Yo! A bit of an early upload, but I'm just kind of feeling this story at the moment. I'm actually currently working on chapter 29 (I'm veeeerry ahead for this story) because I'm finally getting to the stuff that like inspired the story when I first thought of it. All the juicy stuff.
Anyways, without further ado...
Chapter 26
Emerald didn't entirely know what to feel as she watched Glynda Goodwitch sit opposite her inside of the… she hesitated to use the term 'interrogation room', because this was all happening on Beacon property, and she couldn't imagine the ethical look of having an interrogation room installed in one's school being particularly grand. It was really just a small, gray room.
It felt more like an interrogation chamber than any room she'd ever been in in her life, though, so the general feeling stuck.
It was a rather complicated blend of emotions. One part fear, another part shame, another part happiness. Emerald didn't entirely understand that emotional concoction, and as the woman in front of her spoke, she realized she wasn't going to get the chance to.
"Would you mind telling me what happened first, Emerald?"
That… seemed fair, and luckily, Ms. Goodwitch seemed a lot more willing to hear her out than any of the police officers who'd arrested her had been – which in Emerald's eyes made sense, given the police were practically jokes in her opinion, as she'd never failed to outmaneuver them in her days of pickpocketing and thievery.
So, she told the story. She talked of how she and Penny had gone to get ice cream, ended up purchasing a bundle of candy and sweets – Emerald sighed as she remembered that she would have to go back there if she wanted to get what she'd paid for back – before a distant explosion had called their attention.
And then how things had progressed from there. She even mentioned some things she might normally not, like how Penny had been able to requisition a bike from an Atlesian officer by just showing him some form of identification.
"Is she some sort of Atlas agent?" Emerald felt the need to ask.
"It's a rather complicated scenario." Ms. Goodwitch sighed out, shaking her head as she adjusted her glasses. "Suffice it to say that Ms. Polendina is a… special case."
"Yeah, that I've gathered."
"I'm glad you're able to overlook Penny's… peculiarities, and to see the kind girl underneath." Glynda spoke, smiling her way, before her face briefly reddened. "Uhm… I meant nothing by the 'underneath' comment, of course."
Emerald had no idea what the woman was talking about, though she had the vague sense that her life was only going to grow more complicated for that fact.
"Still, you say that you didn't actually engage the Paladin in combat?"
"No." Emerald confirmed, before telling a lie as to why. "I didn't exactly think myself capable of fighting against it. I wield pistols with sickles attached to them. I lacked the heavy-duty weaponry I would've needed to try and bring down such a thing."
Glynda Goodwitch nodded, evidently agreeing with her assessment.
"I believe that to have been the correct decision. I'm sorry the officers took you on the scene, I believe they were simply acting in caution."
Emerald hummed something that could've been mistaken for agreeing, but to her, really meant more 'I severely doubt it'.
There was a brief bout of silence, there, and Emerald was confused for the smallest moment just what about.
That was, until she turned up, and saw the expression on Ms. Goodwitch's face. It was pensive, unsure, and Emerald was almost positive she knew exactly what about already.
"Ms. Sustrai, may I discuss something with you?"
Ah.
"…Sure, yeah." She said, despite feeling like she wanted to run away and find a corner to hide in, or to use her semblance on the woman and sneak away in the ensuing confusion.
But she didn't. Because at the end of the day, Emerald…
She… Ms. Goodwitch was…
"…You've been avoiding me."
The words, practically a denouncement of her, struck something in Emerald that it seemed most days only Cinder was capable of reaching. She immediately sought to defend herself against further accusation, although it seemed that might not be needed.
"I–"
"And I'm not blaming you." Ms. Goodwitch cut her off before she could go making excuses. "I'm not mad, or disappointed, or anything. I simply wanted to make it clear to you that what you said did not at all make me think any less of you. It meant quite a bit to me, in all honesty."
Emerald looked away, ignoring the reddening of her cheeks.
"Ms. Sustrai, I… no. Emerald. I am not going to force you to speak to me. I am not going to trap you in here until you confess your true feelings on the matter, or any such drivel. But before I leave, I want you to know that I care very earnestly about you. Perhaps sometime after the dance, the two of us may converse together. My office is always open."
And then Ms. Goodwitch stood, apparently set to exit the room.
Emerald stopped her.
"Wait!"
Glynda Goodwitch seemed, for perhaps the first time Emerald had seen her, well and truly surprised.
"Yes, Ms. Sustrai?"
"I… just… I'm sorry, I–"
"You don't need to apologize, Emerald–"
"No, I do." She interrupted the woman, feeling that shame pooling in her gut, making her entire body feel icily hot in a paradoxical way. "I need to… I guess I need to apologize for my sake, if that makes sense."
Ms. Goodwitch's expression took on an almost sympathetic air at that, and Emerald got the feeling that she'd been in her position before herself.
"I'd… I'd really like to talk with you, I think. There's just a lot going on at the moment. Both in my head and out of it." She took a deep, soothing breath, calmed her fraying nerves, and then spoke again. "…I'll stop by when things have calmed down a little. I promise."
Ms. Goodwitch smiled the gentlest smile, then, and Emerald was again reminded just how wholesome this woman was. Just how pure, just how kind.
Oh, she could be quite strict as well, but that was beside the point.
"Then I'll look forward to it, Ms. Sustrai." She said, before opening up the door, and holding it open as she gestured to Emerald. "You're free to leave. I apologize that you got mixed up in this mess to begin with. You're a terribly bright young girl, with a good head on her shoulders. I know you're probably the type to avoid trouble if you can."
Emerald… she tried not to let those words slither underneath her skin. She tried not to let that get to her, to simply allow the words to slip off of her like raindrops, but…
"Yeah." She murmured with barely the strength to hold herself up, as she stepped by a woman, she had nothing but respect for, nothing but care for, nothing but… nothing but…
"I'll try and stay out of trouble." She said, as she walked the halls of a doomed school, as she walked out into corridors lined with students who might very well meet their ends. As she stepped by architecture that would assuredly be ruined, stepped by innocents who'd never done anything to deserve what was coming for them.
…And Emerald kept walking, ignoring the bile in her throat.
It only ever seemed to get harder.
/
Cinder was stood alone in her room, facing her bed, looking down at a piece of rather pretty cloth.
It was the day after the… incident that had cost them a Paladin.
…Far more importantly, It was the week of the dance.
Strike that, it was roughly two days until the dance.
Cinder had been far less stressed while she'd planned the assassination of a woman who could summon a literal tornado with literal magic.
By this point, Cinder had already picked out an outfit, a rather beautiful obsidian-colored dress that she thought brought out her eyes – and that she'd crafted herself with some of her knowledge of dust-weaving and… well, regular weaving – planned some responses to questions she might be asked, gone out and gotten a small gift, procured a lovely black rose which was currently in a vase by her bed, and…
And she'd yet to quite plan how exactly she was going to go on this 'date' with Glynda Goodwitch all the while breaking into the CCT, uploading Watts' virus, and slipping back into the festivities without anyone noticing a thing.
…Yes, that second part was proving a touch more difficult.
At the very least, she was slightly aided by the fact that, for the last few weeks, she had largely had the dormitory to herself. Mercury was off being chummy with Team RWBY – Cinder really ought to reign that boy in, but she had other things on her mind – Emerald was off being emotionally tortured by Penny. And Neo…
Well, the girl was mute. Even when she was present, she wasn't exactly much of a bother.
Unless of course she was trying to be.
Still, at the moment, none of them were present. And Cinder was…
Stuck.
Honestly, for the first time in her life, Cinder really would've liked to be bothered by one of those idiotic children that hankered around her and her teammates. Perhaps that Belladonna girl that Mercury was… friends with. She was quiet. She didn't entirely seem like she got up to all that much.
She was probably as close as anyone was to normal in this hellish place.
/
"Now Blake." Yang said as she cornered the girl in a classroom. "It's just a dress. And a dance. Maybe two hours of your life. Really, how bad could it be?"
Blake Belladonna, heiress to the Belladonna name and a proud activist for Faunus rights, hissed like a damned racist caricature.
Mercury Black, son of an infamous assassin and future international terrorist, snorted.
/
Cinder had the odd feeling that she'd missed something somewhere.
…Ah, well, she didn't really have the mental faculties to go about correcting for unimportant variables at the moment. She did her best to put that out of mind as she turned towards the door, opened it, and stepped out into the hallway.
Cinder Fall was… anxious. Trying and failing to find a distraction for this was only making her more so.
"Oh, Cinder. Hello there."
Luckily, however, a distraction found her.
This distraction was not even the worst among the potential distractions that could've shown themselves.
Or, at least, this was what Cinder Fall thought in this moment. It would prove to be very, very wrong.
Cinder turned towards Pyrrha Nikos and nodded her head, stepping into Pyrrha's rhythm as the two began to walk down the hallway. Frankly, Cinder was just glad her body had something to do.
If she'd been more attentive, she may have, in that moment, realized that Pyrrha Nikos' voice was an octave or so lower than the reassuring, overly-positive tone she'd grown used to hearing. She may've noticed the lack of any pep in the woman's step, or just any of the thousand or so warning signs that this was not going to be the brief distraction she was hoping it'd be, but instead a complete adventure.
Again, unfortunately, Cinder Fall spotted none of these things.
"How are you today?"
"I am… well." Cinder lied, refusing to admit weakness to someone who was, at best, an acquaintance.
Just an acquaintance, and nothing more.
"You know, you could simply tell me the truth?"
"I was."
Pyrrha actually snorted.
Cinder's eyelid twitched.
"You're not a terribly good liar, you know." Pyrrha Nikos stated as the two of them hit the doors, and moved out into the outside courtyard. "Your discomfort shows up plain as day on your face. You have this little… I guess you could call it a tick."
Cinder turned to the girl, at first angrily, but then curiously. The information she was relaying was unfortunate, something that Cinder had been doing without realizing it.
But…
But if she could learn what it was, she could stop it from happening.
"And what is that?"
Pyrrha Nikos smiled in a way that Cinder Fall had never seen before.
Teasingly.
"What, and reveal all my secrets?"
Cinder's eyes widened. Her eyes then narrowed. Then they widened again.
"You… tell me!"
"Nope." Pyrrha Nikos said, with more sass than Cinder had ever heard from her. "Now, what has you down?"
Cinder rather desperately wanted to bring the conversation back to her apparent tick, but she also didn't want to sound desperate in bringing the conversation back to her apparent tick.
And thusly, she was at an impasse.
Her stubbornness to appear strong at all times won out, and so she simply shook her head, growling, and walked ahead of Nikos.
"Hey, Cinder! I was just teasing you!"
"Tease someone else." She spat back.
It was when she heard Nikos' steps falter that Cinder turned her head. Just an iota, just by the smallest of margins, but it was enough to spot the dejected look on Pyrrha's face, the way she took a deep, shuddering breath.
"You're… you're right. I'm sorry. I didn't… I'm a bit out of sorts today. I'm being far ruder than I normally would be."
Cinder, she…
"…What's wrong?"
"Ah, well…" Pyrrha looked away, before laughing pitifully under her breath. "I suppose you'd catch me if I said nothing, wouldn't you?"
Cinder just took a slightly firmer stance, and that seemed to be all that it took to finally squeeze further information out of Pyrrha.
"I… would you mind if we discussed this somewhere more… private?"
Cinder did not mind that at all, actually. Currently, she wanted to be distracted because she was anxious, but she did not want anyone to know that she was anxious. The fewer people that saw her the better.
"Where to?"
"Well… I know a spot."
/
The rooftops were an odd sort of place to be headed to at noon. It was the sort of location that looked… almost incorrect unless viewed at one particular time of day. Like seeing the tallest spire of Beacon, one that glowed green in the night, that was meant to light the way for the lost, on a sunny day.
It just didn't… work.
And yet, there they were, stepping up onto the rooftop of the Beacon dormitories, and sitting down atop it.
"…Where to begin…?" Pyrrha murmured pathetically. "I suppose I should start by saying that I have a…" Her face went red. "A crush on my team leader."
Cinder found her eyebrows rising without her really meaning for them to.
"…on Jaune Arc?"
"Yes."
"…Jaune Arc?"
"…Yes?"
"…You're sure?"
"…Yes!?"
Cinder shook her head, unsure how to quite compute that.
Well, Cinder supposed that the proverb went that 'beauty was in the eye of the beholder'.
She just wasn't entirely sure how utterly incomprehensible the beholder was in this case.
"Well alright." Cinder used context clues to devise the woman's plan. "I assume you wish to ask the boy to the dance?"
"Yes," Pyrrha said, before slumping somewhat. "Or, well, I wanted to, but…"
Cinder's eyebrows rose once more.
"He turned you down?"
"N-No…" Pyrrha looked away, likely red in the face for multiple reasons now. "It's… I never asked him, it's just… he clearly sees me as nothing more than a teammate, and… and he's far more interested in Weiss than myself."
Cinder couldn't quite grasp the logistics of this conversation. She was, apparently, supposed to believe that Weiss Schnee, who was, in her eyes, just about the most annoying, shrill-sounding, cocky, infantile, spoiled brat that the world had ever known, had somehow beaten out Pyrrha Nikos for someone's affection.
…
Beauty was really in the eye of the beholder, it seemed.
Beholders, it also seemed, were just rather dreadfully dumb.
"I… see." Cinder said, despite the fact that she did not even remotely see. "So… what is your plan?"
"…What's there to plan?"
"…I fail to see your line of thought here."
"I… Jaune's going to keep asking Weiss out, and… and she probably won't say yes, but even if she doesn't, he'll just end up going alone. And… I will too."
Cinder had seen some miserable things in her day, but she was fairly certain she had never seen a woman quite so much so in that moment as Pyrrha Nikos.
"You are giving up, then?"
"W-well, no, but–" Pyrrha fought to gain ground back, before stopping, and then sighing. "It's just hopeless is all."
Now, Cinder considered herself a rather rational person.
She was, she liked to think, someone who saw through potential problems before they could become them. She was someone who could look danger in the eye and not flinch. She was someone who, when confronted with the reality that the two disparate lives she was trying to live were mutually exclusive, and that they were rapidly heading towards a rather volatile collision, had only broken down into one and a half panic attacks.
But even she, in that moment, had to really hold herself back from slapping the girl in front of her across the face.
"You are…"
Pyrrha looked up at her with a bit of befuddlement.
"What?"
Cinder shook her head, deciding to air on the side of not saying anything, rather than saying something.
"You have not tried anything, then?"
"What's there to try?"
Cinder Fall heard those words, got truly, irrationally – although she felt she was being perfectly rational – angry, and decided that enough was enough. And so, she stood, with a completely neutral expression that betrayed none of what she was feeling inside, and made towards the door.
"C-Cinder?" Pyrrha called out after her, standing herself. "Where are you–"
"I expect you to be able to follow up on my efforts." Cinder said simply, eyeing Pyrrha out of the corner of her eye as she pushed open the door. "If you fail from there, it will be entirely on you."
"What are you–"
It was too late for Pyrrha, unfortunately, given that the door to the rooftop had already shut behind Cinder.
/
Jaune Arc was not a terribly hard man to find.
This lent, in large part, to the fact that he was the one who answered the door to the JNPR dorm room, with a dopey smile on his face and a bit of an awkward air.
"Oh, Cinder. Hey."
"Hello."
"Uh, I think Pyrrha's out right now," Jaune said, turning back around and briefly searching for the girl. "So, if you're looking for her–"
"I came looking for you."
The boy's eyes widened in a rather foolish manner.
"M-Me?"
"Indeed."
"Oh, uh… okay. Is it a conversation, or?"
"Follow me."
"S-Sure?"
And so, the boy did. Cinder did not take him terribly far, simply to a classroom she knew did not have any students at that time – one belonging to one Peter Port, who was currently out on a mission with Team CFVY, Emerald's acquaintances, and thusly was not hosting classes – and turned to face him once the door had shut.
"So, uh… what are we doing here?"
At the very least, Cinder was glad that Jaune hadn't simply assumed she was interested in him or any such drivel. That would've been…
Well, she wouldn't have injured the boy too terribly, although he might not have been able to do much dancing at the dance.
"Weiss Schnee is not going to take you to the dance."
The boy's eyes widened, then his mouth opened, and then he muttered, "Hey…"
"It is fact."
"Well, I mean, yeah sure, but that doesn't mean you have to say it!"
"Do you have any idea as to who you will be taking with you, then?"
Jaune Arc looked at her then, his eyebrows rising quite high on his head.
"You're not–"
"I am not."
"Okay, I was like 95 percent sure, just wanted to clear that up." Jaune said, before scratching the back of his neck. "And uh… no, I guess I don't have anyone else. I mean, maybe I could go with Ruby as friends, since I think she's going stag, but Nora and Ren are basically an item, Blake is maybe going with Sun? and I think Yang is about two continents out of my league."
Cinder agreed with him on that one. She also thought that Pyrrha Nikos was perhaps three or four, and yet here they were.
"What about your partner?"
"Pyrrha?" Jaune said, sounding surprised. "Nah, she's probably already got somebody. I mean, she's gotta' get like, ten, twenty people asking her a day, if not more, yeah? Besides, I wouldn't wanna' creep her out or something and ruin JNPR's vibe."
"And what is your 'vibe' exactly?"
"Oh, uh… we're all kind of like family, y'know." Jaune said, smiling. "Especially me and Pyrrha. She's so nice to me, always training me and helping me out. Honestly, she must be some kind of saint. I mean, who would do that for someone that they weren't, like, going to marry or something?" Jaune laughed, completely and utterly oblivious. "Man, I really did get the best partner around."
…Cinder had absolutely no idea what Pyrrha saw in this boy.
"When I first encountered you, I thought that you were so unremarkable that you were actually faking being unremarkable."
"Huh?"
"I assumed that the fact that you exuded no presence whatsoever was manufactured. That your foolishness was put upon."
Cinder's eyes narrowed.
"But no, you really are just that dense."
"H-Hey!"
Cinder shook her head, deciding that there was absolutely no way subtlety would be winning out in this case. At the same time, Cinder didn't think she should simply tell the boy of his partner's feelings, either.
And so, she decided that she'd land somewhere in the middle.
"Ask your partner who she would like to attend the dance with. Pressure her into giving you a response, tell her that you will not leave until she does, or I guarantee she will find a way to distract you from the subject." Cinder spoke as she stepped by the boy, and moved back towards the door. "I think you will find yourself surprised at the results of your inquiry."
"…What, is she going to ask Ren, or something?"
Cinder zoned the boy out for the sake of her own mental health as she pulled out her phone, and sent a quick message to Pyrrha.
'I've done what I can. The rest is up to you.'
'What does that mean?' Pyrrha responded a second later. 'Cinder!?'
Cinder did not message back.
/
And so it was that time advanced, as it always seemed to, and the Beacon dance had arrived.
Cinder Fall was, in a reversal of the natural order, ostensibly winging it.
Or, well, in comparison to how measured, how planned and researched her strategies normally were, she was winging it. To some, what she'd prepared for the evening might've seemed a bit much, but to her…
Well, tonight was to be… important.
Very important.
And so, as she entered into the ballroom – well, she said ballroom, despite the fact that it was very clearly the gymnasium dressed up like one – she did her very best to breathe evenly. To prepare for any eventuality.
No matter what happened, no matter what she faced, she would stand her ground.
She did not have to do so immediately. In fact, the first few minutes were rather boring. She stood in one corner, a very shoddily spiked punch in one hand, her black rose in the other, and her gift inside of her pocket as she drank from the glass occasionally, students flitting around one another.
Although she did, at one point, spot Jaune and Pyrrha. The two were standing side by side, both entirely red in the face, and neither looking like they had any idea what they were doing.
…It was a start, Cinder supposed.
Emerald was nearby, being dragged along by the Polendina girl. She was an oddity, truly. Cinder was going to need to do research, but she'd heard something from Watts recently about some high-level project that had somehow missed him. A personal venture of his old rival and nemesis.
Dr. Polendina.
The circumstances lined up rather well, in Cinder's opinion.
The Rose girl was there as well, hanging behind Emerald and Polendina, and a way's away, Mercury was dancing along with one Blake Belladonna, needling her in between getting his feet stepped on – and not feeling a thing – as she seethed at him.
Then the blonde girl walked up – the one that Glynda Goodwitch had thought she'd had a crush on, and if Cinder's ability at reading people was right, then that dubious honor belonged to a certain other black-haired girl – and traded places with Mercury, before pulling the girl into a much more frantic rhythm.
All in all, despite her people watching, Cinder was bored. She decided, really, that if she was just going to be waiting, she might as well relax. Or attempt to relax, really, since her heart, despite being still, was still racing a mile a minute.
…Of course, as soon as she allowed herself to even attempt to relax, allowing herself to settle in, and mentally prepare herself for the night ahead…
"Cinder?"
All that planning fled her head at roughly Mach 3.
This would've been infuriating had she any mental capacity left to think on anything but the ball of terror now swirling in her gut.
She turned to see Ms. Goodwitch dressed in a rather conservative, yet still undeniably beautiful dress. It cut off just barely above her ankles, and only very lightly hugged her natural curves. And yet, perhaps it was just the atmosphere of the evening, the way her body was already hot with nervous energy, but she found herself tracking the woman's movements with her eyes, and having to quite literally drag her eyes away from Glynda's body to meet her eyes as she stepped up to her, and they took a position in the corner.
Like Ms. Goodwitch had said before, the two of them stood in a way to betray nothing about themselves. They were not to advertise anything about their potential relationship. And Cinder found herself satisfied with that arrangement.
She was not exactly a public person to begin with, but she also didn't want to put any undue stress upon Glynda. So, she presented the rose quickly, making no show of it, and didn't mind when the woman hid her smile in a drink of her glass of punch. Neither did she mind the way that, when she said she'd gotten her a gift – and it was a small thing, some necklace she'd seen that had a green gem in the middle a similar shade to Glynda's eyes – Glynda slipped it away into her dress, promising to open it later.
…Cinder wondered when it was, exactly, that she'd started caring about such absent things. That she'd started to concern herself with what others felt, with what others wanted, instead of simply worrying about herself.
It was…
Well, it had its moments.
"You look wonderful." Slipped out of her lips without her really meaning for it to, although she appreciated the smallest, most absent turn of Glynda's lips at her words.
"Why thank you. The same to you. Where did you get your dress?"
"I fashioned it." Cinder spoke, before backpedaling slightly. "Well, I suppose I received the material for the base from–"
"You made it?" Glynda's eyes were slightly wider than normal. "I did not know you could sew, or that you were proficient in such things."
"Ah, well…"
Cinder realized she'd erred, there, by revealing another tiny piece of the puzzle to Glynda. It wasn't much, truthfully. All she'd really revealed was that she had the capabilities to sew, but…
There was just something about her, the woman stood beside her, that made her want to say more, to reveal more, to…
To be honest.
But…
"It's nothing, really. I first learned to sew when I was…"
…When she'd been an orphan, and her toys were ruined, and stepped on, and tattered, and she'd wanted better for them, better for all of them, and so she'd stolen away needle and thread and wound them back together.
It never lasted very long, but that was where it had started.
And before she could find some way to escape the conversation that might follow, Glynda had already seen through her.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pried."
She shook her head. "No, it's… that part of my life is not taboo for me to discuss. It is simply…"
"Difficult?" Glynda offered, and Cinder supposed that was enough.
"Difficult."
"I can imagine."
There was a bit of silence for a moment – or silence between them, Cinder should say, since the auditorium was abuzz with noise and activity – before Glynda spoke again.
"Well, let's discuss something else then. How have you been this past month?"
It was a broad enough topic that Cinder could approach it from several different angles, and so she did just that. She spoke to Glynda about her team, about herself, about the different… acquaintances that her teammates had each begun to surround themselves with.
"Mercury has been idling his evenings away with Team RWBY, Emerald is being pulled in seven different directions by CFVY, Rose, and that Polendina girl," She practically scowled, "And Mint is, as always, Mint."
Glynda's lips upturned the slightest amount.
It did not feel like she'd been talking for very long at all when a familiar face came up to the two of them, smiling casually as if not a single thing in the world mattered to him.
"Hey, leader. Hey, teach." Mercury spoke with his normal boatload of sass. "Mind if I steal my teammate away for a moment?"
"Not at all." Glynda said, smiling to her briefly. "I'll be here."
Cinder nodded, even as she frowned and turned back towards Mercury, walking alongside the man as she tried to reign in her emotions. Even doing so, Cinder found herself annoyed by this interruption.
And so, she rounded on the boy with a glare.
"What could possibly be so important that–"
"What gives?" Mercury cut in before she could continue. "Wasn't the whole plan that we acted after everyone had gotten here? It's been twenty minutes; I'm sure a few heartbroken loners are going to want to start leaving soon. Don't you have to make it into the CCT?"
Cinder's eyes narrowed, before she turned and looked up at the clock hanging on the wall above them.
It was…
Her eyes widened.
Oh.
She'd been talking for so long with Glynda, at least thrice as long as she'd intended, and…
And her window to break into the CCT before people began to leave, before they once more began to wander the grounds, and might potentially spot her before she'd finished her task, was shrinking rather rapidly.
"Boss?"
"I am." She spoke, portraying confidence, as if this had been her plan all along. "Worry about yourselves. Stay inconspicuous."
"Not sure how hard that's going to be," Mercury said, smirking somewhat and turning back towards a gaggle of girls who were, currently, making quite a bit of noise. "RWBY sort of have a habit of taking all the attention themselves."
"Yes, I'm sure." Cinder said as she shook her head, then turning away from the boy and moving back towards Mercury. As she did so, however, she realized something rather crucial.
How exactly was she going to break away from Glynda?
…Well, there was, on occasion, something to say for going with the basics.
"Cinder, are you alright?" Glynda said as she walked over to her, clutching her stomach.
"Yes, I'm fine, it's just…" She made a rather showy effort of seeming quite under the weather. "I'm afraid I have to use the restroom."
"Oh." Glynda said, seeming a bit surprised, before smiling her way sympathetically. "I understand. Don't worry on my account. I can certainly find some way to entertain myself for a few minutes while you're gone."
Cinder nodded her way, and the gratitude on her face was not at all feigned. She stepped away, still making sure to walk a bit awkwardly until she was sure she was out of sight of the entire auditorium.
And then, she stood to her full height, triggered the dust in her dress, and changed.
It would've been a rather glaring thing to do in the middle of a party, although out here, it wasn't much problem at all. Surely, she briefly glowed with orange fire, and surely, she would've been easy to spot if anyone were even outside, but crucially, no one was.
She'd decided to buff up her infiltration outfit a bit more than she'd originally thought she'd need to. After all, she'd not originally planned on being a student at Beacon Academy for over five months, nor had she planned on being quite so close with a member of the faculty.
And so, she'd gone with something that both fully covered her face, and her hair. The only part of her that was left exposed at all was her eyes, and even those were hidden behind a black glass visor.
This way, she would blend into the night, get in, and get out before anyone knew what had happened.
She moved quicker than she'd initially planned, using some nearby rooftops – and just generally looking dreadful while doing so, it was not a terribly flattering maneuver – to make her way to the CCT proper. In front were posted two guards, although they were easy enough to deal with.
She made quick work of them, sneaking behind the first and chopping him across the back of the neck. He was out before he hit the ground, and, crucially, before his friend could see what she'd done.
The other guard suffered a similar fate in the next moment, and, leaving the two unconscious men behind her, she stepped into the building itself.
The CCT was quiet this time in the evening. There was not a soul within it, and that would make sense, given it was closed. If it hadn't been, Cinder's job might've been easier, but she also didn't want anyone to know exactly when Watts' program was uploaded. If she uploaded it on a day where people perused the place, then surely, she might not be caught…
But the virus itself might be compromised before it could fully ingratiate itself into Atlas' systems, and if that happened, then…
…
Then the battleship might not fully come under their command. And then the hundreds and thousands of Atlesian Knights wouldn't begin to attack civilians. Atlas' reputation wouldn't tank, their General wouldn't be ruined.
…
So many people would–
"Hey!" A random guard shouted as she moved towards the elevator. "You can't be in–"
Cinder was fairly certain the man was out before he even knew what happened.
The elevator arrived at the top floor with an audible ding, and she set to work immediately once she'd confirmed there was no one present. It was not a particularly demanding thing. She plugged the specific scroll that Watts had given her into one of the communications terminals, it uploaded data that the server would mistake for her calling list, and then it would be fully breached. It would gradually work its way through Atlas' firewalls, blockers, and alert systems – although gradually in computer terms meant a dramatically different thing than gradually in real life, for the virus, it would take roughly thirty minutes before it had finished fully – before deleting all trace of itself from the system.
To Atlas, it would be like it had never even existed.
Until, of course, it was needed.
Until their downfall would come.
…Cinder found herself frowning as she fed the scroll into the machine, and watched as the Black Queen began to appear on nearby terminals, working its way out from hers. According to Watts, once it showed up on the large terminal in the center, she could remove the scroll.
And so, it did, roughly thirty seconds later. She pulled the scroll from its spot, placed it back into her pocket, and prepared to make her–
"Freeze, intruder!"
Cinder had accounted for being caught in the act. She was, of course, not someone who accepted being surprised in the moment. No, she had several backups in case this infiltration had failed. Versions of the plan where she was found early, later, even ones where she was found guilty of having committed the crime in the first place as Cinder Fall, no matter how horrid those contingencies were.
But this… this she had not entirely foreseen.
And Cinder's heart nearly stopped because of it.
She turned around, her breathing becoming erratic already as she saw just who it was had come to stop her.
"Do not make any sudden movements," Glynda Goodwitch spoke, with her eyes alight in a way that Cinder had never had aimed at her before. "Or I will not hesitate to take you down, here and now."
End Chapter 26
Oh, hey, look, the juicy stuff.