I do not own RWBY. That belongs to Rooster Teeth, and Monty Oum, may his soul rest in peace.
Superbia
Cinder Fall awoke with a start.
She sat in bed, in the dark, sweat dripping down her brow. Her amber eyes were fixated upon the space just in front of the door to her lavish bedroom, luscious lips drawn into a thin line. Try as she might, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was forgetting...something.
Something terrifying.
Something worrying.
You've done this before.
The False Maiden shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. On this day, of all days, it did not matter. She stood on the very threshold to her victory. Today would be the day that she would fell that foolish, naive silver-eyed girl. Today would be the day she'd crush those idiots following her. Today she'd finally cross blades with the knight who'd been hounding her and striking at her heels at every opportunity. Whatever it was she'd been forgetting must not have been very important after all.
Instead, she silences the little voice in the back of her head that tells her to worry, that tells her to panic, and instead gives a smile that would chill the blood of any lesser man. A smile lacking empathy or kindness. Yes, the hope of mankind would be extinguished today, and she'd enjoy every second of it. She rose from her bed, a single malevolent amber eye gleaming out from under a lock of her coal black hair. Today would be the day of their reckoning…
[The irony was that the prison was of her own making…]
"My Queen..." The voice of Mercury Black, her loyal servant reached her ears. He bent down on one knee before her, as a servant like him should.
"Lady Cinder..." Emerald Sustrai, her other loyal servant, followed suit, kneeling before her. Cinder walked between the two, still smiling.
"Rise, my servants. Both of you have done well. Today will be the day that those who stood before us for so very long will despair. The foolish children who have clung to hope will find themselves bereft of it. With the creatures of the Grimm at our side, we cannot lose today." Cinder confidently spoke to the two, the eagerness in her voice palpable. There was a tension in the air that could be felt among the three, but where as Cinder found it exciting, Mercury and Emerald looked uneasy.
"What should would you have us do, Lady Cinder?" Mercury asked. Cinder couldn't help but widen her smile. She knew the gray haired boy was eager for slaughter. He enjoyed watching those weaker than he suffer.
"I'm afraid you and Emerald will remain behind. Your task is to guard me." Cinder ordered softly. She began to walk forward, making her way to the grand hall where her throne sat. Well, originally Ozpin's own chair, but she found it fitting that she now sat upon it, making it hers as a final act of humiliation to the moronic Headmaster who dared stand against her. My lady, do you speak of the knight?
You've done this before.
"My lady, do you speak of the knight?" Emerald asked innocently, causing Cinder to stop in mid-stride.
How...how did I know she was going to say that? Cinder blinked and shook her head. "That foolish knight cannot hope to defeat me. No, you will be the vanguard in case they fell my great beast. The knight will be of no consequence." She waved a hand dismissively. However, that voice from the morning came back, a tickling feeling at the back of her mind. It all felt so familiar. All of this felt as though she were speaking out a script. Every foot fall felt practiced, as though she'd tread this particular path a million times over. Every syllable felt so worn on her tongue like she'd spoken the words a million times. The only way she could describe it was an oppressive sense of Deja-vu.
"Shall we wait outside the throne room?" Asked Mercury, following closely behind her as they made their way to the center of what was once Beacon Academy.
"Yes." Cinder responded, hesitating for a few seconds before answering. The little voice in the back of her head kept screaming at her, but as before, she quashed it, reaffirming her belief in her victory that day. Her god-like power, the Grimm at her disposal, all of it would be her weapons against the fools who tried to resist her. No force on Remnant, save for her only ruler, Salem, could ever dare oppose her and live.
She continued to move forward, continued to the Throne room, her thoughts only on victory.
Her focus would only ever look forward into the future where she ruled over the wastes with man broken and bowed before her.
So it was easy to miss the looks of despair and sorrow that crossed the faces of her loyal servants. They turned on their heels and walked away as Cinder entered her Throne Room, their fates set. The curtain would once again fall upon them, their scenes finished.
Their role in the play, was, once more, over.
[She could leave at any time, if only she'd give up her pride…]
She watched.
She watched as those foolish children stepped foot into her city, and like a blinding beacon, cut through her carefully laid shadows. They carved through the waves and waves of accumulated Grimm without stopping, without slowing. Ruby Rose, like the reaper she was, mowed down Grimm above any other, her silver-eye powers freezing them in her tracks, or using its silver glow to enhance her reaper to destroy the Grimm en mass.
She watched as the fellowship split into groups, each one striking out to every corner of the city. Yang and Blake rushed off to take down Adam, to crush what remained of the White Fang and destroy their center of power.
She watched as Ruby and Weiss rushed forward into the tide of Grimm that swallowed up the Valian streets. The Schnee girl's titanic knight summon and Ruby's silver glowing scythe were a buzz saw that carved through every Grimm that stood before them, until at last, their path brought them to the foot of the Emerald Tower, the Primal Grimm Wyrm roaring angrily at them, decreeing its challenge to the two warriors, who simply smiled somberly and readied their weapons.
She watched.
And then a thought occurred. The little voice that had been plaguing her all morning spoke up again. Where was the berserker? Where was her little shinobi pet? Where was the knight? Cinder frowned deeply. She was so certain there was nothing the three of them could do to change the inevitable, but part of her couldn't help but to prepare for their arrival anyway. Perhaps with proper planning, they too would be crushed so ignominiously that their ensuing despair would attract Grimm in waves to overwhelm their friends too.
You've done this before.
She stepped off of her stolen throne, her heels clicking on the marble flooring as she made her way to the door where her loyal servants would be waiting her orders. She'd have them stop the fools in their tracks, break them before they even laid eyes upon her. Even as she made her way to the door, that feeling of Deja-vu kept scratching at the back of her mind, just enough to keep her uneasy. Just enough to keep bringing itself back up.
Shaking her head, she reached a hand out to the handle of the door, planning on telling Mercury and Emerald to take out the three fools who dared to try and harm her one at a time, when-
Mercury Black is dead. His chest, collapsed inward and his mouth bloody. Eyes wide open in shock, frozen in death. A hammer blow straight to the ribcage combined with the last remaining grenade in the Valkyrie girl's arsenal shattered his ribs, destroying organs and killing him in an instant. He dies without ever being able to cry out or complain about the death he feels he still hasn't deserved.
Cinder stops, stepping slowly back, clutching her head in her hands. How? How did she know of his fate? It wasn't just a feeling, she knew that Mercury Black was dead. Gone. Defeated. She continued stepping backward, amber eyes flickering back and forth nervously. What was going on? This had happened before, she knew it. How? She cleared her throat, ready to call for Emerald. She needed to get Emerald here, to give her answers and-
Emerald Sustrai dies, her heart burst like an over ripe fruit. The Shinobi uses his hands to procure the kill, having disarmed his foe and struck her with an Aura-infused fist. Her illusions can do nothing to him; his mind is an impregnable fortress and his Semblance allows him to see the truth. The fight is quick, brutal, and it takes almost no time before Sustrai dies choking on her own lifeblood, unable to beg for mercy.
This time, Cinder finds herself shaking. Emerald is dead too. How did she know that?! She stumbled further back into the room, the little voice in her head screaming. She needed to run. She needed to hide. Death was coming. She could no less stop the scythe of Death than she could stop the tides themselves.
For a moment, she planned to run. For a moment, she wanted to hide, to flee.
But she quashed that feeling viciously. The feeling of fear felt so out of place, so...strange, that she could scarcely believe it had come from her. She was a Goddess! She was invincible! She had already won, those fools just didn't know it yet! Her ears picked up the roar of her Primal Grimm servant and she smiled wickedly to herself. Yes, there was no reason to panic. Those two children who followed her were simply weak. She didn't need them to crush her opposition.
She could not lose.
She turned on her heel once more, ready to walk out to take out the foolish idiots with her own hands, to burn them all to the ground. Rage and indignation filled her thoughts and she moved forward with purpose.
It would be the sound of the door to the Throne room opening up that be her death kneel.
In he stepped.
Ozpin's Knight. Nikos' partner.
Time had not been kind to him. His once soft eyes and kind expression had been hardened by sorrow and turmoil. Sharpened by strife and pain. His sapphire blue eyes were no longer warm, but cold, calculating. His gaze was no longer the gaze of a civilian, but that of a wolf.
A Hunter.
He spoke not a word. His gaze, narrowed and fierce, was communication enough.
The ringing of steel as he drew the legendary Crocea Mors from its sheath was the perfect punctuation.
[It would go against everything she was though. She'd rather die than give up her pride.]
The battle was fierce. He gave no quarter and took none.
While Pyrrha Nikos' form was graceful and fluid, as close to her perfection as one could get, the knight's style was a sharp contrast. Fierce. Brutal. Unforgiving. He was an iron fortress, impregnable and unstoppable.
At first Cinder felt she had the advantage, raining an inferno upon the young knight for daring to stand against her. One might have said that she'd gone overboard, but that strange little voice in the back of her head wouldn't stop screaming. Wouldn't stop telling her to run. That there was no chance. She needed to shut it up. Needed it to stop speaking. Needed to defeat this impudent knight.
But no matter how hard she fought, he kept moving forward. Continued to advance. Continued to take his pound of flesh. There was no mercy in those eyes. No weakness. He'd either fell her, or die in the process. There'd be no other option.
Eventually Cinder's mounting paranoia and terror rose to a fever pitch, and with a Herculean force of will, conjured up a flame so hot, so destructive, that the ground around her began to glow with the ambient heat of it. She needed to kill him. Had to kill him.
You've done this before.
She released the flame, unleashing a white hot torrent of fire that consumed all in her path, and for the briefest of moments, the little voice was silent as she felt victory was at hand. How could he ever resist the sheer unrelenting power of the Maiden of Fall?
Then he smiled.
A blinding white light burst forth from him as the inferno engulfed him, and a screaming reached Cinder's ears. At first she figured that he'd managed to resist the fire just enough to not turn to ash the very moment he'd come into contact with the heat.
It soon became apparent however, that the screams did not belong to the knight.
They were her screams.
[She'd dance the same waltz, for all eternity, until she could dance no longer.]
He'd turned her own power against her. The irony of it was just sickening. She could smell her own flesh burning, felt the overpowering agony of the fire that once held such warmth and protection now consuming her. She could barely breathe. Only her own Aura had protected her from becoming instantly incinerated the very moment her own attack made contact.
The pain was so immense that she didn't even notice the knight had approached her gasping, sobbing form until he was already standing above her, his eyes cruelly staring down at her. His lips turned upward as he gazed upon her writhing form. He knew she held now power left. Her own strength had been completely drained just trying to keep her alive.
You've done this before.
She looked up, wheezing and coughing. She tried to glare defiantly at him, but that little voice, that little voice that had been screaming at her in the back of her mind was now a cacophony. You've done this before! She tried to speak, but her lungs were too seared and all she could do was take rattling, desperate breaths. The feeling of Deja-Vu had become almost overwhelming sensation.
She had been through this before.
He'll raise his blade, staring down at you.
The young knight raised his arm, Crocea Mors shining in the light of the flames that licked at the walls of Cinder's throne room.
He'll look at you with rage, with anger, but that will devolve into pity.
His gaze was fierce and full of hate, blue eyes narrowed, but upon gazing at her broken, burnt form, his eyes fell, and he gazed upon her with pity. Cinder felt nothing but hate as he stared upon her sorrowfully. How dare he! How dare he look upon her with such eyes!
No matter how hard you try to avoid it…
His arm reaches back again, raising it into the air with a finality that finally, finally strikes Cinder, causing her amber eyes to widen in realization and dread.
The blade will fall.
Crocea Mors falls upon Cinder, its point piercing her chest and-
[Again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again…]
Cinder Fall awoke with a start.
She sat in bed, in the dark, sweat dripping down her brow. Her amber eyes were fixated upon the space just in front of the door to her lavish bedroom, luscious lips drawn into a thin line. Try as she might, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was forgetting...something.
Something terrifying.
Something worrying.
You've done this before.
Author's Note: Yeah, another little one-off that I had floating around in my head. Will have Ninja in Love updated by the end of the week.
As always, remember to leave a review!