We see the familiar shot of Team JNPR readying themselves against their opponents in the Amity Colosseum, the mountains to their back and forest on the other side. A large holographic screen counted down with Port over the crowd's cheering.
"3... 2... 1..." Port counted down.
"Come on guys!" Jaune shouted, raising his sword.
"Good luck, Ren. I believe in you, Nora." Ryu said from the stands.
"Show me your training paid off, Jaune!" Kratos shouted. Jaune apparently heard this, as he flinched a bit.
"BEGIN!" Port announced.
All four members of JNPR charged forward, but only three fighters from BRNZ did the same; the beanie-wearing May Zedong turned around and headed into the trees, cocking her weapon. In the center of the field, leader Brawnz Ni delivered a knee kick to Pyrrha's shield that sent her skidding back, right before she blocked the claws on his fists with her xiphos. She jerked her sword away and made him leap back, just as the sniper jumped up into the branches of the forest with the bladed butt of her sniper rifle. Ren readied his StormFlower to attack Nolan Porfirio, who almost got blindsided by Nora's swing with Magnhild before he ducked under the attack and attempted to hit her with his cattle prod. The sniper girl finally took aim from her spot and managed to fire off two rounds near Ren, destroying the rocks behind him. Jaune managed to block the buzzsaw gloves of Roy Stallion with his own shield before he noticed the bullets flying and saw the glint of the gun in the leaves.
"R-R-Retreat!" Jaune screamed, wide-eyed as stumbled over his order.
"Good idea. Don't want to hang out in the open with a sniper." Jaune said.
Ren glanced back at his leader as a shot hit the ground by his feet. He and Nora started running back into the mountains as Jaune and Pyrrha covered their escape by blocking the bullets with their shields. The four leapt over a rocky outcropping for cover.
"What do we do?" Pyrrha called to Jaune as projectiles kept coming overhead.
Jaune looked over the edge to see the melee fighters closing in. "Spread out! Try to keep moving!" He ordered. His team followed this just as Brawnz landed a punch on Jaune's shield.
May got even higher in the tree and smiled from behind her scope as she looked at the fight below. Brawnz and Pyrrha continued to duke it out while Nolan slowly advanced on Ren when he slid into his path. The prod-wielding warrior looked back at the trees and nodded to his hidden ally, who shot at Ren's feet again and made him jump around trying to dodge them. Just as he landed, Nolan hit him upside the head with his weapon and was able to miss the retaliatory kick with another blow to the knee and a final hit to the chest using the business end of his prod. Electricity shot through Ren's body before he collapsed to the ground beside his childhood friend.
"Ren!" Nora shouted worriedly.
Scowling, Nora took a swing at Nolan, who promptly dodged it and again unleashed his weapon's power into her corset, though this caused a quite different reaction from the grinning redhead.
"Oh, that poor fool." Ryu said, shaking his head.
"Oh-ho! Looks like one of my favorite students, Nora Valkyrie, is charging up to use her Semblance!" Port said eagerly from his spot on the giant hologram screen overhead with Oobleck beside him.
"What?" Nolan asked worriedly, looking up at the screen with a panicked look.
"Yes, Ms. Valkyrie's Semblance lets her produce, as well as channel, electrical energy straight to her muscles! This allows her to jump explosively into the air, wield her mighty hammer, or in this case, absorb Nolan's attacks and send the young man flying!" Oobleck explained.
"What?!" Nolan asked, horrified, turning back to his opponent.
Nolan finally took his cattle prod away, but the damage was done: Nora flexed her arms as pink lightning was seen coursing through her body. Nolan attempted to lift his hands up in surrender, but thunder started sparking from Nora's Aura as she rushed at him. There was a split-second where Nolan's horrified face and Nora's victorious smile were seen close-up on the sides of the screens before the hammer hit head-on and Nolan bounced back across the field, crashing through a rock and staying there when he's stopped moving.
Jaune looks back at the mountaintop on his team's side as a dark storm cloud appears over it, crackling with lightning. He looks over at his energized teammate.
"Nora! Get to the mountain!" Jaune ordered.
"You got it!" Nora said with a salute as she sprinted off to start her climb.
"Ren! Try and distract the sniper!" Jaune ordered again.
As another shot nearly missed his head, Ren slouched. "Sure... Why not." He sarcastically replied.
"He is the best choice: he's the fastest on their team and the hardest for a sniper to hit." Bayonetta said.
The remaining three members of JNPR run forward as Nora hops up and rapidly ascends the mountain. Roy throws the saws from his gloves into Jaune's shield, which still manages to bend the metal and slam the leader's own defense in his face before the weapons return back to their master. Pyrrha gets up close to him, and he delivers a series of spinning swings with his arms into Akoúo̱ as Jaune shakes off his disorientation and charges into battle yet again.
"Yeah! Go get 'em, Jaune!" Ruby cheered from her seat in the stands with the rest of Team RWBY.
"Well, he's certainly improved." Weiss noted.
"Of course. He was training with me and my sister." Kratos said.
"Yeah, but he ain't got nothing on Pyrrha!" Yang said.
Back in the fight, Yang's statement was proven true with Pyrrha taking on both Brawnz and Roy, delivering a kick to one as she deftly dodged and blocked the discs of the other, throwing her javelin to distract the latter while she somersaulted back to use both feet in landing a blow on Brawnz. May attempted to shoot Ren while he dashed his way toward her position, leaping out of the way of her shots, the flying saws, and even sliding under Pyrrha before he ran at Nolan, weapons blasting until he was close enough to start swinging his blades away. He ducked and deflected each of the cattle prod's attempted hits until he managed to hold it in the pistol's blades and double kicked his opponent, giving him the opportunity to catch Nolan's weapon in his own as the prod was forced behind Nolan's head and left him trapped. Ren hid behind the teammate of the sniper, who stopped aiming at him and lifted her barrel up to another target.
Ren realized who the target was as he kept the struggling Nolan in place. "Nora!" He called back to her. Ryu's eyes also widened in fear.
Jaune caught Brawnz's claws with his blade and looked back as the unaware and vulnerable Nora lifted herself higher and higher to the top. "Pyrrha! Up!" He ordered again.
His partner rushed towards him, dodge rolling to avoid a launched saw until she bounded over Brawnz and landed on Jaune's shield. He managed to throw her into the air with her own shield raised to block the kill-shot aimed at Nora.
Ryu sighed in relief at this. "Thank you, Jaune, Pyrrha, for protecting her." Ryu said.
This gave the orange-haired girl just enough time to reach the peak, and she lifted her hammer up as a bolt of lightning hit the weapon directly. She changed it back into grenade-launching form and popped the front off to reveal six explosives that shot out over the field in a heart-shaped formation onto the sniper. The poor girl barely had time to gawk before she leapt over to a nearby tree just as the one she was in went up in pink flames, leaving only a giant scorch mark billowing smoke to block out the coughing sniper's view. She jumped down from the branches just as her three teammates looked up and behind them at Nora coming down on them like a meteor, slamming her hammer into the ground and sending the enemies back at the feet of their disoriented teammate.
"This is it, guys! Let's finish 'em with team attacks!" Jaune shouted, raising his sword. "Ren! Nora! Flower Power!" He called out.
"Wait, what?" Nora asked.
"F-Flower Power." Jaune lowered his blade as he looked back at his befuddled team. His lost friends still shrugged "That's your team attack name!" He continued.
"Since when?" Ren asked.
"Are... Are they really doing this?" Bayonetta asked, struggling to believe what she was seeing... and to contain her laughter.
"Guys, we've been over this!" Jaune whined, gesturing at his teammates, not noticing the other team getting up, ready to fight again. "Flower Power is Ren and Nora! Ren brings a flower, Nora brings the power!" He explained.
"He can't be serious... THEY can't be serious..." Kratos said furiously, his eye twitching in rage.
"How do I bring a flower?" Ren asked, rubbing the back of his head with one of his guns.
"No, silly, not A flower! Flour, like in baking!" Nora explained.
"Why would I bring that?" Ren asked.
"I- Uh- No, it's your symbol!" Jaune corrected.
"Sooo, what are we?" Pyrrha asked.
"Pyrrha!" Jaune whined.
"Sorry! I just want to make sure it's clearly defined." She explained.
"Maybe they should've gone over this BEFORE THE FIGHT." Dante said, facepalming.
Jaune tried to remain patient while Team BRNZ looked even more confused than their opponents. "Pyrrha, you and I are Arkos. It's that thing when we take our shields? Remember?" He explained.
"Arkos?" She questioned.
"Yeah! It's our names put together!" Jaune explained.
"Right, no, I get it..." She said, although her tone said something different.
"What, do you not like it?" Jaune asked.
"I don't..." Kratos said angrily.
"No, no! It's... good?" Pyrrha said, unsurely.
"Mmm, I sense hesitation." Nora said
"Hey!" Brawnz finally called out to them. Team JNPR looked back with a collective "Huh?". "What do you think you're doing!?" He demanded.
"Trying to have a team meeting, thank you very little!" Jaune hissed back as if it's extremely obvious.
"Yeah! Team ears only!" Nora snapped, pointing to her own ears to demonstrate.
Brawnz looked at his shrugging teammates. "WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIGHT!" He yelled again.
Jaune turned back to him furiously "AND WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A CONVERSATION! WHAT DON'T YOU GET ABOUT THAT!?" He screamed back even louder than Brawnz.
"Um, Jaune?" Pyrrha interrupted.
"Yes, Pyrrha?" Jaune asked annoyed.
"I think that he means that we're all in the middle of a fight." Pyrrha reminded him, the sound of the crowds around them come back in full volume as Jaune remembered the real situation.
"I'm starting to question why he became the leader." Ryu said.
"I'm losing all faith I had in him." Kratos said.
"Ugh..." Jaune sighed, putting his sword up to his forehead in exasperation. "Nora, just... hit them with the hammer." He said.
"Got it." Nora said as she gave one more evil smirk.
"Wait, what?!" Brawn asked fearfully.
Before anyone could react, Nora jumped over in front of Team BRNZ, then brought her hammer around to collide with all four screaming fighters as they soared straight into the force-field surrounding the arena's rim, sliding down to the ground with arms and legs in bent positions they really shouldn't be.
"And with that, it appears Team JNPR wins by knockout, literally! ...Can someone go make sure they're okay?" Port asked.
"And bring a big spatula." Ryu said.
"And there's another win for Beacon." Dante said.
"Of course. Never doubt my sister." Kratos said.
"Or my dear childhood friends." Ryu added, looking at Ren and especially Nora.
"And the other one." Bayonetta said, looking at the still-slouching Jaune.
At the appropriately-named Crow Bar, a gray-haired figure in a tattered red cloak was sitting at the counter with a collection of empty glasses to his side. He took a swig from another drink as he looked up at the screen above, displaying an image of the victors with the caption "Team JNPR Defeats Team BRNZ!".
"Huh, those kids weren't half bad!" Bartender asked as he wiped the surface of a glass in his hands.
The familiar stranger merely let out a "Meh" as he raised the beverage back to his lips."
The scene flashed to a blue background with white particles gathering into the united tournament symbol of the four kingdoms as it revolved to the left of Oobleck, back in the announcer's box.
"Ah, well, Vacuo fans are sure to be hurting after that one, but this next one will have them on the edge of their seats!" Oobleck announced with an image of Team BRNZ at the moment they all felt the force of Nora's hammer.
Port displayed a picture of the four new challengers to his right. "Team NDGO of Shade is certainly a crowd favorite, but these lovely ladies are going against some of the toughest, testosterone-filled teammates we've seen so far! I'm of course talking about... Team SSSN!" He announced as the camera cut to the view of a few spectators in the stands holding up signs with each male's face decorated with hearts, the exception being a simple image of a certain set of abs. "Sun Wukong and his team are certainly a force to be reckoned with, and although he'll be representing the Mistral Academy of Haven, I'm sure his friends and family back in Vacuo will be cheering him along!" Port added as Team SSSN walked into the center of the field, waving to the cheering crowds as they do so.
"Hey, Weiss, it's your boyfriend." Dante said, nudging her with his elbow and pointing to Neptune.
"Oh, please. He wishes he was my boyfriend." Weiss said, holding Ruby's hand.
Neptune waved until he spotted his four beautiful opponents, which caused him to develop a confident attitude. "Ladies." He addressed them.
"What a fool." Weiss scoffed.
"Alright, girls, try and remember: hands above the waist." Neptune said as teams stood on opposite sides from one another
"Ignore him, for he... Yeah, he's dumb." Sun apologized, grasping Neptune's arm.
"Didn't really work for you, did it, Sun?" Dante asked.
Neptune simply gave a sparkling wink to the disgusted females as the holographic roulette showed up again, landing on a yellow image of sunny dunes and stone formations until the real thing emerged from below. A small circular light even appeared overhead, causing most of the crowd to don sunglasses.
"Alright! Home field advantage!" Nebula laughed as she looked back at their selection.
"Don't get too cocky! That's my turf, too!" Sun warned.
"I hope I don't get sand in my shoes." Scarlet said, looking down at his attire as the roulette began again on the other side.
Neptune leaned over to his teammate. "Be cool, man." He whispered.
"How did they even make it into combat school?" Kratos asked, shaking his head.
"Hey! The ocean!" Dew announced when the spinning images stopped on a blue symbol of tidal waves.
"Huh?" Neptune asked as he turned and saw the random pic for himself, eyes dilated at his goggles reflected the terrifying image, a slight whimper escaping him.
"Uhh, what's wrong with Neptune?" Ruby asked her friends and teammates.
"Oh, no." Blake said, her face in her hand, unable to look as the sandy beach and pirate shipwreck rose into the arena while Neptune stiffened up with fear. "Neptune's ... afraid of the water." She confides to a surprised Yang.
"You CAN'T be serious." Team SCRN said together.
"3, 2, 1, BEGIN!" Oobleck announced.
As soon as the word was said, Neptune zoomed through the enemy team and skidded up the mountain behind them. "SERIOUSLY?!" Bayonetta said in disbelief.
"Neptune, what are you doing?!" Sage demanded, calling out to his fleeing teammate.
"Uh, you know, just gaining the higher ground!" Neptune made an excuse, now standing on a ledge near the top of the formation, yelling down to his friends.
"On the enemy's side?!" Sun asked exasperatedly.
"They would never expect it!" Neptune said.
"He's not wrong." Dew said, turning to her allies.
"Open fire!" Nebula ordered.
Team NDGO went forward into their turf as Team SSSN followed them, Sage with his sword raised and Scarlet having ditched his coat. He came upon Octavia Ember emerging out from a nearby arch and tried to slice her with his cutlass. She ducked under the swing and continues sliding away, past the middle of Dew and Sage getting ready to rumble. Sage hefted his giant blade overhead, only to get knocked back by Dew's spear. He glanced up in time to see the blonde wave her weapon over the sand to create three small twisters that kicked up dust in Sage's face. He looked around as they surround him, but didn't realize the danger until they coalesced into one big tornado that picked him up off the ground. With his weapon torn out of his grip and screaming in panic, he was totally helpless as the winds threw him and his blade out of the arena.
"And NDGO gains the advantage!" Oobleck announced as Sage slammed the ground with fists upon seeing his image now crossed out on the holographic board.
"That didn't take long." Dante said.
Octavia slid in front of Sun and Scarlet, who readied themselves to fight her just as she spun her sword around and produced a wave of flame that kicked up dust in their faces. Sun managed to jump out of the cloud just in time to call for his replacement in fighting the redhead.
"Neptune!" Sun called.
Seeing his leader run from the duel, Neptune leapt down from his position and cocked his gun. Octavia attempted to use another fire attack to blind Neptune, but he simply put his goggles on and fired a bolt as his opponent, who blocked it with her blade right before Sun leapt out of nowhere and delivered a neck-snapping kick to her face. Now furious, Octavia brought her blade into Sun's Ruyi Bang and Jingu Bang in its staff form as he spun it all around his body while hitting several parts of hers. He ended it with a jab that knocked Octavia on her back in the sand.
"Oh! And we're down to 3-on-3!" Port announced.
"Much more respectable." Ryu said.
Sun looked at Neptune fighting with Gwen Darcy as she circled him with her flying knives and Scarlet attempting to go weapon-to-weapon with Dew. She merely called upon another sandy cyclone to lift Scarlet up, and he revolved around the spiral until it launched him over the shipwreck. It seems like he was about to be eliminated at well, but he extended his arms and managed to dive onto a part of the mast, almost losing his balance once the pole was under his feet. He eventually found his balance right when Nebula closed in and launched an arrow with her crossbow at the mast, using it to jump right up to where Scarlet was. She folded up the sides of her weapon into a blade to cross swords with her opponent, the both of them ducking and missing or getting hit by the hilts until Nebula slammed her metal over Scarlet's and forced him to lean back on the post. Luckily, he managed to get his sword back out from the trap and feigned a swing at Nebula's feet before knocking into her with his elbow, causing the NDGO leader to fall into the sand below.
"Scarlet and Sun may be their only competent teammates." Kratos said.
From his position, Scarlet saw Gwen continue to throw her knives, and he smirked before whipping out his pistol and shooting the hilt guard as a grappling hook to get her by the ankle.
"Gotcha!" Scarlet said.
He used the cord to lift Gwen into the air while he slowly came down to the ground, only to land directly beneath her as she attempted to protect her modesty while knives started raining down from her dress.
"And there goes a competent teammate." Dante said as Scarlet looked up in horror at the knives falling towards him.
Scarlet quickly adopted a pose that somehow allowed him to miss every single blade that came crashing down into the sand at his feet, which he gave a sigh of relief to.
"Lucky." Team SCRN said all at once.
His luck didn't hold when Dew leapt near Sun, causing the monkey Faunus to find his new improvised weapons in the form of two coconuts he knocked out the palm tree beside him, which he threw at his opponent only to get them knocked right back at him, now spontaneously catching fire as they traveled. Sun narrowly missed them both, but Scarlet got one straight to the face, and the other landed in a place that made him squeal in unimaginable pain while dropping his Aura levels into elimination.
"OHHH!" Dante, Ryu and Kratos exclaimed in horror and sympathy, crossing their legs.
"I don't even have balls and that hurt to watch." Bayonetta said with a wince.
"Nuts!" Sun sighed. He looked from Scarlet to Dew as she summoned a few water blue tornadoes that he tried to dodge around. "Uh, Neptune? Could use some help, buddy!" He called.
"Uh, you know, uh, it would probably be better if you came over here! Yeah, I can guard this... sector! We're in lockdown mode!" Neptune called back to his leader with his excuses.
"What are you talking about? There's nothing to lock down!" Sun asked as he look around infuriated as Nebula managed to shoot the cord holding Gwen up in the background.
"Lockdown! Right! You got it!" Neptune "confirmed".
"If any of you ever act like this in a fight, I WILL shoot you." Dante told his team.
"I'd shoot myself before I ever acted like that." Kratos said, Ryu and Bayonetta nodding in agreement.
Sun jumped out from Dew's attempt to pierce him with her spear. "Dude, I know you're afraid of water, but you gotta- Help!" He called to Neptune. He stopped yelling when a blue shot knocked an attacking Dew out of midair and into the water.
"There! I helped! Are you happy now!?" Neptune demanded, pausing for a moment. "Also, I am not afraid of water, and I have no idea what you are talking about!" He called back.
Dew managed to get back up as Nebula and Gwen joined their comrade, lifting their weapons and ready to fight once more.
"NEPTUNE!" Sun shouted.
"Okay, fine! Just get out of the water!" Neptune shouted back.
Neptune jumped over to a spot near the coastal line next to Sun, and he unfolded his weapon into its trident form before tip-toeing forwards and, eyes closed, plunged the sparking prongs into the water. The energy surged through the deep until the remaining members of NDGO were electrocuted and knelt in the water, smoking and defeated with the sound of the buzzer.
"And with that, Team SSSN moves on to the doubles round!" Port announced while Sun and Neptune chest bumped each other in celebration. "You know what I call that victory?" He asked Oobleck as if he was setting up a joke.
"Shocking?" Oobleck guessed.
"No, well earned. What you said is stupid." Port said as Oobleck turned away, frowning.
"Well earned my ass. They got lucky." Kratos said.
"Yeah, Neptune nearly cost them the fight, even if he did win it in the end." Dante said.
"Poor Oobleck. I liked his joke. Certainly better than most of Yang's." Bayonetta teased.
"Hey!" Yang snapped, lightly punching Bayonetta in the arm
"Now that was a match!" The Bartender whistled at the screen, back in his establishment with its one customer.
"Heh, that was a mess!" The man said with a light slur in his words.
"Come on man, you didn't like them, the Vale kids, or any of the rounds before that? What fight are you here for?" The Bartender asked.
"Hey, come on, I liked the one where the girl turned into bats." The man said, before he saw an aircraft with elegant ribbons flying from its wings behind him. "That one." He said as he finished his drink as the world swayed with the happily inebriated Huntsman until he slammed the glass down on the counter and tossed a few Lien alongside it. "Happy Vytal Festival!" He said.
The Bartender watched as his sole patron staggered away and put down the glass he just finished cleaning, only to knock it down and shatter it when he reached for another one "Aw, gee darn it!" He whined.
Ruby leaned back in her seat and sighed. "Aw, that was so close!" She said.
"Looks like the dorks made it to the next round!" Yang said.
"Stranger things have happened." Ryu said.
Blake looked down in the arena where Sun and Neptune were dancing like fools before the fellow Faunus gave her a special double-gun gesture with a wink. "Emphasis on 'dork'." Blake said, rolling her eyes.
"That concludes the matches for today. Please leave the Coliseum IN A CALM AND ORDERLY FASHION!" Oobleck said over the sound system, suddenly screaming at the end for whatever reason.
"That man needs a volume control option." Kratos said.
"Come on, let's go congratulate 'em." Yang said after they all stops flinching from the unexpected volume change.
The two teams got up from their seats and started to head out just as the same ribbon-adorned craft passed over the Colosseum, causing Weiss and Dante to stop in their tracks, causing Ruby to bounce off of Weiss as Bayonetta stopped and looked at Dante. "Uh, what are you viewing?" Ruby asked.
"Dante? Something wrong, baby?" She asked.
"She's here!" Weiss said with a strain in her voice as the Schnee heiress' face displayed a mix of joy and anxiety.
"Wait, what? Who?" Bayonetta asked, looking between the siblings.
"Our sister. Winter is coming." Dante said dramatically as the screen cut to black.
A/N: That's another chapter done. I know what you're thinking: Why didn't I have Team SCRN react to Team RWBY's fight, that would've given me a reason to keep it in. I didn't think about it at first, but thinking afterwards, I wouldn't have had much commentary besides generic cheers for the fight, anyway. Also, I forgot to mention this at the end of the last chapter, but for those of you curious about the swamp stage Team SCRN fought Team DMCS in, there were two more stages Monty originally planned for the stadium that, for whatever reason, were never shown: a swamp stage and a zero-gravity stage. So... there. Hope that clears that up.
