Chapter 33: Vytal Tournament Finale

He watched as Vayla casually strolled across the room and smiled in anticipation. She bent down over the blonde boy, pulling her pistol out as she did so. He heard the scream from the redheaded girl and moved to intercept. He made it and clamped his hand over her mouth with a motion to keep quiet. He turned back as Vayla started to pull the trigger and tightened his clamp on Pyrrha again.

*click

He looked on in confusion as Vayla brought the gun away from the still living Jaune. The plan had been to kill him from the start, and he had no idea why Vayla would stray from that. The answer came shortly afterward when she returned with a different kind of pistol. This one was a .44 Magnum, and she loaded one bullet in, spinning the barrel as she did so.

"Russian Roulette, now go." She said to Jaune.

He looked on as Jaune took the gun and put it to his head. Jaune took a breath and let it out slowly before pulling the trigger with a scream.

*click

Vayla took the gun from Jaune and handed it to the person next to her. This person happened to be Nora, who tried to shy away from the gun in front of her. Vayla stood back a moment in shock before pistol whipping Nora and giving the gun to her again. Nora took it this time and brought the gun up until the barrel rested under her chin. She took a second to look at her favorite person and boyfriend in the world with a sad look. Ren, in response, nodded his head and bent forward to kiss her on the lips. This moment was shattered when Vayla nodded at Adam, who jogged forward and placed a crippling kick into Ren's ribs, shattering a few of them. Nora sobbed and quickly pulled the trigger connected to the gun held up to her head.

*BANG

He turned away as Nora crumpled to the ground in a heap, blood trickling slowly out of her. There was no reason for him to watch such a gruesome death. He mentally reviewed the deaths that had happened so far: All but Hailey of Team HEAT in the first assault, Omega of Team BOLT in the warehouse, and now Nora of Team JNPR. Those were only the ones who had fallen so far, and he knew that the others could all be killed at any point in time.

Sun led the way to the arena, looking around at the gathering crowd as he did so. The place was packed, and as well it should be, this was the final round. He glanced at Aurora and smiled, receiving a smile in return. The two chattering voices of Colton and Krystal could be heard behind them, going on and on about God knows what.

"You two ready back there?" Sun called back lightheartedly.

"You know us, we were ready from the day we were born." Krystal replied.

Aurora rolled her eyes and Sun shook his head and they both forged onward through the sea of fans. They reached the arena and slipped into the competitor's entrance. Sun sat down when they reached their waiting area and felt Aurora slip into his arms as he did so.

"How long do we have to wait?" Krystal asked with a slight whimper.

Aurora held up her newly constructed watch and checked it.

"About five more minutes."

"Really? I thought we had more time." Colton stood up and started looking over Amber and Ember.

"That's a good point." Sun nodded at Colton and slid out his staff, making sure as he did so that all of the mechanisms inside worked perfectly.

"Would all competitors gather in the middle for the ceremony?" The voice of the announcer was heard through the walls and everyone stood up.

"Let's go give them something to cheer about." Krystal said, as she heard the cries rise up from the fans above.

The two teams walked their way to the middle of the arena, taking the opportunity to examine the terrain. It was a flat area with no pieces of cover or verticality anywhere, perfect for a display of brute strength. Liz looked suitably stumped with the lack of creative environment and her brain was working hard to come up with a plan.

"Teams assemble!" The announcer yelled as the two teams made it to the middle of the arena.

The competitors shuffled into the correct order and stood side by side, waiting for the ceremony to hurry onwards.

"Announcing Chase Vizon of Team CELS!" Chase stepped forwards stared into the stands.

"Announcing Ethan Schmuck of Team CELS!" Ethan strode up and waved at the crowd.

"Announcing Liz Romanov of Team CELS!" Liz moved after a moment's hesitation, still distracted.

"Announcing Seven Wollemi of Team CELS!" Seven stepped up beside Liz and smiled menacingly.

"And now, announcing Sun Wukong of Team SCAR!" Sun pumped his fist.

"Announcing Colton Canius of Team SCAR!" Colton nodded.

"Announcing Aurora Hirosaki of Team SCAR!" Aurora pulled out her detonator and clicked it for fun.

"Announcing Krystal Rain of Team SCAR!" Krystal did a front flip forwards.

"LET'S HEAR IT FOR THESE TWO TEAMS!" The announcer screamed as the players moved to their respective side of the arena.

"And now, the moment you have all been waiting for, the starting shout. Here to do it is Professor Ozpin of Beacon Academy."

Ozpin stepped up and cleared his throat before speaking.

"Drivers, START, YOUR, ENGINES!" He brought his arm down and the two teams shot off towards each other.

Ren looked on in shock at the lump of meat that used to be his girlfriend. It took a second for what had just happened to sink in, but when it did, it sank like the Titanic. He sobbed and began crawling forward to her, but was stopped at the last second by Vayla. She grabbed the front of his collar and sneered into his face before shoving him back onto the ground.

"Get these into the garage and prepare them for some more entertainment." She said to Adam, who moved forward immediately.

"And you," She addressed the person standing in the corner. "Make sure they don't escape or I will find you."

What she didn't see was the small speck of defiance in the eyes of the man she was talking to. That small speck was only what showed on the outside, his insides were alight with anger at someone who would snuff out a life just because she wanted to. As he saw Vayla walk through the door, he couldn't resist speaking under his breath.

"Soon, bitch."

Chase rushed forward, leading his team forward. He was slightly worried, as Liz had been unable to think up anything in the short time span to give them an advantage. It was a very rare occurrence, and if it were in I Spy, it would have been worth more than a super creeper. He leaped out of the way as explosions started detonating all around him. It was that Aurora girl, with her annoying SCAR.

"We have to take Aurora out!" He called to his teammates, who were weaving around behind him.

"On it." Ethan dropped back and switched his gun to sniper rifle mode.

Chase continued on, seeing Aurora dodge the sniper shots. He brought his team closer in as the explosions ceased and led them in a tight wedge formation. Sun and Colton were advancing at the same brisk pace, with Krystal and Aurora staying back.

"Contact in five." Liz muttered as she finished assessing the speed of both teams.

"Got it, got a plan yet?" Chase asked her.

"Beat the crap out of them, we have these two outnumbered." Came the reply as the two sides smashed into each other.

Colton and Liz immediately engaged and Liz slowly backed away from the rest of the battle. This left Sun with both Chase and Seven against him. He quickly began giving ground against the doubled assault and called back for help.

Krystal had been waiting to see where she would be needed and Sun's cry brought her attention to the unfair two on one that was going on. She brought Toxid up and brought the string back. Seemingly without aiming, she let loose a rapid hail of extremely accurate arrows upon Chase and Seven. The two hit the floor, making the arrows hit the ground behind them. They barely had enough of a chance to regain their bearings before Sun was on them in a flurry of attacks.

Sun's long staff gave him the advantage of hitting both at once and he drove them back for a few seconds before Seven used her Semblance and called a vine that latched onto Sun's ankle. Sun staggered and had just enough time to bring his staff up to block the overhead cut aimed at him.

The problem was that there was more than one attacker. Chase stabbed with one of his two knives, it struck Sun in the chest and brought his aura to a lime-like color. Now that would have been fine, if it weren't for the quick follow-up stab that lowered it to a dark orange.

Sun stumbled backwards before anyone else could lay any more strokes into him and made a quick retreat. He made it to Aurora and Krystal and turned back to survey the arena.

Ethan was taking shots at Aurora, making her move around. Chase and Seven were moving back towards him. Colton and Liz were still fighting in the middle but, at a signal from Chase, Liz sprinted back to the rest of her team. Colton, seeing a chance to relax, made his way over to Sun.

"They surprised me there, but I would say that we got the better of the exchange overall." Sun said as Colton stopped beside him.

"Liz couldn't land any hits on me, and I got a few shots on her." Colton added.

"If we stick to the plan, we might beat them." Aurora mentioned as she dodged their way.

"I can't go back to another two on one." Sun looked around at his team with a weary smile.

"No, I have a better idea." Aurora said as she stopped moving around, as Ethan had finally stopped shooting at her.

He purposefully walked the halls to where Vayla's "office" was. He opened the door without knocking and strolled in. The room was lavishly decorated for a place that would only be occupied for a short time. It was painted a light shade of gray with a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. There was a random assortment of item around the room, with other furnishings scattered about. He walked forward and stood in front of the desk, which held a very annoyed looking twelve year old.

"What are you doing here?" Vayla asked with a hint of anger.

"I have come to announce that your prisoners are all tied up and ready for you to grace them with your presence." He said as he bowed with a flourish.

"Fine then, I guess I should go do that." She said sarcastically as she brushed past him.

Sun watched as his friends advanced without him. He felt a pang of unhappiness when he looked at the unfamiliar weapon in his hands. Aurora's plan involved keeping him out of the fight, but he would be useless with his staff. Instead, he held the sniper rifle version of Toxid in his shaking hands. He steadied his nerves as he saw his team only a few meters from CELS.

'Good luck, guys.' He thought.

Ethan led the charge forward and switched to assault rifle mode just before the impact. He fired a couple shots at Aurora as she shot at him. They both were sent back a few meters but quickly began exchanging shots, circling each other like tigers.

Krystal and Colton were put into a two on two situation against Liz and Seven. Colton swung Amber in a glittering arc at Liz before being blocked by Seven's sword. Liz retaliated with a swing at Colton but was stopped by the long reach of Krystal's staff. With most weapons held up in some way, Colton swung Ember straight at Seven. He was stopped by Liz's second chakram, which sent Ember flying away.

Liz and Seven followed up on the advantage by swinging all three blades at once, forcing Colton and Krystal to retreat steadily due to the extra weapon. Colton was knocked to the ground and Krystal was on the verge of being overwhelmed when a gunshot rang out.

Seven looked down at the huge dent in her aura and checked to see how much she had left. The display showed her on par with Sun, a deep orange. She dropped back, not willing to take any chances. Unfortunately for her, she wasn't as out of the way as she thought. Ethan was right beside her and a stray shot from Aurora rang out, sending both Ethan and Seven sprawling sideways in an attempt to dodge it. The subsequent explosion brought Colton, and Liz both into a degree of orange, with Krystal making a last second leap to avoid the destruction.

Aurora yelped in surprise and ran over to Colton, who was already being pulled up by Krystal. Colton walked a few steps on his own before swaying and beginning to fall. He was caught by Sun, who had run over as quickly as possible. They took a second to regroup, with Sun and Krystal switching weapons again, before Chase led a charge against them again.

This battle lasted an even shorter amount of time, as both Aurora and Ethan took each other down to orange quickly, and all other orange fighters cautiously engaged in combat. This left Krystal and Chase as the only ones left willing to continue to fight in earnest, as all others were scared of losing. Chase finally knocked Krystal to the ground and lifted his arm up to finish the match. His MP5k changed into knife form as he brought it down to smash into Krystal. But Krystal had one more trick up her sleeve.

Her body was surrounding in a dark blue haze that blocked the knife stroke. Her aura depleted all the way to the very dark orange, just slightly keeping above red. The blue haze raced into Sun, who had disengaged from Liz and was barreling straight at Chase from behind. Chase spun around and landed a wild shot on Sun. The crowd gasped, as that hit would've brought Sun's aura down to the red. But Sun didn't fall, Krystal had completed the aura transfer just before Sun was hit and his aura had refilled to be full. Chase's strike brought Sun's aura quickly back down to the orange, but he didn't have enough time for a follow up. Sun's staff smashed into him, sending him flying as his aura depleted straight to the red.

The fans were silent for a second, as though stunned, before roaring their approval.

Author's Note:
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