The gods do not die.

Not in the way that mortals understand.

They fade. They are forgotten. Their names lose power, their thrones grow cold, and their dominion slips from their grasp until they are nothing but myths.

That should have been Zeus' fate.

The King of Olympus had ruled for eons, his thunder shaking the heavens, his judgment shaping the world. But the old gods grew weary, and their war against fate itself ended with a single, unavoidable truth:

The age of gods had passed.

Zeus should have faded into the echoes of time, his throne abandoned, his power scattered to the winds.

And yet—

He woke up.

Not in Olympus. Not in the halls of the divine.

But in the body of a mortal boy, lying beneath the shattered sky of a world he did not recognize.

His name—Jaune Arc.

Jaune had always felt the storm inside him, long before he understood what it meant. When the sky rumbled, he could feel it in his bones. When the wind howled, it whispered in a voice only he could hear. When lightning cracked against the horizon, it called to him, like a son returning home. It had always been there, hidden beneath the surface, waiting for the moment when the heavens would remember him.

And then, one day, the storm answered.

The sky was too clear as Jaune stood on the cliffs, waiting for his launch into the Emerald Forest. He could hear the others talking—Ruby and Yang joking about the fall, Weiss arguing with Blake, Pyrrha standing calm as ever. He should have been nervous. He should have been focused on surviving his initiation.

Instead, he felt something shift in the air.

The atmosphere thickened, the charge of static brushing against his skin. The pressure built, subtle at first, like the way the wind dies just before a hurricane makes landfall. His fingers curled against his palm, unease tightening his throat.

Something was wrong.

"Jaune Arc," Glynda Goodwitch's voice called out. "You're next."

He took a breath.

The moment the launchpad fired, the sky darkened.

The sun vanished behind rolling clouds, thunder rumbled across the sky, and the first drops of rain hit the earth below.

Jaune barely had time to process it before lightning struck.

A bolt of pure white fire tore through the sky, spearing toward him with impossible accuracy—aimed not at the ground, not at the trees, but at him. There was no time to dodge, no time to react, only the primal instinct to lift his arm as if he could shield himself from the force of the heavens.

The world should have burned. He should have died.

Instead, his hand snapped up on instinct, fingers closing around the impossible power as if he had done so a thousand times before. Electricity surged through his veins, his nerves igniting with something ancient, something terrible, something divine.

And for the first time in his life, Jaune Arc remembered.

It came like a flood, drowning him in memories that were not his own. Lifetimes woven into the fabric of his being. A king upon a golden throne, a storm that stretched across eternity, judgment passed down from Olympus itself. He had been a ruler, a warrior, a god. His voice had shaped mountains, his wrath had shattered titans, his will had carved the path of human history.

And now, here he stood—trapped in a mortal shell, in a world that did not know his name.

The sky raged.

The storm howled like a beast welcoming its master home.

And Jaune Arc fell from the sky, not as a boy—but as a god reborn.

Jaune woke up in the forest, electricity still crackling across his skin. His breath was unsteady, his thoughts a maelstrom of confusion and certainty. He knew who he was now. He knew what he had been.

But the question remained—why had he been reborn?

This was not Earth. This was not the world he had ruled. The gods of Olympus were silent, their thrones empty, their presence missing from this place. Had they all fallen? Had they all been reborn as mortals? Or was he the only one left?

Beacon Academy loomed in the distance, and he could already feel eyes on him.

Ozpin had seen the storm. He had watched the initiation feeds. He had seen Jaune Arc fall from the sky, had seen him reach for the lightning as if it had always been his. The storm had answered his call, and Ozpin knew.

He was not a fool. He had lived long enough to recognize power when he saw it. There was no semblance that could do that. Not in Remnant.

And when Jaune walked into the halls of Beacon, electricity still humming beneath his skin, golden eyes sharper than before—Ozpin felt something he had not felt in centuries.

Recognition.

Not of Jaune Arc. Not of a Huntsman-in-training.

But of a god.

And that terrified him.

Because the last time the gods walked among mortals, the world burned.

Ozpin did not wait long before summoning Jaune to his office. The boy—if he could even be called that anymore—stood near the window, watching the storm settle over the city below. He did not speak, did not fidget.

He simply stood.

"You are not who you claim to be."

Ozpin's voice was steady. It was not an accusation—it was a fact.

Jaune smiled slightly. "I wasn't aware I had made any claims."

"You claimed to be Jaune Arc," Ozpin continued. "But Jaune Arc should not be able to do what you did today."

Jaune exhaled, amused. He turned, meeting Ozpin's gaze head-on. "And what is it you think I did?"

"You called the storm."

Ozpin did not elaborate further. He did not need to.

Jaune studied him for a long moment. "A coincidence, perhaps."

"Lightning does not strike at coincidence."

Jaune chuckled. "No, I suppose it doesn't."

Silence stretched between them, thick with something unspoken.

"I am Zeus," Jaune said at last.

Ozpin did not react—not at first. But Jaune saw the way his grip tightened on his cane. He saw the calculation in his eyes, the way the words settled too easily into place.

The name meant nothing to Remnant.

But Ozpin was old. He had spent lifetimes unearthing the truths of this world. And the fact that he had never heard that name before was what unsettled him the most.

"There are no records of you," Ozpin said carefully.

Jaune smirked. "No, I suppose there wouldn't be."

Something shifted in the air, something Ozpin could not name.

For the first time in centuries, he realized that the Brother Gods were not the first to exist.

They were merely the last ones to remain.

And if something had decided that Zeus must return—

Then something greater than them all was moving.

And Remnant was not prepared.