Chapter 39
Aldric woke up in a nondescript room with a mattress in the corner, and white walls only broken by a door on the other side of his room, and a camera above the door. He groaned and straightened up, finding, in short order, his chest covered in more bandages, his left arm missing again, a muzzle on his mouth, blinders on his eyes, thick earmuffs on his arms, and his right arm handcuffed to the wall.
God damn... Aldric thought, leaning up against the wall. People don't fuck around... Where the - fuck. Stretching out his radar pulse, he found that the SAS had picked him up, but based on all of the Cyrillic lettering everywhere, he'd been dropped off on a Russian ship.
Smart... Move, actually. He thought, as he searched for Yang. I bet they've got a copy of the manifest from the flight... They ID'd me, and know I don't speak anything but the Queen's English. So on the off chance he broke out, he wouldn't be able to steal anything useful from the ship.
The good news, fortunately, was that Yang was elsewhere on the ship. The bad news was that she was in even more restrictive bindings than he, on account of her having both arms and thus being capable of being fitted into a straight jacket. She was currently being worked over by the ship's Captain. But, there was one other piece of good news: They had taken his arm and his weapons, yes, but he wasn't disarmed. Earlier in the day he had made a joke to Cinder about the nurses of the hospital probably wishing he had died, but hadn't explained why. The reason why was the same reason he still tasted blood and his mouth was still a little sore: Thoroughly convinced that he never wanted to be disarmed ever, ever, ever again, Aldric had decided to ensure that even if his arm was stolen and his spare Power Glove canisters were gone, he'd always have just a little Power Glove on him.
He'd done so by taking a few more pain killers than he should have, used his semblance to tear one of his teeth out of his jaw, and replace it with a white hardlight shell the same size and shape of the tooth, but containing a small colony of Power Glove nanites inside of it. Even with the painkillers, it had hurt like hell, and that had tripped his heart-rate monitors and scared the shit out of his nurses when they ran into his room and saw what they thought was a rookie huntsman tripping so many balls that he'd torn his tooth out of his jaw.
But, who was laughing now?
Definitely not the Russians he'd be cutting in half, especially since they'd given him a good night's sleep and medical attention. So while he wasn't at full power, he had far more access to his semblance than he'd had when he had been shot.
This in mind, Aldric pulsed his semblance and broke his restraints, and then again to destroy the camera watching him. Aldric slipped the blinders, mask, and ear muffs from his head and pried the fake tooth out of his mouth, dumping the nanites into his open palm, before replacing it in his jaw.
Well... I can't eat this ship. At least not initially... I doubt Yang would like being dropped into the water, ass naked, like the rest of them. He thought, as he made the replication command and waited for the nanites to build to a respectable size, just as he sensed soldiers thundering through the brig towards his room, and the Captain being interrupted in his interrogation of the blonde huntress. And I've still got to deal with her, actually... He frowned, as the nanites finished replicating and he covered his hands with them. But, first things first... He'd long since figured out he couldn't make two of the same object exist at the same time with the Glove - the second one would take on the wireframe appearance, which he had concluded would mean it would lose its magical properties.
So, in the event that he'd given Kylo Ren's lightsaber to Cinder, and lost access to his Anakin Skywalker lightsaber, he'd crafted a third, last-resort blade, which appeared in his hand now, as the Russian Marines stacked up on his door, and in the time it took him to blink, they threw a thick smoke grenade inside. He grinned and took in and held a deep breath as the thick black smoke filled the room. The Marines waited until visibility was zero before they streamed inside, but they found themselves immediately slammed against the wall, each with a loud grunt of pain, causing the marines outside to back up from the door and indiscriminately open fire.
His shield still MIA, Aldric had to make due with what he had, and brought his closed fist back to his chest, bringing the three struggling terrans close to him, as bullets streamed into the room through the door and the walls. His human shields struggled and then twitched and grunted in pain as bullets began pelting them, and Aldric gave them a sympathetic nod of the head.
"What's Russian for 'I'm sorry'?" He croaked, before the gunfire finally stopped.
He lightly dropped his shields on the ground, and stepped in front of the door leading to the rest of the brig. He heard hushed voices speaking in a language he couldn't understand, no-doubt trying to figure out if he was still alive. Well, he answered that question by filling the air with a loud zhoom, and a bright green glow. He then thrust his hand out and with his semblance, grabbed the rifles of the soldiers in front of him, and then tore them away as he stalked forward, slowly letting his breath out and swinging his green pillar of plasma left and right, carving through the chests of the Marines to his right and left, and then thrusting forward, impaling the final one in the center.
Then, them dead, Aldric pulsed his semblance again, and the air was cleared of the smoke, allowing him to see his handiwork. Three dead with grievous, still glowing burns, and three dead from friendly fire.
More dead... My people. My hand. Aldric frowned, feeling his heart slowing down as the weight of his actions threatened to fall onto him, but just as he'd done in the hospital, he pushed these thoughts as far away as he could and stalked on, aware of the blood covering his face and the red staining his bandages, but doing nothing about it.
He heard shouts from voices nearby and over the ship's intercom, and sensed people in corridors and hallways running to and fro, no doubt arming themselves or fleeing from him. He kept Yang in view of his radar as he reached the gate that led out of the brig, and with a swing, he melted the lock and then kicked the barred door open.
An armed Marine swung around the corner and opened fire with loud barks from his rifle, but found himself horrified when Aldric just kept walking, the bullets stopping around them and flattening themselves, as though they had hit a brick wall. Aldric dropped them all at once as the Marine backed up, his grunts of fear filled the air as Aldric pinned him against the wall merely by pointing the saber in his general direction, and looked left out of the brig, to a group of fierce-looking soldiers, three crouching on their knees and three standing above them, all pointing rifles at him.
"You have bomb in chest!" One shouted out in a thick accent.
One pulse from his semblance told him the man was bluffing, so Aldric said, "no I don't." And poked the sword through the throat of the man to his right, leaving his head attached to his body by two thin strips of skin, one of which tore when the man fell to the ground.
The men in front of him opened fire, but these bullets met the same fate as the first Marine's. One launched a grenade, but found that it didn't even make it two feet past the barrel, not even giving it time to arm.
"I swear to god, boys..." Aldric said, stalking forward. "You give me the girl and our stuff, and we'll leave like nothing happened." He brandished the lightsaber, "you don't, and I can't be held responsible for what I do next." Their response was to abandon trying to reload their weapons and instead draw knives.
He'd give them some credit: They had balls.
They didn't have arms, though, because he cut them off in due course, followed by their heads, and as he walked over their bodies, one Russian rushed down the stairs leading up to the next level of the ship, spraying shotgun shells everywhere. These ones hit his barriers harder than the bullets from the rifles, but Aldric kept on forward, his frown deepening to a scowl as he cleaved the rifle in two and then knocked the Marine out with a chop to the back of his head, leaving him to tumble down the stairs as Aldric climbed up.
"Goud Etiolate!" He heard over the ship's intercom; a quick look with his radar pulse told him the Captain was in the bridge, surrounded by men with guns, and with one to a struggling and heavily bound Yang's head, as he looked down at a computer screen, showing Aldric from the point of view of a nearby camera. "Stop this at once or we will -" Aldric decided to get a little creative, and used his semblance, from deep in the bowels of the ship, to force the captain to put his gun to his own head.
"I have a better idea." Aldric said, looking up to a camera as he passed by, though well aware he may not be able to defend himself as easily, keeping this up. "You give me the girl, and our stuff, and we'll leave without killing any more of your boys!" He thundered, as the soldiers surrounding the Captain turned on him, lowering their weapons and trying to figure out what he was doing and why.
"If it is you doing this to me, I warn you that if I die my men will kill her themselves!" He heard the Captain's unflinching voice call out.
"Fair enough." Aldric responded, before turning the others' rifles on them. "Check."
The Captain was silent long enough for Aldric to find another stairwell and ascend another level; he ran into another group of Russians, but when they didn't fire first, even after he took a step towards them, he let them be and continued onwards, though he did destroy their weapons. "Goud Etiolate, if I do not report in, in the next two minutes, an American Nuclear Submarine will launch upon Vale. Consequences be damned." Though at least Yang had the presence of mind to book it now that there weren't any guns on her.
Aldric knew what this ballsy motherfucker was doing: Trying to trip him up by mentioning a nuke, and getting an appropriate reaction. So Aldric responded with, "I don't know what that is!" At the top of his lungs, and continuing his trek through the tight, blue-floored corridors of the Russian carrier. He could sense sailors hiding behind their sealed hatches, some with guns on them, waiting for him to try and break through, and likely praying he would just pass them by.
"Yes you do, Goud Etiolate." Said the Captain, "the SAS heard your conversation with Yang Xiao Long. We all saw your attack on our attack force. You are holding a relic of our fiction. You know what that is and you know what it will do."
The guy was calling his bluff, and to make matters worse, word had spread that he was ignoring everything not on the path to the next staircase, so when he made it to the next one, he found it guarded by no less than a dozen soldiers, and they opened fire on sight. He wasn't willing to bet on his barriers at the moment, and immediately ducked back behind the corner, pinned down.
"If you heard!" Aldric screamed over the gunfire, "our conversation!" It began to die down, as they heard him speak. "Then you know what my position on all this is!" He brandished his saber at the camera, "I got the idea for half this shit from the chick that brought me up!" He took two quick breaths, and then bolted around the corner, hurling himself at the group of Marines and tearing into them in a shower of sparks and green light.
He took a few rounds for his trouble, and when he was done he had to physically dig into his gut with his semblance and carefully remove one of the bullets that hadn't gone all the way through; the precision required for this made him have to drop a few of the Captain's guards, and he immediately ordered them to find Yang or kill him. Yang, meanwhile, was blindly sprinting through the ship with a pistol she'd stolen from one of the Marines on the bridge.
Groaning in pain, Aldric ascended the stairs as the Captain spoke again. "We believe her, Goud Etiolate. You are lying." He said, as Aldric reached the level of the ship with the armory, and started towards it, seeing a safe inside with his arm, and Yang's gauntlets.
"It's just like I told her, strange man. It's a motherfucking coincidence." He growled.
"Then tell us the name of the man you took these from." The Captain demanded, redoubling his efforts in struggling against Aldric's telekinetic hold, inspired by the two having seemingly broken free.
"I'll tell you what I told her - it was Steve Rogers!" That got the Captain's attention, so much so that he stopped struggling against Aldric.
"A strangely familiar name, isn't it?" The Captain growled, "and with that shield... And that sword... We know what she cannot prove." The man threatened.
"You want to keep going like this? Let me ask you something - are you watching me?" Aldric asked, as he rounded the corner and carved through the thick metal door leading to the armory, where the quartermaster held a rifle in each hand, both leveled on him. "You've got balls, dude." Aldric nodded, raising his sword. "But you don't have brains." And he flicked the sword to his right like a conductor's baton, and made the man shoot himself. "That!" He raised his voice, "that is what will happen if you don't let us off this ship! You'd be amazed how easy it is to get people with that!" A beat, "case in point..." And he smacked the Captain with his own gun, but he was starting to feel the strain of holding so many people for so long, perspiration was beginning to accumulate on his head.
When the quartermaster fell to the ground, Aldric sheathed the green blade and called his arm, and Yang's gauntlets over to him.
"Seriously, Cap. You let us off this ship and all this - all of it! - will stop!" He gasped, as grabbed his arm.
"I find it difficult to believe you... When we have seen your tablet. We broke your code, Mister Al-" With a small amount of panic, Aldric closed the Captain's throat, just long enough to get him to shut up; though considering how he started convulsing, he was pretty sure it was a painful process.
"Fuck..." He whispered, twisting his arm into place. It made sense, though: Aldric wasn't a cryptologist, any code he wrote in would more or less instantly be broken by someone dedicated and experienced enough. "Captain... If you keep talking... I'll have to do something we both will regret." He said, turning up to look at the armory's camera as he let the man breathe again; this could not have gone worse. First Yang had found his stuff, then suspected him, then he'd lied to her to clear that suspicion, and not two seconds later he was caught in those lies, and now she had his exchange with the captain as proof of them, and he had an entire fucking aircraft carrier of pissed off Russian Marines he was going to have to carve his way through, a task that, with his myriad of injuries and steadily depleting stamina, was certainly feasible, he thought, but did not bode well for the fight he'd certainly have with Yang afterwards.
And as he had his staredown with the camera and the Captain, a Marine came sprinting into the armory, stopping at the door and leveling a rifle on Aldric. "Freeze!" He screamed, only to be ignored by his target, who merely ignited his lightsaber and tossed it at him, impaling him in the chest and then snapping it back into his hand, not breaking eye contact with the camera.
Aldric noticed Yang had more or less stopped moving at this point, staring intently at a speaker above her, waiting to hear the Captain's response, even if she was only hearing half of the conversation. The Captain, meanwhile, was frowning at his screen, still struggling against the gun still pointed at his head. Aldric was finding the effort to keep it there growing with every passing moment, it beginning to feel like he was pulling a muscle to keep it going. He also noted that it had been two minutes already, and though his radar couldn't stretch that far, Aldric could still see distant, powerful sources of light - like the rays of the sun, or the beam of a flashlight - even if they were outside his range, and since he didn't see the bloom of a nuclear explosion, he knew the Captain had been bluffing.
"Will you kill me, boy?" The Captain finally demanded, in a cold voice. "Will you kill me to finish your mission? To stop us from obeying that woman's will? Will you kill me to avoid having to risk your safety?" Aldric frowned. "If you testified on Earth, Aldric, you would be a source of information far more reliable... And far more easily believed than the ship we recovered - the ship you yourself can prove was fake. Sent by our enemy." He rumbled into the microphone, his voice broadcast throughout the whole ship. "You can stop this war in its tracks... Focus the entire might of two... Entire... Planets... Upon one woman."
"It's not that easy..."
"Because of the Masters? The other survivors of your ship? Yes you are perhaps the youngest and weakest... But you could raise an army of Masters." And there it fucking was. "We could destroy her in a day. Solve this world's problems in a week. Solve our world's problems in a month!" The Captain almost sounded like he believed in it, too. "No more climate change! No more fuel crises! No more nuclear fallout! No more war! No more famine or disease! No more starvation! We could even leave our planet for others, Aldric!
"But here you are - standing there in my armory." And as one, all of the soldiers in the ship started running, even Yang, who followed behind them, staying out of sight. "Corrupted by the very power you fear... You would kill me, Aldric. You would condemn the lives of our soldiers, of Remnant's people. Of the characters we thought to exist in fairy tales." Aldric scowled, turning to the armory's entrance and igniting his lightsaber, rolling his shoulders. "When you could be the man... Who saved all worlds."
Aldric shook his head. He knew what the Captain was doing - he was playing him. He wanted to sway Aldric, to get him to give up, to do everything he'd expressed desire for in the Record, so he could be further manipulated into giving terrans access to their power. But to what end, the Captain didn't say, not really. This war would be ended, yes. They'd save Remnant, kill Salem, yes. They'd sweep across Remnant like a tidal wave and destroy all of the Grimm - each and every single one of them - assuredly.
But... Thought Aldric, as he sensed every single man with a gun on the ship charging down and up to his level.
But what if he did say yes?
With the entire planet Earth on his side, there wasn't a chance in hell they would lose this war. He would have everything - literally everything - he would ever need: Earth's scientific knowledge and infrastructure, Remnant's militaries, and the means to obtain the entire collective resources of two planets, and indeed an arsenal of such lethality and power that the chance for him, personally, to lose, would close to almost nothing. He could stop this war between Earth and Remnant, stop the senseless, needless bloodshed. He could force Earth to leave Remnant - convince them to put on the face that they will only wage their war defensively, that these attacks were shows of force. He had the chance to force Salem's hand and make the White Witch go with the plan he needed her to, to give him the chance to find her.
If he took this Captain's offer, victory wouldn't just be possible, it would be guaranteed. The lives he desperately wanted to save, would be.
But what happened after that?
How could he avoid the wars that would inevitably follow? How could he avoid having to give the entire population of terrans access to their powers? How could he avoid the resource-starved first world countries of Earth access to a nigh-untapped paradise on Remnant? How would he save those lives? How would he prevent that future?
His face twisted in equal parts sorrow, fury, and helplessness, he realized he knew exactly how. The only way he could have his cake and eat it too, would be if he made it the last metaphorical cake he'd ever eat. He'd have to cut Earth off entirely from Remnant, he'd have to go there and personally seek out and recover or destroy all of the Roman Dust in the world. He'd have to kill each and every single Master on Remnant, and any terrans who refused to go home, and close the portals to Earth. He'd have to stay where all the Dust in the known universe was to make sure it was never used again to connect the worlds. He'd have to stay on Remnant.
Forever.
His expression turned to one of such an existential torment and agony that could only well up from one's heart and soul, as his breath came faster and faster, because he knew he had to. He couldn't do anything else.
He had to. No one else.
He had to. There was no choice.
It was the only way to get it done without risking everything - literally everything - in the process. Because if he didn't, if he refused the Captain, he would put at risk more lives than he could save if the man were telling the truth - and wasn't that, in and of itself, the one thing he'd used to justify everything he'd done so far? Saving more lives than would be ended?
So Aldric fell to his knees, his blade sheathing with a zip, and he let go. The Captain, his soldiers, they all collapsed as the ground shook underneath Aldric's knees. Aldric sensed the Captain recover quickly and lunge for the phone, he didn't understand what was said, but he didn't need to, as he sensed soldiers and marines stopping dead throughout the ship.
A phone rang, Aldric turned to look at it, as the rumbles and shakes beneath his knees died down. It was a landline phone hooked onto the wall, and it felt like it took all of Aldric's strength to get to his feet and drag himself over to it. He sensed soldiers stacking up and taking position around the armory, just waiting for the word to go in and kill him.
Aldric picked up the phone, feeling an emptiness in his chest, the kind that came when one knew they were making a horrible decision, that they knew would set them down a path they didn't want to be on, but they had to make anyway - because it was the right thing to do.
"I'm sorry." He whispered, hardly any strength in his voice.
"I know, my boy. I know." Said the Captain, though Aldric was so lost at this point that he honestly didn't know if the warmth in the man's voice was genuine or not. "I did not lie, Aldric." He continued, his deep, accented voice now right in Aldric's ear, rattling around his very soul.
What was left of it, at least.
"I read your 'Record'. I have seen your struggles as you have struggled through them. You are a very strong and very brave man... Forced into a very terrible position. But you are making the right decision." A beat. "Your father would be proud."
"This..." Aldric croaked. "If... If we do this." He murmured into the phone, his body trembling. "I need to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that it's being done for the right reasons. I won't..." He forced back tears. "I..." His voice wavered, "I won't... Give... Anyone... Anything... If I suspect national interests behind it." He said. "This isn't... One nation or the other. It's not..." He shook his head. "It's not about rivalries, or anything the like. I need you to understand that."
"Of course." He sounded earnest, at least.
"And let me be clear." Aldric swallowed. "I already ate one aircraft carrier, and I've already cut down a good dozen of your men." He said, gaining enough steam to make it at least seem like he'd recovered from his existential crisis. "If you fuck me on this... I swear to god, Captain, I'll fight with them, and I'll kill you last."
He sensed the Captain smile, "I would expect nothing else, my boy."
"We'll talk more when I've dealt with the girl." He said, before hanging the phone.
Aldric took a second to himself, closing his eyes and taking a long, deep breath. He didn't let himself think anything for as long as he did so. As he took this moment, he heard the Captain's voice over the intercom, speaking some rapid-fire Russian, and then he heard a lot of angry shouts and pissed off grunts. No doubt the Captain had just dropped the bomb: Aldric was a friend now.
He let out his breath, and opened his eyes. Back in the safe he grabbed the few items he hadn't deemed important in his mad-dash to get rearmed, and slid on his shirt and his boots. Exiting the armory - cautiously, as he simply did not fully trust either the Captain or his men to keep to their word - he was greeted by a lot of furious glares, which he understood: How many had he just killed? How many of their friends? But he counted himself lucky he was only greeted by fire in the eyes, and not from a gun.
But he ignored them, he felt out with his senses and found Yang in seconds. She was doing the only sane thing in an insane world, and was obeying instincts ingrained from a time where a human's safety was determined by their ability to climb trees: She was going up. The stairwell she'd found and the route she was going was leading her straight to the flight deck, but Aldric had a faster method. He found the first door to the outside and was immediately assaulted by the rapidly growing monsoon outside; he stepped over a railing and flew up to the flight deck, and just as Yang got outside and found herself surrounded by Russian Marines, he landed on the deck, quickly finding himself soaked.
He caught Yang's furious, red eyes as he came in for a landing, and she only grew angrier when she saw her gauntlets clipped to his belt, next to the hilt of his blade, but she blinked when Aldric stepped up to the Marines and placed his hands on their rifles. He pressed down, trying to impart upon them that the situation was under his control. They all exchanged glances, before slowly following his lead and lowering their weapons, backing away cautiously.
Aldric approached her, hands held out, non-threateningly. "The irony here, Yang, is that you made your suspicions true by confronting me about them."
Yang clenched her fists tightly, but Aldric noticed the red fade from her eyes. "These people... They're not from our world." She called out, slowly.
"No." Aldric shook his head.
"Are you?"
"No." He called back.
She let out a hollow breath, before she gulped. "Did you lie to us because you... You led them here? To win?"
"No." Aldric shook his head again, now less than a foot from her.
"But how can I trust you?!" She demanded, rage flooding her voice. "How can I believe you, when you..." Yang called out over the monsoon. "Right there, at Beacon, you lied to my face!" She called out, fists shaking in anger, and violet eyes narrow in fury and betrayal. "Was anything you've said to me true, Ash - no, what did that man call you? Aldric?! Or did he find another lie and that isn't even your name!?" She demanded, still standing underneath the cover of the bridge above her, leading her to be high and dry, versus Aldric, soaking wet. "What -" She shook her head, "what is it, you bastard?! How far does this go? Were you responsible for all of this?! For what's happening in Vale, right now?! You led them here - or..." She shook her head, "worked with the people who did, and you did nothing to stop it!"
Aldric scowled. "No I didn't, Yang. You don't know what I know, and you don't know what I've done, or why." He was trying to reman as calm as he could, considering the situation, but he could feel the anger and frustration of a lot more than just tonight simmering up, threatening to lash out. "I can tell you with absolute certainty - I can swear to you that I had nothing to do with this invasion!" He called out, "everything I've done has been to stop something like this!"
"And how well has that worked out?!" Yang demanded, stepping forward, her boots making splashes in the standing rainwater on the flight deck. "How much damage have you caused? How many lives have you ruined?!" She clenched her teeth in fury, hair growing matted against her head as it was now beset upon by the intense rainfall. "How many you've ended, on our side and theirs?!"
"Don't you -" Aldric bit back a scathing five-letter word. "I know what I've been involved in, I haven't forgotten anything I've been responsible for and I never will. I regret every life lost, Yang."
But Yang shook her head, "DO you!?"
Aldric felt his heart skip a beat, "Of course I do, god damn it!" Aldric dropped his hands to the side. "I am..." He gasped for air, suddenly feeling short of breath. "I am not... " But was he really?
And Yang caught onto both his words and his slip-up. "Another lie!" She challenged, "and you paused, right there!" She yelled, picking up steam. "Because you know you're wrong!" She pointed right at him. "You know that you're responsible for all of this! You KNOW! And you lie anyway!"
Aldric's teeth groaned, he had his jaw clenched so hard. "If you stop me, Yang, you'll condemn far more lives than I've been responsible for. Now calm down and let me talk -"
But Yang shook her head, "the last time I let you talk, you lied to my face!" She growled, "now look at you!. Look at how hurt you still are. How many new injuries you've gotten." She said, nodding to the still gasping Aldric, "if you put down your weapon, I'll take you to Ozpin!"
Aldric knew she had a point. He'd barely kept up with their slug match when he'd been completely healthy, and had had his shield. Now, though? With all of these injuries, with the pain meds from the hospital having flooded from his system, and with how tired he was, the only advantage he held was in the fact that the Russians would help him if it came to blows. He had one contingency in mind, but it was ugly. "You do that, Yang, you'll be surprised what happens." He warned. "You're stepping into something much larger than yourself! What's going on here - it's larger than you, me, Ozpin, Vale - fuck, Lady! It's bigger than their world -" He indicated the bridge, looming behind her and above them both, "- AND ours!" He dropped his hand down to indicate her.
Yang scoffed, "do you really think this world is yours?" She demanded, "do you even think theirs is?! You killed people on the docks - and I can see the blood on your clothes! You killed your way through this ship!" She paused, "do you even value them as people?! You only stopped killing when they made you an offer! And now I'm giving you the chance to turn yourself in and you're turning it down! You'd rather let people from both of those places die, like they don't even matter! Like they aren't human beings!" She shook her head, "what about all that stuff you say about sacrificing your life for others? Your team told me about that night in the training hall! Where did that go? Or was that another lie?!"
He could feel a heat replacing the chill in his bones made by the rain, the fires of rage welling up from his stomach; but if he was angry because she wasn't getting it, or because he knew, on some level, she was right, he didn't want to find out. Instead, as with always, he found his best defense was to go on the offense, and he shot back with, "au contraire, Yang! You throw my words back at me without understanding them. Nothing has just one meaning, lady! I said I believe that sometimes a life has to be spent to save more." He called out over the raging rain, "I said that I'd sacrifice myself if I had to! Your interpretation, my team's, Pyrrha - everyone's - was one of heroism! But you can turn it right around and realize that it still applies to what I'm doing! I sacrifice hundreds today for thousands tomorrow. Thousands tomorrow for millions next month! Millions next month for billions in the coming years!" He roared, his defeated expression masked by the deep shadows cast by the lack of light breaking through the rainfall, his coat billowing in the wind and rain. "And if I have to die, I'm willing to! And if I don't, I will live with the guilt of what I've done - and make no mistake about it, despite what I have done and what I will do, I will feel guilt over it all! But what I want to do is to take that evil onto me so someone else doesn't have to!" He fired forth, "or are you saying you'd rather risk the countless lives that I gamble with every day? That you'd rather put your sister in the position where she has to make the choices I make?"
"Don't you bring Ruby into this you asshole - you're rationalizing genocide!" The expression in Yang's eyes melted from one of anger to one of fear and shock.
"That you say that means you and I live in two different worlds, Yang. You live in the light, but I live in the dark - I work in that darkness so the light would shine brighter! I do evil things so people better than me don't have to!" Aldric snapped back, "nothing you say to me isn't something I've already said to myself!" He lowered his arm to the hilt of his blade. "Another time... Another place. Another world..." He gasped, feeling more out of breath now than he had after slaughtering his way through this ship, or his fight on the docks. Even fighting Amber hadn't left him so drained. "If there was just one thing different... God damn, Yang. I'd do it." He said, "I'd believe you. Turn myself in and try to work things out legitimately. But let's count them off, why don't we - you know what - No!" He held up a hand, before pointing to her. "Let's put you in MY shoes! You want to challenge my philosophy? Then let's put the shoe on the other foot.
"First let me tell you what I fight, because I've already done the why of it." He turned towards her and began advancing, the rain howling nearly as loudly as he yelled, "I want you to think back a long time! Before you strapped shotguns to your fists and before your sister started fighting demons with a gardening instrument. To the first time you ever met the Grimm. If someone asked you, you'd say you fight them, but that's a losing game and it's a short-sighted goal. I fight the bitch that makes them, that hijacked the whole process with the tools of GOD - with a big 'G' - and quite literally controls every single Creature of Grimm on this planet.
"But she's not like any run-of-the-mill supervillain, Yang." Aldric growled, as he grew closer, and she retreated a step. "You see, she learns from her mistakes. She tried the 'amass an army of demons and conquer the world' thing before, and the guy in Beacon's tower kicked her ass. So now she's trying a different strategy, going for quality over quantity. Strategy over force. She's the only person on this whole planet who seems to have gotten it through her head that skill means more than raw power - and while Ozpin and his people have been sitting, doing nothing, letting their victory defeat them, she's been spreading her reach, recruiting people who have power, in both a physical and metaphorical sense. People whose mere word can decide the fate of countries." Now halfway to her, he waved his hand wide, indicating the aircraft carrier, and the Marines a respectable distance away. "People who can not only open portals to another world, but can go so far as to influence that one too!
"She's been gathering these people and has been planning for god knows how long. This ship, these invaders, me, my planet? They're all a part of that plan, and they all serve one goal. You say I rationalize genocide?" And now he was mere feet from her, "you don't even fucking know! She'll kill everything, and every one, and I shit you not - she knows how to do it! She knows that wars aren't won with armies, but a single blade - or in this case, four - skillfully placed. Everything she does is to gather relics of literal godlike power, and once she has them -" He snapped his fingers. "Gone. Heads, she wins, tails, we lose. I'm not fighting the mindless, idiotic creatures that roam these lands - I'm fighting the wicked witch that coordinates them." He gasped, leering into her violet eyes.
He let a moment pass, before he straightened up and stowed his hands in his sodden pockets. "Now for your choices!" He about-faced and marched away.
"Consider what you've seen of these people." He indicated the ship. "They're a people who don't have Dust to solve all of their problems, Yang, and that's as much of a blessing as it a curse. Alone, someone like you or I could destroy any of them without trouble. But give them time to rally? To pick up the machines they've made for their only universal pursuit - which is exactly what's happened?! Once again let me note the irony of me becoming what you thought I was because you confronted me about it Yang - because if you hadn't, I never would have been able to open a dialogue. Not as fast as I have now, and if I didn't join them, they would kill everything - you, me, the Grimm, the kingdoms - EVERYTHING!
"And then, with the resources of not one - but two entire planets, and the ability to unlock power that only existed in their religion, I guarantee you they would kill themselves! And whoever was left would die out, angry and afraid! So if I refused that man..." He shook his head, breathing heavily. "In the long term I would risk creating a much stronger enemy!" He clenched his fists in his billowing coat, "and then consider Ozpin! If and when he learned I abandoned my planet, what would he think?! Would he have any reason to think I would stay with him, if I was so willing to refuse my home? My PEOPLE?! No! No he wouldn't!
"And that's just one choice, Yang!" He continued, as she remained silent and frowning. "How about if I went with you? If I turned myself in?! The Grimm feed on despair, Yang! Fear, despair, sorrow, loss, regret, anger - all emotions that would well up en masse once word got out that you took me in under suspicion of spearheading a global fucking war! That happens and the Grimm would feel brave, and suddenly both Vale and these people would be fighting wars on two fronts, and they all would lose! People would die, lives ruined - all the things you just damned me for! Worse is that I guarantee you if they lose control of the situation here in Vale - especially to Grimm - my people would use weapons that would literally obliterate the entire fucking kingdom!
"So if I turned myself in and worked to right myself morally, this barely stable war would deteriorate in a day! Anywhere from thousands, to millions, to tens of millions of lives would be lost inside a week! An entire kingdom would fall - and because an entire military would have no kingdom to fight - or three if those patches and this ship are any indication - they'd help the others and your world would only fall faster. And without me there to act as an intermediary between my world and yours - not only would they win, but they would conquer - and I think I've already explained what would happen then! Only now it's worse, because there would be even fewer survivors when everything was done! Vale would be a nuclear wasteland - and as opposed to the chance of them surviving earlier, here I guarantee you everyone you know and love would be dead!" He screamed, his voice hoarse. "Tell me Yang - would you make THAT choice?!
"Or maybe door number three?!" He continued, "would you realize that as piss-fucking-poor as this situation is, letting it play out until you can find a better - LONG TERM - solution is preferable to just about everything imaginable! Even if it means lives! Even if it means your soul! Even if it means -" He laughed, shaking his head."- you might have to kill someone you genuinely have come to care about! Because I'm telling you, right here, right now - the only way you get EVERYTHING you say you want. The only way to spare your morals, to not doom multiple planets, is if YOU, KILL, ME!" He roared, actually managing to make her relax her stance just a fraction, as he realized he hadn't been threatening her with her life, but had rather been placing his in her hands. "Because that's the third option, Yang!
"If I die, right here, right now, these people, their planet - they'll realize that even god bleeds, and that they can't rely on your Dust and the powers they buy! They'll retreat to their machines and their science, and they will win the war, but so too will they win the next one! The greatest war you or they have ever fought! They will find the very woman that controls and creates the creatures of Grimm themselves - and kill her! Victory in the endless war your people have been fighting since before they crawled out of caves! Peace, at the cost of your freedom! Your technology, and your planet's resources! But they will fear the Dust, enough such that they won't use it to unlock their power! And a new status quo will be found, as they use it to fuel science and industry, and not eldritch abilities!" He roared, "and they will win! No matter what I, or you, or anyone does, they will! I know because these -" He gasped, "these are people who poison their air and water to weed out the weak! Who set off fission bombs in their only biosphere - and who nailed their god to a stick! Your people cower behind walls and survive - MINE FIGHT AND WIN!
"I am the path of least resistance, Yang Xiao Long! You kill me, and I guarantee you - you will hurt, you will bleed, you will cry and you will hate, like you never have before! You and your people, as well as me and mine! But you open up the door to the brightest future of them all! One where you get to take pride in having kept to your morals and achieved your victory - at the cost of so many more lives than if you would have plunged your hand into the filth and squalor of my reality. Of my door. Your victory would be hard, but its future wouldn't be tainted by lies, deceit, or intentional sacrifice. Potentially the brightest of them all...
"But only if you kill me, Yang." He scooped her gauntlets off of his belt and threw them at her. "Because that is the only way I can bring myself to stop fighting the darkness by living in it. Only by fighting... and dying, for what I believe in!" He declared, as her gauntlets clattered to the ground at her feet, and she quickly dropped to a low stance to scoop them up. "I am not a good man by any means. I would go so far to say that I am a bad one... But that is the world I live in. The choices I make daily. Evil, yes... But necessary evil." He raised his hands to the side in a messianic pose, coat billowing wildly, and inactive lightsaber clenched lightly in his right hand. "And now you get to make that choice..." He said, "do I reject incredible power, but doom us to an apocalyptic end? Do I turn myself in and inevitably lead to all of Vale being wiped off the map with nuclear fire? Or will you kill me?! The choice is yours, Yang - now MAKE IT!" He screamed, so loud that his voice briefly cut out.
Yang was silent for what felt like an eternity, still hiding behind her customary fighting stance. She blinked, turning her violet eyes down from Aldric's gray orbs, staring down at the rain-covered flight deck as she grappled with his words and her thoughts.
This eternity passed in the blink of an eye, and when she looked back at him, there was only one thing in her eyes: Sorrow, as she gave him her conclusion. "Do you want to die?"
And after a few moments, his expression melted away, changing from one of anger and fury, of hatred and resentment, to one of utter exhaustion, as his entire posture deflated, his back slouching, his arms lowering until his elbows rested against his hips, and his eyes appeared to age decades in the span of seconds, and amidst the backdrop of a an alien aircraft carrier covered in rain, the both of them surrounded by a wide ring of distant soldiers, an unconscionable monsoon, the raging wind, and his once mighty and confident, but now weak and frail countenance, with blood drained both from his body and from others streaming off of him, washed away in the rain. His chest rose and fell with each ragged, gasping breath, as this moment of indecision betrayed months of endless existential crises.
And for once, instinct told him not to lash out and resist, but rather to give in and surrender.
And he spoke the truth, "like you wouldn't believe."
Yang's arms dropped lower, now barely above her stomach. "why?" She breathed, her fists no longer clenched.
Aldric scoffed, and shook his head. "I've seen things, Yang. Things you wouldn't believe. Grimm that don't kill on sight. Gods and goddesses. Hellfire in the city of angels. I've done even worse. Killed a woman I've never met in the bed in which she slept. Gored another one because I was told to. I slaughtered by the dozen the people I wanted to protect more than anything else... And the lies I've told." He shook his head, letting out a long, hollow breath, and leaned back, letting the rain wash over him. "At this point I barely even know who I am. I take weapons from fiction, concepts from science I barely understand and haven't earned, names from people who don't exist. I look up to and praise symbols of righteousness and good while wholly failing to live up to their ideals. I work for and assist people who have aims to destroy all known life, gather their trust, only to betray it. I live with and fight alongside people who have no reason but to trust me, gather their trust, only to betray them." Aldric swiped his hand through his hair. "And I sacrifice and set aside ideals I claim to hold sacred so much and so often that I cannot truly claim to believe in anything.
"Yeah, I want to die, and I might even look forward to the day I do. But unless you kill me, or to be less specific, unless I am killed, I'll keep going, Yang. Because my legacy won't be suicide. My legacy will be having either secured, or having died for, the future of three different and distinct species, and two entire planets." He shook his head, "and I can see it in your eyes. You're honestly considering a fourth option: Letting me go, knowing what I will do. I commend that kind of hellish choice... And while I would wonder if you could live with it... I think you'll be able to live with it just fine, if you do... Though perhaps not for the reasons you expect." He lowered his head, now looking at Yang. "So what's it going to be, Yang? Because I'm tired, and at the end of tonight I'm going to sleep. Whether or not I wake up is your choice... So please..." He begged, again approaching her. "Make it." He demanded, closing the distance until they were inches apart.
Yang stared into his eyes, her own wide and her jaw slack, her expression one of utter betrayal and loss, as though her entire world had been thrown into disarray because of this one night. He could see the conflict in her eyes, so many things fighting against eachother - her sense of duty to turn him in, warring against her sense of justice in wanting to put him down, and both warring against the faintest belief that perhaps he was right, and needed to be left to his own devices. Aldric felt for a moment as though he were looking into a mirror, wondering if this wasn't the look that grew across his face every time he had to make his own moral decisions.
He only felt even more deja vu as he saw a look of determination begin to settle in. First with her brows, closing in on her eyes, then her eyes, steeling themselves for what was to come, then her mouth, as her lips thinned in a tight frown and her jaw clenched. She raised her gaze again, one blink sealing their fates as her eyes went from lilac, one moment, to a deep and angry red the next. He knew what her choice was, just as she knew that, exhausted and injured as he was, he wouldn't let her try without a fight. What she didn't know, however, was how much of a fight he would give, and when she threw her right arm up to try and begin and end the fight with a single wrist-mounted shotgun shell to his chest, she found that while Aldric had been completely honest in that he wouldn't be able to last, or even survive, a fair fight between the two of them, he had neglected to mention that he'd never quite learned how to fight fair. Nearly every single battle he'd had since stepping foot on this planet had been a struggle for life and death, and those struggles had taught him how to prioritize his survival over everything, from pride to style. The result was that, when it came to combat, he only really knew one things: How to fight dirty.
Worse, was that Yang was used to fighting Goud Etiolate - a student whose every fight had entailed by necessity a lot of power held back, so as to not seriously injure or main one of his friends. A gentle soul who had only ever gone lethal once. She'd never once fought Nebo Aldric.
And nothing proved this greater than, as she threw her fist at him, he used his semblance to slow it down. Her head snapped to the right, watching her arm slow to a crawl, before it shot down at the zhoom coming from Aldric's own right hand. In the instant she had before Aldric's retaliation, she looked up, her eyes wide as she realized, but didn't quite believe, what was about to happen.
With a wide upward arc, the green blade went up and around, burning the rain it touched to steam until it reached Yang's arm, and filled the air with the smell of flesh burning. The resistance made by Yang's aura was negligible at best to the heat and cutting power of his blade, and no sooner had it made contact than had it cut straight through until reaching the open air on the other side, and as Yang stumbled back, body shaking from fear, pain, and no small amount of shock, her head snapped back and forth from the stump that was her arm, to Aldric, whose cybernetic hand snapped up to catch her severed limb before it fell to the ground.
But as the reality of what he'd done began to set in, Aldric found his attention stolen by the blade in his hand as, unbidden, he witnessed the green begin to burn away, shifting to a deep red, as though the blood from Yang's arm had covered and stained it, until it no longer glowed and pulsed with a vibrant green light, but rather shone with an angry, appropriately blood red light, and filled the air with a low thrum.
Now bathed in deep red light and cast in hard-edged shadows, Aldric turned his gaze back to Yang, head tilted down and face set in a firm frown. Her free hand was pressed tightly against her cauterized stump, her breath still caught in her throat, as she continued stumbling back, until she reached the hatch that would have led to the bridge, had it not been for the rifle she backed into, revealing the soldiers who had taken up position there. Compounded with the soldiers surrounding the two of them on the flight deck, albeit at a distance, Yang found she was boxed in with a man who looked apt to kill her, approaching slowly, each stomp sending water flying about.
With no other choice, Yang shoved herself away from the soldiers blocking her escape and awkwardly threw up her only remaining hand, but something flying past her head gave her pause. She then saw Aldric drop her severed hand in the standing water with a light splash, and hold out his metal hand. A pistol, stolen from the soldier she'd backed into, tumbled through the air and into his hand with a light twang. Yang knew what he was going to do and tried to preempt it, throwing her sole remaining fist forward and pounding the air, blasting a projectile out of her gauntlet and launching it at Aldric. But her guided missile met a similar fate to her earlier punch, with it slamming into Aldric's telekinetic barriers and slowing down just enough for him to bat it away with his sword. It happened so fast that, for a moment, Yang thought she might have hurt him, what with the cloud of smoke enveloping him, but those hopes were dashed with a thunderclap, and a tiny projectile shooting through the smoke and into her shoulder.
Yang gasped in pain and fired again with another punch, but this one didn't even make it to Aldric, instead appearing as though it slammed into a brick wall and detonating before it was even halfway there, and as Aldric walked out of the cloud of smoke, Yang was then yanked forward, her gauntlet - and only means of defense - being torn from her good arm and flying over to her former friend. Aldric fired again, this one hitting her arm and causing her to stumble back, and before she could recover, he fired again, and again, and again, each gunshot briefly overpowering the monsoon around them with the sound of a thunderclap, each flash of its barrel briefly illuminating him. Had Yang been in any less pain, she may have realized that the frown on Aldric's face wasn't one of malice, but rather one of resignation and anger, though at what, only he knew.
No, what she was focused on was the rapidly mounting pain as he fired again and again, until finally his gun clicked on empty and he threw the pistol away with a flick of his hand. She fell against the wall and slid to the ground, her breaths coming in rattles as he stalked over to her, his now empty hand held out to the side, and his body briefly becoming enveloped in silver fire. When the fires vanished, she saw that where once the space in his cybernetic hand had been completely empty, now there was a silver cylinder the size of a cigar sitting snugly in his palm.
As the man she thought she knew grew closer, soon the only thing she could hear was the low thrum of his bright red blade, until he came within feet of her and finally shut it off with an ear-screeching zip. He clipped the sheathe to his belt and knelt down in front of her, both halves of his face now covered in darkness, and the monsoon being the only sound in the air, as he knelt there, an expressionless mass of shadows pointed at her paling face.
"You'll get another chance some day, Yang. I'm sure." Aldric called out over the rain, though she couldn't hear anything - not the tone of his voice nor the inflection he put on the words - over the monsoon or the ringing in her ears, all she could hear was the words he said, and all she could see was he himself, as he raised the cylinder in his hand, and hit a button on its side, causing it to extend with a metallic snap. "And for what it's worth, I'm sorry." He said, as he shut his eyes and turned his head away.
Gasping for air, Yang gurgled out a "fu -" Before the device in his hands flashed with a blinding blue light, and her mind went blank.