The Games We Play

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 eye—meaning everything—and 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 ago—which was also suspicious, but was sadly not wholly uncommon in Mistral, especially for an age bracket that coincided with the Civil War—it 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 angles—to see if there had been anyone important named Fall or someone with a grudge who'd have been Cinder's approximate age—but 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 so—I 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 thing—the 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 happened—Cinder 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 distance—it 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 value—but if so, it was something even I could see. More likely, it was something emotional that brought her back and observation might come in handy…but it was just as likely that nothing would come of it. I'd have to think about it.

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, either—at 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.

I tried peering at them the way I had Cinder, but all I saw was a bright figure coming into a dim seeming world and fading them while they were small. It was Cinder, obviously—almost as obvious as that easily guessed and unhelpful scene.

Annoyed, I looked Cinder over again, still hoping for something clear and easy to understand to spontaneously present itself—and then my attention was drawn to the computer screen I was toiling away at, Pericognition picking up something. There were several articles that I flipped through absently, eyes drawn to the address. Most of them were news reports and several of those were obituaries, but that was enough for me at the moment, because beside the addresses were names.

"The Rhodopis family?" I mused aloud.

I changed my search to look for details about the man, who thankfully had a fairly distinctive name. While there were about a million Mayros in Mistral, Rhodopis was a far rarer name and I found out more about Mayro in the first result of my search. He had been a scientist and businessman, but what the newspaper hadn't seen fit to mention was his field—he'd been a major researcher of Dust back in the day when the peace following the Great War had helped open up markets. I found mentions of his name alongside such people as Grandfather Schnee, so he must have been a mover and shaker, if one that had seemingly been quickly forgotten after his death. He'd own his own Dust chain, though it hadn't grown far past Mistral before his demise and had latter been devoured by his competitors. Still, the scientific articles mentioning him spoke of his work highly. It was hard to feel particularly enthusiastic about it when I hunted down several of the papers he'd written and read them myself, but that was mainly because it had been written nearly fifty years ago and the field had come a long way since; at the time, it must have been ground breaking and a lot had been built on the back of his work.

What I found most interesting, however, was the fact that at the time, he must have been a fairly wealthy man. Despite the treaties and the festivals, everything hadn't become immediately friendly between the Kingdoms, especially not in areas that were by their very nature competitive. When the Great War had ended and international markets had started to grow, all the Kingdoms had been keen on making sure that they'd stand to make a profit and had been quite willing to fund a bunch of businesses to do it. Supposedly, that was a big part of how the Schnee Dust Company had grown so quickly and how it continued to stay on top to this day, but even if he'd failed in the end, Mayro Rhodopis must have made quite a bit of cash during his day.

And yet, I'd never heard of him, much less any of his relatives. In Mistral, where alliances and families were such a big deal, a fortune like that wouldn't just evaporate; someone would try to seize it and bring it into the fold. Granted, Mistral had been a very different place back then—or at least had been pretending it was as the Families ceased being members of royalty and appeared to fall from power—but even if it had been right after the Civil War, I'd have expected something.

Frowning, I started looking for Rhodopis in conjunction with terms like 'family,' 'merger,' and 'marriage.' The first two didn't present anything immediately useful, but the latter led me to an announcement about Mayro Rhodopis's marriage—his second marriage, in fact, which appeared to be a far bigger deal than his first if the utter lack of mention given to his first wife was any indication. In fact, it took me several minutes to even find her name and it was another brief obituary. It took even longer to find a picture of her and even then I couldn't confirm it; she appeared only as a beautiful woman standing next to Mayro during an award ceremony dated prior to her supposed death.

Her name, it seemed, was Doricha Rhodopis and she looked similar enough to Cinder that I placed her as a close relative. Under the circumstances, I couldn't be certain about the direction of that relationship, but while it was possible that Cinder was significantly older than she seemed, a good part of me pegged her as Cinder's mother. A single photo wasn't what I'd call conclusive evidence and I'd have liked to get a side by side shot of their DNA, but that was what I was feeling.

There was no mention of Cinder herself, however, before or after Doricha's death, which could have meant any number of things. Putting aside the improbable and fantastical for a moment—but not discarding them outright, sadly; if Cinder turned out to be a mad scientist's attempt to bring back is deceased wife or clone her or whatever, it would sadly not be the weirdest thing I've ever seen—the most likely explanation was that she'd just been a kid at the time and her father hadn't been so successful that the paparazzi saw fit to watch her every move like they now did with Weiss. Lots of small children didn't make it into the papers, after all.

But she didn't appear after that, either. If nothing else, she should have popped up somewhere as a Huntress, if not a rich young woman of marriageable age—and Mistral kept track of both of those things rigorously and regardless of gender. Even more worrying was the picture my admittedly scattered and faulty details painted.

Mayro Rhodopis had had a wife, Doricha, who was still largely an unknown to me. What I did know was that she'd died and he'd remarried. Knowing nothing but that and the…well, nature of Mistral was enough to cause concern. Albus, Finn, and Porfyro were all bastard children which was enough to cause a great number of people to look at them with concern. It had even resulted in the three of them being sent off to Haven. Mistral had a great deal of history when it came to wars of succession between brothers and half-brothers to make anyone concerned with things like that worry.

But, at the same time, it could be said that they were only bastard children. While Mistral was ferocious and ruthless, things had changed and the blood wars of old were, if not wholly a thing of the past, then at least pretending they were and trying to keep quiet. As bastard children, they were seen as a threat, but a limited one, at a disadvantage compared to those between legal partners when it came to inheritance. Porfyro would almost certainly have never actually been able to become the heir of Alexandria, much less hold it, unless he was exceedingly powerful and charismatic—partially because of the law and partially because of the infighting that would no doubt result and what it would cost the Alexandria family. That was why they had been allowed to become Hunters instead of, say, accidentally falling down the stair five times.

Stepsiblings, however, were more complicated. If Cinder was Doricha's daughter and Mayro remarried when he became more successful, there's the question of who is in line to inherit—the child of the present legal wife or the previous legal wife. More than that, if Mayro remarried as he was on the rise, it was completely possible that Doricha had just been a normal woman while his second wife had been someone tied closely to one of the Families—a noblewoman, in fact if not name. And while a bastard child might be at a severe disadvantage compared to a legal heir, a prior legal daughter may well hold precedence when it came time to inherit.

Continuing my search, I found out what I could about Mayro's second wife which, once again, wasn't a lot—to be expected from a basic search, I suppose—but 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.