Chapter 24: Interlude - Cinder

'Things are finally starting to turn in my favor again,' Cinder thought as she pulled her Scroll out and started a call.

Everything had been going well for her since she was allowed to leave Evernight Castle and put what she had learned from Salem to practice. With all the training she'd been put through, all the lessons on politicking over and under the board and all the tests she'd cleared, it had been easy to get herself established in the criminal underworld of Vale.

Once she had an in with the black market informants, it had only taken a bit of research to start building up a team to realize her ambition. Alone, she was powerful enough to put the fear of the gods in just about any Huntsman or Huntress, but it would take much more than that to come on to top of a Maiden and take their powers for herself.

She needed competent and loyal minions to do her bidding. It was only a matter of research and time before she scooped up the Daylight Thief, Emerald Sustrai. When she saw her potent powers of deception firsthand, she knew right away that she wanted them for herself. It hadn't even been a challenge getting the poor girl to follow her, just the promise of food, water and shelter for all the days she served.

It would have been disheartening if Cinder had the heart to care in the first place.

Mercury Black had been a happy little accident that she'd run into not to long after picking up Emerald. The original intended recruit had been his father, but when she and Emerald had arrived, it was just in time to watch the man get offed by Mercury, looking and feeling every bit as vulnerable as possible which couldn't have been better suited for her machinations. With nowhere to go and no purpose at the moment, it only took the promise of exciting missions and riches to sway him to her side.

That left her with a deadlier assassin than she had set up hoping to recruit. It was a shame that Mercury's Semblance had been lost, having been stolen by his father and killed with him. But that didn't detract from Mercury's value so much as it exemplified his competency. He didn't even need his Semblance to kill one of the most prolific assassins of all time.

Mercury was the heavy hitter with overwhelming physical prowess. Emerald supported the team with her powerful hallucinations. And Cinder herself rounded them out wherever it was needed while giving orders as the leader.

It was everything she needed to attempt to ambush the most vulnerable Maiden; the Fall Maiden. With Salem feeding her everything she could want to know about the woman, it didn't take long to find the naive, adventurous and inexperienced Maiden in a compromising position.

Why Ozpin would allow someone like the Fall Maiden to go out on a solo mission, would forever be a mystery to her, but it wasn't one she cared to solve so long as she'd pull off the heist for the magic powers. Everything had been going more or less within levels of acceptable losses she'd deemed acceptable to her plans until he showed up.

Some random goody two-shoes, came out of nowhere claiming he wanted to prevent any needless death. She didn't need to think twice to shoot him along with the Fall Maiden while the two morons ignored her and Mercury. They'd only been feigning unconsciousness to catch the Fall Maiden by surprise, and unlike her, who they needed alive to siphon the Maiden powers from, the man could be killed without consequence, so Cinder aimed for his heart.

Unbelievably, he managed to survive the sneak attack despite not having his Aura up. He then pulled various magical feats of his own off as he engaged in teleportation, conjured up a weapon as well as healing remedies and then went on to overwhelm her in a fight. It was madness!

No one man should have all that power.

To make things even worse, one of Ozpin's known cohorts had arrived shortly after the unknown interloper to take their chances of success from unlikely to borderline impossible. Cinder had been forced to retreat and take her first substantial loss since she'd started moving on her path.

That had been four days ago and since then, she had to endure the disappointment and anger of Salem. She'd had to endure the humiliation and taunts of the rest of Salem's Inner Circle. She now needed to redeem herself and plan out a way to get what was hers, and she probably wasn't going to find another golden opportunity like catching the Fall Maiden out on her own for a long, long time.

To stand the slightest chance, she needed more resources. She needed more strong allies. She needed to start small and work her way up.

That fool Adam Taurus had already denied her once, but what would he say when she brought out the juiciest of carrots and the toughest of sticks? The White Fang was also in need of more resources, so she would hit up a few Dust Stores and tempt them with loads of it. But only after going on a war path through their encampment with the new guy, Lapis, as a show of force. Against the four of them, Taurus would have to accept her terms of cooperation or face certain death.

With the White Fang on payroll, it would only be a matter of time before she built up all the resources she needed to launch an assault on Beacon. That alone would not be enough to guarantee she would see the results she wanted, but it would be a good start. It would only be a matter of setting up the right pieces while biding her time and taking advantage of opportunities as they came before she struck at the perfect time.

She had failed once and she could not accept a repeat outcome.

"What do you want?" The ever-pretentious voice of Arthur Watts came through not a heartbeat after the call connected.

Cinder bit back the retort she'd impulsively wanted to throw his way. As much as she despised his impudence and attitude, she understood the value of his services. She was calling to ask something of him, so she ignored his dismissive tone and directly said, "Background check. After Tuesday, I've decided I need a bigger and better team. A new mercenary I've never heard of before has already agreed to join, but I want everything you can pull from him to see what makes him tick."

"What do you have on him?" Watts asked with an air of unenthusiasm that screamed that he couldn't have cared less about what Cinder wanted.

"Name, Lapis Lain. Scroll Contact, I'm sending your way right now. That should be enough, yes?" Cinder said as she kept the call open while navigating through her Scroll to send Watts the information.

"More than enough. I already have everything from his school records to his medical history. Although…" Watts' voice quietened down as he hummed while presumably looking through the information, "It looks like you've been given a false identity. This Lapis fellow is a nobody, Cinder. All I'm getting from all this rubbish information is that he's a civilian, sole survivor of his family after a Grimm raid on his village and a recent Valean immigrant. I rather doubt someone who came out of a near year-long coma not a month ago could have any measure of competency."

"So, he's the paranoid type," Cinder said. "Junior and Roman already confirmed his skill and they know better than to lie to me. Anyone that good who doesn't want a reputation, often finds themselves taking on false identities to remain unknown."

"I won't presume to understand how those savages—" Watts disdainfully emphasized, "—operate. There, I've sent you all the information I've found, what you do with it is of no concern to me," he added and before he could finish the thought, Cinder's scroll lit up with holographics showing various digital documents containing Lapis' information.

"Very goo—" Cinder's voice hitched as she stared at one of the documents containing a picture of Lapis.

It was the man who ruined her chances of seizing the Fall Maiden's powers!

"This can't— What?!" Cinder's mind raced with the possibilities. How could this be? She had in no uncertain terms made that man an enemy for life. Why would he agree to join her? Could it simply be a matter of coincidence, that this paranoid mercenary just so happened to pick this "civillian's" identity?

No. That was too convoluted with all that circumstantial evidence to suggest otherwise. The man had appeared with a mask to conceal his identity. His "confirmed" strength matched what the interloper during the attack on the Fall Maiden showed during their brief exchange. The masked man didn't even want to be paid for his work. He'd given them the excuse that he was only looking for connections and good fights, but it made much more sense that he was joining them in order to build rapport before striking them down once he'd gained their trust.

This was very bad. Extremely, dreadfully bad.

How had he already managed to track her down? It had been less than a week since their initial encounter and he had been the one to arrange the meeting with her, once she recontextualized all the facts. It had taken him just two days with basically no information to have Roman put his masked persona on her radar as a possible bodyguard.

If she hadn't done her due diligence and ran this background check first thing…

"Cinder? Cinder! What are you going on about?" Watts demanded, sounding just the slightest bit interested now that he'd caught the disbelief from her outburst.

"I have to leave and regroup with Emerald and Mercury immediately," Cinder said as she quickly gathered all of her things while power walking her way out of the basement. "These pictures of Lapis Lain match that of the man who intervened on Tuesday. He's too much of a threat if he's gone through all these hoops to try and infiltrated my group."

"I struggle to see how that's possible," Watts said. "You're telling me that the moron who let himself get shot by you, is also a veteran of the criminal underground? The same moron who couldn't be bothered to present you a false identity without any ties to his physical appearance, somehow managed to change all the background details of his life to appear like an ordinary civilian? Are you sure you're not the paranoid one?" Watts questioned.

"It could all just be a massive coincidence, or it could be him sending a message; a warning. He could have already ambushed us if he managed to track us down this fast. Since he hasn't, I'm taking my chance to leave; maybe to Vacuo or even Mistral. I'll be back to confront him when my group is stronger."

"You are free to do as you please. But, be sure to remember that you're treading on thin ice. Keep running away with nothing to show for yourself and our leader might just reconsider your usefulness," Watts said before hanging up the call.

Hiding her Scroll away in her dress pocket, Cinder made her way to the club's dance floor and pulled Emerald away before doing the same with Mercury, who had been working on his eighth drink at the bar.

"Time to go already? I thought you wanted to relax a little," Mercury grumbled as the three made their way outside the club.

"It's too dangerous to stay here," Cinder grit her teeth before breaking out into a sprint. She didn't need to do anything for her minions to follow without questioning her, but she was compelled to explain the situation for them to understand exactly how precarious the situation was that they were dealing with. "That man we hired—" she hissed, "—I did a background check on him and he came up as the man who ruined my chances at stealing the Fall Maiden's powers."

At this point, they had scaled up a nearby building and started crossing between the rooftops to make a roundabout path towards their hideout in the residential area of Vale. From the moment that they left Junior's Cinder had not stopped scanning towards all directions to ease her worries of being followed. Cinder shared her deductions with the group as they traveled, hoping her insight could help them develop into more competent tools should they run into a similar issues in the future.

"That's… Odd," Mercury said. He took a second to gather his thoughts before saying, "If he wanted revenge, he could have just ambushed us if he had been able to set up the meeting. It also doesn't make sense for him to agree to join us, since I'd be the one to say something if he didn't show us his face before we ran into Adam again. I'm sure you'd have done the same as anyone in our business would with an unknown."

"Could he actually want to join us, though?" Emerald asked, suddenly gaining the attention of the other two. At their unimpressed looks, she explained, "Maybe after saving the Fall Maiden, he found out some of the secrets of the world. All I'm saying is it's not that crazy to want to join Salem once you find out she's unbeatable, immortal, and could start the end of the world whenever she wants."

"Cinder almost literally shot him in the back, Em," Mercury scoffed, "You'd need to be one naive son of a bitch to look past that and—" he emphasized, "—want to join the big bad of the world. From what I've heard, I doubt Ozpin wouldn't do his best to at least convince the guy to stay away from Salem if he couldn't add him as another one of his pawns."

"Whatever his goals or reasons, I'm not about to stick around and find out. We're heading to Vacuo. No, to Mistral, across the ocean," Cinder said. "We're building up our forces over there and maybe we'll move on to Atlas for a while before we come back for another shot at the Fall Maiden."

With nods of affirmation, the group began to travel in silence. A few minutes later, as they approached the bridge that led from the industrial section of Vale to the residential section, a meteor landed in front of them.

"So, you found me out," Lapis Lain had descended from absolutely nowhere yet again.

"Emer—" Cinder stopped herself as she glanced Emerald's way and found her already knocked out cold on the ground.

"What gave me away? And—" Lapis tilted his head while leaning to the side to avoid a dropkick from Mercury before he caught his leg and smashed him mercilessly against the ground with enough force for his body to bounce back a few times. "—Did I even have you fooled for a second? You know, I'm not the mastermind you think I am. It was all just a happy little coincidence for me that you three were in need of a bodyguard. I didn't even know my potential client tonight was going to be you guys until a few minutes before we met in the basement."

"What do you want?!" Cinder asked as she used her Midnight bow to launched arrows at him.

A crimson glow poured off Lapis' eyes that hadn't been noticeable before. It sent chills down Cinder's back as she watched the man effortlessly catch all three arrows and toss them like they were trash on the ground, "More information, of course. Your earlier conversation was very interesting. It was a shame you guys stopped talking when you did. It bought you a few minutes before I decided to come out, but that's fine."

"You won't get a word out of me!" Mercury said as he performed a kip-up to get back on his feet and propelled himself with some sort of blast from his boots to engage Lapis in close combat.

"We'll see about that," Lapis snorted as he blocked or dodged Mercury's lower-body intensive martial arts. "You see, I won't even need to torture you guys to get what I want. Two Truth Serem Potions is the best I can make with my current resources, but I'll only need one to get most of what I want from your team leader."

He and Mercury backed off at the same time once a cluster of Cinder's superheated arrows landed near them. As the Semblance and Dust Enhanced Arrow heads exploded into molten sharp fragments of metal, their Auras sparked to life, but neither seemed bothered by the attack and returned to fight hand-to-hand.

"I suggest you surrender now and just give me what I want. I'll get it anyways, and this way you'll be spared the beating and go straight to prison… Or maybe Ozpin?" He landed a punch on Mercury's inner thigh while in the middle of dodging a roundhouse kick.

The punch sent Mercury flying for a good hundred paces as Lapis continued speaking casually, "If you guys are with the big bad—" he laughed, "—I doubt regular jail or prison will do anything. I'm not really sure about Ozpin either, but he seems to be your main enemy, so that's as good a place as any to start with your containment."

As he walked over to Cinder, he continued, "Although, I can't be too sure you won't just be executed. I imagine that's a fitting punishment for turning your backs on humanity… and faunus too," he added, while rolling his eyes, almost like an afterthought, "by joining the Grimm Queen, or whatever. Nevermind, shooting me in the back," he glared at Cinder.

Midnight turned into a pair of hooked swords. After superheating their edge, she tried to stab Lapis, but it was no use. He was much too fast to hit and when he deigned to block her blades, his own knife showed no signs of being damaged.

Lapis front kicked Cinder hard enough that she crashed through a tree and left the one that stopped her, crooked and dented. "Go on, explain why it is you thought the right response to me defending Emerald was to shoot me in the back," He stomped once on each of her wrists after having broken through her Aura, to further break her hold on Midnight; as well as a couple of bones.

"You want to know why?" Cinder, humiliated and defeated, spat at him, "You're the reason I failed to steal the Fall Maiden's powers. Coming out of nowhere like some wannabe hero," she barked at him with disgust, "Had you appeared just a few minutes later, I would have gotten what's rightfully mine! Because of you, I've failed Salem for the first time. Because of you, I've had to endure the rest of her Inner Circle's condescension and ridicule. All because you couldn't keep your nose out of my business!"

"Well, soooooorry," Lapis mocked her shamelessly. "I'm so sorry I ruined your plan. I feel so bad now that you didn't get to pull off your heist. I stopped you from ambushing and killing the Fall Maiden? Say it ain't so!" He overdramatized his tone.

"Do you even hear yourself? Don't you feel any remorse or guilt? Are you seriously okay with killing someone just for a bit of power and prestige? I bet you don't even have a history with Amber aside from the attempt you made on her life."

"Of course we have a history," Cinder propped herself to a sitting position as Lapis took his foot away from her wrist. "She's an obstacle and enemy of Salem. A hindrance to her plans. Most importantly, she has the powers Salem promised I'd get. They're mine and getting rid of her is the only way to get them!"

She had lost her mind to hysteria as the crushing realization of what would befall her once Salem realized she had been defeated and captured sunk in.

"You're a sick woman, you know that?" Lapis said with… Pity?

Cinder's face twisted to the point where she couldn't even tell what she was expressing. It was an emotion so far beyond hate and loathing, that it boogled the mind to attempt to describe it.

"Whatever. I'll continue this once I have you three secured and have readied my questions. Any moment now, I expect this place to get swarmed by police or Huntsmen," he said.

A rag appeared in his hand, but before he did anything with it, Cinder made one final stand against him. She laughed a cold shrieking laugh as she stared him down and said, "Do whatever you want, but know this," she gingerly took her Scroll out of her dress pocket with her broken hands, "Salem already knows about you. Everything that could have been picked up by my Scroll has been recorded and uploaded to one of her networks. It'll only be a matter of time before she realizes that I'm out of the picture, then she'll find this conversation and begin to hunt you down."

Instead of looking scared or uneasy, Lapis just looked at her with confused disbelief, "Thanks for the heads up?" He snorted, "Not sure why you've let me know to trash all your Scrolls after taking all their information, but I'm not complaining."

It was then that Cinder understood how bad her mental state had deteriorated. It had not felt as good as she'd thought to try to put the fear of Salem in Lapis. He just hadn't reacted how she expected. Moreover, she had potentially cost her allies more information they could have gotten had she kept her mouth shut and let her Scroll record everything from where he stayed to what he got out of them with whatever Truth Serum he planned on using.

Lapis reached down with the rag in his hands and all Cinder knew turned to black as she was rendered unconscious.