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Jaune was making good time, for all that he clanked with every step. The landmarks guided him down familiar roads to put him on a long straightaway leading to his destination. It won't be much further—twenty minutes slogging through water at the most—until he arrives at the portal.

Not to the field hospital, though that remained his ultimate goal. He just had to take a small detour first in order to offload the pile of 'loot' that filled his arms.

A more honest description would be 'dead people's belongings'.

In normal, non-apocalyptic scenarios, he would hold no truck with such a distasteful thing as graverobbing. In a city besieged by Leviathan, and behind that the ever-looming threat of Vale and Beacon falling to the Grimm, he can learn to compromise. Battlefield acquisitions, let's call it, and it paved the foundation for the idea bouncing around in his head.

Weapons, armors, and gadgets. A knife composed from blood, a halberd that can cut things well, a laser gun, a pair of electrified gauntlets, a hardy prismatic cloak, a device that projected illusory disguises, and many other treasures of note; the cannonblade he admired counted among them. Apart, the majority of the items were nothing to rave over. Put together, they added up to ten thousand and some hundreds of Points by his mental calculations. Points aplenty to trade for an item or [Skill] of decent value, which he can use to slap Leviathan out of Brockton Bay or knock it down for good, depending.

If this world alone cannot beat the monster—risking Sundancer's life and limbs notwithstanding—then the simple solution afforded him was to go outside of it and bring back fantastical powers to even things up. And in the event Sundancer does return to the battle as their silver bullet, he'd want to provide her with better defenses and recovery options than the slapdash measures he was currently running with. Stimpaks and blood infusions did not a healer make.

The trek became easier as he moved out of the city center. The area they fought Leviathan in had transformed into a devastated wasteland of broken buildings, sinkholes, and thigh-deep water to waylay him. After cutting a parallel line to the coast for about ten minutes, he was navigating inland through neighborhoods that had suffered only minor damage from the shin-high flood and heavy rain. It alleviated the strain on his flagging strength, allowing him to maintain a steady pace.

Purity down, BW-8. Shadow Stalker down, BW-8.​

Blinking in surprise, Jaune looked for signs of an armband. The search didn't take long. A group of them floated towards him, six or seven strips of cloth borne on the water surface and pulled by the currents. There were no bodies littering the road; the owners of these devices must have fled. The synthetic voice of a woman blared from each armband, and they merged together to resound across the avenue.

Evacuation Notice for BW-8. Repeat, evacuate BW-8 immediately.​

The lack of tall buildings in this neighborhood granted him a stellar view as a number of high-rises began to collapse, accompanied by creaks and groans and soon an almighty crash. He stood and gaped in horror.

Smoke, dust, they bloomed in a cloud shooting for the sky, tamped down by the rain. Once it cleared, an entire section of the city skyline was gone.

Alexandria deceased, BW-8.​

A lengthy silence ensued following the announcement, one without a single update on the casualties. Not long after, Jaune spotted colorful figures flying in the sky, tracing routes starting from the direction of the city center. They sped past him overhead on a course away from the city.

Unnerved, he leaned down and, carefully so as to not drop his harvest, hooked one of the armbands around his index finger. He resumed the trip while keeping his ears open for the next update.

Two blocks on and it hadn't made a peep. Instead, activities in his surroundings provided him a clue of the fallout. Pausing at intersections, he would catch the occasional glimpses of masked figures emerging from alleys and streets, running full-tilt for the horizon. Their undignified scamper spoke volumes.

The name Alexandria might mean nothing to him, but it was the name to break the final threads of morale. The battle was lost, or near enough.

Not everybody ran. It sounded a lot better than the reality. Villains—for surely these could never be the heroes, despite the heroic cut of some of their costumes—carried out excursions at times to enter places that intrigued them. Jewelry shops, most often. They would jauntily exit these buildings loaded down with valuables. Twice Jaune saw conflict occur among such opportunists. The first when one person stumbled upon another, and thought to relieve the latter of their burden. A second altercation was an argument between accomplices that devolved to a brawl after the division of spoils failed to suit all tastes.

People who an hour ago stood on the same line, how quickly they turned on each other.

He had beheld the heights of heroism in this universe. In his optimism, the actions of what he thought to be the few bad eggs were dismissed as aberrant. Now, block after block, he witnessed scenes of selfishness and greed, jackals descending on those weaker to enrich themselves. Jaune marched on, morose. In his mind, a mantra.

Sell, buy, save the day.

Sell, buy, save the day.

Sell, buy, save the day. He sang it to himself, a goal to focus on. And finally, but finally, his journey entered the home stretch.

The street he traveled upon opened up to a large, empty clearing hemmed in by four different roads with side avenues galore. At the far end, past one of the roads, lay a row of shops and homes. Taking a left up there to exit the clearing and he'd see the flickering neon sign of a convenience store. There's a looted electronics store visible from here. A couple buildings over, the mouth of an alleyway sat.

Jaune stepped out into the open space, and noticed that he wasn't alone.

A fair distance to his right, a young woman screeched to a stop, having entered from one of the other streets. Where he was located at a corner of the clearing, her position drew a direct line into the alley.

Rain plastered her dark blond hair to her back. On her face, a domino mask. The skintight outfit bestowed scant protection in this storm, water soaking into the purple-and-black fabric.

The costume was torn, here and there. She bore wounds, here and there. What bothered him was her wide-eyed stare.

She had startled after spotting him, and the mild surprise near instantly switched to a look of bewilderment as if she had never seen a human in her life. Unsure of what the problem was, then recalling his appearance—that here was a guy holding onto an armory's worth of weaponry—he wiggled the fingers on one hand to wave in a show of peaceful intent. Her expression changed not one iota.

He stared, she stared. They stood still in the rain.

Aaalrighty, then? Whatever's happening was clearly a her issue, and he had a task to complete, so he'll just carry on. Jaune turned his attention towards the alleyway.

She mirrored the motion.

Doing a double-take, Jaune whirled to face the girl. Had he imagined—no, she really was staring deep into the alley, a nondescript and uninteresting gap in the brick wall except for the portal to another universe sitting in total darkness at the end. Her head swung back and forth, bouncing from there to him then back, appearing more baffled if that was even possible. Occasionally, she would wince, face pinching with effort for reasons unknown.

He took a step towards the alley.

She did, too.

He inched a little further.

She copied him, this time maintaining eye contact all the while. Though, one eye was twitching.

He stared, she stared. Confusion abounds. What was going on?

Their odd stalemate broke at the sound of a dull roaring, like the rumbles of thunder or the hard rapping of knuckles on a door. They both spun around as one.

Distance was relative. Meaning, distance was a state of mind. Up until this moment, Jaune believed he had traveled far from the coast, an illusion cast by his arduous (yet slow) progress through submerged roads.

One look at the towering ice wall, and the spray of water shooting over the top, and in his mind the distance between him and the sea shrank down from 'safely out of harm's way' to 'major flood risks, do not enter'. He assuaged his unease by noting that the sound of waves impacting on ice reverberated across the entire length of the wall, concentrating on no particular point and thus diffused in strength. That reassurance lost some persuasiveness when the first crack appeared. It was near the far side of the barrier, however, so he reined in his panic even as water blasted a gaping hole there. He thanked his lucky stars when a second gap formed to dump water down on the area where he fought Leviathan, which he had vacated less than half an hour ago.

And then a last breach occurred. This one was a big one. It originated at the point closest to him.

Tidal waves incoming, multiple zones at risk. Evacuate red areas immediately.​

Jaune checked the map on the armband, still hooked on his finger. The entire thing was colored red.

Oh no, oh no, oh no. He ran.

Across the empty lot, Jaune blazed a trail, hardly thinking of where to put his feet only that it led him closer to the portal. Beneath him, a shaking. Behind him, a roaring. To tarry was to drown. He did not dare look back.

His right leg sank down in a hidden divot. He slammed his left hard against the ground to compensate, quickly regaining balance and form to race on. Heart thundering at the realization that a simple pothole could spell his doom, Jaune begged Lady Luck to stop dunking on him already and leave him be. Whether the prayer was heard or not, he couldn't tell, but his subsequent footfalls landed on even ground. Still, he knew better than to tempt the cruel bitch by celebrating.

A car rested ahead, necessitating avoidance. Rather than wasting precious seconds to circle around, he slid over the hood, pile of loot and all. Something dropped out, making a splash as it hit the water. He ignored the pang of regret to abandon the item. Considering there's more than ten thousand Points nestled in his arms, he can spare to lose one or two. The sound of the approaching tidal wave clinched the decision. It sounded a ways off, but the rising volume served as proof of the armband's warning. That tsunami was headed here.

Reaching the other side of the clearing in record time, Jaune proceeded to cross the road without delay, dodging debris floating by with near prescient intuition. He got to around the middle of the avenue, and it's there that the errant thought struck him.

Where was the other person? He chanced a look.

Whatever her superpower, physical prowess it was not, Luck, neither.

His running was running; he had zoomed over the land on speedy feet. Charged up with adrenaline, the weight he carried felt light as feathers. In contrast, hers was a stumbling jog, poor athleticism leading to her arms windmilling for balance whenever she slips, and it's often that she did. Some sort of injury was at play, as seen in the swaying gait and the head being held in hands. Her narrowed eyes struggled to see…something. She had barely traversed past the midpoint.

Jaune performed a quick eyeball calculation. She's too slow to make it. The wave was too fast, too near.

Somehow, someway, even though she had not turned her head to see for herself, the girl also figured out the truth. Her expression transformed into that of pure, stricken terror.

Then, suddenly, the fear drained from her face. Her pace lagged, soon coming to a complete stop altogether. With shoulders slumped, a sigh followed.

Wait, was she—?

A deep breath helped her to regain composure. Trembling hands clenched and unclenched until she moved them down to place on either hips. Her eyes caught his for a brief moment, before they closed.

She was.

Her expression said it best. Serene, but for the slight quaver to her lips. Acceptance, despite being afraid. She has grasped the foregone conclusion. Rather than wailing or cursing her unfair fate, she chose to let it be.

The wave rushed onward. This close, it deafened all other sounds. The land ahead of it quaked; walls and roofs crumbled as it arrived. In the churning, roiling motion that uprooted trees and swept buildings along in the water's wake, one could so easily ascribe a sentience to the boundless destruction, imagining that the tsunami held an unabating rage for all that laid in its path. Where it touched, nothing remained but ruins.

Before that… before the coming end, the girl raised her head to face the sky, and she showed the world a wide, toothy grin. Because, sometimes, you couldn't do anything else.

The wave rolled towards her, three city blocks off. Two blocks. One.

And Jaune was beside her, scooping the girl into his empty arms, running back the way he came.

He rushed through a field of strewn treasures. A red crystal knife shimmered as it laid sunken beneath the water. An unnaturally sharp halberd had embedded itself deep in the road. A beautiful cloak floated down the street. A device had malfunctioned from hitting the ground and now spat out holograms at random. The cannonblade that had so enamored him, he no longer paid it any mind.

A face stared up at him in blank astonishment, unable to fathom what he did. Honestly, neither could he.

He had a mission with the fate of Vale on the line. Another, of Brockton Bay. For their sake he must survive. To succeed, he should be prepared to do anything, even if it involves killing and stealing. He needed to harden his heart.

All the people of his home put on a scale against this one life. All the people of Brockton Bay against her. Either should have been obvious in their answer, no hard mathematics required. They mattered more.

The man who can understand that was the man these worlds called for, a true protagonist who's cold and logical, able to control the situation with his piercing intellect and create plans that ran several steps ahead of everyone else. Such a man always knew the optimal route to attain his goal. A hero, for whom the right choices came easy.

It's too bad then, that he could not be that man. Just a student, a trainee of a Huntsman, who too often mistook what was easy for what was right. Logic and him never really got on, and he lacked the fortitude to be heartless.

The means of victory, ten thousand Points and change. It was the purpose of his journey to this place, and so close to the finish line, he tossed it all to the wayside for the tidal wave to take, exchanged for the chance to save a stranger.

Because, sometimes, you couldn't do anything else. Because these little souls, they mattered.

The crashing waters chased his heels. The dark alley loomed ahead. He darted inside.

The portal, detecting his presence, flared to life. A hundred colors swirled on the brick wall to light up his path. Almost there, he was almost there.

A swift, savage force swept out his legs. The tidal wave had caught him first.

Jaune curled around the bundle in his arms, tucking her head into the center of his chest. He tried to draw a breath. The tsunami slammed against his back, knocking out the air in his lungs. The world plunged into darkness as water engulfed him on all sides.

Up was down, down was up. The current slammed him on the concrete, grabbed him and tossed him at a wall. He cracked his head on the bricks. Feeling himself pushed forward, afraid the person he held would take the impact, he kicked out with a leg. Ramrod straight, it struck a hard surface head on to send pain shooting up the entire length, bones rattling. An object borne by the wave—sharp, unnaturally so—sliced him on the hip to elicit a cry, a mistake as seawater tried to rush in. He forced himself to spit it out, his lungs screaming at him that he needed to breathe in something, anything. Stubbornly, and not wishing to die, he fought the instinct and pressed his mouth shut even as pain bloomed from within.

And then, with a myriad of colors filling his vision, he was out. Out of the water. Out of the universe. Emerging inside a gray room.

Halfway through, he felt a strain on his arms, like he was pulling a massive weight with him instead of a girl. The gateway he was stuck in shook and flickered ominously, until he wondered if it was going to throw him back to drown. To his great relief, the portal, accompanied by the sensation of a rubber band snapping, asserted itself and spat the both of them across the room.

He twisted to take the impact on his back, hit the wall with a boom to rattle the room, and crashed to the ground on his rear. Dizzy and nauseous, he inhaled great gulps of air. Panic spiked when he looked down and saw that the girl's eyes were closed. It was followed by relief at the sound of her breathing. She was unconscious, but alive.

He was alive, too, in a dry room with all the water blocked on the other side. Laughter bubbled up in his chest, released as he threw back his head and let out a shout of elation.

Elation became horror as the portal began to shrink. Letting the girl roll to the floor, Jaune scrambled to his feet.

"Nonono!" Rushing headlong to the swirling circle, he put out a hand to stop it from closing, to push through, to—

His hand crashed against an invisible barrier, fingers twisting painfully. He slammed a fist on the same spot, a useless gesture.

"I still need to go back! I'm not done yet! STOP!" He cried to no avail. The portal was no longer acting as a gate, but a window growing smaller with each passing second. From a circle that can fit four people marching abreast, to the size of his dorm's door, to a handspan gap just above the alley's waterline.

His last glimpse of that universe, of Worm, was the scene of a golden figure far in the distance floating in midair and the embodiment of nature's wrath, Leviathan, perched atop a high-rise. A beam shot from the figure to descend upon the beast. Following it, the first rays of sunlight, so like hers, broke through the clouds as the sky started to clear up, just as the portal winked out.

In utter silence, his shaking hands reached for the Company scroll. He opened the Jump Portal app just in time to see the textbox containing the details of the Instance disappear, leaving an empty page where a world should be.

So. That's the rule, is it? One time in. One time out. No second chance.

Jaune rocked on his heels, falling back to lay flat on the floor. He stared blankly at the white ceiling. Moisture swam in his eyes. There was so much left undone. He thought of his failures, of the many mistakes he committed, and the tears fell free.

But then, he thought about his successes. Events that would have unfolded differently had he not been there or people who might have died had he never met them. Things went wrong, yet things went right. On a face streaked with tears, a small smile formed.

Joy that he had gone, sorrow for what he had seen, regrets that he could not stay, he allowed the opposing feelings to dwell in his heart, crying and laughing as he recalled the scant few hours that felt like days. It was a hell of a time.

And after the tears have dried and the laughter has faded, he sat up once more, looking to where a portal had rested. There used to be a city there, just waiting on the other side. To it, he bade farewell.

Farewell to a world where superheroes die. Where they were vain, petty people ready to turn on each other, and the day was never won. A Grimmless land nevertheless filled with beasts of many stripes.

Farewell to a world where a villain fought for a city, and wished to never kill. Who took a chance on a stranger, and called him friend.

What a horrible world. If only he could go back again.

Jaune sighed.

Aah. Aaaah, it's such a shame. I was looking forward to dancing with her.

-o-​

In a quiet, gray room, a girl awoke from her slumber, eyelashes fluttering delicately. Sitting up, she beheld her savior, a device of some sort in his hand.

"Hey there, you. Feeling al–"

Her gaze flicked to the rest of the room, bouncing from wall to corner to window before settling back on him, eyes trailing up and down his form.

Such a pretty green, so went the thought in the boy's mind.

Then, those same green eyes proceeded to roll to the back of her head. She tipped backward and fell flat on the floor, unconscious.

Jaune stared, nonplussed. Was it something he said?

A shake of her arm, a tap on her cheek, he tried various ways to rouse her. A minute or two later saw her stirring. The first thing in her sight, was him.

"Are you o–"

Theeeere she goes again. Out like a light.

Is that her superpower? Fainting spells?

This could be a problem.

Universe: Worm (divergent). Location: Brockton Bay. Event: Leviathan.

Loot acquired: a narcoleptic girl

Instance Failed(?)​

Author's Notes: Jaune Arc accidently played the game right, embracing waifu over loot.

And that's the end of his first foray into Worm. Instances are meant to be short episodes, whereas Permanent Worlds will be the ones he can stick around for longer periods of time. It's too bad that he didn't know all the rules going in. And wasn't OP enough to hard-counter the grimdark. Hopefully he'll learn to pick a happier place on the next go.

Poor Narcolepsy Girl– I mean, Tattletale. She wakes up, sees the guy that makes no sense to her power, the device connected to every world, the room built by alien hands, the window view of what is clearly not her world, and her power of super observation goes haywire to result in the mental equivalent of a sledgehammer to the back of her head, thus knocking her out. Then she wakes up, sees the guy that…and so on, and so on.

For those who are unfamiliar with Worm, Lisa Wilborn aka Tattletale is the kind of innocent, demure, and supportive gal who will be ever so sweet to Jaune. Honest. Really, I'm not lying. Ask anyone who has read Worm, they'll tell you.

There's some good art of Sundancer and Tattletale by an artist called LinaLeeZ, if you would like a mental image.

As for that particular Worm AU, who knows how it'd go. Skitter with Aura and an extra superpower (and the ability to grant that to other people)? She'll probably use it as intended and not do anything drastic. Then again, she's nuts.

Sunrise. Sunset. Sunrise. Sunset. What follows a sunset?