Wind screamed around them.
Jaune's body spun through open air, his limbs jerking violently as the ground below stretched into a fractured crater from the force of the attacks. Far above the squad, the ceiling had split open, revealing more clawed grimm hands pouring through the cracks. Sparks of rune-light from the clashing titans scattered like stars being crushed in slow motion.
Jaune was a little worried for Ren. When he glanced upwards, he saw his friend using his Trajectory rune to the best of his capabilities—doing his best to reach the arterial mesh of veins that were spread around the ceiling.
But Jaune couldn't spare any time to think about him.
The impact from the titans clashing was seismic—metal, flesh, and bone exploded outward in a geyser of black ichor. The surgeon-like creatures shrieked, a chorus of overlapping wheezing human voices warped into one unholy wail. Qrow didn't stop. He wrestled and tore through them with a beast-like ferocity.
It wasn't simply his wings.
Beneath those jagged pinions were four crow-like talons, grotesquely proportioned, each the size of entire houses. They sprouted from his Crow ribs and abdomen, raking at the surgeons with machine-like speed. The monster Qrow had become was a full on monstrosity. Even the word Crow, could barely be used to describe it.
And beneath the roar of blood and air, an odd whisper threaded through Jaune's when he stared too long at the shape Qrow had turned into.
An odd whisper that screamed—
'Murder. Murder. Murder.'
Jaune shook his head, chalking it up to adrenaline.
One talon caught a surgeon's neck and tore downward. The monster's body folded open like wet parchment. From the wound poured out black fluid that wasn't quite liquid. It hissed as it spilled into the air, and every drop birthed a new crawling insectoid Grimm the size of wolves, some, the size of houses. Their wings buzzed with metallic friction, carrying them toward the hunters who were still falling from mid-air like a wave of chittering teeth.
"Holy crap—he's tearing it apart!" Nora shouted, spinning midair. Her hammer came down on an insect with a thunderclap, cracking the air itself with a burst of electricity. The recoil steadied her fall, redirecting her toward a collapsing fragment of the giant IV stand.
"Watch it—there's more coming!" Blake yelled, kicking off of a falling slab of surgical plating. She slashed through two Rank 0's in midair, her katana tracing faint lines that lingered like moonlight. The insects burst into dust.
All around them, reality felt stretched.
The air wasn't falling—it was drifting.
Medical equipment—titanic scalpels, mechanical restraints, rusted metal rings—spun lazily like they were underwater. To Jaune, concentrating through the adrenaline, everything slowed to a crawl.
He could see the curve of a falling scalpel catch the light, see Ruby's boots hit its flat edge, and the split-second flex of her knees as she used it as a springboard.
She blurred past him, her cloak streaking red through the sky.
"Ruby! What the hell am I looking at? You uncle is a massive bird? And that raven... is that his rune or something too?!"
"Jaune!" Ruby shouted, twisting her scythe in one hand and slicing through a cluster of insects that had lunged toward her. "I didn't know he could do any of this. He... never really told me what his runes were!"
"The surgeons," Jaune shouted, gritting his teeth. His eyes tracked the shapes while He landed on the back of a malformed Rank 0 insect Grimm and forced it to fly him with sheer strength. The thing bucked beneath him, wings spasming in panic, but Jaune's strength and balance turned its flailing into momentum. "They're still spawning Grimm even when they bleed!"
As if on cue, another of the surgeons ruptured. Black blood sprayed out in fountains, birthing hundreds more malformed creatures—some with wings, some crawling, some nothing more than twitching hands and teeth.
"Fantastic," Yang said flatly, flipping midair to land on a piece of falling debris. She punched a Grimm that lunged at her and sent it flying into another, both evaporating in red bursts. "The sky's falling, we're outnumbered, and Uncle Bird's gone kaiju mode."
"Less complaining, more smashing!" Nora shouted. "We can freak out later!"
The air cracked again. The massive shadow Raven above them screeched, its cry reverberating through the bones of the ward. It dove into another surgeon, its beak tearing through layered flesh. black shadow-like tendrils arced from its feathers, slicing through the swarm of insects that poured out.
Qrow and the Raven moved in terrifying sync—two colossal monsters circling each other, locked in a dance of claws and shadow. Every collision sent out ripples that distorted the air itself and sent massive shockwaves that pushed back all creatures below Rank 2.
Jaune felt it in his bones—the entirety of the Nightmare was responding, alive and furious. The rapidly approaching ground below them, the tiled zone, pulsed like a living heart. Grimm matter crawled up the sides of the operating room like veins, reaching skyward in tendrils that weren't quite moving, but weren't still either. The line between life and matter was gone.
"Are they—what the hell is up with this Nightmare zone?" Ruby asked, staring at the writhing tendrils reaching toward them.
"Don't ask me," Jaune complained. "This is my first time entering and already I'm getting my ass handed to me,"
"Stop complaining. It doesn't matter," Blake said sharply, slicing a Grimm clean in two. "They're still in our way, which mean, we just have to kill them all."
They fell together, movement born of instinct and trust. Each used the swarm itself as footing—spring-boarding off wings, carapaces, and dissolving bodies to redirect their descent. Ruby's Accel bursts carved streaks of crimson through the air, narrow paths that shimmered before fading. Weiss had already invoked her second Rune; three elemental spirits—Ice, Wind, and Fire—orbited her like miniature stars, their light glinting against her rapier. With precise gestures, she wove their power into bursts of force that steadied their fall and guided the team's momentum.
Jaune swung at another incoming creature mid-air, splitting it mid-torso and kicking off of it. Its body disintegrated into motes of shadow.
"Jaune!" Ruby's voice cut through the chaos again. She landed next to him, her breathing sharp but steady. "You have—Weakness, right?"
He blinked. "Yeah?"
"Can you use it… on all of them?" she asked, pointing down at the sea of flying dream creatures gathering below. "If you hit the swarm at once—it might make a hole for us!"
He looked down. The horde was akin to a small dark ocean—Rank 0s swarming over stronger ones in layers of limbs and teeth. His Rune wasn't exactly meant for this kind of range. But… he was stronger now. Maybe strong enough.
He nodded once. "When we land."
Ruby gave him a grin that didn't match the chaos. "Good. I'll clear the way."
A shockwave rolled through the air as Qrow slammed one surgeon into another. They tumbled like meteors, dragging a wave of black fluid behind them. The ground below them convulsed—the entire block rippling outward in concentric rings of darkness.
"Brace!" Weiss yelled. "We're almost—"
They hit.
The shockwave blew outward, sending dust, blood, and Grimm fragments in every direction. Jaune hit the ground hard enough to feel his bones protest, but his Rank 1 physique was strong, cushioning the worst of it. The others landed in a rough circle, weapons drawn, breathing heavy.
Ahead of them, was chaos—Qrow and the Raven locked in combat with the last surgeon that was standing, their titanic forms illuminated by the light of their clashes. On the ground, the dead surgeons were healing and standing back up again.
Around them, the swarm was already descending.
Ruby wiped sweat and ichor from her cheek. "Okay. Swarm's coming. Jaune?"
He stepped forward. Sword in one hand, palm outstretched. Aura surged through him like sunlight piercing storm clouds. His Rune flared to life behind his shoulders—a fractal of broken glass, sharp and luminous. Power flooded out of him, draining his reserves fast.
He could feel them. Every Grimm in the swarm—hundreds, thousands—he could feel their structure. Their weak points.
Jaune exhaled. Then he spoke.
"Weaken."
The world screamed.
The black tide faltered as a ripple of invisible light shot through it. Every creature hit froze mid-motion—muscles twitching, bodies trembling under invisible weight. For a heartbeat, the entire swarm's momentum broke. Some plummeted and fell, while others were barely slowed down.
Ruby's eyes widened. "You did it!"
"Not for long!" Jaune shouted. "Move!"
The squad surged forward as one. Ruby vanished in a blur, Yang's gauntlets ignited, Nora's hammer crackled with energy, and Weiss's had fire flaring beneath her feet.
Above them, the shadow of the massive raven blotted out the fractured lights of the operating room, wresting with the clawed hands that had emerged from the ground somehow caught ahold of it.
Qrow's monstrous roar split the sky.
The battle of gods raged on overhead. Below, the hunters charged into the broken swarm. And in that impossible moment—amid blood, fluid and the light of fading runes—LUCID's squad fought like stars refusing to die.
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AN: Advanced chapters are available on patreon