Bring Me Your Fear, Bring Me Your Pain

Ecru Lily had thought she'd had a decent idea of what was going on.

She and 'Aldric' had spent an entire day - through the afternoon and past midnight - talking. She had been able to tell just from his voice and the haunted look on his burned face that everything he'd told her had been the truth, and that he wasn't used to telling the truth in such quantities. Reading his 'Record,' which the idiotic Atlesians were convinced was a manifesto, had shown her that she had been completely correct. 'Aldric' - a name that she had tremendous difficulty applying to the memory of Ash, and only found success in applying to the burned man that had snuck into her house - had, indeed, given her everything. Every question she asked, he answered, and the things she learned that day - and the questions she'd never even thought to ask, that his Record had answered - shook her to her core.

She knew, just from looking at him, that he'd expected, and planned, on her refusing his request. He'd even outright said it, saying that he would honor her choice, and the only idea he had left if Ecru refused him would be to find a way to return to Earth, and give his daughter to her grandmother. That option had been his last resort, he didn't want to, because of the sheer amount of problems it would give his child later in her life. There would be no one on Earth to help her learn to control her powers - if she awoke any to begin with. He had no idea how he could fake the endless amounts of paperwork and records to just create a person, and he knew that his mother was being monitored even this long after the separation of Earth and Remnant - exactly because he might return one day. Giving his child to her would thus paint targets on both of their backs, and require even more work to change their identities and hide them - and he knew, intimately, how difficult it was to go from a life one knew to one they didn't, and he desperately didn't want to do that to his mother. Finally, there was just the fact that his mother raised him. Even though he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that his mother was a much better person than him, even though he knew that the circumstances of his child's upbringing would be different from his if only because his father wouldn't be around, he wanted to avoid at all costs even the most remote chance that she would turn out to be like him - and placing her in the same house that had, over eighteen years, been the exact crucible that had led to the exact state of mind that led to him doing what he'd done, it was a risk, no matter how remote, he didn't want to take. There were so many problems with sending her to Earth that, even though he knew his mother would do it in a heartbeat, and even if he didn't believe his child would turn out like him, he didn't want to do it if he could avoid it.

Truth be told, she wanted to refuse him. She could not properly put to words the revulsion she felt the more he spoke, the more he admitted. The hate that welled up in her at the betrayal, and how cavalierly he admitted he'd sanctioned Myrtle's murder - and had only followed up on it the day previously, to acquire the Tosser from the woman that had killed her. To see this man who had once been such a close friend to her - her leader! A hero that all of Vale had spoken of in absolute reverence up to the publishing of his Record! To see him go from that shining ideal to this filthy, scarred, disgusting thing, it was practically sacrilegious.

She knew well enough that she'd elevated Ash to something of an idea in the years following his 'death,' how she - and even Srebro - had placed him on a pedestal, but even remembering the reality, and comparing it to the truth that had sat in front of her that night, hollow and hoarse, it filled her with the kind of impotent rage that one only experienced when they were shown proof that everything they knew, believed, and had been raised on, was a lie.

She nearly did refuse him - what the hell was it her problem to be his backup option for some stupid oops-baby he'd had because he'd let some woman fuck him without considering protection? What the hell was it her job to deal with the fallout of him going through life like it was some kind of cheesy spy movie, where he'd sleep with people just to maintain some idiotic cover? What the hell was it her concern to help the man that had, from the very instant they had met, lied to her, abused and never shared her trust, faked his death and gotten her crippled in an ill-conceived attempt to recover his body, and who had, she could not repeat this enough, sanctioned the murder of her friend?!

Ecru, Myrtle, Srebro - they had all trusted him! They'd thought the world of him! But to him, they were just things, pieces to be moved on the board, tools with specific uses, to be thrown out if they didn't perform to his exacting standards. They'd spent quite a long time - and she'd yelled loud enough that her service dog had had to bury his head and ears under his paws - on that one thing. He'd straight-up walked into their room, just days after he'd died, woken up Myrtle, and lied and abused her trust in him to force her to help him save someone else, and to pay her for that, he'd told an assassin to kill her if she stepped out of line - in effect, exchanging one life for another. What made Ruby Rose more important than Myrtle? Why be willing to spend one life - Myrtle's life! His friend's life! - for someone else's?

But when he answered this question, as he did every other one, that was when she actually, really looked at him. She looked beyond the scar tissue covering half of his face, the new arm he said was made from the same metal as his shield, and she looked deeper. She saw how haunted his eyes were, saw how he'd lost weight since they'd last interacted, she heard the hollow, rumbly echo of his voice, the slouch to his neck and the downward slope to his shoulders. She looked at the scars themselves, and the ones peeking up from the edges of his shirt. She saw how he hardly made eye contact with her the entire day, how he just limply looked off into space, his mind half here, talking to her, and half in the past, remembering the things he'd done. She saw the guilt eating at him. She listened to how he talked, could hear the weight of the words he said, the weight of words and thoughts that someone had carried with them, daily, forever.

It all painted one picture:

Goud Etiolate, was not 'Nebo Aldric,' if he ever was. One was good, and stood for things much, much greater than himself, whereas the other - there was no arguing, he was evil, did bad things for nebulous reasons, and used the final outcome of them all to justify it.

But he regretted them all. Every single thing he told her about, each and every answer he provided, they were all loaded with more guilt than she could even imagine someone carrying on their own. He genuinely regretted everything he'd done, hated it all - and by proxy hated himself. He knew the things he'd done had been heinous to an unimaginable degree, and this understanding tore at him every second of every day. Looking at him - really looking at him - she realized that Aldric and Ash may be two completely different people, but they weren't one hundred percent alien to each other. There was one thing - one core idea that they shared, that they truly believed in. The idea of selflessness, of hope. The difference was in how they executed that belief: Ash tried to be more than himself, to create this symbol for people to rally around, to be a lighthouse in a great, global storm, that people could flock to, whereas Aldric was the one who turned his ship around, sacrificing it, its crew, and himself, to fight the darkness within the darkness, and buy those in the light the time they needed to reach it.

Aldric was a bad, evil man, but in his innermost depths - at the absolute center of his core, there was a single mote of light. This mote of light struggled to stay lit, to brighten its surroundings, it was constantly being smothered by the darkness around it, crushing it, but it was the guilt he carried - the understanding of the terrors he'd inflicted, that ironically fueled that light, that allowed it to continue to struggle within him. His soul-crushing guilt, the unbearable understanding and lamentation of the evil he'd conducted, was that light shining through - it was an admittance, even if he didn't realize or acknowledge it, that at his core, Aldric was a good person, one that had, in his naivete, made one bad decision to serve the light from the dark. Then in perhaps the worst sunk-cost fallacy Ecru had ever seen in her life, he just dedicated, and doubled down, tripled down, just kept re-dedicating himself to this one bad decision because he couldn't bring himself to believe that all the bad he'd done wouldn't pan out into something good.

This observation, this realization on Ecru's part, arrested her momentum. It sapped her strength, and doused the fires that had lit inside her over the course of the night.

She wanted so much to refuse him - the 'no' was right there on the tip of her tongue! She wanted so much to force him to deal with his own actions and his own choices that it almost hurt.

But she just couldn't.

Even if she knew what he was going to do to 'solve Adam Taurus' would look remarkably like what he'd done to fight the War of the White Witch, she just couldn't say no. Even if it looked like the penance it seemed he was seeking would be bathed in yet more blood, and found in yet more isolation, she just didn't have the strength to let that 'no' fall from her lips. Here was a man who knew he was evil, who knew what he'd done and admitted all of it - here was a man who was about to strap on his sword and do it all again, and who knew what that meant.

And all he wanted was to spare his child from experiencing his reality for as long as he possibly could.

She somehow knew he would have gotten on his knees and begged if he wasn't so hollow, and sapped of his own strength. He asked her to take his baby - a beautiful little girl by the name of 'Ashley' - and raise her. He wanted the person - the people, because he knew Srebro would get in on this too - who knew Ash, who knew Goud Etiolate, the character he'd created to be a hero. He wanted someone who knew that man, to raise her - not to raise her as Ash's child, but to raise her in that image. To bring her up in those ideals, to take this thing, this blank slate birthed by two monsters, and to make a hero out of it.

Damn it, she just couldn't say no.

So she didn't.

Oh, she made sure to let Aldric know what she thought of him - she made damn sure, and she swore that she'd tell Srebro too. Even if he hadn't made her do so, she would have promised to never even whisper the name 'Aldric' in Ashley's presence, and she similarly told him on no uncertain terms that even if Aldric beat Adam Taurus, if the exposure he feared never happened and no one came after him, she wouldn't give Ashley back to him. The fact that Taurus had found him at all, that he didn't know how long ago he'd been made, and that he'd sent two assassins to kill him, meant that Ashley being raised by her mother and father just put her in danger. Even if the girl's mother and father really were balancing each other out, the fact that Aldric was willing to just give the innocent little baby up at the drop of a hat instead of doing the right thing and being a damn father to her through thick and thin, as well as the fact that the baby girl's parents were always ready and prepared to kill each other without hesitation, just meant that giving her back was dooming that child to a trauma even he couldn't imagine.

She wasn't prepared for how much it hurt to see a tear silently fall down his stony face, as all he did was nod to what she said and stare off into space, but she knew she had to say it - because it was the truth. He may have had nine or ten good years with her, but even if they ignored the fact that he was about to wipe away all of her memories of her mother and father, and the fact that Ecru didn't actually know how 'good' those years were, she was being raised on incredibly fragile foundations. Her household was a ticking time bomb, and even if it didn't fully go off this time, it was inevitable that it would, some day. Then that castle he had built would come crashing down and would shred everyone caught in its blast radius - and he thus ran an incredible risk of hurting this child so bad that he may very well make a monster in the very image of its parents; even if that didn't happen, he would still hurt her like he couldn't believe. Every single day he didn't catastrophically screw something up was a miracle for him, the mother, and the little girl most of all.

Finally, even if somehow everything went perfectly - even if absolutely everything followed his 'perfect world' scenario, he was able to come back, pick up his daughter from daycare, go find her mother, and go back to raising her, what would happen when the time came when Ashley learned about Aldric and Cinder? What would happen when, in her teenage years, she saw footage of 'Fear and Dead Men' and wondered why her daddy had a different name? What would happen when she saw the footage of Ash and Cinder's final battle, and the death certificate of the former? What would happen if he never answered those questions, and she - as any child would do - defied him in her curiosity, found his Record, and learned the truth?

'Fire' didn't even come close to what he was playing with. This was an innocent little girl's life, and as he himself admitted, he had almost failed on numerous accounts to keep up lies and deception for just two years. How would he survive the next eight? How would he survive her adolescence, or adulthood? He was riding high so far - she was a child, and just took what Dad said at face value, but once she started growing into her own and really thinking for herself? One, single, individual mistake, and now - just like then - it would all come falling apart, and even more than Ashley coming to resent or even hate him, he'd sour her entire childhood. He'd ruin every single memory she had, the same way he'd tainted the memories of Ash in Ecru's eyes - the same way he'd destroyed his image and the mere idea of him in the eyes of RWBY and JNPR, but it would be all the worse because at least for GEMS, JNPR, and RWBY, they only had a year with him. This child's entire life would be centered around him - her father! - and if he slipped up even once, he'd change everything she knew, and not for the better. The trauma and psychological artifacts that would leave behind wouldn't just alter her perception of her memories, but it would change her entire life to follow! Children who had suffered far less took decades of hard work and therapy to overcome it - could he even imagine what she would need to do to overcome what she would learn about him? Had he even tried to come up with some way to broach that subject with her at all?

Ecru didn't like it, she didn't like that she had to say these things or take this stance. It felt wrong, dirty.

She liked even less that it seemed Aldric had predicted this very conversation and had been prepared for this outcome, because it said to her that he'd walked into this willing to never see his daughter again.

Whatever the case was, he agreed to her.

A day later, in the dead of night, Blue alerted her to visitors, and she found Aldric and Cinder on her doorstep. Seeing the latter was so bizarre it made her light headed - she still looked the spitting image of the Haven Academy imposter from before the Fall of Beacon, she just had a decade on her that took her from the young, late-teens, to her near-thirties. Her face was a bit leaner than Ecru remembered, her hair shorter, and something in her eyes wasn't the same, but it was her.

Cinder Fall.

Ecru barely understood the whole 'time travel' stuff Aldric had tried to explain to her, even in the movies she'd never really gotten the hang of that kind of stuff. All she understood was that, somehow, there resulted in two Cinders, one of whom was good in the way Aldric was good - which was to say, barely - and the other was dead at Aldric's hand. Somehow a pregnancy had occurred - and the only way she could understand that was the way Aldric aptly put it: A wizard did it.

Whatever the case, she knew two things: This was the girl's mother, and Ecru had spent years hating this woman! This was the woman that had killed one of her closest friends, destroyed Beacon, plunged the world into heightened conflict with the Grimm, and into conflict with the Terrans at least once directly, and twice indirectly. She was also, indirectly, the reason Ecru was in the physical state she was - forced to make her living behind a desk instead of out in the wilds, slaying Grimm and helping people.

But here she was, her best friend's murderer, briefly public enemy number one, standing right alongside him, a beautiful little girl lowering her hand from Ecru's doorbell. A thin face and jet black hair like her mother, iron eyes and an inquisitive look like her father, she was adorable, and Blue lit right up when Ecru opened the door and he got a good look at her. Her look of unrestrained glee at 'meeting her auntie Ec' and getting to pet a dog for the first time in her life was in deep contrast to the looks of barely restrained anguish on her parents' faces, as they knew what was coming, and let her have her last moments in pure, happy innocence.

When those moments passed, after the girl introduced herself as 'Ashley Guilliman,' and inquired if Ecru really was her aunt, Ecru took a minute to kneel down and say hello, and answer her predictably child-like questions. What was her name, why did she have robot parts, how old was her doggy, how did she know her dad, did she have kids, and on it went.

Her parents let her do this for several minutes before Aldric cleared his throat, and retrieved something from his coat. The act caused Cinder to break down, and turn away - attracting the little girl's attention. Ecru did as Aldric had instructed her to, and covered her and her dog's eyes, only able to hear as Aldric caught his daughter's attention.

Then there was a brief flash of light, and she heard him say: "Your parents were two Huntsmen. They believed in hope, and reason. They believed in heroism, they taught you right from wrong, and they died protecting the people they cared about from Grimm. They sent you to live with your Auntie, Ecru, and..." He hesitated, as Ecru lowered her arm from her eyes, to see him struggle to push these words out, his entire face twitching with emotion, and a tear collecting in his eye. "They loved you very much. It was the last thing they said to you before they left." She heard Cinder choke back a sob, and looked up at her just in time to see her start walking away, legs stiff, as though she were having to force herself to leave.

Ashley just blinked, as Aldric patted her on the shoulder, and stood to his feet. Just as Cinder walked away, Aldric turned to do the same, and a few moments later, as he and her mother melted into the darkness of Patch's night, Ashley turned to look at Ecru.

"Who was that, Auntie Ec?"

The next day, Adam Taurus had been defeated outside of Mountain Glenn, and true to his word: Aldric never returned.

Thus began the next chapter of Ecru's life - one she hadn't ever really thought she'd run into: Parenthood.

Fortunately, she wasn't on her own - just as she said, she'd told Srebro. She wasn't Aldric, or even Ash, she didn't know the right thing to say, so all she could do was just say to Srebro, "it's a lot more complicated than this, but Ash is alive, he had a little girl, and I need your help."

It took Srebro a little time to make it from Mistral, to Vale, to Patch - only arriving a few hours after that reporter lady tried to get her to talk. Fortunately, even if she couldn't fight, Ecru could still shoot, and boy did she have a big gun - big enough that anyone without aura was reasonably terrified of it. All of her office friends, at some point or another, made a comment on it, and some even asked her to put it away when they came to visit, former (almost) Huntress or not.

Srebro was practically rabid she wanted to see Ashley so bad - it had been all Ecru could do to stop her at the door just long enough to establish the groundwork: Yes this is Ash's daughter, but she doesn't know that, they need to talk. Srebro, even ten years out of Beacon and with one hell of a Huntress career under her belt, was still the docile, meek woman she'd always been, and even though she didn't understand why, she did at least trust Ecru enough to take her lead. Her reaction to seeing Ashley was exactly what Ecru had expected - the giantess immediately recognized the family resemblance, even more than in the picture Ecru had sent her, immediately realized the truth to what Ecru had said, fell to her knees so hard the floor shook, just held out her arms to take the baby in them. She cried, and cried, and cried, rocking back and forth with the girl in her arms, every single one of her most cherished memories just rushing back in one tidal wave of emotion, as the one and only living artifact of her late leader just let herself be crushed in her arms.

Srebro didn't even ask questions - not of Ecru, at least. She spent the entire day just playing with Ashley, talking to her, learning about her. Ecru wasn't sure what all Ashley said was genuine memory, and what all was filled in by the function of the device Aldric had used on her, but she wanted to think anything not directly pertaining to her parents had to be genuine - else Aldric would have tried much, much harder to 'program' her after the mind-wipe. When the day was done and they put her to bed, that was when they got to the hard part.

Much like her reaction to Ashley's existence, Srebro's reaction to the truth of Aldric was exactly what Ecru had predicted: She just didn't believe it. Sans anger, Ecru watched the amazon go through every single stage of grief in about an hour - first, she refused to believe it. Outright denied the possibility. Ecru was only able to talk her out of it, and into the next stage, because obviously Ash was alive, and things had been kept from them, because the family resemblance was undeniable.

Next, Srebro tried bargaining - she tried to latch onto the idea that maybe Ash had been working for Ozpin, like how over the years Pyrrha Nikos had said she'd been recruited? Ash had been just as strong and determined as Pyrrha - maybe even stronger! She remembered how all of GEMS tried so hard to get him to admit he'd been holding back in his tournament fight with her and he'd never given them a straight answer. Maybe Ozpin had recruited him, but unlike Pyrrha, who had 'lost the chance,' Ash hadn't? He'd said he knew Cinder from Mistral, after all - maybe Ozpin had learned that and the real answer was that Ash had faked his death to go deep undercover with Cinder? That he'd remained hidden all these years because some people may recognize him as one of Salem's agents if he ever re-entered public life?

Ecru's counter was that, if that had been the case, none of RWBY, JNPR, or Atlas' own investigators would have hidden that. Indeed, even in ten years, all the people Ash ran afoul of during his time after Beacon could even have put a face to him, or else rumors of his survival would have begun to spread across the CCT. Even Adam Taurus and Roman Torchwick, both of whom had double-crossed Salem, never once mentioned him, and even more than Ozma and the others, they would have! Taurus would have held the fact that a Human had needed a Faunus' help to defeat Salem over everyone, and Torchwick, the shrewd politician he was, would have done it just to have bringing the Hero of Vale back to life as a banner he could fly, and then have Ash's voice behind him supporting his more public ventures. It made no sense to keep Ash's survival a secret and keep pretending he was dead, unless Ash never existed, and the truth was Aldric.

Then she moved onto depression, just remaining stunned and numb, eyes staring off into space and little more than grunts of acknowledgement and mild nods to show she was paying attention to Ecru as she explained everything Aldric had told her. Srebro managed to look worse than Aldric had by the time it was all over, and Ecru feared that this look - this dead, shattered look on the giantess' face - as well as everything else, served as a perfect case study for what would have happened to Ashley if Aldric had kept her. Srebro's entire worldview had just been flipped upside-down and put in a shredder, everything she thought she knew was not only wrong, it was dead wrong, and more than that, the world she lived in was so much bigger and so much darker than she could even imagine! It hit her so hard, it was so difficult for her to process, that after a while, without so much as a word, she just got up, went to the living room, and collapsed onto the couch, asleep in seconds.

Ecru was worried what that meant, but the next morning, she awoke to the smell of breakfast, and the sound of laughing downstairs. Alongside Blue, she went downstairs to find Srebro towering over Ashley, who tied around her waist an apron so big it may as well have been a dress. Srebro, befitting of her job, had sensed Ecru approach before she'd even made the bottom of the stairs, and she made eye contact with her over her shoulder. There was a smile on her face, and though it did reach her eyes, there was still a far duller glow to them than had been there the previous afternoon.

It said everything it needed to: She was in unimaginable pain, learning what she had, but she would stick around.

That's what friends were for.

After having the best worst pancakes of her life, Ecru took the two of them across the pond to go shopping at Vale for everything they'd need to get a head start on suddenly having a nine-year-old to take care of, truly beginning the next chapter in Ecru's life.

She had to admit: She actually really found herself liking it.

That is to say: Damn, did she love this baby girl.

She really hadn't been sure what to expect, being put in this situation. She had heard and read all the time about how parents immediately fell in love with their children the second they were born; how, no matter how difficult things may be, they loved every second of raising their kids and learned as much from them as they taught them. The closest she'd ever been able to get to understanding that feeling had been when the paperwork had finally been cleared and she'd brought Blue home with her - she loved that dog, but even then, it took a little time, and was a little strange, having this fully-trained, living, breathing thing in her house, only partially dependent on her and mostly able to subsist on its own. Given that this wasn't her baby, and all the things she'd learned about her father, Ecru had wondered if she might not ever have that moment where responsibility turned to affection. She wondered if there would ever come a moment where Ashley turned from 'Aldric's kid that I have to take care of' to 'my baby even if I didn't have her,' and every day between Aldric returning to her life and finally meeting Ashley, she worried about whether or not Ashley would notice that she didn't really care about her - not like other kids' parents did, and what effect that would have on her.

It turned out to be for naught - because it took all of a day for her to fall in love with this kid, and she was pretty sure it took even less time for Srebro, given how instantly and naturally the Huntress took to loving and mothering the kid.

She didn't know what Aldric and Cinder had taught her, or how much of what Ashley was was those two or the results of the thing Aldric had done to her, but whatever the case, Ashley was the spitting image of her father - that is to say, of the father Ecru knew, and not the one that had hidden himself for so long. She was so quick with her wit that sometimes she'd manage to stump Ecru and Srebro with a well-placed snide remark, and, of course, she loved stories. Ecru went from having a couple books and maybe a movie or two, somewhere, to having a whole damn shelf filled with them, and despite this kid being nine, the incite she could have on these things stunned her. She was a natural with Blue - she seemed to love that dog even more than Ecru did, and got along with him like a house on fire, with the little girl even managing to do something Ecru hadn't in several years, and teach the old dog a new trick!

Of course, it wasn't all good, and whether or not these were artifacts from her mother's side or from her father's true nature, Ecru couldn't tell, but Ashley had a stubborn streak a mile wide, and an inquisitive streak a mile wider than that - this kid absolutely would not budge on anything she drew her line on, until or unless she was given a very valid reason, and then she would spend an exhaustive amount of time interrogating that reason until she was either satisfied, or had managed to change her two new aunts' minds! This frequently got her in trouble at the local school on Patch, where she quickly became known as the kid librarians had to check before she left - because if they ever refused her a book because it was 'above her reading level,' she would try to take it anyways, and she succeeded with startling frequency! Either by smooth-talking her way out of having to prove she hadn't checked the book out, or, after the pattern was discovered, just by smuggling it out of the library.

And of course, she was whip-smart, this being a good and a bad thing, dependent wholly on what she was applying that intelligence to. But, Ecru took the bad with the good, because as frustrating as the bad could be, the good was much better than she could have ever possibly imagined. She loved this damn kid, and no matter how much she may dislike - even despise - her father, she was glad she'd said yes to him, and found herself frequently wondering what she would look like when she'd grown up.

For a little under a year, things were perfect - or at least, as perfect as things could reasonably be expected to be, for two women who were suddenly entrusted with the care and wellbeing of a nine year old, despite zero parenting experience between them.

Then Ashmore happened.

Ecru had actually managed to go a week without knowing about it - which was doubly miraculous given how much TV she, Srebro, and Ashley watched - and was only clued in when one of her friends at worked outright asked her how she was holding up 'after learning about Ash.' After clarifying, she had to take the rest of the day off to run home to call Srebro back from the mission she was on, and figure out everything she could about this new change in the status quo. That was when she read The Record for the first time, and man, she wished she hadn't. Reading that tome of madness - finding the exact moment when Aldric had met her and the rest of GEMS, and everything before and after - it took the wind out of her sails so badly that it was only instinct - and a reminder on her scroll - that kept her from forgetting to pick Ashley up from school that day. Ashley, observant as ever, asked what was wrong, and then revealed she'd heard about Goud Etiolate and Nebo Aldric days before Ecru even had - and hadn't said anything because she'd seen the pictures of him and her aunts, and connected the dots that they were the 'Team GEMS' the former Hero of Vale had been a part of, once upon a time.

Fortunately, that gave Ecru the excuse she needed, and she said yes, she had learned it just that day, and was trying to process it.

She was actually rather stunned at how hard it hit when Ashley said she wasn't worried - she just hoped Aldric got help, because he seemed like he'd been hurt bad, and couldn't shake it. It took a few minutes of conversation before Ecru was able to figure out what she was talking about: The too-damn-observant kid was tapping in to how she'd seen soldiers returning from the Second Faunus Rebellion, and how they 'looked like they couldn't stop remembering the war.' She explained it the best way she understood: When people get hurt, they remember it. When they get hurt bad, they remember it bad, and when bad things happen to them, they never stop remembering it until they get help. Since the news people were all saying that Aldric's Record was true, then that meant it was true he'd been hurt bad from the very beginning, in the airship crash, and he'd never gotten help. So, yeah - he needed to be found and sent to jail for the things he'd done, but just as much, he needed help.

Yep.

Definitely her father's child.

That night, Ecru and Srebro took stock of the situation, but eventually decided no major action was necessary. Aldric had given Ecru a small box 'of tools' was all he described it as, for use in emergencies, but while this was bad, yes, this didn't necessarily constitute an emergency. They still had their cover story for Ashley, it still held up well and good, and the people Aldric was most worried about - namely, Ozma - had no reason to look too far into them. No, instead all that was happening was Aldric's 'perfect world' scenario was just proving to not be possible, and he'd planned for that - that was why Ashley was with them.

Not long after that, was when the next big shakeup happened, and Aldric's capture was broadcast on international television. Ecru and Srebro had different reactions to seeing it - the latter fell limp into the couch, her hands going to cover her mouth as she was given her first look at Aldric since Beacon, whereas Ecru, standing behind her couch, found herself looking down at Ashley, who was innocently kicking her feet back and forth as she watched the TV, completely ignorant to the fact that she was watching her father being taken into custody. Of course, Ashley had no reaction beyond the innocent, 'Oh look - the bad guy got caught! Can we go back to cartoons?' but Ecru still found herself worrying, something in the back of her mind telling her things weren't going to stay the same for very long.

Truer words couldn't have been spoken.

Months later, Ecru and Srebro both took the day off to watch Aldric's trial - both of them glad Ashley had school that day, so she wouldn't be there to watch. Seeing everyone spend the entire day just ripping him apart, it gave Ecru a new understanding for just how far Aldric's reach had extended, how many people he'd hurt, and what they thought of him. Even reading the Record didn't have the same effect as seeing all of these people talk about their experiences with him, and she found herself thinking how lucky she'd gotten off, having such a limited interaction with him until just recently. She and Srebro had, comparatively, gotten off light - and if Ashley had never become a thing, that would have remained true! Technically, that was still true! While Ashley may be a huge change in their lives, directly as a result of him, it was nothing at all like the things these people testifying against him talked about - and they were but a fraction of those still out there who still had stories to tell!

Then, at then end, right before Atlas cut the feed, Ecru and Srebro got their first look at the true Aldric. They saw him talk and insult circles around his prosecutor, rant and rave about Ozma, and then finally break free of his confinement like it was nothing at all! It was harrowing, seeing how truly powerful he was - to understand how much he'd been holding back in Beacon! It was astounding to see the true strength of the man who had once - and, it seemed, still very well could if he so desired - held the world in his hand and killed an immortal Grimm-woman.

That was when they had a good, long talk about what they should do.

Ecru would regret her decision forever, because she successfully managed to argue that they had kept Ashley a secret from everyone thus far, and that the world's eyes were on her father. Nobody outside of this house, he, and Cinder, even knew she existed! So the best thing to do would be to stay put and let everything play out - running would only attract attention.

For the first week, she thought she'd been right.

Sure, things were tense beyond belief, now that the world knew a god with no compunction against mass slaughter was loose and was gunning for Vale and Beacon's new/old Headmaster, but what really was there anyone could do but go on with their day to day? So that was what they did - Ecru went to work, Srebro stopped taking missions except local, Patch-exclusive Grimm hunts, Ashley went to school, got really, really mad when they wouldn't let her go to a friend's house, and on and on.

Things only changed a week after Aldric's escape, when all of a sudden, Blue went from lazily lounging in his favorite sun spot at her office, to alert and looking off into the distance. Ecru noticed it a moment before the Grimm Sirens started going off - a moment later, her scroll went off as well, an emergency alert that made her blood run cold:

Patch was being evacuated, Vale and Atlesian forces were already on scene to take everyone to the mainland.

She knew what that meant.

She didn't know why he was coming here, what on Remnant was possessing him to come here, of all places, but she still knew that the only thing that would make Vale and Atlas show up to pull everyone off the island, was the Master himself: Nebo Aldric.

Blue hot on her heels, Ecru moved as fast as her once-able body would let her. Srebro had her on the scroll less than a minute after the office became a flurry of activity - she was already on the way to Ashley's school, she'd swing by and pick her up afterwards and they'd make for the local docks. Ten minutes later, true to her word, Srebro came rolling in in her car, and Ecru limped out to meet her. The first thing she did upon letting Blue and then herself into the car and then making sure Ashley was okay, was making sure Srebro brought the 'box of tools,' her sword, and Ecru's Lovely Lady.

Outside, she found herself horrified at how right she'd been - because she was ready swear the entire Atlesian Navy was parked in the sky! There were so many ships hanging above them that it turned an otherwise clear, sunny sky, completely overcast. Shuttles were constantly streaming down from above to land, disembark soldiers, and take civilian evacuees immediately to Vale. With the presence of all of Atlas - and with even more ships, flying Vale colors, coming from the mainland - as well as the Grimm Sirens, it felt like chaos. People were running, screaming, confused, cars were crashing, nobody knew what was going on, just that Patch had to be empty as soon as possible.

Ashley, understandably, was terrified - and true to her nature, no amount of 'Don't worry baby, everything's fine!' from her Auntie Ec would assuage her, because everything was definitely not fine, why were there so many soldiers and ships and people screaming? Why did it look like a zombie movie was about to happen? Why were the Grimm Sirens going off - were they about to be attacked? Where were they going to stay? What was happening?

All Ecru and Srebro could do was share a glance - because they more than anyone else knew what was happening, but they didn't know why!

Just what was he doing?!

Miraculously, they made it to Patch's docks, through the checkpoints, onto a boat, and into Vale, without trouble.

After that, was a completely different story.

They weren't in Vale for ten minutes, before, "Miss Lemarac, Miss Lily!"

The two, eyes wide, looked at each other, then whipped around - to see Beacon's new, old Headmaster, somehow just there, where they'd been standing moments ago, walking quickly towards them. He was encased in an ornate, but powerful looking armor, his cane was held tightly in one deeply tanned hand, and his deep brown eyes, a manic look to them, were locked right onto them.

Oh no. All of the pieces fell into place - he knew, maybe he always did or maybe he didn't but he knew now. He knew, Aldric must have figured out, the latter was on his way to stop the former from doing what he was doing right now:

Taking the girl!

The only reason he wasn't already on them was because he, like they, was making his way through a throng of people - the thousands being evacuated from the island. That didn't mean Ecru and Srebro just let him get close, however - they'd planned for this, and executed that plan without so much as a word: The former immediately pulled her baby girl into her arms and took off running as fast as she could, old injuries and all, ordering Blue to stick to her like glue, while Srebro drew her claymore and, with gritted teeth, put herself between Ozma and Ecru.

Ashley grew even more scared, begging her aunt to tell her what was going on - who was that man - - why was Auntie Srebro staying there - - - why did she have her sword?

All Ecru could do was just tell her it was okay, it would be okay, over and over. The horde of people just got more and more dense the more she ran, seeming to close in around her - barely contained chaos just growing worse as she grew more frantic. Was that whisper she heard someone reporting her position, or a confused person angry she'd ran into them? Was that flash of light a gun, or a torch? Was that beep a radio, or a scroll?

She got lost, not even knowing which way the city was, just running, Ashley in her arms, Blue at her side, angry, frustrated, scared people closing in all around her.

Until:

"Miss Lily!"

With a terrified gasp, Ecru just ran faster - screaming for someone to help, someone was after her!

She thought she'd made progress when she finally broke free of a crowd, but found the exact opposite to be true: In the open ground in front of her, the cleared space was ringed by a dozen soldiers, mostly Atlesian.

She turned around, but found Ozma standing there, the crowd backing away from him as they saw the look of determination on his face.

"Miss Lily, please - I don't want to do this!"

Ecru knelt down, letting Ashley down and, with one arm, pushing the child behind her, while the other fumbled in her pocket.

Ozma stepped forward, "she is the only thing that will stop him! The only thing we have that will slow him down long enough to force him to talk! I will not hurt her you have my word!"

"You can't have her!" Ecru shot back, as she pulled the 'box of tools' from her pocket, and Blue, realizing that the man in front of them was a threat, took a step forward, hackles raised and teeth bared.

With only one arm available to her - the other occupied by keeping Ashley behind her and out of Ozma's sight - Ecru couldn't really do much with the box.

So she did the only thing she could:

She threw it as hard as she could.

Ozma almost looked disappointed as he just snatched it out of the air, sighing. "Miss Lily, I don't know what he's said to you but I assure you I am not what he -" Ozma cut himself off, dropping the box and shaking his hand in pain as he called out - a drop of blood visible on his palm.

The box, covered in that blood, spoke when it hit the ground:

"Well this wasn't what I wanted, but I did plan for it!"

Then it exploded.

Not in a fireball, not like a bomb - but something inside of the small, scroll-sized box, just broke out, growing bigger and bigger until it towered over everyone at twelve meters tall. Made of metal and tubes, the giant robot shook the ground on landing, and Ozma managed to look shocked as he fell back a few steps, looking at the giant robot looming over him.

"I told you next time it would be Liberty Prime!" A recording played from the robot, as it looked down at Ozma, "I fucking told you!" It shouted in Aldric's voice, as it pulled what looked to be a car-sized bomb from its back.

Ecru didn't hesitate to run again, she grabbed Ashley's hand and started running again - the soldiers that had initially been blocking her in had changed targets, now firing indiscriminately at the robot.

Ashley at her side and her dog at her feet, she fled while Ozma, eyes wide, threw his hands up while the robot, the bomb grasped in both of its hands, roughly brought it down. She didn't see what Ozma did, but he slowed down the advance of the hand-delivered bomb, pushing at it with his own power.

She ran for several minutes, attracting many eyes from the people populating Vale's streets, and at one point scooping up a now crying Ashley back into her arms, before diverting into an alley, followed closely by Blue.

"Auntie Ec, what's happening?!" Ashley sobbed, iron eyes red from her tears.

"It's okay, baby - it's okay!" Ecru gasped, as she thought the exact opposite - did the 'box of tools' really just have a giant robot?! Or was there more in there and did she make a terrible mistake in not going back for it?

She brushed her hand over her head, eyes darting back and forth as she tried to think of something - of anything!

But her thoughts were interrupted by a loud, thunderous staccato of booms, like cannons firing, and underneath that a storm of raised, screaming voices. She didn't have to think hard about what was happening: The robot was fighting, Atlas, Ozma, and Vale were bringing out heavy artillery, and the terrified Patch evacuees were fleeing from the carnage.

"This is what he does!"

Ecru screamed, and whipped around to see Ozma just there again - as though he'd always been in the alley with them! Ashley cowered behind her, Blue barked threateningly.

"He causes chaos, miss Lilly! He gave you that box for use in emergencies - and what happened when it got stolen? A giant machine with sun bombs strapped to its back appeared!" Ozma stalked forward, and Ecru pushed herself and Ashley back, shaking as she realized she couldn't stop this. "You must give her to me, or things will only get worse!" He raised his hands to his sides, "I am not the villain he thinks I am! He is a scared, broken man who was hurt by another scared, paranoid man! He is convinced I am behind this - he is convinced that he still has a battle to fight! He will kill every single person in between he and I until one of us is dead! I only have one chance to stop him - to save him, and everyone else! I only have one chance to force him to speak, and she's standing right behind you!"

Ecru pulled her shotgun from her back, but with a lazy flick of his cane, Ozma stole it from her, sending it flying away, melting into and through the wall of the building next to them as though it were made of water.

"You're not taking her!"

Ozma shook his head, quickening his advance - Blue responded, charging forward with a snarl, but Ozma dealt with him just as swiftly, catching the dog by his throat, and with the smallest squeeze, the dog went limp. He dropped the dog to the ground, Ecru couldn't bring herself to look to see if he was breathing, her wide eyes locked onto the advancing, immortal, implacable man.

"Don't make me hurt you, Miss Lily - just give -" But when he came within striking distance, Ecru threw herself at him.

The last thing she saw before darkness claimed her was Ozma grip his cane, shove it forward into her chest, a flash of green, then nothing.