Jaune normally slipped into dreams like a ray of sunlight through a window, flowing into a person's subconscious mind without a conscious thought of his own. The same for them. Few ever noticed, so subtle was his Semblance's intrusion.

This was different.

Jaune tumbled into the abyss screaming in rage, cursing himself for falling for Watts' simple trip and with his thoughts locked solely on the nightmare on the horizon: Salem. Thoughts of what she would do to him, what horrors she might inflict, and also what she'd do with his Semblance if he surrendered to her.

He did not appear in a person's dream.

He slammed into it, shattering the barrier with a sound like breaking glass and smashing down onto a dusty desert-like surface in the middle of a nightmare-blasted landscape. The sky was purple and crackled with lightning, while the sand beneath him was black like ground obsidian. It was warm, as if it were absorbing heat from the lightning itself.

Or as if it were alive.

"Whose dream is this?"

Ruby, Blake and Weiss had been knocked out at roughly the same time as him, and each of them would have had negative enough thoughts about it to cause a nightmare. He doubted Ruby or Weiss had ever seen a desert like this, but there was no telling how many places Blake had been to as a terrorist. It was mostly likely her.

"I have to see if I can wake her up. If I can change someone's DNA then I can surely purge poison from someone's system as well. If I can give her a boost then she might be able to stop Watts taking me away."

Or at least protect her teammates.

The first thing was finding her. He'd never been able to effect people without interacting with their dream self. The scenery was just a figment of her imagination. It was the dream persona that represented a person's identity.

"Blake! Blake, where are you! This is a dream! I need you to find me!"

He picked a location and began running. Samina was make-believe here. The landscape didn't become fuzzy so he assumed he was headed in roughly the right direction, continuing to shout at the top of his voice.

Something rumbled far behind him, beginning as a distant noise, impossibly deep, and then sounding closer. It could have been the rumbling of thunder at first, but the lack of any flashes of light told him it wasn't. While dreams could and did defy reason, the dreamer usually mimicked natural phenomena accurately. They'd lived through enough thunderstorms to know what they looked and sounded like.

That sounded like a growl. A monster, then.

"Of course Blake would be having a nightmare," he groaned. "She's just a raging bundle of guilt and misery."

She was probably blaming herself now for being knocked out by Watts, as if others hadn't fallen for the exact same trick. Jaune turned and made his way toward the noise, knowing that the "monster" in a nightmare was sure to be close to the dreamer. It wouldn't be much of a nightmare otherwise.

Traversing the desert, he soon came upon several ruins sticking up from the black sand. Half-buried, they still retained their architectural style and the white marble shone. Vacuo, then? He'd heard there were interesting ruins there for tourists to see. The number of them picked up to a startling degree, to the point he felt like he was in the middle of a ruined city. There was no way Vacuo had this many ruins so close together, but Blake's dream might just be slapping them down without a care for realism.

"Blake! Blaaaake! Or Weiss or Ruby!" he shouted, since it could still be them. "Anyone!"

The ground beneath him cracked.

That short sound was the only warning he got before it split open into a chasm, dropping him downward. Jaune swallowed a reflexive scream and forced himself to stop – and he did, hovering maybe six feet down the chasm. He floated back up to the ground level lest it snap shut on him and only once he was above it did he look down.

The chasm below wasn't bottomless. There was some thick, black sludge at the bottom that glistened and reflected light, almost like molasses and treacle that had been left for years to rot and congeal. It was flowing slowly, less like a river and more like sludge rolling over itself being pushed by the weight of more behind it.

"Not sure what that represents. Something-something corrupt governments and the rot it creates in society turning life to sludge?" he guessed. "That sounds like a Blake thing. No offence meant."

Blake didn't reply.

"Why did it open under me, though? The nightmare shouldn't take cracks at anyone but the dreamer. Unless... Is this my nightmare?"

No. He'd fallen into this dream. He could also expend aura to change it, which wouldn't have been necessary if this were his own lucid dream. The fact the surroundings carried with them a cost was proof it wasn't his own.

Another rumble sounded, this one from below. Jaune looked down to see black shapes pulling themselves up from the tar – Grimm. They were slick and sticky, the gunk making it hard to tell which type, but they began to scale the chasm walls, pulling themselves up toward him. He wasn't too worried, being able to fly and all, but he looked around for someone who would feel threatened, who would surely be the victim of the nightmare.

The last thing he expected was for the Grimm to start climbing one another and make a bizarre tower to try and reach him. Frowning, he floated away and slashed a hand, imagining – and conjuring – a giant version of Crocea Mors to slice through the base of it and spill all the Grimm back down into the chasm.

"That's twice now that the dream has targeted me. The first could have been an accident but that one wasn't. What's going on here?"

Beyond the odd targeting, what felt especially strange was how weak the attempts on his life were. A dream had infinite possibilities, so summoning a bunch of lesser Grimm felt... well, it felt half-hearted. Why not simple create an impossibly large, impossibly fast, impossibly strong Grimm to kill him?

"Caww! Cawwwww!"

Turning, he caught a flock of Nevermore flying at him by conjuring a shield of metal. They slammed into it, bones breaking and splintering. The dead creatures, already dissolving, dropped from the sky.

"Again. They went for me but so pathetically."

Looking down, he saw more Grimm scaling the chasm. Angling his hands down as if to grip the edges of it like he was taking two edges of fabric around a ripped pair of jeans, Jaune grunted and pulled them together. With a groan and a rumble, the chasm groaned shut, crushing the hundreds of Grimm within to paste.

Something roared again in the distance.

But it felt... defensive. Nervous. Like a dog growling while backing up, its head low to the ground and its tail between its legs. Like a mistreated animal in a cage who was deeply mistrustful of the people trying to help it.

"Is that the dreamer...? I suppose it's not impossible for them to be dreaming they're an animal." He'd seen weirder. "I'd best check it out."

/-/

Flying over the wasteland as fast as he could, Jaune tracked the distant sound. It kept moving, putting distance between them and leaving him feeling like he was stuck in one of those dreams where a person couldn't reach their destination no matter how hard they tried. Unlike them, he could bend the rules of the dream, so he punched through the sound barrier like a comic book superhero.

If the situation in the real world weren't so dire, he may even have enjoyed it.

Nevermore continued to harry him along the way, to no effect, and at one point he even came across a wall of Grimm. Literally thousands of Ursae stacked on one another's shoulders like circus performers. Even if he hadn't been moving at the speed of light, a gentle push from anyone would have sent them toppling. He burst through their ranks leaving behind a bloody Jaune-shaped hole.

What's going on here? All these Grimm are trying to get to me, but I'm sure this isn't my dream. For one thing, if this was my nightmare then it'd be a lot more threatening. They'd go after my friends if they couldn't get me. Or my family. Play on the mental tragedy angle since I'm physically superior to them.

He'd have been driven mad with rage if they killed Saphron and his sisters, but there was no one else here. Just ruined landscapes, mountains, a black desert and a purple sky. And Grimm. Lots and lots and lots of really useless Grimm. Obviously, so many of them would have been a threat in real life, but they weren't here.

Here, he might as well have been a god!

At least as long as my aura lasts. Reserves are still good, though.

He was beginning to doubt this was Blake's dream, though. Or any one of his friends.

Watts, maybe...? The man would have to be an idiot to fall asleep, but maybe he'd had an accident with his own knockout gas. It'd certainly explain why the man was trying to put Grimm between Jaune and him.

A castle rose up ahead of him, nestled between two mountains. Its walls and keep were black stone, duller than obsidian. Unlike the rest, it wasn't a ruin. Red light shone from the open windows. Dots of light that showed it was inhabited. Jaune slowed his descent and landed on a parapet. A Beowolf lunged for him but he flicked his hand and lifted it up telekinetically, flipping it over his head and off the wall.

It fell to its death with a roar.

"A castle in a dream," he mused. "Feelings of protection and safety, or a mental representation of such. It'd make sense for a nervous person to construct a castle around their own mind. Watts is looking more and more likely."

Stepping off the wall, he walked across open air above the courtyard, ignoring the Grimm below as he approached a stone wall and simply willing the bricks to move, peeling back brick by brick to form a human-sized hole he could step through. Once he let go, they peeled back shut behind him, reverting to their previous state.

He found himself in a well-lit corridor with a red carpet and purple tapestries on the walls. Gold and wood ornaments hung from the walls between the cloth. States of men and women in armour, swords pointed to the ground, lined the outer edge of it. Something tickled at Jaune's mind. A sense of familiarity. Not exact, but distant. He had a feeling he'd seen the corridor before but couldn't place where.

It didn't matter. A castle always had a throne room, or a main hall, and that'd be where the person who constructed it was. Jaune rushed down the corridor, ignoring the statues that moved and swung their weapons at him. Of course they did. Why wouldn't they? He'd suspected it as soon as he saw them.

And mom said video game knowledge would never do me any good.

Blasting past them, he smashed through one door and several Grimm, then another, cutting deeper into the castle while hoping it wouldn't expand and grow to make the task harder. He anchored his aura into it just in case. If the dream wanted to shift the architecture, it'd find it difficult with him forcing it to stay the same.

Eventually, he came to a huge set of ornate double doors. Pine inlaid with gold and bronze. Two huge states outside it moved to life and approached him, one of them swinging a mighty spear down on his head.

Jaune caught it with both hands, by the bladed tip, and then shunted it back, smashing the butt of the polearm into and through the statue's chest. He then ripped it free and spun the overly large, stone haft into the arm of the second cracking through it and driving the thing off-balance as it swung an axe at him. Reversing the ten-metre-long spear as if it were a small stick, Jaune stabbed the first through the throat and then swept across, cutting its head off and decapitating the second.

Again, they were so weak.

He'd have called it suspicious if not for the knowledge of how dreams worked psychologically. Since dreams were subconscious imagination, they never were meant to be physically strong. Instead, people in nightmares were made weaker to compensate. That was why people felt helpless in dreams – because they were running but not making distance, studying but failing exams, fighting but overpowered by monsters.

Dreams were weak. It was just that they made the dreamer weaker.

He was neither.

The dream could imagine up all the enemies it wanted, but it couldn't take hold of him and make him feel as weak as a baby. It couldn't tailor the monstrosities to his weaknesses because the dreamer didn't know them. Everyone knew he had family, but they'd never met them, so even if it wanted to mentally torture him by conjuring up images of his family being killed, it'd have to guess at what they looked like.

That'd never work. It'd probably just be female versions of him, leaving him feeling awkward and amused rather than distraught as a bunch of fem-Jaunes were hunted down by Grimm. Chuckling, Jaune approached the huge door, which now had chains wrapped around it sealing it shut. With a roll of his eyes, he took hold of the chains – they were comically large, so big he couldn't take hold of a single link with two hands – and snapped them. His foot kicked out and slammed the doors open, and he strode inside before they could close on him.

The hall was wide and open. In the centre of it, on a raised platform, sat the last person he'd expected.

"Salem..."

"Arc."

The woman clutched the armrests tightly. Her skin was pallid white, her eyes red and black. This was the Grimm version of her. Inhuman.

"I guess that explains the Grimm trying to stop me."

And the castle. It was the one he'd seen in Ozpin's dream, just twisted and blackened and with less people. That was where he remembered it from. It also answered the question of why everything in the dream was after him.

He was the nightmare here.

About the only thing it didn't explain was why she was asleep in the first place.

"So, I'm your biggest nightmare?"

Salem scoffed. "Don't flatter yourself, boy. I may have passed out but my Grimm will slaughter Cinder and your friends soon enough. I don't fear you."

"No. You do. You're afraid of me. That's the only reason why you'd have a nightmare where I come for you." Jaune took a step forward and was rewarded by Salem tensing. "Interesting. I didn't realise you were such a coward."

"Is it cowardice to be cautious around you? Your only power is in dreams. This is a dream." Salem forced herself to stay still. She knew she couldn't escape him. "You have power here. I accept that. Of course, the power you have won't change anything. You can kill me a million times in this dream if you wish. Put me through the worst torture your silly mind can imagine. It won't harm my body on the outside."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes. This body was cursed by the gods, and your Semblance is just a fraction of their power left behind. You can change things in the world – but so could they, and with far more terrifying results. They didn't need to be asleep to alter reality. Nor did they need their victims to be slumbering."

"The gods aren't here." Jaune stepped toward her. "I am."

Salem leaned back. "Then what torture do you have planned for me? Do you wish to cut my body to pieces and leave me to wake up as chunks of meat? Ozma did that to me once. Separated my head from my body, locked it in a metal box underground and hoped that would contain me."

Salem closed her eyes.

"It did for a while. The confines of that box and the absolute darkness, not to mention the lack of oxygen – or lungs, for that matter. It's funny how a dismembered head can suffocate. My body continuously reformed within that box and was continuu8sly crushed. I was compacted and squashed as my organs ruptured and bones shattered." Her eyes opened. "Can you imagine me up a fate worse than that?"

He wasn't sure that he could.

In the same way Salem couldn't imagine up a way to stop him in her dream, he couldn't imagine up a way to stop her. They were at the same crossroads, just reversed. In the real world she had the power but didn't know how to break him. Here, he had the power but didn't know how to break her.

With a willed thought, a spear of light punched out from her chest, breaking through the seat behind her to transfix the woman.

Salem coughed blood.

But didn't scream.

"My body lost much of its humanity when it fell into the Grimm pools. Without the curse, I would have died. The curse kept my soul and mind alive but many parts of my body did die. I'm afraid I haven't felt pain in a long time. I'm not sure I can anymore." She stroked a finger across the bloody shaft of the glowing spear. I can feel this in the sense of an object inside me, pushing through my organs, but there is no pain."

"And yet you're still afraid of me."

Salem frowned.

"You fell asleep knowing I was sleeping nearby, and you instantly had a nightmare which sucked me into your head. The nightmare was even about me coming for you." Jaune paced in front of her, hand stroking his chin. "You talk like you're untouchable but you're afraid of something."

He needed to find what that was – and quick. Salem wouldn't stay asleep forever.

"There's nothing you can do," she said. "Yes, I've had a nightmare about you, but my mind is still human. Pointless nightmares aren't new to me."

She's stalling. Lying. This is all an act to unsettle me. Salem is worried about something.

What, though? Could it be that Ozpin would find her? No. Then the nightmare would have been about him. There was no one here other than himself, so it was Salem being afraid of him specifically. Not Ozpin.

Or it could be something else.

"You know, there was another presence in your mind the last time Ozpin and I had a jaunt in here."

"Oh?" Salem picked at the spear in her body, clearly not believing him. "Is this a new game you're playing?"

"You don't believe me? Why don't we draw it here and let you see for yourself, hm?"

"Do as you wish. You're the one in control here. Conjure whatever beast you wish and have it maul me. But keep in mind I shall return it threefold."

"We'll see. If you're afraid of me, with all the power I have in your mind, then I wonder how you'll react to a creature even older. One that's been living in your mind undetected for hundreds of years."

In the distance, a roar sounded.

Powerful. Unafraid. Angry. The ground trembled.

"Some imaginary beast you've thought up?" Salem mocked, clutching to her shaking throne. "I hope you don't think this will be enough to shake me."

Jaune only smiled. "We'll see."