"Do you know what the 'Root' of a particular instance of magic is?"
"Its the path you have to follow down the tree of magic to reach it."
"Can I have an example?"
"Sure, let's go with... umm... Water magic. So first you have Mana, that leads into practical Magic, then spells, then the conjuration type, then the elemental category, and finally Water magic."
"Correct. Now, for something more complex... what about summoning?"
"Oh, that one's a double path Root. It has one path leading from conjuration, and one path leading from rituals."
"And what is the ritual path?"
"Oh... right so... that's also a double path. For that one, you follow mana to technical magic, into Enchantments which splits into curses, and combine enchantments with curses to make rituals."
"Correct."
"Summonings path is so complex... is that why it's the most powerful kind of magic?"
"No... it's not the strongest magic. But tell me, in a one on one fight, what is the most powerful strategy you can use?"
"Umm... I... don't know."
"It's simple really... turn it into a two on one."
Ruby Schnee
The battle was only a second in, and yet it was already one of the most fierce Ruby had ever seen. The whole Colosseum had filled with the potent smell of the ocean almost instantly, and the ground of the arena was now fully covered in an inch or two of water. Somehow in this even playing field, Neptune had given himself the environmental advantage straight away.
There were screens spread all across the barrier separating the spectators and the fight, showing a much closer and better view of the battle. For their private booth however, there was a personal one that was much easier to see, and each throne had access to a smaller one they could view right in front of them as well. Ruby was watching on Weiss's at the moment, but she actually picked up a small detail... the screen wasn't actually a perfect viewing... it was like heaps of pictures shown in quick succession to give the illusion of seeing something actually play out. It was a pretty interesting detail to pick up, and she wondered momentarily if all screens and TV's worked this way... she hadnt actually looked at one since becoming a Dragon, and her now much better eyes were all that let her notice it.
She glanced up and took a step closer to the rail to get a view of the fight. She was hundreds of metres away from it, yet thanks to her telescopic vision, she could actually get a cleaner view of the fight... not that the screens were choppy, but even with them going through over a hundred of those pictures a second, Ruby could still catch more details by seeing the fight live. A chuckle to her right made her turn away momentarily, and across the booth was Carmine practically leaning over the railing to watch the fight. Their eyes met for a moment and the smirk she gave Ruby was enough to make the Dragon return to her wifes side and watch from the screen instead.
Jaune was transformed by now, the familiar glow of the Hero's aura lit up his armour, and his body underneath shone with a radiant ember under the skin... he was using Enhancement magic. Thanks to Holy Magics unique properties it didn't take any of his concentration, so he was fighting on a much higher level now. Ruby momentarily thought back to their battle during the Hunter Exam... it was funny. Six months wasn't a long time in the grand scheme of things, yet both of them as they were now could each defeat both of them from then at the same time... well, Ruby may have a harder time then Jaune now actually...
In truth, she believed the Hero had surpassed her. She was still without a magic weapon and a proper fighting style, her power only being boosted since then by her new magic item - The Anti-Aegis - and her ability to cast much more magic then previously. Healing magic in particular had proven to be incredibly handy, and her current 'fighting style' involved a lot of simply attempting to overpower her opponent... which was a viable strategy against most opponents, it was rather difficult to be stronger then a Dragon. Previously her list of people she knew were stronger then herself was only four... and yet...
With another glance at Carmine, she let out a small sigh.
"Its at least six now... then again..."
This Neptune guy... Ruby didn't know what it was about him... but she got a bad vibe from him.
Jaune Arc
"Water... I have to watch out for the water..."
It was painfully obvious, yet something he kept having to remind himself. His instincts were telling him to focus all of his senses on the man himself, but the real threat so far was the very ground beneath their feet... or rather the water on top of it. Jaune would step and he would feel it shift with a strong current, or swirl around his leg like a vice trying to trip him up. When he tried to charge the man, it would shoot up as a wall in front of him, it almost resembled a barrier, and trying to attack it resulted in the expected result, it simply deflected his blade and knocked the Hero off balance temporarily.
Jaune needed a new strategy, or rather any strategy at all! With a leap back he decided to gain some distance instead of approaching. Currently neither of them could win at this rate, either Neptune would have to use some higher level spells, or Jaune would have to reach him. Jaune was banking on the idea that this would come down to a close quarters fight eventually, and in order to prepare for that, he chose to make his opponent waste mana while he could.
The Hero did the opposite of what was probably smart and dropped to one knee, planting his hand into the shallow water and sending a pulse of mana through it. His teeth grit as their spells clashed, but thanks to a type advantage his own won out. An Ice spell that was simply meant to freeze, but cast through his Holy Magic it gave off a radiant glow as the water in a ten metre radius around him froze over. He quickly rose back to his feet and eyed his opponent down... he felt like a guardian of the land facing down a guardian of the ocean... while he stood on a pebble in the middle of the sea.
He quickly shook his head.
"That's stupid..."
Regaining his composure, he realised quickly that he had just created a stalemate. His opponent not willing to come to him, and him not willing to leave the safety of his very small and very thin iceberg. And so they waited, it felt like hours but in reality it was probably only five minutes... thank God these fights didn't have a time limit. He kept his sword ready but didn't hold it in his stance, choosing to relax his body and recharge the small amount of mana he had used up so far.
"Let's go over what I know."
His opponent was clearly a long to mid ranged fighter judging on how he had made the start of this fight go, which would likely result in Jaune taking the win if he got in close enough to make it a proper battle of weaponry. While Neptune did have a better weapon then his own, Jaune more then likely took the edge in physical abilities. The closer he got, the easier it would be to end this. Even better was the nature of the fights in this arena... the whole thing was apparently charged with some very complicated magic, a plate sitting just below the flooring of the arena that stretched under the whole radius. The plate held one of the biggest magic circles in the world, and had more runes written in it then were likely written in the whole of Beacon, or even the castle. The powerful ritual was constantly going, and it was supposed to act autonomously when needed, activating a barrier around one of the fighters when it registered as them having lost.
It was supposed to make the fight a battle to the death, minus the whole landing of the final fatal blow... if Ruby herself hadn't checked out the ritual multiple times over the last few months and confirmed it's effects to Jaune... well he wouldn't have believed it. But it was the same circle that saved every other contestant every festival, and was strong enough to stop a full powered swing from Qrow so... well, suffice to say if Ruby trusted it, so did Jaune.
"Which means I don't have to be gentle with this guy."
Readying his sword again, he had a plan formed in his head. The water was automatically reacting to Jaunes movements, it was faster then both Jaune and Neptune. Otherwise Jaune would be moving too fast for Neptune to manually make the water trip him up like that... which left Jaune with a rather simple solution.
Gathering mana into his legs... he gave the man a small smirk before his body exploded with force, shattering the ice he stood on and sending him sailing up into the air. He kept control of himself as he soared, managing to orientate his body into a dive straight down onto the man, and forcing him to use manual spells.
Neptune raised his arms and the water around him reacted, shooting up in giant formations at Jaune and forcing him to dodge mid-air, luckily the water meant to serve as threats to him had to be solid enough to actually damage him... so with a few leaps and kicks here and there he could dodge all of the incoming attacks as he fell straight in front of Neptune, now flipping the entire flow of the battle as he finally entered melee range.
"Those spells you cast manually-"
He quickly moved, not relenting for a second and choosing to force more mana into his body to power it up, his entire strategy now devolving into ending this here and now. The waters shifting was annoying sure, but if he just powered himself up to the point were he could just move straight through it... it became less of a problem.
"-Unlike the water still on the ground, they don't react automatically to me-"
Jaune knew Neptune had a secret weapon, it was obvious by the mana coming off of him... he just had to end this before Neptune got a chance to play it. His movements were vicious and the intent to kill was fueling his attacks, each swing only a hairs breath away from connecting with Neptune or his armour... Jaune mentally cursed after each miss, though luckily he was too fast for the man to retaliate.
"-Which means that the water on the ground... those spells... you're not the one casting them."
Neptune was being forceably moved by the water beneath him, it wasn't his own physical might keeping up with Jaune's movements. He moved around like a puppet on strings, his body lagging behind his legs and his arms being the last thing to move out of the way of Jaunes attacks... which gave the Hero an idea.
Jaune kept the heat on, not letting him escape or breathe for an instant. So long as whatever was helping Neptune was busy with both trying to delay Jaune, and moving him out of the way of Jaunes attacks, then it couldn't do anything more serious then that. Jaune just had to keep this up, and wait for that perfect chance, the perfect opportunity or wrong movement from the puppeteer... Jaune was going to take off one of Neptune's arms if he could.
Their movements grew more rapid as Jaune picked up the pace even further, forcing his opponent to respond in kind. They were locked in another stalemate of Jaunes creation as the puppet dodged and weaved through his attacks and Jaune chased, practically leading eachother around the arena. It was obvious to everyone watching that one of them would have to give, but so long as Jaune wasn't the one to fall... then he had won. Surely an arm being cutt off would count as a finishing blow...
"...No."
He was wrong. He realised that just as he took the final swing, just as he finally found the perfect opportunity and took it. The Hero realised in the same moment that he intended to end the fight... that his whole perspective on the fight was wrong. Why was he assuming that whatever was helping Neptune couldn't do more then two things at once...? Or... even more likely...
He turned his head in what felt like slowed time as his blade came down on Neptune's arm. He saw it just in time... the swirling of water directly behind him and the solidified shape of a magic circle... a Summoning Circle.
Neptune was letting his summon do all the work in the defense... while he himself worked on fully summoning whatever it was.
"What the hell kind of summon can operate magic like this without being brought forth??"
He didn't need to think on it long, he found out only seconds later.
His blade slammed into something too solid to be Neptune's arm, and as time sped up again and he finished turning, he was face to face with a monster holding its arm around him, and presumably the thing that had stopped his blade. Jaune didn't even attempt to attack at first, instead taking the chance to quickly leave the close quarters battle altogether, kicking off of the creatures arm and tumbling a distance away in the inch-high water, quickly regaining his footing and snapping his vision on his new opponent... Neptune's summon.
He didn't recognise it... he didn't know enough about Summoning to recognise what it was at first glance... or even second glance. But, a deep burning feeling in his soul did recognise whatever this thing was. This presence, this power... his own magic reacted to it with what felt like hatred or animosity. This creature... it was a Devil.
It had a Humanoid figure but that's as far as its relation with humans ended. It stood at eight feet tall and had webbed hands and feet, both if which ended it terribly gangly and mangled claws that despite looking grotesque still gave off the impression of being razor sharp. It's head was practically half mouth, and the rest not devoted to its massive maw was either covered In teeth, or space taken up by it's two pitch black eyes... though perhaps that was being too generous. They were more like voids rather then actually being black... It's 'skin' was a slimey and pale green, and it's whole body reeked of fish and the sea... it appeared almost sickly, like it was never meant to rise above a depth that would crush any living thing or Grimm, let alone come on land. Yet here it stood, in a shape and size that was clearly a fraction of the scale it was meant to take...
He didn't know its name, he didn't know what it was... but his power did. His title and magic, the power of the Hero... it recognised the stench of this things magic.
The High Devil, Dagon.
Jaune almost smirked as he raised his sword and shield once more, now satisfied that both of his opponents were in front of him for all to see. He concentrated for a moment and started pumping his Holy Magic into his sword.
"Jaune Arc.-" He raised an eyebrow as Neptune spoke, the man having a rather deep voice that soaked with experience... how long had he been a Knight for? "-You are stronger then I expected. I didn't imagine I'd be calling my Summon in this first round." Jaune glanced to the creature as Neptune spoke... it didn't react when he called it a summon...
"High Devils are assholes... and rather proud ones at that... this thing isn't the whole Devil. It's just a piece of its power cut off and given to this guy for him to use as part of a contract..."
He focused his vision on Neptune again.
"But how big a piece is it...? And more importantly... what did he offer in return for this things power...?"
That second question wasn't relevant to the fight... but he couldn't help but worry about the man. One of the only things Jaune knew a High Devil would value so highly as to give a piece of its power away... was a soul.
Neptune clearly still had his, but if he had promised to give it to Dagon when he died...
Jaune shook his head and cast away those thoughts. He didn't need to worry about this for now, he had a fight to win, and it had just gotten that much harder.
Ruby Schnee
"Leonardo! Explain yourself!!" Ruby cringed as Jacques raised his voice, it reminded her of nails being dragged along a chalkboard, and her hand moved down to hold her wifes as he yelled... she didn't like how Weiss was reacting to her father's raised voice... and she would be asking a lot of questions about that later...
But for now...
"He has it under control-" Leo's voice was as timid as expected, and he was quickly shut down by Jacques screaming again.. luckily someone else said something before Ruby smacked the King to make him shut up.
"Calm down Snowball." Every eye in the booth shot to Carmine and she smirked at the attention. "It's not even all of Dagon... just a big piece of it. He can control it, it's part of their contract. She-" She raised a finger and pointed straight at Ruby. "- can tell you the exact same thing."
She was confused for a moment, but she caught on before it got awkward and stepped over to the railing. Her eyes locked onto Neptune down in the arena, and she focused her power to try and find their binding contract... which was successful.
"She's right. He has full control over it, and it dosent even have the Devils personality... just a piece of its soul." As soon as her words finished, Carmine burst out into laughter that once again drew all of their eyes to her.
"How unfortunate for the poor mermaid!" Ruby logged that little nugget of information for later. "That thing would actually have given me a hard time! And the poor barstard gets matched against his perfect counter immediately!"
Ruby's eyes flashed with realisation as she spoke and quickly turned to the arena again. Dagon was a High Devil, and they were some of the most vile and despicable beings in all of existence... but even they had personalities. Feelings... emotions... no matter how truly evil something was, it could never be fully one-hundred percent evil.
Take a piece of its soul without a personality though...
Jaune Arc
He wasn't going to just give up. So what if his opponent was a High Devil? He had trained with Conquest! He had survived against Famine! He had fought evenly with a Dragon!
This wasn't anything new. This was just another dot point to add to his ledger.
Jaune took a deep breathe and readied his weapons, launching towards his opponents as he exhaled. He blocked a swing from Dagon with his shield and used the force to rotate mid-air, cutting towards Neptune with his blade who just barely managed to deflect the blow with his spear. Jaunes feet touched the ground and he pressed all his weight against his shield, forcing Dagon back and off balance before charging Neptune once again, attempting to create a stalemate like before.
Dagon was back on him immediately, and Jaune turned just in time to block another blow. He didn't look in time and he felt his hand be slashed as his sword was knocked from his grasp. With a kick to get away from them both, he quickly healed the cut on his hand and glanced around for his sword... he grit his teeth in frustration as he watched it flow away from him in the shallow water, already being behind Dagon.
Neptune held what almost resembled a smirk now, readying his spear once again and nodding to Jaune. "You fought well... but this is the end." Dagon was in front of Jaune in the next instant, his clawed hand open in a slashing motion coming down on Jaune...
The Hero dropped his shield and abandoned all pretense, funnelling as much of his mana as he could at once into his own fist and meeting Dagon's palm with a punch. His expectation was for it to either do nothing, or for it to disrupt the attack long enough for him to do something...
He didn't expect the Devils arm to explode with a bright yellow glow.
Dagon reared back in pain and it's other hand clutched the stump that was once its other arm, its face screaming what Jaune could only guess was fear as it desperately pressed its palm to the wound still gushing out blood. Neptune was too stunned to order it to heal itself... Jaune had stopped fighting too, both of them watching with a mixture of pure shock and confusion as they watched the creature panic.
"This thing... it has more mana then me... it has more mana then Ruby- hell, it probably has more mana then Qrow!"
He looked down at his fist and opened his hand slowly, looking at his palm with confusion... before slowly smiling. Even though he knew it was his greatest weapon... he had severely underestimated Holy Magic.
Jaune calmly stepped past Dagon now, walking past the near-grovelling creature and moving to his sword to calmly pick it up before turning to Neptune.
"I don't know what will happen if I kill it. So I'm giving you the chance to unsummon it." His words were calm. His magic served as a perfect weapon against Neptune's greatest weapon... and they had both seen how the fight had gone earlier without Neptune having Dagon summoned.
"I got lucky... I got extremely lucky."
If Dagon had been anywhere near as strong as it was meant to be... or even anywhere near as cunning...
He wouldn't have stood a chance.
Neptune let out a low sigh. His disappointment evident, but it wasn't clear what exaclty it was directed at. "This is as far as I go this year huh...?" He shook his head and with a clap of his hands Dagon collapsed into water... and Jaune visibly relaxed.
"You fought well-"
"Don't give me that Lord Arc." Jaune was stunned at the title, but he tried to hide that as Neptune turned to face him. "I was defeated soundly and properly by The Hero. There is no shame in that." He held both hands up with a sigh. "Though there is a little shame in that they'll make me say it... I forfeit." A roaring of cheers sounded throughout the colosseum as Port loudly announced in a booming voice that echoed throughout the arena... that the victor was The Hero. Jaune Arc.
The first round had come to an end.
Ruby Schnee
"How truly disappointing." Ruby glanced at Carmine from the corner of her eye... and she smirked softly, finally having enough of the woman.
"You said earlier that Dagon would have proven difficult for you right?" She took a step closer to the woman as she eyed her down, and her eyes lightly glowed as she stared her down. "I wonder how much of a 'challenge' it would have been for Uncle Qrow."
Carmine's face turned to one of barely controlled rage, and her Gold eyes lightly glowed as they glared into Ruby's Silver.
Both of them started exuding a gentle flow of mana, and the tension between them had reached an all time high.
"Don't go losing your first round Red. I want to show you just how strong I am." Carmine's words held a calmness that her eyes and expression sorely lacked... but Ruby responded with nearly the exact same energy.
"I can tell exaclty how strong you are, and I'm not impressed." She had felt both Qrow's and Pyrrha's presence... they were both more intimidating then her.
Smoke slowly begun to rise from Carmine's arm as glowing hot feathers slowly sprouted along her skin, her rage moving from barely contained to simmering over. Ruby's own skin slowly formed pure red scales, and her eyes focused into slits at the same time Carmine's did.
The Dragon glared down the Pheonix, and even though they both wanted so badly to end this now...
They could wait a few rounds before they got to it.