Chapter 85
"Or are we gonna fight!?"
And like a dam breached, like an avalanche triggered, like a storm rising, and a meteor falling, the army Aldric had assembled, in one great tidal wave, roared out as they charged the demon hordes, while behind them, tanks, mounted guns, and soldiers of all shapes and sizes opened fire, heralding the Huntsmen and Huntresses' advance with a shower of supersonic gunfire, ripping into the hordes of Grimm as they met their charge.
Aldric headed the mad-dash, the blade he'd lost under Beacon igniting with a blight blue Zhoom! and acting as a beacon behind which all the Huntsmen and Huntresses rallied. The Men and Monsters met in a huge clash of biblical proportions, the two sides mixing and engaging with each other. Aldric and Solidus were sought out and met by Aldric Black the Terran Grimm locking into struggle with the Master and Maiden. Aldric swung his blade at the his Grimm counterpart with a mighty yell, the blue meeting red with the sound of plasma grinding against itself. Solidus followed it up, spinning around Aldric like a fulcrum and slashing up at Aldric Black's sword arm.
The arm fell from Aldric Black's shoulder, but the Grimm caught its stolen blade deftly and pressed on the attack, its blade screaming towards its Human counterpart's head. Aldric grunted, bringing up his bright blue blade in a reverse-handed block, and as he struggled against Aldric Black, he threw his free hand forward in a punch towards Aldric Black's face. It connected, but did nothing until Solidus hopped up behind Aldric Black and kicked at the back of his knees. Aldric Black fell as his arm reformed, it wildly swung behind him, its blade deflecting an attack from Solidus. It used the rebound from hitting Solidus' blade to bounce back and deflect an attack from Aldric, but Aldric scraped the Grimm's blade off to the side of his shield and threw a powerful haymaker at Aldric Black's face.
Solidus came in, stabbing Aldric Black through the back and pinning it to the ground. Aldric raised his blade for a decapitating strike, but Aldric Black pounded one of its fists into the ground, its strength causing a quake just strong enough to throw Aldric himself off balance. The Grimm capitalized on this, punching up at Aldric's knee and sending him to the ground. Solidus tried to force the Grimm off balance again, but the Grimm elbowed her in the stomach, then wrapped its arm around her neck like it was made of rubber, hauling her over its head and slamming her into the ground. It pulled her blade from its back, but before it could stab down at her, Aldric came flying back in, cutting a chunk of the Grimm's back off with a wild upwards slice of his blade.
Ventilating almost half of its back caught its attention, and Aldric Black spun around, swinging both swords at once and forcing Aldric to bring his up to defend himself. The two locked their three blades and struggled for a moments, before Solidus leapt up to her feet and grabbed at the Grimm's head, her hands covered in ice. Aldric Black's black and red eyes shot open, knowing what she was doing, and as half of its face froze solid, as parts of its skin burst open, it lunged into Cinder, slamming its shoulder into her, pushing her onto the backfoot. It then threw its telekinetic power at Aldric, throwing him back several feet and giving it room to then swing its twin blades at Solidus - but she ducked out of the way, and to replace her lost blade was a bow and arrow forming in her hands.
Solidus drew an arrow and fired, Aldric Black boiled it away with its blades, but wasn't expecting it to explode in its face. This sent it reeling, where Aldric came flying in, planting his foot on its neck with the force of a speeding car, before he chopped downwards on its hand, cutting through it and releasing Solidus' lightsaber. As Aldric landed, Solidus sped in, holding her bow in both hands and smashing it into Aldric Black's face, throwing it to Aldric, who pounded his fist into its nose, overcoming its momentum and sending it back to Solidus, who buried one arrow into its stump arm, and one into its knee, causing it to fall. Aldric came charging in, slamming his palm into Aldric Black's throat, lifting it up and then bringing it down home, leaving a small crater where it impacted.
The Grimm roared in defiance, using its semblance to blast Aldric and Solidus away. It lifted itself to its feet like a marionette, and leered at Aldric and Solidus, both of whom took up defensive postures with their blades.
"Have anything that could help speed this up?" Solidus asked, as the Grimm ripped the arrow from its arm, and it began to bubble and boil as it regrew.
"I was about to whip something out, but then everybody showed up." Aldric retorted from behind a bloody frown. "And ignore that it took my belt and did god-knows-what with it... I'm worried fighting him won't do anything."
Solidus steeled herself and nodded, "okay." She said, knowing where Aldric was going to go with this.
"Ignore the fact that he's functionally a mini-boss... If we kill him, I don't think there's anything stopping Salem from just spawning a new one when it dies." It hadn't been an issue five minutes ago, as if Aldric had been able to accomplish such a feat in the first place, the time it would have taken Salem to pull another Aldric Black out from the abyss would have been enough for Aldric to do what he needed to. Now, though, killing Aldric Black was potentially a huge waste of energy, a risk, and a liability on top of that: Killing it would just let it come back either at Salem's tower, or at any of the Grimm pools dotted around the wasteland, and it could slaughter as many as it wanted with virtually no opposition. "So we can't kill it."
They had to contain it.
Solidus would have sighed, if Aldric Black didn't charge them, but she knew nonetheless what Aldric himself was getting at. As she charged forward and locked blades with Aldric Black, she looked over her shoulder, "go!" She called out, her masked eyes leaking the multicolored fire flowing underneath the mask.
Aldric nodded and launched himself off from the ground, clearing several hundred meters before he came back in for a landing in the middle of a pile of Grimm going against a squad of Atlesians. Aldric stuck around for a moment, cleaving through enough of the Grimm for the Atlesians to turn the tide that had initially been against them, before he launched himself again - hurtling straight for the tower.
In the few seconds he had before he made it, he took stock of his options. Not counting his heart attack when he had fought his father, the only time he'd ever been closer to death than just a few minutes ago had been under Beacon. Salem would be a whole different ballgame compared to Aldric Black, she had far more tools and powers at her disposal than it did, and he had to keep her at bay until Ruby, Pyrrha, and Jaune got there. With him coming up short against Cinder and Aldric Black, his chances of actually meeting Salem pound-for-pound were practically none at all, and with his nuclear options almost completely dry, and the prospect that he may be able to use the soul gems for their intended purpose suddenly seeming possible, he didn't want to use those.
So, Aldric decided to go with plan B, as he crested over the top of the tower and came to a landing, huffing and puffing, bathed in bright blue light.
She and he locked eyes, her red orbs peering deeply into his gunmetal gray, the latter reflecting the light of his blade.
Aldric Black was never the final boss, she was.
They stared each other down for a minor eternity, before -
Zip!
Aldric deactivated his blade, and clipped it to his belt, groaning as he pressed his hand to his stomach. "It's pronounced 'Et too.'..." Fighting her was a fool's errand, but fighting her had never been the plan, not since he'd failed to overpower Cinder under Beacon.
But talking to her?
A battle of wits?
That, Aldric was good at.
The woman of five souls and three names fought an enemy she'd thought vanquished, long ago. Surrounded by hordes of Men and Beast, she was occupied not with the killing, but with the fighting of a relic of the timeline she'd abandoned, and it was just as strong as she remembered. Keeping Aldric Black tied down was far easier said than done, as Cinder Fall had to contend with the fact that, unlike their last encounter, she wasn't this creature's orders: Aldric was. So whenever they broke apart, whenever she hesitated just a second too long, whenever she needed to catch her breath or they lost each other in the swarms of oil-skinned beasts, it would try to fulfill its orders and leave. Even with her wearing the face of its target, it knew she wasn't him - and it could have been for any number of reasons. Different clothes, fewer injuries, Cinder's techno-mask not sporting the scars Aldric had recently accumulated, it being less modest with its senses and being able to determine she was female, whatever it was, the results were the same: It knew she wasn't Aldric, and as such it didn't want to be fighting her.
She'd had to swat the literal object of her nightmares out of the sky more than once in her desperate bid to keep it away from her friend, but that was what he'd asked her to do, and she would not falter. She could never claim to know the true height of Salem's power, but she knew that the Lady of the Grimm had strength where the Soulless Husk had weakness. Where it had only the stitched together fragments of the semblance of its former self, Salem had equal parts the magic of her heritage and the demonology of the ichor that had replaced her blood. Where it had only raw, statistical, computer-like intelligence, she had human creativity and ingenuity. Cinder had no idea what Aldric was going through, but she knew at least that it was the fight of his life, and if she faltered for even a second, Aldric would gain a second opponent, and the few heartbeats it would take Cinder to reach him could be too late.
Every second felt like an hour, and every minute a week, as she threw herself relentlessly at the Terran Grimm. With the time afforded her between her last meeting with Aldric and now, she'd grown in power, her soul acclimating to her crimes and adjusting to it. Due in part to what she thought magic was, her attacks were stronger, her movements and reactions faster, and her defenses more firm. Added onto how often this beast had haunted her waking and sleeping hours, she'd gone over their several bouts so thoroughly she could have written a book on them. She knew how to keep it from trying to cut the middleman and use its semblance from killing her - she had to keep damaging it, force it to use its powers defensively. She knew how to keep it from diverting its attention away, she had to keep the pressure on so it would be forced to fight her, or die.
Each time her vibrant purple blade met its bright red one, the air ignited. Each time she rammed her fist into its chest, a shockwave shot out. Each time she planted an arrow in its limbs, they practically detonated into piles of monochromatic meat. Conversely, it was just as strong as she remembered, and just as smart, too. Each attack she threw at it, it remembered and cataloged, saving it for when she would do so again and reacting to it immediately and with perfect efficiency. Whenever she faltered or let up in her assault, it took its chance to use its semblance offensively. It nearly lobotomized Cinder at one point, with the multi-Maiden only making it out due, perhaps appropriately, to plain old bad luck, when an angry old crow came flying in to join the fight.
Qrow slammed into the Terran Grimm faster than Cinder thought the old man could move, saving her and Aldric's life in one fell swoop. He leered at Cinder with hatred in his eyes, his mouth opening, clearly intent on interrogating her - either confusing her for him, or just plain confused as to why there were three people running around with his face right now, but the former bandit didn't know the mistake he was actively making. So Cinder threw herself back at it, trying to say with actions what she hadn't the time to say with words.
Qrow appeared to get the general idea after seeing Cinder desperately thwart another two attempts by Aldric Black to escape to the tower, and together the multi-Maiden and the former Bandit engaged the Terran Grimm. If it were possible, Qrow was attacking Aldric Black even more ferociously than Cinder, leading her to wonder just what had changed between Aldric and him, or if this clear hatred had always existed between the two of them. Alongside Cinder, the efforts of keeping Aldric Black at bay were even more successful - and unlike their last encounter, Aldric Black had not any of Aldric's numerous layers of nigh-impregnable armor. The wounds kept piling on, until the point where even in lulls in the battle it was unable to use its semblance offensively, instead having to focus on keeping itself together and safe, its last attempt at definitively 'solving the problem' in its own way resulting in an explosion that scattered they and the Grimm and Huntsmen around them, shredded all of the skin off of its upper body, leaving behind a rotten husk of exposed, black muscle, constantly leaking its bloody ichor in thick streams.
As the battle dragged on, as Cinder felt her heart beating and her lungs breathing faster and faster, as her aura shattered and wounds began piling on, as the aura of her unexpected partner stretched to its breaking point, and as their opponent looked less and less human, she could only imagine what Aldric was going through, and she had to fight the temptation to end the Grimm in front of her, to help him, just as hard as she was fighting the Grimm itself.
But no, she couldn't kill it. Not just because of the risk of it coming back, without injury and at full power, but because Aldric had a plan. She had to play her part to that plan, lest she ruin it entirely, and doom them all.
So as ever, she charged.
As ever, she fought.
And alongside Qrow, she kept fighting. She held the line, she forced Aldric Black to stay down, and she did this until her skin bled, until her muscles screamed, until her eyes burned and her bones creaked and cracked. Cinder fought for the right side for the third time in her life, and she did so for as long as Aldric needed.
The only time she stopped, the only time she and her ally paused, was when her opponent did the same - as they were enveloped by a flash of light brighter than the sun, coming from the tower.
Salem gave Aldric a genuine grin, as her paper-white face reflected the orange light of a distant explosion. "Forgive me." She said, with only the barest of nods, before she turned back to the fighting before them.
Aldric, after waiting a moment, approached her, limping the entire way. He spared the now quiet relic table a glance before he reached her, and the two shared a silent moment as they watched the war being fought below them. Huntsmen and Huntresses were fighting endless hordes of Grimm, soldiers in the distance were setting up defensive lines and perimeters and pouring fire down on the smaller Grimm from a distance, so the more super-powered ones could focus on the bigger ones. With a little focus, Aldric could see the Watchmen in combat, Adam Taurus cutting apart a nuckaleave, Torchwick and Neo were behind him, blasting away at a Baringel with several other Gardeners, Ozpin was acting like a tank, burning through tens of Grimm at a time, Qrow, making Aldric grin despite himself, had found his way over to Solidus and had joined the fight against Aldric Black, appearing to have seen and not wasted a chance at killing Aldric, even if it wasn't really him. Solidus accepted his help with aplomb, and was doing her job and keeping Aldric Black tied down, armed with a new lightsaber whose appearance tugged at the corner of Aldric's lips. Her new blade glowed a vibrant purple, and Aldric didn't need to get a look at its hilt to know what blade it was, or what George had been thinking when he'd given it to her. She had been red once, serving the dark, but now came to Aldric's side and served the light, and the blue added to the red would make what she had now. The cheeky bastard had made her re-arm herself for the sake of a visual gag.
"This was the one moment I could not account for." Salem finally spoke up. "The one moment I knew I could never predict the outcome of." She continued, wistfully. "My master stroke... And I simply cannot be certain which path it will take."
Aldric frowned a moment, before he forced his face back into a neutral, stony expression. "You kidding?" He asked her, trying to control his breathing. "This isn't one you're walking away from. Guarantee you even if you kill all of them, Earth's got a couple dozen nukes pointed at this place right now, just waiting." And they won't pull their punches like they were prepared to do with the kingdoms, they'd only stop short of triggering a nuclear winter, and even then Aldric wasn't sure, given this wasn't their planet.
But Salem shook her head, "oh, you may be surprised, Aldric. The day is young, and you appear to have chosen a battle of wits over fists." She gave him an appraising look, eyes going over his injuries and general appearance. "Wisely."
Aldric rolled his eyes, "Why?" He asked, pushing out his radar to try and find RWBY and JNPR. "What is it you're trying to do here? What have you and Ozpin been throwing down for all of recorded history over?" He asked, finding them at the foot of the castle, pushing their way through the densest hordes of Grimm.
She appeared amused for a moment, "you care after all." She intoned, before she sighed the sigh of someone who was entering an argument they'd had dozens of times before. "Humanity, Aldric." She responded. "He and I believe that if Humanity is to survive, it must be united... But where we differ is in the how."
Aldric gave her a deadpan look. "I'm going to be very disappointed if it turns out you're the Assassin and He's the Templar. You're freedom and he's control." He huffed, turning back out to the fighting.
Salem hummed, "quaint, but no." She said, "nothing so simple..." She sighed, her eyes finding Ozpin, as he assisted a group of Huntsmen dueling with a pack of Apathy. "No... I told you already how Ozma - his true name - came to be in the situation he is now. That he and I wed eons ago, that he died, and when the God of Light refused me, I went to the God of Dark. I lied to him, said he had been my first choice, and, flattered, he brought Ozma back... Until his brother came and undid my ruse. The two fought, killed Ozma again, and then, later, destroyed all of humanity when I tried to rally against them." She explained, "Ozma did, however, return regardless - and when I found him, he and I... We wandered for a long time, simply reveling in our reunion.
"But..." She sighed, her voice hollow. "In the last dregs of humanity, we saw a pattern emerging. They would congregate into tribes, villages, kingdoms, and inevitably would discover their neighbors and fight them for any number of reasons. Very seldom did these wars end well, and often it resulted in damage irreparable. The tribes would cease to exist, either destroyed to a man, or rendered so low in numbers that they would split apart... And be picked off by the Grimm attracted by their wars."
Aldric's eyebrow twitched as Solidus and Aldric Black's duel literally exploded, scattering Man and Beast alike - and not even triggering a pause for air between the two as they threw each other back at it. "You're saying that, implying that during your time - when Ozpin walked the earth as Ozma, when he was mortal and you weren't a Grimm - that it wasn't the case."
She nodded, "it wasn't. Is that so hard to believe?"
"I have two planets of evidence saying yes, yes it is." Aldric deadpanned, sensing the two teams reaching a flight of stairs and beginning to ascend, having to pour gunfire in both directions - up and down - in order to make a path clear and wide enough for them to advance.
A false grin grew across Salem's face, "remember you said that." She said, before she continued. "Ozma and I had this very discussion... We tried to determine what was different. Eventually, we came to a realization: Humanity was killing itself because it lacked a guiding force. A single, unifying hand under which it could unite."
"And you two became that hand?"
She nodded, "we became king and queen to the starving, defenseless masses... Our magic gave us power over all - there was nothing that our people wanted for... But that was where we began to drift apart in ideology." She explained. "He thought that was all we needed - we just needed to continue to expand our reach, to bring more people under our banner. He believed that we could unite our species peacefully."
"You disagreed."
"The wars continued, Aldric, and he was in denial. Our armies grew to match the enemies that began to rise against us - but he called them defenders. Guardians. They weren't murderers or marauders, they weren't pillagers or barbarians, they were defending us, by killing them." She explained, as Qrow and Solidus disengaged Aldric Black, a few words being exchanged between the two, causing Aldric to realize that Qrow didn't know about Venom. He thought he was fighting with Aldric himself, so it wasn't hard to guess what they may be talking about. "To his credit, he never sought offensive wars. They did defend - but I saw what he blinded himself to: Our people were chafing under this. They wanted to go out and fight, they wanted to seek vengeance, even after the wounds had healed. They wanted to conquer... And as this continued, I had my epiphany.
"Where Ozma believed that the path to humanity's greatness lay in unification through peace, I realized that he was operating on the ideals upon which he was raised. He was thinking in terms of a world that no longer existed. I realized that in this new world - one in which the Gods and Magic no longer existed - it was war that beget survival. In the same amount of time that it took us to peacefully absorb just one village, fifteen others would unite when presented with an existential threat - usually a Grimm threat on the horizon... But not uncommonly, it was us ourselves, as tribes and villages feared that we may be lying, that we may be hiding something. I brought this to Ozpin. I suggested that perhaps the reason Humanity had once been united hadn't been peace, but rather that they had been unified against a greater threat."
"The Grimm?" Aldric guessed, as RWBY and JNPR reached the second level, and were only met with bigger, stronger Grimm.
Salem shook her head, "the gods." She responded.
"As much as we worshiped them, the fear of what they could do to us kept us united. They kept the peace, they kept us united - and the threat of them kept us alive. Kept us from destroying ourselves, in endless cycles of self-destroying, auto-cannibalizing violence, for fear of what may happen if we were too weak to defend against them. " Salem explained, her voice actually filled with conviction as she finished with, "we need a threat - and whenever one is provided, it doesn't matter what it is. Enemies, disease, famine, disaster - the moment a threat is provided, unity is achieved. The moment it is removed, division occurs."
"Can't imagine he was fond of that idea." Aldric responded, sliding his hands into his pockets, the fingertips of his organic hand brushing against the last remnant of his belt.
"No he was not." Salem responded. "For he knew what it would lead to..." She waved her hand out to the fire and flames in front of them. "What it has led to."
Ever since the invention of the radio, any modern military worth its salt knew that a commander leading from the front in a battle was atrociously stupid. Certainly, they would bring up morale and would look good, but it would just take one sniper, one lucky shot, one bomb, and that morale would plummet even further than it had began when the soldiers found their commander scattered about the battlefield in pieces. Better to stay behind the offensive line and lead from fortifications than to risk oneself fighting in the mud and the blood with everyone else.
Adam Taurus thought differently.
As the population of Remnant, the size of its kingdoms, and the level of its technology grew, so too did the number of Huntsmen grow in proportion. Atlas was Taurus' case study for many things, not the least of which being his rallying cry for Faunus to join the White Fang, but in this case, Atlas was the precedent he used when he said that it was only inevitable that Huntsmen would no longer be honorable, Grimm slaying, wandering sellswords, but would rather be federalized as a military unit. Soon, the days of aura-less armies would be a thing of the past, and regular human or faunus soldiers would be purely defensive forces manning the walls or fortifications of a kingdom, while the Huntsmen fought wars or took back territory one kilometer at a time.
And when that time came, only one type of person would be leading these superpowered armies: The strongest, and the smartest. From there it would only be a matter of time before the olden days of Commanders fighting on the front lines was brought back. These men would be at the head of their armies, seeing the battle as it was and making snap-decisions to change its tide while they acted as literal force multipliers to those around them.
This was the argument Adam had given Sienna Khan, after she'd damn-near throttled him when he'd boarded a bullhead going to Salem's castle.
Of course, privately, in that area of his mind that thought of the long-game, of what would happen after they won here, if they even did, he'd also done it so when the soldiers and aura-users of the White Fang thought of this battle, it wouldn't be Khan's face that came to their minds, but his. Let her lead from the safety of an Atlesian Battleship, it would cost her the Fang in the long run.
Only a small part of him regretted this decision, Adam Taurus had never seen as many Grimm in one place as he did now. He had never fought as many Grimm as he was now. He'd never been in a battle as big as this, and wondered if there ever had been in the first place. Regardless, he'd made his decision to die with and for his men long before he'd ever even known about this place - when Cinder and her people had threatened the lives of him and his people. Today was merely an extension of that.
So he fought, he led attacks, he called for the line to push forward, he used his pull with Torchwick to get command of the Gardeners - reveling in the irony of Gardeners having to listen to him - and soon, all but the Atlesian Huntsmen listened to him and followedh is orders, and even they had to at least acknowledge him. This was power that no Faunus in history had ever had before, and he loved every second of it.
Alongside him, the Huntsmen slaughtered Grimm by the scores. He was the one to send word to the fighters without aura to direct their fire and call air support on the smaller, weaker Grimm, so the Huntsmen could gather up and focus on the bigger ones, and soon the battle became a well oiled machine. Casualties were taken, lives were lost, injuries were sustained, but for every drop of Faunus and Human blood spilled on the ground today, the collective armies of Man and Faunuskind made dozens of Grimm pay. Together, through their mounting losses and increasing injuries, they held the line and even gained ground on the Grimm, pushing ever closer to the castle that the witch, Salem, led her war out of, and that Terran who was specifically Human, Aldric, fought in.
And all of them - the greatest Huntsmen army in Remnant history - did so under the word of Adam Taurus.
As they reached the stone grounds of the castle, as the Grimm fought at their most ferocious, as they began to surround and contain the pools that the Grimm crawled out of, at the zenith of this great battle, at its absolute height, something changed, and without warning or the chance to prepare, in the midst of battle, Taurus, his soldiers, and everyone Aldric had assembled were enveloped in a wave of light brighter than that of the sun.
Above the battle, Aldric shrugged his shoulders, "Can't say I blame him, lady. Humanity's been around for a long time and it's still kicking." Aldric commented. "So it stands to reason he has a point."
"On the contrary, Aldric." She responded, "I feel time has only lent credence to me..." She explained. "Once Ozpin and I split, once we had our first and last titanic battle, I sat in the background and watched. I saw that for all of Ozpin's efforts, the wars continued - and they only ever grew worse, and they only ever ended when he himself stepped in. Truly, in the last one, he had to go so far as to use the Relics themselves to end the Great War. Humanity has been tearing at itself for all of its history, dying a slow death ever since those damned brothers left us - a death we have done nothing to slow, and everything to accelerate, and this hasn't even ended in the present day. Before you, before Earth, tensions still rode high - another Great War was inevitable. Without an outside threat to attract everyone's attention, Humanity would be consumed with fighting itself. I saw the cycle as plain as day - war, advancement, victory, peace, and war again. This cycle repeated endlessly before my very eyes - people would fight and kill each other. Their wars would necessitate the discovery or creation of advantages over their opponents. The side that advanced the most and the fastest typically won. A white peace would be achieved, during which they would build their forces again. Time would pass, the wars would be forgotten to history, and another, new enemy would be found, and it would be warred against, beginning it anew. This cycle hasn't stopped once in my entire life, and it will inevitably consume our species."
"You don't think the Grimm can be the threat you're looking for?" Aldric asked, an eyebrow raised.
Salem shook her head, "they lack intelligence, Aldric. They are, for all intents and purposes, animals - very lethal animals, very smart animals, but animals nonetheless. They cannot think as we do, and while they are yet incapable of culling them, Humanity has at least become very good at building walls and keeping the Grimm on the other side. Once they did that - once the Kingdoms were formed and their walls were erected, the Grimm ceased to be any true threat at all. I tried once, to make them dangerous enough that our species would have to unite against them... But Ozpin took my work and sealed it in a mountain."
Aldric shook his head, "lady, are you listening to yourself?" He asked, "you sound mad. Humanity doesn't need to unify to survive - just look at Earth. My planet - we still kill each other in droves, but we also live in one of the most peaceful, prosperous eras in history. No outside threat, no unification, none of that."
Salem grinned, "Aldric... Earth has a strange definition of 'peace,' and you know it. Your world only proved my point more." She said. "Tell me - where did what your people call 'peace' come from?" She asked.
Aldric shrugged, "Fuck - we had our two world wars, killed almost ten times as many people as the crusades, scared ourselves half to death, and slowed our role. Then we started globalizing, and everything became so interlinked that a major conflict between two countries would be literally too expensive for everyone involved. Make the Great Depression look tame in comparison."
But Salem's grin didn't falter, "You do have an outside threat, Aldric. Rather entertainingly, it is your own survival instincts and your own effectiveness at war that is keeping you alive."
Aldric frowned, "I don't follow."
"Oh, I think you do." She said, "you're smart, Aldric. Very smart - you would not have made it this far if you weren't." She turned her head towards him, "what stopped you from fighting the wars of your past? What do you have that Remnant doesn't?"
Aldric frowned, before it clicked. He blinked, took in a deep breath, and shut his eyes, "oh." He whispered. Clever girl.
Why didn't giant armies march across Europe anymore? Why weren't there thousand-plus ship naval fleets floating in the oceans anymore? Why were modern 'wars' based largely in information and economics? Why was most combat done as deniable operations or against terrorist cells? Why did countries largely refrain from throwing down with each other?
Because the Terrans had become death, destroyer of worlds.
Nuclear Warfare.
Mutually Assured Destruction.
Salem was positing that Earth was the perfect case study for why she was right over Ozpin in their little ideological conflict: Humanity had reached prosperity and survival not through unification and peace, but through war, and outside threats. The reason Humanity was still around on Earth, the reason Globalization had been allowed to happen in the first place where it appeared to have all but stalled on Remnant, the reason Earth was as 'united' as it was, was because everyone was so goddamn scared of hitting the big red button, for fear that the other guy would hit it too, and they'd all die.
Aldric wasn't sure if he should be proud or ashamed of the fact that Earth - his Earth - was being used by the Big Bad Evil Guy as an example for why the traditional idea of peace wasn't just untenable, it was outright impossible.
"Is that why you linked us up?" Aldric asked. "Why you brought over me and the other Masters? You wanted to bring nukes to Remnant just so everyone would stop fighting each other?"
Salem scoffed, "oh no, Aldric. We linked Earth to Remnant because as much as you had proven my point... Mine wasn't the only point you proved. As ever, the debate raged and met a standstill."
Aldric opened his eyes, and they snapped down to the golden-eyed boy blasting apart entire groups of Grimm with every swing of his cane.
"I wasn't the only one to find Earth." She said, a wide smile on her face.
Roman Torchwick wasn't one much for getting his hands dirty. If someone needed some roughing up? He had thugs for that. Someone needed something a bit rougher than a roughing up? He had his lovely little mute for that. If a politician was holding out on political protection? He had pictures, documents, maybe an audio recording or two, a video if he was lucky, and a a random delivery man for that.
But sometimes he needed to set an example. Sometimes he needed to look good for his boys. Sometimes he needed to give them a little pick-me-up. Sometimes he needed to see a problem in action to figure out how to solve it, and sometimes?
Sometimes hands getting dirty was just necessary.
He'd known Aldric was unique the moment Neo had given him that peck on the cheek after the then-boy had brought the warehouse on them. Flirtatious as she was, it was all in good fun, she played with her food, she didn't actually eat it, so to speak. So she'd been his first clue, and then seeing his act come apart under one ill-informed choice regarding Neo, had been his second, but in all honesty? He'd still been willing and ready to sell the kid out at a moment's notice, until the first meeting of the Watchmen. That had opened the gangster's eyes - Aldric had gotten Beacon's Headmaster and one of Signal's teachers entangled in his web.
So when the time came for the final battle? When it was described to him by the man himself as 'all hands on deck?'
Yeah, he was willing to throw down.
From safety, of course - with Neo and a cadre of Gardeners nearby at all times, and in the general vicinity of Adam Taurus as well for that extra layer of security.
Though even with all this, he still got some kills under his belt. His cudgel was exceedingly good at taking out gatherings of smaller Grimm and stunning the bigger ones, and it entertained him to no end whenever he saved a Valean Huntsman, and when they turned around to thank their rescuer, the most notorious gangster in their kingdom was the one who tipped his hat in response, sometimes just as his diminutive assassin pulled her umbrella out of a fading Grimm.
Unfortunately, as capable as he was, and as willing as he was, Torchwick was neither meant nor built for front-line combat. Where someone like Taurus or Branwen would go the distance, it didn't take long before Torchwick's aura started flaring, warning him where he was at. It wasn't long after that that his aura broke entirely, and it was then he made for his exit. He was willing to give Aldric his effort, but his life? Not so much.
Just as he turned his back on the castle, cradling one bleeding arm, a wave of pure-white light more intense than the star that gave Remnant its warmth washed over him, his guards, and his own, personal Gardener.
Aldric turned to face the Lady of the Grimm. "Excuse me?" He said, "you yourself said he'd been lying."
"And he was." She said, "but that doesn't mean he didn't know about Earth to begin with. Much the contrary, the way I found Earth, was the same way he did. A single spark of light in a sea of darkness. Aura where it simply didn't belong." She raised her eyes from the battle, and up to the stars. "We may not share a planet, Aldric, but we do share a world. A world Ozma and I are connected to, and when we felt that spark, we were both assaulted by visions of home. Our home. Our time... Though, when it happened, we didn't realize it for what it was, at first. We'd genuinely thought our time was up - that the Brother Gods had come and judgement was at hand.
"But we were wrong. We realized this quickly when we woke up the next morning and neither we nor all of Humanity had been wiped out... And of course, from there, we began to investigate, in our own ways. We were able to use the spark as a lighthouse, to locate your world and observe it from ours, and what we found astonished us. Another planet, one of Humans, exactly like us - lacking only the Dust to unlock their powers... But the spark vanished one day, without warning, and we could no longer find you. This prompted us to speak, for the first time in a century. And for the first time in several hundred centuries, we agreed on something:
"We had to find you again. Our family in the stars..." Her wistful sigh from before turned to one of annoyance. "But as with all of our peaceful meetings... This one fell to debate and argument, and again, over the same things. I sought unity through war. He sought unity through peace. Just as with ours, we each saw things on Earth that we felt proved our points... But the mere fact that you existed, that there may be people like us, and not the humans left on Remnant, drove us to seek something of a compromise. We couldn't lose this chance."
Aldric blinked, "no..." He grunted, shaking his head.
She nodded, "we came to a compromise. We would bring to Remnant a small population of your people, teach them of ours. Of our connection, and use them to link Remnant to Earth, permanently." She explained, "and of course, we each had our ulterior motives. Ozpin firmly believed that he could use Earth's extremely inter-connected societies as a grounds to push Remnant in a similar direction, and that both planets would be capable of pushing the other towards true unity... Whereas I sought to use Earth as a test bed for what I would do to Remnant." She finished, smiling over at Aldric.
Aldric opened his eyes. "Fuck." He let out one long breath.
She really had proven her point.
Salem's multiple incursions on Earth had introduced to them an outside, universal threat, and when she'd put evidence that it had all been done intentionally by the Four Kingdoms, Earth seemingly dropped everything it was doing to pick up arms and fight Remnant as one cohesive unit. Salem had provided them an enemy that, by all appearances, appeared poised and able to destroy everything Earth cared about, and Earth had done exactly what she wanted them to do - united in the face of that enemy and fought. Worse was that Aldric could prove this was the case even more, because the moment he'd made contact with Earth, he'd given them more accurate information - that it wasn't the four Kingdoms, but Salem that was launching these incursions and false-flag operations, and what did Earth do? They immediately pledged support and resources to Aldric to fight Salem.
An outside, universal threat, causing otherwise disparate people to unite. Not in peace, but in war.
And worst of all?
Aldric himself was only further evidence of this. By forming the Watchmen, by obtaining the resource networks of Adam Taurus, Ozpin, Qrow, and Torchwick, all in the aims of fighting Salem, he'd only further proved her point. Ozpin played the long game - his solution was hope, time, and effort. Salem played the short game, her solution was to find a way to solve the problem immediately. Ozpin failed because Salem understood people better.
Son of a bitch check-mated us all. Aldric thought, shoulders going slack.
Salem hadn't been the only one with a plan. Salem hadn't been the only one whose plan had revolved around the Master, Nebo Aldric. She hadn't been the only one who knew about Earth, and she wasn't the only one who suffered under the arrogance of the Brother Gods.
But where she and the man himself, the 'wonderful wizard,' of whom stories were written and legends were told, differed, was in how they responded to it. She fell to hatred and loathing, to fury and paranoia, and it colored her worldview now as it always did, after They had wiped the slate clean, but him? The man who had as many names as years in his life, who answered to the people of this generation as 'Ozpin,' and would soon enough adopt the name 'Oscar,' as he always did, put his faith first in people. Honor and righteousness, free will, basic decency, and the desire for peace and tranquility inherent in every human being's soul, that was what Ozpin held onto.
There were times when this faith was shaken - more times than he truly wanted to admit, but ever since those four had convinced him to hope again, he'd vowed to do so, and when Earth had unintentionally revealed itself to the universe - or perhaps just its sister planet on the other side of it - he, just as Salem had, had realized that it would be that world and its people that would provide the answer to this one.
But, where they were the same was in one important regard:
They simply could not predict what their shared chosen champion would do once he had all the pieces to the puzzle, and when the time came for him to truly choose his side. Salem was no doubt granting Aldric her darkest secrets, laying bare the her most sacred ideals, all in the hopes that she could undo the work Ozpin had done, and steal the Master from him.
In the face of this uncertainty, when they landed at the castle he and his wife had once shared and ruled from, when the battle began and Aldric went to confront her, Ozpin did as he always did: And placed his faith in the good in Aldric.
But when the world crawled to a standstill - when a wave of light pulsed out from the tower they fought in, Ozpin alone was the one to realize what it was. Ozpin alone was the one who recognized it and what it meant.
And Ozpin alone was the one who felt fear as the light washed over him, because he simply didn't know if his faith would be rewarded, and if he would live to see the light pass over him, or if the light would be the last thing he ever saw.
At the sight of Aldric's realization, Salem's smile grew wide, and grew genuine. "You see?" She asked. "In less than two years, I've made more progress than in the thousands that Ozma has had."
"Checkmate." Aldric said in one long breath, shaking his head. "And where do the Brother Gods play into this?"
"At the end, dear Aldric." She responded. "I use these relics and summon them... I kill them, and take their place. From there I supply myself as a threat to Humanity for as long as I am needed... Whenever I am needed."
"And me?" Aldric asked, "what am I in all this?"
"You, young man, are my ace in the hole." She explained, "My wildcard. The greatest variable." She crossed over to him and place her hand on his shoulder, leaning in uncomfortably close to his ear, no longer watching or even paying any attention at all to the battle raging below them. "During the time he and I spent preparing to link our worlds, we needed to study the Earth more closely, and study we did, Aldric - for a very long time. He, your governments, your people, and your ways of life. I... Its history... Its culture... Its art." Aldric felt his blood run cold, and he repressed a shudder as she continued. "Including a certain... Show... On your equivalent to the CCT Network."
Son of a bitch. Aldric breathed. Son of a bitch! He felt his heart hammering in his chest.
Salem knew exactly how Earth and Remnant were connected, she always had. She knew about the show, and when they'd picked out their guinea pigs to bring to Remnant, Salem had stacked the deck and picked someone she knew already had knowledge of Remnant. She'd caught Aldric watching Red vs Blue on the flight, made the necessary connections, and convinced Aldric that his flight was the one they'd want to pick. International travelers of varied ages and origins representing numerous walks of life and ways of thinking, Ozpin would have eaten it up.
When Aldric had survived and joined her side, Salem had known from the very beginning. She'd known from the very start of it all that Aldric had knowledge of Remnant, that he was acting of his own accord, and she'd planned on it. Aldric's actions, everything he'd done, it had all been to her machinations. To her plan. To proving her point to Ozpin. His serving her ideals hadn't been coincidence, it had been design. Just as much as Earth was an experiment to her, Aldric was her most important pawn in the game - her ace in the hole to make sure everything kept going according to plan.
And Aldric knew why she did it.
Heart beating against the back of his ribs hard enough Aldric was worried it would re-break them, he gulped and said, "I'm the variable you can control." How far down did this rabbit hole go? Had she studied him specifically? Did she know that Aldric was willing to do what he'd done beforehand? Had she sent Cinder to retrieve him because merely being in her presence should plant the 'double agent' idea in anyone's head? Where did this end?!
The Demoness' grin turned into a leer as she nodded. "The others were boons, but were just that. None of them had the knowledge you did, and as such none of them would think quite like you did. None of them would take it as far as you - as evidenced by them all faltering and playing their hands too early." She responded, "you, however... You knew of this world beforehand. I could reasonably predict what you would and would not do... My only gamble was if you would survive in the first place. I must admit I was concerned when the Nevermore attacked your vessel - when it crashed, I thought I'd lost. That I had to leave everything up to chance... But once you'd woken up, once Cinder gave me your description, I was elated. I allowed you to operate independently, because every single thing you did only further proved me right to Ozpin... And because right here, right now, no matter what choice you make, I'll win." She pushed off of Aldric, and approached the podium with the Relics. "If you join me... Together we will fight the Gods, kill them, and with you as my champion, with you as the General your Grimm counterpart and even my dragon could never be, mankind will never again face extinction."
Aldric turned to face her, turning his back to the war below him, instead watching Salem as she reached the podium. "If this army, myself, if we all fight you and fail, even without all of the relics you become the threat. If I fight you and win, by sheer necessity, the leaders in this fight - the Watchmen and the people they've let in on the secret - will view me as they viewed the Brother Gods in your time. They'll disseminate that information and suddenly I'll be that threat." He said, his voice shaking. "And if I join you, I get the relic back for you, we fight the Gods together. You've set up a Xanatos Gambit. You win no matter what." Son of a bitch was clever, he had no choice but to acknowledge it.
Salem looked at him from over her shoulder, her paper-white skin dull without the orange lights of war below them, her eyes thinned, her smile wide, as she nodded to him.
Aldric gulped, his throat dry. "What if I take a proverbial third option?" He asked, "what if by some miracle I take you down, but I just isolate after that?" But even as he tried to push against her, he knew the answer already.
"I think Adam Taurus would prove very difficult to those plans, Aldric." Salem said, turning to face him, lit from behind by her small altar. "And Ironwood's kingdom after him... The tensions between Earth and Remnant after them... And Ozpin to Earth after all of that."
Aldric felt the wind leave him, he listed back and forth, staying standing only because of how stiff his legs had become.
Aldric turned, dazedly looking over his shoulder, down at the fighting below them. He looked at nothing in particular, but rather at the whole thing. A microcosm of all of humanity: Fighting what they were scared of.
Aldric tried to play a grand game of chess with Salem, only to find out who the real master was between the two of them. Her entire plan had been to test and groom him from the very beginning. If he ever died, if he was killed, and most recently, if he failed to kill Aldric Black, he wasn't worthy of her time, but he didn't. He kept passing every test she gave him, and now at the end, he tried to duel Salem with words, but she had succinctly showed him who was in charge. She showed him who between the two of them really planned things out, and now he had to answer the question that had gone unasked:
Would he join Salem?
Or would he finally draw the line?
It killed him to admit that she had a point - it killed him to admit his own role in proving her right. If he joined her, if he finally just sold his soul, he could buy a future for his species. For Earth and Remnant, all of mankind would live, united, made strong against Salem, with Aldric as her knight, and was that not what he was fighting for? A future for everyone? Salem seemed abnormally confident in her ability to triumph over the Gods - so much so that Aldric was convinced she knew a way to do it. She knew how to triumph over Gods; and really, of course she did. What little Aldric knew about them painted a decent enough picture - she'd lied to them, so they weren't omniscient. They fought each other to stalemates, so they weren't omnipotent. She'd tricked them, so they weren't infallible. They weren't Gods, but rather gods, and the difference in the capital letter made all the difference: They were but men with unparalleled power. All Salem would need would be one shot - and she'd spent God knows how long figuring out what she needed, where, and when. She knew how to get her one shot. She could kill the Brother Gods - and from there, she could become the mythical threat she wanted to be. She could be present enough to scare Earth and Remnant into uniting so they could fight her, and with Aldric, she could be in two places at once, and Aldric was smarter, craftier, more creative than Aldric Black. She could trust him as a Lieutenant to get the job done without her supervision. To be able to weigh things and think in the abstract and the long term, to make decisions that would pan out, to even defy her orders for future gain. With him at her side she could unify all of Humanity, in effect, saving it.
Salem could do it. She really could.
But this would require Aldric to throw it all away. To give up his hopes of killing her, to render everything he'd done up until now - all the sacrifices he'd made, all the people he'd killed, lies he'd told, and lives he'd ruined, all the promises he'd made and alliances he'd forged, it would all be made completely worthless. He'd have to betray them all. Every goddamn one of them. Was the future - not even any one specific outcome but just the abstract 'future' - worth that?
Or more to the point: Was this the hill worth dying on?
Aldric felt his heart slow down, felt the space between seconds grow to infinity as he realized he had the answer to that.
Get to the tower - that was what Aldric told her.
Get to the tower - and they would fight Salem.
Fight Salem - and the war would end.
That was what ran rampant through Pyrrha Nikos' mind on repeat as the army assembled by Nebo Aldric slammed into the hordes commanded by the witch, Salem. Not even a second passed before she lost sight of Aldric and the person wearing his face, there were so many Grimm that it was hard enough just to keep with her team. RWBY, on the other hand, was lost completely - they had to hope they would link back up at the castle, after traversing the black sea of demons and combat.
The Grimm in front of her held nothing back, slashing, gnawing, and biting wantonly the moment any Humans or Faunus came within eyesight. More than once, Pyrrha was almost locked down when anything from several minor Grimm to a few of the major ones surrounded her, but unlike the situations she'd been thrown into until now, Grimm was something her team had actually been trained to fight. They fell into a rhythm, Ren would use his semblance to sneak behind a Grimm and grapple it, Nora would stun it, Pyrrha would keep the other Grimm off of them, and Jaune would smite them with his sword. Jaune was their ace in the hole in this battle - not a phrase anyone at Beacon would have ever thought that Pyrrha genuinely believed. They were largely relying on Jaune and his sword to keep them from being pinned down, and as a result of this, they soon found themselves far deeper than anyone else in the thick of it, leaving the harshest fighting behind them, they being the lone bastions of humanity in a sea of Grimm.
Unfortunately, what this meant is that they were surrounded by Grimm at all times, and the Grimm were acting like they had at Beacon, when they had been under the influence of the dragon: Smart. They used tactics, throwing endless amounts of the smaller minor Grimm at them, the Beowolves and Boarbatusks, to keep them busy and open them up for an assault from the larger Grimm - like Leviathans and Manticores. However, this lasted for all of five minutes and fifty meters, before the Grimm - or perhaps their leader, Salem - realized that they should be acting the other way around. With Jaune's sword being as universally effective as it was, the larger and more powerful Grimm were actually more vulnerable to him, unable to move as fast and having much more surface area for him to get a hit in, and when that was added onto the storm of Human and Terran airpower above them, that singled them out on purpose due to their size, they soon switched tactics: The larger, stronger Grimm, stormed them and kept them busy, so the smaller Grimm could get hits in.
That was what was most successful at slowing JNPR down. At one point they were assaulted by a horde of fast-moving boarbatusk and several gigantic megoliaths, and they didn't get moving again until Pyrrha - out of the corner of her eye - saw Aldric leave the fight and hurtle straight towards Salem. Aldric was moving with a purpose, she realized, and she knew why - as great as this battle was, as strong as the force was they had rallied, they couldn't fight forever. The only way to truly end the fight and win the battle was to cut the head off the snake.
As this happened, several Terran jets and Atlesian fighters flew by close to the ground, strafing it with gun and laser-fire. This took down one of the megoliaths hounding JNPR, opening Jaune up to be launched by Pyrrha's shield into the other one, which vanished into a cloud of black smoke when he buried his blade into its flank. From there, Pyrrha and Ren were able to keep the boarbatusks off of Nora's back so she could blast a hole in the horde large enough for them to start running through, and that got their momentum back up as they charged the castle again.
Unfortunately, the closer they got to the castle, the bigger, stronger, and stranger the Grimm became. Pyrrha was beginning to see Grimm she'd never even heard of before, none of the textbooks even had names for some of the ones she was seeing. Formless masses of dark smoke with red, pinpoint eyes, great beasts of edged, bladed bones, monsters that merged with the walls and floors, insects that created giant swarms, and all of them were benefiting from Salem's mere presence.
When JNPR reached the doors to the castle, they were pinned down again, damage was mounting up, and Jaune's sword rapidly wasn't shaping up to the task.
Fortunately, that was when RWBY came in. Weiss' gigantic knight was effectively a barrier unto itself, forcibly diverting Grimm away from one area and towards another, creating a wall the two teams could put their backs to. Yang, the only powerhouse greater than Nora, obliterated whole clouds of the insectoid Grimm with her punches, Blake's ribbons and shadow clones kept the Grimm lower to the ground from moving too fast or in too many numbers, and Ruby was a red blur of rose petals, moving faster than Pyrrha had ever seen before, her scythe cleaving off several heads every time she blinked, and that was before she used her eyes.
The team had only a brief moment of pause when they'd met up at the castle's entrance and cleared it out, and they used it to make sure they were on the same page.
Ruby, the one among them to know Aldric the best due to her having read his journal, took charge. "Aldric needs me, Pyrrha, and Jaune up there with him!" She declared, "so we have to get up there, and we'll need you guys to hold the line for us!"
Yang, her teeth gritted, responded with, "I'm not leaving you alone with him!" She shouted, "not when there's three of them running around!" She raised her hands, "am I really the only one reacting to that?!"
But Jaune jumped in, "is this really the time for that!?" He yelled, "me and Pyrrha will keep Ruby safe, but no one can crowd-control like you and Nora!" He urged, "if we don't have someone watching our backs we'll get overrun before we can get her!" He stepped towards the great, looming doors. "Come on! We can't lose this chance!" He called, leading the charge.
Without much else option, and if only because Jaune would die on his own, charging into the castle like he was, RWBY and JNPR followed him, and inside the castle they were met with only more resistance. The walls and floors came alive, Grimm from outside charged inside, some even crashing through the walls just to surprise them. When they ascended to the second level they had practically sprayed ammunition up and down a staircase, fighting for every individual step, and it didn't calm down on the second level - as they were accosted by flying Grimm, crashing through windows and dive-bombing them, it only being extensive use of Ruby and her powers that got them the time and space they needed to search for the next staircase that led up.
Fortunately, it was in a corner of the castle. The Grimm retreated, for what reason they could only guess, but it gave them time to wrap bandages around their wounds and prepare for what would come next. They had something to put their backs to, and with all the rubble around, Yang, Nora, and Weiss' knight got to work setting up defenses and bottlenecks.
"He's up there." Gasped Jaune, who had dug his sword into the ground and was leaning on it. "He's -" He shook his head, "oh man, how are we going to do this?"
Ruby picked him up, "together." Was all she said, as she brushed him off.
The two teams only had a few minutes, they knew, but no one wanted to be the one to say goodbye.
Yang was the one who set the precedent, as she enveloped her sister in a bone-crushing hug and just said, "I'll see you when you're done."
Ruby returned the hug, which soon turned to a group effort as all of RWBY embraced. JNPR shared a private moment, with Jaune and Ren shaking hands and Nora doing to Pyrrha what she only ever reserved for Ren - leaping onto her and hanging from her neck. No one said goodbye, but so too did no one acknowledge the fact that very few of them had any aura left.
As the ground started to shake, heralding the advance of more Grimm, they finished their not-goodbyes, and Pyrrha, Ruby, and Jaune, raced up the stairs.
Yes.
Yes it fucking was.
He'd nearly ruined everything he'd built so far because he was willing to compromise on it all, was willing to back step just to get himself to where he was now, because of some lofty idea of a greater good. His Father had drawn his line, had chosen his hill, and died there - a good man. The old men had drawn their lines, had chosen their hills, and had died there - good men.
This would be where Aldric drew his line.
Yes, he genuinely thought Salem was right, but he didn't care. This was the price that was too much for him. Buying Earth and Remnant's futures, but on foundations of endless fear? Of Aldric and Salem constantly warring and pushing against Earth and Remnant so they'd never grow comfortable? So the status quo would never settle, so everyone would forever remain so scared that they'd have to stick together? That wasn't worth it. That was no future. Aldric would rather Humanity die, proud and on its feet, than live, scared and on its knees.
Even if he died here - and he would die here - at least he could say he had finally decided when enough was enough. Even if Salem won, and summoned and killed the Gods, he could say that he'd finally found the line he wouldn't cross. That he'd chosen the hill he would die on.
Salem would win today - he knew this. She'd proven it. No matter what happened, she would win.
But Aldric's decision was to not let her.
Because if she killed him, and he resisted her, then he'd finally drawn his line in the sand. He'd finally selected which hill he would die on, and he could say he died with integrity, but if he won, if he defeated her, that meant he had time before the Gods came. Time to find a way to defy her. To defeat them in such a way that humanity remained independent of even itself.
So as he sensed Pyrrha, Ruby, and Jaune, all of whom were sporting bruises and had hardly any aura at all, reach the top of the tower and stop behind the door, waiting for their moment, Aldric turned to Salem an unnatural mix of resignation and determination on his face.
"No." He said, pulling his blade from his belt loop.
Salem sighed, but didn't look surprised. "No?"
"No." Aldric said, "because let me tell you what I believe. I genuinely believe you're right. I honestly do think you have a point. I actually do think that Ozpin is wrong. Our basest instincts are to survive... But there's nothing wrong with that. It's evolution." He said, "we've fought and killed our enemies since we lived in caves, and if that means we'll inevitably destroy ourselves if we can't learn to stop doing it? Then that's our goddamn right."
"That is unbearably arrogant, Aldric." She responded, shaking her head like a disappointed parent. "And unspeakably stupid."
"Lady, that could be the epitaph to my entire race." Aldric shot back, "your people are clearly more intelligent than us. You pissed your gods off and made them leave. We nailed one of ours to a stick. It should be blatantly fucking obvious we do things our own way, up to and including going extinct."
Salem scoffed, tilting her head as she turned to Aldric. "You'd rather the unbridled potential of our species be wasted. You'd rather two planets die... Because of pride."
Aldric nodded, "yeah."
Zhoom!
Their signal seen, Ruby, Jaune, and Pyrrha crashed through the door. Aldric, bathed in the blue light of his once-lost lightsaber, charged Salem didn't even bother to hide his triumphant smile when Salem glowing red eyes locked onto Ruby, and widened.
They all knew why they were there, they all knew what their roles were. Pyrrha charged ahead, her body aglow with onyx energy as she ripped the very foundations out of the tower and wrapped them around the Lady of the Grimm. Jaune charged, his blade held high in both hands. Ruby threw herself forward in a cloud of petals, appearing just in front of Salem, her eyes aglow with silver wings. Aldric couldn't avoid getting slammed, full-force, by the power of Ruby's eyes, but he'd felt that pain twice already and he had been prepared for it. Salem staggered, her magic stolen from her and patches of her body covered in stone, while other parts were completely stone. Aldric, with all of his strength and all of his power, leapt onto Salem's back, shoving his blade through her spine and shoving his arm under one of hers in a partial-Nelson, as Jaune came charging in, screaming loudly.
"Go for the head!" Aldric roared as Salem wrenched back and forth, struggling against Aldric and Pyrrha's holds.
In an attack that couldn't have been better coordinated if they'd tried, Aldric and Pyrrha pinned the Witch down, Ruby suppressed her powers and damaged her soul, leaving naught but the Grimm influence left in her, and Jaune -
Jaune went for the fucking head.
In a brief flash of light, with the sound of glass breaking, and nothing more than a gasp of pain from the woman herself, she vanished, not even leaving the smoke behind.
Aldric fell to the floor in a heap, hitting his back on one of the foundations Pyrrha had torn from the ground. She gasped and untangled him as Jaune stumbled to the side, eyes wide and head snapping back and forth between the pile of metal that had bound Salem, and his sword.
"Uh -" He sputtered, as Ruby daintily landed on the ground, and Pyrrha rushed over to help Aldric to his feed. "We - we did it!" He gasped, "holy shit!"
Ruby was in just as much shock as Jaune, and as Pyrrha helped Aldric up, it was to him she looked at for confirmation. "Was that really it?"
Aldric grunted, nodding to Pyrrha as he got up. "I love it when a plan comes together." He would never again claim Superman could beat Batman. Ever.
Ruby's smile joined Jaune's, they shared a look, but the smiles vanished when a jet passed by the tower, tailed by several Grimm.
Jaune's smile of glee turned to a frown of confusion, "they're - still there?" He murmured, rushing to the edge of the tower. "But I thought -" He sputtered, looking out and seeing the war in full swing.
Aldric shook his head, "she's just the queen, Jaune." He said, "army doesn't just vanish when the monarchy gets assassinated."
"But - the terrans are -" Ruby gasped, her breaths coming quicker as she realized that if they didn't leave soon, before the casualties piled up, bad things would happen.
"Nuke the place." Aldric nodded, "I figured." He thought, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the Nuclear Pocket from his belt.
Pyrrha put his hand on his shoulder, "please tell me you planned for this." She said, a hint of plea in the voice she was forcing to remain calm.
Aldric shrugged her hand off of his shoulder, staring at where Salem had just vanished, dark thoughts clouding his mind.
"Yeah." Was all he said, as he popped open the Nuclear Pocket, and pulled out a vial of glass.
All eyes were on him as he crushed the glass and approached the table.
"Yeah I had a victory planned." He said, his throat going dry and his skin going numb as he pushed himself to the table.
What grew in his hand was a single, armored gauntlet made of solid gold. Six depressions lined its back, and its appearance made the three around him exchange curious glances. He lifted it and slid his left hand into the gauntlet, as his heart hammered in his chest.
He reached the table, stretching his fingers and clenching them into a fist, the gauntlet clanking and creaking with each one.
He eyed the staff of Creation, and gulped.
He stood there, staring at the table for long enough that Ruby approached him from behind. "Ash?" She asked, before shaking her head. "Uh - Al -"
Aldric shrugged his head, "Leeroy Jenkins." He grabbed the staff and brought it to the gauntlet.
To his immense horror, and unimaginable satisfaction, it shrank down and, as though attracted to it like a magnet, flew to one of the knuckles of the gauntlet and settled in like it had been made for it. Aldric clenched his teeth as the staff started glowing blue, and bright, teal veins of energy shot up Aldric's arm, glowing for a moment before settling down.
Ruby took a step back, blinking.
Aldric kept going, knowing that if he paused for even a second, he wouldn't be able to go through with it.
He clenched his fist - the staff of creation, now acting in place of something far different, pulsed a dark blue, and a swirling vortex appeared over Aldric's outstretched right hand. The Lamp of Knowledge fell from that vortex, depositing into Aldric's open palm, and as the vortex closed, Aldric brought over and deposited the lamp in its place on the gauntlet, it glowing and sending green veins of energy into Aldric's body.
"Aldric?" Pyrrha spoke up, as Jaune turned to them and beheld the birth of a God.
With a big G.
Aldric reached for the Sword of Destruction, and though it pained him in a much different way than physical, it too did as he had thought it would, and fell into its spot on the gauntlet, glowing a deep purple.
Ruby backed up further, silver eyes wide as she felt the literal Power radiating off of Aldric, who soldiered on and grasped the last of the Relics: The Crown of Choice, which fell into place on the back of his wrists, glowing a bright yellow.
This entire time, from day one, Aldric had spoken of fears that Salem would do something terrible if she got the Relics. This entire time, as a means of comprehending that which he had no information for, he equated the relics to things he did understand. And because of how Ozpin had taught him - because of Ozpin's terrible success in teaching Aldric that magic was what he thought it was, because Aldric thought that he was a reality warper, that meant that these Relics were.
This was it.
This was the culmination of everything he had worked towards.
This was his magnum opus.
The end to his path.
The solution to his problems.
This was The Big One.
The Sword, the Crown, the Staff, and the Lamp.
Power, Mind, Space, and Time.
But those were only four.
He was missing two.
Or rather, he would have been, if not for the three Masters before him.
His Father had planted the idea in his head - by creating Mjolnir, and with it working as it was supposed to, his father had taught him that the laws of other universes could be brought to, and enforced in this one. Aldric's creation of the Master Sword confirmed this, but that was small. He needed something bigger - and that came from Ben and Helmut. They had been the testing grounds for something much bigger than they could have ever imagined.
Because Ben and Helmut, like Aldric, were Reality warpers, and the latter's death let Aldric confirm that he could do great and terrible things with that knowledge.
Helmut's soul was the control test.
Ben's was the real thing.
Ben's soul gem came out of the nuclear pocket, glowing as brilliant and deep a red as Helmut's had.
It fell onto the gauntlet, and even more energy poured into Aldric, who was struggling to keep it in check.
And the final piece to the puzzle: The gem containing the woman who had gained her power by stealing that of others.
By stealing the souls of others.
Cinder's gem, glowing a pallid yellow, fell into the last available spot on Aldric's gauntlet, and Aldric's entire body seized up as the raw energy of all six of them, filtered through the gauntlet, flowed through his body. He screamed as, in the moments it took for him to acclimate, he felt more pain and more power than anyone in this universe had ever felt before.
Waves of energy and powerful gusts of wind shot out from Aldric as it surged through him. Ruby covered her mouth, tears forming in her eyes, Pyrrha crouched behind her shield, confusion lighting hers, and Jaune twisted around, shielding himself from the display, until it was done.
Aldric, light wafts of steam coming off of his back, gasped for air, as he felt, and was, everything. His hand was covered in multicolored lights, his veins were alight with the energy being filtered into them. His body was stiff, his eyes were closed, his mind was open.
He took in a deep breath.
He let it out as a long sigh, a smile dragging at the corners of his lips.
"Aldric?" He heard.
Aldric turned to the speaker, and saw Jaune - the only one of the three of them who had drawn their weapon, the only one of the three of them with any sense.
Aldric offered no words.
From day one, he'd been worried Salem would do what he was capable of.
But he'd never really thought he'd be the one to do it.
He lifted his hand.
And snapped his fingers.