Amber's Gift by SandsOfAGlassGarden

(I wake up as Amber. As she dies. Canon to Vol 8. Spoilers for Warframe up to 'The Sacrifice'. Cut off short, ending outlined in last chapter.)

Author's Note:

(partial) Self Insert story, taking place Post Beacon. Using canon from up to Volume 8. A bit of a cross over with the game Warframe, so spoilers for that up to and including the quest 'The Sacrifice'.

Hello from chapter 10. Going back through this adding better line breaks as the perspecitve shifts from POV to POV, and doing some tidy up. I was writing these early chapters using a plain text editor, no spellchecker, so that should be a lot better now.

Old Note:

So, let's see how this fanfiction thing works out. I've written a few stories, or more accurately half written, but never uploaded them. To be honest, I'm a little nervous, but this is a burner account anyway. Let's have a go with this little one shot that might be more in the future.

If I mark it as complete, it's complete, not abandoned. if it's only one chapter long, that means I've stopped at a one shot, otherwise it's done. I hate people who abandon and mark as complete, being a someone who would really prefers the story to be complete when done. Get your game together, community.

Hmm, my breaks need work. Oh well, this is just a test anyway.

Addition: Apparently using a bunch of dashes doesn't work for a line break. I need to use the Fanfiction 'horizontal line' button. Uhg.

Understanding of various references, like Warframe and Skyrim, isn't needed but may help.

It's not the strangest dream I've had, not by far. The pure blackness is irritating, only by it's lack of entertainment, but ultimately harmless to me and my dream self. Even as it flares and trys to eat me, as the dream shifts to nightmare, I am fine.

I like nightmares.

I didn't used to, but over the years my dreamself has accumulated a wide array of abilities. Like flight, teleportation, phase-shifting, telekinesis. As well as some more exotic ones. Shapeshifting into a giant snake isn't very useful, so much so I'm not even sure it has persisted beyond the dream I got it in. Because that's how it works. I have a dream, I help people or do things, and I get more powerful or more skilled. Then I have another dream, a different world or situation, rarely the same world.

But my skills, my abilities remain. Flight was the first that I realised could level up. No longer do I need to jump from a skyscraper and fall, swoop up the moment before I hit the ground so close my nose tickles. No longer do I have a fixed height limit, high but always in ankle grabbing reach of anyone below me.

These days I can fly to the stars, I have an inter-dream persistent base on the moon, half Minecraft inspired and but atmospherically compromised, I can never seem to get that to work. Not that I need air anymore, my invincibility resistance have leveled up enough to go from damage resistance to full invincibility. Air, attacks, my fear of heights manifesting as fall damage, that is what 'kills' me. What wakes me up.

Am I even still afraid of heights? I don't know, not more than any other person I think. Ha, did I solve my fear of heights by altering/leveling up my dreamself? That's pretty a funny form of subconscious therapy. Just breathe as you fall, it's not the fall that wakes/kills you, it's the stress of falling.

Hmm, strange dream. Something should have happened by now. That's just how dreams work, the mind (or soul or whatever) generating content for the sleeping mind.

This blackness isn't content. No people to help, monsters to kill, worlds to save.

My dreams are often like that, though sometimes I do little self care dreams. Like sunbathing. That is, literally taking a bath inside the sun. A quick flight up thought the atmosphere (which is still a little hard, got to focus really hard to do that) and a far easier flight from the surface of the planet to the sun or local star.

Still nothing?

I'm getting bored. Well then, I have teleportation. Should check my body first though, get 'dressed'. Hooves? Oh, Alicorn form. That's fine, not that I have watched My Little Pony in years, fell off at season 3. Kind of hard to enjoy a show when you can feel the laws of it's world shifting beneath the surface.

Right, so...

Where do I want to go?

.

.

RWBY. The fall of Beacon. People need help there, even if this is just a dream.

I haven't had a RWBY dream in... I don't think ever. Not one set on Remnant anyway, I'm pretty sure Ruby Rose flickered in and out of a couple of dreams. Uhg, I'm getting distracted.

Listen. Focus. Beacon. The Fall.

Screaming. Someone is screaming. It's Pyrrha, and Amber. The machine is on. Amber, she is about to die.

Relax my body, focus on Amber, and fall backwards through space. Nope, messed that up, not enough focus and relaxation.

Again.

Amber is screaming. I'm inside her, not expected, but I can still help.

I open my heart and pour the soothing presence of care, feeling her pain as her soul gets ripped up by the machine. You won't die on my watch, Amber.

Shhh, it's okay. I'm here. Everything is going to be alright.

That's when the arrow hits. Shit. Heal. Heal. Heal? Why aren't my abilities working? Oh no, it's not one of those dreams, is it?

The world fades to white.

Becomes empty.

Except for three figures. Amber is next to me, looking terrible. Scars across her face have fused one eye shut, a hundred cuts and slashes cover her body so much so she can't stand. I kneel next to her, trying to help. A wing extends and covers her like a warm blanket as I focus and pour my need to help into the healing spell. Speak the word this time.

"Res." Restore. Resurrect. Resuscitate. The root of making things better.

The cuts begin fading. "No!" Someone else screams in this white place.

It's Pyrrha. Oh, I suppose she is connected by the machine. Cinder is the other, why is she... Half maiden, right. "Give it to me, girl!"

Traces of magic are already bleeding off Amber. I grab them and put them back. This power is Ambers. "I don't want it." She whispers.

Oh, how broken she is. Bones are bent in odd angles, lungs half working, and the arrow is in her chest. "Res." More firmly this time, but it's not helping enough.

I look up and around as I shift myself between Amber and Cinder. Cinder looks perfect, Pyrrha does not. She has long lines across her body like she has been wrapped in burning wire, and her back is almost breaking under some invisible weight.

This place, it's conceptual in nature. "What are you?" Cinder strides, hungry flames licking her body harmlessly, though the ground around her is turning black.

No, Cinder isn't perfect either, there are bruises, hidden but visible if you look, across her body. Her nails are bleeding from her working herself for power.

And from her palm, snaking it's way up inside her arm and into her head, her eye, is the black.

"What did you do to yourself?" Pyrrha asks Cinder, spotting the Grimm in her.

"Grimm hybridisation. She is infected, deliberately." I speak. My voice is an invisible current of power, not sound but Action-Unto-Intent. Cinder staggers back a step. Odd, she shouldn't have, that was not meant to hurt her, merely stating the fact.

Pyrrha gasps at the realisation while Amber whimpers wrapping in my wings as I stand in front of her. "Please. It hurts." Physical positioning makes this impossible, but we are not in a physical space.

"Give me the pain." I speak softly, caringly, and open my heart again. Cuts form and fade, my invulnerability coming to play as I feel the weight that broken Amber.

How she has nobody, fearful that any lasting links she makes would be hunted down and hurt. Always on the move, always helping, the only thing she can do. Kindness to strangers, never allowed to stay lest they be attacked.

How every cut from her travels from every branch and stone, every Grimm and bandit has added up, more proof she cannot stay. Her physical body has healed those wounds but they have cut far deeper than the physical.

Her broken legs are from walking alone too long, the weight she carries, the same weight Pyrrha feels, has been pulling on her. Stay in a safe city, protected? No, with this power and her own nature, she needs to go out and help.

Even as it breaks her.

Broke her.

I know what I need to do even as I realise this isn't a dream anymore. I've crossed, somehow.

Tenno. To Take Its Pain Away.

Not just Amber, but Pyrrha too. "Give it all to me. I can carry it."

"NO! IT'S MINE!" Cider screams, the fires turning as black and ravenous as the Grimm in her.

Pyrrha leaps between us. I look to her. "No longer your destiny. Give it to me."

She looks back, even as Cinder rushes forward with her arm distorting to what I know it will be. Black and clawed, hungry beyond humanity.

I'm not looking at Cinder. I'm looking at Pyrrha, as her back straightens, as the load lifts. I feel it rest on mine. I see her tears. "I'm sorry."

She turns back to face Cinder, shield up and gleaming, the only untarnished part of her. The truth of her conviction to defend.

Cinder and Pyrrha clash, time being brought. I turn away and back to Amber.

Broken Amber. "It's alright. Everything is going to be okay. I can carry it, all of it." Call again on my empathy, the core of the spell. Cast it. "Res."

Bones slide back into place as my back creaks under the stress, under the weight of the world. Not a dream, I am making a choice. I am choosing kindness and empathy. Cinder behind me screams.

"It hurts so much." Amber whispers. I smile and raise a hoof, wiping away the scar covering her eye.

"You have very pretty eyes, Amber. Even under the tears." She gasps as a trickle of her pain begins to flow into me.

Tenno. Speak the words. "We accept this memory and move beyond its reach."

A river of Magic and pain flow into me as easily as a smoke drifting up from a fire. More and more flow, pulled into my soul. It hurts me, but I accept it. Because the gaps in her body closing, her clothes knitting together.

Because Amber is smiling.

Amber is relieved of her burden.

"Thank you." She fades into sparks, drifting off into nothing.

And she is gone.

Cinder screams. The white void begins to collapse.

I open Amber's eyes.

An arrow in my chest. It gets pulled out with an application of Magic, earth magic unto force. Heart damaged, body still dying. Move the blood with water magic. Feel how my aura, My Aura, flares a white and begins to close the wound.

Cinder screams and bats away the door of Pyrrha's pod as she is denied. "Where is it! Where did you send it?"

Healed. Focus. Amber's skills, as little as they are, are here. Written into her body and brain, every nerve and muscle. Even how to use the magic, though she has not had it for long. Her Semblance is here too, to grow. To take a seed or sapling and help it grow.

Such a kind girl. Such a broken girl. Gone now.

I throw off my own pod door at Cinder, raise off the ground and flare Amber's Power and my own. "HERE."

Her panic turns to greed and a wary gaze as Pyrrha, Ozma, Jaune and I stand against her. "Amber?" Oz asks.

"No." I need a weapon. Matter belongs to me. Magic flares and I form the weapon my Warframe is most familiar with. A fire-wind Bo Staff. "Tenno."

Amber is dead, but her body is my Warframe. Her magic, my magic, is my void power. Her Semblance and skills are my abilities. Growth. My mind runs through it's combat applications and finds many, despite it's seemingly useless potential. Amber was too kind to look.

Cinder calls up her weapons and set's herself forward to attack and defend. I am not too kind.

My feet hit the floor as I charge, as we charge. Jaune lags behind, he will be a liability in this fight. Pyrrha is moving to protect him, giving commands to raise his shield. I speak to Oz. "I'll anvil, you hammer."

He nods, and that is all we need. A surge of fire behind me and an Aura boosted step before suddenly I am behind Cinder. Walls of ice spring to my command, cutting off her escape as my body brings the staff in a twirl to strike, the fluid and showy gesture disguising the momentum building into a strike.

Cinder's blade rises to catch it, fire flaring along both, her other to block Ozma from attacking. Semblance. "Slick."

The simplest of my Semblance modifications, to grow the bacteria and life along her body, over her skin. Suddenly there is a layer of gunk all over her arm, and importantly, between her hand and her blade.

My staff impacts her blade, and it is knocked a little loose. Cinder's own Aura has boosted her grip, but the slight tilt of the blade in her hand is enough to distract her.

Distract her from the fact that both blades are slicked, so when Ozma's staff comes down, it knocks her right blade free from her hand entirely. There's that panic. And there is that misdirected caution. Ozma didn't 'overpower' you, Cinder. We are working together, but you are too power blind to see that.

She leaps backwards to avoid his second strike, it's coming at me now. Sidestep and generate and ice pillar to serve as his platform, before suddenly growing it under his feet, throwing Ozma at Cinder who is burning off the gunk over her body.

I am quick to follow with more ice on the wall, further cutting off her escape. The ice wall that blocks the hallway is thin, I should add to it. Also add earth, ice melts.

A fact that Cinder is now taking advantage of before I can fortify it. She is leaping and throwing fire at Oz, who whooshes his cane around to disrupt the flow. Unfortunately she is also throwing fire at the thin ice wall, melting a hole in it.

Escape? Best cut her off. The elevator is the only way out. I shatter the ice wall with a throw of the staff and then throw the shards at her with magic before launching myself down the hallway again at as high a speed I can.

Cinder is faster, jets of fire blast out of her palms as she runs along the ground, hot footsteps from her Semblance partially melting and reforming the flat stone into footholds. I sense her Aura burning up as she accelerates.

Ozma is even faster still, damm he is quick. I think a bit of time dilation must have been used or he has learned to teleport. It doesn't matter, he is ahead of her, cutting her off. I gather my hands together and begin charging lightning into a ball.

Ah, the poke of death, Ozma is jabbing Cinder a few dozen (hundred?) times as I ram into her back, lightning flaring. A flash of light and I feel her Aura cracking underneath my hands. Not enough? Damm.

She goes flying over Ozma under the force of my blow, shit. I form an array of stone spikes and throw them, not a Cinder, but at the elevator door. It's not that far away. Can't let her escape.

Ozma uses my raised arms in a block as a platform and leaps off me towards Cinder, my momentum almost completely cancelled as he flies. She's melting the spikes at a distance, one arm out, damm her Semblance and magic.

Focus. Run. Sprint. Boost. Thrust. No, I have a better idea. That out reached arm of hers is the Grimm arm. I form and throw a single crystalline blade, a simple wedge shape with sharp edges, towards the elevator.

Just like with the arrow, I am holding it with earth magic. Watching it as it flies parallel to her arm. Now. Twist it into a swing, will the local damage overwhelming her local Aura? Sharpness matters, otherwise weapons on Remnant would not have developed to be sharp.

I don't get to test it, as I cut off Cinder Fall's arm just as Ozma strikes the back of her, shattering her Aura. She again goes flying, into the elevator door that has been melted apart despite stone and steel. Ozma has again lost momentum, transferred it into the blow, I am too slow. No. NO. She is not getting away from me!

She panics and starts to rise, fire flaring out of her feet, weapons cast aside. A flicker and she raises a rock, blocking the hole in the elevator even as I pull it aside. She has more magic than me. How much did she steal from Amber the first time around?

The rock shatters under our forces and I push the shards forward.

Only for them to hit a flame filled box. Cinder has ripped herself out the top and is escaping. No!

Step, step, Ozma calls out to me, but I already know. She is faster than me. She has more magic than me. Even with her Aura broken and arm severed, she will escape. I stare up into the elevator shaft. Focus. Everything. Into. This. One. Act.

GROW

I hear her scream as every bacteria on her body flares to like again, but now with the open wounds they have found a new fertile breeding ground. Her body's immune system, without Aura, will be overwhelmed.

"She's gone, Tenno." Oz states as he comes up behind me.

She will survive this. I know she will, an application of magic into fire to burn out the disease, then her Aura will recover and she will return with more Grimm hybridisation.

"We had her. We almost had her!" I snarl. How little I have changed, how terrible the world will be. "If I just rushed ahead and cut her off!" I punch the metal, still hot and bending under my blow. It burns my skin with it's radiant heat. Dammit.

"She did not get the full powers of the Maiden, and we know who she is now." Oh, and you're not dead, I suppose. Nor is Pyrrha. I relax and turn around. The day is saved.

Except there is still the Grimm upstairs. "Grimm?"

Pyrrha and Jaune jog up, careful to avoid the distorted footsteps of Cinder's sprint. "A lot. Can you fight?" She answers, Jaune is getting a bit out of breath. Not much, his Aura is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

I step into the elevator. "Don't suppose this works anymore?" It's a joke, or was suppose to be. I'm angry. Really, really angry.

Why? She is just a charac- I feel Amber's broken soul in me. Her pain, her fear. The traces of her Semblance, embedded into the body, carry with them that broken feeling long after her soul is gone. I hate Cinder Fall, when less than ten minutes ago she was just a character.

That's why I pushed my attack, why I didn't cut her off. I wanted to kill her. Luck would say I did, with injuries like that.

I know better.

Everyone else gets inside. Pyrrha seems to have said she can help while I was distracted, and with a force of will and a flex of her soul, the broken carriage begins to rise. Sounds of scraping metal as Pyrrha lifts us up the shaft, Cinder will be long gone now. Even if she is desperate, hungry, for the power, she won't stay. It will take time to regenerate he Aura, time to get a new arm, time to fight off the infection and time to mentally prepare herself.

Time.

Yang.

She loses an arm, I can stop that, or reattach it. Grow, regrow the link between her limb and body. Amber did that, healed the sick. She wasn't half bad, turning a gardening Semblance into a healing one. Though 'growth' is pretty vague. No wonder she drew attention, even without being a Maiden, walking around healing people is going to start stories.

We are here. Beacon is on fire. I step out.

And take command. "CCTS is down, use local communications. Grimm dragon is priority, we can't win while it's spawning. Ozma, link up with any command structure you can and take over coordinating defences. Pyrrha, Jaune, find your friends and then move them to a neutral location, we need to set up a safe spot and defend it with as many huntresses as we can. Use your fame. The negativity will pull the Grimm to you, so bunker down somewhere as secure as you can. Oz will coordinate strike teams to find and recover civilians, watch for Grimm around piles of rubble. People will be trapped underneath and we can use the negativity as a location marker for those still alive."

I roll my shoulders. Oz steps forward. "You are going to take care of the Wyvern."

Dragon you mean. Ha, just like Skyrim. "Wouldn't be my first." I grin.

This is fun. "Oh, and I don't have a scroll. You'll have to set up a beacon for me when I come back down." I snort. "Ha, Beacon."

Jaune groans, Pyrrha manages a faint smile. "Stay safe."

"I will. It's the other guys who need help." I pull metal to me, or more accurately pull the earthen impurities to me, and wrap myself before igniting little pilot lights on my hands and feet. Battleship is still airborne, so Ruby hasn't crashed it yet. Does she? Or am I misremembering? Doesn't matter, Canon is dead.

"How do you know our names?" Jaune asks. I turn back and wink.

"Don't you know? Your famous, Lover Boy. Now kiss your girlfriend once she has tossed me. She has been waiting all year for that." I turn to look to Pyrrha, who is now blushing. "Aim true."

She concentrates and I levitate off the ground, and giant clumsy javelin hovering over her head. Her other hand comes up as her thumb lines up the target towards the Grimm. I begin ramping up the thrust and she starts holding me back to keep me still, ready to switch directions at the perfect moment.

My thrust reaches max and Pyrrha perfects her shot. The Wyvern doesn't know what's about to hit it.

Nor do I, for that matter.

Wait, this isn't a dream. Can I even-

Pyrrha throws me.

Air and Grimm fly past me as I fly through the air, jets of fire blasting out behind me, sometimes flickering as I cut power to alter my flight. Despite my doubt, this is the most fun I've had in...

Ever. Most fun ever. Even my dreams don't count. A Griffon attempts to snap at me and I have to swerve around it, narrowly missing it. Can't have them disrupt my flight. Can't have them throw me off course.

Closer now, the dragon sees me. Fuck calling it a Wyvern, I'm a Gamer. We kill dragons.

It inhales, fire breath or something being readied. No matter. I shed my 'armor' and let it fall away, only a single crude spear of steel in my hands. The sudden change in mass to accelerate boosts my speed.

Right into the Dragon's jaw.

And out the back of it's head. Fuck you. I'm the Dova-queen!

Speaking of which. I fill my head with the feeling and intensity of Fire. "YOL!"

It spreads across the plains, the trees, the forest as it becomes an Inferno. "TOOR!"

Bright, hot, the sky itself burns as the intensity ramps up to rival the near infinite power of the Sun. "SHUL!"

Dragonfire spills out from my lips, a mix of Magic and Intent. The thin stream blossoms into a massive cone of orange, trace red and white streaks mixed in, before setting the back of the Grimm on Fire.

Another. It's not dead yet, the hole in the back of it's head is closing. Lightning this time. I pull on the air, it's currents, the heat and cold differentials made from the sudden shift in environment, and pull them into a spiral, into a Storm. "STRUN!"

I pour my emotions into the air, my rage, my hatred, my need to destroy that which has and is hurting everyone below. I give the Storm my Wrath. "BAH!"

Air rubs on air as it is compressed, forced together in screaming mass of electron shift as Differential charges build. I rip those negatively charged electrons and hold them above the Dragon, despite the arcs of Lightning. "QO!"

Throw the spear, hammer it in, make the shortest path between positive and negative through the Grimm, not around out. Move the more massive, positively charged nuclei and force a thin stream of electrons down into the wound, through the rod, and out the other side. The circuit connects, Magic and Science, and a massive white flash of light and the roar of thunder rips through the center of the dragon.

Thunder is an understatement. The explosion sends me flying upwards, Aura on the verge of breaking.

But as I spin, I catch sight of the Grimm Dragon. The two quarter piece of a Grimm Dragon, a solid half has been vaporised. The Grimm around us have been decimated by the shockwave, only the friendly fire disabling nature of the Magic and my Aura protected me.

It's beautiful. I think I'm crying. Or vomiting, that is a lot of dizziness from spinning. Stop myself.

Jets of fire blast out as I try to stabilise myself, and yep. Eww, that is vomit. Gross.

A few seconds and I stop spinning, before forcing my Aura to stop me from getting dizzy. So that's how they did it, stupid spectacle fighter show, nobody really gets dizzy in combat.

Beacon is below me, on fire. I can still help, but before I go down.

Amplify the vibrations with air currents. Choose the words carefully. Then shout. Not a Dragon Shout, but a cry of defiance against a cruel world, a rallying call to all who feel despair. A Huntress Protects, not just from Grimm, but from the darkness itself. "BEACON UNBROKEN!"

My rallying thunder roars across the school and the city beyond. "VALE UNBROKEN!"

One more. I would say humanity, but that might be racist. Instead I pour every emotion I have, all my magic, so much so I begin to fall, into the next two words. "REMNANT UNBROKEN!"

Hope. It is a far more dangerous weapon than mere Magic. A far more beautiful thing than paint and canvas.

I fall as Beacon rises. As the people below me stop being paralysed and shocked, as the world begins to realise that the day is not lost. That we stand unbroken.

I reach up and rip the scar tissue over Amber's eye and Heal it whole. I see the world for what it is.

Not a story, not a show, not a collection of characters and 3D models behind which voice actors speak. I see Remnant and it's people, it's towers and homes, it's terrible trials and defiant spirit.

Sorry Earth, but I am needed. I answer this call, these broken people carrying an impossible weight.

To Take Its Pain Away.

Grimm

The Grimm pause at the loss of their leader, their coordinator. They scream as the voice calls out in defiance against them. As the dawn is not waited for, but the night is Forced back. Emotions shift around them, fear and despair, chaos and panic, they fade. Hope takes hold. Defiance spreads. The spirit of the prey reignites as they call in kind. Remnant Unbroken.

Meaningless sound. Resume the att-

Coco Adel

"REMNANT UNBROKEN!"

The sky itself is screaming defiance at the Grimm. And is that a dragon fading?

Well, then. It's the end of the world, but that doesn't mean we can go out without style. I push up my aviators, cool and calm despite how I feel. "CFVY? Let's not let the sky show us up."

Master Thief Roman Torchwick

"REMNANT UNBROKEN!"

Oh, what is it now? I was in the middle of my speech to the most irritating littl- Is that the massive Wyvern falling apart? Is that what the thunder was about? Yelling nonsense words and camping on my style.

Uhg, and little red is all so full of hope. As if this changes anything. The hero does not save the day, it-

"Grimm!" She shouts and I instinctively flick to the side, great, now she's saving my life. I'm just glad Neo isn't here to see this. Speak of the little rat. "Not listening!" She cries out, her mood suddenly shifting from the dejected and broken spirit it was before.

Oh, you think this changes anything? Stupid girl, the city is still on fire. One big Grimm isn't all that is needed to change the tide. Although, with that thing falling into smoke, people will be fighting harder now. Hope.

A tool to manipulate people, sure, but dangerous. The screaming sky has given people hope. Little Red here was almost listening, -Sidestep and shoot that Grimm- but now she's grinning.

Cinder's plan is trash anyway, and we hated working for her. I can't believe I'm doing this. "Give me your hand."

Stop looking so smug, little bitch. This is a one time thing, then Neo and I are gone.

Headmaster Ozpin Ozma

"REMNANT UNBROKEN!"

Tenno. She did it, whatever she is. Amber's body used as a puppet. {Sound familiar?}

Yet yes, that does sound familiar, but it is unlikely the Brothers introduced a new player. They are long gone. {Can she be trusted though?}

That is the question. How much of this is a play, how much of it is genuine? {She knew our name.}

Our name. Who of us is Ozpin and who is Ozma? Doesn't matter at this point. She knows things, enough to be a threat. {Or an ally.}

Hmm. {'Remnant Unbroken!' A rallying call to everyone here. To inspire hope, to get them to look up and see the day is not lost.}

Then we will trust her, for now. See what she has to say. She still knew of Miss Nikos and Mr Arc, she has been keeping tabs on them, enough to know their relationship intimately. {And invested enough to encourage it.}

True. Ah, here she comes now, our Beacon lit. {You did not just make a pun.}

No, no. She did, I was merely quoting her, in our assessment of her character, of course. {Of course.}

Partial Maiden Cinder Fall

"REMNANT UNBROKEN!"

How? Everything was perfect, everything was just right. What was that thing? A black horse with wings and a white mane? There was a horn too. A Grimm, yet not a Grimm. I have seen Master's Grimm, the more exotic kinds, that matched one, but softer. Kinder.

Some kind of Anti-Grimm? Is that even possible? Tenno, that's what she called herself, puppeteering around the last Maiden's body. And using my power.

Which brings me back to how. "Emerald, Mercury, we are leaving." I cough, lips barely working even though my face is the better part of my body.

How did she kill the Elder Grimm? I don't have that much power, and our fight clearly shows I have more than her. Ozpin? No, he wouldn't have had time to give her more magic, and even if he gave her all of his left it would not be enough.

"Cinder, your arm! Your-" A glare, at least she knows her place, cuts her off.

I am well aware of my arm. And my legs, and my skin. The stones shattered cut wounds across my body, across everything. Then the slickness came back. Infesting me, infection. She weaponised the last Maiden's Semblance to rapidly trigger infection across my body. My skin is ruined, I had to burn it off.

The pain is little compared to Salem's teachings, but only because I have burned away my nerves. Recover will take... I can't tell. I may not ever recover from this.

Salem will kill me for failing her. I don't even have the full Maiden power, I can't open the vault, I only know where it is. Not nearly enough compared to what she has invested in me...

I can't run either. The criminal and his fucktoy will kill me. Watts will mock me and turn me in, use me to further his own standing. Tyrian will take me to Salem and then she will kill me. I cannot threaten Lionheart in my state. Hazel... No. I need to hide, recover, until I am strong enough.

Go independent until I can bring something of value back to Salem. A Relic.

I have no arm, she knew. Of course she knew, she has all of Amber's knowledge. She cut off my arm to prevent me... I have to kill her.

I need to kill her. Not just for Salem, but SHE BURNED AWAY MY SKIN AND DESTROYED MY PLANS.

Calm. I need to be calm. Remember Master's teachings.

Emerald and Mercury are loading me into a car, he takes driver while she fusses trying to do something, anything to keep me alive. At least Mercury's loyalty has remained this far, but seeing me so weak will test him.

How did she do it? How did she take my perfect plan and with a single fight turn everything around. Months of planning, years of training.

What in all Grimm is she?

She hates me too.

Good. The next time we meet, only one of us will walk away. IT MUST BE ME.

Authors Note:

Me again. I don't like how Cinder's POV turned out, but to be fair she did burn off almost all her skin to stop the infection, so her thoughts being a mess makes sense.

At least to me, who this story is for.

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