Chapter 30: Vytal Tournament Part 5

Adam walked through the crowd with stealth, taking great care to not be recognized. He turned a corner and watched as Team SCAR made their way through the archway for competitors.

"Come in Mongy Wimp Foggler." Vayla's voice reached him through the earpiece.

"I read you Secret Vayla." He replied as he took cover in the bushes that surrounded the arena.

"Can you get into the crowd without being detected by any of Blake's friends?"

"I can try, can you get me an overhead picture so I can see where they are?"

"Give me a sec to get the drone in position."

Vayla muted her mic and Adam moved forwards through the greenery again. He broke into the open and quickly slipped onto the track, trying to look as discreet as possible.

"Sending the picture now." Vayla said as an image popped up on Adam's screen.

"Thanks." Adam scanned the picture and adjusted his path accordingly.

He would enter through section D, then make his way to an empty seat. This put him close enough to the other teams to easily follow them but far enough away for them not to notice him.

"Where did Alpha Two go?" He asked as he sat down.

"He's on a little errand that he decided he needed to go on, he will be back by the time we make our move." Vayla replied.

"Good. No injuries, right? Just like we promised."

"No injuries, enjoy the show."

"Announcing Sun Wukong, Colton Canius, Aurora Hirosaki, and Krystal Rain of Team SCAR!"

"And now announcing Blade Edge, Omega Aegea, Lance Vance, and Tyger Notyad of Team BOLT!"

The eight fighters walked out onto the arena floor and surveyed the area around them. The field still had all the boulders scattered around the map and each team was deciding whether to use them or not. Eventually the clock started the countdown and they got into their battle stances.

The clock struck zero and Sun and Colton rushed Team BOLT while Krystal hung back and shot arrows to slow BOLT down. Aurora ran to the middle and placed several claymores in a protective circle around her. This was quickly followed by another, smaller circle of C4 inside. She drew Scandiv and started helping Krystal with the long range fire.

BOLT split up and had Tyger and Blade rush Sun and Colton. The four engaged in a close range battle and Sun very quickly found out that he had the wrong weapon for the occasion. He switched to Gunchaku mode and continued the assault.

Meanwhile, Omega and Lance had run around the arena on opposite sides before cutting into the middle. Krystal had leaped into the protective circle of explosives with Aurora and they both started raining fire on them. Omega threw her spear just as Lance made it within range of the explosives and the blast sent the spear hurtling into the air. Krystal and Aurora flew straight up while Lance was sent flying backwards by the explosion. Lance's aura dropped into orange territory and he quickly hid behind a convenient rock.

Omega watched as Krystal and Aurora landed in front of her, both with their weapons trained on her. She looked up and saw her spear falling back towards the ground a few meters to the left of Aurora and Krystal. She maneuvered sideways slightly, causing Krystal to walk straight into the spear's path when she moved to circle as well. Omega made her move as soon as the spear struck and activated her Semblance around Aurora.

Suddenly, multiple ice shards appeared and started embedding themselves in Aurora. Omega ran forward and grabbed her spear from beside a dazed Krystal and went on the attack. She wore down their aura until they were both into the yellow before Aurora was able to stick a semtex to her. She retreated while trying to pull the explosive off, but this only succeeded in taking her away from the only was she could have dealt damage to an enemy. Krystal would have been thrown into the red if the explosive had been anywhere near her and Aurora knew she had taken a risk with it.

Unfortunately, Sun had chosen that exact time to jump back out of the way of one of Blade's knives. He and Colton had been steadily pushed back until they were only a few meters away from the middle, where the other three were fighting. Sun was caught in the subsequent explosion and his aura also depleted into the yellow. Colton watched as his three teammates, all with one hit left, were cornered by Omega and Blade. He looked back to Tyger in time to get knocked back far by Tyger's claw. As he was flying, he saw Lance hiding behind a rock.

Lance was watching his three teammates advance slowly on Sun, Krystal, and Aurora. Colton sprinted to him and started a swing with Amber, but Lance had brought his sword up just in time to block it. The two engaged in desperate combat as Lance's teammates began their attack on Colton's teammates. Lance was winded already and Colton had the advantage of two weapons versus Lance's one. This led to Colton finally gaining the other hand and knocking Lance to the ground. Colton raised Ember for the final blow and brought it down, taking Lance's aura into the red. Colton glanced over to his teammates and saw all of them on the ground with Omega poised above, ready to bring her spear down on one of them. He breathed a sigh of relief, he had won just in time.

The next morning, everyone rushed to the arena to see when the quarter final battles were taking place that day. As they walked up, the announcer started with the lineups.

"On Arena One, we will have RWBY vs. SCAR at twelve. On Arena Two, we will have TANK vs. CYCL at two. On Arena Three, we will have RPGS vs. THTA at two. On Arena Four, we will have CELS vs. FAIL at twelve."

"Alright, we got two hours before we fight. What should we do?" Sun asked.

"EAT!" A couple people yelled.

Sun sighed and started trudging his way to the food court.

"I don't think it matters what the others are doing." Aurora whispered as she walked up beside him.

"And why would that be?" Sun asked in a dejected voice.

"Because I have a surprise for you."

Sun raised his eyebrows but followed without resistance.

"Alright, watch out for anyone. We may have been followed." Aurora glanced around before sitting down on a tree stump.

"Is there a meaning for this?"

"I was planning on bringing you out here for some fresh air and a fun time, but…" She let the sentence hang as she detected a movement in the tree in front of her.

"What is it?" Sun whispered.

"I just saw movement in the tree behind you." She replied in the same quiet voice before switching to a louder one. "But yeah, I wanted to bring you out here so that we could have some time together."

Sun immediately caught on to what she was doing and responded in turn.

"Well that's very nice of you to think of that."

"I thought it was cool," Aurora called before changing voices again. "I want you to stand up and block his view of me."

"How?"

"Stand up and hug me, then I can maneuver you to the correct position."

Sun did so and Aurora, once satisfied that the intruder's view was blocked, pulled out Scandiv.

"Get ready for a big bang." She said as she pushed him out of the way and shot.

An explosion appeared right where Aurora had seen the movement and birds shot out of the trees at the sudden noise.

"Let's get him." Aurora sprinted forward and disappeared into the brush that hadn't been mutilated in the explosion.

Sun waited for a count of three before she returned with a very familiar looking figure.

"Anybody you know?" Aurora asked as she threw the man down on the ground.

"It's Archer." Sun bent down and rolled him onto his back so he could get a better look at Archer's face.

"Exactly, but how is he here?" Aurora took another brief glance around and she caught a blink of green light. "Wait here."

She moved to where she had seen it and saw it flash again. This time she was able to make out what the light was attached to, and she gasped. There was a pipe throwing out poisonous fumes in the direction of the clearing.

"Sun! Grab Archer, we're leaving!" Aurora yelled as she ran back to the clearing.

"What is it?" Sun asked, grabbing the unconscious Archer and turning to run with her.

"Poisonous gas." She replied shortly as they made it back to the arena area.

"That was close."

"I'll say." Aurora started to turn away when she heard Sun grunt behind her.

She quickly turned and saw Archer escaping with Sun on the ground gasping.

"Sun!" She knelt down beside him and helped him up.

"Did anybody get the license plate number of that truck?" A still dazed Sun asked.

Despite what had just happened, Aurora laughed and helped Sun to the food court.

"Will you be okay?" Aurora asked as she sat Sun down at one of the numerous tables scattered around the food court.

"I'll be fine, how long until the fight?" He asked breathlessly.

"We should be fine but… Wait, where is everyone?"

"Oh no, they've already gone to the arena."

"Let's get over there, now."

It took them less than a minute to run over to the arena, but they knew the announcer could call them any minute.

"Glad you could make it." Colton said wryly as Sun and Aurora walked into the prep room.
"Vayla's here again." Sun said briefly as he sat down to catch his breath.

Colton and Krystal raised their eyebrows in shock but Aurora quickly cut off their questions.

"We don't have time to talk about it now, we have RWBY to beat."

"Alright, let's DO THIS!" Krystal yelled.

Aurora squeezed Sun's hand and they walked out as they heard the announcer call their names.

"Announcing Sun Wukong, Colton Canius, Aurora Hirosaki, and Krystal Rain of Team SCAR!"

As this was would determine the best team in Vale, each team had gotten their own video telling how they had gotten there. Team SCAR's played as they walked onto the field and took their positions.

"Announcing Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long of Team RWBY!" The announcer said as SCAR's video ended.

Again, the video played as the featured team took the field. Eventually it ended, and the timer began counting down.

"You sure you're okay?" Aurora whispered to Sun.

"I'm fine." He replied as the clock struck zero.

The arena had been changed for this round: Instead of a huge scattering of rocks, there were many five meters by five meters tilted platforms positioned on the ground and in the air. They all provided places to either jump off of or stick projectiles to. Krystal took advantage of this and shot an arrow trailing nylon rope at each of the four airborne platforms. The arrows stuck and each member of Team SCAR took a different rope and landed on their own platform.

Meanwhile, Team RWBY had decided to use the platforms as well. Weiss used her semblance to provide stepping stones leading up from the lower platforms towards the upper ones. Weiss and Blake both took these up while Yang used Ember Celica and Ruby used Crescent Rose. The end result of all this maneuvering was that each airborne platform had a member of each team fighting each other.

Blake and Colton were striking and parrying, Aurora and Yang were trading explosions, Weiss and Krystal were firing projectiles at each other, and Sun and Ruby were swinging their long, slightly unwieldy weapons in an attempt to knock the other off the platform. It seemed to be a dead heat for all players, none of them could land any decisive blows.

Suddenly, the platforms began to move around the arena and tilt at odd angles. All eight were forced to find ways to keep their footing and still avoid getting hit. The four platforms that had been scattered on the ground formed into a ten meter by ten meter square in the center of the arena, five meters above the ground. The remaining platforms, the ones with the competitors on them, started orbiting the center one and started randomly flipping upside down, forcing everyone to find their way back up onto the platforms.

One of these times, Weiss was not as quick getting up as Krystal and found herself staring right into an arrowhead while trying to pull herself up. Krystal smiled for a second before drawing back the arrow. Just as she was about to release, the platforms flipped again, sending her sprawling and giving Weiss her footing. Now it was Krystal who was struggling to get up while Weiss prepared for a final strike. But before she could, the moving platform interfered again as it smashed into the middle one. All of the competitors were forced onto the center platform as the smaller platforms tilted to a vertical position. The fight continued as the four individual battles continued around the platform before congregating in the middle.

Blake suddenly lashed out at Colton, back flipped over to Weiss, and lashed out at Krystal. Krystal was caught by surprise and was only saved by Sun using the long reach of his staff to deflect the hit, all the while keeping Ruby at bay. Colton was starting to stand up again but had to dodge out of the way as Yang split off from Aurora and aimed a punch at him. Colton ended up beside Krystal and took the chance to stand up while Krystal warded off enemies. Sun took a hit from Ruby and landed beside Colton and Krystal as well. He glanced behind where RWBY was looking at them triumphantly and saw Aurora pull out her C4 and drop below the platform.

Aurora had seen that they wouldn't win in a straight fight, so she had decided to think outside the box. She used a few semtexes to stick to the bottom of the platform and started placing C4 in a circle in the middle. She then dropped to the ground and planted claymores in the area around that circle, making sure they faced inwards. She walked a little ways away and used an explosive to propel herself back to the center platform. The scene that greeted her wasn't pretty: Sun, Colton, and Krystal were huddled in the middle trying to stave off the constant attacks from Team RWBY. As she watched, Blake and Yang rushed the middle and were only stopped by Krystal's arrows. She signaled to Sun and he led a charge against Ruby to get to her. They broke through and all four stood in a line. Team RWBY formed a clump in the middle, exactly where Aurora pulled out her detonator and hit it as she jumped back off the platform, with the rest of her team following a moment later. They landed away from the center platform and turned to watch the fireworks. Team RWBY fell with the exploded platform to the ground and quickly found themselves surrounded by claymores. They had one second to try to escape before they were encompassed in a huge explosion.

When the smoke cleared, Team RWBY was sprawled out on the ground while Team SCAR were standing a little ways away, winded, but still fine. Sun looked up to the board and saw the aura bars of RWBY fall to the red. He breathed a huge sigh of relief and grabbed Aurora's hand. They walked out hand in hand, with Colton and Krystal in a similar pose behind.

Blake stood up and looked around. Her vision was a blur, as she was still disoriented from the explosions. She saw a figure running to her and tried to take a step forward. She fell and lifted her head up to where the figure had been. She shook her head in confusion as she saw it disappear. This confusion proved to be her downfall as, while she was still slow, someone grabbed her arm and started pulling at her. She didn't even have the presence of mind to scream as she was dragged out of the arena.

Author's Note:
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