Round 1 Part 2
"Warning, incoming projectile detected, evasive maneuvers advised!" Penny heard a blaring inside her head as a similar message scrolled across the retinal display. Penny quickly spun around just in time to see Ember's missile screaming down from above toward her location.
Once the threat was identified Penny's back panel opened up and her weapons were deployed. In the space of a few seconds Penny had taken aim and released a bright green flash of light that met the incoming missile in midair. The projectile seemed to fold on collision and a massive multicolored explosion erupted from it soon after. The blast was less of a pop and more of a meaty thud, the force of which was so strong it easily ripped off loose masonry from the surrounding pillars revealing a solid metal framework beneath it. And burning dust was thrown in every direction. Then once the initial blast wave had passed, the whole area was quickly engulfed in fire and smoke.
Meanwhile Ember hovered above the smoking rubble searching for signs of life. The smoke was blocking her view of most of the ruins and the heat of the flames was making her helmets thermal sensors useless as well so she waited at the ready. She expected some sort of counter attack but there was only silence. So after nearly a minute of this panic started to appear on Ember face. "Oh crap, did I overdue it again!? I knew Penny was one tough cookie so I packed a lot of extra burn dust into that rocket but, I didn't even think about that other boy that was with her! I don't think the staff here would take too kindly to me killing another student in a simple training exercise. Wait a minute, what if I destroyed the flag!? Double crap, how do we win without a flag!? I killed an innocent man for nothing!" Ember thought out loud before finally being broken free of her thoughts when she noticed the smoke on the ground acting slightly strangely.
"What's this now?" She said curiously as she watched the smoke begin to spiral. It was almost as if it was being sucked up into a vortex. Ember's eyes narrowed as she focused on the center of the vortex. When she did she spotted both Penny and Sky Lark who were not only uninjured but seemed to be creating the strange phenomena. The two of them were stud back to back and Penny had her weapons spread out around them. They were all spinning around them at a crazy high speed while Sky Lark had his aura glowing brighter than the sun and he was currently twirling his weapon which appeared to be some kind of pike above his head. Both Sky's and Penny's Blades were in perfect sync. Ember wondered for a moment what the point of it all was but then she realized that the wind was creating some kind of shield around them, protecting them from the fires and the smoke. She also noted that Sky Lark seemed to be the one control of the wind itself. "Interesting."
"It sure is windy today huh mister Lark?" Penny asked cheerfully.
The humor wasn't lost on Sky since his lips seemed to curl up slightly at the edges and he spoke with a bit more mirth than he had earlier. "Indeed it is freckles. By the way, that was a pretty cool move just now. Blasting that rocket out of the air I mean. That was really dangerous though, what if you'd missed that shot? There wouldn't have been enough time for a second one you know."
"That's why I didn't miss, mister Lark." Penny stated with a confidence that Sky found slightly annoying but he simply rolled his eyes and focused on their opponent.
Meanwhile Ember was breathing a small sigh of relief with a slight hint of annoyance. Sure she was glad that Penny didn't get hurt but seeing her target come out of her attack without even so much as a scratch did hurt her pride a little bit. "Well I guess I don't have to worry about holding back against you two do I?" She asked before she raised one of her arms to point at the pair below. When she did her arm mounted bracer sprang to life, unfolding and deploying a small machine-gun which instantly began revving up and a moment later unloading dust rounds into the heart of the vortex.
Penny's display lit up again as she spotted the arm mounted machine-gun unfolding. A detailed schematic of the weapon and its internal workings flashed across her vision but she ignored it. She already knew what she needed to do. As the Ember began to fire Penny had already repositioned half of her blades. They were now between them and their attacker and were spinning like fan blades deflecting the incoming gunfire. "I can handle defense if you want to attack mister Lark?" Penny posed the statement as a question, unsure how the other teen would respond.
"Already on it Freckles!" Sky Lark responded as he began channeling his aura into his semblance. The glow around his body growing brighter and brighter while the wind got stronger and stronger in equal measure. This cycle went on until the vortex became a full blown twister that not only engulfed Penny and himself but also most of the ruins and was threatening to suck Ember up in its wake.
Seeing the twister drawing closer Ember's eyes widened in shock and terror. "What the heck is tha…AHHH!" Is all she could managed to squeeze out before getting sucked out of the sky and into the eye of the vortex.
Despite her best efforts to remain stable Ember was being thrown around in the vortex like a ragdoll. The violent jerking motion of the vortex alone was enough to chip away at her aura, so things weren't looking good for the monkey faunus. To make matters worse the cyclone was also pulling in all the small stone fragments from the ruins around them and pelting her with them. The twister had also pulled in the smoke from the fires and darkened to the point she couldn't see anything outside of it. This caused her to lose all sense of direction, which left her with very little way of launching any kind of counter attack. She wasn't going to let that stop her though, in desperation comes strength. With that thought in mind Ember's amber colored eyes began to glow as her aura flared. As her aura continued to shine she started to drift lower and further from the center of the cyclone until she was finally thrown from the twister completely. Now able to tell which way was up she promptly righted herself and activated both her boots and thruster pack. The two devises fired streams of flame at full blast which should have propelled her upward. However they seemed to have practically no effect as she slammed feet first on the ground below with a heavy thud. When she landed, the ground around her feet cracked and shattered like an anvil had just been dropped on.
Noticing that their quarry had escaped Sky released his semblance causing the massive twister to quickly dissipate. Then Sky took a step forward past Penny to direct his weapon at Ember. "Hey freckles, you got any idea what that was just now? How did she manage to get out of that and what happened to the ground?"
Penny let out a frustrated sigh, resigning herself to the nickname before responding. "Ember's semblance allows her to manipulate the mass and density of objects. This effectively allows her the to change an objects weight on command. She must have used it to increase her own weight until the twister was no longer powerful enough the carry her aloft and she was simply thrown out." She explained.
"Weight huh, that's an interesting ability, hey is that how she's able to fly so fast?" Sky inquired.
"That's right Ember normally uses her semblance to lower her weight to let her easily control her flight speed and…" Before Penny could finish a second missile lock warning appeared in her display.
"Come now Penny don't you think that's a little unfair? You can't go giving away all of a girl's secrets like that, it's just not proper. You wouldn't want to see me going round telling everyone about your little condition after all, now do you?!" Ember asked in a slightly threatening manor.
"Condition, are you unwell Penny?" Sky Lark asked. It was clear that he was more curious than concerned however.
"I'm fine! Completely fine! Nothing to worry abou.. *Hiccup*. I mean she is likely just trying to distract us!" Penny responded nervously. She didn't think Ember would reveal her and thus jeopardize her mission just to get the upper hand in this game but Penny just didn't know enough about Ember to say so with any certainty. And one thing she did know about the girl was that she had a competitive spirit that rivaled Ruby's sister. So Penny didn't want to take any chances.
Noticing Penny's hesitation Ember went into her attack launching her second missile from the back of her jet pack aimed right for the synthetic girl. Penny quickly snapped back into the fight and began calculating the flight path of the missile and prepared a laser to blast it down. Once Penny lined up the shot and fired Ember's aura flashed again and the glow extended to the missile itself. Suddenly the explosive projectile dipped down just in time to avoid Penny's laser blast and keep on going.
Penny seemed to have accounted for this tactic however and ready prepared a second weapon and quickly attempted to shoot down the missile again. This time the missile sped up to a blinding speed and yet again caused Penny's shot to just narrowly miss its mark. Penny wasn't detoured however as she quickly opened her back panel to fire another set of two blades from her back. The blades soared across the ruins to plant themselves into the stone of a pillar several feet directly behind her. Then she reached over and grabbed hold of Sky right before the strings attached to end of each blade pulled tight and begun to rapidly retract. With a yelp Sky was yanked backward away from the incoming missile's path and to safety while Ember's missile struck the ground right where Penny and Sky Lark stud only a moment ago releasing another large explosion. This blast however seemed slightly less powerful than the first one with it only doing minor damage to the surrounding area.
Having been caught off guard by Penny's rescue Sky was quite shaken so it took him a moment to regain his bearings. Once he did however, his face contorted in anger and he went into a rage-fueled rant. "Hey you stupid monkey, what the hell are you trying to do kill us!? If so I'm going to make you pay for it!" He declared before engaging his aura once again. It glowed brighter than it had ever before and he held out his weapon in front of himself and began to spin. As his semblance kicked on his weapon began to pick up speed as the winds around him started to shift and spin along with it. "Take this!" She shouted as a horizontal cyclone of wind sprung forward toward Ember blowing out the remaining fires and sucking in the smoke.
Ember didn't back down however. She was prepared this time and wasn't going to be fooled by the same trick twice. So she planted herself with her weighted feet anchoring her to the ground as the cyclone engulfed her. The cyclone pushed past her and ripped apart the trees behind her and unearthed every loose stone in its path. Ember had to dunk her head and weave her body around to avoid the flying debris but they weren't stopping any time soon and the savage winds were still draining her aura. She had to go on the attack and fast, so she fired her thrusters as hard as she could to push herself forward before planting herself again.
Ember repeated this maneuver again and again, each time picking up a little bit of momentum until she finally entered a full blown sprint cutting a line through the whirlwind. Her heavy feet were striking the ground so hard that it was breaking apart with every step. When she finally reached the source of the tempest, she steadied herself and reached out with one hand with the intent to take hold of Sky's weapon and put an end to this annoying storm of his. However right before Sky's weapon came into grasp she heard a loud peeping coming from her wristband. It was the same wristband that had been given to her by the teachers to monitor her aura usage in this game. The once green light had turned a deep shade of red and it was letting out an alarm loud enough to be audible even within the savage twister.
"Crap, are you kidding me!? How could my aura already be below seventy-five percent, there's just no way! No, I'm so close! I can't just stop now!" Ember shouted this aloud but was heard by no one. She could barely even hear herself over sound of the winds and the blaring alarm. Despite the wristbands warning Ember refused to back down and continued to grab for Sky's weapon. However when she did so, her wristband flickered right before sending a powerful electrical shock up Ember's arm. The shock was so strong that it caused her aura to flicker and made her lose her focus. The moment she did, she was forced to release her semblance and without her semblance weighing her down she was instantly swept up in the tempest. The force of the wind practically picked her up and threw her across the clearing, slamming her into a nearby redwood tree nearly breaking it clean in half before she fell to the ground limp and the wind finally died down.
Sky let out an almost snarling laugh as he gloated. "Ha, you see that, I got her! That'll teach you not to mess with me, you faunus freak!" Sky's gloating was finally ended when his wristband beeped and changed to a bright yellow color. Sky glanced down at the displayed and there appeared to be a warning message scrolling across the screen. Before he had time to read it however the wristband delivered a massive shock quite similar to the one Ember had received to him as well causing him to stutter and fall over backward.
"Are you okay!?" Penny inquired as she rushed to her teammate's side, her eyes running up and down his body while vital readouts appeared in her vision. His aura had taken a small hit but beyond that he would be fine. So she turned her attention to the cause of his collapse and read from the screen. "Message – Rule violation warning. Attacking downed players is against the rules of engagement. Any failure to compile to this rule will be met with a heavy penalty."
"Hey Freckles, what the hell is this thing on about!? I didn't even do anything wrong!" Sky complained between pained groans.
"My sensors show that," Penny had to stop herself mid-sentence to mentally kick herself. She had to remember that normal girl's don't have built in aura sensors. "I mean, I think Ember's aura dropped below seventy-five percent in the middle of your attack. So when she took the full brunt of it just now it tactically counted as you attacking her after she had already been downed. And so you were penalized." Penny explained before turning towards Ember who was still lying on the ground twitching. "I will be right back!" She shouted as she ran over to Ember's side to make sure her friend didn't need any repairs, wait no first aid or something like that anyway. Penny didn't really know very much about the human or in this case faunus anatomy. And most of what she did know was told to her by either Ruby's sister Yang or her father and it didn't really cover electrical shock followed by blunt force trauma but she wasn't about to let her new friend suffer.
When Penny arrived she quickly reached over to help the faunus girl up but her hands were instantly batted away. The girl in question groaned in annoyance as she staggered to her feet and looked at her wristbands flashing red light. Her wristband now had two messages displayed. The first was the warning she received earlier pertaining to her aura status, which to her further annoyance was now below seventy percent. As for the second message, it seemed to detail what she was to do now. From it she gathered that she needed to return to her base to 'respawn' before she could continue the fight. And that failure to do so would be met with a penalty. Which she was guessing was the shock she had suffered only moments ago. Right as she finished reading the second message a new one appeared on the display. "What now!?" She grumbled.
"Message – Delayed return will be seen as failure to compile." Ember read allowed. The message was quickly followed by a timer that started at five minutes and started to count down. "Five minutes, crap!" Not wanting to know what happens when the timer ran out Ember turned to Penny and Sky Lark and made one final statement. "This isn't over you hear me! It's going to take a lot more than that to take me out! So I will be back for that flag soon enough, you hear me!?" Then with that she fired her thruster pack up again and quickly zoomed up into the air and back over the horizon toward blue base.
Meanwhile at Blue Base
A pair of fast-moving blurs' dashed across the canyon floor. The blurs' were moving between what little cover the barren lands could offer, ducking behind boulders and dead trees. One was a young girl with short black hair with red highlights and she was dressed in dark red and black clothing. These clothes included a black combat skirt, black corset, and a bright red hood that covered her head and extend down her back as a cape. While some would consider her choice of wardrobe stylish, it stuck out like a sore thumb in this barren wasteland. The girl showed no signs of being concern by this fact however, at least not when her Scythe/sniper rifle she had lovingly named Crescent Rose was at her side.
The other blur was a slightly older boy wearing dark green clothing and unlike most of the members of team CRDL he was wearing very little armor with the only exception being two small arm bracers and a single shoulder pad. His hair was short blond and cut into the shape of a Mohawk. The boy wielded a set of identical daggers that were simple in design but held chambers for dust in the guards.
The pair both come to a stop at a large boulder right outside of the blue base and begin to scan for signs of an ambush. Seeing nothing the boy with the Mohawk dunked back into cover to address his teammate. "Ruby, sir, what are we waiting for? Our goal is now in sight and there's nobody at home. So let's just go grab it!" Russel said with excitement clear in his voice.
"Hey relax Rus, we can't just rush in there before we know for sure. If I know Black and Weiss, and trust me I do, then they have to have something up their sleeves for sure. We just got to figure out what their plan is first and then we go all bam, wham, and smack!" She explained while making punching motions.
Russel scuffed at the younger girl's warnings. "Well sitting around here isn't going to help us do any of that. At the end of the day there's only one way to know for sure!" He said right before he hurdled over the boulder that they had been hiding behind and booked it at full speed towards the enemy base.
"Russel no, can't you at least wait for me!" Ruby yelled after the boy as she quickly gave chase.
"Don't worry Ruby there isn't even anyone out here so we should be…" Russel's words were cut short when the space below his feet began to glow. "Huh?" He glanced down to see that a small glyph in the shape of a snowflake had appeared on the ground around. Then the glyph quickly began to grow in size until it surrounds him completely and engulfed him in bright light.
"Ahhh, what's going on!?" Russel shouted as he began to panic. Recognizing the glyph Ruby sprang into action activating her semblance. This caused her to go from a steady run to a blinding speed almost instantly. In the blink of an eye she was beside Russel and quickly shoved him off of the glyph. And it was none too soon as a moment later a giant prison of ice sprang up from the ground where the glyph had triggered.
Russel looked back with wide eyes before glancing up to meet Ruby's glare. "What was that Russel?! I told you that it could've been a trap! Weiss likely has this whole field covered in glyphs like that! We're basically standing in a minefield right now so you need to be more careful!" She shouted angrily as she stomped her foot down on the ground in a display of her aggravation. The impact of which caused a slight tremor which promptly set off several more of the nearby glyphs.
This time however it was Russel's turn to glare angrily. "You were saying?" He asked coldly.
Ruby chuckled nervously as she shrugged her shoulders. "Oops!"