You Will Destroy In My Name

Nebo Aldric wasn't quite sure what Ozma was thinking - the immortal Master had to know what he had in his possession, what weapon he'd kept to fight him with, if not from watching him use it in Atlas, then from seeing him astral project with it in his own office. Yet he decides to grab a human shield, and expects it to work.

The only thing he could come up with, as he flew through the air so fast that he left contrails in his wake and his vision began to tunnel, was that maybe it was some kind of bizarre, roundabout, 'I know you know I know' plot, where Ozma was trying to bet on him thinking that he'd come up with some kind of countermeasure, and that faux-countermeasure was what made him brave enough to go after Ashley.

If Aldric hadn't been ready to kill him before, he absolutely was now.

He came to a stop, mid-air, as he reached Patch, and found so many ships hovering over it that he could only assume Atlas had brought its whole damn Navy here. Ozma had been doing some serious networking it seemed - and that made Aldric realize the real depth to his desperate plan: If Aldric used the stone and killed him, the Navy would fire, and Aldric and Ashley would be dead.

Face painted in a raw, unbridled expression of fury, Aldric shot down to the island, angling right for the location where every ship seemed to have its nose pointed. Sure enough: There was Ozma, standing in the center of a street, down on one knee and trying to assuage a crying Ashley. The Master had to force himself, as he came in for a rough, explosive landing, not to get caught up in how beautiful she was - how he'd never thought he'd see her again. Instead, face twitching, his fists clenched so tightly they could have turned coal into diamond, he straightened up inside a small crater, amidst a shower of dirt and debris tossed up by his landing. Ozma had turned to behold him on arrival, making eye contact with the Mortal Master through the cloud of dirt as it settled, his brown eyes meeting Aldric's gunmetal gray, as the lattermost stepped out of the crater, tossing his lightsaber to the side in a symbolic gesture: He knew what Ozma wanted, he knew the old man wanted to talk, and they both knew he didn't need that weapon anymore.

The man had the audacity to wear a pleading expression, to keep up the facade, even now, of the sad, ancient elder, the act of the good man who had seen too much, the appearance of the old man who knew far better than his fellows. He had infuriating temerity to get to his feet, and stand behind her, as everything settled around a heavily breathing Aldric.

Aldric had to close his heart to the look of abject terror that filled his daughter's face at the sight of him - and of course she would be scared, to her he wasn't poppa anymore, he was this monster being paraded about on TV, a monster she'd, until now, been convinced was so far away as to not even be a concern, and yet here she was - being actively dragged into it, placed right between two warring gods. He did this even as his heart filled with ever more fury at the sight of Ozma putting his hands on her shoulders, and keeping her from running or hiding, as she was trying to do.

Ecru was right. He thought, for the thousandth time. I should have just sent her to Earth. Ozma had needed Salem's help to even barely reach it the first time, Salem had needed Masters to reach it subsequently, and neither Aldric nor Cinder would have ever helped Ozma reach it again, after hiding Ashley there. He should have just done it - gone through all the trouble and the hassle necessary to put his innocent baby girl permanently out of Ozma's reach.

"Mister -"

Aldric interrupted Ozma, thrusting his metal hand forward. It separated at its burned plates, and out from inside came the Soul Stone, glowing a great orange as, in one smooth motion, it shot out from inside the mechanical limb, and then was caught by his closing fingers. Ozma was just as fast, hand going to his ear, but the word that would have shot from his throat was forestalled when he realized, in the instant before he spoke, that that had been all Aldric did. The stone just remained there, stuck to his palm by his semblance, threatening him with its orange glow, but otherwise inert.

Aldric had baited him, to see what he would do.

Aldric lowered his hand, face painted by equal parts fury and disgust, as, beneath Ozma, Ashley looked up at the Immortal Man, and out at the Mortal Master, her iron eyes filled with the kind of raw fear that could be seen only by a child who knew they knew nothing about what was happening to them. The unbridled terror of someone who understood that they didn't understand, and that they had absolutely no control over what happened around them.

The kind of abject, existential dread he'd tried so hard to protect her from.

"Tell me the truth, Ozma." Aldric demanded, his voice cutting through the dead silence of the abandoned island around them. "For once, since the day we met, tell me the fucking truth." His voice low, growling in anger.

"You wouldn't believe me if I did, Aldric." Ozma responded, "is it truly so difficult to believe that I am not the villain you think I am?"

"You built your entire legacy on lies!" Aldric shot back, beginning to pace back and forth. "Every single time we spoke - you lied! From the very beginning, when you told me some jumped up bullshit about being from Rome! You lied! Every time you tried to read my mind - you lied! When I had that acid trip in your office and saw LA get nuked - you were lying then! Sent me away so you could read way more than just my surface-level thoughts! Everyone you speak to, you cater yourself - you change your lies, alter your stories, to work for them! Of course I don't trust you anymore - of course I don't believe you're the wise old wizard - BECAUSE YOU'RE JUST LIKE ME!"

"Please let me go!" Aldric felt all the steam vanish when his child begged the man holding her in place.

"Don't worry child, I shall keep you safe." He just barely heard Ozma say, before the ancient man looked back up to him. "Aldric, I am sorry for everything I did to you - I truly am! But as you just pointed out, sometimes dark choices must be made! Dark paths must be walked! Just as you never told anyone the truth to your loyalties, I spent entire lifetimes lying to people, withholding the full truth, because the reality would crush them! I'm sorry for what Salem and I did to you - I beg that you believe I truly am! If there was any other way to finally end her threat - I beg of you, believe me, I would have taken it! But you of all people must understand that sometimes dark acts must be done! Our war had to end - and our board was so tightly controlled that only an outside variable could have done it!"

"No - we've had this discussion, Ozma!" Aldric stopped pacing to point at him, "don't change it! Right now we're talking about why I can't - won't - trust you! Let's ignore the fact that you're just pissed because I sided with her! Let's ignore the fact that you're just scared because all this time I actually was watching! Watching as you did nothing until I came back! Watching as you just let the world burn when you could have made good on your word and improved it! Let's even ignore what I did, or did not, see with the Mind Stone! Let's ignore all of that - all of the lies, all of the everything!

"If you truly were the good man you claim to be, you wouldn't have grabbed her at your first available chance!" Aldric now indicated Ashley, who was shivering with fear, and leaning into the hand that was so tightly clenching her shoulder it was beginning to bruise. "Don't you fucking dare try to imply to me that over a thousand lifetimes and several thousand years, you haven't figured out some kind of magic bullshit spell that could have forced me to the bargaining table! That you hadn't found and replicated some kind of bullshit semblance that could have sapped me of my will to fight! That you didn't have some kind of trick to make me talk instead of fight! My evidence? My proof?! My reason?! You're crushing her shoulder, right now!" He shouted so loud his voice cracked.

Ozma looked down to realize he was, indeed, hurting her, and he made a visible effort to let go of her shoulder, patting it down and causing the visibly trembling girl to sigh in relief as the minor wound was healed. Looking up, he still had the infuriating gall to keep up the act, his face painted with a pained, sorrowful expression. He had the temerity to keep looking like he truly regretted everything he did, and that this, right here, wasn't just the most dangerous part to a very long running plan.

"You're right, Aldric, I am just like you... And that, I believe, more than anything, is why you refuse to see me as anything but a monster. Because to do so -" Aldric scoffed, throwing his hands up and resuming his pacing, as he knew where Ozma was going. "- to do so would be to admit that everything you yourself did was right! Because you hate yourself for winning, you hate the universe - or the gods, or whatever it is you believe in - for validating you through victory, instead of repudiating you through failure! You see in me nothing more than a mirror image of yourself! You want to be punished and condemned for the things you did because you desperately do not want to believe that in our world, sometimes the ends do justify the means! That, no matter how hard or bitter the truth of the fact, sometimes good can only be achieved through an equal evil!

"That you are, despite all appearances, despite all beliefs, and evidence, and arguments to the contrary, a good man!"

"You keep pushing this all back to me!" Aldric yelled back, his empty hand clenching into a shaking fist. "You haven't once denied anything I've said! I know that trick, Ozma!"

"What do you want me to say?! That I have no machinations of the world? Aldric - of course I do! But not in the way you think!" He shook his head, "no! I don't intend to let the world burn itself to the ground so I can help it to rise up from the ashes! No! I want to guide it! Like when I was the King of Vale - and I pushed for an end to the internecine wars between the kingdoms! When I lobbied for an end to monarchies! Every step I take is a step towards voluntary unity! I can do it, Aldric! I just need time - time on a scale that even you can scarcely comprehend! No change - no change on a systemic level can be effected in such a small amount of time as a few decades! You need generations - centuries! You need to teach the young to overcome the prejudices of the old, one fact at a time, one generation at a time! You need to alter traditions - slowly! You need to introduce new ideas, piecemeal, the only way people will accept, until you have everything you need and can piece the entire idea together!"

Aldric had grown still, glaring over to Ozma. "I never once said you were going to let the world burn, Ozma." Ozma blinked, face falling as he realized his error. "That's one hell of a Freudian Slip, old man." His metal fist closed tighter around the orange stone held inside it.

"Aldric - wait - FINE!" He shouted, in a voice that shook the earth.

Aldric blinked, his fist so tightly clenched that his fingers just barely scraped the surface of the stone, tiny arcs of orange energy trailing from its surface to the metal digits.

"You want the truth, boy?" Ozma asked, noticing Aldric's expression change from anger to caution. "Fine. Drop the stone -" He nodded to it, "and I'll give it to you."

Aldric leered out at Ozma, before shaking his head. "While you still have a 'do you feel in charge' hand on her shoulder? Fuck off. We're in a standoff right now." Though if something he could sense, just at the edge of his radar and slinking her way in, was any indication, they wouldn't be standing off for much longer. "I'm not dropping my weapon, you're not dropping your shield. You want me to stop, you want me to talk - that's your one and only chance, old man. I'm listening."

Ozma gritted his teeth, brown eyes going from Aldric's gunmetal gray, to the stone in his hand, then back to him, as he took in a deep, deep breath, and let it out.

"I've known for thousands of years that not only did Salem have a point, that she was right. When she and I ruled, I had to deal just as often with foreign aggressors as local insurgents - did she tell you that?" He demanded, his voice dropping an octave as he revealed his darkest secrets. "But that was what birthed our differing ideals on Human unification. I believed that they had to be led to it, naturally - whereas she felt they had to be threatened into it. I know - I know - that neither of us are wrong! The difference lay in the time needed to achieve the desired ends, and their longevity after conclusion.

"I've let the war between her and I stagnate for longer than your planet recorded its history to prove a point." He declared, "and what do you know? I'm right - Humanity had her at the head of a horde of Grimm, constantly attacking, constantly assaulting them, and what unity they found, was inevitably fragmented when her reality - when her threat, became little more than an everyday, routine, reality."

Aldric scoffed, "better the evil you know, Ozma? Really?"

"Yes, really!" Ozma shot back, "because when I tried to broach the subject with her again after multiple inter-kingdom wars, she just changed her argument. The Grimm aren't enough - there needs to be a face behind them! A constant presence, a threat that no Human will ever forget - can ever forget! She needs to be able to control them all, to never cease in her attacks, to coordinate them on a planet-wide scale! Then they would be such a universal, imminent danger that Humanity would have to band together to fight them! Give it a century of this new reality, and all of those old dividing lines would be completely forgotten in the face of helping each other help the rest of them survive - that was her new plan, and she needed the Relics to do it! Of course, I couldn't give them to her, I wouldn't - I told her why, and that just riled her up even more! It gave her a goal - if she could kill the Gods and take their place, she could become that face! She could become that presence and the fear that would keep all of Humanity locked together for fear of the danger that exists outside their walls! That reignited open conflict between us - that is what caused her to shift her tactics and begin making progress! That is what caused me to return to the world to act as their shield against her!

"But she just failed to understand the same thing you fail to understand - unity cannot be achieved through fear, because fear can be normalized - and when fear is normalized, it ceases to be fearsome, and then that unity falls apart!"

"Ozma - you're saying that like I didn't specifically tell you I was okay with Humanity going extinct!" Aldric called back, "I think she was right, yes - but I also think that it shouldn't be one person's will that influences a whole species! Let Humanity be in the driver's seat - I said that!"

"And you also said are you not Human!" Ozma shot back, "I could ask the same thing - am I not Human? You can decide to walk away once you've done your job all you want - but I do not have that same wish! I made that mistake once and I never will again! So, as a Human, do I not have a right to take the proverbial wheel?" He demanded, "and you growing angry at my inaction is a symptom of your impossibly short life, boy! Change cannot be sudden, or quick, or in too great a volume, or else it will be rejected for the comfort of familiarity! Even those born in those times of great, massive, sudden change, will one day find that change outpacing them! No - a level of clarity, a level of perspective, is afforded only to someone, like me -" He gestured to himself, "- who has lived for so many thousands of years, that he can pick up on that pattern and understand it! And if someone - again, like me! - exists who can continually be there in the background, to push and influence things so subtly that nobody even knows they're being manipulated, they can alter the course of history! They can slowly place the groundwork necessary for the large changes they wish to see - piece by piece, until they can be assembled in a way and at a speed that the average man can accept, understand, and embrace it!

"But if you do it too fast, it all falls apart, all of your progress - gone! Ruined! Forced to wait centuries again to reset the clock and try again!"

"And how did Adam Taurus fit into this, huh?" Aldric demanded, "you're saying that you couldn't have tried pushing and prodding that to a better outcome?"

"Ignoring that I would have broken my word to him? No - I couldn't have! Because this was the better outcome!"

"Generations of people who will remember their mothers and fathers being slaughtered by animal people, and hate them because of it?!"

"Because it will both make Faunus treatment an active topic of discussion - something you fed into and and brought attention towards in Atlas, I would point out - and because the power vacuum left by Adam Taurus was filled by Blake Belladonna! Someone who is known to be vastly less confrontational and hateful than the Bull - and her methods will work! In a world that doesn't want that bomb to go off again? In four kingdoms whose leaders will understand that popular sentiment is to avoid building that pressure again? Everyone at the table is of the same mind: Avoid, that, again!

"And what do you know - the Grimm aren't breeding as fast as they have historically! A coordinated effort between Humanity and Faunus could, in the coming decades to centuries, clear out and domesticate entire portions of our planet! The titanic amount of living space and access to resources we otherwise would have been deprived of will go an astronomically long way to cooling those tensions - even budding friendship! But to force all of that in ten or twenty years? It's too fast, Aldric - the number who would embrace it would be vastly outnumbered by those who would reject it! Ours is a species that fears change - it is in our DNA, it is an evolutionary artifact to prefer familiarity, routine, and tradition, because we know that works, we know that will allow us to go to sleep at night and wake up in the morning! So any change - ANY CHANGE - must be small, and gradual! I am right! Humanity can unite of its own free will! It will! But not in a noticeable amount of time, and only if we work at it - constantly!

"But you, but Salem - everyone - you want results you can see! You can't comprehend what happens after you die, so you want to see the change happen now, damn the cost - and Salem wanted the easy solution to a hard question! You're a nihilist broken by your own stubbornness and pride and she was a fatalist screaming at the universe, broken when it - in its infinite apathetic neutrality - never acknowledged her!"

"Oh let's talk about me, now Ozma - where am I in this 'cosmic time scale' of yours, huh?"

"Dead six months ago." Ozma bluntly called back.

"Ah. Hm, yeah. Exactly what I thought." Aldric said, nodding exaggeratedly. "As a matter of fact, that is literally, exactly what I thought! 'Dead six months ago' - the exact words that went through my mind! Strange, right? Almost like - oh, wait, no - not strange! I'm talking to a fucking psychic!" He yelled, spittle flying from his mouth. "A habitually lying psychic! How much of that was just buying time, Ozma?! How much of it was just probing me for my reactions - looking for something you could latch onto like when you told me you were from fucking Rome and played on that when I freaked the fuck out?!

"You're a fucking liar, Ozma - that's your nature more than anything else! You're just lying through your teeth, with every breath in your lungs, you lie to serve yourself until you can get what you want! You spent how many minutes just now ranting and raving and carrying on, and yet never once addressed what I saw in your mind!"

"What you failed to see!"

"Back to the gaslighting! Reminds me of what Ironwood and the courtroom tried - strange, right?!"

"Aldric your powers work on belief! On will! You are the living embodiment of all of my eons of study into magic! To you, magic truly is what you want it to be - and you made that stone that broke into my mind, with your magic! You broke into my mind looking for evidence of my wrongdoing! Your powers - that stone - they all responded to that desire! What you think you saw was a falsehood, created by you to justify your crusade against me!"

"So we went from 'what I failed to see' to 'what I think I saw'." Aldric laughed, "at this point I want you to keep going just so I don't have to dig your fucking grave!"

"This is exactly what I said would happen! I would give you the truth, and in your paranoia and hatred of me - in your hatred of yourself - you would refuse to believe it!"

"Back to the pushing it on me! Jesus Christ we're just talking in circles now, huh?" Aldric demanded, "you know you can't change your mind, so what are you doing, just trying to buy every second you can? This all ends here, Ozma - you can't stop that! I will remove you as a threat to this planet and its people and for better or for worse I will put Humanity in the driver's seat - NOW!"

Ozma blinked, wondering what Aldric had just called for - then something blasted out of one of the now empty buildings, flying out of it like a rocket, moving so quickly that Ozma almost missed it completely:

Cinder Fall, her arms outstretched, and closing just as she reached Ashley.

Ozma was so stunned by her sudden presence that he didn't use his own powers to match her speed until it was a second too late, as Aldric, too, displayed a heretofore unknown ability to increase his speed - and just as Ozma tightened his grip on Ashley's shoulder and tried to pull her out of the way, Aldric was there, metal fist glowing a great orange, and hurtling right for Ozma's face. As Cinder closed her arms around Ashley and pulled her out of the line of fire, Aldric's fist smashed into Ozma's nose with a heavy sound of metal striking flesh, and his strength and speed were both sufficient to send Ozma flying backwards. Any concentration the man had was wrecked, and the world snapped back to its normal speed. He skipped across the street like a stone on a pond, Cinder grabbed Ashley and vanished, flying off at a speed Ozma had thought only she and he were capable of, whereas Aldric appeared right behind him, slamming his foot into Ozma's back and then pinning him to the ground with it.

"Her?" Ozma croaked, as Aldric pressed down on the ancient man's chest with his boot.

Aldric nodded in acknowledgement, "not my best move, I'll admit." He said, holding his fist aloft, the stone settled into his palm and growing in radiance. Immediately following this, he was enveloped by a deep onyx glow, and all of the metal in all of the buildings, street lamps, and vehicles around them, all surged towards Ozma, wrapping around his hands, feet, and chest like shackles, digging into the ground, and pinning him, trapping him there even more effectively than Aldric's own strength.

In the split second Ozma had before he counter-attacked, he realized what Aldric was doing - what the trick had been: Aura, and semblances, they were tied to souls, unique to everyone. Ozma's magic was replicative - he copied everything he saw, from simple physical acts like spewing fire or freezing water, to more esoteric ones, like semblances he ran across. In Aldric's possession was a stone that gave him control over one aspect of the universe - specifically, the soul. With it, he could control life or death, yes, but he could also do exactly like Ozma could: Steal, replicate, and then use, any semblance he saw. It was how he'd escaped from Atlas: He'd used it to steal Weiss Schnee's semblance, circumvent the aura locks that had been placed upon him and summon spectral knights to defend him while he used Pyrrha Nikos' semblance to break his bindings.

Aldric effectively had Ozma's entire arsenal for as long as he held that stone.

Worse than that?

Even if he didn't, the stone gave him dominion over life and death.

This fight would only last as long as Aldric allowed it - Ozma's one and only chance to come out on top was to separate Aldric from the stone!

This in mind, he jerked his head from one side to the other, hitting his ear on his shoulder, and croaking out the word, "fire!"

Aldric actually paused, and though initially Ozma thought it was out of arrogant curiosity, when no shots came, he realized what it truly was:

Disappointment.

"So focused were you, on me, that you didn't realize the General had a play of his own, Ozma." Aldric said, like a disappointed teacher scolding an unobservant student. "All of these people you used throughout all of your lives, none of them ever turned against you for two reasons: Salem was still out there and only you could fight her, and it wouldn't matter in the end, because you'd come back." Aldric dug his foot onto Ozma's chest, "but the former isn't an issue anymore, and he knows I can solve the latter."

Ozma tried to call on his power, to break free of the metal wrapped around his body and blast Aldric with all his strength, to try and break his grip on the stone and make the fight far more even.

But nothing came.

With horror, Ozma realized that Aldric had never stopped using the stone after he'd utilized Pyrrha's semblance - the moment he'd finished trapping Ozma, he'd used his unimpugnable control over souls, to completely nullify Ozma's ability to use his power!

Ozma used the only thing he could think of that he had left - and though twisting his wrist to limply swing his cane practically ripped that wrist open with how tightly bound in metal it was, it still got his cane to swing upwards in Aldric's direction. But then Aldric caught it with his metal arm - and a kinetic pulse that could have obliterated a town was just absorbed by the otherworldly metal that made up the man's synthetic limb!

Worse than that?

Ozma saw as the cane - the weapon he'd crafted thousands of years ago, and had kept with him through hundreds of lifetimes, began to get consumed by the nanites that had once upon a time been the focus for Aldric's powers. Ozma's eyes grew wide with terror as Aldric wrenched the cane out of his hand and just held it up, letting it get eaten by his original weapon.

Fear gripped his heart as he realized there was no escape.

"I planned this one battle for ten years, Old Man." Aldric grunted, tossing away what little remained of the cane to be eaten out of sight, and pulling out another stone - this one jet black - to be placed on Ozma's chest. "I did far worse to Salem with two." He then retrieved a knife from his belt, "the last lesson I ever learned from that was to just kill the Batman. There was never going to be a fight." He raised the knife over a struggling Ozma's throat, "just like with her." He plunged it downwards, and Ozma felt the all-too-familiar feeling of cold steel splitting his own flesh, and blood flowing out.

Aldric wrenched the knife from one side to another, ripping open the wound and causing Ozma's blood to gush out. Ozma, pinned, separated from his power, could only watch, and hope he would die in the moments between Aldric pulling the blade out of his throat, tossing it aside, and retrieving the stone he'd placed on his chest.

He didn't.

Aldric, for the third time in his life, plunged a soul gem into the dying form of a magic user. He watched as the blood enveloped the gem, and waited for one long minute, before he pulled it back out. Dripping in Ozma's blood, glowing a pallid white, the soul of an eternally reincarnating man was trapped inside.

Aldric stood back up, leering down at the soul in his now bloodstained palm.

The only way Ozma could have won, was if Ozma had separated him from the stone, and that couldn't have happened. Aldric had spent months walking with it, studying it, debating daily whether or not he should just get rid of it, and when he finally succumbed to temptation and chose not to due to how unimaginably powerful a weapon it could be against Ozma or Cinder, he proceeded to spend years contemplating ways he could use it. Much like how he'd spent so long putting together that perfect plan to kill Salem, that one thing that absolutely would work if he lost the chance to do anything else, he'd done the same to Ozma. So there was no way he could have lost, and as he'd told the man, there was never going to be a fight.

Aldric wondered if Ozma had known this. He wondered if this outcome, had been the plan - that Ozma, now that Salem was gone, had discovered the Gods were dead, and just didn't want to remain anymore. Maybe it ended there, maybe it extended a bit further to conclude that he had so much faith in his side of the argument triumphing that he didn't feel the need to guide Humanity to peace. Whatever the case, an infinitesimally small part of Aldric wondered if Ozma had goaded him into this conflict, specifically to die, because only Aldric would have a way to truly kill him.

Of course, he knew the reality - he knew what the Mind Stone had shown him, but then again he only knew what he'd looked for. He only knew what he had found, and what he hadn't found - the answer, for better and for worse, to the specific question he'd asked, and nothing more. For everything it had shown him, there was so much more that he didn't see.

Whatever the case was, the fact of the matter was that he was here, now, with Ozma weaker and more vulnerable than he had ever been before.

All that was left was to finish it.

"Don't stop, don't think, don't look back..." Aldric whispered, just barely in tune. "I've pulled you in, nowhere to hide now." He turned his gaze from Ozma's stone in his organic hand, to the Soul Stone in his metal one. After a moment's glaring down at it, he clenched his fist around the orange stone, and felt its power surge through him, burning him from the inside out. With this power, with complete control over life and death, with the ability to control and manipulate souls as he would will, he focused this power on the pallid stone in his right hand.

He sensed Ozma's soul. He knew it, as he knew his own. He sensed Ozma thrashing about in his prison, trying and failing to break himself free. He sensed the animalistic fear as Ozma saw a storm of fire swirling about him, growing closer with every second, before finally, it reached him. Aldric burned, he ripped, he tore, he disintegrated, and he destroyed, as thoroughly as possible. Only when he held this stone did he understand how the Brother Gods create this endless cycle of death and rebirth, and only when he held this stone did he understand how he could end it:

By so thoroughly shredding Ozma's soul that nothing would be left to reincarnate.

But he didn't stop there.

For while he'd fallen to temptation and kept the stone, he'd sworn to himself that he would only, ever use it to kill Ozma. The second he did so, the stone couldn't be allowed to exist a moment longer - and after killing Ozma, after obliterating his soul and ensuring there wasn't so much as a shadow of it remaining, he turned the power of the stone on itself - and did the same to the very source of fuel that was ensuring its existence. He shredded the five souls that he'd used to create this stone, and after a blinding pulse of orange light, the orange glow faded away, leaving an inert black rock.

With his semblance, he crushed the both of them to dust, and scattered them on the wind.

He watched the dust float away on the breeze, before turning to his left, and seeing Cinder standing on the other side of the street, exactly where he'd been just minutes ago.

There was nothing to say between the two, they both knew that this was the only way things could end now. For whatever reason they had reached this point - be it Ozma taking leaves from his wife's book, be it him seeking an assisted suicide, be it Ironwood bumbling into everything, be it all three or just the fragile foundations they'd built their lives upon finally breaking under the weight of rampant paranoia, it didn't matter. They were here now, and there was only one way to end things.

They just regarded each other for the longest time, before Cinder pulled from her back, the blade Aldric had given to her so long ago.

"I got her back." Cinder said, so softly that Aldric didn't actually hear it - he read her lips with his Radar. "I got her aunts to the hospital. She won't remember. The Garden's already at work changing their identities." A tear drifted down the side of her face, even as she steeled her expression. "She'll be safe."

Aldric let out a long, shaky breath, nodded, and brought his hands up in a poor excuse for a fighting stance, humming again so lowly that it was barely even a tune. "Don't stop, don't think, don't look back..." He gulped, "I've pulled you in... Prepare to die now." He clenched his fists tight enough that the bones in one popped and the metal of the other creaked, she ignited her blade, and they sprinted towards each other.

They reached each other in just a moment, and Cinder tried to go for one single, smooth, killing stroke - relying on the ever-present gap in skill between them.

But she, like Ozma, would succumb to Aldric having planned out this one encounter for ten years.

It all happened in sequence: She heavily fell down on her front foot, and lunged her brightly burning amethyst blade forward - right for the gap in his armor she'd burned so many years ago.

He pushed himself just an inch to the right, putting her blade off-center.

She corrected masterfully, twisting on her backfoot and correcting the angle faster than someone could blink.

He used his momentum to bring his vibranium arm up, its fingers closing around her purple blade in a blinding shower of sparks and the sound of plasma grinding on metal.

With her having twisted her body to correct her angle and change the direction of her stab, she had the slightest angular momentum to her entire body - which, alongside the metal he knew could temporarily defend against lightsabers, he used to his advantage to throw her off balance and push the sword out of the way.

As this happened, he came up with his fleshy hand, and slammed his palm into her throat - the impact worsened by her practically being pushed right into it.

She let go of her blade, it deactivated the moment it could no longer feel her hands on it.

He kneed her in the stomach, using his semblance to maintain his balance.

She fell back just a step, but he built enough distance to then bring up his foot and slam it into her chest, and force her back several more steps.

She barely regained her footing and kept from falling to the ground, arms swinging in wide circles before she straightened back up, and watched Aldric throw her blade away.

That was, as he expected, when she noticed that he didn't even have his.

Then, finally, realization dawned in her eyes as she fell victim to the trick she'd witnessed three times, and had been the victim of twice.

The trick he'd all but advertised he would pull on her if the time ever came that they'd have to kill each other:

Aldric's lightsaber, telekinetically pulled from the ground and hovering right behind her back, ignited, and a vivid blue stick of plasma burst out of her chest.

In less than sixty seconds, it was over.

Aldric was the only one left.

Well if Ruby Rose needed any reason to always stay above board and on the right side of the law, it was that things just took so long doing it the other way! A trip that should have taken, at most, a day, instead took a whole week! Sure - Neo's people were good! But all the things they had to do to dodge Atlesian checkpoints and get Ruby through dock securities just made things take so much longer! Instead of flying the whole way, they took a boat from Atlas to Argus, from there they had to take a train to Mistral - and then immediately leave Mistral to go all the way around the city and walk to a local village, where a short-range shuttle took them a quarter of the way to Vale, and on and on and on it went until, finally, seven days later, Ruby finally pulled into shore at Vale's docks.

It was absolute chaos - there were people standing around everywhere, some of them slowly making their way towards Vale proper as they were all individually inspected, had their identities verified, and finally let inside.

The rest, though?

The rest were looking west, towards Patch, and when Ruby followed their gaze, she covered her face in shock: There were more ships in the air than she'd ever seen before, practically buzzing about over Patch like a bee hive.

"No." Oh no, oh no, no, no - she was too late!

No - no! She wasn't! They weren't shooting yet, and even if they were, Aldric had taken worse than that right here - on Vale's docks! - when he'd been weaker, and hadn't been wearing that super-metal chainmail! He'd make it!

First though, she had to find his daughter. She had to make sure she was safe - and with her Semblance, she had all the time she needed to do it.

So, she pulled out her scroll, and used the last gift Neo and her Gardeners had given her before bidding her adieu and sending her on her exceedingly long journey: A tracker app. She put Ecru's phone number into it, and to her surprise, found that Ecru was in Vale, not Patch! Turning to the city, Ruby sped through the crowd, leaving rose petals - and a small amount of guilt at the number of people she shoved her way through - in her wake. She passed through the Vale Armed Forces checkpoint like they weren't even there, and followed the tracker app to -

Oh no.

A hospital.

Heart rate climbing, and worry growing in her mind, she dashed inside and searched until she found Ecru in one of the emergency rooms.

She skidded to a halt, and the world snapped back into normal speed, in abject shock at what she found. Not just Ecru, unconscious and with a nurse looking her over, few if any injuries on her, nor her dog, who was resting at the foot of her bed - but Cinder Fall, depositing a child into a chair in the corner of the room!

This had been so far from what Ruby had expected to see that she didn't even draw her weapon. Cinder, after brushing the little girl's hair from her face, stood up straight and turned around, nodding to the nurse, and then seeing Ruby. She blinked once, surprised, but took in a deep sigh, nodded, and held her finger up to her mouth. She stepped aside and let Ruby get a good look at the girl.

Oh... Wow. Ruby couldn't believe what she was seeing - the unconscious girl was Cinder's spitting image! She had her thin face, her jet black hair, her pale skin, the resemblance was so uncanny that it took Ruby a moment to realize that there was only one child she knew of to be in Ecru's care.

Only one child that 'Solidus' Cinder - the alternate timeline woman Aldric claimed had undergone an evolution of self - could possibly care about:

Aldric's daughter.

And with the similarities to Cinder, that clearly meant that the child's mother, was standing above her, right now!

Blinking rapidly, trying to restart her brain, Ruby just shook her head, looking from Cinder, who gazed longingly, morosely, at the girl, then to the girl, then back to Cinder.

"What?" She breathed, but Cinder just turned back to her and shook her head.

"Come, Ruby Rose."

Ruby had to admit, she had an instinct to draw her weapon anyways - the last time she'd seen this woman still turned dreams to nightmares even ten years on, after all - but the utter bizarreness of the situation stayed her hand, and she followed Cinder.

"That's -" Ruby began, quietly, as she followed Cinder out of the emergency room.

"Ashley." Cinder supplied, "she would be Ashley Aldric, if we didn't need to keep that name a secret. She would be Ashley Guilliman, if we hadn't had to take that name from her..." Her breath hitched in her throat a bit, as she tried to calm herself. "She would be Ashley Lily, if I hadn't just paid several people in the Garden to draw up new identities for her, Ecru, and Srebro too, if she chooses to accept it. Tomorrow, I don't know what her name will be."

Ruby felt light headed, but didn't get a chance to speak, as Cinder continued:

"You were actually his first choice." She said, "or his first idea, at least... But you were too public, and even if you would agree and go to ground in a heartbeat, you vanishing would have caused people to look for you. Being found, suddenly having a nine year old girl, after Aldric returned... Would have made the wrong people make the right conclusions. And for what it's worth -" She added, almost as an afterthought. "I'm sorry, for..." She made a vague back and forth gesture between them, "everything."

Ruby shook her head, "why are you here?"

"Because I never left her." She admitted, "Aldric would kill me if he knew... But I still had some tools and gadgets from his bunker. I used them to hide my face, suppress my aura, and stay near her. I just had to wait for the right moment to take her back, and bring her to her aunt. I'm pretty sure he thinks I just made my way to Vale after he escaped, and followed the chaos and navy ships to Patch."

Patch - Patch! Right! "Cinder - we have to get to Patch! Aldric - we have to stop him before - before -" She tried to talk so fast that her mouth couldn't keep up with her brain.

Cinder, however, knew, but instead of nodding her head and joining her cause, she shook her head, an expression of emotional anguish on her face, as she sighed. "We can't, Ruby."

"But -"

"Ruby, I saved Ashley from Ozma five minutes ago. Aldric was already there... Ozma is already dead, and I have to uphold my end of the bargain." She said, pulling a piece of paper out from her pocket, and placing it in Ruby's numb hand.

"No!" Ruby breathed, realizing that she'd wasted time - that Cinder had wasted her time!

"I'm sorry, I really am." Cinder sighed, before nodding to the paper. "Keep it close." She said, before vanishing.

Ruby numbly, limply stood there for several long seconds, mind grinding to a halt, before she forced herself to snap out of it, turned to the closest exit, and sprinted out of it as fast as her semblance could take her. Throwing caution to the wind, Ruby kept running and bolted out in Patch's direction. She retraced her steps and reached the docks, and even though she didn't know if she could run across the water, she was fully prepared to swim across if she had to, and just kept running, pushing herself to the breaking point, her muscles screaming at her to slow down to something sustainable, but she refused. Though she stumbled a few times, she managed to make the distance between Patch and Vale in only a few seconds, as far as anyone else was concerned.

She transitioned from the water to the land as easy as someone would take a few stairs, and kept sprinting as fast as she could, sending rose petals flying in all directions in her wake. She hurtled through Patch's docks, into the familiar main village, and as she turned to find the main road, she found them.

Everything ground to a halt, as she saw, in short order: Ozma's corpse, bound in come kind of skin-tight metal cocoon, and just past it, Aldric, and Cinder.

With Cinder, actively dying from a lightsaber jutting out of her chest.

Eyes wide, tears already forming and falling freely, and nothing but years of practice and self control separating her and the unleashing of the strength of her eyes, Ruby fell to her knees as Aldric gently brought cinder down to his. Aldric gently cradled her in his lap, speaking softly to her, though what words passed between them, Ruby would never know, as she anguished in her failure. She didn't do it - she didn't save him. He'd killed Ozma, he'd killed Cinder, and any minute now, all of these ships would kill him.

What kind of justice was this?

Aldric had sacrificed everything - everything - he had to save their world, and they all repaid him by forcing him to fight, again, and again, ridiculing and insulting him, decrying his actions because they could have been better. What few voices existed to speak in his favor were so vastly outweighed by those that hated him that they couldn't stop the overwhelming fear he generated in the people with power - and if it was Ozma, or Ironwood, or whatever that caused it, the fact remained that this good man had been forced back one last time, just to be killed at the end.

No.

No, that was wrong.

The only one who had the power to bring him back was Ruby herself, and she'd done it - she and nobody else. Everything that happened afterwards, his discovery, the reporter, the hunt, the trial, his daughter - his daughter - being used as bait! It was all because of her.

Aldric had cast away everything that remained of his soul, and walked willingly into death, because of her. She'd failed to stop it in time, to find any way to prevent him from sealing his own fate. It was her fault.

"What are you waiting for?" She heard Aldric cry out, causing Ruby to blink away her tears, and see Aldric, Cinder's limp, lifeless body on his lap, glaring up at the ships above them. Rage, fury, frustration, and sorrow was in his eyes, tears filled them as he screamed, "DO IT!" In a deep bellow that let out all of his pain and agony in just two syllables.

Ruby followed his gaze, and saw lasers beginning to glow, guns beginning to spin, missile pods beginning to open.

She was ashamed to admit a small part of her just wanted to stay here, to wallow in her failure until she wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

It was only when a weak telekinetic shove, thrown by Aldric, hit her on the shoulder, and she saw Aldric looking at her, face twitching and red from emotion, that she did otherwise.

His order unspoken: Run.

So Ruby did.

She reached Vale's docks again only one second before Atlas' Navy opened fire, and she couldn't hold back openly sobbing at the display. The thunderous staccato of hundreds of cannon shells smashing into the ground, the distant deafening booms of missiles exploding, the bright flashes of red lasers burning the ground. Dust, dirt, and debris being shot into the air in huge quantities every second.

The entire fleet firing non-stop for ten, solid, minutes.

And all Ruby could do was cry, joined quickly by the sobs, tears, and screams of fright and confusion of all of Patch's evacuated residents, as they watched their island get flattened.

Ruby had no idea how it happened, but somehow, someway, her dad found her. She felt the aging blonde brawler's hand on her shoulder, it feeling not like the callused, leathery thing she was used to - but rather wreathed in the metal of his gauntlets. He must have thought Patch was getting attacked by Grimm before he'd learned better, because he only had one of them on, the left one - though because of the tears the tears that wouldn't go away, no matter how hard she blinked, it looked a little strange, taking on a deeply golden color, with some dust cartridge inserts on its knuckles that lent it a rainbow-like glow that only just made it through her tears. She didn't pay it any mind, and looked up to him through a haze of tears and sniffles. In that moment, she didn't see the fifty year old man, hair going from golden-blonde to bleached white, the retired Huntsman that had only been able to find one of the weapons he'd once lived by, she saw him as she remembered - face full of the strength and youthful vigor that had been the only thing that had ever let him keep up with two equally fiery and energetic daughters.

Somehow, there was understanding there. Of course he didn't know what was happening, of course he had to have so many questions, not the least of which being how she'd gotten here when she should have been in Atlas, but he could see the pain and agony on her face, and kept those questions to himself, instead allowing her to see only the warmth and compassion she'd always gotten from him. There was an apology in there - the apology of a father who knew their child was in pain and wished they could spare them of it. But he knew there was nothing he could have done - and thus did all he could: He allowed her seek the only comfort she had left. With Pyrrha gone, her friends vehemently disagreeing with her, her uncle and her sister on the other side of the planet and not altogether on her side, and now even Aldric gone, this was the only thing she had left: The warm, strong embrace of her father.

She took it, allowing herself to be held tightly, crying into his chest. She stayed there for a long time, unable to do anything - not even knowing what she could do! - until, long after Atlas finished pounding Patch back into the dirt, she finally had regained enough strength to stand on her own two feet. Tai Yang didn't say a word, just patted her on the back with his gauntleted hand and gave her a morose smile. She just nodded, and stood up straight to let him know she was okay enough to stand now, before she turned to peer up at the giant cloud of dust, dirt, and smoke that had used to be Patch - had used to be Aldric! The sight almost took it out from her again, but one random thought passing through her mind put the slightest strength to her legs, forced her to stay upright.

More than being responsible for this, with Pyrrha gone, that meant she was it. She was the only one to remember Aldric as he really was - as a good person. Yang, Weiss, Blake, Nora, Ren, Jaune, all of them believed in the opposite, they hated him - and the world beyond them would only ever see the narrative that would be given to them! They would see Aldric be twisted into a caricature of himself, be turned into a monster, an evil person that everyone would hate and ridicule forever. The only one left alive who knew different, was Ruby. Even Ecru and Srebro, they didn't have the full picture - and if they did, they were going to be going to ground soon to hide and finish raising Ashley.

So the only person who could remember Aldric, was Ruby.

She still felt sorrow eclipsing even what she felt when Ash had died, but underneath it was a slowly building determination. She already missed him terribly, and mourned his tragedy even more, but she propped herself up on the realization and understanding that she was the only person who could remember him. Thus, she had a duty, to.

She knew what her first act in this vein would have to be.

It took some time, a lot of effort, and even more missed scroll calls from Yang, Qrow, Weiss, Blake, and even a few from her Dad, but she put herself to work as soon as she could. First, before anything, she returned to the hospital - where Ecru had woken up and was just holding Ashley. She and Srebro had, it seemed, made it off with only light injuries - Ozma had only gone so far as to knock them out, and even if Ecru didn't still have access to her aura, or if Srebro had been more seriously injured, Aldric had given them a 'box of tools' for emergencies, which Cinder had retrieved before rescuing Ashley. They were simply staying here, waiting, killing time because the Gardeners Cinder had hired had told them it was best to stay here, in a public place, until everything they needed to vanish was ready.

Wary of the reasons behind why she had never been given the child, Ruby knew better than to ask to follow them wherever they were going. Instead, she all but begged them to give her a means of contacting and finding them, because even if she couldn't raise Aldric's child, she knew the best possible course of action to remember him, to honor the truth to his legacy and build upon it, would be to be a part of her life in some way, to impart upon her the person Aldric was, and wanted to be - not the person he had been forced to become; and if - and, as they all had to admit was the most likely, when - Ashley awoke her aura, whether or not she had her mother and father's more esoteric powers, Ruby wanted to be a part of that more than anything.

It was a long argument between the three - well, the two, as Srebro was still firmly a follower, perfectly willing to just listen and do what her friend would do instead of participating in the debate and influencing the decisions. Ecru was against it because of how huge of a risk Ruby hanging around posed to Ashley - Ruby was world famous, and would only become more so as more time was spent analyzing Aldric's Record, slowly shifting the narrative, and performing damage control to all the lies they'd told before he'd been revealed. Even if Ruby only dropped by occasionally like the 'cool aunt,' her vanishing without so much as a word even from remote villages, with regularity on top of that, would attract attention, and anyone smart or connected enough would be able to piece together where she vanished every time, look into it, find Ashley, and connect the dots. It wasn't that Ecru was against the idea, just that it was too dangerous.

But, if there was one person that could ever out-stubborn Ecru, it was Ruby, and Ruby spent hours going back and forth with the former Beacon student, before finally managing to come to something of a compromise by pointing out that if Ashley took after Mom and Dad - if she had magic like them - Ruby was uniquely equipped to be able to handle and train her. If she lost control, Ruby could nullify her powers - no normal Combat School could do that. Ruby didn't have to be a constant fixture in the girl's life, not initially, but she could be something of a mentor - and given that Aldric had trusted Ecru to raise Ashley, that meant he believed she would raise the child in accordance to Goud's ideals. Ruby could cement those lessons into an unshakeable foundation, and create the hero Ash and Aldric so fervently believed in.

This finally forced Ecru to come around to Ruby's way of thinking - because as much as she believed in her and Srebro's ability to raise Ashley, if and when she awoke her aura, Srebro wouldn't be the best of teachers, and Ecru simply wasn't physically capable of even trying. So, Ruby gave Ecru and Srebro her contact information, making them swear to get in touch with her once they were set up by the Garden, and even going so far as to offer her services as something of a runner - if they needed something that they couldn't go out and acquire with whatever cover was being set up for them, Ruby, with open access to the world, could go out and find it.

By the time she was finished with Ecru, Ashley had woken up, and Srebro had taken the star-struck little girl to another room so the adults could keep speaking, but not before Ashley made Ruby swear to wait a minute before she left so she could say hi and take a picture with her. Seeing her innocence - and additionally her naivete towards the reality of what she had gotten involved in - made Ruby smile, and promise she would do just that.

When she was done, Ashley had a new aunt.

After that, however, came the most difficult part, as well as the end to this chapter of her life, and the beginning to the rest of it.

She spent a day looking around, but was eventually able to find a small monument maker willing to be discreet for her, and let her borrow one of their laser-engraving tools. She bought as big as headstone as she could carry long-distance, and, wary of how Ashmore had found her and witnessed the final battle with Adam Taurus, walked. No bullhead, no carriage, nothing but her own two feet.

This meant it took three days, but eventually she made it to Forever Fall - specifically, a small clearing that looked wildly out of place thanks to the younger patches of grass in random spots, the multitude of broken and destroyed, but aged and weathered trees, ranging from the barely perceptible apices that had healed and regrown, lower and lower and lower until there were only dead stumps, and the long, healed-over rend in the ground that, if one turned their head and squinted, could recognize as the path of destruction torn by an airship falling out of the sky, crashing through dozens of trees, and eventually grinding to a halt, ripping apart the ground and churning the dirt.

Aldric's crash site.

She confirmed it by temporarily relieving herself of the headstone and taking a look around, recognizing landmarks and features from the few videos he'd taken of the place, finding the ruins she'd had her entrance exam in, and on the way back, even finding the occasional bit of scrap metal missed by then-Ozpin when he was taking apart the ship and bringing it to Beacon.

She decided to place the headstone in the center of the main clearing, digging a small groove in the ground to steady it and make sure that no harsh weather or curious Grimm would knock it over. When she was done, she took the engraving tool and used its laser to start carving away at the stone. After finishing with that, she stood up and took a step back, nose wrinkled from the smell of burning stone, but eyes locked onto it, tears forming that had nothing to do with the acrid stench, though that soon was mitigated by a growing gust of wind blowing it away, causing the grass and trees to sway around her, and her hood and cape to billow.

She wished she knew what to say, what to do here. She wished she had any idea, she wished she could have prevented this.

Above all though, she wished he'd finally found peace.

He deserved that, if nothing else.

"I'll do my best." She told him, sniffling as more tears joined those first few. "I'll - I'll teach her, the way you would have. I'll find Pyrrha's shield - your shield, and give it to her. She'll know what it means." There was more, there had to be more to say. She struggled a moment, tears falling freely from her jaw as it opened and shut, until something felt right: "I'll tell her, one day, when she's ready. I'll make sure she knows who her father was. What he did. Why."

There was no response but the sound of wind blowing over grass.

She wiped her softly glowing silver eyes, but that did nothing. "Goodbye, Aldric." Were the last words she spoke before she forced herself to turn away, and start walking.

Leaving behind only a grave, in the middle of a rough clearing in Grimm-infested wood, and the words written upon it:

Here Lies In Spirit:
A Good Man
Who spent his soul to save the world.