The accusation tasted like rust in his mouth.
“—forged transcripts! He’s a liar, Professor Goodwitch! He has no place at Beacon!”
Cardin Winchester’s voice was a triumphant bellow in the sparseness of the Headmaster’s office. Jaune stood frozen, his hand still resting on the hilt of Crocea Mors, the cold steel a stark contrast to the fire licking up his neck. He didn’t look at Professor Goodwitch. He didn’t look at Ozpin, whose gaze he could feel weighing on him from behind that ridiculous desk. He looked at Cardin. At the smug, unshakable certainty on that brute’s face. And in that moment, Jaune Arc learned the true meaning of betrayal. It wasn’t a knife in the back. It was being held up for the world to see, every weakness and fraudulence you buried deep inside yourself excavated and put on display by someone you had, however briefly, shown mercy.
Therefore, when the mission to the Emerald Forest was announced the next day, Jaune volunteered. He had something to prove, a furious, desperate energy coiling in his gut. It was a simple escort mission: protect a shipment of experimental Dust crystals for a new Schnee Dust Company research outpost. Simple.
But Cardin and his team were there, too. A coincidence. Of course.
The ambush wasn’t Grimm. It was a rival mining corporation’s hired guns. A firefight erupted, bullets and Dust rounds painting the forest in deadly colour. Jaune fought, his shield taking hits that would have shattered another student’s Aura, his mind a frantic litany of commands he’d drilled a thousand times. *Block, parry, shield bash, move.*
He saw it happen. He saw Cardin, cornered and panicking, shove the crate of experimental Dust—unstable, volatile, pure elemental power barely contained—between himself and an incoming rocket.
The world went white. Then it went loud. A single, unending shriek that tore through his ears and vibrated in his teeth. He tasted ozone, a smell he’d always hated, the cloying scent of Nora’s grenade mishaps magnified a million times. His Aura, already strained, felt like a pane of glass hit by a wrecking ball. It shattered. Pain was the only thing left. A scouring, absolute agony that vaporized thought and identity. Then, nothing.
He awoke to grey. A sky of solid, uniform grey, like a concrete slab poured over the world. The air was thick with the taste of dust and chemicals. Nothing smelled alive. He was lying on cracked pavement, rubble digging into his back. Towering, skeletal structures of metal and stone clawed at the sky around him, their sides pockmarked and blackened. There were no trees. No birds. Just a low, mournful wind whistling through the canyons of urban decay.
“Hello?” His voice was a dry rasp. The silence that answered was heavier than any sound.
Panic, cold and sharp, tried to take root. He beat it back with training. *Assess. Survive. Contact.*
He sat up. Every muscle screamed. He ran a hand over his chest plate. Cracked. His vambraces were scraped raw. He looked down at his hands. No glow. His Aura was gone, or so depleted it was useless. He was just… Jaune. A horrifyingly fragile thought.
He patted his belt for his scroll. The habit was ingrained, a nervous tic he’d had for years: he could not stand not knowing the battery percentage. It had to be visible, a tiny anchor of control. His fingers found the familiar shape. He pulled it out. The screen was a spiderweb of cracks, the device utterly dead. No signal bars. No reassuring green battery icon. Just a black, lifeless mirror reflecting a sliver of the oppressive grey sky. For some reason, that felt worse than the pain.
He had to move. He was exposed. Using a broken chunk of rebar as a handhold, he hauled himself to his feet. His legs wobbled, but held. Crocea Mors was still strapped to his hip, the familiar weight a small comfort. He drew the blade, the scabbard unfolding into its shield form with a familiar series of clicks. It was scratched, dented, but whole.
He took one step, then another, moving into the shadow of a colossal, crumbled wall. He scanned the ruins. No movement. Just the desolation, the silent testament to some forgotten catastrophe. Where was he? This wasn't the Emerald Forest. This wasn't anywhere on any map of Remnant he’d ever seen. The Dust explosion… it hadn’t just thrown him.
*Static.*
The sound burst from a small, metal box bolted to the wall near his head. It had a single, grimy lens pointed at the street.
Jaune froze, blade held ready.
*Static.* “—known contact, do you copy? You are in a restricted sector. Identify yourself.”
The voice was female, crisp and professional, filtered through the tinny speaker. It was a voice that expected answers and was accustomed to getting them.
“Wh-who is this?” Jaune stammered, aiming his voice at the box. “Where am I?”
“I am asking the questions, Unknown. You have entered a COG-restricted zone during a state of emergency. State your name and affiliation.”
COG? State of emergency? The words were nonsense. “My name is Jaune Arc. I’m… I’m a Huntsman-in-training from Beacon Academy.”
A pause. The silence stretched. Jaune could practically hear the woman on the other end processing the alien terms. “Beak-in… Academy. That is not a registered designation. Your armor signature does not match any COG or UIR profile. Your presence here is unauthorized. And highly problematic.”
“Look, I don’t know what any of that means!” Jaune’s frustration boiled over. “There was an explosion. I was on a mission. One minute I was in the Emerald Forest, the next… this. Please, can you just tell me where I am?”
“You are in the Timgad sector ruins,” the voice replied, her tone unchanged. She was giving him a fact, not a comfort. “And your entry has triggered a proximity alert for a sensitive asset. I need you to verify its status for me.”
“An asset? What kind of asset?”
“A Hammer of Dawn targeting beacon,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “My remote telemetry is offline. I need visual confirmation. There is a service conduit two hundred meters from your position, marked with a yellow stripe. Follow it east. You will find the beacon’s housing unit at the end. Report its condition.”
She was giving him orders. Just like that. But what choice did he have? He was alone, hurt, and in a place that felt like the world’s graveyard. Her voice was the only other sign of intelligent life.
“And if I don’t?” he asked, a spark of his old defiance flickering.
The pause this time was different. Colder. “The alternative is that I designate this sector a total loss and withdraw orbital surveillance. You would be on your own. Given the local fauna, I wouldn’t recommend it.”
The threat was veiled, but clear. He was a piece on her board, and she was deciding if he was worth the move. He had to take the action on his own, or be abandoned.
“Fine,” he ground out. “East. Yellow stripe. I’m moving.”
He stepped out from the shadow of the wall, his shield held high, and started walking. The grey sky, the broken buildings, the sheer wrongness of it all pressed in on him. He passed a shard of what might have been a window, angled in a pile of rubble. For a second, he saw his reflection.
It wasn’t Jaune Arc, the bumbling, well-meaning leader of Team JNPR. It was a gaunt, grimy figure with wide, haunted eyes. His blond hair was matted with dirt and something dark he prayed wasn’t blood. The familiar blue-and-gold of his hoodie and armor was muted under a layer of soot, the vibrant colours of his home leached away by this grey world. A stranger stared back at him from the glass, a survivor standing in the ruins of a life that had ended only hours ago. He turned away from the reflection and kept walking.