Warning: This is more of a dramatic origin story for Jaune than a happy one. There is also a scene where a dog gets sacrificed in the name of science. I thought I should mention that in case someone is sensitive to macabre stuff. I hope you will enjoy the story.

The nightmare had taken a hold of his life so many years ago, yet Jaune could still recall every little detail about that fateful day in perfect clarity. He could recall the warmth of the summer sun on his skin, the feeling of his mother's reassuring grip in his small hand. Jaune could remember that his older sister, Citrine had been the one that had been carrying the picnic basket.

His father, Jonathan Arc had been still smiling back then, his face devoid of the deep lines of worry and sorrow that now marred his always frowning face. Jonathan grinned as he walked alongside his daughters, he joked with them in a carefree way which broke Jaune's heart every time he reminisced about his life before the picnic.

There shouldn't have been any Grimm in the vicinity that day. The Huntsmen had cleared the area just a week ago and it took time for the negativity to build up and attract new packs of Grimm, even more so since Ansel was a relatively peaceful settlement.

Later, Jaune would learn that a rogue pack of Grimm had wandered near Ansel from a nearby settlement while following the negativity stemming from a commercial Bullhead on a bad business trip.

Of course Jaune's father couldn't have known that. He still blamed himself for bringing his family to the clearing, however.

The Grimm had suddenly descended upon them in a flash of angry claws and gnashing teeth. The howling embodiments of darkness had seemingly materialized from the very trees around them, completely without warning.

Jaune could remember the screams of his sisters, his mother, Juniper holding him against her chest, the tremors of sobbing against his cheek, his heart beating really fast, his father cursing as he drew his sword out of its sheath. There had been so much fear. It had overwhelmed him in mere seconds. The snarls, the cries of terror, the sharp sword cleaving through Grimm limbs left and right, the cold numbness of shock giving way to a spark of senseless hysteria which grew inside him and engulfed him wholly.

Jaune only knew two things at that moment. First, the giant black dogs would eat him if he didn't flee, and secondly, his mom was holding him, -no, crushing him in her panic. It hurt! It hurt and it was uncomfortable! And the bad dogs drew closer and his mom still didn't let him step away from the pointy teeth that dripped saliva. She didn't let him avert his gaze from the angry red eyes.

Utterly terrified and overwhelmed by what was happening, Jaune had shoved his mom away, before stumbling into the woods. His family members had shouted a warning, but Jaune could only hear the terrifying snarls and see the hungry, open mouths. He could only feel his heartbeat beating rapidly, pulsing against his eardrums. He could smell something that could only be the black blood of the attacking beasts. He didn't want to be eaten! He didn't want to be eate-

Then Jaune's world exploded in pain. His back hurt, it hurt as if Jaune had been struck by lightning. It hurt in the burning way that a recently scraped knee does, but much, much worse.

The light had faded. His mother had screamed. There was the sound of dirt and soil being crumpled underneath fast-moving feet. His father had whispered some strange words, the only part that Jaune couldn't quite recal clearly.

Something had happened within him. Something had reached him in the pitch darkness, a little nightlight somewhat familiar. The next moment the faint glow had turned into a roiling wave of blinding white fire.

"Thank the Brothers, Jaune you are going to be alright," His father had whispered hoarsely, shakily griping the boy's shoulders. His mom had released a choked sob. His sisters were crying nearby, Jaune recognized Citrine's voice among them. She was safe.

Lying on the wet grass, Jaune had opened one watery eye to inspect his surroundings.

The monsters were gone. Well, not exactly. They were still there, but they weren't moving or growling anymore, and Jaune noticed that their bodies were slowly turning into black smoke. The burning pain he had felt in his upper back had also started lessening. Jaune had started feeling better when the white light had first appeared, and now he almost couldn't feel the crisscrossing lightning forks he had felt digging into his skin a few moments prior.

His mom and his sisters were crying, but they were all safe. Jaune was relieved beyond words. It was like an invisible heavy stone had been lifted from his stomach.

And that had been the beginning of the nightmare, because a mere second later Jonathan Arc had jumped away from his son with a howl of pain.

Jaune could recall his father's eyes, the same sky blue color as his own widening immensely. The blond boy's eyes must have widened too at the sudden shout, but Jaune couldn't be entirely sure about it. The veteran Huntsman had, however, grabbed his mother to stop her from approaching the startled boy. Jaune would never forget that detail.

"Dad, what's wrong?" Little Jaune had asked quietly, because his dad looked really scared, and his face was pale as if he was seeing a ghost. Standing up with a groan, little Jaune hesitantly made to approach him.

"Jaune, you stay right where you are!" Jonathan's voice barked, causing the young boy to flinch and recoil away from his father.

"Dad?" Jaune murmured uncertainly, unsure why his father was angry with him.

"Just listen to me, son! You need to stay far away from your mother and your sisters."

The little boy swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. Jaune glanced at his mom for support, yet both of his parents weren't looking at him. Their gazes were focused on something behind Jaune. Curious as to what could have scared his brave Huntsman dad, Jaune turned around, only to yelp in alarm at the sight of a strange cloud of white shifting mist hovering over and behind him.

"Dad, what is this?" The awed boy's fingers had hesitantly touched the glowing white particles, his voice sounding full of childish wonder.

His father had remained silent for a few minutes, gaping at the sight of his son playing with the swirling curtain of faintly-glowing mist. Blood dripped down from the palms of Jonathan Arc. The skin of his hands was marred with countless healing cuts where Jonathan had gripped Jaune previously.

Jaune could still remember his father's expression, the bizarre mixture of shock and horror. The guarded way that his dad's sky blue orbs, the same color as Jaune's, kept darting from the floating mass of glowing particles to the cheerful face of his carefree son. Jaune would always remember the strained tone of his voice when he answered him. A sorrowful, distant tone he hadn't heard his father use before. A tone that Jonathan had adopted ever since that accursed day.

"That… is your Aura, Jaune," The pale Huntsman had uttered quietly, showing the boy the drying blood on his palms, "And it just tried to kill me."

0000

Two days later

"You have to realize that this is unprecedented," The mousey, auburn-haired man in the pristine white lab coat said quickly, "Our current understanding of Aura doesn't allow us to pinpoint the cause for Jaune's abnormal condition. Finding a way to cure him could take weeks, maybe even months of extensive testing to see how his Aura reacts to stimuli and why it behaves in such a bizarre way."

"You have to be patient," The fidgety man concluded clumsily, "Your son is in good hands." The doctor attempted to reassure the boy's worried parents. However, it was obvious from the way he smiled and talked that the Atlasean doctor was merely attempting to appear collected and concerned over Jaune's fate. His 'well-meaning' words rang hollow and his beaming, bespectacled face betrayed the doctor's excitement even as the boy's parents regarded him with stormy expressions and anxious gazes.

"Cure him?" Jonathan Arc growled, his voice rising as he took a threatening step towards the insincere doctor, "My son isn't sick! He just needs some help to get his Aura under control, that's all there is to it." Jonathan glared at the auburn-haired healer.

"Jonathan, this isn't helping," Juniper, Jaune's mother murmured in a placating manner, resting a hand on the Huntsman's stiff shoulder to ground him. Yet, for all of her feigned calmness Juniper's eyes were glistering with tears and were red from crying. Even as she attempted to calm down her husband, Juniper continued watching Jaune through the one-way mirror peering into the adjacent examination room.

Currently, her brave baby boy was being questioned by a middle-aged woman in a ghastly yellow decontamination suit. The female doctor stood far away from Jaune as a precaution, scribbling answers onto a clipboard while firing questions at the scared-looking child who fruitlessly sought the faces of its parents in the dull reflection of the one-way mirror.

A semi-transparent curtain of Aura hung above the blond boy, constantly shifting and twisting in place. Occasionally the inner parts of the flowing Aura sheet would be illuminated by rushing waves of energy as if the perplexing shapes which floated in the air were nothing more than thunderclouds containing the electrifying fury of Mother Nature.

Jaune looked scared, and overwhelmed, doing his best to answer questions he couldn't truly understand while shooting nervous glances at the one-way mirror. It broke Juniper's heart to see her son like this, to see Jaune so confused and uncertain and not just barge in the room and hug him. Unfortunately, for both Jaune and Juniper, however, Juniper knew that she wouldn't be able to embrace her son until they found out what was wrong with him, lest her brave baby boy accidentally injured her and she made things worse by causing him emotional pain.

"Of course, he isn't sick," The mousey doctor bobbed his head vigorously, "Jaune, however, needs our help. That is why we are here after all," The doctor smiled unconvincingly. For a moment the man's gaze wandered back to the blond boy in the room and the strange manifestation of its Aura. The doctor's eyes lit, a shiver running down his spine, "Mister Arc, I promise you we are taking our responsibility as healers very seriously. We will help Jaune control his extraordinary gift, but making progress takes time."

The adults paused when they spotted two new figures in yellow protection suits enter the examination room, one of them carrying a closed pet carrier.

0000

A few minutes earlier

"No, it doesn't hurt when I touch the shiny air. Can I see my mom, now?" The blond boy asked hesitantly. Perhaps it hadn't been long since his mom and dad had left him in the company of this woman, but for Jaune it felt like centuries. There wasn't anything remotely interesting inside the examination room, and even the plain white walls of the hospital and the giant mirror at the end of the room were boring. And, as if to make matters worse, Jaune couldn't even see the doctor's face behind the dark shadow of her strange mask, and her voice was cold and stern like the voice of a strict teacher.

Jaune watched the woman write something down on her funny notepad, her glove making squeaky noises as the pen moved. Once again, the doctor ignored Jaune's question, which was totally unfair because Jaune's dad had said that he was supposed to tell the good doctor whatever she asked him, and had mentioned that he would be watching him from behind the large mirror.

"Explain to me what happens when an alien object makes contact with the Aura construct you've manifested." The doctor spoke behind the dark rectangle that obscured her face, her voice sounding muffled and unnatural behind her mask.

Jaune simply blinked, "What?" He cocked his head to the side, the cloud of Aura shifting above him to occupy more space to his right.

The doctor huffed, muttering something unintelligible behind her mask, the pen tapped impatiently against the clipboard. "How does your Aura react when something touches the Aura fog, as you call it? Does the… fog become thinner? Does it become thicker? Does the object pass through your Aura manifestation as if it doesn't exist, or does the object encounter resistance?"

"Resistance?" Jaune repeated slowly, staring into the dark shape of the woman's visage as if that would help him understand the woman's words.

Clearing her throat, the doctor's tapping came to an end, her pen pressing roughly against the paper. "Aura is intangible yet it possesses physical properties," The doctor hummed quietly lost in thought, seemingly explaining more for her own benefit than Jaune's , "It forms an invisible, hair-thin protective layer above the skin of its wielder to prevent lacerations and puncture wounds."

"So it's like a force field?" Jaune offered, happy to talk about something fun, like fantasy stories and superhero powers after answering so many boring questions.

"That is one way to put it," The doctor allowed, her strange black mask glistering like the eyes of an insect as she leaned forward to examine him from a bit closer, her yellow suit squeaking loudly due to the movement, "Usually, other people's force fields are there to prevent things from getting in. They can only play the role of city walls barring entrance to foreign invaders. But, your Aura doesn't behave as it should, Jaune. Your wall is projected outwards to a degree that is unheard of until today."

"Can your force field do more than that, I wonder?" The woman mused, and Jaune wasn't sure why, but there was something in her voice that scared him. Her tone made Jaune want to leave the room and hug his mommy tightly, yet Jaune didn't know why he felt that way. This woman was a doctor, she helped people! And his dad had told Jaune that she would help him make the bad mist disappear, and then they could all go home.

The stern woman appeared to read his mind. "Jaune, remember, your father told you to tell me the truth. I cannot help you if you lie to me." The doctor drawled, her dark rectangular mask hiding her features, the surface of the mask glistering like the eyes of a big insect, an insect that seemed to be intrigued, excited… hungry, "If your Aura was really just a wall it wouldn't have hurt your dad. You can trust me, Jaune, I promise… so tell me, when something pushes against your Aura does it push back?"

Hanging his head in shame, Jaune flinched at the memory of his father's shocked expression, the sudden scream bursting out from his mouth… the… the sight of the red blood dripping down from the palms of the pale Huntsman after his dad had touched his shoulders to make sure that he was okay.

"Yes," Jaune whispered hoarsely.

0000

Back at the observation room.

"What are they doing?" Jonathan Arc quirked an eyebrow at the two newcomers, approaching the one-way mirror with a perplexed expression plastered on his face. Two other doctors had just entered the examination room, both of them wearing bright yellow protection suits while one of them was holding a grey pet carrier.

The female doctor that had been questioning Jaune gestured for them to place the pet carrier on the floor and approach her. The doctors did as they were instructed, their covered heads moving as if they were talking in hashed whispers. The bulkier of the two newcomers seemed to argue with the female one, half-turning to gesture with his chin towards the unseen spectators. Whatever was going on in there, Jonathan didn't like the reluctance he could read in the body language of the two healers.

"What are they going to do to my son?" Jonathan repeated in a gruff growl, his eyes focused intently on the pet carrier, trying to make out what was moving inside the sealed container.

"They… I-I'm sure that everything is fine. They are just trying to help." The mousey doctor replied unconvincingly. Fidgeting with the topmost button of his lab coat, the auburn-haired healer averted his gaze from the worried visage of Juniper Arc.

Meanwhile the bulky doctor was opening the pet carrier. Jonathan's muscles tensed, his eyes narrowed. Could there be a Grimm inside such a small container? Was whatever hid in there a threat to Jaune? Should Jonathan intervene?

A fuzzy ball of soft brown fur darted out of the carrier, the puppy's little nose twitching adorably, it's head darting around in excitement. Jonathan relaxed, turning around to stare at the fidgety doctor beside him genuinely puzzled. "Why would you bring Jaune a dog?" He asked perplexed, albeit in a less intimidating tone now that he knew that the doctors weren't about to sic a Grimm on his son.

"If I am guessing correctly, the Head Doctor wants to observe the effects of Jaune's volatile Aura construct on living organisms in person, and see what she is dealing with, before she can come up with a possible treatment." Fidgeting with his button, the auburn-haired doctor refused to meet Jonathan's gaze, although the mousey man visibly grimaced at inadvertently using the word 'treatment' after the father's last outburst.

"NO!" Jaune's sudden scream caused everyone present to whirl around and stare towards the shouting child. Moments later, the heartbreaking wailing of the puppy joined Jaune's screams.

The adults watched in morbid fascination as the Aura fog seeped into the small creature which was thrashing about violently. The glowing particles of Jaune's Aura span wildly above the child like a swarm of upset bees, the air itself seemingly vibrating as the particles swirled and span and sank under the fur of the wailing puppy.

"I don't know how to stop it!" The blond boy cried out, fresh tears rolling down his pudgy red face, "How do I make the Aura fog stop? Please!" Jaune made to approach the three doctors, only for them to instantly step away from him, their gloved arms jerking upwards in fright. As the swirling specks of the glowing mist moved faster and faster, the inner light of the spinning mist intensified tremendously, vanquishing the shadows inside the helmets of the three doctors and illuminating wide eyes and expressions of sheer fear.

"S-stay away from me!" The female doctor screamed in a shrill voice, dropping her clipboard in favor of creating more distance between herself and the crying boy. Her two colleagues instinctively following her example until the backs of the three doctors were pressed flat against the surface of the one-way mirror.

There should have been a whirring noise, a repetitive buzzing sound, a teeth-chattering high-frequency humming, for nothing should have been able to move quite as fast as the spinning particles of Jaune's Aura without displacing the air around them, yet there was none of those things. The examination room was deathly silent save for the desperate pitched wailing of the dying puppy and Jaune's incessant cries for the Aura fog to stop.

And then the whines of the trapped creature were abruptly cut off and the spinning particles slowed down, their light dimming considerably. The puppy fell on the floor with a soft thumping sound, never to move again.

Jaune sniffled. The mist shuddered, floating away from the lifeless body of the dead animal, the white specks returning back to Jaune who was huddled by the corner of the room, crying hoarsely as the adults watched him, shocked, terrified, stunned. None of the doctors tried to pacify the crying child. None of the adults attempted to approach him. Even Jaune's parents remained frozen on the spot, gaping at the sight of the dead puppy. Juniper's eyes were wide open. Her hands were held over her mouth to suppress whatever heart-wrenching sound had been caught in her dry throat. Jonathan Arc, for his part, was staring at his son in disbelief. His sky blue eyes, the same vivid blue as his son's, were glazed. His hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists, which trembled slightly every couple of seconds.

Eerily, the shifting mist gathered above and behind Jaune once again, floating quietly like a fluttering pale curtain. Beautiful, inconspicuous, deceivingly peaceful.

Author's notes: This story comes from the two fundamental truths of the RWBY universe: One, if there is a possibility for Jaune to fk up something, he will, and two, Jaune's luck is both great and terrible. So, if we also take into account Jaune's unnaturally big Aura reserves we start making scientific assumptions like: How would the universe fk with Jaune if he were to unlock x semblance? We have already seen an example of what might happen if his Aura supercharges an empathy-based semblance in the first story of this collection, now we upped the ante a tad. In this story Jaune's Aura is not just stronger than Jaune himself to the point that it is out of his control, but it might have achieved a sentience of its own. I hope you liked the idea as much as I did.