RWBY: LUCID

Gula slowly descended toward the floating metallic platform, his shadowy feet making no sound as they touched the surface beside Pyrrha. Despite the fact that he possessed the general shape of a person, there was something distinctly unnatural about the way he moved.

His body seemed to obey different rules than flesh did, drifting rather than falling and settling rather than landing, his entire form composed of a darkness that appeared just slightly deeper than the shadows surrounding them.

Pyrrha stared at him for several seconds before finally finding her voice.

"How are you here?"

Gula tilted his head, the motion almost perfectly mimicking one that Jaune himself might have made.

"Isn't it obvious? Jaune told me to enter your shadow before he dived down."

Pyrrha blinked. She looked down at the shadow beneath her feet, then back at Gula, then down again as though expecting to discover some enormous Stalker-shaped hole in reality that she had somehow overlooked. There had been absolutely nothing unusual about her shadow. She had been standing on this platform for quite some time, surrounded by the chaos of battle, and yet she hadn't sensed anything hiding within it.

The realization was somewhat unsettling. She knew Stalkers did not possess flesh and blood in the conventional sense, which explained why her Ferrous Rune had failed to notice him, but that didn't make the realization any less embarrassing. She hadn't sensed a Rank Two creature hiding directly beneath her feet.

Perhaps she really was weaker than she thought.

The thought stung, especially after everything she had already been thinking about Jaune's absurdly rapid growth, but another thought followed almost immediately and softened the edge of it. Jaune had done this to protect her. He had known that he was going somewhere dangerous, so he had left behind a part of himself instead. Pyrrha couldn't help the small smile that appeared on her face. Did he really think she was so weak that she needed someone hiding inside her shadow to protect her? Nah. That didn't sound like Jaune. More likely, he knew that he had bigger fish to fry and had simply decided that if he couldn't stay with her himself, then at least one part of him could.

Somehow, that thought was strangely comforting.

She glanced toward Gula again, studying him with renewed curiosity. She hadn't seen him in months. Truthfully, she had never really interacted with him at all. During the Shadow Realm expedition, Stalkers had been enemies. They were things to kill before they killed you, monstrous inhabitants of a realm where hesitation was often synonymous with death.

Gula had been one of them, and his eventual connection to Jaune had been completely unexpected. The Plunder Rune had somehow done something nobody had anticipated, merging the essence of the Stalker with Jaune rather than merely stealing its physical or umbral properties. Nobody had known what would happen.

Jaune had had also disappeared not long afterwards, and because Gula had been merged with him, Gula had disappeared as well.

Now, however, the Stalker seemed perfectly comfortable wearing Jaune's silhouette. Pyrrha found herself wondering why. Rank Two Stalkers were generally shaped like Asuras, creatures possessing three pairs of arms and bodies designed almost exclusively around combat. Gula had clearly broken that pattern. His form resembled Jaune's, from his proportions to the shape of his face, though everything was rendered in living darkness with only his pale shadow-eyes and broad grin standing out against the blackness.

The simplest explanation was probably the obvious one. They were connected. Not merely connected in the ordinary sense, either. Their souls had become entangled through the strange circumstances surrounding Plunder. As far as Pyrrha remembered, they were, in some strange and difficult-to-define way, soul connected.

She continued staring. Perhaps a little too intently.

Gula shifted uncomfortably beneath the attention, his head turning slightly away before he finally spoke.

"You know... all that staring is a little uncomfortable."

Pyrrha immediately flinched, realizing that she had been doing exactly that.

"Oh, I apologize. I... just wasn't entirely sure what to... um, make of you."

Gula shrugged, his shadowy shoulders moving with the gesture.

"Yeah, fair enough. Must be a little odd to see Jaune's features in a Stalker. Can't blame you for thinking I'm weird."

Pyrrha felt a little embarrassed by how accurately he had read her thoughts.

"Uh... no. You look... good? Yes. The features suit you."

Gula stared at her for several seconds. His expression didn't change, but somehow Pyrrha could tell he was looking at her as though he had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to respond to that particular compliment. Eventually he simply decided not to comment.

"Right. Anyway..."

Gula turned his attention toward the battlefield, where Adam still hovered in the distance amid the currents of crimson energy.

"Jaune figured that he might not have any time to actually explain everything to all of you guys, so he decided to shoot two birds with one gun. That's how you say the phrase, right?"

Pyrrha's brow furrowed.

"Um..."

Gula waved a hand dismissively.

"Nevermind. Anyway, I'm here to help and explain a couple things to you about what Jaune had been doing over the past couple of months. Besides, Blake should be arriving with Ruby and Weiss in a large group soon, anyhow, which gives us some time to beat up this guy."

He jabbed a thumb toward Adam, who had remained stationary for the moment, watching their strange reunion with unmistakable curiosity. The crimson-haired man had clearly expected Pyrrha to be alone, or at least occupied by the surrounding Grimm, and the sudden appearance of a Rank Two Stalker that somehow wore Jaune's silhouette had apparently forced him to reconsider whatever approach he had intended to take.

Gula's voice lowered slightly as he added, "At least... according to Nicholas's foresight. But... considering Jaune is outside of it, things might have changed."

Pyrrha's eyes narrowed. That last part immediately caught her attention.

"Outside of it?"

Gula glanced at her and smiled slightly. Pyrrha's suspicion sharpened. There was something about Jaune's current existence that clearly made him different from whatever Nicholas Arc had been able to see in his visions. She had already noticed it herself. Jaune's abilities had become so bizarre that even she, with her extensive experience as an awakened, couldn't properly identify what was happening.

His abilities had apparently evolved into something else entirely. And there was something else, something she couldn't perceive properly through her Ferrous Rune anymore. Pyrrha looked at Gula carefully.

"Does it have something to do with his Rank Two Rune?"

For the first time, Gula looked genuinely impressed.

"Not bad. Yeah, he was able to make a super over-the-top Rune that kind of blows all other Runes out of the water. Not sure if any other Rank Two in the world, or in all of history, might be his equal now."

Pyrrha opened her mouth, wanting to ask what exactly that meant, but before she could speak the sound of metal scraping against something much harder interrupted them. Adam had finally begun moving. His blade came up slowly, crimson energy gathering around its edge as the atmosphere itself seemed to tighten.

Pyrrha's expression immediately hardened. Gula's head turned toward him as well, his grin fading into something considerably more focused. Adam's voice carried through the roaring winds and the distant thunder of combat, reaching them with unnatural clarity.

"As much fun as eavesdropping on your little reunion is, I'm going to have to put this little chat to a stop. Besides, I'm itching for a rematch against you, Pyrrha Nikos. After all... our last battle was so rudely interrupted."

Pyrrha's eyes narrowed. Her memory immediately returned to the Shadow Realm and to the circumstances surrounding the battle in Mistral that had nearly killed her. Adam spoke as though their previous confrontation had been some unfinished contest between equals, conveniently ignoring the fact that it had been his own decision to summon another Rank Two combatant into the battle that had turned the tide against her and Jaune.

If she hadn't reached comprehension in her Density Rune at that exact moment, she would have died. There would have been no rematch or second chance.

No opportunity to stand here on the crimson moon and face him again. She remembered the sensation of her Rune finally clicking into place, the sudden understanding that had allowed her to survive, and the tiredness she had felt afterward.

Adam's presence had once represented a threat she had barely survived. Now, after everything that had happened, she wasn't sure what he represented anymore. Gula stepped slightly forward, his shadowy form lowering into a combat stance while Pyrrha's metallic particles began swirling around her feet.

The platform beneath them hummed as countless fragments of metal gathered into weapons, shields and razor-thin strands. Across the battlefield Adam raised his blade higher. The crimson energy around it condensed into a brilliant arc, gathering mass and power until the attack seemed to become a physical object in its own right.

Pyrrha's eyes sharpened as the first movement came.

Adam swung.

A red arc of sword energy tore through the air toward them, a crescent of concentrated destruction that carved through the crimson atmosphere and sent fragments of moonstone exploding away in its wake.

However, before Pyrrha could decide whether to dodge, block, or phase through it, space itself folded open directly in the slash's path.

A circular portal materialized with almost no warning, its interior swallowing the crimson blade of energy whole.

For the briefest instant the attack simply ceased to exist, absorbed somewhere beyond the boundaries of the battlefield. From the same portal, on the other side, as it were, Adam emerged through it with his physical blade already flashing toward her.

Pyrrha's instincts screamed a warning. Her metallic platform shifted beneath her feet as she thrust one hand forward, liquid metal condensing into the shape of a spear. Adam's surprise attack was blocked by it. However she didn't stop there. The spear rapidly started branching outward.

The weapon transformed into a grotesque coral-like structure as dozens of sharpened metallic branches erupting from the central shaft as it sought to impale Adam from every conceivable angle.

At precisely the same instant, Gula attacked from behind. His arms elongated, stretching far beyond the proportions of any human limb before their ends hardened into enormous sword-like blades of pure Umbra. The shadow weapons converged upon Adam's back from opposing angles, perfectly synchronized with Pyrrha's attack.

Adam's response was immediate.

Crimson energy erupted from his body in a spherical detonation, forming a dense shell around him that expanded outward with explosive force. Pyrrha's metallic branches were repulsed violently, bending and snapping away from Adam's body as the shockwave threw fragments of liquid metal across the platform.

Gula's shadow blades suffered the same fate, the force of the crimson barrier knocking them aside and forcing Gula's body to stretch and distort as he absorbed the impact. Adam emerged from the center of the sphere without a scratch, his eyes already fixed upon his opponents. Pyrrha barely had time to recover before the spherical barrier surrounding Adam began changing shape.

Rather than remaining a defensive shell, the crimson energy contracted violently toward him, gathering into a single stream before extending outward into a long, razor-thin blade of condensed runic energy.

The weapon hummed with enough power to make the air around it tremble. Adam's physical sword moved simultaneously, slicing through empty air.

A portal opened beside him. Pyrrha's eyes widened as she realized what he was doing, but the realization came too late. The crimson slash he had launched moments earlier emerged from the portal at an entirely different angle, curving toward her with all of its original momentum.

She twisted her body and raised a wall of condensed metal just in time. The crimson blade collided with it in a tremendous burst of energy, shattering through several layers before finally dispersing, but the impact sent Pyrrha hurtling backward through the air. She rotated gracefully, regained her balance and kicked against empty space, to manipulate her movement as she redirected herself back toward the battlefield.

Adam had already turned his attention toward Gula. His crimson energy sword moved in a blur, sending a dozen separate slashes toward the Stalker from different directions. Each attack was fast enough to decapitate a normal Rank Two awakened before they could react, yet Gula parried every single one with ease.

His movements were strange and almost impossible to predict. There was no conventional rhythm to them.

He didn't merely block Adam's attacks but seemed to understand them before they fully existed, shifting around each blade with an almost liquid quality.

Adam's eyes narrowed.

He had expected the strange Stalker to be dangerous, but apparently he had underestimated exactly how dangerous. His gaze lingered on Gula for another moment, reevaluating him with the cold calculation of a swordsman attempting to understand an unfamiliar opponent. Then Adam changed tactics. Rather than continuing to wield the crimson runic sword himself, he released it.

The weapon remained suspended in the air, floating beside him for a fraction of a second before moving independently. Adam's hand lowered, while the crimson sword shot toward Gula with a speed that would have overwhelmed almost any Rank Two fighter.

However, Gula met it head-on.

The shadow of his arm flattened into a blade. He caught the crimson sword, twisted his body at an impossible angle and redirected it past his torso. The floating weapon immediately corrected its trajectory and attacked again, while Adam simultaneously drew his physical sword and joined the assault. Two swords attacked Gula from opposite directions, one controlled remotely through Adam's rune, and the other guided by Adam's own hands.

His swordsmanship was extraordinary. Calling it merely profound would have been an insult to the sheer technical mastery on display. Every movement contained layers of intent. A feint became a thrust, a thrust became a rotational slash, and a defensive movement seamlessly became an offensive maneuver. Adam could perform complex combinations within the span of a single second, his body moving with the confidence of someone who had spent years refining every conceivable aspect of sword combat. Under normal circumstances, a Rank Two Stalker should have been overwhelmed by such an assault.

But Gula wasn't just any Rank 2 Stalker.

His swordsmanship was... odd.

There was no rigid structure to it or consistent stance. His combat style was almost entirely formless, constantly adapting to whatever Adam presented.

His body itself made such a style possible. As a Stalker, Gula's physical form wasn't bound by the limitations of flesh and bone. His arms could elongate, flatten, curve and transform into different weapons with almost no delay.

A sword became a spear. A spear became a shield. A shield became a tendril. A tendril became another sword.

His body flowed around attacks rather than merely avoiding them, twisting at angles that no human skeleton could possibly achieve.

Yet that wasn't even the most important factor.

Gula possessed Jaune Arc's memories.

He possessed Jaune's understanding of combat.

Every technique Jaune had learned, every weapon he had studied, every opponent whose fighting style he had dismantled and understood through Plunder was buried within Gula's mind.

Jaune had spent months fighting, stealing comprehension and absorbing the experiences of countless enemies.

Who was Jaune Arc now, if not the strongest Rank Two awakened to ever walk the world? His runes alone were enough to place him in a league of his own, but his greatest advantage wasn't simply the overwhelming power of Weakness, Plunder and Null.

It was comprehension.

He had stolen the understanding of hundreds of enemies.

Swordsmanship, spear fighting, martial arts, firearms, movement techniques, defensive forms, exotic weapons and countless variations of combat had all been accumulated inside him. Adam had become a master of swordsmanship through his own efforts.

But Jaune Arc was something else entirely. He had the knowledge of a grandmaster across virtually every weapon imaginable. And Gula possessed that knowledge as well.

And so Gula suppressed him.

Adam's crimson sword swung toward Gula's throat. Gula's neck simply ceased to have a fixed shape, his head sliding sideways as the blade passed through empty space. His right arm transformed into a spear and stabbed toward Adam's chest.

Adam twisted away.

Gula's spear immediately bent around him, becoming a hooked blade that pursued his movement. Adam's physical sword intercepted it, but Gula's other arm had already transformed into a hammer-like mass and struck the side of Adam's body. Adam's crimson barrier erupted instinctively, catching the blow, but Gula had already adapted again.

His body became a ribbon of darkness, slipping between the two swords before reforming behind Adam. Adam spun and Gula was already there. A shadow blade crossed his path. Adam blocked. Another appeared from below.

He blocked again.

A third came from the side. He barely avoided it. For the first time since the battle began, Adam was being forced entirely onto the defensive. The crimson sword floating beside him attacked independently, yet even that wasn't enough. Gula anticipated its movements through the patterns of Adam's control and began treating the weapon as another extension of Adam himself. His body shifted, stretched and flowed around the attacks, constantly changing shape to exploit whatever opening appeared. Adam realized the situation almost immediately. He couldn't win a prolonged exchange against this creature.

His opponent wasn't simply fast but was learning.

Adam suddenly jumped backward into a portal.

Gula's arm extended after him.

The shadowy limb transformed into a spear-like tendril and pierced through the portal a fraction of a second before it closed. Adam disappeared and the portal's closing edge severed the tendril cleanly.

A heartbeat later another portal opened high above the battlefield, and Adam emerged riding upon the back of a Rank Two Nevermore. His expression had changed. One hand immediately clutched his shoulder. Blood flowed between his fingers where Gula's spear-like had pierced him before the portal closed. He glared across the distance at the Stalker, his expression filled with disbelief and growing frustration.

Pyrrha watched the exchange in stunned silence. Her metallic particles hovered around her, ready to respond to Adam's next movement, but her attention remained fixed on Gula. She had expected him to be dangerous but she had not expected this.

If Gula were a normal flesh-and-blood creature, her Ferrous Rune would have given her another avenue of understanding.

She could sense blood and track its movement through veins, detect subtle changes in circulation and use those movements to anticipate attacks or locate injuries.

Against most humanoid opponents and even grimm, that sensory information gave her an advantage that few people even realized she possessed. Against Gula, however, there was nothing. No blood, heartbeat or circulatory system.

No biological rhythm for her to read. He was pure Umbra given shape, a living shadow whose body obeyed rules fundamentally different from her own. Worse still, his combat abilities were incredible.

Pyrrha had always considered herself an exceptional fighter. She had spent years mastering her weapon and developing her abilities, and she knew that her skill placed her among the strongest awakened fighters of her generation.

Yet, watching Gula fight had given her a distinctly uncomfortable realization. In a pure fight, without her Runes and without some other overwhelming tactical factor, she probably couldn't do anything against him either. The thought should have been discouraging.

Instead, Pyrrha found herself smiling faintly.

Because Gula wasn't her enemy.

He was Jaune's shadow.

And apparently, Jaune's shadow was every bit as terrifying as Jaune himself.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!