So it is done

How Atlas died

Did Robyn ever imagine how things would turn out like this?

That she would take the lead in the rebellion, how she would make Atlas take notice of her, how she would enter for the first time the holy of holiest Kingdom, the soaring city of Atlas?

Of course, she did.

But she didn't get her hopes up.

Such was the sad fate of those before her, and, Robyn thought, would be after her.

Mantle always have small resistance cells of all sorts.

There were political activists who wanted to fight Atlas peacefully, hoping in their own delusions that the decorative Mantle 'representatives' on the Atlas Council meant something. And that their rallies and public appearances reached the ears of the sitting Atlas elites.

There were those who originally intended to seize power by force – people no less naive than the former.

There were those who believed that smashing the windows of a police car or setting fire to a rubbish bin outside the local administration would somehow bring them closer to their goal of a free Mantle.

On and on, these groups consisted of Mantle's 'rebel' armies. Ranging from associations of caring neighbors handing out food to the poor, to gangs from Mantle's slums who found a suitable excuse to rob passers-by, hiding behind phrases like 'we need money to save Mantle'.

Such groups came and went, sometimes faster than they were noticed. And Robyn...

She probably expected the same thing to happen to hers as well.

Robyn didn't even have an education except for compulsory school. She went to work in a factory as soon as she could, to try to support her family, and she worked just as silently as everyone else. Tried to keep her mind clear of thoughts of anything more than the next day's meal, never mind speaking out a complaint.

She just needed to earn enough to have a roof over her head and soup on her plate by the end of the month – she wanted nothing more...

When exactly did things change?

When one of the guards attached to General James Ironwood himself joined her Mantle Liberation Front?

Or was it when she saw the first Atlas tank cross out its insufferable white emblem in red, replacing it with her own emblem?

Was it when she gave her first order for a direct engagement against Atlas's army?

When a truck full of equipment for would-be revolutionaries appears outside her little hideout?

Or was it when, on a single day on the other side of Remnant, when one Hunter declared himself King?

Digging into the past, Robyn could look for an answer to that question all she wanted, perhaps she could even find the answer.

But that question, the question of 'what brought us to this?' was not as important to Robyn as a question of a different nature.

What would happen next?

Robyn blinked a few times, as if trying to wipe the thoughtfulness on her mind with her eyelashes, before turning her gaze to her surroundings.

When this all began, back when Robyn wasn't even the leader yet, and their humble association didn't even bear the name 'Mantle Liberation Front'. Back when Robyn and her friends, allies, were huddled in the basements of an old abandoned storage room near one of the dug up mines that could be found everywhere in Mantle, using old radios. Radios that they scavenged in the city dump, assembled piece by piece and from parts of other faulty electronics, In their room furnished with roughly chipped boards for seats, old crates for tables. They would stay in those frozen dug-out rooms that not even Mantle heat could reach, but which the eternal cold of Solitas could perfectly touch... Robyn could scarcely imagine where they could go.