It's OK, Omega is here. I'm back with the third volume of A Game Worth Dying For! I'm really sorry about my extended hiatus. My school year was just ending, so I didn't have a lot of time to work on my writing. I sincerly hope that the wait was worth it.
Oh, and in regards to the RWBY volume 4 soundtrack. . .THE SHIP HAS SAILED! BUMBLEBEE IS CONFIRMED! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Anyway, I hope you enjoy!
The time to act draws ever closer.
Don't start with that medievil cloak-and-dagger bullshit with me, Cy.
Fine, buzzkill.
Please, you enjoy the banter. We're a cromazone from the same person after all.
Fair point, my scaly companion, fair point.
I was currently eating lunch with my team on the day before the tournament. Exchanging banter with my team, while conversing with my familiar telepathically. I was also, much to the confusion of everyone in the cafeteria, in my female form. Felt good to be a girl every once in a while.
My team and I were prepped mentally and physically. I had already gone over practically all the different scenarios for the upcoming battles, not the tournament ones, but more of the ones that came afterwards. A giant shit storm was coming and we all needed to be prepared.
I was broken from my musings by Team RWBY, or at least, part of Team RWBY. Ruby had gone back to Patch to visit her mother's grave before the first match tomorrow. I was very pleased with the team of teenagers, their demon training had gone over very well, and I was excited to see how they used it in the tournament.
Blake's desicion to leave off her bow was rather well recieved. No one said anything and the one's who probably had a problem with it were convinced to keep quiet. Although, a lot of people were curious about her extra features, which was understandable, it was an odd thing even among Faunus.
Cresent Rose/Thayna were also pretty well recieved. There had been a lot of head-turning when two Ruby's walked into the same room. The sentient weapon got along with pretty much everyone. Cresent Rose was a bit more outgoing and confident than her creator was. Thayna, on the other hand, tended to stick to someone like a shadow, never leaving them.
As for Weiss and Yang, their changes weren't brought up very much. Weiss got some compliments for her slight change in hair color, but no one's noticed the change in Yang as of yet.
"'Sup Cy!" Yang greets enthusiastically. The black and white members of the team also gave their greetings. Followed by my team doing the same. "Why are you a chick at the moment?"
"Eh, felt like it," I tell her with my higher than usual voice. "Velvet's swinging around soon and she gets possessive of me when I look like this. I find it incredibly adorable."
Yang snickers at my reasoning, while the two level-headed members rolled their eyes. We ate in silence for a little bit, until I spoke up.
"So, you girls ready for the tournament?"
"Hell yeah!" Yang exclaims, while fist-pumping. "We're gonna own this thing!"
"While I am confident in our skills, do you forget we'll be fighting against Cyan and supposedly someone just like him?" Weiss asks incredulously, thoroughly deflating the boisterous blonde.
"Didja have to bring that up?" Yang questions with a touch of melancholy.
"There, there," Blake says in monotone, while patting her girlfriend on the back.
"If it makes you feel better, you have a practically gurrenteed third place win!" I say with a grin.
"Practically?" Blake narrowes her eyes slightly. Her tail also started waving around behind her.
"Between you and JNPR," I answer honestly. Blake gave me the point and stopped her glaring. At that time, I heard a squeel.
"Cyan!" I felt someone latch on to me at high speeds not long after hearing that. I looked down and saw Velvet with her arms wrapped around my waist. I already knew it'd be her for a couple reasons. One, she would be the only to have done something like this. Two, I recognized her voice. Three, she was using the female pronunciation of my name, which sounded like 'She-an'.
It's not meant to be a pun. Just a nod to the only other anime I've heard that name in.
"Hey Velvs," I greet with a grin and kiss her between her rabbit ears. Velvet giggled and sat up next to me, while still keeping one of her arms around my waist.
"Hey Cy, can I ask you a question?" Yang asks.
"Go for it," I tell her in response.
"When you're in that form does that happen to you?" Yang asks with a grin.
"U-um, w-well. . ," Yang burst out laughing at my stuttering as well as the blush that I was sure was on my face. "Let's just say that I learned not to stay in this form for a long amount of time."
Alice, Raina, and Dante were also snickering beside me. A playful glare from me stopped that though. Yang was engaging in an all out howl of laughter, meanwhile Blake and Weiss were facepalming at the same time.
"So, when's Ruby getting back?" I ask the other team, trying to get past the embarrassment.
"Should be in about an hour or two," Yang answers. "She always visits home around this time of year. You should have seen his face, when Ruby introduced him to Thayna and Cresent Rose!"
"Well, I'll say this," my face splits into an ear-to-ear grin. "This is going to be fun!"
The next day, I was with my team in the stands of the Amity Coliseum watching the match between Team RWBY and Team ABRN. While Oobleck and Port were explaining the rules of the tournament, I was watching with a wide grin at the fight below.
Each team member was seperated into four different fights. Ruby and Boline. Weiss and Nadir. Blake and Reese. Yang and Arslan. Usually, their would have been a lot more team-ups to help each other for the Mistrali team, but RWBY wasn't letting it happen.
Even though they were all seperate, they were complelty in sync. Managing to keep all the members of the opposing team seperate from each other, so that they couldn't bail each other out. A brilliant strategy that I admit I influenced.
Reese was being nearly overrun by Blake's shadow clones. The cat faunus wasn't letting up in the slightest, becoming a practical whirlwind of blades and attacks. They continued that litttle song and dance for a while, until Blake set up her finisher. Managing to seperate Reese from her weapon, Blake summoned five clones and had them surround the green-haired girl. They instantly started throwing out hits while shouting out the attack name.
"BE! LA! DO! NA!" The fifth clone acted as a spring board, sending the real Blake high into the air. As Reese looked in slight shock, trying to process the beatdown she had just been served, Blake gave a cat-like grin and winked. "BLAKE BARRAGE!"
The skate boarder hit the ground and cracked the icy floor with the force of her impact. Up in the commentators booth, Port was already speaking about it.
"Ooh, Reese Chloris has been knocked out due to aura level!" Port announced. "She may also be literally knocked out."
"OH, she really should've worn a helmet!" Oobleck comments.
On the other side of the field was Arslan and Yang's fight. Powerhouse versus power house was always a entertaining match-up. Although, Yang's Kokyushin Karate training, plus her new found serenity and control while fighting was making a rather difficult match for the lion-themed huntress-in-training.
Arslan was still keeping Yang on her toes with that rope dart of hers. She was proficient enough with it that she could redirect Yang's blows ever so slightly, making it far easier to dodge. That meant shit though, when Yang deactivated her gauntlets.
"Kokyushin Karate," Yang spoke with an icy calm that seemed to slightly unnerve Arslan. Probably since she had been dealing with the happy-go-punchy version of Yang until that point. With less than a foot between them, the blonde berserker struck. "Fist of the Black Turtle."
Arslan's body seemed to fold around Yang's fist. The air was probably ripped from her lungs and I could see her shocked expression bordering on pain. The next moment Arslan was sent flying through the air, all the way to the barrier seperating the battlefield and the stands, where she hit with a crash.
"Heh heh heh," I snicker lightly at the sound she made, while Oobleck and Port announced her elimination. "It's the small stuff that satisfies my sadistic tendencies."
"I'm glad," Dante rumbled from my left. "If they didn't all the people you fought would be in pieces."
"Oh, I'd do much more than split them into pieces," I nearly go into a insane cackle, before I remember I was in public. I settled on a dark chuckle at the slightly disturbed face of my sharky teammate.
Back to the match, Ruby was laying into Boline with Cresent Rose. Never letting up for a second. The staff weilder smirked when his teammate managed to fire some rounds off in Ruby's direction, but that smirk turned to shock, as Ruby dodged all the bullets. Without looking or seeming to notice any of them.
This was due to an interesting ability I found out while training Ruby. Apparently, Cresent Rose gets a practical 360 degree view of her surroundings even in weapon form. On top of that, Thayna can telepathically speak to Ruby whenever she wants. Combine these and you get, what is essentially, a Ruby-specific Byakugan.
Nearby, Weiss was giving Nadir absolute hell! Well, in the sense of hell freezing over. Both combatants were in the ice half of the arena, which unknown to the Haven student, was a very bad place to be. Weiss' cryokinesis has been shown to control not only the ice she produces, but also all existing ice as well. She wasn't broadcasting it, but she was using it to mess with Nadir. Mainly through tripping him and making her ice attacks from Myrtenaster reach farther.
Both girls finished off their fights at the same time. Ruby with a sniper-boosted swing from Cresent Rose sending Bolin flying, and Weiss using her glyphs to throw an giant, icy fist at Nadir.
"And that's the match!" Port announced to the crowd. "Team RWBY is victorious!"
I could see Team RWBY cheering from where I was sitting and grinned. Standing from my seat, I look at my teammates.
"Come on," I tell them. "Let's go meet them in the courtyard for something to eat."
"YAY! FOOD!" Both Alice and Raina cheered happily, while Dante just nodded.
We exited the arena pretty quickly and made our way to the fairgrounds where all the food was. It didn't take long to find Team RWBY, especially with the incredibly loud growling that Blake's stomach was making.
"Jeez, Blake," I commented as my team and I walked up to the girls. "You just not eat your last couple meals."
A playful middle finger in my direction was my answer, causing Alice and Yang to snicker.
"Gee, if only there were somewhere on campus to get food around here," Weiss states, before deadpanning at the fairgrounds. "Oh, wait."
"It's okay, Weiss," Ruby tells her girlfriend, while putting a hand on her shoulder. "I forget about the fairgrounds too."
"I was being facetious," Weiss deadpans.
"Well, if you were hungry, why didn't you just say so!?" Ruby exclaims, while throwing her arms into the air.
"You're lucky you're cute," Weiss shakes her head slightly. Then blushes as Ruby kisses her. "Ruby!"
The red reaper just grins in response. Weiss just shakes her head at her girlfriend, then Yang starts to speak.
"C'mon, I know just the place," Yang waves her hand in a symbol to follow her.
At that moment, two things happened. One was that Weiss' phone started ringing with the called ID of 'Father', which Weiss immediatly hung up on. And Emerald Strusai was about to grab Ruby's wallet from her combat skirt. As soon as she did though, Alice managed to steal everything on her plus the wallet. She did this using my 'BOOST' skill, along with my Psionic abilities. I'm pretty sure that most people forget that we have the exact same skills, we just use different ones most of the time.
"Ooh Weiss, please tell me you took my recommendation seriously!?" I was slightly giddy at the thought.
"What recomendation?" Ruby asked with a confused expression. Weiss didn't say anything and instead played her voicemail message.
'This is Weiss Schnee, please leave a message. Unless you're my father, in which case, you can kindly FUCK OFF!'
Yang burst out laughing at the message, while Blake had a very large smirk on her face. Ruby looked proud of her girlfriend and was hugging her with all her might.
"Oh, I am such a bad influence on you all," I tell them through my own laughter. I then looked towards Emerald who was right behind us. "FYI, if you wanted to talk you could have just asked. No need to try, and fail, to pickpocket my friend."
"Here's your wallet, Ruby," Alice gave her back the red leather wallet, while Emerald was looking shocked and just the tiniest bit pissed. Alice then reached into her inventory and brought out all the things she had taken from Emerald, which included her weapons, some ammo, her own wallet, and. . .a pair of green lace panties. "Here are your things."
Did you just-?
Pull a Akatsuki Osawa? Yes, yes I did.
"I-how!? Wha-!?" Emerald decided to just give up and take away all her things with a blush on her face. Emerald then retreated with Mercury following behind her.
"So, those are the fire bitch's minions?" Yang asks in a quiet voice. I had let them watch the second volume of the show so they knew about Cinder and her cronies.
"Yeah, that's them," I confirm, before I adopt a thoughtful pose. "Hopefully, I'll get to turn them to our side before this is all over."
"Why would you want to do that?" Weiss questions.
"Why have enemies when you can have friends," I shrug in reply. "Plus, if I'm right Cinder has been manipulating them a lot. I'm at least giving them a second chance."
"And if they waste it?" Blake asks me, seeming to already know the answer.
"Then, they get no mercy from me," I confirm with a dangerous tone in my voice. Noting the somber mood that has taken over our surroundings, I smile brightly. "Now come on, if we wait any longer Alice will probably eat one of us."
"I'd pick Dante, he has the most meat," Alice answers with a nonchalant tone. Even I stared at her with a slightly distrubed look. Dante stepped far away from the dragon girl. "What?"
"Let's. . .let's just get something to eat," I mutter with my palm dug into my forehead.
We made our way to the noodle stand run by the old man, who seems to be everywhere! Alice and I have been trying to see if he has a duplication semblance for weeks. Anyway, each member of Team RWBY gave their orders, including Blake who looked like she was about to screw her lunch.
"Got anything with cheese?" Seconds later, I got a bowl full of noodles with delicious-looking, gooey cheese on top of them. I immediatly start drooling. "Awesome!"
"I'll take a large order of the usual," Alice requested with a grin.
"Same!" Raina cheerfully replied. Both of the girls got their meals not long after.
"And I'll have what she's having," Dante pointed towards Blake, who's tail was almost waving fast enough for her to achieve lift off.
Weiss was about to pull out her card, but I stopped her.
"Let me get it, Weiss," I tell her, taking out the required Lien from my inventory. "Your father just declined your card anyway."
"Of course, he did," Weiss cursed softly.
"It'll be alright, Weiss," Ruby comforts her girlfriend.
"As long as you're here, I know it will be," the heiress smiles brightly.
"Awww," Yang, Alice, Raina, and I all cooed.
"SHUT IT!" Weiss shouted at as, albeit playfully.
"Hey guys," we turned our attention over to Jaune and Team JNPR as they approached the noodle stand. "Mind if we join you?"
"The more the merrier," I say with a grin. The others all agreed as well.
About ten or so minutes later, we had all finished our respective bowls. We all had rather satisified expressions on afterwards with the exceptions of Weiss, Jaune, and Ren.
"How can you all eat so much?" Weiss moans, while looking at everyone else, more specifically Alice and Raina.
"We burn a lot of calories," Alice answers.
"Funny thing is, The Game completly negates the need for food and water to survive," I mention to the group.
"Seriously!?" Yang exclaims.
"Yeah, Alice is just influenced by her dragon instincts to eat a lot," I answer. My familiar eats her body weight in food every day, and that's her body weight in dragon form.
"So, you think you guys are ready?" Ruby asks, directing the question at both JNPR and my team.
"Of course!" Nora exclaims. "We've got a world-renowned fighter on our team, what's basically a ninja, I can bench five of me and can fly-"
Huh, I completly forgot we gave her that helmet.
Same here.
"And our fearless leader is a knight in literal shining armor! We've trained all year, our weapons are awesome, Glynda barely yells at us anymore, and Jaune's been coming up with tons of strategies for us to use in the tournament!" Jaune looks very proud at his teammates words, while I was withholding laughter at the thought of what was coming next. "The worst that can happen is we lose! Then it's just a few more years of walking around school with everyone knowing were failures. Our friends will slowly abandon us to perserve their social status, we won't be able to show our faces in class, no one will sit with us in the cafeteria, Ren and I have no parents, we have no home left to go to. We'll be officially renamed Team LOSE-iper! Ah ha ha ha ha!"
I was honestly curious as to how she managed to slowly turn grey during her rant. While Raina was looking slightly embarassed.
"Is that what I look like?"
"No," I tell her, much to her relief, until I finished my sentence. "You're usually a lot more quiet, like Thayna is. . .Wait a minute, where is Thayna?"
"She and Cresent are trying to bankrupt the prize booths," Ruby answers nonchalantly.
She's a Sniper Rifle turned human. . .those poor, poor prize booth attendants.
"Don't fret," Pyrrha tried to boost her teammates spirit. "If anything, we should be looking forward to a fight with actual guidelines, and not, well, . . .murderers."
She's says that and yet, how often did Team JNPR actually interact with the stuff RWBY did?
Literally never before now.
Maybe it was something off camera?
Who knows?
"Yeah, don't sweat it," Yang tells them. "We've all faced worse before."
"Let's see," Blake starts counting off her fingers. "Grimmm invasions, violent extremists, a destructive sociopath. . ."
"And let's not forget the incarnation of nightmares everywhere," I start counting off my own fingers. "A evil version of Santa Claus, The Kraken, The King of Minotaurs, The King of Heroes, what was essentially a god, and more giant monsters than I can count."
"And that's all while we were still in training!" Ruby squeels. "Oh, imagine what it would be like to graduate!"
"Especially if we keep hanging around Cyan," Weiss smirks, to which I chuckle.
At that point, the voices of Port and Oobleck rang out, asking JNPR to come to the arena.
"Well," Pyrrha starts. "it looks like this is it."
"Go get 'em!" Ruby cheers them on.
While JNPR was heading towards the arena, RWBY and CARD were heading for the stands. Thayna/Cresent Rose told met up with us with her arms full of various prizes. She waved us on and said to go without her while she put all her new things in their dorm room.
"So, are you guys ready?" Yang asks while we walked.
"Of course," I confirm with a grin. "We're prepared in every way, shape, and form."
"Except when it comes to the second gamer," Alice interjects. "Who we have no knowledge of what-so-fucking-ever."
"Well. . .other than that, we are prepared," I tell them.
"You're going to need when you go up against us in the tournament!" Yang boasts with a grin. "So, don't hold back!"
"Wouldn't dream of it, Yang," I say back with my own large grin. "Now then, let's go enjoy the show."
Eesh, this was somewhat short compared to my last couple chapters. Well, hopefully you've recognized my pattern at this point and know that my word count will pick up soon and fast. Hope you enjoyed and see you next time, OK it out!