RWBY A Day in the Life of Crime
Chapter 19: Cinder-Ella
A/N: This chapter is the start of a battle arc that I'm gearing up for.
Cinder was pretty. Even as a little girl everyone would gush over her dark luscious locks, her pert lips, her perfectly sculpted brows, and her fair skin. Everyone everywhere envied her for her looks and that was equally true of Cinder's two step sisters. Although where other girls could only sigh from the side, they could do so more malignantly. For Cinder's life at home was horrid. Her mother had died young, and her father had raised her by himself. But seeing as his daughter needed a mother to help her grow up proper, he took to remarrying. And he married a monster and her spawn. Cinder's stepmother was horrid. Not so much in the beginning as Cinder's father was there to protect his daughter. But when he passed away when Cinder was at the tender age of six, they sunk their claws into her.
She essentially became their servant. She cleaned for them. Cooked for them. And did any and all inane task they demanded her to do, some which were impossible just so they could watch her fail for kicks. All because they were jealous of her beauty. They hoped that by working her hard she would lose her looks but if anything they only perfected. Her baby fat melted away from her cheeks from lack of full meals and her limbs grew long and lean from hours of scrubbing and running around the giant mansion to clean.
This only pissed the step family off even more. They took away all her nice things. No longer did she sleep on her bed of goose feathers but on a bed in the servant chambers. Her clothes were brown and drab. And they even cut off her hair until I was nothing but short and choppy, barely reaching her chin.
In those early days she was often scared and felt alone, crying for her father out of sorrow, and yelling at him, accusing him of leaving her, other times begging him to come back. She wished that someone could come rescue her, like the princesses in the books she hide from her step family were saved, by handsome princes on majestic horses. But when five years passed and no prince came to save her, Cinder decided it was time to save herself. Wishing and waiting would do her no good.
She was fed up with the horrid treatment. They were living on her father's riches. On her father's lands. And they dare treat her, her father's daughter the rightful heir, as garbage? Cinder was done with this, the awful haircut being the final straw. She was tired of being the pin cushion for their anger and resentment. She was tired of cleaning up after them. Of seeing them around. She burned on the inside with bitterness. It ate up at her. It inflamed her. Scorching her heart. Filling her lungs with hot air that spilled from her lips as venom. No more would she be a doormat.
Her anger grew until it manifested into her semblance. It gave her power. It fueled her. And soon her step family was at her mercy. In secret she bid her time, working on her powers and one day, when it was her step mother's birthday, she baked a most wondrous feast for her. Of course the old cow had found fault with every dish Cinder had labored tirelessly over on, embarrassing her in front of the table full of guests. Invited officials from politics and rich families sat there and dined while Cinder was shamed. Cinder swallowed down the insults dealt to her but she did so eagerly only because she knew that she would have her vengeance. She could taste it. Sweeter and more filling than any dish she could eat.
At the end of dinner, Cinder went to fetch the cake that she had made. It was huge and it towered over her eleven year old figure. But she took slow and careful steps so she could deliver it right in front of her step mother. The cake had candles sticking out of all the layers, arranged neatly. The candles were already lit and Cinder stepped off to the side to the wall as the guests began to sing the birthday song, rising to their feet, glasses of alcohol grasped in their hands. Cinder's two step sisters also rose by where they were sitting by their mother at the head of the table. Only she remained sitting down, her greedy eyes taking in the sight of the beauty of a cake in front of her.
The song was reaching an end now and Cinder smirked. It was time. As her step mother rose to lean over the cake and blow the candles down, Cinder clenched her fist. Immediately the flames on the candles roared upwards, bursting into a terrific conflagration. The woman jerked backwards with a pain filled scream. Her hands were flailing around her face trying to extinguish the flames but the flames wouldn't die. The guests were in a panic, looking around frantically what to do. The two step sisters were screeching in panic. One man had the idea to pour some water on the woman's face but the flames could not be doused. They only rose up higher, Cinder's wrist tendons sticking out with effort in maintain the flame. After a couple of more terrific seconds where the older woman's screams could not be quieted down, and as the guests cried out in panic and tried to fan her face, to put it out, hindered by the flailing woman's jerky movements which made her unable to be held in place and truly helped, it stopped.
Her stepmother finally slumped against a curtain, after her hands had curled on the fabric as if she could somehow wipe her face free of fire there. Her body stilled and she moved no more. And then the fire went out, revealing the charred remains of the woman's face.
The sense of relief that flooded Cinder's body was immense. It felt like all the offenses that had been dealt to her over the year's had just melted away, like her step mother's flesh had. But she was the only relieved one. Everyone else was horrified.
Cinder's two stepsister's threw themselves on their mother's body, crying heavily while one or two women in the room fainted in shock at the ruined flesh. Some men propped them up on the couches and took to fanning them to get them revived.
"Get back," one of the guests ordered to the two girls as he and another tried to pry them off. "We need to call the police."
"Servant girl," the other one snapped his fingers at Cinder. "Go get help."
This brought a sense of irritation to Cinder. She wasn't a servant! She was the rightful heir of this house! She could feel the fire in her burning and swirling again, demanding exit from her flesh. And so she would let it go.
Waiting just long enough so she could stride in the direction of the door, she made them think she was going to go get help when it fact she closed the double doors, turning the key and pocketing it.
"What are you doing?" asked one of the guests as Cinder turned her back to the door, a smile gracing her lips.
"It seems there is a deceased person in the room. It would be best to burn the body so as to prevent scavengers from praying upon it." Cinder's voice was calm even as her hands shook. She had thought that by killing her step mother it would have somehow magically reverted her back to her high status. But it did no such thing. The men and women here still gazed upon her as nothing but dirt under their shoes, as a servant to be ordered around. And Cinder's father had always called her his little princess. Now it was time to reclaim that title; to rebuild her own kingdom.
"What are you going on about?" asked a man with a beard in annoyance. "Stop acting foolishly and go get help."
"There will be help. I'll be helping the world by getting rid of all of you," Cinder said through gritted teeth. Flames licked up and down her arms, causing all of the guests eyes to open wide.
"She has a semblance!" one of them shouted out. "A fire one!"
"She was the one who made the candles do that to our mother!" Cried out one of Cinder's step sister's.
"She killed our mother!" was the tear choked cry of the other.
"She deserved to die!" Cinder wailed back. "You all do for looking at me as if I was worthless. For treating me like some sort of creature less worthy than a human!"
"We must apprehend her and bring her to the police!" a foolish but brave man voiced, rushing over to Cinder, hand clawing to grab her shoulder.
She sent a fire ball directly at him and he doubled over in pain as it hit his midriff, the stench of burning flesh and clothing filling the air. His cries made everyone else fall into a fresh panic. Some tried to pry the windows open, others tried to advance at her and hurt her but none succeeded and by the time the clock chimed one in the hallway, Cinder exited the room. The smell of fire and ash clung to her skin and her fingers were burned from using her powers for too long. She had never used them like this before and her skin was tender and sore. But that amount of pain was nothing to the relief she felt at having taken out her anger upon those people in the room. But the relief would be short lived, for the injustices that she had suffered stayed with her like a second skin and would not leave her no matter how many she killed or how she killed them. They left a burn on her life stronger than any flame could produce and for that she was bitter.
This bitterness she hid but clung onto for it was what fueled her to be a better villain. To make sure that no one ever again could be cruel to her, for she would be the cruelest and the evillest, ensuring the worst things to occur could only be wrought upon by her hand, a hand that would never hurt her and thus leaving her protected from the worst harm.
And so on that faithful day when the guests to a birthday party suddenly all went up in flames, Cinder called the police and lied to them, saying that she had put the flames out but was too late to do anything about it. She kept her semblance a secret, for she did not want to incriminate herself. But she shouldn't have worried too much, the police believed her and her lies when she said that her loyalty to her step family kept her fighting to put the fire out even though it was too late.
That was the same day that Cinder was cast out of the house and into an orphanage because no one could take care of her as she had no family and because she could no longer stay on the land as it wouldn't properly be her property until she reached the age of 18.
It was also the day that Cinder met Salem.