My dog, Kali, has hurt her leg – just a sprain, but I have to keep her confined and away from any strenuous movement or exercise for today to help her heal. Anyone who has ever had a border collie will know how punishingly difficult it is to keep such an active dog still for so long, lol.

She is limping up to me with her ball in her mouth asking me to go out and throw it for her. Like, no. You are limping. Have some common sense! She's a dog that requires two walks a day and usually a lot of play as well, so being made to rest on her injury is deeply disturbing to her.

Cover Art: GWBrex

Chapter 84

Ozma's mad cackles and hysterical mutterings filled Jaune's head with white noise. It was a mixture of laughter, sobbing, and words he couldn't make out above all the other noise. It layered over itself too. Ozma's communication had never been a set of lungs expelling air over vocal cords, so the clear speech before had been because Ozma telepathically sent it to him.

Now, Ozma spoke over himself, mumbling words even as he screamed, and while he sobbed and wailed and howled as well. Multitudes of voices layered together into a deafening cacophony of sheer noise loud enough to make it hard to keep his eyes open.

"Goddess—" whispered the priest. "Why—? I don't understand."

The words in the real world brought Jaune back to reality, though it didn't quieten Ozma any. "Get back to the temple and hold the entrance," he ordered. "She'll be coming for me. We'll fight the Grimm, but we won't be able to stop all of them. You're going to have to hold. Or work with our people."

They were too shaken to decide, and there was no time to wait for them. Jaune turned and sprinted back to his lines, met halfway by Ruby carrying his sword. He took it back and she didn't waste time pointing out Salem and her monstrous creature. Instead, she asked, "What do we do?"

"Ozma has gone mad," he replied. Her eyes widened. "He's just noise in my head now. Don't worry, I'm still sane."

Though he could understand why someone might be driven mad if they had to deal with this all the time. It was an annoyance now, but Ozma didn't need to sleep, and the noise would continue forever, keeping the host up constantly. Sleep deprivation could drive men mad already, and adding in the dreams when you did sleep and the voices when you didn't, and Jaune didn't know how many nights he'd have lasted before cracking.

"It's being close to her," he said. "Or even just seeing her. We should have expected this with how he forced me to attack her the first time we were in Vale. I don't think it's going to get any better when we fight Salem. We're going to have to do this without him."

"Can you?" asked Ruby. "I thought he handled the fine control parts of your magic?"

He did. Jaune looked down to his hand and focused on fire, and immediately hissed when the larger-than-usual flame burnt his hand. His skin was red raw when it faded, and Ruby looked terrified. His only advantage was his magic and if Ozma couldn't be trusted to help…

"You can't fight. She'll kill you."

"She'll kill all of us if I don't fight, Ruby. We don't have a choice." He concentrated again, focusing on the idea of a smaller flame. It worked, but it was tiny – little more than a spark dancing in the palm of his hand. "I'll just have to make do."

"Jaune—"

"I don't have a choice!" he snapped at her. "All these people are here fighting because of me, and they'll be stuck here and left to die if I don't face her." It was too much to have on his shoulders, and he'd readied himself for this. With Ozma, true, but he couldn't back out now. "More than me, they need the hope that they can win. If I run, morale plummets and Vale becomes a graveyard. I won't let that happen."

"F—Fine." Ruby clenched her eyes shut and spat the word back. "Then I'm fighting as well. No arguments. You're less capable than me right now, and that's bad. Salem will smear you across the ground without me."

He wanted to say no and to tell her to focus on the Grimm, but she was right. Facing Salem alone wasn't brave. It was stupid. Right now, he wasn't the Dark Lord. He was Jaune Arc, a man stuck with an immortal madman in his head. Salem, meanwhile, was an immortal being with tens of thousands of years' experience in magic. He needed every edge he could get, and she wasn't going to fight fair against him anyway.

"Okay. Okay, we… we'll all face her. We might have to," he added, watching as the great wings beat, shaking off the palace it was – for now – trapped within. It'd break free soon and then take to the air. "I don't think she's going to accept this being a fair duel." He raised his voice. "Everyone group together! Get everyone to the temple – we're going to hold the streets around it. Pass on orders! Fall back!"

The news would spread. It had to. Either way, Jaune signalled to Ruby, who cast up a small ball of fire into the sky that burst in the air. A signal to gather, the reasons for which no one would need to be told seeing the Grimm pour down. They hadn't even reached the city proper yet, but they would soon.

All the civilians who had chosen to hide in their homes would have to be abandoned. They simply couldn't take the fight to the Grimm when they didn't know their numbers. And, as cruel as it was, the Grimm getting distracted and spreading out as they went for innocents would make them easier to deal with.

Jaune hated that he realised that and told himself that wasn't the reason for this decision. They just needed their own forces together and in one place to fight the monsters. The faunus couldn't be spread out, or they'd be encircled and annihilated.

"Get your backs to the temple!" he shouted out orders. "Focus all your magic you can on the Grimm – prioritise area-effect."

The orders spread, and Blake commanded hers to form new lines. To his relief, the defenders of the temple came out to join them rather than fire on them. They were shaken and confused, but the Grimm were enemies to everyone and Jaune was sure many of them were simply clinging onto the last shreds of what they knew. Their Goddess had abandoned them, everything they had ever known was a lie, but the one thing they had was their duty to protect the civilians and their loyalty to one another.

It sounded romantic, but the reality was a desperate and broken set of people prepared to die rather than live with the new reality of the world. They were without hope, and clinging to their duty like a child might to a favoured blanket.

Jaune was little better, clutching his father's sword and standing still as screams rose over the city. All he could do was wait and hope that the majority of their forces made it in time, and that they would somehow be enough to weather the storm against the former Goddess of Remnant. Because even if she wasn't truly divine, she might as well have the power to be.

And Ozma was still a babbling, garbled, helpless mess of crying, laughter and conversations to people long dead, his psyche split in so many pieces that it felt like there were twenty people talking in his head and not one.

"Jaune?" Ruby was looking at him again, worry clear on her face.

"I'm fine," he lied. "Everything is under control."

/-/

The Grimm were ignoring everyone that wasn't a faunus.

Jaune couldn't tell if that was a good or a bad thing, and that probably depended on whether you were human or faunus. It made sense that Salem also didn't want them wasting time breaking into homes and saving helpless people – she must have commanded them to hunt down him and his forces and ignore everything else, though she'd sweep back later and kill the rest.

At this point it was hard to know whether she'd go to Vacuo and claim she'd "defeated" the Dark God and take her place as the Goddess once more, or if she'd just wipe Remnant clean and remove all life forever.

Ozma wasn't providing any answers.

The lines were currently holding against the Grimm by virtue of the narrow streets funnelling the creatures into killing zones, where their magic-users could bombard them. The creatures were too resilient to go down in one, two or even three blasts, but with so many people hitting the same area, they were bombarded with ten or more every few second and torn asunder.

But that wouldn't last. The Grimm would keep coming, while his people would tire and run out of aura, their spells at first becoming more sporadic before failing completely. Jaune didn't think their lines would hold long in melee. His people had aura, but in terms of direct combat skill they were worse than the Chosen. They'd focused instead on magical offence.

The only way out of this is if we take Salem out…

Ozma's mad rambling continued.

"Damn it." He had to say it out loud because he couldn't hear his own thoughts. "This isn't the time for you to fall apart, Ozma. Get a grip!" The man didn't and began weeping loudly. "On my own, then. Not ideal. What do I even do about Salem? I can't kill her if she's immortal. Am I supposed to just drive her off? Won't the Grimm still remain? Come on, Ozma. Pull yourself back together!"

There was no change.

Ozma was lost.

And Salem was not.

"OZMA!" Her voice boomed unnaturally over the city. "WHERE ARE YOU, OZMA? SHOW YOURSELF. FACE ME. LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT YOU HAVE WROUGHT!"

Mighty wings boomed and a dark shadow shot over their heads. The bat-dragon – for what else could he call it? The thing was as large as the mythological creature but had thin wings and a bat-like snout – was as large as the city's temple was, but that meant Salem, on its back, couldn't see them. The monstrous woman had flown over their heads multiple times without spotting them and seemed to be expecting Ozma to show himself or shoot her down.

It was a miracle she hadn't brought the temple down already.

And at least the thing didn't breathe fire.

"We're going to be overrun if this keeps up," said Taiyang. He sounded calm, but Jaune could sense the tension in him. He didn't have aura, considering himself too old to learn new tricks, and he'd die very quickly once the Grimm closed. "I hope you have something planned, lad, because these Grimm aren't getting any thinner on the ground."

"Is it going to get any better if I show myself to her?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "Might takes her eyes off things. If these creatures are following her orders, having her distracted could help us."

By placing himself in her path.

Jaune sighed. "You realise Ruby will be coming with me. Don't you? I'm not going to be able to face her alone."

"I know." Taiyang wore a grimace, but he didn't argue. "My daughter can make her own decisions. I was a bandit before I married her mother. I've lived a rough life. Doesn't surprise me Ruby would want to as well. Half her mother and half me." He sighed, and said, "Just look after her."

"I'll do my best, but we'll be facing a god…"

"Not a god. Only a woman high on power. Remember that. She isn't as omnipotent as she wants everyone to believe, else we wouldn't have gotten this far. Humans make mistakes. They do stupid things. They overreact. You're going to have to push her to do just that. Our best victories have been when she's been forced into making a hasty decision that turned into a mistake."

Mistakes.

Of course. It was his only shot.

"Ruby!" shouted Jaune. "To me!" She was at his side almost immediately. "Find Weiss – and Pyrrha, too. We'll need their expertise if we're to have a shot at this. Tell Blake she's in command here. Hold the line and defend the temple while we deal with Salem."

Ruby nodded and darted off, and the shadow crossed over them again, carried by the mighty beating of wings and a roaring, inhuman voice.

"OZMAAA! FACE ME, COWARD!"

/-/

The mindlessness of the Grimm meant that even though they could have encircled the temple, they just kept slamming into the front of their lines down the main roads from the palace to the temple, which let Jaune, Ruby, Weiss and Pyrrha slip out the back and further into the city, back toward the docks where they'd come in. The streets there were deserted, but bodies lay here and there where they had fallen. Chose, soldiers and faunus alike – though thankfully more of the former two than the latter.

Their ships had completely disgorged all their forces and had been left abandoned in the harbour, with another, smaller fleet further away out the city holding their supplies, non-combatants, and the refugees. Those were thankfully far enough not to be in any danger, but Jaune did worry that if he didn't show himself soon, Salem might destroy them in order to bait him out.

They had to bait her out first.

With his magic still being close to uncontrollable, it was Ruby who did most of the work setting the moored ships alight. His forces wouldn't thank him for burning half their fleet down, but they could cram onto the others, and they'd let it go if it ended up saving them from Salem. The fires were quick to spread now that the ships were crammed hull to hull, and soon they were blazing tall and bright, the flames reaching up so high that they could be seen from miles around.

High enough that Salem couldn't hope to miss them.

"Hide," he told them. "Get out the way and stay hidden."

"Are you sure you'll be safe?" asked Pyrrha. "If Ozma—"

"Ozma helps me with my magic, but I can use my aura just fine on my own. Go!"

They scurried once they heard the wingbeats. Salem didn't know he was here, but curiosity must have gotten the best of her. Jaune took a deep breath and let go of his sword, leaving it sheathed. He stood before the flames, silhouetted on the wide, open docks where he had room to move and could be seen from a distance.

And where there was room aplenty for Salem's gargantuan creature to slam down, shaking the ground. He'd called it bat-like before, but that didn't quite fit. The snub-nosed face did fit, with a bone-white mask, but it had an elongated neck, and its wings didn't end in small claws and were more like a bird's but without feathers. It was an impossible creature that looked to be a mixture of others.

Upon its back, balancing with reins of magic – like black ropes of energy biting into the creature's neck, was Salem herself. Gone was the blonde hair, turned white. Gone was the dusky skin, turned pale, and gone were her sparking green-blue eyes. They were a sickly red and black, and that word fit her. Sickly. Had she always looked like this, it simply wasn't possible that anyone would have thought her a goddess. A demon, maybe.

Instantly, the volume of the crazy sounds in his head intensified, becoming almost deafening. Ozma wailed and ranted, keening and screeching like a dying animal. It took all of Jaune's effort not to buckle and drop to his knees.

"Ozma…" Salem's voice no longer boomed, and he realised she must have been using magic for it. He wished she would because he could barely hear her over Ozma. "We meet again at last. You must be awfully proud of yourself, having finally revealed me. Does that satisfy you? Are you happy now? I shall destroy humankind in its entirety. Is this what you wanted?"

"I'm sorry," Jaune shouted. "But I'm afraid Ozma can't talk right now. He's gone insane."

The monstrous woman narrowed her eyes on him. "Is that so?"

"Yes. Ranting, raving, screaming, sobbing. You must have done a number on him that he can't recover even after this many thousands of years. Torture, wasn't it?"

"It was." Salem was oddly focused, staring at him, looking him up and down, even tilting her head slightly. And she humoured him to talk, which was strange. "But torture does not do it justice. Any man can break, but Ozma was never any mere man. It took a lifetime to crush him. A lifetime of keeping him alive despite his best efforts to commit suicide and escape my grasp. A lifetime of holding his host in such a way that they wouldn't expire. It took much effort. Not to mention a careful hand."

Jaune scowled. "A goddess wouldn't be proud of admitting that."

"You and I both know I've never been that, but then your pathetic kind needed something to hold onto. Didn't you? Death is so frightening, so unknown, so you create an afterlife and tell yourself you'll live forever if you're good." The woman snorted. "Foolishness. It would not be death if you continued living. Death is an end, but you're all so arrogant that you can't imagine that your lives – so special and so important – could possibly come to mean so little. I didn't create the faith surrounding me. I simply let your foolish kind have it, like a mother lets a baby cling to a toy. Alas, it's time to grow up now, so tell me – tell me what you plan to do here, man who is not Ozma."

"Jaune. Jaune Arc."

Her smile grew. "Is that so? Perhaps I'll care to remember it, though that is unlikely. If Ozma is maddened, as you say, then how do you hope to best me?"

Jaune drew his sword. "Without him."

"Really?" Salem's smile was sarcastic, and she crossed her arms, still safe upon her mount. "I somehow doubt you believe you can best me in a battle of magical skill, and you can't reach me from where you stand." Her eyes rose to the flames behind him. "And you've created quite the little show to draw me here."

Jaune swallowed.

"Tell me, Jaune Arc." She sneered his name. "Do you take me for a fool?"

"…" Jaune's breath caught. "What?"

"You escaped my Chosen. You staged an uprising in Mistral. You reached Menagerie. You threw back my assault on the island. You exposed me to your followers. You formed them into an army. You built yourself an academy." Her voice rose. "You trained your men. You brought them to Mistral. You outsmarted by human commanders, slaughtered my Chosen, and send the cowardly survivors scurrying back home to reduce the morale of my people. You came here, made mockery of my control, and infiltrated your faunus into Vale. You sabotaged our food supplies, placed spies in my palace and subtly manipulated even my own church against me!"

The first half of those things made sense. He had done each of them, and could perfectly follow what she was saying, but the latter? What spies? What sabotage? What manipulations? They hadn't done any of those things.

"—and now you come here, draw me down and seek to lure me to the ground with nonsense on how Ozma has lost his mind!?" she roared, pointing at him. "I am no fool, Ozma! You have misled me too many times already! Do you truly believe I'll accept that you broke, here at the end, after all you have done? Perhaps you would have me step down and strike you down right now, hm?" Mockery dripped from every word. "Should I step down and expose myself before I strike you down in this weakened state? Is that it? Place myself in harm's way?"

If she ordered her beast to attack him, she'd surely kill him. He wouldn't have much of a chance to avoid it snatching him up, and even if aura kept him alive inside it, he'd run out of oxygen. With Ozma incapacitated, victory was very much in her grasp.

But… hadn't it been the same the last times as well? The odds in her favour, everything seeming so simple, only for her to repeatedly underestimate the threat and pay dearly for it. No wonder then that now, at the end when it mattered the most, she should learn from her mistakes and underestimate him no longer. Salem was taking him as a legitimate threat in the one moment where he wasn't, and she was afraid to make the first move.

Salem was afraid to fall into a trap that didn't exist.

In his head, Ozma wailed and screamed.

But, in the real world, Jaune forced out a smile he did not feel, and spoke in a way he did not speak, using his every memory of Ozma's old manner of speech and the words he used.

"Common sense at the end, Salem?" he asked, spreading his arms wide. "How very astute of you. Alas, it appears it took me making a fool out of you several times before you came to the realisation. How many times did I have to best you before you even considered the thought that you might not be winning this little war?"

"I have won this war for millennia!" she howled.

"And I shall win it now," said Jaune, daring to glance down under the monster's wing. Pyrrha and Weiss were moving into position. He stared back up at Salem. "You are bested, Salem. Your seat of power is in ruins by your own actions, and the people who once worshipped you now unite against you. Your time is over. As it should have been so long ago. So," he shouted. "Come face me. You called me out, Salem." He smiled with a confidence he didn't feel and spread his arms wide. "I am here! Face me!" His smile widened. "Face me, coward."

Salem seethed, and then sneered out. "No."

The beast's wings spread wide open, and she prepared to take to the sky. In that moment where its wingspan was at its widest, Jaune saw his chance. "NOW!"

The three women struck without hesitation. Weiss summoned a furious storm of ice that slammed into the creature from behind and froze over its skins, especially its wings. Ruby followed it with fire, blasting into the frosted and stretched-thin membranes turned brittle from the icy cold. The force made the ice shatter rather than melt, super-heating it and causing an explosion that burst through the membranous wings. The beast screeched and tilted to the left, spilling Salem down off its back and sending her tumbling in an ungainly heap to the floor.

The goddess crashed down with a startled cry, rolling out the way of the beast as it toppled down – and Pyrrha was upon it before it could recover, leaping up and coming down with a spear piercing directly into its eye. She twisted, wrenched it free and then flung her other hand down, pouring her own magical fire into its ruined eye socket, burning straight through into where its brain.

The flying beast bucked and twitched, as did its severed wings, thrashing out wildly as it died, sending Pyrrha scattering even as Salem staggered to her feet and looked back at her mount in shock and anger.

But Jaune had not been idle in that moment. As she fell, and as she turned to stop and stare, he had moved, drawing Crocea Mors and aiming it directly at her back.

He swung down on the goddess with a furious cry.

Next Chapter: 5th November

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