Alright, another chapter.

Without further ado...

Chapter 24

Cinder understood, objectively, that she had been neglecting her duties quite a bit in the last few weeks. She understood, objectively, that there were quite a few things she needed to do, more than a few people to contact, information to keep herself abreast of.

She understood all of this.

It did not mean she had to like it.

"…Repeat what you've just said?" The voice on the other end of the line practically growled into Cinder's ear, and she rolled her eyes as she did her best to keep her voice level as she responded.

"I said we have pulled out of Mt. Glenn, effective immediately." Cinder said. "I do not think I have to tell you that the White Fang were being slaughtered in droves attempting to clear the tunnels, nor that more would have likely died in the ensuing Breach. Was that somehow unclear, Adam?"

The man huffed audibly through his own scroll, before evidently holding it away from his face for a moment or two as he went completely silent. He came back after that having somewhat calmed himself, though his anger, his oh so righteous fury had been more than catalogued.

"I had assumed you would be pleased that no more of your soldiers will die for this." Cinder spoke, keeping her voice even.

"And have the deaths already on your hands be for nothing?" Adam countered. "No. I am not pleased by this. At least when the Breach occurred, those who'd lost their lives could look on at us finishing what they started. Now it was all for nothing."

Cinder could understand the man's issue with her plan, because despite the way that Cinder rather hated Adam Taurus, the two of them were rather similar in quite a few ways. The both of them burned far too hot, though Cinder was able to keep a level head far more often than he was. The both of them had been scorned, scarred, marked in some way. The both of them sought revenge, and labeled it something else. In all the ways that mattered, they were rather alike.

The only major difference Cinder could think of was that she did not think she would fanatically stalk Glynda Goodwitch's heels if the woman ended up rejecting her after all.

And to be fair, that felt like quite the difference.

"Well, you will have to live with it, Adam." She answered the man's words. "My decision has already been made. The White Fang are packing up and evacuating Mt. Glenn as we speak."

Adam Taurus huffed through the line once more, but didn't respond to her any more than that. The man was hotheaded and reckless, almost suicidal in some ways, but it was clear that he respected those stronger than him. Those that could, and would, kill him.

Cinder would not hesitate. In her opinion, the world did not at all need Adam Taurus.

Then again, the feeling was likely mutual.

"And what of the upcoming rally?" Adam diverted, evidently uncontented, but deciding to push on. "You said that it will be headed by that bigoted bastard Torchwick of all people? Do you not think my own can handle a recruitment drive?"

"I do not question your ability, Adam." She said, and it was the truth, albeit slanted. "I simply do not trust anyone not under my direct command to handle the piece that we have acquired from Atlas."

"It was not your people who procured it." Adam spat with barely disguised fury. "That it will be Torchwick to unveil it is a farce of the highest order."

"If you wished to do so in person," Cinder found herself feeling rather petty as she narrowed her eyes and spoke further. "You are free to come to Vale. I'm sure Roman would not complain about having the night off."

It was an empty offer, and the both of them knew it. Adam was doing rather important work still in Menagerie, preparing things there for the major forces of the White Fang – or, as she understood it, the major war hawks of the White Fang – to be able to enter Vale without issue come the time of the Vytal Festival. Such was far too important for Adam to not be present for.

He would likely arrive in Vale in another few months, around when the Breach had been to happen, but until then, he would not be setting foot in Vale.

"…You have my opinion." Adam said.

"It is noted." Cinder replied, and that was that.

Adam hung up without any further fanfare, and Cinder found herself sliding down the wall behind her, letting out a rather tired sigh as she slumped to the dirty ground beneath her. Once more, she found herself out in Vale, in the industrial district, near, but not entirely within, the territory that the White Fang's Vale branch operated out of.

Still, this place was abandoned. No one would have reason to come.

And no one did, except her, of course.

That had been the last call she'd needed to make that evening. First to Roman, then to Watts – and how she'd have rather eaten gravel than talk to that man. She'd talked to the leader of Vale's White Fang, one of Adam's lieutenants, next. And then, finally, she'd spoken to Adam.

And now… now she was finished.

Which was… good. It was.

Her stomach still felt cold. Like there were little snakes made of ice slithering through her. The thought made her grimace, even as she stood, and began trekking back towards civilization.

Only a few hours ago, Glynda Goodwitch had said the two of them could attend Beacon's dance together. For anyone else, would that not have been victory? Would that not have been a win most supple, most sweet?

Then why did she feel defeated? Why did she feel so…

She ran her semblance-coated hand across an abandoned dumpster, and watched as the metal began to drip to the ground beneath her. It was an odd sort of feeling that took her, watching things burn and melt and be destroyed. And that was what her semblance was for. That was its single purpose.

To ruin. To destroy.

And yet… she had…

She had cradled that glass, had kept it, even when it was so clearly beyond salvation. She'd drank from it, continued to use it just as she had every other in her cupboard, and for what? What did… why did…

Cinder could not understand it.

…Fire destroyed. That was her understanding. That was… all she'd ever allowed herself to accept.

…But fire brought life, too, did it not? In the snows of Mantle, fire allowed civilization to grow. In Vacuo, fire allowed them to survive the frigid desert nights. In Vale, it had been flame, lit atop a towering pillar, that had given Beacon its name.

…Not to her, though.

Her semblance's warmth could not be felt by Cinder herself. No. Only through affecting another with it could she feel its heat. Only by destroying, by breaking, by setting ablaze.

To let herself believe anything else… to let herself believe that she too could be like fire, that she too could do more than destroy, break, set ablaze…

It would doom her. She knew that above all else.

And yet… like a moth, she found herself flittering towards that accursed warmth, regardless.

…Damn her…

It was only then that she remembered the dumpster, and she turned to see her right hand almost entirely engulfed by pooling, dripping metal. It did not burn her, but it cast upon her a faint, almost pleasant warmth, one that counteracted the general chill of Vale's winter.

Cinder wrenched her hand free from the blazing metal, and sent little bits and pieces searing into the concrete below her.

She stared at her handiwork for a moment, not entirely sure why.

The container had been all but ruined. It was missing half of its front face, which had dripped and melted onto the ground immediately below it, and the rest was already beginning to meld with other pieces and parts.

It was irrecoverable. That was a fact in Cinder's mind…

It was an abandoned, forgotten thing. No one would come and see it. No one would question its condition. No one would even care. It was bound to be destroyed someday anyways. It would end up recycled, perhaps, burned back into its base components and cast anew.

…

Cinder felt her semblance activate once more as she bent down, and began to reheat the cooling metal that coated the ground, that bunched up along the bottom.

And she began to work on shaping the thing back.

It was a terribly long process. It easily stole forty-five minutes from her evening trying to get the mangled thing back into some reasonable shape. By the end, she had only managed to get the general outline recognizable, but the metal itself was damaged beyond repair.

She didn't have a thing to show for her efforts.

Cinder bit down on her bottom lip as she stared at the now rapidly cooling metal, steam rising from its surface and rising into the air.

What an idiotic thing to do. What a foolish, infantile…

…

Cinder forced herself to turn away. She forced herself to forget this had even happened. To scrub all thoughts of it from her mind.

She knew it would not work. She tried regardless.

As seemed customary of late.

/

If Emerald were being honest, she was actually sort of impressed by just how opulent Penny apparently was.

Of course, she'd paid out of pocket for Emerald's medical procedure – and though Beacon's insurance had covered most of it, it'd still been a few hundred lien, not at all a pittance – so perhaps Emerald shouldn't have been surprised, but…

When the two of them stepped into the 'Valean Grand Hotel', a complex that Emerald had seen adverts for while browsing her scroll, she had to reassess just who it was walked alongside her.

"Uhm… Penny…"

"Yes, friend?"

Emerald wasn't entirely sure when the two of them had become friends, but once more, she wasn't enough of a dick to say that to the girl's face.

"Are you… can you afford this?"

If she'd beaten around the bush with Penny, she didn't think she'd get an answer. So, she just came out and said it.

"I can!" Penny answered, equally bluntly.

"Alright." Emerald wasn't going to argue with getting what was, likely, quite the premium experience.

The woman at the front desk gave them their cards and pointed them towards the elevators. This particular Vale Grand Hotel – and there were a few – was not the largest in the city, but it was big. It clocked in at eight stories, making it one of the taller buildings in Vale, a city that largely kept itself close to the ground.

Their room was on the third floor, and so the two of them took the elevator up. Along the way, Emerald found herself turning and observing Penny once more, and she clocked yet another oddity about the girl beside her.

She did not move.

Well, she moved, of course. She had to move to and fro to actually get anywhere. But…

She did not fidget. She did not play with her hands. She did nothing. At all.

She just stood. Completely still.

Emerald may've mistaken her for a particularly detailed wax figurine if the girl didn't turn to her with a curious expression in the next moment, her head tilting to the side.

"Is something the matter, friend?"

Emerald looked away. "No. Nothing. Just… you seem awfully… chill, I guess?"

"I assure you; my natural resting body temperature is the same as any other human beings!"

Emerald's eyes narrowed in confusion, even as the girl beside her hiccupped yet again. "How did you get that out of – oh. Chilled. Right. Of course. I meant… relaxed. Calm?"

"Ah, I see." Penny paused for a moment. "I do not understand the nature of the question. You say that I am calm? What makes you think that?"

"You're just very–"

The elevator doors opened in the next moment, and Emerald was almost glad to have been bailed out of that conversation. She decided to take point, and allow Penny to follow along behind her.

Their room was at the end of the hall, and Penny somehow got the door lock on her first go with an almost mechanical precision, sliding the card in and out with near perfect timing. Emerald herself always took at least two or three times – even though she'd only ever been able to scrounge up enough for a cheapy hotel four or five times in her life on the streets, using lien she'd pickpocketed with her Semblance to last through the coldest nights of winter.

The room itself was the nicest Emerald had ever stayed in by a factor of five. It was well furnished, had amenities that Emerald had never even seen before, including a weird jet of water that shot out of the toilet – Penny informed her it was called a bidet? – that she wasn't quite sure the purpose of.

Still, the shower had just the right amount of pressure as she leant against the side wall, and the bathroom itself had heated floors – which was perhaps the most vanity Emerald herself had ever seen.

Two queen sized beds awaited the two of them in the main room, and each had their own personal light and scroll charging station. Emerald found herself rather entranced with how soft the sheets and how fluffy the pillows were.

And it was all almost enough for Emerald to remember that the girl she was now sharing a hotel with had dislocated her arm like three hours ago.

Unfortunately for Penny, it was made a tad bit harder to forget when her arm was wrapped up in a sling.

"So, uh…" Emerald turned back towards Penny, who was making a face as she looked down at the bed, almost as if she didn't quite know what to do with it. "What are you doing?"

"Normal things!" Penny exclaimed, her posture immediately becoming painfully rigid. "Completely average, normal things."

Emerald was of course not fooled. Penny was hiding something, that much was obvious. From the little bits that Emerald could gleam about the girl, she knew that she had money. She knew that she wanted to, for some reason, experience a sleepover. She knew that the girl didn't seem to know what do in certain social situations. And she knew that she was, evidently, supposed to be somewhere else.

And then something in Emerald's head clicked into place.

"Wait a minute…" She found herself muttering, before she looked up at the girl staring back down at her. "Are you like some rich girl trying to escape her overbearing parents?"

Penny did not react. Or, well, she did, but she did so by quite literally doing nothing at all.

Not a twitch.

And then, finally, all her muscles seemed to untense at once, and she smiled.

"…Yes! That is exactly it! You have a rather clairvoyant mind, friend!"

"Yeah, well–"

Penny hiccupped.

…Emerald had begun to believe that meant she was lying.

"…So, you're not actually going to tell me what you're doing here, who you are, or what you're running from, are you?"

Penny seemed caught off guard. "I have no idea what you're referring to."

"Penny…" Emerald was unused to having to be so forward, and hell, she was unused to giving a shit anyways, but she'd been a kid alone on the street for a while. She knew what it was like to have enemies, to have people on your back. She knew what it was like when someone unsavory wanted something from you that you weren't willing to give.

She'd never allow someone else to go through that if she could help it.

"Are you in trouble? Do you need protection?"

Penny looked surprised for a moment, before she shook her head. "No. I am…" This was perhaps the first time Penny had paused in the middle of speaking. Emerald could practically hear the gears whirring in her head. "I am forbidden from telling you exactly what it is that is going on, but… I would say your first guess was closer to the truth than your second."

Emerald nodded, and inside, she did feel the slightest bit relieved. At the very least, Penny wasn't a victim.

"Then… you're kind of a rich girl running away from her overbearing parents?"

"It is as much as I can tell you."

Emerald nodded. She understood what it was like to have secrets you couldn't reveal, being a future terrorist herself. Hers, she gathered, were a bit more secret than most, but still, it was more the principle of the matter than anything.

"I getcha'." Emerald said, realizing she had picked up Coco's turn of phrase without meaning to. "…Anyways, I'm going to sleep, frankly, I'm exhausted. It's been quite the day."

Penny nodded her way. "I understand. I will also sleep."

The way she said that almost made it seem like 'sleep' was a foreign concept to her. Like it was something questionable, something unknown.

…Eh, Emerald was too tired to give a shit.

So, she laid her head down on the overly soft pillow, wrapped the silken blankets around herself, and closed her eyes.

She was asleep within a minute.

/

It had been an awful long while since Emerald's habit of being a light sleeper came into play.

After all, in Beacon, she had been in a sound-proofed dorm room, surrounded by other hardened criminals, all of whom understood the importance of sleeping through the night. It was rare, even, for any of them to have to take a late-night bathroom break, and so Emerald often slept through until the morning without issue these days. But in that moment, she found herself awake, staring up at the ceiling above her without much idea as to why.

It hadn't been any real sound in particular that woke her. Just the noise of an airship passing overhead, combined with a car door slamming closed. They were, after all, in the middle of Vale, and while these rooms were good, they were probably not quite up to the standards of a Beacon dorm room, which was outfitted with noise-insulation and reinforced walls.

Hunters in training were, after all, quite the rowdy bunch.

So, Emerald sat up, letting out a yawn as she stretched her arms. It was perhaps two or three in the morning, maybe a bit later. It also didn't matter. She'd give herself a few minutes before she laid back down. She was, after all, still exhausted, but her instincts from out on the streets had yet to fully dissipate, and when one got woken up by a noise out there…

Well, they didn't lower their guard immediately.

And so it was that something caught Emerald's attention out of the corner of her eye. She turned and saw Penny. Which, on its own, wouldn't have been weird.

Except she was laid still, staring up at the ceiling, completely awake.

Emerald just about screamed. Luckily, she managed to avoid doing so, as it probably would've woken the whole floor.

"Penny!?" She whispered hoarsely.

Penny's head turned towards her, and the girl's eyes widened – or her pupils did? It was a hard thing to describe, honestly.

"Ah, friend. I see you're awake."

"Yeah, a noise woke me up is all." Emerald sighed, shaking her head. "But… what about you? Have you not been able to sleep?"

"Ah." Penny seemed oddly caught. "I am… ah… sleeping! With my eyes open."

"…Penny, you reacted the moment I said something. I highly doubt you were asleep."

Penny made a small noise of distress, before, all of a sudden, her entire body swiveled in place, and she suddenly faced the door at the front of the room.

"Oh dear. I do believe our sleepover is about to end, friend Emerald."

"What do you m–"

And then the door exploded.

Emerald felt like that should've been an exaggeration. Because, really, they were on the third floor of an eight-story hotel in the middle of Vale. Their room was in the middle of the complex, with two rooms bordering it, and a balcony that overlooked the city. It seemed like a fairly unlikely place for a door to go about exploding.

And yet, no, explode it did.

And about ten soldiers with assault rifles flooded into the room, and pointed them right at her as they shouted all at once for her to get down on the ground.

Emerald, having never had ten assault rifles leveled at her face before, complied. She felt this, too, was fair.

And then, as if this entire thing were not completely ridiculous already, in stepped a figure that Emerald really hadn't expected to see this evening.

General James Ironwood.

…What the fuck?

Emerald felt it was fair, also, that she thought that.

"W-What the–"

"I will be asking the questions here, girl." Ironwood stepped past her, right up to Penny's bed, and, when he looked down at the girl, it was with a worried sigh. "Are you alright, Penny?"

"I am sensational, General, sir. But may I ask why you have stormed into our hotel room, and likely wracked up thousands of dollars in damages?"

"Penny, you didn't come back to your room at Beacon tonight. Nor did you contact Ms. Soleil, your partner, to let her know why, or where you'd be. You can understand that that would cause both confusion and worry, yes?"

Emerald remembered back to asking the girl whether or not she would contact her team, and her not doing so. Still, now, it was very clearly guilt that caused Penny's expression to falter somewhat.

"I… I only wished to enjoy some special fun with my new friend, General."

Penny… really could've worded that better, but it was alright.

Well, it was less alright when General Ironwood turned towards her, eyes alight like a firepit filled with coals.

"And just what kind of… fun were the two of you engaging in, hm? Did you lure Penny here for some nefarious scheme?"

Emerald felt it was fair, once more, that in the moment, with ten – actually at this point it was nine, one of the soldiers had gone back to secure the doorway outside, and to calm down the other guests, who had, to be fair, probably heard the doorway to an adjacent hotel room explode.

Emerald could see why that would be worrying. It had very much been so for her.

"No, no." Penny shook her head, and Emerald felt the smallest wave of relief wash over her. Finally, the girl could clear this up, and they could all get on their ways.

Well, in Emerald's case, 'on their way's' really meant 'rent a cheaper, shittier hotel for the evening,' but at this point, it seemed that beggars couldn't be choosers.

"I bumped into Emerald after she had just been turned down by another woman," Emerald winced at the very brutally honest discussion of her attempt at a love life. "And, upon attempting to help her up after I knocked her over, and then again after she tripped and nearly fell, I accidentally dislocated her shoulder."

Ironwood winced.

Emerald took that as a good sign.

"I took her to a doctor's office, and stayed in an adjacent room while her shoulder was treated. Unfortunately, this visit took longer than either of us anticipated, and thusly, the two of us missed the airbus. Consequently, I offered to pay for a hotel for the both of us as means of making it up to the girl."

Ironwood seemed to be calming down now.

"Well, that was very nice of you, Penny, but in the future, I would ask that you contact Ms. Soleil and explain–"

"And then the two of us slept together!"

Emerald was fairly certain that in that moment, a pin could've been dropped somewhere outside their hotel room, even on the carpeted floor, and it would've been heard without issue.

Frankly, Emerald really wished someone, anyone would make noise of some sort.

Because the murderous gaze that Ironwood fixed her with was unlike anything she had ever known before.

"You… what?"

"S-She means we slept in the same room!" Emerald really, really tried to defend herself. "We didn't do anything untoward–"

"I felt so bad for Emerald after I hurt her," Penny continued to sign her death warrant. "And I asked if there was anything at all I could do for her. She agreed that there was something I could do to make it up to her, if I bought the two of us a hotel room for the night, and I thought that I had always wanted to have a sleepover!" Penny, sweet, blunt, endlessly optimistic Penny, smiled as she kept speaking. "Thusly, I bought the two of us a hotel for the night, and then the two of us slept together! It was a rather enjoyable experience! I would love to do it again with even more of my friends!"

Ironwood's eyes had not left Emerald's face. She herself was making a concerted effort to look anywhere else in the room.

Once again, Emerald really felt like this wasn't her fault.

"T-That really wasn't it, I mean" She turned to the girl she'd come here with, who, really, was at fault. "– c'mon Penny, back me up here – there were some extenuating factors–"

"Oh, I'm sure there were." Ironwood practically spat. "In the meantime, Ms…" He paused for a moment, before pulling up something on his scroll. "Sustrai," Emerald winced as she realized the man had quite literally searched up her file. "Since it seems Penny came with you willingly, and seemingly consented to your whims, you are not under any further legal stipulation." Emerald whined helplessly.

"According to this, you, too, are a student of Beacon Academy, My team and I… will escort the both of you back to your dorms."

It was clear from the man's tone of voice that he'd have rather thrown her out the window behind them.

Ironwood rose his right hand, before making some odd gesture, and it caused the men that were still leveling guns at her to finally move them away from her face.

"I do believe that I will be having a talk with your team's leader as well, Ms. Sustrai," Ironwood spoke as he gestured for her to walk ahead, in between the guards, at the most closely guarded point of the convoy. "Perhaps they would like to know what it is you're up to, hm?"

"I'm really not up to anything, I swear, Penny just isn't telling the–"

"Penny would not lie!" Ironwood practically spat, before shaking his head and taking a deep, calming breath. When he looked back, his eyes were dead. His being entirely emotionless. "Penny does not lie to her commanding officer. Thusly, everything she's said is the truth. Now, we will make our way back to the airship. I will have my men negotiate with the hotel's owners to pay for damages. Penny. Follow along."

It was a bit odd to see the man who had, up until them, been seething with fury, to suddenly calm almost entirely down. In fact, it felt like there was nothing in his voice at all. No emotion to speak of.

Odd, but then again, Penny was similar. Perhaps it was more Atlas conditioning than anything.

Speaking of Penny, the girl walked right up to her, skipping along beside her without a care in the world.

"Thank you for this evening, friend." Penny said, smiling her way. "I only wished the two of us could've engaged in our sleeping activities for longer."

Ironwood's face, despite displaying no emotion, fidgeted.

Emerald swallowed.

"Penny," She whispered, trying to go unheard by the guards around them. "Can't you clear things up here!?"

"What do you mean, friend?" Penny said, doing her best to whisper as well, though it seemed to Emerald that she was less whispering, and more had somehow lowered the actual volume of her voice.

Weird.

"Tell him… tell him we didn't…" Emerald made a helpless gesture with her hands. "Y'know!"

"I'm afraid I do not know, friend."

She growled under her breath; her face redder than her eyes as she hissed out. "Tell him we didn't have sex!"

Penny paused for a moment, her eyes staring forward as she seemed to contemplate something. For just a moment, Emerald hoped she'd somehow gotten through to the girl.

That moment faded rather quickly as Penny turned back around, and asked, completely seriously, devoid of any humor or lie…

"What is sex?"

And it was then that Emerald finally understood that she was doomed.

/

The flight back to Beacon had been one done in complete silence.

That was not at all against Emerald's wishes. In fact, if everyone would, collectively, not speak for the next few hours, Emerald was pretty sure her life would objectively improve.

Not so, however.

For as General Ironwood knocked on the Chamomile dorm, and an annoyed, cranky, clearly half-awake Cinder Fall answered, Emerald understood that she was somehow doomed further.

"Ah, Ms. Fall, was it?"

Cinder looked at General Ironwood. She looked at Emerald. She looked back at General Ironwood.

Her eyes widened.

"Unrelated matter!" Emerald shouted out immediately, before turning back to Ironwood. "Sorry, team business, it's uhm… it's completely unrelated to your thing with Goodwitch!"

She winked to let Cinder know that no, she had not been caught doing something that exposed their plan in Beacon, and that no, they were not currently surrounded on all sides by armed guards.

This was just a completely normal, average, everyday visit from the General of Atlas.

…Emerald wasn't sure why the universe hated her quite this much.

Still, at the very least, Ironwood's attentions were called away from her for a moment. He studied Cinder curiously, before muttering under his breath. "I had thought your name familiar. You're… the one that Glynda…"

Cinder actually seemed to get a bit defensive in that moment, her posture tightening. If Ironwood noticed such, he did not comment on it.

"Ah, well. It's not like that matters now." He shook his head, before turning back to her. "Your teammate here was out in Vale."

"I'm aware." Cinder spoke for the first time. "She messaged me to inform me ahead of time that she would not be returning this evening."

"Are you aware of what she was doing?"

"Still completely unrelated!" Emerald tried her best to smile. "Not at all a Goodwitch thing."

Emerald really hoped Cinder got what she meant by that.

"I am not, no." Cinder's eyes narrowed. "What was she doing?"

Emerald really wasn't sure why this was Ironwood's business, or why he felt he had the right to be doing this in the first place.

Then again, he was likely just pissed off, and now attempting to vent by getting Emerald in trouble.

Honestly, it made more sense than a lot of things these days.

"She was… propositioning Penny here." He gestured towards the girl.

Cinder's eyebrow shot up.

She stared for a moment, looked from Penny, back to Emerald, and then back to Penny.

And then she said, "Okay?"

Ironwood's eye twitched.

"I must ask that you control your teammates… urges in the future."

Emerald wasn't quite sure what it was that Cinder would be doing next. After all, she had, even if inadvertently, brought General Ironwood to their door. She had, inadvertently, introduced Ironwood to Cinder. Had let him see her face.

"I will do my best to control her libido in the future, General." Cinder spoke, completely monotone. "Now, if you don't mind, my teammates and I would like to get back to sleep."

It was rather clear that Ironwood did mind, and had evidently expected a little more in the form of anger, or resentment towards Emerald. She attempted to prevent herself from snorting at his expense.

She of course failed, because seeing the man flounder was really funny.

The look he shot her moments later shut her up pretty good, though.

"As you were, then." Ironwood spoke, shaking his head and gesturing for Penny to follow along behind him.

"Goodbye, friend!" Penny shouted back at her as they rounded a corner up ahead. "I hope we may sleep together again soon."

Emerald was too tired to even really be bothered by that. She just waved towards Penny and called out a lazy "Sure."

And then she was all alone, standing in the second-floor hallway in front of Cinder, who looked approximately perplexed.

"…Care to explain?"

Emerald opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it again.

"…I'm not entirely sure where to begin."

Mercury came to the door, disheveled and clearly not all there.

"What was that about Emerald sleeping with someone?"

"I believe she bedded an Atlesian girl." Cinder spoke, entirely nonplussed as she made her way back into the room, and laid down in her bed.

"Oh, nice Em."

"I didn't–" Emerald let out a horrid groan of the truest, purest agony. "Y'know what, fuck it!"

"I think you already did, Em." Mercury said, smirking. "That's the point."

"One day, I'm going to kill you," Emerald growled as she pushed past him, and made her way towards her bed. "And it will be the greatest moment of my life."

"Really? Even better than little miss Penny going down on–"

Emerald knew that Cinder would likely berate her for launching herself at Mercury, and tackling the boy to the floor.

But in her defense – and in all fairness, she thought it a good defense – she had ruined her date, realized she was still in love with a woman who wouldn't look her way, dislocated her arm, missed the airbus, had to get a hotel with the girl who'd dislocated her arm, had said hotel's door exploded by the girl's overprotective father – apparently? – and then been blamed for sleeping with the girl without having actually slept with the girl by her dad – assumedly? – before having to ride in an airship with him back to Beacon while trying to not make a single noise, nor move a single muscle, all the while that same girl, entirely oblivious to this entire affair, talked her ear off beside her.

…Holy shit, Emerald had had a night.

End Chapter 24

Emerald is not allowed to have nice things. This is the rule. And hey, I didn't make it.

Not a ton to say. See you all next week!