Cinder Returns to Campus.
AndrewJTalon
Experienced.
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Neopolitan had been having a rather hectic day so far, and not the kind of hectic she enjoyed.
The day had started out like the other days she hand spent infiltrating Beacon with Cinder and her crew. Wake up, spend some time in one of the school's gyms, eat a hearty breakfast that left Mercury wondering where she was putting all that food, and then splitting off from her 'team' to scout out the campus for any useful secrets.
Today she had been looking for discrete ways to sneak out of and sneak into campus. Sure she had already found a few good ones, but those were the ones she had shared with her 'team' and she'd rather have a few more in her back pocket just in case she needed to ditch them for any reason. Like with the party that was supposed to happen tonight, it'd be a perfect opportunity to slip away and check up on a few things in person.
Then she had returned to her 'team's' dorm room to find it destroyed: Emerald's bed had burned down and everything else had been soaked by the fire suppression system. That had been concerning for a number of reasons, and those concerns only grew when she found the glass knife in the ruins of Em's mattress.
Emerald had been Cinder's chief sycophant, and basking in Em's praise had been one of the few things that made Cinder look kinda happy if you squinted real hard. Because of that Neo had always figured that it would be Mercury's behind or her own that would burn if the fire bitch ever snapped, and that their best chance of survival would be Em interceding on their behalf.
The fact that Cinder had apparently lashed out at Em with killing intent meant that Neo's plans for dealing with Cinder' anger issues were kaput. And if Em was dead and the mission was now falling apart? She and Roman weren't' off the hook, which meant Cinder would be turning the screws on her and Roman to make up the loss of Cinder's right hand.
Before she could spend too much time thinking about the implications of that she got a text from Mercury that read:
Just got a new leg. Need help sneaking out of the infirmary. Maybe wear a different face.
That had been a pretty easy job; the nurses were distracted by two kids with rather nasty burns on their faces, and the only complication to the extraction had been Mercury's insistence that they get a few pictures of the other people in the infirmary. That had annoyed her in the moment, but once they were out and Mercury had explained the situation to her she saw the value of those pictures.
Time travel. Kids from the future who all shared the same father but had different mothers. The father in question? Jaune Arc, team leader of Pyrrha Nikos and an obstacle to Cinder's plans. One of those future kids being a child of Emerald, meaning Em had to have betrayed Cinder for that future to happen, and that's what set Cinder off.
The two burned kids in the infirmary being Cinder's somehow. Cinder fleeing Beacon to avoid fighting everyone else all at once.
The rest of their day leading up to this moment had been spent sneaking around the school taking inconspicuous photos of the time displaced kids and their mothers, while keeping their ears pealed for what the rumor mill had already picked up. They needed as much information as possible to keep Cinder happy.
And that brought Neo to now; waiting with Mercury at one of the discreet ways in and out of Beacon for Cinder to arrive. It was an abandoned artificial grotto down by the river where one could easily take a paddle powered boat to sneak in or out of school grounds.
It didn't take much longer for Cinder to arrive, seated in a canoe big enough for four. She didn't row. The canoe glided across the water as if Cinder was moving it through sheer force of will alone. As the little boat entered the grotto Cinder tossed a rope to Mercury, who dutifully tied that rope to the little dock in the grotto so the canoe wouldn't drift away.
Once the canoe was secure the false maiden disembarked and fixed Mercury with a glare. Yet to Neo's keen eyes there was an almost imperceptible degree of hesitation in Cinder's movements, and there was a hint of something in her glare that Neo had never seen in Cinder's eyes before: uncertainty.
And while the growl of her voice did a lot to hide the uncertainty of her words, Neo could still hear it as Cinder leveled an accusation against Mercury:
"You helped Emerald get away. Do you really think the pictures you sent me makes up for that?"
"No," Mercury drawled, "But the information we've collected makes up the difference."
"I'll be the judge of that." Cinder hissed.
"The burned kids' names are Ash and Ashley," Mercury began, and if Neo wasn't looking for it she might have missed Cinder's flinch, "When they were brought into the infirmary they were drifting in and out of consciousness, and during that time they were calling out for their mama, their daddy, and their Auntie Em. If you had killed Emerald they might have just gone poof," Mercury made a popping hand gesture, "Because she was super important to their timeline."
Cinder stood still as a statue with an inscrutable expression, and for a few moments the only sounds that could be heard in the grotto was the whistling of the wind and the flowing of the river.
Seeing that he wasn't going to be interrupted Mercury continued, "Only reason the two of them aren't dead is cause their daddy figured out his semblance and used it to share his aura with them. So while they might be scarred they still have faces."
Flickers of emotion threatened to break through Cinder's stony facade, and Neo saw hints of anger, relief, wrath, sorrow, rage, and regret all waging war in the shadows for the chance to show themselves on Cinder's face.
"They were asleep when Neo helped me sneak out," Mercury continued as he pulled out his scroll, "I guess even with magic healing helping you out having your head set on fire will take a lot out of you." Mercury opened up the pictures he had taken of Ash and Ashley, holding up his scroll to show them off.
Cinder's hands twitched as if she wanted to reach out and take the scroll and have a closer look at the pictures. Although she didn't move beyond that Neo could see the way Cinder's eyes were drinking in every detail. The strength of their jawlines, the look of their noses, the cut of their hair, the color of their cheeks.
The mirrored burn scars in the vague shape of a feminine handprint. Cinder's hands slowly flexed open and closed as slight trembling shook her frame.
"I also got good pictures of Moses, the kid with the time travel semblance, you want to see them?" Mercury asked.
"Yes," Cinder hissed in a strained tone.
"Alright then, brace yourself cause this is supper weird," Mercury began as he pulled up a new image. "This is Moses:" The photo displayed a young man that would fit in with Valean high society; pale white skin, almost silvery red hair, brown eyes and aristocratic cheekbones. Mercury then pulled up a second image next to the first. "This is also Moses:" The new picture displayed a young man that looked like he belonged on a Mistrali farm; with a farmer's tan, dark almost brown red hair, hazel eyes and rounded cheeks.
"I was looking at him the whole time and never noticed anything strange," Mercury explained, "But when I took these pictures this really stood out. If you hold up one of the photos next to him he looks like the other photo. Compare him to both and he looks like a blend of the two, and it's not a consistent blend."
A clearly readable expression finally dominated Cinder's face: bewilderment.
"How? No. Perhaps? No. Maybe? No." Cinder seemed to pick up and discard a dozen different ideas in just as many seconds. Eventually she reached a conclusion: "This is going to make recognizing him without seeing him in person first difficult, isn't it?"
"Probably," Mercury agreed.
"A problem for later then," Cinder mused. "We have a different problem now. I trust the two of you gathered the few incriminating things we had in our room?"
Mercury nodded, Neo gave a casual thumbs up.
"And I don't suppose Emerald dropped her scroll when she ran off, leaving it where you could collect it?"
Mercury shook his head. Neo gave a thumbs down.
"Then she still has it," Cinder concluded. "Meaning she has documents, notes, addresses and other bits of useful information that threaten our operations. While eliminating Emerald would be best for operational security we don't know what killing her would to the fabric of space-time, so the next best thing we can do is deprive her of her scroll."
Cinder turned her gaze towards Neo, "Neopolitan, you have the best shot at stealing her scroll. If you can't steal it, destroy it. Mercury and I will follow from the shadows and create a path of retreat should you be discovered after getting it." Cinder's eyes became dangerous, "Don't try and retreat if you failed to get it or destroy it."
Well, the challenge should be fun at least. Neo bowed in a dramatic fashion as her answer.
The day had started out like the other days she hand spent infiltrating Beacon with Cinder and her crew. Wake up, spend some time in one of the school's gyms, eat a hearty breakfast that left Mercury wondering where she was putting all that food, and then splitting off from her 'team' to scout out the campus for any useful secrets.
Today she had been looking for discrete ways to sneak out of and sneak into campus. Sure she had already found a few good ones, but those were the ones she had shared with her 'team' and she'd rather have a few more in her back pocket just in case she needed to ditch them for any reason. Like with the party that was supposed to happen tonight, it'd be a perfect opportunity to slip away and check up on a few things in person.
Then she had returned to her 'team's' dorm room to find it destroyed: Emerald's bed had burned down and everything else had been soaked by the fire suppression system. That had been concerning for a number of reasons, and those concerns only grew when she found the glass knife in the ruins of Em's mattress.
Emerald had been Cinder's chief sycophant, and basking in Em's praise had been one of the few things that made Cinder look kinda happy if you squinted real hard. Because of that Neo had always figured that it would be Mercury's behind or her own that would burn if the fire bitch ever snapped, and that their best chance of survival would be Em interceding on their behalf.
The fact that Cinder had apparently lashed out at Em with killing intent meant that Neo's plans for dealing with Cinder' anger issues were kaput. And if Em was dead and the mission was now falling apart? She and Roman weren't' off the hook, which meant Cinder would be turning the screws on her and Roman to make up the loss of Cinder's right hand.
Before she could spend too much time thinking about the implications of that she got a text from Mercury that read:
Just got a new leg. Need help sneaking out of the infirmary. Maybe wear a different face.
That had been a pretty easy job; the nurses were distracted by two kids with rather nasty burns on their faces, and the only complication to the extraction had been Mercury's insistence that they get a few pictures of the other people in the infirmary. That had annoyed her in the moment, but once they were out and Mercury had explained the situation to her she saw the value of those pictures.
Time travel. Kids from the future who all shared the same father but had different mothers. The father in question? Jaune Arc, team leader of Pyrrha Nikos and an obstacle to Cinder's plans. One of those future kids being a child of Emerald, meaning Em had to have betrayed Cinder for that future to happen, and that's what set Cinder off.
The two burned kids in the infirmary being Cinder's somehow. Cinder fleeing Beacon to avoid fighting everyone else all at once.
The rest of their day leading up to this moment had been spent sneaking around the school taking inconspicuous photos of the time displaced kids and their mothers, while keeping their ears pealed for what the rumor mill had already picked up. They needed as much information as possible to keep Cinder happy.
And that brought Neo to now; waiting with Mercury at one of the discreet ways in and out of Beacon for Cinder to arrive. It was an abandoned artificial grotto down by the river where one could easily take a paddle powered boat to sneak in or out of school grounds.
It didn't take much longer for Cinder to arrive, seated in a canoe big enough for four. She didn't row. The canoe glided across the water as if Cinder was moving it through sheer force of will alone. As the little boat entered the grotto Cinder tossed a rope to Mercury, who dutifully tied that rope to the little dock in the grotto so the canoe wouldn't drift away.
Once the canoe was secure the false maiden disembarked and fixed Mercury with a glare. Yet to Neo's keen eyes there was an almost imperceptible degree of hesitation in Cinder's movements, and there was a hint of something in her glare that Neo had never seen in Cinder's eyes before: uncertainty.
And while the growl of her voice did a lot to hide the uncertainty of her words, Neo could still hear it as Cinder leveled an accusation against Mercury:
"You helped Emerald get away. Do you really think the pictures you sent me makes up for that?"
"No," Mercury drawled, "But the information we've collected makes up the difference."
"I'll be the judge of that." Cinder hissed.
"The burned kids' names are Ash and Ashley," Mercury began, and if Neo wasn't looking for it she might have missed Cinder's flinch, "When they were brought into the infirmary they were drifting in and out of consciousness, and during that time they were calling out for their mama, their daddy, and their Auntie Em. If you had killed Emerald they might have just gone poof," Mercury made a popping hand gesture, "Because she was super important to their timeline."
Cinder stood still as a statue with an inscrutable expression, and for a few moments the only sounds that could be heard in the grotto was the whistling of the wind and the flowing of the river.
Seeing that he wasn't going to be interrupted Mercury continued, "Only reason the two of them aren't dead is cause their daddy figured out his semblance and used it to share his aura with them. So while they might be scarred they still have faces."
Flickers of emotion threatened to break through Cinder's stony facade, and Neo saw hints of anger, relief, wrath, sorrow, rage, and regret all waging war in the shadows for the chance to show themselves on Cinder's face.
"They were asleep when Neo helped me sneak out," Mercury continued as he pulled out his scroll, "I guess even with magic healing helping you out having your head set on fire will take a lot out of you." Mercury opened up the pictures he had taken of Ash and Ashley, holding up his scroll to show them off.
Cinder's hands twitched as if she wanted to reach out and take the scroll and have a closer look at the pictures. Although she didn't move beyond that Neo could see the way Cinder's eyes were drinking in every detail. The strength of their jawlines, the look of their noses, the cut of their hair, the color of their cheeks.
The mirrored burn scars in the vague shape of a feminine handprint. Cinder's hands slowly flexed open and closed as slight trembling shook her frame.
"I also got good pictures of Moses, the kid with the time travel semblance, you want to see them?" Mercury asked.
"Yes," Cinder hissed in a strained tone.
"Alright then, brace yourself cause this is supper weird," Mercury began as he pulled up a new image. "This is Moses:" The photo displayed a young man that would fit in with Valean high society; pale white skin, almost silvery red hair, brown eyes and aristocratic cheekbones. Mercury then pulled up a second image next to the first. "This is also Moses:" The new picture displayed a young man that looked like he belonged on a Mistrali farm; with a farmer's tan, dark almost brown red hair, hazel eyes and rounded cheeks.
"I was looking at him the whole time and never noticed anything strange," Mercury explained, "But when I took these pictures this really stood out. If you hold up one of the photos next to him he looks like the other photo. Compare him to both and he looks like a blend of the two, and it's not a consistent blend."
A clearly readable expression finally dominated Cinder's face: bewilderment.
"How? No. Perhaps? No. Maybe? No." Cinder seemed to pick up and discard a dozen different ideas in just as many seconds. Eventually she reached a conclusion: "This is going to make recognizing him without seeing him in person first difficult, isn't it?"
"Probably," Mercury agreed.
"A problem for later then," Cinder mused. "We have a different problem now. I trust the two of you gathered the few incriminating things we had in our room?"
Mercury nodded, Neo gave a casual thumbs up.
"And I don't suppose Emerald dropped her scroll when she ran off, leaving it where you could collect it?"
Mercury shook his head. Neo gave a thumbs down.
"Then she still has it," Cinder concluded. "Meaning she has documents, notes, addresses and other bits of useful information that threaten our operations. While eliminating Emerald would be best for operational security we don't know what killing her would to the fabric of space-time, so the next best thing we can do is deprive her of her scroll."
Cinder turned her gaze towards Neo, "Neopolitan, you have the best shot at stealing her scroll. If you can't steal it, destroy it. Mercury and I will follow from the shadows and create a path of retreat should you be discovered after getting it." Cinder's eyes became dangerous, "Don't try and retreat if you failed to get it or destroy it."
Well, the challenge should be fun at least. Neo bowed in a dramatic fashion as her answer.