Chapter Text
Cardin grimaced. Velvet looked over at him in concern, even as her hands continued to adjust her camera.
"What?"
"Just..." He sighed. "Jaune's progress..." He scowled a little at the blond he'd bullied. "He started at the bottom, the very bottom... And turns out he was this wunderkind. I feel..."
Weak, his mind whispered. Pathetic.
His father had been a Huntsman Captain before he had entered politics and become a Councilman. He had told his son 'The very blood of Vale runs in our veins, son. We must give our all to protect it.'"
He'd been reduced to a whimpering child by a single Ursa while trying to bully a weaker student, abandoned by his team... And had to be saved by said weakling. What had he accomplished?
He felt Velvet's hand on his forearm. He looked over at her. Her eyes were filled with a gentle compassion.
"That just means you need to work harder," she said comfortingly, "I know you can do it. You've worked out a lot of other problems, right?"
He smiled at his girlfriend warmly.
"Yeah," he agreed.
"Hmph!"
Both turned to look over towards the stands. Sitting there, imperious as a king, was a rabbit Faunus boy. His features were sharp and handsome, his eyes and spiky hair black as coal, and his smirk as cutting as a knife. He leaned back on the bleacher, arms crossed, as a turtle Faunus boy held up a can of soda with a straw. The Turtle Faunus boy wore his hair in a green bowlcut that matched his shell, in contrast with his pale skin, goggles, and wide mouth. The Rabbit Faunus sipped contemptuously from it before he spoke.
"Still hanging out with that ape, Velvet? There's plenty of room to sit over here," he sneered.
Velvet sighed in barely restrained irritation. Cardin glared, and his arm went around Velvet's shoulders protectively.
"Hex, I've told you a dozen times, I'm not interested," Velvet stated angrily. Hex scoffed, even as his turtle Faunus flunky dabbed his chin with a napkin.
"Of course you are, babe. You're just playing hard to get," Hex sniffed. He elbowed the turtle boy. "Even Kupa here knows you belong with me, right Kupa?"
"Yes, Mister Skvader," Kupa managed in a shaky voice. Cardin's eyes narrowed.
"Back off, Bucktooth," Cardin sneered, "Or I'll get my girlfriend a new pair of rabbit skin mittens for the winter holidays!"
Hex grinned devilishly.
"I'd love to see you try, you big empty headed-!"
"Ahem!"
Both looked over. Saia Sarkara, the Queen of Pandu, stood there with an ominous smile as lightning crackled up and down her staff.
"I believe all the fighting is occurring on the field," she stated, almost friendly if not for the dangerous edge in her voice, "So save it for later, you two."
"Y-You're not-" Hex sputtered, but Velvet squeezed Cardin's hand tightly. Cardin nodded.
"Yes ma'am," he said. Saia studied him for a moment.
"You're Rufus Winchester's boy, aren't you?" She asked. "I last met him at a trade conference a few months ago. He said you'd gotten into Beacon-Cardin, was it?"
"Yes ma'am," Cardin said with a nod, "He told me about you too, your Majesty."
Hex blanched, but quickly recovered.
"O-Oh! Um, sorry Queen Saia!" He said, getting up to bow his head. He elbowed Kupa, who stuttered then bowed as well, "I uh, I didn't recognize you! Your beauty overwhelmed me!"
"Thank you," Saia said with a knowing smile, "Mister Skvader. Your parents have done well to invest in my kingdom's computer industry. It is appreciated. Now, do please keep things civilized?"
"Of course, your Majesty," Hex simpered, though he shot Cardin a venomous glare. Cardin smirked back, but held his tongue.
"Lovely!" Saia beamed. "If you'll excuse me."
She headed back to fuss over her daughter some more. Velvet pointed to a spot on the other side of the training field near the wall.
"Let's head over to get a better angle on the next fight!" Velvet suggested. Cardin was more than happy to agree.
"Jaune! That last maneuver was so cool!" Ruby gushed as she dove into the blond knight's chest and wrapped him in a tight hug. "The way you scooped and threw that dirt and then your shield was brilliant!"
"It was inspired," Pyrrha agreed even as she scowled at Ruby for reaching Jaune first. Not to be deterred she immediately glomped onto Jaune's right side and squeezed tightly, "I'm so proud of you!"
"It was a pretty smooth move shovel knight," Yang joked as she clamped herself on Jaune's left.
"Yes, your execution was surprisingly refined for something you haven't practiced and- HEY!" Weiss exclaimed as she circled around to hug Jaune from behind only to find that Blake was already there, hogging all of his back grinning at Weiss like a cat that caught a canary.
The other potential brides showered their own praises even as they jealously glared at the girls currently monopolizing physical contact with Jaune, who's eyes had grown larger and larger in surprise with each new point of contact with the female form, his cheeks growing more and more crimson by the second. Yet through all of this, a soft voice tinged with concern and confusion managed to cut through.
"Umm... are you in pain Jaune?" May asked, causing everyone to take a second look at the young man.
"I am, actually," Jaune choked out with a strangled voice an octave higher than his usual tone. The girls holding on to him jumped back with worry on their faces, and now that they were clear of him they could all feel how his aura was flaring in a valiant effort to prevent the formation of bruises. "When Dad said he was going to match my speed and strength I didn't realize I could hit this hard, and now that the adrenaline is wearing off I'm really feeling it."
The collected brides all winced in understanding sympathy. Adrenaline plus aura could really skew how you felt pain the the heat of the moment; a boon in a do or die fight, not so much anywhere else. All of them could remember one or two spars where they only realized how much they were hurting after the fighting was truly over.
With concern creasing her brow Winter pulled out her scroll and used it to check Jaune's aura levels, "According to this the fight took out a third of your reserves..."
"A whole third?" Yang let out a low whistle as she remembered her own spars with Jaune and his other fights in combat class. Most of their classmates tried to beat Jaune via ring-out as opposed to making his aura hit the red since the blond knight's reserves were so ridiculously high, once he'd learned how to fight from Pyrrha. Yang was on the shortlist of students that who tried to make him hit the red in their spars, so she knew how much work it took to put a real dent in his aura. "Your old man packs a punch."
"I noticed," Jaune chuckled before groaning as he felt around the edges of his sorest spot.
"I know a few aura techniques that help deal with bruising," Arslan offered, "Just a few easy to learn breathing exercises that aid in redirecting your aura's flow can help immensely."
"That sounds great," Jaune gave her a grateful smile before shifting his gaze to Ruby. "Dad's ready to face your team, are you guys ready?"
"More or less," Ruby replied with all the confidence she could muster, "Any last minute tips?"
"Dad's giving himself a handicap for fighting you guys, like he did with me," Jaune explained, "He'll be fighting you with his sidearm Nogg, and if you can force him to use his primary Blont Joyeux? You win."
"Are ring-outs and making his aura hit the red still win conditions?" Blake asked.
"Yes," Jaune confirmed, "But you should really take advantage of the handicap."
"Don't worry stud, we got this," Yang boasted as Team RWBY turned to leave the stands.
As the four girls made their way to the field they did last minute checks on their weapons and other gear, while Ruby did a tactical rundown.
"Alright team, I have a plan!" The silver-eyed girl announced as they exited the stands, "Mr. Arc's sidearm is just a bastard sword with no mechashift capabilities, meaning he has no ranged options unless he starts busting out aura blade techniques! So as long as we keep him from doing that, we have a clear advantage we can exploit. We're also a pretty mobile team so we're going to do hit and run tactics," Ruby turned to look her teammates in the eyes as they reached the edge of the field.
"One of us will dart in, exchange a few blows to keep him from using any aura blade techniques, and then dart out for somebody else to take your place in melee. When you're not the person in melee keep your distance and pepper him from range. We spread out, hit from as many angles as possible, always approaching him from a new direction when we switch out who's in melee." She grinned in triumph.
"We keep up that pressure and he'll have to draw his primary sword before he gets overwhelmed, giving us the win!"
"Or, how about we put his aura in the red instead?" Yang suggested as she crossed her arms with a serious look on her face. Ruby's triumphant look fell into one of confusion.
"What?"
"Think about it," Yang explained, an edge in her voice that made Ruby frown, "If we put him in the red this will be his last fight of the day, meaning none of them," She gestured behind herself with her thumb while grinning, "Will get the chance to fight him. We'll have done something that will impress Jaune and nobody will have the chance to show us up."
"A high risk high reward idea," Blake mused with a raised eyebrow.
"One we could pull off," Yang reasoned with the conviction of someone throwing down a gauntlet. "Jaune's old man packs a punch. I let him land a few solid hits on me and my semblance will turn that into the power we need to take him out." She slammed a fist into an open palm.
"Yang, Jaune's dad will see that coming from a mile away," Ruby objected with a frown. "He went to school with our parents and trained with them, remember? You learned how to fight from Dad, I learned how to fight from Uncle Qrow, and on top of that your semblance is only a little bit different from Dad's and mine has a lot in common with Mom's. He's trained against our basic tricks."
Yang scowled as she tried to come up with a counterpoint, but Weiss spoke up before she could find one.
"Perhaps we could use my semblance to get a ring-out?" The heiress ventured, her tone hauteur then it had been during their first few weeks together as a team. "A line of acceleration glyphs could launch him clear of the arena, all we'd need to do is make him take one or two steps in the direction we want him to."
"Maybe that could be Plan B," Ruby allowed with a frown, "But he was your mom's bodyguard for a while so he's probably seen your family semblance in action before, and knows what to expect from it. Your family's semblance is also pretty well documented, and your specific variation on it is basically the vanilla version anyone who's read up on your family would know about."
Weiss scowled.
Ruby sighed before standing straighter and putting on her best team leader voice, and if it was more on edge than normal she didn't care, "So if we keep all of that in mind the only wildcard we have in our deck is Blake's semblance, and Shadow works better in my plan than either of yours."
Silence hung in the air for a moment, and Ruby nodded in satisfaction that there were no more objections to her plan. The red cloaked girl turned again and took the last few steps onto the field with her team following close behind. Ruby hoped they looked epic with the way the light breeze was making her cloak billow a bit behind her with Weiss on her left and her sister and Blake on her right, all of them marching in sync with each other as they approached the center of the field.
She would see the footage from Velvet later. They did look epic... but if Ruby had seen the looks in her teammates eyes as they glanced her way at that moment she would have noticed that the respect for her position as leader that she had earned over the last few semesters was absent, replaced with a subtle annoyance not seen since her second week at Beacon.
"Hello girls!" Nick Arc greeted with a jovial grin, "You know the rules of this match?"
"Standard ring-out and broken aura rules, plus we win if you pull out your railgun sword," Ruby summarized as she deployed Crescent Rose. Yang checked the rounds loaded into Ember Celica one last time while Blake pulled Gambol Shroud from its cleaver sheath and Weiss artfully twirled Myrtenaster in a fencer's salute.
"So you're all ready to go then?"
"Yep." "Yes." "Yeah." "I am." Team RWBY confirmed.
"Alright! NORA! GIVE US A SIGNAL!"
Nora cheerfully saluted, as Ren stood by with his usual stoic expression.
"GOT IT DAD!"
The gong was struck a second time that day, and as its' brassy sound echoed across Training Field 12 the combatants exploded into motion.
"...And breathe out slooowly through your nose counting down from eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero. There, that's better isn't it?" Arslan instructed from his left, "Now breath in again through your mouth counting up til you reach twelve: one, two, three.."
The breathing exercise was soothing, and Jaune could feel how it was redirecting his Aura around his sore spots and helped them fade away far faster than they normally would have. Focusing on the breathing exercise also helped distract him from his current... placement...
Arslan's right arm was looped around his left with her fingers interlaced with his. Pyrrha was on his right looping her left arm around his right and interlacing her fingers with his. May was behind him messaging a sore spot on his back per her mother's prompting and following her mother's instructions. Emerald was sat in front of him leading back so her head rested against his stomach while she used his legs like armrests. Winter stood slightly off to the side, her eyes darting back and fourth between the other girls like she was trying to decide which one she was going to make leave and replace. Each of them would toss suspicious glances the others' way every once in a while.
How did his life end up like this? The question was rhetorical because he remembered every moment leading up to this point, but still, he had to ask: How?
Just how?
Ever since he arrived at Beacon the quest for feminine affection had made him feel like a dog chasing a car, but he had never expected to be like the dog in not knowing what to do with it once he had gotten it!
It wasn't like he was completely clueless. If he was dealing with only one girl he'd know exactly what to do: go on some dates, hold hands, be supportive in her day to day life then maybe kiss a little bit, and when they reached that point the two of them would see where they wanted to go from there. If they deepened the relationship, well, marriage and a family would be the next step. If not? Break up amicably and move on.
But he wasn't dealing with only one girl, and they were all being spurred on by each other to move quickly lest they get left behind if another girl managed to move faster (Arslan and Pyrrha had only grabbed his hands in such and intimate manner after Emerald had so brazenly leaned back against him after all, and May had only started her message after them grabbing his hands). All this affection being sent towards him all at once was kind of overwhelming.
He needed to take Penny up on her offer to draw up a schedule, that way he'd have some alone time with each girl to figure things out without playing favorites.
Yes, one on one time was something he could see himself managing.
He focused on his breathing, which was slowly becoming a less and less viable distraction.
Fortunately the gonging sound of the match starting gave him something else to focus on.
------------------------
"Weiss! Jungle Gym!" Ruby called out as she twirled her scythe into a striking position, "Yang! Dextral Twain! Blake! Sinistral Ternate!"
Team RWBY sprang into motion with Ruby rushing down the middle of the field to cross blades with Nick Arc as quickly as possible. Yang curved her run to approach Nick from the right while timing it to reach Nick after Ruby, while Blake veered to approach from the left while timing her dash to hit after Yang.
Nick proved himself quite capable of handling the odd angles of attack a scythe could provide as he deftly deflected the first, second and third strikes Ruby attempted before he jabbed at her with the opening his third deflection created. Fortunately for the silver-eyed girl she was already leaning back to disengage so the first thrust missed, and a one second petal burst created the distance she needed to be out of the way for Yang's opening shots from Ember Celica.
Jaune's father swept the shotgun blasts from the air with the flat of his blade before flipping Nogg around in a reverse grip to block Yang's punches with the other flat side. An uppercut, a haymaker, and two quick jabs were blocked before Nick kicked out forcing Yang to dance away. During the few seconds the two blonds were in melee Ruby had sifted Crescent Rose into its' rifle mode and she fired off two shots as soon as Yang was clear. The elder Arc deflected the first bullet with Nogg while dodging the second by leaning slightly out of the way.
Then Blake was upon him and Ruby shifted Crescent Rose back to its scythe form in anticipation of entering the melee again. Blake struck out with Gambol Shroud's blade in sword form while holding its' cleaver sheath in a reverse grip to block any counter attacks. And there were many counter attacks as Nick flipped back to a normal grip and expertly deflected each of the cat Faunus' strikes, then struck back with his own slashes as soon as her sword was out of the way. Her cleaver managed to block three, four, and then five of his counter slashes before he bisected one of her shadow clones and Blake disengaged just in time for Ruby to charge in again.
During all of this Weiss set up the jungle gym.
Acceleration glyphs stretched out before her letting her glide down the path they made at speeds only Ruby could exceed. She used that speed to visit several key points on the training field like all four corners plus a few more, where she paused for a moment to channel Dust through her Semblance.
Pillars of ice and stone rapidly grew from each point she visited, each one optimized in shape to be hooked onto by either Crescent Rose or Gambol Shroud in a way that would allow the wielders of those weapons to change directions without losing speed.
It was a solid enough game plan, Weiss reflected as she placed the final pillar. It maximized the speed and options of the two most maneuverable members of the team while also creating places the two less maneuverable members could hide behind to either recover or mask their approach to the target.
"Weiss! Catbird Seat!" Ruby called out as soon as the final pillar was finished, firing more shots at Nick as she disengaged from melee a second time.
Weiss complied, using her Glyphs to quickly jump up to the top of the ice pillar that gave her the best view of the training field. From this elevated position, she could clearly see Yang replacing Ruby in the melee with Mr. Arc, while Blake got into position to strike from behind. The bearded swordsman slashed at Yang only for the blond brawler to block it with the left half of Ember Celica, then firing a shot with the right half that Mr. Arc twisted around to avoid. The older man then turned his twist into a full on spinning kick that caught Yang in the side sending the brawler sprawling on the ground, before she front flipped up and out of the way. Gunfire from Crescent Rose covered her retreat and gave Blake the opportunity to attack.
The heiress narrowed her eyes at Yang's tumble.
That sneaky bimbo...!
The blonde brawler didn't need to take that hit, Weiss had seen her dodge attacks like that before quite easily. Yang was allowing herself to get hit to build up the power of her semblance Burn, meaning she was only following Ruby's plan as a vehicle to enable the alternative she had proposed right before the match started!
Weiss couldn't find it within herself to call the brawler out. After all, she was also using Ruby's plan as a vehicle for her own as well. The younger Schnee sister summoned an array of glyphs around her and began to infuse them with Dust.
Blake's attack from behind only managed to land a single hit on Nick before he turned around and pressed the cat faunus back with the fury of his thrusts. The young Belladonna managed to deflect most of those thrusts, but she still had to sacrifice three shadow clones to properly disengage before Ruby came in swinging her scythe in wide arcs.
The blond swordsman ducked under the first swing, deflected the second and outright parried the third with Ruby using a brief Petal Burst to let Nogg pass through the space she had been. That Petal Burst also let her relocate herself behind the towering man as Crescent Rose sifted into its' riffle mode. The diminutive team leader they cried out as she leapt backwards while firing, "WEISS! THUNDERBIRD!"
It was a call to fire off lightning dust with her glyphs. If the situation on the ground was slightly different Weiss might have followed it, but with the way things were going, she could see a way to enact her own plan: the fight had moved Mr. Arc closer to one of the field's edges and Ruby's Thunderbird call had caused her teammates to pull back and fire at range instead of closing in to switch out who was in melee.
She fired off an intense barrage of icicles from her glyphs. Some were as small as bullets, others as large as chairs, while most were the size of swords. The larger icicles stabbed into the earth creating barriers that Weiss didn't expect to contain her opponent but their placement did mean the path of least resistance was in the direction she wanted the fight to go. Coincidentally, the barrier would also delay her teammates from joining in on what she was about to do.
Victory will be mine!
As her barrage came to an end Weiss created a launching glyph behind her and leaped onto it, shooting herself forward with Myrtenaster stretched out before her as the crescendo of her final salvo.
Jaune's father had not been idle during the bombardment. He had spun his sword around like a propeller deflecting or outright blocking most of the medium and smaller icicles sent his way while sidestepping the larger ones. Only a scant handful had gotten past his defenses so he was ready when Weiss launched himself at her to sidestep again.
Weiss for her part managed to land gracefully behind the blond swordsman, using another glyph to catch herself before she stabbed the ground. She then twirled around and launched a complex series of thrusts and slashes with her rapier that Nick expertly deflected with the efficiency Weiss expected from a veteran warrior.
"Your swordplay's pretty good!" Nick observed with a tone of voice that reminded Weiss of more than one of her kinder combat instructors. His blade danced with hers in a symphony of steel clashing against steel as he continued, "But why'd you come down here? You were perfectly fine at range!"
"I needed to make sure this next part was done right," Weiss grunted as she channeled her semblance and created an acceleration glyph behind her opponent, all she needed to do was force him back a single step and he'd be sent hurtling out of the arena. "Besides most of my training was in fencing, I can't show that off at range."
"WEISS! GET OUT OF THERE!" Ruby's panicked command cut through the air.
"True," Nick allowed in answer to Weiss, "But if you had kept your distance, I wouldn't be able to do this!"
The ease with which he slipped past her guard and grabbed her right wrist with his off hand was so unexpected Weiss almost didn't process it happening until he had pressed his thumb against a nerve. The sudden pain made her lose her grip on Myrtenaster, sending the rapier clattering to the ground. Nick then jerked her arm up over his head before letting go, tossing the heiress into the air before catching both of her ankles in the same hand.
"Wha-?!"
At the same time, Blake vaulted over the ice while Yang smashed her way through another ice barrier. Nick responded to their arrival by swinging Weiss through the air like a flail, smashing Yang into the ground and playing wack-a-mole with Blake's shadow clones. The next few moments of Weiss' life consisted of a rhythm that went something like this:
Smashing into Yang to keep her prone on the ground, popping a shadow clone, smacking into Yang as the blonde tried to role over, popping another shadow clone, slam into Yang, shadow clone, shadow clone, Yang, shadow clone, Yang, shadow clone, Yang, Yang, the actual Blake, Yang, shadow clone, Blake, Yang, Blake, Yang, Blake, Yang, Yang-
"UWAH-URK-ARGH-EEP!"
That rhythm was brought to an end as a flurry of rose petals raced through the area and scooped up Blake and Yang, depositing the two of them at the far end of the training yard. A new rhythm began where Weiss found herself meeting all of the little ice barriers she had placed around Nick, and after twelve high speed impacts all of those barriers had been shattered into inconsequential pieces.
It was at that point Nick spun about and let her go like a professional track and field hammer thrower. Weiss sailed through the air and might have landed out of bounds if she wasn't caught by a cloud of rose petals which redirected her momentum and carried her to the same end of the field that Blake and Yang were at, bringing her to the ground as gently as possible.
"Weiss, are you alright?" Ruby fretted as Weiss scrambled to her feet.
"I'm FINE you dolt," Weiss woozily snapped before she took a step forward, tripping over her own feet and face-planting in the dirt, which ended up breaking her aura.
"Ow..."
"...And that's the basic overview of how my father solved the power consumption issue," Penny cheerfully explained as she lead Whitley to the training field and towards the stands where his mother was sitting. "Any further detail involves proprietary information I am not at liberty to divulge barring the signing of non-disclosure wavers or a very specific list of emergency circumstances."
Whitley was looking at her with an expression her databanks classified as wonderment. The sound of his voice registered as awed as he spoke, "Every part of you is a revolutionary masterwork; body, mind and soul."
An unidentified surge of emotion flashed through her systems at the young man's proclamation. It was similar to happiness in many ways, but it was also different. It was like seeing a unique shade of a favored color for the first time, the similarities and differences were fascinating. This would require further examination, and the study of this new feeling was greatly aided by how the Schnee boy was making it stir within her every other time he spoke.
Of course the sheer quantity of this feeling flowing through her systems had started to prove distracting from her current mission of guarding Friend Jaune, as attempting to process the emotion was taking bandwidth away from remotely monitoring the young Arc.
And so Penny had decided it was time to join the others so she could reduce the number of runtimes necessary to keep an eye on the Vital National Asset that was Friend Jaune. It would also be an opportunity to meet Friend Whitley's mother Willow Schnee, which was becoming a prospect of increasing importance the longer she talked with Friend Whitley.
"T-t-thank you Friend Whitley," Penny stammered as a cooling system kicked into high gear. A new subroutine started trying to see if the new verbal tick was connected to the new feeling she was analyzing. "Do you think-"
The question Penny was forming stopped at the same time the pair of them rounded a corner and saw Training Field Twelve in its' entirety. By sheer coincidence they had turned the corner at the same moment Friend Jaune's father Nick Arc had grabbed Friend Weiss by the wrist and tossed her into the air, and the two of them were treated to the sight of the blond swordsman swinging the young heiress around like a rag-doll.
"Is she alright?" Whitley asked while taking a step forward once the ordeal was over, his voice raised an octave above his normal.
"All available data suggests that Friend Weiss has simply had her aura broken, she is otherwise fine," Penny concluded after quickly reviewing what she had just seen.
"Okay, good," Whitley sounded much calmer before his face morphed into an expression Penny's databanks classified as scheming. "I really hope someone recorded that."
"There are currently seventeen students live-streaming this event," Penny informed him, "Five of them in high-definition." When Whitley started to rub his hands together and chuckle in response to that Penny shifted her own face into an inquiring expression, "Why do you ask Friend Whitley?"
"If I put those videos into a compilation set to the right musical score, I'll never lose an argument with her ever again," The Schnee boy's expression became outright devious.
Strange, why did her primary pump systems increase their tempo when he did that?
Theodore sighed and slapped his forehead.
"Aunt Weiss, why?"
"She's still working on fixing her habits!" Nicholas said defensively.
"How many knocks to the head did she need to finally figure it out?" Theodore demanded.
"Apparently not enough," August deadpanned.
"They're only down one teammate," Amethyst observed. "They should still be able to win, right?"
Xia grimaced. Nicholas nodded grimly.
"You saw it too, huh?" He asked.
"Yeah," Xia sighed. While they couldn't hear what was said on the field it was fairly obvious that Ruby didn't call for and Icicle Crash.
"They're not fighting together well at all," Julian murmured. Leander and Leandra nodded in agreement.
"I've never seen Team RWBY so out of sync before," Xander murmured. "I don't like their odds if they don't get their act together."
"Well, we know what they will be capable of," Petra observed, "They could still find some of that today."
"Hopefully," Leander and Leandra murmured in sync.
On the grownups' part Willow Schnee had become very tense upon seeing her daughter getting used as an improvised weapon.
"She's fine Mistress Schnee," Klein reassured her, his voice a bedrock of confidence, "The young mistress has only had her aura broken, and her pride bruised, the only thing rushing to her now would accomplish is further bruising that pride."
"Her aura did its job," Logos rumbled his own assurance, "And Mr. Arc only used the force necessary to break her aura. He was in complete control the whole time, and your daughter was never in any real danger."
"She'll be able to walk it off in a few moments," Basara added, her voice colored with experience.
"Yeah, all three of us walked off much worse hits at one point or another," Athena agreed. "If all our stunt partners had as much control as Mr. Arc displayed right now I don't think any of us would have gotten injured on set."
"Right, she's fine, she'll walk it off, she's fine," Willow repeated as she relaxed. As the tension left her body a new thought suddenly entered her mind, and her face flushed crimson as that through found its' way out of her lips: "Breaker above, I wish he would manhandle me like that."
Several heads whipped around at that declaration.
"Brain bleach," Julian moaned, "Need brain bleach!"
"Oh, you think you have it rough," Leandra and Leander snorted in unison.
"We can still do this," Ruby proclaimed as she regrouped with her remaining teammates behind one of the ice pillars Weiss had set up, "We just need to stick to the plan, but we need to switch out faster so you guys don't get hit again."
"Rubes, I only need to take one or two more good hits and I'll have a truly epic Burn ready to go," Yang cracked her knuckles before rolling her neck and popping the joints in it. Her eyes because steely as she continued, "I'm taking those hits."
"Yang! He took out a whole third of Jaune's aura in their spar! One or two good hits might take you out!" Ruby hissed in disbelief. "We can win without taking that risk!"
"You know what's too big a risk? Making a fight take longer than it has to," Yang growled out defiantly. "The longer it takes to whittle him down the more likely one of us will slip up and get folded like Weiss. My plan will end things now."
"Now is good," Blake agreed as she peeked around the pillar to check on Mr. Arc's current location. The good news was the man wasn't approaching their location, the bad news was that he was heading to a corner of the field which would reduce their avenues of approach. No matter what the plan was they needed to move quickly, "I'll play distraction so you can get the hit in."
With that statement the catgirl shifted Gambol Shroud into its' sickle form and tossed it out to hook onto another pillar before swinging away on her ribbon.
"Yang, no," Ruby pleaded as she realized the situation was now completely beyond her control.
"If you're that worried about this backfiring bust out Strawberry Sunrise and help," Yang growled as she slammed her fists together as she surged her aura before rushing out onto the battlefield proper.
"Gosh darn you Yang," Ruby muttered as she reached into her cloak for Strawberry Sunrise, a specialty magazine for Crescent Rose that held six custom bullets. "Gosh darn you to heck."
Strawberry Sunrise smoothly slotted into Crescent Rose as Ruby rounded the pillar and took aim at her sister's back. With a hand resting on the magazine the silver-eyed girl pumped as much aura as she could into the ammo held within, supercharging their dust payloads to their maximum potency.
With the sights of her rifle lined up with the small of Yang's back Ruby slowly exhaled and pulled the trigger, the first round slamming into Yang with a thundering crack as the Healing Dust flared on impact.
The idea behind healing dust was straightforward: it filtered out the parts of your aura that were distinctly yours so someone else could absorb it and use it as their own, thereby replacing lost reserves and speeding up the healing process. In many ways using healing dust was like like unto the most basic application of Jaune's newly discovered semblance; however, even the most high-quality healing dust could only manage a twenty percent efficiency rate in the transfer, meaning healing dust was like the bargain bin knockoff of Aura Amp you'd find at a Decalien General's clearance aisle..
This low efficiency meant you couldn't heal someone by shooting them with a healing dust laden bullet, as the aura transferred over would just get negated by the damaged caused by the impact. As a result putting healing dust into your ammunition was a pointless exercise...
...Unless the person you were targeting had a semblance like Yang's Burn. The more hits her sister took the more power would build up that Burn could turn into raw strength once fully activated, with the main drawback of charging up Burn by taking hits being that aura lost in the process wasn't regained by the full activation. By putting healing dust into her bullets Ruby could charge up Burn while negating most of that drawback, only shaving a percentage or two from Yang's reserves while imparting all of the force of a sniper round.
It still hurt like the dickens though, a fact that normally made Ruby wince the handful of times they had tested Strawberry Sunrise. This time? This time a bubbling sensation of frustration made each shot to her sister's back feel cathartic.
As the last round left Crescent Rose's barrel Ruby replaced Strawberry Sunrise with one of her normal magazines before using a Petal Burst to ascend to the top of an ice pillar that gave her an excellent view of the battlefield. Settling in for the moment Ruby took aim and watched for the right moment to fire or rush in.
Yang charged in as Blake disengaged by sacrificing another shadow clone, and as the catgirl got clear Yang flipped a coin in her mind. The stinging on her back told her that Ruby had hit her with every bullet from Strawberry Sunrise, and the surging energy of her semblance was begging to be unleashed. Yet pert of her felt like she could feed Burn more before unleashing it, and so the imagined coin tumbled through her mental landscape. Heads? She'd activate Burn and go to town on her opponent. Tails? She'd take one or two more hits before letting Burn rip.
With each footfall of her approach the coin turned over and over. Heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails. She landed within striking distance of Nick Arc. Heads.
Burn surged to life as Yang allowed its' power to spill forth. Lilac eyes turned crimson while her hair started to dance with golden waves of flame. Strength flowed through her limbs like water into freshly opened canals, and Yang could tell that this was one of the most potent, perhaps the most potent, Burn she had ever triggered.
A manic grin spread across her face as she wound up for her first punch, a grin that was mirrored by Jaune's old man right before he shifted his stance and dodged her opening haymaker with a simple backwards lean. Not to be deterred Yang followed up with a series of jabs that Nick frustratingly kept deflecting with his off hand. Yang ramped up the speed of her punches. Nick drove Nogg into the dirt freeing up both hands to keep deflecting the punches.
The two of them danced around Nogg, with Nick taking special care to make sure the two of them were always between the abandoned blade and Yang's teammates. For her part the blonde boxer increased the speed and the furry of her punches to the point they started to resemble the rapid-fire fisticuffs she'd seen in Mistralian cartoons growing up. Yet in spite of this new speed she still hadn't gotten a serious blow through the elder Arc's defenses. Yang's grin morphed into a grimace of frustration, Nick's grin grew into a frown.
"I can see the basics of your father's style," Nick observed as he kept redirecting her punches away from where it would actually hurt to get hit, "But he wouldn't have stopped with the basics. You know you can't overwhelm everything, don't you?"
"You'd be surprised!" Yang shouted as she pulled her right fist back for a truly massive punch with all of her power behind it.
Nick sighed as he stepped to the side and caught her arm at the wrist and elbow, pushing her punch even further beyond its' intended destination and driving it into the ground. The earth and soil erupted from the impact, tossing clumps of dirt and little rocks high into the air while creating a crater you could park a car in.
Nogg was also tossed into the air before Nick caught his sword by the blade and swung it like a hammer, driving its' pommel into Yang's gut and sending the blonde brawler high into the air. The elder Arc then jumped after her, knocking aside Gambol Shroud as Blake tried to lasso her partner and swinging Nogg to menace the cloud of rose petals that tried to catch her sister. At the apex of their mutual accent Nick grabbed Yang by the front of her shirt and then rotated his body to spin the two of them around, hurling Yang towards the ground at speeds faster than most civilian vehicles could reach.
The blond brawler cut a furrow into the soil from the force of her impact, her trail and movement coming to an abrupt end at the base of one of the ice pillars Weiss had made at the beginning of the match. The towering construct of frozen water shuddered, then shattered, its' broken peaces collapsing all around and on top of Yang. For a moment the frozen rubble sat still as the wind whistled over it, then a shaking hand breached the ice pile and Yang pulled herself out of it before collapsing in a boneless heap with her aura clearly broken.
Blake was upon Nick the instant his feet touched the ground, hacking away at him with her sword and cleaver in a deadly dance. Nick deflected three of her strikes before outright parrying her forth and skewering a shadow clone the catgirl used to retreat. Ruby was there as soon as Blake had pulled back, Crescent Rose slicing through the air in graceful yet aggravated arcs that Nick deflected before counter attacking and landing his first solid hit on the silver-eyed girl.
While Ruby staggered back Blake renewed her assault, and as the the elder Arc locked blades with the Belladonna heir he frowned again.
"You know you're using your semblance wrong," Nick commented as he beheaded another shadow clone and charged after the catgirl, not letting her disengage.
"What?" Blake managed to question even as she sacrificed another shadow clone that got its' arm lopped off.
"You've only used it to retreat, never to advance," Nick explained as he struck high against Blake's defense, the catgirl catching his blade with both of hers. She tried to counter attack but Nick twisted to avoid her swing before stabbing through the thigh of the shadow clone that had just taken Blake's place. The swordsman's frown deepened as he continued, "See, the clone could have taken the hit and you could have landed a hit or two on me. Instead of doing that you've pulled back and lost the advantage the decoy gave you."
Blake's eyes grew wide with comprehension. The man was right. She could have let her shadow clone take a hit to get her own hits in. Why didn't she do that? Why had she never done that before? Why hadn't the idea occurred to her before this moment when Mr. Arc had explicitly spelled it out for her and-
THWACK!
-She had gotten so caught up in her epiphany that she didn't notice Nick winding up for a roundhouse kick and took a boot to the head. Blake collapsed to the ground like a sack of potatoes with her aura broken.
"Whoops," Nick muttered bashfully under his breath. He had telegraphed that kick fulling expecting the cat faunus to try out the idea he had just presented to her, what with the kick leaving him open enough for her to pull it off pretty easily. He hoped ringing her noggin like that wouldn't knock the idea from her head.
"RRRAAAHHH!" Was Ruby's war cry as she charged in and swung with a furry born of desperation. Nick found himself purely on the defensive for a moment as rose petals fell to the ground around the two opponents, Ruby tapping into her semblance and entering a state that was halfway into a Petal Burst granting her strikes speeds beyond superhuman.
Yet in spite of that Nick's defense remained solid. He blocked high, he blocked low, mid, high, low, low, high, mid, high, mid, high, high, mid, mid, low, high, low, mid, high, low, low, high, mid, high, mid, low, mid, mid, high, mid, low...
Dread grew in Ruby's heart as she understood what was happening. A simple law of physics dictated that the faster something was going the harder it was to make it change directions, and as a result the path the high speed object must take can become predictable once you have enough experience. Mr. Arc had Ruby's rhythm down, increasing her speed further wouldn't help enough and it was only a mater of time before he found the gap he needed to counter attack. She needed something to break both of their rhythms.
And so Ruby began to redirect a trickle of aura into her eyes, and as Nick brought his sword up into an ox guard that trickle became a flash flood as her eyes shined with the intensity of a silver sun for the briefest of moments. The Silver Flare forced Nick to close his eyes for a moment, and in that moment Ruby hooked Crescent Rose around Nogg and flipped a switch on her baby, making Crescent Rose's blade collapse down to the shaft pinching Nogg's blade between them. Ruby leapt towards the blond swordsman as she flipped around and kicked off of Nick's broad chest with a brief Petal Burst fully intending to use the full force of her weight and momentum to wrest Nogg from the elder Arc's hands.
It almost worked... almost.
Nick's grip tightened at the last possible moment on the pommel, keeping the blade within his hand and arresting most of the momentum of Ruby's move. The blond swordsman then pulled Nogg back in a sudden jerking motion that caused Ruby to loose her grip of Crescent Rose. The silver-eyed girl managed to land on her feet and stay on them as she spun around only to see her beloved weapon sail through the air and land out of bounds.
"That was great!" Nick laughed with an impressed expression on his face, "Very tricky, very clever. But even with aura enough of a mass advantage will turn the tides if you're not watching out for it! Still, good on you! You almost disarmed me! Now, let's continue!"
Ruby gulped as she got into a boxer's stance, and she could tell it was terrible as soon as she adopted it. Still, she wasn't about to give up now! She pulled her right fist back ready to throw a punch, but before she could embarrass herself a better idea popped into her head.
She launched herself away from him with a full powered petal burst heading towards one of the ice pillars at speeds few eyes could track. One of her hands stretched out of the cloud of rose petals as she was about to pass the tower of ice, doing its' best to clasp the freezing surface. The grab was successful and with a burning friction that melted a trail through the ice Ruby slingshotted herself around the ice pillar towards another one, changing her direction without losing too much speed allowing her to build even more momentum as she raced through the air.
And so she raced from one ice pillar to the next, building more and more speed as she went. It wasn't long before she was going faster than any ground vehicle, and it would only take a few more seconds before she would reach the top speed she could manage without being able to use Crescent Rose to redirect her momentum on the pillars.
Having done all she could she slingshotted herself around the final tower of ice and hurled herself towards Nick like a living cannonball.
All of this only took a few seconds, and in those seconds Nick had shifted his stance to be ready. As the crimson blur crossed from the far side of the field to his own in the blink of an eye he leaned towards the side and stretched out his left hand. The instant the cloud of rose petals occupied the space his torso had been in his hand clamped shut around Ruby's cloak, pulling her out of the petal burst and bringing her to a complete stop.
"ACK-" Ruby choked as her feet were suddenly ahead of her instead of behind her and her aura flared around her neck from her cloak stopping her forward movement. The silver-eyed girl fell to the ground on her back; her aura was technically still unbroken, but anyone with eyes to see could tell it would only take a stiff breeze to change that. As Ruby lay there groaning and staring up at the sky she made a mental note to design a quick release mechanism for her cloak so that wouldn't ever happen again.
Once it was clear the silver-eyed girl wasn't going to get up again Nora rang the gong to bring things to a close.
Jaune winced and immediately went out onto the field once the match was called. Pyrrha followed. Between them and Nick, all four members of team RWBY were carried off the field to the sidelines. May had prepared some cots, and all four got set down on one each.
"Geez, do you have to be such drama queens?" Emerald sniffed.
"Shut up, Greensleeves," Yang groaned.
Xia, Julian, Nicholas, Leander and Leandra came down from the bleachers, though none of them looked too worried. Nicholas for his part seemed exasperated.
"Mother, seriously," Nicholas sighed, "Close range?"
"I thought I had it!" Weiss groaned.
"Wow, he really went easy on you!" Julian chirped with a big grin.
"How do you figure?" Ruby grumbled.
"Well, apparently when he trained Dad after Beacon," Julian said thoughtfully, "He knocked you guys around like a pinata!"
"Comforting," Blake muttered. Her twins patted her on the shoulders and she winced. "Nngh! Hey!"
"Big baby," Yang huffed. Xia, with a deadpan expression, pinched Yang's shoulder. "OW! Hey! I thought you were on my side!"
"You were kind of asking for that, Mom," Xia smirked.
Jaune sighed.
"Come on guys, they feel bad enough," he scolded his kids.
"We'll go over your performance later," Nick declared with a bright grin, before he looked over at Pyrrha, May, Emerald, and Arslan. "You guys ready?"
Pyrrha had a determined look on her face, as did Arslan.
"Yes sir," Pyrrha and Arslan seemed to growl in unison.
Emerald winced, but nodded. May, trembling, managed a nod as well (though a smile from her mother did wonders for her composure).
"Great!" Nick cheered. "I'll leave you to it, Jaune! Let's go!" He waved his hand and marched back onto the field, Pyrrha, Arslan, May and Emerald following.
Jaune sighed and rubbed his hands together.
"Okay, hang on..." He charged up his Semblance, his hands glowing with Aura, "You'll all be just fine soon!"
Weiss smiled.
"I have no doubt," she said, extending her arm... Only to be knocked out of the way by Yang. "Hey!"
"Hey yourself," Yang snorted, pulling Jaune over towards her, "I took most of the hits from his dad, ya know!"
Jaune rolled his eyes and pressed his hands onto Yang's shoulders. His Aura lit up, and so did Yang's. She sighed happily and leaned in against him.
"Thanks Stud," she murmured, "That feels great~."
"You're welcome," Jaune said, managing to keep his cool. He was not a twelve year old on an ice cream date, he was not.