In honor of Valentine's Day, we had a bunch of romance-related prompts this week. The prompt for this was "A duel between two characters for another character's love."
Qrow and Tai stood in the center of the training hall, both panting heavily. The screen on the back wall of the room showed that both boys' Auras were nearing the red.
Sizing his opponent up one last time, Qrow charged forwards. Just a few steps away from his opponent, he abruptly shifted Harbinger from sword form to scythe form and launched into a sweeping slash. However, Tai saw this coming and ducked underneath the slash while stepping closer to his opponent. Rising out of the crouch, he hit Qrow in the chin with an uppercut, knocking the scythe wielder off his feet and leaving him sprawled on his back.
A buzzer sounded through the training hall, indicating that Qrow's Aura had fallen into the red. Tai had managed to pull out a win against one of the Branwens.
"Great job, Tai!" called Summer from the bleachers. "Both of you looked really good that fight."
"It was fine," Raven said noncommittally from her seat beside Summer. "A little early to be getting that tired if you ask me."
"Yeah, well we didn't," Qrow pointed out. He took Tai's offered hand and let himself be pulled to his feet.
"How much longer do we have the room reserved?" asked Raven.
Summer glanced at the clock on the wall. "Ten minutes."
"Just enough time for our match," said Raven as she stood and grabbed her weapon.
"Sure thing," agreed Summer as she followed suit, picking up her twin scimitars from the bench beside her.
Summer had been expecting this. A week ago she'd managed to finally beat Raven in a sparring match, bringing their record to seventeen to one in the Branwen girl's favor. This of course was completely unacceptable to Raven. All week she had been pestering Summer about reserving the training hall again, but then once they had the space she had waited until the end of their allotted time to challenge Summer.
Raven was capable of being a good teammate, but Summer hated how absurdly competitive she was. And it was almost always directed at her. Raven's record against Qrow was almost even, and she never sulked about that. And she actually started taking Tai's advances a bit more seriously after he finally managed a win against her. But she couldn't accept losing to her team leader any more than she could accept the fact that Summer even was the team leader.
As Summer was getting ready for the fight to begin, Raven motioned her to come closer. Hoping for, but not expecting, an offer of peace, Summer lowered her weapons and walked over to her teammate.
"If I win, stop making eyes at Tai," muttered Raven, low enough that the boys wouldn't hear.
Summer's eyes widened. She tried to come up with a suitable reply to that, but found that her brain didn't seem to be functioning at the moment.
"S-sorry," she eventually managed to stammer out.
"Don't apologize," snapped Raven. "Just stop." Then she smirked. "Of course, if you win, I'll give you a chance with him."
Summer stared at her teammate, trying to process what had just been said to her.
"I am not fighting you over Tai," she said firmly.
"That'll make this pretty easy," Raven chuckled as she drew her sword. Without waiting for a signal to start the fight, she lunged at her team leader.
Summer backpedaled as she raised one scimitar to block the attack. Raven immediately recovered from the lunge and launched into a fierce but carefully controlled sequence of attacks. Summer was forced to keep retreating and use both of her blades to defend.
Dammit, I can't let her drive me back like this!
Summer carefully watched each of Raven's attacks, and when she saw her opportunity she stepped inside of her teammate's guard and directed a slash at her face. Raven only just managed to weave out of the way of the scimitar.
Raven jumped backwards and sheathed her sword. She flicked the switch on her scabbard to switch to a different Dust-infused blade. In one motion she drew her sword again and unleashed a razor-sharp blast of wind at her opponent.
Without hesitating, Summer sprinted towards the attack, throwing herself over it at the last second. The wind sent her cloak billowing out around her as she soared above it.
Summer resumed her sprint as soon as she landed, sparing a millisecond to enjoy the surprised look on Raven's face. She closed the distance to her opponent and lashed out with both scimitars. Raven blocked one, but the other pierced her guard to strike her in the chest, damaging her Aura.
Rage twisted the Branwen girl's face as she stepped away from her opponent. Summer tried to keep the distance close, but she couldn't stop Raven from slashing her sword upwards to unleash another blast of wind. Summer spun out of the way of the attack, ending up at Raven's right side.
The spin forced her to take her eyes off her opponent for a moment, so she didn't see Raven grab a handful of her white cloak. But she had full view as her teammate brought her sword down.
Summer stared in shock, her mouth hanging open, as the lower half of her beloved cloak fell to the floor of the training hall. She slowly tore her gaze from the cloth to meet her opponent's crimson gaze.
"Why would you-" breathed Summer before Raven cut her off with a pommel smash to the nose. Even with her Aura nearly full, pain blossomed across her face.
Summer backpedaled a few steps before recovering and throwing herself at Raven with a cry of anger. She lashed out again and again with her scimitars, but Raven easily warded off the wild attacks. Barely a handful of second passed before Raven found an opening and knocked Summer off her feet with a vicious chop.
Coming back to herself, Summer glanced at the screen to see that her Aura was just above the red. She then brought her gaze back to Raven, who was advancing on her fallen foe. The Branwen sister lifted her sword over her head and took one last step towards her team leader…
Only to find that her legs had become entangled in the cloth she had cut from Summer's cloak. As she continued forward, she tripped and collapsed onto her side, dropping her weapon in her surprise.
Summer stared at her fallen opponent for a moment before shaking her head.
I'm not winning like that.
As discretely as possible, the team leader pressed the tip of one of her scimitars into her thigh until she heard the buzzer sound the end of the match. She rose to her feet and moved to help Raven, but the Branwen girl was already moving.
She tore the cloth from around her legs and threw it aside, springing to her feet an instant later. Ignoring Summer completely, she advanced towards the bleachers with her sword in hand.
"What the HELL was that?" screamed Raven. Tai moved in front of her, trying to calm her down, but she shoved him out of the way and pointed her sword at Qrow. "You used your Semblance on me? ME?"
"Yeah, I did," Qrow shouted back, rising to his feet. "And you know what, I'll do worse if you don't stop acting like such a cunt!"
"What did you just say to me?" growled Raven as she stepped closer and held her blade up to her brother's neck.
"HEY!" shouted Summer, her voice raised enough to make even Raven flinch back. It had taken more than a year, but she'd finally managed to develop a 'leader tone' that the rest of Team STRQ respected. "That's enough. Let's get cleaned up and head back to the dorm. The next team will be coming in soon."
Raven sneered, but she backed away from Qrow and sheathed her sword. As her teammates gathered their belongings in silence, Summer picked the torn remains of her cloak up off the ground. Her hand trembled slightly as she held the white cloth, anger at Raven fighting with her need to keep some measure of peace on the team. What remained on her shoulders barely reached down to her waist.
"If you want I can fix that for you," offered Tai from across the room. Summer glanced at him in surprise.
"You can sew?" asked Qrow with a smirk.
"Yeah," replied Tai cheerfully. "My mom taught me. I'm pretty sure Team VERD has a set I could borrow."
"That would be great," Summer said, beaming. Then she thought of something. "Actually, do you think you could teach me how to sew?"
"Yeah, if you want," answered Tai.
Raven glared at Summer. When Tai and Qrow weren't looking, she mouthed "I won."
Summer just shrugged in reply, trying not to let any smugness show on her face. It wasn't easy. She was really looking forward to spending that time with Tai.
Author's Note: Yeah, there was no way I was just going to write about two characters fighting and the winner getting laid. That's lame.
And just in case anyone was still unclear, I don't much care for Raven.