Chapter 1

I don't own nothing.

Jaune trudged against the snow, his feet leaving a trail of footprints wherever he walked.

He still felt like he was freezing, even when he he had two layers of jackets on. He was exhausted, the heavy knapsack bouncing against his body whenever he moved. Not to mention the heavy sword and shield combo sheathed at his hip.

He reached into his pocket, and pulled out his scroll. Looking at the map he'd downloaded before leaving home, he was close. Very close.

He kept an eye on his scroll, but eventually, snowflakes started lightly pelting the screen. He tried to wipe them off, but his gloves were covered in snow as well.

Jaune sighed and shoved his scroll down his pocket. "At least I know I'm going the right direction. And I'm lucky for not finding any Grimm along the way.

He frowned, but still kept on toiling through the thick snow. "I'm surprised they haven't caught up to me by now. I was half-expecting to be caught as soon as the day after."

"Anyway, it's not like I can stop now. Going back would make me an even bigger embarassment. I'm so close. I can't stop now."

"Although, I feel like a mercenary would have been a great help. But that'd be splitting the glory. I need to do this, legit."

But a tiny voice at the back of his mind told him: "What makes you think this would make you a great hero?"

"What makes you think they'll even believe you? Whatever treasures you may find there, they'll just believe you used the money to buy some shiny jewels to show. And you're basing this on myths and legends. Look around you, Jaune. Everything is covered in snow. How the hell do you exactly plan to find this?"

"And so let's say you DO find this relic. You find it, bring it back-hell, CAN you make it back, Jaune? All the sleet, snow and rain. Can you handle that? And say you bring it back, how long do you think the fame will last? "Good job, Jaune. You found it, now stay put and I'll prepare dinner. You've got school tomorrow!"

He decided to cut off that tiny voice. Screw the tiny voice. "It's best if I keep going. Stop mind-wandering for now. Negativity will bring the Grimm."

His father said that. Jaune had to admit, he slightly admired his father. He was the one who cheered everyone up when he was in town.

He'd go around, helping people whenever he could in anyway possible. He never passed up a chance to assist a poor soul. When Jaune asked why he always did such things, his expression turned serious and said:

"Negativity brings the Grimm." Jaune stopped walking. In front of him was a massive cave opening. "This had to be it." A small smile formed on his face.

He felt a small burst of excitement, and that gave him some energy for the long march he had endured.

He ran as fast as he can into the cavern.

Inside, it was extremely dark. The only source of light was the outside, in the snow. At least it was a tad bit warmer inside.

He reached inside his knapsack, and took out a red flare. He'd picked them up from a merchant on the road. "They're like torches, but they don't set things on fire!" He remembered what the salesman said. Heck, he was even nice enough to teach him how to light one, provided he paid for it first.

He removed the cap from the flare, and used it to strike it. A red fiery glow bursted, now providing a hellish light illuminating the rest of the cave.

He took it as an opportunity to check his surroundings. It seemed like any ordinary cave, with natural looking stone and such. There were no signs of any life, not even any mushrooms.

Although, he saw something that caught his eye. It seemed like a few red and brown stains on the corner of the cave. "Wait, don't tell me, oh no.."

As he walked closer, he sighed in relief. It was just a few cave paintings. Honestly, he thought it was animal feces. He examined the stains closer.

It wasn't very easy to interpret what it was. The first humans in Remnant weren't exactly artists, and the cave paintings weren't exactly intact as well.

From what he could make out, all he saw were a bunch of stick figures running around throwing spears at animals. Or maybe Grimm?

Unable to completely understand the "paintings", Jaune shrugged to himself and kept on walking to continue his self-proclaimed quest.

Jaune knew he had to move a bit faster. Flare's only lasted...was it fifteen or seventeen minutes? And he wasn't exactly overstocked on flares. Who knew how deep this cave is? "And if this is the place where the "treasure" is."

He blocked the voice in the back of his mind. "Damn it, how big is this place? Who knows how long it would take to find the-"

"-treasure." He immediately stopped dead in his tracks.

Two giant decorated doors stood in his path. He suddenly gaped in awe, it was massive. The double doors stretched from one end of the cave to the other.

It wasn't grey like the stone making up the cave. It was darker, looking like it was made from an ebony-like material.

He knocked on the door. "Anybody home?" He chuckled at his own terrible joke.

The door was decorated and etched with various symbols. Some of them contained what he thought were either animals, or Grimm. Some of them contained what looked like men carrying swords and spears.

Curiously, he threw the flare in his hand as high as he could to the top of the two doors. The light emanating from it revealed that the door stood much taller than he thought.

"Okay, I found the door. How the hell do I open it?" At first, Jaune tried prying the door, proving fruitless. "There's got to be something to open this up."

The Knight started to search the area with his flare. He looked through various piles of rock, and even searched the door itself for a way to open it up.

Until he started to search the floor. He noticed a giant seal right in front of the door. He slapped himself in the head. "How could I missed that!"

He wasn't exactly sure if the seal would be the key to opening the door, but it was worth a try. He kneeled down to examine it further.

Like the large double-doors, it was decorated identically. The seal was spherical, like a disc, with layers of symbols and animal pictures.

But at the center of the seal, were words surrounding a small hole. "Thank Monty Oum it's in my language." Jaune read the words out aloud:

Here rests Gaius of Lux,

He was the first to ignite the light,

He was our torch against the darkness,

the one who never gave up a fight.

He lit the flames in our souls,

and drove back the shadow.

He lived a great life,

one filled with fame, but one with strife.

He lived many years, but eventually left us for death himself.

Should one wish to enter, one shall prove thyself

through three tests, not one more, not one less.

The first test:

You must be willing to spill blood for the light.

"Wait, wait, wait. Hold up. Is it seriously telling me to spill my own blood?" He casted a worried gaze to Crocea Mors before sighing.

"This better all be worth it. I swear to Oum, I better get something out of this." He unsheathed Crocea Mors and placed the blade on his left arm. With one swift motion, blood started dripping into the hole. He carefully made sure not to make the cut too deep.

Suddenly, the massive doors opened themselves, and Jaune ran to get out of the way. Dust poured out and Jaune shielded his eyes.

He took out a bandage out of his knapsack and wrapped it around the wound he had inflicted on himself, and turned to the now open doors.

Jaune coughed. "Definitely worth it." He ran inside the doors.

As Jaune entered, he saw complete darkness ahead. The only source of light was the flare in his left hand. The flare in his pocket had died out.

"Great, walking in the dark. Could be worst, some zombies could start jumping out of their coffins and rising from their graves to chop my ass."

He chuckled nervously. Now that the thought crossed his mind, he gripped his sword's handle. He felt himself getting more nervous by the second.

"Okay, Jaune. Relax. Chill...Chillax...nothing's going to happen to you. The more he thought about, the more nervous he became.

"It doesn't necessarily hurt to be prepared, right?" Jaune decided to unsheathe Crocea Mors. Just in case something jumped him, he wouldn't have to spend a second taking out the family heirloom.

As time went on, Jaune realized that there were no turns or corners. It was literally, one giant empty pitch-black hallway.

The thought assured himself a bit. Although, his instincts told him to be prepared none the less.

After what felt like hours of walking, Jaune finally saw something, a bright light at the end of the hallway.

Seeing the light shining, he quickened up the pace, not wanting to stay surrounded the darkness. Eventually, flat-out sprinting.

Reaching the light, he entered through a doorway. As if it was an illusion, the bright light had dissipated greatly, focusing on a small altar in a middle of the room. The Arc slowly walked to the stone altar. He wiped the dust away, coughing.

He saw the words etched on it, and it read:

Here rests the last cohort of Gemina.

Led by Gaius, their campaigns were legendary, and were etched into history forever.

Gemina and Gaius drove back the darkness together.

The Legion endured the years, eventually diminishing to a cohort of no more than 80 men.

They still fought, from beginning to end, again and again.

Whether be together or against each other.

Jaune decided to skip apart of the tablet.

When Gaius caught the blight,

lead by Titus they did away with his life, now controlled by Grimm.

and locked him here up tight.

And even in death they still protect him.

The second test: You must know how to repel Darkness.

As soon as Jaune finished the last sentence of the long morbid poem, he heard something fall behind. He spun around.

There, in the darkness, were piercing red eyes. "Shit. How could Grimm be in HERE!?"

He saw the red eyes that burned into his soul come closer, and he realized they weren't even Grimm.

It was a skeleton, holding a rusted gladius with a large decorated shield in a shape of square.

"I fucking knew it!" He placed the flare in his pocket, and took out his shield. Adrenaline started pumping through him.

Granted, he was scared. But it was just a skeleton, right?

Jaune raised his sword and slashed the skeleton's leg. Surprisingly, only one hit caused the Skeleton to immediately come apart in pieces. The red glare from it's eye sockets diminishing.

"Wait, that's it. Seriously?" Jaune looked around. As soon as the skeleton fell to the floor, more pairs of red eyes opened in the darkness. The bones of the one he had previously slain suddenly floated in the air, before magically reattaching themselves together, along with the gladius and the shield.

"I jinxed it."

As the skeletons advanced towards him, Jaune realized that the skeletons were surprisingly easy opponents.

Jaune sliced apart the bone of one skeleton, before punching another in the skull with his shield. He grinned, actually enjoying the leisurely battle.

But he realized that the skeletons were growing in numbers, reanimating themselves, and he worried they would soon overwhelm him.

"I've got to quicken up the pace." He blocked a stab from a skeleton, and countered back with a kick.

Jaune sliced through the crowd of undead, fighting as hard as he can, until he realized he was completely surrounded by sp00ky-Er, I mean, the carcasses made up of bones.

"Shit." He cursed. He kept on fighting however, and kept his shield raised. His sword went through the skull of one of the legionnaires.

Eventually, his fighting pushed his back to the wall. "What do I do now? There's so many of them."

Eventually, a skeleton pushed his sword through Jaune. Another one got a cut at his shoulder. "Shit! They hit me! Crap, crap. Uh...Plan B!"

Now, Jaune didn't know what he was doing, he'd only ever saw someone do this in a videogame. But it made sense. And he was out of his ideas.

He raised his shield again, and started sprinting at the horde of undead.

Jaune used Crocea Mors as a battering ram to break through the crowd, and he ran through the skeleton crew, trampling on the bones of the fallen.

As he ran with his shield up, eventually, some of the skeletons got more hits on him. One of them sliced through the cloth and hit his leg.

Another cut his arm, breaking the bandage he made earlier, reopening the wound, while causing him to lower his shield.

He grit his teeth. "Come on! How many more of them?" But Jaune saw something past the darkness, and what seemed like millions of red eyes.

A small doorway. Smaller than the one he used to enter this deathtrap of a room.

He pushed through with all of his strength, using the doorway as a motivation for escaping. He broke through the skeleton blockade and ran inside.

Conveniently, as soon as he went through the doorway, a metal gate fell down, barricading him from the undead. In relief, he sat down from exhaustion.

"Ahahah! Hehehe...heh...I can't believe it! I survived..." He looked up to the skeletons. "Hah! Thought you'd kill me, did you, Daniel of Fortes-" Jaune taunted, until he saw a skeleton broke off his arm, and threw it at him, landing next to his foot.

"What the hel-" To his horror, the bone arm kept on moving, and it crawled towards him. "AHHHHHH SHIIIIT!" Jaune shrieked. He took out his shield and smashed the skeletal arm to pieces. He slowly stood up, crying out at his wounds, and looked back at the skeleton horde.

Red eyes glowed from the skull, just as menacing as he first saw them. But the Arc felt slightly more confident due to the fact that the Skeleton Horde didn't exactly kill him.

Well, maybe they will. Considering he was bleeding.

"Jokes on you, er, whoever threw their limb at me. You're missing an arm now!" Somehow, the skeletons seemed to grow in anger at the statement, and started using their gladius' and shields to chip away the gate.

"Uh...nevermind...I'm getting out of here." He started limping away, with an angry skeleton cohort behind.

After some walking in the darkness with his flare surprisingly still lit in his pocket, he decided the best action to do now was to check out his injuries.

The blonde sat down and crossed his legs on the cold cobblestone floor of the dungeon. He slid off his knapsack off to his side and set the flare down.

"Alright, that happened. Don't get too cockey Jaune. Let's take a look at these wounds..." He took off his heavy, thicker leather coat, revealing a lighter, black hoodie with a moon on the back, and a golden arc in the front. Multiple tears made from rusted swords, along with blood decorated the jacket.

His jeans were torn up as well. Actually, they were torn up in the first place, just not as much. And they had less blood. A lot less.

In fact, they were still bleeding too! Blood kept on running down his body from multiple slashes across his legs. How come he didn't noticed this before?

With a tired sigh, he decided the best course of action for now was to simply bandage up the wounds like he did with his arm and keep going.

"Pain is just weakness leaving the body...pain is just weakness leaving the body..." Jaune chanted.

He discarded his hoodie and took out a roll of bandages to wrap around his wounds.

Jaune had went back to walking again, feeling a bit better, but sore from the battle. The injuries he had suffered were definitely slowing him down.

"Can't stop now, Jaune. Can't exactly turn back either, with the skeletons back there..." The Arc muttered to himself.

"Come on Jaune...just a bit more.." His body started slowing down. "Shit." He leaned against the stone wall, breathing heavily from exhaustion.

"You're an Arc. Start acting like it." Jaune laughed at the thought, but instead, a cough came out. Along with blood.

Maybe the voice was right. Maybe I am going to die here. Nice optimism, other voice.

Little did he know, he had passed another doorway already into another room.

"Better not be anymore damn skeletons." He coughed out. The room wasn't exactly as different from the last one. The walls were decorated with pictures and symbols, just like the gates and pretty much everything else in this hell-dungeon. But the main difference was the big shrine at the end.

He saw steps, leading up to a throne. Mysteriously, there were two bonfires on either side of the throne still it, and still burning. And what sat on top of it, made his eyes widen.

In front of the throne was another altar. But what rested on the throne really caught his eye.

A shiny suit. Not the one's with the tie and the cufflinks. The one's men wore back in the day's of old, when men wore actual armor.

"Is this what I've been looking for? Oh, hot damn, it is! Come on Jaune, you're right, I can't stop now!"

He limped his way to the top of the stairs. Jaune felt like he was about to pass out. So he took off his knapsack and threw it down the steps to ease the walk, er, more of a crawl to the steps.

As he climbed the steps, he saw the armor closely in all of it's glory.

The suit of armor was incredibly shiny, light bouncing off back to his eyes. Silver and what was either gold or brass was gilded onto the gauntlets, cuirass, pauldrons and the steel platings throughout the armor.

The helmet was a barbute, more rounded at the head. A metal visor protected the wielder from blows to the face. It seemed intimidating too. It reminded Jaune of some of the soldiers from Mistral he had seen.

Strangely, the armor wasn't put on a stand. It sat on the throne, hunched back, with it's arm supporting the head, or you could say helmet.

In fact, he wasn't sure this armor was completely made of steel at all. The armor seemed to be made from some sort of refined black metal.

He stopped observing the suit and decided to look at the altar. It had a stone tablet in the center. He read the words etched on it out loud:

In the beginning, Man was born from the dust

He crawled out of the remnant of the last world,

and began a new one.

He was strong, wise and resourceful.

But like the one before Him, He was born into an unforgiving, cruel world.

The creatures of Grimm set their sights on man and all of his creations.

All seemed lost, until a spark of hope ignited a change.

This spark was Gaius, and he carved out the world for his fellow men.

Alas, one day, an agent of Darkness came forth,

and blew out his light.

Yet his embers ignited many other flames, and together, they cured Gaius of his blight.

However they could never rekindle his flame again.

At a cost, he was trapped in his own armor.

Those who have passed the first two trials,

shall prepare for one last trial.

Touch Gaius, and you shall become him.

After finishing reading up the text, Jaune glanced towards the suit of armor, who apparently, was Gaius, some ancient hero.

"So I'm guessing this Gaius dude was a great warrior of some sort...so if I touch his armor, I'll become a great hero as well?" He stared at Gaius, and looked back at the doorway he used to enter the room.

Jaune shivered. It was either touch his armor, possibly become a mythical hero or something, or go back there, possibly get slain by skeletons, possibly bleed to death, and possibly die from the cold outside.

"Screw it. This is what I came for." He placed his palm on Gaius's head, uh, helmet.

Jaune closed his eyes in preparation of what could possibly come next. He glanced at his hand, then the armor.

"Well crap. You've got to be kidding me. I came all this way for noTHINGGG-" A searing pain shot up through his arm, it felt as if his arm was being cooked from the inside. It felt like a thousand volts just went into his arm.

Jaune yelled in pain. The torment made it's way through his arm and to the rest of his body. Then he started screaming in sheer agony.

It felt as if the elements themselves were swirling around in his body. It was as if balls of fire were exploding inside of him, burning his flesh, while cold ice froze his skin and bones, meanwhile winds gushed around his head, throwing his mind left and right as if it was a ball. Electricity bounced around from the brain to his femur. Stone popped up, breaking his bones and cracking his skull. His body was being ripped apart from the inside.

If someone looked at Jaune, they would see veins bulging out, his entire body shaking as if he had a seizure, and his eyes having a hellish fiery glow in them.

And during all of this, his hand was still holding onto the helmet of Gaius.

Gaius raised his arm and pushed away Jaune's hand, and picked him up by the throat, ceasing his screams. Jaune saw through his visor, burning red eyes shadowed by darkness, just like the Grimm.

He leaned closer to his face, and a deep, booming voice came out:

"Is this what you wanted?"

Jaune didn't say anything, but Gaius just kept staring at him. He heard a low laugh emanate from the helmet, one that sent chills down his spine. That is, if the chills he was already getting inside his body didn't count.

"You know, you weren't the first to try to use my power to it's full extent. Many have, all eventually succumbing to madness and letting the darkness consume them, just like it did to me."

"But listen to me ramble, you're getting tired of all those dust elements inside your body, aren't you?"

"Although, I know you can't say anything right now, so I'll make this quick as I can." Jaune silently thanked him in his mind.

"You thought I would serve you, surprise, surprise, it's the other way around. If you wish to use my power to it's full extent, I have one last trial for you. The other two were ridiculously easy weren't they? Don't worry, young blood. This one will be the hardest, you know. The hardest challenge you've ever encountered in your entire life, believe me. I've seen it too, pretty pathetic as well."

Although the only response Jaune could give back was his body still rapidly shaking and twitching.

Gaius gave out a sigh of annoyance. "Alright, let's get this over with."

The metal from Gaius's armor seemed to melt into a liquid, starting to crawl over his body, soon shrouding him in complete darkness.

Welp, that's about it for this chapter.

This is more of a backstory kind of chapter, expect more to come.

Any criticism at all is greatly appreciated.

Also, you guys telling me how to improve, what not to do, what to do, etc. really helps me out alot for writing stories in the future.

See you guys later.