You know, if you didn't know any better, you'd think Weiss was my *least* favorite character...once again, all the bad things happen to Weiss. This is *not* the continuation of Chapter 7 (which is mostly done), but rather an exercise in writing a combat scene (that may evolve into something more!) :) Thank you all who reviewed previous chapters, and I hope you enjoy a RWBY/JNPR faceoff!
Weiss took advantage of a pause in the action to survey the battlefield in front of her. They were deep into the final rounds of Beacon's annual combat tournament now, and the stakes had jumped significantly for this bout. The annual tournament was the highlight of the end of each year, with teams across Beacon's classes (except first-years, of course) competing for final grades, bragging rights, and of course for the entertainment of the populace of Vale. The school was held in high enough regard to garner international attention, with the final rounds being broadcast not only in Vale, but in Vacuo, Atlas, and even in Menagerie (when the conditions were right). Team RWBY had made the quarterfinals with relative ease, dispatching Team DANE in the first round, a team of second years led by Dane Deerwood, a talented archer and leader from Mistral. The defeat of Team DANE was followed by an absolute shellacking of CRDL in the second round that had been personal, and ohhhhh so satisfying when they watched the boys hobble out of the arena to the cheers of those in attendance. That brought them to the quarterfinals, where they had had the bad luck of pulling JNPR as their opponent. Not only had the loosely organized team improved significantly over the last year (even Jaune had stepped up his skills tremendously), but the amount of time that team RWBY spent training with them gave JNPR a unique advantage in this fight that other teams wouldn't enjoy.
The matchup had drawn the attention of enough students and community members to nearly fill Beacon Arena to capacity. With names on the lineup like Schnee and Nikos and with the newfound fame of both of their teams after their exploits over the last few years, Weiss couldn't say she was entirely surprised.
Focusing on the battle, Weiss took stock of the current state of things. To her right a small but dense forest of trees offered cover to Blake and Ren as they pushed each other to the limit with flurries of blades only broken up by the occasional pause as Blake dropped a clone into place before expertly putting space between herself and her opponent.
Nora and Yang were engaged in a scrum to her left amongst the base of the artificial mountains that had risen from beneath the arena. Yang and Weiss had traded off opponents a short time ago, silently acknowledging the need to get Weiss out of a one-on-one fight with Nora. Even if the deranged girl *didn't* remember the incident from last year's tournament (which was unlikely, Nora could hold a grudge like no one Weiss had ever met), Weiss recognized that taking on Nora 'Mano a Mano' would definitely fall in the category of bad for her health. Everyone has their strengths, being beaten to a pupl wasn't hers. Better to let Yang handle that one. Dead center Ruby and Pyrrha flashed their respective weapons with stunning speed, each trying to gain even the smallest leg up on the other. How Ruby was able to move her gigantic weapon with such agility still boggled Weiss' mind, especially since Weiss could barely lift the thing. She was getting distracted though, with those three tied up, that just left Jaune...
Weiss heard him before she saw him, his yell alerting her to his presence as he swung Crocea Mors in her direction from behind. With a flick of her wrist a fountain of jagged ice erupted from the ground behind her, sending Jaune flying backwards. He was up in a flash and back on the attack, but the moment to recover was enough for Weiss, who faced his next attack head on, deflecting the boy's sword to the side before dropping a purple glyph at his feet. Before he had time to recover the glyph launched him into the air in a long, high arc across the arena. He landed with a dull thud in the soft grass under the trees in the manufactured forest, a buzzer overhead ringing out, indicating that his aura had been depleted. Weiss heard a shared laugh from the crowd that had shown up at the arena and saw Jaune carefully and gently pick himself up before hobbling to the sidelines with a dejected look. One down.
Weiss smirked to herself, before returning her focus to the others. Blake and Yang still seemed to be holding their own, but Ruby's resolve and endurance seemed to be being tested by Pyrrha's exceptional conditioning. Pyrrha's spear lashed out three, four times in a row, forcing Ruby onto her heels, her scythe barely covering the distance to deflect the onslaught.
Weiss whipped Myrtenaster to her side, summoning a glyph under her own feet. Clicking a dust canister into place she used the glyph to fire herself across the battlefield, a streak of white that forced its way between Ruby and Pyrrha, pushing each backwards, and separating them for the moment with a wall of ice six feet high.
Landing in a three-point stance, Weiss rose and turned back to Pyrrha, Myrtenaster raised and pointed. A quick click of another canister could be heard, and two small fireballs shot towards Pyrrha. Shield up, the other girl deflected the fireballs away before using her natural momentum to throw the shield frisbee style into the ice wall, shattering it down the middle. Her semblance activated, causing the shield to return to her, and she charged through the ice wall to re-engage Ruby.
Weiss took a step forward, but the buzzer going off overhead distracted her. Looking up, she could see Yang's face appear on the large screen above, and then a red X form across it, a cheer coming from the crowd around the arena, and Weiss cursed under her breath. 3 on 3 now, and with Ruby and Blake tied up, that meant that …
"Weiss! Look out!" she heard Blake yell from somewhere in the distance, and she quickly launched herself away with another quick blast of dust from Myrtenaster as Magnhild was driven into the ground where she had been standing, cracking the concrete floor beneath it.
Weiss could hear gasps from the crowd, and then a round of applause from many whom had been on the receiving end of one of these strikes before, as Nora calmly pulled the hammer from the crater and turned to face Weiss.
"Just you and me ice queen. Time for payback for last year!" she said, a terrifying glint in her eye as she met Weiss' gaze. The two combatants stared each other down for a moment, Weiss' eyes narrowing as she settled into her new reality. Fine, so a one-on-one with Nora was inevitable. Weiss moved first, stepping sideways and driving towards Nora. Nora sidestepped the blade and swung her enormous hammer in response, forcing Weiss to duck and roll away from the attack, landing a few feet away. With a yipe she managed to throw herself backwards again as Magnhild left yet another crater in the arena floor.
"Would you just stay still!?" Nora said with a cackle as she took another swing at Weiss, this one with so much force that Weiss could hear the whistle as the hammer tore through the air.
"How *does* she generate that much power" Weiss wondered to herself, not for the first time.
Back-pedaling quicker, Weiss knew she needed to put distance between herself and Nora. Close quarters combat with the other girl wasn't what she had in mind for today and was likely to result in her being turned into jelly. As she stepped back though, Nora's relentless strikes kept coming, the hammer moving with impossible speed that Weiss could barely keep up with. Weiss responded with glyphs on the ground meant to trap the other girl, but with effortless dexterity she dodged them all, never so much as looking down at the ground.
Weiss had to give credit to Jaune's leadership. Over the last year, he had managed (whether intentionally or not) to direct Nora's growth from a wild, out of control fighting style into what could only be called a calculated, powerful, and extremely intimidating tank. In combat she easily drew the attention of the other team, while the more talented Pyrrha and Ren picked others off from the sides in one on one fights.
...which was exactly what was happening to their team now.
A rifle shot fired from Crescent Rose that slammed into Nora's side, knocking her off balance, gave Weiss just enough time to disengage, once again launching herself from the conflict. With distance between her and Nora she raised Myrtenaster into the air and flipped it over, driving the tip into the ground. A white symbol formed under her feet, and a wind kicked up as a flash of light erupted from the rune.
From the earth a giant armored white glove appeared, gripping the ground to pull itself up and out from the abyss, revealing a massive set of brilliant white armor bearing a colossal two-handed sword.
"It looks like Ms. Schnee has activated her semblance and completed a summon! Summons are hereditary capabilities passed down through the Schnee family for decades that allow them to summon vanquished foes to the battlefield. Truly a marvel of our world." she heard Oobleck comment through the loudspeaker, "maybe now Team RWBY can make up some of the ground they've lost."
Weiss frowned, Oobleck was right, JNPR was pushing them hard today, harder than they ever had before. With Yang eliminated, RWBY was potentially in trouble, especially with Nora still wreaking havoc on the battlefield.
With a unnerving laugh Nora triggered Magnhild's conversion, swapping the hammer for its grenade launcher form and firing multiple rounds into Weiss' knight. The explosions from the rounds shook the arena and covered the ground in a thin layer of smoke, but the knight continued to rumble forward towards her, before swinging its sword in a wide arc that landed where Nora had been just moments ago, leaving its own jagged cracks in the ground.
"Now that's what I'm talking about!" Weiss heard Nora yell, before the girl dove forward, swinging the hammer at the knight.
With Nora momentarily distracted, Weiss scanned the field for Ruby and Blake. They were going to need a solid team effort, and likely to improve their numbers in order to take down JNPR today, they couldn't maintain Yang-less three-on-three combat for long. Blake and Ren were still engaged in the forest, shots firing from both between the clang of their blades meeting. Even if she could see them in the forest, it was unlikely she could keep up with the speed with which they were moving. Blake would have to hold the line on her own for now.
"Ruby it is then" Weiss thought to herself, and she sprinted towards Ruby and Pyrrha, who had moved away from the center of the arena and into the mountainous terrain. The changing elevation gave Ruby a slight advantage, her semblance allowing her to hop between platforms with ease, keeping Pyrrha positioned on platforms below her. Pyrrha was in hot pursuit though, using a combination of the rocks and her shield held in place by her semblance as launching pads to deftly pursue Weiss' team leader.
As she approached the "mountains", Weiss created glyphs under her own feet, creating a set of white stairs to close the distance between herself and the duel raging above.
At the top of the mountain was a large, flat platform where Ruby had landed. Pyrrha landed shortly behind and continued her attack, spear flashing towards Ruby's legs, trying to knock them out from under her. Weiss leapt from her final glyph and landed in a tumble behind Pyrrha, Myrtenaster flashing quickly at an opening in Pyrrha's defense. As she struck, a black wave around Myrtenaster forced the blade off to the side as Pyrrha spun, the butt of Milo nearly missing her head.
With Pyrrha's attention momentarily on Weiss, Ruby sensed an opportunity and stepped into a wide swing with Crescent Rose, but with catlike reflexes that would make Blake proud Pyrrha backflipped over the blade and jumped backwards upon hitting the ground, getting out from the middle of Weiss and Ruby. As she stepped backwards the shield she carried began to glow black again, and she suddenly tossed it towards Weiss. Without the time to move, the shield hit Weiss square in the chest and drove her backwards and towards the edge of the cliff behind her. She managed to shove the shield off her at the last moment, finally stopping herself with her heels hanging inches over the cliff as the shield shot off into the distance.
"Weiss!" She heard Ruby yell, and Ruby started towards her, but was cut off by Pyrrha driving her back again. Weiss started towards them, covering ground quickly, but she hit the ground when Pyrrha's boomeranging shield caught her in the back of the ankles and swept her feet out from under her. She landed on her back on the rock, the wind forced out of her lungs.
Cursing herself, with a groan she unsteadily forced herself back to her feet and continued her pursuit. Weiss could see the exhaustion in Ruby's eyes as she deflected another incoming flurry from Milo. As Weiss approached and prepared to force Pyrrha's attention off Ruby, she saw Ruby's foot catch on a rock, and in slow motion the other girl started to fall backwards. One well-placed, powerful kick from Pyrrha landed square in the middle of Ruby's chest, and Weiss watched as the girl was thrown off the side of the cliff.
Thankfully Weiss knew there was no real risk of injury to Ruby in this case – her aura, her semblance, and the safety measures put in place by Beacon's faculty would keep her from being seriously hurt, even from a fall of that distance, but her frustration grew immensely, and she threw herself back into the fight with a renewed purpose.
She used a glyph once again to launch herself forward, Myrtenaster's tip aimed directly at Pyrrha's back. The other girl just managed to dodge the strike, Myrtenaster's tip missing her my mere centimeters, but before she could catch her footing Weiss was back on the attack, her rapier flashing in quick strikes that were deflected carefully off Milo or Akouo.
As fast as Ruby was, Crescent Rose was just too heavy to be effective in a fight with Pyrrha, but the agility of Myrtenaster gave Weiss a leg up in one-on-one combat with someone wielding a spear. Once Pyrrha settled in, their combat quickly became a dance, one influenced by hundreds of hours of training sessions between the two of them. She and Pyrrha knew each other's habits and weaknesses in detail, which made this fight more of a mental exercise than a physical one. Muscle memory kicked in to drive the motion as their respective weapons blurred around them, but Weiss was forced to analyze each moment carefully – was that an opening in Pyrrha's defense, or just a clever ruse to lure Weiss into lowering her guard?
Weiss could hear a growing rumble of excitement from the crowd gathered at the arena, but it only barely registered. Strike, deflect, dodge – she was panting heavily now, but catching her opponent's eyes she could see that Pyrrha was also showing signs of exhaustion. She was surprised when she started to feel Pyrrha slow and begin to backpedal, her defense only barely hanging on. Weiss greedily pushed forward, sensing an opportunity to gain an increased advantage. Suddenly, through Weiss' flurry, Pyrrha erupted with unexpected power, driving Akouo into her chest, and using her semblance to launch Weiss back across the platform, Akouo in her arms, where she skidded to a halt across the rocky surface. As she jumped back up and tossed the shield aside, she saw the smirk on Pyrrha's face. Weiss growled to herself, she had just been toying with her!
Moving to re-engage, Weiss stopped as she heard her name called with urgency from below. Blake! She spun in place to go after her teammate, but as she did, her vision filled with the rapidly approaching face of Magnhild.
The last thing Weiss remembered was the hastily drawn pink smiley face on the hammer's face before she lost consciousness.