What was it like to fight a group of Gladius Centurions who were masters of melee combat?
The truth was simple.
It was easy and impossibly hard, both at once.
Easy, because they were machines.
Hard, because they were machines perfected for killing.
It shouldn't be mistaken that the destruction of the Archer units were evidence of their weakness. They hadn't fallen because they were fragile or poorly designed. They were strong. Stronger than almost all Rank One operatives by a wide margin, standing at the peak in terms of combat strength. Their firepower, positioning, and coordination would have annihilated weaker teams in minutes.
They only failed because Jaune Arc existed.
His meta rune at Comprehension level was a direct counter to artificial constructs bound by physical structure, rather than living Aura. Weakness didn't care about alloy density or energy shielding. It did not bargain with logic. It simply weakened the bonds that held things together.
Without him, the casualty count would have been catastrophic.
In a different world, with a different roster, Pyrrha Nikos would have possibly achieved similar results. Her Ferrous rune against machines would have also destroyed them. These Centurions weren't Grimm, nor were they awakened, who were wielders of runes. They couldn't counter every single possible power there was.
The only reason that they could, was because they were built to be able to fight against most types of runes. There were advantages and disadvantages to many different choices. And one of those choices simply happened to be the alloy that they were made it. While technically—somehow or rather—made of awakened remains, they were also machines. Human technology pushed to its absolute limit.
And limits, once reached, could be broken.
Now, with the Archers gone and Jaune's Aura nearly spent, the battlefield had shifted into its purest form.
Steel against steel.
The Gladius Centurions advanced.
Seven of them remained.
They moved like supreme predators given purpose, limbs hammering the broken floor as their glowing blades carved arcs through the air. Their coordination was flawless. Each unit flowed around the others, covering blind spots, adjusting angles, creating layered pressure that never relented.
Jaune and the other operatives stepped forward anyway.
His breathing was steady and while his Aura was no longer a roaring tide, he could still make use of the passive weakness sense that permeated his senses.
Weiss was at his right, her rapier humming softly as runic energy bloomed before her in the air. Blake was to his left, her katana already in motion, flicking as she repositioned with her clones in silent intent.
Two Gladius Centurions broke from the formation and charged at them, causing the broken floor to crack even further under their weight.
Jaune met the first with a head on clash.
The Centurion struck with blinding speed, twin blades scissoring toward his torso. Jaune twisted, with perfection letting one blade scrape across his skin as he stepped inside the arc of the second, third and fourth. His two swords came up in a perfect tight parry that rang like a bell struck by a hammer.
This wasn't a foe he could overpower.
The Centurion followed with its limbs stabbing into the ground as it spun, blades flashing in a relentless cascade. Jaune retreated half a step, then another, deflecting and redirecting, utilizing his weakness sense on himself with full concentration.
Weiss intervened with a flick of her wrist, creating ice just beneath the Centurion's rear limbs, freezing them in place for a fraction of a second. That was all Jaune needed. He lunged, driving his blade into the exposed joint, twisting hard. Metal screamed as systems buckled.
The Centurion reeled, but didn't fall.
The second Gladius struck just as he was repositioning.
Blake was already there.
She vanished in a shadowy blur slipping between the machine's blades as her clone took the brunt of the strike. The Centurion shredded the decoy in a spray of shadow and light, only for Blake to reappear from behind it, blade biting into the back of one of it's knee joints.
The Centurion whirled like a top, limbs striking out with brutal force.
Weiss slid into position, her rapier stabbing forward as a burst of fire force detonated inside the joint Blake had weakened. The leg collapsed inward.
Jaune surged forward, timing his strike with Weiss's attack. His sword plunged into the Centurion's torso, severing core connections. The machine convulsed, then collapsed in a heap of sparking metal.
One down.
The remaining Centurion adapted and shifted its stance with the blades widening and pressure increasing. This one was adjusting its algorithms to account for their different teamwork capabilities.
Blake darted in and out, testing defenses, her strikes glancing as the Centurion predicted her movements. Weiss layered ice, fire and wind beneath all three of them, altering momentum and forcing micro adjustments in every exchange.
The fight became a dance of inches.
A blade almost clipped his side, but his senses had already accounted for that. He didn't slow, stepping into the strike, refusing to let the Centurion capitalize.
The opening he created was taken advantage of by Blake who did something weird with her Phantom rune, creating two of her clones in the same space. The clone that came out had four arms and anchored itself around the Centurion's upper limb, pulling it off balance just long enough for Weiss to freeze the joint solid. Jaune brought Lux Aeterna down with as much strength as he had left.
The blade split metal and the Centurion fell.
Elsewhere, the battlefield raged just as fiercely.
The team Jaune had split off from earlier was locked in brutal combat with two Gladius Centurions of their own. Their coordination was tighter now, refined by necessity. The operative with the pink energy constructs took point, shield raised absorbing blow after blow as another struck from behind, targeting joints and sensors. A third moved constantly, harrying the Centurions, drawing attacks away at critical moments.
It was slow.
But it worked.
One Centurion overextended, its limb caught between shield and blade. The operatives didn't hesitate. They piled on, tearing it apart piece by piece until it collapsed under sheer accumulated damage.
The second fought harder and seemed to be trying to adapt.
It nearly killed one of them.
Yet they adapted faster.
A blade pierced through an operative's shoulder. Only a last second intervention saved him, as pink construct guy's shield slammed into the Centurion and knocked it off balance.
They finished it together.
At the far end of the wing, the operatives who had originally been defending the researchers were fighting for their lives against the remaining three Gladius Centurions.
They fought among broken floors and hanging cables, every misstep threatening a problematic fall. Shields flared and shattered. Energy attacks scorched armor. Blades clashed again and again.
One Centurion forced its way through the line and nearly reached the barricaded researchers.
Nearly.
A spear wielder intercepted it, unleashing a supreme thrusting attack that carved a massive hole into its frame and into the wall behind it. Another operative drove a concentrated blast into its back, staggering it long enough for a third to sever its legs at the joint.
The machine collapsed.
The remaining two fought back to back, refusing to yield even as they were surrounded.
It took everything the operatives had left to bring them down but they did. When the final Centurion fell, the silence that followed was heavy and absolute.
They had won.
The aftermath settled slowly, like dust after a collapse.
Breathing came first, the heavy, uneven pull of lungs trying to remember what calm felt like. Jaune rested his hands on his knees for a moment, head bowed as small beads of sweat dripped from his chin and vanished into the grime coating the floor.
Around him, others were doing the same.
Operatives leaned against broken walls or sat amid wreckage, checking injuries with practiced efficiency. Some laughed quietly, the brittle sound of people who had stared death in the face and found themselves still breathing. Others simply stared, eyes unfocused, letting the adrenaline drain away drop by drop as they stared at the bodies and destruction around them.
Penny's voice cut through the haze, gentle but firm.
"Jaune, father is attempting to contact you."
He straightened immediately. "Right, can you put him through."
"It isn't a direct call," Penny replied. "He has issued a directive through the base network. All survivors from this sector are to be escorted to the medical wing as soon as possible. Command has relocated there to prioritize treatment and stabilization."
Jaune nodded without hesitation. "Alright. Let's get everyone moving."
As the operatives began to organize evacuation routes, guiding researchers and unawakened staff away from the wreckage, Jaune's mind began to catch up with itself.
Now that the fighting had stopped, the questions rushed in.
Too many of them.
Why did Arthur Watts do all this?
Why now, and why here?
He moved through the shattered eastern wing, helping to lift the debris, and steady the injured, keeping watch even as Penny confirmed again and again that there were no hostile units remaining. The Centurions were gone and every last one that were in the base was destroyed. The LUCID base was secure, at least on the surface.
Yet nothing about this felt finished.
Watts had done this deliberately. That much was obvious. In addition to that, the base systems didn't fracture this cleanly without preparation. This had been planned, timed, and executed with precision.
Jaune's thoughts circled back to the same name over and over.
Sleepless.
It was the only explanation that fit all the gaps without forcing logic to bend.
Sleepless didn't act randomly. They were zealots, yes, but not fools. Every action they took was layered with intent, even if the full picture only revealed itself much later. Jaune had learned that the hard way.
His father was proof of that.
Turning Jaune into an awakened artificially was not something done on impulse. There had been some sort of plan involved. Knowledge and preparation. A purpose that Jaune still did not fully understand. The man had never explained himself, not before disappearing, and not afterwards.
Then there were the amalgamation attacks in Vale. Those weren't chaotic rampages, but targeted events that were supposedly used to push boundaries and gather data. Pressure tests for awakened systems and responses.
Belmont had been another piece of the puzzle. The Perpetuity rune was not something Sleepless had just stumbled upon. They had hunted for it and calculated its value. They risked exposure to obtain it and in the wake of them doing so, slaughtered an entire LUCID base.
And now Atlas.
Jaune glanced down the corridor as they moved, watching as med teams met them halfway with stretchers and mobile treatment units. This base was one of the most secure facilities in the world. Runic energy systems. Experimental technology. Archives of awakened data. Prototype devices that had never seen the light of day.
If Sleepless wanted something, this was exactly the kind of place they would strike.
And the timing was too perfect to ignore.
All Rank Two operatives were mobilized to Rime. Ace operatives and Specialists included. Ironwood and a Rank Three grimm were clashing in the Dream Realm, drawing attention and power away from Atlas itself. Nightmare zones were flaring. The world was focused elsewhere.
Leaving behind only two Rank Twos.
Arthur Watts and Pietro Pollendina.
Jaune's jaw tightened.
Watts had vanished during the chaos. Penny confirmed it repeatedly. She had searched the base thoroughly once she had full control restored. There was no trace of him nor was there any biometric signal. He had also stopped fighting her for control anymore, either.
He had simply disappeared.
Whatever Watts wanted, he had appeared to have already taken it?
Or set it in motion, at least. Jaune wasn't sure.
Penny's form floated quietly on his shoulder as they walked, seemingly subdued by the weight of events.
Jaune glanced at her. "Penny. You're sure there aren't any Centurions left?"
"Yes, friend Jaune" she replied without hesitation. "All Centurion units registered to this base have been destroyed. Their command protocols have ceased entirely."
"That's good," Jaune said quietly.
But it did not make him feel better.
"How did you manage to take full control of the base?" he asked after a moment. "Even after Watts stopped interfering."
Penny tilted her head slightly. "I am not entirely certain how to explain it in simple terms. My... special circumstances had allowed me to interface with systems, both runic and traditional digital systems simultaneously. The LUCID base uses hybrid command structures. Once Watts disengaged, there was no opposing authority with sufficient clearance to block me."
Jaune frowned. "So you just… fit."
"Yes," Penny said. "That seems accurate."
He had a feeling that was not the full truth, but he let it rest. There would be time later. Maybe.
They reached the medical wing amid controlled chaos.
Unlike the command room or the shattered research wing, this area had been rapidly reinforced. Temporary partitions had been raised. Emergency runic fields stabilized the air and dampened sound. Medical personnel moved with focused urgency, treating wounds, administering healing rune stabilizers, and ushering the most critical cases deeper into specialized rooms.
Pietro Pollendina stood near the center of it all.
He was issuing instructions quietly, efficiently, his voice carrying authority even without volume. Assistants moved at his word, systems responding instantly to his commands. To an outsider, he looked composed.
Jaune knew better.
The man's shoulders were tense and his movements were sharp. His eyes carried something dark and heavy beneath their focus.
And when he noticed Penny.
He stopped and stared.
The world seemed to narrow to that single moment. His gaze fixed on the small figure perched on Jaune's shoulder, orange light reflecting faintly in his eyes.
Penny waved gently. "Hello, father."
For a long second, Pietro did not respond.
His expression twisted, not into anger, but into something far more complicated. Fear, pride and guilt.
But most importantly, relief.
It all tangled together.
"Penny," he said at last, his voice low. "You…"
"I am aware of your concerns," Penny replied softly. "However, my actions were necessary to preserve life."
Pietro's jaw tightened. He looked away briefly, toward the rows of injured personnel, the stretchers, the medics working tirelessly to keep people alive.
Then he looked back at her.
"And how much of yourself did you risk to do that?" he asked.
Penny smiled, small and sincere. "Less than if I had done nothing."
Jaune watched the exchange in silence.
There was something deeply wrong here, something that went beyond Watts, beyond Centurions, and seemingly beyond even Sleepless. Penny was not just a tool or a system. Whatever she was becoming, whatever she already was, it seemed to sadden her creator.
Pietro's hands clenched on the armrests of his chair.
"We will speak later," he said finally, eyes still locked on her. "All of this… will need to be addressed."
Penny nodded. "I will remain available."
Jaune exhaled slowly.
Pietro then hesitated, before beckoning Jaune, Weiss and Blake towards him. "There is... something that I need to tell you."
This was it.
Answers to the many questions that Jaune had.
"How can we help, Doctor Pollendina." Weiss offered.
The man sighed. His gait seemingly stressed. "Penny has probably told you that Watts isn't here in LUCID, correct?"
"Yes. Is that not the case?" Blake asked, glancing at Penny.
"No. She's right. Except that doesn't mean that he has left Atlas. He's probably in the research facility that's connected to this base."
"Research facility?" Jaune asked.
"Indeed. There is a research facility that is connected to the base on the other side of Atlas through a tunnel that LUCID built. I checked the access logs and Watts was the last one to use that tunnel."
"Right... well, why is he going there? Is there something important there?" Jaune asked.
Pietro massaged his temples and watched the bustling medical staff treat the other people wounds for a few seconds.
"There is indeed something there. Something very important to LUCID as a whole."
Pietro turned back and stared at the three of them. His eyes, darkening.
"Creation is located over there."
.
.
AN: Advanced chapters are available on patreon