As a Traitor Deserves (New)
As A Traitor Deserves
“Poor Sun,” Mom murmured, sinking back a little in her chair. “Congratulations to Rainbow Dash, of course, but still … poor Sun.”
“Not unexpected,” Cadance remarked.
“But unfortunate for the poor boy, all the same,” Mom said.
“Mmm,” Blake said. She started to get up from her seat. “I should … I should probably console Sun while finding time to congratulate Rainbow Dash at the same time.” Fortunately, Sun isn’t the kind of person to take something like defeat in a tournament too hard.
“I’ll come with you,” Twilight said.
“Why don’t we all go?” asked Scootaloo.
“If we were all to go, darling, then the consolation of Sun would be rather lost in the congratulation of Rainbow Dash,” Rarity remarked.
“Huh?”
“We don’t want Blake’s boyfriend to get upset,” Rarity explained.
“Aww,” Scootaloo groaned. “But I want to congratulate Rainbow Dash!”
“I’m sure if you come with us, three won’t be much of a crowd,” Twilight said. “That’s right, isn’t it Blake?”
In truth, Blake thought that Sun might not mind if they did all pile down there to give Rainbow Dash their good wishes, but … Sun would never show hurt feelings, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t feel them.
“Of course,” she said, “that’s fine. We can go together.”
“Yes!” Scootaloo cried, leaping up off her seat, her metallic legs hitting the floor with a hard thump. “See you guys later!”
“Stay close to Twilight and Blake, sugarcube,” Applejack urged. “You don’t want to get lost in a place this size.”
“And give Dashie all our love!” Pinkie yelled.
Twilight chuckled. “Will do, Pinkie.”
“Tell her she did well,” Ciel said, from where she stood just behind the seats, the muzzle of Distant Thunder almost, but not quite, resting upon the floor of the box.
“I will,” Blake said. “Or we will, anyway.”
“And tell Sun that he was very brave,” Fluttershy murmured. “Just to be able to go out there in front of all those people like that, but also to fight Rainbow Dash.”
Blake smiled. “Thank you, Fluttershy,” she said. “I will tell him that.”
With Scootaloo between them, she and Twilight left the Councillor’s box behind and began to descend the stairs towards the arena promenade.
“It’s really great that Rainbow won — not that I had any doubts that she would,” Scootaloo said excitedly, “but I hope that she gets a longer fight to show off more in the next round.”
“Some would say that a short fight is showing off more,” Twilight pointed out.
“Yeah, I know,” Scootaloo acknowledged, drawing out her words in a way that wasn’t quite complaining, but skirting the line, “but I just want to see more of her in action, you know?”
“I have to admit,” Blake murmured, “I’m a little worried about Rainbow’s next round.”
“'Worried'?” Scootaloo repeated. “You can’t be worried, you’re supposed to be Rainbow’s friend, you should be on her side!”
“Scootaloo!” Twilight scolded her. “Blake is Rainbow’s friend, and her concerns come from friendship, don’t they?”
Blake nodded. “I’m sure that Rainbow would have made it into the semi-finals regardless,” she said, “but she got … meaning no offence at all to Sun, but Rainbow got an easy match-up in him. But the other semi-finalists? Pyrrha, Weiss, Umber Gorgoneion with that semblance of hers? Those are three tough nuts; there isn’t an easy option there that I can think of. Whichever of them Rainbow gets drawn against will give her a hard time.”
Twilight’s lips curled inwards over her teeth. “That … you’ve got a point there. But if we could only think of a way to neutralise Umber’s semblance so that it doesn’t affect Rainbow Dash, then I think she could win that fight pretty easily. After all, Yang was on the verge of victory until Umber took her sunglasses off.”
“Maybe Rainbow Dash could just beat her fast, before she can take the sunglasses off?” suggested Scootaloo.
A smile played across Twilight’s face. “Oh, so now you want Rainbow to win her next fight quickly.”
“Well, I’d rather that than…” Scootaloo muttered, trailing off before admitting that Rainbow might actually lose, presumably because that would have felt too much like disloyalty.
“That assumes that Umber does what she did in her fight against Yang and keeps her sunglasses on and her semblance in check until she’s up against the wall,” Blake replied. “But I think that was more that she was hoping to win the fight without using her semblance—”
“And she’ll try again, right?” asked Scootaloo.
“Maybe, I suppose,” admitted Blake. “But, having already shown what her semblance is, what reason does Umber have not to just use it at the start of the match? Especially since she has to know that she’ll be at a disadvantage against … well, any of her opponents otherwise. Without her semblance, can you see her beating Rainbow Dash? Or Pyrrha, or Weiss?”
“So you think she’ll just take her sunglasses off and just win the match?” asked Twilight.
“I think…” Blake hesitated. “I think Rainbow will be in for a tough fight no matter who she gets drawn against, but that Umber’s semblance is the only thing that she can’t at least fight back against — that we know of.” She — they — reached the bottom of the stairs, confronted with the promenade thronging with people, milling about this way and that. Some of them were headed for the docking pads, to get airships down to Beacon — obviously, they were people whose favourite fighter had just been knocked out, or maybe they were Haven supporters who didn’t feel that a victory for Pyrrha would be as good as a victory for Mistral and Haven and so weren’t prepared to lend her their support — while others were wandering in the directions of the various concession stands dotted around the arena, while some looked like they were just stretching their legs. Balloons floated above the heads of the tourists and spectators, while children in costumes clung to the hands of their parents, or at least, they were sternly admonished to do so.
“Against Pyrrha,” Blake said, “Rainbow Dash could attack from range. Against Weiss, Rainbow could hope to use a combination of speed and aerial agility to outmanoeuvre Weiss’ glyphs. But against Umber’s semblance?”
“There has to be a way,” Twilight said. “No semblance is so perfect, so unbeatable, that it provides the wielder with absolute protection. There’s always … nothing is ever perfect.”
“I know,” Blake agreed. “But unless we can—”
She stopped dead, whatever other words she might have said dying on her lips, stuck fast in her throat, frozen there as though the temperature had dropped so suddenly that the very air had turned to ice as she stared across the promenade.
“Blake?” Twilight asked. “Blake, are you okay?”
Blake didn’t reply. Blake hardly heard Twilight speaking at all; her very voice was muffled to Blake’s ears, like Blake was underwater or surrounded by cotton wool.
Blake heard little and said less as she stared through the crowd at Ilia Amitola.
Her old friend Ilia, her trusted friend Ilia, Ilia who had unburdened herself to Blake of her deepest secret … her White Fang comrade, Ilia.
Blake hadn’t seen her since Mistral, since Blake and Adam had left for Vale when Sienna Khan had appointed Adam to take command of the Vale Chapter. Blake, when she had thought about Ilia at all, had assumed that she was still in Mistral, somewhere, continuing the work of the White Fang there — that, or she was dead; Blake had considered that possibility too. Ilia was a warrior, after all, a warrior in a warrior kingdom, and the chance that she might die by the sword could not be dismissed out of hand. Blake had considered that she might die, although she had never expected to find out if Ilia was dead one way or another; what she had not considered was the possibility that she would see Ilia in Vale, still less on the Amity Colosseum.
It was Ilia, Blake had no doubt about that. Yes, she was a way off, and yes, there were a lot of people in the way, but it was Ilia, Blake would stake everything on it; it was her, it absolutely was. Blake recognised her face, recognised the way that her ponytail — which emerged out of the back of the ballcap she was wearing to try — and fail — to hide her face — curled up at the tip like a chameleon’s tail. It was her, and aside from her dress — she was wearing a grey janitorial jumpsuit — she looked no different now than she had in Mistral, when she and Blake had sat up on the roof of the Temple of Melissa, Goddess of the Hearth and Hospitality, Goddess of Charity, Goddess of the Unwashed and Unwanted, and Ilia had told Blake her story: how she had lived amongst humans for years, attending a fancy Atlas prep school — Crystal Prep, according to Rainbow Dash — until her reaction to the death of her parents in a mining accident had betrayed her.
“I broke their teeth.”
Outfit aside, she looked just the same. And she was here, right here; Blake could see her through the crowd.
And for a second, it looked as though Ilia saw her too; she turned, and it was like she looked right at Blake, their eyes meeting.
Then she turned away and … disappeared. Blake lost sight of her in the crowd.
Where did you—?
“Blake!”
Blake shuddered a little as Twilight finally raised her voice high enough that it penetrated Blake’s consciousness.
“Are you okay?” Twilight asked. “You seemed to just space out there.”
Blake frowned. What are you doing here, Ilia? What is the White Fang doing here? “Twilight, I need you to take Scootaloo back to the Councillor’s box right now, and—”
“What?” Scootaloo cried. “No, I’m not going back, we haven’t—”
“You need to go back!” Blake said sharply. “Twilight, take her back.”
“Why?” Twilight asked. “What’s going on? Did you see something? What?”
Blake leaned forward, reaching out to put a hand around the back of Twilight’s neck — gently, of course — her fingers resting under the low bun in which Twilight was wearing her hair today as she urged Twilight’s head forward a little, so that their foreheads were almost touching.
“I just saw an old comrade from the White Fang,” Blake whispered into Twilight’s ear. “You need to take Scootaloo back and tell Shining Armor, Ciel, Applejack, everyone to be on their guard.”
Twilight gasped. “You … here?” she asked as Blake released her, and the two of them straightened their backs. “You saw them?”
“Yes,” Blake said. “I did. I’m sure.”
Twilight swallowed, nodding twice in quick succession.
“What are you—?”
“Not now, Scootaloo,” Twilight said quickly. She closed her eyes. “Sorry,” she added, as she knelt down in front of the younger girl. “I’m sorry, I know that you wanted to congratulate Rainbow Dash on her great fight, but it isn’t safe. You remember Cadance’s wedding?”
Now it was Scootaloo’s turn to gasp. “You mean the—”
“Shhh, we don’t want to start a panic,” Twilight urged. “But you know, Rainbow Dash wouldn’t want you to get hurt, so why don’t you come with me and we’ll go back to where my brother and Applejack can protect us?”
Scootaloo sighed. “Okay. Why do they always have to mess everything up?”
“Because they’re not very happy, and they don’t like other people to have any fun either,” Twilight said. She winced. “Sorry, that was too glib, wasn’t it?”
“A little, but in the circumstances, I think you deserve a pass,” Blake muttered.
Twilight didn’t smile. Her lips barely twitched, and only on one side so that she looked more like she had a muscle spasm. “Why do you think they’re here?”
“I don’t know, but there aren’t many good possibilities,” Blake said softly. “I doubt that she’s here to watch the tournament.”
“Do you think that it’s—?”
“It could be,” Blake said, guessing that Twilight was about to wonder if this was some fresh attack on Councillor Cadenza. “That’s why you need to warn them now.”
“Right,” Twilight said, nodding briskly. “And what about you, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go after her and find out what she— no,” Blake said, contradicting herself even as she took the first step off in pursuit of Ilia. “No, no, I won’t; I am going to call General Ironwood and tell him what I saw. Then I’m going to go after her.”
Now, Twilight looked as though she was almost smiling. “Rainbow would be very proud. Good luck?”
“Do I need luck,” Blake said, “when I’ve got an army backing me up?”
“Maybe try not to get too cocky,” Twilight said. “Come on, Scootaloo, let’s get back.”
“Okay,” Scootaloo said, her voice subdued. She cast one last look up at Blake, an earnest expression on her face. “Be safe,” she said, before she allowed Twilight to usher her back the way that they came from, towards the stairs.
Blake watched them go for a couple of seconds, before she turned back in the direction in which she had seen Ilia.
What are you doing here? What are you up to? The White Fang had been quiescent ever since the Breach and for obvious reasons: heavy casualties, the loss of the leader of the Vale Chapter, the expenditure of all their dust, the morale blow that seemed certain to accompany such a colossal failure. They had been broken, or so it had seemed, and the focus of their attention had shifted to other threats: Cinder, Salem, and possibly Salem’s other henchmen in Beacon.
It seemed that they had been foolish to discount the White Fang as they had done, but why was Ilia here? Even if Cinder or Tempest Shadow or whoever was actually working for Salem still had managed to rally the White Fang in Vale — and that was a big if, considering all that their involvement in Cinder’s schemes had cost them — then why would Ilia be here? She wasn’t in the Vale Chapter.
Unless Sienna Khan had appointed her to lead the chapter, after Adam’s death. Blake hadn’t thought of Ilia as leadership material, but the High Leader might disagree, and Adam had been about as young when he had gotten the job.
Even if that were so, it still didn’t answer the other questions.
Questions, Blake knew, that weren’t going to answer themselves while she just stood here like this.
She got out her scroll, resisting the urge to get out Gambol Shroud while she did so, and called General Ironwood.
She had expected that she might have to wait a while for him to answer, since no doubt that General was very busy, especially with everything else that they were expecting to see happen that day or night. However, she was surprised by the speed of his response, the screen of her scroll going dark and General Ironwood’s voice issuing out of it.
“Belladonna,” he said, “is something wrong?”
“I’m afraid so, sir,” Blake said softly, holding the scroll close to her face as she slunk closer to the wall of the promenade, hoping not to attract too much notice. She wasn’t entirely successful at this — how many kids were dressed as her? — but while people pointed at her, they seemed to all have the courtesy not to bother her while she was taking a call.
She turned her back on them regardless, as she went on, “Sir, I think there’s at least one White Fang agent on the Amity Colosseum.”
“What makes you think that, Belladonna?” asked General Ironwood.
“Because I saw one of them, sir; I recognised her,” Blake said.
There was a moment of, not silence, because Blake thought that she could hear the General grinding his teeth, and if he were, then she could hardly blame him in the circumstances, but of quiet nonetheless.
“Any thoughts on why they’re here?” General Ironwood asked. “Do you think we’re looking at a bomb in the arena?”
“I don’t think so, sir,” Blake said. “That kind of mass-casualty event, I won’t say that it’s never the White Fang’s style, but there are a lot of faunus up here in the Colosseum; the White Fang wouldn’t want to just blow them all up.”
“They did try and destroy all of Vale,” General Ironwood reminded her.
“Yes, sir, but that was … unique circumstances,” Blake murmured. “Ilia isn’t a bomber; she’s a specialist, an expert in stealth, infiltration … and assassination. I’ve already told Twilight to notify Captain Armor.”
“Good work, Belladonna,” General Ironwood said. “Do you still have eyes on the suspect?”
“No, sir, she disappeared; I think she went down one of the maintenance corridors. She was dressed as a janitor.”
“Name and description?”
“Ilia Amitola,” Blake said. “She’s a chameleon faunus, but she doesn’t have any visible faunus traits; she can pass for human. She was dressed as an Amity Arena janitor. She used to be a student at Atlas’ Crystal Prep, so there might be a photograph of her in your records.”
“Irving, search the database for the records of an Ilia Amitola who was enrolled at Crystal Preparatory Combat Academy,” General Ironwood barked. “When you find her picture, I want it, and her profile, distributed to all units on the Amity Colosseum and at Beacon, with the warning that the picture is a few years old at this point, target was last seen dressed as a janitor.”
“Yes, sir,” someone, presumably Irving, said in response.
“Belladonna, I’ll consult with Ozpin on whether or not to evacuate the arena,” General Ironwood said. “And I’ll have squads start sweeping the guts of the Colosseum.”
“I’m going to start searching too, sir,” Blake said. She remembered that she probably shouldn’t have asserted that so baldly, and so added “With your permission, of course.”
“Of course,” General Ironwood added dryly, leaving Blake momentarily unsure whether he was being sarcastic or giving her his permission. “What’s your location? I’ll have Team Funky back you up.”
“Sir, I’d rather get after her as quickly as possible,” Blake said. “Funky can catch up.”
“Alright,” General Ironwood said. “But be careful. Don’t take any chances until reinforcements reach you.”
“I’ll be careful, sir,” Blake said, and she mostly meant it.
“I wouldn’t want to lose you before you’ve even officially transferred schools,” General Ironwood added.
“No, sir,” Blake said. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Alright then,” General Ironwood said. “Good work, Belladonna. Ironwood out.”
He hung up. Blake quickly put her scroll away. She still didn’t draw Gambol Shroud, even though her right hand was starting to itch to do so; she didn’t want to alarm the crowds by drawing her weapon.
What are you doing here, Ilia?
The question burned in Blake’s mind as she began to move towards where she had last seen Ilia and in the direction that she thought Ilia had gone.
“Twilight?” Applejack said, twisting around in her seat to look back at Twilight as she and Scootaloo made their way back into Cadance’s box. “You're back early. Two of yeh are, anyway.”
“That was no time at all, darling,” Rarity added. “Why, that was hardly enough time for you to make it down the stairs, let alone across the arena.”
“And where’s Blake?” asked Lady Belladonna. “She didn’t come back with you?”
“No, ma’am, she didn’t,” Twilight said. She swallowed. “She … spotted a White Fang agent on the promenade.”
“White Fang?” Shining Armor exclaimed. “Twily, are you serious?”
“Would I joke about something like that?” Twilight demanded. “Blake sent Scootaloo and I back up here; she’s informing General Ironwood about what she saw … then she’s going after her, the girl she saw.”
“'Going after her'?” Lady Belladonna repeated, half rising out of her seat. “Can’t she leave that to the soldiers on duty here?”
“She could, without orders to the contrary,” Twilight admitted, “but if she did that, then … well, if she did that, then I’d worry she’d been kidnapped and replaced by an impostor. Sitting back and letting other people do the work just isn’t Blake’s style.”
Lady Belladonna was silent for a moment, before she sighed and sank back down into her feet. “Yes, you’re right, of course,” she murmured. “I may not always like it, but that’s who Blake is. It’s who she’s always been, ever since she was a little girl.”
“What are the White Fang doing here?” Fluttershy whispered.
“Maybe … maybe they’re here to watch the tournament?” Pinkie suggested.
“If only that were true, Pinkie Pie,” Rarity said. She stood up, “Scootaloo, darling, don’t just stand there … so close to the doorway. Come down and sit with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.”
Scootaloo made her way down the rows of stairs. “It’s all going to be okay, isn’t it?”
“Sure it will, Sugarcube,” Applejack assured her, working the lever on One in a Thousand as though to emphasise the point. “Sure it will.”
“Eyes on the entrance, people,” Shining Armor commanded. “There’s only one way in or out of this box, so we can’t complain we didn’t see them coming. Twily, make some room.”
Twilight shuffled out of the way as Cadance’s suited security detail drew their sidearms. They didn’t point them at the door, but they held them ready, pointed down but clearly able to be pointed at the door at a moment’s notice.
Shining Armor was not, unfortunately, wearing Sibling Supreme, his suit of armour; all he had by way of weapons was a small shield generator, a hexagonal pad like a very large watch, worn on one wrist over his jacket sleeve — to which he had given the oh so witty name It’ll Do — and Magic Missile — from that game that he’d been really into back when he and Cadance started going out — which looked, when he drew it, like a pretty standard pistol, which extended in his hand to be about carbine length, with the soft blue glow of hard-light dust running in a glowing strip down the barrel.
Unlike Cadance’s security detail, or Shining Armor, Ciel did aim her weapon at the doorway, and the length of Distant Thunder meant that it reached almost out of the doorway in any case.
“You realise that if you fire that thing and miss, you’re liable to punch right out the side of the arena, right, cadet?” Shining Armor asked.
“Then, sir, with the greatest respect, I will not miss,” said Ciel.
“Pinkie,” Rarity said. “Would you mind handing me my sword?”
“Your sword?” Applejack repeated. “Rarity, Pinkie don’t—”
Pinkie reached into her voluminous hair and produced Rarity’s slender fencing sabre, placing the hilt, which was foiled with gold and adorned with a few lapis lazuli spheres and shimming blue topaz, into Rarity’s hand.
“Thank you, darling.”
“Yeah, Ah don’t know why Ah didn’t see that comin’,” Applejack muttered. “Captain, you’ve got this, right?”
Shining Armor nodded. “Yeah, we’ve got this.”
“Glad to hear it,” Applejack said. “In that case, if y’all are gonna be alright without me, Ah’m gonna go back up Blake.”
Twilight began. “I’m sure General Ironwood will send someone—”
“But that girl ain’t gonna wait for ‘em, am Ah right?” Applejack asked.
“She’s getting a lot better!” Twilight protested. “But … no, probably not.”
“Then Ah’d best get movin’, then,” Applejack said. “Before she gets into too much trouble all on her lonesome.”
“Do you know how many White Fang agents there are?” Ozpin asked, his voice echoing out of the speakers and onto the bridge of the Valiant.
“No,” Ironwood said. “Belladonna only saw one, but that’s no guarantee that there is only one.”
“Indeed,” Ozpin murmured. “It never rains, does it?”
“Not often, no,” Ironwood replied.
“Have you alerted anyone else to this?”
“Colonel Sky Beak is standing behind me,” Ironwood said, aside from anything else reminding Oz that he ought to choose his words carefully when it came to talking about their plans to knock out the Valish Defence Forces in a single throw. “But we haven’t informed General Blackthorn or Councillor Emerald.”
“General Blackthorn is … changed,” Sky Beak said. “He isn’t the man I knew before he got the promotion to commanding officer. Based on his recent behaviour, and the fact that this seems to be something that General Ironwood’s forces on the Colosseum should have well in hand, I thought it was best not to bother him with it.”
“Thank you, Colonel Sky Beak; your discretion is appreciated,” Ozpin said courteously. “But may I ask why you also felt it best not to bother the First Councillor, as it were?”
“Again, Professor, what’s he going to do about it?” Sky Beak replied. “Tell General Ironwood to handle it, which he’s doing already? Or tell General Ironwood to stand down and wait anything between fifteen minutes to over an hour for Valish police — probably quite stretched Valish police, at this point — to get up to the Amity Arena to do what the Atlesian troops have already been ordered to do? Besides, General Ironwood was appointed head of Festival security; I believe this falls squarely under his purview.”
Ozpin chuckled. “I think, Colonel, that if Councillor Emerald knew what kind of a man you were before he appointed you as General Ironwood’s liaison, he might have chosen someone else.”
“Councillor Emerald knew that I was a loyal Valishman who wished the best for his kingdom, Professor,” Sky Beak said. “Or at least, he ought to have done; I’ve made no secret of it.”
“Vale may not thank you, Colonel, but you have my gratitude nonetheless,” Ozpin said. “Of course, James, the same arguments that the good colonel has just advanced for keeping our councillor and his commanding general in the dark might just as easily apply to me. What can I do that you are not already doing yourself?”
“Are you saying that you’d rather I hadn’t told you?” Ironwood asked.
“I might have preferred to remain in blissful ignorance, although it’s probably best that I didn’t,” Ozpin said, and to be honest, Ironwood could hardly blame him for that. The old man had enough on his plate, gods knew, what with the grimm outside the walls and the possibility of Salem having agents inside Beacon still and an equestrian monster … in Ozpin’s position, he might have been glad not to have had one more thing to worry about, even if he, like Oz, would have known that it was best that he did know.
“I was wondering if we ought to evacuate the arena,” Ironwood said. “I wanted your input.”
“I see,” Ozpin murmured. “I would prefer it if you didn’t, James.”
“That’s a risk,” Ironwood pointed out.
“A calculated risk,” Ozpin responded. “Didn’t Miss Belladonna say that she didn’t think that the White Fang were attempting to bomb the arena?”
“Belladonna could be wrong,” Ironwood pointed out. “She said that this girl was a stealth expert; that could be useful for smuggling a bomb onto the arena.”
“But I find myself agreeing with Miss Belladonna that the White Fang wouldn’t intentionally try to blow up an arena that includes a large number of faunus in the crowd,” Ozpin said.
From the commander’s chair, Fitzjames snorted.
“Does one of your officers have something they wish to say, James?” asked Ozpin.
“No,” Ironwood said, giving Fitzjames a look. “But I think that if he did, Major Fitzjames might point out that it wasn’t long ago that the White Fang attempted to breach the defences of Vale and open the city up to a grimm attack.”
“An aberration,” Ozpin said. “The architects of which are dead or in custody. We must not allow that one act to colour our entire view of the White Fang.”
“My view is pretty coloured by everything else that they’ve done up until now,” Ironwood muttered.
“And yet one of their former members has your complete trust, does she not?” Ozpin asked.
“That has nothing to do with this, Oz,” Ironwood said, his voice sharpening. “I think that you don’t want to evacuate the arena because you don’t want to cause a panic!”
“That is in my mind, I confess,” Ozpin said. “We agreed to continue the tournament, up to the finish, because it would distract the people from their troubles—”
“From the threat of grimm hordes gathering outside the walls, not the threat of being blown up in their seats,” Ironwood pointed out.
“I don’t believe that will happen,” Ozpin said. “Do you believe that will happen?”
Ironwood didn’t reply right away; he considered the question honestly, according to not only his own judgement but also according to the judgement of Belladonna, who didn’t believe that the White Fang were on the Colosseum to try and blow up the arena.
He honestly wasn’t sure that he believed it either. Yes, the White Fang did use bombs, but the last bomber that they had sent to Vale was dead — considering the way that he’d died, burned to death in police custody, Ironwood was starting to consider the possibility that Cinder Fall had killed him in order to maintain her control over the White Fang in Vale — Belladonna was right that it wasn’t their go-to strategy. There had never been a concerted bombing campaign for faunus rights, only limited, almost random, attacks, alongside … well, to be honest, the White Fang’s strategy resembled a smorgasbord more than a strategy at times. Ironwood understood that, with the High Leader based in Menagerie as often as not, only sometimes travelling to Mistral where they could actually get CCT reception, the various chapters in the kingdoms were largely left to their own devices.
So the Valish chapter had tried to destroy Vale, while the Atlesian chapter had tried to replace a Councillor with a White Fang operative, and the Mistral chapter … the Mistral chapter seemed a little more free of megalomania and appeared to spend most of its energy battling crooked landlords.
But then, someone who actually lived in Mistral might see it differently.
He certainly wasn’t going to claim that the White Fang had suddenly discovered moderation in the wake of the Breach … but that wasn’t the same thing as claiming that they were going to try and blow up the Amity Arena.
Especially when there were other targets present: Councillor Cadenza, or maybe even Lady Belladonna if they’d learned of her presence.
Stealth, infiltration, and assassination, just as Belladonna had said.
“I don’t think they will,” he admitted. “I think it’s more likely that they’re here to make an attempt on the life of Councillor Cadenza, or Belladonna’s mother.”
“I am more worried about the tournament finalists,” Ozpin replied.
Ironwood’s brow furrowed slightly. “Really?”
“If one wished to assassinate a Councillor, surely, there would be better times to try than during the Vytal tournament?” Ozpin asked. “But, if one of the tournament finalists, who have already become known across Remnant for their accomplishments so far, were to fall, particularly if the semi-finals were to be announced and someone were to fail to appear because … it would not only cause great sorrow amongst the crowds but would be a powerful statement of the relevance of the White Fang.”
“You might have a point, if I thought that any of the tournament finalists could be taken out by some White Fang goon,” Ironwood replied. “I don’t see Dash or Katt going down like that; do you think so little of Miss Nikos?”
“Even the greatest warrior may be taken by surprise,” Ozpin reminded him.
“Maybe so,” Ironwood allowed. “But we aren’t surprised. I’ve already ordered units to begin searching every inch of the Colosseum. And if they do make an attempt on the lives of one of the finalists, well,” — he ventured a smile, for all that Ozpin couldn’t see it — “I imagine they’ll live long enough to regret it.”
The maintenance door was marked by a big black hammer and spanner, crossed like swords, over a yellow circle, all painted over the metal of the door itself.
Underneath the symbol, for anyone who didn’t get it, were the letters Maintenance Personnel Only! No Admittance!
Despite this, the door was open a crack.
Blake glanced around. She stood at the mouth of a corridor, which led downwards a short distance before coming to two staircases leading to the upper levels of the stands and then, beyond them, the private boxes. Past that were more staircases, leading to the lower levels of the stands and then more stairs that led — via gates that required a scroll-scan to get into — the area at the front that was reserved for tournament competitors.
One couldn’t get into the arena itself from here; this tunnel didn’t lead out onto the battlefield.
It was better lit than that corridor, for one thing.
It was not impossible that the open door was just a decoy and that Ilia had actually headed into the stands, but Blake doubted it. What would Ilia do there, start indiscriminately attacking people? That wasn’t the sort of person Ilia was; she was angry, for sure, and given what she’d been through, it was hard to say that she didn’t have a right to her anger, but she wasn’t Adam, she wasn’t the type to take her anger out indiscriminately on any human who crossed her path. Ilia’s anger was more focussed, like a knife, to be wielded against the enemies of the White Fang.
That was not to say that Ilia was a shining paragon of morality, but … Blake had once seen her kill a bailiff of the Ming family, who had been notorious for the haste he would make to evict tenants from the land he had charge of on the slightest infraction, the slightest delay in the rent payments, and while Ilia had taken a glee in the man’s death that Blake had found distasteful, she had also stopped their comrades from killing the man’s husband and children, letting them flee into the night before they set the house on fire.
Not a story that Blake felt comfortable sharing with General Ironwood, obviously — her contribution had been limited to lighting up the house, but even so, it wasn’t the sort of detail that she wished to share; her past wasn’t a secret to her new comrades in general terms, but she wasn’t proud of the details and didn’t want to go shouting about them — but the point was that Ilia wasn’t a random indiscriminate killer.
At least, she hadn’t been when Blake had known her last. People changed, for better or for worse; look at Blake herself — look at Adam, who hadn’t always been an indiscriminate killer either; the rage at injustice that burned within his breast had given way to bitterness, a bitterness that had eaten away at him and hollowed him out.
Perhaps the same thing had happened to Ilia, although Blake hoped not.
She hoped … hoped what, exactly?
Well, that Ilia hadn’t come here to blow up the Colosseum, for a start, but also…
That Blake wouldn’t have to kill her, like she had helped Sunset kill Adam.
She was aware that if Ilia had gone through this door, and if Blake followed her, then she might have to do just that. She could hardly expect Ilia to come quietly, hardly expect a few words of Blake’s to undo years spent with the White Fang. She could hardly expect Ilia to set Lightning Lash aside simply because Blake asked it of her.
If Ilia knew what Blake had done, then she no doubt despised her as a traitor.
If it came to a fight, as it probably would if the two of them came together, Gambol Shroud against Lightning Lash, then Blake would have to kill her — or be killed herself.
But if Blake didn’t go through this door and invite that confrontation, then Ilia might kill someone else. And the blood would be on Blake’s hands either way.
She pushed open the maintenance door, because she was as willing to face Ilia in battle as she was willing to hope that Ilia had not become the sort of person who would massacre the spectators in the stands.
The corridor was bathed in white fluorescent light, which reflected off the bright metal walls of the corridor, making it seem a little cold. There was no sign of Ilia.
Blake stepped through the doorway quickly, closing the door — but leaving it ajar for Team FNKI — behind her and now, out of sight, drawing Gambol Shroud over her shoulder.
She kept it in sword mode, since there might not be a lot of time — Ilia certainly wouldn’t give her time, if she was aware of Blake — for shooting before it came to close quarters. The ribbon dangled from the pommel down to the floor, even as Blake gripped the cleaver tightly in her off-hand.
The instinct to run after Ilia warred with the instinct to be cautious, to remember that this was Ilia Amitola that she was after and that she had always been stealthier than Blake and that she didn’t want to run into an ambush.
Equally, she didn’t want to let Ilia do … whatever it was that she had come here to do. If she delayed, if she was too cautious, if she was too concerned for her own safety, then Ilia would slip away, somewhere into the depths of the Colosseum, and maybe even find somewhere to evade the Atlesian search parties.
She would have to take the risk.
Blake’s shoes pounded upon the metal floor as she ran down the corridor, her two blades pumping up and down as she ran, her long black hair streaming out behind her.
Would Ilia be alone when Blake caught up with her? That would depend on her mission, but possibly — probably — not. Solo missions were not unheard of, and as an elite, Ilia was more likely to pull them than not, but equally, a high risk, high reward mission was more likely to be given to a team of operatives. But on the other hand, Ilia might have more luck operating solo in an environment like this one.
If she were accompanied, then the question was 'by who?' It returned to the question of what Ilia was doing here, of why she had come to Vale. Had she brought others with her from Mistral?
The questions swirled through Blake’s mind as a set of doors slid open for her, leading into another corridor. She pushed them out of her mind; she needed to focus, needed to keep her mind on what was actually important: catching up with Ilia and stopping whatever designs she had.
This corridor curved slightly, and Blake half thought that she might find Ilia waiting on the other side of the curve, but there was still no sign of her before she came to two sets of doors, one leading straight ahead, the other on her right, leading no doubt deeper into the central depths of the arena.
Blake wasn’t sure why Ilia would want to go that way, because sabotaging the engines would be as bad as trying to blow up the colosseum, but from the centre, she or they could emerge at any point they wished to accomplish their mission.
While the door directly ahead would simply lead to more corridors running around the outer circle of the arena. Ilia could get to where she wished to from there, but not so swiftly.
Blake took the door on her right, which opened into darkness; the lights were off. Blake felt justified in her choice already; turning the lights off would be an easy way for Ilia to make life more difficult for her human pursuers even while, as a chameleon faunus, she would have no problem seeing in the dark.
Neither did Blake, for that matter; she could see perfectly well that there was nothing but a staircase leading downwards.
Blake descended, her feet still echoing upon the stairs, and as she got closer to the bottom, she could see that there was something there after all — at the foot of the stairs, a set of dark grey overalls; she had missed them at first because their colour blended into the darkness — and so might Ilia, now that she had shed those colours. Ilia didn’t have a visible faunus feature, but her chameleon-ness manifested in her being able to change the colour of her skin. Sometimes, it was involuntary, driven by her emotions, but other times, she could control it.
Her being able to turn as black as coal had proven very helpful in blending in during nighttime infiltrations.
Something that Blake would have to watch out for, but not something she could allow to slow her down.
She ran through the door, into a room where Ilia was obviously not hiding because the lights were on. It was a spacious chamber, octagonal in shape, with a janitor’s cart — with a mop and a vacuum cleaner mounted on the back, a tray of cleaning supplies, and a large basket full of rubbish bags emptied from the various bins around the promenade — parked and abandoned near the door that Blake had just come through. There was some sort of control panel in the centre of the room, or perhaps a monitoring station; the monitors were displaying information about the state of the vending machines, the toilets, yes, this was definitely a monitoring station, designed to let janitors know about any necessary tasks they needed to perform.
There were a couple of lockers, one marked with ‘Cleaning Supplies’ the other marked with ‘Vending Machine Refills.’ A fridge sat in one corner of the room, with a table and a few chairs nearby. There was an elevator door on one side of the octagon and another door on the far side of the octagon. It was towards that door that Blake ran, intending to dodge around the monitoring station to get there.
She heard a crash behind her. She started to turn, quickly—
Not quickly enough. She didn’t see the web fluid coming until it had clamped around her like the fingers of a powerful hand. Her weapons clattered to the floor as Blake’s arms were pinned down by her side, and she was yanked backwards off her feet and onto the ground with a thump.
Trifa was sitting up in the janitor’s cart, the cart around which bags full of rubbish had been tossed to land around it, one of them splitting open to spill empty or half-empty drinks cans, tubs of popcorn, bits of popcorn, candy wrappers, and banana skins out on the floor. Cold coffee began to pool outwards, staining the shining metal.
She hid herself in the basket underneath the garbage.
Clever.
Kind of disgusting, but clever.
The web fluid emerged from one of Trifa’s stone-grey hands like a cable, a ship’s cable tying her to Blake; with her free hand, her left hand, Trifa plucked a spotted banana skin off her outfit and threw it away.
“I got her!” she shouted.
The door in front of her — the same door towards which Blake had been running — opened, and six people stepped through. Three of them Blake knew: Ilia, of course, and Gilda too, and also Woundwort, who had once commanded an elite unit of the Mistral Chapter. The others — an otter faunus, a bat faunus, some kind of ape faunus — were all unknown to her.
Which meant that they, like Ilia, were not of the Vale Chapter — new recruits would hardly have been given a task like this, a task that warranted someone of Ilia's skill.
A task like…
"Well done, Sister Trifa," the bat faunus purred appreciatively.
"Knock it off," Gilda muttered. "Rill, lock the door." As the otter faunus — Rill — walked across the room to press a couple of buttons on the control panel next to the door that Blake had barrelled through with such reckless abandon, Gilda seemed to hesitate, looking down at Blake. "Hey," she said.
Blake's eyebrows rose. "'Hey'? 'Hey,' really?"
"Well, it isn't like I can just ignore you lying there," Gilda protested.
Blake rolled her eyes. "You showed yourself to me on purpose, didn't you?" she asked Ilia, turning her attention to her. "You showed yourself to me, knowing that I'd follow, and then you had Trifa lie in wait for me. Was I … are you … are you here for me?" She could hardly credit it, and yet, in the circumstances, it seemed the most reasonable inference to draw.
"You've been making the rest of us look bad, Blake," Gilda said, drawing one of the swords from across her back. "Or … wait, no, that sounds really petty; I'll rephrase it."
Ilia didn't wait for her to do so. Her skin had turned an angry red, a red like lava flowing down the mountainside, as she knelt down in front of Blake. "Tell me that it's not true," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Tell me that this is all part of some scheme, a plan that not even the High Leader knows about, tell me that you're infiltrating the citadel of our enemies in order to destroy them, tell me … tell me that you're not with them. Tell me, and I'll believe you, because I want to believe."
"I can't do that," Blake said softly. "But Ilia—"
She was interrupted by Ilia's fist connecting with her left cheek, twisting her face aside as the blow smarted through her aura. Blake winced at the pain she felt even through her shield.
"I trusted you!" Ilia yelled, rising to her feet. "I looked up to you, I followed your lead, I … I bared my soul to you!" She began to pace up and down, before turning to deliver a savage kick into Blake's side.
Blake groaned as she was rolled onto her side, twisting her body as best she could in Trifa's threads to curl up for protection.
"Watch it!" Trifa cried. "If you keep doing that, you're going to snap the cord, and she'll get out!"
Ilia didn't respond to Trifa; her attention was all upon Blake. "If you had, if anyone had asked me if I thought that you would ever, ever betray us like this, then I would have said 'never.' I would have told them that there was no way that Blake Belladonna would ever turn her back on the cause, she wasn't a faintheart and a coward like her parents, Blake was brave and true, Blake was the best of us!" For a moment, it seemed that Ilia would kick her again, but she restrained herself. "I … how could you do this to me, to all of us?"
"I'm doing what I think is best," Blake said. "What I think is right. The Atlesians are not our enemies—"
"The Atlesians killed my parents!" Ilia snarled. "The Atlesians bury us under rock and stone, they brand our flesh with their corporate logos, they laugh at us and spit on us and treat us worse than the animals they say we are! Don't tell me that the Atlesians are not our enemies! You think that you know Atlas, why, because you've been there for a holiday? Because you exposed a couple of corrupt officials who will get replaced with people just as bad, if they haven't been already? What do you know of the mines where we die in darkness, of the refineries and factories where faunus children crawl about under the machines, of Ladywood and the streets of Mantle, what do you know of any of it?"
"I've seen Mantle," Blake said.
"For how long?" Ilia asked. "A day or two? Talk to me when you've lived there for years."
"I know that Atlas isn't perfect," Blake said. "But there is more to gain from—"
"Enough yammering!" Gilda snapped. "Ilia, we're not here to debate Blake; we're here to … you know what we're here for."
"Then say it," Blake said.
Gilda sucked in a breath, her lips curling over her teeth. "We're here to kill you," she said. "So you can either drop your aura, and I promise that I'll make it quick, for old times’ sake." She licked her lips. "Or you can keep your aura up, and I'll have Woundwort work you over until your aura breaks, and he'll keep working you over afterwards, which might not be so much fun."
"Hmm, I can imagine," Blake murmured. "But as tempting as it is to let you do me a favour for old times’ sake — thanks a lot, by the way; I really appreciate the offer — I think I'll try and hold out until help arrives."
Ilia snorted. "You think anyone's coming to rescue you? You think that your precious Atlas will risk any human lives to save General Ironwood's lapcat?"
"They might," Gilda admitted. "Dashie would come, if she knew you were here, but she doesn't, because you're bluffing. You didn't tell anyone what you were doing before you followed Ilia because you're the kind of person who leaps before she looks; you always have been."
"Is that what you think?" Blake replied, fighting the temptation to smirk. "Is that what you're counting on?"
"Blake?" Applejack called out, her voice muffled by at least one door but at the same time unmistakable. "Blake? You hear me?"
"Applejack, I'm down here, there are se—mmph!" Blake's cry was stifled by Ilia covering her mouth with one black-gloved hand.
Gilda drew her other sword. "Trifa, get away from the door. Yuma, carry Blake. Rill, Woundwort, on either side of the door."
"But it's locked," Rill pointed out as the bat faunus — Yuma, evidently — scooped Blake up in his arms and bore her towards the side of the room, even as Trifa leapt out of the janitor's basket and scooted over along with them.
"If that's the Applejack I think it is, then—" Gilda was cut off by a tremendous crashing sound as Applejack burst through the locked door, the metal shattering into fragments before her fist.
Applejack had one fist outstretched as she soared through the shards of metal doorway that fell clattering to the ground all around her. Her teeth were gritted, her green eyes darted around the room, her rifle was in her other hand.
Barely had her booted toe touched the floor than she was turning, spinning in place like a dancer as she shouldered One in a Thousand and snapped a shot off at Yuma.
The shot went over Blake's bound form and struck Yuma in the chest. He was knocked backwards, dropping Blake in the process, but Applejack might have done better to have shoot Trifa instead, then maybe Blake could have gotten out of this web. It wasn't Applejack's fault — she wasn't to know, and she was trying her best — but nevertheless, it was a little bit irritating as Blake felt herself dumped to the floor with a thud that bruised her aura, and she still couldn't escape from Trifa's threads, for all that she wriggled and writhed and wished that she could do something to help Applejack instead of just watching as she fought.
Rill attacked first, a knife in one hand, thrusting it for Applejack's face. Applejack parried the blade with the stock of her rifle before reversing the weapon to brain Rill on the side of the head with the butt. The otter faunus staggered sideways, hitting the wall beside him heavily, before Applejack hit him again, slamming the butt of One in a Thousand right between his eyes hard enough to knock him backwards into the janitor's cart, in amongst the garbage that Trifa hadn't already displaced when she ambushed Blake, and the the cart itself spinning backwards, wheels rotating wildly, careening off the walls and heading straight for Blake.
Trifa caught and stopped the trolley before it hit Blake, for which she was grateful even as she realised that Trifa was only doing it to protect the cord that bound them together and held Blake a helpless captive.
Woundwort grabbed Applejack from behind. His weapons, the only weapons that Blake had ever seen him use, were pair of heavy leather gauntlets with claws attached to the fingertips that he called his Rabbit Paws, but he didn't bother to use the claws now, just his meaty hands and those arms that were the size of tree trunks and corded with muscle. Applejack had started turning, but Woundwort had grabbed her before she could, wrapping one arm around her neck, grabbing one of her arms with his free hand to try and wrench her rifle from her grasp, lifting her up off the floor so that her cowboy boots kicked at the air.
"Somebody hit her!" Woundwort snarled as Applejack squirmed and writhed in his grasp.
Gilda advanced, swords drawn back, but Applejack kicked her in the chest and sent her staggering backwards into the rubbish and the spilled cold coffee. Then Applejack kicked backwards, lashing out with her legs in all directions, sometimes hitting nothing at all, other times getting Woundwort on the legs or the knees. With the arm that he wasn't, couldn't, grab hold of, she drove her elbow back time and again, slamming it into his gut. Woundwort's grip lessened, and Applejack slipped free, landing nimbly on the floor.
Gilda rushed her, swords gleaming even under the artificial lights of this room, leading with one wide slashing stroke and then following up with a second. Applejack caught the first stroke on the stock of her rifle then leapt away from the second, rolling away and letting the blade pass harmlessly over her hat before rising up to kick the ape faunus so hard she flew into the wall with a manner that was casual to the point it verged on contemptuous.
Gilda charged her again, wings unfurled, even as Woundwort tried to work his way around her side. Gilda hurled herself on Applejack like a storm, her blades flying furiously as Gilda slashed and thrust. Applejack parried, giving ground, letting the blades slam into the wood of her rifle, bending backwards as the blade came too close, retreating in the face of Gilda's fury before the opportunity opened up to counterattack as the distance closed between them, throwing herself forward and taking one hand off One in a Thousand to ram her fist into Gilda's stomach. The air rushed out of Gilda with a gasping sound as she doubled over, her wings starting to fold protectively around her.
Applejack turned to face Woundwort, using her rifle to block his first slash before lashing out with her foot to strike his ankle.
Gilda growled as she straightened up, teeth bared, perhaps recovering more quickly than Applejack had expected.
And Ilia — they had both forgotten about Ilia.
"Applejack, look out!" Blake yelled.
As Woundwort's leg threatened to buckle beneath him, Ilia attacked, dashing forward with Lightning Lash — a metallic whip, segments of metal with the joints between them glowing with the pale yellow of lightning dust — drawn back. Applejack turned, but Ilia was smaller and more nimble, and it was her turn to dodge the swing of Applejack's clubbed rifle, ducking beneath the blow before lashing out with her whip to strike Applejack square on the chest.
Applejack mewled in pain, her body contorting as the lightning rippled up and down her body. Her grip on One in a Thousand seemed to loosen, though she did not quite drop it.
Gilda surged forward, unleashing her semblance, Swallow Strike. It was not, as even Gilda would admit, the greatest semblance ever. In strict utility terms, it paled in comparison to Applejack's super strength. But in this moment, with Applejack's back exposed to her, the ability to land three hits practically at once was good enough.
Gilda's swords barely seemed to move. There were a succession of flashes in the air, a certain momentary blurriness around the blades themselves, and then Applejack cried out, back arching.
There was a malicious grin on Ilia's face as she delivered a spinning kick up towards Applejack's jaw that sent her flying straight towards Woundwort, who slashed furiously at her with his Paws, slicing into her aura.
Applejack seemed to hang suspended in the air as Gilda's wings bore her up behind her to slash at her back, first with one sword, then the other.
Applejack hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, face down, arms spread out. Woundwort barely let her settle there before he grabbed her by the head, crushing her stetson in his giant hand, and slammed her face into the floor, once, twice—
"Stop it!" Blake yelled. "Leave her alone!"
Ilia flicked her wrist, and Lightning Lash flickered out again, and again, the lightning snapped and crackled like dogs as it rippled up and down Applejack's body, nipping her, biting at her, tearing at her aura until the green light of her breaking aura also rippled up and down her body. Then Applejack cried out in real pain, and when Woundwort hammered her face into the floor one last time, there was a sickening crunching sound.
And there was blood on Applejack's face when she flopped over onto her back.
"Stop!" Blake cried. "Please, you can kill me if you want to, I'll lower my aura and make it easy, but please, let her go! She's nothing to do with this!"
"She made herself a part of this," Ilia growled.
"Ilia's right," Gilda said, even as she sheathed one of her swords. She stood astride Applejack, legs spread out on either side of her, looking down at the prone girl beneath her. "I didn't want to see you die in Mountain Glenn, because it didn't sit right with me to just kill a pair of helpless captives who'd just accidentally wandered into all this, especially when one of you was just a girl, no fighter at all. But you came in here, and you picked this fight. You get that there's a difference, don't you?"
Applejack groaned. "Does it matter if Ah do or don't?"
"Not really," Gilda admitted. "I just want you to know that there's nothing personal. Although … I can't say I ever liked you very much."
Applejack's smile was bloody as she grinned. "Feelin's mutual."
"Don't do this," Blake pleaded. "Please, she has a family."
"So did I," Ilia said.
Blake's eyes widened as Gilda raised her sword, point downwards for a fatal thrust. No, no, this couldn't happen; she couldn't let Applejack die for her sake, couldn't let Apple Bloom lose a sister, not for her, not for Blake Belladonna, no, no, she couldn't let this happen.
And yet, there was nothing she could do to stop it.
The doors at the back of the room, the doors through which all of the White Fang bar Trifa had come in, burst open as the room was lit up by a pair of rainbows.
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Good chapter
RAINBOW DASH TO THE RESCUE!!!! LET’S GOOOO!!!!
I’m proud of you, Blake to not falling into your old habits and signaling for the rest of Atlas to help you! It’s quite a nice break from the heavy angst of the SAPR part of the story to just have a straightforward battle. Anxious to see how things will unravel from here!
Pair of rainbows would suggest Rainbow and Neon plus the rest of FNKI
Outstanding, Blake! I'm so proud of how much you've grown, to actually alert the right authorities before you leap! And because you did, you will win and the White Fang you've always feared will lose.
As a wise man once said, no one is a failure who has friends. And those who value their friends are never short on them.
11800041
Too bad she wasn't a smidge more tactically aware as Blake bemoaned, or they might have just handled the whole thing between them.
This was actually planned out better than I'd expected. I figured they'd try to take Blake and Rainbow down together in some grand fashion. Instead they went after them one at a time in a manner that would actually have worked perfectly if not for Blake's personal growth. The old Blake would have died here, and it's even odds whether she would have even told Twilight what was wrong. She might have just as easily told Twilight she 'needed to take care of something', seeing it as a White Fang problem, thus hers alone to deal with. No one's out of the woods yet with Blake still restrained and Applejack basically inches from death, but it's a hell of a lot better than Blake dead and no one else the wiser to the White Fang's presence. It was also great seeing AJ's impression of a one-woman wrecking crew
Hopefully Dash can extract AJ before this turns into a hostage situation, but it might pan out like that. I'm not super worried for AJ here, but you never know. No one's ever safe in a story like this, even if I don't think any of the Mane Six died in the original. That would be... Pretty devastating.
Making plans based on the assumption that Blake wouldn't call it in makes me smile. Gilda will probably be glad of it later since she never wanted to do this in the first place.
AJ is also a force of nature, and soon her enemies will be tasting the rainbow. Good stuff.
Not gonna lie, Although AJ was outnumbered she did put up a hell of a fight. And that smirk at the end.. Mmm.
Now the question is, did the rainbow belong to Rainbow dash or Neo?
11800362
Why not both?
Nothing better than two Atlesian faunus huntresses doing in the White Fang
In the interest of future relations, Kali should ask General Ironwood to lend her his fastest jet. She needs to make it home immediately and inform her husband that Sienna Khan has made an enemy of the Chieftan of Menagerie‘s family.
Glad to see that Gilda at least recognizes that the reason they are killing Dash and Blake is mostly for petty bullshit. Blake betraying the White Fang would be grounds enough for her death for sure, but Sienna Khan giving the order because Dash and Blake were making the White Fang look pointless...
Which it kind of is, since at least two of its chapters allowed utter monsters to raise to power and more or less destroy them with their actions... as well as the White Fangs credibility. Rather then acknowledging the flaws in her organization and attempting to fix them, Sienna Khan seems to be doubling down...
Pride is a terrible vice after all.
Twin Rainbows? Yeah, White Fang here fucked up. Can't wait till Friday to read the conclusion of this, although I was really hoping that this would have ended with Gilda not being able to go through with it and letting Dash know. Now I don't know if Gilda is even going to live through this...
I was wondering when the fang would make their move. Been a long time coming.