Dark Corridors (New)
Dark Corridors
The Valish battleship began to move away.
As Sunset and Councillor Emerald raced towards the headquarters, they could see the tops of the towers despite all the buildings between them, and Sunset could see the battleship too, the battleship that was moving away from its position directly above the Military Headquarters and towards … it seemed to be moving inwards, over Vale.
"What are they doing?" Councillor Emerald shouted to be heard over the roar of the motorcycle engine.
"I don't know!" Sunset shouted back. For a moment, she was worried that the Siren might have just decided to destroy as much of Vale as she could and had sent the ship to accomplish that goal, but it wasn't firing on the city below. As it moved off, exposing the Military Headquarters, the battleship continued to fire on the Atlesian airships, bringing all the guns to bear on them that it could, although some guns were falling silent simply because — as far as Sunset could tell from down here — they could no longer be brought to bear on the Atlesians.
The airship was firing its guns, but at the same time, it was moving away from the position it had been defending, moving in such a way that made it harder to engage its enemies, and moving, what was more, away from any enemies. Might there be a disagreement between the people flying the ship and the people crewing the guns? One group wanted to fight the Atlesians, another was less keen. Sunset hadn't been watching the whole course of the aerial battle — she had to keep her eyes on the road at least some of the time; it would be a fine thing if this venture ended with Councillor Emerald breaking his neck after Sunset crashed her bike into a stray dog or an overturned trash can because she wasn't paying attention to where she was going — but perhaps the Atlesian attack had scared off the bridge crew, but the gunners were still full of fight.
Perhaps the bridge crew were less enthralled to the Siren's song and could recognise how absurd General Blackthorn's orders and this entire situation was, how ludicrous it was to fight the Atlesians, to declare martial law on their own people, to send out columns of infantry and armoured vehicles to shoot people for breaking a curfew that hadn't existed until tonight.
If it was so, then Sunset could only wish that there were more people of such sense in the Valish Defence Forces.
She looked back at the road, checking that there was nothing she was about to run into, and then turned her eyes towards the skies once more. The fire from the battleship was slackening all the time as its course brought it further away and increasingly badly angled to engage. The anti-airship guns on top of the towers were firing, blazing away, lighting up the night sky with their fire, but while that might have looked impressive before the great battleship had turned its side into a wall of fire, it was rather less so now.
It seemed the Atlesian airships — Rainbow could have named them, no doubt, and maybe Blake could too, but all Sunset could say was that they were not the Skyray transports — thought so too, by the way they swooped in to the attack. Flares burst from the rears of the airships, looking like falling stars as they descended through the darkness, confusing the guns as their fire ripped harmlessly through the falling lights. Some of the Atlesian ships were struck, it seemed to Sunset — one of them even had one of its bulky rear engines catch fire — but none of them fell, they were all still flying.
They were all still firing, too, as missiles leapt from beneath the rectangular wings in fiery trails to slam into the towers beneath the guns. The grim, gaunt, concrete towers were shattered, falling in fragments down to the ground, and the guns with them. Falling either inside or outside the Headquarters itself, as Sunset supposed they would find out once they reached it.
"Atlesian restraint?" Councillor Emerald cried.
"I mean, they didn't destroy the ship, Councillor!" Sunset replied. "And most of the building looks to be intact. We shouldn't have any trouble getting inside."
Two Atlesian Skyrays streaked overhead, flying towards the Headquarters even as the other airships, the ones that had just knocked out the towers, withdrew.
"At least I hope not," Sunset muttered.
"Miss Shimmer?"
"Never mind, Councillor, it was nothing," Sunset said.
So, the Atlesians were going to attack the Headquarters as well? Sunset hadn't known that they were going to do that — she'd been expelled from paradise before being able to find out what Professor Ozpin and his allies planned to do with the information Cinder had supplied — but it made sense that they would take such a step. No doubt they thought, as Councillor Emerald thought, that the key to getting a grip on this madness lay in the beating heart of the Valish Defence Force. Although what General Ironwood intended by getting a grip on things, Sunset was not so sure of. Did they mean to wipe out the Valish high command? Would that have any impact at all, so long as the Siren's spell remained in effect? And what of the Siren herself, were they prepared for her? It was hard to see how they could be — Sunset wasn't certain she was prepared for the Siren, and she at least knew what it was, what it was capable of, understood its magic as a fellow native of Equestria; how were Atlesians, who didn't understand what they were dealing with, who might not have even been told what they were dealing with, supposed to prepare better than her?
Professor Ozpin, I fear our secrecy will be our undoing. Sunset understood why Professor Ozpin and his allies were reluctant to share information with the wider world — and not least because those who knew the truth seemed to have a distressing habit of taking fright as Amber had or turning traitor as Professor Lionheart had if Cinder spoke true — but so many people were involved in this beyond the handful with whom the Professor chose to share his information. This battle relied on so many more than simply Team SAPR and Team RSPT, or General Ironwood and Qrow Branwen. So many people were fighting to contain Salem's malice, and yet, they fought with one hand behind their backs.
One could argue that battles of this scale were rare, but still … they didn't know what they were walking into.
Perhaps Sunset ought to have contacted General Ironwood herself to have informed him about her own plans, her observations, what she'd seen in the Headquarters, and what General Ironwood's people might be getting into — at the same time, she could have asked them to not shoot her if they saw her — but even if that thought had occurred to her, which, in all the excitement, it had not … she didn't have his number.
Although I think Councillor Emerald must; not that this occurred to him either.
Perhaps he thought that General Ironwood wasn't going to intervene in Vale. In fairness, for the most part, he has not. We haven't seen Atlesian troops dropping in all over the city to redeem the situation. Their only strike is coming here, at the central nerve centre.
They were getting close to the Headquarters themselves now. Sunset turned off the road and into a small side road, an alleyway connecting two larger thoroughfares. The road ahead of her would take them directly to the Headquarters, past the Albright building where Sunset had conducted her reconnaissance earlier today; that was why Sunset stopped her bike while they were still in the alley, hitting the brakes so that they came to a stop lurking behind or beside some sort of building that Sunset hadn't paid attention to before and couldn't identify now.
"Why are we stopped?" Councillor Emerald demanded.
Sunset got off her bike and took off her helmet. "We're stopped," she said, "because the last time I was here, there were roadblocks outside the HQ, and troops, and tanks. And I don't want you to get blown up, Councillor — it wouldn't be in the interests of Vale or your son — so I need you to stay here, where it's safe, and then I'll go out there, clear a path for us, and I'll shout you when it’s safe to come out."
"Your consideration is appreciated, Miss Shimmer, but at some point, I suppose you will have to accept some danger to me," Councillor Emerald murmured.
"At some point, Councillor, but not a tank," Sunset replied, in a tone so tart it would have made a pleasant dessert. "They can't see you, but that doesn't mean the shell fragments couldn't do you harm. Also, there's something that I need you to do: call General Ironwood, tell him that we're on our way, and ask him to tell his men currently trying to storm the base not to shoot at us; we're on the same side."
Councillor Emerald nodded. "I don't know if he'll answer, but I can try." He got his scroll of the breast pocket of his jacket, then stopped. "Will he be able to hear me, concealed as I am?"
Sunset opened her mouth. "That … is a very good question, Councillor, to which I fear I do not know the answer. But, in the circumstances, provided you stay here…" She placed one hand upon the Councillor's shoulder and dispelled the enchantment that she had cast upon him at the beginning of their ride. "There, you can be seen and noticed as much as anyone else now, so it really is important that you stay here. Once it's safe, and you've made the call, I will restore the effect until we reach … until it's time for you to start giving orders." She stepped away. "I'll be as quick as I can."
"What are you planning to do against a tank, Miss Shimmer?" asked Councillor Emerald.
"Well, I have one or two ideas, Councillor," Sunset replied. It really depended on … how comfortable she was in killing the crew.
Not particularly, to be honest. She didn't really want to kill anyone — it hadn't been any fun the first time, and she doubted that it was going to taste better with repetition — and in any case, it wasn't really their fault that they were being controlled by a Siren. As dangerous as they might be to the peace, the people of Vale, and the stability of Remnant, it was a bit unfair to blame them or hold them responsible. So blowing up a shell in their gun so as to destroy the whole tank in a fiery explosion … no. Sunset would have done it if it had been crewed by robots just for how cool it would have looked, but people … no. She might have … hopefully, she hadn't done too much harm to the soldiers they'd encountered so far — all those motorcyclists had been wearing their helmets, after all — but blowing them up was a step too far.
Which meant…
Yeah. Yeah, that ought to do it.
Sunset drew Soteria from across her back. She gripped the black sword lightly in one hand but did not ignite it; she didn't have that much dust, she probably couldn't keep it lit for long and needed to save it. And if she'd wanted to burn someone, she'd have planned to blow up the tank.
Instead, the blade was as black as the night itself as Sunset stepped out into the street.
She didn't stop — she didn't want anyone to start shooting at her while the Councillor was still close by — she ran down the road, towards the looming building, its broken towers smoking like the topless towers of Mistral burned in The Mistraliad, and towards the roadblock that guarded it.
It was as it had been earlier that day, when she had stood on the roof of the Albright building and spied on the headquarters and the defences they had been erecting: there was a roadblock of concrete, there were troops and machine guns — and a tank parked up in front of the building itself, its array of guns pointing outwards.
Sunset could hear shooting coming from inside the headquarters; there was no sign of the two Atlesian Skyrays, so Sunset could only guess that they had dropped into the courtyard and deposited their troops within. Bold of them, but possibly easier than trying to take out any of these Valish tanks.
Tank aside, the roadblock seemed more lightly manned than it had been — or seemed to Sunset — earlier today; perhaps the Atlesian air assault had drawn troops off the roadblock and inside to defend the building.
Fortunate for us, as I thought.
One of the machine guns sat idle and unmanned, only one of them had a crew, and there was but a thin line of infantry on the roadblock, with the tank behind.
It took them a few moments to notice Sunset. Sunset had already reached out with her telekinesis, a green glow surrounding the concrete rails that cut off the road; she strained a little against the weight of them — they were certainly robust things, and she wouldn't have wanted to crash her bike or even a car into them, but her magical might far outstripped her physical strength, and she would not be balked by a couple of weighty bits of concrete and steel. As she ran forwards, hand outstretched towards the roadblock, Sunset brought her strength to bare.
The roadblock had just begun to shift when the Valish soldiers, hitherto distracted by the battle going on behind them, their eyes turned towards their own Headquarters as if they could divine the ebb and flow of the fighting through the solid wall, realised that something was happening.
They saw her, shouts rang out from the roadblock.
Sunset shoved the concrete roadblocks backwards, knocking the soldiers backwards too and onto their backs, sending them flying as — with gritted teeth — she hurled the roadblocks at the tank. They struck the angular front armour with a crash that echoed off the green metal plate, like the ringing of a gong for dinner.
The tank rocked backwards for a second, then like a sleeping dragon on its hoard awakened by the thief's approach, the turret and the great gun began to turn to track Sunset's position.
Sunset kept on running, quickening her pace, darting from one side of the road to the other. The tank fired its machine guns, one in the turret, one in a pintle-mounting on top of the turret — which opened, a soldier sticking his head out to man the gun — the guns in the sponsons bolted to the side; they all sprayed fire out at Sunset as she ran like a startled hare to try and stay one step ahead of the tracer rounds.
With Soteria in one hand, Sunset fired magic from the other, green bolts leaping from her fingertips, fired half-blindly in the direction of the tank. She let out a few bursts at the soldiers, when she could spare one, knocking them down and out before they could recover their weapons, man either machine gun, aim a rifle in her direction. Some of them were able to get shots off, to add their fire to that of the tank, but with so many bullets already flying at her, shredding the cars around her, shattering the windows of the coffee shops and CCT cafes on either side of the road, a couple of rifles really didn't make much difference. So, not all of the soldiers lay like discarded toys around the tank, nevertheless, it was for the tank that Sunset reserved most of her fire, bolt after bolt of magic bursting from her fingers.
None of them penetrated the vehicle's armour; indeed, Sunset wondered if even her strongest shot could have done that even if she'd wanted it to, but these little bolts of magic certainly could not; the green energy washing over the armour. She just hoped that the lights were distracting the crew, throwing off their aim as the turret turned this way then that, trying to track her zig-zag pathway down the road towards it.
The turret — or the crew within — gave up trying to follow her and turned the turret so that it was facing right bang down the centre of the road.
The gun fired.
Sunset, who had hoped to save her magic, teleported.
The gun roared deafeningly. The shell struck the centre of the road and obliterated it, turning the street into a crater digging down towards the water pipes and power lines beneath, the explosive power tearing through the walls of the buildings on either side and exposing the ruins within.
But Sunset had already appeared on top of the turret; she kicked the soldier manning the pintle-mounted gun, though she had to kick him twice to knock him out and send him falling down inside the tank. Sunset slammed the hatch closed with telekinesis and planted a foot on top of it. Blasts of magic flew from her hand to knock out the remaining Valish soldiers from this position.
She took a breath — she had been using quite a bit of magic lately; it was a minor miracle that she didn't feel more tired than she did. She felt … she felt weary, but not as much as she might have expected to, as if she had more magic than she had realised, as though it had grown in total amount if not in the power of the spells themselves.
Still, she needed to take a breath. She took a breath, and then she brought Soteria down upon the barrel of the tank, the venerable blade cutting into and then through the barrel, severing it from the turret. It hit the road in front of the tank with a clanging crash and rolled a few feet towards the crater it had made.
Sunset took another deep breath and gathered magic in the palm of her free hand. She held it there, gathering it, letting it wait for a few seconds, one, two, three — she tore open the hatch down into the turret and fired the magical blast straight down.
She slammed the hatch down shut again, and half-heard, half-felt the magic ricocheting off the inside of the tank, bouncing around it uncontrollably, searching for escape and finding none.
It stopped, the magic exhausted, no more sound, no more vibrations. Sunset cautiously opened the hatch and looked inside. The crew in their Valish green uniforms were all slumped in their seats or laid out on the floor of the tank.
Sunset looked around. Four corners, four roadblocks, four vehicles set around the building, and they would have heard something, so she ought to expect some sort of response from them.
One roadblock, the one to her right, was gone; the debris of the tower had fallen outside when the Atlesian airships had struck and now tank and roadblock and all accompanying soldiers were buried under a pile of grey rubble and the twisted remains of a large anti-air gun. Sunset stared at it, the wreckage of war concealing the weapon of war. It was a nasty way to go, especially for those who didn't … who hadn't invited it, except by another's voice.
In front of Sunset, protecting the northeast corner of the headquarters—
A bullet hit Sunset in the chest, knocking her backwards and off the turret. She landed on her back on the front of the hull and started to roll off it; Sunset flung out her hand and managed to grab the turret-mounted machine gun. It was hot, the heat of it burned away a scrap of her aura, but she was able to stop her descent, and she let go as soon as she'd scrabbled into a more secure position on the hull.
More bullets slammed into the back of the tank.
Sunset raised as little of her head as she could to see over the top of the turret.
In front of her, protecting the northeast corner of the headquarters, the tank had not been buried, nor had the soldiers all been stripped to defend the courtyard. It was the soldiers who were shooting at her, while their tank rolled backwards, then forwards as it began to turn its entire body in her direction; the turret swivelled too, and Sunset was left wondering whether they would fire their main gun on their own tank with their own crew inside.
Do they know the crew is still alive?
Sunset flinched as a bullet whipped past her equine ears. She ducked beneath the turret, which echoed with the sound of bullets bouncing off the armour.
Can I get them out before that other tank opens fire?
The other tank ground to a sudden stop; the turret ceased to move along with the tracks as smoke started rising out of the back.
A great deal of smoke, more of it rising every passing moment.
The top hatch opened, and the crew began to scramble out, leaping down to the ground as quick as they could and running from their vehicle towards the headquarters itself.
As the smoke turned to flame, the infantry fell back as well, taking a few last shots in Sunset's direction as they retreated to join their fellow soldiers in defence of the courtyard within.
Sunset watched the flames, wondering if the tank was going to explode. It didn't, but it did continue to burn, with no sign of the flames abating or of the plume of smoke continuing to rise up to the sky.
Is this what happens when you don't upgrade or maintain things?
Lucky for me if it is. In the circumstances, Councillor Emerald might even see it the same way.
Sunset slid off the front of the tank, landing unsteadily on the ground in front of it. She steadied herself, then picked her way forwards around the unconscious Valish soldiers, before sidling around the edge of the crater that the tank's shell had made. She looked in through the broken wall demolished by the blast: tables and chairs alike had been smashed, or else tossed aside to lie in splintered heaps upon a floor covered with dust. Thank goodness, nobody appeared to have been inside.
It was also thankful that she had left Councillor Emerald too far away to have possibly been caught by the blast.
Indeed, when Sunset rounded the corner, she found him there, just putting his scroll away.
"Councillor," Sunset said, rolling her shoulders back. "It's done."
Aspen heard the gunfire erupt out in the street; it gave his fingers pause.
He didn't look out to see what was going on — he wasn't so foolish; Miss Shimmer had asked him to stay put for a reason, and that reason was that he had no defence against bullets as she did; he could do nothing to help her — but he couldn't help but wonder.
He wondered, and he wondered at his own wondering. It had not been too long ago, after all, when he would have gladly seen Miss Shimmer dead. When the thought of her being shredded by machine guns, blown to smithereens, would have brought him great joy, and yet now…
Yet now, they were saving Vale together; not only that, but he found that he hoped she came through it alright every bit as much as he wished to come through it himself.
His only misgiving about the whole thing was that she seemed almost to have become fond of him in turn, although he would be hard put to say why. Maybe it was his son she was fond of, that would make more sense; everyone liked flattery, after all, and Bramble offered up his admiration freely.
There had been a time when Aspen hadn't liked that either, lamenting the dearth of faunus role models that his son had to alight upon Sunset Shimmer of all people to take as his hero. Now … he could certainly do better, but he could also do a lot worse.
Whether it was Aspen himself or his son or even Novo that Miss Shimmer was fond of, the fondness as a notion was … it made Aspen a little nervous, though he tried to hide the fact better than he had hidden his earlier hostility to Miss Shimmer.
It made him nervous for the same reason — for part of the same reason, at any road — that he no longer hated Miss Shimmer: because she was not a callous person, not cold and uncaring. At least … she cared about some things, some people, very much indeed; that Aspen might, for whatever reason, upon whomsoever’s behalf, be included in that circle caused him a degree of trepidation that might have surprised some.
When Aspen had first been elected as the Alderman for Richmond West and Williamsborough, his mentor, old Lord Bentinck, had taken him aside and warned him not to get too involved in constituency matters.
"Everybody wants you to help them, Aspen. Now, that's partly our own fault, because local government is so opaque that it's a lot easier for people to find out who their Alderman is than to work out how to approach the borough witan, but the fact remains that they'll turn you into some sort of glorified local handyman if you let them, filling in potholes on the roads and fixing leaky roofs in the social housing. You'll need to find it in yourself to resist that kind of thing without making yourself disliked over it. You need to rise above it, Aspen, rise above!"
"But it's not all potholes or leaky roofs," Aspen replied.
"Oh, they've gotten to you already, have they?" Lord Bentinck asked in a tone of despair. "What is it? Hospital waiting times? Someone in prison?"
"Sheltered accommodation," Aspen murmured. "There's a woman, she … she's hiding from her husband. She's hoping to get a place to stay."
"Yes, yes, it tugs on the old heartstrings, I'm sure," said Lord Bentinck breezily. "But that sort of thing isn't your job, and it'll consume all your energies if you let it. There's always a face to it, and there's always a story behind it, and you always want to help, wouldn't have a heart if you didn't. But you're not a social worker, Aspen, you're a legislator! And we can't legislate to fix the world one case at a time. We can't legislate to give a hospital bed to Mister Blue and Mrs. Green and all the shades of Yellow."
"But we can make sure there's provision in the system for everyone," said Aspen.
"At what cost, young man, who pays for it?" Lord Bentinck took off his spectacles and wiped the lenses on the edge of his scarlet smoking jacket. "If I can give you one piece of advice, young Aspen: just because it has adverse impacts, doesn't mean the system isn't working as it should, and as well as it can. Just because someone doesn't have everything they want doesn't mean we haven't struck the right balance between taxation and service provision; just because someone says there is an innocent person in prison doesn't mean there's been a miscarriage of justice; there will always be adverse impacts, someone, somewhere, will always lose out or be left unhappy, be left with less than they would like. You can't solve everyone's problems for them; you have to look up, look at Vale as a whole, in the round. The kingdom comes first, it has to; you can't put individuals — whatever their plight, however sorry you feel for them — ahead of the good of Vale; otherwise, we'll all be suffering adverse impacts soon enough."
It was a lesson that he feared Miss Shimmer, for all her regrets over her part in the Breach, had not learned, might not even be capable of learning. You couldn't put Miss Rose and Mister Arc above the kingdom, and you couldn't put Councillor Emerald above it either. You needed to look up, to look at Vale, to ignore the people and see only the realm. He wasn't sure that Miss Shimmer could do that, that she was capable of doing that.
He wasn't sure that if it came to it she would be able to put Vale over him, because she seemed to want to protect him.
Not that he objected to being protected in ordinary circumstances, but he was not as important as Vale itself. Otherwise, as Lord Bentinck had put it, they would all be suffering adverse impacts.
Just as they had before.
I must hope that she has changed.
Or that she is so skilled the question does not arise.
They were still shooting at her; so Miss Shimmer was at least sufficiently skilled to not have died yet.
Aspen finished calling General Ironwood. He was uncertain that he would get a response. General Ironwood must be quite busy in the circumstances, one of the reasons he had hesitated to try and get in touch with him earlier, another being that he was unsure if General Ironwood would think him responsible for this current mess; after all, they hadn't always seen eye to eye.
If the Atlesian general did not respond, then … he and Miss Shimmer would just have to muddle through and try not to get caught in the crossfire.
I can't just stand by and let the Atlesians storm our headquarters; that will make this look like even more of a war than it already did. I have to make it seem that they were at least acting on behalf of the legitimate Valish government.
Yet there was no response from General Ironwood. His scroll was seeking a connection and finding none.
General Ironwood was probably on call with half a dozen officers at any given moment; there was no point in waiting for him to be free. Aspen was about to hang up when he got a response.
"Councillor Emerald? I'm glad to hear from you, but I'm also a little busy at the moment—"
"Yes, busy ordering an attack on the headquarters of the Valish Defence Force, I know," Aspen said. "I'm outside there myself, with Miss Shimmer."
There was a pause. "With Sunset Shimmer?"
"Yes, she's been good enough to escort me here," Aspen replied. “She's currently dealing with a couple of obstacles on the way to the door." He flinched from an almighty explosion that sent dust showering down the road past his hiding place. "At least, I hope she still is."
"Councillor, what are you doing there?" demanded Ironwood.
"I'm here to take command of my military and order them to stop shooting at yours," Aspen replied. "So if you could tell your men not to shoot at Miss Shimmer or myself, that would be very much appreciated."
"The middle of an action is a hard time to get hold of an officer, Councillor; you should have contacted me sooner," Ironwood said. "I could have sent an airship to pick you up."
"In the circumstances, I'd rather not come flying in on an Atlesian airship, although I suppose a connection is unavoidable now," Aspen muttered. "General Ironwood, on behalf of the people of Vale, will you undertake to suppress this military uprising against the Council and protect the democratically elected civilian authorities?"
There was another pause. "I appreciate the figleaf, Councillor, but if you're hoping for anything more substantial than the resources I've already committed, I'm afraid I must decline. The grimm are about to attack the Green Line, and all my forces are needed at the front to repel them; I've nothing to spare for a street fight in Vale."
"Which is why you're hoping to cut the head off the snake."
"I'm hoping to force a Valish surrender," Ironwood told him. "If I may, Councillor, sit this one out. Have Miss Shimmer take you somewhere safe and let my people do their jobs."
"Until this situation with the Defence Force is resolved, I'm not sure there is a safe place in Vale," Aspen said. "And I'm not going to run and hide while you and yours, appreciated though your help might be, make this look like the next act in a brewing conflict, not when I can try and stop it. And besides … do you know what you're dealing with in there, General?" Do you know there's a magical creature that's controlling my soldiers and that only Miss Shimmer can defeat it?
Do you know that there's such a thing as magic?
"I do," Ironwood said, although since Aspen hadn't been very clear about what he meant — and how could he be clearer, when he barely understood what he meant himself? — that could have meant anything. "I will try to get in touch with Captain Ebi leading the assault, but I can't guarantee anything. If you're determined to do this—"
"I am," Aspen said.
"Then watch yourself, Councillor," Ironwood said. "Ironwood out."
He hung up.
Aspen was just in the act of putting his scroll away when Miss Shimmer appeared around the corner.
"Councillor," she said, adjusting her posture to make herself stand a little prouder. "It's done."
"Councillor," Sunset said, rolling her shoulders back. "It's done."
Councillor Emerald finished putting his scroll away. "I … how was it done, Miss Shimmer?"
"Bloodlessly, on my part, though not painlessly for all concerned," Sunset replied. "And General Ironwood?"
"Suggested that I should go, and leave this to his people," Councillor Emerald declared.
"I see," Sunset murmured. "And do you wish to go, Councillor?"
"No," Councillor Emerald said. "I will press on. I trust you have no objections to that?"
"No, Councillor, none at all," Sunset said. "If you had said otherwise, you would have put me in a very awkward position."
"I'm glad to avoid that," Councillor Emerald said dryly. "Does Ironwood know what he's up against? He said he did, but does he know about this … magical creature of yours?"
Sunset hesitated for a moment. She supposed that questions like this were inevitable from the moment that she'd brought up the subject, opened up the door even a little to Councillor Emerald. That being said, perhaps she should have taken some time to prepare some answers. How much ought she to say without saying too much. How much, in the circumstances, was too much?
Professor Ozpin might say that I have said too much already.
Yes, but I've said it now, and I can't take it back. And just because Professor Ozpin believes it doesn't make it right. What should I have said else, that someone with a semblance has brainwashed the Valish Defence Force? That might not be impossible, but you'd need an awful lot of aura to keep that going on a scale like this.
The truth is … easier, in this instance; it invites fewer follow-up questions that I'd struggle to answer.
The same might be true here as well. "General Ironwood does, Councillor, yes; at least, I believe he does," Sunset replied. "His soldiers, though, I cannot answer, though I would say probably not."
Councillor Emerald's eyes narrowed. "Why the secrecy? How does Ironwood know, and if he knows, then how come I have to hear it from you? Does Ozpin know?"
"If General Ironwood knows, it is because he heard it from Professor Ozpin, who heard it from Cinder Fall," Sunset explained.
"And who didn't tell me," Councillor Emerald said.
"Professor Ozpin—"
"Had no right!" Councillor Emerald snapped. "No right, none at all! To keep this to himself and make his plans with Ironwood while I am left sitting in the dark, none at all!"
"Professor Ozpin warned you that General Blackthorn might not be entirely trustworthy, that you should use the police to protect critical infrastructure," Sunset reminded him. "If he had told you about magical creatures too, would you have believed it, or would it have diluted the impact of his other warnings?" She put a hand on the Councillor's shoulder and re-cast the spell to deflect notice away from him. "Now, shall we stand out here and gripe about the degree to which you were or were not kept informed on things, or shall we go and take your military back?"
"Quite right, Miss Shimmer," Councillor Emerald said. "I can rail at Ozpin tomorrow. Ironwood told me he might not be able to reach his people and warn them about us."
"I see," Sunset said. "Well, as Professor Ozpin once said to me, I suppose we'll manage to keep house. Don't worry, Councillor, I'll look after you."
"That comforts me and frightens me in equal measure, Miss Shimmer."
Sunset knew what he meant by that, and that knowing meant that, although to be honest it stung a little bit, she could see his point sufficiently that she didn't allow him to see that it stung. It would have been self-indulgent, all things considered, to have stood on her wounded dignity upon the point. She ought to be grateful that he trusted her as much as he did.
"Come on, Councillor," she said. "This way."
She took him by the arm as though he were a child and led him out onto the street and down it, past the bullet-riddled cars, the conveniences with the broken windows, the pockmarked wall of the Albright Foundation; she led him around the hole in the ground made by the Valish shell; and she led him past the tank that she had knocked out, to where he could see the other tank that had set itself on fire trying to move against her.
"Did you do that, Miss Shimmer?" Councillor Emerald asked.
"No, Councillor, it did that to itself," Sunset replied lightly.
"I see," Councillor Emerald murmured dispiritedly. "If I were to say that Councils of all stripes and persuasions have taken advantage of the peace dividend to slash defence spending, would anyone care?"
"Probably not, Councillor," Sunset admitted. "I fear the multitude are a fickle herd."
"And fortune is very fickle in politics, though I would have thought we were due for some good luck."
"I think my luck was very good in that tank catching fire before it could shoot at me," Sunset couldn't help but remark. "And if our luck holds, our way in will be just as straightforward."
Nevertheless, she was not so blithe or blasé that she skipped along towards the entrance without a care in the world. Rather, having already slung Soteria back across her back, she unslung Sol Invictus and reversed the grip so that she was holding the rifle by the barrel like a club, ready to whack anyone who came to close — she thought that, for all it was likely to hurt, it might be just a little less lethal than the sword. She hoped, at least.
The entrance lay on the north side, between the tank that Sunset had knocked out and the one that had broken down so disastrously, and as they got closer, Sunset found herself getting closer and closer to the wall until she practically had her back to it.
She climbed up the handful of steps to the door — the sound of the fighting within was getting louder now — and stood beside the door. She would have expected it to be locked, except that the tank crew and their accompanying infantry had entered somehow, hadn't they?
Sunset peered around the corner, and the automatic door slid open. Beyond, there was an array of security measures in the lobby — metal detectors, sealed doors, cameras — but nobody actually monitoring any of them. Nobody was standing guard, nobody was making sure the doors stayed closed.
Beyond the sealed but transparent doors, Sunset could see tracer rounds zipping through the air, rockets or grenades exploding, what looked like quadruped robots, although she couldn't make them out in detail. It seemed, on the basis of what lay before her, that the fighting inside the courtyard was consuming all the energies of the Valish defence.
Sunset gestured for Councillor Emerald to follow her as she stepped through the open door and into a lobby with a marble floor and oak-panelled walls. A painting of the Battle of the Four Sovereigns, showing the Last King heroically leading his soldiers against the Mistralians as lightning flashed down all around them, dominated the entire of one wall; if one were being uncharitable, one might say that it depicted the last time that Valish soldiers had won any glory. On the other side of the lobby was a desk, and Sunset headed that way, guessing that it was a security desk, even though there was no security guard.
She vaulted over the desk, finding a lot of monitors displaying images from the cameras, a visitor book and visitor passes, and a button to open the sealed door. Sunset pressed it, causing a beeping sound as the door opened; she put the visitor's book on top of the button to keep the door open as she stepped around the desk and led Councillor through the metal detectors — they sounded an alarm, but no one was around to respond to it — and through the door.
Sunset found herself crouching down, and Councillor Emerald did the same. They crept more than walked to the entrance out into the courtyard.
The quiet place into which Sunset had teleported had now become a battlefield.
The two Atlesian Skyrays had landed on either side of the fountain; they were still there, doors open, and personnel were using the interior rotary cannons to provide covering fire. The Atlesian force that had disembarked from the airships didn't look large — certainly, it didn't look as large as the number of Valish defenders — but they included at least some huntsmen — or Specialists — distinguishable by their unique weapons: a fishing rod, a hammer, no weapons at all but aura alone.
The advantages of training and aura were no doubt why the Atlesians had not been overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of the Valish opposed to them, but they looked to be struggling to break out of the courtyard in either direction. Their soldiers — not counting the huntsman — were crouched on the ground, or else taking cover around the airships, exchanging fire with the Valish.
The Valish, despite having the advantage of numbers, seemed no closer to sweeping the Atlesians out of their base than the Atlesians did of breaking through into the base interior; the Valish soldiers clung to cover at the edges of the courtyard, firing from behind the columns that lined the colonnade — those that hadn't already been destroyed, at any rate. There, they exchanged fire with the Atlesian troops.
The space in between belonged to the robots.
They were not Atlesian robots, Sunset was sure of that; if nothing else, the way that they bounded across the courtyard towards the Atlesians was, to say the least, strongly suggestive of it. They were like … Sunset was at a bit of a loss to say what they were like: four-legged, headless, faceless, with none of the effort put into residual anthropomorphism that the Atlesian battle droids possessed. Their legs had joints that bent backwards, and their bodies were boxy and black and seemed to be well-armoured, judging by the way that the bullets of the Atlesian infantry were bouncing off them. The fire from the airship cannons seemed to be having a little more impact, but even that was only staggering them, not stopping them.
What was stopping them — stopping them dead in their tracks as they tried to charge across the courtyard — were the Atlesian Specialists. The poster boy with his fishing rod hooked one and tossed it up high into the air; it fell down and half shattered on impact. A small woman with a head that was mostly shaved and some sort of powered exoskeleton on her arms moved like lightning, streaking lightning after her as she shattered robot after robot with a single punch at a time. A burly fellow with an enormous black beard cut through them with his cutlass.
But those little four-legged robots were not all the Valish had — from where? Was this Starhead Technology? Had Ruby's new benefactor come up with these? — to throw against their enemies. As Sunset watched, one of the walls of the headquarters was shattered by an enormous robotic gorilla, or some such immense ape. It had arms thicker than Sunset's shoulders, a chest covered in armour plate beaten out to resemble muscles, and even the appearance of rippling fur upon its shoulders. It beat upon its armoured chest with both immense fists, and a synthetic roar emerged from a mouth that opened and closed.
The gorilla leapt up, bullets ricocheted off its armour as one of the gunners on the Skyrays futilely opened fire upon it. It descended like an avalanche upon the bearded Specialist with the cutlass. It seemed unfeeling — it was unfeeling; it was a robot, after all — to the way the small woman beat on its side with her fist as it beat down upon the man beneath it.
The lantern-jawed Specialist with the movie-star looks hooked the robotic gorilla on the back somewhere with his fishing rod, yanking it off their comrade and dumping the robot flat on its back. A large woman, built like an agglomeration of trees — she was all trunk, no branches — brought down a hammer on it that was so big it made Nora's dread weapon look like a toy.
It still took two hits to smash the gorilla’s head to smithereens and lay it out twitching on the ground.
Sunset thought that that must — or might, at least — have been what she had heard thumping around when she had been here last, one of them anyway.
If that wasn't entirely certain, one thing was certain: she couldn't lead Councillor Emerald through this maelstrom.
But, on the other hand, she should be … somewhat grateful that the Atlesians didn't look like breaking through yet, held back by the waves of Valish robots.
A head start would be nothing to sneeze at.
Sunset grabbed Councillor Emerald by the shoulder, pulling him in towards her as though she meant to embrace him.
"Miss Shimmer?"
"Hold on tight, Councillor," Sunset said, as she envisaged … she envisaged the office where she had hidden briefly, the office with the bored or sedated or drained of emotion workers from the … Sunset couldn't remember what they'd been working on. But she remembered the office layout, she remembered where it was relative to the door, the corridor, the courtyard, and while that wasn't as good as being able to see the location, it was the next best thing.
And it would have to do.
Sunset teleported, carrying Councillor Emerald with her as they materialised with a crack and a flash of green light inside the office where Sunset had hidden earlier.
Unlike her last infiltration of this headquarters, the effects of her teleportation were not concealed by a spell.
The people in the office — one of them had a rifle in her hands; the others were armed with office utensils — stared at her.
"Drop your weapons and put your hands up?" Sunset suggested.
The woman with the rifle raised it. Sunset pushed Councillor Emerald to one side as she charged, saving her magic with a headlong rush over desks and across the room with Sol Invictus raised like a club over her head. The woman opened fire, spraying bullets on fully automatic. Sunset flung herself to the floor, letting the bullets fly overhead as she lashed out with her gun at the woman's ankles. She went down, but before Sunset could rise up, a man in a white shirt with an open collar had jumped on her, putting his sweaty hands around her neck.
Sunset hit him on the jaw. His head jerked, and he half fell, half rolled off her.
Another woman charged her with a letter opener, the small knife raised for a downward thrust. Sunset struck her with the butt of Sol Invictus, and her legs left the floor as she landed, unconscious, rear first on the floor.
Sunset did much the same to the man she saw going for the discarded gun.
Councillor Emerald picked himself up.
"Such madness," he muttered. "Is there no way to reason with them? To make them see—?"
"See what, Councillor?" Sunset asked. "I … I fear that this would not be so hard if there had not been … a hostility towards Atlas in the hearts of many before this."
Councillor Emerald thrust his hands into his jacket pockets. "Are you saying I should reflect on my part in all this Miss Shimmer?"
"I didn't say that, Councillor," said Sunset. "You didn't bring a Siren here."
"No," said Councillor Emerald. "But I didn't stand against the hostility." He paused. "Will everyone here be our enemy?"
"Not everyone, I hope, Councillor … but most," Sunset admitted.
Councillor Emerald scowled. "Well, if it must be so, then … best get it over with, I suppose. Lead on, Miss Shimmer."
Sunset opened the door ajar and looked around. There was no sign of any guards — or robotic gorillas.
Although, now that she knew what they were, that prospect was not as frightening as when it had been a vague, large menace. So long as there weren't so many of them that they used up all her—
Sunset stopped. Would robots be fooled by the spell she had cast over Councillor Emerald? She hadn't thought about it, for the simple reason that she hadn't thought about the Valish using robots, but now that she had seen that they did, now that she had been prompted to think about it … she found that the uncomfortable answer was 'probably not.' After all, robots didn't have attention, or attentiveness, or attention spans; they had no will, only sensors and programming, and so what chance had a spell telling you to look away? Robots didn't look anywhere, not in the conventional sense.
The spell might work on Penny, who was far more person than machine in what one might call the spiritual aspects, but a regular drone? A mindless automaton? They would see what mortal eyes could not.
Therefore, if she wished to take care of the Councillor, she would have to quickly take out any robots they encountered.
It was a good thing they didn't have any aura.
Since there were no robots around, or any guards, Sunset opened the door and stepped out. The sound of fighting in the courtyard behind them was clear to hear, and Councillor Emerald looked pained as he turned his head in that direction. He was contemplating, perhaps, how many Valish soldiers might be dead before the night was out.
He was a good man. Sunset hoped the people would look kindly on him.
For her own part, as rough as it was upon them, she hoped to find the interior deserted, or at least relatively so, as all the troops had been drawn into the fighting in the courtyard.
Mind, it appeared that the civilian employees had not been committed, but formed a second line of defence in case of a breakthrough.
She led Councillor Emerald through corridors that were every bit as dark as when she had been here last, beneath the cameras that would catch only fleeting half-seen glances of them, if there was anyone still watching. They took fire, at one point, from a group of people who had made a barricade out of their desks, but the area they were barricading was of no interest to Sunset, so she threw up a shield to protect Councillor Emerald until he was back in cover, then slipped away herself.
The defenders behind their barricade made no move to pursue her. They seemed to only want to hold their ground. Sunset guessed that they, like the occupants of the office into which she had teleported, were civilian workers in the defence ministry.
The anti-Atlesian zeal which the Siren had inspired in them was warring with their natural desire for self-preservation.
The robots they came across next did not have a sense of self-preservation. There were three of them, the little quadrupeds with their black armoured carapaces, looking like overgrown beetles in the dim light of the corridor.
Dark things for a dark corridor, vague silhouettes that spoke of menace, with no detail to be seen.
Though the battle outside could still be heard, it was not so loud now, and it was equally possible to hear the squeaking and the whirring and the scratching the robots made as they bounded rapidly forwards.
Sunset felt something hit her, something small but sharp, a needle into her aura.
The aura that they didn’t have.
Sunset focused on the first thing that came to mind and shot a trio of bolts of magic out at the robots.
Each one was struck, and each one was transformed into a multicoloured plastic beetle, like the ones Sunset and Princess Celestia had competed to assemble in that game they'd played.
Three little insects, with detachable legs and heads and antennae and everything else, sat on the floor. They looked kind of cute, a marked improvement over the robots.
"A very versatile semblance," Councillor Emerald muttered.
Sunset didn't reply. It wouldn’t be a productive discussion to have, even — or especially — if he was suspicious. She bent down and snatched one of the insects — it had a blue plastic body — up off the floor and put it into her jacket pocket before she kept on moving.
The elevator was guarded, and by soldiers, not civilians, soldiers who had nevertheless barricaded the position with overturned desks to give themselves some cover. Sunset's telekinesis enabled her to turn their barricade against them, lifting up their cover and making a weapon of it for herself. Once she had lain out the whole squad, she piled up the desks out of the way and approached the lift.
"Is it safe to use that?" asked Councillor Emerald, a touch of tremulousness creeping into his voice. "They won't be waiting for us at the bottom?"
Sunset hesitated. She couldn't say that it wasn't a concern, but at the same time, "If they knew we were coming, I think they would have more of a response to stop us. So far, we've come across nothing that we could not have encountered by accident: roving patrols, guards at a key point. But they didn't get the chance to signal for help."
Councillor Emerald was silent for half a moment before he said, "That makes sense. Alright then. Let's go."
Before they could go anywhere, Sunset first had to summon the lift, which took a while. As they waited, as the numbers above the door climbed slowly up and up and up towards them, Sunset found herself looking around furtively, anxious that another patrol — of robots, or worse, of humans who might be able to raise the alarm — might stumble across them.
They didn't. No one came, no soldiers, no little quadrupedal robots, no one.
The only thing that came for them was the elevator, its doors opening with a thrumming, rolling sound and a ping of notification.
The two of them shuffled inside. Sunset pushed the button for the bottom floor, and their descent commenced.
"When we get down there," Sunset said. "I will have to … fight hard. You should find somewhere safe to hide until I'm done, then you can broadcast to the people the way that General Blackthorn did."
"Somewhere safe to hide," muttered Councillor Emerald. "And … what if you lose, Miss Shimmer?"
"Then in death, I will be spared the anger of your son, Councillor," Sunset replied dryly. "But, though I don't deny this battle will be difficult, I don't mean to lose it."
"I'm glad to hear it."
Sunset smiled. "I have a plan, Councillor." She had the makings of a plan, at least, though that would not be so reassuring to the Councillor's ears. She looked down at her hand. Once she had dealt with Cinder, then…
The lift stopped. The doors opened. There was no one waiting on the other side, no firing squad, no giant, looming robot. There was only the darkness and the corridors that Sunset had traversed before.
She led Councillor Emerald in her footsteps, down corridors that seemed even more deserted than they had been previously, with no one on guard, no one to keep watch or to bar access. Had they really sent everyone up top to fight? Had the Atlesian attack, like a maelstrom, sucked everyone into it?
What would they find when they arrived at the command centre?
They would soon find out, for they were nearly there; it would not be long. They were almost at the point where Cinder—
A glass arrow slammed into the wall.
“It’s Sunset Shimmer, isn’t it?” the Siren called. “Why don’t you stop skulking around there in the dark and come out so we can get to know each other? And … yeah, why don’t you bring your friend out with you?”
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Oh god things are heating up and Sunset will face against Cinder next chapter! I am excited as well (Also, you’re cruel making us wait one week for the most exciting chapter instead of 3 days, lmao)
I like how the Councilor realized how fond he became of Sunset and how Sunset became of him, and that he is torn on this. It also highlights how Sunset’s entire arc is to protect those she love, but has to try and see the big picture as well. Also the little hint that (SPOILERS FOR OG STORY AND THE POSSIBLE CLIMAX OF VOLUME 3) her magic reserve is bigger and so she’s closer to ascension was a nice touch, it seems we will get her ascension again and her nice Phoenix wings , and I would love if her magic changed to red to reflect her progression as it did in the EQG continuity, in which her magic changes to Red when she becomes the 7th element as seen in Forgotten Friendship and the episode with Starlight.
Things are becoming better and better and we will see what Sunset’s Plan to deal with Cinder is.
At last, the time has come. The long-awaited epic showdown of Sunset vs Cinder and the Siren, and I can't wait for Friday to come alo--
Noooooooooo!
i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/000/854/Darth_Vader_Noooo_Banner.jpg
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It will be eleven flavors of awesome if Sunset ascends before the night is out. She'll be able to bring so much new magic to the fight with the Grimm Dragon!
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Sunset ascending would be amazing... and it would also give Sunset the boost of confidence that she quite clearly needs. That she is on the correct path and has been all along.
I also suspect that a lot of Sunset's good fortune in this infiltration is related to whose leading the Atlas team. Because a semblance dedicated to good luck is at work and it seems that Fortune has decided that the best thing for everyone involved is if Sunset gets to go face Cinder and the Siren alone... at first at least.
I recently remembered a scene from one of the Sharpe movies that actually sums up the difference between Sunset and Ruby's (at least Ruby before she had her dream induced breakthough) style of leadership. The full quote: There are two kinds of officers sir, killing officers and murdering officers. Killing officers are poor old buggers who get you killed by mistake. Murdering officers are mad, bad old buggers who get you killed on purpose. For a reason, for a country, for a religion. Maybe even for a flag."
Sunset is a killing officer. Ruby is, at the core, a murdering officer.
Looks like The Ace Ops provided the distraction Sunset needed.
Unfortunately, Sunset's magic diversion won't fool Sonata, and now Sunset has to face Cinder and Sonata.
I'm curious... If Sonata can detect magic, can she discern what kind? Could she discern Equestrian magic, and immediately tell Sunset's Equestrian and therefore a pony? Would Sonata just blab it out for those who don't know?
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I certainly wouldn't mind if her magic colour changes from green to red (even if Sunset’s magic was technically cyan/teal in EqG canon), and if anyone questions the subtle change, semblances do evolve (could even explain her new pegasus magic she'll get)
Also, I think that's the first time Sunset's used transmutation offensively (or defensively?)
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Ohhhh, that's a good point! Clover's semblance knows he and his team have the best chance for success if they don't have to deal with Cinder and the Siren!
Uh, that's Exactly what that means... Forgive my candor but Mr. Emerald's mentor sounds pretty disconnected, not to mention just kind of a d-bag.
And it seems the good Councilor has taken that lesson a little too much to heart, if he can't consider another way still viable, let alone that you can still sometimes do both. I'm not saying he's wrong, but he's also not entirely right either (Especially if he's following that overly heartless reasoning his mentor rationalized it with). For as much as it serves the 'greater good' to "ignore the people and see only the realm", some of those people are still nevertheless suffering, still in need of help and heroes of their own. Someone needs to see the big picture yes, but that big picture can't continue standing if the a the little ones holding it up fall apart. For every figure moving the pieces across the board, there has to be others keeping those pieces able to be moved.
By all means; You keep doing your part Mr. Politician, but please, let the Heroes do theirs.
And speaking of Emeralds! I wonder where our former thief has been this whole time. I really doubt she would have just stayed away with everything happening, especially with Cinder still alive and in the perilous situation she's in. Cinder only told her to "Live and Remember her" when she sent her away, failing to clarify to Stay away~