Shooting Stars (New)
Shooting Stars
“Excuse us, Miss.”
Ruby turned at the sound of the unfamiliar voice, hailing her across the courtyard. The vacation was almost over now, and more and more Beacon students were beginning to return in anticipation of that event. She assumed, since she didn’t know every student at Beacon – far from it – that the person who was hailing her was amongst those returnees.
But when she turned to look in the direction of the call and saw the group of people making their way down the path that led from the skydocks, Ruby saw that it could not be so. The group approaching consisted of four girls who looked to be of the right age to be students – which, okay, they could have been a team returning together – but also three much younger girls, who barely looked old enough to be starting Combat School, let alone attending one of the Huntsman Academies.
“Hi there,” Ruby said with cheerful politeness, waving to the group. “Can I help you with something?”
“Ah hope so,” said the same girl who had called out to Ruby and was leading the way for the others to follow. She was a tall girl, almost as tall as Pyrrha and just as muscular-looking, with eyes as green as apples and golden hair worn in a ponytail down to her waist. She was wearing a plaid shirt over a white vest, with the sleeves rolled up above the elbow and the ends tied off above the belly. Her blue denim skirt was short and ended just below her thighs, leaving her legs bare to her thigh, and high-heeled, brown leather boots, ended just below her knees. A brown, slightly battered-looking Stetson hat sat atop her head, pushed back and upwards so that it didn’t obscure her face from view. “Ah don’t suppose you know a pair by the names of Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle who are supposed to be around these parts?”
“From Team Rosepetal?” Ruby asked. “Sure, I know them. They’re our friends! Well, I’m mostly friends with their teammate, Penny, but Twilight’s nice, and Rainbow’s pretty cool.”
“Well, that’s a fortunate coincidence,” observed a pale girl with luscious purple hair.
“It’s amazing how they happen, isn’t it?” responded a girl with amazingly voluminous pink hair.
The girl in the Stetson grinned. “That’s great to hear, and not just because it means Rainbow ain’t offended the whole school with her ego, but also, well, would you mind showing us all to their dorm room? We would have called ahead, but some people wanted it to be a surprise.” She looked at the girl with the pink hair.
“Sure, I can take you to them,” Ruby said. “So, are you all friends of theirs?”
“Eeyup,” the girl in the Stetson said. “My name is… well, my name if you want to get all proper about it is, uh, well, it’s Jacqueline Apple is what it is, but Ah’d appreciate it if you called me Applejack; everybody does. This here is my li’l sister, Apple Bloom.”
“Nice to meet ya!” cried Apple Bloom, a girl a couple of years younger than Ruby herself – but about the same height as Ruby, somewhat annoyingly – with eyes that were orange, shading into red, wearing a blue dungaree dress over a yellow t-shirt, with yellow kneesocks, red shoes, and a large pink bow in her long red hair.
“I’m Rarity, darling; it’s a pleasure to meet you,” the purple-haired girl said as sparkles filled the air around her; how did she do that, was that her semblance? She was about as tall as Applejack – though that might have only been because her heels were longer – but much slenderer and less muscular, slim and pale with vivid blue eyes that sparkled like sapphires. Her purple hair coiled and curled like the waves of the sea as it wound over her right shoulder and down her back to just below the waist, and in her curling locks sparkled a trio of blue gems that might have been sapphires or blue diamonds or fakes or something else, Ruby didn’t know enough about that kind of thing to say for sure. She wore a purple pencil skirt embroidered with a trio of blue diamonds on the left hand side, along with a white blouse, strapless, backless, and sleeveless, with a sweetheart neckline that seemed to be held up by nothing at all, except perhaps the purple belt that wound about her waist. Heavy gold bracelets gleamed around her wrists, while a gold necklace adorned with large blue and purple gems graced her snowy neck. Her feet were left mostly exposed by her high heeled shoes, which strapped on around her ankles; said straps were studded with blue gems that matched her eyes.
She had a rifle slung across her back and a brown and white collie trailed beside her.
“And I’m her little sister, Sweetie Belle,” said the younger girl who stood beside her; smaller than Apple Bloom, and probably a little smaller than Weiss or Nora, too. Her hair was a mixture of pink and lavender, shorter than her sister's, only reaching halfway down her back, and decorated with a red hair band. Her eyes were a bright green that reminded Ruby a little of Penny. She was dressed in a one-piece white dress with short, puffed sleeves that descended down to just below her knees, while a pair of white socks rose up until just below said knees as if they were trying to touch but not quite managing it.
“My name’s Pinkie Pie, it’s nice to meet you!” the pink-haired girl chirruped. She was the smallest of the older girls, barely any taller than Ruby, with innocent blue eyes and incredibly poofy pink hair that seemed wild and free without any order to it whatsoever. She was dressed in a white T-shirt with a frosted cupcake on it and a blue jacket with short, puffy sleeves that left most of her arms bare down to the blue plastic bracelets dangling from her wrist. A lavender sash was wrapped around her waist and tied into a bow on the left-hand side, while her skirt, short but wide, was ruffled into layers of gradually darkening pink until it stopped above the knees. Pinkie was wearing a pair of chunky-looking blue boots with laces topped with a pair of pink bows.
“I’m Fluttershy,” the last of the older girls murmured. She was pretty much the same height as Sunset, with long, gently curving lilac hair that fell down almost to her knees and served to frame her face and, with the way she was holding her head right now, kind of hide it from view as well. A butterfly hairclip decorated it, just above her right temple. Her eyes were blue and kind of sad-looking, as though something bad had happened to her on the flight over. She wore a dark green dress with off-the shoulder sleeves that clung to her arms and lilac butterflies stitched onto the right-hand side. The straps of her delicate lilac sandals wound their way up her legs, ending in a pair of little bows.
“And I’m Scootaloo,” declared the last of the three younger children, who stood by Applejack’s side with one of Applejack’s hands upon her shoulder. She stood in height halfway between Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, with purple eyes and hair to match, worn in a style that was… incredibly similar to Rainbow Dash. She was dressed in a black hoodie with the sleeves rolled up, dark green shorts, and black boots. She also had a pair of prosthetic legs, chunky and metallic and unmistakable, painted in bright rainbow colours that made them look pretty cool, actually. Ruby remembered what Rainbow had said, about the time when she’d met Pyrrha at a charity fundraiser and how Pyrrha had talked to a girl in a hospital. She guessed that this was who they’d been talking about.
Ruby smiled. “It’s nice to meet all of you. I’m Ruby Rose of Team Sapphire of Beacon! If you’ll all follow me, then I’ll show you all to the Team Rosepetal dorm room. If they’re not there, I have their scroll numbers, but that would spoil the surprise a little, I guess.”
“We’d like to avoid that,” Pinkie said.
“You mean you’d like to avoid it, sugarcube,” Applejack replied. “Ah woulda just as soon called on ahead.”
“Aw, come on, Applejack!” Pinkie cried. “Imagine the looks on their faces when we show up at the door!”
“I think that sounds pretty cool,” Ruby agreed, as she led the large group through the courtyard towards the dorm room where the Atlesians were staying. “So, if you know Rainbow and Twilight, you must be from Atlas, right? Unless you all met in Vale, but-”
“Indeed, darling, you were right the first time,” Rarity informed her.
“So you came all the way from Atlas, to visit your friends?” Ruby asked. “That’s… that’s really nice of you.”
It was a long way from Atlas, after all, and it was probably pretty expensive, too; or at least not cheap. Ruby hadn’t been involved in planning the trip to Mistral, so she didn’t have the greatest idea what cross-continental travel cost, except she got that Sunset and Jaune would have struggled to make it without Pyrrha picking up the bill. Rainbow and Twilight’s friends probably weren’t that poor, but all the same, it was a big thing for them to come all this way; their friendship must mean a lot to all of them.
“A couple of us are… what you might call passing through,” Applejack admitted.
“But since Rainbow and Twilight couldn’t come home for the vacation, we thought that we’d come and see them here instead!” Pinkie declared enthusiastically.
“It is alright, isn’t it?” Fluttershy asked tremulously. “We don’t want to cause any bother.”
“It’s no trouble,” Ruby assured her. “Classes aren’t in session right now, so there’s nothing that they need to do and nowhere that they need to be, so they’ll be able to spend as much time with you as they want.”
“Awesome,” Scootaloo said, a smile on her face as she looked around the campus. “This place looks amazing.”
“I know, and it is,” Ruby said. “I could hardly believe it when I first came here; it’s like… it’s like it’s hardly a school at all; it’s like its own little world.”
“So, how do you know Rainbow and Twilight, Ruby?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“Oh, well…” Ruby hesitated. “We met through their teammate Penny. Then they were a really big help in fighting off some bad guys-”
“You were there too?” Scootaloo demanded enthusiastically. “You fought the White Fang down at the docks with Rainbow Dash?”
“Yeah, we were there too,” Ruby said. “I have to admit, we would have been in quite a lot of trouble if it hadn’t been for Team Rosepetal backing us up.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what on Remnant were you all doing down there in the first place?” inquired Rarity. “I understand fighting to protect humanity – even if it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my own life, in the end – but what possessed you to go down to the docks and try to stop a simple robbery?”
“Because what the White Fang might have done with that dust… that was as much defending humanity as fighting any number of grimm,” Ruby replied. “I think so, anyway.”
“All the same, it sounds a little reckless of you,” Fluttershy murmured. “I mean, you’re only students after all, and… if you don’t mind me asking, what year are you in?”
“First year.”
“Oh my goodness,” Fluttershy gasped. “You’ve barely learned anything beyond combat school. Were you alright down there in that battle?”
“Uh, yeah, everyone was fine,” Ruby lied, sort of. She certainly didn’t tell the whole truth. “Nobody got hurt.” Not for long, anyway.
“I’m glad,” Fluttershy said. “Just like I’m glad that Rainbow and Twilight were able to make some new friends here at Beacon.” She smiled. “Thank you, for looking out for them.”
Ruby laughed nervously. "It's really more the other way around."
"Ruby?" Rarity said, hastening – as much as she could hasten in those stilettos – to catch up with Ruby. "May I call you Ruby, darling?"
"Sure," Ruby agreed readily.
"Excellent," Rarity said, with a smile. "You see, I was just wondering where you came by that delightful ensemble you're wearing."
"This?" Ruby said, looking down at her outfit. "You think it's… delightful?"
"Oh, certainly, darling, it's so, well, you," Rarity declared. "And complementing the subject is the eternal rule of style. If an outfit does not make the wearer look good, then it is not a good outfit, no matter who made it or with what care. But yes, this outfit, I especially like the way the touch of red on the hem of your dress mirrors the highlights of your hair. And that cape! Ordinarily, I wouldn't say that capes are fashionable – in fact they tend to make one look rather old-fashioned, I must say – but you wear it so well, it becomes you beautifully. You must tell me where you got it."
"Actually, uh," Ruby hesitated. "I, uh, made it myself."
Rarity's eyes widened. "Really? Why, that's simply incredible, dear; you have quite the talent. My goodness, I think that if you were to devote yourself, you could exhibit in Mistral Fashion Week one day."
"Seriously?" Ruby asked. "You really think so?"
"I would never lie to a fellow fashionista," Rarity said.
"Well, that's really kind of you to say," Ruby replied, "but that's not really the kind of thing I want out of my life. I… I know what I like, to wear, I mean, but… I don't want to make it my life, taking orders from other people, making stuff for them. It's not what I want."
Applejack nodded sagely. "This is, huh? You're here at Beacon because you want the life."
Ruby looked back at her. "Doesn't everyone who comes to the academies?"
Applejack scratched the back of her head. "Ah wouldn't say everyone. I went to Atlas because, well, because somebody oughtta stand up for these kids," she said, putting one arm on Scootaloo's shoulder and the other around Apple Bloom. "Ah can't speak for Beacon, but I think a lot of folks come to Atlas because they feel as though they oughtta. Feel as though they got something to contribute, and so, they should, well, contribute it, Ah guess."
"I'm feeling ever so slightly called out, darling," Rarity murmured.
"Oh, horseapples and hay bales, Rarity, you know I don't mean it like that," Applejack said sharply. "Hay, I was the one who told you that you weren't cut out for Atlas in the first place. This life… it ain't for everyone, and it don't have to be for everyone, and it shouldn't be for everyone neither."
"I guess not," Ruby said softly, "but don't you think that huntresses… I may have talent for making outfits like this, but I can't imagine anything more worthwhile that I could do with my life than saving people, hunting grimm, defending the world against… against all the things that make them scared. Except they won't have to be scared, because I'll be there, standing… standing between the candle and the dark, no matter what it takes."
Applejack nodded, a slow smile of quiet approval spreading across her face. "Like Ah said, this life ain't for everyone," she repeated, "but for some folks… ain't no place better. Why, Ah bet your friends are real glad to have you around in a pinch, Ruby Rose."
Ruby turned away before she started to blush. "So… yeah, I'm sorry to disappoint you."
"Oh, you're not disappointing me, dear, so long as you're not disappointing yourself," Rarity said. "Not everyone can be an internationally-recognised trend-setter, or even want to be one. For some people, it's enough that they keep on looking fabulous. Speaking of fabulous, have you considered make-up? A little shadow in the right colour would bring out those startling eyes of yours superbly."
"You said I was too young to be wearing make-up," Sweetie Belle muttered.
"There is a long distance between seventeen and twelve, Sweetie Belle," Rarity replied majestically.
"Actually," Ruby said, "I'm only-"
"Fifteen, right?" Pinkie said, as she skipped forwards until she was in front of Ruby, then turned around so that she was facing the young huntress, still skipping backwards all the while.
Ruby frowned. "How did you-?"
"It's a gift," Pinkie said.
"One that should simply be accepted," Rarity added softly.
"You got admitted to Beacon early?" Fluttershy asked. "My goodness."
"You must be awesome!" Scootaloo said.
"Well, I do my best, but-"
"What's it like, being the youngest student here?" Pinkie asked.
"It's not so bad," Ruby said. "My teammates are a big help, they… they help take care of me when things get a little too much. The downside is they keep treating me like a kid. I'm fifteen, not five."
"We know how that feels," Apple Bloom said.
"Fifteen may be a mite younger than seventeen, but it's a long way older than twelve," Applejack said. "Ah guess you must really want this pretty bad, sugarcube, coming in early and leaving all your friends behind like that."
Ruby decided not to mention that any friends she'd had at Signal had faded away the moment she left Signal. "I… I've made new friends here, like my teammates, Penny, and… you're right. I do want this. More than anything. I want… my dream is to make a world where everybody else can be free to achieve their dreams, because they're all safe. Does that sound stupid?"
"Not in the least, darling," Rarity assured her.
"It sounds incredibly brave," Fluttershy murmured.
"And selfless too!" Pinkie added.
"Eeyup, it's a noble thing you're aiming for," Applejack declared. "And don't you let anybody ever tell you different."
Ruby smiled, a small smile but present nonetheless. "Hey, Rarity?"
"Yes?"
"Well, what you said… do you really think that I have a talent for, you know, clothes and stuff?"
"As I said, Ruby, I wouldn't lie about something so serious," Rarity said. "Why?"
"Well…" Ruby hesitated. She'd never thought of herself as being talented in this field. She knew that she had made her own outfit to her own satisfaction, but until Rarity had complimented her on it, she'd never really considered that she might be able to satisfy other people too. "There's a dance this semester, and I was thinking that maybe I could make something for my friends to wear. Do you think I could do it? Do you think they'd like that?"
"If they are your friends, then I think they'd love it," Rarity assured her. "For it will be a true gift from the heart, reflecting both yourself and how you see your friends." She paused. "That said, you should probably ask them first."
Ruby giggled. "Yeah, that would be a good idea, wouldn't it?"
"I'll give you my scroll number," Rarity added, "and if you need any advice at any stage in the process, please, don't hesitate to call me."
“Hey, Ruby,” Pinkie cried. “Do you like cookies?”
"B4," Twilight said.
"Hit," Penny announced. "Although I do not believe it should count."
Twilight's eyebrows rose. "Oh, really? And why is that, Penny?"
"Based on the number of hits I have achieved, you should have only a destroyer remaining," Penny declared. "It is unlikely that your surviving vessel has guns of sufficient calibre to do serious damage to my larger warships."
Ciel looked up from the model Mistralian sailing galley that she was painstakingly assembling on the desktop. "And if this were a more realistic wargame, you would be correct, Penny. However, the game you are actually playing is not so complex."
"The natures of the different ships don't matter," Twilight said as she sat on the other side of a plastic screen that shielded the location of her ships from Penny's view, not that it had stopped Penny from sinking all but one of them. "It only matters whether you can guess the locations correctly."
"This game seems very heavily based on luck," Penny said.
"Oh, it's almost all about luck," Twilight agreed, "but that doesn't mean it can't be fun. Now, it's your turn."
Penny fell silent for a moment as she contemplated her next strike. "D8."
"Oh, come on!" Twilight cried.
Rainbow Dash was sat on her bed, reading the latest Daring Do novel. "Speaking of luck, looks like it's not on your side today, Twi."
"Don't I know it," Twilight muttered. "B…3."
"Miss!" Penny cried.
"Ugh," Twilight groaned. "Really not on my side."
There was a knock at the door.
"I'll get it," Rainbow said, putting her book down and rolling off the bed before covering the short distance separating bed and door. She opened the door up and-
"SURPRISE!"
Rainbow was covered in confetti and streamers as several party poppers exploded in her face, tossing their contents all over her and into the dorm room. A party blower trumpeted, and tickled her chin a little as Pinkie Pie blew into it.
As Pinkie Pie-
"Pinkie?" Rainbow gasped. "Girls?" It wasn't just Pinkie, after all; it was everyone: Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom too.
Fluttershy smiled, making a squeaking sound with her mouth.
"How… you really…" Rainbow beamed. "Hey, Twilight, look who it is?"
Twilight got up and rushed to the doorway. "Girls? You're all here?" Twilight asked, sounding as surprised as Rainbow had been. "What are you-?"
"Well, we couldn't let the best part of a whole year go by without seeing you, could we?" Rarity asked.
Now it was Twilight's turn to smile a bright, beaming smile. "It's wonderful to see you all," she cried, spreading her arms out wide as Fluttershy, Rarity and Applejack pressed in close for a tight group hug with Twilight and Rainbow Dash, the five of them coming together in an interlocking mass of arms and huddled bodies, tight and warm and caring… and with somebody missing.
"Whee!" Pinkie cried, as she leapt into the group hard enough to send them all flying into the room and onto the floor, where they lay in a tangled heap, laughing. Rainbow had missed these girls so much. She hadn't realised just how much she'd missed them until she didn't miss them anymore, until they were here. She had other friends, she'd made friends here, but these girls weren't just her friends, they weren't even just her best friends, they were… they were parts of her heart. They were parts of her soul. Her life before she'd met them seemed like a grey thing – like one of those old black and white movies that Rarity liked – before they had come into it and filled her world with so many colours. And now… now, she couldn't imagine a world without them. She didn't want to imagine a world without them.
"Should we all join in?" Penny asked.
"No," Ciel said instantly.
Rainbow extricated herself from the pile, her eyes fixed on Scootaloo. "Hey, Scootaloo. It's great to see you too. How have you been doing, kid?"
"Pretty good," Scootaloo said. "My doctor cut my sessions in half because they said I don't need so many anymore, and they said I can start riding my scooter again!"
"And that's only pretty good? That sounds amazing!" Rainbow said, hugging Scootaloo as her friends picked themselves up off the floor. "Listen, buddy, I'm really sorry that I wasn't around."
"It's okay, I shouldn't have… you know," Scootaloo said. "I'm sorry."
"You don't have to apologise," Rainbow assured her. "I should be the one saying sorry; I promised that we'd spend time together, and then I bailed on you."
"But that wasn't your fault either," Scootaloo said. "Vice Principal Luna came by and explained everything, how you have a job to do and you're keeping us all safe." The younger girl grinned. "And being awesome! I heard about the big fight down at the docks; what happened?"
Rainbow grinned right back at her. "Well, it started when Sunset Shimmer and some of her Beacon students got in way over their head. 'Help', they cried, 'somebody save us!'"
"Hey!" Ruby yelled. "We did not say that!"
Rainbow looked around. Ruby was standing in the doorway. "Oh, hey, Ruby, I didn't see you there."
"No," Ruby growled. "I bet you didn't."
"Ruby was kind enough to lead us here to your room," Fluttershy explained.
Ciel got up. "Ruby," she said, "Penny and I were just about to head to the firing range for some target practice. Would you care to join us?"
"We were?" Penny asked.
"Yes, Penny, we were," Ciel replied.
"Oh, sure, I'd love to come along," Ruby said. "Penny owes me a rematch anyway."
"You are a good friend, Ruby, but you cannot win," Penny declared cheerfully as she got up and walked towards the door.
"We'll see about that, Penny," Ruby vowed.
"Thank you, Ruby," Twilight said. "And thank you, Ciel."
"Not a problem," Ruby called as Ciel nodded sharply before, as the last to leave the room after Penny, she shut the door behind her.
"Oh, gosh, I forgot to introduce you to our teammates," Twilight gasped. "Someone has to remind me to do it later."
"I will," Pinkie promised.
"So, anyway," Rainbow continued. "there was a big White Fang guy with a red sword, and he was about to bring that sword down on an unsuspecting Beacon student. But then, just like that, I was there, and I blocked his sword with my bare hand, oh and this wasn't just any sword; this was a sword that cuts through aura! But I still blocked it with my bare hand 'cause I'm just that awesome! And then I said 'time to take out the trash,' and I was like 'Wham! Bam!' and I was throwing out punches, and he was nothing like fast enough to keep up with me, and then I leapt over his head with my wings outstretched, and then I landed behind him and then…"
Scootaloo nodded eagerly. "And then?"
"Then… he got a load of his guys to dogpile me and then ran away while I fought them off, the coward," Rainbow spat, "but I had him on the ropes, and I'll totally get him next time."
"So cool," Scootaloo whispered in awe.
Rainbow sat down and patted the space on the bed for Scootaloo to sit down beside her. "Everybody sit down," she said, and her friends all took chairs or sat down on the four beds in the dorm room. "How was your flight over? Did you have any trouble?" She'd heard that there had been a couple of issues with flights between Vale and Atlas.
"None at all," Applejack assured her. "O'; course, we did have a cruiser shepherdin' us most of the way there, seemed like."
"That's good to hear," Twilight said. "About your not having any trouble, I mean, not about the cruiser."
"The cruiser thing is good to hear if it's why they didn't have any trouble," Rainbow suggested.
Twilight chuckled. "I guess so. The important thing is that you're all here safe. How long are you staying? Did you really come all this way just to see us?"
"Some of us did, because we missed you," Pinkie said.
"Some of you?" Rainbow repeated.
"Well," Applejack began, taking her hat off and running one hand through her golden hair, "Fluttershy, do you wanna tell 'em?"
Fluttershy looked as though she'd rather not, but in any case, she began, her voice quiet. "Rainbow Dash, you know how I've always wanted to travel across the four kingdoms, exploring the natural fauna that so often goes undocumented in the wild?"
"Yeah, me and Applejack were going to come along to keep you safe," Rainbow said.
Fluttershy nodded. "I know. It's just that, well, Applejack is taking a year out from Atlas, and-"
"And so you're doing this without me?" Rainbow cried. "Just the two of you?"
"Simmer down, sugarcube; I can keep Fluttershy safe by myself."
"Can you?" Rainbow asked. "You're great, Applejack, but you're just one huntress."
"If we get into that much trouble, I ain't sure two huntresses will be that much better than one," Applejack replied. "I can camp, I can cook, and unlike some folks, I can actually stay out of trouble, so I think me and Fluttershy will do just fine. Besides, it's not like we're headed to the Vacuan desert. We're just going to spend a couple of months in the forests of Vale; we won't ever be too far from a village if we need help."
Rainbow frowned. "Are you sure about this, Fluttershy?"
Fluttershy nodded. "Not that I wouldn't like it if you were here, but… well, you're so busy with Atlas, and then when you graduate, you'll be joining the military, and I don't want to ask you to put your career on hold just so that you can watch over me when I'm studying animals and birds."
"I said that I'd-"
"And besides, I need to be braver when facing the world and not just hide behind my friends all the time, don't you think?" Fluttershy asked.
"I guess," Rainbow muttered reluctantly. "So… what, you two are going to head out after this?"
"That's the plan," Applejack confirmed. "That's why Ah brought mah gun. And Winona."
Winona barked, from where she sat on the floor.
"And the rest of you?" Twilight asked. "Rarity, Pinkie, girls? How long are you going to be in Vale?"
"A few days," Rarity said. "We're staying at a hotel. Fortunately, Vytal Festival tourism hasn't pushed the prices up yet."
"Speaking of which, we're planning to get back in time for the tournament,” Fluttershy assured her.
"And we'll be back in Vale to cheer you on as well," Rarity confirmed. "We've had those reservations booked for some time. Although now…"
"Now what?" Twilight asked.
"Well, with all these robberies on the news, one wonders if so many people are going to want to come to Vale this year," Rarity said.
Rainbow and Twilight exchanged glances. "Yeah, that… that's not great," Rainbow admitted, "but I'm sure that it'll all be taken care of by the time the tournament rolls around. And even now, the streets are safe."
"We wouldn't want you to worry," Twilight added.
"So, anyway," Rainbow said, quickly changing the subject, "how are things with all of you guys? How's it going back home?"
"Vice-Principal Luna said that, provided I've completed my course of rehab with my legs, I should be able to try out for combat school at the end of the year!" Scootaloo very nearly yelled.
"Really? That's great!" Rainbow cried.
"And I'll be trying out too," Apple Bloom added. "After a certain overbearing and overprotective big sister finally said it was okay."
"Are you both going to study on the huntsman track?" Twilight asked.
"Yup," Apple Bloom confirmed. "Sweetie Belle's only takin' some aura lessons, though."
"I'm just not sure that being a huntress is for me," Sweetie Belle murmured.
"There's nothing to be ashamed of, Sweetie Belle," Twilight told her. "I… I have to pretend to be a huntress while I'm here, but I don't really think of myself as one, and there's nothing wrong with that. We all have our own talents and our own ways of expressing them. Do you think any less of Rarity because she didn't go to Atlas?"
"Of course not!"
"Then there you are," Twilight said. "Have you figured out what you want to do instead?"
"Not yet," Sweetie Belle admitted. "I'm hoping that… maybe training my aura will help me figure it out. Like… put me closer to my soul or something? Maybe if I find my semblance, it will teach me who I really am. Or who I'm meant to be."
"That's… certainly an interpretation of how aura and semblances work," Twilight said. "So, Rarity, anything exciting going on?"
"You know how it is, darling, one scrimps and saves," Rarity said airily. "But! Ms Hemline was rather impressed with my latest design, and she's even going to allow me to put it on the shelf!"
"Oh, Rarity, that's incredible; I'm so happy for you," Twilight said. "Your first step on the road to success."
"One can only hope, darling," Rarity said. "Unfortunately, it is all in the hands of the public, now."
"What about you, Pinkie, what's new?" Rainbow asked.
"Nothing's new, exactly; even the babies aren't new anymore," Pinkie said, referring not to any children of hers but to the children of Mr and Mrs Cake, the genial couple who owned Sugarcube Corner, a little Mom and Pop café in Atlas where Pinkie worked part time as waitress, baker, barista, and all-around help. "But they still need a lot of looking after, so I've been picking up more and more work. Sometimes, they even let me watch the Corner all by myself."
"Wow, moving up in the world," Rainbow said. "Speaking of which, do you guys want to go get a drink and a bite to eat? There's a great place just outside the campus… and there's somebody that I'd like you all to meet."
The reasons why manticores prefer wintry climates is unknown, but may be the result of
Blake blinked. She felt tired. Her eyes kept sliding off the page, and the words kept blurring before her eyes.
She was supposed to be studying with Sunset in preparation for the imminent resumption of classes, but she couldn’t. She was sitting here, with Sunset, in the library, but she just couldn’t actually get any work done. She couldn’t get the words to stay in place, let alone fix them in her head.
Blake blinked again and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Something wrong?” Sunset asked, looking up from her own book.
“I… sorry,” Blake apologised. “Am I distracting you?”
“Not as much as you’re distracting yourself,” Sunset replied. She looked away from their table, towards the bookshelves not far away.
Blake frowned. “Is something wrong?”
“Not wrong,” Sunset replied. “A part of me is just waiting for Sun to emerge from out of hiding like a ninja.”
That brought the traces of a smile to Blake’s lips. “He doesn’t follow me everywhere.”
“He follows you to a lot of places,” Sunset replied. “He nearly got us thrown out of that coffee place.”
“I’m pretty sure you did that when you hit him in the chest with a blast from your semblance,” Blake replied.
“Because he appeared out of nowhere and startled the hell out of me!” Sunset squawked. “It’s… don’t you think it’s a little creepy?”
Well, he’s not talking with delicious relish about how much he enjoys mass murder, Blake thought. “No,” she said. “I think it’s… kind of sweet, really? It’s… it’s nice to have someone who wants to be around me that much.” And who isn’t an unrepentant killer. “Someone… who sees me for who I am and… and doesn’t shrink back or flinch away from it. Like Jaune with Pyrrha.”
“I see you for who and what you are and don’t flinch away from it, it doesn’t mean that I stalk you all over school and town and everywhere in between,” Sunset pointed out.
“It’s not stalking, it’s… Sun just wants to help. To help me,” Blake said. “And that… I like that. Anyway, it’s not like he has a lot of other places to be. His team still hasn’t arrived from Haven yet-”
“Whose fault is that?” Sunset asked.
Blake folded her arms. “You don’t like him, do you?”
“I don’t dislike him,” Sunset replied.
Blake’s eyebrows rose sceptically.
“You have to admit, he’s a little bit of a vagabond,” Sunset said. “You could afford to hold yourself to a higher standard than that?”
“'Vagabond'?” Blake repeated. “Are you a snob?”
“No, I am not a snob,” Sunset said defensively. “I have standards.”
“You have judgmental instincts,” Blake corrected her. “Not everyone is lucky enough to have the chance to consort with princesses.”
“I suppose not,” Sunset conceded. She sighed. “Since you’re clearly not in the grimm studies, and since your boyfriend isn’t here-”
“Sun’s not my boyfriend,” Blake said.
Sunset stared at her flatly. “Seriously? If he’s not your boyfriend, then you really need to think about getting a restraining order, but more to the point, what in Remnant are you talking about? Of course he’s your boyfriend!”
“You’re probably right,” Blake admitted. “I suppose… I’m not used to having… 'boyfriend,' 'dating,' those are words that seem to belong to someone else. To someone… different, with a different life.” They belonged to the kind of spoiled Atlesian girls that Ilia had described at Crystal Prep; they belonged to Pyrrha, to Twilight, to more privileged and carefree girls who were not burdened by the weighty concerns that lay upon her shoulders.
And yet, they now belonged to her, all the same.
Blake wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that. She liked Sun, but… could she really become that kind of girl? The kind who dated, the kind who had a boyfriend, the kind of lived that sort of life? That was not who she had been; was it someone she could be?
Was it someone that she wanted to be?
“Anyway,” Sunset said, “why don’t you go and find him? Do something… I don't know, fun. Flash used to take me to the movies when I was feeling down. We’d drive out to this drive-in theatre not far from the school and sit on the roof of his car and snuggle up under a blanket while some cheesy monster movie played.”
“That sounds… nice,” Blake said evenly. “But… no, Sun… I don’t want to put this on Sun.”
“Put what on Sun?” Sunset asked. “What’s up?”
“You know what’s up,” Blake replied. “Just because we stopped the White Fang at the docks, that doesn't mean we've stopped the White Fang. While you’ve been away in Mistral, the dust robberies haven’t let up; at this point, I’m half-amazed that there are any dust stores left to rob. And nobody is doing anything about it.”
“People are doing something about it,” Sunset countered. “They’re just not succeeding at the things they’re trying to do.”
Blake glared at her.
“Yeah, it’s a serious matter, I know,” Sunset assured her. “The point is, what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know, but I have to do something!” Blake yelled.
“Ruby almost died the last time you had to do something!” Sunset snapped, verging upon a snarl.
Blake gasped. The worst part was that, although she was a little upset that Sunset had gone there, she couldn’t really blame Sunset because, well, she was right. She had dragged them all to the docks, and Ruby had almost died, and… and if Sunset blamed or even hated her for that, then it was no less than Blake deserved.
“You… you’re right, I shouldn’t be… I’m sorry.” Her chair scraped against the floor as she got up. “I’ll go.”
“Wait,” Sunset said. “I should be the one apologising, I suppose. I didn’t mean-”
“Yes,” Blake said, cutting her off. “You did. And you were right to.” She turned to go – and nearly walked into Rainbow Dash.
“Rainbow Dash,” Blake murmured, “what are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” Rainbow replied. Her magenta eyes narrowed. “Is everything okay?”
“I… yes,” Blake lied. “Did you need something?”
“Yeah, I need you to come with me,” Rainbow said.
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to meet my friends,” Rainbow declared. “And then you’re going to owe me an apology.”
“Your friends?” Sunset repeated, from the table where she sat. “You mean… the Spectacular Six are here?”
“Yup, they came by for a visit.”
“The…Spectacular Six?” Blake murmured.
“What, you’ve never known the clique of cool kids to pick up a nickname?” Sunset asked.
“I’ve never known a clique of cool kids,” Blake replied. “I didn’t go to school, remember?”
“We were not a clique,” Rainbow protested. “We were just good friends who hung out together. Although, we were the cool kids.”
“And you want to introduce me to your friends?” Blake asked in confusion. “Why? I mean, the things I said-”
“It’s because of the things you said,” Rainbow declared. “I’m going to prove to you that humans and faunus can be friends, and I’m going to introduce you to the best people I know. And, honestly, you look like you could use some cheering up.” She took Blake by the arm. “So come on, you’ll enjoy it if you let yourself.”
Blake considered resisting. She considered protesting. She considered begging off, but… what was she going to do instead? Brood? Bemoan the inadequacy of Valish law enforcement? Wish that someone would do something? Spin castles out of the air of her plans to ‘do something’ all by herself? It wasn’t as though she was poised to bring down the Vale Chapter single-handed. She could… she could probably use the distraction. She could probably do much worse than to meet Rainbow’s friends and see if they were as genuine as even Sunset conceded they were.
The scraping of a chair alerted Blake to the fact that Sunset had got up, too. “Would you mind if I come too?”
Rainbow frowned. “Why?”
“Because I owe them all an apology,” Sunset explained.
Rainbow hesitated for a moment. “Sure,” she conceded. “And you’re right, you do owe everyone an apology.”
Sunset nodded and followed behind them as Rainbow led Blake out of the library and out onto the courtyard of the school, where Twilight Sparkle was waiting along with four other girls of a similar age and three younger children.
“Everybody, this is Blake Belladonna. Blake,” Rainbow said, “these are my friends: Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy; that’s Applejack’s little sister Apple Bloom, Rarity’s little sister Sweetie Belle, and my surrogate kid sister and awesome in training, Scootaloo.”
“Scootaloo was nine years old!”
Blake nearly cringed at the memory as she looked down at the girl in front of her. She did look like a miniature Rainbow Dash; they even had the same hairstyle. Blake bent down a little. “I… I’m sorry, about what happened to you,” she said.
Scootaloo looked embarrassed, and a little annoyed. “It’s… you don’t have to… it doesn’t-”
“Just because she has prosthetic legs don’t mean you have to draw attention to it!” Apple Bloom reprimanded her, putting one arm around Scootaloo’s shoulder as she did so. Sweetie Belle closed in protectively on Scootaloo’s other side. “So what if she does?”
It was only then that Blake realised that her commiseration could have been – and clearly had been – interpreted to refer to Scootaloo’s conspicuous prosthetics. “No!” she cried. “I wasn’t talking about that; I meant the White Fang attack!” her voice softened. “Rainbow… she told me you were there. I imagine it must have been pretty scary for you.” She’d found her first raids for the White Fang pretty scary, when she was… well, she hadn’t been much older than these girls looked, to be perfectly honest, and she’d been terrified. She could only imagine how much worse it must have been to be put in that situation without a weapon.
“Oh,” Apple Bloom said. “Well… sorry, I guess. I just-”
“It’s fine,” Blake murmured. “I should have made myself clearer.”
“Yeah,” Scootaloo said, her tone short and sharp. “As for the White Fang… it wasn’t that scary.”
Blake frowned. “No?”
“Because Rainbow Dash and all her friends were there,” Scootaloo said. “So I knew everything would be fine.”
Blake wasn’t sure how much of that was bravado after the fact, but she wasn’t about to question it. “I see,” she said softly.
“Plus, we had the real wedding afterwards and a super-awesome-fun party!” Pinkie cried. She hummed a few bars of a tune Blake didn’t recognise. “Oh, hey, Sunset.”
Sunset smiled awkwardly, looking a lot less certain about this than she had done in the library. “Hey,” she said, starting to wave and then appearing to think better of it. “Listen… I’m sorry, for what I tried to do to you. It was wrong of me. It’s just that I was-”
“You had us at ‘I’m sorry’, darling,” Rarity said. “There’s no need to say anymore.”
Sunset blinked. “Really? That’s it?”
“Sure,” Pinkie chirruped. “Did you think this would be hard or something?”
“Well… yeah.”
Pinkie’s smile squeaked. “Don’t be silly. So long as you’re sorry, that’s all that matters.”
“But… how do you even know that I’m sincere?”
“Because Rainbow and I have seen you trying to change,” Twilight said. “You’re proof that anyone can find their true friends if they look hard enough, and that with the right friends-”
“Even the worst person can become good, or at least decent?” Sunset asked.
“Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but…”
“I’m not sure how I feel about being a social experiment,” Sunset muttered.
“Don’t sweat it; I’m one too,” Rainbow assured her. “It’s not a huge commitment.”
“Anyhow,” Applejack said. “Shall we go get somethin’ ta eat?”
“Sure,” Rainbow said. “Follow me.”
She led the group in the direction of Benni Haven’s, to which Blake had not yet been, for all that she had seen it praised by others, including Sunset and her own team. She had just… not yet had a reason to go.
“So, Blake,” Pinkie said, “do you like chocolate?”
Blake looked at her curiously. “I suppose so?”
“But what kind of chocolate, hmm?” Pinkie squinted, cupping her chin with her fingers. “I bet you like… taiyaki filled with chocolate, don’t you?”
Blake’s eyebrows rose. “That was a very lucky guess.”
“There are no guesses where Pinkie Pie’s concerned,” Rainbow said.
“Then-”
“It’s something that you just have to take on trust,” Twilight informed her.
“Okay,” Blake murmured. “Um, why does it matter whether I like taiyaki or chocolate or… anything like that?”
“Well, there’s a lot of open space out here,” Pinkie said, “and according to Twilight, there are some shooting stars supposed to pass through the night sky. So I thought that we could have a picnic out on the grass and invite all of Rainbow and Twilight’s new friends to join us! Doesn’t that sound fun?”
It did, actually. It sounded… warm and cosy and nice and a great many other such pleasant-sounding words besides. Perhaps that was what made Blake shy away from it. “I wouldn’t call myself one of Rainbow or Twilight’s friends.”
“Why not?” Fluttershy asked quietly.
“I… I’d rather not say,” Blake replied. “But-”
“But you’re okay with us,” Rainbow declared, looking over her shoulder to wink at Blake. “As far as I’m concerned, you’d be welcome to join us.”
“I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Pinkie cried. “Hanging out with old friends is great, but it’s made even better when you can make new friends at the same time!”
“Unless you don’t want to go,” Fluttershy murmured. “We wouldn’t want to force you into doing anything that you don’t want to.”
Blake hesitated. “I just… I’ve never been much of a picnic person… but I guess that’s no reason why I shouldn’t start now, right?”
“No reason at all, sugarcube,” Applejack said.
“And Sunset, you still like caramel shortbreads, right?” Pinkie asked.
“Yeah, are you planning to buy all this stuff?” Sunset asked.
“Buy it?” Pinkie replied incredulously. “No! I’m going to make it!”
“You’re going to make taiyaki?” Blake asked.
“And cookies for Ruby and caramel shortbread for Sunset, and Applejack is going to help me with her famous apple fritters and-”
“How in Remnant are you going to make all of this for tonight?” Blake demanded. “How are you going to make any of this?”
“A party planner always comes prepared,” Pinkie said, as she reached into her mass of poofy pink hair and pulled out a boiled sweet. “Want one?”
“Uh… no, thank you,” Blake said. To Twilight, she whispered, “Should I not question that, either?”
“Best not to,” Twilight confirmed.
They reached Benni Haven’s, where Rainbow led the way into the rustic-looking, wooden cabin-like interior. The squirrel faunus woman who approached them as the large group trooped in must be Ms Haven herself. She fit the descriptions Blake had gotten from others.
“Sunset! Rainbow, Twilight! Boy, you got a big crowd with you today, and a big 'I ain’t never seen before' either.”
“These are some friends of ours from out of town,” Rainbow explained. “Visiting from Atlas.”
“And this is Blake Belladonna,” Sunset added. “Leader of Team Bluebell.”
“Team Bluebell, right, I get Lyra and Bon Bon in here all the time,” Benni said. She put one hand on her hip. “So how come it’s taken you this long to find your way to my door?”
Blake looked down at the ground. “Well, I-”
“Oh, don’t sweat it, kid; I’m only messing with you,” Benni assured her. “You don’t owe me anything, least of all an explanation.” She counted the number of girls in the party. “You might have to push a few tables together to sit you all, but there’s room for that. I’m afraid we don’t have any kids’ menus, but I suppose you girls are glad to hear that, huh?” She winked. “Find somewhere to sit, and I’ll be right with you.”
They found space in the centre of the restaurant, with Applejack and Rainbow Dash pushing tables together to create one long table down which there was space enough for everyone. Rainbow and Twilight sat in the centre, like king and queen amongst their court, with Scootaloo at Rainbow’s side, and the other two young girls sticking close by their sisters as the friends positioned themselves around Rainbow and Twilight. Blake and Sunset found themselves, or placed themselves, upon the fringes of the group, at the top end of the table.
Benni doled out the menus and then retreated to let them consider their options.
Rarity pulled out a pair of half-moon glasses from her purse and put them on to read. “So, Blake darling,” she said quietly, “have you thought about a longer coat?”
Blake looked up from her menu. “Um, no, I hadn’t?”
“You should consider it,” Rarity told her. “I think it would suit you. Not that your current outfit doesn’t suit you; I just think a longer coat, possibly something with long tails down to the ground, would act just a touch of… je ne sais quoi, to the whole thing.”
“I’ll… keep that in mind,” Blake promised. And she meant it too; now that she thought about it… maybe a black waistcoat with a long white coat over the top?
“So,” she said, “are you all Atlas students? Those of you who are old enough, I mean.” She smiled. “Unless you three girls are such prodigies that you put Ruby to shame and got into Atlas earlier than most girls attend combat school.”
“No, they ain’t, and thank goodness fer that,” Applejack muttered. “Ah’m glad to say that General Ironwood has more sense than to be lettin’ kids into Atlas.”
Blake frowned. Her voice acquired a certain edge as she said, “You don’t think Ruby should be at Beacon?”
“Ah never said that,” Applejack countered. “Ruby is a fine girl, and she seems to believe in what she’s doin’ here, but there’s a reason the Academy don’t start until seventeen for most folks. People still got some growin’ to do. No reason to force them to grow up too fast.”
“Typical Applejack,” Sunset said. “Wanting to be the world’s big sister.”
“There ain’t nothin’ wrong with that,” Applejack said.
“No, but Ruby doesn’t need another big sister,” Sunset replied, “and you don’t need to worry about her either; she’s got what it takes.”
“It would be pretty cool to get into Atlas early,” Apple Bloom said wistfully.
“No, it wouldn’t,” Scootaloo said. “Rainbow Dash didn’t get let in early, and that extra time in Canterlot only made her even stronger, right, Rainbow Dash?!”
“You betcha,” Rainbow said, ruffling Scootaloo’s hair affectionately. “I did have some growing still to do.”
“Apple Bloom and Scootaloo are going to start at Canterlot Combat School this fall,” Sweetie Belle explained, “and I’m taking the aura training course.”
“The aura training course?”
“It’s something that Principal Celestia pioneered at Canterlot,” Fluttershy informed Blake. “It’s a special study track for people who aren’t interested in becoming huntsmen or huntresses but who want to train their aura and maybe find their semblances.”
“Okay, but why would you want to unless you were going to fight?” Blake asked.
“Some people say that finding your semblance will help you understand yourself a little better,” Twilight said, “and there are certain jobs in which it helps to have unlocked your aura and have a modicum of knowledge of what to do with it.”
“I love animals,” Fluttershy said, “and thanks to Canterlot, I was able to discover that my semblance allows me to communicate with them; I can understand them as if they were speaking our language, and they can understand me in the same way! I didn’t know that at the time, but I thought that if I knew a little about my aura, then maybe… maybe I’d feel brave enough to venture outside of the kingdom some time.”
“You wanted to leave the kingdom?”
“Not for good,” Fluttershy clarified, “but I wanted to travel to see what kinds of living creatures I could see out there. You see, one of the problems with the grimm that is often overlooked is that so few people are willing to travel out into the wilds without a very good reason… and for most people, studying the native wildlife of Remnant doesn’t really count. It’s my dream to put together a catalogue of all of Remnant’s native life, thriving in the parts of the world where humans struggle to survive. And I’m going to start now; Applejack has agreed to come with me as we head out into Vale.”
“Ah am an Atlas student,” Applejack explained. “In fact, me and Rainbow Dash were partners last year, but after our team got into some trouble… Ah decided to take a year out. Spend some time on the farm with my sister, help out a friend, that sort of thing.”
“I was going to become a huntress,” Rarity said. “At least, I was thinking about it, but my friends helped me to realise that my true calling lies in the world of fashion.”
“And I just had a feeling that Canterlot was where I was meant to be,” said Pinkie, as though it explained everything.
Perhaps, for her, it did.
“So, Canterlot is where you all met?” Blake asked.
“Yep!” Pinkie exclaimed. “It’s where we all met and became best friends!”
“Did you?” Blake asked. “Really?”
They all looked at her. “What do you mean by that, sugarcube?” Applejack asked, earnestly puzzled.
Blake glanced down at the table. “I thought… when I first met Rainbow Dash, I thought… I thought that there was no way that a group of humans could be friends with a faunus like this… now… I have to say you don’t seem to have very much in common. How is it that you can all be friends? How is it that humans can be friends with a faunus, in Atlas of all places?”
“What difference should it make?” Fluttershy asked.
“We may not share every interest, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t share a bond that unites our hearts,” Twilight declared. “A true friend isn’t just someone who shares the same passions as you, but rather, someone who will support you in all of your endeavours, just as you’ll support them in theirs. A friend will always be there when you need them, and we’ll always be here for one another.”
Someone – Blake thought it was Pinkie Pie, but she couldn't be entirely sure – stamped on the floor with both feet. And again.
Rarity's fair face was creased by a slight frown. "Pinkie, dear?"
Pinkie smiled and stamped her feet again. A grin spread across Rainbow's face as she joined in.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Sunset muttered.
"What are you-?" Blake began, interrupted when Rarity, a soft smile playing across her features, clapped her hands together.
People in the restaurant were starting to turn to look at them as Rainbow, Pinkie, Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy all started stamping their feet on the ground and clapping their hands together in a percussive rhythm of stomp-clap-stomp-stomp-clap.
And then the five of them started to sing.
Hey! Hey! Everybody!
We've got something to say!
"Are they really doing this?" Blake murmured to Sunset.
We may seem as different,
As the night is from day,
"Yes, they are absolutely doing this," Sunset replied.
But you look a little deeper,
And you will see,
That I'm just like you,
And you're just like me, yeah!
The five of them leapt to their feet, sending their chairs flying back behind them.
Hey! Hey! Everybody!
We're here to shout,
That the magic of friendship,
Is what it's all about,
Yeah, we thought we were different,
As the night is from the day,
Until Twilight Sparkle,
Helped us see another way!
So get up, get down,
If you're gonna come around,
We can work together,
Helping Twilight win the crown.
"What crown?" Blake whispered to Sunset.
"Princess of the Fall Formal back in Canterlot," Sunset replied.
"You mean they've done this before?"
"Yes."
"Generous, honesty," Rarity trilled.
"Laughter, kindness, loyalty," sang Applejack.
Fluttershy took up the line, "Twilight helped us each to see."
And Rainbow finished with, "All that we can be."
So get up, get down,
Blake watched. It was one of the strangest things that she had ever seen, five more or less grown young women bursting into spontaneous musical number in the middle of a restaurant… but at the same time, it was kind of fun, too. She found herself tapping her foot along to the rhythm.
Even Sunset looked as though she was trying to keep the smile off her face.
So get up, get down,
Cause it's gonna make a sound,
If we work together,
Helping Twilight Sparkle,
Win the crown!
Rainbow and Rarity each took one of Twilight's hands in theirs, supporting her as she climbed up onto the table. Her friends fell silent as Twilight's voice emerged clear as a bell.
I'm gonna be myself,
No matter what I do,
And if you're different, yeah,
Want you to be true to you!
Blake gave in to her desire to smile. It might be odd. It might be outside of her lived experience. And they might be humans while Rainbow Dash was a faunus, and they might not even seem to have very much in common… but as she watched, Blake could only think that it must take a real bond to do something like this in a public place without a trace of self-consciousness visible from any of them.
Weirdly, as they sang, Blake found it was almost as if she could hear music.
When they were done, Twilight still standing on the table as the number finished, the entire restaurant erupted in applause.
"I should hire you girls to be the in-house entertainment," Benni said. "Because that was something else."
Blake ended up spending the rest of the day with the Spectacular Six, or with five of them at least, as Pinkie took over the kitchenette near the RSPT dorm room. Rarity dragged her aside – and Weiss too – to measure them both up for dresses, and the fact that Blake hadn't asked her to do this didn't seem to make much difference to Rarity, one way or the other. Blake watched in mildly horrified amazement as Rainbow Dash strapped on her wings, picked Scootaloo up in her arms, and took her flying through the skies above Beacon; yes, she wasn't flying particularly high, but still. She listened to their stories about Canterlot, about camping in the Everfree Forest, about Pinkie's parties and Rarity's boyfriend troubles and back-breaking work on Applejack's family farm; and as Blake listened, a great calm settled over her, descending like a blanket draped over her shoulders. The question of the White Fang, their activities in Vale, Adam's plans and murderous ambitions… for a little while, they all melted away, driven off by ordinary happiness and the panoply of ordinary lives well lived. It was as if they could disappear.
Of course it was not so; they remained out there, scheming, plotting… but for a little while, Blake could pretend that they did not, and Rainbow's friends made it very easy to do so, to put those particular fears and worries aside, to let them be the problems of another day.
And that night, as the broken moon rose above their heads and the stars shone and the green lights of the tower gleamed so brightly, Pinkie produced a spread such as Blake would never have guessed could be produced from the small kitchenettes that Beacon provided: cookies, cupcakes, angel cakes, large fudge cakes, a great variety of apple treats, more food, surely, than they could eat.
Which was why it was probably a good thing that it was not just for them; as Pinkie laid out the spread upon a large red and white chequered blanket, they were joined by Weiss and Flash, by Lyra and Bon Bon, and by Ruby, Jaune, and Pyrrha, all of them gathering around as the sounds of laughter filled the air and drifted up towards the skies through which the shooting stars would fly.
"You have lovely friends," Blake murmured as she leaned against a tree a little way off from the main gathering.
Rainbow was there too, resting her shoulder against the tree trunk as the leaves rustled above them. She folded her arms. "Yeah," she agreed. "They're the best. I'd…" She smiled briefly, and shook her head. "I'm so blessed," she said, instead of whatever it was she'd been about to say earlier.
"I can see that now," Blake said, her voice soft and quiet. "They really do care about you. I wouldn't have believed it, I didn't, but… so it really is possible." She bowed her head. "I'm sorry," she said. "I was out of line, and I was a complete jerk, and… I'd understand if you didn't want anything to do with me ever again."
"Yeah, you were out of line," Rainbow agreed, "but I get why you did it, better now than I did when I thought you were… someone else. You were trying to help me out; you were just doing it really, really badly." She grinned. "But now… now I want to help you out a little too."
Blake looked at her. "Help me out how?"
"You wanted to show me that Atlas were the bad guys, right?" Rainbow said. "You wanted to show me that my friends didn't care, that they were faking it, that they were… I don't know, am I getting warm to what was going through your head?"
"Yes," Blake admitted. "I didn't want you to turn out like Ilia. I wanted to… to rescue you before it reached that point."
Rainbow snorted. "Because Atlas is the big bad guy keeping us down, and every Atlesian hates the faunus, and no human who claimed to care about me ever could, and one day, I was going to figure that out and snap, right?"
"Well when you put it like that it sounds ridiculous," Blake muttered.
"That's 'cause it kinda is," Rainbow told her. "We're not the bad guys, Blake. Not my friends, not Atlas. Sure, we fight the White Fang, but it's not because Atlas hates the faunus; it's because the White Fang keeps trying to kill people and blow things up!" Rainbow paused. "It's like Twilight's sister-in-law Cadance said when she got elected to the Council… let's see if I can actually remember this: 'let every people know, whether they wish us well or… or not, or something like that, something that means or not, whether they wish us well or not, that we will go anyplace, support any friend, oppose any foe, bear any burden, pay any price to… to ensure, insure, assure, something –sure the survival and the success of liberty.' That's what Atlas is all about, that's what we are. That's what I'm fighting for. That's what we're all fighting for. That… and those girls over there."
The corners of Blake's lips twitched upwards. "Bakers, would-be dressmakers, and girls who love animals?"
"What's more important than that?" Rainbow asked. "We can wipe out the White Fang tomorrow, we can kill all the grimm we like, and it doesn't matter if people like that can't live their lives with smiles on their faces."
Blake nodded. "When… when I was in the White Fang," she said, "all I wanted was for our people to be able to smile too."
"And they will," Rainbow promised. "But not that way."
"Hey, you two," Twilight called as she wandered over to them. "Come on, the party's over there, and the shooting stars are about to arrive."
Rainbow smiled. "I wouldn't want to miss that."
Blake followed her over, and they rejoined the crowd. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were both perched on the shoulders of their older sisters; Rainbow moved to the front, with Scootaloo standing between her and Fluttershy, looking up eagerly. Pyrrha wrapped her hands around Jaune's arm and leaned against him. Twilight picked Spike up off the ground and cradled him in her arms.
"Hey, Ruby, do you want me to give you a boost?" Sunset asked with a trace of laughter in her voice.
"I'm not that small!" Ruby protested.
"Here they come," Twilight whispered.
Blake looked up, and her golden eyes widened as a host of shooting stars began to blaze across the sky, in ones and twos and in great companies, blazing white trails flashing across the black shroud of night as they raced across Remnant. They had come from afar, and so many leagues lay ahead of them on their journey, but for now, they blazed, bright and brilliant and beautiful.
Just like us, Blake thought. Beacon is not the place where we began, nor is it where we will end… but it is where we blaze, for now.
"Everybody, make a wish!" Rainbow called.
"But don't tell anybody, or it won't come true!" Pinkie added.
I wish… I wish… Blake wished, as the shooting stars flashed overhead. I wish for peace.
The shooting stars rushed on, carrying the wishes, the hopes and dreams for the future away into that same uncertain, ineffable future. Their time was short, and they would be gone soon, just as their time at Beacon would soon be over and it would be their turn to depart into a future filled with uncertainty.
But not yet.
For now, they shone.
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Ahh...best MLP song and fond memories with it, very happy it made an appearance. other than just a wholesome chapter, wish there had been more interaction between characters, but overall great job
Heh, thought there would be more interacting with Sunset, like her apologising and explaining herself to the girls. Almost nothing. And speking about them they never figured out that Anon-a-Miss thing, right?
There's nothing wrong with this line itself, but it was placed after Rarity's introduction, which is....not correct. AJ specifically mentions her gun and dog later in the chapter and well....they're her gun and dog, not Rarity's. Rarity isn't a Huntress while AJ is.
10493022
If there was an Anon-a-miss, that only happened after sunset reformation, and after the sirens, when every body accepted sunset, so unless there was an Anon-a-miss in beacon, I don't belevie there will be one in the story, not at this point, but it may be possible in the future, but only when sunset returns to atlas, and it would have to be a very intelligent one, not a bunch of little girls.
Just remember Rainbow Dash, you are indeed blessed to have the greatest friends in Atlas. Just please don't forget how true that statement is. Very few are as blessed as you.
Anyway, this chapter was absolutely beautiful! So heartwarming and wholesome! Thank you so much! In fact, the only thing you forgot to do was have Pinkie Pie comment that "we're having so much more fun together in the rewrite!"
10493022
I thought there'd be more about how Rainbow tried to murder Blake and less about Rainbow being upset Blake was kinda rude.
10493272
This is from the chapter "New Friends, Old Rivals". So apparently Anon a miss did happen at Canterlot.
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I'm sure that Rainbow Dash will get that tongue lashing as soon as the General arrives in Vale.
It worth noting that Dash just found the right humans. She lucked out with the Girls and so with Ironwood. Her friends (and contacts) made her life in Atlas easier. For Faunus like Gilda and Ilia in a City where racism runs deep and sometimes extreme and without Rainbow's suport it must had been a nightmare. Fact that Dash often forgets or understate. It doesnt't excuse their actions but Dash could show some consideration. Look at Sunset, she had episodes where she had been locked just for being a faunus in the place. Even not always that. She at least had Ceestia to bail her out but not much more.
The whole gang of the former ,uh, classmates came to Beacon today. It's a small world for Sunset I guess. Yeah, I thought their visit would create more drama..
So wait, Yang and her team weren't invited... that's surprising
something seems a bit wrong here
there we go, canon accurate.
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To add on to that, none of the Six have anything in common, or any reason in particular to be together. Blake made good points.
A few chapters back, Princess Twilight and Sunset were discussing the nature of the parallel worlds.
To anyone outside of Canterlot, the friendship they share is pretty much unnatural. Are they only friends because their counterparts are? Are the Ponies just friends because the Remnant group is? Is there some Faustian power that's drawing them together?
... Just don't think about it, I guess.
Ooh… I despised that song. Me problem! But ooooh.
I will have to say, this was very sweet, but i pray this doesn’t take away from the arc where Blake and Sunset visit Equestria, as that is literally one of my favorite chapters.
What? Not a Nora and Pinkie interaction whatsoever? What a missed opportunity lol
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Be patient bro, this is still their first day coming to Beacon and there is still more days before they go back home
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He says, nearly 3 months later
Eugh. Tonal whiplash. You have to adapt things, man. You can't just throw stuff from one world to another and pretend that it works. You should blend, not stitch things together.
The is a bit of adaptation to characters, but this song is just raw oof.