s time in the circus seemed to gain a lot of embellishment that hadn’t been there when she had told the story to Yang and Ruby; while the stuff about the chimp, once Ren had finally come into possession of it, was pretty much unchanged — and still true, apparently — in this second telling, Nora had become the circus strongman and the person who used to catch the cannonball during the cannon trick.

“I’ve no doubt that you could have been a strongman,” Ren said. “Or a strongwoman. But you weren’t.”

“I would have been awesome, though,” Nora insisted. “You know I would have rocked that leotard.”

Ren said nothing, but a faint blush rose to his cheeks.

As they walked down the street, they passed a boarded up property, the shop or whatever that had been there having shut up and closed down and nobody else having shown up to take over the lease. Wooden chipboard had been nailed over the windows and the doors, and upon one of those wooden boards, someone had spray painted the words ‘Atlas Is the Enemy!’ in bright red letters.

Ruby couldn’t help but stop and stare at it.

Yang, noticing that Ruby had stopped, stopped too. “Ruby, what’s— huh?”

Everyone stopped, coming to a shuffling, ragged halt to look at the spray painted message.

“'Atlas is the enemy'?” Sun repeated. “What does that even mean?”

“It means that-“

“I know what it means, man,” Sun said to Neptune before he could finish explaining. “My point is, why would anyone say something so stupid.”

“Why would anyone give you a thousand lien to go back where you came from?” Neptune asked.

Sun blinked. “You think people in Vale are just feeling mean and dumb today?”

Neptune shrugged. “It’s as good an explanation as any, right?”

“To add to the one person in Vale who hates the faunus, we now add the one who hates Atlas,” Ren murmured.

Unfortunately, as they walked down the streets of Vale towards the escape room, it became clear to all of them that it was not just one guy.

Because it wasn’t just one piece of graffiti that was attacking Atlas. It wasn’t, like, everywhere everywhere, like you could go a couple of blocks without seeing any sign of it, but once you knew that it was there and you knew to look for it, you could see it. It wasn’t always so obvious as on the front of an abandoned store on a busy street; sometimes, it was kind of hidden away in side streets, but never so hidden that you couldn’t see them from the main road. Some of it was just crude messages attacking Atlas and declaring that they were the enemy, that they were invaders, that they had to be stopped; some of it was pretty sophisticated, like this one picture they saw that would have been a really piece of street art if it had shown anything other than Atlesian warships hovering menacingly overhead — and the difference between the real Atlesian cruisers in the skies above them and the ones in the picture was that in the picture, you could see all their missiles, and they were all pointing downwards.

“But…” Ruby said. “Why? Would people draw this? Why would people think like this? Sunset said that Vale would have been lost without General Ironwood and his forces, is she right?”

“No one can know what would have happened,” Ren said. “But, if Sunset is right, that may be the problem.”

Ruby looked at him. “What do you mean, if they saved Vale—?”

“People dislike being saved,” Ren explained.

Except that didn’t explain much of anything. “Do they?” asked Ruby in a small and trembling voice.

“Does that surprise you?” Ren asked. “That Vale needed Atlas to rescue them shows that, as Sun and the Vacuans might say, Vale was not strong enough to survive.”

Sun’s muscular chest rose and fell as he sighed. “I gotta say, he’s right about that,” he admitted. “I mean, if it had been a Vacuan fleet in the sky, they would have cut and run as soon as the Breach happened.”

“They would have just left?” Yang demanded. “Why, because Vale should be strong enough to survive on its own?”

“No, because Vacuans don’t stand and fight,” Sun explained. “All of that hold your ground, round the flag, last man stuff? We don’t buy into any of that. We stick around somewhere as long as we can, and then, when it gets too hot, we move on.”

“Nice to know we can depend on you if we get into trouble,” Nora muttered.

“Hey, I was there at the Breach too, remember; just because it’s what people back home would do doesn’t mean that it’s what I would do,” Sun replied hotly, his voice raising. “I’m just saying … I forget what I was saying.”

“The point is that people dislike being saved,” Ren said. “They dislike owing others their lives, and that dislike can turn into resentment.”

“I’ll take your word for that,” Yang said, scratching the back of her head with one hand. “Even so, this seems a little bit extreme, don’t you think?”

“Apparently not for some people,” Neptune pointed out.

They continued to see more examples of anti-Atlas sentiment as they went on their way, until eventually, they reached the escape room, where hostility to Atlas and racism towards faunus were temporarily forgotten as they worked together to escape from a doomed starship minutes before the escape pods jettisoned automatically. As Yang had predicted, Ren did the most work of anyone on the team to comprehend the various puzzles that hid the keys and codes they needed to progress, but Yang got some of the wordplay almost instantly, and Ruby turned out to know more about the arrangements of the stars and constellations than anyone else in the room with them.

Sun and Neptune were not, it had to be said, much help.

“Sorry for being such deadweight in there, guys,” Sun apologised as they trooped out of the building and back out onto the street.

“Don’t worry about it; we escaped, so it’s all good,” Yang assured them.

“I didn’t do much either, but not everyone can be great at everything,” Nora added. “Some people are really smart, like Ren. And some people hit really hard, like me.”

“That’s not all that you do, Nora,” Ren remarked plaintively.

“That’s right,” Nora agreed. “I eat a lot too.”

“Nora,” Ren said reproachfully.

“What?”

“You shouldn’t—”

Ren was interrupted by the sound of Nora’s stomach growling.

“You see?” Nora asked, beaming.

“Nora,” Ren began again.

“What?” Nora asked once more.

“Don’t put yourself down like that,” Ren said. “It isn’t necessary.”

“But some food is definitely necessary right now.”

“We can get something to eat at the circus,” Ruby suggested.

“The food at the circus is way overpriced and not all that nice,” Yang said. “We’d be better off picking up something to eat on the way there.”

“I’m pretty sure I saw a hotdog stand on the way over here,” Nora said. “A couple of streets back.”

They retraced their steps, heading a couple of streets back past the stores all open for business. While the anti-Atlas graffiti was an unwelcome presence on the streets of Vale, in the shop windows, there was some reminder that things weren’t all bad in the city: every shop seemed to be getting its Vytal Festival promotions started, even though the festival wasn’t actually due to start for a little while longer.

The electronics store was advertising new TVs for twenty-five percent off and the possibility of a payment plan, reminding everyone who passed by that the only way to watch the tournament was on an SDC Illuminatus Seven with a holographic display thirty-six inches wide and surround sound speakers; maybe they’d could forgotten that you could just go watch the matches in the Amity Arena? Still, they were running a cool commercial for the tournament on the televisions in the shop window; even if it was just clips from the last tournament, they were still pretty awesome clips.

“In a couple of years,” Yang said, “we’ll be the ones on the commercial.”

“Some of us will,” Ruby replied. “It’s kind of funny, don’t you think? The ones who fight in this tournament will be remembered for it, even though it doesn’t really matter at all; they, or we, will be remembered for that and not for any of the stuff we did that actually mattered.”

“Maybe that’s why there’s a tournament in the first place,” Yang suggested. “So that we get the immortality that we deserve, even if we don’t get it for what we deserve it for.”

“If we make the cut,” Neptune said.

Yang laughed. “Nervous?”

“With only eight teams per school selected to represent their academy in the tournament, the odds are against any team individually,” Ren pointed out.

“Yeah, but come on, we all know that we’re going to get picked,” Yang declared. “Ruby, you’re not worried about the selection, are you?”

“Sunset says we’re bound to get picked, if only because of Pyrrha,” Ruby said.

Neptune snorted. “Sunset’s not wrong about that; if Pyrrha didn’t get to fight in the Vytal Festival … the whole of Mistral would kick off. But … don’t you guys have to win the preliminary rounds to make sure you get chosen?”

“'Preliminary rounds'?” Nora said. “There are preliminary rounds?”

“Not here at Beacon, unless you count Last Shot,” Yang said. “Here, Professor Ozpin picks the eight teams.”

“Really?” Neptune said. “He just gets to choose, just like that, no arguments?”

“Why not?” asked Yang. “He is the headmaster, after all.”

“Doesn’t Professor Lionheart choose who represents Haven?” inquired Ruby.

“We choose who represents Haven,” Sun declared, jabbing at his own chest with his thumb.

“There’s a preliminary tournament,” Neptune explained. “The top eight teams get the eight slots in the real thing.”

“So does that mean you already know who’s going forward?” asked Nora.

“No, we haven’t had the prelims yet,” Sun said. “I think they want to hold them pretty close to the announcement so that it doesn’t leak out.”

They passed a betting shop; Ruby found it a little depressing how full it was, one of the busiest shops they had passed in the whole city. It wasn’t much changed from any other day, still full of stinky people with unwashed faces and dirty coats sitting down in front of the betting machines, playing game after game, but in the windows, they also had — over a big poster of second-year student Coco Adel, winking over the top of her sunglasses — the odds for the winner of the Vytal Festival.

“Have they just put up every team?” Nora asked, as they stared at the row after row of team names, far more than sixty-four of them.

“So it would appear,” Ren murmured.

“What else were they going to do, the tournament roster hasn’t been announced yet?” Neptune reminded them.

“They could have waited until it was announced,” Yang pointed out.

Even the bookstore was getting in on the act, with an unauthorised biography of Arslan Altan, entitled Maneater: The Untold Story of a Lioness; the picture on the cover showed her scowling outwards at the reader in a surly manner, her hands knotted into fists, as though she was about to punch somebody.

By retracing their steps back from the escape room, they eventually found their way to the hotdog stand that Nora had spotted earlier. As they drew near, they found that they had been beaten to it by Blake’s friends, Starlight and Trixie, who were standing in front of it together with the boy on their team, the one with the cape and the goatee whose name Ruby couldn’t remember.

As Ruby and the others drew near, the voices of the Atlesian huntsmen carried towards them.

“No?” Trixie said loudly. “What do you mean ‘no’?”

“What do you think I mean?” the guy on the other side of the hotdog stand demanded. He was a tall man, with dark stubble on his chin even as his hair was concealed beneath his white cap. “I ain’t serving the likes of you, now beat it.”

“Maybe we should go somewhere—” the boy began.

“The likes of us?” Trixie demanded, her voice rising to a loud squawk. “Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?”

“I know that you’re Atlesians,” the hotdog vendor said. “I don’t want your kind around here, I don’t need your kind around here, none of us need your kind around here. Get outta here! Go back to Atlas and freeze to death!”

“What do you have against Atlas?” Starlight asked. “We’re only—”

“Only here to take over,” the hotdog vendor said. “Only here to do what you couldn’t do in the war.”

“We’re here for your freedom,” Starlight declared.

“You’re here to make us all your slaves; well, it won’t happen!” cried the hotdog vendor. “We beat you once, we’ll do it again, and in the meantime, I’m not taking any of your filthy money. Now clear off, or I’m calling the cops.”

“You ungrateful—”

“Trixie, cool it,” the boy begged, tugging at her shoulder. “Let’s just go; we’ll find somewhere else, okay?”

“Fighting Atlas?” Nora murmured, as they watched. “Like … like in the Great War?”

“It’s ridiculous,” Ren said.

“It’s insane,” Neptune declared.

“Something is definitely going on in this city,” Yang said, as she put one hand upon her hip. “Like … so many people having a really bad day, like something in the water.” She shook her head. “Something is going on here.”

“I guess so,” Ruby replied. “But … what?”

---

Sonata finished singing, a smile spreading across her face as she took in the anger and the hostility spreading all around her, everyone arguing, everyone quarrelling, everyone glaring up at the Atlesian warships hovering above them.

What will you do, General, when those you came to protect decide that you are the enemy?

Tempest smiled too. Everything was proceeding according to Doctor Watts’ plan.

“Another wonderful performance, as always,” she said, taking off her headphones and surveying the results of Sonata’s voice. Hostility was spreading across Vale like water spreading across the floodplain once the river burst its banks, all the resentment and the envy that the people of this kingdom had hidden away in their secret hearts amplified and made strong enough to burst forth into the open. Hostility towards Atlas, dislike for the faunus, the cracks were starting to spread across the city. And it only got worse with every song.

And with every song, the gem around Sonata’s neck seemed to glow a little brighter, and the next song ensnared more people under its spell.

“Aww, you’re sweet, but I know you’re just saying that,” Sonata said. “You couldn’t even hear a word I was singing!”

Tempest hesitated. It was true that she couldn’t hear Sonata’s siren song, but … but she wanted to. She wanted to tear off her headphones, she wanted to never put them on, she wanted to hear what it was that affected the minds and hearts and souls of everyone who heard it.

But she was possessed of an iron will, and though that will was starting to rust a little with desire to hear the siren’s voice, she would not yield. Doctor Watts’ instructions had been explicit, and she would not break faith with him who had been so good to her.

“A pleasure that will have to wait for some time,” she said, “perhaps forever. In the meantime, although you have done good work here, I think that it is time to move on to phase two of this operation.”

“Ooh, phase two, that sounds exciting!” Sonata declared. “What is it?”

“How would you like to give a concert for the troops?” asked Tempest.

---

“Well, that was fun,” Yang said as the four of them walked down the corridor towards their respective dorm rooms. Sun and Neptune had peeled off to their own room on a different part of the campus; it was just the four of them again.

“Those Starhead robots are pretty cool,” Ruby declared.

“Much cooler than the Atlesian androids,” Nora added.

“But the Atlesian androids are supposed to fight, not be entertaining,” Yang pointed out.

“But that doesn’t make them cool,” Nora said.

Yang chuckled. “No,” she admitted. “No, I guess not.” She paused for a second. “Has everyone had a good day?”

“It was great,” Nora said. “We should do it again sometime.”

“Ruby?” Yang asked, looking at her sister.

Ruby did not respond. She was staring down the corridor with a frown wrinkling her brow.

“Ruby?” Yang repeated.

“There’s a light on in the dorm room,” Ruby pointed out.

Yang looked. The corridor was dark and quiet, but the darkness meant that, yes, you could see the light on in the SAPR dorm room, spilling out from the crack in the doorway.

“Did you leave the light on?” Ren asked.

Ruby shook her head. “No. No, I didn’t.”

There was a moment’s pause.

“Maybe Sunset, Jaune, and Pyrrha got home early?” Nora suggested.

“Yeah, maybe,” Yang said quietly. “I guess the only thing to do is check it out.”

“Is that wise?” asked Ren.

Yang glanced at him. She understood what he was asking, why he was asking it, but at the same time, she scoffed, as much for her own sake as for his. “Come on, Ren? It’s probably … okay, I don’t know what it is, but whatever it is, it’ll be perfectly harmless because … because this is Beacon. It’s not like we’re going to open the door and find a grimm on the other side.”

Nora gave a very deep chuckle and stroked her chin as she spoke in deep-voiced imitation of Professor Port. “Oho, Miss Xiao Long! Why, don’t you know that when I was a lad, I left a beowolf in the dorm room of a rival team as a jolly jape! How we laughed!”

Yang snorted. “Come on,” she said, “let’s see who it is.”

They walked to the door, Ruby and Yang in front, Nora and Ren just a little bit behind. Ruby got out her scroll and opened up the door. Yang took a step in front of Ruby so that she entered first, but Ruby followed swiftly on behind, so that they as good as walked in together.

Walked in to see—

“Raven?” Yang gasped.

Raven Branwen was sitting on Pyrrha’s bed, her legs crossed, her boots crinkling the blanket, reading Ruby’s copy of The Song of Olivia with one hand, eating a cheese sandwich with the other.

She looked up from her book.

“Ah, there you are,” she said. “I was starting to get bored.”

Comments

[Mastermind4892]

The chimp story was hilarious.

Someone call the Headmaster. Or better yet, treat Raven like the unwanted boyfriend. Start using the scary words like ‘responsibility’ and ‘commitment’. That’ll make Raven run for the hills.

[Snowdrifter]

A wild Raven appears!

[Kiue Jin]

Nora and Ren being in the circus is amazing. Also yes, Nora would rock a leotard.

I feel like Raven isn't just stopping by to catch up with her daughter and Summer's kid. I'm not completely sure how much Raven knows about Sirens or Sonata in general, but it isn't that much of a stretch to say "Salem's people are active... and they've brought out some big, powerful magical weapon to employ in Vale."

[Adser]

11379716
I think it has more to do with Ruby getting a private reunion with Ozpin. Raven is keeping an eye on the girls and only the girls, between her lack of care about anyone else and her fear of Salem I highly doubt that she would know about Salem moves or even inform them if she knew.

But Ruby going up the tower alone? She was willing to tell Ozpin off about it when it happened to Summer, seeing Ruby do the same would throw all kind of warning sirens in her head.