A split second after the words had left Sun's lips, Pyrrha had thrown her arm out to sling her discus through the air. The whirling shield clipped just over Jaune's head as he ducked, quite nearly mowing through the urine-stained patch of grass atop it.

"Holy crap!" Jaune exclaimed as he quickly hunkered down behind his shield in anticipation of a charge. "This thing might have her fighting style, but it definitely doesn't have her attitude!"

"Not quite!" Elm agreed as she rushed in side by side with her artificial teammate. "It's all nanomachines running on complex algorithms. The Harriet A.I. is far nicer than the real person, despite being just as aggressive as this one!"

Sun snorted in amusement as he leapt backward to avoid Elm's overhead slam. Immediately after he touched down on the ground, a golden clone sprang forth from his chest and hopped atop the back of Elm's hammer, looking to leap over her head. Just as quickly as the doppelganger's foot had touched the back of the hammer's head, jets of fire belched forth from exhaust ports on the back of the weapon, dousing the summoned faunus in flames. Sun's aura-fueled ally disappeared in a shimmer of golden dust, leaving him feeling rather embarrassed as he watched Elm sling her hammer back up and over her shoulder.

"I was not expecting you to be able to react that quickly…" Sun admitted as he whirled his staff behind himself.

"I may be the 'heavy' of the team, but we're Aces for a reason," Elm boasted with a confident grin. "We train against our weaknesses more than anything else."

"Speaking of weaknesses!" Jaune interrupted as he continued a panicked retreat while managing to deflect blow after blow from Pyrrha's relentless advance. "Hate to ask so early, but do you wanna trade opp-"

Before Jaune could finish, Sun had fired a shot for Pyrrha's side, drawing the A.I.'s attention and causing her to turn and face him. Jaune capitalized on the reprieve by moving sideways toward Sun and putting his shoulder into the back of his shield. A pair of rockets crashed into the surface of the shield, pushing Jaune backward along the floor as he gritted his teeth.

"Sure thing!" Sun called as he gave Elm one final look. The woman's hammer had transformed into a bulky launcher, and she swung the weapon around to train its aiming laser upon him. "But uh… I'm gonna need cover!"

Jaune watched two more rockets leave Elm's launcher before steeling himself and moving to act. He flung his shield from his arm as hard as he could, and the spinning barrier crashed into one of the projectiles in midair. The other rocket flew past the shield and toward Sun, only for Jaune to clench his gauntleted off-hand, coating it within a bright white glow. The shield redirected itself in midair and collided with the stray missile, causing it to explode alongside its brother as Jaune ran toward Elm with Crocea Mors pointed down toward the floor at an angle.

"Ah! Marrow helped you redesign your weapon?" Elm asked as she brought her launcher down, letting the weapon begin to retake its hammer form.

"He did!" Jaune confirmed as he reached the Ace and clashed his blade against the shaft of her hammer. "I'm using the same tech he is for his boomerang!"

"Too bad I've seen that tech in action before," Elm reminded as Jaune dipped off to the side. As his shield flew forward toward Elm, she knocked it flat down to the ground with a single swing and put her foot atop it, rendering Jaune without his defensive implement. A collection of green crystals formed around her foot, effectively fusing Jaune's shield onto it. "If you want it back, you'll have to move me."

"Then I guess I've got a goal in mind," Jaune acknowledged as he took a few steps back and readied his sword.

Clear on the other side of the room, Sun and Pyrrha were trading blows with nearly equal frequency. The faunus boy had dismantled his weapon into gunchuks, whirling the devices and firing off occasional rounds as he advanced upon Pyrrha. The digitized huntress backpedaled hurriedly with her rifle raised, firing shots to interrupt Sun's rhythm and causing him to focus upon deflecting high caliber rounds while also trying to fire his own.

"This is so weird…" Sun mumbled to himself as he finally gave up the assault, reassembling his staff and focusing only upon deflection. "You can't talk, can you?"

As if in response, Pyrrha threw her arm out to the side, Xiphos converting into javelin form again as she stared at her opponent, unblinking. She kept her shield raised before her chest, seemingly waiting for Sun's next move.

"…huh," Sun remarked as he began to slowly circle Pyrrha, which caused her to circle in the other direction. "Hesitating? Or pretending to? You've been going all out against Jaune…"

Again, Pyrrha made no effort to reply. Instead, she knocked the blade of her javelin against her shield twice, as if to incite him forward.

"Well, alright!" Sun said eagerly. "Have it your way!"

Sun darted forward before planting his staff into the floor of the arena and firing off a slug into the floor. The force of the shot sent Sun flying high into a spin, and he used his momentum to bring down a devastating overhead slam. Pyrrha just barely managed to get out of the way, and Sun soon found his staff being dragged up from the floor and pushed back toward him as if by an unseen force. Immediately afterward, the weapon tried to yank itself from his grip, though he held on tight and managed to resist.

"So, this thing really can replicate a semblance," Sun mused to himself in disbelief. "Incredible… but my semblance has nothing to do with metal!"

Pyrrha's eyes snapped to her new targets as a trio of doppelgangers bounded forth from Sun and moved to surround her. She tracked one with the tip of her javelin as she kept her eyes on another, and finally, moved her shield in time with the third. Before any of the clones had a chance to attack her, she hurled Xiphos for the closest and watched carefully as it dodged. One of the doppelgangers moved in on her from the other side and leapt into a flying kick, only for Pyrrha to turn him away in midair with a timed parry of her shield. As the clone that had dodged her javelin moved in, she backed up and summoned her weapon back, only to begin making short, calculated jabs at the fake group of faunus pursuing her.

Sun kept his eyes narrowed as he began to sweat with the effort of keeping his semblance running. Suddenly, Ilia's annoyed face popped into his mind, and a guilty feeling along with it. He made a noise of frustration before decided that he would make an effort to move, knowing full well that he was potentially playing with fire. His leg muscles felt like they were coated in cement as he tried to take even a single step forward, and he clenched his teeth so hard that he thought they might shatter. Gravity seemed to weigh him down with twice as much insistence as he made an attempt to raise his foot, feeling incredibly uncomfortable all the while. He closed his eyes and made a strained noise as he focused all of his efforts on taking one small step, only to come up with nothing.

Upon opening his eyes, he saw Pyrrha staring straight at him, and a second later, Xiphos was sailing through the air and directly toward his face. Sun's eyes widened and he dispelled his semblance immediately to allow himself to duck the projectile. Just as quickly as she had thrown her javelin, Pyrrha called it back to herself and broke into a run, her intentions to go on the offensive as clear as day.

"Shit. She's learning on the fly," Sun griped as he steeled himself, feeling quite exhausted. A glimmer of hope swelled in his chest as he realized something, and he tilted his head to one side. "But she didn't need to learn anything against Jaune…"

Jaune spun into a diagonal downward slash, deflecting a blow from Elm with his freshly-retrieved shield in mid-turn. Elm met the attempted strike with her metal bracer, clashing with the blade and sending Jaune's arm back up and across his body. While he was in an unbalanced state, Elm charged forward with a shoulder tackle, impacting into his forearm just below his throat. Jaune was sent reeling until he planted his shield firmly into the ground and engaged a button on the back of the grip. Suddenly, the aqua extensions of energy on either side of the steel turned a deep purple, and the shield held perfectly straight against Elm's follow up kick. Jaune gripped the handle for dear life, and the immobile barrier managed to stop his backward momentum.

"Ah! More gravity dust?" Elm commented as she began to spin her hammer in one hand by the end of the shaft. "Clever! But can it stand up to this?"

Jaune barely got to his feet by the time Elm had gripped her hammer in both hands and started a rocket-powered golf swing. Jets of flame screamed from the back of the hammer's head, and just as she would have made contact with his shield, Jaune disengaged the dust and yanked it off to the side. Elm swung wide into thin air and stumbled forward, giving Jaune the opportunity he needed to throw a shielded punch into her collarbone. Her aura flickered a gentle green, though she was quick to regain her balance as more crystalline structures manifested around her feet. She managed to thrust the head of her hammer outward, clashing against Crocea Mors as Jaune brought the blade down just in time to intercept her strike.

"Not bad!" Elm praised. "You're improving, even since you arrived here!"

"I'm tryin', but you totally let me get my shield back!" Jaune replied as he took a step back to catch his breath. "We should… do this more often…"

"I did… and really?" Elm asked as she perked up. "And here I thought you were getting tired!"

"Exhausted!" Jaune admitted as he began to slowly circle Elm. "But I th-"

"I figured it out!" Sun interrupted as he slid between Jaune and Elm. "Pyrrha's A.I. is trying to fight the 'you' that Pyrrha knew! She can read your old moves! Throw something new at her, and sh-"

A discus to the side of the head caused Sun to stumble sideways, his aura pulsating. The faunus cried out and readied his weaponry while Pyrrha flew onto the scene with a series of rapid jabs, managing to deflect each with whirling gunchuks. Jaune blinked in realization as he took Sun's words to heart, and several ideas came to him in the span of a few seconds. His hands began to move almost automatically as he sheathed his sword. The bladed sides of the shield slid upward past the sheathed sword to double the length of the sword as it narrowed to a point, effectively changing the weapon entirely. Jaune sucked in a deep breath and ran forward to where his former opponent was assaulting his friend, the new weapon held overhead.

"Something Pyrrha's never seen before… well, how about this!?"

Pyrrha turned just in time to see Jaune's two-handed greatsword formed from both parts of Crocea Mors descending upon her, and she threw up her free hand to stop the blade's motion just before it hit her. Though the A.I. didn't blink or change its expression, Jaune could tell that it was trying to process and likely add the new weaponry to its digitized 'thoughts' on the fly. The action bought Sun just enough time to leap in with a flying kick, his sneaker impacting the side of Pyrrha's head and breaking her magnetic control as she fell to the side.

"Yeah!" Sun cheered as he landed with his back to Jaune. "Oh shi-"

Sun barely managed to summon forth a pair of clones to catch the head of Elm's hammer as it descended upon him. The golden duo struggled to hold the weapon in place, their arms quaking as the jets on the back of the sledge screamed to life, forcing them slowly downward.

"Boost me!" Jaune called as he ran at Sun's back.

A third clone appeared behind Sun, crouched low with its hands cupped. Jaune stepped onto the offered platform and was thrown up and over Sun. He descended with a battle cry and two-handed strike for Elm's head, causing her to drop her hammer entirely to get out of the way. Jaune immediately began to advance with a series of wide swings, only for Elm's hammer to become magnetized with a dark, pulsating glow. Just as Pyrrha rose from her position on the ground and focused upon the hammer, all three of Sun's clones grabbed it by the head to keep it from flying back to its owner, initiating a tug of war with the invisible force of Pyrrha's semblance.

"Jaune, behind you!" Sun called out as he remained in place, pouring sweat.

Jaune stopped his assault and turned around just in time to see Pyrrha's shield flying toward him. He narrowed his eyes and aimed the tip of his claymore for the projectile before firing the shield off, leading to a midair clash of steel. Both objects rebounded and flew in opposite directions as Elm capitalized on Jaune's distracted state by leaping to catch his shield as it flew toward her. Sun also took to the air as he dissipated his clones, and he seized Pyrrha's discus out of the air before strapping it tightly around his arm. Elm's hammer was guided back to her as Sun landed, leaving him back-to-back with Jaune as the two of them were surrounded by their opponents.

"Uh… I think we lost that trade…" Sun pointed out as he ran a hand through his sweat-slicked hair. "Any bright ideas?"

"One," Jaune replied as he stared at Elm, who looked every bit the armored berserker with her hammer and his shield. "Gimme one of your guns. We've gotta stay unpredictable."

Sun passed over a pair of gunchuks without hesitation, leaving himself with a single pair of shotguns chained together. He took one in each hand and engaged the hooked blades beneath the barrels.

"Dude, gonna be honest… I don't have much left in the tank," Sun admitted. "I'm about ready to surrender."

"Hold off!" Elm commanded as her ally began to move forward. "Is that a concession I hear?"

"Not yet!" Jaune called, before lowering his voice so that only Sun could hear him. "Maybe we go for something else, if you're low on energy. You know how my semblance works, right?"

"Vaguely?" Sun said as he tried to recall the specifics.

"She doesn't," Jaune said with a smirk as he passed Crocea Mors to Sun and then touched his free hand to the faunus' shoulder. "All in!"

The moment Jaune's hand made contact with him, Sun experienced a rush of aura unlike he had ever felt before. What had been only faint wisps barely holding on mere seconds before became an overwhelming tide, and Sun felt as though he could do anything. Just as Pyrrha and Elm began to move in, he clashed his weapons together and called forth his semblance. A wide ring of glittering gold flew outward from him before it segmented and burst into a small army of clones numbering in the high teens.

"Oh, for the love of…" Elm began as she slung her launcher up and over her shoulder again. "Risky move, you two!"

Jaune replied with a gunshot in her direction as the doppelgangers of Sun began to rush down both of their opponents. He peppered Elm with a hail of bullets all while keeping an eye on Pyrrha, turning and trying to track her while keeping a hand on Sun. Rockets flew through the air, trailing smoke and getting lost in the sea of jumping, kicking, and rolling golden clones occupying the area. Sun could feel his aura draining and being constantly replenished as his doubles were impacted by rockets or impaled by Pyrrha's javelin.

"Sun, I don't have eyes on Pyrrha!" Jaune said nervously. "Can you tell where she is from your clones!?"

"I… um…" Sun considered as he tried to make some sense of the overwhelming chaos.

Without warning, the discus, sword, and gun in his hands began to glow black, giving Sun his only warning of what was coming. Pyrrha flew through the air at incredible speed as she attracted herself to his collection of metal and sank a heavy kick directly into his stomach, bowling him over and breaking his concentration. All at once, his semblance was dispelled and his aura burst as he was sent rolling along the ground in a heap. Jaune managed to get a single shot off on Pyrrha, causing her aura to pulse as she drove her javelin straight through his stomach. Somehow, the digital construct felt like nothing more than a sensation of freezing cold before it sapped all of his aura at once, leaving him totally defenseless. Pyrrha locked eyes with him for the briefest of moments before disappearing in a flash, her javelin dissipating shortly thereafter.

"Everything else she did felt so real," Jaune mused as he looked down at what should have been a fatal wound. "How does it do that…?"

"Dunno," Elm admitted as she sauntered over and clapped a massive hand upon his shoulder. "It just knows when to apply force, and when not to. Thing could probably kill you, if it wanted to. It uses the same learning technology implanted into Hope, apparently."

"Great," Sun said between labored breaths from his place upon the floor. "That's not worrying at all."

"I don't really get caught up in the technical side of things," Elm replied with a shrug as she handed Jaune his shield. "Regardless of that, you kids did great!"

"You stomped us," Jaune said with a weak smile. "I mean, I knew you would…"

"But you did get some hits in," Elm reminded. "And you can only go up from here. We'll get some more training in together in the days and weeks to come."

"Cool," Sun replied breathlessly as he dragged himself into a sitting position, still clutching Crocea Mors and one of his gunchuks. "I need a shower…"

"You need sleep," Jaune pointed out. "And I need breakfast…"

Elm simply laughed as she transitioned her shoulder clap into a friendly punch hard enough to cause Jaune to grab at his arm and hiss.

"In that case, why don't you both shower, and then come with me. I know a good place for food, and I'd like to hear more about both of you."

Sun finally dragged himself up into a standing position and rolled his neck before offering Elm a nod.

"I'm not one to turn down free food. Let's do it!"

Author's Note:

If you don't know better by now, ignore anything I say is coming in the next chapter- things rarely go as I expect them to.

Next chapter is back to Menagerie!

-RD