The transition out of the base in the Dream Realm was quite fast. They emerged onto a wide avenue that might once have been a major thoroughfare of Atlas City.
In the Dream Realm, like Vale, Belmont and Ansel—Atlas was a corpse wearing the memory of its former grandeur. Towering skyscrapers which loomed overhead had their silhouettes broken and uneven with their windows blown out into hollow black sockets. Elevated walkways sagged or ended abruptly in open air. Once holographic billboards were cracked and broken, only having fragments of advertisements up that no longer made sense. Black snow drifted lazily through the air, though it never quite settled, dissolving into grayish mist before touching the ground.
And up ahead, was the ever dreadful crimson light.
The broken moon.
Winter led the way with composed cadence. To her, here was as it had been in the waking world. Her rune frame glinted faintly, sharp lines of light tracing its contours. Weiss walked at her side, an expression of equal calmness, yet alert. Blake and Jaune brought up the rear, with their senses spread wide, feeling the atmosphere press in from all directions.
Jaune couldn't help but think that Winter's presence was perhaps a little unnecessary from a purely tactical standpoint. The three of them together were more than capable of handling Rank 1 grimm threats.
Yet he understood why Winter was here.
Ironwood had given her the authority, but this was not just about logistics or patrol routes anymore. Winter was making the most of the excuse to remain close to her sister, even if neither of them openly acknowledged it. In jobs like these, proximity carried meaning. Time wasn't always on their side.
Jaune had learned enough about Weiss to recognize that she noticed these things. Ever since the Amalgamation incident back in Vale, something between them had shifted. Weiss was more open now, not with words, but with small allowances—with trust. Jaune suspected she appreciated Winter's presence more than she would ever say out loud.
Even so, the Realm did not care about family bonds.
As denoted by the shrill cry cutting through the air without warning.
Jaune's head snapped upward just in time to see a dark shape diving out of the blackened clouds. Wings snapped open, claws extended and, momentum screaming downward in a lethal arc.
"So that's a manticore," Blake analyzed calmly.
Winter didn't bother moving.
The creature struck her like a meteor.
There was a flash of motion, and a sharp impact, and then something absurd happened.
Winter caught it.
Her hand closed around the Manticore's thick neck as if she were grabbing a misbehaving child by the collar. The force of the dive dissipated into the ground beneath her, cracking the pavement in all directions, yet failing to move her an inch. The Manticore thrashed violently, wings beating, claws raking uselessly against her armor.
She remained still.
She lifted the beast effortlessly, holding it at arm's length. The sight was ridiculous in the most surreal way possible. A woman barely over 175cm, calmly choking a Grimm the size of a small house. Its weight seemed meaningless in her grasp and its strength irrelevant.
The power of a Rank 2 versus a Rank 1.
"Observe its physical stature and notice where its weak point are located" Winter taught evenly, calmly pointing to several spots on its body.
Jaune stared, a slow grin tugging at the corner of his mouth despite himself. He could probably do something similar if he layered Weakness and Plunder to their fullest extent, but he knew the truth of it. He wouldn't walk away as cleanly as Winter was doing now. Not without damage or strain.
The Manticore shrieked as its claws scraped against Winter's arm, sparks flying as its talons failed to penetrate her defenses. She frowned at it.
She raised her sword and the blade gleamed as she pointed it skyward.
"Do not fixate on this single target," she said sharply. "That mistake tends to get a person killed."
Jaune followed her gaze.
The sky above Atlas twisted as shadows moved through it. One became two. Two became four. Manticores circled overhead, wings slicing through the air with frightening speed. Their cries echoed off the ruined buildings as they began to dive, coordinating their attacks instinctively.
Weiss inhaled sharply and Blake shifted her stance.
Jaune's power surged outward, Will snapping into focus as he invoked Weakness. The invisible force washed over the descending Manticores like a suffocating blanket. Their movements stuttered mid dive, wings beating unevenly as their momentum faltered. The creatures howled in frustration, their speed visibly reduced.
"Now," Jaune muttered.
He layered Plunder on top of it.
Three tethers of unseen force latched onto the Grimm, siphoning strength, speed, and vitality. Jaune felt the familiar surge rush through him, his body growing lighter, stronger, faster. The world sharpened. His muscles thrummed with borrowed power.
The Manticores slowed even further, their dives turning clumsy, their once lethal precision reduced to frantic flailing.
Winter released the Grimm in her grasp, snapping its neck with a clean, efficient motion before letting the corpse dissolve into black mist.
"You have two different meta Runes?" she asked, glancing at Jaune with interest.
"Yeah. I figured I needed something insane to rival the problems that we're facing nowadays."
"Fair enough."
Weiss's rune flared to life beneath her feet, ice forming instantly as she prepared to engage. Blake vanished into motion, her clones spreading outwards as she repositioned.
Jaune tightened his grip on his weapons, senses alive with tension and anticipation.
The Manticores came in screaming arcs of shadow and bone, their wings carving crescents through the gray Atlas sky. Winter moved back in a single controlled leap that carried her away from the center of the street and gave the others room to breathe. She landed lightly atop a fractured slab of concrete, blade angled downward, posture relaxed yet coiled. Her eyes never left the sky.
"Your space," she said calmly.
The trio did not hesitate.
The first three Manticores slammed into Jaune like falling buildings, claws raking and stingers flashing with runic light energy. The impact cratered the street beneath him as asphalt exploded outward in a large broken fan. Jaune slid back half a meter and then stopped as his heels bit into the ground as if the city itself had decided to brace him. He raised an arm, and slapped away an energy claw strike which glanced off his forearm guard and shattered a nearby wall instead.
That strange and intoxicating clarity of Weakness superimposed onto Plunder was threaded through the Manticores like an invisible net, tugging at their timing and dulling the precision of their movements. Stolen strength was pulsing along his body until his muscles felt dense and humming, like coiled steel wrapped in heat.
One of the Manticores lunged low, Claw rune igniting along its forelimbs. Jaune's weakness sense flared sharp and insistent, a red spike of danger screaming at the edge of his awareness. He twisted aside instead of blocking, letting the rune empowered strike tear through the ground where his ribs had been a heartbeat earlier. Stone and metal disintegrated in a roaring bloom of debris.
Another followed immediately, Sting rune forming along its tail. That one he blocked.
The stinger hit his raised left sword arm and detonated in a burst of corrosive energy that ate through the street behind him. Jaune barely budged. His energy flared brighter and absorbed the brunt of the force, and he felt the impact roll through him like a distant thunderclap rather than pain. He exhaled, almost laughing under his breath.
'So this is what it feels like, full synchronization in battle.'
He stepped forwards instead of back.
He dropped both of his sword and drove his fists into the chest of the nearest Manticore with a sound like a collapsing building. The creature's rib plating shattered inward, and its red eyes flickered with dying strength as Jaune's Plunder tore more strength from it. He ripped the creature from the ground and slammed it sideways into another attacker, the collision folding wings and snapping bone. Both bodies skidded across the street in a storm of sparks and dust.
The third tried to disengage, wings beating furiously as it clawed for altitude.
Jaune didn't let it.
He leapt.
The jump carried him up higher than any normal building and his legs smashed into the creature's torso midair. He grabbed its neck with both hands and twisted. There was a wet crack, and the Manticore went limp. Jaune landed moments later, street buckling beneath his weight as the corpse hit the ground beside him.
He straightened slowly and twitched his fingers before his swords once again appeared in his hands. His breath was steady and his heart was calm.
He hadn't even broken a sweat.
To his left, the fight was louder and messier.
Weiss and Blake moved together through the shattered avenue, their coordination instinctive and sharp. Even weakened, the Manticores were fast and darting in and out of range with brutal intelligence. One swooped low, forcing Weiss to brace as a Claw strike slammed into her conjured ice shield. The translucent barrier cracked, spiderweb fractures racing across its surface, but it held.
Weiss countered instantly, rapier flicking upward as fire bloomed beneath her feet. She kicked out and a gout of flame forcing the beast back. Immediately after, Ice surged from the ground in jagged spears, forcing the creature to veer away mid charge. It shrieked and its wings scraped against the nearby buildings as it pulled altitude.
Blake was already moving.
A Manticore dove toward her from above, with its talons extended, Sting rune blazing along its tail. Blake did not look panicked. She vanished in a flicker of shadow as the attack passed through her previous position and obliterated the street behind it.
A phantom clone stood where she had been, already dissolving as the damage transferred into it. The clone shattered completely, dispersing into motes of dark light.
Blake had gone through a few rune iterations at Rank 1. Her current rune, Substitute was a very beguiling rune. It capabilities allowed her to transfer damage to another object. The problem with that was she had to be touching an object before the damage could be transferred.
She had believed the rune to be weak at first, but after further testing, an interesting rune synchronization effect had made itself known. Whenever Blake used a clone, any damage that she accumulated could be transferred to it.
Another interesting synchronization effect was physical place substitution. If a clone was in a different location and she was in another, she could switch locations with it similar to how teleportation worked.
In a sense, she was somewhat of a teleporter like how Jaune used to be.
Using her rune, Blake reappeared behind the creature in the same breath. Her katana flashed and cut across the creature's wing joint. It screamed and spun, flailing wildly as it lost altitude.
Weiss slid in seamlessly, launching a barrage of ice shards that slammed into its exposed flank. The weakened body of the Manticore buckled and sputtered as the combined pressure overwhelmed it. The creature hit the ground hard, skidding through rubble before going still and dissolving.
Another swooped in immediately to replace it.
The Manticores learned quickly.
Ground assaults were not working. Jaune was an immovable wall, and Weiss and Blake were too coordinated and too slippery. The creatures pulled back, with their wings beating hard as they climbed, circling above the ruined city like vultures considering a carcass that refused to die.
Then they dove together.
Three of them, synchronized, coming in from different angles at blistering speed.
Weiss braced, summoning layered shields, ice overlapping ice in a translucent fortress. The first impact rocked her back, carving grooves through the street. A second hit shattered the outer layer with shards exploding outward in a hail of glittering debris.
Blake twisted through the chaos, with her clones flickering in and out of existence as strikes that should have crippled her instead obliterated phantoms. Each substitution was flawless, as damage was redirected and positions were exchanged, her presence blinking across the battlefield in a disorienting dance.
Still, the pressure was mounting.
Jaune turned toward them, already shifting his weight to leap. His tethers to the three grimm he had been fighting dissolved and Plunder was roaring eagerly within him to tether to the other ones ahead.
He took a step before a hand suddenly touched his shoulder.
He spun, instincts flaring, only to find Winter standing behind him, close enough that he had not sensed her approach at all. Her expression was calm and composed, but her eyes were intent.
"Cancel it," she said quietly. "Your rune. On their opponents."
Jaune blinked. He hesitated for a second then nodded his understanding, realizing her intent. The invisible net unraveled. Weakness withdrew from the Manticores fighting Weiss and Blake and the oppressive drag lifting like a curtain being pulled back.
The change was immediate.
The Manticores roared, and their movements sharpened. Their speed surged back into their limbs. Their eyes burned brighter and more aggressive, with the very air itself seeming to recoil as they dove again.
Blake felt a Claw strike graze her shoulder, pain flaring hot and sharp before she forced it onto a clone that shattered instantly. She hissed under her breath, landing hard as she switched places again, pulse quickening.
Weiss grimaced as her next shield cracked faster than she expected, the impact driving her to one knee. She grit her teeth and pushed more aura into the construct, holding it just long enough to roll aside as a Sting attack detonated where she had been.
"Hey! Jaune, what gives?" She cried out sparing him a glance. When she saw her sister standing next to him, a hidden understanding seemed to bloom in her mind as she grimly frowned.
Jaune watched with fists clenched.
Fortunately, they adapted.
Blake stopped retreating. Instead, she baited a dive, letting a Manticore commit fully before switching places with a clone positioned midair. The creature overshot, wings colliding with Weiss's summoned ice pillar. Weiss seized the opening, freezing its wing solid and shattering it with a precise thrust.
The final Manticore screamed and tried to disengage.
Weiss planted her foot and a blast of wind detonated beneath Blake, launching her forward like a projectile. Blake spun through the air with her blade flashing, and sliced it clean through the creature's neck. It collapsed in a broken heap of bone and ash.
Silence fell over the street, broken only by distant wind and settling debris.
Winter stepped forward, surveying the aftermath with a measured nod.
"Well done," she said. "You understood why I asked to stop using her rune, correct?"
"Yep."
"Yes. It was to help us get familiar with their strength. If we were to fight against them separated from Jaune, we might have underestimated their capabilities."
"Good."
Jaune exhaled slowly, tension draining from his shoulders. He glanced at Weiss and Blake, both breathing slightly hard but standing tall, eyes sharp and alive with the thrill of the fight.
He smiled faintly.
Atlas was going to be interesting.
Winter did not slow her pace as she proposed finishing the patrol route. Her tone made it sound like an afterthought, as if clearing the rest of the sector was simply another box to tick before the night ended. She added that they were under no obligation to continue.
"As visitors from Vale, your presence here is already a courtesy extended by Atlas. If you wish, the three of you could withdraw at any time and no one would fault you for it."
The three of them exchanged looks almost immediately.
Jaune shrugged first, the motion easy and unforced. "We came this far."
Blake nodded once, already scanning the ruined skyline ahead as if the decision had been made before the words were spoken. Weiss lifted her chin. "We might as well finish it properly."
Winter watched them for a moment, something unreadable passing through her eyes. Then she nodded and turned, leading them deeper into the fractured streets of Dream Atlas. The silence here was different from Vale. Not emptier, but heavier, as if the city itself was holding its breath.
They moved methodically, following the route Winter had memorized long ago. She checked corners, elevated walkways, collapsed plazas. Weiss was mirroring her movements instinctively, while Jaune and Blake were more casual about it.
They encountered Grimm often enough to keep their blades warm. Packs of Beowolves crawled out from beneath broken overpasses, their red eyes gleaming with animal hunger. An Ursa lumbered out from behind a toppled transit hub, roaring as if offended by their intrusion.
They dealt with them efficiently.
Beowolves fell in clusters, Weiss freezing their legs in place while Blake darted through them in blurs of motion, her blade flashing in tight arcs. Jaune stepped in where needed, crushing skulls or snapping spines with controlled force, never lingering longer than necessary. The Ursa took longer, its thick hide resisting superficial strikes, but Winter stepped forward without hesitation, cleaving through its defenses with a single decisive blow.
As they moved, Jaune was a little surprised as they suddenly crossed paths with others.
Another squad appeared near a ruined rail junction, their rune frames glowing faintly in the gloom. They moved in formation, disciplined and alert. When they spotted Winter, they stopped immediately.
The entire group saluted.
Winter returned it with a nod that was sharp and professional. "Report."
The leader stepped forward. He looked young, barely older than Jaune, with close cut hair and a small scar running along his jaw. "Clarion, patrol unit seven. We just finished clearing a Nightmare zone two blocks east. Rank one, low resistance. Amalgamation neutralized."
Winter nodded. "Any spillover?"
"No, ma'am. Area is stable."
"Good. Carry on."
Clarion saluted again, then cast a quick glance at Jaune and the others before leading his squad away. Their footsteps faded quickly, swallowed by the city.
Jaune frowned slightly as they continued. In Vale, patrol routes never overlapped. Efficiency demanded it. Cover more ground and minimize redundancy.
This was different.
He understood why.
LUCID was no longer simply containing grimm threats. It was fighting a war with Sleepless, now. Overlap meant backup. It meant that if something went wrong, someone else would hear it, see it and respond.
The thought lingered with him as they pressed on.
By the time they reached the edge of their route, the city had grown quieter again. Even the Grimm seemed to thin out.
That was when the air changed.
It was not subtle. A sudden tightening in his chest, a cold pressure crawling across his senses like fingers dragging along glass.
Winter stopped immediately, instinctively, raising a hand.
Ahead of them stood a dilapidated apartment complex, its façade cracked and leaning, balconies hanging like broken teeth. Black snow lay untouched at its base.
Then the mist began to form.
Black fog seeped out from between the buildings, thick and oily, curling upward and outward. It did not move like smoke. It flowed with intention, reaching and recoiling as if testing the space around it. Red motes flickered to life within, pulsing slowly like distant heartbeats.
The nightmare zone expanded, swallowing the lower floors first, then climbing higher, wrapping the structure in a shroud of shifting darkness.
Jaune stared, breath slow and measured. He had never seen one form before. Only ever arrived after the place had done forming.
This was interesting to see.
"Wow. So that's how it forms?" Blake murmured.
Winter's jaw tightened. "Rank two," she said after a moment.
Weiss swallowed, eyes fixed on the spreading fog. "Are you going to clear it or report it so someone else clears it?"
Winter hesitated.
The pause was brief, but noticeable. Her gaze flicked from the zone to the three of them, then back again. "I should do it," she said quietly.
Then she added, "Alone."
Jaune turned to her, confusion flickering across his face. "Alone? We've been in rank two zones before."
Winter looked at him, her expression firm but not unkind. "And you know how unpredictable they can be. Atlas zones are, in some cases, worse. The amalgamations here are different. I will finish it quicker by myself."
Blake frowned. "We can still help."
"You can," Winter agreed. "Outside."
She gestured toward the edges of the forming fog. "If anything spawns from the zone, kill it. Do not let it spread and do not follow me in."
Weiss stepped forward, concern written plainly across her face. "Winter."
Winter met her gaze, and for just a moment the steel cracked. "I will be fine," she said softly.
Jaune nodded slowly. He did not like it, but he understood. They were rank ones. Strong, but not invincible.
"Alright," he said. "We'll hold the perimeter."
The fog thickened, swallowing the lower entrance completely.
Winter adjusted her grip on her sword, took one final breath, and stepped forward.
The mist closed around her, swallowing her silhouette whole.
The nightmare zone sealed behind her with a slow, creeping hush.
Jaune exhaled slowly, eyes narrowing as he extended his senses outward, scanning for movement.
Suddenly, he froze mid step.
The sensation crawled up his spine first, a cold prickle that set every instinct screaming at once. His weakness sense flared, not pointing at one threat, but many, scattered and closing in. He didn't hesitate.
"Heads up," Jaune said sharply.
Weiss and Blake reacted instantly, drifting closer until their shoulders nearly brushed his. Weiss's hand hovered near her rapier. Blake shifted her stance, with her weight light on her toes, eyes tracking movement that hadn't yet fully revealed itself.
Then the street ahead exploded.
Asphalt cratered inward with a thunderous crash, fractured stone and dust blasting outward as something massive slammed down in front of them. The ground trembled under its weight. Jaune looked up.
A Beringel.
It was enormous, easily the size of a small building, its hulking gorilla shaped frame wreathed in reddish black energy that clung to its limbs like living armor. It reared back and roared, the sound shaking broken windows and sending loose debris skittering across the road.
Jaune stared at it for half a heartbeat before exhaling slowly. "Seriously," he said flatly. "Winter leaves for less than a minute and this happens immediately?"
Blake snorted despite herself. "Bad luck seems to follow you. More, incoming."
Movement rippled through the surrounding ruins.
More Beringels emerged, crawling out from behind collapsed buildings and shattered storefronts. One hauled itself over the side of an apartment complex, its weight cracking the concrete as it dropped to the street. Another smashed through a wall in a spray of brick and dust. They encircled the trio with frightening speed, massive forms hemming them in from all sides.
Each one roared, low and hungry.
Jaune's grip tightened on his sword. His runes surged, Will aligning instinctively as he prepared to layer Weakness and Plunder together, already calculating angles and priorities. This would be messy, but manageable.
Then the world screamed.
A sharp, piercing whistle sliced through the air, high and metallic. Jaune barely had time to register it before each and every one of the Beringels' heads detonated.
It was not an explosion so much as a violent collapse. Skulls ruptured inward, spraying dark ichor and fragments of bone in all directions. Massive bodies shuddered once, then toppled like felled towers, shaking the street as they hit the ground.
Weiss reacted on instinct, ice blooming outward in a translucent wall that shielded the trio from the gore. A moment later, she blinked and lowered it slowly.
Nothing had come close to hitting them.
Silence fell again, heavier this time.
Footsteps echoed from the shadows.
Not the scrape of claws or the thunder of Grimm movement, but a rhythmic metallic clicking that did not belong to anything living. Jaune turned toward the sound, heart pounding as something emerged from between two ruined buildings.
It was… a person.
At least, it had been shaped like one from the waist up.
Its lower body was a mechanical construct of four articulated spiderlike legs, black metal limbs that folded and unfolded with eerie grace as it moved. Its torso was clearly artificial, armored plating layered over a compact frame humming softly with power. Where arms should have been were integrated weapon systems, sleek pulsar cannons still faintly glowing at the barrels.
Its head was the most unsettling part.
It was shaped like a human's, smooth and pale, but unmistakably synthetic. Its eyes glowed faintly, scanning with an intensity that made Jaune feel dissected rather than observed.
The thing stopped several meters away and spoke.
"Threat neutralized," it said in a voice that was both flat and metallic.
It took a step closer, then another, the mechanical legs clicking softly against the broken street. Weiss's grip tightened on her rapier.
The android's gaze swept over them.
"Scanning," it intoned.
Jaune felt an invisible sensation pass over his skin.
"Designation confirmed," the android said. "Human. Human. Human."
It straightened slightly. "Carry on, warriors of humanity."
Then, as if they were nothing more than a footnote, it turned away.
The machine crawled forward on its spider legs and positioned itself at the edge of the Nightmare Zone. The black mist roiled and writhed, red motes pulsing more violently in response to its presence, but the android did not react. It simply stood there, weapons angled downward, silent and watchful.
Jaune stared at it, mouth slightly open, until he finally found his voice. "What the hell?"
.
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AN: Long chapter
Advanced chapters are available on patreon