Chapter 86

It was the longest microsecond of her entire life, the moment in which Cinder Fall, after having seen the downfall of a world and the destruction of an entire timeline, saw a blinding white flash of light blast out in a wave from the tower on which the Master, Aldric and the Witch, Salem, dueled. She didn't know what it meant, and fear bade her worry that it could very well be the heralding of another one, that a second world would fall and that she may very well have to do as they had discussed, and try again. A million emotions rampaged through her at once as she was rendered blind by the light, and she could only fall to her knees, cover her eyes with one of her arms, and hold up her hand, a barrier forming to life around her to protect from Aldric Black, if he so chose to attack.

But no attack came, and her blindness lasted for only a moment, and to her shock, left nothing behind. No burned dots in her eyes, no blurry vision, just a flash of the brightest light she had ever seen, and then it was gone, as if it had never been there in the first place.

Tentatively, she removed her head from her elbow, and as she got to her feet found she still couldn't see - but not from the light, rather from a cloud of Grimm Smoke so thick that it choked the very air around them in those brief few seconds before it dissipated as it always did. Her unwitting ally, the former bandit, was just as stunned as she was when the literal smoke cleared and there was nothing. All of the Grimm - including the Terran reforged - were gone. All that was left were the Huntsmen on the ground, and the fightercraft of both Remnant and Earth make above, all scrambling to adapt to the new status quo.

And Cinder, for the first time in her entire life, felt not elation, not the narcotic feeling of power, but she felt satisfaction. Relief.

"He did it." She breathed, falling to her knees again - but this time limply, her arms hanging from her sides as her borrowed face broke out in a wide grin, tears sliding between the interior of the mask and her true face. "Oh gods, he did it." Her voice wavered.

Qrow turned to her, confusion on his face. "He?" He parroted back, "what the hell are you talking about 'he'...?!" He demanded, approaching Cinder as the sounds of cheers and celebration filled the air. "What just happened? Why are there three of you, why was one a Grimm, and where the hell is the other one?!" He rasped, reaching down and grabbing at the collar of Cinder's shirt, but he missed.

Or rather, he didn't miss at all - his hand fell to pieces, rendering unto dust just as the tips of his fingers brushed her neck.

Their eyes wide, his with anger, hers with confusion, the former Bandit fell back a step, looking down at his hand as more of it fell to dust, travelling down his arm and towards his chest.

"What is this?" He cried, gaze snapping up to Cinder, "what did you do!?" Were his last words before he vanished with a sigh of wind, naught but the dust and ashes he'd been rendered down to as evidence of his presence.

What... Cinder looked up from his pile of ash at the other Huntsmen around her, the previously joyous, celebratory cheers now becoming cries of terror and confusion, as everyone around her suffered similar fates. Some tried to run, but they fell to the ground in heaps of ash when their legs vanished, others tried to hold onto each other, as though the contact would keep them moored to reality, but they too fell to pieces. Did he do? Cinder asked, as she suddenly was overcome with the feeling like she was about to vomit.

She bent over, one hand crossing over her stomach, the other balancing her on the ground, but both were vanishing, and as more of them fell apart, the sick feeling was replaced with one of discomfort, and finally, pain, before she was gone completely.

Her last view was that of the tower, her last thoughts that of Aldric, what his plan had been, and if this had been it.

Adam Taurus stumbled to a halt as the wave of light passed over him so fast that he only realized it had even happened in the first place when everyone else reacted too. There was a pause in the action, a hiccup, as the wave washed over them and briefly overloaded everyone's eyes, before it was gone - and in its place was smoke. Dark and black as the night sky, the smoke choked the air and left everyone coughing as they fell back, ready for the Grimm to push again.

"Ready!" Cried Taurus, clutching his blade in its sheath with one hand, and covering his mouth with the other. "Ready!" This had to be some kind of prelude to a counter attack, they couldn't be caught flat-footed.

But the attack never came - much the opposite, when the smoke cleared, it left behind the revelation that it was Grimm smoke. All of them - every single one they had been fighting - were gone. Wiped out. Killed by that wave of light.

Taurus blinked, setting his masked face in a firm frown so no one would see that he, too, was just as confused as everyone else. He took charge, ordering several squads inside the castle to search for it, for a second force to start scouting the wastelands and to set up a defensive perimeter around any of the tar pools they found.

But his orders would go unheeded when, almost as one, everyone looked to the sky and saw not the foreboding red air, but clear blue. The realization appeared to hit everyone differently, but the same idea was shared by all, even him:

They'd won.

Not bad, Human... Taurus thought, as everyone began cheering and shouting in celebration.

He let them have a moment before he smacked one of his soldiers on the back, intending to get their mind back on the task.

But he didn't expect the man to stumble forward and disintegrate right in front of his eyes.

What the - Taurus thought, falling back a step and examining his hand, seeing it caked in the dust and ash that the Fang had just turned into. Aldric, what did you do?! He clenched his teeth, an unpleasant feeling - like he was about to vomit - welling up in his stomach as he saw more people begin to flake away into ash. The new reality propagated rapidly, and glee and celebration turned into fear and panic just as fast. People began screaming, some ran, some held on, some even dove for cover, but this wave affected everyone without fail. Even Taurus fell to his knees, jaw clenched, trying to resist the effects through anger and will, but all that did was make him vanish slower, and in more pain, than the rest.

But vanish he did, in a swirling cloud of dust and ash, cursing Nebo Aldric as he did so.

Roman Torchwick knew the moment the light passed him over, and that it cleared from his eyes unnaturally quickly, who had caused it, and what it might mean, but not quite what it would do. He blinked, and in that instant of darkness between sight, the Grimm vanished, as though the wave of light had smote them all, and he would readily admit he was impressed by it. He knew Aldric was good, he knew the young man was powerful and prepared, and he'd even been confident that they may actually win this one, but despite that he was still surprised by the fact that the Master had actually done it.

He looked down at Neo, who was smiling at him smugly, her eyes darting from the tower where the light had originated, to Torchwick himself.

She held out her hand, an eyebrow quirked.

Torchwick rolled his eyes, "I'm never going to live this down." He murmured, reaching for his back pocket, as the other Gardeners he'd hired flanked him and his little mute, idle conversation largely revolving around 'what just happened?' and 'I really didn't know what I'd signed on for' only possible now that the situation had resolved itself. Torchwick gave them no sympathy, even if they hadn't known, by taking his coin they'd signed a contract, and - why was it so hard to grab his wallet?

Torchwick felt around, but soon found that his hand was numb - he couldn't feel his back pocket.

Head tilting, a confused frown settling onto his face, Torchwick brought his hand back in front of him, wondering if he'd been bitten by something.

His answer came when he saw the upper half of his bicep flaking away into dust and ash.

"Huh." He hummed, looking down at his chest and seeing it and his legs too flaking away. "Now what did he do?" He looked up to Neo, who was examining herself with the same curiosity and, ever one to try and make a return, Torchwick's last words were, "bet you my losses we wake up in the morning."

As they both faded away to dust, Neopolitan rolled her eyes and presented him her middle finger.

He couldn't count the names he'd answered to, nor the lives he'd lived, nor the bodies he'd buried, nor all of the atrocities he'd seen.

But he could name what it was that was happening.

The man who answered to 'Ozpin' had seen the depths of Aldric's soul, during their conversations about the Relics, before Aldric had taken great pains to hide or distract his thoughts in Ozpin's presence, he'd gleaned from Aldric what he equated the Relics to, and with this wave of light passing over everyone, it gave Ozpin pause as, for just a moment, while the smoke cleared, he wondered who had won the battle in the tower: Aldric, or Salem?

When people began to fade to dust, Ozpin had his answer, because he was unique among everyone present, save only one, in that once he beheld the proceedings, he knew exactly what was happening. He knew exactly what Aldric's plan had been, how Aldric had taken Ozpin's lessons to heart and had used that against the very universe that had wronged him so much. He had deliberately kept himself in the dark over the function and power of the Relics so he could believe with all his heart and soul how he thought they worked, and with his power, with what he thought magic was, that meant they did.

And it terrified Ozpin, because unlike everyone present who didn't comprehend what was happening, Ozpin did.

Salem had broken Aldric, and Aldric had used the infinite power he'd welled up from the Relics to solve the problem in the most horrifically pragmatic way imaginable. Where Salem wanted to give Humanity something to fear, and where Ozpin wanted Humanity to unite itself, Aldric had cut straight through to the most direct solution imaginable, and had given both Earth and Remnant no other solution but to unite. Aldric had applied both Ozpin and Salem's philosophies, but with his own twist.

From Ozpin, Aldric gave humanity the choice to unite peacefully. From Salem, he provided a clear and present danger to everyone if they didn't. From Aldric, he turned it into the greatest trial by fire in the history of two planets, and took away the safety nets. It was do or die, literally. He'd used the power of the Relics and his own magic to kill so many of them that their choice was either to unite and survive, or die and go extinct.

As everyone around him - and everything, as he saw the jets, fighter craft, and airships above, as well as the Terran vehicles and artillery in the distance - all turned to dust, Ozpin felt a great pain in his chest as he tried to comprehend the magnitude of what Aldric had done. The sheer number of people he'd just killed and the cold calculus he'd no doubt applied to guarantee enough would survive to ensure genetic diversity among the survivors, should they choose to unite.

A million plans passed through Ozpin's mind in a second, just as many scenarios in another, and in the third, he realized the pain in his chest wasn't metaphorical, but very, very physical:

From the inside out, Ozpin, too, was being sacrificed on the altar of Aldric's broken psyche. Of the boy he and his former wife had dragged into their war and promptly shattered in every way imaginable.

As Ozpin fell to his knees, more and more of his body flaking away until it was a waterfall of ash falling to the ground, as the boy he shared his body with screamed in their shared mind, Ozpin was torn between intense guilt over his part in this, and utter revulsion at the selfishness Aldric was displaying in this act.

If they hadn't had their backs to a wall, they would have been surrounded by more Grimm than Yang Xiao Long thought physically possible. But with their backs to the staircase that led to the impromptu arena above, instead it was that she and her allies were faced down with the greatest tidal wave of Grimm she'd ever seen. There was no room or need for finesse or accuracy, because there were so many in front of them that Yang and Nora could just point in a random direction and fire or swing, and they would hit something.

They kept the bulk of the horde at bay, fighting so hard that even Yang's muscles screamed in pain, while the remainder, Ren and Blake, they acted as the scalpel to Yang and Nora's sledgehammer. They took down the Grimm that made it past the two heavy-hitters, while Weiss was the absolute last line of defense - her great white knight acting as a wall between the Grimm and the tower, each swing of its blade cleaving several Grimm apart.

It was the hardest fight she'd ever been in. At least when she'd fought people, there were breaks - brief moments where they would rest, reassess, and reengage, or sometimes would monologue or swap banter. The usual bad guy stuff. But here? It was hordes and hordes and hordes of relentless beasts who threw themselves at the defenders with no regard for themselves, and it took all of Yang's strength and skill to keep them at bay. Her aura shattered after a few minutes, and she was forced to go on by using her semblance to fuel her - even though the injuries she took now had lasting effects.

By the time it all happened, Yang had more than a few open wounds streaming blood, and her synthetic arm was sparking air was choked so thick with Grimm smoke that Yang almost didn't notice the flash and wave of light come from the tower above. It registered in the back of her mind, but she didn't properly quantify it until the amount of Grimm smoke grew exponentially, and the number of Grimm throwing themselves at her dropped to zero, and her arms dropped limply to her sides, heart thundering in her chest.

When the smoke cleared and no other Grimm approached, when the sounds of battle outside went silent, Yang, gasping for air, turned to Nora, a slightly confused look to her fading red eyes.

"What happened?" She asked the Valkyrie, who turned to her, just as exhausted, the haft of her weapon bent from how hard she'd been swinging it, and she could only summon the energy to shrug her shoulders.

Yang turned to the others behind her, Weiss' knight fading from existence and the heiress dropping to her knees, panting. Ren kept his composure as best he could, but he was sporting his fair share of injuries and couldn't help but let it show. What caught Yang's attention though, was when Ren's head snapped up, his eyes going wide as he looked at Nora.

Heart going right back to where it had been a moment ago, Yang put up her fists and spun around, but Nora was nowhere to be found, only a hallway full of dust in the wind and the debris of their battle.

"Nora?" Yang called out, lowering her fists a fraction of an inch as she looked about, "Nora?!" But she got no answer. "Ren, what did you -" She turned back around, but saw that she was alone - nothing but dust choking the air and debris cluttering the ground, Ren, Blake, and Weiss having vanished just as Nora. "Ren?" She gasped, "Weiss?! Blake?!" Her voice grew higher with each name, before she stopped short, her heart thudding in her chest.

The red returned to her eyes as she charged forward, shouldering the door to the stairway open and thundering up the spiral staircase, rage filling her veins and her vision going as red as her irises. She didn't even realize her own skin was flaking off into gray dust, her mind was consumed with the fear of losing her sister again, and the unbridled rage she would unleash on Ash when she got her hands on him.

She sprinted through the opening to the tower, and had only a second to take it in: Pyrrha was gone, Ruby was in front of Ash crying, Jaune was at the edge of the tower, hands tangled in his blonde hair, screaming as he looked out at the battlefield ahead of him. Yang stopped short, taking just a moment to take it in, just long enough to see Ruby, her big, silver eyes wide with a fear that didn't belong in them, turned to the door. Ruby made eye contact with her sister, and just a second later collapsed into a pile of dust.

Right at Ash's feet.

Yang raged, screaming as she thundered towards the object of her hatred, but her body was literally falling apart, it taking two steps before her right foot vanished and she stumbled forward. She tried to throw a punch, to fire her gauntlet, but just as the trigger would have been set off at the apex of her punch, her arm fell to ash as well, and she hit the ground, the last thing she saw being the charred, black tiles of the tower.

Jaune had seen bright things before, but never like this. He'd stared into flashlights even though his mom had told him not to, he'd looked at the sun, he'd been hit by a few of Nora's flash grenades, those had been the worst because they left his head ringing afterwards, but none of it was like this. All of that burned his eyes, left him stumbling, stunned. This? This flash, this wave of light, was over just as soon as Jaune recognized it was happening, and it left nothing behind, almost as though it hadn't happened in the first place.

Jaune looked down at his gloved hand and his cybernetic hand, both still there, the latter still lightly clenching his sword.

"Wha -" He breathed, looking up and seeing huge clouds of smoke wafting up from the ground below. "What -" He whirled around and, as they dissipated, he saw that Aldric had done something to the Grimm - they were all gone! All of them! "What did you do?" Jaune breathed, covering his mouth with his good hand, his mind unable to wrap itself around the miracle he'd just witnessed.

He turned back around, "A - Aldric?" He caught himself before he gave the Master his false name, "Aldric what did you do?"

But Aldric didn't answer, he fell to the side, leaning heavily against the podium the relics had been resting on, and Jaune quickly determined why: Half of the Master was burned black. He was openly smoldering like an overcooked steak, and he was gasping for air, eyes clenched tight and head leaned back, his left hand, the cybernetic replacement that wore the golden gauntlet, appeared the hottest, with most of the smoke billowing off of it.

Jaune watched Aldric lean on the podium, barely able to stand, gasping for air, brief vocalizations of pain making it way through an open mouth, before he turned to Ruby and Pyrrha, both of whom had just finished checking themselves, the latter of which had a strange expression as she cradled her stomach, but rushed to Aldric regardless. She grabbed Aldric by his arms and straightened him up, the Master winced in pain, groaned loudly, but was able to use her.

"Aldric, what was that?" Pyrrha asked, "why do I feel..." She searched for the right word, "what did you do?" She looked him in the eyes.

Aldric, still panting heavily, gulped through a bone dry throat and forced himself to slow down his breathing, closing his eyes as he clenched his teeth. In the few seconds he took, Pyrrha went from a strange expression, to looking positively green, to appearing as though she were in pain.

Just as Jaune noticed the first flakes of ash floating off of her shoulders, just as she realized something was wrong, just as he took one step forward and opened his mouth, she vanished, her entire body turning to dust and ash, falling apart, half in a pile in front of Aldric, half drifting in the wind around him.

As that happened, Jaune realized he could hear screaming, but he was too numb by what he'd witnessed.

"What -" He breathed, watching as Pyrrha's ashes floated away.

Ruby's hands shot to her face, tears began streaming from her eyes which glowed brightly for a moment, before they faded.

"Aldric!" She cried, "Aldric what happened?!" Her voice shook from emotion, she rushed towards the smoldering Terran even as she herself started to flake away.

Jaune turned around, dropping his sword as his fingers tangled themselves in his hair, his own eyes going wide and his expression turning to one of shock and terror as he looked down at the warzone in front of them, and saw the same thing happening to everyone. The Grimm had just been the first to vanish, now whatever Aldric had done was taking the people too. Jaune watched as people turned to ash by the scores, seemingly at random, but rapidly spreading until it took literally everyone, and not just the people. The Atlesian fleet, the Terran fighters, the mechs and artillery, the soldiers and their guns, it was all fading away, disintegrating into dust. Where the Grimm smoke had cleared in just a few moments before, this new cloud stayed - choking the air until it blotted out the sky above, turning it from a clear blue to a nasty, dingy gray.

Jaune didn't realize until his throat became hoarse that he'd been screaming the entire time.

When he turned back around, he did so just in time to see the last tufts of blonde hair vanish in a pile of swirling dust, as the blonde brawler made an ill-fated attempt at shooting the Master.

"Aldric!" Jaune screamed, looking at his feet for his sword, but seeing it nowhere. "Aldric what did you do?!" He gave up on finding it and charged the Master with his bare hands, reaching him and grabbing him by his scorched chainmail, shaking him back and forth and repeating himself over and over again. "What did you do?!" He all but cried, "what did you do!? What did you do!?"

But Aldric looked as numb as he felt, it appearing all the Master could do to just stay breathing.

Jaune had to finally stop when he stumbled forward - both of his fists missing, leaving naught but dusty stumps, and a sick feeling in his stomach as it too vanished.

But he kept repeating himself, "what did you do?!" He screamed, his voice sounding strange - like it had been after the Terrans had attacked Vale, when he'd only had one lung. "What did you do?!" He asked again, as he fell to his only knee, more than half of him missing entirely.

And as little but parts of him remained, Aldric finally looked him in the eye, tears streaking the dark soot on his face, as he said, "what I had to."

Jaune vanished, screaming in abject fear and anger.

When Aldric was all that was left, when he was alone with nothing but his burned, pained body, when his senses returned to him and when the Relics blinked away, vanishing from his gauntlet, when Ben's stone lost its red glow and left only Cinder's orange to light his way in the dust-choked air, he stumbled forward, each limp towards the edge of the tower agony, each breath ragged.

In the twenty steps it took for him to get to the edge of the tower, Aldric thought a little on everything that had led him here. He thought on the plane crash, and his encounters with Cubone and Mothra. He thought of his rescue by Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury. He thought of the beginnings of his Green Hornet plan, his awakening of his aura and his training and battles up until they nearly killed Amber. He thought of how little he'd ever really considered Emerald's death, and how he'd murdered that Vacuoan girl in her sleep. He thought of his months lying to everyone in Beacon, orchestrating the Watchmen and then scrambling to react to Earth's introduction. He thought of the Terrans he'd killed, of how he'd unknowingly murdered his father and given Jaune the very tool that had given them victory today. Aldric spared some moments to think of GEMS and where they may be now, he thought of his battle against Cinder and how he'd only avoided dying because of an almost literal deus ex machina. He thought of the timeline that had been aborted and the plans that had been at work around him. He thought of Venom Aldric and Solidus Cinder, how his delayed realization of their shared identities had led him to being forced to fight and kill the other two Masters. He thought of his murder of Cinder in her sleep, how she'd trusted him so much and so fully that he'd been able to kill her without struggle. He thought of his own encounter with Aldric Black, and then his conversation with Salem. How he truly believed, in the depths of his heart, that she was right. How close he'd been to siding with her, and using this trick in a much different way, on much different enemies. He thought of his choice, his line in the sand, of that brief, perfect moment when the final dominoes fell in sequence.

He thought about how the witch had smiled when Jaune cut her down.

Finally, as he reached the edge of the tower and looked out at the wasteland around him. As he took in the dust and ash in the air, the localized nuclear winter that had turned day into night, how it all was, in a way, the aerosolized bodies of the armies he'd wiped away, he thought of what he'd just done.

His own, personal Snap.

He thought of all of this, of his journey to this place right here, at the edge of the tallest tower in Salem's castle.

Body in agonizing pain, face and chest stiff and burned, lips parted, air whistling between them, Aldric looked up to the sky, trying to pierce the ash cloud to find the sun.

But he couldn't find it.

He stepped forward, pushing himself off the edge, plummeting through the ash, so thick that he couldn't see the ground coming up to him, so numb that he couldn't feel his own body turn to the very ash that choked the air through which he fell.