Yo!

Not a ton to say. Slightly early chapter this week since I just felt like it. Tonight WBG vs BLG is on so I'm staying up stupid late to watch that (it starts at 3 in the morning for me lol)

Without further ado and whatnot.

Start Chapter 50

They are not given a warm welcome.

"Holy shit, we're going to die!"

"Calm down, everyone–"

"Oh, fuck–"

"Their fighters are closing!"

"How did they even know it was us!?"

"You guys do realize this bullhead has likely been marked as stolen for months now, right!?"

"Oh, yeah. That would probably do it."

"Can we focus on not dying, please!?"

"Good news and bad news!" Ilia suddenly shouts out of the cockpit as Emerald wrenches the door open. "The good news is I think we're going to survive this!"

Cinder considers that quite good news.

"The bad news is that it's not going to be a fun landing!"

Cinder considers that okay news, relatively speaking.

"Any landing you can walk away from–" Jaune starts, but before he can finish speaking, their bullhead is rocked by some sort of impact, and he is sent tumbling to the floor.

Cinder is by his side in but a moment, helping him up and making sure he hadn't hit his head. Luckily, she doesn't feel any pain in her own skull, so she imagines he's fine, albeit shaken.

"I don't think Ironwood's forgiven us for what we pulled back at Beacon." Jaune remarks.

"No." Cinder agrees. "I don't think he has, either."

"We're going to drop altitude in five seconds, everyone, brace yourselves!"

Cinder helps Jaune into the seat next to her, and pulls down the both of their emergency harnesses. Then, she floods all her aura to her body, letting it act as a shield. She's never been in a bullhead crash before, but she gets the feeling it's likely not going to be particularly fun.

Suddenly, a pit forms in Cinder's stomach as she feels them rapidly begin to descend. Jaune lets out a little yelp and grips onto Cinder's arm, and though she comforts him, some part of her takes solace in being able to offer him a position of safety. It's so often she who relies on him; sometimes she feels guilty for never being able to do enough in return.

In this moment, she's here, however.

"We'll be striking down in Mantle in 10 seconds!"

"Wait, Mantle!?" Jaune yells out. "Why Mantle!? Aren't we trying to get at Ironwood!?"

"Because they have roughly thirty battleships that will turn their guns on us if we try and ascend," Ilia responds in a no-nonsense manner. "Now prepare for impact!"

No sooner has Ilia spoken then does their bullhead touch down.

Well, touch down is a really nice way of putting it.

It's a rather jarring experience. Cinder thanks her foresight in flooding her body with aura, given that she's fairly certain if she hadn't, she'd have ended up with quite the head injury. As things are, she's still worried about whiplash – and a concussion to boot – from the way her head rockets forwards, and then slams backwards against the back of the hull behind her.

And then, what feels like milliseconds after the loudest moment of Cinder's life, there is only silence.

"Hah… haha…" Oscar Pine, of all people, laughs rather unnervingly. "We're… actually alive!"

"Sound off, is everyone alright!?" Raven commands. Cinder isn't entirely sure when she'd taken point on this, but at the same time, she is the eldest among them. Perhaps, because of that, she simply thinks it her duty to take on a leadership role.

Even if Cinder would far rather trust in Jaune to lead them.

"Fine here." Ren.

"We're alive!" Oscar.

"Still kickin', bird lady!" Nora.

"Bleugh." Emerald.

"Ugh." Ilia.

"Yeah, I'm okay." Jaune.

"I can't believe we're alive!" Oscar, again.

"Present." Blake.

"Mm." Cinder hums herself, turning towards Raven. "We should get moving. A crash like this won't be hard to find. Our location will be quite easy to track if we're stationary."

Raven nods her head, releasing herself from her harness and walking over towards Ren and Nora's. She unlatches Nora's first, and then Ren's.

Jaune eyes the woman a bit warily. Cinder can't help but question that.

"What's up?"

"Oh, it's just…" Jaune trails off. "Nothing. …Okay, it's not nothing; I think Raven has the hots for Nora."

Cinder's entire face bugs out. "What!?"

"Y'know what, I shouldn't assume; I could very well be wrong."

"But she's… quite literally double Nora's age."

"Yeah, that's what I said, too." Jaune mutters, unlatching himself as Cinder does the same. "I also somehow think Nora's already taken, despite what she and Ren might claim."

Cinder snorts, albeit somewhat disbelievingly. "Yes, somehow, I feel the same. How did you even come to such a conclusion in the first place!?"

"Oh, Raven stared at Nora's boobs while we were exploring that ruin in Vacuo for like a solid three seconds."

Cinder can't help but feeling like, despite the fact that they had been separated for all of a day or so, she'd missed quite a bit while she'd been away from Jaune, then.

"I… see."

"But I suppose it's really none of my business." Jaune concludes, and Cinder can't help but applaud his ability to stay out of others matters. "Anyways, let's move."

Cinder nods her head, and they make their way out of the bullhead.

It's a bit… odd, being back in Mantle.

Cinder hasn't been here in a decade. At that time, she'd been on the run from the law; being chased by those trying to chain her for her crimes; for the deaths of the Madame, and her daughters, and Rhodes perhaps most of all. The killing of a huntsman is a rather serious crime.

Yet now… it's strange, but it feels worse.

This place's aura… it is sickly; dying. Cinder gets the feeling that, despite not being able to remember much of anything from her previous time here, that almost nothing has changed, physically. She imagines that the roads she's stepping on as they make their way inside of the city's walls are the same ones that had been paved decades ago. She imagines that the buildings around her, cracking with obvious wear and tear, are the exact same that had been present there when she'd come through, running.

She imagines the people's faces have stagnated, too. That the empty expressions on their faces are the same ones they'd worn oh so long ago. That because of that stagnation, they have grown all the more weary; all the more exhausted.

"Something's wrong." Cinder speaks up, and the others seem to echo her sentiments, albeit silently. "This place… it's like it's been forgotten."

"It very well might have been." Raven speaks as they step past a particularly haggard elderly couple. "I somehow doubt Mantle is receiving the same defenses that Atlas is with all of the airships swarming about the capital."

"Can't we do something?" Ilia asks. "Seeing people at the mercy of Atlas like this… it's giving me very unwanted flashbacks."

Blake shakes her head. "You should know more than anyone else here that systemic problems like this can't be fixed in a day. Not by a small group like ours."

Ilia frowns heavily, but she can't seem to provide any counterargument to Blake's words. Emerald takes her hand and squeezes it, and Ilia seems to find some solace in that as they keep moving along the roads.

"Okay, so, game plan?" Jaune asks them all. "Because we do need to get up to Atlas."

Ren and Nora both nod, and Cinder's preparing to critique one of Jaune's plans – normally quite solid, but with holes that need to be shored up – when Raven inserts herself into the conversation.

"Don't bother." Raven interrupts Jaune. "I can get us up to Atlas proper without any trouble."

"Huh?"

"Portals." Raven says, before looking up at Atlas floating above them. "Give me five minutes."

She proceeds to transform into a literal raven, and then take off into the sky.

Cinder realizes the woman's plan, and hunkers down for about three or four minutes. Eventually, just as Raven had said, a red swirl suddenly comes into being directly in front of them.

"Oh." Jaune remarks. "Y'know, have I mentioned how nice this semblance is to have?"

"About a thousand times." Raven's voice comes out from the other end of the portal. "Now step on through, all of you. Keeping this thing open taxes my aura quite a bit."

They don't hesitate, although Cinder does note that Raven's portals do seem to have some weaknesses to them. It makes sense that something that can create a rift through space would come with a hefty drawback, aura-wise.

As they step out onto terra firma on the other side of the portal, Cinder is hit with a wave of nostalgia the likes of which she'd never once wanted to feel again.

Because…

She knows this street.

"I flew over Atlas for a minute to try and find an area I thought wouldn't be under that heavy a patrol," Raven speaks as she gestures to the ruined streets around them, and the entirely uninhabited locale just before them. "And ended up here."

Cinder, in a haze, finds herself staring up ahead, where a building with marble columns and golden accents lies abandoned. It had once been so grand; so opulent. And yet now it stands only as a beacon of decay, proof of what time will do to anything if given the chance.

The Glass Unicorn is just… there.

It feels wrong somehow; for Cinder to be here as well.

Jaune must pick up on what she's feeling – that or he recognizes the haunted gaze that hangs about Cinder's eyes – because he's on her in but a moment, shaking her out of the funk she'd found herself in.

"Hey, you alright?" He asks.

She almost wants to say 'of course not, look', before she realizes that Jaune's never actually received a description as far as the Glass Unicorn is concerned. He has no idea what the building looks like, where it had been located, or anything beyond the paltry accounts that Cinder had provided him.

"That's… the Glass Unicorn." She speaks when she finally has the strength to.

Jaune's eyes widen, and he turns around towards the building that Cinder is gesturing towards. He swallows on nothing a minute later as he turns back towards Cinder with a sad expression.

"I… I'm sorry."

Cinder shakes her head. "It's not like it's your fault this is here. I suppose it's… destiny I ended up here again."

"What's up?" Raven suddenly pushes her way into their conversation. "You guys are muttering off by yourselves."

Cinder explains to the entire group just what that place had once been; just where it is they are right now. She earns a few expressions of pity that she finds herself briefly wanting to combat, but otherwise is allowed to tell her story without interruption.

"I see." Raven eventually speaks, having heard the story for the first time. "That's… yeah."

Left unsaid is that Raven had been a bandit. Cinder doesn't know whether or not Raven had been the type to sell those from the villages they raided, but given that she'd been planning to ransom Weiss Schnee for money when she'd been within her care…

Well, it paints a less than flattering picture.

So, Raven Branwen likely understands that any words from her will be worse than meaningless; they will be actively insulting.

Jaune may have befriended the woman, but Cinder has no such inclinations.

"Well… we do need to evade patrols. The building looks abandoned, too." Raven speaks, not meeting Cinder's eyes. "We could use it as a base of operations for the next little while?"

Cinder wants to laugh at how horrible an idea that sounds.

And yet…

Despite how much it revolts her… a part of her wants to go inside regardless.

Perhaps… perhaps some part of her wants Jaune to see just where it is she'd spent so very much of her life.

It's a small part, comparatively, to how long she's been alive. But her time at the Glass Unicorn felt like it had gone on forever when she'd been trapped there. Only five or so years, and yet…

When she looks back at the memories, it feels like triple that, at least.

"Sure." Cinder eventually speaks, and she watches as Jaune's eyes widen. "It's… probably not been upkept very well, but it was once quite fanciful. I'm sure we can procure some supplies there as well."

Raven nods, but Jaune seems to be the one that Cinder will actually have to convince here.

"Are you sure?" He asks her, quietly, as the others begin making their way towards the Glass Unicorn, albiet Nora and Ren are hanging back, waiting for their leaders call. "Any of the other buildings would work; or hell, we could just push along the path–"

"I think," She begins, "That I would like it if you saw this place; if you saw where it was it all happened."

Jaune parts his lips, seemingly to speak, but no sound emerges.

"Okay." He concludes, and that, it seems, is that.

Aside from the obvious wear and tear that the years have put upon in, the Glass Unicorn hasn't changed.

It's actually a bit terrifying how little is different. It seems almost exactly as Cinder remembers it, and as they step into the empty foyer, look around at the empty seats that had once sat those waiting for service, at the desk that still has a sign noting that 'We do NOT serve Faunus' placed upon it, at the now rusting golden statues of Grimm in the distance…

It's like Cinder's back there again, in the past, just for a moment.

"Hideous place." Ilia mutters under her breath. "I hate it already."

"Ditto." Nora echoes as she steps in, and, with her first action, takes the 'No Faunus' sign, throws it up in the air, draws Magnhild and smashes the sign into a wall a good ten meters away. "Alright, that cleans that up, at least."

Both Blake and Ilia seem quite amused about Nora's… being Nora, and honestly, Cinder admits that she feels just the tiniest bit better as she watches the girl step into the space, grimacing at the same statues that Cinder had been forced to clean day in and day out.

"I especially hate these." Nora mutters, poking them with the butt of Magnhild. "I'd break them if they weren't built into the pillars holding the stairs up."

"That's a remarkable amount of self-control out of you." Raven remarks as she steps past Nora, rolling her eyes in a rather fond way – which bothers Cinder in a strange, unknown way now that Jaune has informed her about Raven's potential interest. "Right, well, let's scrounge for supplies first and foremost. We can find some place to rest for a bit and come up with a plan of attack in an hour or so. That work?"

No one has any complaints, and so they split into groups. Ilia, Emerald and Blake go upstairs towards the hotel rooms themselves, likely to scout for towels and toiletries that may have survived the last decade.

Nora and Ren start to make their way towards where the kitchen had been, and Oscar just sort of awkwardly follows along behind them. Raven seems to briefly consider following the three of them, before she herself sighs and walks back towards the entrance.

"I'll keep watch and make sure no one's skulking about nearby. I didn't see anyone on my first pass but I wasn't terribly thorough."

Jaune nods to her, and Raven nods back. Their friendship is… well, it's weird, in Cinder's opinion, but Jaune has made quite a few weird friendships at this point – what with him befriending Sienna Khan, arguably Salem, and hell, Cinder herself – so she doesn't question it all too terribly much.

Which leaves herself and Jaune to investigate the back.

Cinder doesn't really say anything as she gestures for Jaune to follow along behind her, and heads deeper into the Glass Unicorn. She remembers these rooms, these halls. She finds herself navigating them easily on half-rotten instinct.

"We'll check the old supply closet first." Cinder says just to say something at all; to fill the deadly silence that had been hanging in the air as they stepped away from the others. "After that… we can investigate the Madame's room, and then the twins room."

Jaune hums something out in agreement, but Cinder doesn't really hear. She's just… kind of caught in her own head, really.

She's thinking back on that day; on that moment, when she'd swung her blade across the first of the sister's throats, and cut it open deep enough that she'd however briefly seen her spine. The other… she'd just screamed. Screamed and screamed until Cinder had managed to silence her, too.

The Madame had followed, and then Rhodes.

It had all happened over the course of, maybe, seven or eight minutes.

Her life had completely changed in so little a time.

She finds herself wondering, as they comb the supply closet, just how different her life could have been had she made a different decision on that day. Would she have ended up with Salem, still? Surely not. Would she have become a Huntress, perhaps? Serving under Rhodes? That seems equally as unlikely, somehow.

No… no, what had happened… it had been destined to happen. It is one of the few things that Salem had taught her when she'd been younger and more vulnerable that still sticks with her, even now.

She has to believe that. Because to believe anything else would break her in some indecipherable way.

The longer she's spent around Jaune and his friends, the more time she's spent in the company of genuinely good, kind, nice people; the more she's begun to realize just how broken she'd been. She's come to realize that, as a person, she'd been terrible before she'd met Jaune. In an effort for him to not throw her aside, she'd done her best to change herself.

And now… now she had to deal with the consequences of that change. She has to deal with looking herself in the mirror in the morning and feeling her sins crawling along her back. She has to remember the look on Amber's face as she'd sucked the Maiden's flames, and the life, from out of her. She has to remember the Madame's daughter screaming in such a bloodcurdling way.

She has to remember seeing that look on Jaune's – her little light's – face the moment he'd first met her, within the vault of Beacon. That fear in his eyes.

"Cinder?"

She is snapped from out of her own head by the sound of her soulmates voice, and she doesn't really compute just how much that shocks her until she hears herself let out a titanic breath.

"I'm sorry, I…" Cinder begins. "This is… harder for me than I'd thought it would be."

"We can head back out to the lobby then. Or even step outside." Jaune assures her, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around her, bringing her some warmth and comfort. "You don't have to push yourself. I'm sure one of the others would gladly do this for us."

Cinder can't quite help it; she lets out a weak breath of laughter as she utters, "You're just… good."

"What?"

"I wish I was… half the person you are."

Jaune's brow furrows. "Cinder, you're doing wonderfully. You–"

"That's not…" She shakes her head. "I'm… I can't make up for what I've done. I can't. No matter how much I try, I just–"

"You've been doing as much as you can, Cinder." Jaune says, and he squeezes a bit harder. "You're doing all that you can to be better; and I appreciate it."

"That's… that's a part of the problem." Cinder says, shaking her head. "I… I think to myself sometimes, when I'm lying in bed, staring up at the dark sky… would I have even tried to change if it wasn't for you? If you'd accepted me as I was; or… or been okay with who I'd been when we met… I don't know if I would have. I think I'd have stayed that same broken, terrible excuse of a person for my entire life."

"You can't get so caught on what-if's, Cinder. That's not healthy."

"Hah… I know. More than you do, I think."

Jaune just looks sad at that.

"…Ever since I saw this place, I…" Cinder shakes her head. "The Madame… she's the only person who deserved what happened to her."

Jaune doesn't interrupt her. He just stays quiet, and lets Cinder drone on.

"But… four people died that day. Rhodes… of course, Rhodes wasn't perfect, but I think he was trying. The twins, though… they bullied me, and I hated them for it, but… they were so young. Maybe sixteen or seventeen? They couldn't have been much older than I was. Not really. It doesn't excuse their actions; they were never kind to me. But… I think about who I am now, and how I used to be so… I think about how I was given the opportunity to better myself; how I was given a second chance despite everything, and how I…"

Cinder shakes her head. She's not crying, or close to it, but there's a heaviness to her actions. She feels like gravity is trying to nail her to the floor.

"They never killed anyone. Never stole from anyone. Never tortured or murdered anyone. Never worked for the Dread Queen of the Grimm, and tried to conquer the whole world. And yet, it's me who's standing here, alive. And I… I stole that opportunity from them. They were still children, and I murdered them."

Jaune… she loves him for how he just… stays quiet, then. For how he doesn't try and convince her she's wrong, or that she shouldn't worry about this. He pities her, likely, or perhaps empathizes with her. Whatever it is, though, he is silent as he wraps his arms around her, and brings the two of them down to the floor in the middle of one of the back halls of the Glass Unicorn.

And he just… sits there with her. Sits there and lets Cinder vent every little thing that she's dealing with, as the minutes tick away. She knows they'll have to continue into the Madame's, twins, and perhaps even her own old rooms, but…

For now…

For now, she just pushes herself up against Jaune, so that the two of them are flush against each other.

And she does her best just to not think of much at all.

End Chapter 50

Alright, that's that!

I am curious to see people's reactions to this chapter. I'm not entirely certain everyone will agree with the words that Cinder says near the end. Still, I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts! We'll be digging more into Cinder's conclusion's here next chapter, and perhaps even the one after that.

See you all next week!