Chapter 77
"I need to arrange a pickup."
"Mister Ryan? You literally just left, why didn't you tell me this a minute ago?"
"Did I? Hm... Well, to explain that to you would take more time than I have. I need to arrange a pickup."
"Alright... We'll shelve this one for later. When, where, and how many?"
"Clarifying question: Am I correct in assuming you know where the White Witch is, now?"
"Of course we do, you... Are you okay? What's your mother's name?"
"Sarah. As in Connor. And I told you - it's complicated. I can't say exactly when, but if you know where it is then you'll be able to see my airship land with your satellites. Be ready to move within an hour of that happening, because things will happen fast,and I won't have a timetable for you. Just a promise that if her castle explodes, you won't need to make a pickup. I remember seeing two mountains to the castle's north, and past those things actually looked alive again. Pick up will be in the valley between those."
"And how many?"
"Two minimum. Maybe three."
"Maybe three?"
"I'm getting to that. I'm being watched right now by someone who's in the loop, but not in the circle of trust, if you get my meaning. Minimum of two, maybe three. One of the folks I'm sending you... Suffice to say she's someone whose judgement I actually do trust, for better or for worse. In the event that she needs to exercise that judgment, I'll need the rescue team to react very carefully. Regardless, you'll pretty much be housing all of them until it's time for things to go down. Of the three of them, one of them won't know a damn thing about what's going on, especially if she's not conscious for the pickup. I'll have something for her that'll make the transition easier. It's not eyes-only, and once you and her have seen it you'll know what to do from there."
"That's a lot to process... But alright. Who are we picking up?"
Even though no one would know, even though no one would appreciate the effort or even the gesture, Aldric did lean over the edge of the Aviator, sliding his Mandalorian helmet off of his face, half of which now bled freely, bright and dark red blood mixing together as the deeper end of the cut literally bled into the shallower end. He clenched his fist tight, watching as the faunus screamed the entire way down to the ground. The pain he felt on his face, the fuzzy feeling in his head as his lifeblood flowed like a river down his eye and dripped off of his chin, was nothing, he knew, compared to what she'd be going through in seconds.
Still though, he hissed in his own pain, as he turned to the trashed Pelican. He regarded it with contempt, the red blood on his face reflecting the rage that soon thundered through his brain, as he briefly fell into the now thoroughly unpleasant memory he would associate it with. Two words that signified his absolute and utter failure, two words that he prayed wouldn't, but suspected would, ruin everything he'd fought, bled, and sacrificed for ever since his plane had crashed.
Two words that would lead to the death of the girl whose body he telekinetically extricated from the damaged wreck.
DO IT.
A fucking Palpatine quote.
As Ruby's unconscious body, and her scythe, floated over to Aldric and levitated in front of him, he allowed himself just a moment of blinding rage, and with a vicious swing of his arm, smashed the side of the Pelican with his semblance, sending it tumbling down to the ground.
"God... Damn it." He whispered, though his words were completely masked by the roaring high-altitude winds.
It was a sentiment he repeated as he carefully maneuvered himself and the unconscious Rose into the Aviator, using his Semblance to open its airlock and lift the both of them inside. In absolute silence he telekinetically carried Ruby to Mercury's old room - it still just as the Assassin's son had left it - and dropped her on his bed, before shutting and locking the door. He stood there for a long, solitary moment, teeth clenched, face still bleeding, heart hammering in his chest. He was halfway between crying and screaming, and the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he was here, doing this, solely because he couldn't have thought of a better way out, pushed him closer to the angrier reaction. He growled, breath coming out in ragged gasps - his own blood bubbling on his lips as it slid down his face. He went to the bathroom, grabbing a first aid kit and wrapping bandages and gauze around his grievous wound. When he was done, he took a look at himself in the mirror - seeing half of his face covered in reddening bandages, and this broke him. He devolved into shouting in impotent rage - the only thing he could do to show his absolute hate of the situation he truly believed he'd dropped himself in. He smashed his metal hand on the mirror, splintering it and causing some fragments to fall to the ground.
"GOD DAMN IT!" He screamed at the top of his lungs, grabbing the sides of the mirror and wrenching from left to right, pulling it further and further with each tug until he finally tore it off the wall and threw it at the ground, shattering it to pieces and covering the floor in broken glass. "GOD DAMN IT!" He roared so loud he could feel the effort hurting his throat.
Ruby Rose would die because of him.
Sure, he might have been prepared for the prospect, but that didn't mean he had to like it. It didn't make him feel any better, and it didn't make it any more right.
All it meant was that his time to fail, completely and utterly, had finally come - and at the worst possible time.
With the blood thundering in his brain - and his anger no doubt causing his tightly wrapped wounds to bleed a bit more freely, if the throbbing, pulsing pain in his face was any indication - he was incapable of thinking long-term. He couldn't think of the ramifications or the aftershocks of her death. All he could think of was the fact that she would be dead. Hell, Blake Belladonna was probably dead too, come to think of it. And if she wasn't, she sure as hell would be in a few hours. Aura or not, one doesn't survive a fall like that, so add another body to his count. Put Taurus next to Qrow on the Watchmen he'd just pissed off; and it was his damn fault.
DO IT.
He'd picked those words specifically. Any other phrase - any other one - and he'd at least know there was a plan. That he'd figured something out, and he just had to let it happen. But those two, they said to him that he had nothing. That it just had to happen, and there was nothing should do, because there was nothing he could do.
He was literally in the worst case scenario. Nothing he had thought of had panned out, not a single plan he'd come up with had solved the problems inherent in saving her, and for that, she had to die.
Staring down at the shattered mirror, its many fragments reflecting his own wounded, bloody visage back up at him as he huffed and puffed and brought his heart back under control, Aldric saw, just barely, a single tear collect at the corner of his eye, absorb the wet blood that had been scattered across his face, and then begin to fall, dragging a single line down the bridge of his nose, to the corner of his mouth, the edge of his jaw, and finally, fall.
He let out a long sigh, wiped his face with the back of his chainmail sleeve, and left the bathroom. He'd just tell Cinder the fight had broken it.
As he entered the cockpit, however, he paused, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up as something toyed at the edge of his senses.
Frowning, Aldric pushed out his Radar, and centered it on Ruby. She was still out cold, and the rest of the ship was still empty.
He sighed again, it coming out as a rough puff of air as he dropped into the pilot's seat, and he dismissed it as his mind playing tricks on him.
But what he didn't know, was that it had been the exact opposite.
That there was something else in the ship, and the brief slip up had been exactly that: Someone's concentration, for just the briefest of moments, faltering at the sight of the aftermath of his mission.
At her first introduction to the truth of his life.
No matter the time of day, the world seemed darker now.
After the death, of course there was the period of shock where everything seemed like it was the same. But as time dragged on, slowly the realization of what happened, of what had been done, and what it meant, it all came crashing down at once, and with the knowledge of it, the world itself seemed to change. In a lifetime of decisions and a lifetime of events, both proud and regretful, both big and small, when the one life that was just unplanned for ended, it didn't matter how numb one was, or how prepared they thought they were for the idea of it. Everything changed, invariably.
Myrtle Lake hadn't ever realized how much she appreciated her former leader's presence, his sometimes forced, sometimes natural, but ever-present smile. She never realized how much she leaned on his endless optimism and hope, or how much she learned from his scientific approach to his aura and his semblance, just as she never realized how much more exciting the days were with his seemingly bottomless pit of bravado and drama. No day, no fight, was ever quite the same with him - just as were the lessons he always seemed to draw from even the most inane encounters.
But all that changed when he'd died.
She couldn't believe it - it only happened days ago, the whole team was still in absolute shock over the thing, even after having seen Pyrrha with his shield, the mighty rotella scarred down the middle, the only evidence that he'd even been alive in the first place, as his body lay entombed underneath Beacon, trapped and kept from recovery by the ever-increasing numbers of Grimm flocking to the once fortress-school. The same sentiment was reflected by the rest of the team - Srebro still cried herself to sleep each night, horribly regretting that she'd been too low on aura that night to go and assist Jaune and Ecru in rescuing him, her cheeks perpetually scarred by dried tears, and Ecru, she'd been ruined by the news. The girl was so torn between action - recovering his body - and inaction - the knowledge that doing so would kill more people she cared about - that she'd practically become catatonic, only speaking when spoken to and practically having to be driven to do everything else by another, her usual fiery energy and persona just gone as she grappled with the knowledge that he was too.
The last remnants of her fiery personality had only briefly shown themselves when the three of them had had a wall-shaking argument about recovering his corpse. Ecru had shouted so loud and argued so vehemently about going back - about getting all their friends from Beacon and punching a hole through the Grimm to get his body - that Myrtle's ears had bled. It had broken Myrtle's heart - and had practically destroyed Srebro - to deny her this, with Srebro having to meet Ecru halfway in promising to recover Ash's shield from Pyrrha so they could at least give him a symbolic burial. It had calmed Ecru, who seemed too hysteric to realize that they probably never would see the Invincible Girl again - she'd likely already taken the shield bequeathed to her and fled back to her homeland.
That left Myrtle, who, after seeing the two, realized that if no one was there to be strong for all of them, then she had to. She got Ecru out of bed every morning and got her to go through her routine, she coaxed Srebro out of her shell each day and provided her diminutive shoulder for the giantess to cry on. She kept everyone's weapons in shape, kept them working out and training, and even dragged them out on patrol missions, hoping beyond hope that they'd find a few low-level Grimm to vent their frustrations on.
And she did all this by burying her feelings about the whole ordeal.
She had to force herself to not think about how she'd been injured and kept out of the rescue attempt. Each time memories threatened to surface, and the emotions that followed them, she forced her mind elsewhere - usually target practice with the Tosser. Each time she saw something that reminded her of him, she vented her frustrations the best way she knew how - going out later that night and stealing things she didn't need. This had led to some contention between her and Srebro, who was terrified she wouldn't return one day, but she was so far past being able to resist her teammates - even verbally - that hardly any words from Myrtle had been needed to quiet her down.
And she forced herself to sleep by working herself half to exhaustion each night, resulting in her nearly breaking one of her brittle bones, tonight. It was all she could do to clear her head and try to come up with some kind of plan for the future - but all she could come up with was trying to invigorate the other two, to use his death as inspiration for them to defend Vale, and to just kill as many of them as they possibly could.
She intended to float this idea to them tomorrow, but for now, she just needed to sleep. Their appropriated hotel room was dead silent and pitch black tonight - with Ecru and Srebro fast asleep in different corners in the room. The sight made the young faunus sigh, but what could she do?
She took the bed the other two had abandoned, and settled in for a restless sleep.
Or, rather, she tried.
It felt like no time at all had passed before her senses started flaring up. The hairs on the back of her neck started to stiffen, her ears started to twitch, and it felt like something was wrong.
Opening her eyes, she couldn't tell if she was right or wrong.
Before she could even process what she was seeing - before she could even question if it was a hallucination, a dream, or a nightmare - there he was, and his cold, metal hand planted it on her face, while his other raised up in front of his, a single finger held up.
She blinked her eyes, her brain beginning to work as the image above her finally started processing.
"Ash?" She whispered almost inaudibly, after he removed his hand from her.
He nodded, finger still held up in front of his face, still begging her silence. He nodded to the propped-open door to the room, and without further explanation, exited.
Her every instinct was to wake up the others, but the way he'd acted - how quiet he was, how he'd somehow managed to make no noise leaving the room, how he'd entered so quietly that it had taken until he was right above her for her to even register his presence, and how he'd insisted on her remaining quiet, that her mind overrode her instincts, and she quietly followed him outside. She shut the door behind her, and then turned to look at him - to really look at him - and saw that he'd changed his look. No longer present was his chestplate, or his coat - both replaced by a chainmail shirt, and a darker mail suit underneath it. His right arm was different now - less robotic looking, with fewer hard edges and a more rounded, smooth, muscular look.
"Ash?" She whispered again, her voice shaking. "Is - it's you?" She actually felt a tear well up in her eyes, and she nervously cleared her blue hair from her face.
There was a conflicted look to Ash, in the way he held himself, in the frown on his face, but he nodded regardless. "I'm sorry I had to wake you up... But I need your help." He said.
But Myrtle was still having trouble processing what she was seeing, she had to reach out and touch Ash's new arm to even confirm that she was dreaming. "But... They said you were dead!"
Ash let out a tight sigh, and nodded. "It's... A very long story, Myrtle... But the short version is I know the people that did this." He waved his hand in no specific direction. "I knew them from back home... And Ozpin figured that out."
Myrtle blinked, her eyes practically bulging out of her head as she processed what he told her, "what?" She whispered.
"You remember that recording that played, at Vytal?" He asked, to which she nodded; Ash hesitated a moment, before he admitted, "I was the person he was speaking to." Myrtle did a double take, the information being dropped on her rapidly becoming too much, her head quickly feeling light. "He was telling me that he knew something bad was going to happen and they were involved. He was telling me he had this plan... And he was asking me to be a part of it."
"Why?" Myrtle asked, slowly. "And - he wanted you - what?!" What did he mean? What did Ozpin have to do with this? Was he saying that Ozpin had convinced him to fake his death? Why?!
"Like I said, Myrtle... It's a long story." His voice rang hollow, "but..." He sighed, "fuck... He's been alive for a very long time." A beat, "Ozpin. He's literally immortal - when he dies, he just... Comes back later. And there's someone else like him, but she's evil, she's as close to a Queen of the Grimm as there can be, and he's been fighting her for almost as long as they've both been alive. Far longer than history books have been written, and that the war is coming to a head." He turned away, teeth gritted as he rubbed his neck - Myrtle darted forward, coming to a stop in front of him so she could keep looking into his eyes. "She -" He sighed, "she's the reason the Terrans are here, and that she pulled that stunt scared Ozpin, Myrtle, so he had to do something drastic, and give her ground so he could take more later."
Myrtle was on the bleeding edge of not being able to believe what she was hearing, but the near-nirvana of Ash being alive again, the miracle of it, had her open to the idea of the fantastical. "And... What does that have to do with you?"
"Beacon, the breaking of the ceasefire - that was him giving ground." Ash finally met her eyes, and she saw despair in him - in them she could see him dealing with the titanic weight of something even he could barely understand, and bubbling underneath all of that was some kind of mania, some sort of borderline madness as he tried to handle all of that. "Because I'm his plan to take it."
Myrtle tilted her head, "how?"
"I told you - I knew the people who did it. The Queen, Salem, she recruited them, so Ozpin recruited me. I didn't know what they were doing at first, but when he pulled me aside, he clued me in on it - and he asked..." He cut himself off, "no... He begged - he begged me, Myrtle - to ingratiate myself to them. To use our friendship and join their side, so I could provide him and this... Fifth column thing he has going on with the other Headmasters and a few Terrans...So I could give them all her location." He explained, "he said that if this worked... We could end it, Myrtle." He whispered, falling back, weightlessly, until he was held up only by the wall behind him. "The Grimm. We could kill their queen and weaken them all - maybe even kill them!" His voice shook and the corners of his mouth twitched with some mix of delirium and hope, and Myrtle now realized what the weight was she was seeing: He was trying to bear the weight of potentially being instrumental in destroying the Grimm. All of them. She could hardly even comprehend the idea, let alone imagine what he must be going through, being instrumental to it.
"So... You faked your death?" She said, slowly piecing it together, the idea of it all - of everything that was being piled onto her so quickly and so suddenly - beginning to blow past ridiculousness and glide back into believability: As much as her instincts told her this couldn't be real, it was so far fetched that it couldn't be.
Ash nodded, "I confronted my friends - Cinder Fall chief among them. Convinced them to let me in on it, and we came up with the idea - getting shot at the end of the tournament was a part of it, and faking my death was the end of it." He said, looking off into the distance, "the idea was to end hope..." He scoffed, and shook his head, before continuing. "Cinder let me in, but Salem... Salem's a different story. She needs proof I'll be loyal."
Myrtle felt something cold grip her heart, as she realized she was about to be told something that would eclipse everything. "What kind of proof?"
Ash gulped, and what he said next he pushed out in one breath, his voice so low that Ecru heard only the air passing, and couldn't hear him say it - only able to understand it by reading his lips.
"They want me to bring Ruby to Cinder so she can kill her, Myrtle." He gasped, biting back a sob as a tear formed in the corner of one of his eyes.
"Why?" Myrtle asked, her hand twitching as she covered her mouth with it, her eyes wide.
"She hurt Cinder bad, Myrtle. She's still laid up in bed. She's pissed, and proud, and she wants Ruby dead... And I have to provide her if I want them to trust me." He said, shakily running his new mechanical hand through his hair.
"Did - What -" Myrtle fumbled over her words, half of her wanting to ask if that meant Ash had abandoned the mission, and half of her wanting to ask if he had a plan. "What are you going to do?"
Ash was silent a long time, before he said - "I have to give her to them, Myrtle." Myrtle's hand dropped, her jaw slack, as her mind ground to a halt. "And I need your help."
"To kill Ruby?!" Myrtle practically shrieked, with only nearly two decades of habitually being quiet at night keeping her voice from penetrating the walls.
Ash's momentum seemed lost, as he slowly turned to look at her, eyes wide and jaw slowly growing slack.
He swatted the side of her head, her aura briefly flashing as it caught the blow, "to save her, you dumbass!" He snapped, "but I need your help to do it, and you have to say yes or no now, because all I have time for is to tell you what my plan is. I don't have time for debate."
Myrtle felt as though her heart had fallen out of her chest, "I can't even... Ash, if I leave the other two I don't know what they'll do." She whispered, airily. "They're in a bad place... We all are."
Ash nodded, his expression pained, "I know." He said, "I know... But they're smart, Myrtle, and tough. We have to trust them to make the best decision for themselves."
"I can't even leave a note?"
Ash shook his head, "no, Myrtle - because the airship is fueling up right the fuck now. The Grimm the lady gave me is working Ruby's house over right the fuck now. The whole plan has been timed precisely - I had to move heaven and earth just to get this chance. Without you I won't be able to do it and Ruby will die, so you need to tell me, right now, yes or no?!" He held out his hand, a beseeching look on his face.
Damn it... She thought, feeling her heart turn to ice as she said, "what do you need me to do?"
Staying quiet was nothing new. Staying quiet for several hours was nothing new. But staying absolutely silent, and rocking her semblance - forcing intangibility on top of that - for days on end, and not just hiding herself but hiding a companion, the 'second most important piece to the puzzle' on top of that, now that was new. If it wasn't for those beans Ash had given her, she wouldn't have made it. A part of her wished she hadn't, considering the look on his face and the anguished cries of rage that came out of him after he'd brought Ruby into his airship, if only so she would have been forced then to try and convince him of another way.
She really wished she hadn't when the airship reached its destination, and she and her companion silently and ghostily slid out of the ship behind Ash, with Ruby on his shoulder. When Myrtle activated her semblance, the world around her drained of color, as her body turned transparent. She walked in between night and day, in a world that was brightly and perfectly lit but completely devoid of color. Once she had described it as 'devoid of life,' but now she felt as though that description could only ever be attributed to this place. Her first look at Salem's Domain haunted her - it was a great wasteland. The sky above was dark despite the shining sun, and the ground below was dried and desiccated like a corpse left in the desert sands of Vacuo, and swarming with Grimm. More than she had ever seen in one place before. Even the Fall of Beacon hadn't had this many, and they just wandered about like regular animals. Above it all loomed the great, ghastly, dark castle that Ash had landed in front of, it appearing not regal, but even more dead than the wasteland around them - like someone was parading around the corpse of better times over a land that couldn't remember them.
The two followed Ash into the castle, their footsteps not leaving any marks behind them and the presence, thankfully, going by completely unnoticed by the Grimm that surrounded them. Inside the castle, the difference was like night and day - with big, looming walls and ceilings and hallways stretching out endlessly, but completely empty, without a Grimm or even a living person in sight.
Ash carried Ruby on his shoulder, bringing her down into a dungeon of some sort, dropping her in the middle of the floor and clenching his fist - encapsulating her hands in the ground underneath her in a pair of improvised handcuffs. Myrtle and her companion quickly retreated to the end of the room, hiding in a corner and waiting for their chance - their one and only chance to avoid staining Ash's soul.
Ash stood there for a long heartbeat, staring at Ruby's unconscious body, before letting out a sigh to steel himself, and turning to leave the concrete dungeon. Once they were alone, Myrtle got to work - moving with exaggerated slowness, dragging her hand across the wire wrapped around her hand, connecting her to her companion, and continuing down until she reached her waist, and slowly began untangling the wire. She couldn't pull Ruby out of this while having her hanging off of her back so they both would remain intangible, but with this connecting them, the same effect would be achieved. It had been a trick she'd only learned after her and GEMS' little 'intervention' with Ash, which felt like so long ago. Thinking about it made her smile, though - as it made her realize that even through all of that, Ash had been paying a little too much attention.
After unwrapping several meters of wire, leaving only what was coiled around her and her companion's wrists, she felt said companion's fingers reach her wrist, and swiftly drag out a deafblind sign, a simple one for one not fully versed in the language: GOOD.
Myrtle nodded, and gave her companion the same sign back, and the two settled in for the long haul.
It broke Myrtle's heart when, after some time had passed, Ruby awoke. The innocently confused expression on the young Rose's face showed just how little she truly suspected of the world - how hopeful and optimistic she was. That she had woken up in a strange place on a cold stone ground wasn't cause for extreme alarm, but was instead a mild curiosity.
So seeing her usual hope and optimism break like glass when the door to the dungeon opened and revealed Cinder Fall and a fully masked Ash, even as Myrtle readied herself for 'go time,' it made her heart clench in her chest. She could only hope that this plan, that Ash's plan, would work, that they could take their window and use it, that Ruby wouldn't die afraid, but could instead live... Well, less afraid, considering where she was going.
Myrtle almost stopped dead when she saw Cinder begin to torture the young Rose, and she had to force her emotions down, pull a small towlette laced with anesthetics out of her pack, and begin to creep forward towards what had become the center of a torture chamber, as Cinder and Ash had their argument. She just about reached Ruby when Cinder rounded on her and forced Ash to unmask himself, and she had to back off a step - desperately wondering how she would do this if Cinder would literally keep ahold of her.
Fortunately, she got her chance when Cinder let go of Ruby, and the young Rose began to truly realize the depth of what she'd been dragged into and begged Ash to save her. Ash, under the effects of the mind-altering device, could only watch in muted horror at what he believed would be his imminent failure.
Well... Myrtle gulped, sneaking right behind Ruby and slowly coiling one arm around Ruby's stomach, and the other with the drug-soaked towel hovered just over her face, watching over her shoulder as Cinder pulled out her red, crossguard replica of Ash's old lightsaber. We'll have to time this right... And she turned to look over her other shoulder. Where, visible only to her, her companion stood crouched in the corner, a single nod being all she gave to let Myrtle know she was ready.
And as Cinder ignited her blade, and Ruby croaked out her final plea, Myrtle sprang into action.
Praying that Yuno Magenta's semblance would be up to the task of replacing Ruby just as fast as she pulled her out of the literal line of fire.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, Neopolitan hated the Garden with a passion. For all of its amenities and all of its wondrous foods, it was simultaneously too safe here, and too dangerous. Because of the Garden's rules, that meant there was never any danger to be had, and as such she - as Torchwick's Gardener - had little to do but lounge around and wait for him to give her something to do. But simultaneously, it was also disastrously dangerous - as its strict rules and everyone's strict adherence to them meant it would only take one person to take a leaf from Adam Taurus' book and realize that the best place to kill someone, ironically, was the Garden. If one was on a suicide mission, all they had to do was get inside, and then their target was as good as dead.
This meant that whenever Neo spent more than a day or two down here, she got antsy. Halfway between blissful relaxation and fully tweaked anxiety and apprehension, and staying there all the time, she hated it down here.
So one could clearly imagine her dismay when Torchwick told her they would likely be spending the next few months down here, until or unless Aldric gave them the signal and they could take their small army to Salem's doorstep. Her only source of entertainment was watching Torchwick in his element, craftily doing a very certain kind of business, that straddled the line so carefully that it was amazing he wasn't violating any rules. He weaved through centuries of accumulated of history between hundreds of the most powerful assassins in Vale, and slowly but surely brought them over to his way of thinking, ever gradually securing their services in the service of Aldric and the battle he was, with Vale's fall, now actively scheduling.
But of course, as good as Torchwick was, as she'd said before, he was rather comfortable with where he was, so as much as it entertained her to watch him work, it thrilled her when he made a very unscheduled visit.
Neo, hidden in plain sight, her hair appearing four inches shorter and, alongside her eyes, far more silver than Aldric was used to, was able to spot him the instant he walked in, whereas he - even with his fantastic senses - couldn't find her so easily. How a man so powerful as he managed to appear so small and frail compared to the ants that surrounded him fascinated Neo, but of course, those were only outward appearances. The hunched shoulders, the slouched back, the hands ever-stuffed in his pant pockets, the unkempt hair, it all portrayed an image that to anyone merely glancing at him, would be all they saw - but to Neo, who could catch glimpses of his eyes, she saw much more. She saw the fire, the passion, the determination - the things that set him so apart from all of these people, and set him just above Roman Torchwick.
And, ever seeking to prove her right about him, he realized that one person above everyone else was staring him down - the one person that, save only appearing many decades older than she was, had Neo's build down to a T. He zeroed in on Neo, who gave him a little wave with her fingers as she let the image melt away, and she turned to the bar, catching the bartender's attention and silently securing two shots of whiskey.
Just as he reached her, she reached out with her boot and slid a barstool out for him, which he fell into without missing a beat, twisting himself around and slumping down onto the bar as she typed away at her scroll.
"Jesus fuck..." She heard him half-yawn, half-whisper into his arms.
Her shoulders quivered in a silent giggle, and she tapped on his shoulder, wondering if he'd been doing any reading lately.
What brings you here? She signed, her thin smile and half-lidded eyes challenging him.
He simply stared right back, his face briefly telling a story of exhaustion and nerves, before he wiped his hand from his forehead to his chin, vanishing the tired expression and presenting the same hand, with his middle finger extended. Neo's head bobbed back and forth, tri-colored hair swaying in the motions and lips pursed, unsurprised - he had been busy as of late, after all. She slid her scroll to him, it displaying the same message.
"Salem wants me to bring her Ruby Rose." He grunted.
Neo nodded her head to the side, a brief frown playing on her features; she supposed she should have seen this one coming, really - as much as Aldric had done to prove his loyalty to Salem, she'd had it shaken in others before, so doing this was a means of ensuring that he wouldn't shake it anytime soon.
She's in Patch at the moment, if I recall correctly. She told him, if you're outsourcing the job, as disappointed as I'll be, I'll still give you a discount. She added, placing a hand on his thigh, one corner of her mouth curling up high.
He ignored it, shaking his head. "Oh, I've a job, but not that easy." He sighed, swiping his hand through his hair. "Obviously I can't get out of this. I suspect Salem, like Ozpin, can read minds. So anything I do to subvert this or save her will be made instantly." He began, "and she clearly won't accept failure, here. She gave me the equivalent to an emotion bomb to make sure I don't have to run a gauntlet of every single one of her friends and family. So there's no two ways about it - I'm catching her and I'm bringing her there."
Neo rolled her eyes and took her hand back, instead scooting closer and leaning into him. So what's your plan, then? She asked, knowing he wouldn't be here if he hadn't come up with one.
"Twofold." Aldric responded, "since I suspect Salem will know if I do anything, I can't be the one to pull it off." He waved his cybernetic hand, which Neo noticed appeared far less skeletal and robotic, and more fluid and cybernetic now. "I've already dealt with the whole 'well what if she looks at my memories' thing, so that's not an issue. The issue is figuring out how to get Rose out of there, Because it's much better for her to be alive than for her not to be. But I have to do it without me, Cinder, or Salem knowing, and doing so in a way that can easily adapt itself to any potential problems... Thus why I'm here. You're my first stop, and after you I'll be meeting someone else."
Oh? Neo tapped away, her heart hammering in her chest as she felt she knew part of why he was here, and, perhaps more enticingly, what she could get out of it.
"Spent a long time working out and ultimately throwing away any of the potential solutions I could come up with using magic. None of them panned out, or worked the way I wanted, but then I realized that, perhaps for the first time, my solution didn't lay in the unhealthy amount of comics games and movies I've imbibed over..." He leaned back, "fuck... Nineteen, now? Just about?" He shrugged, "nineteen years, but rather in the pieces of the puzzle that have already been put in front of me." She felt a big, wide smile stretch over her face when his head rested upon hers - she knew what it meant, he was about to ask her for something and he knew what it would cost him. "You, and one of the girls on my team at Beacon. You two have the skills and abilities I need to get her out of this."
One of her eyebrows briefly shot up - so he was bringing someone new into this game? Oh now that would be fun. She'd even have a front row seat to see him at work!
I'll have a price. She wrote.
"I'm literally a few days away from picking up an airship filled with Glass. You manage to get it all done you can have half of it."
Her grin grew wider, for he definitely knew how to tempt her out of what he knew she really wanted. Half of Marcus Black's life earnings? That's a treasure horde fit for a queen, she could retire so long that her grandchildren's grandchildren wouldn't have to work.
But there was something else she wanted, and it only entertained her that he was trying to avoid it.
I had something else in mind, Mister Aldric. She said. After all, last time I told you that next time I wouldn't be nearly as tired as I had been then.
"Uh..." He floundered. "I'm tired?"
Only mentally.
"I have a headache?"
Repeated concussions over the course of two years tend to do that.
"I don't want to?"
If that's actually true I'll retire tomorrow.
"Please do as I say for I am the heavenly Buddha?"
Now you're just stalling. She didn't bother with an ultimatum, they both were on the same page. Come on - She beckoned, sliding over the second shot, it coming to a halt right in front of him. Come to my room, and I'll kill or save everyone you want, however you want me to.
Aldric stared at the alcohol in front of him for a long time, long enough that Neo actually thought he may be serious, but his indecision, his reticence, passed by and was replaced by resolve as he let out a long sigh, took the glass, and upended it.
As she got to her feet, Neo wondered what she would treasure more: What was about to happen, or the memory of seeing Nebo Aldric sputter and cough as the hard alcohol greeted him for the first time and burned his throat.
Either way, she had a smile that wouldn't be leaving anytime soon.
Neo watched with no small amount of fear and excitement as, in one fluid motion, faster then the blink of an eye, her invisible, intangible companion grabbed ahold of Ruby, stuffed the towel in front of her face, knocked her out, and dragged her to the ground, as Neo herself, with but a brief thought, brought her semblance to life - and before anyone could even perceive it, Ruby was gone, and back again, just in time for Cinder to bring her blade down on the now illusory copy's neck.
The mute assassin let out an inaudible gasp of exertion as she adapted and changed her glass copy's appearance as fast as she could, almost literally tearing its head off as Cinder's blade passed through it. This was the challenge of the whole thing, and the only place in all of Aldric's requests that she felt she may have trouble, because she had to act with scant moments of notice to change her illusion and adapt it to Cinder's actions, she had to add micro-illusions for the blade to actually hit and drag against to create resistance, make them big and dense enough to actually resist her, but small enough that their shattering wouldn't produce audible noise or visual effects, and she had to do all of this without allowing it to shatter and reveal their deception. As good as Aldric was, she wondered how successfully he could dance around that happening right in front of him.
Fortunately, she had a little leeway - as illusory as her copies were, they did still obey physics. So once Cinder's blade passed through 'Ruby's' neck, Neo just let the head and the body drop to the ground, with the former getting a little roll for good measure. Myrtle tried snaking away, dragging the now thoroughly unconscious Rose along the ground and out of Cinder's way, while Aldric and Cinder admired the Maiden's handiwork.
And then said Maiden just decided to make it easy on her, and just started blasting the 'corpse' with white-hot fire. Neo cracked a grin at this and let the illusion vanish, allowing Cinder to think she'd incinerated the young Rose, as she wiped a few beads of sweat from her forehead. A part of her couldn't believe her luck, but the rest of her - forged by a very long career in this line of work - knew to just accept it, as she still had a long way to go before the job was done.
Neo confidently sashayed over to Myrtle as both Cinder and Aldric, completely unaware of their presence in the dungeon, reacted to the former's actions.
"Better?" Aldric asked, as the grayscale mute lent the grayscale thief a hand in getting to her feet, with the latter having scooped the drugged Rose into her arms.
Neo wasn't terribly surprised at Cinder's next actions, she'd been waiting for that shoe to drop for ages. She just rolled her eyes and hoped Aldric would have fun, not-so-secretly taking no small amount of pride in knowing she'd gotten there first. But these and related thoughts she kept to herself, as she wrapped the wire connecting her and Aldric's former teammate together, and they darted out of the dungeon.
What came next was the easy part: Merely walking undetected into Salem's castle had satisfactorily displayed that they could sneak past Grimm, and since they were intangible, it was child's play getting out: They literally just barreled through walls until they reached the dry, stagnant air outside. Neo, being the one of the two without her hands full, led the way North to the mountains Aldric had specified before he'd wiped his mind. While the trek was easy and the Grimm remained completely oblivious, that didn't make it any less tedious - them having to cross miles and miles on foot and at a slow pace, so as to not stress the wire connecting them or to drop the Rose they were here to save in the first place.
But, after a few hours, and one break so Myrtle could eat another one of Aldric's beans and refill her energy, they finally started to see grass again. Still old, dead, gray grass, but it was much more life than they'd seen for the last several hours. And reaching the canyon between the two mountains, they could see that gray grass bleed into brown, and that brown slowly bleed into green on the horizon... Or at least, the shade of gray that passed for it, while she was under the influence of the former student's semblance.
And there, at the deepest point in the canyon, was a Terran car, with several Terran soldiers surrounding it, peering down the sights of their weapons and just waiting for something to come into them, be it friendly or not so.
At this, Neo surveyed their surroundings, and found no Grimm within sight. She turned to Myrtle, who was sweating from the endless exertion over the past few days, and nodded once. Myrtle, being one of only three who could actually see the action, let out a thankful gasp, and for the first time in nearly a week, broke her semblance. Color reentered her world, and Neo needed a moment to adjust to it, having grown accustomed to its absence while she'd literally been tethered to the thief.
She silently offered to take Ruby from her, but Myrtle shook her head and pushed on, prompting Neo to shrug, and follow behind her, surreptitiously patting her various tools and weapons, confirming her poisons and guns were ready and loaded, just in case she needed them. Looking up, she saw the Terrans' attention now solely focused on them as they approached, their weapons shouldered and their faces set in determined frowns.
When they came within earshot of the alien soldiers, the men called out, "ROOSTER!"
Myrtle gasped out, "Teeth!" and they lowered their guns, with one of them almost instantly opening up one of the doors to the back of the vehicle, while the man at the head of the group pointed at it.
"Get her in, come on!" He called out, as the three made it. "We've gotta roll!"
Neo, perhaps the only one amongst everyone present closest to having all the facts, prepared for what an inevitability as she reached the boxy vehicle and slid inside, gently depositing the unconscious silver-eyed warrior in the center seat, securing her to the utilitarian bench and turning back outside, silently wondering if the encounter would happen now that they were home free, or later, at the final stretch.
When Myrtle hesitated at the threshold of the vehicle, Neo sighed, steeling herself and calming her heart rate as she slid back outside. The girl didn't know normal sign language, but did know enough deafblind - perhaps befitting, considering her semblance - that Neo could talk without having to waste time typing onto her scroll.
What? Neo asked Aldric's former teammate, as the soldiers readied the vehicle and their leader approached the two.
"Hey, what's the holdup? We've gotta get out of here, this place ain't safe." He said, his gaze shifting from the blue-haired thief to the disguised, red-haired assassin; Neo sent him away with a wide-eyed, pleading look, and a single raised finger. "I can't give you much time, we've got a helicopter out there on its way and it can't stay in one place forever." He informed the two, before turning back to the vehicle and leaving the two.
Now alone, Myrtle grabbed Neo by the shoulder and pulled her aside, turning away from the Terrans, and using the sound of their vehicle's engine roaring to life to disguise their conversation. "Yuno, I - I can't go."
Neo theatrically rolled her eyes and let out a sigh, - but she didn't give in just yet. She had to try, there was more than a chance that she could convince her to not make the dumbest mistake of her life. She placed her fingers on Myrtle's wrist and signed, Ash trusts them. Ozpin trusts them. We need to.
Myrtle huffed indignantly, removing her arm from Neo's grasp and stepping away; with her back turned to the assassin, Neo used the chance to pluck a pearl from one of the necklaces hanging around her neck, and palm it as she crossed her arms across her chest. "That's not what I mean, Yuno - I... Trust them enough to know that this is a bad situation. They won't try anything, especially with you there."
Neo snapped her fingers and caught Myrtle's attention, so the thief could see her sign. Guarantee they would do nothing if the both of us were there with her.
Myrtle shook her head, "but I can't, Yuno! I did him this favor, but now I have to tell the others!" Neo pursed her lips, a convincingly pleading look leaking into her eyes. "We can track down JNPR and the rest of RWBY, we could help them! Three partial teams is better than two, Yuno, and think of how much we could help them just by saying that Ruby isn't dead, that Ash isn't dead!" She insisted, "that kind of hope is invaluable!"
Is this really the best time and place to be having this conversation, Myrtle? Neo asked her, we're not out of the woods, yet. She pointed out, nodding southward, where the sky was still red and the grounds still gray.
Myrtle appeared to concede her point, with how she nodded, but she still took a step back anyways, saying, "Ruby will wake up before we get to their... Whatever they said it was... And I can't fight the both of you telling me not to, not after fighting my team for so long. Not after all this." She said, "and... They need to know, Yuno - you didn't see them." Myrtle took another step back, covering her mouth with her hand and squinting her eyes as she calmed the emotions welling up in her. "If I don't leave now, I won't be able to later, and I don't know what they've done without me there... Or what they will do if I stay away."
Neo advanced on Myrtle, closing the distance and grabbing the thief's wrist, Please, Myrtle. She insisted, He said you couldn't tell them for a reason... What if you -
"Hey, come on!" One of the Terrans called out, "meter's running!" He tried to urge them to get a move on, but one look from Neo - the first time she'd dropped the act in a week - and the look of absolute fury from an Assassin, coupled with the fact that the soldier knew she was physically stronger than all of them put together, kowtowed him in an instant, giving her just a little more time.
Continuing where she left off, she said, What if you make it back, and tell your team and track down the others and tell them, and what if you meet Ash while he's working? What if Cinder is with him? She asked, You're Vacuoan, you know how important keeping secrets is. If you hesitate in front of him, if you let off any hint that there's some sort of double-play going on, he'll be dead before you can blink. She forced Myrtle to look her in the eye with the hand that had hidden in its palm the bead of her necklace. It's awful, but this is what we have to do. We have to be there to protect more than just Ruby, we have to protect everyone, and the only way we can do that is by going with the Terrans. We have to go!
But the stubborn bird faunus wouldn't budge, shaking her head with a pained expression. "I don't agree, Yuno. It's a risk to bring more people in on this, but the reward would be worth it. We're talking -" But Myrtle couldn't finish, as Neo backed off a step and presented her closed hand - which had clutched between her thumb and forefinger the bead from her necklace.
Myrtle, her mouth wide open, was sprayed in a thick purple cloud. It took but a moment for it to start taking effect, she coughed wheezed as she fell back, waving one of her hands and trying to disperse the cloud as the other covered her mouth. Through eyes rapidly filling with tears, she looked to Neo - seeing the illusion shatter as the assassin sauntered forward, pulling a micro-pistol out from one of the many pockets in her outfit.
"Yu -" Myrtle croaked, "Yuno?" All of the strength was gone from her voice, and she tried to scramble away when she saw the gun - she vanished from sight.
Only to appear barely a meter away, on her hands and knees, choking as the veins in her head and neck started to bulge. Her entire body convulsing, she looked at her hand, eyes wide and reddening as she saw her semblance fail her, and her aura visibly fade away as the neurotoxin took effect.
Neo reached the convulsing, dying thief, clicking her tongue and sighing. In one swift motion, she brought up the pistol, leveling it at the back of Myrtle's head, and fired, the thief's body going slack as she collapsed onto the ground. Neo waited a moment, watching Myrtle twitch, before she examined her pistol, the thing barely any bigger than her hand. The chances of it happening were slim, even for a gun this tiny, but she couldn't run the risk of Myrtle surviving this, so Neo leveled the gun again and fired until the Dust cartridge ran dry, not stopping until the girl's once teal blue hair ran red.
At least there were a bunch of grunts around - she'd let them take care of corpse disposal.
He had been up here in the air for days, going over everything he had available to him. Every imaginable option, from the magical to the mundane, he explored everything he was capable of that could possibly save Ruby Rose. He wasn't versed enough in using his magic like Ozpin, or Cinder, so even if he solved the related problems that would rise up from it, more abstract type things like teleporting Ruby out of Salem's castle were out. What he had once thought was an endless fount of knowledge of fiction and pop culture came up short, due in no small part due to how frantically he was racking his brains and the general exhaustion he was suffering, both physical and mental. Nothing would work the way he wanted or needed them to.
He had any number of possible solutions, but all of them failed or fell apart due to needing a human element - something or someone able to watch over it and correct for any flaws or unpredictable variables that would inevitably rise. Machines and Robots could at first glance avoid Grimm, but true AI had been proven by way of Penny Polendina to possess souls - thus, capable of emotion, among them being fear. The Grimm would sense them, and as such Salem would sense them, and worse was that few of the ones he was aware of, that he could also trust with this kind of thing, lacked physical bodies to play with, and all of that ignored how he'd be able to convince them of what was happening and to be on his side in the time he had. He would, after all, be essentially ripping them out of their home universes, where they had their own problems.
So going for AI couldn't work - that led him to consider calling on his allies. But every single one of them were out dealing with their own issues or preparing for the battle coming up. The only ones he could call on with any reliability would be Earth in general, or maybe Neo. Earth could provide him people skilled enough to get the job done, and Neo was good enough that Aldric didn't have to question it, but both problems then returned to how he'd spare Ruby, and hide her and the rescuers, both of which looked increasingly insurmountable the further he considered it.
He had no idea how Salem's senses worked, but even if he just limited himself to assuming she sensed and experienced everything the Grimm around her could, that left major problems he had to overcome. If he called in Earth, he'd have to hide several soldiers plus Ruby. If Neo, he'd have to hide her and Ruby. Invisibility options were out - the Grimm would sense their emotions coming into the castle, and then again going out of it. Teleportation was out, he knew of nothing that was quiet or subtle enough, and they'd still trip up the Grimm even if they somehow managed to get in and get out in literally one second.
Nebo Aldric leaned back in the pilot's chair of the Pelican, eyes wide and manic, hands almost constantly passing through his hair as he tried to calm himself down and come up with the one winning idea. The one thing that could work.
But he had nothing. For all his knowledge, for all his wit and intelligence, for all his power both mundane and magical, he had nothing. He'd been dealt something he hadn't ever planned for, and had no other option but to do what his enemies wanted.
The pieces were there - he knew what had to happen to make it work, that wasn't the problem. He had to fake Ruby's death. He had to hide her from anyone and everyone, himself included. He had to get her out of the castle and protect her from the Grimm, and then hide her - get her to train her eyes for the final battle. But he just couldn't, there was no way imaginable that he could set it all up to work independently from him and also hide itself from him, if for no other reason than aside from two exceptions, nothing had ever fooled his Radar Pulse, and Ozpin was dead, and Myrtle was still in Vale, and he didn't even know how he could convince her to help him in the first place.
Well, no - that wasn't true. He'd always had a rough idea of a story he could spin for the people on the Justice League's side, if he needed them to work for him without revealing the true extent of what he was involved in, how, and why. He'd come up with it with Qrow and Ozpin for after he'd unmask himself in front of them; his idea had been there would likely only ever be one encounter between the Legion and the League, and after that it would be Endgame territory, so whoever survived - Qrow or Ozpin - would have to give them something to convince them that the fight was still worth fighting. The truth could come after.
But even if he could convince her, what could she do really besides hide herself? She'd figured out intangibility - her and the rest of GEMS' little intervention with him had shown him that - so she could obviously hide herself and Ruby effectively, and maybe that meant she could sneak out of the castle and past all the Grimm, but that was it, and Cinder would catch on real damn fast if Ruby just vanished before her eyes, depending on how she actually tried to kill her. Good as Myrtle was, she had no way of faking Ruby's death.
To say nothing of the endless questions she'd ask after it was all done. He thought, morosely. Once she got Ruby out of there... She'd probably go right back to Ecru and Srebro, tell them, they'd hunt down Qrow, JNPR, and the rest of RWBY, and my cover would be blown before we ever encountered each other in Mistral, or wherever it ends up being. So they'll be prepared for it, and even if they tried to act natural, it wouldn't work, Cinder would grow suspicious, and everything - everything - would fall apart. Obviously I couldn't stick around post-rescue to convince her to keep her mouth shut, and even if we took Ruby way out of Salem's radar and gave her to the Terrans to safe-keep and train, barely any of them know enough of the story in general to keep my lie going, and I couldn't trust them to do it in the first place. So they'd pretty much have to keep her against her will... And we already know that couldn't happen.
So lacking anyone there who knew him well enough to play along convincingly enough to keep her quiet, he'd have to kill her, which wasn't an option he was fond of. Maybe the Terrans could do it, but she wouldn't trust them to begin with, so she'd be on edge the moment they came around no matter what they said.
Maybe Neo could do it, she knows my game and Myrtle would trust her if she kept up the Yuno look, but I still can't... He sighed. I still can't fake Ruby's death. It all surrounded that one thing. He just couldn't do it. He had no idea how.
Aldric struggled for a while longer before sighing, the world feeling like it was darkening around him, as he fished out the neuralyzer.
I'm just going to have to do it... He said. Because I can't... He gulped. I... A blink. I... Can't.
And therein lay the problem.
He couldn't.
But that last wayward thought just a moment ago gave him the one puzzle piece to make that one plan have the slightest hint of working.
He, specifically, could not.
But Neo? The woman whose illusory clones were good enough to fool even his senses? Who was quick enough on the draw to make them on the fly? She could. She could create a convincing enough Ruby at the moment of truth that Cinder could kill, while Myrtle snagged and hid the genuine article. Cinder could do whatever the hell she wanted to the illusion as long as Neo was quick enough to change it according to what Cinder did - as long as they didn't literally shatter, it would be fine. With Myrtle hiding all three of them, even he - with his memories altered - wouldn't be able to see them, let alone Cinder, Salem, or the Grimm.
Aldric leaned forward in his chair, looking out the window down at the dark clouds below, his face settling into a frown.
And with Neo as a part of the party, even playing the role of Yuno, Ash's girlfriend, she knew Aldric and the game he played perhaps better than anyone. If Myrtle became a problem, if she couldn't be trusted past the actual rescuing of Ruby, Neo could improvise on the fly to keep the act going and try to curtail Myrtle ruining his grand game, and if she failed to do so, she could do what had to be done and end Myrtle, because if no one else, Myrtle would trust the person Ash trusted, and as such, she'd be the perfect one to take her out. Better yet, Neo was perhaps the only person alive Aldric trusted - he could place his faith in her. He could trust her judgement enough to know that she wouldn't just pop Myrtle in the back of the head because it was easier. If he asked Neo to exhaust every available option, she would. He'd owe her big time, but it would be a debt he'd be fine settling. It had to be a last resort, but if he looked at things as objectively as possible, Ruby and her eyes was worth more than Myrtle, both to him and to the world. Ash knew or could get into contact with any number of people with Myrtle's particular skillset, but he hadn't encountered one person besides Ruby with her eyes.
And, perhaps best of all: He could defend this if it failed.
Myrtle was the easiest - she may not have been part of Ozpin's inner circle, but she was one of Ash's teammates. Even without memory of these plans, if all was revealed, Aldric would catch on fast enough to say that she and GEMS had to have gone with RWBY and JNPR to regroup, and had demanded to be included in the proceedings due to Ash having sacrificed himself for it. She would have sneaked aboard with Aldric being nonethewiser, as a means of saving Ruby when the opportune moment arose.
Neo would be trickier, but it was an established fact that Torchwick had betrayed them now. It wouldn't be hard to assume he'd try to get a shot in on Salem, either by assassinating Aldric or Cinder, and of course he'd send his best to do it. Her tailing the League would be an easy connection to make - they'd inevitably encounter each other, and as such her getting a chance to kill one or the both of them was just a matter of ingratiating herself with the League and waiting.
If it worked, it would work. If it failed, Aldric would be on thin ice, but even then Cinder trusted him enough to go to bat for him. His story would be solid enough that she'd be willing to accept it.
Aldric would probably have to personally kill Neo and Myrtle, and watch Cinder kill Ruby, but at that point he'd have no further choice in the matter.
Aldric let out a long sigh, feeling a weight slowly slide off his shoulders as he settled into the familiar comfort of having a plan.
"Okay..." He gulped. "Time to get to work."He reached forward and bade the Pelican land. "Hey, Slender-Man." He called out, sensing the Apathy shift and look towards him from the cabin below. "I'm bringing her down. Got some stuff I need to do, gonna try and untangle an airship and bring it back. You stay in here until I'm ready to drop you off at Ruby Rose's house."
It went back to staring blankly at the wall, and Aldric took that as it accepting his orders.
The only problem now was in convincing Qrow that this wasn't an epic, long-con backstabbing betrayal, but that was trivial in comparison to the rest of it.
Now he had a plan.
He just had to pray that it would work.
Ruby Rose woke up.
She actually woke up.
One second, she was begging Ash to save her, feeling Cinder's lightsaber coming down for her neck, and then it was darkness. The next, she woke up in a strange place - one she'd never seen before. Stark, metal, utilitarian walls and ceilings, bright, sterile lights, and a strange bobbing up and down, like she were on a real boat.
Had it all been a dream? Was she just sick?
She felt slender fingers slowly slide around her arm, and she turned to her left, seeing -
"Yuno?" She gasped, pushing herself up to her elbows. "Where'd you - why - where are we?" She asked, looking around and seeing that she definitely wasn't in a place she'd ever been before. She saw a couple people in strange blue and gray uniforms walking to and fro, their heads buried in weird-looking scrolls; Yuno, next to her, appeared like she'd seen better days - she looked a little thinner, and the teasing grin that had been omnipresent back when they'd last interacted in Vale was replaced with a more somber one, one weighed down by something Ruby couldn't properly identify.
Yuno pulled out her scroll and gave Ruby a single raised finger, before she started typing, and Ruby got a chance to look at herself. She was wearing new clothes - periwinkle paper scrubs, and there was a needle in her arm, leading into IV tubing that was supplying her with fluids. She couldn't read what was written on the IV bag, its script completely alien -
She gasped, entire body tensing.
Yuno realized what Ruby had just learned just as the young Rose began panicking, and quickly lunged forward, tapping her dainty fingers on Ruby's arm, desperately trying to calm her down.
"Yuno - it's - we're -" Yuno shook her head so fast it was a blur, countering Ruby's sputters. "No?"
Another shake, and then she indicated the scroll, before she slowly sat down, eyeing Ruby for a moment before she finished typing.
When she was done, she handed Ruby her scroll, which said:
There's a lot to take in right now, Ruby, and once you're ready he'll be able to explain more, but I can give you the short version: Goud is still alive, and he's acting as a spy for Ozpin, spying on the woman who helped start the war between Remnant and Earth. She needed him to prove his loyalty to her, so he had to kidnap you for Cinder to kill. But, he managed to buy himself some time to come up with a way to get you out of there - me and Myrtle, we got you out of there, but she didn't stick around after. The Terrans know they're being tricked, but they don't have proof, so they have to play along - but they diverted some resources to work with Ozpin, and Goud used some of those to get you and I picked up after we got you out of there. He recorded something for you, but the doctors on the ship will need to clear you before you see it.
Ruby was having trouble convincing herself she wasn't still dreaming. She had to reread Yuno's summary three times, her head feeling lighter each time, before it finally began to sink in.
"That was... Real?" She asked, turning to the red-haired Huntress. "All that in the... Scary... Dungeony... Place?"
To which, Yuno nodded, and took the scroll back so she could say, I was there with Myrtle. Her semblance makes people invisible, and at Beacon she learned to push it into overdrive to make them intangible too, so that was enough to keep us hidden from the Grimm surrounding the castle he took us to. I saw it all, Ruby - it was real, but we got you out... It was close, though. She didn't have many chances to grab you.
"Then... Why did I black out?"
Oh, Myrtle drugged you. Couldn't risk you making noise! :)
Despite herself, Ruby let out a breathy giggle at that, and turned away from Yuno, looking around at her surroundings again. "So... We're on a Terran boat? Like the one Ash rode in on?"
"Yes." Yuno's text-to-speech said, after a moment passed and Ruby didn't look back at her. "They call it an aircraft carrier. Apparently it has no guns, only fighter craft."
"Oh." No guns? What was the point of a warship if it didn't have guns?! "So... What now?"
Before Yuno could respond, Ruby witnessed a new person enter the room, he wore green and tan clothes as opposed to the blue and gray uniforms of the others walking around. One of the blue people approached him, and pointed in Ruby's direction, the two exchanging brief words before he nodded and approached the young Rose. He looked middle-aged, with an appearance so generic that Ruby had to stare at him a few moments just to actually recognize he was even there in the first place - brown hair, blue eyes, stocky build, round face, he looked like someone Ruby could have ran into on the street.
"Miss Rose." He said, in a low voice, as he stopped at the foot of Ruby's thin bed. "How are you?"
Ruby regarded him cautiously, but a look to Yuno for support had her answer his question honestly, "my head feels a little stuffy... And I'm still kinda..." She shrugged, turning back to him, "you know... Processing everything." A beat, "who are you?"
"Oh, where are my manners." Said the man, "Ash... Called me Bubbles, and I've grown fond of the name."
Ruby frowned, half suspicious, half curious. "What's your real name?" She asked.
He nodded his head to the side, "that's a good question... I work for an intelligence agency on Earth, Ruby - can I call you that?" He interrupted himself, before continuing, "and the kind of work I do... I don't really use my real name except to file paperwork. So we'll go with Bubbles."
"That doesn't really sound like a spy's name..." Ruby pointed out, wishing she had covers or a thicker pillow to sink into, despite how small the guy looked he managed to take up a surprising amount of the room.
He grinned, "Ash said that was why he picked the name. He'd hoped it would get you to smile." He said, smoothly.
Maybe if she were in a friendlier environment it would have, but Ruby didn't say that. "So... Are you... Like..."
"I'm your 'handler,' Ruby. Until we head out for the final battle, you'll be staying with me on this ship, or wherever we need to go if the ship doesn't work. If you have any questions or need anything, I'll be the one who gets it for you." He said, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a small gray brick. "Now, I've got something for you. It's a message that Ash recorded for you... Hopefully it'll answer the questions you no-doubt have." He said, as the screen turned on and he handed it to her.
Ruby took it, and Yuno leaned in close so she could see it too, and then the latter of the two leaned back, an understanding grin wrinkling one side of her face as she nodded. Bubbles, meanwhile, backed away while saying, "it's not short... So I'll leave you to it."
And when he left, Ruby turned to Yuno, who was also getting to her feet. "Where are you going?" She asked, part of her desperately not wanting to be left alone in this strange place.
Yuno hesitated a moment, looking at the ground, before she typed out, You'll find out, Ruby.
And soon, she was left alone. The room seemed a lot bigger, and she felt a lot smaller, with no one in here. But without anything to do, and the only promise of answers being the document in the computer in her hands, she looked down at it, three words greeting her:
For the Record.
And she read.
And read.
And read.
Ruby's face was stained with tears by the end of it. It had taken her the entire day to read about the awful things that Ash - or, Aldric, she guessed - had gone through. She was stuck between so many physical and emotional feelings that she just felt numb. She felt mortified, reading about the horrific things Aldric had experienced, terrified at the things he had done, confused about his origins, worried about how he must feel, after seeing his almost literal descent into madness written in his own words over the course of two years. She felt like she had to throw up, like she had to cry, like she wanted to curl up into a ball, and that she just wanted to give him a hug and tell him everything was, and would be, okay.
Perhaps just as much as she wished she could give Ash - no, Aldric - a hug, she wished anyone was there with her so she could hug them, too. Yang, Blake, Weiss, Pyrrha, she even for a little while wished Yuno - or, Neo, as she came to learn - would come back just so she didn't feel as lonely as she began to feel, as she read more and more of Aldric's dirtiest secrets, as she beheld his earnest beginnings and witnessed his descent into the living hell of his life. She'd thought the things that had happened to her the last few weeks had been bad, but now she couldn't imagine how Aldric was able to pick himself up each day.
The one thing she knew for certain though, was that as much as this new person scared her, she didn't think he was a bad man. He'd done bad things, and had made scary connections and conclusions to rationalize it - Ruby had had to stop reading for a while as she came closer and closer to today in his Record, when he said that, in a worst case scenario, he would have been willing to kill her too - but Ruby couldn't bring herself to think of himself as bad. Maybe he could have done some things better, maybe he could have used this foreknowledge he had about Remnant - the 'show' he kept alluding to - better, but as Ruby understood, more often than not he just hadn't been able to. He was a good person in a bad situation, being forced to make worse decisions. That he constantly berated himself, genuinely tried to search for better outcomes, and regretted the bad choices he so often made, Ruby genuinely thought there was some of Ash somewhere in Aldric, that maybe Ash was that part of him he kept having to bully down so he could keep making the hard choices.
There was one more entry after the one he'd written before taking off to find her.
So, her hand shaking, she gulped through a dry throat, and opened the entry.
It was a video file.
For the Record.
The video opened up, showing Ash, his eyes sunken and tired looking.
"Ruby." He grunted, "uh... So..." He sighed, pinching his nose, rubbing his face, and then running his hands through his hair. "My name... Isn't... Ash." He let out, slowly. "The good news, though, is that if you're seeing this, then it worked. I managed to avoid killing you." He rubbed at his eyes, a few wrinkles having appeared, making him appear equal parts older and exhausted. "But the bad news is... Well, I've been lying to you and to damn near everyone I've run into since the day I got here. You're the first person I've actually... Voluntarily... Given the whole story to." A beat. "Or... Well, second, if you count Venom, but I kind of had to tell him just as much as I didn't..." He shrugged. "You have no reason to trust me, and that's what I'm asking you to do... Even though you're not really being given a choice, all things considered.
"I'm sorry." He said. "For everything. For the lies, for the lives... For what I almost did to you. For... What I may end up doing to the folks at your house, if any of them work up the energy to fight me when the time comes... Though -" He held up a sack, "as ever, I have a plan for that. But, regardless... I've told you everything because I feel you deserve the explanation. Everything, no secrets.
"Now... Obviously you can say no. Obviously you can try to spring yourself from the ship and go rogue, or look for your team, or whatnot. That's your right... But I'm hoping you'll at least help me see this through." He held up his hand and pinched two fingers together, "we're this close, Ruby. The finish line is so close I can see it. We're in the endgame now, it's almost there... And you, with your eyes - Jaune, with his sword... Hell, even Pyrrha, with her shield. All of you together, plus the Watchmen and their collective resources... And Earth on top of that?" He shifted in his seat, leaning close to the camera, a fire in his cybernetic eyes. "We can win, Ruby. We can -" He snapped his fingers, "- take her out. Finally get rid of her... And live on a Remnant where the Grimm aren't gaining ground, they're losing it. Live on an Earth that has access to exotic materials that could solve any number of our crises. A world where both worlds can heal and grow, instead of whither and die.
"So I'm asking you, Ruby - please." He clasped his hands together, "Please help me see this through. Please stay with the Terrans for these last few months - they know everything I do about your world. More, even. They can teach you how to use your eyes, and Myrtle or Neo, or both of them depending on if they both stay, they can help train you, build your skills as high as possible in preparation for the final battle.
"And after that?" He leaned back, shaking his head and letting out a heavy sigh. "I'll have done everything I set out to do. Whatever happens, happens. Whatever you and everyone else thinks of me... Whatever you'll want to do to me after the fact, if you want to..." He shook his head. "Just write me out of your life entirely, or... kill me, or arrest me, or just kick my ass on principle." He shrugged, "I'll be done.
"I'll be done."