Jaune's blades were already descending.
The motion was perfect. Angle, timing and intent, all aligned into a single decisive arc meant to end the fight.
Then... everything stopped.
Momentum vanished first, like someone had plucked gravity out of the world. The force driving his swing evaporated mid motion, leaving his arms suspended in the air as if caught in invisible, invincible amber. The pressure inside his muscles remained and the power was still there, roaring, compressed and desperate to be released.
But his body refused to obey.
Jaune tried to push, yet nothing happened.
He tried to breathe.
Nothing.
Even the reflexive flicker of his eyes failed him. Lungs locked, heart locked and fingers frozen around the hilts of his swords. It was not paralysis in the usual sense. He could feel everything. The weight of Crocea Mors and Lux Aeterna. The heat of his Aura burning in his veins and the invisible tension in his shoulders.
He simply could not act on it.
An odd calm followed the initial spike of panic. His Will was still elevated and feeding him awareness, still keeping his mind sharp even as the rest of him was held immobile. Plunder was still active. He could feel the borrowed Rank Two power circulating through his system, cycling cleanly and obediently.
Which made the stillness even more terrifying.
Watts exhaled loudly.
It was a long, shaking sigh, the sound of someone who had just realized they were not going to die today.
"Ah, how annoying" Watts muttered as he straightened slowly. Armor plates reconfigured with a soft mechanical whine, stabilizing now that the immediate threat was gone. "That was far too close for my liking."
Jaune's eyes remained fixed forward, blades still poised to strike.
He felt it before he heard it—a presence behind him.
Then a hand settled on his shoulder.
It was firm and casual. Familiar in a way that made something deep inside Jaune panic.
The touch carried no hostility or Aura pressure. No threat.
Which was worse.
The fingers tapped once, twice, as if checking to make sure he was solid.
"Well," a voice said behind him, amused and warm and irritatingly calm, "this is awkward."
Jaune's thoughts detonated.
No. No no no.
He knew that voice.
The hand slid off his shoulder as footsteps moved into his peripheral vision.
Blonde hair, broad shoulders.
A build that mirrored Jaune's own potential taken to the extreme. Musculature shaped by discipline. A chiseled face that bore his resemblance unmistakably, older lines carved by years of experience rather than youth.
Nicholas Arc turned and looked directly at Watts.
"Honestly," Nicholas said, rubbing the back of his neck, "you look worse than I expected."
Watts glared at him through his cracked helmet.
"I should never have agreed to this favor," Watts snapped. "Do you have any idea how close that was? I was beaten half to scrap by a child who is not even a proper Rank Two!"
Nicholas raised an eyebrow.
"That child is my son."
"That explains nothing and makes it worse," Watts shot back. "And you were supposed to be here minutes ago. Minutes. I was stalling while he was beating me up."
Nicholas lifted a finger and stuck it into his ear, wiggling it back and forth with exaggerated irritation as Watts continued to rant.
"Yes yes, grievous bodily harm, professional embarrassment, wounded pride," Nicholas said lazily. "I hear you."
Watts cut himself off, scowling.
"You are impossible."
Nicholas removed his finger and shrugged. "In my defense, escaping the aftermath of a Rank Three fight is more complicated than it sounds."
Watts scoffed. "That is absolute nonsense."
"Is it."
"You were already here," Watts accused. "Watching. You were waiting to see if he could beat me."
Nicholas did not deny it.
He only smiled.
"I was curious," he admitted. "And you have to admit, he is a natural counter to your Centurions."
Watts clicked his tongue. "Damned inconvenient one."
Nicholas lifted both hands placatingly. "Alright. We will unpack your feelings later. We need to leave."
He glanced at the far end of the chamber, eyes briefly unfocusing as if tracking something only he could sense.
"The Rank Twos are on their way back," he continued. "We have a few minutes at best."
Watts muttered something under his breath and began disengaging his armor. The mechanical framework dissolved into particles of glowing runic energy, peeling away from his body like ash in reverse. Beneath it, his movements were stiff but controlled.
He walked over to the limp Centurion and hoisted its body up with a grunt.
Then he turned toward Penny.
Nicholas raised a hand.
"Don't bother," he said calmly. "We already have what we came for."
Watts hesitated, surprise evident even through the damaged helmet. "You are certain?"
Nicholas nodded once.
Watts considered arguing, then thought better of it. He simply turned away.
Nicholas stepped closer to Jaune.
Jaune remained frozen, mind screaming soundlessly as his father circled him, inspecting him the way a craftsman might examine a blade.
Nicholas grinned.
"Not bad," he said. "By the time you truly reach Rank Two, you might actually pose a threat to me."
The smile sharpened slightly.
"But as you are now," he added, "you're still a bit lacking."
Jaune's thoughts raged. Questions collided. Accusations burned. A thousand words clawed at the inside of his skull with nowhere to go.
Nicholas stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"You are probably wondering what just happened," he said conversationally. "The answer is simple. Watts is a researcher, not a fighter."
Watts snorted but did not interrupt.
"The only rune he has at Mastery is Insight," Nicholas continued. "Excellent for creation but terrible for direct combat. He compensates with preparation."
Nicholas tapped Jaune's chest lightly.
"He is not comparable to a true Rank Two with a combat rune at mastery. If you had fought anyone else at that level, you would have died. Stats surpassing the norm or not."
He leaned closer, voice lowering.
"Remember that."
Nicholas straightened and placed a hand on Watts' shoulder.
The air folded and they vanished.
The pressure holding Jaune in place collapsed instantly. Momentum returned all at once.
Jaune's swing completed.
Both swords slammed into the empty floor where Watts' neck had been moments earlier. Aura Echo detonated violently, tenfold force ripping outward in a thunderous shockwave that rattled the chamber.
Dust billowed.
Energy dispersed.
The materials beneath him held firm.
Jaune staggered, catching himself on one knee as his Aura flared wildly, then began to recede. His lungs finally obeyed him, dragging in a ragged breath that burned all the way down.
The chamber was silent.
Jaune remained there, shaking, thoughts still racing long after the echoes faded but the next few seconds were merciless.
Jaune felt it the moment it started.
The roaring pressure that had filled his body thinned, then frayed, then snapped entirely. The power simply… left. Like water draining from a cracked vessel, slipping away faster than he could register.
Plunder's connections unraveled.
The siphon to the fallen Centurion dissolved first, its runic echo evaporating as if it had never existed. The tenuous thread linking him to Watts followed immediately after, severed cleanly now that the man himself was gone. And then, since Jaune now had no access to an elevated Will stat, even the last remaining tether to Penny vanished.
The borrowed Rank Two Aura collapsed inward.
Even the power that was born from Pietro's sacrifice rune had long since gone out. Before the fight with Watts started, even.
Jaune was only left with himself.
Not the artificially elevated version that had just traded blows with a monster. Not the Rank Two imitation held together by stolen Will and layered meta runes.
Just Jaune Arc.
Ten percent of a Peak Rank One.
The contrast was brutal.
His knees buckled as the last remnants of strength fled his limbs. Muscles that had moments ago felt forged from steel now felt like overstretched wires. His arms burned with lactic fire, heavy and unresponsive. His legs barely remembered how to hold him upright.
It felt like he had pushed his body through hours of intense anaerobic exertion without rest. Every movement dragged, each breath shallow and strained. His core ached with deep, unpleasant fatigue that seeped into his bones.
Weak.
He felt extremely weak.
Weaker than he thought possible after everything he had endured. He couldn't even fathom why his body felt this weak.
His swords slipped from his numb fingers and clattered against the floor, the sound of steel striking metal echoing far louder than it should have in the suddenly quiet chamber.
Jaune staggered forward two steps.
Then he collapsed.
He caught himself on his hands, palms scraping against the floor as his body refused to cooperate any further. His arms shook violently, threatening to give out entirely.
He lowered himself to his knees, then his chest, breath hitching as his forehead pressed against the cold surface.
His mind however, did not follow his body into collapse.
It remained screaming.
Nicholas Arc.
His father.
Here.
In Atlas.
In the flesh.
Jaune's thoughts spiraled chaotically, looping back over the sight of him standing there so casually. The familiar shape of his face and the sound of his voice. The way he had spoken to Watts as if this were all an inconvenience rather than a catastrophe.
It had not been a hallucination or a trick of runes or stress.
He had seen him.
The man who vanished months ago. The man whose absence had carved a hollow space into Jaune's life that never quite healed.
And he had looked at Jaune like a measuring stick.
Not with hate or with warmth.
Just evaluation.
The swords lay abandoned behind him as Jaune forced himself to crawl forward, arms trembling as they dragged his weight inch by inch across the floor. Pride had long since abandoned him. All that remained was the instinct to reach the others.
Penny.
Weiss.
Blake.
Penny was sitting upright when Jaune reached her. Her eyes tracked his movement immediately, concern sharpening her normally bright expression.
"Jaune," she said softly. "Your body is under extreme fatigue. Your muscular output is severely compromised."
He let out a weak, breathless sound that might have been a laugh.
"No shit," he muttered, voice hoarse.
Penny blinked, then nodded solemnly as if that had been an entirely reasonable response.
Jaune rolled onto his back beside her, staring up at the ceiling. The lights above blurred slightly as his vision swam. His chest rose and fell unevenly, each breath scraping like sandpaper.
He felt tired enough to sleep for a week and that frightened him more than anything else.
If he slept, he would enter the dream.
And he was in no condition to deal with the Dream Realm right now.
He turned his head just enough to see Weiss and Blake lying where he had left them. Unconscious and unmoving, like corpses. Yet, he knew they were alive. He'd seen the phenomena many times before to understand why the hadn't awoken yet.
A cold knot twisted in his chest and just like that minutes passed.
Maybe more.
Time felt strange when exhaustion pressed so heavily against his awareness. The chamber remained eerily quiet, the absence of combat noise leaving behind an almost ringing silence.
Then the air shifted.
A sudden displacement rippled through the room, pressure popping against Jaune's ears as space folded violently inward.
Eight figures appeared almost simultaneously.
Rank Twos.
Their arrival carried weight with the subtle distortion of reality snapping back into place around them as their Aura pressures flared briefly before settling.
Jaune barely had the strength to lift his head.
Winter Schnee stood among them.
Her eyes found Weiss instantly.
For half a second, something raw and dangerous flickered across her face. A look of Grimm fury, cold and consuming. It vanished just as quickly, buried beneath practiced composure but Jaune's weakness sense could still feel it. Simmering beneath the surface of her emotions.
Winter straightened.
"Secure the area," she barked sharply. "I want a full sweep of the facility. Confirm that all hostile constructs are neutralized and verify there are no remaining Centurions."
"Yes, Specialist Schnee," several voices responded in unison.
She turned to another pair. "You two. Take statements from everyone conscious. I want a full timeline of events."
Her gaze finally settled on Jaune.
It lingered there for a moment longer than necessary.
Then she moved.
Winter knelt beside Weiss and Blake, her movements controlled but urgent. She placed a hand on each of them and activated her rune. Translucent prisms of pale blue energy formed around their bodies, sealing them gently within.
Stasis and protection.
Winter rose in one smooth motion, lifting both prisms with her Will as if they weighed nothing.
She didn't spare another look at Jaune as she turned away.
The displaced air flared again as she vanished, carrying Weiss and Blake with her.
Jaune let his head fall back to the floor.
The adrenaline and power was gone.
All that remained was exhaustion, confusion and the echo of his father's voice burned into his memory.
He closed his eyes, just for a second, careful not to drift too far.
.
.
AN: Advanced chapters are available on patreon