AN
I know it's wicked stupid early for an update, but I had a job interview today and I got it offered on the spot, so I'm a little excited.
Just a little.
Which is only good news for you guys, considering the shit that's about to go down.
So let's get started, shall we?
Chapter 29
It took three hours for everyone to finally calm down and fall asleep, after which Aldric had to quietly throw on some light gear and sneak out of the dorm; he had been worried he might have woken up Myrtle, who shifted in her sleep as he clicked his arm back into place, but she remained still for the few minutes he waited and watched, filling him with confidence enough to sneak out of the dorm.
Even though he'd already been here once before, now that he'd been here during the day, while it was alive, Aldric would say beyond the shadow of a doubt that the difference between Beacon at night and Beacon at day was, appropriately, as clear as night and day. During the day it was noisy and full of life, like a small city, but during the night, it was cold, and dead silent, the only noise being distant gusts of wind.
Aldric, hands in his coat, walked across Beacon's grounds, his dark overcoat absorbing enough of the light that remained at night to make him look almost like an animated shadow. He arrived at Beacon Tower after a few minutes of walking - noting with his Radar that the lights in Ozpin's office were still on. It took the elevator a few minutes to slide down the building to the ground floor, and then a few minutes more to take Aldric up, and when Aldric entered Ozpin's office, he found the headmaster there, waiting for him, looking out of its main window, down at the academy he led.
"Mister Drake." Said Ozpin, giving Aldric a nod from over his shoulder. "Or should I call you mister Etiolate?"
"Neither are my real name, so whatever floats your boat, Ozbourne." Aldric responded, as he walked up to Ozpin's desk, and took a seat.
"Very well." Said Ozpin, as he too took a seat. "I don't recall whether I said it or not, but I do feel a small amount of congratulations are in order. Making it into my school is no small task."
"Well according to everyone in the know, I'm a god." Aldric stressed, "so it sounds to me like you're congratulating Superman on lifting a heavy object." He said, scratching at his scalp and stifling a yawn.
"Regardless... I must admit, considering who I had seen you interacting with, I almost expected fate to drop you in with team JNPR." Ozpin said, with a none-too-subtle smile. "Five man teams, while rare, aren't exactly unheard of."
Aldric would have rolled his eyes, if he had any. "I stopped questioning why the universe did things to me when I managed to get into a beam struggle with Her and win." He deadpanned, "at this point I roll with the punches. I was just as surprised I met people I didn't know, as I wasn't." He admitted.
Ozpin nodded, "I will be honest in saying I had considered... Giving you a push, as it were... But we each have our own games to play, and having two Mistrali students on one team, I fear what your Lady In Red may have thought upon learning it."
Aldric shrugged, "it may make the how of getting to know the two teams require a bit more creativity, but I've already got a few ins, so to speak, and some ideas... I've just got to learn to juggle the time with my team and the other ones."
Ozpin nodded, "alienating your allies is never something a wise move." He said, "but I suppose we aren't here to talk about such things, are we?"
"We need a plan." Aldric grunted, "time may not be on our side, but we can give it a push here and there. You already said you wanted to do something about the breach?"
"Yes." Said Ozpin, "I was wondering what thoughts you had on the subject."
Aldric rubbed his eyes again, "sorry, a successive string of long days and long nights." He said, before waving it away. "I think the big factor is his being there in the first place. White Fang is good, but without a damn good leader, they don't really make decisions on their own; and since I need to build his loyalty with me in the first place... My idea was to wait until Little Red Riding Hood started her investigation of him, and warn him about it. Not enough to prevent things, but to let him know I have his back... Until the Breach."
Ozpin lowered his gaze in thought, "you intend to warn Cresset and remove his presence entirely."
"I do that, and the Fang's first instinct will be to take a hostage. That'll piss off the rest of Red Hood's team and they'll go on the offensive, tear through the Fang to get to her, and make their retreat."
"But that would run the risk of Lady In Red wondering why you didn't have your proverbial finger on the pulse, in regards to what Red Hood's team was up to." Ozpin pointed out.
"But keep in mind, by that point they'll for the most part be here." Aldric reminded him, "all I have to do is just hint at an awareness that they're doing something, but not necessarily what it is they're doing, as they're keeping it on the low-down, and I can't show any kind of favoritism without destabilizing my standing with my team or the other one." He explained, "the idea being trading specialized and thorough information on just one team, for a general idea of what everyone's doing, without specifics." He shrugged, "the entire reason I'm here is to judge who will be Her likely replacement, to begin with. Everything else is secondary." He leaned back in his chair, "and in regards to that, there are things I can't hold back on without drawing suspicion. So I'll be fully honest on that bit - all signs point to Pyrrha."
Ozpin hummed in agreement, "from information sources both second hand and first, I would have to agree." He said, "but them having such a clear image of what it is we do could be rather detrimental." He warned.
" 'Them' having a clear image of what you're doing is the reason I'm here, Ozz-man." Aldric shot back, "and if we avoid the breach, I have to give them something, and it has to be good. Thus -" He indicated the outside, vaguely in the direction of the dorms. "- a name. Good reports on candidates. Her location. Do that and I gain favor with both parties, and we have a better foothold from which to defend... Bringing me to something I've been thinking on for a lot longer than just the time you and I have put our cards on the table."
"The attack on Beacon."
"I'll be straight with you: Goud has to die there." Aldric said, bluntly. "Not just because his death may galvanize people more effectively, but my acting as him was always meant to be a temporary act. I'm going to bring the same thing up to Lady In Red when the time comes - that when she gets the missing half of her powers, Goud, not Pyrrha, will be the one to step up to bat." He took in a deep breath, "and I'm going to do my damnedest to kill her, right then and there." Ozpin frowned, no doubt thinking of the repercussions of such an act. "It'll throw one hell of a monkey wrench into the White Witch's plans, may allow us to keep ahold of Beacon if we do it right, and it won't damage my standing with the White Witch. Best case, she'll view it as Lady In Red's failure, worst case, she'll track me down just to figure out why - and I can use Red Hood as my scapegoat.
"But in any case, I'm too valuable a player to her, and she'll want to track me down, meaning even without Lady In Red in play, I'll make it to, and make contact with, the White Witch." He let out a long sigh, "I just have to keep them thinking they're in control... Meaning I can't too alter too heavily their buildup. The breach may be fine - we already know they can adapt to that, but doing so as we intend will put them on the defensive. But Beacon has to go... Mostly according to plan, else they could change it and we'll lose our advantage."
Ozpin hummed, folding his fingers together. "Those are very serious plans, Mister Drake." He intoned, "I see the potential, of dealing such a staggering blow... But the risks are equally enormous. Especially with your proposed idea to let the battle for my school go unabated."
Aldric nodded, "we've already agreed that the school is a risk that needs to be taken. Preventing it causes far more problems than it would solve - the only way we can believably do it would be by winning it, which is what I'm proposing." He began, "and to do so, I believe, would hinge around my killing Lady In Red, and then using my connections in our growing army to get them to fall back, after I get proof of her demise."
"But that in and of itself also carries a massive inherent risk, you do realize." Ozpin prodded.
"The risk gets lowered when we keep in mind that Lady In Red is one proud woman, and she'll want to fight me all out. We haven't fought seriously, not once." He said, "and I'll emphasize to her that it will need to be a spectacle. With my reputation now as one with a hell of a lot of potential, and what I believe later may be a reputation as one of Beacon's strongest, and she still tore him down? She won't want to pass up that opportunity to drum up fear and despair, to empower and attract the Grimm. So I'll have an excuse to be going lethal, and if I lose - she won't strike a killing blow, instead making it appear that I'll have died... And if I'm able to drum up any sort of friendship with Red Hood, and she manifests her powers... If I damage the Lady In Red enough, Red Hood may have a far greater chance to kill her."
"That does predicate itself upon your being able to create a meaningful relationship with miss 'Hood'." Ozpin pointed out, though his tone suggested he wasn't necessarily against the idea.
"I've seen and interacted with each member of her team, have something of a friendship with her sister, have an acquaintanceship with the faunus, and 'White' showed me earlier that she has a serious interest in some sort of... Political-business combination alliance with me." Aldric explained, "and Red mostly just wants to be accepted and have friends. So I have an in on each part of the team, they'll all take me in if I make myself available to them. I just have to be receptive to White, a sparring partner to Yellow, unbigoted to Black, and just there for Red." He listed out, "and the other team is arguably even easier, I've done a good deal of the legwork already by making contact with half of them. If I help their leader grow in potential, I could grow to be accepted by all of them."
"You do have a great deal of this thought out, but you are very clinical in your approach, mister Drake. You do not seem to be taking in the human element."
"Have you seen me interacting with these people? There's 'Nathan Drake', and then there's Goud Etiolate."
"Point taken." Ozpin nodded to the side, "but this all is also predicated on your being strong enough to fight and kill Lady In Red." Ozpin pointed out, "have you made any progress at all, beyond your unintentional displays?"
Aldric shook his head, "haven't had the time, not before, during, or after my fight with Her, and especially not since Lady In Red cracked it open for a few minutes in Dira." He said, "I assume you have a plan?"
Ozpin nodded, "I hope you can last on little sleep, Mister Drake." He said, "because you appear to be failing Professor Oobleck's class, and will need remedial teaching at least once a week."
"Why couldn't you give me a match teacher to piss off?" Aldric asked, "I could make that work like you wouldn't believe." He rubbed at his eyes, trying to think this out.
"Unfortunately, I had to make this plan based off of Goud's transcripts. Perhaps due to your very nature, history being your weak subject would be appropriate." Ozpin apologized.
Aldric nodded, "I'll give you that." He said, "would we be starting today?"
To which, Ozpin shook his head, "as much as we may be working within the confines of time, I do believe exhausting you any further than you already are would be a poor decision." He said, "I would prefer to give you the time to adapt to Beacon before putting you through this."
"I'm fighting a war, Ozpin." Aldric deadpanned, "behind enemy lines. I don't need to learn how to tank a pillar of fire, or replicate other semblances like you said you can do." He said, making it a point to let Ozpin know that that, specifically, hadn't been forgotten - that was a skill Aldric felt he could get unlimited mileage out of.
Ozpin shook his head, "a war fighter you may be, Mister Drake, but so too are you still a child... Indeed whose life has been metaphorically stolen from him. I appreciate and even admire your dedication to this... But I feel as though you would only benefit from some... Time off, as it were."
Aldric wouldn't deny that the thought was appealing, but he felt he had to try at least one more time. "Every day we don't make productive is a day lost, Ozpin." Aldric stressed, "I can deal with some lost sleep... But for this plan to work, what I can't deal with - what ostensibly the entire planet can't deal with - is letting the exponential growth I've had these last six months tank for safety's sake."
Ozpin grew a wistful smile, "and the more we speak, the more you remind me of myself, when I was in your shoes." He said. "this is what I shall do." He stood to his feet, "humor me, please, and close your eyes."
"Said to the blind man." Aldric deadpanned, though he did acquiesce.
"I was referring to how it is you continue to see even without them."
"I figured." Aldric let his radar shrink, until, after a moment, he was as blind as he should be.
He heard Ozpin approaching him, "I know you can sense aura. That of yourself and others." He said, to which Aldric grunted in the affirmative. "What I shall allow you to do tonight is to feel deeper. To gain a taste and an understanding for why we must be so cautious... As well as a feeling for your power." Aldric heard a 'click', and was certain that the lights had been killed. "As I said earlier... Our abilities are different separate from dust. Distinct from a semblance. What you use in your day to day is merely what you can access at any given moment... Giving it the appearance of a semblance... But we will call it a shell. And like a shell, it is merely a protective covering, to the valuables inside."
Aldric felt Ozpin place his hand on his good shoulder, "I shall be here to keep you safe... But I cannot visualize these things, or understand them, for you. I can only show you the door, it is up to you to learn how to open it." He said, "so what I want you to do is feel for your aura... Reach inwards with all of your senses, for that pleasant warmth, that burning that comes from drawing upon your aura."
Aldric envisioned what he always did when he drew on his aura, the ball of fire in his stomach. It had become so instinctual at this point that, where once Aldric had to focus everything just to envision it, now he could be doing ten different things at once and still have the idea in his head. He felt his body begin to tingle as the power flowed through him.
"Now, I want you to press inwards. Think of the shell I described. Of your power at rest. I want you to break through this shell, to reach inwards... But I only want you to..."
Silence.
"To...?" Aldric drawled.
Nothing.
"Ozpin." He let go of the fire in his stomach and slowly began extending his radar, only to let it shoot open when he realized he wasn't in Ozpin's office anymore.
What really surprised him, though, was when he opened his eyes, he actually saw things. His hands shot up to his face and he felt at his eyelids, indeed feeling two fleshy globes where they should be; and around him he saw that he was standing in the middle of a long, abandoned highway - one side filled bumper to bumper with cars, some engines still idling and others left wide open, door alarms pinging lightly. He stood in the other side, which was barren and devoid of automobiles.
"What the fu -" But his words were drowned out by several sonic booms above him.
Aldric's head snapped upwards and he saw contrails etching through the sky; he didn't even have to trace them to their owners, as in the blink of an eye four more jets arced through the red, twilight sky. He watched the jets soar through the air, and when his eyes hit the horizon, he blinked, once in confusion, and a second time in shock - because he recognized the city in the distance, its iconic skyline.
It was Los Angeles.
And it was on fire.
It didn't take long to realize why, either - a closer look revealed what the jets were engaging: Thousands of Grimm flying through the air, tearing chunks out of buildings and in turn being shredded by volumes of gunfire. There were explosions rocking the skyscrapers and bullets tearing through the air, but one sound in particular managed to grace Aldric's ears: The sharp, loud beeps of the Emergency Alert System.
Aldric's head snapped to his left and he dashed over to one of the cars whose doors were wide open. He leaned inside, the keys were still in the ignition, and Aldric turned up the radio.
"Come on..." Aldric breathed, after a few moments of nothing but the tones and sirens of the EAS. "Come on say something! What's going on?!" Where the hell even was he? Was he high? Had something happened in Ozpin's office? Or - perhaps just as frightening - had he finally gone and woken up from RWBY? He could test that at least - if this were a dream, any kind of numbers or letters would change after looking at them. But when he looked at the radio, looked away, and then back at it, the time didn't change, so he wasn't dreaming, but what then was -
"We interrupt -" Began a robotic voice.
"Yes!"
"- our programming. This is a national emergency. Important instructions will soon follow."
"Oh fuck you!" Aldric kicked the door of the car, as he took another look at the increasingly intense battle happening over the horizon.
"This is an emergency action notification. All broadcast stations and cable systems shall transmit this emergency action notification message."
"Yes, I fucking get it - come on!"
"This cable system has interrupted their regularly scheduled programming to broadcast this emergency action notification at the request of the White House, to participate in the Emergency Alert System."
"NO SHIT!" Aldric started rifling through the car, looking through all the nooks and crannies, for anything that could get him information faster than the bot on the radio.
"Do not use your telephone. The telephone line should be kept open for emergency use."
"How about what the fuck's going on thirty miles that way?!" Aldric demanded, slamming shut a glove compartment and hopping into the back seat.
"This is not a test." Now it was just fucking with him, and went back to beeping.
"Approximately three minutes ago, NORAD detected signs of an imminent wormhole opening in the city of Los Angeles." Aldric stopped everything he was doing, "this wormhole is considerably larger than the first that caused the disappearance of Continental Flight Six Three Six, and the one that signaled the opening attack two months later." Said the machine, in its uncanny valley tones. "It is predicted that more of the creatures known as Grimm will flood from this wormhole than have come or have been created until this point.
"As a result, the President has declared the full evacuation of all armed forces from the contested areas and any civilian presences in the surrounding counties, in preparation for an imminent nuclear strike."
"Ex-fucking-SCUSE ME!?"
"This nuclear strike is expected to hit within the next five to ten minutes. If you cannot evacuate or it is unsafe to do so, please seek immediate shelter in the most secure location available to you. Please standby for more important information and more instructions." The EAS went back to beeping.
"Holy fuck!" Aldric shouted, scrambling out of the car and hopping onto the median, looking down at the city about to be wiped off the face of the Earth, seeing a veritable fleet of attack and transport helicopters fleeing the city. Soon, a new noise began to overpower the distant war and the close radio: That of an engine.
A lot of engines.
Dozens, hundreds - thousands! A veritable cavalcade of vehicles all tearing up the asphault under the helicopters and jets, and hurtling towards him. They were military in design, and they were booking it - as though trying to outrun the end of the world. The humvee at the head of the pack flashed its lights and as it reached Aldric, pulled over to the side, letting the others pass it on by.
The back door swung open, and a soldier leaned out, one head on his scorched helmet. "GET THE FUCK IN KID - WE GOTTA MOVE!" Aldric had a lot of questions, but the authority with which the man screamed shoved those questions to the side about as quickly as Aldric leapt into the humvee.
"HE'S IN - HAUL ASS!" The soldier screamed, turning to Aldric.
Wait - Aldric turned to the soldier, "what's the date?!" If he was even remotely correct about what was going on, if even one of the dozens of ideas flying through his head was right, he needed to know what day it was, he needed to know the date.
"What?!" The soldier shouted, over the roar of the humvee's engine.
"The goddamn date! What day is it?!"
"End of the world kid - who cares?!"
"TELL ME!"
"God damn it - here!" The driver tossed a cell phone into the backseat, which Aldric grabbed and turned on.
"Did you hit your fucking head or something, kid? What were you doing out here?!" The soldier next to him demanded, as Aldric burned the date into his memory.
"I -"
"INCOMING!" Shouted the driver, as he slammed his foot on the accelerator, not a second before a ball of fire streaked through the sky above them. "DUCK AND COVER!" He screamed.
The soldier didn't hesitate, grabbing Aldric's arms and bending him over, clapping one hand and his ribs over Aldric's ears, and the other over his eyes. Despite this, Aldric still heard what came next. A deafening, constant clap of thunder with no end and no crescendo, the sound of an entire planet being lit on fire, the screams of oxygen being lit ablaze at a temperature exceeding that of the sun. The humvee's engine died and it coasted along the highway alongside the others - the driver having to weave in and out between tanks and humvees that had chosen to stop.
The extra distance didn't do them any good - when the shockwave hit, it hit them like a rocket. Aldric didn't have the good fortune to die when he was thrown back and forth by the sudden and titanic force slamming into the humvee and sending it flying, and as such he experienced everything that came afterwards: The car tumbling through the air, the first bounce off of the ground, the second bounce, the lateral rotation that got added to the mix when they slammed into another stalled humvee, the glass from the windows shattering and flying around in all directions.
It did occur to Aldric to pull on his semblance, but no sooner had he had the thought than did the humvee hit the ground again and them go rolling right over the side of the highway. Aldric was thrown from the vehicle just a second before it wrapped itself around a tree, but that didn't save him from hitting the tree too - whereupon he felt his leg snap instantly, and his skull crack when he slid down and hit the ground.
Aldric screamed in pain until his voice went hoarse. He didn't know how long it took him to get to his feet, or, when he did, how long it took him to laboriously limp back up to the highway. He looked to the west, and was greeted by the red sky and the gigantic, dark mushroom cloud, covering and looming over what had been Los Angeles.
On the plus side, he didn't see any Grimm.
On the downside, that didn't stop what happened next.
From the cloud's apex expanded an enormous, opaque sphere - the surface of it reflective of everything around it, the fire, the cloud it appeared to be absorbing, everything, making it appear as though it were a gigantic spherical mirror. Out from this sphere came Grimm - thousands of them, of all kinds, a veritable stream, almost appearing as though it were literally raining Grimm. Some fell, some flew, some dove, but they all streamed out of the sphere, falling to the ground, and then taking off - sprinting in all directions, as though the nuclear devastation didn't affect them.
But humanity certainly wasn't the kind to let the results of just one test be indicative of all results going forward. In order to ensure something was fact, they had to test it again, and like all good science, something had to explode at some point or another.
And in this case, the explosion came from three more missiles zooming through the air towards the sphere, one at the head of the pack, leading them by more than a mile, and the other two lagging behind, and surrounding them was a fleet of unmanned drones. Aldric watched with morbid fascination as the lead missile was escorted by these drones, all of whom lit the sky with more missile and gunfire, tearing through any and all of the Grimm attempting to intercept the lead missile, as it carved through the sky, leaving its bright white plume of smoke trailing behind it.
Aldric wondered why they were working so hard to protect the lead missile and not the others, until he saw the drones break off in unison, when they reached the sphere, and the missile - it kept going. It hit the sphere and then phased inside, vanishing entirely. If it had done its job, Aldric couldn't tell - because two seconds later the other two arrived, and they detonated with enormous explosions. Aldric, staring right at them, went blind from the flash, and cried out in pain, but the pain didn't last long. The combined force of two nuclear missiles had double the effect of the first strike, and in the blink of an eye, Aldric felt a searing, burning pain pass over him, before all was numb.
"And then what happened, Mister Drake?" He heard faintly, as though spoken from miles away and from behind a blanket. "Do you see anything else?"
"Huh..." He groaned, suddenly feeling a chair beneath him. "What are... Huh?" He shook his head, and realized with a start, that he was back in Ozpin's office.
Standing in front of him, a pen and paper in his hands, Ozpin's silver-haired head snapped up, clearly having not expected the answer he got. "Mister Drake - are you awake?"
"Oh my..." Aldric groaned, "fffffffuck." He ran his hands through his shaggy hair, "did... Did you give me something?" He demanded, a confused frown forming on his head as Ozpin threw the pen and paper onto his desk, and knelt down in front of his guest.
Ozpin placed his hand on Aldric's forehead, "are you okay?" Ozpin stressed, "do you feel anything? Dizzy? Light headed? Thirsty? Hot, cold, anything like that?"
Aldric groaned, pushing Ozpin's hand away. "It feels like my head's in a vice." He stretched his radar pulse, finding himself exactly where he had been before his trip. "Did you spike me with something?"
"What do you remember?" Ozpin asked, a concerned expression on his face.
"I remember everything - I just got nuked!" Aldric grunted, with a brief flick of the hand, as though Ozpin's question was stupid. "I'm just having trouble processing all of it... And you've avoided the question twice now, that worries me."
Ozpin let out a long sigh, shaking his head. "No, Mister Drake, I didn't drug you. Or influence you with my own abilities beyond using them to cap off your own." He said, "you let off an enormous amount of energy when you accessed it, just now, Mister Drake. I would think of it similar to something under very high pressure getting a crack in its casing - all of that pressure goes somewhere until it is either contained or equalized."
"And in this case, what -" Aldric breathed, " 'somewhere' is Earth?!" He looked up to Ozpin, "where's the tablet?"
"I already checked, Mister Drake." Ozpin said, holding his hand up in a placative gesture, "you were describing everything you saw in a trance. When you mentioned the date, I checked the device you gave me, and they match up. Exactly as much time on Earth has passed as has passed since you arrived here - the date is the same on your device, as it was on the soldier's."
"Holy..." Aldric breathed, leaning back in his chair, finding himself in a cold sweat. "Holy fuck. That can't mean what I think it does." He said, his shoulders slumping.
Ozpin shook his head, "no, it cannot." He said, firmly. "We cannot risk making incorrect assumptions here, Mister Drake, we must only use facts. What I know is that Salem does not have any of the relics, and as such she could not have used them to open one portal on Earth - let alone three. She had to use the Ancient Dust to do so, and while powerful, the diluted dust I was able to create on Remnant doesn't have nearly the same potency as the Dust from Rome - and I know for a fact that all of that is gone." He nodded, "so she would have had to use most or all of her supply just to open the first portal -"
"But you aren't considering..." Aldric interjected, "that there were four names on the manifest. Four bodies I never found - mine included - and you yourself said she could get back if she had a Master - or a full-blooded terran Maiden - to help her." He argued, again pressing his hands to his head, taking a deep breath. "It isn't impossible to conclude that she compartmentalized the entire thing, or that another of her allies found another Master, and Cinder only thinks I'm the only one because I was the only one who made it to the crash site." He groaned, trying to free his head of the pressure that gripped it.
"That's conjecture, Mister Drake. All we know for certain is that there are four names, one of which is yours, leaving only three other potential survivors."
Aldric shook his head, "four Masters and four Maidens. I am not the only one that notices that, right?" He asked, looking up at Ozpin. "That's the kind of shit that makes me assume the worst."
"Mister Drake, I need you to take a deep breath, and calm down." Ozpin said, slowly raising, and lowering, his hand. "Getting worked up -"
"Ozpin the game has changed." Aldric stressed, getting to his feet, but finding his legs were like jelly, and nearly falling over, if Ozpin hadn't suddenly appeared in front of him and assisted him back into the chair. "If the date on my tablet is the same as the date on Earth, that means there are Grimm on Earth right now, and we just nuked a major city to stem the tide." Then it dawned on him, "oh fuck." He sank his head into his hands, "and somewhere on Remnant just got blown to hell too." That was why the first missile had been protected, and why it had had such a lead: The sphere was a wormhole, and NORAD knew this, and thought the best chance they had was to send a bomb through there and hope it did the job.
"We don't know that, Mister -"
"Do you people have a Richter Scale?" Aldric demanded, "can you measure earthquakes? Call up Ironwood - I'll bet you money Atlas has that tech - and give it a few hours for the shockwaves to pass through. He'll be able to detect that shit."
"Aldric, be quiet."
Aldric blinked, head snapping up, "did you just -" But his next words fell silent, being nothing but air passing through his throat, soundlessly.
"Now, I understand the gravity of the situation we are finding ourselves in. My theory is that your intense desire to return to the home you knew was felt by the 'pressure release', and your consciousness rode the waves until you made it back to Earth." He said, "and since you had the wherewithall to perform a lucidity test and to get the date and time, we know that this wasn't a dream, nor a vision of the future or the past. These are facts." He said, firmly, before waving his hand - Aldric feeling the slightest pressure fade from inside his throat. "Just as factual as that we know that Grimm are on Earth right now, and that at least two more wormholes have opened up, connecting our world to yours once again, and for the last several months, your military has been engaging the Grimm in a battle over that city." He said, calmly. "Those are the facts. That is all we know for absolute sure.
"Now, we can allow for the slightest bit of hope, in that we both know that opening such a portal would take tremendous power - something I would be unable to do even if my powers weren't waning. Such power would thusly require a great deal of concentration, meaning that whoever had opened that portal was focusing on it entirely, and not his defenses. So we can hope with a modicum of evidence that perhaps the missile that went through the wormhole you saw open, destabilized it, meaning that the two trailing it could have wiped out the current Grimm presence on Earth." He paused, taking a breath, "and, if we assume that to be correct, we can thusly conclude that whomever it was that opened the wormhole, is either heavily injured, or, more likely, deceased, due to his proximity to the detonation's ground zero.
"Now, take a deep breath." He ordered, raising his hand and clenching his fist in front of his chest.
Aldric didn't want his mute button to get hit again, so with pursed lips, he took in a deep breath through his nose.
"And let it out." He opened his hand and lowered it.
Aldric exhaled.
"Now, I apologize for stealing your voice... And indeed taking information you had not given me the rights to, but at the moment you are in a vulnerable place, having just felt your powers and, to continue with the metaphor, released that pressure... You could have relapsed, so to speak, had you continued down the panicked and terror-filled road you were." Ozpin said, calmly. "Yes." He nodded, "this does change things... But the fact of the matter is, until you yourself can make contact with Salem and confirm that she has any more Masters than you, we simply don't know what is going on."
Aldric groaned, "I just got my brain quantum entangled across the universe. I may or may not have possessed some random looter in California, in so doing. And you're trying to tell me what is or isn't possible." He deadpanned. "We have to assume the worst and prepare accordingly. Even if we operate under the assumption that one of the other survivors of my flight just died, that leaves three more - and even if we assume it was two powering those portals, because of how much power it takes to do so, then that still leaves two unaccounted for." Aldric stressed. "That means at the end of the day, that white witch has, a Maiden -" He held up a finger, "two Masters fully loyal to her cause." He held up a second finger, "a third one that has to play the part." A third finger, "and she herself is a demoness with a functionally unlimited army of Grimm to back up her 'spark' of magic.
"Even if I turn coat right now and openly work for you, you've lost so much of your power that you'll get stomped by the Lady In Red." He held up a hand, "I'm not by any means saying you're weak... But unless you're going to convince me that you managed to somehow make each of the Maidens as powerful as you were at your prime, that means you, right now, aren't even at a quarter of your full strength." He argued, "so on our side we, at our best, have a cruise missile -" He indicated Ozpin, "a nuke with no fissile material." He pointed at him, "a half-dead body waiting to let its power return to its other half." He nodded at the elevator, "and a silver-eyed whatever the term is who not only doesn't know what her powers are, but doesn't now how to use them." He ran his hands through his head again, "oh - and! Yeah, almost forgot -" He nodded, a sarcastic smile stretching across his face. "Any allies we may have had on Earth? We lost them with Los Angeles." He said, nodding. "Even if they figure out that, somehow, someway, what is to them, a fictional story, exists in their world, and as such they should ostensibly be able to trust the heroes of that story - they're human beings, Ozpin. They won't, because our first contact consisted of us dumping a celestial bucket full of alien demons in the city of angels.
"We're outgunned, Ozpin, and that's with the best possible stacking of the deck. The game has changed." He stressed.
"So are you suggesting we give up?" Ozpin demanded, crossing his hands in front of him.
Aldric's expression snapped to one of fury, "Don't you dare, Ozpin. That isn't what I'm -"
"Because I saw something else when I went looking for your name." Ozpin interjected, "the mind is a fickle thing, Mister Drake. We humans learn and understand things by association - and that means for every concept in our mind, there exists a way to link it to another, to another, to another, until you circle around to where you began. And tied to your very sense of identity was the idea, the 'plan' you've been so fervently pursuing these last six months. This 'Operation: Green Hornet' - and that name alone sent me down another road, eventually leading to something that is so important to you that I was, for a moment, astonished."
"Don't do it." Aldric shook his head.
"Heroes, Mister Drake." Ozpin nodded, pressing the attack. "You believe in them. You want to believe in them -" Ozpin pointed at him, "it is why you wear that coat, so close to a cape as it is. It is why you chose the very armor you wear. It is how you decided which arm specifically to replace your lost limb with, and it is why you wield what you consider to be the greatest symbol of hope and heroism in the world." Ozpin said, frowning down at Aldric. "Because while you may not believe you will ever live up to its legacy, while you falsely believe that you cannot be a good man, you do believe in heroes. You do believe in the ideal. In the concept that an ordinary man can be given an extraordinary opportunity to do fantastic good, and that this man will do so."
"Ozpin." Aldric frowned.
But he kept going, "you can lie to me, Mister Drake. You can lie to Qrow, you can lie to Cinder. You can lie to your team and you can lie to the students here whom I do seriously question whether or not you view as human beings or as characters from behind a screen. You can even lie to yourself and say that you don't believe that heroes can exist as they do unless it is in fiction, but you know the truth." Ozpin declared, "you believe in the symbol. The ideal. And you know damn well and good that you do truly believe that with the power you have obtained, you are obligated to answer a higher calling, and that you will, because above all else, you want to believe. That no matter what happens - if this planet gets destroyed and you return to Earth to find it clean of humans entirely - that you will not stop fighting until you haven't a single breath in your body.
"Because despite the dark acts you have resigned yourself to. Despite the heinous evil you have volunteered to take onto yourself such that others' souls can remain unstained - to turn a phrase, be the man who plunges his hands into the filth, that others remain clean - you believe." He stressed, holding his hand out in front of him, and an image of Captain America's shield wavering into view, staring him down.
"Are you done?" Aldric asked, turning his head from the image. "Or are you going to tell me how I intend to turn my shield into what it needs to be?"
"You would have to tell me. While what I did see filled a great many gaps in both you and what rests in our vault, I didn't see everything, Mister Drake. I respect you too much to look that deeply. This was not an outburst, but a lesson. I am a teacher, after all, and I would rather you learn the lessons I had to in the safety of a school, as opposed to learning them the way I did: In the dangers of the field." Ozpin let the hovering image fade away. "And to be frank, I don't think you need to. I was able to ascertain that you intend to leave behind the shield as a representative of Goud's death, but also a symbol of what he believed. I may not fully agree with the why of your plan, but I do agree with the spirit of it. I know, just as well as I have insisted you do, the power of a unifying symbol."
Aldric sighed, "I'm sorry." He grunted, "but this entire time I've been operating under the assumption that... If Earth was in any kind of danger, my actions here would prevent it... And instead, somewhere out there, a mote of dust suspended on a sunbeam just dropped a nuke on itself." He said, his expression sullen, and more exhausted than the image he had put up the day previous.
"If you think that is a lot to take in, Mister Drake, consider that you have been raised with the reality of nuclear annihilation. I had to discover it from a book, as I was translating it." Ozpin said, resting his hands behind his back. "It is the only time I have ever spiked my cocoa with anything but ice." He said, before shaking his head. "This is, as you said, a game changer. It is a lot for the both of us to take in. Me, because I have been lax with my era of peace, and my enemies have taken advantage of it by slipping into a realm I cannot reach. You, because that is where you lived. It is the home you desperately strive and work towards returning to. Seeing it brought to war, by enemies so far separated from it... I understand the effect it is having on you. Perhaps better than anyone." He said, with an emphatic nod.
"I think it may be best for us to rest." Ozpin finally said, after a few minutes silence. "We will meet again on Sunday. Until then, I will send Ironwood a message first thing in the morning, to determine whether or not the bomb made it through and if it detonated here... And perhaps, if it did, we may hear from your end, as well." He said, tensing up as Aldric got to his feet, obviously ready to spring into action if Aldric lost his balance again. "And I will see if I can't get him to rush a -"
But Aldric shook his head, "if it's the eyes, I've got that covered." He said, steadying himself on his feet. "Having underworld connections has some benefits." He breathed, raising his gaze to look Ozpin directly in the eye. "And you were wrong, about something."
Ozpin blinked, "oh?"
"The shield." Aldric said, patting down his coat, and then examining his bare, metal hand. "I don't think it's the greatest symbol of its kind. Maybe in the world it belongs to, but not from the one it hails from." He said, turning the hand towards Ozpin, and focusing as hard as he could, frowning deeply, as he filled his mind with one thing, and one thing only. "It will always be second, to a very different shield." And as he spoke, much like how Ozpin had conjured the image of Cap's shield, Aldric conjured an image a shield, of a different kind.
Instead of a perfect red white and blue circle, what hovered in front of Aldric's hand was a red and yellow inverted triangle, inside which was filled with a large, looping emblem. It was the emblem of Last Son of Krypton, of the Man of Steel. The kryptonian symbol for hope, the iconic logo of the superhero.
"Cap does it good. And he is very close..." Aldric rumbled, barely above a whisper. "But he did, and does, it best." The 'S' hovered in front of Aldric's cybernetic hand for a few moments, before it wavered, and finally, faded away, and Aldric dropped his hand, exhaustedly. "My world is at war, and I can guarantee you that as angry as they are at this new enemy... They are also terrified of it. I am." He admitted, "it makes me wonder who needs that symbol more." He said, numbly.
"I would argue, Mister Drake, that what we all truly need is someone who believes in it. That belief is a power in and of itself. It can inspire the very same in others far more easily than you may think." Ozpin said, none-too-subtly.
An exhausted sigh, "goodnight, Ozpin." Aldric turned to leave.
Ozpin frowned, piteously. "Goodnight... Mister Aldric.