School is boring as crap to write. Let's see how the villains are doing.
"Again."
Cinder bit down a groan, instead focusing once again. She felt a fire rise up inside her, focused it into her hands, and shot a fireball at the image of a Beowolf that Emerald created for her. The fireball shot through the Beowolf, breaking the illusion, and flew into the back wall of the room where it blew up singeing the wall.
"Again."
She had been at this for a while now, making and throwing fireballs at either nothing or illusory Grimm, and it was starting to wear on her both physically and mentally. She understood the reasons why she was training, but she will never understand why she had to train with her constantly looking over her.
"How long is this going to take?" Cinder asked glaring at Ruby, who was leaning against a wall with her arms crossed watching her as she trained.
"Until I say so or until you can't do it anymore, like always," Ruby answered and ran her left hand down her face, "Again."
Cinder clenched a fist and felt the heat of fire envelop it as she continued glaring at Ruby. She wanted so badly to throw a fireball at the General, but knew that would end badly so she threw it to the far end of the room followed by a second.
"I think she's angry," Ruby said with a small smirk, which only made Cinder angrier and led to her throwing fireball after fireball at the far wall while imagining the brick was Ruby. This continued for an a few seconds, which seemed like an agonizing eternity for Cinder, until she tried and failed to throw one. She looked down at her hand and growled quietly at how distant the fire inside her felt.
"And we're done," Ruby said pushing off the wall and sauntered over to Cinder. "Nineteen."
"What?" Cinder asked turning to look at Ruby as she grabbed Cinder's arm and ran her right hand along the dress, the odd texture of the Grimm arm raising goosebumps where it touched.
"You managed nineteen full powered fireballs before you burned out all the Dust." Ruby stopped at one of the golden lines on the dress and plucked out one of the small Fire Dust crystals that had been sewn into the embroidery. She held it up the now black crystal and crushed it between her index finger and thumb and shaking the literal dust away from her. "Queen will be very pleased to know that. We'll start again once you get your dress ready again."
"…Fine," Cinder said taking her arm back and started walking to the door where Emerald and Mercury were waiting. She was barely at the door when Mercury raised a hand without taking his eyes off the comic that was reading.
"Hey, I got a question about all this." Mercury said.
"What?" Cinder asked.
"Well, you're supposed to have these unstoppable powers or whatever right?" Mercury looked up from his comic and shrugged, "So why bother training with Dust?"
"Did you not pay attention the last time we explained it to you?" Ruby asked walking to Mercury and snatching the comic out of his hands. The gray haired assassin locked eyes with Ruby's red ones for a second before Emerald cleared her throat.
"You… um, you never did explain to Mercury," she said cautiously.
"Excuse me?" Ruby asked rounding on the green haired girl.
"You're thinking of Gemini."
"…Who?"
"You know, your last banquet?" Ruby blinked once and closed her eyes in thought, tapping the comic against one of her horns, before she opened them and snapped her fingers.
"Oh yeah, you're right. Man that was a good day." Ruby couldn't help but lick her lips before turning back to Mercury and handed his comic back to him. "Alright, I'll give you a quick explanation because you might actually need to know this." Mercury took the comic and watched as Ruby walked over to Cinder and ran a hand up one of her arms. "While it is true that Cinder has some amazing powers, right now its incomplete. You only have your own failure to blame for that."
"I would argue there wasn't much we could do against a .50 caliber machine gun and the crazy bitch behind it, but that's old news by now," Mercury said crossing his arms.
"Indeed. Still, what little she did get is enough to get things going." Ruby took her hand off of Cinder and motioned for her to lift her hand up. Cinder did just that, lifting her left hand up and creating a small flame in the palm of her hand. "But, as you can see, it's still not much. This is about all she can do with just her powers. So she needs a bit of a boost to be effective."
"Ah I get it," Mercury nodded and unfolded his arms, pointing at Cinder's dress. "She uses the Dust in her clothes to strengthen her powers so they can be used in combat, which also hides what they actually are. Dust doesn't last forever though, which is why we take a bit every time we steal some in Vale. Is that about right?"
"I like you," Ruby said with a predatory grin, "you actually seem smart."
"And the training?"
"It's like any skill or Semblance. They get better the more you use it." Ruby put a hand on Cinder's arm and moved behind her so she could wrap both of her arms around Cinder's neck. She then placed her head on Cinder's shoulder, her left cheek pressing into Cinder's right, and grinned widely at how the woman shivered at the unwanted closeness. "And this girl is getting better. She went from being able to only cast five fireballs to nineteen using the same amount of Dust in only a few months. You should be proud of yourself Cinder.
"And who knows," Ruby added stroking her left hand down Cinder's other cheek, watching the woman flinch slightly at the cold of her gauntlet, "maybe when she actually finishes the job we sent her out on, she won't even need Dust to be effective. Just imagine that Cinder, all that power at your fingertips. So close, but just as far away, and it drives you so mad at how you can almost… taste… it…" Ruby pulled her head away and slowly opened her mouth to reach her tongue out to Cinder's cheek.
"STOP BEING CREEPY!" Cinder finally shouted and jerked her head away from the General's.
"You only had to ask," Ruby said with faux sweetness and let Cinder go. She moved past Cinder and walked to the door, placing her right hand on it and stopping. "But, all of that will only happen if everything goes as planned." She turned and looked Mercury and then Emerald in the eye as she added, "Just don't screw up your jobs and we won't have any problems, understood?"
"Crystal," Mercury said while Emerald just nodded.
"Good, because if you do screw up, I'm sure Queen won't mind if my sisters and I plan another banquet." Ruby moved her hand down to the knob and opened the door licking her lips. "That reminds me, I'm feeling a bit peckish. I'll report to Queen about Cinder's progress and ask her if I can go out for some food. You three want anything?"
"I'll… see what we have here first," Mercury said carefully while Cinder and Emerald simply shook their heads.
"Your loss. Oh, and Cinder," Ruby barely turned enough so Cinder was in her peripheral, "If you can get that number up to at least twenty five, you might just be ready for the front lines. You wouldn't want to be dead weight, now would you?" Cinder would never be able to hide the glare and clenched fist at the jab, neither would it stop amusing Ruby at how easy it was to rile the woman up. That small laugh as the General left the trio alone, closing the door behind her as she left, was one of Cinder's most hated sounds, just below clown horns.
"Bitch," Mercury said shaking his head and leaning against the wall, "We won't have to deal with her for much longer are we?"
"Since she's in charge of my training," Cinder said taking a breath to steady her nerves, "we unfortunately have to. I'm not any happier about it than you are Mercury, but we have to deal with her until it's done."
"I've dealt with worse," Mercury tapped a foot against the ground, "I just wish she wasn't such a condescending bitch."
"True," Emerald said with a small nod before adding quickly, "but don't say anything like that around her or the other Generals, ok?"
"I'm not stupid. So who's Gemini?"
"Um…" Emerald faltered and looked away, holding her arms tightly.
"You weren't the first assassin we tried to recruit," Cinder said and started pacing, "And neither was Marcus. While we were looking for him, we needed someone to fill the gap. Gemini did just that."
"Ok," Mercury suppressed the small bit of bile that rose at his father's name and asked, "so what happened to him?"
"Her," Emerald corrected and shuddered a little, "and what happened is she couldn't keep her mouth shut. She was a little unhinged; kinda twitchy, back talked and questioned orders a lot, that kind of thing."
"She back talked the Generals one too many times," Cinder said shaking her head, "so they beat her within an inch of her life and made her the centerpiece of a 'banquet."
"Oh." Mercury tried to suppress the shivers as Emerald started talking agin.
"They… made us watch as they held it. Gemini was still alive when they started and kept screaming until she finally died. It took longer than it should have and I… I'm pretty sure two of them fought over her eyes. And-"
"That's alright, I get the point!" Mercury backed up a little and held his hands up, "Don't sass monsters, do what I'm told, and we get out of this alive."
"Good man," Cinder said and walked over to open the door. "let's get back to work. I'm sure there's plenty to do." She walked out of the room and into the hallway, followed by Emerald and Mercury.
"And honestly," Emerald whispered to Mercury, "keeping your head down might not save you anyway. They are Grimm and love looking for an excuse to hurt people." Her eyes flicked over to Cinder for a split second, though Mercury decided to pretend not to notice.
"Noted," was all he said and returned to his comic.
I remember reading somewhere, though I'm not sure if it's true, that Cinder was so into stealing Dust because she needed it to do all of her crazy stuff. That was before the Maiden's became a thing, but I still like the idea of her needing Dust to help along with her powers.
