AN:

Passed the test; next one is easy in comparison, I'm hardly even worried about it.

Chapter 20

For the Record

Oh, dear god I'm tired. This was a terrible fucking idea.

From the top: I was right, and wrong at the same time.

I had to fight Adam Taurus, I was right about that. But I was wrong about the why.

See, I'd thought it would be some kind of contrived BS about 'Oh, prove to me your power!', and then Cinder would be all, 'One armed attack dog! I choose you!', and I'd use Improvise, and it would not be very effective, but I'd win somehow, like I always do. Probably need to put my new arm back together, but still.

But, no. That's not what happened.

Instead, Taurus noticed I'd been mutilated and that Emerald was missing, concluded she was dead, and basically called Cinder's character into question, refusing to work for her if she'd 'throw [our] lives away'.
He's probably a lot closer to the mark than he realizes, but I digress. The result was predictable: Big fucking fight.

But, in that brief little calm before the storm, I realized something:
Things had changed.

In the show, Cinder had convinced Taurus to join her mutually. She beat the shit out of his guys to do it, but still: He chose to join her. Somehow, some way, she won his respect, be it immediately or gradually. In the show, he was loyal.

Here? Fuck no! He was ready to fight and die just to spite us! She forced his cooperation, there is no loyalty and likely will never be any. He's a proud man, and she all but insulted said pride. Add on that this dude is pretty much loyal to a fault when it comes to his men, he's not willing to waste a single life, and all that, and she basically flipped him the bird and said she'd throw bodies at the problems like the Soviets if she wanted to.

That pissed him off. He won't take that lying down.

So, he's not loyal. He's as far from loyal as you can be.

Change.

A startlingly major change... But not one I can't do something with.
After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?

To summarize a surprisingly short (but painful) fight, I managed to convince Taurus to shut the fuck up and roll with the punches. I sold Blake Belladonna's location for some of his time.

A couple days later, I made contact with him, and then I abused the shit out of all of this butterfly effect nonsense to convince him there's no goddamn way Cinder would ever respect the lives of his men, blah blah blah. The end result being some tentative 'Enemy of my enemy'-style loyalty.

Now the Watchmen have four people: Myself, Qrow, Ozpin, and a surprise special guest star: Adam motherfucking Taurus.
That's the good news. That itself. Only that. I have a kinda-sorta-pseudo ally in the Legion, if things turn south.

The bad news is that the moment we don't have our common enemy, we'll be at eachother's throats again, and the only goddamn reason I didn't die during our fight was because I had something he wanted. So if we ever come to blows again? I'll probably lose the other arm, and a leg and a leg, maybe make good on that impression of Darth Vader I did a while back.

And I'm pretty sure I can't trust this man at all. Like I said: His loyalties lie with his men. If their lives are in danger, there isn't a damn thing he wouldn't do to safeguard them, but if they're good and well kept? As much as killing Cinder is important to him, if the chips were down and I had to rely on him to save my ass? I don't think he'd do it.

I mean, for chrissakes, I'm basically doing the same thing the United States did to the Soviet Union, back in the eighties (or was it the seventies?) When the USSR invaded Afghanistan, the US funded and equipped a local guerrilla fighting force to take the war to the Soviets, such that they couldn't take over Afghanistan. I'm pretty sure it was for oil, everything was for oil.

Well, the Soviets lost, Afghanistan didn't turn into a communist country, and those rebels? Twenty or thirty-odd years later they hijacked a couple of airplanes and killed three thousand people, and we're still dealing with it. In other words, to beat one enemy, the US made another, and I'm worried I may be doing the same thing.

All else being equal - and I mean everything else - if the the Watchmen - and through them, the White Fang and the Justice League - manage to kill Salem and stop all that, Taurus could be in one hell of an actionable position.
Like, maybe he'll just do a coup de grace and kill the other Watchmen, and use the chaos and discord that would result in the League to steamroll over the rest of the world, virtually unopposed.

Or, because this guy's an evil super genius, maybe he'll use his 'I helped save the world' card, and build political power instead of military power.
Maybe then he'd be able to use his reputation along us humans to bring the faunus out of whatever pit they're in, in regards to all these social issues.
He does that, he'll basically be Furry Jesus, and then they'll follow him through anything.
Then he could slowly radicalize the faunus, who would follow him like zealots because he's one of the men who helped save not just the goddamn world, but also improved the lives of every faunus on Remnant.

Does any of that sound familiar?
Because that's kiiiiiinda how Adolf Hitler did it, and his ass didn't have modern technology or an army of supersoldiers.
And for those of you (read: Pretty much anyone who will ever get their hands on this journal) not from my planet, the long and short of that story is that he's generally considered the most evil motherfucker in the universe, and he's also probably the first person since Rome under Caesar to come this close to conquering the entire planet.
Seriously, if he hadn't have tried invading Russia (during the winter no less!), he would've won. Hands down.

Now, one could argue that that all sounds too ridiculous or impossible to be true.
But then they'd be speaking to a blind multidimensional superhero with literal god powers, a robot arm, and spies and contacts in the Legion of Doom and the Justice League... And is already ominously repeating some kind of history, just from a different era.
And that's ignoring all of this super-sleuth spy stuff I'm pulling off... With no prior experience save a religious dedication to Magnificent Bastards like Ozzymandias, Revolver Ocelot, and Light Yagami. That only makes the entire situation more ridiculous, and my fears all the more plausible.

Taurus was well established as a good and charismatic leader in the show, and during our fight it didn't take him five minutes to figure out how I fought and how he could land a killing blow. So not only is he a charismatic, skilled leader, but he's also a fucking genius. I honestly would not put any of this past him, because I'm pretty sure he's already, on some level, come up with this idea.
Aaaaaand I also kind of pushed him towards it, so he would have more reason to think that working with me, against the Legion, was a good idea.

I think I'm going to have to put some real consideration into being ready, willing, and able to kill Taurus at a moment's notice.
Christ alive, now I'm not trusting the god damn Watchmen, and am actively making preparations to spy on and kill them.
I really freakin' am Revolver Ocelot.
Call me Shalashaska!

Ho... Boy.
I'm going to have to tell the other Watchmen about this, no way around it.

"Hey, Ozbourne! Mister Crowley! So, we recruited Adam Taurus (Henceforth: Red Bull), but Lady In Red pissed him off like nobody's business! Sooooo... Guess what I turned right the hell around and did? That's right! Now Red Bull is on our side! I mean, not really... Only kind of... And only until she's not actively threatening the Fang... Yeah I've pretty much got a delayed fuckup on the way. But until then, now you've got two ins in the Legion! Booyah!"

Okay, okay, I'm done. I'm going to get some -

Oh, would you look at that, Cinder's on her way, and she... Actually, she doesn't look pissed, and that's the more worrying.
So much for sleep, but thankfully I had a plan or two in case what might be happening, happens. Need a little refuge in audacity to make it work, but let's see how this plays out.

'Till next time.

Aldric rubbed his eyes as he shut off his Earth-tablet, and leaned back from the desk in his small cube of a room. He could sense Cinder approaching his room from the front of the ship, and he could sense a small packet of papers rolled up in one of her hands. A few potential reasons as to why she'd want to see him flew through his mind. Maybe she wanted to know how much thought he'd put into Goud Etiolate, or maybe it was time for them to get on the same page in regards to the Masters. When she turned to his door, Aldric opened it with a wave of his hand and a pull of his semblance. Cinder didn't even slow down, and Aldric found he didn't like the look on her face.

"What's up hot stuff?" He asked, clearing his throat to mask its light hoarseness. "Did the eggs hatch?" He asked, as he adjusted the bandages wrapped around his head.

Cinder was halfway to his spare chair, when she blinked, and gave him a sideways glance. "Eggs?"

He chuckled, and turned in his chair to face her. "Oh, never mind." But she continued frowning at him, so he huffed. "Terrible joke. One I liked to use back home - someone would run up to me, freaking out, pissed off, or what have you, and I'd go - 'Oh! The eggs must have hatched!', and then they'd say 'never mind', implying I'd dropped lizard eggs or something the like, somewhere they frequented." He rolled his good hand in a circle, "so... They hatch... That's the joke."

Cinder didn't respond to this, instead sitting down, and crossing one long leg over the other, giving Aldric a firm look from behind the mask of her light frown. The silence lasted for a few moments, before she said, "so where did you go?"

Well, shit. "Ah, you noticed that, didn't you?" Aldric groaned, a grin playing at his features as he leaned back and locked his hands behind his neck. Play it cool, play it cool. "The ah... Long and short of it is that the ice cream mute wouldn't take no for an answer, and she scares me too much to say no in the first place." And now, if she's worth her salt...

Cinder affixed him with a blank look, one that reeked of incredulity. "You truly expect me to believe that you left your scroll and the city... For Neopolitan." She deadpanned.

Bingo. Now the question is whether or not I can see the future, or I'm getting good at this spy shit. Neither is particularly appealing. Aldric nodded, "well, no, otherwise you wouldn't be here." He responded. "You're smarter than me when it comes to this stuff, lady." He responded, stifling a yawn. "So it's understandable you'd be kinda curious. But, you ever heard of Occam's Razor?" He asked.

"I'm not from Earth, Aldric."

"Well, the long and short of it is... When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, and not unicorns. The simplest explanation is usually the easiest one." He explained. "Now, I left yesterday. Which is the simpler explanation? That I was doing something I wasn't supposed to? Or the sexy horny terrifying assassin lady wanted in my pants?" A beat, "ignoring that they could probably go hand in hand." He neglected to mention that one had precedent and the other didn't; he had, after all, let slip to her that he did want to find a girl if he survived all of what it was they were doing.

Cinder still wasn't buying it. "So if I were to contact her, she would validate your claims."

This was the part that had been most difficult to plan around, because Aldric knew what Neo's answer would be. So if he claimed she'd say something along the lines of 'Yes', and then she didn't, he'd be in deep shit. But if he said she'd say 'no', he'd have to explain why. "Well, you could, but I'm pretty sure you'd be disappointed." Now she had two choices, to call his bluff, which he was prepared for, or to trust him, which he was less prepared for.

She took option number one, pulling out her scroll, maintaining eye contact with Aldric the entire time. "I don't like liars, Aldric." She said, coldly. "I am giving you a chance to tell me where you were."

"And I'm tellin' you, hot stuff. I had a secret rendezvous with a certain someone." He yawned again, "Jesus... What else would make me so tired?" Though he would admit he felt a small flutter in his heart as this dragged on.

He was, however, confident in his ability to weasel out of this; after all, the biggest weakness in all of this arguably wasn't even Neo herself, but his fight with Taurus. If his and Cinder's powers truly were similar, that meant she should have a radar pulse, and so she should have been able to detect their brief communique. If that were true, however, the beginning of this conversation - and even the last three days - would have gone down much differently. Since he wasn't currently plastered across the wall, or on fire, and since Cinder hadn't shown any kind of facsimile of his omnipresence, he was confident that she wasn't aware of what had happened during the fight. So, this meant that aside from his strange disappearance yesterday night, she had no real reason to distrust him, and that her coldness here was more of a show to put him on edge. It was working, but that was besides the point, it was all another test, and as long as he stuck to his guns, and as long as his story was ironclad, he'd be able to -

Neo's reply appeared on her scroll, and with Aldric's semblance, he saw it as soon as Cinder did, and it ground every thought he had to a halt, as if his thoughts were speeding cars and the message on Cinder's scroll was an enormous brick wall.

Cinder had asked, Neopolitan. I couldn't find Aldric yesterday night, and he left his scroll aboard our airship. He claims he was with you. Is this true?

To which, Neo had responded. Yes indeed! Do you need the gory details? Size? Endurance? Virility? That his arm vibrates?

Uh... What? Aldric had been prepared for pretty much every way this could have played out, except for exactly how he was putting up he wanted it to.

Cinder's eyebrows furrowed, and she looked up to Aldric. "Can you see the screen?"

"It'd be a bad replacement for eyesight if I couldn't." Another piece of evidence that she didn't have the pulse, though Aldric had used that as a delaying tactic, because he had no fucking idea how to respond to this development. "I told you you'd be disappointed." He added, resting his chin on his hand; he could tell she had expected this reply about as much as he had.

Cinder gave her phone another look, before gazing back up to him, "your arm... Vibrates." Aldric had to bite back laughter, as her earlier cold fury was replaced with thinly masked bewilderment, as if she couldn't believe, of all things he could have asked to be built into the prosthetic, he'd asked for that.

Fortunately, Aldric knew how to respond. With a dull grin halfway between sheepish and amused, he lifted the cybernetic limb, clenched his fist, and revved the chainsaw. With it still being stowed in his forearm, it made the entire limb hum, shake, and vibrate. He wondered if Neo hadn't said that specifically, to set him up. He ignored that such a thing meant he understood how she thought more than he'd like, in favor of it meaning she must know how he thought more than he'd initially considered. Though even if that were true, however, it didn't wipe away the utter shock of her actually defending him like this. He knew he'd be in deep shit the next time she saw him, that he'd probably be hunted down sooner rather than later, and that any time he could spend sleeping would likely have to be put to better use to come up with the why of why he'd used her in his lie.

Though he would admit, the look on Cinder's face made whatever he would end up having to suffer through later, somewhat worth it. Her jaw was slack, lips were slightly parted, and her eyes were so wide they looked like they may fall out. It appeared that, like him, she was prepared for every possible way this could have turned out, except exactly as advertised. Aldric's own lips began to quiver as he tried not to laugh at the display in front of him.

He stopped revving the saw, and in the brief moment before he spoke again, the air between them was utterly silent. "I told you." He said in a conciliatory tone. "I did tell you."

Neo chose this moment to chime in again. Helooooo? You didn't kill him, did you? Even Mr. Torchwick was starting to like him!

Cinder shot back a terse, No. Thank you. Goodbye. And looked back up to Aldric. "I am at a loss." She admitted.

Aldric couldn't resist a snort. "I have that effect on people." He only kept from breaking out into full laughter through sheer force of will, tightly clenched abdominal muscles, and the thought of how doomed he was when Neo got her hands on him. "I'd be fine if you never want to speak about this again." He added, giving her an out.

She nodded idly, "next time, Aldric... Warn me." She said, "I do not like suspecting my allies. Especially those I trust."

Aldric spread his arms out wide, "if I'm one of those trusted, then what was the issue, Hot Stuff?"

"It must go both ways." Cinder responded.

Aldric's arms slumped, and then he nodded and dropped them back to his sides. "Good point. Next time I have a booty call, I'll let you know. Take pictures." He didn't even bother fighting this yawn, "anything else?" He asked, briefly pointing the empty, bandages pits that were his eyes down to the small roll of papers Cinder had brought with her.

She blinked, and then nodded. "Yes." She stowed her scroll away and handed him the papers, "Goud Etiolate. Torchwick had these sent over yesterday night. It is how I discovered you weren't in the city."

"Ah, so this is what made you think I was double dealing on the only friends I have." Aldric hummed, taking the papers and holding them up to his desk light. He could only see the top sheet, the ones beneath it didn't have enough light to reflect properly. "It's kind of bare-bones." He pointed out, as he found little information beyond a name, his picture, a small academy Goud had been to to serve as an educational history, and a village he had supposedly been born in.

"You are meant to go over it." Cinder responded, quickly shaking off the previous conversation. "As you will be playing the role, it is more important that you create a story that you can remember versus having to memorize one made for you."

Aldric hummed, nodding as he went over the papers. All that had been filled out for him was that he'd come from an out-of-the-way village in Mistral, and had attended what Torchwick had annotated as a 'no-name academy', one perfect for him to slip between Beacon's cracks from. "Well... First thing I've gotta admit: I have no idea how to do this spy stuff. I liken it to a dog chasing cars." Aldric explained, swivelling around in his chair and placing the papers on his desk. "I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it." A grin, "I just do things, you know?"

"But?" Cinder predicted.

"But another quote from the same guy is that the best way to hide something is to shove it under somebody's nose and wait." He tapped on the papers, "where I'm from, what school I went to... That's painfully bland. Like, those are the places you'd pick if you were actively trying to stay below radar; and since our enemies over at Beacon would probably be expecting some kind of response to their possession of the Fall Maiden... Below radar is what they'll be looking for." He pulled out the tablet-scroll, and opened the internet.

"So what are you thinking?"

"Well, that depends: Did Torchwick pick Mistral because he's got more contacts there, than other non-Vale places?"

She nodded, "that was what I was led to believe."

"Sweet. Then fudge these names a bit." He pointed at the village he was supposed to hail from, "give me a village that was wrecked by Grimm. Had a few survivors, preferably ones that weren't well documented. Slip Goud into that village's census... And then say I attended... Hm..." He swiped through the lists for Mistral's primary combat schools. "Sanctum? Nah, one rung lower on the ladder. Sanctorum? Sanctum Sanctorum. Doctor Strange, I like that. Let's go with that."

Cinder blinked, "Aldric, those are very prestigious schools."

"Exactly!" Aldric rapped his knuckles on the scroll's screen. "It's so overt, it's covert. You say Goud Etiolate came from some backwater school in some backwater village, fuck you might as well dress me up with a sign that says 'I'M UNDERCOVER!'." He said, with a flourish of the arms. "But you give him a tragic past that's a little difficult to crack in to, and then a decent standing in a big name school? Shit, the people that'd doubt the story are the ones who'd be doubted themselves for being too paranoid." He didn't mention that he was intentionally trying to be bad at this, to betray a lack of skill at the spy game.

"Aldric that's idiotic." And Cinder was buying it.

"Well what would you suggest?" Aldric asked.

"That you listen to the man who has made staying under the radar his life's work." She scooted closer to the desk. "And you don't pick the all-girl combat academy."

Had his eyes not been bandaged over, he would have blinked. "Say again?" He gave the screen another look over, and sure enough, Sanctorum was indeed a female academy. "Oh. Well, Ash is an androgynous name, so..."

"No."

"Okay." He chuckled. "So what the hell is this place called... Chancel?" He asked, running over the paper with his radar pulse, before he looked the place up on his scroll. "Place has three hundred students. Don't you think it'd be easy for faults in the story to be sniffed out with so few kids?"

"Not if it suffered a minor Grimm attack earlier this semester, which caused still present damage to its archives." Cinder responded, "he picked it for a reason."

Aldric gave a jerk of the head, "got me there." He grunted. "What happens if I run into other folks from Chancel? You guys are having me go through the whole rigamarole with the entrance exams. If I meet another Chancellor, I'll be in one hell of a bind."

"Most of them are going to Haven Academy. Others to Atlas. Not one chose Beacon, save for Goud Etiolate." Cinder responded, indicating the papers. "That is information included in the packet. What you are doing here is creating a rough outline of Goud's history. What kind of person he was, what kind of student he was. His home life, things of that nature."

"Coming up with how he got his fucking arm ripped off and his eyes gouged out." He picked up. "Okay. I should have something by the end of the day." He groaned, "I'm not getting any sleep, am I?"

"It was your decision to burn your night and your energy in between the legs of Torchwick's Gardener, Aldric." Cinder said, getting to her feet. "Do not forget what we talked about."

"My arm vibrates?"

"Do not leave without proper warning." She said, leaving the room.

Aldric nodded, before a thought occurred to him. "Hey, are we replacing Emerald any time soon? I need someone to fuck with and you're not as fun."

"I'm working on it." Cinder called back, as she made for the front of the ship, where Mercury sat.

"Good to know..."

For the Record

I am fucked.

Things did not go according to plan.

Well, actually, I guess you could say they went exactly according to plan: The plan was, if Cinder somehow knew I'd left Vale yesterday, to tell her Neo came a knockin' and I'm (truthfully) too scared to ever say no. Cinder called the bluff, called Neo, aaaaaand... Neo said yes.

As in, Cinder fucking asked Neo if I'd been with her yesterday - which I wasn't! - and that crazy ice cream lady SAID YES!

WHAT THE FUCK?!

Oh God, I'm going to get cornered by a pissed off assassin when I go for my run here in... Oh... Five minutes.
And I can't skip it because I have to keep up appearances.

And to make it worse: I honestly am not sure if Cinder bought it. It looked like she did, but this could be a situation where L totally knew Light was Kira, but just lacked the hard evidence.

And even if I don't get cornered tonight... There's always tomorrow. And the next day.
If she doesn't come after me tonight, I swear, it's because Neo's the type to to get off on this. Keeping me all anxious and paranoid about the when and the where.

I basically swapped Cinder's potential suspicion for Neo's actual suspicion, and as I've constantly demonstrated: I do NOT know which is worse!

Exactly what I wanted to happen is exactly what I did not want to happen!

God damn it!

'Till next time.

To:
OzpinHeadMast-(a)-BeaconCCT; CC:CrowBar-(a)-SignalCCT

From:
PrivateGomerFuckingPyle-(a)-ScarletMailCCT

Subject:
A Mistralian Prince Needs *Your* Help! Earn 15000000 Easy!

Message:

Ozbourne, Crowley. It's been a busy week.

The most important piece of news: We made contact the Red Bull of the White Fang. I mentioned him to you on the rooftop. He's been recruited to our side.
Emphasis on our side.

Lady In Red underestimated Red Bull's pride. He noticed that we had lost one of our number since our last meeting, and called into question her leadership, demanding a personal trial as proof of her skill. She refused, and instead sought to force his allegiance first by subduing him and then by summarily executing a Fang, one by one, until he agreed to her terms.

I, however, knew differently. Red Bull is a proud man, and he would not be taken alive. Before his or any lives could be taken, I managed to convince him to cease his resistance by selling him information I had pieced together earlier, and had discovered was of great worth to him. I later made contact with him again to define terms.

The result: I have Red Bull's promise of assistance.

I have not, however, told him of our involvement for two reasons:
One, he and I do not yet fully trust eachother. I hand him that and he may use it as a bargaining chip to get his people out of the firing range.
Two: Much the same reason I requested you keep my identity a secret from the rest of your inner circle: Compartmentalization.

Another problem is one I suspect you've already predicted by now: His endgoal hasn't changed. He still desires a revolution above all else. The moment Lady In Red and the White Witch cease to be problems, we will lose any mutual enemies. Worse is that depending on how long it takes to achieve victory, he'll be closer to his goal by proxy, and may find it easier to pursue if he goes public with his involvement and garners support from his people.

Not much we can do about it at the moment, so while we need to keep this in mind and be prepared for unforeseen circumstances, I vote we count this as a win: We've got another friend on the other side.

Next:
They want to find Her. Finish the job. To that end, they're going to send someone to infiltrate Beacon in the upcoming semester. I can't give much information on the individual, but I can say that ideas were tossed around, plans for this person to hail from Mistral, one of the big-name academies. I heard Sanctorum mentioned, as well as some village that got destroyed by Grimm some time ago. Other ideas were tossed around, but Infiltrator was supportive of it, and Lady In Red wants Infiltrator's assumed background to be as simple as possible for him, so it's likely that whatever Infiltrator is most supportive of, they may go with.

I can't tell you what to do with this information, only to be careful when and if you act on it.

Next:
I'm certain you're already aware, but Cresset has already begun work in Vale. To what end I am yet unsure, but his goal is to empty Vale of all of its Dust. Be it from major Schnee distributors, or small holes-in-the-wall, if they carry dust he intends to rob them. I am working on figuring out the endgoal, and I can at least say with confidence that it involves the Grimm.

Finally:

No progress as of yet in either proving or disproving the Masters theory. Lady In Red and myself will begin working on it imminently, as we search for our next recruit.

-Nathan Drake

To:
PrivateGomerFuckingPyle-(a)-ScarletMailCCT; CC:CrowBar-(a)-SignalCCT

From:OzpinHeadMast-(a)-BeaconCCT

Subject:
RE:A Mistralian Prince Needs *Your* Help! Earn 15000000 Easy!

Message:

Mister Drake, it is good to hear from you, and I am pleased to see that you are doing well.

Red Bull, an interesting name. Is that a deity from a tribal society from your home?

Regardless, this is intriguing news. I will trust your judgement in regards to compartmentalization, but it may behoove you to at least make him aware that there are allies on our end as well, if and when you find an opportune moment and a reason to trust him. Considering what is at stake for him and his very public ideals, I do truly feel that the latter will, so long as we've our common enemy, be a non-issue.

I would, however, assuage your worries in regards to the aftermath of any operations and his continued allegiance. While valid, and something to keep in mind, a counterpoint would be that, dependent on how long this conflict with the White Witch runs and how open it grows, he may very well lack the necessary manpower, and subsequent public opinion, with which to pursue any major conflicts.

As well, it may be as simple a matter as to paint him a messianic figure in the eyes of his people and a tragic hero in the eyes of ours, and subsequently place him in a better position with which to achieve his goals in a peaceful manner. If he is as cunning and skilled a leader as I have come to understand, he would thusly understand the weight and value of the lives he intends to improve, and seek not to risk them if needless.

Worry not for situations outside of your control, Mister Drake. Let us focus on one issue at a time.

Now, as to your warning about potential subversive elements within Beacon this coming year, I shall keep this information in mind. Their plan to place this individual in a prestigious academy such as the one you names is a clever move; what better way to hide a secret than to brazenly advertise it? I must admit, I may have overlooked it had I not been warned ahead of time.

At the moment we've two applicants hailing from Mistral, one from a major academy, and the other with such poor grades that I fear he may not survive the entrance exam unscathed. As well I can see two more waiting to be approved; I shall keep an eye on all of them, but as you said, it will be difficult to act without any ironclad evidence against them, and if they work for the White Witch, I worry for how difficult the procurement of said proof will be.

Now, on our end:

There is some good news. Very recently we had brought in medical equipment from Atlas. She is now stabilized, and we have been bought time enough with which to figure out our solution, and progress is already being made on that front.

To borrow your proclivity for anonymizing codenames, and your confidence in us to discover the identity of the person to which it was attaches, I have recently brought into the fold an individual that may prove to be of great use to our cause. Ferrum has informed us of his country's rising desire to unify science and aura, in a manner much similar to that which you hinted at during our first meeting. He has described to us a machine which he explains will be able to transfer the aura of one person, into another. His intent is to railroad the research and development of this machine, while we create a list of potential candidates to receive Her power.

We do this due to the very real possibility that, should She deteriorate and pass on, what remains of her power will either seek to reunite with its other half, or will follow its rules. Either scenario is undesirable, for obvious reasons. Our hope, however, is that we can imbue a righteous woman with Her remaining powers, and recruit into the war a symbolic force that the world will sorely need.

Now, I promised you our thoughts on your Masters theory, here is what we have come up with:

To turn a phrase, it is said that someone with an unbridled mastery over their aura can become, I quote, 'something else'. I would therefor conclude that it is not impossible for Masters to exist, but perhaps not in the way you and Lady In Red believe. Perhaps what is happening is less your possession of magical powers, and instead the result of the application of science, a contemporary education, and a unique worldview and mindset, to aura.

To elaborate: You were educated in a different world. From what we have recovered and translated from your crash sight, there is no presence of Dust or Aura in your world. As such, your people, the 'Terrans' as you called them, relied on hard science to reach technological heights similar to our own; eclipsing our world in some places, and being eclipsed in others.

I have read about your Manhattan Project, and to be frank, it terrifies me.
But that is the point: Through science, and an education built off of said science, your world is completely alien to our own.

So, when you arrived here, and awakened your aura, you naturally applied your world's logic and reason to it. The result was such a fine, precise control, over such an over abundance of aura, that you are in the process of becoming 'something else'.

Compare and contrast to huntsman and huntresses here. Very few ever study their auras in and of itself, but rather study and advance the byproducts of said aura: Their semblance. The result is a short-term gain of a bare fraction of the long-term power a mastery of their aura could provide. To put another way, when given a scroll, humans merely press the buttons to make the phone call. Terrans, however, study the scroll's programming and find ways to alter and improve it in key places. The result being the same exact machine with the same exact source, but on two entirely different levels.

To summarize, and to borrow your own phrase: Magic is merely science we do not yet fully comprehend. Perhaps you are so similar to our maidens, because you are on the road to mastering your aura in a way few ever have.

But, the thoughts above may reflect Crowley's initial theory, I brought up another, this one predicated upon taking your being a Master, and thus, capable of magic, at face value.

The universe is an incomprehensibly massive place. Even traveling at its fastest physically possible natural speed, it would take years just to reach our stellar neighbor. And, with an infinite vastness, leaves room for infinite possibilities.

Consider, for a moment, the sheer mathematical improbability of White Witch using ancient dust rituals to tear open a portal to another universe entirely, and discovering this universe to contain an entire species of Masters and Maidens, who never unlock their power due to a complete absence of dust, and as a result can, at their basest, eclipse us at our greatest. The possibility is non-zero, but considering that the odds are, quite literally, one in infinity, it would be easier to simply state that it is so improbable that it is functionally impossible for random chance to grant her such a boon.

So perhaps the answer is that she didn't, and instead what she did was open up a bridge between two different points in the same universe. To find a world similar to ours in that it supports life as we know it. And since life is born from dust and aura, it is therefore not impossible that the reason our two species - and many facets of our worlds - are so strikingly similar is simply because we came from the same wellspring of life: Dust. The difference between our worlds simply being the amount of said dust upon it in a physical sense, and thus a much different biological and evolutionary imperative.

In short, are we alone?
No.
Both you, and I, prove this for my species and yours, respectively.

Now what does this have to do with Masters, or Maidens?
Simply: The White Witch only knew about these ancient dust rituals, because they had been done once before, and were subsequently written down.
Suggesting that this is not the first time our world and yours have met, but instead is merely the most recent time.

When we met previously, there can honestly be any guess. Perhaps the deity brothers came from Earth and chose to play God on a blank planet. Perhaps a man from our world went to yours, and was deemed a messiah and later crucified for the 'magical' things he could do, among other things. Perhaps both, perhaps neither.

Or, perhaps a single man came from your world to ours, but found himself unable to return home, and chose to live the rest of his life in solitude, until four young women convinced him to join this new world which he called home, and were thusly bestowed a power the likes of which was alien to this world, not because it was magic as the ancient and ill-understanding humans believed, but because it truly was. The product of aura being allowed to evolve in an environment completely separate and less hostile than ours. Being allowed to age and blossom into something structurally different, but equally as beautiful.

As an aside, from what we have recovered from your crashed ship, it seems that a number of your people believe in reincarnation. Perhaps this idea, of life being reborn, passed from one form to another, came from aura going from one living being to another? And perhaps, in a broad sense, the very terran concept of a 'superhuman' came from one of the few terrans that came across what little dust is on Earth, or otherwise naturally unlocked their aura.
That is not to say all of your superhuman fiction came from a living person, but that the concept itself, as all legends to, started with the truth, and was eventually, and inevitably, twisted and turned until it was but a tale of fiction spun endlessly for the entertainment and education of the young.
Food for thought.

But to return to the topic at hand, Crowley posits that perhaps Maidens are what they are, because their power came from Earth. That maybe the answer is that, on Remnant, being a Maiden is the closest Remnant humans can be to their Earth cousins, the terrans; and subsequently, you are, as are all terrans, as are the four maidens, as was the Wizard that bestowed upon them... And as is your aura in comparison to ours: Alien.

To bring it all full circle, Magic, as you said, is merely science we do not yet understand. Physical forces obeying very real and very concrete laws that we simply didn't know existed.

So perhaps you are as you are because you are gaining such a minute control over your aura that you are beginning to ascend to a plane and state of being where the laws you obey are ones we simply do not know exist, and affect the ones beneath them in ways we cannot explain.
Or, perhaps you are simply so alien that there are laws that apply to you that do not to us, and the interaction between our laws and yours results in what the uninitiated can only describe as paranormal.

And, of course, there is always a third option, this one being the easiest of all of them:
That you have simply, unconsciously, sealed away that overabundance of aura within you, and in that moment of stress during your duel against Her, you were briefly able to enter a 'Fight or Flight' state and tap into that surplus, and ascend to such levels of power that we misinterpreted it as something mystical.

There are any number of explanations, and though I feel these three are the ones that can hold the most water, I suppose only time will tell.

Good luck, Mister Drake.
Now, and as always, should you feel an exit strategy appropriate, my doors will be open to you.

~Ozbourne