Chapter 11
Deep in the center of what had only minutes ago been a densely packed, strobe-lit nightclub, Aldric contemplated the meaning of suicide. Strictly speaking, it was the act or attempt of taking one's own life, usually by intention. By that definition, everything he had done during his time here on Remnant could be considered him attempting suicide, as everything that had risked his life had come about because he'd, in some way, shape, or form, sought it out. So did that mean he was incredibly suicidal, only really bad at it? Or clinically insane, and merely surrounded by people who thought he wasn't?
Regardless of the answer, his most recent suicide attempt, and coincidentally one of the most lethal seventeen - or was she sixteen, at the moment? - year old women on Remnant, charged him from her position on the other side of the now brightly lit dance club. Pride shone in her deeply purple eyes, mixing with the thrill of a fight she no-doubt expected to be a good one.
Nathan Drake... Nathan Drake! Aldric grunted, hopped back a step and threw his arm up, his shield quickly popping into existence and absorbing an explosive punch from the blonde fighter.
Her arm recoiled from having all of the energy of her punch shot right back at her, and Aldric turned it into another chance to attack, thrusting his shield forward and bashing her with its edge. However, she had her right hand up and intercepting it in the time it took him to blink, immediately halting its advance and blocking the blow. Had he not had his specific brand of foreknowledge, he would have been amazed at the strength this woman posessed - hell, he did know and was still surprised! But he shook that surprise off when saw her swinging her left arm underneath the shield in a powerful a uppercut; Aldric quickly thrust his open hand forward and caught the fist, pushing it back with a violent shove just as her weapon went off. Aldric noticed that, while he certainly felt the heat, he hadn't sensed anything beyond a concussive force pressing at his shields, but he filed those thoughts away as Yang threw a wide cross that hit his face, snapping it back and forth as it was briefly covered in the smoke of her detonation.
Yup, again with no shrapnel! He thought, as he then felt her grabbing at the edge of his shield. Oh shit! He braced himself and when she tried wrenching his shield from his hands, he leapt into it, turning it into a lightning-fast backflip.
She succeeded in tearing the shield from his hand, but not in injuring his hands. So with a frown, he clenched his right hand and he swung it in a wide cross. With little more than a grin, Yang brought the shield up to deflect the blow, but found that the moment Aldric's fist made contact with it and reestablished the connection with the nanites, it vanished in a brief shower of light embers. Aldric's fist continued uninhibited, his slamming into her face; it recoiled all of an inch before, with a grunt, he shoved forward again - this time with his semblance.
The second impact occurred so quickly after the first that Yang hadn't even felt the delay, only the result: Being shot across the nightclub as if hit full-force by a battering ram. She bounced once off of the ground before she found herself partially buried in one of the few remaining great glass pillars. When she shook the stars from her vision, she saw Aldric, leaping through the air and driving his knee into her chest. With another telekinetic pulse, this impact too was exponentially increased, and she was blasted through the pillar in a shower of glass.
Through the falling glass, Aldric saw her flip back to her feet, the grin not having left her face for an instant. When he saw her rear her arms, he realized what she was doing and was able to crouch down and summon his shield just as she punched the air - a missile rocketing out of her gauntlets and hurtling towards him. It arced through the air and was joined by three more just like it, and all four slammed into his shield, but he didn't feel any impact, and the moment his radar pulse told him the missiles had stopped raining and she was charging, he hopped to his feet.
Yang was in front of him a second later, a straight punch already sailing for his face. However, with a clever, subtle use of his semblance, Aldric was able to jerk his shield arm upwards and shove its rounded edge into her elbow, throwing the punch way off target. Now with her briefly stunned, Aldric reached up with his free arm and locked it around hers, before hauling her over his head and bodily slamming her onto the dance floor.
Aldric managed three strikes with the edge of his shield before she deflected him and landed a strong punch to his chest. The crash survivor stumbled backwards, coughing, but an idea forming in his head. A lot of the problem, he was rapidly seeing, was that her weapons created massive amounts of concussive force, whether or not they actually hit him. It seemed akin to getting hit by a small, speeding car, and was enough that even though he pushed them away with his semblance-led barrier, he still felt the hit; bruises were forming all over already, and he was pretty sure he'd cracked a rib or two. But his stunt a moment ago with the shield had him thinking, and briefly wondering if he hadn't been thinking about this entire defense problem backwards.
Why even absorb and reflect potentially titanic impacts, when he could just deflect them, and not even get hit in the first place?
Well... No better place to learn! Aldric grunted as he absorbed another car-strength series of blows from the shotgun-punching warrior woman.
When he sensed a brief pause in her punches, Aldric lunged forward with both legs, tackling Yang and burying the broad side of his shield into her stomach. She grunted from the impact, and tried to wrap her hands around the edges of his shield - exactly as he'd hoped she would. The moment he felt her push against him, he reared his free hand, and then let the shield vanish. Yang was briefly set aglow by the fading multicolored photons, and was stunned by the sudden drop in resistance - which cost her the ability to defend against Aldric's next meteoric punch.
The trick, he'd learned, to the 'Mantis Shrimp Punch', as he'd dubbed it, was to pulse his semblance not before, or after he felt his fist hit - but the exact moment he felt it. Even with his steadily improving reflexes, instant reaction was literally impossible, and that only helped him. After all, every action had an equal, and opposite, reaction - so using Yang's body pushing against his fist, and his own fist briefly shooting an almost infinitesimal distance backwards, all of a sudden there was a slight, barely perceptible distance between his fist and her. In a concept similar to Bruce Lee's one inch punch, Aldric pulsed as much strength as he safely could from his semblance, and his fist would rocket forward again, netting him two blows, each exceptionally powerful in their own right, for the price of one. The only catch was that, unlike the mantis shrimp from whom he'd stolen the idea, he couldn't just coil up and do this willy-nilly - he needed that first impact such that he wouldn't tear his arm out of its socket; he'd learned that the hard way, and Emerald had griped about it for hours after they'd reset his arm.
The end result was, if Yang's punches were like speeding cars, Aldric's were like out of control dump trucks.
Yang flew backwards with a pained grunt, but then thrust both of her arms behind her as her feet dug at the ground. Both of her gauntlets fired as one, and she rocketed back towards Aldric, her right hand reared for a powerful Superman punch. Aldric braced his legs behind him and frowned, she reached him and swung with all of her might, unaware that he pushed with his own might - just not with his hands. His semblance pulsed powerfully, and as he yanked his head back, he pushed on her fist. Yang completely missed his head, her fist swinging right by him, such that he felt little more than a light breeze. Her next attempted strike came curving upward with her left hand, he wasn't able to push this one fast enough and felt it graze his cheek, but it still missed, and in a way much easier than his initial idea.
However, Aldric knew better than to rely on this, and while he would continue to test and refine this new idea for this fight, 'new' was the operative word - and it would likely fail, as exemplified when Aldric lunged forward, burying his shoulder into Yang's stomach and sending them both skidding across the dance floor. Yang had one hand grappled onto his ribs and the other hammered downwards - he wasn't able to push aside any of the blows, instead having to absorb them with his barrier concept. He felt bruises welling up on his back, his bones fracturing with blinding flashes of pain, and felt the lances of ash and fire burning at his flesh.
Aldric rained his own punches into the side of Yang's stomach, relishing in the feeling of her ribs bending, and one even cracking, under the enhanced strength of his blows. After he returned her assault in kind, he thrust his palm into her gut and shoved her away from him, the both of them using it as a chance to build some space between them and recover.
Aldric, however, took this as a chance to continue the assault, and with a telekinetic push, he launched himself forward, leaving a deep crack in the dance floor. His hand rocketed around in a powerful superman punch, Yang grinned and met it with a punch of her own. The resultant shockwave sent a shower of previously shattered glass raging around the room, but the two paid it no mind. Aldric landed on his feet and threw three punches, trailing upwards from Yang's stomach before he ended it with a powerful right cross and a thunderous left elbow to Yang's face. She spun into the impact and hammered her fist into Aldric's hastily raised shield with the sound of a hammer striking an anvil.
Her fist recoiled again as the kinetic energy was reflected right back at her, but she didn't let that impede her, lifting her boot and attempting to plant it on Aldric's chest. Aldric, however, used his semblance to dodge the kick, and Yang stumbled to her knee. Aldric quickly followed it up with a powerful strike to the back of her head, it whipped back and forth and she tried to respond with an uppercut, but Aldric caught it with his hand and used his semblance to halt it entirely as he rained down a second meteoric punch to Yang's face. The recoil of this one was greater than the last, and Aldric ended this brief beatdown by throwing her hand to the side and grabbing her head with both of his. She struggled against it, knowing his intention, but an application of his semblance let him win this struggle, and he rammed her nose onto his knee.
She was sent sprawling backwards, but despite the cracking noise, the grin on her face never once was wiped away. Aldric, however, was clenching his jaw and fighting back tears of pain - this woman's skull was so thick he was pretty sure he'd hurt his knee more than his knee hurt her nose.
I've never had a fractured knee, before. Blithely thought the fighter, as his opponent recovered. Is this what that feels like?
Yang grunted as she got back to her feet, finding Aldric still standing where he was, his shield raised defensively, only the upper half of his face visible. He was breathing heavily, feeling the bruises, welts, fractured and broken bones, and more than a few open wounds pulsing all over his body. As much as his TK barrier worked, insomuch that the strikes didn't hit him, there was still the problem of air displacement. She was generating enough kinetic energy to send regular people through tree trunk-sized pillars of glass. Even if he blocked the punch, that didn't stop the shockwave and the air displacement - resulting in a much more minor, but still hard impact. Instead of being hit by speeding cars every time, he was being beaten with a baseball bat. The only way to effectively defend against this, he was learning, was to block it with his shield, or use his semblance to dodge it.
Aside from that, he felt everything.
Best defense is a good offense... What was I smoking? Was it the Oxy? Can you smoke that? The first damn chance he'd had to test this in the field, it had resulted in Neo stabbing the shit out of him, and then testing his 'perfected' version resulted in Yang Xiao Long showing up and showing him how full of shit he really was. Hilariously, the only routinely effective method of defense he'd found thus far was the Cap Shield. If I can't get this deflection thing working for me, I may have to change tactics. He saw Yang reloading her guns, the grin on her face only widening. Christ, I'm burning a lot of time jumping back and forth in combat strategies, here. He shook his head, and charged forward.
Yang was immediately on the defensive, backhanding away the shield after Aldric hurtled it at her. It spun to the wall, Aldric used his radar pulse to keep an eye on it and his semblance to bounce it back to him, as he and Yang engaged. Befitting of her primarily boxing style, she threw several lightning-fast punches at Aldric's head and chest, he smacked away one, took another to the head, and caught a third, wrapping his arm around her own and throwing two meteoric mantis punches into her stomach, before thrusting his hand out to the side. He actually saw Yang's eyes flash with interest when the shield finished bouncing around the club and landed in his hands, but this interest was replaced by a lance of pain when Aldric smacked the shield across her head as if it were a skillet.
Yang spun away from the impact, but when she came back up she punched at the air, sending several missiles out of her gauntlets. Aldric cursed and slid the shield onto his right arm, tanking three missiles, but being sent flying through the air when the fourth and fifth hit the ground at his feet. When he landed, he found Yang there, she hopped onto him, straddling his chest and ground-pounding his face. Aldric's vision briefly flashed white and gray, and he felt half of his face flare up as if it had been burned. On instinct, he shoved both hands forward and into her stomach; he may have put a little too much power into his semblance, as a second later she was buried into the light fixtures on the ceiling, but at least he hadn't torn the entire nightclub down.
Progress.
With a pained grunt, Aldric hauled himself to his feet, seeing his shield on the ground just next to his left foot. He felt at the right side of his face, and pain lanced up again, yup - she'd either broken or cracked his skull, just above his right orbit. Considering he wasn't screaming in incoherent pain however, he was willing to place a little faith on the latter. Regardless, he wiped the blood off of his forehead in an attempt to keep it from flowing into his eye, coughed out a small dollop of blood from his mouth, and then looked up to Yang.
She disentangled herself from the lighting fixtures, sending sparks falling through the air. With a grunt, she broke free and fell back to the ground. She used a timely burst from both of her gauntlets to keep from falling like a boulder, instead landing softly, and turning her grinning face up to Aldric, who stomped on the edge of his shield. It sprang up into the air, and he caught it, affixing it to his arm with a determined scowl to match her prideful smirk.
The good news here, is that neither of us are trying to kill eachother. That's the good news. Thought Aldric, as he raised his shield again. The bad news, is that I remember her semblance. Every time I hit her, she gets stronger. That shit's going to come back to bite me, if I don't break her shields, get her to give up, and soon, at that. Though, seeing a single bead of blood flowing down from her scalp, it made him feel confident about his chances, as well as reinforcing his earlier idea about Aura Shields, in that they negate the lethality of most attacks, but some force still bleeds through to cause injury. Despite this confidence, he still felt all of his injuries mounting - his breathes were starting to come out in wheezing rasps, from his ribs pressing against his lungs, and the blood from the cut on his head was doing its damnedest to blind his right eye.
Aldric frowned, deciding to throw a little MMA theory into the mix - Yang was a boxer. The vast majority of her strength came from her fists, which meant her legs were her weakness. If he could sweep her legs out from underneath her, and get her pinned to the ground, he'd have a firm advantage. This in mind, Aldric shifted his center of gravity lower, crouching down and shifting his grip on his shield, before beckoning to her with a 'come hither' motion. Yang took the bait and decided to take the initiative this time, raising her hands in a boxer's stance and charging forward.
She reached him in the blink of an eye, and he thrust his shield upwards to defend against a shower of punches, each explosion accompanied by the shrill sound of thick ringing metal, like a bell toll. As she focused on trying to wear down his defenses through brute force, Aldric leaned backwards, falling onto his free hand and kicking his legs outwards in a wide, sweeping motion. Yang's legs were swept out from underneath her, and she fell to the ground with a loud thunk of skin on glass, and a shout of surprise. Aldric spun into his circular momentum and was above her in a second, he smashed his shield onto her right leg three times before she swung her left leg up in an attempt to catch him off guard.
Aldric lunged backwards to dodge the swing, and then shoved his shield forwards - her leg then hit his shield and was stuck in its awkward position, freeing Aldric to rain another meteoric blow onto Yang's right leg, a thick purple bruise welling up on her thigh. However, before he could follow up with another one, she used her gauntlets to launch herself away, sending herself to the other side of the dance floor, and Aldric sprawling away from the dual shockwave. They both hopped to their feet - Aldric with blood flowing freely from his head wound, Yang with a more weight onto her less injured leg, as she tested the one he'd just tried incapacitating.
He, however, let the first grin of the fight grow onto his face. He'd found a good strategy, her legs were definitely where he had to focus, from now on.
Yang was nodding as she hopped from one foot to the other, her injured one unsteady, but still usable. "Oh yeah, you're definitely better than these hacks." She gestured to the rest of the nightclub with her head, her long blonde hair flowing with the motions. "I can see why your friends are using you as dinner theater." She said, wiping away the blood leaking out of her scalp.
"'Friends' is subjective, really..." Aldric deadpanned, his breathing still heavy, as he wiped his own blood out of his eye.
"You thinking of going to Beacon, Bar Boy?" She asked, as she pumped her gauntlets, a shotgun shell flying out of each.
"Maybe..." He reared his shield arm, "someday!" Aldric grunted as he hurled his shield at her.
She ducked underneath it and charged forward, either not having caught onto the fact that it could bounce off the walls and right back to him, or uncaring as there wasn't much she could do about it. She threw a wide right cross which Aldric deflected, she attempted to follow it up with an uppercut, but Aldric used his semblance to dodge it and escape scot-free. Another three machine-gun speed punches, Aldric barely managed to move fast enough to dodge the three, and before Yang could throw another, the shield made its triumphant return, smacking into her back and stumbling forward - right into Aldric's fist. Her head snapped back and forth, her smile growing wider as she saw in her peripherals, the shield bounce up into the air from the impact, and Aldric snatch it out of the air.
She used her forearm to block his next shield-bash, "aw, not now?" She asked, her own voice strained as she and Aldric struggled against eachother. "You look old enough!" She threw her fist forward, but Aldric palmed it away and responded with a cross of his own - she tried to dodge, but Aldric used his new defensive method in reverse, slowing down her motions enough such that his hit still connected. "And you're pretty good!" She commented, after her head snapped back into position.
Her next attack was another punch, which Aldric caught, immediately regretting his decision as he felt a horrendous lance of pain shoot through his hand, suspecting bones of having broken, but praying they'd only been fractured. "Thanks for the compliment..." He said, the both of them locked in a struggle of strength. "But I doubt that's where I'll be going... At the moment!" He began applying his semblance to his shield and his hand, pushing back against Yang and winning their struggle.
Yang, in response, grinned and shoved her knee upwards, prompting Aldric to fall back a step, their arms still locked together. She then stomped her foot downwards, forcing him to slide what had been his backfoot back again to avoid her breaking his foot. A moment later he he responded in kind, swinging his leg around and trying to kick Yang's knee out, but she yanked up her leg and guarded against the attack before shoving his leg aside. He, however, used his semblance to keep his balance and snapped his leg back, smashing the toe of his boot into her thigh and causing her to stumble. Despite this, she kept up her struggle against him, and tried throwing her head forward to headbutt him.
He jerked his head back to avoid the strike, and then planted his front foot firmly on the ground, so he could brace himself as he lifted his backfoot. He swung it around in a powerful roundhouse and caught her in her abdomen. She grunted from the impact, but used his now awkward balance against him, suddenly dropping all struggle and yanking both of his arms back towards her. He stumbled forward on his one good leg, and was sent right back as she this time successfully slammed her head into his own with a loud crunch.
Oh... Is my nose broken? Aldric wondered, as he wiped blood from his nose.
"Still got some tricks to learn, though." Yang grinned, crossing her arms.
Aldric pressed at both of his nostrils, blowing a huff of air out of each one, ensuring them still open. "Do I?" He asked, with an arced eyebrow.
Before Yang could even respond, she heard it - the sound of something inside her precious gauntlets and locking in place all of the moving parts. She'd no idea that Aldric had set this up from the very beginning of the fight. When she'd stolen his shield from him, and he'd regained contact with it, he'd shut it off, but hadn't used his semblance to recover the nanites. Instead, he'd taken advantage of their incredibly small size, which allowed them to stick to her like wet sand. With a brief mental command, he'd had them begin replicating - nowhere approaching lethal levels, however. Only small portions of the inner layers of Yang's shirt, and any sweat and blood they came into contact with, with the end result being enough nanites to do what he required of them. Following this, throughout the entire fight he'd been slowly pushing these nanites down to her gauntlets, intent on neutering them, jamming them up tight such that they couldn't fire anymore. Their brief struggle mere moments ago had given him the last few seconds he'd needed to ensure everything was in place before he dropped the 'killing blow', as it were. Now sufficiently clogged up, her gauntlets wouldn't be firing anything without one hell of a cleaning. The biggest risk the entire time had been her noticing the nanites, but he got around that by keeping up the pressure, and using his semblance to spread them so thin that, if she were to notice them, she would think them nothing more than sweat covering her body.
Thank god... Thought the fighter, whose breaths were coming out rapid and gasping. He knew that if he hadn't done something about her weapons, he wouldn't have stood a chance at really winning this fight; but with them out of comission, the only thing he had to deal with now was her natural strength and her semblance - both of which his Cap Shield alone should counter, let alone his semblance.
Yang chuckled, "oh, I think I like you!" She looked up, Aldric seeing the briefest flash of red in her eyes, "what's your -"
"Yang!" A new, shrill voice called out.
Aldric sensed something new approaching him, and it was on instinct more than anything else that he fell into a defensive stance and brought his shield up. However, a massive scythe, the blade nearly as long as he was tall, arced around the shield and, in the time it took him to blink, was yanked backwards, tearing his shield from his grasp. Aldric recovered quickly, but wasn't able to dodge the enormous slug that was blasted out of the scythe's barrel. It slammed into his barriers, gifting him with the feeling of several already stressed ribs fracturing further and a few breaking, and sending him sprawling backwards, sliding across the ground.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, sis!" He heard Yang call out, as he croaked in pain. "Ruby, for once it really isn't what it looks like!" She hopped in between her dark-clothed sister and Aldric.
Great... Why don't we call in the rest of 'em? Give us the whole gang? Aldric shook his head clear of stars, "there are two of you?" He croaked, coughing up blood and feeling the terrible sensation of something sharp poking at his lungs.
Carefully, he felt inside with his semblance and found that one of his ribs was jabbed up against his right lung like a dagger, and though it hurt like holy hell, he had to drag it away and forcibly reset the bone to make sure he wouldn't be puncturing his lung anytime soon. He really didn't want to test his Old Man Logan healing abilities against damaged organs. Wolverine was nigh unkillable, but Old Man Logan could die. It hurt like hell and he could now say he knew what one bone grinding up against another felt like, but the lack of pressure on his lungs was as liberating as the action was painful. Now free of this danger, Aldric looked up and past the blonde, where her shorter sibling stood, her face showing hesitation as she glanced past Yang and to Aldric.
"But I saw -" Ruby began.
Yang again shook her head, "we're just having a little fun, Rubes." Yang stepped forward and planted her hand on the scythe's haft, lightly pushing it away. "Put that away, yeah?"
And I thought Yang's guns hit hard, Jesus Christ... Aldric groaned, as he could feel his heart thundering in his ears. "Wait, am I supposed to believe you two make trashing nightclubs a hobby?" He grunted, hauling himself to his feet and briefly casting his eyes up to the Legion's corner. Cinder and Emerald weren't doing anything, leaving him to conclude that, for all intents and purposes, he was still being tested. He had to remind himself why he wasn't jumping the gun and actively attempting to kill those two.
Yang turned to him and shook her head, "nah." She said, still breathing heavily. "You just happened to get lucky tonight." She slowly revolved her head back to Ruby, "doesn't explain why you're here, though." She said in a singsong voice.
"I saw bumblebee outside, and heard your weapons going off." Aldric didn't know whether he should approach or stay put, but he wanted his shield, and wanted it without overtly tipping off Yang to what his semblance was, and so he cautiously began plodding over to the duo. "What are you doing here?" She asked, as her scythe folded up, and she let it hang from her back.
"Eh - it's a long story." Yang said, giving Ruby a one-armed hug. "Tell you what, you let me and..." She gave Aldric a look, as the crash survivor bent down and grabbed the shield.
Aldric hummed, "well if I'm Bar Boy, why not call me Beebee?" He was pretty sure the Legion wouldn't want him dropping his name every chance he got.
Yang rolled her eyes in an animated fashion, "let me and Beebee here finish up. We're almost done, just need a minute to get back to speed. Once we're done, we'll stop somewhere and grab a bucket of strawberries on the way home. Sound good?" She asked, in a sisterly tone.
Ruby's previously cautious, wary expression turned around on the spot. "Oh! Yes! Thanks Yang, that sounds awesome!" Aldric didn't even see when she wrapped her arms around her sister, only that she was suddenly trying to squeeze the life out of her.
Yang returned the hug, and after a light prod, Ruby retreated to the edge of the dance floor, sitting on the steep steps and laying out her collapsed scythe across her legs.
The blonde turned back to Aldric, who had spent so much time around the Legion that the ironically appropriate, given the universe he was in, break in the tension felt utterly foreign to him. "Kind of broke the mojo, yeah?" He grunted, as he used his hands and his radar pulse to feel at his chest, confirming that while more of his ribs were fractured and broken than weren't, none of them were in danger of piercing his lungs any longer. They were just causing a lot of pain.
Yang gave him an apologetic shrug. "Sorry about that... So..." She raised her fists, "where were we?"
Apparently... "Last I checked..." Aldric dropped into a defensive stance. Completely forgetting I just jammed up your guns. "I was planting my foot firmly somewhere between your lungs and colon."
Yang chuckled, "nice." And she launched herself forward.
As it turned out, she did indeed totally forget Aldric had jammed her gauntlets up, as when she impacted his shield not with an anvil strike, but the sound of metal striking glass, a shocked expression briefly played her features. Aldric threw her hand to the side with a jerk of his shield, before he lunged forward and smashed an uppercut in her stomach. She threw a cross at his head, but a timely application of his semblance let him dodge that. He spun into his dodge and bashed her with the broad edge of his shield, sending her stumbling away, where Aldric had enough space to get a running start and ram the edge of his shield in her back.
She kicked out with her leg and forced him to smack it back down to the ground, but this proved to be what she wanted, as she pivoted on her rear leg and brought her fist down onto Aldric's head. Aldric spun to the side to avoid it, but Yang lunged inside his defenses and smashed her fist into his gut. He was stunned long enough for her to follow it up with three rapid fire crosses and then a knee to the chest. Aldric stumbled backwards, hefting his shield to bear against another powerful right.
Peering around his shield, he saw Yang pumping her fist, the gears inside her gauntlet grinding against Aldric's Power Glove. "You've got these gunked up good, Beebee! How'd you do it?" She gave him a feral grin, a flash of red flitting through her eyes.
Not long at all. Aldric dropped the shield and landed a meteoric blow to her cheek.
She recoiled quickly, blocking Aldric's next wide right and catching his left, but Aldric followed it up by lunging forward, burying his good knee into her gut and his head into hers. She stumbled backwards and braced both legs behind her, her eyes taking on a more vibrant tone of red and her grin growing wider. She shoved her fist forward, Aldric deflected it and backhanded her, following it up with an elbow, which she returned in kind, ducking under him and burying hers into his gut. She quickly followed this with a savage uppercut and a straight that had Aldric's head snapping back and forth. When Aldric saw her clenching her right fist tightly, her eyes seemingly aglow with fire and her fist radiating aura, he knew that this was it - her killer move. He prayed he'd be able to react quick enough, as he hopped back.
She took the bait and charged forward, her right fist reared and radiating with her fiery aura. Two steps later and she was within striking distance, so Aldric landed on his backfoot and crouched down low, summoning his shield and bracing against it. Yang was a second too late to adapt, her momentum already sending her forward too fast, and she subsequently slammed her fist into his shield. The sound of a massive brass bell toll mixed with an equally titanic explosion, all the energy of Yang's attack plowing into Aldric's shield and being deflected back outwards at equal intensities. Yang herself was flung backwards as the entire nightclub shook from the shockwave - glasses on the bar lining the walls shattered and shook, the glass from the pillars flew outwards in a razor-sharp fire. Even Cinder and Emerald had to brace themselves from the force of impact.
With the sound of a bell toll still echoing in everyone's ears, Yang grunted, clearly dazed and not having been remotely prepared for her attack to, quite literally, backfire. When she opened her eyes, she saw the last vestiges of her aura shields fizzling out, and found Aldric standing above her, a dark gray pistol with a collapsed bayonet held in his hand, and his shield still affixed to the other. The pistol was pointed right at her, and Aldric had a deep frown on his face, his shield covered in dark scorch marks and his hair made wild by the raging winds of the shockwave.
Her back still on the ground and both arms splayed out to the side, she looked up to Aldric and arced an eyebrow, "are you sure you don't want to go to -"
"BANG!" Aldric bellowed, briefly shaking his gun, and causing Yang to flinch. He grinned, "you flinched." He let go of the gun, it spinning by the trigger guard as he placed it back in its holster, and held out his hand.
Yang rolled her eyes, "shut up." She accepted his hand and she was hauled to her feet, glass and debris streaming off of her back as she dusted herself off. "Seriously. You apply to Beacon I'm pretty sure you'd be a shoo-in."
Aldric shrugged, "I've got more important things to worry about." He grunted, nodding up to the legion, before turning to them, arms held out to his sides. "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!" He roared out, almost coughing by the end of it, thanks to his damaged chest.
He could imagine Emerald rolling her eyes, but the two descended regardless. Now without the hysteria of being press-ganged into a fight, and the light of the rest of the club to illuminate them, Aldric saw Emerald's handiwork. She had turned the two into two completely different people - Cinder even had bright-red hair and was a full foot taller than she had any right to be. Emerald, on the other hand, had gained ten pounds, paled to something resembling Aldric's skin before he'd come to Remnant, and her bone structure had changed to make her face much more narrow.
Alright... You did good. Though now he was wondering if she'd changed him at all, and if so, what he looked like.
Yang, however, was staring up at Cinder. "Beebee. How?" She looked from him to her.
Aldric frowned, "wha - oh." She was making a dig at him; despite the changes, both of them were still very attractive, with Cinder now looking to be at least ten years older than him. "I know how to pick 'em, don't I?"
Cinder grinned, "thank you, for entertaining us tonight." She said, her voice much lighter than it usually was. She handed him his coat, which he slung over his shoulders, wincing as the fabric dragged against his more open wounds. "I must say, I clearly am not paying you enough, if you can hold your own against one of Signal's brightest." She said, as Ruby made her way over.
"That's my sister!" She happily cawed, hopping on Yang's shoulders. "She's gonna be a huntress, you know!"
"Indeed?" Cinder shifted her gaze over to Yang.
It was frightening how good she was at this.
Yang shrugged her shoulders, one hand clasped over Ruby's to keep her from falling off of her back. "That's the dream." She said, with a smile. "Your bodyguard's tough, miss. You know how to pick 'em." She nodded, before sharing a smug look with Aldric. "Clearly out of his league."
Aldric was just happy she'd made a bodyguard joke and not a sugar mama joke, that's what he'd been expecting out of her. Cinder returned Yang's nod with one of her own, "not as much as I may have thought, but I thank you nonetheless."
Soon after, the two groups parted ways, with the yellow and red quarters of the future team riding off on the former's deafening motorcycle. Once they were out of sight, Emerald dropped her illusion, and Aldric dropped to his knees, his arms wrapped around his chest.
"JESUS!" He screamed, loud enough that his voice cracked. "I think it would be easier to count the ribs that aren't fractured!" He coughed, "ow!"
Cinder rolled her eyes, and hauled the crash survivor to his feet. "I would point out you survived much less critically injured here than you did your previous battle." She said, as police sirens greeted their ears, and they made their way back to the docks with the Aviator.
"There's a good explanation for that, hot stuff - that chick..." He grunted, rubbing at his mangled ribs, "her weapons weren't penetrative. They caused concussive force and minor burns, little else."
Cinder granted Aldric a curious glance, "how did you figure that out?"
"Air displacement." The crash survivor responded, "my shield..." The red white and blue disk briefly appeared, before fading away. "It absorbs vibrations and deflects them. Every time she punched it, I didn't feel a thing, but..." He patted his aching chest, "when she'd punch the barriers I make with my semblance, I'd deflect what little ammunition was sent my way, but the air that was displaced would still hit me. Not nearly as hard, but apparently, hard enough." He grunted, limping alongside the three of them. "Compare them to Neo's weapons, those were killing tools. They penetrated and stabbed, caused bleeding damage. Those killed people, but hers, they just caused physical damage. Compare a hammer versus a scalpel."
Cinder nodded, humming. "And of her semblance? It appeared as if you were able to ascertain its design before she made use of it."
At this, Aldric shrugged. "Every time I hit her, she hit back - harder." He said, "kept getting stronger every time, so... Two and two. It would either make her absolutely invulnerable and keep her empowered - which I proved wasn't the case when I made her bleed - or what went in, would come out." He reasoned, "I saw her focusing all of that energy I'd inadvertently donated into her fist. Even without her gauntlets working, it'd still pack a wallop." He turned around, now walking backwards so he could look right at Cinder. "And I'm willing to bet a lot on the fact that I survived because she didn't even intend to kill me.
"Before you ask, there was a look in her eyes. She was a fighter first, pride, and whatnot." Aldric said, nodding his head side to side. "I doubt she'll consider lethal options... Against humans, at least... Until she graduates Beacon." He shook his head, "but, let's discuss something a bit more prudent - did you two plan that bullshit? How could you even have known some random blonde would crash into a nightclub and tear apart the staff?"
Emerald shrug, "she did it before."
Aldric blinked, "say what?"
"Torchwick's got connections throughout the entire criminal underworld, and even in the more legitimate sectors, even Beacon." Cinder said, "she's looking for someone, and has taken down four other clubs. He noticed the pattern, remembered we were testing you, and brought it up. We told him to subtly guide her to Junior's, and we took you here."
"And you knew when she'd be there... How?" Aldric arced an eyebrow.
"Luck." Cinder deadpanned.
In other words: Shut up. Aldric sighed, letting out a light wheeze as his damaged ribs pressed against his lungs. "Please tell me the the lethal combat tests will stop, after this. I really don't want to find out the limits to Aura-based healing." He said, clearing his throat. "Old Man Logan could be killed, after all." At least, far easier than his younger counterpart.
"You ruined it." Emerald voiced, as Aldric faced forward, "you almost went an entire conversation without making some obscure reference to your home."
"Lady, obscure references to my world are literally how I survived before you three showed up." The crash survivor pointed to the mint-haired terrorist, "one day I'll tell you who Nathan Drake is, and how modeling my entire fucking life after him saved it." He rumbled.
Emerald rolled her eyes, and Cinder picked up. "For what it is worth, Aldric." She attracted Aldric's eyes, "that you've survived training with Mercury, a battle against Neopolitan, and..." She hummed, briefly casting her gaze around, before looking back to Aldric's. "Didn't lose, against Signal's brightest... It says more to us, about you, than you think it does."
"I'm lucky?"
"You're a far more natural born fighter than you ever thought."
There's a philosophical argument in there... Something about humans naturally skilled in killing people... But my I'm in too much pain to think about that. "Okay sure." He said, as a few police cars roared past them, the wind howling in their wake and their sirens screaming. "Your police system sucks. We were in there for... Thirty minutes, I think." He turned back to Cinder, "you still didn't really answer my question, though." He mentioned. "I get the whole 'trial by fire' thing -" He indicated Emerald with his thumb, "her cutting the shit out of me with her sickles, and Mercury constantly breaking bones with this reverse-Winter Soldier limbs of his certainly hammer in lessons faster than training in soft padded rooms with body armor, but still. I feel I should point out that almost dying every time almost seems counterproductive."
Cinder shrugged, "you haven't." She countered.
"And if I would have?"
"Do you know how much blood you lost after the temple?"
"I think that's besides the point."
"That is the point, Aldric." Cinder responded, as the buildings grew smaller and the smell of saltwater filled the air. "As much as you play yourself off, you have shown yourself to, above all things, be a survivor. You survived the Grimm with no aura or even proper weapons whatsoever. You survived Neopolitan in spite of her actively attempting to kill you, and your defensive strategy placing your life in a higher systemic risk." Then she nodded behind her, in the direction they had just come. "And then a woman who has been accepted into the very institution against which we fight. As you pointed out she was not intent upon killing you, but I would then counter that, despite her intentions, your life was still in danger.
"Yet..." She drawled, with a deep bow of the head. "In spite of this, you have, in less than three months, grew in strength and skill enough to survive every encounter." She pointed out, "what's more, be it by technicality or otherwise, you haven't yet lost."
Aldric frowned, "you put it like that, it sounds absolutely fucking ridiculous." This was a world of demons and superpowered people fighting said demons. How was he not dead, and more importantly, how had he not lost? Some wins were arguable, but the point remained that from a certain point of view, he'd done nothing but win
He shook his head. Nathan Drake. And he left it at that.
"You see my point, however."
Aldric nodded in the affirmative, "I may not want to, but I do." Skill and strength had a lot to do with victory, but sometimes being lucky enough to survive was worth just as much. "I just hope you don't intend to shunt me into another lethal test."
Cinder actually managed to raise his spirits when she shook her head, as the three of them made it to the docks, and headed for the Aviator. "I believe, Aldric, that there may be no more need."
"Oh thank the lord." Aldric deadpanned.
Though, when they entered the ship, he began to feel as if her reasoning behind her saying such a thing was less because for success reasons, and pragmatic ones, as waiting in the dining room, covered in light wounds and bruises, and mowing through a meal fit for several men, was Mercury Black.
"Oh, great." He called out, inhaling a submarine sandwich nearly as large as his head. "You're here."
For the Record
For Christ's sake, these three are going to be the death of me.
Six fractures, two breaks, all on my lungs. About as much of me is bruised as is not, and I'll have to count myself miraculously lucky this cut over my eye isn't scarring.
All courtesy of Yang Xiao Long. If I remember correctly (as I never downloaded them), I'm pretty sure I just ran into the Yellow trailer, and gate-crashed it like a dick.
The Legion was aware of her breaking nightclubs - apparently Torchwick is more Capone than I initially gave him credit for - and sooooooomehow was able to figure out exactly when she'd head for Junior's club.
I got my ass handed to me.
But, somehow, I gave as good as I got.
Been here less than six months, and I haven't conclusively won... Well, any of my fights, but I would agree with Cinder that surviving them is pretty awesome. Despite that, I return to my point about Goku-level exponential growth, and I'll leave it at really hoping I'm not some kind of blood mage.
Now, Mercury's back. We're gearing up the aviator, he had to beat up an entire bar to do it, but he got White Fang's location out of 'em. We'll be out of dock by tomorrow morning.
So, that means within the next one or two months, we'll be going up against the Fall Maiden.
Grimm nearly crippled me, Neo nearly killed me, and Yang whooped my ass.
Yeah, I guess I'm ready to box God.
'Till next time.