Jaune looked out over the City of Vale in silence. The sun had long since set, the lights scattered across the streets and buildings, a flimsy imitation of the stars that had begun to speckle the sky above. It was already late and he had another early morning the next day however sleep felt very, very distant. He should have been exhausted after the events of that morning, the pain had made itself obvious and the bruises would appear soon enough. However, the excitement, and the fear, of his first day at Beacon Academy had pushed that all to the back of his mind, picturing it as nothing more than a mild inconvenience.

He still couldn't believe he'd made it through the first day of training and survived. Not only that, Headmaster Ozpin had looked him right in the eyes and declared him the leader of his own team! That had been unfathomable! Jaune Arc, Vomit Boy, the boy who had lied to get into Beacon Academy... the boy who had lied to his whole family... and for what? His family had never been the type to impose their expectations, not on him anyway. So why had he lied so desperately every step of the way to get here? To force himself to lie every day from now on?

"Jaune?"

Jaune jumped in response to the voice that was slowly becoming ever so familiar. He turned to face who had called him, forcing himself out of his thoughts. Now that he was here, he vowed to do whatever he could to stay at Beacon.

Pyrrha Nikos was standing in the doorframe of the small balcony area. She was still dressed in her armour, her spear at her side. Her long crimson hair swayed in the gentle, late summer breeze. Soon, autumn would be upon them. Her golden headpiece gleamed slightly in the weak lighting. She smiled when he turned, happy to have recognised him.

"We've been looking everywhere for you!" She exclaimed, taking a step towards him, her smile wide and genuine.

"You have?" Jaune enquired.

"Well I have." Pyrrha sheepishly corrected.

"Oh." Jaune responded, slightly dejected. "Well, here I am."

"Yes! Yes you are!" Pyrrha answered awkwardly. Silence fell between the pair for a moment.

"Sooooo…?" Jaune prompted.

"Ren's making pancakes." Pyrrha answered eventually. "Nora insisted he'll make enough for all of us but Ren warned me to find you quickly or Nora might eat them all… though how such a small woman could eat all of them..."

Jaune couldn't help smiling at her words. So that's why Pyrrah had been the one looking for him.

"Pancakes sound good." Jaune agreed, covering the distance between him and Pyrrah with a few steps. "Ren and Nora- they are quite a pair, huh?"

Jaune...

"They are really good friends." Pyrrha agreed, leading the way.

Jaune...

"I hope we can all be like that, someday." Mused Jaune, though he had already wondered if Ren and Nora were simply 'friends'. But he couldn't deny that, whatever relationship they had was a good one, built on years together.

What was he kidding?

How could he ever be friends with Pyrrha and the rest when he had to lie to them every day?

Jaune.

"I would like that very much!" Pyrrha beamed again, its brilliance momentarily burning away his concerns.

Jaune smiled back at her, the smell of cooking pancakes already filling the air as they entered the passage.

He would also like that very much.

Jaune!

Jaune finally blinked away the visages of a time passed, feeling himself being dragged to the present. Weiss had been the one calling him as she struggled to hold back the barrage of attacks Mercury was sending her way. She jumped back as far as she could in the confined space of the waiting room, crashing into Neptune as he tried to aim his Tri-Hard at the imposter. Neptune staggered back, colliding into Bellamy who was standing behind the two Huntsmen, the leg of a waiting room chair grasped in his hands. It may not have been enough to win against Pluto- or should he call him Mercury now?- but it definitely would cause more damage than the book in his office had.

Mercury had made it obviously clear that his target was the doctor although what use he'd have for him they were unsure. It was also difficult to digest the appearance of Mercury's Semblance- when had that happened? However the hardest and most impossible thing to believe was the thing that stood before Jaune, rooting him in place and filling his body with anger and dread and regret and confusion and so many other emotions he just couldn't name...

This thing that sounded like Pyrrha Nikos.

It even somewhat looked like her, it had the same scarlet hair and armour. However, where Pyrrha's had been gold this thing's was in hues of red and black. Its skin was also deathly pale, as if a corpse was donning his friends armour- a corpse cruelly mangled with a Grimm. Covering the upper half of her face was a mask that resembled those the White Fang used to wear, poorly covering the pair of burning red eyes hidden beneath. A single spike protruded backwards from each of its gauntlets and, in one hand, she carried a shield that seemed to be made of the claw of a Death Stalker. When she spoke, pointed fangs were revealed, too large and too sharp to be of any human.

This was not Pyrrha Nikos.

This was a cruel corruption of Pyrrha's memory.

And the sight of this creature filled Jaune with anger, or at anger was the most prominent emotion he could distinguish. He focused on that alone, for if he even acknowledged the other feelings that surged through him he doubted he would even be able to move. Back in Atlas the Chill had created a flimsy copy of his fallen teammate in an attempt to distract and lure him deeper into the darkness and away from Oscar and the Relic. Even though he'd known she was simply an imitation of the girl he'd cared for, seeing her standing before him as she had in life, had opened wounds that even after years had yet to fully heal. And now Salem had drudged out the Huntress's memory again, but for what scope? For what aim had this creature been brought before him?

This was not Pyrrha.

This was an atrocity of her memory.

Jaune charged at the thing, swinging his sword mercilessly as it struggled to raise its gauntlets. It blocked each attack but was forced to step back with each strike from the sheer force of Jaune's attack. His anger fuelled his actions, giving him strength when he asked for more.

"Please!" The creature begged, her voice strained, sound just as Pyrrha's had...imitating Pyrrha's voice. "Jaune, I don't want to hurt you!"

However Jaune didn't answer the creature, nor did he lessen his barrage of attacks. They were uncoordinated and random but he didn't care. He was tired of Salem trying to use Pyrrha as his weakness. That's where he'd show that witch she'd made a mistake. Pyrrha had never been his weakness but his strength. He would prove this here and now.

"Jaune, please!" The creature begged again. "Jaune!"

An almost feral growl left Jaune's lips as he raised his sword over his hand. In that moment, in his anger, all he could see was this thing that had no right to exist in this world.

"Jaune!" The Huntsman's attack was halted when he felt something grasp at his wrist, stopping the blade from falling upon his opponent.

"Ren!" He hissed, his breathing already heavy. "Let me go!"

"Jaune." Ren repeated, tugging at the rope that had encircled Jaune's wrist. He pulled at the blade attached on the other end, forcing his leader to step away from the creature and towards him. "You have to calm down."

"How can I be calm when that thing wears her face?!" Jaune growled again. "That's not Pyrrha! That's a monster of Salem's!"

"I know, but that doesn't give us an excuse to lose ourselves." Ren insisted, remembering when he also had been consumed by anger. Back then he'd almost lost himself to it, if Nora hadn't been there to stop him... he may not no have been there now, standing inside Shade Academy. Ren did not need his evolved Semblance, which he had begun to call Empathy for simplicity's sake, to see the rage in his friend's eyes. However, it was also due to Empathy that he had stopped Jaune. It had allowed him to see something Jaune could not.

"Thank you, Ren." The creature before them said, trying to smile at the Huntsman however it came across as a sneer. "You were always so kind."

"I didn't do it for you." Ren snapped, his hand still firmly clasped on Jaune's shoulder, his brow creased as he continued to focus on the thing he could not call Pyrrha Nikos.

"Don't try to stop me, Ren." Jaune growled, but he didn't struggle against his hold. "This is just another monster created by Salem like the ones we saw in Atlas."

"I'm not going to stop you." Ren corrected. "But I won't let anger cloud your judgement, this thing is different from those we saw back then."

Ren looked away from Jaune, from the frenzy of red petals that were aggressively floating around his team leader and back towards the creature. Back in Atlas, Empathy had not allowed Salem to trick him as the apparition of his father had had no emotions for him to read. But this one, this one was different- a cloud of black petals were swirling around it. Ren had seen such a thing only once before, when he'd tried to read Salem. Till this day the meaning of these black petals eluded him however he was certain of one thing, they could not mean anything good and most certainly they did not mean peace.

"This thing is most definitely not Pyrrha." Ren sternly concluded, finally releasing Jaune as the other man looked at him. "It's too filled with darkness to be her."

"How can you say that?!" The Pyrrha yelled, its voice cracking in desperation. "Jaune, Ren it is me!

"It was me who saved you with my spear on the first day of class." Pyrrha desperately continued. As it spoke, the creature began to walk towards the pair, their weapons permanently pointed at it. "I was the one who offered to help you train when Cardin threatened to reveal your secret to Ozpin! It was my fault that Penny was killed at the Fall of Beacon." Its voice cracked as she said this as if the memory really did plague it and fill it with remorse. It stopped before Jaune and gingerly began to reach out towards him. Ren made to attack but Jaune raised a hand to stop him. "I was the one to kiss you before my supposed death." And, as it said this, its hand softly caressed Jaune's cheek.

It took all his will power not to shudder at its deathly cold touch, the tips of its long nails sliding down his skin like needles. "I'm sorry you were forced to mourn my death over and over again- at Beacon, at Argus, at Atlas. You had to mourn me, you all had to, and I'm sorry." It looked Jaune deeply in the eyes but, no matter how much he looked back, he could not see even a tinge of the green that had both haunted and comforted him over these years.

"I just hope that you could accept me even after Salem turned me into this …" The creature finally finished off, her voice hushed, barely a whisper.

For a moment it paused and the only sounds that filled the narrow space between the pair were those of battle as Mercury continued to fight against Weiss and the rest.

Jaune's face was emotionless as he slowly raised his hand towards the one Pyrrha had against his cheek and she smiled at him, her sneer-like smile. But it soon faltered when he forced her hand away from his face as if her touch were poison.

"Pyrrha wouldn't know about our visit to Argus." Jaune calmly countered, raising his sword once again at the creature. "Even if Salem told her about Atlas, she wouldn't know about Argus."

"Tsk." The creature answered, lowering its hand, its smile turning into a more obvious scowl.

"Get away from him!" Weiss yelled, struggling to dodge Mercury's attack. She tried to run towards Jaune but was knocked off her feet as the man quickly counterattacked.

"You should really focus on your own fight, Ice Queen." Cockily sneered Mercury, kicking Weiss to the side. Neptune just narrowly cought her before she could collide with the wall. Mercury shook his head at the mistake the Necrogrimm, which was what they called Salem's most recent creations, had made. It's intellect far surpassed that of the Hound, or any of the other Necrogrimm for that matter, but it had yet to fine tune its skills against real people. It could have wrapped them around its little finger if it had not just made such a rookie mistake.

A very beastly growl left the Pyrrah's lips, something a human would never be able to create.

"Weiss Schnee, the other woman." She declared with venom, stalking towards the former heiress as, still recovering from her daze, she continued to try defend Bellamy. "The reason Jaune never saw me!"

"And that's how we know you aren't Pyrrha." Finally declared Jaune, stepping into her path. "How you could never be her. Pyrrha would never blame Weiss for something like that, for something that was my fault."

Ren stepped to stand beside Jaune, the two Huntsmen blocking Pyrrha's advance.

Another hiss-like growl left the Necrogrimm's lips, its mouth turned upwards to reveal its ebony white fangs. One hand was resting on the spike that protruded from the back of its gauntlets, its back slightly arched ready to attack.

"I told you it wouldn't work." Casually called Mercury, ducking as he dodged Bellamy as he swung the chair leg at his assailant.

"Master always made them seem so naive." The creature called back, in a cruel tone one they had never heard Pyrrha use. "I wanted to test it." It then snarled at Ren and Jaune. "But then I should have expected a little more from them, they have caused the Master some inconvenience."

"Can you just hurry it up?" Mercury complained, pulling Bellamy towards him but Neptune foiled his plan by threatening to cut off his hand.

"Eating your food slowly makes it so much more delectable." Pyrrha called back.

Jaune couldn't help question how the pair could have such a casual conversation in the middle of a battle. The creature had its head slightly turned away from them but Ren and Jaune refused to attack just yet. They doubted a creature of Salem's, which showed this degree of intelligence, would give them such an obvious opening. It most likely wanted them to come closer to finish off its 'meal', whatever that meant.

"If we don't get Bellamy to them soon, Cinder's going to have our heads." Mercury insisted, kicking Neptune to the side while jumping away from an explosive Glyph Weiss sent his way. "And I personally like mine to stay connected to my shoulders."

Pyrrha shrugged nonchalantly, as if the notion didn't bother her much. "I don't have a particular preference, honestly."

But, despite that, she turned her attention back to Jaune and Ren and smiled at them once again. It's smile was haunting, so much like Pyrrha's and yet nothing like it. Deliberately, slowly, it began to raise its hand. Ren and Jaune raised their own blades, ready to counter the monster's strike but, rather than reach for its spear-like weapon, it just snapped its fingers.

There was no power in the action, or none that any of the Huntsmen present could sense. Yet the sound had barely reached their ears did it feel as if all the strength in their bodies had been sapped out of them. Like a bizarre wave, heat brushed over their bodies only for it to be replaced by a teeth chattering chill. The Huntsmen collapsed, their own weight suddenly too much for their limbs to carry. Their weapons, specifically designed to protect them, were nothing more than useless, heavy weights in their hand.

Weiss looked up at Mercury, unable to comprehend what had just happened. It felt as if her thoughts were weaving through syrup, her vision blurred as the man towered over her. She gritted her teeth, trying to sit up but her arms refused to respond, as if they were no longer her own. They were just attachments she had no control over.

Bellamy surveyed the sight with dismay, the only one to not have felt the sudden wave that had sapped the strength of the young warriors around him. He held the chair leg more tightly as Mercury also surveyed the chaos, although he seemed more pleased than Bellamy with the results. However his expression soured when he noticed that one other person had managed to stay on his feet. He was panting heavily as the strange sensation pulled at his body, whispering to him to succumb and join the others as they slithered in and out of consciousness.

"I always said you had more Aura than the rest of us." Pyrrha observed, looking as Jaune struggled to stay on his feet, his sword tip pressed to the ground in an attempt to support his weight.

"Pyrrha said that… not you." Jaune tried to sound angry but each word was uttered between heavy breaths. He looked down at Ren who was struggling at his feet, unable to move and barely able to lift his head.

"What have you done to them!?" Jaune wanted to yell, to demand answers, but his voice was weak and feeble. What had that thing done to them? .

He wanted to kneel beside Ren, to see what had happened to him but he feared, if he did that, he would collapse like the rest. However, as he looked down at his struggling companion something attached to the back of his lower arm caught his attention, something that hadn't been there, or had not been visible, a moment before.

An insect the size of his fist was attached there, with a shell of black, white and red. A needle protruded from what was its head and was piercing through Ren's clothing to the flash below.

To his horror, as Jaune watched it, the insect seemed to grow bigger in size, Ren's eyes becoming more glazed as it did so. The insect's six crimson eyes looked up at him, his own fearful expression was reflected back.

And that's another chapter! Hope you don't mind but we'll get back to Blake and co's battle a little later, there's just happening all over Shade Academy at the moment 😅 Anyways, thank you so so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed the update. Next one will be up Tuesday 😁