Setting: Desert

The time has finally come for the preordained battle, Violet versus Cerise. The young girl wanted a chance to prove herself to Violet, the person she admires more than anyone, and a battle to show her growth was exactly what she wanted, except Violet changed the rules last minute. Originally, this was supposed to be a one-on-one fight between the two girls, but Violet suggested they bring their whole team into this in order to get a real measure of how Cerise progressed as a leader, a proposition the girl accepted. The battle was to take place in the desert just outside of Fortuna.

Team VRSZ stood on one side and Team CLSH on the other with their weapons drawn. Neither side did anything but look at each other with expressions of enthusiasm and smiles. Violet walked up and spoke with a grin, "Boys, this won't be like our regular fights against bandits and scum. We can't afford to give them any slack, unless you want to lose. We've trained them and they've studied us closely so you guys better believe they know how to counter our moves."

"Hear you loud and clear boss, hold nothing back," Silver complied with Cerberus in both hands.

"I really don't feel like losing, especially to our juniors, I'd never live it down," Zelts said with a smile and his Heart of Gold in shield form.

Remus had a smile and was nearly tripping on himself at the thought of battling them. "I've been waiting for this." He had Romulus already drawn. "I want to fight them so bad!"

On the other side of the battle field, Team CLSH were talking about their feelings as well some of them were pretty mixed.

"...I feel on edge," Loden said, keeping a tight grip on World Splitter and trying to ease the her trembling heart.

"I sort of understand where you're coming from, the wish to fight them and the reality of it is truly different. I don't know how this will turn out, Cerise?" Hazel called on her leader and friend to know how she felt, but Cerise was silent.

"..." Her eyes, her face, her whole body language could be summed up in one word; serious.

"She really wants to prove all our training meant something," Sapphire said with a grin, knowing how her leader felt. "I really want to go all out too."

There was no bell or referee to signal the start of the fight. Whoever moved first was the indication that the battle started. Violet and Cerise looked in each others' eyes to get a read on who was going to do what. The only one who moved was Violet who grabbed the stretched collar of her shirt and used it as a mask to cover her mouth and nose. Cerise could only assume she did it so she wouldn't be able to read Violet's mouth when she gave out commands. In an instant, both leaders ordered their teammates at the same time.

"Zelts!"

"Loden!"

With his shield split into wingblades, Zelts swung both and created a large powerful blast of wind that was too big for Team CLSH to avoid. Using her naginata and all her strength, Loden drove her World Splitter into the sand then slashed upward to erect an enormous wave of earth that grew into a cliff that was able to split the gust in two, keeping everyone on her team safe. Cerise correctly anticipated what VRSZ would do and knew the correct way to counter it, showing how sharp of an intuition she had. She didn't let it stop there as she instructed Loden to keep creating waves of earth to make small borders, walls and footholds to protect them and to add elevation to the fight. Loden made multiple earth structures that changed the landscape immediately.

"They've definitely gotten stronger," Zelts said with a grin, showing he was very impressed.

"No time to be amazed, move out!" Violet said and Team VRSZ moved into the desert now mini canyon while CLSH did the same.

Using the earth spires and walls, Sapphire used her Spinneret cables to latch onto walls and other structures to swing and move around the area while her teammates moved on foot. Silver used Gravity to jump and move around the area to meet up with the blue haired girl on equal footing. The two clashed with Silver's Cerberus in twin staff mode, attacking Sapphire who defended by wrapping her cables around the staffs to stop the attack. Remus kept behind his teammate to have his back and he moved in to strike while their opponent was occupied, but this team attack was thwarted by one of Hazel's wasp drones firing a laser at Remus, forcing him to block with Romulus and move out the way. With Silver's weapons constricted, Sapphire used this moment to descend to the ground while still holding Silver who fell with her.

Thanks to Gravity, his body's mass was still light enough for Sapphire to yank him down with a forceful pull of her cables and slam him down to the ground, hurting the gunman who wasn't expecting any of this. Not wanting to stop, she swung her cables to the left, carrying a still entangled Silver into a stone wall, but he had enough of being tossed around like a rag doll. Before he hit the wall, he readjusted his semblance so he landed on his feet on the side of the wall and used his semblance to lighten Sapphire and her cables. He copied her attack by taking hold of her cables and swung her across the desert sand. This continued only for a short time before Sapphire retracted her Spinnerets and got herself back up.

Elsewhere, moving throughout the battleground was Remus dodging and evading the laser fire from two of Hazel's drones. With the area no longer a flat surface, Cerise planned for the jagged unbalanced terrain to slow Remus down, however, Lupa trained him to adapt in the midst of battle and it showed as he jumped and dashed around using the stones to help change the direction he was going. Changing Romulus to railgun mode, he turned around and fired three energy bolts at the drones, but they avoided his attacks and continued to fire down on him. Hazel moved around the area in order to keep her whereabouts unknown as she operated her two drones while the third was still attached to her mechanical backpack. Figuring out the distance the drones were keeping from him, Remus used Checkpoint to teleport behind one and slash down with Romulus in dual sword form. The metal of the drones has greatly improved to withstand more attacks as Remus' strike didn't cut it, only sent it down before it flew back in the air. Hazel decided to change tactics and show off the new thing she and Onyx have been working on. The two wasp drones returned to their owner where each one attached to Hazel's hands. The final drones remained on her backpack and started its thrusters to allow the faunus girl to take flight.

"So cool," Remus said to himself as he watched Hazel take the offensive.

With both drones attached to her arms, she aimed one at Remus and fired a laser blast at him, only for him to dodge and continue to run with Hazel behind him. With this new improvement of her Hive, Hazel was able to take to the skies again like she did when she was a child. Even in the middle of a battle, she was truly happy. She wasn't as fast as Remus, but she was able to keep up as he maneuvered around the battlefield. He landed on a piece of earth that Zelts and Loden just destroyed the moment they clashed on the ground. He tumbled for a bit but kept moving with Hazel on his tail.

Being the physical powerhouses of their team, Zelts and Loden were pitted against one another. Loden kept close to Zelts to prevent him from using his wind to knock her around and vice versa for Zelts to remain close so Loden couldn't attack him with earth. With wingblades clashing with the naginata, neither side seemed to waver. Zelts took note of her body, how it had more muscle since the last time he meet her. Her training has shown in appearance and battle prowess. She was strong and was able to fend off all of Zelts' attacks, but the difference in age, experience, and strength meant he would win if this continued, something Loden was very aware of and it was part of Cerise's strategy.

Team CLSH's leader was nearby as she threw several Runaway cherry bombs at Violet, who did her best to avoid the variety of bombs. She even threw her explosives at the surrounding terrain to use everything to hit her senior. Violet felt a mixture of two feelings watching her junior; the first was pride at how far the girl went to gain her approval and the other was dissatisfaction with how Cerise copied her stratagems instead of making a style for herself.

A Runaway with fire dust hit a rocky spire and the rubble was falling on top of Violet and she responded in kind using an Enigma with fire dust to explode when it made contact with one of stones. The impact of the explosion knocked the debris away from Violet as she followed up with a lightning Enigma thrown at an almost surprised Cerise. The move would've worked if not for Cerise's Shields. She activated her semblance to create a small force field wall in front of her to block the throwing knife and she used this moment of freedom to initiate her plan by throwing a cherry bomb to where Zelts and Loden were fighting. Loden's Panorama let her see this coming as she backed away from Zelts to grab the bomb and toss it at him. Expecting the bomb to blow up in his face, Zelts was ready to use Conversion to drain it of dust, but this wasn't that type of Runaway. Instead of exploding in fire or ice, it was a flash bomb that served its purpose and blinded him. Violet was actually so impressed with Cerise's misdirection and teamwork she wasn't paying attention to Cerise tossing a cherry bomb at her until it was too late. It exploded, releasing a thick cloud of black smoke that enveloped Violet and showing that it was a smoke bomb. Cerise left Violet in order to assist her teammates in their battles.

Remus stopped running from Hazel so he could get on the offensive. He teleported right beside her and swung his sword at her side which she defended using the drone equipped to her right arm. It pushed her back, but barely injured her as she fired point blank with a laser blast that did hit him and push him back as well. Not wanting to lose his momentum, Remus jumped up and combined his dual swords to double-bladed staff mode ready to dive and pierce through her drones, but his attempt at gaining the upper hand was taken away when Cerise interfered. She didn't run up to Hazel, just looked in her direction and mentally created an orb-shaped force field that protected her teammate and cause Remus to stagger. Before the force field completely disappeared, Hazel aimed both drones at Remus and fired directly at his chest and damaged his aura. Hazel looked to Cerise then flew away to aid Sapphire with Remus chasing after her.

Silver and Sapphire were still battling while moving around the tall pieces of earth with Silver choosing to fight long distance with his guns. He fired rounds of ammo at Sapphire while backing away, but she used her cables to block each of his regular shots, so he decided to quickly switch to his dust rounds. Seeing him change his arsenal, Sapphire changed from swinging over to Silver to retreating a nearby boulder. He followed thinking his change in arsenal gave him an advantage and he fired several rounds of ice dust at her estimated location. He heard the shots land but didn't see if he hit his mark but was confident in his skills.

"Silver!" He heard Remus shout and saw he accidentally shot his teammate by mistake. Feeling like a complete rookie, Silver moved in to quickly get him out of the ice.

"Dammit! Sorry Remus, I didn't think you were anywhere near my fight. I'll get you out in a-"

"Silver?" Remus said, standing behind Silver and the frozen Remus.

The gunman was beyond baffled. He looked to the Remus standing before him that suddenly took a fighting stance then Silver looked to the Remus partially frozen by his previous attack, but instead of seeing Remus, he saw Sapphire just as she deactivated her semblance, Masquerade, and appearing behind her was Hazel who activated her semblance, Pandemonium.

"Sorry," Hazel said before activating her semblance. Her aura turned dark and ghastly for a quick second, just enough to affect Silver who looked to being a trance before falling to the ground.

"He'll only be down temporarily. I worked really hard to control my semblance," Hazel told Remus as she freed Sapphire from the ice, but he was too busy trying to wake up his friend. She got Sapphire out and together they flew away to join their teammates.

Violet already made it out of the smokescreen and moved to find Cerise, but she was too late. Cerise joined Loden in her ongoing fight with Zelts,, though she was fairing much better than before. Zelts moved to strike with both his blades but Cerise created a force field around Loden to stop his attack and disrupt his flow then tossed one more flash bomb to blind him once again. Not seeing the other members of Team CLSH behind him, Zelts couldn't use Conversion to absorb the two laser blasts from Hazel that hit him in the back and Sapphire's cables wrapped around his left arm. Restrained, Loden backed away then slashed the earth to send a strong wave of earth directly at him. Their teamwork proved successful as Zelts was knocked far away right when Violet made it to the fight. He landed right into the side of a rocky cliff and Zelts fell to the ground feeling himself tire quite a bit.

When he got back on his feet, he noticed that his aura was fading away. "They... have gotten stronger. I'm proud." Zelts truly felt like he had to work in order to fight all of them. Their synergy was extremely high, on par with VRSZ's and it impressed him.

Meanwhile, Remus slapped Silver hard to wake him up and it worked though it left a red mark on his cheek. "Damn, they're good, too good. I hate to admit it, but we can chalk this up as one of our tougher fights as a team."

"I know, I love it too," Remus was too ecstatic at the tremendous increase of Team CLSH's skills as he had a massive smile on his face.

Silver could understand how they got better working as a unit all this time while VRSZ has been separated for more than a year, but he wasn't going to let that be an excuse and he hasn't forfeited the battle yet. He and Remus moved to rejoin the fight.

Violet was looking at this team of girls who have taken a great step in their dream of becoming huntresses. With this type of thought swimming around her head, she couldn't think of anything else to do but smile beneath her mask.

"Cerise, no... Loden, Sapphire, Hazel, I'm proud of all of you,"

Fun Facts

Silver isn't the only one in the team who cooks. Violet is second best and Zelts is quite capable, but Remus is without a doubt the worst. Silver sometimes forbids him from trying to make anything because of the time Remus started a fire after trying to pour milk into a bowl of cereal.

Both Remus and Sapphire are the battle lovers on their teams. The two actually have a lot in common and would make a good couple, but Remus doesn't see her in a romantic way and Sapphire has her eyes on Ghost.

Team CLSH (Clash) stands for clashing colors and their rivalry with Team VRSZ. CLSH was actually pitied against VRSZ for the main story, but VRSZ won out because I felt more attached to the members of VRSZ than CLSH and the idea of a team with three guys and a girl as a leader was very interesting and something that I don't think has been done in RWBY. I didn't want team CLSH to be left behind so they transformed into a younger team that looks up to and rivals VRSZ.