Chapter 19
The sewage treatment plants that ran under Argus were marvels of modern technology, with dust woven into the very brick and mortar, each tunnel was reinforced so that Grimm were discouraged from breaching it, just slightly hard enough that an aura user could vastly strengthen the stonework. Keep things stable, "common measures" Raven had said, as the two had picked their way from their hideout deep into the city, before ascending to street level and moving through the road.
It was a wonder Atlas had such a pull over a foreign country that they could impose martial law so quickly. A wonder that they truly didn't seem to have issues forcing their will over another's city.
The way the streets were was unsettling to Cinder, the quiet and calm felt unnatural, even as she and Raven snuck past patrols, Raven in the guise of her namesake bird, and Cinder with her aura cloak.
Things had begun to feel… strange, under that power, as if she'd almost lost touch with the world, it felt almost bleached when she dragged the aura up and over herself. Enough that it had messed with her comprehension and ability to discern details. It felt like some great shadow had fallen over Argus, and Cinder's control suffered for it.
Enough that Raven had noticed, based on the way her mother had gently touched down beside her and bodily dragged her free of the cloak.
The water bottle was in her mouth before she could even get a word in edgewise, and Raven's stern glare was forcing her to not protest, instead to drink.
The worst part was that Cinder couldn't even argue with her, and after she'd quenched her thirst, she found herself slumped against a wall, breathing heavily, and feeling like she'd run a marathon. It made no sense, though, she'd gotten sleep, eaten and drank plenty.
"Little kite, how long was it since you last truly let your aura recharge, at rest?"
At rest… as if she'd relaxed enough for it to recede beneath her skin fully, so that even her subconscious couldn't force it to activate anything more than the defensive shield, sleeping was dangerous, she knew Raven didn't relax, knew her mother didn't really force it out of her system ever.
And so, shifting her feet, she responded.
"Not… since you healed in the cabin."
That had been months ago now, the first night, where she'd been kept close to Raven for warmth, even as her mother watched the door, one hand on her busted weapon, more than willing to draw it and tear another in half should an intruder have breached the perimeter.
She'd never felt so warm before, never felt so seen, so heard, and so supported, that had been the first time she'd relaxed, and she'd… not relaxed since.
"Cinder… why?"
She looked up at Raven and, somewhat petulantly, a distant part of her remarked, replied.
"Because you don't relax like that…"
That part of her was louder now, and she was yelling at it to shut up, she wasn't petty. That was uncalled for.
Raven didn't smile, she flinched like Cinder had hit her, and began to tug the girl along, sticking to the shadows.
"Cinder… I'm not normal, I have reserves of power I can draw on for defense, reserves that let me allow my aura to rest even if it's not active… have you been able to pull your augmented senses in, at all?"
Cinder shook her head, the world blurring slightly around her as Raven tugged her close and scooped her up, moving to another shadow as the "thud, thud, thud" of patrol boots stepped along the street behind them.
"Let go, right now."
Her voice was flat, dangerous, and Cinder knew that, knew at some level that Raven wouldn't hurt her, but she couldn't help the mechanical flinch that instantly overcame her, and for just that one moment she was back in the hotel, back feeling those uncaring gazes burn across her back, feeling the Madame's electric collar, tearing at her and who she was.
"Cinder… let go of your aura, flare it, burn it out, whatever you need to do, release it."
Her mother's demand repeated, and Cinder tried, tried to think, tried to find a way out of it, and then she couldn't, as she flinched away from Raven's grip, as the other woman's hands turned into steel and she pulled Cinder in close, fully swaddling her in the scent of her mother.
Raven smelled of gunmetal, of sesame oil, and of a promise of warmth. That promise and that scent were tempered by the faint odor of blood underneath, mixed with something that to Cinder's enhanced senses had trouble parsing… as if Raven was so very young, and so very old at the same time. She couldn't really figure it out, couldn't put her finger on what gave Raven that smell, or why her nose couldn't fix it or fill it in.
But her embrace was warm, and Cinder tried, really tried, the commands wouldn't help her, they never had, only reminding her of the worst parts of it.
She'd initially experimented with her aura, enhancing her senses passively, trickling just a bit of her reserves into every part of her senses, touch, taste, hearing, smell, and eyes, all of it was helpful. It showed her things people didn't want to show easily, made it obvious when that Nikos woman had been assessing her, even if she'd had to visibly exert her aura in that case.
It felt to Cinder so natural, so easy, that she'd never questioned why she should keep doing it, she'd never thought to stop, either. Raven had taught her to be alert at all times, and she'd kept her enhanced senses for that, it had let her surprise her mother on more than one occasion when she was ambushed in her sleep.
Had that been a bad idea? Raven's voice seemed to think so, but her mother's actions hadn't been easy to figure out, she trained Cinder ruthlessly, she'd told her to keep her guard up all the time.
"You told me to be on guard… right?"
Raven flinched again, like Cinder had struck her, hurt her, and then, she spoke.
"First… we're here. But second…"
She paused, surveying the compound before getting down on her knees and tugging Cinder in close.
"I am sorry, I am sorry I mislead you. You should not burn yourself out, shouldn't have to hurt yourself trying to match up to my expectations… they are…"
She looked almost pained saying it.
"Too high of you."
Then, she made it worse for Cinder's composure.
"You have come so far, in so little time, little kite. I know Summer would be proud of you, and I certainly am."
The pleased warmth that burst through Cinder at that comment set her entire self in a new light, and Raven smiled down at her, a genuine one, this time, pulling at both corners of her lips and tugging them up and into the air.
Cinder stood then, and she sucked in a breath, cutting her aura off, and for once, letting it form the defensive field around her body, only. Nothing more than that.
It was hard to put the sensation into words, as if she'd lost half or more of her senses in a sudden burst, it felt wrong, and strange, but she didn't disobey or change from what Raven had ordered. Instead shouldering half of the explosives as the two moved towards the plant.
The tunnels that they'd use to get in weren't ideal anymore, with Argus tending towards a powder keg, and dozens of people set upon the streets, it was, ironically enough the safest place to infiltrate the waste treatment plant.
A flick of Omen severed the chains around the fence, cutting a hole just wide enough for Cinder to sweep in as Raven leapt up and over the fence entirely. As she landed on the other side, she calmly and evenly proceeded to the entrance, and Cinder ducked around the edge of the building, heading for the tanks that contained a surplus of the city's sewage when it wasn't being treated.
At the moment, the tanks weren't stuffed to the gills, but they were usable… enough, she hoped.
The backpack swung off her shoulders, and Cinder rubbed the feeling back into her hands carefully, her exposed flesh having lost sensation from the sheer cold surrounding it.
She'd have thought the constant adrenaline high from carrying 15 pounds of high explosives around would keep her warm, but apparently, it did not.
Cinder personally thought that was bullshit, but she'd be damned if she said something like that aloud in Raven's presence, so instead she focused on carefully removing each of the charges from her backpack.
Sienna had indeed come through, and the refitted and modified mining charges felt heavy in her hands as she looked upon them. They were stable… barely, she hoped.
Each one consisted of a very simple dust mixture that was "pointed" from what Raven had explained, and it was imperative that these things be placed gently, silver side down, on whatever she was hoping to destroy, then the caps inserted into the mass of dust laden clay, and then, only then, would she be backing off to the minimum safe distance.
Cinder had 3 charges, and there were 3 tanks here, massive monstrosities that smelled even through the thick metal coating. She was lucky she hadn't eaten before this, feeling sure she'd have lost her breakfast if she had.
The first one set against the cold metal of the sewage tank, and Cinder carefully set the blasting cap into the explosive dust clay, before she stepped back and moved to the next tank.
The second finished, and the third was in her grasp when a blast wave knocked her off her feet and sent the roof of the building skywards.
She saw a shape cloaked in red and black armor fly from the windows, chased by another cloaked in green energy a second later.
Raven skidded to a stop a dozen feet from Cinder, and spat out blood and a tooth onto the ground, a masked Atlesian specialist landing right in front of her a moment later. The woman flicked her long, curved sword, and a thin spray of red flew free from it. A moment passed between the two of them, with Raven standing up to her feet, and the long, menacing sound of Omen being drawn.
"Never expected you to take on a kid, Raven."
Her voice was cold, strange, and it immediately reminded Cinder of the doctors she'd seen on the TV in the hotel, the cold ones, the strange ones.
This specialist wore a mask, a stylized tortoise, with its jaws open wide on her face. From behind it, harsh, cold yellow eyes flicked to Cinder, and they crinkled, the woman was smiling at her.
"It's ok sweetie, we'll get you safe and sound soon."
Her voice was warm, caring, kind, and nothing like Raven's voice, it was the voice of someone who had something to protect and cherish, someone who hadn't lost it all.
Why was it comforting to hear herself addressed like that?
Cinder froze, and in that moment, Raven screamed and rushed her.
Omen met the woman's strange sword in a clash of sparks and a burst of flame.
The fight devolved instantly. The woman kept making overtures towards Cinder, and Raven would meet her at every turn, stopping her advance as Cinder stood there, frozen, unable to move.
Another clash of sparks, and then the woman was right in front of Cinder, another pair of Atlesians had joined the fray, how had Cinder not… seen them? The strong one's gloved hands were reaching out for her, that calm voice once more saying.
"It's ok, we know you were kidnapped, we'll get you back now."
The flashes of light revealed Raven fighting hard against two others, two who matched each other flawlessly, and Cinder found herself facing this Atlesian, the woman moving closer, a step closer, and then reaching out for her arms.
"My name is Tortuga, I'm an Ace-Op under Lieutenant General Ironwood, we're here to take you home."
She spoke, smiling through her mask and bandana.
Cinder stepped back, and Tortuga stepped closer.
"It's ok, I know I'm really scary, but everything's gonna be ok now."
She tugged her mask down, and the bandanna followed a second later, revealing a pale skinned woman with scars, a short mass of light hair framed high cheekbones and a smattering of freckles on her face. The features of those born to high society in Atlas, the features of someone from that island.
Cinder tried to stagger backwards, and Tortuga snapped a hand out and caught her wrist, her smile never quite left her face.
"Come on, quickly, while my teammates keep her distracted."
Cinder tried to pull away, and Tortuga's grip tightened sharply, as she began to pull the girl along with her, her hand moving to a commbead in her ear.
"Tortuga, command, I have the package, begin extraction now."
The bead chirped gently, and Torguga took Cinder by the hand and began leading her elsewhere.
No… this was wrong, why was this happening… Raven hadn't kidnapped her, had she? She'd promised Summer…
Why did they want her so badly?
Something about this didn't add up…
"Why me?"
Tortuga stopped, turned to her, turned to look carefully at her. Another scream from Raven, and this one came with a spark of brilliant white, lightning dust, sending one of the two fighters flying from Raven.
She had to delay as long as possible. As long as it took for Raven to reach her.
"Why not you? You're an Atlesian citizen, kidnapped by a former huntress. For some nefarious purpose, I'm sure. But really, it's no worry, we'll get you back safe and sound, match you up with your surviving family, and everything will be ok."
She should feel warm, is what this woman's voice says, she should feel ok, should tag along evenly and easily with her.
Cinder does not want this, and she feels cold. Colder and colder now, and then, Tortuga is pulling her along, tugging her towards the hovering form of an incoming gunship, and in that moment, Cinder realizes something.
If she gets on that gunship, she will never see Raven again.
"CINDER!"
She whirls around, Tortuga's grip like iron on her wrist, pulling her towards that gunship, but its Raven, and Raven is fighting towards her, and casting the two of her opponents aside like so much chaff, and then Cinder feels Tortuga's grip change and she knows she's about to be thrown.
Her semblance and aura usage are so instinctual that she barely even feels it when they activate.
Tortuga feels it.
Cinder takes a breath in, and lets the flames inside her burn out.
Her aura flares, and a heat haze twists the air around her.
Tortuga's aura flares green, and that is the only thing that saves her as Cinder exhales and lets her semblance tear its way out of her skin.
The flare of heat sends the huntress reeling, her grip fading on Cinder's wrist as the girl scuttles away from her, tearing across the terrain, her hand slips low, tearing into the gravel, superheating the stones.
A kick sends the cloud of overheated gravel into the air behind her, and the sound of booted footsteps behind Cinder catches her a moment later. Tortuga.
A hiss of pain, a muttered curse.
" She really is nice. "
A shame, then.
Cinder kicks off, running towards her backpack, towards the explosives that will let them save the city, even at the cost of a little damage.
She hears Tortuga behind her, but just ahead of her, there is Raven, there's only one of her opponents, the other splayed across the dirt and dust, bleeding from a wound, her mother steps in front of her, and she whispers as Cinder runs past.
"My part is done. Just a moment longer, little Kite."
She stands behind Cinder, her voice an angry hiss, as Cinder runs and runs and runs for the tanks, she briefly makes out words from Tortuga.
"Stop her! Stop her now!"
But she is too fast, and her backpack and preparation expected. A flick of her finger sets the cap, and she slams the charge onto the tanks.
Then she is screaming for Raven. Screaming and speaking until her lungs burn out of air.
"Now Raven now! Get clear!"
She sees her mother take to the skies, sees her transform in the blink of an eye into a bird, and then Cinder is running for the fenceline.
It is slow, close, and she feels the pursuing bootsteps of Tortuga, the woman's longer stride eating up the distance.
Cinder drags her fingers into the dust again, gathering as much material as she can, concentrating it, burning it, feeling the shape she wants, exerting her control over the consistent shift as the material began to fuse.
Every step counted here.
Tortuga reaching for her, Cinder leapt for the fenceline, aura pushing her muscles more than they'd ever meant to go.
She felt something tear, wrenching her body in one direction curling her back up and over as she cleared the fenceline, drawing the string of the bow back.
The bow, a crude thing of multicolored glass, shone in the darkness, and Cinder let go of the string a moment later.
Tortuga, midair over the fence right behind her, a bored expression on her face as she chased Cinder, saw the bow too late to do anything about it.
"AUGH"
Her cry of agony sounded large for the world, and Cinder winced sympathetically as the glass arrow buried itself clean through the woman's leg, shattering her aura and sinking deep into her thigh.
Then she was falling, crashing into the ground and her own aura was shattering, cracking around her back to absorb the fall. It hurt, with lances of pain vomiting across her side like the worlds most spastic painter.
She clutched a hand to her side, twitching and curling up on the ground, it hurt and it stung and it felt like someone had torn off her skin, and she could hear Tortuga getting up and walking towards her.
How much damage could the woman sustain!? How much more would Cinder have to make her take? Could she even continue?
Her apparent captors boots clunked closer, and the woman spoke quietly.
"How… much has she twisted you, dear?"
Cinder crawled further from Tortuga, fingers cutting and bleeding on the gravel. She knew her aura should have been higher, but… reaching into the place where she felt her soul and semblance, all she felt was agonizing pain.
Was she dry? Had she run out of power? Was her aura gone for good?
Was she doomed to return to normal?
She'd never felt like this before, and Tortuga was walking towards her faster now!
A hand wrapped around her ankle, and Cinder whirled around, a leg lashing out against the woman.
Tortuga caught her leg and smiled at her, and a thin golden trail of Cinder's aura burned up and into her, fading into the deep green of the woman's own aura.
She was stealing Cinder's aura. Taking it from her. ROBBING HER OF HER POWER!
Cinder flares her semblance, turning the ground hotter and hotter under Tortuga's feet, so hot that she sees it begin to boil and sublimate. She grins, and Tortuga flinches as the ground underneath her bubbles.
"What on-"
The explosion blows out Cinder's eardrums and sends her flying, the cloud, and smell of sewage pouring into the air around her as the plant detonates in a spray of brilliant, flaming debris.
She's blinking the soot and ash from her eyes, struggling and rubbing at them, the ringing in her ears so painful that it eclipses the scratches and lacerations on her body. She can't see Tortuga at all, and a rising column of soot and smoke soars into the sky, the scent of waste pouring into the city streets in a noxious cloud that has people fleeing in all directions.
Cinder definitely didn't pump her fist into the air, firstly, because that would be hardly composed, and secondly, because it was broken and wasn't listening to her muscle commands.
Stifling a moan of agony as she sat up, Cinder looked for Raven, she couldn't see her mom anywhere, the smoke and stench so bad her eyes were watering and she could barely breathe.
Her arm was clearly broken, not… horribly, but enough that she was left staggering away from the impact site.
The explosives on the tanks must have been set off by her semblance's shockwave. She'd experimented with superheating things beyond their tolerance before, but this is the second time now that she's had to do it to save herself from certain doom or worse.
It's enough for her to stagger to the very edge of the plant, fighting past the shattered fenceline.
She has to stop when she hears the clear, and horrible sound of boots clomping down on the ground behind her.
Cinder can't whirl, her aura is shattered and she's fighting exhaustion, but she turns slowly, breathing in and out as deeply and as slowly as she can. If she has to run, she'll need the extra air in her lungs.
Her heartbeat feels like a racetrack, and stepping free of the flames, with her uniform unfairly untouched, is the face of Tortuga, still with a pleasant, if slightly strained smile on her face.
"Didn't see that coming, kid. What kind of semblance is that?"
She's conversational, kind, open, and everything about her screams at Cinder that she's a monster in a field of monsters, and that she's somehow the worst of all of them.
"Hmm, heat transfer, maybe? No… not enough siphoning, and you're not any different thermally than normal… you've definitely got burn marks though…"
She continued to advance, and Cinder stepped back further and further, preparing to run, even if she knows that this might be the last moment.
"Ah!"
Tortuga's fist met open palm, and she smiled like a cat with a canary.
"You're a calorkinetic! A heat semblance that is independent of normal physical laws… hmm, can you surpass the aura limit? Boil someone's skin in their body?"
Cinder tries not to cringe at the thought.
Tortuga continues, unabashed.
"Blood? Air? Did you know most fire victims die from the blazing air? Which burns out their lungs and suffocates them?"
She did not, and felt her stomach trying to flip and turn.
Tortuga stopped moving towards her, and instead raised a rifle up to her shoulder.
"Right, kid, time to give it up, I don't know what kind of fucked up semblance Masque used on you, but clearly it's beyond messed up your head, hell, I don't even know how she managed to unlimit your semblance, because really, kid, you could immolate yourself with something like that! Are you crazy?"
Cinder paused, baring her teeth, feeling blood drip down her arm, and she smiled that bloody grin wide.
"No. Masque didn't use her semblance on me. She took me with her of my own free will."
Forcing the words out hurts her lips, leaving blazing trails of indescribable agony across her face. But she says them anyway, because Cinder would be damned if she let someone else continue to assume she was an innocent little girl.
"And good for everyone else! Good for my "family" too!"
Cinder pauses, and flexes her hands, and the air around her began to shimmer and twist.
"They're better off without me!"
Tortuga's face twisted with misery, and she stepped forwards.
"Oh… no kid, no they miss you dearly…"
Cinder met her eyes, word for word, and did her level best to fix her tormentor with a gaze like Raven, with a gaze like Summer, all dead eyes shining with horrible experience.
"Because if I would have stayed, I would have killed all of them."
She didn't let up, as even Tortuga stepped back for a moment, her shadows finally joining her.
"You wanted to know if my semblance can pierce aura? Let me tell you this, I would have burned the two of them to death, slowly, and painfully."
Her voice felt cold, and her body felt anger twisting through it, the coiling serpent in her gut.
She stepped back once more, and a cool, cold stone, a wall, greeted her.
"Metal, actual, this is Tortuga, the kid is showing signs of serious mind influence, or… worse. Please advise."
Tortuga had raised a hand to her commbead, speaking to someone on the other end, and all Cinder was thinking about was where the hell was Raven!?
Her aura was still gone, and wouldn't recharge until she could actually calm down, and while she'd started breathing exercises with Raven, the woman hadn't been able to teach her much, she'd spent every bit of practicing sparring with Vernal, to bring Cinder's sister's skills up to speed.
Vernal… where was she when Cinder needed her?
For that matter, where in the blazes was Raven!?
Cinder twitched her fingers behind her back, weaving the dust and the wall slightly with her power, twisting and shaping the brick and stone, she felt the heat sear against her, and winced inwardly, before shoving the shape she was making deeper into the wall.
She could only hope it was an effective enough insulator, with how lethal temperatures could turn her into… well, a corpse.
"Mmkay, welp, she's messing with the wall around her right now, given the extreme heat readings coming off of it, twisting it and shaping it, or something. You sure we still can't go anything more than "gentle" with her?"
A burst of noise, so loud that even Cinder could hear it over the crackling flames, announced that Tortuga's idea had been shot dead by Ironwood, assuming that was who she was even speaking to.
Then she stopped moving and stared in slackjawed disbelief at her comm.
"Sir, you can't be-"
A burst of noise again.
"After all that effort!?"
"The White Fang did what !?"
Cinder held her breath and continued working her semblance into the wall, pulling material and sublimating it into her desired form as Tortuga stamped her foot like a child having a tantrum and growled.
"Understood. Sir. Will that be all?"
There was another burst of static, and then the woman turned to Cinder and smiled once more, that gentle, caring mask firmly descending over her features.
"Can you hold out, honey? For just a little while longer while we take care of some things on our end? We'll get you out of that woman's claws soon enough…"
She trailed off, moving into the smoke and disappearing shortly afterward.
Cinder let out a deep, harsh breath she hadn't quite realized she was holding, and desperately tried to regain her composure, letting her semblance go and the wall reharden into normal stone.
Then she collapsed and began to sob openly until strong arms encircled her shoulders and pulled her into an embrace that was all warmth and all kindness, and then it spoke.
"I was looking for you… are you ok?"
That… was not Raven's voice.
The last thing Cinder saw was a flash of red hair and green eyes, grinning down mischievously at her. Then she was falling into darkness, too weak to even hold her arms up, a voice faintly calling after her.
"Cinder- Cinder!?"
A/N: Oh no, cliffhanger, hope you all enjoy, as always, if you like what I do here, leave me a comment, they give me life!
Thanks everyone, I'll see you in a bit! Oh, I have finals, so I won't be sticking to the weekly uploads for the next two weeks, I'll still be writing, but won't be limiting myself to a strict deadline, but after that, weekly updates should resume. In the meantime, I have a pair of other stories that will be going live some time this week to hopefully tide everyone over.
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It was a wonder Atlas had such a pull over a foreign country that they could impose martial law so quickly. A wonder that they truly didn't seem to have issues forcing their will over another's city.
The way the streets were was unsettling to Cinder, the quiet and calm felt unnatural, even as she and Raven snuck past patrols, Raven in the guise of her namesake bird, and Cinder with her aura cloak.
Things had begun to feel… strange, under that power, as if she'd almost lost touch with the world, it felt almost bleached when she dragged the aura up and over herself. Enough that it had messed with her comprehension and ability to discern details. It felt like some great shadow had fallen over Argus, and Cinder's control suffered for it.
Enough that Raven had noticed, based on the way her mother had gently touched down beside her and bodily dragged her free of the cloak.
The water bottle was in her mouth before she could even get a word in edgewise, and Raven's stern glare was forcing her to not protest, instead to drink.
The worst part was that Cinder couldn't even argue with her, and after she'd quenched her thirst, she found herself slumped against a wall, breathing heavily, and feeling like she'd run a marathon. It made no sense, though, she'd gotten sleep, eaten and drank plenty.
"Little kite, how long was it since you last truly let your aura recharge, at rest?"
At rest… as if she'd relaxed enough for it to recede beneath her skin fully, so that even her subconscious couldn't force it to activate anything more than the defensive shield, sleeping was dangerous, she knew Raven didn't relax, knew her mother didn't really force it out of her system ever.
And so, shifting her feet, she responded.
"Not… since you healed in the cabin."
That had been months ago now, the first night, where she'd been kept close to Raven for warmth, even as her mother watched the door, one hand on her busted weapon, more than willing to draw it and tear another in half should an intruder have breached the perimeter.
She'd never felt so warm before, never felt so seen, so heard, and so supported, that had been the first time she'd relaxed, and she'd… not relaxed since.
"Cinder… why?"
She looked up at Raven and, somewhat petulantly, a distant part of her remarked, replied.
"Because you don't relax like that…"
That part of her was louder now, and she was yelling at it to shut up, she wasn't petty. That was uncalled for.
Raven didn't smile, she flinched like Cinder had hit her, and began to tug the girl along, sticking to the shadows.
"Cinder… I'm not normal, I have reserves of power I can draw on for defense, reserves that let me allow my aura to rest even if it's not active… have you been able to pull your augmented senses in, at all?"
Cinder shook her head, the world blurring slightly around her as Raven tugged her close and scooped her up, moving to another shadow as the "thud, thud, thud" of patrol boots stepped along the street behind them.
"Let go, right now."
Her voice was flat, dangerous, and Cinder knew that, knew at some level that Raven wouldn't hurt her, but she couldn't help the mechanical flinch that instantly overcame her, and for just that one moment she was back in the hotel, back feeling those uncaring gazes burn across her back, feeling the Madame's electric collar, tearing at her and who she was.
"Cinder… let go of your aura, flare it, burn it out, whatever you need to do, release it."
Her mother's demand repeated, and Cinder tried, tried to think, tried to find a way out of it, and then she couldn't, as she flinched away from Raven's grip, as the other woman's hands turned into steel and she pulled Cinder in close, fully swaddling her in the scent of her mother.
Raven smelled of gunmetal, of sesame oil, and of a promise of warmth. That promise and that scent were tempered by the faint odor of blood underneath, mixed with something that to Cinder's enhanced senses had trouble parsing… as if Raven was so very young, and so very old at the same time. She couldn't really figure it out, couldn't put her finger on what gave Raven that smell, or why her nose couldn't fix it or fill it in.
But her embrace was warm, and Cinder tried, really tried, the commands wouldn't help her, they never had, only reminding her of the worst parts of it.
She'd initially experimented with her aura, enhancing her senses passively, trickling just a bit of her reserves into every part of her senses, touch, taste, hearing, smell, and eyes, all of it was helpful. It showed her things people didn't want to show easily, made it obvious when that Nikos woman had been assessing her, even if she'd had to visibly exert her aura in that case.
It felt to Cinder so natural, so easy, that she'd never questioned why she should keep doing it, she'd never thought to stop, either. Raven had taught her to be alert at all times, and she'd kept her enhanced senses for that, it had let her surprise her mother on more than one occasion when she was ambushed in her sleep.
Had that been a bad idea? Raven's voice seemed to think so, but her mother's actions hadn't been easy to figure out, she trained Cinder ruthlessly, she'd told her to keep her guard up all the time.
"You told me to be on guard… right?"
Raven flinched again, like Cinder had struck her, hurt her, and then, she spoke.
"First… we're here. But second…"
She paused, surveying the compound before getting down on her knees and tugging Cinder in close.
"I am sorry, I am sorry I mislead you. You should not burn yourself out, shouldn't have to hurt yourself trying to match up to my expectations… they are…"
She looked almost pained saying it.
"Too high of you."
Then, she made it worse for Cinder's composure.
"You have come so far, in so little time, little kite. I know Summer would be proud of you, and I certainly am."
The pleased warmth that burst through Cinder at that comment set her entire self in a new light, and Raven smiled down at her, a genuine one, this time, pulling at both corners of her lips and tugging them up and into the air.
Cinder stood then, and she sucked in a breath, cutting her aura off, and for once, letting it form the defensive field around her body, only. Nothing more than that.
It was hard to put the sensation into words, as if she'd lost half or more of her senses in a sudden burst, it felt wrong, and strange, but she didn't disobey or change from what Raven had ordered. Instead shouldering half of the explosives as the two moved towards the plant.
The tunnels that they'd use to get in weren't ideal anymore, with Argus tending towards a powder keg, and dozens of people set upon the streets, it was, ironically enough the safest place to infiltrate the waste treatment plant.
A flick of Omen severed the chains around the fence, cutting a hole just wide enough for Cinder to sweep in as Raven leapt up and over the fence entirely. As she landed on the other side, she calmly and evenly proceeded to the entrance, and Cinder ducked around the edge of the building, heading for the tanks that contained a surplus of the city's sewage when it wasn't being treated.
At the moment, the tanks weren't stuffed to the gills, but they were usable… enough, she hoped.
The backpack swung off her shoulders, and Cinder rubbed the feeling back into her hands carefully, her exposed flesh having lost sensation from the sheer cold surrounding it.
She'd have thought the constant adrenaline high from carrying 15 pounds of high explosives around would keep her warm, but apparently, it did not.
Cinder personally thought that was bullshit, but she'd be damned if she said something like that aloud in Raven's presence, so instead she focused on carefully removing each of the charges from her backpack.
Sienna had indeed come through, and the refitted and modified mining charges felt heavy in her hands as she looked upon them. They were stable… barely, she hoped.
Each one consisted of a very simple dust mixture that was "pointed" from what Raven had explained, and it was imperative that these things be placed gently, silver side down, on whatever she was hoping to destroy, then the caps inserted into the mass of dust laden clay, and then, only then, would she be backing off to the minimum safe distance.
Cinder had 3 charges, and there were 3 tanks here, massive monstrosities that smelled even through the thick metal coating. She was lucky she hadn't eaten before this, feeling sure she'd have lost her breakfast if she had.
The first one set against the cold metal of the sewage tank, and Cinder carefully set the blasting cap into the explosive dust clay, before she stepped back and moved to the next tank.
The second finished, and the third was in her grasp when a blast wave knocked her off her feet and sent the roof of the building skywards.
She saw a shape cloaked in red and black armor fly from the windows, chased by another cloaked in green energy a second later.
Raven skidded to a stop a dozen feet from Cinder, and spat out blood and a tooth onto the ground, a masked Atlesian specialist landing right in front of her a moment later. The woman flicked her long, curved sword, and a thin spray of red flew free from it. A moment passed between the two of them, with Raven standing up to her feet, and the long, menacing sound of Omen being drawn.
"Never expected you to take on a kid, Raven."
Her voice was cold, strange, and it immediately reminded Cinder of the doctors she'd seen on the TV in the hotel, the cold ones, the strange ones.
This specialist wore a mask, a stylized tortoise, with its jaws open wide on her face. From behind it, harsh, cold yellow eyes flicked to Cinder, and they crinkled, the woman was smiling at her.
"It's ok sweetie, we'll get you safe and sound soon."
Her voice was warm, caring, kind, and nothing like Raven's voice, it was the voice of someone who had something to protect and cherish, someone who hadn't lost it all.
Why was it comforting to hear herself addressed like that?
Cinder froze, and in that moment, Raven screamed and rushed her.
Omen met the woman's strange sword in a clash of sparks and a burst of flame.
The fight devolved instantly. The woman kept making overtures towards Cinder, and Raven would meet her at every turn, stopping her advance as Cinder stood there, frozen, unable to move.
Another clash of sparks, and then the woman was right in front of Cinder, another pair of Atlesians had joined the fray, how had Cinder not… seen them? The strong one's gloved hands were reaching out for her, that calm voice once more saying.
"It's ok, we know you were kidnapped, we'll get you back now."
The flashes of light revealed Raven fighting hard against two others, two who matched each other flawlessly, and Cinder found herself facing this Atlesian, the woman moving closer, a step closer, and then reaching out for her arms.
"My name is Tortuga, I'm an Ace-Op under Lieutenant General Ironwood, we're here to take you home."
She spoke, smiling through her mask and bandana.
Cinder stepped back, and Tortuga stepped closer.
"It's ok, I know I'm really scary, but everything's gonna be ok now."
She tugged her mask down, and the bandanna followed a second later, revealing a pale skinned woman with scars, a short mass of light hair framed high cheekbones and a smattering of freckles on her face. The features of those born to high society in Atlas, the features of someone from that island.
Cinder tried to stagger backwards, and Tortuga snapped a hand out and caught her wrist, her smile never quite left her face.
"Come on, quickly, while my teammates keep her distracted."
Cinder tried to pull away, and Tortuga's grip tightened sharply, as she began to pull the girl along with her, her hand moving to a commbead in her ear.
"Tortuga, command, I have the package, begin extraction now."
The bead chirped gently, and Torguga took Cinder by the hand and began leading her elsewhere.
No… this was wrong, why was this happening… Raven hadn't kidnapped her, had she? She'd promised Summer…
Why did they want her so badly?
Something about this didn't add up…
"Why me?"
Tortuga stopped, turned to her, turned to look carefully at her. Another scream from Raven, and this one came with a spark of brilliant white, lightning dust, sending one of the two fighters flying from Raven.
She had to delay as long as possible. As long as it took for Raven to reach her.
"Why not you? You're an Atlesian citizen, kidnapped by a former huntress. For some nefarious purpose, I'm sure. But really, it's no worry, we'll get you back safe and sound, match you up with your surviving family, and everything will be ok."
She should feel warm, is what this woman's voice says, she should feel ok, should tag along evenly and easily with her.
Cinder does not want this, and she feels cold. Colder and colder now, and then, Tortuga is pulling her along, tugging her towards the hovering form of an incoming gunship, and in that moment, Cinder realizes something.
If she gets on that gunship, she will never see Raven again.
"CINDER!"
She whirls around, Tortuga's grip like iron on her wrist, pulling her towards that gunship, but its Raven, and Raven is fighting towards her, and casting the two of her opponents aside like so much chaff, and then Cinder feels Tortuga's grip change and she knows she's about to be thrown.
Her semblance and aura usage are so instinctual that she barely even feels it when they activate.
Tortuga feels it.
Cinder takes a breath in, and lets the flames inside her burn out.
Her aura flares, and a heat haze twists the air around her.
Tortuga's aura flares green, and that is the only thing that saves her as Cinder exhales and lets her semblance tear its way out of her skin.
The flare of heat sends the huntress reeling, her grip fading on Cinder's wrist as the girl scuttles away from her, tearing across the terrain, her hand slips low, tearing into the gravel, superheating the stones.
A kick sends the cloud of overheated gravel into the air behind her, and the sound of booted footsteps behind Cinder catches her a moment later. Tortuga.
A hiss of pain, a muttered curse.
" She really is nice. "
A shame, then.
Cinder kicks off, running towards her backpack, towards the explosives that will let them save the city, even at the cost of a little damage.
She hears Tortuga behind her, but just ahead of her, there is Raven, there's only one of her opponents, the other splayed across the dirt and dust, bleeding from a wound, her mother steps in front of her, and she whispers as Cinder runs past.
"My part is done. Just a moment longer, little Kite."
She stands behind Cinder, her voice an angry hiss, as Cinder runs and runs and runs for the tanks, she briefly makes out words from Tortuga.
"Stop her! Stop her now!"
But she is too fast, and her backpack and preparation expected. A flick of her finger sets the cap, and she slams the charge onto the tanks.
Then she is screaming for Raven. Screaming and speaking until her lungs burn out of air.
"Now Raven now! Get clear!"
She sees her mother take to the skies, sees her transform in the blink of an eye into a bird, and then Cinder is running for the fenceline.
It is slow, close, and she feels the pursuing bootsteps of Tortuga, the woman's longer stride eating up the distance.
Cinder drags her fingers into the dust again, gathering as much material as she can, concentrating it, burning it, feeling the shape she wants, exerting her control over the consistent shift as the material began to fuse.
Every step counted here.
Tortuga reaching for her, Cinder leapt for the fenceline, aura pushing her muscles more than they'd ever meant to go.
She felt something tear, wrenching her body in one direction curling her back up and over as she cleared the fenceline, drawing the string of the bow back.
The bow, a crude thing of multicolored glass, shone in the darkness, and Cinder let go of the string a moment later.
Tortuga, midair over the fence right behind her, a bored expression on her face as she chased Cinder, saw the bow too late to do anything about it.
"AUGH"
Her cry of agony sounded large for the world, and Cinder winced sympathetically as the glass arrow buried itself clean through the woman's leg, shattering her aura and sinking deep into her thigh.
Then she was falling, crashing into the ground and her own aura was shattering, cracking around her back to absorb the fall. It hurt, with lances of pain vomiting across her side like the worlds most spastic painter.
She clutched a hand to her side, twitching and curling up on the ground, it hurt and it stung and it felt like someone had torn off her skin, and she could hear Tortuga getting up and walking towards her.
How much damage could the woman sustain!? How much more would Cinder have to make her take? Could she even continue?
Her apparent captors boots clunked closer, and the woman spoke quietly.
"How… much has she twisted you, dear?"
Cinder crawled further from Tortuga, fingers cutting and bleeding on the gravel. She knew her aura should have been higher, but… reaching into the place where she felt her soul and semblance, all she felt was agonizing pain.
Was she dry? Had she run out of power? Was her aura gone for good?
Was she doomed to return to normal?
She'd never felt like this before, and Tortuga was walking towards her faster now!
A hand wrapped around her ankle, and Cinder whirled around, a leg lashing out against the woman.
Tortuga caught her leg and smiled at her, and a thin golden trail of Cinder's aura burned up and into her, fading into the deep green of the woman's own aura.
She was stealing Cinder's aura. Taking it from her. ROBBING HER OF HER POWER!
Cinder flares her semblance, turning the ground hotter and hotter under Tortuga's feet, so hot that she sees it begin to boil and sublimate. She grins, and Tortuga flinches as the ground underneath her bubbles.
"What on-"
The explosion blows out Cinder's eardrums and sends her flying, the cloud, and smell of sewage pouring into the air around her as the plant detonates in a spray of brilliant, flaming debris.
She's blinking the soot and ash from her eyes, struggling and rubbing at them, the ringing in her ears so painful that it eclipses the scratches and lacerations on her body. She can't see Tortuga at all, and a rising column of soot and smoke soars into the sky, the scent of waste pouring into the city streets in a noxious cloud that has people fleeing in all directions.
Cinder definitely didn't pump her fist into the air, firstly, because that would be hardly composed, and secondly, because it was broken and wasn't listening to her muscle commands.
Stifling a moan of agony as she sat up, Cinder looked for Raven, she couldn't see her mom anywhere, the smoke and stench so bad her eyes were watering and she could barely breathe.
Her arm was clearly broken, not… horribly, but enough that she was left staggering away from the impact site.
The explosives on the tanks must have been set off by her semblance's shockwave. She'd experimented with superheating things beyond their tolerance before, but this is the second time now that she's had to do it to save herself from certain doom or worse.
It's enough for her to stagger to the very edge of the plant, fighting past the shattered fenceline.
She has to stop when she hears the clear, and horrible sound of boots clomping down on the ground behind her.
Cinder can't whirl, her aura is shattered and she's fighting exhaustion, but she turns slowly, breathing in and out as deeply and as slowly as she can. If she has to run, she'll need the extra air in her lungs.
Her heartbeat feels like a racetrack, and stepping free of the flames, with her uniform unfairly untouched, is the face of Tortuga, still with a pleasant, if slightly strained smile on her face.
"Didn't see that coming, kid. What kind of semblance is that?"
She's conversational, kind, open, and everything about her screams at Cinder that she's a monster in a field of monsters, and that she's somehow the worst of all of them.
"Hmm, heat transfer, maybe? No… not enough siphoning, and you're not any different thermally than normal… you've definitely got burn marks though…"
She continued to advance, and Cinder stepped back further and further, preparing to run, even if she knows that this might be the last moment.
"Ah!"
Tortuga's fist met open palm, and she smiled like a cat with a canary.
"You're a calorkinetic! A heat semblance that is independent of normal physical laws… hmm, can you surpass the aura limit? Boil someone's skin in their body?"
Cinder tries not to cringe at the thought.
Tortuga continues, unabashed.
"Blood? Air? Did you know most fire victims die from the blazing air? Which burns out their lungs and suffocates them?"
She did not, and felt her stomach trying to flip and turn.
Tortuga stopped moving towards her, and instead raised a rifle up to her shoulder.
"Right, kid, time to give it up, I don't know what kind of fucked up semblance Masque used on you, but clearly it's beyond messed up your head, hell, I don't even know how she managed to unlimit your semblance, because really, kid, you could immolate yourself with something like that! Are you crazy?"
Cinder paused, baring her teeth, feeling blood drip down her arm, and she smiled that bloody grin wide.
"No. Masque didn't use her semblance on me. She took me with her of my own free will."
Forcing the words out hurts her lips, leaving blazing trails of indescribable agony across her face. But she says them anyway, because Cinder would be damned if she let someone else continue to assume she was an innocent little girl.
"And good for everyone else! Good for my "family" too!"
Cinder pauses, and flexes her hands, and the air around her began to shimmer and twist.
"They're better off without me!"
Tortuga's face twisted with misery, and she stepped forwards.
"Oh… no kid, no they miss you dearly…"
Cinder met her eyes, word for word, and did her level best to fix her tormentor with a gaze like Raven, with a gaze like Summer, all dead eyes shining with horrible experience.
"Because if I would have stayed, I would have killed all of them."
She didn't let up, as even Tortuga stepped back for a moment, her shadows finally joining her.
"You wanted to know if my semblance can pierce aura? Let me tell you this, I would have burned the two of them to death, slowly, and painfully."
Her voice felt cold, and her body felt anger twisting through it, the coiling serpent in her gut.
She stepped back once more, and a cool, cold stone, a wall, greeted her.
"Metal, actual, this is Tortuga, the kid is showing signs of serious mind influence, or… worse. Please advise."
Tortuga had raised a hand to her commbead, speaking to someone on the other end, and all Cinder was thinking about was where the hell was Raven!?
Her aura was still gone, and wouldn't recharge until she could actually calm down, and while she'd started breathing exercises with Raven, the woman hadn't been able to teach her much, she'd spent every bit of practicing sparring with Vernal, to bring Cinder's sister's skills up to speed.
Vernal… where was she when Cinder needed her?
For that matter, where in the blazes was Raven!?
Cinder twitched her fingers behind her back, weaving the dust and the wall slightly with her power, twisting and shaping the brick and stone, she felt the heat sear against her, and winced inwardly, before shoving the shape she was making deeper into the wall.
She could only hope it was an effective enough insulator, with how lethal temperatures could turn her into… well, a corpse.
"Mmkay, welp, she's messing with the wall around her right now, given the extreme heat readings coming off of it, twisting it and shaping it, or something. You sure we still can't go anything more than "gentle" with her?"
A burst of noise, so loud that even Cinder could hear it over the crackling flames, announced that Tortuga's idea had been shot dead by Ironwood, assuming that was who she was even speaking to.
Then she stopped moving and stared in slackjawed disbelief at her comm.
"Sir, you can't be-"
A burst of noise again.
"After all that effort!?"
"The White Fang did what !?"
Cinder held her breath and continued working her semblance into the wall, pulling material and sublimating it into her desired form as Tortuga stamped her foot like a child having a tantrum and growled.
"Understood. Sir. Will that be all?"
There was another burst of static, and then the woman turned to Cinder and smiled once more, that gentle, caring mask firmly descending over her features.
"Can you hold out, honey? For just a little while longer while we take care of some things on our end? We'll get you out of that woman's claws soon enough…"
She trailed off, moving into the smoke and disappearing shortly afterward.
Cinder let out a deep, harsh breath she hadn't quite realized she was holding, and desperately tried to regain her composure, letting her semblance go and the wall reharden into normal stone.
Then she collapsed and began to sob openly until strong arms encircled her shoulders and pulled her into an embrace that was all warmth and all kindness, and then it spoke.
"I was looking for you… are you ok?"
That… was not Raven's voice.
The last thing Cinder saw was a flash of red hair and green eyes, grinning down mischievously at her. Then she was falling into darkness, too weak to even hold her arms up, a voice faintly calling after her.
"Cinder- Cinder!?"
A/N: Oh no, cliffhanger, hope you all enjoy, as always, if you like what I do here, leave me a comment, they give me life!
Thanks everyone, I'll see you in a bit! Oh, I have finals, so I won't be sticking to the weekly uploads for the next two weeks, I'll still be writing, but won't be limiting myself to a strict deadline, but after that, weekly updates should resume. In the meantime, I have a pair of other stories that will be going live some time this week to hopefully tide everyone over.
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