RWBY: LUCID

Jaune ran like the hounds of hell were chasing him. Which they practically were

There was no grace to his movements. He didn't have a clever plan or a tactic, this time. Just pure, animalistic panic which screamed through his body like fire in his veins.

His raw feet slapped against the pavement as he ran, tearing down the broken street. He vaulted over a tipped-over mailbox and dodged around a rusted-out sedan as quick as he could. Behind him, the snarls echoed—they were low and guttural at first, then suddenly built into a crescendo of howls that rose like a siren through the night air.

The pack was hunting.

"I knew they could sense me!" Jaune shouted, half to himself, half to the world. "Stupid. So stupid—!"

He leapt over a pile of trash bags, and used the momentum to vault over a crumbling stone fence. One of the bags tore beneath him and the scent hit his nose like sour rot.

But he had no time to retch or think. The Beowolves were gaining.

He didn't dare look back, but he could hear them—claws scraping stone and limbs slamming against pavement. It was the thunderous sound of six or more nightmare creatures racing after him like demons loosed from hell.

A snarl grew louder, closer.

He risked a glance.

A Beowolf had jumped onto a car and was bounding across the hoods like a nightmarish jungle predator, leaping from vehicle to vehicle, narrowing the distance fast.

Jaune's heart thudded in his throat.

"Do I leave now?" the thought came, wild and sharp. "Do I press the exit button? Just get out—now—"

But another thought fought its way through.

"No. A house. If I can get inside…"He remembered the Boarbatusk—brute force incarnate. A wall-smashing monster that didn't stop. Fighting that thing in a house was suicide.

Beowolves were fast and agile, sure. Vicious creatures, in fact. But they were also smaller and lighter.

Maybe… just maybe the house would help him this time. Maybe he could turn it around. It was a thin hope and practically a desperate gamble. But it was the only one he had.

He rounded a corner, legs halfway burning and his lungs seizing in his chest. It came into view. His house. It was still standing and somehow still magically fixed. Practically intact, really. Unless one counted the state of disrepair it was in.

Jaune didn't hesitate. He ran up the porch steps, and slammed his shoulder into the door. It creaked and groaned in its opening, but opened nonetheless.

He stumbled inside, twisted around and quickly slammed the door shut with all his strength, pressing his back against it and bracing it with his with both his arms and legs.

He panted wildly, chest heaving.

"C'mon, c'mon, just give me—ten seconds, that's all I need…"

And then—

BANG.

The door shuddered under the first impact.

He felt the wood bow beneath him, the hinges creak, and the whole frame rattle.

His breath caught.

"Okay. Yeah. That's bad. That's really—"

CRACK.

The second hit came harder.

Jaune gritted his teeth and threw his whole body against the door, legs sliding against the dusty floor as the pressure mounted.

"Just hold—"

BOOM.

The third hit shattered it.

The door blasted inward like a bomb had gone off.

Jaune didn't exactly fly back. Instead, he fell with the entire door collapsing on top of him in a splintered heap. His limbs tangled with ruined wood as the first Beowolf leapt over the threshold and onto him and the broken door, its growl echoing like a thunderclap.

The others were right behind it. Red eyes, bone masks and teeth like knives.

They were going to tear him apart.

"Aw, hell no!" Jaune barked—and without another thought, he screamed at the System with all the desperation in his soul:

"EXIT! YES! NOW!"

The System chimed.

A sound like glass breaking filled the air.

And then—

The world snapped like a thread pulled too tight and his view shattered into nothingness.

BZZZZZT. BZZZZZT. BZZZZZT.

Jaune shot up with a gasp.

His heart slammed against his ribs as his arms thrashed against tangled blankets, his body twisted in sheer panic—until he lost balance and tumbled straight off the edge of his bed.

THUD.

"Gah—!"

He landed hard, tangled in his sheets, legs kicking as he fought to free himself from the cocoon of cloth he'd just faceplanted into.

The alarm kept going. He blinked in confusion as his chest heaved. He was in his room which held the soft hum of his fan, the smell of slightly dusty carpet and clean laundry detergent. Even the warm morning light was pressing through his closed blinds.

There was no red moon or ruined walls and most certainly, no monsters either. Just… his normal bedroom. He groaned, kicked the blanket away from his legs, and reached up to smack his phone silent.

And so, silence returned and Jaune simply laid still on the floor for a few seconds, staring at the ceiling.

"…That was way too close," he muttered to no one in particular.

The image of the Beowolves crashing through his door still burned behind his eyes. The way their snarls had sounded in stereo—how the bone masks had gleamed as they'd pounced, so sure of their victory.

He rubbed his face with both hands and finally sat up. His eyes drifted to the bedside table. The bat sat beneath it.

It wasn't rusted. Just smooth, unmarked metal. Exactly as it had been before. Jaune let out a long, shaky breath.

"…Right," he said quietly. "Different worlds. Different rules."

He pushed himself to his feet and wandered over to the window, drawing the curtains aside just enough to peek through the clean window.

Normal.

The houses across the street were standing nice and cleanly. Kids were already biking down the sidewalk and a delivery van was rolling by. Jaune could even spy a guy in a hoodie who was walking his dog.

There was no twisted shadows or a rotting neighborhood from nightmares. Just Vale...Just...home, he supposed. And yet… something felt off. He reached back and cracked his neck slowly.

The tightness was there, sure. But so was something else. His body didn't ache the way it should have. He had sprinted across streets, flung himself into rolls, taken several hard hits, and smashed a bat into a literal death-pig's gut until his arms were jelly.

And yet… he felt good.

Not sore or wrecked. Just a little tight. Jaune knew that the damage didn't transfer over from the previous night. But...

"Okay," Jaune muttered, stepping away from the window. "Let's see if this is in my head…"

He dropped to the floor and started doing pushups.

Ten.

Fifteen.

Twenty-five.

His breath started to catch by the thirtieth rep, and his arms began to shake. Sweat beaded at his brow. He collapsed after thirty-two, groaning.

Yup.

His dream-body had definitely been superior. In there, he'd knocked out a clean hundred and still had energy left over to perform squats, and other type exercises..

Here...he was… normal.

His brow furrowed as he sat back, cross-legged on the floor. "Okay, so... the stats don't transfer over. Figures."

He wiped his forehead and tapped his chin in thought.

"Doesn't mean they're fake," he murmured. "They worked while I was in there. But out here…"

He glanced at the bat again. Back to normal, just like him.

Then, on a hunch, he closed his eyes and tried to summon the System. That quiet mental click from before. The one that had brought up his Status screen so easily. Nothing happened. No sound or even a hint of red text. Not even the presence of it.

Just silence.

"Huh."

He frowned deeper. That... was unfortunate. If he couldn't access the System outside the dream, it meant he couldn't prepare the way he'd hoped. No preview. No menu. No peeking at rune costs or stat descriptions.

Only one way to interact with it then, was inside. As that appeared to be where the rules applied. Where the changes stuck.

"Figures," he muttered, sighing. "No easy shortcuts, huh?"

Still, the clarity of it all made him uneasy. Whatever governed the dream realm… it was strict. And deliberate. And it had rules that weren't meant to be broken. He stood up, stretched once more, and gave another long look, back at the window.

Clear skies, birdsong and a warm morning sun. And beneath it all… a chill he couldn't shake. The dream hadn't just been a nightmare. That was all but confirmed and he'd be damned if he treated it like one ever again.

It was something else entirely. Something deadly. And next time he returned, he had the feeling it would only get harder.

But Jaune couldn't help but smile. Mainly because he felt some odd feeling of warmth suffuse his chest. And beneath that warmth was something that seemed to rear its head.

Ambition.

There was power to be gained in the dream realm. An even though it was fleeting...

Jaune felt hungry for it.