Chapter 16

Smoke. Or so it was. Or was it? What was smoke? Or was there such a need for it?

Need, that triggered something, a strange feeling inside. A need, but for what? So many questions, so few answers.

He was surrounded by smoke, it smelled awful and acrid, but there was something else in the smoke, an irony smell.

Opening his eyes - when had he closed them? - he saw that the smoke surrounding him was a deep red in color. It was lit up from below and within, casting everything in powerful shadows and making him blind to anything within a few inches of his face. Strange, where was he?

There was a sound filling the air. A squelching, tearing sound, followed by some sort of thick liquid splattering against the ground, and then the acrid, irony smell grew more powerful. Lacking any other option, he followed these sounds, reaching blindly in front of him and making wide, sweeping motions with his legs, to ensure he didn't step on or over something. This turned out to be the right option, as his foot hit something to his right. He dropped to his hands and knees, but found himself kneeling in something wet, thick, and warm.

Blinking, he lifted his hand, and saw it covered in a thick layer of blood, as if it had been painted onto him with oil. When he lowered his hand, he found his eyes greeted by the ghastly appearance of a woman with dark skin, her face carved open like a Halloween pumpkin, three long gashes stretching from one side of her face to the other, and covering it in a thin sheen of blood. Her eyes were deflated, looking as if they'd been popped. Her jaw was slack, lending to her ghastly appearance, and she listed from side to side, head lolling about limply.

He took a single step back - when had he gotten to his feet? - but found himself halted by something else. This was also warm, but not in the came way as the blood covering his hands. He whirled around and saw, looming above him, a rotund man with a thick, bushy beard, and dark hair that absorbed what little light was around them. The rotund man looked down on him with a disappointed expression marring his wrinkled face, before he shook his head and turned his back on him.

He blinked twice, before he recognized the man - reaching forward, desperate to follow him, before he realized that the arm he reached forward with was bleeding freely. His eyes snapped down to it, seeing it missing from below the elbow and spewing out blood like a slasher flick. He would have screamed in fright, but then the woman grabbed him and spun him around to face her.

She mouthed something, but he was in such pain that he couldn't see it clearly. The smoke grew thicker and thicker, and she tried again to communicate with him, but as the smoke condensed around them, the bright red lights grew brighter, and the smoke thicker, and before he -

Aldric snapped back into consciousness with a rough shout, his eyes refusing open, bound shut by tightly wound bandages and gauze. Everything in the large, hotel-suite like room he found himself in, jumped and shook a few inches as he lashed out with his semblance. He sensed a stout man a few inches away from him, who skidded back a foot from the force of Aldric's unintentional display. The fighter's head snapped around, his brain not having started all the way and not yet understanding of why he couldn't see.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, "whoa, boy." Said a voice with an elderly tremor. "Calm down, you're safe now. You're in the Garden."

Aldric did his best to still himself, but his eyes not opening and a burning, stinging sensation in his left arm ensured he wouldn't grow completely calm. "What happened to me? I can't see."

"You were in one hell of a fight, kid." Said the man, as the memories slowly began to flow back. "Be ready, because what happened to you isn't pretty. Your arm was cut off at the shoulder, and your cauterizing of it, plus the time it took you to get to me, I couldn't try to reattach it." He explained, as Aldric tried feeling for his aura, to pull up his radar pulse. "As to your eyes, they got burned out. The physical damage was focused primarily on the eyes themselves, so while there won't be any noticeable facial scarring... The fact of the matter is we had to amputate. By the time you got here they were already badly infected."

Aldric stilled, his expression turning to one of shock. "You cut out my eyes?" He deadpanned, as his radar pulse kicked in, and gave him a view of the room, in much more minute detail than he had been able to get in the midst of all of the pain and agony during the fight.

The old man was to his left, swapping out the bandages on Aldric's arm. Aldric couldn't see in color with the pulse - though he intended to correct this if he could - but he could see that the small mass of bandages to the doctor's right was discolored and darkened, likely by Aldric's blood. The wrinkled man nodded, "you put that much blood and dirt in already burned tissue and you're asking for a bad infection, which you got." He explained. "It was either cut them out and have a higher chance of survival, or leave them in and risk you dying... And your friends dropped quite a few coins to ensure that didn't happen."

Friends... Right. Emerald's dead, isn't she? They wouldn't want to lose another if they could help it... But how the hell do they expect me to do anything, blinded and with one arm? Aldric grunted, slowly collapsing back into the pillows propping him up.

"How long have I been out?" He asked, barely above a whisper; he felt out with his radar pulse, trying to find out where he was in the Garden. He could tell he was underground, and when he sensed upwards, he figured out pretty quickly he deeper than he'd been before, in what he assumed to be the suites, instead of the armory or the restaurant. How many coins is Mercury dropping for all of this, I wonder?

"Well..." The doctor voiced, as he finished unwrapping Aldric's arm. A quick peak showed him that most of the burned tissue had been scraped away during his most recent comatic nap, and what remained had been stitched together. It swelled up an ugly purple and red, and blood was seeping out from in between the sutures. "Your partners said you'd suffered this injury about twelve hours before you got here. It's been twenty four since then... So..." He shrugged, nodding his head to the side. "Day and a half."

I guess aura doesn't let arms grow back. Aldric frowned, "surprised that hasn't healed up." He said. "Usually, it's a day or two and I'm good."

The doctor shook his wrinkled, gray head, as he wrapped the stump in new, fresh bandages. "Wounds this serious, takes longer to heal. Even with aura. And I didn't do you any favors, having to remove the burned tissue. Truly you've only been really healing for about six hours, now. The rest of you isn't as bad, but you've been a little sluggish." He harrumphed. "I'd hate to see the other guy."

Aldric guessed that was a fair enough point, as he searched the Garden for the Legion. "I'm surprised I'm not in so much pain."

"You're high." The doctor deadpanned. "I've got you on the good stuff."

I bet I'll be dipping into that Oxy by the end of the week. Aldric thought. "Thank you." He grunted, pressing his good hand to his head and pinching the bridge of his nose.

But the doctor shrugged. "It's my job. You give me coin, I give you what I've got." He said. "I've seen worse."

Aldric smirked, "worse than no arm and no eyes?"

"At least it was a clean cut." The man countered. "I've seen people get mauled by Grimm. Much worse." He nodded, squinting at the tightly wound bandages. "Much worse." He tied them off. "But they were fine, and so will you."

As he spoke, Aldric located Mercury. He was ambulatory on a pair of crutches, exiting the armory, a bag slung over his shoulder, two new cybernetic legs inside of it, thumping against his back with every step he took. A look of moderate pain graced his face.

Lieutenant Dan's got new legs... Aldric turned his focus to his own stump. "What's the skinny on me getting a robot arm?"

"Eh?" The Doctor gave him the most befuddled look.

Aldric shook his head, "cybernetic replacement. How does that work?"

"Ah." He nodded, "yeah. They forked over the coin for that, but you needed to be conscious for it, so we could get you fitted and calibrated." He nodded to the side, leaning back in his chair. "Obviously, you're not a Huntsman, so we can't go for your medical records there to speed up the process. It'll take a day or two to get everything we need, plus maybe a third to get your arm built. Maybe longer if you request anything non-standard... But that's just based off of experience." He said, placing his tools on a small metal tray to his right. "I'm a doctor, not an engineer.

"Your eyes, though, that'll be the long haul. Lost limbs are common place, it doesn't take long to do the neuro-calibrations. An hour at most, and you're done. But with your eyes, it's a lot more sensitive electronics, and you need a pretty invasive surgery to get them implanted correctly. You're looking at a few months at least, before you get a new pair shipped in."

A few fucking months. Thought Aldric, breathlessly. Jesus.

He nodded. "I'll keep that in mind." Thirty six-odd hours... I've lost a day and a half. If Qrow's even gotten the message, I've only six more days to meet him. Three days to get an arm built, that's two remaining... Fuck. Now he had a choice to make: Try to make the meetings each night without the arm, and have more chances to find Qrow, or play it safe, get the arm and get as close to full strength as he could, considering his newly acquired blindness, but only have two chances to meet up with Qrow. "Fuck..." He groaned, sliding his hand through his hair, which was bound by the bandages wrapped around his head, almost like a bandanna. "Can I -"

"I wouldn't recommend it." The Doctor said, predicting Aldric's question. "But less than a tenth of you even follow Doctor's orders." He planted two pill bottles on his night stand. "I know you don't read braile, so I improvised a bit with the labels. Give me your hand." Aldric did so, deciding it would be easier to humor the man than to try and explain his radar pulse. The man placed his hand on the bottle's cap, and Aldric felt a raised section in the shape of a cross."These here, got a plus sign on the cap. These are antibiotics." He explained, "take two a day. These..." He lifted Aldric's hand and placed it on the second bottle. "Are pain killers. Minus sign. No more than three a day." He gave Aldric his hand back. "If you can manage it, stay here and see me before you go to bed each night. Now that you're awake and your aura's flowing properly, you should heal up a bit faster, but I'd rather keep an eye on it just in case."

I'll ignore the fact that I'm talking to a criminal assassin doctor, and instead just nod yes. Aldric nodded, sensing Mercury approaching his floor, and the doctor gathering up his equipment. I'm also going to have to see how far down I can focus this radar pulse. He thought, as he sat up, the blankets pooling around his waste, revealing his chest, otherwise bare save for the thick bandages and gauze that were wrapped around it. Right now, I can't see color, and I can't see printed text... But seeing in general is just our eyes taking in photons, and our brains making sense of the information. Color, looking at a sheet of paper, it's all just light bouncing around... So, given my track record, I should be able... At some point... To focus it down enough that I can sense how the photons are radiating, and see the color in the air, the text on paper... Shit to do.

The doctor warned him not to stress the stitches as he left. Aldric could understand his warning, he could feel the tender flesh of his stump stretching against the thick stitches keeping it from breaking open and spewing blood like he were in some slasher flick. His entire body was sore, appropriately feeling as if he'd been put through the meat grinder. Thanks to his radar pulse burning a real-time 3D image of the entire room into his brain, he didn't even need to look around for his clothes. He already sensed where they were in relation to him, 'seeing' that a replacement shirt had been provided, and was laying neatly atop his folded longcoat. He wondered who among the Legion had been thoughtful enough to grab it, especially considering that only Cinder was in any right state after the fight.

He got to his feet and slowly, painfully sidled over to the chair. He bent down, stressing his sore, bruised body as he did so, and grabbed the shirt with his good hand, before sliding it on. But as he reached down for his coat, he paused, furrowing his brow underneath the thick bandages covering the upper half of his face.

I wonder... He thought, focusing his senses on the freshly bandaged stump. Fuck it, what do I have to lose? He stood back up straight, and felt out with his semblance. The coat quickly entered his senses as his radar pulse washed over it. Visualizing is half the battle... He thought, seeing in his mind's eye, his arm, as if it had never been cut off in the first place. I wonder if my semblance is helping with the phantom pains, or it's too early for that. He thought, as he stooped over, visualizing the phantom arm reaching for his coat and grasping it by the collar.

To his amazement, the coat responded. When he picked it up with his 'hand', it moved as he directed it to. Even the sleeve of his shirt filled out as if an arm were in it. He smirked, reaching forward with his good hand and sliding the coat on. The left arm hung limply as he stopped focusing his semblance, and the weight of the coat felt off without an arm to fill it. It felt as if he had a small bag hanging off of his shoulder, too light to be a nuisance, but heavy enough to be noticeable.

When he looked down to the chair his clothes had been on, he saw, stashed behind it, his armor was there, too. He skipped everything but the boots, and made sure the small backup vial of his Power Glove was still in its pocket, before he turned to the door. He made it to the door to his room just as Mercury was passing by. The assassin's son looked surprised to see him awake.

Aldric nodded to the bag hanging from his shoulders. "You want help with that?" He asked. Mercury cast a brief glance to Aldric's loosely swinging left sleeve, but shrugged, and slid the bag off of his back. Aldric caught it, surprised at how light it was, considering the heavy-duty machinery inside. "So how is she?" He asked.

"Cinder's pissed." He said, as Aldric followed alongside him.

"At?"

"You." He gave Aldric a warning glance. "You clawed the Maiden's eyes out. She didn't feel confident in trying the fast way in getting her powers, and that meant she only got half, before that Huntsman did whatever it was he did." He intoned.

"I..." Aldric faltered, before he shook his head and shrugged, expression neutral. "The Maiden burned out my eyes, that scythe guy had just cut my arm off, and I'd burned the stump to keep it from bleeding too much. I wasn't exactly lucid."

"That and Emerald biting the bullet are pretty much why you woke up in the Garden and not on that dirt road." Mercury revealed, as the two limped and walked over the carpeted floors, down the corridor. "She's pissed, make no mistake about it... But I'll be damned if you aren't her weakness."

Aldric frowned, giving Mercury a quick glance. "Oh?"

The assassin's son looked ahead, nodding. "Don't tell me you haven't noticed. She's not in love with you, by any means, but you're like..." He frowned, "a pet. I'd say."

"Oh, okay. I'm a dog." Aldric deadpanned. "That's not... Emasculating at all." His shoulders slumped. "So I have the choice between a terrifying assassin who tried to kill me... Or a newly minted demi-goddess who tried to kill me by proxy... And who thinks I tried to rob her of her powers." A beat, "by that math, if I get married in this world it will be to the woman who tries to cut my dick off." He deadpanned.

Mercury laughed at this. "It was quiet without you, Aldric." He said, "but, yeah. She lets you slide with a lot more than she let me or Em do. You're a smart guy, you've noticed that, yeah?"

Aldric nodded. "Full disclosure, I thought it was because of my freaky Earth aura surplus powers." He admitted.

Mercury gave a sidewards nod, "probably at first. But then you started thinking in front of her. Got her interested." He nodded to a door coming up. "This is mine." Aldric and Mercury unlocked the door and slid inside the assassin's son's suite. "Just drop 'em on the bed."

"So how many coins did this cost you?" Aldric asked, as he dropped the sack on the king-sized mattress, and found himself a seat, as Mercury took up station at a desk.

Mercury chuckled, "not nearly enough to be worrying. Dad got glass, Aldric. We're fine."

"Glass?"

"A better way to ensure no one has to haul around hundreds of tons of metal. One thousand platinum to a gold. One thousand gold to a glass. They don't have anything bigger because few people besides my father ever got glass alone, let alone a thousand."

"Dad was a regular John Wick, wasn't he?" What Aldric felt was more important, though, was that there were apparently more just like Mercury's father, all apparently just as good. 'Glass Gardeners', as it were.

"I assume that was a good assassin where you're from, and yes." Mercury nodded, twisting his single functional leg out of its socket, and dropping the mangled thing to the floor, before he reached over behind him and grabbed at the bag. "There was a reason Cinder looked for him... And an even bigger reason she took me." He said, a prideful smirk on his face.

Aldric hummed, "so where is she, anyways?"

"Cinder?" Mercury asked, the pride turning to humor. "Wasn't hit too hard during the fight. Not like you and I, and definitely not like Emerald. I dropped a few names for her, she's on the main level setting up a meeting with Torchwick. We're going to lay low here until we're all healed up and ready to head back to hit up Adam Taurus again. From there..." He frowned, "probably going to get to work tracking down and finishing off the Maiden. After that, it's need to know."

Aldric nodded, "I remember seeing Emerald down and out with the radar pulse." He said, "where did she end up?"

"A bonfire." Said the assassin's son. "Cinder burned the body."

"Oh." Aldric deadpanned. "Wonderful." So that was what he had to look forward to. "Who will I piss off now?"

Mercury shrugged, "I'm sure you'll find someone. Torchwick's girl would probably let you."

"Oh god..." If Aldric's eyes worked - or were even in his skull - he would have rolled them. "Don't remind me about that, please. That joke I made earlier, about a woman cutting my dick off? I wouldn't put it past her... At all." He and Mercury shared a chuckle.

Aldric leaned back, letting out a long yawn. "Well... If there's nothing more, I think I'm going to retreat back to my room." He said, getting to his feet. "Need to figure out how to fine tune my radar."

"Good luck, Aldric."

For the Record

I am an idiot.

I am a goddamn idiot.

In the show, the 'battle' lasted about five minutes, and then Qrow showed up. Here, Cinder switched tactics from ambush to attrition, and my incredibly intelligent ass didn't even consider what that would mean for Qrow's arrival. Us magically changing up the game plan wouldn't mean he'd show up later, why would it?

For my lapse in judgement, I got my fucking arm cut off... And now there are pits where my eyes should be.

I'm not kidding - I'm like... Big Boss, right now, just minus the shrapnel in my skull.
So, Bucky Barnes, I guess.
Anyways. Arm: Gone. Eyes: Gouged out. Irony: Noted.

Qrow cut the arm off on arrival, and Amber electrocuted the holy living shit out of my face; how I didn't scar is beyond me.
I got hit with that bad luck shit baaaaad.

And then literally everything I did to try and fix the situation made it worse. I had to put him on the defensive, so I used the Power Glove to eat his scythe and give Mercury and Emerald a tactical advantage... But forgot that he's a fucking badass Huntsman who was fighting two exhausted teenagers.

Emerald's dead now.

Then I initially intended to just poke Amber's eyes out, but Cinder freaked out and shot me, so now it looks like I went Freddy Krueger on her - half of her face is gone and her eyes looked like they got sawed in half. I think I had nightmares about it.

Then we hit more bad luck.
Well, depending on your point of view, at least: All of the damage from the battle meant the ground was unstable, and Qrow being there for so long meant it was only a matter of time before stuff went south. The ground collapsed underneath her, gave Qrow time enough to sever her connection with Amber, and get the eff out of dodge.

Bad luck for the Legion... Fortuitous turn of events for the League. Win some lose some.

But Cinder's pissed, and apparently considered leaving me there because of it, but decided against it. I guess I'm still worth something, but I'm pretty sure I'll bleed out the ears once she gets back.

Now we're back in the Garden, a doctor gave me some hardcore drugs for the pain, stitched my stump up, and cut my fucking eyes out 'so they wouldn't get infected'. Couldn't reattach the arm, though. When it got cut off, I torched the stump to cauterize it and stop the bleeding, and apparently the Legion of Doom didn't store the severed limb well. So I'll have to pull a Winter Soldier and swap it out with a cybernetic replacement.
And here I was trying to avoid too much magnetic shit in my arsenal.

Or, wait, graphene isn't magnetic. CNT's even less so.
I'll have to look into that. I think Remnant's advanced enough to have those... But I doubt it'll be cheap. Probably have to drop more than a few coins for it.

Oh, and apparently Mercury has even more coins than I thought. There's a whole hierarchy thing going on, platinum, gold, and glass. One glass is a million platinums (Jesus!), and Mercury implied he has a lot of glass (Christ!).
So, remember earlier, I mentioned I wanted to try and swipe some of Mercury's coins? I think that simultaneously became simpler, and harder. I'll have to look into that more.

As a side note: I can use my semblance as a replacement for the arm - it's wicked simple, harkening back to just visualizing it - but it takes a little concentration to do, and since I'm preparing my Edward Elric impression... Why bother? Maybe it'll be good for a party trick, but... I dunno what use potentially having more than one limbs could have, especially since it's infinitely easier to skip a TK limb and just go for direct manipulation.
Side note to the side note: How many more cyborgs do I know? I've name dropped three and I'm not sure who's the most appropriate for the situation.

Of a similar vein, my semblance can help me somewhat get around my lack of eyes, too.
Thank the radar pulse, for that. 360 degree, tactile, 3D view, of everything around me for an average of ten or so meters? I'm pretty much some kind of unholy mixture of Neji Hyuuga and Daredevil, at this point.

I had some trouble figuring out how to tune it so I could see things in color, though. Originally I saw everything in this... Sepia-like tone, it was all a uniform color. I didn't even see shadows or differences in light, and I couldn't try to read things or look at TV screens - I'd just see blank slates on both of them. But now that I don't have any fucking eyes, that won't fly anymore.

Fortunately, it only took a few hours to figure this one out. The long and short of it is that, while nowhere near mastered, I've been able to 'feel' atoms and such for a while now - it's how I was able to heat up the power glove and cauterize my arm, after all. Going on my whole theories about 'anything with mass', I know photons have mass. They're weird in that they both do and do not, but they do have mass, just a really... Really small amount of it. And since color is basically just photons radiating at different intensities... Strictly speaking, if I plug those two into all of the tactile stuff with my radar pulse, I should be able to see in color again.

The result?

I can definitely see in color, that much is true. I can read words on a book and make sense of images on a television/computer screen (wouldn't be writing this if I couldn't!)... But I can also see in more color than I used to be able to.
I can see infrared and ultraviolet light too.

That actually freaked me the fuck out, when I started seeing the laser shooting out of the TV remote, and all of the wacky technicolor stuff floating around in the air. I thought the doctor's pain meds had kicked in again. Looked like I was on acid, or in the Doctor Strange movie. I cannot explain how it looks any better, though. It's like trying to describe color without any reference points.

It took me the most time out of all to figure out how to focus my newfound sight to just the visible spectrum, in regards to human eyes, and such. Any lapse in focus, though - acid trip. Maybe this will prove useful, one day - I can see lasers and shit, now - but at the moment, it just fries my brain and freaks me out.

Point is: I have no eyes, but I can see - arguably better than I have ever seen before. Describing going from my eyes to solely relying on the radar pulse... I'd say it's like living your entire life looking through a little coffee stirrer straw, and then being able to take that straw away.

Side note: I'm going to have to put some serious thought and consideration in figuring out how to use the radar pulse as a listening device, of sorts. With the shit I've made it do so far, sensing the vibrations in the air and translating it into sound I can understand isn't too far off.
Side note to the side note: It still hasn't escaped me how I'm doing godlike shit with my powers, despite having had them less than half a year. I haven't forgotten my old ideas, and now with how much I'm going to have to rely upon them to function, I'm all the more scared and worried about my 'burn out' theory.

But, I'm off track.

Cinder wasn't hit nearly as bad as Mercury and I - Mercury got his legs fucking blown off! - and all of us weren't hit nearly as hard as Emerald.

'Cause she's dead.

I do not know what to think about this. It's been long enough a day as it is.

But Cinder's out setting up another meet with Torchwick. After that, and after we recover, we're going for Adam Taurus. After that? Fuck if I know, that's approaching canon time, and the Legion's activities up until the Vytal tournament were kind of vague. Will we be replenishing our numbers, maybe? Who would replace Emerald? I have no clue.
But, between then and now, I hope to meet Qrow.

Problem: What with my string of colossal fuck ups... I'm worried about my chances in such a meetup.

Seriously: I clawed Amber's eyes out and was instrumental in almost killing Qrow - the dude got a knife to the back because I disarmed him!
I basically kicked the Hulk in the groin, and am now expecting him to not be mad.
That's a recipe for success, definitely.

The good news, at least, is that even if I meet Qrow without the new arm, he'll still have a hard time recognizing me. Mercury assured me that Emerald disguised our appearances with her semblance, and with my semblance arm trick and my coat to disguise the empty air, he won't be able to peg me as the guy whose arm he cut off. Add on that ballistic mask I got from the Garden awhile back (was that really just a few days ago? Holy shit, it feels like a year.), and there won't be any way they could recognize me. I'll need to get creative to mask the bandages on my eyes, though...

Regardless - they will start looking for folks with cybernetic replacements, now... Hopefully getting a robo-arm here at the Garden won't put me on some kind of registry.
If it does, I'll call myself Adam Jensen.
I didn't ask for this, but I'm not going to say no.

Okay, okay, I'm done. Clearly I've disarmed you with the cyborg jokes.
That was the last one. I'm afraid making another will cost me an arm and a leg.

Coping mechanisms aside... What comes next?
I guess it's food. Not much to really do... I'll see if I can't find a way to sneak out tonight, but I doubt that'd be a good idea, still in recovery like I am. My stump is basically one big purple bruise - it hurts to look at it, let alone poke it through the bandages.

In other news: Now just watch. I'm back in the Garden, and very weak. I give it... An hour.
Neo will *sense* my weakness.

'Till next time.

Aldric passed a lot of time in his new room. Much of it was spent lounging around and fine tuning the new uses for his radar pulse, while the remainder was spent tinkering with his Power Glove and getting used to using his semblance as a replacement for his lost arm, the television on in the background. It was random news, but it filled the air with a comforting white noise. His scroll was connected to the Power Glove and glowing with a low intensity, showing the increasingly familiar settings screen for the nanites. Aldric didn't even really have any particular goal in mind, he was just messing with the settings, seeing what did what.

"In other news, the White Fang has taken credit for the assault on Forever Fall cargo train, days ago..."

Oh, that's coming full circle, now, isn't it? Aldric thought, trying to find a way to tune up the sharpness of any edges the nanites made. So... Am I going to want to ask for anything, with this arm? He wondered.

The way he looked at it, graphene or carbon nanotubes were a must. If he got those, the arm would functionally be indestructible. A part of him wondered if he couldn't use it to up the ante, perhaps get some enhanced strength, but two things kept him from making any final decisions on that. The first was the easiest - if he did that, he'd have to reinforce his entire skeleton around the strength the arm could put out; at that point he may as well swap out all of his body parts and get sunglasses welded to his face. The second reason was less clear, but equally as valid: His semblance. With it, the need for physical strength, while not negated, was largely lowered in intensity. His mantis punch worked, and with his semblance he'd shown an ability to steal electrons out of the air and cauterize heavily bleeding wounds. Bolstering his own strength was not as equal a challenge. But, having some sort of enhanced strength wasn't a bad idea, either. If ever he found himself in a situation where he couldn't use his semblance, for whatever reason, having a wrecking ball for a fist could prove very useful. So, deciding to leave enhanced strength up to the arm builder's discretion, Aldric moved on to considering something else: Weapons.

Obviously, this being Remnant, he'd want some sort of gun. His pistol/knife was definitely fun and all, but having another one, less easily stolen, would only be a good thing. He'd have to do some window shopping whenever he spoke to the engineer, see what could be fit in. Other than a gun, Aldric felt some sort of melee implement would definitely be of service, and considering he already had two different bladed implements, in the Power Glove and the pistol, something else may be of use. Maybe a taser? Something he could make weak enough to stun people, or strong enough to be lethal and put them on their ass.

More things to - oh shit. Aldric's neutral expression turned to a light frown, as, through his radar pulse, he sensed Cinder approaching his door. Well, might as well get this over with. Before she could even knock, Aldric, with a wave of his hand, undid the latch and let it swing open.

Cinder didn't even seem surprised, and instead, without breaking stride, entered. Aldric could tell she was pissed before she even said anything. She had an expression of fire, and he could see some dull embers floating around her eye, the air radiating around her fists from the heat she was generating, and the lines of dust in her clothes glowing dully.

Oh shit indeed. Aldric looked up, turning his bandaged face to her. "Now, before you kill me... As I understand it there are rules against that, here." He deadpanned.

She scowled at him, "do you honestly think that would stop me, even as I am now?"

Nice word choice. 'Even as' she is now. She was pissed. "Quantity is a quality all of its own." Aldric responded, slowly leaning back away from the glove. "Is there any way I get out of this without getting my crippled, blind ass kicked?" He asked, as she stalked over to the chair they had dropped his clothes on.

"You had orders, Aldric." She growled, sitting down with as much grace as her anger would allow.

Aldric blinked, regarding her dully. "Kill the Fall Maiden?" He said in a questioning manner.

"Let me kill her." She shot back. "Worse, not only did you disobey my orders, you blinded her."

"No..." Aldric leaned back forward, cupping his chin with his single functioning hand. "You told me that if she died, her powers were transferred to the person last in her thoughts. How fast I was moving, she wouldn't even have had time to think about me - you still would have been at the forefront of her mind, what with all the damage you were doing to her. Mercury and Emerald were appetizers - you and I were the main course, and all I did was soften her up for you. You're the only one that actively wounded her in any fashion, she was terrified of you." Aldric reasoned. "And like I said. Fast as I was moving, if I'd destroyed her brain - and my claws would have hit her, right here -" He tapped on his nose. "- where the central nervous system is. So even if she saw me, she would have been dead before she could blink. I was moving too fast and she would have died too fast, you would have still been last in her thoughts." He was forcing his heart and his breathing to keep still, but it was difficult under Cinder's fiery gaze.

"So you tell me. What did I do wrong?"

"You blinded her." She repeated.

Aldric felt attack would be the best defense at the moment, it would at least make him seem less guilty. He also sensed, as he prepared his response. "Well you shot me. Kind of introduced a wild element to things." Aldric countered. "I thought the point of keeping me on was trusting that I knew what I was doing. Let me tell you something, first you ask a question. Then you conduct research and construct a hypothesis. Then you test it, and change or prove your hypothesis accordingly. After that, you analyze your data and you form a conclusion. That's the scientific method, hot stuff, and that's how I've survived these last four-odd months.

"Now, you told us that these Maidens operated on magic. That Amber specifically was weak and inexperienced. That when they died, their powers would pass on to the last woman of proper age in their thoughts, and since your plan was to kill her, the logical conclusion was that you were of proper age. If they died and a man was in their thoughts, the powers would spin out at random. That is what you told me. So I applied the method, and my conclusion was thusly that if you killed her, or I moved in fast or from behind and killed her, either way, you would get her abilities." A pause, "then, when I executed this plan, you freaked out, shot me, and the result was her eyes getting gouged out.

"Clearly, there's something to that." Aldric said, "and if I had to guess, you saw me going for her eyes and thought that the result would be her being blinded." Not wrongly, he didn't add. "And since you're freaking out and pissed off, I guess you feared that her eyes being damaged would cause you to be the furthest from her thoughts. Or perhaps it would change the rules. I don't know, and that's the problem." He said, "every time I try to put some kind of trust in you, you... Say... Make me fight a horny assassin in a warehouse... Or... Take me out to a bar to fight a huntress." He gave her a flat look, noting that her scowl seemed stiff now. "In this case, you lied by omission." He raised his hand when he saw her about to interrupt him. "Don't argue with it, hot stuff. You didn't give me false truths, you withheld all of the facts. For chrissakes, you didn't even tell me that Plan B was time intensive. You lied through omission.

"And because I tried to trust you in this - that because all of our lives would be in danger here, you would be forthright with what you knew - I operated under the assumption that everything you gave us was everything we needed. I did so under the impression that you - after your speech in the forest - would trust me to make these kinds of conclusions. To operate independently. But because I was operating under bad and incomplete information, the conclusions I came to were thusly, and completely, incorrect. Leading to... Among other things..." He nodded to his stump, and then gestured to the gauze on his eyes. "That huntsman quickly disarming me, and you..." A pause, "if 'even as I am now' is any indication, only getting a small piece of the pie, in regards to the powers of the Maiden.

"So... To summarize." He leaned back, his expression returning to its earlier neutrality. "This is kind of your fault."

The life returned to Cinder's scowl, and she bared her teeth in a show of emotion Aldric had never gotten out of her before. "You dare..." A pause, and she closed her eyes and took in a deep, steadying breath, before letting out in a long sigh. "You are in as much fault as I am, Aldric." She finally said. "I could handle Amber as weakened as she was by your battle. You should have focused on the Huntsman."

Aldric nodded to the side. "I did. I disarmed the guy and trusted the assassin and the thief to be able to take on a disarmed Huntsman." He shot back. "You can't even pin Emerald dying on me." He added, "and keeping in mind that you said Amber's powers were separate from dust, different from a semblance. My conclusion was that she wouldn't be weakened by the loss of her aura, only made vulnerable." A pause, "kind of like me, I guess."

Cinder blinked, her expression melting into one of intrigue. "How so?"

Aldric shrugged, "my semblance is distinct, in that even if I have no aura to protect me, I still can use it. As a matter of fact it gets more powerful the less aura I have, to the point that I use my semblance for defense more often than I do my aura. I saw the Maiden doing something similar, during her fight with Mercury and Emerald, and her and I's engagement." He explained, "she blocked and deflected more things with her powers than she did her aura. Compare the hit I gave her to crack her aura, to when I went Cole MacGrath on her and called down lightning. She used her powers to defend against the latter, and couldn't block the former, leading her aura to take the comparatively weaker hit."

Cinder's gaze dropped for a moment, as she thought, before she shook her head and looked back up to Aldric. "That doesn't matter. What does is that you nearly jeopardized the entire mission. Had the Huntsman -"

"Again I point out that the dude had no weapon, and those two couldn't land a killing blow on him. I prioritized, and decided the goddess was a bigger threat than the Huntsman. Especially if, when I killed her, we'd instantly get a goddess on our side to finish him off." Aldric argued. "I know it sounds like I'm throwing around blame, but..." He shook his head, dropping this line more for the benefit of the two listening in on the conversation than anything else. "The point is we all dropped the ball on this one. And besides - final nail in the coffin. My orders - you know, those things you practically shot me over questioning? - were to fight her, not some dickhead with a scythe." Aldric let out a long sigh. "You want me for my power, you're keeping me for my mind. I understand I fucked up, but I'm not the only one, by any means. We need to avoid this in the future. I understand compartmentalizing, in case we get caught... But keep me in the loop, yeah? This is now my best example on what happens when I operate on bad information. Shit goes sideways."

Cinder was silent for several long minutes at this, before she finally sighed through her nose, Aldric noticing a visible effort to calm herself down and soften her expression. "Fine." She whispered. "Fine." She repeated in a stronger tone. "I... Apologize." Aldric noticed an audible edge to her voice as she let those words grind out of her throat. "For thinking too little of you... Even when I myself have admitted that your greatest asset, equaled only by your boundless aura... Is your mind." She nodded, "I will... Begrudgingly admit this."

Aldric was waiting for the 'but' before he felt too proud of himself.

"But." She growled, her voice taking on an icy edge.

There we go.

"You are on thin ice." She said. "Using my words against me as you have done. I see the point you make, but that you made it and your actions before it... Validated or not, it doesn't matter. I am not happy." She warned. "I must change my plans, now. I have to go at the destruction of Beacon in a much different way than I had originally intended. That I have not gotten the remainder of her powers means that Ozpin's people have stabilized Amber, and I must now track her down.

"You demand trust, Aldric." She said, "and while, with your clear willingness to shed blood proves to me you are worth it... Allow me to make myself clear." She said, lowering her gaze and glaring at him from underneath her eyebrows. "If you demand something, you must give it in turn."

I notice how she hasn't mentioned Emerald's death more than once or twice, by now. Was that a part of the plan? Was she prepared for that? Fuck, hot stuff. That's cold. Aldric nodded, "quid pro quo."

"Precisely." She raised her gaze again. "My trust is not something easily gained, Aldric. Very few truly have it. And no matter how much validity you have presented me... Your actions have shaken it. I would have hoped you to be less rash..." She sighed. "But." She said, "in the face of what you say... As well as considering the shock you must have been in, after sustaining such an injury... I am willing to excuse them."

Aldric nodded. "Thank you."

"Don't make me regret this, Aldric." Cinder warned. "This trust. It must run both ways."

"I would expect nothing less, hot stuff." He let out a long breath. "Fuck if you're not intimidating, though. I swear, you could convince someone the sky is green just by glaring at them."

She let that one slide, "you've given me a great deal to think on." She said, getting to her feet. "I expect you to speak to the prosthetist in the morning. Torchwick will return in two days, after which we will leave for the Aviator, and Adam Taurus."

"So that much hasn't changed?" Aldric asked, as Cinder left.

"Same plan, Aldric. Different method of execution." She said, before she paused at his door, frowning. Aldric tilted his head to the side, wondering what else was on her mind, when she turned to face him. "Aldric."

"Hm?"

"Don't. Ever. Do that again." She warned him. "It is because my plans were not ruined in their entirety that you are still alive. Remember that."

What the fuck did we just have that conversation for, if you're going to turn right around and say that? Am I high? Wait, I am! The doctor said I am! Jesus Christ, around and around we go! Fuck me, I think I'm going to pop an Oxy when we get back to the Aviator. Aldric nodded, "I make no excuses." He said, running his hand through his unkempt hair. "I've said what I needed to say. This entire thing was a bad case of poor communication." A pause, before he sighed. "For what it's worth... I am sorry." More sorry that he'd lost his arm and his eyes than anything else, really.

Cinder didn't respond, merely lowering her gaze in thought, and then opening the door, promptly leaving his room. He sensed her walk to her room, directly across from his. He leaned back in his bed, letting out a long breath of air. "One fuckin' thing after another."