Chapter One

A tuft of cotton candy hit Marcel Kaiser in the face as he was dragged through the horde of people that were crammed in front of the snack stands.

"Hurry, Marcel!" Pascal Lappiere called out loudly over the cries of the cashiers. "The first match is about to start in a few minutes!"

Marcel groaned with annoyance and flicked the piece of candy away from his cheek as he allowed his leader to pull him through the masses of people as if he weighed nothing. The blonde-haired jerk with the stupid blue eyes was his partner and the leader of Team PLTM. An energetic womanizer, Pascal always had a way with words. While his leader's charm usually didn't work on him, the inclusion of blackmail forced him to give up sleeping in that Saturday morning.

As they finally made their way out of the sea of people, the pair quickly entered a dark tunnel. The further they went, the brighter the light at the end got, and the sound of cheers grew louder. He shielded his eyes as the bright sunlight stung his eyes. The return of the cool morning's breeze against his face signaled that they were outside again. As his tired eyes adjusted to the bright light, Marcel felt an arm over his shoulder.

"What do you think, my friend?" Pascal asked in his silly accent.

Marcel's eyes widened as he took in the stadium's architecture. While he had seen pictures of it in brochures and posters around campus in the weeks leading up to that day, seeing it in person was completely different. Dozens of rows of ascending stone seats circled around the one-acre dueling field while two airships hovered above with multiple large television screens with various information ranging from the time remaining before the tournament started and a list of the students participating. "Whoa," was all that came out as he turned to see the stadium in all its glory.

Pascal flashed his blue eyes towards Marcel. "Are you glad to have come now?" he asked cheerfully.

Marcel cleared his throat and forced a yawn. "Nah."

Pascal chuckled."Oh, Marcel! Didn't your mother tell you not to lie?" Before he even got to reply, a silly grin broke across the blonde's face. "Too late!" the latter sang as he yanked the former's hand once more. They soon arrived to row B, which was the second closest row to the action. Right in the middle row sat two black-haired girls. On their right were two empty seats. "Pardon us, please," he heard Pascal say as they brushed their way past the seated spectators. Most of them were students, but there were also a fair amount of non-students. Popcorn and soda in hand, they seemed eager for the competition to begin. "Lilly, Tamako, we're here!"

"Hey Pascal!" the girl on the left said. "You're just in time, the first match is about to start!" She then looked to Marcel and grinned. "Got enough of your beauty sleep, Marcel?" The thought of his warm bed made him yawn. "Clearly not enough," she said with a giggle. The jokester was Lilly Zhao, the strongest member in their team. While she could be intimidating with her demonic red eyes, she looked rather at-ease today. It was probably because she had let her hair down over her shoulders instead of keeping it in a ponytail like she usually did. And the fact that she wasn't yielding Dragon Punisher, her weapon of choice which happened to be a freakish hybrid of a Guandao blade and a 50mm cannon. While she excelled in brute strength and technique, she struggled to keep a level head during combat, as revealed during initiation. As a result, Pascal was given the position of leader over Lilly, not for his skills in combat, but his excellence in decision making and calm demeanor.

"Hey, down in front!" someone's voice said angrily from behind.

Pascal nodded in the direction where the complain came from and quickly went to the seat next to Tamako, the girl who sat on the right of Lilly. She quickly shifted one seat to the right and patted the seat in which she just sat in. "Oh, you want to sit next to Marcel?" Pascal asked. She nodded. "Haha, okay."

Marcel took his seat to Tamako's right and smiled at her. "Morning, Tamako."

The girl nodded with a small smile as she played with the bangs that covered her green eyes. She was Tamako Matano, the team's unbelievably quiet third member. While physically weak as an individual, she excelled as a support. Also unlike Lilly, Tamako was the opposite of intimidating. She liked to wear clothes that seemed to be one size too big which made her look absolutely harmless. Today was no different. A large pink sweater loosely covered most of her petite body.

Marcel blinked when a bag of popcorn was pushed towards him. Seeming out of nowhere, the mage had produced a large bag of buttered popcorn. As the smell of butter reached his nose his stomach growled. He took a kernel and popped it into his mouth. "Thanks. I didn't get to eat breakfast, so I guess this is my meal-" The blast of a trumpet's fanfare interrupted him and made her jump in her seat and cling to him.

"Good afternoon spectators!" Professor Oobleck's energetic voice boomed from the speakers fixed to the airships and the stadium. There was a loud slurping sound. "How is everyone doing this fine, beautiful day?"

"Delighted!" Pascal declared as he struck a ridiculous pose.

"Good," Lilly said a small smile.

"Hungry," Marcel mumbled as he glared towards Pascal who stuck his tongue back at him.

Tamako tugged on his sleeve and simply waved at the airship.

"Today you are here for the annual Vytal Festival Tournament, where students will duel one another in a friendly competition to showcase the strength and skill of the next generation of Remnant's future Huntsmen and Huntresses!"

"Thank you Professor Oobleck," Headmaster Ozpin said curtly as his voice filled the stadium. "The matches today will be assigned by random selection." Two lists of names appeared on the large black screens with the names of the students who were participating. "The list on the left of the screen contains students representing Vale and Vacuo, and the list on the right contains the names of students from representing Atlas and Mistral." After a short beep, the two lists began to spin in opposite directions. The crowd let out an ooh as the first list slowed and stopped in place. Beep! "Yang Xiao Long!"

Marcel swallowed and grabbed another handful of popcorn. "Do any of you know that is?" He looked over to his leader.

Pascal shook his head. "I don't think so. Lilly, Tamako? Do you two know her?"

"No, can't say that I do," Lilly said while she scratched her head. Tamako shook her head.

A small circle opened in the far left corner of the stadium where an elevated platform brought up the first contestant. The crowd went wild as the gold-haired student hopped off the platform and began walking over to the center of the stadium. "Whoah," Marcel breathed. She wore bright yellow gauntlets around her wrists as well as belts of ammunition around her waist. Her outfit consisted of a tan vest, black shorts that stopped at her thighs, and boots of the same color as her vest. After she arrived at the center of the stadium, a camera did a quick zoom-in on her face. The girl had light tanned skin, which contrasted greatly with her violet eyes. She winked and blew a kiss at the camera.

Pascal jumped up and pulled a foldable telescope out of his pocket. "Incredible! I have not seen such beauty in all of my-"

Lilly yanked him back down. "Stay in your seat," she hissed at him. Marcel laughed. It was infinitely entertaining to see Lilly's response whenever Pascal expressed the least bit of interest in another girl. "Quiet, you!"

He popped another kernel in his mouth. "Yeah, yeah."

Beep! The second list had stopped "Mordecai Rathburn!" Soon the elevated platform on the other side lifted up to reveal the second contestant. He was a tall, lean boy, dressed in steel-colored shorts and a tank top. He too, was somewhat dark-skinned, more so than Yang. On his head he wore a hat with one corner pinned to the side of his hat. In his arms he held a weapon that resembled a cross bow.

Some shuffling and grunts were heard through the speakers as the microphone was handed to someone else yet again. It was Professor Port. The crowd snickered as they heard Glynda Goodwitch sigh with exasperation in the background. "Ladies and Gentlemen, in this corner representing the Kingdom of Vale, we have the beautiful first year, Yang Xiao Long of Team RWBY!" The gold-haired girl covered her face in embarrassment as the Professor made a clicking sound with his tongue.

"I'm pretty sure that's against school rules," Lilly said with a look of disgust on her face.

Tamako nodded as she continued to toss popcorn into Marcel's mouth.

"And in this corner, representing the Kingdom of Mistral, we have second year Mordecai Rathburn, leader of Team MAYA!" A small microphone appeared out of the ground between the two contestants. "Is there anything you two would like to say before the match begins?"

The boy motioned for Yang to go first. She grabbed the mic and smiled devilishly. "I hope you're ready for a little up close and personal."

"Ho-ho!" Professor Port commented. "Sounds like a challenge to me!" She tossed the mic to Mordecai, who caught it with his free hand.

"Crap, I feel like backing out already," he joked with a smile. Marcel chuckled as the tall boy put the mic back on the stand as it disappeared back underneath the stadium's floor.

"My goodness, that attitude sounds awfully familiar!" Lilly said in a sarcastic voice as she looked Marcel dead in the eye. "You wouldn't know of anyone like that, would you?"

Marcel gave her the finger, resulting in Pascal snickering, Lilly rolling her eyes, and Tamako desperately trying to push his finger back down.

"Now," Professor Port continued, "I will remind you two of the rules! This is a friendly competition with your fellow peers and classmates! Your intent is to only incapacitate or disable your opponent from continuing to fight. If your competitor verbally or physically signals that they have yielded, you must stop at once, or else there will be immediate staff intervention along with you being disqualified. If knocked to the floor, you must get up within ten seconds or else you're out! And finally, the match caps off at ten minutes. Anything longer than that results in a tie. Now are there any questions?" Both of the contestants shook their heads.

"Who do you think is going to win?" Pascal asked as he studied the two competitors.

Lilly pointed to Yang. "My money's on her. The boy looks too flimsy."

Marcel shrugged. "I don't know, I think I'll go with her as well. She seems pretty confident. How about you, Tamako?" She nodded. With a sigh, he poked her cheek which made them redden. "Are you just going to keep on agreeing with me?" The green-eyed girl only nodded again. "I swear, you're going to be the death of me," he responded with a smile. Tamako blinked twice before grabbing Marcel's hand. He poked her cheek again and smirked."Relax. It was a joke." Tamako puffed her cheeks as she glared at him. She then dug her hand into the bag and pelted him with an un-popped kernel. "H-Hey!"

Lilly waved at Marcel without taking her eyes off the two contestants."Knock it off, lovebirds. It's beginning!"

As the timer counted down from ten seconds, the contestants checked their weapons. Yang shadowboxed while Mordecai trotted in place.

...3-2-1. "BEGIN!"

Yang immediately punched forwards, launching an aggressive salvo of projectiles towards Mordecai who easily jumped backwards and shot them mid-air with his weapon. Marcel looked up to one of the airship's massive monitors to see the competitor's weapons displayed. Yang's weapons, named Ember Celica, were Dual-Ranged Shot Gauntlets. On the other hand, Mordecai's weapon was named Cobra Stryker. It was classified as an Automatic Chambered Cross-Gun. Marcel had heard in previous years that the announcers would tell the competitors what kind of weapon their opponent wielded, but it seemed that they now withheld that information and only displayed it to the spectators. It was up to the competitor to guess what his or her opponent's weapon was and what it could do.

Marcel quickly turned his attention back to the fight. Yang cocked her gauntlets again and dashed towards Mordecai, side stepping the barrage of bolts he shot towards her while answering back with a salvo of her own. As she got closer to him, the camera zoomed in on Mordecai's hands as he pushed a button on his weapon. The chamber in between quickly rotated and locked in place. He aimed down his iron sights and fired, full automatic again; immediately large blasts of debris shot up from where the bolts landed.

"Clever. Those bolts are dust infused," Lilly commented.

Marcel rubbed his chin. He definitely had seen that kind of mechanism on a weapon before. A few seconds passed before he snapped his fingers. There was a girl in his history class with Professor Oobleck who wielded a sword-like weapon that also operated on a revolving chamber system. The girl's name eluded him, but it definitely connected the two together.

Yang punched the ground, creating a blast of debris while launching herself in the air. Mordecai barely managed to jump out of the way as she brought down her entire weight on the area where he stood floor, causing an even bigger dust cloud. Marcel noticed the frown on Mordecai's face as he tried to distance himself away from Yang, who still managed to close the distance between the two seemingly without much effort.

"I see, I guess he was telling us the truth in a way," Lilly said with amusement.

"What do you mean?" Marcel asked.

Her fiery gaze met his. "Remember what Mordecai said right before the match started?"

He remembered. The archer joked that he wanted to back out after Yang had said that she preferred and obviously excelled at close quarters combat.

"See, aren't you glad Lilly got you that extra ticket in her combat training class?" Pascal interrupted without taking his eyes off of the action. "We as a team can learn a thing or two from watching our fellow peers fight."

As much as he wanted to disregard Pascal's comment, he had to take it seriously because he knew that his leader was right. Lazy as he was, he was still at Beacon for a reason, and that was become an official Huntsman. He had people he needed to protect.

Back in the right side of the stadium, Yang had yet again caught up to Mordecai and was busy firing off rounds towards Mordecai at point-blank range. Impressively, the boy managed to deflect them with his cross-gun, but he was losing ground, and fast.

When they were only a few feet apart, the shells finally found their target. The boy's orange-colored Aura soon illuminated as he failed to evade more and more of Yang's attacks. He swung his cross-gun at her and followed up in quick succession with a roundhouse kick. She managed to dodge the first strike but took a direct hit to the gut from the kick which forced her back a few feet. Mordecai took this as a chance to reload his weapon as he clutched his chest where he had taken a direct hit. A small dark dot appeared to spread over the boy's tank top. He was bleeding. With a smirk on her face, she punched her fists together, sending outwards a shockwave.

Her pupils turned red and the aura around her seemed to have skyrocketed to an insane amount. Lilly quickly unfolded her arms and leaned forwards in her seat at the sight. "Red eyes..."

"It looks as if Yang has decided to pool into her aura reserves for her next attacks!" Professor Port announced excitedly.

Before Port could even finish his sentence, Yang was already closing in on Mordecai, launching a flurry of projectiles towards the wounded archer. He managed to jump out of the way and reload his weapon before charging towards Yang. Gauntlets and cross-gun made direct contact with another, resulting in a loud clang as steel collided against steel.

There they stood. Shoulders rising and falling as they gasped for air. Crooked smiles on their faces as they acknowledged one another's power. Fingers twitching as they dared the other to make the first move. An eerie wave of silence washed over the stadium as thousands of spectators sat on the edge of their seats as Yang Xiao Long of Vale and Mordecai Rathburn of Mistral stared at one another with fire in their eyes. Then, it happened.

The two of them let out a thunderous war cry as they drew their weapons back. Yang winded both arms far behind her shoulders as Mordecai placed both hands on his cross-gun and pressed a small switch with his pinky. The Valean and the Mistralan's weapons collided with one another yet again in a flash. Marcel struggled to keep up with the insanely fast movements of both Yang and Mordecai as the two engaged in a gun-kata battle where both opponents blocked blows, redirected shots, and punished one another's bodies. Marcel felt the stadium's floor rumble from the shockwaves caused by the dust-infused bolts and shells as they impacted across the stadium floor. He could even feel it reverberate within his body.

A different screen on the airship did a slow pan across the part of the stadium that was dedicated to people from Mistral. Marcel spotted dozens of students waving large flags with the Mistral imperial coat of arms. Many others were adorned in the colors of their kingdom, whether it was face paint or their choice of clothing. He could faintly hear the sound of Mordecai's name being chanted as the people of Mistral cheered their representative on.

"This has to be one of the most exciting fights I've seen in years!" Professor Port's voice boomed ecstatically from above.

All visibility was soon lost as Yang's shells and Mordecai's bolts detonated all around them from misses or from deflection. As the dust cloud grew even bigger, they could only be seen by their silhouettes that were made visible only when the red flashes of Ember Celica's shells and Cobra Stryker's bolts exploded on impact against the stadium's floor.

"Holy crap," Marcel muttered in as Tamako, Lilly, and Pascal looked on in awe at the fight.

A few more seconds passed, when all of a sudden, a figure flew out of the dust cloud and landed on the sand with a thud where it continued to skid for a few more feet before coming to a complete stop. It was Mordecai. A rapid zoom-in of the Mistralan revealed him to be covered in what appeared to be soot. Actual smoke was seen rising from the student's charred clothes. He quickly jumped back to his feet as soon as the electronic counter was heard, but dropped to a single knee and clutched his chest as he began to cough out blood onto the stadium's peach-colored sand.

Yang soon emerged from the cloud of smoke and expelled the spent shells from her gauntlets as she tossed two clips of ammunition into the air and caught them in her gauntlets as they locked into place. Like Mordecai, she too had injuries of her own. There were numerous cuts and bruises over her face and body as well as chunks of her outfit that were burned away by the gun-kata battle.

Professor Port cleared his voice. "It looks like both Mordecai and Yang have taken quite the beating! Who will prevail?"

More blood spurted out of the Mordecai's mouth, but this time he merely wiped it away with his wrist. With cross-gun in his left hand, he removed his hat with his right hand and dropped it beside him. He had short, black, spiky hair.

Yang brought her fists up in a defensive manner as he did so. Her eyes darted back and forth from between the hat to him.

The Mistralan smiled and pushed another button on the cross-gun. Instead of revolving the chambers like it did the previous time, the entire weapon separated and folded into two separate hook swords. He then jettisoned the two large clips of ammunition from the sword's sides.

"He's getting rid of excess weight," Pascal said quietly.

There was a quick replay of the transformation as a wave of oohs and aahs filled the stadium. While most students themselves had weapons that could easily transform from one form to the other, it was always exciting to see the imagination of another student.

The display then changed to a camera that did a zoom in on Yang's reaction during Mordecai's weapon's transformation. Her eyes widened the slightest bit with surprise as she looked upon the sharp, hook blades. With a cry in an unrecognizable language, Mordecai bolted towards Yang who did the same.

It didn't look good for the former. While he had made his weapons lighter, his movements were still slower and sluggish compared to Yang. She on the other hand, only increased the speed of her attacks. While it was now known that Mordecai preferred to fight at a farther distance, he still knew how to fight close range, as expected. The Mistralan managed to land a few more hits to Yang's torso and knees as his opponent adapted to the new weapons. He even managed to get his right sword's hook into the wedge between Yang's right gauntlets and her hand, only for her to break free before he could pull them off of her.

"Too slow," Lilly muttered as she bit the nail of her thumb. "He could have disarmed her right there and then." Pascal folded his arms and mumbled in agreement.

Marcel did the same. It was a wasted opportunity.

Mordecai's counters began to come too late as Yang drove him backwards, landing punches against him that forced him to skid across the sand. A series of consecutive hits to the shoulders forced his arms to drop to his sides. Yang then finished with a haymaker directly to his stomach, sending him stumbling backwards with his eyes struggling to stay open. The Mistralan blinked a few times, fell to his knees, and collapsed flat onto his face. Yang stepped backward, but still retained her defensive stance as an electronic counter counted to ten.

...8-9-10. "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner to this year's very first match! Please give a round of applause for Team RWBY's Yang Xiao Long!"

Marcel and his team clapped as they watched Yang fetch Mordecai's hat and rest it on his stomach before a team of medics arrived to carry him away. Three boys quickly hopped over the stadium's guard to accompany the boy off to presumably the medical ward where he would be treated immediately for his wounds. They were probably the other members of team MAYA. Yang waved to the crowd and struck some poses as a handful of the photographers covering the tournament feverishly snapped pictures of her before walking off to the sidelines, where she was treated by waiting medics for the light wounds she received from the fight.

"She's got good sportsmanship, I'll give her that." Lilly looked unimpressed.

"That's all you're going to say?" Pascal said as he pulled on his hair. "She's powerful, strong, and beau-"

She grabbed him by his shirt's collar."That's enough now, dear leader," Lilly said with a twitching eye. "I could easily take her."

"Oh really now?" Marcel asked as he dug his hand into the bag of popcorn in Tamako's bag. "Do you really think that? Or is it because you couldn't participate in the tournament this year?"

Lilly balled her right hand in a fist and waved it menacingly at him. "If I wasn't for my sprained ankle, I would have signed up within a heartbeat!"

"Pfft, fat chance!"

Tamako retreated in her sweater as Lilly brought her fists down on Marcel's head while Pascal laughed until there were tears in his eyes.

Despite missing breakfast and getting beaten on by the strongest member in his team, Marcel couldn't help but smile.


Author's Notes

(I accidentally deleted the original CH. 1 of this story while attempting to upload an edited version. I apologize for any confusion.)

Wow, you made it! Thank you for reading this story. This is a side project I decided to do, and it actually came to mind when I was writing Doki Doki. Anyways, this is my first story with a predominantly OC cast, so here is a little information about them and why I made them the way they are:

Team Platinum (PLTM)

Pascal Lappiere (m) "French" background

Lilly Zhao (f) "Chinese" background

Tamako Matano (f) "Japanese" background

Marcel Kaiser (m) "German" Background

So for this cast, I made them allude to of French, Chinese, Japanese, and German heritage, because I hope to learn the languages of these countries one day. I also tried to follow Monty Oum's OC color rule as best as I could.

Team Maya (MAYA)

Modecai Rathburn was heavily influenced by the character "Kai" from the Nexon game Vindictus. I had him created under the intention that he was supposed to allude to being of "Australian" decent. When drafting up Mordecai, or Yang's first opponent, I wanted to make her fight someone who wasn't a complete hot-head like her. Her opponents like Junior or the Malachite twins were very confident in their abilities to defeat Yang, so I wanted the opponent who was just kind of like an 'average joe.' Mordecai, while not as skilled as Yang, is still an exceptional fighter. He's modest, has a sense of humor, and does not give off a sense of superiority. He's one of the ideal Huntsman that others should strive towards, in my opinion.

As always, please leave a review: anything and everything helps!