A/N:
This is a perfect way to date this story, but I already did that by intimating RWBY Volume 4 as the most up-to-date release, as per Aldric's landing on Remnant, so let's double down real fast:
What the fuck are you doing, reading this, when you could be out seeing Infinity War?
No - no excuses!
Scrounge up your chunk of change and go see that goddamn masterpeice!
I shit you not, it has influenced this story.
If you're still reading, I'll assume you've done as I asked and gone to see it.
...
(Don't worry, I won't be blatantly spoiling anything. Believe it or not, Aldric returning to Earth and that movie coming out were completely coincidental. I'm abusing it oh maliciously, but coincidental nonetheless.)
Anyways, this one was originally quite a bit shorter, but after some playing around I found I liked what it looked like with its current length (which may or may not contain more than half of what would have been the next chapter), so... Bonus!
Chapter 44
Imagine, for a moment, what the feeling would be of returning home for the first time in almost an entire year. How would it feel to see one's family after having no contact? After being presumed dead? Imagine the reaction of that family - most likely a lot of hugs, a lot of tears, and no words exchanged until well after the emotions had died down.
Sounds like any normal kind of response, right?Well the Aldric family was anything but normal, and almost instantly after entering the house with the rest of the groceries, the first thing that could be heard before the door was kicked shut was a loud male voice calling out, "is that the fuckin' bible?"
Then followed by an even louder female voice responding with, "hey, hey, hey - the HOLY fuckin' bible!"
A large grin stretched across Nebo Aldric's face as he stepped further inside his childhood home on his childhood planet in his childhood universe, stolen boots lightly thumping against the carpet beneath them. "You know... Sometimes I wished I did a little bit more with my life, instead of hangin' out in front'a places, sellin' weed and shit." Aldric began, "like... Maybe be an animal doctor." He shrugged, "why not me? I like seals and shit... Or maybe an astronaut!" Aldric nodded his head. "Yeah... I'd be the first motherfucker to see a new galaxy!" He nodded again, a determined, wild expression entering one of his eyes, "or find a new alien life form..." A beat, "and fuck it!"
Sarah Aldric shared the grin, immediately picking up where he left off. "There he goes!" She laughed, "homeboy fucked a Martian once!"
Nebo dropped the six remaining bags of groceries on the table with a loud thunk, turning to a framed magazine cover hanging on the wall. "Oh hey, it's a schooner!"
His mother gave out a faux, arrogant laugh. "You dumb bastard, it's not a schooner, it's a sailboat!" She said, matter-of-factly, as she stowed away some groceries in the refrigerator.
"A schooner is a sailboat, stupid-head!"
His mother breathed in heavily, "you know what - THERE IS NO EASTER BUNNY!" She pointed off in a random direction, "over there - that's just a guy in a suit!"
Nebo pulled a few cans out of the plastic grocery bag, "pantry, or fridge?"
"Fridge." She responded, "say, would you like a chocolate covered pretzel? They're a little melty, but damn are they exquisite!"
"Hey, check this out -" Nebo said, before telekinetically moving the cans through the air and into his mother's hands.
She blinked once, then her smile returned, "the Jedi Mind Trick! Holy shit, motherfuckin' Yoda and shit!"
Aldric chuckled, "shithead here watched Empire and Jedi last week and ever since then, he's been trying to do the Jedi mind trick. The crazy fuck thinks he can levitate shit with his thoughts."
"Affleck!" His mother called out, as she leaned inside the fridge and Nebo dropped the last few items in the pantry. "You da bomb in Phantoms, yo!"
"Got any more?"
"Not unless we haven't quoted Dogma."
"Don't think so." Nebo frowned, then nodded. "The Catholic church does not make mistakes!"
His mother rolled her eyes, "Ah shit, I never remember how that one goes... Mistakes were made!" She closed the fridge, "now get over here, I've been waiting too long for this." She said, holding her arms out to her sides.
Aldric crossed the kitchen and brought his mother into a strong hug; the both of them squeezed tight, as though letting go would make the entire moment meaningless, would cause the other to vanish. Seconds turned to minutes as they held eachother tight, those minutes eventually melting away into obscurity the moment one of them, neither knew who, let out the first tear. They both were eventually silently sobbing into eachothers' shoulders, crying desperately and holding onto eachother for dear life. It was only interrupted once a Siberian Husky forced her way between their legs, and they separated, with the son kneeling down to pet the needy dog.
"I love you, Nebo." Sniffled his mother, "she, though - old lady could tell something was wrong, bud, let me tell you." Said Sarah, "before I even got the news. She was all kinds of out of wack."
Aldric nodded, "tried to wake up the neighborhood when I got here." He looked up to his mother, noting the business-casual attire she wore. "You working?"
"I mean, your father's life insurance was good, but I couldn't retire on it, kid."
Aldric nodded, "I'll give you that." He said, rubbing the dog's flank. "I'll give you that."
The two shared a brief, sullen silence, before Sarah broke it. "You know - your funeral was kind of nice, actually."
Nebo arced an eyebrow, "please tell me it poured. I fucking die and the universe needs to suffer."
Sarah rolled her eyes, "no, it was beautiful outside. Same kind of omen, right?"
Aldric snorted, "sure enough." He said, with a nod, before he straightened up. "Alright. Fire away."
"Why did your arm feel cold?"
"Jesus fuck, ma - I put on the glove so you wouldn't notice!" Aldric guffawed.
"I practically helped raise my sisters, Neb. I know when asshole kids are trying to hide things." She said, "and you failed in your intent by only wearing one glove."
"Uh, lady - I'm eighteen now."
"Then get out of my house."
Nebo rolled his eyes, raising himself up and then sitting down on a chair at the side of the table. "You're going to ask about my arm and not the fact that I'm wearing a Navy uniform?"
"Oh that one's easy - you got picked up by the Army over there, thrown on a ship, and they gave you better clothes. Blue's better than green, always is, always was, and always will be." Said his mother, as she sat down as well - giving Gertie some love when the husky came looking, tail wagging.
"And here I had this whole story cooked up." Nebo tisked, shaking his head as he slipped the blue and gray coat off, revealing the black shirt underneath - and the bare lower half of his metal left arm.
His mother's breath caught in her chest as he revealed the cybernetic prosthetic, and her lips pursed when he slipped off the glove. "Are you okay?" She asked, her eyes snapping over to his other arm, and seeing the scars and the patches of pale flesh that ran up and down it.
Nebo let out a long, exhausted sigh. "I look like the Terminator, ma." He said, flexing his robotic fingers. "I'll manage."
She gave him that, nodding. "Did it happen when the plane went down?" She asked, "some satellites went over where they thought it went down, but they couldn't see anything."
Aldric shook his head, "no, actually. I got out pretty good. A couple scratches and bruises... And I was hanging from a tree. Like Nanna's tire swing, but a few hundred feet in the air." He shook his head, "ever been lying on the ground and see a thirty pound airliner chair come flying at you? Holy shit." He laughed.
"How long were you stranded?" She asked, "did you eat well?"
"About a week, and yeah. I was, ah..." He nodded, "only person who was close to the fuselage. I looted its food. Didn't realize where I was at first, but I knew well enough to ration it all out." He said, leaning back in his chair. "Would I be correct in assuming you looked all of it up once it started hitting the news?"
She nodded, brushing her long hair behind her ear. "When the Grimm started attacking Los Angeles, it took all of a day for people to start realizing what they were and where they came from. When that space ship - airship... Thing came around, that's when it started becoming real common knowledge what might be happening. Even Stella looked it up."
Aldric hummed, "well, I was out there for a week, and ah -" He yawned, "'scuse me... A week, then the headmaster, Ozpin, he found me."
She let out a long, thankful sigh. "He seems like a good man."
Aldric nodded, "been pretty good to me so far as I've known him." He said, "he was the one that figured out I had aura. Turns out he's from Earth too - but he's from Rome. Ancient Rome." He explained, "I caught him up on the important parts: Caesar, Brutus, the Olympic Games, World War Two, the Dark Knight, Logan, My Little Pony." The two shared a grin, "and he woke up my powers - thus the jedi mind trick."
"And the arm?" She pressed.
"Happened later." Aldric nodded, "whenever I'm not with Ozpin or the others, I'm out looking for any other survivors. Were a few bodies I didn't find..." He nodded, "Dad's among them." She let out a long, hollow breath, and nodded. "But one day, I ran into one of the four Maidens. Lucky me, I did so right when the Lady In Red..." He trailed off. "Ah..." Wow, the steam certainly ran out fast on this one, didn't it?
He'd had this whole thing planned out: Make his mother think things were better than they really were. No nukes, no murders, no Legions of Doom, Justice Leagues, or Watchmen. Just one hell of a culture shock and maybe a little super sleuthing. He wanted his mom to know he was alive and that he was looking for his Dad, that once things calmed down and he made good on a few promises, him, Dad, they'd all come home, try and get back to normalcy.
But, he found, he couldn't do it. He could kill scores of men and women, he could chop Yang's arm off and steal her memories, he could murder a woman in her sleep and gouge another's eyes out, he could bomb two countries and force them to surrender, but for all that was good and holy he couldn't lie to his mother.
He let out a long sigh, and shook his head. "No, that's a lie." And when his mother didn't react, he was pretty sure she'd known from the get-go. "It was Cinder Fall that found me." He said, "the ah, the big bad evil chick, Salem - white skinned, demon-looking one. She's the one that's been doing all of this. Opening up the wormholes, taking the plane, dropping the Grimm, sending in that airship..." He said. "I don't know what all she's doing or what her plan is, but it's me and the survivors of the plane crash that have become a part of it. There are four of us, me included. I don't know who the other four are, but she's using us all to do... Whatever it is she wants in the end. She wants these four relics that they think were made by the gods, but I don't know why. She wants to spark a war between Earth and Remnant, but I don't know why." He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Every time I learn something new, I know less and less."
His mother nodded, folding her hands in her lap and leaning forward. "And they're the ones who found you?"
Nebo hummed, "yeah. See - of the obscene repertoire of shows, books, movies, and games I enjoy, that one - the one everyone's flipping out about - was one of them. When she showed up and started giving me the whole 'I'm totally a good guy, honest!' spiel, I knew two things." He said, "if I said no to her, no matter what she said, she'd fucking kill me." He sighed, "but if I said yes... I'd have an opportunity. Not one many folks have." He straightened up, running his hand through his shaggy hair. "You remember the Departed?" He asked, "I'm Dicaprio, and she's Jack Nicholson."
His mother leaned back, a light frown on her face as she looked down, comprehending what it was he'd just told her. "So you're... You're undercover, basically."
"That's the easiest way to explain it to you." He said, knowing that the Green Hornet, Revolver Ocelot, Adrian Veidt angles would be lost on her. "I knew that if I made them think I would fight with them, I'd be like Dicaprio - I'd be right there, next to the big bad. I'd be able to feed people like Ozpin information. The general idea being that eventually I'd be brought to Salem's palace, and I could lead everyone there. Try and end things before they got real bad." He leaned forward, "see how good that went." He grunted, shaking his head.
"I mean... I'm not gonna lie to you, Neb." She said, "we nuked ourselves, nuked that planet at least once... But I don't think you realize that a lot of this is outside of your control, bud." She said, earnestly. "you couldn't have known that this woman had her eyes on two worlds. Couldn't have known what she wanted to do, couldn't have known anything." She leaned forward too, talking to the top of Nebo's hanging head. "Hey -" She put her thin hand on his shoulder, "-listen, okay?" She begged, "listen. You can do the best you can, and I know you are. I..." She nodded, "I don't need you to tell me you've done things you regret. I can tell." She said, her voice radiating warmth. "But all you can do is the best you've got. You can't control everything, and you can't try to..." She shrugged, "to make things keep going the way that guy said they would in the show." She said, "all you can do is do your best, right?"
Nebo turned his mechanical eyes to his mother, a dull, dead frown on his face. "Mom, when I started this I thought I'd been prepared for the things I'd had to do. I -" He shook his head, "I've got a journal, in which I literally said I knew what I'd have to do and I was ready to do it. But now..." He let out a long sigh, "the things I've seen, I've done, and helped do. Fuck, Mom - every time I do something, I've found myself thinking, 'things will be better because I've done this.', and every time I think that, something even worse comes along." He leaned closer to her, "whatever they say, or did say, on the news... They dropped a nuke to get Vale to stop fighting and they..." He caught himself, "I threatened Atlas that we'd let their entire country starve and die if they didn't stop fighting.
"So what happens after this, Mom? What makes World War 3 look small in comparison?" He asked, "what's worse than literally every single country on Earth uniting against another planet and conquering it in a month?" Nebo's voice shook, and as it did, their dog broke away from Sarah to now sit by him, head tilted over and tail idly wagging. "If you listen to Cinder, then their whole entire plan revolves around this Vytal festival, and this entire week I've been trying to reconcile that, and my conclusion isn't fucking good, Mom."
"How so?" Sarah prodded.
Nebo reached down to pet Gertie, "in the show, the plan was to fuck up the festival because the entire world would be watching. They'd put the fear of God into everyone." He stressed, "and damn if it didn't work. Imagine what would happen here if the White House getting nuked was livestreamed over the internet, and then they just DDOS'ed everything. Shut the whole thing down. Everyone would be scared and it'd be chaos." He said, "but my biggest hangup was wondering why exactly they - the four kingdoms - would let the Vytal Festival happen, so soon after a war. I mean, they suspended the olympic games indefinitely until World War Two ended... And that's when it hit me." He explained. "Vytal is to these people what the Olympics is to us, though it's less games than it is supermen beating the shit out of eachother... So what better way to fix things up between them and us than to offer to host those games?" He asked, "or if not that, at least offer to help speed up fixing their infrastructure so they can have them?
"Then in the idea of peace, I dunno - we offer to show them how our people fight. Maybe get some UFC fighters or some Olympic Boxers over there as a means of cultural exchange... I don't know - the point is, this would be big. It'd be something both worlds would be watching. It'd be bigger than the moon landing - an interplanetary fight tournament? Only thing bigger would be interplanetary Olympics - and you know damn well they'll try, if they can." He said, "but with the populations of two entire planets watching... Imagine what would happen if something were to go down.
"Like... Say... Like fucktons of Grimm getting in and fucking shit up. Like armies of terrorists and mafia thugs tearing apart the country." A beat, "or perhaps thousands of airships going batshit, shooting apart any of the UN ships you know will be there like some kind of Fleet Week-type thing, and then going through the wormholes to Earth and leading a counter-invasion. Those same terrorists not just attacking Beacon, but dressing up in military uniforms and bringing Grimm to major Earth cities. I can go on, Mom, because all of that's ignoring the idea that Salem could wise the fuck up and try to spark an actual World War Three over here." He pointed at the ground, "because you know just one hint of Russia or China or the US experimenting with Dust to try and get super soldiers will spark something to make the nuclear arms race look like an Easter egg hunt. At this point I wouldn't put it past her."" He grunted, "but the point is... I think Salem is specifically going to let things go quiet until Vytal, so she can spark another interplanetary war, and use all of that terror, fear, and despair, to supercharge the Grimm. And while Earth and Remnant are tearing the shit out of eachother, those Grimm will take apart anything that's left.
"It'll be a war on two fronts, but unlike when Hitler tried, it'll work for Salem - because the only people who know it's her won't have any authority or influence in a wartime." Aldric swept his synthetic hand through his hair, sighing. "I don't know what to do, Mom."
Sarah's frown matched his own, though hers was less of sorrow than it was of concentration, as she tried to find the words - any words - to help her son. "I can't pretend to understand what you're going through, Bud." She said, "God - it's... It's everything I have to keep from begging you to stay... But I won't and I can't because I know you. I know you always think things through and I know you always do what you think is right." She paused, "I... Know you've done things you regret, Neb, I can hear it in your voice. But I can also tell you're strong enough to see it through to the end... And no matter what you think, I know you won't fail. I know you'll stay as good a man as you were a child, when I last saw you." She squeezed his shoulder, "all I want you to know is that no matter what happens, no matter what I hear, what I see, or what people say... I know you're a good person. I'm your mom, and I'll always love you, kid."
Aldric nodded, "there's one more thing." He said, "before we stop talking about depressing horse shit."
She nodded, "I know, bud. You didn't come here to say 'hi'." She breathed, forcing her voice to stay steady. "You came here to say goodbye." With his radar, Aldric could actually see her heart flutter, and pick up, as the implications dawned on her. "To warn me you may not come back again."
Aldric didn't deny it. "You said it yourself, Mom. I can't control everything. And as has become ever more clearer, all I can do is make bad situations better, by making them so much worse that everyone involved just has to stop and step back to catch their breath." He broke eye contact, "you know I threatened Atlas' Commander-In-Chief that the US would nuke them and everyone there to the stone age if they didn't back off? And this was right after we'd dropped a MOAB on them. He believed it - fuck, I believed it." He explained, "All I have going for me right now is that those terrorists I mentioned... Well, they don't work for me, but their leader... He and I have a mutual enemy. But even that may be in jeopardy, with how much they lost during the invasion." He scoffed, "but even then, if they're still my friends, I may be trading one enemy for another - because if this sounds familiar, then it should, because it's what we did back when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and we all know what happened about... Twenty-odd years later."
"Well, realize that they -"
"Don't even try, Mom. That argument has been made to death here and there." Nebo cut her off, with a shake of his head and a slice of his hand. "The point I'm trying to make is that my best chance for turning this around has historical for going very bad right around the time we think it's going pretty good. While I like to think the UN will help me as they've promised they will, I doubt they'll be able to do very much if they're embroiled in another war - two wars! - with Remnant. One with the four kingdoms, one with the Grimm." Because as much as he knew Taurus would either drag his feet or try to intentionally sabotage setting up Grimm attacks here on Earth, the other Masters wouldn't - and they were the biggest wild card.
His mother, frowning, gave him a few moments of silence as she studied his face. "So what are you thinking?"
In response, Aldric reached into his bag, "I promised myself a while ago I'd try to stop being reactive and start being proactive. In that vein, I've spent the last week off the grid... And to make a very long explanation much shorter, I'll say that my powers allow me to pull out anything I want from any of the stories I liked over here. TV shows, movies, games, books - anything, as long as I have some kind of connection to it." He nodded to the fridge, "that earlier being me essentially pulling on the Force." She snorted, and that dragged a small smile out of him as well. "But back to point - I've spent the last weekend off the grid... Using those powers to build something so big that there doesn't exist a word strong enough to describe it. I... Can't say what's in it - or if it's even something that things are stored in, because I know if the government ever figures out I talked to you, they'll want to know what I said." He nodded, "but suffice to say... It's a game changer." Out of his bag he pulled two things: A small, sealed box, like one would put a ring in, and a small cloth sack, filled to the bursting with something unknown.
His mother gave them a long look after he placed them on the table, then turned back to him.
"These are yours. This..." Aldric slid the box over to her. "Is your..." He swallowed, "call it your nuclear deterrent. If you ever find yourself in any kind of trouble... Open it up. You'll know what to do, and it'll do the rest." He then pushed the sack towards her, "and these can keep your dietary needs fulfilled for ten days a pop, will heal your wounds and even remove poison from your body, and they grow like weeds - just drop them in the ground and you'll have a beanstalk in a week."
"Nebo, you really think I need this, don't you?"
"Atlanta's fifteen miles away, Mom." Nebo responded. "If something happens, that's a major target." Not to mention that, whenever he finally got around to betraying Salem, should he be even remotely unsuccessful, she or anyone still loyal to her would try to target his mother - these could save her life.
Regardless, Sarah grew silent again, turning her gaze back to her son's gifts, before again shifting back to him. "You know I have to ask why you don't make these things. For yourself." She said, "there has to be something you're aware of that could just..." She snapped her fingers. "Poof, and it's all gone."
Aldric nodded, "I've... To be succinct I've found I can basically make whatever I want. But for various reasons, I haven't made any of the really nasty things I'm aware of. I don't want to rely on that kind of power, and I don't want to see what my enemies would pull out of the hat to match it." He said, "but..." He shook his head, "you're my Mom, ma. You warrant a nuclear option." He nodded to the box and the sack, "and if you ever find yourself in a situation where those two can't get you through it... I doubt there's much more I could do."
And, he didn't mention, he genuinely worried about making something - or more than one something - that was stronger than him. Sure, as far as he knew he could go hog wild make an Infinity Gauntlet and fill it with the stones, but god forbid it turned out he couldn't get rid of it when he was done. Yeah, he could summon up an STC from the Dark Age of Technology, but if that came with it Warp technology, and attracted the attention of Slaanesh, or Nergal, or whoever else, or at the very least impregnated this universe with the Warp, he'd be trading one problem now for a major problem later. No, his nuclear options had to be as strong, but also as limited, as the name implied: Nukes wiped out cities, they didn't obliterate universes.
"What are you going to do, then?" She asked him, quietly, as though steeling herself for his answer, and the reality of the fact that he'd be leaving her again, and soon at that.
"To defend myself?" Nebo clarified, "I've got an idea for that. Recently I've... Shall I say, grown somewhat distrustful of the more arcane aspects of my powers." He reached back into his bag, and pulled out a long, wide yellow belt, ringing which were dozens of thick pouches and pockets. "I've got pretty much everything I could need in any given situation in this belt." A beat, "even shark repellent." He grinned.
She shared it, shaking her head and leaning back, "Is that -"
"Yes." Nebo nodded.
"But the pockets don't look like they've got anything in them."
"Au contraire, Ma." Nebo refuted, "they're full. The stuff in them is just... Really small." He grinned again, stuffing the utility belt back in the bag.
"Well... I'm glad to hear that, Neb, but my question had been more meant as to what you'll be doing, going forward."
Aldric hummed, "right now?" He shook his head, "I want to watch Jay and Silent Bob and have my first home-cooked meal in nine months. After that? I'll wing it. I've got plans, and I spent the last week putting a bunch of them into motion... But only two real goals." But he knew what she was really asking, and as such he straightened up, taking the hand that was still on his shoulder. "I'll find him, Mom." He whispered, "one way or another we're all coming home."
His mother laughed, "then Jay and Silent Bob it is, kiddo. C'mon."
For the Record
There was a reason I didn't spend that extra day on the secret project, and she and I just spent the entire night together.
No, not Neo - gawd no. My Mom.
Yeah yeah, get it out of your systems now - but once you're done, realize that everyone loves their Momma, and everyone misses their Momma when they've been gone awhile, and those who say they don't are liars.
But, as with all things, this too must end.
I need to drop off Coulson's care package at the Secret Project (preferably inside fifteen faraday cages and ten miles away from where it really is), and then I have to go back to that submarine. I agree that, in order to sell the story we've been feeding to Ozpin, I need to actually be put down like they say they've been doing. So they're going to sedate the shit out of me while we're going in, then bring me out of it once Ozpin comes aboard (under armed guard, of course.). He'll confirm I am who they say I am, and that I haven't been abused while under their care, then they'll release me and the girls to his care, provided he makes good on his promise and does... Whatever the fuck it is they want him to do.
I'm still not fully aware of what the UN's long term plan is with Remnant, I need to drag that out of Coulson next time we meet up. but what matters most is this:
The war's over,
And I got to tell my Mom I loved her.
But, as with all things: These moments I steal are too short, go too fast, and are gone before I really understand what the fuck it is I just went through.
I had a home cooked meal, gave my Mom a hand cannon, watched some Kevin Smith movies, and got to see my Dog.
Now's the time to go back.
And I know what you're thinking: Why, oh God why, aren't I staying to try and re-up... Literally anything? If shit I can only half remember got me this far, why aren't I downloading movies, pirating books, or printing wikis?
After all, while I've been gone, two Marvel movies and an entire RWBY volume have hit the internet, so all of that should be worth its weight in gold.
Well... Who's to say I haven't?
Well, no - I haven't, but I had Coulson (through Captain Russia) get some things for me. Chief among them being a new tablet, but as well an external hard drive.
A big external hard drive. Like - they pulled the damn thing from a supercomuter, big.
The idea being that something like that would be able to store everything I could ever need or want, and should I need or want it, I could plug it into the tablet and access it.
As I said a moment ago: While I was gone, but before Salem dropped the Grimm on LA, Volume 5 either... Was aired, or was finished, one of the two.
I'm sure and well fucking aware that anything contained therein would be functionally useless, as barring an act of God/s, nothing will be going down the same way it did there. But the way I see it: Damn thing may have something useful for me.
So, while I'm flying back to the submarine, I'll have that drowning out the roar of the wind in my ears.
And once I get back to the Remnant?
Man, who the fuck knows. Maybe it'll blow up.
Again.
By the time he made it back to Remnant, and relocated the submarine Goud Etiolate was being held prisoner on, it was less than three hours until his week was up. His thought process was that, by going back to square one, somewhere along the line he could create something of a plan for his endgoal. Instead of reacting to everything and planning as a result, he needed to finally be proactive, to create something of a plan that could work, period, with or without him, and the best way to do so, he figured, would be to go all the way back to the beginning. On the trip back he'd spent it first getting up to date on the show that he knew well and good had no use for, then letting the whole thing play in the background, from start to finish, to refresh everything he had, and compare it to what all had changed during his nine months. Aldric wasn't at all fond of the changes he'd made in this near-year he'd been in the world, but as he'd gone through what had once been a show again, a thought occurred to him that he hadn't considered at all, ever since he and Ozpin had laid everything on the table.
How did it exist in the first place?
If he assumed like he had argued to Ozpin, that all of this had been a vision of the future, and that it subsequently was published as a show so as to allow as many to take it at face value as possible, the question then became where did that rabbit hole end? To go a bit further, was the show even a warning? Or itself a pawn in a much grander game? Because if a vision of the future granted its creator this knowledge, shouldn't he then have seen Salem's detecting his aura, and starting the sequence of events that led to this? Or perhaps had he seen all of it - from the moment he unlocked his aura to this moment itself - and had instead chosen to omit Earth entirely?
Such an idea made some sense, but it still begged so many questions. Omitting Aldric, Earth, and the Masters and instead framing it as just a work of fiction would, as he'd discussed, allow many to take the entire thing at face value. It would allow useful information to be disseminated at a high rate, and that it would spread far and wide, eventually leading to Aldric discovering it well before he was dragged into it himself. This would prepare him, at least somewhat, for the road ahead - but what that still failed to answer was how he'd gotten the visions and unlocked the aura in the first place. It didn't answer how Salem seemed wholly unaware of the fact that Earth had an information advantage on her, and it didn't even remotely explain why some information had been given out and not others. Yes, one could argue that ruining narrative pacing would make it more difficult for the information to be accepted, but with the threat being literally everything on two worlds, wouldn't as many advantages as possible be a good thing?
Of course, when dealing with seers, especially ones as good as he had to assume the show's 'creator' was, if he had played the game like he had, Aldric could just assume that a lot of those questions could simply be answered as being 'all a part of the plan', but damn if that answer didn't make him mad. But if he made both of those assumptions - that, one: The vision of the future that had spawned the show had contained him and the Masters, as well as the war between Earth and Remnant, and everything before and after, and that, two: The show itself had been created as a means to service a much greater and long-term plan, then that begged one more major question: What even was the plan? What was his role in it? What was the 'cast's' role in it? Did the information dropped before the two worlds had joined have any greater meaning? Was any of it still applicable? Could any of it be wrong?
And simmering below it all was Salem. The plan he'd laid out for his mother was among the tamest ones he'd come up with. He still didn't have any answers in regards to her, and only a steadily increasing number of questions, not the least of which was what she did and did not know. How informed was she? Was she in the dark? Or was she even more informed than the Watchmen? Than the UN? Ozpin had described her has having a 'spark' of magic within her, due to her exposure to the relics, but just that spark, and Roman Dust, had allowed her to sense someone's aura opening either on the other side of a universe, or in another universe entirely, open multiple wormholes to connect to that place, and then steal people from that place. That kind of power sounded like a hell of a lot more than a 'spark', it sounded closer to what Aldric was capable of at his maximum - and he hadn't forgotten the fact that she'd apparently survived a blast that had dropped Remnant into a nuclear winter, and had survived multiple encounters with people like Ruby, sometimes simultaneously.
This was a woman of evil and of power so titanic that Aldric found it difficult to comprehend. How the hell was he going to kill her? To say nothing of whether or not she'd figured out how to reincarnate herself like Ozpin could, it sounded like neither raw, overwhelming power, nor subverting her own abilities could put her down. So, what, then? Was this a Link and Ganondorf situation? Was there only one thing in particular able to put her down for good? Did Aldric have to assemble all four relics in order to use their power and kill her? What would happen if he did? Would it be like the Infinity Stones, and he'd just become omnipotent? Or would they turn him Super Saiyan? Make him into something more capable of going toe-to-toe with her?
That may have some merit, from what Ozpin told me about their fights... But at the same time he didn't really tell me much to begin with. Only that they gave her power, not how or in what way. Aldric frowned, as he transitioned from Earth to Remnant. Is it even possible to kill her? I mean, let's take a leaf from her book and learn the lesson. Ozpin, stronger than I am, tried for his entire life to fight her conventionally, with two relics and an army of silver-eyed-warriors to help him, and it never worked. So killing her conventionally... While not necessarily impossible, as she was wounded by the Silvers and Ozpin, it's just hugely fucking difficult. So if not that, then what? Can we just throw her into an other universe? Teleport her to the sun? He wondered, Or - fuck, would the King Piccolo option be better? Just find a way to seal her up and throw her and the can away. Aldric wasn't overly fond of that idea, considering how many stories existed where they inevitably broke free, and because he had no idea how to do the Mafuba, even with magic, but it was a solution, and that was more than he had before.
Or... Perhaps less of a solution than a plan B. He thought, as he scanned the area for the submarine. Something like my special project. Something I could set up to work independently of me. Something that could work repeatedly if it had to, until such a time that the people of Earth and Remnant could rig up a more permanent solution... But what can help me, there? He wondered, what fiction has existed where evil has repeatedly risen up, been defeated, sealed away, and then escaped again? The problem he had was that such a thing sounded like such a vast majority of fantasy that Aldric couldn't come up with a specific example.
Star Wars sounded like it could fit the bill, but the problem there was that there wasn't an all powerful Force to keep the balance, here. He'd already decided he couldn't rely on any Dragonball shenanigans, and while he was pretty sure there existed something in Warhammer that could probably fit the bill, he didn't even want to try to run the risk of inviting Chaos into this universe. In the end, however, all of those examples failed in that none of them had the perpetuity Aldric was looking for. This Plan B was meant to work in such a way that, if he either never came up with a satisfactory Plan A, or whatever Plan A he came up with didn't work, that this would work. He needed something that, even though it had a history of failing, and repeatedly at that, that the solution itself still worked, such that whenever it did fail it could just be picked right back up and relied upon to work again. His idea - or desperate hope, to be more accurate - was that after one or two cycles of this, Remnant and Earth would have a way of permanently fixing it as opposed to patching it up.
Just need one good idea, brain. C'mon. You're the same piece of shit that came up with the Green Hornet stuff. Trying to tell me this thing's a steel trap for science fiction and how that stuff could work, but not one goddamn fantasy book? Thought the spy, as he noticed a long, metal tube angling upwards through the ocean, making to break the surface and wait for his arrival. Something that works on its own. Can just be picked up, right off the ground. No need to be worthy, no need for some kind of abstract magical BS... Just pick it up, stab the bitch in the face, seal her up for a few thousand years. I just need one deus-ex-machina sword of cyclical magical... Uh... He blinked.
Well, don't I just feel stupid? He thought, watching the submarine break the ocean.
He'd just spent the last ten minutes lamenting the fact that he didn't know of, or have, a magical weapon that met his requirements, and then literally described everything it was he needed from it. He needed that could destroy, damage, or otherwise just seal away evil - and what phrase was commonly used to describe Grimm? They were often described as soulless beings and creatures of pure evil. He'd spent the last ten minutes laying out some specific, familiar-even requirements. For fuck's sake, he'd inadvertently solved his problem before he'd even begun thinking about it. Before he'd abandoned the idea that Remnant could give him what he wanted, in the ironic favor of using the magic he'd grown not to fully trust, he'd answered the question of what could be used to fix the problem. He'd wondered if this wasn't a 'Link and Ganondorf' situation.
And then he'd spent the next ten minutes describing the Master Sword to a T. Capable of sealing away Ganon once every few thousand years - and only ever failing because Ganon reincarnated to begin with, imbued with the power to repel evil, straight-up blessed by the goddesses of the setting, magical to begin with, that thing could solve Aldric's problems. Hell, for all he knew, the thing could smite Grimm - wouldn't that be great?
But... Thought Aldric, as he came in for a landing on the submarine. We come to a problem not dissimilar to what I'd face if I ever pulled out Mjolnir. The Master Sword chooses its wielders, it chooses heroes who fit the classical definition. Courageous, moral people, who act in objective good, not greater good. Need he go on? I may be able to summon that thing into existence with my powers and the glove, but I still highly doubt it'll 'choose' me. His feet hit the hull of the sub with light tings. Snake said it best: I'm no hero, and I never was. So if not me, then who?
But, as with all things, Aldric had to place these thoughts aside as the submarine opened up for him, and he ambled on inside. He was just glad to have something of a plan, as opposed to having none at all - with this something, when he got back to Vale and had more time to work, he could figure out the 'who' in addition to the 'what'. Inside the submarine, he was greeted by the captain, two guards, and another sailor, who took his bag, to be placed with his other effects, deeper in the ship. The two guards came forward with enough bindings that Harry Houdini would have had difficulty in escaping them, and Aldric was soon bound from head to toe, his arm pried off.
After being escorted to the brig, the guards separated, and the Captain nodded once. "We're going to put -"
"I know, Captain." Aldric nodded, "I could use the nap. C'mon." He tilted his head to the side, presenting his neck for a medic to approach.
He felt a small pinprick, then something cold flush into his veins, and then all went dark.
For seven days, Pyrrha Nikos had been stuck, locked up, inside of a depressingly dark room and dreadfully tiny bathroom, with little human interaction or food beyond her equally tortured 'cellmate', and when both came in the thrice-a-day occurrence of a guard coming about to throw a brown paper bag inside. Neither she nor her snow-white companion could read the text on the bag, but the food in it tasted awful, which only sought to make her time even worse. When the two's spirits had still been somewhat high, Weiss had even joked that perhaps the food's taste was on purpose - as a means of torturing prisoners and convincing soldiers to fight harder, such that the former would talk easier and the latter could win faster, and both could go home and get real food.
Unfortunately, jokes such as that didn't last long, as the days dragged on and on. The two had tried on an occasion or two to save up some modicum of strength and try to break out, but each one met with an even more staggering defeat than the last, and injuries that the terrans only gave the bare minimum treatment for. Pyrrha had thought that her semblance could steer them true, but perhaps through their exposure to Ash's fighting style, they had adapted to her with remarkable speed, resulting in their having lost and still being stuck here. Pyrrha still felt some of her ribs shift every time she took a breath, and Weiss' bruises were still clearly visible, having degraded to ugly purple and yellow welts, even in the near total darkness of their windowless room.
If anything, however, Pyrrha considered herself and her cellmate somewhat fortunate in that, one, they had been locked in a bathroom, and two, that the plumbing still worked, where anything else electrical seemed to have failed. Those small things, the creature comforts, were all they could take solace in, in these literally and metaphorically dark times, where even conversation failed to brighten their spirits or lighten their day. As time had begun to melt together into one formless mass, their sleeping schedules ruined by the lack of exposure to daylight, the two had silently begun to wonder when, or even if, they would ever leave this place. Their only spark of hope had come and gone, excused as naught but an auditory hallucination brought about by their near-total sensory deprivation, when once they were ready to swear they had heard Professor Ozpin's voice, louder than ever before.
But when this phantom Ozpin came and went, and more formless time passed alongside him, the spark lit in the two's souls faded away to nothing.
As a result, when the door to the halls outside opened up, initially they did nothing at all, thinking it merely another food delivery. How strange was it, then, when they found three guards for each of them standing in the doorway, and two more entering the room - roughly grabbing their dirty arms and hauling them to their feet, before latching thin shackles onto their hands and legs, binding them in chains. The guards then roughly pushed them outside and guided them through the fire station, where soon their numbers - both terran and prisoner - grew, as the other Beacon students were revealed to have been released in chains and brought outside.
Teams did slowly meander closer together, for comfort and for some excrutiatingly minor semblance of normalcy, but little more than silent, sullen acknowledgements were shared between friends. Pyrrha shared a nod with Ren, whose back was straight but eyes were glazed over. Nora gave her a smile that didn't even come close to her eyes, nor even wrinkle her face. Pyrrha saw Ecru nursing an injured arm wrapped tightly in bandages, her eyes firmly locked to her shuffling feet and unmoving. Srebro, though towering over everyone, managed to take up no presence at all, as each movement was stilted, her head hung low on her neck, her lip seeming to constantly quiver. Coco and her team were at the head of their march, almost in better shape than the rest of them, but only because they seemed more adept at hiding it all, to the point where Coco's usual sashay was still present. The act fell apart, however, when one looked at the frowns on their faces, the dull glow to their eyes, and the furrow to their brows.
Myrtle and Blake were both still missing, but the latter's team seemed to have gained a new member, whose physical state garnered a nearly inaudible gasp from Pyrrha. Riddled with reddened bandages and missing an entire limb, Yang's usual demeanor had been torn asunder, dampened and put out, like a bonfire deprived and stolen of its fuel. Next to Yang, Weiss took up sentry, taking a hand in hers in a comforting gesture, trying to appear as the only source of strength on the team - as, on her other side, with her hand on her shoulder, their team leader seemed to be in an even worse state. Lacking all of the energy of yester-week, all of the enthusiasm and gravitas, Ruby's head hung lower than all, her eyes puffy and red, shoulders and back slumped as though pressed against a great weight.
All of them collectively flinched and moved to cover their eyes when they were guided outside and into the sun. The clouds above were a deep, dark gray, but the sky above them was red, as though stained by the fires of the sun the kingdom had been shot with. Still, even with the clouds somewhat blocking the light of Remnant's true sun, the light was still great and harsh to those who had not been exposed to it for seven days. Their eyes all collectively flared with pain, even those who looked only at the ground. The air around them was still and lifeless, with not a breeze or the sound of a bird for what felt like miles. There was only the sound of the terrans, their soldiers and their machines, the light crashing of the waves of an ocean cast aglow by the orange-red light of the sky above.
Pyrrha wondered how the rest of Vale faired against the terrans, barely able to see the kingdom in the distance through her squinted eyes. She wondered why no one - not Atlas, nor Mistal, nor even Vacuo came to their defense. Vale had been left to its own to fight against an enemy whose power included and subjugated that of the stars. Pyrrha wondered how long they would have lasted against the terrans had Ash's gambit not paid off, had the Navy not flattened and crafted their No Man's Land, and that thought prompted another: Their entire trek, Pyrrha had not seen the shield-fighter, despite knowing he had been imprisoned with them. She'd seen the terrans split them up, had seen them haul him into the building alongside everyone else.
Of course Pyrrha began to wonder where all of their missing compatriots were, now. Where were Myrtle and Blake? Where could Ash have been taken? Where was Adam Taurus and his White Fang? And why go through the effort of imprisoning Ash here in the fire station, only to move him somewhere else? Fortunately, some of those questions would be answered as her eyes began to adjust to the light. When she regained the strength to raise her gaze and look ahead as opposed to down and behind her hand, she found another group of terrans, much larger than theirs, escorting another group of prisoners, also greater in size. Though they all wore the gray improvised 'uniforms' of the White Fang, their masks had been stolen from them, a fact which extended to their red-haired leader, who walked proudly, his head held high, his back straight, and a frown born of anger as opposed to despair, marring his face alongside bruises, cuts, burns, and wounds.
Flanking him, she was so thankful to discover, were Myrtle and Blake, but that relief washed away when she saw their physical state. The latter's arm was heavily bandaged and hanging from a sling, and she walked with a noticeable limp, while the former had a hand on the faunus student's shoulder, holding onto her for guidance, as her eyes were both heavily bandaged and the right side of her body appeared as though it had been briefly set ablaze. The sorrow that welled up inside of her clenched tightly at her heart and would not let go. Nothing, not even turning her head to the west and seeing Ozpin standing there, with a bandaged and bruised Professor Goodwitch and a scythe-holding huntsmen flanking each side of him, undid or soothed the pain welling up inside of her.
The Beacon students and the White Fang were all assembled in one massive group, and out from the assembled terrans strode one man, whose patches on his uniform were different from the others, indicating he of being higher rank than anyone else. Following him were twice the number of soldiers than there were on Ozpin's side.
Ozpin, however, didn't even wait for the terran officer to cross the distance, he began approaching, cane tapping angrily on the ground as he called out. "I see one army, one leader, and fourteen students, where I expect to see all of that and one more." He called out, burned face etched in fury. "I know what words you have exchanged with the council of three but I guarantee you I will neither sign nor co-sign anything unless my terms are met! My students are non-negotiable and one of them is still yet missing!" The terrans had tight grips on their rifles as the Headmaster, the huntress, and the huntsman all approached; all of them waiting for a chance to fight it out.
Pyrrha had never seen the Headmaster so livid before, so ready to take a life.
The same, however, could not be said for the terran who spoke to him, his accent the strangest thing she'd ever heard. "I know what it is you have demanded, headmaster. But as much as I would much like to say the opposite, I do not control the speed of the submarine in which he has been entombed -"
"Entombed?!"
The terran held up his hands, "a poor choice of words, for which I apologize. My point is simply that traveling under or even through the ocean is not nearly as easy nor as predictable as flying through the air. What best I can do and what best I have done -"
"Is stall." Ozpin growled, "so help me, Colonel, if I discover you've experimented on him -"
"What would you do, Headmaster?" The terran outright challenged. "With Atlas fallen there truly is little you can do. Any problem you face us with will be met with the full force of my planet, something your world has only met in metaphor, not in practice." He said, lowering his gaze, threateningly. "I guarantee you, any threat you make is groundless. You do damage to us in short term, and to yourselves in long term." He finished.
Ozpin's grip on his cane turned white-knuckled, and he gritted his teeth; Pyrrha could tell that the Headmaster knew the man's words to be true, and was furious beyond measure at this knowledge. After a moment though, he straightened up, took a deep breath, and let it out through his nose.
"You're right, Colonel." He said, his voice now the epitome of all that it had once been: Calm, warm, even, and patient. "There is desperately little my world can do to yours in a military conflict. What little we have in quality you have shown us we simply lack in quantity. However as you so eloquently put it, Atlas has fallen. The fighting is done. It is no longer done through bullets, bombs, blades, and ballistae. The fighting is now to be done through even deadlier weapons: Words." He drawled, smile ever so slowly fading away. "Sharper than any blade and more dangerous than any bullet... This war has now turned to its most deadly front: Politics, and my strength is not just in battle prowess." Ozpin responded, resting both hands on the top of his cane. "Already you and I are both aware that your world is at the disadvantage here, even though we've roles to play. Imagine how monumentally worse off you and yours would be were I to turn this strength to our new front. You want to know what I would do, Colonel?
"I would turn your world against you." He growled, the calm demeanor he'd summoned vanishing in an instant as he leaned forward. "Now where is my god damn student?!"
And as though decreed by fate, the moment he made his demand, the sound of the ocean's waves crashing grew greater. All heads turned to the east, and they could see, in the distance and growing closer, a monolithic tube of darkened metal rising up from the depths of the sea, growing larger and larger until it reached the surface of the water. The water broke with a loud crash and sprays of white, an alarm could now be heard, coming from the submersible monolith as it came in to one of the less damaged ports. There, Pyrrha could see a litany of terrans springing into action, grabbing an improvised staircase and preparing it as the monolith came to port.
Upon arrival, the staircase was extended down to it, as a hatch opened on its surface. A few sailors in blue uniforms climbed out and took ahold of the staircase, steadying and locking it into place, connecting the seaborn, man-made monster to the land. Once it halted its advance and secured its route back to land, the sailors went back to the hatch, beckoning down into it. After a few moments, several more men began climbing out - these ones garbed in body armor and wielding rifles. They surrounded the hatch, rifles leveled on something inside. Then, out of the depths of the monolith, came something awful.
Pyrrha first, then Weiss, who nudged her teammates, then Ruby, who gasped, and prompted the rest to look closely, found Ash slowly, laboriously climbing out of the monolith. His prosthetic arm was as absent as Yang's, and it appeared he was so weak that there was another sailor below him, helping him climb and keeping him from falling. Ash finally hauled himself outside, his one good arm bound behind his back. He quickly fell to his knees, breathing heavily, covered in grimy, bloody sweat. One of the soldiers grabbed him by his hair and hauled him to his feet, pushing him forward as even more guards emerged from the ship, having followed behind him.
By the time Ash's feet hit the staircase and he began weakly climbing to the ports he'd once rampaged across, there were thirty guards, each with enormous, powerful rifles all trained on him, all following him and encouraging he stay the course. Aldric appeared pale and weak - each step unsteady, his entire body swaying to and fro. None of the power, none of the confidence, and none of the idealism that had once filled his every waking breath existed in this new, frail creature emerging from his seaborne prison.
"Ash..." Pyrrha heard Ruby whisper, her voice wavering and tears threatening to spill again.
And as Ash grew closer, Pyrrha realized what Ruby had seen before anyone else: The depths to which the terrans had bound him. There was a muzzle tied so tightly to his face that his skin bulged against it, a straight-jacket bound his chest and chains bound that. His legs were shackled together, his eyes were covered in several thick layers of bindings. It appeared as though she had just witnessed a damned and tortured soul brought back from the depths hell, and for a moment she wondered if any of those actually did apply to him - if, and how badly, he'd been treated down there, so far away from everyone else.
"Your student." Spoke the Colonel, breaking the silence like a cannon, as Ash was guided towards them, placed equidistant between the White Fang and the Beacon Students, one of his legs so weak that he found himself listing towards the former, held upright only by one of the guards surrounding him. "As was promised... From the beginning."
Pyrrha couldn't tear her eyes off of Ash, she felt them sting and well up with tears as she watched him stand there stilly, unmoving, the only sign that he was even alive being the shallow rise and fall of his chest from within the confines of his binding jacket.
"He looks mistreated."
"We kept his needs met, Headmaster." The Colonel assured, "but you know as well and I the unbridled damage he did to us with each encounter. Were you in our position, you would have done the same. Were he only human, the sedatives would drain from his system by the end of the day. As he is... I cannot say." He said, pulling out a folder from a briefcase, "now..." He opened the folder, and retrieved a pen. "End it, and they are yours." He clicked the pen.
Ozpin gave the Colonel another angry glare, but took the pen and signed his name at the bottom of the thick paper, right underneath three others.
"And another." Said the Colonel, flipping the first paper up and revealing a second. "Written in our language. Saying exactly the same as the first."
And when Ozpin signed it as well, the colonel nodded, placed the papers back where they belonged, and handed the briefcase to a soldier, who accepted it and then ran off, as Pyrrha could hear one of their rotor-craft powering up in the distance. The colonel ordered everyone's release, as a large cart, with a half dozen crates, was wheeled out and presented to Ozpin's escorts. Goodwitch waved her hand and the cart came to life, rolling closer to her, as the prisoners were shoved in Ozpin's direction.
Ash made it two steps before he stumbled, but Ruby was there in a flash of flower petals, one hand on his back and another on his chest. His team was there just a second after her, Myrtle having broken off from the White Fang to dash over.
"Come on, walk and work - get the muzzle off, he needs to breathe!" Pyrrha heard Ecru order, as everyone began moving towards Ozpin.
Pyrrha approached GEMS and Ruby, her offer to remove the chains binding him accepted. It took more concentration and effort than she would have liked, but she was enveloped in her onyx glow and soon the chains binding Ash slithered away, just as Srebro undid the latches keeping the muzzle secured to Ash's face, and Myrtle deftly undid the knot keeping his blinds in place.
As they reached Ozpin, Ash's bindings were removed and dropped, abandoned on the ground. Pyrrha realized they were in for something rough when she saw the huge, throbbing bruises underneath his shredded clothes when they ripped off the straight jacket. She found, however, that she'd managed to underestimate the terrans once they got the muzzle and the blindfolds off. Ash's face looked like one huge painting of blood, cuts, and bruises. His cheeks were so swollen that his eyes were practically shut, more of his face was purple than wasn't, and it appeared as though every other breath summoned some blood to leak out of his mouth.
Whether vengeance or for information, the terrans had been torturing him, even through the sedatives they'd poured into him.
As, through the haze of lethargy, drugs wearing off, and no doubt intense pain, still seemed keenly aware of everyone's collectively held breath as his face was revealed. It took him a moment, and a few breaths to summon up the energy, but he managed to force his face to contort itself into a bloody grin.
"Yeah... I ain't as sexy as Ren, but..." He shrugged, it appearing to take all of his strength just to do so. "Once the scars set, I think I'll at least edge Jaune out." He drawled in a tired, rumbly voice.
There was a beat of silence, broken not by those immediately surrounding him, but by a brief snort from Lie Ren, who quickly covered his mouth in an attempt to hide his growing smirk and keep his composure. He took a moment before shaking his head, wiping his grimy face.
"I am glad to see." He quipped, "that we can still love you for your personality, Ash."
"I got him to talk." Ash said, nodding off to Ecru, who too was covering her mouth, but unable to mask the tears beginning to flow freely. "That's just one step closer to his pe-" But he found himself interrupted by a large, rasping cough, from which spat a large dollop of blood.
"Ah, you messed it up, Beebee." Came a faint voice, as Ruby clapped Ash's back and he recovered. The tortured fighter looked up, seeing Yang approach. "You can't let a few ribs in your lungs kill the joke, dude."
Pyrrha wasn't sure, but she was willing to mistake the sudden throbbing motion on the right side of his face as him trying to arc an eyebrow. He patted Ruby on her back, nodding once; the crimson rookie reluctantly let him go, such that he could stumble forward towards the once fiery blonde. "Oh... You disarm me with your wit."
"Oh." Yang nodded, her voice shaking; she pursed her lips as her eyes started to well up. "So we're starting that, huh?" She met Ash halfway and the two embraced; Ash appeared hesitant, his arm wavering a moment before he returned the hug, bringing his hand up to the back of her head and holding her tight. "I'm sorry, Ash." She whispered into his ear, a tear falling from her eye.
Ash's resolve appeared to fracture at that, as he gasped. "Nah..." He said, shaking his head. "No, Yang. You don't have anything to be sorry for." He said, leaning his head into hers, "I'm sorry. So damn sorry." He let out a quiet sob. "For everything."
After the two had a few moments together, Ruby joined them, not even bothering to hide her emotions as she held them both. Soon to join her were the rest of the two teams represented and reunited. Pyrrha felt something stir within her heart as she watched this, she turned to see Nora hook her arm around Ren's, and for CFVY to grow closer to eachother. A look forward saw Ozpin's scythe-wielding companion start towards the embracing group, but Ozpin held his hand in front of the man's chest, shaking his head and mouthing something Pyrrha couldn't hear. In the end, after her hesitation, Pyrrha chose to allow RWBY and GEMS to have their moment - they all had been through much, but those two perhaps more than most, and she instead fell closer to her team, longing for the days to come, when Jaune would be discharged from the hospital and everyone would be together again.
Several long moments passed, and it wasn't GEMS or RWBY that broke the moment, but rather the formerly masked leader of the White Fang, approaching the two. Ash, such as he was, saw the manapproach even without looking, and he stiffened up, giving Yang a single, final pat on the back, prompting her to raise her eyes and see the man approach. The two teams broke apart, and Ozpin and his entourage chose then to make their entrance, while Pyrrha grew suddenly aware of the continued presence of the terrans, barely even a few dozen yards behind them.
Adam Taurus found his path briefly blocked by Blake, whose own eyes were red with emotion, and whose jaw was set, ready to resist the faunus before her. The two shared a long look, speaking volumes without words, before she backed away, seeming to find her answer. The rest of the group parted as Taurus approached, intent upon Ash, who was braced, and was himself bracing, the blonde fighter next to him.
When Taurus reached Ash, the two met eyes, two hazel orbs peering down into two gunmetal gray eyes. Yang found herself looking back and forth between the two, before her eyes, and that of everyone present, fell to Taurus, when he spoke.
"They respect you." He said. "I saw what you did, weeks ago. I can see why."
Ash blinked once.
"Uh... Thanks." He grunted, with a brief twitch of his upper body; and after a brief, awkward pause, he added, "dude."
"Taurus." He said, with a nod. "You're okay for a human. I'd shake your hand..."
"Yeah, I seem to be missing one." Ash leaned over to Yang, "my eyes are swollen shut... Is this guy taller than me?"
"A lot of people are taller than you." Yang whispered back, a full head taller than her similarly one-armed friend. "I'm surprised my sister isn't taller than you."
"You should've met Yuno." Ash straightened up again, "I appreciate the respect, mister Taurus." He said, with a nod. "But I get the strangest feeling this isn't quite the time or the place."
"Only time." Taurus countered, "only place." He looked past Ash, to Ozpin, and then briefly over Ozpin, to Vale. "Much as I think many opinions may have changed about us, we've for the moment lost our mutual enemy. So for now I have to leave this place." He reached out and patted Ash on the shoulder. "We'll meet again."
"Hopefully I'll be better looking." Ash retorted, as Taurus' hand slid off his shoulder and he about-faced.
"Here." They heard Goodwitch call, after she received a nod from Ozpin. "Most of these are yours." She said, telekinetically wheeling the cart of crates over to the leader of the Fang, and removing one crate from the stack. "Try not to cause trouble, young man."
Taurus huffed, as some of the Fang took control of the cart and began wheeling it away. He passed by Blake, and the two shared another look, but shorter this time - and he passed by her. She looked back, watching him rally his men and leave. She turned back to her friends and allies as Ozpin cleared his throat.
"We've a long walk ahead of us, I'm afraid." He said, nodding to each of his students. "Whatever it was they did, we still have not yet had the time or the resources to fix our electricity." He approached Ash in particular, "if I may?"
"I'm blind, beaten, and bruised, sir. What are you going to do?" He asked.
"Quite right." Said Ozpin, as he placed two fingers on Ash's forehead.
As Ozpin did whatever it was he did, the scythe-wielding companion approached, "you lose it entirely, kiddo?" He asked, frowning down at Yang's bandaged stump.
Her sullen demeanor returned, and she nodded. "When he and I woke up on the ship..." She nodded behind her, to the beached ship Ash had rode in on. "We broke out and started fighting. Aura got depleted and they threw a bomb at me. It... May... Still be there, but I don't think it could have been reattached even if it had happened two minutes ago."
Ruby was at her sister's side instantly, hugging her side. "But are you okay?" She asked, her voice muffled.
Yang bucked herself up as a sigh of relief could be heard from Ash. "I'll be fine. It'll just make my next fight with Beebee more even."
Ruby rolled her eyes, as the scythe-wielder placed his hands on both of their heads, ruffling their hair, as Ozpin stepped back from Ash. "It won't do much for the injuries themselves, but -"
"Holy fuck, how do I do that?" Aldric groaned, the lisp, lethargy, and rumble now gone from his voice. "'Cause I've got a kink in my back I'd love to numb for a few hours." He stretched his jaw, the pain apparently vacated from his face.
"I mustn't take all the credit, young man. I, as does anyone, learned the trick from a teacher." Ozpin looked over his shoulder to Goodwitch.
"I'm visiting your office, Professor." Ash deadpanned. "But as good as this is, pills are better, and not being eyed by a sniper is the best. So... When are we starting this long walk?"
Ozpin nodded, "right now." He said, tapping his cane on the ground. "Come along."