"And for our final match of the quarterfinals, we have Velvet Scarlatina of Beacon versus Penny … er… Penny from Atlas."

The announcer's introductions concluded, both combatants entered the tournament field. Velvet shyly walked out in her combat suit, still not confident in her skills despite trouncing two other enemies in the preceding rounds.

Penny, on the other hand, didn't look like she had been phased at all. She moved robotically to her mark, staring down her opponent from across the wide open arena.

Neither fighter knew what the random terrain generator would choose, but neither were surprised when the see-through holo-glass structure popped up in the shape of a ruined city block. The multiple levels and mix of cover and wide open space was enough for Penny's secondary tactics computer to kick into high gear, analyzing every inch of the broken down proxy buildings.

"Fighters ready?"

Both girls gave the go ahead signal.

"Match begins in 3…"

"2…"

"1…"

Penny tensed.

"Fight!"

Immediately Penny deployed 4 of her blades, and leaped to a nearby second story, keeping a sensor on the Faunus's movements. She moved towards the top of the building, as her analysis told her that would be the best possible vantage point.

Meanwhile, Velvet had sprung out of the way, and then put as many building between her and Penny as possible. Her box was on the ground and she was tinkering with it. Penny's logistics computer gave her too many results to reasonably guess what it could be, so she decided to get a closer look.

She shot two of her blades forward onto a lower building across the street, and anchored the other two on her current vantage point, and leaped off the front. The tension of the wires helped her stay suspended in midair, which she used as her anchors to prepare to slingshot herself over to where her opponent was still fiddling with her box.

Penny's feet brushed the ground, and she used that as her key to release the tension blades, slingshotting herself forward, towards where the Faunus was still working on her box.

Penny maintained her flight for 4.47 seconds exactly, soaring over most of the city block, and almost right on top of Velvet. Her threat indicators were low as the Faunus made no moves to change what she was doing. Don't let the enemy have time to prepare, her advanced tactics programming told her. So Penny leapt, extending all twelve of her blades behind her as pair of wings, her humor processor recognizing the image of a hawk sweeping down on an unsuspecting rabbit, and allocated one chuckle to herself after the match.

Penny landed. That wasn't supposed to happen. She had sent her blades straight at her adversary, but none registered hits except with the ground. She tried retracting them, but there was something wrong, she couldn't retract any of them. She activated all the emergency recall procedures for the blades, but still, nothing worked. She turned to examine the spot where she had landed, which should have been right on top of Velvet.

"Oh no."

Boom!

An explosion directly beneath her feet sent Penny soaring into the air, only to be yanked back down by her strings, still embedded in the earth. As she crashed back into a heap on the ground, Penny's inner Aura monitor started beeping furiously.

"And that's the match! Ms. Penny's Aura has dropped to critically low levels, and so the match must be stopped here. Congratulations to Ms. Velvet Scarlatina, winner of the match, who will now advance to the semifinals. A round of applause for our two combatants please!"

Velvet emerged from her hiding spot around an apparently falsely transparent holo-wall to help Penny dislodge her blades.

"I didn't mean for them to still be stuck, here, let me help," Velvet said, the ground now willing to release her after Velvet's touch.

"Remarkable! Excellent strategy!" Penny exclaimed, squeezing Velvet's hand, "Tell me, how did you do that?"

"Um, well, I'm a mage, and I saw how well you were able to keep track of your opponents in your other fights, so I made an illusion using shadow dust and hid myself. Your swords are very powerful, so I needed a way to neutralize them in case the initial explosion didn't do all the damage I hoped, so I made a binding spell using gravity dust. Then, the explosion was easy, all it was is fire dust mixed with a little time dust so it didn't blow up right when your swords hit."

"SEN-SATIONAL!" Penny exclaimed.

"Oh, um, thank you."

"Good luck in the rest of the tournament!"

Velvet walked away, already mentally preparing for her next bout.

Penny's humor processor recognized down-time.

Penny chuckled.