Chapter 8 – Mercurial Loss
It was time.
It was time for the most heart-pumping part of the tournament. So far it had not been called off.
Professor Port and Dr Oobleck were commentating once again. 'Now, for the moment you've all been waiting for: The one on one finals!' Port's voice echoed across the whole of Remnant. Originally, the first fight in the Singles was scheduled to take place in the evening, but was now being held in broad daylight after the cycle of day and night had been altered.
This meant that far more people were watching. Almost every seat inside the Amity Colosseum was occupied. The crowd cheered ecstatically.
In the ring, eight combatants, who had been elected by their teams to represent them in the finals, stood in a horizontal line.
'Barty, why don't you explain the rules?' said Port.
'Uhh, it's quite simple Peter. Instead of a bracket system, each round of the finals will be randomly determined immediately before the match takes place.' he said rapidly and energetically.
'Much like any good hunt, there will be zero time to prepare.'
'Ahh, yes, yes. Now let's see who our first match will be!'
The randomiser began scrolling through the eight competitors. Families, friends, workers, students and all of the above had their fists clenched in anticipation of who the first two were going to be to duel it out.
The first to be selected was Mercury Black, and the second right after was Yang Xiao Long. 'Yang Xiao Long and Mercury Black!' Port announced.
In the front seats, Ruby shouted 'Break a leg, sis!'
'Would all other combatants please leave the stage?' Port ordered. This time, there were no environmental biomes, but instead just a small elevated platform. The rest of the stage pulled away and collapsed downwards. This meant that falling off the smaller platform would mean defeat.
Yang and Mercury faced the audience before turning towards each other.
'You better not go easy on me.' said Yang confidently.
'Huh, you wish.' Mercury retorted.
They stood with their knees bent and put their arms up in a defensive position. As Port was counting down, they edged closer to each other.
'Three! Two! One! Fight!
Mountain Glenn was an old expansion of Vale that had been overrun by the Creatures of Grimm, due to the lack of natural barriers that other regions in Vale had. It was gradually becoming more and more infested by them. The dark and depressing setting naturally drew them closer, even though it was uninhabited by people.
It was only until not so long ago that people set foot in Glenn for the first time in years. Team RWBY and Dr Oobleck had gone on a mission of reconnaissance and discovered the White Fang and Roman Torchwick operating in the underground subway. Subsequently after openings had been made in Central Vale via the bomb scheme, Grimm had been able to enter the city and reek calamity. Thanks to Professor Goodwitch's extremely useful Semblance to manipulate solid objects and restore broken structures, no more Grimm had been able to do so. Nothing had happened in Glenn since then.
Until now.
A rift began to open just outside a derelict building. Grimm in the immediate area saw the portal opening. They sensed emotions: extremely negative ones coated in dejected misery, and were enticed to them.
Standing where the portal had just been was a man. He wore tatty grey trousers, but no shirt and carried a massive scroll in a kit bag on his back. What was most striking about his appearance though was his entirely blue and violet skin with runes tattooed across his body. Even his beard and eyes were blue.
Yang yelled as she let loose a punch that made direct contact with Mercury's kick. He was knocked back ever so slightly but landed on his feet, quickly ran towards Yang and attempted to do a leap kick. Yang did a front flip over Mercury and shot a blast from her Ember Celica. Mercury dodged the point blank shot with unbelievable quickness. The two then exchanged fists, using their elbows to block the incoming strikes. Three swings were delivered before both shot the other away with their weapons.
Mercury gave Yang a smug look and effortlessly stepped aside from five consecutive shots from her gauntlets. He jumped high into the air and attempted to kick Yang into the ground. She used her arms to block Mercury's incredibly heavy boots. He used his other leg on the floor to leap off the ground and dodge another shot from Yang. It was unreal how quickly Mercury could kick and swing his feet. Almost instantly, he swung his right foot upwards and kicked Yang in the chin. She was sent up into the air. Both managed to not fall over and continued to fight. It was almost like a dance with how fast they were moving and how oddly stylish their moves were. Clearly Ozpin had been right when making that comment at the Beacon dance.
The force of Mercury's boots shattered the ground as he attempted to bludgeon Yang's head, but she moved out of the way just in time. Mercury was exposed and ate a punch to the chin and a blast to his groin. He slide of his front and managed to stand up just in time to evade Yang's shots at the floor. The radius of one of them managed to send Mercury off the ring, but he used a shot from his boots to propel himself back to safety.
The Huntress was stunned by her opponent's cunning strategy and resolve. The boy was quick on his feet and delivered kicks so fast that Yang could not counter all of them. Each one felt like a rock. One kick to the face sent her a quarter of the way across the ring.
Now that distance had been made, Mercury began to shoot blasts of energy from his boots numerous times into the air in a circle. Yang tried to intercept him, but Mercury was prepared. He blocked all, except the initial one, of Yang's strikes and once again kicked her high up into the air. With exceptional grace, he followed up and jumped high enough so that he could kick Yang directly in the head and sent her down to the floor again. As he made the crowd's jaws drop at his flashy fighting style, he finished the performance by sending all the shots he had fired into the air down towards Yang on the ground. As they made impact, the shots dispersed and made a gush wind around Yang that blocked her from view. Mercury stood up, walked away conceitedly and wiped away the non-existent dirt off his clothes.
He had won.
Ryze took in his surroundings and immediately saw the Grimm running towards him. On instinct he fired comets of arcane energy at the onslaught of soulless beasts. Each one was propelled back with tremendous force. The Creeps were obliterated by Ryze's overwhelming power, but the larger species put up more of a fight. Boarbatusks were able to withstand some of Ryze's magic, as well the Beowolves, but it made no difference to Ryze: he had mastered the use of runic magic centuries ago.
One particularly large Beowolf came charging at him. Ryze then conjured a spell to root it in place whilst focusing his offensive spells onto the smaller Grimm. As they all dissolved, Ryze then unleashed a wild surge of arcane magic at the big Beowolf. It roared in anger but quickly turned to smoke.
The Rune Mage saw an opening in an unoccupied building and rushed towards it. He gaged quickly that the beasts he had just fought were hostile creatures that were not just typical predatory animals, but he did not know the reason why they had been so aggressive to his sudden appearance.
The Creatures of Grimm are lured by and are attracted to negative emotions. Ryze was the quintessential carrier of everything despairing. Ryze was capricious, temperamental, easily agitated and cranky, but if you had seen the horrors he went through for over one thousand years, how could one blame him for his uncharismatic attitude.
Ryze had an overwhelming duty and burden to ensure that the world was not destroyed by the World Runes: tangible runes that possess devastating power when used destructively. From his youth, Ryze grew up with a master of arcane magic and he quickly learned of the existence of rune magic and arcane forces. His master, Tyrus, had attempted to keep knowledge and awareness of the World Runes blighted from memory, but the inevitability of people finding out about the World Runes' existence was only prolonged moderately. The precedent was set when the first uses of the World Runes were to shape the very landscapes of Runeterra itself, Tyrus and Ryze dedicated their lives to quell paranoia and retrieve the World Runes to prevent disaster.
But alas, two warring nations came to possess runic weapons and both accused the other of plotting against them. Tyrus and Ryze could not reason with the two nations and had to flee. Whilst not caught in the line of fire, the two mages saw the land torn apart and lives annihilated. The Rune Wars began and centuries of conflict commenced.
As time went by though, Tyrus saw potential in using the World Runes as means to an end. It was gradual but pernicious: Ryze's beloved master was turning into the kind of man that the two of them had sworn to stop. He was corrupted and Ryze had no choice but to kill his friend and wear the scroll himself: reasoning had been futile.
Any other friend that Ryze had attempted to make had been taken from him. He had been carrying out his onerous duty for over one thousand years to protect humanity from the World Runes. Ryze had felt anguish, seen people he cared about perish, witnessed death, killed innocent people regretfully, enduring long hardships, received physical, magical and emotional pain, been close to death hundreds of times, and had still not had a day of rest since he began to wear the scroll of runes on his back.
But most traumatic of all: Ryze had been reincarnated four times in his life. There were four separate occasions where he died in a miserable state and was reborn again through an agonising process where the gods dismantled him, only to send him back to Runeterra so that he could continue with his obligation of protecting the world. Whilst in the colloquial sense, they were known as "reincarnations", the technical term for them is "reworks".
Just Kidding!
Centuries of continuous tribulations had wiped his face clean of all happiness, but despite all the pessimistic attributes of Ryze, no one could deny his reputation as a highly skilled mage and that he was the closest thing you could get to a worldwide humanitarian.
Ryze was astute and knew through reasoning and awareness when something was awry. The days and night were longer. One thousand years of living was more than enough time and experience to know the exact moment the sun will breach the horizon and the exact moment the sun will disappear from view.
The Rune Mage went outside of the building and had a better look around. The abandoned city was like nothing he had seen before and correlated with no place in Runeterra he knew. It seemed highly unlikely, but Ryze's gut feeling told him that he was on an entirely new planet, yet he was not too far away from home. It was as though his home planet and an entirely different one had been stuck together to form a larger planet. It was beyond even the whole collection of the World Runes to do something as unbelievable as merging two planets into one, but Ryze could not ignore the evidence presented in front of him. Something else must've been at work.
But even if his theory was correct, for what reason had he warped to the new planet? It wasn't like a World Rune would be found there. His answer lay in his senses. This planet had magical ubiquity. It was similar to that found in Ionia and Targon, but there was something distinct about the magic here.
Ryze ran across the city – killing more Grimm along the way - until he came to its border, which overlooked a natural landscape of grass and shallow mountains. In the skies, there was a floating object that looked like a giant UFO. 'Yes, it's definitely that way.' he said in his coarse, grouchy voice. It most likely wasn't a World Rune, but it was something with nearly identical power. Perhaps an object of some sort, or perhaps a relic. It was no real business of Ryze to interfere with this world and its matters, but so long as this planet was attached to Runeterra, his responsibilities had doubled. Ryze looked north towards the destination he had never seen before and journeyed forward in search of something that may not bare any importance to his mission. Power or no power: Ryze had to be sure that it was in safe hands.
It was not over. Yang's Semblance was triggered. A burst of flames erupted around her. Yang's eyes were red with anger and she threw her entire will at Mercury. His cocky swagger was instantly replaced with nervousness. He managed to block one blast from Yang's gauntlets, but missed two of his kicks and Yang then proceeded to punch Mercury with far more force than she could have done without her Semblance. They were relatively slow, but hit harder than a runaway truck carrying a Goliath Grimm. Nine direct punches in combination with shots from her gauntlets and Mercury's Aura shattered.
He crumpled to the floor and the buzzer sounded. 'What a way to kick off the finals!' Port exclaimed. The crowd cheered and as Yang regained her calmness, she punched the air with her right arm victoriously.
'Yang Xiao Long wins!' Oobleck announced.
'Better luck next time.' said Yang in a cocky tone.
But no one could have anticipated what happened next. Seemingly without reason, Yang turned back around and punched Mercury in the leg. The crowd instantly began to boo and gasp. Mercury fell back to the floor and clutched his leg in supposed pain, as though it was completely broken. Yang looked at Mercury in disgust, like he was the one who had lashed out first.
'Ah! My leg! My leg!' Mercury cried out.
'That's what you get you little – huh?' Yang was surrounded by the Atlesian security personnel.
They pointed their guns at her. 'Yang Xiao Long, stand down!' they ordered.
She looked around, completely baffled. 'What?! Why?!' she exclaimed.
Emerald came down to the stage to help her friend.
'Why'd she do that?! Why'd she attack me?!' Mercury wailed as Emerald came to help him.
She glared at the now dejected Yang who had no idea what was going on.
She looked up to the big screen to see the replay. She had turned around and punched Mercury in the leg gratuitously.
Yang began to cry. Even though the evidence and witnesses were against her, she knew in her heart that what had actually transpired was not what she had seen and not what she had meant to do.
Ryze looked back to Mountain Glenn as he jogged through the field.
The Grimm were following him.
