Chapter 14: The Pull of Evil is Strong

Cinder was a lot of things. A liar, a conspirator, infiltrator, informant, and even an attempted murderer.

She told many lies to get where she was. From lying to the Atlesian authorities as she ran away from that damned and wretched foster home, to conspiring against the powers that be. She'd lied about ever attending school. Her calm and collected composure lied to all. When she wanted to rage, riot and destroy every ounce of unfairness in front of her Cinder instead put up a facade, a veneer of stoicism.

She'd kept Emerald and Mercury at arm's length, always trying to appear so above them, far away from where they could never reach. Told herself it was for the best, so she wouldn't grow attached when they'd be inevitably ripped away from her. Or when she died first. Either was possible, given the world they lived in.

Cinder even went as far as blackmailing Roman, threatening to have him arrested should he not follow her plan. Her plan to have the city of Vale invaded by Grimm just as Beacon Huntsmen were stretched thin. One that would expose how frail their peace was, and would have Atlas move into position.

Just as they'd silently taken over Beacon, their androids would do so with Vale. That was when they'd be at their most vulnerable, which meant Cinder would be able to take the maiden's powers and the relic. If Huntsmen didn't lose at the initial confrontation, they'd be expected to at the next, when the White Fang attacked.

She could've lied again and pretended to never have cared about the others, or even about Team Coffee. It would've been easy. But the fact of the matter was that she cared. A past Cinder would've told herself it was because of their usefulness, but the truth was that the time they'd spent together was better than anything she'd ever felt in her life.

Around them she could put her guard down and still be there to see another day. There was no need to feel tense, to calculate their next move then try to stay one step ahead, they could just enjoy their company.

And Pyrrha, she'd captivated Cinder like no other. Courageous, not because she felt no fear but because she acted despite it. From the day they'd spoken at the cafeteria to when she held onto her hand despite the disapproving looks of disgust, she still acted like a real Huntress.

But that wasn't the entire truth. No, to someone like her it would've been convenient to leave it and ignore the logical conclusion. To stop the train of thought before it got its final station. Cinder knew better than that, before her very eyes laid the truth.

It could never have worked.

Looking back on it, it was so simple. Cinder would either have to remain ignorant of herself, her flaws and mistakes, and simply ignore all the good that would come with Pyrrha, with Team Juniper, if she wanted to follow Salem. The opposite was true as well, if she wanted to be with Pyrrha then every White Fang she tried to help and everything she'd ever worked for would all be for nothing.

The only answer to her problem? Give herself up.

Team Juniper could survive, Em and Merc could escape. Or maybe they'd join Beacon as well, if they'd have them. That'd be for the best. Roman could probably still run far, far away.

This… This she could live with, for however long that lasted. It made sense that aggressive, maladjusted schemers with a list of crimes as long as hers didn't get happy endings.

So she confessed to Glynda. About everything. The lies, her accomplices, the reasons behind the plan and the people behind it. Even the little she knew about Salem, in the hopes it'd help save Pyrrha. Save Team Juniper, really. The only thing she kept to herself was the grimm parasite inside of her, that was something she'd take to her grave.

And how did the combat instructor react? Faced with the fact that one of her students wasn't a student, but an infiltrator, an assassin there to put an end to her institution?

Glynda gently took her hands, and said, "I'm sorry."

Cinder could only sit there aghast, unable to understand the reality that unfolded in front of her. She was apologizing.

"I wish we could've had this talk before."

She let go of Cinder's hands, but otherwise didn't move, still looking at Cinder from the same level;

"But we'll talk about the past later. Right now there are people in danger, and we can do something about it. So that's what we're going to do."

"But I-"

"You've bought us time to prepare, which is more than we'd ever get if you hadn't talked to me." Glynda cut in, with the finality of a punctuation mark at the end of a telegraph.

"But I did this! You're supposed to arrest me, I'm the enemy here!"

"You're also one of my students," She said, as if it was the most obvious fact in the world, and explained every one fo her decisions, "You can still do the right thing, it's not over yet."

It was precisely a few moments later that Cinder sounded like a car coming to a screeching halt. She touched her neck, the choker that Salem had picked for her.

"You're wrong."

Glynda regretted much.

Sure, people called her a heroine now, but it was nearly impossible for someone with a Huntress career that lasted as long as hers not to regret something. Although she was well aware that careers as long as hers were the exception, not the rule.

She regretted not doing enough for her students back when she started teaching. So many died within the decade that she stopped ever reading the obituary, so as to not make mourning her main morning activity. It almost loosened her grasp of her sanity, who could even keep their mind in one piece when faced with the fact they were feeding people, young people into what seemed more and more like a never-ending meat grinder?

Bartholomew had told her it wasn't her fault, that they had died in combat and it was undeniably inevitable. She'd now come to terms with the fact she couldn't have saved any of them, regardless of how well she taught. The silver lining would come when most professors praised her.

But teaching? That was another thing she regretted.

She never liked her teachers back when she was a student. Glynda most definitely hated them for their apathy to anyone who wasn't a model student, and then for their disregard to her existence in general, especially after she lost her team.

That hate still burned strong, even if it was so long ago. It conjured a memory, the image of a young Glynda, pointlessly trying to piece her friends back together with her strengthened semblance. Were any teachers there to help her go through any of it? No, they worried more about squeezing the best grades out of her to make themselves look better. They never once cared about Team Gold, or even about their duty to Remnant, only how many papers she delivered within protocol, number of arrests, Grimm eradicated or warlords defeated.

She banished the memory back to the recesses of her skull where it belonged. Like metronomes the Huntsmen of old beat to the same rhythm, the antithesis of everything she ever wanted to be.

Glynda only ever really agreed to teach for two reasons.

One was that years ago Ozpin made her see why it was necessary; as the old Huntsmen died in the field they left a power vacuum she could take, a chance to create a better tomorrow. It was better to teach the youth how to use their powers than to simply follow the same failing system and hope for the best.

And the second was that she still wished to go back in time and teach herself. She'd made mistakes, no doubt, and those mistakes cost the lives of others. It cost the lives of her dear Team Gold.

If she really thought about it, she regretted all the things she couldn't do back then.

So when Cinder confessed to all her crimes in front of her, Glynda came to the realization she could still do something about her students right now. She couldn't in good conscience abandon her.

The combat instructor had done the detective work; putting information together in a short span of time was what kept her alive all those years. Glynda hated that Ozpin's assessment was correct, but what she despised even more was the fact that her own conclusion was true at the same time.

Cinder was, unfortunately, broken.

If you break something, it's broken forever. Someone, somewhere had found her and then proceeded to groom her into a killer who lacked the language to tell she was being abused. Akin to how a person who never learned the word 'red' would never be able to describe the color, she would never be able to tell how poorly she was being treated.

Worse still, every word she spoke was encased in a self loathing jacket, pointed at and fired towards none other than Cinder herself, it was a heartbreaking sight.

Unfortunately it meant there wasn't anything Glynda could do to fix it at the moment, not in her position, with as many distractions as they had. Perhaps Team Juniper would be able to change Cinder, if she understood things correctly they had already done so, but Glynda? She wasn't her mother, and as a professional the best Beacon allowed her to do was report it to the Headmaster.

That wasn't going to happen.

Thinking about how that would end nearly made the bile rise to her throat. Maybe, in another world she would be able to tell herself that it was fine, or even necessary for the greater good, just like she thought the same when they shoved Amber into a cold mechanical contraption and had Glynda scout for a suitable replacement.

It was unacceptable. Executing an abused runaway made her sick, figuratively and literally. As if the morality of it wasn't enough, hearing the confession put Cinder's behavior in a different light for sure, now all the pieces in Glynda's mind that never seemed to fit snapped themselves into a clear picture.

There was no reason, and no chance Cinder would know about maidens or relics. Period. She shouldn't know this, maidens and their existence were a closely-guarded secret, told only on a need-to-know basis. James only knew about them because Atlas had plans for an aura transferring machine. Glynda because she was expected to scout for maidens. Other than them and the maidens themselves, no one else had been told this piece of information.

Which meant it was told to her by whoever that Salem was, the one that ordered her.

It was important to keep that in mind, so as to not let tunnel vision set in. This person, whoever she was, had orchestrated an attack on Vale, and to what end? Why would she want to gather a relic, and take a maiden's power? That was the point that puzzled Glynda.

Those questions would have to be answered later, there was still some time before the ship hit the docks. Given how their plan involved explosives and Glynda's eardrums hadn't been blown out yet, that meant they could still do something.

Cinder protested Glynda's attempts to bring her to a better space, but before the girl could lose her composure once again, the combat instructor felt it would be best to interrupt her train of thought, keep her grounded on the quest and far, far away from the… more self-destructive thoughts.

"Trust me a little, will you?"

She used her semblance to bring what disposable objects she could find across the ship. Chairs, the odd lost keychain here and there, spare chains. The objects floated on Glynda's command, dutifully weaving past corridors and towards both of them. With a thought she sat them down in front of the now confused student. Or maybe she should be thinking about her as an ex-student. They'd have to see how things would unfold.

Cinder eyed her, confused, "What's this for?"

Glynda sat down on the chair next to Cinder, chin up, back straight, as always. Now more than ever it was time to be a good example, a pillar of strength. She waved a hand, mentally sorting the objects, from heaviest and toughest to lightest and most flexible.

"Let's call it raw material. I'm assuming you use your semblance to make your weapon, right? We could use some spares, throwing knives, arrows, javelins, anything that could be useful for distracting Grimm. You can still make this right, Cinder"

Cinder retained her confusion, as conflicted with herself as she was with the prospect of trusting Glynda. She looked up, resolute.

"How are we going to use them?"

Glynda smiled, "Well, That's going to take a while to explain."

Pyrrha was entirely in her element.

Fighting wasn't nice, or pleasurable, or even a virtuous thing on its own. No, fighting could be a gruesome, ugly endeavor if one didn't win at the end, even if that was absolutely all she had in mind.

Was it nice to be fighting for her life?

No. To have one's life hang at a thread while fighting an untiring horde of abominations, warlords, bandits or gangsters was a nightmare on the best of days.

Was it good to be at death's door should something knock her aura out?

No! Dying was always bad, no matter what one died for.

But none of it would stop her. In a situation like this Pyrrha would be fighting to keep as many people as she could safe, until she flatlined.

From the building she was at, she could see the explosion had blown open the center of the main square, and almost took some of the boulevard with it. Both were a good distance away, but at least it hit during a quiet time of the day, so the need for evacuation was minimal, there wouldn't be many roadblocks, and Pyrrha could tell people what to do without much panic setting in.

That was the good news. The bad news was that from her vantage point she could see that Grimm were involved.

She pointed at some of the civilians who ran away, then shouted, "Get inside!"

Telling specific people to do specific things was better. It'd be more likely that others would follow, and it helped clear her worries as she ran towards the main square. Ever since preschool most civilians were taught what to do in the case of a Grimm attack.

Get inside, and don't make a sound.

Funny enough, the absolute opposite was the basics of her training, get outside and fight. It made sense, a city like Vale had too many people to evacuate at a moment's notice, unlike a village, and it took time for Grimm to detect negativity since they mostly relied on common senses, like sight or hearing.

If a Grimm saw some Huntress in bright colors, making loud noises and brimming with the negativity of fighting? The chances they would go after a civilian were almost zero.

Pyrrha wouldn't have it any other way. It should, by any rational and even irrational admission, be a scary thing, but it wasn't. She didn't feel calm-on the contrary-she felt everything, from the blood pumping through her veins to the wind caressing her skin as she dashed through the streets. She could fall back into her training and act without thinking about it, recalling exactly how disaster relief should be executed.

An accident had flipped a car, trapping a family inside; with a moment and an aura boost to her strength, she was able to tear the car's door off, to help them off the steel trap, and point them to a safe building. Thankfully, they only had minor bruises and could still move fine.

Her first disaster event, she could finally make a difference.

Barely a minute had passed, but it felt like an eternity as she ran towards mark zero. Pyrrha expected to find an accident that had blown up a pipe, or something of the like, maybe leading into some Grimm caves.

When she dashed to the town square and found Team Ruby alongside two others fighting the word-wanted criminal Adam Taurus, all as Grimm poured out of the opening in the ground, Pyrrha had to take pause and reassess the situation.

Weiss and Ruby are busy trying to contain the Grimm.

Their powers were showy and distracting enough that it worked, somewhat. Some Grimm simply charged out of the hole in the ground, bloodlusted.

I don't know who the two fighting Adam are, but they're helping Blake and Yang, so I'll assume they're friends for now.

Could she help? Pyrrha felt her aura warning her to dodge. She lifted her shield and ducked, in time to parry a Beowolf who almost caught her unawares. As the beast was in midair she extended her Miló into a javelin, impaling and disintegrating the Grimm.

The Grimm. They're young and easy to cull, but there's too many of them. The Grimm it is then, let's move into high gear.

She shifted Miló again, this time into a rifle. A shot wasn't enough to kill, but it could anger and lure them closer to the hole, the chasm. It was dangerous, but better than risking a stray breaking off and possibly killing an innocent person somewhere else.

It didn't take long to see that other than herding Grimm and dodging for her life, there wasn't much she could do. Pyrrha launched her shield, using her semblance to make it bounce between Beowolves and Griffons then back to her hand. It wasn't good enough, even though it was the only maneuver she could think of to take out a good number of Grimm. Her arsenal unfortunately lacked big, explosive attacks.

But that was okay, she didn't need to have everything, she just needed to focus on the next Grimm, and then the one after that, even though the many Grimm surrounded her.

Don't screw up your cuts and just keep moving. Don't think about dodging, just let your instinct take you to where they won't strike.

Pyrrha put her focus entirely on slicing and dicing any Grimm that got into her reach, at that point losing count of how many she took out. She knew her team would arrive, eventually.

She trusted they'd come. In the time she could buy, Jaune would come up with a plan, he'd tell them exactly how to carve the path to victory, like the leader he was. Ren would be saving people in the background, unseen, and Nora would blast away hordes and hordes of Grimm.

Nora.

At the worst possible time Pyrrha felt a pang of guilt, enough to spoil fher focus and create an opening. One taken by an Ursa. The large bear-like beast grappled her torso from behind, immobilizing her hands and almost digging its claws into her, the only saving grace was that Pyrrha still had aura protecting her body.

She kicked the Beowolf that nearly clawed at her stomach, and tried to use her semblance to wrestle her weapons out of the bear hug, but the Ursa's head was vaporized after a loud bang.

Ruby Rose.

The young leader had sniped the Ursa's head clean off. Pyrrha looked to thank her, and from the top of an ice pillar Ruby waved back and smiled, then returned to her role supporting a somewhat weary Weiss. The heiress was still busy creating ice blockades, slowing down the Grimm on the other side of the chasm.

"Yang!" Blake shouted at her teammate.

"I got it!" Yang answered, dashing out of their fight and leaping behind Pyrrha. She landed on top of a Griffon, crushing the beast.

Ah, I see it

With those three words Blake had sent Yang there to help Pyrrha, and Yang, for her part, understood it perfectly. To say they had good teamwork was an understatement.

The blonde brawler radiated heat, so much that steam poured out of her mouth. Yang put her back agains't Pyrrha's and covered her perfectly-no matter where Pyrrha moved-always striking with perfect precision. Yang never even looked back to adjust her position.

One thing most amateur students didn't really get about Yang was that she wasn't just a brute, no, she was good enough to be called a master at unarmed fighting. The ferocity was calculated, she moved and created the maximum amount of force every time. Her simple jabs could kill, and on top of it she could dodge, block, parry and strike just as easily as she could pulverize a Beowolf.

Most people only ever noticed the destruction, so Yang was left with a poor reputation, but Pyrrha knew short of her own team, there wasn't anyone better to trust her back to. How many Grimm surrounded her, somewhere within a hundred? It seemed more manageable now.

Just as they'd done a job of herding most of the Grimm and hope clutched Pyrrha, a chill ran up her spine and into her brain.

"Deathstalker!" Weiss shouted.

The creature creeped out of the hole with uncanny speed, then snapped it's pincers at the nearest possible targets, which unfortunately were Pyrrha, Yang, and even a group of Ursa. The stinger hammered down and they were forced to each jump to a different direction, putting Pyrrha to the ground and closer to the edge of the hole.

Before she could get up and recover from the sheer impact, Pyrrha's aura flared a warning and a Beowolf dug its fangs into her shoulder. By the time she stabbed and killed the Grimm the damage was already done. She still had aura, but she couldn't keep taking hits like those.

Trying to assess the situation once more, Pyrrha saw Yang jump onto the Deathstalker's back, delivering haymakers that detonated and sent shockwaves as they struck.

She had to keep fighting, close to the chasm or not.

Another aura reflex, this time a Griffon tried scratching at her in a flyby. It grazed her face, but a swing of her sword killed it in retaliation.

A Boarbatusk charged at her, she dodged out of the way in the nick of time but it forced her into a melee with a Beowolf that nearly bit her arm off.

"Giant Nevermore!" Weiss warned again. Where was she? Pyrrha couldn't tell her position, and she was seeing double.

A shadow flew out of the chasm and over them. Before Pyrrha could see where it was flying to, another Beowolf took her attention, biting and trying to wrestle her shield out of her hand. She stabbed its eyes, and used her semblance to yank the shield free.

As soon as her shield was hers again, Yang stopped her onslaught atop the Deathstalker.

"Pyrrha get down!" she tried to warn, a little too late.

It was impossible not to feel the impact, and even her aura's protection leaving her, but the world spun around herand the shock alone made it nearly impossible to tell what had just happened.

Ah, Pyrrha realized between the ticks of a second. She was falling into the chasm below, and the Nevermore's feather stabbed clean into her abdomen.