After her voluntary surrender, it didn't take long for Cinder to feel special Aura-cancelling handcuffs clamp around her wrists. One of the other Huntsmen who had arrived, after being told of Cinder's past actions, even suggested to put a muzzle on her to "dull her silver tongue." Cinder's reply to this was rolling her eyes while saying, "Is that really necessary?"
Fortunately for her, even Azzuro saw that as going a bit far. The combat instructor nudged Cinder in the back with his shield and she started walking. True, Haven lacked an actual prison but she could be kept in one of the empty dorm rooms for now. All that needed to be done was barring the windows and door which was fortunately an easy fix. Azzuro stood guard outside Cinder's cell for the rest of the night, telling everyone else that the situation would be sorted in the morning.
If anyone was excited about this, it was team RNJR. They'd done it. They finally captured Cinder. True, they all knew it was a premature celebration, what with Belail and the Fourth Legion still being out there but this was still a victory. Jaune couldn't wait for morning because once everything was done, he was coming right back here to get some payback on her. Pyrrha's murderer was going to finally face justice but there was still something he and Ruby needed to do first.
When the sun finally rose over Mistral, after what felt like forever, Nora…still wanted to sleep. It took the smell of pancakes from Haven's cafeteria to rouse the redhead.
"Sleeping in today Nora?" Ren said with a smile as he handed his partner her favorite breakfast food.
"Can you blame me for sleeping in? We just fought a vampire, a robot, a demon, an assassin, AND managed to capture Cinder! I mean yeah she DID surrender but...still it counts as a win! A...VERY exhausting win...but a win's a win right?" she said with a smile to her partner who could only smile back. She then took the pancakes and began eating. "Still not better than yours though," Nora said between bites, referring to the pancakes of course.
"Hey, where are Jaune and Ruby?" Nora said after she finished, noticing that both of their packs were gone.
"They went out...to find them. Once they're done, all four of us are going into Cinder's room to question her," Ren said matter-of-factly.
"And to keep Jaune from immediately trying to kill her. I mean yeah she deserves it ten times over but she does know more about the Fourth Legion than we do right now. Doesn't mean we can't play good cop, bad cop though."
"Let me guess...you're the bad cop?"
"Yep! The role just fits me you know?" the redhead giggled.
Meanwhile, Ruby and Jaune were walking through the city. Jaune held a map in his hands with an address circled in red.
"Ok so...we are currently on…," the blonde knight started as he looked at the map, "Bacchus Avenue. So that means when we come to the next intersection we take a left down Phobos Street then another left to Eos Street and then a right to Apollo Street."
"Um...I think you're looking at it wrong. That's the route to Olympus Square. We need to take a left at Eos then we're at Apollo," Ruby chimed in, pointing at the map.
"Oh. Yeah you're right," Jaune corrected himself as he looked at the map again.
"Jaune...are you SURE you're ready for this?"
"Yes...yes I'm sure. There needs to be some kind of...closure. With the CCTs down...no one would have anyway of knowing about the casualties from Vale. So...we need to bring them the news as...as hard as that is."
Ruby could only nod in response as they kept walking. The two of them had no time for sightseeing, despite how beautiful the city looked.
After a few more minutes of walking, the two had finally reached the address circled on Jaune's map: 5681 Apollo Street. The house that was before was a bit larger than most of the other houses but not by much. It followed the same style of architecture many of the other homes did in the city. It was made mostly of brick, painted red, with a chimney on the roof. On the second and third floors, balconies extended off of the front of the building.
"Well...this is the place," Jaune said as he put the map away. He and Ruby walked up to the oaken door with a golden knocker. The blonde knight quickly took a deep breath before reaching for the knocker and beating it against the door three times, making deep thuds each time.
Only a minute passed before the door opened. Before the two members of team RNJR stood a woman in her late 40s or early 50s. Her red hair was at most shoulder length and tied into a ponytail. She wore a normal tan, short sleeved shirt, blue jeans, heeled boots and two emerald, teardrop shaped earrings.
"Yes?" she said as she opened the door.
"Mrs. Nikos I presume?" Jaune spoke up.
"Oh! Mr. Arc! I wasn't expecting you here!"
"You...know me?"
"Of course. Pyrrha's sent countless letters about her time at Beacon, especially her team. Even had some photos attached!"
Jaune could only muster a small sad smile hearing that. "May we come in?"
"Of course! Of course!"
The blonde knight could only curse himself for what he needed to do next. He walked into the Nikos Residence with Ruby following close behind. After Ruby had introduced herself to Mrs. Nikos, the two were shown into the living room which had an ornate fireplace with a painting on the brick wall above the oaken mantle.
"Is Mr. Nikos at home?" Jaune asked.
"No, I'm afraid not. Theseus is still teaching some extra time at Sanctum right now. Normally, we'd both be teaching but today's a day off. Why?"
Jaune sighs as he reaches into his pack.
"Mrs. Nikos," the blonde knight begins, "there's...there's no easy way to say this," he finally finds what he was looking for and places a bronze circlet on the glass coffee table, the teardrop shaped emeralds clinking as he carefully places it down and continues, "I'm sorry."
"Mrs. Nikos...I…," Ruby tried to say that she blames herself for what happened but Jaune put a hand on her shoulder as if to say it's not your fault.
"She….she's...g-gone?" Mrs. Nikos began as she took hold of Pyrrha's circlet, the meaning of the lone circlet and Jaune's words hitting her like a truck, tears welling up in her green eyes.
"Yes...she...she was an amazing person, Mrs. Nikos, one of the best Huntresses I'd ever met. I'm honored to have been her partner at Beacon."
"My little girl...Pyrrha…," Mrs. Nikos weakly said as she began sobbing, bringing her hands up to her face to hide the tears streaming down her face. Ruby got up from her seat and hugged the grieving woman. At this point, the red-hooded girl could feel tears welling up in her own silver pools. She wanted to say that it was her fault that Pyrrha was killed but no matter how hard she tried to bring herself to say it, she kept imagining Jaune telling her otherwise. She kept hearing in her head that the only person to blame was Cinder. She wanted to believe it, in fact she somewhat did. There was just a small lingering voice in the back of her mind that kept whispering, "I failed to save her."
"We...we should call your husband," Ruby finally managed to say as she wiped some of the tears from her own eyes. Mrs. Nikos could only nod in response as she brought her hands down and reached for her Scroll to call her husband.
She dialed in the numbers and waited for a few minutes as it rang. Finally, he answered.
"Hello?" Theseus Nikos said from Sanctum.
"T-theseus..., y-you need...you need to come home...n-now," Mrs. Nikos said, her voice wavering.
"Phaedra, what's wrong?" Mr. Nikos said, concern creeping up in his voice hearing his wife's voice so shaky.
"I...it'll...it'll b-be better...if you come h-home first, honey."
"I'm on my way. I'll be there in ten."
Those ten minutes seem to be more like ten hours until finally, they heard Theseus Nikos open the door and hurry into the room. The man wore a simple brown undershirt with a tan tunic on top of it with folds on either side to help it conform to body shape.(A/N: Think of it like a Jedi tunic from Star Wars)First, he saw Ruby and Jaune, almost instantly recognizing the blonde knight from his the letters and pictures his daughter sent from Beacon. Before he could ask what's going on, his wife quickly got up and embraced him, crying into his shoulder.
"She's gone, Theseus...our little Pyrrha's gone…," was all that Phaedra could say between sobs.
The man's eyes widened in shock as he heard what was just said and as soon as his eyes focused on the circle resting on the glass table, he knew they were true. All he could do was grieve and comfort his wife.
About an hour later, Ruby and Jaune were back at Haven, and, having already joined back up with Ren and Nora, headed over to the impromptu prison cell that held Cinder. Though, Nora thought that the dorm room was far too nice to be described as a cell.
When the group arrived, Azzuro nodded and opened the door for them. Before, he had tried to interrogate Cinder himself and report back to Maggio with what he found. Instead of Cinder being cooperative, she just sat on the dorm bed in complete silence. He had tried for two hours to get her to speak and nothing, until she spoke of her own will. It wasn't anything that useful though, only that she would talk to Ruby Rose, Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, and Lie Ren.
Cinder was reclining in the bed, her eyes closed but she wasn't sleeping. She could hear the lock turn and the door's hinges move open. Her lips formed into a smile as she heard four people walk into her room, followed by the door closing behind them.
"How nice to see you all again," Cinder cooed, as she sat up in the bed, her amber eyes opening and focusing on the four people who had come so far just to see her put behind bars.
"Don't talk to us like we're your friends," Jaune snapped at Cinder in an unfamiliar and restrained anger.
"Haven't you ever heard the phrase 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' Jaune?"
"I have...but that doesn't really apply when that so called 'friend' is an insane pyromaniac who MURDERED one of my closest friends and someone who...who…"
"Who loved you. Right?"
Jaune quickly reached for Coreca Mors in an uncharacteristic display of fury but Ren put a hand on his shoulder, which told him to stop and calm down. The blonde knight released his grip on the hilt of the blade and let out a sigh.
"So!" Nora said, suddenly getting very close to Cinder, which actually startled the Fall Maiden a bit, only because of how unexpected it was. "We know you know them! We know that you did something to make them want to kill you! And we know...well...actually that's all we do know."
The Fall Maiden cocked an eyebrow at the redhead's ranting and use of the pronoun game. There was a long list of people who wanted her dead. One of them was standing right in front of her after all.
"She means, what do you know about the Fourth Legion?" Ren answered calmly.
"Ah, of course. You see Jaune? The saying still holds true," the Fall Maiden's lips formed into a smile as she spoke.
"Just...tell...us…," Jaune spoke, doing his best to keep his anger under control.
"First, I'll need my pack. Roof of this building, near one of the vents."
"Do we LOOK like Emerald or Mercury?"
Now, it was Cinder's turn to contain her anger. "Despite...what you may think...I DID care for them. They only acted the way they did out of respect. They were...valuable allies. I would've kept them with me as long as possible. Once everything was done...well...I would figure something out. Belail, on the other hand, would torture them, slit their throats and bleed them dry, and then toss their CORPSES to a hungry Druk at his earliest convenience!"
"A Druk?" Nora asked, tilting her head to the side.
"It's the name of a type of draconic Grimm. Essentially a sea dragon," Ren explained.
"Ooooooooh."
"Just...get the pack for me...and I'll explain everything I know. Do I need to say please as well?"
"I'll get it," Ren said as he walked out of the room and explained to Azzuro where he was going.
"So, how do you know the Legion?" Ruby asked the Fall Maiden.
"Oh trust me...my relation with the Legion was...intimate...at a time. That all changed one month after Beacon's fall. When Belail screwed up one of his biggest lies, one he'd been keeping up for years. I suppose...in that regard...Belail and Ozpin are somewhat similar," Cinder retorted.
"Ozpin is not the SAME as Belail! Not in any way!" Ruby protested.
"And yet here you are, still completely clueless as to the origin of my abilities. And...that machine. All thanks to Ozpin's lie."
Jaune froze. In all this time, he had never told Nora, Ren, or even Ruby about the machine and the vault beneath Beacon. He wanted to try and make sense of it first...and after four months, he hadn't even come close.
"What machine?" Ruby asked the amber-eyed woman.
"Oh my. You never told them Jaune? And here I am believing that teammates share ALL their secrets."
Before Ruby or Nora could ask, Ren came back with Cinder's pack, tossing it over to the amber-eyed woman. She gestured to her restraints, silently asking if they could be temporarily deactivated. Seeing no other option at the moment, Ren reluctantly turned them off. The Fall Maiden then began to empty the contents of her pack; among them were several Dust canisters, canisters Ruby recognized from when she fought Cinder during the second semester dance, a stack of photographs tied together with a rubber band, a large piece of blank paper that could be used to make a map, several thumbtacks, sticky-notes, and provisions.
She grabbed the large paper and four thumbtacks and hung the sheet on the right wall of the room. The amber-eyed girl then grabbed the stack of photos and hung them across the sheet, making connections to the various pictures.
In just a few short minutes, after Cinder was finished, Nora was convinced that before she became a villainous pyromaniac, Cinder Fall was a conspiracy theorist. The only response from Cinder was an annoyed roll of the eyes. The sheet had now become the base for a web of connections, sticky-notes with information, and even some locations.
"These...are all the connections that I KNOW Belail has," the Fall Maiden said as she backed away from her handiwork. "Speaking of the bastard...this is him," she sneered as she pointed to the central picture of the massive web. The man seemed to be in his late 30s perhaps earlier. His brown eyes were looking to the side of him but the picture was cut, taking away whatever he was looking at and he looked...happy. Not exactly how team RNJR imagined a demonic warlord, even if he was in human form.
From that central photo, one of the web's strands connected to the photo of the demon that first tried to take team RNJR's life: Razael Ignis. Next to it was a sticky note with all the relevant information on the demon in human clothing including his rank and the phrase "first member of unofficial triumvirate."
"I take it you remember your old friend Razael. And...my old subordinates…" Cinder's amber eyes narrowed at the pictures of Emerald Sustrai, Mercury Black, Neopolitan, and Adam Taurus. Adam himself was listed as many things on the note next to his image including White Fang liaison, field commander of White Fang forces, and the second in command of the Fang. Connected to Adam's picture, was only a sticky note with the information of the leader of the White Fang, Sienna Kahn. There was a picture of Roman Torchwick on the web as well, connected to Neopolitan, but it had a massive red X drawn over it with a sticky note next to it reading "deceased".
Another strand connected to a picture labeled "Vitallion Styx". He was labeled as "Admiral" and "second member of unofficial triumvirate". The third member was obviously Belail. Other strands were connected to a symbol of Merlot Industries and its CEO, a symbol Cinder had made for the Grimm that was essentially an artistic render of the Grimm Dragon from Vale with its wings outstretched and the symbols of the Four Kingdoms, even the banner of Menagerie. Belail's targets. Not even the Faunus nation was safe from him.
"Belail has his claws in every major nation in some way. Garrisons, outposts, the White Fang….all of them are his tools. I know one of his outposts like the back of my hand. If we can get the Headmistress to agree...I can get you there."
"We don't really have a choice in trusting you...do we?" Jaune said, disgust present in his voice.
"Unless you want a repeat of Vale but ten times worse...then no, you don't."
"Um...this is probably a stupid question but uh...how would it be worse?" Nora asked hesitantly.
"Easy. If you compared my attack to something Belail would do...it'd be like comparing a riot...to a war."
Meanwhile, in Haven Tower, the elevator dinged and its doors opened to Maggio's office. The headmistress looked at the holographic screens hovering just above her desk and sighed. On one screen, there were the images of Amber and Cinder Fall, the previous and current Fall Maidens respectively. On another, was an image of the still-frozen Dragon, clinging to Beacon Tower. On a third, were the profiles of the four students who came all the way from Vale. She was broken from her concentration as she heard someone step out of the elevator.
"So, I guess it's time huh?" the person, clearly a woman, said as she walked up to the desk.
"I was...hoping this time would never come but…," Maggio began.
"Well...the world always goes through a change in season. Isn't that what you always say?"
"I know but...it's justified for me to be worried about this…."
"I know...I know...but I promise...nothing's going to happen. Fall may have changed hands for the worse...but nothing's gonna happen to Spring."
(A/N: And here we go! So, just tossing in my name for that new Sea Dragon Grimm. The Druk. It's the "thunder dragon" from Bhutanese mythology. It shares the common traits of the Eastern style dragons but as always, the wings on it make it a bit difficult since no eastern dragon I know of has wings. Anyway! Next time, we meet the Spring Maiden herself, team RNJR, Cinder, and another team, possible SSSN or even ABRN, will be heading out to the first of Belail's outposts in Mistral. Nothing could go wrong before they go or while they're on their way right? As always, read, review, and enjoy.)