Chapter 15: Midnight

"Query the omninet, delve into the archives. Find you the Aeneid, find you the age of Titanomachy. Eat, absorb, mull. Tell me now of the Hecatoncheires, they of the hundred hands. Did they strike the blow against Cronus – Saturno – or did they instead assail the Olympians? Who do you believe? Who stopped the Beast from telling its own story? And why?"

— 31 —

Tonight's the night.

To resist it was useless. It was useless to resist. It had to be done here and now. Ozpin had set up too many things to get things right. He'd lumbered towards this position for months of failure, of being blindsided, of having no idea what to do and foolishly defaulting to waiting around to see how things developed. So many parts were working tonight that he knew it was now or never. He had backed himself into this corner on purpose. And for once in his life, he didn't have all the time in the world.

No matter the questions and pain tomorrow would bring.

Tomorrow didn't matter. Today was tomorrow, and tomorrow today. Yesterday was weaving in and out.

He stared out his office window, high above the rest of the world, and stared at Vale before him. Sometimes he saw the city as it was, la Ville Lumière, balancing on the razor's edge of petty politics. Where an industrialist monster held the reins of government, knew of Salem from Velvet's ill-fated video recording, and was no friend to Ozpin. Sometimes, as it used to be—the Bastard Lands, home to outcasts, native faunus, and other barbarians, of little use to him but for territory itself and archaeology from an even older world. It had been three millennia ago. The world and had since moved on.

Ozpin inhaled cigarette smoke, and all he could smell was cherries and mustard. Once, everything had smelled of it. His beloved at his side, advising him, telling him how things were in this world. Lovesick idiot he was, he listened, and loved her. She always asked him to play that song for her and their children.

Once, he could impose his will and simply write an Edict. Men and women would read the Edict and turn magic into the immutable law of reality. Submit to humanity's rightful sovereign or cease to be. Once, Patch rallied behind a pirate queen who opposed him and his beloved. One of his judges issued the Edict, a law compelling her to suffocate her daughter and then kill herself. She refused, and the volcano at the center of Patch burned for months. Patch had once been an archipelago. The law was simply the law.

Now, he was lucky enough if the school dance punch remained liquor-free.

O, Magus, who art to die: this tower, her prison and thy salvation. I do what I must for good reason. Prithee think beyond thy lust for glory and her flesh. Thou knowst not what thou dost.

He raised shaky fingers to his face, snapping his fingers. Willing everything he had left to turn to fire and help burn the cigarette just a little faster. Poison this body's lungs that much faster. It was only temporary anyhow. Nothing could kill him in any way that mattered. Just drag his spirit further and further through the ashes.

Sometimes, when he looked out these windows, he saw the world as it was. Tonight, all he could see was the reflection of his own face. The seventy-three different eyes he'd seen through, staring back at him, each weaker and weaker than the last. Losing something. Grinding his soul piece by piece, until one day he suspected his beloved would win by sheer attrition alone.

That was the thing about a soul: they weren't truly immortal. They used to go somewhere when this world still had the spark of the divine. They weren't supposed to last forever in the wild. They were paracausal things. Souls came with planned obsolescence. And he saw it every time he filled up his motor carriage with combustion Dust.

Ozpin didn't even have to imagine what would happen if people learned the truth like this. If they learned of an age before their own and realized they were not the first to walk under the sun. For foolish mortals to grasp the full trauma of what they lost, of what the gods stole from them. He remembered the last king of Mantle, panicked and afraid as Ozma lost control of the situation. And now the Monster of Montluçon watching Velvet's video. An industrialized, urban nation to command to his whims. And another revolution's first embers glowing in Vale's most flammable district. The chaos and uncertainty of the dispossessed from which she drew her greatest power.

He exhaled smoke. He took a last pull of his bourbon. Deadening the very last nerves this body still had after three decades with him in the jockey seat. He kept checking his scroll.

Just get to the next screen, Oz.

He watched Blake and Jaune texting on his network. And saw the hits from the soldiers taking their break. He had paid out of pocket to treat them to a nice meal, as something of a peace offering and to make up for the big party downstairs. It should keep them busy for as long as Ozpin needed.

Jaune, of course, declined a midnight dinner. He didn't eat very much. Which worked out in Ozpin's favor.

When the soldiers were out of the tower, Ozpin stubbed his cigarette and turned on the jammer. He'd been testing it on and off, some old Atlesian hardware he'd gotten during their evacuation from the CCTS tower. It prevented scrolls from working, but kept the wired networks safe. After a minute without Jaune being able to reply, he knew it was time.

The bourbon was empty. His cigarettes gone. Everything set up for this moment. There would never be another chance so perfect. He had designed it this way. A man whose very words could once sunder nations reduced to skulking around and meal-bribery.

He went to the lift and went down dark and slowly.

The perfect place to think his life over. The choices and consequences that had led him here. But Ozpin had spent the night inside his own head, and there were no more thoughts left to have. Just actions. Just a ragged determination to accomplish what he set out to do. See it through, one way or another.

The elevator dinged. The server room. He reached his hand out for the button panel, exhaling crackles of electricity from his fingers to short circuit the panel. Not enough to destroy it, but enough to require more time to rewire than Jaune would have to fix it. And prevent any unwanted visitors until the dirty deeds were done.

The lights activated with motion, and so much was dark right now. Thousands of little green and red lights from the stacks, indicating details and signals that Ozpin could never truly grasp. Fans and motors and hardware whirred with internal fans loud enough it consumed his entire head. The chilled air made his skin break out into little bumps.

He entered, the LEDs coming to life as if some higher power were watching him with one lazy eye everywhere he went. It reminded him of so many things, so many times he'd come back from the dead. It all blurred together in his mind's eye: a bronze-age farmer during a Grimm attack, finding himself as a mercenary captain in service to the self-proclaimed Paingod, waking up as a young boy in a mass grave. At some point he had run out of new things worth learning, each soul and body melding into a more chthonic chimera. You just figured out where you were, then returned to the same cat and mouse game he'd been playing for so long.

His cane clicked on the ground. The one irregularity of sound. Moving closer and closer. Alone in the spotlights. Until he heard the clicking of a keyboard and a late night radio stream. The whacky late night DJ was saying democracy was a joke before cutting to the music and playing that fucking song.

Jaune was at a workstation, leaning back. Feet up on the desk as he frowned, typing with one hand. A coffee machine was brewing another cup. He reached out for his water bottle and jumped when he saw Ozpin.

The boy scrambled to his feet and his eyes went hostile. "What? I were working. And no, it's not done yet. Like I ain't told ya afore it wouldn't."

Ozpin gripped his cane tighter, pressing it deeper into the ground. Staring him down. He took a deep breath.

Jaune pursed his lips slightly and took a small step back. He stood a little straighter, eyeing Ozpin warily.

It made Ozpin wonder if he had lost his touch, being too obvious. "I've wondered a lot of things about you, Jaune. And I realize we've had seldom occasion to converse."

"Like I got anything worth saying to you. Sir. With all possible disrespect, of course."

"I think we should reconsider that."

The boy maintained his posture, ever so slightly defensive. He said nothing, just waited with hostile curiosity. Tonight was the night. Now was the moment. And Ozpin found himself hesitating. Doubting himself and everything. Daring to contemplate what would happen tomorrow if he went through with this needful thing. There'd be questions, and he'd done his best to give himself an alibi, plausible deniability, the works. But there'd still be fallout. A part of him still felt that old urge to wait to see, to play things close to the chest, and try to control things the way Ozpin had grown accustomed to.

His eyes went to the boy's tattoo sleeve and read the words written there. Thou art my battle ax and weapon of war. It was like he was trying to shove it off, thrust it into Ozpin's face as he held the arm up semi-defensively. It was so cold in this room, and he still exposed his bare flesh.

O, Magus, who art to die.

He had ignored that warning once upon a time, and it had to cost him everything. Gave in to his baser instincts because it just seemed like that thing to do. Of course the heroic boy would save the girl in the tower. Of course the reincarnated man would listen to his immortal beloved. Of course the secretive headmaster would play it safe and keep his secrets.

This was like that little white feather. The boy was taunting Ozpin. Feigning innocence and ignorance while flaunting what he was and was doing for all to see. From corrupting Ruby and Coco, to certainly having a hand in Montluçon and whatever Salem was doing there, to worming his way into the heart of Remnant's CCTS network. He had forged bonds with the daughter of Ghira Belladonna and the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. He wasn't even being subtle, not if you knew how to look.

And Ozpin knew how to look.

"What are you really, Jaune Arc?" Ozpin asked, breathing a sigh that held up the weight of the entire world.

"I'm Jaune?" he asked icily.

"Not who, what."

"A carbon-based lifeform bereft of none of the fingers he should be lacking," he said nonsensically. "I've also got some calcium and other trace minerals, as a treat."

Ozpin just stared. Until, despite himself, despite everything, he found himself laughing. Jaune just shuffled uncomfortably, folding his arms and staring back. He refused to directly face Ozpin yet wasn't exactly flinching away either.

"My," Ozpin said, grinning. "It appears you have me at quite the disadvantage. Tell me, do you aim to replace me?"

Jaune frowned harder. "No, I gave up the all-knowing creep shtick months ago. Quit pretending to be spooky and just say whatever you're angry about this time. You got some serious negative rizz."

Ozpin stepped forwards, feeling the air current of routers and switches blowing against him. "I had these same thoughts so long ago, you understand. You never could fool me. I, however, was able to fool myself quite handily. Between records, interviews, and meeting you in the flesh again, I could pinpoint the exact day it probably happened."

"What happened?"

He tapped his cane on the ground hard. "When you became somebody else."

Jaune glances towards his computer. "You… didn't really care about getting this infrastructure project done quick."

"What fools these mortals be," Ozpin said with a faint air of disgust. "Why would I care about silicon and copper? Politicians and soldiers can play pretend and think to dictate to me, but I have been around for so very long. I know when something is ephemeral and matters not."

The boy was stock still, but he wasn't defenseless. Ozpin could sense it deep within him, bubbling to the surface like blood from a wound. He stepped forwards again, watching Jaune's eyes, seeing the flickers of that impossible yet so recognizable no-color Aura in his eyes.

"And," Ozpin said, "I think you understand me more than you've been letting on. After all you've done, to the people you've done it to, I'll ask one more time. What are you, Jaune Arc?" He tapped his cane on the ground.

Ozpin counted the heartbeats. Watching the saccades of Jaune's eyes. The little flicks of thought and panic. How his spine straightened, fingers flexing. Calculating everything now that he was in the spotlight and unable to plan or subvert like he'd been doing for months now. Something about it was… cathartic. Finally seeing the boy on the backfoot. Put into check and trying to figure which pieces he could sacrifice in order to score an impossible win.

The boy's hand crept towards his belt, at one of the weapons he was never without. Not committing, yet the intention was clear.

Ozpin tsked. "Rushing to violence, are we? No arguing, no spewing lies, no misdirection? Well, go ahead."

Jaune hissed in a breath.

One step closer. So very close. "Go ahead, child. I dare you. Remove that human mask and bear your fangs. Show me what techniques you've stolen. Let me see what human lifetime after human lifetime has given you. I want to know who made you, who sent you. The gods, her?! Let me see all of you. Scare me off. Kill me. Protect your friends from what I will do to them. Do it, child!"

The boy twitched, eyes widening. With a sudden and palpable sense of fear and anger Ozpin had finally wormed out of him. Jaune's hand moved shakily, skin pallid. Maybe it was a quick, sudden motion, Ozpin could barely tell. Everything was languid to him.

Jaune's fingers brushed the revolver. Ozpin reached his cane out beneath the barrel and picked it up. The child hung on tight as Ozpin leveled the gun to his own face. It jostled in his hand with the sudden force. His hand squeezed in reflex. Firing a massive beowulf-killing round into Ozpin's right eye.

It hit against a glowing lattice of Aura and something else. Right there on the pupil. The impact crumpled the lead slug as it went from supersonic speed to dead stop in a fraction of a millisecond, shattering into a scattershot of shrapnel over Ozpin's face. Each one met the same face, until broken lead rested neatly just off of his skin, interia still trying to push its way into his body.

Until even force wasn't enough and the shattered bullet crumpled uselessly to the floor.

Jaune was sweating. He made a choking noise. Like he wanted to apologize and make demands at the same time. Ozpin stared down impassively at all of the lead at his feet. He patted at bits of superheated gunpowder residue left on his own forehead.

He clicked his cane on the ground, arching an eyebrow. "Really? That's it? That was the best you could do? After everything you've done, all your planning and exercise and lies and scheming, that's all you can do to me?"

The child's mouth was open, gasping for breath.

"I expected better of you."

Jaune choked.

"Allow me to make no such mistake, child. Then we will talk. And you will answer everything."

And Jaune spun and sprinted into the server racks.

Ozpin sighed and simply followed. He didn't run. He didn't even really give chase. Jaune had nowhere to go, not really. And Ozpin had been here since before the CCTS had server rooms, back when this floor used to be office spaces. He knew everywhere someone could hide, and had accounted for everything.

He found Jaune against a rack several valleys over, frantically tapping his scroll.

"I know that instinct too, child," Ozpin said, moving without any real haste. "Why die and reset all of your progress when others will feed the beast just as well? Immortal beings dine on fire and blood. You, me, her—I find it's an old instinct. One very hard to overcome by will alone. It cost me Summer Rose. Will you kill her daughter if given the chance to save your current flesh? Perhaps the Belladonna daughter. She's a safe bet: dependable, loyal to you, and still just a romantic little girl at heart."

"You keep Blake's name out your mouth!" he screamed.

"Lucky them I have blocked your signal. You won't be able to hurt anyone ever again, child."

Jaune threw his scroll and ran. Ozpin caught it out of the air with much the same energy one might draw a playing card. The scroll had no signal. Every text he was trying to send had failed. Good.

"I understand the instinct, child," he said, following him at a leisurely pace. "Truly, I do. I have made more mistakes than anyone could ever be forgiven for. The difference is I long ago learned my place in this world, this divine comedy, and have worked for the benefit of all. Rocks fall. People die. And I have kept going, striving to be a better man. My latest charge is to watch over these children, to grow them strong like any good crop, and set them free to fight for a better world. We are not the strength that in old days moved heaven and earth. We are mortals with extra bells and whistles. Who keep coming time and again."

Around corners and valleys. Jaune couldn't even truly hide. Motion-activated lights flicked on wherever he went. Ozpin just had to walk, alone but for his own thoughts, his own resolve.

"Time was," he said loudly, "perhaps we could have been allies. I think about that a lot. I suspected, but found it too outlandish to consider a third player. Could you imagine; another of me? The gods must be crazy." He laughed without any humor. At himself. The world. Everything. "I've been sane too long to let it slip here, now of all times! Then I look at myself, and see what I have to do, and I know all of this was something you did. Do you think I'm enjoying myself? Do you think I'd be doing this if you left me any other choice, child?!"

Jaune was punching the elevator door. Trying to dent a hole he could use to pry it ajar. "Fuck you, I ain't done shit! I'm just trying to survive, whatever the fuck you are!"

"I am like you, Jaune," Ozpin said sufferingly, walking right up to him. He realized he was almost out of breath and took great effort to adjust his tie and recompose himself. "Except I have been playing the game far longer. A puppet, yes, but one conspicuously aware of the strings."

Jaune spun around and threw a sucker-punch. Ozpin didn't even bother trying to block. He flicked his cane under the boy's guard straight into his lungs. They cracked. He gurgled a scream, tumbling end over end and rolling backwards onto the ground. The boy was sturdy. It took Ozpin a lot of effort to make it look effortless.

"You defend yourself most poorly," Ozpin observed, rubbing his suddenly sore wrist. It felt like he'd twisted it. Betrayed by even his own body in his moment of need.

The child grabbed his ribs, trying to suck in air. Gasping. Coughing. Getting to his knees and spitting blood onto the floor tiles and then just staring at it. He was trying to rise slowly. An oddly satisfying visage.

"I find myself wondering how long you've played this game, child," Ozpin said. "Child. There I go again. Force of habit. How many faces have you worn? What number have you carved into your flesh with beautiful razors?"

"You're like that dick vein bitch," he hissed, trying to duck and weave through the servers. "You were always evil. I fucking—fucking knew it!"

"You can't answer a simple damn question, can you, child?!" Ozpin snapped, louder than he intended. Breathing through clenched teeth. "You just run. You speak in nonsense and riddles because you feel you know hidden meanings no one else does. You're not even original! You act like you're newborn to this! You haven't caught on how old it gets, and how fast it leaves you alone and isolated. You never learn, do you? You never take responsibility!"

He didn't reply.

Ozpin rammed his fist into the wall, smashing a panel. "Did she or did she not send you?"

"Bitch can go suck me off through my jorts for all I care!" Jaune said, stumbling away.

Ozpin stood there, exhaling. In and out. Cold air freezing his lungs, coming out hot and wet. He ran his hand through his hair, fingers coming back slick. He curled them, forcing them into a fist, and it ached. Joints protesting out of some sense of old passive inertia that had let this disease fester and rot. It didn't stop him from following Jaune.

He found him back where they started, the boy slumped over his desk, pounding his hand over the keyboard as if that could work. As if he could do anything. Just making noise for its own sake, really.

"Immortal beings of power dine on fire and blood. It's the way of the world." Ozpin shrugged, but he knew he was shaking. "The Divine Brothers made the world to see what wonders their children would create, then broke their toys when they didn't have the exact kung-fu grip they asked for. Then you enter the picture so late into the third act. I'm left offended. Here, if you don't want to admit what you are in plain Valais, I'll get the ball rolling."

Jaune slammed the keyboard before grabbing the steaming mug of coffee he'd been brewing. He threw it straight at Ozpin, who forced out an indifferent sigh as he caught the handle and spun the mug, keeping all of the liquid inside. But it was enough time for Jaune to sprint away just like before.

"I don't know where you're going, child," Ozpin said, steadying himself. His hair was a mess. He ran his hand through it again, unable to stop himself. Trying to force some semblance of order and control. "You can no more escape me than I can escape myself. I have questions easier answered if you are in one piece. I will have them answered, with or without your consent."

The lights turning on and off lead Ozpin the long way around back to the lift. Same as before, he was trying to break it open.

"Take it from me: you can only try and fail the same thing so many times before it destroys you."

Again, he didn't fight. He just kept running away into the room with no other exits. As if he could just jog laps around the server room forever until the sun came up and Ozpin ran out the clock. Oz could act with impunity now, in this narrow window, and avoid the worst of the questions the fallout would create. For once in his long, long life, however, time was not something he had.

Ozpin watched Jaune running and exhaled deep. Tasting liquor and ash on his teeth. Smelling the old magic as he reached out his hand. Reaching for old words of command, of power. Authority.

Jaune looked over his shoulder.

"Fall," Ozpin commanded.

And Jaune froze, every limb arrested. He choked. Gurgling in impotent fury as his legs evaporated beneath him, numb stilts of bone and muscle.

He collapsed, trying to flail as his face smacked the tile. One leg twitching out and kicking the elevator door. The sword strapped to his arm came loose and clattered against the ground. Gasping, sucking in breaths, he reached for it, fingers unable to even curl properly to grab it. He took it with both hands, like a man trying to clap without using his elbows, willing ligament and cartilage to bend fraction by fraction, to hold himself up with the sword in the ground. His legs were useless, psychically mangled things.

Ozpin took a steadying breath, collecting himself from the supernatural exertion of force. Everything was starting to ache. His veins were running ragged from the blood shooting through them. His heart shook his body side to side. His nerves itched; he wanted to dig them out with his fingernails.

"You're strong, child," Ozpin said, taking his time approaching the crippled boy. Holding himself together. "Clever and resourceful, even. But I am beyond strength. I am the regret of those who remain, and the restlessness of those who are gone. I am age itself, that which exists to spit in the face of the gods who abandoned us here. Inescapable inevitability given flesh and eyes again and again."

He knelt down, looking Jaune in the eye. "Was it an Edict, the way you made everyone collapse all those months ago? Even I saw old faces. Caught scent of the old magic. Answer me!"

Jaune tried to spit. It dribbled lamely down his chin.

Ozpin grunted. "I've suspected you for a very long time. But age and experience are as much a hindrance as they are advantage. What use are eyes when we fail to give weight to reality as they describe it to us? I don't think we've ever been so close. It assuages any doubts. It feels cathartic to finally get this out in the open."

He kept trying to reach for something. Wrapping his arm on his sword to stay upright as he tried and failed to use a numbed hand for something else.

With an arched brow, Ozpin watched, drinking in the boy's struggles. Feeling powerful. In control again. Able to set things right into their proper place like he'd always done. "Like recognizes likes, Jaune. You knew what I was the moment you laid your new eyes upon me. I remember that disgust, that hate. I didn't think of it enough at the time. Plenty of Huntsmen have pathological issues with authority. I tolerated it because I was curious. All this time and you never wanted to talk or admit anything, believing I wouldn't notice, and you could act with impunity. My mistake, your bad.

"Now I have you. Now you can't run. Now we're going to talk. Then I decide what to do with you." Ozpin adjusted his jacket collar. Rivers of sweat coated his body. Fabric clung to him, strangling him with his own body heat in this frigid room. "I can no more kill you and make it stick than you could me, so it's come to this, Jaune. That doesn't mean I don't have options. Am bereft of recourse. I will do what I have to protect my world and students."

Jaune finally got enough control of himself to grab something. He didn't try to shove Ozpin away. Instead, he floundered through his pockets until he took out a little packet.

"You don't know shit," he said. "I don't know shit neither. I don't know what you want or what's going on. But we ain't in Kansas no more." He brought the packet out, sloppily trying to open it with one hand. It smelled of tobacco.

"Hm. Are those cigarettes? One last hit before I do what must be done to you?"

Jaune opened them. The little death sticks fell out onto his lap. Not before he managed to catch one. His eyes widened as a savage grin spread across his face. He made a noise almost like the first gasp of a laugh. Before he stuck it in his mouth and pressed the cigarette's end against the ignition patch.

Ozpin's nose wrinkled. "Strange, isn't it? Every body tells its own story when you come into it. Genes and blood can affect the soul inhabiting it as much as the spirit itself. Ozpin is no more who I started as than what we became together. When you became Jaune, did you have the addiction or was that him? Psychological or spiritual?"

Jaune took the burning cigarette out without smoking it. Just holding it above his hands, still grinning. "You really like to hear yourself talk, but you ain't said nothing this whole time. You don't know what's going on."

"Do you?"

He snorted. The cigarette burned in his fingers, smoke above his head wafting up towards the high ceiling. "Enough to know I can't do this alone. And you're plumb stupid, dumbass."

Ozpin stared at the burning cherry, searching for some meaning. Some implication. Was Jaune trying to cast some spell with it? It'd be interesting to see someone else's magical fetish at work. Spellcraft from whatever fetid womb birthed the boy.

"What are you doing, child?" he finally asked, and swallowed.

Jaune grinned and laughed, raised hand shaking with exertion. It was almost impressive, in a way. He was recovering very quickly, with great effort, from a power word. He should be writhing on the ground at most, instead of able to act, even if sluggishly.

Perhaps Ozpin really was growing that much weaker. That less able to shake the earth and do as needed to be done. Which meant perhaps this was the eleventh hour of hours. He couldn't have picked a better last moment to get his ducks all in a row.

"Don't you see, Ozpin? You let your guard down. Gave me time."

Ozpin grunted. "Hardly. Signals blocked, coworkers preoccupied, the elevator fried. We've got hours. No one who knows you're here knows you need help. Not that they could stop me."

"I don't need to stop you, just beat you. And you're vulnerable. Don't you see?"

Ozpin looked around and shrugged at the nothing.

"Your cock is wide open."

And Ozpin heard the screeching of metal from within the closed elevator.