Weiss was desperately searching for a way to win. The nameless man before her always let her attack first, letting her set the initial rhythm of their clashes, but he'd quickly turn the tables against her every time, and that was back when Weiss was at her best. Now she could barely stand straight, her shoulders were sagging slightly from the sheer exhaustion she felt, and she couldn't afford the effort to pull Myrtenaster up into a fencing stance when not actively clashing with her opponent. She would have ran a long time ago, if not for the fact that he would always dash forward, grab her by her shirt, and throw her behind him, before returning to waiting for her to attack him.
"You are too slow," the man before her stated calmly. There was no disdain or disappointment in his voice, for he was simply stating a fact. "You use a form of swordplay that revolves mainly around speed, so why are you so slow?"
"I'll have you know there's not many at Beacon who can claim to be faster than I am," Weiss' voice was exhausted, her words broken by her panting, and yet her pride at her statement was still obvious.
"And yet that has gotten you nowhere, your strikes may have started out fast, but they quickly deteriorated into mere shadows of what they once were, and you're missing something important. In combat, you have to think and react quickly. You don't, or can't. You cover this weakness by thinking ahead and laying plans your opponent can't help but play along with. That, obviously, doesn't work against everyone. So, what will you do when your precious plans fail you?" The man started walking forward as he finished his question.
It was as he got within striking distance that Weiss made her move, the first move she hadn't meticulously planned out in a very long time. Myrtenaster shot forward towards a small opening that she didn't even fully realize was there until after the strike was well on its way towards her opponent. Her own speed shocked her, as the grey streak of light that was her weapon shot towards the unnamed man before her, confidence filled her as she felt that she could finally push him back.
Then his fist slammed into her stomach and launched her backwards.
The white-haired heiress landed in a heap and had to expend all of her effort to get back up. She had barely gotten to her knees when she heard the man's voice and her head shot up.
"Better, not great, but it's better than where you started," he stated, undeterred by the ice-blue eyes that were glaring at him. "Know this, teammate of Ruby Rose, Beacon is small, Remnant is large, if you try to base your status in the world off of your status in Beacon, you will die. You may be one of the fastest in your small little portion of the world, but if you ever step into the stage of true huntsmen and the actual threats of the world, you will become painfully aware of how slow you truly are. You will witness your strongest strikes bounce harmlessly off of your enemies, and you will feel despair. All of this will be fact, unless you train like your life depends on it, like every single creature in the world is vastly your superior and all you can do is try to catch up."
"How… do you… know Ruby?" Weiss asked between gasps of breath, having finally managed to get to her feet.
"There was a group of us, taken from a young age, and molded into the perfect warriors. We were supposed to be the strongest, we were supposed to take out any and every threat to humanity. We learned of stealth and subterfuge, in case we were fighting underground crime lords, and we learned of true strength and speed, in case we were fighting rogue huntsman or ancient grimm," the man paused in his response, as if trying to determine whether or not he should continue. "The Fourth Warrior, the one you know as Ruby Rose, was the one we all feared to fight. Not just because she herself is intimidating, but because her skill with her weapons are simply beyond anything any of us could match. Even though I'm supposed to be Remnant's best swordsman, I could barely fight her to a stalemate."
"So you're one of her old friends?"
He shook his head. "That would imply an innate trust of each other. We were all allies, sure, but most of us neither liked, nor trusted each other. She changed that, over time, and most of us learned to trust her, at least a little. However, friends is still a long way off for the vast majority of us. Now, are you done resting? Or do you give in?"
Weiss attempted to lift Myrtenaster into a combat stance, only to have his swords knock hers from her hands.
"Nothing good comes from fighting against insurmountable odds, know your limits so that you may learn when to run," with those last words, his fist once again collided with Weiss' stomach and her world rapidly faded to black.
Blake felt a growing fear develop during her fight with Onix. The young woman before her was obviously a combat veteran, having been able to block or dodge every single one of Blake's attacks. It was a terrifying thing to go through, pulling out every single trick you know, only to have it end up being completely useless every time. The woman had even developed a counter of sorts, though Blake had no clue if it was intentional. Every twentieth attempt Blake made would be countered instead of blocked or dodged, and as a result Blake sported a number of cuts and forming bruises; due to the fact that her aura had run out long ago.
"You have performed admirably," Onix said, her smooth voice disrupting Blake's thoughts. "You have shown a creativity that few would be able to match. However, my semblance is a almost perfect counter to your fighting style, and so that creativity is useless unless you have the strength and speed to best me."
Blake remained in her combat stance. "So, does that mean the test is over?"
Onix responded by nodding her head. "There is no reason to test someone with no chance of passing."
Blake bit back a retort. Admitting to herself that there was no way to beat the enemy before her was a bitter pill to swallow, but it had to be done. "How do I get stronger then?"
"Knowing your weakness is just the beginning, work yourself to exhaustion, grind your own bones to dust if you need to. Do everything you possibly can to erase that weakness. When you've done that, you can challenge me again, and maybe you will stand a chance." With those words, Onix walked away, leaving Blake with her own thoughts.
As Onix walked out of earshot, she pulled out her scroll and hit a button. Shortly after, a ringing sound started before being abruptly cut off and an image of Ruby appeared on the screen.
"Hello Razor," Ruby said cheerfully right as she picked up. "I'm guessing Blake gave up?"
"She did," Onix replied emotionlessly, moving her head to look up at the sky. "Fatal End, why have us test these three when they have no chance of passing?"
A short humm was Ruby's only response for a few seconds. "If you force someone to acknowledge their weakness, they will either accept that they're weak and go on with life, or they will fight it. They will put themselves through hell and worse just to have a chance at getting stronger, and in the end they will rise as one of the strongest."
"You're hoping that they'll fight it?" Onix asked, incredulity coating her voice as her red eyes glanced back down toward her scroll. "You want them to be like us?"
"Not really, though that'd be much better than if they just accepted it and moved on," Ruby responded nonchalantly. "It's more a mixture of I want to make them realize where they stand in the world, and I want to give them a hint of my real past. They seem to be trying to forget I was kidnapped by an unknown group for an extensive period of time and came out of that more than ready to be a student at Beacon."
A small laugh escaped Onix's lips. "Yes, because young women such as themselves are supposed to immediately assume you're a super secret assassin."
A light laugh was Ruby's only response as she ended the call.
"And Ice Cream wonders why that girl terrifies me," Onix muttered to herself with a sigh.
Yang was in the middle of the longest combo of consecutive punches she could remember. She would be proud of herself, if it wasn't for the fact that not a single punch landed on the multi-colored girl in front of her. As it was, this entire fight was a failure, and would continue to be, as she could feel her arms getting heavy, and the girl in front of her showed no signs of wearing down at all. In fact, she had kept an infuriating half-smirk plastered on her face for the entire fight.
The blonde brawler bit back a curse as a stylized pink umbrella slammed into her face and pushed her back. Her normally lilac eyes have long since started burning red as her anger rose further and further due to her fruitless attacks, and yet the small girl before her showed no hint of fear or concern. Just as she was getting ready to charge at her opponent once more, an automated voice sounded, stopping her in her tracks.
"I've been watching you, Yang, sister and teammate of Ruby," the sound came from the multi-colored girl, who had started looking around as if confused, even though the confusion was obviously faked. "It's hard to imagine that two sisters could be so different, even if they were raised separately."
"Why do you care?" Yang asked, her anger making the words sound more like a threat than a question.
At this moment, the multi-colored girl held up a finger, and pulled out her scroll before typing something and waiting. "I am Ice Cream, I care about Ruby and everything she does. You don't deserve your relation to her, you're too weak, too slow, and your attacks are far too straight forward. There is no way you'd ever be able to beat an opponent with any real level of experience and yet you strut around Beacon, acting like you're the best the world has to offer, because you can beat up some huntresses and hunters in training. By the time you graduate you'll be hiding in corners to avoid being laughed at."
Red flared in Yang's vision as she flew forward, intent to put this girl in her place, only to receive a kick to face and be sent flying backwards as the girl typed something else out.
"Pride is good, if you deserve it, you aren't worthy of any of the pride you feel. Come, Yang Xiao-Long, try and prove me wrong, and learn your place. On your knees. At my feet."
Yang charged forward, intent to end the fight right at that very moment. She charged her right fist with every ounce of strength, aura, and semblance she had at her disposal, and punched right for the multi-colored girl's face. For once, she hit her target, but upon contact, the girl's image shattered into hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny pieces. Fear cleared her of her anger faster than anything ever had before. She had messed up, and there was no way her opponent would let this pass. She turned her head to the side just in time to see the pink parasol slam into her head and force her to the ground. Groggily she tried to gain her bearings and stand up, only to realize that the, apparently mute, girl had stepped on her chest and was already swinging the parasol at Yang's head again. Not a moment later Yang lost consciousness.
A/N
So I apparently accidentally sold my soul, and all of my free time, to Wal-Mart. However, now I have free time back, and while I won't promise an update next week, 'cause we all know how those go by now, I can promise I will finish this story. However, know that this will likely be my last RWBY story, despite my many story ideas for RWBY specifically. This latest season… well let's just say there was enough in it to make me think that it's better if I quit the show. No, it's not just Jaune's fault, even though I despise him as a character and the amount of screentime he's given. Nyway, this is an absurdly long Author's note for this chapter, where nothing of note really happened. Just note that my Beta-Reader, Imoshen_88, hasn't been able to look over the Yang scene, as she had something else come up and I promised a good friend, Archer1eye, that I'd get this out today. Also, I have notice that for whatever reason my copy and pasting this from Google Docs into the FF doc manager sometimes makes it miss a couple of words, if anyone notices anything like that, feel free to let me know.