Chapter 30: The Doubles Round Part 1

Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth and Monty Oum, I only own my OCs.

Team RXDY

The following week arrives while the Vytal Tournament continues, and Smith walks around Vale City smiling at the citizens enjoying the Vytal Festival or watching the tournament. He's been watching the tournament in bars or at his home. Like everyone else, he too was surprised when Team RXDY battled Team ONYX and emerged victorious. The bar tender commented the mercenaries are highly skilled for being so young, Smith laughed at that, stating you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

Walking to a park region of Vale, the young man sits on the ground listening to the sound of nature. He feels like someone or something is watching him. Stalking him. But every time he turns to look no one's there. At first, Smith thinks it's the stress of his job getting to him but over the course of last month he feels it's not. The young man rakes his brain over who could possibly be following him.

He doesn't know anyone that held a personal vendetta against him nor had beef with Smith. Can it be a stalker or robber? Possibly.

In his downtime, he signed up for self-defense classes to protect himself from thieves. After completing the classes, Smith practices in the backyard of his home whenever customer service is low.

A gentle breeze passes by and Smith showers and upon getting dressed into a fresh set of clothes he exits his workshop, locking the door behind him and places the key in his pocket. He begins walking down the street when he hears a croak. Looking around, he tries to locate where the sound originated until he hears it again. He discovers the animal being a corvid raven perched on the roof of his home, its red eyes locking with his blue ones. Something about the bird feels odd like it acted different from the typical bird.

The raven releases another croak at him as if communicating with him.

Smith chuckled, "Silly bird." Turning around, he begins his journey into downtown Vale City, not noticing the raven following him. Stepping foot inside a bar the young man takes a seat at the stool where the bar tender asks what he can get him, Smith orders water and watches a team from Haven Academy taking on a team from Shade Academy. Upon handing Smith his water, the bar tender asks if he'd like anything to eat. The young man looks at the menu offers until he settles for cooked salmon, carrots and a baked potato.

For the first doubles match, Mercury and Emerald will take on Coco Adel and Yatsuhashi Daichi from Team CFVY.

Coco is the team leader and stands 6 feet in her heels, likely in her late teens, has fair skin, short dark-brown hair, and dark-brown eyes. She has wavy locks on one side of her face, dyed with a gradient that starts as dark brown and transitions to caramel.

Her clothes consist of a long, cocoa-colored shirt with an upturned layered frill collar with a black single strapped waist cincher. She wears black trousers that have golden lining around the pocket and ribbons attached to the back of a golden zipper seam around her knees. A black golden studded belt is normally hidden by a large cocoa-colored belt with gun cartridges on the left side and a large golden crosshair buckle. A large piece of black fabric is attached to her belt hanging down on her right side. She wears a pair of dark black, high-heeled leather calf-high boots with golden buckles.

Coco also dons a number of accessories, such as a bracelet with black roses as decoration; these are accompanied by black gloves and three beaded necklaces alongside a black scarf tied around her collar. She wears a black beret with a cocoa brown trim and a pair of black, wire-rimmed aviator sunglasses. She is seen holding a black shoulder bag with gold studs, which is held by a bandolier strap; the bag is her weapon, Gianduja, transforming into an oversized black and gold minigun.

Yatsuhashi is the tallest of the team at 7 feet tall, also likely in his late teens, has shaved-short black hair, tanned skin and wears mostly pale-green and brown attire.

He has a long short-sleeved robe, which he wears on one shoulder over a black muscle shirt. The robe is fastened at the waist by a leather armored belt with two pouches on it. He also wears brown pants and black-and-green boots. His left arm bears a five-layered sode which extends up past his shoulder.

His weapon Fulcrum is a great sword that's nearly as tall as Yatsuhashi himself with the blade being more than twice the length of his torso. The length of the handle provides ample grip space for this two-handed weapon.

The blade is dual-edged and two-toned; the flat parts being a shiny copper while the edges appear to have a golden sheen. The blade is slightly curved, ending in a reversed, barb-like hook. Though the blade is incredibly large and heavy, Yatsuhashi compliments this with his immense strength.

The biomes system monitors pop up and start selecting what biomes the match will take place in.

Professor Port said, "Emerald and Mercury of Haven vs. Coco and Yatsuhashi of Beacon! Who will prove victorious?"

Up in the stands, Velvet cheered, "Good luck, you two!" The system settles with a forest, savanna, geyser and urban biomes.

Coco lowered her aviator sunglasses to look over Emerald's attire, "Hey, love the outfit, kid."

Emerald replied in a sassy tone, "I'll try not to get blood on it."

Yatsuhashi stood up from his meditation drawing Fulcrum, "I can't promise you will leave without a scratch."

Emerald repeated, "I won't be the one bleeding."

Coco told her teammate, "Oh, I like her!"

Professor Port counted down, "Three, two, one, begin!" Mercury and Emerald walk backwards into the savanna biomes, vanishing from sight.

Briefly exchanging a look of curiosity, Coco switches Gianduja into its minigun form and starts cutting the tall grass like a trimmer does with a lawn. Some bullets head for the crowd but the invisible energy shield protects them. When tall grass is cut to almost ground level, their opponents are nowhere to be found.

Blake alerted, "Look out!" Seconds after she says that Mercury descends from the sky. Yatsuhashi sees it and pushes out of the way raising Fulcrum to block the kick and pushes Mercury back, the gray-haired teen twirls through the air and lands on his feet slightly skidding to a halt. Coco opens fire causing Mercury to run across the ground to evade fire in an almost roller skate fashion.

Sun commented, "He's good."

Scarlet asked, "Yeah, but where's the girl?" Mercury gets in-between Coco and Yatsuhashi, launching kicks with Talaria successfully landing two on the giant man before jumping away from Coco's minigun, using the joined barrels as a springboard to evade a slash from Fulcrum, grabbing hold of Coco's left shoulder to get behind her and push her arms forward, pointing Gianduja at Yatsuhashi's chest. Coco switches her weapon into its bag mode swinging it at Mercury like a club. Mercury avoids the swings and back flips away firing two shots from Talaria at his opponents who deflect them. They next see him using a break-dance move as he develops a whirlwind of shells then catapults them at Coco and Yatsuhashi, generating a brief cloud of smoke that obscures their vision. Once it clears, Mercury is behind the duo and grips their arms as he does a sequence of kick before ending the sequence with a powerful kick that sends Coco back. The young woman gets to her feet and is about to retaliate when the twin kusari-gama part of Thief's Respite wrap around Coco's waist and yank her toward the forest biomes.

Yatsuhashi feels Mercury's boot connect with the side of his neck. Grabbing the gray-haired teen's shirt collar Yatsuhashi throws Mercury into the geyser section and jumps into air towards him, and drives Fulcrum down Mercury catches it with Talaria, a shockwave radiates out in all directions. The force of it is so great it fractures the rock and makes the geysers erupt. The two exchange blows and parries until Mercury nails a black flip kick that sends Yatsuhashi onto his back with his head on a geyser. He screams as superheated steam burns his face even though his aura protects, he quickly gets up dazed. Shaking his head, the young man sees Mercury in front of him landing a kick.

The chains around Coco's waist finish bringing her into the forest section, losing her grip on Gianduja and crashing into a tree. She feels her face and noticing her aviator sunglasses aren't there, looking to her left she spots them broken.

She quickly rose to her feet, searching for Emerald, "I take it back. I don't like her." A gunshot alerts Coco and out of the corner of her eye spots a bullet screaming towards her, she leans back to avoid it and back flips away while Emerald shoots at Coco from her spot on a tree branch until Coco regains Gianduja, quickly changing it to gun mode and returns fire. Emerald hops from branch to branch exchanging fire until she vanishes from view.

Coco swore, "Damn it, where did she go?"

A voice called out, "Coco!" The leader of CFVY sees her teammate walking up to her.

She warned, "Watch out, she's in the trees." The buzzer draws her attention.

Professor Port said, "With that final, Yatsuhashi has been eliminated!"

Coco blinked, "What?" Upon turning around to see if Yatsuhashi she saw was still there, Coco realizes it's now two-on-one. What she doesn't know is she fell for Emerald's semblance Hallucinations.

As she searches for her opponent, Emerald sneaks up behind and a powerful swing from one of her guns sends Coco flying out of the forest and land next to her partner, her aura at zero. Emerald walks out twirling her off-hand gun while Mercury stands over them.

Doctor Ooblock announced, "And with that upset, Emerald and Mercury are victorious!" Velvet sulks knowing her team won't advance to the Singles round, her teammate Fox places a comforting hand on the rabbit faunus' shoulder.

Cinder stands up to leave, possibly to meet up with Emerald and Mercury.

A bit later on, Rena uses the empty arena to sharpen Scarlet and her new secondary blade she dubbed Scorpious, the gift she received from her adopted father.

The blade is half the length of Scarlet and as such is much lighter in weight, allowing for better control and precision at the cost of attack power.

Once both blades are sharpened, she oils them to a polishing shine as shown by the reflection of sunlight off of them.

Off to the side, Draco and Xavier watch Yumi engage with their leader in a test run of Scorpious.

Rena uses tight, efficient moves to keep Hermes at bay. Eventually, she ends the test run and sheaths Scorpious and comes to a conclusion that it'll be useful in confined spaces and fend off opponents who get past her claymore in addition to landing quick slashes and stabs.

She next tries using her secondary blade with Scarlet timing her swings, remembering her dual blade training with her maiden sword in conjunction with the claymore.

That evening, the second match of the doubles round sees Draco and Xavier taking on Sicily and Olivia from Team SNOW from Atlas Academy.

The selection machine begins randomly selecting the biomes, settling on a mountain and forest biomes.

Professor Port said, "Welcome back, folks. Tonight, we have Draco and Xavier from Team RXDY facing Sicily and Olivia from Team SNOW, a second-year team representing Atlas Academy. This match will determine who goes on to the singles round." The leader of Team SNOW Sicily is a female human around 17 years old, stands around 6 feet tall, sports an athletic build, light olive skin tone, brown eyes, shoulder-length red hair, large C cup breasts and long legs.

She wears a black halter top that leaves a bit of her stomach exposed with a scarlet red flame pattern fanning across the shirt, black pants with similar flame pattern running up the sides, brown combat boots strapped closed, charcoal gray gloves and dark blue elbow pads.

Her weapon of choice is an assault rifle that can change into a sword, providing her options in combat. She can provide cover fire with her weapon in gun form and a melee when she gets in close. The assault rifle is forest green in color with gray highlights and uses Dust for ammo.

She loads a magazine containing 30 rounds of Dust bullets.

Her teammate Olivia is also a female human a year younger than her at 16 years, stands around 5'10, fair skin complexion, bob cut styled white hair, blue eyes, possesses a sprinter physique, mid D cup breasts and toned legs.

She wears a sleeveless brown tunic with yellow trimming, black shorts, black boots and gray gloves.

Her chosen weapon is a pair of black gauntlets on her arms equipped with three blades for close-quarters combat. They can also be fired as deadly spears if Olivia desires. The blades themselves are made of fire Dust so in addition to slicing flesh, the victim also receives burns.

Sicily said, "So you're the mercenaries everyone's talking about. Can you back up your fame with actions?"

Xavier deployed Gemini and popped his knuckles, "I can assure you, my dear, that we can."

Draco drew Perses, "You won't last 2 minutes against us. And don't expect us to go easy on you because you're girls."

Olivia giggled, "I like your spunk, Draco. You're boyfriend material."

The dragon faunus gave her a side grin, exposing a fang, "Flattery won't get you anywhere with me, honey."

Olivia hugged herself squealing, "My first encounter with a dragon faunus and he's a hottie!"

Sicily scolded, "Focus on the match, Olivia. That's an order as your team leader!"

Olivia pouted cutely, "You're so bossy." She gets into her battle stance, standing on her dominant side with the dominant foot held back and her off-foot placed forward, knees slightly bent, her left arm bent ninety degrees and across her chest and her right arm held parallel to her temple. She clenches her fists the motion activates her wrist blades.

Smith reaches the corner leading to his home after departing the bar, venturing into the kitchen he makes a chicken sandwich from a leftover chicken he had the previous day. After cutting the chicken into slices, he lays on the bottom half of the whole wheat bread, tops it with a piece of lettuce, sliced tomato, piece of cheese and caps it off with the other slice of bread. He sets the sandwich on big dinner plate followed by filling two-thirds of the plate with baby carrots and the remaining half with pasta.

Grabbing a glass of water, napkin and fork, he sets the plate on the table and places his scroll down tapping on the web app to watch the match.

Xavier turns his body raising his gauntlets to thwart Olivia's wrist blades, keeping his opponent away. He catches an outstretched arm pulling the limb and drives his fist into Olivia's stomach, spit flies out her mouth with a wide-eyed expression. Olivia holds her midsection when an uppercut knocks the girl onto her back. She gets up and rushes at the ox faunus, swinging her wrist blades with Xavier moving his arms to block the strikes, his gauntlets absorbing the hits. Olivia brings both wrist blades down and Xavier swats them away, balling his fist and lands a series of punches in Olivia's stomach and finishes with an uppercut. The human rolls backwards before coming to a stop.

On the monitor, Olivia's aura drops to light green, boarding yellow.

Professor Port commented, "Olivia's in trouble, folks. Her aura is near the halfway mark." The dazed human girl gets up and through blurry vision sees Xavier's open hand cover her face and next feels her body dragged along the ground, chipping away her aura until she's thrown out of the ring thus removing her from the match.

Draco dodges gunfire from Sicily's assault rifle. Switching her weapon to sword mode, Sicily closes the distance. Draco parries each strike with timed moves, blocking an overhead chop he pushes the weapon back, misses the counter swing but lands a fire Dust shot to Sicily's chest. Sicily stumbles backward and running sounds make her lift her face to spot Draco closing fast, one clawed hand free then brings it forward. Sicily brings her weapon to block it, generating sparks as dragon faunus' claws rake across the blade. Draco fires a Dust round square in the chest at point-blank. Although Sicily's aura takes the brunt of the hit, she still felt it. Brushing off the pain, she clashes with Draco who uses subtle adjustments to his parries. He jabs the handle into his opponent's stomach and swoops around getting behind Sicily and shoots her in the back, taking advantage of his weapon's deadly effectiveness at close-range. The Dust chamber rotates loading the next crystal. Sicily stumbles forward into Xavier's fist landing a hard uppercut followed by slash to the back from Perses, further wearing down her aura to orange. Grabbing hold of Sicily's face, Xavier hoists the human up then slams her to the ground with a thunderous impact. The remains of her aura reach depletion ending the match.

Professor Port stated, "Wow. This was perhaps the shortest battle I've ever seen, folks."

Doctor Ooblock agreed, "Indeed. With this Team RXDY advances to the singles round!" Draco and Xavier listen to the roaring making Xavier give them the peace sign while Draco rests Perses on his shoulder with a side grin on his face.

Up in the stands, Yumi stared at her scroll, "One minute and 30 seconds. That's how long the match lasted." That night, Team RXDY celebrates the victory, ordering a large pizza for the team and water. The four clank their glasses together and take large gulps before sighing in content.

Draco said, "That match was a piece of cake. Just need to finish the Singles round and the tournament is ours."

Xavier replied, "Though to be honest, I wanted those two members of Team SNOW put up a tougher fight. Then again, they haven't faced off against seasoned fighters."

Yumi asked, "Who among us will go to the singles round representing the team?"

Rena took a bite of her pizza slice and sip of water before answering, "I'd say let Yumi represent us in the singles round." Her teammates stare at the one-eyed faunus but no one is more surprised than Yumi.

She said, "Eh?! Me?"

Xavier wondered, "You think that's wise, boss?"

Rena said, "Yumi has proven herself. I'm confident she can pull it off. She has great potential, Xavier. I wouldn't have picked her for this team if I wasn't sure." Yumi's eyes sparkle at team leader's praise.

Draco agreed, "Actually, I want to see our cute wolf faunus in the singles round myself."

Xavier relented, "Okay, I'm outnumbered. Make us proud, Yumi."

The wolf faunus gave them a bright smile, "Okay!" They finish their pizza and wash it down with water.

Draco pays the bill, and they head back to the guest dorm at Beacon Academy, grabbing bottles of water to take with them up to their room.

Xavier took a sip of his, "Woo, that pizza was a bit saltier than I first imagined." Draco stands near the window, his tail lazily swaying.

The ox faunus queried, "Something on your mind?"

Draco turned around, "I want us to make a promise."

Yumi tilted her head, "Of what, Draco?"

The dragon faunus replied with a serious look in his yellow eyes, "If any of us are somehow grimmified and become some kind of hybrid, I want one of us to kill that person because we won't recognize the other. For example, I become a faunus-Grimm hybrid, you must kill me because my mind will have degraded to that of an actual Grimm and filled with the desire to maim you. Do not hesitate, show no mercy no matter how much you wish not to. After all, aside from taking out wanted criminals we also face Salem's Grimm." Hearing that makes the rest of the team fall silent, like their hearts stopped.

Could they do it? Strike down the grimmified teammate with a clear conscience? Knowing what the aftereffects of such an act will cause? Breaking the family bond they've held for four years now?

Draco isn't bluffing or kidding. He means it.

After a full agonizing minute of silence, the team comes to a decision.

Rena said, "If it means saving the lives of others, then yes, I will."

Xavier released a shaky breath, "It goes against who I am, but I'll do it."

Yumi nodded with dread filling her, "Me too, no matter how much it pains me."

Draco said, "It is for the best, guys. I'll draw a mark on our hands." Walking over, he asks his teammates to give him their hand. Using his index claw, Draco draws a skull with a sword piercing it into the skin of each of them including his own solidifying the promise. He presses just hard enough to draw blood even though their auras heal the minor cut.

He lowered his finger, "There, it's done." The team retires to bed afterward.

Meanwhile, Smith closes up his workshop for the night, locking it then enters his home. After the front is locked, he moves to secure the windows unaware of the same raven watching him from a branch of a nearby tree facing the second window. Once the windows are locked, he sits on the couch watching the news for a little while before heading for bed and setting the alarm on his scroll.

A/N: Chapter 30 done.

Sorry if I was gone for a while, just got done recovering from a fever that left me unable to write. But I'm completely recovered now. I will complete this story, I assure you of that, readers. Updates are not as quick due to life and work, but I will update when I can.

Here we reached the Doubles Round with Draco and Xavier taking on and defeating Sicily and Olivia of Team SNOW.

Emerald and Mercury triumphed in their match.

Team RXDY later celebrated Draco and Xavier's victory and Draco made his teammates make a promise with him. If any of them are somehow grimmified, one of the others will strike down the grimmified faunus down without hesitation. The team agrees no matter how much it'll pain them.

Lastly, it appears a bird is watching Smith Schwartz. What could it possibly want with him?

Read and review.

Stay tuned for chapter 32.

Vader 23A