After talking with her girlfriend, Ruby found it best that she would leave Yang alone for a while until after tonight's next battle. She was still afraid of the thought of the blonde going crazy with her anger but she took it upon herself to shake the feeling off of her for a while and try to relax at the second. So what was a better way to do so then take a peaceful walk around the campus. And bump into Beacon's kindest and innocent bunny faunus,
Velvet Scarlatina.
The young leader of Team RWBY had found the second year student taking pictures of students, in particular, Sun Wukong and other students that were beside him. The redhead's worries sort of disappeared at the sight of the faunus taking pictures of other students of the different kingdoms. In a way, it was so nice to see people smiling at the minute. And that's why, because of a curve to the lips, Ruby approached Velvet calmly, getting her attention and making her greet in an accent while stopping her session of picture taking,
"Ruby how are you doing ?"
"Hi, Velvet," The young one greeted back nicely to her friend. "What're you up to?"
" Oh, you know. Just working on my photography. Do you wanna see?" The young one nodded to answer the question then took a look at one of the pictures the brown haired teen took. She could tell the picture was of Sun, but it didn't consist of his head nor feet. Just his chest and weapons. Which sort of rubbed off her in a wrong way.
"That's... Better," She replied her opinion with a crooked smile that Velvet sort of couldn't see through, which was a good thing. But a thought in the faunus' head made her smile disappear as she asked Ruby in concern,
"I'm sorry about your sister-. I mean. Girlfriend... Is she doing okay?"
"Yeah, she's fine, heh. Thanks," Ruby answered while also looking away in a unease way.
" I think it's just awful what people are saying about her," Velvet continued, "Yang's such a nice person."
"Well, I'm glad someone thinks so."
"Most people don't know what it's like on the battlefield. I mean, even experienced fighters can get scared and start seeing things. If it happened to Coco, it can happen to anyone." The mention of her leader made Ruby's head beam up in confusion along with the statement.
"Coco?"
"Yeah. She swore she saw Yatsu with her in the forest during the fight with Emerald and Mercury, but he never even made it out of the geyser fields. Stress-induced hallucinations, apparently."
"Yeah," This made the redhead go into thought for a moment. The faunus had just said that her friend had seen something kind of like how Yang said so about Mercury. Now things were starting to add up a little bit. And not for the best. Was it really true that Yang just saw something out of place? Or was there more then meets the eye. She did not know right now. But when the next fight starts,
answers will be given.
Later on in the day, the next singles match was about to begin. So because of this, everyone headed back to the Colosseum to wait for the next opponents to be announced. As people settled down, Ruby descended down the steps to an open seat and even though she had been through a lot today, she smiles widely while looking around at the assembled crowds with excitement.
That was until her stupefied eyes see a familiar, glaring face on the other side of the arena.
Emerald Sustrai.
After questioning why she was here to herself, Ruby had finally knew that something was wrong. And so did the green haired teen from across her, who as if sensed she was being watched, leaned forward to glare at the redhead. The leader of Team RWBY suddenly got up with a worried expression and ran towards the exit tunnel. Checking to see if no one's around, she entered a door labeled with a yellow maintenance sign and finds herself inside of the Colosseum. She walks forward with determination of finding out what was going on as she heard the announcers through the walls around her.
"All right, it's now time to begin the randomization process for our next fight," Oobleck announced outside, words not phasing the young one at all since she continued to walk through the empty halls. Or what used to be empty until another familiar face walks out of the door aside her to send waves of chills down her spine.
Mercury, completely fine and still in Vale.
"Mercury," She asked while squinting her eyes to know if it wasn't him. Sadly, it was. The boy kept silent as Port continued to announce the two fighters of tonight.
"It looks like our first contender is... Penny Polendina from Atlas... And her opponent will be... Pyrrha Nikos from Beacon!" The names caught her attention and made her go into thought yet again. Until the horrible truth clouded her mind as her eyes connected with the fraud's and she whispered to herself, "No..."
"Ooh, polarity versus metal. That could be bad," The gray haired boy stated cockily to the young girl, who was now irritated and tried to take out her Crescent Rose. Only to know that she didn't bring it with her. This only makes the boy's smirk wider as he just looks at her evilly.
As for outside of the Colosseum, everyone was cheering for one of the teens in the stadium at the minute. Especially all of Team JNPR that cheered for their teammate to win. They all had a feeling that she would do her best, win the match, and everything would be okay.
But it wasn't okay. Especially for Pyrrha, who stayed quiet and concealed her sadness with a blank face. As she did, the orange haired teen in front of her put her hands on her hips and greeted, "Sal-u-tations, Pyrrha Nikos! It's an honor to finally meet you!" The red haired teen kept her mouth shut still, just staring at her opponent. "This is going to be so much fun." Penny beams widely in anticipation, but Pyrrha still looks around as if in a daze, though she manages a small scowl at her opponent with her weapons, Miló and Akoúo̱, already in hand.
With the two in place, Port finally begins the countdown of the battle out loud, "3. 2. 1. BEGIN!" Starting off the fight of the night.
Along with the secret one as well.
After hearing the words outside stop, Mercury stared at Ruby with a smirk one last time before blurting out in the empty hallway that belonged to them, "Showtime."
He then goes forward and blocks the redhead's path with his arms outstretched, trying to restrain her movements no matter where she tries to go. Panicked, she grimaces and spins forward, becoming a blur of red and petals rocketing toward Mercury, only for the fraud to kick her mid-dash with his boots and knock her to the ground in a brutal way. He advances on her just as she gets our her Scroll, about to push the button to call for help when suddenly a bullet from the gray haired boy's boot shatters the device into several shards.
"Let's keep this between us friends," He told her in a sinister way, only making it more apparent that he would a problem for the young girl.
Meanwhile, outside on the stadium, the battle commenced as Penny becomes surrounded by her floating swords and gestures them around to her command before launching a volley of them at Pyrrha, who runs towards them and leaps through or deflects each aimed blade. The swords fly into the air until they are turned around and come back to the fight.
The prodigy takes her weapons and twirls the javelin to block each sword swipe of her opponent's, dropping her weapon when she needs to somersault away after being hit by a slash, only to magnetically return it to her hand as the orange haired teen readies another wave of blades.
Fully glowering, Pyrrha rushes forward and jumps on an incoming sword and swings down on Penny, only to have the assault halted by a collection of blades. Though she leaps away from the retaliatory slice as the other teen backs away as well. She tries to defend against the multitude of swords with the length of her weapon, but is forced back regardless, prompting the red haired teen to roll the shield from her back onto her arm with her polarity.
Despite the cheers she was given from her teammates, Pyrrha wasn't doing well, looking down to see her Semblance's black energy bend the weapons in her hands unnaturally for a split second due to the fear that ran through her veins like a nearly erupted volcano. Of course, she shook it off and stayed normal before jumping back into action.
Back inside of the Colosseum, Ruby continued to try and escape the pickle that she was in right now. As she tries, she attempts to block a kick from Mercury with her arms only to get a face-full of his boot. She manages to duck under his next attack and leap over his leg, spiraling past him, this time getting much father down the corridor. She kicks off of the wall and falls to the ground, excelling into a run to stop the incoming disaster.
As the redhead pursues to stop the fight, things still continued to take place. As the fight remain, Pyrrha spins wildly and deflects and dodges each sword, until she gets close enough to Penny to deliver a few slashes with her spear, sending the orange haired girl flying back as the prodigy bats aside the blades called to their wielder's aid. Penny slides to a stop and makes a new series of motions with her weapons folding up until she's circled by several laser rifles to which a few open fire on the approaching champion. The red haired teen avoids the blasts and fights off the remaining swords with her xiphos until she slides into position to charge at her enemy and knock her back. She then straightens with a victorious grin that disappears into dizziness, just as she sees the orange haired teen rocketing forward with her weapons firing behind her like a jetpack so she can leap into the air, then come down as an energized meteor on her opponent.
After rolling back to her feet, Pyrrha didn't expect a sword to knock her shield off, then another to do the same for her blade. She tries to get the later back with her magnetism, but has to use the power to send a flying sword back at Penny's side. It does so, but the wielder of the sword only grinned for a second before raising her arms as several more swords appear above her, aimed to strike.
The red haired teen gets ready to counter at the attack that was soon to be sent at her, only to see an unusual scene take play. Penny's eight swords doubling, then tripling, multiplying into an unreal thicket of blades. At the sight of this, Pyrrha unsteadily steps back from her opponent in horror. At that moment, she thought it was it. But was also confused as to why no one had stop the fight yet. But it didn't matter now.
Penny send her swords forward at Pyrrha, who has been left with no choice but to spread her arms and send out a magnetized shockwave.
She had no choice but to use her semblance.
Because of this, each blade is sent reeling back to Penny, who is also unintentionally affected by the Semblance attack. The prodigy only has a brief moment to understand what's happening before Penny's arms are spread wide as she gasps. The strings attached to her own weapons were curled around her left arm and midsection, to which are crumpled by the force with the ease of an aluminum can.
This caused the wire to slice through the electronics in Penny's torso. This caused the swords to fall into place from no wielder.
This caused Penny Polendina to be cut in half and lifeless. And a horrified Pyrrha to look with her eyes wide and mouth agape.
She had killed Penny.
As everyone in the crowd and the announcers watched in fear at the change of events, Ruby finally jumps into the scene. Only to be revealed to the fact that the orange haired girl. Her best friend. Was lying on the stadium ground in half. The image alone was enough to make the young one freeze in place as she fell to her knees in a deep and scary silence.
"Broadcast, what are you doing," Oobleck asked dumbfounded and upset at what was happening. "Kill the feed!"
"We're trying," The Broadcast Op replied to the green haired man out loud. "But something's wrong! We don't have control of the cameras! We can't even stop the broadcast!"
"What?! How is that possible?!"
Before he could be given an answer by the other men, the background them on the screen suddenly changed to a video feed that was tinted an ominous bright red with a black queen chess piece hovering over the scene. They turn back to the arena as a familiar voice rang throughout the Colosseum as the rest of the world and them watched these events unfold.
"This is not a tragedy," A female voice blurted out through the speakers around the audience. "This was not an accident. This is what happens when you hand over your trust, your safety, your children, to men who claim to be our guardians, but are, in reality, nothing more than men. Our Academies' Headmasters wield more power than most armies, and one was audacious enough to control both. They cling to this power in the name of peace, and yet, what do we have here? One nation's attempt at a synthetic army, mercilessly torn apart by another's star pupil. What need would Atlas have for a soldier disguised as an innocent little girl? I don't think the Grimm can tell the difference." With those words, Pyrrha continued to look at Penny, now understanding what she was as she started to cry more about what she had done.
"And what, I ask you, is Ozpin teaching his students? First a dismemberment, now this? Huntsmen and Huntresses should carry themselves with honor and mercy, yet I have witnessed neither. Perhaps Ozpin felt as though defeating Atlas in the Tournament would help people forget his colossal failure to protect Vale when the Grimm invaded its streets. Or perhaps this was his message to the tyrannical dictator that has occupied an unsuspecting kingdom with armed forces. Honestly, I haven't the slightest clue as to who is right and who is wrong. But I know the existence of peace is fragile, and the leaders of our kingdoms conduct their business with iron gloves. As someone who hails from Mistral, I can assure you the situation there is... equally undesirable. Our Kingdoms are on the brink of war, yet we, the citizens, are left in the dark. So I ask you: When the first shots are fired... who do you think you can trust?"
With the unknown female's voice suddenly gone, everyone started to panic at what was going on at a sudden and sickening sight incoming. A screen with the words CAUTION on it. With that, a computerized voice came on to the speaker stating to the citizens of Remnant,
"Alert. Incoming Grimm attack. Threat level: Nine. Please seek shelter in a calm and orderly manner."
With the announcement, the crowd did anything but that and ran out of the Colosseum, screaming and roaming wildly out of the place. As they did, a Nevermore came to the Colosseum and started to pound on the shield that kept everyone safe inside it. Of course, the students of the tournament took it upon themselves to fight back. But would it work? They would just have to find out. And would Ruby fight back even after a lost of a friend. Didn't look like it. She would need a hero. Or to get back into reality. Sadly,
Her hero was nowhere to be found at the moment...