AN: Hello everyone, ARC Alpha 12 here! Thank you for your patience while you waited for the exciting conclusion to chapter 2! I have seen all the comments you've posted and I can tell that you are all rather excited for this chapter, so I hope that I don't disappoint!
RWBY Fans might already have a hint as to what might happen, based on the title and the very, VERY specific Zoids I picked out; I thought it was a fitting homage to the series while also mixing things up a bit in the Gundam Build Fighters universe. After all, why shouldn't things like Zoids be affected by the Plavsky Particles? And they serve as a hint for things to come-don't expect me to 100% play by the rules here. After all, the Zaku Amazing uses a cannon from a tank as a sniper rifle, meaning other kinds of model kits CAN be used in on the Battle Tables. So believe me when I say I'm going to have fun with that.
But that's for later. I'll let the speculation drive you nuts. For now: Zoids Vs Gunpla!
Please don't forget to follow, fave and leave a comment on this story if you like what you see. We look forward to hearing what you have to say!
The Storm Sworder was starting its engines and preparing for take-off. The Death Stinger's massive pinchers snapped open and shut, and its tail began to slowly glow. It let out a loud, scratchy, threatening screech as the engines on the Storm Sworder ignited and it jumped, taking off into the air.
"Uh...so what do we do?" Jaune asked, backing up a bit, his shield raised defensively.
Ruby watched the Death Stinger. "Jaune, you take Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora, and focus on that thing. Blake and I can remain in the air indefinitely, so we can force the Storm Sworder into a fight with Yang and Weiss. Be careful of that tail cannon; it can fire a massive charged particle blast."
"Well, sort of," Weiss said. "I had to adapt their weapons to match stored Gundam ones, so it fires a blast equal to the Satellite Cannon on Gundam X, but that alone is still strong enough to completely destroy any Gunpla on a direct hit, so try not to tank it."
"That's not reassuring!" Jaune cried out as he looked to Pyrrha. "Okay, then we need to distract it or-"
"Look out!" Nora screamed. The tail cannon fired a titanic whitebeam, which shimmered in rainbow colors and carved its way across the desert floor, blowing every piece of rock away on contact. Jaune and Pyrrha dodged to opposite sides as the blast reached the end of the edge of the table and disappeared due to the lack of holographic projectors. The ground that was hit by the blast had turned to black glass.
"Ti diáolo? (What the hell?)" Pyrrha said, shocked.
"Oh, I should warn you all," Weiss said. "This operation has a B level of damage."
Blake shrank away a bit. "What does that mean?" she asked hesitantly.
"It means if we get hit, we'll take some actual damage," Yang said. "It won't outright destroy our Gunpla, but we might actually lose some parts. Level damage means realistic that's why Ruby and my Gundams got messed up so bad at the tournament. The Finals are always A level."
Ruby flew next to Blake. "Don't worry about that Gunpla, Blake. All the others are using their own custom machines, which are harder to fix, and I'm borrowing a Gunpla from Weiss, and she's willing to risk it for this. So just go all out and have fun, okay?"
Blake sighed. "I'll try-"
"Incoming!"
Weiss's voice snapped both Blake and Ruby out of their conversation, and both dodged up as the Storm Sworder flew at them, its wing blades extended and glowing hot. Both of them spun and opened fire, yellow beams from Ruby's custom weapon and pink from the 00 GN Sword's rifle mode impacting the exterior of the flying Zoid. Despite this, only small scorch marks appeared on its silver skin.
"We'll need to hit it harder and try to force it to lower so the others can take it out," Ruby said.
"But how? It's way too fast." Blake watched as the Zoid slowed itself and circled back around. It was, indeed, far faster than any of them.
"Storm Sworders are known for their speed, so we need to outsmart it. Let's fly lower and try to goad it down." Ruby grinned. "Maybe we can even have it fly into the Death Stinger's next tail blast!"
They dropped their altitude, which worked as well as Ruby had hoped. The Zoid dive-bombed them, forcing them to scatter, but the move had put them in range of Yang, who began firing Shining Shots from her Shining Gundam wrist gauntlets. The energy balls flew and slammed into the underbelly of the Zoid, again leaving minimal damage. "Oh this will be a treat," Yang said, now seeing why Weiss had wanted to test their skills with this.
Jaune hovered backward as the Death Stinger's pincer slammed into the rock. For a large machine, it moved remarkably quick, skittering across the desert with little issues. It fired several blasts from the side cannons positioned next to the Charged Particle Cannon on its tail.
Ren circled behind the Zoid, holding his Double Beam Trident in one hand and launching fireballs from one of the Dragon Gundam heads on his arms with the other. Aside from scorch marks, the damage done to the massive Zoid seemed to be nonexistent. He landed on its hull and stabbed the beam trident into the top of it, but had to jump as the tail slammed down on his position.
"I didn't expect the tail to be so flexible," Ren noted, landing behind the machine. "It's clearly been modified."
Nora fired her grenades at the legs of the Death Stinger, which did little except annoy it. It turned and swung its claw in a backhand swing at her, which she dodged as the blade on the back of the claw arm cleaved the air where she had stood. She brought her Warhammer down on the arm, which had enough force to push the claw into the ground, and the explosion she shot through the hammerhead sent Gusion Rebake Magnhild backward. She giggled gleefully as she landed next to Ren.
Jaune watched as he and Pyrrha fired their ranged weapons at its right side, watching it as it focused on Ren and Nora on its left. He looked over the machine, trying to place any weak point on it.
The Death Stinger turned their way and the claws swung at the two shielded Gunplas on its right. They backed up, then scattered as the large twin cannons on its back opened fire, its tail swinging upside down to fire its twin cannons there at Nora and Ren.
"It's tail is so flexible…" Jaune noted. "Too flexible…"
"Jaune?" Pyrrha asked. "Do you have a plan? Our attacks aren't doing anything to it."
"I think so…" he looked at Ren and Nora. "Nora, help me distract it! Ren, Pyrrha, each of you targets the top two joints of the tail! Don't break them, just weaken them so they bend down further!"
"Right!" Ren replies, boosting over to leap at the tail. He twisted the pole of the double-sided beam trident, splitting it into two single-handed weapons. He brought each trident tip down on the plastic, slashing at it while he was in the air to soften the polycap that held the joint in place.
Pyrrha shot off to the left, circling the Death Stinger. She blocked a blow from its claw, which sent her flying backward, recovering in mid-air and opening fire with her beam cannon. The shots impacted on the top joint, which slowly began to warp from the heat.
Nora and Jaune skidded in front of the Zoid, blasting it with whatever they had. Nora's sub arms twisted backward and fired volleys of grenades at the mechanical scorpion, while Jaune released a series of missiles from his Gundam's shoulders. The explosions impacted relatively harmlessly against the machine's tough hide, but it was enough to draw the attention of the massive dual cannon on its back. It fired, forcing both of them to scatter, skating across the ground in opposite directions.
The first attack went as planned, but the Death Stinger soon turned its attention to the two assaulting its tail. Even after a second and third wave of explosives and cannon blasts, it seemed content to ignore Jaune and Nora.
"It's not working!" Nora cried out as she watched its pincers sail over Ren's head as he slid into a baseball slide to dodge. "What do we do?"
Jaune growled. He clicked on both orbs inside his cockpit, and a holographic window with a button appeared. "You help them. I'll get its attention."
"By yourself? Er du gal? (Are you crazy?)" Nora screamed.
"I don't know what you said, but I got this," Jaune said, nervousness radiating in his voice as he dropped his machine's gun and rifle and reached to his hips, drawing a pair of beam sabers. In his cockpit, he tapped on the button, and the vents, thrusters, and the visor of the Duel Cavalier Pale began to glow a brilliant red.
He boosted forward, hovering across the desert floor and launching himself at the face of the Death Stinger with two pink beam sabers blazing in his hands.
Blake turned when she saw a weird red glow in her field of vision and noticed Jaune's Gunpla was emanating a red, angry light. "Ruby, what happened to Jaune's Gundam? Is it going to explode or something?"
Ruby stopped firing at the Storm Sworder as it flew away to make another pass. "Hmmm? Oh! He activated HADES mode! It's a super mode his machine can use that speeds it up to make faster attacks and dodge easier!"
"Do all Gundams have that?"
"No, it's determined by the parts used," Ruby explained. "You have something similar called Trans-Am. It speeds you up and, with any 00 Gundam unit that has a backpack, or with 00 Quanta, it can even teleport! But it has a time limit, and using it too much could use up all your Gunpla's power until you've rested for a bit to regenerate the GN particles you use to fly and fire your weapons. It's good for ending a fight or countering a super mode your enemy might use, but you shouldn't rely on it. If you wanna use it, just click on both orbs at the same time."
"I see…"
Ruby turned and faced the flying Zoid, which was coming heading right back at them. "Blake, same as before! Let's get it lower to the ground!"
"Right." Blake opened fire, nailing the Zoid in the face, before diving low. Ruby flew down with her, opening the missile packs on the Blaze pack and firing. The small missiles riddled the surface of the machine with explosions.
"Weiss, are you ready?" Ruby asked, flying over her as the Storm Sworder started chasing her.
"Yes. I've got it this time." She raised the energy-coated rapier up in her left hand and jumped upwards, her thrusters easily taking her clear of the blades wing of the Zoid. She landed on its back drove the rapier directly into one of the engines of the silver mech, before withdrawing it and stabbing it again and again. With three sizeable holes in its armor, she raised her small buckler shield and fired a series of tiny hide mines. Normally, the Gyan used these for traps, but Weiss shot them directly into the holes of the engine, which caused a chain reaction and black smoke to begin fuming from the Zoid.
It screeched as if in pain as Weiss jumped off of its back. As she fell from the sky, several small, white funnels popped from her back and began circling her, firing yellow beams at the Storm Sworder.
Ruby flew closer to Weiss's Gyan. "Are those Rose Bits?" She asked, watching the white bits erratically dance through the air as Weiss landed gracefully.
"I thought they would match the distinguished elegance that was the Gyan Noblesse Oblige," Weiss admitted. "I could only fit five on the machine without a proper storage unit, but they are technically modified Sazabi bits, so they are larger and more powerful than the normal Rose Bits found on Gundam Rose."
Ruby watched as the bits shot forward, white roses dancing around their target while Yang fires more energy balls up at its stomach. It's dual pulse cannon dislodged and spun on a turret on its belly, returning fire and forcing Yang to abandon her perch as the rock she stood on was obliterated.
Blake flew over the machine and opened fire on its damaged engine, further destroying it. Flames now shot out from the exhaust port in the back, and the Storm Sworder's main attribute, its speed, was dramatically affected.
"Alright, it's on its deathbed." Ruby grinned. "Time to finish it off."
Jaune danced around the claws and cannon shots of the Death Stinger, effortlessly slashing at its thick armor with his twin sabers. He had amputated the spiked foot of the front leg on the left side and had left a trail of burning scars across the surface of the machine from his beam sabers. The Death Stinger could not keep up with his movements, swinging the backhand blades of its arms outward and attempting to slam its pincers into the Duel Cavalier Pale on multiple occasions. But Jaune was nothing but a red blur of pain as he fought it.
He looked at his machine's status. Normally, HADES mode wouldn't do much damage to his own machine, but the mode was never designed to be used with a machine as heavily armored as his. The stress on the joints meant that, if he didn't stop at some point, he would wreck his own Gunpla. But as long as he fought, Pyrrha and Ren could do their own work.
"Alright, I think that's enough," he called to his team as he brought the Duel Cavalier Pale to a stop and deactivated HADES. He fired his cannon a few times to keep attention on him, then resumed hovering at normal speeds at the scorpion. "Nora! When I say so, smash the tail with your hammer!"
Nora grinned evilly. "Gladly!" She replied, readying herself.
Jaune leapt into the air, preparing to stab the Death Stinger in the face with both sabers, but was caught suddenly by the left pincer, snatched out of the air. It began squeezing him, which sent alarms all across his HUD as he struggled to break free.
"Ren, Pyrrha, form up in front of it and fire! Ren, grab my rifle!"
Ren did as he was ordered, retrieving Jaune's beam rifle and sliding next to Pyrrha. Both of them opened fire on the scorpion's face, which drew the attention of its tail. The massive cannon inside began to charge, drawing in energy to prepare for another titanic blast.
Jaune waited, watched as it slowly gained power. "Nora, now!"
The Norwegian giggled maniacally as she shot into the air and brought the explosive hammer shot down on the charged particle cannon. The massive rainbow-colored beam fired, but rather than hitting the Lotus Dragon or Tallgeese Leonidas, it enveloped the head of the Death Stinger. Jaune boosted with every ounce of power in his Gundam, sending more alarms off as he freed himself just as the blast began to melt the claw he was in. The legs of his Gunpla were destroyed as he flew upwards, caught in the overwhelming heat of the cannon blast.
The cannon continued firing long after the Death Stinger collapsed, burrowing a hole through the desert. As it slowly subsided, the tail fell backwards, and the energy blast carved another path of destruction through the area before pointing to the sky. By the time the tail had hit the ground, the cannon had expended its energy, and the Zoid now lay, inert and headless.
Jaune came down hard but was caught by Pyrrha, who helped him avoid further damage to his machine. Jaune laughed happily. "c'était fermé (that was close)," he said as his team gathered around him.
Blake barely avoided the charged particle cannon shot as she launched herself at the Storm Sworder, attacking its wing joint. The Zoid spun, barrel rolling to remove the irritation from its back and slapping Blake down into the ground. She cried out as her platform violently shook, before opening her eyes.
She looked over her status screen and noted that her left leg was missing. She looked down; the blade of the Storm Sworder had severed it in the spin.
"Blake! Are you alright?" Yang called out, flying over to her and bending down to check on her.
"Yes, but Ruby's Gundam-"
"I can fix it," Ruby reassured her. "Now stand up and fight! We've almost got this!"
Yang stood up, fists balled. "I've had enough!" She cried out. The Storm Sworder moved in for another pass, and Yang rose to meet it. She boosted up to another large rock, the hair on her Gundam's head beginning to separate from the solid peace it normally was. Her machine flowed with power and a red aura radiated from it as she boosted again, prepared to punch the face of his monstrosity right off.
"Yang!" Blake cried out, watching as the Storm Sworder opened its beak to bite down on Yang. But Burning Echelon merely stopped it with one hand, standing on its lower jaw and punching shotgun blasts into its mouth.
"I! HOPE! YOU'RE! HUN! GRY!" She cried out with each blast, her teeth gritted in fury. The jaw joint buckled on the left side, and the Zoid began to careen into a cliff wall.
Yang heard Ruby call out and turned as alarms blared, warning her of the crash. One final blast blew the jaw hinge off, and she jumped, tearing the lower jaw from the head, which crashed to the ground. The Storm Sworder managed to recover its height enough to avoid completely slamming into the cliff, but it still skimmed it enough to bring the beast down.
"Weiss, Blake, use your bits to keep it down!" Ruby called out.
Blake returned to the air. She clicked on her left orb and cycled through the weapons, activating all six sword bits. She locked their target onto the Storm Sworder and sent them with the five Rose Bits to keep the Zoid on the ground. Between the beam blasts and the repeated multidirectional stabs, the Zoid could not fend off any proper assault, and the damage to its engine was causing it problems in getting airborne again.
"My turn," Ruby called out, rushing the heavily damaged Zoid. She clicked on her orb and selected her weapon's damage mode. The rifle began to transform, turning into a titanic physical scythe with a brilliant pinkish-red beam blade edge. She cried out as she swooped under the Zoid's neck and boosted upwards, hooking the scythe right at the neck joint.
"That's what she was working on?" Blake shouted in disbelief.
Yang calmed herself, coming out of Berserk Mode, and stood with a hand on her hip. "Always gotta be dramatic," she said with a lopsided grin.
Between the Storm Sworder's own engine and Ruby tugging on it, the Zoid began to lift into the air. Ruby clicked on both orbs and activated her own super mode, labeled SEED Factor, to enhance her machine's thruster output. The thrusters on the machine began to glow a potent, blinding silver, much like Jaune's red glow during HADES mode, and the thrust was enough to pick the Zoid up higher as the scythe cut deeper into its neck. Ruby roared, struggling to push her orbs forward to increase thruster output even more, but as she did, the scythe melted the Zoid's neck further.
A few more seconds, a few more meters into the air, and Ruby pushed her ZAKU Warrior to its maximum output. And with that, suddenly, the scythe cleaved the Storm Sworder's heads clean off. It came crashing to the top of the cliff, which gave way and caused it to tumble down to the floor.
Ruby abruptly went shooting high into the air, thrusters at maximum and enhanced with SEED mode, and no more resistance holding her back. She cried out in surprise but quickly slowed her acceleration, spinning around to counter her speed. She slowly flew back down and landed on the cliff, her scythe in hand, standing triumphantly.
The others looked up at her as she shone like a silver light against the blue sky.
"BATTLE ENDED," the table announced, and the holographic world began to dematerialize. The Gunpla and Zoids on the table sat, several in pieces. The damage wasn't as severe as it had appeared in the hologram, thankfully, and Blake and Jaune easily reconnected their models' legs, putting them back to normal. The Death Stinger and Storm Sworder were the worst off, but even they seemed mostly fine.
"Wow," Blake said, examining the 00 Qan [T]. "The B damage level really didn't do much overall to the kit. It just looked worse in the match, huh?"
"Yeah, it's good for tournaments to have easy to repair damage," Yang said. "Just like we said!"
"Sorry we wrecked your kits, Weiss," Ruby said, looking sadly at the Zoids.
Weiss waved her hand dismissively. "Don't worry. I can fix them. I have their blueprints in my 3D Printer for this exact reason. I just need a couple of days." She turned to the group. "But! What did you all think?"
"That? Was awesome!" Yang and Nora cried out together. They high fived each other with large grins on their faces.
"Splendid!" Pyrrha exclaimed. "I would love to do that again sometime."
"As would I," Ren added.
They turned their attention to Blake. She glanced around at all of them, feeling the sudden urge to pull her cat hoodie over her head. "What?"
"Did you have fun?" Ruby asked. She had a slightly worried look on her face.
Blake nodded, smiling slightly. "Yeah, I did. I was a little worried at first, but it was fun."
Weiss smiled proudly. "Good! Then it was a success." She looked at Ruby. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some kits to start repairing. Klein will get you all refreshments. I'll join you shortly."
The rest of the day was spent with the eight of them just relaxing. Klein had helped Yang and Ruby carry trays out to the others. Despite his protests about it being his job, the sisters insisted on helping, which only made the kind man smile in the end at their generosity.
Pyrrha and Jaune sat together, holding hands as they all talked about various topics. Once the excitement of the battle wore off, they had started off with how Jaune knew to attack the tail. Jaune merely shrugged.
"I didn't," he admitted. "It was just a guess."
"It was a damn good guess!" Yang said as she snuggled with Blake. "You going all psycho on that thing...didn't know you had it in you, Jaune…"
The blonde boy rubbed the back of his head and muttered something in French, which made Weiss raise an eyebrow. "Is that so?" She asked with a smirk, sipping on her tea.
Pyrrha looked at Weiss, confused. "Wait, what?"
"He said he was trying to impress someone," she replied, eyes closed and a confident look on her face.
Jaune blushed. "I forgot you spoke French. It's been a while since you responded."
"French and German," she said. "Grandfather is from Germany, my father is French. The others might be able to say coy things around me, but you are not safe, Jaune."
Pyrrha looked at Jaune. The two had only recently started dating, after dancing around each other for the entire school year. Before that, though, it was no secret that Jaune had, on many occasions, attempted to ask Weiss out. Despite their history, though, Pyrrha never once felt Jaune was actually talking about Weiss whenever a comment like that came out. In fact, she merely blushed. "Jaune…"
Jaune looked at her with a happy smile. Yang watched them for a moment, but when it looked like they were content to simply stare into each other's eyes, she sighed exasperatedly. "Just kiss already!"
The entire group erupted into laughter as Pyrrha and Jaune looked away, their faces almost as bright red as Pyrrha's fiery hair.
When the laughter subsided, a comfortable quiet fell over them. Ruby looked at all of them, wondering what they were thinking. "So….you guys decide on if you're joining the tag tournament?"
"I believe we are," Ren said. "Nora and I will be working together, as well as Pyrrha and Jaune."
"We still have a month or so before the tournament, right?" Yang asked. "You're not ready with your Gunpla yet."
"Yeah," Ruby said. "And I have a long way to go. But the hardest part was the weapon. Now that I know that Crescent Rose works, I can focus on the Gundam itself."
"You named that weapon?" Yang asked with a teasing grin.
"Hey, I worked for almost three weeks assembling that thing in a way that wouldn't break on us!" Ruby puffed her cheeks out. "It deserved a name!"
Weiss rolled her eyes. "And what Gundam do you plan on giving Crescent Rose to?"
Ruby grinned. "I plan on merging Gundam Destiny with Gundam Deathscythe, the original version. With Crescent Rose in hand, it'll be the successor to Crimson Strike Noir. I'll be calling it Gundam Destiny Scythe!"
"A bit on the nose," Yang admitted, "but it has a nice ring to it. I can't wait to see what you come up with."
"It's got a long way to go before it's ready," Ruby admitted, "and I'll always love Crim, but if we are going to the world tournament, I need something better. Destiny Scythe will help me cut a path to victory."
"Hey, help us," Weiss reminded her. "I'm your partner here, remember?"
Ruby chuckled nervously. "Right. Sorry!"
"We won't make it easy on you," Ren commented. "If we face each other in the tournament, expect a tough fight."
"Yeah! We'll break your legs!" Nora added excitedly. "kom og skaff deg noen! (Come get some!)"
Ruby giggled. "Well, then we'll just have to see, won't we?" She asked confidently.
"Blake and I will be there too," Yang said. "I want a rematch! That little stunt you pulled at Regionals won't work on me this time."
Ruby nodded. "I know."
It was still a month away. But they all were dreaming of victory. Only time would tell if they could achieve it.
