Expect a short chapter as my mother is having her surgery today and whole day is built around it. Up at 5am to get her there for 6:30am, am not allowed to stay because of COVID risk to vulnerable patients (very fair) and am off to work for a bit while waiting for any call. The surgery could take three hours, we're told, all while she is awake, though there will be one section where she is given something (unaware of name) that won't reduce pain or put her out but will sort of reduce her ability to think or remember anything. Basically, it'll put her out her mind on drugs while they do a very painful section that she would absolutely feel otherwise.

It's kind of horrifying knowing she will still feel and experience it regardless, and that the medical solution literally is to just drug you so you can't remember it.

Evening Update: My mother survived the operation, and all seemed well, but when they asked her to stand up to make sure she could walk (some hours later) she did so and blood began pouring from her nose at an alarming rate. They have had her lay back down and are investigating the cause. Fresh stress for me not hours after we were told all looked clear. Now, I'm in a fresh panic because of this.

Cover Art: Mystery White Flame

Chapter 57

Today had seemed like such a good day.

That was the last thought to go through Pyrrha's mind before the Bullhead they were riding – in a technical sense anyway – began losing altitude at an alarming rate. Its nose tipped down, taking an angle that would put it directly into the side of Beacon Academy at this rate. In the pilot's seat, Jaune Arc tugged and pushed on various buttons, and the way he was doing it, fast and furious and random, suddenly had her stomach dropping out.

"You don't actually know how to fly this, do you?"

"Did I say I did!?"

"You climbed into the seat!" she shouted back. "I assumed that was a sign!"

"Yeah, well, you know what they say about people who assume." Jaune Arc was already tugging on the safety harness. Pyrrha swore and raced to the co-pilot's seat, hopped in, strapped in and then looked at the buttons as if one might have `stop crash` written on it. Funnily enough, it did not.

"WHAT DO I DO!?"

"Pull the reins!" Salem ordered.

"What!?"

"The reins, girl. Show it some authority. Calm it down."

Pyrrha's mouth could have caught flies if the windscreen wasn't already doing so, and if the flies weren't child-sized Nevermore smashing into the reinforced glass. "T-This thing doesn't have reins!" she yelled. "It's a Bullhead!"

"Oh, get out the way." Salem pushed Pyrrha's hands off the controls and sat on the other seat. Since Jaune was strapped into it, that meant she was sat in his lap, obscuring his vision and knocking his arms to the side. The woman cracked her hands together, took a deep breath and placed one on the joystick, the other on the control panel, which she stroked smoothly. "Shhh…" she crooned. "It's okay. Calm down now. Whoah, girl."

"It's not a girl!" Pyrrha shrieked.

"Whoah, boy, then." Salem said with a roll of her eyes.

NOT THE POINT PYRRHA WAS MAKING!

Leaning back, Pyrrha screamed as Beacon's spire became larger and larger before them, rising up like a big middle finger to their chances of survival. This was how she died, not against Grimm, not in some grand championship battle, not even overdosing on Class-A drugs like most depressive celebrities seemed to in their old age. No, she was going to splatter on the side of Beacon Academy like a bird on a window. I hope I splash Cardin, she thought angrily.

Salem tugged on the reins suddenly and the cockpit angled upward. Pyrrha and Jaune were squashed flat against the seats as they narrowly pulled away from the spire and into the bright, blue sky.

"Whoah there!" Salem crowed, wrestling with the stick. Left, right, back, forward. The aircraft began to buck like a bull, and Pyrrha's stomach flipped and flopped violently. "Steady now! Steady now! Damn it, I said steady. I am your queen and you will obey! Bad, Bullhead. Bad!"

Salem decided to punish it with a firm slap to the flank. Or, in this case, the control panel. A bright red button beeped and there was a loud ka-chunk that sounded from below, followed by a whistling sound and then several explosions on the ground. Pyrrha whimpered and hoped they'd landed on something expendable like the Grimm or Professor Port's classroom.

"That'll show you." Salem said. "Now, it's time to bring this animal into land. Down, boy. Go down." Whether it was by design or luck, she pushed the joystick forward and the nose tipped, the windscreen filing with a view of grass. "Ah, there we go."

Yes, they were certainly going down now. As in, straight down. The whistling air whipped against the aircraft, shaking it violently as they nose-dived toward oblivion. Pyrrha screamed and Jaune did the same, directly into Salem's back as the queen crossed one leg over the other and let the `animal` come to land on its own. Desperately, Pyrrha reached for the controls only to feel herself being forced back by the numerous G's they were experiencing. The ground came closer and closer, and Pyrrha's life flashed before her eyes, looking like little more than a montage reel of advertisements she'd been paid to sponsor.

And then, without warning, something gargantuan passed beneath them. It was black, covered in skin and feathers and bone plates. A monstrous bat-like dragon the likes of which Pyrrha had never seen before, dropping pods from its wings that burst into Grimm on the ground. It had its large red eyes on its prey below, which went to explain why it didn't spot the Bullhead falling like a meteorite from above.

It certainly felt it, though. They struck the monster on the back of the head, cracked through bone like the missile they were, and drove it down wildly. Giant wings folded upward as it plummeted, slamming down face-first into Beacon's grounds and being pushed deeper still into grass, dirt and stone by the Bullhead still fitfully firing its boosters up into the air. Before they spluttered and died, and the aircraft lazily leaned to the left, then tumbled off the dead monstrosity's head with a loud crash.

Then, as if to add insult to injury, the cockpit expanded violently as inflatable airbags poofed out of the controls and flattened Pyrrha to her seat. "I hate you both," she mumbled around a mouthful of airbag.

"You know," Jaune said. "Still a better landing than Tyrian got us in Vacuo."

"This proud steed has served us well." Salem said, pushing past the airbags and pushing the cockpit open with a loud hiss. She clambered out, Pyrrha and Jaune doing the same, the two of them crashing to the floor as Salem dusted herself down. Pyrrha kissed the grass, stroking it as if she'd been reunited with a long-lost lover. "Ah, Beacon. I have never been in person but my spies told me much about it. They spoke of its grand halls, its marvellous architecture and the long, hard, girth of the `Taiyang Xiao-Long`. Yes, I have heard much about this powerful artefact Ozma keeps hidden away. It is said to drive women out of their minds with pleasure. I lost two spies to it, and the third could only giggle and mumble about going back for a second round. Well played, Ozma. Well played."

"I'm not sure you're talking about what you think you're talking about." Pyrrha said. "But it doesn't matter. We need to find and stop Cinder and the White Fang before they do something terrible."

"Yes." Salem agreed. "Like embarrass me."

Pyrrha sighed. "I was thinking more like kill a whole lot of innocent people."

"Oh, come now. This is a boarding school filled with hormone-driven teenagers. There's no innocence here. Frankly, we need to stop Cinder before she fails to take over the place."

"Because it would lead to an international disaster?" Pyrrha asked.

"Yes – the disaster of her failure being attributed to me. I don't want any misunderstandings here. Had I chosen to invade and attack Beacon, and should I in the future, it will be handled far more efficiently than this."

"Are you even on our side? What am I even doing with you?"

"Good questions, girl. I don't care to answer them."

Pyrrha Nikos wasn't used to being dismissed, nor to being looked over as surplus to requirements. She wasn't used to being left out of the conversation, wasn't used to not being the centre of attention and she sure as hell wasn't used to seeing a screaming White Fang member trying to attack them spontaneously turn into a butterfly that was moments later devoured by a swooping Nevermore.

"Did that just-"

"Don't think about it." Jaune said. "Easier that way."

"But he-"

"Don't. Think. About it."

"Jaune, you should not be flirting with another woman within my presence." the very scary (at least now Pyrrha had seen that happen) woman remarked. "Unless… is she to be your first concubine? Hm…" Salem turned to stare deep into a frozen Pyrrha's soul. "I would allow it, though only because of the hair. The colour of blood is not displeasing."

Pyrrha wasn't sure whether to deny, thank the woman or shrivel into a ball and die of embarrassment. Maybe all three.

"I'm not going to cheat on you. That'd be wrong."

"It's not cheating if she's brought in with my permission."

"DIE YOU HUMAN SCU-" A wolf-eared faunus shrank suddenly, his legs and feet shooting upwards as Salem struck him with a bolt of green energy. He transformed into an adorable puppy in the air, kicked his legs and fell with a sharp yelp.

When a Beowolf went to attack him, Pyrrha struck and tore its head off, kicked it away, knelt and scooped up the shaking puppy into her hands. It might have been a wolf in truth, but it was all the same in her mind. "No," she said. "I don't want to see people die but I draw the line at puppies. This world is evil enough as it is."

"Question." Jaune raised his hand. "Can you turn Grimm into other animals?"

"Hm. You know, I've never tried." Salem tapped her chin. It didn't take long for a `volunteer` to make itself apparent, a giant Ursa roaring as it barrelled towards them. Salem looked it up and down, hummed and waved her hand toward it, sending the same green bolt of energy out. Her Semblance, or so the authorities said. Nora had said it was the cutest Semblance ever but seeing it in person led Pyrrha to feel it was much more terrifying.

Though, in this case, seeing an Ursa of some seven feet turn into a bumblebee was somewhat amusing. Less amusing was the way it continued, aggressively butting into Pyrrha's face before landing on her shoulder, throwing its tiny little head into the air in a silent roar and then jamming its stinger into her arm. Into her aura. The thing failed to penetrate it and then died, dropping away from her and to the floor.

"I'm not sure if that was amusing or tragic." Pyrrha said.

"Arf!" the White Fang member opined.

"My art is complex." Salem said with a shrug. "As all good art is. That's something Cinder ever failed to grasp." Clearing her throat, she shouted, "White Fang! I am Salem, Queen of Jaunesville and ruler of the world."

Her proclamation brought a halt to the fighting, though Pyrrha expected it was mostly because of the sheet audacity of that statement than anything else. White Fang looked to Beacon students, who shrugged and looked back as if to ask if she wasn't one of theirs. As used to being the centre of attention as she was, Pyrrha still shrank a little under so many incredulous expressions.

"I speak to you now and demand you halt this foolishness."

"Who's going to make us!?" one brave faunus yelled.

"Me." Salem said. "Was that not obvious?" She turned to Jaune and Pyrrha. "Was I not obvious about that? I feel as though it was self-explanatory. Let me try again. Ahem." She cleared her throat and shouted, "I am Salem, Queen of Jaunesville and ruler of the world, and I demand you end this foolishness or face my wrath. I have long since run out of patience, and I was never possessing of much in the first place. Lay down your arms or face the consequences."

"What conse-"

A green zap had the masked man who tried to ask suddenly bristling in indignation. At least, Pyrrha thought that was the reason. It might just have been the breeze through his branches causing his newfound leaves to rustle. After that, it was rather incredible how fast everyone's weapons were thrown to the grass. White Fang and Beacon students both. No one wanted to test which side she was demanding surrender from.

"There." Salem smiled. "I always did have a way with words."

"You turned a man into a tree!" Pyrrha yelled.

"Actions speak louder than words, or so they say, but if they speak louder then they are still technically words, no? Ergo, I talked the man down." Salem smirked suddenly and tapped her lower lip. "One could say I rooted him to the spot, no? No? No…? Laugh or be turned into an apricot, damn you!"

The field full of frightened faunus and humans laughed loudly and uproariously, sweating buckets as the unpredictable woman nodded her head.

"See. They get it. Ahem. You may work together to kill the Grimm if you wish," she told the assembled prisoners, "But I don't want to hear of any more fighting between you or I will come back and dispense punishments. Understand?"

Wild and frantic nodding.

"W-What about Pierce?" a faunus asked. "Aren't you going to change him back?"

"Eh. He'll figure it out. Probably." She waved her hand dismissively, and several people whimpered. "Now then, has anyone seen a brat known as Cinder Fall? She would be about this tall, temperamental, whiny, probably going on about how she deserves power or the world belongs to her or some such." Several faunus pointed at the main building. "Ah. Thank you. See. See? I can be diplomatic, Jaune. Two armies talked down, and not a single death between them,"

"TREE!" Pyrrha screamed. "Man turned into a tree!"

"And technically speaking, he still lives. Good for him. Cinder will be lucky if I don't transform her into a rock. Though she'd probably have more personality to her if I did."

Pyrrha watched the two of them wander off toward Beacon, swore and decided that if she didn't follow, they'd only do something worse. With an angry look toward the audience she said, "Arrest the White Fang, push the Grimm back and for the love of everything do not let anyone cut that tree down!"

Her piece said, she sprinted after Jaune and Salem.

The White Fang and Beacon students looked to one another awkwardly. No one quite felt like picking up weapons and going back to killing one another after seeing them kill the dragon-Grimm, turn a man into a tree and then wander off to kill Cinder. One of the White Fang members coughed softly.

"So, do you, like, think it counts as Pierce giving birth if he makes fruit?"

"Does it make us cannibals if we eat it?" a student asked.

"Do you think he can hear us in there?"

"I bet he's pissed."

"Nah. His bark was always worse than his bite." The faunus nudged Coco Adel in the ribs. "Eh? Eh!?"

"Bro," Coco replied. "Too soon."

/-/

Cinder couldn't help but feel that things weren't going precisely to plan.

Not that they were going against her either, only that they weren't going quite the way she expected them to. It was a minor discrepancy and no big matter in the grand scheme of things. So what if Ozpin had an unusually competent and downright bloodthirsty team of huntresses? What did it matter if they were holding her off more than a team their ages should have been able to? She was still here, the fall maiden was still there, and she held limitless power within herself.

This was just a minor delay. That was all. And it would make her eventual victory all the sweeter for it. Such were Cinder's thoughts as her head snapped to the side, driven along with her body into and through a pillar as the blonde missile came flying out the smoke and caught her mid-monologue. Cinder corrected her trajectory before hitting the ground, only to slip on the surprisingly icy patch of floor she'd landed on. Said ice became even harder to stay upright on when a glyph appeared beneath her feet, one between each, that alternated gravity. Her left foot felt like she was running on air, her right like it was trapped in thick syrup, and the ice felt cold on her face as she smashed down into it nose first.

Just a minor delay, though.

Nothing at all really.

And victory will be sweeter still for killing these four bitches, she thought as she pushed herself up and came face-to-face, and eye-to-eye, with the business end of Crescent Rose's barrel. Glancing above it, she stared into a pair of cold, silver eyes and said, "Give me a break."

Ruby Rose gave her a high-calibre round to the face, then a second into the forehead. The force of it flipped Rose back into the fog and sent Cinder skating back into the nearest wall, landing with a groan. Her muscles ached and her blood was burning. Gritting her teeth, she pulled a syringe out her reinforced bandolier and stabbed it into her arm, squeezing down to inject the thick liquid into her veins. The thick veins across her face darkened and bulged out and her eyes glowed brighter still. Cinder laughed as the power coursed through her, rising up on her feet with a bloodthirsty smile.

"Did you just inject the essence of the pools into your body?" Ozpin asked. He was still at Amber's machine, though now staring at her with distaste. "Are you mad? You must be able to feel how it's tearing your body apart."

"Hah. There is no power without pain."

"No, but there is pain without power. The two don't automatically go hand in hand."

They did here. Salem had just been a normal woman – aside from the immortality – before her dip in the pools. As had she. The Grimm now heeded her, her body held unnatural resilience, and she'd never seen the world with such clarity. What's more, once I have the power of the fall maiden within my body, I'll be even closer to greatness. It might even work to balance the influence of the God of Darkness. I just need to get to it. Wasting my time killing these four, while satisfying, doesn't help me. They can be dealt with later.

Summoning as much fire as she could, she threw it at the fog all around her, dispelling some and revealing more dust explosives among the rest – where were they getting so much dust from!? Oh right, Schnee heiress. Sensible. The explosions worked to her advantage this time, covering her escape as she sprinted away from the four brats and towards Ozpin. She felt the crack of the sniper round striking her lower back and grunted against the pain, forcing herself on and ignoring the shots that rained down on her.

The blonde appeared in front of her sped by the Schnee's glyphs and drove a fist into Cinder's stomach. Air, bile and blood flew from her lips as she bent over the girl, but she ignored the pain and flipped over her, kicking her in the back as she went and sending a fireball after her for good measure.

Even as she landed, the black-haired girl and the Schnee challenged her, all while the silver-eyed warrior shot from a distance. Normally, she'd have had no trouble, but these four were obviously personally trained by Ozpin. He must have known he would need such protection, and only years of effort could produce results like this. Put like that, it was acceptable that she struggled just a little. Cinder gasped as the rapier entered her left shoulder, gritted her teeth and slapped the girl's hand away. She stuck her other up to block the slash from the faunus Adam wanted so badly, wrapped the ribbon around her fist and kicked the girl away.

Swinging, she was able to make the faunus' weapon hit the Schnee in the side, knocking her back if not badly harming her. She tossed the coiled-up weapon at the girl to buy more time, tore the rapier from her shoulder and, after a moment's thought, kept it. No dust meant no more glyphs and no more distractions. Aside from the sniper, that was. Cinder ignored the girl even as another round hit her left leg in the back of the knee, driving her to the ground.

No. I won't be stopped here!

Bleeding and bloodied, blood frothing from her lips as the essence of the Grimm pools ate away at her, Cinder Fall – the future ruler of Remnant – roared and leapt up at Ozpin, tackling the man away from the terminal. He swung his cane and caught her shoulder, flicked her summoned-blade away and stabbed like a fencer. The butt of his cane struck her six times in quick succession, and each was like a sledgehammer taken to her body. The air glowed about him, green light flickering, magic- now of all times? Damn him! The one power she hadn't been able to grasp, though it was within her reach. In a manner of speaking.

As she was driven back and away from Amber, Cinder hefted the stolen rapier in her hand and aimed. Ozpin struck at her exposed side, her opposite side, taking advantage of the opening her posture left – but this was no attack aimed at him. Flinging it with all her might, Cinder watched the weapon sail through the air, strike the glass tube and shatter glass.

Ozpin turned, aghast. "Amber! No!"

This was her chance! Cinder kicked him away and lurched forward, throwing herself at the tube and ramming the rapier even deeper still into the woman inside. Amber, the fall maiden, coughed and gurgled, awoken from her coma by the intense pain. Her eyes, bloodshot and hazy, looked out at Cinder with pain and fear.

"Yes!" Cinder roared. "Yes! Look at me – know me! I am the one who has killed you. I am the one to whom your power belongs!"

Pushing her face through the glass, Cinder made sure – made absolutely certain – that she would be the last thing on the maiden's mind. It was how the power worked, and without the parasite to make it certain, she had to make sure Amber saw her. It was why she didn't have Emerald kill the maiden when she handed over the apple. There was a chance she would have been granted the power, and that would have been unforgivable.

"Look at me." Cinder repeated, gripping the dying girl's chin and forcing their eyes to meet.

Cinder saw her own reflection in the girl's eyes – her white face, white hair and her red eyes set on black. The thick, red veins that criss-crossed over her face, the cruel inhuman visage and the power of the pools of darkness that flooded through her body. It was an inhuman face, a monstrous face, one that was known to few, but which had been known to Amber, told to her by Ozpin when she first inherited her burden.

Amber's lips cracked open and she gasped out a name.

"S-Salem…"

With a quiet cough, the fall maiden died.

Cinder stood, hand inside the tube, blood running down her body, lips peeled back into a feral smile that slowly, ever so slowly, began to fade. That Amber had mistaken her for Salem was something she hadn't considered, but she could see why it had happened. The fall maiden had only known of one woman in existence to be part-Grimm as she now was.

It was an innocent mistake, and she probably hadn't been able to see the subtle differences clearly, as misty as her dying vision would have been. In a coma for so long, Amber must have been partially blind anyway. The world would have been a blur to her; Cinder's face an indistinct mass of Grimm features easily mistaken as another woman's.

But then, if it didn't matter, where was the power - why wasn't the maiden power flooding her body? Looking down at herself, she felt no stronger, no different, and her eyes did not burn with the power as it should have. And why – oh heavens why – did she hear wild, raucous laughter from above?

"Oh Cinder!" a familiar and powerful voice echoed. Lightning crackled and burst, and a new hole in the ceiling exploded downward, showering rubble onto the hall below. A glowing figure, human, garbed in white robes, but burning with golden light that flickered like flames in her eyes. "I knew you were a failure the first moment I laid eyes on you, but not even I expected that you could fail so badly."

Cinder bit her lip. "Salem."

The woman, the new fall maiden, smirked back. "Cinder." Her eyes flicked to Ozpin. "Ozma."

The man pointed a shaking finger. "Elevator!"

"Hm." Salem smiled. "If you think this is bad, you should see what I did to your tower."

"WHY!?"

"Eh. For fun, mostly." Cracking her neck, she floated down to the ground. "And I expect this shall be fun as well. Do step aside, Ozma, Team Boobie."

"RWBY…" said girl corrected.

"That's what I said. Cinder and I need to have a little… exit interview." Salem chuckled. "After all, she's looking to retire from my employ, and I should make sure there aren't any lingering issues with regards to her contract."

Cinder blinked. "What?"

"I'm going to kill you, dear." Salem said flatly. "If my metaphor wasn't clear, I am going to kill you. Do try and keep up."

Cinder's world exploded into agony.

Oh yes, Cinder stabbed Amber, killed her and made sure the last thing Amber saw – in a blurry haze as she was dragged out of a coma with her dying breath – was a face that was clearly Grimm in origin. A face that, in Amber's limited information, only one person on Remnant actually has.

And that person ain't Cinder Fall.

Next Chapter: 21st March

P a treon . com (slash) Coeur