All for One, One for All
Part 2: Heroes United
Chapter 10: Fast as Fire, Pt 2
When the dust settled, everyone could see Speedy holding his cloak together at the waist with his left hand, keeping his sombrero on his head with his right. Although no one could really tell, he was breathing rather heavily for someone like him. Meanwhile, Ventus was lying on his back, clutching his neck and head as if he ran into something; as it turns out, there was a dent in a frying pan held out by Thor as a joke.
"Who crossed first," Ruby asked aloud. Solis shrugged while Thor chuckled at Ventus's misfortune. Comparatively, Speedy was only mildly exhausted whereas Ventus was only sore because of Thor's stunt.
"Speedy," Yang said, scaring Ruby initially. "No, maybe it was Ventus. Dammit, I can't tell; they were moving too fast."
"Lucky for you," Weiss cut in. "I happen to have access to a high speed camera. And of course, being the smart person I am, I recorded all of it."
"And if that doesn't work," Bryen added. "There's always my visual prowess for mobilitas magna. I can always project my vision via lux-powered hologram, should the need arise."
"Oh, I'm sure my camera caught it," Weiss grumbled at her rival.
"Maybe so, but let's stay on the safe side and keep two sets of eyes on it at once. Mechanical, in your case."
Weiss growled at Bryen and proceeded to punch him in the arm.
"Okay, enough talk," Solis snapped, starting to show fangs at his frustration, more than likely because he couldn't see it as fast as it was. "All of that happened in a split second. Like, one moment I see them at start, then about a hundred milliseconds later Ventus hits the pan and Speedy's stopped. Can you tell us who the holy Hell won?"
"Hmm, that depends," Bryen muttered. "What's at stake here?"
"Ventus versus Speedy, foot race," Solis explained. "Speedy wins, he gets Ruby all to himself, since he can outrun Yang. Ventus was probably jealous because Speedy was flirting with her before the challenge. So yeah, that's what's at stake."
"Oh," Bryen trailed off, scratching his neck awkwardly. "That would be an issue to solve."
"So who won," Yang growled, cocking her gauntlets once more as she marched over to the two with red eyes. Weiss raised her hands in surrender, wide-eyed at Yang's apparent anger. Bryen kept his stoic-ish expression, unfazed by her rage.
"Calm down and I'll show you," Bryen countered. Yang threw a flaming punch, caught and extinguished with ease by Bryen. "I can safely say I've been through the darkest depths of Hell and beyond, and I'm still my old self. I doubt your experiences come close to the dark side of Purgatory, and you've changed quite a bit from them. Your anger is like a gentle breeze to me. Now, calm down and let us show you, or I will show you the first level of Hell. Do I make myself clearer than glass?"
"While you two are busy killing each other, I'm going to find out what the camera caught," Weiss said calmly. She proceeded to slow down the footage to its minimum speed and played it back on the camera's built-in screen. Still the two runners were too fast to see clearly, and the footage only slowed it down 40 times slower than reality. The two seemed to reappear simultaneously once again.
"Okay fine," Yang shouted, still frustrated. "But you'd better do it quick."
"Break a leg breaking my legs," Bryen joked, earning himself a few chuckles. He clapped his hands together, rubbed them, and held them out palms facing forward. "Okay, let's see how rusty I am with lux."
He wrote the symbols for fire and air with his Aura, then somehow combined them. The combined Rune slammed into a brick wall and expanded into a rectangular screen of pure light. It immediately began playing from a third party perspective:
As soon as Yang's gauntlets went off, the two runners darted off at nearly the speed of sound. The screen had to split in two as Ventus darted off at the speed of lightning on its return stroke, glowing bright yellow in the meantime. Both screens showed the runners in their perceived times. Speedy managed to cross the line first only because Ventus had crossed the entire world once and slowed down just before running into Thor's frying pan at a third of the speed of light, reaching the same point milliseconds before Ventus blasted by. Combined with that, Speedy took a shortcut through the middle of the city.
"Wait, so who won," Solis asked, totally dumbfounded. "The rules were whoever crossed the line first with the fastest speed, but it's split between the two. Who should win?"
"I would say it's a draw," Yang said, beginning to calm down from the fact that Speedy didn't outright win. "But I'd prefer to say Ventus because of a few reasons."
"Which are," Nadiya asked, placing her hands on her hips after forcing Thor to pick up Ventus, who had a concussion from the impact. Yang counted them out on her fingers as she went.
"First off, I trust Ventus more than a stranger like Speedy. Secondly, the race was for who was the fastest, and Ventus totally hit that mark. And thirdly, didn't you see Speedy cutting through the city instead of going around? Sure, Ventus didn't follow the track either, but he took the long way and could've met Speedy in the middle had Mister Fire-foot didn't take the easy way. And Thor hit him with a frying pan."
"Speaking of which, where'd you even get that," Weiss demanded. Ren automatically marched up to Thor and whacked him upside the head with his pan, the same pan Ventus accidentally dented. "Don't bother telling me how you took it, I doubt I want to know."
"So who won," Speedy huffed heavily. "I think I won. I won, right?"
"Kentucky steak dumpling popcorn," Ventus muttered incoherently, hanging upside down from Thor's shoulder. He rubbed his head and uncrossed his eyes before looking around. "Dear Lord Jesus, what'd I hit? Why am I hanging like a bat?" He sniffed twice before grunting and plugging his nose. "Oh GOD, what's that smell?"
"Sorry," Thor laughed at his own fart joke. "I've been helping Jaune in the forge again."
"Anyways," Yang interrupted Thor. "You did cross first, but Ventus was faster and took the long way, albeit only once. I think this one goes to Ventus."
(Later that evening, Cafeteria)
"Remember the first day of classes," Nadiya asked, laughing from some of the jokes told by her fiancée/husband, Bryen, and Solis. "When Weiss hated Ruby's guts and tried to volunteer for the demonstration?"
"Oh yeah," Jaune shouted. "That's when he 'volunteered' me, tried to show my Centurion State to the class."
"And as it turned out, you were dead asleep from using it the day before, if I recall," Thor mentioned. "So instead he invited basically all of Salvation to the plate and told us to use teamwork on a single pig. A pig, of all the things in the world, he threw us a pig."
"Wow," Bryen chuckled. "Must've been a big porker."
"Oh no, a wee little squealer. So I just dropped the hammer, and it just so happened to fall on the pig. He was all prideful and boastful about how he'd make us huntsmen yet, and I just told him if Grimm were parts of an animal, that porker was bacon."
The entire table burst into laughter, remembering the incident.
"So he eventually threw an entire Ursa at us, and I again dropped the hammer. You should've seen the look on that old man's face, he was just so mad at me. And he yelled at me 'why're you killing 'em all with your hammer?' I told him I wasn't swinging it, that I was dropping it. And he told me to prove it and tried to beat me with his musket-ax thing, and boy, you should've seen the look on his face. I dropped the hammer on his arse."
"He must've been so mad," Bryen muttered. Solis shook his head, laughing his head off.
"Oh no, he didn't let his hammer go, drop it; he brought the hammer down on 'im, dropped it. Poor ol' Port was swearing up and down at Thor for two weeks straight. I don't think he was happy about that."
"Oh, Jesus."
"Hey, has anyone seen Ventus," Ruby asked out loud.
"So, you must be the fellow speedster," an unknown voice said from behind her. She jumped up and shrieked, only to see it was Ventus with someone else. "Sorry about that, name's Ben. Ventus's old mentor. I was just tellin' him 'bout how I faked my loss with… unexpected results, and he's been tellin' me all about you."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah, he's been goin' on for about two full minutes talkin' ten miles a minute. I dunno what's got him goin' like this, but you've gotta be doin' somethin' to drive this fella up the wall for ya."
"C'mon, Ben," Ventus griped. "She's just a good friend; it's not like we're something special or anything."
"Oh, but you wanna be, don't ya?"
"BEN! You're just as bad as Sol and Yang!"
"Who're they again?"
Ventus screamed in frustration, turning redder by the minute. Solis and Yang both waved to Ben, letting him know who they were.
"Well I'm sorry I didn't know," Ben griped at Ventus. "You were only tellin' me about your redhead friend here. Ooh, nice rhyme." He proceeded to put Ventus in a headlock and give him a painful-looking noogie.
"Ow! Ow! Ow! Hey, knock it off. Calfrope, calfrope!"
(The next day)
"Our next match will be against," Glynda trailed off as she looked through her list of students. "How about Cardin Winchester and Jaune Arc." Cardin audibly groaned.
"Come on, Goodwitch," the mace-wielder complained. "You know he can't win without that goody-two-shoes know-it-all having his back all the time. He's weak even with that bitch of a partner."
"Challenge accepted," Jaune stood up immediately before anyone could respond. "I'll make sure you regret saying that, Cardin." He cracked his knuckles and rolled his neck side to side. "Good luck, 'cause you'll need it."
"Break a leg, wimp," Cardin taunted. The Centurion only turned to get changed in the locker room.
"Even that won't save you, Cardin," Jaune warned. "You've pushed the line, and that will not go unpunished. I'll see you in the arena."
The bell sounded, initiating the fight. Cardin swung his mace as hard as he could at Jaune, only managing to bounce it off of Jaune's new chestplate. A gift from his friends in the Mars Internal Project, it was Roman/Medieval Knight armor designed to transform from Roman Centurion armor to armor reminiscent of Medieval Knight armor. He had redesigned his old armor to contain and transform into his new gift.
Cardin went to swing once more, blocked by Ancora in its Scutum state. This went on and on until Jaune decided to end the fight. Using his Phi Centurion State, he leaped away and transformed Lancea Veritatis into its Pilum state. He then lunged forward a single step, preparing to hurl Veritatis, and launched his javelin at Cardin. The Pilum caught its target by a ring in the armor, and dragged Cardin with it until it impaled itself in a wall in its path. He wasn't in the yellow yet, though he was definitely dazed from Veritatis.
Jaune then pulled off his greatest move yet: Ancora formed a blue and gold ball of energy in front of it and began glowing in the same colors as the ball grew to the size of a basketball over the course of ten seconds. The orb shrank with its particles before blasting forward as two intertwined beams of light. Having been aimed at Cardin to begin with, the attack struck him in his armored chest, leaving his Aura in the red when the smoke cleared. The Centurion lurched forward and collapsed, completely tuckered out from his attack. Jaune won because his Aura was barely in the yellow, but he didn't feel like he won. Sure, Cardin was taught a lesson, but Jaune was way too tired to argue. Exhaustion does that to you, and he was beyond exhausted from his work in the forge.
"And Jaune Arc is the winner," Glynda declared. The only response was Jaune snoring like a Beowolf, earning him several laughs. Cardin groaned and tried getting up, only to fall back down.
"Nap time," Ventus joked, getting nothing in return. "Oh come on, has no one seen that? That little cheesy chloroform joke video?"
"That was beyond cheesy," Solis growled, rearing back and slamming Ventus into the ground. "It passed stupid and beyond rude about three weeks ago. Speaking of which, I have a better method than any chemical."
"And that is," Yang asked, both curious and hinting at something. He cracked his knuckles before picking up an unconscious Ventus up and setting him in the nearest seat. This made her grin. "Challenge accepted."
"Hold on," Nadiya paused. "I thought you two wanted something a little more… intimate."
"What'd you think we were doing on Jaune's birthday," Solis demanded.
"The horizontal Tango," Thor butted in, causing both hotheads to blush furiously.
"Actually, I was trying to break her arm off," Solis explained, glaring at Yang from the corner of his eye. She returned fire with red eyes.
"And I was trying to choke him to death," she added.
"Really," Weiss demanded. "Because I saw Yang sitting on Sunset's lap."
"Her arm was locked in my jaws, and she had her other hand around my throat," Solis corrected. "Seriously though, that was a pretty worthwhile prank." The Schnee swatted the nonexistent fly on her forehead, leaving a red mark.
"And I wonder why we can't have nice things," she complained. "Then I always remember: it's because you two always break everything."
Yang and Solis fought in the arena next, leaving neither as the victor and proving to the crowd that they hated each other's guts to the extremes. In fact, Bryen was the victor when he shot a fireball at the two to prevent the auditorium's destruction.
End
A/N: Sorry I haven't rolled out another chapter in a while. I just got distracted with some things here and there. I will try to remember the plotline I had laid out, and I will get back to you all shortly. In the meantime, have a nice week everyone. Texas out for God only knows how long.