Chapter 19
"You need to…" Cinder gritted her teeth to fight through the pain as the grimm growing up her neck and across her face devoured and delighted in her fear.
"Oh, dear Cinder." Salem gazed down upon her pawn. "You poor poor thing." She whispered gently, her hands raising to either side of Cinder's cheeks.
"Help~" Cinder decried as the monster squirmed in response to Salem's touch. It hurt, the grimm reacted with new vigor at being touched by its true owner. It pulsed its sorrow, its anger, its everything into Cinder. She could feel it, the grip the parasite had on her tightening, closing around her and threatening to take over. With every millimeter it grew closer to her brain, she felt its influence, its hold grow more and more absolute. If Salem would not help… she would lose.
"Oh child." Salem shook her head. "You've let it grow so far. I thought I told you to maintain this?"
"I- I thought I would have the full maiden's powers by now."
"Hmm, that would be enough to hold this at bay, yes. However, as I am sure we both know, you are half a maiden by the most generous of estimates."
"Help!" Cinder demanded, the terror that filled her fueling the monster's encroachment.
"Hmmm." Salem caressed her nails along Cinder's cheek and watched as the grimm crawled up to follow- as if striving to return home. "Child, I believe I was clear. There is not much I can do once you've actually used the beast. It is not my fault you were insufficient and inept; so idiotic you couldn't even manage to finish the job." Salem's nails dug into Cinder's cheek and began to break her skin. "This monster was never designed to be carried by an incomplete maiden."
"Master! Master, I'm so sorry. I- I failed you, but I've been trying to fix it!"
"You've been failing!" Salem snapped, her nails digging in deeper.
"Master, please stop, that hurts!"
"Does this beast devouring away at you not?"
Salem was right, it always hurt, but the ongoing pain of being gnawed away at in her every waking and sleeping moment was different from being harmed by her master and savior. "Please, please- it's~" Cinder screamed, the emotions that came along with being harmed by Salem of all people fueling the beast faster and further than anything else had.
"You hopeless, sniviling, failure."
"I'm trying to fix it!"
"You are playing with you personal boy toy!"
"I'm not! I! He's just harder to break than I thought!"
"Ah, so he is stronger than you ever were?"
"I! I! Salem, please, please let go, please help!"
"I have done nothing but loved you, you helpless fool, too stupid to even know when you are being helped. No wonder you failed me."
"I! I! I didn't mean to! And! And Ozpin is still dead!"
"Oh… if only you knew just how foolish you are, beloved child."
"I'll fix it! I will! I! Just-" Cinder screamed as Salem's nails dug into her face so far that they scraped against her skull.
"You are so lucky I have loved you; that I still love you, lost, failure of a child." Salem sighed, her every word shattering Cinder's heart. "You are so lucky because you are so truly-" The nails dug deeper. "hopeless." Salem mouthed and swiped her hand away.
In an instant, Cinder's world went numb. The grimm that had actively been feasting in her receded and she felt a vague warmth pouring down her face. Adrenaline pumped through her and her ears rung. It took her a good moment or two to realize her ears rung from her own screams. But why was she screaming? It didn't hurt anymore? Did it?
Cinder blinked and paused. Her vision- it looked different… what happened? Had she- her head darted down to look at her chest as the sensation of warm wetness splattering down on it spread. Blood? Blood, but from where? Cinder held up her hands and pulled them closer to her face. For some reason… as they approached, she couldn't see her left hand anymore. Cinder darted her head back up to ask Salem, but there was her answer.
The grimm queen stood, an eye tainted thoroughly with grimm squirming small tentacles in her hand. "I will not help you again." Salem warned and tossed the eye back at its owner. Cinder blinked her one surviving eye in horror as she caught the tainted thing in her hand. "Go! Find Watts before you bleed out- before you squander every ounce of love and care I've ever given you and become truly useless to me."
"Fascinating," Watts observed the slides with dissected remnants of Cinder's amputated eye.
"What's fascinating?" Cinder snapped, hands fidgeting with the eye patch he gave her.
"It's like the infection was drawn to the eye." Watts noted. "You say all she did was touch you?"
"And dig her nails into me- you saw the wound."
"Hmm… well, she's set you back quite a ways. Bought you a good month at least. Of course, you being you will use it up within a weekend, I'm sure."
"It's not my fault the captive is infuriating!"
"Oh, nothing is ever your fault Cinder. Of course not."
"Shut up!"
"My point exactly Cinder."
"Whatever! Is there anything else?"
"Nothing I haven't told you already. Keep going like this, and it won't matter. Your aura is wearing thin. The grimm will grow to have more control the closer it crawls up your arm to your brain. You continue to give into it, into all those pesky negative emotions you seem to love so much, and your aura will shatter, you'll have nothing left to protect you."
"I'm still half a maiden!"
"Yes, you are, and would you like to produce me a stable flame? One that doesn't flicker like your waning powers aren't sure where they should be."
"They are not waning!"
"Fine then, you are just that weak." Watts answered with a glare that had Cinder's arm burning from how the grimm tried to feast on her anger.
"You shut up before I kill you."
Watts's mustache curled. "Try it, I doubt you could kill be before you kill yourself first."
That day was horrible for Cinder, losing herself to the grimm infestation inside her and losing her eye. She understood why Salem did it that way. Salem could have taken her finger, just a pound of flesh, but no, she took Cinder's eye to prove a point, to teach a lesson. And to ensure Cinder knew this would not be repeated. There was to be no more interference from her master; no more Salem to save her. She loathed the disgusting boy for playing with herself, and more than that, she loathed that it lead to him discovering her secret. What she discovered was far too much, and if left unchecked, it could spell her complete doom.
The cage was a desperate, last hail mary effort. The offer of knowledge however was a stroke of genius. Especially with Joan under the impression that she could undo the grimm's advances, Cinder felt that day to be lightyears better than the last. She also felt proud in her improvisation of threatening Joan's family and the plug she had grabbed on a whim. The both of them seemed to do extremely well to break the woman. If she had any luck, it wouldn't be much longer now.
Cinder had no idea why, but the next time when she checked Joan's cage and checked for the plug, she felt a small tug of some sort at spotting that Joan had garnered some release. She dismissed it as anger that the plug had given Joan any pleasure at all, but any anger or anything else at that was quickly drowned out by how she delighted in embarrassing the woman and leaving her so broken. Plus, edging the woman seemed like quite an effective way to get her to come around. A carrot and a stick, all rolled up into one. It wasn't something she had planned, it just came to happen, but she did get some kick out of it. The power of getting to decimate the will of what had once been a boy; to fully break him and turn him into a true slut of a woman. She loved it. She didn't know why, and she certainly didn't admit it to herself, but she did love it.
After that, things felt different, and they were different. Cinder paid no attention to it, but that was the last day she thought of Joan as Jaune or a him, even in her head. It was someday in the middle of her week of edging Joan three times a day that she completely stopped calling the woman a he in her mind, and again a couple days later, there were no male words she ascribed to Joan at all. Of course she didn't notice it, or admit to how she grew to enjoy this torture so much more.
It was wonderful. A dramatically better form of torture. She used that to deny the feelings it did awaken in her. The reality that this did not involve all the violence that riled up the grimm, that the lack of blood, guts, gore, hate, anger and everything else tainted and negative saved her the added pain. That was what made denying her reactions to it all so easy to ignore. She was just delighted that she was no longer under threat of losing to the beast inside her. That could describe any amount of elation! Any dampened panties, any anything! Of course!
The innovation of calling Joan a good girl came, to Cinder out of what seemed like nowhere, but of course, it hadn't. That was what Salem once called her when she was in Salem's good graces. While she was still training and earning her place in the grimm castle; when Joan's room had been hers. The words flowed so easily from her lips, and for whatever reason, she did enjoy it. As was natural for the half maiden, she dismissed it away through a thousand different methods, but mainly she used the scapegoat of swaying Joan over to her side. Joan did seem to melt at the term, to just whimper and break. She would break soon. With all the edging, there certainly would be almost no time before Cinder's nightmare was over; before this thing spawned by the grimm glove and first accelerated by the silver eyed brat finally ended.
For whatever reason, Cinder felt it was time after a week. She could see Joan's resistance waning and she truly believed that all that was left was to tempt Joan with the pleasures of her body. Cinder almost looked forward to it. Of course not because of what she knew she would have to do! Of course not! That! That was a hurdle she would gracefully glide over and then collect her prize, her power, and her freedom.
Cinder truly expected it to be the day, for the time to have come. She could even see it, she could hear Joan shattering as she worked over the poor girl. So needy, so wracked and filled with desperation. It would be painfully easy to draw it out of her. Maybe that was why Cinder snapped when she first heard Joan's firm no. In reality, it was a miracle that she was able to withdraw herself at first, to calm back down before truly breaking. Of course it didn't last long, but the way the grimm tried to eat away at her when Joan denied her advance reminded Cinder that it was about the long game and not immediate gains. It was alright, she could wait it out.
At least, she believed that she could wait it out until that accusation came. Cinder nearly ripped Joan in half. How fucking idiot could that desperate whore be! Disgusting! To ever think that she enjoyed it! Gross! Cinder never wanted to touch Joan's disgusting body! The only reason she ever did it was because she absolutely had to. If it weren't for Joan being such a dumb slut, she would never have touched her! What moron lacked the innate ability to do what kept them alive! It was a fucking miracle the cunt had the brain cells to breathe! How dare she ever make such an accusation!
It was then, still in all her livid anger that Cinder stormed off and sent Mercury off to lather Joan up in the lotion. She earnestly intended it to be a punishment based upon how much she, as a girl, loathed the idea of Mercury seeing her naked and that Joan would hate it just as much.
The problem with that plan came just a moment later. When she realized how much she hated the idea of letting Mercury see what was hers. Joan was no one else's! Hers! Joan was hers alone! No one else had a right to see her and certainly not to touch her! Even less so like that!
The sheer ideation of Mercury getting to touch Joan, to touch her in all those intimate places. Cinder wanted to kill him, to strangle the life out of the legless wimp with her own hands and bit his damn head off! She could devour all his fear and sorrow and- Cinder stopped in the middle of her tracks and began to realize how painful the grimm feasting on her was. Fuck! She! She was losing to it again! Her arm twisted and jittered, angry and looking to attack, to kill, to feast, to take, and consume.
Cinder was accustomed to the pain, but losing herself to the grimm, missing the development of it was new. That development was what drove her back to the absolute last person she desired to ask for help.
"What is going on! Why didn't I notice it! It! It just started moving again! I! It's creeping all the way up to my face again!"
"Interesting, yes, it is an interesting development." Watts observed, checking over Cinder and spontaneously carving off a piece of her cheek where the grimm tendrils had spread.
"Oouch! What the hell! I should kill you! You bastard! You! You! You!" Cinder huffed and puffed and snarled, all of it inhuman.
"Shh, shh. Calm down Cinder. The grimm is growing." Watts warned.
"I! I! I didn't feel it advancing! Normally! Normally it feels like little rats or acid trying to eat away, gnaw at, or dissolve me! What is happening! What changed?!"
"How the hell should I know?"
"Because you are the damn doctor!"
"I am a human doctor with a subfocus in organic robotics. You, you dear girl, are barely human any longer."
Cinder snarled low and felt terror grow in her. It was growing, she was losing control. She couldn't fight it with her aura if she didn't know when to keep it up! She couldn't! No! There was no option to lose! She couldn't devolve into a beast! Into a… into a… a creature of all the emotions she felt all so constantly. "Help!" She demanded in desperation.
Watts snickered evilly. "Oh, how you have fallen from that high horse? Now begging for help."
Cinder fought to not kill him right there. It was a challenge, but the pain helped her hold back. "Just… help!"
"Fine… what were you thinking about when it happened; when you first noticed it, what was on your mind?"
"I- umm…" Cinder blushed. "I don't know! Why does it matter!"
"Just answer the question. Hell, if you need be vague, just tell me the emotions. That is what it feeds off of anyways; how it is interfacing with you now."
"I- fine! I was thinking about Joan and Mercury?"
"What about them?"
"I sent Mercury to go do something to Joan and… and…" A growl grew in Cinder's throat. "That bitch, he has no right to touch MY Joan!"
"Your Joan? Taking the slave thing a little literally, huh?"
"What! I! No! I just!"
"And what emotions did you have?"
"Anger? Rage? Murder? Is murder an emotion? Because if it was, I would have-"
"So jealousy." Watts answered for Cinder.
"What? Jealousy! Whoever said Jealous."
"Your face, your face said it- along with just about everything else about you, but mostly your face." Watts shrugged. "But, what were you jealous of?"
"Nothing! Nothing! There is nothing to be jealous of! I just sent Mercury in there to slater Joan up in lotion."
"Do I- do I even want to know?"
"She was bad, she is getting punished. I just know that having Mercury have to touch her will make her skin crawl." Cinder delighted in Joan's discomfort a moment, but quickly jealousy and a desire to murder anyone who touched what was hers crept back in. "That little shit, he has no place touching-"
"There we have it." Watts interrupted and tapped Cinder's cheek with his pen where the grimm grew further.
"What! What happened! I!" Cinder huffed and looked away grumpily.
"Hmm… how to… how to phrase it… have you been… particularly frustrated recently? Maybe even… flustered?"
"Huh? Yes- I'm infuriated! Frustrated does not begin to cover it! That dumb bimbo doesn't know what is best for her! She is just letting me push her around and break her when all she needs to do is give in and give me Pyrrha and I would do anything she wanted!"
"No, no, not frustrated or infuriated. Flustered." Watts reaffirmed with a lecturing tone that just grating tone.
"Ahh!" Cinder snarled her frustration. "What is the fucking difference! They are the same!"
"Mhmm, not quite." Watts hesitated.
"I'm not!" Cinder answered as if it were a demand.
"Are you on edge?"
Cinder just glared as a response.
"Maybe… denying some of your own needs?"
"What needs!? If I ignored sleeping, drinking, and eating I would not be alive right here, now would I? Do you have any more idiotic questions, or am I free to go?" Cinder worked herself up in such a frustrated anger that she simply missed as she skipped right past getting the help she needed.
"You are welcome to leave Cinder. You came here to me, looking for help if I recall properly." Watts turned away.
"I! I!" Cinder was caught, she needed the help, and she wished to die, but she prostrated herself. "Fine! What are you getting at? What else is there?"
"The one thing all animals and humans share that isn't sleep and consumption."
Cinder glared the doctor down and failed to piece it together.
"Procreation- though, for humans it is more a generic desire; lust." Watts frowned. "When was the last time you… engaged in coitus."
Cinder's eyes went wide. "What! I! Why do you need to know of my sex life!" Flames flickered with her anger.
"Sex life, masturbation, for this matter, it's all the same."
"Why in all of Remnant could that matter?!"
"Well, it could explain your grimm's agitation. Few things are simultaneously a good and bad emotion like sexual frustration. Its existence as something in between could serve as somewhat of a trojan horse, your grimm reaching out and feasting on the frustration that accompanies it without your body recognizing it as bad? It is just a theory, but-"
"So what? You want me to masturbate?"
"Well, there are added benefits. It releases stress. Some studies show that women are completely incapable of being stressed during climax. It would give your body something good to hold onto; starve the grimm of what it feeds on. Of course, for many there is shame to follow, and the grimm would eat that up. But…"
"Is there anything else I can do?" Cinder sighed and looked away dejected.
"Well, no, not really."
"Anything!"
"I suggest you either let go of whatever has you so pent up, or you begin indulging that desire. I suppose either should help."
"Fine." Cinder settled and made her hasty retreat from the deeply uncomfortable room.
End of Chapter 19
