The Dream always greeted Jaune with a silent whisper. It wasn't silence in the ordinary sense, but the peculiar hush of a world that seed to wait, suspended. It reminded him of walking through a city at dawn—streets empty, windows shuttered, as if the world had only just rembered to breathe. Yet here, the stillness carried a sharper edge. It was the silence of evil holding its breath, a predator crouched in the dark, ready to pounce.
The sky above Beacon's safe zone stretched to the horizon, the sa bleak canvas—a shattered blood-red moon looming low, jagged pieces suspended like glass shards caught in invisible threads. Coppery red light bled over the ground, slick and oily where it touched the cracked world below. The ruins around LUCID's base reached upward like skeletal fingers, windows hollow, and shadows like jagged teeth. Jaune knew that if he ventured outside the zone, the scent of rust and rot would cling to the air. A tallic and cold sll that could make each breath taste like old blood.
Jaune adjusted the strap of his weapon and walked on, boots echoing faintly against the asphalt. Ahead, the central operations building of LUCID's steel and runic plating lood. The girders jutted upward like stylized ribs arching toward the black sky. A pair of sentries stood guard at the main entrance, their silhouettes gleaming faintly along the seams of their rune fras. They didn't speak, only dipped their heads in recognition as he passed, the glow of their visors tracking him until he stepped through the doors.
The atmosphere was taut and humming with controlled urgency. Holo-screens floated above the central command table, projecting shifting maps of the grid, overlays of Grimm movents, and pulsing rune matrices that rotated with geotric precision. Voices murmured in clipped tones—dispatches, numbers, cross-checks. The sort of professional quiet where everyone had long ago learned to keep their composure beneath a layer of routine.
At the far end stood Glynda Goodwitch. As unyielding as a marble, her posture was akin discipline itself. A slate of patrol assignnts hovered in front of her, which she scanned with sharp, precise flicks of her eyes. To her right lounged Vex, perched on a stool with careless grace, one leg crossed over the other, adorned in her form hugging rune fra. The Counselor's ever-present smirk played at her lips as she spun a data stylus between deft fingers, as if she found the entire situation dreadfully amusing. The contrast between her languid posture and Glynda's upright severity was quite stark that Jaune almost winced.
He looked to the left and saw his two friends.
Mocha. And next to her—Pyrrha.
The sight made him pause mid-step.
Pyrrha looked much as she always did in the dream, tall, poised and beautiful. Her sleek black fra that hugged her perfect curves, was accented well by faint crimson tracings that pulsed with soft light. Her long ponytail brushed over her shoulders as she inclined her head toward Mocha, her expression faintly warm. She radiated the quiet assurance of soone who had stepped into combat so many tis it had beco as familiar as breathing.
Mocha, though… was different.
It was still sowhat surreal seeing her here at all, standing in the command center as though she belonged. Months ago, she'd barely survived her patrols. Jaune rembered the scared looked of hollow vacancy in her eyes after her first kills, how she'd clutched her weapon to her chest as though letting go would unmake her. He rembered sitting with her afterward, both of them staring into the fractured skyline in silence, because no words had felt large enough to fill that kind of emptiness.
Now, though… she looked more like a soldier.
Her rune fra hugged her figure in matte black, etched with faint silver lines that glimred whenever she shifted. Training had carved away her softness, leaving behind sothing sharper, leaner. Her stance had a new steadiness, a slight bounce to her heels that betrayed readiness rather than fear. Her gaze, once anxious and unfocused, now carried a keen edge. And slung over her back was a long-fra pulse rifle, gleaming faintly under the holo-lights.
The story of her reassignnt was interesting to most personnel. Fortunately, due to Goodwitch's order of silence, Jaune, Blake and Pyrrha didn't have to explain what had occurred. The incident was quite a serious one after all, with mbers of the Occult club having to have their mory wiped.
Afterwards, LUCID had assigned her with Pyrrha, turning the prodigy's solo deploynts into a duo. Many had whispered about it at first, questioning the logic of pairing one of their most accomplished fighters with soone so green. An anomaly at that.
But that was how LUCID operated. Newly awakened had to be paired with experienced ones in a ntorship-like program so they could be taught to fight and engage the creatures in the dream realm.
There just weren't enough awakened in the world to teach everyone before they were ready. The one major unfortunate aspect of the dream.
In any case, Pyrrha was a monstrous combatant. Able to best practically everyone under Rank 2. Mostly due to the comprehensive nature of her first rune that she had created.
Mocha however… was a girl that stumbled in every drill.
But Jaune rembered the range. He rembered the sound of each of her shots, precise and consistent, with practically no wasted motion or hesitation. Mocha might not be ant for the clash of blades—but at a distance, she was sothing else entirely.
It was Pyrrha who noticed him first. She lifted her head from the data pad she'd been sharing with Mocha and offered a smile that was small but genuine.
"Jaune."
"Pyrrha," he replied, his own lips quirking as he gave a lazy salute. Then his eyes flicked toward Mocha. "Didn't expect to see you two here this early."
Mocha stiffened, almost as if bracing for judgnt, then tried to hide it with a shrug that ca off half-casual, half-defensive. "We're, uh… giving this whole 'teamwork' thing a proper shot. Figured it's better to start early than to stumble later."
"She's being modest," Pyrrha said gently, amusent tugging faintly at her tone. "Her progress has been remarkable."
Mocha's cheeks ward, her eyes darting away. "It's not… it's not that big a deal."
"Not a big deal?" Jaune grinned, leaning a little closer. "Pyrrha doesn't hand out praise like rations, you know. If she says you're good, that's sothing." He tilted his head, eyes narrowing in mock seriousness. "Unless she's secretly using you as bait."
"Jaune," Pyrrha chided, though her lips betrayed her with the faintest twitch.
Mocha muttered under her breath, "Honestly, I'd believe it…"
That drew a laugh from him, warm and genuine.
He thought back to the tis he'd stepped in during their early drills, running Pyrrha's squad mate through mock engagents or light patrol simulations. It had been clear from the outset that Mocha wasn't built for the frenzied chaos of lee. But she hadn't quit. She'd co back every ti, even when she lost and even when she looked like she wanted to collapse. And now she stood here, rifle slung, gaze steady, carrying herself like soone who had carved a place in this unforgiving world.
The doors behind him hissed open. A new group strode in, and Jaune half-turned as the air seed to shift.
Ruby's squad.
Ruby herself was unmistakable—her black fra traced with crimson light, her signature hood pulled up even here in the Dream, silver eyes glinting sharp. Yang walked at her side, golden hair spilling wild over her shoulders, her stride loose and confident. Weiss followed with asured grace, every movent crisp and deliberate, her stance immaculate. And Blake, quiet as shadow, slipped in with a presence that felt more like absence.
Ruby spotted him first. She lifted a hand, bright smile breaking the somber atmosphere. "Jaune!"
"Hey," he called back, smiling as he raised a hand in return.
Their arrival carried the subtle gravity of reputation. Ruby's team had carved theirs through efficiency, through walking into dangerous zones and walking back out intact. They were proof of what LUCID wanted its soldiers to be. Their presence made the air feel heavier, more charged.
Jaune's own squad was already assembled near the command table, listening as Glynda and Vex outlined the patrol sectors. Ren stood with arms folded, expression unreadable, while Nora bounced on her heels, restless energy practically sparking off her. Oscar gave him a nod as he approached.
"Arc," Goodwitch acknowledged without glancing up, her voice clipped.
"Professor. Counselor," Jaune replied easily as he joined the circle. "Anything interesting on the slate today?"
Neither offered much. Goodwitch shook her head minutely, and Vex only tilted her lips into a faint smile, like she knew sothing no one else did but wasn't about to share.
Before turning back fully, Jaune let his gaze wander one last ti toward Mocha. She caught his eye, and for a heartbeat her hardened stance softened. She gave him a small, hesitant smile.
He smiled back, unthinking.
Strange, he thought, how even here—in a place that sought to crush them—people could still grow. Still change. Maybe even thrive.
He squared his shoulders and faced the table, taking his place beside his squad.
Another night. Another hunt.
Goodwitch's gaze slid past Jaune and landed on the boy leaning casually against a supply crate that her tone shifted.
"Pine," she addressed Oscar. "How far along are you until you're ready to rank-up?"
Oscar Pine glanced up, blinking like he'd just surfaced from so private calculation. His short, tousled hair was slightly stuck up as if the Dream itself had been trying to ruffle him, and his rune fra clung to his wiry build like it had been designed to emphasize how deceptively unthreatening he looked. He rolled his shoulders with a shrug.
"Eh," he said. "Since I changed my Rune, not that far. I only need, twenty more fragnts." He shrugged. "One solid session or maybe two. Then I'm good to go."
That's right. Oscar switched his Rune.
Jaune's mind flickered back over the past two months, playing through each fragnted mory like a slideshow. Oscar sitting in the training arena's cold blue glow, jaw set as he told them he was discarding his Rune. The disbelief that had rippled through the others. They had genuinely believed that he had liked that rune. But it had seed that it wasn't the case, after all.
Back then, Oscar's Rune had been Dynamic. It was a strange rune. Fluid, in a sense, letting him store and redirect his own kinetic energy—banking montum mid-leap to launch off in another direction, converting the impact of a landing into explosive acceleration, using every motion like currency. He could weave through battle like water slipping between stones, every step building into the next until his movents were a blur.
But Oscar hadn't been satisfied.
He had described it once, voice taut with sothing close to frustration.
"It's clever, but it's never enough. It makes fast, not strong. It dodges the problem instead of solving it. I don't want to dance around people. I want to stop them in place."
So he had gone to the LUCID archives to do so research.
And afterwards... created, Force.
Jaune had watched him testing it in Dream, the faint shimring glyph appearing behind his back like a cloak. It was terrifying in its simplicity. No elegant finesse or complex chains of redirection. Just raw, overwhelming assertion.
Oscar could change the force of things. All things.
A simple punch that should have nudged an opponent back would instead blast them across the chamber like a cannon shot, the air shattering with the crack of warped pressure. A thrown knife would strike as if hurled by a siege engine, punching through steel plating. Even the recoil from his own weapons could be altered, becoming soft as falling snow or violent enough to rocket him backward.
It was like watching physics bend to his will.
And there were limits, of course. Jaune had asked. Oscar had said he could only increase or decrease force by about threefold at his current level—limited by how much Aura and Will he could channel at once without burning himself out. But even with that ceiling, it was devastating.
It was also… unfair.
Jaune knew enough about Runes now to know they weren't all created equal. So were subtle, tricky, dependent on skill and planning. Others were just brutally effective by their nature.
He thought of Yang Xiao Long's Rune—Kinetic. It let her absorb the damage from attacks and convert it into raw power. Every hit made her stronger. If Ren shot her, she'd just tank it and punch him through a wall.
Lie Ren's Rune—Trajectory—was clever, allowing him to alter the path of anything he launched or threw. His bullets could bend, his knives could curve through the air like predatory birds. But against Yang? He'd barely scratch her before she crushed him like a tin can.
And then there was Pyrrha Nikos. Her Rune was… sothing else entirely. Jaune didn't even like thinking about it. It felt like a cheat code written into reality. Whenever he tried to analyze her movents, they slipped from his grasp like water.
Compared to them, Oscar's new Rune was in their league now. Maybe even scarier, because of how absolute it felt. Force was force. Everything depended on it. Every collision, every strike, every shot, every step.
And Oscar had only just begun mastering it.
"Twenty fragnts," Glynda repeated. Her gaze was asuring, clinical. "Then you will be ready to attempt Rank One."
"Yep," Oscar said. He scratched the back of his neck. "Aura and Body stats are all at ten right now. Just need one more to push Will into ten. It'll be… neat."
Glynda's lips thinned in sothing that might have been approval—or maybe just the faint relaxation of soone removing a weight from a ledger. "Good. Once you ascend, your operational clearance will expand."
"Oh. Alright," Oscar nodded, still leaning against the crate like he was discussing dinner plans instead of his impending tamorphosis into sothing lethal.
Jaune watched him.
He wasn't sure what he felt. Admiration, maybe. Envy, a little. Worry, definitely. Rank-ups changed people.
In any case, Oscar would be a lot stronger after today.
"Once you rank up today or tomorrow," Glynda continued, tapping sothing on her holo-tablet, "your squad will be assigned to start clearing Nightmare Zones rather than city sweeps."
Jaune's eyes widened at that.
Nightmare Zones.
That was a different battlefield entirely.
.
.
AN: Advanced chapters are available on patreon
Reviews
All reviews (0)