Neo was seething.
When Cinder had suddenly attacked, you'd think she'd be happy to finally get a chance to kill her without going to all the trouble of laying a trap for her. However, the issue came from who she was attacking with.
Raven Branwen.
Killing a maiden would be hard enough, but two ? This wasn't a fight Neo was willing to take, even with her in there she didn't think they'd have any chance at winning it.
She was proved right as Cinder completely ran over Ruby's team, to the point where the two maidens just left them to go grab the relic. The fight was more balanced out once they were gone, and was completely in team RWBY's favor by the time the White Fang was stopped by Blake, but should they come back it'll change again.
Except... Yang was the one to come back with the Relic. Alone.
Emerald seemed to have interpreted that as Cinder dying, but to Neo, it didn't make sense. Even if the two maidens had fought each other, which Neo didn't really see a reason for them to, the sheer amount of stats along with the flexibility magic offered would make killing a maiden in a one versus one fight practically impossible.
That was why, while Neo was hoping Cinder was truly six feet under, she couldn't take her death for granted. Quite the opposite, as she asked Little Miss Malachite, the one person that would know everything that happens in Mistral, to search for her.
If she wasn't able to find her corpse, then Neo could only assume Cinder was still alive.
At first, Ruby hadn't quite understood why Neo hadn't intervened. Sure, they had gotten ambushed, but they had managed to hold on long enough that Neo should've been able to get a good hit on Cinder.
She got her answer when everything settled down, and Yang explained what had happened in the Vault.
Vernal, Raven's second, was dead, and both Cinder and Raven were gone. Ruby didn't need for it to be spelled out to her. Raven was most likely the Spring maiden, and Neo having fought Raven before, she must have known they were up against two maidens instead of one.
It was obvious, now that she had time to think about it. They had known the Spring maiden was part of Raven's tribe, so it made sense she would be here to fight against them before grabbing the relic for Salem. Not that knowing this ahead of time would have changed her actions, but at least now she wasn't surprised by Neo's actions, or lack thereof.
Still, now they had the relic, and Cinder was gone, hopefully for good. They still had to bring the relic to safety, but they should be able to do that in Atlas.
Once the train departed, Ruby noticed Neo's number was finally out of range, for the first time in several months. She breathed and relaxed. They were safe. Cinder was gone and so was Neo. No more nasty surprises, they had saved Haven and would be able to take time to prepare before Salem struck again.
Nothing was going to go wrong for a while.
As much as she was expecting it to happen, getting the report that Cinder was still alive and kicking was not something she had ever been looking forward to.
Yeah, congrats, you expected the worst and the worst did happen, go you !
It was awful. Absolutely awful, and a quick observation showed it was even worse.
Name : Cinder Fall
Age : 20
Level : 18 (89%)
Class : Huntress [You have trained to become a Huntress so you could escape your situation. While nobody will recognize you as one, you believe you have succeeded]
Path : Chosen one [You believe Destiny has a plan for you, and that every hardship you face will bring you closer to greatness. The entire world is a play, you are its main character, and everyone else is there to either serve you or bring you pain]
Title : Ambitious Pawn
HP : 27/27
AP : 114/114
STR : 25
CON : 27
DEX : 31
INT : 26
WIS : 24
CHA : 24
Semblance : Scorching Caress [You can heat up anything you touch to insanely high temperature, even melting the sturdiest of metals]
Status effects :
Child of Remnant [You are from Remnant and follow different rules than other worlds. Your HP is always equal to your constitution and any bonuses that would normally improve it are transferred to your aura]
Fall Maiden [You hold the power of the Fall Maiden within you, allowing you to use Dust attacks without Dust and giving you an additional 10 in every stat]
Grimm Presence [?]
Grimm Arm [Allows you to make attacks that ignore aura and absorb magic]
Defenses :
AC : 29
For : 29
Ref : 31
Will : 28
What kind of training did she go through to not only catch up to her but even get slightly ahead ? And what kind of overpowered thing was that grimm arm ? Even normal grimm had to damage aura like everything else.
Neo inwardly groaned at the stat difference, but went ahead with her plan regardless. She expected Cinder to still act the same as when she was in Vale. She was going to attack, show her she resents her for Roman's death, which should prompt her to find a way to use it to get her on her side.
Cinder currently had no allies, no one she could count on, and after the hardship of almost dying Neo was expecting her to believe the next thing to happen to her will allow her to get through her current hurdle, which was exactly what she was counting on.
She'd get on Cinder's side, bring her to Atlas, and have her fight Ruby. Given how badly hurt she was when Ruby had lightly used her silver eyes back during their fight at Haven, the red-hooded girl alone would provide all the distraction needed, especially if Cinder was expecting Neo to protect her from it.
Now all she needed was to act like she genuinely wanted to murder her, which shouldn't be hard.
No, what she was more worried about was if she'd be able to get herself to stop.
After Jinn answered her question, Ruby was at a loss.
She hadn't taken her answer as badly as the others. She had already made peace with the fact they were facing something far stronger and far more dangerous than they could ever be prepared to face. However, she was at a loss of what to do with her team... her friends, her family.
She wanted to help them, to show them that they could still fight, that they still needed to fight, to protect everyone, but she didn't know how.
Maria was helping, in a weird way. Ruby had no idea how the old woman they were with by chance could handle knowing the truth about the world and not break down like everyone else did, but maybe it was thanks to her pragmatism. It certainly helped in pushing them forward.
She was reminded of Neo's message, where she had said that everyone did what they wanted, and it was their choices that decided whether they were good or bad. She was thinking that maybe it could help bring her team back into the fight.
But she couldn't help but wonder, what if they wanted to stop ? What if they chose to abandon everyone because they thought there was no winning this war ?
If that was what they wanted, would denying them their wish make her just like Ozpin ? Someone lying to manipulate others into doing what she wanted ?
That was why she hesitated when Yang and Weiss told her to just drop the Relic and leave. That was why she let it fall.
And instantly regretted it.
Neo rolled her eyes at Cinder's explanation about the Relics and maidens.
She had brought her to the vault in an attempt to convince her, but honestly if she hadn't heard everything from Qrow and Ozpin's mouths back when she was stalking them, she would've laughed at her.
Really, only Cinder could be dumb enough to believe a common enemy was enough to get her to stop wanting to kill her. It was ridiculous how conceited the woman could be. If Neo had been any confident in getting rid of her on her own, she wouldn't need to go so far as to pretend to be her ally for it.
Seriously, what kind of idiot would even give such an horrible offer ? First she has to get what Cinder needs and then she can get what Cinder wants ? Even if she did want the second part that was an awful deal. All gains for Cinder but she had to make a compromise ? Absolutely stupid.
She had half a mind to tell Cinder to shove it and leave, but if she wanted to kill her, she couldn't let her regroup with Salem. Given how strong Ozpin was in his prime, there's no telling how monstrous Salem would be. No, if she wanted to kill Cinder, she needed to get her to fight Ruby alone.
So here she was, getting a bullhead, disguising it, and piloting it all the way to Atlas, just so she could bring her spoiled princess to her final ball with death.
Cinder was stupid, emotional, and an overall detriment to her plan. This was Salem's current thoughts on the woman.
While Cinder thought she could do whatever she wanted out of her sight, Salem actually knew her every movement thanks to the grimm planted in her. She had placed a bit of grimm within each of her minions, as it allowed to make sure the grimm wouldn't attack them and that she could see for herself what they did.
The only pawn she had not given this to was Tyrian, as the man already worshipped her very existence, and had never needed such a thing to avoid getting attacked by the grimm in the first place. Truly he was her best asset, a loyal pet, although his recent failure was a disappointment.
Cinder, on the other hand, had not only jeopardized her latest mission, but also got a little girl she had been wanting to recruit for a while. That would have gotten a bit of praise in most circumstances, but here Cinder had done so in order to kill Ruby, going clearly against her orders.
Hazel would be back soon, with the details of their failure, as she couldn't be bothered to watch everything. Most importantly though, he would come back with Cinder's old assistants. The assassin was interesting in that he seemed willing to work for the right price, but he wasn't the one she was the most interested into.
Emerald was the one she had her eyes on. The young woman seemed extremely loyal to Cinder, but she wondered how far that would go. If she could find exactly what she wanted, convince her that Cinder wasn't the one she should be loyal to, then she could make Emerald into something the young assassin could never hope to be.
If she could be groomed, she would be Cinder's replacement.
To be continued on September 11th
Name : Neo Politan
Age : 17
Level : 18 (10%)
Class : Illusionist [You add both your Intelligence and Dexterity modifiers to your AC and to Dexterity or Intelligence based attacks as long as you can still cast illusions]
Path : Me, myself and I [You live for yourself first and foremost, no matter what pain you might cause others]
Title : The Gamer
HP : 10/10
AP : 95/95
STR : 11
CON : 10
DEX : 19
INT : 22
WIS : 12
CHA : 16
Semblance : The Gamer
Status effects :
Gamer's body [Your body follows game-like mechanics. You can restore 1/4th of your total HP (rounded down) by resting 15 minutes. You can only die if your HP reach 0 and you fail your last breath]
Child of Remnant [You are from Remnant and follow different rules than other worlds. Your HP is always equal to your constitution and any bonuses that would normally improve it are transferred to your aura]
Words that shouldn't be said [Your last words almost caused you to lose your life. You cannot talk until you overcome your trauma]
Defenses :
AC : 27(31)
For : 20
Ref : 26
Will : 24