Qrow took a long swig of whatever alcoholic beverage he’d just been handed. The bartender had called it something in a dialect he didn’t think he could repeat without some serious trouble, but as it burned his throat just right he found himself wondering if he shouldn’t put the effort into learning the proper pronunciation. Who would have thought that the desert of all places would serve a good drink? Though now that he was thinking about it, they would be the sort to value their liquids the most, wouldn’t they? Maybe he needed to go out on a limb and try their non alcoholic stuff as well…
“Are you even listening, Qrow?” Glynda bitched at him from across the booth. Tucked away in the back corner of a cozy little tavern, or the local equivalent, anyway, there was little chance of someone overhearing their conversation without being extremely obvious about it.
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, I’m listening. What, you think I can’t handle a conversation and a drink at the same time?” He wasn’t nearly drunk enough for that to be the case. Maybe if they kept this up for another hour or so and the drinks were steady, but he wasn’t even tipsy yet!
“Sometimes I wonder how you handle anything at all, you-”
“If we could please stay on topic?” Bart interrupted, possessively wrapping one hand around some local blend of coffee with the other busily tapping away at his scroll. “If our suspicions are correct then this is hardly the time to be squabbling over petty matters.”
Glynda very obviously wanted to argue that she didn’t squabble, she lectured or whatever other bullshit excuse, but she shut her trap all the same.
“Thank you,” Bart continued,”Now, as I was saying before, while I cannot confirm anything definitively, based on my observations and those of the local law enforcement, it would not be unreasonable to assume that Cinder Fall personally played a role in the demise of the ringleaders. Wounds that match the glass arrows and blades she seems so fond of inflicted damage that would likely be lethal, and without the time for a proper medicolegal death investigation that’s the best we’re going to get.”
“So we’re all but certain that she’s here and now it’s a game of cat and mouse until we find and stop her,” Qrow said with a sigh. “Except the deck is stacked heavily in her favor. She’s got the whole damn city to hide in, and though we don’t know what sort of business she had here beyond the assassination, she can probably just leave whenever she wants.”
“Not quite,” Bart corrected, laying his scroll out on the table for them to see. It looked like a weather forecast, but had some indicators that he’d never seen before. “This line here,” he pointed at the line in question, “is the wall surrounding the City of Vacuo. And this,” he gestured at a blob of dark brown that all but surrounded the city, “is a sandstorm.”
Glynda looked at him like he had grown a second head. “You mean to tell me that a sandstorm is somehow everywhere around the city, but we’ve seen not even a hint of it from here? I’m no expert, but last I checked they are nothing like a hurricane, there isn’t an eye in the center of a sandstorm.”
“Correct,” Bart nodded, “The meteorologists are quite puzzled, but I believe the answer for the oddity is rather simple.”
“Are you suggesting this is a semblance or something?” Qrow double checked the scale of the digital map. “Bart, this sandstorm is huge. I’ve never heard of someone with a semblance like this, let alone one this powerful.”
“And yet as shocking as this news is, no other explanation presents itself…” Glynda hummed. “The question now is whether they are with us or against us.”
That didn’t necessarily mean whether the mystery person would help them out or try to kill them. Even if they didn’t know anything about their investigation or Cinder or anything else they were involved in, using their semblance against the people of Vacuo would firmly put them in the “against us” category.
Though for this to happen now of all times… Qrow had a sneaking suspicion that it did indeed have something to do with their presence.
Or maybe his semblance just hated him.
Bart handwaved those concerns aside. “Whatever their intentions, their actions may prove to be a boon to our search. With the unpredictability of a storm such as this, no pilot is going to be willing to fly out of Vacuo. Though they’re still allowing incoming airships to land, for now. I’m sure many who were on their way here would rather take their chances flying through the storm than wait it out in the grimm infested desert, and their dust can’t keep them in the air forever.”
“So we’re operating under a timer then,” Glyda concluded. “If we want to confront Cinder, we need to do it before this storm subsides.”
As soon as it ended, air traffic would pick back up and she’d be able to blend in with all the normal people getting out of Vacuo. Trying any earlier than that would make her ship an obvious target for Glynda to pull straight out of the sky.
“What do you think the odds are that we can find whoever is behind the storm and convince them to keep it up until we hunt down that bitch?” Qrow suggested.
“Well, given that we didn’t know of their existence until just a moment ago, and that such a request would be very much ill advised given all the problems this is no doubt causing for the kingdom, I would say that it is not very probable at all. That said… contacting Shade and finding out if they have any clues couldn’t hurt.”
“I shall get in contact, then.” Glynda took one last sip of her tea and stood. “You two can continue the search for Cinder in the meantime. We mustn't let this opportunity distract us from the true goal.”
Of course Glynda gets the easy job. Wouldn’t his semblance fucking up a meeting with the headmaster or whoever be marginally less horrible than it fucking up an encounter with a psycho bitch and possibly her cronies? One ends in diplomatic issues and the other ends in his possible murder.
He really needed a drink.
Qrow gave his now empty glass a longing glance.
“Hey! Can I get one of these things for the road?”
----------------------------------------
It was times like this that made Cinder wish she had a better formal education. She was a genius in her own right, but her vast intelligence didn’t exactly cover things like tracing vast power to its source.
Relaxing on her new requisitioned couch, she switched through tab after tab on her scroll. Local weather, social media posts, the news, etc. A sandstorm was threatening to engulf the city, people were still complaining about the breach, mind control, and unusual static buildup, and the news was reporting that everything would be okay for the common people if they simply listened to the experts and hunkered down away from potential dangers until the all clear was given. “The lockdown from the breach has not been lifted due to the unpredictability of this storm, just stay inside and you’ll be safe.”
Foolishness, the lot of it. If the scientists studying the sandstorm couldn’t piece together that it wasn’t natural then they were almost impressively inept. The masses complaining about every little hindrance to their insignificant lives instead of doing something about it made her opinion of them drop even lower.
And the news suggesting that everyone would be safe if they simply listened?
Some people would never learn. Obeying their masters hadn’t saved the dead morons she’d passed on her way here from the grimm. It certainly wouldn’t protect them from power of this caliber.
Part of her considered asking Watts to take over the research for her if only to save herself from such a boring task… but a larger part of her quickly stamped down on those thoughts, wanting to interact with the maniac as little as possible. Especially with Salem’s threat lingering over her head. There was no way she was going to give that worm the slightest chance to bring this news to Salem before her.
Her worthless minions needed to meet up with her already so she could delegate these matters onto them. But she supposed if they were actually competent then they wouldn’t be serving as her minions, now would they?
That wasn’t quite fair, though. Nobody was equal to her.
Brushing those thoughts aside, she analyzed the data once more.
Would she be at the eye of this “storm”? Cinder herself had never tried something of this nature, but she imagined that the control would be easiest if one were to be stood in the very center.
Then again, if Cinder could reach that conclusion so quickly, then that made it too obvious, didn’t it? The center of the storm could be a trap in and of itself. Draw your victim in, thinking that they’ve outsmarted you, only to end their miserable life in an instant.
That was the problem with unknowns like this. Your first time interacting with someone left you wondering just how intelligent they were. Obviously they’d never be as smart as she was, but were they reasonably close or were they an utter buffoon?
How many layers deep did Cinder need to consider? The initial obvious plan? A trap that accounted for countermeasures to the obvious plan? A trap for those who thought they outsmarted the previous trap?
Her one reassurance was that her prey wouldn’t have that godsforsaken semblance Second Thoughts on her side.
…unless this had all been a part of-
No.
Not this time.
A kingdom away was far enough, surely.
The incident with the Crown’s leadership had been a misstep on their part, not a part of the grand conspiracy. The reveal of her presence was much the same, Cinder was sure of it.
And she was willing to bet her life on it.
----------------------------------------
“You’re not the brightest pair, are you?”
Sun frowned. “I-”
Neptune’s hand slapped over his mouth in an instant. “Not at all sir, we’re quite dumb! Our friends are always telling us that we shouldn’t nap in cargo crates, but we never expected to be loaded in with your supplies! Who would have thought we’d end up here, right?”
The huntsman leveled Neptune with an unimpressed look. “You’re a horrible liar as well.” With a sigh, he ran his hand through his curly brown hair. “Look, I can respect wanting to answer the call. I’m here, after all. But I can’t exactly just let two first years run head first into what’s likely to be a mess when they don’t even have permission or their whole team.”
“How do you know we’re first years?” Neptune sounded surprised.
Tearing the hand off his mouth, Sun glared at Neptune. “Dude, our faces were plastered on TV for everyone to see during the Vytal festival.”
“Ah. Right…”
The huntsman seemed even less impressed. “Okay, so maybe only one of you is a moron. Either way, this is how things are going to work. When we land in Vacuo, you two are getting handed over to the first babysitter my team can find. You will not cause a scene. If the mess from the Breach can get cleaned up without turning into a complete disaster, we might allow you to tag along with us for a bit at the end, and if you behave, then I will consider not reporting you to-”
“Hey, we have a problem!” One of the huntresses on the team called from up near the control deck.
The one reprimanding them groaned. “What now? Isn’t finding some stowaways enough of a problem for one flight?”
“There’s some sort of freak sandstorm,” she explained. “The signal is barely coming through, but I guess we’re cleared to land so long as we’re careful.”
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“If we’re cleared to land then what’s the issue?”
“Can you see through this mess?”
The huntsman made his way towards the controls, muttering a few curses, and Sun and Neptune shrugged to each other before following behind him.
On the other side of the windshield was a veritable wall of sand, stretching on for as far as the eye could see.
“Uh, Sun? Is this normal for Vacuo?” Neptune whispered to him as the huntsman team started arguing about what to do.
“Dude, we’re in a desert. Yes, sandstorms are normal.” He’d experienced a ton of them growing up. Though this was certainly a bit different from the ones he’d seen before. It almost seemed more restrained than he was used to, which was odd for a storm.
“What do you mean just go over it?!” someone, probably the pilot, shouted. “Do you know the altitude rating for this ship? We can’t go anywhere near that high! This isn’t a pressurized cabin, we’ll all suffer from hypoxia before we get close to clearing the sand!”
“Well then just go through it!”
“Once again,” annoyance was starting to build up in his teammate’s voice, “we can’t. See. Through. It. How are we supposed to navigate our way if the signal is going to shit and we can’t see?”
“I could help!” Sun found himself speaking up.
The huntsmen team and pilot turned to him, doubt obvious in their expressions.
“I grew up here, I know my way around a sandstorm and around Vacuo. You just need someone to guide you, right?” Granted, he’d never done it from the air, but how hard could it be? It wasn’t like there were great landmarks on the dunes during a sandstorm either.
The group shared a look, before waving him up to them. “Get over here then,” the pilot ordered. “The rest of you start plugging up holes with whatever tarps or rags we’ve got laying around. It’ll limit how much airflow we have, but I’ll take that over cleaning sand out of the ship for the next month.”
Sun gave Neptune a small smile as the huntsmen dragged him away to help with that before stepping up next to the pilot.
“You sure you know what you’re doing kid? Landing and trying to wait out the storm would be risky, but with so many huntsmen on board we could probably ward off any grimm that came to investigate.”
This pilot had obviously never spent much time in Vacuo if that was his line of thought.
“I can handle it, I’m sure. I know these sands like the back of my hand.”
“Hmmm.” The pilot looked him up and down, inspecting him. “...I’ve got a general heading for the city, but I need to know the specifics of where I should be aiming to land and any towering structures I need to avoid. If we’re not the only ones flying blind through this it could get… messy.”
Crashing into another airship would definitely be bad.
“The only structure that’s really towering would be Shade, and if we run into that we’re wayyy off the mark,” Sun explained as he took a look out over the dunes, doing mental calculations based on far off oases and mountains. “We should be heading for the western edge of the city though, that’ll be our best spot to land.”
“Right…” The pilot took a deep breath as they approached the sandstorm. “If we crash and die I’m blaming you, just so you know.”
“...noted.”
No pressure, right?
It would be fine.
----------------------------------------
As they silently walked along the backstreets of Vacuo, Mercury poked and prodded at Emerald, enjoying every second of being able to rile her up without repercussion.
That’s not to say he was slacking, of course.
Well.
He was, but only to a degree that he could get away with while having Cinder for a boss.
This meant that no matter how much it might look to anyone else like he was more interested in annoying the mint haired girl than he was his surroundings, he was still able to pick up on small details.
Details like how no matter which alley they turned down, it was too quiet, even for the aftermath of a grimm attack. There was no way the cowards hiding in their homes should be able to stay silent for so long.
Details like how whenever he turned his head to look around, the wind would pick up just enough to disturb some sand on the ground and pull his attention away.
Details like the visceral feeling that he was being watched.
“Do you feel that too?” Emerald quietly asked, not changing her stride in the slightest.
“Feel what exactly?” he whispered back.
“The static is getting stronger.”
Mercury bit back a frown. Was it? He didn’t feel any different, and with his legs being prosthetics and all, he was normally the first to notice changes in the atmosphere. It always fucked with how the metal and plastic rested against his skin.
But a quick glance at Emerald showed that her hair was starting to stand on end. Not straight out, not yet at least, but fighting against the pull of gravity, just a bit.
So it was only having an effect on her, even though they were a mere foot apart and half his height was metal?
Yeah, right.
“Can you trap them in an illusion?” He suggested.
“I need a line of sight,” she shot it down.
“Next corner then?”
She didn’t respond, but that was enough of an answer in and of itself. They kept their pace as it was until they hit the corner of the alley, and as soon as they stepped around the edge of the wall they bolted to give themselves a bit of distance and reaction time, turning their bodies back towards the way they came.
Mercury’s eyes scanned the alley, and when nothing followed behind them he turned his gaze up towards the rooftops.
There was nothing.
“Where are they?” Emerald hissed.
“How should I-”
Pain jolted up his body and his vision went white, his ears ringing as he was deafened by a thundering BOOM.
He didn’t know how long he was disoriented, but even a second was too long when an unknown assailant was coming down on them.
When his vision cleared, and his ears stopped ringing just enough for him to hear again, he found that he still couldn’t see their enemy.
What he could see was a funnel of sand drilling through the open air far above them. The dense cloud of particles spun about, like it was trapped in a vortex of wind, though he couldn’t see the air movement itself. The odd sight distracted him for a moment, at least until it was suddenly turning straight towards their location.
Then he was blinded again by what he identified this time as a bolt of lightning. At least this one hadn’t struck him directly, but it was a close thing.
Then the buildings started to move around him.
Or, no, that wasn’t right.
He was getting dragged down the alley.
That must mean Emerald didn’t take a direct hit like he did, if he was still this out of it. He thought she might be shouting at him, but he couldn’t make the words out.
Vacuo was really shaping up to be his most hated kingdom. First he gets mind controlled, and now this shit?
As the vortex of sand barreled down towards them, only one thought crossed his mind.
I really need to stop working for Cinder if this is what it gets me…
----------------------------------------
“Do you think Vacuo is gonna be pissed about us coming here to help with the breach and then fucking off to do our own thing?” Qrow idly wondered as he and Bart searched for Cinder.
“I think it unlikely. We have killed a few grimm, or at least I have, and with Glynda’s help regarding the wall? That should put us in their good graces.”
Qrow decided to brush past how the guy investigating the bodies had ended up slaying some grimm. It didn’t quite add up to him, but Bart wasn’t the type to joke about that. “Well if you-”
His train of thought was cut off by the crack of lightning.
“Uh, is that normal?” He looked to Bart for guidance.
“Well, sand and dust storms do sometimes feature lightning strikes, but given that the thunder sounded like it came from the city and not the storm? I would say that this is an unusual case. I would also say that that is abnormal,” Bart explained as he pointed up into the sky.
Where before the sandstorm had stayed clear of the city to the point that Qrow hadn’t even noticed it, now there was a… well it almost looked like a tendril of sand reaching deeper into the city. Like it was being guided towards a particular spot.
“Definitely not normal…” Qrow agreed.
Another boom of thunder echoed through the city.
“I’m not sure if it will lead us to Cinder,” Bart hedged, “but I do believe that if we follow that column of sand we may well stumble upon the one responsible for the storm.”
“You know, they don’t exactly seem very happy right now. Maybe we should check on them some other time?”
He wasn’t exactly eager to fight someone who could do this.
“It’s just a bit of sand, Qrow. It will wash out!” Bart reassured him as he rushed in the same direction that the sand was heading towards.
Why am I always surrounded by lunatics?
----------------------------------------
Flying through a sandstorm was a tense experience, but things had been going well, or at least Sun thought so. The pilot kept complaining about how much of a pain it was going to be to clean the ship, but he seemed to use the constant complaining as a way to handle nervousness, so Sun quietly put up with it.
“It’s really dark out there, isn’t it?” Neptune asked from behind him.
“Uh, yeah? The sand blocks out the sunlight,” Sun explained.
“How do you tell where you’re going then?”
Sun rolled his eyes. “You pick a direction before entering the storm, make sure that you go straight the whole time, and eventually either come out the other end or end up at your destination. The sand might batter you around a bit, but really the only difference between this and a blizzard is that the sand doesn’t melt.”
“Why do you say that like I’ve been through a blizzard?”
“Because it snows in Mistral?”
“Up in Argus maybe, but only crazy people live there! We’re not like those lunatics in Atlas, we don’t spend our lives knee deep in snow.”
“And this isn’t really like a blizzard at all,” the pilot chimed in. “I’ve flown through plenty of blizzards. Blizzards I can handle. This? I never want to do this again. Feels like I’m underground or something.”
Sun didn’t know what to do with these drama queens. It was just a little sand! Well, a lot of sand, but still!
But then the ship lurched to the right.
“What are you doing up there?!” One of the huntsmen shouted from the back of the ship.
“Uh, kid? What’s going on?” The pilot desperately asked.
Sun frowned. The ship had been doing just fine until now. “Maybe the wind shifted?”
“A slight shift in the wind isn’t gonna do that to the ship!” The pilot rebutted.
The ship lurched again.
“Could it be a grimm?” Neptune suggested.
“No, grimm can’t fly through a sandstorm, any Nevermore would get chewed up by the sand and-”
The ship lurched again, but this time Sun saw something change.
The sand was moving around the ship far faster than it was before, streaming around them like it was water. That wasn’t normal in the slightest.
“I’m starting to think that this isn’t just a sandstorm.”
The control panel of the ship started to blare as the ship jolted once more, lights flashing and warnings going off.
“I’ve lost control!” The pilot panicked.
“What do you mean you lost control?!” Neptune yelled back.
“Everyone brace for impact, I think we’re going down!”
----------------------------------------
Cinder was a bit displeased at having to give up on her temporary shelter so soon, and she was very displeased at her minions not having found her before the action started up, but even with those unpleasant things in the back of her mind she couldn’t help the grin as she ran through the streets of Vacuo.
Her eyes flickered up to the artificial sandstorm, overwhelming greed filling her soul as she saw the power in its full glory. If her prey wanted to, they could likely smother out all life within the city.
And soon that power would be hers.
So what if this Maiden clearly had decades of experience? A level of control that most only dreamed of before their lives were snuffed out?
Whoever she was, she wasn’t Cinder Fall, and thus, she would die.
And once she had the power of whichever Maiden this was under her control alongside the partial Fall Maiden’s power already in her grasp, who would be able to stop her? Not the other Maidens. Not that stupid brat and his semblance. Perhaps Salem herself would still be a threat, but if she could accumulate the power of all the Maidens, she’d be able to access every Vault as well.
The world would be hers, if only she could kill this one woman.
Cinder’s eyes flashed with power.
“You’re mine.”