Jaune took a few slow steps away from Qrow and Raven, scanning the empty plaza for something to sit on. His legs felt a little heavy from the tension gnawing in his chest. His gaze landed on a rusted metal bench, overturned near the edge of a dried-out fountain.
He reached down, gripped one side, and flipped it upright with a soft grunt. The metal groaned against the pavement. Dust scattered, catching the dim red moonlight like ash. He brushed the surface once with his hand — not that it helped much — and sat down anyway, the sound of scraping metal echoing faintly.
For a moment, he said nothing.
Qrow stood a few paces away, hands crossed over his chest. He looked older than usual, frayed at the edges. Raven stood beside him, expression unreadable. That same faint, enigmatic smile rested on her lips, though there was no amusement behind it now. Simply observation.
Finally, Jaune exhaled, a quiet, resigned breath. "Alright," he said, his tone faux casual despite the weight pressing his chest. "Let's get this over with. What's the word, hummingbird?"
Qrow's eyes flicked toward him, studying his face before he spoke with a snarky reply. "A tale sharper than a night's veil."
Raven tilted her head slightly, perhaps slightly amused "Children..."
Jaune gave her a glance, but said nothing. He wasn't exactly here to trade barbs, anyhow.
Qrow stepped forward, boots crunching lightly over loose debris. He stopped a few feet away from Jaune, his shadow stretching long across the broken pavement. "We got a ping today," he began. "Came from Vacuo. Southern region — city called Mirage."
The name lingered in the air like dust.
"Mirage?" Jaune repeated, frowning. "That's… full desert territory, right? Near the southern faultline?"
"Yeah," Qrow said with a nod. "Mostly dry basin, small trade hub. Lots of black-market activity, with smugglers and wanderers. Not exactly the kind of place you'd go to retire."
Jaune's chest tightened. "And?"
Raven reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She unfolded it and held it out. "Camera footage from a bar on the west end of Mirage. Local surveillance grid caught him stepping out of a back alley. The feed glitched for a few seconds — probably tampered with — but this frame slipped through."
Jaune took the paper carefully. The image was grainy and dark, distorted by digital noise, but the shape was unmistakable.
His father.
Tall, blond hair streaked faintly with grey at the temples, wearing a simple coat and shirt, the kind of man who blended in anywhere — except for the smirk. That same crooked, confident half-smile that Jaune had seen a thousand times. The one that said I know something you don't.
Only this time, he wasn't looking at someone offscreen. He was staring directly at the camera.
And smiling.
Like he wanted to be seen.
Jaune's eyes lingered on the picture for several seconds before he slowly exhaled. "He looked straight at the lens."
"Yeah," Qrow said quietly. "If he hadn't, we probably wouldn't have caught him at all. He wanted us to see him."
"Deliberately," Raven added. Her tone was soft, but her eyes were sharp. "Almost like he was sending a message."
Jaune folded the paper once, then twice, until it was small enough to fit in his palm. He stared down at it, thumb brushing over the creased edge.
Jaune swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. "What about the man he was with?"
Qrow's brows furrowed slightly. "That's the part that gets tricky. The footage didn't capture his face. Just his back — dark skin, Vacuoan native by the looks of it. Tall, muscular build. But the moment they left that bar, they vanished. No trail or receipts. Nothing."
Raven's gaze slid toward Qrow. "As if they were never there."
"Exactly," Qrow muttered. "Whoever that man was, he's good. Erased their digital traces completely. LUCID's cleanup teams couldn't follow."
Jaune leaned back slightly, letting the information settle. He stared at the cracks in the pavement beneath his boots, watching as dust shifted with the wind.
A bar in Vacuo. A smirk into a camera. And then… nothing.
It felt surreal. His father... just appeared again. In Vacuo. Which meant... Jaune had a directional location to head towards, after he was strong enough to confront him.
"I see," Jaune murmured finally.
Qrow nodded slowly, but there was something guarded in his expression — a subtle hesitation that Jaune didn't miss.
"What about my family?" Jaune asked quietly. "My mom and my sisters." His hand curled slightly, fingers pressing against his knee. "You said there was no trace of them before. That still the case?"
Qrow hesitated before answering. "We haven't found any good leads."
Jaune's jaw tightened. "So nothing."
"Not nothing," Qrow said. "Just… nothing confirmed." He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "But given where your old man was spotted, it's possible that your family's somewhere in Vacuo too. Mirage might just be a meeting point."
"Possible," Jaune repeated under his breath.
Raven spoke up then, her voice low and smooth. "He's moving deliberately. If he wanted to be found, he'd make it easy. If he wanted to hide, you wouldn't even know he existed. The fact that you saw this image at all means something."
"Yeah," Jaune said, his tone unreadable. "Means he's playing games again."
Qrow exhaled a sharp breath, pacing a few steps away. "After the ping, we sent a small recon cell to trace his movements. They came up empty. No energy signatures, no cross-dream activity, or even residual energy from a Rune skill."
"So he erased his trail."
"Completely," Qrow confirmed. "And whoever that Vacuoan was — same story. The two of them could've vanished into the sand itself for all we can tell."
Jaune's grip on the photo tightened until the paper crumpled slightly. "That sounds like him."
Raven's eyes flicked toward him. "You know your father better than we do, kid. What do you think he wants us to see?"
Jaune didn't answer right away. His mind was already pulling threads together, every word his father ever said, every cryptic lesson that didn't make sense back then but might now.
He lifted his head and met her gaze. "I believe... he's telling me something."
Qrow frowned. "Telling you what?"
Jaune stared down at the photo again, that faint smirk still etched across his father's face. "That he's alive. And that he's watching." He paused, his voice dropping a note lower. "Whatever he's doing out there… it's not over. It'll never be over. Not until I'm strong enough to confront him."
The wind picked up again, carrying with it the faint rattle of loose metal.
Qrow stood silently, his eyes distant. Raven, meanwhile, tilted her head just slightly, watching Jaune with renewed interest — the kind reserved for someone who might be walking toward the same storm she already saw coming.
For a long moment, none of them spoke.
Finally, Qrow broke the silence. "We'll keep eyes on Vacuo. If he resurfaces, LUCID'll know. You'll be the first to hear about it."
Jaune nodded slowly. "Thanks."
There were a few things Nicholas Arc had told Jaune that day. Three, to be exact and each one was heavy enough to alter the course of his life forever.
The first was the truth behind the Dream Realm. Its true history and the reason it had come to be.
The second, was why his father had chosen to walk down the path that now marked him as a criminal... and perhaps something far worse.
And the third… was the ultimatum.
His family.
Jaune's father had taken them—his mother and his seven sisters—away. Hidden them somewhere beyond Jaune's reach, somewhere between the folds of the waking and the dream, placing them in a coma-like sleep. It wasn't just a simple disappearance. It was a kidnapping in all but name. His father didn't deny it either. In his eyes, it was an act of mercy, a preemptive salvation before the coming storm.
Two years.
That was the ultimatum. Two years to reach Rank 2. Two years to become strong enough to defeat him and to rescue his family before his father was to 'awaken' them by force—before he dragged them, screaming and unprepared, into the Dream Realm, the same way he had done to Jaune.
That was the true weight behind Jaune Arc's awakening. It had never been an accident or natural. In a way, he wasn't even an anomaly.
When most people awakened, it would happen on the night of their 14th birthday, and they'd be prepared by LUCID before they walk into this nightmare unprepared. But not Jaune. That night—that second night in Vale when he had been infected by nightmare, his father had intercepted it and hijacked it with surgical precision, rewriting its course. He had summoned the entity known only as the Sleeper and used it forge a connection, transforming Jaune into an artificial awakened.
Yes, Jaune was made, not chosen.
In a way, it was the same ritual Mocha had once performed, but with less fanfare and far more substance. To become an artificial awakened, two things had to occur: first, the subject needed to be infected by a nightmare; second, the gaze of the Sleeper had to be summoned.
It was a brilliant ritual—one born from years of experimentation by that loathsome group.
When Jaune had told Ozpin the truth a few days ago, the words had felt unreal but his father's disappearance had forced his hand. Jaune needed all the help he could get from LUCID if he was to be strong enough to stand against him.
And to think that it all started with a single, accidental contact with one of the Four Relics of Humanity. The Supreme Rune of Knowledge.
His fathers runes had... synchronized with the relic
Foresight, Insight, and Time.
Each was already powerful alone. But when his father's runes synchronized with the Supreme Rune, the barrier between mortal comprehension and divine perception fractured.
He saw everything. Every path, possibility and failure that would lead humanity to ruin.
This led to him stealing his son's fate, and forced him into the Dream Realm. Not to punish him, but to prepare him.
To his father, this was not cruelty. It was love twisted into fanaticism. Every manipulation, every secret and every act of violence was for what he called "the Greater Good"—the salvation of the world's future through controlled destruction.
But for Jaune, it was betrayal.
Even now, he could still hear his father's voice in the moments before their last parting, calm and absolute.
"You will hate me. That's fine. You must. Because only through hatred can you become strong enough to stop me."
Two years.
That was the promise, the challenge and the curse.
Jaune Arc would have to walk a path carved by his father's sins, reach Rank 2 before the clock ran out, and face the man who had stolen his family, his fate, and his future.
And as he stood now in the Dream Realm, staring into the endless night where the red motes of moonlight pulsed like a living heartbeat, he couldn't help but feel the truth of it:
His father hadn't just seen the future. He had written it and for some reason, his father believed that he, Jaune Arc, was the correction written in its margin.
.
.
AN: Now we know how Jaune awakened at his age. And the true reason behind his anomalous nature.
Advanced chapters are available on patreon