"I am curious," he said. "Very curious. Tell me, how does your rune function? And more importantly, what do you call it?"
The question landed with a weight Jaune felt all the way down to his bones.
For half a heartbeat, his first instinct was to tell Arthur Watts to go to hell. To spit defiance in his face and dare him to pull the trigger, consequences be damned.
Yet he couldn't. There was too much at stake for him to act like a fool.
Jaune swallowed.
He had no leverage or hidden ace. No miraculous burst of strength waiting to be unlocked. Jaune was no secret protagonist who could turn the odds with the power of friendship, neither did he have a secret demon hiding within him, ready to give him power.
All he had was himself.
Pathetic Rank 1 strength.
If he antagonized Watts now, people would die.
Watts' gaze sharpened just slightly, a knowing glint flickering behind his eyes. He could read Jaune's hesitation like text on a screen.
"Yes," Watts said softly, almost kindly. "That expression. I know it well. The look of someone weighing pride against necessity."
Jaune clenched his jaw, then exhaled through his nose.
"The rune I used on the Centurions," he said slowly, "is a meta rune."
Watts' eyebrows rose a fraction. "Indeed?"
Jaune nodded. "It's called Weakness."
The word seemed to hang in the air between them.
Watts leaned back in his chair, eyes alight with interest rather than surprise. "Ah. That explains quite a lot."
Jaune frowned despite himself. "It does?"
"Indeed," Watts replied. "From what I observed, I initially assumed you were disassembling molecular structures. Breaking bonds outright. But that never quite sat right with me."
He gestured vaguely with one hand, as though rearranging invisible concepts in the air.
"Disassembly implies energy input. Heat or radiation. Some form of reaction. Yet there was none. No thermal spike or explosive byproduct."
Watts' smile widened, pleased with his own reasoning.
"You were not destroying bonds," he said. "You were simply weakening them."
Jaune's eyes narrowed. "That's… basically it."
Watts chuckled. "Basically, yes. But the implications are delicious."
He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees now, fully engaged.
"Solid matter loses cohesion. Turns fluid not because it melts, but because its internal resistance collapses. Concrete flowing like sludge without ever becoming warm. Metal losing integrity without glowing."
Watts' eyes gleamed. "A violation of intuitive physics through abstraction rather than force. Very elegant."
Jaune felt a strange twist in his chest. Hearing his ability dissected like this made his skin crawl, even if part of him recognized the accuracy.
"And a meta rune, no less," Watts continued. "Meaning it does not act on the world directly, but on the rules governing interaction. Fascinating."
Jaune said nothing.
After a moment, Watts looked up at him again. "What else?"
Jaune hesitated.
Watts' gaze flicked briefly toward the Centurion holding Weiss and Blake. It didn't tighten its grip, but it didn't need to.
Jaune took the hint.
"I can weaken people too," he said. "Their three stats. Body, Will and Aura. All of it."
Watts nodded immediately. "Naturally. This must have been what you were able to do before comprehension."
"At my current level," Jaune continued, "up to twenty percent."
"That much only?" Watts whistled softly. "Aura counters it quite well, then. You probably can't affect operatives like how you did against my Centurions."
"Ah," Watts murmured. "Which is why my toys suffered so... dramatically."
Jaune nodded. "Centurions don't have aura. Not in the same way."
"Hmm. How does it function against unawakened or those lower ranked than you. Does it function the same against grimm as well? They don't conventionally have aura, but they do have defenses against meta rune phenomena as well with their special runic energy." Watts asked.
Jaune hesitated again.
His mind flickered back to Mocha and the way she had collapsed laughing weakly even as she claimed she couldn't move. To the strange, almost delighted look in her eyes afterward.
"I haven't tried its full potential against lower ranked operatives." Jaune said carefully, "But... it would work the same way."
Watts' lips curved. "You think, or you know?"
Jaune met his gaze. "I've never tried to kill someone with it."
Watts hummed. "A shame. For research purposes, of course. I personally would have done so."
Jaune felt his stomach twist.
"So," Watts continued, tapping a finger against his knee, "your rune weakens physical cohesion, statistical parameters, and biological function, all through a single conceptual axis."
He looked almost reverent now.
"Weakness," he repeated. "A beautifully cruel name."
Jaune shifted uncomfortably. "You sound impressed."
"I am," Watts said plainly. "It is rare to see a rune so conceptually pure. Even rarer to see it wielded without devolving into brute force. Your experiences must have been an amazing thing to behold."
He paused, then added, "How does it do against a Rank 2?"
Jaune hesitated, then shook his head. "I don't know yet."
Watts accepted that answer with a nod.
For a moment, silence settled over the chamber, broken only by the faint hum of distant machinery and Penny's shallow, controlled breaths behind Jaune.
Then Watts straightened slightly.
"Well," he said, "that satisfies my curiosity. For now."
Jaune blinked. "That's it?"
"For the moment," Watts replied. "You've been quite cooperative, after all."
Jaune did not like the way that sounded.
Watts studied him again, eyes sharp, calculating.
"Now," he said, "it is only fair that you be afforded the same courtesy."
Jaune stiffened. "What?"
"You may ask me questions," Watts said lightly. "I will answer them."
Jaune stared at him, suspicion burning behind his eyes. "Why?"
Watts smiled faintly. "Because knowledge should never flow in only one direction. And because this test allows for… discourse, of course.."
Jaune's fists clenched. "You crippled Penny, you're holding my friends hostage and now you want to play twenty questions?"
Watts raised a hand. "Not all questions. Some."
He leaned back again, perfectly at ease. "So choose carefully."
Jaune's thoughts raced.
There were so many things he wanted to know. Too many. Why Watts was really here? Who was he working for? What did he mean by tests and favors and foreseen outcomes?
But above all, one question burned brighter than the rest.
Before he could speak, though, a thought surfaced unbidden.
Insight.
Pietro's rune had brushed against him like a probing light. Jaune had felt it, sensed it, pushed back instinctively. Watts' had slipped past him entirely, unseen.
Jaune narrowed his eyes.
"Your rune," he said slowly. "You said you have the Insight rune, don't you?"
Watts' smile sharpened. "Ah. Straight to the heart of it."
"How does it work?" Jaune asked. "Because it's clearly not like Pietro's."
Watts chuckled. "Of course it isn't. Runes share names, not essence."
He folded his hands together. "Pietro's Insight is observational and functions like a scanner. It analyzes what is presented and extrapolates."
"And yours?" Jaune pressed.
Watts' eyes glinted. "Mine is inferential."
Jaune frowned. "That's vague."
"Intentionally so," Watts replied. "I don't see your rune directly but I can observe outcomes, patterns and deviations."
He tapped his temple lightly. "No direct intrusion, or energetic probing. Merely… deduction enhanced by abstraction."
Jaune's stomach sank.
"That's why I couldn't feel it," he muttered.
"Precisely," Watts said. "There was nothing to feel."
Jaune let out a slow breath. "So it's weaker?"
Watts laughed. "Weaker? No. Narrower. I built mine to work more on research and machinery. Mine and Pietro's are fundamentally different. However, that doesn't mean that it cannot do the same as Pietro's given enough time for me to tweak it."
He leaned forward slightly. "Pietro can tell you what something is. I can tell you what it must be."
Jaune stared at him, unsettled.
"And," Watts added softly, "sometimes what must be is far more dangerous than what simply is."
Jaune swallowed.
Watts spread his hands. "Your turn. Another question, if you like."
Jaune glanced back at Penny, at her pained but determined expression. At Weiss and Blake, still unmoving in the Centurion's arms.
Time was slipping through his fingers.
He turned back to Watts, jaw set.
"Fine," he said. "Then answer this."
Watts' eyes gleamed, eager.
"Who," Jaune asked, "is this all really for?"
Watts' smile widened slightly, as though he had been waiting for that exact question.
"Now," he said, folding his hands together with deliberate calm, "we are finally getting to the meat, rather than merely sipping the soup."
Jaune stared at him.
It was a strange analogy, but he stayed silent, eyes fixed on Watts, because interrupting him felt like a mistake he could not afford.
Watts seemed pleased by the silence.
"You have probably already deduced this," he continued, voice smooth and conversational, "but I suppose confirmation is polite."
He inclined his head slightly.
"I am a member of Sleepless."
Jaune's shoulders stiffened, but he did not look surprised.
He nodded once.
There was only one organization deranged enough to attack LUCID bases and create events on this scale. One group willing to gamble cities, ranks and entire regions on long term outcomes. Sleepless had been a shadow looming over every catastrophe that Jaune could remember.
Watts observed his reaction with interest. "No protest? No shock?"
Jaune's voice was low. "I figured."
Watts hummed approvingly. "Good. Pattern recognition. That trait runs in the family, I find."
Jaune's brow furrowed faintly, but he said nothing.
Watts leaned back in his conjured chair, crossing his legs. "I am a team leader within Sleepless. Though if I am being honest, I was not particularly eager to join them."
Jaune glanced up sharply.
Watts waved a dismissive hand. "Ideological fanaticism bores me. Sleepless has plenty of that without my contribution. Although, I do admit... the idea of the Sleeper is quite interesting. But no, I joined because I was persuaded."
"Persuaded? By who?" Jaune asked, the question slipping out before he could stop himself.
Watts' eyes glinted.
"A very special man."
The air felt heavier.
Jaune felt it again. That strange pressure in his skull, like a thought pressing from the inside, trying to surface. A fragment of something half remembered. A shape without a name.
Watts noticed and smiled.
"This man," Watts continued, "was also a team leader at the time. Brilliant and calculating, though... he was profoundly unsettling to speak with, once you realized the scope of what he understood. He showed me something," Watts said. "Something… enlightening."
Jaune swallowed. "What?"
Watts' smile softened, but there was no warmth in it. "The future."
Watts clasped his hands together again, elbows resting on his knees. "You see, this man had somehow come into contact with a uniquely rare artifact. One of the four Supreme Runes of humanity. The Rune of Knowledge,"
The pressure in Jaune's head spiked sharply, like a crescendo building toward a breaking point. His weakness sense flared erratically, reacting not to physical danger but to something deeper, something conceptual in his own mind.
Watts went on, voice calm, almost reverent. "The Supreme Rune, Knowledge, doesn't merely inform. Certain runes when coming into contact with Knowledge can get supercharged and amplified. That man was a recipient of this."
Watts eyes were fixed dangerously on Jaune now, "That man, gained the ability to see possibilities and outcomes. Threads of causality branching and folding back into one another."
Jaune's mind raced, memories flashing past in fragments. The pressure became unbearable.
Watts tilted his head, studying Jaune's expression closely. Then he smiled.
"Ah," he said softly. "It seems you already know who I am talking about."
Jaune's mouth felt numb. His lips parted, but no sound came out.
Watts nodded once, as though confirming a hypothesis. "Yes. The man who convinced me to join Sleepless. The man who showed me the future."
He leaned forward slightly.
"Your father."
The world tilted and Jaune felt as though the ground beneath him had given way, sending him plunging into something cold and endless.
"Nicholas Arc," Watts said clearly.
He could barely hear anything after that.
Watts' voice continued, calm and measured, but it sounded distant now, like it was coming from underwater.
"Your father's runes are… exceptional," Watts was saying. "Insight, much like mine but greater. Foresight... and time."
Time.
"Possibly the most powerful meta rune currently in existence," Watts added, almost casually. "Time manipulation, predictive recursion, causal reinforcement. An extraordinary combination."
The man gave off a slight laugh as he spoke and shook his head with a glint of awe in his eye.
"You see, Nicholas Arc is the greatest strategist I have ever had the displeasure of witnessing. Did you know, that he was the mind behind Belmont?"
Jaune's breath hitched painfully.
"He predicted every move and every response. He arranged the pieces months in advance. When the first shot was fired, the outcome had already been decided."
Watts gestured lazily. "Sleepless merely carried it out."
Watts swept his hand around the chamber, "And this, entire operation was his design as well. He smoothed every obstacle in advance. Anticipated interference. Adjusted contingencies."
Watts smiled faintly. "Everything he told me would happen has occurred exactly as he described. In a way," Watts said thoughtfully, "it is quite terrifying. Wouldn't you agree?"
The words barely registered.
"Even the Rank Three incident in Rime," Watts continued. "The one currently pulling Ironwood and every available Rank Two away from this facility. That was planned," Watts said. "A necessary distraction so all of this could succeed."
Images crashed together in Jaune's mind.
Rime, Belmont, Vale. The Amalgamation incident.
Sleepless.
They were no longer separate tragedies. They were pieces of the same design.
Nicholas Arc.
Jaune felt sick.
Watts was still speaking, but the sound washed over him without meaning. His father's name drowned out everything else.
Nicholas Arc.
His memories twisted, recontextualizing themselves against this new truth.
The absences where his father had to take "work trips."
The careful lessons disguised as casual advice. The way his father always seemed to know when trouble was coming.
Why did his father just so happen to bring a his baseball bat to the new house in Vale? There was no need for it.
And Crocea Mors?
His dad made it during his blacksmith days. It was such an odd coincidence. Why did his father even start blacksmithing in the first days? Jaune was a fool.
"Hah..."
Jaune squeezed his eyes shut.
All of it, planned.
By his father.
Jaune felt bile rise in his throat.
He opened his eyes again, staring blankly at the floor. His weakness sense flickered erratically, reacting to the emotional overload rather than any external threat.
He felt hollow.
He was a bastard.
The son of a murderer.
Behind him, Penny remained silent. Weiss and Blake still hung unconscious in the Centurion's grip. The chamber felt frozen in time, waiting for Jaune to respond.
Watts finally stopped speaking.
He watched Jaune quietly now, studying his reaction with clinical interest.
Jaune did not look up.
His voice, when he finally spoke, was barely audible.
"…Sleepless."
The word tasted like ash.
Watts inclined his head slightly. "Yes."
Jaune clenched his fists so tightly his nails bit into his palms. Jaune felt as if he was standing in the shadow of a future that had been written long before he ever drew breath.
"…Was my dad in Atlas?"
The question slipped out before he could stop it, fragile and sharp all at once, like glass pressed against skin.
Watts' smile returned, slow and satisfied, the expression of a man who had just been handed another lever to pull.
"Ah," he said lightly. "Still asking questions, are we?"
Jaune's eyes lifted to him.
Watts shook his head, a soft chuckle escaping him. "No. I've decided that, that privilege has expired." His gaze hardened, just a fraction. "It is no longer your turn, Mr. Arc. Now it is mine."
The words landed with quiet finality.
Jaune held Watts' stare for a long second, then exhaled and closed his eyes. He nodded once.
"Alright."
He felt the tremor in his chest, the threat of something ugly and consuming, but he pressed it down.
If his father truly was involved, then perhaps this situation was not as hopeless as it looked.
Nicholas Arc was many things, most of them reprehensible, but Jaune refused to believe that love had been absent from that list. Not for his mother, his sisters or for him.
That much had been real.
It had to be.
And if his father's foresight truly stretched that far into the future, if he could see branching paths and collapsing outcomes, then there was a solution here. Somewhere. Hidden in the margins of this moment.
Watts had called this a test.
Tests had answers.
Jaune just had to find the right one.
Watts, oblivious or indifferent to the storm settling behind Jaune's eyes, leaned forward in his conjured chair.
"Tell me about your other rune," he said casually.
Jaune opened his eyes again. His voice was steadier now.
"It's called Plunder."
Watts' eyebrows lifted with genuine interest. "A delightful name."
"It's a meta rune," Jaune continued. "Like Weakness. It allows me to take a portion of an enemy's stats and add them to my own."
Watts' fingers steepled. "How much?"
"Ten percent," Jaune said.
Watts frowned.
"Ten percent?" He tilted his head. "That is… underwhelming. Meta runes tend to scale aggressively. Are you certain?"
Jaune nodded. "That's the limit. But I can do it to three people at once." What Jaune didn't tell Watts was the interaction of rune synchronicity between Weakness and Plunder. Some amount of cards had to be played close to his chest, after all.
"Can you?" Watts echoed. His eyes gleamed. "Still somewhat weak. Does this apply universally? Grimm included?"
"Yes," Jaune replied. "It works on Grimm the same way it works on awakened."
"And those below your rank?" Watts pressed.
Jaune hesitated. "I haven't tested it properly. Against non awakened, I assume it would work the same. Probably even more efficiently."
"But," he added, "they don't have much to give. There isn't much to take."
Watts leaned back, gears clearly turning behind his eyes.
"Fascinating," he murmured. "A siphon that respects hierarchy but ignores allegiance. Weakness strips effectiveness and Plunder reallocates capacity."
He looked back at Jaune. "Once it reaches refinement, or comprehension as some prefer, it may not stop at statistics."
Jaune did not respond.
"In fact," Watts continued, warming to the subject, "it may very well be able to extract raw runic energy and give you the ability to use other peoples rune skills. At least to some extent."
Jaune said nothing, but his silence was not ignorance. He had already walked that path in his mind. The thought had occurred to him more than once, lurking at the edge of his awareness like a half formed equation.
But Plunder was not there yet. Speculation did not change reality.
Watts' gaze sharpened. "And how does Plunder interact with artificial constructs?"
Jaune paused.
"With Centurions," Watts clarified.
Something clicked.
Jaune's breath caught, not in fear but in sudden, electric realization. A thought ignited so fast and so bright that it left no room for doubt.
He had never tried.
His eyes snapped to the android standing beside Watts, the dark metal figure holding Weiss and Blake with indifferent strength. No aura or emotional presence. Just machinery and runic energy bound together.
Centurions were not awakened and they weren't alive.
They were powered.
Instinct took over.
He reached out with Plunder and the effect was immediate.
The invisible field of his rune latched onto the construct like a hook sinking into soft earth. There was no resistance or rejection. No pushback from aura.
The siphon engaged fully and in response, the Centurion convulsed.
Weiss and Blake slipped from its grasp and hit the floor in a tangle of limbs.
The android collapsed a second later, its knees buckling before it slammed into the metal floor, limbs twitching uselessly.
The energy embedded in its frame dimmed, then went dark.
Jaune staggered.
Power layered itself onto him. The amount was... overwhelming. It was not just strength. It was clarity. His muscles hummed with so much power that he felt if he moved, he could ignite the very air around him. His senses sharpened to a knife's edge. His mind expanded, pathways lighting up as though something fundamental had been unlocked.
His Will.
He could feel it push back against the world around him.
Once, Raven Branwen had said that Aura Echo was an instinctive skill that Rank 2's could perform. The reason was due to their high will stat. They could naturally break through the laws of the world that was holding them back.
He gasped, bracing himself as the wave passed.
When it settled, he was breathing hard, staring down at his own hands as if they no longer belonged to him.
So much.
Far more than ten percent. Because the Centurion had no aura.
Nothing to resist him.
Watts had risen to his feet.
For the first time since Jaune had met him, Arthur Watts looked genuinely startled.
"…Oh shit." Watts breathed.
Jaune lifted his head slowly.
His gaze met Watts', cold and steady.
Understanding bloomed between them. He took a step forward, feeling the floor vibrate faintly beneath his boots.
Jaune glanced briefly at Weiss and Blake, checking that they were breathing, that the blood at Blake's temple had stopped spreading.
Jaune turned back.
"Looks like I found my answer," he said.
The power humming through him felt different from anything he had experienced before. It was not borrowed strength from effort or adrenaline.
It was stolen potential.
"This was your test, right?" Jaune said. "To see what I'd do when cornered?"
Jaune's expression hardened.
"Then here's my answer." Jaune paused.
"N-now wait just a—"
"Fuck you." Jaune disappeared, reappearing directly in front of Watts, fist impacting directly into the middle of his face.
.
.
AN: Plunder!