XXXVII - Xylem

~~~(XXXVII)~~~

Oxon approached the girls of team RWBY as they celebrated their victory in their first round. He was tasked with finding out who they were sending forward. He saw Wiess huff and stow her scroll after just glancing at the contact, giving him his opener.

"I guess even you get spam calls occasionally."

The girl turned to see him walking up, he removed the heady armor after it had gotten soaked during the fight, some was in his casual outfit: dark jeans and a simple plaid button up, complete with denim jacket on top. His casual look hadn't gotten much use since he was required to dress in uniform, but he felt like he could get away with it this time.

"Yes, annoying pests do call me occasionally." Her grin was bright as he walked closer.

"What's up Ox?"

"Not much, just wanted to congratulate you all for a well earned victory." He saw ruby blush and stammer thanks, heh, adorable. "You all were fantastic out there."

"Yeah, we saw your team moved on too, we were surprised at how well you dealt with that Flynt guy." Blake gave a small smile and nod as she said that. It was true, he'd come a long way, even if he had a terrain advantage.

"Yeah, someone like him can't see the trees for the forest, it was child's play to maneuver around there."

"I know you've not on the best terms with them, but I do feel like we never see the other three." For good reason Weiss, he was the only decent one among them.

"Yeah, we were mostly focused on cheering you on so we kinda missed their fights."

"How'd they do?"

Oxon thought for a moment on the tearful eyes of Neon Katt as she looked at her scorched hair and tail. He nodded to himself before answering. "Pretty good, I'd say."

"That's great!" The small leader recovered from her strange state and gave a big smile. "Uh. Why don't we all go and get some victory food together?"

"That sounds like a good time to me, but my teammates are kinda.." Looking behind him, the five of them watched Mercury sniffing the inside of a boot. "... Off. I don't think it would be a good idea."

The girl nodded in agreement at his statement, unaware it was an act. Probably. Mercury was strange about boots.

"So yeah, boot boy and Emerald are gonna be our duos, have you put your plans together?"

Ruby seemed proud of whatever decision was made. "Well, as the leader of this team, I thought long and hard about this decision."

Weiss, though, seemed unwilling to let something go. "We put it to a vote." Ahhhh, so democracy was something they did.

"Yes, but I decided that we should put it to a vote."

Blake spoke up to actually tell him who they were sending forward. "We voted for Weiss and Yang."

Weiss gave a polite curtsie. "I will happily represent Team RWBY."

Yang slammed her fists together with a mighty thwack. "Yeah, we're going to kick some butt!"

"Glad to see you're all enthusiastic. Well, if Merc and Em see you down the line, don't think they'll go easy on ya."

"Wouldn't have it any other way." You say that…

Turning back he saw Mercury getting impatient. "Alright, well my team is going to catch some more fights, I'll try and meet up with you all for food after I let em know."

Ruby hopped in the air slightly in cheer. "Yay! Victory food!"

Waving over his shoulder, he made his way to a waiting Mercury.

"How're the friends?" Just like that, his pleasant mood was gone. He could only give a brief scowl at the silver haired boy, before he schooled his features.

"Good, much more enjoyable than some other people I find myself around."

The assassin rolled his eyes. "You at least get what we want?"

"I still don't understand why it matters. We'll just put who we want together in the end."

"Orders are orders." His lackadaisical attitude towards everything really got on his nerves. "So did you, or didn't you?"

Scowling and unable to look at his "partner", Oxon told him. "It will be the Icy/ Hot duo. A pretty versatile pair all things considered." Technique and superb dust skill would be hard to combat, for anyone other than his group.

"Gonna cheer on your girlfriend in the fight?" A sting of guilt hit him, but he repressed the feeling. He'd once shoved down his positive emotions earlier in the year, now he has been doing that with his more negative ones, mostly around the other students.

"What, you gonna be sad I won't raise a banner for you? Maybe make some signs with your faces on them?"

"If you do that, I'll barf."

"Can't say I wouldn't like to see you suffer a bit."

~~~(XXXVII)~~~

After Pyrrha had arrived and laid for all eight meals, the pair of teams began to dig in. Ruby basked in the post victory relaxation. Now, the only friends of theirs left to fight were SSSN and JNPR. The group was enjoying their food when their more recent friend, Oxon arrived.

"As promised, I'm back." Not so subtly, he switched Blake's and Weiss' bowls so that he could sit next to her partner. Heh.

"Are you all getting ready for your upcoming fight?" Jaune pausedid slurp, and answered him.

"Weah, wou gonbu gest ouo aau." The words he was going to say were unintelligible behind the mouthful of food. She giggled into her hand as her fellow leader wilted under Oxon's raised eyebrow.

"Can I get a translation? I don't speak food."

Clearing his mouth and throat. Jaune tried again. "We're going to give it our all!"

"Well, if it's anything like the last few fights, it should be interesting to say the least."

"Well, we can't all get environments that are as perfect as your little forest." Yang had given a big cheer when that biome came up. The four of them had been excited to see him in his element. They had not been disappointed.

"Yeah!" Nora stood up from her already empty bowl, a horrifying image, and pointed at the guy. "Since when were you the stealthy jumpy type?"

"Yeah, aren't you more of the agro-tank type?"

"Arc, for the last time, I don't understand those references." He turned to Nora next. "I've always been good at climbing, seriously, I can't exactly lol of limbs if I can't get to em. Tree limbs, don't start Nora. But honestly, if it were any more open, I would never have been able to get close to him, let alone win." Still, even ruby would have had trouble finding safe branches to land on, especially while dodging enemy attacks.

"So humble, you fought well. The victory over him helped bring your team to victory." He blushed at the praise her partner gave him, poor Oxon was too easy to fluster. The rest giggled at the dopey look on the normally frowny transfer.

That wasn't exactly fair, Ruby realized. Oxon was a good friend, who just happened to have a neutral expression that made him look mildly upset. Sure, he looked a bit scary and tended to be a bit socially awkward, but underneath that was a regular person who was willing to help and hang out. She was glad they'd invited him to eat together that one day months ago. It definitely made the last semester fun.

Tuning back into the conversation, Oxon was still blushing and rubbing his head in that nervous tick of his. It seemed he really didn't take praise well.

"C'mon, it wasn't that great, I mean Yang took out three at once." Her sister preened under the praise.

"Of course, I am a badass after all. Though I gotta ask, why did you seem so aggressive against their leader? Pre-fight banter aside, you seemed fairly overly excited to fight him."

The tall boy flinched slightly at that question, with a nervous chuckle that didn't sound good, he tried to explain why. "Ah, well, I'm sure Weiss remembers what our first conversation was like. I ran into him again and let's say, it wasn't exactly the most pleasant conversation I'd ever had." Oh yeah, the student seemed to hold a grudge against her from something her dad did. That guy was a butt.

"So the two of you got into an argument?" Weiss seemed curious about whatever it was, the base of the original argument was about her family after all. It was fair she'd be interested. "What was it about?"

Oxon looked away from the group, eyes on the wooden booth. "Nothing that's worth repeating."

"Clearly it was something, dude, it's not every day you look that angry." Jaune coughed awkwardly at what Yang said. Right, yeah, she had set the guy off once before too. Thankfully it didn't escalate, though in the tournament there was nothing but escalation. "The broadcast didn't pick up everything in those woods, but from the video, something obviously happened between you guys."

Yang was good at emotions. She'd had to mature a lot faster when they were kids. It definitely helped in situations like these. Oxon though didn't seem willing to share, they'd likely need to use the power of Weiss for that.

"Not much that deserves knowing, just that he looked down on me, and I wanted to prove myself."

"That's it? There's gotta be more!"

Oxon looked like he was thinking hard about what to say, Ruby wondered why. "It's no secret I'm not from a conventional background, so he thought I was just riding coattails and such. And he wasn't exactly wrong, I just got lucky really."

"Oxon, while you might not think yourself good, you've proven it to everyone watching that you deserve to be here. Well, not at Beacon, since you're enrolled at Haven."

He took a deep breath at her words and clenched his fists. If only he could break this self deprecation of his. Thankfully Weiss was more than willing to help him. She placed a hand on his and gave a gentle smile, that helped calm him down a bit.

"Exactly, you've done well this far. You should have more faith in yourself." She tapped the silver necklace on his neck. The wheel that was displayed was said to be a big deal back at his home. "Clearly your family thought well of you."

"Well, I guess... I uh…" Oxon moved his eyes away from Weiss' to look at the menu, his screamed "complicated". Though it looks like he got distracted from his previous mood by the girl in white. Whether he was flustered by the words or contact, it didn't matter, he looked better for sure. "I'm feeling a bit hungry. I'll just, uh, order something real quick."

The table giggled as the flushed teen tried to get himself under control as he ordered himself a bowl heavy on the protein. Ruby was fairly sure that there was a fourteen ounce steak laid on top. It seemed like Oxon was also unsure as to how he was going to eat it with only chopsticks.

He looked at the monstrosity in slight horror, one felt by the rest. "I'm half tempted to call my locker and use Bulls Breath on this." The words sounded like a joke, but his tone and expression looked dead serious. He began to dig in as the others laughed at the maybe joke. Once everyone but him had finished their meals, the eight Beacon students baked in their various states of full.

Ren seemed cautious on the calorie overload right before their bout. "Are you sure it's wise to have eaten before a fight?"

"Of course! It will give us energy!"

"Does that shopkeeper have a speed semblance?" Oxon's question on the speedy old man went ignored. It was just a pet of Vale life that went without looking into. Like how the same man ran a multitude of other stores.

Nora simply let out a rather hearty belch. The passing civilians and students stopped to stare at her and their group and the mighty burp. Oxon, Weiss, and Blake hid their faces in embarrassment. Like they weren't seen already.

Jaune looked a bit more green than he had been before. "If I barf, I'm blaming you."

"Ooh! Aim it at the enemy!"

"Nora, that's disgusting." Ren paused to contemplate the idea. "But if you feel the urge…"

"Some trees do use bio-chemical warfare…" Ren siding with Nora was expected, but Oxon actually supported that idea? That was just absurd. "I say go for it."

Poor, nauseous Jaune just gave a thumbs up. "Got it."

"Well, we should be off."

Ruby was wondering about how they were feeling, she was so nervous for their earlier fight. She was even a little glad her part was done. "So, you think you guys are ready?"

Nora, being the most energetic, quickly answered. "Of course! We've got a world-renowned fighter on our team, one's basically ninja, I can bench five of me, Jaune. We trained all year, our weapons are awesome, Glynda barely yells at us anymore, and uh... Jaune!" The rest of the table laughed at the amusing confidence the ginger had.

Oxon gave a hearty laugh of his own at the comedic description of their team. Once, it would have been a malicious laugh, but now it was all in good humor. Laughing with Jaune, not at him. It was good to see her friends were friends with each other. "You gonna let that slide, boss man?"

"She's not wrong."

"I'm kidding, he knows I'm kidding." Jaune rolled his eyes but didn't exactly seem offended.

"Don't be so nervous! The worst that can happen is we lose, then is just a few more years of walking around school with everyone knowing we're failures, our friends will slowly abandon us to preserve their social status, we won't be able to show our faces in class, no one will sit with us in the cafeteria, Ren and I have no parents, we have no home left to go to, we'll be officially renamed Team Lose-iper!"

The others gave each other nervous looks at Nora's un-Nora behavior. Oxon raised his chopsticks with meat between them in a deadpan cheer. "To being orphans~." Nora cheered back, gaining a bit of cheer from the odd bit of camaraderie.

"So, yeah, we're feeling pretty good." He did nod to Oxon, which was nice.

"Don't fret. If anything, we should be looking forward to a fight with actual guidelines, and not, well, ...murderers."

Oxon suddenly began coughing violently when he was mid chew. Weiss patted his back as he mumbled something about the wrong pipe between coughs. Ruby handed him a glass of water to try and help.

"Yeah, don't sweat it, we've all faced way worse before."

Blake began counting their misadventures on her hand. "Let's see. Grimm invasions, violent extremists, a destructive sociopath…" The water Oxon used to try and clear his throat also must have gone down the wrong pipe, causing him to renew his coughing fit. Poor guy was having a day...

Leaving him to Weiss, she turned her attention to the other team. "And that's all while we're still in training! Oh, imagine what it would be like to graduate!"

Weiss seemed a bit despondent, sarcastically muttering some words to herself. "Maybe then I'll be able to pay for a meal."

Suddenly, the voice of professor Port came over the loudspeakers. "Would Team JNPR please report to the battlegrounds immediately!"

"Yes! Like they were scheduled to, several minutes ago!"

"Well, it looks like this is it."

Ruby gave the four one last cheer as they walked off. "Go get 'em!"

"You good Oxon? You were choking pretty bad there."

He raised his head, taking deep breaths as he cleared his airway. "Don't worry Red, I'm doing just fine."

~~~(XXXVII)~~~

"AND WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A CONVERSATION! WHAT DON'T YOU GET ABOUT THAT!?"

From his seat with the rest of team RWBY, he could very easily see the face of Jaune Arc zoomed in on. For reasons unknown, the blonde seemed to have forgotten about the match and had been whispering to the other three.

"He does realize he's live, right?" Seriously, how was he not aware of the whole festival thing?

"To all the kingdoms on Remnant." Weiss seemed unable to take her eyes off the debacle.

"Even Menagerie." His eyes slid to Blake as she said that.

That Menagerie saw this was interesting news, but not something he really cared for. "I'm not letting him live this down, ever." He'd give the blonde leader grief for this as long as he was here. Which probably wasn't long now that he thought of it.

"Oh, looks like Nora is going in." Following Weiss' finger, he indeed saw the hammer girl rush the four other students.

Before anyone on team BRNZ could even move, Nora leapt in front of them. In an impressive and terrifying feat of strength, she brought her hammer around to absolutely lay into the four screaming fighters. Why they lined up nice and neatly, he didn't know. Team BRNZ definitely felt it though. The whole group was sent soaring straight into the force field surrounding the arena's rim in rather comical poses.

"And with that, it appears Team JNPR wins by knockout, literally! ...Can someone go make sure they're okay?!"

"Wooooo! Go JNPR!" Ruby looked and sounded very excited about her friend's victory. He and the rest also gave their vocal support for the team, even if Nora caused a forest fire. Oxon was impressed that Jaune had done that well, sure his combat wasn't anything special, but his plans worked well.

Well, until that fiasco with the team meeting. "Still not letting him live that down."

"No need to be so cruel, Ox." Weiss lightly slapped his arm in amusement. "Even I can admit he's come far. Though I don't think he'll be moving onwards to the doubles."

He agreed easily enough, though a bit disappointed Oxon's advice wasn't used in the battle. The stage quickly reset as a new randomizer spun. Once the two teams were selected, the professors turned commentators informed the crowd about them.

"Ah, well, Vacuo fans are sure to be hurting after that one, but this next one will have them on the edge of their seats!"

A quartet of girls in various outfits and different weapons walked onto the stage. They radiated confidence, something he definitely didn't feel when he was down there. One didn't have any visible weapon, but her outfit definitely looked odd.

"Team NDGO of Shade is certainly a crowd favorite, but these lovely ladies are going against some of the toughest, testosterone-filled teammates we've seen so far! I'm of course talking about... Team SSSN!

The cameras then panned over to the conversely all male team. They walked confidently onto the stage, waving to the crowd. "Sun Wukong and his team are certainly a force to be reckoned with, and although he'll be representing the Mistral Academy of Haven, I'm sure his friends and family back in Vacuo will be cheering him along!"

Down below, the teams were within speaking distance. And thanks to the magic of video cameras, everyone saw Neptune make a fool of himself in front of the whole world. It was pretty impressive, striking out with four different girls at once. The five of them chuckled at Sun trying to salvage their image. Poor guy.

"Just think Weissy, that could have been your SO." Yang nudged the girl with her elbow jokingly. Weiss merely huffed at the insinuation.

"I am more than pleased with who I am with. Oxon has been nothing but a perfect gentleman." Well, he definitely tried. Online articles were hit or miss, but he'd not messed up catastrophically yet. Weiss so far has been the one taking charge, much to his relief. There was no way he'd know how to initiate anything. He just was glad she seemed content.

"Oh I'm sure, lumber-beef seems more than happy with himself."

Trying to ignore the heat on his face, he looked down at what seemed like a rather wooden Neptune. The normally cool and collected guy was stiff as a board. The others definitely noticed it as well. "Uh, y'all know why aqua-man over there is acting like a statue?" The others shrugged, except for Blake.

"Oh, no." Oh no? "Neptune's ... afraid of the water."

Well that was a shock the water themed huntsman being afraid of water was… Something. Across the way, he saw Mercury laughing his ass off at the scene below, he'd laugh more if he knew why it was a thing. And Oxon had to admit, this might just be worse than the JNPR fiasco.

As the green haired professor counted down, the five of them wondered what was going to happen. Neptune blitzing past the all girls team to stand in the mountain wasn't it though. It seemed his teammates were less than enthusiastic about his strategy. The green one was vocally upset.

"Well, note to self, add a water gun to my kit."

"Ox!" His joke got a short laugh out of the girl on his left.

"Oh come on, not like you're not thinking about it too. All your water and ice dust sure would come in handy if you fight him in the doubles." She pouted adorably, but did not in fact, deny his claim. He still remembered her planning to combat his own weaknesses when they first met. He suspects she still has plans for fighting him.

"There's nothing wrong with being prepared. True."

His attention was grabbed by the buzzer going off from Sage being thrown out of the area. Unfortunate, he still had most of his aura available. The quick lead wasn't held long though, Sun managed to take out the redhead with the sword.

"Wooooo, go Sun!"

"Kick their butt!"

"Not a surprise he's doing so well, guy's hard to hit." Sun was managing to avoid attacks from two of the remaining members as Scarlett dueled the leader. Neptune was alone, in the desert biome, far away from the action.

"Apparently Sage was one of their better fighters, so him being taken out early is bad." Blake clearly knew a lot about the Haven team from being with Sun so much. Surprised the guy shared Neptune's phobia with her, but the faunus was clearly head over heels for the girl.

The rest of the fight continued with the redhead of team SSSN being eliminated in the worst way imaginable. Oxon, and likely every male watching cringed in sympathy. Poor guy, that's gonna hurt… soon after Sun outed Neptune's phobia to the world shortly before using his shock dust to eliminate the remaining three Vacuo girls.

"And with that, Team SSSN moves on to the doubles round! You know what I call that victory?"

"Shocking?" Yang had a huge belly laugh at the lun by the professor. The rest of them groaned at the awful pun. The Vacuan contingent probably thought it was "too soon" or something.

"No, well earned. What you said is stupid."

"Well they somehow managed to pull it off." Oxon watched with a small smile as the duo began to dance in their victory. "For sure thought Neo was gonna throw that for them."

"Glad those dorks pulled out the win."

He noticed Blake blushing and followed her gaze to see Sun flashing a pair of finger guns and a wink. "Emphasis on dorks." It seemed the two were getting along well. That was nice to see.

That concludes the matches for today. Please leave the Coliseum IN A CALM AND ORDERLY FASHION!

Yang: (after Team RWBY stops flinching from the unexpected volume change) Come on, let's go congratulate 'em.

The four girls and he got up to see their friends. Soon after getting up, he realized he didn't hear footsteps behind him. Turning around showed she hadn't really moved from her seat.

"Uh, what are you doing?"

He waved his hand in front of her to get her to snap out of it. "Snowy? You good?" Huh, normally if he said something like that she'd give a big reaction. This was serious.

Weiss was busy staring up, following her eyes, he saw a rather elegant looking ship. "She's here!"

"Who?" His question went unanswered, the petite girl ran off out of the stands and away from where their friends were heading. He turned to Ruby for an explanation, but she was as lost as he.

"Give the others our best! I'm going to follow her!"

"I'll try and meet you two after I congratulate the others. Text me where you go?" He got a quick nod from the short girl before she sped off to follow Weiss.

I wonder who it could be?

~~~(XXXVII)~~~

Watching a bunch of scenes for inspiration showed something neat. We all know Weiss' weapon has a revolver like chamber system, but I saw that it's actually a top break system instead of a swing out like on Ox's guns. Idk how I missed that before lol.

Also happy birthday to Weiss! Hope that the island she's on is decent.