Oscar floated through the streets, detached and weightless like he was a balloon tied to Ruby's wrist.
Everyone had jumped at the idea of a walk when Ruby suggested it. A sudden laundry list of necessary errands appeared out of thin air. Oscar wasn't so oblivious that he didn't know it was all for his benefit.
Ruby waited until the others were all engrossed in some new scroll technology to pull Oscar aside.
"Your aunt really cares about you." She told him—unprompted—while pretending to read the back of a book so they didn't have to make eye contact.
"Thank you." He meant it for so many reasons. "Qrow really cares about you and Yang. All of you, really." He watched the oldest member of their strange little party lean over Lie's shoulder to have something explained to him.
Ruby nodded, eyes wrinkling at the corners with a smile as she watched her Uncle. He'd never wanted kids either, but somehow he'd ended up with a lot of them.
"But my aunt can't turn into a bird. Just for the record." Ruby snorted and Oscar grimaced. "Sorry, Ozpin never really cared for my jokes."
"No, no. I like your sense of humor too." Ruby put the book back on the shelf. "Our families are weird, aren't they?"
He knew that she meant all of them, not just the ones that were her blood. "I know."
"Your aunt's magic is that casserole recipe. You don't pass that on to just anyone. You only share it with people you really care about. She might not be able to tell you right now, but I know she loves you." Ruby squeezed his shoulder, just once, before slipping back into the conversation to pull Weiss away. They chatted excitedly about something in the window, faces pressed up against the glass.
Oscar stood where she'd left him, fighting tears and watching the others pretend not to notice.
He would have spotted the Grimm earlier if he hadn't been crying.
It wasn't unusual for a few Grimm to be nearby. It was a large population and all, but the guards usually made quick work of those unlucky enough to stumble into their range. There wouldn't be this many unless something had happened to the guards.
The sight of so many flying over the city was unusual at first, the horrifying the numbers grew to fill the skies.
For a long moment no one did anything but stare, shocked into inaction. The Grimm weren't close enough to be a danger yet, but everyone had a hand on their weapon before anyone gave an order to.
"DOWN!" Qrow was the first to react, and it was only because of him that they were all in motion when the glass storefront behind them exploded outward. A hail of sparkling shards rained down. The shattering glass was dangerous, but the idea that it was a distraction for something bigger was much worse.
Someone's hand was on his wrist, pulling Oscar to his feet.
"Run!" Nora's voice cut through the ringing in his ears. Oscar watched the sky as he was dragged away, watching the Grimm swoop towards them.
They darted through side streets and over walls at a pace Oscar could barely keep up with. He reached for his staff but almost fumbled it.
There was another blast and he screamed for Nora. But she'd let go of his hand; swallowed by a billow of smoke.
Oscar dropped to his knees as the hot smoke rolled over him too. He only found the latter of the fire escape because he'd run into it headfirst. On instinct he pulled himself up and made a grab for the upper rungs. He had only made it about halfway before someone grabbed his ankle and pulled him back.
Oscar shouted something he knew he wasn't supposed to. He'd heard Qrow say it once after banging his shin on the coffee table. His aunt would have grounded him for a month for repeating it, but in the moment it wasn't a priority problem.
He spluttered and kicked back at his attacker, but the blind swing connected with empty air and only served to further throw him off balance. He tumbled the rest of the way down off the latter.
A boot came whipping past his head, and Oscar only partially managed to avoid it. He took the hit on the ear, and looked up to see Emerald's face swimming through spots of white. He rolled to the side of avoid another hit, but she was just as fast and less disoriented by the explosions.
He tried to pull himself to his feet, tried to run, tried to block what he could of her anger. There was no way he could take her on in a full force fight. But she was expecting him to run, and so was careful to never give him the chance.
The Grimm circled closer.
Hands closed around Oscar's neck. He pushed back, but the force of Emerald's grip cracked his head back against the wall behind him. He lost precious air to a gasp of surprise and pain.
"You've caused us a lot of trouble." Emerald hissed at him. He was surprised by the tone in her voice. That wasn't just an empty threat, he believed her.
One of her hands closed into a first around his hair. She dragged Oscar, undignified and frightened, out of the alley. "Come on."
"GET OFF!" He shouted, trying to twist out of her grip. The adrenaline now pulsing through him lent him some extra strength, but he couldn't get enough leverage to break her grip.
"You're going to regret it." Oscar stared up, made mute by horror helpless as she yanked him into the main square.
It was the fountain. Their destination was the fountain. Oscar kicked out, desperate already. His heel connected with the stone road and he heard something pop. Pain, hot and sharp jolted from his heel all the way up his spine.
"You'll behave now, right?" She shook her grip against his collar for emphasis. "Stay nice and quiet and out of the way so that we can have a little chat with Ozpin. Won't you?"
Oscar wasn't going to escape this with a quick and painless death. Emerald didn't want to kill him at all, and somehow that was the most terrifying realization.
Emerald clicked her tongue at him. "Ozpin really would have been better off dead." She forced Oscar onto his knees, his own terrified reflection staring back at him from the still water. He hoped the anticipation of the cold water would be worse than being held under. He was wrong.
"You—" But Oscar couldn't get the words out before Emerald put a hand against the back of his head and plunged his face into the freezing water. The shock of the temperature change made his temples ache. He fought to pull backwards, jerk his head above the surface, but Emerald's grip was strong and sure.
"Where are the relics?"
"I don't—" but he didn't have time to finish before she shoved his head under again. Oscar came up gasping, trying to talk but only managing unintelligible gasps.
Drowning was disorienting. He didn't know which way was up. Couldn't tell which way to struggle to find air. Couldn't make her let go. His sinuses burned. The lack of light burned. His own panic burned his chest.
"The relics, Ozpin!" she shouted, and didn't give Oscar a chance to answer before plunging him under again.
It dawned on Oscar then, in the murky light of the fountain water. He had never been expected to answer her interrogation. He was just the stepping stone to Ozpin. Like a broken flower vase. And if they put him in enough peril there was no way Ozpin wouldn't step in to save him.
Right?
"Jokes on you!" He spat as soon as Emerald let him up again. He wasn't given time to explain before cold water flooded his mouth again. His head smacked against het bottom of the fountain, rattling his skull yet again. But he got the small satisfaction of knowing he'd made her angry. He pried his eyes open to find the light, and was greeted with a thin layer of coins on the floor. To Oscar in his current situation it seemed downright absurd to imagine anyone doing something as mundane as tossing coins into a fountain. But it was exactly what he'd been doing earlier while he was out shopping. He laughed, a panicked jitter that forced out what little air he had left.
Time didn't matter like it used to. Now there was only under water and waiting to go under. Finally, Emerald let go of his hair and his face fell sideways onto the lip of the fountain. She didn't have to hold him down anymore, he wasn't going anywhere under his own power. He filled his lungs as fast and as many times as he could. He felt like a hungry dog trying to eat too fast. He only slowed down when tunnel vision threated to close in on him.
It was because of the black spots Crowding his vision that he didn't see Mercury immediately. Oscar registered that he'd joined them, standing in the middle of the square. At first, he flinched away, frightened that this meant he was in for double the pain he'd just been through. Then something caught his attention. It was the thing Mercury was dragging in behind him. It was Jaune.
Oscar tried to push himself off of the fountain wall, but Emerald planted her elbow in the middle of his back and Oscar went down again. Mercury was saying something, but Oscar couldn't read his lips and his voice still sounded underwater.
"Hey." Emerald snapped in front of his face to get his attention. "You listening to me? You'll tell us." She warned, addressing him directly. "One way or another. After we torture this friend or the next. This doesn't end until you tell us what we want to know, Ozpin."
"I'm not…" But this time there was a boot on the side of his head.
"I know you can hear me. And I know you know it's true. What kind of man calls himself a caretaker, a protector and lets these kids go through all this just because you don't wanna talk to us?"
They were right that hurting his friends would put him in mores distress. But it wouldn't make Ozpin turn up. It didn't keep Oscar from screaming. He was even less focused than before, and now the words poured from him, interrupted only by the times the water swallowed him up again. He was crying, begging, trying to reason those he knew he couldn't reason with. Even as Emerald was holding him under and a salty absence of air flooded his mouth.
Jaune was shouting too, sometimes in pain and sometimes words to Oscar. But he could only ever catch small pieces before his hearing was interrupted. Oscar reached for his weapon in vain. He knew he couldn't reach it, but his muscle memory still tried to unpin his arms. Still tried to find the right angle that he could unhook it from his belt.
It was endless. His voice was not his own. His mind not his own. Tortured for information he didn't know and things he couldn't control.
He'd bitten his lip at one point, and when Emerald gave him a break to listen to Jaune scream Oscar stared blankly down at the yellowing water below. He watched the blood drip from his mouth, creating small ripples over the surface.
"OZ!" He was crying again, hitching sobs forcing his chest to rise and fall. "Please! Help me! Ozpin! ANYONE!" But there was only silence in his own brain. An overwhelming isolation so intense that it was difficult to believe he'd ever felt like being the only person in his head was normal.
Only his own terrified face stared back from his reflection, the water turning orange with his blood now. He wasn't going to die here, but that wasn't a comfort. If Oz didn't show up to pull him from danger again, he'd die painfully, slowly, and completely alone.
"Ozma!" He sobbed, legs kicking uselessly. "Please! I don't—" but the words were lost.
"Oz I'm really disappointed." Emerald sighed. Was that pity in her voice? Oscar hadn't stopped struggling once, but Emerald was older and bigger and stronger than he was. It didn't even take that much of her energy to hold him down.
Maybe that's why she got lazy.
Either that, or she just lacked experience fighting someone that attacked like a cornered animal. Here, people fought with flashy weapons and semblances and in this moment Oscar had neither. But what he did have was a lot of experience with wild animals.
"Oz," She gripped his chin in her hand and turned his face sideways so that he had to look at her. "You're the only one who can put an end to this. Where are the relics, Oz?"
Oscar recognized the mistake the moment she made it.
"MY NAME IS OSCAR!" He pitched forward against her hold and bit down. Hard. His teeth sank into Emerald's wrist, and she screamed. He'd been aiming to break her fingers but missed. Instead he caught the inside of her wrist and didn't let go until he tasted blood. It wasn't enough to make her let go, but it was enough to make her loosen her grip.
And that made all the difference. With the rush of oxygen Oscar felt super powered. Emerald cursed, striking him across the face hard enough to snap his head backwards. But he lunged forward, trying to bit her again. Emerald was a quick learner and yanked her head away. But that was what gave him an opening to throw his weight against hers, jabbing his elbow up into her ribcage.
Emerald yelped, and let go.
Oscar dropped to the ground and half crawled half ran in an attempt to reach Jaune. He slipped almost immediately, in what might have been a pool of his own blood or Emerald's. His foot went out from under him, and his chin cracked against the tiled floor. By the time he'd gotten up again Mercury had something sharp pressed against Jaune's neck.
That was enough to make Oscar stop. He stood in the middle of the square, breath fogging before him. Blood and water dripped from his nose.
"And what are you going to do, kid?" Mercury spat the word at him, it wasn't at all like when Qrow said it.
"You want to hurt him? You'll have to go through me!" Oscar said the words, but no one, not even him, believed them.
Mercury laughed.
Oscar shook with equal parts fear and pain and rage. He readied his weapon, but didn't move any closer. The word shrunk to the steps it would take to close the distance between himself and Mercury.
Breathe. A voice ordered him, and Oscar obeyed. The crushing loneliness lifted like a physical weight. Suddenly he wasn't the only one standing in Mercury's way.
He spoke again and this time everything else shook. "You'll have to through us!" This time his voice carried. It carried the weight of a life reincarnated. It carried years of experience. It carried lessons learned the hard way. Oscar adjusted his grip on his staff, not because he thought it was wrong but because it felt wrong. His thoughts were too numerous and too fast for his own mind to process.
Mercury stopped laughing.
Oscar took a step forward.
Mercury took a step back.
That hesitation was all it took. That single moment was all the circling shape above their heads needed as a distraction. Oscar thought it was grim, right until Qrow dropped out of the air like a stone. He didn't fall so much as propel himself straight down onto Mercury's unsuspecting head. Just a moment before impact he pulled up, and a human Qrow crashed into the smaller man, taking them both crashing to the ground.
Jaune collapsed to the floor and stayed motionless. Oscar took a few stumbling steps towards him, until he heard Emerald behind him and had to spin on his heels to block her.
Oscar and Qrow had seen each other fight. They'd trained together, become familiar with the other's style. But this time something was different.
Every movement was familiar in a way he'd never fought before. Every detail felt like a memory, every motion was déjà vu. Every time Oscar missed a beat or was too slow, Qrow was there by his side. And every time Mercury or Emerald thought they had an opening Oscar was standing in their way.
It felt like an eternity, but the fight didn't actually last very long. All it took was a shared look between Emerald and Mercury before they were in full retreat. They were both smart enough to recognize when a fight wasn't worth it.
Qrow spared a single glance back, then launched himself into the air; wings working furiously to catch up with the two escaping silhouettes.
"You alright?" Oscar turned just his head to look at where Jaune was still laying where he'd been dropped. His face was turned away from Oscar so he couldn't tell if he was awake. But Oscar knew he wasn't going to make it the five or six steps it would take to go check. He should try. Should move. But he couldn't. He wanted to sit. Wanted to lie down and press his aching head to the solid ground.
"Jaune?" He tried a little louder. "You okay?"
A laugh, though strained, told him that Jaune wasn't dead. Jaune huffed, rolling over onto his back. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm just fine." Neither one of them believed it.
"Good." Oscar nodded at him. Then pitched backwards, falling as deadweight onto the stone beneath him.