They passed a few other operatives on their way back, walking with both purpose and a sense of tiredness. Jaune recognized many of them—second and third years whom he had seen before over the time he had been a part of this organization.
Nora Valkyrie hummed as they approached the end of the corridor, leading to the operations room. "Do you think she already knows?"
"Of course she does," Lie Ren said quietly. "Goodwitch always knows. Well... probably. Maybe."
Oscar Pine shifted nervously, tugging once at his gloves and flexing his fingers. "Still feels weird… like I just became a completely different person."
"Life evolution. Ranking up," Jaune said, trying for a reassuring grin. "That's kind of the point."
Oscar huffed, though his lips twitched upward.
Ren pressed the door panel, and the heavy doors opened with a low hiss.
Inside, the operations chamber, stood the elevated holo-table, casting a pale blue light across the room.
And standing behind it, hands folded neatly, was Glynda Goodwitch.
Her gaze swept over them the instant they entered, sharp and clear like glass.
"Team," she said, her voice clipped yet even. "Report."
They lined up instinctively in front of the table. Jaune kept his back straight, though the hum of energy in the room always made his skin prickle.
Ren stepped forward. "Oscar Pine has successfully achieved Rank One. The process was normal, without any issues."
Goodwitch's eyes moved to Oscar, who straightened under her gaze.
"…Confirmed," she said at last. "Your aura density has increased and your Rune has been ingrained."
Oscar nodded firmly. "Yes, ma'am."
A faint nod. "Congratulations. You have crossed the threshold. I will be observing your development with interest. LUCID has high expectations of its Rank One operatives."
Oscar's throat bobbed. "Thank you, ma'am."
Nora beamed at him. Jaune caught the faintest hint of a smile tug at Goodwitch's mouth before it vanished behind her usual professionalism.
"Very well," she continued, turning back to the table. A map of Vale shimmered above it in glowing threads of light, dotted with flickering red zones.
Jaune's squad gave their report, explaining what they had come across and if anything was amiss in the area of their patrol.
Goodwitch nodded at the end of Ren's explanation.
"This concludes your debriefing. Tomorrow, your squad will be assigned to Zone clearance duty."
Jaune blinked. "Nightmare zones, ma'am?"
"Indeed," she said crisply. "Effective immediately."
Nora saluted. "Yes sir!"
Jaune looked at her with a funny look. It was supposed to be ma'am, not sir. Fortunately, it seemed Goodwitch didn't particularly care.
Ren's eyes narrowed slightly. "Professor, if I may, standard procedure dictates that only Rank One full squads or Rank Two solos are allowed to clear out Nightmare zones."
Jaune hesitated, then voiced what all of them were thinking. "Ma'am… with respect, are you sure? Ren and Nora are both Rank Ones but Oscar just ranked up and... well, I'm still a Rank Zero."
Goodwitch's eyes flicked to him, and he felt the weight of her gaze like a hammer of glass. Not angry, just… cutting.
"I am aware of your squad's current circumstances, Arc," she said. "And, under regular operational protocols, you would be correct. Nightmare Zones are considered highly unstable environments and always contain mutant-class Amalgamation grimm entities, within. Traditionally, only operatives who are Rank One or higher are deployed for clearance."
She tapped the map, and several red blotches pulsed brighter.
"However," she continued, "standard procedure is no longer sustainable."
The room seemed to go still at her words.
Jaune frowned. "…Why?"
Goodwitch exhaled through her nose, a rare sign of fatigue slipping through her composure.
"In the past month, the number of active Nightmare Zones has increased by tenfold. Civilian Dream instability reports have spiked as well — more and more people are falling into persistent Nightmares during natural dreaming. Each time it happens, a new Zone has been appearing within the Dream Realm."
She glanced between them, gauging their reactions.
"Well, in truth, it is not fully understood which event triggers the other — whether Nightmares give rise to Nightmare Zones, or whether spontaneously formed Zones attach themselves to dreaming minds and induce Nightmares. It is… the proverbial chicken and egg scenario."
Ren glanced at Jaune. "So either way… more Nightmares means more Zones."
"Precisely."
Nora crossed her arms, looking unusually serious. "Well... that's bad."
"Very," Goodwitch said, and for a fleeting second, Jaune caught something sharp in her eyes — not fear, but urgency.
She turned back to the map. "With the current frequency of emergences, our Rank One and Rank Two operatives cannot keep up with the rate of Zone proliferation. We cannot allow them to accumulate. The longer a Nightmare Zone persists, the more it matures — and the more powerful the Grimm it spawns become. And that's not to mention what might happen to the individual in the waking world."
Jaune nodded slowly. He'd seen pictures of what... "mature" Grimm amalgamations looked like. He didn't want to see them come into the real world. That would become a major mess.
"So you're… lowering the threshold," he said quietly.
"Correct."
Goodwitch folded her hands behind her back. "Effective immediately, high-performing Rank Zeros which are led by Rank 1's will be permitted to clear low-maturation Nightmare Zones as part of their advancement training. Your squad has also been selected for this program. Your collective performance metrics have been… notable."
Nora grinned a little at that. "We're special."
Jaune felt a flicker of pride. They had worked hard for this. Still…
"Just to be clear," he said, "we won't be going after maturing Zones, right?"
Goodwitch's mouth twitched — not quite a smile. "No. Not yet. You will be deployed only to low-maturation sites, where active spawn density remains minimal and the core is underdeveloped."
"Okay," Jaune said, trying to tamp down the nerves coiling in his gut.
Ren inclined his head. "We will perform as required."
Oscar finally spoke up, voice steady but quiet. "We won't fail, ma'am."
"See that you don't," Goodwitch said simply.
She tapped the console again, and one of the red blotches zoomed into view — a derelict industrial block on Dream Vale's outskirts, black mist seeping through the alleys even in the projection.
"This will be your first assignment," she said. "You will deploy tomorrow. Your objective is simple, neutralize the Nightmare Zone core and eliminate all Grimm spawned within."
"Yes, ma'am," they chorused.
Goodwitch's eyes swept over them one last time. "Prepare yourselves well. The danger of Nightmare zones are quite real. More than regular grimm in the real world. The deaths it could potentially inflict are also real. Treat it as such."
They all nodded.
"Dismissed."
They turned to leave, boots scuffing the cold floor.
But as Jaune reached the door, her voice cut through the air again.
"Arc."
He paused, glancing back. "Ma'am?"
Her eyes pinned him. "As you are the lowest ranked in your unit, you need to see that you survive."
Jaune swallowed, then nodded once. "I will."
"Good."
And just like that, her gaze shifted away, back to the glowing map as if they were already forgotten.
The doors hissed shut behind them muffling the low hum of the holo-table from within the operations chamber.
For a few moments, none of them spoke. The slight tension of the briefing still lingered faintly on Jaune's shoulders, like a film of static. He exhaled slowly, trying to release it. At least they weren't being thrown at a fully matured Zone yet.
That would have been a problem. Though... it might bring his stats up to max, sooner than he was expecting. And give him a chance to condense a rune.
"Whew," Nora Valkyrie said, stretching her arms high over her head as they walked down the corridor. "I feel like she was glaring holes in the back of my skull the whole time."
"She really wasn't," Lie Ren replied.
"She felt like she was!"
"That," Jaune said, "is just how Goodwitch always looks at people. Like they might explode at any second."
"...Okay, that's fair," Nora said cheerfully.
They turned the corner and almost immediately slowed, spotting another squad emerging from a side hallway. Four figures in familiar LUCID Rune Frames — the distinct sleek black armor accented with their individual colors — were walking together, chatting lightly.
Ruby was the first to notice them. Her silver eyes brightened. She raised her hand and waved, the motion brisk and enthusiastic. "Hey, Jaune!"
Beside her, Yang gave a lazy grin and threw up a two-finger salute. Her golden hair caught the light like sunlight.
Blake gave a small nod, her expression calm and reserved, but her amber eyes were warm.
Weiss, however, barely even looked up from the slim data-pad she was holding. At the sight of their group, she sighed quietly and then stepped forward to Ruby's side. "You three can handle the socializing," she stated, with a slightly clipped tone. "I'll deliver our report to Professor Goodwitch."
Ruby blinked. "Oh, but—"
"It will be quick," Weiss announced, simply. "Nothing noteworthy occurred, anyway. It will be a routine debriefing."
Ruby hesitated, then nodded slowly. "...Okay."
Weiss gave the briefest of nods in return and, with a sharp click of her boots, turned and swept down the corridor toward the operations chamber. She didn't look back.
Jaune watched her go, his head tilting slightly. Something about the sight made something pinch in his chest — not pity, exactly, but a kind of… distant melancholy. She always seemed so cold and oddly isolated. Beyond her words to Pyrrha Nikos, Weiss barely ever interacted with anyone, not even her own team. Blake had been similar at first, reserved and withdrawn, but after that strange incident they had shared — the ritual with Mocha — she'd started opening up more. Not fully, but enough that she actually joined in on squad banter now and then. It was progress. She was even… comfortable around him and Pyrrha now, which was nice.
Weiss though… she was a different story.
Jaune shrugged inwardly. He wasn't the same person he used to be. If Weiss didn't want to interact with people outside of patrols and training, then he wasn't going to force anything. He had more important things to focus on than trying to drag someone into a friendship they didn't want.
"Hey, ladies!" Yang called, stepping up with a grin. "Survive the professor's death glare?"
"Barely," Jaune deadpanned, though his lips twitched.
"Good to see you guys," Blake said quietly, her gaze flicking over each of them in turn. Her voice had softened compared to before, when she'd barely spoken to anyone.
Ren offered her a small nod in return. Nora, of course, just beamed. "We always survive! We're invincible."
Yang snorted. "Sure, that's how it works."
While Yang drifted into a joking conversation with Nora and Ren — their laughter starting to echo softly in the hallway — Oscar moved forward to greet Blake with a faint but genuine smile. They spoke in low voices, polite and measured. Oscar really seemed a lot steadier now, Jaune noted. Rank One suited him.
Then Ruby suddenly grabbed his hands.
Jaune stared confusingly down at her. "Uh. Ruby?"
Her eyes sparkled, bright with barely-contained excitement. "Are you free tomorrow?"
That caught him off-guard. "Tomorrow?"
"Yes!" she said, bouncing on her toes slightly. "Because tomorrow… there's going to be a comic book convention in downtown Vale!"
Jaune's mind blanked for half a second.
"A… convention," he repeated slowly.
"Yup! It's going to be huge!" Ruby's grin grew impossibly wider, her voice picking up speed like an accelerating train. "They're going to have stalls and signings and special merch, and the new Mistrali Crusaders: Volume 7 is debuting early, and I've been dying to get it, and I thought—" she paused for breath "—I thought maybe you'd want to go with me."
Jaune just stared at her for a moment, and then felt his heart do an odd little flip.
This… this was exactly his kind of thing. He loved comics. They'd bonded over that, a while ago — spending late nights talking about issue arcs and power retcons and terrible movie adaptations. It was one of the few hobbies they fully, unironically shared.
And she was asking him.
But—
Reality slammed into him like a falling safe. Tomorrow was also the day that Jade Arc — his older sister, currently studying at Vale University — finally had a rare window of free time. She had messaged him earlier in the week, asking if he wanted to grab lunch together. Jaune had already agreed, even choosing an expensive place in Vale where the prices were ridiculous. He could afford it now that he was a LUCID operative.
Besides, it wasn't just a casual lunch — it was one of those rare sibling catch-up moments they hardly ever got anymore.
And that meant—
"Ah," Jaune said, wincing slightly. "I… actually already have plans tomorrow."
Ruby's smile faltered. "Oh."
"Yeah. My sister's free for once, and I promised I'd have lunch with her," Jaune explained quickly. "I picked one of those super expensive places, just to try it out, so… it's kind of locked in."
Ruby lowered her gaze for a moment, her fingers loosening around his hands. "…Oh. That's… that's okay."
"Hey," he said softly, trying for a reassuring smile. "I really do want to go with you. Honest. It sounds awesome."
Her lips twitched, but didn't quite lift. "Yeah."
"What time's the convention open until?" Jaune asked after a beat.
Ruby blinked up at him. "Uh… I think it runs until about seven? Maybe eight."
"Then… maybe," Jaune said slowly, "maybe, if my lunch doesn't run super long… I could still swing by and meet you near the end? Just for a bit?"
Ruby's eyes widened, and the faint gloom around her cracked. "Really?"
"Really," Jaune said. "No promises, but… I'll try."
She brightened instantly, like someone had flipped a switch inside her. "Okay! Yeah! That'd be great!"
"Good," he said, smiling despite himself.
From nearby, Yang called out teasingly, "You two done being all cute over there, or should we give you a minute?"
Ruby yelped and spun around. "W-We're just talking!"
"Uh-huh," Yang said, clearly unconvinced, though grinning.
"Anyway!" Ruby said loudly, face red. "I'll text you the details later, Jaune! Just in case!"
"Yeah," he said, trying to hide his own fluster. "Please do."
Ruby nodded fiercely, then scampered off to join Yang, who was smirking like a cat that had eaten an entire flock of birds. Blake followed them at a calmer pace, giving Jaune a small, amused look as she passed.
'What was that all about?' Jaune couldn't help but wonder.
And just like that, Ruby's squad was gone down the corridor, their voices fading with distance.
Jaune exhaled slowly.
"Comic convention, huh," Oscar said mildly from beside him.
Jaune rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah."
"Sounds fun."
"...It would've been."
Ren gave him a sidelong glance. "You could still go afterwards?"
"Maybe," Jaune said, and for a second he let himself imagine it — bright stalls, crowded halls, laughing with Ruby over overpriced merch and obscure character trivia.
Then he shook the thought off and straightened.
"Come on," he said, and the four of them headed down the corridor together, their boots echoing softly on the polished floor.
.
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AN: Advanced chapters are available on patreon.