We see the Amity Colosseum's mountain biome being bombarded by several explosions all around the area. Russel Thrush, daggers in hand, was running from the mayhem before spinning around, ready to face his opponents, who turned out to be the familiar face of Penny and her beret-wearing teammate. With an ever-present smile and simple arm movements, she summoned six floating swords from behind her and reared them back before launching them in a ring at Russel, who barely managed to duck behind a rock to protect himself.
"Cowards. They're a disgrace to Beacon." Kratos grumbled.
"Definitely not the cream of the crop." Dante agreed.
Wasting no time, Penny did the same thing with another group of blades, homing in on the other CRDL teammate Sky Lark until he used his own halberd to vault over another stone for defense. The two exchanged a worried look at the sight of their rocks still pierced with multiple blades and Penny grinned in combat-ready fierceness as she looked to her partner, who simply tapped her watch as if hurrying Penny up.
"What a bitch." Bayonetta said, glaring at Penny's partner.
"Exactly. You have no right to tell someone to hurry when you yourself are doing nothing." Ryu agreed.
Wasting no time, Penny raised her hands like a puppet-master and used the near-invisible strings attached to each hilt to lift the giant rocks up in the air, with the screaming Russel and Sky still hanging on. Bringing her arms down to her sides, the stones came crashing to the ground as well, leaving Penny's opponents in the grass. Her swords came back to her pack as the buzzer rang.
"And victory goes to Penny and Ciel of Atlas!" Oobleck announced over the broadcaster's system.
"Thank you for a wonderful time." Penny said, placing a fist in her palm and bowing in respect to her fallen foes, still smiling.
The two victors turned to leave the stadium as Russel feebly reached out, only to get hit in the head by an errant stone.
"That's one of the many signs that should tell Team CRDL to stay down." Bayonetta said.
Watching from the stands, Ruby saw them start to walk away and excitedly got up form her seat with the rest of her team to meet them at one of the exits. Bayonetta noticed this and followed after her sister.
"Penny!" Ruby called out as she caught up and spreading her arms.
"Ruby!" Penny said happily, lifting up her own arms as she tackled her friend into a hug that left them both of them on the ground.
Ruby grunted as the two hit the ground. "Why..." She groaned weakly.
"Penny, you really need to limit that enthusiasm." Bayonetta said, helping them back up.
"Ruby, this is my teammate." Penny said as she got up energetically and gestured to the other girl.
"Ciel Soleil." She introduced herself, bowing formally.
Ruby raised her hand in greeting. "Hi! I'm Ru-" She started.
"Ruby Rose. 15. Hails from Patch. Leader of Team RWBY. Status: Questionable." Ciel stated rather bluntly.
Bayonetta glared at this, before smirking. "As questionable as your usefulness in that last battle." She said, Ciel glaring.
"Penny had the situation well under control. There was no need for me to assist." Ciel explained.
"Yet you felt the need to hurry her along despite the fact you weren't doing anything to end the fight any faster." Bayonetta countered.
Ruby was silent for a second. "Sooo... Penny!" She said, turning back to her friend. "You two were incredible out there." She congratulated.
"Oh, sorry, I think my sister's mistaken. Penny, YOU were great out there. You know, since you were the only one who did anything." Bayonetta said, smirking at a now furious Ciel.
"If all students of Beacon are as foolish as you, it's no wonder those boys were so easy to defeat." Ciel said.
"Those boys are part of the weakest first year team currently attending Beacon. If you were up against our team, I guarantee things would've been different. And you would've definitely been put down first." Bayonetta said.
"How do you keep control of all those swords? It's so cool!" Ruby said excitedly.
"Penny?" Ciel asked as she looked at her watch and gestured at it. "I believe it is best if we move on to our next location." She said.
"Good idea. You can find somewhere else to be useless." Bayonetta said, Ciel now fuming.
Penny exchanged a look with Ruby. "Could we have just a minute to talk?" She asked.
In response, Ciel checked the time, then took a step back and nodded, starting the countdown.
"So is she... your friend or...?" Ruby asked.
"Well, in a way. She's like Blake, but if Blake was ordered to spend time with you." Penny explained.
"Oh. So, Weiss." Ruby corrected.
"Precisely." Penny confirmed.
"Does she know about... y'know... beep boop bop, does not compute?" Ruby asked, lowering her voice as she moved her body abruptly as if imitating a robot, leaving her arm to hang with a noticeable squeaking sound.
"How are you doing that?" Bayonetta asked her sister.
"Oh no. General Ironwood doesn't really want anyone to know. There was an incident with a magnet, but I was able to play it off." Penny answered, shaking her head.
Flashback to the Vytal Festival grounds with Ciel and Penny, who's wearing a large sun hat. The wind picked up and lifted the hat from her hair, revealing the aforementioned magnet on her skull and Penny quickly shoved the headgear back on before Ciel turned back around. The story caused the sisters and Penny to laugh about it in the present for several seconds.
"Ruby, there's something I've been wanting to talk to you about." Penny said, still smiling, but getting serious, glancing over at Ciel before leaning in. "I want to stay at Beacon." She whispered to Ruby.
Ruby looked troubled by the news. "Penny, they'll never let you do that." She warned.
Penny frowned, but then grinned with mischief. "I know, but I have a plan." She said.
"It's been precisely one minute, ma'am." Ciel informed, stepping back up to Penny's side and pointing to her watch.
"I'll talk to you more soon, Ruby." Penny said as the two Atlesians left, but Penny turned to give a wave of farewell to Ruby, who did the same.
"Sometimes I worry about that girl." Bayonetta said.
"You shouldn't." Ruby said.
"Our next match will begin in 15 minutes!" Port announced over the stadium speakers.
"Oh, goodie. I've been waiting for this one!" Bayonetta said.
Ruby gasped and suddenly looked really excited as she clasped her hands together. "Oh my gosh, that's right! It's time for-" She started.
Ryu and Kratos were now in the ring. "So, now we face off against Mistral. This will be interesting." Kratos said.
"Indeed. It'll be nice to see what kind of fighters our old home produced." Ryu said.
"Of course, just because we came from the same Kingdom doesn't mean we'll take it easy on them." Kratos said.
"Of course not. Vale's our home now and we're here fighting for Beacon, not Haven." Ryu answered, Kratos nodding.
There opponents soon arrived on the stage across from them. The first was a girl with white hair, golden eyes, dark skin, large breasts and a scar across her nose. She wore a black jacket with a white zipper tee and torn-up denim short shorts, along with knee high brown boots with black heels, yellow-outlined straps and white metal-toes. A single belt crossed her waist with considerable length that has its tail end point out from her left-to-her right from behind and she has a large golden gauntlet-like weapon on her left arm and a golden vambrace on her right arm with a golden, spiked elbow pad and a small plate of armor on the back of the hand with spikes on two of the knuckles. "I hope you boys are ready for me." She warned.
"We're ready for anything." Kratos said.
From the stands, Ruby smiled as she looked at the girl's weapon. "Whoa! Sis, that's like a GIANT version of your Ember Celica!" She said.
Yang shrugged at this. "Eh. It's not how big it is, sis. It's how you use it." She said, but then smirked. "But still, I wouldn't mind taking her on and showing her mine are better." She said.
Their other opponent was a young man with spiky gold hair, blue eyes, brown/tanned skin, a defined squared jaw and light facial hair. He also had a large, wedge-shaped scar on his left cheek. He wore round glasses, a large white cassok with blue trim and interior, black pants, black boots, a black shirt with blue trim, white gloves and a silver cross around his neck. "Ah, Ryu Hayabusa and Kratos Nikos. The bloody heathens who'd rather join up with Beacon and Vale instead of the Kingdom he came from." He said.
"Well, you know who I am, but I'm afraid I can't say the same. What's your name, man?" Ryu asked.
"Alexander Anderson. My name is Alexander Anderson. And I like killing things because it's fun. So just you pray. Just you pray." His opponent answered, reaching into his coat and pulling out 4 bayonets in each hand, one between each of his fingers.
"Bayonets. Always a nice choice of weapons." Bayonetta said.
"They look pretty tough, but I think Ryu and Kratos got this one." Dante said, smirking. "In the mean time, we can just sit back and enjoy ourselves." He said, putting an arm around Bayonetta's shoulders.
"I love the way you think." She said, leaning onto his shoulder.
"And the next match, between Beacon's Ryu Hayabusa and Kratos Nikos, once Mistralites themselves, versus Haven's Alexander Anderson and Bullet... uh... no last name provided... will now begin!" Port announced as the 4 biomes of the arena rose up, revealing themselves as the ice tundra, ocean, an anti-gravity zone with a number of floating rocks and finally, the forest.
"Certainly an interesting collection of environments." Ryu said.
"There is no environment I have not already faced." Kratos said.
"3... 2... 1... BEGIN!" Oobleck announced.
Background Music: "Last Resort" by Papa Roach
Ryu rushed in with his claws at the ready, locking them with Anderson's bayonets, the two struggling briefly, before Ryu threw a kick, Anderson jumping back just before the knives on Ryu's boot could cut him. Anderson threw his bayonets at Ryu, who responded by flinging his Windmill Shuriken, easily cutting threw the smaller, thinner blades, but then noticed his opponent was gone, only a few golden pages where he was. "What?" He asked, before sensing something behind him, seeing Anderson lunge out of a swarm of golden pages right at him, hitting him in the face with a massive haymaker that knocked him back, but Ryu managed to draw his howling cannon and blast the saint back.
Meanwhile, Kratos rushed in with his Nemean Cestus and threw his massive fists at Bullet, but his smaller, more agile opponent easily moved around him and landed a flurry of powerful attacks with fiery blasts behind them, knocking him into the air, jumping up after him and kicking him back down to the ground, grabbing him again and blasting him back with a fiery burst from her gauntlets.
"Oh, my! Kratos is quite powerful, but it seems young miss Bullet's speed is too much for Mistral's champion!" Port announced.
"Is that all. You were a champion back in Mistral." She said.
"I'm just getting started." Kratos said as he got back to his feet. She shot a twisting burst of fire that slid across the ground towards Kratos, but he slammed the cestus into the ground and swung them forward, creating a huge wind that disperse the fire and knocked Bullet off balance, allowing Kratos to rush in and land a devastating uppercut that launched her into the air, before he launched and slammed the lion heads of the cestus into her, sending her flying back.
Anderson threw several more bayonets at Ryu, who threw his own kunai to knock them out of the air, the two clashing once again when Anderson closed the distance between them. Anderson's bayonets repeatedly broke against Ryu's claws, but he somehow had more for every one that broke, which he constantly discarded, soon littering almost the entire tundra with the bayonet handles.
"What an unforeseen event, ladies and gentlemen! Alexander Anderson seems to have a seemingly endless number of bayonets from him to replace his damaged ones!" Oobleck announced.
Finally switching his tactics, Anderson tossed the broken bayonets at Ryu, who blocked them, but this left him open for a massive boot to the chest from Anderson, knocking him back into the next biome.
As this was happening, Kratos and Bullet were on pretty even footing. Bullet was still landing many more attacks, but Kratos was able to withstand them and managed to land a few powerful attacks as well. However, Bullet became deadly serious. "System Override!" She announced, a flash of fire surrounding her, causing her to glow orange before she rushed in. Kratos tried to hit her with a burst of wind from his gauntlets, but she amazingly powered through it and caught the former Spartan in a particularly long combo, throwing him into the air and to the ground repeatedly, eventually even into a large glacier. "Huh. Some champion." Bullet scoffed, rushing in, preparing to eliminate her opponent.
Pyrrha and Jaune stood up at this. "Come on, Kratos!" Jaune shouted.
"Don't give up, brother!" Pyrrha called.
With this, something snapped in Kratos. With a roar of fury, flames appeared to surround him as he rushed in and began hammering on Bullet. His attacks were at least twice as strong as before and even his aura was steadily replenishing. She managed to land a few attacks on him trying to defend herself, but these didn't even faze the former general, who continued to pulverize her, until with one final jumping smash that knocked her back, the flames faded, leaving Kratos exhausted, while Bullet was beaten, her aura having dropped from 60% to a mere 25%, but it was still enough for her to continue.
Back with Ryu and Anderson, the former priest jumped high into the air with only one bayonet in each hand this time, attempting to drop down on Ryu, but found himself. "What the blood sucked, protestant hell is going on?!" He asked as he floated in the air.
"Oh ho! It seems as though our anti-gravity biome has claimed yet another victim!" Port announced.
"Truly, one of the most dastardly terrains this arena has to offer, second only to the volcano region!" Oobleck agreed.
Ryu was surprised at this, then thought of something from his past life. "I can use this." He said, doing some hand signals, dropping into a crouch and spinning with his arm out, using Ninpo to cut out a chunk of ground just large enough to use as a platform, the lack of gravity raising it into the air, allowing him to ride the boulder like a surfboard. Ordinarily, he'd need Ninpo to fly the platform, but in this case, the anti-gravity field did it for him.
"Whoa!" Ruby said.
"He can do that?!" Ren asked. He'd never seen his friend use such a technique before.
"Alright, Ryu! Get him, baby!" Nora cheered.
Ryu chuckled upon hearing this. "I'd better not disappoint her." He said, flying the platform towards Anderson, who still struggled to move in mid-air. Ryu readied his staff and attacked with several fly-by attacks. Anderson managed to block most of these attacks, but eventually, Ryu managed to break through the bayonets, unleashing a devastating combo on the former priest, finishing with one more powerful swing, sending the priest flying, before he stopped time with his Ninpo, spinning and flinging the platform he previously stood on at Anderson, stopping a few feet from the bayonet wielder. Remembering a tale from Bayonetta's past life, he then disappeared and reappeared near several smaller, yet still decent-sized boulders and launched them towards his opponent. Finally, he reappeared on the ground in front of Anderson with his back to the priest, time restarting and all the boulders slamming into him.
"Oh, my! Blink and you miss it, people! Ryu somehow managed to redirect several boulders into Alexander and defeated his opponent by knockout!" Oobleck announced.
"Woohoo! Yeah, Ryu!" Nora cheered.
"Count on Ryu to give us an over the top finish like that." Dante said.
"Taking a page from my book, I see. Well done." Bayonetta said.
Meanwhile, the tired Kratos was doing his best to withstand Bullet's charged up attacks, but the energy he'd spent with his raging attack before left him struggling even more to contend with her. "You asked for this!" She snapped, grabbing him by the throat and lifting him into the air, firing three powerful, fiery blasts into his face, before turning around and slamming him into the ground, her giant gauntlet turning into some form of massive drill cannon. "System overload maximum output!" She shouted as the cannon fired directly into Kratos' face, creating a huge explosion, sending dust everywhere and creating a crater the size of a medium-sized swimming pool.
"Kratos!" Pyrrha and Jaune shouted.
"Whoa!" Yang said in shock, her mouth hanging open.
"Sis? I think she uses it better than you." Ruby said, her sister merely nodding.
"Damn. That's a weapon with some power behind it." Dante said.
"Definitely, but not quite enough power." Bayonetta said.
"Target eliminated." She said, walking out of the smoke.
"Not yet..." Kratos said weakly as he stood back up.
"What?!" Bullet asked in disbelief, turning around to face Kratos as he once again unleashed his Spartan Rage, clearing all the dust, rushing in and landing several more devastating punches, ending with one final jumping smash that sent her skidding a few feet across the ground, unconscious.
End Music
"Amazing! It's over! Ryu and Dante win with two devastating knockouts!" Oobleck announced.
"Truly, the power these two possess is not to be trifled with!" Port said.
Kratos panted heavily as Ryu walked up and patted his back. "Excellent work out there. I don't think I'd still be standing after taking a blast like that." He said.
"You weren't bad yourself. That rock barrage was a masterfully done." Kratos said.
"Hey! Nice work, you two." Dante said as he and Bayonetta walked up.
"I hope you actually managed to watch and didn't spend the whole time making out." Ryu said.
"How rude, Ryu! We know when something's more important than locking lips. Of course we saw the fight. You both did well. You even took a page from my book, I saw." She said.
"Thank you for sharing it." He said.
"Come on, guys. Let's get something to eat. You guys earned a pizza." Dante said.
"How generous. You can afford to buy any restaurant in Vale, let alone any meal from them, yet we're still going for pizza." Kratos said, rolling his eyes, but still smiled.
Later on that evening in a certain Beacon dorm room, Cinder was sitting on her bed looking through files on her Scroll. Azula sat next to her, filing her nails and occasionally glancing at Cinder's scroll. Emerald was lying on the floor also playing with her own device and Mercury was doing push-ups beside her.
Suddenly, the leader of the faction stumbled upon something very interesting. "Oh." Cinder said, her eyes widening in surprise, followed by a smile.
Azula looked as well, also a bit surprised, before gaining her own smirk. "Well, now. Atlas is certainly full of surprises." She said.
"What?" Emerald asked, looking over with Mercury.
"Oh nothing. We're just going to be making a slight, hmm... alternation in the plan." Cinder explained as she accessed a document regarding the blueprints of "P.E.N.N.Y."
Mercury and Emerald shared a somewhat concerned look. "What does that mean?" He asked.
"It means that this will be even easier than we thought." Cinder explained while continuing to look at the familiar image of a robotic redhead.
"It looks like we've found the perfect person to help send our message." Azula said.
"Indeed." Cinder said with an evil smirk.
Within the headmaster's office at twilight, Professor Ozpin was facing the window, his back to the elevators when the doors opened and Qrow stepped inside, approaching his desk with coffee mug in hand.
"You know, he's making you look like a fool." Qrow said.
"His heart is in the right place. He's just... misguided." Ozpin defended the general.
"Sometimes, I'm not even sure he has a heart." Qrow countered as he took a drink from his cup and shifted his weight. "So, have you chosen your guardian yet?" He asked.
Ozpin swirled his chair around to face Qrow. "Maidens choose themselves. I simply believe I've found the right candidate. I doubt her brother will approve of the idea, but ever since the day I met her, I had the feeling she would be the one. She's strong, intelligent, caring... but most importantly, she's ready." He said.
As he listed these qualities off, Pyrrha was seen entering the elevator of the Cross Continental Transmit System tower. She turned just when the doors closed on her ominous smile, and the scene cut to black.
A/N: Another chapter down! I hope you all enjoyed it, especially Team SCRN's fight against Bullet and Anderson. I still say Bullet should be in Cross Tag Battle and have an interaction with Yang. Fun fact: in my earliest plans for the story, Team SCRN was actually going to be Team BARD: comprised of Bayonetta Belladonna: Blake's older twin, Alucard Rose: ruby's younger twin... and Ryu and Dante would've been the same. But, in the end, I changed it because A: Team BARD sounded lame and B: Alucard seemed a little too indestructible for the RWBYverse. But who knows? Maybe one of you out there could make it work with your own team. Big thanks to merendinoemiliano and Israel Pena for their ideas to help me give this story a unique twist from the regular canon.