Hello there, everyone. I'm recovering from the aftereffects of a cold right now, so let's make this quick.
For those in the know, you know what this is, but for those who don't know, allow me to introduce to you the short stories of Ascendancy!
Essentially, what these short stories serve as are miniature stories within the world of Ascendancy, where I can place in scenes that wouldn't fit into a proper chapter, as well as extra scenes for extra backstory to characters, additional pieces of context and exposition into the world, and perspectives from characters that don't get as much time in the limelight in the main chapters. Basically, these short stories are there to help me fill in the gaps.
On top of that, these short stories help me to overcome any writer's block that I may suffer from and overcome the pressures of the larger chapters that are commonplace in this story.
A lot of these chapters will be taking place in between arcs but expect a few of these short stories to pop up in the middle of arcs as well, when I'm feeling down and in need of a writing boost as well as motivation to keep going with this story.
To everyone reading this, I encourage you to read these short stories. You may not think that these will be important to the story, but they are. Trust me, they are. They always are. Even the ones that seem needless can be integral to the plot of this story.
So yeah, enjoy this scene that I couldn't fit into any other chapter.
Main theme: Enemy by Imagine Dragons and J.I.D
Theme: Fairwell Life by Arn Andersson
The first time that Esper Fyre met the Daughter was when she was sixteen years old.
Before that, she had been known by many to be the odd one out of the bunch. The child that kept to herself and no one else. Anyone got too close to her, they got burnt. Literally. Her fire breath did that for her.
It wasn't something that she could control as a child, and that left her with not much at all. No one wanted to be around her - people didn't like what they couldn't understand, and the fact that she was a Faunus helped in that regard - and no one wanted to try and understand her. Her parents were amongst those people. They mistreated her. Thought her as a threat. She burnt them. They burnt her. It was a vicious cycle.
Anger boiled inside her, inside them. On and on and on.
In time, they left their home and town, leaving behind the jubilation of others at their departure. She felt nothing towards them.
(She later learnt that their hometown was overrun by Grimm later on. She felt a jubilation of her own at that.)
They moved from town to town, turning from travellers to scavengers as they scrounged for everything and anything that they could get their hands on as they hid and skulked and slunk in the shadows of the settlements that they came upon. By the time that they were found all three of them were clothed in rags and thin to the bone, their scales weak and fleshy and their breaths barely an ember.
But the family who found hers was kind. Generous. Much more than the people that had turned their heads away from them so long ago. Esper would often think fondly of them. In a world of vile men and bitter women, they stood out as some of the few people in the world that she could consider to be good.
But this brief kindness was not to last. One day, the House of the White Wolves and the Acolytes came into town. The Acolytes demanded tribute from the town, and the White Wolves turned their gazes away. The town refused, and the Acolytes slaughtered their leaders. They left their bodies in the middle of the street like rubbish, their blood pooling over the stone and wetting the mud.
Soon enough, Atlas came knocking. She couldn't remember where in the world this was (a lot had happened in her life since then, but it really didn't matter), but she would always remember what they did.
The Atlesians marched through the town in formation.
The townsfolk through rocks in protest.
The family that had helped hers tried to stop them.
The Atlesians spun themselves around.
Esper and her family left when they saw the kind people hanging by their necks in the middle of town.
Atlas, Acolytes, all of them... they were all the same. Silly little kingdoms and silly little factions waving their silly little flags and playing with their silly little toys, completely ignorant, willingly or not, to the lives that they destroyed in the process.
Esper hated them all.
Eventually, she and her family were picked up by the Exodus Troop, a religious sect of the Brotherhood of Two (or Church of the Brother Gods. Whatever) that believed that their destiny existed outside the walls of the cities and kingdoms and out in the wildlands of Remnant's frontier, to the Grimmlands and beyond. Sometime into their journeys, their group had made a pitstop in the city of Vale to gather more followers. She and her parents split off briefly split off from the group to explore the city but came across a pair of Hunters on their travels.
Carmine and Bertilak.
They asked her parents where they were going. They said that they were going to meet up with the rest of their Exodus Troop group. The two Hunters said that they'd help them get there.
The two locked them in cages and shipped them off to a cult of Dreamers in the Sleeping City.
She remembered everything that the cultists put them through. She remembered the beatings, the knives, the carvings and the cuts. She remembered the sinful men running their sinful hands down her scaled flesh, shucking it off her like she was a crab and splitting her open, parting her legs and-
She remembered everything. Every. Little. Thing.
She couldn't stop them. They mutilated her. They sliced her open, tore at the sack of fire in her belly, and shredded her vocal cords.
They cut out her tongue and killed her parents. They were going to kill her next, and Esper almost welcomed it. Death would be preferable to whatever may come after this.
At least, she thought so at first. She changed her mind soon after when she met her.
Her saviour.
The Daughter of the Ascendant Court.
The Daughter repaired her tongue. The Daughter heeded her wish to make those who had brutalised her suffer. The Daughter carried out her wish like it was gospel, delivering sweet death onto the mad raving cultists and allowing her the chance to toll her own vengeance out onto them.
She spent the next two years in the Daughter's Crimson Keep, conscripted into her services. Esper held no complaint about it, though.
She gave her life to the Daughter. She would give her life for the Daughter. The Daughter thought her devotion was needless, but Esper thought that it was the opposite. She thought that it was needed more than anything else.
But more than that, the Daughter, and the Ascendant Court, had given her the chance to make the bastards who had ruined her life, from Atlas and the Acolytes to everyone in between, pay for what they had done to her.
Revenge would be a sweet treat to have.
She spent a year resting and regaining her strength, healing her wounds and remoulding herself from the fragile thing that came before. When the Grimm Civil War came and went, she threw herself into the frontlines, tearing out the heart of Salem's chosen warrior who's name she had never bothered to learn and burning dozens of the old animal Grimm that tried to bring her down, teaching them the error of their ways.
On that day - that single day - they had nailed Salem, their Mother Eternal, to the cross and placed themselves as the newest and truest heads of the Grimm.
It was then that the Daughter asked her - not ordered, asked - to go above and beyond for them...
"We're putting him in Beacon, but we can't send him in alone. Not in his position. He needs someone inside Beacon's first years to ready themselves. Wait for the perfect opportunity to take out Ozpin and his cabal."
"So that's me."
"That's what he said."
"He's asking for me?"
"Yeah..."
"Why'd you seem... what's the word?"
"'Hesitant'? Everything happens for a reason, Esper. Everything. But they don't always happen for the right reason."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that sending you off to Beacon with him... might not be for the best reasons."
"You think?"
"I know."
"He seems alright to me. Well, by our standards at least."
"That's not exactly high standards."
"Tell that to Persephone, as well as Sara, Brawler, and Reza."
"Even so..."
"You think he's using us?"
"Maybe? I'm not sure, and I don't like that. I'd rather not make a habit of trusting the untrustworthy."
"You just think he's creepy. You said so yourself not too long ago."
"Maybe..."
"Look, Reza and Brawler are holding themselves off for the op in Atlas, Percy is busying herself with rebuilding our forces with you and the rest of the court, and you don't want Sara - or Canaan, or whatever - anywhere near the frontlines until she's ready. I'm the only one available. Isn't that why you brought me in?"
"Maybe I just like helping people in need."
"As a hobby?"
"Heh. Maybe."
"Yeah..."
"...But even so..."
"You know how this business goes, boss lady. It's dirty stuff. We do what we have to do for what we believe in. If this guy is giving me the chance to give it all for what I believe in, then if it makes the bastard who hurt me pay for what they've done, then I'm all for it."
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then it's a good death either way if I'm fighting for what I believe in."
"...I can't stop you, can I?"
"Hah! As much as I love you, boss lady, that's a big fat no."
"...Okay then."
She shipped out with their man on the inside the next day.
When the Initiation Massacre came and went, Esper knew that she wouldn't be harmed. The Ascendant Court's armies were under specific orders not to hurt her. She had to keep her cover though and disliked turning her flames on her own side.
She didn't dislike throwing that initiate who murdered another into the throngs of Grimm, though. She enjoyed it even. What was his name, Mercurial or something? Mercenary? Whatever.
For the next six months, Esper spent her days sulking away in Beacon Academy's halls, eyeing all the people around her and keeping out of the sight and minds of her supposed 'Teammates'. For six months she braved the many 'Dangers and perils' that the people of Beacon faced, from the Sleeping City to the Surge, to the Silver Grimm on the shores of Anima and into the chaos of the present.
She had even been there to watch Atlas fall to the ground on the CCT and had been smiling all the way through.
Then things began to speed up. Three months since the Surge and Jewel passed on, and their man on the inside pulled her aside.
"The Daughter... ordered this of me?"
"Without hesitation."
He was lying.
"Okay."
She didn't care.
She began to pool her fire deep inside her, building it up and up and up. Ozpin, Glynda, the Beacon Militia, they were all the same. Just another set of tyrants that needed to fall before their plague spread across the world. It was the same with Atlas, the same with the Imperium, the same with the Acolytes and the Choir, the same with every other group with dreams of control.
In the name of the Ascendant Court and the freedom that they would bring to Rebirth, they all needed to fall.
And fall they would.
She felt her fire burst out of her. Around her, the tyrant and his minions screamed in fear.
She closed her eyes.
She smiled.
She died.
Reviewer response time:
bosterflaming: Ozpin ain't doing so hot recently, let's just be honest.
MiltiaMasker: Wait and see, my friend. Wait and see...
smolhauz: Shit went from unreal to pretty fucking real in record time.
dominickwarcimaga666: Second verse, same as the first!
Sorry for being so late with this, I've had a lot on my plate recently, what with going for my intercalation year, trying to find a part-time job, loads of appointments with all sorts, graduating from my undergraduate year, as well as getting my jabs and coming down with a horrible cold that just zapped away all my energy.
Bottom line is, I've been really tired recently and I've barely had any time to write. It's been really hectic, and I feel like I haven't had any time to sit down.
So yeah, next week should be a lot calmer, so I'll hopefully have more time to write! I'll probably update the Idea Pool a bit before I give this a new chapter, but until then, stay safe, stay healthy, leave a review, follow and favourite, and I shall see you all next time!
Titanmaster 117 out!