Ozpin’s office was tense.
The beyond ancient man sat behind his desk, slowly sipping at his coffee, looking like this was a perfectly normal day at Beacon, if one didn’t know better.
The other occupants of the office did not share his facade of tranquility.
Qrow and Roman were properly drunk, hanging off of each other like old friends rather than criminal and huntsman who each held the other responsible for the explosion that landed Roman in their custody.
Neo had thankfully taken to moving them into compromising positions and taking pictures of the two together, intrigued by the potential for blackmail.
He really shouldn’t be happy about that, but if it kept the three of them out of trouble…
Bart removed his glasses so he could run a hand over his weary face before slotting them back into place and focusing in on the discussion being held once more.
“...and you should have told us!” James demanded.
“And where would that have gotten me?” Ozpin responded calmly. “It would only have worked you into a panic, as it has now. And beyond that, knowledge is a form of power. I have had many groups aid me in my quest over the years, and while Leonardo was the most recent disappointment, he was not the first to betray me. In my vast experience, I have found that those who learn the entire truth… well, let’s just say that it has very rarely ended well.”
“And yet you seem to be taking things rather well at the moment,” Glynda sternly cut in.
“Do I?” Ozpin raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps my poker face has improved, or perhaps I am simply in a state of shock. To me, the Brothers were the Gods. Those who came after Salem and I may know of them, but she and I knew them. We saw what they were capable of first hand. To suddenly have it dropped on me that there are others out there….” He laughed weakly. “I almost want to tell Salem, see how she would react to the fact that there are others who can stand on their level where she failed… but I’m fairly certain she would think it some ruse and then smite me down where I stood.”
“That’s the part that you’re caught up on?” Bart found himself asking. He supposed he could see why it would catch Ozpin’s attention, given what he now knew of the man, and it was an extraordinary thing to learn, but as far as shocking revelations went, In Bart’s mind it ranked a few rungs lower on the priority list.
“Perhaps you’re more interested in the fact that we’re characters in some story?” Ozpin guessed. “That may be shocking to you, but it’s old hat in my view. I and people I knew feature in fairy tales of this world. I’m the old wizened wizard who granted power to the Maidens in The Story of the Seasons. I was married to The Girl in the Tower. Now that I think about it, I’m probably connected in some way to most of the fairy tales of Remnant…”
When put like that, it did help dissuade a bit of the existential dread that had been bubbling up within him. But it wasn’t what he had meant.
“Enough,” Winter insisted. “We can do nothing about the follies of the past,” though her harsh glare implied that she very much blamed Ozpin for quite a few of them, just as her commanding officer did, “but we still have time to work out a path towards the best possible future. We should be focused on ways to stop Salem.”
“Ah, yes,” Ozpin nodded. “You’re right of course, Miss Schnee. Which method shall we discuss in more detail? The one where we call for the Brother Gods to cast judgment upon us? Or perhaps the one where we force her into therapy? Better yet, the one where we bribe her with indulgences for the rest of eternity?”
Glynda sighed. “As…” she paused, clearly trying to think of a polite way to phrase it, before giving up, “stupid as those sound, they are at least ideas, Ozpin.”
“I’ll take an idea that sounds silly on the surface over none at all,” James agreed. “Or did you have a plan beyond waging war with Salem eternally?”
Ozpin’s silence spoke volumes.
“If I’m being truthful, I couldn’t tell you how long I’ve been fighting her,” Ozpin eventually confessed. “Our war seems to have gone on for eternity already, and given Jinn’s answers to my questions… Perhaps I never really escaped the grasp of the Gods. They have not been present for… quite some time now, and yet their words, their actions, they’ve haunted me all the while, shaping the way I think about these things.”
“Then stop thinkin’ likes youz!” Roman suddenly shouted out the slurred words, his arm whipping up into the air and pointing… well, the thief was pointing at a wall, but it was vaguely in the direction of Ozpin. “Ya gotz ta… get in the head of your enemies! Use them!”
“Would you be quiet, you drunken fool?” Glynda demanded. “Dealing with Qrow is bad enough!”
Neo silently giggled at their exasperation with her partner.
“Nah, he’s….” Qrow burped. “He’sszzz right! The enemy of my enemy… is my enemy!”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Bart sighed, deeply hurt by Qrow’s butchering of common sayings. “Friend, Qrow. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And despite how often that proverb is repeated, it's only applicable under certain circumstances.”
“Shuddup!” Qrow tactfully rebutted. “Roman an’ I are… enemies of that Cinder bitch! And now we’re drinkin’ buddies!”
“Fuck Cinder!” Roman helpfully added on.
“Yeah!” Qrow continued. “And who are Salem’s enemies?”
Winter looked down at the two with contempt as Neo wrapped their arms around each other. “Ozpin? All of humanity? The good in the world?”
“The Gods!”
Ozpin looked disappointed. “Qrow, we’ve been over this already. I refuse to call for the Gods. They can stay far, far away from Remnant for the rest of time. Their return would only spell a doom worse than any that Salem can bestow upon us.”
“Nuh-uh!” Qrow denied. “Thatssss the… uh… the Brother Gods!”
“Yes, Qrow, I’m speaking about the….”
Bart’s mind raced as Ozpin trailed off, apparently having caught onto Qrow’s drunken ramblings at the same time.
As Ozpin had mentioned only a short while ago, they now knew of the existence of at least one other God. If that God could bring Second Thoughts soul here from an entirely different world, then perhaps that same power could alter the condition of souls that were already on Remnant.
Perhaps the curses of immortality on Salem and Ozpin could be broken.
There was, however, one major flaw in the idea.
“How would the other God be summoned, though? There is no such deal with them as there is with the Brother Gods.”
“Is it something worth considering at all?” Ozpin countered. “While I am familiar with the Brother Gods, all we know of this other God is the brief snippet we were shown by Jinn. It’s entirely possible that they are far more cruel than the Brother Gods. They could curse us with a fate unimaginable to us.”
“We should consider all of the possibilities, even if we later decide that such a path is not worth trekking down,” James suggested. “But even then, Bart does have a point. If we don’t know how to get their attention, there’s not much we can do about it. An idea to keep on the back burner, if the opportunity does come up. For now though, we should consider more immediate possibilities.”
“Like asking Jinn a properly worded question.” Winter sniped.
“Letssss ask two of em!” Qrow called out from the floor from beneath Roman as Neo continued to pose them.
Bart grimaced and Ozpin failed to suppress a flinch. “Yes, if only there were two left like someone had claimed…” Bart chose to rub salt in the wound. “And how long were you planning on keeping that lie up? What was your plan? Try to ask two questions quickly after you got help retrieving the Relic?”
Ozpin ignored the jabs. “Assuming that Jinn’s answer was due to the wording of my question,” the skepticism in his voice made his doubt on that theory obvious, “What would differentiate me from anyone else in their attempts to kill her?”
The group thought for a moment, and Glynda frowned.
“Maybe…” she hesitated, “it has to do with your past. Even despite the current circumstances, I think many would be unable to kill someone they once loved.”
“Or it could be that as an immortal, she cannot die,” Winter offered.
“Perhaps, but there are many ways to look at a concept like immortality,” Bart added. “For starters, what kind of immortality are we speaking of? There are several species out in the wild that are conceptually immortal, theoretically able to live forever assuming nothing goes wrong, but they all fall to disease or some other fatal accident befalling them.”
“Disease…” James pondered. “Perhaps we could expose her to high amounts of radiation and fill her body with cancer? Does she still have normal cells and bodily functions?”
Bart was disturbed by how quickly the General thought of that, and the expressions he saw around him reassured the doctor that he wasn’t alone in that. But rather than discuss the moral questions regarding the development of such a weapon, he moved on.
“If we assume that the Brother Gods defined her immortality as being unable to die, there is still the question of how much harm can befall her and what abilities she possesses. If her limbs are separated from her torso, does she grow a new one like a starfish? Or does she reattach them somehow? If we were to launch her into space, would she be able to reenter the atmosphere on her own, or would she drift off aimlessly into the void?”
Ozpin gaped at them. “You want to fill her with cancer, cut her body into pieces, and throw her into space?”
Bart didn’t appreciate his ideas being looked at in the same light as James’. Some sort of cancer spreading weapon was absolutely something that would be used in conventional warfare when, and it was a matter of when, the next one broke out. Dismemberment was something that was already possible thanks to the weapons that huntsmen and huntresses wielded on a daily basis, and a space launch was highly impractical.
Only one of them was talking about creating a crime against humanity.
James rubbed his chin in thought. “We could do all three… but whatever works, works. I don’t want to take anything off the table prematurely. Though I suppose you would know best. Have you ever inflicted serious bodily harm on Salem?”
Ozpin frowned, but thought for a moment. “I have harmed her, but I cannot recall if I ever severed a body part… I know that she has regrown flesh after what would be a fatal wound on any normal person…” He looked troubled as he thought back on their past battles. “I will have to think on it. I have so many memories to sort through, and I normally try to repress the more upsetting ones.”
The dismemberment idea was probably out then, though that depended on how long it took for Salem to regrow damaged body parts. If it was slow enough, perhaps they could obstruct the regrowth…
Bart shivered as he realized just what he was thinking. Knowing that this was to save Remnant from someone like Salem helped, but he liked to think he was a man of good morals, and things like this were a bit at odds with that ideal.
“Then perhaps we should table this for now,” Glynda suggested. “A bit of rest and time to think on what we’ve seen today will do us some good.”
Ozpin took a sip of his coffee. “Right as usual, Glynda. And perhaps someone should check on the children? I’d like to say that I trust them, but…”
But they were children. Even if they were huntsmen and huntresses in training.
Bart sincerely hoped that he could keep them out of this mess.