Cinder had never been more terrified in her life.
Tyrian stared directly at her, boring into her soul, and took a single, hesitating step into the alleyway, his wrist blades had never seemed larger to her, the jagged blades hung off his arms like they were nothing but feathers, but the fluids that dripped from them were clear, and in the darkness, the sickening stench of iron assailed her nostrils instantly.
Cinder desperately fought the urge to vomit. She could feel Vernal squeezing her hand tightly, her nails digging into Cinder's flesh. She'd thrown everything into this screen, and nothing would, or could protect her from the followup strikes if Tyrian could see through it in any meaningful way.
Time stood still. Cinder watched as those yellow eyes scanned every part of the alleyway, tracing over the dirty cobblestones, over the walls, and over herself, the wolf eared woman, and Vernal. She held still, and didn't even dare breathe. Her lungs screamed, agony building in every fibre of her body, and Tyrian still didn't move.
Terror kept her rooted to the spot, icy cold tendrils wrapping around her bones and stopping her, he was so close that she felt as though Tyrian could have reached out and touched her. His footsteps had been silent, and that gigantic tail loomed over his shoulder as his head lazily cocked to one side. A half smile worn on his face showed his lack of injury. She'd seen Summer rip open his chest with her scythe, seen the sprays of blood, and flesh gibbets as he'd fallen, cursing her name. Seen him suffer injuries of such grievous significance that anyone else would have died.
But here he was, unharmed, strolling, staring, grinning, laughing that chilling, awful laugh, his blades and tail dripping with the offal of his latest victim.
He could kill them all right here and now, Cinder realized with a detached sense of horror.
If he had seen through the screen, then she'd be first to die, and he would slaughter Vernal and the wolf woman right after her. If she was lucky…
A flash of memory, Tyrian's claws dragging her by her heels through the snow, toying with her, praising some dark figure that wanted her.
Her head pounded, agony shooting through her body as the scorpion faunus leered ever closer, and then… then he stopped, cocking his head to one side.
With a mad cackle, he turned away, and ran for something at the mouth of the alleyway.
Cinder released a breath, and heard a pair of exhales as the other two around her did the same. She sucked in greedy lungfuls of air and dared not get any closer as Tyrian landed on the roads and cackled. A part of her wanted to sneak closer, but common sense screamed at her to stay, and when she tried to move anyways, Vernal dug her nails in so deep to Cinder's skin that she felt them draw blood, and when Cinder looked back at the other two, they stared at her like she'd grown a second head. Like she was as insane as Tyrian on the roads.
On second thought, Cinder realized, they may have had a point with that…
Tyrian had slain a huntress said to be one of the best in the world, and critically injured another with just his skills.
What had she been thinking? They were absolutely right, this was one of the dumbest ideas she'd ever had. Listening in on them?
The soldiers in the road had paused, and were evenly speaking to Tyrian, as Cinder watched, the leader suddenly slumped, and another continued the conversation as if nothing had happened. She shuddered, while she couldn't hear anything, the context was clear. Nightingale had gotten to these soldiers, too. How? How was her influence spreading so quickly? How was it…
"The arms, Cinder."
Vernal had hissed in a low whisper, but as Cinder froze, she watched as Tyrian flipped his head to face them, she gritted her teeth and pushed her aura into the field, stabilizing it as much as she could even as she realized she was running on fumes.
His hearing had been far, far more sensitive than she'd given credit. And it was terrifying to think about as he stalked back towards them.
The fire of a blazing anger ignited in her core, and Cinder shot Vernal a look with her eyes that she hoped communicated that if they survived this, she'd strangle Vernal herself.
Tyrian's eyes swept over her, and once more, she froze as terror gripped her spine and ratcheted into her gut.
That kind of frightening anguish was something that she had only ever seen Raven emulate, and it stuck with her, even as Tyrian turned away from the alleyway.
As he finally began to walk away, and the soldier's marching bootsteps faded into the night, Cinder exhaled and began to pull her aura back together, just in time to hear metal scraping over the pavement, turning, really, whirling, on Vernal.
"Are you insane!? Or just stupid!?"
Vernal bristled, instantly twisting as she snarled at Cinder.
"As if you're better! You were going to eavesdrop on him! You idiot!"
The two stared at each other, until a pair of meaty hands grabbed both of them, and then Cinder was seeing stars as the wolf faunus stood up and harumphed at them.
"You're both beyond stupid if you think now is the time to start a fight. Go, into the sewer tunnels, you'll be able to find your way back to where you came from. Best of luck!"
She managed to sound chipper and terrified in equal measure, and Cinder wasn't sure whether that was an achievement of immense proportions, or sheer and utter refusal to accept reality.
She didn't know which one was worse, if she was being honest with herself. But as she faced the woman down and saw her beckoning to an open manhole cover. Cinder frowned at it, and the woman must have sensed her lack of desire to go down there, as she rolled her eyes, and her head, and somehow her ears as well.
It felt impressive to watch, even if it was insulting.
"It's fine. You can shower back wherever you're staying. And I have to return to camp, and report what happened to the rest of us, if any of us got away."
She looked Cinder up and down once more, a wistful, slight expression coloring her gaze.
"Be better than the majority of your species, little one, I know you have it in you."
Then, she vanished into the manhole, the cover sliding almost closed behind her, but not completely, in case Vernal and Cinder decided to follow her down. It was likely that she would not stay, or wait for them for that matter. With Tyrian running about, the choice seemed easy, but something felt… off. By now they had collected enough information to easily speak to Raven, but Cinder couldn't help but think she kept forgetting something.
It was only as Vernal and she made their way towards the manhole cover, having come to the silent agreement that a waltz through Argus' sewers was preferable to running into the psychopathic scorpion faunus and serial murderer that was Tyrian, that she remembered what she thought she'd forgotten.
Blake.
Blake was still in the city, still on patrol, and she couldn't know. She didn't know how dangerous it was, or how at risk she remained if she stayed in the city. But with Tyrian, it was safe to usually assume that any threat the scorpion faunus posed was simply lethal. The sick feeling of Cinder's thoughts tangled instantly. She liked Blake Belladonna, she liked her enough to flush brilliantly whenever the girl even thought to call her name, and that meant, really, one simple thing.
She had to find her, and she had to warn her.
Cinder briefly checked her scroll, turning it on and illuminating the steadily growing more and more angry face of Vernal. The older girl roughly grabbing her shoulder came a moment later and she stared at Cinder.
"No, we are not being stupid."
Cinder shook her head. Blake had been loyal, she wouldn't leave her behind, that wasn't what Summer would have done, damn the consequences.
So when the girl tried to stop her, Cinder turned back and simply said.
"I can't leave without warning her. I can't."
Vernal looked at Cinder, and she caved, sighing and dragging her fingers across her face so the skin stretched and dragged her expression.
"Fine. Fine. Fuck!"
She whisper-shouted the curse, before falling into step behind Cinder as the girl nudged the manhole shut, pushing with her shoe, then turning around.
The streets of Argus were whisper quiet in the darkness, and not even the patrols that moved through them were announcing their presence. This time, Cinder and Vernal stole between alleyways. Sticking to the shadows, using Vernal's aura to screen against observers when they could hold still in the darkened streets.
Cinder worked fast and hard to keep going, her aura lowered and lowered, and often she and Vernal could only stop to eat and cram snacks into their mouths. Ration bars and jerky, stashed in small bags worn on the waist and around the back, Vernal carried more than a few, several appearing to be holsters with packages sewn into them rather than pistols.
Aura recharged at a variable rate depending on what people required, for Huntresses in the field, it might recover quickly, but that depended on whether or not one was in high stress and tentatively safe. The less focused you were when you were using it, the more you'd burn, so it was a double edged sword at best.
Cinder didn't think she'd ever been more laser focused in her life. All that mattered was getting to Blake, getting her warned and if they couldn't get her out of the city, then she'd crash with them in the tunnels for the night.
Not even a chance at killing Tyrian would stop her right now, well, maybe. Cinder wanted to pause to consider the merits, but they were coming up on where she'd first encountered Blake, and Cinder would need quiet and calm for the next part.
Ducking beneath an awning and then into an alleyway, Cinder nodded to Vernal, who concentrated and then shrouded them in a barrier of opaque, shielding aura. It wouldn't hold up to close inspection, not like Cinder's could for short moments, but it would last long enough to obscure them from any patrolling gunships. Though even those seemed to be rarer and rarer this far out from the city center. Cinder looked up, wondering why the small task force of frigates that patrolled Argus, led by a destroyer, hadn't made their appearance into the rioting city yet. With martial law declared as such, they should have been hanging low over the city, at least, according to Raven.
Were they worried about Nightingale? Cinder wondered, even as she sat down in the alleyways and turned her focus inwards.
Aura as a science was frustratingly limited, and Raven had explained that with everyone's aura being frantically different from each other, it was often very difficult to teach what it could and couldn't do. Aura experts, while rare, were often cherry picked for teaching positions immediately, in the hopes their knowledge would lead to further breakthroughs with the next generation of huntresses and huntsmen.
Raven herself had focused her aura training on her semblance and her combative enhancements. This had led to her being almost unmatched in lethal, peer to peer combat, with her aura strengthening her senses and everything else around her motion and strength with her blade. But it left her frustratingly blind in many other respects, which would have normally been where her brother had come in, but he was no longer in the picture. Something that Cinder had almost asked, before Raven had held up a hand and stated that was a talk they would need to have another day.
For now, though, Cinder focused on breathing, sucking deep lungfuls of air in until she could reach out and touch the same door her semblance resided behind. The massive burst of warmth flickered from her core to her feet, warming her skin as aura flushed over her and her semblance lit up her body, wishing to be used.
She discounted strength immediately, finding Blake would be difficult, very difficult, the other girl was at least as good at sneaking about as Cinder had been, and was aided in that she had sharper ears by far than Cinder did. She'd likely hear them coming before they could ever reach her or signal her. Then they'd have to hope that she thought them friendly enough to observe, positively ID them, and make contact.
She didn't know about Tyrian, most likely, which was really the only reason that this had even a chance of working, Cinder reflected. She needed to send a flare or find the other faunus, and that meant… she'd need to touch up her senses.
This… was going to suck.
Nominally, Cinder only enhanced her eyesight, she'd done it moderately to give herself focus or better perception at simple tasks, but the problem with much of this was the simple fact that she had to enhance her hearing and smell to find Blake in this nightscape. There just wasn't another way, and that meant one thing.
Sensory overload.
Aura enhancements had a major drawback. While they were extremely powerful, they lasted for very short periods of time, consumed immense amounts of aura, and they almost always messed up your brain in some way. How long it took to recover depended on how long you'd gone into the enhancement.
Hopefully Cinder would only need a slight one to find the other girl.
She poured her aura, drip by drip, into her ears first, and winced as she felt them pop as though she'd taken a sudden flight into the air.
Sensation flooded in, and Cinder's world began to ache, where before she'd heard nothing save her own and Vernal's breathing, now she could hear the skittering insects in the alleyways, the slight cries of small mice and rats below her feet in the sewers, and the jackbooted, heavy footfalls of Atlas' finest a block over. She listened further, trying desperately to hear something, anything, any slight sign of her friend.
There!
Hurried footfalls coming down from above, soft ones, delicate, Blake Belladonna was running on the rooftops, running on the upper street levels, but what was she running with? What was she running for?
Cinder pumped her aura back from her ears, having now established a distance and heading, she could intercept Blake, but now the hard part.
Humans had a number of sensory benefits, but smell wasn't one of them, which is why, as her aura drip fed into her nostrils, Cinder felt that she had been woefully underprepared for the onslaught on her senses as she opened her nostrils to the world.
It hit her like a hammer blow to the skull. Hearing and touch vanished instantly, drowned in the deluge of smell and scent that poured unbidden into her brain and tore what felt like chunks of who Cinder was away with it.
She had to stop almost instantly, her nose running and sparks of pain shooting through her brain as she staggered to her feet. Vernal couldn't risk breaking their aura shield, so Cinder had to stay placed, hands against the wall, breathing heavily while she recovered. It took almost five agonizing minutes for her legs to steady and the girl to begin moving again.
"She's headed for the walls, no signs of Tyrian."
"That's his name?"
"Mmm."
She was noncommittal with her reply, partially because she wasn't sure if Tyrian was his actual name or an alias, and partially because her stomach was busy trying to convince her that Tyrian wouldn't be waiting in ambush for them to reach Blake.
That feeling didn't lessen as she and Vernal began to run through the streets, her own aura was low, an orange color she'd not seen since her days surviving in the tundra with Raven. A part of her cursed that she didn't have one of the weapons that Raven's status as a maiden could give her, with that she might stand a real chance.
Another part of her reminded her that they'd had to be kept in close proximity, faded after only a couple shots, and couldn't be relied on for consistent effects. Let alone the fact that they weren't shaped for her hands, instead the much larger and more callused fingers that were Raven's.
It rankled at her that so much power could come for her guardian, and yet her mother wanted her to never have any of that power. Even with the caveat that they seemed to do something horrifically negative to you.
Perhaps Amber would know more. She might have encountered maidens in the past, maybe she'd be able to tell Cinder more.
If she had that kind of power, that kind of energy… she'd be able to have found Blake instantly, hell, she'd be able to shut down Tyrian himself where he stood.
But no. She was stuck here, stuck here doing nothing but running along, desperately trying to make it in time to warn another person. If she was just fast enough, just a bit faster…
She pumped more aura into her legs and soared ahead, darting into the road proper. Stealth would have to wait, she couldn't risk Blake's life longer than she already had.
With a thought, Cinder skidded to a stop at the edge of the road, almost making it to the mouth of another alleyway, then leaping up towards the fire escape.
The shriek of metal tearing and the lance of white hot agony in her leg almost stopped her climb there, but as she looked below and winced at the pain in her leg, she saw Vernal reach the building, point to another one across the road, and give her the thumbs up. Cinder smiled gently, at least Vernal was coming around now to the urgency.
As she clambered up to the roof, her leg burned with agony, even with aura soothing it so she could move, Cinder suspected something had given in her mad dash through the streets, frankly, a part of her thought it was sheer luck that she'd not attracted a patrol, and another part of her was furious for losing her cool like that. A part that demanded she be better.
She lay on the roof, and heard with normal hearing this time, the slight, soft footfalls landing a few feet away from her position.
"Cinder?"
Panting and looking up, Cinder caught the slightly unnerving appearance of Blake's eyes in the darkness, they shone like golden pools, reflecting the faint moonlight far better than human eyes.
A part of Cinder knew that the faunus was fully capable of seeing in the dark, which meant she was probably fully able to see the way that Cinder was lying there, flushed and panting from sheer exertion.
"Hey… uh, Blake. Hunter. Enemy."
The other girls eyes widened almost imperceptibly as she sat down next to Cinder, a hand reaching down to help Cinder sit up. As she breathed and coughed, her body recovering as much as it could from the strain she'd put it under, Cinder explained.
"Enemy, name is Tyrian, scorpion faunus, murderer in Atlas. Killed Summer, chased Raven and me here."
The other girl got steadily more and more nervous as Cinder finished her sentence and resumed gasping for breath.
"He chased you here!?"
She was quiet, but the sharp rise in her voice made Cinder hurriedly place a finger over her lips and nod her head to their surroundings.
Blake looked vaguely amused and pointed to the ears on her head, and Cinder flushed brilliantly.
"I'd hear him."
She wasn't entirely sure if she trusted that, but Blake hadn't led her wrong before, so Cinder, for the moment, evenly placed her trust in the other girl.
"Why did he chase you?"
"We don't know, just… he was who Summer and Raven were tracking, I think…"
She paused.
"He's a monster. It's horrifying to watch him fight."
Blake cut in.
"Summer?"
Cinder paused and ice crept up her body, she didn't realize she was shivering until the faunus wrapped her arms around Cinder and pulled her in tight.
"She… she saved me. She was the reason I'm not in Atlas anymore… not wearing a collar around my neck… not… a slave."
The other girl just held her and they sat there, watching the slow transit of the moon across the sky. It was dangerous to be out here, when Tyrian was on the loose, when he could ostensibly appear at any moment.
Yet… that danger at some level appealed to who she was. That kind of danger meant something to her, it felt… more real here.
More like she was living on the razor's edge.
"She sounds like a wonderful woman. What… happened to her?"
Cinder froze up again, her voice trembling as she spoke.
"She… she… she died."
Blake pulled her in tighter.
"I'm… I'm sorry."
Summer's death weighed heavily on Cinder and Raven, hanging over the two of them like an ever present shadow.
The things they couldn't… didn't want to say. The things that Cinder wasn't entirely sure about in regards to Raven… the things that she worried about the future for. If Mom… if Raven wanted her she'd stay. But there were parts of Cinder that worried, the way that Raven had been looking at her, with that look of sadness and pain. Not the pain of Summer, the pain of something… else.
She thought Cinder didn't see, or perhaps she allowed that polite fiction to exist because she didn't want to cause the fight that even Vernal could sense coming.
The way that Raven had stared at Cinder, when she'd called her mom, hints… of something truly terrible burning away at her.
"Cinder…?"
Had Blake asked her something? Cinder couldn't place it, couldn't remember if she had. But her hand was soft on Cinder's shoulder and her embrace warm.
"What… did you want to do about Tyrian."
Cinder spoke quietly.
"Can't fight him in the open. Had to warn you, then go to ground."
"Do you have a place to stay, if not-"
Cinder was already shaking her head.
"Can't risk the Fang. You're too important. Using the tunnels, old Branwen hideout, can you come with us? For the night?"
Blake bit her lip, considering, and then she shook her head.
"I can't. I have to warn the camp, if he's as dangerous as you say-"
"He is. He took Raven and Summer in single combat, she dropped a building on him and it didn't take…"
"I have to warn Sienna and my parents. There's no other option."
"The woman on the walls, wolf ears?"
"Lily? Did you find her!?"
Blake's tone is frantic, and her touch is shaking Cinder through physical contact, who quickly has to stop her, has to place a finger over Blake's mouth and remind her that Tyrian could be anywhere, and that she doesn't trust him to not show up, to not attack them and kill them where they stood like he did to Summer.
"Yes. Found her, she's ok, headed back to your camp through the sewer."
Blake shrinks back in on herself, relief clouding her lamplit yellow eyes.
"Thank dust…"
The two sat there in silence, gentle and quiet, the night swimming around them.
"So… warning, thank you. I need to get back to camp, need to warn the others. Will you be ok?"
Cinder nodded, pulled herself up, and turned to face Blake.
"Be safe. Run fast."
The cat faunus smiled that gentle smile, and as Cinder watched, she pulled a cloak of purple aura over herself and vanished. Cinder could barely see her if she forced it, but her brain didn't really want to acknowledge that she was there, and the splitting headache that began soon after convinced her that perhaps it was for the best that she leave it alone.
Cinder took another moment to briefly look out over the city before she got to her feet and began moving down the building, this time, her leg injury had been soothed enough to at the very least let her walk normally. But not much beyond that.
Tension slowly fled her, with Blake on her way out and using her aura to shield her exit, and Vernal ok as well. All they had to do was get back to the hideout without anyone following them or noticing.
The fire escape creaked far less on the way down than it had on her hasty ascent, and before long, Cinder was watching as Vernal emerged from the shadows on the other end of the road. She flashed Cinder a thumbs up, then turned to push into the shadows on the other side of the street.
Cinder stayed low to the side as a low, throaty rumble sounded from above, the clouds beginning to shift as wind whipped through the streets around her.
It appeared that Atlas was making their move.
The sleek prow of an Atlesian frigate poked down, lowering to a hover just above the city. Radial wings and heat sinks extended out of the vessels flanks, and Cinder watched with something regarding awe as a pair of bays slid open on the flanks of the vessel.
Gunships poured free of the bay, this time, they were not the sleek lines of Mistral's police force, but the rugged and utilitarian forms of the stripped down bullheads that Atlas loved so dearly.
Weapon pods underslung on the wings, each sprouting the tips of a pair of lethal looking weapons. Rockets? Or worse.
Cinder wasn't about to take chances anymore, she ducked into the alleyway following Vernal, and leapt into the open manhole cover.
The fall was rough, but as she braced for an impact, soft, strong arms caught her fall, arresting her when she needed them, Vernal smirked at her.
"Well well well, bandit princess, huh?"
Cinder folds her arms over her chest.
"Put me down."
"As you wish, your majesty."
Cinder hits her.
"Hey! Ow!"
Cinder flushes, and Vernal just laughs at her.
"I'm not a princess."
Vernal smirked.
"Really? You're practically Raven's daughter. You sure you aren't royalty?"
Cinder's lips turn up into such an expression of disgust that Vernal notices.
"Blegh. Gross."
"Eh, it's pretty ritzy, can't lie about that."
"She wants to get rid of me, doesn't she?"
Cinder's mouth snaps open before she can stop herself. Vernal stops, turning back, her voice echoes through the sewers.
"What on Remnant makes you think that?"
Cinder flinches at the sudden anger in Vernal's voice.
"She keeps looking at me like I'm fragile, like it's the last time she's going to see me. She keeps looking at me like Summer looked at her before she pulled that warehouse down."
Vernal grabs her by the shoulders.
"Never fucking say that again."
Her breath is hot on Cinder's face, and rank with the smell of teriyaki, the beef jerky she'd had earlier still filling her mouth.
"She wants you here. She wants me! Here, for some fucking reason. But she really wants you here."
"As if. She only wants me here because she's reminded of Summer."
Vernal flinches.
"I… I wouldn't know what that's like. But I don't think she'd give you up, not without a real reason."
"What reason!?"
Cinder spits the words, as though to throw them out would deny the awful reality.
"She's a bandit queen! Do you think she wants you to grow up into another version of her? Or me!?"
Vernals tone is of stricken disbelief. Cinder's anger simmering as she thinks, why would Raven want her to be a bandit? Why wouldn't she get rid of her? Why wouldn't she do her best to send her away?
But… who could Cinder trust if not Raven? Who could she rely on if not Raven?
"You don't want the life that's been set out for me and her, Cinder."
Vernal is speaking again, her voice gentle, but still scratching at Cinder's ears like sandpaper as the older girl slowly bends down to Cinder's level.
"We're stuck in this path, but you have a chance to be better than us."
Cinder finds herself wondering about those two. About whether Vernal and Raven could change.
"Why… why can't you go with me, to be better?"
Vernal grimaces gently, reaching out, she tugs Cinder into a warm embrace.
"I've killed three people. Atlas will never forgive me that, and they'll never let me be a better person. No matter the reason."
"But… Raven has killed people too! I saw her!"
Vernal chuckles bitterly.
"Raven can get away with it. She's got the kind of power to basically demand whatever she wants and they have to give it to her because she can basically level cities if she wants."
The image of Raven obliterating a city is difficult for Cinder to parse, difficult more for her to genuinely see, the stern and strict form of her mother is one thing, but it is strange beyond belief to think about her ever willfully or willingly doing such a thing.
"How… is she so strong?"
Vernal laced her fingers together on the back of her head and shrugged.
"Dunno, I don't think she's telling anyways. No real reason for her to give up secrets like that."
"If… If I could be that strong, no one would attack us, right?"
Vernal flinched.
"That's not really how it works."
"But you just sa-"
"I know what I said. Raven walks a very thin line, she always has. How do you think the Branwen tribe get by?"
"You rob people."
"Exactly. We rob people and we kill if we have to. But Raven balances that out by taking care of larger grimm threats that attack Mistral. It makes it… really hard for them to justify giving her a kill order."
"A kill order?"
"Sometimes, a hunter is so powerful they can't be dealt with normally. If they've killed people before, or if they're just strong enough to make people worried… they get a kill order put on their heads. Sometimes other hunters take it, if it's actually justified, but most of the time the government pulls up a squad, and sends them out to kill the hunter."
Cinder's hands cover her mouth as Vernal continues, lips sealed in a grimm and flat expression.
"My mom had a kill order, because she had the power to tell people what anyone else was hiding. Atlas hunted her down and shot her like a dog."
She turns to Cinder, wiping at her eyes even as they turn the long tunnel that leads to the hideout.
"Never trust them with your semblance. If they can't use you as their weapon, they'll destroy you. Raven had to kill the last squad they sent after her, and that is why she's so dangerous. My minders told me about it, the squad ambushed her in the dead of night and nearly killed her. But she flipped the tables on them and slaughtered them to the last."
Cinder feels a chill run down her spine.
"Or… they'll get the huntress hunter to come after you."
Cinder swallows, its the way that Vernal says it, filled with vitriol and anguish.
"Huntress hunter?"
"His name is Marcus Black. He's an assassin that can take away your semblance if he just touches your aura with his."
"He can take your semblance?"
Vernal nods.
"Yes. No idea if he keeps them gone forever, no one's survived long enough. The only reason we know about it is because one of his targets scrawled it in every piece of paper she could reach before he killed her."
"Wouldn't he have destroyed anything she left behind?"
Vernal pauses, before she speaks again.
"Story goes that she mailed dozens of letters, and they all had that warning, dunno if its true though."
The opening to their hideout, well disguised in the depths of the tunnel, creaked open gently as the two girls made their way inside. Vernal immediately opened a mini fridge near the back, grabbed a dark glass bottle and flopped into the singular large and comfy armchair.
"But that's the story, in any case, Raven keeps a low profile and sticks to Mistral because the city is so corrupt that they won't do anything about her so long as she shows up and protects villages on the outskirts of their territory. Something she really does do quite a lot, my guess is that's what she's doing right now, making certain that she can stay in Argus and the government won't move against her while she's here."
Cinder studied Vernal's hands as she drank from the bottle, based on the smell, it was beer of some kind, she wrinkled her nose, and Vernal laughed.
"You'll be drinking it soon enough~! Being Raven's daughter and all!"
Cinder made a face and spoke again, unable to help herself.
"Why won't Mistral just use their own hunters?"
Vernal took a swallow of the beer, and leaned up in her chair, eyes flashing with barely contained malice.
"Oh, those fucks. Yeah. Forgot you weren't from Mistral, sorry, so, you know how Mistral has those really big tournaments right?"
She smacked her lips, waiting for Cinder to nod, Cinder tried to remember if Iris or Clove had ever mentioned something like that, and eventually came to the conclusion that they'd spoken of *something* akin to that… but it was too faded.
"Taking your silence and stillness as a no, anyways. Mistral's controlled by these really big families, they're basically organized crime syndicates, with lots of power, and they basically run the government. I came from the pits. Washed out after my semblance wasn't strong enough."
"Your semblance wasn't strong enough?"
Vernal grinned, all teeth.
"Sure, that's the story anyways, real talk, I don't have a semblance, no real powers, just a moderate amount of aura, oh, and I'm really, really good at fighting the people the families wanted."
Cinder stares at her, and Vernal, all teeth, swallows another swill of the alcohol, her cheeks slightly flushed as she continued.
"Did Raven tell you about why she doesn't want you out in public and stuff during the day?"
This time the answer is easy.
"She wanted me safe from Atlas, since they're chasing me."
Vernal nods sagely, pointing the bottle of beer at Cinder and flopping deeper into her chair as she continues, her face twisting with pain.
"Lots of the families have old nobility roots here, they love that faux-noblesse shit. Hence… the "Squire" program. They take a kid, usually from the streets, and use em as a punching bag for their spoiled rotten little brats to beat up on. The reason that Raven doesn't want you out there, is that she's scared that you'll attract attention from one of the nastier families, like Nikos or Belgori."
"Nikos?"
Vernal blows air out of her mouth, her chest compacting with a "whoosh" as she thinks for a minute.
"Nikos. Man… that's a fucked up story there."
Cinder sits down on the couch, eyes focused forwards.
"And… of course you want to hear it."
She nods, this has all the hallmarks of something interesting, and Raven met with a Nikos by mistake… a woman that she seemed to hate.
"Nikos are terrifying. Belgori are just abusive fucks, hell, here."
Vernal rolls up the corner of her t-shirt, and there, emblazoned on her stomach, flesh twisted and curled in a scar, is the remnants of a brand, an awful, horrific thing, it makes Cinder's skin crawl looking at it, the twisted "B" written in flowing script of elaborate vines.
"That's what they gave me when I was in their pits. Won't really ever come off, but, y'know, I can cover it up eventually with some ink and it won't be so obvious. Maybe I'll make it like your mom's symbol."
"But… you-"
"Failed out? Yeah. Belgori doesn't want me because I beat up their knight-royale, their candidate for the tournament. The more failures one of the candidates has, the worse their odds are at actually winning the damned tournament, because weaknesses will be known and all that fun stuff."
"So you were like a gladiator?"
"Sure, but I didn't really get paid or trained, I was just the bitch who was tough enough to survive the hell they put me through, then got handed off to a dozen other representatives until I ended up with the Falfi, the ones Raven cut down."
Vernal's eyes are chips of ice, and while her face is flushed from the alcohol, she's still aware, still deadly. Cinder envies that kind of dedication and that kind of ability to focus. In some ways she wants it for herself. That ability to drink, to be merry, to tell the stories of pain that lay in one's past and not suffer for them. For it at all.
A part of her desperately craves that, seeks it out, even.
"How do you-"
As if reading her mind, those dark chips of ice that are Vernal's eyes lock on, and she cuts in.
"Deal with it?"
Cinder nods.
"I don't. Why do you think I drink? Your mom isn't any better. Raven's just better at hiding it."
A small smirk colors Cinder's mind as she thinks back on it.
Vernal is good, but she's not good enough to stop Cinder from seeing through her lies. They're attempts, good ones, but little else. They might even have fooled Raven. But Cinder knew what Raven looked like when she lied, and Raven wasn't good at hiding the pain she suffered. She wasn't good at it in the slightest, at least… not to Cinder.
Did Raven want her to see her suffering? Madame tried very hard to never show that side of her, or the twins, too much danger, too much risk involved in showing that they were weak. The exception had been when she'd been forced to save the other girl. To deliver her medicine and to be, in many cases, the sacrificial lamb should the other girl have spread that sickness to her.
But… no. No, she hid it, but for different reasons than Madame.
"But… Nikos, you wanted to know about Nikos, right?"
Vernal, cutting her reverie and internal thoughts short.
Cinder nods.
"Ok. So, the Nikos family are old, that's the first thing, like, really, really old. They make most of the dominant figures in Mistral's politics look like children, rumors say they can trace their genealogical line back before the great war, before the kingdoms, and before the CCT's. They're supposed to be blessed by the gods of Mistral, and every hundred or so years, one of their family rises to prominence."
"Prominence?" Cinder asks, as Vernal cracks the tab off a second bottle of beer and once more flops back into her chair.
"Mhm. It's not always for good stuff either, there was one lady, Sunflower Nikos, about 50 years ago, she's prominent because basically shattered a chunk of Vacuo when she snapped."
"Snapped?"
Vernal grimaced, her face twisting.
"Yeah. Look, this stuff isn't pleasant, but even the Belgori treated me better than the Nikos' family treats their children. It's practically an open secret, at this point, anyone born in that household either escapes the moment they can, or they break. And it's not pretty when they break. Between money and political influence, Nikos' is capable of giving theirs the best training possible, but… they were in decline until about a decade ago."
She paused.
"I don't remember much, I was 6 at the time, but Alexander Nikos, the patriarch, was crowing about the daughter of prophecy returning to the Nikos family. I never saw much about her… at the time."
"So she's…"
"Strong? Fuck yeah. Here, Raven hooked up the television, right?"
Vernal pointed to the small, ancient screen that was held on small clamps against the wall. Cinder shrugged, and the girl rolled up onto the balls of her feet as she got up to check.
"I think it's working? There's a little green light flickering near the bottom…"
Vernal shrugged.
"Push it. See what happens?"
Cinder pushed it, there was a faint clicking noise, and the screen flickered on, showcasing a news broadcast, something that Vernal looked at briefly, before turning to look around the area.
"You seem really familiar with this place…"
"Branwen's have em in every city, I stayed in one on the other end when I was initially doing stuff for the Falfi heads, those Branwen adjacent people. They laundered Raven's money for her, fairly frequently, I think, or at least, alot of Branwen money."
"How do you know all of this?"
Cinder looks at Vernal, who quirks an eyebrow up at her and says.
"You mean, how do I know all this when I'm a dumb kid who was running with the wrong crowd for so long she forgot what the sun looked like?"
Cinder shrugs.
"I'm a survivor. Had to do anything and everything that I could to stay alive and off the streets. So… I picked up on stuff, learned what buttons to push, what specific nasty little secrets the families I was in proximity to didn't like. The Falfi hated me, but they didn't know where every stash of their dirty little secrets was."
A pause, and another deep swallow of the alcohol.
"Sure, the whole place is corrupt all the way up, but they have to do something if the secrets leak. Can't have the public panicking about all the truly awful shit that runs around beneath the streets."
"And they just let you get away with that?"
"I am very good at hiding things, and there's nothing more terrifying to the gangers than a public uprising that might call in out of country hunters to help."
"Hunters who aren't corrupt or willing to be bought off?"
"Yup. Hunters that come out of anywhere other than Haven are usually in the pocket of the family that sponsored their education. They're more like thugs than anything else, and they stay real close to the family that built them because of that."
"That's why Raven has immunity!?"
"Mhm. She can't really be attacked or else the families would have to send people out, and that'd weaken their positions by a lot. It's one of the reasons why she can kind of operate with utter impunity and hit whoever she likes."
"Whoever she likes?"
"Yeah, don't let Atlas or Mistral hear me saying this, but Raven really likes targeting towns that ally to one of the families, she hit a Nikos one awhile back."
"You sound like you know alot about her, didn't you just meet?"
Vernal smirked.
"You… do know who Raven is, right? Like, to the tribe, right?"
Cinder shakes her head.
"Raven is basically royalty, she's the only one allowed to come and go as she pleases, even the current bossman doesn't fuck with her because she's so strong."
It really just came back down to power. Enough power and even the governments wouldn't mess with you so long as you made an effort to succeed where they failed. Cinder wrinkled her nose, why? Why wouldn't they make the effort? Surely, Atlas could sweep fields of Grimm with their artillery and batteries… So why didn't they!? Why was it so important to uphold the status quo of the world!?
It made her angry, angry at the world, angrier at Atlas and Mistral who would dare to allow such things to happen. What would Summer have said?
"Summer? From everything I've been told she would fight against it, every single step of the way."
She'd spoken aloud, fury distorting her tone. It tore at her, but she didn't understand why it tore and ate at her.
Any further discussion had to wait, as the door opened and Raven strode in, a cloud of dustsmoke pouring off her clothing, and a hand clamped firmly on one side of her torso as she looked to Vernal, then to Cinder, before muttering simply.
"Good. Both of you are alright."
She strode past Vernal, calmly removed a medical bag from the shelves at the back of the room, and undid one clasp on her armor. A red stain slowly dripped between her fingers, and Cinder was already moving towards her when she raised a hand.
"I am fine, Little Kite. But there are more pressing matters at hand. For now… leave me be, this wound could carry a poison, I encountered our mutual friend once more."
Confusion colored Cinder's face as she spoke without thinking.
"But… we saw him too!"
Raven nods. Then she pauses and fixes her red eyes on Cinder once more.
"You are sure of this?"
"Yes! He almost saw us!"
Raven paused for a moment.
"I need to contact Sienna, things may be escalating far more than expected."
She reached for the scroll at her side, typed for a moment, then sent a message. When she was turning back to face Cinder, she simply said.
"What of the city itself?"
Vernal stepped forwards.
"The military is keeping most of the disturbances off the streets, they've quarantined and sealed off the docks from anyone entering or leaving. Looks like a lot of riots were coming from that area, and they're all sitting there, waiting for Atlas to round them up."
Raven nodded.
"The streets are almost dead quiet, and I'm nigh certain now, that that lady you and the Fang are so worried about, she's got most of the beat cops under her control, given that Tyrian was speaking with them. They'd caught a fang woman, dragged her into the alley, trying to do something to her brain."
Raven frowned.
"I understand. Thank you for the task, get some rest, both of you. We will speak more tomorrow."
Cinder nodded, as Raven took up a vigilant position near the door, by the time the girl is laying down, exhaustion is catching up with her, and she is asleep before she can realize she's falling asleep.
A/N: It's that time again!~ Mistral lore dump, coming right up. It should say something, by now, I hope, that I'm basically writing alot of this as I go, there's a plan, but worldbuilding elements that I feel flesh out my AU of RWBY are going to be pasted in here at every opportunity. Usually to make the setting feel grittier.
In any case, I hope all of you have a lovely morning, and I look forward to seeing you in a week or so~!
We are beginning to reach the midpoint of this arc~! So prepare for a climax!~
Next Chapter: Oct 16