RWBY: LUCID

Perhaps due to a stroke of divine intervention, or luck, or instinct—or whatever it was that Jaune was relying on…

His body moved.

It wasn't graceful nor artfully planned but he moved with the force of will that could only come from sheer terror.

Both arms shot forward as the beast came down on him, a scream tearing from his throat as he slammed the palms of his hands into the creature's bony throat and collar.

The impact jarred his skeleton, but he didn't let up.

His fingers dug into coarse, matted fur. Muscles strained as he forced the creature's weight upward, using his full arm span and the ground beneath him as leverage.

His elbows bent outward and locked into a makeshift brace.

A stopper.

The beast landed on him with the weight of a crashing boulder, snarling, its breath rancid and hot as it snapped its jaws down—

And bit down on nothing.

Clack!

The maw was just five centimeters from Jaune's face. He could see everything.

Every last inch of its jagged teeth, every strand of saliva that bridged its snapping maw. Its eyes, burning red with malice and filled with an animal hate, glared down at him with murderous intent.

And still it bit.

Again and again.

Snap. Snap. SNAP.

Each attempt came closer than the last. Teeth scraped air just above his nose. His arms trembled violently, the strain of holding it back screaming through every fiber of his being.

He grit his teeth, eyes locked on the monster above him.

Then the pain came.

Hot, sudden and searing.

A line of fire tore across the sides of his arms.

He screamed as the beast's claws dug into him, hooked in like curved daggers, trying to anchor itself for a killing blow.

The pain was white-hot and blinding yet he didn't let go.

He couldn't.

Not if he wanted to live.

Tears welled in his eyes.

Not from the pain, although it was staggering.

No...the sheer helplessness of it all.

The hopelessness.

He grit his teeth so hard it felt like they might shatter, his body trembling under the pressure, muscles screaming for relief. His arms were locked in place, but he could feel them shaking, straining against the beast's strength.

It started prying his arms apart.

Inch by inch.

The creature's claws dug deeper into him, anchoring for a better leverage. He felt his blood run warm down his skin, mixing with the dust and filth of the ground below.

He could even hear his own wheezing breath now—shallow, rapid, ragged. His chest heaved and strained as panic coiled around his heart and and squeezed like a vice.

'It's going to rip my face off.'

The thought hit like lightning.

His eyes widened even more than before and his vision blurred. All he could see was the slavering maw snapping just above him. The heat of its breath seemingly scalding his face.

His strength was slipping. He wasn't going to hold.

'No—no, no, no—'

A choked sob escaped his throat. Not here. Not like this. Not on the ground like some helpless animal. Not torn apart by this thing.

The terror bloomed.

A sick, icy bloom that rooted itself in his spine and spread through his limbs, whispering that this was it. That he'd never see his dad again, his mom, his sisters. That no one would even know what happened to him.

He was going to die.

All alone in this shithole-hellhole of a ruined world.

A crack seemed to resound somewhere deep inside his mind.

The fear was still there, coiling and screaming, but something hot surged up beneath it. Boiled beneath it.

Hate.

It didn't come as a slow realization.

It erupted.

Hatred for the monster that had hunted him. That had stalked him, chased him and hurt him.

Hatred for the thing that had entered his home, and seemed to grin with bloodlust as it tried to tear him apart.

Hatred for the environment around him—that ruined place he was now forced to see.

Hatred for the feeling in his chest—that sick, helpless feeling.

His vision tinted red—not metaphorically, but truly.

His heartbeat thundered and his teeth cracked from biting too hard, yet he still continued.

He saw red.

Not the red of the monster's eyes.

But the red of survival.

The red of wanting to live.

And idly a thought seemed to flutter across Jaune's mind. A piece of knowledge that he had read somewhere...

There was a reason studies called adrenaline the fight or flight, super hormone.

Adrenaline—epinephrine—wasn't just some vague buzzword. It was biology's last-ditch gamble. A chemical scream from the body to itself: Move. Now.

It dilated the blood vessels in the muscles. It spiked heart rate, dumped sugar into the bloodstream, dulled pain and turned flesh into something more.

Stronger, faster, meaner, desperate.

It let mothers lift cars off their children.

It let men survive impossible wounds long enough to crawl to safety.

And now, it let Jaune move.

Something deep inside him twisted—he twisted—tearing through what felt like his own sinew and tendons.

A sickening snap echoed through his arm as he shifted his weight beneath the creature and threw himself upward, ignoring the white-hot explosion of pain that followed.

His body didn't want to obey so he forced it to.

The beast's jaws snapped shut just as he moved, fangs crashing into empty air with a thunderous clack.

And Jaune was already in motion, lunging up and over, blood trailing behind him in violent arcs as he flung his weight around, twisting his body onto the monster's back.

He landed with a grunt, one arm hooking around its neck and the other flailing before finding purchase in its fur.

The claws came instantly.

They carved into him like knives, tearing through muscle, shredding what little protection his arms had left. By now, his forearms were practically ribbons—open, bleeding, twitching masses of ruined flesh.

He paid it no heed.

He didn't even feel it.

With every ounce of strength, every fiber left in his body, Jaune squeezed.

His arms locked around the creature's throat. His legs joined, clamping tight like a vice as he bore down with a full-body grip that felt like it might rupture his own organs in the process.

He screamed as he did it and bit down on the creatures ear, sawing at it with his cracked teeth that was even scraping the bone plating on his head in the process.

A rumble came from his throat.

A defiant rumbling.

Fury.

A sheer, animal need to live.

And then he felt it.

The hierarchy shift.

The moment the predator realized it was no longer the one in control.

The moment it realized it was prey.

The beast bucked violently beneath him, its body twisting in a blind panic. Clawed limbs thrashed, trying to reach back and tear him off. One of its arms raked across his back and he felt the claws scrape through skin and drag shallow furrows across his spine.

But it couldn't howl.

It couldn't scream.

Not with Jaune's arms and legs cutting off its air.

Not with the iron vice locked around its throat, squeezing tighter and tighter.

He barely noticed the claws. Barely noticed the way blood poured from his arms and back. His nerves were fire, his body screaming, but his mind—his will—was louder.

He just kept squeezing.

Harder.

Harder.

Ribs cracked in his chest. His arms trembled, and he felt something shift wrong in his elbow—hairline cracks beginning to spiderweb down the bones. But he didn't stop.

He couldn't stop.

His teeth clenched, then unclenched. His lips twitched. His face, contorted a second ago with fury and pain, began to still.

And then…

Blank.

His expression went empty.

Eyes wide and pupils dilated heavily. Not wild but death-like.

Cold, focused and mad.

And yet the hatred in him only seemed to grow.

The creature thrashed and Jaune's jaw tore the chunk that was its ear free in a bloody snap, flesh ripping between his teeth.

In his mind, a mantra looped. No longer words. Just primal thought, pressed down like a brand on his soul.

Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die.

He didn't scream it.

He didn't even seem to think it in words.

He just felt it.

Die.

Then—

Crack.

The sound echoed like a loud snap.

And the monster's neck broke beneath his grip.

Its body shuddered once, arms frozen in its previously mad position.

Then it went still.

But Jaune didn't move.

His grip remained locked. His arms—shaking, broken, twitching—still clutched the thing's throat with vice-like force.

Even as its flesh began to change.

Even as the weight beneath him lost its solidity.

Even as the creature began to dissolve and its mass shifting into black, ash-like dust, flaking away from under his limbs.

Jaune… stayed there.

Body hunched, arms frozen in mid-chokehold.

Face blank, eyes wide and his breath, shallow.

Still holding on to nothing.