Last Time:
"What does this have to do with my situation?" The Heiress inquired of Dakura, who sighed in response.
"You seem to be acting like the Grandson was, while Ruby is like the Guildmaster and the other two members are the rest of the Guild. You believe that you deserve the title of leader just as the Grandson desired to be the Master, and it may very well rip Team RWBY asunder if you don't see how wrong you are within time, and I hope this talk has taught you something." The wielder of elemental darkness explained, before merging with his shadow and leaving.
Now:
Combat Room, Beacon Academy
A few weeks later…
"Today we will be performing mock battles, with battle pairs being determined by the display above me." Professor Goodwitch began, indicating the set of screens behind herself, which were rapidly shuffling between pictures of students at a pace difficult to track, until they suddenly stopped, showing the faces of Rhydwyn and Cardin Winchester, prompting the two to move to the locker room to switch from their school uniforms over to their 'normal' clothes, as well as to grab their weapons. Once on stage, the two combatants prepped themselves for battle by shifting into their combat stances. Rhydwyn stood with his right foot further up than his left, back bent forward with Lament held facing towards his opponent, who just simply stood in a slightly relaxed stance, holding his mace over his shoulders not knowing how much of a mistake this would be in the fight. Noticing the stances the two students took, the Combat professor then began the countdown.
"Three," Rhydwyn began heating up the Laser function of Lament for a preemptive blast, as Cardin got into a slightly more ready position, hitting his mace lightly in his hand.
"Two," Lament's spear-head began glowing a light blue color, indicating the type of dust being used as its wielder gained a more determined face, glaring slightly at his opponent.
"One! Begin!" At that, Cardin charged the spear user, but it was already too late as a laser of cold energy struck out from the weapon, encasing the armored male in a block of ice, stopping his movement almost immediately. Rhydwyn then raised his hand towards his opponent, who began grimacing due to the pain of sonic waves being driven into his head, but he held out. As a side effect of the sound waves, the ice around the orange haired male weakened considerably, cracking enough for the physically stronger male to break his frozen prison, and charge at Rhydwyn again. However, while he might be stronger than the spear user, his agility was quite lacking comparatively, as Rhydwyn was capable of dodging most of Cardin's strikes, knowing that even one of them could be the end of the fight. Soon enough, Cardin over-extended one of his swings while trying to bludgeon Rhydwyn, which gave the brunette an opportunity to strike, resulting in a small portion of Cardin's Aurameter to drop, putting it into the yellow due to Rhydwyn's Sound assault from earlier. The mace user growled at his opponent, realizing he had yet to hit him, so he prepared another swing, placing his thumb over the trigger on the mace's handle. While Rhydwyn managed to dodge the actual attack, the explosion caused by it knocked him back, lowering his Aura down a considerable percentage, to where he was near equal to Cardin again in terms of Aura levels. The spear user then launched another beam at his opponent, freezing his foot to the ground. Soon after Rhydwyn fired three more beams, freezing the other three limbs of the Mace user, as he rushed forward and jabbed at Cardin multiple times, lowering his Aura to below fifty percent, just bordering the red. Noting this, Rhydwyn flicked the Mace user in the forehead, resulting in his Aura hitting the red.
"As you can see, Mister Winchester's Aura has now dropped into the red. In a Tournament style duel, this would indicate that Cardin is no longer fit for battle, and an official would call the match. We still have time for at least one more match, do we have any volunteers?" Professor Goodwitch called out, as both Colys and Verneri raised their hands, noting each other while gaining looks of determination.
"Mister Duran, Mister Miko. Please prepare yourselves to face each other in battle." The Librarian-looking professor told the two, as they made their way to the locker rooms. Soon, the two came back dressed in their usual attire, weapons bared. Colys had the Frost Spark Gauntlets active, the knuckled sparking with electricity. Verneri, meanwhile, held a pair of longswords, one in each hand, with a single sided slightly curved blade. The edges of the blades glowed slightly green, indicating the presence of Wind Dust. Colys got into his typical boxer stance, frost forming around his feet as a cloak of ice formed around his shoulders. Verneri, meanwhile, held his right sword out in front of himself while his left sword was crossed horizontally across the back of its twin, as the countdown began, however, the two drowned it out until the last second.
"Begin!" was all that was needed, as the two rushed each other, their respective weapons drawn and prepared to hit each other, however before they reached each other, the bell signalling the end of the class, causing some disappointed groans from the two combatants, as the class shuffled out, but not before Professor Goodwitch made an announcement.
"Remember everyone, the Vytal Festival is only a few months away. It won't be long until students from the other kingdoms start arriving in Vale, so keep practicing. Those who choose to compete in the combat tournament will be representing all of Vale." The Combat instructor alerted the class of this as they made their way towards the cafeteria for lunch.
Beacon Cafeteria…
"So, there we were, in the middle of the night," Began Team JNPR's eccentric bomber, before being cut off by her partner.
"It was day."
"We were surrounded by Ursai."
"They were Beowolves."
"Dozens of them!"
"Two of them."
"But they were no match. In the end, Ren and I took them down, and made a buttload of Lien selling Ursa Skin Rugs." The orange haired female finished, with Ren sighing.
"She's been having this recurring dream for nearly a month now." The green themed male stated while Jaune looked oddly depressed, causing Pyrrha to voice her concern.
"Jaune, are you okay?" The Spartan girl asked, with the blonde giving a nervous chuckle.
"Oh, yeah. Why?"
"It's just that, you seem a little, not okay." Ruby responded, with Colys adding in his own two cents.
"Yeah, you are mainly just picking at your food, rather than eating at a normal pace." The black themed boxer stated as Jaune gave a look of feigned confidence.
"Guys, I'm fine. Seriously, look!" The Knight stated, giving an unconvincing fake smile, as the group heard a demeaning laugh from another table.
"Jaune, Cardin has been picking on you since the first week of school." Pyrrha told the blonde, who gave a quick response.
"Who, Cardin Winchester? He just likes to mess around, you know. Practical jok-" the blonde never finished, noticing a glare from Colys.
"Jaune, there is a fine line between pranking and bullying. Cardin is far past that line, so don't even DARE claim what he does as pranking." Remnant's Finest Prankster growled out, scaring his fellow Team Leader.
"Just remember, if you need any help, then you can just ask." The redhead told him, with Nora jumping out of her seat excitedly.
"Oh! We'll Break his legs!" The orange haired female stated, with Colys nodding in approval.
"Then afterward, I'll prank him into oblivion! You know what, I should get started on that now!" The Black haired male stated as he ran to prepare something big before Rhydwyn stopped him.
"Not right now, Colys. We need to finish classes for the day first. Besides, I want in on this." The sound user said, with the rest of Team CRSN nodding along side him.
"Guys, really. It's fine. Besides, it's not like he's only a jerk to me. He's a jerk to everyone!" The blonde said getting up to take care of his tray as the 22 of them heard a cry of pain from across the room.
"That's it. I'm dealing with this asshat personally." Tyrus stated, getting up to leave with Verneri following him. However, before the Gorilla Faunus got far, Geod stood up in front of him.
"Not yet, Tyrus. There are too many witnesses, not to mention we already have Colys dealing with it." The slightly blue haired male told his teammate, who sat back down while mumbling under his breath about stubborn leaders.
"Come on, guys, we need to get to History with Doctor Oobleck." Colys told his team as they got up to go to said class, others soon following behind.
Beacon Academy Dorm Halls
Later that night…
"... and that should be the last wire in place. Now to navigate my way out of this." Colys stated to his team, having placed down the final wire in a series of trip wires that made up an intricate system that would unleash 'prank-ageddon' on its victims, in this case, Team CRDL as that was the room they were standing in.
"Colys, use the window. It has fewer wires in the way, and it's closer to you." Nuada told his partner, referring to the open window opposite the doorway. The rest of Team CRSN was assigned both Guard duty as well as to retrieve supplies for the Master Prankster. The main way this worked was one of them went on supply runs when needed, another watched for their prey, and the last would distract others from the veritable hive of activity that Colys had going on in the room. As for how they accessed the room? The very window Colys was climbing out of at the moment.
"Alright, I'll meet you guys back in the room, I'll need to take the long way around as we're on the opposite side." The leader stated, standing on a makeshift ice platform just outside the window. Receiving nods from his team, Colys raised his platform up to roof level, intending to use the access stairs to exit. However, once his eyes made it over the edge, he ducked down upon noticing two others on the roof.
"We can train up here after class where no one can bother us!" That voice was familiar to the dark haired male as he slowly raised his platform to a level in which he could latch his arms on to the roof side and subsequently climb up to the roof, while the conversation above continued, allowing Colys to identify the other participant.
"You think I need help?"
"No! That's not what I meant." It was at this point in the conversation that Colys had managed to pull himself up to the roof, as he decided to make his presence known to the two.
"Yo! How are you doing?" The currently intruding male asked, seemingly oblivious of their past conversation, startling the two.
"Wha- Colys? What are you doing up here?" Jaune inquired of his fellow leader, who scratched the back of his head in slight nervousness.
"Heh. I was setting up my prank for Team CRDL, however, due to the way I ended up setting it up, I had to leave through the window rather than the door, hence why I'm here right now. While I would have stuck around outside their window to take some pictures so as to blackmail them in case they didn't learn from the warning I left at the very end of the prank chain, I instead set up some cameras in the room that broadcast their data to my scroll for later use." Colys stated, making his way to the stairwell to head back to his dorm, allowing the two to return to their conversation, not noticing the presence of yet another who was concealed through unknown means. The only visible part of him being his magenta eyes.
Forever Fall Forest…
A few days later…
"Yes students, the Forest of Forever Fall is indeed beautiful, but we are not here to sightsee." Professor Goodwitch told the group of students behind her, namely teams RWBY, JNPR, CRDL, DARK, and CRSN. "Professor Peach has asked all of you to collect samples from the trees deep inside this forest, and I'm here to make sure that none of you die while doing so. Each of you is to collect one jar's worth of red sap. However, this forest is full of the Creatures of Grimm, so be sure to stay by your teammates. We will rendezvous back here at four o'clock. Have fun!" At that, the teams grabbed their jars to begin their tasks and head into the woods, as Team CRDL went off to a separate location for reason known only to them. While most of the group managed to fill their jars at a relatively normal rate, Ren had to repeatedly refill his due to a certain orange haired grenadier. While sitting around, the sixteen of them heard what sounded like… crying?
"It's so sorrowful that the great Titania would fall to the ground at my hands!" Was heard from behind them with more weeping, as both Dakura and Kaito gained looks of evident rage at the statement, while Teams CRSN, RWBY, and JNPR were confused, not knowing how this 'Titania' was. The two enraged males, however, ran to the general location that the voice had come from, with attacks charged up. Kaito fired off his usual sphere of beetles, however, it seemed different somehow, almost as if it emanated a fiery aura that isn't present in his normal attacks as Dakura's fist was encased in darkness, forming what looked to be a claw of some sort. Upon hitting what seemed to be nothing, Kaito's sphere erupted in flames, as Dakura's fist caused a minor explosion of dark energy due to his attack. The smoke of the two attacks was blown away in a gust of air as their attacker made himself known. Out from the cloud walked a large, as that was the best way to describe him, man sporting a green hat and coat, as well as a yellow robe accompanied by dark, loose pants and simple black shoes. Over his eyes was a white cloth that functioned as a blindfold, but it was not known to the group as to why he wore it. Upon his reveal, their adversary spoke again, with tears flowing from underneath the cloth.
"I am called Aria, pinnacle of the Elemental 4, that is, until Phantom Lord was disbanded three years ago. Now it seems I have made an error as to the identity of my opponents, however, it doesn't matter much. All shall fall in the face of my Airspace Magic!" The now named Aria stated, putting his hand in front of him as, strangely enough, an intricate magic circle appeared over the palm of said hand as several explosions went off throughout the group, sending those not expecting it, namely all but Team DARK, flying back into the tree line. Upon seeing the attack's activation method, the only team currently facing Aria gained hardened looks as they prepared their own attacks.
"To think we would encounter a former Phantom Member while here. This battle, while different, won't be impossible for us." Dakura said as he pulled his own hand back, before thrusting it forward again. "Dark Make: Dark Cannon!" At the call of his attack, a beam of concentrated darkness was launched at Aria, however, he avoided it using his magic to faze into the air, as the attack passed through his form. However, he was soon hit with a barrage of attacks, however, he couldn't fathom why. Looking behind Team Dark, he noticed that Rhydwyn had stood back up with his hand facing him.
"Heh, to think that someone with an Air manipulation based Semblance could literally become the Air around them. Luckily sound can still travel through air." The brunette said before he coughed out a small amount of blood that was lodged in his throat from being thrown into a tree. Not long after, the rest of Team CRSN got their feet, sporting their fair share of injuries, with Nuada taking the brunt of the damage as he was closest to the Airspace user. Aria then fazed back into the physical plane to launch another attack, however, he then noticed a sudden decrease in temperature, emanating from Colys.
"This is the first time I attempted this, but let's hope it works. Frosted Cannon!" At Colys' yell, the ice forming around him condensed behind Aria, before rocketing towards the former Phantom mage at speeds that seemed unreal, as everything else seemed to speed up around him, causing him to not be able to shift over to his air form in time, making him have to take the brunt of the attack which shattered into shards. Said Ice shards then re-directed themselves at him and impaled his forearm and leg, shocking all but Team Dark, as normally one's Aura would prevent something like that from happening. One of the stray ice shards clipped the right side of his blindfold, cutting it off which revealed his magenta eyes to the world, as the iris soon spit into a cross pattern, while the air surrounding him swirled and condensed.
"Now, you all will fall before Zero, The Airspace of Death!" The unblinded man stated as he was soon seen as a mere silhouette of himself due to the amount of dust picked up by his attack. The name of the attack confused Team CRSN, however, they were still wary of it because of its title. At this time, Teams RWBY and JNPR started to awake as well, with the first of them, Ruby and Pyrrha, pulling out their weapons when they noticed their attacker.
"What is this guy?" Yang yelled out, with Dakura looking over his shoulder to answer the blonde.
"His name is Aria, and one of my own, and Kaito's, former enemies. We may have never faced until now, but we know some people who have. Let's just say that, from what we've heard and now experienced, he is not a fun opponent to deal with." The red eyed male stated, pulling his hands back to prepare another attack, until he shifted to a different stance, with his back bent forward and head facing right at Aria. He then was cloaked in the same dark aura from earlier, as he yelled out another attack. "Dark Dragon Charge!" At that, he rushed at his target, head butting him and launching him into a tree. Not long after, the magenta eyed man walked back out, glaring at Dakura, yet also in confusion, as if the attack shouldn't have connected.
"Only one other person has managed to not only survive Zero, but also hit me while it is active. You also seem strangely similar to that person, although your hair color doesn't match. However, your efforts are still futile despite that fact." Aria stated, using the same attack from earlier, however as his hand rose up, it was hit straight on by a Dust bullet, courtesy of one Ruby Rose. "Tch, I forgot about the rest."
"Damn right you did!" Yang yelled out as she rushed from behind, landing multiple shotgun shell enhanced blows to his back before jumping away and rejoining the rest of Team RWBY. At the same time, he was hit by a barrage of bullets thanks to Ren using his twin SMGs, Stormflower. However, the bullets also kicked up a cloud of dust, which he used as a cover to shift to his Air form, but was once again surprised to get hit by Rhydwyn's sound waves. Shifting back again, he was hit by multiple impact grenades thanks to Nora, while Nuada bathed him in flames with Armageddon. He then managed to launch another attack, however, the brunt of the damage was blocked by a sudden ice wall which shattered and reformed a large arm that slammed its fist down onto him. Realizing he would be incapable of attacking as is, he ran to the tree line so as to escape his opponents knowing that any attempts to fight back would be futile due to a number of interruptions that he faced.
"That's right, you better run!" Colys yelled out to the fleeing man before he fell onto the ground in exhaustion.
"Colys' outburst aside, that battle took more out of us than expected. However, we still need to get back to Professor Goodwitch by four, and have our sap with us." Rhydwyn stated, noticing that the aforementioned sap was nowhere to be found. "Wait a minute, where is the sap?"
"Sorry, put it under some ice to protect it in case of any attacks." The face down ice user stated, pointing to a mound of ice beneath a tree that soon was melted away to reveal the jars, safe from harm, albeit with a small amount of frost creeping on the glass.
"Well, that's a relief. We may want to tell Professor Goodwitch about our encounter, as this man may be a wanted criminal, or he may end up becoming one for assault." Sinikka stated, shocking some at the fact that she actually spoke up.
AN: Hey everyone, Blueghast900 Here. sorry for the delay, I had a bit of trouble in writing what led up to the fight scene, and I was debating scrapping one of the scenes, which I did. So, how did you all like the reveal of Aria? I know that he isn't the MOST powerful character in the Fairy Tail Universe, and he might have seemed slightly OOC at times, however, it will be explained later. So, we got to see Dakura use some of his Dragon Slayer Magic for the first time in the story, and Kaito used his flame beetles. Those two will have some explaining to do to Teams CRSN, RWBY, and JNPR, now won't they? At any rate, I'll see you all next chapter! Read, Review, Rate, and Favorite! Blueghast900, Signing off.