Chapter 29: Vytal Festival I: I Love the Smell of Thunder in the Afternoon

"I see..." Jaune Arc resisted the urge to yawn as he and his father finished hashing out details. "Ok, I'll tell Sun in the morning."

The call ended, allowing Jaune to drop it and flop back into his bed... for a good forty seconds until his alarm rang.

"YEAH!" Nora Valkyrie burst out excitedly from her bed and pumped her fist as if she hadn't been deep asleep seconds ago, although Jaune knew otherwise. "Today's the day! Can I get a 'Wooooo!'?"

"Wooo..." Jaune yawned as he pumped his fist with far less energy.

"wooo..." Pyrrha Nikos barely managed to flop her arm in Nora's direction before it fell against the floor bonelessly.

"..." Lie Ren kept snoring, totally unbothered.

Neo Politan yawned as her 'team' match begun. Honestly, as if a single one of them wasn't enough to take them all down.

"And they're off!"

Cleaning her ear from Peter Port's announcement, Neo rolled her eyes and casually strolled forward, not needing to focus on anything but her own opponent amongst the opposing team.

"C'mon, lass!" Her opponent spoke as he twirled a pair of kukri blades. "I'm gonna treat you real well, little lady~"

Gaining a little twitch in her eye, Neo felt her boredom instantly shift into lethal annoyance. 'Did this punk just call me little?'

Before he could react, Neo's kick was already in motion, her shin smashing into his throat hard enough to flip him over backwards and land him on his face. But it wasn't over yet.

Neo stomped on his head hard enough to bounce him up, then slammed her left heel into his chin, lifting him up to his feet, did a spinning handstand to kick his face to the side, spun twice to deliver a right roundhouse kick to his ribs.

"Ouch!" Bartholomew Oobleck winced. "I do not know what that young man said to her but Miss Blackberry is showing a really brutal side of her!"

The guy tried to slash his blade at Neo but she swiftly kicked twice, knocking them out of his grip and with a third kick, sent him flying backwards. Just as the poor guy tried to gain his senses, Neo had already backflipped all the way to his position, dodging just as he threw a shaky punch.

Just as he turned to face her, it was already too late. Neo delivered a flurry of kicks so fast onto his side that it all seemed to hit simultaneously, sending him flying off the ring entirely. When he slammed against the forcefield, he slid down and didn't move anymore.

"Flawless Victory!" Port cheered.

"An excellent triumph for Miss Blackberry!" Oobleck commented. "That poor young man was just too outclassed in this scenario. Of course, her teammates are no slouches, either!"

Neo sighed, then blinked as Cinder Fall kicked her opponent towards her. Without the slightest hesitation, she leaned down to look him in the eyes, idly switched her eye colors for the heck of it, and stomped him in the face hard enough to knock him out.

"And with that, Team CEMM wins before two minutes have even passed!"

"They should really fix that name, though."

Neo bit her lip and resisted the urge to giggle as a vein throbbed on Cinder's 'always perfect' face. Okay, it might have her initial there too, but at least her's was fake.

Back in the stands, Jaune sagged into his seat. "And I thought we were unlucky for getting named after a type of plant."

"What do you think we should try before getting ready for our own fight?!" Nora zipped spontaneously from one stall to another in the fairgrounds. "How about some of this?! Or this?!"

"Looks like Team RWBY's battle has lit a spark in Nora." Pyrrha commented as Ren tried to drag Nora back as she nearly climbed into one stall.

"That spark's been there for days if not weeks." Jaune grumbled as he checked his wallet. "Dammit. I should've brought more money. There's no way I can pay for all of us with just this."

"It's fine." Pyrrha reassured as she patted her partner's back. "I can handle the rest. Maybe even pay the whole thing."

Some guys would have tried to protest against their girlfriend offering something like that. But from a girlfriend who was well aware of the bottomless pit that was Nora's stomach?

Jaune suddenly drew Pyrrha into a tight hug. "Thank you so much! I'll pay you back, I swear!"

"I know you will." Powering through her blush, Pyrrha hugged him back. "It doesn't really matter much, anyways. Thanks to all the sponsorship deals I made before Beacon, I've got quite a bit of Lien that's just piling up in my account. This is a good use for it, anyways."

"I'm usually all for romance, but I'm really hungry, right now!" Nora popped up near them, startling the couple apart.

"Nora!" Ren gently rebuked. "Even though Jaune promised to pay, he's not at your beck and call."

Nora looked like she'd just been told that the Moon secretly used to be whole. "But I'm the queen of the castle!"

Ren raised an eyebrow. "Going by that logic, doesn't that make Jaune the king?"

"Jaune's the Leader, but you're my ki-!" Nora cut herself off, holding her words in and just silently pushing her head into Ren's chest while punching him weakly. "Urgh... Sorry, Ren. Sorry, Jaune."

'Was she just about to say...?' Pyrrha raised an interested eyebrow as Jaune forgave her and kept looking for a place to eat. "Speaking of which, who will represent us for the doubles?"

"Me!" Nora recovered and pumped her fist.

"I'd say it's likely to either be you or Jaune going on with Nora." Ren nodded. "I'm the weakest of our entire team in terms of overall skills and abilities."

"Actually, I wanna go into the doubles." Jaune spoke up. "If either of you don't mind..."

"That's a splendid!" Pyrrha clapped her hands in joy. "I don't mind giving you my spot but why the sudden interest, though?"

"...remember what I told you about my contact in the criminal underworld back during that week Torchwick went road crazy in a giant robot?" Jaune reminded his team.

"I'm still pissed that they didn't invite me!" Nora grumbled.

"Nora, it started as a reconnaissance mission." Ren berated. "You weren't going to be invited in any way."

Jaune continued. "Well, they just told me that something big might disrupt the tournament in a bad way. And I need either of our strongest fighters free, just in case."

Ren's eyes narrowed. "Isn't Torchwick already arrested?"

"This is bigger than just Torchwick." Jaune replied. "As in... Disaster-class: Calamity kind of big."

"Have you told the Headmaster?" Pyrrha asked in worry.

"I tried to before we left Beacon, but he was too busy." Jaune sighed. "I guess the starting day of the Vytal Festival just wasn't a free day for Ozpin."

"I see..." Pyrrha hummed. "Well, you can have my spot. Besides, it'll be nice to actually watch a tournament I'm interested in without having to participate all the way."

"Thanks, Pyrrha." Jaune relaxed under the reassuring gazes of his team. Regardless of whatever Roman warned him about, he was relieved that he could at least count on them. "Wait, I think I see Ruby and her team."

Jaune and the others approached them as the all-girls team sat in a kiosk called {A Simple Wok}, getting near enough to hear Blake Belladonna's cry of despair as a large bowl of fish and noodles was ripped away from her.

"Maybe I could help?" Pyrrha offered as she and the rest of her team approached the stand.

"Pyrrha!" Ruby Rose flung her arms wide in delight, then blushed and looked away when she sighted Jaune. "...and Jaune!"

"Aw, you don't have to ..." Yang Xiao Long said, not thinking much of Ruby's hesitation as Jaune raised an eyebrow at the hooded girl's behavior.

"But she could!" Blake hastily interrupted, her usual stoicism abandoned due to the potential loss of her favorite meal. "No reason to stop someone who's offering to pay."

"Well, I think you all earned it after your battle." Pyrrha complimented.

"Mind if we join you?" Jaune asked, more as a courtesy though, as no one expected them to be rejected.

Later on, their large bowls of noodles were empty, and each hunter was either content with their meal or holding their stomachs sickly.

"Are you sure it's wise to have eaten so much before our fight?" Ren asked Pyrrha.

"Of course! It will give us energy!" Pyrrha replied while the elderly Shopkeeper gathered the empty bowls at high speed.

*BURB!*

Nora simply gave a hearty belch.

"I honestly thought that I wouldn't be able to finish that." Jaune yawned as he eyed where the Shopkeeper had entered. "I even still feel a bit unsatisfied."

"Your appetite has spiked recently." Pyrrha noted. "Did you make sure to increase your meal plan after all the escalated training you've been doing with your Semblance?"

"Semblance?!" Ruby finally looked Jaune in the eye and would've zipped over to his side if not for a just as curious Weiss Schnee grabbing her hood. "You've unlocked your Semblance?! Oooo! What is it? What can you do? Do you have freeze breath? Can you shoot lasers out of your eyes? Can you make forcefields?"

"You can look forward to it in one of our upcoming battles." Pyrrha stood up, ready to leave. "Well, we should be off."

"So, you think you guys are ready?" Yang asked.

"Of course!" Nora replied. "We've got a world-renowned fighter on our team, what's basically ninja, I can bench five of me and Jaune who can use all 3 types of Haki-"

"Haki got banned." Jaune stated as he held up his Celestial Gate Keys. "And so are these, too. Not that I was going to Summon them anyways."

"What?!"

"Yeah..." Ruby sheepishly chuckled. "Goodwitch called us to her office and specifically ordered us not to use it. Only Observation Haki got allowed and that one's probably because we can't consciously not use it."

"...oh." Nora blinked. "Well, Jaune's still pretty strong, too. Wait, what about {Super Hunter}?!"

Jaune gave a thumbs-up, assuring her that his invented move hadn't been banned, at least.

"Would Team JNPR please report to the battlegrounds immediately!" Port was heard over the intercom system.

"Yes! Like they were scheduled to, several minutes ago!" Oobleck added in to Port's order.

"I guess we got a bit hung up in our meals." Jaune remarked.

"Well, it looks like this is it." Pyrrha said.

"Go get 'em!" Ruby yelled to Team JNPR as they walked away.

Team RWBY entered the Amity Coliseum through one of its tunnels and headed to their seats just as Emerald and Mercury passed by behind them to do the same.

Down in the field below, there was only a layer of white mechanics present, along with a central stage on which the two teams gathered.

"30,000 Lien on Team BRNZ!"

Inside a bar in Argus, bets were being placed all around.

"50,000 on Pyrrha Nikos!"

"She ain't a team by herself, you idiot!"

"Quit talking like she can't take them all herself!"

"Come on, everyone!" The dealer yelled. "Bets will close and become unchangeable the moment the fight starts!"

"960,000 Lien on Team JNPR's complete victory!" A female voice yelled out, silencing the bar as two blonde women approached, with the one without a baby in her arms slapping a bag of money on the table. "Not a single one of them's gonna lose!"

"Sara, are you crazy?!" Saphron Cotta-Arc rebuked her younger sister. "I'm all for supporting Jaune and his friends but don't bet so much in one go!"

"Don't worry." Sara Arc waved off her concerns without a care. "Jaune'll win. You think so, too. Right, Adrian?"

Baby Adrian Cotta-Arc cheered in agreement. "Jawney!"

"I assume that you're cheering for that blond knight up there." The dealer nodded. "Looks the least impressive of the whole team."

The two sisters suddenly stopped arguing to glare at him together, rendering him silent for the sheer menace he could feel from them.

"I could just beat you up real bad." Sara cracked her knuckles and fingers singlehandedly. "But it'll be much more fun to see Jaune prove you wrong himself and win me lots of cash."

"Team JNPR of Beacon versus Team BRNZ of Shade!" Port announced over the cheering crowds as the teams stood against each other.

May Zedong silently waved at Jaune and Pyrrha, who both waved back.

As each team readied their poses, a circle of holographic roulettes started to spin frantically through various symbols and colors before finally landing on a green pine tree and gray thunderstruck mountain. With these random selections, half of the field opens to reveal a tree-filled forest, while the other raises a small rocky outcropping to fill in the circle.

"We got the Mountain Biome." Jaune muttered. "If that lightning symbol means anything, that's good for Nora, at least."

"But they got the Forest Biome." Ren refuted. "And that girl in the beanie is clearly the sniper of their team."

"Then that makes her a priority target." Jaune decided. "The environment is just as perfect for her as ours's is for Nora."

"Three, two, one, begin!" Port announced.

"Come on, guys!" Jaune raised his sword.

"BEGIN!" Port yelled, and with that, the match started.

All four members of JNPR charged forward, but only three fighters from BRNZ did the same; May predictably turned around and headed for the trees, cocking her weapon.

"Pyrrha!" At that call from Jaune, Pyrrha mechashifted {Milo} into it's rifle mode and shot at May.

Sensing the danger, May dodged the bullet without looking and spun about, entering into an aiming stance just as Pyrrha shot three more bullets.

May fired once, then twice, then thrice, shooting all of Pyrrha's bullets out of the air.

"What?!" Jaune's cry easily matched the shock Pyrrha felt at that, nearly causing her to miss the knee kick that Brawnz Ni would have delivered to her head had she not brought up her shield in time.

Nodding in appreciation of her leader's intervention, May headed for the trees once more, successfully disappearing into the foliage.

Ren readied his {StormFlower} to attack Nolan Porfirio, who almost got blindsided by Nora's swing with {Magnhild} before he ducked under the attack and attempted to hit her with his cattle prod.

Meanwhile, Jaune clashed his shield against Roy Stallion's {Circular Saws} before slashing at him, causing the dreadlocked Huntsman to back off and shoot one of his saw blades as a projectile. Rather than take the chance of dodging and letting them attack from behind, Jaune slashed forward, unleashing a crescent wave of Amplified Aura which not only engulfed the projectile but also slammed into Roy and sent him flying through a tree.

Attaining a position, May finally took aim from her spot and managed to fire off two rounds near Ren, destroying the rocks behind him.

At the sound of the gunshots, Jaune took notice of the glint from May's rifle in the leaves. "I got her!"

He unleashed an even bigger {Aura Slash} than before, decimating a large section of the Forest Biome.

"Wow!" May panted as she had just narrowly dodged the attack. Unfortunately, Roy wasn't as lucky. "Crazy close!"

*BUZZ!*

"What a hit! With that, Roy Stallion is out of the battle!"

"What is also impressive is that Mr. Arc has just destroyed a good bit of Miss Zedong's terrain advantage! You can't be a good sniper if you run out of hiding spots, after all!"

"What the hell?!" Nolan yelled in shock. "I thought only Nikos was the threat in this team!"

"You've got some guts to be looking away from me!" Nora took a swing at Nolan, who promptly dodged it and unleashed his weapon's electrical power into her corset. Naturally, this caused a quite different reaction than expected from the grinning hammer wielder.

"Oh-ho! Looks like one of my favorite students, Nora Valkyrie, is charging up to use her Semblance!" Port commented.

"What?" Nolan looked up at the hologram screen with a panicked look.

"Yes, Miss Valkyrie's Semblance lets her produce or absorb electrical energy and use it to amplify her physical abilities several time over!" Oobleck explained. "This allows her to jump explosively into the air, wield her mighty hammer, or in this case, absorb Mr Porfirio's attacks and send the young man flying!"

"What?!" Nolan exclaimed as he turned back to look at his opponent, finally taking his cattle prod away, but the damage was done.

Nora flexed her arm as pink lightning coursed all over her body, with a maniacal grin.

In a literal flash, Nora had already stepped close to Nolan, {Magnhild} in swinging motion against his chest.

It impacted in a thunderous burst of energy as the hammer hit head-on and Nolan bounced back across the field, crashing through a rock and staying there when his body stopped moving.

Jaune looked back at the mountaintop on his team's side as a dark storm cloud finally appeared over it, crackling with lightning. He looked over at his energized teammate. "Nora! Get to the mountain!"

"You got it!" Nora saluted, then sprinted off to start her climb.

"Ren! Go after Nolan!" Jaune ordered. "I'll deal with May while Pyrrha handles Brawnz!"

As a shot nearly missed Ren's head, he nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah. You do that."

As Nora rapidly hopped and ascended the mountain, Jaune charged into the Forest Biome and cut through May's tree with a powerful, Aura-charged slash.

May nimbly dropped to the ground before Jaune and swiftly mechashifted her rifle into it's axe form, clashing it's blade against Jaune's as she was forced back several steps by his superior strength. "Um, hi. It's been a while."

"Hi. By the way, sorry about this." Jaune stepped forward, pushing May back but still unable to overpower her completely. However, that still allowed Jaune to hook his sword around the weapon and yank it away.

Unfortunately, he underestimated both his Amplified strength and May's grip on her weapon, sending the beanie girl flying into the center of the ring with her weapon.

Meanwhile, back in that area, Pyrrha was currently taking on both Brawnz and and a recovered Nolan, delivering a kick to the leader as she deftly dodged and blocked Nolan's cattle prod, throwing her weapon in javelin mode to distract the latter while she somersaulted back to use both feet in landing a blow on Brawnz.

Just as Brawnz flew backwards and tried to return, Ren engaged him with a kick to the face, coincidentally sending him into the freshly thrown May.

As the two collided, Jaune reconvened with Ren. "You think Nora knows what I'm planning by putting these guys close together?"

"She's been having a dream like this for days now." Ren replied. "She'll figure it out."

Nora finally reached the peak, lifting her hammer high enough for a bolt of lighting to crash down on it. "Hahahaha! Fear me, mortals, and accept the Judgement of Thora!"

"...see?" Ren pointed at the cackling hammer wielder, which Jaune could only respond with a sigh.

"She's on live T.V." Jaune moaned. "Worldwide, too..."

Ren shrugged and called out to Pyrrha. "Thora incoming!"

While the members of Team BRNZ were understandably confused, an already enlightened Pyrrha took the chance to disengage from Nolan and rejoin her teammates behind a rocky outcropping for cover.

And just in time, too.

Nora came crashing down, colliding her hammer with the ground as she struck the space right before Team BRNZ.

Pink light flashed, a booming force shot out and devastated the area around Nora. Team BRNZ flew backwards, landing far away with groans of their own. The debris quickly faded and revealed Nora at the center of the blast wave, hammer twirling in her hand and unscratched.

Nora took a deep breath and exhaled actual mist, with bits of pink sparks flickering across it. "I love the smell of thunder in the afternoon."

*BUZZ!*

*BUZZ!*

*BUZZ!*

"And with that, Team JNPR gains a thunderous win! Literally!" Port announced. "...can someone go make sure they're okay?"

"I lost so much money!"

"Well? Learn your lesson?" As several of the ones who bet on Team BRNZ wailed, Sara cackled as she gathered her wins and prepared to return to Saphron's table.

"You, too." The dealer handed over some Lien to a cloaked individual. Sara and the person instantly locked eyes, their hood revealing nothing but some reddish brown hair and one blue eye which flashed into crimson for a moment. "Seriously, you two are the only ones who bet on others beyond just Nikos in her team."

The cloaked figure smirked before turning away. "That just means that she and I are the only gamblers with proper eyes. Kakarot's new brother was definitely several times more competent than Raditz ever was."

"Awesome match, Jaune!" Sun Wukong crowed as he high-fived his brother as their teams passed and greeted each other. "Still gonna top it, though."

"Good luck." Jaune said. "We're gonna need it."

Sun raised an eyebrow. "We?"

"Not for your match." Jaune shook his head. "Dad called me this morning. 'Said that he might be... visiting later during the week."

"What." Sun had never become as pale as he was now before the others.

"Just thought you should know." Jaune patted Sun's shoulder, leaving him to his worried teammates as his own followed.

"What's your father like that Sun became like that?" Ren questioned as he looked back to the stiff statue that was the Monkey Faunus.

"Dad's not so bad..." Jaune winced. "He just has a... flirting problem."

Pyrrha raised an eyebrow. "Like Neptune?"

"Neptune?" Jaune scoffed wryly. "Dad's a superior version of him. Not only has he shown me proof of having a functional harem of over 20 girls in his own school days, he has no uncool side. He's nice, considerate, super powerful and so innocently insensitive that he makes other males feel inadequate just by passing by them. And Sun and I were raised by that guy!"

At the sight of his teammates' expressions, Jaune rolled his eyes and huffed. 'And that's not even getting into the fact that Sun and I are even pursuing harems thanks to his influence. Still, it might be a good thing that he's coming. Dad's strong enough to match Virgo and Leo together. If something goes wrong, he'll be dependable.'

"I said no, dammit!" Annabeth Arc stomped her foot down before her husband in the kitchen, leaving their youngest daughter Lily to watch Sun's match. "You're not going to Beacon!"

"Why not?" Arthur Arc protested. "Family members get to visit! And I already promised Jaune!"

"What if something happens while you're gone?" Annabeth refuted. "You're the strongest Huntsman in the entire town. Your very presence keeps bandit attacks nonexistent."

"Of course, it does." Arthur nodded as if being told something boring and constant. "After I made a habit of annihilating entire bandit camps by my lonesome, they all know to stay the fuck away. Besides, why are you acting like you're not as strong as me?"

Annabeth sighed. "I don't know if you noticed, but skill doesn't always read as raw power, which you, Bianca, Sara, and now Jaune too, have in spades. Speaking of which... are you really going to tell him?"

Arthur sighed as he took a seat at their dining table. "Yes. Out of all our children so far, Jaune seems to be the one to have inherited the most of my magical blood. I don't doubt that any of our children can't use magic, but due to him gaining Celestial Gate Keys, Jaune's magical reserves have been growing faster than I expected due to far longer usage than his Aura."

"It's like a muscle, right?" Annabeth took a seat as well. "The more you use it, the easier it becomes."

Arthur nodded. "It won't be long now. Frankly, I can't believe he's gone on so long without questioning where his magical abilities came from?"

"Do you think he can handle it?" Annabeth fretted. "You had problems with it too."

"Of course, he can." Arthur huffed. "Not only has he got Nora, Ren and his partner for support, he's also our son, after all. Now, can I go?"

"No!"

"And with that, Team SSSN moves on to the doubles round!" Port announced as Sun and Neptune chest bumped in celebration. "You know what I call that victory?"

"Shocking?" Oobleck supplied.

"No, well earned." Port retorted. "What you just said is stupid."

Crouching over one of the stadiums ledges and looking directly over the battlefield, the cloaked figure scoffed as he watched Sun and Neptune do a celebratory dance after their victory. "I thought that you were the only one beyond me to reincarnate here, Kakarot, but this blue haired one reminds me too much of that useless character. Yam...ka? No, that's wrong."

"Oh well, I will soon test my strength against you once more, Kakarot. Be prepared." The wind strongly blew at the moment, briefly exposing Adam Taurus's unmasked face. As he tried to cover it once more, his good eye landed on Blake's figure and felt a disgusting surge of malicious affection. "Quiet down, fool. Unlike Sun Wukong, who at least possesses some admirable traits along with some magical ability that he clearly wasn't dependent on, you have nothing beyond your combat skills. It doesn't matter if I can't use your Semblance as long as you are suppressed. I've never needed it."

With that, he jumped off, flying away into the clouds. If he had seen an aircraft with elegant ribbons flying from its wings passing over the coliseum just after he left, the true owner of that body would've struggled a lot more.

KingVessel: And Season 3 is off! Please review!