• Published 31st Aug 2018
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SAPR - Scipio Smith



Sunset, Jaune, Pyrrha and Ruby are Team SAPR, and together they fight to defeat the malice of Salem, uncover the truth about Ruby's past and fill the emptiness within their souls.

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Back to Vale (New)

Back to Vale

The door slid open, and a ball hit Rainbow Dash on the shoulder.

She didn’t flinch, but she did move the tray she was carrying slightly so that the ball landed on the floor instead of in Neon’s spaghetti.

Neon sat at the back of the incredibly narrow, arch-shaped cell, one hand outstretched as though to catch the ball when it bounced.

“Sorry about that,” she said, a sheepish look on her face. “Oh, hey, Dashie. You know, I’m pretty sure that solitary confinement means I’m not supposed to have visitors.”

Rainbow lifted up the tray in her hands an inch higher, although Neon couldn’t have missed it already. “I’m bringing your dinner,” she explained, as though it needed explanation.

Neon had been confined to quarters over the few days between her arrest and all the Atlas students heading back to Beacon, and now that they were actually on their way to Vale, she was in solitary confinement in the brig aboard the Hope, the same warship that had carried Team RSPT home to Atlas after the Breach.

“Can you give me my ball back as well?” Neon asked. “It’s the only company I’ve got in here.”

Rainbow nudged the ball with her foot, letting it roll across the dark cell — so dark that most of what she could make out about Neon was her hair — towards her.

Neon bent double to pick it up. “Thanks,” she said. “Is it really your job to be bringing me meals?”

“I thought you’d appreciate a friendly face, so I told the kitchen staff that I’d take care of it,” Rainbow said.

“You mean you missed me so much you couldn’t take it anymore?” Neon asked, grinning. “What’s for dinner?”

“Spaghetti with meatballs—”

“With Vacuan tagine sauce or tomato sauce?”

“Tomato.”

Neon’s face fell. “I prefer the Vacuan sauce.”

“Almost everyone prefers the Vacuan sauce,” Rainbow agreed. “And then there’s tapioca pudding for dessert.”

“Is it any good?”

“It would be if you wanted to plaster a wall.”

Neon snorted. “Thanks for the warning.”

Rainbow ducked down to walk into the cell, feeling the walls brush against her shoulders as she did so; she couldn’t imagine how they got anyone bigger than … well, bigger than her in here, and even she was pushing it.

If you were a big guy, this must be torture.

Of course, it wasn’t supposed to be nice, but at the same time, Neon didn’t really deserve to be treated too badly.

At least Rainbow didn’t think so; she was aware the law might disagree.

“Here,” she said, handing Neon the tray.

“Thanks,” Neon said, taking the grey plastic tray out of Rainbow’s hands and picking up the little plastic fork. She twirled it between her fingertips. She looked down at her dinner and then glanced back up at Rainbow Dash. “Do you need to wait to get the tray back? I thought you were supposed to leave me to think about what I did.”

Rainbow would have leaned against the wall, but she was kind of leaning against both walls already. “Do you want me to go?”

“No.”

“No,” Rainbow agreed. “Because if you spend too long thinking about what you did, you’ll think you’re even more awesome than you already do.”

“That’s because I am awesome,” Neon said, “and I don’t see any point in false modesty.”

Rainbow smiled slightly. “How are you holding up?”

“In here?” Neon asked. She sighed. “Bored. Which is kind of the point, I know, but that doesn’t make it any easier.” She jabbed the plastic fork into the spaghetti and began to turn it in place, wrapping the slightly orange-looking spaghetti, lightly coated in a thin layer of red tomato sauce, around it. She stuck it into her mouth and started chewing on it. She swallowed. “Do you think I did the right thing?”

Rainbow hesitated for a moment. Did she think that? What did she think? Had Neon done the right thing?

Obviously, the law said no — she’d committed a crime, and been damn lucky not to have the book thrown at her for it — but the law … the law wasn’t right and wrong. The law was … the law was something else, and those who upheld the law … they were often something else too.

There was an old joke in Atlas Academy: if you couldn’t make it in the Academy, you joined the army; if you couldn’t make it in the army, you became a cop. That was harsh, but at the same time … well, it hadn’t been the cops who had stopped those kidnappings down in Low Town, and the cops hadn’t been interested in that old lady’s killer either.

There came a point where, if you wanted your name to be associated with good things, you actually had to go out there and do some good. Atlas talked a good game, and as far as some were concerned, it was maybe all talk, but Atlas had been there for Vale when it counted, in the Breach; they’d stepped in to save the day. It was like that with the cops; if you wanted to be taken seriously as guardians of the public and their trust, as people who only a villain would pick a fight with, you had to actually guard the public and earn their trust. Otherwise…

Rainbow hadn’t set out to cause a strike. She hadn’t set out to inspire Mantle, she hadn’t even been thinking about Mantle at the time, she didn’t even like Mantle, not one bit, but … she reckoned that people had a right to be upset about this. And even if they blamed Atlas for it … this had been going on for a while, and nobody had noticed. Perhaps that was something that Atlas deserved to be blamed for.

Perhaps. Maybe. But also kind of not, because it was thanks to Atlas that the whole thing had been exposed; it wasn’t like it was Robyn Hill who’d rescued Leaf.

They should be … not grateful, but, like, don’t take it out on everyone. Get mad at the SDC where your anger belongs.

But also, don’t beat up kids who want to shout about how upset they are.

“Yeah,” she said, “yeah, I think you did the right thing. I don’t know what the cops were thinking.”

“They were thinking that protests are bad, probably,” Neon replied. “So … what’s it like, being a hero?”

“In Mantle?”

“Anywhere,” Neon said. “You’re big in Mantle, but people know who you and Blake are everywhere.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow murmured. “I wish Blake could see how good it was.”

“She’s not happy about it?” Neon asked.

“Not really.”

“Is Blake able to be happy?” asked Neon.

“Yes!” Rainbow insisted. “Blake can be happy; she just … isn’t, about this.”

“She’s got kids running around pretending to be her; what’s not to like?”

“She doesn’t want to lose touch?”

Neon frowned as she chewed on the meatball that she had just placed into her mouth. She swallowed. “Come again?”

“Blake’s exact words were: 'when you get placed upon a pedestal, you become separated from those who put you there in the first place.'”

Neon blinked, her eyes narrowing. They stayed narrow, just as the frown remained upon her face, as she ate another mouthful of spaghetti. “Can you unpack that for me or does it make as little sense to you?”

“I … I think what she’s saying is that when everyone thinks you’re amazing, they also think you’re too good to associate with the likes of them, so you lose all of your friends,” Rainbow said. “That’s basically it, as far as I can make out.”

“What a lot of nothing to worry about,” Neon said. “You introduced her to your crowd, right?”

Rainbow nodded. “That’s right.”

“Then tell her, from me,” Neon said, “that I may not know your friends all that well, but I don’t need to know them well to say that you could be stuck on a pedestal two miles high with no wings to get you down and Pinkie Pie would still be standing at the bottom with a bullhorn screeching ‘Hiya, Rainbow Dash!’ up at you.”

“Pinkie doesn’t screech,” Rainbow said sharply.

“Pinkie screeches some of the time,” Neon insisted.

Rainbow scowled. “You won’t hear me admit that.”

“You don’t have to admit anything; it’s true,” Neon said. “And so is what I said about the bullhorn. Even if Blake was up on a pedestal, and, okay, sure, she’s getting there, but so what? Does she think that we’re all going to get on our knees and tell her that she must not come near us because we’re so unworthy and unclean?”

“Well when you put it like that, it sounds ridiculous, but—”

“Where’s this coming from?” asked Neon.

“Pyrrha,” Rainbow said. “She hasn’t enjoyed being famous.”

“And she told Blake that—”

“I think it’s more like Blake is a little worried that she might end up like Pyrrha.”

“But Pyrrha’s Mistralian; they’re all crazy!” Neon declared. “Oh, la, sir how impertinent you dare speak to me. Once you go in for all that madness, things are bound to get messed up. We’ve got our heads on straight mostly. We do our hero worship in a responsible way. Tell her I’ll still be making fun of her as soon as I get out of this cell.”

Rainbow chuckled. “I’ll be sure to pass that on.”

“Do you think she has anything to worry about?”

“No,” Rainbow said. “But at the same time … Blake doesn’t want to be famous, and that’s … that’s her thing to not want.”

“Even if the reasons are bad?”

“That’s not for me to say, is it?” asked Rainbow.

Neon shrugged. “We need heroes,” she said. “We need faunus heroes; we need both of you—”

“I know,” Rainbow said. “Our people need to know that you can be recognized, and humans need to see that we … that we’re here, and we’re not just … that we can stand with the best of them.”

“And that was always what you wanted for Blake, wasn’t it?” Neon asked. “To stand with the best of them.”

“I wanted Blake to be all that she could be,” Rainbow said, a little defensively. “But … yeah, I wanted her to be … I thought that she could be … they call her the Warrior Princess of Menagerie. It’s not just what she does; she’s got that Belladonna name too, it’s… it’s like magic.”

“Then get it into her head and stop her moping or moaning or whatever she’s doing,” Neon said. “But I didn’t ask what Blake thought about all this; I asked what you thought. What’s it like for you, getting the recognition?”

Rainbow was quiet for a moment, only a kind of scoffing sound getting out of her mouth. She took a step back, almost out of the cell. “It’s … it’s funny,” she said. “You know I dreamed of this. Ever since I started at Canterlot … maybe even before then, when I was a little kid in Low Town staring up at Atlas and telling myself I’d live there someday. I dreamed of this. I dreamed of when I’d … when I’d rise so high, when I’d do something so great, when everyone would know who I was … now that it’s here—”

“Please don’t say something like ‘now that it’s here, I realise fame isn’t really worth anything,’” Neon said.

Rainbow laughed. “No, that’s not what I was gonna say. What I was gonna say was … is it petty of me if I wish that it had been for something cooler?”

“You’re complaining about not becoming famous in the exact way that you would have wanted, so yes, I’d say that is very petty of you,” Neon declared in a voice as flat as the deck.

“Okay, okay, but,” Rainbow went on, “I just wish that people know who I was because I’d defended Atlas, stopped a grimm horde—”

“You helped with that,” Neon pointed out.

“And then I become famous for nearly bringing down the SDC,” Rainbow reminded her.

“That … was the last straw, you might say,” Neon said. “On top of everything else that you two have been up to.”

“I just wanted to get to the truth,” Rainbow said.

Neon was silent for a second. “'The truth,'” she murmured. “You knew, didn’t you?”

“I knew … something,” Rainbow said. “I’d seen someone’s face branded.”

“Well, in that case, you had to know that the answers would lead back to the Schnee Dust Company, and it wasn’t going to make them look good.”

“I know,” Rainbow replied. “But it wasn’t what I wanted to be known for.”

“Fame is fame,” Neon said. “Enjoy it while it lasts. Rainbow Dash: a real Atlesian hero.”

“Let’s not go nuts.”

“But it is pretty cool, right?” Neon pressed.

A smile crept across Rainbow’s face. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Like I said, it … it’s what I always wanted: people to know who I was, what I’d done. I want … I still want … Twilight, Twilight’s folks, General Ironwood, all the people who took a chance on me, who helped me up, who helped me get here … I feel like I’ve started paying them back, you know?”

Again, it wasn’t the way that I envisaged paying them back, but … things will work out.

If the strikes in Mantle dragged on, the Council would enforce a settlement between the SDC and the workers; they would have to, there was no other choice. Dust supplies couldn’t be interrupted for too long; there were reserves, yes, but far from unlimited; Atlas used a lot of dust each day, and then there were the other kingdoms to consider as well. Mistral had its own mines, but not enough to even fully supply its own needs, let alone those of Atlas or Vale, and Vale … Vale had some upstart little company called Starhead Industrial that was doing robotics and dust, but they didn’t have anything like the capacity required either. And Rainbow Dash had no idea what their stockpiles were like; after the robberies that had gone down this year, Vale might not have any stockpiles at all.

No, it was imperative that the strike be settled and work resume, and that would mean that the Council would act if Jacques Schnee refused to negotiate.

Although exactly how they would act was harder to say. If the workers were not happy with any terms the Council tried to enforce, what then?

They would not send in the military; Rainbow was sure of that. They were not robots, after all, but men, and in the whole military, she doubted you could find a single squad willing to take action against unarmed civilians. That wasn’t what people joined the Atlas military for; that wasn’t the enemy they signed up to fight.

The Council would never turn its forces on its own people; these weren’t the bad old days from just after the war; these people weren’t even rioting.

It wouldn’t happen.

Something would happen. Something would have to happen, but not that.

Something that wouldn’t be ‘paying back’ General Ironwood and Twilight in completely the wrong way.

“Dashie,” Neon said. “No regrets, okay? It’s a bit of a shock, everything is a bit up in the air, but … you did the right thing. Don’t regret it.”

“I don’t regret it,” Rainbow said.

“Good,” Neon said, “because you shouldn’t.” She held out her tray. “I’m all done here, by the way, if you want to take this back.”

Rainbow stepped back into the cell and took the plastic tray from Neon’s hands. “You ate your dessert,” she observed.

“It wasn’t as bad as you said,” Neon replied. “Plus, I was hungry. Will I be seeing you for breakfast tomorrow morning as well?”

“We’ll see,” Rainbow murmured. “I’d tell you to take care, but … yeah.”

“Yeah,” Neon agreed. “I was thinking about going out, you know? Go to a club, maybe catch a movie or something, but then I thought, nah, I’ll just have a quiet night in.” She shifted her body as much as the cramped space of the cell allowed. “That’s how I’m looking at it, just having a quiet night in. One of a hundred or so.”

Not only was Neon in solitary on the way to Vale, once they arrived, she was going to be confined to Beacon campus, and then she would be back in solitary on the way back to Atlas and probably once she arrived in Atlas as well.

She wasn’t under arrest, but that didn’t mean she was getting off lightly, not by a longshot.

“I … I’ll be back in the morning,” Rainbow promised, because solitary confinement was an awful punishment, and Neon deserved a break from it. “Or Ciel will.”

“That’d be nice,” Neon said. “Thanks, Dashie. You take care too.”

Rainbow nodded before she stepped out of the way of the door and pushed the green button beside it to slam it closed in front of her.

The green light changed to red, indicating that the door was now locked.

From the other side came the muffled sound of a ball bouncing on the door.

Rainbow took Neon’s meal tray back to the galley, which was pretty much empty, dinner having ceased and with no more meals to prepare until breakfast tomorrow morning. Nevertheless, it was not completely empty; there was somebody who took the tray off her hands and who remarked that she’d eaten more of the dessert than most of those to whom it had been served that evening. Rainbow didn’t admit that Neon had eaten more than her — the cooks did the best they could with the ingredients they got and the budget they had; the Atlesian military was lavishly equipped, but the fact that that same sense of money no object didn’t extend as far as the catering wasn’t the fault of the chefs or the galley stewards — she just smiled and gave the tray back and then returned to the room that Team RSPT was sharing for the journey.

For its last journey. After this, after the Vytal Festival, there would be no more Team RSPT.

That wasn’t something to get too sentimental about; this wasn’t like the disbanding of a regiment that could trace its battle honours back hundreds of years, or even the breaking up of a team that had been together, shed blood together, through Initiation to graduation and beyond. They were an artificial team in a lot of ways, assembled by the General for a specific purpose, and that purpose was almost over now, if not in the ways that General Ironwood or Doctor Polendina might have anticipated.

Nevertheless, it was an ending, and that was enough to give Rainbow pause for thought.

Apart from anything else, it made her think about what General Ironwood was going to say when Penny’s transfer request — which they were going to help her work on tonight, right now, as soon as Rainbow got through the door — landed on his desk.

Rainbow … she had no idea how he was going to react.

Well, no, that wasn’t entirely true. It was kind of true, partly true, but at the same time … General Ironwood was a good man. Rainbow believed that with all her heart; she knew it for a certainty. General Ironwood was a good man, as well as a great man, and as a good man, he would be able to see what Rainbow had seen, what Ciel had come to see, what none of the three members of Team RSPT who had been assigned to watch over Penny could deny any longer: that Penny had no more need of guardians than she had desire for them; what she wanted and needed both was freedom.

And because he was a good man, General Ironwood would see that to deny Penny that freedom would be plain and simple evil, as foul as anything that had been done in those covert SDC facilities.

He would see that. He would see it because he was a good man, because it was impossible not to recognise it once it was pointed out to you, because they would make him see it.

Rainbow just didn’t know how hard that making would be, how much effort it would take to open the General’s eyes, and how he might react before they were.

But he would recognise it, and being a good man, he would see that Penny could not be denied in this, any more than any other student would be. And he would be an ally in the fight that might lie ahead, with those who … who were perhaps not such good men as the General was.

Of course that wasn’t the only thing that it made Rainbow think about it. It also made her think about the fact that Twilight would soon be going back to the lab, where Rainbow wouldn’t have to worry about her — an altogether good thing, in her opinion — and that Ciel would be … it was too early to say where exactly Ciel would end up; that would be for General Ironwood to decide, as he would decide what to do with Rainbow Dash. But if Rainbow was offered another team to lead, then she would push for Ciel to be a part of it; she would be an asset to any team she ended up on, and Rainbow liked having assets on her side.

Rainbow, Ciel … and Blake, if she could swing it. Team RSPT was ending its brief existence, but something new was beginning now, something involving Blake, the Warrior Princess of Menagerie, making her home among the clouds.

That was … that was a good thing, for Atlas and for Blake; it was a new beginning, just as Penny was setting out on a new beginning.

A new beginning for every ending.

But endings, nonetheless. And endings were a chance to, in bureaucratic-speak, conduct a lessons learned.

Rainbow had not been such a good team leader for RSPT as she had been for RASP, her first team. She hadn’t been such a good team leader to Penny. Tactically, she thought she had done … alright. You should always be your own harshest critic — that was a lesson that the General had taught her — but nevertheless, Rainbow thought that, tactically, she had done alright. The team had performed well in combat, they had assisted in the capture of Roman Torchwick, they had assisted in stopping a major dust robbery, they had assisted in defending Vale at the Breach. She had killed one of Cinder’s lieutenants, although it was very disappointing that Lightning Dust had survived that fall.

Penny had been injured because of her, and that was why Rainbow would not rate her performance any higher than ‘alright,’ but other than that black mark, there was nothing in battle for which she blamed herself.

Pastorally, on the other hand … yeah. She had focused too much on Blake, who had not been her responsibility, and not enough on Penny, who was. If Rainbow had acted differently, then Penny might not be transferring out now.

Not that there was anything to be done about it, but it was something to bear in mind for next time, next year.

I did it before, I can do it again. Applejack, Maud, Spearhead … it had taken her too long to see Penny the same way. It wasn’t a mistake that she would make again.

She wouldn’t allow herself to make it again.

She would make things right with Penny, and then she would carry the lesson forward.

Sienna Khan’s book, which Mister Tukson had given her, ended with the declaration that: Though the road to socialism may be long, the faunus will walk it because he walks on two legs, not four. It was not quite like any history book that Rainbow Dash had ever read before.

Rainbow didn’t know much about socialism, and wasn’t too keen on what she did understand — keep your hands off Twilight’s stuff, and Rarity’s too, for that matter — but she knew that she didn’t walk on four legs either, but on two, and on those two legs, she would walk the road to success, though it was as long as the road to socialism for the faunus.

And every stumble would teach her something.

Treat robots like people.

No, forget the reasons why your team was formed, forget what your orders are, treat your teammates like your family, always.

She walked through the door — it slid open for her with a hiss — and into the room.

Twilight, Ciel, and Penny were waiting for her inside. Penny was sitting on one of the lower bunk beds, with Twilight sat down beside her and Ciel standing over the pair of them.

"How is Neon?" Ciel asked as Rainbow came in.

"Bored, but okay," Rainbow replied. "She'd like a visit in the morning, if you don't mind."

"Of course," Ciel murmured. "Of course, staying to talk is not exactly in the spirit of solitary confinement."

"It's a fig leaf to keep the cops happy," Rainbow said. "It has to look like more than a slap on the wrist."

"It is more than a slap on the wrist," Ciel pointed out. "It is a harsh punishment, in many respects."

"Too harsh?" Penny asked, looking up.

Ciel hesitated. "A lighter punishment would, as Rainbow points out, have caused as much difficulty as it would have solved. The police in Mantle would have taken it badly and made a fuss about it. Neon needed to be punished in order to escape punishment, as it were, but at the same time … yes, it is too harsh a punishment for what she did. The law was made for man, not man for the law. I will go and see her tomorrow."

"Great," Rainbow said. "Because I want to go over and see Blake tomorrow about her transfer papers. In the meantime—”

"My transfer papers!" Penny cried excitedly.

"Exactly," Rainbow said. "Are you ready?"

"Yes!" Penny proclaimed, holding up the scroll which was in her hands. "I have the forms up right here."

"It's just personal details to begin with," Twilight said, looking down at Penny's scroll. "Those are easy to fill out."

Penny gave a slight nod of her head, swiping her finger across the device to bring up the keyboard covering the bottom half of the screen. Her finger skipped lightly from key to key, typing out her name. She stopped, frowning a little. "What's my date of birth?"

"Ah, yes," Twilight said. "Your birthday … rather, the birthday that was given to you, is June twenty-first, twenty-one-oh-four."

"Doesn't that mean Penny started school when she was sixteen?" Rainbow asked.

"Penny started school when she was not even one," Ciel pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but you know what I mean."

"It was decided," Twilight said. "That, um, that it would be better for Penny to be a little young in order to explain her … lack of maturity."

I guess, but sixteen isn't that young.

Twilight had spoken apologetically, but Penny didn't seem to mind. In fact, she barely seemed to notice, entering the date into her form without any qualm at all. "And I'm a student at Atlas, and I want to transfer to Beacon," she said softly as she selected the relevant options from the dropdown boxes presented to her. She stopped. "Why do I have to give my reasons?"

"Because transfers disrupt the system," Ciel explained. "Teams have already been set up, rooms have been allocated; from the day of each school's Initiation, everything is settled and in its proper place for the next four years. Transfers, especially transfers of individual students, disrupt that."

"Are there other kinds of transfers than of individual students?" Penny asked.

"Sometimes, whole teams decide that they would prefer a different learning environment," Ciel said, "although that is rare, but it does speak to a strong bond between the teams concerned when it happens. In any case, the reason why the form requires an explanation is to confirm to the satisfaction of both headmasters that this request is not made frivolously, or to no good purpose."

Penny blinked. "Does that mean people get refused their requests?"

"Sometimes," Rainbow said, "but don't worry about that; that won't be the sticking point for you."

"But," Penny murmured, "the good reasons that I have are ones that I can't say, aren't they?"

That was unfortunately true, Rainbow reflected; Professor Ozpin — who would be seeing this form just as much as General Ironwood — didn't even know that Penny was a robot, and even if they were going to tell him, which they weren't, her transfer papers were not exactly the right place to do it.

"Isn't it enough to say that Penny isn't happy at Atlas or with her team and that she wants to go to Beacon with her friends?" asked Twilight.

Rainbow stuck one hand out against the top bunks, leaning against them. "Hmm, I'm not sure that wanting to hang out with your friends is a good enough reason. Remember, we can tell General Ironwood what's really going on, but Professor Ozpin needs to be sold on what's written down here."

"The fact that Penny must conceal a little of her true nature does not mean she cannot tell the truth," Ciel murmured. "As you have phrased it, it seems inadequate, true, but to phrase it more … accurately … Penny, you should write down as your reason that you feel you have no friends at Atlas, you are desperately lonely, and feel as though only at Beacon will you be properly supported in your development as a huntress. That is the truth, is it not? That is how you feel?"

Penny hesitated, silent.

"You have been honest enough leading to this," Ciel prodded her. "It would be a fine thing to stop now."

Penny did not meet Ciel's eyes. "It's true. At least, I don't feel lonely, but … but I will if…"

"If you have to go back to Atlas," Rainbow muttered. She scowled, at herself far more than at anyone else in the room. "Yeah, when you put it like that, it does sound…" It sounds bad, and it makes us sound worse.

Of course, that being how Penny feels, we deserve to sound bad and feel worse.

"I'm sorry, Penny."

"It's okay," Penny said.

"No," Rainbow said, "it isn't. But Ciel's right; that will … Professor Ozpin won't question that. He might want to talk to you, to prove that you aren't exaggerating, but if he believes you, then he'll understand why you want to move over, and I think he won't hesitate to make the necessary arrangements, even if they are a bit inconvenient. And General Ironwood will … it'll help explain things to him as well."

Penny looked down at her scroll, then back at Rainbow and Ciel. "I don't want to get you in any trouble," she said softly. "That's not why I'm doing this."

"We know, Penny," Ciel said. "And that is … kind of you, and generous and … quite unnecessary. It will not come to that, and if it does, then as your assigned teammates, it is our duty, our last duty, to make this sacrifice for you." She drew in a deep breath and let out a sigh. "Just as it always should have been."


The shadow of the Hope fell across the civilian skyliner as it made its way through sky and clouds towards Vale, its giant wings beating lazily up and down as it bore its human cargo through the air.

It was a little chilly out on the deck as summer was now very much drawing to a close and fall was closing in with a vengeance, but as she sat in a deck chair, with the breeze lightly ruffling her long black hair, Blake felt that, despite the cold, the view of the vast ocean spread out beneath them was worth it.

And she doubted that Weiss would have been out here with her if she hadn't felt the same way.

Or perhaps it was the solitude that she wanted; the chill in the air was driving most of the airship's passengers into the relative warmth of the interior, and they had the open deck all to themselves.

"You know," Weiss observed, as she leaned back in her soft, cloth chair, "I can't help feeling you're a little underdressed for the altitude."

Blake had changed back into her regular outfit, the black and white and … various parts of exposed skin. "My aura keeps me warm," she said. "Or at least, it stops me from catching anything from the cold." She smiled. "Or perhaps I ought to tell you that my zeal for Atlas keeps me warm."

Weiss groaned. "Please don't. You have the sincerity to pull off a ghastly line like that, which would be even worse than sarcasm." Weiss herself was dressed as she had been for the excursion down into Low Town, in her white coat and boots, with thick black stockings. She crossed her legs, leaving one booted foot kicking lightly at the air. "So you'll be headed north again soon enough?"

Blake nodded. "I will. I've decided."

"Have you filled in your transfer papers?"

"Not yet," Blake said, "but soon. I want to have them done before I land so that I can submit them promptly."

Weiss nodded. "And have you spoken to your teammates?"

Blake hesitated. "No," she admitted. "No, I … I haven't. They knew that I might, or probably would, decide this, but I haven't actually told them that I've made my decision. Do you think I should tell them before I submit?"

"Is there anything they could say that would change your mind?"

Blake shook her head. "No," she replied. "I don't even think they'd try."

"Then you don't need to wait," Weiss said, "but you should tell them as soon as possible after you submit the request; that's just good manners."

Perhaps it might have been good manners to have told them before now, Blake thought, if Sunset hasn't told them already. "I will," she said, "thank you."

Weiss shrugged. "It's nothing to me, of course, but if someone on my team were to depart, I should like to hear about it from them before they were headed out the door."

"Mmm," Blake murmured. "I possibly owe them an apology." She paused, brushing some of her hair out of her face and behind her back as she looked at Weiss. "Just like I owe you an apology, I feel."

Weiss' eyebrows rose. "What could you possibly owe me an apology for?"

"I … feel as though I've gotten you in trouble," Blake said.

Weiss' expression was as still as her body for a moment, and her body was still indeed, even her leg ceasing to kick the air. "You … you're a very curious person, in some ways," she said softly. "In many ways, even. The White Fang fighter who wants to join the Atlesian military, the huntress who never shrinks from a fight but whose semblance allows her constant escapes … the woman who exposed horrific malfeasance occurring under the auspices of the SDC and who is now worried about this is affecting the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company."

"What should I do," asked Blake, "instead of being worried about you?"

"Hate me?" Weiss suggested. "Other people will, I'm sure." She smirked. "Perhaps I should challenge someone to a duel to the death and that will make the people love me."

Blake snorted. "I'm not sure you have a valid target for that where you can reach them, and even if you did, I think that only works for Mistralians, and even then … not for all of them."

"No, Pyrrha isn't completely out of the woods, is she?" Weiss asked rhetorically. "It was still a ridiculous piece of nonsense though."

"Do you think so?" Blake asked.

"You don't think so?" responded Weiss.

"I think that if all our problems had a human face that we could battle and cut down, the world would be a simpler place," Blake said softly. "Don't you think?" She paused for a moment. "How are you doing?"

Weiss took a few seconds to respond. "I … I gave serious thought to whether or not I ought to go back to Beacon."

Blake's eyes widened. "Because … because of the reaction?"

"Not because I was afraid," Weiss declared emphatically. "I will not turn away from my ambitions because of the baying of a mob outside my window. I will fight for them whether they love me or hate me, no … no," she said again, more quietly. "It was for my brother that I thought about staying behind."

"I didn't know you had a brother," Blake murmured.

"Whitley," Weiss said. "He's fourteen. And there was a moment when everything came out when it seemed as if … as if things might fall apart completely."

"I'm sorry," Blake said.

"Sorry for what?" asked Weiss.

"Huh?"

"You said you were sorry," Weiss said, in a decidedly arch tone. "So: sorry for what, Blake?"

Blake hesitated, because of course there was nothing that she could legitimately apologise for, and Weiss knew it too. She couldn't say that she wished she hadn't helped Leaf, hadn't brought the labour camps to light, hadn't contributed to the rescue of all of those people. She didn't regret any of her actions, and so, her apology was … it was rather ridiculous, wasn't it?

"I … apologise for my empty sentiments," Blake said. "Although I do regret that this has impacted your life, even if I don't regret my part in the events that brought it on."

"I must admit, I haven't checked if we're still the richest family in the world," Weiss said. "Although I think the gap between us and the nearest competition is such that we'd have to fall quite a way to lose the crown."

"And you decided to come back to Beacon in the end," Blake pointed out.

"Yes," Weiss said. "I … things looked to be… stabilising. Father wasn't arrested, the share price stopped free-falling and even rallied just a little — or at least, it did before the strikes in Mantle started; now it's dropped again, if not as precipitously as it did the last time. It hasn't so far to fall — and I felt as if we weren't going to be turned out of our home any time soon. Whitley will be fine." She paused. "He should be fine."

"I…" Blake was about to say that she was sure he would be, but stopped herself; after all, she had no evidence of that, no way of knowing for sure, no reason to say so other than it was a commonplace.

The corners of Weiss' lips twitched up, then fell again. "The truth is, I didn't really want to stay," she admitted. "I seized the chance to say that Whitley would be okay, and then … I left him behind. Does that make me a terrible sister?"

"I don't know," Blake said. "I don't have any siblings. But I think … I don't think anyone has the right to blame you for wanting to live your own life, for not devoting it to the whims and wills of others."

"No," Weiss muttered. "My father didn't want me to go."

"No?"

"No," Weiss repeated. "He told me that we had to stand together as a family in this difficult time. I told him that if I did not go back, it might look as though we were afraid or ashamed, that we ought to carry on as though nothing had happened."

"And he accepted that?"

"At that point, he became a little distracted by the whole company seizing up like a sick man," Weiss explained, "and he stopped paying much attention."

"Will he give in to the strike?" asked Blake.

"Not willingly," Weiss said. "My father has … my father has prevented unionisation for many years. I can remember the failed attempts quite clearly. He will not give in if he can avoid it."

"I'm not so sure it can be avoided in this case," Blake murmured. "I'm guessing Mantle as a whole wasn't so up in arms before as it is now."

"No, and there wasn't so much public sympathy with their cause," Weiss replied. "You have … shocked Atlas."

"I'm glad," Blake said. "Atlas should be shocked by something like this. It demonstrates conscience."

"I … suppose so," Weiss replied. "I must say, it's a good thing that you are transferring to Atlas, or else … well, it would be a fine thing if Atlas' new darling wanted nothing more than to stay in Vale."

"I didn't set out to be anyone's darling," Blake murmured.

"Too bad for you then," Weiss said without much sympathy. Her tone softened as she went on, "Fame has its downsides, I admit, but it is preferable to infamy, as I may be about to discover for myself when we get back to Vale."

"Are you … worried?" asked Blake.

"No," Weiss said quickly. Perhaps a little too quickly. She did not meet Blake's eyes as she said, "I have dealt with hostility in the past; I am … used to it, you might say. There is no discomfort I might suffer at Beacon that I cannot bear."

"I'm sure," Blake said, speaking softly so as to conceal the lack of conviction in her words. "But all the same, there will always be those amongst whom you will be safe. Including me, while I'm still here."

"While you're still here," Weiss mused, running her tongue over the words. "You may not have set out to become famous, but now that you have … you have a lever; I should make use of it, while you can, to push for the things that you want, the changes you want. That is not an opportunity to be put aside lightly, just because you're not comfortable in the spotlight. You have a voice—”

"I always had a voice."

"And now people will listen to it," Weiss said.

Blake supposed that she had a point there, as much as she might not like the fact.

"Everything is going to be different in Atlas," Weiss said. "And I mean that both for you and for the kingdom itself. Are you prepared for that?"

Prepared for what exactly? Blake didn't know for sure, and she suspected that Weiss couldn't say for sure either. But perhaps that was what she ought to be prepared for, for a change that she could not expect.

It will not all be unexpected. No, indeed; she had lived with these people, served with them, she had observed them in the field and in their homes. Not a perfect people, not a perfect kingdom; considerably imperfect in some regards, as they were only now waking up to. But a people with … a capacity for good. They could be a great people, they wished to be. One might say that they were a great people and could be greater still, as, again, they wished to be. They lacked … Blake would not be so vain as to claim that she could supply what they lacked, but she could help, she had no doubt of that.

She could help. She would help, and if she rose high enough, then she would be able to guide instead of merely helping, to guide the ship with all its power and majesty into more equitable waters.

They could be great. They had great power, and she would be a part of that power and also, being a part of it, share in it, have a hold of it, be able to call upon it.

Eventually be able to direct it.

With the help of her friends, she would not only protect this kingdom but shape it and, with fortune willing, leave it a brighter and a higher kingdom than she had found it, cleansed of some of the shadows that darkened its corners.

Of course, I've thought all this before.

"There was a time," she murmured, "when I thought that I — that we — could change the world. As part of the White Fang, with Adam by my side, we were going to bring down all corruption, end all inequality, make a better world. And then … you could describe what happened next a lot of different ways: I betrayed the White Fang, the White Fang betrayed my conscience, Adam betrayed me. And now … now, I stand poised to do it all again, with Rainbow Dash by my side." She chuckled. "Perhaps I'm just bad at learning lessons."

"Clearly, you don't actually believe that," said Weiss.

"No," Blake agreed. "No, I think that this time … things will be different. Things will be different, you're right about that … and I'm ready for whatever comes next."

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