Anon-a-Miss Strikes Back (New)
Anon-a-Miss Strikes Back
Sunset and Cinder hadn’t gone to the skydock; for what they were about to do – for what Cinder was about to do for Sunset – it was best not to go to the school library or the CCT Tower where someone who knew them both might stumble across them and spot what they were doing.
No, heading back into Vale, they had dived through the streets and stalked along the boulevards until they found a modest public library, occupying one wing of a brick-built leisure centre that also boasted a swimming pool. While Cinder lingered outside, making a call on her scroll, Sunset dived in, grabbed a book at random from one of the nearby shelves, and grabbed a computer terminal, ignoring the glare that the pinch-faced librarian was giving her as she waited for Cinder to come in. Sunset’s gaze flickered up to the window, out of which she could see Cinder talking on her scroll before flickering down to the book that chance had led her to.
It was a work of science fiction, some kind of media tie-in to something, about soldiers fighting in outer space; these particular soldiers appeared to have lost their planet somehow, and so they wandered from battle to battle like ghosts with no home to return to. It wasn’t high art, by any means, but the pages were quite turnable as Sunset waited for her companion to join her.
Soon enough, Cinder swept into the library, a slight smile playing upon her face. “Perhaps when we’re done here, we can go swimming?” she suggested.
“Another time, maybe; I don’t have my suit with me,” Sunset replied.
“Yes, that is probably a bit of an obstacle,” Cinder conceded, as she sat down in front of the terminal. “Found something good to read?”
“It’s alright; I don’t know about good,” Sunset said, putting the book to one side on the table before them. “So, what happens now?”
“Now, you watch,” Cinder said, plugging her scroll into a socket on the right of the terminal, “while the magic happens.” She grinned and got to work.
Sunset recognised some of what she was doing; despite having come to Remnant from a world where computers were far, far less ubiquitous than they were here, she was not unfamiliar with them and the way they worked. When she first arrived in Remnant, Sunset had been fascinated by the technology that humans used to make their lives easier in place of the magic that ponies used to accomplish the same goal: the heating grids that allowed Atlas to manipulate the weather in absence of any pegasi, the airships that let them fly, the chemicals in which they drenched the soil and the machines that cultivated their crops. And, of course, the ways in which their technology had surpassed the magic of Equestria by being available to more than just a select few: the equivalent of Sunset’s magic journal that everyone in Remnant carried around in their pocket. She had been fascinated, and in her fascination, she had sought to learn the secrets of these wonders. And, although she couldn’t have described in detail how a combine harvester worked or all the systems in a skyliner, she did know a bit about scrolls and computers and the CCT. She knew enough to have an idea of what Cinder was doing – she could tell that she was using her scroll to form a passive connection to Bon Bon’s scroll, which connection she was attempting to exploit for backdoor access – but at the same time, she couldn’t really follow how Cinder was doing it because she was doing it all so fast. Her fingers, lithe and nimble, skittered lightly across the keyboard, tapping lightly from button to button, silent as they passed through the holographic simulacra of keys.
Letters and numbers appeared on the screen, forming lines that briefly flickered before disappearing as Cinder hit the ‘enter’ key, or at least the image of the same. She didn’t say anything while she worked; she ignored Sunset completely. For her part, Sunset didn’t try and interrupt Cinder; she let the other girl work at her own pace.
However, she couldn’t help but notice that, as she worked, Cinder was starting to look a little concerned; the easy smile had disappeared from her face, and her smooth forehead was creased by a frown.
At some little length, she spoke, her voice smooth and calmer than her frown might suggest. “Now isn’t this interesting?”
Sunset leaned in a little to get a better view of the screen. There was a lot of code visible, and she would have had to spend some time working out what it all meant. It was easier to just ask, “What?”
“I can’t get access,” Cinder explained. “Bon Bon is using some very high quality firewalls to prevent access to her device.”
Sunset’s eyebrows rose. “Better quality than most scrolls?”
Cinder chuckled. “I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, Sunset, that security on school scrolls is really rather laughable.”
“Well, this is my first time trying to gain access to another student’s scroll,” Sunset pointed out. “Do I want to know how you know that?”
“I know that because I checked,” Cinder said quickly, “and fortified my own scroll so that my secrets would stay, well, secret. I advise you to do the same if you haven’t already.”
“A little paranoid, don’t you think?”
“Says the girl who wants to hack into another student’s scroll and use the information contained therein against them.”
“Good point,” Sunset muttered and made a mental note to do something about the security of her own device when they were done here. “So, Bon Bon has protected her scroll. You can’t break it?”
“Not if I don’t want her to know what I’m doing,” Cinder replied. “Which I would rather keep between us, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Oh, believe me, I agree with you one hundred percent,” Sunset said. “I’m surprised that she had the wherewithal to think of something like that… but I’m surprised she had the guts to do what she did to my door as well.” She frowned. “If she’s that smart, why didn’t she hack our scrolls if she wanted to screw with Blake?”
“Perhaps she wanted to make a public statement?” Cinder suggested.
“I aim to make a pretty public statement with hacking,” Sunset said. “If that’s possible.”
“Hmm,” Cinder murmured. “I’m afraid that Plan A might not be workable under the current circumstances. However…”
Sunset waited for her to continue. She did not. “However… what?”
Cinder leaned back in her chair. “It’s hardly for me to say, is it? This is your revenge, after all, not mine.”
“You’re the one doing the work.”
“For you,” Cinder reminded her. “It isn’t for me to decide how to go about it. You direct; mine are simply the hands guided by your mind.”
Sunset snorted. “Okay, if that’s how you want to play it.” She bowed her head just a little, her ears descending into her mass of fiery hair. She cupped her chin with her fingers and pondered for a moment. If she couldn’t get access to Bon Bon’s device, then how to make her pay? It was possible that all plans built around electronic warfare were similar busts, and she would have to find a completely new approach, but Sunset was loath to give up so easily.
Of course, there are other ways to hurt someone than with their own secrets, as Anon-a-Miss taught me very well.
Anon-a-Miss…
“What about Lyra’s scroll?” Sunset asked. “Can you get in there, or has Bon Bon protected that as well?”
“Lyra…”
“Heartstrings,” Sunset clarified. “Lyra Heartstrings.”
“A friend of hers.”
“Yeah,” Sunset said. “Can you do it?”
“Give me one second,” Cinder said, her fingers flying across the holographic interface. Sunset once more fell silent, letting her work, but she noticed that there was none of the growing consternation in Cinder’s look that had preceded her announcement of her failure to breach Bon Bon’s defences. Instead, she seemed perfectly at ease before she announced, “I’m in.”
Sunset smirked, shaking her head sadly. Bon Bon, Bon Bon, Bon Bon; that was very naïve of you, wasn’t it?
“So?” Cinder asked. “What now?”
“Now,” Sunset said, “how about you let me drive for a little bit?”
Cinder pushed her chair away. “Be my guest,” she purred.
Sunset pulled her chair forwards, until she was sitting right in front of the screen. She took a moment to silently familiarise herself with what she was seeing on the screen in front of her. She was a little rusty with some of this stuff, but it swiftly came back to her.
She cracked her knuckles. “Okay, Miss Heartstrings,” she whispered, more to herself than to Cinder, “let’s see what you’ve been hiding.”
Cinder’s fingers had thumbed through the holographic display representing the different ‘keys’ on the board; Sunset’s fingers danced over them, a little more slowly but with more deftness, barely ‘touching’ the light and yet still controlling the flow of data as she sifted through all the details of Lyra Heartstrings’ life that stood revealed to her.
What is it that you believe in, Lyra? That there is another world populated by – okay, let’s leave that be for now and find something that won’t affect my life so much to share with the class.
Actually, let’s stick a pin in the main reason why I’m here and find out how in Remnant you found out about Equestria.
“Is everything alright?”
“Of course,” Sunset replied. “Why wouldn’t everything be fine?”
“Because your ears have flattened,” Cinder observed.
Sunset looked pointlessly upwards, even though she couldn’t see her ears and had never been able to do so. “Well,” she said, trying to force them back up again, “that’s because they’re a little tired, that’s all.”
Cinder stared at her flatly. “Your ears are tired?”
Sunset looked at her. “Do you really want to have a conversation about honesty after what just happened with you?”
“Ah, touché,” Cinder replied, smirking a little. “Please, continue with whatever it is that is not concerning you.”
“Thank you,” Sunset said firmly, diving a little further into Lyra’s ill-informed speculation about the existence of a magical other world that just so happened to be accurate.
What she found was a melange of just about every nonsense going – plus the one thing that was true. Lyra, it transpired, believed in just about everything: parallel universes, giant alien robots, magical horses. Apparently, the last belief originated with a woman named Megan Williams, a farmer from Canterlot in the old kingdom of Mantle days before the Great War, who claimed to have visited the magical land of Equestria and helped the inhabitants there, the ponies and the princess who ruled them, to defeat a great evil. Sunset was rather sceptical about that; she had never heard of this Meghan Williams as she surely would have done if she had become a hero of Equestria, but she could believe the part about travelling through the mirror. It couldn’t be closed from the Equestrian side, after all, and there was nothing stopping anyone from blundering through it except the fact that most normal people didn’t try to run into the plinths of statues.
It appeared that, for whatever reason, Ms. Williams had played coy about the location of the portal that she had used to reach Equestria, which was the subject of much speculation by the handful of believers who had taken her words to heart. Lyra herself had-
“Oh, wow,” Sunset said, a grin splitting her face. “Oh, wow.”
Cinder leaned forward. “Something interesting?”
“When Lyra was thirteen,” Sunset said, “she was arrested trying to break into the Atlesian R&D test bed at Crystal City because she thought they were hiding portals to other worlds there, along with the existence of aliens.”
Cinder’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”
“Really,” Sunset repeated. “Her scroll is full of notes about what went wrong and how she can do better next time.”
“She’s planning a next time?”
“Apparently,” Sunset replied. “She’s a true believer, after all; she won’t rest until the truth comes to light.”
Cinder chuckled. “'The truth'? And what truth is that?”
Sunset shrugged. “That we’re not alone amongst the stars, that there copies of our own world, filled with versions of ourselves that are not quite the same as us as close as a touch and as far away as the moon.”
“Well, isn’t that an idea,” Cinder murmured. “That would be… quite something, wouldn’t you say?”
“It would be something; I’m not sure that it would be something good,” Sunset muttered. “Imagine if you met the other you, and they were more successful than you are?”
Cinder thought about that for a moment. “I’d have to kill them,” she declared.
“You might not be able to, if they were better than you,” Sunset pointed out.
“You make an excellent point; it sounds positively dystopian,” Cinder conceded. “Although…”
“Although?”
“Surely you can’t deny that there’s a certain fascinating appeal to the idea of being able to see the road not taken?” Cinder asked. “Assuming for a moment that we didn’t have to interact with any other versions of us who might not be able to resist the urge to gloat, if we could just see what our other selves could have done or been if they’d made different choices.”
“I wouldn’t want to know,” Sunset declared.
“Really? Not even a little curious?”
“Why should I care? It’s not my life,” Sunset replied. “My life is the one I’m living, the one affected by my choices. Any choices that I didn’t make aren’t mine any more; they belong to someone else.” The unicorn who had remained in some other Equestria, a dutiful student of Princess Celestia, might yet bear the name of Sunset Shimmer, but she wasn’t her.
Not least because she suspected it would make her jealous.
Cinder shrugged. “Evidently, this Lyra doesn’t share your views upon the matter.”
“Judging by this, Lyra’s a sucker for just about any story that gets told to her,” Sunset said.
“I can’t say I’m too surprised,” Cinder observed.
“You don’t even know her.”
“I know the kind of person who trains to become a huntsman or huntress,” Cinder said. “Would-be heroes, people looking for a story to tell that will put them at the centre of great, world-shattering events, people hoping that the road ahead will give meaning to their lives, people who so desperately want for their choices to matter.”
“I hope you’re including yourself in this assessment,” Sunset said sharply. “Because as things stand, you sound a moment away from calling us all pathetic.”
“Oh, perish the thought,” Cinder murmured. “No, indeed, I’m no different… except, perhaps, in the scope of my ambitions. Trust me, I have no less desire to leave my mark upon the world than anyone here, and more than some. My point is simply that those who choose this path often have a certain way of thinking; it doesn’t surprise me that they are susceptible to believing certain things, especially if they think that they might attain greatness by revealing those things: uncovering the truth, toppling the conspiracy that has kept the world in shadow, freeing us all from the shackles of our ignorance.” She laughed, covering her mouth with one hand.
Sunset’s eyebrows rose in silent question.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Cinder assured her. “It’s just… oh, poor girl, imagining that those are the dark secrets hiding in the shadows of the world.”
“You think they are… more prosaic than that?” Sunset said softly.
“I think if there is a conspiracy, it’s not hiding the existence of aliens,” Cinder declared.
Sunset’s brow furrowed. “I…” She hesitated, unsure of whether or not she ought to trust Cinder with this. “I know what you mean,” she said lamely, a neutral statement if ever there was one, but one that gave away no one’s secrets.
Cinder cocked her head a little to one side. “About what?”
“A lot of things,” Sunset said. “But… let me ask you something: do you believe in something like that? Not parallel worlds or alien life, but something… something dark, maybe, something that other people might find hard to credit.”
Cinder’s face was impassive. “Are you trying to tell me something, Sunset?”
“Maybe.”
“Go on then, tell me something,” Cinder urged. “What do you believe in?”
“I don’t know yet. I just know that I believe in something,” Sunset muttered. She hesitated. “I… I don’t trust Professor Ozpin.” That was about the limit of what she felt able to tell Cinder, and strangely, she thought that Cinder might be more receptive to it than any of her other friends, if only because Cinder was a Haven student.
Not that that would necessarily prevent her from being blinded by the reputation of the headmaster of Beacon.
Cinder stared into Sunset’s eyes for a moment. “I think you might be right to distrust him.”
“You do?” Sunset asked, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice. “Why?”
Cinder chuckled. “You’re astonished that I agree with you?”
“I’m curious why you agree with me,” Sunset said. She couldn’t help but add, “No one else does.”
“I’m not most people,” Cinder replied. “Like you, I have a bad feeling about that man. They say he has favourites: not every year, but some years, teams that he takes especial interest in. Team Coffee believe that they are among that number, but I’m not so sure. I think it’s Team Sapphire, and I’m not the only one who sees it that way, especially after your mission – your unsupervised mission. You haven’t heard it, but you’re the talk of the school.” She smiled, if only for a moment. “I worry for you. History shows that the old man’s favourites have a high mortality rate.”
“I know,” Sunset agreed. “It worries me too. I just don’t know what to do about it.”
“Keep your eyes open,” Cinder urged. “Keep your mind sharp. Make the smart choices when the time comes.” She grinned. “And in the meantime, take your revenge. What are you actually going to do, by the way, now that you know the truth about Lyra Heartstrings and her idiosyncratic beliefs?”
Sunset pursed her lips, allowing herself to be distracted away from the question of Professor Ozpin and other pastures that offered up a little more scope for action.
"When I was in my third year at Canterlot," she said, "and Rainbow Dash was in her fourth year, a lot of embarrassing little secrets started coming to light; someone going by the name Anon-a-Miss started sharing them across the school."
"And that was you?" Cinder asked.
"No," Sunset said firmly. "Of course, everyone thought it was me; Sunset Shimmer, up to her old tricks again. Sunset Shimmer, won't she ever learn? Sunset Shimmer, what's her problem?" Sunset Shimmer, what can you expect from a faunus? Sunset scowled. Even Flash had believed it was her, or affected too. He had left her around that time; her popularity had been plumbing new depths as a result of the false accusations made against her, and she wasn't worth the trouble to him anymore. "Eventually, the leaks stopped – and I never did find out who it was – but the damage was done by then. Everyone – and I mean everyone – believed that I'd set out to humiliate them all… and to be honest, I kind of wish I had sometimes. If they all believed that it was me, then perhaps-"
"Perhaps you should have been the monster they all thought you were," Cinder murmured. "A position that is not unreasonable."
"Stupid all the same," Sunset muttered.
"Not so stupid," Cinder replied. "After all, you're going to become that person now, aren't you?"
Sunset hesitated for a moment. A slow smile spread across her features. "It has… a certain appeal, don't you think? Taking the name they used to smear me and making it my own." She didn't know what, exactly, had inspired Bon Bon to trespass against her like this, or rather, she knew what had inspired it, but she didn't know what had made the other girl think that she could get away with it. Perhaps she thought that Sunset Shimmer had gone soft, rendered nice and cuddly by the friendship of nice and cuddly people until her claws had been quite filed down. Perhaps she thought that, after two times of it blowing up in her face, Sunset wouldn't have the nerve – or would have too much sense – to come back to the well a third time. But this wasn't Canterlot, and there was more at stake here than Sunset's ego or her desire for acclamation or even her jealousy of Rainbow and Twilight. Bon Bon had trespassed against Sunset, she had offended against Blake, and Sunset wasn't about to stand for that.
So she would do the thing that she had been accused of long ago, and Bon Bon would be reminded to know her place and keep her mouth shut.
"Oh, yes," Cinder purred. "It's positively delicious."
Sunset chuckled. "Get ready, Lyra," she said softly. "You're about to get exposed by Anon-a-Miss."
Rainbow stared down at her scroll, then snapped it shut hard.
Anon-a-Miss. Great. Just great.
Twilight's gaze flickered down to her own scroll, then back up to Rainbow Dash. "What do you think?"
"You're the genius; you tell me what you think," Rainbow replied. "Is it even possible to have a parallel universe?"
Twilight's eyes narrowed. "That's not what I meant."
"I know, but I'd rather listen to you geek out about science than talk about this."
"Considering how bored you get listening to me talk about science, that says a lot," Twilight replied.
"I do not get bored listening to you."
"When I tried to describe the principles of your Wings of Harmony to you, you fell asleep!" Twilight reminded her.
Rainbow shifted uncomfortably. "Only the first time," she muttered defensively. "And that was because… I was really tired."
"Uh huh," Twilight said flatly. She waved her scroll. "What do you really think?"
Rainbow took a moment to think it over. She and Twilight were in the RSPT dorm room, standing by their beds; Penny and Ciel had gotten the message from Anon-a-Miss too – everyone had – but since neither of them had any history with it, Rainbow had left Ciel supervising Penny in the library while she and Twilight came back to the dorm to talk over the implications. "She told me that she didn't do it."
"At Canterlot?"
Rainbow nodded. "When we first got to Vale, when Penny met Ruby and Pyrrha, when Sunset eventually caught up with this at the arcade, she was terrified that I would tell her teammates about the stunts she pulled at Canterlot. She told me that she wasn't behind Anon-a-Miss."
Twilight nodded her head a little. "I must admit… I never bothered to chase down the source of the leaks the way I did when Sunset started sending us all of those messages. I just assumed, since she'd been responsible before… that feels like an oversight on my part now."
Rainbow waved that away. "That was years ago, Twilight, ancient history. We all assumed that Sunset was the one behind it; you can't blame yourself."
"Can't I?" Twilight asked. "Maybe I should. Maybe we should. Those accusations, the presumption of guilt… they ruined Sunset's life-"
"They ruined two years of Combat School, tops," Rainbow corrected. "Sunset's a team leader, she has great friends, and she's a top student; in what sense has her life been ruined?"
"She doesn't have Flash anymore," Twilight pointed out.
"Nobody ruined that relationship but Sunset," Rainbow insisted. "Just like nobody is stopping Sunset getting over it but Sunset. These things happen, we deal with it, and we keep moving forward. Like Sunset has… mostly. I don't think even she'd say that Anon-a-Miss ruined her life anymore."
"But you believe that it wasn't her?" Twilight asked. "At Canterlot, I mean?"
Rainbow shrugged. "It wasn't like she denied everything that she did. Just that one thing. I guess I don't see the point unless it was true."
"And now?"
"Oh, it's definitely Sunset now," Rainbow declared. "Who'd know about Anon-a-Miss except someone who was at Canterlot at that time?"
"Coincidence?" Twilight suggested.
"The General says there are no such things as coincidences, only connections you haven't made yet," Rainbow said. "It wasn't you, it wasn't me, Lyra wouldn't do this to herself, and Bon Bon wouldn't do it to her. So who does that leave? Flash? Ditzy? They're not the kind of people to do something like that."
"Trixie might," Twilight said quietly.
Rainbow had to nod her head at that. Trixie Lulamoon was a more or less amiable blowhard, but she could have a vindictive streak a mile wide if you crossed her. She'd held a grudge for an entire year after Twilight had beaten her in the talent contest, although nobody had known it until nine months later when Twilight's locker had exploded in her face and Trixie had popped out of hiding to yell 'Now we're even, Twilight Sparkle!' "Okay, maybe she would do it, maybe she even did it the last time, but why now, and to Lyra?"
"Why would Sunset do this to Lyra?" Twilight responded.
"Because Team Bluebell kicked Blake out?" Rainbow suggested. "Because they didn't stand by her?"
"Do you think it bothers her that much?"
Rainbow shrugged. "I don't know; she likes Blake."
"I know, but…" Twilight trailed off for a moment. "Let's not rush to judgement about this, okay? If what Sunset said in the arcade is true, then we already tarred her with the brush of false accusation once; I'd rather not put her through that again."
"Lyra might not keep her mouth shut," Rainbow said.
"No," Twilight agreed. "But even if it's only for the sake of our own consciences, I think we should."
Rainbow nodded. "Okay, you're right," she said. "We don't know that Sunset has done this, and for what it's worth, I believe she didn't do it the last time. But I'm going to go talk to her."
"What for?"
"To ask her if she did it," Rainbow said. "She told me the truth before; maybe she'll tell me again now. And maybe she'll even tell me why."
Rainbow Dash was waiting for them on the docking pad when they got off the Skybus, her arms folded and her expression verging upon a scowl.
“We need to talk,” she said bluntly, glowering at Sunset ever so slightly.
Cinder smirked. “So stern.”
Rainbow’s cerise eyes flickered momentarily towards her. “Who are you again?”
Cinder’s whole body stiffened. Her eyes widened momentarily. When she spoke again, her voice had lost all playfulness, and her words came in short, sharp snaps. “No one worthy of the notice of the Ace of Canterlot, it seems.” She took a step forward, glancing at Sunset. “I’ll leave you to it,” she hissed before stalking away down the path towards the school.
“Thank you,” Sunset said quietly. “For… all your help today.”
Cinder stopped, silent, her back to Sunset. “Anytime,” she said, her voice only softening a little. She resumed her course, her glass slippers clinking.
Sunset watched her retreating back for a moment as she grew smaller and smaller in Sunset’s sight. “It’s Cinder, by the way. Cinder Fall, you’ve met her before.”
“Right,” Rainbow said, her tone neutral. “Like I said, we need to talk.”
“What about?”
“Don’t be cute,” Rainbow snapped. “You know what.”
Sunset sidestepped around Rainbow Dash, forcing the Atlesian to follow her back towards the school. “Assume that I don’t.”
“No,” Rainbow said firmly. “I’m not going to play games with you; you know what we need to talk about.” She paused. “I thought you’d changed. I thought you were different.”
“I have changed,” Sunset insisted. “I am different.”
“Yeah, you weren’t Anon-a-Miss before, according to you-”
“I told you that I wasn’t Anon-a-Miss, and I meant it!”
“But you are now, aren’t you?” Rainbow demanded, stopping walking and squaring up to Sunset.
Sunset stopped too, thrusting her hands into the pockets of her jacket. Her tail swished behind her. She scuffed the toe of one boot upon the ground. The sun was setting, and their shadows were lengthening “Yeah.”
Rainbow shook her head. “What the hell, Sunset? I thought-”
“I’m not the same person that I was!”
“No, you’re doing the things that you didn’t do before!”
“Get off my back for a second,” Sunset snapped. “I’m not doing this because I want to be Fall Formal Princess or because I need it to be on top or any of the other stupid reasons I did what I did back in Canterlot. Do you think I’m threatened by Lyra Heartstrings? Do you think I feel the need to bring her down for the sake of recognition? I’m the leader of Team Sapphire, for crying out loud, the world has its eyes on us, and who is she? Who’s Team Bluebell?” She took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling. “This was for Blake. This was for my friend. That’s how I’ve changed, that’s how I’m different.”
Rainbow frowned. “What does this have to do with Blake? Is this about the team? Are you going to go after each of them in turn?”
“I probably should; they deserve it,” Sunset replied. “But no. Bon Bon is the one who put that White Fang symbol on our door while we were away. She insulted Blake, she insulted my team, she insulted me, and she has to pay for it. For Blake’s sake.”
Rainbow blinked rapidly. “Bon Bon? Are you sure? Bon Bon?”
“That’s what I just said.”
“Why would she even… are you sure? How do you know?”
“Cinder told me.”
“Okay, how does Cinder know?”
“I trust her,” Sunset said. “I believe her.”
“But Bon Bon?” Rainbow said. “She never… why?”
“Why wouldn’t she take Blake back?” Sunset demanded.
“I don’t know,” Rainbow admitted. “She never had a problem with me.”
“Or she didn’t dare show it because you were the pride of the school,” Sunset suggested.
“Did she ever give you a hard time?”
“Everyone gave me a hard time,” Sunset reminded her.
“Right,” Rainbow muttered. “But even if it was Bon Bon, why go after Lyra?”
“The security on Bon Bon’s scroll was too tight; I couldn’t get in.”
“What’s Bon Bon doing with beefed up security on her scroll?”
“I don’t know, although I am a little curious to find out.”
“That’s not the point,” Rainbow said quickly. “The point is that you couldn’t get into Bon Bon’s scroll, so you decided to go after Lyra instead?”
Sunset shrugged. “They’re close; it will hurt Bon Bon to see Lyra upset.”
“Come on, Sunset, surely you can see how not cool that is!” Rainbow snapped. “Lyra didn’t do anything, to you or Blake; did you even ask Blake what she thought about all this before you did it?”
“No, why should I?”
“Because I’m pretty sure that she wouldn’t want this,” Rainbow growled.
“Blake doesn’t know what she wants, and what she wants isn’t always what’s best for her.”
“Oh, but you know what’s best for her, do you? And what’s best for Blake is humiliating someone who didn’t do anything to her. You know that, right?”
Sunset pouted. “Are you going to tell her?”
“Maybe I should,” Rainbow muttered. “But no. I’m not going to tell anyone. Anyone else who was at Canterlot – including Lyra and Bon Bon – will know it was you, but I won’t agree with them and they can’t prove it. But this is it, Sunset; Anon-a-Miss retires again, and this time, she stays retired, right? If this is just the start of you trying to stir up something-”
“I told you, that’s not who I am any more,” Sunset said sharply. “That’s not what this was about.”
Rainbow looked into Sunset’s eyes. “And that’s why I won’t say anything. But if this is all… if this keeps up, then I’ll air all your dirty laundry to Ruby and Pyrrha and Jaune and see what they think of you then.”
Sunset swallowed. Her chest felt tight, and her stomach felt cold. “And if Lyra responds, or Bon Bon?”
“Then you brought it on yourself,” Rainbow said sharply. “What Bon Bon did wasn’t right, and if she makes a big deal out of it, I’ll try and persuade her to let it go, but… if you’ve changed, then you have to act like it.”
“You mean you want me to take it?” Sunset demanded. “You want Blake to take it?”
“We’re faunus; sometimes we’ve got no choice but to take it,” Rainbow hissed. “You know that better than I do.”
“When was the last time you took it, Rainbow Dash?” Sunset demanded.
Rainbow didn’t reply. She clenched her jaw and said nothing. She looked away, scratching the back of her head with one hand. “That… that’s fair enough, I guess,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t change the fact that Lyra’s innocent. If you have to get back at Bon Bon, then challenge her to a duel or something, kick her ass in the ring.”
“I can kick her ass in the ring any time I want; revenge ought to be something special.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” Rainbow snapped. “I’m serious, Sunset, no more. Unless you want me to think that you haven’t changed as much as I thought.”
Sunset hesitated. She didn’t want to give her word to Rainbow Dash on this, if only because she thought that she might not be able to keep it. She might not want to keep it. Like Rainbow said, those – like Lyra and Bon Bon – who had been at Canterlot would associate her with Anon-a-Miss; that was why she’d chosen the name, so that they would know it was her, even as they couldn’t prove it. If Bon Bon sought revenge for Sunset’s revenge, or if Lyra wanted payback, then she didn’t want to handcuff herself out of all freedom to respond.
But Rainbow still had the potential to make life difficult for her; even now. Ruby, Pyrrha, and Jaune might not initially believe the things that she had done – actually, Jaune probably wouldn’t have much trouble with it – but once Twilight showed them the proof… she still needed Rainbow Dash on her side.
“I saved Twilight’s life,” Sunset reminded her. “You said you owed me.”
“You really want to use that now?” Rainbow asked. “Over this?”
That was a very good point. There was no telling when having Rainbow in her debt might come in handy. “No,” she conceded. “I really did this for Blake, you know. This wasn’t about me. This was about… she didn’t deserve it.”
“I know,” Rainbow said. “Just like I know she wouldn’t want this.”
“Fine,” she said, because she didn’t have a lot of other choices. “This is the end of it.”
She just hoped that Bon Bon felt the same way.
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Lyra believes in magical ponies and sentient alien robots? That doesn’t surprise me, but she’s in for a quite a shock on both counts!
It still could have been painful. And if the school was as railed up like in the comic, some students might have even tried to take it out on her.
And that's the point. She keeps saying that she's not the same person and she just did the one thing she wasn't guilty of. So in a way she's proven people accusing her are right. And if people find out which would be easy since Bon and Lyra know about Anon-A-Miss then...
Oh c'mon. They know Sunset wasn't an angel and they even accept Blake who was a terrorist. They both think low of them. Heh, maybe Twilight should do the talking.
10660746
That's an excellent point. Rainbow Dash is doing everything she can to enlist a former terrorist into the Altas military, but this is where she draws the line with Sunset? And then she comes off all high and mighty telling Sunset not to air dirty laundry by threatening to air her dirty laundry? Talk about selective principles!
Seriously, do neither Rainbow Dash nor Twilight care that Lyra is plotting to break into restricted labs to steal state secrets of the Atlesian government they are so proud of?
10660798
I assume that familiarity is impacting a lot in their responses.
Rainbow doesn't notice that she is being a hypocrite with Sunset because her self awareness is 0, nothing new here, but she also has a personal distaste of Sunset and that gives her a much lower tolerance for everything she does. You can bet that if you exchanged Blake and Sunset names then Rainbow reactions would be quite different.
That also applies to Lyra. She is incompetent and harmless, at least in Twilight and Rainbow eyes, so they don't really care about her plotting because they don't think it will ever actually come to pass.
10660852
Oh, I agree completely! Especially since most of the Canterlot student body is now present at Beacon and the original Anon-a-miss could be any one of them. That's a lot of potential suspects. Even though Sunset was in fact responsible this time, I'm not happy with how Rainbow Dash immediately singled her out and leaped to conclusions enough to confront a person and make accusations to their face. This is the same hard lesson that Princess Twilight had to learn when she was trying to deter Starlight from making friends with Trixie.
As for Lyra, you don't just get shrugged off with a free pass like that. She's already been arrested by the military for breaking into one of their labs, and now she has been caught conspiring to do it again, including possession of extensive notes and designs of how she will do it. That's a violation of probation. No matter what, Lyra will have to be given a firm warning from General Ironwood. This sort of thing is what gets your profile red-flagged and put on the military's watch list. Honestly, she'll be extremely lucky if that's all she gets.
10660901
Yeah, I doubt that Ironwood will take it as a joke, it doesn't matter if Lyra has no desire to do anything with the information she gets, the simple fact that she did so makes her a potential leak to anyone who IS interested in using that info.
10660921
The irony is that this kind of scrutiny is exactly what Blake was subjected to, and Bon Bon won't feel too good about that anymore.
I have to say, I feel like Sunset was a bit short sighted here. This was too simple and obvious to the target. Plus I feel by targeting lyra, Sunset has allowed Bon Bon a small victory of not having her scroll hacked.
Although I don't have an immediate alternative, better, scheme for revenge.
I personally would have tried to find a way into Bon Bon's scroll, perhaps even try and get Twilight to get into it. Although I am bias, given that I know she has been spying and was intentionally trying to ruin Blake's reputation.
I concur that since Sunset's initial plan failed she panicked and did the next option, which wasn't well thought out or executed. This, in turn, lead to well, this chapter. Revenge is best served in the long run, so it is easy to see why this kneejerk reaction was doomed to backfire. I do like that Sunset realizes this (self-reflection has never been her strong suit) and looks like she will improve in the future. She has set a bar for herself, even if it is lower than her friends would like, it is one she will hold herself to because that is who she is.
10660924
Wait, I just noticed something. We don't actually have confirmation that Sunset released the part of "Lyra is planning to invade a military installation".
Rainbow only talks about the parallel universe thing, and that would make Sunset plan much better. She releases all her files about the myriad of conspiracies Lyra believes in, giving her some public humiliation but not much more than that. But Lyra and Bon Bon know better, they know that there is no reason to believe that the one who got her information didn't also get the much more incriminating one, and that Lyra has a blade hanging over her head.
That makes Sunset revenge serve much better as a countermeasure against Bon Bon actions AND is still in the "mean, but not serious" range that her team would have much easier time tolerating.
10660998
Sunset is prone to succumbing to her temper and doing short sighted, stupid things to make herself feel better. It is something of character development that this is a case of her temper and desire for revenge is not because of an insult towards her, but to someone that she cares about deeply as a friend.
Personally, I find Cinder and Sunset's relationship to be... interesting. I mean anyone who's followed canon RWBY at all will know that Cinder has... well, a closest that doubles as a rather impressive graveyard. That being said... I can't help but feel that, even if Cinder in this story is the same as her canon counterpart, she actually does respect Sunset to some degree. A lot of her interactions with Sunset by Cinder can be viewed through the lens that she wants to bring Sunset over to her side as an ally... and even possibly as an actual friend since Cinder and Sunset are rather similar in many ways.
I don't believe this respect and possible friendship would stop Cinder from killing Sunset if she needed to, but I cannot help but feel like Cinder meant it from last chapter “
Yeah, pretty sure Cinder made it up that Bon-Bon was behind the graffiti. Question is why her in particular.
10660798
Blake is extremely repentant to an almost suicidal degree and is actively trying to be a better person. Sunset? Less so. She's not a complete bitch anymore, and is doing better, but this is relapsing. You think RD wouldn't give Blake shit if she started to hurt racists? If she started believing in Sienna Khan's philosophy again? Dash gave Sunset a chance when they met again in Vale. This is a warning, and a fair one.
10663108
Because Bon Bon is an absolutely expendable pawn she has been loaned by Watts. More to the point, she likes Sunset and it might actually be Bon Bon behind the graffiti.
Seriously though, is it actually Bon Bon that did it, because character-wise it doesn't fit with what I've seen, read, and understand so far... unless she has it that bad with the White Fang for some reason.
Celestia freaking dammit, Sunset...
We have to get Cinder away from her, she is an awful influence.
The genuine bond that Cinder and Sunset seem to be developing between each other is fantastic. They're such bad influences for each other, but I still totally ship them.
Cinder's inevitable betrayal is going to be such a gut-punch.
I am trying to skim the comments because I haven't even finished this chapter, but I'm surprised I'm the first one (as far as I can tell) to call out the frigging Ghosts of Gaunt reference.
The principal reason why it was a bad idea Sunny.
OOF! That one gotta sting!
Oh Sunny. Some things die hard indeed.