Chapter 24

Arena

Come on, guys!" Jaune proclaimed loudly as he raised his sword into the air, riling up the rest of Team JNPR with determination.

"BEGIN!" Oobleck and Ports announced together over the loudspeaker, bringing the crowd to a crescendo and cueing both teams to run for the center of the ring.

The enemy leader, Brawnz Ni ran with Roy Stallion and Nolan Porfirio, while the fourth member of the team, a young girl wearing a red sports jacket and a beanie covering her left eye cocked her sniper rifle and ran for the cover of the trees in the forest biome.

Brawnz was a dark-skinned boy with hair shaved at the sides of his head, leaving white locks flowing from the top of his scalp with streaks of violet. He also wore a pale violet vest with a purple bandanna hanging from his neck, and on his wrists, steel claws were strapped tight.

Nolan was a young man of similar stature, with brown hair unstyled and falling in locks over his golden eyes. He wore a denim vest over a black hooded t-shirt with sunglasses clipped to his collar. In his hand, he gripped a cattle prod, crackling with sparks of electricity.

Roy was similarly toned to Brawnz, his skin dark and his hair brown and tied back in braids. His eyes were steel blue and he wore a green vest over white trousers, and in each hand, he held golden discs, each lined with jagged saw teeth.

Brawnz sprinted towards Pyrrha, kicking off the match with a flying knee, only for the redheaded prodigy to block the strike with her shield, knocking her back a foot.

Brawnz then followed by leaning forward in midair to punch Pyrrha with a clawed hand, but Pyrrha managed to stop the attack with her blade. With this, Pyrrha jabbed her fist up, still gripping her weapon and disoriented Brawnz just long enough for her to distance herself with a swipe to the neck.

Meanwhile, Ren and Nora began to engage Nolan, who ducked to dodge a swing from Nora's hammer before spinning himself back up to retaliate with a swipe from his prod aimed at her back, only to miss himself.

But in the cover of the trees, May Zedong managed to jump on top of a branch using the axe blade on the armrest of her rifle before lining up her sights.

Squinting, she pulled the trigger and fired a shot, just missing Ren by a hair's length and blowing apart a nearby boulder. Alerted to the noise, Jaune looked up from his scuffle with Roy to find the source of the shot.

Soon, his eyes fell upon the glare of the sun reflecting off of May's scope, causing them to widen. "R-retreat!"

Catching on to their leader's order, Team JNPR withdrew from combat, blocking and dodging the sniper rounds aimed for them. Soon, all four of them were ducked behind a boulder, and three sets of eyes looked to Jaune.

"What's the plan?" Pyrrha asked hastily to the blonde knight.

Jaune peered over the boulder and saw the BRN of Team BRNZ running towards them, with May attempting to realign her sights.

"Spread out! Try to keep moving!" Jaune yelled to his team as Brawnz leapt up, trying to slam down on Jaune with his claws, only for him to hold him back with his shield.

Meanwhile, Nolan walked calmly towards Ren, who stood focused with his pistols ready. Nolan turned behind him and met May's eyes, nodding. Chuckling under her breath, May fired her first shots at Ren's legs, causing him to leap back and forth to dodge the shots, leaving Nolan to bludgeon him over the skull with his prod, stunning the Mistralese boy.

Retaliating with a kick, Nolan only ducked and thrust the prod up into his stomach, delivering a nasty electrical shock into Ren's body, throwing him back with a zap.

"Ren!" Nora cried out for her friend and partner, angrily swinging her hammer over Nolan's head, only for him to repeat the same move on the ginger bomber.

However, as the prod flooded her body with a crackling hot electrical current, Nolan couldn't find the pain he found so often every time he did this. Instead, he found himself looking into the maniacal and triumphant grin of Nora Valkyrie, her eyes crackling with vigor and adrenaline.

"What's this? Looks like Nora's charging up her semblance!" Oobleck's voice announced over the loudspeaker, alerting a confused Nolan.

"W-what?"

"Yes, it seems that Ms. Valkyrie's semblance allows her to channel and harness electrical energy directly into her muscles. Looks like a cattle prod's only gonna give Nolan a few more broken bones."

"What?!" Nolan turned back to his opponent with alarmed eyes.

Nora rose slowly, raising Magnhild with a single hand, her entire body coursing with hot pink lightning as her arms and eyes literally glowed with sparks of pure energy, causing the crowd to go apeshit with cheers and whoops.

Fearfully backing away, Nolan could only barely process what had happened before a pink blur of lightning appeared in front of him, hitting him back with a force comparable to a herd of Goliaths charging him at full speed with fucking THUNDERCLAP sounding as he was hit, sending him into a nearby boulder, causing Nolan's aura to deplete significantly.

Noticing this, Jaune looked up to the peak of the mountain biome, where dark clouds began to assemble, with the boom of thunder sounding from within them. His mind thinking quickly, he began to formulate a plan.

Turning to their muscle, Jaune ordered her, "Nora! Get to the mountain!"

"You got it!" Nora said giddily as she zipped to the mountain's base.

"Ren, try to distract the sniper!" Jaune said, turning to said ginger's partner.

"Sure… why not?..." Ren replied exasperatedly, strafing to his left to dodge another of May's shots.

Nodding to Pyrrha, the two of them advanced to engage Brawnz and Roy. As Nora leapt from ledge to ledge in an attempt to scale the mountain, the rest of her team strove to divert attention from her.

Roy flung his chakram at Jaune, impacting his shield, but stunning him as the second disc bumped the shield into Jaune's face. Seeing him taken care of, Roy used both chakram and pounded into Pyrrha's shield, trying to break her defense.

Shaking himself off, Jaune regained his senses and moved to engage Brawnz once more.

Terrances

"Yeah! Go get 'em, Jaune!" Ruby cheered loudly with a fist pumped as she watched her friend fight.

"I have to say, he's really improved!" Kitana added in, noting Jaune's considerable jump in skill as he clashed blades with Brawnz.

"You did a good job training him, Kuai Liang." Blake said to the Assassin watching Jaune silently.

"Yes, I guess I did, but this wasn't all me." He replied with pride as all heads were turned to Pyrrha, who was fighting Nolan, Roy and Brawnz all at once with Jaune.

Arena

She landed a kick at Brawnz, before leaping into the air with a flip to dodge Roy's chakram, blocking one disc with her shield and flinging her javelin at Nolan before leaping back with a rising kick towards Brawnz.

May aimed once more, trying to hit Ren, who was sprinting towards her, strafing left and right to avoid her shots. Ren jumped and rolled to leap over a flying chakram and then opened fire at a stunned Nolan, swinging his pistol's blades left and right, trying to hit his opponent.

Clashing weapons, Ren then kicked into either side of his abdomen, stunning Nolan so that he could push the prod behind Nolan and hook it against his neck, using him as a meat shield.

Seeing this, May turned away from Ren and focused her sights on Nora, who had nearly reached the top of the mountain.

"Nora!" Ren cried out, alerting Jaune to the predicament at hand. Looking to his Spartan partner, he pushed Brawnz off of him and called out to her.

"Pyrrha, up!"

With this, Pyrrha ran towards Jaune, using her shield to smack away a flying disc and flipped up onto Jaune's shield, leaping up as Jaune pushed her up.

As May aligned her shot, she pulled the trigger, ready to end Nora. However, Pyrrha rose into the air with her shield in front of her, absorbing the shot and sending Pyrrha flying backwards.

With this, Nora finally stood up at the peak of the mountain, raising her hammer high. A bolt of lightning descended from the storm cloud above, striking Magnhild and charging Nora's body with heavenly power.

Compacting Magnhild back into its grenade launcher form, Nora flicked a switch on it, causing the barrel to open as she charged the weapon with electricity.

Pulling the trigger, all six grenades were fired from the launcher, sailing over to May's position in the forest biome.

Looking up at the hail of explosives coming her way, May could only whimper in fear as the pipes incinerated a patch of trees, leaving a smoking crater where May used to be.

May coughed as the smoke forced her to descend from her treetop cover. Turning their attention away from their sniper, the rest of Team BRNZ looked up to the mountaintop to see Nora flying down towards them with Magnhild raised high above her head, bright pink energy charging into her arms.

Slamming the hammer into the ground, Nora blew apart the ground beneath her, sending out a powerful shockwave that blew the rest of Team BRNZ back to where May was standing, disoriented and weak.

Seeing their chance, Jaune addressed his team. "This is it, guys! Let's finish 'em with team attacks!"

"REN! NORA! FLOWER POWER!"

"Wait, what?..." Nora asked, confused.

Pausing from his triumphant moment, he turned back to the two of them. "F-flower Power…"

To this, Nora and Ren only shrugged in confusion.

"T-that's your team attack name."

"Since… when?" Ren asked, still confused.

Jaune groaned loudly. "Uuughh guys, we've been over this! Flower Power is Ren and Nora! Ren brings the flower, Nora brings the power!"

"How… do I 'bring' a flower?" Ren asked, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

"No, silly! Not a flower! Flour! Like in baking!" Nora suggested cheerily.

"Why would I 'bring' that?" Ren asked again.

"N-n-no! It's your symbol!..." Jaune tried to explain to the ninja boy.

"So… what are we?" Pyrrha asked Jaune.

"Pyrrha!..." Jaune exclaimed in annoyance.

"S-sorry! I just want to make sure it's clearly defined!" Pyrrha replied with flustered cheeks.

Terrances

"…" Everyone could only stare in disbelief and bafflement at the spectacle before them. They came looking for a fight and… they decide to have a team discussion right then and there?!

"What… the fuck?" was all Johnny could mutter

"Umm… I guess it makes sense…" Ruby said, with nods of agreement coming from the rest of Team RWBY and Team TSKK.

Arena, Amity Coliseum

Brawnz was just beginning to come to his senses along with his team, but instead of seeing Team JNPR wailing down on them to finish them off, his eyes widened to see them… talking amongst themselves.

"Pyrrha, you and I are Arkos! It's that thing when we take our shields… remember?!" He heard Jaune ask Pyrrha.

"Arkos?"

"Yeah! It's our names put together!" Jaune answered.

"Y-yeah, right! I-I get it…" Pyrrha replied.

"What, do you not like it?" Jaune asked her, noticing her faltering tone.

" Wha-No! No! It's… good?..."

"Hmmm…. I sensed hesitation!" Nora cheekily added.

But soon, Brawnz had enough. "HEY!"

"Hm?" Team JNPR turned to face the man who had oh, so rudely interrupted their discussion.

"What do you think you're doing?!" Brawnz asked in annoyance.

"Trying to have a team meeting! Thank you very little!" Jaune replied with equal annoyance.

"Yeah! Team ears only!" Nora added angrily.

Team BRNZ looked to each other, but only shrugged in confusion.

"WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIGHT!" Brawnz yelled at Team JNPR.

"AND WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF A CONVERSATION! WHAT DON'T YOU GET ABOUT THAT?!" Jaune furiously yelled back in reply.

"Uuuhh, Jaune?..." Pyrrha addressed the blonde, who sighed in response.

"Yes, Pyrrha?"

"I think he means that we're all in the middle of a fight?" She said, gesturing to the arena around them all, with the roars of the crowd filling their ears once more, reminding them what exactly they were doing there.

"Uuuhhh…" Rebecca could only mutter under her breath at this predicament, while Shaun sat with a palm on his face.

With this, Jaune pressed his sword against his temple in embarrassment and sighed. "Nora, just… hit 'em with the hammer."

With this, Nora's crazed, maniacal grin returned. "Got it!"

"Wait…. What?!"

That was all that Brawnz could say before Nora had landed in front of him and his team with her hammer drawn back for a swing. Before any of them could react, all four of them found themselves pressed against the borders of the arena, bruised and hurt all over as the buzzer sounded.

"Uh… and with that, Team JNPR wins by knockout! Literally!" Oobleck announced.

"Uhh… we also need a medic in the arena for Team BRNZ…." Ports said, cringing at how some limbs were bent the wrong way.

Amity Coliseum, Above Beacon Academy TEAMS ROUND 3: JKHL VS. NDGO

"Oooh, Vacuans in the audience are sure to be hurting after that last round!" Ports announced as the camera went live again.

"Very true. But I feel this next round is sure to have everybody on a knife's edge!" Oobleck continued with an excited grin.

"Turning heads with awe and envy, Team NDGO of Shade is certainly a crowd favorite!" Ports announced.

"But it seems that these lovely ladies are going up against some of the toughest, deadliest and most rugged combatants we've seen so far!" Oobleck added with vigor.

"And there they are now! Team JKHL of Beacon!" Ports yelled

The appearances of the members of Team JKHL triggered a resounding rise in cheers from the Beacon students in the audience, especially among the females.

In whatever way possible, Team JKHL was a special bunch to those at Beacon Academy. Johnny Cage for his friendly personality, Liu Kang for his calculated approach to issues, Sub Zero for his mentorship skills and Scorpion who has a mysterious air around him, add to the fact that he delt with Cardin. As the four stepped out into the ring, this could not be more clear as the crowd's cheers rose higher and higher.

Scorpion's instincts were aggravated by all the attention he drew, but he quelled this frustration under his breath, knowing he was to fight with the whole world watching. With this, he smiled reluctantly under his mask

Johnny always was one to steal the spotlight, and he loved it with a passion. Whenever he would strike a wink into the audience, that section would spike with the noise of excited shrieks and cheers.

With Team TSKK

"Show off." Sonya muttered

"Give him a break, at least he can back it up." Kung Lao said

Arena

Sub Zero had to admit to himself, having so much eyes on him threw him off, but turning to the terraces and seeing Blake, Sun and the rest cheering him on comforted him. People were rooting for him, and he wasn't about to let them down.

Liu Kang merely observed his opponents, noting any flaw in there stance he could exploit

"Good luck, Hanzo!" Weiss called out from the terraces, attracting the attention of the Ninja and causing him to nod slightly.

Turning in front of him, Scorpion spotted their opponents standing opposite them; four beautiful young women dressed in combat attire.

The leader, Nebula Violette smiled calmly as she stood. She had indigo-blue hair brushed over to the left, and wore a light blue coat over a gray shirt, with a single pauldron strapped on her right shoulder. In her hands, she held a crossbow that appeared to possess a blade, not too different in design to Altaïr's weapon.

Standing on her right was Dew Gayl, wearing a commanding and indifferent frown on her face. Her dark blonde hair was short, and she wore a green dress with fishnets. Gripped in her hand was a long halberd, decorated with a dust crystal, presumably its power source.

Behind were the two others. Gwen Darcy was a darker-skinned woman with short and curly black hair, wearing a black corset dress with purple laces. Armored plates hung from each side of her waist, carrying sets of throwing knives in each. Octavia Ember stood beside her, carrying her wavy kris blade in her hand. Wearing a blue vest over a brown skirt, her hair was long and deep red.

To be blunt, Johnny was pretty impressed with what he was seeing. Putting on a sly smile, he went full casanova mode. "Hello ladies, hope you don't mind me taking you out for dinner after our match?" He suavely addressed Team NDGO, encouraging red flushes to briefly grace their cheeks.

With this, Liu Kang shoved his partner aside by the face and addressed the enemy team. "Please forgive my partner for his idiocy. It seems he doesn't know when to stop thinking with his di-"

"Yeah, he's dumb." Sub Zero added quickly

"You know, you shouldn't be flirting with them, considering Sonya is literally seeing all of this." Scorpion pointed out causing Johnny to gulp

With Team TSKK

"I'm going to Cobble that idiot!" Sonya said as tick marks formed on her forehead

"I believe you mean Clobber, to Cobble is to make a shoe." Smoke pointed out

"In that case, I'll Cobble up some boots to clobber him!" Sonya said as Kitana struggled to hold her

"You sure recovered quickly." Kung Lao said referring to her cobble statement

Arena

Soon, roulettes appeared, surrounding the ring. On each display were images representing certain biomes, shuffling through them at high speed.

On the girls' side, the roulette stopped at a bright yellow display with a sun image. With this, the floor under Team NDGO's side of the arena parted to reveal a desert environment with sand and rock formations.

A miniature sun even flickered to life above the biome, prompting members of the audience to put on sunglasses.

"Alright! Home field advantage!" Nebula cheered with a grin. Training back at Shade under the beating hot sun with the sea of sand that was the Vacuan desert under their feet was about to pay off for the girls.

"I wouldn't be so confident if I were you." Liu Kang said

Behind the boys, the roulette stopped as well, but this one was blue, bearing the image of an island with a single palm tree. "Hey! The ocean!" Johnny said

"I almost feel bad for them." Scorpion said seeing the battle field favoured him and Sub Zero

"Begin!" The announcer exclaimed.

"Attack!" Nebula ordered her team, who all advanced to engage Team JKHL.

With the call of the match, Liu Kang and Johnny rushed in first to engage their opponents. Splitting up, Johnny engaged Gwen and Dew while Liu Kang fought Nebula and Octavia.

Noticing her opponent's lack of a weapon, Dew first charged with her spear hoping to pin Johnny, but the young actor merely side stepped her advance before ducking out of the way of Gwens attack. Creating some distance Dew charged energy into her spear before tossing it Johnny.

Seeing this Johnny moved his head sideways before catching the spear, an act that shocked his opponent.

"Man I'm good." Johnny said before being engulfed by green energy. Before Dew could react, Johnny appeared Infront of her performing a shadow kick that knocked her a good 20 meters away. Dodging another slash from Gwen, Johnny used Dew's spear to trip Gwen before Kicking her away.

Meanwhile, Nebula and Octavia were having similar issues with Liu Kang. The little time they had fighting the monk made it brutally clear they were brutally out matched. Grabbing Octavia's hand, Liu Kang judo slammed the girl to the ground before delivering a fire infused punch to Nebula that knocked her away. Luckily for the girl she was able to block the attack, but she could still feel her hand ringing from the force.

Noting they weren't going to beat Liu Kang in close combat, Nebula and Octavia transformed their weapons into guns and started raining gun fire at the monk from both sides all the while running circles around him.

Time seemed to slow down as Liu Kang expertly dodged all their attack before rushing Octavia who was unprepared for what happened next. Liu Kang then delivered a series of combos that shaved his opponents aura before ending his assault with a flaming uppercut that knocked his opponent out.

"Knock out. Team JKHL has the advantage." Oobleck said

Seeing her teammate get defeated, Nebula held her sword up with new determination to defeat Liu Kang. She was about to charge him, consequences be damn, right before a pillar of flame engulfed Liu Kang and in his place stood Scorpion.

"Looks like Hanzo has decided to get in on the action." Ports announced

Nebula didn't know what was up with her new opponent, but her mind was screaming bloody murder at his presence.

"You would be wise to surrender." Scorpion said coldly

"Probably." Nebula said, but she wasn't about to give up without a fight.

Scorpion had to commend the girls bravery even in the face of utter defeat. Raising his right hand, Nebula looked confused at this gesture before said confusion turned to horror as she felt heat build up from underneath her. Thinking quickly, she rolled to her right and noticed the location she previously stood on was engulfed in flames.

"Shit." Nebula cursed as she lost track of her opponent. Raising her sword defensively while scanning for Scorpion, Nebula felt pain shoot through her left shoulder as she was kicked from behind by Scorpion with enough force to lift her off the ground.

Slowly getting up, Nebula noticed she couldn't use her left arm again as it felt numb from the kick.

"My aura was on when he kicked me. Why does it hurt so much?" Nebula thought

"Amazing, it would seem Hanzo was able to shave a good portion of Nebula's aura from a single kick!" Oobleck yelled in surprise

Meanwhile, Gwen was struggling to defend herself against Johnny who was using Dew's spear against her. Hoping to retrieve her weapon back, Dew tried to grab Johnny from behind, only to have him side step her before locking her with her spear. Not wasting anytime, Johnny then tossed Dew into the air, only for her to land inside the pool region of the field. Getting up, Dew was about to get out of the water only for the entire pool to suddenly turn to ice. Dew tried to move but quickly noticed she too was now encased in Ice. While frozen, she noticed Sub Zero approaching her while holding a giant hammer. The next thing Dew knew, she was knocked unconscious as Sub Zero swung the hammer at her breaking the while also knocking her out.

"Another knock out." Ports announced

Hearing this, Gwen lost focus for a split second leaving her open to an assault from Johnny. With a final swing of Dew's spear to his opponent head, Johnny knocked Gwen out.

"You got caged." Johnny said tossing the spear.

With her sword in shaking hands, Nebula stared down her opponent, who merely observed her with Pale eyes. Switching her sword into a gun, she started shooting her opponent with her one good hand hoping to keep him away. Scorpion merely walked towards her while casually dodging all her gun fire. Seeing this, Nebula still continued to fire at Scorpion until she exhausted her rounds. Before she could load another round, she noticed Scorpion was already standing besides her and in an instant, he karate chopped the back of her neck instantly knocking her out.

"And with that, Team NDGO retires! Team JKHL is victorious!" Ports announced

"That my friend, has to be the most one sided victory I've witnessed today!" Oobleck said his partner.

"A little overkill, don't you think?" Liu Kang asked Scorpion

"I was holding back." Scorpion said as he looked at the unconscious girl

"Well, compared to when you first arrived, I'll call this an improvement." Liu Kang said as they began leaving the field

The Crow Bar

"Whoo! Now that was a match!" The bartender excitedly exclaimed, watching the match as he wiped a shot glass with a cloth.

However, his customer only raggedly chuckled under his breath while swirling the whiskey in his glass. "Heh. That was a mess!" He growled drunkedly with a grin on his face.

The bartender turned around with a raised brow. What was his deal? "Oh come on, man! You didn't like them? The Vale kids? What fight're you here for?"

The dusty man opened his mouth to reply, but he stopped once he heard the distant noise of an aircraft engine.

Turning his head, he could see a particularly large ship sailing over the harbor. The ship appeared to be military-grade, lined with guns and trailing white ceremonial flags under its wings.

Chuckling, a wicked grin curled across the man's face knowing she was arriving. Time for payback. " That one."

Standing up woozily, the veteran huntsman chugged down the contents of his glass, but immediately burped in his haste. Laughing to himself, he lazily slammed down his glass onto the bar with a handful of lien.

"Happy Vytal Festival!" He drunkedly mumbled to the bartender before staggering his way outside.

Sighing in exasperation, the bartender moved to pick up the man's glass, and as he turned to put it in the sink, he accidentally knocked over a second glass on the counter, causing it to crash and break into dozens of pieces on the ground.

"Aw, gee darn it..."

" It always seemed to be bad luck around here. Why was that?" The man thought to himself as he knelt down with a broom to pick up the shards that fell on the ground.

Outside, the man moved quickly, feeling wind moving against his face, his sharp eyes following the aircraft through the air.

However, he looked to his side to see an odd sight. It was a hawk, with elegant autumn brown feathers lining outstretched wings, its robust body lifted high. But one look in its eyes, and all he saw were one thing; killing intent.

Flying beside him, the man only chuckled to himself as he sped towards Beacon Academy. " Race you there." He thought to himself as he picked up speed.

Amity Coliseum, Above Beacon Academy

The crowd resounded with a loud cheer, echoing from spectator to spectator throughout the terraces and in the audience, Team RWBY on the other hand, were left slack jawed at what they just witnessed

"Hey, what'd we tell you?" Kung Lao said to Team RWBY, confident that his rival won.

Ruby only leaned back into her chair and groaned. "Oh, man! I am not looking forward to fighting them!"

"Me too." Sun said from her side

"Well, looks like the pretty boys made it to the next round!" Yang added.

With this, Weiss and Blake only looked down at the arena, watching the members of Team JKHL leave the field

Scorpion noticed Weiss in the terrace before giving her a modest nod

Sub Zero on the other hand waved slightly at Blake

From this, both girls blushed prominently, blood rushing through their faces rapidly.

"E-er... yes... I-I guess..." Weiss stuttered, her brain scrambling to cooperate with her lips

"Yeah... I guess they did." Blake blankly replied, her mind lost in her emotions. Her eyes however glazed with a dumb smile

"And that concludes the matched for today!" Oobleck's voice sounded over the loudspeakers.

"C'mon! Let's go congratulate 'em!" Yang said, motioning the others to follow her as she got up from her seat.

But as Weiss began to leave her seat, she looked up to see a familiar-looking Atlesian ship. Eyes widening, she stopped in her tracks, causing Ruby to bump into her from behind.

"Oof! I-uh... w-what are you doing?" Ruby asked her, but she gave no answer.

Smiling wider than she'd ever have in a long time, she only muttered quietly to herself.

"She came..."