Author Note: sorry this took so long but two things got in the way. 1. exams started and so i had to revise and do them. 2. i have been feeling very ill over the past few months. so finally chapter 8 is up so please enjoy.
8. Battle has begun
Ryan and Micah prepared themselves for their first 'combat training' which if they were to be frank would be a royal ass kicking. Despite this the boys readied themselves with their recently purchased armour and weapons.
Ryan's armour was very similar to Jaune's only sprayed in a desert tan colour and a pair of gauntlets to protect his forearms. All in all it was very simple and dull. The only things that made him stand out was his sword, M1, 1911 and British World War II style helmet.
Micah on the other hand couldn't stand out more if he tried. He was clad in white armour almost looking like an EVA SPARTAN from Halo. If Ryan had to narrow it down to a single SPARTAN he would have to say Emile, from Halo reach. Not because he was carrying a shotgun or had a skull carved into the helmet's visor. The way in which he looked like Emile was the Kukri attached to his left shoulder which would be used for close quarters combat if and when needed.
Ryan walked up by his close friend and examined the armour. "You ready for action spartan?" Ryan asked placing a hand on Micah's shoulder
"Hhmm? What? Oh yeah, the armour…I suppose I'm ready…" Micah replied sounding a little depressed.
"This whole other world thing starting to get to you?" The Desert Rat asked.
"Yeah…Just a little. Well, enough to get me down any way." The Irish man confirmed.
"Me too buddy, but hey we got to soldier through…" Ryan paused and looked at Micah's back, specifically a rotating unit that was lit by a green glow. "…what the hell is that on your back?"
"Oh that. That is a dust reactor. It uses a certain type of dust to power the various pieces of tech such as the B. .E System and the thrusters." Micah answered in an enthusiastic tone.
"Thrusters?" Ryan said in his questioning manner.
"You'll see." Micah said confidently.
The boys then exited the preparation room and proceeded down to the arena. Pyrrah greeted them at the entrance. From a distance she examined both boys. First Ryan with his desert colour cloths and armour, sword, pistol in shoulder holster and riffle in pistol form sitting in a thy holster. Next Micah, clad in the A.R.S with B. .E grip at his side and helmet under his arm.
"You two don't look half bad in your armours." Pyrrah stated as she approached the two boys.
"Why thank you." Micah said smiling. Ryan simply nodded.
"I take it that Ozpin told you about aura?" she asked.
"Yeah he did," Ryan confirmed. "Something to do with the manifestation of our souls that can heal us quickly and be used as a shield, right?"
"That is correct however for you to be able to use it I need to unlock it." Pyrrah said.
"What if we don't have one? After all we are from a different planet and on that planet personal protection comes in the form of a Kevlar vest." The Irish man stated.
"Why is it you have to be pessimistic? Huh? Use the half-track you say it will kill us. You step on a plane you say it will kill us. A nuclear power plant gets built, you say it will blow up, etcetera. Can you say something positive and righteous for once? Can't you dig how beautiful it is outside here?" Ryan said to his friend trying to get him to look on the bright side of life.
Pyrrah rested a hand on Micah's shoulder. "I am positive that you both have auras and I am certain that they will be strong. Now please hold still." She placed her other hand on his chest and closed her eyes. "For it is in passing that we achieve immortality, through this we become a paragon of virtue and glory, to rise above all infinite and distance unbound by death, I release your soul and by my shoulder protect thee." Both her and Micah were surrounded a weird glow. The glow around Pyrrah was red while the glow around Micah was deepest purple. Micah felt suddenly energized and looked at the light that surrounded him. The glow vanished when Pyrrah removed her hand and stepped away, as she did she took a couple of exhausted breaths and then stood up straight.
"Pyrrah, are you okay?" Micah asked with concern.
"I am fine." She replied. "It just takes a lot of energy to unlock someone's aura. You seem to have a fair amount." She then proceeded to do the same to Ryan only this time Ryan's aura was red like Pyrrah's. As Pyrrah let go she nearly stumbled, Ryan stabilizing her.
"You need to sit down and rest for a while" Ryan stated.
"I will in due time but first your first bought of training." Pyrrah said smiling at the boys. "Ryan your against Weiss and Micah your against Jaune. Ryan you're up first"
Ryan looked over at the white haired girl he was about to fight, as ever she had her arms folded and staring daggers at him. "Well this is going to be fun…"
"In fairness to you I won't use my semblance, BUT this does not mean I'm going to go easy on you." Weiss said turning and walking out on to the arena floor. "You see this screen," she pointed to a massive wall mounted screen with a picture of herself and Ryan and a green bar under each picture. "These bars show our aura level, when it goes into the red that person looses" Weiss explained.
"sooo it's like yu-gi-oh…just without cards…and with weapons…" Ryan said taking up his position and drawing his sword and M1.
"What?"
"Oh never mind, let's just get on with this." They both took up their battle stances, though Ryan's was sketchy to say the least.
The computer counted them in. "3, 2, 1, fight." With that Weiss stuck Myrtenaster into the ground creating an ice barrier just as Ryan pulled the trigger of his M1, the bullet ricocheting off the barrier.
"HEY, YOU SAID NO SEMBLANCE!" Ryan then rolled out the way of a streak of fire that Weiss had just shot his way. He retaliated with two more shots, both deflected by a new rock barrier.
"It's not, if it was then you would know…" Weiss was then knocked off her feet by a rubber bullet to the chest causing the bar under her picture to decrease. "THAT WAS A CHEAP SHOT!"
"Hey I didn't complain when you just tried barbeque me" Ryan offloaded another shot at Weiss which was deflected. Weiss fought back unleashing fire, ice and lightning. Ryan was able to dodge a lot of the incoming elements but some did get through giving him burns, ice burns and electric burns. "Okay…that hurt." The bar beneath his picture had now dropped to 3/4s. Now on his back Ryan opened fire on the ice queen emptying the remaining three rubber bullets from the clip which was ejected with the M1's signature 'ping'. Weiss took her chance to get close while Ryan reloaded. A few meters away she jumped and lunged towards her opponent hoping to score a crippling blow.
Meanwhile up in the bleachers team JNPR, Micah and the remains of team RWBY watched the unfolding battle. Ruby was torn on who to support, on one hand she wanted to support the new team member and encourage him and show him that she cared for those in her team. On the other hand she wanted to be a good friend to Weiss and show that she cared about her friendship with the heiress.
Yang had an evil look on her face as she watched the scuffle go on. She didn't care who won really although she was hoping that Weiss would get her butt kicked but in the back of her head she was doubting that. Blake was being…well she was being Blake, sitting and watching, watching and sitting, a truly neutral party.
Over with team JNPR Jaune was having trouble keeping quiet as he watched Weiss dodge sword strikes and press her attack but his courtesy had kicked in and so he kept quiet. Pyrrah watched closely as the two clashed, analysing their movements and seeing the faults in Ryan's attacks and defences. Nora was starting to lose interest now that the people participating in this battle we now engaged in sword combat which really wasn't her cup of tea. Ren on the other hand was rather interested with his focus mainly on Ryan who had just dodged several of Weiss' slashes.
Ren then turned to Micah. "Has he ever done anything like this before?"
"No, not unless you count Airsoft and videos games" Micah replied.
"I'm surprised he's held out this long." Ren said turning back to the battle.
Down on the deck Weiss' lunge attack hadn't worked as well as she had hoped, she had done some decent damage, reducing Ryan's aura to 2/3s but after she had landed the blow she had the M1's 8-round clip emptied in her reducing her own aura to 3/4s. However she was now in the best position she could've hoped for, close quarters combat. She was putting her sword skills to use, landing decent hits on Ryan but all these hits were few and far between as Ryan was having a surprising amount of luck against the heiress. Weiss brought Myrtenaster down for a slash, it collided with her opponent's sabre sending sparks flying. She then dodged a slash from Ryan's bayonet. She then tried a series of lateral slashes and quick jabs.
Ryan somehow managed to dodge and/or block the attack and moved in for his own which consisted of quick strikes with the bayonet and a slash with the sabre to throw his victim off. As predicted this tactic worked, throwing off Weiss's timing and leaving her open for two sabre strikes reducing her aura also to 2/3s. Weiss looked as if she was about to blow a blood vessel and in her mind she was thinking 'this has gone on long enough. How dare this…this commoner even touch me!'
She then lashed out combining all the attacks she could think of into one assault. She utilised all kinds of slashes and every kind of dust in her inventory and pilled it into one attack which Ryan couldn't even hope to block. The sheer power blew the desert rat across the arena and when he looked up he saw a tornado of fire, ice, lightning and god knows what else heading towards him. And then the match was over, with the heiress victorious and the desert rat cooked, frozen, electrocuted, pummelled and was twitching and sparking every few seconds.
"Are you alright?" Micah yelled from the bleachers. Ryan simply raised his arm then middle finger making Micah chuckle. "He's fine."
Just as Weiss reached the edge of the stage she looked back at Ryan who was slowly and twitchily getting up. "Dolt." she said poison dripping from her solitary word.
Soon enough the stage was set and Jaune and Micah entered the arena. Jaune then turned the armoured boy. "May the best man win." He said pleasantly and then walked to his position.
The computer then counted them in "3, 2, 1, fight." Jaune then let out a battle cry and rushed towards Micah.
"Computer, sword" Micah said calmly into his helmets mouth piece.
"No such file exists. Please choose relevant files." The A.R.S' computer replied.
"Uh oh…" Micah was then struck several times by Jaune's sword and shield. "PISS! ARSE! DRINK!" Micah then drew his shoulder mounted kukri and blocked one of Jaune's sword swings causing Jaune to pause for a moment never having seen such a blade. Jaune then received the equivalent of a Falcon Punch from Micah who then used his thrusters to widen the distance between him and Jaune.
"Oh… those thrusters." Ryan said up in the bleachers now having recovered from his shocking experience with Weiss.
Now at a distance Micah quickly checked what weapons were available. "Computer list all weapon files."
Three icons flashed up on his visor. "Assault rifle. Shot gun. Pistol." The computer chimed.
"Assault rifle!" He yelled.
"Please select ammunition"
"Grrr. Non-lethal!"
"Rubber. Foam. Anaesethic."
"RUBBER!"
An assault rifle then assemble in his hands and cross hairs appeared in his visor. Micah pulled the trigger and a stream of rubber bullets sped towards Jaune. Something he was not expecting as the rifle appeared out of nowhere but blocked the barrage with his shield. Micah then rushed Jaune while switching weapon.
"Computer, shot gun, non-lethal, beanbag." The rifle exploded and replaced by a shotgun. Again this caught Jaune off guard right when he didn't need it. Micah fired sending a powerful shot into Jaune's shield nearly knocking it out of his hand. Jaune countered by striking the shotgun with his sword. He then bashed Micah with his shield causing him to stagger back. Micah retorted with another hard punch to Jaune's abdomen then once again used his thrusters to gain some distance.
This continued for minutes with the teams watching. Pyrrah was finding it hard to concentrate. She was trying to analyse how the two were fighting but every time Jaune was taking fire she had to try and supress her feelings for him.
"Oh this is so exciting!" Nora shouted, bouncing up and down in her seat. "Look at them! The way Jaune is using his shield and the way Micah uses those-"
"NORA!" Ren interrupted.
"Sorry Ren." Nora said smilling.
Ruby watched excitedly as Jaune and Micah clashed, moving about in her seat.
"COME ON MICAH!" Ryan yelled hoping that Micah would bring victory after his defeat to Weiss.
"He's probably going to lose you know." Yang said leaning over to Ryan.
"I know," he replied. "but one can always hope."
"Well said."
"Jaune certainly seems to have improved." Weiss said as she turned to Pyrrah.
"Indeed he has, we have been doing a lot of training recently." Pyrrah replied, not taking her eyes off the battle. "Micah is rather skilled as well."
"Surprisingly." Weiss said in her unimpressed tone.
By now both Micah's and Jaune's auras were in the orange. Micah had changed his tactics twice due to Jaune coming up with very good counters. Micah knew this would be over in the next 10 minutes. Jaune also knew this and was starting to feel tired but he watched and waited. Micah made his move. He used his thrusters to quickly manoeuvre around Jaune's side then charged at full speed shot gun in hand and firing. Jaune was now fully prepared for the blow of the beanbag rounds. He spun round to face Micah just in time deflect the rounds with his shield. He then saw Micah jetting towards him.
As Micah got closer to striking distance he suddenly realised he had made a mistake. He tried to slow his speed but it was too late. Jaune sprung up and struck with an upward swing of his sword. The sword caught Micah in the chest winding him in an instant. The force of the sword pushing him back and the force from his boot thrusters pushing his legs forward caused him to flip onto his back and land with a clatter on the floor. Micah opened his eyes to see a hand in front of him offering to help him up. He took the hand and Jaune helped him up.
"I lost didn't I?" Micah asked through external speakers the removed his helmet.
"Yeah," Jaune replied in a humble tone. "however it was a good fight and quite close until you slipped up. With some training from all of us you should be on the relatively same level as us."
"Nah." Micah laughed. "I don't want to steal your thunder."
Jaune's eyes then went to a trail of blood coming from Micah's nose. "You've got a uh nosebleed."
Micah put a hand to his nose then looked at the crimson liquid the was now on his glove and shrugged. "Oh well, nothing new there." He turned and walked back towards the entrance where his team and team RWBY were now assembling. When they got there Pyrrah began her de-brief
"I can honestly say I'm surprised with the both of you. We need to work on both of your stances. Ryan your aim and sword fighting skill needs to be improved. Micah we need to put some more weapon on your blade system and you need to read your manuals. We starts tomorrow after breakfast."
"Fair as snuff." Micah said whipping away the seemingly infinite amount of blood from his nose.
"But first," Weiss butted in. "you both need to read up about the Grim if you both want to survive more than a week here. I'm going back to our dorm." She then turned and walked away.
"I get the distanced impression that she doesn't like me." Ryan mused.
"Yeah." Ruby sighed.
