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Chapter 2: Preponderance of the Evidence
When silence reigned, Jinn frowned. "You do have a question, don't you?"
Blake bit her lip, stealing a glance at Adam. Though his blindfold hid his eyes, his loose posture and slack hands indicated his shock.
Was just proving magic existed enough? It held up her end of her promise, but that had only been a way to delay the inevitable, not stop it. Would hearing that magic existed and that Blake was really trying to save the world truly be enough to stop him from taking revenge? If he saw all of this and just used it as a reason to attack Cinder after attacking her, then all she'd done was expose the secret for nothing. Adam still had all that power stored up, and once Jinn vanished, he would unleash it.
Jinn's expression grew slightly disapproving. "I know you had a question when you called for me, but if you have decided not to ask it, then there is no point in me staying here. I don't enjoy being summoned for nothing, and I'll request that you never do it again."
Last chance. What did she do?
Movement. Adam's hand was creeping back towards Wilt's hilt, and realization shot through Blake. What if he just saw this as a reason to steal the lamp and use the last question for himself?
She stepped forward, catching Adam's attention. He realized he'd been reaching for Wilt on reflex—to ground himself, to remind himself it was still there, he wasn't sure—and stilled his hand. When Blake spoke, she enunciated as clearly as he had ever heard. "How did Cinder use the White Fang to carry out Salem's plans?"
Salem?
He'd barely thought the question before he blinked and found himself alone in a white void. A quick spin showed that there was no one else around, not even Blake, who had been mere steps from him seconds ago.
"Years ago," the blue woman's—Jinn's—voice reached his ears without a discernable source, "Ozpin's faction let its protective grip on the Fall maiden loosen at her well-meaning insistence." Blue smoke blew over the blank landscape, filling it with fields and distant mountains. The sun shone overhead while a cloaked figure on horseback clopped past Adam. "She journeyed across Vale, exploring the continent she loved and helping those she encountered as best she could without revealing what she was."
He reached out to touch but his fingers encountered nothing but smoke. The entire scene dissolved to be replaced with one far darker.
"This journey did not go unnoticed."
Vaulted ceilings, tall windows, a room doused in dark purples, grays, and blacks, looking out over a land just as bleak. A massive table surrounded by high-backed took up the center, but Adam found his gaze drawn to the hulking figure leaning against the wall on his right.
Hazel. Seemingly disinterested in the proceedings, he had angled his head to look out the windows at the wasteland beyond. The memory of him turning his back on Adam was still very, very fresh.
But Hazel held his attention for only a moment because the strange figure at the far end of the room moved. He had thought it a statue because of its marble-white skin and complicated hair. When he saw its face, his blood ran cold.
Grimm, his instincts hissed even as his brain tried to tell him that he was looking at a woman. Sickly red irises over black sclera, pulsing crimson veins that were nearly black burrowing through bone-white flesh, alabaster hair arranged like a spider's web. The strange way that the Grimm had behaved at Beacon was finally making sense.
"Salem." Jinn's voice pulled him back from his fascinated horror. "She knew that this was her chance to seize the power of one of the four maidens and, with it, recover one of the four relics that had been kept from her for millennia. She also knew that going herself would draw too much attention. There was little she wanted to avoid more than facing a united front."
That seemed like an invitation to go closer and see what the table and its chairs hid from view. Adam walked past them, eyeing the two other people in the room. A mustached man and a scorpion-tailed faunus, neither of whom he recognized. They didn't react to his presence at all.
He drew even with the chair at the far head of the table and paused. There was someone kneeling at Salem's feet. Someone he did recognize.
"The Fall maiden journeys in Vale with only a single guard," Salem mused. Her voice was smooth and perfectly controlled.
Cinder raised her head, a hungry light in her eyes. "She's vulnerable."
Her head dropped back down in deference when the abomination narrowed her eyes. "Indeed. We've spent long enough the shadows if he's growing this bold. It's time you proved yourself, Cinder. Go; claim her power, then claim the relic. Bring it to me."
If anything, Cinder's head went even lower. She was all but prostrating herself, but that did nothing to hide the eagerness radiating from her in waves. "It will be done."
"And so," Jinn continued while the strange room and all its occupants blew away, "Cinder set out for Vale. Her first step was to gather forces who could deflect suspicion from Salem as she went for the relic, forces that already had a grudge against the kingdom."
A new setting filled the void: a small two-bed room in an inn, with Cinder standing by the window and her two lackeys taking up the desk chair and one of the beds.
Cinder was scowling at the gray-haired one. "Maidens are powerful, but they aren't invulnerable. Ozpin has legions of huntsmen and huntresses at his command ready to converge on the school at the slightest sign of trouble, and no doubt he has the relic vault hidden carefully away. No, we need a distraction if we're going to reach our goal."
Mercury and Emerald exchanged a glance, but it was Mercury who spoke up. "Can't you just ask her to send some Grimm? They're practically pets to her."
"Grimm alone aren't enough. Besides," her sickly sweet smile twisted his stomach, "don't you want the satisfaction of taking down Beacon Academy all on our own? This is our mission, after all."
"What do you have in mind?" asked Emerald.
Cinder's smile took on a satisfied edge. "The White Fang in this area despise the humans of Vale, but their sect isn't large enough to do more than spread fear locally. I think they might appreciate a bit of the global infamy that destroying a huntsman academy will bring."
"Will that…really work?"
"All you need is a tempting enough carrot and a long enough stick. They'll bite. It's all they know how to do."
Adam bristled, but Cinder merely walked right through him. The instant she made contact, she broke apart into blue smoke. When he coughed it out and cleared it away from his face, he was looking at a different scene: that same landscape of Vale, that same horse and rider.
"After being turned away by the faunus, she prioritized tracking down the maiden, Amber, and waited nearly a week for her to give her guard the slip. Amber only did it to get a couple of hours to herself, but they would end up being the last hours of her conscious life."
Adam trailed after the rider, eyes searching the grass nearby for any sign of the inevitable ambush. This person had to be the maiden. He didn't really know what a maiden was beyond the implication that they were strong and somehow necessary to obtain the relics, which were in turn important because…
Well, the abomination wanted them. He suspected he wasn't going to get much more than that.
The rider, Amber, abruptly stopped her horse and dismounted. Frowning, Adam watched her kneel and offer an apple to empty air while Cinder and her two lackeys emerged from the grass seemingly unnoticed.
A semblance, then, most likely Emerald's given her furrowed brows.
The fight that followed showed exactly what he'd been up against that second time Cinder visited his camp. The weather itself bent to Amber's will—right up until Cinder took advantage of an opening and began to, at least to Adam's eyes, siphon her power.
When the familiar-looking huntsman showed up and Cinder fled, the environment went up in smoke.
"Because of the huntsman Qrow's interference, Cinder was unable to claim the entirety of the Fall maiden's power," said Jinn as the smoke coalesced into Cinder's team gathered in what looked like the same inn as before. Of course she didn't regroup outdoors. It was probably beneath her. "Worse, news of her attack would reach Ozpin in short order, putting the headmaster on guard and ruining her chances of a stealing into the school to claim the rest of the maiden's power unnoticed. Her entire plan needed to change."
The smoke solidified in time for Adam to watch Cinder sweep the room's desk clear. Vials of Dust, ammunition, and weapons clattered to the ground while she raged. Adam was almost disappointed when it ended, but end it did. She kept her palms braced against the desk while she stared down at it with enough intensity to burn holes in the wood had she bothered with her powers.
"Cinder?" asked Emerald. She and Mercury were lingering by the door, the former looking rather nervous and the latter almost amused by Cinder's display. "What's the new plan? If you didn't get her powers, then—"
"Quiet," Cinder hissed. She curled her fingers into fists, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Then she pushed off the desk, opened her eyes, and resembled much more closely the Cinder he remembered from their second meeting. "If Ozpin is more vigilant, a simple distraction with the White Fang isn't enough, nor is Torchwick alone going to be able to get us what we want. We'll need them both to break through his defenses."
"So, what? You wanna go back and threaten the guy who threatened you?" asked Mercury.
"We'll do more than threaten." Her eyes glowed with unnatural light. "We'll show those animals exactly what happens when they defy me. He can posture all he likes, but I don't need all of the maiden's power to bring him to heel."
Emerald one glanced at the cases stacked next to the desk, heedless of the rage pounding like a second heartbeat in Adam's chest. "And the carrot you offered before?"
Cinder smiled. "We'll let him have it. As a treat."
What followed was a parade of condescending smirks and patronizing orders, in the shadows of which dwelled dismission and apathy. He watched all of their interactions through her eyes, and each one was more aggravating than the last. Behind every promise of power there was an insult, behind every reassurance of his place there was a reminder of its impermanence. For all her posturing otherwise, she had never, not once, seen him as an equal.
He had been a pawn with delusions of the throne. He had destroyed himself, destroyed everything, for an empty promise. His heavy gaze fell back on the kneeling Cinder as the furious storm in his chest crystallized.
"All this time," he said when the final scene broke up into smoke and he found himself facing Blake on the frozen cliff once more. He squeezed Wilt's hilt before forcing himself to let go. "All this time, I thought I was the one seizing power, but I was just giving it to someone else."
Not since his beginning years in the White Fang had he known such clarity. Though Jinn's lingering influence kept his semblance from raging out of his control, his fury was great enough to darken the frozen world anyway.
Goosebumps crawled up Blake's arms when he addressed Jinn, who was starting to dissipate at the edges. "Where is Cinder?"
"I'm afraid that was my last question."
"She's going to Atlas," Blake cut in. Did she know that for certain? No, but she was after the relics, so if there were going to be two in the same kingdom, it was a pretty safe bet that she'd follow.
If she was alive, at least. Yang had never mentioned seeing a body in the vault under Haven.
Adam turned to her, head first, body following, and with his attention came the full weight of his fury. Even his rage at Beacon couldn't compare. For a second, he just stared at her, and Blake couldn't stop her fingers from twitching. She wanted to reach for Gambol Shroud. The chance that she was wrong, that Cinder was dead and all that fury would come crashing down on her shoulders once again, had a cold sweat sliding down her neck.
Then his face angled towards where the manta had gone down in the trees.
"I'm going with you."
Blake's eyes went wide even before she'd fully processed his words. And though she had seen it coming, encouraged it, even, with that final comment, she hadn't actually thought he'd do it. Maybe find his own way there, or wait for Cinder to show up in a weaker kingdom, or some other actual plan better than inserting himself into a team of huntsmen- and huntresses-in-training, never mind the actual huntsman and former huntress tagging along with them. It was practically suicidal.
The world was starting to move again, and as it did, the glow returned to Adam's hair and the red edges of the banner looped through his belt. Blake swallowed.
If he'd stalked her across Anima, then why had she ever expected anything less than the extreme when she pointed that same incandescent rage at Cinder Fall?
Adam, though, was more concerned with his waning control than carrying out his new plan to tag along to Atlas. As Jinn's influence faded, so too did that muffled quality to his aura and all of the agony of overextending his semblance. When the last of the time-altering effects dried up, he nearly lost his grip on the energy surging through him then and there. Holding on by hairs, he searched for a new target.
His gaze landed on the robot. There was a chance his semblance couldn't reach that far, but either way, it was better than imploding. Someone was talking behind him, but he couldn't hear their words through the howl building in his ears. He set his feet and gripped Wilt.
And then the robot turned away. Blake watched in shock as the colossus faced Argus, disregarding them entirely.
"Did she turn off the external speakers?" wondered Weiss.
Ruby put a hand to her earpiece. Her eyes went wide. "There's what?"
Blake didn't need to ask for clarification: the klaxon washing over the forest and subsequent roar that she could feel in her chest was answer enough.
"The relic," Jaune whispered as he pushed himself numbly to his feet.
"Attracts Grimm," finished Ren.
Adam could barely understand their words, but apparently the robot wasn't an immediate threat anymore. His whole body was shaking, his mouth tasted of copper, and spots like fireworks flooded his vision. He was losing his grip and it was getting worse by the second. The energy had to go somewhere and at this rate it was just going to implode and catch all of them in the blast.
"Blake," he gasped. He couldn't even tell if she looked at him, if he was even speaking at all. "Get back."
His plan had gone from eviscerating Blake's allies to taking out the robot to just releasing the energy at the sky. Anything was better than enduring this agony for another second. He just needed to unsheathe Wilt so he actually had a medium with which to channel it. That was all he had to do. Unsheathe and swing.
But his body wasn't listening anymore. Horror stole through him in the fraction of a second before he blacked out.
Now several yards away and pushing her team even farther back, Blake recognized the instant Adam lost all control. The world was drained of all light save for blacks and reds like the deepest of eclipses. Ruby, luminescent in Adam's semblance, was the brightest thing for only a moment before a screaming pillar of unstable energy erupted around Adam. Bolts arced off it in wild patterns, each one utterly destroying anything it touched.
"Down!" Jaune hollered. They all hit the ground in time for one of those bolts to snap over their heads and erase several trees.
Blake's world narrowed to the black dirt under her nose and the pillar's pulsating light.
"What's happening?" someone cried.
"It's Adam's semblance!" Blake called over the din. "He absorbed more than he could handle and couldn't release it in time!"
Someone else wrapped a hand around Blake's wrist—a metal hand. Yang was only a silhouette, but her tone made her expression clear enough: "Is he going to die?"
She bit her lip, then flinched away from a red and black bolt that struck the ground a foot away from her other arm. "I—I don't know. I've never seen it get this bad before."
Weiss shrieked. The edge of her dress had gotten caught by one of the bolts and now the fabric was wilting away from that point. Qrow reacted faster than any of them, cutting away the wilting section and letting it waste away on its own. He had to dodge another strike almost immediately.
Halfway to her feet and ready to dodge another bolt, Blake realized that the shadows weren't as dark as they had been. As soon as she noticed that, the pillar narrowed and then disappeared entirely while the shroud over the world vanished like a retreating storm of petals.
She had to blink the spots out of her eyes from the sun beaming down again, but when she could see straight, she focused on Adam—
Just in time to see him collapse.
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