Welp... sorry for the massive upload wait but I just haven't had the chance to write at all over the last few days... and I probably won't have the time over the next few weeks either with the release of RWBY Volume 4 and Battlefield 1... but FEAR NOT loyal fans (If there are any) I will continue uploading to the best of my ability... but for now... more badassery

Please review... I need to know if I'm doing crap or not... PLEASE tell me how I'm doing!

Naughtbeast

Chapter 34:

"WELCOME TO THE SECOND ROUND OF THE VYTAL FESTIVAL TOURNAMENT!" came the loud and obnoxious voice of Professor Port over the loudspeaker "For all those joining us now, we are in the middle of the two on two fights between Demon and Kira of Vale and Jacob and Evie of Atlas, the fight is underway and it could go to either side so STAY TUNED!"

Thank god that's finally over… his voice is literally the most annoying thing in the world…

Demon quickly cut his thoughts as a knife came his way and he brought his gauntlet up to deflect it, his shields shimmering slightly at the interference.

Couldn't I just rest for one day?...

He had made it back to Beacon without revealing too much about his night in the forest, only that he had to deal with a few Grimm that came his way, then he had gone back to his pod and slept for the rest of the day… only to awake the next morning to find Markus in the middle of messing with his gauntlet.

"DAMMIT MARKUS! I TOLD YOU NOT TO PISS AROUND WITH MY STUFF!"

"I'm sorry Captain, I envisioned a strange mechanical system that I thought would increase your combat effectiveness if it was implemented as an extension to your armour"

"And you didn't bother to ask me?"

"I asked Vanessa and she seemed ok with it…"

"Didn't you hack her or something?"

"I only removed her memories of Josh… and maybe placed a few backdoor access' for me when I later need them"

"Well then… so what is it?"

"It is an upgrade to your current grappling hook system to allow for added usages of the device… it utilises both lethal and non-lethal attachment methods…" Markus started, showing how he had attached what looked to be a wavy curved blade at the end of one "as well as the ability to connect two objects to free your arm, while changing the magnetic capabilities so pull you towards the object or the other way around" (Grappling hook from Just Cause 3)

"Thanks? I guess… now could you please leave?"

"Certainly Captain, I just need 23.48 seconds to attach this gauntlet then I may leave…"

[exactly 23.48 seconds later…]

Demon was glad that Markus finally left the pod leaving himself alone inside the steel cage… something he relished… so he spent that entire day training. Or he would have had he not receive a hasty call from Kira telling him to get to the tournament ASAP. He put on his armour and sharpened his odachi before travelling to the floating arena, nearly laughing when everyone on the ship seemed to avoid him and stay as far away as possible. He stepped off the ship and was immediately grabbed by Josh and Tempest, the duo dragging him as fast as possible until he arrived at the waiting area.

"What's going on?" he asked still trying to get his bearings.

"YOU'RE LATE!" Kira nearly screamed as Demon was sat in one of the waiting chairs at the side of the arena.

"For what?"

"THE NEXT ROUND YOU DUMBASS!"

"Oh… how come I wasn't messaged or something?"

"WE DID!"

Demon pulled out his scroll and checked his message app… 123 unchecked messages…

"Ahh… well sorry?"

"SORRY DOESN'T CUT IT! GET READY, WE'RE ON NEXT!"

"Who's on now?"

"The last round of the four on four with Team CDNL…"

"Well then, we shouldn't be kept waiting should we?"

"That's the thing… they're winning!"

"What?"

"They are versing literally the weakest team from Vacuo… they would probably be the only team CDNL stood a chance of beating"

Just as their conversation ended, a buzzer was heard and one of the officials came over to Kira and Demon, confirming they were ready for the fight, then went off and probably told the announcers, which were Professor Port and Doctor Oobleck. Demon and Kira were ushered out into the arena, taking stances on one side while the other team walked out of the doors on the other side. They were wearing clothes that looked suspiciously reminiscent of his formal gear (other way round mate) with both of them having hoods covering most of their face. They both came in carrying canes, Demon suspecting them to be weapons, while he also guessed they had others hidden in the many folds of their elaborate garb… and also their bracers looked very suspicious.

He did a quick scan with his pulse and saw just how many weapons they had… and he would be lying if he didn't say he was impressed. On top of the fact that the cane's both had blades within them, they had blades in their bracers, a copious amount of knives in their jackets, pistols on their thighs and a large kukri in reserve.

"The first round of the two on two fights will be fought between Demon and Kira of Vale and twins Jacob and Evie Frye of Atlas… the fight will begin shortly as soon as the landscape has been decided!" spoke Oobleck at lightning fast speeds through the loudspeakers.

Demon crossed his arm across his chest and bowed, their two opponents returning respective greetings as well.

"Well met Demon of Vale, this shall be a challenging fight…" commented the male, pulling the blade out of his cane and readying it in a typical rapier stance. His sister followed his lead, pulling the blade out of her cane but holding both the sheath and blade in a reverse-grip, holding them so that she was ready to strike the second the round started. Next to him, Kira unsheathed her sniper rifle, pulling back the slider to chamber a round and aimed straight at Evie. Demon unsheathed his odachi, flicking the blade and igniting the fire at the same time, setting it up vertically in his two hands. The spinners around the side of the arena finally finished spinning, stopping on a rainforest behind the twins and a barren desert behind the Pilots. The two twins looked behind them and smiled, glad for the selection and they immediately began chatting between themselves. Demon took this as a bit of a starter and told Kira his plan.

"Ok Kira… their weapons are all meant for close-range fighting so you're going to be our trump card. As soon as the bell sounds, I need you to find a hidings spot and hit them whenever they aren't looking… if one of them finds you then just lead them to me and I'll distract them long enough for you to hide again… if it works then we should be able to outlast them"

"What happens if they just run?"

"Pfft… that won't happen, their weapons are all meant for close quarters so they're going to have to get in our faces"

Kira nodded in agreeance and they waited for the countdown to begin.

5… 4… 3… 2… 1… BEGIN!

And then the twins immediately made a run for the trees…

Kira turned to Demon and gave him the biggest 'TOLD YOU SO!' look and then got down on one knee and began firing at them, although her shots never found their mark as their swirling pattern easily avoided the long-winded firing time. Demon sheathed his odachi and took the sheath off his back, shifting it into the chaingun and began firing. The torrent of lead that was sent the twins way was way too much for them to accurately dodge, so more than a few bullets found their mark before the two disappeared into the trunks of the thick rainforest.

"Kira, set up in a tree and fire on anything that moves… unless it's me"

Demon activated his shields, a blue haze covering his armour, then sprinted into the tree's intent on finding the two twins. As he stepped inside the forest, his chaingun sweeping through in an arc searching for targets. He sent a pulse through the forest, getting vague readings from the two but for some reason he couldn't see exactly where they were as the locator continued to switch places all throughout the trees.

Probably using jammers…

As he was walking, he heard a faint whistling sound and didn't have any time to dodge as a throwing knife hit the back of his neck. As it hit, Demon felt a small electrical buzz as lightning Dust must have been used to enhance the knife. His shields deflected the impact but they short-circuited the second it hit. Demon spun around and hastily put his chaingun in the way of the next three knives, the objects clanging off the heavy duty metal of the weapon. He got back into a firing stance and began firing into the trees where the knives had come from, branches and wood splintering under the explosive fire of the chaingun. After fives seconds of firing, he had completely decimated the entire area in the general vicinity of where the knives had come from yet he didn't see them.

He put the chaingun on his back and unsheathed the odachi, flicking the blade to full length and holding it at the ready in his right hand. He slowly and deliberately spun in a circle, scanning the treeline. A few knives came at him, seemingly out of nowhere and he dived to the side, narrowly avoiding the projectiles then smiled as he saw his shield re-genning… something which unfortunately was noticed by the two twins. Suddenly, a literal storm of knives headed his way, completely blocking out the lights of the arena. Demon was hesitant to seek help from Kalazar, something he vowed to do less of, and tried to block most of it normally. He spun his odachi in a fan in front of him, cutting down a few of the knives but most of them got through and cut down his shields and most of his aura, leaving him with about half. He swore a bit and sprinted through the forest and hid behind a tree, trying to let his shields re-gen before he fought again… something which didn't happen.

He heard a small rustle behind him and did a roll, narrowly missing a kukri as it embedded itself in the tree behind him. He saw where it landed and fired off a magnetic gapple, grabbing the hilt of the blade, then sent it straight back where it came from, Demon hearing a satisfying grunt as it hit his target. He waited for a couple more moments until, completely silently, Jacob dropped down from a tree holding the kukri in his hand. He nodded to Demon, beginning to circle him, until he eventually sprinted straight at him.

Demon barely had any time to bring up his odachi to block the first couple of swings, but eventually Jacob began landing hits due to the odachi's unwieldiness at extreme close ranges. Demon watched as his aura was hacked down slowly and surely until it was just above the red. He switched his tactics and sheathed his odachi, using his miniature vortex shield to catch the kukri then grabbed onto Jacob's arm and threw him straight into a tree. He continued with the assault by firing a knifed gapple which wrapped around his arm, Demon pulling with all his might and smashing him into another tree.

As he smashed the gentlemen straight through a tree and heard the buzzer, signifying the end of his aura. He smiled and released the grapple, the line slowly coiling back into his gauntlet. Demon walked over to the fallen man and checked if he was ok, knowing he could have accidentally broken something, but deduced he was ok after seeing nothing too vital was damaged. As he was about to get up and walk off, he was grabbed at the neck by the fallen man and pulled right next to his mouth.

"You must learn Mr Demon, we assassins are never alone"

Demon took this as a bit of a final mockery and quickly pulled himself out of the grip of Jacob and dived to the side, narrowly missing a kukri slamming into the ground next to him. He looked back to see Evie standing with her cane blade in her left hand and a pistol in her right, both trained at Demon. She was smiling, knowing that not even he could dodge a bullet at his range and even 1 hit from anything would take him down. She stood there, not moving at all while a smile crept its way onto her face.

"It is going to be fun to get to the finals"

Demon knew she was the type of person who would drag this out as long as possible so he took the opportunity to use something he hadn't used since Kalazar was more prevalent. He casually reached behind his back and reached into the small rucksack he had underneath the crook of his armour and pulled out two needles, jabbing them into his arms as discreetly as possible. He felt the adrenaline course through his veins and as an added touch he activated his normal Pilot stims as well, his vision clouding with a yellow haze and everything slowed down.

"Funny… I was just about to say the same thing to you"

She smiled and ran straight at him, sliding the last few feet to try and cut out his feet. Demon saw this coming and quickly dove over the woman, twisting his body to avoid a pistol shot that was aimed at his chest. When he landed, he rolled to avoid the shock and narrowly avoided a follow-up round from the pistol. With his left hand he took out his wingman and shot the pistol out of the woman's hand, taking out his knife in his right and throwing it right at her chest. She blocked the knife and caught it mid-throw, twisting her body around to swing it right back. Demon dived out of the way and sprinted right at her despite having the advantage in range. He shot the remaining 5 bullets, all but one of them crashing into her aura, then dived straight at her legs and knocked her over.

She tried to retaliate and stabbed at his shoulder, Demon stopping her by grabbing her wrist with his right arm and keeping her pinned with his left. He slowly but surely twisted the knife around so that it was pointed straight at her then began slowly pushing it down. She saw this coming and with the smallest flick of her wrist, two blades came right out of her bracers, one aimed straight at the hand holding her down. With the heightened sences that stims brought, Demon quickly released the woman and wrenched the knife out of her grip, using it to slash away an attack made by her other hand. Before he could have any time to react, she kicked out his legs and she was suddenly straddling him, blades aimed right at his chest. He dropped the knife and grabbed onto both of her wrists, stopping the blades a mere millimetre from where they would hit his aura.

"You can't hold out forever" she mocked, Demon feeling his grip slightly loosen as she twisted her hands. He tried and failed to squirm out of it but stopped when he saw a welcome sight.

"I don't need to… I just need to keep you still"

"What?"

"Never mind… you just did it for me!"

He nodded then, out of nowhere, a bullets slammed straight into Evie and destroyed what was left of her aura, sending her flying a few feet from the impact. Demon smiled and stood up, straightened out his armour and weapons, then turned off into the darkness of the trees.

"About damn time you did something!"

No reply was heard as Kira dropped down from a non-descript tree and flipped him off, pulling back the bolt of her rifle and letting the casing fall to the ground.

"AND THE WINNERS ARE DEMON AND KIRA FROM BEACON ACADEMY, VALE!" shouted the ever-obnoxious voice of Port overhead, quickly followed by more spiel from Oobleck on who was battling next, something the two fighters completely ignored.

"I thought you were all high and mighty after you managed to single-handedly take down an entire team so you could have easily wiped them out… why didn't you use your invisible sword slash thingy?"

"I have no idea how that happened so I can't just use it on a whim… but why did you seriously wait until the last damn possible moment to fire?"

"As a little pay back for sitting in the forest and not talking to Rosaline for a day"

Demon paled a bit as that subject was mentioned but continued the conversation as the two left the arena. He didn't know if Rosaline had told Kira what had happened but he wouldn't expect that from her given the circumstances but he still hadn't come around to a decision on the subject.

"I have a justified reason for not speaking to her…"

"Oh and what would that be?"

"She hasn't told you yet?"

"No… all I noticed was that the day after the party you avoided her completely and she hasn't been the same yet"

"Well I don't even know how to begin… to put it simply, I thought she was drunk and she asked me to sleep with her… I obviously declined but after that she began crying and I couldn't decline"

"So? She was drunk… you were just being nice"

By now they had made it to the waiting area where they saw the rest of their group rushing fowards to congratulate them. Demon turned on his cloaking and disappeared, Kira hearing a whisper into her ear before she felt the air seem to leave the room as he left.

"That's the thing… she wasn't drunk"

Demon let the info hang as he left Kira to be bombarded by questions while he ran off to slip past them, seeing that Markus and Tempest both saw him but didn't say anything but nodded in understanding. He swiftly made his way to an awaiting ship that was transporting people and de-activated his cloak, scaring everyone who was near him before he stepped aboard, sitting and waiting for the craft to take off. As he sighed in thanks that it finally lifted off, just as the doors began to close, a red blur raced aboard the craft. Demon didn't have enough time to react as suddenly, a very excited Ruby crashed into him. He was slammed back into the wall of the craft and everyone around him looked at the scene in mute judgement as Ruby straightened herself out after nearly hitting the wall herself.

"Hi…" she began, a massive smile coming across her face.

"Ummm… Hi?... what do you need?"

"What! I can't just run into my brother and sit with him because I can?"

"Yes… the only time you ever do something like this is when you either want cookies or to look at my weapons again"

"Well… Rosaline has been really sad all day and I wanted to make her better but she said that only you can do that so I came to get you to make her happy!"

Demon face-palmed at the girl's antics, being a bit glad that she didn't quite understand the situation.

"Ruby… something happened between me and Rosaline that I need time to think about before seeing her again… just let it be and it'll eventually get sorted out"

She didn't seem to take that as a legitimate answer and instead sat on the spare seat next to him and pouted, giving him her best puppy dog eyes… something that not even Demon could stand up to.

"Grrr… I'm not going to go talk to her!"

"Could you at least tell me what happened?" she pleaded, putting her hands together as if in prayer.

"Hmm… you wouldn't understand"

"HEY! I'm a big girl now! I drink milk!"

"Yeah… sure… look, I just want to make sure she knows everything about me before she continues with what she's doing…"

"OOOHHH!... are you two going out!" she asked, a bit of a smirk coming across her face.

"It really took you that long to figure out? Well yes we are, but I don't know whether I should continue or not on the grounds that I wish to tell her everything but I don't feel comfortable just yet…"

"Really? You faced a Deathstalker with nothing but a knife and you didn't even break a sweat yet the second you start liking someone you need time to think?"

"YES! Women are scary…"

Ruby giggled a bit and hugged him, resting her head in the crook of his shoulder.

"Just tell her how you feel and she'll understand"

"Thanks… wait? I'm getting dating advice from someone 3 years younger than me? I seriously need to re-think my ways of life"

"You're getting dating advice from your sister… be happy" she replied, yawning a bit and closing her eyes for the rest of the journey. They arrived back at Beacon and Demon went to get up but was stopped by a very much asleep Ruby. He prodded her until she promptly shouted 'COOKIES!' and woke up startled.

"Come on little Rose, we have places to be and people to see" he toned, picking her up and helping her out of the aircraft before she activated her semblance and sped off to wherever she was going until Demon got an alert on his scroll which told him that the proximity alarms in his pod had been tripped, the Pilot shaking his head in shame before sprinting after her. He arrived at the pod, seeing Ruby desperately trying to open the cockpit to Vanessa which was currently closed tightly. He laughed a bit and pulled her down, seeing the pouting face of his half-sister, then opened the cockpit. He entered the cockpit and strapped into the chair, initiating the boot-up sequence then activating Vanessa. Ruby looked at him with hope strewn over her face.

"One second… I don't want you to break anything in here so I thought we should probably get somewhere more… destructible"

She instantly squealed, disappearing in a blur of roses and Demon heard the clunking of her boots on the top of the Titan.

"BONZAI!" she cheered, pointing a finger straight at the door, glee filtering into her voice.

"Ummm… Sir? Where are we going?" came the weary voice of Vanessa, not entirely sure what was happening.

"Don't worry… we're just going somewhere where we can blow shit up… BONZAI!"

Demon grabbed a spare Plasma Railgun and slammed straight through the Titan door of the pod…

Ooops… meh, I'll get it fixed later… for now… LET'S BLOW THIS POPSICLE STAND!