Chapter 72

This was why he'd saved his magic.

Call it a spell, call it a contingency, call it a gamble that shouldn't have paid off, call it whatever one would like, the results were the same: He'd shunted as much magic power into his bloodstream as he possibly could the moment after Cinder had stabbed him with her lightsaber. This magic turned to stem cells, which he knew were functionally magic in the biology field, capable of staving off aging, curing diseases and, most importantly, fixing otherwise unfixable wounds and conditions, and since Aldric knew he'd be walking out of this with a pretty sizeable hole in his chest, he'd decided to just pour pretty much everything he had into making the stem cells.

The good news was that he didn't feel a breeze in his chest.

The bad news was - JESUS! It felt like someone had skinned him alive, left the nerve endings, set his entire body on fire, drowned it in salt water, and then set it on fire again. He was in agony, he felt a weakness in him that he hadn't since his first fight with Cubone, an emptiness he hadn't ever experienced before, and to top it all off his entire body felt fuzzy, tired, and exhausted. Sensations felt distant, sounds felt muffled, colors muted, it was as though he were experiencing the entire world through six layers of cloth. This separation, the simultaneously agonizing and terrible pain and the distant sensations, it felt as though both his body and his mind were broken, and it only served to make the anguish afflicting him all the worse.

Okay... I better open my eyes. Assess the... He paused, realizing that whatever was under his back wasn't metal, or fur, and he couldn't feel the vibrations of an engine keeping him in the air.

They weren't on the back of a Grimm getting the fuck out of dodge. They weren't in the aviator. They weren't in the pelican.

Oh... He opened his eyes. God... He groaned, it degenerating into a long, airy sigh. Fuck.

The vault was getting ready to fall apart. The ceiling had huge fissures running through it, chunks of stone were openly cracking off and falling to the ground, dust was streaming constantly, the ground shook with each impact. Most of the pillars running the sides of the vault had already fallen to pieces, it looked like the entire goddamn place was ready to implode any minute.

Aldric tried to turn over to his side, but doing so instantly filled him with a horrendous pain, as though his entire skeleton had been replaced with broken, jagged glass, that every movement risked breaking him further. He often liked to use the phrase 'it was everything he could do' to describe his doing something requiring great effort, but this was one of the few - if the only one - instances where it literally took everything he had inside of him just to turn over to his side. He was left panting, exhausted, streaming sweat, left arm pinned under his chest and right arm limply pressed to his back, with just the effort of turning to his side.

This... This is Ruby? He asked himself, needing to take the time to rest his eyes, to recover some minuscule amount of strength. This is... This is what she can do? What people like her can do? He didn't know if he was feeling it worse because he was a Master, or if this was literally what anyone with aura would feel if they were subjected to a Silver Eyed Warrior's wrath. Side note... He took in a deep breath, steeling himself. Need... Shorter term... I'm thinking 'Templar'. He opened his eyes again to examine the carnage around him.

And he didn't like what he found.

If the ceiling above him, the roof that kept the underground vault from collapsing, was damaged, then the ground beneath it looked like a wasteland. Giant piles of rubble strewn about everywhere, with ever more falling down from above with every passing second. There were fires creating small plumes of smoke that wafted upwards. The ground was torn open with fissures as wide as cars and deep as canyons. Ozpin's body had fallen into one of these, gone forever, Cinder was barely visible, her scarred, openly bleeding, burned body resting atop a pile of rubble, one arm in front of her, and one hand dug into the rocks, as though she had tried to claw her way to freedom and safety, but had suffered just as Aldric and had simply fallen victim to the aftereffects of Ruby's titanic power.

And Ruby -

Oh... Jesus.

Ruby was, obviously, at the epicenter of all of this. Waves of devastation spreading outwards, and small streams of dust and debris falling right onto her from above. She was at the base of a large pile of rubble, and had miraculously managed to being buried by this due to the intervention of two large pillars falling around her, creating a veritable barrier around which the pile of debris flowed. But while she was stuck in a pit between a literal rock and a hard place, Aldric dragged his eyes upwards, following the trail of dust to the ceiling, where he found, to his mounting horror, that her luck was running out: A giant, jagged hunk of detritus was getting ready to fall, the dust streaming from its sides slowly picking up speed and growing in volume until it looked as though someone had just taken a sandcastle and dumped it out. Aldric could tell that this thing would hit her wholesale, falling between the pillars that shielded her thus far, it would spear her and end her life in an instant.

Oh... Kay. Aldric swallowed thickly. Okay... Okay, c'mon, Neb... He gasped for air. Think... Think, think, think... The quickly escalating heartbeat in his chest was only making the pain worse, but he had to fight through it to try and find a way out of this.

He couldn't try and move over to her, to use his body - and, specifically, his suit - to shield hers. His right arm could barely twitch, let alone drag him along the ground, and as strong as it was, moving his left arm required him first to get off of it, which was clearly out of the equation, any more pain would probably black him out before he could get something productive done.

Pain... Fuck! He gasped, some spittle flying from his mouth. I've... I've gotta... He gritted his teeth, but his body wouldn't obey his commands and move! I've gotta... He blinked. Gotta... And an idea formed in his head.

His eyes slowly dragged downwards, where he saw his shield and the lightsaber, discarded mere inches away from where he'd fallen, and then further down, to his belt.

Now... That could work. He swallowed thickly and, with every twitch of his leaden hand, forced it closer and closer to one of the pouches on his hip, aiming for one in particular - the very one in which he kept one of the few unshrunken artifacts from his plane crash. It filled his body with more of the mind-breaking agony, it refusing to clear up even as his brain instinctually flooded it with endorphins. But progress, while slow, was still progress, and after a minor eternity, he was able to reach the pocket and pop it open.

Out soon tumbled a small, orange bottle, with a white top, it filled with dozens of small capsules.

Aldric gasped with effort, his head covered with sweat and face red with both pain and effort. He slid his hand far enough that it was able to fall from his hip like a lead weight, and then was able to reach the pillbottle just as he noticed larger pebbles beginning to fall down to Ruby. Running out of time, Aldric gripped the pill bottle and popped the top off with his thumb, it feeling as though it would shatter into pieces as the plastic resisted the action. He stopped concentrating as hard at this, and allowed his hand to spasm in pain for a few seconds, which caused the small -

Aldric blinked.

What... Was he delirious? The... Was he hallucinating? Fuck? Or were there actually senzu beans where his incredibly illegal opiates were supposed to be?

Had God finally decided to stop pissing in his cereal, or had he just forgotten about this?

Well... He gasped, scooping one of the beans into his hand. Fuck it... It either is what it looks like... He swept his hand to his limply open mouth. Or it's a painkiller... His hand shaking from pain, he barely was able to flick the bean into his dry mouth. Either way... He pushed the bean to his molar and forced his jaw to shut, crushing it in his mouth. I guess I get what I want... And then he swallowed.

And holy shit:

It really was a senzu bean.

No sooner did it start sliding down his throat than did it work its literal magic, and Aldric felt his entire body rejuvinate. His aura was back, his energy filled, his injuries gone - it wasn't a trick, a hallucination, or a trap.

Nebo Aldric was back.

Hopping to his feet, Aldric cracked his neck and, with less injured eyes, took stock of the situation, a plan instantly forming in his head as he sensed the ceiling began to destabilize above him. His head snapped up, seeing a huge pile of debris falling right towards him. Grunting, Aldric dove forward, sliding his arm into the straps of his shield and rolling upwards, using the momentum to spring in Cinder's direction as he threw the shield in Ruby's. The entire ceiling destabilized by the debris that had seemed ordained to try to kill him, soon enough volumes of stones and dust were falling uncontrollably to the subterranean ground below.

But, Aldric, refueled and repaired, was ready for it. His shield slid into position right over Ruby, protecting her from the rapidly building stream of debris, as he rolled into position above Cinder and raised his arms skyward. He would have to play this right, but he knew it wouldn't be hard - he formed a telekinetic barrier around himself and Cinder, protecting them both from the huge mass of debris that collapsed from the ceiling above. The both of them were still buried and hidden away, but where it should have crushed them, instead they were protected in a pocket of clean, safe air by Aldric's semblance.

With his radar, he watched as the debris that the universe had aimed at Ruby harmlessly piled onto his shield and missed her. He kept up his telekinetic barrier and his eye on Ruby as the rest of the vault continued shaking and falling to pieces. This continued for several minutes, the entire world feeling like it was literally falling apart, before finally it settled down.

And barely a minute later, as Aldric, stooped over the unconscious Cinder, one arm raised to keep the barrier up and the debris out, heard: "Ruby!"

Aldric nodded to himself, knowing the fruits of his actions would be born now, and hoping Qrow would play his part correctly.

Then: "Ruby!" This voice caused him to frown, as he recognized Yang anywhere.

And then, more panickedly, came Pyrrha: "Ruby!" She screamed, "Ash!"

Aldric watched them tearing apart the mountains of rubble, digging through it, desperately searching for the two of them, crying out their names and hoping against hope that they were alive and could hear them. Aldric remained as silent as Goud had to be, now, and continued watching, his frown growing as he saw them begin to flow away from Ruby, spreading out into the vault.

Alright... He silently hummed. Ash gets one last gasp. He thought, twitching his fingers, causing some of the debris above Ruby to briefly twitch, almost like a hiccup.

Qrow saw the shifting debris and instantly sprang into action, sprinting over to her and digging through the many layers that buried her with his bare hands. He yelled for her, telling her it was okay, that he was here. Aldric found it somewhat entertaining when the hope flickered in Qrow's eyes at the sight of Old Glory, though Pyrrha practically cried with delight, diving into the hole they had dug and prying the shield free - only to reveal the young Rose, bloodied, covered in dust, but alive.

Pyrrha instantly sank into denial, and after a brief argument and a slap from Qrow, she was convinced by him and Yang that what they'd just witnessed was Ash choosing Ruby over himself, and if they didn't want his death to be meaningless, they needed to go now, or risk the entire vault coming down on top of them. Pyrrha argued even as more rubble streamed from the ceiling, and Aldric felt a pain in his heart at the tears flowing from her face, but she eventually forced herself to cradle Aldric's shield to her chest and flee the crumbling vault.

When they were all gone, Aldric let out a short sigh.

Well... He thought, sitting down, and leaning his back against some of the rubble. Now we wait. He looked down at Cinder, who was out cold, and he saw the horrific burns on half of her body, and winced when he realized that the reason he himself wasn't half-Krueger was because she'd taken the brunt of it.

His thoughts did hover over the orange pill bottle and the beans, discarded and crushed under rubble, not too far from Skywalker's lightsaber - another relic he'd have to leave behind, to lend credence to Goud's death. He wondered how he'd been able to miss having swapped out the pills for the beans, even though it made too much sense, really, and he felt stupid for having not thought of it before.

Maybe... He thought, mind briefly flickering back to the blank spots where he'd wiped entire days out of his memory. Maybe I'd done it then? He wondered, the pills were always meant to be a last resort... So maybe my thought process was I'd never look, and if I was desperate enough to get high mid-battle, it would be better to... You know... Not do that? It still felt wrong, but the thoughts were discarded when several Ursai, Beowolves, and a Seer Grimm descended into the Vault, instantly zeroing in on him and Cinder.

Aldric gulped, and twitched his head.

Welp... He thought, as the Grimm began digging him and Cinder out. Here we go.

After a few minutes of frantic, animalistic digging, the giant demon creatures unearthed the Master and the Maiden. Aldric at first saw only a small sliver of light peek into his little safe zone, but it widened out and eventually birthed clear air as the Ursai, now able to see the two of them, were able to properly identify which stones and boulders to grab and throw away and which to leave for fear of crushing them.

Aldric, taking Cinder up in his arms, pushed himself to his feet, and the Seer Grimm practically snapped into his vision, sliding into place like a ghost. Aldric leaned his head back, eyes wide, and one eyebrow arced, knowing that, as far as the woman on the other side was concerned, this was the first time he'd seen one of these before.

"You're new." He said, as one of the Beowolves flanked him, and lowered itself down to its haunches, waiting for Aldric to mount. Aldric leaned forward, peering deep into the suspended stones that made up its head. "Hm..." The Seer remained still, and he shrugged, wondering if he was getting the silent treatment on purpose, or Salem wasn't actively looking.

Aldric turned to the beowolf and stepped on, securing himself to its back with his semblance, and keeping ahold of Cinder with his arms. As soon as it knew he was ready, it took off like a bullet. Had Aldric not locked himself to it, it would have bucked him off. It tore through Beacon's vault, climbing the piles of rubble and soon reaching the trashed elevator shaft, and didn't even hesitate to dig its claws into the already clawed apart walls, and then climb.

Damn! Aldric thought, holding Cinder tight, and watching with awe as this thing defied gravity with nothing but its muscles. How the hell did I survive against Cubone? He wondered, as the Beowolf underneath him ran so fast that it generated a breeze.

Soon they reached ground level, and the Beowolf continued sprinting through. It hurtled through Beacon's trashed lobby and outside, where Aldric got an up close look at Ruby's handiwork: The dragon was frozen solid, petrified, encased in concrete and stuck in place. It no longer spawned any Grimm, but Aldric noticed that many were rallying around it, and Beacon Tower - the state of which left Aldric with a pit in his chest, as he beheld the damage he and Cinder had wrought.

Turning away from Beacon as the Beowolf charged towards Forever Fall, Aldric then saw Vale, and felt at least a modicum of hope underneath the dread and sorrow of the devestation he beheld. Patches of the kingdom were on fire, lighting up an otherwise dark night with airs of orange and red, Atlas' airships were pounding the hell out of others while some fell from Grimm attacks. Aldric saw explosions bloom and brief flashes of light accompanying staccatos of gunfire, all masking the sounds of scores of people dying and hordes of Grimm attacking the city.

Aldric turned his back on Vale for the last time. Well Adam... Aldric thought, looking up into the sky and catching a glint of light, able to recognize it as a UAV, no doubt Earth locating and watching him. Make or break, dude. I hope you are what you say you want to be. He thought, as the Beowolf reached the cliff's edge and leapt.

They dropped like a sack of bricks, the wind whistling in Aldric's ears and flowing through his sweat and blood-slicked hair before they made a rough landing. The Grimm didn't even seem to feel it, even though Aldric was pretty sure he'd heard something what wasn't a tree branch go snap. It just kept going, rushing through the forests and following the path the White Witch had given it.

I wonder how many scientists would fucking murder to be in my position. Aldric thought. Docile Grimm... Fuck, a few would probably sell their souls. He found it surreal how it was able to maintain highway-like speeds through densely packed woods and not even hit a single tree. He ended up watching it happen with rapt interest, as its thick legs beat at the ground and flowed around trees without even breaking stride.

After a time, the Grimm finally began slowing down, and soon after, it brought them to the clearing in the woods where they'd hidden the Pelican, and unceremoniously dropped back to its haunches. Aldric nodded, and slid from the great beast's back, and no sooner did his feet touch the ground than did it rush away, now with a noticeable limp.

Aldric hit the button to open the ship with his semblance as he approached, and just as he made it the ramp finished lowering, allowing him to head right on in.

Inside, Aldric lowered Cinder to one of the benches and secured her with a few buckles draping over her chest and legs. He stepped back, examining her with a frown on his face. Half of her body was swollen, red, and bleeding in places; her left eye was missing entirely and she had a permanent grimace etched onto her face.

The Master shook his head, and telekinetically hit a few buttons and flipped a few switches on the way out, powering the ship up as he approached the hiding place for the Relic of Choice. Stopping at the great tree looming above him and the pit they had dug, Aldric knelt down and cleared the branches, twigs, and dead leaves that they'd dropped and had naturally settled over it, respectively. He then dug into the ground until he reached the briefcase, now caked in dirt.

He grabbed at the handle and tugged hard - falling over backwards when it snapped off.

Aldric rolled his eyes as he pushed himself back, "alright, assho-" But he was cut off by a sudden and skull-shakingly loud scream, one of pain and anguish.

Aldric turned his head to the Pellican, it whirring to life, and the Maiden inside managing to scream louder than its engines. Aldric sighed, genuinely feeling sorry for her as he turned back to the briefcase and pulling it out with his powers. He caught it in his arms and briskly walked back to the ship; he hit the button to close the ramp just as he stepped onto it, it lifting as he walked inside, for a moment having him walk upwards, but soon with him walking down.

He dropped the relic and kicked it underneath one of the chairs, rushing towards Cinder, who was clenching her bad arm with her good one so tight that she was tearing open the horrendously burned flesh, blood flowing from in between her fingers as she screamed herself hoarse.

"Whoa, Hot Stuff!" Aldric called out, falling to his knees and pulling out a bag of Senzu Beans from his belt. "Calm down, you're -"

"ALDRIC IF YOU SAY I'M OKAY I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!" Screamed the Maiden, making the Master back off a step, arms raised.

"I was gonna say 'safe'..." He intoned, briefly dipping his hands. "Calm down..." He lowered his hands, a bean flying into one of them as he presented it to her, "have some dip!"

Still breathing through clenched teeth, but recognizing the item in his hands, the Fall Maiden viciously snatched it away from him and pushed it into her mouth, roughly crunching down and swallowing it dry. For a moment, nothing happened, but when that moment passed, Aldric watched her swollen skin sink down, the red give way to tan, and -

Cinder grabbed Aldric's throat, fire in her eyes, both metaphorically and literally, the twin wings of a butterfly lighting up the whole ship.

"Why..." She growled, "isn't it..." Her eyes lowered to her arm, seeing that the injuries had, indeed, healed. "Working..." She whispered, all of the air flowing out of her chest in one huff, the fire from her eyes fading as she let go of Aldric. "What..." She croaked, chest still clenched and voice still tight.

Aldric was at a loss, "still hurts?" He asked, softly.

Forcibly trying to keep it in, Cinder nodded stiffly, as she clenched her fist tightly. "That... Damn girl." She looked over Aldric, "did she... Are you -"

He shook his head and stood to his feet, offering her his hand. "I think you took the bullet for me, Hot Stuff." He said, as she accepted his help and hauled herself to her feet. "Thanks."

"Say that again when I'm not in agonizing pain, Aldric." She forced out, "you'll get a 'you're welcome'." She wrapped her arm around Aldric's shoulder for support, and together they limped into the captain's cabin.

"Minor wrinkle, then." Aldric opined, as he helped Cinder into the pilot's seat, and then fell into the copilot's seat as she began pre-flight checks, Aldric noticing a tremble to her movements. "May not be able to hunt the other Maidens for a little while." He leaned back, giving her a cheeky grin. "Good fight, though." He said, nodding to her.

She rolled her eyes, but he noticed her trying to fight off a grin. "You've come a long way, Aldric." She gazed at him sidelong, "but you've clearly still room to grow. Next time -" She pulled back on the control stick, and the ship began raising into the air. "- you won't have an elevator to throw at me."

"Next time?" Aldric stressed, "we gonna try and kill each other again, you say?" He scoffed.

Cinder didn't respond, she merely let a genuine smile show itself on her healed skin.

Aldric snorted and turned forward, "didn't expect little miss Rose to show up... Or for her to pop your friggin' eye!"

Cinder's expression darkened, and she shook her head. "No, I did not." She turned to him, "why did she have your shield?"

"I gave it to Nikos." He said, "the idea was that Goud knew he was going to die, and he wanted to let the fire live, so to speak." He said, "symbols, and all that. So he gave his shield - the thing everyone thought of when they thought of him - and marched off to die. Rose came and gave it back, and then he died under it."

"But do you have anything to replace it?" She asked, "or do you intend to fight differently?"

Aldric shook his head, "I've got a pair of shields made of a similar metal. Kite shields, with pointed edges... I feel that I'll need to be a bit more lethal from now on, so I figured I'd do away with the blunt edge." He patted his belt.

Cinder briefly looked at it, appearing unconvinced, but didn't say anything. "I noticed the White Fang attacking our Grimm."

"And I can't fuckin' wait for my round two with Taurus." Aldric pushed some vitriol into his voice. "Dude fucked up."

"He is too proud..." She grimaced, "He wouldn't take our humiliation of him lying down. I should have realized it could happen." She growled.

"You need to get more paranoid, Hot Stuff. I was ready for it the moment I laid eyes on him." He shrugged, "you're a goddess now, we'll kill his ass next time we see him." He huffed, "gonna probably want to put him up on the priority list, though... His next action will probably to go meet that Genghina Khan chick."

"Sienna."

"Gesundheit."

Cinder rolled her eyes. "You'll find her as ferocious an opponent as him. Perhaps moreso." She said.

Aldric doubted it, but he didn't say anything. "So..." He grunted, "what's it like?"

"Hm?" She asked, as they broke the cloud barrier and picked up speed, a sea of dark gray below them.

"Wherever she is. What's it like?"

Cinder frowned, "foreboding." She said, "but... It hymns with something. History. Knowledge. Strength. Ancient Power."

Aldric hummed, "did she tell you about the dragon, or...?"

"She did."

"Well thanks for the warning then, Hot Stuff." Aldric drawled, "what's next, there's one that'll..." Uh, "freeze me solid when it screams?" He'd call it a ReDead.

"They don't freeze you."

Aldric blinked. He turned to Cinder, who stared ahead, so focused on what was outside the windshield that Aldric wasn't completely certain if she was fucking with him on purpose.

"Your fucking world has issues, lady." He turned back forward, looking out of the window, seeing the white light of the shattered moon above reflecting off of the clouds below.

They spent quite a while after that in silence, broken only by the hum of the engine and the occasional hiss from Cinder, who was trying and failing to acclimate to the hidden aspects to her injury. Aldric, meanwhile, felt a sense of worry settle into his stomach, as a realization dawned on him:

He'd lost.

Hell, he'd almost died, with nothing but a million-to-one chance at a minor miracle being the reason he was still running around. He'd tried fist-fighting Cinder, who he didn't need evidence to know was weaker than Salem, and had genuinely been trying to kill her the entire time, and he'd lost. This realization didn't bode well for him and his chances at trying something similar.

He'd have to rethink his Plan A.

Fortunately, he knew he'd have some time to do it. They wouldn't hunt Maidens until Cinder was well, and then add on the time it would take to find and kill them, and then the time it would take to locate and take all the relics, Aldric hoped he'd have time to figure something out. He still had Plan B, but even though he knew it stood a high chance of working now that he'd seen with his very eyes Jaune smite a Grimm with it, it was still a long shot at best.

He sighed, shaking his head. Fuck. "I'm going to get some sleep." He said, getting to his feet.

Cinder flicked a switch on the control panel, and leaned her chair back, nodding. "Same... I shall wake you when we arrive."

"How long will that end up being?"

"Long."

Aldric rolled his eyes, "okay." He said, strolling back into the crew compartment and laying down on the bench, pulling his tablet out of his belt.

He turned on the screen, and found he had a notification. Several, in fact, each a single simple banner, a silent alarm, a line of text.

The first: Be excellent to each other!

Aldric frowned. "Fuck?" He swiped the first away, bringing up the second.

The second: Party on, dudes!

Why the hell had he set up notifications to quote Bill and Ted at him?

Swiping the second away, he was greeted by the third:

This is heavy, Doc.

Oh.

Oh.

"Fuck." Aldric let out a long, pained sigh, as he leaned his head back, resting it on the bench.

His pills had been swapped with senzu beans.

Three quotes had been set up on his tablet.

He didn't remember doing either of those things.

And the quotes had each been from a time travel movie.

Something. Had. Happened.

"Fuck..." He breathed, sitting upright and opening up the tablet.

This time, he clicked on the notification, and it brought him to a Record entry that had been written nine months ago. This confused him for a moment, until he realized that nine months ago was when the Terrans had invaded. When he'd gotten a week to himself, and had promptly erased most of said week from his mind, leaving only the names of a few contingencies behind. Considering one of them was literally called 'Doc Brown', Aldric didn't have too much trouble connecting the dots from there: He'd built a DeLorean, and stored it somewhere, and had set its time circuits to drop him off the moment he'd finished building it. This entry had been written so long ago because that was when he'd gone back to.

I'm starting to understand why Qrow drinks. Aldric thought, as he read.

For The Record

You.

Fucked.

Up.

No, I'm not talking to the 'Whoever' I write this journal for - I'm talking to you! Nebo Aldric, you right there! Reading this! Right now! In the goddamn Pelican you gave to Cinder because she fucking asked for it!

And allow me to prove that it is really me (You?):

You consider your only 'true' ally on this world to be the psycho-bitch that wants to get into your pants.
You are actively ready, willing, able, and preparing to betray everyone who thinks you're working with them.
You straight-up do not trust Ozpin, instead believing him to be the enemy of your enemy.
Fuck's sake, you trust Adam Taurus more than Ozpin.
You genuinely worry that you may be on the path to turning into some kind of Thanos-lite, owing both to the slippery slope you've justified your leaping headlong onto, and those things in your belt that you don't even know will pay off.
And finally:

This is heavy, Doc.

Okay, now that you're done making sure your heart is still beating, I'll actually admit that it technically isn't really your fault, as due to simple lack of experience we didn't really know what to plan for with regard to Ruby's powers. We'd hoped that, after Ruby shot us with her Silver Eyed Bullshit, we'd be evacuated with Cinder, using whatever methods had been used in the show.
Buuuuuuuuut our fight didn't end on top of the tower, but rather in Beacon's vault, leading to it collapsing when she nuked it, and Cinder and Ruby's lives being in danger.

And like a dumbass, we chose to save Cinder and Ruby, and rely on Plan B: Jaune eventually getting to Salem and getting just one hit on her.

And then we died.

Yes, yes - YES, Aldric! We actually fucking died! Keep reading before you try to make sense of that.

And from this point on, Future Aldric will be called 'Marty'.

Not only did Plan B fail, it failed so spectacularly that even with my fucked up comic book life, I questioned what Venom Aldric (More on him in a second) told me happened.

To make a long story short, Salem didn't let Marty rest in peace. In this fucked up timeline, Marty got... A month? Or two? Ish? To just BE DEAD and be done with it all before Cinder found the Winter Maiden, and stole her soul.
And guess what?
Said Maiden, due to said lack of soul, turned into a Grimm. A Human Grimm.
Yes. You read that right.

And exactly what you think happened next, happened next: Salem immediately thought, 'Oh I've got to use this!', dug up Marty's corpse and reanimated it, using some kind of magical bullshit to keep it from collecting any 'ambient souls' (Cough cough - OZPIN - cough cough) and turning fully human.

I, on the one hand, call bullshit on that, because Aldric Black outright had my semblance. As to how, Venom Aldric didn't have much in the way of an explanation, but I think I know what happened, and it runs with something I worried about a while back: That my powers are tied directly into my soul, that over using them causes our soul to 'run out' as it were.
See where I'm going with this?

Salem found Marty's soul in the Wherever and stole all the magic from it - maybe she used it to reanimate Marty corpse? - in effect rotting it, until all that was left wasn't even 'alive' anymore. Then she put it in the reanimated corpse, and we got Aldric Black.

Sound scary?
Well, wait until you realize that we did run out of magic once. When we fought Thor and called on DBZ, we ran out of aura and had a heart attack and, for a little while, we were fucking dead. It was only through sheer luck (and Cinder zapping the shit out of us to restart our heart) that we came back to life and got even the smallest spark back into our soul.

In other words: If Cinder hadn't acted fast, we would have gone Grimm right then and there.

We've been using a fuck ton of magic, lately - for our contingencies, for the shit on the utility belt, to catalyze the Power Glove, you name it - and we only really passively thought about what could happen if we ran out.

That has to stop, or else we could bring about the end of the fucking world. So we need to make a decision, and now, on whether or not we stop using magic period and remove the possibility that Aldric Black will come back, or instead double down on it and hope that will make our semblance weaker to the point of nonexistence.

But, that's for you to decide, and yes - you. From this point on, to avoid Time Travel Tense Troubles, I, before I wiped my mind, am me, and you, waking up after the fight in Beacon, are you.

Good?

Good.

My two cents (which I should point out is our opinion before I wiped the last day from our mind... God this is fucking confusing.) is to cut using magic cold turkey and just eliminate the risk that it could even happen again entirely. But, I also appreciate the opportunities going full Raistlin Majere (magic at the expense of everything fucking else) would afford us.

Anyways, let's continue, shall we?

So Cinder unintentionally turns Winter into a Grimm. Salem kills it, then revives Marty and turns him into a Grimm, creating Aldric Black.

Aldric Black doesn't play fair. He doesn't fight people, he kills them, and nobody alive is prepared for that kind of sheer, cold, brutal efficiency. The absolute lack of hesitation. Everyone on this planet - fuck, even ours! - is programmed to fight each other, to struggle against each other, and then kill, but he just skips all that and goes straight for the kill. He just, kills, the Batman.

Imagine if that stunt we pulled with Rayne - smothering her in her sleep with our semblance - was applied to everyone. Aldric Black was snapping necks, stopping hearts from beating, running people through with Vader's lightsaber... He defeated the Summer Maiden and her guardian in two minutes, he killed everyone in Raven Branwen's camp in seconds, defeated her in barely an instant.

And then systematically killed Ruby, Qrow, Yang, Pyrrha, Ren, Nora, Haven's headmaster, and then just goes full-on Broly and takes out Salem's crew and the two surviving Masters, and then ALMOST EVERY FUCKING HUNTSMAN IN MISTRAL!

IN A GODDAMN AFTERNOON!

Jesus fuck, and that wasn't even the end of it!

With Mistral destroyed, Vacuo taken by the Terrans, and Vale just fucked, all that was left was Atlas.

Enter: Venom Aldric.
I'll be honest: I know who he is. But I also specifically am not telling you, because following the mind wipe I'm about to do, you'd lack all of the context I've built up in the... Like... Day? Two? Ish? That led me to trust him. I'll do my best to explain why I trust him here in a bit, but suffice to say, I figured out who he is, and why he hid his identity by assuming ours in that fucked up future, and I chose to trust him, which means you can trust him. Period.

Have I mentioned yet that referring to pre-Mind Wipe me, and post Mind Wipe me, as two different people, and yet relying on the fact that we're the same goddamn person, is fucking confusing? This shit is harder than trying to make the Metal Gear franchise coherent past 'Nanomachines, son!'

Moving on: He shows up and follows the clues we left in this journal to eventually find that Super Contingency we builtgrammed back during that Week of Freedom after Earth got connected to Remnant. From there, he activated Sephiroth and did what it told him to... But in the time it took, Aldric Black built up an army of Grimm and attacked the survivors that had flocked to Sephiroth.

Cue: The Battle of Five Armies. (Humans, Faunus, Terrans, Grimm, and I guess Ozpin and Venom could count as a two-person army)

During which, fucking Aldric Black pulled a Thanos and ripped the goddamn moon out of the sky because he was done dealing with the assembled army there to make sure Sephiroth went off without a hitch. He killed almost everyone, destroyed Atlas (which can apparently FUCKING FLY! The whole city! Like some Alita Battle Angel bullshit!) leaving only him, Venom Aldric, and the survivors inside Sephiroth.

So him and Venom started fighting mano-e-mano, and while that happened, through some stroke of divine luck, they ended up crashing into Doc Brown (which had been locked off once our death had been confirmed). And then he got thrown into the DeLorean and launched back to the moment after I finished setting things up.

I'll be honest: I didn't trust the motherfucker. Whole stop, I didn't believe a single damn word he'd said. It was ridiculous even to our fucked up standards. I honestly thought he'd been sent by, or represented someone who worked for, Salem in the future, after we'd won, and was trying to undo it. I thought that Marty was standing there in the future, his hand on a Warehouse 13 artifact that made him immune to changes in time (Something I actually needed to look up on the Terran Tablet, 'cause I remembered that it existed just not what it was.), and was literally waiting on me to bring him to me.

I wasn't wrong: There was an Aldric, they did have several of Louis XIV's forks, and they were waiting.
Come to figure out: It wasn't Marty, and they weren't waiting to go back, they were waiting on Salem to tell them what the fuck had just happened and why Venom Aldric had just vanished in a vintage car.

So I gave Venom a fork, blew up our DeLorean, erased that timeline, and brought Aldric Black here.
Oops.

But I still didn't really trust the guy, even though I dubbed him 'not an asshole'. This could still have been some kind of ruse. I wanted to see what Venom would do on his own, so I let slip a few hints that I wasn't as strong as he thought I was - owing to the nine month time gap between then and my death - and that I had a weapon on me that could do the job.
Venom didn't do exactly what I thought he did, but he did end up getting the same point across, and he tried knocking me out.

Tried.

Since I was banking on him trying to do it, when he got around to it, I pretended to let him do it. He rifled through the Belt and found what I was hinting at: The Blade of Olympus.
Yes, for a while we had a literal God Sword on us. You may realize what I'd wanted to use it for - I wanted to use it on Salem whenever our fight came around. If it could kill Gods and Titans, it could kill her.

So Venom tries knocking me out, he leaves, and then I get back up and watch him interact with Aldric Black.

And, again, I found myself surprised, when Venom actually did mean the shit he said. He fought Aldric Black to the death, and ended up shoving the blade through his own gut to get a killing blow on Aldric Black. They didn't talk at all, no preamble, no nothing - they just looked at each other, and then went at it.

So, sufficiently trustworthy, when they were done, I gave Venom a senzu bean, got rid of the now useless sword - its energy having been expended killing Aldric Black - and Venom and I got to work.

He debriefed me, we spent a long time going over the major information we - and you - would need to know about the future, and we made a plan.

We had the mother of all arguments, let me tell you - I wanted to convince him to let me swap out the Oxycodone with Senzu Beans, such that you wouldn't die period underneath Beacon, and we could essentially skip to the end and just Avengers Assemble everyone to Salem's Domain and end things before she gets the rest of the relics.

He, however, argued differently - and explaining his argument would reveal some things you can't know yet, but suffice to say our death is the catalyst for someone to undergo some major character development (if you will), and he wants to roll the dice on that happening again, even with you running around and changing things from the timeline he came from.

Eventually, however, I convinced Venom that what he wanted to happen was just fucking impossible. It was a miracle that it had happened in the first place, and said miracle wholly relied upon me being dead, and that person learning things about me in a specific order at specific times and in specific ways. Change any one of those things and we may not have the same result, but remove the fact that I'm dead entirely? The chances of that change happening again may be non-zero, but are so remote as to be impossible. It's Chaos Theory, plain and simple. Step on an ant, and monkeys rule the future, so one can imagine what un-killing a Master would do.

Venom wasn't happy about it, let me tell you.
But, fortunately, the guy is pragmatic enough to realize I had a point, and gambling on odds that low would be bordering insanity.
I... Wish, I could, do what he wants. I do. And you'll understand why when the pieces fall into place for you - and believe you me, they will - but so too will you understand why I had to make this choice.

Anyways, with a plan set, I left him instructions on what to do after Beacon and how to get it done, but after that I had to leave, I was running out of time to leave the mountain, wipe my mind, and then have you go visit Mom.

Fast forward to now: You're alive, and Venom's timeline no longer exists - which is why I chose Doc Brown's time machine, because it obliterates the timelines it overrides, eliminating multiverse shenanigans.

Putting a pin in that, let's finish me up:

After talking to Venom, I wrote this, set it up to remain private and hidden until the day after the Beacon Battle, and wiped our mind - your first memory after me would be standing in front of the Mountain and going to Earth to go see Mom - because I can't have us remembering what's in there in case Ozpin (who Venom outright confirmed reads our mind without our permission. Stew on that, why dontcha?) tries to take a peek.

Actually, wait, I should tell you about that bit - don't fucking trust Ozpin.

Shocker, I know, but still:
Venom decided to roll the dice and try to pick up Mjolnir (didn't work), but before he left, Ozpin showed up and spun some epic yarn bullshit, buttered Venom up real good, and then tried to convince Venom to give his soul to Ozpin, so Ozpin could return to the levels of power he had before the Maidens. And, if that isn't enough, through what Venom told me I've concluded that Ozpin outright fucking hijacked Oscar Pine's body and just did not let the kid take the driver's seat.

If it wasn't before, now it's official, dude: Ozpin just can't be trusted. I can only fucking imagine the 'And I must scream' bullshit that kid was going through... It was almost enough to try and convince Venom to save Ozpin, but that's waaaaaaaaaaaaay too big a spanner in the works for my tastes.
And knowing that, now we have to wonder how much of what he told us about his history is true, and how much of it's bullshit?

Anyways, this leaves you and Venom.

As the name may suggest, Venom Aldric exists for the same reason as Venom Snake - to act as a double and act in our stead.
In other words, right now, while you're reading this, be it in the Pelican or in Salem's castle, Venom Aldric is out there playing Nathan Drake to those who matter. To further prove how much I trust him, I gave him two very important things such that he'd be armed with what he would need to convince those who matter that he is, indeed, me:
A copy of The Record, and I let him in on the fact that Earth had known about Remnant before we'd even made contact.

I wish I could've been there to see him read the former and watch the latter, because holy hell I bet it would've been entertaining, but I was running out of time, so all I could do was give him the context behind both, and my theories as to how the latter was even possible.

He took it... Well?
Ish?

The implication that I had known so much from the word 'go' freaked him out, but he knew me well enough to understand why I made the choices I did anyways (See: Sticking with Cinder and not running to Ozpin), despite that knowledge. Fortunately, I have no reason to think this will make him reconsider his own choices...

But.

If he does, if he turns, or he otherwise becomes too dangerous to keep around, there's something I specifically didn't tell him. I let him in on the fact that the Fork would keep him here, and told him it was important he never let go of it, but I didn't tell him that if he ever lost it, he'd vanish. Gone. Poof. I think he's smart enough to figure it out on his own, but still, I didn't outright tell him.
So if you need to, the path of least resistance is merely stealing the fork from him and watching him vanish.

But, that's a last resort, and again - I don't think he'll turn. I genuinely think he'll be with us until Salem, and from there he'll either die fighting or, assuming we win and he lives, will just go off to do his own thing. We just have to be prepared if he doesn't.

Moving on: While you're with Cinder at Salem's Domain, he'll be out giving information to the major players in the Watchmen (among it being the location of Salem's domain, so they should be preparing their armies and drawing up battle plans, but they'll be waiting for our 'go') and is getting the board ready for the grand finale in your stead, so you can focus on assisting in Cinder's recovery, training yourself, and hunting down the Maidens and their Relics.

Oh, and speaking of the relics, Venom did, indeed, figure out what the Relic of Knowledge does, and he told me.

But I'm not telling you, and it's because that knowledge may interfere with The Big One - the mother of all gambles - - the reason there's a couple black gems and a golden gauntlet in your belt. Magic works like we think it does, and ours works based off of perception and understanding, and if I tell you how the relic works, the Big One may not be viable anymore.

And for similar reasons, some other things that Venom has told me (among them some things having to do with the Masters), I can't tell you. I wish I could, but the variables you knowing these things introduce, and the sheer number of problems they could create, I'm sorry, but they're just too much. It genuinely is easier to withhold information from myself than it is to be open.

I really fucking am Revolver Ocelot at this point.

And... That's it, really. You're up to date.

It's all or nothing, Dead Man.

You're in the endgame now, so wake the fuck up, Samurai.

You've got a planet to burn.