Chapter 31: Vytal Tournament Part 6

He dragged the now unconscious Blake through the streets of Vale. He looked around, trying to make out which building Vayla had said she would be in. It had all been easy: The infiltration, the kidnapping, and now the escape. There had been no one to challenge him, and Blake had put up no fight whatsoever. He guessed he had Aurora to thank for that, what with her game-winning explosion. She had rendered most of Team RWBY shell shocked and this had given him the chance to grab Blake. He was reflecting upon this when he decided he had wandered around long enough.

"Come in, Secret Vayla." He said as he unmuted his mic.

"I read you, Alpha Two." She replied.

"I have the package, where should I bring it?"

"Did you forget?"

"You never told me." He allowed a flare of annoyance to rise into his voice.

"Calm down, I'm sending you the location now."

"Thanks."

He looked as an image of the city popped up on his screen and he made his way towards the building that was highlighted. When he was only a few blocks away, Blake stirred and looked around groggily.

"Wha?" She asked as she looked around at the unfamiliar, blurry surroundings.

He looked down at her and decided to leave her be for the time being. Besides, Vayla would want to talk to her and that couldn't happen when she was unconscious. He rounded the corner and set his gaze on the new hideout. According to Vayla, the warehouse had been compromised long ago and she just hadn't had the chance to move out. Now though, she had decided to move to a large apartment complex near the river. She had already set up multiple escape routes around the complex. Most notably, a shining, new speedboat.

"Here's the package." He called as he walked through the door.

"Blake!" Adam cried as he rushed over to her. "Is she okay?"

"She appears to be." Vayla said as she walked in and bent down beside Adam.

"Blake?" Adam continued to try to get Blake's attention.

Vayla stood up and turned towards the man who had brought her here.

"Good work, your next job is to ensure that nobody interferes before the dropoff. Give us three days and we will be able to deliver the package to its final stop."

"Understood." And with that, he slipped quietly out of the room.

Yang looked around. The area around her was nothing more than a blurry mass of random objects. She blinked and her eyesight seemed to improve enough to see someone running towards her team. As she watched, the person disappeared and she looked around in confusion. Suddenly, she saw movement to her left and she turned to face it. Her head swam as she watched Blake get dragged out of the arena by nothing. Yang's conscience decided to disregard it as false and she fell back into a short sleep.

She was woken a few minutes later by Team SCAR, who had sheepishly returned to help Team RWBY. As she sat up, her brain returned to what she had seen earlier. Her head snapped up and looked around in alarm, no doubt scaring everyone around her with the sudden movement.

"Where's Blake?" She asked.

"We can't seem to find her, but we think we know where she might be." Sun replied unhappily.

"And where would that be?" Weiss walked over and helped Yang up.

"Well," Sun glanced around at his team before replying. "We think Vayla got her."

"WHAT?" Yang's voice came out as a screech. "How do you know this?"

"Me and Sun were attacked by Archer earlier today." Aurora cut in, sensing that Sun would flounder if he tried to respond.

"Why didn't you tell us this?" Weiss' voice was calmer than Yang's, but not by much.

"We got here right before the match, and I assumed that we would have time afterwards to warn you guys. I guess not."

"Do we know where Blake is now?"

"Not exactly, but we could always check the warehouse she used last time." Sun suggested.

"There is no 'we' here." Ruby broke in with a slight grimace.

"What do you mean?" Krystal asked in bewilderment.

"You guys won't do anything except win this tournament for Vale."

"WHAT? Blake's our friend too!"

"But we will have three teams that we know can go after Blake, so you guys can win this tournament for us. You didn't beat us this late in the game to drop out now."

"Maybe four. And fine, we will win for you guys." Sun replied.

"Who would be the fourth? There's us, JNPR, and BOLT."

"Try HEAT, I think they might be interested in taking action with you guys."

"Alright, we'll go get everyone together and tell them the plans. We can head out in search tomorrow." Ruby turned to leave with Yang and Weiss following.

"One thing?" Sun asked.

"Yes?" Ruby turned slightly.

"If you see any members of SEAL, at least try to convert them back to this side."

"Fine, let's go." She nodded her head and walked out, with the remainder of Team RWBY following behind her.

"I'm worried about them." Krystal said as she climbed into bed that night.

"I'm sure they'll be fine." Colton replied as he wrapped his arms around her.

Team RWBY had gathered the teams together and laid out the plans for the assault on the warehouse compound. SCAR had been there but they had had to leave early to get some sleep before their match tomorrow. For all they knew, RWBY, JNPR, BOLT, and HEAT were still down there, continuously changing the plan to fit all people's fighting styles and strengths. SCAR wouldn't get a chance to talk to any of them the next morning due to the fact that the teams were leaving early to scout the area. SCAR would be left to win the semifinals match with no support from their friends in the stands.

"Don't worry about them, do you guys want to check the highlights of today's matches?" Sun asked, quickly changing the subject.

"Sure, go for it." Colton sat up a bit more in his bed and turned towards the TV.

The television flashed to life and Sun switched to ESsPeN in time to see the highlights from their match. The program continued on, showing highlights from the TANK vs. CYCL, RPGS vs. THTA, and CELS vs. FAIL before moving on to talking about the next round.

"We have a good set of matches happening tomorrow," The announcer started. "Including the fight between TANK and SCAR, which is shaping up to be a very good match. These two teams are at the top of their game and I am excited to see how SCAR is going to use the environment in this one."

Sun and Colton exchanged glances and smirked before turning back to the TV.

"But the battle that everyone wants to see is the one between CELS and RPGS. I'm really interested to see what gameplan Liz of CELS can come up with."

Sun shut off the TV and turned off the light beside him before snuggling up into Aurora's sleeping form. He fell asleep to the faint voices of the other teams, who were still devising the plan long into the night.

"When's our battle again?" Krystal asked as Team SCAR walked out of the hotel.

"Three." Aurora replied with a glance at her watch.

"Well what are we going to do until then?"

"Hmm, I don't really know."

"When's the other match?" Sun turned to look at Aurora as he spoke.

"In thirty minutes, why?"

"We should see our potential competition if we win this fight."

"That's a good point, we could think up a way to counter anything they do." Colton added, nodding.

"Who's fighting again?" Krystal asked with a small frown.

"CELS and RPGS." Aurora consulted the tournament line-up for the second time in five minutes.

"Well, we have nothing else to do. Let's go!" Sun led the way to Arena Two, anxious to see the two teams go at it.

"Announcing Roach Sanderson, John Price, Ghost Riley, and Soap MacTavish of Team RPGS!"

"Announcing Chase Vizon, Ethan Schmuck, Liz Romanov, and Seven Wollemi of Team CELS!"

The two teams walked to their positions and took in their surroundings. Seven allowed a rare smile to her face as she saw the arena infested in plantlife. There were four massive trees positioned around the arena, with smaller plants scattered around and forming a floor. There were multiple footpaths weaving around the arena, providing ways for the competitors to navigate. Even a small pond was added, resting right in the middle of the arena.

Roach, Price, Ghost, and Soap all looked around impassively, taking notes of what they could use as cover. They all checked their weapons for the ninth time in the past four minutes and found them satisfactory. Roach held a UMP 45, Price an M1911 .45, Ghost an ACR, and Soap an M21. Overall, they were a very balanced team who knew how to use that to their advantage. They were a force to be reckoned with, and CELS had a strategy, courtesy of Liz, that counteracted RPGS best advantage, range.

As the timer started its countdown, from thirty this time to give the players a longer heads-up time, CELS took the opportunity to make sure their weapons hadn't changed for the worse in the five minutes since they last checked. Chase had his dual MP5k's, Ethan his sniper rifle, Liz her two chakrams, and Seven her ancient-looking green and black sword.

A siren sounded, signaling the start of the match. Seven used her Semblance to attach a vine to one of the massive trees and swung herself up. Her job was to make RPGS forget about her. Liz's favorite strategies were to make one person disappear and be forgotten about. While the rest of the team would be fighting, Seven would be setting up a network of other things that could be used as fallback plans. She attached vines to all of the trees and used them to get across.

Meanwhile, Liz, Chase, and Ethan were using the multiple trees and undergrowth as cover. Liz was quickly dashing from tree base to tree base, drawing the fire of RPGS, who were clustered in the typical fireteam formation. Ethan had manipulated the gravity in a small radius around him to send him skyward, also drawing attention. He landed in one of the giant trees but made sure to stay in RPGS' line of sight. Chase had dove into the pond and was using the currents to occasionally shoot him into the air so he could take shots.

Seven made her way to the tree nearest RPGS and began her descent down the side of the tree, taking care to stay where they couldn't see her. She watched as Soap hit a shot on Ethan and Ethan tumbled out of the sky. He quickly switched the gravity so that he was falling sideways towards RPGS, switching his shot to assault rifle mode as he did so. Ethan and Seven both approached RPGS at the same time from different sides, Ethan from the front and dodging bullets, Seven from the back, unseen so far. Chase rose out of the water with a splash and shot into the sky again. He landed right in front of Ethan, giving him a springboard to jump off of. Ethan, with the combined force of Chase quickly standing up, flew up and unloaded bullets into RPGS.

While all of this was happening, Liz had snuck through the undergrowth to a position that she knew the enemy would be before too long. She watched as Seven stealthily approached from behind and lash out twice at the person in the back, which happened to be Soap, the one least suited for CQC. Soap took a hit and his aura dropped drastically, falling well into the orange. He deflected the second strike with his M21, calling to Price as he did so. Price turned around and pistol-whipped Seven, sending her flying.

Momentarily distracted, RPGS was forced back by a sudden assault by Chase and Ethan. They slowly gave ground as they struggled to keep up with the bewildering movement of Chase's knives and Ethan's bullets. Chase called upon the power of the pond and shot the water around and into RPGS, forcing them back farther.

Liz waited as she saw RPGS grow closer and closer to her before leaping out of the plants and slashing her chakrams into Roach. At that exact time, Ethan had switched the gravity around them slightly and RPGS had momentarily floated into the air. While the time and distance was small, the effect was great. RPGS staggered when they hit the ground again and this gave Liz the chance to attack Roach and send his aura into the red, handing the victory to CELS.

The crowd cheered as CELS, now including Seven again, walked over to RPGS and shook hands. They then walked off the arena floor, leaving a still screaming crowd and a "slightly" dejected team behind.

Author's Note:
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