Chapter 25: Vytal Tournament Part 1

One o'clock AM. Darkness surrounds everything. The room is quiet. The occupants sleeping. A dark figure roams. The soft sound of a gun cocking is heard. All of these normal things that happen in the middle of every night. One of the occupants stirs. The dark figure stops moving. He looks around. The stirred person slowly drifts back into sleep. The dark figure moves to one bed at a time. The sound of a silenced weapon is heard multiple times. The dark figure creeps back out of the room. He is convinced that everyone inside is now dead. 94%.

"Not good enough." Vayla yelled down at her partner in crime.

Said partner took a deep breath and turned his attention back to the screen, intent on proving he had the ability to succeed.

One o'clock AM.

Bright sunshine streamed through the blinds of Team SCAR's room, uncovering the makeshift double beds that now filled the room. Krystal slowly rolled over, suddenly finding herself flat on the ground with the unhelpful smile of Colton glowing above her.

"You know, I really don't like you sometimes." She said as she scowled up at him.

"Nah, you love me too much." Colton replied with a glint in his eyes.

Krystal continued to scowl at him until he pulled her back up into a hug.

"Can you two lovebirds quiet down over there?" The muffled voice of Sun floated through to them.

"Speak for yourself." Colton called back, glancing over to see that Sun and Aurora were a tangled mess in the covers.
"Shut up or your bed might become a pile of ash." Aurora mumbled through the blanket.

"I'm just saying we're not snaking around each other."

"That's it assholes." A detonator appeared above the covers and Aurora clicked it.

The room was silent for a moment, then Colton and Krystal burst out laughing.

"Way to go champ-"

The bed occupied by Colton and Krystal was suddenly ablaze with flames, with both of them looking for a way off.

"TAKE COVER!" Krystal screamed.

The fire was shooting up around the outsides and this left them with no avenue for escape. Only Aurora, with her knowledge of what she had used, knew that the flames could not actually injure or burn anything other than the synthetic material she had layered the bed with the previous night. The fire died down and left Colton and Krystal in a brief moment of shock. They looked at each other, then at Aurora, then back at each other.

"Holy crap." Krystal laid back on the bed, slowly trying to calm her nerves.

"What was that f-" Colton saw another detonator slowly ascend from the mess of covers and stopped himself.

"Do it and this time it'll be real fire." Aurora sat up and said in a matter-of-fact way.

Colton and Krystal were all too happy to shut up and go about on their morning business. The two quickly left to go see what the cooks were serving for breakfast.

"Nice one." Sun hugged her from behind and stood. "Good way to get the adrenaline pumping on such a big day."

"Thanks, those two needed it anyway."

"That they did, ready to go?" Sun had finished getting ready and he was waiting beside the door.

"Of course, let's go."

"THERE IT IS!" Nora ran ahead to the stage.

"Calm down Nora, the announcer won't start any sooner if you're there faster." Ren called, rolling his eyes.

"You know you're not convincing her, right?" Pyrrha said, smiling at him.

"Oh believe me, I know."

"Did the dance go well?"

"It went fine." Ren quickly searched his mind for a better topic to talk about.

Nora had been very excited when he had told her what he felt and she had quickly reciprocated, but he wasn't ready to share that with the rest of the team yet. Pyrrha, noting the slight discomfort Ren was exhibiting, let him off the hook and brought up another problem.

"Jaune, did you finish your training routine last night?" She asked, throwing a sideward glance at her partner and boyfriend.

"Ah, well, you know Pyrrha, there were a lot of workouts on that list." Jaune was careful to avoid eye contact.

"Jaune, I'm here to help, I hope you know that. These workouts are intended to make you stronger."

"I know, but there are just so many of them."

"Okay, but try your best today." She smiled at him and they turned their attention to the stage.

One of the tournament officials had stepped up to the microphone and was now consulting the notes in front of him.

"Welcome to the twelfth annual Vytal Tournament! This year we have thirty-two teams hailing from all of the four cities. Remember that these teams will be composed of four members each and the participants are all first years students. The tournament will have four rounds and a championship game. Each team will face off against other teams from the same city until they are the only one left from their city. There will be two games showcasing the teams in the Final Four and the winners of these will then fight each other in the championship game. We will be using Tournament style rules for this and there are four arenas that will be used for the battles. Round One will be played in an hour. Competing teams must be back here with fifteen minutes to spare so that we can direct you to the correct arena. There will be a fifteen minute break in between each battle. Does everybody understand?"

There were nods around the crowd, most had been to these before.

"Good, remember teams to be back fifteen minutes before the first battle. Enjoy the tournament!"

"He seemed friendly." Yang commented as the man finished up.

"I would tend to agree." Sun replied as he looked around at all of his friends around him.

Half of the Vale teams were represented around him: RWBY, JNPR, SCAR, and BOLT were all walking together towards the food court.

"He did have a smile on his face." Tyger of Team BOLT added, licking his lips in anticipation as the smell of food got to him.

"Smiles do tend to indicate friendliness." Colton smiled menacingly. "Unless it's that kind of smile."

Everybody laughed and found themselves faced with the hardest decision they would encounter all day: Which restaurant they wanted to eat at.
"Let's put it to a vote." Sun said. "Anybody can nominate somewhere and anyone else can second the place. You can only vote once, so choose wisely."

"YOVO!" Krystal yelled before being quickly shut up by the horde of friendly insults that were immediately thrown her way.

"Anyways, does anybody want to nominate anywhere?"

"Hot Dog Queen." Blade suggested.

"I second." Jaune added.

"Any more takers?" Sun glanced over the crowd in front of him before moving on. "Any other place?"

The group went through a list of restaurants before Sun gave up.

"Alright, anarchy rules, eat anywhere you want. Make sure someone saves tables for everyone else."

Everyone quickly scattered and they returned to eat together. The teams had ten minutes to eat before they were needed back at the arena.

"If we had decided on anarchy earlier, we would have had more time to eat." Krystal grumbled.

"Not our fault you're a slow eater." Blake replied with a smile.

"But- Oh never mind." Krystal continued walking with a huff, trying to imbue as much anger as possible into her stride.

"Hey Colton, go help your girlfriend, I'm sure she needs a sanity transplant." Yang laughed at her joke as the group made it to the arena/stage.

"Welcome back, which teams are you?" The apparently friendly man asked the group as they approached.

"Uh, let's see. We have SCAR, BOLT, RWBY, and JNPR from Vale here." Sun replied as he looked around at his friends.

"Hmm, RWBY is up for the first game on this arena against Team APPL. The rest of you are later on this arena."

"Thanks." Sun called up before turning to wish his friends luck. "Each team for himself now, good luck everyone."

"Good luck, unless you're playing us, then I hope you lose!" Nora yelled.

Sun moved from where he stood and walked over to Team RWBY, who were already hyping themselves up with a team hug.

"Hey, good luck. Knock 'em out of the park." He said as they untangled themselves.

"Will do." Ruby replied with a grin.

"Of course." Weiss tossed her head.

"You too." Blake said quietly.

"We'll beat the living-" Yang started before being jabbed in the side by Blake. "I might need that rib you just bruised, you know."

"Nah, you're here as the cheerleader anyways." Blake reached up and kissed her before turning her attention back to checking over her weapon.

Author's Note:
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