Preface: I don't particularly like doing this, but I understand that some (read many) people would be turned off by fic focused Cinder, which, at first glance, this fic would appear to be. Quite frankly, I am one of those people. Which is why I am prefacing this with a single statement... Or several.
THIS IS NOT A CINDER FIC.
Please be patient with the first couple of chapters.
And here, enjoy! Or don't. It is your choice.
Pain, pain is all that I feel throughout my body. My skin, burning. My flesh, melting. My bones, shattered. It felt like some twisted miracle that I was still alive and aware enough to suffer this torture. I could intimately feel every screeching part of me. My eyes seemed sealed tight, imprisoning me to the darkness of my own mind. I could barely feel anything beyond my own body. Only a vague pressure against my back assured me of my continued life. For what felt like days, pain consumed my every thought. All motions set off explosions of misery. The constant muscle spasms only added their own hurt to the equation.
The sudden relief befuddled me. I opened my eyes, or at least thought I did as I only felt only one lid lift.
"You're awake!" My thoughts were interrupted by my most... exuberant follower. My singular eye swiveled around in search of Emerald. I dared not move my likely sore and still recovering body. I didn't wish to provide Watts a reason to complain. We had only primary medical supplies and a small supply of aura boosters for grievous injuries. He would throw a fit if I injured myself and made him waste a booster.
A green and brown blob filled my limited vision. "I... I thought we'd lost you. I'm just... so glad you're still alive."
I gave her a reassuring reply that further deepened Emerald's perceived connection with me...
Correction, I attempted to give a reply. What actually came out of my mouth as useful as wail for all the good it did. The hoarse whisper of speech that did exit at least left me with the hope that I may recover my voice in due time.
"So our little princes finally awoke, huh?" Mercury said, walking into the room. "She still looks like she needs your help though, little Emmy. Maybe you can even reenact those little lesbo fantasies of yours while she's still like this." His almost overwhelming sarcasm attacking my overwhelming, if temporary, weakness instantly aroused my anger. I sent a fireball in the direction where I remembered the door was... or so I envisioned. The flames that once filled my body to the point of bursting were oddly missing. My maiden powers were nowhere to be found. It depressed me to no end to realize that I lay completely at my subordinates' mercy.
Emerald, thankfully, expressed my anger for me. "Don't you dare talk to the mistress like that ever again, or I'll kill you for her!" I would never admit that I felt thankful. She was my subordinate, it was to be expected that she would defend my honor. Emerald's next words especially sealed that thought away permanently.
"Oh, I am going to take such good care of you! I am going to feed you and help bathe you and..." I tuned out her incessant rambling, resolving to bear with her excessive pampering. She acted quite opportunistically, considering I could no longer order her nor threaten to burn her into a crisp. I would applaud such initiative, if it weren't directed at me. Sometimes, I felt as if I may have endeared myself to her a little too well. Better a sycophant, though, than an unreliable friend.
\-\
"You've finally recovered enough to receive another grim. The reimplantation will hurt more than the previous time as it has to dig even deeper to bond with your already damaged spirit. Don't. Lose it. Again. Am I clear?" The vampirically pale witch said to her, in her eyes, inept subordinate.
"Yes, mistress," I stoically replied.
"And under no circumstances are you to go after the silver-eyed girl. I don't care if she is the strongest huntress in the world or just a lucky idiot, you are forbidden from even thinking of approaching her. Especially not after what she did to Tyrian."
"Yes..." Salem glared.
"Mistress." I finally breathed out in reply. I grit her teeth in anger at the memory. I'd not only won against the most promising huntress of the entire generation but completely wiped her from existence! Only to be utterly blindsided by that detestable SILVER. EYED. MUTT!
My thoughts distracted me from the subsequent procedure. A tiny beetle crawled along my body before burrowing itself within the scared flesh of what remained of my left arm. The agony of my flesh being dug into brought me back to reality. I surrendered a small grunt of shock before covering my lips in an attempt to mute myself. The process was pure torture, especially since I had to bear with it stoically with the alternative losing the respect of my mistress.
I flared my aura, providing the little critter access to my soul. That... was when I fainted from the sheer pain of the experience, overwhelming my every conscious faculty with the message, submit... or die.
When I came to, I felt disconcerted. That bred the confusion fueling my effort to analyze my current state. The phantom pain of my missing arm was replaced with a presence. When I attempted to move said presence to look at what was attached to me, it stretched into my vision. I... have an arm made of grim flesh? Thankfully, neither Emerald nor Mercury waited around my bedside this time for my reawakening. I slowly got up, worried that the parasite may have harmed me more than I initially felt. I saw Salem leaning on the room's balcony, looking out at the grim lands that I knew once belonged to the God of Darkness, though not in their current form.
"How do you feel?" Salem asked, in a surprisingly caring manner.
"I feel off. The differences between my remaining arm and the Grimm replacement confuse my body."
"Your mind will settle in due time. I'm almost thankful that the previous parasite is gone. Almost." Her voice became stern at that moment. "That doesn't excuse your failure." She turned around and walked past me before stopping at the door frame. "Why are you not already up? Come on, training will help you normalize your current condition faster than purely relying on time."
\-\
This... THIS WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! The plan was perfect. Quietly walk into the vault, take the relic, kill the spring maiden. I even rushed my plans a little because of the silver-eyed puppy. I'd taken my master's warning to heart and attempted to avoid her by completing all my objectives as quickly as I could. But everything was already going wrong from the first step! The damn maiden was a fake! I ended up grabbing Raven's little pet with my grim arm as I demanded answers.
A flash of pale blue light exploded out from beneath. That was all the warning I got before a tube of ice rose out of the ground around me. I flared my maiden power in an attempt to melt the trap. The walls... wall? of ice around melted a little before growing once more. Surprised but prepared for this possibility, I embrace my maiden powers before dragging them out in their entirety and began to create a firestorm with me at its center. "Oh, little raven, little raven. You thought you can get the drop on me. Well. YOU. THOUGHT. WRONG." The storm's bursts of growth punctuated my last three words. I retracted my Grimm arm back into the storm, dragging the fake maiden in along with it. She screamed (oh how she screamed!) as flesh blackened and melted under the intense heat. Already achieving a bit of revenge felt fulfilling. Raven, sadly, didn't move to save her beloved subordinate. She instead decided to surround herself with orbiting ice crystals, and likely chilled air, before diving for me. I brought to bear the flames while stepping back transforming it into a sphere. I moved the sphere of flames as fast as I observed her diving, in an attempt to keep her within the center of what I hoped would become a fiery prison and her subsequent grave.
A hope that was quickly dashed by her piercing through the bubble, hand on hilt, orbiting ice crystals significantly smaller, and killer intent daring me to move. Streams of flames reached out from both me and the sphere behind her, attempting to encase her once more. She slashed at me with an icy aural strike reinforced by her maiden powers that cut through the rivers of flame defending me. I jump up above her and continue my caging attempts with a new orb laying where I was. I materialized my obsidian bow, staying afloat all the while using a little magic fueled wind. A motion in the corner of my eye drags my attention to the elevator. Did someone get past the headmaster? How useless can Lionheart be!
"Raven?" The blonde intruder asks.
Raven takes a glance at the entrance before shouting "GET AWAY FROM HERE!" in reply.
"I'm here to fight her!" She cries out, angrily.
"YOU'LL DIE!" She snaps back frenzied.
"You don't know that!" Her eyes lilac turned blood red and her hair was enshrouded in golden fire.
"GAH" Raven gasped in frustration. The ice crystals rapidly grew in size at that moment, protecting her against the flaming prison.
I had been shooting her with flaming obsidian arrows while also pouring all my available maiden power into growing three new flaming orbs and the two previously created orbs. Four had surrounded her while one remained by my side to protect me. The cage transformed into a flaming tornado as the flames flowed through the four orbs in a clockwise fashion from my perspective.
The blonde took that moment to punch me... well, attempt to anyway. She climbed into the air using the knockback of gravity dust rounds before I smacked her back down using a giant flaming hand, formed from my guarding orb. Raven took that moment to stab at me through a portal. The ice that was surrounding her followed the strike while she retreated her hand back. I immediately ceased my blazing tornado to take stock of my otherwise obscured surroundings, and it petered out to reveal her carrying the blonde, now unconscious, just about to lay her on the ground. I pulled my guarding orb closer to destroy the ice under Raven's control while having the other orbs chase her and the blonde she clearly cares for down. The crystals, instead of disappearing, grew and orbited around me faster and faster while blasting lightning between themselves. I brought the chasing orbs back while attacking the crystals with all I had and moving as fast as I can. I grew more and more worried about the apparent attack. Before I could really make a dent and push back though, the crystals reached their saturation point and started shocking me from all directions. Most of my grim arm burned away while my aura shattered, and then what remained of my aura shattered again. It was agony, unlike anything I ever felt before, even worse than the grim parasite's reattachment. An agony added to by the parasite's odd choice to START DIGGING INTO MY SOUL SOME MORE RIGHT NOW.
I'm ashamed to say I screamed like a little girl. I was half glad to feel something cut my vocal cords and end my screaming. I was significantly less glad to see a spider leg made of grim flesh crawling out of my mouth. And then I stopped feeling anything.