Chapter 47
For the Record
Jesus fucking Christ. If it isn't one thing, it's another.
You know, I find it simply amazing how often the standards for 'dumbest decision ever' keep getting higher for me, and subsequently how often I have to raise those standards.
Seriously, originally the dumbest thing I've ever done was try to fight a demon with a fire axe axe, a bow made out of airplane cables, and a flare gun. There was no way I could have topped that - that alone would be at the top of anyone's life list of idiotic things, and yet a day later I made the conscious choice to play spy for what basically equated for a doomsday cult, and holy shit did it snowball from there.
Picking a fight with a demigoddess, betraying everyone and everything I know, outright lying to everyone who trusts me, betraying my allies to gain even more, fighting an army of modern soldiers with a sword and shield, walking into a pseudo-nuclear bunker with a pistol and a police baton, bluffing the strongest man on the planet, telling my Mom that I'd done all of this, you all know as well as I that the list goes on and it only gets crazier the further it goes. Every single time I make a dumb choice, I'm always convinced it's the dumbest thing I can possibly do, and that nothing before or after could top it.
So now I'm not even going to bother labeling it. My next feat will be stupid beyond comprehension, and you know what? By the end of this year - no, by the end of the week I'm convinced I'll be doing something dumber. That was just how my fucking life works.
Now, you're probably wondering what the fuck I'm rambling on about now.
Well, I'll put it to you this way:
My plan was what I said it was: To play Commander Shepard's Damage Control and visit my 'crew', as it were.
I got as far as Yang (my first stop), before the universe went: "Haha! No." And Qrow, plastered and drunk off his ass, showed up to tell me that the UN's basically going to every single motherfucking kingdom and demanding, on pain of no Earth infrastructural support (if that's even a phrase) for their rebuilding, either their Deity Brothers Relics, or failing that, the identities of their Maidens.
Subsequently revealing to me Salem's master stroke: She's pulling an MCU Thanos, revealing and getting out in the open everything she needs for victory, such that she can just one-two punch the whole goddamn world come Vytal, first by sparking another confrontation between Earth and Remnant, and then both of them and the Grimm, and then by finding every Maiden, using Cinder to absorb all of their powers, and then stealing every single one of the Relics.
Worst part is, with the inter-global climate she's creating, she'll be able to complete all of this in days. Cinder and I wouldn't even need to hunt down the Maidens - she could just send the Masters and their handlers out to find them, kick their asses, and round them all up. Then Cinder comes around, steals their power, opens up the vaults, takes the relics, and then...
Well, like I said: Ever read Infinity Gauntlet?
*Snap*.
So, I have a choice to make, and as per the beginning of this record, it's egregiously stupid, but let's be honest: It won't be the dumbest thing I'll do. Give it a week. Give it a day. GIVEITAGODDAMNHOUR!
See, with Salem Thanos'ing everything, it occurs to me that I most likely won't go to her castle immediately after Vytal. If I'm correct, I may not go there period until we've killed the Maidens and obtained the four Relics... And as has been pointed out to me on numerous occasions by Torchwick, while ironclad proof may not exist, it isn't difficult to notice the coincidences in shit going wrong and my not being around when they do. Worse is that I suspect Salem of potentially knowing about RWBY, the show, and subsequently the thought may be in her head that I know about it as well, seeing as I'm the youngest guy to survive the plane crash and thus the likeliest candidate for it to be on my radar.
Resultantly, she may not trust me, and the hiccups I continue to introduce to her plans may lead to fullblown suspicion. So I need to either stop operating against her, which I can't do, or I need to do something that so drastically benefits her that the thought of distrusting me won't ever enter her head.
See, now, I could go a lot more into detail about that... But the interaction, reaction, and subsequent plan of action I got from Cinder invalidates a lot of the thoughts and ideas I'd originally come up with... And since I've gone to the Garden so many goddamn times now that describing the whole thing, top to bottom, like I usually do, is just asinine at this point, I'll instead just get to the point, because things managed to go better and worse than expected.
First is the simplest... In a manner of speaking: I left Neo at the hospital. Faked a throat injury and had it vetted by Deer to excuse her being mute, but before I left I gave her an experiment to run while I was gone. The long and short of that one is that Plan B I mentioned an entry or two back. I used the Power Glove to expedite the process a bit (since that's always given me my best results), and made a Master Sword. And a Hylian shield because it just seems wrong to only have one.
Side note: If I remember right, the implication was that the 'choosing' the sword does was explained by Skyward Sword as being Fi, an AI-Spirit-like-thing that lives in the sword, who judges the wielder of their worthiness. Well, if that's true, she's a crafty bitch, since, because I skipped the whole 'drawing the sword from the stone' bit by just forging it from the Power Glove, she turned around and locked the thing in its sheath. Like, nothing I do can pull the sword out of its sheathe... And she's managed to hijack the Power Glove to boot - I can't despawn it, either proving that the Zelda Goddesses' magic is stronger than mine, or I don't have nearly as much control over my abilities as I like to think. Or both.
Once again: These magic powers are starting to become just as much of a source of unbridled fear as they are a wellspring of endless strength.
I think I'm going to start keeping a periodic table on me. I figured out how to draw water vapor out of the air and fill a cup with it, but I also know I can 'feel' the particles in the air if I focus enough. So, I keep a table on me, practice enough, strictly speaking I can start messing around with atomic recombination. Go Dr. Manhattan, and not need to rely so goddamn much on my magic.
But regardless, at least it gives me a somewhat easy method of judging someone's worthiness: If the sword lets them unsheathe it, they must be capable of using it.
Thus my leaving Neo with an experiment to run. I told her to go around to all of Goud's contacts and ask them to try and draw the sword, and I made it simple on her by telling her to just tell them that the 'who/what/when/where/why' is too complicated to write out, so I'd give them the details when my voice came back.
And if they asked where 'Yuno' went, 'she's' out getting my arm fixed up.
So, hopefully that'll bear some fruit... Else I'm just going to put it in a chest and pitch it in a mountain and start up a legend about a magical sword. I figure that has about just as likely a chance of finding someone worthy as me giving it to a bunch of Main and Supporting Characters would.
After that, I slipped on some people clothes, snuck out of the hospital, and found Cinder.
She promptly revealed to me she's a bit more savvy than Neo gives her credit for... Or she knows me too well. Because when I told her that the 'request' I'd dropped her earlier, to ask Salem what she'd think of me being a double agent for her against Ozpin was less of a request than it was a 'brace yourself' warning, she straight up said she'd pegged that was the case the moment I'd said it.
Yeah.
See, this should have been an omen, because me getting exactly what I wanted, once again, proved to be exactly what I didn't want, and just threw the rest of the things I'd planned on into disarray. I had to draw on so many ideas and details from so many originally disparate plans and scenarios that the resultant mess of a gameplan was an unrecognizable beast, continuing the trend of my plans never going to plan, and that not necessarily being a bad thing, because of how goddamn paranoid I'm becoming.
Moving on: We then proved again that we're on the same page when I offered up that I was doing it as a means of locating the Maiden as my explanation, to which she said she'd figured, or else why even do it? Given those two facts, she spun the story that way to Salem, who cleared it as a... Well, not a 'good' idea, but an idea that could work.
She was pissed when I mentioned I didn't know yet where Amber was.
But that frown turned right the fuck around when I told her that I'd figured out that Beacon's relic wasn't even in Beacon at all. I fed her some more details I'd learned through the Watchmen, and then told her that the UN had demanded either the Maiden, or the Relic, and that, since the former obviously wouldn't happen, Ozpin had no choice but to agree to the latter, or forfeit Earth's help in rebuilding Vale, and that I know when and where this deal was going down.
Now, remember when I said that should have been an omen?
Here's where it kicks in. Because my plan had been for her to basically go, 'holy shit, I need to talk to the boss', take a few days to call Salem and to set up some kind of attack on the terran convoy transporting the relic to Earth. (Side note: I bet you money it's going to Area 51.)
But I failed to consider the fact that Cinder simultaneously has a superiority complex, and has been growing an inferiority complex as a result of the secrets Salem's been keeping from her.
In short: Cinder wants to prove herself as wholly trustworthy and capable to Salem, in the efforts of getting the White Witch to talk more openly, and share more of her secrets of power with her.
So instead of calling Salem and getting her to send a Master to do this (which would have allowed me to slip away from Beacon to fight and kill said Master, to take the relic), she grabbed Mercury, sent word to the White Fang to have a functioning bullhead ready for us, and now we're in Mountain Glenn, waiting for the deal to go down.
Again: Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All of my plans were thrown out the window. Ruined and destroyed, but simultaneously improved and legitimized.
First: The Watchmen won't expect me to be out working against them, because Neo's taking my place and is giving me an alibi... And since the plan is to attack when it reaches Earth, there's even less chance for them to suspect me, as opposed to believing that there may be Masters on Earth feeding Salem information.
Second: The Legion of Doom won't even remotely suspect me if something goes wrong... Because Cinder's right here to watch it all go down, and to vouch for me and my loyalty. After all: I did get this information, and when Cinder chose to act on it, I did provide a plan that would basically guarantee success, and alongside her and Mercury, was instrumental in said success, proving to Cinder and to Salem that there can be no question of my loyalty. I've gone above and beyond the call of duty to ensure the Legion's success.
Now, that may sound stupid beyond belief.
And let's be honest: It is.
Oh god it is.
But as we've been sitting here in Mountain Glenn, I realized this: Since we're making the likely assumption that Salem isn't bringing anyone home until we've killed the Maidens and obtained all four Relics, had everything gone to plan, and had I obtained the Relic, then Salem would only have had three of the four, and the chance would have existed and perhaps had been high that, instead of recalling everyone to the castle, she would have instead merely appointed one person courier for the three relics she had, and made the rest of us search for the final one.
And since I always go with the worst-case scenarios, that basically means I'd lose my chance to reach her castle... And all else equal, when I would reach it, Earth and Remnant would have trashed eachother so fucking badly that I wouldn't have any of the resources I've spent the better part of the last year building up. Earth and Remnant would have torn eachother apart fighting themselves and the Grimm, and compounded with the damage we'd do in the hunt for the Maidens and the Relics, there would hardly be anything left for me to call on when I finally would locate Salem's Domain.
That would basically be all of my plans gone, right there.
And yes, the chance exists that after months of fruitless searching, she'd recall us all to her castle so we could plan accordingly, but that still would run a heavy risk of Earth and Remnant destroying eachother in the interim.
And, again, yes, that's the worst case scenario. I know I'm overly dramatic like that. But isn't it better to prepare for the worst and be pleasantly surprised by the best?
Now, this does... Obviously, have one major (one might even describe it as 'existential') risk to it, in that I'm fucking giving Salem all four of the relics.
But... I'm willing to bet that obtaining all of them doesn't mean instant victory for her. These are four weird-ass what-the-fucks, not six stones going in a gauntlet for a snap of the fingers - and even if they were, I'd still have all the time it would take for her to place the proverbial stones in the gauntlet and snap her fingers before defeat was inevitable.
In short, in doing this I will have a very... Very... Very short window in which to operate.
Buuuuuut, I'll also have at least nine months to come up -
"Aldric." He heard, whispered through the cold, late-night air.
The spy looked up from the dim screen of his tablet, an unamused expression on his face, as he stared blankly at the assassin's son, as he knelt back down behind the window he'd been looking out of. "I just sat down." He whispered, leaning over to nudge Cinder.
She awoke with a brief start, before she stretched out, popping a few bones, before following Aldric's gaze to Mercury. "Are they here?"
Mercury nodded, as Aldric saved his document, killed power to the tablet, and stuffed it in his bag. "Two buildings down, a few terran cars just rolled up." He said, over the distant sounds of machinegun fire. "They're clearing out Grimm." And he nodded over his shoulder, brandishing his binoculars. "Saw a bullhead on its way, VAF colors. So I bet one of the terran rotor-wings won't be far behind."
Aldric yawned, stretching both of his arms, and picking up his gear, Cinder following suit, as Mercury took up the binoculars again and watched outside. Aldric and Cinder equipped themselves again for war, the latter sliding his new utility belt from his waist, and stripping his shirt from his back and his pants and boots from his legs. This attracted a look of utter confusion from Cinder, but Aldric paid her no heed as he dug into one of the pouches of his utility belt. There was a method to his madness, and it had everything to do with his armor - or, to be more accurate, his lack thereof.
He had, in short order, gotten sick and fucking tired of getting shot all the damn time when he went up against the terrans. His favored knightmare suit usually held its own when things got personal, but when there were thousands of guns firing on him every second, the flaws in said armor became readily apparent, very fast. Add on that he'd actually found the armor before they'd left Vale's walls. The gauntlets and boots were fine enough, and he took those with him, but the chest piece had been riddled with so many bullets and bomb blasts that it was useless as anything but a really expensive paperweight. So Aldric didn't even bother bringing it with him, instead deciding he needed a replacement, which he now pulled out of his belt.
Aldric sensed Cinder watching him, wearing an expression of both confusion and rapt fascination as Aldric opened up one of the pouches and pulled out a small glass vial, inside of which was a small throwing-star with a light blue center, and an indistinct object sitting next to it. Clad only in his skivvies, Aldric held the vial up to what meager moonlight was penetrating through the ill-maintained, abandoned building, frowning at it and giving it a few shakes, the liquid inside the throwing star's center briefly appearing cyan as the pale moonlight shone through it, before he shrugged, clenched the vial in his fist, and then crushed it in his hand. Cinder heard the muffled sound of glass breaking, and then in a blink of an eye, where once Aldric's hand was empty, now there was a bodysuit that rattled and clinked, almost like chainmail.
Aldric grabbed the shoulders of the suit and held it up, twisting it around and examining it in the low light. This wasn't a can of fish he had wanted to open, but it was so low on the list of nuclear options that it straddled the line of not being one in the first place. Add on that Aldric had been expecting an imminent duel with a Master, and an eventual fight to the death with Cinder and after her, Salem, he'd known he'd need an exponential leap in his defensive abilities. He knew, as he slid the suit on, that it wouldn't be perfect; Vibranium could absorb all the physical force it wanted, but there were far more instances of the Panther's suit being cut through than there were examples of Cap's shield getting broken, but this would offer him a whole hell of a lot more protection against gunfire and massive numbers than his previous set of armor.
And it was far easier than he would have thought to wear a Black Panther suit underneath his usual attire, compared to the armor he'd gotten from the Garden, which was bulkier and harder to hide. From the neck down, so long as he wore the knightmare gauntlets over his hands and adopted long sleeve shirts, it wouldn't even be possible to tell he had it on in the first place.
"Care to explain?" Aldric heard Cinder whisper, as he adjusted the fit of the arms, finding that the suit breathed a lot more than one would think, looking at it.
Aldric turned to look at her, and he saw her appraising the suit, an eyebrow arced and the ghost of her previous confused and fascinated expression still on her face. So he grinned, "oh, I was the first to eat my fuckin' words when Ant Man came out. Thought it would be ridiculous but it turned out to be awesome. So I commited a grievous sin and combined Marvel and DC." He nudged the belt with his foot, "Batman's utility belt, Ant Man's Pym Particles... Turns what was already something that could hold a minor arsenal into something that could hold a fully-stocked armory." He did, indeed, have a small chunk of kryptonite in the belt - a fact of which he was very proud of.
Cinder nodded to the side, "I was going to ask about that next, but my curiosity was directed first towards the suit. I never would have thought you would wear chain mail."
Aldric grinned, "you know that magic metal my shield's made out of?" She nodded, and he patted his chest with a light 'tink tink'. "This is made of the same stuff."
"And you're choosing... Just now... To wear it." She deadpanned, as Aldric slid his pants back on. "As opposed to any time before today."
Aldric wagged a gloved finger, "ah, but! Realize that I haven't really had a chance to put it on before now. Yeah I've been stocking the belt since I made it to Beacon, but the invasion came so fast that I had to make due with the knightmare look. Add on that I have no way of explaining the goodies in the belt, I had to choose to go for my weapons, things Goud Etiolate had a precedent for, instead of it when they showed up." He explained, now sliding on his boots and outer leg armor. "Then there was the shit with Xiao Long and the boat... This is the first chance I've had to put it on."
Cinder nodded to the side, as she picked up Kylo Ren's lightsaber. "And... Did it not come with head protection?" She asked, as Aldric slid his shirt over his head, and then grabbed his longcoat.
"Lady, I do a lot of stupid shit, but there is indeed a line I won't cross, and running around in a cat mask crosses that line." And wearing the helmet, even in combat, kind of defeated the purpose of wearing all of his clothes over the armor: It was a dead giveaway that he was packing more than just a few plates here and there.
She blinked, "a cat mask?"
"Comic books, Hot Stuff. If you value your sanity, don't." He grunted, fitting his gauntlets on each of his hands, and then bending down to grab his sword and pistol. "I'm looking into replacements, but until then..." He kicked at the red, white, and blue discus leaned against the wall, his foot bouncing off of it with a light twang. "I'll stick to Old Glory here."
Cinder scoffed, as she clipped her hilt to her belt. "You named it?"
"Well, 'Captain America's Shield' is a mouthful, and the girls have been pestering Goud day and fucking night to give his weapons better names." Aldric responded, hanging the shield in question from his back. "Haven't told them what I've settled on, yet. At this point it's a game, and if he gives in, he loses."
"If you clearly didn't get results, I'd be worried about you." Cinder murmured, shaking her head, but with a wistful smile, as the two approached Mercury. "Have they arrived?"
"Bullhead landed." Mercury responded, as the two knelt down. "I think - yup, Rotor-wing's coming in. Took the long way around..." He said, as he pulled a few more pairs of binoculars out of his own bag, and placed them on the ground. "Probably means they're going to take an even longer way out, to throw off potential tails." He hummed, "or... They'll be transporting it by ground, explaining those cars."
Aldric picked up the binoculars and knelt down, coat pooling around his legs as he peered down in the same direction as Mecury, Cinder doing the same. "Would make sense... We can be pretty fucking thorough when it comes to throwing off spies." Aldric responded. "Back before World War Two, the Nazis stuffed everything they needed to rebuild their armies, tanks, and planes inside buildings that looked like schools and libraries. Few years later, I think it was where they were researching the atomic bomb, the US disguised the entire facility by literally hanging giant canopies over it that, from the air, made it look like it was a residential neighborhood. Even hired people to ride bikes across it."
"How do you know that?" Mercury grumbled.
"They're very thorough." Cinder complimented, an impressed look on her face as she too looked down at the landed bullhead and the several humvees forming a perimeter.
"Psychology class, of all things, and that's not even the half of it. We disguised the greatest land invasion in history by throwing a bunch of false plans over the radio, and then inflating hundreds of thousands of balloons to look like tanks, jeeps, and artillery, such that when they were seen from the air, it looked like we were going to invade thousands of miles north from where we intended to." Aldric always wondered how that must have gone down, a straight-faced military General looking another straight-faced military General in the eye and suggesting they blow up a bunch of balloon tanks to throw off the Nazis. "Even had one of the greatest and most decorated Generals of the time overseeing the whole thing, to give it added effect."
"You people are fucking crazy." Mercury scoffed.
"Dude." Aldric grunted, "my plan to find the Fall Maiden's comatose half-corpse was to straight up tell our mortal enemy that I'm working for his mortal enemy, and daring him to do something about it." Aldric found it thoroughly entertaining, as well as pretty fucking scary, how everyone he dealt with knew he was spying on them for someone else now, even Cinder and the Legion of Doom. Literally the scenario he feared the worst was now a reality, and somehow that was perfectly fine.
"My point."
"And his." Cinder added, as she looked up into the air. "There's the rotor-wing... Three o'clock."
Aldric looked up into the dark night sky, and grunted in affirmation: Out in the distance he could see the faint red and green lights of a helicopter, slowly growing more distinct as it grew closer. Eventually the sound of its wings spinning and beating at the air grew audible, and when it came in for a landing, Aldric saw several soldiers from the humvees dismount and form a secondary perimeter, outside the first, while every other turret gunner turned their guns inward, as the bullhead opened up. Out came Ozpin, in whose hand was a thick cuboid case, then Qrow, Goodwitch, Port and Oobleck, and then finally -
Aldric blinked, "huh..." He wondered if he should have seen this one coming.
"What?" Cinder asked.
"Blondie stepping out of the pilot's seat." Aldric grunted, "that's Rose and Xiao Long's father. Showed me a picture, pretty certain it's the same guy." He said, as Taiyang stepped out of the bullhead, sliding on a pair of gauntlets, their brass knuckles shining in the moonlight.
"Why would he call on a retired huntsman?" Cinder asked.
"Long and short of it is because Rose's mother also had silver eyes, Ozpin back then let them get away with a lot of shit." Aldric explained, "so he's in the loop, so to speak. Knows about Ozpin being the original Master, knows Qrow and his sister can turn into birds, whole nine yards. Ozpin probably plucked him out of Patch because he needed bodies, and he couldn't just drain Beacon of all of its staff." Though he did wonder who was running things with them gone.
"And he just... Told you all of that." Mercury wondered, arcing an eyebrow, as the Justice League assembled in front of their bullhead, and Agent Coulson, as well as a cadre of special forces soldiers, dismounted their helicopter.
"Once I told him I was from Earth, and we established that he was too, he started letting a lot slip." Aldric explained, "and... You know: He may have trusted me a bit more after I none-too-subtly left him a letter telling him to send someone to check out Dust 'till Dawn."
"Oh you dick." Mercury whispered, struggling to hold back a laugh.
Aldric shrugged, "I needed to set a precedent. So I broke into Beacon and left him a note, told him that something may go down at this location, and then after the exams, I walked up as Goud and told him I was the 'Aldric' that had left the note. Lent some credibility to me, and convinced him to hold off on smiting me right then and there."
"And what if we'd been caught?" Cinder inquired, coolly.
"Are you seriously saying you would've let a fifteen year old girl and a telekinetic catch you?" Aldric asked, as the two groups began advancing on each other in tandem, the turrets ringing them tracing their every movement.
"Point." Cinder conceded.
They let silence wash over them as they watched the UN and the League exchange words. All of the League seemed apprehensive about what they were about to do, none moreso than Ozpin, who, after some prodding by Coulson, presented the case to them, and opened it up. All three of them leaned a little forward, focusing on the case. Inside was a large, lantern-like object, covered in ornate gold plates, its center glowing with a light yellow hue.
Well... It ain't an infinity stone, but it might as well be. "One down." Aldric murmured, as he shifted his gaze over to Coulson, who produced a small, fork-like device from his coat, and approached Ozpin.
Coulson hovered the device over the relic for a few moments, turning down to his phone and waiting for something. After a brief amount of time passed, he nodded, seemingly satisfied with what his phone had shown him. He slid his phone into his pocket and the fork-thing in his jacket, exchanging more words with Ozpin as the Headmaster closed the case. Ozpin clenched his jaw and pursed his lips, grip on the case tightening for a moment, clearly unwilling to relinquish it, but knowing well and good that he had to, else risk something potentially even worse than what he courted by giving it to the terrans. So he handed it to Coulson, who accepted it gingerly with both hands. He nodded once to Ozpin, bowing his head briefly, before Ozpin did the same, and they each, in unison, backed away towards their respective modes of transport.
"Alright... Now's my only shot." Aldric grunted, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small metal bead. "Now, you're sure this thing'll work on Earth?"
"For the thousandth time, yes. Doesn't need CCT connection, and as long as we're in fifty miles we'll get its signal." Mercury said, exasperatedly.
"Just making sure." Aldric huffed, picking the bead up with his semblance, taking a moment to aim, and then hucking it as hard as he could at the helicopter.
By the time the little device reached the helicopter, its blades had begun spinning up again, masking the noise of impact. As Aldric watched Coulson and his guards board their aircraft, he sensed Mercury retrieve his scroll and turn it on. After a moment, he nodded, confirming that their tracker was working like they wanted it to. The helicopter, however, didn't move for ten long minutes, its occupants no-doubt waiting until the indigenous of the planet had long since flown away.
Aldric and the Legion then watched the helicopter finally take off and rise into the air, flying in the direction opposite of Ozpin's airship. Cinder was the first to step away, nodding as she did so, and returning to her pile of belongings to finish packing them up. Mercury was the second, leaving after the helicopter reached the distant border of Mountain Glenn, but Aldric kept watching, as it shrank so small and went so far that all he could see was its faint lights, glowing in the darkness.
I wonder how they intend to get our airship through the wormhole. Aldric wondered, as a loud clap of thunder echoed throughout the air, briefly preceeded by a distant lightning strike. Sure, it'll fly through just fine, but have they considered - Aldric blinked when he witnessed a brief, orange blume in the same direction as the helicopter.
He blinked again.
Had he seen that right?
"Uh..." He leaned back, calling out over his shoulder. "Hey, ah, Merc... Can you check your scroll again?"
"Aldric, man, stop asking - it works!"
"Is it explosion proof?" Aldric asked, in a bewildered tone. "Because I doubt it's explosion proof." A beat, "but if it is explosion proof... Then my next question is for Cinder... Hey Hot Stuff -"
"What the fuck?!" Aldric heard Mercury call out, sensing him glaring at his scroll, as Aldric peered down and saw the humvees taking off in the direction of the explosion, tires squealing.
"I guess that answers that, then." Aldric nodded, getting to his feet.
"What happened?!" Cinder demanded, as Aldric turned to her and Mercury.
"Tracker's offline!" Mercury barked.
"Probably because the helicopter exploded." Aldric deadpanned, sliding his hands into his coat, lips pursed and eyes wide in an expression of dull surprise and shock.
Cinder turned to him, "why did it explode? We saw Ozpin leave, and he wouldn't risk attacking them. Not on Remnant, not where he'd anger your world."
Aldric agreed, but felt that was besides the point. "Well that seems unavoidable now, but if it wasn't Ozpin, and the Big Boss doesn't know about it..." He trailed off, giving Cinder an expectant glance.
She blinked, then realized what he was getting at, and shook his head. "No. She may be keeping secrets, but this isn't one of them, it never was, and I'm sure of it. She doesn't know, else she would have told us to act, or told us to refrain. This has to be someone else." She shut her eyes, bowing her head and clenching the bridge of her nose in thought. The half-Maiden stood there, in that pose, for several seconds, before nodding, hair bobbing up and down with her head. "Whatever the case may be, we must assume that whoever destroyed that vehicle knew about the Relic. We need to recover it before they do, capture them if we can, or kill them if we can't."
Aldric found that there was little he could do in this situation but agree, this had come so far out of left field that he'd believe any explanation if it was offered to him - he'd believe the hand of god struck down that helicopter.
But there was one thing he couldn't help but point out, "so, even if we give it the best possible estimate and say that was about... Thirty miles away, that helicopter went down thirty miles outside of Mountain Glenn, which itself is literally on the border of Vale." He explained, "someone's going to have seen that happen. Be it Ozpin, the UN, or just some bumble-fuck Huntsman. That poses a problem any way you look at it... For me, because if any of them show up and ID me, they'll ask questions I don't want to answer, and for you two, because half of the point of you staying underground all this time was to not be ID'ed before Vytal."
Cinder looked thoughtful, nodding along as he spoke. Aldric watched as her eyes were lit aglow by the power she'd stolen, and with a flick of her hands, three masquerade masks appeared in them. Aldric gave her a look that said everything it needed to, and after a moment, she reciprocated with a tilted head. "What?"
"Lady do you think no one will be able to identify you because they can't see your cheekbones?" Aldric deadpanned, reaching for one of the rear pouches on his belt.
"Gotta admit, I agree with him." Mercury opined, as he stood up, his bags packed. "Easiest way to identify someone is through their face, but even if they obscure it there are other ways. Gait, body shape, weight, build, fighting style... You obscure a face and someone good will unconsciously start paying attention to those things." He nodded to the masks in Cinder's hands. "You only obscure part of a face, and they'll have even more to commit to memory: Hair, eye color, facial structure... And with those ones specifically, it's not difficult to imagine what one would look like under that mask. It's why Adam Taurus makes most everyone else wear bulkier or full-Grimm masks."
Cinder frowned, "but he himself wears a half-mask."
"He's also pretty into symbolism. Knows how to work a crowd. He does it on purpose, to obscure his identity, to make himself into a symbol, and to flaunt his mortality." Mercury continued, with a wave of his hand. "Point is, if you want a mask, you want to go big or go home, and then you'll want to pretty much do what Aldric's doing."
Aldric blinked, turning to Mercury with an exaggerated expression of surprise. "The fuck am I doing?"
"You wear baggy, bulky clothes. The armor you usually run with, and that coat over it - they all obscure your build. You put on a mask, and maybe some platform shoes... Or even cheat a little and wear pants two sizes too big and just float, with some boots hanging there, you'd be able to keep yourself hidden from most everyone that doesn't get paid in coins."
"It suddenly occurs to me this might be why Neo's good at what she does: She can skip the whole middleman." Aldric nodded, impressed, and filing that away for later. "And it also worries me: Now I'm wondering if she hasn't been stocking me all this time and I just didn't know about it."
"Probably." Mercury nodded, not even hiding his smirk. "Ever since Torchwick retreated to the Garden she's been gone more than she hasn't."
Hm... Despite the curiosity of the reveal, Aldric put on a terrified expression, as his free hand slowly went to cover his groin. "Mercury, I'm scared."
"Focus." Cinder cut through their conversation, "that means Aldric is covered, but -" She trailed off when, off in the distance, gunfire, loud thunder, and explosions could be heard.
So maybe not thirty miles. Aldric thought, though he wasn't fully certain how far and how fast sound could travel, especially given all of the variables present. "Alright, let's just play it this way." Aldric pulled out a thumb-sized vial from one of the rear pouches on his vest, "get rid of your dress." He nodded to Cinder, "and... I dunno. You've got the best mind for this stuff." He said, crushing the vial, and having the pile of clothes inside of it expand to regular size, before he turned his back to let them change, making for the window, frowning out as he could see in the distance the fighting going on.
Must have some kind of electricity semblance... Aldric thought, watching lightning gathering around the sky and jumping to the ground far too frequently to be natural. Who the hell could it be, though? The only person I could think would be Raven, but she operates out of Mistral, and she had to be prompted to go out and hunt for relics. She can't have done this on her own, and I'll say I believe Cinder when she says Salem didn't know about this, either. Else why would she jump straight to the 'let's take it' solution? So let's assume this isn't anyone I'm familiar with. Aldric felt his heard drop. That means there's two solutions: This is either a Huntsman with really good connections, or perhaps acting on Ozpin's behalf, plausible deniability-style, or... He sighed. Or some country on Earth, involved in this exchange, woke up a Master and directed them to sabotage this, and take the relic for themselves. God damn they didn't wait long to get started on that, now did they?
Either way he looked at it, though, Aldric was in for a bad fight. The last time he'd fought a full-fledged Huntsman, he'd lost both eyes and his arm. Last time he'd fought someone with magic, he'd lost both eyes and his arm.
After a few minutes passed, Mercury and Cinder were changed and ready to go. The former did little to change his usual attire, simply adding a jacket and ripping up a shirt to use as a makeshift shemagh. The latter came out in a set of BDU pants and a sweatshirt, its hood pulled tight over her head, with a bandanna tied over the lower half of her face, and her favored masquerade mask shielding the upper half.
Aldric grinned, "you two look you came out of Mad Max." He said, throwing one of the Pym Disks at the pile of clothes, shrinking it down, and then gathering it back up in a vial.
"You haven't put on a mask." Mercury pointed out.
That was a fair point, Aldric considered, as he stuffed the vial back in the belt. He couldn't use the Nathan Drake mask - not only because he didn't want to let them see it, but because he was pretty sure he'd up and lost it during the fighting for Vale. He had no idea where it was. The Face Camo had taken one too many hits during his fighting in Atlas, and that was another rabbit he didn't want to pull out of the hat in front of these two. It wouldn't be impossible for him to copy these two and just tear up some clothes and tie them around his face, but with his luck, they'd get torn right off the moment the fighting got good, so he'd need an actual mask.
Which meant using more magic to make one.
He was getting real sick of how much of a crutch those powers were becoming, he'd made the damn belt to avoid having to magic-up a solution to every problem.
He nodded once, "alright, I've got an idea." He said, deciding he should probably go with as great utility with this thing as he could. His head was one of the more irreplaceable parts of his body, after all - so he'd want something that could take a hit from pretty much anything on Earth or Remnant, including the things he'd made, chief among them being the lightsaber. Of the weapons currently on the field, the three lightsabers floating around were the most dangerous, and while he had a little faith the Black Panther suit could fend that kind of heat off for a few seconds, he wasn't going to bet his head on that. Good news, though, was that he knew for a fact there existed a lightsaber-resistant metal, straight from it's setting, to boot.
So, Aldric held out both hands, and with a pulse of his powers, what once was empty space between them, now was nestled a helmet, of black and red metal, with a T-shaped visor.
Still a little ridiculous... Thought Aldric, twisting the helmet around in his hands and then lifting it over his head. But I'd bet on Darth Revan over Black Panther any day. Settling it on his head, he found himself surprised that, even without his Radar, he could see perfectly. The moment it touched his head, a Heads Up Display booted up, and where initially all he could see out of was the T-shaped visor, the moment the HUD finished initializing, it was as though he wasn't wearing anything at all. Least it's better than Kylo Ren's mask.
He nodded once, turning to the two of them. "Get it out of the way." He said, sliding his hands back in his coat.
"You stood there, making fun of us, and in the next breath you -"
"Come on." Cinder cut through, waving her hand and then stepping towards the window, peering outside and seeing the distant fighting still going on. "We've likely little time."
Aldric and Mercury nodded, and soon they abandoned their building to race for the crash site. Some theories about who the attacker were and who they represented were presented, but both of them essentially mirror images of each other: That this was meant to be seen as a rogue element, separate from Ozpin or the UN, such that either side could claim to have lost the Relic in its entirety, and as such no questions would or could be asked of its location, and their possession of it would remain secret. Neither option made sense to Aldric, though - the UN had the damn thing, and Aldric had seen Coulson get into the helicopter, there was no way he could fake that dead; and Ozpin wouldn't risk damaging the Relic like that.
So, with little time and even less to go on, the three of them raced for the crash site. They found themselves in a rocky, arid land that Aldric was willing to swear looked as though it had been ripped out of Dragonball. They peaked one particularly high hill and came to a halt as, in the distance, they saw not just the aftermath of a helicopter crash, but the last shots of a war. The helicopter appeared to have been split in two from the tail, and all of the humvees and soldiers were dead or dying - some appearing scorched and burned, as though struck by lightning, and others appearing as though they'd been flattened or torn to pieces.
And in the center of the chaos stood a lone man, observing his handiwork, not even out of breath.
He didn't even turn to them as the Legion sprinted towards him. Aldric frowned on approach, as he found that he could only see the man. His Radar didn't appear to be working like it should. He could see the heavy armor hanging from the man's shoulders, the winged helmet obscuring his face, and the cloak-like raiment covering his torso and back, but he couldn't see anything under that. He couldn't see the man's face or his eyes, he couldn't look under the armor to get a look at his chest, he couldn't see any of it.
Yup... Aldric sighed. Master. The UN had gone and fucking did it: Made a living weapon of mass destruction. Either Coulson had been bullshitting him, or, more likely considering he was dead, someone had gone off the reservation to make it happen.
But either way: They were in a bad spot.
Cinder seemed to be somewhat aware of this, and as the three of them came to a stop, she called out over the howling winds and the deep thunder, "Who are you?!"
The Master looked over his shoulder, scowling as he took in the group. Then he about-faced, turning to face them completely. With a large sweep of his hand, he threw uncovered his torso and revealed the armor underneath it, as he scowled at them. Aldric's frown lessened as he watched the man hold his hand out in the direction of the helicopter; the younger of the two Masters couldn't make heads or tails of what the older of the two was doing.
But then, stealing his attention, was the sound of groaning, grinding, and shifting metal, coming from the helicopter, and he could sense what it was that was causing the noise. A block of iron at the end of a short haft, jerking from side to side, trying to pry itself out of the mass of twisted and warped metal, answerin the call of its master.
Aldric felt his heart sink, as the last piece of that puzzle fell into place. This guy was a Master, and like Aldric, he was from Earth, and like Aldric, that meant his powers worked based off of his own perceptions, and add on the fact that he most likely already knew the nature of his powers from the word 'go' due to direct access to Rooster Teeth's information. Then there was the fact that this guy had a mission, and unlike Aldric, had no compunction to hold back, no fear for what would happen if he granted himself godlike power.
Add in the armor, the helmet, the cape, and now the motherfucking hammer?
They were so fucked.
"You two need to be ready..." He breathed, attracting the gazes of both of his turned to him.
The half-Maiden turned to him, frowning, and asked, "why?"
Aldric swallowed dryly. "Whosoever holds this hammer..." He rumbled, voice wavering and broadcast out of his mask. "If he be worthy..." It blasted out of the helicopter, hurtling through the air with the sound of lightly humming metal, before coming to a halt in the man's hand. "Shall wield the power of Thor."