Epilogue
2
Null did as he was told - his eyes flashed and a wave of bright silver light shot out from his eyes, but while the teams hadn't been ready, or even prepared, that didn't mean they were unable to react. Pyrrha was the first - her body enveloped in an onyx glow, one arm snapping behind her and magnetically grabbing ahold of the bullhead JNPR had flown in on, bringing it up and over her head and slamming it down right in between the two teams and the silver-eyed Faunus. The moment the attack harmlessly splashed against the shuttle and faded away, Ruby was speeding around it in a hail of rose petals - finding in her accelerated timeframe that Taurus and Null each were already on the move, the former leaping over the shuttle in slow motion, the latter appearing to brace himself to crash straight through it.
Ruby didn't give him the chance - charging straight for the silver-eyed Faunus, hooking him with her scythe, and pulling him away, practically throwing him around the now crashed Bullhead and towards her teammates. Her semblance faded away and the world snapped back into real-speed - Null rocketed towards the remaining portion of RWBY as Taurus leapt over the shuttle. Yang bolted forward, clapping both of her hands together with a thunderous boom, and then throwing her cybernetic fist forward to smash into Null's back.
Null recovered just before Weiss could summon her pale knight behind him, and as the knight swung its blade down, a ghostly contrail left in its wake, he spun around and smacked it away with his mace, using the recoil of the attack to push his feet to the ground and grind to a halt. He sensed Blake's pistol and ribbon coming towards him, and intercepted it - causing it to wrap around his wrist instead of his stomach, and now with leverage, he pulled hard, not managing to rip Blake off of the ground and towards him, but at least causing her to stumble as she met unexpected resistance. Yang capitalized on this immediately, and grabbed on the ribbon, and with a single shared look to Blake, the two combined their efforts and pulled against Null - who initially resisted their efforts, and would have blasted them with another shot from his eyes, had Weiss' knight not slashed upwards at his back, picking him up from his feet and removing all resistance against the two pulling at him. As he flew towards Blake and Yang, the latter shifted her footing and began to pull even harder - making eye contact with both Weiss and Ruby as the latter sped into position behind the former.
Null zoomed past Blake and Yang, as Weiss summoned up multiple gravity glyphs in his path, all of which he crashed through, thus speeding him up far beyond what Blake and Yang could have accomplished through strength alone. Now speeding like a rocket, Weiss thrust her sword in front of her like a fencer attempting to score a hit - and though his aura took the blow, the impact was still titanic and was even enough that she carved a deep gouge into his armor. He tumbled past Weiss and right towards Ruby, who used her semblance to increase the speed of her perception of the world, and choose the best possible moment with which to leap forward and attack.
When she found her moment, she leapt into the air and swung her scythe - and at her speed, even if one didn't blink, they would have missed it. Naught but a red blur could be seen zipping past Null, Ruby's scythe dragging across the groove carved in his armor and splitting it in two - causing the chestplate to dangle from his shoulders and fall off entirely once he tumbled to the ground, his aura flickering, but still active.
"Keep it up!" Ruby yelled, to which Blake happily acquiesced - hopping up into the air and pulling on the ribbon, using Null's body as a weight and yanking her over to him, blade lunging forward.
Only for Blake to just pass straight through him as though he didn't exist. Blake tumbled to the ground and rolled to her feet, spinning around and watching as Null lazily got to his feet, eyes darting between her and the rest of her team - and locking onto the former when all three of them readied their weapons and unleashed a torrent of gunfire upon him. Blake watched with rapt fascination - and no small amount of horror - as all of the projectiles just passed straight through him.
He was intangible - Taurus had hit the lottery!
Worse, was that this had bought the now bored-looking Faunus the time he needed to prepare his coup-de-grace, as his eyes flashed with bright silver light, the energy building for a mighty attack. Blake tried to dash forward, to intercept it and take it for herself, to spare her team, but she wasn't fast enough - but that too applied to Null, who in one moment was looking at three quarters of Team RWBY, and in the next, just as his gathered energy left his eyes, was looking at empty air and cold, stone ground.
Blake sensed her team suddenly arrive next to her, as Ruby took her place at the front - her own eyes signaling a buildup of her own power. Blake let out a light sigh of relief as Null whipped around and then, likely for the first time in his life, was hit with a taste of his own medicine - as a wave of potent aura-nullifying energy slammed into the Faunus and caused him to stumble over, and fall to a knee, openly smoldering.
Ruby, gasping for air, straightened herself up and risked a quick glance over to JNPR, seeing that they were being equaled out by Taurus - the Faunus leader using his Yang-like semblance and the otherworldly metal that coated his blade to great effect. She turned back to Null, and called out, "you're done!" Like an annoyed school teacher - Null was good, but she could tell he'd come into his power at an early age, and had used it to become powerful by proxy - by nullifying the abilities of anyone he fought and brutalizing them that way. While the same could be said of her, his fatal flaw was that he'd never even considered what he should do if he fought someone who shared his abilities.
Null, to his credit, still got to his feet, and shook his head, as if to declare, no, he wasn't.
Ruby sighed, as she heard her team ready their weapons again. "Please." She begged the man, not wanting to have to hurt him if it wasn't necessary.
His response, wasn't what she expected:
His eyes glowed again.
She was so stunned - so caught up in the mere question of how? - that she didn't react in time to stop what came screaming at them like a freight train. When Null's wave of energy washed over her and her team, Ruby gasped - the world suddenly feeling colder, the colors looking less vivid, sound sounding fainter, she she, feeling weaker, as her aura vanished.
This stunned state was reflected by the rest of her team - who had to scramble to re-prepare themselves as Null came rushing in as fast as he could propel himself without aura. Ruby wasn't able to dodge his next attack - she had to bring the haft of her scythe around to block his attack, but without her aura, she was slower than usual, the scythe felt heavier, and the blow of his mace on its haft was sent right down her bones. She stumbled to the side with a gasp of unexpected pain, and though Yang charged in, jumping over her and decking Null in the face - spreading some of his blood across the stone ground - Null took it in stride and spun into the attack, before swinging his mace like a baseball bat right at Yang's chest. Yang brought up her arms to defend herself, but without her aura, that meant she was using flesh and bone to defend against a mace. Her left forearm snapped into pieces and immediately went limp, while her cybernetic right arm was left with a sizeable dent and the sounds of a lot of metal grinding against itself inside.
Yang gasped in pain, and fell back a step as Null went in for another attack - this one aimed at her head. However, Blake and Weiss jumped in - the latter pulling Yang out of the way while the former took aim and fired at him with her pistol. The bullet dug into his shoulder and, alongside Yang being moved, caused his attack to go wide - but he adjusted fast enough and instead directed it towards Ruby. Ruby was able to account for the sudden increase in weight she had to deal with from her scythe, and spun it around to intercept this attack, but her instinctual followup doomed her - she pulled the trigger, intending to use the recoil of the weapon to spin her around and add more power to her next slice, but without her aura, she lacked both the strength to fully account for that recoil, and the defense to hardly even feel it in the first place. So, because the only point of contact between her and the scythe was her hands, when it fired, her arms were viciously jarred backwards by the recoil, pulling the muscles in her shoulders, and her fingers lost their grip on the haft - and she would have lost them entirely had Null not taken advantage of her distraction and hit her in the head - she was unconscious before she even hit the ground, blood freely flowing from the side of her head.
Null immediately turned and continued his assault, closing the distance between him and Weiss such that Blake couldn't try to shoot him again without risking wounding one of her aura-less friends. Another pulse of silver energy from his eyes kept everyone involved stunned, and gave him the time he needed to jab the end of his mace into Weiss' chest - causing her to stumble back a step and open herself up to a full-fledged swing from the anti-armor weapon. She would have taken the attack too, had Yang not reversed their positions and used her only viable means of defense - her arm. Null's mace smashed into her mechanical arm, now damaging it beyond function. Yang, to her credit, lunged forward and smashed her head into Null's nose, but his response was to grab the now thoroughly disarmed brawler and spin around with her - just as Blake came charging in to stab him in the flank.
She couldn't avoid what happened next, and before anyone could react, her blade buried into the wide-eyed Yang's abdomen.
Weiss cried out in fear as Blake froze solid at the realization of what she'd done. She didn't even react when Null shoved Yang forward - further onto the blade - and sending the both of them spilling onto the ground, Yang in pain, and Blake having to scramble to try and hold pressure on the wound, or remove Yang from the battlefield, or something!
Now fighting only Weiss, Null turned to face her menacingly, the grip on his mace tightening. Weiss, regardless of her fear or her chances, charged anyways - trying to use the superior reach of her sword against the inferior reach of his mace. When he swung, she used its weight against him, batting it out of the way and ducking underneath the blow - and she used this tactic to great effect, managing to stab him in the chest and flank twice, but then he changed his tactic - grabbing his mace in both arms and throwing it, not at her - but at the rest of her team. Weiss couldn't resist and took the bait - watching with horror as it tumbled towards them, and crying out as she realized Blake didn't even see it coming. She reached out and shouted, but it was too late - the mace slammed into Blake's back, putting her on the ground and likely taking several ribs with it.
Null wasn't done however - he used the distraction to close the distance between him and Weiss, grabbing her dominant arm with his and shoving it out of the way, and then grabbing her throat with his free arm. He used his momentum and strength to pick Weiss up by the throat, and then choke-slam her onto the ground, before standing to his feet and viciously stomping on her chest, grunting and yelling with each attack, quickly staining the bleach-white uniform first brown with the dirt of his boot, then red with the blood leaking out of the lashes and bruises he left on her chest.
He only stopped when he heard "Null!" From Taurus, and turned to see that his leader literally surrounded by enemies.
As Null and RWBY had battled each other, Taurus landed on the other side of the shuttle, one hand on the sheathe of his blade, finger on its trigger, the other on his hilt, his hair aglow a vibrant red - but before he could pull the trigger and unleash his semblance in an attempt at cutting RWBY in two, separate them, and prevent them from prying his living weapon away from him, Pyrrha's shield came spinning in, forcing him to shift position and fire his weapon prematurely. His sterling metal blade shot out of the sheathe like a bullet, he caught the dark hilt and swung upwards at a speed even many Huntsmen couldn't match, and successfully batted the shield away like a baseball - noting with satisfaction that the cutting power of his blade, enhanced by the otherworldly metal his enemy had provided him, was indeed enough to leave a mark on his now formerly indomitable shield - but this only bought him a second - as Ren and Nora were charging him, the former's pistols unleashing a staccato of fire and the latter's hammer raised and ready for a mountainous strike.
Grunting, Taurus sheathed his blade again and fell back a step, before launching a lightning strike that caught both the downward swing of Nora's hammer and the straight punch of Ren's bladed pistol. Sparks flew as their weapons dug into his, but he knew what this was - a distraction. He saw out of the corner of his eye Pyrrha and Jaune circling around him, the former twisting her sword around until it took the shape of a rifle, falling to a knee, and bracing herself - readying to fire - while the latter, once he had flanked the Faunus, charged, his bastard sword held high in a confident one-handed grip.
Taurus bared his teeth, feeling his strength grow from what he was absorbing through his blade. He let it grow for another moment, before he shoved his blade to the side and himself to the other - causing Ren and Nora to stumble in one direction while he dived to another. Pyrrha lost her shot as Taurus was now in between two of her teammates, and she was forced to abandon trying to snipe him and instead charged in. Jaune slid around Ren and Nora as they recovered, and he swung his bastard right at Taurus' back - not expecting him to whip around at the last second and take the blow with his back to the ground. Jaune banked on his superior positioning and the recoil Taurus no-doubt felt from the impact of his sword - but he had no idea that the blade was made of the metals it was, and thus had no idea that Taurus hadn't felt a thing. He thus didn't catch that Taurus was still holding the blade with one hand, the other snaking down to his hip, pulling his scabbard up, aiming it at Jaune's chest, and firing.
Though Jaune's aura took the hit, he fell back with a grunt of pain, and Pyrrha lunged in. She used her shield to intercept an iaido slice from Taurus, and with his weapon pinned down, stabbed at him with her sword - catching him right in the chest and causing him to fall back just as Jaune had. Pyrrha kept up the attack, and Taurus found that her name and reputation lived up to reality - as each time he swung his sword she would dodge it by inches and quickly follow it up with either a cut from her sword, a stab from her spear, or a punch from her inherited shield.
So Taurus changed up the gameplan, leaping back several feet and sheathing his blade as he soared through the air. Pyrrha - and her entire team - took the bait and charged him headlong, but he was willing to sacrifice power for speed here - and when he unsheathed his blade, a crescent-shaped wave of red energy blasted out of it, carving up the ground and surging right towards JNPR. Taurus found himself surprised when it was Jaune who took the attack - throwing his arm out to stop everyone and then dropping behind his shield, which took the attack with only damage to the paint. Taurus nodded his head to the side, willing to admit he was impressed, but his blade was already in its sheathe, and the time he'd bought himself was time he could pour more power into the next attack.
Jaune issued orders to his team that Taurus didn't catch, but the idea was made apparent anyways - they were going to flank him again, with Ren and Nora charging to his right and rear, Jaune to his left, and Pyrrha to his center. It wouldn't lend itself well to taking them all out with one swing, but it didn't matter - he would bet his semblance would outpace Pyrrha's skill, and when she came within striking distance, he made that bet - and won. His blade blasted out of its sheathe like a rocket, so fast that Pyrrha couldn't dodge it - and thus she had to bring up her shield just as whip-fast as she usually avoided his attacks. His blade carved into it, right down the center - bisecting the bright white star in a shower of sparks. She was then summarily shot backwards as the blast wave of his semblance hammered into her, full-force, leaving him to fight her teammates as she scrambled to her feet.
Jaune, Ren, and Nora all attacked as one, and Taurus deemed Nora the next biggest threat - so he lunged out of the way of Jaune's attack, leaving the man's bastard to slam into the ground, and then crouched out of the way of Ren's, and now, perfectly positioned, he swung his sword with both hands right at Nora - whose own weapon detonated the grenades loaded into it to add to her impact force. This did as much to Taurus as Jaune's similar attempt at overwhelming him had, and Taurus sliced at it, managing to cleave off the upper half of the warhammer right at its neck. He fluidly straightened up and spun around, reversing his grip on his blade and then shoving it backwards - right into Nora's stomach.
It didn't break skin or aura, but it hurt and she was sent stumbling back, as Taurus then lunged forward and cut at Jaune's face. As he did this, he noticed Null enjoying his victory a little too much - and while, yes, it was worth it to hurt a Schnee, it would be much better for all of them if they would just hurry up and end this. Bigger threats were coming.
"Null!"
Null stopped stomping on the Schnee's chest and saw Taurus' expression - such as it was, half covered by the Grimm mask. With a nod, Null displayed his understanding, and Taurus sheathed his blade, rapidly retreating. Ren crouched down to pick up Nora, and Jaune turned to make sure Pyrrha was okay - but the Invincible Girl was worriedly gesturing back towards the two Faunus, and when Jaune turned back around, it was just in time to get hit in the face by a wave of silver energy.
Jaune barely had time to shake his head before the hairs on his neck stood up, and on instinct he dropped to the ground and hid behind his shield - which saved his life, as Taurus' blade chipped the top of it, swinging through the area where his head had been. Jaune felt the weakness that washed over him from Null's powers, suddenly feeling as though he'd run a marathon and his body was sore from an improper workout.
Jaune blindly stabbed upwards - but found his blade batted out of the way, and then his shield smashed into by a heavy weight. His vision cleared up to see Null standing over him, expression livid and sharp, canine-like teeth bared. Jaune's eyes widened as Null lifted his mace and hit his shield again - this time from the side, pushing it out of the way so he could follow it up with a punch to Jaune's face. Jaune felt his nose break, but no follow-up attack came - as Nora and Ren engaged Null, the former throwing the head of her hammer at him while the latter lunged in with his bladed pistols. Null smacked the hammer away and grunted, some blood spilling out of his flank from the attack he'd been unable to avoid.
As Null engaged Nora and Ren, Jaune turned over to his stomach to see that Pyrrha was fighting Taurus alone - and she was on the backfoot. Their skill appeared to equal each other out, but without her semblance and aura, Taurus dominated in strength, and she was forced to shift to a more defensive fighting style she wasn't familiar with, one that put her on the backfoot and, somehow, left her shield bearing physical scars from every slice from Taurus. Jaune scrambled to his feet and charged the two - yelling as he did so. Taurus' head snapped back to see him rushing forward, and Jaune almost missed the grin on his face as he stopped struggling against Pyrrha and hopped out of the way.
The two regrouped together, their weapons raised, as Taurus, haughtily, stood up straight and lifted his arms, as though daring the two of them to attack him.
After sharing a glance, they did - an unspoken plan passing between them. Jaune charged as Pyrrha threw her shield, and just as they'd expected, Taurus deflected the shield with a lightning-fast iaido slash from his sword. Jaune braced himself for the hurt that was about to come, and gritted his teeth when Taurus deflected both his shield-punch and rabid chop, before dashing forwards, his blade out and dragging across Jaune's chest, spraying blood everywhere and leaving Jaune to fall to his knees as Taurus continued onwards to Pyrrha, believing her to now be down a shield.
The reality, however, had been that the two had relied on his arrogance - planned on it, even, without saying a word. When Taurus took his eyes off of Jaune, Jaune summoned his reserves of strength and lunged forward for that red white and blue disc he could never bring himself to ask Pyrrha to throw away. He grabbed it - not really realizing that this was the first time he'd picked it up, and certainly not marveling at its surprising lack of weight - and as Taurus and Pyrrha engaged each other, he threw it with all his strength.
It smashed right into Taurus' back, causing him to stumble forward - and giving Pyrrha the chance she needed. She pulled the trigger on her spear, causing it to lunge forward, and with her own strength added to it, it pile-drived into Taurus' chest. Unfortunately, what damage it did was mitigated by the fact that Taurus still had aura - and Jaune wouldn't get to see the end of this fight, as a second later, he heard footsteps stomping towards him. His head snapped to his right, seeing, in quick order, Nora dragging a bloody and bruised Ren towards Team RWBY, and Null rushing him - mace midswing and going right for his face.
Pyrrha managed to snatch her scarred shield out of the air and quickly fell back a step, now the lone combatant, sans her aura, against two veteran aura-users.
She gritted her teeth and forced her heart to steady, she steeled herself against the sight of Null doing his best to break his mace off of Jaune's face, and instead tried to summon up what she knew about Ruby's powers. Unfortunately, all she knew was all Ruby had been able to learn through her years of practice, which boiled down to what it did, and that the effects were temporary - even at their highest intensity.
Proof: Null.
His aura was returning to him. He wasn't even as much of a concern as Taurus was - while Taurus' weapon was able to damage her shield, Null's couldn't, and thus she could use it against him to full effectiveness. She would deflect, intercept, or straight up take his blows and attack both he and Taurus in tandem, but for every strike she landed, their auras blunted the attack, and they would issue two in response. For every one attack she could defend, for every one she could dodge without the aid of her semblance, there was one she couldn't. She held out for as long as she could - but once Taurus finally got a good, clean, solid hit on her sword and cut it apart, she knew the game was up.
She was put on the ground not long after, with Taurus and Null standing over her, the former with an arrogant smile on his face, as he picked up and examined her shield, it scarred by the numerous cuts and gashes he'd left upon it.
"I think I'll -" He didn't finish, as a Master slammed into the ground between them.
-I am the keeper-
The hardest part was figuring out who to talk to first.
How she would do it was the easy part - all of teams RWBY and JNPR were laid up in hospital after their battle. It wouldn't be difficult for her to sneak in there and talk to one of them - after all, as long as one looked like they knew what they were doing, one would be surprised what they could get away with!
But who should she talk to? That was the question plaguing her mind as she approached the hospital some days after Goud's return and then re-disappearance. Even in that time, the entire world had changed - reports were drifting in from Mistral, and while the story was that Headmaster Dorn had gained his second wind and led the counter-offensive against the Fang, with both factions damaging themselves so greatly that neither of them could continue the fight and the Fang retreated, the timing and details Rosemary Ashmore had heard lined up suspiciously too well with what she'd seen Goud display that night. Too well to be a coincidence - especially when she saw on the news the previous morning that RWBY and JNPR were being given the credit for what had happened to Adam Taurus.
That more than anything told Ashmore that she might be onto something big - because this wasn't the first time they had been given credit for something huge and out of the blue. While wildly unlikely, given what she'd seen that night, and the mere fact that Goud Etiolate was alive, Ashmore didn't think it outside the realm of possibility that he might have been involved with Salem, and just let RWBY and JNPR take the credit - he was well known for being a humble man during his brief time in the limelight.
Humble, though dramatic - any Valean worth their salt knew about Fear and Dead Men.
Regardless, Ashmore had to decide who would be her best chance at getting information, and she had to pick carefully - as they were all experienced Huntsmen and Huntresses, were at the prime of their life, and thus their aura would likely get them out of the hospital inside the day - thus she would only have time to corner one of them, after which she would have to track down the others. Really though, it boiled down to two possible candidates: Ruby Rose, and Pyrrha Nikos. The former might not know as much as the latter, given that Nikos was the current wielder of Goud's old shield, but she was known for having some difficulty keeping her mouth shut, and Ashmore was pretty sure she knew the right buttons to push to get her to talk about her once-thought-dead friend. On the other hand, it was a matter of record that Nikos and Etiolate had gotten along well together - Nikos frequently cited him as her first and closest friend during her time at Beacon, and claimed that she often quoted his philosophies when it came to her Huntress career, namely the adage of power and responsibility. If anyone would know the answers to the how of Etiolate's survival, Nikos would be the best bet - the problem being that she had had the limelight far longer than Rose, and thus she knew how to play the game much better than her Valean counterpart did.
With that in mind, Ashmore decided the best bet might be Pyrrha Nikos. Yes, the Invincible Girl may know how better to play the game than Ruby Rose, but Ashmore was willing to bet that just mentioning Goud Etiolate and her knowledge of his survival would be enough to crack open her defenses.
That, and Ruby Rose hadn't been nearly as seriously injured as Nikos, so she hadn't been in the hospital but a few days, and Ashmore had no idea how to track her down.
But the former would be what she'd write in the book she knew she'd be selling soon - it sounded much smarter.
So she entered the hospital and started walking - it wasn't hard and it wasn't a long process to locate RWBY and JNPR's rooms, she just had to look for the rooms that had VAF guards stationed outside them. Once she found them, she put on a fake pair of glasses, did her hair up in a bun, grabbed a random clipboard and paper she saw laying around, threw on a pair of scrubs she may or may not have stolen out of a locker left open, and pretended to be busy - and when she passed by the rooms, she took quick glances inside the drawn shades and cropped open doors. When she found Pyrrha Nikos', without looking up from her clipboard, she walked up to the door.
The idiot guard didn't even hesitate, he just stepped to the side and nodded at the photographer, who pretended not to notice him as she entered and shut the door.
Inside Nikos' room, the lights were off, the room dark save for the green glow of the medical equipment she was hooked up to. Nikos, however, was wide awake, speaking with another nurse - one that seemed more content to dress skimpily than professionally, if the skirt and shirt one size too small was any indication. Ashmore felt for the briefest second hesitation, but she pushed past it, clearing her throat.
The nurse and Nikos both turned to her, the latter with dull confusion, the former with rapt interest - as though she'd read Ashmore the absolute second she'd entered the room and was waiting to see the story she'd cooked up. Ashmore felt a little disturbed by the woman's heterochromatic eyes, almost as though she actually could peer into her soul and divine her secrets, but she steeled herself and acted as though she knew what she was doing.
"I need to talk to the patient."
The nurse tilted her head, a smirk playing her features as she now turned to fully face Ashmore, hands on her hips and an arc to one of her eyebrows.
Ashmore stood there in silence a moment, wondering what game the nurse was playing. What, was she not going to speak?
"Alone." She prodded.
The nurse just looked amused, she made a gesture with her hand - touching one side of her chest with her finger, making a sweeping motion, and then pointing it upwards and bobbing from side to side.
Ashmore blinked, a mute nurse? How the hell did she get this job?
She figured from the woman's expression though, that she knew what she was trying to say: It's just the three of us. This would be as alone as they could get.
Ashmore pushed again: "Just me and her." Every second that passed she felt less in control of this situation - and the hairs standing on the back of her neck didn't help the matter.
Now the nurse rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, as though to say she wasn't leaving. Nikos spoke up, saying, "ma'am, she's Doctor Deer's assistant, if there's anything you need to ask me she can be present for it."
Oh, let's see how fast that turns around. Ashmore determined that the only way to get this nurse out of the room was if Nikos herself made her leave - and the only way to do that? Was to make Nikos want her gone.
So, a little prematurely, she dropped the bomb, turning her unimpressed expression to Nikos and saying, "I know Goud Etiolate is alive."
Nikos recoiled, and the nurse adopted an expression that said in equal parts she was amused, and impressed. She turned down to Nikos, who wore the exact opposite on her face: Terror.
Nikos gulped, and nodded, and the nurse, admitting defeat with a shrug, left the room.
"Could you... Turn the lights on, please?" Nikos asked, adjusting her position in the bed so she was sitting more upright.
Ashmore gave her that affordance, and with the lights on, examined Nikos more closely. She was pretty sure this was the first time the Invincible Girl had ever been hospitalized - she had the name for a reason, after all. Nikos was covered in bandages, her head was so tightly bound that Ashmore could hardly see her usually vivid red hair. In the time between those words and the lights turning on, Nikos had steeled herself - her green eyes now digging into Ashmore's own brown, but Ashmore could still see that there was something in there that was thoroughly off balance.
So, to ensure she stayed off balance, and to take back control of the conversation, Ashmore pulled out her scroll - stealthily activating the voice recorder app right before she pulled out one of the pictures she'd taken of the battle - the one that had Goud Etiolate in perfect profile, just after he'd picked up his old shield. Taken from his better, less scarred and burned half, his identity was unmistakable. It showed him holding the shield with one hand, his other running down its surface - and the scars that had been put upon it by Taurus' blade washing away like soap and water. His expression was of a grimace, of pain, though if it were physical or emotional, Ashmore didn't know enough to judge.
To further prove her point, she swiped to another picture - this one of Etiolate clashing with Taurus and Null. Null's mace had just been cleaved in two, and sparks were flying from the point of contact of Etiolate and Taurus' swords.
And finally, just to hammer it home, she swiped to the last one - right after he ended the battle, as he was approaching Nikos and the incapacitated teams RWBY and JNPR.
"How?" Nikos breathed, what confidence she'd built shaken.
Ashmore presented the story she'd prepared - she couldn't just tell Pyrrha it was an accident, oh no. It had to sound better, so she told Nikos she'd tapped local airship flight records, and had noticed two unscheduled departures. She'd sent her drone to follow the ships and had discovered - and then recorded - the entire battle, up to and including Goud Etiolate's seeming return to life, and the brutal ending he'd given to the proceedings.
"Add on what we heard from Mistral the next day - that some thing came roaring in and absolutely demolished both sides of the conflict... Well, Headmaster Dorn is powerful, but that came out of nowhere, wouldn't you think? All these little details add up a little too nicely, don't they?" Ashmore asked, pulling up a seat and surreptitiously planting her scroll where its microphone wouldn't be obstructed. "And if you take into consideration what he did here, plus what it's obvious he did in Mistral... And then still that the two most legendary teams of Huntsmen and Huntresses in the world couldn't take on two terrorists... Well it calls into question some of your earlier exploits, now doesn't it?" She asked, "plus given how his mere survival has been kept secret... I can't help but wonder if he might not have had something to do with the War of the White Witch." She finally declared, dropping her mission statement.
A little spite welled up in Nikos at this, and she turned this spite towards Ashmore, saying, "listen to me, ma'am... Goud..." She said, having to force the name through her lips so stiffly that Ashmore suddenly wondered if that even was his name in the first place! "Just wants privacy. I'm not going to violate that - or his trust."
Ashmore had been prepared for this: "I understand, Miss Nikos... But I'm prepared to publish these photos and the footage with or without your comment." She said, relishing the spike of fear that passed through the wounded warrior's eyes - it meant she was winning. "What I'm doing now is giving you a chance to contribute to, and control, the narrative. You have a chance to answer the questions a lot of people are going to ask when they see this -" She raised her finger, "- not if! When." She lowered her hand, "if you don't help me - if you don't help Goud - then people will be left to their own devices... And you know what happens when we do that. There are still people out there that are convinced the Terrans were aliens, and that they'd vanished because of some purple monster with literal magic powers.
"If you don't help me, that privacy he wants? That trust? It will be violated regardless. They'll look for him - and they probably won't be nice about it, because I guarantee you people will connect the dots like I just did and then start to ask if he hadn't had something to do with Salem's defeat. Even if they don't, he's a hero to all of Vale - they'll want to talk to him. To worship him. We have a chance to give people the answers they need, so they won't have to go looking for him." She explained.
If looks could kill, Ashmore probably would have been stricken dead by Pyrrha's glare. Pyrrha looked livid, but also morose beyond measure. She knew that she was backed into a corner - the only thing she could do was play Ashmore's game, or let this friend she clearly wanted to protect be assaulted by an entire planet's worth of people and questions. Ashmore could see her anger well up - the heart monitors she was hooked up to were responding, her heart rate was climbing.
She took in a deep breath, and sighed, her heart slowed down again.
"I... Can't claim to know everything." She said, finally.
"Answer what you can." Ashmore said, having to suppress a victorious grin.
Her career had been made.
Yang had left the very day after the celebrations at Beacon. Pyrrha knew why she'd left - and knew who she was looking for.
But she also knew better how to find him.
Yang, she knew, would have to take the long way around - would have to track down every scrap of information she could in a way that wouldn't clue in those who would want to prevent her from doing what she wanted to do.
The problem was that Pyrrha couldn't just up and abandon her duties like Yang had. Yang didn't have nearly as much a sense for decorum and tact as Pyrrha did - or maybe the closer explanation was that she was too angry to care. Pyrrha was, alongside her team and RWBY, being held up as a beacon to the world - the teams that had killed the Grimm Queen. That came with a lot of responsibility, and her previous career and reputation before the events at Beacon had led her to know that she absolutely had to play her role - leaving, like Yang had, would damage far more than just her reputation and career. While she didn't care about either of those nearly as much as she used to, what she did care about was the bevy of uncomfortable questions that would be leveled on the rest of her and Yang's teams when she left. Furthermore, the world was scared - the Terrans had suddenly come and just as suddenly gone, thrashing the entire world's militaries, the Grimm had seen an extreme resurgence in activity, and then - appropriately - as if someone snapped their fingers, it was all done. The damage had been wiped clean, all of the soldiers everywhere had just vanished and reappeared at their homes or with their loved ones. This confused and scared a lot of people.
Pyrrha couldn't just not try and help calm their fears.
So, while she knew that every day that passed was a day closer to Yang finding - and potentially killing - her friend, she knew that she had a duty to others, she had to help them. He wouldn't forgive her if she cast all that aside just to try and find him.
It was really only the first week that she spent answering questions and conducting interviews - but neither she nor any of the other teams strayed from the narrative, and when it was clear that they wouldn't get anything new, she was cleared to go and actually help people. To go slay Grimm, to make contact with villages that had fallen silent, to help rebuild where necessary - to be a Huntress. If she were to be honest, it was actually kind of nice. It was a lot of simple, satisfying work - no intrigue, no world-shaking revelations, just a lot of go here, do this, and don't think.
But that had to end - and end it did some months after. Blake leaving to return to Menagerie so she 'could balance out Adam' was the catalyst, Pyrrha thought. Weiss left to return to Atlas not too long after that, both to settle her affairs with her father and to respond to Ironwood's invitation to join a special forces unit. With RWBY effectively disbanded, Ruby herself chose to become something of a nomad, a wandering Huntress - she just went out and found people that needed help, instead of being told where they were. Jaune ended up choosing to step down during this time, wanting to re-evaluate himself and come into his own - as strong as he'd become through trials by fire and just general training from his team, he still erroneously thought he was the weak link, that the majority of his strength had come from a magic blade Aldric had given and then taken from him, and chose to leave until he could feel worthy to return on his own terms. Nora and Ren didn't last much longer than that - their long-running friendship had begun to bud into something more, and they wanted time to themselves to define terms and figure things out.
With RWBY and JNPR all disbanded, Pyrrha chose then was the best chance and the most opportune moment to find her old friend. But unlike Yang, whom she knew would be scouring the entire world to find any trace of him, retracing his steps and trying to follow him wherever it was he'd gone, Pyrrha had a much more direct solution.
Anyone else would have had an inordinately difficult time getting an audience with him - what with all the duties that had been put on his plate, from assisting with the rebuilding of Vale's infrastructure, tracking down Beacon's teachers and trying to get the academy back up and running, and having to constantly be pulled away to answer questions as to the story they'd told the world; but Ozma would drop all of that in a second of any of the big players during his 'War of the White Witch' asked for his time. Meeting Ozma and not Ozpin, or even little Oscar Pine, felt strange to the full-fledged Huntress, as she knew that now more than ever she was seeing the original face that belonged to the undying soul - moreover, a face belonging to a man thousands of years dead, and yet brought to life by the influence and power of her friend.
Just wrapping her head around that had taken time enough - Ozma had explained what he'd known about what Aldric had done to Ruby and Pyrrha, his only remaining friends. Aldric had become God by utilizing a loophole that let him rewrite the function of the Relics, and had used that to cheat his way to an overall victory: Salem dead, the world repaired, the people sent to their homes, and Ozma and Oscar separated - the former returned to his original body, the latter to his home. Whether or not Ozma would remain in this body, or if this was a temporary measure for the duration of this individual lifetime, was something even he couldn't answer.
Regardless, when they met, Pyrrha didn't mince words - she told him that she knew Yang had gone to track Aldric down. She told him she was worried Yang would try to kill Aldric, and either die herself or, worse, that Aldric would allow her - and that she wanted to find him first. Of everyone on Remnant, she was willing to bet that Ozma would be the one above all that would either know where he was, where he was going, or how to find him.
He didn't disappoint - expressing an admiration of Pyrrha and reiterating the worries he'd mentioned on the train after Haven academy. He didn't know exactly where Aldric was - but he did know how to find him. Ever since he'd sent Qrow to check on Oscar Pine and figure out what exactly had been done with him, and since that messenger had come back with stories from Oscar's family about a 'wandering, scarred Huntsman' who had provided them with what they could only describe them as 'magic beans,' Ozma and Qrow had been keeping their ears to the ground for more reports about Aldric. He would show up in multiple villages in rapid succession, passing through them, interacting with the locals, and staying a day or two, always passing out some kind of boon from his personal coffers - be they the beans he had grown a fondness for, or gadgets and devices he either produced on the spot or had held onto and no longer had use for. Sometimes, however, he would just vanish, only to show up passing several villages by to the next one he would appear in - with Ozma having realized only recently that the pattern wasn't him avoiding these villages, but rather that he was walking in a straight line. Carving straight through Grimm-infested countrysides and only deviating if there was a village nearby, or on the way, to his destination.
Ozma showed Pyrrha a map - one that he'd obviously been working on for as long as he'd been tracking the Terran. It showed every single location he'd been reported at, and sure enough - a single, mostly straight, line could be drawn straight through the wildlands that separated each sighting. Aldric was either avoiding the roads, or, as Ozma theorized, was on some kind of penitent crusade, where he would kill absolutely every Grimm in his way, until he reached his destination - which Ozma had theorized to be a single point in northern Sanus.
Ozma explained to her that during Atlas' searches for the lost wormholes, or even for any wormholes that connected Remnant to Earth, the Atlesian Navy had come across an airship crash site. Per their standard protocol, they dispatched a team to investigate it - and discovered that this was the ship that had ferried Aldric and the entire 'Legion of Doom,' as he'd called them, all across Remnant. The Aviator-class airship registered to one of the many false identities theorized to be attributed to Marcus Black - the son of whom had been confirmed by Aldric to have provided his services until dying at the hands of one of the Masters.
Found alongside it were five corpses - two Terran, two Human, and one Faunus, all of whom Aldric had reported as allies to Salem.
Ozma's map - both Aldric's known route and his projected route - put him right on course for that crash site. Aldric was returning there - either to bury the bodies, to recover something, or some other goal known only to him, Ozma didn't know, but he did at least know that was the most likely place Aldric was journeying to.
So with this information, Pyrrha rented a personal shuttlecraft, and went there herself.
Arriving there, she discovered - to her mounting elation - that Aldric had already reached the place, and had begun settling it. A large fence had been erected around the entire crash site, stretching for miles in all directions, and at the front of the 'property' was a large, low-built, wooden house. She instructed the shuttle's auto-pilot to land in front of the house, and hesitated for a moment, her hand on the button to open the loading bay door. She swept her eyes to her left, where her shield - bequeathed to her by the man in that house - rested, waiting for her to take it up again.
She gulped, picked up the shield, and mounted it on her back, before she hit the button and opened the door.
She expected to see him there, maybe even with a loaded gun, waiting on her, but instead she was met with nothing - only the sound of her shuttle's engine whining down.
Frowning, she stepped out of the shuttle - the cool, but humid, mid-morning air washing over her face as she took in a deep breath, and approached the ranch's front door.
How did he build this? She wondered, knowing somewhere deep inside the answer was literally 'magic,' but that inquisitive, most-human-of-parts in her wondering still how he could have done it.
She knocked on the door - and was surprised when it just swung open, revealing a small hallway that led into a larger living room.
Her greeting call - a curious 'Aldric?' - caught in her throat, and wouldn't leave. It was all Pyrrha could do to calm her nerves just enough that she could step inside - the wooden floor let out a loud creak, nearly making her jump. She realized, as she slowly intruded further and further into the house, the floor creaking with each step, that she'd caught Aldric very early - the entire house looked like it had only just been finished! The walls were still bare, the openings where windows would have been lacked them, there was no carpet, no stove, oven, or refrigerator, or lighting fixtures, or anything anywhere - even the back door had yet to be installed.
Whatever Aldric had done to summon this house, he must have done it so recently that Pyrrha wondered if it hadn't been done yesterday!
Fully entering the house, Pyrrha stopped at the threshold between the entrance hallway and the living room, as she saw the first - and only - signs of habitation:
A leather couch to her left, and an active television, with some kind of computer hooked into it. The television was the only light source, and it had a still image - one that Pyrrha couldn't make sense out of, it looked like a bad CGI film, with some man in a white uniform standing frozen in front of a red button. Underneath the television was a leather-bound notebook, with the words 'The Record' written on its front; it appeared to have been thrown at the wall.
Approaching the couch, she found the house's occupant.
Passed out, unconscious, a bottle on the floor next to him, his head resting on his arm, which itself was squeezed between the back of his skull and the arm of the couch, and a double-barreled shotgun resting on his chest, right on top of what had to be a controller for the television.
Pyrrha's heart leapt to her throat, one of her hands covering her mouth as her eyes widened at the sight of him - but tears were preempted by the lack of blood, by the lack of any obvious attempt to use the shotgun. Looking at him more closely however, Pyrrha realized that beyond having drank enough to have him black out, he was not at all as she remembered him. She'd known to prepare for the scar Blake had given him, she'd seen that not long after he'd gotten it, but the scar on his chin, given to him she was sure by Yang during her rage-induced beatdown, and the horrific burns on the left side of his face, those were new, and entirely unexpected. The burns snaked down his face and bare torso like veins, appearing to crawl outwards from his synthetic left arm - which itself looked like it had born the damage of the power he'd summoned in Salem's tower as well, with the wrist and hand in particular having looked partially molten and then re-cooled afterwards. Painting the rest of his chest and stomach were a patchwork quilt of dozens of other scars, from small bullet holes to horrible gashes, it almost looked like fully half of his torso was scar tissue. Pyrrha could only imagine what his back looked like, where the exit wounds were.
Aldric looked awful - even some of his hair had been grayed a bit. Pyrrha could only imagine the scars on his mind - the pain he couldn't, or wouldn't show, great enough that it had driven him to alcohol, and, as Ozma had feared, to consider killing himself.
Carefully, she approached the couch, slowing and steadying her steps so the still-settling house wouldn't alert him to her presence. She reached for the gun on his chest, eyes darting back and forth between it and his face, twisted into a grimace as he was being assaulted by whatever nightmares plagued him. She grabbed the barrel of the gun - sliding one of her fingers in between the hammers for both barrels, such that an accidental trigger pull would, while hurt, not result in a discharge.
When she pulled it away, she didn't expect him to take in a sharp intake of breath - which, alongside the gun now missing from his chest, was enough to send the controller falling off of it.
It hit the ground, and then, "MONKEY ON A STICK!" Hollered the television, alongside the sound of shattering glass and screams of fright and pain.
Pyrrha whipped around, less scared than she was just startled, as the film Aldric had queued up continued on.
"WE'RE GETTING FINGERED BY GODZILLA!" Screamed the television, as a gun appeared from its corner and the man talking began firing at a claw that was actively grabbing at the scientist and pulling him away.
As the television continued shouting, Pyrrha dropped down to her knee and grabbed the controller - but, unable to even recognize it, let alone divine its function, she just started hitting buttons until, finally, it went quiet. Pyrrha then immediately turned to Aldric, who was still completely unconscious, not even stirring from the sudden noise.
Pyrrha let out a long sigh, and got back to her feet. She looked down at and examined the gun, and realized that while she recognized the general shape of it, it wasn't a model she'd ever seen before - leading her to conclude that this must have been of Terran make. The mechanisms were simple enough to understand, though - apparently the idea of welding two barrels together to double up on shotgun shells was universal - so she was able to split open the barrel, and though the sight of two shells, fully loaded and ready to go, saddened her, she pulled them out regardless and then shut the gun.
She looked back down at Aldric, regarding him a moment longer, feeling a great swell of pity in her chest. How much had he drank to still be out in the daylight?
I'll... She looked around, and found another hallway on the far side of the living room - to the right of where the entryway opened up - and figured that was where his room must be. Find him a blanket. She pocketed the shotgun shells and hung the gun off of her hip, strolling down the hallway, and finding three rooms.
Opening the first, she found a quaint little office, brightly lit by the opening to the ranch's backyard - though this like the others lacked a window. Interestingly, there was furniture here - a desk, upon which two computers sat, one of Remnant design, and one of Terran. In the corner of the room was a mannequin, and it wore Aldric's armor - the dark chainmail suit, the bright, almost iridescent mail shirt, his usual cargo pants and armored boots, a new utility belt, the shields on its wrists, and his sword on its hip. It stood in the corner, neutrally posed - its arms hanging down.
She leaned out of the room and turned the next one, to find it was a bathroom - though not because of the presence of plumbing, but because of an 'Under Construction' sign that had, in big text, 'Bathroom' written upon it. Turning to the final room, she opened it, and it, much like the rest of the house, was bare - only a sleeping mat, a pillow, and a blanket delineated any real purpose.
Pyrrha's expression fell just a bit further, but she grabbed the blanket and returned to the living room, gently laying it across Aldric, who remained so comatose that if she didn't see his chest rise and fall, she may have worried he'd died.
Now with nothing to do but wait for him to wake up, Pyrrha found a corner of the room and made it her own. She quietly shrugged off her inherited shield, and placed next to it her sword and Aldric's gun, before sliding down the wall and sitting down. She retrieved her scroll and opened it up - only to find she had no signal. Nevertheless, she'd long since learned to prepare for that eventuality - if only because she'd personally seen and lived through two CCT blackouts - and pulled up a book she'd downloaded. It was a guilty pleasure of hers - one of those cheesy, messy, pulpy sci-fi novels about humans actually managing to fly to space - but she'd a soft spot for them, she liked the hope and wonder of a universe of planets without Grimm.
She'd made significant headway before Aldric finally awoke - there had actually been two false-starts where he shifted about but remained unconscious. After a couple hours, and when the sun was high in the sky, Aldric finally woke up. She watched, her voice caught in her chest, as he groaned and pulled himself upright.
Eyes shut tight to the bright light spilling inside from out, Aldric pushed his hands through his hair, and murmured, "quantum entanglement."
Pyrrha blinked, "what?" She asked.
"Quantum entanglement. If you entangle one particle with another, anything you do to one, is reflected in the other." He said, before gesturing to the television. "I've got some routers and CCT connectors quantum entangled to others on Earth and Remnant, respectively. It's how I can access content from back home over interstellar distances, and how I still have a CCT signal out here and you don't." He let his head hang a moment, a deep yawn turning into a deeper sigh. "Or did you expect me to not have a way of keeping tabs on the goings on out there?" He asked, turning his head to her, peering at her through a thick forest of unkempt hair. "Hey Pyrrha." He said, "I thought it'd be a couple years." His voice sounded hollow and hoarse, the life that had once been in it was gone, and what was left just seemed to be reverberating out of his lungs.
Pyrrha tilted her head, all of the ways this conversation could have gone, going out the proverbial window now that she'd actually found him and was speaking to him. "Why?"
"Because Godric said so." Aldric grunted, turning his gaze back to the floor in front of him. "Although I'll be perfectly honest, a day hasn't gone by when I've wondered if he wasn't playing the long game. I've done it before. Playing to a script to ensure things happen a certain way - even if that meant pulling one over on me." And then he nodded to her, as though silently saying, 'and you're my proof.'
Pyrrha slowly stood up, "you mean... When you wore the gauntlet, with the relics?" She asked. "Ozma told me and Ruby what it did to you."
"Did he." Aldric grunted, though not as a question, but a statement.
Things grew silent between them, and Pyrrha saw Aldric stare off into space - she could almost see him playing out whatever it was that plagued his mind, but was at a loss for how to drag him out of it.
So she spoke just to speak - just to get him to focus on something else. "Why this far out?" She asked.
"Use your semblance." Was Aldric's response.
Pyrrha did a double take, but when Aldric locked eyes with her, she acquiesced - only to find she couldn't.
Moreover, now that she thought about it, she couldn't even feel her aura!
Aldric nodded, "that's why." He said, planting his hands on his knees and pushing himself to his feet - he stumbled a bit, and accidentally kicked the bottle across the floor, but Pyrrha darted over to him and helped steady him. When he nodded once and raised his hand, she slowly let him go. "I'm pretty sure semblances and aura and the like are remnants of the time when Humans had full-blown magic. Even if you discount that such an explanation perfectly explains how you're able to blatantly break the laws of physics, you being unable to, here, proves it outright." He said, before shrugging. "Or maybe I don't fully understand what it was I did here. Point is -" He nodded to the front door, and guided her there, closing his eyes as the sunlight hit him, and basking in its warmth for a moment. "- step past the fence, no magic, no nothing. You exit..." He stepped out of the door, passed the threshold, and then waved his hand - and Pyrrha felt some ethereal force tug at her, as though a rope had been cast around her midsection and pulled. "It comes back." He said, rubbing his hands together and turning to her. "That's what the fence is for - I literally spent two days stepping in and out of the area of effect to get the whole thing down, and it was only a day or two ago where I stepped outside to build the house..." He explained. "I'm here for when - not if - Ozma decides I'm too much of a threat. He doesn't know - not about this. So if he comes to kill me, he'll be at a disadvantage." He shrugged, "and I'm hoping the null-magic will cancel out his reincarnation too, but I doubt it."
Now, Pyrrha realized, she could segue into what she was here for. She chose not to ask herself whether or not Aldric had known ahead of time and said that specifically to set her up. She stepped forward and grabbed Aldric's hand, causing him to briefly lower his gaze to her gloved hands, holding his, and then back up to her green eyes. "Aldric... Your war is won. You don't have to keep fighting." She said, as earnestly as she could.
Aldric's response was a dull, "do I look like I'm fighting?" With a nod to his ranch.
"You look like you're fighting yourself." Pyrrha responded, "did you really drink yourself until you blacked out yesterday?"
Aldric bluntly responded, "yeah." He said, "If there's one thing that goes great with Freeman's Mind, it's Vodka." He shrugged, "and it was my birthday."
Pyrrha blinked.
"If there's one day when I'm going to - oh, okay." He said, before she lunged forward and brought him into a tight hug. "Ah... Okay, we're doing this now." He grunted, patting her on the shoulder, she felt the sigh as much as she heard it. "What are you doing here, Pyrrha?" If his voice was hollow before, it was dead now - a whisper so faint and so lifeless that it would have made a Grimm look lively by comparison.
She released him from the hug, but didn't let go of him - her arms still on his shoulders, while both of his hung limply. A tear ran down one side of her face - the thought of what Aldric had implied, wittingly or otherwise, had wounded her worse than any knife. One's birthday was supposed to be a day of celebration, and Aldric had just told her he had turned it into a day of self mourning.
"You need to come home." She all but begged the man, looking into his eyes and searching for any hint of the man she knew was in there.
She thought, for just the briefest of instants, she saw something, but it was gone before it even registered in her brain, and Aldric, with a neutral frown painting the face already painted on one half by burns and on the other half by a scar splitting that half into quarters, said, "I am home, Pyrrha." And shrugged her hands off of his shoulders. "You may want me back." He said, leaning on the front of his house, then gazing longingly at the door. "Ruby may want me back." He shoved off of it, and then trailed back inside - followed at the heels by Pyrrha, who, now that she knew to expect it, physically felt her aura deactivate and vanish when she crossed the threshold. "But no one else does. And I need time, lady." He said, walking back into his living room and falling back onto his couch.
Pyrrha circled the couch and knelt in front of him, forcing him to make eye contact with her. "Aldric, please." She begged, "we can help you. I know you're hurting - but if you come home, if you just explain to us what you did, why you did it, they'll -"
"They'll what, Pyrrha?" Aldric grunted, "they'll what." He leaned back, "hell - you don't even know why I did it all." He said, "or rather you do, you just want a different answer."
That stung, but she pushed forward regardless. "Ruby told me what she read in your journal - but I haven't read it myself." She said, knowing - or at least heavily suspecting - that it was right behind her, thrown against the wall. "Yes, I want to hear from you why you did it, but that's because I want to understand." She said, "they all do - even if they don't admit it. If they understand it, they'll forgive you, Aldric - and then we can help bring you back from this pit you're in!" She stood and sat on the couch next to him, placing her hand on his knee, her expression one of pleading emotion. "You deserve peace Aldric - not self-imposed exile!"
"Pyrrha, no." Aldric said, some small amount of strength leaking into his voice as he drew his line. "I almost murdered Blake, so casually it would stun you. I'm pretty sure Ren and Nora considered me an out-and-out friend, and I betrayed them. I cut Yang's arm off and murdered her mother. Alongside you I helped train Jaune, so half of the very basis of his strength finds its roots in me - a man who betrayed, lied to, and used him, and he will never forget that. Every life he saves will be in part because of me and I know he will loathe that. Every single one of them wants nothing to do with me - and that's okay!" He said, eyes falling down to the hand on his knee, briefly glazing over with thought, before he continued on. "That's okay." He looked back up to Pyrrha, "I'm okay." He lied to her, "I just need time. Time to... Just..." His words were catching in his chest, "deal, with all of this." He said, waving his hand in a vague gesture. "With everything I did. The decisions I made." He said, "because it really is as simple as it sounds, Pyrrha. I realized I had a chance to do something that then-Ozpin would never be able to do: Work from the inside. I took that chance, and decided that if it meant a greater good, I would do everything necessary to keep my spot with the bad guys. I had an opportunity to do something no one had ever gotten, and likely would ever get again - make the Devil trust me enough to put me in place to stab him in the back, and I deemed it necessary that I would do whatever I had to in order to secure that chance - because the price to be paid paled in comparison to what it would buy.
"Salem is dead, Pyrrha. I killed a god - three of them, though don't tell Ozma that. Three people who had the power to single-handedly influence an entire planet, two of which were so strong as to be considered gods to people who were already literally magic. Now all that's left is me, Ozma, and one other - and two of us are mortal. When we go, only Ozma will remain, and I genuinely wonder if his immortality is still a factor without the Brother Gods.
"I wish I hadn't - god I wish I'd just run when I'd had the chance. Taken a brighter path, blinded myself with morality. I really do." He whispered, "but I can't guarantee the same success - or even any success - were I to have done so. If I knew then, what I knew now, I'd make every decision the same way - for the same reasons. Sometimes you have to just kill an unrepentant sociopath. Sometimes you have to drop the atomic bomb. Because sometimes bad things have to be done for the right reasons - and while I believe in the superiority of the right decision, while I laud and practically worship those with the strength of character to make the right decision regardless of the consequences, I also believe that sometimes the correct decision is what should be made.
"But them? Your team? Ruby's? Hell - you and Ruby yourselves - that doesn't compute. You live in a much better world than I do, you live much better lives than I do. You're much better people than I am." He stressed, "I see the correct decision and the right decision, and I make the correct one. You all make the right one. I sacrifice one woman, I choke her in her sleep from the other side of her village, to save myself to save everyone else, you all would try to save that woman -" He made eye contact with Pyrrha, "and that's okay! I'm not by any means saying that's wrong, what I'm saying is that I am antithetical to all of you. The only reason you and Ruby are still willing to give me a chance is specifically because you are my opposite. She's willing to see the absolute best in everyone, even if there's hardly any to begin with or left when all is said and done, and you?" He trailed off, and looked away. "you're the same, but there's more to it. You have a personal stake: I was your first friend and you don't want to give that up." He put forth, bluntly.
"You were, Aldric." Pyrrha admitted, "and you're right." As much to herself, as to Aldric - and she felt a pain she couldn't describe in doing so, but she kept on regardless. "But I also think I was your first friend, here." She said, "more than Yang, whom you just had a non-negative relationship with after fighting each other in a bar because you'd been told to do so, I was the first person that interacted with you amicably. I was the first person who didn't want anything of you or from you - just your friendship, Aldric." She felt like there was something else to say, but she either didn't know what it was, or was denying what it was. "And just as important is that I believe Ruby's theory - that Goud Etiolate was a reflection of who you were before you came to our world, and was a reflection of your core ideals. Who you wanted to be instead of who you were... And I believe in those ideas too." She pointed at his shield, "I believe in what you truly stand for, what you say that shield - and the character, Ash, that wielded it - represented. So I feel I owe it to you to help you, however I can.
"Please." She extended her hand, "would you let me help you?"
Aldric regarded the star spangled shield in the corner of his living room for a long time. Pyrrha thought she could see in his one visible eye - and the slightly less scarred half of his face - positive memories play out. Better thoughts leak through the iron cage of his mind. The absolute desire to give in, to discard what he thought was logic and reason and to just say yes.
"At Beacon... Was I overthinking things, like I always do, or did I see something there?" Aldric asked, turning to her - the better thoughts vanishing again, leaving Pyrrha wondering if he wasn't doing it to himself on purpose, if he was specifically denying himself even the ability to think brighter for the same reason he had refused his shield ever since Beacon: Because he thought he wasn't worthy.
"Uh -" Pyrrha hadn't expected that question, nor had she expected him to call her out on it. "What do you - I -"
"You know what I mean, Pyrrha." Aldric sighed, "and I get the feeling I wasn't."
She couldn't deny it.
"I thought so." He said, nodding. "might that be why you're here too? Or perhaps the reason underneath it all?" Aldric asked, "do you hope that, failing everything else, you can 'save' me with yourself?" Her expression must have answered his question, and it killed her to see him sink deeper, his own expression becoming even more morose. "I'm not looking for anything romantic, lady." He told her, "put aside the shit I've done that doesn't involve the women in my life and all the trauma associated with that, I was blackmailed by a mute assassin and all but forced to fuck a psycho-goddess after that, and past that, before this world became reality to me, it was a work of fiction, and I never had the chance to reconcile that. That you're all real, that you're all people and not just images on a screen, characters in a story. I need time." He said again, "time away from all of this, time to heal." He paused, "maybe." He grunted, "maybe I could use a friend, but nothing more. Not for a long time, if ever."
Pyrrha blinked, "I -" She felt like she'd just been shot through the heart, "- I don't understand... Fiction?"
"We don't know how, Pyrrha, but someone on my world knew about this one. He either knew everything and made a warning, or misinterpreted what he saw as imaginings, and turned it into a television show. I knew -" He said, "- about everything. About everything that would happen, without my influence, until not long after Beacon. You, Ruby, Jaune, Yang - all of you were just characters in a show to me. But then it was suddenly real." He shuddered, "too real. If I allowed myself to catch feelings... I wasn't comfortable with what that said, Pyrrha. And that was before I was effectively forced to do things of that nature, or risk having everything I'd built fall apart - I'm still numb from that.
"Moreover, I couldn't then - and I still now have trouble with reconciling you as people. As living, breathing persons and not just abstract things on a screen to watch and dissect. Of realizing that you have lives and you think, that you're not just actors to be positioned and mouthpieces to tell a story." He said, staring blankly at the television hanging off of the wall. "I never got the chance to really reconcile that. One day I realized I actually knew where I was, and the next I was being thrown almost literally to the wolves to awaken my semblance. Then I was training non-stop to kill the Fall Maiden, and on and on and on it went - I never ever got a chance to breathe, Pyrrha." He turned back to her, "to just sit down and go 'Holy shit, I'm in an anime I watched on the internet.'...
"That's what I want, Pyrrha - that's why I'm out here. I want time to myself, where I'm not terrified I'm being watched every second. Where I can copy down what I wrote on my tablets and scrolls into a stupid leather journal -" He waved dismissively at the object in question, "- so I can make it all real. So I can come to terms with all the shit that's happened to me and decide what I want to do with it. What I want to do with myself." He took her hand, "I appreciate you, Pyrrha. I appreciate what you're doing - and if any variable had changed I might've said yes. Hell, it's beyond tempting to do so anyways because I know I would only benefit from a pillar to lean on.
"But even if you want to ignore every problem I have - even if you want to, arguably correctly, say that they're not as big as I make them out to be, there's the simple fact that I'm fucked up, Pyrrha. I don't know how far down I'd drag someone that chose to stay with me, and I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to hurt someone else if I can avoid it. Even if it takes me longer to sort everything out on my own than it would with help, I'm not going to do that." He said, "especially since I know this is all temporary."
Pyrrha blinked, "what -"
"The job's done, Pyrrha. I did what I set out to do - I killed Salem and ended her as a threat... But there's still something on the way. One last chapter, to punctuate everything I've done and close the book. One threat I'd allowed to build itself up. Taurus is going to drag me back, I know he will."
"Adam Taurus?"
Aldric nodded, "I, specifically, am Human." Was all he offered as explanation.
Pyrrha was torn - on one hand, she knew she had to stay here and help Aldric. She had to help her friend and pull him out of this pit - if for no other reason than his own sake.
But on the other, he was so dead set on not taking her help - on believing he wasn't worthy of it. He was so dead set on fixing it himself, that she knew if she tried to help him, she would only prove a detriment. Her heart went out to him, but what could she do? This was a broken man, and either she wasn't capable of fixing him, or he wasn't capable of accepting the help.
All she could do was give him what he wanted - give him what she knew would hurt him.
All she could do was trust that in his confidence in himself - in his belief in his own ability to sort things out and piece himself back together in a way that would satisfy him.
And really, wasn't that what she wanted?
If this was the first - if not only - thing that he could be proud of, that he could find satisfaction in, in fixing himself without harming someone else, shouldn't she let him try?
She let go of his hand, and slowly got to her feet. She heard his hand limply fall to his lap, and as she went to the corner to gather her things, she failed to suppress another tear falling from her eye.
Running her hand across the shield he'd given her, thinking of the things he'd said it stood for, and then looking down at the gun she'd taken from him as he slept, she couldn't help but make one request: "Will you do something for me, please?"
Silence.
"If..." She continued, biting her lip. "If you sleep with that gun again... Please call me."
There was a long silence, before she heard, so softly as to be inaudible: "Okay."
With nothing else she could do, Pyrrha picked up the shield and her sword, hung them off her back, and turned to the front door - crossing behind the couch, unable to bring herself to look at him again for fear she couldn't force herself to leave - but also for fear that if he saw the tears staining her face, comprehended the emotions she felt for him, positive and negative, that it would torture him only the more.
As she left, just as she reached the door, she heard a broken man begin to sing in a rumbly baritone:
"I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago... And people who will see a world that I shall never know... But all the while I sit and think of times there were before... I listen for returning feet and voices at the door."