Aside from a scuffle against a few goons and a battle against Yang, and not counting any of the blonde brawler's memories, Jaune Arc had never been in an actual fight before. In fact his first encounter with Grimm had led to his death, and with that knowledge perhaps he should've been hesitant to go up against a fused abomination. But when Pyrrha took up his suggestion and broke into a sprint towards the flying monstrosity, he followed without hesitation.

He did briefly wonder how they could bring down the massive Creature of Darkness.

I probably should've fought a few Nevermores on my way to Vale instead of hiding from them all.

A pleasant sensation followed his thought. He had actually remembered something and applied it to his current situation in a logical manner, he was one step closer to being back to his full mental awareness.

Before they could join the battle they had to break through a forest of fire, the flames were about five feet high and they stretched along the ground for about twenty feet. Right as Jaune was beginning to wonder how Pyrrha was going to cross, she leapt ten feet in the air and bounded off of charred trees the entire way through.

I guess she's pretty strong, but that spear throw earlier should've told me that.

Jaune thought as he sheathed his sword and kicked off the ground then he began levitating over the flames, he couldn't even comprehend a way that a powerless version of himself could cross this sea of flames. Unfortunately his initial kick off lacked enough forward momentum to carry him above five feet for the entire twenty foot stretch.

As flames tickled his shoes, he dropped his levitation and when he landed amongst the flames he kicked off ground again, he had decided that a quick dip was better than being roasted the rest of the way.

If my body was metallic I could simply replicate that magnetic thing that allowed me to control my sword midair.

As he complained, another thought came to him.

Dumbass, I'm wearing armor and I can hold the sword.

Jaune sighed, even with his unified mind his human self could drag down his thinking and his sword self could correct him but at the cost of a small headache as it deviated from the unification. Regardless of his own internal state he fiddled with electricity on his armor and soon he was able to drag himself through the air, however it did use up a lot of his Aura in the process.

Maybe I'm just not built to be using multiple abilities at once.

The cost of Aura used for levitation, well self-gravity manipulation, and the cost of creating and manipulating electricity, separately it was almost nonexistent and as easy as breathing, but when used together the cost multiplied exponentially and the difficulty controlling his abilities also rose.

So as soon as he was out of the burning forest he dismissed both effects on himself. His Soul was his Aura, and that was him, he couldn't run the risk of using it all up. As he regained his footing in the ground, he looked around for his partner, but Pyrrha Nikos had left him behind and he barely spotted her across the field, she was rolling through a barrage of large feathers and shooting at the Grimm with her spear.

It's also a gun? I mean it's awesome, but is it really that necessary?

The other girl Jaune had met, Ruby, also had a polearm slash gun. Maybe he was just in a bad mood and the fact that someone else could have two cool things in one had just soured his mood even further.

Since his partner was busy with the Grimm he took his time to approach the ice dome, sure the massive monster seemed important but a ten foot tall dome of ice was just resting in the middle of the forest. As he got closer, he spotted an opening. "Hello!" He said as he peeked his head i-

People. Nine. Inside.

Seven. Bodies. Ground.

Two. Figures. Standing.

Snow. Angel. Gasp. Metal stick. Pointed at him.

He. Not. Look. With. Eye.

He. Bad. Thinks.

Like gears had shifted, Jaune felt the source of his processing power move. His brain was disregarded and he knew why, the right side of it was missing. An icicle had shot through and removed the right side of his head, his right eye and ear, parts of his skull and brain, had been blasted off.

On the bright side, without his brain registering that fact, he didn't panic.

Whatthefuck! Whatthefuck! Whatthefuck!

Well he didn't panic much, his Soul self did have the drawback of being detached from personal feelings and lacking complex thoughts, but even then he knew that missing a portion of his brain was bad news.

"…ah, no no no." Snow Angel was staring at him, her eyes wide and her breathing loud, as she huffed and puffed her silver sword fell from her hand. "No no, it's not real, it's a- it's an illusion, it's not real." She mumbled as she stared at her hands.

"Fff-uck!" Jaune exclaimed with little difficulty. "Gods! Snow Angel, don't think you'll get away with this just for being cute!" He complained and started feeling around the exposed portion of his head. "This better heal or else you'll have to take responsibility if I can't find a bride anymore." Being married was something he had hoped would happen in his life, although it didn't matter much anymore because he was dead but that didn't mean he had thrown away that hope.

"Wha-what?" Desperate blue eyes looked up, and she spoke with disbelief. "Ho-how?" She asked. "How are you still alive?"

I'm not, and if I was then I would've died. I had feared being dragged away, but now I have an excuse ready.

"Uh, my Semblance." Then he rolled his remaining eye and shrugged, internally hoping she bought his lie or maybe it was the truth, he didn't know yet. As he avoided looking at Snow Angel, he spotted the other people in the dome. Aside from her, there was only one person also standing. An orange haired girl holding a hammer, she also appeared shocked. "Hello." He greeted her.

The girl, who hadn't attacked him, just stared at him silently. Jaune noticed her cheeks were wet from tears pouring from her empty gaze.

Is this an awkward silence? Maybe I should change the topic.

He looked around for something to talk about. "So," he started, "who died?" He asked as he looked at the seven bodies collapsed near their feet.

The girls didn't answer, they remained silent as they stared at him.

Whatever, I could find out by myself anyways.

A boy with a short stretch of green hair was flattened in a crater, bone fragments peeked out from beneath his skin, parts of organs were squished out of gaps in his flesh and blood pooled beneath his body, and his face was smashed into his skull.

Definitely dead.

A boy with long dark blue hair was propped up and impaled by three large feathers, surrounding him were a few more feathers that made it hard to see his body through them, but Jaune could see blood had poured out from his mouth and his eyes were open and unblinking.

Probably dead.

A boy with short brown hair had a large gaping hole in his gut, and the blood that surrounded the wound was a sickly yellow, before Jaune decided that he was dead he heard faint gasping breaths from the boy.

Almost dead.

A boy with long black, and a single lock of pink, hair had two large holes in his right torso and his skin was a sickly yellow and he appeared covered in sweat. Jaune reserved his opinion for a few seconds but he didn't notice any signs of life. The boy still looked warm though, like he had just died.

Barely dead.

Someone was covered in charred black, and goopy red, flesh, their entire body was burnt beyond recognition and Jaune only knew who it had been by the leggings that faded from black to dark purple. The same ones that bow girl had been wearing. Again he reserved his opinion as he stared at the mass of charred flesh for a few seconds, and he noticed that the mass was pulsing or maybe twitching would be more accurate.

Still alive.

Yang, he recognized immediately, she appeared mostly unharmed, aside from a dark bruise that covered her entire body, and she was laying in a similar crater as the flattened boy.

I guess she survived whatever killed that boy, but she was still knocked unconscious.

And, finally, a girl who was wearing a red hood had also collapsed on the ground, the cloak part of her hood almost hid the deep gash that traced her entire waist. She was still clearly breathing, but her breaths were getting shorter and shorter.

Cool, Ruby's still alive, sucks that she's dying though.

As he finished up his examinations, the walls of the ice dome shook and the sounds of cracking echoed throughout the dome. "What was that?" He wondered out loud.

Snow Angel finally shook off her shock, and she avoided looking in his direction. "What do you think? It's that Bizarre Geist, even though it's capable of possessing Grimm it's still able to possess inorganic matter." She blinked. "Wait, how did you get past it? We can't step a foot outside without being bombarded by feathers."

"Oh yeah, my partner, Pyrrha Nikos, is dealing with it so I decided to check out this dome."

"Pyrrha's fighting that thing alone!?" Snow Angel screamed and then she froze. "Wait, maybe…" She trailed off as her eyes danced around an imaginary scene in her head. She bent over to pick up her sword and then she turned to face the orange haired girl. "Now's our only chance, whether we choose to flee or fight this is our only chance to decide, I'm not confident in outrunning that thing and I'm not sure even that with my help Pyrrha could beat it, I'll ask you once, will you help us?"

The orange haired girl smiled even though her tears didn't stop. "I'm going to break every bone in that thing's body." She declared as the metal pole of the war hammer in her hands screeched around her fingers, and small sparks of pink electricity danced over her skin. Her eyes darted to Snow Angel's sword. "Do you have any Lightning Dust? My Semblance allows me to use electricity to become stronger."

Jaune couldn't see Snow Angel's face as her shoulders dropped. "I do and I could use it to make Pyrrha move faster, but if the chance comes I'll lend you some."

"Oh, hey." Jaune called out, Snow Angel didn't turn around but the hammer girl looked him straight on without much of a reaction. "If you're going to help out my partner I could lend you some electricity." He offered and held up a hand with sparks of white electricity dancing between his fingers.

The hammer girl walked up to him. "I'll take as much as you can give." She held out a hand wearing pink fingerless gloves.

Jaune grabbed her hand with his own fingerless glove clad hand, and he channeled electricity directly into her body. And sure she claimed that she could take it all but he didn't want to be responsible for a murder, so he decided to also insert an Aware cluster of his Aura to prevent her from frying her nerves. He also slipped in a little of the Sludge as a side experiment to test its effects on living people, he hoped she wouldn't mind.

Pink and White strands of electricity danced and crackled over her entire body. She didn't say another word as she left.

When Snow Angel followed her, she paused next to Jaune. "I… uh… just make sure everyone's safe, but, uh, don't throw away your own life to do so." She didn't look at him as she spoke, and then she left.

"Okay yeah, I can do that." He was a little miffed, he had been hoping to help his partner in a fight but with half his brain missing he didn't think he could handle it, and he didn't want to be a burden.

Oh! Huntsman also helped people! They didn't just fight Grimm, so I should probably help these people.

From Yang's education he knew that Aura could heal wounds, and that it worked because a person's soul was fueling the recovery of their body therefore it was almost unheard of for someone else's Aura to heal a body. But all Jaune had to do was lend a helping hand.

He began thinking of what he knew of emergency medical procedures.

Uh, I'm supposed to start with the least injured first, right? If the ones with the more severe injuries die while I'm treating other people then I save on resources, right? Yeah, that's probably it.

With his mind made up he knelt next to Ruby, he almost went for Yang but he considered that maybe her ribs had pierced her lungs and she would die soon, and he blinked his vision into his Ethereal Sight.

Wow, that's bright.

Ruby's Soul was a bright and vivid red but it was fading around her waist, her blood had hid the fact that spikes had pierced her through, and if the holes were a little wider she would have been split in two. Jaune channeled a bit of his own Aura to assist her recovery and while he was at it he gave her some Sludge. More data sets would be helpful.

And with his ability to see Souls he moved on to the second brightest, Yang, and yeah she was just bruised all over and would probably be better in a few days. Also the Core that was attached to her Anchor looked healthy enough. Regardless of her state, Jaune gave her some Aura and a bit of Sludge.

Next was the boy with the gut wound, it appeared as if his Aura was being drained rapidly, honestly he would probably be dead within an hour. Not to mention that his Aura Reserve was massive, so that meant his injury was taking a huge toll on him already. Jaune would need to give him a large amount of Aura and have hope that he didn't succumb to his wound, and then as he began deliberating the necessity of saving this boy, he noticed two fading Souls.

The two dead boys were just blips in a bright world but they were still here, more importantly their Anchors were still here. Jaune couldn't affect the Core in Yang because of the risk of damaging her Anchor, but these two boys were already dead so it wasn't like he could kill them.

He walked over to their corpses and, with some difficulty, he ripped out their Anchors then he implanted them into the dying boy. Jaune gave the boy some Aura to kickstart them and then he stained them with Sludge, that had originally tied Souls to their corpses so he hoped it would help the process.

Next was the burnt body of the bow girl, her purple Soul barely circulated through her flesh, mostly just traveling to her heart and brain which perhaps was the reason she was still alive.

Maybe she knew she couldn't heal and went into hibernation, or something, until doctors fixed her up? Cool.

And well if that's what she wanted then he would just help with that, so Jaune inserted an Aware cluster of Aura to ensure her efforts weren't wasted, but he still gave her some Sludge.

And finally the freshly dead boy, who surprisingly had the same idea as the bow girl, although his body had definitely died already, his brain had a considerable amount of Aura keeping it intact. But a dead body hardly mattered, Jaune just used electricity to restart the nerves and he gave the boy a lot of Aura because he admired his spirit to continue to live despite his body dying. He even gave him a lot of Sludge because he had high hopes for him.

When he was finally done with his version of first aid he heard the ice roof shatter, chips and chunks of ice rained down, the top of the dome had been obliterated by a large flaming object.

With the roof gone and the sky visible, and with Jaune's Ethereal Sight still activated, he saw a massive skeleton instead of the mashed up creatures. He saw arms, a spine and ribcage, and he saw a Grimm Skull only it wasn't above the neck, no it was behind the arms. He blinked and looked at the Grimm with his normal vision, the Skull wasn't near the Masks and it wasn't even visible.

Also, perhaps he should've noticed sooner, he saw that the four large stones behind the Grimm weren't just regular rocks. No, two of them were large blazing stones, one had a violent wind circling it and the last one was shimmering a faint purple and it had large dark crystals embedded in it.

Oh, so it wasn't large chunks of stone, it was large Dust deposits.

Yang's education informed him that Grimm couldn't use Dust because they were Soulless, but it also informed him that Dust was volatile and that there were risks to handling it improperly. As the large flaming chunks dimmed, both of them were smashed together and their intense flames roared back to life.

Jaune heard and saw three girls trying and failing to defeat the Grimm, and he noticed that a small spear shaped hole had appeared on each of the Grimm's Masks.

I guess that invisible head is the true one, I should probably tell someone that.

Thanks for reading! I'm always open to feedback so please leave a review, or reply in my forum, about what you liked or hated about this chapter or the whole story. If anyone wants to be a Beta Reader then PM me and we'll talk details.

Oof Jaune, maybe you shouldn't be helping people when you're missing a part of your brain, just a thought man.

And oof to everyone else, c'mon this is just Initiation! You can't just get absolutely bodied like that, get it together everyone!