{Author's Note.}
I… I have no words.
Hey guys. I need to tell you all something.
I saw another fic based of time traveling kids.
Yep. In case you guys haven't seen it, it's called "With Kids Like These" By CelesThePotatoGoddess.
It's funny. You should go read that if you like this story. I recommend it.
What really wounds my ego is that it actually came later than mine by around several days, but has way more favorite and likes than mine with less content and chapters.
Welp. *SIIIGGGGHHHHHH*
Ahh that's life.
Maybe I could ask the author for a collab? Ha! … That sounds interesting if that Author lets me…
But meh. Who knows?
Still, let me thank you people who liked this story. It really helps me feel good. And go read that story if you also like this one. It kind of centers around romance a bit more than mine does, but it's pretty entertaining.
Also, sorry for the long chapter again. (I think the next few chapters are kind of long because they cover a lot.) Hope you enjoy.
"One, Two~ Buckle my shoe! Three, Four~ Shut the door! Five, Six~ Pick up sticks! Seven, Eight~ Lay them straight! Nine, Ten…" The young cub scout paused ponderously as he tried his best to recall the last words.
"See, he can't do it. Let's not send him to camp." She said with worry.
"You can't be serious. So he forgot two words, what's the big deal?" He replied reassuringly to his wife.
"Yeah Ma! I want to go!" The young boy cried as the rather large bear shape hat fell down and blocked his view. Then he raised his hands out and attempted to walk properly, but was failing.
"No, it's too dangerous!"
"Really? This coming from you?" The husband smiled at the situation. "May I remind you about the time you actually tried to wrap Jared up in bubble wrap to keep him safe? He thought he was some kind of robot and jumped off the second floor screaming, 'I am Invisible~!'" He copied his squeaky and small boy's voice, even the wrong word he screamed out as he flew body first into the ground. Thankfully, his older sister had been there babysitting around that time to save her nephew.
"That was fun!" The young boy nodded innocently.
"I am not letting my child anywhere near a Grimm infested forest without you or me!" The mom cried out.
"He's not even going out doors! He's going to Larry's house since he's the denmother… you know how he feels when people point out him being a denmother."
"Ma, why don't you come then?" Jared tilted his head.
The two older adult stared back at their child.
"Umm… I don't know, we have a mission together."
"If you're really that worried about our son, you can go. I think I can handle a few patrols." The husband offered.
"And the others will think you're really cool!" Jared added in.
At that, the mother sighed and knelt to her son. "Ugh! I hate it when you two try to act like that! … Listen kiddo, ma loves you so much. And I don't want to see you hurt."
"… Auntie Ruby says I'll be fine. I'm your sun after all." The boy stated.
She patted his head. "I know but… did you just make a pun?" She stared at him.
The small boy giggled as his answer, also earning a chuckle from his dad.
"Hey! How come you never laughed at my puns?!"
"Well for one, our son wasn't trying too hard to sound funny. And I was laughing more at the reaction than the actual pun." He answered.
The wife leered at her husband, making him wince.
She sighed before her husband placed a hand on her shoulder.
"If it's any constellation, you're already doing a way better job than she did by just being there for him, for us." He said with a natural smile.
That was a low blow coming from her husband, but he was right. She was already doing a much better job just being there for her family.
"Fine," She admitted bitterly. "Jared can go alone. But I will call Larry every five minutes!"
Jared whooped then proceeded to jump off the second floor in excitement.
In hindsight, the parents probably shouldn't have had this conversation near a balcony.
"That looks beautiful…" Pyrrha exclaimed as she saw the Sun rise from the sea.
"Yep—OW!" Jaune yelped as he rubbed the back of his ham strings (leg). Resh held the meter stick/ruler with a wicked glare.
"Keep your legs moving in a pedaling motion despite not moving, sir. Pyrrha maybe here, but I'm not letting up your training." Resh half scolded as he too was not letting his legs rest.
"Jerk! … Anyway this is only one of the great views. If we hurry up we can make it near the Emerald Forrest!" The leader proclaimed before moving ahead.
Jared looked over to Pyrrha. He noticed how happy she looked to be, especially smiling at the back of the blonde's head. He smiled at the idea of her being his mother. "Come on Ms. Champion, we've got 235 miles in under two hours." Jared lazily called out before running after Jaune…
Then proceeding to whip his legs to move faster thus causing Jaune to yell madly at him, which in turn made Resh whipped him with a meter stick again for yelling that only caused more whipping…
Well Pyrrha admitted that was a rather unfair and one sided exercise cycle. Maybe she could convince Resh to lighten the sadistic tendencies and go easy on their leader.
"OWW! THAT'S MY ASS, ASSHOLE!"
"DO IT FOR YOUR BUNS OF STEEL, MAGGOT!"
… Then again, Pyrrha always agreed with the saying 'no pain, no gain'. Now if she could just stop letting her imagination run wild…
"Team fights?" Jaune asked Pyrrha and Resh as the three and Nora and Ren were on their way to Ms. Goodwitch's Combat Class. They had all finished gearing up and heading their way to the large classroom/stadium.
"Yes, Jaune, Ms. Goodwitch explained that for today's class we would have a team fight against another team like Team RWBY." Pyrrha explained to him.
"But…" Resh added, focusing Jaune's attention on him, his battle trench coat flowing as he walked, not unlike certain animated cartoons that show heroes with epic trench coats. "There remains the fact that we're the only five-man team in a batch of first years. Glynda messaged us that our sparring match would be different today from all the rest."
"How different?" Jaune asked, a little nervous at the idea of things being harder difficulty since he had Resh join.
"I'm not sure, but if I was Ms. Goodwitch, and to keep things somewhat fair, I would have us face off against upper classmen. We might be fighting against second or thirds years." Resh voiced out, earning a silent nod at the educated guess by Pyrrha and Ren.
Jaune groaned at the thought of fighting experienced students. Everyone around him was amazing as is, but now he probably had to face against students that were potentially better than them? Jaune was starting to get nervous.
Resh patted his leader's back reassuringly. "Relax, sir, it's just a spar. Besides, they might go easy on us."
"Boo! That's boring!" Nora cried out. "I wanna break some legs of our Senpai!"
"Senpai?" Jaune repeated in a confused manner.
"It's a term for upper classman that used sometimes in the east," Ren educated the knight about the word. "It can also apply to mentors and older figures, but the linguistics behind it are kind of long to explain right now."
"Huh. Don't really know much about the east. Sounds really interesting though." Jaune admitted.
"Same here," Resh added in. "I have a friend who comes from a heavy eastern culture, but I never really asked her about it." He told them, recalling something from the time yet to come…
"I'll tell you some basics next time." Ren pointed to the main doors of the class battlefield. They had made it.
"Oh! Hey guys! We saved you a spot!" A familiar red head called out to Team JNPR as they entered.
"Oh hey, Ruby. You guys actually came early?" Jaune asked his fellow leader.
"Weiss was being so bossy about arriving early!" Ruby pouted, making her partner look over in her direction.
"We were almost late the first day! And I am not having a repeat of that in the future!" Weiss huffed.
Jaune took this minute to slide closer to Weiss. "So Snow Angel, if—"
"Please do not start, Arc, it is too early for this." Weiss stopped him right there and focused at the class.
Jaune slumped, Resh rolled his eyes, Ruby giggled, and Pyrrha felt a little sad. Still the group was able to discuss a few more miscellaneous topics before Glynda finally came in.
"Good Morning Class, as you know today we begin team sparring where you and your team must work together to face off against your fellow classmates…" She fixed her glasses and checked her scroll. "However, I would very much like to get the biggest problem out of the way. Team JNPR?"
Everyone's eyes turned to the leader of the said team. Jaune nervously looked around until Resh elbowed him lightly on the rib, a signal to answer her.
"O-Oh! Yes?"
"Because you are the only team with five members, we cannot place you against another first year team out of fairness and proper grading," She elaborated. "Which is why you will be facing against Team ETHR (Ether), a team from the sophomore class. So please come to the stage."
Jaune gulped. It looked like Resh was right on the money about them facing upperclassmen. As the five of them entered into the stage, they searched around for their would-be opponents.
"Team ETHR had some other classes to attend to," Ms. Goodwitch activated the aura bars showcasing all of Team JNPR's members. "So they will be a little late in coming from the lockers. I had to ask the other professors for their leave."
Then a small sound came from one of the opposite entrances. It was barely audible at first, but then it started to grow louder, rising with far more clarity. It was a gruff and almost inhuman noise, making Team JNPR really wonder if they were actually facing students or Grimm.
The sound became louder and louder as some kind of odd shaped silhouette was appearing out of the shadows. Team JNPR all reached slowly for their weapons, except for Nora, who seemed to be rather excited at whatever thing was approaching them. She had this strange idea that her team were about to face a large team that had the power to transform and combine together to make some mutant, robot thing.
Then she voiced it out.
"Nora that seems unlike—"
"OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!"
The voice that interrupted Ren was powerful and angry. It shocked everyone in the class and made Jaune really wonder what kind of Team—if he was even facing a team—was going to come out. Soon the loud sound he heard from awhile ago got even louder until…
Hey… wait a sec…
"ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ…"
"Is…" Resh started in disbelief. "Is that snoring?"
Finally, out of the shadows came… a shopping cart.
The shopping cart that came out looked to be near crushed under a massive seven foot tall man with red-orange, swept back hair riding poorly in it, yet snoring with his mouth open—which was making some ungodly sounds to echo across the room. He was wearing a brown military barrette and red military pants with a similar military vest that had red designs and beside him in the shopping cart was a rather huge red and silver mallet. All of his clothes seemed to have some accents that looked like he came from a very passionate culture since the colors were very vibrant and clashing despite being so similar.
"What?" Jaune gapped at the incredible sight in front of him.
It wasn't just the seven foot guy in a shopping cart while he was snoring that startled him. (Amazing as that was to see in the morning) But there was a person pushing it, a girl with lime green, long hair that reached her shoulder, but she herself was probably smaller than five feet. She wore a lime green shirt that had really, really long sleeves that covered a good of her hands. She had on a brown battle pants that fashioned many pockets and seemed to have a face of that of a child even younger than Ruby.
Yet her face right now, showed that she was ticked and had more veins showing than dehydrated angry man.
"EPHESTO PTAH, YOU LAZY BUM! WAKE UP! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW HARD IT IS TO MOVE YOU!? YOU'RE LIKE THREE TIMES MY SIZE DANG IT!" She yelled in a ferocious and threatening voice that the taller man somehow slept through. She then realized where she was and looked over to Ms. Glynda, who didn't seem to be bothered at all at this incredible scene. "Sorry we're a little late Ms. Goodwitch. Our other teammates are coming soon. They're just behind us."
"It is alright," Ms. Goodwtich actually sounded grateful. "I must thank your team for volunteering for this, Rhea Geb."
"Please Miss Goodwtich," Another voice called out from the shadows, but this time a good half of the class started in anticipation at who was coming out. "Anything to help."
When the last two team members appeared, half of the class just stared at them… the half containing all men. Jaune, Resh, and even Ren couldn't even blink when their eyes fell on them.
The two that had just excited, were some of the most beautiful girls that they had ever seen. One girl was a massive, six-foot tall girl that had hair as blue as the deep sea but as straight as a river with glowing emerald eyes, skin so fair that she neither looked pale or tanned. She wore a rather tight silk blue dress that not only left room for the imagination, but had some eastern designs in that had the dress separated around her legs to reveal some tender skin around her lower thighs that attracted the opposite sex, and a few of the same gender, but wore long white and somewhat see-through pantyhose that really hugged her leg except for her lower thigh part, as if she was teasing people with just a look. The very few people (females) that weren't inspecting her visage were drawn to the large golden trident that she was wielding beside her. It gleamed like a treasure long lost in sea that had finally revealed its lost splendor to the people of the surface. One of the second things to notice was that she wore a beautiful, golden collar necklace that was shaped like a bird with its wings reaching, coiling around her neck and the body of the bird pointing upwards to a jeweled sun. Also on one ear, she had a golden fish shaped necklace.
While this girl was alluring, to say the least, the other girl beside her was just gorgeous.
Long, bouncy, golden locks that just shined like the sun even under florescent light with beautiful rosy-pink pupils. Much like the girl beside her, she wore a similarly designed battle wear that supported a silk like fabric but colored white. However, hers was far more modest since it had a secondary lower cloak that shielded her side views to both the displeasure and pleasure to some people. Also she wore this golden belt, much like the blue girl wore around her waist as well, but the girl in white had this beautiful, golden necklace that looked to be a scarab with the sun fashioned on its antennas. Her skin was just as fair as the taller woman beside her, but there was just some kind of angelic glow coming from her.
"Hemera Isis, Thalassa Anuket," Glynda acknowledge the girl in white before the girl in blue before looking over to the half stupefied members and half annoyed members of JNPR.
"These four will be you opponents. Team ETHR, lead by Hemera Isis," She pointed to the angel like girl who laughed softly, making some of the guys swoon at how her voice and laugh sounded as sweet as honey. "Team ETHR, this is Team JNPR consisting of five members such As Jaune Arc, the leader, Resh Kolc, Pyrrha Nikkos, Lie Ren, and Nora Valkryie. You will be having a spar with them."
Hemera came up to the still staring and shocked Jaune Arc. "We are in you care." She greeted with an innocent and lovely smile while speaking in such a melodious voice as she extended out her hand towards Jaune for a handshake.
"Ka…ak…H…" Jaune struggled to make sounds and thoughts.
Pyrrha came up and pinched Jaune's rib… hard.
"OW!" Jaune rubbed the sore spot before seeing at Pyrrha's annoyed look. "What was that for?"
Hemera laughed again, which brought Jaune into a half dazed state as he remembered the beautiful girl in front of him. He coughed and tried to compose himself. "Hey… The name is Jaune, Jaune Arc. Short and sweet and the ladies love it!" He attempted to flirt with her.
Pyrrha didn't understand why, but she was starting to feel quite vexed.
Hemera smiled before mouthing it. "Jaune Arc… you're right, it does sound sweet." She responded kindly.
Jaune and pretty much everyone else in the room were shocked at that. Was she flirting back at him?
Thalassa walked—no strode up to her partner and added, "And I bet they really love that name when you make them call it out… over and over…" She joked and implied another time when ladies would really like saying a male's name. There was almost something predator-like in her voice, but instead of being afraid, the male populace found it so… inviting. Then she winked at Juane for good measure, sending the knight a mysterious feeling he had no idea how to describe that was both scary yet blissful.
Jaune once more found himself speaking fluent gibberish as he had failed to reboot his brain's proper communications skills… until Pyrrha repeated the pinching technique.
Thalassa smiled then strode towards the sleeping giant. However, it seemed like she knew that all eyes were on her and really gave certain sways as teasing for her audience.
Yang bristled at the act. Teasing and stringing up guys was her thing! But this girl was just working it!
"... Hey, Xiao Long, move out of the way. I can't see!" A foolish boy behind Team RWBY called out.
Yang greeted him with an annoyed look. "Do you want to say that again?" She gritted raising her fist and cackling it by itself.
The boy behind him looked between her and the two babes in the center. "Yep. Worth it."
Before Yang could even respond to that as violently as possible, Ms. Goodwitch addressed the class.
"Teams ETHR and JNPR, please get ready for the match."
"Kick their ass, Team JNPR!" Yang cried out frustrated while her team did little in telling her to calm down.
However that did little to snap out the other two males of JNPR out of their shock. Pyrrha noticed even Resh was starting to drool while Nora was glaring daggers at Ren who for once wasn't paying attention to her. Nora pulled on Ren's ear while Pyrrha slapped the back of Resh's head.
"OW!" Resh cried while Ren snapped himself out of confusion. The purple teammate noticed and wiped of his drool before turning to Pyrrha. "What was that for?"
"Focus on the match." She spat strictly and readied her weapons before giving that same look to Jaune who fumbled for his weapons.
"Err… right… Right!" He said after Hemera walked back toward her team. Resh and Ren also slowly followed suit while Nora and Pyrrha seemed rather excited to spar for some reason.
Thalassa walked up to the sleeping Giant. "… Hey look, a soccer game."
"I keep telling you it's called Footba—oh… where am I?" The giant snapped open before realizing he was nowhere near his bed.
"Ephesto, remember? We talked about volunteering the freshmen spar?" Hemera asked.
"I had to freaking carry you again! Stop sleeping all the time!" Rhea yelled over Ephesto's yawn.
"Sorry Rhea…" He got out of his cart, dragging his large mallet into the ground. "You guys are our opponents huh? Good luck…" He said rather lazily, but seemed earnest in what he said.
"You too?" Resh stated out, still a little confused at the characters of these people.
Hemera turned to Rhea. "Rhea, if you would please."
The smaller girl blinked. "Which ones?"
"I would like anyone of the boys…" Thalassa sated almost voluptuously, eyeing three potential candidates mirthfully, while earning secret ire from the other two girls.
"I'm fine with anything…" Ephesto leaned his face on his large mallet.
Hemera seemed to glance over to Jaune before looking back at Rhea.
"Ah." She nodded in understanding.
"Alright, if you are ready," Ms. Goodwitch entered in the aura bars of Team ETHR in to the screen. "You may begin."
It was then team JNPR saw Rhea's eyes glowing green. The smaller girl quickly motioned her arms before slamming them hard on the ground causing the earth to quake and shoot out a large boulder wave heading right for team JNPR.
"Wah!" Jaune cried before his team avoided the attack. But as the large boulder reached the center, Rhea split her hands away in a large motion and caused dust to fill the arena, preventing anyone from seeing.
Jaune coughed as the dust started to settle. "W-what was that?"
"Rhea's semblance. It's called Geokinesis I think. The power to manipulate the earth like land, rocks, dirt and other raw materials. She can even do metal if she focused long enough."
Jaune was having some mixed feelings. He recognized that voice even though he just heard of it a few minutes ago. Then again, what kind of life must he had been living before he met her?
"Hemera?" His voice called out as the dust settled down.
"Sir?" Jaune felt disappointed when he heard that voice.
"Resh?" He actually sounded disappointed. Jaune felt sadder when the dust settled down and he saw Resh just a few feet away from him.
"What's with that look?" Resh questioned in a slightly offended manner before turning beside him and having his eyes widen to baseballs.
"What's with your look?" Jaune looked over and did the same expression as Resh.
There was a large wall of rock that trapped them in one corner of the arena.
"Around your second year, Professor Cesar helps you increase your semblance abilities," The two boys turned to see Hermera standing on the opposite side of their corner. "It's a fun class. You get to meditate a lot." She explained naturally.
Resh armed his arm weapons. He was now focused on the fight and quickly scanned the area. His eyes widened as his brain sent him information that had similar scenarios in text books he's read. "Did you just split us up?" He asked her before taking a fighting stance.
Jaune blinked and looked around. He didn't see Pyrrha, Ren, or Nora anywhere nor did he see the rest of Team ETHR. All he saw where the large rock walls that didn't even let him see the audience.
"Yes. Lesson one, my Kohai leader…" She stated as she took two thin, cylindrical silver objects out of her belt in both her hands. "As a leader, you always need to pay attention to your opponents and adapt to them however you want…"
With a press of a button on both of them, the cylindrical objects shot out two white lasers that glowed brilliantly and made a weird sound as it passed through the air.
"Or else they might kill you."
She jumped off at amazing speeds, aiming for Jaune first with both blades drawn to the back of her head.
Jaune felt an odd force from his side as Resh had tackled him out of the way, quickly dodging a large swipe of where Jaune was just seconds before.
"Sir, focus! We're in a fight!" Resh tensed as both he and his dad got back up.
Hemera spun one blade in her left hand before attacking again. However, Resh jumped in to meet her this time.
Hermera slashed right for Resh, but the boy ducked under the high horizontal swipe and followed the dodge with a rising upper cut. Herma danced to the side nimbly before turning and swinging both of her blades back at Resh. Seeing it coming fast, Resh placed both of his gauntlets up to block the attack. The blades connected to the gauntlets but electricity danced as the two opposing weapons remained clashed.
"Oh? Are your gauntlets absorbing my electricity?" Hemera asked mildly shocked at the electricity gathering around Resh's gauntlets. She was half expecting her weapon to shock him on contact.
"T-they do that." Resh tried to maintain a conversation but he felt his arms being pushed back as she kept forcing it. Was she really just one year older than them? Resh took this minute to jump and try to front kick the girl's side that was facing him, but she returned it with her own side kick and forced the two of the out of the clash.
"HA!" Jaune yelled as he came up from behind Resh and attempted to stab Hemera. Sure she was really pretty, but she was really good at fighting! She did have good advice though. He was caught off guard and allowed her team to separate his team. At least he was with Resh. He doubted he could take her on alone.
Hemera spun sideways to avoid the blade, but continued the spin to reverse roundhouse Jaune in the face, forcing him to stagger back a bit. She followed with her attack and swung one of her blades at Jaune. The staggering knight barely put up his shield to absorb the attack to parry the attack—with electricity sparking on the surface of his shield.
"Hmph!" She pouted. "Why are there more insulators in weapons now?" She muttered to herself before unleashing a flurry of quickly slashes at Jaune and making the blonde boy go on the defensive.
Resh ran up behind her, Jaune saw this and he decided to attack along with Resh from both opposite sides.
Resh threw a punch while Jaune slashed at her; however, she parried both attacks with her blades, blocking both hunters with relative ease. She let the blade and fist come closer towards her allowing the two boys to get a better look at her. "You have Aura don't you? Your opponent is obviously capable of handling you physically; use your other advantages against them! Don't fight under their conditions!" At that, Hemera suddenly released her blade with Jaune, surprising him and making him lose balance and trip ahead. Resh's eyes widened and he quickly tried to use this opportunity to jump crescent kick Hemera that instant.
However, Hemera moved with quick speeds; she not only jumped out of range of Resh's sweep, but kicked the stumbling Jaune towards his teammate. This forced Resh to accidentally crescent kick Jaune in the face, and making the leader stumble pitifully as he tried to recover from the impactful kick from his teammate.
"Sorry!" Resh yelled apologetically. Good thing he didn't arm his leg coating. Then he tensed as he felt Hemera rush him again, this time expertly slashing her blades like a master swordswoman. Resh ducked and weaved to avoid the attacks, but after ducking under another horizontal slash, Hemera quickly side kicked Resh while he was low. Resh barely reacted but felt a stinging pain in his chest and flew back from the kick… and felt himself hit something.
"AGH!" Jaune cried as he finally regained his senses, only to find out a second later that he was blindsided by Resh's body being thrown hard at him.
The two boys fell to the ground with Resh's body splattered over Jaune. It wasn't pretty.
"… You two should really use your semblance. I don't understand why you two keep forcing physical combat. You're not even trying to plan countermeasures against me. Jaune, it's two on one, but I'm turning that into my advantage." Hemera advised him.
"Thanks for the tip…" Jaune moaned as both he and Resh got back up. "OK, think you can use your semblance?" He whispered to Resh while both were still close to each other.
"I can't control my semblance, remember?" Resh emphasized but tried his best not to make Hemera see his face.
"Well… plan B?" Jaune said standing up and reading his weapons again. Funny, she keeps telling them to use their semblance, but Resh can't control or summon his while Jaune didn't even have semblance yet. Hopefully Jaune's Plan B would work instead.
"If it involves us not getting beat up by another hot chick then I'm all for it." Resh readied himself alongside Jaune.
"Use your thing!" Jaune yelled out.
Resh glanced at him incredulously but then kept his gaze at Hemera in case she tried attacking them. "I don't know about this sir! We still don't know her semblance!"
"Yeah well… you let me worry about that when she uses it!" Jaune exclaimed nervously. "Right now, we don't stand a chance."
What the two didn't know was that Hemera was letting them regroup. She wanted to at least make sure the two learned something from this. "I heard rumors about Team JNPR's fifth member having a weird weapon…" Hemera finally said, causing the two boys to tense. "Are you going to show me?"
"I usually try my best to not use this at all…" Jared started before sliding his brown waist belt and revealing a hexagon, metal buckle with a hollow center. He then took out the same Crystal Dust and locked it in.
Jaune and Hemera shielded themselves from the flash of light that instantly appeared. One second later, Resh was fully armored in his glowing Armaments of Raijin, and strode powerfully to Hemera, whose reflection she saw on Resh's helm visor.
There was distinct clang when Resh pounded his fists together along with bits of eltricty sparking as his own two fists meeting.
"This is where things get fun, senpai."
Hemera smiled kindly and spun both of her blades… before her eyes glowed white.
It then occurred to Jaune that he had accidentally upped the stakes of this fight and indirectly increased the potential danger by asking two skillful hunters in training… to power up…
"I wonder how the others are doing?" Jaune managed to ask before Hemera unleashed the full power of her semblance at them.
Speaking off others, team RWBY and the others seemed to be having trouble watching the match. Mostly because the walls Rhea made had pretty much blocked everything from view of the audience except the Aura Screen perched high above the arena.
"That purple light looks familiar." Blake noted as it seemed that one corner of the rocks seemed to be having some kind of light show.
"It's probably Resh. What I don't understand is why they had to go and hide the entire match from us!?" Weiss complained.
"Yeah! If Skater Boy is using that armor, I wanna see the look on the blue chic's face when he pummels her to the ground!" Yang gritted.
"Sis, something wrong?" Ruby asked innocently.
"I think she's jealous." Blake noted teasingly.
"I am not!" Yang whined before turning her attention to the Aura bars. "Drat. Resh's aura is getting low."
Team RWBY stared at the monitor, mostly because it was the only thing they could see besides flashes of light, sounds of water, bits of fire, and chunks of rocks being seen at the corner of the walls. It showed that all of Team JNPR's auras were already in the mid yellow section whereas Team ETHR was still a healthy green.
Ren dodged another rock thrown by sliding down beneath it. He then proceeded to keep running while shooting from both Strom Flowers at Rhea.
Rhea stomped hard on the ground causing a large boulder to come between them, and block all of his bullets.
Ren kept firing but then started running towards her. Rhea felt the distance between fires and contact of the boulder becoming shorter, and recognized the boy heading right for her, so she double palmed the boulder and made it launch itself towards her sparring partner.
Ren jumped and rolled out of the way of the boulder, but then he readied Storm Flowers before closing in range of Rhea. Rhea dodged each swipe, but saw Ren's hands glowing after each swiped missed. Ren swept kick low forcing Rhea to jump high. Ren followed up by attempting to use both his palms and unleashed the gathered up Aura, but as he turned around, he noticed Rhea's long sleeves extended and connected to his—
"Ha!" Rhea pulled as hard as she could. Forcing Ren to lose his balance as his legs was pulled towards Rhea. It also broke his concentration of the gathered Aura dissipated and he fell into the ground. Acting quickly, Ren tried to slash off the sleeves, but Rhea already withdrew them and back flipped out of range.
"Impressive. Good idea of getting out of your opponent's comfort zone and forcing them to fight under your conditions," Rhea complimented as Ren got back up. "I especially liked how none of your moves were ever wasted, each of them still building up Aura so one good burst would knock my levels low. But you neglected the smaller movements of your opponent. You didn't spot my sleeves slowly growing longer after each swipe. You'll need to be more open to your surroundings when you're concentrating Aura."
Ren silently took the advice. Before Rhea started spinning and whipping out one of the sleeves. It came fast, but Ren leaned to the right, avoiding the whip like sleeve, but hearing the air crackle at the tip of the snap.
"Now time to step it up…" Rhea's eyes glowed green as smaller boulders started to levitate.
Nora was angry.
Her opponent was sleeping!
"ZZZZZZ…" Ephesto snored as he lay down in the middle of the battlefield.
Nora changed Magnhild into its grenade launcher form and unloaded bombshells onto the sleeping giant. What made things worse was Ephesto seemed to roll quickly away with the explosions only pushing him and not actually damaging him in the slightest.
Nora decided to change her tactics and just go smash his legs. Maybe that would wake him up or else really put him to sleep. She changed her weapon back into a hammer and charged directly for the sleeping giant. Ephesto stopped snoring and woke up. "Huh? … Right…" He got up quickly to face Valkyrie who had jumped in the air and attempted to smash him much like a plumber would a mushroom. His face was lazy, but his body spun quickly, gaining momentum in his giant mallet that he swung upward to meet with Nora's hammer.
The two contacted and created a large ground breaking explosion.
Nora slid on the floor from ground zero. Hoping she finally knocked some sense into her opponent.
"ZZZZZ…"
Her eyes widened as she saw Ephesto actually leaning on top of a large crater where their ground zero was, but he was leaning on his mallet trying to sleep again.
"HEY!" Nora cried out.
"Huh? What?" Ephesto stuttered as he woke up.
"I wanted some more super cool tricks and epic explosions or maybe some earth shattering, dimension punching, drill heaven-piercing action from my upper classman! Not super sleepy sempai!" Nora whined, a little sad that her fight wasn't as exciting as she hoped it would be.
"ZZZZZ…" Ephesto snored again.
Even Nora didn't want to talk to someone sleeping. She readied her hammer again with renewed rage. "DANG IT! NOTICE ME, SEMPAI!"
Pyrrha staggered as the ground shook beneath her.
"… That felt like Ephesto's work." Her opponent called out casually.
Pyrrha readied Miló and Akoúo̱ against the blue beauty of Team ETHR. The two clashed, but Thalassa seemed to parry Pyrrha's offensive quite well.
"Nice form, nice well rounded combat…" Thalassa lethargically stated as if she was bored. "Single combat would of course be your forte. Why couldn't I get that cute blonde?" She complained in a half sigh.
Pyrrha bridled at the reference to Jaune then continued her assault against Thalassa who parried all her blows with her trident.
Thalassa backed away boringly before she suddenly threw her trident to the stadium above, which confused Pyrrha.
Oddly enough, her trident smashed into a sprinkler which caused the flow of water to push out the trident and pour into their corner of the ring.
"Hydrokinesis, my semblance," Thalassa showed off by allowing the pouring water to make the form of a giant water snake to which she petted as if it was a cute rabbit. "A little flashy, but it's always fun to use!" Thalassa suddenly jumped on top of her snake before it launched itself right for Pyrrha.
The champion ran away from the attack but as the snake smashed into the ground, its large form broke and quickly turned into a tidal wave about to crash on top of Pyrrha. Pyrrha poured aura into her short sword and then slashed the wave as it came crashing into her, splitting it in half and forcing the water away from her. However, as the water crashed down, it froze all around her then formed a giant sphere that surrounded her.
She glanced at Thalssa and saw that water was still pouring from one of the sprinklers. As more and more hydro snakes appeared behind her, her eyes glowed a deadly blue that shined even behind a wall of water.
Jaune flew as the blast of light hit his shield. It looked as if Hemera's semblance was accessing light based energy. What was worse was the fact she even seemed to reach speeds of light because she has been avoiding even Resh's empowered movements and shooting off bolts of light to the powered up being.
Hemera took a glance at Jaune then brought both of her hands together to launch a large blast of light energy towards the leader. Jaune was able to raise his shield, but the blow was already pushing him back hard.
However, he felt someone beside him and saw Resh had backed him up and stabilized him to hold down the shield. While it felt a lot easier, Jaune still felt the power of the bolt pressing on his shield until it died out.
"Sir, I only skinned her a few times at best. She's probably faster than Ruby." Resh's voice came out of the helmet. It sounded way different up close, but there were traces of his regular voice in there.
But Resh was right, so was Hemera. Jaune remembered what his Upperclassman taught him. You have to adapt to your opponents. Even now they were fighting in their opponent's favor which would only lead them to a humiliating defeat. Jaune raced as he recalled Resh's battle style, to study the battlefield and opponent before attacking. Something Jaune forced him out of to prevent them from losing so quickly. With Resh on the defensive on both of them, Jaune thought how to turn this situation around.
Hemera had her team divide his team. Why? Because they could take us on in a one on one, or two in his case. It was a divide and conquer tactic essentially. That huge wall of rock around the center separated all of them and trapped them with opponents that are better than them. Probably only Rhea could undo it with that large amount of aura…
Aura…
Jaune looked over to Resh. "Resh, how long can you hold that armor?"
"I've been conserving in this fight so… I give it ten minutes if I manage my aura properly…"
"Can you do that thing you did with the Omega Beowolf?" Jaune whispered, putting his shield in front of him and Resh as Hemera slowly walked towards them with gathering energy.
"Yes, but it drains my time keeping the armor up." Resh didn't know where he was going with this, but he trusted his father.
"… Think you can…" Jaune glanced over to Hemera waiting patiently for them. "Pull an Issue 24 from X-ray and Vav?" Jaune asked.
Hemera stopped as she heard it. What the heck was a 24? Did they have a team code talk already? Most first years don't have a worked out team code so soon.
"Issue… 24…?" Resh slowly mouthed as he seeming looked at Hemera. "Wait sir, are you—"
"Let's not waste any time," Jaune smiled at him before reading his blade and pointing it at Hemera. "Follow my lead!"
The two boys charged, with Jaune in the front. Hemera didn't know what they were planning, but she wasn't going to let them do whatever it was. She quickly aimed a light bolt at the ground before Juane, causing the blonde to trip slightly until Resh grabbed him by the shirt and leapt over the smoking crater for both of them and slightly tossing Jaune back into balance.
"Thanks!" Jaune yelled but didn't look back as he ran up to Hemera again. The angelic warrior readied her two laser swords as Jaune came up and brought down a large slash towards her. Hemera jumped back off, but was surprised when Resh instantly did a leap frog over Jaune the moment he landed on the ground and flew with a flying kick.
Hemera was fast, but that second of distraction allowed Resh at his best speeds to catch her off guard. All Hemera could do was block the kick with both of her blades, but she still flew towards the corner/center of the battlefield.
Jaune turned to Resh. "Do it!" He yelled before he charged again at Hemera.
Hemera glanced over to the armored boy, who seemed to be focusing a large amount of aura in his fist. That didn't look good, she had to stop him. She aimed her palm at him and fired a bolt, but Jaune flew in between them with his shield, canceling the attack.
Jaune rushed ahead, heading towards Hemera while Resh continued to charge. Hemera easily dodged a swipe and pressed Jaune with her blade, causing a shock of electricity over the Knight.
"Sir!" Resh called out, but still charging the attack. He felt relieved when Jaune pushed through the pain and slashed at Hemera, who dodged by back away.
"N-now!" Jaune stuttered, but yelled.
Hemera glance over to Resh who had a bright, condensed light inside his fist before bursting into a aura glow that made it look like his fist was on purple fire. He blasted off at incredible speeds to her, but Hemera was still faster, and leapt over Resh as he sped towards her like a powerful locomotive.
…
It was the instant she jumped over Resh that she realized something: the armored boy wasn't aiming for her.
"HYAH!"
Resh slammed into the stone wall with all his might, cracking a large chunk of it, but also pouring his aura into the attack. The large walls started crumbling with purple cracks opening around it before it exploded with another boom!
The crashing sounds echoed throughout the class, some closer students backed upward as they saw even the outer walls crack purple.
Dust collapsed under the battlefield, obscuring all from seeing.
"… Rhea, if you would please?!" Hemera's voice called out from the dust.
The dust parted and the entire battlefield was revealed.
Water had filled the entire floor with chunks of rocks of all sizes scattered through the field. Said water was dirty with leftover soot and floating bullet shells floating on the surface. Some places looked deeper in water than others because of the large holes created from all battlefields.
Ruby's silver eyes eagled around the center. "Guys! There!" She told her team as she pointed.
Resh was dragging Jaune out of the water and onto higher ground on a large destroyed boulder.
"Water!? Where did the water come from!?" Jaune cried as Resh, no longer in his armor, pulled him up.
"Dude…" Resh gasped for breath but seemed fine overall… if one ignored how a lot of dust fell on him and the specks of pebbles on his hair. "Your soaking from the bottom down. Didn't you see the water flooding in when I broke the wall?"
"Excuse me for having slower reflexes than you!" Jaune yelled back.
"Hey! If it wasn't for me you would have been washed away or something!" Resh retorted.
"So it was you two who did that…" Jaune and Resh looked over to see Ren jumping towards them. He was dirty with dry dust all over him.
"Let me guess… your opponent was Rhea?" Resh slowly asked as he saw Ren even dirtier than himself.
Ren nodded then out of the water came Nora who landed with the three boys. "WHOO! THAT WAS AWSOME!" She cheered as she seemed to have a combination of dirt, water, and mud, making her the dirtiest out of the current group. She then looked at her three teammates. "Man you guys look like you had all of the fun…" She pouted.
"Where's Pyrrha?" Jaune asked as he looked around for his partner.
"I'm here…" The four turned to see Pyrrha soaking or pretty drenched in water and mud on a different large boulder. She looked worse off than Nora. "I… wasn't expecting Resh to break the wall..." As she jumped over, they all heard a rather awkward sloshing noise whenever she moved. "… I want to take a nice long shower after this…"
"In my defense… this was our fearless leader's plan to break the wall." Resh pointed to Jaune with his thumb.
"I still wasn't expecting the water!" Jaune defended.
"I believe that is enough."
Team JNPR looked over to see Ms. Goodwitch, using her powers to split the dirty water apart so that she could walk up to Team JNPR.
Glynda fixed her glasses and looked at her scroll. "I would have asked to continue until at least three of your members Aura reach the red zone..."
Team JNPR looked up and true enough, only Resh' Aura was already in the red zone. Everyone else was low yellow except Pyrrha whose was a little above half way. Team ETHR on the other hand were on their low green at most.
"But it appears further fighting might bring the entire classroom down, so I will call this a draw," Glynda fixed her glasses. "However, despite being a draw, you all let yourselves be so easily caught in Team ETHR's trap at the very beginning, so that is a point against you. However, you were able to at least try to come back together around the end which was the right choice when separated as such. So overall, you get a B for today's class."
"A 'B'? For today?" Jaune asked in utter shock. He had to do this every class?!
"Imagine what we have to do for an A! Hahahaha!" Resh bellowed while lightly slapping Jaune in the back and causing dust to gather into his nose. "ACHOO!" … Then sneezing at the back of Jaune's head.
"DUDE!? GROSS!"
"My bad! It came quickly!" Resh explained nervously.
"You did pretty well to earn it, newbies."
Team JNPR recognized that to be Rhea's voice. They looked over and were surprised to see Team ETHR.
For one, they were all cleaner than team JNPR as if they hadn't even fought anyone yet, which caused the opposing first years to feel a little jealous. Next was Rhea was standing on some rock platform along with Ephesto who actually seemed somewhat awake. Beside them were Thalassa and Hemera, both standing on water as if it was solid ground.
"I would give you all an 'A' on my book." Thalassa honestly said, making her look actually mature rather than awhile ago.
"I hope we were able to teach you all a valuable lesson." Hemera added in sagely.
"Wait… we were supposed to teach lessons?" Ephesto asked innocently.
"BOO!" Nora cried out to him.
Team ETHR, except Ephesto, laughed and turned to Ms. Goodwitch. "Professor, want us to help you fix this place?"
"Why thank you. I would appreciate that." Ms. Goodwitch then took out her wand-like weapon and along with Thalassa and Rhea, whose eyes were both glowing their respective colors, they returned all water back into the broken sprinkler while purifying it from all dirt and left over gunpowder. Rhea fixed all the craters and dried up the field then made all remaining boulders go back into the ground as if they were never there. In a few seconds, the battlefield was as good as new.
… Except for a very dirty Team JNPR.
"You may hit the showers now, dismissed." Glynda told them before team JNPR made wearily made their way back into the lockers.
"Aww man. Showers sound so good right about now…" Jaune admitted.
"I'm making mine cold," Resh added in. "I had to tank a few of Hemera's blasts head on, and it was pretty hot after it was done."
"I think warmer water is a better idea to relax your muscles." Ren explained to which Resh seemed to consider.
"Man I got mud all over me! But not as much as Pyrrha! What exactly happened to you when Resh smashed that puny wall?" Nora looked excitedly to her friend.
"… I was being drenched in water by giant snakes…" Pyrrha walked slightly off. Thalassa was rather vicious. She had mud in places she didn't want to have mud, and water where she really didn't want to have water in. She couldn't wait to wash away this battle in the back of her mind.
It was more unfortunate for her that she was the only one in her group that was making odd sounds whenever she walked.
"… Why are you making sounds whenever you walk?" Nora asked but was quickly given a silent look of 'no' by Ren.
"Can we please hurry to the showers?" Pyrrha blushed as she walked ahead… making even more sounds as she moved faster.
"Let's all agree to never mention this to her again." Jaune suggested to his team in consideration to his partner.
"Agreed." They unanimously said.
Meanwhile Team ETHR was going their separate way back to their schedule. Hemera looked to her team.
"Has it been done?"
"I'm not one of those." Ephesto mentioned ambiguously.
"Mine was sharper than he looked, I couldn't risk it." Rhea admitted.
"Mine was also quite sharp-minded," Thalassa admitted before twirling one of her hairs. "But then again, you don't notice it in water…"
Hemera nodded solemnly. "That will have to do. I should also mention that I saw the rumored fifth weapon with the one known as Resh Kolc. If we really want to make a move on the Descendant, he needs to be out of the game."
"The rumors are true?" Ephesto asked only to see Hemera nod her head again.
"Don't worry my beloved sister," Thalassa slowly wrapped her arms around her. "I've got some friends willing to help us out on him… and his team."
"Hey," Ehpesto called out. "As prepared as we all seem. I think we should wait a little longer. I think that Team is good friends with that all Girls team that's the best among the first years."
"I see…" Hemera absorbed the information. "I'll keep that in mind. For now we prepare… now, let's go to class."
And even more freaking build up!
Well sorta, a lot of action in this chapter. It kind of sets up what's happening over the next few days.
Meet Team ETHR! (Yes, I am aware of the actual rules of naming in RWBY, but dear lord that is too much for me to handle.) (I'm so not smart. *Execute Sadness. Exe.*)
Also, this is kind of important: both Hemera Isis and Thalassa Anuket have Egyptian-themed battle clothes. I had a hard time trying to explain that in detail without saying Egyptian since there is no Egypt in Remnant. I think I at least got the necklaces right…
Anywho, not really much on this chapter except action and such, so I might post something else later on if I can finish on time.
… tell ya what.
If you guys want to have the next update out sooner, I would like fifteen more favorites and follows along with five new reviews within three days. That seem reasonable? If not you don't need to, but I do feel motivated to write when I see more people review and like my story.
So right now it's… 46, 17, 60 so if we can reach 61+ favs, 22+ Reviews, and 75+ follows before Friday then I'll post the next chapter later that night on 3/26/2015. However, the faster this goal is reached, the faster the next chapter comes. (I am off this week so I can work a little more on this.)