--

"Oh, oh, and then, Weiss was like swish, so I was all like kchink - you know, like the reloading sound on Crescent Rose? - anyway I was all like kchink, because she didn't know that I recently upgraded my baby's magazine capacity and-"

"That–that's very nice, Ruby, but I actually need to get going. I'll see you after class for practice?" Cinder Fall offered diplomatically, finding it somewhat hard to find an opportune moment to interject against the insipid airheaded child's ongoing rant about…

Was it her most recent training session with her team, or was it a video game she had been playing? She distinctly remembered something about video games but found it hard to keep all of the information straight in her head.

So much of it was useless, mindless, tripe.

Unfortunately, she could never be quite sure when that useless tripe would have some bearing on her current mission. And by 'current mission' she meant 'staying alive'.

"Oh, is it time for you to pray already?" Ruby asked innocently, skipping along next to her in the spacious hallways of Beacon academy. There were other students present, but none of them were the handful she had been ordered to protect, so Cinder had largely ignored them. She would have ignored Ruby's question too - but it touched pretty strongly on something she really didn't like talking about.

"...How do you know about that?" Cinder asked, and immediately knew she had erred, because she had used the tone of voice that her thoughts took when she thought of Ruby - and not the kindly elder sister tone she had affected around her normally. Thus, she took steps to course-correct herself.

"It's just that I only pray when I am alone. In my room." She added on, smiling weakly and apologetically as a means of explaining - without actually saying so - why she found the question discomforting.

Because it implied she had been spied on. Ruby - upon making this realization at her typical agonizingly slow mental pace - had the good sense to blush in embarrassment.

"Sorry! It's just, you left your door open a bit this one time and I forgot I wanted to ask you something and I just-" She blurted out.

"Ruby, it's fine. Just… please knock or tell me you are there next time." Cinder said wearily. She didn't even have to fake it. She was tired. After the day of her encounter with The Nexus, she had done everything in her power to secure herself a stable position at Beacon. She had pulled strings through what few contacts she felt safe making use of in order to have the totality of her funds on hand. She had purchased a home in the city, and had made sure to… handle… anyone who could easily blow her cover. Annoyingly, that had required her to pay an exorbitant amount to Neopolitan so that she wouldn't cause problems, now that her Boss was captured - along with firm promises of assistance in breaking the man out. She had forced herself past her typical disgust in order to foster stronger ties with her charges.

She had explained to Emerald and Mercury, upon their haggard return to the school, what the new status quo was.

And every night, she prayed. She wasn't stupid. She was at least passingly aware of Salem's story. She knew God existed. Multiple gods, even.

And she knew when she had been cursed by the divine.

So she had scoured every text, and every resource she could acquire for information on a 'Nexus' - only to have largely come up with nothing but hearsay. The only thing she really had to go by was the way the being had singled out Ruby as 'hers', which, coupled with Salem's ardent hate for Silver-Eyed hunters, had left her almost as bereft of understanding as she had been before starting her search.

All she was left with was just asking what the being wanted, and despite not having any ritual to speak of, not knowing anything even vaguely approximating a correct rite or format - she prayed.

It galled her every time, to be so enthralled by another being that she would be forced to put her hope in something as trivial as prayer. But she persisted, because somehow, praying always seemed to relieve some of the pressure on the back of her neck.

"Kay! See you, Cinder!" The child chirped, assured that her elder friend wasn't mad at her anymore.

"I'll see you later, Ruby." Cinder put forth in what she hoped was a convincingly kindly tone. She had to resist the urge to allow her expression to show her distaste once the girl had turned a corner and run out of sight. If she was going to sneer at people just because they couldn't see her, she would have been caught a long time ago.

She was honestly just glad that she kept all of her prayer in her head. If Ruby had actually heard some of the profane things she'd asked while praying, she probably wouldn't be so gung ho about it.

Mostly, she just asked it to smite things that endangered her. She might be forced to protect the children, and prevented from so much as considering contacting Salem - but that didn't mean Salem wouldn't try to contact her. Since she had no way of knowing if accepting contact counted as seeking contact, she had thus far evaded such attempts.

She knew however, that such a thing could not last.

So she had somewhat hoped that - in deference to the fact that she was nominally doing God's work - that God would throw her a bone and smite some of her problems for her.

Just a little smiting. Any amount of smiting would be fine, honestly.

Lost in her thoughts, she made her way to her room, where her minions were awaiting her return.

--

"Report." She demanded from them within moments of entering the room, crossing her arms in front of her and glaring down imperiously at them.

Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black were two… very different looking people. Emerald was dusky skinned, and possessed of bright green hair - and was utterly obsessed with doing Cinder's bidding. Mercury Black was a pale, grey haired teen that respected nothing and no one - but did what she said because he had no one else to rely on in the first place.

Cinder had an odd soft spot for strays.

Both of them were sitting on their beds, doing their utmost to ignore each other as she entered the room and spoke.

She might have gotten slightly more mean with her underlings than what was her norm recently, but she chalked that up to her ill thought-out cover personality for being in the school. There was only so much she could tolerate breasting boobily around the building while pretending she liked or cared about any of the people in it before she just wanted to hide somewhere and scream. She was several years older than most of the people present, and while being a Huntsman didn't exactly have an age requirement, the continued fawning of the many and varied teenagers present was rapidly becoming less useful than it was annoying.

"Caught one of the Atlas guys off duty with my Semblance. Roman's locked up tight, but he's not talking to anyone so far. We probably won't be able to get him out until they try to move him." Emerald reported eagerly, either ignoring or - possibly - enjoying the treatment.

She wasn't a very complicated girl, after all.

"I'll leverage my resources to have the local police push for a transfer of custody. Easier to get him from there. I have to bury a few of the high ranking officers who won't let the vigilantism from those four go anyway." Cinder said, more to ensure she would remember to do it than out of any desire for any of her companions to know what her plans were.

"What's her face with the huge--" Mercury began suddenly, but paused when Cinder's gaze cut across to stare at him.

"…the blond one was off in the woods trying to get herself killed again cus she thought her momma would show up." Mercury quickly amended.

"Well?" Cinder asked coldly.

"Well what? 'Well did she show up', or 'well did I do anything', or maybe 'well did she d-'" He started to drawl, and it took everything in Cinder Fall's power not to set him ablaze right then and there.

"Yes." She answered succinctly, cutting him off with her tone and a glare. She knew the girl wasn't dead, because neither was she.

But that didn't mean she wanted to joke about it.

"I jumped in and helped. Told her I was out 'training'. Think she gave up when she realized she might drag me into her death wish." He answered with an apathetic shrug.

"Wonderful." She hissed, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration.

Her task would be a lot easier if she could act openly. Unfortunately, she had noticed several of Ironwood's people tailing her - so she had to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

"Hey, umm… I know you said not to question you but are you… sure those four clowns are the secret to beating Salem or whatever? Ah–not that I'm doubting you or anything, it's just--" Emerald asked quickly, trailing off when Cinder's expression hardened.

Of course she had no idea if that was the case. But she had to tell her followers something about her sudden change in behavior, and since it was fairly clear that The Nexus did not like or appreciate Salem's existence, she felt it was a fair bet to assume so.

Of course, she didn't have to tell Emerald and Mercury that they were double agents working against the Queen of the Grimm. But believing that their work was important, and not just the deranged whim of an all powerful deity, did wonders for their motivation and loyalty.

Well. Mercury's loyalty. Emerald needed no convincing.

"Yes." She ground out, before forcing her voice to soften. "There are things I can't tell you yet Emerald. But I swear, we are doing the right thing." She said. Mercury could tell she was lying, that he could tell right off, mostly because demonstrating any level of emotional attachment to Emerald was out of character for her.

But Emerald either didn't notice, or didn't care - because she just nodded along happily, her expression bright.

As though waiting for the perfect time to ruin the moment however, her scroll began to vibrate in its case, and she lifted it distastefully to see who it was that was trying to contact her now.

This, she thought in retrospect, was a mistake, as the face of Arthur Watts - a reedy man with an excessively pompous mustache and a far too high estimation of his own abilities immediately appeared on it - without her actually hitting accept.

"Cinder, what in the hell is going on? Why aren't you answering my communications? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for me to have to force this call through like this?" He immediately bit off.

She moved to open her mouth to explain, or even to lie, just to extend the time she had to find an alternative solution to the problem.

But even thinking about interacting with Arthur, who she knew would transfer the information back to Salem, made her blood start to feel like molasses in her veins.

So instead she made a hard croaking noise as her first aborted word cut off, and then closed and turned off the device.

"…That feels… bad." Mercury noted cautiously, eyeing her suddenly fear stricken expression.

"Cinder? Is everything okay? Do you want me to talk to him?" Emerald offered, making Cinder cringe slightly in response. She wasn't sure if that would count against her sacred charge - but she wasn't willing to risk it.

"Get out. Go- go pretend to be friends with those four girls. I'll be with you shortly." She whispered.

"But-"

"Get. Out." She said hoarsely, staring straight ahead at the wall until they - slowly - rose to comply.

When they were finally gone, she moved to her bed, got down on her knees, and clasped her hands together with such force that her knuckles whitened.

She had exactly two allies. Her old enemies were closing in on her. Her old allies were her new enemies. She had only the most tenuous grasp on the situation, and on safety. She had no control over anything anymore, and she needed something to change, or she was going to end up either dead or in a jail cell in very short order.

So, in the manner which had become the norm for her recently, she prayed to her unwanted god.

"I know you can hear me, you bi-"

A/N: Outstanding omake apocrypha and other such things will be tagged and counted when I'm home from work. Until then - thanks for reading!