It was a heated and quite dramatic battle. Between the leaders of a so-far pretty good team and an unimportant team nobody likes. It was Jaune against the leader of team CRDL, Cardin Winchester. And Jaune was on the losing side, visibly exhausted and having to put a good amount of his weight on his sword while Cardin hadn't seemed to have broken a sweat, chuckling arrogantly and easily shouldering his mace. Jaune then rushed in and swung, but Cardin managed to avoid it, causing Jaune's strike to hit the ground. Cardin then swung and hit Jaune with his mace and in spite of hitting the smaller boy's shield, sent him flying and losing the shield.
"He needs to balance his offense and defense better. And he doesn't have many defensive options to begin with." I said as we watched.
Jaune then quickly got up and swung down at Cardin, but he easily held him back after blocking the strike, forcing him back as well, despite Jaune's best attempts to push back. "This is the part where you lose." Cardin told him.
"Over my dead-" Jaune started, but then Cardin kneed him in...
"Ooh, nut check!" Draco winced and crossed his legs.
"Damn, that's gotta hurt!" Nicolas said, also wincing.
"Seriously?" Damion said, finding as much distaste towards Cardin's tactics as I did.
"Oh, come on! That's just a bitch move right there! At least fight him fair! Seriously, against Jaune, even YOU shouldn't have to use pussy-ass moves like that to win!" I criticized.
Jaune fell to the ground after this, holding his crotch and chest, Cardin raising his mace above his head as if he were going to smash Jaune like a bug. But as he was getting ready to swing, a buzzer sounded and the dramatic lights turned off, revealing this to only be a sparring match that was now over, Cardin obviously the winner. "That's enough." Glynda said, stepping in between the two combatants, pulling out her scroll. "Students, as you can see, Mr. Arc's aura has now dropped into the red." She explained.
"After that nut check, I'm not surprised. I'd probably be in the red zone, too." I said, my legs crossed as well.
"In a tournament style fight, this would indicate that Jaune is no longer fit for battle and the official may call the match." Glynda explained, Pyrrha looking concerned.
"Screw aura readings, I keep fighting until either I go down or my opponent does." Damion said.
"And since it's your we're talking about, it's normally that second one." I said.
Glynda then turned back to Jaune. "Mr. Ark, it's been weeks now. Please try to refer to your scroll during combat. Guaging your aura will help decide when it is appropriate to attack, or when it is better to move to a more... defensive strategy." She explained.
"Screw defense, I say give me more ways to hurt people." I said, the guys nodding.
"That... Is not a good idea." Selene said.
"We're ninjas, we focus less on blocking hits and stick more to our speed and offense to focus on not getting hit at all." Serena explained.
"Huh. That's actually a great-sounding strategy." Umbra said considerately, nodding.
"I always thought it's best to balance everything." Naomi said.
"Hey, if it works, stick to that." Damion said.
Jaune looked at his scroll and sighed. "We wouldn't want you to get gobbled up by a beowulf, now would we?" Glynda asked in a somewhat lighter tone.
"Well, he was able to hold up against a Deathstalker's assault, so I think he could at least handle a beowulf." I said.
"Wow, thanks, Sai-" He started.
"Abeowulf. More than one and you'd be in a whole lot of trouble." I said.
"Speak for yourself." Cardin said to Glynda, referring to when she said we wouldn't want him eaten by a beowulf, shouldering the mace again and walking off.
"I really hate that guy." I said.
"Yeah, he's prick." Damion agreed.
"Remember, everyone! The Vytal festival is only a few months away! It won't be long before students in other kingdoms start arriving in Vale, so keep practicing!" She said, all of us getting excited: Yang punching the air a couple few times, Weiss shaking her fists with anticipation (not in an angry way like normal), Ruby fidgeting out of control, Pyrrha looking excited, Naomi having a similar reaction to Weiss, Umbra letting out a quick howl, Selene and Serena locking hands and looking at each other excitedly, Draco fist-pumping, Nicolas rubbing his hands together in anticipation, Damion sporting one of his rare smirks and me briefly triggering and pulling my fist back. "Thos of you who choose to compete in the combat tournament will be representing all of Vale." She finished, then the bell rang.
"And if there's one thing we know about the tournament and the one who wins-" I started.
"~It's gonna be me~!" Nicolas sang like the Backstreet Boys.
"... One of us 4, yes." I said awkwardly, something that almost ALWAYS happens during a conversation between me and him.
Later, in the cafeteria at lunch...
"So. There we were... In the middle of the night!" Nora told us some epic sounding story, her eyes in a glare until she said "night", at which point she snapped them wide open.
"It was day." Ren corrected.
We were mostly listening, but Yang was the only one in awe by the story, the rest of us telling it was bull simply from the fact Nora was telling it and making it sound dramatic, Ren correcting it only helping to confirm this theory. "We were surrounded by ursai!" She continued.
"They were beowulves." Ren corrected again.
"Dozens of them!" She said, shooting up from her seat.
"Two of 'em." Ren corrected again.
"But they were no match! And in the end, Ren and I took them down and made a boatload of lien selling Ursai skin rugs!" She finished, sitting down, crossing her arms and closing her eyes happily, Ren sighing.
"She's been having this recurring dream for nearly a month now." Ren explained.
"Fascinating story, but now it's my turn. And I'll tell you a true story this time. It's about the time me and my brother went on a mission together in the snowy peaks of the mountains... Remembering..." I said, remembering...
Flashback...
Me and Lance were on what was our final mission together, hearing that there was a horde of massive beasts called blongongas (big snow baboons) on top of a snow-covered mountain. "You sure this is where they are?" I asked him, trying my best to ignore the blizzard snow hitting my face. We continued to walk when suddenly he stopped and he held his hand out to stop me, two of them already in the clearing ahead of us, spotting us and roaring in fury, their smaller versions, known as blongas, rising up from the snow in front of us.
"Does that answer your question?" He answered, rushing in.
Background music: "Get out alive" By Three Days Grace
He masterfully slid under the first blonga that tried to tackle him, stabbing a kunai into its heart as it passed over him, then round-kicking the second one hard enough to shatter its skull, sending it flying off the cliff-side, so one way or another, it was super dead. He then charged at the blongonga on the right, easily throwing a punch to knock it onto its side, shooting a spiraling mixture of lightning and fire at the one on the left, causing it to scream and back away in pain.
"Fucking show-off." I said, rushing at the one he was frying as the one he had knocked down got up and tackled him, but he simply fell back, got his feet on its chest as it landed and threw it off of him to the other end of the snowy field we were on, almost over the edge, but it managed to catch the ledge and started to pull itself up. "Come on, you big, ugly son of a bitch!" I said, throwing my strongest attacks at the beast, my limbs covered in fire, severely damaging it until it managed to throw a backhand and smack me back into a wall, then charged in, slamming its head into my chest and crushing my back more against the cliff wall behind me, chomping into my stomach with its sharp teeth and giant fangs, all the while I was hitting it as hard as I could, punching it in the head and cracking its skull each time and gouging one of its eyes out. It then stepped back in panic and pain, holding the wounded eye socket with one hand, leaving it open for me to lift it up on the off-balanced side and plunge my hand into its chest, ripping its heart out.
At this moment, the one my brother had practically thrown off the cliff climbed back up and glared at him with the intent to kill. "Okay then. Come on." He said in a voice that sounds like a menacing hiss, indicating that he was going to kill something, reaching for the katana sheathed on his back. It reached into the ground, grabbing a giant hunk of ice-covered rock and thick snow, tossing it into the air above my brother, rushing in at the same time. He looked up, unsheathed the blade and easily sliced through the chunk of ice, took a step behind him in a scissor stance so his legs were crossed, then spun into it so they were uncrossed, dropping onto his back knee, now both him and his sword level with the monsters face, just barely out of reach of the giant icy fangs. "To the next world." He said darkly, effortlessly slicing the monster in two, jumping/flipping back to avoid the two pieces colliding with him.
"Too easy." I said, but then we heard a much louder howling and looked up on the cliffs above to see 4 of them, two each on the cliffs closest to us, jumping down and looking at us with the intent to kill.
"The time for holding back is over, Sai. Grab a weapon!" He told me.
"I was waiting for you!" I said, pulling out a couple of sais, the first one rushed at me, but that was too simple. I merely moved to the side enough to the side to dodge its attack and then plunged the sai in my right hand into the top of its head, through the brain. Instant kill. From there, I spun and threw the sai in my left and into its right shoulder, stunning it in pain, then ripped the other sai out of the first ones brain and threw it into the left shoulder, causing the beast to rear up in pain, leaving it completely open, so I pulled out a katana, rushed in and sliced it in half at the waist. I pulled the sais out of its shoulder and looked up to Lance, shocked to see he had killed the two that had come at him, they're bodies still surging with electricity, but now he was surrounded by 4 more. "Lance! Hang on!" I said, rushing in.
"Don't bother." He said in a cool tone, raising his hand, then crouching and slamming that hand into the ground, bringing up giant spikes of frozen rock from the ground below them, easily impaling them and lifting them off the ground.
"Damn, good job." I said, He looked at me and nodded with a confident smirk that reminded me a lot of Damion (Yang giggled when I told this part and Damion growled a bit), but then his eyes widened, which I knew meant there was something behind me. I turned around quickly to see 3 more barreling down the cliff behind me right towards me, 2 still climbing down, but the first one just jumped down close to me and was ready to attack.
"Whoa!" I said, rolling away and throwing a fireball at its face, stunning it. I then ran back to where Lance was as more and more continued to climb down. We were now faced against 20 of them at once. "Any plans?" I asked, looking at him.
"IcyHot." He said with a smirk, which I matched and nodded. He then jumped into the air, slamming down in the middle of them, taking them off-balance and at the same time releasing a blast of freezing cold air that would put liquid nitrogen to shame, freezing them all solid and immobilizing them. "Your turn!" He said, jumping back to where I was.
"Time I turned up the heat!" I said, jumping high up into the air and slamming down like he did, but unlike him, I engulfed the same radius as his blast of cold air in fire hotter than hellfire, easily incinerating all of them. "I think our job is done." I said, dispelling the fire.
End music
"I'd say that's an accurate statement." He agreed.
End Flashback...
"Whoa! You're brother's so cool!" Nora said.
"And what am I, chopped liver?" I asked.
"Well, from the way you told the story, it sounds like he had the bigger body count." Damion said,
"Still, though, taking down even one of those looks like tough business. I'll give you props for that." Yang said, elbowing me gently.
"THANK YOU." I said.
"Yeah, but still, even you say your brother is more badass than you." Draco continued.
"You wanna see how badass I can be?" I asked, glaring at him, eyes piercing red.
"Nope, I'm good." He said.
"Oh, sibling rivalry." Selene said, smiling, but shaking her head.
"I can relate. I have 4 little sisters and 4 older ones." Umbra said.
"Lance even killed him once, but that was on accident. And Sai's fault." Serena said.
"Ix-nay on the ying-day." I said, glaring at her.
We then looked at Jaune, who seemed to e depressed. "Jaune? Are you okay?" Pyrrha asked him.
It took him a minute to respond, but then he did. "Huh? Oh, yeah, fine. Why?" He asked.
"It's just that... You seem a little... Not okay." Ruby said.
"Yeah, man, you've been moping and barely even touching your food." I said.
"You didn't even notice Nick taking most of it." Damion said.
"Huh?" He asked, then looked at Nicolas, who scraped the majority of Jaune's food onto his plate while he was playing with it absent-mindedly.
"My bad." He said, scooting away from the depressed blonde.
"Guys, I'm fine. Seriously, look!" He said, striking a fake-happy smile, laughing nervously.
"That's as fake as a 3 dollar bill." Damion said.
"Yeah, it's like the one I wear when I'm actually miserable during one of Serena's fan-dancing ceremonies." I said.
"Hey!" She snapped, pouting.
We then heard laughter and looked over to where team CRDL was picking on a bunny faunus girl named Velvet: Cardin laughing at her, Sky pointing his fingers near his head as if he had bunny ears and the other two simply glaring at her. "I am GOING to kick that guy's ass. VERY soon." I said.
"Let me know if you need help." Damion said.
"If he does, I'll be more than happy to help him." Umbra said, glaring at the asshole and baring her teeth a bit.
Jaune clenched his fist at this until Pyrrha spoke up. "Jaune, Cardin has been picking on you since the first day of school." She said.
"Who? Cardin Winchester? Naw! He just likes to mess around, you know! Practical jokes!" Jaune said dismissively.
"You mean like being a racist bastard to the faunus and kneeing you in the balls?" I asked.
"He's a bully." Ruby said, Serena pointing to her with her thumb.
"Oh, please. Name one time he's 'bullied' me." Jaune said, putting quotes on "bullied" with his fingers.
"Well..." Draco said.
Flashback...
Jaune was walking down the hall with a book in his hand and Cardin was walking up it, then when he was passing Jaune, Cardin made it look like he'd hit Jaune, causing him to flinch and allowing Cardin to smack the book out of his hand. "Oh, come on!" He said as Cardin shrugged and continued up the hall.
"And then..." Damion said.
Second flashback...
Cardin was walking out of a classroom Jaune was walking into, the two either fist-bumping or some form of hand maneuver, but when they passed, Cardin pressed the button on Jaune's sword sheath, causing it to turn into its shield form and got lodged in the doorway. "Oh, come on!" He grumbled as he attempted to free his shield until I showed up and kicked it into the classroom, freeing it and sending it flying into the faces of the other 3 members of team CRDL.
"And let us not forget..." Nicolas concluded.
Final Flashback...
We were all standing around, listening to Glynda's instructions as we were getting assigned lockers. "Each of you will be assigned rocket-propelled locker to store your weapons and extra armor. Additionally, your locker can be sent to a custom location based on a 6 digit code." She explained. All the while, Cardin and Jaune were standing next to an open locker, Cardin looking at it and Jaune with a devious grin when Glynda reached the word "Additionally". When she finished, he shoved Jaune into the locker and entered a 6 digit code as Jaune protested, the locker going flying.
"Oh, come on!" Jaune screamed from inside the locker.
End flashbacks...
We all looked at him as if to say "well?". There was a pause for a moment before he said something that made me want to smack him in the back of the head. "I didn't land far from the school." He said. I then smacked him in the back of the head. "What was that for?" He asked.
"For bein' a idiot!" I said in an Italian-ish accent.
Whoa! That's an old reference! I wonder how many people will get it?
[It will take a good memory and someone no younger than us... Or YouTube.]
"Jaune, you know if you ever need help you can just ask." Pyrrha said.
"Ooh!" Nora said, standing up. "We'll break his legs!" She said.
"I FUCKING LOVE THIS GIRL!" I said, holding my arms out to her, an anime background making her look like a goddess.
"Just for saying she'll break someone's legs?" Serena asked.
"Yep." I said with a single nod.
"JUST for THAT?" Damion asked.
"Yes." I said, nodding.
Jaune then grabbed his tray and stood up. "Guys, really, it's fine. Besides, it's not like he's only a jerk to me. He's a jerk to everyone." He said. We then look over to see him pulling on Velvet's ears.
"Ow! That hurts! Please stop." She pleaded shyly. This got us all pissed, everyone that wasn't in mine or Serena's team was glaring daggers at him. Naomi picked up her apple and looked like she was getting ready to throw it, Serena, Draco and Nicolas pulled out there weapons and Umbra was now growling, teeth bared again and her hair standing on end. She was gonna FUCK HIM UP.
"Somebody's gotta do something about this shit." I said in an annoyed tone, snaking my chains over undetected.
"Hey, jackass! Why don't you start picking on someone your own size, huh?!" Damion yelled at him.
"Leave her alone you ugly prick!" Selene snapped.
This got his attention, as he turned and glared at them, about to get up, but then three chains smacked into the side of his head and bounced it off the table, then as he lifted his head a bit, two more chains wrapped around his feet and yanked him down, bouncing his chin off the end of the table and his head off the seat, then off the floor after he was dragged under the table until I dragged him over to us, holding him a few feet in the air to look me in the face. "Cardin. Good to see you, let's have a chat." I said in my Spawn voice, which really meant I was pissed and he would NOT escape this encounter without serious injury.
His team started to get up to try and help him, but were stopped when each member of my team sat down or stood in front of them in a badass/threatening manner: Draco casually sitting sideways on the seat in front of Russel (I know you guys probably don't remember and don't care who's who, but don't worry, that's not important) one leg on the floor and the other on the seat so the foot was resting on the leg, Nicolas sitting on the table sideway looking at Dove and Damion simply standing in front of Sky (who from what I can tell is the most cowardly of the group based on a later episode) with his arms crossed, glaring at him. "Alright, since you guys wanna be all tough about this, if you move, he dies." Damion told them, scaring them shitless.
You can always count on Damion to lock shit down.
[He's like the enforcer of the team. We're the leader, he's the enforcer, Draco's the lieutenant and Nicolas is the scout... Something like that.]
(Not bad.) I thought, then turned my attention back to Cardin. "Now, I don't know if you know this about me, but I consider myself a diversialist. I don't think that's a word and the AutoSpellcheck is telling me it's not, but basically what I'm saying is I like people no matter what they are, different skin color, different religion, different diets, even though I will say vegetarians do annoy me sometimes when they try to preach their reasons and make me give up meat, faunus and even insane people are fine with me. The only people I don't like are criminals, terrorist, arrogant asswipes, bullies and racist shitheads. Now unfortunately for you, you fit all 4 of those last ones, which means I REALLY hate YOU. And people I hate have historically not lasted very long. But I don't think the school would take kindly to me killing a fellow student in broad daylight. So I'm gonna give you one chance to stop being a little shithead like you are and act like what you really are: A weak, pathetic, useless, cowardly piece of shit who's weaker than everybody else. If I catch you bullying anyone else, picking on or making any nasty comments or so much as look at another faunus funny or mess with Jaune or any of my friends again, we are going to re-enact this scene up on the roof with you over the edge. And this is how the scene ends." I said, lifting him higher and over the table, dropping him down on his head.
"Ow! Damn! Okay, okay! So, is that it?" He asked.
"No. Now it's time for one of the only subjects in school both me and my brother liked: Zoology. How much do you know about wolves?" I asked, using my chains to wrap around his wrists and ankles and having him spread out like I was going to have him stretched with the horses like they did in medieval times so he couldn't move.
"Um... They're really big, violent dogs and they hunt in packs?" He asked.
"Yes, but that's one of their most well-known and least interesting facts. Here's the fact I find most interesting about them: They are the only animals besides human that seek revenge for their injured friends. This applies even heavier to wolf faunus, as their both humans and wolves, which makes their sense of revenge twice as strong as any human. And this also gives them a wider field, because they have the diversity most humans have, so if you hurt ANY faunus, a wolf faunus is gonna make you shit sideways when they're done with you. As luck would have it, we have a wolf faunus right here and you were just hurting and humiliating a rabbit faunus, so you're in some trouble now." I said to him, then turned to Umbra. "Have fun." I said, closing my eyes and covering Serena's as Damion did the same to Selene and Yang did the same to Ruby.
"With pleasure." She said, giving me a gratifying smile as we heard him scream and the sound of flesh getting ripped and torn, bones breaking as well.
"Wow. And I was about to say it's hard to be a faunus. So much for that." Yang said as she watched.