Before you say anything, yes I know I have not updated this for three weeks. It must seem like a running theme with me, not updating this for weeks upon end. I do have reasons, mainly studying for some exams and practicing for the Indoor Nationals for archery.

If you are reading this, thank you for continuing to read through the first few chapters and even waiting for the next one to come along too. Unless you just skip past all of this because you don't really care about what I have to say….

Either way, to what you really want, Chapter 6!

Ruby

'Attention students,' Professor Goodwitch's voice rang throughout the cafeteria. Holograms of the Professor appeared at regular intervals throughout the hall. Most of the students lifted their heads from their food and turned their attention to the nearest hologram of Goodwitch. Some other students, mainly Cardin and the rest of his team, continued with flicking small bits of food at faunus students.

They all did their best to ignore what was going on, but they couldn't hide their faces of pure anger. Others, such as Velvet, were desperately holding back tears at the discrimination against them. Ruby could see Yang reach over to Blake to calm her down. This was when Ruby noticed that Blake had the same look on her face as the rest of the faunus students but knew that Blake could easily take on Team Cardinal by herself.

'I have very important news for you all today, which I will tell you all once Mr Winchester has finished attempting to start another food fight. I'm sure that we have all had enough of these for one semester,' Professor Goodwitch said, all of the holograms in the room staring threateningly at Team Cardinaly, knowing full well what he was really doing.

Cardin and his team looked up at the nearest hologram, snarling, but ceasing tothrow their food at the faunus students and started paying attention to the teacher.

'Thank you Mr Winchester,' Goodwitch said calmly.

'As you all know, the Vytal Tournament is approaching rapidly and I am sure that some of you are eager to begin training to be ready for the tournament. From today until the week of the tournament, teams will now have an allocated timeframe where they are permitted to use the battle stage to prepare for the team battles in the tournament. My classes will continue being based on single combat, where we will determine a select few that are allowed to participate in that part of the tournament.'

'You will find your allocated time frames on the various noticeboards across the school and if your team wishes to partake in the tournament, simply write your team name on the noticeboard in the battle arena.'

'Thank you for listening students, please make your way to your first class in a few minutes,' Goodwitch finished, the several holograms shutting down, leaving all of the students to burst out in conversation, excited over the prospect of getting to start preparing for the tournament.

Ruby was not an exception.

'YES!' Ruby shouted out loud, startling Blake who was still glaring angrily at Cardin, making her bump the bottom of the table with her knee with a loud thump.

'Finally, we're going to be getting ready for the tournament! I've been waiting so long for this! I've been thinking of ways that we can easily communicate how we want to attack to each other without letting out opponents know what we're doing. I was thinking of using codenames for different attacks, and basing the codenames off of whoever is helping out in the attack! What do you guys think of that huh?!'

'Ruby, that sounds great and I'm sure that we can definitely figure out something like that quite easily,' Weiss said, calming down her partner by patting her on the shoulder, and bringing the now standing girl back to her seat. 'But we first need to know when our time is and wait until our classes are-'

'Oh! Good point! I'll go check right now!' Ruby said excitedly before disappearing from Weiss' side in a cloud of rose petals. Weiss could see where her teammate was heading by the sheer amount of students that were suddenly blown over into each other or their food, such as Jaune, who now lifted his head up, his face completely covered in cereal. Pyrrha had her hand over her mouth, trying to hold back a laugh, whilst Nora simply burst out in laughter, pointing at Jaune's face, which only caused Pyrrha to burst out laughing too. Ren was much quieter, simply staring at Jaune with a smirk on his face.

It wasn't long before Ruby came dashing back again, repeating the same process to the students and dunking Jaune's face into his cereal once more. His team continued laughing as Jaune tried to wipe the cereal off and Runy appeared back where she was sitting once again.

'We have our time just after lunch every day. There are lots of teams that are there at the same time too.' Ruby said, her breathing completely normally even though she had just sprinted across the entire hall and back in a couple of seconds.

'What other teams?' Yang asked. 'If we're sharing with Team Juniper I'm sure we'll have a great time, but if we're there with Cardinal, I don't think me and Blake will be spending as much time practicing with you guys as we will be beating the dust out of him.'

Ruby shook her head frantically at her sister, causing the three of them to become dizzy at the speed her head was moving.

'Nope. We aren't sharing with Cardinal, but we are going to be there at the same time as Jaune's team.'

'Oh joy,' Weiss said, rolling her eyes. 'More time for that dolt to try and 'hit on me',' she said, making air quotes with her hands.

'Oh come on Weiss,' Yang said, reaching across the table to lightly punch the Ice Queen's shoudler, a light smile on her face. 'We all know that someday you will fall for it.'

Weiss' face turned a bright red and put on an angry look. 'No I will not Yang Xiao Long! What he does is innapropriate and childish! I would never 'fall' for him! Ever!'

'Sure thing Ice Queen.'

Weiss started growling at the yellow brawler, but stopped and folded her arms, her face turned away from Yang.

'Who else is there Ruby?' Weiss demanded.

'Uhh, a couple more First Year teams, Legacy and Titan. A few second years, Justice and Imperial and one Third Year team.'

'A third year team? I wouldn't have thought they would combine a senior grade team with the rest of us Junior grade teams.' Weiss said, turning to look at her leader. 'What team is that?'

Lupis

'Technically speaking, he is fine. His aura is just incredibly low, and no matter what we do, we can't undo what the Deathstalker venom did to it. You're just going to have to build it up again manually, training him hard and really stretching it as much as you can. I knew Eric quite well Mr Drake. The amount of times you four had been in here, I had to know all of you. That boy had one of the strongest auras that I have seen in a long time, but right now, he's but a shadow of his former self.'

'Is it really that bad?' Nathan cut in.

The doctor turned to face the red haired warrior, a sad look on his face.

'I'm afraid so Mr Adon. Your partner's aura is so weak, it would only take a few punches from a small child before it ran out. We've tried using healing crystals, aura transfusion, aura cleansing, but none of it has worked. I know that you were very far away from us, but you simply took to long to get him here. If you had gotten back half an hour quicker we may have been able to do something for him. Hell, if you were a few minutes later, we wouldn't have been able to save him at all.'

'Is there any medication that you need him to take for a while after you let him out?' Lupis asked quietly, his eyes looking at the floor.

'No. Once we let him out, all that needs to be done is that you need to restore his aura yourselves.'

Lupis nodded, and looked up at the doctor. 'Thank you for looking after him so well Doctor Jones.'

'No worries. It is my job to make sure that all you students don't end up killing yourselves.'

Lupis let out a small smile, shaking the doctors hand. Nathan and Garris both followed suit immediately afterwards.

'If you can all just wait right here I'll get him out in just a moment,' Doctor Jones said, heading into the hospital ward for Eric.

As soon as he was gone, Nathan let out a huge sigh, and fist pumped the air. Lupis could tell that he was glad to finally have his partner back, no matter what state his aura was in. Nathan looked up at Lupis, who was smiling at his friend.

'Lupis, we have a training session after lunch, can we take Eric there to start working on him?'

Lupis thought about this, wondering whether Eric would be able to handle any sort of physical work after being shut in a hospital for a few weeks. He was sure that Eric would want to stretch his legs and get back into his normaly daily routine as a part of Team Legion. But would he be able to handle it so quickly?

'We'll ask Eric whether he wants to or not,' Lupis replied. 'I'm sure he will want to get started immediately, but it also depends on whether he can handle it straight away.'

'Alright then.'

They waited for another minute or two before Doctor Jones came back through the door to the hospital ward, Eric close behind him.

'I'll let you all get on your way now, I'm sure you have some classes to get to,' Doctor Jones said, heading back into the hospital ward.

'Thank you so much for what you did,' Nathan said, walking forwards and giving his partner a friendly hug, and Eric gladly returned it.

'Anytime,' the doctor said, before closing the door behind him.

As soon as the door shut, Garris shouted out loud, speaking for the first time the whole day.

'YEAH! TEAM LEGION IS BACK IN BUSINESS BABY!'

The three others laughed at Garris' sudden outburst and Lupis began walking down the hallway, shaking his head at his partner.

'So, anything I've missed over the last few weeks?' the green and purple dust user asked, as he followed his team leader, Nathan and Garris both standing to his left and right respectively.

'Oh yeah tonnes of stuff,' Garris started. 'First, Lupis and Tris both fought each other in class and she got absolutely demolished by him, but he won't tell me what he must have offered her to let him win.'

Lupis turned around, an amused look on his face as his partner shrugged his shoulders at him. He quickly turned away again, shaking his head once more at the strange sense of humour that his partner had.

'And then there was this massive essay that Professor Oobleck gave us that only Nathan didn't do because he's super lazy without you.'

'Hey! I did my best! I just happened to get bored after reading what I actually had to do,' Nathan pouted.

'And an amazing job you did my good friend,' Garris replied.

As the group walked past the cafeteria, where almost the rest of the school was piling out of, they remembered the over the top food fight that had happened recently.

'Oh yeah, and two first year teams decided to have a crazy food fight and destroy the whole cafeteria!' Garris said, jumping up and down whilst pointing at the large building.

At this Lupis knew that Esh wouldn't believe him, and as he knew he would, Eric replied, 'Are you serious? I mean, you come up with some crazy stuff Garris, but that's way too much, even for you.'

'No, he's telling the truth,' Lupis said, turning slightly so that he could see his team. 'Garris was almost crushed by a huge piece of stone that came flying out of the roof when one of them was knocked out of it.'

'Wait, what?!' Eric asked, stunned that if Lupis had agreed, that it was true.

'Yeah, she got flung out and didn't land for another minute or so,' Nathan piped in.

'Well then, at least things won't be too dull for us at all if that's only the start of the semester.'

'Yeah, with the tournament coming up, I can already see lots of teams that we can watch fighting this year. A lot of even the first years are actually really freaking good this year round.' Lupis said.

'Like who?'

After Lunch

Weiss

Stabbing and slashing at the training android, her and Blake took turns attacking the poor robot, leaping over each others blades to get out of the way of each other, or to get into a position where they could land another hit.

Weiss liked to think that they were both graceful looking as they flowed around the droid, attacking as one. They both fought as if they were fighting by themselves, making the normal attacks that they were used to, but sensing when the other would be striking, and dodging out of the way so that they could land a hit.

The robot swung a training blade at the kneeling Weiss, but it was blocked by Blake's katana, leaving an opening for Weiss. Taking it, she thrust her rapier forwards into the robots neck, causing it to jitter before shutting down from excessive damage.

Yang and Ruby both whistled from the sidelines, clapping and cheering to their partners. It wasn't often that Weiss and Blake would fight an enemy together, but when they did, they worked well as a team.

'That was awesome guys!' Ruby cheered out. 'I really think that you could both end up being a better team than with your own partner!'

'Hopefully not,' Weiss said. 'I know you want to prepare us for an eventuality where we may not be with out actual partner, but we also need to practice with each other too.'

'I know Weiss, we will get to that soon, ok?'

'Alright then Ruby,' Weiss sighed. 'I'm trusting you with this.'

'Thanks!' Ruby beamed. 'Now, the next thing I want us to-'

Ruby was interrupted by a loud crashing sound. They all turned around, expecting Jaune to have knocked over some sort of equipment that had been brought out by many of the other teams, but found that it was not him for once.

A student was sprawled across the floor, multiple sets of equipment knocked over.A punching bag with patches of metal across the surface slowly rolled towards the student. His teammates urged him to get up, quickly dashing over to him.

This punching bag was used so that someone can train the accuracy of their punches. If they hit the metal surfaces, an electrical shock would zap them, and send them flying across the room.

Which is exactly what happened to the poor guy lying on the floor when a patch of metal landed against his elbow. Sent flying by the shock, the student was airborne for a few seconds before hitting the ground again and rolling into Weiss, sweeping her legs out from under her, causing her to fall to the floor.

Angrily, Weiss rose, searching for the idiot who had been so careless to cause the accident. The student was slowly rising off of the floor, moaning as he grasped at his side.

He wore a dark green jacket that reached down to the back of his knees. A deep purple lined the edges of the jacket to match the purple buttons that were along its right side. Inside the jacket was also a deep purple, but had a dark green belt running diagonally across the inside of both sides of the jacket. The belt held a whole variety of dust crystals, all of which were safely tucked in little loops to stop them from falling out. Beneath the jacket was a deep green shirt with glowing purple symbols. One of them glowed even brighter than the rest, and lay across his heart, both on his shirt and jacket.

His trousers were the complete opposite of his jacket. They were a deep purple with dark green seams. The bottoms of them were the same green and lead to a pair of black running shoes.

Weiss thought of what to say to him as he shook his head and looked at her apologetically. His purple eyes and short but scruffy green hair definitely matched the rest of his colour scheme. Running up the right side of his neck was another glowing symbol, but this one was longer than the ones on his shirt, as Weiss could see it coming out of his right hand sleeve and along the back of his palm.

Ruby, Blake and Yang all grimaced at the same time behind Weiss as they realised how much of an earful this poor student was going to get.

'YOUN INSUFFERABLE, IDIOTIC DOLT!' Weiss screamed at the student as he grimaced, leaning away from the screaming girl.

'HOW DID YOU EVEN MANAGE TO GET INTO THIS SCHOOL? YOU'RE ALMOST AS BAD AS JAUNE!'

'Hey!' Jaune called out in protest at this, but from the other side of the room where he was as far away from Weiss as possible.

'PEOPLE LIKE YOU DON'T DESERVE TO BE IN SCHOOLS LIKE BEACON! SO WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE THEN?!'

The student looked hurt at what she had said, but in a way that made it look as if it wasn't really his fault.

'Excuse me, Ms Schnee isn't it?' a voice from behind her said.

'What?!' Weiss snapped, turning around and glaring at the tall student that now stood before her.

'Hi, I'm Lupis Drake. Listen, I know that you're a bit of a princess when it comes to things like this, but you only fell on your face, it's not as if he killed your pet cat or something.'

Weiss narrowed her eyes at Lupis, angered by what he had called her.

'A princess? Do you really think that's what I am!?'

'To be quite honest, yes,' Lupis replied, nodding.

'Well then,' Weiss said, 'I would still rather be a princess than the leader of a team that can't even fight properly.'

'I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying,' Lupis replied, curiously.

'You're the leader of Team Legion, yes?'

'Yes, I am.'

'Well, I couldn't help but notice that your team isn't registered for the Vytal Tournament. That either means that your team is not good enough to battle in the tournament, or –'

'Or what?' Lupis snarled at her, suddenly looking much more threatening than before, and Weiss almost didn't say what she was about to say. Almost.

'Or, you and your team are just a huge bunch of cowards!'

There was nothing but silence in the arena as Weiss and Lupis stared each other down, as if their eyes were daggers and the staring contest was a deadly battle for survival from the blades. Ruby looked backwards and forwards between both her partner and the older student, unsure whether she should say anything. Yang wanted to side with Lupis as Weiss had been slightly harsh towards Lupis' teammate, but knew better than to interrupt when Weiss was like this.

Team Juniper was on the other side of the room alongside what Weiss could only guess was the rest of Team Legion, as the green haired boy slowly shuffled over to them. Blake however, was interested only in Lupis, as she felt as if she had seen him before. She couldn't remember anything, but she recognised his face from somewhere.

And the silence continued until Lupis spoke softly, but menacingly.

'Are you implying that I am a coward, Ms Schnee?' he hissed at her.

No longer afraid to back down, Weiss curtly replied, 'Yes, you and your entire team.'

'Weiss, stop!' Ruby whispered at her, afraid of what the older student would do. She wasn't one to scare easily, but the look on Lupis' face made her think that he was capable of anything.

'And how do I know that you are not?' Lupis retorted.

'What?' Weiss asked, confused by his response. 'What do you –'

'Care for a battle then, right here, right now, Ms Schnee?' he replied, hissing her last name as if it were a obscure word.

A little taken aback, Weiss wasn't too sure what to respond with. Altough she was extremely confident in her abilities, Lupis was also not backing down. This meant that he was either actually very capable, or he was bluffing to try and make her back down. And that was what she believed.

'Of course, I'm not afraid of you.'

Lupis smiled, but it was a dark smile that made Weiss worry. 'Good. Who do you want to ref the match?'

'Ruby,' Weiss responded instantly.

Still a little stunned from the entire situation, Ruby looked at her partner and softly mumbled, 'Uhm, ok then.'

Weiss lifted Myrtenaster from it's sheath and gave it's barrel a spin. She rested the barrel on the ice crystal chamber. Looking up, she saw that Lupis was still watching her, his swords still resting on his hips. Still unafraid though, Weiss raised her head, moved her feet into their correct positions and held her rapier before her in the way that she had been taught.

She saw Lupis let out a small laugh at her practiced and orderly technique. He pulled his swords out of their sheaths and let them hang loosely by his side in his hands. He still stood normally, as if he were simply talking to someone next to him.

'Are you both ready?' Ruby called out to the two.

'For sure,' Lupis replied, his eyes never leaving Weiss'.

Weiss simply gave a small nod and prepared to dash towards him. Her plan was to rush him and whilst he was shocked, she would quickly attack from all angles to maximise the damage she would do to him.

'Alright then,' Ruby nervously said. 'Let the match begin!'

As soon as Ruby finished speaking, Weiss skated forwards on a glyph, speeding towards the still passive Lupis. Just as she started to swing her blade towards him, he ducked enough so that the blade would pass just above him and stuck out his leg. Not seeing his leg before her, Weiss continued skating forwards and tripped up on his leg, falling face first into the ground.

Expecting Lupis to slash at her while she was down, Weiss rolled over onto her back and held up Myrtenaster to block his attack…

Which never came.

Weiss saw her opponent a few meters away, watching her intently with a smirk on his face as if he was amused by her actions.

Feeling slightly embarassed, Weiss reached her arms behind her and flipped backwards to her feet. Once on her feet, she pointed her rapier towards Lupis and darted forwards, stopping before she reached him so that he wouldn't pull the same trick again.

Thrusting her blade quickly at him, Lupis lazily deflected the attack and flicked his sword back around to her face. Ducking backwards, Weiss watched his blade pass over her face. Standing back up, she jabbed Myrtenaster at his side which he quickly blocked with his other blade. Expecting him to swing the other sword around at her again, Weiss quickly jumped back and watched as Lupis swung his sword through where she was just standing. Darting forwards again, Weiss stabbed at his chest, but was shocked when he dodged the blow, bringing both blades against hers and pushing it away from him.

Weiss barely had time to bring her rapier back up infront of her before Lupis let out a flurry of blows with his blades. Although the speed of his attacks were not very quick, having two swords did not help the situation and made it seem as if he was only holding one sword, moving it at incredible speeds to reach different areas to attack in short amounts of time.

She would bring her rapier across her right side to deflect one attack, only to have to move it lower down to stop a blow from hitting her knee. The two were locked in a deadly dance, but with Weiss the one who was in danger. Lupis swung his blades too quickly for Weiss to have time for a counter-attack and so all she could do was continue to block his attacks.

Defend across the left shoulder, bring it down to the right knee. Duck under next swing and defend across my right shoulder. Throw blade across to left shoudler to block the next attack and hold both blades there.

Unfortunately for Weiss, once Lupis had both of his blades clashed against hers, he quickly swung one blade backwards and slammed it back into hers. The force of the attack threw Weiss off and pushed Myrtenaster behind her. Too slow to react, Lupis swung his blade across her left knee and cut a deep gash into her knee. Seeing another attack coming across to her sword hand, Weiss moved it back slightly to deflect the attack.

And yet it was another blow that never came. Lupis stopped short of her hand and flung his sword back towards her face and left a shallow cut along her cheek. Weiss yelped and fell back, putting too much pressure on her cut knee and almost fell to the ground. Seeing another attack coming, Weiss rolled under his swing and came up on one knee. Plunging Myrtenaster into the floor, ice started to sprout from the tip of the blade and shot towards Lupis.

Or at least where he was.

He had somehow managed to dart his way over to Weiss' left and out of the way of the spiked ice that had shot forwards from where Weiss was kneeling. He started to swing his right blade towards her, when she realised that it was no longer a sword. It had changed into a long whip, which exlpained how he had escaped from the ice. He must have wrapped the whip around something and pulled himself out of the way of the ice.

And now, that whip was heading straight for her. It was too late for her to try and dart out of the way, so instead, she held Myrtenaster infront of her and flinched as the whip wrapped around the thin blade and bit into the back of her hand once it stopped. Her rapier was wrenched from her hand and sent into the corner of the room.

Lupis paused and watched Weiss again, waiting for her to make a move. She saw that there was blood trickling from his nose and was slightly confused. She was sure that she hadn't hit him, so where did the blood come from?

Lupis saw what she was staring at, and began to wipe away the blood with the back of his gloves. Taking this as an opporunity, Weiss darted forwards on a glyph towards her weapon. Too slow, Lupis swung his whip at her, missing by a hairs width.

Once she reached her weapon, Weiss picked it up and quickly turned the dust barrel until it was set to the fire dust chamber. Pointing it towards Lupis, she send out a wave of flames, which he annoying, leapt over by flicking his whip up to the ceiling, and somehow finding something for it to hold onto, and pulling himself over the flames.

Whilst he was in the air, he flicked the wrist of the hand that was still holding a sword and the blade broke apart into a second whip. Flicking his wrist once more, the whip shot towards Weiss, and wrapped itself around her arm, biting into her skin. He pulled her towards him, and Weiss shot forwards, being pulled into the air. Once they met, Lupis put out one leg and kicked her in the stomach hard.

Sent flying back to the floor, Weiss rolled backwards to her feet, only to find that Lupis had also landed and had already wrapped a whip around her waist. Pulled towards him once more, Weiss flew through the air and could do nothing as she watched him jump up and spin around before hitting her in the face with a rough kick.

Once she hit the floor, the lights illuminated the room so that Weiss could see everybody else staring at her and Lupis with shock. He had beaten her without even being hit, and Weiss felt slightly embarrassed. Her face flushed red, and she lowered her face to the floor. She couldn't bare them to see her now, she had failed so badly.

'And the match goes to Lupis,' she heard Ruby call out. 'That's all for today now guys, we should probably all get back to training now.

Weiss could care less. She wanted to sink into the floor and disappear forever so that nobody could see how much of a failure she was. Unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen as she heard footsteps walking over to her and stop once they were right infront of her.

'Need a hand up?'

Weiss looked up and saw Lupis standing there, offering a hand to her. Not willing to trust him, she refused and started to get up herself, but struggling as her knee and arm were both sore from his blade and whip.

'Come on, the match is over, and I've gotten over what you said. Don't be so stubborn and just take my hand.'

Weiss looked up at him again, before reluctantly holding up her hand for him to pull her up.

She was on her feet in no time and realised that he was supporting her by holding her arm so that she wouldn't fall from her cut knee. Confused, she looked at him, wondering why he was being so nice all of a sudden.

'I'm being nice all of a sudden because I've ended what you started, and hopefully taught you a lesson that you won't learn here at Beacon.'

Startled that he had used the same wording she had in her head, Weiss wondered if he could read minds? That would have to wait for later, as she asked him, 'What lesson?'

'That you need to respect other people no matter what mistakes they make, because you never know what sort of friends they have, and if you don't respect someone, you may come to regret it.'

Weiss nodded in understanding and saw Ruby slowly walking over to her.

Lupis saw what Ruby was doing, and signalled that she could come over with a jerk of his head. Once she was close enoguh, Lupis let go of Weiss' arm and let Ruby take ahold of her instead. He started to walk off to his team but Weiss stopped him.

'Wait,' she ordered, staring at him.

Lupis turned around, looking at her with his colourful eyes.

'If you can fight like that by yourself, why don't you enter the teams competition? Or the singles competition even?'

Lupis didn't respond, but looked at her with a sad look. After a moment, he replied, 'Because none of us four are allowed to.'

And with that, he walked over to his team again, without saying another word.

'Come on Weiss,' Ruby said, helping her friend walk over to the seating area. 'There are some healing crystals in your bag over there so we can fix up your knee.'

But Weiss wasn't listening. She was trying to understand what Lupis had just said to her.

Who said that they couldn't partake in the tournament? And why?

Well this is definitely the longest chapter of them all so far, and it took me so long to write it too, but I loved writing every sentence. Hopefully it won't be another 3 weeks before the next chapter comes out though :P Maybe it'll be 4 instead, spice it up a bit huh?

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4 Days that is