RWBY The Champion and The Monster (RWBY x OC's) [On Hiatus]

Midnight

Flashback

A young Cinder Fall is scrubbing a floor, intercut with flashes of other children bullying her and the approaching feet of Madame.

Madame: I'll take her.

Cinder is in front of the Glass Unicorn hotel. She peers up at the building and looks around at bystanders down the street.

Madame: Come now.

Madame opens the front door of the hotel, and Cinder follows her through the crowded, ornate lobby. A blushing woman takes a swig of beer. Two women talk on a landing. Madame leads Cinder through a door behind the front desk, into an employee room, where she clears her throat to get Cinder's attention. Nearby stand the Madame's daughters. Cinder is distracted by a basket of steaming rolls.

Madame: You're to make sure the laundry is folded, the dishes are spotless, and the floors are clean enough to eat off of.

Madame begins walking away, and Cinder reaches toward her.

Cinder: F-food?

Madame's daughters gasp. The straight-haired one raised an eyebrow at her, and the curly-haired one giggles. Madame picks up a roll and tosses it onto the floor in front of Cinder.

Madame: Now hurry and get to your chores. The floor looks filthy.

Madame exits the room with a smirk as Cinder drops to her knees and picks up the roll. The stepsisters follow their mother, laughing to each other.

Later, Years Past

Cinder puts on her hotel uniform, one component of which is a necklace with a yellow crystal. She delivers food to a guest and decorates a cake with strawberries. She moves to take a strawberry, but the curly-haired stepsister slaps her hand away. The curly-haired stepsister takes the cake away, and the straight-haired stepsister takes a strawberry from it unimpeded.

Cinder eats the crust of a piece toast from a tray on the floor in the hall. She unclogs a toilet, dusts a glass Grimm statue, and carries towels.

Cinder trips in the lobby, breaking several dishes. The stepsisters laugh and Madame looks on angrily as Rhodes looks on.

Cinder scrubs the carpet of one of the second floor walkways. In the lobby, Rhodes shows off his sword. Cinder watches through gaps in the railing until a squishing sound distracts her. She sees that the step sisters have approached her with muddy shoes, leaving large clumps of mud in their wake. The straight-haired step sister stomps her left foot onto the floor and grinds the mud into the carpet.

Step Sister: You missed a spot.

The step sisters begin laughing, and Cinder grips the wet scrub brush. Steam comes from the brush as her palm glows. Cinder throws down the brush, creating a cloud of steam that draws everyone's attention. A sign at the check-in desk reading "WE DO NOT SERVE FAUNUS" is clearly legible for the first time.

In a storeroom, Cinder cries out as her necklace delivers an electric shock. Madame holds a remote control.

Madame: Now that wasn't very ladylike, was it? I suggest you remember your place.

Cinder falls on her hands and knees, panting.

Madame: Say it!

Madame presses the button, shocking Cinder again. Cinder hangs her head.

Cinder: Without you, I am nothing.

Cut to black. Cinder opens a vent.

Rhodes: Alright, what gives? Someone took my damn sword.