章 482: 38
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"You knew." Jaune growled when he sensed Cinder join him, sitting on a chair by the door to the medical room on board the ship, eyes closed and arms crossed over his chest. He sensed her question coming and cut in before she could ask it, "You knew that there would be a Specialist there, that he'd be powerful and well-trained, to help the new soldiers learn what they needed before being deployed to full bases. I didn't notice it because you were too focused on the surface about the plans, and I didn't look into it."
"I… suspected it, yes, but didn't know for sure what kind of Specialist would be there." Cinder acknowledged, leaning against the wall and watching the armored boy closely. Anxiously, to an extent, as well. "I assure you, Jaune, I would not risk angering you. You could cause me a great deal of discomfort with our Mistress." "And it would stay that way until I become the Maiden."
"And what if you don't become the Maiden, then?" He asked, scowling up at the woman purposefully.
"You'd better be careful while you explain what you mean, Arc." She spoke with narrowed eyes at him, in curiosity and a threat equally, but he knew the latter was empty. "Because now is not the time or place for playing games, I assure you." "Or threatening me."
"Neo would be just as valuable a Maiden as you, or any of my friends in Beacon. Any one of them could easily become the Maiden with my help, and I doubt Salem really cares who the Maiden is." Smiling, he added, "In fact, I think she only cares that she has the Maiden, not who that Maiden is. And if I provided even that, I wonder how my prospects would change with her?"
"You need to think before you threaten me, Jaune." Cinder growled, pushing off the wall and closing the distance to leer down at him, her hands smoldering lightly and mind racing with as many angry thoughts as worried ones. She wrapped a hand around his throat, heat warming to an uncomfortable degree. "You need to think very clearly, and very hard, about whether or not you want to threaten me. I got you where you are, even if you hate the how of it. Don't think you can try to destroy me." "Burn me, and we both will end in ashes."
"Next time, you should think about that yourself." He growled back, standing and forcing her back, their faces close enough that their breath brushed the other from their noses. "Neo almost died out there, and is probably going to be in bed for a long time healing, because of you. And you still haven't recovered your Aura fully, even if you have your Maiden powers back."
"And? I could crush you without them as easily as with them." She smiled, bright eyes gleaming at him. "Do you want to try?"
"No." He grunted quietly, hand resting on Crocea Mors' handle as his stomach spun anxiously, "I won't be the one to start anything, Cinder. Salem will know, if you come after me, that you started the fight that follows."
Smiling, she stepped back and cocked her head to the side. "I must admit, I'm surprised." "And impressed." "I hadn't thought you would have the gall to threaten me, or the brains to back it up."
"Put the people I care about in danger again and you'll see exactly what I have the gall for, Cinder." He growled, scowling at her smiling face.
She rested a hand against his cheek, smiling teasingly at him and stroking his cheek with a thumb, "Feel free to visit me, if Neo can no longer satisfy in her condition." Grasping his chin, she leaned closer, golden eyes glowing, "But if you threaten me again, I will make you suffer." "Whether I can hurt you physically or not."
"As though I'd ever get near you." He jerked away with a scoff, and she chuckled with a shrug of her shoulders, turning and striding away, and Jaune glared as she went before relaxing into his chair. Resting his head in his hands, he muttered, "Damn witch."
After a few minutes to calm down, he stood and knocked on the door. The doctor inside, a warm voiced, thing Faunus with rabbit ears and brown hair and eyes, openmed the door after a few seconds with a small smile. She was a doctor, yes, but she wore mostly a White Fang uniform, her mask hanging on her waist comfortably. "I heard what you said to her." "Hard not to, the door is thin." "You really think she knew this would happen?"
"Yeah." He answered, shaking his head and sighing. "I can't explain why, but when I accuse someone of having an ulterior motive, you can believe it. I have my ways of knowing."
"It's not my place to argue. I'm not involved with any of it." "And really don't want to be. People like her are dangerous." She shrugged, smiling at him calmly. And she was right, even as a doctor on board a ship manned by terrorists, dealing with people like Cinder and Salem was far more dangerous than anything she was ready for.
"So, um, how is Neo doing?" He asked nervously, the woman's face falling instantly at the question and anxiety spiking. Was she afraid of him? He couldn't ask, the questions of how he knew would be problems that he didn't have the time to deal with. "Is she, you know… Okay?"
"Come inside." She ordered quietly, turning and going into the room with Jaune on her heel, the knight pulling the door shut behind him quietly as he entered.
The medical room was more of a repurposed dormitory room, one of dozens of other converted rooms on this level. Normally these rooms were large enough for two bunk-beds, but in this format they functioned as private rooms for important wounded individuals. But the White Fang was still short on supplies so, even if they'd been able to convince them to accept the frigates as 'donations from supporters' a full medical suite couldn't be afforded. The people in charge would start demanding to know who they were working with, terrorists being a not so surprisingly paranoid bunch.
Instead, a clean cot, i.v. and a physical monitor the size of a television sat to either side of the head of the bed. In the bed Jaune could see Neo, sleeping soundly with bandages wrapped up around her neck and probably across her torso a swell. Her face was pale and her hair looked almost washed out, and she was almost swaddled in the blankets, only her right arm - bandages wrapped snugly around her upper arm and arm pale, an i.v. in the crook of her elbow being the reason for the arm to be left out - was left outside of the blanket, and he worried for a moment she was cold. He walked to the side of the bed wit the i.v., looking down at her pale face and reaching down to touch her bare arm, content at feeling her pulse running through her small shoulder. The doctor waited on the other side, watching him with a sedated sort of patience he suspected many doctors perfected in a class at college.
He eased into a small metal folding chair next to the bed, sliding his hand down to hold the girl's hand and looking to the doctor, "How bad is she?"
"The axe did severe damage, I'm afraid. Her Aura failed entirely prior to taking the strike, so the full force of the weaponry was brought to bear." She sighed and turned to her console, pressing buttons on the screen to recall information as she spoke. "Luckily, we were able to recover the weapon, so I know a bit more about the kind of damage it ought to do. The obvious, of course, is the amount of blood she lost."
"The cut looked bad, yeah." He agreed, shaking his head and giving her hand a comfortable squeeze and rubbing his thumb across the top of her hand in a weak and likely vain effort to warm her a bit. "I couldn't react in time, and when he hit her…" He looked up at the doctor, grimacing. She must hear this kind of story all the time, given where and what she did. "There was a lot of blood when she went down, you know?"
"I could tell, yeah." She said, her voice sounding surprisingly calm. "But it wasn't much of a cut, really." His brows furrowed in curiosity, and she continued. "The weapon was blunted and while a small edge conducted the charge from it, it wasn't very large. Which means it can't cut as effectively. Instead it made a much more… Well, almost surgical cut, really." "Crass and improper as it is to call it that…"
"Instead, the charge conducted through her body and the skin and flesh there, well… Detonated, in a manner of speaking. Further, the electrical charge burned most of her back almost brown, and the nerves along her spine are heavily damaged. Her shoulders and neck as well. The i.v. is as much for fluids as it is to keep her unconscious, to treat the electrical damage we… Had to operate on the damaged tissue." "And cut it away, the poor girl. But he might vomit if I tell him that."
He gagged at the thought, forcibly pushing away the images she recalled, and she smiled sympathetically at him and gestured at the can next to him, "I… won't judge." "Even if I had the gall to insult you."
"I-I'm okay…" He sighed, looking at the woman on the bed with a hard line to his lips. She tensed, mentally at least, because he could sense that she knew what he was going to ask. "Will she…You know…. Recover?"
"Yes, eventually, though… She'll never be as dextrous as she was, the nerve damage to her spine is mild but will do that much." She smiled at him and he sensed her honest sympathy and regret rolling off her in waves. "She'll be able to move, even fight to an extent," "If less effectively." "but she will never be capable of the dexterity she once showed, and even that is a long process."
"What's the first step then?" He asked lowly, thumb rubbing her cool hand slowly to remind himself she was there. The woman grimaced, doubt rolling off of her and Jaune grew more anxious, "Doctor, what do we need to do?"
"Honestly?" She asked, tossing her hands out to the sides with frustration Jaune could see etched into her mind and face equally. "I… I don't know. The damage is severe, too severe for me to do much more, assuming her back doesn't develop an infection. Or the rest of her torso, for that matter, after the surgery. I'm just not trained well enough for this sort of damage." "And I'm the best the White Fang have." "I want to help, I just…"
"Would Atlas be able to help?" He asked quietly, the doctor swallowing nervously and nodding. Looking at Neo he sighed and stood, leaning down to kiss her too-warm forehead affectionately before standing and looking at the doctor with icy blue eyes that froze her to the core, "Keep her alive and keep her healthy. The rest I will handle on my own."
"S-Sure." "That's dramatic of him. My job is to keep her alive after all" "I'll keep her taken care of, there aren't many in the higher ranks who got wounded taking the castle." After a hesitant second she leaned closer, voice falling to a whisper, "And don't think the White Fang here haven't seen that you've been protecting us." "Human or not, one good turn deserves another."
"I'll keep that in mind." He said, turning and heading for the door.
Pulling it shut behind him, he started making his way through the mostly empty halls to the bottom of the ship, where the officers were being held until the White Fang finished looting the castle of supplies and weapons. Finding where the imprisoned officers was easy, he just had to follow the fearful dread, and no one asked what he was doing anyways. The White Fang simply ignored him, for the most part, aside from a few curt nods to acknowledge his presence.
A temporary 'prison' of sorts, the White Fang had stacked up empty crates two crates wide into a sort of wall, with the entrances against the walls or each other, and stationed two droids at the entrance, an area a few feet across. They didn't even acknowledge him as he stepped in, and the unarmored and frightened officers turned to him. Looking around, he eventually found who he was looking for and made his way towards them.
The woman Neo had spared, when she teleported into Castle Fort. She looked up at him, face dirty and clothes torn from the White Fang's… rough treatment of their temporary prisoners, and in the strongest voice she could manage asked, "W-What do you want?" "I don't recognize you… A Human? Why?"
Behind him, he could sense the trepidation and anxiety of the men and women trapped there, around three dozen. All fresh, even if they were officers. All afraid. He realized he could do anything then, to this woman who was as afraid of him as he felt she would have been if a Beowolf had walked in, and they wouldn't try to stop him. They wouldn't even lift a finger to help her. The state of their clothes made him worry for a moment, but he put that aside. He didn't have time for it.
"Neo could have killed you, but she let you live instead." The girl flinched at the memory, recoiling away from him and shrinking into herself warily. "She's… Different, yeah, I know. But she's trying, for me. That is the reason she let you live." Hating himself, feeling sick at the act, he knelt and leaned in close, eyes narrowing at her, "Normally, she'd have killed you as painfully as she could."
She shrank away, against the smooth white metal of the Atlesian container, and he forced himself not to flinch at how frightened she was. "He knows that girl! Dust, is he going to give me to her? No!""W-What do you want? Why are you here? You won, just leave us alone, please! Don't hurt me!"
Sighing, he closed his eyes, focusing on hi Aura and his Semblance. He could feel the lightning arcing across him, like when you touched a light-socket with gloves on. Dull, tingling, but oddly nice in a way. It started at the base of his skull, crackling invisibly across his chest and shoulders and down his arms to his fingertips.
Opening his blue eyes, he looked at her panicked face, reaching out to touch a finger to her head. Speaking in a commanding tone, he said, "What I want, is your help, and for you to calm down."
And she did. He could feel it, both as an echo and from the connection he;d forged, like lightning with a conduit. Her breathing steadied, her thoughts eased out and levelled, and when she opened her eyes they had their shine back. "What do you need?"
Pulling his hand back, he smiled. "I need you to get a message to Winter Schnee or General Ironwood. Let them know I'm headed to Mountain Glenn, and need help." She nodded and he rose, turning to the others, "I'm sorry for what I had to do, I swear. I.. didn't want to."
Walking away, he tried to contain his anxiety, and surprise. Holding up a hand as he walked, he felt his heart pounding in his chest. He'd commanded that woman, controlled her, and she'd responded. How twisted was his Semblance going to be in the end?
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