The dream trembled.

It wasn't the ground because the ground wasn't real, but the very boundaries of the dream itself vibrated and shook. Walls bent and curved. Details blurred. Brief flashes of static-like quality took their surroundings, shaking and twisting them into impossible shapes before Salem's subconscious snapped them back into place.

But they were no longer firm.

Nothing about the dream was. The floor had a consistency like treacle and the statues by the walls leaked blood from chinks in their armour. Salem's throne leaned to one side and the ceiling rippled like the surface of a lake.

Jaune let out a slow breath of his own. He had no idea what the beast would do and whether it could harm him, but when the only other option was certain capture at Salem's hands... well, he'd take the risk. Better dead than taken alive.

"Do you think this impresses me?" Salem asked, clutching to her throne.

"It's not me. This is something that exists in your subconscious. I assume it's the influence of the pools you threw yourself into."

"What are you talking about?"

"Ozpin told me the only reason you survived the pools was because of your curse. If the pools spawn Grimm, and Grimm mindlessly hate, then something has to be giving them that drive to destroy and kill. Some overring urge, almost like programming, telling them what to do and how to do it. You didn't die but that programming might still have been put into your head."

"Fool," Salem scoffed, quietly. "I wanted to destroy before the pools. Nothing changed after but for my physical form."

"But Ozpin said—"

"Ozma is thousands of years old! You think his mind hasn't wavered? He was a great king, a ruler with unparalleled experience in controlling those beneath him. He would always tell me that the best way to rule is to convince the people beneath you to want to be ruled. Propaganda was his favoured method. Making people feel special, convincing them of the justness of their actions as they conquered our neighbours." Salem looked at him mockingly. "Do you really think you are spared from that? Ozma told you exactly what he needed to tell you to make you loyal."

Doubt crept in.

But Jaune rejected it. "Is this where you tell me I've got it all wrong and you're actually the wounded party here?"

"No." Salem sat back and clicked her tongue. "I don't care for it. Think what you will about me but don't be so blind as to assume his every word is truth. Ozma wasn't there when I threw myself into the pools. He knows nothing of it. He doesn't even know what I was aiming to achieve by doing it."

"Suicide, wasn't it?"

"Why would I try and commit suicide when I know I can't die?"

It was a good question.

"Then you hoped the Grimm would consume your mind?"

"Death of the mind is death all the same. The gods wouldn't let my consciousness escape their curse. You could try it now. Replace my memories as you did Cinder's. I guarantee the curse will force them back."

The room trembled and blurred again, a reminder of the beast's approach. The wall behind him where the door had been begun to melt and ooze like honey, slowly revealing the corridor beyond. The outer wall was also being broken away – this time the bricks rolling back and falling below one by one to the courtyard below. Outside, lightning flashed in incandescent green.

There was little time left for conversation.

"Why did you do it, then?" he asked. "What was your reason?"

Salem smirked. "I was pushed."

"Excuse me...?"

"I was pushed into the pools," she repeated. "Do you really think I'd throw myself in knowing I couldn't die? If I wanted to end my life, there are easier ways than drowning in a pool of monsters."

"Are you saying Ozpin pushed you?"

"No." Salem frowned once more, looking away. "Ozma's body had died at that point and had yet to reform. This was before he was cursed like me to roam the world, where we met again and started our kingdom. We were still madly in love at the time the pools took me, so he would never have done it."

That... That made sense. A lot of sense. Ozpin had just told him Salem tried to commit suicide, and maybe that was all Ozpin knew. He'd been dead at the time. It was possible he just assumed that was what happened and Salem never corrected him.

"Who, then?" Jaune asked, as the monster came closer. "Who pushed you?"

"I don't know. I believed myself the last living being on Remnant at the time. I felt something strike me from behind and throw me in, but my vision was swallowed by the pools before I could turn." Salem shrugged. "I always assumed it was one of the gods. A last barb in my skin to make the life of the heretic harder."

"Why bother if you're already cursed?"

"I don't know. As I said, I assumed it was the gods. Who else could it be?"

Good question.

One they didn't have time to answer. The ceiling was peeled back like the lid of a can, exposing the purple night sky and the beast from her nightmare before. Impossibly large, covered in black tar-like substance, and looming down over them.

For all her claims of believing it nonsense, Salem sucked in a terrified breath.

"W—What is this thing you've conjured?"

"It's not me. I let it know we were here but this thing exists in your mind, Salem."

The monster roared.

The dream trembled once again. The force of it rattled his bones.

"No!" she hissed, stumbling to her feet. Terrified. It made no sense given she was immortal, and given she knew this was a dream. And yet she was afraid. "N—No. No, no, no."

"You recognise it?" he asked.

"No! I've never seen— Never. It's not Grimm. I know it's not!"

Some power of hers. It still could be Grimm and her dream might be taking away her ability to frighten her, but he was inclined to believe her in this case. Grimm were a real thing and this was in her head.

What did that make it, then?

The monster reached for her.

"No!"

A Nevermore swooped down out of nowhere and caught Salem, sweeping her off the floor and away. The beast roared angrily and looked to Jaune, reaching out for him instead. Further proof it wasn't a figment of Salem's imagination, since it shouldn't have cared about him at all. Jaune flexed his legs and jumped, shooting off after Salem and taking flight like a superhero.

He caught up with the Nevermore she was riding within seconds.

"It's interested in me as well," he said, conversationally. "Dreams don't do that. Nightmares usually only focus on the dreamer." Blake's had been one exception, but even that had her attacking him to play on her guilt. Salem wouldn't feel that. "What is this, Salem? What is it that lives in your head and wants to kill both you and anyone who enters?"

"I don't know!" she roared over the wind. "I assumed it was your creation!"

"You must have dreamed of it before."

"My sleeping habits are none of your business!"

That was a no, then. Or an admission she couldn't remember it if she had. There were plenty of reasons why that might be the case: Salem had thousands of years of memories and that must have made her subconscious a vast and labyrinthine place for the beast. If every memory left an imprint, then there might be billions of such to try and work through every night. Given an eight-hour rest period, that made it mathematically unlikely the beast would ever find her.

And that was if she slept that long – or at all. If she was immortal and couldn't suffer from the consequences of it, then she might go days, weeks, years or even decades without sleep. Grimm didn't need to, and her physiology was part Grimm now.

If that's the case then a lot of her rage and insanity could be a result of sleep deprivation.

That felt like too much of an excuse even as he thought it. As she herself had said, she wanted the destruction of all humanity before she threw herself into the pools. This was a woman who had misled her people into a self-destructive war with the gods, all because she wanted to punish them for cursing her. He'd admit the gods had done wrong by her, but she hadn't exactly been blameless about it either.

The beast had them in its sights now, however.

It followed.

/-/

It wasn't a surprise that Salem flew them to her tower. It was a safe space in her mind, a fortress of hers that no one would dare to assault. Even in the dream, it was surrounded by millions of Grimm. They didn't attack him, however. They were a part of her dream and so they ignored him as they were supposed to.

"You realise this won't protect you," he said, walking alongside her.

"Leave me alone!" she snarled.

"I'm in your head. There's no escaping that. Just as there's no escaping the fact this is a nightmare. That means your dream will work against you. Those Grimm outside will have the ferocity of kittens when it matters. Nightmares sabotage us. That's just how they work. You'll find yourself running slower than normal, too weak to—"

"Then how did I escape it at all? It's still chasing, you say, but why let me get this far!?"

It was a good question. Normally, she'd have flown slowly or it would have given flight itself, or the Nevermore would have been caught. He'd been in enough dreams where people couldn't outrun their nightmares to witness that. With students in Beacon, it was often the case that their weapons broke or their aura would flutter out unexpectedly. Aura was what made huntsmen feel strong, so taking it away left them weak and afraid. Grimm was what made Salem strong and yet the nightmare hadn't prevented her using them.

Strange. Salem isn't being made weak like the dreamer in most nightmares. Instead, it's the beast that remains strong.

And the beast focused on everyone in the dream as well. It had gone for Ozpin when they both entered her mind. That was unusual behaviour.

I wish Oobleck were here to give his thoughts.

"My lady!"

Tyrian Callows – who was dead – leapt out of the shadows and prostrated himself in front of them. Jaune's eyes widened.

"Tyrian." There was no grief in Salem's voice. No loss. "There is a creature pursuing me. Deal with it."

"Yes, my goddess!"

He raced off, ignoring Jaune entirely as he was meant to.

"You know he won't be able to stop it," Jaune said.

"I'm well aware. But Tyrian is dead thanks to Cinder so it's not as if he'll suffer."

Salem pushed her way into a wide room with stone floors and walls, and yet another throne. She didn't take it, though. Salem walked by it to a doorway in the back, leading to a private room of some sort. Her own personal bedroom.

It was incredibly barren.

"You claim this exists independently in my mind..."

"You believe me now?"

"I'm considering the idea," she said. "But I don't think this influences me as you seem to think. Look at it. The creature hunts me."

"Us."

Salem turned. "Is that unusual?"

The two of them weren't allies by any means but he didn't see the harm in explaining this to her.

"Tyrian didn't even acknowledge me. I'm an outside here. Unless you specifically tell someone to react to me, they won't even realise I'm here. You were able to have the Grimm intercept me before because you were thinking about stopping me. Now you're not, the Nevermore you flew on and all those outside don't even see me."

"Hm. And yet the beast did."

"It tried to kill me the last time I was here as well, and that time you didn't even know we were in the dream. It appears to be... independent of you."

"Would that it had succeeded, I might be free of your presence."

"Or I'd be dead," Jaune pointed out. "We've no idea what this thing represents or what it can do. My physical body might live on without my mind. I'm not keen to test it."

"Doesn't that mean the same could happen to me?"

"Maybe."

Salem stilled. He wondered if she was considering the merits of it as a means of escape from her curse. In the end, she shook her head. "No. The curse is absolute. If I found a way to cheat it, they'd only come back and punish me harder. That's why I didn't try and commit suicide by the pools." She turned to regard him. "But I'm surprised you aren't pushing for it to devour me on the off chance it works."

"I'm afraid what would happen if it did. You're evil, but you at least have a mind that can be reasoned with."

That was a nice way of putting it. The unsaid angle was that, as someone who had a human mind, Salem could be outsmarted. Cinder had proven that. Humans had a better chance of figuring out and beating another human's strategy. Replace her mind with a mindless beast's and it'd just be a grim, grinding attack by the Grimm. Constant war. Constant loss.

Salem didn't want that because she knew it'd make her life harder. The ability to understand and be influenced by "consequences" was a very human thing. To be afraid of them, to hold back, to avoid taking extreme actions for fear of extreme reactions.

Better that than an inexorable and immortal beast.

"You show some intelligence then," Salem said, failing to realise the vaguely insulting reasons why Jaune preferred her as an enemy. "Hm. The dream does not shake. Have I – we – lost it for good?"

They might have.

For all its danger, it really seemed to struggle to find her, lost in millions of dreams happening at once. A real figment of her imagination wouldn't have been shaken so easily, but this creature had been.

Unless he summoned it again.

I'd best not for now. I'm in her dream so I could exert my own influence. But what should I do...?

He couldn't kill her due to her curse. Could he cut her legs off? That wouldn't stop the Grimm chasing him down. Fake memories might not work given her point about her curse, and even if he could remove her control over the Grimm that would just mean they'd run wild, killing him, Ruby, Weiss and Blake as well.

My best bet is to keep her inside the dream for as long as possible and not let her wake up. Ozpin has his power back and will come looking for us eventually. If I can keep Salem from being startled awake, that gives him a chance.

Distract her. Keep her asleep.

"You know," Jaune said. "I've used my Semblance before to make someone relive their memories."

Salem glared his way. "What are you implying?"

"Would you like to know who pushed you into the pools?"

"..." Her eyes sharpened. "You can do that?"

"Maybe. It's possible you won't remember as you never saw it. Your mind might conjure someone else up, too. You could dream it was Ozma, the gods, or even me. Just because we're the ones you're thinking of right now. That doesn't make it true. What I'm saying is that your subconscious might fill in the blanks, making it inaccurate."

"Do it anyway. I've wanted to know for over a thousand years. It was not Ozma. As for the gods... I don't believe it. They were petty but they could have – and would have – done far worse to me."

"Then let us visit the pools."

/-/

The Grimm pools were not an auspicious or inspiring location. The name implied some kind of monumental lagoon with looming archways and architecture, some sacrificial spot of complete evil made manifest.

Instead, it was a few cracked bits of ground and some pools of inky black.

"They were not created on purpose," Salem explained, sounding unimpressed and unbothered by them. The woman had clawed her way back out. "This is where the God of Darkness resided when he was on this plane of existence. Few visited him to ask for wishes, but I braved the journey since his sibling rejected me. Apparently, this was enough to count as me tricking him."

Jaune hummed. It sounded bad but he was sure Salem was giving him the abridged version that favoured herself. Everyone liked to portray themselves as the victims.

"When the Gods left, the force of it cracked the surface beneath him. In his rage, he cast off pieces of himself. It seemed more by accident to me. Rage and anger, or the childish tears of an entity that can't understand why the people it destroys might not like it. Either way, the pools remained. Distilled essence of the God of Destruction."

"You fell into them before Ozpin was cursed, right?"

"Yes. Ozma died and I had the god bring him back, then he was killed again for my so-called hubris, and the kingdoms all but wiped out. I fell into the pools but it wasn't until after that the gods decided to pluck Ozma's soul from the afterlife and curse him as well, sending him to defeat me." Salem chuckled. "Naturally, Ozma was no more pleased to be blamed and cursed than I was, so we reunited and worked together to save the remnants of humanity. One of the first things we did was close off this area so none would fall into the pools like I had. Even now, the existence of the pools remains hidden."

"Even when you work against Ozpin?"

"It serves me none for fools to die here. They wouldn't survive like I did. The pools are convenient for spawning Grimm but not wholly necessary. He sees no value in wresting them from me and I can't exactly weaponize them."

Jaune looked around, searching the landscape for some form of clue. There wasn't much to be seen, just barren, blasted land for miles in every direction. Stepping off the ground, he floated in the air before approaching the pools. These weren't the real ones, so they shouldn't affect him in any way, but better safe than sorry. It was possible the fact they were "divine" would mean they'd work even in a dream.

Salem left him to it. She no doubt saw this was unimportant, since she still planned to abduct and force him to serve her once she woke up. Playing along just shortened the time until that moment, and it wasn't like she could escape the dream until her body woke up on its own.

"I can't force a dream I don't know anything about," he admitted. "What were you feeling when you came here? What did everything look like? I need you to picture it. Your subconscious will do the rest."

Scowling, Salem closed her eyes and tried to remember. Given the world around them was also in her head, it made sense it shifted with a blurry shiver. The sky turned to a ruddy orange instead of purple, and Salem's skin tone turned more human. Her hair became thicker and more vibrant, turning from stark white to pale blonde.

It's working. I'd best remove myself.

Jaune focused and turned himself invisible, or as close to it as he could get. It was easy to see Salem was losing herself in the dream. That was the thing among lucid dreamers; it was easy to accidentally slip back into dreaming properly.

Looking confused and alone, Salem stumbled toward the pools. There was a sword of all things in her right hand, which hung limply, almost slipping from her fingers. He wasn't sure what a sword would have done against a god, but maybe the gods had human worshippers the kingdoms had faced down. Salem couldn't have convinced everyone to turn on them. Some would have held to their old ways.

At least this was working to keep her asleep, lulling her into deeper dreams.

Salem approached the pools and looked into them. She cursed and snarled at them as if she were hurling abuse at the god – and maybe that was what she'd come for. To vent. It definitely didn't look like suicide had been her plan. She knew it wouldn't work if she did, so she just shouted at the pools and paced before them.

Behind her, a shadow stirred.

It came from nothingness. And it was small. As small as an animal. It soon grew, expanding into a humanoid shape in the blink of an eye and lumbering toward the distracted woman. Jaune couldn't make out any detail beyond two eyes of piercing blue light.

"Behind you!" he shouted.

Salem listened. Maybe it was because she thought herself still human, or maybe it was instincts from the battle she had clearly come from, but Salem twisted on her heel and brought her sword up before her, catching what looked to be claws on the metal. The force of the blow sent her back but Jaune flew in and knocked her away from the pools. It wouldn't change the past. It wouldn't undo what had been done to her.

But it let her scramble to her feet. She glanced his way but soon decided he wasn't the threat and faced the creature. It was shadowy and indistinct but for the eyes and, unlike a Grimm, it watched them curiously.

Him, especially.

"Well, well, well," it said in an oddly cultured voice. "You're not meant to be here."

Jaune's eyes widened. It was addressing him.

It was independent.

"You're the beast!"

"Is that what you call me? How very cruel." The creature chuckled, sounding nothing like what he would have imagined the pools' sentience would.

Had he been wrong about that?

There was no way this was the personality of a mindless, aggressive beast.

"Are you one of the gods...?"

"No." Salem spat the answer. She wasn't lucid dreaming as she had been before, but she still had the knowledge of the past to tell him it wasn't what he'd panicked and assumed. "This thing is neither of the gods. What are you, creature?"

"I am a victim of the apathy of the gods. Just like you. Cursed as you are, doomed to live eternal." A little light flickered and teeth revealed themselves. "Wouldn't it be easier if you didn't have to worry about that anymore? You can, you know. Just let me in. Let me be the one in charge. Let me take over."

Salem looked confused.

Jaune was no better. All this talk of "taking over" gave him an idea, though.

"Are you her subconscious desires? The id? Repressed memories? Trauma?"

"Of course," it lied. It didn't even try to sound convincing. "You got it in one! I'm all of the above."

"No. You're not. You're not a part of her mind. You're an outsider."

"Like you...?" it teased.

"Yes. Like me. Except I'm here because of my Semblance, while you attacked her in real life and then forced yourself into her mind."

That was the only explanation he could come to. The pools hadn't killed Salem, but they'd allowed this thing to get inside. And it had been trying to take over ever since.

Salem hadn't let it, but it was still there biding its time.

"It doesn't have to be hers. I'll gladly take yours. I'm just so curious to explore your world, you see. So much to see, so much to do, so much to learn. I'm a curious creature. It's in my nature to want to be."

It flexed its claws and fell to all fours.

"So, whichever one of you wants to surrender your body doesn't matter."

It lunged.