This mall was deader than dead.
Its tiled floors were cracked and its walls were broken down. Bits of red moonlight peeked though from the holes in the vast ceiling, high above. The brands and logos all around them now, were hollow shells which looked warped and rusted under the pale crimson beams of light.
In the center foyer, amid overturned kiosks and scattered mannequins, the four of them were surrounded.
Six rank 1 beowolves — each the size of a small truck. They were black-furred things with bone-white masks and pulsing red lines cutting through their visages like veins of fire.
They circled, low and maliciously, steps echoing with predatory hunger across the ruined atrium.
Jaune rolled his shoulders, both swords drawn. The white-gold of Lux Aeterna shimmered faintly against the dusky gleam of Crocea Mors. Every breath he took came out as mist in the chilling air.
"Six," Jaune muttered. "Gonna be tough."
"Better than eight," Nora shouted over the sound of claws scraping against tile. Her hammer hummed faintly, crackling with her stored electrical discharge. "That time, we almost flattened Oscar."
"I was fine!" Oscar called, vanishing in a flicker of red light before reappearing behind one of the Beowolves. His daggers struck twice — shhk, shhk — carving slashes across the monster's spine. Before it could retaliate, he sped away and it howled in anger at his missed attack.
"Totally fine!"
"Focus," Ren's voice cut through, calm, sharp.
He was already in motion — two Beowolves on him, his movements were efficient and deliberate. Every time their claws descended, his hands flicked, and their trajectories bent away, redirected mid-swing like magnets pushed off-course.
His eyes glowed faintly violet.
Ren's Trajectory Rune, was at the edge of comprehension now. It was bound to reach that level quite soon.
No longer was he simply just able to redirect the trajectory of his own attacks, but now, he could also affect those of everything else.
"Jaune," he said evenly, "left flank in three."
Jaune didn't question, he felt the warning before he saw it — a shape lunging from the side, claws glowing red with crackling red and black energy.
He met it with both blades in an X-guard, the impact ringing out like struck steel and sending a shockwave of air bursting through the surroundings. Energy flared, pushing him back several meters.
His boots skidded across fractured tile, sparks hissing from his swords. "This one's got Claw!"
"Be thankful it's not Pounce," Ren replied, slipping between two Beowolves that lunged at once. His rune flared again, and their slashes collided midair, deflected into each other. "That ones a strong one."
"Yeah, well, so are we!" Nora yelled, slamming her hammer into the ground and releasing an electrical shockwave which rippled outward with concussive force. For a moment, every Beowolf in range stumbled, claws cracking against tile.
Jaune grinned, aura surging as he unleashed his Weakness Rune onto all the beowolves in the area. Immediately, he felt his aura drop. His Rune was a true aura guzzler. But the creatures around them also halted, feeling weaker than they had already been before.
"I'll take right!"
He shot forward and Lux Aeterna met claws — clang— followed by Crocea Mors cutting upward in a silver arc. His movements blurred with speed that would've been inhuman in the waking world — each motion sharper and more deliberate than the next, his muscles flowing with the power of his Body stat.
The Beowolf staggered, jaw bruising as golden light from Jaune burned through its mask.
Behind him, Oscar flash-stepped again, his Force Rune shimmering through his form. He twisted, and kicked out, blasting one of the weakened Beowolves mid-lunge into a wall with a focused burst of energy.
The thing crashed through what used to be a clothing store — racks and glass exploding outward.
Jaune ducked as another lunged, claws raking through the air above his head. He countered with a cross-slash, sparks cascading.
He could feel the tempo, that strange, almost rhythmic feeling that always emerged when he fought. A heartbeat under the chaos.
Claws. Swing. Parry. Dodge. Counter.
Then Ren's voice again — "Incoming!"
The warning came half a second before Jaune caught the reflection of motion above.
One of the Beowolves had leapt from the shattered upper floor — its claws glowing with charged red aura, descending like a meteor.
Jaune braced.
And then Nora's arm caught him around the waist.
"Going up, blondie!"
"What—?"
She threw him.
He barely had time to react before his body was airborne, spinning.
Ren's rune flared again — violet trails bending Jaune's trajectory upward and forward, redirecting him in midair like a guided missile.
Jaune grinned as gravity turned liquid.
"Perfect timing!"
He twisted mid-flight, aura flooding through both his blades. Lux Aeterna flared bright gold and Crocea Mors shimmered with icy white. This would be his first attempt using the Aura Echo skill in combat.
He hit the airborne Beowolf like a thunderbolt.
The impact split the air and golden arcs from his blade tore through the monster's chest. Its roar came out as static before dissolving into black ashy mist, body unraveling from within.
Jaune landed in a crouch, blades steaming faintly with the afterglow of his aura discharge. There was a frown on his face, however, as if he was unsatisfied with the outcome.
"It still isn't working right," he muttered, then looked up. "At best, I can only make my swords sharper and cut harder... but layering attacks? No game."
Across the foyer, Ren's focus sharpened. His Trajectory Rune pulsed again, and he could see the lines of invisible threads marking motion, tension and direction. Every slash, leap and claw swipe traced in glowing filaments only he could perceive.
And next to it, the quiet hum of his Accumulate Rune, building. Aura condensed around his guns like compressed mist, glowing faintly magenta.
It roared, jaws widening, claws gleaming with energy.
Ren side-stepped, dragging one hand through the air — a delicate motion — and the Beowolf's forward momentum swerved left, missing him by inches and crashing through a pillar instead.
"Trajectory… set," he murmured.
Then he unleashed Accumulate.
A single shot of condensed aura erupted from his guns like an extremely powerful railgun blast — a focused laser beam of violet-white light. It struck the Beowolf dead center, blowing a hole through its mask and chest in a single instant.
The monster disintegrated into black smoke.
Nora whistled. "Show-off."
Ren allowed himself a rare smirk. "You're one to talk."
She grinned, electricity building along her hammer's edge. "Alright then — let's finish this!"
The next few seconds became chaos.
Oscar blurred across the broken floor, leaving afterimages, his daggers cutting clean lines through shadow and bone. Jaune moved in tandem, intercepting any counterattack that slipped through, the two of them flowing in rhythm.
Ren's aura flared again, bending attacks and creating windows.
And Nora — laughing wildly now — slammed her hammer down, fully charged.
"Boom time!"
The explosion hit like a thunderclap, releasing a detonation that cracked the already shattered floor in every direction. The shockwave ripped through the Beowolves, tearing them apart in a violent flash of red mist — but it also tore through the mall itself.
The ground split and the ceiling above them groaned, then collapsed with a horrific roar.
Concrete dust filled the air in a choking wave as walls buckled inward. Jaune barely had time to cross his swords before debris rained down on them. Fortunately, their rank 1 bodies were strong, so the impact was relatively light. But the darkness and dust that followed was a great annoyance.
For a moment, there was nothing but ringing silence.
Jaune coughed away the dust and pushed. One arm, then the other. The debris was explosively pushed off of him, enough to let him crawl out of his grave.
"Oi! You guys doing alright?" he shouted, his voice muffled by the rubble.
"I'm— fine!" came Ren's steady voice. "Mostly."
"Still alive!" Nora coughed from somewhere to the left. "Though I think I'm part of the flooring now!"
Jaune grunted, forcing his way through the collapsed ceiling tiles. Nora was already halfway out of a mound of debris, hammer first, covered in dust from head to toe.
Oscar wriggled out next, his runic energy flickering faintly around him. He spat out a mouthful of dust and groaned. "Next time, remind me to stand behind you, Nora."
Ren emerged last, calm as ever but coated in gray powder, his hair disheveled.
They stood there for a long moment, breathing hard, surrounded by the smoldering ruin of what used to be the second floor.
Nora slung her hammer over her shoulder and gave the wreckage a once-over. "Well," she said, catching her breath, "that's one way to redecorate a mall."
Jaune let out a tired laugh, brushing off the dust from his Rune Frame. "Next time, maybe leave me and Oscar a few kills before you blow up the building?"
"Tee-hee." Nora stuck her tongue out and knocked her head in a cutesy way.
Oscar shook his head, smirking. "It's fine, Jaune. With how many Grimm are popping up lately, I'm sure we'll have more than enough work on the way back to base."
Ren simply exhaled, eyes scanning the open are ahead of them. "Let's just hope the next one doesn't involve a structural collapse."
Jaune chuckled under his breath as the four of them headed out.
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Qrow's boots echoed softly through the sterile, dimly lit halls of the LUCID base. Perched on his shoulder, was Raven in her raven form. She shifted its wings and let out a quiet croak.
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Qrow muttered, brushing a bit of dust off his jacket. "I told you we'd get here before Oz finished reading those damn reports."
The doors to Ozpin's office slid open with a hiss. Inside, the man himself sat behind his desk, green eyes scanning a glowing set of holographic documents. Steam curled lazily from the coffee mug beside him.
"Oz," Qrow greeted, stepping in. The raven on his shoulder tilted its head, feathers puffing slightly. "Got something interesting for you."
Ozpin looked up, recognizing that tone. He set the holographic pages aside, the light winking out as his hands folded neatly over one another. "What is it? Sleepless again? What have they done this time?"
Qrow shook his head. "No. Fortunately nothing about them right now. But... it might be something a little more than interesting. According to one of my sources, a splinter group of Awakened, that isn't affiliated with LUCID, not Sleepless, just made a breakthrough. There are rumours that they've found a way to make Imbued Runes permanent."
For a moment, the silence in the room thickened. Ozpin's expression froze mid-thought, his brows climbing higher.
"…Permanent?" he repeated softly, as if testing the word. His usual calm faltered for a heartbeat, the weight of that implication hanging heavy in the air. "That… shouldn't be possible. Right?"
"Yeah," Qrow said, pulling a flask from his coat and taking a quick sip. "That's what I thought too."
The raven on his shoulder let out another soft caw.
Ozpin leaned back in his chair, eyes distant now. "If that's true… then..."
Qrow exhaled through his nose. "Yeah, Oz. This... might change a couple of things."
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