In this chapter, RAYC is going to take on Team PWBR...maybe they'll take on Team NRDS afterwards, even if it means for Cardin that he has to fight his friends. You never know. And in case you were wondering, they aren't taking any bets. They decided that they were simply going to do it for the experience, especially Juane since he's the weakest member of his team. Sorry if you were hoping for someone to end up getting humiliated because they betted on doing something that was rather embarrassing.

Of course, this is the thirteenth chapter...so you were probably expecting that.

Well, hunters and huntresses are going to get injured, I can tell you that much. And someone...nasty...is going to show up in this chapter.

Chapter 13: RAYC vs. PWBR

"So...whose going to face who first?" questioned Pyrrha. She wondered who she was going to be paired up with. Of course, they would probably rather ask for her autograph instead of fighting her. She started to wonder if going to public school wasn't such a good idea...though she would probably get lonely if she went somehow more private.

As it turned out, they hadn't decided who was going to face who yet. They could simply face each other four-on-four...but they figured that would probably get messy. After all, Ruby was worried that she might end up accidentally wrecking the statue of the school's founder once again.

"How are we going to do that?" inquired Jaune. He supposed that there were several possibilities on deciding who got to fight who, such as flipping a coin for instance. Alternatively, they could simply decide for themselves who their opponent should be. But he decided that he would let Ruby make the decision since she was the leader.

On the other hand, those were rather popular during the Vytal Tournament, though eventually it ended up being two on two and one on one.

"Maybe we can draw straws?" questioned Ruby. Perhaps it would be best if they decided at random.

"That's not a bad idea, Ruby...did you take them from the cafeteria?" inquired Yang.

"They gave them to us for free..." pointed out the fifteen-year-old huntress. She just loved putting straws in her milk.

"Right..." nodded the blonde. She had gotten some strawberry sunrises for free herself. People were scared of her.

Of course, she did manage to take down Junior and his gang with her bare hands. Speaking of which, she had heard that he had died recently. She wondered who could have possibly murdered him. Maybe he had gotten on the bad side of all the other crime lords.

Ruby pulled out several straws of varying length.

"Let the games begin!" bellowed Ruby.

Juane was hoping that he didn't end up being paired up against Weiss. That would be rather difficult for him.

On the other side of things, Weiss was probably getting annoyed with Juane because he kept trying to flirt with her and probably wouldn't mind fighting with him. Why couldn't he tone it down a bit more?

"Let me see now..." stated Ruby as each of them drew straws.

As it turned out, Juane was going to fight...Pyrrha.

"At least I don't have to fight Weiss..." stated Jaune.

Weiss rolled her eyes. Did Jaune really think that she was that attractive? Usually the guys distanced themselves from her so that she didn't accidentally blow them up with her dust.

Immediately, Jaune and Pyrrha walked a short distance away from Ruby and the others.

"You ready?" asked Ruby.

Jaune and Pyrrha nodded. Both of them had already pulled out their weapons. Incidentally, they both were wielding a shield. Apparently, they both liked attacking and defending.

"Fight!" exclaimed the huntress.

Jaune attacked first, trying to hit Pyrrha with his sword. The Arc family prided themselves on their swordsmanship...hence the reason why he wielded a sword in the first place.

Unfortunately for him, Pyrrha blocked it with her shield rather easily. And to make matters worse for Juane, his sword couldn't simply cut through it to get to Pyrrha. What was that shield made out of? It certainly seemed sturdier than his.

She then poked Jaune with her spear.

"Ow!" bellowed Jaune, rubbing his arm where Pyrrha had poked it. That spear was pointy.

Something told Ruby that Jaune wasn't going to do too well against Pyrrha. Let's just say that PWBR was pronounced "Power" for a reason.

"Maybe having a girl beat him up will make him not want to flirt with me..." thought Weiss.

Jaune attempted to hit Pyrrha again, but she blocked it with her shield once more.

"You're telegraphing your attacks too much." pointed out Pyrrha.

"D'oh!" exclaimed Jaune.

However, when Pyrrha attempted to poke him with her spear again, he blocked it with his shield. Apparently he had decided to use the same tactics that Pyrrha was using.

"Very good, Juane!" bellowed Ruby. It was a good thing that Juane also had a shield...though she wondered just how long Juane was going to last.

Unfortunately for Jaune, Pyrrha was starting to use her magnetism semblance. It sure was useful when facing opponents such as Juane...though she could probably beat him even without it.

All of a sudden, Jaune was having a very hard time lifting his weapon. He was in fact sweating from the effort.

"Come on...come on..." said Jaune. Maybe fighting someone that was stronger than he was making him nervous? He knew that being around Cardin made him rather uneasy.

Ruby wondered what was going on. Juane had no trouble lifting it before. Of course, he wasn't fighting another hunter back then.

"Since when was it so heavy?" questioned Juane. It seemed so light a few minutes ago.

Eventually, he dropped it on the floor, unable to carry it. It was if something was pulling the sword away from him. But what could it be?

"Uh-oh." stated the blonde, realizing that he had been disarmed. How was he supposed to fight Pyrrha now? Of course, he couldn't exactly fight her to begin with. If only he had hand-to-hand combat experience like Yang did.

Pyrrha then hit Juane with her spear once again, dropping Juane's low aura reserves to zero. If only he trained so that he had more of it. Maybe Ruby could help him with that.

Well, there was no used crying over spilled milk. Besides, Pyrrha was helping him to his feet, so at least she was a fair sport.

"Darn it! You lost!" bellowed Cardin. Jaune was not a credit to his team. And to think that he lost to a girl too.

"That wasn't a fair fight, was it?" questioned Ruby. Jaune was one of the worst students in Beacon Academy...and unfortunately for him, Pyrrha was one of the best. No wonder she was so popular...and no wonder Jaune kept being bullied.

"I'm sure we'll be able to even the score..." answered Yang. Maybe it would end up with a tie.

Once again, they drew straws to see who would go next.

As it turned out, Cardin was going up against Ren. He smirked in satisfaction. He did not like to be kept waiting..even if Juane's fight with Pyrrha was rather entertaining.

"This is going to be a cakewalk..." remarked Cardin, feeling rather confident.

"What makes you say that?" inquired Ren.

Suddenly, Cardin sent Ren flying with his mace...just like he had done to Ruby not long ago.

"He really loves using that mace, doesn't he?" questioned Ruby.

"At least he didn't send anyone crashing through the wall this time..." stated Yang. Otherwise he was going to get arrested for vandalism.

"Whoa!" bellowed the ninja hunter. Cardin's mace really packed a wallop. His strength was rather impressive...even if he wasn't as fast as Yang was.

"That's one mean mace..." remarked Ruby. Cardin was almost as strong as her sister was.

However, Ren was not going down so easily, despite what Cardin was thinking.

"You're trying to pick a fight with me, huh? I'll have you know that when I picked a fight with my partner I ended up wrecking my whole room!" bellowed Cardin.

"Technically, it was my room too. And...yeah..." nodded Yang. Of course, Cardin had neglected to mention that she had caused roughly half the damage. Ruby was really glad that she was on the same team as her.

"That's rather impressive...but I don't feel like leaving a fight this early..." pointed out Ren. Hopefully he would do better than Juane did, at least. Unfortunately for him, he was severely outclassed by Pyrrha, though he did make good use of his shield like she did.

Blake was worried about Ren's chances of beating Cardin. He wasn't feared throughout Beacon Academy for nothing...though admittedly it was mainly the first-years that feared him.

Ren used his pistols to shoot at Cardin, but he blocked it with his mace, causing Cardin to smirk.

"Is that all you got? At least you seem to be better than my teammate..." answered the bully.

"Cut Juane some slack! He's getting better!" exclaimed Ruby. Of course, it helped that he had been working with teammates that were rather strong as of late.

"Don't be silly. He'll never catch up to me." stated the bully. For some strange reason he got the feeling that Juane was hiding something from him...although he wasn't quite sure what.

"Hmph." answered Yang. Hopefully Cardin would learn his place one day.

Suddenly, Ren hit Cardin in the stomach with a karate chop.

"Ow!" bellowed Cardin. Unfortunately for Cardin, it appeared that Ren knew martial arts. Apparently he liked watching Jackie Chan movies.

In addition, he was also acrobatic. Currently, he was doing backflips in order to avoid being hit by Cardin's mace.

After getting a distance away from Cardin, he started shooting him with his pistols again. It was a good idea to try attacking him from a distance to make sure that he didn't get clobbered by Cardin's mace.

"Urgh!" bellowed Cardin. It looked like Ren was going to be a more difficult opponent than he thought. He needed to avoid underestimating his opponents. It was a good thing that his team could counter each other's weaknesses.

Immediately, he began to charge straight at him.

Unfortunately, it appeared that Ren was faster than he was. He wasn't going to be able to catch him.

He was going to have to come up with a different plan.

Acting quickly, he hit the ground with a mace, leaving an imprint in the ground.

"Take it easy, Cardin! We don't want to wreck the school!" bellowed Ruby. Ms. Goodwitch would be awfully upset if she found that Cardin had gotten careless and had caused severe property damage.

"Don't tell me what to do!" exclaimed Cardin. He was going to fight Ren HIS way.

"But I'm the leader..." pointed out the huntress.

"Don't remind me." retorted the school bully.

Immediately, he tossed his mace at Ren's head, causing his eyes to widen as he noticed it flying towards him.

It was a direct hit...and a nasty one at that.

"Ow." murmured Ren. He was probably going to have a migraine later.

He passed out on the floor shortly afterwards.

"Score one for Cardin!" exclaimed Cardin as he picked up his mace. Now it looked like he and Team PWBR were tied. Of course, now he was going to have to rely on his teammates to do the rest of the work for him, which kind of...sucked.

Weiss and Blake applauded, though they wondered if Ren was going to be alright. His head appeared to be bleeding a bit.

Blake decided to check to see if Ren was alright.

Fortunately, he woke up shortly afterwards. Apparently his aura had managed to protect him...even if he was lacking in aura in comparison to his teammates.

"Did I lose?" questioned Ren.

"Yes, you did, unfortunately. You did put up a good fight though." answered Blake.

"That's nice." nodded the ninja.

Speaking of which, Yang and Blake were going to fight next. They drew the second-longest straws.

This of course left Ruby to fight Weiss after the battle. Weiss personally thought that it was going to be a cakewalk. But would it?

Immediately, Blake and Yang got ready to fight.

"You ready?" asked Yang.

"Yes, I am." nodded Blake.

Quickly, Yang attempted to punch Blake with her fists.

But instead of hitting Blake, she ended up hitting a clone instead.

"What the-" exclaimed Yang.

Shortly afterward, she found herself being hit by Blake's Gambol Shroud.

"Oof!" bellowed the huntress.

"You know, it's funny..." answered Ruby.

"What is?" questioned Weiss.

"Blake has the exact opposite fighting style that Yang does...Yang relies on being hit to win fights while Blake relies on avoiding enemy attacks to win instead...ironic, eh?" asked the young huntress.

"Yes, I will admit that it's rather ironic." nodded the white-haired dust user.

Unfortunately for Yang, she ended up hitting clones every time she tried hitting Blake. It was getting rather annoying. Why couldn't she hit the real Blake?

Perhaps she needed to look for slight differences between the clones. Maybe Blake couldn't replicate herself perfectly...

Suddenly, she noticed that one of the clones was lacking a bow.

It was at that very moment she discovered where the real Blake was...and she gave her a punch.

Blake collapsed on the floor. Apparently she couldn't take hits as well as Yang could.

"Looks like you won..." remarked Blake.

"Good fight." stated Yang as she helped Blake to her feet.

"That was a real catfight..." remarked Cardin.

Blake's eyes widened when Cardin said that.

"What?" asked the bully.

"Nothing, nothing!" exclaimed Blake.

"I'm going to cream you." stated Weiss.

"Cream sounds good right now." said Ruby.

Weiss rolled her eyes.

Much to Weiss's surprise, Ruby lunged straight towards her. Why was she doing that? She would never do something so reckless...even if she was rather fast herself.

She decided that it would be best to try to stop Ruby in her tracks.

As such, she started shooting icicles at Ruby.

In the process, she ended up freezing the floor.

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa-" said Ruby, shaking her arms back and forth. This ice was really slippery.

Unsurprisingly, she lost her balance...and she was sent flying straight into Weiss.

"What the-" exclaimed Weiss.

Ruby crashed into Weiss...really hard.

"It's a good thing I crashed into something soft!" remarked Ruby.

"Oh my aching head..." stated Weiss.

Weiss collapsed on the floor.

"It looks like we win today." remarked Cardin. "In your face, losers!"

"You're a real sore winner, you know that?" stated Weiss.

Cardin blew raspberries.

"Please be mature, Cardin. You can't always win either, you know." stated Jaune.

"But I'm a champion!" exclaimed the bully.

"Let's go get some ice cream!" cheered Ruby.

Immediately, Ruby, Yang, Cardin, and Jaune went to the nearest ice cream parlor.

Meanwhile in the city of Mistral...

At a section of the city populated by Faunus, one such Faunus was protesting how they were being mistreated once again. Unlike the White Fang, they did not plan to solve their problems with violence...since apparently violence did not solve problems. In fact, they were wondering if Adam Taurus was really taking the best course of action.

Several Faunus had taken interest and had gathered outside. Apparently, they supported what the spokesperson was doing, even if some of them simply wanted to join the White Fang and don on the masks they always wore.

"My fellow Faunus brethen...we must let the humans know that we should not have to be mistreated! We and the humans are hardly different at all! Really, all we needed to do was disguise ourselves was wear a hat or something like that..." remarked the crowd speaker.

The Faunus nodded in agreement. Why should they be treated so differently from humans simply because they had animal features? They did in fact resemble humans despite technically being a different species. It was rather weird.

But unbeknownst to them, they were being watched. Watched by someone who hated everything that had to do with the Faunus.

"Foolish Faunus...do they really think that the humans will really accept them into our society? They'd be better off dying..." remarked the man. Of course, it wasn't every day when he saw a peaceful protest such as this.

Immediately, he pulled out a red pitchfork.

He then began to fire bursts of dark fire at the crowd, grinning all the while.

The crowd speaker gassed in shock. Who was attacking them?

Quickly, the Faunus began to realize what was going on. Clearly, they were under attack...though at the moment they weren't sure who was attacking them.

They began to run.

Unfortunately, they found themselves surrounded by individuals that were dressed in black and were wearing black gloves as they tried to evacuate the area.

The Faunus gasped in shock. It was none other than the Black Hand, the very antithesis of the White Fang! Incidentally, the Black Hand were created shortly after the White Fang resorted to violence to solve their problems with humans. Apparently, they had decided that the Faunus were violent savages that deserved their mistreatment and should be put to death. What were they doing here?

As it turned out, the Black Hand had come to kill them all. Their nightmares had come true. Up until now, they thought that the Black Hand made up to simply scare Faunus children...they couldn't have been more wrong.

And unfortunately, they were succeeding. As it turned out, one of the reasons these particular Faunus weren't resorting to violence was because none of them happened to be hunters and huntresses. Of course, they probably wouldn't resort to violence even if they were hunters and huntresses. More often that not, violence tended to attract Grimm. Perhaps they liked the taste of blood.

In contrast, these members of the Black Hand were experienced killers.

Quickly, the Faunus found themselves being overwhelmed.

Eventually, they were all dead. The Black Hand had left no survivors.

"Looks like a job well done." remarked one of the Black Hand. Now they wouldn't have to worry about the Faunus gathering together to attack the humans...at least for the time being.

At that very moment, their leader stepped on the stage where the crowd speaker was. He was looking forward to this.

He was dressed in black armor, had black hair, was wearing a black helmet, and like his followers was wearing black gloves. His eyes were glowing red underneath the helmet, strangely enough. He was rather happy that his followers had managed to slay the Faunus in the crowd. But he decided that he would deal with this particular Faunus himself.

As it turned out, he was the one wielding a pitchfork previously.

"What do you want from us?" bellowed the crowd speaker. He got the feeling that this man did not have good intentions.

"Oh, it's rather simple. I can't have you reasoning with the humans, now can I?" asked the leader of the Black Hand.

"Who are you?" questioned the Faunus.

"Who am I? It's rather simple...I'm the leader of the Black Hand. But since I'm going to kill you anyway, you may call me Maleficus." stated the man, grinning underneath his black helmet.

The unfortunate Faunus gasped in shock. That very name sent a chill down his spine. It sounded...evil. Of course, he couldn't really suspect anything else from the leader of the Black Hand. They had been killing Faunus for years.

And unfortunately, the police had not made much effort to stop them, due to the fact that they were biased against Faunus. Sometimes he really hated the police.

He could not believe that he was meeting the leader of the Black Hand in the flesh. Who would have thought that he of all people would show up?

Of course, now was not the time to ask for an autograph.

Unfortunately, he was going to be the last person that he ever saw.

Wasting no time, Maleficus ran the Faunus spokesperson through with his pitchfork. He would never allow the Faunus and the humans to make peace. The very idea sickened him.

In fact, he would not rest until the Faunus were completely wiped out, one way or another. Oddly enough, he thought that he was making Remnant a "better place".

"It's only a matter of time before I can finally get rid of the filthy scum that is plaguing Remnant..." remarked Maleficus.

Meanwhile...

"I just felt a chill go down my soul." remarked Blake. She had shivers down her spine.

Pyrrha, Weiss, and Ren shrugged. What could have caused that?

It was too bad that they had lost their battle with Team RWBY...but they would probably have better luck next time.

Alternatively, they could try dueling a different team. Of course, Ren didn't know how he would react to facing Nora. It felt rather awkward.

At that very moment, Nora showed up.

"Hey there, Ren! How are you doing?" asked Nora.

"We lost against Team RAYC..." stated Ren.

"Awww, what happened?" inquired the teenage girl.

"Ren got hit in the head with a mace, Blake got punched out by Yang, and believe it or not, Weiss got slashed up by Ruby..." stated Pyrrha.

"It was a one-time fluke." remarked Weiss.

"What about you?" asked Nora.

"I managed to beat Juane...in a few seconds..." stated Pyrrha.

"At least you scored a victory!" exclaimed the hammer wielder.

"Yes, I did." nodded the shieldmaiden.

"There's a reason why she's the one in charge..." remarked Blake. Of course, there was a reason why other people were in charge of teams too.

Now that she thought of it, wasn't Nora the leader of her team? It seemed like an odd choice at first...but now it was making sense.

"I wonder why he couldn't lift his weapon..." answered Weiss. She didn't think that even Juane was rather confident. Besides, he was fighting in order to impress her...though he didn't really succeed.

"Oh, that was my semblance in action..." explained Pyrrha.

"Your semblance?" questioned the ice huntress.

"I can control magnetism..." stated the magnetic warrior.

"Oh...that makes sense." nodded Weiss. Jaune's weapons were made out of metal, after all.

"That would probably come in handy in the event you faced a homicidal robot..." remarked Blake.

Ren nodded in agreement.

"It probably would..." answered Pyrrha. Of course, she had never faced a homicidal robot before...nor would she want to. But yes, that would come in rather handy.

"Any other crazy powers you all have?" questioned Weiss.

"I can see in the dark." remarked Blake.

"Meh, that's not really impressive..." stated the ice huntress.

"Aww..." complained the cat girl.

"I have ninja skills?" pointed out Ren.

"We already know that." answered Weiss.

"So...what do you want to do now that we're done with school for today?" inquired Blake.

"We should get ready for the Forever Fall exam..." explained Pyrrha.

"Good point." nodded Blake.

Immediately, Pyrrha, Weiss, Blake, and Ren went to the training room in order to hone their skills.

Hopefully the exam would turn out well for them.

I suppose you want me our protagonists to head to Forever Fall already, eh? In the next chapter, they'll do just that. And of course there will be Grimm. Hope you'll still be able to sleep at night.

Since this is the thirteenth chapter I decided to include something grim...and no, I don't mean the Grimm...though one could say that this individual is more vile than the Grimm.

In the next chapter, the first-years are going to take the Forever Fall test. Unfortunately, things are going to go wrong.