14"How did you two come to fall out of Salem's service?" Cinder called out, breaking what had to have been at least two hours of walking through the Emerald Forest in silence. They were the first words spoken since abandoning the bullhead, if you discounted a few things grumbled as they decided which direction Beacon was in.
Neither Mercury nor Emerald answered immediately. Having lagged slightly behind, they were able to share a concerned glance with each other without Cinder noticing. While having the three of them back together may have seemed like old times, the group dynamic was foreign. It held the possibility for hostility, a fact which no party here was unaware of. Only necessity bound Mercury and Emerald to Cinder at the moment.
That's not to say there weren't similarities to their past situation. Cinder was still the leader, although now she was not the unquestioned leader. She led because she had a plan, whereas before she led because neither of Merc nor Em would have dared stand up to her; both had been too afraid of retribution, or at least Mercury had been. Emerald cringed when she thought back to the fanatical desperation she served Cinder with, a cross between hero-worship and projecting her desire to be loved onto the woman. Her eyes softened as she shifted them back to the man who had broke her of that delusion not that long ago. Mercury didn't even know why he did it at the time, but he went out of his way to show Emerald that her hero-worship was idiotic and blind. By itself, that wouldn't have broken through to her, but what surprised them both was that Mercury broke Emerald of her desperate urge to be loved by Cinder—by filling that need himself.
Sort of, Emerald had to remind herself, just to make sure she kept a level head. They had talked about it before—though it was fairer to say that Emerald had finally gone through the emotional meltdown that had been building for years, and that Mercury had shocked them both by just… putting up with it. Or that was all that Mercury allowed himself to admit out loud, and maybe even to himself. They both knew that Merc had done more than just listen, and Emerald suspected that he discovered that he wanted to help Emerald because he had a similar hole beaten into his own heart by his abusive father. It was why he had always detested Emerald back when they were at Beacon. Emerald's emotional stunting was obvious then—embarrassingly so, to look back on how bad it had been even a few weeks ago. Having Emerald around made Mercury uncomfortable, and they were only just now understanding that it was because Mercury didn't realize how similar of a position he was in.
Now, there was… something between them. It might have been romantic, or platonic, or something entirely different born out of a necessity for each other. Neither had been able to define it, though neither would address it out loud; hell, Emerald would barely think about it herself, trying not to jinx it by dwelling on it. Mercury was the most important person to her now, only because she could function with him there, and him being there was helping her learn to function on her own—and in return, Mercury was learning to open himself up in ways that he once thought he hated.
There might be something romantic there to it, but they were on the run when they discovered even what they had. If Emerald didn't wake up every morning relieved that they hadn't been killed in their sleep, if she didn't wake up each morning wondering if it was to be the last time, then maybe they'd have explored the possibility. Life was just too intense at the moment.
"We left," Mercury answered Cinder's question gruffly.
"Oh? Those who fail Salem do not tend to survive long, not without considerable strength," Cinder mused, though her voice lacked its usual smugness. It wasn't difficult to see why Cinder's normal demeanor had been replaced by the bitter, angry, and desperate one that she wore now. She was describing her own situation, though by 'considerable strength' she meant 'the power of the Fall Maiden.' Even with that, there was a reason this alliance had been reborn out of desperation. "And those who betray her… well, I've never heard of one who lived long enough to even think of regretting it."
"We didn't betray her," Emerald cut in. Cinder seemed so surprised that she would risk talking to her in anything less than a subservient way that she deigned to look back at Em, cutting one eye at her out of curiosity. It was the first time that Emerald had signaled that she wasn't emotionally-dependent on Cinder anymore, at least as far as Cinder had noticed. "We just… decided to leave. We haven't done anything that would count as working against her."
"Yet," Cinder added on, returning her eyes forwards, in the direction of our path to Beacon. "Helping me in Atlas probably counts against you enough. If we can't get this Relic, your days are assuredly numbered… in the double digits, if you're lucky."
"Why? You haven't betrayed her. Helping you still helps her goals, doesn't it?" Emerald asked back.
"I have failed her three times now," Cinder growled out, the words almost sounding painful for her to admit. Emerald and Mercury exchanged a worried glance and silently agreed to slow their pace slightly, allowing a little more room between them and Cinder. "Haven was a disaster. For all the damage we just did, Atlas still stands, and the Relic of Knowledge is as good as lost to us. Even my greatest achievement came up short: we brought Beacon to its knees and I became the Maiden, but we still failed to bring her Beacon's Relic."
"Those are your failures," Mercury cut in, earning a glare from Cinder and a wide-eyed, pleading look from Emerald. Don't start a fight we can't win, Merc! "Why would she hold those against us?"
Cinder held her glare for a few moments, before slowly returning her eyes to the path before her.
"Association, for one. You two have managed to be at my side for all three of them," Cinder answered, her voice calmer, but with an edge to it. "If you hadn't tried to flee her service, then she might have spared you. Really, you two have it much harder than I do right now. I'm only being hunted by Ruby at the moment."
Emerald was surprised that Cinder could even say the girl's name without devolving into a fit of rage, not since the girl stopped them in Atlas. Distracting herself by coyly taunting Mercury and her probably had something to do with that.
Idly, Emerald's fingers traced the scar on her stomach where Tyrian's weapons had almost disemboweled her. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Mercury rub his arm in a similar manner. They knew that when Tyrian gave them a ship to flee the Grimmlands with, they were agreeing to his cat-and-mouse game; they just didn't think that he would track them down within 48 hours! Em and Merc had kept their wits about them enough to know that even serious wounds were better than letting Tyrian get his poison into you, hence scars but not death. The only reason they had escaped was that Emerald had blacked out from how intensely she used her Semblance on Tyrian. Unfortunately, she had to use every trick she had been preparing for Tyrian, sending him through a gauntlet of embarrassment before her simulated Salem apparition, praying that Tyrian's loose screws and devotion to the woman would leave him susceptible to it.
She didn't know if it had worked or not. All she knew is that it had distracted Tyrian long enough for Mercury to carry her out of there and get lost.
A rustle of leaves came from behind a nearby tree, and a cold blast of air hit Emerald, sending a chill down her spine as she nervously whipped towards the sound of the noise. It would be a hell of a coincidence if Tyrian was careless enough to be detected as they were talking about him, right? Or would it be a mind game Tyrian would love to engage in? Would—
Emerald realized by the way Cinder was peaking at her that Tyrian wasn't there. It was only a gust of wind rustling the leaves. Chances are, that gust of wind and the cold air that had blasted Emerald's neck came from the same source.
"Bitch."
Cinder laughed at Emerald's ire. They both knew that if Emerald had the ability to make Cinder think that Ruby and her crew were hiding nearby, that she'd do it in a heartbeat. And she did, but Cinder wasn't likely to fall to her illusions. Emerald wasn't great at tricking people into believing subtle illusions if they knew about Emerald's Semblance, a fact that made her combat effectiveness tank in recent fights. Now, she just went with the direct route while in battle, taking sight away entirely or distorting what someone saw. Sure, they would know something was up, but they wouldn't figure out how to see past it in time for Emerald to get a hit in.
"We didn't get the Relic last time we were at Beacon because we couldn't find it, right?" Mercury asked, stepping forwards towards Cinder and speaking up to take her attention off of Emerald. Em wondering if he even realized that he was protecting her by doing it, or if he was just going off instinct and would only realize it when pointed out to him later. He wasn't much of a thinker, but he had his redeeming qualities. To her, at least. "What's going to be different this time?"
"Last time, I was interrupted," Cinder growled, the memory of Ruby's first time injuring Cinder clearly being remembered. "We had no intel about where Beacon's Vault was, or if Beacon even employed such a device. Ozpin may well have just hidden his Relic somewhere on the schoolgrounds so that he did not need a Maiden to use it. Given its power, it is what I would do. This time around, we will not be in such a hurry."
"Unless little miss Silver Eyes catches up to us," Mercury countered. "They're sure to realize that we abandoned that bullhead before we crashed. Given how far into Vale we flew, they'll figure out where we're going eventually. We may not have time to search every inch of that place."
"Yes, well, this is also different from last time," Cinder responded, holding up her Grimm arm to make a point. The appendage had spread to Cinder's chest, sprawling out to cover the skin half-way to her spine on her back, and covering most of her breast and ribs in the front. The fact that her breathing was not significantly hampered suggested that the corruption hadn't spread internally as far as it had externally, but it was only a matter of time. Cinder already felt weakened by the effects it had on her organs. She had even mused that Salem wasn't hunting her because the Grimm would consume her either way. "Grimm can sense the power housed in the Relics. They're drawn to it. I have significantly more Grimm to me now than the last time we were here. It should be a matter of concentration for me to narrow down our search once we arrive."
"What does the Relic do?" Emerald asked, hitting on the other main part of the plan.
"Like all Relics, it provides three things every century. For the Relic of Choice, it provides three choices," Cinder explained. "Or more specifically, it provides the chance to make a different choice. To go back in time to a choice you made in the past, and have the opportunity to choose differently."
"You're serious?" Mercury asked, giving Cinder a funny look. "Time travel?"
"In a sense. It returns you to your previous body, but with all the knowledge and experience you once had. When Ozma ended the Great War, he had the Relic of Choice, which means he likely used it in a way that we didn't see. My lien says that he fought the war until he lost, then used the Relic to go back and change the tide of the war when it was at its most critical."
"Why didn't he just go back and…?"
"Stop the Gods from leaving? Kill Salem before she could become who she is?" Cinder let the questions hang in the air for a few moments. The speed with which she had answered told Emerald that she had considered the question herself. "Perhaps the Relic limits you to the experience of your current body. Or perhaps he is an idiot. I suspect both to be true."
Emerald's eyes looked over to find Mercury looking at her with worry, though she didn't quiet catch the underlying meaning until he spoke.
"So we're just going to help you find the Relic so that you can change the past?" Mercury asked, a dangerous edge to his voice as his fists clenched at his side. As his words sunk in to Em, her hands slid to her weapons slowly, just in case. Her Semblance primed itself. "What's in it for us, nothing?"
"Tell me, if you broke off this alliance right now, would you survive a week? A month? Even if you escaped Tyrian, do you believe that you could find mercy from Ruby after killing her friends?"
The words hung in the air, unanswered and unchallenged.
"I will take the Relic, go back to our time in Beacon, and ensure that our first mission succeeds. That will change the trajectory of everything, and you two will never find yourselves in such a dire straight. If you have a better option, take it. Otherwise, shut up and walk."
"Keep a low profile. There's no point in alerting the Grimm if we don't have to."
Emerald wanted to ask about that. Cinder had no qualms with using her Grimm arm and the Grimm bug inside it to ward off Grimm in the Emerald Forest. Why would the Grimm in Beacon be any different? She looked to Mercury, who seemed similarly lost in thought on the subject, but he shook those thoughts free and focused himself on the task at hand.
Maybe Cinder was underplaying how much Salem would be after her. The Grimm would consume Cinder either way at this point, but Salem was not the kind to sit back and wait patiently if she did not need to. Maybe Cinder was just concerned that all of the major Grimm had somehow been warned not to obey her commands anymore, or worse, that they would all target her on sight. Maybe her Grimm bug was a double-edged sword now.
"Where do we look first, then?" Emerald asked in a low voice, as if the frozen Grimm Wyvern would finally wake if it could hear Emerald's voice all the way from the cliffs.
"The Vault. Without an elevator, I'll go down alone. You two stand guard here." Cinder turned her head back to make sure they were both still with her, before she began to walk forward towards the school. "I don't know how long it will take me to grow accustomed to… sensing for the Relic with my arm. Be prepared to wait a while."
Cinder jumped down the elevator shaft without much hesitation. She appeared more agitated than anything, and Emerald wondered if that was how stress manifested itself with her. If that were true, then there hadn't been a day that Emerald knew the woman where she wasn't at least partially stressed.
"So do you want first watch, or…?" Mercury called out, plopping down against the wall near the elevator shaft and crossing his hands behind his head. "Because I would love to take a nap right now."
"We're in hostile territory surrounded by Grimm, including the frozen dragon still spawning Grimm just above our heads, we're being hunted by Salem's… psychopathic assassin, if Tyrian doesn't get us then Ozpin's new reincarnation and company will, not to mention that they're hot on our tail since Atlas… and you're able to sleep in a time like this!?"
"Well, if you're not going to shut up, then probably not," Mercury answered glibly, giving Emerald just a hint of a smirk. "But if you're taking watch, then yeah, I could probably fall asleep. Don't be jealous."
She was, actually, a little bit. Emerald couldn't shake the slight queasiness in her stomach that had dogged her ever since… well, it had been dogging her since Tyrian started hunting them, but she suspected it had started when she first thought Cinder had died. There was apprehension there. A worry that things weren't going to be okay, one that predated knowing Cinder but instead had been with her since her time on the streets. Emerald had no delusions that things always worked out; in fact, it seemed they rarely did. The worst was far more likely than the best, and their current situation didn't exactly inspire her with confidence.
She was scared. She was scared and she knew it. She knew she wasn't the only one, either. Emerald knew enough about Mercury now to know that he didn't confront his own feelings, or at least would hide it if he did so. Mercury would try to ignore those feelings, to push them away and act like he was above them. Right now, he was trying to force himself to take a nap, rather than dwell on the fact that he was scared too. He wasn't doing a very good job fooling Emerald that he was anywhere close to falling asleep, and he wasn't doing a very good job hiding his own fear.
Wordlessly, Emerald sulked over to where Mercury was seated, sliding her back down the wall to sidle right up next to him. Mercury cracked one eye open at her, giving her a curious look.
"Can I help you?" he asked her, trying to deflect and play dumb.
"Don't act like you don't know what's going on," Emerald snapped at him weakly. "Just shut up and put your arm around me."
She felt pathetic for having to ask for it, knowing that Merc enjoyed making things difficult for her normally. Her nerves were beginning to fray, though, and with every passing second she felt like her enemies were drawing closer and closer. Their time remaining was limited, and counting down rapidly. She just wasn't in any state of mind for their normal games. She needed the Mercury that existed deep inside him, the man that had accidentally freed her from her broken mind, not the boy she enjoyed quipping with. Emerald was hoping that she looked as scared as she felt, so that Mercury would understand without her having to say it.
That Mercury allowed himself to be commanded so easily meant to her that he might have gotten the message. His arm wrapped around her shoulders and trailed down to her waist, and she leaned in to put her head against the side of his chest, trying for all she was worth to let her fears melt away. It was possible that Mercury didn't realize how much she needed this—or how much he probably needed it too—but the way he drew her in a little more tightly than was necessary told her all she needed to know, and it wasn't worth dwelling on.
"Do you think this will work?"
"What, Cinder using… her arm to find the Relic?"
"A-All of it," Emerald answered, her nerves only seeming to get worse. "What happens when we find the Relic? How does Cinder going back change things for us?"
"I've… been thinking about that, too," Mercury added softly. "As soon as she goes back, none of this will exist anymore. It just…resets everything."
"That's not what I'm sca—that's not what concerns me," Emerald corrected herself, though she was fooling neither of them. Mercury's hand rubbed her side idly to comfort her. It should have embarrassed her that he picked up on her slip, and it should have embarrassed her even more that he knew she needed comfort right now, but… she couldn't bring herself to care. Emerald was tired. "It's when she goes back that I'm worried about. She could…"
"You're scared that she's going to go back to Beacon?"
"I know that she's going to go back to Beacon," Emerald answered, very specifically not admitting being scared. "What if she… takes advantage of me? We both know that I wasn't… that I was—"
"I know."
"This is Cinder we're talking about. If it would be useful, then she would take advantage of me even more this time—"
"I know."
"I-I don't want to be her again! I've made so much progress now, and if Cinder goes back, she's going to undo it all. I don't want to be that Emerald again—"
"I know, Em," Mercury whispered as comfortingly as he could, drawing Emerald in a little tighter. "I know."
"How are you so calm about this?"
"I'm not calm, I'm…" he trailed off, unwilling to commit to the words. Resigned. Defeated. Tired. He avoided the words entirely, instead shifting the topic suddenly. "Do you think we could take Cinder?"
"W-What?"
"I don't, but let's say we could. Best case scenario, you become the Fall Maiden, and we try to defect to Ruby's group. Do you think they'd take us?"
"After what you did to their healer? No," Emerald responded, cutting her eyes at Mercury to check on him.
"Hey, it's not my fault that I killed him. He shouldn't have given away so much of his Aura. Generosity can get you killed, after all."
Emerald elbowed Mercury in the ribs softly, only getting a laugh out of Merc. If they did have to throw themselves at Ruby's feet, Mercury's life would depend on him not saying anything like that.
"They might take me in as a Maiden, but they wouldn't let me bring you," Emerald spoke again, returning to the discussion. "That's not good enough."
"I don't know, if the roles were reversed, I'd take it." Merc cut his eyes at her, trying and failing to hide his slight smirk. It wasn't his malicious or mean smirk that he used so much; it was just a hint of the smirk that Em had found that she enjoyed seeing on his face. It was cheeky, but light-hearted and good-natured. He looked like he was proud of the joke because he thought that Em would take it as a joke, not because it would piss her off. The last time they were here at Beacon, she would have accepted his words as a joke that he 100% meant. Now, they rang hollow to them both, and the way Mercury was looking at her with that smirk made it obvious the only purpose of saying it was to rile her up. He didn't mean it.
"Well, there's no chance that you are gonna become a Maiden, so I guess we'd never find out what you would do. Like it or not, you're stuck with me."
"Hey, we've only confirmed that one of us is a girl so far. You still haven't seen me naked, so you never know what I might be hiding down there. You could reach down and find—"
"I am not giving you a handjob in the middle of Grimm territory while we're being hunted, jackass!"
"Who said anything about a handjob?" Mercury responded, trying to play innocent. "I'm just saying that you haven't seen me naked, but I have seen you naked—still not apologizing for that, by the way. Totally your fault."
"My fault!?" Emerald wanted to burst. "You walked in on me naked!"
"Yeah, but the door was unlocked."
"The door didn't have a lock!"
"How was I supposed to know you were naked?"
"I was in the shower!" Emerald finally did burst, though she managed to keep her voice down. Somewhat.
"Technically, you were getting out of the shower," Mercury supplied in a 'helpful' manner, grinning madly as each word only set Emerald off further. "Are you accusing me of waiting outside the door until I heard the water go off so that I could time it perfectly to see you stepping out of the shower dripping wet and butt-ass naked?"
"Yes!" Emerald hissed, not letting his sarcasm fool her. They both knew very well that was exactly what Mercury had done.
"Still sounds like it was your fault."
"W-What!?"
"I mean, I walked in and made eye contact with you. You had every opportunity to make me go blind with your Semblance."
"I fucking hate you," Emerald growled, sulking back into the wall. She tried to push away from Mercury just to make a point, but he laughed at the feeble attempt and pulled her back to his side. She deigned not to resist.
"I did not expect your nipples to be green."
"They're not!"
"Prove it."
Emerald dug her elbow in a lot harder than the previous time, and for good measure gave Mercury a visual hallucination of super old people having kinky, leather-and-whips kind of sex—it was the worst thing she could think of off the top of her head. She blamed Mercury for that being the first thing she could think of in this moment. Mercury stiffened, his face scrunching up in disgust and horror.
"Okay, okay! You win!" Emerald smirked, settling back into a comfortable position at Mercury's side and letting her illusion end. As much as she hated him sometimes, she couldn't bring herself to be all that mad right now. She had silently pleaded for him to distract her from everything, and he had delivered, hadn't he? If she was daydreaming of ripping his head off figuratively, then she wasn't dreading having her own ripped off, literally. "I admit that your nipples are certainly not green."
Breathe, Emerald. Just breathe.
"Is this really our only option?"
Mercury opened his mouth to speak again with some quip, but swallowed the words when he noticed Emerald wasn't playing along anymore. His efforts to distract her had been successful, just not completely so. "What, letting Cinder go back in time and hoping that things somehow work out better for us?"
Emerald's uncomfortable silence answered that. It sounded a lot like 'yes.'
"If you have any suggestions, Em, I'm all ears."
Cinder shot out of the elevator shaft without warning, riding a wave of flame protruding out of her palms that only served to emphasize her arrival even more. Emerald and Mercury jumped to their feet, more surprised than anything.
"Did you find it?" Emerald asked, hoping the question would stop Cinder from commenting on the two of them slacking off—or what Cinder would perceive as them slacking off. Neither had fallen asleep or even kept their eyes closed, but Emerald didn't want to have to explain why they looked so comfortable there on the floor when they were supposed to be lookouts.
"No," Cinder answered, eyes staring off in the distance. "But I was close. I know where to look."
Beacon's library. Apparently.
Of all of Beacon's facilities, this was the one with the least amount of mess to it. Entire rows of bookcases still stood pristine, and while there was some evidence of the chaos of the Fall of Beacon, it was localized to a few spots. Emerald sniggered as she realized that Beacon's students must not have used the library, so there was no one here to cause damage during the panic.
Her eyes drifted sideways. Of course, neither she nor Mercury had ever intentionally spent time in the library. Cinder had, but only to do research or to use a public-access computer that couldn't be traced.
"Why… why the library?" Emerald asked, breaking the silence as she and Mercury followed Cinder around aimlessly. "If it was the Relic of Knowledge, then maybe it would make sense."
"Because no one uses the library," Mercury answered cheekily. "If no one is here, no one can stumble across the Relic on accident."
"I suspect the opposite, Mercury," Cinder replied, giving Mercury a flat frown. "Do try to leave the thinking to those who are more suited to it."
Emerald snickered at that, and Mercury waited until Cinder's back was turned to scowl at her.
"When Beacon was built, libraries were actually a popular place to be. No scrolls or such," Cinder went on to explain. "Which makes it impossible to dig up under the library without drawing attention."
"Under?"
No sooner had Emerald asked, Cinder reared up with her Grimm arm and brought it down on the marble flooring they stood on. The ground cracked with the force, and after a few more blows, small pieces of rubble started to fall down, revealing a hollow cavity beneath it. Cinder poured water the cracks from a bottle then froze it with her powers, causing the ice to expand and weaken the marble further.
Once there was a hole about the width of a watermelon, Cinder kneeled down next to it. The hole revealed a small cavern, barely a foot wide but deep enough that they couldn't see the bottom. It was the sort of thing that you wouldn't just stumble upon easily, not unless you knew exactly where it was placed… or could sense the power coming from it.
"We're close enough. Keep an eye out."
Mercury did so (or at least pretended to), but Emerald didn't take her eyes off of Cinder. The woman extended her Grimm arm by several lengths, sending it down into the chasm below.
Cinder's eyes closed and her face contorted as she fumbled around with her Grimm arm. Emerald could gauge how close she was getting to finding the Relic by the way Cinder's grimace ebbed and flowed. It seemed that she had almost found it when Mercury's hand weakly tapped her, distracting Emerald momentarily.
Cinder's face lit up as she found her goal, and she stood up to begin reeling in her arm. Mercury's hand softly tapped Emerald again, irritating the girl.
Cinder's arm finally emerged from the chasm, holding a very old and tattered looking box. It was no bigger than a shoebox, and came with no prizes for guessing its contents.
"Emerald," Mercury hissed quietly and urgently, tapping her once more. The tap irritated Emerald to the point the she finally snapped at him.
"What—!?"
Emerald was cut off as the sound of a bullet whizzed by her head, striking Cinder's Grimm arm and nearly tearing it off entirely. The sound of the gunshot followed immediately after, and Emerald's blood ran cold; she recognized the sound of Ruby's sniper after having been shot at by it continuously.
Ambush.
Emerald whipped her head around, trying to identify where her attackers were—she didn't need to know who, not after that sniper round. She didn't have time to look around, and would have likely been knocked out then and there by Yang Xiao Long if Mercury hadn't shoved her out of the way. Yang's fist came down, shattering the marble where Emerald had just been standing, and sending shockwaves all the way to the hole in the ground by Cinder, cracking marble along the way.
She rolled out of the way and frantically drew her weapons, firing at Xiao Long only for her target to wisp away as the bullets tore through her. Emerald recognized this effect and turned to find where Belladonna was. Emerald was still in the process of healing a gash on her calf from the cat-girl's daggers, and was not looking to fall for the same trick twice.
Belladonna had rushed in from Emerald's side, driving a wedge between her and Mercury that forced her to break further away from both him and Cinder. Emerald lashed out with her Semblance, but couldn't latch on to the girl's mind, telling her that the girl before her was yet another shadow-clone. Emerald lazily put one bullet through the clone to confirm her suspicions as she scanned around the room, looking for where Belladonna was—or where anyone was, for that matter.
It gave her time to scan the field, and she did not like what she saw. The ambush had allowed them to pick the matchups as they wanted, and they didn't waste them. Xiao Long had Mercury in a one-on-one, and she didn't like his chances there, not since she kicked his ass in Atlas. Belladonna had isolated her, and she could tell why, since the girl's clones made it difficult for Em to use her Semblance on her. Cinder was the best off of them all, but even that didn't seem to be going great. Ruby had made the shot count and Cinder was only moving her Grimm arm when she had to. Worse, she was paired up against Valkyrie and, more importantly, the boy with the anti-Grimm Semblance. The same one that Cinder found interfered with her Grimm arm's ability to 'see' her enemies; normally, the arm did most of the work as Cinder willed it to, using its own senses and reactions. With that boy around to mask their signatures from it, it was little more than a floppy noodle for Cinder to swing at them.
Cinder was still a Maiden, but a one-armed Maiden in pain and tired from her journey, in an ambush she wasn't prepared for. It was almost the same circumstances they had defeated Amber under.
Ruby was no where to be seen, but the occasional sniper round that pinged off of Cinder's aura suggested that she was elevated enough to see the fights.
Where's the other one? There was one more that should be here. Emerald couldn't recall a name but she knew it was Ozpin's reincarnation, which was a large enough threat that it worried Emerald when she couldn't locate him.
The sound of glass shattering in Cinder's direction broke Emerald's focus, causing the girl to look in the direction of the noise in shock.
"Neo?"
No sooner had Emerald said the words did she receive a sharp kick to the back of the head, knocking her forward onto her hands and causing her vision to blur momentarily. She scrambled to her feet in search of her attacker, but Neo—if Neo had been the one to kick her—had already floated back towards Cinder. The mute had been on their side in Atlas, but when that all went to hell, she had disappeared. How they convinced Neo to side with Ruby, she didn't know, but—
Emerald reacted to a noise to her side just in time to lean back and avoid taking one of Belladonna's daggers to her throat. Emerald fired her revolver at the girl but held back on her Semblance, instead waiting for the clone to fade to dust. Belladonna was exposed on flat ground now and Emerald continued to pelt her with soft fire until the girl gave up on wasting her aura with the clones, instead charging in and locking blades with Emerald.
Emerald grinned, finally having a target for her Semblance, and gave her opponent an illusion that transformed Emerald into Xiao Long. It was a tried and true method, forcing her opponent to try to harm those they loved most. It always slowed them down enough for Emerald to make up for the skill gap that normally hampered her in duels.
Almost always, Emerald came to find out as Belladonna slammed her forehead directly into "Yang's" forehead, blurring Emerald's vision again. Her guard drop and Belladonna scored nasty strikes across Emerald's chest and stomach, and Emerald was tripped by an outstretched cane as she stumbled backwards. Emerald was unlikely to get up in a hurry with the splitting headache that was forming, the exhaustion of the last few days, and the strain of nearly being out of aura, but the kick to the side of the head from Ozpin's vessel made sure she was staying down.
"Your little trick doesn't work so well the second time," Belladonna scoffed at her as she walked over to stand above Emerald, gloating.
"Stick to the plan, Blake!" Ozpin's vessel called out in an annoyingly-boyish voice. "Go help Yang."
Dust kicked up as Mercury was thrown on the ground next to Emerald unceremoniously. A low groan that escaped the boy's lips calmed Emerald down slightly. He's alive. They both were, for the moment. They certainly weren't going anywhere, not with their opponents guarding over them and not with Mercury's legs in a mangled mess. His opponent had clearly gotten her hands on them, and without a Semblance of his own, Mercury couldn't win a fight against someone on equal footing with him.
"Go help who?" Xiao Long's smug voice called out, though it had a venom to it that felt directed at her and Mercury. Emerald could feel the girl's hatred. Despite that, they put it aside to focus on their task, all eyes scanning the room to find their last target.
Cinder was in rough shape, at least by Cinder's standards. At her best, Neo was a match to Cinder's skill, and the mute did not seem to lack motivation. Add to that an opponent who could negate Cinder's use of her Grimm arm and a third who added the pressure of a massive hammer, and Cinder was left with no choice but a liberal application of her powers.
Part of the library was already on fire, and Cinder continuously shot ice on the floor around her to stop anyone from charging her without slipping. Wind constantly blew the smoke from the fire into the faces of her opponents, yet they still pressured Cinder more than she liked. She needed to take Neo out of the fight, but couldn't find the girl for her Semblance.
Cinder resorted to letting her powers do the work for her. She summoned massive amounts of lightning, sending it flying in several directions in the hopes that it would arc towards Neo and break the girl's focus over her Semblance. Just as it looked like she had caught Neo, glass shattered to reveal that she had hit Valkyrie instead. It wasn't the intended target, but it was enough to put her down for the fight, which would even the numbers out in Cinder's favor a little.
It… did not. Valkyrie surged forth with an impossible burst of speed, swinging her hammer with such force that not even Cinder really knew what was happening. She only managed to avoid getting knocked through a wall by ducking under and flipping Valkyrie over her, and even then, all of the lightning that Cinder had previously shot out was released back on her when they made contact. Cinder was momentarily stunned, her muscles rigid under her the electricity.
"Ruby, now!"
A red streak dropped down from the roof directly above Emerald. Mercury saw it and reacted, moving himself slightly so that the blade Ruby lead with impaled his lung, not his heart.
"That was for Jaune!"
Ruby's eyes whipped towards Emerald, freezing her in place. The girl's eyes pulsed with anger as they began to glow white, leaving Ruby looking like a ghastly apparition come to take Emerald away for good. The analogy may not have been far off.
Ruby didn't attack Emerald, though. She left the sword sticking out of Mercury, who to Emerald's horror was not doing well with having a sword sticking out of him. Ruby drew one of the three other weapons she was carrying—a rapier—and as she did so Emerald realized what was going on. Ruby was using her fallen teammates' weapons. She was psyching herself up to use her eyes, and the only person here that would harm was Cinder. And with her eyes already glowing that much, it was practically a foregone conclusion at this point. They had spent so much effort in Atlas and Haven keeping Ruby away from Cinder; their plans had revolved around it. Now it appeared that their enemies had a plan of their own.
With a burst of red, Ruby charged down Cinder. The woman couldn't even properly fight back; Ruby's eyes began to shine brighter with every inch she grew closer, and it was clearly putting Cinder through agony. The woman didn't even block, instead falling to the ground clutching her arm. Cinder's head flicked up momentarily, and in a last-ditch attempt she summoned however much fire she could focus on in that moment.
Ruby charged through it heedlessly. Cinder's aura held enough to avoid being run through by the rapier, but it flickered and died after that. Her Grimm arm was half-shriveled and was smoking, and she could barely make it up to her feet.
"That was for Weiss!"
The rapier fell to the ground at Ruby's side. The girl took one of two scythes off her back, keeping it in sword form. She spun around and charged Cinder one more time, and Cinder met it head on as best she could.
Ruby chopped through Cinder's collar, cutting across until she cleaved cleanly out the other side. If Cinder still had an arm on that side, she would have probably cut through that too.
"And that was for uncle Qrow!"
Only seconds after Cinder's head hit the floor, Ruby convulsed strangely as her eyes began to flicker with a different power. Flames framed her solid white eyes as Cinder's powers transferred to her last thoughts. The Maiden's powers looked like an afterthought to Ruby's Silver Eyes.
No one could look away from what they were witnessing. Emerald wouldn't have, had she not felt a hand grab her ankle gently. She looked down to find Mercury trying to get her attention, weakly trying to point to something. He was in bad shape and wouldn't last long, but he refused to accept the tears in Em's eyes, instead trying to point while remaining subtle. One arm stretched out at something just past Em, the other holding on to her for dear life.
She followed it to find the box from earlier, the one with the Relic. It was within arm's reach for Emerald, and the lid was so old it had busted open. She could see part of the Relic. Emerald just needed an opportunity to reach out and take it, and then…
And then die in Mercury's arms with a Relic she didn't know how to use?
Fuck it. She didn't have a better option. She didn't have time for coherent plans, only last-ditch prayers.
"Ruby, behind you!" Xiao Long screamed out in horror, unaware that Emerald had given her an illusion. It was a stupid one, where Tyrian was charging behind the girl with that creepy smile on his face and an exaggerated stream of venom dripping from his robotic tail, but Xiao Long wasn't expecting it and it caught her off-guard. Everyone flinched and looked behind Ruby in confusion.
Belladonna figured it out, but a fraction of a second to late. Emerald could hear the whizz through the air as Belladonna's blade neared her head, but she already had her fingers around the Relic. It was a crown, or a tiara, or a hat—something meant to go on your head; in that moment Emerald's instincts took over. She jammed the thing down onto her head.
After a few seconds of nothing happening, Emerald opened her eyes. She wasn't dead, she…thought. Everything around her was black, but she didn't feel dead.
She stood up from where she was huddled on the floor, only to discover that there was no floor. She was standing on… black. It was empty, but it supported her regardless. She made to rub her forehead, trying to both ease her headache from earlier and try to make sense of what this was, and her fingers came across the Relic she was still wearing.
Suddenly, it made a lot more sense. Was this—?
"Emerald Sustrai," came the disembodied voice of an old man, "welcome. Do you have a Choice in mind that you would like a second chance at?"
"You…? You're the Relic?"
"I am," it replied, before manifesting itself in front of her. It appeared as an old man, hunched over from age with a grey, frazzled beard that neared the floor—or neared its feet, since there still was no floor. "I may grant the chance to change a Choice one more time this era. It has been over eighty years since I have done so, and significantly longer since I have done it for someone not named Ozma. Or whatever he calls himself in this life."
"I… I don't know what decision to choose," Emerald admitted shyly. In truth, she hadn't considered the option much, assuming instead that she wouldn't have the opportunity. She had spent her last moments of peace bantering with Mercury to take her mind off of things, and she struggled to regret that.
"Allow me to help."
The old man disappeared, and a few moments later the void around her filled to life with moving images of her life. They clashed, flashed, replayed, and spliced seemingly at random, with different parts playing at impossible speeds and others frozen in time. Slowly, they began to whittle down, some scenes going away entirely as more important ones grew larger.
In the end, only two remained.
"A tragic life, though circumstances are never the strong excuses we think they are," the voice announced. "I have seen the entirety of your existence. These two moments are what I find to be the most critical for your trajectory and for what you desire."
"You can… do that?" Emerald asked, taken aback.
"I was created for the purpose of helping humanity fix its past mistakes. Should it surprise you that I am good at it?"
No, she guessed not. She still felt well out of her element.
"These moments are my suggestion, but you are free to pick any decision, should you wish. Game the system, as it were; there have been those who chose to relieve their earliest remembered decision, becoming a five-year-old boy to choose a different dessert."
"Did they regret it?" Emerald asked. She knew enough to know that asking genies for wishes was a bad idea. It was always rigged against you.
"No, it is not always rigged against you," the Relic's voice echoed and subverted her very thoughts. "As he intended, his current mind was transported back into the body of his five-year-old self. He was able to change the world as he had desired when he asked for it. Such is my purpose. You will find no cruel tricks of fate here."
Emerald wasn't convinced, but… well, she was convinced. It wasn't as if she had anything to lose now.
"Show me."
The world around Emerald warped until she was surrounded by an experience she remembered. A scene vividly reimagined and frozen in time. It was the moment when she and Mercury met up with Cinder in Atlas while running from Tyrian, when Cinder offered them a chance at redemption by helping her steal back the Relic of Knowledge. An alliance of convenience that seemed their best option at the time.
"You have discerned well. My first suggestion is also my most recent to have transpired. Relive this moment and turn down Cinder's offer. You met her in a public space where no party could attack the other easily, not even this Neo with her Semblance. All you must do is convince Mercury to walk away, and the two of you may continue your life. You will still be hunted by Tyrian, but you stand a better chance at surviving that than you do at the present time."
Emerald reached out and touched herself. Rather than go through the apparition, her hand met solid flesh. If the scene in front of her weren't frozen in time, Emerald imagined that her other self would flinch at the sudden touch. She pulled away, looking off around her and wondering where she should assume the Relic to be at.
"My other option?"
The scene changed instantly. It was a familiar one. A moment burned into her mind and her heart. It was the first moment that she began to realize that Cinder had been manipulating her, and that Mercury cared more than Cinder had, despite all odds. Where Mercury had snapped, gone after her angrily and yelled at her. Talked about his father, about how he had been broken. Revealed to her that Cinder wasn't who Emerald needed her to be.
It was also the moment where Mercury held himself back from truly hurting her. Where he had tried to help her without even knowing that he was doing it.
And it was where Tyrian challenged them to flee, with the promise that he would hunt them.
"A safe option for you. Go back and defy Tyrian's wishes. Stay in Salem's employ. It might well put you on a collision course with the same people who have defeated you now, but the circumstances would be different. It gives you the chance to change the outcome, and it still gives you the chance to develop yourself and Mercury."
"Those are… the best options?"
"They are the most logical. They give you the best chance to change the outcome to something better."
"That's… that's not good enough."
Emerald didn't want a better outcome. Emerald wanted the best outcome. She wanted out of this entirely. She wanted to control her own fate. She didn't want to be dependent on someone, she didn't want to need someone to be there for her to function. She wanted to have people there because she wanted them, not needed them.
Emerald wanted a better life for herself, and… for Mercury. And she knew where that began.
The environment around her changed as soon as she had decided it. She was standing in an alley now, over a year younger. Her hair was shorter, her clothes ragged and her weapon unpainted. Cinder stood before her.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"I find myself in need of good help, and you seem like you need the work. What do you say?" Cinder's voice was low enough not to draw attention to our alleyway, but was seductive. "Come with me, and you'll never be hungry again."
Emerald snarled at the woman, and leveled her revolvers at her.
"Not this time."
I took a week off from writing MoNT to rest and recharge my writing muscles/desires and underestimated how much I could write when an idea struck me. Rather than starting an entire new story based around Emerald traveling back in time to change things, I decided to confine it to a one shot.
The hardest part was writing Mercury in a likable way. I feel like I have sinned or something.
-Ikedawg43
