Pyrrha Nikos seldom wondered if the day would come when she would be booked into a match that would only end in either her or her opponent's death. And in the days leading up to their unexplained arrival into the wasteland, a part of her dwelled on the possibility of getting into a life-threatening duel that she might actually lose. Life-or-death bouts were illegal in Remnant's tournament circuit with her parents, managers, trainers, and sponsorship companies uniting to protect her from such an eventuality. And ever since taking up the path of the Huntress—and cutting through several layers of red tape just to get into Beacon—her most dangerous battles up until then were against the Grimm.
Alas, she was not on Remnant. And her battles here in the Mojave were the very horrific things that she had been sheltered from. So it came as little surprise that her current guardian—or 'parent' as was more publicly known—would actually put her in an even more dangerous situation in exchange for...some political leverage or something like that.
The thought of being played like a discardable pawn in some great game made her queasy. But now was not the time to be queasy.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the main event!" bellowed the Thorn's announcer, a rather excitable man in a dirty grey suit holding up a megaphone. "A special match set up by the Lady herself and a special guest to the Thorn!"
Pyrrha steeled herself as the massive mechanical doors hissed opened and she stepped out into the steel mesh cage that housed her side of the underground arena.
"In the red corner: the hottest hotshot of the Vegas Wonder Kids, prodigy fighter and primetime celebrity of the Vegas Strip, the Super Spartan, Pyrrha Nikos!"
The industrial spotlights beamed bright down upon her. It was a familiar feeling yet this time, given where she was right now, it felt sickening. Ahead of her spread the wide, cold, steel floors where for the past few hours, the redhead had witnessed some gruesome deaths play out in fights that were nothing less than savage, unrefined, and morbidly glorifying.
Pyrrha once again hardened her resolve, creaking her neck and rolling her shoulders; she tightened her grip on Miló and Akoúo, hovering her right arm close to Velvet's forty-five ACP pistol holstered by her hip. Her eyes scanned the field of blood, trailing up towards the stands and the walkways where the audience hooted and cheered. Among them, sandwiched in a heavily guarded observer's box segregated from the rest of the spectators were her friends, all of them rooting for her. Nora, Yang, and Ruby were the loudest with Ren, Velvet, and Blake showing their utmost concern. Weiss, visibly worried, noticed Jaune's distress and tapped him on the shoulder to which he nodded shakily back.
Directly across from them, on the overseer's platform, standing next to the Thorn's matron with his arms folded and his weighted green eyes boring heavily down no her, was Courier Six...the man who arranged for this death-match as part of some kind of deal he had with Red Lucy.
What was it that he would gain from this? Weapons? Money? More soldiers for his supposedly secret army? Red Lucy's continued 'allegiance' to him? Pyrrha did not want to think about it.
"Look at her standing tall, folks!" hollered the announcer. "As you all know, our lovely young lady here has been making waves on the airwaves. New Vegas hasn't seen anything like her ever and now she's here, prepped up and ready to go up against the Thorn's very own champion!"
The crowd erupted into a greater frenzy as the steel doors on the other side of the arena grated apart with the massive shadow of her opponent lumbering out, stopped by the reinforced steel mesh cage housing its corner.
Pyrrha's eyes went wide. She was not expecting this.
"Here he is, folks! Give it up for your boy! Undefeated, unstoppable, un-killable! Our very own, the King of the Thorn! The big, the bad, the mother-fuckin' ugly: Rawr!"
The redhead, her jaw hanging gobsmacked, took in the majesty of the largest deathclaw she (or anyone else in the wasteland) had ever seen. Spiked metal armor protecting its chest, shoulders, and joints, the beast let out a deafening roar befitting its name. The fluorescent lights glistened off the sharpened steel claws fastened to its talons. The scars marring its body showed no lack of experience with one of its jagged horns either sawed off or hacked off by a previous foe.
Pyrrha gulped down her fear—yes, she was afraid (rather, deathly terrified!) and she would admit it if asked!—and glanced back up to the overseer's box, frowning at Red Lucy's grin. Behind her, the Courier remained nonchalant, almost unamused, even as he met the champion's pleading eyes with his own uncompromising glare.
"You can do this, champ... Use your smarts, use what you've got. I know you'll win this."
"You can do this, champ."
"Do what?" Pyrrha seethed. "You booked me into a death-match."
"And everythin' else on the surface ain't no death-match to you?" snorted Courier Six, leaning against the wall of her own 'locker room' which was lined with all sorts of tools designed for gladiatorial combat.
The redhead almost choked on her retort. "... What are you doing? What kind of choices were made that necessitates that...that I...that I have to...have to fight here?"
"The kind of choices that'll save everyone's asses. Don't act too righteous, kid. You already got your baptism by fire at the Divide. Killed your fair share and lived with it. And now you got a problem with this one?"
"The circumstances were different! I don't fight in bloodsports!" she barked.
"Really," he snorted. "Don't you draw blood in your tournaments back on Remnant?"
"The match ends when our Aura drops to—"
He rolled his eyes. "Of fuckin' course. Aura. Cushions up the fight and spoils the fun, don' it?"
Pyrrha backed up wide-eyed. "Six, what are you...?"
Old Green Eyes glared back, his voice coming off cold. "You're gettin' out there and you're gon' fight 'til that sum'bitch who's squarin' off with you drops dead. Am I clear?"
Her lips quivered while her fists shook.
For a brief moment, the Courier's features twisted with remorse before hardening again. "Am I clear, Sparta?"
"... Yes."
"Good." He dropped off a small leather pouch. "Use your smarts, use what you've got. I know you'll win this. Like hell did I book you to get gutted out there."
The champion watched him leave. When the doors shut, she slumped onto the bench with her head in her hands. Then she noticed something metallic peeking out of the satchel in the corner. Shaking off her distress, she rifled through them, wondering why this was here and if ever she was going to use them. Ultimately, she decided to simply carry the whole bag with her into battle. After all, there was barely any space left on her belt or on her combat harness to house a few stun grenades, some flares, and Blake's flare gun.
The fight was on.
And it was a fight against something Pyrrha had minimal experience against. The last time she ever engaged deathclaws was when a colony of them attacked them out in the rocky desert east of New Vegas. Even then, she was working with her teammates, team RWBY, the Courier, and Raul—the latter two displaying some of the (deadliest) most accurate gunplay she had seen in her entire life.
This time, she was up against one: a trained and hardened alpha with armor enhancements, weaponized claws, and probably a few questionable substances in its bloodstream.
Gods, this seemed a little unfair.
And it felt so unfair five minutes into her duel. She rebounded back onto her feet after being tossed around by the beast, parts of her leather armor already shredded with her Aura protecting her exposed skin from Rawr's razor sharp blades. The beast in question recovered from her initial strikes and charged.
The redhead moved quickly, launching herself off the chain link fence and over the mutant as it skidded to a halt underneath her. In the few seconds she was airborne, she swept her gaze across the audience, meeting the anxious stares of her friends—Jaune was gripping the railing hard enough for his knuckles to go white—and catching the Courier giving off a small, brief smirk.
"You don't have to do this!"
"Pyrrha, you don't have to do this!"
"Jaune, stop!" the champion barked. She quickly tugged on his wrist and pulled him down to sit on the bench with her. "Please, stop. I'm doing this anyway."
"No, you can't—"
"I can't but I still will. I...I have to."
Jaune grasped her hands desperately. "You don't have to. We can work something out."
"Jaune, I'm not changing my mind," she reiterated sternly, pleadingly. "I'll be fine. Trust me."
Her partner grimaced before bowing his head. "... Fine... You are the 'Invincible Girl,' after all. You're going to wipe the floor with the Thorn's number one...whoever that is."
Pyrrha winced at that. She hated that monicker but for the moment she was relieved that she talked Jaune out of getting himself beaten up or shot. "I can handle myself. You know that. But I'm going to need your help."
"Whatever it is, you have it."
The redhead eyed him apologetically. "Yes, I know. I'm only asking for your support, Jaune. Our friends' support as well."
"If you want to, we can—"
"No, Jaune. I don't want you to try to fix the fight or anything. I want you to just...give me your trust and let me handle this."
"I guess...I guess so," Jaune sighed. He gestured at her get-up. "You look like you're already decked out for the...the fight."
Pyrrha smiled meekly back. Her signature weapons, combined with Velvet's pistol and the munitions she was carrying over her chest, made for some extra weight that would have hindered her back on Remnant. However, hauling around heavier things across miles of dry mountains and rugged desert conditioned her well. The lightweight leather armor provided to her by the Thorn's quartermaster also surprisingly did not compromise much of its protection in favor of greater maneuverability.
"I do need to properly accustom myself with this, though," the redhead said. "I've haven't often fought in anything like this before."
"I guess now's a good time as any to learn." He looked around. "Is there anything you need?Anything you need help with? Maintenance or last-minute checks?"
With a smile, she handed him her shield while adjusting the straps on her waist. "I could go for some final checks on my equipment, yes."
Pyrrha yelped.
The swipe from Rawr connected and effectively tore off the hardened leather padding shielding her chest, leaving her torso protected only by her undershirt. She leapt back to avoid another connecting swipe before bouncing off the wall to reposition herself behind the hardened deathclaw alpha.
"That's our girl!"
"You got this, P-money!"
"Chip off its armor!"
Armor! Jaune's right! Of course, the metal plates were fastened tightly around the mutant's joints and could sustain direct hits from small arms fire. But how long could they hold onto something this lumbering and agile? Pyrrha whipped out the pistol Velvet had given her and took aim at the leather straps holding the plates in place: minuscule targets that she could take out more easily thanks to the Courier's marksmanship lessons.
POP! PAP! PKOW!
Snap!
The redhead rolled to the side to avoid Rawr charging at her. When she recovered behind it, she smirked at what she saw: the straps were shredded and the welded steel braces shielding Rawr's legs had fallen off.
"Don't celebrate now!" Blake hollered.
Weiss screeched. "Cripple it! Take away its mobility!"
Pyrrha never thought she would ever hear those two raise their voices so excitedly. But they had a point. Acting fast, she parried Rawr's swing—damn! The talon blades sunk past her greaves—and with her Aura being chipped away, she backed away to give her a moment to assess the deathclaw's remaining bits of armor.
"Pyrrha, watch out!"
Oh snap—
Thwack!
She flew halfway across the arena, slamming against the wall and dropping onto the cold steel floor. This silenced the audience with many loudly hissing at how painful that must have been. But that was what Aura was for. And as the redhead picked herself back up, she noticed her body flickering: her reserves were running low.
"He's coming at you again!" Yang hollered.
"Dodge, run, block, whatever!" Ruby yelled.
Once again, she leapt out of the way as Rawr pounced at her, his bladed claws open wide. However, this time, the alpha displayed some of its evolved intelligence and reached up to catch her leg with its extended blade, the tip hooking at the heel of her boot, and pulling her back down. Hard.
This was followed by its leg slamming down on her abdomen, pushing the air out of her lungs. Her Aura sputtered, safeguarding her body. Regaining her senses, she started hearing more of the bewildered crowd.
"How the fuck is that girl still alive?"
"Beats me but holy shit, man, this is the best match I've seen in a long time."
"Damn it, can I switch bets?"
Pyrrha writhed under the mutant's weight, struggling with all her might. Her weapons were scattered across the arena, out of reach. And in full view of the rest of the Thorn. Might as well use her Semblance; it was an open secret at this point what with Mister New Vegas parroting her 'radiation-induced telekinetic super-powers.' Besides, she could worry about the consequences later.
Right now, she needed to wi—no. She needed to survive!
Rawr roared in her face, spittle splattering over her cheeks. A moment later, the jagged tip of Miló flew right into the hammered steel sheets fastened over the alpha's cheek. Rawr's head jerked to the side, its leg coming off her.
And Pyrrha rolled away, staggering back to her feet, and using her Semblance to drag her weapons back into her grip...much to the delight of the New Vegas audience.
"Holy tits-on-a-molerat, did you see that shit!?"
"Now that's just fucking cheating!"
"Hey! Who the fuck spiked my drink!?"
Ren's voice rang back down. "Your bag, Pyrrha! Look!"
The redhead turned. The satchel she was carrying had been ripped off her person and tossed across the arena where its contents spilled out. Stun grenades, flares, and Blake's flare gun. All made of metal.
Pyrrha decided now was the time to expend her final Dust reserves. Shifting Miló into rifle form, she fired the last of her cartridges at the deathclaw, the volatile rounds causing dents in the armor. Buying her enough seconds to retrieve a flash-bang, pull the pin, and toss it at the alpha's feet.
BOWF!
Half the audience howled in annoyance at having been blinded.
Taking her arm off her eyes, the redhead could see her opponent staggering back. Stunned.
Good. Take aim. Fire.
Click.
Oh for the love of—
There was no time to reload. Dropping the pistol, she shifted Miló back into spear form and, hefting Akoúo, she charged.
"Melee's my forte anyway."
"Melee is my forte anyway."
"That's your strategy, huh," Nora quipped.
Pyrrha nodded back. "I have a few back-ups as well."
"Have to cover every possible avenue," Jaune groused. "Because they still won't tell us who she'll be going up against."
"Rules of the Thorn, I believe," Ren mused.
Syrup whinnied.
Team JNPR-S slumped back onto the benches in Pyrrha's locker room, the redhead in question feeling understandably nervous. They were later joined by team RWBY-V coming in to check on them.
"The fact that Six even agreed to this simply baffles me," grumbled Weiss.
"I'm sticking to the political angle here," Yang added. "Ain't that right, Blakey?"
Blake nodded.
"Well, Pyrrha can win this, right?" Ruby chirped uneasily. "Right, guys?"
Velvet approached the champion with her pistol belt wrapped around the holstered Colt automatic along with the spare magazines that Raul had given the rabbit faunus. "Here. I think you'll get more out of this than I ever could. It packs quite a punch though."
Pyrrha nodded her thanks, saddling the gun against her right thigh.
"How long until the match?" her partner asked.
"Not very long," purred Red Lucy, whose sudden appearance by the doorway startled most of the Vegas Wonder Kids into standing up. "Very impressive. Miss Nikos, if I may, that lightweight suit of leather armor looks absolutely stunning on you."
It took a lot of self-control not to stutter. "Thank you, miss."
The matron of the Thorn was about to make another quip when she was interrupted by the Courier coming out from behind the corner in the hallway, stepping in front of her, and irately shutting themselves out of the locker room. There was a muffled exchange on the other side of the hydraulic door that ended with Red Lucy chuckling and the sound of heavy steps—the Courier's—pounding away in another direction.
Nora blew raspberries. "Guess Six doesn't like her too much."
"You're not supposed to like your allies," the Schnee heiress intoned dispassionately.
"Can't believe he's letting this happen for an 'alliance,'" Yang growled. "As if the, ugh, the eggs weren't enough to get that woman to play nice with him."
"On the bright side, he's not drinking anymore," Ruby said.
The room went silent. Then Blake remarked, "No, he isn't. But he still gambles."
Pyrrha grimaced at that. Her life was being wagered in bid to maintain the loyalty of a significant faction in the New Vegas. But, alas, this was how things were in the wasteland, was it not? They were the odd ones out for trying to go against it, for even aspiring to change it, before the Courier made them second-guess all of that.
Though, that did not mean that they shared his cynicism. That showed with how the conversation detoured into Nora defending her...souvenir...from Westside, claiming it was a worthwhile investment and not because it was...fascinating in its own way. And that jovial atmosphere was what kept her spirits up until the final quarter of an hour before the match when Red Lucy's enforcers arrived to usher her friends and teammates to their segregated observer's booth. Jaune, being his stubborn self, stayed, adamantly insisting that he was going to escort her to the arena.
By then, the Courier returned and Pyrrha was thankfully adjusting her gear behind the lockers to be able to avoid getting distracted by the argument that followed. Thankfully, it was not too intense, ending in her partner croaking in despair.
"I still don't like that Pyrrha has to do this," she heard Jaune bemoan.
"Neither do I, son."
"But you arranged for this. You let this happen. You could have done something else, some alternative instead of this death battle."
"I could've. But that'd mean some poor bastard out there will have to take the fall."
Pyrrha winced. She really was doing this so some stranger, who was probably worse than her yet did not deserve any of the suffering she had seen, could live...for another few days or so.
Her partner snorted. "Is there anything else that doesn't involve people getting sacrificed?"
"There are a few. That'd mean that thing's will go to shit, though. And we can't have that happening."
Tense silence.
"... Blake's right. There really is something political behind this, huh. Something involving the NCR?"
Long, gravelly sigh. "... Some things you have to let slide, kid. Red Lucy's got the whole underground under her thumb and I need—we need—the underground to keep New Vegas from sinkin' into the shitters."
Jaune dropped his voice low enough that Pyrrha had to strain to hear better. "... Why don't you just, um, well, replace Red Lucy with someone else? I mean...you could do that, right?"
She almost froze up at the word 'replace.' Was her partner seriously suggesting...?
Mirthless chuckle. "I can. But I ain't gon' do it. 'Cause where the hell can I find another Red Lucy? Out o' every piece o' shit in this shit-hole, she's the only one who's mean enough, smart enough, and sassy enough to keep this whole place in order."
"... It's not like she's not the only one. There's got to be at least someone like her out there...right?"
"You'd think that, wouldn't you," the Courier grunted. "Let's just say, at the moment, I don't like any of the candidates lining up for her spot if she, well, retires early."
The blond chortled bitterly. "And I suppose you don't have your own trump card for this? No replacement you'd like to nominate instead of the ones available?"
"If I did, we wouldn't have to be down here in the first place."
"I thought the purpose of moving underground was to evade the NCR."
"Ain't the proper time to be askin' a lot o' questions, son," warned Old Green Eyes in that voice that chilled her to the bone. "Best you head back to your buddies before the show starts. Wouldn't want Sparta to be missin' her favorite teammate cheerin' her from the stands, now, wouldn't we?"
"Shit!" Pyrrha hissed.
She recovered, albeit hobbling thanks to her ankle which was now flaring back with pain. Damn it, the bones were still healing and it was finally making this more difficult than it should.
Across from her, Rawr licked its wounds before growling at her. Its armor had all but been taken apart from her strikes with more cuts adding to the scars marring its body. Yet, somehow, the damn thing was still standing and still filled with energy to keep fighting. This was tougher than the Deathstalker back at Initiation, and that was an Elder Grimm that took the entirety of both teams RWBY and JNPR to put down.
"You're almost there, Pyrrha!" Nora hooted.
"A few more and that ugly bastard is going down!" Yang added.
"You can do this!" Ruby barked.
The redhead wanted to smile at her friends' heartfelt cheers. They were so invigorating. Matching Rawr's attack, she raised Akoúo to block its right claw while spearing Miló into its left palm.
The alpha recoiled and bounced back as Pyrrha once again pulled the pin on another stun grenade and left it at its feet before bouncing off the wall and turning her head away from the blinding blast.
"Holy shit, folks, ain't that flashy!" the announcer-turned-commentator remarked.
Boos and cheers rang throughout the arena with the audience's support swinging back and forth between the two champions. Pyrrha checked her satchel and clicked her tongue when she saw that she was down to only a handful of flares and Blake's flare gun.
Roar!
The redhead parried the incoming swipe. She pushed back, pulled out a flare, twisted the cap at the bottom, and held the burning phosphorous stick up towards the alpha's eyes. And Rawr backed away in primal fear.
"What's this!? Shit-balls-on-fire, folks, what are we seeing right now!?" the announcer boomed.
Pyrrha ignored the outbursts from the crowds as she held the lit flare before her, taking back every step that the deathclaw was surrendering in its animalistic aversion towards anything that bright and burning.
Sensing an opening for her to put an end to this whole affair, the champion raised her free hand—no longer caring about keeping her abilities discreet—and grasped the shaft of her weapon flying back into her palm. With one aching heel over the other, she launched herself at the beast. With her throat hurting at how much she was screaming, she buried Miló deep into Rawr's right eye.
To which the entire Thorn fell eerily quiet.
Rawr, the undefeated monster of the New Vegas underground, crumpled to the cold steel floor after Pyrrha dragged her spear out of its perforated skull.
All she could hear for the next few moments was her ragged breathing.
Followed by the announcer clearing his throat. "... Well, folks... The unthinkable just happened."
The Invincible Girl stood straight and raised her head up to the stunned audience, her gaze drifting from the guarded box where her friends sat in wonderment all the way to the overseer's platform where Red Lucy was smirking. A few paces behind, leaning against a pillar with his arms folded, Courier Six offered a single nod.
"Your winner: Pyrrha Nikos!"
And the crowd erupted into a frenzy. Normally, Pyrrha would have waved back with a bright smile. Tonight, though, she dipped her head to hide the tears streaking down her cheeks. None of this was glorious, none of this was enjoyable, none of this made sense. Slowly, she walked back to her corner, unwilling to face the audience. As soon as the hydraulic doors closed behind her, she ran back into her locker room, dropped everything, huddled against a corner, and cried.
The sun had gone down an hour ago but Neo did not stop. Instead, she rowed faster despite the increasing darkness, the rising nausea, and the fact that minutes ago she had just regurgitated what little she ate. Her reflection in the old car mirror she salvaged was telling: pale skin, weighted eyes, bits of her own loose hair sticking to her drenched sleeves.
This was not good.
She was sick with something really serious. It had to be whatever she had eaten or perhaps the water was not as clean as she thought. Or maybe it was the radiation she absorbed from lingering too long at Dry Wells. Either way, she rowed like her life depended on it. Hoover Dam was only a few miles upriver and she was willing to risk getting arrested by the NCR if it meant putting a buffer between her and the Legion's tireless assassins who just won't get the fucking hint!
Neo kept rowing until her joints were burning and she lay flat on her back on the raft. At least she had anchored herself by some rocks along the riverside, keeping her from being swept downstream back to Arizona.
After a moment, she checked on her map and plotted her location directly across from NCR-held territory. There were supposed to be a few settlements behind the towering cliffs across the river and a military camp a few clicks north of those. And if those radio towers were any indication, she could very well be within sight range of the vaunted Californian Rangers.
She just hoped they were friendly enough not to shoot her on sight.
Neo dragged herself over to look at her reflection in the water. She shut her eyes and opened them again; a green-eyed, raven-haired, tattered-looking girl smiled back up at her. Good. She could still play the part of an Imperium refugee; she hoped that the NCR prisoners-of-war she had been interrogating back in Arizona were right about their military protocol of not shooting civilians on sight.
She pulled herself back up and stumbled onto the quagmire. At least the mud was colder than the Mojave sun. Dragging herself up to some rocks, she dirtied herself to beef up the illusion she was going to use.
Growl.
Her eyes went wide. She carefully peeked over her cover. Squinting, she saw something lumbering further up ahead. From the looks of it they were...
Growl.
Neo ducked back down and frantically checked her map again. Just her luck. She landed on the shores of a deathclaw promontory.
Gods damn it.
ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: February 24, 2021
LAST EDITED: June 11, 2021
INITIALLY UPLOADED: June 9, 2021
NOTE: Finally wrote the Thorn chapter. Been itching to get to this part for a long time and I hope it holds up. Also was a nice challenge to write from Pyrrha's perspective.