Chapter Nine: A Smile Much Worse Than Any Frown
Fourteen years ago
Viper, much younger and still possessing both eyes, sat in the dusty corner of a dark basement. Her hands were bound behind her, her legs chained to a ring on the floor. She shook then, too, but these were simply a response to the cold, as she had been stripped of any clothing outside of a thin shift. She had long since given up trying to break free; now she simply sat in silence, trying to keep back the nightmares of her memories. One moment she had been walking with her parents, chattering aimlessly, the next she was covered in blood, watching her parents fall, broken, to the ground. She had screamed, then, but no one came to rescue her. Instead, a sharp blow to the back of the head rendered her unconscious. When she had awoken, she was in this basement, tied down. For a long time, she tried to escape, to break free. Eventually, though, she had given up hope. She had cried then. Cried and cried, till there were no tears left. Cried for her parents, lying dead in the streets, crying for herself, locked away in darkness, and cried for the future, and the uncertainty in her heart. She knew not how much time had passed, but she felt that it had most likely been weeks. Now, as she sat in silence, she heard the door creak open. She thought little of the fact. After all, they had to come down to bring her what little food they gave her. But then she heard the voices, and realized that more than one person was coming down the stair.
"-yes, the product is just as I described, young, healthy, with a strong aura."
"And she is unspoiled?"
"Of course. We are professionals after all."
"Professionals, hmm. Then why did I see a report about a murdered couple and their missing child on the news?" The two came into view then. The first was a mousey, pinch-faced asshole in a wrinkled, moth-chewed suit. She knew this man to be one of her kidnappers. The other was unfamiliar to her. He dwarfed the other man, and was solidly built. He wore red leather pants and a matching jacket, lying open to expose an orange shirt. An orange baldric, slung from his left shoulder, loosely held the jacket together, while an ornate pauldron decorated his right arm. He had dark brown skin, and yellow eyes. His hair and beard were thick and wild, and a vibrant orange. The beard was thin on the left side, exposing a large burn mark on his cheek. There was a large streak of deep red running through his orange hair, matching his jacket and pants. His eyes were serious and stern, his mouth a hard line. He was the one who had been asking the questions. "I seem to remember ordering you to find me someone who would not be missed." The statement held an edge, and Viper knew that the other man was on thin ice.
He, on the other hand, seemed to think this was a good time to start making complaints. "Your orders were too specific. There was no way we could find some street rat that fit the bill."
The orange haired man smiled at his companion, and Viper could feel her skin crawl. "Oh, so you're saying it's my fault, then?"
The other man visibly paled. "That's...that's not what I meant."
"No, I think that's exactly what you meant." The larger man reached for the other, his massive hand closing around his throat. Black veins lanced out from the point of contact, and black pustules spread over his body. The man thrashed in his grip, attempting to scream, but all that came out was blood. A large part of her was all too happy to see that bastard suffer, but even so, it was rather sickening. In moments the struggling turned to twitching, then fell still. The orange haired man dropped the corpse, and she could see that the throat where he had gripped was already undergoing necrosis. The tall man stepped over the body, crouching in front of her. She looked up into his eyes, and what she saw there pulled her in and repulsed her all at once. He had stopped smiling, though, and that was somewhat comforting. "My name," he said, and she could feel his voice drawing her in, whispered undertones telling her to trust him, to follow him, to devote herself to his design, "is Roy Flagg. What's yours?"
"Viper." She didn't intend to answer him, the response slipped through her teeth without so much as a 'by your leave.' "Viper Westwood."
He chuckled, and she felt comfort wash over her at the sound. "An appropriate name, if those fangs of yours are anything to go by."
"I suppose so."
He reached out, snapping her shackles with a mere touch. He stood up, taking a step back, leaving the path to the stair clear. "If you want to leave, no one's going to stop you. You're free to choose your path.
Run, she could hear her mind screaming. Run and don't look back. Instead, her body turned to face him, head bowed. "I will stay."
He smiled again, and suddenly it didn't seem creepy at all, instead it filled her with warmth. "That's my girl." He turned and led her upstairs, where the other kidnappers were lying scattered about, unmoving.
"Are they...?"
"Just unconscious," he replied. "They will wake up in a few hours, none the worse for wear. Well, that's one possibility, anyway."
"And the other possibility?" Viper asked. Flagg withdrew a knife from his sleeve, offering it to Viper, hilt first. She picked option two.
Two years ago
"Shit," Rin whispered.
Oberon shrugged. "They killed your parents, you killed them, seems reasonable to me."
Viper nodded. She took another draught of her whiskey, which she had been steadily downing as she told her story. Oberon had been right, her shakes had stilled, and her other symptoms were fading. "I don't regret it at all. After that, I was with Flagg all the time. Anything he asked of me, I did without question. When he suggested using dust to augment my abilities, he didn't need to coerce me at all, I volunteered gladly. When he was happy I was happy, when he was angry, I was angry. He was everything to me."
Rin, mask having been removed a while ago, stared at her intensely. "It sounds like you loved him."
"Yeah, I suppose I did. But not the way you think. He was like a god to me. I was utterly devoted to him. I suspect, if he had ever asked it of me, I would have given myself to him as well, but that sort of thing never seemed to interest him." For some reason, Rin waggled her eyebrows in Oberon's direction. "Anyway, he taught me how to fight, how to kill. And kill I did. A whispered name, a picture, and they died." There was deep grief in her expression as she paused. "I've killed so many I cannot even count them anymore. Some were rivals, competitors. Those ones, those ones aren't so bad. But many, too many, were innocent of wrong. Worse than those, though, were the huntsmen and huntresses. I mean, I was actively acting against the interests of humans and faunus alike."
Rin put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it in comfort. "Take a breath. That's the past, and no matter how we wish it, the past is not something we can change."
Viper nodded. Rin's words held truth, and she did as instructed. Oberon stood by the window, contemplating the crowds in the street below. "So what changed?"
"One day, a few months ago, this strange Grimm showed up at our compound..."