Chapter 22
Human instinct was to struggle, and violently at that, once oxygen was rendered unable to leave the body. It was a reflex, and it was the primary reason people weren't able to choke themselves. It takes ten minutes for irreversible brain damage to occur due to a lack of oxygen. She struggled against an unseen, untouchable, and unstoppable assailant for five and a half, before losing consciousness, and that assailant had to force himself not to let up or let go for another six, as he and his companions made their way to her compound. Due to the nature of his powers, not only could he personally feel the sensation of squeezing her throat shut, but it felt as if he had done so with his own hands, and that meant he felt it when her throat began to pop from the pressure, saw it when blood vessels in her eyes began to burst, heard her gag and wheeze as hardly any air at all left her forcibly collapsed windpipe, and could see the fear in her eyes, as all she knew was that she was dying, that something was killing her, and she could do nothing about it.
By the time they made it to her compound, there was nothing anyone could do.
After making it there, and after the news began to spread that Dira's Boss was dead, Aldric began to realize that he was a goddamn idiot. Nearly everything he did, all the time, inevitably fell apart or went to shit because he planned for everything, and considered every outcome, except one small thing that made the plan less of a plan and more of a general outline. When he fought Cubone and Mothra, he'd failed to consider how fragile he was against these demon animals. When he fought Neo, he failed to consider that Torchwick would respond foul play with foul play. When he fought Yang, he'd forgotten to realize that her sister would show up, and would probably want to know why it sounded like things were exploding inside. When he fought Amber, he failed to consider how long it would take Qrow to show up and exactly how difficult it would be to fight a goddess when she had her back to a wall. Trying to outwit Qrow afterwards had fallen apart when he failed to think about how he and his boss-slash-partner had been at the game far longer than him, and it only felt like he was in control because they wanted to see how he'd handle it. Then there was Neo again, and failing to think his way out of her doing exactly what he'd said she would - a problem he still didn't know how to deal with.
He had a horrible case of tunnel vision, he only focused on the variables he was aware of, and always routinely failed to consider unknown variables, the human element, or things that were so obvious he'd overlook them. This, when combined with general idiocy, was where all of the scars and missing bits he'd collected and lost came from over the last few months. Oftentimes his 'solutions' merely bred more problems, be they short term problems he could deal with quickly - like his miscalculations in battle - or longer term problems that required a more creative solution - like losing limbs and failing to consider how crafty the ice cream mute could be when the situation called for it.
There was no better proof of this than right now, when he failed to consider what would happen in the immediate aftermath of murdering the Boss of a village, in a country where forms of government ran on the rule of might making right. It took ten minutes for a human brain to suffer irreversible damage through a lack of oxygen, and it took eleven minutes to go from the hotel to Rayne's compound at a walking pace. Aldric gave himself two extra minutes to make sure the deed would be done, and to scuff up the floors and make it look like someone had snuck in late at night to do the deed. Aldric's thought process had been, when they got to the compound and found Rayne dead, Cinder would get pissed and leave; and while he hadn't been wrong, he had failed to consider that she wouldn't be the only one whose anger would surge.
Just as he failed to realize that a power vacuum in a country where the strongest person functionally held office, was a bad thing.
It utterly astonished Aldric how quickly things went from 'calm-ish desert morning', to 'absolute fucking anarchy'. It felt like one moment, they were waiting outside of Rayne's compound, and he was doing everything in his power not to break down, vomit, and relive the experience of having killed her, over and over again, and the next moment bullets were flying, people were shouting, and pandemonium was spreading like wildfire. Like the entire village was a powder keg, literally waiting on Rayne to die so it could explode, and when it did explode, a chain reaction went off until everyone in Dira worth their salt was fighting everyone else to try and take over Rayne's throne.
Arguably worse was when Cinder turned her dumbfounded, befuddled gaze on him. It actually took him for a moment to realize that her look was less accusatory than it was looking to the guy who could see everything for a few miles, and asking him what was going on. Now, Aldric had seen Cinder angry before. He'd pissed her off more than a few times, he knew how it looked. He'd seen her pensive, and he'd seen her in battle. But he had never seen her as utterly mad as she got when he told her that Rayne's heart wasn't beating, and that the chaos was spreading because of the power vacuum left by her sudden death.
"How the fuck did you miss this earlier, Aldric?!" The demi-goddess demanded, as she tore her shemagh from her head and then ripped the tinfoil she'd had secured to her scalp.
Aldric took a step back, raising his hands, "whoa, hot stuff, I -"
"Don't you 'hot stuff' me, Aldric! I thought you saw everything! How did you miss that she was DEAD!?" She shouted over the sounds of gunfire and battle, her eye beginning to glow with an otherworldly energy.
"Lady!" Aldric tore his own shemagh and his own tinfoil hat from his head, "I'm pretty sure you and I had a conversation about this before! You brought it up when you realized I might be staring at your tits all the time!" Aldric shouted, angrily gesturing at her chest as he did so. "I don't just walk around using my radar to stare through peoples' clothing, remember that?!" On the plus side? Being able to shout right back at Cinder was proving an effective mask for the fact that he was so off-kilter after having murdered someone. "That extends to looking at peoples' innards, too!" He tapped on his nose, "I don't just see things, Cinder! I feel them, I smell them, I'm figuring out how to hear them, too! If I didn't put forth the effort to not look so intimately, I'd be seeing any combination of genitals young and old, male and female, intestines full of shit and empty too, bladders waiting to burst, lungs full of phlegm, or cancer, or whatever!"
"Uh... You two?" Mercury was looking around, "maybe not here?"
"That kind of disgusting isn't the one you get used to, lady!" Aldric ranted, advancing on Cinder, who stood her ground. "I found the bitch! We were coming here under the assumption she was alive, it didn't fucking occur to me to check if she was breathing!" Aldric's radar was slowly constricting, until all he saw was him and Cinder, hardly even inches apart, eying eachother down. "For fuck's sake, lady! I get screwed just as hard as you when shit goes sideways like this! Maybe instead of pointing fingers you should roll with the goddamn punches!"
"Would you two just fuck al-" Mercury's head snapped up, "incoming!" He shouted, as he leapt backwards.
Aldric's radar shot outwards, and he saw two thugs leaping in. He spun around, shield forming around his arm, but before he could do anything, two arrows flew through the air, slamming into the thugs and, in the blink of an eye, incinerating them, and leaving their ashes to scatter to the wind when they hit the ground, leaving only the smell of roasted flesh, and Cinder, lowering her black bow with a look that could kill.
"So... That killed the mood... Uh..." Aldric murmured, as he straightened up. "We cool, now? Or -" And before Aldric could react, Cinder rounded on him, her arm swinging around in a wide arc, and her hand latching onto his face.
The energy she summoned from inside of her body shot outwards, coiling around her and surging up her core, to her arm, and right into Aldric. Aldric screamed from an equal mixture of pain and surprise, before she shoved him away. His entire body felt abuzz, his blood was boiling, but unlike how her eye radiated fire, his body was enveloped in silver flames. His radar pulse felt more vivid now than it had just a moment ago, and any lethargy Aldric had felt accumulated over the last few days seemed to have vanished entirely.
"These are your powers as they are mine!" Cinder shouted, a look of pure malice and frustration in her glowing eyes. "Use them!"
And Aldric did. His aura exploded outwards, acting as a signal fire for everyone for miles around: Anyone, from the mightiest of huntsman, to even the lowliest civilian, could sense the Master and the Maiden, as the latter sparked the former's powers, and they both let loose. Many locals who feared that the two were staking their claim, would charge them en masse. One of two fates awaited them: To either be blasted away by the blind warrior in the longcoat, or to be incinerated outright by the woman next to him.
Aldric found that he was capable of things now, that he had only been able to conceptualize even a day ago. His radar pulse was so great that he could hear across the village, his semblance so powerful that with a thought he could set the air ablaze and freeze it just the same. Anyone who grew too close to him found that they couldn't touch him, be it because he could deflect their abilities with painful ease, or because he blasted them away with a telekinetic pulse, so powerful that it shattered stone as if it were glass. It actually took more effort to reign himself in and not use too much strength, especially as those who used aura to fight began to run out of shields and were more susceptible to injury.
When they were finished battling their way from one end of Dira to the other, and had made it to the Aviator, Aldric finally collapsed, gasping for air. It was the strangest, most alien thing he had ever experienced: Being utterly exhausted, yet still feeling as though he could snap right out of his lethargy and fight another army if he had to.
Cinder seemed to catch onto this, as she approached him. "How do you feel?" She asked, as Mercury circled around him.
Aldric clenched a hand, feeling the power still coursing through it. "Great." He breathed.
"Good." Said Cinder, "I would have been disappointed, had this investment turned out a meager return."
In the time it took Aldric to blink, Cinder shoved her hand forward, and he felt his head enveloped in a viscuous, tarry substance. His body was suddenly cast aglow, and the pleasant feelings from earlier were viciously replaced by something far worse. It felt as if he were being bathed in acid and showered in salt. Something that belonged was inside of him, and Cinder was trying to tear it out."I know what you did!" Cinder growled, as the sights and sounds of the desert around them seemed to melt away, leaving only he and her. He tried to grasp at the pistol on his hip, but Mercury was there, locking his arms behind his back and planting his boot on his spine. "You think you can hide from me forever. You thought a beginner could play a game we have spent years mastering!" Malice oozed out of every word she spoke, as Aldric began to scream incoherently in pain. "I will take your power, Nebo Aldric, and I will make it my own! I will do more with it than you ever could have!" And as her eyes began to melt away, the orange being replaced by a deep onyx, Aldric knew there was nothing he could do.
Nothing but one thing. He scowled, and summoned up all of the energy rapidly draining left in his body, to let out one last, defiant, "FU-
"-UCK!"
The entire dark room shook from the unintentional telekinetic blast Aldric pushed out. He was upright in a second, his fleshy hand pressing against his chest, gasping for air, and the iron hand clenched tightly, held halfway between a panicking and a defensive posture. He was in a cold sweat, and the clock inches away from him on the cheap nightstand that complimented the cheap hotel room, told him that what sleep he had gotten hadn't even lasted an hour.
Well there went sleep for the night. Still gasping for air, his head going light from too much oxygen, Aldric buried his face in his hands.
"God... Damn it." Aldric felt around the cheap hotel room, and further beyond, more out of habit than anything else, as he tried to figure out how he'd kill time, now.
For the Record
Who the fuck am I even talking to, right now?
Seriously. It can't be for other terrans, because I'm the only one on Remnant that's even alive. It can't be for other English-speakers, because I've been writing this thing in some back-asswards code that any layman won't get at first glance. It's certainly not for the Legion of Doom, that's self explanatory. It can't be for the Justice League or the Watchmen either, because I'm ostensibly fighting the former, and the latter don't (and probably won't ever) fully trust me. It's not for the people of Remnant, because if I'm being completely honest - I've lost an arm and both my eyes and I haven't even gone to war yet. I don't expect to survive this. And even ignoring that, if I survived this and published it as some sort of memoir, I'd be ruining the reputations of so many genuinely good people that the message would be lost in the method.
So that's everyone. I've knocked out everyone.
So who the fuck am I talking to? Why the hell am I writing this? To what end and for what purpose does this even exist? Is it because I think I'm less cripplingly alone if my words exist somewhere else? Is it because if this journal exists, that's proof that I existed after I got torn from Earth? Is it because I think writing this will somehow keep me sane, in an insane world? Is it because I think that, if somewhere my unfettered thoughts exist, that maybe I'm not as evil as I'll need to be, for all of this crazy bullshit to work? Is it all of those things? None of them?
And here's another thing to think of: All of this shit going on right now, with Rayne and Neo, with Cinder claiming to trust me but probably having some small bit of doubt in there, could my rapidly losing control of this situation be proof of something else entirely? Did I even survive that plane crash? Was there even a crash in the first place? Am I sitting in a hospital somewhere, hooked up to so many needles that I'm a better pincushion than a human being? Is this world so similar to one I'd seen back home, because I'd crafted it in my coma-induced fugue? And if that's the case, when I feel like I'm losing control of things, is that me getting ready to wake up, in this bed? And when I do everything I can to get control back, is that me electing to stay down and under?
The only answer I can come up with is: To keep up appearances. I have to look like it's business as usual, or else Cinder will realize something's wrong, and when she starts asking questions, she'll get answers.
A year ago, if you would have told me that I'd have voluntarily murdered someone I'd never met, because it was more convenient than letting her live, I wouldn't have believed you.
For chrissakes, I'd never even spoken to the chick, and now she's dead. I choked the living daylights out of her, bruised her throat and scuffed up the floors to make it look like someone had snuck into her house at night and done it. And that's not even the end of it! Oh no! My incredible ass, as always, thought of all the ins and outs except one tiny little detail:
The Punisher, despite ample opportunity, never killed the Kingpin. Why? Simple: The sheer chaos that would result from the power vacuum, and the struggle that would follow, following Fisk's death would cause far more problems than it would solve. More people would die, more crime would be committed, and as such more criminals would be created, than would if he just begrudgingly let Fisk do his thing. The goddamn Punisher didn't kill the Kingpin!
But me? I didn't really think that bit through, and once Dira figured out that its boss was dead, all hell broke loose. Everyone suddenly had a claim to the throne, and everyone worth their salt was fighting for it. The body wasn't even cold! Within an hour of us showing up at Rayne's compound, the entire goddamn place had descended into anarchy and was on fire. So not only did I directly, straight-up murder someone, but by proxy I probably killed a few dozen other people, too.
Go big or go home, for fuck's sake.
And that's to say nothing of Cinder. Holy fuck, I wasn't prepared for what she did.
As it turns out, now, like always, she had an ulterior motive, though unlike previous occasions, she didn't want to test me so much as she wanted to train me. As it turns out, when she said she 'had a plan' for cracking into my Master powers (god that just sounds worse the more I say it), she meant she was going to have me pick a fight with the mind reader, and before I got into things, she'd kickstart them, like having to push a car a few feet in order to start the engine. Her idea was that I'd remember the experience, and the power would 'imprint' on me, allowing me to continue fiddling with it while I was at Beacon. I'd get my heart pumping, then she'd give me a kick in the ass, and I'd trial-by-fire my way to godhood.
I'd comment on the ridiculousness of that, but that's my track record at this point. I learn more, and faster, when there's a gun to my head - and expanding on that, it's probably a good reason I'm dating Yuno Gasai. I doubt I'd get it up if I didn't have a knife to my throat.
But I digress: That plan kind of fell through when... You know... Rayne fell down with a sudden case of death. But if Cinder has learned anything from our time together, it's how to improvise and unfuck a plan. What happened next I can only describe as she shoved her powers into me, and used that like a match to light a pool of gasoline. They're both fire, but one started a bigger one. The result was basically Chuck Norris fighting an army of Yamchas.
But, I wasn't the only one who let loose. Mercury pretty much got to walk out of the village, we were tearing through people so fast. I've never seen Cinder that angry before. She personally incinerated five people on our way out of the village, and was responsible for a few of the fires that sprouted up on our way out. I think she specifically took the long way out of the village, just so when anyone ran afoul of her, she could blow them up. Even Mercury - a goddamn assassin - steered clear while she vented. It's the closest I've ever been to a Maiden letting lose, since the Maiden let loose on my goddamn eyes. And that did inevitably turn right back to me, once we got back to the ship. How didn't I know she was dead? How could I have missed the signs? All that shit. I thought I was going to spontaneously combust, the air around her was so hot. Thankfully I prepared for that, and dodged those bullets like Neo - as in, the One, not 'politan - but she's furious.
If you really wanted to dig, though, you could probably find a silver lining to all of this. See: Goud is leaving for Beacon imminently, so once we landed back in Vale (after some of the most intense training I've ever had, directly under Cinder, I feel I should add), I pretty much had to leave so I could get into character. I'm sitting in a cheap hotel just a few blocks away from the testing hall, right now. This is a silver lining both because I get to avoid Cinder's wrath, and because Mercury - ever proving to be better at thinking things through than I am - basically gave me a supply drop, and a place where I could get more if I needed it, for my days in Beacon.
What were these supplies?
More cold, hard cash than I've ever had at any point in my life (albeit loaded onto a card), and a stack of those glass coins he was harping on about. So that problem went and fixed itself, didn't it? I just had to murder a chick and send her entire village into chaos.
Jesus Christ.
Oh, yeah, and then there's Neo. 'Politan, this time.
Still not a goddamn word from her, and that test is this afternoon. So not only do I have to worry about an angry, somewhat irrational (okay, completely irrational. I mean, what reason would she have to not trust me? It's not like I've been actively betraying her since the moment we met!) Cinder making a leap of logic that ends with my ass in the fire (though I did make sure to remove the harddrives and SD cards from all of my electronics before I left. I may be stupid, but I'm not dumb.), but I've still got Neo to worry about and deal with, and at this point I doubt I even need to describe why that's a problem, again. If that lady doesn't show up before I have to get into character, that's another ticking time bomb.
And now I have a goddamn precedent for dealing with those, don't I?
Fuck... This entrance exam has some kind of tournament/fight kind of a thing, going for it, and thank god for that. I could really use a punching bag.
If there was one thing in this world that Aldric - or should he start calling himself 'Ash' now? - found that he could love unconditionally, it was his Power Glove. Indestructible defenses, a limitless variety of melee weapons, limited variety of ranged offense, tool applications, and now? Now he could add simple machines to that list. Very simple, but machines nonetheless. He'd long since figured out that the glove could only make singular, solid objects, but what was a machine but a lot of singular, solid objects working together?
So with some creativity, time to kill, and a general lack of any ability to sleep - due in no small part to the stain on his soul and the nightmares it was generating - he'd managed to use the glove to make all the pieces he'd need for a fully functional, collapsible, white cane. A minor victory, sure, but he felt it was important due to the implications it presented, as well as the fact that it meant that he could put just the slightest extra layer onto Goud Etiolate's mannerisms. On the Beacon paperwork, he'd already declared his shield as his primary weapon, neglecting to mention the Glove itself, such that he could always be armed when he was walking about Beacon, but with the cane functioning like it did now, it made it seem like Goud had had the blindness issue for longer than just a month, and had spent time into figuring out how to make it more convenient for him.
The fact that it was technically true made it all the better: The entire experiment had started in the first place because Aldric didn't want to be constantly carrying a cane that was almost as big as he was. Unfortunately, while his experiment may have given him something to keep his mind off of everything, it only lasted for so long, and it left him mentally tired as well as physically exhausted.
And then it left him on the edge of exhaustion-induced madness when, after digging in his coat, he found that he'd already done it before.
When the afternoon of the entrance exam came, and he'd hardly had an hour's sleep, Aldric, in his tiny, cheap hotel room, found that the effort required to slide on his armor and his coat, and to hang his shield from his back, felt inordinately higher than it should have been, as if they had all gone from virtually weightless, to weighing a thousand pounds each.
After he slid on the shades that masked the empty pits that were now his eyes, Aldric let out an exhausted groan and ran his hands through his hair.
So what's going to happen, is I'll either see her pretty much the moment I walk out that door... Or not at fucking all. The thought of dealing with the ice-cream mute wasn't a pleasant one, but he was at least willing to think she posed just slightly less of an existential risk as Rayne did, though he had to shake those thoughts from his head, as they conjured up images of her thrashing about against an unseen force, as bruises formed a ring around her throat and her eyes began to bulge. Maybe I'll hit up Qrow. See how well that hip flask works. He shrugged, flipping the light off in the room as he snatched up his white cane and extended it.
Goud, Goud, Goud. He thought, trying to force himself into a better frame of mind. Ashy slashy, Ashy slashy.
Swinging the cane back and forth, tapping the ground with a repetitive 'click, click, click', Aldric led himself down to the hotel's ground floor, and out into Vale proper. The city had over the last week begun to transform, as the next Academy year's beginning loomed and the entrance exams promised to bring some sort of entertainment. From how Aldric understood it, the entrance exams were almost like a miniature Vytal festival, especially when there were immigrating students promising to bring unique new weapons and fighting styles. Unlike the festival, however, the exams didn't take place over several days and weeks, but rather just one, akin more to a football game than an Olympics-style, multi-day showcase. As he continued down the street, Aldric felt around with his radar, and noted a distinct lack of psychotic assassins. That would have been reassuring, if it weren't for the fact that this particular assassin could functionally shape shift, so his not seeing anything didn't count for squat.
I need to make a choice about that RWBY card, soon. Thought the man with many names. I barely managed to get out of that Rayne thing, and Neo is still one hell of a risk. But even if I manage to unfuck that, that's the closest I will have ever come to having everything get screwed up like nobody's business. He frowned, as the people on the sidewalk parted around him when he grew close. That's an insurance policy for my death, or the plan being ruined. We'll at least have something of an information source, albeit one that grows more out of date the more we act on it. But I'd also need some way of explaining what it is, how it exists, and how I have it. He hummed, his feet pushing at the concrete in front of him, and cars and people coming into and out of his literal sphere of awareness. Qrow put up that 'alien' theory, maybe I can work with that? That maybe someone on - Aldric's thoughts slowed down as someone came into his radar, who piqued his interest.
Well I'll be damned... Would've thought Adam would be probing the city for you. He thought, as everybody's favorite feline faunus looked back and forth between street signs and her scroll. So either he's smarter than I thought and didn't try, or you're that good, and he can't find you. From what Aldric could see, her screen had a map pulled up, she was trying to get to the testing hall.
Aldric had been perfectly fine with letting her go by, but fate, the universe, or both, was never satisfied with what he wanted. At their respective paces, his relaxed and hers agitated, she caught up to him, and slowed down when the gaudy shield hanging from his back, and the minor bulge on his hip from the gun's holster caught her eye. She seemed to debate with herself whether or not she should approach him, but as they came to a crosswalk and waited for the light to go red, she made up her mind.
"Excuse me..." She said, just barely loud enough to be heard over the sounds of the city.
Aldric, however, had a role to play, and the blind man had to put off as though he couldn't differentiate whether she was speaking to him, or someone else. He did, however, rest both of his hands on top of the white cane as he waited for the signal to cross, and Blake noticed it only then.
She frowned, as if silently admonishing herself, before saying, "excuse me, sir." And following it up with a light tap on his left arm.
Do or die. Aldric raised his eyebrows innocently, and turned his head to his left, "oh, you were speaking to me, I'm so sorry." He said, in a softer tenor, as opposed to his normal baritone. "How can I help you?"
"I was hoping you were a Huntsman, or at least a student at Beacon." Blake began, "and that you could help me find the examination hall? My scroll's been acting up all day."
Aldric let a light smile play at his features, "well, suffice to say I am neither of those things, but I can help you nonetheless." He said, with a nod.
The feline faunus didn't even bother to hide her raised eyebrow, "are you taking the exam too?"
Aldric nodded, "I know, I know. It's kind of strange." And as he spoke, the light went red and the crosswalk opened up, he and Blake began their march again. "A guy like me..." He let the joke build, "monochrome cloths, gaudy shield. And you don't see many people who fight with shields, after all." His smile dropped to a one-sided grin.
Blake's poker face was solid, "I have ribbons on my guns." Was her counter, "a blind man with a colorful shield isn't the strangest I've seen."
"Well at least you get to see it." Aldric snorted, "you almost made it." He said, giving a nod in the direction they were walking. "Just around this street corner." He raised his free hand, while the other continued swinging the stick from side to side. "Ash."
She eyed his gloved hand apprehensively for a moment, before she let out a muted sigh and shook it. "Blake."
"Nice to meet you Blake." He said, with a nod.
The two drifted off into silence as they continued walking down the busy street. Aldric noticed a few subtle glances his way from Blake, directed at his eyes and then his cane, a frown forming as she thought, though whatever questions she was forming, she kept to herself. Aldric was content to let the silence last, this was one of the few times in his new life where information from Earth was readily useful: She was fresh out of the Fang, and had yet to develop any ability to trust others, or be trusted by them. A certain fifteen year old would fix that, he knew, but he felt it best to not push any boundaries just yet, no matter how entertaining it would be to play the omniscient blind man and ask her about her ears.
They rounded the corner, and the arena in which Beacon's exams would be held came into Aldric's view. First the entrance, then the walls, and growing until he saw the top of the dome, and soon after, everything inside and out. The parking lot wasn't full, but it wasn't empty either - people were showing up well ahead of time to try and reserve seats for the physical exams and the public tourneys. Blake held the door open for Aldric, which he thanked her for, before the two found their way to the front desk.
Seated there was a plump, bored-looking woman in a dark uniform, who barely gave the two a second look before she drawled, "names?"
Nebo Aldric, Nathan Drake... "Goud Etiolate." Said 'Goud'.
"Blake Belladonna." Said the faunus, with a light nod.
"Room two." She handed Aldric a clipboard with a stack of papers, "room four." She gave Blake her own.
"Thank you much." Aldric accepted the clipboard, before glancing at Blake. "Until we meet again."
She gave him a nod, "good luck."
"To you as well." He said, as the two parted ways.
Aldric weaved his way through the wide halls of the arena, before he found himself in a small room with a dozen other people around his age, and after spending a moment searching, he plopped himself down in a seat close to the door, leaning his shield against the legs of his desk, and collapsing his cane, to store it in his coat.
The clipboard he'd been given was a whole lot of standard information. Aldric briefly entertained the idea that these may have been added in by the League as a means of potentially tripping up the spy he'd tipped them off to, seeing as how he knew that most of this information had already been given to them to ensure he could be enrolled at the first place. After a moment's contemplation, however, he came to a better conclusion: That paperwork, administration, and politics existed even on Earth's potential-cousin, and was just as asinine here as it was there. But despite that, Aldric did probe through the arena as he filled out the paperwork. He couldn't find any sign of Ozpin or Qrow, or any of the other members of the League that he was aware of. So either he was fine, or this was just part one to the master plan, and it would be a week or two before he'd be strung up.
At least I have an out... Thought the fighter, as his radar probes picked up more than a few other familiar faces.
While certainly not corralled in the same room, Aldric saw most of the main cast, many of whom were doing just as he: Filling out paperwork and waiting for the written tests to start. As a matter of fact, he recognized one face in particular - sitting not even two desks away from him, and whether it was good or bad, the blonde firecracker was staring straight at him, jaw slack and purple eyes widening in growing realization. She gathered up her meager belongings and practically lunged for the desk behind him, but befitting of the role he had to play, Aldric pretended not to notice her.
Yang Xiao Long, however, wasn't nearly as subtle, and with a hard jab in between his shoulder blades and a toothy grin, she said, "I recognize that shield, Bar Boy!" Her grin grew wider as Aldric straightened up and turned to face her. "So how'd you get away from Miss Tall Thin and Pretty?" She asked, no small amount of glee evident in her voice.
Aldric matched her grin with one of his own, "well... I wanted to keep my job... But you know -" He raised up and began sliding his sunglasses off. "Miss Ember and I didn't really see eye to eye." And he revealed to her his eyes - or stark lack thereof.
The brawler was instantly torn between laughing at his play on words, and shock at the injury he'd accrued, leading to an expression that was halfway between an amused grin and a shocked, wide-eyed slackjaw. "I..." She stuttered, "I see what you mean!" She said, letting out an airy snort.
Aldric's grin didn't falter, "well that makes one of us." He lifted his hand, "what was your name again?"
"Yang." Said the blonde, recovering quickly and shaking his hand, as he slid his glasses back on. "What happened?"
"You could say I didn't see that particular Grimm coming." Aldric pressed, "jokes aside, she's still alive, but decided it may not be a bad idea for me to get some kind of formal training, and time to... You know." He waved his hand at his face, "adapt." He leaned back against the side of his desk, "how about you? Yang Xiao Long - you know I looked you up? Full scholarship, nice." He nodded, "but uh..." He leaned forward, giving her an exaggerated expression, "what're you doing here?"
Yang scoffed, "just because I don't have to pay for the school doesn't mean I can just waltz right in, Beebee." She said, turning back to her paperwork, far more through it than Aldric. "I gotta prove I'm worth the investment."
"Hm..." Aldric grunted, turning back to his own paperwork. "I sincerely hope you and I don't get paired up in the tourney." He nodded his head to the side, "I like to think I've gotten back most of my mojo, but I'm not sure if I can put on that good of a show." He paused, "my name's Ash, by the way."
Yang snorted, "keep trying, Beebee, see how quickly I stop calling you that."
Add it to the list. Aldric let out an exaggerated groan, "that's going to haunt me, I know it." But he grinned nonetheless, and continued to make idle chit-chat with her for the next hour, as the room began to fill with more prospective students, and the stadium's previously small trickle turned into a minor stream of spectators, ready for the tests to start so the fights would begin.
Once the clock struck ten, a tall, thin man in a Beacon uniform strode confidently into the room, silencing the conversations that had been going on, and likely for good reason: He was missing more bits than Aldric. Both of his arms were made of metal, his left leg, while covered by clothes, made heavier 'thuds' than his right, and his lower jaw was completely steel. Aldric wondered if his name wasn't professor Raiden.
'Raiden' cleared his throat, "I'm pretty certain based upon my appearance you can tell where it is I intend to take this little opening speech."
You'll be correct if you'll tell us how you avoid shattering your teeth every time you close your jaw. Thought Aldric.
"To be blunt: Though you may be children now, you are children who have voluntarily elected to join a war, the likes and importance of which have no comparison in all of human history. Any squabbling between our countries comes secondary to the endless fight for survival against the creatures of grimm." He said, the metallic flange in his voice suggesting that there might be some metal in his throat, too. "Each of you here today made it through your preliminary academy's respective exams, but Beacon is a different beast altogether. We do not merely train warriors, we train leaders. A huntsman is more than the grimm he or she may kill, a huntsman must adapt to any situation he or she may come across. To wit: The body is replaceable, but the mind is not, and that is what we will be testing more than anything else today.
"The written exam I will be passing out is merely a benchmark. Those of you who fail it will not even be considered for the physical portion, and you will be forced to wait another year before you are given another chance to test again." He said, as he retrieved an enormous stack of papers from the desk he stood behind. "Those of you who manage to manage to guess your way through this will then be required to fight amongst the most dangerous foes this planet has ever created: Other human beings. Foes who, like you, are capable of complex thought and creative solutions. The only species on this planet that has been able to routinely fight and defeat the Grimm. Should you win your battles, then - and only then - will you be deemed acceptable to attend this next year at Beacon.
"Have you any questions?" He asked, holding his hands behind his back.
One girl with plum-colored hair raised her hand, "sir, it almost sounds like you think other people are more dangerous than the Grimm."
Aldric was thinking along a similar line, but less 'other people are just as dangerous', and more, 'we think everyone from Mistral is a spy', and as such Beacon let their more cynical teacher come haze any of the groups of students with a Mistrali among them.
'Raiden' seemed to lend credence to this theory when he said, "make no mistake about it. The grimm are dangerous, and in fact their numbers and ferocity make them the greatest foe mankind will ever face. There is an incredible chance that, should any of you succeed and become huntsman, you will die facing a creature of Grimm. But they are just that: Creatures. Animals." He pressed, "they are savage, but predictable. Strong, but unintelligent. Their greatest strength is their numbers, but they are not the most dangerous thing on our world. Humans and faunus are the only things alive who possess intelligence and the ability for complex thought. We alone have turned the raw resources of our planet into marvels of engineering and science. We alone are capable of weaponizing Dust and Aura. We alone are the only species on our planet that has been able to take the fight to the grimm and even clear many areas of our planet of their influence entirely.
"Whereas a Grimm is predictable, a person being is anything but. We can lie and deceive, we can think and strategize, and most importantly: We can create. A true test of the mind is to face an opponent nearly equal to you in skill, that you have never faced before. Even the lowliest fighter can defeat a man twice his age, strength, and experience, with superior application of their mind." He paused, "so yes, I think other people just as dangerous as the Grimm. I prefer to hope for the best in all things, but be prepared for the worst."
Translation: Eye have you. Thought Aldric.
"And that is what we will be testing. First your ability to apply pen to paper and apply knowledge in a theoretical, controlled environment where the only variables are the ones provided to you. But then we will test your ability to improvise, by throwing you to the only opponents in the world who have routinely outthought people: Other people." He said, "so if there's nothing else, we shall begin."
There were moments in Aldric's life where things actually went to plan, and while few and far between, Aldric loved every single one of them - even if they flayed his nerves to no end as he waited for things to go terribly wrong. Case in point: He'd long since figured out that he could skimp out on preparing for this test by using his radar to cheat his ass off. Check other tests, check the other answers, see which ones were picked on average, and jot those down as his own answers. There were some questions he recognized from his own readings on Remnant during his free time, and some more technical questions that Earth had helped him out with, but for the most part, his plan had been to shamelessly cheat - and it worked. At least, he hoped it did. He felt the plan was valid because he could literally see everyone in the arena, and all of the other test takers' answers. That was a huge reference pool to work with, and even if he didn't get all the questions right, Aldric was at least willing to bank on him passing the bare minimum. Though, he channel his inner Light Yagami and made sure to get at least some questions wrong intentionally, going so far as to ensure that he got the same kinds of questions consistently wrong, such that it looked less like he was actively trying to lower the grade, than it looked like he was simply weak in one academic area. The real trick was making sure those wrong questions matched up with Goud's grade reports.
The test itself lasted ninety minutes, and Aldric waited until the last few to jot down the answers to the final questions and check over his test, after which he laid his head on his arms and started probing through the arena again. The coordinators were finishing setting up the stages all of the students would be fighting on, and the arena's seats were starting to fill up with the Vale citizens ready to get their entertainment for the day. Aldric actually saw Ozpin pop by to check on things, before heading out to do whatever it was a headmaster did.
When the test was finished, Aldric observed as the answer sheets were collected up and sent off to a room in the arena's basement. He watched with rapt attention as he saw the tests promptly fed to a machine, which managed to sort through and grade them with remarkable speed. It made him wonder for a few minutes how advanced Remnant computers were, compared to Terran ones, but eventually he gave up when he came to the conclusion that Huntsman academies would likely have access to top-of-the-line models, and perhaps even supercomputers, which made the point moot. He was drawn into more idle conversation by Yang once the steel-jawed professor left, with the blonde firecracker taking the chance to try and humanize the guy she'd beaten the hell out of one night, and the blind fighter using it as an opportunity to fully cement Goud's story.
A half hour after the test finished, the professor came back with a stack of answer sheets. Of the people in the classroom, Aldric was astonished to find out that less than half of them had made the grade. His own grade looked just a few points shy of the upper tier, and was itself barely worse than Yang's, netting another quirked eyebrow. Professor 'Raiden' promptly threw out anyone whose tests didn't meet the standard, wishing them luck for next year, before turning to those lucky few who remained.
"You who remain have proven that, on paper, you are worthy of further training. But there is a vast and insurmountable difference between that which is on paper, and that which is seen on the battlefield." He explained, "we will soon put your minds to the ultimate test." He stood up straight, "while it may be true that this tournament is also for the benefit of our people, such that they can see the power of those who protect them, before they receive proper training, you would do well to remember that this tournament is for you as well. Defeat is tantamount to failure. There are seventy five vacancies in this year's roster, and a three hundred remaining applicants." He explained, to the growing tension of the room. "Make no mistake: You are as much fighting for your futures as you are fighting for your lives." He explained, as Aldric sensed others eying their neighbors with suspicion, as though they were less friends now than they were enemies - or, if it was someone like Yang, they were eying everyone else with a fire in their eyes, greatly anticipating, if not a good fight, then a marathon session of adequate fights.
Aldric was willing to bet that was part of an underlying test as well: Fighting pretty much nonstop for an entire day, likely as a means to see where everyone's endurance lay.
"The intricacies of the lives of huntsman and huntresses will be something you shall be taught as time goes on. But suffice to say, if this is your first time here: It looks far better if you pass, than if you fail, and pass next year. It will not be forgotten. Huntsman and huntresses are as much public figures as they are guardian warriors. You are looking at potential employers and sources of income, tt will not be forgotten if you failed this test even once, just as it will not be forgotten if you barely pass in last place. Damage to your image and reputation is not something easily remedied. "
Aldric hummed lightly; this was something they never touched on in the show, but as much as the prospect fascinated him, 'Raiden' seemed to be getting off his soap box.
"Keep an eye on your scrolls and do not miss it when your names are called." He nodded, "there is a section in the stadium reserved for the prospective students. Find a seat and wait for your turn to battle." And as everyone gathered up their weapons and their things, and began shuffling out of the room, he left them with: "And good luck."