Ch. 12 The beatdown
Saturday mornings were a time of calm for most of the student population. A time to sleep in and rest after a stressful week.
This was not true for team RNJR. Jaune, cursed with the habit of waking early, took the opportunity to inflict this curse on the rest of his team. Or rather he chose to inflict it on his team leader, who in turn woke up Ren, who somehow woke up Nora.
The routine was established from day one, but Jaune was nonetheless surprised every time Ren got away with waking Nora without getting grabbed. And it wasn't like he did the same thing every day. Some days Nora was far more animated in her waking up, but Ren seemed unperturbed as he stepped back from being grabbed.
As the last of them got out of the shower it was time to get some light breakfast and get ready for the match.
"How are we feeling, team? Ready to kick some butt?"
"I'll be honest Ruby, I feel like we should have trained together a bit more."
"We did some training, and we did well enough in combat class."
"Still I feel we should have done more."
"We'll do fine, Jaune. We have our secret move!"
Jaune smiled at that. They didn't get a lot of time to train together, but Ruby insisted they learn a combination move like in Terminal Truth XXIV. Ruby had to show a video from the game to Jaune on her scroll as Jaune hadn't played any video games for years and had no idea what she was talking about.
Nonetheless they managed to create a move that was fairly practical and more importantly looked cool. Or at least that's what Ruby said. Jaune still thought the practicality should be more important, but he couldn't deny the move felt cool to perform.
"Ok, fine I'll stop stressing. I'm sure we'll do well."
"Nora? You might want to go easy on those pancakes."
"It's fine, I'll work it off later."
"I mean… fine, just don't be sick during the match. Nobody wants to see you barf."
"Ohh, tactical sick, aim at the enemy."
"Don't you dare Nora, that's disgusting."
=O=O=O=
When team SWNY arrived at the arena, team RNJR was going through a last minute brief on their opponents. It mainly consisted of Ruby reminding Jaune about everything she told him about how her sister fights, but that still counted in Ruby's mind.
Surprisingly it was Sky that broke the silence.
"Sup guys, what order are we doing this in?"
"That's a good question, how about you and Pyrrha against Ren and Nora first."
"What, are you scared?" interjected Cardin.
"Nope!" replied Ruby with a smile. "Just thought you'd need to be uninjured for this, Nora can be pretty destructive and has a tendency to break legs!"
Cardin's eye twitched. Ruby's seemingly innocent reply had a smug mocking quality to it and he couldn't wait to teach the insolent little girl a lesson in the ring.
Ruby on the other hand kept smiling innocently. It was the only way for her to appear confident. She was never one to banter with strangers and that's pretty much what Cardin was. But since she knew in advance what he was like she anticipated something like this happening. So she kept up the appearance and answered as honestly as possible without rambling.
Cardin was still glaring at Ruby when both teams went to their respective sides and soon both pairs of combatants got down to the arena and brandished their weapons.
Sky's Feather's Edge and Pyrrha's Miló and Akoúo̱ against Ren's StormFlower and Nora's Magnhild. Sky and Pyrrha had a more balanced loadout individually, though Sky would probably struggle in very close quarters. Ren and Nora were each focussed on different aspects of combat, but Ren's speed and grace worked surprisingly well with Nora's focus on power. Though the pair would struggle in long range shootouts the arena didn't allow for those anyway so Nora's grenades would likely be pretty devastating.
Or at least so Jaune thought, but since Pyrrha was apparently able to beat whole teams on her own… Of course Jaune had missed that display the first time around as he was asleep at the time.
Ruby could only pity Sky for being caught in the middle of the storm. She didn't have the confidence to come out unscathed against Nora and somehow she doubted the tournament champion would be able to help Sky with that. Throw Ren's excellent support skills into the mix and you had a good chance the two would be able to eliminate Sky before Pyrrha got going. After that… well Ruby had seen Pyrrha fight. It would be interesting to see how she dealt with splash damage though.
Ruby, being the only team leader spectating, triggered the countdown and the screen above the training arena displayed the four combatants aura metres.
As soon as the timer reached zero, Nora shot out a barrage of grenades before shifting Magnhild into a hammer and closing in on Pyrrha. While Pyrrha took the hammer hit on Akoúo̱ with ease. Ren in the meantime closed in on Sky, who was recovering from the explosive barrage.
True to Jaune's prediction, once Ren got into close range Sky was in trouble. He was already down on aura from Nora's attack and now Ren managed to lock up his polearm with the blades of StormFlower. Sky did a pretty good job of preventing Ren from getting a good shot at him, but he was nonetheless in big trouble.
Pyrrha was having more luck fending against Nora. The initial blow put her on the defensive, but being inherently faster than Nora, she pushed her back, shifted Miló to a sword and moved in closer.
While Pyrrha was gaining ground on Nora, Sky managed to brute force his way from the deadlock and kick Ren back. Unfortunately that allowed Ren to switch with Nora and engage with Pyrrha.
Of course this in turn meant that Nora had free range with her grenade launcher and that spelled disaster for Sky. While he did see it coming this time and avoided direct hits by swatting the grenades from the air with Feather's Edge, this still saw him caught in the resulting pink cloud of explosions.
Ren was having trouble landing a proper hit on Pyrrha but he was able to keep her occupied so that Nora had space to take down Sky.
Sky had finally gained enough space to go for ranged attacks. The rifle in his halberd was fairly hard to aim, but the power behind it saved his ass on multiple occasions. Of course he had limited time and had to hit for the shots to be worth something. However instead of shooting at Nora he instead pointed his weapon at the other pair clashing against each other.
Ren was preoccupied with Pyrrha's blows and barely noticed when Sky aimed at him. The rifle round hit him hard and tanked his already dwindling aura. Unfortunately Pyrrha took advantage of this and turning Miló into its spear form gained not only distance but got in a solid hit bringing Ren's aura to the red.
Meanwhile Nora had finished what she started and Sky's aura fell into red as he was launched into the arena wall.
Almost simultaneously both girls turned to each other. Nora was just a smidge faster though and got away with another barrage of grenades. Pyrrha however countered by throwing her shield Akoúo̱ into the barrage, detonating it well away from herself.
The final exchange ended with Pyrrha just barely catching her shield and blocking the hammer, while thrusting her spear into Nora's stomach.
Nora fell to her knees aura in red, while Pyrrha was sitting at just below half.
Pyrrha's victory was displayed on the screen as Ren offered a hand to Sky who was recovering from being hammered into a wall.
"Well, we're up. You sure about the opener?"
"Yup, it's like a surprise attack! Those two won't see it coming!"
Jaune couldn't help but smile as they walked to the arena. While ultimately this whole exercise was in order to help team SWNY with their teamwork, Ruby seemed to be genuinely enjoying this. All the planning, training, even helping him design and make the Ignis Manus. She was in her element throughout all of it. And Jaune couldn't be happier that none of her anxiety came through over the course of the last week.
And so they stood opposite their opponents, all four armed and ready to start.
As soon as the countdown started Jaune blocked out everything that wasn't his partner or opponent. And the moment the siren signalled start he rushed forward engaging both his opponents.
As expected both Cardin and Yang did much the same and attempted to close the distance. Before they could split to go after their respective targets Jaune blindsided Yang by blocking her path. At the same time he swung Atra Aurora in a wide arc from behind him to catch Cardin and force him to guard.
The move was reckless and left him way more open than he would have liked otherwise. Shotgun blasts could be heard as Yang swung her right arm at him. At the same time a clang was heard as Cardin parried the blow with The Executor, forcing Atra Aurora to fly out of Jaune's hand, and sent it spinning up into the air.
So far the opening move went exactly as planned. Jaune's aura crackled from his palm as he caught Yang's fist. Then he simultaneously triggered both his gauntlets.
Occultus Ferrum's dust empowered piston shot the blade out of the gauntlet and sliced along Yang's forearm right between her skin and Ember Celica, keeping her from moving her arm too much.
At the same time Ignis Manus roared to life in Cardin's face in a burst of three bullets and a fireball that licked at Cardin's aura, depleting it significantly.
Cardin was (understandably) pretty pissed about being shot in the face and like a bull put all his focus on Jaune. Focussing the entirety of his attention… on the wrong person.
Yang would have elected to punch Jaune with her free arm, but unlike Cardin she did notice Ruby taking advantage of Jaune's low stance.
It was time for Ruby's secret move to properly begin the fight. It took way too many tries to get it right and both Jaune and Ruby ended up falling to the ground during training. It was by no means perfect, but they got it working.
Ruby ran forward and using Jaune like a springboard jumped into the air. Jaune took the force of the jump with a grunt but didn't buckle, letting Ruby jump to the same height as the still airborne Atra Aurora. Ruby easily cleared both opponents and landed behind Cardin, Jaune's sword in hand.
Yang was the first to react, using her free arm to push herself off from the bladed gauntlet that restricted her movement. The blade scraped once more across her bare skin, shaving off more of her aura with very little gain on her part.
Ruby had expected her to do that. After all, Yang knew it was a bad idea to give Ruby a free shot to the back.
Jaune didn't stop Yang, electing instead to take advantage of Cardin's attention on him to make space for Ruby to take that free shot Yang avoided.
Cardin wasn't dumb, he knew he was at a disadvantage against the agile girl in terms of speed. Jaune however seemed more in his bulwark. The blond had a similar build to Cardin and so Cardin assumed that he could come out on top.
Trusting his armour to take the brunt of the gunshot's impact, Cardin made a powerful downward swing with his mace.
His Cardin's windup provided a window of opportunity and Ruby took the shot. With a sniper shot to the shoulder blade Cardin staggered just enough to allow Jaune to narrowly avoid the blow.
The swing had served its purpose however, as with its impact on the ground the dust within the mace ignited. Unfortunately for Cardin, Ruby took advantage of his broken stance to put several more rifle rounds in his aura, bringing him to low yellow.
Jaune took the opportunity to move around Cardin to retrieve his sword from Ruby. Putting him next to Ruby and putting Cardin in between them and Yang, further inconveniencing her.
While Yang struggled to manoeuvre around him, Cardin went for a wide swing of his now flaming mace. Unfortunately for Winchester Jaune was now in position to defend Ruby. Crescent Rose in its scythe form braced against the ground, Ruby took the opportunity to take more potshots at her sister.
The Executor clashed with Atra Aurora once more, their positions reversed. Locked in a contest of strength, the two men locked eyes. The Executor burned hot and caused both of their aura to flair up. Though, unlike Cardin, Jaune felt right at home in the high heat environment and grinned wildly.
Yang meanwhile was rapidly manoeuvring around the arena, propelling herself with shotgun blasts to close in on the combat.
Facing the heat, Cardin had no choice but to step back. Unfortunately for his teammate, this meant he once more got in the way of Yang's approach.
As Yang stumbled slightly to avoid punching Cardin, Jaune and Ruby switched targets. Ignis Manus roared to life in three back to back bursts of fire. At the same time Crescent Rose accelerated faster than one would expect in the arms of a petite girl. Faster than Cardin expected anyway.
Cardin was hit with enough force to not only send his aura from yellow to red, but more impressively to severely dent his armour.
Yang barely noticed her teammate's loss, or her own dwindling reserves of aura. Yang was angry, her semblance flaring up in a flaming display of aura.
Jaune didn't have the time to react this time, or the luxury of blocking the blow. In an impressive display of semblance powered strength, Yang hit Jaune in the chest.
For a moment Jaune flew through the air. Far too soon however his back hit the wall of the arena, his chestplate now sporting a fist sized dent and his aura dropped from low green down to just below yellow. The impact hurt, sure, but more importantly he was out.
In the end it wasn't a grand show of strength, speed or close combat prowess that knocked Yang's aura down to red. It was one last shot from her sister's sniper rifle; much to Yang's displeasure.
As soon as the match ended Ruby sped to her beat up partner.
Jaune could barely pick himself up off the ground when Ruby assaulted him with a rapid recount of the key moments in the battle.
The moment Jaune realised she was ignoring her own contributions, he went on the counteroffensive.
Ruby faltered under the praise before doubling down on her previous talking points and pointing out that they were going to have a proper debrief as a team.
Behind Ruby's back Sky appeared to be giving the losing pair a dressing down. Though Jaune barely noticed that, preferring to focus on the excited girl in front of him.
=O=O=O=
Authors note:
This... this was difficult. Choreographing a fight in my mind is alright, but writing in such a way that all y'all can see my vision? That nearly killed me. I'm not entirely happy with the result, but I'm unwilling to make you wait while I rewrite this again. We're also caught up with the completed chapters, however the first story arch is mostly planned out and there is a finished chapter here and there amongst them. Hopefully that means that I'll be able to keep up with the posting schedule. Just in case I'm unable to do so I can promise to post one of the one shots I have lying around. That's a last resort though so please look forward to the next chapter: Ch. 13 The knight, the rabbit and the smith