From Ashes to Dust

by joecola00

Remnant is a world housed by the remains of a people constantly warring with soulless monsters that would see them extinct. Yet they aren't the only remnants on their planet. Remnant is far older than any of its denizens could imagine, older than even their Brother Gods. One of these relics of their past is not as dead as the rest, and its awakening will bring fate to its knees...

29. Seriously, Caster Ganks are OP

Ch 28 - Seriously, Caster Ganks are OP

A/N: I know this is technically still Thursday, but I have a busy Friday (and a final) this week, and it's only early by 3 hours (9pm). If anyone wants to wish me luck, I'd appreciate it.

IDK, I've been wanting to do Nora, because I haven't got her, and I want to do more of both her and Ren, but now that the time is upon me, I'm scared I'll screw it up. I guess I'll just cross my fingers and hope for the best.

I just realized, Emerald is at fault for both of Penny's deaths in canon. The first time was direct, with her semblance and Pyrrha, but the second was also in Amity. Penny beat Cinder, and was ready to kill her, but Emerald forced her to let them go. Cinder only survived and went on to kill Penny because of Emerald. Salem got both the staff and the lamp, the last question of the lamp was wasted, and Vine died, because of Emerald. I wonder if Pietro and Maria are gonna bring that point up if they survive and manage to get to Vacuo.

Btw, I might not give a shoutout to another story every week, but this week I'd like to point out that The Men From Onyx by kmph2001 is a FANTASTIC Halo and RWBY crossover. If you're into that, go check it out.

And while I'm at it, another story in the Halo/RWBY department that's an EXCELLENT read is Dust and Echoes by trestwho.

I'm kinda upset no one commented on the scene with the Pyrrha fans. I put a lot of work into that particular bit.

In sequel related news, chapter 3, which begins an entirely origional plot, has been finished, and chapter 4 (which roughly follows a canon plot, albeit with some major changes) is also done. And oh boy, chapter's 4 and 5 are a doozy! I don't wanna give any spoilers, but all the same, I'll just toss out that those chapters in the sequel will have the Ringed Knight straight sword be making its debut in the current age, and will also be introducing Raven Branwen to this saga.

Review Response:

Skeletalrepublic: that was kick-ass curb stomping. Also it's great to see Vyliria watching out for them given that their naivety would cost them a lot.

curious, now that they're aware of the fact that Emerald and Mercury were gathering info on them, I wonder what decision they'll make for the tournament.

Most Likely they'll change the order of who goes out, but maybe they could play along and devastate them with spells and pyromancy they haven't shown yet.

I wonder if Penny will get access to Magic though, she's probably gonna be more busted. Speaking of which, I wonder what she was doing the entire time as well?

I have to say man, this is probably the best story I've read so far in this website. It's consistent, it has an interesting premise, character interaction is plentiful and great to read, characters are also well written. You have done a tremendous job with this story and I hope that even when this ends, this inspires others to make their own as well.

Maybe this could even inspire them to outline their stories first before publishing too.

My response: Yeah, Vyliria does that. Problem is, this is a case where I wanted to show her paranoia making things worse. Basically, she's convinced that the depth of their nefarious plans is to just be underhanded at the tournament at the moment. She doesn't particularly have any reason to investigate Cinder further, nor to retain any real suspicion around them besides watching her pockets (which she doesn't have any, unless you count her pocket-dimension which only she can access). And as outlined in the chapter, while they might not be feeding any more accurate info to the bad guys, it's blatantly obvious JNAPR would send Pyrrha further on, and definitely to the singles, and with Yang moving to the doubles, its a reasonable assumption that she'd go to the singles as well. They're currently staying the course, and only watching for a pickpocket, not terrorists.

In this timeline, Penny's team match has already occurred offscreen, though Vyliria was in the stands cheering her on with the rest of them. As for Penny and spellcraft... spoliers... I have a very smug grin right now, in case you can't tell.

The praise is very nice, so thank you very much. All the compliments were goals I had set out to reach for this, and I'm happy to have reached said goals. But on the subject of an outline... I did NOT really have an outline for this as I did it. The closest I got to an outline was creating a doc for the next chapter and then writing "X-POV, these major things happen at this point." By my estimate, 90% of the dialogue and story was crafted by the seat of my pants, and the same applies to the prologue and first 2 and a half chapters of the sequel that I've gotten done so far. On the other hand, I also have docs specifically for plot ideas and scenes I write out in advance, that are dozens of pages long, and those absolutely helped.

What I DID do was tell myself that I wouldn't publish anything from this story until I actually finished it. I started on the prologue in late September of 2020, and only finished in late January of 2021. I spent roughly a week heavily revising the first 15 or so chapters before I started posting, and running edits to the rest as the story actually started going up, sometimes in response to ideas that came into my head, sometimes because I thought up better ways to make a part flow, and sometimes in response to reader feedback. In the origional drafts, Vyliria was way less paranoid, to the point where she was out of character, and it took people I know IRL pointing that out for my to go revise things so she was less trusting, but have it so that I'd still be able to have what needs to happen happen. Even now, I'm still making some changes to chapters that are still solely on FFN's doc manager.

deeznutthebest: Do we get to see full meta tryhard Vyliria someday or a havel monster Vyliria someday? And now that I remember it, the weapon Salem was talking about must be the Lifehunt scythe (Priscilla's, not Aldrich's) tainted by Salem or something else.

My response: I will confirm that there is a chapter later on tilted "In Which Vyliria Tryhards." Beyond that, I will say nothing.

Colvamoon999: I thought Cinder's registered team was CMSN (Crimson)?

My response: It's a running joke in the fandom. Cinder-Mercury-Emerald-Neo, even if we all know Neo is using a cover name (I'm head-canoning it as Sylvia, which is also a reference to a bloodborne crossover that hasn't updated in a long time where the disguised Neo is falling for the resident Hunter [and the author also wrote a separate smut-fic between them], and the last name that I never bothered coming up with would start with an N), would abbreviate as CMEN, which is pronounced in the same manner as a male reproductive fluid. According to the wiki, in RWBY canon the team never actually got named.

I put lots of little jokes and references in like that.

Sm0keyPanda: *shudders*
Gods-damn gankers...

My response: They all need a point-down (makes a poor impression of a Scottish accent) Every last one of them.

Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Souls or RWBY. Dark Souls belongs to From Software and RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth. I only own my own OC.

Additional disclaimer: Once again, because I get the feeling I'm barely going to use most of these characters, I'm pulling most of the appearance descriptions from the RWBY wiki, rather than taking the time to observe the in-show characters and write out a description myself. Granted, I am editing them slightly so they aren't an ad-verbatim copy from the wiki, but still, giving credit where it's due.

(Nora)

The crowds were cheering for her! Well, they were cheering for her team, and the other team, and a lot were cheering just for Pyrrha (like seriously, there was a whole section in the stands wearing her merch) but that meant that they were indirectly cheering for her too! Nora grinned, Magnhild at the ready as her own team stood facing team BRNZ.

Brawnz Ni, who led team BRNZ (pronounced Bronze), which wasn't confusing at all… now that she thought about it, Ruby leading RWBY was also kinda confusing… was standing on the far right… which was technically his far left. He was a young man with dark purple eyes, and short black hair that shifted to gray towards the left, which was also slicked. He had wrist mounted claws and bronze knee pads that would probably hurt if he kneecapped someone. He wore a sleeveless top that shifted from gray to purple, a purple scarf, and black pants complimented by a bronze buckled black belt and a purple scarf wrapped around his right leg. His black boots were studded with strap detailing, and his left arm bore three black straps, one of which was studded.

Next to him was May Zedong, the only woman on the opposing team. She was a young girl with light tan skin, dusky rose hair and gray-blue eyes; wearing a red and white jacket over a white shirt, with blue tracksuit pants, and a black beanie that covered her left eye. Her outfit was complete by a large black scarf and red canvas sneakers. Lastly, she cradled a sniper rifle in her hands… which didn't appear to have any melee capabilities on in. And people tell me I don't have observational skills, Nora thought to herself.

Standing directly across from her was Roy Stallion, a man who bore no resemblance to a horse, nor was a horse faunus, despite his last name. Come to think of it, are there horse faunus? She'd seen a lot of faunus, but she'd never seen a horse faunus before. Well, Blake was basically a faunus princess or something like that, since her dad was in charge of Menagerie, so she made a mental note to ask her if horse faunus were a thing later. And sloth faunus, now that she thought about it. Where was she again? Oh yeah, Roy was a dark-skinned young man with green eyes and brown hair, styled in cornrow dreadlocks tipped in gold clasps. He wore a green vest, buckled closed on his left shoulder, over a black T-shirt and loose white pants rolled up to his knees. His hands were adorned by a pair of fingerless gloves with white armor pieces that doubled as the holsters for his weapon, and on his feet were olive canvas sneakers. His weapons were a pair of circular saws, though whether they could be shot or not remained to be seen.

Lastly, standing opposed to Ren was Nolan Porfirio. He had messy dark red hair and pink eyes, and wore a deep sky blue jacket with a black hood and rolled up black sleeves, open over a white shirt with long sleeves that were also rolled up. On his legs were a pair of ripped burgundy jeans, and his feet had black shoes. His weapon appeared to be some kind of baton with a taser or electric prod on the end, a pair of sunglasses with pink lenses hung from his collar, and his hands were partly covered by black fingerless gloves. She paused her train of thought for a second, as a new question came to mind. Why are fingerless gloves so popular? She thought. Like, half the people I know wear them. I wear them!

Oh, Professor Port and Prof- Doctor Oobleck, she corrected herself, were talking from the announcer's box. She should probably listen to that.

"-verus, Team BRNZ of Shade!" Port said. Aw, Nora missed her own team's intro. With a whizz and a whirl, the screens representing the terrain randomizers started spinning so they could randomize the random terrain for their fight. Randomly. The first one landed on forests, and the second landed on stormy mountains. Oh baby, that was a chance to charge her semblance just waiting to happen. The biomes in question rose from beneath the stadium to surround the central platform both teams stood upon.

"Three, two, one," Port counted down.

"Begin!" Oobleck beat him to the punch, and the mic audibly clicked off as they probably started arguing about that.

May immediately ran back into the forest, likely to start taking sniper shots, but Pyrrha was having none of that.

With the bite of a lance yet the speed of a sparrow

The maidens of the Lord smote them with their Lighting Arrows!

She started harassing the woman with the electric projectiles, preventing her from providing suppressive fire of her own, even as Jaune knelt, rising again as he spoke, and as a golden light shined down on him even as the runes typical to most miracles etched themselves on the floor.

An epic made for brothers, those sworn under the Sun,

In the name of Jolly Cooperation, until the fight was done,

The Firstborn founded a covenant, his first knight by his side,

His faithful dragonslayer, fighting their foes with equal stride,

Even as their numbers swelled, virtuous warriors fueling their growth,

Ne'er did a single Warrior of Sunlight ever forget their Sacred Oath!

A gold-orange aura enveloped her and her team, and Nora could already feel her strength and durability increasing from the group-strengthening miracle Vyliria had taught Jaune, even as he followed by casting blessed weapon on Crocea Mors, whilst Ren applied magic weapon to his. Pshh, she didn't need magic buffs that were really cool on her hammer… oh who was she kidding, she was gonna beg Vyliria to teach her one after this.

Pyrrha charged into the forest after May, applying lightning blade to Miló as she went, while she took a swipe with her beloved hammer at Nolan, who barely ducked out of the way. Ren was almost making Brawnz dance as he dodged a seemingly endless wave of great deep souls, Ren genuinely letting out an uncharacteristic smirk as the sheer rate of fire the homing spell possessed, while Jaune was trading blows with Roy, demonstrating the multitude of close combat techniques he'd learned from the two teammates who'd spent months instructing him.

Sensing an opportunity, she baited Nolan with an intentionally poor swing, failing to hide her smirk as he closed under her guard and jammed his weapon into her stomach. The electricity coursed into her, fueling her power, as the current's energy was transferred straight to her muscles, and she felt her strength, already boosted by the sacred oath, soar even further.

"Hoho, looks like one of my favorite students, Nora Valkyrie-" Aw, thanks Professor Port "-is charging up, to use her semblance."

"Wha?" Nolan said, making the critical mistake of not only looking towards the jumbo-tron, but also not removing his weapon from her, even as she absorbed more power.

"Yes," Doctor Oobleck explained to the audience, "Miss Valkyrie's semblance lets her produce as well as channel electrical energy straight to her muscles. This allows her to jump and expel energy into the air, wield her mighty hammer, or in this case, absorb Nolan's attacks and send the young man flying!"

"What?" Nolan asked, much more alarmed, yet still not removing his weapon. Honestly, it was like he was trying to give Nora the win, here. Nora flexed, power, unlimited power, coursing through and across her body as she brandished her favorite leg-breaking implement, and Nolan finally removed his weapon, backing off and raising his hands as he braced himself. She wound Magnhild back, and with the force of an angry god of thunder, slammed it forwards, propelling the poor man backwards, crashing through a boulder before tumbling to a stop. Nora glanced at the aura meters, and besides noting that Pyrrha was barely scratched and nearly done with May, that Nolan's aura was barely above the threshold required to remain in the match. Well, that can be fixed, she thought, shifting her hammer to its grenade-launcher configuration, and let loose a barrage of explosives against Nolan as he was still trying to get up. Seconds later, Port called out the elimination of Nolan just seconds before Oobleck called out the elimination of May.

Looking around, she saw Ren make Brawnz eat an entire dark bead to the face as he tried to close with her partner, the scattershot of dark sorcery striking him point blank, leaving him unprepared as Ren abandoned the spells and engaged with Stormflower. Jaune bounced two fired buzzsaws from Roy off his shield, but had trouble closing as he kept backing off. Deciding to test out her newest toy, Nora shifted her weapon back to its hammer form, placed it on the ground at an angle, placed both feet on the bottom of the head, and one hand on the handle while the other grabbed her canvas talisman. Firing a grenade to launch herself at Roy, she flew, and shouted out:

A city hidden beneath the dragons' gaze,

Dug from below the earth and set ablaze,

A messenger sent through peril to beg for aid from the Lords,

The gods sallied forth, and a warcry for vengeance soared,

The city was already dead; they faced impossible odds,

Yet every last wyrm was laid low by the Wrath of the Gods!

She finished just as she reached a very surprised Roy, the explosion erupting from her tossing him back like a ragdoll, where he got hit in midair by a great lightning spear from Pyrrha to finish him off, almost simultaneous to Ren defeating Brawnz.

Nora stopped. "Wait, it's over already? I didn't even get to use the electric mountain!" she whined, as the entire arena starred in silence.

"We didn't even get to use any of our team moves!" Jaune lamented.

"Yeah, and thunder-lotus sounded way better than flower-power, but Ren and I didn't get to show it off either!"

"Say what she will about Gwyn's naming conventions, Vyliria can come up with some surprisingly original names when she wants to," Ren added.

"I'm beginning to think that we might be trying too hard," Pyrrha said.

"Yeah, but we won, soooo…" Nora trailed off, as someone outside their team finally seemed to find their voice.

"In a massive upset for Vacuo, team BRNZ is eliminated in its entirety in under two minutes!" Doctor Oobleck finally found his voice and exclaimed. "Why, I think that may just be a Vytal Festival record! Clearly, Miss Avalon's arcane arsenal is proving to be a monumental force-multiplier!"

Nora put a hand on her hip, and looked towards the box in the stands, even as the crowds began a thunderous applause. "Ya think?!"

(Vyliria)

Having been rejoined by her teammates, and not only subject to the scrutiny of every foreign student in the reserved seating, but also the entirety of the arena, Vyliria of Avalon just enjoyed the attention with a Cheshire grin under her mask. Right after her own team's victory was what she would describe as a battle of the genders, between the all-male team SSSN of Haven and the all-female team NGDO of Shade. She gazed down into the arena while Port and Oobleck made their pre-match announcements, assessing the individuals she hadn't yet seen. While she'd known Sun and Neptune for several months by now, this was actually the first time she was seeing the other half of their team, Sage and Scarlet. Which was strange, because they've been on campus for a bit over a month now, and Sun and Neptune had hung out with her and/or her friends multiple times during that period.

Deciding to put that question aside, she took in the appearance of the friends of her friends. Sage Ayana had dark skin and gold eyes. His hair was the same green as his first name, and he appeared to have tattoos of wings on his chest and tattoos of some manner of blocky numerals, matching those on his greatsword, Pilgrim, around his neck. His long, white coat had asymmetrical sleeves, a green wing design similar to his tattoos and no shirt underneath, in turn displaying his tattooed chest. His coat also bore a golden pauldron on his right shoulder and a golden cuff around his left wrist, while his right wrist was protected by a leather bracer.

His partner, Scarlet David, had fair skin, and red hair that came down over his right eye, with a complete undercut. There are several red markings around his left eye, and he wore a green, mulberry, navy colored feather earring on his left ear and had a red military pelisse-like jacket draped over his left side, in addition to a gray bandanna around his neck. On his right hand, was a gray fingerless glove, and further up his arm, on his right bicep, was a gray band. His white sleeveless shirt complimented his light gray pants, which in turn yielded to a pair of long, brown, laced boots. Around his waist, he bore a brown belt and a slightly slanted gray belt that his weapon holster is attached to. The weapon in question was a cutlass named Darling, and on his opposite hip was a flintlock pistol, named Hook. Vyliria might have questioned the use of a flintlock pistol, which she understood to be outdated in the present age of Remnant, but considering she had an automatic crossbow that was ancient before she got her hands on it, she wasn't really one to judge.

On the opposing team, Nebula Violette had lightly tanned skin, indigo hair that was brushed over to her left side, and olive eyes. On her torso was a high-necked, tight-fitting gray shirt with dark gray accents, along with a long, lilac coat with one long sleeve and the other rolled up. A leather bandolier with a steel gray pauldron graced her right shoulder, which doubled as a sheath for her weapon, which appeared to be a crossbow that could shift into a sword (As much as she taught Ruby, the girl arguably taught her more about the variety of weapons hunstmen employed, and how to identify them at a glance). Her slanted dark gray belt was clipped on the second notch, and her breastplate matched her pauldron. Her legs bore gray pants, and dark gray boots with light gray laces. Her arms had dark gray forearm length gloves, with the left glove being fingerless and possessing a cuff. She also has a dark gray band around her right elbow with a smaller band on her upper left arm.

Dew Gayl was a young woman with lightly tanned/fair skin, dark blonde hair swept to the left, and violet eyes. Her sleeveless green dress had an asymmetrical hem, and what appeared to be a golden scale one-sleeved high neck top sat underneath it, while a lighter green sarong was tied around her hips. A golden spaulder sat on her left shoulder, with two thin chain loops running from the front around her torso to the back. On her lower body was a pair of over-the-knee scale stockings, armoured calf-high boots that match her spaulder, though the rear of her calves was exposed. A simple chain bracelet with a ring connected to it adorned her right hand, in addition to a brown band around her left wrist with two beaded bracelets. Her weapon appeared to be a mundane spear, but it might be able to utilize dust.

Gwen Darcy had slightly tanned skin, curly black hair pulled back from her face into ringlets, and brown eyes with purple eyeshadow. Her black corset dress had a dark gray front, a purple hem and purple laces on the back, and her light gray top bore short sleeves and black cuffs, in addition to a high gray collar that appeared to be armored. Her belt was not leather, but a long purple ribbon edged in gray, with a bow in the back that was tied in the front, and connected to the belt sat a pair of armor tassets that also act as storage for her weapons, which were most likely a plethora of throwing knives. Huh, I forgot that most people can't store hundreds of projectiles in their own personal pocket dimension and call them into reality at will, nor possess a magic throwing knife that can be used indefinitely to throw illusory-yet-real curved knives that have slight tracking, Vyliria mused, before finishing off her observation of the girl by noting that she had light gray stockings and pale gray ballet flats, with ribbons around her lower legs.

The last member of NDGO was Octavia Ember, a woman with lightly tanned skin, brick red hair left loose with the fringe swept to the right, olive green eyes, and a navy blue choker around her neck. I will never understand the point of wearing those outside the bedroom, the Irithyllian thought. Octavia had a teal-blue waistcoat with two long tails and dark brown strapless top, a cropped sleeveless vest of the same color worn over the top and waistcoat. Her skirt was pale green, graduating to a cream with a zigzagged pointed hem, accompanied with an open front layer that graduated from brown to light brown. She wore a pair of navy belts crossed in the front and back and a pair of sky blue layered spaulders, held in place by a dark brown leather strap across her chest. Her shoes were a pair of simple, navy blue ankle boots with folded over top and brick red lining. Her dagger was of a strange design, distinctly wavy on the bottom half of the blade, but razor straight and sharp on the top half. Red-orange designs on the blade and a trigger on the hilt indicated it used fire dust in some manner.

She tuned back into the actual proceedings as she heard Weiss shout, "Good luck, Neptune!"

Neptune, seemingly having forgotten the subconscious terror from Vyliria's threat at the ball, didn't hear Weiss, and made a rather horrendous flirting attempt with the opposing team. Vyliria winced from the sheer vitriol in Weiss' voice as the heiress suddenly did an about-turn and screamed for NDGO to kick Neptune's butt. After that, he also added, "Remember, girls, hands above the waist."

"Ignore him," Sun said, putting a hand on Neptune's shoulder, even as he continued, "for he… he's dumb."

"Biggest understatement of the year," she hear Weiss mutter under her breath.

Half the arena turned out to be a rocky desert, with some jagged rock formations rising high into the air, and the other half was revealed to be a combination of beach and ocean, with a partly sunk ship, and the water appeared to be waist-deep, if not shallower in some places. Given by how Neptune appeared to freeze like a crystal lizard about to be hit by a greatarrow, Vyliria assumed that he had some manner of aquaphobia. Oh dear, she thought, the mental statement repeating aloud when Blake confirmed her hypothesis when Yang asked about it.

The match was started, and Neptune displayed a speed that rivaled Ruby's semblance, as he dashed towards the desert side of the arena, rapidly scaling a mountain and readying his weapon, Tri-Hard, in its gun form.

"Neptune," Sage called out, "what are you doing?"

"Oh, you know, just gaining the higher ground!" he called back.

"On the enemies side?" Sun yelled as Scarlet dropped his jacket.

"They would never expect it!" Neptune argued back.

"He's not wrong," Dew said.

"Open fire!" Nebula's shout signified the beginning of hostilities.

Scarlet engaged Octavia, while Sage fought Dew, her spear matching his greatsword, even though Vyliria felt like the rules of poise stated that Sage should be dominating that particular exchange. Dew then activated some wind dust from her spear, creating three small cyclones, which merged and picked the man up, before flinging him out of the arena. Vyliria's eye twitched. That's not how poise works!

"And NDGO gains the advantage!" Prof- Doctor Oobleck (really, she should be getting that right by now) called out.

Octavia used her blade to whip clouds of sand towards Sun and Scarlet, Sun breaking off and calling out to Neptune, who jumped from his perch, and used his goggles to shield his eyes, taking a shot with Tri-Hard to distract her from an oncoming kick to the face, courtesy of Sun, causing her to stumble back. Sun took out his own weapon, Ruyi Bang and Jingu Bang, in their combined staff form, and used a flurry of blows to utterly decimate Ocatvia's aura and even the score.

"Oooh, and we're down to three-on-three!" Port called out.

Dew sent Scarlet flying with another cyclone, but rather than falling out of the arena he caught himself on the top of the ruined ship, near the crow's nest. However, he didn't have too much time to recover, as shortly afterwards Nebula engaged him on the top bar that would hold the sails in place if the ship had them. Her crossbow transformed into a sword, and he exchanged a series of blows with his own cutlass, before gaining the upper hand and pushing her off, where she fell to the main deck of the ship as her aura dipped from the impact.

He pulled out Hook, and revealed that besides being able to shoot opponents, the bottom of the handle which housed the trigger doubled as being a fireable grappling hook. You know, now the name makes much more sense, Vyliria thought, as he used it to grab Gwen by the ankle, using her as a counterweight to safely descend to the sand bar the ship was crashed against even as his opponent was yanked off her feet, upside-down, and flew up into the air. Gwen frantically pushed both hands onto her skirt, in order to preserve her modesty in front of the entire arena, but choosing the front instead of the sides cost her, as all her throwing knives heeded the call of gravity and went falling to the floor at once. The good news was that she now lacked any weapons bar her own limbs… and the bad news was that dozens of throwing knives were now raining down on Scarlet. The man froze, going rigid… and all the knives landed around him, outlining the space he was standing on while leaving him unharmed. That is absurdly unlikely, Vyliria commented in her head, as she watched Dew face off against Sun. The monkey faunus in question hit the tree he was under, and grabbed the coconuts that dropped. Vyliria almost missed him throwing them at Dew as she just then realized just how detailed the literal biome-creation technology Amity used was. Thankfully, she almost missed it, because otherwise she would have missed Dew bat them back at Sun while lighting them on fire. Sun dodged both, which then hit Scarlet, one in the face, and one in the… Well, as a woman with testicles, you have my sympathy for getting hit in yours with a high-speed flaming coconut… That is a sentence that I never thought I'd think. She actually winced when she saw that the hits managed to drain 49% of his aura, and eliminated him from the match.

Sun found himself desperately dodging as he was engaged in a 3v1, since Neptune was still on the decidedly non-aquatic side of the arena. The Irithyllian forced her ire down as she reminded herself that this was an arena fight and not a gank, and that she wasn't allowed to interfere without a lot of penalties for multiple parties regardless.

"Neptune? Could use some help, buddy!" Sun shouted.

Neptune was actually facing the other way despite the entirety of the fight being behind him, only turning around to respond. "You know, it would probably be better, if you came over here! Yeah, I can guard this… sector! We're in lockdown-mode!" He turned back around, and Vyliria resisted the urge to facepalm.

"What are you talking about, there's nothing to lock down!" Sun was clearly getting frustrated.

"Lockdown, right! You got it!"

Sun dodged some more attacks, before trying to get Neptune to participate again. "I know you're afraid of water, but ya gotta-" Tri-hard blasted a Dew that was about to hit Sun.

"There, I helped! Are you happy now?" Neptune paused, before continuing, "Also, I am not afraid of water, and I have no idea what you are talking about!"

The remaining three members of NDGO gathered together, thigh deep in the water of the ocean section of the arena, readying their weapons. She wasn't sure what took Nebula so long, but was sure that it took Gwen this long to rejoin the fight because she had to break off from Sun every five seconds to grab more throwing knives, before stopping all together to fully restock.

"NEPTUNE!" Sun gestured his arms towards their opponents.

"Okay, fine! Just get out of the water."

Sun complied, and Neptune jumped to roughly three feet from the end of the beach, before tiptoeing the remaining distance as his weapon shifted to a trident… which crackled with electricity. Oh, I approve of what I am about to witness, Vyliria thought. Sure enough, Neptune jabbed the trident into the same body of water their opponents were still standing in, violently electrocuting the lot of them, and draining all of their auras to the point of elimination at once.

"And with that, team SSSN moves on to the double's round!" Port said over the speakers. Sun and Neptune started a victory dance, while Port then added, "You know what I'd call that victory?"

"Shocking?" Oobleck asked.

"No! Well-earned," he replied. "What you said is stupid…"

"Hey, I think that was a great pun!" Yang shouted from where they were seated in the stands. Even as everyone around her looked at her incredulously, Vyliria gave her two souls: "For once, I'm inclined to agree. That was a reasonable pun."

(Qrow)

The bartender gave a whistle of appreciation at the TV overhead. "Now that was a match," he claimed.

Qrow scoffed. "That was a mess."

"Come on man, you didn't like them? Any of the Vale kids? Or any of the rounds before that? What fight are you here for?"

Qrow heard a distinctive droning, and turned to see a more distinctive Atlesian aircraft, trailing streamers behind it, making its way towards Beacon. "That one," he shot back, as he stood up and drained the rest of his glass. He slammed the glass onto the counter and threw some lien to pay for it. "Happy Vytal Festival," he started stumbling away. Totally not drunk, he thought, I'm perfectly sober, and the only reason I'm stumbling is because it's the rest of the world that's lurching all over the place. Knowing my luck, there's a non-zero chance of that actually being the case…

The crash of glass shattering and the disappointed "Awww, gee darnit," from the bartender let Qrow know that his semblance struck again. He didn't bother hiding his smirk.

()

A/N: If anyone hasn't noticed, I'm trying to make it a running gag where literally every character who thinks about Oobleck almost calls him Professor, and then mentally corrects themselves. I just thought it would be funny if literally everyone did that.

How'd I do with Nora? Too little Nora, too much Nora, or did I get Nora's general personality reasonably good?

I got slammed by a wave of inspiration, and came up with sacred oath in five minutes. I thought it was gonna take me at least 20, but I'm not complaining. I also deliberately left "his first knight" vague. Is it referring to Ornstien in both line? Or is it only talking about the Lion Knight in the second of the two lines and the first refers to Solaire? Well, that's up for each individual reader to decide for themselves.

And, uh… yeah, that was a Gwyndamn curbstomp right there. But, I gave everyone all these spells, so there's no feasible reason for them not to use them, which leads to the results you read.

So Rome doesn't exist on Remnant, and didn't exist in dark souls. Hence the only Roman Vyliria knows is Torchwick, so she describes them as blocky. Just heading off anyone who goes to question why I didn't just say Roman numerals.

It occurs to me that people who don't know Dark Souls may be confused as to what a "gank" or "gankers" are. I apologize, because this explanation will also be a bit of a rant. If you don't want to read it, just skip the next paragraph.

Dark Souls allows you to summon other players, even friends via a password, so you can play the game together. The consequence of doing this, is that the more summons you grab, the more likely you are to get invaded, which is a phenomena that AFAIK is unique to the Soulsborne Series (Demon's Souls [old and remake], Dark Souls 1, 2, and 3, and Bloodborne). Or it'll at least be unique until Doom Eternal finally adds player demon invasions. Basically, a player can use an item to barge into other people's worlds uninvited with the intent to kill them, and by default the level mobs don't attack the invader, and many can't hurt the invader either. To summarize it, where grabbing friends can make the game more trivial, the game balances doing this by making you far more likely to have to deal with human opponents, who are usually very crafty, and have their characters specifically tailored to PVP. Naturally, people can't accept the fact that Dark Souls is supposed to be a hard game, where one is supposed to die, and then learn from their mistakes with each death, coming back until they are triumphant. Nooooo, they just want their "unintewupted co-op wif muh fwiends," so particularly salty people will summon as many friends as they can, clear out a level, and then loiter around with the intent to 3v1 or even 4v1 invaders, who they'd never be able to actually beat in a fair fight. That's called ganking, not to be confused with gonking, which is where a large party is actually just attempting to play, and will actually attempt to complete the level and proceed to the boss, but gang up on the invader if the opportunity presents itself. I personally welcome the challenge, especially in figuring out how to annoy a party of 4 people enough to actually go into the level if they haven't already cleared it, when they've made it perfectly clear that they're willing to wait for three hours for you to come to them (I've played multi-hour waiting games with stubborn ganks, and my longest invasion [with consistent fighting, rather than a trial of patience] was over 40 minutes). The only point where I get offended is when these people think that they're actually good at the game, when the host has twice the heals you do, 30% more health, and 3 bodyguards, all of which don't have friendly fire, and if they die, the host can bring them back in under two minutes if I don't block the summon as soon as I kill them. (At least that's the case in DS3, I haven't played 1 and we don't talk about 2 [though I have read up on both]) Like, okay, you and your three friends exploited literally every advantage you could and you beat me, and then pointed at my fading phantasmal corpse while dropping poop on it. If that makes you feel good: 1: there's something wrong with you, and 2: I'd recommend you see a therapist, because that's not a healthy attitude in life. But that does not make you good at the game. So my own hatred of gankers has shown itself in Vyliria's personality. And before you say that the Darkmoons are a gank covenant in DS3, in this story they go by DS1 mechanics, where you invaded sinners, and could also actually get content as them, instead of waiting three hours and still not getting summoned.

Rant over.

You know, I haven't really changed anything with SSSN, so their match went as normal.

And Qrow's coming back! I may or may not alter that fight with Winter. Haven't decided as of writing this author's note, though by the time anyone else sees this, it'll have been set in stone.

See you all next time!

(which will either be Friday next week or 23 more reviews [it would be 22, but I'm not counting the guy who posted the Bee Movie script as an actual review], whichever comes first.)