Chapter 1, Stranded
The four friends embraced, having ended the anticipated battle at Haven academy. Their teachers and fellow teammates all felt the same level of fatigue and relief, pleased that the enemy had suffered a devastating defeat tonight. The four girls then separated, the dark-haired and blonde girls standing next to each other, hesitant to utter a word despite the fact both wanted to hear the other speak.
"So…I guess, this is the part where I get down on one knee and beg your forgiveness, right Yang?" The dark-haired girl said to the blonde, who raised her right hand to show the mechanical prosthetic.
She smiled and exhaled through her nose. "Well, a lengthy apology's a start…and a copy of one of your Ninja-romcoms with a strawberry-sunrise wouldn't hurt either!" Yang said, followed by the dark-haired girl smiling and Yang continuing. "I…guess we have a lot to talk about, huh Blake?"
Blake could hear one of her friends behind them talking to her other two teammates, a blonde boy with a monkey's tail loudly congratulating them. "You have no idea." She replied.
"Holy crap, you two look great!" He shouted at the two girls, one with short black hair and the other having white hair with a ponytail coming off the side. The short-haired girl blushed and smiled at the teenager's compliment while the white-haired girl simply smirked with her arms crossed. "So, Ruby, how's it feel to be the leader of two teams? I mean, I thought I had it rough with my own back at Beacon, but you're, like, NEXT level of badass for leading two! She's a real riot, right Weiss?!"
"Oh…yeah, well, it's not that bad, Sun. I mean, everyone's been improving since Beacon fell…" Ruby paused, looking at Weiss, recalling that enormous lancer and knight she created with her Aura.
Weiss simply looked away. Remembering the quick incident with Cinder impaling her, then the event a few seconds prior where Ruby's eyes lit up the entire room, Weiss continued, "Well, there's still room for improvement. Now that your hand-to-hand has paid off, maybe we should start asking Ozpin and your uncle about your eyes."
Ruby's face turned a burning red. "Oh! How did I forget about them? Why didn't I ask Ozpin when I had the chance? Oh, I'm so dumb!"
Sun began laughing and patted Ruby on the head. Wiess decided to humor Ruby. "Well…no one on our side died as a result, and we have the relic, so I guess now's as good a time as any to start training."
Then it hit her: when she went out cold because of her eyes, what became of Cinder? She turned her gaze toward Jaune, the former leader of her current team, who was laughing alongside his own teammates Ren, a man with long black hair, and Nora, a girl, with short orange hair. All the anxiety crawled back into her mind, recalling their deceased former teammate, Pyrrha, and the sudden news from Yang that Cinder, the warrior responsible for Pyrrha's demise, had met her own.
"Could…you two excuse me?" She said, their faces washing over with concern but also trust. They both nodded and Ruby walked over to her teammates. Once there, she tapped Jaune's shoulder.
"Uhm, Jaune…did you…hear about-" Ruby steadily began, only for Jaune to interrupt her.
"-Cinder?" He said. Ruby fell silent. "Hmph. Don't worry, Ruby. I'll admit, I'm kinda disappointed I wasn't able to defeat her, nor the one to do it." Ruby looked the other way. "But…at least now, Pyrrha can rest in peace."
Ruby smiled at Jaune's optimism. Finally, after several months of training and desire for revenge, closure had been brought and justice had been done.
Just as Ruby was about to hug Jaune, the blonde paladin said, "Hopefully Cinder's burning in Hell where she belongs." Ruby's smile died to a look of worry and concern. Not helping was the sincere and calm face Jaune made as he said that. How could someone say something so malicious with a comforting smile and gaze?
It was then that Ruby recalled when Tyrian, another warrior who worked alongside Cinder, discovered Ruby's team at an abandoned village, looked at Jaune and said he liked him most out of all of them. Though Jaune's remark just now made her uncomfortable, Ruby looked around and noticed everyone was packing up and heading for the exit, Jaune following suit.
"Come on, Sis! Let's have dinner! Uncle Qrow says we'll need to head out come sunrise!" Yang yelled as her team was exiting the building.
"Okay! Coming!" Ruby yelled, being the last one out the shattered remains of what was once the door and its wall. She couldn't help but think of Cinder; what drove her to be like this? If her subordinates, Emerald and Mercury, were nothing more or less than just that, could they be considered evil as well? What about Lionheart's betrayal? Does everyone have a breaking point to where they sacrifice their everything just to stay alive?
"Oh!" Ruby recalled Lionheart's escape, and ran to her uncle.
Crickets were chirping; the only sound accompanying the orchestra of insects was the cool night air as it flew through leaves and trees. This sequence of sounds, however, only drowned out the sniffles and squeals that lay deep in the forest, two kilometers away from the immense battle that had just taken place. The sniffles and tears that rained on the ground belonged to a woman, most likely in her late teens, with green hair and dark skin. She sat down on a rock with her head in her hands, trying to keep composure after the confirmation that their master was MIA, most likely dead. Next to her were two men, one was young yet had gray hair and the other was almost seven-feet-tall, muscular, and wore a shirt with its sleeves torn off. The larger man had been talking to someone on his scroll, finishing with, "Thank you, m'lady."
As the girl continued bawling, the gray-haired man walked towards the muscular man.
"Hazel, Salem coming for us?" He asked the larger man.
"Yeah, she's using her ability to locate us right now, then we can get back to the castle." Hazel answered. He looked over to the green-haired girl. "You, uh, mind taking care of that, Merc?"
Mercury focused on the girl and walked over to her. He placed his hand on her shoulder, only for her to shrug it off in anger. When she stood up and looked at him, his heart sank at the sight of her eyes; what used to be white was now pink and irritated, and her eyebrows cocked downward to form an arrow. Mercury couldn't recall any other time his teammate had ever looked so angry.
"Look, Emerald-" Mercury began.
"Shut up!" Emerald interrupted. "I don't give a damn about any of you, or Salem, or Ozpin, Ruby, the relics, the maidens…the goddamn Faunus!" She screamed in his face.
Mercury put his hands up in a "cool down" mannerism. Even Hazel looked concerned by his teammate's angst.
"All that work, all that time we spent with her and for her…now…" Emerald sounded as if she was running on fumes. Her tone died down to almost mumbling. "…now she's gone."
"Well…" Mercury thought to himself. "If there's any time and place to lower my guard, guess its now and here." He turned one last time to Hazel, making eye contact and signaling to give them some time alone. As soon Hazel turned around and move a few meters away, Mercury approached Emerald again and placed his hand on her shoulder, this time without resistance.
"Listen to me." He told her, her eyes focusing on his. "You're not the only one who's depressed, y'know." Emerald's eyes widened in surprise. She looked up at her gray-haired teammate. Though he wasn't crying, his eyes looked irritated and his lip and cheek were both shivering. He didn't even notice his grip on her shoulder tightening. "She rescued both of us; we both have an eternal loan to pay her, and we will pay it."
Catching Emerald off guard, Mercury pulled her into a gentle hug. Emerald didn't have the strength to resist, neither physical nor emotional. As a result, she just put her face on his shoulder and hugged back.
Mercury recalled the night he first met Cinder and Emerald. After being forced to kill his father and burn down his own home, he had nowhere to go. That was the most traumatic night of his life; giving death to the man which gave him life. Then, as if planned by destiny itself, a woman, accompanied by Emerald, showed up mere moments later. Mercury was stunned when he first saw her; her amber eyes beneath her raven-black hair, her curvy figure with flawless skin, all accompanied by her calm and seductive voice. All of this added on top of the fact that she arrived right after he lost everything. To Mercury, Cinder was living proof that fate and destiny were real, and she would be the driving force in the next chapter in his life. She was an Angel in his eyes, and he would do whatever he could to please her and stay at her side.
In the heat of this moment, Mercury whispered in Emerald's ear, "We need a new plan." All of Emerald's thoughts and emotions came to a halt. She looked up at Mercury and noticed he was normal again. "We owe Cinder a debt, not Salem. I mean, Tyrian got his tail chopped off, hazel got his ass handed to him twice tonight, the White Fang's a lost cause, and we have to assume Raven's not on our side anymore." Emerald continued listening to her teammate, realizing the sinking ship they were currently on.
"Pardon me." A strange voice called from the hill above, instantly catching everyone's attention. "I heard your lead singer's dropped out of the band. Mind if I audition?"
They recognized him immediately upon noticing his horns and rose-shaped hair: Adam, a former commanding officer of the White Fang terrorist organization. However, former was a confusing term; he still wore the mask that covered his eyes, yet they just suffered a heavy defeat and Hazel recalled him killing the former head of the White Fang.
Hazel approached him. "We may have the same enemy, but why should we even consider adding you to our numbers?"
"Because your numbers just dropped about half-an-hour ago." He answered. "Like you said, we have the same enemy, and…I honestly don't have anywhere else to turn to. What's say we help each other out?"
Though half of his face was masked, it was covered in arrogance and smugness. Emerald and Mercury didn't forget that, before the fall of Beacon, Cinder ordered the three of them to attack Adam's chapter of the White Fang. If he's asking for help now, he's obviously desperate, but definitely wouldn't save any of their skins in a tight situation.
Suddenly, a small hover ship, flying low to the ground, came to a halt and landed beside the group. Out of it stepped a man with short black hair and moustache.
"Glad to see all of you are at least alright." He remarked.
"Yeah, thanks Watts." Hazel replied. Adam jumped down from the hill. "So, uh, I don't know if Salem mentioned anything about-"
"Cinder?" Watts interrupted, Mercury and Emerald snapping to attention. "Yes, Salem contacted me mere seconds after you finished speaking with her. A true tragedy and my sincere condolences." Emerald tightened her fist at that last comment, doubting Watts had even one ounce of sympathy or empathy in his body for her.
"Well, it's not like there's no silver lining." Adam intervened. "I've had experience leading armies and taking out targets even Atlas's best soldiers were responsible for."
"Yeah and look how that turned out!" Emerald shouted. "Get outta here. We don't need you."
"You didn't let me finish…" Adam continued. "I have, however, a long list of solo missions that I've succeeded in and I'm willing to learn how to function in a small unit instead of a large army. Whaddya say?" Adam extended his arm to shake Watts's hand. Not even a second later, thunder clapped across the sky and caught everyone's attention. Time was running out. Watts grabbed his hand and shook it.
"I'd rather let our master make the final decision, just fair warning." Watt calmly alerted him. Adam didn't even blink underneath his mask. He had nothing to lose or go back to, and this somehow excited him, unlike Emerald and Mercury who were now wishing they'd killed him back in Vale. All five people walked onto the hover ship, and so the storm began.
10 minutes earlier
"Cold…" Was her first thought. "Falling…" Was her second. "Need…to break…free."
As she descended deeper into the chasm, the young woman began activating her powers. With her human arm, she tried to create fire to melt the ice that imprisoned her entire body. The drops of water ascended upward as she continued to fall and thaw her way out. Once weak enough, the fire shattered the ice and her was free. She then spread the fire throughout her entire body and the ice began melting away.
"Come on, come on!" She thought.
The ice around her finally shattered, all except for her left arm, which couldn't produce Aura. Now worried about hitting the ground, the woman activated her ability to levitate. As she continued falling, an orb of wind formed around her, and she gained momentum, but too little too late.
She still fell to the ground, her body making a loud thud as it hit the chasm bottom, accompanied by a terrible snapping noise, the orb of wind disappearing. She couldn't see anything, not even her hand in front of her face. All that was made clear to her was the excruciating pain in her right ankle. Lighting a fire in her palm, the woman took note of her surroundings, all solid rock and nothing else. She examined her foot, the glass high-heel still attached to it, and her ankle was sprained from the fall. She heard the sound of running water from behind her, and, trying to fight the pain of her injured foot, stood up and lit her way towards the sound.
Unexpectedly, there was an enormous hole in the wall, probably three meters tall and five in length, surprising the woman, and she became even more shocked to see her ears weren't lying to her. Through the enormous hole was a short path that lead to an underground river, but the most intriguing part was not the convenience of the hole's position, but of how perfectly squared in shape it was.
"Is this…an emergency exit?" The woman wondered. "This place should be at least as old as the relics, which was before modern technology. Maybe this was the original exit?"
As she asked herself these questions, she heard what sounded like two women shouting from above. She recognized both voices, one more than the other.
"Raven. Yang Xiao Long." She angrily said through her teeth. The woman looked back at the exit in the wall one last time before powering up her flight capability.
Almost a kilometer above the ground the woman stood on, two other women stood on a platform which held a door that brought light to the underground. One of them had jet-black hair and wore red and black armor. She was sobbing, a feeling of regret that she hadn't felt in…actually, she couldn't even recall the last time she felt this way. The blonde, her daughter named Yang, was walking into the light now, only to walk out holding an odd gold and blue object. She dialed the elevator to go up and after stepping onto the platform and ascended back up to the surface, still holding a heavy weight of disappointment towards her mother in her heart.
Cinder smashed her other arm against the wall, its still iced over figure shattering into pieces. This arm, however, was not human, but was made from the substance of grimm. Upon shattering, her arm instantly regenerated, and she levitated back up to the platform.
The elevator made its final stop in the foyer, Yang staring down at both her teammates and enemies, but it was now made clear whom the victors were. Lionheart was nowhere to be found, nor was Raven. All that remained of the opposing force was Emerald, Mercury, and Hazel, none of whom felt any shred of optimism in their situation. Emerald was on all fours, bawling at the assumption that Cinder, her master and role model, may have been dead.
"Emerald, get up." Mercury firmly told her.
Down underground, Cinder stood on the platform, her ankle still pained, and pulled out her scroll, only to realize the lack of reception. She cursed under her breath. Looking around for a few seconds, she spotted the control panel to the elevator. She limped over to it, but as she was about to call the elevator down, a foreboding thought crossed her mind.
"What if…Raven's already back on the surface? If she is, then she's probably slaughtering everyone up there already." Then the thought of Yang came to her. "If Yang truly was down here, did Raven kill her? She did say she intended on killing Qrow, despite him being her brother…no, I would've seen a corpse, even on my way up."
On the surface, Emerald took one last look around before streams fell down her eyes. She didn't care anymore; her anger took over and she utilized her semblance to lash out as angrily as possible. In a matter of seconds, she pulled everyone in the room, save Mercury and Hazel, into an illusion. A giant, deformed image of Salem was on display in front of everyone, darkness clouding the room and everyone's attention focused on the enormous and disturbing monster as it flailed its arms around and let out one bloodcurdling screech before the entire room went black.
The illusion knocked Emerald unconscious, while Hazel collected her body and, led by Mercury, the group fled the building and into the forest. Above them on a hilltop stood Adam, a smile forming at what looked like a new opportunity.
Back in the underground, Cinder came to a conclusion. "Alright, I'll see where that pathway leads. If it goes nowhere, I'll take my chances with everyone on the surface." She thought. She levitated back down to the exit below, darkness cloaking every cubic centimeter around her flame's light. Upon touching down, her ankle bothered her again, this time causing her to nearly fall over. To stop the swelling, she sat down, put her ankle in between her hands and began to freeze the injured area.
"Raven…if it wasn't for Vernal interrupting our duel, I would've killed you." She thought to herself. "Next time I see you, I'll rip you, and your damned little band of thieves, to pieces, and I'll make sure you're the last one to die!"
Placing her anger aside, Cinder stood up and continued down into the exit, leaning against the wall as she limped her way through. Just as she expected, a stream was running through passage way towards the left, and the wall on her side of the stream had a pattern of dormant lights leading along the path of the flowing current. Cinder examined these lights, finding their crystalized appearance intriguing.
"Guess this place hasn't been used in ages." She whispered to herself. The crystal lights reminded Cinder of her subordinate, Emerald, followed the other, Mercury. "…hmph, I'm sure they're fine." That's all the thought she put into them. Cinder's main priority was getting out of the cave; her subordinates' safety, like in every case, came in second.
"Damn, how far does this-" SQUEAK! Cinder's eyes lit up, along with the flame in her hand, as her good foot slid towards the wall on the slick concrete. She tried to catch herself on her other foot, only to be reminded of its injury by placing all force on it and focusing on only that. At the instant of the pain, Cinder lost balance entirely; her body made a complete rotation, her eyes catching the moss that had grown on the stone floor for a split second, before falling side first into the stream.
Panic surged throughout her body; the pain in her foot, coupled with the fact she still couldn't see anything, and the dreaded anticipation of hitting any hard rocks that stood in her way. Just as more worry came her way, she could hear the sound of the water current picking up to add onto her concern. As she approached the dreadful noise, she felt the water picking up and her body fell at a slight angle.
"Damn. At this speed, any object I hit will flatten me. Gotta get out of this stream!" She thought. With one flap of her arms, she pushed her body as far out of the water as she could. At her maximum height she extended her grimm arm and found the ceiling, her sharp nails piercing the stone above her and bringing her body to a halt, the current beating hard on her. She pulled herself to the ceiling and activated the orb of wind to levitate through the cave.
"Whatever powered these lights had to have produced enough heat to attract moss all over the floor and walls. I guess when the lights died out, the moss just stayed where it grew." She thought.
Within minutes, she reached the end, and became puzzled by what she had found. The stream seemed to turn and go underneath the path way, leading to who knows where. She landed on the stone pathway, careful not to put weight on her bad ankle or step on any more moss. The exit, however, wasn't so clear to see. In fact, it looked nonexistent.
"What…where's the door? Isn't this a way out?!" She asked herself. "Oh, please tell me I don't have to go back up." Cinder started to feel around the wall, hoping it was just hidden like in the movies. After a few minutes of frustrating searching, she felt what she hoped was a type of knob-mechanism, covered in more moss. Using her semblance, she crafted a small blade out of glass and began cutting away the slippery plant, and soon found her suspicions to be factual. It was an old two-bar valve, mostly rusty but still usable.
With all her strength, Cinder grabbed both bars and turned it counterclockwise. The more she turned, the more loose the knob became, until the entire door made a loud clanking sound, and it opened up. Fresh air flew through the cracks between the door and its frame as Cinder pulled the door open to its full ninety-degree-turn. After an entire night of violence and humiliation, all her stress went away by just the sight of this opened door.
She stepped outside to see what awaited her. It was still night, the broken moon shining light onto the young woman and the stream that led out of the stone wall into the river far below. There wasn't any staircase or even a rope to escape with, just the platform right in front of the door.
"Whoever designed this path didn't just have the ability to fly," Cinder thought to herself. "They didn't want to chance their tracks being found…pretty smart." She peered out one last time at the city. "No time to lose." However, just as she activated her aura again, she felt a sudden urge of pain throughout he whole body. She was forced down to her knees. "Dammit. I'm almost out of Aura, and I've yet to use the maiden powers this long."
Cinder began reflecting on this entire ordeal. "I ran in here expecting a sneak attack on Vernal to work. I didn't come prepared…Oh, why am I such an idiot?!" She got back on her feet once more. "Maybe I can call Salem, get her to come get-" She paused as another panic took center stage in her mind. She checked her dress, now realizing how ruined it was, only to find out she lost her scroll. She continued checking every pocket only to find nothing in all of them. She then remembered the fall into the stream. "It must've fallen out at that moment…"
Thunder clapped through the sky and anxiety filled her in effect. With all her willpower, she forced herself through the pain and levitated one last time to reach higher ground. Once she was high enough to a bridge, her aura gave out and she extended her arms to grab the edge. She was successful and pulled herself over it. Now the rain began to pour, and the light drizzle became heavier with each passing second.
"No way to get back." Cinder thought to herself. "No relic, no Spring Maiden power, only a devastating defeat…" her fist clenched, teeth grit, and a flame spawned from her right eye. "…again…here again…
"Why…why am I never allowed to succeed? Why do the guilty get away while I'm left in the dirt?! What the hell is my destiny then?"
No one was around, all were most likely indoors. She sat up and began to cry, the rain meshing with her tears. Between wanting revenge and simply disappearing, the young woman could no longer tell what route to take.