So I'm having some stomach issues so I'll try and get this done as fast as possible. Enjoy.
"It's disgraceful is what it is, for one of us to be brought down by someone like that." Watts ranted towards Cinder who sat in her chair looking down at the table with a mixture of shame and anger written across her face. "And you didn't even manage to gain the full power of the maiden, do we even know where the other half is?"
"We don't need to." The room went silent as the large wooden doors opened and everyone stood in respect, even Cinder who had trouble standing on her own and had to have Emerald support her. The final strike to her head by Fidelis's fan had caused serious damage to her, her skull had been cracked like an egg shell, more fractures than could be counted. The inner ear on her left side was almost unsalvageable leaving her nearly incapable of maintaining her balance and leaving her completely incapable of hearing out of that ear. Her left eye also hadn't worked since the fight. On top of all this she also had to deal with crippling headaches, vomit inducing nausea, and minor memory problems on a daily basis, but none of that was what bothered her the most. The thing that bothered her more than anything, as well as the one thing she'd never admit to anyone, were the nightmares. Almost every night she'd woken up sweating after dreaming of that dingo standing over her with that same smile on his face from when she scorched his arm, his eye always glowed a deep red color and his voice sounded like it did when he wore his mask. She would die before saying it out loud, but she was terrified of Fidelis.
Salem entered the room with the man in black following behind her, the same man who'd saved Cinder from Fidelis, as she made her way to the head of the table he took a seat between Watts and Hazel. "Dr. Watts." Salem spoke while motioning for all to sit though Watts remained standing. "Cinder and I have already spoken in length over the event at Beacon, and while she did fail to obtain the power of the maiden, she was able to awaken the dragon which took care of Ozpin as well as destroyed the Beacon tower. I don't wish to hear about this any further."
Watts bowed his head towards the white skinned woman. "My apologies."
"My lady, please allow me to take care of this 'Fidelis' myself." Tyrian spoke up before laughing. "He sound like such a good time!" He continued laughing.
"He is incredibly powerful, even if she only had half the power of a maiden he managed to overwhelm Cinder's power with his own aura alone, he's a freak of nature." The man in black added. "He would make a powerful asset if we could bring him to our side, but he far to unpredictable. I also believe we should kill him Mistress."
Salem nodded slowly. "I agree, he is a troublesome one, however I fear that at the moment he is a bit out of our reach. He has someone on his side we cannot afford to underestimate." Salem surprised everyone at the table.
"Actually," Everyone except Salem bolted out of their chairs and away from the table, Cinder however was dragged by Emerald and Mercury, after a voice came from the center of the table where a man who hadn't been there before had holding a guitar. "I wouldn't say I'm on anyone's side, you always were one to jump to conclusions sister." He gave the guitar a strum. "The boss man has merely earned my interest and respect."
"It's you! Your that guy who was hanging around the dingo at Beacon!" Emerald shouted drawing her weapons along with everyone else present.
"ENOUGH!" Salem raised her voice causing everyone but Clef to freeze. "Dear brother, to what do I owe this visit?" The word 'brother' again shocked all present.
"I just felt I should drop by and give you one last warning Adeptus before I head out to find the others, Dolor and Timor have both found hosts as you know, and Exitium won't stay frozen forever. Our time to rule is up, you will fail with this plan of yours just like always have in the past, also, don't count Ozpin out just yet." Clef chuckled as he strummed the guitar again. "He's always been a resourceful one."
Clef stood and hopped off the table before walking towards the door. "It was good seeing you sister, hopefully it won't be the last time." With that Clef exited while pulling out his scroll, as the doors shut the people inside could just hear the beginning of his call. "Good morning my love." Then the door closed muffling the noise.
All looked to Salem who wasn't smiling. "Tyrian, the fall maiden's other half and the spring maiden can wait. Find this Fidelis and learn everything you can about him and what he's up to. If you have an opportunity to take him out do it, but thats only a secondary objective. I need you alive." The only response she got from the madman was crazed laughter. "Now, on to other matters."
Elsewhere
"This is my old school, why are we here and why bring me?" Pyrrha asked looking up at the entrance to Sanctum academy from under her hooded cloak. "Where's Joel?"
Fidelis stepped towards the door followed by the demi-maiden, after the battle of Beacon Fidelis had woken up to find himself in a small bunker built under Lombardi's bar. Other than Max, Neo, Roman, and Jin there were only two other people there in the bar, Joel and Pyrrha. The red headed girl after serious thought and conversation with both Fidelis and Joel had elected to remain under the radar and away from her team and friends for a while. She was a target for their enemies and she knew it was dangerous for anyone to get close to her, she even wanted to keep her distance from Fidelis and his group to protect them as well until Fidelis made it clear how pointless that was as he most likely had just as big of a target on his back as she did if not bigger, after that it only took a little bit of convincing to get the redhead to stick with him and his group for protection until everything was over. Joel had also agreed to stay with them to both keep an eye on Fidelis as well as to watch over Pyrrha. He'd noticed the two hanging around each other quite a bit lately.
"We're here to talk to and drop something off with a certain student here, I brought you just encase I needed some help with keeping her from trying to kill me, I'm fairly sure she hates me but I always had trouble figuring out whether people wanting to kill me was their way of showing affection or not. Seeing as she's a second year and you graduated with honors during her first year she most likely looks up to you. As for your boyfriend, he's helping his team and the others set the base up." Fidelis explained completely ignoring the attempts to deny his claim of her being in a relationship.
Pulling out a small round object which he place on the security panel next to the door the two waited. "Why not wait till day time?"
Fidelis raised an eyebrow at the question. "Two reasons, first is that I'm currently wanted across Remnant and hunters the world over have capture on sight orders." There was a small 'ding' as the door popped open and Fidelis put the object back into his pocket. "Damn these things are useful, put expensive as all hell. Can you believe one of those is half a million lien?"
"What's the second reason?" She ignored his question.
"Huh? Oh right, it's just more fun to break in." He shrugged leading them into the dark building. "Okay, she's in room C one thirty seven in the girls dorm, you know where to go right?" Pyrrha sighed before nodding, she clearly did find the same joy in law breaking that the dingo did.
Following behind the cloaked champion Fidelis hummed to himself. "Stand by me, oh stand by me." He sang lightly.
"What's that from?" Pyrrha asked as they walked.
"It's that old song Stand By Me though for the life of me I can't remember who the original artist was, it's been covered so many times." Fidelis shrugged.
"Wasn't it playing in that game you were playing on the ride here?"
"Yeah, and now it's stuck in my head. Are we here?" Fidelis asked as they walked up a flight of stairs.
"Yeah, it's right around this corner." The two continued until the reached a door with 'C137' on a small plaque, light could be seen under the door and muffled voices could be barely heard from the other side. "So how do we get in?"
"I figured we'd knocked." He answered stepping forward to the door.
Several minutes earlier
Serenity sat on her bunk along with the three other girls in her room, it was a very average night for the student in all regards. "Hey check this out." One of the girls below spoke up showing her scroll to the others. "More info on the battle at Beacon was just released to the public."
Serenity frowned at that, everyone had taken the events in Vale hard including her though for somewhat different reasons then most. "What's it say?"
"Well apparently the fall of the tower wasn't an accident and that someone purposefully rammed that ship into. They've also confirmed that both the White Fang and the Red Hand were present during the attack, though everyone already knew the Fang was involved." The girl read off her scroll.
"Yeah, kinda hard to deny it when that psycho in the mask hijacks every scroll on Remnant. That guy creeps me out every time I hear about him on the news, I don't like feeling like he's talking to me directly like that." Another girl shivered.
The girl sitting at a desk in the corner set her pencil down and turned away from whatever she was working on. "I don't know, I think that part at the end of his speech was so romantic. Think about it, a dangerous criminal is going off to try and redeem himself by fighting against his former comrades, and knowing he might not make it back to see the girl he loves, he tell her he loves her in front of the whole world." The girl nearly swooned.
"Damn Nala, you sound like you want him to come in and sweep you off your feet." The girl on the scroll laughed.
"I can dream can't I?" She responded earning laughs from the rest of the girls. "Hey Serenity, what's up you're being all quite."
The three looked up to the frowning faunus girl sitting on her bunk. "Oh gosh, I forgot how you felt about the White Fang, I'm so sorry!" The girl with the scroll took on a look of realization.
Serenity shook her head. "It's okay, it's not you-" She was cut off by the sound of knocking on the door to their room.
"It's nearly midnight, who the hell is it?" Nala groaned standing from her chair and moving towards the door.
"It's probably Holly coming to complain about us being to loud or something."
Serenity couldn't help but feel a wave of anxiety wash over her as her friend grabbed the door handle. "Calm down Holly, we're abo-" The girl stopped dead in her tracks at the figure in their door way.
"Is Serenity Calvanez home?" A demonic sounding voice left the room silent as Nala took a step away from the masked man in their doorway only to trip and fall onto her butt.
After several seconds the man stepped into the room of four girls followed by a hooded figure, closing the door behind them Fidelis looked around the room until his hidden eyes fell onto his target. "Long time no see kid, how ya been?"
The speechless faunus could only stare at him in a mix of anger and fear. "What the fuck are you doing here?" She growled lowly baring her canines.
Fidelis walked over to the now empty desk and took a seat in the chair. "Oh come on, can a guy drop by and say hi to the only biological family he doesn't want to kill on sight? Can't I even get a hug from my baby sister?" He mocked fake sadness. Looking to all the other girls in the room he flashed the peace sign. "Evening ladies, you must be little Serenity's friends. Pyrrha chill out, you act like this is the first time you've broken into a government funded facility."
"Maybe because this is my first time." Pyrrha did her best to glare at the masked criminal as she removed her hood.
"Pyrrha Nikos?! What the hell are you doing with this freak?" Serenity exclaimed as the other three still tried to register their first guest let alone the second.
"I'm still in the process of figuring that out myself actually." Pyrrha pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Anyway!" Fidelis cut in. "On to the reason I'm here." Fidelis pulled out an envelope from his coat. "I've got some intel that suggests that if anything like Beacon is gonna happen again, it's likely gonna happen at Haven which isn't far from here. If shit starts going down here, then go to the location written in here, and don't lose the key in here either. This is the location of a safe house I set up here in Mistral city, it's got a bunker underneath with reinforced steel and concrete walls, plenty of food and water, it's own generator, air ventilation, the whole nine yards. All I ask is that you don't let your cunt of a mother stink up the place." The girl flinched slightly at the last part as she remembered what happened the last time Fidelis met up with her and her family. It wasn't hard to remember as that day changed her family forever.
Her mother and father got a divorce within the month, not surprising after her dad learned her mother abandoned their first born and lied about it for nearly two decades. He was so disgusted with her after that he never even said goodbye before leaving. Serenity herself also couldn't help but feel resentment towards her mother over what she'd done, it was horrible. Still, the girl couldn't help but hold a strong distaste for her older brother after everything he'd done in his life, even if he had a nightmarish upbringing.
"Well that's the main reason I decided to drop by, oh before I forget. If anyone from the fang show up, run." Fidelis stood and pulled out his scroll. "By the way, if any of you mention what happened here to night I'll hunt you down and kill you, chow!" Fidelis lead the redhead who still didn't see why he needed her to accompany him back into the hall. "Alright, with that out of the way we've only got one stop left, an speak of the devil." His scroll began ringing. "Jin, what's up man?... Hold up yo- Jin calm down! NO, do not accept the offer! There is no sports bra! IGNORE THE TRAINING MUS-." The call suddenly went dead as a grim aura began radiating from the masked faunus.
"What's wrong?"
Fidelis sighed sadly. "We gotta go save Jin, otherwise." Fidelis shivered. "Nobody deserves that hell, come on."
Alright, as I said only one more filler chapter until everything is set up. After that we've got Fidelis and Neo's wedding, then we're home free to catch back up to the cannon. Honestly I'm just waiting for the volume to be over before I get to far in, you never know when their gonna drop something that'll fuck everything I've thought of over in it's entirety. Leave me a review and tell me what you all think. LATER.