Benevolent Treason

They were mostly Shade students.

That puzzled Gilda a little bit; she'd have kind of expected that they would be down fighting outside of Beacon with Dashie and Blake and … almost everyone else, it seemed like. The students from Atlas had gone down to fight at Beacon, in Vale, or on the field outside of Vale, but the Shade students — a lot of Shade students, anyway — were still here.

Gilda supposed that, with people being evacuated up onto the Amity Colosseum, it was important to have someone to stay behind to guard them all from … from people like her and the White Fang.

After all, if they hadn't been here, then some people up here might have found themselves in some trouble.

What was maybe more surprising was that these Shade students had leapt to on the word of an Atlesian Councillor to take care of some White Fang.

Gilda hadn't known many Vacuans; they didn't tend to end up in the White Fang, because it was said that in the Kingdom of Vacuo everyone was equal — if only in the sense that everyone was dirt poor, or sand poor, and stuck in the same leaky lifeboat together trying to survive. Not much of a life, if you asked her; it was one reason why Gilda had never felt tempted to move there, no matter how equal it was.

Anyway, that meant that you didn't find a lot of Vacuan faunus in the White Fang, at least not ones who had stayed in Vacuo. There was a Vacuo chapter, and its old-school methods of self-help for struggling faunus, soup kitchens, gun clubs, and militia for faunus communities was maybe a better model than what the White Fang had become in Atlas, Vale, or Mistral. But that meant they didn't get a lot of transfers leaving the Vacuo Chapter for cooler climes, or outsiders headed the other way. The few Vacuan White Fangers Gilda had met had all been … kind of like Blake, honestly: intellectual, conscientious, with a lot of thoughts in their heads about injustice and power structures.

They had also, unlike Blake, all hated Atlas as much or even more than any Atlesian faunus.

Maybe that was because those faunus born in Atlas or Mantle could name at least something they liked about Atlas, if only something small and maybe stupid like the fries from Snowburger or — Gilda's choice — Marigold chocolate, with that sickly taste you didn't get anywhere else. It was imperfect, to say the least, built on oppression and inequality, but it was still home to them, and even Adam had had a couple of fond memories.

For the Vacuans, not so much. They hated Atlas, and not just or even mostly because they were faunus, but because they were Vacuans, and the loathing was apparently pretty common even amongst Vacuans who weren't faunus. Atlas was the taker, the thief, the exploiter; Atlas was … everything that — sorry Dash, sorry Blake — Atlas really was, only without any fond memories of Atlas or Atlesians to soften things even a little bit.

Which made it a bit surprising that they were here, a bunch of Shade students moving in to surround the Bullhead where Gilda had left her…

Not her comrades any more. She had betrayed them. She had turned them in to Lady Belladonna and to the Atlesians.

For a good reason. For lots of good reasons, some of them — maybe even most of them — given to her by her former comrades themselves. They had been violent — not just violent but inclined to be indiscriminate about it, with lots of ideas for people that they'd like to hurt. What Woundwort had said … the fact that Ilia had spoken up against him didn't change the fact that no one else had, and on top of that, there was the enthusiasm they'd all shown for killing Lady Belladonna.

They were too dangerous to be allowed to do what they wanted. Left unchecked, they could hurt Lady Belladonna or Fluttershy or someone else.

Which meant Gilda shouldn't have let them out in the first place; she should have just let them rot in Valish custody.

Well, true, but you couldn't change the past because you knew better now.

Gilda had made the choices that she had, and some of those choices had been bad ones, God knew, but for better or for worse — and the more she thought about them, a lot of those choices seemed to have been for the worse — she'd made them.

She couldn't go back.

She couldn't save Adam, she couldn't save any of the poor souls who had died under Mountain Glenn, she couldn't stick Ilia back in her cell or the others back in Valish custody, she couldn't take back the things she'd said to Dashie, she couldn't change any of it. She couldn't go back.

All she could do was hope to do better in future.

That was why she was where she was, watching the Bullhead where she'd left the others, her former comrades whom she shouldn't have freed in the first place, but having freed them first, she could at least help capture them again second.

Like … it was a terrible thing to compare faunus to animals — it was the height of racism — but since none of them were dog faunus, Gilda felt that it was at least a bit un-racist to say that they were like wild and rabid dogs that needed to be chained up.

But hopefully not put down.

Gilda was not at the moment in the front rank of those surrounding the Bullhead, and a lot of that had to do with Lady Belladonna, who was glued to Gilda's side and wouldn't go back and so was making it really hard for Gilda to go forward as well.

As a result, because it would be a fine thing if the Lady of Menagerie and Blake's mom got hurt because she wouldn't leave Gilda's side, Gilda was standing near the back right now. The only person who was further to the rear than Gilda was the Atlesian captain in his robot armour, his whole body completely covered by it.

It looked weird. Weird, but at the same time kind of cool. Mind, it also looked slow as anything, which would be less than cool.

Impressive to look at, though.

Anyway, he was standing behind Gilda, along with Dashie's friend Applejack, the one with the cowboy hat and the lever rifle. In front of her were the Shade students, the Vacuans, whose presence Gilda was finding it hard to work out. What were they doing here? Why would they help out Atlas? Why would they do anything because an Atlesian councillor or officer had asked them to? Weren't they supposed to hate each other?

Yet here they were, eight Shade students surrounding the Bullhead ahead of Gilda and the Atlesian captain — Shining Armour, his name was — with swords and spears and bows all at the ready.

But why?

"Lien for your thoughts, Gilda?" Lady Belladonna asked.

"I've got a few thoughts, my lady," Gilda murmured. "But one of them is I'm trying to work out how your Atlas friends got a bunch of Shade students to listen to a word they say."

Lady Belladonna smiled. "Are you trying to understand what magic words they conjured to appeal to a group of Vacuans?"

Gilda let out a sort of wry, slightly embarrassed laugh. "Sort of, my lady."

"Would it surprise you to learn that there wasn't one?" asked Lady Belladonna. "Shining Armor here offered to pay them double the going rate for a huntsman, isn't that right, Captain?"

"Huntsmen are just mercenaries at the end of the day," Shining Armor said, and Gilda was pretty sure there was a note of scorn in his voice as he said it. "They have no loyalty but lien; they may not like Atlas, but they'll take our money all the same."

Gilda looked over her shoulder at him. "Aren't you a huntsman?" she asked.

"I'm a soldier," Shining Armor said, his voice echoing a little as it came out of his tin can.

Right. Right, the famous Atlesian Specialists. Were they all that scornful towards other huntsmen, or was it just him?

Was Blake that scornful towards all the other Beacon students?

Mind you, just because he sounded up himself didn't mean that he was wrong; a lot of huntsmen were just mercenaries, and they would do whatever they were paid to do, no matter the justice or injustice of it.

Mind you, that wasn't to say the Atlesian were always much better.

Should I just change my attitude towards them now?

No. Why should I? Just because I've realised that I wasn't always doing the right thing doesn't mean that they're right or ever were. I'm not Blake. You're not going to see me putting on one of those uniforms any time soon.

I don't want to stain my swords with indiscriminate blood anymore, but I fought for what I thought was right, and I'm not going to apologise for that or take back what I believe in.

"I think you do the profession a disservice," Lady Belladonna said softly. "But nevertheless, I think that we should be grateful that so many huntsmen are so mercenary in their motivations. If they weren't, if these Shade students needed to be driven by principle rather than lien, we might be in a spot of trouble, mightn't we?"

"Ah dare say we'd have made do, ma'am," Applejack said quietly.

"You might not have been able to stand behind me in that case," Gilda said, glancing Applejack's way. "You don't trust me, do you?"

"Should we trust you?" asked Shining Armor. "You're ex-White Fang."

"So's Blake," Gilda pointed out.

"Blake didn't quit the White Fang all of five minutes ago," Applejack pointed out. "And you ain't got Rainbow Dash vouchin' for ya. You was standin' over me with a sword just this afternoon."

"I vouch for her," Lady Belladonna said, putting a hand on Gilda's shoulder.

"Ah know, ma'am; that's the reason I ain't shot her yet," Applejack replied bluntly. "Ah ain't sure why you trust her, but … Ah'll go along with it."

Gilda turned her head away from the two Atlesians — the two Atlesians who could hardly be blamed for their attitude, all things considered — to Lady Belladonna. "She's got a point, my lady."

"Perhaps," Lady Belladonna allowed. "But…" She glanced at the two Atlesians behind her. "Why don't we say that ladies of my age are allowed to have their little foibles and leave it at that for now?"

Gilda nodded — half-bowed — her head. "Yes, my lady, if you like." She paused for a moment. "I … my lady, can I ask you something?"

"Of course, dear," Lady Belladonna said. "You can ask me anything you like."

"Have I betrayed the people in that airship?" Gilda asked. "Have I … am I a traitor?"

"Yes," Lady Belladonna said bluntly. "Is that even a question? Were you genuinely unsure of the answer?"

Gilda shuffled awkwardly in place, glancing down at her own feet and the deck of the Promenade beneath them. "Well … I was sort of hoping … that you would say something wise that would let me feel better about myself."

"Oh, well if you want to feel good about yourself," Lady Belladonna said, "you could start by looking at me."

Gilda looked up. Her eyebrows were raised, and her mouth was half-opened in a wince.

Lady Belladonna, on the other hand, looked almost amused. "You are a traitor," she said. "You are the definition of a traitor, you have betrayed your comrades—"

"Thank you, my lady," Gilda muttered.

"Just as Blake betrayed her comrades and the organisation to which she had pledged her loyalty," Lady Belladonna went on, all traces of amusement falling from her voice. "Just as she betrayed you."

Gilda was silent for a moment, staring at Lady Belladonna. "You … your own daughter?"

"Yes," Lady Belladonna said. "My own daughter is a traitor, just like you. And you can say things like 'the White Fang betrayed me first' or that it betrayed the cause for which it claimed to be fighting, but those are only justifications; they don't fundamentally change the nature of the action." She paused for a moment. "But that's the point, isn't it? You are a traitor: you have betrayed, you have committed treason, but that treason can be justified. There are more important things than loyalty — to a bad cause, to bad comrades, and to betray those things … that can be a benevolent treason."

She smiled. "That is what Blake is, and what you are now: benevolent traitors, for whom loyalty came second to more important concerns."

"I'm not sure how Blake would feel to hear herself called that," Gilda said softly. She wasn't sure how she felt to hear herself described like that, to be honest, although she understood what Lady Belladonna meant, and understood that she was trying to help. "Thank you." Lady Belladonna hadn't exactly entirely put her mind at ease, but she'd given Gilda something to think about.

She'd given Gilda a way of thinking about it that … well, it made Gilda feel a little better. Or would do, once she'd had time to properly take it in.

Some things were more important than loyalty, like what Woundwort had wanted to do to Dashie's friends and how vile it was.

How this whole thing stank.

Some things were more important than being a good soldier who followed orders.

One of the Shade students turned away from the Bullhead and jogged towards them, passing Gilda and Lady Belladonna to approach the two Atlesians — or Shining Armor, at least — behind them. He was tall, with a tanned or dusky complexion — not as dark as some Atlesians could get, but not pale either — and dark brown hair, and a beard growing around his chin and mouth as far as his youth allowed, because he couldn't be much more than a couple of years older than Gilda even if he was an upperclassman. His hair, and his beard as much as possible, were worn in ringlets. They were oiled and perfumed too; Gilda could smell lavender and … something else, something harder to make out, or at least something that she didn't recognise. Pepper perhaps, and something stranger and unfamiliar to her nose. He wore a dark blue coat, with long billowing sleeves that draped off his arms, over a dark red, almost orange tunic trimmed with gold thread, and baggy green trousers. He had a bow slung across his back and a scimitar with a golden hilt worn on his hip, and in his hand, he carried a spear with a silver apple on the butt like a counterweight.

That spear rested on his shoulder as he walked towards Shining Armor and Applejack; he passed by Gilda and Lady Belladonna without acknowledgement, as though they didn't exist.

Pretty disrespectful, really.

"Alright, paymaster," he said, "how do you want to play this?"

Shining Armor spoke to Lady Belladonna, not to the Shade student. "I really wish you'd get back, ma'am."

"I think I'll be fine where I am," replied Lady Belladonna breezily, not moving at all.

Shining Armor didn't reply to that, because he finally spoke to the Shade student as he raised his rifle — in one hand — to aim it at the airship. "We'll give them a warning and a chance to come quietly; if they don't, we tear the ship apart with them inside."

The Shade student nodded. "Okay. Like I said, you're paying the bill, you call the tune. We'll act on your command." He paused. "I haven't seen anyone at the cockpit, but there is a chance that they already know we're out here."

"It doesn't matter if they know we're here or not; we haven't seen anyone leave the airship," Shining Armor replied. "And we've had the Bullhead surrounded, so they can't have left since we arrived. You did leave them all here, right?"

"I ordered them all to wait here until I got back," Gilda said.

That wasn't necessarily the same thing as them definitely all being here, but she hoped that it was, or that it would be. If any or all of them had gone, then … she couldn't say that it wasn't her fault, but she could say that if she'd taken them all with her, then things wouldn't have been going so well as they were now; it's not like any of them would have just stood there while she had a cosy chat with Lady Belladonna and Fluttershy.

And there hadn't been any sign of them anywhere else; if they had been loose in the Colosseum, then Gilda didn't think they would have been able to stay quiet and unnoticed.

If she was wrong about that … then it was just another decision that she couldn't change and that would have to be lived with and dealt with.

But with luck, they would all be here, right where she'd left them.

They'll probably think that I planned all of this. That I brought them here and told them to wait in the airship so that I could sell them out.

That doesn't make a ton of sense; why would I break them out just to get them caught again?

It doesn't make sense in the way that what I've done tonight doesn't make a ton of sense, so…

I guess the only question is, do I really care what they think?

No. No, I really don't.

"Okay then," the Shade student said. "Let me get back to my team, and then we're all ready to go."

He turned around and jogged lightly back the way that he'd come, to where his teammates waited on the one side of the Bullhead. Gilda could see one member of the other Shade team, some guy wearing a horned helmet, standing on the other side of the Bullhead, his other teammates out of sight behind the airship.

Shining Armor had his gun trained on the airship. He raised his voice, which still came out a little metallic as he shouted, "White Fang! This is Captain Shining Armor of the Atlesian military. We know you're in there. You have ten seconds to come out, lay down your weapons, and be taken into custody, or we will open fire."

There was no response. One second, two seconds, still nothing; three seconds, four seconds, the Bullhead was still and silent with no indication of anyone being in there at all. Five seconds, six seconds, seven seconds, Gilda wondered if there was anyone in there at all, if they had maybe all scarpered already, and she had completely misjudged their ability to keep quiet and not draw attention to themselves. Eight seconds, nine seconds, or maybe they were frantically discussing what to do.

Ten seconds.

Shining Armor fired, a pink beam streaking from the barrel of his big rifle to slam into the engine on their side of the Bullhead.

The engine exploded, the Shade students shielded their faces with their hands and cowered away from the explosion a little bit as the engine went up in flames and the airship tilted to one side, slamming down onto the docking platform with a groaning thud.

Flames flickered in the cockpit window as the engine continued to burn.

"That was your last warning!" Shining Armor shouted.

One second, two seconds, three seconds passed with no response, no movement from inside the airship.

"Team Cunaxa, move in," Shining Armor ordered.

The Shade team had gotten as far as taking a collective step forward when the door to the Bullhead opened.

It didn't open all the way, because the way that the airship had fallen when Shining Armor had destroyed the engine meant that it couldn't, the lower door was jammed and couldn't drop down properly, but the top door could still open, and the whole thing could open enough that her former White Fang comrades — the people that she had betrayed, although Lady Belladonna had called it a benevolent treason — could come out, even if some of them had to duck to do it.

Woundwort, Savannah, Ryl, and Trifa emerged with their hands up, trooping past the burning engine towards the waiting Shade students.

"That's close enough," said the one who had spoken to Shining Armor earlier as he pointed his apple-butt spear at them. "One at a time, and we'll get you restrained. You first, big fellow."

Woundwort walked forward. He didn't look at the Shade students as he moved; he didn't even look at Shining Armor or Applejack. He only looked at Gilda, his eye fixed on her.

All their eyes were fixed on her. Glaring at her with eyes that would have killed if they could.

"Xeno, put the cuffs on him," ordered the Shade student, who Gilda thought must be the leader of this Team Cunaxa going by the way that he was giving the orders.

Xeno, a horse faunus with hooves instead of feet, wearing a red travelling cloak that covered most of his chest and hid whatever he might be wearing underneath, stepped forward; his hooves clip-clopped on the floor of the promenade.

There was no sign of Ilia or Yuma, no sign of anyone else coming out of the airship.

"There should be two more," Gilda said.

"Eeyup," Applejack confirmed. "The one with the bat wings and the one with that darn lightning whip."

"Yuma and Ilia," Gilda said. She looked at Lady Belladonna. "Wait here, my lady."

Lady Belladonna hesitated, but nodded. "Alright," she said. She even took a step backwards.

Gilda, on the other hand, walked forwards. So did Applejack, trailing only a step behind her as Gilda strode towards her former comrades, the people that she had led up here twice now and gotten captured twice, once more intentionally than the other.

The Shade student Xeno had already put the cuffs on Woundwort, who was on his knees — even on his knees, he was still about as big as most people standing up — and Trifa was now coming forward, holding her hands out to be restrained.

As Gilda approached, her lips curled back into a sneer. "Traitor."

Gilda's face twitched, but she didn't argue it; Lady Belladonna had made it clear that there wasn't much point; it couldn't be argued with.

"Where are they?" she demanded.

Trifa spat in her face, a glob of white saliva slamming into Gilda's cheek.

Gilda didn't wipe it away. She let it stay there, a mark on her face, slowly trickling downwards. "Ilia and Yuma," she said. "Where are they?"

"What makes you think I'll tell you anything?" Trifa growled as Xeno put the restraints around her wrists. "What makes you think that I'll help a house faunus sc—"

Gilda growled wordlessly; one of her hands shot out and grabbed Trifa by the neck, picking her up off the ground so that her feet kicked the air as she squirmed in Gilda's grip.

She had already been restrained, her aura was negated; when Gilda squeezed her neck, she really felt it.

She made a choking, gasping sound as she pawed at Gilda's arm with both her cuffed hands.

"Gilda," Applejack said warningly. "Put her down."

"You know what I think?" Gilda asked. "I think if you were all that willing to die for the cause, you would have come out of the airship swinging. I think you might not want to talk to me, but you'll talk if I dangle you over the side of the docking platform, won't you?"

Applejack took a step forward and put one hand on Gilda's arm. It was already a strong grip, with hints that it could get stronger if required.

"Easy now," Applejack said, calmly, softly almost. "Put her down."

Gilda glanced at her. "Why?"

"Because we're the good guys," Applejack said. "Which means we have to act like it."

Gilda huffed. "That sounds like the sort of thing Dashie would say," she muttered. "Or Blake."

Applejack shrugged. "Blake would use fancier words, Ah think."

Gilda snorted. "Yeah," she agreed. "Yeah, she probably would."

She let Trifa go. The White Fang operative hit the floor with a thump, clutching at her neck with both hands as she gasped for breath.

There was red around her eyes as she stared up at Gilda.

"Why?" she demanded.

Gilda didn't bother to answer her. Unlike Blake, she didn't have the words to make her betrayal sound grand and noble, she didn't have the silver tongue to spin a tale of heroism, nobility and justice like something halfway out of a storybook. She could make her betrayal sound great and glorious because she could tell such a story around it that the actual betrayal kind of got lost in the shuffle. If Gilda tried that, if she tried to answer Trifa, she'd just end up saying that it didn't feel right anymore, and so she'd done what felt right instead.

But while that might have been true — it was true, and she felt better because of it, like a load taken off her shoulders — it didn't sound very good. It sounded selfish, even if it wasn't, and Gilda didn't know how to make it sound less.

So she just ignored the question, walking past Trifa and the others towards the Bullhead. With no sign of Yuma or Ilia, it was most likely that they had slipped out at some point between Gilda leaving — either because they didn't trust her or because they thought they knew better than her — but there was the possibility that they could be hiding in the Bullhead, waiting for everyone to assume that they'd already slipped out, and then, when everyone spread out to search for them, they would then slip out and get up to mischief.

It wasn't the likeliest option, but she had to be sure, and so she walked past the burning engine — and past Savannah and Rill too — and tucked her wings up against her back as she ducked down and crept inside the Bullhead.

It was empty; there was no sign of either Ilia or Yuma inside. There was no one in the main compartment where she'd left them all, and no one in the cockpit either when Gilda climbed in there.

Applejack had come in with her, holding onto her hat with one hand, and her green eyes darted around, seeing the same nothing that Gilda could see.

She muttered something under her breath, so quietly that Gilda couldn't hear it.

Then she turned and walked out, making it Gilda's turn to follow.

"They ain't here," Applejack said, as she emerged from out of the Bullhead. "They must have gone before we got here."

She was right. They had, for whatever reason, decided that they didn't want to stick around. Or they didn't all want to stick around. So, after Gilda had gone, they had left some of the others in the Bullhead while those two had gone … where?

That was the question, wasn't it?

They could be anywhere.

"Why isn't it working?" asked Lady Soojin, looking up from her scroll.

"It's … just a temporary glitch, dear," said her mother, Kiyoh, Lady Wong. "I'm sure it will come back soon. Maybe not tonight, but soon."

Hippolyta Nikos wondered whether Kiyoh believed that or not. For her own part, although she would not contradict Kiyoh's attempt to reassure her daughter, she doubted that it would be so simple.

She had not walked around the circumference of the arena to confirm it, but she suspected that something had happened to the CCT tower, some damage inflicted by the grimm, perhaps the great grimm that had sent their protectors of Team JAMM scarpering off on their airship in a quixotic endeavour.

If that was so, then the network, the whole network, would be down all across Remnant until the damage could be repaired.

They were cut off. Marooned, all connection to Mistral severed.

In Mistral, they were no doubt wondering what had happened, why their link to Vale had suddenly gone dead, and wondering what was becoming of Pyrrha and all of Mistral's gallant sons and daughters while they waited in their homes, far off, yearning for news that would not reach them for … well, that depended on how long it took to repair the damage. It could take days, it could take weeks, it could take so long that it was quicker to send an old-fashioned courier to Mistral with word.

So long that the first word of the outcome of the battle would be borne by its survivors, the Haven students coming home with their scars and tales, just as the first news of Lagune's defeat and the final death of Mistral's hopes against the faunus had been borne by the panicked soldiers who had fled the rout and sought the safety of Mistral's walls.

But then, although the people knew that Lagune had marched out at the head of a great host intending to seek battle, they did not know that the battle had begun until it was already ended; folk in Mistral today would know that there was a battle, but now, with the link between the kingdoms severed, they would not know who had won or at what cost the outcome had been purchased until long after the issue was decided, one way or another.

Hippolyta thought that perhaps the people of old had been more fortunate in their greater ignorance.

If fortune was kind, the Haven students would bring news not of a rout but of a victory, but even if fortune was good to Mistral, she was unlikely to be so good that it would be a victory without cost. Somewhere in Mistral or the wide lands of Anima that lay beneath its sway, the howls of mourning would be raised; the black shrouds would be donned; the hair, beards, garments all torn and left to hang ragged off trembling limbs. Perhaps the knock might come even at the door of some great house, and some family as old as Mistral would find that its shoots had been cut off and only ancient roots remained to wither on the vine.

But not yet, for first they must fret and fear and wait for news that had not yet come.

Just as Hippolyta herself must.

Her sympathy for the people of Mistral in their plight of waiting was somewhat diminished by her own situation, for what did she do here but fret and fear and wait while the battle raged, though it raged ever so close compared to all those in Mistral now waiting for news? Yet she was as ignorant as they, as blind as they, as unable as they were to say if Pyrrha lived, or what she did, or if Miss Shimmer lived or fought or where she was, or even if Mister Arc was still amongst the living or if Pyrrha's heart had been broken so young.

She had no way of knowing. She was a field of lack of knowledge over which hope and fear, pride and despair, fought like phalanxes pushing against one another, first one side prevailing, then the other rallying to drive back their foe, just so did Hippolyta's feelings ebb and flow within her breast while she waited and wondered and knew nothing.

Pyrrha was her only child, the last of her house, the last of her line; Hippolyta had not always thought it would be so: when she had been with child, even as she struggled up and down the stairs with bulging belly until at last she could struggle no more and had taken to her bed while all her maids attended on her, despite all that discomfort, Hippolyta had dreamed of other children. She had hoped for at least one more girl — she had liked Cassandra for a name, or Briseis — and for a son, who would resemble his father in looks. It was not to be. When Pyrrha had been born, Hippolyta had felt so tired, so drained, like a lake with all the water dried up; she had known that she would never bear another child. All her strength had gone into Pyrrha, along with all her hopes and her ambitions and all the general hopes and expectations of her line.

They hung upon a scarlet thread.

Pyrrha was a great warrior; she had demonstrated it before her mother's very eyes, in this very arena, with her victory. Her crowning triumph, the victory of which Hippolyta had dreamed and towards which she had pushed Pyrrha for so many years. And yet tonight, how vain and how vainglorious did such ambition seem? No doubt it would seem less so in the morning if Pyrrha returned victorious, safe and sound and living still, then no doubt would all Hippolyta's pride return like a river, once contained by a dam, released rushes once more in full spate through its course towards the ocean.

But if Pyrrha did not return…

Pyrrha was a great warrior, but the grimm were so numerous, and so numerous too were the stories of heroes felled at the height of their glory. Hippolyta had never believed Pyrrha to be invincible, despite her name; that was why she had given Miss Shimmer Soteria and bade her stand by Pyrrha's side, but where was Miss Shimmer now?

Where were any of them? Living still? Or had their limbs dissolved in cold and their spirits fled down to the shades?

What news would come?

And when would it come?

That my blood, that our high blood, that the blood of so many Mistralians great and small, and the blood of those dear to me and dearer to my daughter should be hazarded for Vale. For Vale! This place of proud pot-bellied merchants, this place of upstarts, this place of interfering self-righteous busybodies who love to wag their fingers, this place devoid of history or dignity that has so often sought to thwart and frustrate us, for this place, for Vale, we should risk our daughters, hopes, futures all things thrown into the path of destruction to save Vale.

If Pyrrha lives, I shall take her away from here. She cannot stay in Vale with the CCT down and all contact between the kingdoms severed. I will not suffer it, no matter how she sulks and storms and argues with me. I shall take Miss Shimmer too, and Mister Arc, and even that new Team Leader Miss Polendina if she will come.

All save Miss Rose, who is welcome to remain here and stew in her Valish sense of righteous indignation.

If Pyrrha lives, then she cannot stay here, suddenly so far away from home.

If…

"M'lady?" Hestia murmured, even those soft words intruding into Hippolyta's thoughts. "Forgive me, m'lady, but you seemed a thousand miles away."

"'A thousand miles'?" Hippolyta repeated. "Nay, Hestia, my thoughts did not gallop so far; they fly only a few furlongs beyond the wall at most."

"Of course, m'lady," Hestia said. She fell silent for a moment, before she dared to add, "If I may, m'lady, the gods would not be so cruel as to raise the young mistress to the height of her glory and cast her down to the underworld all in a single night."

Hippolyta was no great believer, but if she had been, she would have thought that such an action would indeed have touched the humour of the gods; it might even have seemed to them a just exchange, knowing that Pyrrha was soon to die, to grant her the glory of a tournament triumph first.

"Let us hope that you are right," she said.

"Well, well, what have we here?"

The voice that came to Hippolyta's ears was an unpleasant one; not grating, but too sibilant, too sickly sweet, like honeyed fruit with too much honey, or a treacle pudding slathered in too much sauce. Too much sweetness would upset the stomach, and in that way, this voice upset her ears.

She shuffled around, her stick tapping on the floor of the promenade as she faced this intruder to their company. She did not think that she had recognised the voice, and now that she saw him, she did not recognise the voice: a man, younger than she — at least, he looked younger, which was no great accomplishment — but older than her daughter, tall, with a build that Hippolyta would describe as fit rather than muscular; he had orange-brown hair combed back from his forehead — something he would regret once his hairline started to recede — and spiked upwards like the crest of a helmet. And he was a faunus, a bat faunus, with a pair of black, leathery wings sprouting from out of his back, half-unfurled on either side of him.

Hippolyta did not recognise him from the tournament, and in any case, he looked too old to compete. Although there was such a thing as a mature student, she supposed.

A glance behind her confirmed that all the Wongs had noticed this man's arrival also, all of them looking at him with varying degrees of surprise upon their faces.

Not someone known to them, then.

Hippolyta grasped the handle of her stick with both hands and said, "Well, well, what have we here indeed, sir. May we help you in some fashion?"

The man tilted his head a little to one side. "I recognise you," he said. "You are the Mistralian ambassador to Vale, aren't you? Lord Wong, isn't that what they call you?" His gaze turned to Hippolyta. "And you … I haven't been in Mistral for a while, but you … you're Councillor … no, that was years ago, but you are the head of the House of Nikos, aren't you? Heir to the vacant throne of Mistral?" He smiled, a rather ugly smile, too sharp, like a knife. "Oh, this is excellent."

"You know who we are, but who are you?" demanded Kiyoh.

The man took a step towards them. "I am the wrath of the downtrodden," he declared. "I am vengeance from on high. I am the instrument of the God of Animals, sent to deliver you down to the shades."

"You are White Fang," muttered Yichen Wong, Lord Wong.

The man did not reply but continued to bear down upon them. He spread his dark wings out on either side.

Hippolyta took one hand off the handle of her cane and gripped instead the ebony shaft. With her other hand, she altered her grip on the handle, the hilt, as she drew the sword concealed within the ebony cane.

A sword cane was something of an affectation; there were many who said that you would never be able to draw the blade in time if you should need it, and in any case, why not wear a sword upon your hip, openly, as a deterrent?

For Hippolyta's part, a sword on the hip would be too great a weight upon her side, and the sight of an old woman with a cane yet wearing a sword would be ridiculous, a vanity indeed from one whose youth and strength had all deserted her.

Whereas a sword concealed within a cane … it was true that she would not have been surprised to never make use of it, but there was no harm to her in having it present, as a last resort. The blade was slender but sharp, and it glimmered under the lights that shone from the promenade ceiling.

Hippolyta held the empty cylinder of her cane in the other hand, to parry or to strike with it. Her leg protested in pain at having to bear her weight unaided, but its protestations were, as yet, weak and possible to ignore.

The man scoffed. "You know, old crone, in Mistral, you are thought a freak, turned old before your time, and feeble too. Since you look old, accept your fate with a grandmother's dignity and don't humiliate yourself with a pathetic attempt at defiance."

"'Old crone'?" Hippolyta growled. "Yes, I am grown old before my time, my strength passed to my daughter whom you would not dare approach if she were here. But I am yet a daughter also, a daughter of the House of Nikos, descended of Pyrrha the Third and Second of that name, of Hippolyta the Fifth and of the first Hippolyta who gave our line the name of Nikos. And I would shame them all, and all my other ancestors in long line besides, were I to lie down and die without a fight."

The man cracked his knuckles. "Your daughter," he said, "will find you dead, alongside Mistral's ambassador, his wife and little daughter too, and all of Mistral will know that justice will find you, be you ever so high and wealthy and powerful. All the faunus will rejoice, and all the humans of Mistral will tremble."

I doubt the faunus of Mistral know who I am, Hippolyta thought. Although this fellow seems to remember me from my time on the Council.

But that was some time ago, before Pyrrha was born. He cannot have been more than a child.

No matter, he means to kill me in any case, and he is not wrong that it would cause alarm in some quarters.

No doubt he will kill Hestia too, as well as the Wongs. Unless he wishes to leave a witness.

"Lord and Lady Wong, Yichen, Kiyoh," Hippolyta said. "I thank you for the hospitality you have shown me during my visit here."

If she wished to do more than make a shriek of defiance as she perished, then she would need to be quick about it; when she said that her strength had passed into Pyrrha, she had not been speaking wholly metaphorically: the doctors told her with some shock that her aura levels had dropped dramatically after giving birth — although it had first diminished after her injury, never quite recovering to its previous levels. Her body would not stand up to a prolonged contest, and she would wager much of her family's wealth that her aura would break long before his did.

Her aura had never healed the damage to her leg, and that injury had gotten worse more quickly, like a stone gathering speed as it rolls downhill.

At any rate, it felt worse.

But she could yet stand unaided, for at least a time.

And in that time, perhaps she could show why she had once been known as the Flashing Blade.

Hippolyta would have liked to have closed her eyes a moment, but she dared not, not with this foe in front of her. So she kept her eyes fixed upon him as she whispered, "I would not be shamed."

Those were the words on her honour band, given to her by her father many years ago now. She did not wear the band — it would have seemed another affectation from a freak grown old before her time — but she recalled the words yet.

They were as true now as they had ever been. She would not be shamed.

The man charged at her, a snarl disfiguring his face as he clenched his hands into fists. "Perish, old bloods of Mistral!" he shouted. "Make way for a new world!"

He leapt up, head almost touching the ceiling above, and his wings held him aloft for a moment, poised to descend upon Hippolyta like a thunderbolt.

Hippolyta breathed slowly, in and out, as she concentrated much of her meagre store of aura in her sword arm.

With what remained, she activated her semblance.

One moment, Hippolyta stood before her enemy, the only shield of the Wongs and of her servant.

The next moment, she was behind him, hovering in the air as though she had been borne diagonally upwards, past and over him.

With all the strength that remained at her command, she slashed at him with the slender blade of her sword cane.

And fortune was good to her.

His aura broke. A wound appeared across his midriff. He cried out in pain as he fell to the floor, wings limp on either side of him. He hit the ground, half-rolled onto his side, and lay there, covered by one wing, clutching his wounded stomach.

Hippolyta fell too, a red light rippling over her as her aura broke. She plummeted like a rock dropped from a height, and could not contain the cry of agony that ripped from her as she hit the ground.

She screamed, undignified though it was, because it felt worse than when the blade had shattered her aura and ended her tournament career for good. If nothing else, the pain was in both legs this time, and both legs felt unusable, the pain spreading as far north as her knees. She was on all fours like a crawling babe and could not rise.

That brief exertion had been sufficient to bring out sweat on her face, and trickling down her arms as she lay there, gasping for breath.

"My lady!" Hestia cried as she rushed to Hippolyta's side. "My lady, let me help you—"

Hippolyta held up one hand to forestall her. "First, find some aid to remove that brute from our presence; I doubt that any of us wishes his further company. A student huntsman or huntress, an Atlesian soldier, someone. Offer money, if you must." Her travelling funds should be sufficient to cover it, even without the ability to draw out more with the CCT network down.

Hestia nodded, but said, "Are you sure, m'lady?"

Hippolyta nodded, though it was a weary nod. "I will not die just yet," she declared. "I have no intention of Pyrrha finding me a corpse. That would be the height of absurdity, no? That Pyrrha should come home safe and sound from the battle and find me dead in this supposed place of safety. No. No, I will endure until your return."

"Very well, m'lady, Hestia said. She got up and began to move away, but before she did, she turned back to Hippolyta. "Congratulations, ma'am, upon your victory."

My victory?

My victory.

The thought brought a smile to Hippolyta's face, despite the pain, as Hestia ran off to fetch someone to deal with the disabled enemy behind her.

Twilight had found the controls.

She was deep within the bowels of the Amity Arena. It felt — it was — so quiet down here, with only the deep bass humming of the engines rising up from the bowels of the arena for company. She couldn't hear anything else. No grimm, no fighting, nothing.

Being down here, in this dark room that remained dark even with all the lights on, a lot of black shadows looming in the edges of the walls, it was almost possible to forget that there was a battle raging outside and in Vale; almost possible to forget that Rainbow and Blake and so many others were fighting for their lives and for Vale beyond the walls.

Almost, but not quite. No matter how quiet it was in here, no matter how cut off it was from the rest of the world, no matter how much Remnant's problems seemed to have melted away, she couldn't forget it. She couldn't forget the immense battle raging, couldn't forget about the grimm hordes, couldn't forget about the danger.

All of that was the reason she was down here in the first place, after all, but even if it hadn't been, it wouldn't have been possible for her to forget the fact that two of her friends were … that they might…

Twilight closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head. She couldn't think about that; she couldn't let herself obsess over it. She had a job to do. Rainbow and Blake were doing their part; now, she had to do hers and move this arena out of the way, over Vale where it was safer.

That was why she was here, in the control room. It was a round chamber, with only one entrance — directly behind her; Twilight had her back to the door — and a large hole in the centre of the room that, if Twilight was right about the design of the arena and the location of this chamber, led into the main dust reactor itself.

So not the kind of place that you would like to fall down. Luckily, there was a rail between her and the drop. Twilight guessed that the reason the hole was there at all was because the light coming up from the reactor would show there was something wrong as efficiently as any warning or diagnostic system.

Not that there weren't those too; this control panel — a big metallic slab sitting at a forty-five degree angle right in front of the hole in the floor — was certainly not short on controls, indicators, measurements, and anything else that you could think of. There was a lot of data being presented here, and a lot of options.

So many options that, for a newcomer, it had the potential to be a little confusing.

Twilight imagined that there was a pretty steep learning curve to working here.

That was why she hadn't even tried to move the Colosseum yet; she'd just been checking what all of these controls did, what all of these indicators told her, what all of these lights — flashing or otherwise — meant, what it all added up to, because the last thing she wanted was to start pushing buttons on an unfamiliar console and 'move the arena' by dropping it out of the sky.

But at this point, she felt like she was starting to get to grips with it.

If Twilight was reading all of this right — and she thought she was — then there wasn't currently enough power to move the Amity Arena.

Partly, that was because the main reactor was only running at eighty-six percent efficiency, which seemed a little low to her — someone should probably check that out once things quietened down — but more than that, as far as she could tell, it was because too many other arena systems were on with the Colosseum currently still in, for want of a better way of putting it, tournament mode, and the arena wasn't designed to be able to run all systems at once.

As a design philosophy, that was less than ideal, but from the practical standpoint of this being the largest free-standing reactor in the whole of Remnant — even the reactors that powered the gravity engines that kept Atlas afloat were not, one to one, as big as the power source for the Amity Arena — and one which already used as much dust every day as the entire city of Vacuo, it was understandable that there had to be some limits.

And who would expect that the Arena would need to move anywhere while the tournament was ongoing?

But there was a simple solution to all of this, and Twilight now felt confident enough in what she was doing to start pushing the relevant buttons.

She turned off the power to the stage, to the biomes, and to the stadium, which would now go dark since there was nothing keeping the lights on. She turned off the power to the boxes and to the upper-level kitchens that catered to them.

That was probably not everything that was intended to be turned off before the arena was moved anywhere, but she wasn't about to start cutting power to the promenade or the interior when there were so many people still in the Colosseum.

If there was enough juice to get the engines to fire, that would be enough for her. It wasn't as though she was trying to fly Amity all the way back to Atlas like this, after all; she only wanted to nudge it a little bit.

If the engines were coughing and spluttering all the while, then so be it. It would only be temporary.

She pushed the button to turn on the lateral thrusters.

There was a pause, then there was a deep groan from down in the depths of the arena as the whole of the Colosseum trembled.

O-kay; clearly, I didn't save quite enough power from elsewhere.

But hold it together, okay; it's only temporary.

The lack of warning lights or screaming alarms, and the fact that the groaning of the engine didn't get any worse, told Twilight that though the engine might not like this, it wasn't in danger of exploding or shorting out any time soon.

That was good. That was very good.

I think we might be in business.

A slight smile crossed Twilight's face.

Now to set direction.

Twilight's fingers moved rapidly, setting the correct direction: westward, away from Beacon and over Vale.

With a single push of a button, she activated the thrusters.

Once more, the whole arena shook, shaking to the left this time, almost trembling Twilight off her feet as the engines stirred to life, pushing against the weight of the immense arena.

She could feel the strain, feel the engines pushing and the whole arena itself resisting, feel everything around her shuddering as shockwaves of force ran through it.

And then, slowly at first, gradually building up momentum, the arena began to move; Twilight could feel it moving, feel the direction in which she was being pushed change, feel the arena shake with motion beneath her feet. The very sound of the reactor changed.

It's working.

It's working!

Twilight clapped her hands together.

Now, I just need to—

The door opened behind her with a hydraulic hiss.

Twilight turned. She saw someone silhouetted in the doorway, with the light of the corridor behind her, but before she could work out who it was, they were already on her.

Their first punch slammed into Twilight's gut hard enough to make her double over, a gasp of breath leaping out of Twilight's mouth as she clutched at her stomach with both hands. She felt strong hands grab her hair, yanking her head up as a second punch, straight to the nose, sent her head snapping backwards as her aura flared. Twilight groaned in pain as she was back-handed hard enough to topple over and land on the floor, her glasses flying off her face.

Before Twilight could even think of reaching for them, she was grabbed by the neck and hauled up off her feet, where whoever it was hit her again, another blow across the face.

Without her glasses, it was hard to make out the face of her attacker, except that they were a girl, a woman. They looked very red; that was the main thing that Twilight could see, redness.

Redness and a ponytail.

"You're Twilight Sparkle, right?" her attacker growled. "I recognise you from TV. You're on the same team as Rainbow Dash, which means you're one of her friends, which means you're one of Blake's friends. Which means that when I take you with me, they'll come after you, and then I can kill them both."

"Ilia! Let her go!"

Their feet pounded on the floor as Gilda and Applejack ran down the corridors.

Nobody had been willing to tell Gilda where Ilia — or Yuma — had gone, but they had found Yuma after some Mistralian maid or something said that her mistress had just taken care of a bat faunus who had tried to attack them. Honestly? Good for her, whoever she was; that guy was a real creep. Whatever happened to Gilda next, at least she would never have to hear him call her 'sister Gilda' in that stupid voice again.

Seriously, he sounded like was auditioning to play bad guys in cartoons.

That left Ilia. And someone — another Shade student, one who hadn't been hired by Shining Armor — had seen her headed inside, into the recesses of the arena.

And so, Gilda and Applejack had followed her.

Not followed her exactly, because the inside of this place was big, but Applejack had said that their friend Twilight was down here working, so they were going to check on her. Just in case.

Gilda wasn't sure how Ilia would or could know she was here, but if she found her, then … things could go badly for Twilight.

Gilda had never liked Twilight. She was Dashie's first human friend, the one who had lifted her out of their shared Low Town existence and carried Rainbow up to Atlas, which had been reason enough for Gilda to resent her. She'd resented her when she came down to visit Rainbow in Low Town, and she'd resented all the more when Twilight had condescended — at least, that was how Gilda had seen it at the time — to invite Gilda to come up and visit her in Atlas.

Looking back, she'd probably been trying to get thrown out of the house, but it had been something else to be annoyed about at the time. Something else to dislike Twilight for. Something else to be angry at Rainbow for not taking her side about.

Yeah, she'd been … she hadn't handled things very well back then.

Which meant that if they could get to her before Ilia did—

Too late. The two of them rounded the corner, and there, at the end of the metallic corridor, was an open door into a dark room of some kind, a room with a big control panel and some kind of big hole in the middle, it looked like.

Why you'd put a big hole in the middle of the floor like that, railing or not, Gilda couldn't begin to guess.

More importantly, Ilia was there, clearly visible through the doorway, and she had Twilight Sparkle by the neck.

Applejack skidded to a halt, raising her rifle to her shoulder.

"Ilia!" Gilda shouted. "Let her go!"

Ilia turned to look at them.

Applejack fired.

Ilia flinched, half-ducking but not losing her grip on Twilight; the shot didn't seem to hit her, she didn't act like she'd been shot; Gilda guessed that Applejack's aim had been thrown off by trying to avoid hitting Twilight.

Now, Ilia swung around, bringing Twilight between her and Gilda and Applejack. She peered around her hostage. Gilda could only see a bit less than half her face.

She could only see one eye, but that eye was wide and burned with anger.

"Gilda?" she cried. "What are you doing with her? With one of them?" She gasped. "Are you with them? Have you always been with them? Was this your plan all along, to—?"

"No," Gilda said, taking a step forward. "No, it wasn't my plan. You made it my plan when you couldn't hold back, any of you."

"You decided to betray us because we made you uncomfortable?"

"I decided to betray you because I don't want to do this anymore!" Gilda snapped. "I don't want to kill, I don't want to fight my friends, I don't want to hate people who are trying their best, like Rainbow, like Blake—"

"Don't talk to me about Blake!" Ilia yelled. "This … this why she has to die, don't you see that?! This is why they both have to die, because they confuse people, they corrupt them, they make them think that—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, enough with yer yappin'!" Applejack said. "Put Twilight down right now, or you and I can go round two without all your pals backin' you up."

"It's over, Ilia," Gilda said. "Everyone else has been captured again. There's no way out of here."

Ilia blinked. "No way out," she repeated. "No way out." She closed her eyes. "Play up, play up, and play the game."

"Ilia," Gilda said. "Just—"

"Long live the White Fang!" Ilia yelled as she threw Twilight into the hole in the centre of the room.

Twilight shrieked as she fell, arms and legs flailing.

Gilda leapt, her wings spreading out as far as the cramped corridor would allow, kicking off the floor and, if not soaring, then sort of flying anyway. She flew through the open doorway, gaining height as the chamber broadened out around her, dodging Ilia's lash — she'd leave her for Applejack — and flying over her and over the deep pit in the centre of the room.

The pit into which Twilight was falling, and screaming as she fell.

Gilda dived. Her wings beat furiously. All objects fell at the same speed, or something like that, so Gilda had to fly if she was going to fall faster than Twilight. Her wings beat up and down, up and down, up and down, even while Gilda went straight down, down, down, plunging into this pit of darkness that led to where? Who in Remnant thought this was a good idea for a room?

Without her birdlike night vision, she would have been lost, but with it, she could still see Twilight, up ahead, flailing wildly.

She was getting closer.

And a good thing too, because there was something else up ahead too, with a kind of nasty glow that Gilda would rather avoid.

She beat her wings even faster. They were starting to ache from the rapid motion, but she had to go faster.

Down and down Gilda flew, accelerating all the while, gaining on Twilight, getting closer to her than Twilight — or her, for that matter — was getting to the glow.

She flew down and down until she was below Twilight, and only then did Gilda spread her wings out to slow down, holding out her hands to sweep Twilight up in her arms as they began to climb upwards.

She flew more slowly up, partly because she was carrying the extra weight, but also because she was kind of tired from the rapid descent. She would need to pace herself a little bit more on the way back up.

"Gilda?" Twilight asked, squinting her purple eyes. "Gilda, is that you?"

"Yeah," Gilda said. "Yeah, it's me. I've got you. And I'm going to get you back up top too, eventually."

"But … why?" Twilight asked. "I thought … I mean, didn't you—?"

"Yes," Gilda said. "Whatever it is, I probably did it, so you don't need to say it. I … like I told Ilia, I don't want to be that person anymore."

"I … I see," Twilight murmured.

"Really?"

"No, not really," Twilight admitted. "What changed?"

"Nothing," Gilda said. "Everything. Something. I don't know. Lady Belladonna … helped me listen to my conscience. Or she was my conscience. Or she was there at the right time. There for me."

There was a pause, before Twilight said, "Rainbow will be glad to hear that?"

"Yeah?" Gilda asked. "Listen, Twilight … sorry I was such a—"

"It's okay."

"You don't even know what it was yet!"

"Whatever it was, it's okay," Twilight said. "So you don't need to say it." She smiled. "Whatever it was, saving my life probably makes us even, don't you think?"

Gilda laughed. "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I'd hope so anyway."

Gradually, she carried Twilight back up to the top of the pit, where she found Applejack waiting — and Ilia, on the floor but alive.

"You got her!" Applejack yelled, and no sooner had Gilda set Twilight down on the floor than Applejack had pulled her into a hug. Applejack looked at Gilda over Twilight's shoulder. "Thanks. Ah owe you."

"You don't owe me nothing," Gilda replied. She leaned around Applejack to look at Ilia. "You didn't kill her, then?"

"Like Ah told ya," Applejack said. "We're the good guys."

"Right," Gilda murmured. "The good guys."

And so am I.

I hope so, anyway.