"I may be arrested at breakfast."

Pyrrha, Ren and Nora all stopped in the act of putting on their uniforms and stared at him. In all fairness, it wasn't the kind of thing you expected to be told first thing in the morning. Pyrrha managed to put their thoughts to words.

"What...?"

"I was in General Ironwood's dream last night."

Ren groaned. "Jaune. Of all the people..."

"It's not like I have a choice on who it is. And I definitely didn't see military secrets." Not unless the loss of the man's arm was a secret. The best Jaune had been able to do was expend some aura to ease the dreamer's pain. Give them some comfort by changing bits of it. "I'm hoping he might be feeling a little merciful after I helped him in the dream."

"Helped him with what?"

"I can't say. Not because it's confidential but because it's his dream and his business." Jaune shrugged. "It's one of my rules."

"A fair one," agreed Pyrrha. "But I'm sure you're overreacting."

Team JNPR stepped outside.

And into a hallway filled with gun barrels.

"I'm sure he's overreacting," Nora hissed mockingly under her breath. "Oh yeah, it sure looks like it, Pyrrha."

Jaune sighed.

"Jaune Arc," spoke one officer. "You are under arrest for bodily harm against a citizen of Atlas."

"Does Headmaster Ozpin know about this?" asked Jaune.

"You have the right to remain silent—"

"I have the right to representation as well. I choose the headmaster."

"He's resisting arrest!"

Two soldiers tackled him to the floor.

Which proved to be a mistake.

His teammates – far more capable than he – flew into action, Ren kicking guns away and Nora launching herself into the middle of three soldiers who reflexively opened fire. Shots pinged off aura but more struck walls and doors. There were startled screams and Jaune hoped their neighbours could get their aura up in time.

With a sweep of her hand, Pyrrha solved the issue by yanking the guns out of every soldier's hands and throwing them to the floor. She rarely used her Semblance, but that didn't mean she was useless with it.

"Sir!" barked one soldier into his comms. "We are under atta—"

"Oh, can it!" snarled Nora, slamming the man's head into a wall. His helmet protected him but he still slumped, dropping to the floor when she let go of him.

Ren and Pyrrha dragged the two on Jaune off him and tossed them away.

"I think we should head straight to the headmaster's office," said Pyrrha.

"Understatement of the century."

They raced away and left the soldiers scrambling. There was no point getting into a bigger fight. People were coming out to investigate anyway, and by now shots in Beacon would have been heard by others. When they reached the main hall, there were already two soldiers stood outside the elevator to Ozpin's office. They stiffened and reached for their weapons, only to have Pyrrha yank them out their hands with her Semblance.

"Step aside," she commanded. "You have no right to bar our reaching the headmaster."

They wisely did so, allowing the four to enter the elevator and ride it up to the tower's peak. When the door opened, they could already hear raised voices and shouting within – General Ironwood's voice was the most obvious, but Glynda was there as well. Ozpin was quiet, listening, but everything came to a halt when Jaune stepped in and cleared his throat.

General Ironwood turned with a snarl. "You—"

"Mr. Arc!" said Glynda, shouting over Ironwood. "This is not a good time. Perhaps you could—"

"Armed soldiers attacked us at our dorm," he said. "They opened fire in Beacon's halls. I've no idea if anyone has been injured."

Glynda's shocked eyes swivelled onto Ironwood. "No. You wouldn't..."

"I did—"

"Enough." Ozpin stood and slammed his cane down into the ground. There was a shockwave of green that made his desk scrape back across the floor, and which had Ironwood and Glynda covering their faces from the light. Jaune and his team had to blink as well, blinded by it. "James, I will ask you and all your soldiers to vacate Beacon immediately. Henceforth, you are barred from the academy unless specifically invited."

"You can't make that decision!"

"I can and I have. You have more than expended your welcome and you have more than strained my patience. I have put up with your militant pursuit of Mr. Arc, and I had thought the matter over once he proved his loyalty in helping identify the White Fang and oust Cinder Fall. Whom, I shall remind you, remains at large in the city. Perhaps if your people were allocated there to search for her instead of here to defend you from a teenager with some of the poorest combat grades in the year, that would not be a problem."

Jaune winced.

He was getting better but... yeah...

Ironwood pointed at Jaune angrily. "He experimented on me!"

"I did what?" Jaune gaped at the man. "I ended up in your dream, sure, but I didn't do anything to you. I didn't even see anything confidential! In fact, I didn't even see who you were fighting when you lost your arm. I was stuck in the truck trying to help you with the operation."

"You are not a medically trained professional!"

"All I did was hold you down!"

"YOU CHANGED ME!" roared Ironwood, tearing off his coat and shoving his right hand into Jaune's face. He wasn't wearing his gloves for once, and his bare skin filled Jaune's vision. "LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO ME!"

Jaune stumbled back. "What? I don't see anything!"

"Ahem." Glynda cleared her throat. "He is referring to his arm, Mr. Arc."

"What about it!?"

"His human arm. Where once was not an arm."

Where—? Oh crud. General James Ironwood, the wounded soldier who lost an arm in the dream, was stood before him very much in possession of two arms. Prosthetics had come a long way but they hadn't come that far, and last Jaune checked the man had been quite blatant with his metallic arm, unafraid to show it off. Maybe as some badge of honour or proud scar. That was gone now.

"B—But I didn't do that!" Jaune said, panicking. "My Semblance can't do that!"

Nora giggled awkwardly. "Uh..."

All eyes turned to her.

"Something to add, Miss Valkyrie?" Ozpin prompted.

"W—Wellllll... I may have had a dream where Jaune saw a cut on my hand and made it go away, and then the cut was gone when I woke up. It was about a week ago."

"Nora," said Ren, infinitely patient, infinitely frustrated. "You really should have brought that up."

Nora blushed and ducked her head. "In my defence, I was a little more shocked about being told his Semblance, so I forgot to mention this or even remember it until now. It's not like I was keeping it a secret or anything."

"My Semblance can heal...? Since when...?"

"It would seem your Semblance developed more than just an ability to impart damage when you attacked Miss Fall. We may have simplified it. Instead, it may be that your Semblance allows you to modify reality in a limited way. Though that may only be physical aspects of the person having the dream."

Jaune was stricken with guilt. "Amber..."

"Was not someone you would have had much luck fixing," Ozpin was quick to interrupt. "Her condition was far from normal and you likely didn't develop this until after her death. The stress of that, combined with your overuse of your Semblance, may be what caused the development in the first place. You noticed no such ability until you were furious enough to attack Cinder with the intent to kill her."

"That's—"

"Irrelevant!" snapped Ironwood. "That boy modified my body without my consent!"

"He healed you," said Pyrrha.

"I did not agree to healing. I did not need to be healed. He took my body, without my knowledge or consent, and he made changes to it. That those changes might be called benign by you don't change the fact I had no damn say!" he shouted. "I had no control! No choice! No freedom to say no! He walked into my room, into my mind, and he played with my body!"

Pyrrha hissed, "That's not—"

"He's right."

Jaune's words shocked them.

"He's right. And I'm sorry. I didn't want to enter your dream and I didn't know that I could make changes to your body. Or I knew I could harm you but I didn't know I could do anything else. I wasn't even aware of who the dreamer was until you said your name at the end. But you're right that I unintentionally caused changes to your body, and I'm sorry for that."

It was only fair to apologise.

But it was also only fair to try and make it right.

"If you want, and as crazy as this sounds, I can try and reverse the change. We could do as we tried to with Qrow and have me enter your dream and remove your arm. I could try and make it painless."

"Absolutely not," said Glynda. "Once is bad enough but to try and safely remove an arm is playing around with things no one here understands. James could bleed to death. If he wants his arm removed, there are doctors who can safely do it – though he'll have a hard time finding one willing to. This was all an accident and I think—"

"You cannot simply write this off as an accident," hissed Ironwood. "I'm a foreign dignitary and a military leader. I can take this to court."

"Beacon will naturally defend its students in said scenario," Ozpin replied. "And you'll have far worse troubles if I find out any of my students were injured – or heavens forbid, killed – by your actions this morning."

"I did what had to be done."

"You are overreacting, James. The White Fang are running rampant. Cinder Fall has designs on the Vytal Festival. This is not the time for squabbling. We are supposed to be on the same side but you are letting your paranoia get the better of you." Ozpin shook his head. "Glynda, please escort General Ironwood from the school, then collect Miss Schnee and escort her from the property as well. If anyone has been wounded, I want to know. Enlist the other teachers. I shall announce that first period has been cancelled. There's too much to clean up."

Glynda escorted the furious man out, with Team JNPR moving quickly to the side so they wouldn't be in his way. Jaune's own eyes remained on the man's arm. He hadn't had any idea he was capable of that and now... well, any happiness he might have felt at being able to actively help people was washed away by Ironwood's reaction.

"You certainly do enjoy making life difficult for me, Mr. Arc."

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Your Semblance is evolving at a remarkable rate. That, or it developed this ability early and you simply never had the chance to discover it. I must ask you to hold back on using it for spurious reasons. It'll be hard to keep your Semblance under wraps if people learned of it."

"They'd demand he use it on them," said Pyrrha. "He might become as famous as me."

"Indeed. Though it would be a simple fame to deal with I suppose. People would fight for the chance to sleep in proximity to you but wouldn't harm you or demand your time. Your Semblance only works when you sleep after all. Still, having people camped outside Beacon hoping for a miracle won't do the school much good."

"I'll hold back, sir."

"Within reason, Mr. Arc. If you find one of my students dying then I encourage you to heal them. Simply come to me after and I'll explain to them what happened. I'm not asking you to reject your Semblance; only that you not be reckless with it."

That sounded fine with him. At least he could use it among his teammates without issues, and he'd save anyone on Team RWBY's lives before worrying about his own secrets. Luckily, it was unlikely he'd be in a situation like that. If someone were dying, he wouldn't be asleep and they'd be in a hospital. The most likely thing he could think of was someone like Port having a heart attack in his bed. Unless someone was injured in sparring and asleep in the infirmary, but then they'd be safe and looked after there anyway. There wasn't much point exposing himself to heal an injury that was already being treated.

"Will things really be okay with General Ironwood like this?"

"I don't know." Ozpin's frankness was concerning all on its own. "I want to say James feels violated and is lashing out in anger but Atlas is a kingdom that encourages such thinking. To them, there's nothing more important than defending your own freedoms – even the freedom to not be healed, and even the freedom to take away another's freedom in response. You'll find it's their freedom which matters. Not yours. Never yours."

"I assume it's not enough that I said sorry."

"I'm afraid not. James has been ruffled now, and he's lost face in being told to leave Beacon. Whatever his reasons, the debacle with his soldiers will haunt his career – potentially end it if he's actually managed to harm a student. He can't afford to let it go now. Neither can Atlas as a whole. Him accepting guilt would paint Atlas in a negative light. They can't have that."

"The PR machine rumbles on as usual," Pyrrha grumbled.

"Quite. But where countries are involved, facts are often seen as disposable. Mr Arc is one man in the grand scheme of things. An easy sacrifice to make for the continued good reputation of a kingdom representing many millions of people. Still, I'll ask you not to worry. Beacon won't stand by and let you be carted away, and Vale won't show weakness by surrendering you when the Vytal Festival is here. Ultimately, you already had instructions not to leave Beacon for any reason so this won't change anything."

There was a beep on Ozpin's desk.

"One moment please." He pressed the button. "Ozpin here."

"It's Peter." Port's voice came through. "No injuries among the students but quite a bit of damage to furniture. Sky Lark's bed has a nasty hole where his head would have been if he'd still been in bed. The boy is shaken, understandably. Cardin Winchester is demanding to be let at those 'Atlas fucks' so he can cave their skulls in. A few other close calls but we were lucky today."

"Atlas was luckier," said Ozpin, darkly. "Please see to Team CRDL and keep them out of trouble. Tell them they can have the day off school to head into Vale if that will help them relax."

"Will do. What a day, eh? I didn't have this on my bingo card."

"It's a new experience for me as well. Thank you for checking up on them, Peter." Ozpin ended the call and turned back to them. "There will be no lessons before lunch today. I apologise for your difficult morning but am proud of you all for fighting through to reach me here. I shouldn't need to say this, but if anyone ever does try to take you away from Beacon without providing you a chance to meet with me first, you are authorised to defend yourselves non-lethally."

"We'll do that, sir," said Pyrrha, somehow managing to sound polite and threatening in equal measure. "Team JNPR isn't afraid to break a few legs in defence of its members."

"Pyrrha!" crooned Nora. "I like this new you!"

/-/

"Sooooooooooooooo..."

"We're not allowed to talk about it."

"Oh, come on!" Yang banged her head down on the table in the library, rattling the playing pieces on the board game. "You know something – I know you do. Gunshots right outside our room. Atlas soldiers draped everywhere. This is the gossip of our lives, of the century, and you're not going to give us a thing?"

Pyrrha smiled. "Nope."

"Also, don't say us when you're the one badgering them," said Weiss.

"As if you're not all listening in, Weiss-cream. You haven't made a move in ten minutes. And no one has called you out on it either."

"I'm reading," said Blake.

"The book is upside down."

Blake flushed, went to turn it, then paused. "No, it isn't."

"But you thought it was! Which proves you weren't reading it!"

The feline faunus burned a hot shade of red and hid her face behind the cover. In all fairness, it wasn't every day you had an armed raid happen outside your dorm. Most of Beacon was desperate for answers, and all they knew was that Atlas had stepped over the mark and been kicked out of the school for it. The Atlas transfer students were sticking to their own circles, and no one was quite sure if they should be ostracised or pitied. Jaune would have loved to tell people it wasn't their faults, but he wasn't meant to know whose fault it was.

Did everyone have this much of a mess when they unlocked their Semblance, or was it just him?

"If Jaune wants to talk about it, he'll talk about it," said Ruby, and then she stared, meaningfully, with that friendly best-friend smile of hers that seemed to indicate now would be the perfect time for him to confide in her.

Jaune laughed. "I can't. None of us can. We're not allowed."

"It's only breaking the rules if you get caught."

Everyone stared at Yang.

"That wasn't me," she said, grinning.

Weiss was blushing.

"Weiss!" Ruby gasped, pointing. "That's Yang-talk!"

"I—I'm just saying that we wouldn't tell the teachers what we heard, so it's not like Team JNPR would get in trouble for it." It was much too late, though. Weiss had shrunk down into her seat an embarrassed mess. "Forget I said anything."

"No way, Weiss-cream." Yang laughed. "I'll make a rulebreaker out of you one day."

Nora leaned over and whispered, "This from the team with more detentions than any other in Beacon."

"We heard that!" Ruby cried.

"Doesn't make it any less true."

Team RWBY weren't thrilled with the lack of information but soon gave up pressing, realising with much grumbling and muttered complaints that their sister team wasn't going to give up the juicy gossip they so desperately craved. Personally, Jaune thought they were bored. Team RWBY normally had some ridiculous shenanigans they were involved in, but they hadn't been caught in a free-for-all battle or destroyed a part of the city in over a week now.

Cold turkey must have been setting in.

Uncharitable thoughts about their propensity for property destruction aside, having most of the day off from classes was a welcome to 99% of the student population. People headed into Vale, others caught up on sleep, and many were playing board games or chatting in the common rooms. Come lunch, an announcement came out that "due to sudden meetings the staff were needed for, all lessons today would be cancelled" – Ozpin was, of course, quick to offer his apologies to the student body, despite probably knowing how the news would be taken. The moment it ended, a cheer erupted in the common room.

Then the speakers came back on.

"However, Miss Goodwitch would like to reiterate that Team RWBY are to attend their mandatory detention this evening. Good day."

"Awwww!" Yang draped over the table. "Even when Atlas invades, we don't get an afternoon off! This is totally unfair."

"You destroyed a bridge support for a major road," Ren pointed out. "Causing untold economic damage and traffic delays across the whole city. It's going to take months for them to fix it, and with the Vytal Festival here, it's the busiest Vale will ever be."

"Like I said," Yang grumbled. "Totally unfair."

"We did stop a robot," Ruby tried.

"I think they'd rather have the robot than the damage you did."

"Pyrrha was there too!"

Pyrrha refused to meet any of their eyes, having found something remarkably interesting on the ceiling that required 100% of her attention.

"Our teammate is innocent and easily corrupted," said Nora. "We entrusted her to you for one night – one night – and you brought her back late, involved in a crime, and laden with more detentions than our whole team has achieved in the months we've been here."

Ren nodded. "I'm sorry but we're not trusting you to babysit Pyrrha anymore."

Weiss' scroll went off, interrupting the teasing for a moment. The heiress apologised and moved away from the table to answer it, and they shrugged and went back to the game – for all of the three seconds it took for Weiss to break the tableau.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'VE BEEN BARRED FROM BEACON!?"

Ah. Winter.

"I—I mean, no, I'm not shouting at you, Winter. It's just very loud here and I had to shout to be heard over the noise." Weiss desperately waved at them, and they obediently began making a lot of noisy and pointless chatter. "See? I'm in a very busy place. But barred? How can you— Don't tell me you were involved in this morning, Winter. We have a bullet through our door that hit Blake right in the pornography!"

Blake's ears flattened and she hissed over her book.

"It was a great loss," Yang said. "Though it hit the sparkly vampire erotica, so not that great a loss."

"It's romance—"

"It's garbage is what it is," Ruby said uncharitably. "Even I thought that movie sucked."

Attention soon returned to Weiss. "Yes. Yes, I can meet you in the city. Where should I—? Of course. Just send me the details and I'll be on my way. Do you have somewhere to stay? A hotel? Good. I can try and talk to the headmaster if you need me to. I'm sure an exception could be made for you." Weiss paused, listening to the response. "I'm not suggesting you're unable to look after yourself, Winter. I'm only trying to help. No, I'm fully aware you don't need my help but that doesn't mean I can't offer it!" Weiss stomped about hotly. "Fine. I'll retract any concern I offered. I wouldn't want you to think I cared or anything. Yes, I am upset with you, Winter. Well noticed. No. Let's save that for when we meet. I think we're both having a poor time understanding one another over a scroll call, and I'm drawing far too much attention. I'll talk to you later."

Weiss hung up with an irritated sigh.

"Sibling problems?" asked Yang.

"Like you wouldn't believe. I both love and am proud of my sister but sometimes she..." Weiss cut off, no doubt thinking she shouldn't air dirty laundry. It would be very unprofessional of her. And then she gave up. "She can be so obstinate sometimes. She's independent, I know, and very proud of it, but excuse me for showing some concern when I find out she's been forced out of Beacon. It's the Vytal Festival for crying out loud. Almost every hotel in Vale is booked up. Is it so wrong to be worried for her?"

"No," everyone agreed.

"You did right," said Ruby. "Winter just sounds like she's in a rotten mood and taking it out on you."

"Thank you." Weiss nodded to them. "And I imagine she is. Ugh." A quick sigh had her shoving her scroll away, ignoring the buzz of a text. Perhaps an apology. "I'll sort this out with her later. I'm sure it's all one big misunderstanding. Me and Winter," she was quick to add. "Not the shooting up a part of the school. That's a little hard to write off as anything other than an unmitigated disaster. Imagine if they'd hit someone. Imagine if they'd killed someone. No one is going to have their aura up when they're walking around in their pyjamas or just getting out of bed."

"Those bunkbeds may have actually saved our lives," said Yang.

"And they're just as likely to end them later," Pyrrha said. "I still don't understand how Weiss and Blake can sleep on the bottom bunks. Blake's bed is suspended on a pile of books while Ruby's is held aloft by hopes and dreams."

That may have been true but Jaune was more worried about his own dreams. Worse still, now that Winter and Atlas were out of Beacon they didn't need to play by the rules Ozpin had set on them, and with Weiss being asked to meet with her later...

Would Winter really up and tell Weiss like that? And would Weiss come straight back and tell Team RWBY? He just didn't know. They were closer now, better friends since he'd let his feelings for her go and apologised, but he could well imagine her jumping to the worst conclusions. He wouldn't blame her. If someone had the power to enter your dream and do whatever they wanted to you and get away with it, well, there were a lot of men who would abuse that.

"It's not real," they'd say. "It's just a dream" and "I'm not hurting her". As horrible as it sounded, he could well believe someone like Cardin using such a power to sleep around with dream versions of multiple women at Beacon.

He'd be lying if he said he hadn't at least once considered using his presence in Weiss' dreams to try and bolster her opinion of him. Not to abuse her, but to appear chivalrous in her dreams in an attempt to make her more favourable of him in real life. He'd dismissed that plan swiftly and never once used it on anyone. Being tempted didn't make someone a bad person. It was giving in to that temptation which did. But Winter could easily make him sound like a bad person if she wanted to.

And there wasn't much he could do other than trust in Weiss and hope for the best.

At least his team would back him up.