A/N: Hope y'all enjoy. Sorry for the mix up last week!

"This was your plan?"

Yang didn't sound very happy about what Jaune had discussed with her, and quite frankly, Jaune didn't feel all that good about it either. The boy shrugged, scratching the back of his head.

"Well, Vedrahgol said that there was this... wrongness to the air, and it couldn't just have appeared out of nowhere. I mean, didn't you notice that there were some places that had a really bad feeling and others that... didn't?" Jaune cringed at his words, knowing that he had done a poor job of explaining it to Yang. Nevertheless, the blonde girl nodded, her face thoughtful.

"Yeah, there was a few times when we were out in the city that I the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I think Blake said something about that too." Jaune nodded, relieved that she understood.

"Well, all we have to do to go to whatever's doing that and turn it off. And then... maybe everyone'll be alright?" Jaune held out his hands helplessly. It wasn't like there was anything else he could've done. Yang shook her head, biting her lower lip.

"This... seems like kind of a risky plan. And that's coming from me." Yang gestured around them. "I mean, we're not even sure there's something that's really doing all of this. Or what if stopping it won't stop the others from attacking us?"

Jaune knew that this was a far-fetched plan. But dammit, it was the only thing Jaune could think of, and if they didn't do anything, their friends would end up killing them. And Dust knows what'll happen to their friends and teammates after that's happened.

"Well do you have anything better to suggest?" Jaune couldn't help but let his frustration slip out, hands curling tightly into fists. Yang sighed, shaking her head and crossing her arms.

"No. But that doesn't mean I like it."

"It doesn't matter if you like it or not," Jaune retorted. "We just have to do it. After all, there's nothing else we could possibly do, right?" Yang gave a reluctant nod and sighed in resignation, one of her hands moving away her bangs.

"Alright then. Let's do this."

###

Trying to find the center of the 'malaise' was more difficult than they thought it would be. Not even accounting for the fact that they had to keep a low profile, making sure not to bump into any of the ghosts or their brainwashed friends, they simply had trouble locating where the center of the energy was coming from in the first place. 'Feeling' wasn't really a good compass to go by, and a lot of times, Yang and Jaune would claim that they were getting closer, only for Vedrahgol to say that they were only at the edge of the malaise.

It was aggravating, to say the least.

It took most of the night, with a lot of busting through housese to hide from patrols and hopping onto roofs to check their position, but they continued in the general direction, knowing that they were getting closer as their stomachs started to hollow out, sweat forming on their palms.

"Do you think we're getting close?"

Jaune nearly jumped out of his skin when Yang decided to whisper, his heart beating loudly inside of his chest. He whipped around, giving her a glare as he did so. Yang just blinked at him, looking a little fearful.

"Sorry." She said meekly, making Jaune pause. Yang wasn't the type of person to apologize for something like that. And she never did anything meekly.

"I think we're getting pretty close." Jaune's voice sounded different. A little hoarser, and the way it echoed off the alleyway made the both of them wince and look around, hoping that no one was close enough to hear it traveling. They looked at each other, expressions solemn as they continued to move closer to the eerie feeling. As they got closer, they started to hear a faint whirring, which helped them out tremendously in finding what was causing all of this.

They walked out of their alleyway and into a clearing, meant to be a park of some kind, except every plant there was dying or dead, and the pond in the center was more of a swamp than anything.

"I don't know about you, but I'm guessing that's what's the problem." Yang pointed at the center of the pond, where a large staff stood atop, the decorated horned skull pulsing in a gentle purple light. Just looking at the staff made Jaune's mind scream, and Vedrahgol hunker down, his growling seeming to vibrate Jaune's skull. Taking a glance at Yang, he could see that she was similarly affected, her knuckles completely white and her body shivering, her eyes wide and unfocused.

"Yang?" Jaune whispered, an uneasy feeling settling in his stomach. The girl's eyelids fluttered briefly before she shook her head, wincing in pain.

"Sorry. It's just…" Yang shook her head again, looking fearfully at the staff. "Whatever that is, it's dangerous. Like, my body doesn't want to get close to it dangerous."

Jaune pursed his lips, nodding. He could see that this was the last place that Yang wanted to be, and had a feeling that if they had to get any closer, Yang wouldn't be able to help as much as Jaune would like, or need.

"You stay here." Jaune said, continuing over the protests that Yang started to give. "I need someone to be on the lookout anyways. I'd rather not get ambushed right? Besides, if worse comes to worse, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve to get out of the mess." Jaune grinned reassuringly, which helped somewhat with Yang, whose shoulders lowered slightly, although her worried expression didn't really go away.

"Be careful." Yang finally said, which Jaune took as a go ahead. The boy promised to do so and walked towards the pond, eyes darting back and forth, making sure that no one was going to sneak up on him.

Getting closer to the body of water didn't help clear away any fears, as the pond seemed so dark and muddy that getting closer seemed to make the waters darker. Jaune took a deep breath and prayed that his aura would protect him if the water was toxic, and started strip off his armor, pulling his shirt off and dropping away his boots and socks. The less that gets wet, the better, Jaune gathered, and placed the bundle of clothing on top of his shield, knowing that it would just be dead weight in the water. He held Crocea Mors by the blade and started to walk in, desperately ignoring how disgusting it felt when he entered the slimy liquid. The chill didn't help either, Jaune already starting to shiver, motivating him to move a little faster.

The murkiness of the pond betrayed it's depth, which was to say there wasn't much of it. Jaune was almost halfway to the staff and the water had only gone up to his waist, which he was thankful for. He still tried to move as fast as possible, as being in Atlas without a shirt on was already enough to warrant frostbite, let alone getting into freezing water while you were shirtless.

Every step that Jaune took made the hair on the back of his neck rise higher and higher. There was something more to this. There had to be. There's no way that the lynchpin would be so lightly guarded. There had to be something else here. There had to be.

And there was.

When Jaune felt the water around him move, his initial feeling was relief actually, glad that his paranoia was paying off. Then it quickly grew into fear as a head rose from the depths, yellow eyes opening to look at Jaune. The mouth widened and revealed rows of sharp teeth, and a black tongue to go with it.

A dragon. Why was Jaune not surprised?

The dov roared, making waves in the water and causing Jaune to stumble backwards, almost losing his balance and falling into the freezing water. In a panic Jaune reversed the grip on his sword and used it as a makeshift cane, keeping himself upright just long enough to focus on a third of a shout, letting loose a single word.

"Wuld!"

The weak shout propelled him a maybe two or three yards towards the shore. Not much, but enough to get away from the rising dragon, its shoulders coming out of the water, it's eyes enraged.

"Fo Krah Diin!" The dragon's breath turned the air into a cold mist, streaming outwards and hitting Jaune, who couldn't do much in the water but take the brunt of the icy breath. The power was incredible, the cold taking his breath away. It didn't freeze him into a block of ice, but it's effect was pretty much to same, Jaune's muscles locking up, his brain whiting out as his body simply tried to keep himself warm enough to move.

But he couldn't. No matter what his brain was trying to say, the only thing Jaune could do was fall to his knees, his body almost submerged in the water. Breathing was painful at this point, and at the moment, all Jaune wanted to do was let the dragon kill him. At least that would be less painful than what he was experiencing now.

The black-scaled dragon moved ever closer, it's breath letting out gusts of mist every time it breathed out. Oh Dust. Jaune was really going to die. Vedrahgol was bouncing around in his mind, trying to find a way to mobilize him as well, try to take him over, but his mind resisted, even while it was fading.

The pond dragon reared up, mouth open, ready to consume the boy that dared try and trespass into her pond.

"Get away from him you bitch!"

A shotgun blast echoed and the dragon reared back, roaring in pain. Jaune's eyes slowly looked over as he found Yang entering the pond, red, flaming, and angry.

He'd never seen a more beautiful sight, Jaune thought before he blacked out.