RWBY: LUCID

Darkness draped around the room like a living shroud, silent but seemingly all consuming. The hazy red light coming from outside his grimy window was all that gave him vision.

'Not again!' Jaune internally screamed.

His heart thudded against his ribs, wild and wary, but not quite as panicked as last time. There was a strange, grim familiarity to it now. A... thread of sanity seemed to hold him more steady.

He twisted to the side, hand already reaching for where he remembered leaving the bat.

His fingers brushed cold metal and relief flickered through him—until he pulled it closer.

The steel bat, once solid and strong, now looked like it had been left to rot. Rust streaked across its surface like dried blood, and the once smooth handle was chipped and pitted. It felt heavier, not from weight but from age like it had endured something he hadn't.

Jaune frowned, his thumb grazing a rough edge, feeling the cold bite into his skin.

"This… isn't how I left you," he muttered under his breath.

A chill crept down his spine—not from the air, but from the way the bat seemed to belong here now.

As if this...dream or perhaps nightmare had claimed it.

He rose to his feet slowly, gripping the weapon tight as he glanced around.

His room was back, but wrong. Still stained in that sepia-sick color palette and half rotted, all dead yellows and crawling shadows. But something was… different.

He took a step and glanced around.

The wall was...whole.

The window that was shattered from that encounter was... intact, albeit still covered in grime and dark stains.

The claw marks across the decadent floorboards, the gouged plaster, all gone.

Jaune swallowed, uneasy.

"It's like it never happened," he murmured. "Or someone rewound the damage."

That thought was almost worse. Like the dream was aware of him now. Like it was resetting the stage for an encore.

Jaune tightened his grip on the rusted bat and turned a slow circle in the center of the room, breath held.

He stood still in the decaying silence, rusted bat resting against his leg, and let his thoughts drift.

'What affected it?'

Why had the bat aged like it had been buried for decades?

Was he caught in some sort of time loop? Forced to relive the same twisted dream again and again—only to change the outcome if he played it right? He'd read stories about these scenarios but... Jaune wasn't certain if that held true here.

Perhaps if he waited, the creature, the beowolf, would crash through the front door of his house once more. He wondered if he would be as lucky as he was during the first encounter. Maybe if he moved first, he could strike it down before it even realized he was here.

But then again…

He turned, casting another look across the room.

Everything that the creature had broken before—the wall, the window... it was all intact.

Repaired.

Not to its original form, of course. It still all looked twisted and broken. A parody of normalcy, like an apocalypse from the future had affected everything in this world..

'Could it really be a time-loop of some sort? If I were to die... will i even come back to life or will I die for real?'

Maybe... or maybe not. Jaune didn't know

But what he did know was that somehow...this world… fixed itself. Like a game resetting the map between failed attempts of sorts.

His eyes drifted down to his clothes.

They were clean and whole. No blood tears or ash.

Jaune squinted.

That… was weird.

He hadn't noticed last time. Too much panic clouding his thoughts. But now that it stood out, the contrast bit at him.

Why would the bat and room decay, but not his clothes, not what he was wearing?

Why did the room rot, and windows repair?

He tapped his chin with his free hand, frowning hard.

'Maybe it has something to do with what I'm touching?'

That would make some sense, right? Maybe whatever items he brought with him—physically or mentally—were preserved by his presence. Like he was anchoring them to reality.

But then…

He looked at his bed.

It was a corpse. Matted and stained, like something had died in it decades ago. Slumped in the corner with torn sheets and exposed springs. He'd slept in that bed before waking here, hadn't he? Hadn't he been in direct contact with it?

So then why hadn't it been preserved?

Jaune grimaced. The theory didn't hold up.

"Maybe it's not about contact…" he muttered aloud, voice echoing strangely in the silent room.

"Maybe it's about equipping."

He looked down at himself again. T-shirt and shorts. All clean.

The bat, in his hand...was it tied to the system's logic?

Like game logic?

Maybe it was the things he was wearing or holding when he arrived that would stay mostly intact. But everything else, that was untouched would decay around him.

A half-formed theory, at best—but it was more than he had before.

Jaune sighed and shook his head. "Doesn't help me now, though."

He had no way to prove it. Not unless he started experimenting—dragging items in, checking their states. And the idea of coming back again, expecting to come back in, made his stomach twist.

Still…

He couldn't shake the feeling that there were hidden rules here. They were just buried under layers of weird dream-logic and nightmare rules. If he could find the patterns—if he could learn the system—maybe he could... what, survive?

Perhaps.

Speaking of the system and rules...

That instinctive switch was back in his mind—the one that let him call up the Nightmare System. It had once disappeared, in the waking world but now he could feel its pulse once again.

He didn't waste anytime flicking it.

Lo and behold a floating pane of red-light appeared before him.

.

.

.

===

[Jaune Arc]

[Rank: 0]

===

Aura: 0

Will: 0

Body: 0

===

Runes: 9

===

.

.

.

"It's different from before."

Jaune frowned for a moment before remembering that killing that beowolf had awarded him 10 runes.

Suddenly, he recalled what happened afterwards. The dream authority exit.

A bloom of hope suddenly sprouted in his chest.

.

.

.

[Dream Authority exit not granted]

[Requirement: Kill a nightmare creature]

[Cost to exit: 1 Rune]

.

.

.

He grimaced and stared at the message for a long second, the silence around him heavier than before.

"Figures," he muttered, voice barely above a whisper.

That flower bud of hope had just disappeared before it could even properly sprout.

Jaune exhaled slowly breaking the silence of his mind.

He rubbed his temples, trying to remember.

'There was a tutorial, wasn't there?'

There had been a tutorial, right? Back when he first arrived. It had walked him through the basics—barely.

"What did it say again?" he muttered.

It had mentioned that the attribute Aura fueled rune skills, Will affected rune skill structure and body... would enhance him generally, if he remembered correctly.

The tutorial, though short as it was, also mentioned that runes fragments could be used to increase his stats.

He was guessing that the [Rune] count on his status meant rune fragments. It was the only thing that made sense—it had been at 0 before.

His eyes narrowed, mentally willing his rune fragments into the Body stat.

.

.

.

[Error. Insufficient Runes.]

[Body: 0>1]

[Cost to upgrade: 10]

.

.

.

"Of course. That makes perfect sense," Jaune said flatly, nodding with exaggerated wisdom.

Jaune had 9 fragments. One short from potentially increasing his stats.

He felt the great urge to throw a tantrum.

He sighed instead and attempted to recall more of what the tutorial box had once told him.

It had told him to survive. That was the word.

Then it had also wished him good luck.

Its wording was cold and clinical. Like the whole thing wasn't even meant for him. Instead, designed for someone stronger, smarter, or maybe even more ruthless.

There had been no real help. Just a mechanical run-down of the rules. If he wanted to understand what "Will" or "Aura" actually meant, he'd need to test it himself.

Jaune's grip on the bat tightened again.

"I should've written it down," he said bitterly. Not that he could have—there wasn't a pen or notepad in sight. "Do I really need to find another creature just to get another scrap of info?" 

If so, that was a terrible design choice and he wanted to complain to whomever designed this thing.

Still... some part of him—some analytical corner of his mind—was beginning to treat this like an actual game. A game that had invisible mechanics, and half-built tutorials. But unlike the strategy games he played before bed, failure here didn't mean a restart.

It meant something far worse.

Death... probably.

He inhaled sharply, set his shoulders, and took a step toward the hallway door.