Missing In Action

Chapter 2

"Twenty seconds. That's a new record."

Cinder took her shaking hands off the rifle, panting heavily. Sweat dripped from her brow and onto the table below. She brought a hand up to wipe some of the sweat away.

Disassembling a rifle wasn't that physically taxing, but it was all she had done all day. The rifle in front of her – the MK28 EBR – was an upgrade to the existing standard-issue Atlesian battle rifle. It had just come out of the prototype stage and was now going to be issued to general troops, herself included. That meant that she had to become intimately familiar with its use.

And that meant field stripping the weapon, over and over, until she could tell which parts were which and how they all fit together simply by touch.

She looked over at the nearby clock. She'd been doing this for four hours straight now. In that time, she'd field stripped and reassembled the rifle well over two-hundred times.

"Again."

And somehow, it still wasn't enough for Ironwood.

Her hands were a blur, moving almost inhumanly fast. They ran on their own – she didn't think about each step as she performed it. In about twenty seconds, it was over, and the rifle laid in front of her, disassembled once more.

"Hm." Ironwood checked his timer, then looked back at her. "Put it back together, then we'll call it a day. But you are not dismissed."

Cinder nodded. She repeated the steps in reverse, putting her new rifle back together like it was second nature to her. Once it was done, she inserted the magazine and racked the bolt to chamber a round, then put the weapon on safe and slung it across her front. Ironwood motioned for her to follow him, and she did, walking alongside him.

"Do you know why I took you in, Cinder?" he asked abruptly.

"Sir?" she questioned, surprised.

"It's a simple question," Ironwood said without looking.

Cinder furrowed her brow. "No, Sir. I know you have your reasons. I do not question them."

"It's simple, really – this war's been cold for almost eighty years, ever since the Witch was finally defeated. We all returned to our own Kingdoms to lick our wounds. We didn't have the same appetite for war after that. But our differences remained, and now it's starting to heat up again."

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "We're going to need people like you, Cinder. Sooner rather than later."

"I exist to serve my Kingdom, Sir," she said automatically.

"Hm. Good. You understand what I'll be asking of you?"

She nodded. She understood perfectly – more than an eleven-year-old should have. "I know what my service will entail, Sir."

"And it doesn't bother you?"

"No, Sir. I will do whatever it takes to protect my Kingdom, including laying down my own life if I have to."

"Good answer. But one thing."

"Yes, Sir?"

"If you do have to die, make sure you're dying knee-deep in a pile of spent brass."

A small, confident grin crossed her face. "That, I can do, Sir. They won't take me alive."

Cinder's eyes came fluttering open. She let out a low groan as she sat upright, the wound in her stomach screaming at her once again. She chanced a look to her side and grimaced when she saw the uneaten food was still there. Her stomach growled, but she ignored it.

Outside, the sun was shining. Smoke still rose up into the horizon off in the distance, but it was far less intense than it had been yesterday. The refinery was still burning, but the blaze was starting to be contained. It didn't matter, though – the extent of the damage meant that it would be years before the refinery was operational again. She had dealt a crippling blow to Vale's war effort, and that was worth its weight in gold, and in lives.

Her dream came back to the surface of her mind, and she grimaced again at the promise she'd failed to keep. She'd made that promise years ago – that she wouldn't let herself be captured – but she'd tried to hold onto it through all this time. Her promises were all she had, along with her service, and one wasn't worth much without the other. That made it all the more bitter that she'd broken the promise she'd made to Ironwood. She'd failed, and let herself be captured, and now she was stuck.

There was a knock at the door. Anger pulsed in her mind – they were still continuing on with this facade, it seemed. As before, she gave no response, but that didn't stop them. Jaune pushed his way inside, carrying a plate of bacon and eggs – real bacon and eggs, not the kind that tasted like cardboard and came in her rations. Her mouth watered at the scent, but she was quick to hold herself back. Like before, she didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

"Morning," Jaune said. His eyes fell to the plate of uneaten food on her table, and he frowned, but didn't say anything. Instead, he simply exchanged that plate for the new one. "You're the last one up, by the way. Generally that means Dad would make you shovel out the stables, but since you're wounded, he decided to have mercy on you and let you rest."

Cinder glared at him. "If you wanted to be merciful-"

"I know, I know," he insisted. "Dad said you'd say that. He told me to ignore it."

"Why are you all doing this?" Cinder demanded.

"Doing what?" Jaune asked.

"This. Giving me clothes, treating me like this, feeding me and letting me rest… what's in it for you? Are you hoping I'll reveal my secrets, purely because you're all being kind to me?"

Jaune frowned. "It's just the right thing to do, that's all. Prisoner of war or not, you're still a person."

"So were the people I killed," Cinder insisted. "Are their lives worth nothing to you? Think about it – they had families."

"You don't?" Cinder instantly stopped talking. Jaune raised an eyebrow. "Well, that answers one question."

"...I have a guardian," she hissed. "Of sorts."

"Of sorts? That doesn't sound like a very good family"

"He's the man who took me in. I owe him everything. I love him. The fact that I'm even here is nothing more than a slap across his face. It demands correction."

"Yeah, well, correct away, I guess. Whatever that means," Jaune replied. "But just because you killed them doesn't mean it's okay for us to mistreat you."

"That's ridiculous," Cinder hissed. "No wonder Vale is losing the war. If even a fraction of them are as foolish as you all are, then the only surprising thing is that you've managed to last eighty years in the first place."

"What do you mean, losing?"

"Jaune."

The sudden voice from outside the doorway took them both by surprise. The two of them turned and found Miles standing there, his arms crossed. He motioned with his head for Jaune to leave the room. Jaune's frown returned, but he did as his father asked, and stepped out into the hallway. Miles closed the door behind him, then took a seat.

"You should eat," he said, gesturing towards the plate of bacon and eggs. "You need to get your strength back."

"I refuse," Cinder told him.

"My wife worked hard to make breakfast for you, you know. It's not polite to turn your nose up at a kind gesture like that."

"There you Valeans go again, with the talk of politeness. It's utterly infuriating. Are all of you this naive?"

"No, it just runs in the family." Miles ran a hand through his hair, then sighed. "So, what? You intend to starve yourself to death? Are we going to have to hold you down and shove eggs down your throat or something?"

"I will not give you the satisfaction of breaking me," Cinder proclaimed.

"Breaking you? Lady, I'm trying to feed you." Miles reached over and took a piece of bacon, then popped it into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. "See? It's perfectly safe to eat. So eat it, already."

Cinder fell silent, instead turning to look out the window. Miles followed her gaze, frowning when he saw what she was staring at.

"Admiring your handiwork?" he asked.

"Does it infuriate you?" she questioned. "Knowing what happened, I mean. What's the death toll at now, hm? I gunned down at least thirty. Scores more no doubt died when the plastic explosives detonated. I wonder how many were people you were close to?"

"None to my knowledge, but that doesn't make it okay," Miles lamented. "And yeah, it does piss me off. But what am I supposed to do about it? Kill you?" He shook his head. "If I wanted to keep killing, I would have stayed in the military. But I didn't, so I left. I've had enough of war, and violence. Nowadays, the only killing I do is when I go hunting, and that's only for food."

"Do the families know?" Cinder asked. "That you have me here, I mean. Does anyone know? Have you told anyone yet?"

"What would that accomplish? They'd just come here and kill you after you refused to tell them anything."

"Isn't that what you want? It'd be revenge for your people. Your hands would be clean, too – you wouldn't be the one to do it."

Miles fell silent at that. He turned his attention back to the rapidly-cooling plate of food and stared at it for a few seconds, then looked back to her.

"How about a deal?" he asked abruptly.

Cinder was taken aback. "A deal?"

"Yeah, a deal. Exchange. Trade. Whatever you want to call it. I give you something, and you give me something in return. We both benefit."
"Ridiculous."

"Hear me out. I'll stop bothering you for the day if you give me something in return."

She paused. That was a tempting offer – this entire family was insufferable, that was for sure. If she could do something to alleviate the annoyance, then it was worth it. But it all depended on what he wanted from here.

"What would you ask for in return?" she couldn't help but ask.

"I want to know your name."

Cinder's eyes widened. Miles saw it, too – she noticed the way he locked in on her face, how the corners of his mouth quirked up slightly at her expression. He knew he'd touched a nerve… but infuriatingly enough, he didn't press the issue. Instead, he left it hanging out there, in the air, waiting for her to respond.
It would have been so easy to refuse, but then again, she hated this man – hated him with every fiber of her being. If she could earn just a moment of respite from him, it was worth it.

Besides, she knew the standard operating procedure for POWs. They were allowed to give out their name, their rank, and their serial number, and no other information. The latter two were obviously off-limits if she wanted to maintain Atlas' plausible deniability, but her name…?

Perhaps that could be arranged, if only for twenty-four hours of solace.

"...Cinder," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Cinder Fall."

Miles leaned in. "That's your name? Cinder Fall?"

"Yes."

He stared at her for a moment. Then, true to his word, he nodded and stood up, then left the room. Cinder watched him go, wondering the whole time if she'd truly made the correct decision.

She was left alone with her thoughts for a few hours. And despite how she'd wanted it, the silence had started to wear on her. She simply had nothing to do – there were no missions to go on, or people to kill. There was no training to do. Her Aura was still drained, as was her Semblance. She couldn't even sleep, because the wound in her torso kept her from passing out unless she was really exhausted. All she could do was lie there and stare at the plumes of smoke continuing to rise into the sky, and even they were starting to lose their luster.

Then, at around noon, there was a knock on the door. Immediately, Cinder was enraged. Miles had promised she'd be left alone, hadn't he? The door opened, and Cinder glared daggers at Jaune as he stepped inside.

"Your father promised I'd be left alone."

"He said he'd leave you alone," Jaune pointed out. He was carrying another plate with him, because of course he was. "He didn't say anything about the rest of us… Cinder."

"Do not use my name," she warned.

"Why not? It's a pretty name."

That gave her pause. She'd been called many things in her life, but this was the first time anyone had ever called her anything related to her being pretty. It felt strange, and not in a good way.

Jaune stepped forward, again swapping the new plate with the old one. The bacon and eggs were replaced by some kind of sandwich; Cinder didn't bother to look and see what it was. As with everything Jillian had made so far, it smelled delicious, but she refused to even look at it.

"How long are you going to keep this up?" Jaune asked. "Because it can't be easy, having that food sit there next to you all day and night. You know we're just gonna keep bringing more, right? And we're not gonna let you starve, either – we'll hold you down and feed you ourselves if it comes to that."

"Your father informed me of as much," Cinder told him.

"Then why?"

Cinder didn't say anything. Jaune let out a tired sigh, knowing the conversation was over. He turned and began to walk away, only to think of something and turn back around, his eyes widening in surprise.

"You made a deal with my dad," he noted.

"I did," Cinder said without looking.

"Then… would you make another?"

"Not with him, no. He is not a man of his word."

"Not with him. With me."

That got her attention. She looked away from the window, and back towards him. "And what could you possibly have that I would want?"

"Well, you must be bored, right? I mean, you just sit there all day, pretending you don't want to eat and looking out the window. I could bring you something to do. Nothing major, obviously, but I think I can give you a book."

Admittedly, the offer was tempting. She really should have known better than to make a deal with him, especially after his father had proven to be less than trustworthy, but at this point, the boredom was palpable. All she'd done over the past day and a half was sit there and await her own demise. It was starting to get old, especially since the Arcs seemed intent on continuing this facade.

"What do you want in return?" Cinder asked.

"A conversation."

She was taken aback. "A conversation?"

He nodded. "Yes. One conversation between us for one book. I decide when it's over."

"And why do you want that? I have nothing interesting to tell you."

"Then it's no loss to you, is it?"

He had a point, she had to admit. Slowly, Cinder nodded. "...Very well. Your terms are acceptable. One condition, though – no history books. I am not interested in reading your people's propaganda."

Jaune stood up a bit straighter. "That's fine. Give me a minute."

He left the room. Cinder heard him rummaging through something down the hall, and after a few minute of searching, he gave a cry of triumph. Moments later, he was back in the room, carrying an old book.

"Here," he said, giving it to her.

Cinder took it with her free hand, turning it over to examine it. "What is it?"

"It's a book my mom used to read to us," Jaune stated. "'A Mother's Love', by Summer Rose."

"And you think I'd be interested in this?"

"It's worth a shot, isn't it? You even admitted that it's not gonna cost you anything. Worst thing that happens is you hate it and set it aside."

Cinder's brow furrowed. He had a point. Jaune was proving to be far more shrewd than she'd anticipated.

"...This is agreeable, I suppose," she grunted. She opened the book to the first page and began to read. "Come back when night falls. You will have your conversation then, as promised. Until then, leave me."

"You swear?" Jaune asked.

"I am worth nothing but my word and my service, and neither is worth anything without the other."

"I'll… take that as a yes, then," Jaune said. "See you tonight, I guess."

With that, he stepped out and closed the door behind him, leaving Cinder alone with her book.

Despite her initial misgivings, Cinder tore into the book. Initially, it was because she had nothing better to do and was bored out of her skull, but despite her best efforts, she soon found herself drawn to it in ways she'd never imagined. It didn't make sense – the book itself was little more than a profession of a mother's love to her two children, and her ruminating on the nature of being a parent. It shouldn't have appealed to her at all, yet she found it fascinating.
Admittedly, it was interesting to see how Valeans interpreted love.

She finished the book mere hours after picking it up, then set it aside. A few minutes later, Jaune came back with what was supposed to be her lunch – some kind of pasta dish that she again forced herself to ignore.

"Oh, you finished it," Jaune noted as he set the plate of food down next to her, exchanging it for her uneaten breakfast. "What'd you think?"

"It's interesting," Cinder commented. "You Valeans have an odd view on love."

"How is it odd?"

"It's unconditional."

"That's what love is supposed to be, Cinder. If it's conditional, then it isn't true love."

"You're wrong," Cinder said emphatically. "My guardian loved me, I'm sure, though it was contingent on my doing as he commanded, as it should have been."

"How can you be sure?" Jaune asked.

Anger welled up within her, but she kept it buried. "He saw fit to adopt me."

"...That's it?" Jaune asked.

"What do you mean, that's it? He was willing to sacrifice part of his life to take care of me – to train me, and raise me as his own, with the only condition being that I obey him. Is that not love?"

"No, it's not. Especially not if he adopted you to be a weapon."

"Hm. Then how would you define love?"

"That's… it's complicated," Jaune said. "I don't think it can be defined, just experienced. I know my family loves me, for example, though I don't think I can put it into words."

"I can," Cinder insisted. "My guardian loves me because he took me out of that orphanage. He gave me a name, and a purpose, and a reason to serve. He was willing to take me in, even when my biological parents had given up on me and dumped me there."

Jaune's expression softened as he stared at her. He was looking at her with pity again, she realized.

She hated it as much as she did the first time.

"You call that love?" Jaune asked. "This man… he took you in and raised you to be a weapon. He never had any intention of truly loving you – he just wanted to use you until you were broken."

"Is that not the purest form of love?" Cinder questioned. "To be given a task, and to be trusted with it, until your demise?"

"That's… no, that's wrong," Jaune insisted. He shook his head. "If he truly loved you, he'd have tried to keep you safe. He would have raised you like you were his daughter, rather than a tool to be used and then thrown away."

"And how do you know?"

"Did he ever actually tell you he loved you?"

Cinder paused. She tried to think of a time when Ironwood had said those words to her, yet for the life of her, she couldn't think of one – the closest he'd ever come to that was saying he was proud of her after she'd completed a particularly difficult mission. At the time, she'd interpreted that as a declaration of his love to her… but now, she wasn't so sure.

After all, if it was intended to be a declaration of love, why hadn't he simply said that he loved her?

Cinder's brow furrowed. "Leave me," she snapped.

Jaune blinked. "What? But-"

"I said leave," Cinder hissed. "You are trying to play mind games with me again. It will not work."

Jaune raised his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright. Just calm down, will you?"

She watched Jaune as he left, not relaxing for a moment even as he gently closed the door behind him. Even when he was gone, her mind was still racing.

Because try as she might, she suddenly found herself unable to reconcile Ironwood's actual words with her interpretation of them.

And there's Chapter 2. Things are progressing along, slowly but steadily. This isn't going to be a super-long story, but that's no excuse to rush things along, I think. Better to take my time with them as much as I can, in my opinion.

Anyway, it's time to talk about guns, because fuck it, I feel like doing that. I mentioned that Cinder's rifle is called the MK28 EBR, which is obviously a play on the real-life Mk14 EBR, which itself is a modification of the famed M14 rifle – it's basically a standard M14 dropped into a completely new chassis system that somewhat modernizes it, at the cost of basically doubling the weight (the damn thing weighs just over 14 pounds unloaded and with no bipod or scope – she's a heavy bitch). Also, you can't completely disassemble a Mk14 EBR without completely taking apart the entire chassis system, so cleaning it is a pain in the ass, because removing the chassis involves taking an allen key to about a half-dozen different tiny screws all along the chassis, none of which are captive. The trade-off is that the gun becomes a lot more accurate in the chassis (it'll print a one-and-a-half inch group at 100 yards all day, every day with match-grade ammo IIRC; not bad considering a bone stock M14 is about a three-inch gun. Throw some 168gr SMKs in there and have fun ringing steel targets all day at 700 yards) and it also looks really fucking cool.

Also, if there's one good thing I can say about the standard M14, it's that it's actually shockingly easy to field strip. I have one myself – it's a Fulton Armory receiver, bolt, and barrel put together on a USGI parts kit and national match trigger group, with various other national match parts thrown into the mix, plus a unitized gas system – and I can personally attest that taking it apart is ridiculously easy, you just pull down on the trigger guard, remove the fire control group, then the receiver pops right out of the stock. Pull out your guide rod and spring, and you're ready to clean/lube the gun. If I had to pick a gun to field strip several hundred times in a day, the M14… is not my first choice; that would be the Beretta 92 series of pistols (because literally all you need to do for those is rotate a lever and then pull the slide off) but the M14 is a very close second.

Why am I telling you this? Hell if I know. I just like talking about guns, and the M14 is one of my favorites. Not my overall favorite – that would be my beloved Benelli M4 shotgun, which I should mention has been utterly flawless and has never jammed even a single time in over 2,000 shells – but it's up there. And in case you were wondering – yes, I did model Cinder's rifle off the Mk14 EBR purely because I thought it'd be cool. But come on, look up pictures of that thing and tell me it doesn't fit Atlas perfectly, it looks like a fucking modern-day laser gun or something. Not bad considering the base M14 is now old enough to be my grandfather. Side note, I find it really amusing that a Vietnam-era rifle is still seeing service in the military, albeit in a very limited role now that the SCAR-20, M110, and G28 are becoming more common. The Garand-style action is very based, and I'm glad its legacy has managed to hold on even to this point.

Anyway, guns aside, the story's progressing, albeit slowly for now. But it'll pick up in time – I've got like ten chapters total for the entire thing, so we'll get there before you know it. For now, though, I'm content to just stop and smell the roses.

See you all next time!