Chapter 191: Background Check

Chapter 191: Background Check

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.

Background Check

I started, of course, by scanning the ever-loving fuck out of the entire house. I Observed anything that caught my eyemeaning everythingand used my other senses to scan for any physical evidence.

It should go without saying that I'd already looked into Cinder's background story, as had Grandmother and Raven, but as was the case with everything concerning Cinder, details seemed scarce. Civilian parents, both of them dead, but there was evidence that put them as, if not her real parents, then at least associates of Cinder's. Given that they'd both disappeared into thin air some time agowhich was also suspicious, but was sadly not wholly uncommon in Mistral, especially for an age bracket that coincided with the Civil Warit was hard to say if she'd had any genetic relationship to either of them, but if I had to guess after seeing a glimpse of Cinder's heart and soul, I'd say no. Odds were they were allies of her that had either died for her cause or done something worth killing them over; either way, they'd long since been buried deep and Cinder was simply extracting one final use out of them.

I'd asked Grandmother to look into the obvious anglesto see if there had been anyone important named Fall or someone with a grudge who'd have been Cinder's approximate agebut nothing had turned up. That, sadly, was also not uncommon, because while Alexandria's Library may have weather two wars unscathed, that didn't mean that people hadn't had bigger things to worry about than recording every single detail when things went to hell. In the aftermath of the Civil War especially, fudging familial details was a fairly standard thing to do; regardless of what side you were on, it was probably too much to hope for that your enemies would spare your wife and kids if you lost. I hadn't asked, but I suspected that was part of why Mom had gotten away with the whole fleeing to another continent thing, so I may well owe my very existence to that fact.

At the same time, however, it meant that it was completely possible that Cinder was the unknown daughter of someone who'd been put to death. Searching the name Fall hadn't lead us anywhere, but given that it was the name that registered to my Semblance, it seemed safe to assume it wasn't just an alias. However, as with many things about my power, I was unclear on the details. What made a name register as real to it? Was it her birth name or merely the name she considered her own? If it was the latter, than looking in that direction would probably lead to a dead end; though I trusted my power greatly, I needed something more concrete.

But I had no idea where to even start looking. Hell, I didn't even know where to start looking. If I'd been able to Observe her, I'd have all sorts of things to go off of, but as it was, I couldn't even be sure of her age. Cinder looked young enough to pass as an older student at Haven, but as a powerful Huntress, that could have placed here anywhere from her early-twenties to her sixties; perhaps more, since I still wasn't sure exactly how powerful she was. And if you added in the fact that she might have been playing host to a Rider, even more soI was a bit doubtful that age would be a serious concern if they gave a damn. Which meant, worst case, that I'd need to search anywhere from the last twenty to a thousand years to find details about Cinder, which would suck in an epic way.

Before I did anything else, I needed to narrow things down. Fortunately, I had just the thingthe immaterial evidence that had been left on this household. While it was just vague enough to be unhelpful, it did imply a strong connection between it and Cinder, which meant I had a good place to start. Unfortunately, for a place all but plastered in dark memories, the house itself as surprisingly clean. There were no literal skeletons in any of the closets, the walls and basement were sadly free of corpses, there weren't any conveniently placed stacks of letters of pictures that would spell out precisely what had happenedCinder didn't even have the common courtesy to leave behind a bunch of family pictures with names written on the back, just in case anyone happened to forget who they were. While the house was homely, there weren't many signs implying that anyone had lived here, and what few there were led back to Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury rather than any mystery family.

Fine; I'd do this the hard way. Retracting my senses somewhat, I double checked the address and the houses position on the street, making a memo to look up everyone who had ever lived there. I'd bet that there was a cover of someone with no apparent connection to the place, perhaps even Cinder, buying it, but with Ajna, I knew there was a story behind this place and even Cinder would have a hard time covering up the very existence of who knows how many people, especially without making things even more suspicious. Yeah, she might be able to theoretically kill every single person who'd ever met her family with enough effort, but a trail of burning corpses does not subtlety make.

After making sure I was right, I called upon Vulturnus and released him into the power lines, guiding him through a web of electricity until I found a suitable computer. With some Psychokinesis and a Lightning Elemental, it was simply enough to handle things from a distanceit wasn't as if I was writing up any advanced programs or anything; I just typed Cinder's address into the search bar and looked to see what I could find. I used my scroll to fire off a message to Grandmother to see if she could find out more from her end, but all I was really doing was looking to see if it came up alongside any names. It was a slow process, relative to what I was used to, simply because of the limitations of the computer, but I began opening tabs and reading them remotely.

As I did that, I pondered whether or not I should mark a vantage point with Remote Viewing. It didn't seem like she spent much time here, but the very fact that Cinder, who'd been exceedingly meticulous thus far, would even return to a place she had a connection to told me that there was something here that mattered. Given that I could find much physical evidence within the house itself, she may well have burnt everything or otherwise disposed of it, but the simple fact that she was here was telling enough that I briefly wonder whether or not it might have any strategic valuebut if so, it was something even I could see. More likely, it was something emotional that brought her back and observation might come in handybut it was just as likely that nothing would come of it. I'd have to think about it.New novel chapters are published on

As I considered that, I turned my attention towards Cinder's minions, wondering not for the first time how they fit into this. If Cinder was a Rider, did they know? Would they care? Why were they loyal to her to begin with and what role did they play in her story? I hadn't seen any trace of what I thought to be a Rider on either of them, nor was there anything indicating infection within either of their Status Screens. Peering at them through the lens of Ajna didn't reveal anything particularly amiss, eitherat least, nothing like the crystals I'd seen on Cinder. Mercury appeared as an angular, armored figure with wings sprouting outwards from the center of his body and limbs, covering him almost entirely, while Emerald appeared to be an elongated three-dimension shadow with eyes that lacked sclera or pupils. Nothing particularly weird by the standards of souls, if more powerful seeming than most, but more importantly, it didn't tell me anything.

Continuing my search, I found out what I could about Mayro's second wife which, once again, wasn't a lotto be expected from a basic search, I supposebut I thought I was on the right track. I could feel the pieces starting to come together now; I had names, a plausible idea of what might have happened, and even a possible explanation for how a young girl might have gotten in touch with one of the Riders. If her father had worked in the field of Dust, that was a possible point of connection, however vague it might have been.

But I needed more. I needed a way to put all the pieces together.

Luckily, I thought I had that, too.

I took out my scroll and made a call.

"Jaune?" My Grandmother picked up after the second ring, frowning slightly on the other side. She must have still been up working but she didn't hesitate to put it aside; while calling in the middle of the night was rather rude on my part, she knew I wouldn't do it without cause. "What do you need?"

"Have you ever heard of a man named Mayro Rhodopis?" I asked promptly.

She frowned, furrowing her eyebrows. In fairness, it was probably a pretty random sounding question from her end.

"I have," She said after a moment. "Though not in a long time. Why?"

"I'm pretty sure he was Cinder's father," I explained. "I'm trying to put the pieces of her past back together. Do you know anything that might help?"

My grandmother sucked in a quick breath, paused for another moment, and then just sighed tiredly.

"As expected, this is going to be one of those conversations," She mused to herself before nodding at me. "A bit, perhaps. Are you after anything specific?"

"What can you tell me about his wives?" I asked.