- RWBY Fables Chapter 5 : The Two Teams -
( The Cliff Site )
Blake was not happy at the moment. And Weiss could hear it. Blake is current on the phone with Jaune demanding answers after witnessing the events involving her soon-to-be students and the Grimm Mantis, only to have it lead to the Grimm Leo enter the equation.
"You were suppose to be on the lookout for Grade-2 Alpha Level Grimm! How could you have not noticed them?!"
"Hey, this forest is vast and large! We only caught what we could find! The Mantis is understandable, that's fault on my part as well as Nora's, but the Leo was not there yesterday or the day before and we checked that area twice!"
Blake hangs up on Jaune after his so called explanation, she then looks at Weiss, who has her back turned with and is looking down at her tablet, wondering what to do, "What should we do? You want me to - ".
Weiss raises her hand to calm her feline friend eyes not leaving the tablet, what she said next was not what Blake expected, "We don't do anything...". Blake's ears could only drop at what Weiss chose to do.
"You can't seriously be thinking of doing nothing!"
Weiss looks at Blake with calm eyes and her trademark smirk, remembering the time they fought the Nevermore and Deathstalker.
"Did any teachers aid us when we fought those two Grimm during our exam?"
Blake could just stand there listening to Weiss's words as they rung true, but this was a different matter, "So we just stand here and watch this play out?".
Weiss chuckles with her face not losing it's confidence, she understand's Blake position here. As long as she's known her, Blake has never been the one to standby and do nothing if she had the power to either prevent it or stop it. It was one of redeeming qualities about her, let alone a bit charming. But this was their test. Their first step. It'd be wrong to take it away from them. But if Blake was gonna be such a worrywart about it, then as a safe measure...
"Look, if things get to crazy, I'll send you in a instant...", This brought somewhat of a peace of mind in Blake, but then Weiss handed over her tablet with a teasing gesture, "...though I doubt they would need it."
Blake took Weiss's tablet of which was filming the fight between the students and the two Grimm. Upon watching the first few minutes, Blake could help but feel like she was watching a trip of memory lane.
( The Arena, Emerald Forest )
Within an instant the two Grimm launched their attack on the party, causing the party to disperse and attack their chosen targets. This indeed cause the party to break apart, but just as planned, Duran's party attacked the Mantis, where as to Zera's party went to stall the Leo. Shifting both his swords into gun mode, Duran changed the selective firing mode to firing a storm of bullets upon the Mantis. This didn't much of damage, but it caught it's attention. The Mantis charged following Duran into the pillar platforms away from the Leo and Zera's party.
"Bree, we need to get that big guy's attention!"
Brianna takes her Eagle's Brace and fires upon the Leo, angering it. Ignoring the Mantis, the Leo charges towards Brianna, only to have Alex perform a sonic thrust, disturbing it's motion, as took this chance to relocate Brianna. Sure her fire power was great, but something told him she wouldn't be much help up close, "Brianna, you should take higher cover! Watch our backs from afar! Rena, get it's attention away from Brianna!".
Nodding her head to the stranger, Brianna took to the walls of the colosseum. Rena Rena, taking her chakrams, throws them at the Leo's knees to divert it's attention. Luckily for Brianna, it worked as she makes it to the walls to scope out a firing point; but this left Zera, Alex, and Rena Rena with the Leo up close. Not that Zera mind, her lion blood was boiling, she liked a challenge. Slamming her tonfas together, she laughs at the Grimm before them charging.
"Now this is a FIGHT, I'm so freaking READY!"
With that Zera charged at the Leo striking the top of it's head, only to have it's protective Grimm Scales protect it from the blow. In turn the Leo swiped it paw at Zera, sending her flying towards the wall. Rena Rena and Alex took turns striking it's sides, only to cause little to no damage. The Leo turned slapping Rena Rena with it's tail, Alex expertly dodged it's attack.
Brianna finding one firing point, opened fire on the Leo, only to anger it. As the Leo looked for Brianna, Alex caught it's attention by thrusting his javelin at one of it's legs, diverting it's attention. As Brianna hid behind a rock of her poorly chosen firing point, she thought of one thing.
"I hope t-t-the others a-a-are having b-b-better luck than w-w-w-we are."
( The Arena Pillars )
Successfully luring the Mantis into the pillars, Duran and Alice run around the pillar while Ross, backed up by Kira, is distracting the Mantis in question. Yes, the plan work, but with all these pillar routes giving them limited foothold to run on, the flying Mantis had the advantage.
It could fly.
"Dammit! Kind of wished we had more foothold here.", Duran cursed loudly he watched as the walking tank Ross takes on the Mantis himself a bit.
"Out of the four of us, you chose me, huh?", Ross lazily asks the Mantis this actually believing he'll get an answer, of course he didn't. All he got out of it was a roar and a incoming sideways swipe, "Well, it can't be helped...".
In mid dialog, Ross expertly dodges the swipe and charges towards the Mantis, drawing a weapon in the process, his double bladed axe, War Head. Ross goes for a swipe at one of it's legs, but the Mantis took off into the air, going to where Kira was.
Taking higher ground, Kira jumps off one of the higher platforms coming down on the Mantis delivering a barrage of thrust sonic attacks from her saber. However, the Mantis blocking the attack with it's harden arms, causing Kira to tumble down to Ross where he caught her before she hit the ground. The Mantis however then switched platforms catching Duran in it's sights.
It flies his direction, causing Duran to opening fire on the Mantis and ran along the platform. The Mantis takes a swipe at the platform Duran was on, causing him to tumble down.
"~ Duran! ~"
As Duran dropped from the broken platform, Alice fired the garrote wire from her gauntlets to a nearby higher pillar, allowing her to swing and grab hold of Duran, propelling them to a safe platform. The Mantis's attention is draw to Ross as he throws his axe in boomerang mode as it takes off dodging it.
This fight wasn't heading anywhere.
Duran had to figure out how to cut it's wings and bring to their level somehow. The Mantis wasn't gonna sit still and just let the do it though. They had to trap it somehow.
As Alice propelled them safely to a platform below them, Duran looks at Alice, who had seemed to have taken his intention the wrong way, causing her ears to wiggle in a teasing gesture.
"~ Ora, you shouldn't stare, boss. ~"
Ignoring that completely, Duran thinks of a possible chance of attack.
"How much wire do you have?"
Alice caught the gest of what Duran was asking, "~ Ah, I don't have that much wire... ~".
As Duran curses under his breath, he catches Alice with a devilish grin on her face as she finishes her statement, raising onto her feet.
"~ But Alice does! ~"
Before Duran could ask what was she talking about, Alice started to give off a greenish glow off Aura. What happened next was unexpected.
( The Colosseum )
The Leo was not letting up on Zera's group.
Though Brianna found numerous firing points she can shoot from, it didn't help her to watch her friends fight the giant Grimm Leo up front. Though Zera was enjoying the fight, Alex and Rena Rena didn't have the same attitude. To them, it felt like they were going in circles.
They had to find a way to do some real damage. Alex could only think of one lead, "Could we just strike it's knees or the lower part of it's body?".
Rena Rena could hear the doubt in Alex's tone, but it was understandable. The Grimm Leo had protective guards on it's body and it was almost as big as a Nevermore. Striking the lower parts of it's body would take forever, unless...
"Dammit.."
With that Rena Rena shuffles around in her cloak, pulling out a yellow dust crystals, attaching them to her Chakrams. Her chakrams then started giving off a shocking look on them, it was then Alex followed suit.
Alex clicks a button on his javelin which causes a rotating clip on the blade to spin. The clip comes to a stop at a light blue dust crystal, which causes the javelin to infuse itself with blue energy. Zera...not that lucky or pleased.
"You asses been hiding tricks this whole time!"
Rena Rena looks back at Zera, "No need to worry about that really. But seriousness implied, how much of a hard hitter are you?". Zera smiled at Rena Rena's question, catching the just of what was happening. She slams her tonfas together once more and works her way around the Leo, calling out to Brianna, who has been firing from multiple firing points this whole time.
"Bree, open fire. We're about to let loose girl!"
Brianna didn't like how Zera phrased that, but she took cover immediately to take out another attachment to Eagle Brace, becoming a rifle cannon. With Eagle Brace no longer slightly hindered with a charging point so much, Brianna fired a powerful charge shot at the Leo's right eye. This clearly did some serious damage as the Leo started to rub it's face on the ground to ease itself the pain.
During this, back in the arena, Rena Rena unclipped her cloak much further.
Under her cloak, Rena Rena is wearing a gray short shirt wrapped with two belt bands which works at safety clips for her chakrams. On her neck, she is wearing a neck guard and on her elbows are wrapped bandages. Rena is wearing black pants with purple designs topped off with black boots and black fingerless gloves.
With this Rena Rena dashes towards the Leo with great speed with her chakrams spinning. The Leo unable to keep up, Rena Rena came as a storm of darkness, delivering slashes upon the Leo's knees. The caused a static aftermath, slowing the Grimm's movements only for a moment.
A moment was all Alex needed.
Alex showing off incredible leg work, jumped to higher air space, twirling his javelin is the process. With a powerful throw, Alex launches his energized spear as the Leo's back. The javelin shocked the Grimm in the process, but the shocking aftermath started to cover it in a sheet of slick ice.
Taking the opportunity, Zera came in with wild emotion. Charging her Aura into her right fist and tonfa, with a shit eating grin on her face Zera takes the frozen Leo for a wild ride. Slamming her fist dead into it's face, the Leo's face shattered into a million pieces, causing the rest of it's body to fall.
With the Leo defeated, Zera lets out a victory cry, raising her hands in the air. Much to poor Brianna's dismay...
"HELL YES!"
"Z-z-Zera! P-p-p-please language!"
Acknowledging their victory, Alex takes a look at Rena Rena with her cloak open. Rena Rena looks back a Alex which throws him off.
"You...look nice..."
Rena Rena looks downward away from Alex, as she walks away. With that, Zera pats Alex on the back as Brianna slightly chuckles behind her, "You suck at this, don't you?"
( The Pillars )
Kira takes another swing at the Mantis, causing the Mantis to take flight once more. However in mid flight, it's fired upon by Duran. But this time it seems that he had done something to heat up the bullets. The bullets then upon impact started to burn the Mantis.
This angered the Mantis as it took flight in Duran's direction. Before the Mantis could make contact, Duran leaps from his platform onto another one. Mantis of course follows suit...only to get caught in some wire, tangling itself in shock as it tried to escape.
What had happened was a few moments earlier Alice activated her semblance, Wisp, creating another solid clone version of herself. Though it looked like the real Alice, it spoke in third person.
"Alice reporting for duty boss. How shall Alice be of service for both Alice and Alice's best friend Duran?"
' I guess that explains what happened yesterday. '
Duran had both the Alice twins run around from place to place and spread their wire in certain places, while he along with Kira and Ross distract the Mantis. Taking this chance before the Mantis could escape, Duran and Kira leap from a higher platform coming down on the Mantis with blades ready, each taking a wing of the Mantis.
With this, the Mantis tumbled to a nearby platform. With this chance, Ross made himself finally useful into taking the Mantis's right front leg and it left two middle legs. With the Mantis slightly tumbling, Alice gave Ross's efforts a hand and fired her garrote wires at the Mantis. After the wires attached to the Mantis's left arm, Alice gave a hard pull, causing the Mantis to crash into the ground. Then, Alice force retracted her wires, slicing off the Mantis's left arm.
Wanting to end this right here and now, as the Mantis struggled to get back up, Duran charged at the Mantis. In Kira's eyes it seemed that the edges on his sword began to heat up, giving off a red steaming glow.
With amazing hand work, Duran takes two swipes at the Mantis puts it final arm up as a means of defense. An attack that should have been blocked, burned it's way through the arm with the first swipe. The second steaming swipe sliced the Mantis's head, sending it roll off of the platform in question of the party's location.
Both party's managed to slay their Grimm targets.
As a jest of victory, Alice leaps at Duran tackling him into the ground in a joyful hug, as to Ross who has worked enough for the day sits to catch a breather with his axe on his shoulder.
"HEY!", their attention is drawn back to Kira who is still standing with her heels on the ground.
"Did you guys forget about the cliff site?! We don't have time to be standing around!"
Alice looks at Kira removing one arm from Duran and raising a finger and a smile wiggling her ears in a playful gesture.
"~ Well, it's a good thing we're sitting instead of standing. Am I right? ~"
"ALICE!" / "Alice..."
"Why are people yelling at Alice? Alice just got here."
"Who the hell are you?!"
( The Cliff Site, Emerald Forest )
"See, what did I tell you? Nothing to worry about.", Weiss claims after watching the two parties take down two Grade-2 Alpha Grimm while Blake watched in awe. The two instructors felt like they went through memory lane. It felt like it was another lifetime ago when they went through this test themselves.
Blake smile at their victory but making brief notes of her own, "It would have been better to have fought the Mantis in the arena and the Leo on the platforms though. Their strategic combat could use some work."
Weiss could only shake her head at Blake's response, "Well, it's a good thing you'll be teaching them that then."
Blake nods her head, only now catching what Weiss just said.
"Wait, what..."
Weiss ignores Blake and looks at her watch, "Now lets see if they make to the cliff site on time."
"Weiss seriously...What?"
( New Beacon Amphitheater )
"Lily Solena, Adam Stanford, Ty Vidoma, and Ellis Vidoma. Together with Lily Solena as your team leader, you will be known as Team LATE.", Weiss claims team after team as she has done these past few years with pride and respect.
"Because we're always "LATE" for the party, are we!?"
"Oh My God, Ty...NO!"
The two groups stand and watch as where as Alice laughs at the boy name Ty as he gives off a sense of humor with his sudden catchphrase. Kira was the only one who didn't take the joke lightly and neither was she with Alice.
"Must everything be a joke to you?", this caused Duran to look at Kira nearly having enough of her, until Alice grabs their attention as Zera's group step up next.
"The finder's of the two Bishop Pieces. Zera Leafhead, Brianna Terla, Rena Rena, and Alex Crosshart. Together with Zera Leafhead as your leader, you will be known as Team ZBRA ( Zebra ).", as Weiss deeded the team name and leader, Rena Rena couldn't help but look at Alex and notice a slight hint of personal defeat.
"Good luck to all of you."
Alice felt bad for Alex, it looked like he worked hard, "~ Poor Alex, I'm giving him a hug after this. ~".
Duran smirked and shook his head at Alice's response, "He shouldn't worry about it. A leadership position is just a position to point at when things go wrong, believe me. He has no idea how much he has been spared."
Kira waves her hand at Duran with her eyes narrowed, "Well you won't have much to worry then. It'd be a warm day in Atlas when you're made leader of anything. Though at the same time as a admire your combat prowess, I still pity the souls who get stuck with you...", as Duran's tolerance has just reached it end, the Headmistress spoke up for the next line of students.
"Now I shall call upon those who picked up the two Horse Knight Pieces. Duran Victor Raglan, Alice Gale Vermillion, Ross Love...and Kira Tabito."
At that moment Kira looked at the screen and the Headmistress. Confirming this wasn't a joke, she dropped her head in disbelief.
In a heap of joy, Alice grabbed Duran and pulled him into the stands as Kira struggled to keep calm as she made her way to the stands along side Ross Love. The four stand before the Headmistress as light shined from beneath them.
"As the founders from the horse knight chess pieces, from this point on, you will be known as Team DARK...lead by Duran Victor Raglan."
...What?
( The Courtyard, New Beacon Academy )
"This has to be a joke. There is no way YOU was placed in charge of a team. Let alone a team, I'm part of!"
As the newly formed Team DARK made their way to the labeled dorm number on their scrolls, Kira went on a full rant into the situation she was just placed in. Not only was she placed on the same team as this...brute, but a team he was in charge of. She even slapped herself six times to see if she was dreaming.
Alice counted.
The giant goat Ross placed a hand on Kira's shoulder seeming to calm her down, "Well, there's nothing you can do about it now. I'd say see where this goes. Not that I mind. Better one of you than me really."
Alice on the other hand didn't seemed bothered by it at all. In fact, Alice looked pretty joyful about all of it, her first friend at New Beacon Academy was not only on the same team as her, but he was her team leader. Her ears wiggled as much as her tail wagged with excitement. She could burst if she wanted.
"I, for one say that I'm glad we're on the same team! If we can rock a Mantis, the few years of school should be easy! Let's give it up for the newly formed Team DARK guys!"
Alice raises her fist in the air in a simling form of declaration with Ross lazily following suit while Kira only slapped her face a seventh time with irritation. Granted she wasn't gonna like being on the same team or even being lead by Duran of all people, but his combat prowess at least leaves much to be admired.
While she froze in fear at the sight of the two Grimm, Duran was able to stand firm and pull everyone else into gear. She's not sure if it was just combat instinct or hidden leadership abilities under all his lone wolf attitude, but she is willing to at least give him a shot.
Duran walked behind them a all without much of interest. He didn't care for the leadership position, but since it had been lead on him, Duran feels a deal of unwanted responsibility.
But...
"Hey Boss! Let's go slow poke! I see the dorm area from here!"
Duran is taken out of his train of thought by a smiling Alice waving her hands up for his attention in the middle of a crossed armed Kira and a smirking Ross. Duran got the leadership position, there is nothing he can do about it. But there is one leadership responsibility he is willing to act upon. Protecting those of his team...including that witch Kira.
"Hopefully we have a plan for Ross's snoring..."
Duran's comment alone causes to two female souls of Team DARK to freeze in place, where as Ross himself only looked down at everyone with a look of confusion.
While else where in the courtyard, we find Team ZBRA just hanging out at the fountain before heading off to their dorm room. Zera is holding a confident smile on her friend as she holds her claimed leadership position with pride while Brianna is trying to calm her down, hoping it doesn't go to her head. Rena Rena is sitting next to Alex who hasn't said a word since the ceremony.
But being a Bat Faunus has it's perks. Hearing his heartbeat, she could tell he was bothered about something. Rena Rena looks at Alex with a look of concern and makes her worry known to him. Despite it being unwanted or down right misplaced, Alex has this far shown much concern and kindness towards her, it's time to pay it back with the same kindness.
"You...wanna talk about it?"
Alex looks up at Rena Rena slightly silent, but shocked at her sense of worry for him. Alex then shakes his head, smiling while reinsuring her that there was nothing to worry about. Alex then walks away with the others, but Rena Rena knows better. She won't dwell on it right now. She just has to wait for when he is ready to tell about it.
Rena Rena eyes Alex's back as the proceed to their dorm room as they listen to Zera's leadership demands, finding herself smiling at her new friends, her team.
You can say this was the beginning of the first step for the two teams, Team DARK and Team ZBRA.
And good days will come for them from here on...as well as the bad days.