Welp, here I am, back again!

Not a ton to say, maybe more at the end? I'm sort of exhausted while editing this lol.

Chapter 52

"And for myself!"

Glynda Goodwitch watched with a small smile as Lie Ren finished off the Nucklavee, the creature that had once wreaked havoc across the now decayed village of Kuroyuri. The beasts' human head fell from its shoulders, beginning to disintegrate alongside the rest of its body. And then, finally, this long-forgotten place knew silence.

There was a palpable release of tension as the entire group of Huntsman in training let their weapons fall. Ruby Rose sheathed Crescent Rose along her back, and let out a quick sigh.

"That was the one, right Ren?"

It was ultimately Nora who responded. "Unless it got freaky in the last decade or so and started spawning little nightmare babies, then yeah, that was the one."

Jaune Arc stepped up towards Lie Ren and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You did good, Ren."

The man simply nodded his head back. It seemed he was still a little out of it, which Glynda accepted without much question. Destroying the object of one's nightmares had to have been both therapeutic and incredibly odd.

Glynda stepped up to the main group, having decided that they'd idled in one place long enough. "Alright, all of you. We're going to need to keep moving, unless we wish to camp out in Kuroyuri for the night."

There was a general murmur of assent at that, and so their little band began the trek out of Kuroyuri, and further towards the city of Mistral itself. They were just beginning to see the top of it on the horizon, which meant it was likely only another week or so of travel until they reached it. It would not exactly be easygoing, but they would arrive within the window Glynda had expected them to, and so that would have to work.

It was as they got onto the path, however, and began the mind-numbing task of… well, walking to Mistral, that Glynda's mind again began to wander, as it had been for the last two months or so that their journey had taken place over.

Simply put, she thought of Cinder. Occasionally, she would think of Emerald, and the conversations she'd shared with her; their bond as… well, as a guardian and ward, so to speak. But Glynda did not think that her relationship with Emerald was nearly as tumultuous as with Cinder.

Things had, ultimately, ended on fairly good terms with Emerald. With Cinder, however, things had gone… well, about as poorly as they conceivably could have. They'd warred atop Ozpin's tower, hurling stone, and fire in equal measure at one another until Glynda's aura had broken. And then she'd seen that look on Cinder's face. That damndable look.

It was why she was here, now. Because she knew above all else that what Cinder wanted, and what Cinder had ultimately decided upon, were disparate things.

Glynda was not content to leave it at that.

And so she pushed on along the beaten path, knowing that what she would find at the end of it would not be clean, or easy, or perhaps even good. But she would see this through. Not just for her, but for the both of them.

They deserved that much.

/

When Cinder awoke, she did so in pain.

It was an unfamiliar sort of thing, as it was not the muscles of her arms or legs that hurt. Nor was it her heart from exceeding the limits of her aura, or her head from overexerting the Maiden's fire.

No, it was her chest that ached.

The bed beneath her – not the thick comforter and the plush mattress of Beacon that she had grown so used to, but the wiry, thin sheets and barebones frame of Evernight – had her back aching as well, and to be fair, some of that was likely her postures fault as well. She'd fallen onto the bed on her side, having passed out from–

The memories came coursing back to her, and she managed to pry her own hands away from her heart – where they had been resting since she'd woken up – to see the t-shirt that still laid within them.

It seemed like such an innocent little thing, didn't it? That this had been the cause of her suffering. That when she'd seen it, she had spiraled far enough that light itself had faded from her eyes for a brief time.

And now, curled into the fetal position, with the shirt held in front of her, dangling uselessly, she could barely find the strength within her to throw it to the other side of the room. To just… to get it away from her.

She felt dead.

She lived regardless.

It took a colossal effort just to push herself up and out of her bed. She found herself thinking on the fact that she'd passed out and, seemingly, woken up hours later without anyone knowing about what had transpired. That was a good thing, since she doubted the members of Evernight were terribly understanding about maladies of the heart. Even still, it was a change from when she'd once had an attack back in Beacon. Pyrrha Nikos had come and talked to her, gotten through to her, despite it all.

Hah. What drivel that had been.

…It… had to have been drivel. It had to have been. This… all of this – her being in Evernight, her leaving Glynda behind, her deciding to stick with Salem, despite everything that told her she should've done the opposite – had to be worthwhile. Coming here, being here now… it had to mean something.

It had to. She believed in Destiny, didn't she?

Then that meant this had all happened for a reason. She hadn't made a choice. Things had been preordained, and she'd…

…It felt like a farce, even to her, to spout such nonsense.

She slammed her hand into the walls of Evernight, and felt the reverberations run up her arm. It was a good pain – grounding – and it was likely the only thing that kept her sane as she forced herself out of bed entirely.

Her steps were measured, but weak.

She was simply weak in general these days, it seemed.

She staggered over to her dresser and threw on something that would cover her for the time being, and then exited out of her room. She did not need to feign strength in Evernight, given that there were only six people in the entire giant structure. The chances of her running into anyone were slim to none. Especially when every floor had their own amenities.

Cinder practically fell into the bathroom, panting for breath as she pushed herself back up. By everything, she was exhausted somehow. It was an odd sort of exhaustion, too, given that she had, ostensibly, done nothing tiring at all.

She shucked off the temporary outfit, and stepped into the shower. Cinder had never really figured out how Salem had gone about installing such amenities at the literal end of the world, but they were much appreciated, so she wasn't going to go around looking gift horses in their mouths.

The water was perhaps the first soothing thing she'd felt in… well, since she'd last taken a shower. It had been a while, admittedly. She… hadn't been taking very good care of herself lately.

Cinder was fairly certain that wasn't a good sign for the general state of her mental health.

She ran her fingers through her hair to test how dry it felt, and was almost shocked by just how greasy it was instead. She forced herself to more thoroughly consider the last time she'd taken the time to shower, and…

She genuinely couldn't remember. She'd taken one when she'd arrived back in Evernight some months ago – perhaps three or four now? – and had doubtlessly taken quite a few since then, but…

When had her last been?

It had been weeks, at least. Idly, she took a quick whiff of her own stench, and came away reeling. She was, by all accounts, a mess. She felt like it, too. When she thought about it, she had trouble differentiating the time she'd spent in Evernight from any of the rest of it. She'd been here for months – at least – and yet, the more she looked back into her memory, the more it felt like she'd left Beacon, gotten here, and then…

It was today. It was right now.

She'd trained. That was the only thing of substance she'd taken part of. She'd trained, and then, when the pain had subsided from doing such, she'd only trained more; fiercer, harder. It was the only thing to do in this place, other than brood, which Watts, and Hazel both seemed to be fans of; that or laugh maniacally in the rafters.

No points for guessing that particular nutcase.

And with nothing else to really think on given her memories of every other piece of Evernight were apparently null and void, her mind focused in on one of the few things it could that came to her clearly.

…She'd slapped Emerald.

Thinking back on it then only had her mouth tasting of iron. As if her tastebuds knew she'd been wounded before the rest of her did. It consumed her mind for the remainder of the time she was meant to spend relaxing and getting clean, and so, by the time she stepped out, dripping water all over the tiled floor, she found her eyelids drooping, her expression defeated.

She looked at herself in the mirror and just sort of… stared a while. Her nude form stared back.

She'd always thought of herself as beautiful – had purposefully made herself that way. She'd wanted more than anything to be irresistible, content to never be ignored again, no matter what form that attention took. And yet now, the person staring at her had bags upon bags beneath her eyes, crow's feet hanging about the edges. Her skin was pale and she looked almost gaunt. When she thought about why that might be, her stomach growled almost petulantly.

Ah. She hadn't eaten in a long while, either.

It seemed she was far more affected by… everything than she would've liked to admit. Though that was a non-sequitur given that she'd have rather bit off her own tongue than admit any of the emotions constantly swirling through her breast these days to another.

She resigned, at least, to go and get something to eat. Salem only served meals three times a day – and where she got the materials to host such grand feasts so often at the edge of the world was another mystery Cinder was content to leave unsolved – but that didn't mean they lacked on things such as ration bars and MRE's. They weren't exactly gourmet, but given how ravenous she was currently feeling, they would do.

She journeyed for a few minutes down a few flights of stairs, and into some of the lesser seen areas of Evernight, at least for her. Cinder knew that, logically, there had to be some kind of refrigerator, freezer, or something of the sort, but given she'd never found it, and had no idea where to start, she instead settled on hitting up a pantry.

It contained a set of truly ancient Meals-Ready-to-Eat. She nearly gagged when she saw that they were half a decade old, but given that they were still, technically, edible in that state, she resigned herself to her fate, and took one of the decent sounding ones – a rather simply pepperoni pizza meal – towards a room that actually had a table for her to eat at.

The MRE's had a heating element that only required water to be added to heat the food, but Cinder herself was a heating element, and so she tossed such a thing aside, opting instead to use her semblance to warm the food. By the time she was done eating some ten minutes later – and the fact that she'd consumed 1300 calories in ten minutes was slightly disturbing – she was almost panting for breath.

She'd been… quite hungry.

And yet, unfortunately for her, as she burned away the wrappings to ash, and scattered them about the floors of Evernight, a voice called out to her.

"Ah, and what do we have here?"

Her expression darkened instantaneously, and she turned to see Watts standing in the doorway, looking like the cat that caught the canary.

Cinder was in no mood, and said as such. That only earned a small huff of laughter from Watts as he pushed himself off the wall he'd been leaning on, and stepped towards her.

"Yes, well, you've rather clearly been in no mood for anything at all these days. Your gaze has been downtrodden, your muscles have atrophied. You seem completely out of it. I must confess, I found myself incredibly interested as to the reason; after all, your plan did ostensibly go off without a hitch. Ah, but," Watts feigned a wince, as if sorry he brought such a thing up. "I suppose you did fail to retrieve the Relic of Choice, didn't you?"

Cinder was in an odd state of mind, then. She felt that, normally, the man's words would've gotten to her, enraged her or set her off. And yet right now, she had not the energy. So she simply stared at him, with deadened, dark eyes, and asked, "Are you done?"

Watts didn't seem to know how to respond to that. He took a single step back – subtle as it was, he'd likely not even meant to do it – before letting out a sneer. "Oh? You seem awfully cocky."

Watts couldn't have possibly read her more incorrectly. He seemed to think her lack of interest in him was, what, cockiness? It was far less complicated than that.

Watts had ceased to matter to Cinder. Because she had things far more important to think about now. Hell, even Salem herself felt like an afterthought in her mind these days. There was just… just so much to consider.

She could not afford to waste time on someone like Watts, assuredly.

"As I was saying however, I found myself interested in your sudden… change of heart, let's say. And I dug up some rather interesting things about your time at Beacon Academy, Cinder. Some very interesting things."

And then, all of a sudden, she didn't feel quite so detached anymore. Her expression shifted into a dark, affected thing as she met Watts' gaze, and the man looked quite victorious as he continued onwards.

"And there was a fairly common throughline in most accounts, Cinder. Did you know that? So many different people, and yet, somehow, it all came back to one person in particular. Do you wish to hazard a guess as to whom?"

Cinder didn't quite know what she was supposed to do in such a scenario. Watts had her. That was the truth of it. If he said what she was nearly certain he would, then he had her in the palm of his hand.

So she decided to skip the next step entirely.

"What do you want?"

"Oh?" Watts actually chuckled. "Why, it seems even you learn on occasion. How quaint. I want nothing, dear Cinder. Trust me, the way that you're currently squirming beneath my heel? That's more than enough for me."

Her jaw tightened, but she held back from making any overt moves. She wasn't confident she could kill Watts quickly enough to not alert Salem, and even if she could, she had a feeling her mistress would be… less than pleased with her if she did such a thing. Thusly, she had no choice but to sit there and take it.

Since more than anything, she needed Salem to stay unaware of Glynda. She needed Watts to keep that information to himself.

"So what, I'm just supposed to take you at your word that you'll keep this to yourself?"

"Do you think you have any other options, Cinder?" Watts chuckled. "Allow me to assure you that you do not. Still, I must say, I'm impressed, Cinder. You have excellent taste. Goodwitch certainly is a looker."

It wasn't even a conscious thing, the way that suddenly, she had Watts pinned to the wall at the opposite end of the room, her arm against his neck. She hadn't meant to do it, but now, standing there with Watts' airflow under her control, she felt a surge of that same power she'd once coveted, once sought.

It had always been because of this, she thought. The way that taking things from others had made her feel. It had made her powerful, respectable, undeniable. Whereas she was anything but before Salem had found her. And even if he retained his smile, she could see the smallest kernel of fear in Watts' eyes that he wasn't quite able to hide.

Good.

"Careful now, Cinder." He spoke regardless, conquering whatever fear had sprung to life within him. "You wouldn't want this… getting out, now would you?"

"What," She hissed between her teeth. "Do you want!?"

"I told you," Watts responded with a look of utter superiority practically engraved onto his face. "I want nothing at all. Or, well, at least at the moment. Let's simply say that you owe me a favor, Cinder, and leave it at that. How does that sound."

She snarled.

"Ah, ah, ah. I think I need to hear you say it, dear. Otherwise, how I am to trust that we both understand one another?"

She wanted to rip his spine out of his throat, but instead, she simply muttered, "I'll owe you a favor."

"Good, good." Watts enunciated the words carefully. "Now, if you wouldn't mind removing your arm so that I can go about the rest of my day?"

She stepped back all at once, letting the man briefly fall from his position pinned to the wall. Annoyingly enough, he caught himself without much effort, straightened out his collar and tie, and let loose an almost pitying laugh.

"Well, this has been a rather nice conversation, Cinder. As you were. I'd hate to get in the way of your…" He waved his hand dismissively about in her direction. "Well, whatever it is you're up to these days. Toodaloo, now."

And so Cinder was left alone with nothing but her thoughts for guidance, and as per usual these days, they provide no solace.

It's a weakness. Fall reiterates for what must be the thousandth time. All it is – all it's ever been – is a weakness for others around us to exploit. Caring? It's a chink in our armor. And that alone.

For a while, Cinder had been doing an awfully good job of shutting that voice out almost entirely; keeping it from her mind.

But then, in that moment, she had such a difficult time.

Because she wasn't entirely sure she could disagree…

/

"Friend Weiss?"

"Yes, Penny?"

"I calculate only a fifty-three percent chance of this operation succeeding."

Weiss seemed only spurned by her words. "That seems rather low."

"That is the point I am trying to make, yes."

Weiss harrumphed under her breath, muttering something that would have likely been too quiet for a normal human to hear, but was more than audible to Penny. She said, "Know-it-all."

Penny had heard that 'insult' before, although she had still yet to find out how it was meant to mean as such. Weiss was complimenting her accumulation of knowledge, certainly?

Either way, as the two of them snuck through the bowels of the Schnee Manor, aided by Weiss' personal butler – a man named Klein who'd seemed very nice – Penny felt the need to reiterate to Weiss that taking a bullhead out of Atlas in complete secrecy that was entirely undermanned and completely unarmed at a time when Grimm numbers were at their highest in nearly three centuries was perhaps not a good idea.

Alas, it seemed hard logic would not be winning over Weiss Schnee, who continued to blaze ahead, completely unimpeded.

"It'll work." She said for the thirteenth time. "Trust me." She said for the fourth time.

Penny felt a human would have sighed around then. Perhaps a human less invested than she was would have backed out then; abandoned a plan that so very easily could've resulted in Weiss', or perhaps even Penny's, deaths. And yet, despite it all, as they arrived in the hangar they would be taking off from within, Penny followed along behind Weiss as they boarded the bullhead, and gave the pilot the all clear to take off.

It was curious, really, how committed she'd suddenly become. She'd had no real interest in the goings on of Vale when her father had first told her of some of the underground rumors that General Ironwood was chasing. Even when she'd helped to stop Roman Torchwick and his accomplices at the Beacon docks, she'd only truly acted in service of Ruby, her friend.

That had been her only real interest in Vale. To see things. To meet people. To make friends. She'd not cared a single iota about any nefarious plots, or underground schemes.

And now here she was, in the middle of one, chasing down a criminal wanted the world over for…

Well, not for the reason one might think.

She purged thoughts of Emerald from her mind before they could truly form. They would do her no good, not now. She was the reason she was here, but Penny's logical and emotional cores were both fairly certain that she'd exhausted all possible avenues of thought regarding her, and thusly retreading said thought processes would do her no good at all.

She was incredibly thankful that Weiss sought to intercede when she did.

"So, Haven Academy, then?" Weiss coughed into one first, seeming almost awkward. "You're sure Ruby and the others will be going there?"

"It is the most logical course of action for them to take, judging by Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury originating from Haven Academy." Penny spoke, telling Weiss her reasoning for the third time. "It is their only lead. They simply have no other options."

Weiss hummed, but evidently didn't disagree with her assessment, for she shifted in her seat only enough to get comfortable as she gave the pilot the go.

"Well then, I suppose we'd might as well make out itinerary now, seeing as how we'll have quite a while to sit and think in here."

Penny nodded, agreeing with such a plan. She felt as such even more so given that the last few times she'd tried to convince Weiss of anything it had taken a good two to three hours longer than she'd calculated it would take.

Her calculations always told her that her allies would hear her points, react to them fairly, and then entirely agree with what she presented as the most mathematically proven outcomes. In her eyes, that made complete and utter sense. Yet others seemed far too often to think only of what they felt was right, completely dismissing that what Penny felt was backed by a good hundred million logical meta-neurons that reasoned things out nearly a thousand times faster than any human could.

Alas, the human mind, despite her figuring more and more out about it, continued to elude Penny somewhat.

"We'll have to talk with Headmaster Lionheart once we get there, inquire as to how those three," Penny surmised Weiss was referring to Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury, "Managed to slip past him. I hear they came to Beacon by his own special recommendation, even. Now, obviously, given their skills that's not hard to imagine. Still, you'd think that having been in his line of sight for so long, he might've noticed something. We'll ask him all we can of such things once we arrive."

Penny nodded her head, and the pilot in the cockpit gave the final checks before he started the engines, and took off into the pale skies of Solitas.

"Let us hope we have acted as wisely as we believe we are." Weiss spoke under her breath, likely not intending for Penny to hear her. "Be safe, you all… I promise I'll see you soon."

Penny felt her own heart lurching, even as she hunched over somewhat, put her hands together, and said her own prayer to whoever would listen for the sake of the woman who, perhaps, did not even know that she was coming to save her.

I'll be there soon, Emerald. She promised with all that she was.

And I won't let you cry again.

/

Mercury felt like he was forgetting something.

It was odd, really, the feeling that scratched at the back of his skull. He was… kind of used to it these days, weirdly enough? It had been happening a lot lately, but for the life of him, he'd been unable to actually put together exactly what it was he'd forgot.

For the moment, he had little to go off of other than that whenever someone mentioned their destination – that being Haven Academy – a little spark of electricity would buzz against the back of his brain. It felt… important, which was weird, since he felt like he'd have remembered something that was giving him the heebie-jeebies as much as this was, but eh…

Mercury did have a habit of forgetting things that didn't particularly excite or intrigue him.

Like the entirety of the course work he'd been learning while in Beacon, for instance. Pretty much every single bit of that had gone in one ear, been stored for the requisite week or two until it was time for testing, and then promptly been discarded the moment it was no longer necessary to free up space for more combos in SSS. It had just felt like the prudent thing to do, really.

And yet, as they edged closer and closer to the City of Mistral, beginning to become more and more visible on the horizon, again, Mercury felt that same niggling sense that he was just… missing something. Something obvious.

Something right in front of his face.

"Jeez, Yang," Nora laughed, running up to the woman and running her hands through the blonde's luscious locks. "You've really been growing this thing out!"

"Eh, y'know," Yang spoke with lidded eyes, evidently enjoying the massage that Nora was inadvertently giving her with her fingers. "It's got a mind of its own, this mane of mine."

Mane… Mercury's mind whispered to itself. Yeah… I kind of feel like a mane has something to do with it, but how exactly?

"Y'know, Jaune," Ruby giggled as she rapped her fist against Crocea Mors. "You've really started coming into your own, recently. A real knight in shining armor."

"He's quite the paragon," Pyrrha Nikos spoke with a warm smile, making the boy in question blush. "Quite lionhearted, if I do say."

Hm. Yeah. That sounds about right, too. I think I'm like… this close to putting this all together, I'm just kind of struggling here a bit to close things out.

"I look forward to talking with Leonardo about all of these recent happenings," Glynda Goodwitch sighed out as she spoke with Lie Ren, who nodded along sagely. "Honestly, as much as Ozpin trusted the man, he has an awful lot of explaining to do."

Hm. Yeah. Leonardo Lionheart having an awful lot of explaining to do. That sounds like something that's vaguely related to–

…

Oh, they are going to be soooo mad at me.

Mercury cleared his throat as he came to a stop in the middle of the dirt path that would, eventually, take them into the lower sections of the City of Mistral. The others took a moment, but all stopped in a relative short amount of time following that.

"What is it, Merc?" Jaune Arc asked, smiling back at him. "You need to pee or something?"

"Uh, no… no, it's uh… kind of a bit more major than that?"

"Oh. You uh… need to go number–"

"I don't need to use the bathroom, Jaune."

"Okay, got it, was just a thought."

"Then what is it, Mr. B– Mr. Mercury." Glynda Goodwitch corrected herself, not referring to him by his accursed last name. He was glad for it. He'd never actually come out and said that he hated being called by such, but she must've noticed somewhere along the line.

She was good about those things. Noticing and caring even when one didn't ask her to. In a way, Mercury could see how both Cinder and Emerald had become so enamored with her. Perhaps, in another life, he'd have been much the same.

But he was getting off topic. Mostly, because his brain was trying to ask him a rather complex question; one which he didn't exactly have a good answer to.

How did one go about tactfully saying that Leonardo lionheart was working for Salem, exactly?

He cleared his throat, thought for a moment, and then, as Mercury had always been liable to do when the pressure was on and everyone was waiting on him, just sort of winged it. "Leonardo Lionheart is sort of working for Salem?"

And yet, as everyone stared at him, pale-faced, wide-eyed, and in complete shock, only one thought really came through to Mercury.

So, evidently, that is not how I should have worded it.

End Chapter 52

Turns out there wasn't more at the end. Funny how that works out. Anyways, we're resuming normal weekly updates. See you all next week!