AN: So someone pointed out that even though I had labeled it officially labeled as Chapter 69, the site labeled it as Chapter 69.
Fitting considering how that chapter started.
Yes, I'm immature.
Also, I will admit that it took me way longer than it should have to realize that Neon Katt was based off of Nyan Cat.
Chapter 69
"And victory goes to Penny and Ciel of Atlas!" Doctor Oobleck announced over the loudspeaker. Ruby cheered loudly for her friend.
Penny could have handled it by herself. In fact, she pretty much did, as her teammate just kinda stood there. Penny placed a fist against her palm and bowed politely to the team she had just defeated.
"Thank you for a wonderful time," she said, before the two of them left the arena. Ruby quickly ran out of her seat to meet them.
"Penny!" Ruby greeted happily, opening her arms wide for a hug.
"Ruby!" Penny says just as happily, tackling Ruby to the ground.
"Why…" Ruby groaned. The two girls got up, Penny gesturing towards the other girl.
"Ruby, this is my teammate," Penny said.
"Ciel Soleil," the girl said, bowing. She had dark skin and black hair, and was wearing a white blouse tucked into a blue skirt, and a blue beret, and a jewel embedded in her forehead.
"Hi!" Ruby greeted. "I'm Ru—"
"Ruby Rose," Ciel interrupted. "15. Hails from Patch. Leader of Team RWBY. Status: Questionable." Ruby blinked owlishly for a few seconds.
"Sooo… Penny!" she said. "You two were incredible out there. How do you keep control of all those swords? It's so cool!"
"Penny?" Ciel said, gesturing to her watch. "I believe it's best if we move on to our next location."
"Could we have just a minute to talk?" Penny asked. Ciel looked at her watch, nodded, and then took a step back. Ruby tilted her head in confusion at the strange girl.
"So is she… your friend or…" Ruby asked.
"Well, in a way," Penny answered. "She's like Blake, but if Blake was ordered to spend time with you."
"Oh. So, Weiss."
"Precisely."
"Does she know about… y'know… beep boop bop, does not compute?" Ruby asked, lowering her voice. Penny shook her head.
"Oh no. General Ironwood doesn't really want anyone to know," Penny said. "There was an incident with a magnet, but I was able to play it off." The girls chuckled for a second before Penny suddenly got serious. "Ruby, there's something I've been wanting to talk to you about." She glanced nervously at Ciel before leaning closer to Ruby. "I want to stay at Beacon."
"Penny, they'll never let you do that," Ruby said.
"I know, but I have a plan," Penny said with a mischievous grin.
"It's been precisely one minute, ma'am," Ciel said, stepping forward to interrupt their conversation.
"I'll talk to you more soon, Ruby," Penny said, walking away with Ciel. Ruby looked around the stands, her eyes lingering on Cinder, sitting nearby with her team. Cinder noticed her a few seconds later, sending her a small wave with a smile. Ruby returned the wave, blushing a little bit.
She sighed. She couldn't really hide from this anymore, could she?
She'd have to talk to Yang about this later.
"Our next match will begin in 15 minutes!" Professor Port announced.
"Oh my gosh, that's right!" Ruby said happily. "It's time for—!"
"Well, now it's our turn!" Yang said excitedly, doing some stretches, Weiss standing next to her.
"Just remember to keep proper form," Weiss said.
"Alright," Yang said with a chuckle. "You're from Atlas. What should we expect?"
"Well, seeing as their Kingdom, Academy, and armed forces are all merged as one, I think we can expect strict, militant fighters with advanced technology and carefully rehearsed strategies."
Suddenly, a literal rainbow blew past the duo, coming to a stop in front of them. Their opponents both looked like they really should have been at a concert, rather than a fight. The girl had her hair done in multicolored pigtails, with a ginger cat tail swishing behind her. She wore a pink skirt and a blue cropped tank top, and for some reason was wearing a pair of roller skates on her feet. The boy had dark skin, and was wearing a pinstripe suit with the bowtie undone, complete with a fedora and sunglasses, and for some reason he was carrying a trumpet into battle.
The RWBY members' jaws fell open.
"…Or whatever they are," Weiss said.
"Hey!" the boy shouted to them. "You're Weiss Schnee, right? The heiress."
"I am," she said with a polite bow.
"I take it you're pretty good with Dust, then?"
"I do my best."
"Yeah, my dad was good, too. Owned a little Dust shop of his own. Till your father's company ran him out of business."
"Oh," Weiss said, looking ashamed. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"Sure you are," he said with a scoff.
"Hey!" Yang said, coming to her teammate's defense. "Why don't you—"
"Hey! Why don't' you?" the Faunus girl said in a mocking tone. "That's what you sound like!"
"…What?" Yang asked, tilting her head in confusion.
"Hey! Where'd you get your hair extensions?" the girl asked.
"This is just my normal hair," Yang said.
"Ooh, really?"
"Are you 12?"
"You should try rollerblading sometime!" the girl said, spinning in place on her skates. "It's super fun! It'd probably take you a while, though, since you're so… you know, top-heavy."
Yang looked down at herself, then back up at the girl with a smirk.
"Don't be jealous," she said. "It's not my fault you're flatter than my kid sister."
"Yang!" a voice yelled angrily from the stands.
"If you're trying to throw me off my game with taunts, it's not gonna work," Yang said. "Trust me, when you're trained by someone like my uncle, you become immune to them. So, too bad for you, you're gonna have to actually try."
"Yang and Weiss from Beacon versus Neon and Flynt from Atlas!" Port announced. "3, 2, 1, begin!"
"Ouch, that had to hurt," a man in a hooded black coat said, watching the fight from a perch on top of the arena, one leg dangling off the edge, while his head rested against the knee of the other leg. He had just watched Weiss grab hold of one of her opponents and jump into a pool of magma as it erupted, taking herself out of the fight, but failing to take her opponent with her.
"I gotta say, though, Goldilocks is doing better than I thought she would." He watched as Yang powered through a powerful blast of air from Flynt's trumpet, clapping her hands over the mouth of the instrument, making it explode in his hands from backfiring. The other fighter, the annoying Faunus girl, pretty much took herself out by catching her roller blade on a rock, getting herself caught in a geyser. A blast from Yang's gauntlets finished her off. The man clapped along with the crowd at Team RWBY's victory before standing up and looking down at a certain black-haired woman.
"It's coming soon," he said. "I wonder if they can handle it."
"Weiss!" Yang yelled, rushing to help her downed teammate. She kneeled down and cradled Weiss's head in her arms. "Weiss! Are you okay?" Weiss coughed a few times, puffs of smoke exiting her lungs.
"I may not be singing for a while," Weiss said weakly.
"You know, I'm not sure that was proper form," Yang said with a smirk now that she knew Weiss wasn't in danger.
"Oh, ha, ha," Weiss said before coughing again.
"WHAT?!" Neon yelled, the color seemingly draining from her body. "We lost? Team FNKI lost? That was… that was… amazing!" she suddenly yelled, her color returning. "Oh my gosh, you guys were super crazy awesome! We should definitely party together sometime, right Flynt?"
"That was a pretty gutsy move, Schnee," Flynt said. "I dig it."
The rest of Team RWBY approached, and Yang smiled at them, before she noticed the angry look Ruby had on her face. Her sister used her Semblance to dash into her, smacking her in the head repeatedly.
"Yang, you big, stupid jerk!" Ruby yelled.
"What?" Yang yelled between pummelings. "What did I do?"
"'You're flatter than my sister'? Seriously Yang? You know I'm still growing!"
"Hey, you're still bigger than her!" she said, before getting smacked again. "Ow! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Knock it off!"
Cinder sat down on her bed, looking through the files she had accessed from Ironwood's scroll. Emerald was laying on the floor playing with hers, and Mercury was doing push-ups. A certain file caught her eye.
"Oh?" she said in intrigue.
"What is it?" Emerald asked. Cinder opened up the file, revealing blueprints labeled P.E.N.N.Y. The blueprints were for, of all things, a mechanical girl. And she recognized the girl depicted. She was a finalist in the Vytal Festival Tournament, representing Atlas Academy. Which begged the question: Why was she here? Was Ironwood using the Tournament to test out his new weapon?
Whatever it was, Cinder was certain Ironwood wasn't going to be happy with the results of this particular experiment.
"We're going to be making a slight alteration to the plan," Cinder informed her protégé and the mercenary.
"What does that mean?" Mercury asked.
"It means that Ironwood just handed us the keys to our success."
Qrow stepped into Ozpin's office, a cup of coffee in his hand. Oz was sitting in his chair, his back turned to Qrow as he looked out the window at the airships.
"You know, he's making you look like a fool," Qrow said, referring to Jimmy.
"His heart is in the right place," Oz said. "He's just… misguided."
"That's one word for it," Qrow said. "So, have you chosen your guardian yet?"
"Maidens choose themselves," Oz said, swiveling his chair around to face him. "I simply believe I've found the right candidate. Ever since the day I met her, I had the feeling she would be the one. She's strong, intelligent, caring… but most importantly, she's ready." The elevator dinged as Oz finished, allowing a girl with long red hair and bronze armor to step into the room.
"Hey Yang, can I talk to you for a second?" Ruby asked, pulling her sister out of the dorm and into the hallway.
"Sure," Yang said. "What's up?" Ruby took a deep breath.
"I think I like Cinder," Ruby blurted out.
"Yeah, I know," Yang said.
"What?!"
"You really think I wouldn't notice my baby sister's first crush?" Yang asked, ruffling Ruby's hair playfully.
"Stop," Ruby whined. "I don't know if I'd call it a 'crush', exactly," she mumbled.
"Hm? So, this is serious, then?" Ruby nodded wordlessly. "Alright, let's go talk about this."
The crowd parted way to make room for an absolute giant of a man, nervous whispers following him wherever he went.
He wore a brown vest, with green cargo pants and black combat boots. He had dark skin, cropped black hair, and stubble. A pair of sunglasses covered up scratch marks over his right eye.
The most eye-catching thing about him, though, and likely the reason people were so wary of him, was the fact that instead of a right hand, he had a gatling gun attached to the end of his arm. He stopped moving through the crowd and looked up at Beacon Tower.
"Now," he said, taking off his sunglasses. "Where are you, Marlene?"
AN: You know, we never actually learned in canon what Penny's plan to stay in Beacon was.
I'm not sure if people noticed, but I've actually been writing Yang as being a little more level-headed than she was at this point in canon. The only times she's ever really lost her temper was when Ruby or Aqua were in trouble. So, Neon's taunts didn't work this time.
So, we're not going to get straight into the finals next chapter, and instead it's going to be more of a character-development chapter.
As always, thank you very much for reading, and I'll see you all next time!