SNST

by Jninja15

Rating: teen
Tags: Starlight Glimmer, Adventure, Science Fiction, Fairy Tail, Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Violence, Crossover, Alternate Universe, Human, Anthology, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 23636

Sunset Shimmer inherits the power of 'One for All' to attend Beacon Academy. Secrets of Headmaster Ozpin rise making every students' lives more interesting.

A RWBY alternative universe crossover anthology series inspired by the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the fanfictions Viridescent by darkfire1220, and Team STIK (Strike) by Aragon365.

Celestia is the greatest huntress in all of Remnant, inspiring a generation of young children to grow up and become huntsmen and huntresses themselves. Sunset Shimmer, among the inspired children, is a timid and quirkless girl who discovers Celestia's debilitating injury and secret behind her power, and becomes entrusted to inherit the secret power of "One for All".

Secrets appear to be commonplace at Beacon Academy as secret after secret comes to surface, making high school much more interesting for Sunset Shimmer, her team, and just about every other student in Beacon.

Greater list of this being a crossover with (in no particular order and to varying degrees) (partially incomplete due to my paranoia with spoilers and to curb unnecessary expectations):
Fairy Tail, Metroid, Marvel Comics, Legend of Zelda, My Hero Academia / Boku No Hero Academia, Star vs. The Forces of Evil, Octopath Traveler, and Fire Emblem.

Published 2019-06-30 14:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-06-16 04:38:54 UTC

Sunset Shimmer: Origins

Sunset Shimmer nursed a swollen cheek as she walked home from school. She winced every time she touched it, constantly reminding herself that it would be better if she didn’t agitate the bruise. Her day didn’t have the best of starts, what with sleeping in late and having to settle for toast with a light smearing of jam on top to eat for breakfast as she sprinted to school, and things only got worse when the teacher brought up the subject of academy applications.

The teacher had flipped through the papers he had in his hands with a neutral expression on his face. “Now, I know now it’s that time for you all to be sending applications to your preferred universities,” a broad smile broke out on his face before he threw the papers into the air like confetti. “But I know you’re all going to apply to a huntsman academy!” the class cheered and hollered as many showed off their semblances and quirks. Sunset, however, sat quietly in her seat with her pony ears pinned to her head and she slowly shrank into her seat.

“Don’t lump me, and Deku here, in with the rest of these losers.” a loud, gruff voice announced, cutting through the commotion of the rest of the class. “We’re not going to just any second rate huntsman academy, we’re going to Beacon Academy!” The boy with explosively spiky blonde hair then stood up on his desk in a dramatic pose, “Deku and I are the only students worth their salt as a huntsman in this pathetic excuse for a school, and soon enough we’ll be the best huntsmen in all of Remnant! Better than Celestia herself!”

Izuku Midoriya, also known as “Deku,” smirked as he rolled his eyes. “Classic Bakugou,” he muttered.

It was at that point where the teacher laid the hay bale for Sunset’s day to go from bad to worse.

“Oh yeah, Shimmer, aren’t you applying to Beacon Academy too?”

Sunset’s heart jumped and hit the floor as she covered her head with her hands, her face nearly touching the wood of the desk in front of her. The spiky blonde paled in his dramatic pose as Izuku turned around to face Sunset with a curious look on his face, along with the rest of the class. When Sunset looked up from her desk, everyone else in class immediately started guffawing at her expense, saying that there was no way someone like her could possibly make it into Beacon.

“She hasn’t even unlocked her aura yet if she has one!”

“What a joke!”

“Come on guys,” Sunset managed to say weakly, “There’s no rule saying that I can’t apply, ri-”

A hand smacked on top of her desk with explosive force, enough to completely break it in half and sending Sunset skittering backward across the room.

“Don’t go get any delusions, Sunset.” the spiky blonde said dangerously, “You’re still a quirkless wannabe. You’ll never make it as a huntress. You’d probably die in initiation!” he turned around with a superior smirk on his face. “Face it, you’d be better off as a clerk for some run down dust shop.” and he returned to his seat.

The bell rang, and everyone left the classroom. Sunset was the last one out, packing away her things, her notebook being the last thing she put away, but not before it was taken from her hands by one of Bakugou's minions.

“What's this?” The boy said mockingly. He read the writing on the cover. “‘Notes on becoming a huntress’? How lame.”

Another minion that stood beside the first one laughed heartily.

“Come on, guys, that's enough,” Izuku said, taking the notebook from other's hand. He held out the book to Sunset when Bakugou snatched it up from behind Sunset.

“I don't know, Deku, this looks like something worth investigating.” He said as he slowly paced towards the nearest open window.

Sunset stood up from her desk. “Come on, Kacchan, give it back.”

Bakugou slammed his hands together with the book in between them and scorched the notebook. Sunset let out a yelp, and Izuku winced. Bakugou threw the book behind him, out the window, landing in what later Sunset would find out to be a fish pond.

“Here’s a word of advice,” the blonde said as he walked towards her and placed a hand on her shoulder, smoke rising upon contact. “Just give up.” He said with a big, fake smile.

Sunset was petrified in fear from the smoldering hand on her shoulder, slowly ratcheting her head to face the explosive teen.

Bakugou, Izuku, and the other two began walking out of the classroom. “If you really want to become a huntress,” the blonde said as he walked past Sunset, stopping just they were standing back to back. “pray you'll become one in your next life, then -oof.” Izuku elbowed him in the gut, interrupting his sentence. They stared at each other sternly for a couple seconds before continuing their walk out wordlessly.

Sunset's fists were clenched so hard, her nails were threatening to pierce her skin. She let out a growl as she whirled around to confront Bakugou, who turned around himself and looked at her with a dangerous sneer, causing whatever Sunset was about to say die in her throat, letting out only a little squeak.

He then walked back up to her about a foot away and said, “You got something to say?” He then cracked his knuckles, “Or should I beat it out of you?”

Sunset recoiled a little bit. “You wouldn’t hit a girl, would you?”

After two seconds of stoic silence, a sinister sneer had appeared on his face.

Sunset winced again after she touched the bruise on her face. Her throat then had a random itch, and she coughed a little, agitating another injury she got even later that day, and it was not just another physical bruise this time.

Sunset had taken her usual way home through a short tunnel underneath light traffic.

“You’ll never make it as a huntress. You’d probably die in initiation.”

Bakugou’s words echoed in her mind before she thought about why she wanted to become a huntress in the first place:

Celestia, the best huntress in the world, always smiling a warm, loving smile, said to have lived during the great war, before becoming as popular as she is now only 26 years ago, her beauty never waning in all that time. She inspired many a great huntsman and huntress, and even a comic book character, “All Might” created by Toshinori Yagi.

Sunset looked up from dejectedly staring at her feet to the light at the end of the tunnel, smiled and pumped a fist as she said to herself, “I'll just keep on smiling, just like Celestia, I won't let what Bakugou said get me down.” She then marched through the tunnel, fist raised, balking a forceful laugh. She only stopped her laughing and marching when she heard some metal scraping against the asphalt. She turned around to face a black sludge monster with eyes that looked like wispy white flames painted on a black trash bag, its massive smiling maw lined with teeth the size of fingers. She would have confused it for a grimm if the monster didn’t speak.

“You'll make an exsscellent hosst for uss.” It said in a deep, gravelly voice.

Sunset turned to run but didn't get 5 feet before a tendril shot out of the monster and wrapped around her throat, beginning to choke her as she was dragged back to it. She felt its semiliquid body at her back as more tendrils crawled across her face and down her throat, beginning to suffocate her. She tried to scrape it off, but to no avail, its body would just slip through her fingers.

“Don't sstruggle, it’ll be eassier for the both of uss if you don't sstruggle.” the monster said, its mouth next to her ear. Then she felt its breath at the back of her head, and its teeth lining the sides of her face.

‘I’m going to die, aren't I?’ Sunset thought to herself as her world started to go black as the teeth closed around her vision.

Then she faintly heard a loud noise followed by a gust of wind as the pressure building up inside of her chest quickly dissipated. She saw a silhouette of a tall, athletic woman with long flowing hair before she finally passed out.

Sunset felt rapid patting on her good cheek as she woke up when she finally opened her eyes; it stopped. Sunset saw a beautiful woman with white pony ears smiling warmly at her, the woman’s pastel blue, green, and purple hair flowing in an ethereal wind. She was wearing a tight white t-shirt, olive green cargo pants, and brown boots.

“Hello there,” the woman said in a motherly tone, “Thought I lost you there for a second.”

Sunset’s eyes widened, she skittered backward as she tried to take in the fact that she was meeting her idol for the first time. “Oh my gods! Celestia?! Here?! Can I have your autograph?! Let me find my notebook!” Sunset found her singed and formerly soaked notebook on the ground and opened it up to a presumed blank page. “She already signed it!” she began bowing rapidly and profusely. “Thankyouthankyouthnakyou! This will be a family treasure, passed down for generations!”

Celestia stood up, gave a thumbs up, and pulled out a soda bottle filled with a black liquid with streaks of white floating about inside from one of her pants pockets. “Well, gotta get this guy to the station.” she put the bottle back into her pocket, “See you around.” she began doing squats and stretches.

“Wait, you’re leaving already?” Sunset asked in slight dismay.

“We huntresses are fighting time as well as grimm and villains,” Celestia responded, not stopping her warm-ups.

‘She can’t leave now. I have so many questions to ask her.’ Sunset thought to herself.

“Stand back. I’m taking off.” and Celestia jumped up, practically flying through the air with a gust of wind disturbing the cherry blossoms trees nearby. “Thanks for your support!”

Not five seconds into her “flight” Celestia noticed that something felt off, she looked down and saw the girl she rescued earlier clinging to her leg, the girl’s legs flailing and face being comically distorted by the wind. “What do you think you’re doing!” she reprimanded the poor girl, trying to pry her off her leg, “I love my fans, but this is a bit much!”

“I can't do that now!” Sunset responded, “We’re flying, if I let go now, I’ll die!”

Celestia immediately stopped struggling, frozen in position as she flew through the air, “Ah, you have a point.”

“I just have a lot I want to ask you in person! Please, you’re my all time favorite huntress!”

“All right, all right! I understand, just cover your eyes and mouth!”

Sunset complied and buried her face into Celestia’s leg. As they flew, Celestia prepared herself to gain a better grip on Sunset for when they land. Celestia covered her mouth with her free hand as she coughed a little, and she felt a drop of blood seep through her teeth and drizzle out the side of her lips.

They landed on top of a “Blue Sun” office building. Sunset was barely standing, keeled over as she shakily regained her breath, her hair was frazzled, and her lips were horribly dry. “My whole life just flashed before my eyes.”

“That wasn’t very smart, young lady.” Celestia scolded. “Knock the door for a while, someone will let you in.” she then paced to the edge of the building.

“Wait.” Sunset said, suddenly regaining some composure as she reached out to the famed huntress, “Don’t go!”

“No!” Celestia responded, “I don’t have time!”

Sunset slowly clenched her fist and lowered her arm as she thought back to all the times she’s been told that she wouldn’t make it as a huntress, the doctors, the other children in her class, and, in particular, Katsuki Bakugou. When her arm reached her lowest point, she finally worked up the courage to ask her question. “Is it possible for someone like me to be a huntress?! Someone without a quirk or semblance or even possibly an aura? Could I ever hope to be someone like you?!”

Celestia stopped in her tracks and turned to face the girl, her smile still present on her face. This was a dream come true for Sunset, meeting Celestia in person, this is something that she knew would change her life forev-

*Poof*

In a puff of steam Celestia disappeared and in her place stood a scrawny, haggard-looking woman, with flat pink hair, sunken eyes wearing a white t-shirt that was three sizes too big for her, and the same could be said for her olive green pants and brown boots.

Sunset screamed. “Who are you?! You're not Celestia! You're an imposter! What happened to Celestia?”

The woman let out an agitated sigh. “I assure you, young lady, I am the real- *bleugh*” she suddenly coughed up a mildly disturbing amount of blood. Sunset screamed again.

“That can’t be right.” Sunset said in dismay, “Celestia is an amazon of a woman and always has a gentle smile, like mother’s...” Sunset trailed off.

“You know how some women put on an absurd amount of make-up to the point you don’t recognize them once they don’t have any on?” Celestia interrupted as she wiped the blood from her face. “I’m basically like that; all I have to do is suck in my gut.”

“What?!”

Celestia sat down on the concrete roof and leaned back against the railings. “I’m counting on you to keep quiet about this, kid. Don’t go telling all your friends about this, K?”

Sunset didn’t speak a word but subtly nodded in confirmation. Celestia lifted her shirt to reveal a big, nasty scar on the side of her stomach, it looked like a spider web, stitches making the radius and the folded skin, creating the spiral. “Pretty gross, right? I got this in a big fight in the middle of the Faunus War, that’s why I was missing for some time until after it ended. I lost my stomach, my lungs were shot, and all the surgeries that attempted to fix this has worn me out. It can’t be fixed.” Celestia lowered her shirt. “Some things just can’t be done without a semblance or aura. So, honestly, no, I don’t think you can become a huntress.”

That had struck Sunset to her core.

Sunset clenched a fist over her heart, scrunching up a portion of her school uniform. After having walked for so long with her head facing down, she finally looked up and saw that she had arrived at the place where an explosion had happened earlier, just after her talk with Celestia.

‘Why am I here?’ she thought to herself, ‘Maybe I just instinctively walked my way here just because I’ve chased these kinds of scenes so many times in my life.’

Managing to see through the massive crowd that had gathered, she gasped at what she saw. It was the monster that attacked her earlier.

“Let go of him, you villain!” Izuku shouted over the raging fires surrounding them. “Let go of Kacchan!”

The villain chuckled. “Ssoon there will be nothing left of him. Only Venom!” the villain cackled, then raised a thick tendril and slammed Izuku into a nearby wall, breaking his aura.

“Get out of here, Deku!” Bakugou shouted. “I can handle this on my own!”

Sunset couldn’t believe it. How did he get away from Celestia? Was it when they were flying? It must have been.

‘This is all my fault.’ she thought to herself. ‘I should do something, but I can’t. I don’t have a semblance or an aura. I’d just get myself killed.’ Her mind was flooded with white noise, feeling nothing but anguish.

Celestia rounded a corner and found the villain she lost, holding a boy captive, and not allowing any other huntsman to be able to get near him.

‘Damn.’ she thought to herself. ‘I’m worthless right now. I used up all my time talking to that girl earlier. I can’t do a thing.”

Celestia was startled from her thoughts by what she saw next.

Sunset quickly found herself sprinting towards the monster holding Bakugou captive. ‘What am I doing? I can’t do this.’ she looked up to see Venom staring down at her. ‘Page 30: distract the villain however you can.’ She remembered from her ruined notebook and quickly took off her backpack and threw it at the villain’s face, it didn’t seem to do much but distract Venom long enough for her to reach Bakugou and begin trying to scratch him out of the villain’s grasp.

“Sunset?!” Izuku yelled from underneath a small pile of bricks with an arm raised. “What are you doing? You’re going to get yourself killed! Get out of the way!”

“Get out of here Sunset!” Bakugou snarled. “I don’t need your help.”

Sunset ignored both boys’ pleas to run away. “I can’t just leave you here!” she screamed, tears streaming from her face.

Venom chuckled, "Thiss boy will make a fine hosst, and you and the other boy will make a fine meal." He raised another tendril to slam Sunset out of the way.

Sunset clenched her eyes as she expected the strike to come down, but nothing came except the sound of a soft boom and a gust of wind. There was a moment of silence as she began to understand that nothing came down to hit her. She looked up and saw Celestia with her classic smile on her face as she held back the attacking tendril with relative ease.

“I truly am pathetic.” She said to Sunset. “I am pathetic for thinking that I couldn't have done this without risking my life.” she tossed aside the attacking tendril. “But we risk our lives every day to save those who can't save themselves.” Celestia then threw a super-powered punch at the villain, dissolving him from Bakugou like he did from Sunset. “‘Cause that’s what heroes do.”

With the villain finally captured, everything went back to normal. Bakugou and Izuku got praises from some of the other huntsmen on the scene, while Sunset was scolded by others for doing such a foolish thing. That didn’t bother Sunset too much, she agreed that it was a stupid thing to do. She wanted to apologize to Celestia for wasting her time, but reporters swarmed her like flies.

‘I guess I could always try to message her on her forum. Oh, well. I guess I’ll get back to giving up on my dreams.’ Sunset thought to herself as she continued her walk home. Then she heard Bakugou’s voice shout her name. She turned around and found him standing just within shouting distance, catching his breath.

When Bakugou got his breath back, he glared at Sunset and shouted to her, “Just remember, you did nothing! I was fine on my own! I don’t owe you anything, Sunset! Nothing! You hear me?!” after he was finished, he stomped off in the opposite direction, Izuku catching up to him, also out of breath.

Sunset blinked at Bakugou stomping off. ‘What was that about?’ she shook her head. ‘Whatever, time get back ho-’

“Fear not, citizen!” Celestia burst out from around the next alleyway in Sunset’s path, causing her to jump.

“C-Celestia? What are you doing here? How did you get rid of all those reporters?”

Celestia flexed her muscles, “I stand for justice! Not sound bites! Because I am- *bleaugh!*.” Celestia coughed up some more blood as she shrank down to skin and bones again, causing Sunset to screech in terror.

Celestia wiped away the blood from her face. “Ugh... I really do hate it when I push my time limit. Anyway, I came here to thank you and to discuss your question from earlier. So, thank you for saving that boy’s life.”

Sunset looked at Celestia perplexed. “What are you talking about? I didn’t actually do anything. If anything, I was the one who caused the problem in the first place.”

Celestia chuckled. “Oh, but young lady, you did. If you hadn’t told me about you being quirkless, I never would have believed that a small, timid, quirkless little girl would stand up to such a monster as Venom. A common thing among many great heroes is that their bodies move before they can think, and I believe that’s what happened to you. So, when I saw you act to save that boy’s life, it inspired me to do the same. That’s how you saved his life.”

Sunset stood stock still, absorbing what she had been told. She thought back to her mother apologizing to her as a child about her not having a quirk or a semblance and how she wished that things could have been different.

“And, to truly answer your question:”

An apology was not what Sunset needed to hear from her mother at a vulnerable age.

“Yes, young lady, you too can become a huntress!”

Sunset grasped at her chest as she fell to her knees, crying her eyes out. Crying tears of joy because finally- finally- someone believed in her.

Celestia held her hands out like she was a prophet preaching in the streets. “And I deem you worthy of inheriting my power!”

Sunset looked up at Celestia, “Huh?”

Celestia appeared unphased as she answered the question. “I did not have the power I currently wield from birth, it was gifted to me by someone else.”

“Someone... gave you your semblance? That’s not possible. You can’t just give someone else you power if you could then...” Sunset trailed off as she muttered incomprehensibly softly.

“Sunset?” Celestia tried to get the muttering girl’s attention. “Sunset. Sunset... Quit nerding out!”

Sunset snapped out of her ramblings.

“The power I wield is called ‘One for All,’ and soon it will be yours. Should you choose to accept.”

Sunset stood up, wiped the tears from her eyes, and pumped a fist in front of her. “I accept.”

Celestia smiled. “Well then, meet me tomorrow afternoon at the beach. You’re training will begin then.”

That was when Sunset was set off on her journey to become the greatest huntress.

And when her year of Hell began.

Author's Note

I've always wanted to do a super crossover series and here is my first. I hope it's good.
While this story will start with Sunset Shimmer and her team (and focus primarily around them). Like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there will be other groups not directly related to the main characters who will do just as important things. Hence the anthology tag.

Before I continue, do you think I should do "trailers" for the other three members of the team and/or briefly go through Sunset's "Year of Hell" or should I just skip right into beacon academy and introduce almost all the other characters then?

Initiation 1.1

Arc 1: Initiation

Sunset Shimmer looked out the window of the airship. 'This is the day I've been waiting for.' she thought to herself. 'I can't believe it, that day has come. I'm actually heading to Beacon Academy.' Sunset could hardly contain herself. She squealed a little bit and briefly pranced in place. She stopped when she caught herself fangirling and glanced around to see if anyone saw that. It didn't look like anyone did. She overheard someone talking about wanting to have normal knees. On her other side, Sunset noticed a boy with pink hair lying face-down on the floor, groaning.

“Why does mom hate me so much?” Sunset barely made out of what he grumbled.

Sunset snickered to herself, not at the boy's agony, but at the memory of her feeling much the same way in the past ten months. Her training to inherit One For All was definitely such a challenge she felt she could get away with calling it a Year of Hell.

Celestia was riding on a segway in her true form as Sunset was jogging behind her, looking horribly exhausted.

Sunset collapsed mid-stride, tripping over her tired feet, her arms shaking like she was in an earthquake in the struggle of trying to pull herself up.

'Why do I hate myself so much?' Sunset thought as her face laid on the gravel path.

Celestia quickly noticed that Sunset was no longer jogging directly behind her. “Come on, young lady, you won't become strong enough to inherit One For All if you lay face down in the dirt like that. We only have six months until-” then Celestia noticed her horrible shaking. “You're overdoing it, aren't you?”

Sunset said nothing as she panted, straining herself to stand up, barely looking at Celestia with one open eye.

“I designed the Valean Dream Plan so that your progress would be swift but manageable,” Celestia got off the segway and stepped closer to Sunset, “if you overwork your body like this, you risk more damage than progress. Why are you doing this?”

Sunset grit her teeth and mustered enough strength to lift an arm and punch the ground, or at least enough to emphasize her frustration.

“Because,” Sunset said hoarsely, “I don't merely want to succeed. I want to surpass. I want to show the world what I am capable of!”

Celestia stood in front of her pupil in stunned silence before inflating into her hero form. “Yes!” Celestia shouted. “That's the spirit!” she then picked up the tired Sunset onto her feet. “I may have to rework the entire plan from this point on, but hey!” Celestia knelt to face Sunset eye to eye, “You are demonstrating what it truly takes to be an excellent huntress.”

Sunset smiled genuinely but weakly as she wobbled in place.

“Now, let's get back to it!” Celestia cheered. “These three miles aren't going to walk themselves!” she then patted Sunset heavily on the back, who then fell forward, landing face-down into the gravel again. “Or maybe I should just carry you, at least part of the way.” Celestia amended.

Sunset was pulled from her thoughts when a news program began to play on a holographic screen inside the ship. The reporter talked about peaceful faunus right revolutions turning violent and then about a dangerous man by the name of Roman Torchwick on the loose. The news was suddenly interrupted by a hologram of a blonde woman wearing a white collared blouse and a black corset with four gold buttons.

“Hello.” the woman said.

“Who's that?” Sunset overheard someone say.

“I am Glynda Goodwitch.” the hologram seemed to respond.

Glynda then gave a brief speech about what the new students can expect and when and where official initiation will occur.

Beacon Academy came into view out the windows, and everyone on board crowded the windows to get a better look.

“Wow.” a girl with black hair with red tips wearing a jacket with a red hood said as Sunset took place next to her.

“I know, right?” Sunset said in agreement, looking to the red-themed girl, exchanging a smile.

A taller blonde and yellow themed girl looked over the red girl at Sunset and let out a soft chuckle, “The view from Signal ain't got nothing on this.”

All three girls heard someone gagging and looked to see a blonde boy in knight-like armor with a black hoodie underneath it hold his hands over his mouth as he staggered away from the window, desperately trying not to throw up.

“I guess the view isn't for everybody.” She said as the boy darted past them. “I'm Yang, by the way,” she said as she held out a hand to Sunset.

“Sunset Shim-”

*Bleaugh!* the blonde boy interrupted Sunset's introduction when he threw up on Yang's shoes.

“Aw, gross! He got it on your shoes!” the red girl screamed.

“Grossgrossgrossgrossgross!” Yang exclaimed in kind.

“Ew, getawayfrommegetawayfrommegetawayfromme!” red said as both she and Sunset were backing away from Yang and her barf covered boots.

Thankfully, they landed shortly after the whole “Vomit Boy” incident as said Vomit Boy ran out of the airship and made a mad dash to the nearest open trash can and threw up again.

Sunset empathetically patted Vomit Boy on the back, then wandered towards the main building of Beacon Academy.

“Wow,” she said softly aloud as she was subconsciously being pulled by the crowd closer to the building before realizing she was too close to take it all in and started pacing backward.

She was pulled from her admiration when she heard an explosion, tripped over her feet, and began to fall backward.

Time slowed down to a crawl as the sky consumed her vision. 'Well, I guess I'll die here.' she thought just as her fall was cushioned by a huge stack of books being carried by a small boy.

“Why don't you watch where you're going!?” a female voice shouted at Sunset as she laid on a pile of books, wincing in pain as a book managed to land on her face. Sunset was thankful that the collection of books was large enough that she did not receive any blunt force trauma to the head from the concrete but would have plenty of bruises across her back from the books' sharp-ish edges.

“Gee Twilight, I'm fine, thanks for asking.” came a muffled, sarcastic young male voice from underneath the pile.

Sunset was startled by realizing where the second voice came from and jumped up, weirdly sending two or three books flying an incredible distance given the minuscule force that should have been enacted upon it. Sunset did not pay any attention to physics breaking around her as she dug through the books and found the small boy that had been carrying the absurd amount of books and pulled him out.

“I am so sorry!” Sunset shouted as she dusted the boy off. “Are you Ok?”

The small boy had lime green hair, wearing a purple t-shirt with a slightly off-purple and asymmetric design of a dragon's head, and reptilian frills behind his ears. When Sunset stepped back, he threw both hands in front of him, palms facing upwards, and looked to Twilight.

“See?” he said, “Common courtesy.” he then relaxed his arms and faced Sunset, bowing slightly. “Much better, now that you asked. Emotionally, if not physically.” he beamed a smile at Sunset, then turned to Twilight, the same smile now carrying a sense of smugness or sarcasm.

Twilight rolled her eyes as she brushed her dark blue hair with a reddish-pink highlight; her pony ear twitched. She wore a light-blue cardigan sweater underneath a lavender jacket, a purple skirt, and a pair of heeled boots.

Twilight stared at the boy for a moment. “Are you going to pick those up or not, Spike?”

Spike's smile vanished into a neutral expression, and he turned to pick up the books scattered across the ground. “You know,” he said, “you could help, Twilight. Your semblance is telekinesis, after all.”

“Yes, but it's nothing like what you read in your comic books, Spike. There's a fine limit in how much I can lift.” as she was talking, a couple of books at a time began to glow a faint pale pink and organize themselves into organized stacks.

As everything was being put together, another girl walked up to them, holding what Sunset presumed to be another of Twilight's books. She was also a faunus with pony ears and had a lighter shade of purple from Twilight's hair but with a cyan highlight. She wore a traditional Eastern Vale dress with a sash of two purple stripes and a cyan stripe, matching her hair, tied around her waist, and wearing a pair of purple gloves.

“'Prophecies and Predictions'?” The girl read the title of the book then looked to Twilight skeptically. “You look like the intellectual type. Why do you have a book like this?”

Twilight's face reddened, and she quickly snatched the book away from the new girl. “Because... I have a friend who won't shut up about something from this book becoming true, and I need to use this to find evidence to prove her wrong.”

Spike quirked an eyebrow at that statement but then shrugged it off and picked up the finished stack of books, walking over to Twilight for her to place the last one on.

“Those books were written by and for people desperate for attention and refused to be productive members of society.”

Twilight puffed up her cheeks and slammed the book on top of Spike's stack, nearly knocking him off balance, and stormed off.

“Bye,” Sunset said to Twilight and Spike.

“Bye,” Spike replied, unable to face her.

Twilight continued walking away in fuming silence.

Sunset turned to face the other girl, but she was also walking away and was too far for Sunset to catch up to her before it seemed like she was stalking her. So, since that whole debacle is now over, she sunk to her knees and laid backward, closing her eyes to shield them from the sunlight.

“Uhg, that was embarrassing.” Sunset groaned to herself.

The sunlight was suddenly obscured, and Sunset opened her eyes to see a boy holding out his hand. He had messy brown hair and wore a red t-shirt with blue sidings and a black spider on the chest, blue jeans, a pair of red and white sneakers, and fairly bulky-looking gloves with bandages wrapped around them and halfway up his forearm.

“Hi, I'm Peter,” he said.

Sunset took his hand and pulled her up to her feet. “I'm Sunset.”

Peter smiled at her. “Nice to meet you.”

Peter and Sunset started to walk around campus. They ran into a couple of other new students, the red-themed girl from the airship, Ruby, and the blonde-haired boy who threw up on the ship, Jaune.

“I'm just saying motion sickness is more common than you think,” Jaune said argumentatively.

“I'm sorry 'Vomit Boy' was the first thing that came to mind,” Ruby said jokingly.

“Oh, yeah?” Jaune retorted. “How about if I started calling you 'Crater Face'?”

“Hey! That was an accident! And that girl was really, really mean!”

“'Crater Face'?” Sunset inquired.

Jaune looked up from teasing Ruby. “Hm? Oh, yeah. She tripped over some rich girl's stuff, and then she sneezed, and then she exploded.”

“There was dust involved.” Ruby added testily before retelling the whole story, “... and then she was waving a leaky dust vial in front of my face, and the stuff got into my nose, and my sneeze must have- kinda- set it off. There was fire, and I think there was some ice.”

Peter whistled. “Wow. I didn't think dust was so sensitive that literally, a sneeze could set it off.”

They all chuckled. Sunset then felt it was appropriate to tell the group the story of her encounter with Twilight.

“I guess we can then call you... 'Facebook.'” Jaune quipped.

“Please don't.” Sunset whimpered.

“Well, now that the three out of the four of us have an embarrassing nickname. Let's see if we can find one for you, Peter.” Jaune said almost sinisterly, Ruby joining him in his evil smile.

Peter quirked an eyebrow and smirked.

Jaune didn't waste any time in coming up with one. “'Nightmare shirt.'”

“...What?” Peter said as he looked down at his shirt, seeing nothing wrong. “Why?”

“You have a giant spider on your chest. Those things are the stuff of nightmares.”

“Wha- spiders are cool!” Peter retorted.

“No, they're not! They are creepy little crawlies.”

Peter reacted like someone poured cold water down his neck. “'Creepy- little- crawlies'?”

“What? Too childish?” Jaune asked obliviously.

“Yes,” Peter said firmly.

“How about... 'Spider-ling'?” Ruby asked.

Peter frowned slightly. “That's already the nickname Mr. Stark gave me.”

Ruby and Sunset's eyes widened. “Stark?” they said in unison. “As in Tony Stark?”

Peter took a step back. “Y-yeah. He's the only reason why I'm able to come here to Beacon. He gave me a scholarship.”

Ruby's eyes sparkled as Sunset's maintained their wideness.

“How did you get a scholarship from Tony Stark?” Ruby asked breathily.

Peter smirked. “From these bad boys.” he showed them the back of his hands.

“Your hands?” Ruby asked, tilting her head.

“No.” Peter pulled off a glove and showed them the piece of equipment underneath the bandages. “I call them web-shooters. Designed them myself.”

“What do they do?” Jaune asked.

Peter threw out a hand away from the group and pressed his middle two fingers against his palm, and a string that looked a lot like giant spider silk flew out from his wrist.

“That's amazing,” Ruby said in wonder. “Ooh, let me show something I designed. It's not anything scholarship worthy, but I am very proud of it nonetheless.” Ruby then whips out the hunk of red and black metal that was strapped to her back as mechanical transforming noises resonated, and it fully extended into its true form as she stabbed the weapon's blade into the ground.

“Whoa! Is that a scythe?” Jaune said, a little scared.

“Yep. It's also a fully customizable, high impact sniper rifle.”

“A what-now?”

Ruby pulls a rack. “It's also a gun.”

Sunset walks up to Ruby to admire Ruby's weapon, 'Crescent Rose,' caressing her hand over the intricate machinery.

“How about you, Sunset? I see you're carrying something.” Ruby chirped.

“Oh, uh. I-it's not as impressive as either of yours but- uh...” Sunset pulls out her weapon of mostly red-orange and yellow colors as it transforms as well; Jaune jumped back again, “It's also a scythe.”

“Copy-cat.” Ruby playfully jeered.

“B-but this one actually turns into a shield. I'm not very good at designing firing mechanisms.”

“It's still cool, though,” Ruby said encouragingly. “I like how you have a sun emblem at the end there.”

Sunset felt a pang of embarrassment when Ruby pointed out the sun symbol at the head of her scythe. She wanted to be like Celestia so much that she even copied Celestia's personal emblem. Thankfully, a sun is generic enough, and her symbol is different enough that no one seems to notice the inspiration.

“Were you going for a Celestia inspiration?” Ruby asked.

'Rats' Sunset chided to herself. “Y-yeah. I'm a huge fan.”

“Cool,” Ruby said, smiling brightly. “Jaune, what about you?”

Jaune was caught off-guard by this. “Oh! Uh- mine is definitely not as impressive as any of yours, but...” he pulls a sword and scabbard off his belt, pulls the blade out, and the scabbard folded out into a shield.

“Ooh.” Ruby and Sunset said.

“Mine's actually a hand-me-down. It was my great-great-grandfather's who fought in the Great War.”

“Sounds more like a family heirloom to me,” Ruby said, causing Jaune to deflate a little. “But I like it!” Ruby proclaimed genuinely. “Not many have an appreciation for the classics.”

Peter and Sunset concurred with Ruby's statement.

“Yeah, classic,” Jaune said softly.

They were interrupted when they could hear someone panting. They looked around and saw a pink-haired boy running towards them.

“I'm not too late, am I?!” the pink-haired boy said when he got close enough to speak to them. “For initiation? Oh, mom's gonna kill me if I'm late.”

Peter pulled out his scroll and looked at the time. “Oh, crap! It starts in like four minutes! We need to get there fast!”

Everyone started to panic.

“Which way is it?” Jaune asked Ruby.

“I thought you knew!”

“No, I was following you!”

“AHHH!” everyone screamed in unison.

The pink-haired boy then stretched his back as he seemed to have regained his breath. “Alright, follow me.” He ran past them and threw his hands out behind him, the sound of mechanical shifting, followed by an explosion as he launched himself into the air towards the main building.

“Ok, now he's just copying Yang,” Ruby said as she pulled out Crescent Rose and followed the boy in kind, firing her rifle-scythe to launch her into the air.

Peter shrugged. “When in Rome. Come on, Sunset, I'll give you a hand.” he held out a hand to Sunset again. When she took it, he pulled her in close and threw a web at a tall structure, and they began to swing across the campus.

Jaune was left alone as Sunset's surprised screams began to fade from the distance.

Jaune lifted his hands. “No one's going to help me?” he dropped his hands and shook his head as he began to jog in the direction everyone else left. “That's fine,” he said sarcastically. “Just leave little Jaune to fend for himself. 'Last I saw him, he was enjoying his time alone.' Yeah, Peter and Sunset are probably making out by now. Stupid little spider-ling.”

Author's Note

It's been a while since I first posted this, wanting to make sure I knew what I was doing and where I was going. But now, I feel ready to begin releasing this onto the world. I am thankful for the support and criticisms I have already received about this so far, and I hope you continue to enjoy this.

Initiation 1.2

Sunset, Ruby, Peter, and the pink-haired boy, whose name they learned was Natsu, arrived at the auditorium with Jaune following shortly behind them, panting desperately for breath. There were a lot of people in the room, all very colorful too. The five teenagers scanned the hall to take in how many potential students came in the hopes of being accepted into Beacon. In the crowd, Sunset saw Yang waving at her and Ruby.

“Ruby! Sunset! Over here!”

“Oh! I see Yang.” Ruby exclaimed. “Thanks, you guys, for helping us get here on time,” Ruby said as she jumped off to go to her sister, Sunset following nervously.

“No problem,” said Natsu, giving Ruby a thumbs up. “Hope to see ya later.” He waved goodbye and walked in the opposite direction.

Jaune raised a hand to try and stop the rose and sun-colored teens but gave up rather quickly. “Great. Where am I going to find a nice quirky girl to talk to?”

Peter blinked and looked a little offended. “Could you talk to me instead?”

Jaune looked at Peter. “To be honest, I don’t like you that much.”

“Rude. Just for that, I’m not inviting you to hang with me in my favorite spot for places like this.” Peter thwips a web to the ceiling and vaults himself upward into the scaffolding of the building.

Jaune looked up at the spider-boy. “Show-off.” and hung his head in sadness as he walked past a girl with scarlet red hair and bronze armor.

“You ditched me!” Ruby exclaimed.

“Yeah, sorry about that, Rubes, Sunset.”

“To be fair, I wandered off on my own,” Sunset said sheepishly.

“And I exploded!” Ruby continued.

“Oo, a meltdown already?” Yang said.

“No, I literally exploded a hole in front of the school! There was fire, ice, rocks, and I’m pretty sure I tasted A flat over high C.”

“That was you?” Sunset exclaimed.

“Yes! There was this crabby girl, I tripped on her stuff, she yelled at me, I sneezed, then I exploded, and she yelled at me some more, and I feel really- really bad and I just wanna-”

A girl in a white dress with white hair tied in a sideways ponytail slowly peered out from behind Ruby as she talked before she exclaimed, “You again!”

Ruby jumped into Yang’s arms. “Oh gods, it’s happening again!”

“You nearly got us killed!” The white-haired girl exclaimed.

Yang stood still with wide eyes staring at, who Sunset recognized as heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, Weiss Schnee, “Oh my gods, you really did explode.”

“Look, I’m sorry, ok?” Ruby said as Yang lowered her sister to the ground.

Sunset wanted to say something but was intimidated by Wiess’s attitude when she presented Ruby with a pamphlet titled “Dust for Dummies and other inadequate individuals.” She then recited a legal addendum that went over both of their heads.

“Uh...” Ruby said after Weiss was finished.

“Do you really want to make it up to me?” Weiss asked.

Ruby shrunk back and plastered a smile onto her face. “Absolutely?”

Weiss shoved the pamphlet into Ruby’s hands. “Read this, and don’t ever speak to me again.”

“Uh, look,” Yang said, obviously trying to diffuse the situation. “It sounds like you two just got off on the wrong foot. Why don’t we start over?”

“Great idea, Yang!” Ruby said as she turned to the heiress and held out a hand to shake. “Hello Weiss, I’m Ruby. Wanna hang out?”

“Oh, yes!” Weiss said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “We could paint our nails and talk about cute boys, like tall, blonde, and scraggly over there.” she pointed a thumb at a random boy in the crowd that happened to be Jaune, who seemed to take notice that someone was talking about him.

“Really?!” Ruby said, not catching the sarcasm.

Sunset leaned in to explain Weiss’ sarcasm discreetly, but Weiss beat her to the punch with a harsh and blunt, “No!”

Feedback rang through the auditorium speakers as the headmaster of Beacon, Professor Ozpin, was onstage and began to speak. “I’ll... keep this brief.” he began. “Many of you have come to this school in search of knowledge... but all I see here is wasted potential.”

Sunset’s heart sank at that sentence, but she took a moment to look at her hand and thought back on her training with Celestia. She closed her fist and told herself, ‘It’s only the beginning of the semester. I may have improved a lot in the past ten months, but I still have a ways to go before I become a great huntress, and that’s why I’m here, to learn.’ Sunset pulled herself from her thoughts to listen to the rest of Ozpin’s speech. He sounded... distant. It was like he wasn’t really there.

Ozpin walked offstage, clicking his cane casually with every step, as Glynda came up to the microphone. “You will gather in the ballroom tonight. Tomorrow, your initiation begins. Be ready.”

A man dressed in black with the longest dull grey scarf Sunset had ever seen wrapped around his neck so many times. It looked like it would be very uncomfortable to wear even during springtime. He had long, messy black hair, a tired look on his face. In an equally tired voice, he said, “And whoever is leaving webs all over campus, please clean up after yourselves.” and simply walked offstage.

Sunset and Ruby looked at each other and sniggered.

“Looks like Peter got in trouble~,” Ruby said softly.

Yang leaned in and said in an equally soft voice, “Who’s Peter? Was he one of the guys you came in with? *gasp* Do you already have a boyfriend~?”

Sunset blushed slightly.

“Ew, Yang! No!” Ruby spat with child-like disgust.

Yang increasingly began to intrude on Ruby’s personal space. “Is he cute? Come on, you can tell me?”

Sunset snickered as Yang picked on her younger sister, the two almost beginning to wrestle. She was disturbed from her enjoyment of a classic example of older-younger sibling interaction when someone harshly bumped into her, nearly sending her toppling to the floor. She turned to see who it was. A cold chill ran down her spine as she saw Bakugou glaring back at her as he was walking away. Izuku gave her a look of apology before he briefly waved to Sunset with a weak smile before immediately following Bakugou. Sunset straightened herself and glanced at Ruby and Yang, thankful that the two didn’t seem to notice. She stared at Bakugou and Izuku, disappearing into the crowd as she thought back on her last encounter with Bakugou before taking an airship to Beacon.

Sunset had her back slammed against a wall as a small explosion rang next to her ear. She carefully opened her eyes to see Bakugou glaring at her, veins throbbing on his forehead and neck. His lip was curled up in a vicious snarl, and his breathing came out as low guttural growls. His face only two inches away from hers as he pressed her against the wall with a balled fist bunching her shirt at the shoulder and his other hand against the wall where he left a scorch mark.

A moment of silence passed between the two before Bakugou finally said, “I thought I told you not to apply to Beacon Academy.”

Sunset had been training with Celestia for about a month now, so she could convince herself to muster enough strength to talk back. “You said no such thing,” she said quietly but boldly.

Bakugou must have heard as he let out a small “Urk.” he backed away a little bit, his sneer losing its intensity.

Sunset noticed this and pressed on. “No matter what you do,” she said, leaning forward, “I refuse to be discouraged from becoming a huntress.”

Bakugou physically took a step back.

“My actions that day, about a month ago, proved to myself that I can be a hero.” Sunset took a step forward. “Because someone told me that they believed in me, and that is enough for me to reach out for my destiny and seize it with my own two hands.” Sunset glared at Bakugou long and hard.

Bakugou’s sneer returned in full force as he backed away and let Sunset go. “Just who the hell do you think you are?”

Sunset said nothing as she walked away.

“Just who the hell do you think I am?” Sunset instinctively whispered as she glared at the space Bakugou occupied before disappearing from sight. Something roiled in her stomach and in her heart as she said those words.

“You say something, Sunset?” Ruby’s words broke Sunset’s staring contest with empty space as she shook her head to clear her thoughts.

“N-no, it was nothing,” Sunset replied.

Ruby stepped closer, concern showing on her face. “Are you ok?”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine.”

“Great!” Yang said with enthusiasm as she ushered her sister and their new friend in the same direction as all the other students. “Let’s get to that ballroom. Oh, man, it’s going to be like a big slumber party!”

Ruby followed Yang. “I don’t think dad would approve of all the boys.”

“I know I do.” Yang purred.

Sunset blushed.

Author's Note

Well, now we have officially introduced every member of the title team. Sorry it took me a while to post a new chapter. Hope you guys continue to enjoy reading this and look forward to introducing other characters in the next chapter.

Initiation 1.3

A boy with brown hair, and a cute mole under his right eye, is sleeping peacefully in his sleeping bag in the ballroom, waiting for initiation. That is until a girl with long blonde hair wearing a teal dress and a red hairband with small devil horns wanted him to join the land of the awake.

“Marco!” she shouted, causing the boy to yelp, jump up to his feet, still in the sleeping bag, flailing his arms about before settling into a fighting position.

Marco blinked away the sleep from his eyes and lowered his arms when he regained control over his martial instincts. “Ugh... Star?” he began rubbing his eyes. “Why-?”

“Come on, sleepyhead! We gotta get ready for the big day~!”

Marco stepped out of the sleeping bag, stretched, and dusted off the orange hoodie he slept in. “Way ahead of you.”

Marco was being very methodic about brushing his teeth. At the same time, Star seemed to go about it randomly while energetically mumbling a tune.

Marco spat the toothpaste foam into the sink. “Looks like someone is looking forward to their first day of school.” he paused to rinse out his mouth. “How come you weren’t like this any other year?”

Star gargled some water loudly, sounding like a Wookie before she spat it out with force into the sink. “Because, Marco Diaz, now we’re not learning boring stuff like history or science. We’re learning to hunt monsters!”

Marco finished tying up his sleeping bag. “What do you think we went to Asylum for? That was our primary combat school.”

“Yeah, but with a name like that, can’t you see why I’m so eager to be here.”

Marco paused, contemplating for a second. “Touche.”

Marco began speaking through a mouthful of cereal. “Hold on, that doesn’t explain why you think we didn’t learn anything about hunting Grimm back then.”

“Because nine times out of ten, we would be learning something useless. Like history, math, or how Vibranium can pierce someone’s aura without disturbing the aura. Grimm don’t have aura!”

“But that knowledge comes in handy when applying first aid. Field surgeons use vibranium filament lights to keep a person’s body from healing the wrong way while they’re doing surgery.”

“But we aren’t surgeons, are we, Marco?”

Marco softly groaned as he put a spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

“Instead of focusing on what we didn’t learn in school,” Star said as she stood behind Marco, rifling through his locker for his weapons. “Why don’t we figure out how to make sure we’re on the same team. We’ll need some sort of sign, a signal...”

“Wouldn’t that be cheating, Star?” Marco said as he pulled out a pair of tonfas and clipped them behind his back on his belt.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Marco. It’s not like we’re getting a grade on who we end up being partners with. Besides, those two over there have been talking about it since breakfast.”

Star pointed to a girl with red hair, wearing a pink skirt and white top with a heart cutout on her chest, talking to a boy with black hair and a pink stripe wearing an oriental long sleeve green top with white pants.

“How about a sloth?” the redhead said, zipping from his right side to his left, “Can you imitate a sloth?”

“Nora,” the boy said.

“Yes, Ren?” she zipped to his other side.

Ren sheathed a pair of bladed pistols into his sleeves. “I don’t think sloths make a lot of noise.”

Nora looked stunned for a second before she brightened up. “That’s why it’s perfect! No one will suspect that we’re together.”

“Daw! I was going to suggest that.” Star said, pouting.

Marco facepalmed. “Why don’t you go talk to her and make sure you two don’t accidentally use the same signal during initiation?”

“Great idea! Maybe we can even give each other tips on tradecraft.” Star giggled as she skipped towards Ren and Nora.

Marco sighed as he followed after her at a casual pace. “I’m surprised you know that word.”

Sunset Shimmer entered the locker room with Yang and Ruby as they saw Ren, Nora, Star, and Marco pass by, the two girls tittering to each other.

“I wonder what’s got them so excited.” Yang wondered out loud.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Ruby said as she opened her locker and pulled out her weapon, Crescent Rose. “Today, I let my sweetheart do the talking.” She stroked her weapon in collapsed form and let out a shuddering breath.

Sunset cringed a little bit at Ruby’s... display of affection toward her weapon.

“Sooo,” Yang started, “What are you going to do about teams, Ruby, Sunset?”

Ruby clipped her weapon behind her back. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just join you and Sunset.”

Sunset’s eyes lit up. “Really? You’d want to be on a team with me?”

Ruby looked at Sunset as if she asked a stupid question. “Well, of course, you seem cool and all. Plus, you’re a scythe wielder.”

Sunset began to tear up as she lunged at Ruby and wrapped her arms around her neck. “Waah! Thankyousomuch! Thismeansalottomee-he-hee!” and she continued bawling with a comical amount of tears pouring out like a fountain.

Ruby closed one eye to shield it from the tears berating her face, and she nervously patted Sunset on the back. “N-no problem, Sunset. We scythe wielders gotta stick together, right?”

Yang smiled broadly. “Well, glad to see that you have made a new friend that you are willing to be on a team with.” She then pulled her long golden hair in front of her and started brushing at it nervously. “But just be prepared if I’m not on the same team as you.”

Ruby disintegrated into rose petals and zipped aggressively in front of Yang. Sunset lost her balance and fell to the floor, continuing to cry as she wondered if her new friend had already rejected her.

“My dear sister,” Ruby said, glaring harshly at Yang. “Are you implying that you don’t want to be on the same team as me!”

“N-no, that’s not it,” Yang said defensively, “I just think that you should meet other people to help you grow up and make new friends.”

“I don’t need friends to help me grow up,” Ruby replied to her sister’s criticism. “I. Drink. Milk.”

Sunset and Yang said nothing as they stared at Ruby for a short while.

“This is ridiculous!” Jaune said, looking at a map as he passed by a trio of girls discussing friendship and milk. “I couldn’t have put my stuff in locker 636. I would have remembered counting that high! Aw, why does this have to happen today?”

While he was following his hand-drawn map to his locker, he spotted somebody out of the corner of his eye. It was the white-haired girl that called him cute yesterday. She was rather cute herself. Not only that, but she was talking to two other girls about teams. One had deep vermilion red hair tied into a ponytail and was wearing bronze armor, a length of cloth the same color as her hair tied around her waist. The other also had her blonde hair in a ponytail and wore a skin-tight blue top exposing her midriff and matching shorts that reached down halfway past her thighs.

“Now is a good time as any for me to start making my moves.” Jaune thought to himself as he approached the girls.

“So, Pyrrha, Samus,” Weiss started. “I hear we’re getting our teams today. Do you have any plans on whose team you’re going to be on?”

The redheaded girl, Phyrra, paused to think. “I don’t know. I was just planning on letting the chips fall where they may.”

Samus glanced at Pyrrha through the corner of her eye with a raised brow before wordlessly returning her attention to assembling her pistol.

Weiss noticed Samus’ silence but pressed on. “W-well, I thought that we’d make a great team. You, Samus, and I.”

“I think that sounds grand!” said the redhead. “What do you think, Samus?”

Samus twirled her gun before holstering it at her side and gave a noncommittal shrug.

“This is perfect!” Weiss thought to herself. “The strongest girls in class teamed up with the smartest girl in class...” she continued silently, monologing, not noticing someone else sneaking up behind her. “Nothing will stop us!”

“You know what else is great?” came the voice of Jaune Arc. “Me.”

“Oh gods, it’s you again,” Weiss said bluntly.

Unperturbed, Jaune continued. “I heard you admiring me the other day.”

Weiss groaned.

“Now, I’m not supposed to do this,” Jaune said with more confidence than he really had. “but I might just be able to save you a spot on my team.”

“Actually,” Pyrrha interjected, “I’m pretty sure the teams are determined by-”

“It’s not up to you who’s going to be on your team.” Samus interrupted flatly as she pulled a pair of heeled boots, rimmed with glowing yellow light stips.

Pyrrha glared at Samus. Samus gave a ‘What? I did nothing wrong.’ shrug as she put on her high-tech high heels.

“You don’t say,” Jaune said with disinterest. “Well, hot stuff, play your cards right, and you just might be on the winning team.”

A dangerous gleam showed in Samus’ eye just before Weiss pulled Jaune far back. “Jaune, was it? Do you have any idea who these two are?”

“Not in the slightest, snow angel.”

Weiss opened her mouth to speak before a hand fell over her face and its twin over Jaune’s face, separating the two, nearly throwing Jaune off his feet.

An excited, squealing gasp came from the interloper. His green eyes wide, his messy, grass-green hair almost standing on end. “Oh, my, gosh!” Izuku gushed. “It’s Samus Aran and Pyrrha Nikos!”

Jaune managed to right himself as he stood next to the excited teen, mild confusion etched on his face.

“Four-time winners of the regional championships from Sanctum Academy!” Izuku continued.

“Never heard of them,” Jaune said.

Izuku turned to Jaune, stars not fading from his eyes as he continued to gush, his arms flailing, “They’re on the cover of every Pumpkin Pete’s cereal box!”

Jaune gasped and pointed at Pyrrha and Samus. “That’s you?! But they only do that for superstars and famous athletes.”

“Yeah,” Pyrrha chuckled, “it’s pretty neat. Sadly the cereal’s not good for your health.”

“Deku!” came a third, gruff, male voice. “The hell you doing?!”

“Kachan! It’s Samus and Pyrrha!” Izuku said, pointing to the famous athletes.

“So?” Bakugou said indifferently. “They’re just a couple of cereal box mascots. What’s the big deal? Their cereal’s not that good.”

Izuku reeled in horror. “How could my best friend say such a horrible thing! First of all, Pumpkin Pete’s is an excellent cereal, if not healthy. Second-”

Izuku was interrupted when Samus shoved him aside and aggressively stood in Bakugou’s face. “What was that?” she snarled.

“Samus touched my face.” Izuku squealed quietly.

Bakugou chuckled. “What? You upset about me insulting your favorite cereal too?”

“I. Am. No. Mascot.” she growled.

Daggers clashed as the two glared at each other with such intense hatred that one could hear ringing in their ears.

Izuku, blissfully ignoring the situation, loudly shuffled through his backpack and pulled out a notebook. “Samus, you seem a little busy right now. So, Pyrrha? Can I have your-.”

“Let’s go, Deku.” Bakugou barked as he grabbed Izuku by the collar and dragged him away, picking up Izuku’s backpack in the process. “It’s starting to smell too much like a bunch of losers here.”

“But wait,” Izuku whined as his heels squeaked against the tile floor. “I didn’t get their autograaaph!”

“Sorry,” Pyrrha shouted to Izuku as she picked up the book and pen he dropped. “Maybe next time?”

Izuku gave a thumbs-up as tears flowed down his face.

Weiss and Jaune stared in silence at the two boys making their exit as Samus continued to stare daggers at Bakugou, a steady rumble coming from her throat.

“So,” Weiss interrupted the quiet as she turned toward Jaune, “After seeing that, do you think you have a shot with these two ladies.”

Jaune looked at Samus and Pyrrha, then back to Weiss, and deflated. “No, I don’t think so.”

Pyrrha turned around to see Jaune looking down at the floor. She approached him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Cheer up.” she said, “I’m sure you’ll make a fine team leader.”

“Oh, stop!” Jaune said as he instantly cheered up and took a flirtatious pose.

“Seriously, stop.” Weiss retorted. “We should not be encouraging this kind of behavior.”

“Looks like someone is already on board for team Jaune.” he then leaned in close to Weiss, “Better act quick. Spots are filling up fast.”

“Ok, that’s a little too close,” Weiss said nervously. “Pyrrha, a little help?”

Jaune turned around to see Pyrrah’s response but was met with a shot to the chest. The air was punched out of him as electricity arced around him, causing his muscles to spasm and turn to jelly. He quickly collapsed to the floor, twitching like a dead bug.

Weiss and Pyrrha looked at Jaune in shock as Samus, not looking back yet, holstered her pistol and stormed out of the room.

Weiss gave an ambivalent shrug, “That works too.” and walked away.

The intercom then chimed, and the voice of Glynda Goodwitch came through the speakers, “All first-year students, please report to the courtyard for initiation.”

Jaune had mostly recovered from his paralysis as Pyrrha propped him to sit upright. He groaned as his head spun, the bright lights of pain in his head dying out as fast as they came.

“Having fun there, lady-killer?” Yang said as she, Ruby, and Sunset approached the poor boy.

“Uhg.” Jaune groaned. “I don’t get it.” he almost slurred. “My mom told me that all women look for is confidence. Where did I go wrong?”

Ruby kneeled down to help Pyrrha get Jaune on his feet and steady him.

“Snow-angel probably wasn’t the best choice,” Yang commented, “and Sammy definitely wasn’t.”

“Come on.” Ruby said to Jaune, “Let’s get going.”

Jaune only moaned in pain as his feet continued to stumble underneath him.

Initiation 1.4

Sunset was standing in line with other first-year students near a cliff. She was flexing her fingers nervously as Professors Ozpin, Glynda Goodwitch, and Shota Aizawa stood in front of her and the other students with his cane and a ceramic mug.

“For years, you have trained to become warriors,” Ozpin started, “And today, your training will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest.”

Sunset nervously tapped her thumb and her pinkie fingers against her thigh.

“Now I know many of you have heard rumors of the assignment of teams.” Glynda said, “Let me put your confusions to rest. Each of you will be given teams. Today.”

Sunset let out a quiet nervous chuckle.

“These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon.” Ozpin continued. “So it is in your best interest to be partnered with someone you can work well with. That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years.”

Sunset could faintly hear Ruby whine, “What?”

“After you’ve partnered up, you will make your way to the northern part of the forest. You will meet opposition along the way. Do not hesitate to kill everything in your path... or you will die.”

Sunset swallowed a lump in her throat.

“You will be monitored and graded for the duration of your initiation,” Aizawa started, “but the other instructors and I will not intervene.”

“You will find a ruin at the end of a path containing several relics,” Ozpin continued. “each pair will choose one and return to the top of the cliff. You will guard that item as well as your standing and will grade you appropriately.”

‘Ok.’ Sunset thought to herself, her heart pounding in her ears, ‘Sounds simple enough. I haven’t tried out One For All yet, but it sounds like I might not have to here. Even if I do, I hope all of my training will prevent me from being ripped apart from the power.’

“Are there any questions?” Ozpin asked.

“Actually, Sir.” Jaune, standing next to Sunset, spoke up. “I have a-”

“Good.” Ozpin interrupted. Mechanical whirring and snapping could be heard as student after student began flying into the forest. Very quickly, it came to Jaune launching into the air, pleading for a landing strategy.

Sunset readied herself to be catapulted into the air.

Ozpin came by and whispered to her, “Celestia wishes you luck, Sunset.”

Sunset looked at Ozpin with shock before the mechanisms sprung loose and sent her flying through the air.

Ozpin took a sip of his mug as he observed his freshmen students fly through the air into the Emerald Forest.

“So, I see initiation has started off without a hitch.” came a gentle, feminine voice, hiding just out of sight.

Ozpin turned his attention to the voice to find Celestia in her true form. She was wearing a loose-fitting business suit and was followed shortly by a scholarly man. His long, raven black hair was partially tied back in a ponytail, and two locks framing both sides of his face. He wore an almost ostentatiously fancy hooded cloak over an embroidered brown vest and white shirt with puffy sleeves.

“Celestia,” Ozpin said, “glad you could join us.” he turned to the other man. “Professor Albright, I’m surprised to see you here.”

“Yes, well, I may disagree with your... admissions style. However, I’ve decided that I can still assist with keeping the students alive while they perform this...” he hesitated.

“Impractical exam?” Aizawa offered.

“I wouldn’t go that far, but yes. Not all huntsmen need to be monster hunters.”

“Agreed,” Aizawa responded. “This test is incapable of testing for all potential skills needed to be a good huntsman in other fields.”

“Yes,” Ozpin stated. “However, this test does allow us the opportunity to see how our prospective students will handle themselves under stressful situations. Then we can improve upon that with their time here.” he takes a sip from his mug. “With that said, I do believe the two of you should be on your way to the forest to watch over said students.”

The two men nodded. “Cyrus,” Aizawa said, “since this is your first year here, allow me to show you the ruins intended to be the student’s finish line.” The ninja professor sprinted off into the forest as the more scholarly man struggled to keep up at full sprint.

Ozpin watched the two disappear into the forest and sighed with a subtle groan as he turned his attention to his tablet scroll.

“You don’t like Professor Albright, do you?” Celestia said.

“It’s not so much him that I dislike,” Ozpin responded, not taking his eyes off the tablet. “It’s the reason he’s here that bothers me.”

“The Warehouse.” Glynda said simply, with minor disdain.

Ozpin glanced at Glynda from the corner of his eye. “Yes, they have sent one of their agents to keep an eye on me.”

Celestia gave a hearty chuckle. “Well, you yourself are quite the artifact they’d love to have in their collection. The ultimate prize, if you will.”

Ozpin smirked as he gave an audible chuckle. “They are not in the habit of collecting people as part of their collection of artifacts.” his smile fell. “Except under... dire circumstances.”

Celestia looked up towards the forest, futility scanning for the new professor. “Yes, that is true.”

A chirp from the tablet interrupted the somber mood.

“Ah, we have our first pairing already,” Ozpin said. “Peter Parker and Pit Athena.”

“Oh, goodness,” Glynda said exasperatedly. “Why did you even allow that Pit child to come here? I’ve seen his transcript. That boy can barely even read.”

Sunset was caught off-guard by Ozpin’s parting comment but couldn’t let that linger in her mind for too long. She had to come up with a landing strategy that Ozpin mentioned earlier. Seeing as she was headed into a forest, the most straightforward approach would be to catch her scythe onto a tree branch or on the trunk and spiral around it.

With a strategy in mind, she changed her train of thought to who she would hope to see first to pair up with. “Yang or Ruby would be great,” Sunset thought to herself as she unsheathed her weapon and put it into scythe form. “but there’s no guarantee I’d get either of them. Especially since I’m sure Ruby would much rather be with her sister. Which is ok, but then there’s Peter, he seems nice, or how about Jaune? Mm, Jaune doesn’t seem like he would be very good in a fight.”

She was rapidly approaching a tree. Sunset readied herself and caught her scythe onto the trunk of the tree. Unfortunately, she misjudged how deep she was going to cut into the tree. She cut into the tree at the right angle to begin decelerating as she spun around it but cut too deep for it to be a gentle stop. The scythe logged itself into the tree, and its handle slammed itself into her stomach. She tumbled over the now stationary scythe and nearly lost her grip as she hung high in the air above solid ground. Sunset reestablished her grip and made sure she wasn’t going to lose it completely.

“Well,” Sunset said out loud, “That didn’t go exactly as planned. Glad I have my aura now, or I surely would have broken a few bones from that.” She looked up at where her scythe logged itself into the tree and sucked in a hissing breath. “That looks like it cut deep. It’s going to be difficult to get out.” She looked down at the ground, “I’m too high up to make this any easier by just going down and reassessing the situation.” She looked around in the hopes of finding a nice thick branch nearby that she could stand on instead. There were none. “Welp, looks like my only option is to dislodge myself from here and catch myself on the way down.” She began to swing back and forth to remove the scythe from the tree, but there was barely any budging.

After a few swings, she stopped for a second to catch her breath. She saw someone standing on the ground in front of her. It was Twilight, staring up at her like she was a monkey in a zoo.

Sunset gave a sheepish chuckle as she waved hello with her foot.

Twilight seemed to not find that amusing as she turned around and walked away without a word.

“Wait! Come back! We’re supposed to be partners now!” Sunset shouted. Then she whimpered, “Please help me.”

Twilight Sparkle walked away from the pathetic display of a wannabe huntress, stumbled through some bushes, and looked up. She saw a blonde boy in armor plates over a black hoodie pinned high up in the tree by a red and brass spear, hanging by his hoodie. He struggled to extricate himself from the tree when he noticed Twilight down below. He smiled and laughed nervously, waving hi at Twilight. Twilight walked back the way she came.

Jaune deflated at this rejection of help.

“Jaune?” came the voice of Pyrrha at his feet. “I hope I didn’t leave you up there for long?”

“You know?” Jaune responded nonchalantly. “If I had a nickel for every time a girl refused to help me down from hanging in a tree by my hoodie, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s strange that it happened twice. And in one day no less.”

Sunset switched her strategy to short, quick swings to dislodge herself. She then suddenly felt solid ground softly touch her feet, lifting her up to where the scythe was a waist height. Sunset glanced down at her feet, and a short distance away, saw Twilight using her semblance of telekinesis to hold up the chunk of earth Sunset was standing on. Sunset quickly planted her feet on the floating ground, wrenched the scythe from the tree, and sheathed it.

Twilight slowly brought the tiny floating island straight down, leaving only a small ring of disturbed grass as a symbol for what happened.

“Thank you for-”

“By no means does this make us friends.” Twilight interrupted coldly as she walked past Sunset at a brisk pace.

Sunset was taken aback by the brusk attitude from the person who just helped her.

“Keep up, slowpoke!” Twilight verbally jabbed at Sunset, jarring her out of her confused stupor.

“Are you sure we’re heading in the right direction?” Sunset asked Twilight after wandering through the forest for several minutes.

“Of course I know where we’re going!” Twilight snapped.

“I know you know where we’re going. What I was asking was if this was the right direction.” Sunset groused.

Twilight turned on her heels to stare down Sunset, their faces inches away from each other. Sunset wilted under Twilight’s intense glare, her pony ears flattening against her head. Twilight’s silver eyes were burning intense like pieces of white-hot metal. “Now listen here- Sunset, was it?”

Sunset silently and rapidly nodded her head.

“I don’t know how someone as spineless as you weaseled her way into Beacon, but I earned my spot here with a recommendation from Celestia herself...”

Sunset’s fear turned to awe. She opened her mouth to say something but was unsure of what to say. If Sunset were to express her awe and tell her she got here the same way- well, almost- Twilight might take offense to that and berate her even more. What if she played it cool, pretend like she didn’t believe her? No, she would likely just call her stupid or something for not taking her at her word. How about a mix of both awe and disbelief? Yeah, that’ll work, but how much awe, though? Sunset definitely wouldn’t tell Twilight how involved Celestia was in getting her into Beacon.

“... So just stay out of my way and-” Twilight was unable to finish her tirade as she and Sunset heard a low, guttural growl. They turned aside to see a muscular, bipedal mass of roiling shadow step out of the bushes. Its red eyes glowing in the eye sockets of its white, skeletal face, its fangs bared. The beowolf was followed by several more, quickly surrounding Sunset and Twilight. The two huntresses instinctively took a defensive stance, standing back-to-back and drawing their weapons as they were taught. Sunset drew her weapon in shield form, while Twilight drew a spear with an eight-pointed star as the spearhead. The spearhead’s metal was dark purple, and the staff a lavender color with raspberry-colored leather at the grips.

‘This is bad.’ Sunset thought. ‘We’re surrounded by... at least 8 beowolves, and there’s only two of us. I also don’t know what my partner’s strengths and weaknesses are. I don’t have a good grasp on my own strengths and weaknesses, especially after being gifted One-for-All only recently.’

Sunset continued to think and process information to formulate a strategy as the grimm circled the two initiate huntresses. “Ok, Twilight? I think I have a plan.”

“Mine’s better,” Twilight responded as she lifted her spear to eye level, pointing the tip at the ground. “Just keep your little shield up and stay. Out. Of my way.” And she lunges forward at the beowolf in front of her.

“What?!” Sunset shrieked as she saw Twilight dash away into the line of beowolves, turning back just in time to catch a wolf’s claws with her shield.

The grimm kept a hold on the shield as it pressed down, threatening to pancake Sunset underneath her weapon. Sunset could see out of the corner of her eye that others were closing the circle around her, their breathing and barking sounding like sadistic laughter. In a burst of motion, she stopped pushing against the grimm. She fell flat to her back and added more force to the wolf’s momentum to send it flying into the one that had moved directly behind her. She rolled up from the ground in a backward somersault, transformed her weapon into its scythe form, and slashed at two standing grimm, cutting a deep gash into both of their chests. They were staggered, but they weren’t dead yet. Sunset yelped as she rolled out of the way of an incoming strike from another beowolf, slashing one of its legs off on her way back to her feet.

‘Don’t let them surround you.’ Sunset remembered from her training. ‘Getting them to line up in a single file would be ideal, but-’ She didn’t finish her thought before she heard the roar of another grimm entering the fray. It was an ursa, a giant black bear creature with an exposed skeletal face with red eyes and large, bony spikes protruding from its back. And it was charging directly at her. Sunset pulled up her shield to block the incoming strike from the ursa. It knocked her off her feet and sent her careening into Twilight, knocking them both to the ground.

“Watch where you’re going!” Twilight barked at Sunset as she got up, then saw the Ursa coming for them and took a battle stance.

Sunset grabbed Twilight by her sleeve. “Twilight, we need to leave, now!”

Twilight shook her off. “You can’t expect us to outrun an ursa, can you?”

Sunset looked out to the downhill slope behind them, then to her shield. “I think the both of us can fit.”

Initiation 1.5

“Look out!” Twilight screamed as Sunset leaned hard to the right and narrowly dodged a tree they barreled past as they sled down the hill on top of Sunset’s shield. This would have been easier if they were not laid prone on the shield and Twilight were more compliant in steering with her.

“Brilliant idea!” Twilight shouted to be heard over the rushing wind. “Instead of dying from being mauled by an Ursa, we’re going to die because we ran into a freaking tree while- while- shield surfing!” She spat the last words in disbelief.

“Hey!” Sunset shouted back, also primarily to be heard over the wind. “You said we couldn’t outrun them! So, I gave us a faster route!”

“Who said I wanted a faster route!?”

“The fact that I’m pretty sure you don’t want to be mauled by an Ursa?”

Twilight went silent for a moment as the wind whistled loudly in their ears. “Touché.”

The two of them screamed again as yet another tree threatened their lives as they moved through the fast lane.

--Meanwhile, a few minutes ago--

“Wahoo!” yelled Natsu as he flew through the air. He threw a shadow punch toward the ground, and his gauntlets shot a burst of intense flame, which recoiled him higher into the air, prolonging his flight. “Now, this is the way to travel- ack!” His sentence to himself was interrupted when a bug flew into his mouth and almost down his throat.

“Hack! Klgh! Ugh!” he choked as his descent became more and more rapid, unable to take his mind off the bug in his throat to concentrate on slowing his fall. He couldn’t even think about steering, for that matter, as, when he fell into the forest canopy, he simply tore through some of the thicker branches with little sign of slowing down. Thankfully, an even bigger branch caught him, hitting him right in the gut, expelling much of the air in his lungs and the bug with it.

Natsu hung onto the tree limply like a sad cat as he recuperated from the whole ordeal. However, he did not get much time as the branch cracked angrily at the sudden and violent intrusion on its peaceful existence. Natsu froze as he looked to where the limb connected to the tree and could see it splintering and looked down and saw a running river directly beneath him. He silently prayed that the branch would not break anytime soon.

That prayer was loudly denied, and he fell into the river with the branch.

Starlight Glimmer had recently made her landing and was making her way through the Emerald Forest. Everything was peacefully quiet as she casually made her way through the monster-infested woods. That is until she heard a tree snap in half and a splash in a river nearby. She ran to investigate the noise and saw a pink-haired boy break the surface and grab hold of the log he fell into the river with. They made eye contact; he smiled and waved. Then his face turned green, and his cheeks puffed.

Natsu swallowed hard and managed a haggard shout. “A little help, please.”

Starlight sighed as she ran to the river and dove after him.

---

Once Natsu’s feet could touch solid ground, he immediately felt better. He dashed onto dry land, did some celebratory stretches before shaking himself like a dog. He then punched his fists together, and a burst of hot air waved off him, drying him off the rest of the way. He then turned to Starlight. “Hi, I’m Natsu,” he said as if nothing had happened, holding out his hand for a handshake. “What’s your name?”

Starlight glared at him as she wiped the river water off her face and slicked her wet hair back out of her face. “Starlight Glimmer.” she said, returning the handshake.

“Nice to meet you, Starlight,” he said with an oblivious wide grin. “Looks like we’re partners now, aren’t we?”

“Yes, yes we are.” she let go of the handshake and went to wring the water out of her hair.

--Back to Present--

Pleasantly, for Starlight, Natsu remained mostly silent as they walked through the Emerald Forest.

“Hold up,” Natsu said unexpectedly. “Do you hear that?”

Starlight stopped and listened carefully. “No?”

“It sounds like a bunch of girls screaming.”

Starlight strained her ears to catch what he was talking about, quite irked that a human could hear better than her faunus ears. Eventually, she did hear it. She turned her attention up a hill and narrowly avoided a speeding Sunset and Twilight barreling down the mountain at Mach speed. “Found them.”

“No,” Natsu said. “Not them. They’re not nearly as high pitched as what I’m hearing.”

Starlight stared at him, confused. Then she heard trees exploding down the hill and saw a Death Stalker with a boy in armor dangling from its tail, chasing a girl in red and bronze. Heading in the same direction as the shield-surfers.

“There she is!” Natsu exclaimed. “And hey! They’ve got a giant monster with them! Let’s go kill it.” and he bolts off, chasing the scorpion grimm.

Starlight stood there for a minute, processing everything that happened immediately around her. She sighed. “This is going to be one of those days, is it?” and she made her way to give chase against Natsu and his quarry.

--Later--

“Did- your sister just fall from the sky?” the girl in black, Blake, asked Yang after they acquired their chess piece relic.

“Uh.” Yang didn’t have any time to form a proper response before Nora and Ren barreled in with an Ursa.

“Was she just riding an Ursa?”

Again, Yang couldn’t respond before something else happened. This time, it was Sunset and Twilight. Their surfing shield caught on a rock, halting its momentum and sending its passengers flying forward, heels-over-head and rolling to Blake and Yang’s feet.

“Did they just come in surfing on a shield?”

Then the deathstalker came.

“Did she just run all this way with a deathstalker behind her and that other guy on its tail?”

Yang finally had it. “Would everyone just calm down for like three seconds before something crazy happens?!”

3...

2...

1...

Ding!

“Well, I feel better now,” Yang said as Phyrrah landed face-first at Yang’s feet, on top of Sunset and Twilight. “And great, the gang’s all here, now we can die together!”

“Why would you say that?” Sunset complained.

“Not if I can help it,” Ruby said as she dashed off to fight the deathstalker.

“Ruby, wait!” Yang and Sunset shouted.

“Come on, Sunrise,” Twilight whispered to Sunset as she dragged her to the ruined temple. “Let’s get our relic, and maybe we’ll have a good standing by the end of this.”

“What? No. Ruby might be in troub-”

Weiss charged forth and protected Ruby with a wall of ice, encasing the stalker’s stinger inside the barrier.

“See? She’s fine. Let’s go.” Twilight said as she got up and picked up a white bishop piece.

Sunset wrestled herself out of Twilight’s grasp. “No, Twilight, listen to me. Ruby is my friend, and she’s someone who is in tro- was in trouble. As a huntress, we’re supposed to help anyone in need. As a friend, I will not abandon a friend, even a new one, for some academic standing.”

Twilight turned and stared hard at Sunset. “If you want to become a huntress, you’re going to need to get into Beacon in the first place before you can help anyone. Second, friends? Friends are only going to slow you down from reaching the top, and they’ll wind up hurting you in the end anyway.”

Sunset’s breath hitched in her throat, her fingernails began to bite into her palm, and she bit back tears that were forming in her eyes. “That may be true,” she said hoarsely, her fists shaking. She sucked in a breath before continuing. “But that doesn’t devalue the memories you had with them.”

Twilight stood silent; her expression softened a bit.

“Besides,” Sunset said in a low tone. “What good is a huntress who can’t even protect her own friend on her first day of school?” and she wrestled the bishop piece out of Twilight’s hand with little resistance and put it in her own pocket.

“Um, guys?” Ren said. Everyone turned to him, and he pointed to the sky at a nevermore circling above them. “We better get out of here.”

“But I wanna kill the giant scorpion~!” Natsu complained as Starlight barely managed to keep him grappled and dragged him to the rest of the group.

“It’s no longer in our way.” Starlight griped. “It’s restrained now, and we can focus back on our assignment.”

“But it was never in our way.”

Starlight paused.

“It was our way.”

“That’s it, shut up, now. Your talking is starting to annoy me.”

“But we barely talked!”

“And I am thankful for that, now please, shut up again.”

---

The gang made their way to the rest of the temple ruins built in the middle of a large ravine. They hid behind some rubble as the nevermore circled in front of them, and the deathstalker began to catch up with them.

“We need a plan of attack,” said Blake.

“I have a plan,” Natsu replied, lightly butting his fists together. “Attack.”

“No~.” Starlight held him back. “Does anyone else, and I mean aen-nee-one else, have a better idea?”

“I think I do,” Ruby spoke up.

The plan was simple. First, everyone would dash in to see how far they could get before the nevermore would stop them. When that failed, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Sunset, and Twilight would focus on taking down the nevermore. Meanwhile, Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, Ren, Natsu, and Starlight would concentrate on the deathstalker.

The teams were quickly spread about the battlefield, mainly due to a lack of awareness of the others around them, but everyone held their ground. Yang managed to fire a few rounds down the nevermore’s gullet. Pyrrha severed the deathstalkers stinger from its tail, and Nora hammered it into its skull, killing it with its own poison.

Weiss pinned the nevermore in place by freezing its tailfeathers to a stone terrace on the opposite side of the chasm. Meanwhile, Blake threw Yang her weapon, holding one end of the ribbon as both braced against a pillar. Ruby then made her way between them as Weiss used her semblance to pull her back, ready to slingshot Ruby toward the nevermore.

Ruby was launched, catching the nevermore by the throat in her scythe, and then ran up the cliff face with Weiss’s assistance, severing the head once she got to the top.

Sunset stood in awe as the rest of the gang grouped together around her. The nevermore disintegrated into rose petals.

“Is it over?” Jaune asked.

A monstrous roar answered his question as a ball of fire made its way to Ruby, who narrowly avoided the exploding projectile.

“Another grimm?” Nora asked.

“No,” Natsu replied. “A dreadking rathalos.”

The rathalos flapped its flame-blazoned wings as it hovered closer to Ruby and continued to shoot fireballs at her. She lost grip of her weapon in one of the ensuing explosions, and the rathalos was intent on not letting her get close to it.

“Twilight, Yang, give me a boost.” Sunset commanded cooly.

Twilight made a glimmering ball of purple with her telekinesis, and Yang slung as much of her explosive projectiles as she had into the sphere. As Twilight compressed the ball, Sunset took her place atop it, ready to be launched like a rocket.

Twilight growled. “This isn’t going to be enough. We need more.”

“That’s all I’ve got.” Yang said.

Nora readied her weapon, but Natsu stopped her. “I got this.” he told her as he stood behind the rocket and pulled out a palm-sized chunk of fire dust.

“That’ll do it.” Twilight said. “But you’re going to need something to activate-”

She stopped as Natsu put the crystal into his mouth and bit a large chunk out of it, and continued to chew it.

Everyone stood in stunned silence as Natsu continued to eat the crystal like it was a piece of candy.

Natsu then took a deep breath, put his hands in front of his face like he was holding a blowgun, and exhaled a massive gout of fire. “Fire Dragon Roar!”

Twilight almost lost cohesion of her telekinetic bubble at the sudden expansion but held it together. “Ready or not, here we go!” she sealed the sphere, compressed it even more, then opened a smaller hole.

The rocket engine propelled Sunset into the air and directly at the rathalos at high speed. However, she was slowing down, and quickly at that. She was not going to be able to pierce the Rathalos’ hide with her strength at this rate. She needed a boost.

‘It’s now or never.’ Sunset said to herself as she took in a deep breath and began channeling One-for-All into her legs and arms.

Her muscles tensed as red-orange lightning arced off her body. Her vision narrowed as she waited for the perfect time to unleash her strike. The rathalos fought in an almost fixed pattern. Its present tactics seem to be keeping its distance and occasionally performing hit-and-runs on the rose-colored initiate. One of its patterns was firing its breath attack 3 times in succession before maybe going in for a claw attack and flying back up to hover over the chasm. It telegraphed its attack by reeling its head back before launching the fireball. In the middle of one of these telegraphs was when Sunset decided she would strike.

The flying wyvern rolled its head back, and that’s when Sunset launched herself from her rocket. It fired once, a direct hit on Ruby. It fired a second time, Ruby’s aura broke. When it reeled itself for the third time, Sunset swung her scythe with all the might she could muster from One-for-All and decapitated the king of the skies.

The world slowed to a crawl as Sunset steadily came to realize her victory. ‘I did it.’ she thought. ‘I really did it. And I didn’t explode from using One-for-All.’ She was elated. She felt unstoppable. She felt hope that she was no longer going to be a nobody. She felt- incredible pain. She took stock of herself and noticed that one of her arms and both of her legs were broken. She had even lost grip of her weapon as she watched it fall further out of her reach and saw Ruby limping up to the edge of the cliff screaming Sunset’s name. She could barely hear her name over the ringing in her ears, it sounded muffled, and the wind was picking up. Ruby futilely stretched out an arm to Sunset as she dropped below her present altitude. Sunset’s vision grew darker and darker as the shadows of the ravine grew higher and higher, encompassing her like a hungry beast.

Initiation 1.6

“Oh, my Oum.” Yang breathed out. “Did Sunset just decapitate a Rathalos?”

“Incredible.” Pyrrha shared in Yang’s awe.

“She’s falling.” Natsu pointed out. “And she’s not slowing down.”

Yang sprung into action. Her weapons clicked as she tried to fire them for a boost. She growled and picked up her pace. Yang heard Ruby call out to Sunset as she fell past the cliff’s height.

Yang reached the edge of her path when she heard a ‘thwip,’ followed by two more. Then she saw a red and blue blur rush by, catching Sunset midair. Another ‘thwip’ and their descent slowed before accelerating upward in an arcing movement.

“Spiderling,” Yang chuckled. She hefted out an exhale, relieved to see that Sunset was no longer falling to her death.

Peter Parker swung his way over to the gang gathered at the base of the broken bridge, landing as softly as he could before gently depositing an unconscious Sunset onto the ground.

“Hey! It’s spider-boy!” Jaune greeted.

“It’s Spider-MAN.” Peter corrected as he held an invisible block between his hands. He then took in a calming breath before he put on a broad smile and retorted, “How’s it hanging, Vomit boy?”

Jaune glared at Peter as Nora laughed uncontrollably, pointing at Jaune.

“Did you SEE that!?” said an unfamiliar voice. The voice belonged to a boy with brown hair, wearing a white tunic on top of a black undershirt with black shorts, sandals, and a gold laurel crown on his head. His white wings, barely one and a half times larger than his arms, fluttered as he made his landing, carrying Ruby Rose with Sunset’s weapon. Weiss put Ruby’s arm around her shoulder to help her stand. “First, Ruby went BANG! BANG! BANG! Schwing! Decapitating that nevermore! Then the Rathalos was all like, ‘Rah, I’m gonna kill you!’ Pew, pew, pew! And then this girl- what’s her name?”

“Sunset.” Ruby responded.

“Sunset was all like ‘Nuh-uh’ and ‘Bwooooom!’ rocketed to the Rathalos, and ‘Ka-schwing’ cut his head off!” he was left panting at the end of his retelling of the recent event.

“I know, Pit,” Peter said calmly. “I was there.”

“How come she gets a ‘Ka-schwing’ while I just get a ‘schwing’?” Ruby asked indignantly.

“Well, she had to cut through not only armored skin but muscle and bone. Where the grimm,” Pit started as he held an invisible sphere in his hands, “are- like- made of some kind of - energy held together by some kind of tar. No wait, it’s tar held together by some kind of energy. Or something.”

Ruby puffed her cheeks indignantly and growled a bit.

“Ruby!” Yang shouted as she ran up and scooped Ruby into her arms and hugged her tightly.

“Ow, ow, Ow! Burns, Burns!”

Yang let go, staying close to help her keep weight off her feet. “Sorry, we need to get you to a nurse.” She then looked to Sunset, seeing her legs twisting at odd angles and a whole arm turned purple. “We need to get HER to a doctor.”

“Good thing I brought one.” said a tired voice with barely enough energy to actually call it a shout. It was Mister Aizawa. Behind him was a short old lady wearing a blue visor, her hair tied back in a bun and pinned with what looked like a syringe. She wore a white coat that was long enough to drag across the ground and walked with a cane that also looked like a syringe.

“Who’s that?” Natsu asked.

“This is the school nurse, Chiyo Shuzenji,” Aizawa said. “AKA: Recovery Girl.”

Recovery Girl approached the unconscious Sunset and appraised her injuries. “Hmm. This is the worst kind of injury I’ve ever seen someone survive in initiation.”

“Can you help her?” Ruby pleaded.

The nurse smiled at Ruby. “Of course I can. And then, I’ll help you.” Recovery Girl leaned down and kissed Sunset on the forehead. Chiyo’s aura flared up and washed over Sunset. The snapping of bones crackled like a fireplace, but her legs took their normal position, and the purple slowly disappeared from her arm.

Sunset groaned, and her eyes fluttered open. Everyone, except Aizawa and Chiyo, sighed in relief. Sunset smiled when she saw everyone around her. “Hi everyone,” she said weakly. Then Recovery Girl aggressively pinched her cheek.

“I saw what you did, young lady,” Chiyo said in a threatening tone that a parent would give when reprimanding their child. “I don’t take kindly to such reckless behavior. I won’t heal you so quickly next time you pull a stunt like what you just did.”

“Yesh, ma’am.” Sunset managed. She had kind of forgotten just what she did but figured she’d agree anyways, as she’d probably remember later.

“Good.” Chiyo said as she let go and patted Sunset on the cheek. Sunset was way too tired to lift an arm to rub her cheek and just stayed on the ground, hoping she could catch a nap. Meanwhile, Recovery Girl went over to Ruby, kissed her forearm, and the burns faded away like dirt in the rain.

“Oh! Me next!” Natsu said.

“You’re not injured, sonny.”

He paused. “Maybe I could-”

Chiyo whacked him on the head with her cane. “Don’t you dare. I’ll make you wait the full normal recovery time if you do. And you’ll spend the entire time in a hospital bed.”

--Later, the Auditorium--

“Samus Aran, Rhundas Phrygia, Ghor Wotan, and Gandrayda St. Clair.” Ozpin listed the students’ names as their pictures appeared on the monitors above. “For obtaining the red knight piece, you will be assigned together and be henceforth known as team ‘Surge’. Lead by: Samus Aran.”

The audience applauded the newly formed team as they walked off stage for the next group to arrive.

“Star Butterfly, Marco Diaz, Tenya Iida, and Rainbow Dash. For obtaining the red queen piece, you will now be known as team ‘Storm.’ Lead by: Star Butterfly.”

More applause. Then Sunset Shimmer, Twilight Sparkle, Natsu Dragneel, and Starlight Glimmer stepped onto the stage.

“... for obtaining the white bishop piece, you will be known as team SNST. Lead by: Sunset Shimmer.”

Sunset was taken aback by this. Her? The leader? It feels wrong. She didn’t think she had what it took to be a leader. Still, if Ozpin, the headmaster of the most prestigious huntsman academy, says she’s the leader, then she must have some kind of potential.

Twilight was also shocked by this development. Meanwhile, Starlight merely eyed Sunset, skeptical of the headmaster’s decision. Natsu, however, gave Sunset a one-armed hug and cheered loudly with a raised fist.

“Congratulations,” Ozpin said to the newly formed team. “Let’s hope the four of you can work together and become great huntsmen and huntresses.”

--Later, Team SNST’s Dorm Room--

Sunset and her team arrived in their dorm room and began unpacking their belongings. The room was fairly spacious, with a window on the back wall and four beds lined up underneath the window, all equally spaced apart. Four desks with chairs sit under an array of shelves mounted on the wall with the entrance door. A low and wide bookshelf sat against the left wall, the door next to it led to the bathrooms, and on the opposite side were their closets.

Sunset claimed the bed to the far left, slid her guitar case underneath, set her luggage on top, and began to unpack.

Natsu took the second bed to the left. He simply tossed his luggage bag at the foot of the bed, then just dove onto the bed with a belly flop and laid there sprawled out as he gave a contented sigh. “After that fight with the rathalos, I’m exhausted. Is anyone else?”

“You didn’t fight the damn thing,” Twilight complained as she claimed the bed on the far right. “If anyone should be exhausted, it should be Sunset for breaking every bone in three of her limbs and me for having to put up with her before that.”

Sunset’s head began to sink into her shoulders.

“Hey!” Natsu shot up and sat on the edge of his bed, pointing a finger at Twilight. “That’s no way to talk about your teammate, especially your partner in initiation.”

“Whatever.” Twilight scoffed, and Sunset relaxed as Natsu returned to lounging on his bed, looking at the ceiling.

“I wonder what we’re going to do tomorrow.” Natsu mused.

“Classes.” Starlight responded flatly as she claimed her bed. “Obviously.”

Natsu groaned.

“And the first one is at 8:30 in the morning.” Twilight said in a chipper tone. Then it turned sour, “So none of you better be late and make me look bad. Even so, I am not going to waste my time dragging you out of bed.”

“Thanks, maaom~,” Natsu replied sarcastically. He sighed and put a forearm over his head.

Sunset stopped unpacking halfway through, realizing with embarrassment that she should probably take the remaining clothes to the closet if she didn’t want Natsu to see any of them. She closed her bag and looked at Natsu. “Hey, are you alright?”

“Hm? Wha-? Oh! Yeah. Just thinking about my mom.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I just want to make her proud, you know. She- uh- kind of has set a high bar, so to speak. Also, I miss my cat.”

Sunset chuckled. “Well, unfortunately, I don’t think they allow pets in the dorms.”

“Stupid rule.”

Sunset finished closing her luggage and made her way to the closet. She opened the first door and saw a small hallway that had four doors, two on each side, with little whiteboards and a dry erase marker on each door. She picked the first door on the left and wrote her name on the whiteboard.

Twilight then walked up to Sunset, aggressively grabbed one shoulder, and turned her, so they stood face-to-face. “Now listen here, Sunset,” she said in a harsh whisper. “Just because we were partners in initiation doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

Sunset looked at her quizzically, “I know, you’ve already told me that.”

“I just wanted to reiterate that as the role of leadership sometimes gets to a person’s head.”

“I wouldn’t dream of-”

“And it’s not that I have a problem with authority. In fact, I can tolerate having anyone else as my team leader, maybe except Natsu. But, I already don’t like you. You have shown subpar combat capabilities, you run from a fight when it gets tough, and worst of all, you don’t know how to use your own semblance without getting hurt.”

Sunset wilted under Twilight’s rampage.

“I would never want such a person to lead me into combat.” Twilight turned to leave, then glanced back. “And if I were the type to make friends, you wouldn’t be one of them.”

Sunset put a hand on her upper arm as if she had just been punched and a massive bruise had developed that would be healing for days. She simply squeezed her arm, feeling the muscle she had built up over almost a year. She took comfort in the resistance it gave, a sign of how far she’d come from when she started.

But is it enough?

“Hey,” Starlight said from her bed, breaking Sunset out of her thoughts. “Natsu. Your last name ‘Dragneel.’ It sounds familiar.” she contemplated for a few seconds. “You wouldn’t happen to be related to Celestia Dragneel, would you?”

“Yeah,” he said nonchalantly. “That’s my mom.”

A pin drop could be heard over the ensuing silence.

Then, like the shattering of a window, all three girls screamed, “She’s your mom?!”

Twilight leaned down to whisper to Starlight. “Wanna switch beds?”

Starlight was somewhat startled by the request.

Initiation Interlude

“You’re going down, Stoppable!” Chuck Bartowski shouted as he sat flat-footed on a couch, quickly shifted his balance left and right, and mashed buttons furiously on his controller.

“Not if I have anything to say about it!” Ron Stoppable shouted back as he sat forward with intense focus. He occasionally lifted one foot or the other as he twisted his upper body at odd angles while keeping his head level with the TV as he too mashed buttons furiously on his controller.

The two men hoo-ed and ha-ed as their video game avatars jumped around on the screen and occasionally hit each other to whittle down the other’s health bar. Eventually, Ron’s health bar reached zero. “Finish him!” came the announcer’s deep voice, as Chuck’s character came up to Ron’s and ripped his pixelated head off with his spine, little squares of dark red blood flowing out of the headless body dripping from the neck of the severed head. “Scorpion Wins! Fatality!”

Ron tossed his controller aside and covered his face in anguish as Chuck jumped up, spread his arms in a ‘V’ pose, and whooped in victory.

“Yeah~!” Chuck said. “Take that, you Smarty Mart trash! Buy More all the way!”

“Ugh.” Ron groaned.

“I thought you were supposed to be good at martial arts.” Chuck continued to taunt. “What happened to your ‘Mystical Monkey Mojo’?”

“It’s Mystical Monkey *Power* thank you very much.”

“Hey, hey, hey! What the Hell are you two doing?” came another voice behind them, turning both men’s blood to ice. Artie Nielson, Warehouse 13’s custodian, and their current boss. “Please tell me that’s not a copy of Mortal Kombat from the warehouse!”

Chuck managed to play it cool even though he was a nervous wreck on the inside, being caught red-handed playing video games at work. “No, it’s my copy.”

“And on your own Famicom too, I hope.” Artie said almost sarcastically.

“Vinyl’s.”

Artie groaned. “Of course,” he mumbled as he set down the big heavy bag that he carries around with him occasionally. “I wish you two would get over that *stupid* corporate rivalry. Neither of you works at a Smarty Mart or a Buy More. Get over it!”

“Hey, it’s a time-honored tradition that-”

“I don’t care, Chuck. You two are grown adults and work for the Atlesian government now, so act like it.”

“Well, I mean- half the time I work for SHIELD.” Chuck weakly retorted.

“Oh~ yes. You and that little database in your head with all our secrets that SHIELD and the warehouse Regents put together for the sake of - of - something asinine beyond my understanding!” Artie was none too pleased that Chuck was partially SHIELD property as a consultant, complete with a handler, John Casey. I mean, he was still half Warehouse property as a full warehouse agent. Even still, Artie was assigned as Chuck’s warehouse handler but delegated to Ron Stoppable as his partner. Unfortunately, Ron and Chuck seem to hate each other’s guts.

“Hey, guys! I’m back. Did I miss-” a young woman with a short bob of spikey hair of alternating blue and light blue stripes, a pair of enamel white pony ears atop her head, headphones around her neck, and purple-tinted sunglasses on her face entered the room. She saw Artie and began slowly backing out of the room. “I~ think I forgot something I’llberightback-”

“Vinyl!” Artie shouted, stopping the pony faunus girl in her tracks and drawing her back in dejectedly. “Why do you do this?”

“Do what?” Vinyl Scratch asked, attempting to sound innocent.

“Encourage these two’s stupid, petty rivalry?!”

“I only do it when there’s nothing to do. You know how boring it is out here in the middle of nowhere, Atlas. There’s only snow for miles!”

“Be that as it may, you, Ron, and Chuck all need to be ready at a moment’s notice, whenever we get a ping, to snag, bag, and tag an artifact.”

Vinyl groaned. “But ever since we caught MacPherson, there has been literally zero pings. That was a month ago!”

James MacPherson was a former warehouse agent that had caused nothing but trouble for everyone in the warehouse ever since it was revealed he survived the explosion at the prison where he was serving five consecutive life sentences. Mrs. Irene Fredrick, the director and caretaker of Warehouse 13 warned everyone that James was an expert psychological manipulator and always strikes when you least expect him. This held true in every instance and nearly had Chuck and Ron turn on each other on multiple occasions (it wasn’t difficult to start that, but James had preferred to play the long game). Now, James has been put in suspended animation as a bronze statue and imprisoned in the Warehouse’s Bronze Sector, with the rest of the people who would have become worse dictators and despots than those of recorded history. For the rest of eternity.

“You shouldn’t be so lax about that.” Artie chided. “And you two shouldn’t be playing video games in the warehouse. If you’re going to do it anywhere, you should be doing it at Leena’s.”

“Speaking of which.” Vinyl said. “Who won?”

Ron, who had not moved from his slump on the couch, raised an arm to point at Chuck, while Chuck pointed his thumbs at himself with a fish-eating grin on his face and began narrating the final moments of the match.

Once Chuck got to the part where he finished Ron off with a fatality and mimicked the announcer’s voice to cap it off, an explosion went off inside the warehouse, and alarms began to ring.

“What the heck was that?” Ron shouted as he jumped up from the couch and went to the window that overlooked the greater part of the warehouse.

The warehouse was deceptively small on the outside; the inside was so big that you could have a pair of fighter jets duke it out in a dog fight, it would be a tight fit and only two fighters, but it looked possible. And from roughly the middle of the warehouse, a column of smoke was rising toward the ceiling.

Artie and Vinyl scrambled toward the computers to pull up security cameras in that area.

Four intruders split into two groups, most in comic book supervillain-like outfits. In the first group, there was a man whose upper half of his mask was white and the rest of his spandex bodysuit was black, and a man who looked like a mutated shark monster in an orange suit with a jagged blue stripe down his chest. A man dressed in a fine suit in the second group, but his head was engulfed in a black fog with glowing yellow eyes piercing through. The other was wearing a black trenchcoat, shirt, and pants but had severed mannequin-like hands holding onto him, three on each arm, one on each shoulder, two around his neck, and one grasping his face.

Chuck looked at the computer screens, and when he got a good look at all of the intruders, his eyes began to glaze over, his jaw slackened, and his eyelids fluttered. The Intersect, the collaborative database of SHIELD and the Warehouse, had some files to show Chuck. Random images flashed through Chuck’s mind, zooming in one to another before they became detailed documents.

Accessing: SHIELD database

Accessing: Parahuman Response Team (PRT) Profile

Subject name: Tomura Shigaraki

Power classification: Striker 6

Power description: “Decay” Can disintegrate whatever he touches when all five fingers are in complete contact. Affects both organic and inorganic material. This effect spreads quickly. It is advised not to engage in close contact with the subject unless absolutely necessary.

More information on Tomura Shigaraki flashed before Chuck’s mind, and details on his current partner in crime, Kurogiri, and the other half of the invaders, Tigershark and Twice.

Artie noticed Chuck lose focus for a moment and walked up to him. “Did you have a flash, Chuck?”

“Ah. Yeah,” Chuck said, shaking his head and coming back to the present. “Handyman there is Tomura Shigaraki, leader of the League of Villains. They must have teleported into the warehouse with Kurogiri, the black mist in the nice suit. All he would need are the coordinates, and he could portal in any time he wants.”

“Damn it!” Artie cursed. “How does someone like them know where the warehouse is?”

“Um, guys?” Vinyl said. “I think Shigamaki and Tomokiri are heading to the bronze sector.”

“MacPherson,” Artie whispered. “It must have been MacPherson that led them here. But why is he working with the League of Villains?”

Artie may have had the habit of talking to himself like this, but the Intersect gave Chuck the ability to piece together disparate pieces of information into an accurate picture, so Artie was asking Chuck as much as he was asking himself. However, Chuck was at as much a loss as Artie. Neither had enough information to know what was going on. What they did know was that there were dangerous people in the warehouse, and they must be stopped.

Tomura and Kurogiri stood in front of the bronzing station as James MacPherson was being debronzed. Tomura was tapping his foot impatiently.

“Ah, good to see you kept our appointment, Shigaraki, Kurogiri,” James said as he rubbed his wrists where he had been manacled when he was initially bronzed.

“Where is she?” Tomura said simply.

If James was offended by the terse response, he didn’t show it. He simply motioned a hand down an isle of bronze statues and led the way.

Chuck and Artie made their way through the bronze sector, their teslas drawn and charged. This sector creeped Chuck out the first time he had to walk through it when they bronzed MacPherson. Now that he was on the lookout for anyone that could jump out at him from behind, one of these statues of frozen people was even more unnerving. It didn’t help that all the statues were covered in saran wrap and held the same pose, hands held above their head shoulder-width apart. Chuck was both curious and afraid to know if everyone in the bronze sector had been frozen with a calm face like MacPherson or if their faces were contorted in agony. He’d been told it was a painless process, but he could not imagine that anyone would go through that without wanting to scream their lungs out.

Chuck heard something clatter and thought he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned and immediately shot his telsa at a bronze statue. Chuck sighed in relief when he saw a rat skitter away from the blast, untouched by the arcing lightning.

Artie leaned toward Chuck. “Look, I know Vinyl increased the charges on the teslas, but that doesn’t mean you should be shooting random bronze statues now.”

Chuck laughed nervously, “Yeah, right. Sorry.”

“Still skittish, are we, Charles?” MacPherson interrupted, gaining the attention of both agents, their weapons now trained on him.

“Surrender MacPherson,” Chuck said. “You can’t win.”

James tilted his head. “And why not, Charles?”

Chuck’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. “Y-you’re on our home turf.”

“This used to be my home turf too, you know?”

“Well, things have changed since you’ve been- fired.”

MacPherson gave a snort.

“Chuck,” Artie said in a low tone. “Shut up.”

“That’s not a nice thing to say to one of your fellow agents,” James said.

“You shut up too, and surrender now before I decide to convince Casey to break both your legs before we bronze you again.”

Chuck winced, knowing Casey would be all too eager to do just that and imagine it was Chuck’s legs.

“Resorting to violence now, are we?” MacPherson said smugly. “I thought you were above that as a warehouse agent.”

“Yeah, well, Casey is SHIELD, so...”

MacPherson shrugged. “Touche. Well, in any case, you’re too late, as always. I got what I needed, and I’ll be making my way out of here with my compatriots.”

“The League of Villains?” Artie asked. “Why would you go to them to help you with this?”

“Well, actually, they approached me- wanting something from me. And- considering where it was stored and the resources they had- I figured I could get what I wanted, and they could get me out real easy. It was a rather simple task to find what they wanted.”

“And what would that be?” Artie was getting impatient.

James touched the tip of his nose. “Ah, that would be spoiling the mystery, now wouldn’t it? But I guess I should play fair and give you a hint. It’s not a what. It’s a who.”

“And I don’t suppose you could just tell us who this is?” Chuck offered hopefully.

James glanced at Chuck. “That would ruin the spirit of the game.”

Artie had gotten fed up with James being cryptic and shot him. The lightning from the tesla struck MacPherson, causing him to spasm and fall onto his back and melt into a puddle of grey goo.

Both Chuck and Artie looked at the puddle in shock.

“I thought these things couldn’t melt your face off, let alone your entire body!” Chuck shouted.

Artie half-heartedly shrugged. “Heh, well vaporize, yes. Melt? No.” he then looked at the side of his weapon. “At least not at this setting.”

“Vaporize?!”

Artie ignored Chuck’s complaint and went to inspect the liquified body of MacPherson. “Somethings not right. Even if the chemical in his blood reacted with the painite in the warehouse, there wouldn’t be this much remains. The acid would have eaten everything, not leave a pile of goo.”

Chuck begrudgingly got a closer look at the grey pool, then scowled. “He must have been a duplicate.”

“A what?”

“Twice. He has a- a quirk that allows him to create clones of other people, and when they die, they turn into this.”

“So MacPherson might not even be in the warehouse at this point?”

“Considering what he said, he probably isn’t, and hopefully, neither is any of his other friends.”

After a few minutes of cleaning up a few duplicates of Twice and Tigershark, Chuck and Ron set about investigating who MacPherson took. They looked at the computer log for the bronzer and saw two instances of debronzing, the first was obviously MacPherson, but the second name shook the two.

Luna Dragneel. Sister of Celestia Dragneel.

Moon 2.1

Beacon Academy Student Profile

Name: Twilight Sparkle

Race: Faunus

Gender: Female

Age: 18

Weapon of choice: “Harmony’s Compass” a spear with a head shaped like an eight-pointed star.

Semblance: “Telekinesis” She can lift inanimate objects with her mind. She can only lift one or two objects at a time and up to a person’s weight, but she can’t lift herself with this. (This power does not work on vibranium objects.)

Twilight Sparkle glowered as she stared at the back of Ruby Rose’s head as if trying to bore a hole through the other girl’s skull with her mind. Twilight was trying to listen to Professor Port’s lecture- if one considered grandiose stories lectures. However, she was distracted by the rose-colored student huntress, clearly being a nuisance even from three rows away. It was surprising that no one noticed her disrupting the class. Maybe they were all enamored by the professor’s ridiculous storytelling. Thankfully, someone else did see Ruby’s behavior and snapped before she did. If Twilight had to tolerate Ruby’s behavior for another minute, she probably would have thrown the heaviest textbook she had straight at the girl’s head.

Weiss Schnee had suddenly stood up from her seat and asked the professor to demonstrate her abilities. Professor Port obliged heartily, allowing the heiress to fight a boarbatusk he had caged in the classroom off to the side.

Even more annoyingly, Ruby began to cheer. Which was fine on its own, but she was so enthusiastic that it would have been more distracting than anything. And it was distracting for Weiss. Distracting enough to the point where Weiss snapped directly at Ruby and Professor Port almost had to step in to prevent Weiss from being gored by the grimm. To the professor’s credit, he did hide his concern very well, exuding confidence in the student’s ability to slay the beast.

Twilight sighed. “Well,” she said to herself. “At least I’m not the only one suffering from having a terrible leader.” The bell rang, and Twilight looked to the seat directly to her right and saw Sunset Shimmer asleep and drooling on an open notebook. Twilight rolled her eyes and didn’t bother to wake the half-wit girl as she exited the classroom.

Correction, she attempted to leave the classroom when a girl with fluffy pink hair like cotton candy and a pair of lighter pink pony ears suddenly appeared in front of her face.

“Wowee!” the pink girl said enthusiastically. “That was some fight that that girl put up down there. At first, she was all like, ‘Come at me, bro.’ and then the grimm was all like ‘RAAA! I’m gonna get you!’ Bam! She was knocked off her feet, and then he was all like, “Bwahaha! I got ‘chu now!’ and then she was all like ‘Nope.’ and stabbed it in the gut.” she finally took in a deep breath from her tirade. “I was on the edge of my seat. Were you?”

Twilight edged back as if suddenly realizing she was too close to something disgusting. She said nothing for a moment as she stared wide-eyed at the unexpected intruder to her personal space. “Uh. Sure?”

“I know, right? It was such an intense fight.”

‘I’ve fought bigger.’ Twilight thought. She then spared a glance at Sunset to see her still sleeping at her desk.

“Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie.” the intrusive pony faunus said as she held out a hand. “What’s your name?”

Twilight glanced at the hand and didn’t shake it when she responded. “Twilight Sparkle.”

Pinkie didn’t seem to mind the lack of a handshake as she pulled it back and clasped both of her hands behind her back. “Nice to meet you, Twilight Sparkle.” She beamed.

“Nice to meet you too,” Twilight said hesitantly. “I’ve got to get to my next class. Goodbye.” Twilight brushed past Pinkie Pie, making her way to the hall.

“Wait.” Pinkie said.

Twilight groaned internally before silently turning back around, trying to keep a pleasant poker face on.

“Here.” Pinkie held out a slip of yellow paper. It was printed to look like it was supposed to be made out of gold and on it said, “One ticket for the Grand Galloping Gala.”

“What’s this?” Twilight said, taking the paper in her hand.

“It’s a little party I organized for me to get to know everyone at school. Everyone’s invited.” she then leaned in conspiratorially. “But I’m mostly doing this for the plot.”

Twilight cocked her head a little. She disregarded the second piece of information and focused on the first. “You’re a freshman, right?”

Pinkie nodded. “Mmhmm. Yeperooni.”

“And you already organized a party on campus after one day of classes?”

“Pfft. I started organizing this the moment I sent my application.”

Twilight nodded absently. “Okay. That makes sense now.” She read a little bit more of the ticket. “So, you already got drinks, snacks, and music for your little party. Are you supplying all of that yourself?”

“Well, no, I’m kind of lying when I say it’s a ‘little’ party. It’s not just a party for the freshmen, but for the upperclassmen as well. So, I’m prepared for a big crowd, and I got help. I have been called a professional party planner.”

“While that’s impressive,” Twilight said, her expression and tone belying what she said and felt. “I don’t have the time to go to a silly party.” She lied. It was more like she really did not want to go. She didn’t like people. Also, this seemed like the sort of thing that Sunset would be at. Twilight would take any opportunity to be as far away as possible from the sun-themed huntress-in-training and poor excuse for a leader.

Pinkie took the ticket back as Twilight handed it back to her. If Pinkie was offended, it was impossible to tell through the big smile on her face. “Okie Dokie Loki! Big parties aren’t for everybody. I’ll be sure to make yours a small one.”

“Please don’t do that.”

“Make it small?”

“Thow me a party.” and Twilight walked out of the classroom, finally fed up with the conversation.

Pinkie watched the purple huntress go and shrugged. “Oh, yeah, I’m definitely going to throw that one a ‘not-party.’” she then winked at no one in particular and looked to the still sleeping Sunset. “Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie!” she shouted a little too loud, a foot from the sleeping faunus’ ear.

Sunset shouted in alarm, throwing herself out of her seat and onto the floor.

---

Twilight could not believe herself. She was right that Sunset would go to Pinkie’s stupid party. What she didn’t expect was that Sunset would abuse her -alleged- authority as team leader to make it an order for everyone to go to the party.

“I mean, this ticket is really just a fancy poster. We don’t each need one to get in.” Sunset said.

“I don’t think that was a problem to begin with.” Starlight said flatly, clearly as unenthused as Twilight with this prospect.

‘At least I’ll have someone to commiserate with while I have a migraine.’ Twilight thought.

Natsu, however, was as eager to go to the party as Pinkie was chipper in presenting it. “A party? This early in the semester? Will there be food? Drinks?” he then gasped with realization. “Spicy wings?”

“Uhh.” Sunset stammered as she looked at the ticket poster. “Food and drink, yes, but it doesn’t specify for spicy foods. I hope not. I don’t like spicy food that much.”

“Well, no one’s going to force you to eat it,” Natsu said plainly.

Sunset winced, realizing that she had said something stupid. “Yes, you’re right, Natsu. Thank you.”

“No problem.” Natsu then put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed the back of her neck, causing Sunset to look like a deer in the headlights and then blush a little. “Making you feel better is what friends are for.”

Sunset’s blush lessened, and she smiled. “Yes, I do believe so.” then she pried herself out of his grip. “The party is this Friday night, in two days.” She looked at the ticket again. “I don’t think there’s a dress code...”

“Ooh, this Friday night?” Twilight said, making a show of her hesitance. “I’m busy this Friday.”

“No, you’re not.” Starlight said.

“Yes. I am.” Twilight said through gritted teeth.

“No, you told me yourself you had plans to go into town and, I quote, ‘get away from-’”

Twilight put a hand over Starlight’s mouth. “Hooomework.” she finished for Starlight. “I have a lot of homework to do.”

Starlight removed Twilight’s hand from over her mouth. “No, you don’t. You were bragging to me just yesterday about how you finished all your homework already while you were telling me about going to town.”

Sunset’s eyes lit up. “Even the calculus homework? Can you help me with that, please?”

“I thought you were taking trig?” Starlight said.

Sunset looked to Starlight with a blank expression. “What’s the difference?”

Twilight dragged her hand down her face as she groaned. “I hate you all,” she whispered to herself.

--Friday Night--

Team SNST entered the campus event hall, where Pinkie’s party was already in full swing.

Twilight did not like any of this from the start. The music was too loud, there were too many people for her liking, and she had heard too many horror stories of people pulling stupid pranks by putting stuff in the punch. Pranks like a plastic eyeball or something. She sighed and looked at Sunset leading the way. Their so-called “leader” looked more like a frightened chihuahua crossed with a praying mantis than anything. If this was how she was going to act in a social engagement, Twilight could not imagine her faring any better in a combat situation if she couldn’t shield-surf her way out of it.

Before Twilight could stew more negative thoughts about her other teammates, Pinkie Pie burst into view in front of them. She had confetti in her hair, a noisemaker in her mouth, and a small conical paper hat sitting almost delicately on top of her poofy mane of hair. Pinkie blew the noisemaker, startling Sunset and nearly hitting her on the nose with the contraption.

“Welcome to the party!” Pinkie shouted over the noise, removing the noisemaker from her mouth. “So glad you could make it, Sunset, Twilight.”

After Sunset recovered from her heart attack, she returned Pinkie’s ever-present smile. “Glad to be here.”

“Wanna introduce me to the rest of your team?” Pinkie asked.

After introductions were made, Twilight made her way to the punch bowl, hoping to get a fruity drink that would hopefully make this experience tolerable. Unfortunately, the rest of her team followed close behind her. Natsu and Sunset were gawking at the party decorations and the number of people around. Meanwhile, Starlight was trying to blend in like some kind of assassin.

Twilight rolled her eyes at her team as she became the de facto leader to the punch bowl. She had a particular plan to avoid as many people as possible. Step 1: she would hold two drinks, pretend she was bringing someone else their punch, and go find the darkest corner of the room she could. Step 2: If someone dared to talk to her, she would say she needed to fill up her drink and say she would be back in a moment, then repeat step 1 and find a different corner. However, this all hinged on her being rid of her team. She’ll burn that bridge when she gets to it.

Twilight had just begun pouring her second drink when she noticed a blonde, spikey-haired boy staring at her with a passive but malicious intent. She thought back to her father’s stories of his college days and looked closely at the punch. The punch looked a bit odd. However, it was too dark for her to be sure, and she didn’t want to look suspicious herself if this turned out to be nothing. So, she decided to make use of Natsu for once. “Hey, Natsu.” she elbowed him. “Here.” She handed him the paper cup filled with punch.

“Why, thank you, Twilight. You’re not as mean as Sunset makes you out to be.”

Twilight gave a sideways glare at Sunset as the girl shrunk back, hiding behind Starlight for a moment.

Natsu chugged down the glass of punch.

Twilight looked over to the blonde and saw the smile grow even wider. She looked back at Natsu.

“That’s some good punch,” Natsu said, the blonde’s smile fading into a frown. “Another!”

Twilight obliged, shrugging as she poured him another glass, and they drank simultaneously. Then, Twilight’s eyes bulged out of her head. She felt a cold sweat all over her face and down her back as her face grew as red as Sunset’s hair.

“Um, Twilight?” Sunset said. “Are you alright?”

Twilight responded with a shrill scream as a thin stream of fire poured from her mouth like a tiny flamethrower. She ran around the room, desperately looking for something to quench the inferno she had just swallowed. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice her frantic state except her teammates, Pinkie Pie, and two boys standing a few feet away.

“Kachan!” Izuku bemoaned as Bakugou was laughing his guts out. “No one has the same spice tolerance that you do.”

Bakugou calmed down and wiped a tear from his eye as he elbowed Izuku playfully, then pointed to Natsu. “He does.”

Then Pinkie Pie took a swig of the punch, thought for a moment, and then licked her chops.

“And so does she.”

Izuku sighed, shook his head, and walked away, grabbing a paper cup on his way.

“Do you think we should go after her?” Sunset asked nervously.

“Nah.” Pinkie and Natsu waved as Pinkie held an industrial-sized bag of sugar cubes and poured it into the spicy punch.

Starlight eyed the cotton candy student warily as the girl took a swig of her new concoction.

Without hope for salvation inside, Twilight made her way outside to a sort of balcony overlooking one of the streams that ran through the campus. Sucking in the cold night air as a last-ditch effort to cool her burning throat and risking hyperventilation.

“Here.” she heard a male voice behind her say, holding out a paper cup filled with milk.

Twilight snatched the cup and greedily shot it down. “Thanks,” she said, her voice hoarse, panting heavily. “Got any more?” she asked, holding out the paper cup and leaning over the railing.

The green-haired boy pulled a quart of milk from behind him and poured her a glass.

Twilight snatched the quart from Izuku’s hand and traded him the tiny paper cup, and began chugging at the quart slowly. A little bit of milk was drizzling down her neck by the time she stopped halfway through the container.

Izuku laughed as he leaned against the railing with Twilight, cradling the cup in his hands. “I’m sorry for my friend, Katsuki’s, prank. Sometimes, he doesn’t know when to draw the line.”

“Well, tell him that he’s crossed it.” Twilight said spitefully, her voice returning halfway to normal.

Izuku hissed a breath through his teeth and tilted his head to one side. “I’ll tell him, but that’s no guarantee that it’ll stick.” he then extended a hand to Twilight. “I’m Izuku Midoriya, by the way.”

Twilight eyed him skeptically before deciding to reciprocate the handshake. “Twilight Sparkle.”

“So, Twilight,” he began hesitantly, “you’re on Sunset’s team, right?”

Twilight scoffed and turned back to the stream. “She’s the team leader if you can believe it.”

“Really?” Izuku said with a smile. “Good for her. I’m still surprised that she made it here.”

Twilight turned to the green-haired boy. “Do you know her?”

Izuku rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, we used to be friends when we were kids. She, Katsuki, and I.” He looked to the horizon with a wistful expression.

Twilight snorted. “What happened? Did Bakugou almost send her to the hospital by overdosing her on hot sauce?”

Izuku tried to hold back a chuckle and looked guilty for failing. “Uh, well, the worst part is, I don’t know. Other than the fact that I moved away for a couple years, but-” he trailed off. “When I came back, they weren’t friends anymore. At first I thought she moved as well, but I saw her eating alone at the lunch table after a couple months. I wanted to go talk to her and ask her how she’d been but Katsuki stopped me at every turn.” he twiddled his thumbs. “I’m too afraid to ask them at this point.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes as she thought about the story. “How old were you when you came back?”

“About ten, why?”

“Probably peer pressure.” she said as if it were a standard procedure. Looking away, half interested in the conversation. “The other boys probably would have mocked him for hanging out with a girl at that age.” she gave him a sideways glance. “Did you have any friends who were girls while you were gone?”

Izuku thought about it. “No, not really. I-I guess.”

Twilight stood straight and slapped the railing. “Well, there you have it. Peer pressure. Tsk. Friends will always hurt you in the end. Best not to waste time on it.” She turned to walk away.

“Whoah-whoah, hey.” Izuku looked at Twilight as if he’d been slapped in the face by a fish. “You can’t seriously think that, do you?”

Twilight shifted her weight to one leg and crossed her arms. She let a moment of silence hang in the air before answering. “Yes.”

Izuku was left speechless, sputtering hopelessly for a response before he gave up and changed the subject. “In any case...” he sighed as he worked his lips, determining if he wanted to continue talking. “In any case, as her team member, look out for her. Please? She’s a good person and I still consider her my friend. Just don’t tell her that, I don’t want Katsuki finding out and doing... something about it. Okay?” he looked sincere as far as Twilight could tell. “But you can tell her I said ‘Hi.’ and congratulations on becoming team leader. By the way, what’s your team’s name? I wasn’t at the other half of initiation.”

Twilight winced, “SNST.”

Izuku laughed. “Dang, she’s the leader and gets the team named after her. Ha! Just like Ruby and RWBY, that’s hilarious.”

“Yes, I’m sure it is.” she said through gritted teeth. “What’s your team name?”

All mirth in Izuku’s attitude disappeared, replaced with embarrassment. “K-KILL. We’re team KILL.”

Twilight quirked her head. “I’m surprised they let you have that name in school.”

Izuku shrugged. “Yeah, well, that’s what you get when you have to name the teams based only on the first letter of each member’s name and you group them based on first eye contact and what relic they delivered.”

Twilight nodded sagely. “That does sound like a poorly designed naming system. Well, good night.” she hastily turned and started walking away.

“Hey!” Izuku shouted. “Look out for Sunset for me, alright?”

Twilight looked back at Izuku for a moment. “I make no promises.”

Author's Note

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a long time. I was not confident in my direction for this arc until I had written a couple more chapters, and this previous semester of college was very rough on me. Hopefully, over the summer, I can take more time to write and post regularly once a month. Or something like that.