RWBY: LUCID

The other three Beowolves landed hard on the cracked pavement behind him, one after another—thud, thud, thud—a sick rhythm of claws and monstrous muscle hitting broken concrete before him. But they had arrived too late to join the fun.

He'd already slain two of their kind.

Jaune backed up a step, then another.

He could feel blood trickling down his arms in thin, hot rivulets. Not a lot—but enough to sting, enough to hurt. They weren't deep cuts, but they still bit at him with each of his motions. A sharp reminder of the price he'd already paid when fighting the other beowolf. He could feel it in his arms—damage to the muscle fibers themselves. His swings would most likely be slower from this point forwards.

Still, Jaune grinned. But it was the kind of grin that didn't reach his eyes. Instead it was a grin that promised pain to the creatures who had once tormented him.

Hunted him.

"Alright," he muttered under his breath, raising his free hand and calling up the status screen.

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[Jaune Arc]

[Rank: 0]

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Aura: 0

Will: 0

Body: 1

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Runes: 28

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"Perfect."

The next level in the Body stat cost 20 Runes.

The amount he had, was just enough to upgrade it.

The beasts began to spread out—crawling low to the ground like stalking panthers. Their massive paws left faint impressions in the dust and concrete. Jaune could see their claws twitching in anticipation to tear him apart. They circled him in a loose, lopsided ring, perhaps wary from his killing so far, but still uncaring enough to thirst for his flesh.

He rotated his shoulders slowly, keeping his eyes steady and his bat ready. Although his padded jacket was now torn and his arms burned, Jaune was ready to fight. He knew that he wouldn't be able to outrun them. That much was obvious. These things were faster—quicker on four legs than he was on two. It didn't matter if he had training. Simple biology, really.

As a matter of fact, the creatures would now have even more of an advantage because he was out in the open and had no obstacles to leverage around.

There was no stairwell, this time, no choke point to funnel them and no debris to slow them down. There was nothing that Jaune could do.

Just him and three snarling monsters.

But Jaune was unafraid. Not due to arrogance, rather because he had two advantages that he could leverage.

First—the stat screen, which he now had enough runes to upgrade his Body stat. Second, the exit window. Both functions of the Nightmare system were just a thought away.

Jaune's lips twitched and he tarried no longer.

"Assign 20 Runes to Body." He muttered out loud to the growls and snarls of the creatures before him.

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[Body: 1>2]

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The moment he gave the mental command, the changes hit him like a proverbial freight train.

All his muscles twitched involuntarily, then immediately relaxed. His skin flushed with warmth and even the bleeding he had sustained, stopped almost instantly, stabilizing and no longer releasing his lifeblood. The fatigue in his limbs dissipated and was replaced with a coiled strength and faint potential energy.

It was like waking up after a deep sleep—only that sleep had upgraded him on a cellular level.

His heart beat faster, pounding heavily like a war drum. A steady beat that called him to battle.

The air suddenly smelt different now to him, now too. Sharper and cleaner. He could even pick up the scent of the monsters—like iron, smoke and something foul. The world around him seemed to have gained a new layer of clarity. The distant rubble piles had more detail to him than before. The dust motes in the air moved slower, like time itself had stretched to give him room to think.

His dynamic vision sharpened and his depth perception adjusted. Reflexes tightened. Balance improved.

It wasn't just strength—it was everything. Every part of his body and mind had shifted one degree closer to perfection.

He let out a breath and flexed his fingers around the steel bat feeling the last bits of tingling that lingered beneath his skin like aftershocks from a powerful stimulant.

'This feels great,' he thought. 'Like extra adrenaline—or a hit of something stronger. Cocaine maybe? No wonder addicts go crazy for that stuff.'

He turned slowly in place, facing down each of the encroaching creatures. He was ready for their attacks now.

The Beowolves paused, perhaps sensing the new shift. They didn't understand it. But they felt it.

Jaune however, didn't give them the time to think. The surge of power still lingered under his skin, and he intended to use it.

His eyes locked on the Beowolf, the one with the cracked faceplate—the one he'd nailed back on the staircase. The damage was still there, a jagged fracture running across its bone-white mask-skull like a fault line. He could finish what he started.

He lunged towards it, pouncing and mimicking the creatures' own leaping strikes. He felt a strange sense of familiarity in mimicking the movement—he'd seen it enough times to mirror it, after all.

The Beowolf growled in surprise, perhaps not expecting a human to fight like them. Its eyes flashed, and it swung a claw to intercept him midair.

Jaune smirked. That had been the plan.

His lunge had been a feint. It wouldn't have made sense to continue it since he had neither the claws nor the build to properly mimic it.

At the last second, Jaune tucked low and twisted into a controlled baseball-style slide—his body gliding over the ruined pavement with surprising smoothness. The claws passed just above him, swiping at empty air. The Beowolf's momentum carried it forward, leaving its stance wide and unstable.

Jaune didn't miss the opening.

His bat swung out low, slamming directly into the creature's digitigrade knee with a meaty CRACK.

The impact was brutal.

The Beowolf howled, stumbled, and collapsed half-sideways. Its other leg tried to catch its balance—but too late.

It roared in fury and brought both of its claws up into a double overhead arc—aimed straight down, looking to pierce Jaune like a spear.

Jaune didn't think, trusting his new instincts to cover him.

He twisted to his side, rolled onto his back, then planted his palms on the ground and pushed upwards into a handstand flip. His legs carried him up and over as the claws slammed down into the space he had just been. They gouged twin scars into the concrete, inches from where his chest had been.

He landed on his feet, knees bent in a perfect steady crouch, and blinked in disbelief.

His body had moved without hesitation.

Every limb, every muscle, every twitch had obeyed without lag or delay. It was like there was no barrier between his thoughts and his actions. His breathing came easy and even his balance perfect.

'Damn,' he thought. 'This stat point was amazing—it tuned everything up. Coordination, timing and even reflexes. If I was above average before, this is...'

"World class athlete level..." Jaune huffed out with a breath.

The other two dream beasts weren't sitting still. The moment Jaune had moved, they followed.

A shadow loomed from his right.

He ducked low, twisting around the swing of one's claws, then side-stepped sharply as the second tried to pounce at him from behind, even managing to twist his bat in place to deflect one of teh creatures sharps claws. They scraped past his head with a screech of air and sparks. Dust and debris kicked up over in all directions.

Jaune pivoted and kept moving, refusing to be pinned down. It was like playing a game of tag with bears on speed, but somehow—somehow—he was keeping up.

His vision tracked all three of them now. Every motion and flick of muscle. The world didn't slow, but he had certainly sped up.

And that gave him the edge. He'd already drawn blood. Now, it was time to press the advantage.

He moved in a tight arc, keeping his back angled toward the wider space of the street and pivoted, to keep his eyes trained on the snarling shapes closing in. The creatures growled and paced, clearly trying to surround him—but Jaune wasn't going to let that happen.

He kept circling them.

Always circling.

And in doing so, he kept them lined up, forcing them into a narrow front. No matter how they tried to spread out, Jaune shifted, turned and adjusted—cutting off their angles.

They couldn't flank him if they had to step through each other to get to him.

It was a tactic born from instinct and observation. Maybe even a memory from some training video he half-watched years ago.

Whatever it was, it worked.

The Beowolf with the cracked mask was the closest once again, limping slightly on its damaged knee.

Jaune's eyes narrowed.

It was time to finish this one.

He darted forward, steps quick and low and his grip on the bat firm. The cracked-mask Beowolf growled and lunged to meet him—but it couldn't leap like before. The injury slowed its approach, forced it to brace for impact instead of pouncing.

Good.

Jaune swung his bat in a fast horizontal arc, aiming straight for the side of its face.

The Beowolf raised a claw in defense, but the angle was wrong—and Jaune's upgraded strength carried the blow straight through its guard.

CRACK!

The bat struck bone, hard.

The fracture that had been spreading across the mask finally split wide open. A spiderweb of breaks bloomed across the Beowolf's skull and black blood spilt out from between the fragments.

The creature reeled, staggering backward—partially blind now, as one of its glowing eyes dimmed.

He didn't let up.

He closed the gap and swung again—this time a downward diagonal blow that slammed into the side of its neck and drove the beast to one knee.

It snarled, weak and desperate.

The second Beowolf tried to rush him now—snapping from behind its wounded kin—but Jaune quickly shifted left, using the limping one as a living shield. Its body blocked the path, and the second Beowolf had to pull back or risk colliding with its own packmate.

"Not today," Jaune muttered.

He pivoted to the side once again, and brought the bat down with all his weight in a clean, arcing strike to the top of the cracked-mask Beowolf's head.

The mask shattered.

The skull beneath gave way with a sickening crunch, and the monster collapsed with a broken snarl, twitching once before it began to dissolve into black ash and smoke.

Jaune exhaled sharply, stepping back from the disintegrating remains. In the back of his mind a system chime pinged, signifying the kill.

One down, two left.

And Jaune still had room to breathe.

The remaining Beowolves snarled and howled at their kin's death, more cautious but also seemingly more hungry.

But Jaune didn't feel as cautious as they did.

He felt alive.