"Ironwood is declaring martial law and abandoning Mantle! Salem is coming and he's going to use the Staff to move Atlas! If we don't stop him, Mantle's going to be—!"

…

Oscar descends in the elevator to where General Ironwood was, not with a sense of desolation but instead with resolution, with purpose, with hope. Was he afraid? Of course he was, he was pretty much afraid of everything since leaving home; but after losing the relic, this was something he knew only he could do. He's not sure when but at some point he found himself resting his hands atop the pommel of the cane he carried. It felt sturdy, and reassuring, an ever-present familiar weight amid the alien chaos of fighting an infinite, impossible war.

Oscar always held it like it was a lifeline. Ozpin had held it like it was a part of him.

He feels almost calm staring down into the darkness. It's a long way down and he has a lot of time to think.

He takes a long shuddering breath, hands tightening on the hilt, and in a moment of clarity, a memory bubbles up from the back of his mind, dreamlike and persistent. Oscar remembers a girl—Ruby—standing on the edge of a snowy cliff, scythe in hand, battered crimson cloak fluttering in the wind; defiant even in the face of Cordovan and the giant robot looming over her. When Cordovan demanded their surrender, the girl had only hefted her scythe, slammed the shaft of it into the ground, and shouted, "No!" Zero hesitation, zero indecision. Simple unwavering resolve. A very small girl against an overwhelming, indomitable force, refusing to turn away.

Ruby had continued.

"Bigger people than you have tried to stop us and failed! But we're supposed to be on the same side! We're supposed to use our power to protect people! But you just use yours to look down on everyone!"
…

"Now, I'm giving you one last chance to stand down and hear us out!"

Oscar holds that memory close to his heart and lets out a very soft sigh once he caught the sight of Ironwood's back. It was time. He was as small as Ruby was, and Ironwood wasn't even over fifty feet tall. He could do this. He had to convince Ironwood. Ruby got scared too, but she never looked away from it. She kept fighting and doing what she thought was right.

If they were going to win this unwinnable war, then he had to try to face what he was afraid of too. Ozpin, Salem, this war, this terrible curse, and the erosion of who he thought he was. He had to start making his own decisions on who he wanted to be, instead of waiting for what he's convinced he'll inevitably become. He wanted to be brave, like her.

James calls out to him.

"And… whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with?"

"Still just me," Oscar answers, voice soft, but certain.

Everyone expected for him to be Ozpin, to have all the answers, but Ozpin wasn't there anymore. He didn't even have a plan! The time was past where Oscar worried about being a ghost in his own body. If Oz wasn't coming back then he also had to be the one who made his own decisions about what to do. He wouldn't allow people try to look through him searching for Ozpin instead any longer.

He was Oscar.

"It was smart of you not to bring the lamp down here," Ironwood continues with slight self-derision, watching warily as Oscar approached. "I wouldn't trust me either right now."

"Trust is what I'm hoping to fix," Oscar tells him mildly, hopefully, acting more composed than he really felt. His hand rested on the hilt of the cane as he came to a stop in front of Ironwood. "I know we can figure this out. All of it. Together… "

"Do you intend to fight me?"

"No," Oscar says, once again, certain. Leave it to a general to assume that might makes right. Leave it to James to assume that everything worth fighting for had to be done though force alone. Even if he's gotten better at fighting, slowly inheriting Ozpin's muscle memory and technique, Oscar didn't think he could beat James in the first place. And besides…

He continued, his voice still level and honest, "That's exactly what she wants. I guess it's because of Oz, but holding it helps calm me down when I'm afraid."

Oscar stares down at the shaft in his hand and then—

—retracts it. Places it on his belt. It was scary not to hold it in his hands, a small barrier between him and whoever might hurt him. It was scary without the reassuring pressure of The Long Memory on his fingers to give him comfort. He was a just boy who had been raised on a farm and held no importance beyond the extra passenger he carried in his head and General Ironwood was the military leader of an entire kingdom... who he was confronting!

…But if he couldn't stand behind his own words, if he didn't believe in his own words, then like Ozpin he would only perpetuate this cycle of lies and half-truths, unable to fully trust the people closest to him, desperately contributing to stalling the inevitable. And that was the last thing he wanted to do.

Maybe it was naïve but he wanted to try. Try and do his best. That's all anyone could do. If he tried to fight Salem, then he and the others might die. But if he did nothing, then he would still die and so would everyone else. So what was the point in giving up? Ruby wouldn't give up. Jaune wouldn't. Even Ruby's uncle Qrow wasn't giving up, not anymore, trying his best to stay sober and be there for the rest of them. And he was the biggest mess of a human being Oscar's ever met! That had to mean something; and so did trying to save Mantle.

"You still think I'm afraid," James scoffs, almost as if to himself.

Because you are, Oscar thinks harshly, but keeps that to himself. His aunt didn't raise him to be rude. Instead, he follows up with, "We all are. It's what we do in our fear that reveals—"

"That's easy for you to say!"

Oscar's heart beats fast in sudden fear and takes a step back, and then another as Ironwood interrupts him, becoming aggressive, approaching him slowly with deliberate focus.

"You can label me whatever you like, but the fact of the matter is I was right! The minute I softened, let my guard down, that's when Salem had her opening!"

Oscar's always been bad with conflict. Blame it on anxiety, or an inner desire to please everyone to the point he'd let just about anyone walk all over him if he thought it would get him out of the crosshairs, but raised voices always made his stomach flip.

A flash of memory rises again, a girl in red standing on the cliff. Earnest, unyielding. For once, Oscar doesn't shy away. Instead, he stands his ground.

"If you abandon Mantle, then you abandon our best chance of reuniting the world! You abandon Remnant! Leaving millions to fend for themselves so a few can survive! What kind of—!"

James interrupts him again, almost rolling his eyes, voice caustic and hostile.

"All excellent philosophical points that won't matter if Salem wins!"

Oscar becomes desperate. He couldn't accept that kind of justification. He was failing. If he could just reason with him, break through James' trauma and fear, make him understand…

"Listen to me!"

"No! You, listen! I'm done letting others' inability to see the big picture get in the way of doing what's right! Robyn! The council! This kingdom! Even… you."

Oscar briefly wonders if he really meant him… or Ozpin. Because it was more than obvious to him that James was the one who most wanted Ozpin back, trying to jog memories loose during their sparring matches, talking to him as if he were already Ozpin, accepting his council in private moments even though he was still only fourteen and still only Oscar. He didn't even recognize Oscar and Ozpin as different people.

Maybe that would be true someday, but it wasn't true right now. That mattered too.

Cornered and standing at the edge of the platform, Oscar draws himself up to his full height, as much as it paled in comparison to the man before him. His fists tighten, his shoulders tense. In this moment he has never been as sure of himself and what he believed as he was now. He has never been both more afraid and more determined.

"Then you're as dangerous as she is, James."

"James…" Ironwood looks down, thoughtful. "…Is what my friends call me."

He looks up sharply. He draws his pistol.

"To you… it's General."

BLAM!

Oscar falls. His thoughts scatter. He was reeling with pain and shock, staring up at the distant platform as it rose further and further away from him, his small hopes and convictions ringing in his ears. He blankly catches sight of The Long Memory falling in place beside him, eyelids fluttering as he was gradually overwhelmed with the rush of wind howling around him, this sense of powerful weightlessness, the terrifying conclusion he'd drawn of what awaited him at the bottom.

So this is what fear did to people…

Was this… the end? Was this how he died? Ozpin would reincarnate. Oscar wouldn't.

Oscar!

A jolt ran through him.

Ruby dove down the barrel of a cannon for a purpose and belief more powerful than herself! Weiss was impaled with a burning spear, survived, and continued to fight right after! Blake had lived from being stabbed though the stomach, he'd seen the scars, and kept moving forward! Yang had lost an entire arm in her commitment to rescue a loved one! Qrow battled himself! Every! Day! Everyone saw it!

And Oscar?

Oscar reached for his cane. Or maybe they both did.

…

His feet touch the earth. Somehow, through all the horrors and the wonders he is still remarkably alive.

He breathes in awe.

"That power, these memories… You're back, aren't you? You saved me."

Actually, you saved us.

Ozpin then attempts an apology but Oscar cuts him off sharply.

"Stop."

It's too exhausting to keep shuffling and keeping track of identities or unsaid apologies or whose thoughts were whose right now. They simply didn't have the time.

Despite everything he looks up to Atlas with a hungry, burning, overflowing hope deep in his bones.

"All I want to know is how we save Atlas next."

He took one step forward, reunited with Ozpin at last, brimming with adrenaline, with purpose…

and

then

blacked

out.