The Scientist, Part Two

Syler was still smiling as he stepped forward, "Normally, I would say that you could tell me to get lost, if you felt my questions were insensitive," he stopped only fifteen feet away, "But, seeing as I plan on killing you, strapping your corpse to a table and removing your organs, one by one, to see if your power has had any negative side effects, I'll just skip that line." he flicked his wrist and the whip made an ominous crack, akin to thunder.

Cinder huffed, fire coming from her eyes.

"I know about you. You can't stop me," the fire manifested in her glass blades, making them glow, "You've never won a match since joining the curriculum, here."

His smile did not waver. He did not speak.

With a roar of annoyance, and the tiniest bit of fear, Cinder launched a ball of fire at the young man.

It engulfed the Scientist, the man not even attempting to dodge. He immediately screamed in pain. It was music to her ears.

It was less endearing when he stopped, and the flame parted to reveal him undamaged. One eyebrow was raised and his mouth was in a dour line. He appeared… disappointed?

"Really?" He drawled, "You gain a piece of magnificent power, and what do you do with it? A little fire?" He tisked, "I figured that out on day two. I hope you have more than that for me. I want to get as much out of this as possible before you die."

Cinder just glared, taking a stance with glass weapons.

Another thunderous crack and the weapons shattered in her grip. Were it not for her much improved Aura, the shards would have cut into her skin.

"Steel is a far superior substance, I think you'll find. Now, try again, but this time with feeling," he made a come hither gesture with his gun hand.

The woman roared as she dashed in summoning more weapons to her hands. She really wished she could have summoned the steel blades like her annoying opponent suggested, but it wasn't happening. The best she could do was stone.

Well, that, and freeze the smug bastard.

Which she attempted to do.

Attempted.

One hand out, to focus the energy of the Maiden, shot a blast of cold at him, going for his leg.

Even as that was happening, Cinder swung her sword at his head. The intent was to decapitate him while he was frozen.

The blade hit air and the freezing blast only affected the stone beyond where he had been. The only mark that he had even been there in the first place was her left arm, missing from the elbow down, and the crack of his chain whip. It was deafening.

Cinder screamed in rage and pain.

"How?! How are you doing this?! You are weak!"

Syler was not looking at her. He was looking at her severed arm. It writhed and danced, leaking a black ichor that quickly overtook it, rather than blood. It very quickly lost any similarity to a human arm and clearly appeared Grimm in origin.

"What," the elderly teenager began, his voice coming out breathy, "is that?"

Cinder laughed. Was this all it took to shake this man?

"That is a gift from my master!" She yellow eyes drank in his stupefied look when his orange eyes cut to her, "What? Did you think I acted alone? That a human, even one like me could control the Grimm? Naive!" The woman leapt at him, intending to use this moment of confusion to strike him down.

He dodged again. She whirled to face him, and almost gasped at the sight. Syler Greene was at the epicenter of a pillar of swirling energy. His hair had become a bonfire of living green flame, his glasses reflected the light impossibly, and his grin, malicious before, seemed so much deadlier now.

"Fascinating, Miss Fall, simply fascinating!" He took a step forward and she took a step back, "Hybridization of human and Grimm organic material! I'd never considered it, given the Grimm's habit of melting into a black mist when they are slain and the dangers of containing one alive. But you are proof that it can be done!" He took another step forward clicking back the hammer on his revolver, "Your master must be a creature of unique nature. I will ask, though I doubt I will receive a truthful answer, where is this mysterious master of yours?"

Cinder firmed up her resolve and glared at him, "You'll get nothing from me, but a painful death!"

"Disappointing but expected," the man shrugged, taking aim and cracking the whip one more, "Test number one: with the subject's body accepting hybridization with a Grimm, will their flesh evaporate like one?" He moved.

Cinder brought up her weapon in time to block. She dodged away, throwing several small knives.

Syler lashed them out of the air with his whip and moved forward at a casual pace.

The woman, seeing the battle for a losing one, ran for the edge of the tower. She had to escape and bring word of this enemy back to Salem. Then they would do something about her arm, and bring a war back to this Scientist.

Syler was before her in a rush of green fire, sending his whip out already.

Cinder skidded to a stop and hopped back. Not nearly as far as she meant to and she ended up falling when she landed. Probably because her right leg was now missing from halfway down her thigh.

She screamed again, in rage and pain and fear. The stump bled, and alongside her missing arm she came to one simple conclusion.

"...I am going to die…" she closed her eyes and a single tear fell. She took a deep breath and looked at the man that was her undoing.

He was watching her leg and shaking his head.

"Disappointing. I had hoped for more reaction from the Grimm material," he cut his eyes to her, the orange burning with a real and figurative light, "Was only your left arm so modified? Is that how you stole part of the maiden powers?"

Cinder gave a half hearted, but still throaty and seductive chuckle, "Typical. A man only wants me for my body." Suddenly she was being pressed into the marble flooring that had one been Ozpin's office, Syler's hard sole shoe pressing down on her chest so hard that she couldn't take full breaths.

"Of course I am interested in your body! What care would I have for your mind?" his revolver was then pointed at her head, right between her eyes. From her perspective, the barrel was massive, inescapable, like a black hole. She could see the rifling inside the barrel, could smell the cordite from the time earlier that night when it was fired.

"Your brain will hold no new information for me," Syler went on, "I have seen the scans and studied the tissues of other sociopaths with delusions of grandeur. There will be no mysteries there. But your organs," his eyes glinted and his grin widened, "Your heart, your liver, your lungs and kidneys. Your stomach and intestines. All of those? Those pieces of you should hold a great deal of data. It can not make up for the data you burned," here he cruelly ground a heel into her chest, "But it is a step towards it. I'll just have to get the rest directly from your master."

Cinder wheezed, but refused to scream again. She could feel herself slipping. She was cold, darkness was edging in. The power would pass on when she died. She thought, stubbornly, about her minion, Emerald Sustrai. Her name, her face. Green hair, mocha skin, red eyes. The power would remain in her Master's hands.

"I see the blood loss is taking its toll. You will die, soon," he leaned closer so she saw more of his eyes than she did the gun, "Would you like to know how I beat you? Would you like to know the two, simple words that lead to your failure?" She focused on him, fully, glaring. He cocked the hammer back.

"Glynda Goodwitch."

Cinder's eyes had just enough time to widen before he pulled the trigger and the large caliber bullet tore through her skull and brain. On the front there was just a small hole. The back was another matter entirely.

Syler watched her glow yellow for a moment before that light streaked off to the city.

He looked over the vista, with a brief grimace, and started making his way down the tower to go help where he could.

Days later, after he'd met with the new Fall Maiden and former professor, he took a tally of things.

Jaune Arc, his… he hesitated but then nodded to himself. Jaune Arc, his apprentice and Best Friend, lay in a coma from over using his abilities to slay a dragon and the fall he suffered after it. His partner had save him from receiving fatal damage, but it was a near miss. Pyrrha Nikos was almost inconsolable, refusing to leave his side for more time than it took to shower and eat. Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren were also keeping vigil, theirs only slightly more relaxed than Pyrrha's own.

Yang Xiao Long had lost an arm in the fight against a rogue lieutenant in the White Fang and was bedridden. Weiss Schnee had been taken by her father and a contingent of robotic guards. It almost looked like an abduction, and clearly the girl did not wish to go, but she saw no other alternative. She acquiesced, but her very stance screamed depression and loss. Blake Belladonna had also left, though no one knew where she had gone. It had come out that she was a faunus, and had ties to the White Fang. She may, if rumors were to be believed, have been in a romantic relationship with the young man that had taken Yang's arm. It was believed the girl was either running home, or joining up with the Fang, having been a spy the whole time. Time would tell.

Ruby Rose…

"Doctor Greene," the girl said, looking up at him with large, watery eyes, "I-I know we don't interact very much, but," she tapped her fingers together nervously, trying to think of how to phrase this, "I'm going after the people that did this. They hurt… Jaune, and Yang, and so many people. They have to be stopped before they do it again. Penny, Ren and Nora. They've all agreed to come with me. Would… would you, please? We could use your help."

Syler adjusted his glasses. He was not grinning, or jovial. He regarded her with the full respect she deserved. She was such a brave girl. She saw the things they were capable of bringing to bear, the amount of resources they had. Her own team had been fractured because of them.

And still, she wanted to fight.

"And how will you find these people? Two of them are dead, the last has disappeared as though made of smoke and the presence of the White Fang can be traced to every country on the planet," he told her realistically.

"Yeah," Ruby sighed, but then looked him in the eye, "I have a clue. Cinder and her team, they came from Haven Academy, in Mistral. Someone there must know something."

The man thought about this for a moment. It occurred to him that Miss Nikos was from Mistral. It would be too much, however, to ask her to Leave Jaune's side. He wanted someone he could trust at his side, anyway.

"You must give me a week," he said, somberly, "I have business that can not be put off, but after that time, I would be honored to join you."

Ruby smiled, weakly, "Thank you, Doctor."

"Please, call me Syler."

"Right," she smiled a little brighter, "Syler."

She left, then, to tell the others. Syler moved to the makeshift morgue, he had a vivisection to perform.

909891+-

Three days later, as he was walking to his temporary residence, late at night, a strange Grimm appeared in Syler's path. It looked like a balloon with dangling, clawed ties. He began reaching for his whip when it spoke. It had a woman's voice.

"Doctor Syler Greene. A pleasure," the thing bobbed, and its tentacles twitched, but it didn't come any closer.

"Well, this is fascinating," he said, instead pulling out his notebook and scribbling notes, "Using Grimm as a means of communication is astounding. Can I assume that the person speaking to me is the mysterious master of Cinder Fall?"

"You assume correct. You may refer to me as Salem, Queen of the Grimm."

"Magnificent."

"I have watched you, Doctor Greene. You thirst. Thirst for knowledge and understanding."

"True," he nodded, "But what do you seek?"

"The world. It belongs to me. My kind were here long before men and faunus crawled out of the dust. I would have it back. I will tell you now," there was power in the voice as it came through the balloon Grimm, "You may have won this battle, but I am winning the war. You mortals will end up killing each other long before you make a dent in my hordes. The best you can hope to do is delay the inevitable."

"Is that so?" he adjusted his glasses, his grin starting to stretch across his visage, "Then why are you speaking to me? Am I not one of those you want to kill?"

"Normally, yes. But as I said, you thirst for knowledge. In the kingdoms, some knowledge is forbidden. There are things I could tell you, truths you could never imagine, that will shake the foundations of your world. All you have to do to gain this knowledge, to earn your place among the chosen few I will allow to live," the tone became sultry, "is bow before me."

"You have been watching me," he nodded, "You know that the council, or one of their lackeys at most, visited me during my vivisection of your former agent. You know that they have forbidden me from doing that to any of the other enemies I might face. You know that I ranted for an hour about their idiocy and the pointlessness of civilian leadership in such a combat heavy world."

"I did. If you join me, you will face no such restrictions."

"Before I decide, there is something I'd like to know. Cinder, her Grimm Hybridization, it left some traces. The effects were… muted, but visible, if you know what to look for. There's a lot I want to ask, but I suppose I can limit myself to one query," he adjusted his glasses, then asked, "What was the purpose? Why do it at all? The damage to her body, from hosting Grimm matter was insignificant, but visible. After a time, it would kill her. You had to know this. So, again, why?"

The balloon Grimm floated there for a long moment, then Salem's voice carried through again, "To learn. To study and discover. The Maiden power is a strange resource, incredible. But obviously not unbeatable. I tasted some of it, once, long ago. I devised away to steal it. Now, I want to see if I can choose its next wielder. With your assistance, I'm certain that, among many other discoveries, could be made." In her lair, the Queen of Grimm was smirking to herself. How many? How many of these mortals had she led astray with just a few choice words? All they ever wanted was power. Power to defend, to kill, to be accepted. She would deliver, but they too would deliver. The cost would be their lives, the entirety of them. When this man who fancied himself a scholar, a Scientist, bowed to her she would use him, and his impressive knowledge and skills until the day he died.

"Your offer is tempting, I will admit," the man hummed, but his grin flashed again, and he pulled his chain whip from its holster, "but I bow to no one."

"What-"

"I know you already know my name, but some adherence to tradition will never go astray, so," he stepped forward, his eyes glowing and his hair aflame, "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Syler Greene-"

"Fool! Imbecile! You'll never find the answers you seek! You'll be chained down by the fools you serve!" she scrambled, shocked at this turnaround.

"-And I am a Scientist," he took another step forward.

"You will not find us! You will not find Me!My people will kill you before you even make it halfway here!"

"I'd like to ask you some invasive and insensitive questions about your anatomy," there was a thunderous crack, and Salem's view of the Scientist was split vertically and began to darken, the balloon Grimm rendered into two pieces, "See you soon."

+-909

AN: Officially, this is the end of the Chronicles of Syler. Unofficially, it very well could continue. As it stands, however, I have no plans for continuing. If someone would like to continue it, I have two simple rules that I can not enforce in any meaningful way.

Number one: Please credit me. Just a quick blurb, maybe, mentioning the Origin of Syler Greene coming back to me.

Number Two: If you find that you want to give Syler a romantic interest, please do not make it one of the children. Syler, mentally, is nearly fifty eight. He would see dating Glynda Goodwitch as cradle robbing, even if his body is young. He could not, would not, date one of the teen characters. Glynda, maybe. I know there are other adult female characters in the show, but the only two I can name off hand are Salem and Raven.

If you decide to continue the line of the Chronicles of Syler, I wish you the best of luck.