Chapter 54
For the Record
So, by coincidence and by design, I got stuck in this Torchwick shit.
The funny thing?
Neo texts me before I make it to the police station, gives me a picture of some random dude.
I get to the station, get thrown in an interrogation room, five minutes later the guy she sent me a picture of walks in and starts interviewing me.
See, a part of me wants to be paranoid, believe she let this guy in on who I am, but let's be fucking honest. The more likely option is that she sent me that picture almost entirely to fuck with me. I one hundred percent believe that she did it because she thought it would be funny.
Aaaand... Okay, fine, it kind of is.
But what's really funny is the whirlwind of bullshit that has us... Not accountable for anything. For fuck's sake, we trashed a goddamn highway. and were only in an interrogation room for a few hours.
Like, am I supposed to take from this that Neo's picture suggested nothing will happen because the cops are all corrupt? Or that Huntsmen in this world have carte blanche when it comes to performing their duties?
I mean, considering that they've been dealing with super people for as long as they've been writing down history, I suppose their laissez faire attitude even when it comes to students would be somewhat understandable, but the whole thing just blasts so far past ridiculous it circles around to being funny.
Anyways, all that to say: We kicked the closest we could get to the show's Torchwick plot into high gear, and I gotta admit, it was kind of fun. That there was a fight with no stakes, I just got to beat the snot out of a bunch of guys with no aura, not have to kill them, got into a car chase, a car wreck, and then a standoff, and then I got arrested.
Oh, I also figured out I can run at about ninety miles per hour.
I was sore as fuck afterwards, though. Pretty sure I tore and pulled more than a few muscles in my everywhere. Once the adrenaline faded away I could barely move, took me two damn days before I had recovered enough to start training again, and a week before I was somewhat close to being healthy.
Granted, my baseline these days is 'half dead', but I digress:
For the first time in almost a year... God damn, I knew what I was doing at any given moment.
Obviously there were some variables (one of which being I didn't expect Yang to attempt a krogan airdrop with her motor bike), but on the whole? I knew what I was doing pretty much the whole way through.
That's not a luxury I get very often, and damn it felt good.
Anyways, Ozpin played his role after we got out of the precinct. I'm glad you're safe, be more careful next time, the reconstruction crews have enough work already, blah blah blah.
Cinder, on the other hand, wasn't fully happy with how Ruby was a part of it. She's under the assumption that the whole thing was for my benefit so as to get in closer with Ozpin, and that Ruby just showed up on accident. But I managed to quiet her down and told her this would only help in the long run, that Ruby is Ozpin's little pet project and getting in close with her would give me leverage over him, that kind of stuff.
Now all we've got to do is just go through the motions and play the game.
And, as the saying goes: Game on.
Down at the landing pads for departing Beacon students, Aldric was waiting for his partner in crime for the day's Torchwick investigation, dangling a wire necklace ringed by sterling teeth from his fingers, examining it with a neutral frown on his face. Owing to what was stored in the teeth, it weighed deceptively more than it looked like it would, but Aldric's attention was more focused on the atoms making it all up. Even as minuscule as the nanites in it were, the vibranium that made up the necklace was just as neat, orderly, and dense as those making up his shield.
Really wonder if I shouldn't just keep this for myself. Aldric hummed, spinning the necklace by one of his fingers. I mean my biggest hangup would be the fact that it's made out of nanites. Destabilize them in any way and the whole suit's integrity is sacrificed. Sounds like an intentional design flaw, but wouldn't the utility of being able to store the whole suit in the necklace outweigh that? He wondered, not to mention the whole storing kinetic energy thing... Which I can't even begin to understand. He sensed an airship coming in for a landing. Really, I think the one I'm wearing is probably the better of the two. No bells and whistles, no nanite storage, no none of that... But it gets the job done and some lucky schmuck with a sonic weapon wouldn't accidentally nullify the whole thing. Boring, but practical, as it were. He stuffed the necklace in his jacket pocket, alongside a sheet of paper, and looked up, grinning, as he fired off the one-liner he'd had prepared.
"Oh I i tawt i taw a puddy tat!" Aldric called out, as Blake Belladonna stepped out of the ship.
Blake gave him a warning glance, not appearing as surprised he knew as she was just annoyed he'd practically broadcasted it. Aldric rolled his eyes, she shook her head, and approached him. "So." He began, "how did we get paired up?" Aldric asked, frowning comically at Blake, who nodded sympathetically.
"I mentioned offhandedly that I knew you the least of our team when Ruby conspired to pair us all off." She said, with a stiff nod. "I apologize."
Aldric laughed, standing outside in the hot summer sun, a creative application of his semblance guaranteeing he barely even felt the heat despite wearing a metal suit and an overcoat, something which he knew Blake was noticing, but wasn't mentioning. "Oh fuck, Blake - you're going to apologize for that?" He shook his head, "mm-mm. That's not good, we're going to get along you need to figure out how to throw insults at people."
Blake arced a thin eyebrow, as she crossed her arms behind her back. "Are you about to tell me you have taught Weiss the allure of a vitriolic friendship?"
Aldric paused a moment, "uh... Yeah!" He said, bluntly. "Even before she met me she was throwing shade at people! I just added some color to her language." He grinned.
To which, Blake responded, "no. No you haven't."
Aldric frowned, "oh you're no fun." He said, with a roll of his eyes. "So how long do you think it'll take Ruby to figure out this won't be over in a week?"
"Probably that week." Blake responded, as they came to a halt at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to turn red. "Have you any idea where we should even begin in the first place?" She asked.
"Well..." Aldric frowned, wondering how he should approach this. "Ruby and Ecru are checking out all of the stores he trashed, so that's out. Yang and Srebro are going to harass Junior for information, so that's out... And Weiss and Myrtle are trying to use Weiss' contacts to see if they can't drudge anything up, so we can't really do that..." He pulled a small platinum coin out of his coat. "I was thinking about using this, see where it could get us." Aldric swore he could hear Blake's heart skip a beat, so he gave her an incredulous look. "What?"
No doubt remembering Yang having had one before, Blake gave Aldric a cautious look. "Where did you get that?"
"Yang told you about that woman I work for?" Aldric asked, stowing the coin back in his coat. "She probably called her -"
"Yes." Blake cut him off.
"She's got a bunch of 'em. Gave me an address and a fistful and told me to go there if I ever needed help. So, I figured..." He shrugged. "Why not? See where this takes me."
"Ash... Assassins use those coins." Blake whispered, casting a quick glance at their surroundings. "They're marks. Receipts for having done very bad things." She looked back at him.
Aldric blinked, "no..." He shook his head. "The guy I got my shield from..." He indicated it. "He had a few, and he was practically a superhero. Saved my life when my village got trashed by Grimm. And Miss Ember's not that bad." He insisted, before blinking again. "Oh... You know what? Maybe she'll know someone..." He murmured, pulling out his scroll. "She still even in the country?"
"Ash -" Blake pushed the scroll away, "no!"
Aldric frowned, "Blake, why are you freaking out? We need information on Torchwick, and this might get it for us." Of course he knew she was both worried about the coin and realizing that Aldric's stash may have been where Yang had gotten her hands on one those months back, but he was looking for one thing in particular.
Blake sighed, a conflicted look on her face as she broke eye contact, looking off to the distance, before turning back to him. "Please don't make me explain it, Ash. My team barely knows."
Oh yeah, I guess that did get kind of swept away in the face of inter-global war. Aldric pursed his lips, "okay." He said, having to admit defeat or risk compromising Goud's character. "But unless you've got a better option going to this 'Garden' place she told me about is my only idea." He had Neo all set up as Ember, and everything.
Blake seemed to realize he was right, and again she looked away, weighing her apparent fear of the Garden against the fact.
Then she gave him what he wanted: "I might have one option."
Aldric blinked, "oh?"
"I just..." She forced out a reluctant sigh. "Please don't tell my team, when we meet him."
"Why? Who are we meeting?"
Hours later, and now well outside of Vale's protective walls, Aldric and Blake were sitting in the middle of the emerald forest, waiting for their 'informant' to arrive.
"So..." Aldric began, after a prolonged silence. "Coming out in the middle of the woods to meet a reformed terrorist is better than walking into a supposed hotel for assassins?" Aldric asked, genuinely curious as to Blake's thought process for this; and if he'd known they would be leaving Vale, he'd have dragged Jaune along with him, to test out the Master Sword against a Grimm.
"It is... Ash." Blake began, voice low and filled with the tremolo of trepidation. "It is."
Why the fuck is she so afraid of the Garden? Aldric wondered, what did she - He blinked. Holy fuck did she break the rules? No, wait, no, that can't be it. She'd be ten different kinds of dead if that were the case. But the thought did prompt him to use his semblance on his Legion of Doom scroll, and send a message to Neo.
Random question: What exactly happens if you break the Garden's rules? Asking for a friend.
"Blake, you've kind of got me in a bad spot, here. First you teach me that the Garden Hotel isn't what I thought it was, that my old boss lady might be involved in some shady shit... And now we're out here meeting a guy who up until a few months ago was actively bombing places and robbing trains." He didn't miss her wince at that. "You don't want me to ask why, and I'll respect that, but I do at least ask you to understand where I'm coming from."
"I do, Ash... Believe me, I do."
He got his response from Neo:
-Please tell me I'm not going to walk out and find a few bodies, Aldric, this isn't something to joke about.
Damn, didn't even try to tease me. And that only served to further cement Aldric's suspicion that Blake couldn't have tried pulling a John Wick and murdering someone in the Garden itself.
Well, I can't guarantee that, but I can guarantee that if you do, it wasn't my fault, as it's pretty much certain our little song and dance won't be sung today. Belladonna is fucking terrified of the Garden, she begged me not to make her tell me why, and since Ash is the whole Captain America/Superman type, he has to respect that. But since I'm a curious bastard, I don't. I thought that maybe she'd been there before and had broken the rules, but you're giving me the indication that she'd be mega-dead if she had. He responded.
Aldric decided to double down, "Blake, I don't know what you did before Beacon, and to be frank it isn't really my business to know... But I can't help but wonder if it has something to do with why you wear that bow." She didn't respond, "and if it does... All I'll say is that trusting your friends is never a bad thing. They care about you, and if you've got problems, they'll want to help with them." He stretched his arms and yawned, before propping his shield up against the tree and leaning back against it, enjoying the shade the canopy of leaves above him provided. "They're your team, they're literally there to help you if you need it."
"I was never really the type to ask for help, Ash." She gave him.
"You're talking to the dude who pulled the 'fear and dead men' thing, I know what it's like to want to shoulder everything yourself." Aldric deadpanned, getting a half-hearted roll of the eyes from the cat faunus. "As the cliche goes, you can't run forever, Blake. Eventually you need someone or somewhere to run to.
-Wait, you mean Blake Belladonna? Oh no, she's been here once or twice with her ex, but she never started anything. Taurus on the other hand, oh bo~y. Have you ever wondered why he's never hidden out here, despite it being perhaps the best place to do so? He killed the last Master Gardener in the Mistral Garden two or three years ago. She might have been there? But they only stopped sending people to kill him last year, after he and his Fang managed to win out against a group of Glass Gardeners. If memory serves, that was the battle that made Marcus Black retire. After that, the price on his head stuck, but most people here generally agree that everything it would take to take him down wouldn't be worth it. You didn't know?
Aldric couldn't help but have John Wick flashbacks with this, but he supposed this would explain Blake's fear. If he'd had a front seat to the kind of terrifying feat that would have been a constant and steady onslaught of increasingly skilled and powerful assassins for more than a year, he'd definitely have a healthy fear of whatever organization could pull it off.
What's the bounty at?
-Sixty Gold. Plus twenty million lien.
Aldric wondered if that hadn't been some kind of ploy on Taurus' part. Had he killed the Master Gardner on purpose, so he could spin the subsequent attempts on his life as a human plot? If so, Aldric couldn't help but give the man some respect for that. It was a suicidal move, but if he could pull it off, he could all but be a living martyr, and add the legitimacy he was giving himself in the public eye as of late, Aldric wondered if Taurus' next move wouldn't be to replace Sienna Khan in a less bloody fashion, and control the entire faction. Spin those attempts on his life and his meteoric rise to power as a call to arms. Taurus was either very confident in his fighting prowess, or very arrogant. Aldric rubbed his face and suppressed a groan, knowing full and well he was witnessing the creation of his next enemy, and was actively arming him with among the most powerful materials in all of fiction.
Wouldn't happen to have the skinny on why he did it?
-Noooope! One moment he was talking to the Master Gardener, next her head was on the ground and he and several of his Fang were fighting their way out of the Mistral Garden.
Of course she wouldn't know, because if she did, and he could have the whole story, that would make it too easy. Regardless, he had what he wanted, and didn't even need to be told that some pieces to this puzzle probably wouldn't ever be given to him. So he relaxed, leaning back against the shield, and keeping an eye on the worried Blake and the forest around them, waiting for Taurus to come around. This wait took an hour before bearing fruit, and Aldric found Taurus approaching them, alongside two familiar faces: Chainsword, and the chameleon chick he'd seen months ago, watching both he and Blake.
Aldric stretched and got to his feet, groaning, as Blake did the same, though she did so stiffly, slowly. When Aldric got a look at Taurus, he tilted his head, "oh!" He said, a grin playing his features as he stored his hands in his pockets. "Oh I remember you!" He brazenly approached the Fang leader; Chainsword and Chameleon drew their weapons, and Blake practically pounced on him to try and get him to stop, but Taurus' grin and a gesture from his hands stopped them all. "How's it goin', man?" He grinned, removing his hand from his coat and presenting to Taurus, the necklace and the folded sheet of paper hidden in his palm.
Taurus gave him a long look, before he shook his head and accepted Aldric's handshake, simultaneously taking the offered items. "It goes." Said he. "You have recovered well."
Aldric laughed and swept his hand through his shaggy hair. "Dude, had I known her 'friend' was you I might've pretended to be decent person when I put my shoes on this morning." He said, as Blake approached, having sufficiently steeled herself. "Been hearing about you on the news, amazing what can get done when you do what an entire country can't, eh?" He chuckled.
Taurus pocketed the necklace and the note, nodding, as his smile faded away. "Quite." He looked to Blake as she arrived, "I'm glad you called." He said, Aldric detecting a reserved quality to his voice, as though he were carefully and intentionally choosing his words, and weighing every syllable for their potential impact.
She frowned, "it wasn't my first option, but the only other one we had was even less attractive." She said, "else we would have been wandering the city for hours, searching for little and finding less."
Taurus nodded, "if it is something I can find, I will."
Damn, dude. Put a docile Blake in front of him and it's like I'm dealing with a different person. Seeing this almost made him forget that he was dealing with an terrorist bent on world domination. Is he just dedicated to the whole 'I'm a new man now!' act? Or am I seeing a genuine weakness in him? Considering what he knew about the man, he wanted to say both.
"We're looking for Roman Torchwick. Anything about him. Places he operates out of, where he does business, who he trades with..." Blake listed off. "Anything that can put us on the right path."
Taurus nodded, pulling a scroll out of his pocket. "I haven't done much work with him..." He said, "but I remember where it was we met." He handed it to her. "Have you considered -"
"No." Blake snapped, frowning at the screen, memorizing every detail, before handing it back. "This is a start but I still don't believe you and I may never."
Taurus sighed, a frown twitching at his lips, before he took his scroll back. "I'll change your mind, Blake."
"Good luck trying." She said, turning around. "Come on, Ash."
Aldric scooped his shield off the ground, giving Taurus a nod before rushing off to join Blake. "So... Why couldn't we do that with a scroll-call again?"
That night found the two teams grouping together to report their findings. Little progress was made except by Aldric and Blake, and after discussing their findings and creating a plan, they chose to attack the next day they all were free, resulting in a week's delay. Aldric used this time to warn Torchwick of which base was going to get trashed and allow him the time to prepare everything. Aldric spent this time continuing to play as Goud, training with Pyrrha and Jaune, and fine-tuning his semblance with Goodwitch.
When the time came, the two teams assembled and converged on the warehouse, finding it filled with Torchwick's thugs. The battles with the poor men being paid to be beaten up were over inside of an hour, and while Aldric tied them all up, Batman-style, the rest searched the warehouse for clues. Torchwick didn't make it easy on them, hiding the next location in the finer details of several letters, reports, and partially shredded tax records, the piecing together of this information taking several days to complete, and setting the precedent for the next three months. Whenever the two teams weren't in class, training, or assisting with Vale's rebuilding, they were hunting down Torchwick, leaving his various warehouses and bases for the police to discover, and then moving on to decipher the next location.
As a means to prompt Ruby and Co. into believing they really were on the right trail, Torchwick would often leave behind circumstantial evidence of his presence in these places, once even outright being present but fleeing under cover of his thugs. Neo let Aldric in on the fact that Torchwick was actually finding the whole thing entertaining, like playing a game of hide and seek with a toddler who couldn't stop laughing from under his bed. Regardless, for three months this went on, until finally, at the second to last base, Torchwick set it up such that most of the documents there would be far more direct, less of them destroyed or tampered with, or even halfway through the process, to make Ruby believe she was gaining on him.
What Aldric began to realize, though, was about halfway through their guided little journey, was that he was becoming bored. Beating up hundreds of goons had been fun the first two times, but knowing that there was only one outcome meant that, as time dragged on the act became monotonous. They would show up, kick ass, find some clues, call the police, go back to Beacon, and put the clues together. The only part that had thoroughly entertained him had been when he'd walked into RWBY's dorm and had actually found a bulletin board posted to their wall, with red strings connecting pictures, the whole nine yards, but aside from that? He found himself increasingly apathetic to the whole ordeal, wishing at times that he'd instead found a way to set it up such that RWBY and RWBY alone had to go through the song and dance, so he could focus on more important things.
Even the end of the whole act didn't really do much for him. When they found his last base, and Aldric confirmed he was inside, RWBY and GEMS charged inside and immediately charged right back out when they were confronted by Torchwick in a gigantic Atlesian Mech. Aldric had never realized how huge those things were until he found one baring down in him, even if he knew damn well and good Torchwick wasn't trying to kill any of them. As a result of that, the fight, while explosive, was short lived, and not nearly as entertaining as Aldric would have hoped.
And while the two teams were waiting for the police to arrive and take Torchwick in, Aldric realized that he'd just spent the last month and a half begging the universe for some kind of threat to his life, solely because he was bored of it not being threatened. That was the kind of stuff that made him get frustrated with Goku back home, he'd never actually thought, even after coming to Remnant, that he'd be looking for the next life-threatening fight as a cure to his boredom.
Fortunately - or unfortunately, or both, really - he knew that such a thing would be coming soon, because with Torchwick captured, that meant his part in the game was over, and there was only one part left.
For the Record
Torchwick thing took about three months. Even the end wasn't nearly as exciting as it was before I showed up and mucked up the show, we just, showed up, again... The thugs freaked out, again... We kicked ass, again... Then we had this whole big boxing session with Torchwick's robot mech suit and some of his better thugs, Neo played hooky, Torchwick didn't, now he's behind bars.
That sounds worse than it is, though. His contacts, Ozpin's, and a little terran influence (once I let Bubbles in on the whole act), mean he's... Really not. He's in a prison, yes, but we got him in one he chose specifically - because he'd spent the entire three months systematically putting every one of the guards and prisoners on his payroll - so he still has below-board access to his contacts, and is still basically puppeteering his entire criminal network from inside the slammer.
The guy's a less fat Wilson Fisk, have I said that yet?
To the point where I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he used this as a chance to legitimize himself, like some kind of ex-con 'I was once evil and look at where I am now!' success story.
So basically doing what Adam Taurus is already in the middle of, come to think of it.
So, in summation:
Pyrrha's already got her name out there. She's the invincible girl. She's ready for the world to be led by her.
Goud cemented his with all of the Nathan Drake, Master Chief, Jedi-esque shit he pulled during the Worlds War. He's ready to be martyred to unite everyone, Phil Coulson style.
And now Ruby's name is picking up steam, because she spearheaded the whole damn operation that 'shattered' Roman Torchwick's criminal empire.
The god damn stage is set... On both sides.
Yeah, both sides.
The Legion hasn't been idle during this.
Taurus and Torchwick have been used by Cinder as a means of smuggling things across the interstellar border. Most of the wormholes ended up within the aquatic borders of some country or another, and they got locked down tight, but one managed to get dropped in international waters. So, while it was absolutely legal for the various countries to park a warship and a sub or two nearby, they couldn't demilitarize the shit out of them like the other ones were, what with mines and bombs and all that. This one's locked down tight, but its nature and its location mean there are holes in its defenses.
Holes one of Salem's masters was able to point out to them (through messages, because of course I'd miss a chance to identify one of them), and they were able to use to smuggle... Well, let's be fucking honest. There's only one thing Salem wants on Earth right now. Though I did find it entertaining that their initial idea was to hide the Grimm in Chernobyl (yes, that Chernobyl), but they axed that one when they started dropping like flies. Now they've just got small populations hidden in out of the way places in various major countries, breeding like crazy and just waiting for the proverbial gun to go off. Add that to the aura-users she's decking out in military threads that she hopes to use to either assassinate or terrify world leaders, and the tension that never really bled away between the two worlds (because did any of us really expect Earth or Remnant to forget that we'd been killing each other barely even a year ago? The Japanese are still pissed at the Americans for the atom bombs, for fuck's sake.), and she's got her powder keg, which is only getting worse what with the arms race that is/isn't going on, what with Remnant trying to fix their naval forces and rebuild their military infrastructure, albeit under the excuse that it's for Grimm control, and Earth laughing their asses off and building ten aircraft carriers in the time it takes Remnant to field half that number of airships.
So, when shit goes down, Earth will be just occupied enough dealing with the Grimm that will show up after the leaders are killed, but not so occupied that they can't turn their war machine to Remnant, which itself is now ready for most of the tricks that got their asses kicked last time. The fight will be much more equal this go-round, to the point where I'm willing to bet that they won't even name it a separate war, when it comes time to put it down in the history books. They'll just say the ceasefire was violated and the war started back up. I think there's precedent for that, considering the fact that the Korean War technically still hasn't ended per se. I don't know the proper terminology. The fighting stopped but the war technically wasn't over.
Anyways, it's actually kind of startling. I always wondered what it must be like to be the villain in a movie, setting up the supposed end of the heroes and their world and watching all the pieces get set, and now I know. It feels weird. Like, on one hand I know that I'm setting up some fucked up shit. But on the other, I know for a fact that I've done worse on the small and large scale. So as bad as it feels... I've felt worse.
And admitting that is bizarre... But it's also something I've done before, which is more or less why I'm happy that students from other countries, as well as terran athletes and camera crews, are starting to show up for Vytal.
And realizing that - realizing that I'm repeating myself so often now - that's when it hit me: Soon, I'll have brand new shit to worry about, wholly alien to this Salem/Cinder/Ozpin/Justice League/Legion of Doom stuff. Because in a month... Maybe two? Three at the most. I'll be done with this. All of it.
So, what does all that mean?
That means Sandy Blue, Yuno Magenta, John Grease, and Redd Foley (See: Cinder, Neo, Chainsword, and the Chameleon chick from forever ago, all disguised), are arriving at Beacon today. Vytal, both the games and the tournaments, starts in earnest tomorrow, and Goud Etiolate dies in two...Ish weeks. Maybe sooner. Maybe later. But imminently regardless.
And now, the end is near. And so I face the final curtain. Whoever you all are, I'll say it clear. I'll state my case, of which I'm certain:
In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance, my head is bloody, but unbowed.
It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
The Record shows I took the blows, and did it my way.
BMFG is touching down, soon.
Let's fuckin' do this.
No doubt both because Ozpin had let everyone know he suspected Salem to make a move, and because he could at least tell Ironwood he had a contact that said Salem absolutely would, and because both Earth and Remnant were using this as a chance to compare genital sizes, it wasn't just bullheads and floating yachts that filled the sky, but also thousands of airships from all across Remnant, and helicopters and drones from Earth, the former all hundreds of miles apart, the latter all scanning the ground from the skies, all practically flooding the air, and making it such that it didn't matter where one looked, they could see some sort of aerial stamp of presence from one planet or another's military, especially as one got further out to sea, from which Cinder's bullhead came.
Out there, the distance shrank from hundreds of miles to the tens, and for good reason: Earth was pulling a Fleet Week out on Vale's docks, for the first time letting the general public see exactly what it was and who it was that kicked their asses so few and yet so many months ago. Just from his perch near the landing pads at Beacon, Aldric could see two different aircraft carriers of wildly different sizes, several destroyers and frigates, and even a surfaced Submarine. Most had tours running through them, those groups filled to the brim with morbidly and genuinely curious civilians, as well as Vale reporters desperately hoping to get their name on the map by trying to glean some kind of hint of Earth through its war machines.
Aldric, however, was paying more attention to Cinder's bullhead, as he had one very specific, and very important goal during this: To keep Cinder out of the way of any Terran cameras as much as he could. Aldric wasn't stupid, he knew that the show had to be as common knowledge on Earth as who won World War 2, he didn't need Bubbles to tell him as much - and he also knew that, with the borders temporarily opened as they were for what many were beginning to call the 'Vytal Olympics', that meant a titanic number of terrans were being allowed to cross over and get a look at the world they once knew only as fiction. That meant there was a much higher chance that someone could finagle themselves a press pass, get a ticket to Beacon, and then just fucking wait for Cinder Fall's airship to land, so they could try to get pictures of her to blast on the internet, back home, or worse - play hero and put a gun to her head.
So, by first establishing the story with Cinder ahead of time, and after learning from her the identities of the two White Fangs she had pulled in to round out her team, he explained to his team that Yuno and some old friends from Mistral were coming to Vytal and should be landing today. He knew them well enough to know that he wouldn't even have to suggest waiting for them - Ecru had taken that honor with aplomb, had woken everyone up before the sun, and had practically parked them on the landing pads to wait up for the group.
Aldric had considered leaving his shield in his locker as, without even using his Radar or turning his head, he could see no fewer than twelve terran reporters scattered about. If the name of the game was subtlety, walking around with Old Glory - with Captain America's goddamn shield - would be tantamount to walking up to Salem and explaining to her, in detail, every single aspect of his plan to work against her. But then he remembered that, technically, he'd done exactly that by telling Cinder he had revealed himself to Ozpin, and that Earth was probably already aware on some level of the shield thanks to his 'fear and dead men' stunt. So, deciding that whoever said that discretion was the better part of valor was a fucking idiot, Aldric joined his fellow Beacon and international Academy students in walking around in full regalia, and he got the reactions he'd expected. Several reporters noticed his shield over the course of the morning, and would individually drag off all the members of GEMS to interview them, and when they got to him and 'just happened' to notice his shield, most of them accepted his prepared 'I saw your movies when you gave them to us, and loved The Avengers' explanation. A few pressed harder, but this was one of the few situations in his spy career where Aldric found the playing dumb card not only worked, it worked flawlessly.
"But aren't things like those movies pretty much your every day here?" One asked.
"Well, sure, but you got stuff like X-Ray and Vav and we still love that. It was kind of cool seeing what your world cooked up." He replied.
"Aren't you even the least bit still angry over what our world did to yours during the war?"
"I mean, maybe? The city's fixed and the past happened, no worth holding a grudge over it. If something's cool, it's cool, and your weird-ass names, like... John... Fletcher? Your weird-ass superheroes, like that Superman guy? They're cool."
And on and on it went until enough had had their fill of him, and GEMS was able to sit down and focus their attention solely on trying to identify which ones were the bullheads flying Mistrali flags, and when the last one for the day came in for a landing, "Wait, is that -" Ecru gasped, snapping shut her scroll and excitedly elbowing Aldric awake. "Ash! Ash, that one's theirs!" He, soon followed by GEMS, were on their feet as yet another bullhead descended from the sky, filled as it was with other airships, large and small, military and civilian, from all countries.
Aldric pretended to stay asleep, shielded from the sun by his precariously perched shield. Ecru frowned at him, and Myrtle slinked over to flick its edge with her finger, destabilizing it and causing it to fall on Aldric's nose. Aldric shot up, barking in pain, as Ecru and Myrtle laughed, and Srebro gasped.
"Lady, c'mon!" Aldric sniffled, wiping his nose and making sure he wasn't bleeding. "What the hell?" He asked, giving Myrtle a faux frown.
Myrtle nodded over to the bullheads, and Aldric followed her cue, and saw Cinder departing hers, draped in a Mistrali uniform, her face set in a neutral frown, a few bags under her eyes. Aldric would give her credit, she managed to make herself look like she'd just been on a long flight. Aldric rounded up his team, secured his shield to his back, and waved them down - as much as he'd personally learned how subtlety was clearly for the weak, he knew better than to give into his first instinct and throw his shield at BMFG as a form of greeting. That would attract a lot of attention and a lot of eyes.
Cinder, alongside Neo, Chainsword, and Chameleon, saw Aldric, and approached, the latter two doing just as remarkable a job as the former at discarding the normal air they walked with and appearing, for all intents and purposes, as eager students. Cinder had her cold sneer etched across her face as she made it to Aldric, she opened her arms for a hug, but Neo slid in and leapt up, wrapping her arms around Aldric's neck and planting a huge kiss on his cheek. Aldric smiled and resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and once Neo was satisfied, he obliged 'Sandy' and gave her one as well.
"Jeez, lady!" Aldric groaned, patting Cinder on the back. "Haven't been seen in public with you in... Fuck, feels like years!" He leaned back, brushing some of Cinder's hair out of her face, before turning to Chainsword and Chameleon. "And you -" He leaned back, staring up at Chainsword. "Holy fuck Grease, how the hell did you get so big?!" He frowned, turning to Neo, "Yuno, why didn't you say anything?" Neo took in a breath, appearing to ready herself to speak, before Aldric waved her off. "Shut up -" He stowed his hands in the pockets of his cassock, nodding to Chameleon. "And you. Spoken to your girlfriend lately?" He asked, a big grin on his face.
To which Chainsword interrupted, after adjusting the fit of the giant weapon hanging from his back. "We have..." He said, in a voice that was only slightly less deep without his mask. "Been preparing."
"Holy hell that's more words in ten seconds than I remember hearing in our first week of school." Maybe he was having a little too much fun, so he turned back to Cinder, "so! Introductions -" He indicated Ecru, "happy bitch -" Then Myrtle, "sneaky bitch -" Then Srebro, "one so timid I honestly feel bad whenever I give her shit."
Ecru leapt on top of Aldric, pressing down on his shoulders and leaning overtop of him. "I'm Ecru! Did Ash really set your combat school on fire?!" She yelled.
Cinder arced an eyebrow, Neo didn't hesitate to nod, and Chainsword said, "yes."
Ecru dropped down, now hanging from Aldric's neck, legs wrapped around his waist. "Oh this is going to be good!" She giggled, before sliding off of him.
Myrtle stepped up, shaking everyone's hands in turn, before landing on Cinder. "Myrtle. Who was the one who taught our illustrious leader his well-refined art of near suicide?" She asked, bluntly.
Cinder grinned, "that would be his caretaker, Miss Ember -"
"Yeah!" Ecru called out, "yeah where is she?!" She looked around, as though this would summon the phantom woman into existence.
"She'll be there for the fighting, I assure you." Cinder nodded, "I was told we would be in the Blue dorms?"
Srebro chose now to speak up, "actually... The Blue dorms are for the Atlesian students. Mistral was reserved the Red dorms." A beat, "we could show you? Your names would be on its notice board."
Cinder nodded, "please." And she followed GEMS. "So, 'Ash'."
"Yes I was Fear and Dead Men yes I regret it yes I'd do it again in a heartbeat." Aldric shot out, rapid-fire.
Cinder rolled her eyes, "any tips for us in the upcoming battles?"
Translation: Have you figured out where the Fall Maiden is? "Don't die." Of course he had.
"Wonderful advice, Goud." Said Chameleon. "Perhaps to win we should defeat the enemy?"
Aldric pursed his lips in a frown, then nodded to the side. "Sounds better than my plan, I was going to knock out Ecru and take the glory for myself."
"Hey!"
Aldric made sure GEMS and BMFG kept up a good pace until they were past the landing zones and all the reporters. The two teams made idle chit-chat as they walked, initially swapping stories about Ash, then graduating to what they had done during the war, and then capping it off with stories of training battles as they arrived at the Red dorms.
"So then Ash was all like, 'Shield!', and Srebro jumped off of it, launching herself at Dove and keeping him distracted so he could finish off Cardin!" Ecru took in a long, deep breath, "but Dove was all like -" She slid to the left, "boom! And was just gone! Srebro didn't recover fast enough to avoid a ring-out, and then Ash was fighting both of them at the same time!"
"Have you ever been double teamed by a giant pointy shaft and a big spiked bead on a stick?" Aldric chimed in, "let me tell you: Didn't feel good." He said, looking at the notice board and searching for BMFG. "Not... At... All - there you are." He pointed at the third floor listings. "Wing-B, room three twelve."
"Well did you win?" Chameleon asked, a smirk on her face.
"Hm?" Aldric turned to the charcoal-skinned faunus, "oh, yeah. Took advantage of Bronzewing while he was stunned, hauled him over my shoulder, and then threw him to the ground like a sack of meat. Ringout. Then I just pounded Cardin's ass into the ground until he gave me what I wanted."
The smirk vanished, and Aldric counted that as a win.
"Ecru." Cinder spoke up, before the conversation could continue. "Could we borrow Ash for the day?"
Ecru blinked, "but - aww!" She frowned, before perking right back up, going from eleven, to zero, back to eleven in a heartbeat. "Okay! We'll just see what you're made of during the exhibitions tomorrow!"
Myrtle's eyes were on Neo as she said, "Ash if you come back tonight and your clothes are all weird I'm stealing all of their underwear."
Aldric's eyes widened as Neo's smile turned feral. "Lady! Don't tempt her, she'll give them to you out of spite!" He cautioned, as Srebro's hands shot to her mouth, face turning red underneath them. "Go! Go - get, she's reaching!" And he wasn't wrong, Neo was pantomiming reaching for her belt, teeth now bared as she kept eye contact with Myrtle.
Myrtle rolled her eyes, and alongside Ecru pushed the frozen Srebro until she regained control of her legs and vacated alongside the laughing rookies. Aldric let out a long sigh with a big grin on his face, before he rounded up BMFG and brought them to B-312. It was a small, spartan room, clearly meant to be imprinted upon by whomever would be renting it out for their brief stay, possessing only the bare necessities: Four beds and dressers, a shelf, and some coat racks for them to hang whatever they needed to.
Upon entering and locking the door behind them, Aldric collapsed, falling to the ground. with a 'thunk' and a groan.
"Women getting to you, 'Ash'?" Cinder grinned.
"Up... The shut... Fuck." Aldric groaned into the carpet. "Next time you get to play school with a bunch of neurotic teenagers." He rolled onto his back and watched with his radar as everyone found a place to sit and began depositing their belongings. "So who're you two?" Aldric turned towards Chainsword and Chameleon. "I think I remember Tiny, but he wore a mask last time I saw him." He nodded to Chainsword, "Large and In Charge, though..." He frowned at Chameleon.
She frowned at him, skin slowly fading to a spotted, chocolate brown. "Illia."
"Ooh, that's new." He turned to Neo, "you have competition now in the shape shifting department." A knife landed so close to his groin that it dragged against the fabric of his pants. "You just ruined my jacket." Neo rolled her eyes and dragged a finger down from her tear duct to her chin; Aldric turned to Chainsword. "And you?"
"No."
"Jokes on you, I'll be calling you that from now on." Aldric grunted, plucking the knife out of the floor and sitting up. "So who wants to start?" He asked, lowering his voice to a dull rumble.
"You do." Said No.
"No, I like you. Straight to the point, No's no-nonsense. I get it." Aldric nodded, "Fall Maiden's in Ozpin's secret underground lair beneath Beacon Tower."
Cinder blinked, before letting out an exasperated sigh. "I expected you to do as you are wont to, and tell me a story. Am I to understand the joke being that you didn't do so because you knew that was what I thought you would?"
"That kind of circular self-repeating logic makes my spy-addled brain hurt, lady. I spent the last ten-odd months mentally sparring with a million year old man, making sure he thought I was who I wasn't so I could be who I am for those who I'm not... I don't have the patience for the grandiose bullshit anymore..." He nodded to Neo and the two faunus, "and I get the strangest feeling they don't have the need to know all the nitty gritty. We know where she is and we know who the front-runner for her replacement will be."
"Nikos?" Cinder asked.
"Nikos." Aldric nodded, "top of the class, strong sense of morality... Ozpin let her in on it after the war ended. Apparently the other folks in the Justice League - those being everyone on his side who has the need to know - were getting ready to pull the plug, they'd thought he'd lost control of the situation." He explained. "So he picked her to show off to everyone and shut them up. Been grooming her ever since, preparing her. When Atlas got here they brought the tech that will let them do it."
"So why wait?" Illia asked. "Why not just go there and kill her now?"
Aldric rolled his eyes, "where's your sense of showmanship lady?" He asked. "There's, like, twenty things that we want to do during Vytal, in order, in order to do what we want the way we want it. That's number... Twelve. After evacuating the academy and before killing Ozpin."
Cinder nodded, "to continue the metaphor... You three are here for the initial few steps."
"Those are?" Asked No.
"Well, the short version is Earth couldn't get all of their Olympic athletes ready in time to do a full-fledged Game here on Remnant, so they changed shit up and you two are going to fuck shit up." He explained, "long version is, it turns out it takes a lot longer than nine months for thousands of the best athletes in history to get ready. So instead what they did was get the ones that were ready, supplant them with representatives from across various sports and whatnots from all over the place. But since both Earth and Remnant were pretty sure not everyone from both sides would watch the events hosted by the other side - Humans watching the impromptu Olympics and Terrans watching the Tournament - what they chose to do was to take the most popular events on each side and instruct select teams of individuals on them, in the aims of getting as much exposure and cooperation on both sides as possible." He explained. "So, some rookie huntsmen here on Remnant were taught how to play Basketball, how to box, play tennis, things like that, and some of the best martial artists on Earth were instructed on the rules of the Vytal Tournament."
Illia blinked, eyes going from deep blue to a hazy green. "Wait, the Terrans are... Fragile. How the hell can they be expected to fight aura users, hand to hand?"
Aldric scooted back to the wall, leaning up against it, his head just underneath the windowsill. "You ever wonder how they keep fallen huntsmen in prison?"
Illia sighed. "Oh."
Aldric nodded, "the rules were decided upon by both planets. No weapons, no aura, obviously no killing, but full-contact, fight until you tap or drop." The highest-stakes UFC fights in history. "Idea being: We all 'unfortunately' saw how we kill eachother, but now let's see how we fight for sport."
"And that's where we come in." No picked up.
The spy nodded. "I got into the coordinators' computers and put you into them." He'd asked Ozpin real nicely. "You three are in the inter-species tournament. Pick who amongst yourselves, but one of you is going to brutalize their opponent, one's going to cripple them, and the last one will make it to the finals... Or... At least, make it to the last fight with a terran in it." Because no one really expected them to go the distance, not when, even without aura, most students here still were the Captain America to the pre-serum Steve Rogers. "And then you'll stop just short of killing 'em."
Neo clapped her hands excitedly, and then raised one alongside a vicious smile, clearly volunteering for the final option.
"This blatant disregard of the rules will anger Earth, who will in turn accuse Remnant of having sanctioned the violence." Cinder supplied, ignoring the Gardener.
"But how will we engender Remnant's anger to Earth?" Illia asked.
"Oh that's even easier, we're going to sabotage the Earth sports. Stack the odds in Earth's favor, get worse and worse until we literally shoot one of the Remnant players during the Basketball game." Aldric had been the one to supply the coin to the assassin who would do it, too. "Be a rubber bullet, but it'll still get the point across. Then Remnant will be at Earth's throat, and the stage will be set for the big finish." He played his fingers out. "Boom."
"And in that chaos, we will recover the Fall Maiden's powers, destroy the CCT -"
"Again!" Aldric chuckled.
"- and leave." Said Cinder, with a nod.
"Just like that." No grunted.
"Well, No - dude, the entire country will be on fire. Grimm on one side, Terrans on the other, White Fang and Torchwick's gang on a third, Humans in the middle, it won't be hard." Aldric responded. "Especially since the really relevant parties will be looking for two bodies."
No gave him a long look. "Is fourteen killing Goud Etiolate?"
"No, I like you." Aldric waved his finger at Chainsword. "It is indeed." He nodded, "the idea..." He frowned, "never mind. Need to know." The frown turned to a grin, as he turned to Cinder. "You're clear on the plan, right?"
She nodded, "yes, 'Ash'." They had to make it as convincing as humanly possible, vis a vis: Nothing held back, period. They had to actively try to kill each other, stopping just short of actually doing so. This was Aldric's greatest test: He had to know if he could actually open up a moment where he could land a killing blow on her. If he could do so without nearly dying himself, then the chance existed he'd be able to power through her before he made it to Salem, if he had to; and if, as was most likely going to be case, not, then he'd have to get creative, and find a way to avoid fighting her altogether to keep himself ready for Salem. "And what of the tower?"
Aldric nodded, "they've gotten a lot of tips from Earth about how to beef up their cyber security. Not enough to keep Earth out, but enough to give them the edge if... Oh... A certain asshole and his rescuer spontaneously invented the concept of large-scale computer hacking." He explained, "but..." He grinned, "wouldn't you know it, they trust Goud so much that he has administrative access. We don't even need to do any B-and-E to upload the virus, you just shoot it my way and I can plug it into the CCT Network, and you'll get your backdoor."
Cinder nodded, impressed. "Good." She said, pulling her scroll out of her bag. "And he doesn't suspect anything?"
"Oh he certainly won't when I tell him you're here, tonight." Aldric responded, resting an arm behind his head.
Cinder gave him a dull glare from over the holographic screen of her scroll. "Oh?" She asked, the assassin and the two faunus in the room looking back and forth between them as each spoke.
"He needs to think he's a step ahead of you." Aldric needed an excuse to go visit him. "At the moment your anonymity is your biggest advantage. So what I'm going to do is partially strip that from you - I'm going to tell him that identifying you wholesale would be too much of a risk for me, but merely saying that you're among the arrivals from Mistral? That would be enough."
"It wouldn't be difficult for him to roll back the cameras and watch you interact with us." Illia spoke up, attracting Aldric's raised eyebrow.
"Uh... Yeah it would." Aldric lied, "I coined someone underground to get me something that scrambles cameras within a certain range." He indicated his scroll. "And I flipped it on when I woke up this morning. He can't see shit."
"Still." Cinder took the conversation back, "I do not like that kind of risk."
"That's why this all ends in... Like... A week. Two tops." Said a nonplussed Aldric. "He may have an idea by then, but by then, it will be too late." He said, as his scroll pinged, a chess piece and a progress bar appearing on its home screen, Aldric only spared it a glance. "Oh... I'm looking forward to this." He groaned, sliding off to the side until he was laying on the ground. "Gonna sleep off all this mental torture and anguish for... Like... A year, before I do any-fucking-thing else."
"Just another few days, 'Ash'." Cinder hummed, "you can make it."
That night, Aldric got a call from Goodwitch summoning him to Ozpin's office, to act as his excuse to be out late to the rest of GEMS. He walked the familiar, reconstructed grounds of Beacon, idly looking up in the sky and observing the distant airships that filled it, their lights both inside and out giving them the appearance of stars man made, brilliant, and up close, to compliment those natural, twinkling, and far away. Aldric would never understand how those things, or anything in this world for that matter, was just able to run twenty-four-seven using only dust as fuel. That, more than anything, was magic, but he digressed, and entered the giant, looming tower.
Aldric realized, as he strolled through its quiet reception area, that it wouldn't be long until this place would be on fire and have a dragon hanging off of it.
I wonder if I can ape the thu'um... He frowned, waving his scroll over the elevator panel, and waiting. I mean, that would be situational at best, but it would still be kind of cool. Would Dragonrend even work on the Grimm Dragon? He hummed. Granted, it may be an issue of compatibility. He hadn't forgotten that he'd given himself a heart attack trying to use his abilities to skip the middleman and shoot Thor with the kamehameha, after all. If it's stronger than me, and I fuel it with my powers, I'll damn well get it done, but oh boy, once it's done. He stepped inside the elevator and hit the button for the vault below.
When the elevator reached the vault, Aldric found Ozpin standing in front of the new, advanced machinery hooked into Amber's life support pod, a firm frown on his face and a distant look in his eyes. He acknowledged Aldric with a nod when the spy approached, and Aldric could only bring himself to look at Amber's gored, still-living body for a few moments, before turning away and killing his Radar, not wanting to constantly be staring at the gored Maiden. Soon, their scrolls vibrated, and they each answered them, with Aldric's showing the video visage of Adam Taurus, and Ozpin's showing Roman Torchwick.
"Everything's set on my end." Aldric began. "I gave her access to the CCT and she has what she needs to rig the tournament. Piss everyone off. She knows where the Maiden is and knows what little waltz we'll dance at the end."
"As is on mine." Said Taurus. "My forces know who they really fight. All they'll need is the signal."
"Oh yes indeed and I've done as much as I can to mitigate the damage done to the worlds." Torchwick picked up, adjusting his prison jumpsuit and leaning against the wall of his cell. "The moment mister Taurus' forces reverse their charge, my own should be ready to reveal the location of the terran-Grimm. Damage will be done but I do believe they will be able to do whatever they need without irreparable damage."
Ozpin nodded, "our candidate is as prepared as she can be. She is operating under the belief that the transference will take place following the conclusion of Vytal." He gave Amber a forlorn look before adding, "and my 'allies' on Earth have assured me they've dedicated as much as they can to our cause, and are trickling more men and supplies to us every day. It is merely waiting on our word." He pulled a satellite phone from his coat, "if everyone has received these, they shall be what we use to communicate with eachother following the fall of the CCT Network." He said, handing it to Aldric, who shrunk it down and stowed it in his belt.
"It could be anywhere from days to weeks before you hear from me again." Aldric explained, "it may play out that Salem will have us rampage across the world and obtain the final Maidens and their relics, or we may merely return to her base of operations immediately. I don't know, and I can't ask, so until then..."
"Be ready." Taurus surmised.
"I would beg of you to at least work fast, no matter what it is that will occur. Every day following the resumption of this war will deplete more and more forces that could otherwise be used for this final battle we are building towards." Torchwick cooed. "Too much time and we may find ourselves with too few ready or willing to fight."
Aldric nodded, "just be ready."
Torchwick rolled his eyes and hung up the phone, soon followed by Taurus, leaving Aldric and Ozpin alone with the comatose Maiden. Aldric stowed his scroll in his pocket, distracted by Amber's appearance and his desire to turn away from her, this resulting in him missing the brief moment in which his scroll lit up before sliding into his pocket, a chess piece glowing on its screen. Instead, Aldric turned his back to the machinery she was hooked into, and looked down the long halls of Beacon's vault. Ozpin, however, had his eyes locked to Amber's still red, raw injuries, taking in their visage and the blue glow of the pod she was suspended in.
"What do you put our odds at?" Aldric asked, shifting his eyes over to the area he knew the plane wreckage had been stored in, still preserved in its multiple rooms.
"What we are attempting to do is end a war that has kept this planet deadlocked for longer than the length of our shared species' history, both recorded and not so." Ozpin responded. "And to do so I am allowing two planets to engage in a war perhaps just as deadly, if not moreso, as then both planets will be aware of the others' tricks and will have developed countermeasures and defenses for them. Whether or not you retrieve the Maidens' powers and their relics... With the position of the pieces as they will be when the time finally does come... One way or another the war will end. So the odds of that happening are certain. The odds of the war ending in our favor..." He sighed. "I do not know. Among the many things I am capable of, foresight was never one of them."
Aldric nodded at that, "any tips, then?"
"For your incoming battle with the 'Lady In Red', or my old enemy?"
Aldric chuckled, "no, man. Avoiding Neo for the next two weeks." He grinned, silently laughing at the sound of Ozpin's simultaneously exasperated and thankful sigh. "'Cause listen, man. She's here, without her boss, and damn well knows how little I sleep." And could probably tell how much he regretted never figuring out how to supplant said lack of sleep with his aura; the bags under his eyes would probably never go away. "One day I'm going to be walking around and... Boom!" He snapped his fingers. "All of a sudden I'm going to be on the ground and my pants will be gone, and there won't be any room for the word 'no'." He turned to Ozpin, extending his hand.
Ozpin shook it. "Just remember, Aldric -"
"Always have a place here." He nodded. "I know." He let out a long sigh. "I know." He began to walk away, he chess piece on his scroll fading away.