Chapter 25: Spill Thy Secrets, Vile Cur!
[Congratulations! For ambushing and defeating Cinder (Mercury Black and Emerald Sustrai), you have earned two (six) Unique Gacha Coins!]
[Congratulations! For capturing Team CEM and irreparably ruining a large part of Salem's plan, you have earned a Locked Unique Gacha Coin!]
I had to admit, despite being forced to wait a whole hour before my captees decided to leave Junior's, what I'd gotten in the end had been well worth the boredom. I never would have guessed that there'd be this much drama and political intrigue on Remnant.
Oh, I remember when things were simple and you just had Huntsmen fighting the Grimm. Faunus trying to get equal rights and be treated like people. Not whatever this ancient Grimm Queen nonsense against Ozpin and his merry band of Maidens ordeal was turning out to be.
Still, it was great! Awesome! And I lived to see how it would develop.
An immortal, implied sentient and sapient Grimm monster with an army big enough to overrun all intelligent life on the planet? A hidden mastermind that was unknown to the world at large, who had traitors to humanity — and Faunus. I get it, Katayoki, you know what I mean — and was dead set on stealing the Maiden powers as well as some Relics?
I'd be anxious if I wasn't a direct counter to most of what made her a threat. Immortality and her regeneration, I could not go around, but mere Alpha and Ancient Grimm? They were beneath my concern. Even the Titans I wasn't all that sure actually posed a threat to me and she couldn't even control them.
I was approaching levels of power that allowed me to blow up buildings with Ki Blasts. With just physical strength, I was fast enough to break the speed of sound, strong enough to punch holes through meters of steel and tough enough to shrug off heavy ordinance. Add Aura to the mix and my physical abilities doubled while granting me borderline invulnerability with its forcefield effects. Add Spiritual Power and Katayoki's Knife, and a single full-power attack could probably level a city block. God forbid, I decide to break out Hollowfication; there's no telling to what scale my strength could reach.
It should be enough to take on the Titans, but I wouldn't know until ran into one and I didn't plan on seeking them out until I was sure I could end them with ease. Salem herself, however, I had nothing at the moment to guarantee victory. The best I could think of is to destroy her body and seal her somehow before she managed to completely reform.
If all her power boiled down to was in commanding lesser Grimm and being impossible to kill, I didn't have a reason to fear her. At worst she'd be an annoyance I would have to physically extricate if she appeared personally. Or maybe, it'd be as easy as dropping her into a mile-deep chasm along with a couple thousand tons of dirt to get rid of her.
In any case, it would be a fun little puzzle to work on with my limited set of skills at the moment. Eventually, I was bound to roll something with my Gachas that directly negated her powers. Although…
My thoughts went to Velvet and her team, Ozpin, Beacon, and everyone I had any kind of relationship or affiliation with.
Yeah, I should probably look out for "the big bad" trying to get to me through them. It's the exact kind of thing that would happen if I ignored Salem's minions and non-Grimm influence. She'd probably hold them hostage unless I joined their side, or something equally as cliche. I was kind of ashamed to admit that It'd probably work too.
Oh well, I guess I just had to make sure she never got that far to begin with.
My plans started with getting Cinder and company to my apartment with the help of two Shadow Clones. I'd already downloaded all the information contained in each of their scrolls before tossing them in a public trash can. After securing them with some rope, I left them on my living room floor as I brought out the potion brewing station and began to work on making the Truth Serum.
One of my Shadow Clones left to buy some smelling salts and a few other chemicals to mix up a shot that would certainly wake them up if the salts didn't. The Truth Serum Potions only took half an hour to make and once they were portioned off, I stored one in an Inventory Slot, before waking up Cinder.
"Mm," She was sluggish from the Chloroform Rag I'd summoned and used to knock her out. Before she grew fully cognizant, I filled up a syringe with the portion of Truth Serum I had not stored and injected it straight into her brachial vein.
"Can you hear me?" I asked once all the signs that the Truth Serum was in effect was reflected on her face. The blank, soulless eyes and neutral expression were dead giveaways seeing as the alternative was having her either curse me out, shrink in fear, or maybe return to her hysterics.
When Cinder nodded, I grind, "Alright then, let's start off with something easy. What is your name?"
"Cinder," she quietly said.
"No surname?"
"I was planning on making "Fall" my surname after taking the Fall Maiden's powers."
"Wow, this stuff works better than I expected. Scary," I muttered to myself. Being able to draw out full answers without worrying over lies of omissions was a bit too dystopian for my tastes, but since I did have this power available… Well, what better time than now to break it out and see what it could do?
I addressed her again and asked, "Why do you work for Salem?"
"She took me in when I had no other place to go. Showed me how to be strong and live for myself. Promised me the Maidens' godlike power and a place to rule the world by her side once she got the Relics."
"You believe there will be a world left over after a Grimm Monster takes it over?" I asked with none of the sass or sarcasm I would have normally. I was genuinely curious seeing as she was being forced to respond truthfully.
"Salem was not always a Grimm. She was once a human witch who was cursed by the Gods before they left. She told me that only by bringing the four relics together could she lift her curse and reform the world to how it should be."
"What are these four Relics and how does she plan on using them to reform the world, exactly?" I asked, assuming the worst and that this curse business was a lie Salem told to manipulate Cinder and everyone else in her Inner Circle to join her side.
"The four Relics are artifacts created by the gods which hold unfathomable amounts of magical power. Alone they each have a single unique ability, but when brought together they can change the entire world. The four relics are the Relic of Choice, the Relic of Knowledge, the Relic of Creation, and the Relic of Destruction. I don't know what they do or how they can change the world once brought together."
"Do you or Salem know where the Relics are or how to get them?"
"The Relics are hidden in vaults somewhere near the four great Huntsman Academies. They can each only be opened by one of the corresponding Maiden's magic. The Fall Maiden opens Beacons Vault, Winter opens Atlas' Vault, Spring opens Haven's Vault and Summer opens Shades' Vault."
"Mhmm," I brought out my scroll and made a few notes. "I want to know more about Salem's Inner Circle. Tell me your assessment of her non-Grimm forces and any unique characteristics that come to mind as to how they can be threats to me."
"Salem keeps a very small group of four people as part of her Inner Circle; six if you count Mercury and Emerald, but I don't since they're part of my group. Salem raised me to inherit the Maiden Powers and unlock the vaults for her to get the Relics. The rest of her group are all men, two Human and one Faunus."
She went on to describe in excruciating details exactly the kinds of things I wanted to hear. Names, Semblances, areas of operation, character traits and behaviors, as well as how they could be most effective and dangerous.
Tyrian Callows, the Scorpian Faunus, was a lunatic cultist who worshiped Salem like a Goddess and carried out whatever dirty work the Grim Queen needed. His Semblance could ignore Aura, his tail also carried a terrible venom that could corrode stone and kill even trained Huntsmen with small doses. Unhinged, deranged and sadistic, he made for the perfect Huntsman serial killer.
Arthur Watts the disgraced scientist from Atlas, an egomanic self-proclaimed genius whose competency with computers and programming was better left unquestioned. He wasn't the best fighter and didn't even bother figuring out his Semblance. He didn't need to either to pose the biggest threat to me and the people in my life with all the data he could scrounge up about me.
Lastly, there was Hazel Rainart, the stoic. Cinder didn't have much to say about him other than he apparently had some kind of grudge against Ozpin and that alone was seemingly his motivation for teaming up with Salem. Apparently, his Semblance killed off his sense of pain and he used that to charge himself up with Dust crystals? That didn't sound like a good idea to me, but it was something to keep an eye out for, I guess.
The good news was there were few people to worry about. The bad news, on the other hand, was that I had no idea what they looked like or had something like their Ki Signatures to identify them if they came looking for trouble. I had nothing but their names to work with, but that could be remedied by bringing this information to Ozpin. I'm sure he'd be willing to trade information with the veritable treasure trove of it that Cinder had offered me.
"Where can I find Salem?" I asked.
"Evernight Castle in the Land of Darkness."
"Never heard of it. Where would that be on the world map?"
"Dragon Continent, on the right side of the landmass, directly in the middle of the second wing. It is surrounded by the deepest Grimm Pools in the entire world and guarded by hundreds of Ancient Grimm. Though, the defenses start hundreds of miles away with countless ocean and sky Grimm blocking any vehicles except the ones that the Inner Circle use, which carry a Seer."
"What does Salem know about the current Maidens?" I asked. This would be the last thing I could think of to ask about Salem and her group.
"The Fall Maiden is an inexperienced Huntress currently working with Ozpin at Beacon. The Winter Maiden is an old woman who is nearing death, but is extremely well protected by the full military might of Atlas. The Spring Maiden was lost about a decade ago without any signs of resurfacing. As for the Summer Maiden, Salem has expressed that she already has something special planned for her. She never explained what she meant and I never dared to ask for more than she was willing to share."
Very ominous, very concerning.
Salem already has her hands on the Summer Maiden? Cinder was making it out like that was the case, if not then at the very least that Salem more or less believed the Summer Maiden was within reach. The idea that she had the key to something called the "Relic of Destruction" did not help my efforts to remain optimistic.
Rule number one of using Magic and dealing with Magic Artifacts was that you always treated those things with the utmost respect and care. The Relic of Destruction could be anything from a blade that cut through anything to a staff that cast "Fuck Everything In That General Direction."
"What do you know about Ozpin? Why is he so involved in the fight against Salem?" I asked, moving on to less important — to me, personally, that is — but still relevant and probably useful things to know.
"Ozpin is a cursed individual much like Salem. I don't know when or why he started a crusade against her, but he has been fighting her for thousands of years. He is immortal in the way that whenever his physical body dies, he reincarnates. His Magic is what led to the creation of the four Maidens."
And suddenly most of my suspicions and ideas about Ozpin were cleared. Suddenly, it made sense why he was involved and why everyone was connected to him; everyone aware or involved in the "shadow war" against Salem, anyway.
Oh well, we were all ready sort of allies to begin with. Now, I had a vested interest in getting rid of Salem and her minions — you know, to prevent the people in my life from getting caught up in the crossfire when she inevitably realized it was impossible to fight me directly.
I put my Scroll away and went to retrieve the Chloroform Rag to knock Cinder out, but stopped. I had a new question I wanted to ask before I delivered her and the others to Ozpin and got some more information to deal with Salem's people.
"Tell me, do you think you deserve a second chance? If you could do everything over from the start would have done things differently?"
"Yes, I think deserve another chance. I also want another chance. I also would have done things differently if I would have known I'd end up captured and at another's mercy. Salem was always meant to be just a stepping stone in my path to greatness and power. So, I would have pursued power elsewhere; political, personal, physical, it doesn't matter."
"And your friends? Would you say it's more or less than same for them?" I asked.
"Mercury, Yes. He was raised to be a remorseless assassin and only follows me because he has nowhere else to go and no attachments. Emerald, No. She's not like me or Mercury. She follows because I conditioned and manipulated her into doing so."
I'll be sure to take that into consideration when the fate of these three is being decided by whatever authority figure judges them. So far, I was fine with them all getting the death penalty and being promptly executed. I was also fine with them getting imprisoned for the rest of their lives.
They hadn't done anything to cross the line for me and make me want to kill them. Yeah, it was infuriating, annoying, a pain, and humiliating that they managed to sneak attack me when we first met. But, to be honest, my life was never severely at risk or irreparable changed; and also, it was a tiny bit my fault that I'd gotten myself in that kind of situation to begin with.
It was kind of like getting bitch slapped. Sure, you wanted to kill the person who did it in the moment, but if you took the time to cool down, it wasn't some blood grudge thing that could only be resolved by killing them. Besides, I'd already gotten my get-back at them when I trounced them effortlessly and captured them, so it wasn't like I was just letting their attack on my fly.
Then again, maybe they had crossed the line and I was just too much of a passive individual to just do whatever it was that I wanted impulsively. I knew I could get away with committing wanton murder in broad daylight if I really wanted to, and killing these traitors to mankind was hardly such a morally bankrupt decision. But… I don't know, with them already captured and their threat level so low, it just felt wrong to kill them in a world that I knew for a fact was real. Maybe things would be different if there wasn't such a large power disparity between us and I actually felt threatened in any significant fashion.
To get me to kill someone outside of a Scenario, it was honestly kind of hard. Just, don't be threat to the people around me, don't commit unspeakable crimes, and I'll probably leave you intact to serve time in a jail or prison if I don't choose to forgive any past grievances we might have. It's what I'd done with Roman and Neopolitan after I'd gotten strong enough to take them both out without breaking a sweat and it's what I planned on doing with anyone who stopped being a threat to me personally.
Speaking of…
"If I let you go now would you try to get revenge?"
"If I felt like I could get away with it, then yes," Cinder said.
"I'm clearly much stronger than you. How would you take revenge against me?"
"Target any possible weaknesses. If I can't hurt you physically, I want you hurting emotionally or psychologically."
Yeah, she was not coming out of this intact. If whoever judged her didn't sentence her to death, I would ensure that she never posed a threat to me again. This sociopath was not a loose end worth leaving alone.