The Games We Play - Chapter 194: Farewell

Chapter 194: Farewell

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryuugi. This has been pulled from his Spacebattles publishment at threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/. Anyway on with the show…err read.

Farewell

Emerald and Mercury looked surprised to find my waiting when they reached the airship that would be taking them to Atlas, immediately dropping their bags and readying themselves for a fight.

“Enough,” Cinder said, for her part merely looking annoyed as I eyed her minions with amusement. “This is Jian Bing of the White Fang. I assume you don’t need any introductions yourself?”

“Emerald and Mercury,” I replied, giving each a brief glance before focusing back on Cinder. “Yes, I’m well aware of your subordinates. Why don’t the two of you go get the ship ready?”

Cinder’s henchmen exchanged a look between themselves and then glanced back at Cinder, who watched me expressionlessly. To their credit, the two of them didn’t back down despite no doubt knowing they were outclassed and didn’t move until Cinder gave them a slight nod. I remained at ease as they filed past me into the ship, keeping a close eye on me all the while, and Cinder didn’t speak until they were gone.

“I assume there’s something you want,” Cinder spoke at last. She didn’t seem angry or uneased, instead simply looking at me with the usual calm.

“Nothing much,” I answered. “I simply wanted to continue our discussion and I thought you’d appreciate a lack of witnesses.”

“Oh?” Cinder asked, tilting her head slightly. She didn’t bother looking around, but I was fairly certain she didn’t believe I’d come alone.

In fairness, I hadn’t. Raven was watching us through a portal with Adam and Gou waiting on the other side.

Still, I smiled calmly at her and nodded.

“I had several questions I wished to ask you that were of a, let us say, personal nature,” I confirmed. “Given their nature, I believed some privacy was warranted.”

Cinder took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“Very well then,” She answered. “Ask. I make no promises as to answering, however.”

“Of course; I understand,” I assured her with another smile. “And I appreciate the courtesy. Now where to begin…?”

I hummed to myself quietly, making a show of considering it, drawing things out. I knew at least something about Cinder’s past now, but I had to be careful about what I said, both to avoid making assumptions and to keep from giving away how much I did or didn’t know. Though we had some common ground due to our past experiences, the fact remained that I’d been shielded from the things she’d endured as a child and was powerful enough to mostly ignore them now—I didn’t know how she might react to the subject if I brought it up. At the same time, however, this was a chance for me to see her while she was caught off-guard, to poke and prod and see how she reacted both as a person and, potentially, as a Rider. I’d spent the last few days considering the matter closely and plotting out my attack.

As such, I began by approaching the matter in my own subtle way.

Just as Cinder started to look…well, more annoyed, I tilted my head and felt my smile widen.

“Why is it?” I wondered aloud. “That you prefer to go by Fall instead of Rhodopis?”

Cinder hadn’t been moving much beforehand, but she froze stock still at the question, gazing at me with a face like a mask. Inside, however, I could feel the spike of sudden emotion—surprise, concern, old anger, and even…a hint of fear?

I let my smile widen, keeping my gaze amused even when she didn’t respond. There was that confirmed, at least.

“Mayro Rhodopis’ only daughter,” I continued to press before chuckling under my breath. “Only biological daughter, I should say—pity what happened to your stepsisters and stepmother, wasn’t it? A woman forced to eat her own children and then burnt alive…nasty business. And then you just seemed to vanish when the Families started looking. One wonders where you might have gone.”

I had a few ideas on that front. Once I had all the dates, it was easy to start making connections. Starting with the death of her stepmother and her subsequent departure from at least Mistral, there were only so many places she could have gone—and there was a place I already knew she was connected to.

For her part, Cinder opened her mouth as if to say something before shutting it quickly, staring at me with cold eyes.

“Come to think of it,” I mused when she didn’t answer. “Didn’t you mention you were familiar with Mountain Glenn? I hope you weren’t caught up in anything dangerous, Ms. Rhodopis. I heard that even once the people hid themselves underground, it proved for naught. An explosion opened up a passage filled with subterranean Grimm and everyone within died.”

“Tragic,” Cinder replied, otherwise unmoving. But her mask of calm did little to hide her growing emotion. “Truly. What of it, though?”

I chuckled again.

“I was simply musing over how interesting your past was,” I replied. “I’m certain I wouldn’t be the only one to think so.”

She looked at me quietly for a long moment, but even now refused to react physically. She was angry in a distant way, quietly concerned, worried, but still remaining controlled.

“What do you want?” She asked at last. “I assume you didn’t come here just to ponder the past.”

At that, I almost frowned. I suppose I wasn’t too surprised that she remained calm and collected even when I was dredging up her history, but it was annoying. I wanted her to react, to give something away, yet she steadfastly refused to comply. She was worried now, about impact her plans, no doubt aware of the trouble I could cause her by sharing what I knew with the right people, but she didn’t back down.

…I was coming at this from the wrong angle and I knew it. It was simply that the best way I knew to get a reaction was also the most dangerous. I’d tried watching Cinder and waiting from her to let something slip and it had gotten me nowhere. I’d tried pressuring her and digging into her past, but she’d stayed as steady as a rock. There was only one way I was likely to learn what I really wanted to know and it was by asking—and surviving whatever followed. But did I dare take that risk, knowing what it could mean? Or, worse, without knowing what it could mean?

For a moment, I watched Cinder silently and considered the situation. As these things went, I was in a fairly good position. I had my allies with me, I had a newly restocked Dust supply, and we were on the outskirts of the city. Things weren’t ideal—alas, it seemed we enemies were never going to just kill themselves for me—but they were about as good as I could reasonably expect. The only thing holding me back was the reminder the Ananta had dealt me about how far out of my league I still was.

But by that same measure, I needed to work harder. I needed to figure things out and strike back somehow. I was on a time limit I couldn’t even see, waiting until Malkuth got impatient or annoyed or just wanted to screw me over. Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t just hide myself away and train for a hundred years and expect everything to work out. I was standing before what was quite possibly my best source of information—and possibly my most active enemy. Conquest was waiting in his shells, War was dormant within Ruby, and Malkuth was caught up in whatever. If Ozpin was a Rider, then he was probably plotting something, but he was still an unknown while Cinder wasn’t. She was doing something, probably something big, and all I knew so far was what she’d told me. If nothing else, I needed to confirm something.

So. Did I take the chance? Given how calm she’d been so far, I didn’t think it likely to come to a fight, but if it did, my odds were about as good as I could make them. The Ananta had proven itself an enormous threat, but I couldn’t allow myself to be petrified by fear any more then I could let myself act recklessly. With the power I’d gained after the fight, I was in a better condition than ever and I had my friends at myself, be they living or Elemental. If I had to, I could pull the same tricks I had against the Ananta, but better. I couldn’t say for sure if it’d be enough, but…I couldn’t run around in the dark forever, either. As strong as I was now, the only quick source of levels I had any more were things like the Hydras and they were a huge risk in their own right, and while I could wait for several more skills to improve, there was no way of knowing if I’d get what I wanted. With the two trump cards I’d received earlier to day, I’d already gotten everything I could have hoped for and it’d be at least a few weeks more before I got anything else I was after. By then, she’d be back in Haven and confronting her would pose different risks. This might be my best chance for months.

I took a slow breath, smiled, and made my choice.

“Very well,” I allowed with an exaggerated sigh. “I shall get to the point then. Interesting as it is, I’m willing to forget your dark past on the condition that you answer a question I have truthfully.”

“Then ask,” She said.

“When Mayro Rhodopis died, he was working on something,” I said, leaning forward slightly. “Or perhaps I should say that something had come into his possession. A black crystal.”

At that, Cinder visibly stiffened. After a moment, her expression twisted into a grimace and she relaxed, but she knew as well as I did that she’d given herself away.

“Was there a question in that sentence that I missed, perhaps?” Cinder said, voice now touched with scorn—directed both at me and towards herself.

“Where is it?” I asked.

“Gone,” She said at once, meeting my eyes directly. She was lying. She might have even thought that I knew that.

“Is that so…” I mused before tilting my head. “Ah, but then…what are those marks on your skin then?”

Cinder looked down at her unblemished arms. To the human eye, there was nothing there—and yet, she didn’t deny my words. I saw her eyes trace the same patterns I could see written upon her skin before they tracked their way back up to me.

And then she sighed.

“You…” She murmured, turning her face away from me. “Certainly, you know a great deal. But isn’t there a saying that ignorance is bliss?”

And just like that, Cinder began to change. The marks became visible as if smoke was rising to the surface of her skin—and they began to spread outwards in curling patterns, encircling her body. At the same time, crystals began to sprout from her flesh, literally growing before my very eyes and glowing along with her eyes as they did. They came in a dazzling array of colors, some of them as small as a fingernail and other rising in massive spikes from her arms and shoulders.

They were Dust crystals, every single one of them.

Fuck.

I tried to signal my allies, kicking myself a bit for pushing even as I resigned myself to the relatively advantageous situation—before abruptly realizing I couldn’t move. No, rather, nothing could move. In the distance, I could see insects frozen between beats of their wings and the very air around me seemed to have halted its motions. Mercury was standing as a statue beside and immobile Emerald.

Even before a window appear to notify me of what happened, I understood, my eyes tracking to a pair of luminous crystals.

You have been ‘Stopped.’

Time had been frozen by the Dust crystals now growing from Cinder’s arms, several of them glowing with an inner light as they wrought their effect on the world. Everything had stopped in place as a result of her power—even I couldn’t move anymore.

And yet, I remained aware. I supposed I had my Semblance to thank for that, like most everything else. It seemed that while my perceptions could be sped up and slowed down, even stopping time couldn’t shut them down—well, not like this at least. While stopping time didn’t seem to work, my Dimensional’s effects had played havoc on me. I suppose that was the difference between stopping time and skipping it; even if I was immune to any effects that tried to affect my mind, I guess I couldn’t see what wasn’t there to begin with. It was a distinction to keep in mind, given that the number of hostile time manipulators I was going to have to face seemed to be on the rise.

Under most circumstances, I’d have been glad to know that the Gamer’s Mind was effective even against something like this, for that very reason, but despite the Gamer’s Mind keeping me calm, there was no way around it.

I’d screwed up.

Shit. I could honestly say I hadn’t expected this. I’d wanted to push her and get a reaction, but it looked like I’d gotten far more than I’d hoped for—for all my preparations, I honestly hadn’t thought she’d risk attacking me directly like this. Yeah, I’d considered it, but she must have known that even if she killed me, her problems wouldn’t simply evaporate. Had she believed me when I told her I was alone after all? No, even if she had, she must have been aware that I could have simply left notes behind. Putting the matter of the crystal aside, I had enough information to screw up her plans as I knew them. A sent message would be enough to ensure that her whole scheme with Haven and Beacon fell apart; another would have the Alexandria family tearing apart whatever was left. I knew about Torchwick, her allies, and so much else. While I didn’t know everything, I had enough evidence to make things really inconvenient for her.

Or so I’d thought, at least—and yet, here we were. Had I overestimated how much she valued her plans? Or did she just believe it wouldn’t matter? I suppose both were possible, but…no, I guess if she could casually reach into her bag of tricks and pull out a Time Stop, so arrogance wasn’t uncalled for. While she might have some difficulty pinning Raven down, most of the people that were in her way could probably be brushed aside if she was willing to show her hand somewhat. Besides the Time crystals, dozens of other spikes were growing from her skin, armoring her arms and legs with scales of Dust. If their number was proportional to the number of tricks she had up her sleeves…

Well, I suppose this more or less answered whether or not Cinder was a Rider. Except, well. It looked like I’d underestimated her in various ways. While I’d prepared for a fight just in case, it seems the situation wasn’t as favorable as I’d first believed. While we were still at the edge of the city and away from any innocent people, I’d really been hoping to have my allies behind me if it came down to this, but given the lack of emotion I was feeling from their direction, it would seem I was the only one still aware of what was happening.

Also, I was still as a statue, unable to even move my eyes. Were it not for my altered view of the world, I wouldn’t even be able to look at her, as she was now—although, quite frankly, the view wasn’t particularly reassuring.

Cinder hadn’t moved from her place yet, her body shaking slightly as more and more crystals pushed their way out of her skin. The black markings on her skin reminded me increasingly of vines, as Dust grew from them like the fruits of a bizarre plant—but with each new crystal that appeared, more power seemed to flash through her system. I could see inside of her, were dark material had begun to line her nerves and veins, lighting up in time with her heartbeat as they grew to look more like wires than anything organic. Black crystals spread across the surface of her heart like ice across a lake, growing out at strange angles until it began to look like a misshapen star, shining from within.

Both inside and out, her transformation progressed, twisting her body with each passing second. I supposed that was at least partially the reason for the Time Stop; keeping people from interrupting her transformation sequence, as well as sucker punching them afterwards. Given how badly this was going, waiting for her to finish transforming seemed like it would be…unwise.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t be doing anything about her unless I dealt with this Time Stop, first. My options on that front were unfortunately limited—really, there were only three, and none of them were very good. I suppose it was a bit odd to be weighing cost effectiveness while frozen still and standing next to a transforming death machine, but given that it seemed I’d need to fight for my life momentarily, I needed to be careful now more than ever. It’d do me no good to escape the Time Stop only to die because I exhausted myself, then.

Time Stops were tricky business in generally, as I’d come to learn recently. While an extremely powerful effect in various ways, it came with drawback—for me especially. First of all, my naturally ability to regain enormous quantities of MP every second were sadly inapplicable when seconds stopped passing. Similarly, my Acceleration—a skill I’d come to rely upon—didn’t function during stopped time; maybe it was a little too much to ask to be able to stack absolutely everything, but it was still a bit saddening that I could stop time and accelerate it simultaneous. Yes, I knew it was a contradiction in and of itself, but I still wanted to do it.

All of which meant that even after I broke out, I’d be at something of a disadvantage. I’d need to depend entirely upon my stores of Dust crystals, which wouldn’t normally be a problem in and of itself, but…well, maybe I was being paranoid, but it seemed like the Dust Master who was currently growing Dust out of her skin with the help of an ancient Dust-based superweapon might have a slight edge on me when it came to using Dust; call it a hunch. And while I was by no means helpless or slow without my Acceleration, being able to move twenty to thirty times faster than normal was pretty damn useful.

And, putting aside whatever else she might use against me, I was going to have to fight Cinder without either. I wasn’t too keen on that idea; I preferred to fight my enemies with every possible advantage, but the tricks I’d brought to the table were already being chipped away at. As it was, I was going to have to fight here one on one, relying solely on my own power—which might have been fair, yeah, but fuck that shit; it greatly increased my odds of losing.

But there was no choice now. After pressuring her and pushing her into revealing her true nature, there was nothing I could do but fight.

Or was there?

A thought occurred to me as layers of crystal turned Cinders fingers into lethal-looking claws that were oddly jointed. She flexed them once, a rubbing of her finger blades sending up a sudden surge of sparks, before approaching me carefully. As I watched her approach, absently noting that her glass heels had been replaced by almost identical crystal shoes, I considered the possibility. It was a long shot, but if talking had gotten me into this, could it possibly get me back out? Certainly, it would be far better than being forced into a disadvantageous fight, but…could I actually pull it off?

No way to know except to try, I suppose. If I failed, I’d be no worse off than I was now, and if I succeeded…

Had I been able to, I’d have taken a deep breath as I watched Cinder approach—but I didn’t act. I’d only have one chance at this and there was only one thing I could think of that might actually work, but I’d need to do this right. I waited until she was right in front of me and watched her carefully. Cinder didn’t say a word, now that she seemingly had me did to rights, she just lifted her claws as they started to glow. Space rippled oddly around them, outlining blades that were there, but I didn’t have time to think about it as she swung them towards my face.

Now, I thought, using a new trick. Expending an enormous amount of MP—so large, in fact, that it was only useable at all thanks to the effects of my cost reducers and was still almost cripplingly expensive—I felt things change as I revealed one of my trump cards. It was something I’d kept in reserve to give myself a major advantage in a crucial moment, but…to think I’d need to use it just to have a chance.

By raising Acceleration to level 99, you have gained the skill ‘Tachyon.’

Tachyon (Active) LV1 EXP: 7.94% MP: 100000

The ability to temporarily remove oneself from the normal flow of time. By warping time and space around himself to exist solely within a specific ‘moment,’ the user can seemingly cause time to stand still.

Additional 100000 MP spent per ‘moment.’

All of a sudden, I could move within the frozen world and I immediately shed a Skin to escape the attack. Cinder’s claws swept through only an afterimage, distorting the space around them as they went. I analyzed the attack even as I escaped from it and knew I’d made the right choice—it wouldn’t have been my flesh those blades would have cut; they’d have carved straight through the space I’d occupied.

—But I didn’t have time to worry about things like that. Acceleration was still too expensive and brief to be useful, so I needed to make this moment count. Even as one hand swept into my Inventory to grab a handful of Dust crystals that I immediately devoured, I spoke.

“Now, now,” I said with a laugh, making sure I sounded like I was making light of the attack. I did my best to maintain my confident demeanor, but given how much energy stopping time for even a moment had taken me and how easily Cinder was able to do the same, it was a little difficult. “There’s no need for that, Famine.”

After the words left my mouth, I froze again, Tachyon running its course. All that mana for a literally momentary effect…the sad part was that it was still cheaper than using my Dimensional to accomplish the same effect. But it had its uses, so long as it was handled with care.

Cinder froze so still that for a moment, I almost thought she’d fallen prey to her own attack—but then she turned around slowly, staring at me hard even as crystals began creeping into her eyes.

“And how is it that you know that name?” She asked coldly. “Who are you, really?”

Suddenly, I realized I could move. So she could not only freeze time, but even exclude specific people from the effect at will? That was…frightening, I had to admit.

But I couldn’t let something like surprise or fear take away this chance.

At once, dark spots began to appear on my skin in growing patches, expanding quickly across my flesh. At a glance, they might have seemed similar to the artistic designs that were still visible on Cinder’s skin, but there was no pattern to their expansion, no shape to be revealed. They simple spread and consumed until they covered me entirely.

This was the product of nigh-endless training with Acceleration—my almost maxed-out Metamorphosis.

“Isn’t that a cruel thing to ask, ‘sister’?” I replied in hopefully real-sounding amusement.

Cinder looked at me for a long moment, watching as layers of Grimm-bone armor began to appear without the slightest change in her expression—and then she clicked her tongue.

“Conquest,” She said.