I've seen quite a few fics based on some character being evil rather than good – I'm currently writing one, in fact - and vice versa. I've even seen some swaps, for example Cinder being a hero while Ruby is a villain. I decided to take that concept to its logical conclusion; Is it possible to rewrite RWBY so that everyone has their moral alignment completely reversed? I don't know. That's why I'm going to try.
I have no idea how it will turn out. I don't have any long-term plan, so it's possible that the story will be abandoned almost immediately. But if you're reading this, then the first chapter has been posted at least. Enjoy.
"What do you desire?"
The question echoed in Cinder's ears. She expected that she would be asked something like that and had an answer prepared, but she couldn't, for the love of dust, recall what that answer was. Perhaps it was due to exhaustion – she had been walking without rest for almost two days before arriving to this strange place. But it was more likely thanks to her fear.
And was she wrong to be afraid? All around her Grimm spawned out of the black pools of bumbling ooze. The sky was dark, and not because of the time. As Cinder knew by now, the sun never shined in this strange realm. But the scariest of all was the woman before her eyes.
Woman? Grimm? Goddess? Cinder heard a lot of things about a being called Salem. Most of which were rather unflattering. Salem was said to be The Queen of the Grimm, a being of pure destruction working to divide and ultimately destroy the entire humanity. She would take people into her service, offering them whatever they could wish for if they only gave up their freedom and their conscience to her. Like Cinder was about to do right now.
Part of her was regretting coming into this realm. Salem turned out to be as scary as the tales described her, with pale skin, black veins and red eyes. She definitely didn't look like somebody you'd want to talk to, let alone serve. But Cinder saw no other option.
"What do you desire?" Salem repeated calmly, but with a bit of pressure added on. Cinder forced herself to focus. What did she desire?
She wanted to be strong. She wanted to be powerful. But those were just means to the end, just like striking a deal with Salem was. It was the only way she saw, and the end was definitely worth whatever price she would have to pay.
"I want to change the world." she answered.
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Cinder grasped her cup with both hands. Mostly because she enjoyed the warmth, but also to make sure that it was, in fact, real and not made of something like baby bones.
"So, what do you mean by changing the world, precisely?" Salem asked after pulling her lips away from her cup. Now that she was sitting down and drinking tea, she wasn't as scary as few minutes ago. Still a little creepy though. The surroundings – a dim-litt room with a giant table and chairs that looked like they were made of bones – didn't help either.
Cinder tried to push away the thoughts about how ridiculous the situation was and focus on providing a satisfying answer instead. There were many ways in which the world could be made a better place, but Cinder didn't want to list them all. A suggestion like 'Kill all Grimm' probably wouldn't make Salem very happy. So instead she decided to focus on less controversial goals.
"For one," her voice carried a certain nervousness with it "I would like to abolish the Kingdoms as they are now. I'd want to abolish slavery, change all those oppressive laws, maybe establish some sort of democracy afterwards…"
Salem stood up from her throne. Cinder wondered if she was about to be killed for saying something wrong, but The Queen simply walked towards the nearest window and gazed through it.
"Tell me," she spoke, again with perfect calm. "Do you know how the current order of society came to be?"
"You mean the Great War?" Cinder took a guess, to which Salem simply nodded.
The Great War… of course Cinder knew the story. And not just the official version – she did some digging and came out with what she assumed was a pretty accurate picture of those events. The war started some ninety years ago. The direct cause for the outbreak were the border disputes between the Kingdoms, but the reasons went deeper. It was a war of ideologies, with Vale and Vacuo championing freedom of self-expression, while Mantle and Mistral fought to stomp it out.
The war lasted for nearly a decade. For the most part, the forces were even, although Mantle and Mistral were able to launch an offensive on Vacuo. Their armies were met with staunch resistance and eventually stared to be pushed back… until they received help from a traitor.
The Traitor King of Vale. Even the propaganda, which insistently tried to sell the monarch as a hero, could get rid of that moniker. He led his army astray and into the slaughter. Some said that he struck his soldiers down himself with some unnatural power, but he most likely just led them into a desert without adequate supplies. By the time his betrayal became known, it was already too late. Vacuo had been conquered and Vale was outgunned and surrounded by enemies. On the island of Vytal, the King has personally signed a capitulation treaty, which allowed Mantle to install more… conservative govenrments into the defeated Kingdoms.
Ever since then, the Kingdoms have remained in peace with each other. And why would they fight, if they were all essentially one and the same now? All throughout Remnant high arts were banned, faunus were treated as second-class citizens at best and all resistance was brutally repressed.
"I know the story." Cinder replied, not wanting to get into detail.
"I'm afraid you don't." Salem stated, her eyes still staring through the window. "You might think you know the true version, but trust me, the truth is much stranger than what you currently believe." The Queen finally turned towards Cinder. There was an expression of anger sprawled across her face now, but it didn't seem to be pointed at Cinder. "Ozpin. Do you recognise that name?"
She did. Professor Ozpin, first name unknown, was a headmaster of Beacon, one of the four huntsmen academies founded right after The Great War. In theory, those were supposed to train fighters so that they could protect people from the danger of Grimm. And yes, huntsmen and huntresses did spend most of their time fighting monsters, but they also had other purpose – to ruthlessly cut down anyone who posed a serious problem for the current world order. During the Faunus Rebellions huntsmen have killed more rebels than all Kingdoms' militaries combined. Almost none of them have shown any mercy to their opponents and some even reveled in their cruelty, commiting atrocities that even the Grimm wouldn't be capable of.
Huntsmen were monsters. And Ozpin was training them.
"I do recognize that name." Cinder replied, not bothering to hide the disgust in her voice.
"And you know what it entails." A tiny smile appeared on Salem's face. "And yet, the things you have heard about that man are but a tip of an iceberg. He is responsible for more evil than you realise. He is the one to blame for the outcome of The War."
"What?" Surprise overpowered both fear and disgust in Cinder's voice. "How would that be? He is old, but nowhere near this old. The Great War was fought long before he was born. Besides, if anyone is to blame for all of this, it would be…"
"The Traitor King of Vale." Salem finished. "That is just one of many aliases Ozpin has amassed over the course of his life. Or rather lives."
Cinder raised her eyebrow at that.
"It is fairly difficult to explain." Salem sighed. "Let me tell you the tale of The Girl in the Tower…"
/-/
Cinder's cup had been empty for a while, but the woman kept holding it with both hands. In a weird way it helped her focus, as she processed what she was told.
There was once a world where the Gods of Light and Darkness lived among men and where humans could wield magic.
Both Gods were cruel deities, who cursed Salem with immortality for demanding to bring back her loved one and destroyed humanity for rebelling against their rule.
Ozpin, or Ozma as he was once known, served the God of Light and sought to unite humanity by any means necessary.
He and Salem built their kingdom together, but it collapsed when Ozma betrayed her in hopes of ruling alone.
He made countless attempts and taking over Remnant and finally succeeded during The Great War.
He wasn't just the headmaster of one huntsmen academy. He was the one responsible for the current state of affairs and the one secretly ruling this messed up world.
All of this sounded crazy. And yet… Cinder was willing to believe it. Maybe sipping tea with The Queen of the Grimm made her more tolerant of weirdness, but the story did make a surprising amount of sense. It even explained why the Moon was shatterred, something that didn't have any reasonable explanation anyway.
And to be honest, Cinder sort of liked things this way. She no longer had to make complicated plans for changing the system from within. Instead, she could focus on combating one specific person, whom she could blame for nearly everything wrong with the world. And The Queen of the Grimm would certainly help her in that regard.
"So… it looks like we have a common enemy." Cinder said after a long period of silence. "If overthrowing Ozpin is your goal, then I would be happy to serve you."
"Indeed we have. But consider this." Salem looked the other woman in her eyes. "There are many people who wish Ozpin harm, and yet I don't seek to make a pact with any of them. What makes you so special that I'm supposed to give you my resources and attention?"
"Well," Cinder was luckily prepared for that sort of question. "I am a skilled combatant. I have trained my aura-control for a long time now, I'm an excellent archer and I know some tricks involving the use of dust."
"Then you might survive a fight if you get into one." Salem commented dryly. "What else?"
"People say I'm clever." Cinder continued, now focusing on her non-combat talents. "I can certainly be resourceful, even manipulative if I really want. I posses…" Cinder hesitated for a moment." …certain attributes which might help me deal with men, or women with alternate preferences. But more importantly… I'm willing to give anything to achieve my goals."
"I hear that pretty often." Salem sighed. "People come to me and claim that they'll do anything if I just…"
"I didn't say I'll do anything." Cinder said before she could stop herself, interrupting Salem. She half-expected The Queen to punish her for insolence, perhaps with an instant death, but Salem simply looked at her curiously. Cinder decided to elaborate. "I said that I would give anything to achieve my goals. As if, something that is mine. My property, my dignity, my life… anything, as long as I get to make a change. But there are some things I won't do. I won't kill an innocent person, that is for sure. I won't torture anybody, unless they are guilty of something and there is a very good reason to. And I will not champion any order that is worse than the current one. If you want me to do any of these things… then I'm afraid I'll be useless to you."
Cinder wondered if she was too direct. Probably so, but it was for the best. If Salem thought her wannabe servant would commit to evil, she was wrong and she should know as much.
Yet again, Cinder prepared for a punishment, whatever it may be. But again, it didn't come. The Queen remained silent for a few moments, as if thinking intensively, before she spoke once more,
"Even with your talents, there are people who would serve me better. People who could, in theory, do just as much as you and who aren't tied up by their notions of morality."
"But you," she continued after a short pause. "you have came before me only to list all the things you won't do for me. I can sense you are afraid, there's no use hiding it, but that fear doesn't bind you. If you are able to retain your principles in a situation like this… then maybe you have something others do not. That's why I'll give you my support."
The last sentence echoed in Cinder's ears. She apparently succeeded in gaining Salem's favor… but was that necessarily a good thing? What would her help involve? Would Cinder get turned into a Grimm? Would she be forced to lead an army of those beings, destroying humanity in its entirety? What if that was the reason why Salem didn't seem to care about her new servant's moral quandaries.
"What will that support entail?" Cinder felt silly to ask such a direct question, but she needed to know some of the specifics. She didn't doubt that Salem's help would be invaluable, but it was still possible that the price would overweigh…
"I can offer you a pile of lien and an airship. Also you can pick yourself a weapon from the armory."
Cinder stared at Salem blankly.
"What? Are these not helpful? You don't seem to have much right now." The Queen said after a few seconds.
"Uhm, of course my Queen, I appreciate your help." Cinder said hastily. "It's just that I expected something…"
"What did you expect?" Salem interrupted. "Some mystic power? Your own army? Maybe a carriage to take you to your new castle, and a new dress so that you look the part?"
The following silence was pretty telling.
Suddenly, Salem laughed. It wasn't any sort of evil laughter, just the sort of giggle you would expect from a woman who found something funny. It made The Queen look much more human in Cinder's eyes.
"I am sorry," she said after composing herself. "but I can only give you so much. If I had the power to overthrow Ozpin just like that, I would have done so long ago."
"I get that," Cinder replied, now a bit less scared. "but aren't you, well, The Queen of the Grimm? I imagined you as having more power than that, no offence."
"A moniker." Luckily, Salem didn't seem to be offended. "I do have some control over the Grimm, but it is sadly limited. And besides, those creatures, while deadly, are rarely intelligent. For tasks more complicated than just killing random people – which I assure you, I don't do much of - I only have a handful of subordinates."
So that was what all the other chairs were for. It was strange to think that this room was likely large enough to house all of The Queen's forces. Her resources were very much finite; A limited influence over the Grimm, several capable servants and an arsenal that didn't compare to that of a single huntsmen academy. Cinder was in equal parts surprised and disappointed.
"I know that isn't what you were hoping for," Salem said, sensing the other woman's emotions "but look at it this way; I am giving you a chance to achieve your goals. To fulfill your destiny. It is not a guarantee, I can only get you started. Unlike in the stories you must have heard, there is no ultimate price to pay nor a clever catch. You don't have to sell your soul or kill your first-born child. I offer you my resources in exchange for a promise that you will use them to fight Ozpin. Everything else is up to you."
It really wasn't what Cinder had been hoping for… but, in a way, maybe it was even better. She thought she would be making a deal with the devil, taking a shortcut to her goal. But wasn't destiny something you had to take into your own hands? Right now Cinder had a clear purpose set and there was someone who was willing to help her reach it.
It was more hope than she had throughout her entire life thus far. And so, Cinder replied:
"Where do I sign up?"