Cinder Fall

**Cinder Fall** is one of the main antagonists of *RWBY*. She is a member of a small group of people with malicious goals led by Salem and the leader of her own faction. Her associates include her subordinates Mercury Black and Emerald Sustrai, the criminal Roman Torchwick, and Adam Taurus, a high-ranking member of the White Fang. Her machinations are the driving force behind the events of the first 3 volumes of RWBY.

In "Heroes and Monsters", Cinder becomes the new Fall Maiden, granting her vast power. However, in "End of the Beginning", Ruby Rose unleashed an attack of unexplained nature using her silver eyes, enveloping Cinder in a blinding flash of light. In "The Next Step", it is revealed that she lost her left eye, with massive scarring over that side of her face, and she has incredible difficulty speaking. Emerald initially acts as Cinder's aid when she needs to speak until she is shown to have regained most of her vocal control in "Dread in the Air".

## Statistics

* **Name**: Cinder Fall, Fall Maiden
* **Origin**: RWBY
* **Gender**: Female
* **Age**: 20s
* **Birthday**: September 12
* **Star Sign**: Virgo
* **Classification**: Human (1/4 Grimm), Fall Maiden
* **Blood Type**: A
* **Height**: 180 cm (5'11") in heels
* **Weight**: 51 kg (112 lbs)
* **Skin Color**: Light
* **Eye Color**: Amber
* **Hair Color**: Ashen-Black
* **Alignment**: Bad
* **Status**: Active
* **Class**: **SS-Class**
* **Powers and Abilities**: Dust Manipulation, Fall Maiden Powers
* **Standard Equipment**: Dust-Infused Dress, Lava Dust Swords/Bow
* **Weaknesses**: Continual use of her Aura will cause it to decay to the point where she can be left open to more significant damage. Her Grimm Arm does not gain protection from Aura
* **Notable Attacks/Techniques**: Maiden's Flame, Fallen Arrow, Burning Sword Slash, Lava Burst, Shards of Despair, Hyper Maiden's Flame, Maiden’s Inferno
* **Voice Actor**: Yūko Kaida

### Power Stats

* **Attack Potency**: At least **Town level**, **City level** with Maiden Powers
* **Speed**: At least **Hypersonic+**
* **Lifting Strength**: At least **Class K**
* **Striking Strength**: At least **Class TJ**, **Class PJ** with Maiden Powers
* **Durability**: At least **Town level**, **higher** with her Aura, **City level** with Maiden Powers
* **Stamina**: **Superhuman**
* **Range**: **Extended Melee Range** with Swords, Several **Meters** with Grimm Arm, **Dozens of Meters** with Ranged Attacks, Several **Kilometers** with Maiden Powers
* **Intelligence**: **Genius** (Cinder is a highly skilled infiltrator and manipulator, able to sneak into Beacon and remain there undetected for months, formulating a plan that would simultaneously allow her to take the Fall Maiden's powers, bring about the fall of Beacon Academy, and deal a massive political and societal blow to Vale and Remnant as a whole. She is highly skilled in unarmed combat and swordsmanship, using such skills to fend off numerous Atlas Soldiers at once and easily defeating them without being hit once. She is also very skilled in archery, capable of launching three arrows at once with great accuracy and pragmatically exploiting any advantage whenever possible. Her capabilities with Dust are great enough to allow her to match Glynda, and after obtaining the Fall Maiden's full power she was able to outmatch Ozpin in direct combat, even stating that she had the ability to command her power in unimaginable ways.)

## Appearance

Cinder has short ashen-black hair and bright amber eyes, while her fingernails are painted dark red. She wears a black mask that appears to be made of black glass over her missing left eye, and the scarring from said injury extends into a slight x-shape over the bridge of her nose, as well as having deformed and degraded the tissue of her left ear. She wears a long, dark red dress with one long, wide sleeve hiding her left arm. The edges of the collar and the opening for the right arm are gold-colored, and the upper chest and left sleeve are decorated with golden designs.

The right side of her dress is open from the hip down with two gold-colored straps made up of interwoven ropes connecting the front half to the back half of her thigh. Under the dress, she appears to wear black pantyhose. On the right hip, the dress has a black rhombus-shaped gem set in a gold-colored metal of the same shape, with feathers of varying shades of blue extending from the bottom of it. On her right arm, she wears a long, gray glove, the top of which has a gold-colored metal ring with curvy branching extensions going up her arm. Her right ear has a new, ring-shaped earring higher up than the dangling black gem earring.

## Personality

Cinder is ruthless and cruel, as demonstrated when she delivers a killing blow to a clearly defeated Pyrrha Nikos at point-blank range and later throws a spear at a defenseless Weiss Schnee. Relentless in her imperious pursuit of power, Cinder demonstrates a cunning that shows in her successful manipulation of events throughout the first three volumes. Usually, she maintains a calm and collected demeanor and is willing to take over a fight if necessary.

Cinder relishes in dominance and gloating. She is strict with her subordinates and displays shameless pleasure in the misery she has caused others. Although she refers to her partnership with Roman as "cooperation", it is obvious she has the upper hand, for she very quickly makes an implicit, and not very subtle, threat to Roman by conjuring a fireball in her hand. Cinder also seems to be ambitious and demanding in this role. Often, she is very direct on the matter at hand, as shown when she quickly jumps to Roman's failure of robbing a cargo hold of Dust. When Jaune gets the slight upper hand in a fight, Cinder's lack of dominance leads her to show how superior she thinks of herself, calling him "a failure with a deathwish".

Cinder expects her subordinates to execute exactly as she wishes with what little she gives them. She does not seem to tolerate failure, seen with Roman, preferring for her goals to be successful regardless of the situation. Cinder prefers that such problems be solved quickly, is seen to give very direct orders and keeps Roman on a strict need-to-know basis.

After the Fall of Beacon, Cinder is utterly humiliated from her encounter with Ruby atop Beacon Tower. She no longer displays her usual confidence, instead appearing sullen and taking insults from the other members of Salem's Faction without reply due to her inability to speak and thus relying on her subordinates. Later, in "Taking Control", she is visibly horrified by watching Tyrian Callows maniacally massacre a Beowolf. In "No Safe Haven", Cinder is shown to have a deep desire for vengeance against Ruby, going as far as to have Emerald create a hallucination of Ruby in a submissive state for Cinder to imagine burning alive. However, Arthur Watts notes that her desire for revenge against Ruby affects her judgment, shown when she negotiates a deal with Raven that would allow the latter to betray her by stealing the Relic from Haven Academy.

Cinder is overconfident, so new conflict elements do not faze her. Despite this, however, in the rare occurrence in which she is caught off guard, Cinder's monumental temper surfaces, showing her immense shock and outrage. This is most notable when Jaune Arc nicks the edge of her mask during the battle at Haven Academy and when Raven bests her in Haven's Vault. The explosive response to even the slightest attack on her shows Cinder's utter disdain to the fallibility and weaknesses of her humanity, especially in response to having them exploited by a perceived inferior foe.

Despite Cinder's continuous descent into megalomania and the lengths she has gone to obtain power, she apparently detests being called out on it as shown when Raven cites Cinder's choice to take the arm of a Grimm. Cinder retorts angrily, showing she sees herself as being beyond judgment or the moral codes of others. This shows just how little she thinks of others, feeling that none have the right to pass judgment on a superior being such as herself, indicating that she is amoral, seeing no point to limiting oneself or ambitions based on a code of ethics. In this way, Cinder proves that she is willing to do anything to achieve power, even forsaking her own humanity, seeing herself already as being beyond Human.

However, Cinder's detesting of fear leads her to react poorly when others see her feel it, including Jaune Arc during their fight, Raven in the antechamber outside the Vault of the Spring Maiden, and most notably by Salem during her training. Cinder seeks to be feared and therefore detests being made to feel fear by both her enemies and her superiors alike.

Cinder's arrogant and confident demeanor also brings out a tendency of hers to gloat in the face of her enemies. However, this tendency of hers is known to backfire, for it distracts her at the Fall of Beacon from the imminent threat that Ruby poses, catching her off guard. Of Cinder's many personality traits, her compulsion to bask in her enemies' defeats and her own triumphs often proves to be her undoing.

## Main Skills and Equipment

**Dust Manipulation**: Cinder has a strong command over lava Dust, often wielding and manipulating it in battle. Her primary techniques seem to be firing a highly forceful blast of lava, as well as summoning multiple pillars of lava that erupt from the ground. She is able to transform a cloud of dust she had previously dispensed into several shards of what appears to be glass, which she proceeded to launch as projectiles. She is even able to conjure a Dust-based pair of dual black glass swords, construct and then seamlessly transform them into a bow with a series of black glass arrows ready to fire. She is also capable of triggering this ability to change the shape of Dust-imbued clothes, as shown by her changing from a stealth outfit to a formal dress instantly.

* **Dust Weapon**: Cinder's Weapon is a Dust-created and glass-based weapon with multiple forms created. The weapon consists of a pair of blades which combine to form a bow. In Sword mode, the weapon is a single-handed weapon similar to a European seax or a Moorish scimitar. The blade is broad and has multiple cutting edges, although the blades must be relatively light to enable the user to keep them balanced when using them in their designed dual-wielding form. In Bow mode, the weapon uses a straight bow design with a hand-grip built into the frame and is capable of producing multiple broadhead-tipped arrows that detonate on impact. The arrows are able to reform themselves if something should shatter them before they hit their target.
* **Fallen Arrow**: Cinder combines both of her Dust swords into her signature bow, firing a volley of arrows at her opponents.
* **Burning Sword Slash**: Cinder creates a Dust broadsword that brutally slashes her opponent, causing an explosion upon impact.
* **Lava Burst**: Cinder causes the ground below her to erupt, releasing a burst of lava Dust at her opponent.

**Fall Maiden Powers**: As one of the four Maidens, she holds one fourth of the powers the Wizard had carried, including his powerful control over True Magic. As such, she is able to preform various supernatural feats without the use of Dust, such as changing the weather, controlling the elements, flying, creating forcefields, and drastically increasing her strength and durability. Before aquiring the other half of the power formerly held by Amber, this was weakened appropriately.

* **Maiden's Flame**: Cinder shoots a large fireball generated from her palm at her opponent.
	+ **Hyper Maiden's Flame**: A stronger variation of the original Maiden's Flame, Cinder forms a much larger ball of fire from both hands that explodes on contact.
* **Shards of Despair**: Forming several shards of ice behind her, Cinder sends them flying at the opponent to inflict piercing damage with the added effect of minor frostbite.
* **Maiden's Inferno**: Impaling her opponent with an exploding arrow shot from her Bow Blade, Cinder creates a circlet of fire underneath her before shooting it as a wave of fire that burns the opponent. To finish, Cinder generates wings and raises a giant fireball into the air and slams it to the ground, incinerating her opponent in a gigantic explosion.

## Relationships

* Salem Starlight
* Ruby Rose