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Cinder let out an annoyed sigh, watching people weave in and out of the night club, most of them cursing out the random girl standing in the (very wide) entryway. Why had she decided to come here, of all places? It had been an impulse, more than anything-somewhere she knew it would take a while for anyone to think to check for her.
If you wanted, you could leave it all behind right now.
She smirked at that thought, ignoring the anger bubbling in her gut. If she left now, that would leave her powerless. At the mercy of the cruel, unyielding Gods. And I refuse to be a pawn.
Salem would find her eventually, anyway. Maybe she would send Tyrian after her, or Hazel, or maybe even a Grimm, but it was inevitable. Unless she flipped the board, spilling the pieces onto the floor and turning the King into yet another pawn.
"Oi!" A girl with a slippery smile and flushed face waved at her, shouting over the music. "Are you gonna come in, or just stand there?" She let out a laugh, practically doubling over, white cat ears twitching. Cinder gave her a glare, amber eyes fixating on her neck. If she walked over there, it would be so easy to wrap her hands around it and watch those green eyes widen in fear, life slowly draining out of them.
But more likely than not, someone would stop her, slam-tackling her or doing something equally absurd. The cat Faunus girl continued staring at her, smiling that big, stupid grin, swaying on her feet before taking a few steps forward, almost being knocked down from the endless stream of people, somehow making her way to Cinder.
"I'm serious," she giggled. "Are you a transfer or something?" The girl leaned forward. "I don't think I've seen you around before..." Before Cinder could figure out sort of defense, she seemed to think of a different subject. "Wanna hang out? Me and my team are over there, so..." She trailed off, staring blankly into space for a moment. "I'm Vi, by the way."
Cinder stared at Vi. She tried her best to choke back a laugh-not that Miss Rainbow Vomit noticed-covering a hand over her face.
A red-haired boy, face equally red in mortification, ran over. "Gods, I'm sorry." He fixed the girl with a disappointed expression. "Vi, for the last time, you can't just ask people if they want to fuck...oh." The boy, young man really, noticed the way Cinder's face shifted into surprise, before getting itself back under control. "Was that not what she said?" He dragged a hand down his face. "I am so, so sorry. Would you mind erasing...everything I've said from your memory?"
Cinder offered him a smirk, amusement leaking into it. "It's fine," she dismissed, ignoring the people letting out groans of annoyance as they had to move around three people. "I assume she done this before?"
Red's face, doing it's best impersonation of a tomato, rubbed the back of his neck. "When she's drunk, yeah."
Vi let out a trilling laugh. "And when sober." She offered Cinder that same dumb smile from before, winking this time. "But seriously, you should party with us!" Swinging her arms, she spun away from them, quickly disappearing into the thick crowd.
"VI!" The red-haired boy made a desperate grab at her, before cracking a smile, turning to Cinder. "Sorry for her. She's just..." He made a few vague gestures. "In all honesty, though, do you want to hang out with us? Or go somewhere quieter?" He paused, frowning. "Which sounds weird to say to girl who I just met."
Cinder offered a coy smile. "I'm Cinder. Cinder Morgan." Bile rose in her throat-why had that name been the one to pop into her head? The Madame's face, cruel and remorseless and so easy to bloody, flashed into her head.
The boy didn't seem to pick up on her error, thankfully. "Lycomedes Nikos. Are you from around here, or...?"
This could be fun, if she played her cards right.
"Mistral," she said with a shrug, moving into the crowd. Lycomedes awkwardly followed behind her, eyes darting from place to place.
"Where's your team, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Also in Mistral," she said automatically. It was true, in a way. She didn't doubt for a secret that Salem had all sorts of connections there, maybe in each kingdom. Which means your just as safe here as you were at Evernight.
Lycomedes rose his eyebrows at this, but otherwise didn't react. "So...anything you want to see while your in Atlas?"
She offered him a grin. "I can think of a few things."
The girl didn't look much like her.
She hadn't looked much like her when she a baby either, but at least then she'd had the excuse of being that; a baby, with flushed skin and barely opened eyes, wailing at the top of her lungs. Wisps of blood red hair clinging to her head.
Pyrrha Nikos, in Cinder's opinion, hadn't changed much. She'd gotten rid of most of her baby fat, replacing much of it with muscles, and her eyes were green now, rather than the blue she'd seen whenever her eyes blinked open, her hair was longer, still blood red, but now in a low-hanging ponytail, face framed by golden accessories. She personally blamed Iduna (it always came back to the Nikos family, didn't it?), who was either Lycomedes sister or cousin. She hadn't particularly cared to find out.
But she was just as much of a blood-sucking leech as she had been back then; just as loud and flailing as she'd been then.
The scrawny blonde stumbled back, managing to dodge a sharp stab from Pyrrha's spear-evidently, the shield was too heavy for him to even lift up. Either that or his arms were too weak. Pyrrha laughed slightly, a smiling lighting up her face. Cinder supposed she could somewhat see the resemblance now.
Mercury and Emerald were saying something, Emerald's voice becoming increasingly more irritated.
"Cinder," Mercury said loudly, and she tried not smile at the way he flinched when she whipped her head around to face him, away from the window. It was nice-even comforting-to know that even with all his bluster and bluff, he was still afraid of her. "What's our plan?"
She offered him a smile, baring her teeth (that was all a smile was, after all; just a polite way to threaten someone). "Easy," she said. She didn't doubt that they, Emerald at the very least, had the 'plan' burned into the back of their eyelids, but she supposed it gave them...some illusion of control. Usually, she'd be annoyed, but it would be a nice way to...get her mind off other matters. "All it takes is a bit of rot to infect the tree."
Mercury looked annoyed at the vagueness, before shrugging and going back to push-ups, letting out grunts as he went up and down. Emerald continued staring at her from her bed, what could almost be called pity filling her gaze as Cinder looked out the window again, face twisting into a scowl.
Pyrrha and the blonde-Jaune, her mind finally supplied-had stopped training, if you could call it that, instead moving the towards the stairs, getting off the roof.
"Cinder," Emerald spoke up hesitantly, red eyes burning a hole into the sheets. "Aren't you a bit...obsessed with the Nikos girl? I mean, you've been watching her for the last twenty five minutes."
Cinder didn't bother hiding her scowl this time. "Nikos is called the Invincible Girl for a reason," she reminded Emerald. Sure, the rumors were almost certainly inflated, but that didn't detract from the fact she was a legitimately skilled fighter, at least for people with metal on them. Almost certainly not a match for a Maiden, of course. "Besides, I'm beginning to believe that Ozpin has something planned for her."
Emerald didn't reply to that, simply letting out an annoyed sigh.
It was times like that she had to remind herself that the two were somewhat smarter then she gave them credit for. Even if they couldn't put all the pieces together and see the full picture, they still understood that there was some sort of puzzle happening in front of them.
She had thought seeing her, hearing her name, would spark some emotion. Some deep maternal feeling she apparently supposed to feel, that even the Madame had shown to her daughters from time to time.
The girl was collecting her things, spear easily sliding into the bronze bracer onto her arm. Her shield was already already on her back, and her green eyes shifted from person to person as she walked down the hallway, ignoring the quiet gasps from the few that had somehow managed to miss the fact the Invincible Girl was at Beacon.
"Pyrrha Nikos, correct?"
"Hmm?" Pyrrha looked to her left, and Cinder gave her best impression of a friendly smile, easily falling into step beside her. "Hello! I'm sorry, I don't believe we've met." Her face, which seemed perpetually set into whatever was friendliest, broke into a smile. "Are you here for the Vytal Festival?"
Cinder offered her a coy smile. "Like much of Beacon's population these days, yes. I'm Cinder." It didn't entirely surprise her that such as pretentious school would only let in the best, or those lucky enough to stumble in like that blonde buffoon who sat at the lunch table across from Team SCEM ('Seraphina Vanille', Cinder Fall, Emerald Sustrai, and Mercury Black), but the limited amount of student had admittedly surprised her. She changed her expression somewhat-downcast eyes, a frown digging into the corner of her lip, a borderline grimace. "Where's the rest of your team?"
Pyrrha's smile became a bit more wry. "I could ask you the same question," she pointed out with a laugh. "I'm just going to meet them, actually. They're at the library-there's a test, and..."
Cinder allowed herself to zone out, trying her best to keep the semi-interested smile on her face from slipping. Getting her to talking was easier then she'd expected, admittedly, almost as easy as talking to Lycomedes had been. Unfortunately, she didn't seem to have anything useful to tell her.
"You were good against Team CRDL," she offered blandly; people like her, like the Schnee Heiress or the Madame, seemed to enjoy having their egos inflated.
The girl's smiled faded ever so slightly, and she shrugged. "I suppose," she said neutrally. "They weren't much of a challenge, all things considered."
It didn't take a 'genius' like Watts to figure that out; despite being Huntsmen-in-training, the majority of them seemed to rely on brute strength more than anything, and she'd heard from a few rumors here and there they'd ran away from a single Ursa. Still, it didn't seem like Pyrrha had responded well to that.
"It was nice talking to you, Pyrrha," Cinder commented, stopping at the classroom she supposedly had to go in. The rest of team SCEM, aside from that Neopolitan girl, were already there, Emerald and Mercury whispering to one another in low voices as Port boomed from within the classroom. "See you later, maybe?" She suppressed the urge to either gag or burst into hysterical laughter at the hopefulness she managed to fill her voice with.
Pyrrha looked surprised, and another smile came onto her face, almost as bright as the sun. "See you later," she agreed, voice full of sincerity.
Cinder entered the classroom, keeping her head held high, a knowing smirk spread across her face.
"Ah, Ms. Fall! Nice of you to join us!" Professor Port practically shouted. She didn't both dignifying that with a response, instead sliding into the empty seat next to Emerald, who cut her conversation with Mercury short and gave her a concerned look.
"Where were you?" She hissed, and Cinder ignored the flare of rage sparking in her gut at the question.
"I just got ourselves another pawn."
It was funny, in a way.
The way everyone talked about her, you'd think that Pyrrha-the Invincible Girl-was truly that. Invincible, unbeatable, favored by destiny itself. And yet here she was, fighting an unwinnable battle with a goddess. The best way to get rid of a disease is to cut out the rot.
Cinder bit back a sharp cry as her daughter's the girl's shields began to cling to her, crushing her into her into curled up ball. That was annoying, almost terrifying-she tried to slow her breathing as it slowly began caving in on itself; her throat constricted, more than it had already, and she finally allowed the embers of anger to rise up, fire burning her fingertips and eyes and filling her with power.
Pyrrha let out a sharp gasp of pain as she was sent flying, hitting a pillar. Cinder crushed the small piece of admiration that rose up as Pyrrha tried her best to stumble upward, only to collapse back to the ground as a glass arrow hit her heel.
"It's unfortunate," she began, smirk playing at her lips as the glass began melting and cooling into the unmistakable shape of a crossbow, "that you were promised a power that was never truly yours. But take comfort in knowing that I will use it in ways you could never have imagined." Pyrrha's eyes, glimmering green and so unlike her's, met gold, and her face twisted into fear.
"Do you believe in destiny?"
Cinder didn't miss a beat. "Yes." The arrow met its mark, meeting exposed flesh, going through the neck and bone.
Pyrrha's eyes widened, mouth opening into a silent scream, ashes and embers beginning to fall from her skin. Cinder met her in two long steps, pressing her hand against the younger girl's cheek. It felt nearly freeing, as though she was meeting an old friend after years apart. Pyrrha had been a parasite, nothing more and nothing less, and now that she was gone, Cinder felt whole again.
It was destiny, really.
She stood up as what was left of Pyrrha, little more than a few flecks of either ash or dust, flew into the wind. "PYRRHA!" A loud, almost inhuman shriek hit her ears, and she turned around as silver, painful light hit her.