We're Gonna Take You Down (Rewritten)
We’re Gonna Take You Down
The voice of Professor Port boomed out across the arena. “Aspic Braun has been eliminated! And with that, Team Aspidistra is out of the match! Team Sun of Haven Academy stands victorious!”
“Yes!” Blake said, pumping both fists. “Great job, Sun!”
Applejack chuckled. “Ah think you might need to shout just a little bit louder if you want him to hear you from all the way over there, sugarcube.”
Blake chuckled nervously. “You’re … probably right.”
Sun turned, and pointed a pair of fingerguns squarely in Blake’s direction. Looking up at one of the big screens presently displaying a closeup of Sun’s face, Pyrrha could see that he winked at her.
Blake’s cheeks flushed. “Did he … hear me?”
“With his heart, perhaps,” Pyrrha murmured, a smile playing across her lips.
There were seats in the front two rows of the Amity Arena that were reserved expressly and explicitly for Vytal Festival contenders — in a certain section of the front two rows, in any case; it would have been an awful lot of room to waste cordoning the entire front rows of this vast arena purely for a maximum of one hundred and twenty eight students — but Team SAPR and Blake had joined Rainbow Dash’s friends amongst the general crowd.
That had its disadvantages — Pyrrha thought that she had been subject of at least two photographs, and those were just the ones who had been indiscrete about it — but, since Rainbow’s friends weren’t competing in the Vytal Festival, and since Blake in particular wanted to watch these matches in their company, there was little to be done about it.
And Rainbow’s friends were good company, in any case.
“That’s the second loss for Atlas in a row,” Rarity observed. “I have to admit I’m a little disappointed.”
“Sun’s very good,” Blake said. “And so is the rest of his team,” she added.
Sunset snorted. “Smooth. Very smooth.”
“It’s just the way it is,” Applejack said. “Some you win, and some you lose; you celebrate the winnin’, and you learn what you can from the losin’ and get stronger next time. Ain’t nobody can win every single thing every single time, not even Atlas.”
“And besides, there’s still Rainbow Dash’s fight to come! They ain’t seen nothing yet!” Pinkie cried.
She was rather curiously dressed in a short tank top that left her midriff bare to the world and a short skirt that barely covered her thighs, while her knees were at present concealed beneath the pair of blue and red pom poms that she was holding onto. Pyrrha wasn’t sure why, but she suspected that she’d find out soon enough.
Her hair was tied up in a pair of rather large buns on either side of her head, so that they looked like rather pom poms themselves.
“Maybe not,” Jaune said, “but the Haven fans certainly seem to be enjoying themselves right now.”
He was quite right. The whole Colosseum was awash with noise, cheering for the victors, the occasional mean-spirited jeer for the defeated Atlesians, but one sound gradually rose above the discordant harmony of the arena: the cheering of the Mistral crowd transforming from a babble of wild tongues crying wildly out, to a united choir that was, more or less, managing not to hit the right notes, but at least all to follow the same beat as they half-sang, half-chanted the old familiar song.
It’s coming home!
It’s coming!
Fighting’s coming home!”
“There’s always something faintly premature about that song,” Pyrrha murmured.
“You’ve heard that song before?” Jaune asked.
“Oh, yes, it’s been around for a few years by now,” Pyrrha said, “ever since Lady Terri-Belle made it to the final fight ten years ago. ‘Thirty years no yield, never stop believing.’ I suppose it should be forty years now.” She could not help but sigh. “Forty years since the last time a Haven student, or a Mistralian in whom Mistral felt it could take pride, won the Vytal tournament.”
“Why do they say it’s coming home?” Ruby asked. “The Vytal Festival doesn’t belong to Mistral, and neither does the tournament.”
“No,” Pyrrha agreed, “but Mistral invented heroic combat as a spectator sport — there have been no arenas found by archaeologists that predate what we might call Mistralian civilisations — and the Vytal tournament is the supreme expression of that art, and so, it galls my people that we are not supreme in it.”
“Forty years, that is a run of bad luck,” Applejack said. “Makes Atlas losin’ two matches on the trot seem pretty small apples by comparison.”
“I’m not sure the crowd will agree with you,” Rarity replied, “unless Rainbow Dash can restore some lustre to the name of Atlas in this next match.”
Blake folded her arms. “Pyrrha,” she murmured. “Do you think … do you think the fact that Sun is from Vacuo will count against Sun with the crowd?”
“It doesn’t seem to be counting against him at the moment,” Sunset said. “The crowd’s still going, listen.”
“It’s coming home!
It’s coming home!
It’s coming!”
“My understanding was that Sun doesn’t have any particular links to Vacuo beyond the accident of having been born there,” Pyrrha said.
“I’d say that was fair enough,” Blake allowed.
“Then unless Vacuo tries very hard to claim him as their own, he should be safe enough,” Pyrrha said. “What Mistral wants most of all is a winner, and he proved himself to be one today.”
Blake smiled. “Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, he certainly did.”
“That was another disappointing result for Atlas Academy,” Doctor Oobleck declared, his words somewhat blurring together as they echoed out over the tannoy, his face — along with that of Professor Port — appearing on the giant screens. “But they’ll have a chance to win back some of their dignity with our next exciting match!”
“Yes, it’s an Atlas versus Haven rematch coming up next,” Professor Port declared. “Will Team Rosepetal of Atlas and Team Jasmine of Haven please make their way up to the arena so we can start this next match as quickly as possible? Team Rosepetal have made something of a name for themselves this year with their combat performance, but will it be enough to overcome their opponents?”
“Who can say, Peter, who can say?” Doctor Oobleck asked. “Doing well against grimm or against petty criminals is no guarantee of success against highly skilled, well-motivated huntsmen and huntresses.”
“'Petty'?” Sunset repeated. “'Petty'? I’m sorry, who are they calling petty criminals?”
“They’re just trying to fill the air,” Pyrrha said softly.
“There was nothing petty about some of the criminals we went up against,” Sunset declared.
“'Petty'?” Cinder repeated. “'Petty'? Ill-mannered wretch! Insolent, impertinent—”
“They’re just trying to fill air,” Emerald murmured apologetically.
“I am no petty criminal!” Cinder cried, jabbing her finger in the direction of the scroll as she got up from her chair and began to pace up and down. “I am Cinder Fall, I am half a Maiden, I am fear and fire and foe, and I will not be made light of by a pair of bloviating halfwits from a commentator’s booth! They should stick to stating what we can all quite plainly see with our own eyes. Hundreds of years, Emerald, the noble traditions of the arena have endured without the need for commentators or a punditocracy; now we cannot watch but we must endure the opinions of these two learned professors. 'Petty.' Really?”
“They were probably talking about Torchwick,” Emerald offered.
Cinder snorted. “They will learn their lesson soon enough,” she declared, still pacing up and down, her slippers tapping on the floor. “Call me petty, the nerve of it!”
“We, and all of you, will find out soon enough,” Professor Port said. “But before then, as we wait for the thrilling match, time for some messages from our sponsors.”
The image of Professor Port and Doctor Oobleck up in the commentator’s box dissolved and was replaced by a video of a clean-cut man, looking a little overdressed in a jacket and shirt — but no tie — as he stood in a hospital room, beside the bedside of a woman holding a kicking, squirming baby in her arms.
A guitar began to play over the soundtrack, and a voice began to sing slowly.
True care, truth brings…”
Short clips briefly flashed across the screen — the man watching the baby crawling around on the floor of a family home, clapping delightedly as a little girl took her first steps out in the garden, dropping her off at school — all of them intercut with images of the same man, getting gradually older but never appearing to change his clothes, walking down the same street somewhere in Mistral.
A man in a hoodie, hood up to conceal his face, stepped out in front of him with a knife as the music slowed.
The camera lingered on the knife as the man in the hoodie brandished.
And the man in the suit pulled out a gun that had been sitting concealed beneath his jacket and shot him.
The music returned as the camera now lingered upon the MARS lettering upon the barrel of the black pistol.
A clip of the man watching his daughter’s graduation gave way to what was, even without any dialogue, obviously the daughter bringing a boyfriend home to meet her father.
Her father who was ostentatiously cleaning some of his wall of MARS firearms.
Until the prospective boyfriend pulled back his own jacket to reveal that he, too, was carrying a pistol on his hip.
The father nodded approvingly.
“MARS,” came a deep voice in voiceover, as the image transformed to a joyous wedding day, and then finally a return to the hospital room for the birth of a grandchild. “By your side, for all life’s moments.”
Sunset blinked. “I … what was that?”
“That was the MARS Vytal Tournament advertisement,” Pyrrha explained. “They release a special one each festival; some people look forward to it a great deal.”
“Huh,” Ruby said. “You’d have thought that an advert for an arms dealer would have had more actual weapons.”
“I suppose they wanted to highlight what the weapons represent,” Pyrrha replied. “Safety and security.”
“It was pretty wholesome,” Ruby conceded.
“The slogan is a bit vacuous though,” Sunset said. “‘By your side for all life’s moments’; that doesn’t mean anything!”
“Hey, Pyrrha, it’s you!” Jaune said, pointing up at the screen, which was now showing … a Pumpkin Peter advertisement.
“Oh no,” Pyrrha murmured, wondering if she would be best off putting her head in her hands. She remembered filming this, and she doubted it had gotten any better since.
“Psst! Pyrrha!”
Pyrrha looked around in the direction of the fortunate distraction: Medea Helios stood on one of the staircases running up the many levels of the bleachers, the hood of her dark blue shawl down, beckoning to Pyrrha with one slender hand.
Pyrrha would have embraced practically anything that meant she didn’t have to watch that awful advert — she had been glad to be the face of the cereal, but doing the television side had confirmed that she was not cut out for acting — so she stood up and excused herself as she sidled in front of Jaune and Ruby and those other spectators who sat between her and the staircase.
Apologising as she went, she gained the stairs, where Medea descended a step to put herself beneath Pyrrha.
“I’m very grateful to be summoned like that,” Pyrrha informed her, “though I am a little curious as to why. Shouldn’t you be preparing for your match?”
“Time enough for that, Lady Pyrrha, time enough,” Medea said lightly. “In the meantime.” She turned downwards, and near the bottom of the steps Pyrrha could now see the rest of her team waiting: Atalanta, Meleager, and Jason.
With the same hand that she had used to beckon Pyrrha towards her, Medea now imperiously gestured towards her teammates.
Neither Jason nor Meleager quite met Pyrrha’s eyes as they climbed up the steps towards her. They had both grown up since the three of them had trained under Chiron, even as Pyrrha had herself; some might even say that they had grown into handsome young men, although Pyrrha herself preferred slightly softer features in a boy. Jason was square jawed, his dark hair cropped short atop his head, his golden eyes looking anywhere but at Pyrrha; Meleager’s hair was a dark brown, but longer and curly, a well-tended bush surrounding his head, and his eyes were smouldering coals of dull red.
Jason wore a leather cuirass, Meleager’s was linothorax of fiery red; in neither case did it prevent them from bowing at the waist.
Jason coughed into his hand to clear his throat. “Lady Pyrrha,” he said. “I … we … owe you an apology.”
“That was many years ago,” Pyrrha murmured.
“Nevertheless,” Meleager murmured. “It was … we were a pair of little twats.”
Pyrrha had not expected him to phrase it in quite that way. Her eyebrows rose up to meet her gleaming circlet, as her mouth formed a slight O of surprise.
Meleager shrugged. “It’s true, no?”
Pyrrha hesitated. “You were children,” she said. “We were all children.”
“You didn’t try to poison us,” Meleager pointed out.
“Our jealousy was unbecoming,” Jason murmured.
Pyrrha didn’t bother to deny that. They were absolutely right; it had been unbecoming of them both.
But at the same time, she had no desire to hold a grudge over it. She did not hold a grudge over it, she scarcely thought of it; it was merely something that had happened to her some time ago. A thing of little consequence.
“Apology accepted,” she said, smiling down at them.
Jason closed his eyes and let out what sounded like a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Lady Pyrrha,” he said. “You are most gracious.”
“And we are most grateful,” Meleager added.
“There,” Medea said, “now that wasn’t so hard, was it, boys?”
Jason glanced at Meleager, and then at Medea. “No,” he admitted. “No, it wasn’t.”
Medea chuckled. “A gracious apology will always be accepted by a gracious person. Thank you, Lady Pyrrha; that is a great relief to them and me. But now I’m afraid we have to go; we must prepare to beat your Atlesian friends.”
“You may not find that so easy,” Pyrrha warned.
A smirk crossed Medea’s purple-painted lips. “They may not find it so easy to beat us either, Lady Pyrrha.” She snapped her fingers as she turned away. “Come along, dearest, and you, Meleager. Battle awaits us, after all.”
Pyrrha watched them go, then sidled back into her seat, apologising as she went as she stepped in front of people on the way, looking down to avoid legs and holding onto her sash so that it didn’t get caught on anything.
“Who were they?” asked Applejack as she returned to her seat.
“They,” Pyrrha said, “were Team Rosepetal's opponents.”
“Oh, goodness,” Fluttershy murmured. “What did they want?”
“To apologise to me for an insult long past,” Pyrrha said. “It’s a long story; you wouldn’t want to hear it.”
“Are they any good, darling?” asked Rarity.
“Not as good as Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie declared.
Pyrrha considered for a moment. “Jason and Meleager both trained under a very well-regarded master,” she said, neglecting to mention that she had trained under that same master. “Medea and Atalanta, I have not seen fight, but Haven selected its Vytal competitors by battle, so … they cannot be wholly without skill.”
Rainbow Dash pulled her sweat bands over her hands to her wrists, then followed up by pulling a pair of fingerless gloves on over her hands. “You know,” she said. “I don’t really see why they can’t move the lockers up to the Colosseum while the tournament is on. Then we could just arm up and move out instead of having to arm ourselves then fly up to the arena.”
“Because that’s such a hardship,” Twilight murmured.
“Yeah, I know, but it would be convenient,” Rainbow said, as she pulled the Wings of Harmony out from her locker and started buckling them across her chest.
Ciel took her Distant Thunder out of her own locker. She extended it for a moment — in a direction so that it was not pointing at anybody — and checked the sights. “On the other hand, their presence there would be inconvenient if we were attacked on the ground. We need our weapons here in case we need our weapons here. Tautology, but true.”
She checked the chamber, then collapsed her weapon into its more portable form and slung it across her back.
“I guess, though if we get attacked, we’re going to have more troubles than just waiting a little longer for our lockers,” Rainbow muttered.
She pulled out Brutal Honesty and Plane Awesome and checked both of them weren’t already loaded before she proceeded to load them both and sling them into the holsters at her hips. She looked at Undying Loyalty, nestled cosily at the back of the locker. It was tempting, but there was a strict - mostly strict, you could bundle up disposal throwing weapons so they only counted as one; sadly the same didn’t apply to guns - two-weapon rule at the Vytal Festival, and she was already testing the spirit of the rules with her wings and two guns.
She slammed her locker door shut. “Okay, team. Is everyone ready?”
Twilight’s armour spread up her body like a living thing until it had completely subsumed her within it. “Ready,” her voice echoed out from behind the helmet.
“I am armed and well prepared,” Ciel said.
Penny, of course, didn’t have to get anything out of her locker and had simply been sitting quietly in the locker room waiting for the rest of them to be done. She got to her feet. “Combat ready.”
“Awesome,” Rainbow said. She looked over them, her team. Hers to lead, hers to protect, hers to take pride in. “Okay everyone, listen up because I’ve got something to say.”
They all looked at her. At least Penny and Ciel both looked at her; it was a little hard to tell what Twilight was looking at because that armour covered up her face.
Still, Twilight was probably looking at her; she wasn’t the kind to look anywhere else.
Rainbow took a couple of steps towards the rest of them, and as she walked, she gathered her thoughts and turned them into words. Speeches for tournaments or other sporting events were a little different than pre-battle speeches; they were a little less … formulaic. Or at least they could be; there was no saying that you couldn’t give a formulaic speech before a tournament or an exhibition match, but you didn’t have to use quite the same formula.
Leadership class had even spelled out why that was the case: because nobody was going to die in a tournament and everyone knew that, and so there was no reason to be scared in the same way that creeping dread would steal upon you before a battle or terror grip you at the moment when the fighting started. No, before a tournament, with it all, ultimately, in good fun, you didn’t have to worry about acknowledging people’s fears or the dangers of the situation because there weren’t any. You could just go for it and gin up as much enthusiasm as you could get.
But at the same time … it was the beginning of the end, wasn’t it? And it would have felt strange not to acknowledge that just a little bit.
“This team,” Rainbow said, “has not been … it hasn’t quite worked out the way that it was supposed to. Twilight … well, you’re getting a lab from General Ironwood, so I guess this all worked out pretty well for you in the end.”
Twilight’s visor retracted, revealing her face. “I’m honestly trying not to think about that too hard.”
“Why not?” Rainbow asked. “It’s great news for you and for Atlas.” She looked at Penny. “Penny, I hope you find what you're looking for at Beacon next year.” She paused a moment. “Ciel … I don’t know what the future holds for either of us, but if I have any say in the matter at all, I would be honoured to continue serving alongside you.”
Ciel did not respond right away. She was silent, and still, and a bit of a statue, kind of. Finally, she said, “You … have not been so bad a team leader as I feared you might be. I, too, would be amenable to continuing our relationship.”
Rainbow nodded. “Glad to hear it,” she said. “And, as the life of this team comes to a close, I think it’s fair to say that whatever issues we might have had, our combat performance hasn’t been part of the problem. We’ve beat the White Fang, we’ve beat grimm, we took down Torchwick, and whatever Professor Port and Doctor Oobleck might say, all of that is way harder than winning a fight in the Amity Colosseum.”
“I think they were just saying that to keep the crowd on the edge of their seats,” Twilight murmured.
“Whyever they did it, it was insulting,” Rainbow declared. “This team might be ending soon, but before this team actually comes to an end, I want us to bring the curtain down with some victories that we and Atlas can be proud of, with the whole of Remnant watching. And I’m going to be honest with you all: Atlas could use a win right now.”
It wasn’t just Team APDT that had been taken out; before that, Team VERT had been torn a new one by Team UMBR of Shade — of Shade Academy! The barbarians really were at the gates — without yet managing a win. Atlas was zero for two, and not even against Beacon, which wouldn’t have been great but would have been better than being two down against the perennial also-rans at the start of the tournament.
“We are zero for two, and I don’t know about the rest of you,” Rainbow said, “but I am not going to let it be zero for three. Not me, not this team. We are not going to embarrass General Ironwood like that, we are not going to embarrass Atlas like that, and we are not going to embarrass ourselves like that! I don’t know what the problem was with Team Aspidistra or Team Verte, but this is Team Rosepetal, and we have chewed up and spat out everybody who has come to play with us! Atlas is counting on us to uphold the honour of the school and the kingdom; our classmates are counting on us to win back all our rights to hold our heads up high and be proud to wear the whites. General Ironwood is counting on us to save him some face today.
“Team Jasmine … I’ve looked at their files. They’re not bad. If they were that bad, they wouldn’t be here, but you know what they’re not? They’re not us. They haven’t faced what we’ve faced, been through what we’ve been through, fought the battles that we’ve fought. We can do this. I know we can do this. So who’s ready to get out there and win one for the General?”
“YES!” they cried, raising their fists in the air.
“Then let’s get out there and get it done!” Rainbow declared, as she turned to lead the way.
To their last campaign.
“So, this is it,” said Vice Principal Luna, sitting with her sister in Celestia’s office, watching Celestia’s propped-up scroll on the desk as they both waited for the match to start. She took a sip of tea. “Canterlot’s favourite daughter takes the stage.”
“Do you mean Rainbow Dash or Twilight?” Celestia asked amusedly.
Luna chuckled. “It brings back memories, doesn’t it?”
Celestia nodded. “It certainly does.”
Her eyes strayed to a photograph on her desk, not far from her scroll: a photograph of herself and her sister in their younger days, taken just after they’d won their match in the two vs. two round.
She still thought that Luna had been unlucky against Qrow in the singles. Her gaze left that photograph and went to the wall, to the picture of Rainbow Dash and her friends that hung there along with other photographs of those students of whom Celestia was especially proud.
“And now a new generation takes their moment in the sun,” Celestia said. “One day, it will be the turn of Rainbow and Twilight to watch TV and feel nostalgic for days gone by.”
“One can only hope they last that long,” Luna murmured darkly.
“Yes,” Celestia said. “We can hope.”
“Atlas isn’t doing so hot so far, huh?” Juturna said as she took a fistful of popcorn out of the tub and stuffed it into her mouth. Her cheeks puffed out like those of a squirrel as she chewed on it.
“No,” Turnus murmured. “No, they are not.”
“No one can win all battles; they have had ill luck, as anyone might,” Camilla said. “Haven, on the other hand, had a stroke of good fortune; that is no guarantee it will continue on.”
“'Good fortune'?” Turnus asked.
“Team Sun lacked any coordination or teamwork,” Camilla declared. “They were fortunate.”
“You think so?” Turnus asked. “I thought that Sun Wukong and Neptune Vasilias worked together well enough.”
“But Scarlet David and Sage Ayana worked together with them not at all,” Camilla replied. “They were like two teams of two loosely allied against a common enemy, rather than a single team of four.”
Juturna said something that was too indistinct to make out, a wordless mumble accompanied by bits of popcorn falling out of her mouth to land on Turnus’ lap.
He swept them away onto the floor with one hand. “Swallow first,” he said.
Juturna rolled her eyes, then swallowed. “But they still won,” she said. “Which means if you're right, then the Atlesian team must have really sucked.”
“That…” Camilla paused a moment. “Yes, it does imply a greater lack of skill on their parts that they could not leverage the situation.”
“Atlas will turn things around, I have no doubt,” Turnus said. “Although, if they do not … I suppose it might be pleasant to see Haven on a winning streak for once.”
“Off to a great start, huh?” Swift Foot said.
Terri-Belle’s response was a wordless mumbling sound.
Swift Foot frowned. “Are you actually watching this, or is your mind still in your office with all of your paperwork?”
“Half of it is,” Terri-Belle admitted.
Swift Foot rolled her eyes. “Come on, relax! Try and enjoy yourself! It’s the Vytal Tournament; everyone is taking the day off, from the lowliest peasant to the wealthiest merchant.”
“I think the lowliest peasant may be scraping to survive as they always have,” Terri-Belle muttered, “and I doubt the shepherd in the fields is taking the day off to watch the tournament for the simple reason that the wolf and the bear are not taking the day off from preying on the flock. Our enemies are not resting; I—”
“Can go back to your desk when there isn’t a Haven team or Pyrrha competing, how’s that?” Swift Foot suggested. “I’ll come get you when it’s an important match coming up.”
“A Haven match is not necessarily an important match,” Terri-Belle said, her leg twitching as though she wanted to leap up from her seat already. “I think Atlas will pull back a triumph in this next battle.”
“You don’t think Haven can keep up this run of success?”
Terri-Belle looked at her as though she had just said something slightly imbecilic.
Swift Foot sighed. “Okay, I know, it’s Haven, but this team has two people trained by Chiron himself—”
“And what is it really worth to be trained by Chiron?” asked Terri-Belle.
Swift Foot blinked rapidly, not really knowing how she ought to respond to that. “I … I mean, he trained you, didn’t he? And trained you well?”
“Yes,” Terri-Belle said. “Yes, he did, and from him, I learned many things, yet that alone was not enough to carry me to glory, nor did it enable me to kill the scorpion who has been hunting our huntsmen and huntresses. To have been trained by Chiron, to be given an honour band by him, it grants no power to me, nor any other pupil of his. Jason and Meleager have been well taught, they could have no finer instructor, but … who taught Sun Wukong? A Vacuan by birth, someone with no name and no connections, and yet, he led his team to triumph. Why?”
Swift Foot thought about it. “Because … he’s good?”
“Because he is hungry,” Terri-Belle corrected her. “Because he knows that he has nothing but his skill and drive to prove himself and earn his place. I … I sometimes fear that we old families, or even provincial gentry like the House of Helios or Aetolis, are too … complacent, too cosseted by our old names, our history, our inherited wealth. We have so much to fall back on, so much to grease our paths in life, that we lack the edge of those who have no recourse but to fight for all they have.”
“We’re supposed to earn what we have through service to the kingdom and the people,” Swift Foot pointed out.
“'Supposed to' indeed,” Terri-Belle said. “But do we?”
“You do,” Swift Foot said. “And I will, and … and if you’re right, then how do you explain Pyrrha Nikos? If you’re right, then why hasn’t Arslan Altan from the lower slopes won the regional tournament?”
Terri-Belle was silent for a moment. “You may be right,” she admitted. “I suppose … we will just have to see what happens in this next match.”
“So, your girl’s up next,” Veil observed. “One of your girls, anyway.”
“Yep,” Leaf agreed. “This next match is going to be awesome.”
“You think she’ll win?”
Leaf looked at her. “Do I— yes. Yes, I think she’ll win, I know it. Rainbow Dash is going to kick ass. She took down the entirety of SDC security; beating four other students isn’t going to be any problem at all.”
“Scootaloo, why have you got your scroll up like that?” Apple Bloom asked. “You’re going to miss Rainbow’s first match.”
“No, I won’t; I’m using the camera function,” Scootaloo said. “I can see everything going on through my scroll.”
“Why don’t you try seeing it through your eyes?” Apple Bloom suggested.
“Because she needs to take pictures for her Rainbow Dash scrapbook, right?” said Sweetie Belle.
“Yep,” Scootaloo said, nodding along. “I can’t not have pictures of Rainbow’s Vytal fights in there.”
“Did you just say ‘Rainbow Dash scrapbook’?” asked Sunset.
“Yeah!” Scootaloo said enthusiastically. “I don’t have it with me right now, but I can show it to you sometime if you like.”
Sunset was silent for a second. “I hope she understands how lucky she is,” she said.
“Thank you for joining me, Lady Belladonna,” Cadance said, rising from her seat to welcome the other woman.
Kali smiled. “Please, Councillor Cadenza, call me Kali.”
“Only if you call me Cadance,” Cadance said, returning Kali’s smile with one of her own. “Please, sit down.”
Kali did so, taking the seat next to Cadance. “This is … a lot more private than I expected.”
Cadance currently had one of the boxes at the top of the coliseum all to herself, with the remaining ten seats currently lying vacant, although Shining Armor was standing in front of one of them as he stood guard behind her, and the rest of her security detail was taking up a little space as well.
“Yes, it’s a privilege of my position,” she said. “And a sad necessity.” There was a part of her that would rather be watching down in the stands with Twilight’s friends, but that was the kind of security nightmare that she would never be allowed to indulge in. And so here she was, exiled to the upper boxes which only the wealthiest could afford. “The view is not the greatest, but you’ll find the refreshment selection on the right arm of your chair very comprehensive.”
“And complimentary?”
“Of course,” Cadance said lightly. She handed Kali a set of opera glasses. “You might need these.”
“Thank you,” Kali said. “Although I think Blake might prefer it if I didn’t see her fight. Not that I intend to take any notice of what she wants in this instance.” She glanced at Shining Armour. “Not dressed like your other bodyguards?”
“He’s my husband,” Cadance said. “He’s just overprotective.”
“Ma’am,” Shining Armour said to Kali.
“I see,” Kali said. She grinned. “Nothing like having a big, strapping man around the house to make a woman feel safe, is there? But I doubt you asked me to join you simply to show me your fine husband or treat me to complimentary refreshments.”
“General Ironwood might be joining us, as and when and if his duties permit; I trust that isn’t a problem.”
“I have no quarrel with the Atlesian military,” Kali said. “I always felt it was Atlas that had a quarrel with us.”
“Something we can discuss,” Cadance said. “I asked you to join me so that we could talk in private. Although not perhaps during this match. I don’t want to miss a second of this.”
The cheers of the crowd echoed down from the rising banks of seats that rose up all around the circumference of Amity Arena. They echoed down upon Team RSPT as they made their way into the arena, walking across what were currently blank, featureless modules, mere metal sheets, a white latticework criss-crossed with grey beams. Once the battle began, the featureless flat would disappear and be replaced by the terrain over which the battle would be fought, but for now, it was a flat surface for the two teams to cross to the hexagon in the very centre of the ring.
Team RSPT made their way into the centre of the arena from the north, while the Mistralian Team JAMM made their way in from the south, until they were both standing in the hexagon, lined up and facing one another.
The voices of the crowd were dissolved into an unintelligible mass of noise, in the same way that Rainbow couldn’t make out any faces, just a load of people in the distance. But she could — and she would swear to this — make out Pinkie’s voice, rising high-pitched above all the others to cheer her on.
It put a smile on Rainbow’s face as the two teams faced each other.
“As I understand,” said one of the female members of Team JAMM, Medea Helios, the one who was hiding her face under the hood of her cloak and the gilded skull of a ram worn like a helmet, “you four are friends of Lady Pyrrha.”
“Pyrrha?” Penny repeated. “Yes, we’re friends of Pyrrha.”
Medea chuckled. “Don’t expect us to go easy on you on her account.”
Penny blinked. “I … I don’t understand; why—?”
“They’re trying to make us angry to put us off balance,” Rainbow said. “Don’t expect us to go easy on you either, for Pyrrha’s sake or any other reason.”
The other girl on their team, Atalanta Calydon, snorted, “The way these two have behaved, Lady Pyrrha would probably thank you for going rough on us.”
“Ugh,” said Jason Chrysomallos, the team leader. “Atalanta, that sounds like an innuendo.”
Atlanta wrinkled her nose. “It does?”
“Yes, yes, I’m afraid it does,” Jason muttered.
“Oh,” Atalanta said. “Well, it wasn’t meant to.”
Professor Port’s voice boomed out across the arena. “Team Rosepetal of Atlas!”
The cheers from the sections of the stands most occupied by Atlesians and their supporters were redoubled as the names of the RSPT members flashed up on the board, showing all their aura levels as being in the green.
“Versus Team Jasmine of Haven!” This time, the cheers rose from the Haven sections, as the names of the huntsmen of JAMM appeared opposite the Rosepetals and allowed Rainbow to start putting names to the faces confronting her team.
Jason Chrysomallos, the leader, didn’t look like he shaved as much as he should; maybe he was trying to grow a beard, but if he was, it wasn’t really working out for him. His cuirass was uncoloured brown leather, and he wore a golden fleece down his back like a cape, with the ram’s skull with its two golden horns acting like a kind of helmet. He had a short sword in one hand and a large round shield — larger than Pyrrha’s, maybe as much as twice the size — in the other.
Atalanta Calydon was a bear faunus, with claws where her fingernails ought to have been; that didn’t stop her holding a bow in her hand with an arrow fitted to string. She was wearing a white tunic that stopped just above her knees, and her chestnut hair was cut short above the shoulders. Around her neck, she wore a loose necklace of boar tusks on a string. Brown sandals wound around her feet and ankles, and brown fingerless gloves covered most of her hands. Beside her bow, she had a long knife with a bone handle with a pommel carved in the shape of a lioness’ head, and hanging from her belt by a pair of brown strings was a single, simple-looking brown pouch.
Rainbow wondered if she had dust crystals in there.
Medea Helios wore a light purple dress that was kind of narrow but at the same time looked loose enough that it wouldn’t get in her way if she tried to move; over the dress, she was wearing a dark green cloak with the hood up, and over that, she was following the lead of her team leader in wearing a golden fleece, with the skull resting on top of her head like a cap or a helmet and casting a shadow over her so that between that and the cloak, the only thing that was visible was her chin and her lips, which were painted blue. Rainbow couldn’t see a weapon on her, but then, she couldn’t see her hands either, so she must be hiding the weapon in the long sleeves of her dress the same way.
Meleager Aetolis had dark hair that was long and curly; it surrounded his head in ringlets like a tangled bush. Like his team leader, he was trying to grow a beard, and like his team leader, he was ending up less in ‘beard’ and more in ‘forgot to or couldn’t be bothered to shave.’ His cuirass was a fiery red, and so was the cloak that fell down his back, except for the hem where it was trimmed with a fiery yellow. He had a brilliant red spear in his hand which, judging by its look, Rainbow guessed transformed into something else, while he was wearing a vambrace on his right arm that had a gun mounted onto it on the outside. No, not a gun; a miniature flamethrower if Rainbow as any judge, going by what looked like a little dust canister hooked up to it by a tube strapped around his arm. He looked a bit off balance, he kept looking at his off-hand, and Rainbow guessed that he usually had a shield and probably another vambrace with a second flamethrower, but that he had had to leave them both behind due to the Vytal tournament’s two-weapon rule.
Them’s the breaks, thought Rainbow, her thoughts briefly flying downwards to where Undying Loyalty waited in her locker.
“Both teams, prepare for battle!” Professor Port commanded as the sound of the crowd was redoubled.
Both teams readied their weapons: Rainbow drew her pistols and aimed them at Meleager, who brandished his spear at her; Ciel aimed her rifle at Medea; Penny brought Floating Array out of her back, the swords circling around her head like a halo, all pointed at Atalanta, who responded by aiming her bow at Penny; Jason stepped into a guard, his shield held before him, while Twilight did not react at all.
All around the edges of the arena, the terrain indicators began to light up, cycling between the different options available like the cherries and pineapples on a slot machine: woods, mountains, desert, all flipped past until the icons behind RSPT landed on a symbol that Rainbow didn’t recognise until a set of urban ruins, all shattered buildings and broken walls that looked as though it had been bombed out, rose up behind them.
A rocky desert, dominated by a vast and towered mountain of brown rock, arose behind Team JAMM.
“Three,” Doctor Oobleck’s voice boomed across the arena. “Two … one. Begin!”
Distant Thunder boomed as Ciel took the first shot, but the members of Team JAMM had already scattered, dodging and diving as they ran … backwards? They were retreating already, running towards the cover of the rocks that littered the desert sand in the shadow of the mountain, zig-zagging as they went so that neither Ciel’s thunderous rounds nor the laser fire from Floating Array could quite hit them.
Actually, that wasn’t quite true; Penny managed to wing Atalanta on the shoulder and knock her down for a moment, but it didn’t stop the others running, and once she got up — minus a good slice of her aura – it didn’t stop her from running either.
Rainbow’s first impulse was to pursue, but though that impulse screamed at her, she resisted it. She resisted it because it was likely to get at least some of her team taken out, and even in a mock battle, that was something that she’d prefer to avoid if at all possible. JAMM were running not because they’d been forced to but because they’d decided to. That meant that they had a plan.
“Back!” Rainbow ordered, because if JAMM had a plan, she wanted to find out what it was from a safer position than standing out in the open in the middle of the battlefield. “Fall back to cover!”
“Oho, what’s this?” Professor Port asked, as sections of the crowd started booing at the sight of Team RSPT emulating JAMM and breaking behind them for the cover of the urban ruins. “Are both teams running away from each other?”
“I can’t decide if he’s playing for the crowd or demonstrating his lack of fitness to be a teacher,” Ciel muttered barely above her breath as she leapt over a low wall and took cover behind it. The rest of the team did likewise.
“What do we do now?” Penny asked as she got halfway to curling up into a ball like a hedgehog behind a particularly low patch of ruined wall.
“If anyone sticks their head above cover, shoot them,” Rainbow said. “Like her!” she said, pointing at Medea who had just risen to her feet. Rainbow had to duck as Atalanta loosed a fire dust arrow in her direction. It flew over Rainbow’s head and exploded brightly but harmlessly.
The powerful desert sun — yes, the desert biome came complete with its own sun, because this coliseum did nothing by halves — was in their eyes, but between Rainbow’s magenta goggles, the fact that Penny had photoreceptors instead of eyes if you wanted to be technical, and Twilight’s armour, the only one who was really in trouble from the bright sunlight was Ciel; and even Ciel had a one-eyed visor covering her shooting eye. If JAMM were relying on the sun to blind RSPT, they had another thing coming.
Which was probably why they seemed to be relying on Atalanta’s arrows to keep their heads down while Medea did whatever it was she was doing.
Medea raised her hands. Penny fired at her with three of her swords, green bolts streaking across the arena towards her. Jason threw himself between Medea and the fire, raising his shield as all three laser bolts struck it more or less in the centre, hurling him backwards into the mountain.
But by then, it was too late.
Rainbow’s eyes widened as skeletons began to rise out of the ground in the centre of the arena. No, she wasn’t lying, and she wasn’t exaggerating. Actual skeletons with swords and round metal shields were popping out of the ground. A couple of them had spears, but for most of them, it was sword and shield as they rose one after the other in the centre of the arena, surrounded by a ghostly blue light that made them look even creepier than the fact that they were skeletons would have.
Is this her semblance? What kind of a creepy person has a semblance like this?
Ciel shot one of the skeletons, blowing it to smithereens with a single shot of Distant Thunder, but another skeleton simply rose out of the ground to take its place.
The skeletons, sixteen in total, stared at RSPT out of their lifeless sockets. Then, slowly, they began to advance, marching forwards in regimented unison with their swords and shields held useless by their sides.
Ciel fired again; another skeleton was blown to pieces before a replacement rose out of the floor. Then, with a blood-curdling scream, they charged, shields held before them and swords and spears brandished above their heads.
Rainbow fired, spraying bullets from both pistols into the midst of the skeletal horde. Ciel kept shooting; Twilight thrust her armoured fists forward, blasters emerging out of the vambraces to fire purple beams into the skeletal horde; Penny rose up from behind cover with all her swords retracted into carbines as bolt after bolt erupted out of every fang of Floating Array. But every skeleton that was knocked down picked itself back up again, and every skeleton that had its head knocked off simply stumbled about for a moment until it found its head and put it back on again; and for every skeleton that was completely destroyed, another rose out of the centre of the arena to take its place and charge towards Team RSPT. And they were getting closer all the time.
“Logic dictates that if we defeat Medea, then these creations of her semblance will disappear,” Ciel said as she blew one away.
Rainbow had emptied the mags in both her pistols. She reloaded but held her fire. “Okay,” she said, “here’s what we’re going to do: Penny, you are going to hold this position and keep those skeletons tied down; Ciel, fall back to high ground and give me covering fire while I get over there and take out Medea; once I’ve done that, you’ll continue to provide cover while Penny joins me for our counterattack. Twilight … stay here with Penny.”
Twilight sounded almost amused. “Got it.”
“Does everyone else get it?” Rainbow asked.
“Understood,” Ciel said.
“Penny?”
Penny nodded. “Got it. I can do this.”
“I know you can,” Rainbow replied. “Okay, we’ve got this, so let’s get it done! Ciel, move!”
Ciel broke cover, turning and running towards the two-storey building, or at least the reasonable facsimile of what had once been a two-storey building that was, in the end, just a couple of walls and the remains of two floors stacked one on top of the other. Nevertheless, it was the highest ground on their side of the battlefield, and Ciel ran towards it, her skirt leaping up and down as her legs pumped, Distant Thunder rising and falling like a ship on rough seas. As Rainbow saw her leap up onto the first floor, Rainbow herself started to retreat, backing away from the skeletons, leaving them to Penny, who was fencing with the closest ones with some of her swords while using a few others as carbines still to keep shooting at the more distant manifestations of Medea’s semblance.
She left Twilight too.
“Twilight?” Rainbow said.
“Go, go on,” Twilight said, as her left gauntlet began to project a lavender shield in front of her. “Win one for the General.”
Rainbow took a deep breath. It’s only a mock battle. She took another step backwards and unfurled her Wings of Harmony.
As the metal feathers spread out around her, Rainbow took to the skies.
She soared upwards, over the ruins and the desert both, dodging an arrow loosed at her by Atalanta as she rose, rising close to the edge of the forcefield that surrounded the battlefield and protected the spectators from any stray bullets or arrows or flying contestants being flung out of the ring. If the arena was its own little world, then Rainbow Dash flew to the top of the sky before she began to descend, like a shower of bombs dropped from an Atlesian cruiser, straight towards Team JAMM.
Ciel gained the upper storey of the ruined building — fortunately, it didn’t feel like it was about to collapse beneath her feet, despite the lack of supporting walls — and crouched down at the edge of the wall, putting Distant Thunder to her shoulder and lowering her eye to see the battlefield through the scope.
Through the scope, where everything was so simple.
She could see Rainbow Dash descending. Jason and Meleager were getting ready to defend Medea, but she could certainly … why was Atalanta breaking off?
The bear faunus girl had loosed a few arrows at Rainbow Dash as she flew, but now she was running away from Rainbow Dash, abandoning her three teammates and running towards Penny and Twilight — and Ciel.
She stopped, nocking two arrows in quick succession and shooting them upwards towards Ciel, who had to scramble aside along the rooftop not to be struck by them.
Ciel raised her rifle scope to her eye again. This battle had been filled with manoeuvres that seemed strange — the retreat of JAMM, the retreat of RSPT, even her and Rainbow’s actions at first — all of which had been part of a plan to achieve victory. It would be foolish in the extreme to assume that Atalanta’s behaviour did not stand in the same line.
She, then, was Ciel’s target, and she seemed to be aware of the fact by the way that she was dodging, diving, darting this way and then that, never moving in a straight line, never staying in the same place.
Precognition On!
If anyone had been standing close by, and not distracted by the battle raging all around, they would have seen Ciel’s eyes turn a brighter and more brilliant blue.
Thanks to her semblance, Future Echo, she could see not only what was but what would be, she could see where Atalanta would move before she moved there, and more importantly, she could shoot her there.
She tracked, not Atlanta’s movements, but the echo of her movements, the sight of where she would be when Ciel’s bullet struck.
She fired, Distant Thunder roaring.
Atlanta was hit in the chest and hurled backwards, and through her scope, Ciel could appreciate the look of surprise on her face as she was hit despite her efforts to prevent it, tossed backwards out of the central hexagon and into the sands of the desert biome.
Ciel worked the bolt of Distant Thunder, and a large cartridge case thumped down onto the roof beside her.
“It seems that Ciel Soleil has activated her semblance!” Professor Port declared. “This allows her to perceive the future movements of her adversaries and target not their present locations, but their future one.”
Thank you for revealing my secret, Professor, Ciel thought. There were certain students who had opted out of consideration for the Vytal Tournament because when they faced someone in battle, they didn’t want them to know everything that they could do from seeing it on television.
Ciel was beginning to understand their position.
Especially since it wasn’t only the audience at home who could hear the commentary, but Atalanta.
The Mistralian huntress leapt to her feet and launched a flurry of arrows towards Ciel’s position, the blur of her swift motions seeming even blurrier by the fact that Ciel was seeing not only her current movements but her future ones as well. Arrows leapt from the string of her bow, and the fact that Ciel could see where those arrows were going to land did not free her from the necessity of evading them, and it was Ciel’s turn to play the leapfrog as she darted this way and that, avoiding the flight of this dart and then another as they landed here and there, striking the roof. Some of them, Ciel could see, were primed with fire dust, and it was necessary for her to momentarily vacate the top floor lest she be blown off it in any case by the explosions which she had foreseen. Once they had exploded, harmlessly, and conscious that she could only sustain her semblance for so long — her best record before her aura entered the red was three minutes — Ciel leapt back up onto the roof to find that Atalanta was on the move again.
Ciel took aim at Atalanta’s future location. She could see the echo of her opponent reaching into her pouch and pulling out … something, it was too small to make out, but she would throw it towards Penny and the skeletal figures with whom she and Twilight were locked in combat.
Ciel fired.
Atalanta was struck, but not before she had thrown the object that Ciel could not make out. As Atalanta was hurled backwards again, her aura dropping into the deep yellow that was not far from red, that which she had thrown soared through the air, bounced and skidded along the ground and finally came to a halt not far from Penny’s feet.
It was a marble. It was an ordinary glass marble of dark … it was glowing. Before Ciel’s eyes, before all their eyes it was glowing. It was turning golden, as golden as … it was the most golden thing in the world, the most beautiful desirable thing in the world.
So beautiful that she could not take her eyes off it.
“And now it is the turn of Atalanta Calydon to use her semblance,” Professor Port said. “Now, this unique skill allows her to use some of her aura to imbue an object with glamourous properties.”
Penny wished they would both shut up, because they were both distracting her. Distracting her from the precious gem at her feet, the golden marble.
She didn’t care about anything else, certainly not the ethereal skeletons slashing at her or stabbing her, taking slices off her aura as they did so. What did that matter? What did her aura matter? What did any of it matter when there was this beautiful marble to look at?
To behold its gilded radiance was all that she…
All that she…
Wanted.
Wanted…
Wanted … what she…
What I want.
What I want is…
What I want … is to choose what I want!
I want to decide for myself!
Penny tore her eyes away from the golden marble. The spectral skeletons were all around her, hacking at her, stabbing her, taking her aura down. And two of them had brought Twilight down to the ground; she must have been distracted by the marble too — she still was; she didn’t seem to be reacting at all as her aura dropped lower and lower.
Penny moved her arms as best she could, sweeping her swords around to clear away the space, slashing the skeletal figures aside, batting them away with the combined strength of all her blades united.
Then she brought one foot down upon the golden marble, crushing it beneath her heel.
“What— what was…? Ahem, forgive us ladies and gentlemen,” Professor Port said. “It appears that we, too, were affected by Atalanta Calydon’s semblance.”
“Though it appears that Penny Polendina was not!” Doctor Oobleck declared. “How did she do it?”
“That’s a good question,” Sunset said, leaning forwards. “Could it be…?” She left the question unspoken, but lingering in the air nevertheless.
“Could it be what?” asked Pinkie.
Pyrrha didn’t answer her, but rather Sunset as she shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it. She was affected, you could see that, she was as affected as any of us.”
“But then she just wasn’t?” Ruby said.
“I wonder,” Pyrrha murmured. She began to smile.
“Wonder what?” asked Pinkie.
“I wonder,” Pyrrha repeated, “if Penny might have found her semblance.”
Ciel blinked rapidly as she shook her head. What … what had—?
“…by Atalanta Calydon’s semblance.”
Ah, yes of course.
“Though it appears that Penny Polendina was not! How did she do it?”
Thank you, Penny, Ciel thought; she would ponder the whys later; for now—
She took aim at Atalanta, who appeared somewhat stunned by the way that Penny had just resisted her semblance.
Ciel took the shot before she could recover.
Distant Thunder roared angrily.
Atalanta’s aura broke as she was tossed like a ragdoll across the sands.
“And that’s our first elimination of the match as Atalanta Calydon’s aura is depleted!” cried Professor Port. “First blood to Team Rosepetal!”
Rainbow Dash dropped down feet first, falling from the skies as her wings folded neatly back into the jetpack with a series of clicks and clanks and rattles of shifting metal.
Jason and Meleager both moved to cover Medea, and as they did so, Meleager raised his vambrace, and, yep, it was a flamethrower, which Rainbow could astutely determine from the way that it sprayed fire upwards in a cone of crimson towards her.
Rainbow shielded her face with her arms, crossing them in front of her; yes, the flames licked at her aura, she could feel the heat all around her as the fires engulfed her, sure it wasn’t the most comfortable experience, but she knew that she had enough aura to withstand the flames, easy.
Just like she knew she had enough aura for an aura boom.
Rainbow hit the ground wreathed in flame, a fiery comet dropping out of the heavens, and like a comet, she hit the ground with force. Her knees buckled to a crouch, she landed one arm out, but with the other hand, she punched the ground beneath her as she made landfall, kicking up sand in all directions, throwing out a booming shockwave all around her which threw Jason and Meleager backwards and off their feet, arms flailing as they were tossed over the sands to land upon the backsides.
Leaving Medea wide open.
Rainbow didn’t give any of Team JAMM time to recover. Her target was right in front of her, and so she sprang forwards, a rainbow trailing after her as she streaked across the sands.
Medea fumbled in the baggy sleeves of her dress, producing a knife with a crooked blade that zig-zagged back and forth for some reason; she brandished it in front of her.
Rainbow came in fast, and as she closed, one hand shot out to grab Medea’s wrist and twist the dagger from her hand.
Medea winced in pain.
She did a lot more than wince as Rainbow drove her first into Medea’s stomach, making her bend double with a gasping oof at the same time as she was knocked backwards.
Rainbow hit her again, in the stomach once more with her other hand, then with her right again across the jaw, knocking the ram’s skull off her head as face snapped sideways. One more to the gut, lifting her up into the air and then an uppercut to send her flying as her aura dropped into the red.
“And Medea Helios becomes the second member of Team Jasmine to be eliminated!” Doctor Oobleck shouted, as the crowd went wild from the Atlas side of the stadium. “Can Team Jasmine turn this around with only two huntsmen left in contention?”
Not a chance, Doctor, Rainbow thought, as she turned on her toes, sand scraping beneath her feet, to face the last two members of Team JAMM.
They had both regained their feet, and now they closed on her from both sides. Meleager was aiming his flamethrower at her again.
Which was why Rainbow closed with Jason, the rainbow trail marking her semblance as she sped over the sands towards the leader of the enemy team.
She drew Brutal Honesty and Plane Awesome and fired them as she ran, firing one gun at Jason and the other at Meleager; she made Jason bring his shield up to cover his head, and she gave Meleager something to think about for a second.
Rainbow ploughed bodily into Jason, crashing into his shield, wrapping her left arm around it even as she aimed Brutal Honesty underneath it and held the trigger down, emptying the magazine into Jason’s stomach.
He shouted in pain and slashed at her face with his sword. Rainbow discarded her machine pistol and let go of his shield as she leaned backwards, letting his blade pass harmlessly over her head as she kicked him in the shin.
He was wearing greaves, decorated with more rams’ heads because why not, and so, Rainbow felt the blow through the aura around her foot, but Jason felt it too, because his leg buckled underneath him, and he dropped to one knee.
Rainbow straightened up and made to kick him in the head when she heard the roar of Distant Thunder, accompanied by the pulsing, hissing sounds of Penny’s lasers all firing at once.
“And in a single volley, Meleager Calydon’s aura is depleted, and he is out of the match!” Professor Port.
Thanks, guys, Rainbow thought. And now she kicked Jason in the side of the head, knocking him sideways.
He rolled and rose to his feet, sword and shield still gripped tightly in his hands.
He had to have known that he had lost the match, but nevertheless, he faced Rainbow Dash, hands steady, face set with determination. She had to give him credit for that.
His blade was glowing blue; Rainbow guessed that it was ice dust.
He charged at her, shield held before him, blade raised. He swung his shield at her. Rainbow grabbed it with both hands, using it — and the fact that it was strapped to his arm — to hold onto him as she turned, spinning on her toes, carrying her opponent with her until she threw him like a frisbee.
And as she threw him, she hit him with a good dose of her aura for good measure.
And as he flew, she kept on hitting him, able to keep up with his movements thanks to her speed semblance, able to follow up, able to keep on laying into him while he struggled to respond, lashing out with her fists left and right, one, two, three, four, until his aura dropped into the red and Rainbow Dash let him drop, defeated, down onto the sand.
“And with the elimination of Jason Chrysomallos, the entire Team Jasmine has now been eliminated!” Doctor Oobleck shouted. “Victory goes to Team Rosepetal of Atlas!”
“YES!” Rainbow yelled, raising both fists into the air as she jumped for joy. “Yes! Yes, we—” She realised that one of her opponents was lying right in front of her and so she forced herself to calm down, clearing her throat. “I mean, um, ahem, good… good game, well fought, uh—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jason groaned. “You won fair and square; you’ve got a right to celebrate.” He grunted as he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, then gradually rose to stand on his feet again. “Rainbow Dash, yes?”
Rainbow nodded. “That’s right.”
Jason took a deep breath. “I … I am honoured to say that I took lessons from Chiron in Mistral. I will be equally honoured to say that I took lessons in the Amity Colosseum from you.”
Rainbow grinned; she didn’t know how serious he was about that, but she grinned all the same. “Thanks.”
“Do well,” Jason told her. “The farther you go, the easier the sting of this will be to bear.”
Rainbow snorted. “I’ll do my best, since you asked. But now…” She glanced back to the ruins, where the rest of her teammates waited.
“Of course,” Jason said. “I have consolation of my own to offer. See you around, Atlas.”
“See you around, Mistral,” Rainbow replied as she sped back across the sand, across the central hexagon, back to the ruins, where Ciel descended from her high point to join Penny and Twilight.
“It’s done, then?” Penny asked. “It’s over? We won?”
“It’s over, Penny,” Rainbow agreed. “We won. How do you feel?”
“It … was fun,” Penny said. “But it might be even more fun to watch, without having to actually worry about what’s happening.”
Rainbow hesitated. “You know … if you and Ciel want to—”
“No,” Penny said. “No, it’s fine; you two should go on. You both did really well today.”
“We all did well today,” Rainbow told her. “That’s why we won.”
“A victory for Atlas,” Ciel said, “the first victory for Atlas. Yes, indeed, I think it is not unfair to say that Rainbow is correct: we have all done very well.”
Luna leaned back in her chair. “They did it,” she said softly.
Celestia chuckled. “Was there ever a doubt that they would?”
“There is neither shame in losing to a skilled opponent nor shame in contemplating that those you would rather win may be so defeated,” Luna said. “Those semblances of the Jasmine girls were quite something.”
“But they relied on them too heavily, I think,” Celestia said. “They seemed helpless before Rainbow Dash at close quarters; what are they teaching them at Haven?”
“You may well ask,” Luna muttered. “Or perhaps we should not ask and simply take pride in Rainbow Dash’s skill and accomplishment?”
Celestia smiled. “Yes, Luna, why not? That sounds like a much more pleasant idea.”
Swift Foot huffed. “That was disappointing.”
“As a display of skill in arms, I thought it was quite entertaining,” Terri-Belle murmured.
“Yeah,” Swift Foot admitted. “I was still hoping for Haven to win, though.”
“As I said,” Terri-Belle replied, getting up out of her chair, “the Atlesians wanted it more badly, and so they took it. That, and they were just better than their opponents.”
“I told you Atlas would turn it around,” Turnus said.
Juturna blew out of her mouth, making her lips flap a little bit. “Yeah, yeah, you did,” she admitted. “You also said it might be cool to see Haven on a winning streak.”
“And so it might have been,” Camilla murmured, “but fate had it otherwise.”
Juturna nodded. “What is it about faunus? They seem to be some of the best fighters in this tournament. That Sun Wukong guy, then this Rainbow Dash—”
“Don’t,” Camilla said, softly but firmly all the same. “Please, Juturna, do not speak so; it … we are not so different from one another.”
Juturna looked at her, eyes wide. “I … yeah. Sorry, I … sorry.” She paused for a moment. “Still … great fight, huh?”
“Yes,” Camilla murmured. “Yes, it was a very enjoyable match.”
“What did I tell you?” Leaf said as she opened up her packet of cigarettes. “I told you they were going to kick ass, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you did,” Veil admitted. “And they did.”
“Like I said,” Leaf added. “Nothing compared to the SDC.” She pulled a cigarette out of the packet and stuck it in her mouth.”
“Do you have to stink up our place with those?” Veil asked.
“I need one!” Leaf insisted, speaking out of one corner of her mouth. “It’s been, like, an hour since I had my last one. Look at me; I’m getting withdrawal symptoms.” She held up one trembling hand as she fumbled for her lighter with the other.
“Well, go outside and smoke in the corridor,” Veil said.
“If I do that, I might miss the start of the next match,” Leaf protested.
“The next match will be between Team Iron of Beacon and Team Bronze of Shade!” Professor Port’s voice boomed out of the television. “Beginning in ten minutes!”
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And here I thought the theme was "Jason and the Pusasycats"
Well that was a fun fight. Poor Haven, tho. they are basically just cannon fodder for this tournament arc, huh.
9805607
Yup. From the same author as Moby Duck and Frankenstein's Monster Tuck!
Any one else curious if Medea can combine her semblance with sunset's magic or wiess's semblance or would they be stronger or summoned more with jaune
9805620
Ya I agree they could use more guided training Medea should have at least kept two skeleton with her to help guard and needs better combat training
Very nice. I'm glad to say I got all of the Greek references. =D
9805745
My theory (until told otherwise) is that Medea need earthen ground (that means no summons inside buildings unless she send them in) and that she need a certain size area that she has to summon in just like the dragon teeth warrior could only be made in tilled ground of about the size of a plot of land if I remember the legend right
Medea reminds me of regalia from slvr with her summon beast head that spit energy balls
This is blatantly cheating on Atlas's part lmao.
"Yeah we built a combat android to beat these kids."
Hopefully we learn the reason for that in Volume 7 cause I cannot accept "we were just testing her out." considering the possibility of Penny getting ousted and the whole world getting mad.
We got to go full Fate-Stay Night in this chapter! I can see the parallel you drew here; ancient legends of Greece vs. the advanced technology of Atlas!
And by the way? Medea has purple lips and (slightly) elven features under her concealed hood, summons skeletons and has a crooked dagger? Definitely a shout-out to Fate Stay, and I love it! Great chapter!
Shouldn't Atalanta be a Lion Faunus?
p7.hiclipart.com/preview/420/751/649/fate-stay-night-archer-fate-extra-atalanta-fate-grand-order-fate-apocrypha.jpg
9805804
Atalanta was raised by a bear in the original myth. Not everything needs to be a Fate reference.
9805886
Ya fate is not jojo
9805886
And in the words of Gandalf, every good story deserves a little embellishment.
Meh. History is boring. That's why we have Fate Stay.
And Suicide Squad won an award for Make-up and Hairstyles. Life is... surprising.
Getting the gang back together is definitely helping Rainbow Dash.
Ok, friggen Dragon's Teeth as a semblance is amazing, to bad Leo is her headmaster, with a good team, or just better trained, she could be legend.
Penny getting all the love was nice to read, but how in the heck do all her swords classify as two weapons or less? Because of they make the big FU laser? Because If that's the case people have not been bending the rules NERF style near well enough!
9805698
Of Course! Don't you know anything about Science?
9805725
True, but we're talking about Leo Lionheart here...! he is hampering his academy for the benefit of Sa-Lem.
9805779
Penny's reason to be is simple: her creator wanted a girl, was a decent roboticist (Not Dr. Thomas Marie Geraldine Light mind you) and Ironwear wanted a way to have hunters and specialists without the need to sacrifice humans.
9805886
Wouldn't be cool if Atalanta had been raised by a beer?
9806150
In addition to forming the giant laser, out of universe, Penny's weapon is based off of the Murakumo unit from Blazblue, which also counts as one weapon. So there is at least some precedent there.
9806398
Actually, should twin weapons count as one or multiple? This is the main question of this rule.
9806350
Naw. Im from Missouri!
9805799
Oh good I'm not the only one who caught it. Took me a sec, but the crooked dagger sold it for me
9806466
I'd say they count as one, especially if the weapons can combine in some way.
9806757
So, RD's twin SMGs are count as one weapon. And jetpack isn't a weapon, it's mobility enhancer. Ergo, she could take shotgun with her.
See, you say Medea's semblance is inspired by a film, but you base her appearance and weapon off Fate/Stay Night, which also features her summoning skeletons. Speaking of, what would Rule Breaker even do in this universe? There are no Servant contracts to nullify
9806982
In the Immoral words of Josh Scorcher, I think you're taking the Fate connection too seriously...
9806903
I'd guess it'd be similar to the Sports Festival on MHA, where having the gear would have made the heroes too OP, so they counted EVERYTHING as a weapon, regardless if it's a dozen of swords, a jetpack, and dual pistols or a rifle the size of a house... and let's not talk about the Sparkletech Iron Mare Mark I
9806484
You poor unfortunate sole! still could be worse, You could be from Arizona
9807215
How am I taking it too seriously? I made an observation that this depiction of Medea shared a few similarities with her Fate depiction and wondered what the extent of her abilities in Remnant were. It's not like I claimed the entire team was based off Fate or anything.
9807355
I'm just teasing, but now that I think about it, it'd be interesting to see that explained
I know you had said that Phyrra wouldn’t be killed off in your fic like in the show and I am thankful for that but... i am still worried how this arc will wrap up. I really really didn't like the fall of beacon, it was, well it wasn’t bad but it was hard to watch. It was depressing enough that I almost didn’t come back for next season. The chibi series was a good pallet cleanser and helped convince me to snd Ai am glad I did but. I’m still worried that even if its not the same we’re heading to another Fall of Beacon and I’m not sure my heart can take another depressing turn like that.
Great chapters though, keep up the good work.
heeey scipio, I recently found this story on fanfiction.net, and I was wondering if there are any differences between here and there, or just a copy/ paste.
The second I saw the names and two of them wearing golden fleece, it was obvious what they were inspired by. Nothing like the classics to pull inspiration.
9807742
There are no substantial changes, although there may be one or two cases where a mistake got corrected here but not ffnet because editing a chapter there once posted is nigh impossible. The biggest difference is the formatting of the diary conversations Sunset has with Celestia and Twilight, because the colour-coding done here is impossible on the pit so it's done script style instead.
9807215
You DO know the meme I am referencing right?
9793884
Sunset still got her semblance in a combat related/stesful situation
That is a cool idea
There's only one person who's allowed to charm Penny.
A fantastic rewrite for the first match of the tournament! Once again, I love all of the side characters that have been shown along the way, and I can’t wait to see the others! Like Jaune’s family, for example. And I also love how Kali and Cadence are such a perfect blend of Mom energy.
Excellent touch of Penny’s development with Atalanta’s Golden Apple. And if I’m being honest, I never really got the semblance she had in the original version.
Hmm... Penny's new semblance is curious, seems to be some sort of mental resistance. I wonder if Penny could resist Sunset's semblance if she wished to (not that Sunset would use her semblance on Penny against her will since, barring Cinder, Sunset's really only used it on those either willing like Ruby and Blake, or comatose like Miss Pole and Amber.)
I do like the additional commentary on the fight before, during and after.
Aww, Penny's now the embodiment of consent. Glorious!
Ok, i have a complaint about this. Sunset's semblance has something to do with the soul, but also the mind. Why doesn't she have protection against mental attacks? She should be immune or have high resistance against mental and psychological attacks, it just makes sense. Take Cinder for example, she uses fire, and she is immune to it, shouldn't the same apply for Sunset?