Twice Bitten (New)
Twice Bitten
“Lady Medea?” Pyrrha said, raising her voice just a little as the huntsmen and huntresses prepared to take their leave, to head out onto the promenade to guard the civilians.
She wanted to be heard, by Team JAMM at least, before they all departed.
She was glad that Rainbow had not selected Team JAMM for her reserve; she supposed that she could have made this request of Arslan, and Arslan probably would have done it, but … she did not know Arslan’s teammates; she knew Jason and Meleager, for all that their youthful acquaintance had not been on the friendliest terms, and she knew Medea too, somewhat. She knew them enough that she felt that she could trust them with her request, but also that they would not find it strange or selfish.
“Lord Jason?” she went on. “May I speak with you a moment?”
The entire of Team JAMM turned to face her. Medea bowed her head. “You may say to us whatever you wish, Lady Pyrrha, though I fear you may need to be brief.”
“The Mistralian Ambassador to Vale, Lord Wong, is up in Box Seven on the highest level,” Pyrrha explained, “along with his lady wife, their daughter Soojin … and my mother. Would you please go up there and make sure that they are well, and that they are kept well until things are settled?”
Pyrrha had found herself thinking at times that Medea often acted more like the leader of Team JAMM than Jason did, and that Jason seemed perfectly content to let her take the lead. On this occasion, however, she glanced upwards at him, as if seeking his guidance or his approval.
Jason, in turn, looked to Meleager, and Meleager looked to Atalanta last of all.
“Why do you look at me as though I might object?” Atalanta demanded. “I have no issue.”
Medea smiled. “Then it appears that we would be honoured to do this small service for you, Lady Pyrrha; you may put your trust in us, wholly and completely.”
“I am glad of it,” Pyrrha murmured. “Thank you, I am sorry to drag you away from the battle—”
“If there is to be a battle,” Jason muttered. “Your Atlesian friend seems to think that we will do nothing more than observe the Atlesian air fleet in another glorious triumph.” His tone conveyed a little bitterness.
Pyrrha attempted to ignore it in her reply. “Nevertheless,” she said, “Rainbow admits that we should take precautions.”
“Of course,” Medea said. “We shall go at once. Come, boys, Atalanta.”
She turned, her robes sweeping around her, and she joined the other huntsmen and huntresses heading for one of the two ways out of the battlefield and into the wider Colosseum. Jason and Meleager each bowed their heads to her before they fell in on either side of Medea, while Atalanta was the last of them to leave, her dark-eyed gaze fixed on Pyrrha for just a moment longer before she, too, turned away and fell in at the back of the four, hem of her long tunic flapping slightly as she caught up with her teammates.
Pyrrha watched them go, she had delayed them so that they were amongst the last to leave, and when they left, the battlefield would be empty, save for herself, Jaune, and Penny. They would be alone amongst the empty lockers that had fallen from the sky and now sat like monuments in a dead city.
The nevermore feathers lay amongst them, sharp and black.
Pyrrha looked to Jaune, and then to Penny. "I hope that didn't seem too selfish of me, to ask that of them."
"Maybe, if it was just your mother, it would have," Penny admitted. "But it's the Mistralian ambassador too, and if something were to happen to them, then that might be bad." She paused. "And anyway, it's still really understandable!" she added quickly, as if she was afraid that she had given offence. "Wanting your mother to be safe … no one can blame you for it."
Pyrrha did not point out that what she had done went a little beyond wanting something.
"They didn't have to do it," Jaune pointed out. "You asked, and they agreed. That was their choice, as much as yours. It's not all on you." He managed a small smile. "And besides, I can't blame you for not wanting to become Lady Nikos just yet; it seems like it could be a lot of work."
"Mmm, you're right," Pyrrha murmured.
Penny frowned. "Why? What does Lady Nikos do?"
"I'll explain some other time, Penny," Pyrrha said. "For now, we should probably…" She looked upwards. She could see the battle raging in the skies overhead, the Atlesian airships duking it out with the grimm — although, as the sky darkened, it was becoming harder to actually see the grimm. Thankfully, it was a full moon, or spotting them with the naked eye would have been nearly impossible, but as it was, looking up, Pyrrha found that it was much easier to spot the Atlesians, with lights on their wings, and to see the tracer rounds from their machine guns, their laser beams, the explosions of their missiles, than it was to see the dark silhouettes of the grimm flitting overhead.
Pyrrha stopped herself from saying what she had been about to say, and instead, she said, "I'm sorry; it's for the team leader to give the instructions."
"Don't stay quiet if you have a good idea," Penny told her. "I don't want to make a mistake because you were worried about offending me. But," — her lasers floated into a ring in front of her, pointing upwards towards the hole in the ceiling — "I think that I'll try and take out any grimm coming through with my lasers, and Ciel will help, but then if any of them get past me, then you — and Jaune — can take care of them."
Pyrrha nodded. "That seems sound."
Jaune looked around, turning in place. "It's a pity that we can't just seal off the corridors," he mused. "I mean, there's nobody here now; the only reason we need to be here is in case griffons try to use the corridors to get out into the promenade."
He had a point; the stands were empty by now, all the tourists who had once thronged them, the vast crowds that had filled up the enormous colosseum and made it ring with cheers and songs, they were all gone now. Empty seats looked down on them, discarded tubs of popcorn and half-consumed cardboard cups were their only audience. Their presence here was necessitated only by the fact that this offered an approach which, if left unguarded, could allow them grimm to take the vast crowds of spectators — the huntsmen outside, and the Atlesian troops, were going to have their work cut out preventing panic amongst so many frightened people; Pyrrha wondered if they would accept the logic in delaying their evacuation the same way the students had — from behind.
Although, Jaune having brought the subject up, it did make Pyrrha wonder if the three of them were enough to prevent that.
"Do you think that Rainbow Dash should have posted another team or two here to help us?" Pyrrha asked. "If the grimm pass through Penny's fire, then … if they land here, on the field, then I can deal with them, with Jaune's help, but what if they land in the stands and try to use one of those corridors?"
"Won't they try and kill us first, since we're here?" asked Jaune.
"For the most part," Pyrrha allowed. "But an older, more experienced grimm—"
"Quite right, Miss Nikos, quite right," Professor Port declared in his great booming voice as he and Doctor Oobleck walked out of one of the corridors into the arena. "Some students forget my lessons in the heat of the moment, but I'm glad to see that our new Vytal Champion is not amongst them."
Pyrrha turned towards them, as did Jaune, and even Penny looked that way whilst keeping her body — and her lasers — stationary.
"Professor Port, Doctor Oobleck," Pyrrha said. "I'm surprised, although I suppose I probably shouldn't be."
"Apologies for the delay, Miss Nikos; it took some time to get down here," Doctor Oobleck said. "You seemed to be having a discussion a little earlier with your fellow students; what's the situation?"
"At the moment, the grimm are only attacking in the air around the Amity Colosseum," Penny explained. "And so, General Ironwood has decided not to evacuate the arena yet, because people would be in more danger in the airships than they would be here."
"So, everyone else is waiting on the docking pads trying to keep order, while you're defending this position?" Doctor Oobleck asked.
"That's right, Doctor," Jaune said.
Doctor Oobleck nodded. "Miss Nikos is correct, that older and more experienced will sometimes avoid huntsmen in order to seek out easier prey elsewhere. But, older grimm are also larger grimm, and might have some trouble fitting through the corridors."
"But," Professor Port added, "Barty and I will head up into the stands to intercept any grimm who do try to avoid you here."
"Thank you, Professor," Pyrrha said. "That is much appreciated."
"Yes, it's very nice of you," Penny added. "I'll try to make sure that not too many of them get down here."
"No need for thanks, Miss Nikos, Miss Polendina," Professor Port assured them. "What kind of huntsmen would we be to let our students shoulder all the burden?" He paused, tugging with one hand upon his grey walrus moustache. "Miss Nikos," he said, "congratulations on your victory hardly seem appropriate under the circumstances, and yet, they are well-earned regardless."
"It's a pity that we couldn't have the traditional award ceremony," Doctor Oobleck went on.
"Yes, well," Pyrrha said softly. "As you say, Professor, it all seems rather irrelevant now."
"All the same," Doctor Oobleck replied, "it is a shame that you have had to go from winning that battle to fighting in this one. Take care, all of you." He and Professor Port departed, their footsteps echoing a while even after they had returned to the corridor from whence they had come; Pyrrha expected at some point, and hopefully soon, to see them in the stands, able to look down upon what remained of Team SAPR, to be their audience if any grimm should come this way.
"He's right," Penny said. "We … we never got to congratulate you, did we?" She beamed. "Congratulations, Pyrrha! You did it!"
Pyrrha laughed. She couldn't help but laugh, covering her mouth with one hand. "That … thank you, Penny."
Jaune put one hand on her shoulder. "I'd ask how it felt," he said, "but—"
"Yes," Pyrrha murmured, "But … we knew that this was a possibility — Cinder told me so — but … Professor Ozpin said that we were keeping people from worrying, that we were giving them something happy to dwell on, that we were giving them some relief from their troubles, but was any of that really true? Does any of it matter now?"
"Maybe the grimm would have attacked sooner without the tournament," Penny suggested.
"I guess the question is whether they deliberately left it to the end of the tournament to attack," Jaune said. "And if they did, then why?"
"Because it's getting dark," Penny suggested.
"It'll get darker," Jaune pointed out. "And if they waited until the celebrations started, then there would be a lot fewer huntsmen and huntresses all in one place to fight back."
"Tell me something, Cindy," Sonata said. "What was your worst birthday?"
Cinder frowned. "What?"
"What … Mistress," Sonata said, smiling like a shark as she said it.
The two of them stood in the Valish Command Headquarters, the hub of the Valish military — her military now, Sonata supposed. Everyone here was dancing to her tune, from General Blackthorn to the lowest … um, what was the name, they all had ranks, what was it, trooper? Fusilier? Guardsman? Private? Actually, she thought it was all of those, and maybe 'grenadier' as well, depending on … something. Something about regiments, she thought? She hadn't been paying that much attention to that part. It didn't really matter to her exactly how they organised themselves.
What did it matter to the butcher how the sheep or the pigs organised their herd? They were chops and sausages all the same.
Mmm, sausages. Sausage taco, ooh…
Sonata's stomach growled.
Sonata giggled. "Say, fellas?" she said. "I don't suppose one of you boys could run down to the kitchen and pick me up something, could you?"
General Blackthorn, who was stood looking over the shoulders of a couple of his soldiers sitting at consoles, snapped his fingers. "Guardsman, jump to it."
One of his men snapped to attention. They were very snappy, these Valish soldiers. Snap, snap, snap. "Yes, sir," he barked, and immediately, he darted out of the door and down the corridor.
The command centre was kind of dark and gloomy, with concrete walls and a floor that looked like it was concrete too. They were actually underground, with a lot of dirt above them, even though the headquarters had so much space above ground that you'd think there was room up there. Apparently, this was safer, in case the Atlesians decided to drop bombs on them or something.
Sonata did not really want to get stuck down here. She didn't want to be buried under a lot of rock and rubble; she didn't want to starve, or suffocate, or never see the sun again. It was … a little scary.
She wasn't supposed to feel fear herself; she was supposed to feed off the fear of others, to devour it and grow stronger from it, the way that she'd fed off the nervousness of all these soldiers down here when they contemplated what came next.
But she was afraid herself of getting stuck down here. It would be worse than being imprisoned by Salem; at least Salem had kept them alive.
If I have to, I'll make them dig a way out for me with their bare hands.
And maybe Cinder can move the rock with her magic?
Sonata pushed those thoughts away. She didn't want to be scared, she didn't want to be worried; this was her moment of triumph, of her victory over not just Vale or the Atlesians or all the rest of Salem's enemies, but over her own sisters too. Adagio and Aria would never have believed that she could accomplish all of this; they thought that she was stupid, that she was useless, that she was forever fated to be at the bottom of the pile while they fought for the highest place. They thought it so strongly that even Sonata had started to believe it; for the longest while, her ambitions had been limited to taking Aria's number two spot, and even that idea had faded, seemed impossible. Well, look at her now! All of Vale was in her hands! An entire city was at her mercy! This room was full of soldiers sitting at consoles, looking at screens, screens that — although Sonata couldn't read them very well — had information about more soldiers, about ships, about fighters, about an army at her command and disposal. All she had to do was tell General Blackthorn something, and he would tell other people to do something, and they would tell another person to do something, and then they would all do it. She was about to unleash fire and horror on a scale that Adagio and Aria couldn't even dream of; now, wasn't that something, huh? Not so stupid anymore!
And Cinder, another who had dismissed her, who had underestimated her, who had thought that she could use Sonata as a weapon for her own end, now look at her! She stood at Sonata's right hand, and around her neck, Sonata had put a collar, a spiked collar with a little padlock on the front, to show that she belonged to someone.
Cinder hated it. Sonata loved that she hated it; Cinder's wrath was the headiest brew she'd tasted in all of Vale, sweetened and seasoned by her Maiden magic, but made rich like fat by the fact that she was just so angry. Angry, and at Sonata's beck and call and absolute command.
Against her will, of course. Sonata could feel her struggling; Sonata could feel Cinder raging inside, desperate to regain control of herself. She would like nothing better than to kill Sonata with her bare hands. But that wasn't going to happen, and the fact that she was struggling made it all the more fun.
Certainly, it was more fun than General Blackthorn, who had kind of rolled over by comparison. He was so eager to fight the Atlesians that he wasn't even trying to fight her. And him a soldier too.
It was a big help to take Sonata's mind off things. "What, Mistress," she repeated. "Call me Mistress, Cindy. You know you want to."
It was clear from the look on Cinder's face, from the way she bared her teeth, from the way that her eyes twitched, from the very fire in her eyes, it was clear that she didn't want to do it. But all the same, the words came out, "M-Mistress."
"There you go!" Sonata cried. "Didn't that feel good?" She patted Cinder on the cheek. "Make sure you remember it from now on. Now, answer the question: what was your worst birthday?" She walked around Cinder, humming softly as she stroked Cinder's arms, her shoulders, her thighs. "Was it when you didn't get the present you wanted? When the cake didn't taste very nice?"
"No … Mistress," Cinder growled. "It was … it was not that." She sounded like the words were being wrenched out of her; they probably were.
Sonata completed her walk around Cinder. "Go on," she urged.
Cinder scowled. "It was … she … Philonoe told me that … that it would cheer me up. A party." She groaned as if she was in pain, her head dropped down, her chin almost touching the spiked collar, her eyes screwed tight shut.
"Cheer you up?" Sonata repeated. She cocked her head to one side, and one hand drifted lazily up to rest her fingertips on Cinder's temple. "Cheer you up from what?"
Cinder whimpered, shaking her head back and forth.
"Cheer you up from what, Cinder?" Sonata demanded.
Cinder's whole body trembled. "My father," she whispered. "My father had—"
"Died," Sonata whispered.
Yes, she knew all about that; she could feel it. Cinder was angry about that too, furious at her father … but sad, all the same, which was a different taste, a kind of … like cream upon the strawberries of her fury. She tried to shut it away, to lock it all behind a door belonging to another girl, another life, but Sonata's song had blasted down that door, and nothing stood between her and all that was locked within.
"My … Ashley's father had died," Cinder said.
"Your father, Cindy," Sonata corrected her. "And so, because you were sad, Philonoe promised you a party to cheer you up?"
Cinder nodded. "A splendid party. Cake, and music, and so many guests. Something to take my mind off all my sorrows."
"And presents?" Sonata asked.
"Lots of presents."
"And balloons?"
Cinder wrinkled her nose. "Mistralian parties don't have balloons."
"Really?" Sonata asked. "What kind of party doesn't have balloons? Weird." She shook her head. "So what happened? What made this your worst birthday ever?"
Cinder breathed in and out. She looked at Sonata. She didn't say anything.
Sonata started to hum.
"There was no party," Cinder said, the words rattling out of her as though they were being rolled down a hill. "It was all a lie, it was all—"
"A trick!" Sonata cried, clapping her hands together. "They let you get your hopes up, didn't they? They let your mouth water with anticipation, they let you float on the air of expectation ever so sky high, and then—" She snapped her fingers. "Broken wings."
Cinder clutched at herself, she grabbed at her shoulders, at her sleeves, she clasped the fabric of her red dress in her hands as though she were making sure that it was still there. "Yes."
"Yes!" Sonata shouted. "Because disappointment is always so much sweeter when it comes after built anticipation, and that, Cinder, is why we waited until after the tournament was over." She grinned. "You wanted to give Pyrrha a chance to win immortal glory because you're just a big old softy on the inside, aren't you? I waited until the tournament was over because I wanted to let everyone watching in the Colosseum and everybody watching on their TV at home get so worked up, I wanted to let so much ecstasy build up, so much excitement, so much passion, and then, when everyone has risen so high—" She clapped her hands together. "BAM! It all comes falling down, and from the heights of triumph, they fall into the pit of despair."
"I see," Cinder murmured. "F-forgive me, Mistress, but I do not think your enemies will succumb to despair so easily as that."
Sonata shrugged. "Maybe they won't, but the ordinary people will! All that sadness, all that fear, that'll get the grimm all nice and frisky." She turned away from Cinder to look at General Blackthorn where he stood monitoring his people. "How's it going, General?"
“It seems that General Ironwood is not reinforcing his air units around the Colosseum,” General Blackthorn said. “But never mind. We can deal with that. Your … friends are ready to move on key infrastructure, and my forces are ready to respond.”
The way that he had said ‘friends’ made Sonata tilt her head to one side. “Is everything okay, Blackie?”
Blackthorn hesitated. "I'm sorry, but I don't understand," he said. "We don't need these grimm cultists; my troops—"
"Are going to do great," Sonata assured him as she put a hand on his shoulder. So there was a teensy weensy bit of fight left in him after all; he didn't like the idea of siccing grimm upon Vale. She hummed a few bars of a soft refrain before she said, "There's a storm coming, General, there's a hard rain about to fall on Vale, and not all of this kingdom will avoid being swept away by it. But what's left will be a better place, a purer place, a stronger place. A place that has been cleaned up of all its problems, and where only the best has withstood the flood. Doesn't that sound great? Doesn't that sound like something you want, like something that you've always wanted? Haven't you looked at this kingdom and wished that you could cut the rot away and throw it into the fire?"
"Of course," Blackthorn said, "who hasn't?"
"Well, now, you get to do it," Sonata told him. "You get to be the man who saved Vale, by sacrificing those parts that were dragging it down." She wrapped her arms around his, and leaned against him. "Speaking of which, what's happening with your soldiers?"
"The Terror and Zhenyuan are moving into position," Blackthorn told her. "And I have loyal men ready to prevent rogue elements from getting in the way."
"Excellent," Sonata declared. "Trust me, this is going to be—" She stopped, looking around the room.
Her eyes narrowed. Something was not right here. Something was off, something was wrong, she could … she could sense something. It was like a bad smell under her nose, something that she couldn't exactly place, but it was there, irritating her, reminding her of its presence. What was it?
Sonata took a couple of light steps away from General Blackthorn, looking around her, sniffing the air. What was it? Where was it?
Who was it?
It was a someone, she was almost certain of it. She could feel them, somewhere.
"What's wrong?" asked General Blackthorn.
"I don't…" Sonata looked to her left. There was a corridor there, the door was open, and the corridor led out and around a corner off into the rest of the headquarters.
"Cinder," Sonata said, "will you be a sweetheart and go check that out for me?" She pointed down the corridor. "I think there might be someone hiding down there, listening."
"At once, Mistress," Cinder said quietly as one of her glass swords — that was a very neat trick — appeared in her hand. The lights down here were kind of dark, but Cinder's glass sword glimmered regardless. She turned her back on Sonata and stalked like a cat down the offending corridor.
She turned the corner and paused.
She didn't do or say anything. She just stood there, as though she were staring at something — or someone.
Sonata's eyes narrowed. "Cinder?"
Cinder looked at her. "There is nothing here, Mistress. Nothing and no one."
For a moment, Sonata considered the possibility that Cinder was lying to her. But no. No, that couldn't be right. That wasn't possible. Cinder was totally under her control.
"Okay, I don't know where that came from then," she muttered. She wheeled back to General Blackthorn. "You know, Councillor Emerald has been squawking at you once already; you might want to send someone over to shut him up before he causes any problems."
"Of course," Blackthorn said. "I'll have him taken care of."
"Maybe," Penny said, "maybe they're attacking the arena first because there are so many huntsmen and huntresses up here, not just the finalists but their teammates and everyone else watching? What if they wanted to kill us all."
"That … makes a gloomy kind of sense," Jaune replied. "Although they might be better off trying to bring the arena down rather than get inside it if that were the case."
"If she could hear us," Penny said, "Ciel would say that the Atlesian fleet won't let that happen, and Rainbow would say that too."
"No doubt," Pyrrha murmured. "What you say makes sense, but…"
Jaune's brow furrowed. "But what?"
"I'm afraid all of this rather proves Cinder's point," Pyrrha said. "That there is another hand now driving Salem's actions here. A hand that does not belong to Cinder Fall."
"You mean Tempest Shadow or Bon Bon?" Jaune replied.
"Yes," Pyrrha said. "I do not see how it can be denied any longer; at least one of them has betrayed us."
"Unless Cinder set all this in motion before she got caught?" Jaune suggested.
"Perhaps," Pyrrha said quietly. "I suppose I wouldn't put it past Cinder to have wished to fly up here on the back of a griffon, land in the middle of the arena, and challenge me to a rematch where the cameras could see, but … she seemed to indicate to Sunset and I that the grimm attack was not her wish or idea."
"She could have been lying to you," Penny pointed.
"Yes," Pyrrha conceded. "Yes, she did tell some lies." Whatever else, Amber is not a traitor. "But—" She stopped, her ears pricking up.
"Pyrrha—" Jaune began.
"Shhh, listen," Pyrrha urged, pointing upwards.
Jaune looked up, as did Pyrrha herself, and Penny too. There was nothing there that they could see, nothing but the battle continuing to rage in the skies above the arena, and presumably all around it too. They could see nothing, but Pyrrha could hear tapping sounds on the roof, tapping like claws on metal.
The grimm were actually on the roof, hidden from Pyrrha and the others, but there all the same.
And judging by the sounds, many taps in quick succession, too many to be the result of a single grimm walking around up there, Pyrrha guessed that there were several of them, be it griffons or nevermores or both.
One might have hoped that the much-vaunted Atlesian airships would clear them off, but either they were too busy, or else they dared not fire for fear of hitting the Amity Arena itself; either way, the tapping did not abate. Rather, all the tapping sounds seemed to converge, closing in upon the centre where the roof opened for them.
Yes, Pyrrha thought. Yes, come down that we may deal with you.
In spite of the fact that they had agreed that Penny would be the first to deal with descending targets, Pyrrha changed Miló into rifle mode.
More tapping sounds, although they seemed stationary, as though the grimm were tapping their claws in place for some reason. They called out to one another, cawing and croaking.
A griffon stuck its head into view.
Penny fired, several green laser beams lancing up from her Floating Array; the griffon was struck, its head disappearing in a flash of green light. When the light of the laser beams died down, nothing more could be seen of the grimm but a gently rising wisp of black ash.
For a moment, the creatures of the grimm were silent. Pyrrha wondered what they meant to do next; perhaps they would be frightened off and fly away.
Judging by the new sound that sprung up, the much shrieking and screaming, the softer trilling and cooing, that was too much to ask. The grimm were remaining where they were. But what did they mean to do? Tear through the roof? It hadn't occurred to Pyrrha until then that they might do so, but there was nothing stopping them. It was not as though the Amity Colosseum was sturdy enough to keep them out if they were truly determined to gain entry.
"Do you think we should call Rainbow Dash?" Pyrrha asked.
"Not yet," Penny said quietly. "If it turns out to be nothing, then they're not somewhere else."
Somewhere they could be of more use, perhaps, Pyrrha thought. "Yes, of course."
She almost wished the grimm would make a move; it would be better to face them, however many there were, to be able to see them in their multitudes, than to be left imagining how many of them there might be and what they might be doing up there.
What they might be plotting up there.
Were they intelligent enough to be plotting? Well, they weren’t standing on that roof for nothing; if they were rasher or more stupid, they would have charged down the hole and faced Team SAPR. Instead … they were doing something else.
She just didn’t know what. None of them knew what.
Pyrrha supposed that she ought to be at least a little glad that while the grimm were up there, they weren’t directly trying to or on the verge of hurting anyone — but they might be devising a plan that would let them hurt people, and that worried Pyrrha.
She wished they would be young and immature and just charge down.
“Get down!”
The voice was faint, almost snatched away from Pyrrha’s ears; it was coming from above them. Pyrrha’s eyes flickered across the boxes, her first thought being that maybe a member of Team JAMM was calling to her from her mother’s box, but when her eyes turned that way, she saw nothing. There was no sign that there was anyone still in the box at all.
“There!” Penny cried. “It’s Ciel!”
Pyrrha twisted on her toes, shifting her stance to face in the direction that Penny was pointing. Yes, there was Ciel; she was a little difficult to make out, none of her features were visible, but her blue beret was distinctive atop her dark face as she leaned out over the edge of her box.
“Get down!” she shouted again.
And then the roof of the arena exploded.
Part of it did, in any case, which was quite enough, whole sections of the awnings that covered the top of the arena vanishing in an immense fireball. The question of how, how on Remnant the grimm had managed to accomplish such a thing was answered as debris emerged from out of the explosion, flung this way and that, across and downwards, debris not only from the ceiling itself but from the Atlesian airship that the grimm must have grabbed, overpowered, and physically slammed into the ceiling.
As the explosion flared above them, flinging debris out and down like comets flying across the sky, Pyrrha leapt away. As she leapt, she flung out hands and semblance alike, grabbing Jaune by his armour and Penny by her … everything, yanking them both off their feet towards her.
They collided in mid-air, Pyrrha's arms wrapped around them both as she bore them on.
"Jaune!" she cried.
Jaune understood without her having to say it: he had his hands on both Pyrrha and Penny, and the golden light of his semblance spread out from his hands to wash over them both, the gentle sunlit warmth of his power warring with the sudden searing heat from the explosion up above.
They hit the ground in a heap, with Jaune and Penny on the floor and Pyrrha above them, clinging to them both. Debris and wreckage flew everywhere, slamming into the ground, slamming into the boxes and the stands, slamming into the summoned lockers and splitting them open, or else causing the rockets that propelled them to explode and shower yet more debris across the battlefield.
Pyrrha tried to project her semblance out behind her, to use it like the reverse pole of a magnet to repel any metal that came towards it — towards her, towards Jaune or Penny.
She didn't feel anything strike her from behind; she didn't see anything strike either of them either. She could feel the heat of the explosion upon her back, and the lesser explosions of the lockers to her sides, but there was no debris slamming into her. The floodlights, the metal rails that supported them sheared clean through by the wreckage, did not fall on any of them, thank goodness.
Pyrrha raised her head. The arena was … it looked like a new biome had been introduced, although Pyrrha could not give it a name. Flaming debris littered the floor, filling the space around those lockers that had survived intact. Gouges had been torn in the metal surface, dents made, the painted symbol of Beacon Academy rendered almost unrecognisable by the tears made in it. Sections of the stands had been turned to ruin, large chunks of metal sticking out where seats had been, flames beginning to spread amongst the padded seat cushions. Of Professor Port or Doctor Oobleck, there was no sign, although that might have been — hopefully was — the smoke obscuring her view.
Several boxes had been destroyed or damaged; Pyrrha could not see if her mother's was among them, but the box from which Ciel had sought to warn them was protected by a purple shield enclosing it like a bubble and warding off all harm.
The roar of a teryx split the air, just as the teryx itself split the smoke from the lingering fires of the explosion. It plunged out of the smoke cloud, head first, wings spread out across the arena, maw opened wide to swallow them all.
Reaching for her semblance once again, Pyrrha grabbed a large chunk of metal from the ceiling and pulled it through the air towards her as quick as she could, lifting it up so that it lodged between the jaws of the descending grimm.
The teryx growled through the obstruction as it continued to drop.
Pyrrha seized Penny and Jaune in the grip of Polarity and threw them forwards, out of the way, before rolling aside herself.
She thought the teryx would slam head-first into the floor, but it pulled up at the very last moment, hitting the metal surface feet-first, leaving dents where it did so, and shook its head backwards and forwards as it tried to dislodge the metal from its gullet.
Pyrrha summoned Miló into her hand and pulled Akoúo̱ from off her back, switching Miló into spear mode as she flowed into a combat stance, knees bent, ready to charge.
“Wait!” Penny cried as she leapt to her feet, the swords of Floating Array emerging once again from behind her. “I’ll hit her with my laser,” she added as all her swords folded into their carbine configuration and formed a very tight circle in front of her chest.
As the teryx continued to try and get the jagged metal fragment out of its mouth, Penny’s lasers began to glow a vivid green as she charged her most powerful mode fire.
A flock of griffons descended from out of the sky and the smoke that drifted from the smouldering ceiling. As they swept down, the flock split up: some headed for the shielded box from which Ciel had cried her warning, slashing at the shield with their claws or pecking at it with their beaks; a few headed towards a different, ruined box; others still dropped into the stands, where Pyrrha thought she heard a snatch of Professor Port's deep, booming voice proclaiming that he yet lived and fought on.
And one griffon, which must have surely been the alpha of the group, pounced upon Pyrrha and the others.
This griffon was not so large as the teryx already confronting them, but it still looked big enough to swallow a man whole, and where the other griffons had black bodies mostly exposed and visible below the neck, this griffon had armour plates of pale bone protecting its neck, chest, and shoulders, and wings of a greater span to bear the extra weight. The spikes on its tail were as long as Miló in sword mode, and more bone was beginning to protrude out of the haunches of its hind legs.
It didn't land, but flew low, talons outstretched as though it meant to grab one of them and scoop them up into the air. Pyrrha threw Akoúo̱ at it as it descended on them, but her shield bounced harmlessly off the griffon's chest armour before flying back onto Pyrrha's arm.
As the griffon bore down on them, they had little choice but to throw themselves to the ground, though doing so interrupted Penny's charging of her laser. As she dropped, and as the griffons passed over them without touching them, Jaune tried to slash at it with Crocea Mors, but the grimm had not descended quite that low. Pyrrha switched Miló from spear into rifle mode and snapped off a shot at the griffon's rear as it began to rise again; she thought she hit it, but the griffon took no visible notice of the injury.
Penny fired too; although she lay still on the ground, she brought her lasers to bear, firing them individually, green beams bursting from her folded swords. She hit the griffon in the side as it turned in the air, and though it hadn't noticed Miló's bullet, the griffon noticed Penny's lasers; a shriek tore from its throat as it angled itself so it was presenting more of its armour in Penny's direction. The laser fire glanced off the bony plates.
The teryx snapped the wreckage that Pyrrha had jammed down its mouth in two and let out a triumphant roar as it spat out the fragments and shook its head and its long sinuous neck back and forth.
The griffon soared over and around and finally landed next to the other, yet larger grimm, fluffing its wings once it had landed on the ground.
Smoke drifted overhead and rose from the airship and locker debris; the flickering flames illuminated the grimm in harsh orange tones, matching the eyes that burned in their skulls. The teryx tapped its foreclaws on the ground; it had only five talons, Pyrrha saw; one of them was missing from its right claw, only a broken stump remaining.
And the griffon, she could see now that it had landed, had a crack running right down the middle of its skull, as though someone had struck it there with great force.
The griffon trilled; the teryx coughed in what could only seem like a reply.
"Can you two hold them off while I charge up?" Penny asked.
"I … I'm not sure," Jaune murmured. His voice strengthened a little as he added, "But we can try!"
He stepped forward, sweeping his sword down towards the ground and then forwards, unleashing the ice dust from the phial set in the pommel; an expanding river of ice spread out along the ground, covering the metal, licking at the bases of the lockers, covering the shards of twisted metal as it raced towards the griffon. The griffon leapt up into the air, its wings spreading out to lift it up as the ice passed beneath it.
As Penny's lasers once more formed the tight circle that was preparatory to her combined beam, the teryx reared its long neck up and then brought it down towards her with open jaws. Pyrrha threw Miló up into the air as she grabbed hold of the nearest large metal that she could lay her semblance on — a tangled mess of metallic struts and shattered floodlights from below the roof — and threw them at the teryx. They slammed into the grimm's head hard enough to snap it sideways, arresting its assault on Penny.
Pyrrha caught Miló easily as she charged forward, spear drawn back for a thrust into the teryx's chest. The teryx roared and reared up onto its hind legs, whipping its long tail around to lash at her torso. Pyrrha ducked, the black tail passing overhead. The teryx lashed at her again, this time sweeping its tail along the floor. This time, Pyrrha jumped over it and brought Miló down to skewer the tail, piercing right through the darkness of the grimm and into the metal of the floor beneath.
The teryx roared and ripped its tail free, yanking Miló out of the ground — though it was still buried in the creature's flesh — and even batting Pyrrha up into the air, though she managed to convert it to a graceful landing on her feet. With Polarity, she summoned Miló back into her outstretched hand and switched to sword mode as she charged the grimm.
The easiest way to kill the teryx — for her, at least, assuming that Penny couldn't get her shot off — was to cut off its head, but the teryx seemed to know that as well as Pyrrha did; that was why it was reared up so high, resisting the temptation to snap at her with its immense jaws, keeping head and neck well out of reach. Instead, as Pyrrha charged, it dropped onto its forelegs, swiped at her with claws as big as she was, then reared again and tried to crush her beneath its bulk. Pyrrha danced around the slashing claws, shuffling back from them, manoeuvring around them, slashing at the teryx's forelegs and what of its chest she could reach.
She wasn't certain how much she was doing to it. Perhaps an aura attack, through the air up to its neck, might be her best bet?
Or she could just wait for Penny.
A squawk from Jaune got her attention; he was locked in combat with the griffon, which had got its claws over the lip of his shield and its beak around the blade of Crocea Mors; it was trying to disarm him of both his weapons, and Jaune was locked in a tug of war over them.
"Pyrrha, I'll switch with you!" Penny called.
Pyrrha didn't need to be told twice; she turned her back on the teryx and rushed for the griffon and for Jaune, legs pounding, sash flying out behind her; she didn't look back, she trusted Penny to keep the teryx occupied and off her — and to keep herself alive in the process.
She reached the griffon, slashing at its side and its thigh to get its attention, sliding underneath to slice into its belly too. The griffon roared in pain and swiped at her with its thickly spiked tail. Pyrrha took the blow upon Akoúo̱, her shield held before her as the force of the impact send her sliding backwards along the ground. She slashed at the griffon's tail too, but the grimm was too swift and got its tail away before Pyrrha could cut it off.
The griffon turned its tail on Jaune next, hammering it repeatedly against his shield. Jaune took the blow, then counterattacked, Crocea Mors slashing downwards. The griffon parried, catching Jaune's sword in one of its long spikes, trapping the sword in the midst of the bony protrusions and, with a flick of its tail, twisting the blade out of his hand and sending it skittering along the ground.
It resumed its assault, hammering on Jaune's shield with the spikes of its tail, pinning him in place as he defended himself, while with its beak, the griffon lunged for Pyrrha.
Pyrrha retreated, switching Miló from sword into spear mode. The griffon's beak closed on the empty air. Pyrrha thrust, aiming straight for the crack in the griffon's skull. Miló extended outwards with a bang, the tip of the spear finding the crack, driving into it — but not far enough. The griffon recoiled at once, wings spreading out as it took to the skies, glaring balefully down at them.
Pyrrha grabbed Crocea Mors with Polarity and guided it back into Jaune's hand.
"Thanks," Jaune said, his eyes fixed on the griffon. "We need to pin it down somehow. If you can get onto its back, then—"
The teryx let out an undulating cry, too soft to be called a roar, a rippling sound emerging in waves from out of its throat. The griffon looked its way, keening acknowledgement.
The teryx ignored the swords of Floating Array which slashed at it, and spread its leathery wings to take flight, pushing its body up off the battered surface and into the air. The griffon followed, falling in behind it, as some members of the flock — fewer than had descended, Pyrrha was sure — joined it. At first, they were pursued by Penny's laser fire, but as the grimm rose higher, into the sky where Atlesian airships did battle with the grimm, Penny ceased fire for fear of hitting an ally.
Nevertheless, unmolested or no, the grimm departed.
"That's right, you devils!" Professor Port whooped triumphantly. "You'd better run!"
Pyrrha was glad that he was alive, but she was not immediately willing to accept that the grimm had simply turned and fled; it hardly seemed in their nature. She kept her eyes turned skywards, waiting for the moment when the teryx or the griffon or both of them would plunge through the smoke and the night sky again to make a second attempt upon their lives.
But they did not. There was no sign of them. They had completely disappeared.
I suppose, if grimm live long enough, they must eventually learn when to retreat.
Penny walked quickly over to them both. "I think they're gone now," she said. "Are you two okay?"
Jaune had a frown etched upon his brow as he said, "Yeah, we're okay. But so were they."
"Crap, this is bad," Rainbow muttered as she emerged out of the tunnel into a mass of humanity.
The promenade was ram-packed. It wasn't meant to hold everyone who could sit in the stands; the arena had been built on the assumption that most people would spend most of their time sitting down, not that everyone would arrive or leave at the same time, and that there would be regular and plentiful transport onto and off the Colosseum to regulate the flow of people and ensure no one was standing around for too long. The promenade was an interim space, somewhere you passed through on your way to the stands, perhaps pausing along the way to buy a coffee or a soda or a tub of overpriced popcorn, not somewhere that could hold the entire seating capacity of the Amity Arena.
But now, all those assumptions had been blown up. The appearance of the grimm had sent everyone running for the exits, leaping from their seats all at once and getting out of the stands as fast as they could, only there were no skybuses to take them away. The interim space had become a giant waiting area for an increasing throng of people as more and more frightened spectators, their days ruined, all the enjoyment robbed from them, piled out of the stands only to find that there was nowhere to go forward, but plenty of people behind.
The crowds were packed together like beans in a tin, barely able to move; even the Atlesian soldiers, standing like islands in the sea of civilians, were held fast by the press, unable to do anything except stand there and get yelled at by people demanding to know what was going on, where the airships were, were they safe. There were yellow lines meant to mark the farthest point at which it was safe to stand on the docking pads, back from the edge, but from what Rainbow could see — which wasn't too much, because she was unable to move forward because of the crowd and had to rely on her height to see over them — the mass of people had surged past that line and reached the edges of the docking pads themselves, in the spite of the grimm that could still be seen in the darkening sky, wheeling and diving through the air in their battle with the Atlesians for air supremacy.
Never mind the risk of a nevermore or a griffon suddenly making a run for Amity and its crowds, it was a miracle that nobody had fallen off the ledge to their death yet — assuming that nobody had; for all Rainbow knew, that had already happened.
Discarded balloons, released by owners who suddenly had more important things to worry about, floated above the heads of the crowd, touching the ceiling. Some of them bore the smiling faces of Vytal contestants, and those smiles seemed to mock the desperate people down below. Little children in their costumes, dressed as Pyrrha or Weiss or Yang, cried; even if they didn't understand what was happening, kids were affected by negative emotion even more surely than the grimm.
This was very bad. If this kept up, then there would be a fall off the edge, or someone would be crushed to death or trampled, or all three would happen. This was bad.
Who put me in charge? No one, but there doesn't seem to be anyone else giving orders right now, so…
"Team Sun!" Rainbow yelled, raising her voice to be heard amongst the hubbub of the crowds in front of her. "Team Sun, can you hear me?!"
"Yeah," came the reply. Rainbow couldn't see Sun's pal Neptune, but she was fairly sure that that was his hand raised up in the air, and his voice speaking. "We're here, Rainbow Dash."
"I need you to start opening some maintenance doors — break them down if you have to — we need to create some valves to relieve the pressure. Start here, then use the inner corridors to work your way along and open the other doors from the inside."
She wasn't too sure of Team SSSN's abilities — especially without their team leader — but she knew that one of its members was a fairly big guy, so getting doors open should be pretty simple for them.
"Sabre," she twisted in place, turning her neck to look for Team SABR. "Once the crowd isn't as thick and you can move, make your way to the seating area and set up a first aid station." She knew that Bella Roseye had taken the Intermediate Aid course, and there were some first aid kits on the walls of the promenade if anyone could get to them. "It's the one place you shouldn't allow spillover from the rest of the crowd."
"Understood!" Sabine shouted back.
With that, Rainbow turned her attention back to the crowd in front of her and wished that she had a bullhorn to make herself heard over them. She didn't — but she might have something better. She got out her scroll, and held it up close to her face — much closer than she would have held her scroll normally — as she called Twilight.
"Rainbow Dash?" Twilight asked. "Is that you?"
"Yes, it's me," Rainbow shouted into the scroll, "but there are a lot of people with me. Can you patch me into the Amity intercom?"
"What? I can't hear you."
Rainbow held the scroll up closer to her mouth, so that spittle hit the screen of her device as she yelled, "CAN YOU PATCH ME THROUGH TO THE AMITY INTERCOM?"
"THE INTERCOM?"
"THE INTERCOM, THAT'S RIGHT, I NEED PEOPLE TO HEAR ME!"
"I'LL HAVE MIDNIGHT TAKE CARE OF IT," Twilight responded. "HANG ON."
Rainbow kept her scroll in one hand as she turned and addressed the huntsmen and huntresses around her. "Wait here," she told them. "Don't try and push forward, you'll make things worse; I'm going to talk to everyone."
"Where are you going?" asked Yang.
"Well, if Blake will give me a bit of a boost," Rainbow said, half-turning towards Blake.
Blake made a cradle with her hands, a cradle into which Rainbow placed her foot. Rainbow stepped off the ground, and Blake lifted Rainbow up above the heads of her fellow students. Rainbow had to duck her head to keep it from hitting the ceiling, but raised up as she was, she had enough room to pop the Wings of Harmony open once again, and by bending her back so that her body was horizontal, she could fire the jets on the slowest and most gentle setting without hurting anyone down below.
She flew parallel with the ceiling just beneath it, occasionally scraping along it, pushing balloons out of her way as she passed over the crowd which mostly didn't notice her, until she was over their heads and almost past the docking pads.
Without the crowd in the way, she could see a little more of the battle raging in the air, although the airships were going so fast that that 'more' still wasn't a whole lot. She was confident that the Atlesians were winning, she could see more grimm dying to laser fire or missiles, or eviscerated by cannons, than she could see grimm taking out airships, but she couldn't say when the battle would be over.
But she could see a Valish warship, not one of the Mistralian ones, one of their destroyers that looked like two pyramids with the bases shoved together, approaching Amity Colosseum, accompanied by Valish airships swarming around it.
If they had come to help, then maybe General Ironwood could find something useful for them to do.
Otherwise…
Rainbow turned around. Whatever the Valish did or didn't do, the General would handle it; it didn't change what she had to do right now. She couldn't hover around gawking all night.
Midnight's voice emerged out of Rainbow's scroll. "You're patched through to the intercom, Rainbow Dash."
Rainbow didn't reply, because anything that she said in reply would now be broadcast through the intercom, and she wanted to start off right. So she landed at the edge of one of the docking pads — luckily, people were not actually pressed right up to the very edge as Rainbow had feared, just uncomfortably close to it, close enough that they could look out and down in the vain hopes of catching a skybus — and held her scroll up towards her mouth.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a picture appearing on the screens on the walls: a picture of her chin and face seen from below. Midnight must have turned the camera on and patched that through as well.
Rainbow changed the direction of the scroll so that it showed her face from a more straightforward angle, while trying to keep it out of the way of the people standing right in front of her.
"Attention, everybody, listen up!" she shouted, her voice making the tannoys squeak a little as her words emerged out of all the speakers on the promenade. She rose above the murmuring, the muttering, the angry or the panicked shouting of the crowd, cutting across anything that they were saying. She could just about see some people looking at the screens; others were just listening. Either would do. She went on, "My name is Rainbow Dash, and if you've been paying attention, you'll know that I'm an Atlas student—"
"What's going on?" someone demanded from the front of the crowd. "Where are all these grimm coming from? Where are the skybuses?"
"Why are we being left stranded here?"
"Let us off! We need to get to Vale!"
"Calm down!" Rainbow yelled. "I know you're frightened, but acting like this isn't going to help anybody!" She took a deep breath. "Please stay calm. I know that this isn't what you expected, this isn't the fun day out that you signed up for, but if you'll just listen to me, I promise that everything is going to be okay."
"Why should we listen to you? You're an Atlesian! How do we know that you're not behind all this?"
"Yeah, you've been trying to take over Vale all year!"
"What a load of garbage; can't you see they're trying to help? Everyone knows that it's the faunus who are behind all this!"
"It's not the faunus, and it's not Atlas either!" Rainbow bellowed. "Atlas is out there in the skies fighting for all of you, can't you see that? Stop paying attention to anonymous whispers and start paying attention to your own eyes!" She took a deep breath. "Amity Colosseum is under attack by the grimm, but Atlesian pilots and Atlesian cruisers are fighting bravely to ensure that those grimm out there stay out there and don't get in here. The news that you'll be glad to hear is that there are no grimm in Beacon and no grimm in Vale; nowhere is under attack but here. The bad news is that, unfortunately, because the grimm are out there, we can't evacuate you down to Beacon, because it's too dangerous—" Rainbow was cut off by a resurgent clamour from the crowd in front of her.
"That's ridiculous!"
"We should be able to take the risk if we want to!"
"Why can't your pilots take us off?"
"Because if you just let me finish, you're safer in here," Rainbow said.
"Safe? With those monsters around?"
"Yes, safe, safer than in an airship," Rainbow insisted. "Look, I'm sorry that you're in this position, I really am. I … I have friends who came here to watch me fight. Some of them are just kids. I don't like the fact that they're in this position, just like you don't like the fact that you're in this position; nobody likes this. I can't wait for the battle to be won, and it will be won, so that the skybuses can turn up and take you all away. But until that happens, you are safer here. I promise you that Atlas will not only win this battle but keep the grimm away from the arena, and I promise that my fellow students, all the students that you've watched fight over these last three days, everyone who has entertained you — I mean, you've seen what we're made of, right? You've seen what we're capable of? Well, we're still here for you. Pyrrha and Jaune and Penny are back there in the arena making sure that no grimm come up behind you—"
The world was rocked — thankfully not literally — by an explosion from somewhere up above, which echoed down the arena to the promenade.
"What was that?" someone screamed.
Rainbow didn't answer. Her voice was caught in her throat. The explosion had come from up above, up was where the boxes were, where Twilight and Cadance and Scootaloo and Pinkie and Fluttershy and Applejack and all the rest were.
Please be okay. Please be okay.
"I … I don't know," she admitted. "But I do know that whatever it is is up there, and you are down here, and you will be kept safe. By our airships and by my fellow huntsmen and huntresses, but you need to move back and let us protect you. Use the bathrooms; we're opening up the internal maintenance corridors, use those; use all available space — except for the seating area which we're going to set up for first aid; only go there if you're injured." She paused, wishing that she'd gotten Pyrrha to do this instead of her. "I know that for a lot of you, the first time you ever heard of me was a couple of days ago," she said. "I know that you don't have any real reason to believe me, but if you could turn around and look back, you'd see that behind me there's Yang Xiao Long and Arslan Altan, Weiss Schnee, Umber Gorgoneion, Neon Katt, Sabine Silverband, and like I told you, Pyrrha Nikos is holding the rear. All your heroes are right here for you. You know we can do it; you know we can. So please, put your faith in us!" She smiled, or tried to. "And please just be patient; it'll all turn out fine."
There was a moment of not quite silence, but it was at least quieter than what had gone before, but quieter didn't necessarily mean better, and Rainbow was afraid that they weren't going to pay any notice of her.
Then she heard Neptune shout, "The door's open; into this corridor, everyone!"
And then, slowly at first, a gradual trickle like a tap that had been mostly but not fully turned off, the crowd began to move backwards; the sea of people on the promenade began to recede. There were still a lot of people, and the movement was mostly coming from directly in front of Rainbow Dash, but then, Team SSSN must have opened another door because the crowd began to retreat to the left of her as well.
Not everyone moved back. Some people stayed stubbornly where they were, probably hoping to be the first one aboard the skybus when it finally showed up, but for the most part, people did as Rainbow had asked of them and began to retreat into the internal recesses of Amity Arena.
"Thank you," Rainbow said. "Thank you all, I promise that we will keep you updated and let you know the moment you can go home. You won't be forgotten." And then she hung up, because she didn't want everything she said to be broadcast over the intercom.
Especially when she called Twilight again.
Thank the gods, Twilight answered right away. "How's it going down there?"
"How's it— are you okay?" Rainbow demanded, conscious of Blake and Rarity approaching on either side of her. "We heard an explosion."
"Yeah, the grimm … I think they threw an airship at the ceiling," Twilight said. "I'm not sure if the pilot got out."
"An airship?" Rainbow repeated. "So that … what happened?"
"Ciel saw it coming with her semblance," Twilight said. "Shining Armor had time to throw a shield around our box, and Ciel warned Penny, Pyrrha, and Jaune. We're all okay."
"Thank Ciel for me," Rainbow said.
"You are quite welcome, of course," Ciel said.
"Ciel," Rainbow said. "Have the grimm followed up at all?"
"They attacked," Ciel explained. "A teryx and several griffons. However, after taking losses, they retreated."
"'Retreated'?" Rainbow said. That was not unheard of, but it wasn't common either. "Retreated where?"
"Out of sight," Ciel replied. "Beyond that, I do not know."
"Then I hope the airships get them," Rainbow muttered. "And no one has been hurt?"
"Would you like to hear from everyone?" Ciel asked, with a touch of asperity creeping into her voice.
"No, no time, I'll take your word for it," Rainbow said. She looked at Rarity on her right and at Blake on her left. "We'll all take your word for it. But maybe get everyone out of the box; they'll be safer down here with us."
"What about the numbers down on the promenade?" inquired Ciel.
"We're thinning the crowd out by opening up interior space," Rainbow explained, looking around her to confirm that crowd was thinning out all over the place now, allowing the huntsmen and huntresses — and the Atlesian troops — to take up positions to defend the docking pads, if any more grimm got past the Atlesian airships. "It's safer down here than up there."
"Okay, Dash," Shining Armor interjected. "I'll lead them down with Applejack and Sun."
"And I will remain here to assist Penny and the others," Ciel added.
"Right," Rainbow said. "Good luck." She hung up, and put her scroll away.
"That's a relief, darling," Rarity declared.
"A big one," Blake agreed. "So what now?"
Rainbow looked out at the sky; it was getting darker, the grimm were becoming harder to see; for that matter, the Atlesian airships were becoming harder to see as well, not least because they were going so fast. She could still see the cruisers pretty clearly, though — and the Valish destroyer moving in at a pace that could politely be described as 'stately' or, as Applejack might say, 'slower than molasses in winter.' What it would do once it finally got here … that was for General Ironwood to worry about.
To Blake, she said, "The grimm have tried to come in through the middle twice, and twice been burned, so they'll probably try and get in this way next. But they'll be exposed to our airships out here, trying to get in, moreso than they would be diving in from above, so I don't rate their chances. So long as everyone keeps their eyes open, fingers on triggers, we should be able to keep everyone safe until the battle is over."
She turned back, to where the rest of her flying reserve — Teams WWSR, ABRN, UMBR, and FNKI — were waiting for her. As she did so, Yang, Ren, and Nora took up positions on the docking pad, not right at the edge, but just ahead of the yellow line, where they could intercept anything trying to land or crawl through the arch into the arena before it could do any damage.
There were still a few people standing too close to the docking pad as though a skybus was going to show up any second, but Rainbow thought that they would move quickly if a grimm showed up.
With good luck, none would.
With less good luck … they would have work to do.
They still had work to do, as the battle in the skies around them continued and the Valish destroyer crawled inexorably through the skies.
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I am almost certain that what Sonata picked up as off was Sunset magically camouflaged, and the reason why Sunset's spell didn't entirely (but mostly at least) work on Sonata, is that Sonata is a magical being born with magic, and can detect it, much like Sunset herself can sense magic just based on experience.
Given the fact that the original had Sunset take back and save a prison from the White Fang, I wonder something to do with the Valish military base is the replacement, like, knowing that the Valish military is under influence of Sonata, Sunset may try and nonlethally cripple it from within. Maybe try and take out Sonata now that Sunset can identify her.
Decisive leadership from Rainbow here, despite the panic of the crowd. Calling on pedestal figures like the Vytal contestants was a good call, and practical.
Opening up the interior spaces for maintenance disperses the people they are there to protect, but also makes maneuverability much easier. Comfort and space aside, I give it a 50/50 on whether it's a good idea or not, especially since there could be cultists among them.
Combat was well-written as always, and here's hoping Sunset doesn't get caught in her spying on Sonata, and manages to rescue Cinder soon.
Fuck... I am scared about what Sonata has planned for the Valish personnel, I am with a big suspicion that the hatred for Atlas will make them attack any outsider... regardless of if they were civilian or military.
Sonata is a bitch for the collar, but I am happy that Cinder still has enough control to see Sunset and not tell the siren; seems like we are getting that Sunset vs Sonata & Cinder. I am still a little anxious about how things will progress with the Valish Military; seems like things will become worse before it becomes better.
The way things are progressing, I am thinking that the ones that will confront Amber will be Sunset, Ruby and Cinder; the rest will be too occupied in the Arena and then Beacon itself. It may not have the same beats as the initial Fall of Beacon, but things are going in a interesting direction I am a little worried about Tempest...
Excited for next chapter!
...It's going to be completely fucked when that Valish ship starts opening fire on Atlas ships. Because even the most die hard 'Fuck Atlas' person on the stadium is likely going to pause and ask what the absolute hell is the Valish military thinking when there are grimm to be shooting at.
For a moment, I thought that Cinder’s story would show how much she was bullied and abused by her two sisters… which would remind Sonata too much of her own sisters and she’d tell Cinder to shut up. Ruined the mood.
11832822
Same here. I can’t wait to see what Sunset does this time. At the very least, she already has confirmation of the General being compromised, the Siren’s location… and Cinder is here too. I hope she sends that info to Ozpin and Ironwood pronto before she does anything, because I’m not sure Winter and the Ace Ops are equipped to handle Sonata, the Vale military, and Cinder.
I hope that Sunset will be able to develop the same spell she did last time.
11832917
True, though unless she comes up with it while waiting for the Valish to act, she might be even more proactive this time.
Actually... aside from undermining the Valish military, I just realized Sunset might be the only one that is able to wake Ruby up (as much as Ruby doesn't want to see her again) depending on how Amber's semblance works and if Amber releasing the affected is the only way. After all, Sunset used her semblance to wake up two other people before, (Amber's awakening being deemed a miracle) so I feel it might be possible.
11832938
Indeed. I have a feeling that Sunset is about to become instrumental. She heard a lot of Blackthorn and Sonata’s plans just before the Siren sensed her. Right now, she’s in a better position to do something than anyone, even the Ace Ops. The Valish military is about to open fire on Atlas and possibly Vale itself. Sunset Shimmer is right there, and she doesn’t do something… it will be worse than the Breach. And she won’t allow herself to let that happen again under her watch.
I am actually wondering if maybe Amber can live in this version lets say that instead of taking the maidens power from Cinder she instead takes it from Amber. Or hell takes it from both of them. It would be nice if Amber could live, I mean she isn't evil. She's just a scared and traumatized person who wants to live a normal life. How it would gall Ruby if Sunset stopped Ruby from killing Amber because she is able to take away other peoples magic.
11832958
If she can get to a discreet location to report, Ozpin and Ironwood would appreciate the intel, and that they have someone in an incredibly strategic (albeit dangerous) position. Who knows? Ironwood might provide some support on the outside, maybe organize an extraction if needed. (Then again, Sunset can freaking teleport...) This really would be the Breach 2.0
And Sunset might want to have Councilor Emerald warned too.
11832969
I can just imagine how highly Councilor Emerald would think of Sunset if she comes through for Vale once again.
That’s another thing. While the world is likely to forget the razor-thin allegations against Sunset after tonight, it would be good for the right people to know about her deeds tonight. Not just Emerald, but Professor Goodwitch and General Ironwood. They will go a long way in Vale and Atlas to dispelling any lingering doubts of Sunset’s ability and dedication.
11833189
Oh, Goodwitch most certainly, after all, she seemed to have doubts about Sunset like day one. With Ironwood, on the other hand, we're not told outright what his thoughts are on Sunset, only that we can piece together what he might think. While her actions weren't right, he might not hold them against her entirely, since she did get those with her out of the tunnel, including one of his own, plus she did save Twilight, his goddaughter, from Adam on the train. And, again, she can provide him with valuable intel now that will have him even more on guard and prepared.
Honestly, the good guys could use the edge Sunset can provide since they're about to get blindsided by Amber.