RWBY: LUCID

The world beyond his dream-house was the same as always, bathed in a perpetual darkness that was only lit up from the glow of the red broken moon above. Dark purples, bruised reds, and deep shadows stretched across cracked pavement and broken lamp posts. Low hanging clouds, motionless and thick appeared like congealed ash in the sky. The houses along the street sagged with decay, and the occasional breeze carried the distant whisper of something eerie.

Jaune tightened his fingers over his sword and rolled his shoulders.

No warm-up tonight. He had work to do.

His goal was the abandoned bullet train station where the mist pocket was, that was apparently dubbed, nightmare. The plan was simple: get there, farm as many creatures as possible, and test the limits of his strength. Body stat: 6. But what did that really mean in a practical sense?

He didn't have to wait long to find out.

A rusted old sedan sat half-rusted in the debris up the road, its tires deflated, the front bumper caved in. Jaune eyed it for a moment, then made his way over and planted his feet beside it.

"Alright," he muttered to himself, rubbing his hands together. "Let's see what you've got now."

He pressed his palms against the back of the car and pushed.

At Body 3, he'd already felt the incredible difference. His strikes had become faster, more stable. His legs could spring him forward with the speed of a trained sprinter. His grip could crush cheap plastic and bend steel bars under strain.

But Body 6?

That was something else entirely.

The car groaned as it shifted, the rear wheels skidding slightly against the broken concrete. Dust puffed up from beneath it as the metal shell scraped forward a few feet. Jaune didn't even feel like he was straining. His muscles engaged, sure—but the effort was manageable. More like moving a heavy shopping cart up a slight incline.

"Okay… let's go a little further."

He slid to the side of the vehicle and crouched low, fingers slipping beneath the rusted undercarriage. It took him a few tries to find the right grip—it wasn't like simply lifting weights at the gym. The car was uneven and misshapen in places, its frame crooked. Still, once he locked his stance and exhaled…

He lifted.

The world slowed.

Metal creaked. His feet dug into the asphalt. And with a deep grunt, Jaune raised the entire car above his chest, then over his head.

His arms trembled slightly with the weight, but not in the way you'd expect from a human being lifting a full sedan. It was like the resistance was dulled—as if something inside his body had flipped a switch and redefined his limits.

Carefully, he set the vehicle back down.

"That... shouldn't be possible," he muttered with a smile, stepping back and eyeing the car like it might accuse him of cheating physics.

He was strong. Not cartoonishly strong—not throw-a-building strong—but certainly something well beyond human. The Ursa-like creature he'd fought before could slap a car across the street without flinching. Jaune didn't think he had that level of raw might yet… but he was close.

He began jogging down the ruined street, testing his speed next.

Within seconds, he was sprinting.

Wind tore past his ears, debris flew underfoot, and in what felt like a heartbeat, he had cleared nearly a hundred meters. No heavy breathing or muscle fatigue. If he pushed harder, he suspected he could cover the same distance in even less time—maybe three seconds flat.

His instincts were sharper too. He darted between obstacles, barely needing to look. His feet landed precisely where they needed to. His body just... knew what to do. Truly extraordinary.

A low laugh bubbled up in his throat as he slowed to a walk. Not out of arrogance, but amazement.

This was real and it was working.

The dream realm may have been a nightmare in every other sense, but at least it gave him tools that he could use. Something he could build with.

The train station soon came into view.

It stood on the far edge of the street, its wide platform cracked and uneven, with shattered glass doors leading into a long, dark interior. In the waking world, it was a bustling commuter hub. Now, it was a graveyard of time.

Jaune climbed the steps cautiously, passing a collapsed vending machine and the skeletal remains of what may have once been a bench. Inside, the lights, red emergency lights that would have cast long shadows over the stained tile floor, were no longer working.

The damage that had accumulated from yesterday's battles with the various dream creatures had all but vanished now. It was an interesting yet surreal experience, each time Jaune witnessed it occur. The pockmarked tiles, the claw marks and even the weighted damage from dream creature strikes were all gone like a morning mist in the shade of an afternoon sun.

The principles behind why, all accumulated damage kept vanishing was something Jaune was eager to understand, but for now he had to settle for strength gain instead.

The weird undulating mist was still at the same place as before.

It still clung to the far side of the platform like a living thing—but it was different now. Different from yesterday.

Before, the mist had been a swirling fog of gray and black, dotted with strange white motes that floated lazily like dust in moonlight. It had felt thick, but not oppressive. Dangerous, but not suffocating.

Now it was darker. Almost oily.

Like the fog had been steeped in blacker tar. The edges were thicker, heavier, and the lights inside it weren't white anymore. They pulsed a deep red, flickering like dying coals. The entire thing still writhed subtly, like something alive was breathing just beneath the surface.

Jaune's grip on his practice sword tightened.

This was still the same Nightmare mist thing... or at least, he thought it was. But something had changed. Either it had grown… or there was another reason. Jaune didn't know.

But, this was why he came.

No backing out.

He exhaled and stepped toward the threshold of the mist, shoes clicking softly against the ruined tile. He could already feel a weird temperature drop—his breath turning slightly visible in the stale air.

The ringing silence felt oddly oppressive.

For minutes, nothing had happened. No swirling of shadowy shapes within, no whisper of movement, no sign of creatures prowling. Only the occasional ripple disturbed the surface of the Nightmare fog—like something trying to emerge but getting stuck just short of breaking through.

It was eerie.

Every now and then, the mist would bulge outward in odd, rhythmic pulses, like a muscle twitching beneath skin. Jaune remained alert, feet shifting slightly, ready for anything—but still, nothing came.

Strange. Almost... disappointing, really.

His original plan had been simple: grind for stats, farm dream creatures, push his Body stat as high as it could go tonight. But this felt like a lull. Like the world itself was holding its breath.

Jaune waited a little longer, watching the mist for any sudden movement, but still—nothing.

After a few more moments of staring into the fog, he exhaled through his nose and relaxed his stance. He idly wondered whether the dream creature spawning rate had finally been broken. Perhaps there was a limit or so that each mist zone could spawn?

Jaune wasn't sure but he was wondering if leaving and roaming around to look for dream creatures elsewhere, would be a more productive use of his time.

"Fine," he muttered. "If you're not gonna throw anything at me, I might as well get some practice in."

With his sword still in hand, Jaune moved back to the open space near the shattered benches and broken vending machines. The platform was large, and most of it was clear of debris. It was the perfect makeshift training ground.

He ran through basic drills first—stance transitions, forward lunges, slashing arcs, and guard positions. With every swing, he could feel how much smoother his movements had become. His balance was sharper, his footwork tighter. The sword no longer felt like dead weight in his grip. It was a part of him now.

Well... at least in the dream realm, it was. His body here was just better in all ways compared to his waking world version.

Eventually he got creative.

Jaune began experimenting with more acrobatic forms—moves he'd only seen in movies or animes, before. Flashy spins, sweeping slashes, jumping lunges. He used broken columns as leverage, flipping off one and landing with a roll. He even tried swinging his body low and rising into a high arc slash, mimicking a technique Grise had demonstrated earlier in the day.

He could feel the difference. His speed, power and coordination. All of it was leagues beyond what he was used to it being.

For the fun of it, Jaune jogged toward the station's interior wall, planted one foot against it, and tried to run vertically. He managed four solid steps before gravity betrayed him and pulled him back down. He landed on his feet, chest heaving, but not tired.

"Not bad," he muttered. "Could get five or six next time."

His whole body felt light, responsive and powerful.

But he wasn't careless. He made sure not to burn too much stamina. The last thing he wanted was to waste his energy showing off if something big did come out of the mist.

Speaking of the mist, it started moving weirdly now. Different from its patterns, previously.

He noticed it as he was catching his breath, it had stopped pulsing like a living heart. Instead, it began to spiral. Not violently, but slowly, like a whirlpool gathering strength. The motes within it blinked out one by one, and the dark oily surface turned still for a brief, horrifying second.

Jaune froze.

His body, without thinking, shifted into a defensive stance. Instinct screaming. Something was coming—and Jaune had a feeling that wasn't like the other creatures he'd fought before.

The center of the spiral burst open.

A geyser of thick, black sludge erupted outward, splashing across the cracked tiles. Jaune immediately backpedaled to avoid being drenched, holding his sword at the ready.

The mass of sludge hit the ground with a bone-shaking squelch.

It was an enormous amount—easily the volume of an entire delivery truck. It changed quickly as he watched.

It heaved and pulsed as it began to take shape. Appendages formed—long, spiked, and angular. A gleaming black carapace adorned with white bone plating surfaced from beneath the sludge like metal plates snapping into place. Pincer-like claws, massive and serrated, tore free from the muck with sickening cracks. The rear of the creature lengthened and curled, lifting into the air with a stinger the size of a spear tip glinting in the red moonlight.

Jaune's heart thudded in his chest.

When the head formed, it bore the same weird white mask as all the other dream beasts before it had. A multitude of red eyes adorned across the white. Beneath it, a jagged opening of teeth that clattered like bone against stone. Then it let out a sound.

A horrendous screech. It was something else, alien-like and terrifyingly wrong. The shrill, piercing sound stabbed into Jaune's ears and reverberated in his bones.

He took another step back. His sword trembled in his grip, just slightly.

It was a scorpion. A house sized scorpion.

Or at least, it looked like one. But instead of chitin, its body was plated in nightmare-white and black armor, slick with shine and marked with faintly glowing crimson lines on its carapace. The thing's size was bigger than an elephant, and it seemed to move with a predatory intelligence that made Jaune's stomach twist.

It stared at him—or faced him, at least—and the screech stopped.

For a moment, all was still. Then the creature lashed out.

One of its massive pincers slammed into a concrete pillar beside Jaune, shattering it like glass. Debris exploded outward, dust filling the air as the echo of the impact rolled through the station.

Every muscle in his body tensed. His legs coiled beneath him like springs. His eyes didn't leave the creature.

Clearly the creature was fast. He'd seen that just now. Its reach was also ridiculous, and its size didn't slow it down in the slightest. One wrong move, and he could be cut in two. This wasn't a stat farm. This was now a boss fight.

And Jaune was was unprepared.