Here we are at Chapter 38. Time to begin Volume 3 in the story. Which means it's time for the Vytal Festival. I do not own RWBY or Tales of Berseria. They belong to their respective owners. Here's chapter 38. Enjoy.
Chapter 38: The Vytal Tournament begins.
Sometime has passed since Ruby and Velvet's first date, and things have been relatively peaceful since then. Velvet went back with Yang and Ruby to their home in Patch when the time came, and then came back for the start of the Vytal Festival, and more importantly, the combat tournament. The group couldn't be more excited, especially since they would be participating in it. After going through the qualifiers and the tests, Team RVWBY managed to get a place as one of the teams representing Beacon. Now the time has come to show the world what they're capable of. Velvet didn't really know how to feel about fighting in a tournament being broadcasted around the world, but if Ruby was happy, then she would go through with it in order to keep her happy.
…
In the Amnity Stadium, Team RVWBY faced off against Team ABRN from Haven Academy. Ruby twirls her scythe around before racing back towards her opponent, Weiss swings her rapier around, while behind her Blake summersaults around in the air to avoid a strike from her opponent, and finally Yang jumps high into the air to evade one attack before she lands and fires off her gauntlets before she charges back into the fight. And Velvet…is sitting in the stands watching the fight.
"I still can't believe they wouldn't let me fight in the teams rounds. I understand wanting to keep it fair, but it doesn't mean I have to like it," she thinks as she watches the fight go on.
...Flashback begins…
"What do you mean Velvet can't compete in the first round with us?!" Ruby yells.
Team RVWBY are in Ozpin's office along with said headmaster in his chair, and Professor Goodwitch by his side.
"It's exactly as we said; Miss Crowe cannot compete in the teams round with you four," Glynda says.
"But why not?! She's a member of this team, isn't she?" Yang says, a little angry.
"Of course she is. Believe me, I would much rather have her compete with you as a team, but this is the Vytal Festival Tournament. As you know, the tournament is separated into three sections: teams, doubles, and singles. The thing is you are the only team competing in this tournament that has five members. You're the first team in history to have five members. If we had her compete along with the rest of you, it would make it look like we were giving your team an unfair advantage in the first round of the tournament. There is no precedent for this, and the whole world will be watching. To ensure that every team is treated fairly, we have to keep them down to four-on-four matches. I'm sorry, but I don't have much of a choice," Ozpin calmly explains.
"Yeah, fairly. Fairly for everyone except for her. She's a part of this team, and yet she can't show her skills to everyone. She has to sit out of the tournament simply because she's different from everyone else," Weiss sarcastically replies.
"Miss Schnee, that's enough. We are not finished with our explanation," Glynda tells her.
"What's there to explain? You don't want Velvet to compete with us because you have to think about the school's image first, right?" Blake says with a little defiance.
"Guys, please," Velvet says, getting their attention. "I don't want you four to get jammed up because of me. If I have to sit out of the tournament in order for you to compete, then that's what I'll have to do. I know you guys have been waiting for this for a long time now. I don't want to ruin it for you," Velvet says, though that didn't do much to hide the hint of sadness in her voice.
"Velvet…" Ruby mutters before she wraps her arms around Velvet's right side.
"I never said that Velvet couldn't compete in the whole tournament," Ozpin says, getting their attention.
"What do you mean?" Yang asks.
"I said that Velvet couldn't compete in the first round because we needed to keep it fair. However, that doesn't mean that she can't compete in the other rounds. I know you girls will make it far in the tournament, even have a chance to win the whole thing. What I'm suggesting is that if you want her to compete, then you can have her compete in the doubles and/or the singles rounds. It would still be two-on-two or one-on-one so no rules would be broken. Does that sound like a satisfactory idea for you five?" Ozpin explains.
The five are a little surprised at this, but they sure weren't against it.
"So, Velvet can still fight with us?" Ruby asks.
"Make it past the first round, and she'll be able to fight with you," Ozpin says, smiling.
"Thank you, Professor Ozpin," Ruby says.
With that matter settled, the team begins to leave Ozpin's office, however, as they're leaving, Velvet passes a knowing glance back at Ozpin, who returns the gesture before she exits his office.
…Flashback ends…
"At least I know for a fact that that they can make it passed this round easy. I'd still wish I was down there with him," Velvet thinks as she watches the fight continue.
Meanwhile in the arena, the fight continues for Team RVWBY. Blake is fighting in an ice section of the arena, and sees her opponent, Reese Chloris, coming in on a green-glowing, bladed hoverboard. Blake sees Reese coming in on her hoverboard before she launches it at Blake, Blake knocks it away with her left sword, but Reese counters by punching it back at Blake, who deflects it by kicking it. Blake then runs at Reese, jumping up before attacking her just as Reese catches her hoverboard and uses it as a shield. Blake swings her swords three times before kicking Reese, making her stumble back. Reese then swings her hoverboard at Blake as Blake swings her swords at her and deflects the attack. Reese starts spinning her hoverboard, using it to knock Black back and then flips back onto it. Reese races towards Blake, but Blake just smirks and when Reese gets close, she creates an ice clone of herself and flips out of the way. Reese collides into the ice clone, and Blake swings her swords at her, knocking her into the air. In the slow motion, Reese's hoverboard splits in half before transforming into a pair of pistols. In normal speed, Reese grabs them and fires at Blake and misses, before landing painfully on the ground on her butt.
"Oooh, that's gotta hurt," Velvet notes.
Meanwhile, Yang goes one on one with her opponent, named Arslan Atlan, leader of Team ABRN. Yang jumps high into the air, screaming, before landing in front of Arslan, making her slide back from the impact. After that, Yang rushes in and the two brawlers throw a series of punches at the two before their next set of punches collide with each other, creating a powerful shockwave. Yang and Arslan get pushed back from the shockwave, and the Arslan backflips away as Yang jumps at her, doing a spinning jump kick. Arslan uses her weapon, a rope dart, to wrap around Yang's left leg. She pulls it, making Yang lose her footing, and then kicks Yang into the ice section of the arena. Yang gets back up, but has trouble keeping her balance on the slippery ice, and looks up to see Arslan punch her back onto the ground. Yang slides back, stopping next to another member of Team ABRN, Nadir Shiko. In his hands is a black assault rifle, with a blade on top on the rifle. Nadir looks at Yang, but before he can do anything, a shot rings out, and hits the ice behind him. Yang slowly gets up to see Nadir, without his rifle, and having the lower half of his body frozen in ice, much to his displeasure as he groans. The shot came from Ruby's sniper scythe.
"Got your back!" Ruby shouts.
"Whose got yours?" she hears a voice behind her and looks back at the fourth member of Team ABRN, Bolin Hori, who spins a staff around.
Ruby sees Bolin spinning his staff as he appears behind her, but then suddenly, a black glyph appears at his side, and then Weiss shows up, kicking Bolin through the glyph, launching him into a rock on the lava section of the arena.
"My BFF!" Ruby answers, gesturing to Weiss.
"No," Weiss deadpans before running towards Bolin.
Ruby turns around, pumping her fist, "Yes," she whispers before joining Weiss.
On his knees, Bolin looks up to see Weiss conjure a glyph in front of him. As he gets up, Weiss uses the glyph and shoots past him while hitting him with her rapier, and then jumps over him from behind, swing her sword again to which he blocks the attack with his staff. As Weiss lands in front of him, she makes another glyph behind her, allowing Ruby to jump over her, spinning her scythe in mid-air before slamming it on Bolin, who blocks it with his staff. Ruby then fires her weapon, knocking Bolin back while she lands next to Weiss. As Bolin gets back up, he notices some red dust crystals behind Ruby and Weiss. Bolin runs at them, rolling under Weiss as she sends some ice shards flying at him, and then flips over Ruby when she swings her scythe at him before running behind her.
"What?!" Ruby shouts.
Bolin swings his staff, cutting off a piece of the red dust crystal, garbs it, and then throws it to Reese. Reese shoves the crystal into her hoverboard, making it change color from green to red. Blake sees this, and Reese winks at her before riding on her hoverboard, and using the red dust crystal's power to quickly thaw out Nadir's legs, freeing him. Reese then rides over to Blake, and pushes her hoverboard against her, knocking Blake through an ice pillar, and then runs at her. Reese jumps up into the air, hoping to land on Blake with her weapon, but Blake flips out of the way, and then strikes at Reese, who spins her hoverboard, causing fire to appear, the fire hits Blake, but she uses her semblance to back out of it, and then throws her chain scythe at one large ice rock, pulling on it and moving her around the chunk of ice. Reese follows her and eventually finds Blake just standing in between two ice rock formations. Reese laughs and goes to spin her fire attributed hoverboard at her when she gets close, but then Blake disappears, revealing to be one of her clones. In slow motion, Blake's chain scythe appears in front of Reese in mid-air, connecting to the other ice rock. In real time, the real Blake pulls on the ribbon, stopping Rees, and then kicks Reese out of the arena as she hits the force field at the edge and then lands on the ground as an electronic buzzer sounds off.
"Oooh, a double-wamy. Reese Chloris is eliminated by ring out AND aura level," Port says over the speakers as Reese looks up on the main screen to show her aura level dropping to the red zone.
"Oh, she really should've worn a helmet," Oobleck says while Reese punches the ground in defeat.
"Yes, nice job Blake," Velvet says as she watches her team fight.
Meanwhile, Arslan uses her rope dart as she slides across the ice, with Yang following her by shooting her shotgun gauntlets behind her. Behind her, Nadir flips in the air before landing and aiming his assault rifle at Weiss. However, Weiss uses one of her black glyphs to shoot Bolin at him, crashing into Nadir. Weiss lands near them and stabs her rapier into the ground. Suddenly, a large black glyph appears under Nadir and Bolin, levitating them in the air before making them crash into each other again. As they fall back onto the ground, Weiss conjures up a white glyph and, using her ice dust, creates a giant hand of ice that wraps around Nadir and Bolin, before turning into a large ice ball and starts rolling to one side of the arena with the two boys stuck in it. Arslan sees them in trouble and moves to help them. Using her rope dart to slide her way on the ice, she stops in front of them as the ice ball rolls towards her. Arslan then takes a martial artist stance, and when it gets close, throws a strong punch that shatters the ice ball and frees her teammates.
"Yang!" Weiss calls out to Yang, who looks at her. Weiss then uses some more ice dust in her weapon to create a circular half-pipe of ice behind her and turns to Yang. "Now!" she yells.
Yang runs to her, and fires her shotgun gauntlets to keep her sliding on the ice half-pipe while Blake runs by her. Blake then throws her chain scythe at her, which she catches, and swings her around the half-pipe. Blake jumps onto Ruby, who pushes her into the air and towards the three members of Team ABRN with Yang behind her. The three opponents turn around to see Blake flip in the air and pull on her ribbon, making Yang fly over her. Yang screams as she reels back her right fist before she throws a powerful punch that hits all three of them, sending them flying in a fiery explosion. With that last attack, the battle is over as the buzzer goes off.
"Yes!" Yang cheers as her teammates cheer behind her.
"And that's the match. Team RWBY is victorious," Port announces.
Ruby smiles and looks up into the stands to spot Velvet, smiling back at her and clapping for their victory.
…
"Is anyone else starving?" Ruby groans as she leans against Velvet in the fairgrounds with the rest of the team.
"I might've worked up an appetite," Blake notes, only for her stomach to concur with her as it growls like that of an animal.
"I bet with that growl from your stomach," Velvet says as she pets Ruby's head. "How about we get some food to celebrate making it past the first round?" she suggests.
"Yay! Food!" Ruby cheers as she wraps her arms around Velvet.
"Come on, I know the best spot for some good food," Yang says and they follow her through the fairgrounds.
As they walk though, Velvet feels someone come up behind them and quickly turns around to see Emerald standing behind them, who becomes a little spooked at how fast she noticed her presence.
"Emerald!" Ruby says as she notices too. "What are you doing here?" she asks as the rest of the team join them.
"Good to see you Ruby. And you Velvet," Emerald greets them, though Velvet only narrows her eyes at her.
"What's up, Em?" Yang asks.
"Just left the stadium after watching your amazing fight. You guys were awesome!" she praises them, even though it's just an act.
Ruby starts blushing and muttering to herself, "Oh, stop it. Shut your stupid little," she mutters in glee.
"I heard your team progressed to the next round, too," Blake says.
"You know, I feel like we never see your other teammates," Weiss adds.
"How'd they do in the fight?" Yang asks.
Emerald clicks her tongue and looks up in deep thought as she thinks back to the one-sided fight her team had in the first round.
"…Really well," she says.
"Of course it was, they had me to lead the way after all," Mercury says as he steps up behind Emerald with a cocky smirk on his face. "Hello, beautiful," he winks at Velvet, who scoffs in disgust as a response.
"Right…well, we were all gonna go out and get some victory food together. Want to join us?" Ruby asks, but then Velvet growls at the idea of having to deal with Mercury, and laughs nervously. "Heh-heh-heh, yeah, maybe not…Perhaps another time," Ruby says.
Emerald sweats a little bit, "Yeah, good idea. Well, Mercury and I will be competing in the doubles round. Who are you guys sending?" she asks.
"Since she couldn't compete in the first round, we've decided to put Velvet in. And we'll have Weiss fight with her in the doubles round.
"I would be happy to represent Team RVWBY," Weiss bows.
"They won't know what hit them," Velvet adds.
Emerald laughs, "Well, if you end up facing us down the line, we won't go easy on you," she says.
"Although, I might be tempted to give you a handicap, sweet cheeks," Mercury flirts with Velvet, only to get elbowed in the gut by Emerald.
"I think it would be in my partner's best interest if we leave. We're going to go watch some more fight. See you around," Emerald says.
"Well, see you later," Ruby waves them goodbye.
"Catch you later, hot stuff," Mercury winks at Velvet, but then gets pulled by the ear by Emerald. "Ow! Okay, I'm coming! I'm coming! You're gonna rip it off!" he screams.
A minute later, Team RVWBY end up at a noodle stand for some food.
"I'll have a bowl of the regular, please," Yang asks.
"Ooooh, I'll take the same," Ruby says, happily getting the same order as Yang.
"Same here," Velvet says, and gets a bowl of the regular as well.
"Hm, do you have anything with a low salt?" Weiss asks, getting a large bowl of noodles in front of her. "Um, okay…" Weiss questions the bowl in front of her.
However, Blake just smiles and nods to the old man. The old man nods in return and runs into the back of the booth, only to come back and give Blake a large bowl of noodles with several tuna fish on top. Blake gets stars in her eyes and she starts drooling as she inches closer to the meal, her heart pounding loudly. Weiss looks on for a moment and then pulls out a shiny Schnee Dust Company credit card to pay for the meal, which the old man takes.
"Aw, Weiss, what's the occasion?" Yang happily asks at her teammate's kind gesture.
"Consider it thanks for sending Velvet and I to the doubles round," Weiss replies, until her card gets thrown back and stabs the booth in front of her. Everyone looks on in shock and then at the old man, who points to his register which shows the words "declined" on it. "What?! How can me card be declined? I was barely into my monthly allowance," Weiss asks while Blake slowly starts pulling her bowl away.
However, the old man quickly takes away her bowl.
"Noooo," Blake cries, her head falling onto the booth.
"Okay, now what?" Velvet asks.
"Maybe I can help," they look to their left to see Team JNPR walking up to them, with Pyrrha having her wallet out.
"Pyrrha!" Ruby cheers while raising her hands into the air.
"Are you sure? You don't have to," Velvet asks.
"But she could," Blake quickly says, wanting her fish back.
"Well, I think you all earned it after that battle," Pyrrha says.
"Mind if we join you?" Jaune asks.
A little later, the two teams finish their meals, all them feeling satisfied, though it looks like Weiss and Jaune may end up seeing their meals again.
"Are you sure it's wise to have eaten before a fight?" Ren asks.
"Exactly, it will give us energy," Pyrrha replies, but then Nora burps an incredibly LOUD burp next to her.
Jaune then painfully lays his head on the booth and groans, "If I barf, I'm blaming you," Jaune woefully says.
"Oh, aim it at the enemy," Nora playfully suggests, grinning madly.
"Nora, that's disgusting. But, if you do feel the urge," Ren says.
Jaune gives him a thumbs up, "Got it," he says, making Velvet gag.
Pyrrha then stands up, "Well, we should be off," she says.
"So, you think you guys are ready?" Ruby asks.
Nora speaks up, "Of course. We've got a world renowned fighter on our team, what's basically a ninja, I can bench five of me…J-Jaune…We've trained all year, our weapons are awesome, Glynda barely yells at us anymore, and uh…Jaune," Nora points out, trying to be nice with Jaune.
"Are you gonna take that?" Ren asks as everyone looks at Jaune.
"She's not wrong," Jaune admits, shaking his head as it remains on the booth.
'I'm kidding. He knows I'm kidding. Don't be so nervous. The worst that could happen is we LOSE. Then it's just a few more years of walking around school with everyone knowing we're failures. Our friends will slowly abandon us to preserve their social status. We won't be able to show our faces in class. No one will sit with us in the cafeteria. And Ren and I have no parents, and we have no home left to go to. We'll be officially renamed Team 'Losifer' ha-ha-ha," Nora starts laughing miserably as her face loses its color and she smacks her head to the booth while crying in agony.
"So, yeah…We're feeling pretty good," Ren calmly says.
"Yeah, sure…Let's just go with that," Velvet says as she stares at Nora.
Pyrrha places a supportive hand on Nora and Jaune's shoulders, "Don't fret. If anything, we should be looking forward to a fight with actual guidelines and not, well, murderers," Pyrrha notes.
"Yeah, don't sweat it. We've all faced way worse before," Yang says.
"Let's see: Grimm invasions, violent extremists, a destructive sociopath," Blake counts the fingers on her left hand.
"And that's all while we were still in training. Oh, imagine what it'll be like when we graduate," Ruby cheers, pumping her fists in front of her in excitement.
"Maybe then, I'll be able to pay for a meal," Weiss mutters, hanging her head as the announcements come on.
"Would Team JNPR please report to the battle grounds immediately," they hear Port's voice says.
"Yes, like they were scheduled to, SEVERAL minutes ago,"Oobleck's voice adds.
"Well it looks like this is it," Pyrrha says and she and Ren walk away, with Nora and Jaune trailing behind them, still in agony.
"Go get 'em," Ruby cheers them on.
"Good luck, you guys," Velvet thinks.
And that's the chapter. The Vytal Festival is now underway. I thought about putting Velvet in the first round, but then I decided to keep things fair and hold her off for the next two rounds. Will Team RVWBY make it through the tournament? Until then, please Read and Review.