Intro
It was midnight at Haven Academy. All was quiet, as it normally was at that time of night. But within the student dorm rooms, there was seemingly endless noise and chatter. And it wasn't exactly the cheerful, often nonsensical trite that high school students were always so fond of. Tonight, all anyone seemed to care about was the incident that had occurred at Beacon.
The Vytal Festival at Beacon had been going along fine, with thrilling matches between hundreds of talented Hunters, wielding weapons and Semblances each more ridiculous than the last. But all of a sudden, a student from Beacon had attacked and crippled a downed opponent-Mercury Black, one of their own students. The unruly girl had been disqualified, Mr. Black had been brought safely home, and that had been the end of it. And yet the very next match, an even worse tragedy had occurred. A student from Atlas had been torn to pieces-killed-on national television. Shortly afterward, a swarm of Grimm had attacked the stadium and the school, and eventually the CCT itself had been downed, shutting down all communication between the Kingdoms.
The students of Haven had spent the next few days endlessly speculating, wondering what had actually transpired that fateful night. One of their students had captured Atlesian soldiers attacking civilians on video. And there had been two dismemberment incidents involving Beacon students shortly before the chaos. Who was really to blame? Atlas? Beacon? How had so many Grimm been able to break into the city? And what had happened to it after the CCT fell? Team SSSN, who were good friends with some of the Beacon students, had insisted that none of the schools were to blame, and that a third party had been responsible for the entire thing, with help from the White Fang.
Of course, that hadn't satisfied the students' craving for answers. If there had really been someone else behind the attacks, who were they? How many of them were they? Why would the White Fang want to work with humans? What purpose could they have for attacking Beacon? And where were they right now? The questions never ended.
However, one student hadn't really participated in any of the discussions. Maybe because she knew more than she was letting on.
Emerald
Emerald sat in her room, alone. She was used to being all by herself, but it had been a while since she'd had to experience it. Well, that wasn't really true-it had actually only been a year or two. But to her, it had felt like forever since she'd had to run from place to place, struggling to survive.
As a child, her family had lost all their money to a swindler. With no way to support themselves, their parents had decided to kick her out of the house. She was just another mouth to feed, and was thus useless to them. They didn't need her anymore. She never saw or heard of them again-and she couldn't care less.
After that, she'd been living on the streets for years. There had been others in her situation, kids who had been left behind by their families, or simply had nowhere to go in life. Many of them were battle-hardened and ruthless from all their years fighting on the streets for food and shelter. The weak ones died quickly. The ones who lived through their first month out in the streets often formed groups, working together as a team to survive.
Not Emerald, though. She was afraid to walk up to those big, scary people and ask to join them. There was no way they'd let her in, after all-she was just a scrawny little girl who couldn't fight to save her life. More than likely, they'd just kill her on the spot. So, she'd done whatever she could do on her own. She wasn't particularly strong. Despite her slim appearance, she wasn't vey agile, either. What she did have was a very peculiar skill.
For some reason, she'd had the ability to make people "see" things. Things that weren't really there. The ability to create hallucinations. She'd first used it when she was about 13. She'd been chased throughout by some brute from a gang of street thugs. Having gone several days without food, Emerald had only made it as far as the docks before her knees gave out. She'd lain there, helplessly, as the man shambled like an inhuman monster towards her. He had the look of a madman in his eyes, and from his appearance he was probably drunk or high. There was no telling what he was going to do to her-hit her? Violate her? Torture her? Kill her? Weak and too exhausted to even move, young Emerald had stared, frozen with terror, at her assailant, hoping that someone-anyone, even if it was a cop-would come to her rescue. A chilling noise she'd assumed was fear had rung through her head.
Suddenly, the man had stopped advancing towards her. His head had turned backwards, and his drunken eyes had become clear with horror. "N-no!" He had screamed. "Ge-get away! I'm not-"
As he'd tried to flee from a non-existent danger, he'd slipped and, rather ungracefully, had fallen off the docks into the ocean. The danger having passed, Emerald had summoned the last of her strength to get up and find shelter.
After some time, she'd discovered what exactly she'd done, and how this strange power worked. By staring intently at her target, and visualizing what she wanted them to see (or with some extra effort, hear), and they would actually experience it. A strange and rather uncomfortable sensation running through her head was typically the sign of success. The main limitation to her power was that, normally, it could only work on one person at a time. If she really tried, she could toy with up to three minds, but doing so would take such a toll on her that she'd have to rest for several hours before she could do it again. That and the headaches were extremely painful.
Once she'd gotten a grip on what she was capable of, her life had suddenly become much easier. She could make a police officer see a fleeing robber to make him leave his post. She could walk up to a well-to-do man and pickpocket his wallet in plain sight while making him think she was just passing by. She could pawn off what appeared to be a valuable crystal of Dust, but was really just a worthless rock, to a shopkeeper for a large sum of money. And escaping from enemy street-thugs was now a piece of cake. She'd had plenty of close calls-especially on days where the city was crowded and she actually had to be careful no one could see her, and her actual profits still weren't enough to let her buy out of the street life, but overall, her days of constantly struggling for survival had ended.
Then one day, her luck had run out. One jewelry shop owner had been shrewder than her usual prey. As she'd walked away, with the ring tucked safely in her pocket, she'd gotten a bit careless and dropped the hallucination a bit too early. As soon as the beautiful young woman she'd conjured up disappeared, the owner had realized he'd been tricked and called for help. Panicked, Emerald had run as fast as she could, but had been cornered in an alleyway. However, the woman who had confronted her had had a different motive than tossing her in jail.
"If you follow me, you will question everything you know." Cinder Fall had said. "If you do not prove to me you can survive the trials ahead, you will die. But show your worth…and I promise, that as long as you follow me, you'll never be hungry again."
It had sounded too good to be true. Was this woman bluffing? Who the hell was she, anyway? But who cared? This woman was everything she'd ever wanted to be. Strong, confident, and feared. And she had shown an interest in Emerald Sustrai. She had appreciated her abilities, and had offered her a chance to have a better life. In that moment, Emerald had forgotten to care about anything else. She'd accepted Cinder's offer.
Soon afterward, the two of them had recruited a young man named Mercury into their group. The son of a world-class assassin. His skills would benefit their cause greatly. What the cause actually was, Emerald did not yet know. But what did it matter? She'd found the one thing she really cared about. Someone to live for. Someone she looked up to. Someone who she would serve with the utmost loyalty, for the rest of her life. And this man-Mercury-could ruin it for her.
"We don't need him!" Emerald had yelled. "Everything was going fine! I could have helped you, all by mys-"
Cinder had slapped her. "Do not mistake your place. Both of you will have your own role in this game of ours. If you wish to be useful, then stay quiet and let things happen…and I assure you, your time will come." And she'd obeyed.
That had been about two years ago. After being recruited by Cinder, she'd gone through intense training to improve herself. She could no longer just rely on her ability-a Semblance, it was apparently called. Many people had one, though hers was quite unique. Under Cinder's training, she'd become faster, and much better at actual stealth. She'd been given a weapon-a dual set of green pistols, which doubled as combat knives. Though her fighting skills could never match up to Mercury's natural talent for close-range combat, she did considerably improve, enough-or so she hoped-to impress Cinder. And, albeit begrudgingly, she'd learned to put up with Mercury's snark and attitude and they'd learned to fight efficiently as a team.
On her first real mission, she and Mercury had aided Cinder in ambushing a mysterious woman with incredible powers-an extremely high-profile target, according to Cinder. Though they'd succeeded in subduing her, allowing Cinder to absorb her power, the famous Huntsman Qrow Branwen had shown up out of nowhere to thwart their plan. As a result, they'd only been able to steal half of the woman's power before Qrow ran off with her body. Thankfully for them, Emerald had used her Semblance to hide them from the Hunter's sight, allowing them to escape. She hadn't really comprehended who that woman really was or why Cinder was so dead-set on killing her-but she didn't need to. After the mission, Cinder had praised her. She'd acknowledged her use, that she was valuable and important to her! That, and nothing else, was what she had wanted.
Then, they'd brought in a few more allies-the unbelievably annoying Roman Torchwick, with his charismatic leadership skills, his eerily quiet and surprisingly competent sidekick Neo, who always followed Torchwick around like he was her father, and with Cinder's new powers, they'd even threatened the notorious terrorist organization White Fang into subjugation.
One day, Cinder had announced that their "true objective" was finally coming to light. She, Mercury, Emerald and Neo had entered Haven Academy as students in preparation for the Vytal Festival. Roman and the White Fang were in charge of sowing chaos all across the Kingdoms, through robberies and terror attacks. And Emerald was going to be the key player in this entire plot.
This was it. Her chance to prove herself once and for all to her master. Emerald had resolved to do everything she could to ensure Cinder's goal, whatever it may be, came to fruition.
And she did. Everything had gone exactly as planned. With her Semblance, Emerald manipulated the minds of the contestants at the Vytal Festival Tournament, ultimately resulting in one student accidentally killing her opponent. The rest had proceeded by itself-the Grimm invasion, the destruction of the CCT, and the fall of Beacon Academy. And here she was, safely back home, with no one in the Academy the wiser about her involvement.
Sitting in her bedroom now, Emerald thought back to those girls who had befriended her back at Beacon. How obnoxiously happy they'd been, without a care in the world. Well, they probably weren't so happy now, and most likely some of them were dead.
That thought wasn't as satisfying as she thought it'd be. It almost made her sad for some reason.
Back in Beacon, she'd watched from above as the Grimm had run through the streets, destroying everything and everyone in their path, and she'd felt…sorrow? Regret? Shame?
No, impossible. There was no use in grieving over what she'd done. She'd done it all for Cinder's sake, and that was all that mattered, wasn't it?
But she hadn't heard from Cinder since they'd evacuated. She'd stayed behind to take care of one last piece of business, and hadn't returned since.
She wasn't dead, obviously. Cinder Fall was one of those people who simply couldn't die, no matter what. She was absolutely, utterly invincible. But then where was she?
Has she abandoned me? The horrifying thought ran, unconsciously, through Emerald's mind.
No. No, no, she wouldn't.
But the fact was, the one person she'd ever trusted had disappeared without a trace. Mercury was in the hospital, faking a leg injury as per the plan. Their other allies had also vanished to parts unknown. She was all alone again. And what's more, it had become clear over the course of their endeavor that while the others were strong, charismatic, or cunning, Emerald's hallucinations were her only real use, however great an impact they'd had on the plan. And now that the plan was completed…
And another, even more terrifying, thought ran through her head.
What if they don't need me anymore?
