Cinder

For the Hunter Academies' the fourth year was the final year – the last year of training before the teams became full-fledged Hunters. And, as one would expect, for the soon-to-be-graduating Hunters, studying was the last thing on their mind. Except of course for the week of cramming before their finally final, Final Exam. Even the slackers in the Hunter teams would've learned by now the need of studying, or be badgered into it by their more studious teammates.

Of course, the last academic months were still academic months, and the disciplinarians of Glenn Academy could unleash its wrath on students who decided to slack off. Their vigilance is the only thing keeping the ego of the students in check, as the last year included more practical classes, and some Hunter-in-training took that as meaning that they're good enough not to need the 'boring' classes.

Seeing that the Hunter Academy is under the direct purview of the king of Glenn, any mistake by the student could be taken as the fault of the teachers. Worst, it could be taken as an act of sabotage, leading to some very pointed questions from the RATS – and nobody would like to be put under the eye of the RATS.

But, even so, for the most part, the students were no longer paying much attention to their scholastic classes and were beginning to prepare for their actual jobs.

Usually a few months before graduation, for all the Academies, students of all majors were already beginning to look for job openings in suitable careers. Engineers were looking at job fairs, teachers were looking for suitable salaries, and Hunters were beginning to decide on their future missions in the larger world outside their Academy.

This was where Glenn Academy's new graduates struck their first problem, for the hunters, at least. Glenn didn't particularly need the abilities of the Hunters.

Not to say that Glenn didn't need them at all, of course. Sometimes the need for a mobile team of Specialists arose, sometimes some peculiar Grimm needed culling, and sometimes Glenn needed a quick response from a small group of super-soldiers. But despite having the very best developed institute for Hunters in Remnant…

Glenn did not have a use for them in the classical sense.

Glenn relied primarily on their army to handle the Grimm, and given the technology, or magic, of teleportation, Glenn's army was mobile, and efficient, especially when relating to the bottom line.

Hunters, by their very nature, on the other hand, were essentially… Unreliable.

Hunters certainly possessed significant advantages over the classical army. First, they represent a much higher concentration of lethal force within far fewer combatants, and so they were able to take care of the most important and most annoying factor of all in any combat operation.

Logistics.

After all, a group of Hunters represents a significant martial force, capable of neutralizing a multitude of Grimm, and all of these while only having to take care of four people's needs in food and equipment. To compare, for what concentration of Grimm that a Hunter team could handle, at least a regiment of military units is needed. That is a difference of a thousand.

Which leads directly to the dearth of jobs for the prospective Hunters of Glenn.

Such a thing were already a matter of the past for Glenn's army

What difference does it make if you send five men or five thousand if both only need to go through a portal to get to the other side of the world?

Another advantage the Hunters had was their 'responsiveness'. Whereas army groups required days to even respond to an attack, as each report needed to go through administrative processes to pass, Hunters are able to respond instantly. As, barring the infernal forces of politics, Hunters were essentially required to respond to distress signals immediately.

Unfortunately, the problem of bureaucracy, even military bureaucracy, could not be solved by portals, people remained humans in any conditions surrounding them, magic or not.

And… that's it.

No matter how many hundreds of times Cinder considered the system, there are no more advantages, no matter how hard she tries.

The disadvantages of the Hunter system, on the other hand, Cinder could list easily.

Response time? Sure, Hunters could react quickly to any changing conditions – or they could choose not to. Who could guarantee that a Hunter would take on the task offered to them? Who could guarantee that a Hunter would be at the crisis at the right time to see the task at hand and take it on? Hunters after all were not public servants forced to carry out orders and missions without the possibility of refusal.

Thanks to the Great War and the Vytal Accords, there were iron-clad rules stating that the Kingdoms would not have direct control over the Hunters… Which of course Atlas decided to step over as soon as the ink dried on the papers, and they raised their city to the skies.

Oh, no, Hunters were supposed to be a kind of 'private' entrepreneurs selling their 'services' at will. And so, the 'warriors' whose sole purpose was supposed to fight the Grimm suddenly found that they had a monopoly on their 'services'. For every Hunter, eyes-gleaming with a sense of Justice that would defend Humanity, there were three that would become mercenaries, or bandits at worst.

Freedom? Certainly, the Hunters were free – too free, in fact. Who in the first place thought that giving superhumans with expensive and extremely technologically-advanced weapons with no one commanding them was a good idea?

Surely, let's not control super-soldiers capable of single-handedly wiping out a settlement, or a couple dozen, with better equipment and training than trained and armed soldiers? Surely, none of the Hunters would think of using their overwhelming combat power and special abilities for criminal endeavors, would they?

And, of course, to add insult to injury, why not add another wonderful idea? Let's leave those same super-soldiers without any social security!

After doing a thankless job, if extremely highly paid, the only silver lining to the debacle, experiencing horrific tragedies and with the high likelihood of losing their friends in each and every mission, the possibility of PTSD is sky-high. And of course, just because they lost their mind, doesn't mean that their Aura or Semblance is any weaker.

One doesn't need to be prescient to see how those two things could lead to a massive disaster.

Cinder could go on for hours about how much she hated? No, not hated, that was too much of a strong emotion – she simply considered the Hunter system completely, insanely, mindlessly idiotic. And of course, her personal experience with one has no bearing on her opinion about them.

Hunters… Sure, in her opinion, abolishing the occupation would be too near-sighted, but their responsibility should be more defined and be specified, or at the very least be integrated into a much more concrete system. Like the army, police or secret services, for example, use them as a special force that they actually are, rather than a roaming band of specialized mercenaries.

Placed in much better roles, superhumans and their unique talents were worth their weight in gold.

Jonathan was in agreement with Cinder. Not exactly in her wording – he was more relaxed and soft-spoken about such inane nonsense as free teams of Hunters operating in the entire Remnant under one license not being used to the full capacity. But, in essence, he agreed with Cinder's opinion.

The institution of 'Hunters' was to be eliminated.

At the same time, however, applying such things… They simply could not, in one decree and with the stroke of a pen, remove such an embedded way of life such as the existence of Hunters. Even while being so isolated from the overall political, social, economic and military landscape of the rest of Remnant, in the end, Glenn still existed as a part of it.

Making such a hasty decision, going against the rest of the world…

Sometimes it was possible – like restoring the monarchic way of ruling or creating an economy based on portal technology.

Sometimes not – as in the case of the Great War and the Faunus War.

In the end, Hunters existed not only and not so much because of the benefits this institution provided, but because of the necessity of its existence.

Hunters were still superhumans. And super-humans want super-income, super-respect and super-freedom.

One Hunter, even without the proper weapon or training, is able to take out three or five armed soldiers without too much trouble. And with monstrous existences like Summer or Raven who could win against a small army easily, the Kingdoms have to compromise. Because an armed superhuman with superpowers, especially in the dozens or even hundreds of them, is not only an extremely advantageous weapon when pointed at the enemy – the same applied to Humanity as well.

That's why Hunters possessed certain privileges. That is why, even while gritting their teeth, the Kingdoms had to give them so much freedom, so much positive media presence, so much money…

An invisible social contract.

However, this did not redeem the fact that no one tried to fight the problem that is the ineffective Hunters in this world. That was why, without any prodding from Cinder, Jonathan had long ago begun to slowly 'squeeze out' the institution of Hunters – Cinder's actions had only helped Jonathan advance his plans.

And so the hunters graduating from Hermes in their final months of training would face an unexpected issue.

Glenn doesn't need free Hunters.

Of course, formally Glenn, like the rest of the Kingdoms, has the necessary facilities that support the Hunters. Registration offices that are responsible for posting missions, and keeping the paperwork, were subject to the free Hunters' law, and they definitely recognized the other Kingdoms' Hunter licenses in their territory. It just so happens that only the government posts the missions.

From Glenn's point of view, all Hunters were unpredictable and dangerous, and as such, the institution of Hunters was being supplanted by the Atlas-inspired systems of Specialists. The lawlessness that Ozpin championed and the uncontrolled, armed supersoldiers running amok were over.

If a hunter wants stable and decent pay, the state is always willing to give them a contract.

Invisible but no less strong pressure was exerted on all the students and graduates to place them in government jobs. Even if they refused to join the police or army and found themselves becoming 'free' Hunters, somehow, the Glenn Mission Center was controlled almost entirely by the state.

So, no more 'urgent' mission to save a settlement, or to fight against a tide of Grimm, the mission the public imagines Hunters took on all the time.

Instead, it would be a one-day mission conducting a patrol with the army. Or, a short one-month contract to assist the police. Or it would be to conduct a deep reconnaissance around Glenn, payment for every square kilometer covered.

Such actions worked on several fronts at once. Firstly, the state, by creating the illusion of freedom of choice, could control the volume and quality of the Hunters' missions, their earnings, their reputation, everything down to their approximate position at any given moment.

Secondly, Glenn could manage the 'free' Hunters. Instead of an uncontrolled aggregation of missions and assignments, it was Glenn, the state, that could determine the Hunters' next move, control the supply and demand, and keep unruly superhumans indirectly in check.

But, most importantly, thirdly, it was destroying the very essence of Hunters as a free fighting unit.

If the missions were paid for by the state anyway, why take that extra step of looking for a job on the boards? Why take the risk that tomorrow you won't get your mission, or that someone would get there before you? If you have been working with the state for months anyway, with the army and the police, wouldn't it be easier to just switch to the civil service? You'll always have pay, whether you have missions or not, good pay on the job and a government seniority pension. What's more, isn't it safer and more prestigious than working as a mercenary in the first place, flitting between dangerous missions and then months of boredom? Just sign a contract and your life wouldn't change in any way in terms of work, but does government insurance sound so bad as the benefits of a contract?

Of course this led to the most foolish and naive, who wanted to experience the 'romantic' life of a Hunter, a notion the veteran Hunters would probably laugh at, there's always the other Kingdoms. And then after multiple times having to camp in the woods and defecate on top of a freshly dug hole, and suddenly the 'romantic' notion of a Hunter fighting Grimm and saving villages, lost a lot of its luster. The contract of being a Government employee, and especially the support it would provide, became very tempting.

And through this simple method, gradually Glenn got rid of the Hunters by banal absorption.

Hunters were to die out as an institution… Well, or at least shrink to a small niche of specialized private security agencies. Which, by a strange coincidence, is a market dominated by Raven Branwen and her private military company.

Understanding the direction of Glenn's thoughts and policy in this field was not that difficult… At least for Cinder.

But the world was full of people that were not Cinder, and therefore few of the students talking loudly about whether they should sign a contract with the army or do missions realized that it was already chosen for them.

Though Cinder could sympathize, she also has no choice as to where she would end up.

Unlike the students who were now looking for job placements, and vacancies, Cinder knew from the very first day she stepped on the doorstep of the Academy where she would end up at the end of her training.

Special Service, and that's it.

Funny thing was, when she was in her second year and considered herself sufficiently prepared to add to her study material the workings of RATS, Cinder discovered that RATS didn't have any 'internship' positions.

Vale's legacy, even in all these years, where its members originating from Vale could be counted on one finger, RATS still couldn't hide the traits of its 'parent' completely.

When Glenn was still part of Vale, there was no need for its own special agent training institutes, Aisa, of course, rushed to correct that mistake, but still, it takes years of careful work to fine-tune such systems. And at the time Glenn had hundreds of far more pressing issues, not to mention a total lack of working hands, heads, and systems in place to handle such a thing.

The first 'schools' and 'academies' for Glenn's special services sprang up fairly quickly, but a full-fledged system of hands-on training and education were still just a pipe dream. It's quite hard, after all, to neatly balance 'sterile useless experience' with 'revealing real secrets to outsiders' to weed out any spies. Jonathan had too many responsibilities and problems in all that time to do more of this sort of thing, the directors of RATS had more urgent matters to deal with as well.

By this point, however, Cinder's résumé about organizing and managing masses of people was quite… Significant.

Jonathan had never kept his secret documents or the ugly truth of this world from Cinder too much, Jonathan knew that Cinder would never allow secrets to be revealed and would never use those for her own purposes.

At least not too much.

In addition, since her childhood, having understood and embraced this world under Jonathan's keen control and upbringing, Cinder has gone through several important stages of personal growth in terms of understanding other people. Different from her and yet so remarkably similar.

The small secret society she had once created eventually slowly faded, losing its trappings, charm, and symbolism. But it did not disappear completely.

Gradually, even as she grew and matured, Cinder continued to mingle with her many 'friends', future heirs to tycoons, outstanding talents, and Hunters-in-training with boundless faith and trust in Cinder. It wasn't a secret society, a sinister cult, with legions of fanatics ready to throw themselves on their own knife at any moment at her command, but it was also more than just friendship and fond memories from childhood.

Cinder was still the boss, and if there's one thing for sure, it would be the case for the rest of their lives.

Cinder had a lot of teamwork, leadership, management experience, so although organizing an 'internship institute' at RATS was her first 'real, official' experience as a manager, such a thing required no particular skill, time, or effort from Cinder. The system essentially came into its own, was then tested on several newcomers, after which Cinder officially joined the RATS at the rank of 'trainee' in her third year at the academy.

What's more, Cinder wasn't even the only one who decided to tie her life to the Secret Service. She knows at least three other would-be Hunters from her class deciding to join RATS, having completed a year-long internship at the same time as her.

Moreover, since Hermes only accepted the best of the best, Cinder was certain that none of the other students at the academy had dropped out of their RATS training. However, although Cinder saw joining RATS as her only path in life, she did not see it as the end of her ambition, by any means.

As a result of her past internships, as well as the additional work she did with RATS after her third year, she wouldn't enter RATS as a mere rank-and-file member. Cinder already knew that even without a single interference from her or Jonathan's side, not only was there a post waiting for her, but a rank and a neat officer's rank waiting for her. A feat that put her apart even from the Hunter graduates from Hermes Academy.

A hunter entering the military, was considered a junior lieutenant from the start, simply by the fact of being trained as a Grimm exterminator, tactician, commander and potential leader in the case of organizing a battle. However, based on the outcome of her internship, and additional training after that, the minimum rank that she was to receive a few months after her graduation ceremony from the academy was the rank of senior lieutenant. And she wouldn't stop there.

Given her achievements, skills and determination, even without trying to get ahead, without Jonathan's patronage, Cinder could well imagine that maybe at twenty-five, or at worst thirty, she could take over as director of RATS. That is, if she chose to take her time in her career.

For the ordinary member of RATS, such a thought, of being made Director, at the later stage of their life most likely, would be the end of their dreams – and a quite unrealistic one at that. To soar to such incredible heights before the age of thirty could not even be dreamt of by the most unrealistic fiction writers.

But Cinder didn't see such a thing as a dream, didn't even see such a thing as a final goal, simply as another stepping stone on her ascent to a real dream.

To help Jonathan always and in everything.

Contrary to the pondering of many analysts, who saw Cinder as having terrifying potential and astounding ambition, her dream was so simple and trivial that it was harder to believe than any crazy fantasy about conquering the world or eradicating all Grimm. Cinder's ultimate goal in this world, the moment she imagined in her head when she heard the phrase cherished dream, was not a world painted in Glenn's national colors, or a utopian future society, but…

A white dress, not a puffy one at all, but a tight one showing off her curves, Jonathan in a dinner jacket, the both of them in front of an Altar. Two small gold rings, no diamonds or other tawdry luxuries, but with their initials on the outside and inside. A short vow without too many decorative words. A modest banquet attended by those closest to them. Happy smiles. Commemorative pictures.

A moment later and the picture in Cinder's mind changed to another.

Cinder is chopping vegetables for dinner, waiting for Jonathan to put aside his papers and come downstairs from his office. The children beside them wait patiently for lunch, talking about what happened at the Academy, bragging about their progress. Cinder smiles at such a tender scene, but her motherly love is intermittently replaced by thoughts that her children should go check on their Aunt Neo, leaving Cinder and Jonathan alone for a day or two.

Another moment and another thought takes shape.

Cinder and Jonathan sit under the same blanket in the living room, listening to the gently crackling logs in the fireplace. Outside the window, powdery snow is gently falling on the ground. A mug of strong black coffee for Cinder, and cocoa with marshmallow for Jonathan, on the coffee table in front of her. The warm atmosphere envelops her like a blanket, and for a moment Cinder feels her eyes begin to close involuntarily, her posture begins to sag, and her head slumps down to press her cheek against something warm but strong. She could feel the warmth and the measured breathing, the calm heartbeat, as someone pressed her against them and Cinder heard a voice, such a familiar, dear, dear voice.

"It's going to be alright, Cinder. You are not weak. You are the strongest."

Images of her imagined future flashed before Cinder's eyes, one after the other, but as soon as she opened her eyes, it vanished completely, changing from pleasant musings about the future to the cold reality of the present.

Cinder Fall was a person with a surprisingly small dream.

But that small dream only meant that Cinder could make a titanic effort to achieve it.

After all, even the chair as head of RATS was for her only a step towards her cherished dream. What to others sounded like a simple plan, 'just get married and have kids', to Cinder was a far more complex and dangerous undertaking.

In the first place, the people who might have advised her of such a thing didn't quite get it right, what her dream meant.

Cinder's dream was not to have a family and children. Cinder's dream was to help Jonathan with anything and everything. This included not only becoming morale support from behind the throne, creating a home to which Jonathan could always return after an exhausting day at work, but also to help in his endless struggle.

Bureaucracy. Diplomacy. Politics. Economics. Assassination. Insurrections. Command. Hundreds of things that Jonathan carried on his shoulders.

Jonathan Goodman was a king, and he was not just a representative of the government, a face familiar to the crowd. He was as much a ruler as he was a symbol, and no matter how many hundreds of suitable ministers, secretaries, and deputies he found, in the end it was he who steered Glenn. He who decided the biggest of issues, who gave instructions to all his deputies and ministers… And he worked.

Too much.

Cinder wanted to help Jonathan, she did not want to take the throne and in no way did she see Jonathan's power as a target, nor was she planning any coup or any such petty manipulation. Moreover, it was only a matter of Jonathan's words, hints, or a snippet of thoughts where Cinder was not supposed to do something, and she would have instantly abandoned any course of action.

However, Jonathan didn't need to in the first place, simply because he understood Cinder completely. She wasn't a schemer or a power-hungry, ambitious throne-grabber – she really just wanted to help.

In any way she could and in any way she knew how.

That was why Cinder didn't see herself in any other role than that of head of RATS. Simply because it was in this area that her talents could really be used to their fullest potential, and it was through the capabilities of the RATS that she could give Jonathan the most support and influence. On Glenn and the world.

And that was why Cinder believed that even the position of head of the RATS was only a stepping stone to her little happiness. After all, those who had assumed that Cinder's plans were to conquer the world or something equally unbelievable were not entirely wrong.

Cinder was quite aware that one day she might have such an incredible task in front of her as well. Conquering the world, destroying the Grimm, finally killing Salem and Ozpin.

It's just that Cinder hadn't considered such achievements as her end goal, at most, goals on the way to her dream. Those two create so many headaches for Jonathan, after all.

That was probably the most terrifying thing about Cinder Fall. In that, she wasn't aiming for world domination or the assassination of millennial ancient strategists. She merely saw such things as one possible way to achieve a dream so small that it wouldn't occur to any human to expend even a thousandth of the effort that Cinder was devoting to achieving just that dream.

And that meant that Cinder could take the most inconceivable actions, sacrifices, and decisions to achieve it.

Which meant that if she had to take control of the largest and most powerful Secret Service in Remnant in order to secure her little family happiness with Jonathan? Then she was willing to do it – to consolidate her forces and resources, to direct media coverage in the right direction, to pressure certain supporters and critics alike.

If one day she needed to make even more desperate and ambitious decisions to do so, well…

For the sake of a very small dream, Cinder was prepared to go to incredible lengths.