Salem smirked, watching Cinder betray that lilac luster. It brought a feeling akin to impressed she'd survived...hell the fact that she stayed hidden for so long under her radar impressed her even more.
The seer she'd used to witness such delightful betrayal from her former pupil was what made her decide to watch over the heiress her lovely thunderbolt of a man seemed to adore and seemingly still did.
"Oh, Valentine, you love her despite my gifts. I will allow two lovers, but you're my husband... you won't resist me when I see you in person and not in the suit I play with just to see you. Oh gods, how you'll grow into the most perfect creation even the gods couldn't build, " she said seductively, watching Cole Lash out at the darkness hitting metal walls.
Deciding to stop, salem let the illusion fade away and turned to the doors as large as a two story buildings and just as thick opened with a mighty groan, behind the doors knelt watts, tyrian, hazel and an armored woman whom kept the helmet on and said armor was made from the bones of all types of grimm.
"Tell me what you found and explain why you sit in front of my bedroom doors at such a late time," she said gently
To an untrained or stupid person, salem sounded as smooth as velvet and silk, but the smoother her tone the deeper the knife was driven if the wrong words were spoken.
Tyrian giggled as he looked into her eyes. "we found that reaper boy like you asked my goddess, hehehe, tell her watts tell her."
Sighing, she motioned them to stand. "Join me for dinner; tonight's a bountiful one."
Watts sighed in relief and Spoke "your grace, the fanatic does sing true, we found a mercenary with ties to the white fang and Adam Taurus seems to be looking for his mother and the white wolf aids her"
Taking a seat at their respective places, she motioned for the men to continue and grabbed a glass of wine from the head of a seer orb.
"The branwen twins are still separated, but it's the sister I'm concerned about, she's been amassing quite the army in mistral, and qrow is investigating reaper and the saviors; baron isn't staying undercover anymore" hazel explained folders in hand and set them on the large crystal table.
She hummed with a smile and waved her hand, creating grim hands to pass her the documents. "There's enough here to write a book series hazel."
Smiling, wider tyrian clapped joyfully and said, "I found the squirt on a cruise ship in a truck with that chameleon girl and android merlot talk of...all three heading to vacuo like you predicted!"
Salem glared softly and whipped tyrian in the face with the grimm hand, not holding the documents he provided, and said calmly. "You spoke already, tyrian, don't talk out of turn again."
He panted lecherously and nodded as he sat in his chair, bleeding from his cheek.
"Good, now I won't drag this out any further, so I'll just allow him to explain why 'reaper' was misplaced." She sipped on her wine, watching the confusion set in just as Merlot strolled in the dining hall bowed to salem.
"It's a pleasure to finally meet the goddess of the grimmlands; as thanks for allowing me to be here I brought you two prototype sigma clones" merlot boasted as a pair of cybernetic enhanced clones of cole strutted through the door covered in Atlesian prosthesis but not so much as the first clones he'd 'enhanced' but these were his best works yet nonetheless.
"Charmed merlot, but I don't care for the fakes that you've brought. Cole Valentine is who I want... Is that clear?" She asked, watching him sit next to hazel across from watts.
"These two aren't capable of anything more than what the cyborgs in remnant are capable of" he said waving the first clone to his side and gave it a bottle of vacuian bourbon "give this to her majesty"
"Yes, doctor," the clone said flatly as he took the bottle to salem and opened the bottle.
She scoffed and held out her glass to the clone. "What do you gain with these dr.merlot?" This better not be a joke because I. Am. Not. Laughing."
"Your majesty, these two are for you to play with as you please. You want Cole to be your perfect man, then I give you the templates to make your dream an actuality," Merlot said with boisterous confidence.
She hummed with a frown but accepted the gift greatfully. Watts and Hazel sighed with relief and drank their wine in unison.
Tyrian looked disturbingly aroused and wiped blood off his face with a cloth wet it in his wine and repeated till his cheat was cleaned off but stained with said wine.
Watts looked up at Hazel and asked "what iss wrong hazel? You normally have more to say."
The wall of beef that was hazel groaned, looked up, and stared at cinders chair. "I'd rather just enjoy the company of the grimm goddess in silence."
"Now hazel, we don't keep secrets from the Mistress. Why keep them from each other?" Tyrian mocked "is it because little Cindy is gone...hehehe did you love her?" He giggled at him for glaring the psychotic scorpion down but said nothing.
"Who's this 'cindy' you talk about faunas?"
"I AM NOT- ahem, I am tyrian callous not faunas and ill be addressed as such, got it?" He demanded as he seethed through his teeth.
"I meant no offense," he mocked with feigned innocence. "I merely wish to learn of the other members of your fabulous family."
Salem scratched her nails in her third glass of bourbon, silencing the room and answering for tyrian. "Cinder was to be like a daughter to me, a pupil and a student, but unfortunately, she bit off more than she could chew... and choked on her arrogance. She failed to bring me my husband the first time; ozpin was my first love in decades, and someone killed him. "
Watts cleared his throat just as the food was brought in and set on the giant table by a flock of nevermore minors. "Cinder is actually alive. Mistress, lilac and Cinder raided the sinkhole, and only after Merlot got here did I find out."
"Explain," she said, grabbing a swan from a platter and sliced it up on her plate with the seer orb feeding her its steamed insides.
"Well...ya see, it's a minor miscommunication-" a blade sank into Merlot's plate closest to his human arm and glared.
"EXPLAIN"
"your g-grace, I swear I didn't know; my laboratory was decimated long after I got there I didn't think anything of it since I have twenty just like it" merlot panicked as he sat there watching the blade inch deeper in the plate and table.
"Is. Cinder. Alive or not." She stood up, hooked his hand with her grimm, and pulled his arm over the table knife in hand, stepping slowly towards him. "Ten."
"You grace, I swear I didn't-"
"Nine."
"Please, I beg you-"
"Eight"
"I'm telling you that I-"
"Seven"
"The other labs are -"
"SIX"
"THE WOMAN BEGGED ME NOT TO SAY ANYTHING"
"FIVE"
"PLEASE BELIEVE ME" he wretched and pulled at his right arm to free it like a snarred animal.
"FOUR"
"PLEASE NOOOO"
She raised her knife to slice his arm apart when the doors creaked open, revealing Cinder wearing the skin of grim ranging in different shapes and sizes. She carried two short swords that made a bow if put together with the bowstring holding up her ursa cloak from the top of her chest. Boots were worn and torn, pants bloodied and shredded. Panting and rasping her words, she smiled as best she could.
"Your grace, I return to you from dishonor and exile to gift you with a full twenty terabytes of everything pertaining to Cole and everyone connected around him. All goes so deep that even Ironwood and the council of remnant don't have access." She shakingly knelt down, producing four flash drives with five terabytes each of everything salem had gotten from the others and more.
Salem stabbed the knife into Merlot's hand, making him scream in agony, slowly stalked towards Cinder, and grabbed her chin with her bare hand as gently as a mother would her child
"Put them on my table behind me and take sigma droid to help you recover; your room was unfortunately cleared out so you'll have to make due in an empty room filled with grimm furskins for a bed"
Cinder allowed the clone to wordlessly guide her out the dining hall and thanked her
Salem pulled the knife from merlot's hand and held hers to his wound making it hurt all the more "don't fail me again...and never insult my home with second rate copies of the man I desire" she sat in her seat and ate her meal greatful and even smiled in the delight of her people eating with her.
"What do we do about the saviors and ozpin's barely functional circle of lightholders?" Hazel questioned, chomping on a boar drumstick.
"We will speak tomorrow. When young Cinder has had her rest, we will continue this another day. In the meantime, enjoy your meal and clean yourselves up, I need to go through your reports and all the information that Cinder brought." She glanced at watts and said,"and please get merlot some help, he's bled all over my dining hall, and I hate repeating what I did with his last replacement." Salem loved where remnant is at and couldn't be bothered replacing another subordinate.
The sun In the grimmlands was always either a sunrise or a sunset, never anything more, yet it gave the lands a beautiful and soft purplish pink with twists of yellow and orange.
Merlot had talked to with salem on countless failures for Cole's cloning process but yielded one successful clone, so he engineered two cybernetic enhanced clones for her uses exclusively, but he apparently offended her. "M'lady, you truly know how to command the power you hold" he murmured as he stitched his hand closed.
Tyrian giggled as he fought, but this time he was going all out on an alpha beowolf and scream cackling while doing it. "NOT WORTHY; NO ONE IS WORTHY OF YOUR LOVE BUT ME" his mind went from salem straight for cole's visage in his murder happy time and rage took hold. "RAAAAAHHHHH, YOU WILL NOT TAKE HER FROM ME, SHE'S MINE YOU HEAR, SHE'S MIIIIIINE"
Cinder could hear all of that while trying to get some sleep, but her wounds were too much to handle, and all she could do was cry softly and suffer. "I did good, right Mistress?" She said in a state of delirium. Despite the delirium, she still heard the clicking heels salem was known for but a second set of footsteps were heard and she couldn't make out who it was snd that scared her.
The thick, oaken door clicked Its bolt lock and creaked open with three figures walking in.
"Fix her up as best you can; no amputation this time?" Salem said but Cinder could barely make out the rest of her voice.
"Thank you queen salem, your medical supplies you helped me get here are top of the line; two weeks and little 'cindy' here should be up and ready to go back out to find the twin wolves" Watts said guiding clone two to stand beside her bed after salem closed the door.
Watts went to clearing the bed of pillows and blankets for the clone to wordlessly fold up and set aside, first place watts checked was her legs then worked on her feet, up to her hips, then torso and finished on her arms, back and head.
"Good thing you got home today Cinder, your deeper words are infected, your malnourished and dehydrated...but a few dozen scratches and bruises aren't going to be the end of you so you can rest easy" giving his best clinical smile watts set up a pseudo i.v. drip using a wire hanger and a liter sized bag with drugs to help Cinder recover.
"Thank...you Arthur, tr-truly" she rasped out as she fell asleep.
"Bite off more than you could chew and you'll choke on it...but, you survived four years off the Mistress's radar, so I'm sure you'll survive a few wounds." He looked to the clone and said "stand guard outside this room and only her majesty and I can enter this room, understand?"
The clone nodded and stood guard as he was told without complaints, the clone looked so much like that Valentine child, but unlike the real cole, this cyborg clone was decomposing from his skeleton out and he pitied the two clones. Watts understands the treatment Merlot got, and he found it amusing.
The castle of the grimmlands was not hard to find, but damn was is hard to reach. Hazel knew from first-hand experience what happened when the grimm thought you were a threat. He was strong enough to kill most grimm, but when he met salem, he found out that brawn was not better than brains. Seven years after he'd lost so badly to her, Hazel dedicated himself to learn as well as getting stronger.
In that time, hazel had watched as someone took ozpin's life before he could, and ever since he'd investigated it and found dead end after dead end, until he found two individuals named ciri and geralt rivia -strange lastnames but he didn't judge- and thanks to them, he was closer to finding the ones responsible but the group tied to them was more elusive than he'd anticipated.
Salem watched over all of them with alpha seers and made sure to hide them so well no one could tell where they'd been hidden.
Currently, hazel was squatting a dead ursa minor when he'd heard salem's footsteps behind him so he heated it over his head one last time and threw it a couple feet away panting.
"Do you need something, your majesty?" He asked, wiping sweat off his face with a towel.
"Well, I figured if sigma is making his way to us then we need to make every accommodation we can think of, so I am making rounds to see what I can do to make this castle a home rather than a place to hide" she ended her ramble with a hopeful look in her eye.
Thinking for a moment, hazel looked down to meet her gaze and said "If I may be so bold, salem, the best thing you can do is to start on the living quarters and go from there; start small and work up from there. Comfort is important but also have structure."
Salem gave a nod with a small smirk and made her way to the gates where upon opening them met a man quivering in his boots at the queen of grimm. "th-the sup-p-p-plies you r-r-r-requested are read-d-d-dy for purchase"
Taking out the necessary lien from her robes she cupped the man's hands gently placing the black leathery bag in his pals she smiled sweetly "thank you so much for coming, I have a few extra items I need and I've tripled your asking price"
thank you madam, I'll get these to you in a weeks time...sooner if I can find it without putting in custom orders" he said shakily and rode off in the grimmlands mist.
mistralian marshes*
Walking through the marshes of a mistralian village far past its time of humble lounging and now stood as a place of immense grief, weiss felt it and the name of the destroyed village was not familiar due to the overhang being obscured by plants and mildew.
Weiss had puncture wounds in her arm, burns and severe bruising all over her body head to toe. She'd escaped the saviors a month after she drugged reaper and baron in case they were coming after her, thanks to lilac giving her the dried peace lilies and a bushel of snake dews.
Unfortunately, reaper was more resilient than that. She'd stolen a small bullhead and sped out of the warehouse waking everyone and reaper was the only person that got on and hid in the bathroom, he'd attacked her in the seat and wasn't close to trying for subduing weiss, he'd beaten her and funnily enough she fought back and the words exchanged weren't exactly kind either.
Crashing the ship weiss awoke first and ran for it to hide, she ran for hours by the time she found a house with a family of three: two parents and a baby girl. They took her in and hid her in the basement.
Reaper eventually found her tracks and led him to the family. She listened in as reaper kindly spoke about his wife and described her to a T and bribed his way in...but as soon as the mother attacked him he'd already killed her; needle blade through her forehead, resonating throughout the house was a squelch and a crunching sound. The husband heard it and swung at reaper and laying a few good his in he'd thrown reaper into a kitchen table and woke the baby.
They wrestled around for domination in the fight but reaper got sick of playing around so he stabbed the man in his thigh, uppercut him in the nose, the blew a hole into his skull taking a good portion off.
"Weiss~ I know you're busy in this house but I need to talk with you please make it fast, I'm not a patient man." He picked up the screaming baby by the time she rushed up to at least save the baby from him but what her eyes found was a bloody reaper feeding a baby with what she'd assumed was formula.
The following contains intentions of slaughter, stalking, insanity, and assault/\ reader's discretion advised
Reaper was many things she'd called him but a gentle caretaker wasn't one of them. There he stood with a baby feeing it, cooing at it and humming a song. She couldn't place it so she tried running but he zapped her in the stomach and floored her. This upset the baby girl but he shushed her with a bloody claw and walked her into the room and closed the door. When he came back weiss had been crawling through the hallway and got a boot to her back and he raged...unfortunately for his decaying mind he'd lost all reason.
"Aw, look at daddy's baby girl" he kissed the baby and lovingly set her down.
"That's daddy's baby, little sleepy head" he cackle giggled and hugged himself "I changed your diaper Wiped you and powdered you. How did you get so big? Can't believe it, now you're two Baby, you're so precious, daddy's so proud of you" kissing the baby he whipped around he stomped her again and began the screaming and eliciting noting but fear.
"Sit down, bitch, you move again, I'll beat the shit out of you"
"Okay" she cried harder as the boot crushed her face into the blood soaked floor
"Don't make me wake this baby
She don't need to see what I'm 'bout to do"
By this time she was hysterical and sobbed more.
"Quit crying, bitch, why you always make me shout at you!? How could you just leave me and love him out the blue? Oh, what's the matter, Weiss? Am I too loud for you? Too bad, bitch, you're gonna finally hear me out this time, At first I'm like, "Aight, you wanna throw me out, that's fine" But not for him to take my place, are you out your mind? This couch, this TV, this whole house is mine How could you let him sleep in our bed? Look it, Weiss, look at your saviors now"
"no" she resisted as she looked away but he smashed her face in the floor and roared "I said look at them! They ain't so hot now, is they, Little punks"
"Why are you doing this I don't deserve-"
"Shut the fuck up!"
"you're a monster, You're never gonna get away with this"
"you think I give a fuck?" he reached out and gripped her shirt and dragged her out the door "Come on, we're going for a ride, bitch"
"NO" she screamed kicking and thrashing about.
Grabbing the door to a car he ripped it open and threw her in "sit up front"
"We can't just leave that baby alone, what if she wakes up?" she pleaded for him to catch her begging to help calm him a bit...but it backfire.
"We'll be right back, well, I will, you'll be in the trunk" he gripped his head and sobbed uncontrollably "So long to a beautiful wife, I don't wanna go on Livin' in this world without you So I'll fix you"
This part into the ride his mind broke more and more. "You really fucked me, Weiss, you really did a number on me- Never knew me cheatin' on you would come back to haunt me; But we was kids then, Weiss, I was only eighteen That was years ago, I thought we wiped the slate clean That's fucked up, hehehe oh God, my brain is racin"
"If I say I love you then no one-" she tried playing music but he gripped her hand hard popping a few bones out of place.
"what are you doing? Change the station I hate this song, does this look like a big joke? There's a 25 year-old little bitch layin' dead with a slit throat In your livin' room- Ha-ha, what, you think I'm kiddin' you?" he let out a choke laugh and looked at her and sped up "You loved him, didn't you?" she knew he'd k"own of cole's love for her and she was terrified now more than ever.
"No"
"Bullshit, you bitch, don't fuckin' lie to me" the hope ignited in her when a semi honked at reaper's swerving around the road but sped past them.
"What the fuck's this guy's problem on the side of me? Fuck you, asshole, yeah, bite me- Weiss? Weiss! Why don't you like me? You think I'm ugly, don't you?"
"It's not that-"
"No, you think I'm ugly Get the fuck away from me, don't touch me I hate you, I hate you I swear to God, I hate you"
"please let me-"
"Oh my God, I love you How the fuck could you do this to me?"
"I'm sorry" she huddled up weeping like she had when Jaques hit her as a child... this time winter wasn't there to comfort her.
"How the fuck could you do this to me!?" He screamed as he'd began beating the steering wheel.
Stopping in a mostly open field reaper sliced off her seat belt and looked to her with tears in his eyes "go on, get out"
"I can't, I'm scared"
Growling angrily he grabbed her hair and dragged her from the car "I said get out, bitch!"
"let go of my hair Please don't do this, reapy, please, I love you, Look, we can just take the baby and leave" she pleaded hoping to appease him.
"fuck you You did this to us, you did it, it's your fault, Oh my God, I'm crackin' up" get a grip, reaper~" shifting he looked at her with a crazed look in his eyes "Hey, remember the time we went to Brian's party And you were, like, so drunk that you threw up all over the floor? That was funny, wasn't it?" He'd really lost it by now and he'd been rambling so much he'd not realized it
"Yes" she meekly said
"That was funny, wasn't it?!"
"Yes!" She screamed looking up at him holding a blade.
He threw her into a stream and rattled on psychotic and angrily, "See, it all makes sense, doesn't it? You and your saviors have a fight, one of you tries to grab a knife And during the struggle, husband accidentally gets his Adam's apple sliced"
"no"
"And while this is going on, his son has woke up And he walks in, wife panics, and he gets his throat cut"
"Oh my God"
"So now they both dead and you slash your own Throat, So now it's double homicide and suicide with no note"
He broke down again and giggled "I shoulda known better when you started to act weird We could've-"
He heard panting and feet stomping away and he chased after "hey, where you goin'? Get back here You can't run from me, Weiss, it's just us, nobody else You're only making this harder on yourself Ha-ha, gotcha"
She screamed louder than she'd screamed in her life in the hopes someone, hell, anyone would help her.
"go ahead, yell, Here, I'll scream with you, Ahhh, somebody help" he tackled her and pinned her arms to her side looking down at her face filling more and more with terror.
"Don't you get it, bitch? No one can hear you, Now shut the fuck up, and get what's comin' to you- You were supposed to love me"
He raised his dagger he stole from Cole's archives for weapons he'd made and aimed closer upward and about to pierce her in the throat.
Weiss had her life flashing right before her life and so many happy memories played through her like a film of pictures ranging from her time with winter, her grandfather, and the family she'd build through her friends at beacon. Yang's bombastic personality, Blake's odd yet insightful nature, ruby's annoying yet cheerful energy, jnpr's quirky and at times unmatched potential...then there's cole, the man that begged the world for acceptance and needed humanity put back into his life but was denied it all together. He loved her but he never truly got to express it his way.
She didn't want this to be her end, her death would hurt so many people that her mind shot the desperate attempt through one word and she screamed as loud as she had ever screamed in her life.
"SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!"