Chapter 24: Best Day Ever
In which a casual fight to the death breaks out over lunch.
"Friends! Sisters! Weird Atlesian girl who just stuck around! Four score and seven minutes ago, I had a dream. A dream that one day, our three teams would come together and have the most fun anyone has ever had!"
Ruby slammed a dense binder onto the table with a dull plod. "I call it: Operation Radventustlebow Supreme!" She raised a hand in the air for a high five.
"Fuck yeah!" said Nora, her eyes burning with excitement. Delivering Ruby's sought after high five, she asked, "What's the plan, Baroness Rose?"
Ruby opened up the binder. "Step one: we all donate 100 lien to an epic videogame tournament or mind-blowing proportions. The winner gets the jackpot and the loser gets death."
"What kind of death?"
"The best kind. Step two: we raid Beacon's storeroom and drown our pain and suffering in food. Step three: girls' night out – we're gonna set the town on fire! Step four–"
Sky interrupted her. "Why girls night out? What are the boys supposed to do?"
Huh. Ruby hadn't really thought of that. "Well, I guess you can come along. I only called it a girls' night out because the girls make up a majority."
"Majority? But there's an equal mix of girls and boys – er, I mean girls and men," said Cardin.
"No, she's right," offered Pyrrha. "We got five boys and six girls. Seven if you count Penny." The odd girl in question waved. She'd sort of just…not left, ever since coming home with Weiss that night.
An apple hit the red haired girl dead between the eyes. "Pyrrha! What have I said?"
"No excluding Dove from the team," Pyrrha grumbled. "Sorry, Jaune."
"That's right. Go on, Ruby."
It was always awkward for the other teams when Team Adventure had its drama, but Ruby would have her Operation Rainbastlenture or whatever the heck she'd named it even if it killed her.
"Alright. New step three – girls' night out with boys."
"Men!"
"Fine. Girl's night out with men."
Russel muttered, "More like girl's night out with men and a little bitch."
Ruby saw the scoop of mashed potatoes soar through the air from Jaune towards Russel, but unfortunately so did Russel. He ducked, and it went straight into the face of Cardin Winchester. Jaune cowered in fear as the giant man rose from his seat, starchy mush and green scallions dripping off of his nose.
Nora slammed her first down onto the table. "Murder! Arson! Fraud! They've assassinated my squire. You'll pay for this, Jaune Arc!"
She threw a subway sandwich through the air like a javelin towards Jaune. Just before the missile hit him, a string of licorice lassoed it and dragged straight into Pyrrha's hands.
"Team Adventure, stand as one! Form ranks! Defend the centurion with your lives!" Pyrrha roared.
Russel and Dove grunted in agreement and joined Pyrrha in a circle around Jaune. The three raised Sicilian pizzas to form a shield wall between their commander and the foe.
Nora took it as a challenge. "Team Castle!"
"Yes, Queen of the Castle?" three voices called out in unison.
"Lay siege to their fortress, brave knights. Bring me their heads and hearts on a spit! Their lettuce heads and artichoke hearts!"
Cardin nodded to Ren and Sky, and the three jumped into the air. When they reached their zenith, Ren and Sky kicked Cardin down towards the lunch table below. When his body rocketed into one end, the table flipped, and a barrage of meats, fruits, pasta, and cheeses were catapulted towards Team Adventure.
"Hold the line!" Pyrrha ordered, as their pizza shields were buffeted by the buffet.
Ruby was engrossed by the melee until she heard a cough behind her. Blake, Yang, and Weiss were all staring at her. Why weren't they interested in the epic food fight?
"Ruby?"
"Yeah? What?"
"Orders?"
Oh, yeah. I'm also a team leader.
"Uh, if those guys are medieval, and they're Roman–"
"What does Torchwick have to do with this?"
"–uh, then we'll be…Japan!"
"What on Remnant is Ja–"
"Blake, you act as our ninja assassin. Yang will be the samurai since she's our tank. Weiss can be the…uh, warrior monk or something, I don't know. Since I'm the team leader, I'll be the shogun."
"Hai!"
Yang charged forward, picking up a 4 foot churro along the way and lancing into the pizza shields of Team Adventure. Weiss had grabbed a twin pair of croissants and hurled them as boomerangs. One knocked Sky backwards, and the other struck Ren, forcing him to drop his crookneck gourd mace (Beacon had some weird-ass cafeteria food). Blake held back at a distance, tactically throwing waffles that she had taken bites from to make them look like ninja stars.
Yang was strong, but her churro was not. After several blows against the pizza shields of Team Adventure, it got stuck on Dove's extra cheese and broke in two when Yang tried to pull it back. Deprived of her weapon, the legionaries cornered her against the back corner of the cafeteria. Pyrrha and Russel broke formation to allow their leader through, and Jaune held a chocolate dipped pretzel stick to Yang's throat.
"Yield!"
"Never!"
"Then you leave me no choice."
Yang closed her eyes as Jaune raised the pretzel staff over his head for the killing blow. But when he brought it down, it was two inches shorter and just missed its mark. Yang looked up to see Sky Lark behind Team Adventure, crunching on the missing length of weapon. He was holding two orange vegetables.
"That was the stick. Time for the carrot."
Pyrrha reversed and raised her shield to defend them, but Sky jabbed his carrots into the center of her pizza. Their razor sharp points pierced the cheese and sauce and penetrated deep into the crust. Sky pushed the carrots in two different directions, and Pyrrha was left defenseless as her pizza split in two. Dove grabbed an asparagus off his belt and began to duel Sky in Pyrrha's defense. Yang tried to gauge her chances of winning unarmed in a fight against both Jaune and Russel, but she fortunately did not have to.
"Archers!"
The combatants turned to see Nora atop a precariously stacked tower of tables, calling out orders to her vassals. Though it was holding for now, it looked like it could come crumbling down at any minute. Even worse for Nora, Ruby was commanding her shogunate to throw potluck pot shots at the poorly balanced structure.
"Nock!"
Cardin and Ren armed their makeshift spaghetti and watermelon rind bows with flaming kebab arrows.
"LOOSE!"
Team Adventure hid behind their few remaining pizza shields. Sky grabbed Yang while they were distracted and pulled her away. When they were a sufficient distance away, he released her.
"It looks like we're facing a common foe. Shall we work side by side, side dish by side dish until they are driven back?"
Yang nodded, and Sky called out to Team Rainbow. "Comrades! As the Queen of the Castle's emissary, we request an alliance. Let us unite our strength and destroy the heathens!"
Ruby raised a hand, and Weiss and Blake ceased their ranged attacks on Nora's table castle.
Yang waved and shouted, "It's cool guys. They saved me when I was in a bit of a pickle."
"How's this for a pickle!"
A large jar of gerkins whizzed by Yang's head and landed at her feet. It shattered and spread brine and pickles all over the floor. Yang looked at Jaune, who'd thrown it.
"Ha! You missed!"
"Did I?"
Russel, holding a breadstick in one hand, bent down and touched the brine with the other. Suddenly, his body seemed to melt into a pale blue fluid, which fell into the brine. In the blink of an eye, a blob of the same fluid rematerialized out of the pickle juice by Yang's feet and formed back into Russel. Yang blinked in confusion.
"If alliances are okay, so are semblances, right?"
Russel speared Yang directly in the chest with his breadstick. The blow pushed her into Nora's table tower.
It teetered.
It tottered.
It came tumbling down.
Sky could do little but watch as the castle he'd sworn a sacred oath to uphold fell. It swayed back and forth several times before it leaned too far on one side. Like a mighty oak, it plunged towards the cafeteria floor. Sky's eyes tracked its trajectory, and he saw a green figure in the path of danger.
Ren!
Ren's foot was caught inside the center of a Bundt cake, and he couldn't move. Instincts took over, and Sky's legs moved without him telling them to. Ren may not have been his partner, but the young man meant more to Sky than Cardin ever could. He couldn't let the tower come down on him. He just couldn't!
The world was moving in slow motion. Sky reached Ren in time, but the tables were upon them. There was no other way. Sky tossed Ren out of the way and raised his own arms to shield himself as the cafeteria fortress came down. He waited for the crushing weight to envelop him, or for the cacophony of it crashing to the floor to assault his ears, but neither came. Sky glanced up.
Cardin, muscles straining to raise the massive burden, was keeping the castle from hitting the floor. More than that, he was actually lifting it back up. Dirty beads of sweat fell off his strained face, and the ground beneath him began to crack as he held up the load with the might of Atlas.
"The castle…our castle…" he began, voice tight.
"… shall never fall!" finished Nora. She'd somehow made it to the ground without injury despite being atop their fortress and joined Cardin in lifting the tables. Grinning, Sky placed his hands in line with theirs and aided the pair.
Upon seeing Team Castle's formidable display of strength, Russel charged at Sky with a pair of green onions not dissimilar to his daggers, but Ren had recovered from his brush with doom and intercepted Russel with a stalk of celery. Scallion met stem in a vicious flurry of strikes that lasted several seconds. Russel feinted on Ren's right, caught him off guard on the left, and unleashed a devastating strike to Ren's head. Ren fell, but he'd bought Team Castle enough time.
His foe defeated, Russel had just enough time to see Sky heave alongside Cardin and Nora one last time. The castle stood upright once more, and Cardin helped up Nora as she ascended to the highest keep. Sky, seeking to avenge Ren, turned around and scanned the dining arena but, Russel had already dropped his onions and fled. Suddenly, a head of lettuce caught him in the face.
"Honor the alliance!"
Yang hurled another lettuce and forced Russel to retreat into the still spilled brine with his semblance. Sky saw that Team Rainbow was putting the heat on the remainder of Team Adventure…literally. Ruby was slinging molten chunks of baked fudge pudding at Jaune and Dove. Pyrrha was engaging Weiss and Blake simultaneously using only a baguette sword and aluminum pie tin shield to replace her broken pizza. Blake fought her head-on with a stick of salami, while Weiss was throwing bananas from behind them. The bananas curved through the air and returned to Weiss, and Sky was momentarily stunned by how quickly the Schnee had adapted to using boomerangs.
She wasn't the only one had been practicing their new weapon, though. Sky grabbed a metal skewer off a buffet line and swung it on the ground. Sparks flew as the metal scraped the floor and flew onto a nearby s'more, lighting it aflame. Sky pierced the burning snack with his skewer. Now armed with a makeshift imitation of his torch Arson, he joined the melee. Ruby seemed to have Dove and Jaune covered, and Sky wouldn't have had a chance keeping up with Russel as he used his semblance to seemingly melt into the liquids on the floor and emerge elsewhere. That left Pyrrha.
The Invincible Girl was living up to her name. Pyrrha was throwing her aluminum pie tin shield to block Weiss' bananas, but she somehow kept recalling it to herself before Blake could take advantage of it. With seemingly impeccable defenses, Pyrrha was stomping the black and white partners. Sky entered the fray just as Blake was disarmed, her salami blade sent flying out of her hands. The meat stick landed into a pile of flour near Weiss, knocking the powder into the air. Sky blocked Pyrrha's baguette sword and saved Blake, but the flaming s'more on the tip of his torch lit the bread on fire. To avoid getting burned as the flames spread, Pyrrha chucked the bread away from herself…straight into the flour cloud floating around Weiss Schnee.
Pyrrha hadn't mean to blow up Weiss. Honest! It was an accident.
"I'm sorry!"
This one felt hollow. How could an apology make up for literally exploding your friend in a fireball?
"You could surrender and cede Jaune to the queen's justice to make up for it," offered Sky.
Pyrrha hurled her pie tin like a discus, catching him in the throat. "Never! Adventurers, defend the consul!"
Blake spoke up. "I thought he was your centurion?"
Pyrrha frowned at her and motioned to the dropped salami. "And I thought you were supposed to be good with a sword."
Blake looked hurt at the barb. Pyrrha would have apologized again, but she decided instead to attack. Summoning the power of her semblance, Pyrrha pelted Blake with a wave of clams.
"How are you–"
"Shellfish are actually very rich in iron."
"Ok, that's a bit of a stretch–"
A clam bonked Blake straight on her forehead.
Now feeling her heart pounding in the heat of combat, Pyrrha surveyed her allies and enemies. Blake, Sky, Ren, and Weiss (still sorry!) were neutralized, leaving Ruby, Cardin, Nora, and Yang. Russel was lying face down in a pile of greens, but Dove and Jaune still remained in the fight. Even outnumbered, Team Adventure could still turn this around if they played their cards right.
They needed a strategy. Maybe, if she cut off both heads of the King Taijitu…
Nora was wildly launching bitter grapefruit grenades into the fray from atop her revenant castle – out of reach to Pyrrha, and therefore out of her area of conern. Dove and Jaune were back to back, trying to fight off Ruby's broken swirly lollipop sickle on one side and Yang's daikon on the other. Dove was faring well, but Jaune was covered in bright splotches of ketchup, mustard, and perspiration. He wasn't going to last long.
Pyrrha ran his way, drew several forks toward her with her semblance, stabbed them into a pumpkin, and sent the ball of metal and gourd straight into Yang's stomach. The samurai fell to the ground, the wind knocked out of her. Pyrrha joined her team and tossed them each a fresh loaf of bread.
Ruby was now the cornered one, fighting three armed adversaries in an overwhelming melee. She lasted longer than anyone could have expected when so direly outnumbered, but a chance swing of her lollipop stuck it to Dove's breadstick.
Ruby scowled. "I knew I shouldn't have licked it."
Pyrrha drew back her breadstick and plunged it straight into…Yang? The brawler had used the last of her strength to jump in front of her sister and take the deathblow herself.
Ruby cradled Yang. "Sis, please! Don't leave me!"
"It's okay, Rubes. I was never meant to be the hero." Yang weakly smiled. With her dying breath, she proclaimed, "I was only meant to be the distraction."
Pyrrha eyes widened. She whirled around, but it was too late. Cardin swung a gargantuan bag of rice towards Jaune with a war cry. "This is for the mashed potatoes, bitch!"
"No!"
Dove tackled Jaune to the floor, and Cardin's grains slammed into the next person in the way. In this case, that was Pyrrha. She fell out of the battle in an explosive flurry of grain and regret.
Jaune! No!
"Arc, stay behind me!"
Pyrrha could only watch as Dove stood bravely in between Cardin and Jaune. Ruby super-speeded away, likely to regroup with her allies, but Pyrrha knew it didn't matter by this point. Dove and Jaune were without weapons, she and Russel were down, and Teams Castle and Rainbow had three fighters left. The rice bag collided with Dove, but the brown haired boy kept standing. Jaune tried to help him, but Dove held him back.
"I…I won't let you down again, Arc. This is my fight." He turned back to Cardin. "Finish this, you knave!"
Pyrrha wished this story had a happy ending. She wished with all her heart that Dove's noble willingness to sacrifice himself redeemed him in the eyes of the Brothers or Fate or whoever was in charge, and a miracle would descend from the skies to save him. But it was not to be.
The bag of rice struck, and Dove slumped limply to the food-covered floor. Jaune fell to his knees. Even though she'd hated Dove just this morning, Pyrrha felt her eyes welling up with tears.
"And now it's your turn, Jauney-boy. Time to–"
"Hey, Cardin. Say cheese!"
Ruby Rose splashed a pot of liquid cheese dip onto the behemoth knight. Cardin swung his rice, but she zoomed out of range with her semblance and returned a large cooler full of ice and chilled sodas.
"You seem angry, bud. This ought to help you cool off!"
Ruby splashed Cardin with the ice and frigid beverages. Nora screamed in distress as Cardin's molten cheese coating was hardened by the sudden temperature change. Her knight tried to reach for Ruby, but he slowed down with each passing second until he was completely immobilized by a thick layer of solid cheese.
"Shogun?" Jaune asked cautiously.
"Don't get any ideas, Consul – you're next. But I wasn't going to sit around and let the Queen sic her knight on me after she took you down. Our alliance served me well, but a wise shogun betrays her allies before they can betray her."
An ear piercing screech forced both of them to put their hands against the sides of their heads, lest it deafen them.
"REEEEEEEEEE!"
The rage-filled death noises coming forth from Nora's mouth could only be matched by the God of Darkness' diabolic malediction itself. Jaune prepped for the three way fight by arming himself with a brussel sprout stalk. Ruby ran at him, but a bright green light began to shine from the far side of the room.
"I am food fight ready!"
Penny's ten swords, each with an olive stuck on the tip, rotated in the air. Bright green lasers tore through the three team leaders. Nora fell from her castle, and Ruby and Jaune collapsed in a heap on the floor.
"It would appear that I have emerged victorious. Does this mean I am the new Queen of the Castle?"
Nora reached out weakly towards the adversary. "You blackguard…I'd rather burn my keep to the ground than let an usurper claim it!" She grasped a Carolina Reaper chili pepper lying on the floor in front of her and thrust it into her mouth. Flames came out in a violent burp and lit the tables of Team Castle's castle on fire.
Just then, Professor Goodwitch enter the cafeteria. Pyrrha watched as the teacher raised her riding crop and flicked it gently. The flames went out, food flew back towards the kitchen, and the charred tables realigned themselves in neat rows.
"Children, please. Do not play with your food."
Nora burped flames onto Goodwitch, singeing the bottom of her dress.
"That's a full day of detention. For all of you."
"Noooooo!" cried Ruby. "My Operation Rastvenboturlow!"
Omake
Weiss: *gets blown up in a cloud of airborne explosive powder*
Weiss: Dammit, Ruby!
Ruby: That wasn't me.
Weiss: Sorry, force of habit. Dammit, Pyrrha!
Next Chapter: Adapt or Die – In which love is in the air, but heartbreak can't be far away.