hopefulbadger
patreon
Jaune to Joan Chapter 23
🕑 Added 2022-06-30 23:59:36 +0000 UTCChapter 23
“Watts! Watts! Science bitch!” Cinder demanded in a growing distraught yell.
Watts emerged from behind a corner, peeling off his gloves with a clear displeased glare. “What is it?" He answered, still distracted with his gloves.
"Joan! She! She! I set up the collar to shock her if she attacked any of us, but it didn't shut off! She- she's still being shocked! It will kill her! You! You need to help her." Cinder rambled in an uncharacteristically concerned tone.
"Brothers… get her up on the table, I'll do what I can." Watts rolled his eyes as he grabbed a new pair of gloves.
"Hurry! She- she's stopped- stopped breathing!" Cinder's voice hitched at the realization as she made it.
Watts groaned. "If you didn't want her to get shocked, then maybe you shouldn't have mounted her with a shock collar."
"Shut up! Just shut up and help her!" Cinder growled low, her grimm pulsing a moment but it was visibly fought off by her aura.
“Calm down.” Watts sighed patiently and looked over the jittering Joan. “I- Fuck!” Watts tried to reach out and touch Joan, but the shock of the shock collar shot through him. “She’s still being shocked?!” He reeled. “You carried her all the way over her while-”
“I had to bring her back here before it was too late! I! I!” Cinder knew that it was odd, that she willingly shocked herself to help Joan… but… but… she did! And there was nothing more to it! She acted on impulse! That was it! It had nothing to do with how much she missed Joan after her night off doing Salem’s bidding. No! Of course not.
“Well! Get it the hell off of her!”
“F- fine!” Cinder reached out timidly. With every inch she knowingly approached the shock collar, all Cinder could think was of all the times it had been used on her. She shook she trembled. She promised herself she would never endure that again. At least when she was just carrying Joan it was dampened. Painful, sure, but dampened.
“Cinder! Do you want me to save her or no?” Watts pushed with paranormal precision.
In a swift move, Cinder stole the back of the necklace, melted it with her semblance and chucked it off into a corner of the room. “There! There! Now- now save her already!”
“Give me a moment.” Watts observed the girl, her lips blueing. Hesitant, he lifted a stethoscope to his ears and pressed it’s base to Joan’s chest. “Still going, but weak…”
“What are you doing! Help her!” Cinder fidgeted impatient.
“I am figuring out how to-”
“Help her!” Cinder’s eyes lit up with her flames and her grimm arm launched for Watt’s throat only to stop an inch short of it.
“Out.” Watts ordered calmly.
“What!”
“You heard me, out.”
“No!”
“Then I’ll let her die.” Watts shrugged and drew up a chair.
“No! You! You help her now!” Cinder’s grimm fingers twitched and the sound of breaking bones filled the room as they bent inhumanly back and forward. Still, she did not move any closer to hurt the doctor.
“You can attack me, you can kill me.” Watts allowed as he sat down and reached for a magazine he had been reading. “Or, you can swallow all that pride of yours, walk out, and leave me to actually save her. Make your choice quickly tho dear Cinder. She hasn’t much time left.
“You- you monster…” Cinder glared, the maiden magic flickering weakly along her eyes.
“Hmm, I suppose.” He shrugged. “But if I am, than what does that make you.”
“I will kill you.” Cinder threatened and retracted her arm.
“Sure you will, now leave me to my work?”
“Bastard.” Cinder smeared, her aura growing weak as the grimm fought in an ongoing stalemate. She stepped backward, slowly making her way out of the room, eyes alight and locked on Watts.
“I presume I should move along with the final change when I am done saving her? I am prepared for it and all that should come along with it.” Watts offered with an all too prideful smirk.
“I-” Cinder didn’t much feel like punishing Joan. The shock collar had been more than enough, she knew that. But Joan had tried to attack, to kill her… In the end, it was only because she felt she had to, that allowing such an outrageous overstep to go unpunished was too clear a sign of weakness. “Yes, do it.” Cinder ordered and left the room, completely unaware that she had just signed her own death warrant.
With all the strength she had, Cinder stumbled out of the infirmary. She hated it, hated being incapable of helping. She wanted to be in there, to be able to make sure that Joan made it through, that she would be ok! It was her fault- she did this, and- and she couldn’t handle being the reason Joan- no! No! The being she called Joan was just her greatest hint at where Pyrrha might be. That was it! Nothing more! She only cared about Joan’s survival because it meant she would lose her chance to find Pyrrha and the rest of the maiden powers.
She truly strived to focus on anything but Joan and whether or not she was ok, but pacing outside the infirmary was not the most helpful method for getting her mind off of it. Eventually, her mind trailed back to the moment that caused it all. Joan trying to attack her. Cinder paced and ran the memory back through her mind. She had been mostly distracted with holding the tray for Joan and getting in the room seamlessly, but she remembered being taken aback by the mess the room had been. Of course, the moment Joan came at her, Cinder knew where she had gotten the weapons.
They had been an intentional trap left there by Cinder. She had planned around it, around the collar giving Joan a good shock, much in the same way her collar had been set up to shock Joan when she stepped out of the room without permission.
When she had first envisioned it, it had been a funny joke, she would just get to laugh at Joan for having been so stupid to think that could work. But… Cinder certainly did not feel like laughing now. She felt sick and conflicted on more levels than she was ready to admit.
Aside from the swords, Cinder remembered noticing that the room was quite the mess. The moved bed made sense, it would have had to been moved to take the blades that were hidden behind it. But she also remembered seeing much more of the room a mess. Maybe a little investigation would yield some suggestions as to what happened and why Joan had chosen today to strike. Hopeful of discovering anything of worth, and willing to do anything to take her mind off of worrying for Joan, Cinder set off.
Cinder’s first discovery was the bar that kept the door open. She couldn’t help but be impressed. Joan had made quite the little trap. It was needless, there wasn’t even a lock on the door, but Joan didn’t know that, and it was smart all the same. She was earnestly impressed that one of those Beacon brats could ever come up with something so impressive.
Less impressive, was the mess the room had become. Cinder wondered if a fight had broken out in the room, but that wouldn’t have made nearly as much of a mess. No, this looked… well, it looked like something she would have done- something she had done. When she had first been taken in by Salem and the grimm queen set her up in the overzealously feminine room, Cinder lashed out and nearly destroyed it all just to make a point. Cinder had been treated as nothing more than a ‘worthless’ woman before, she knew all too well the difference between men and women. There was none; only how they were treated. She tried to toss it- all her femininity- aside when she first arrived at the grimm castle, but Salem stopped that. The witch allowed Cinder to tear up the room, to give up on the fluffy over the top dresses, and even to drop the ‘ella’ from her name, but Salem insured Cinder kept all her edge; all her power. It just so happened, a good amount of it could come the femininity she had been subjugated for could be a strength.
Men as a whole, tended to get rather dumb around Cinder as Salem molded her, and even more so as she grew older. It was a true advantage, the same thing that made everyone else think she was worthless. It made all the more dangerous. Cinder always relished in that reality. How Salem had taught her to turn weakness to a strength.
In truth, that struggle was why she had chosen to turn Joan into a woman. Her whole life before Salem had been an effort in being shown why being a woman was horrible, why she was so vile and worthless for being born one while her male counterparts were immediately assumed to be strong. Jaune had no doubt benefited from that tendency. The fool had near no strength of her own- or, at least none naturally. But she had still been let into Beacon. Likely only because at the time she was being seen as a man. Cinder thought it would be quick, that stripping Joan of that masculinity, stealing away her gender and all that privilege would be enough to make her shatter. It hadn’t. But by the time she had started, it was too late to stop. It wasn’t like she could go back to the traditional torture. Her grimm reacted to Joan’s pain too, it was what truly kicked what Ruby had started into life. In only a number of weeks, the grimm crept up most of her arms.
The plan really should have worked. Any proud man would have revolted against what was happening to Joan. Men, if they were one thing, were fragile ego ridden little creatures; ones that could feel cripplingly threatened from just the question of their masculinity. But, Joan? She had survived having it completely, socially, emotionally, chemically, and physically stripped away. But… Joan didn’t ever much seem to be much for ego, much for masculinity, much for any of it.
With a small concerned frown, Cinder began to pick up the clothing that had been strewn across the room. Joan would need it when she got back, and some of these were her best dresses. This sleek one, that poofy one, and, honestly the other one with the mouthwatering low cut. Cinder was at a loss for how or why the clothes had ended up on the floor. Joan never much seemed to hate the clothing- or at least, she never showed it like Cinder had when she had lived in the room. She supposed that whatever masculinity that had hidden inside Joan could have just snapped, but for whatever reason, Cinder didn’t much think that was the case. She had no real logic to it, but her gut just told her it was something more complex than that. Joan… well, Cinder didn’t really know what Joan was, should be, or identified with anymore, but if she was anything, it was far from simple. No, no, her Joan could never be simple.
Cinder almost grew a smile as she thought about ‘her Joan’ and how unique the woman was. She felt she certainly would have, but she was still primarily concerned with what was going on. What had happened? Could- no! It couldn’t be that Joan had been that upset over her being gone one night. Cinder knew it would have been better if she had warned her toy of her oncoming absence, but it wasn’t like she owed hour to updates to Joan. She didn’t think Joan was that fragile- though… enduring what she had put Joan through could make just about anyone rather fragile.
It took Cinder quite a while, but eventually, Cinder realized almost all of the clothing had been tuned inside out- something that would only really have happened if Joan was trying it all on. Not just that, some of them were tied up inside two or three layers of clothes. Joan was no fashionista, but she wasn’t an idiot, She knew no green dress layered atop a purple and yellow dress would look good. It was peculiar. Had it been an overly cold night? The room could get a bit chilly. Maybe Joan layered to stay warm, but it wasn’t like the bed didn’t have a thick blanket.
Cinder shook her head. “No, no, none of that works… it doesn’t explain why she attacked.” Stuck, Cinder turned to what she knew best, the shattered… everything. Cinder of all people was overly familiar with rage and destruction. She felt like she could trace Joan’s storming through the room by comparing it against what she would have done. When tied in with the trails of clothing, She had a solid path in her head.
It all led her back to the bed. Cinder felt less than confident, but her gut said it started there. On the bed, the covers had been tucked in around a false body, mostly made of spare clothes and a pillow or two. Cinder frowned. Something was still missing. Frustrated and concerned, Cinder ran her hands over the bed, looking for anything her eyes couldn’t see. Wet! There were two damp or wet spots on the edge of the bed. She sniffed it and her hands rather timidly. No odor, so, water? Tears maybe? Joan was very strong in her own way, but she was not quite one to shy away from tears.
Tears… if it were tears… frankly, there were hundreds of things it could be. Maybe a birthday, maybe the realization that she had been there over a year? Hell, maybe Joan just missed someone from her old life. Cinder found the idea of missing anyone rather challenging, but she was passively aware that Joan loved her friends from back home. Could it be something along the lines of that?
Cinder sighed, frustrated and fearful, but for what must have been a record amount of times in one day, Cinder kept her head about her. She took a deep breath and patiently marched off to her last possible explanation. Mercury. Maybe he had heard something about what had Joan acting out.
End of Chapter 23
