Clang! Clang! Clang!
The clashing sound of metal against metal echoes through the room. A black flash disappears from the last flash of metal shining in the room's light, quickly dissipating into a slice into the back, and the aura of the person getting hit shines a brilliant blue. The boy let out a disgruntled yell, throwing his halberd around him to try and form a form of defense and offense against Blake.
His halberd hit true, throwing back the body of Blake, letting him have a few moments to breathe. Taking advantage of the opportunity, he rushed ahead, planning to slam his halberd down against the stunned girl. Unfortunately, right as he was about to slam down his weapon, the girl used her semblance, only allowing the girl's semblance to be hit. Jumping back, she quickly morphed Gambol Shroud into its ribbon form. She launched the ribbon down towards Sky, hoping to tangle his feet.
Fortunately for him, he was able to use feathers edge to vault over the ribbon; unfortunately for him, Blake was able to yank her ribbon back, having it wrap around the halberd in the process, yanking it from him mid-air, causing the boy to miss his jump as well as lose his weapon. He was thrown to the ground upon landing. He did his best to recover as quickly as he could, but Blake was just too much faster than him; she went right for him after losing his weapon.
He had just gotten off the ground when he had to try and guard against Blake slashing at him with Gambol shroud, switching from its basic sword mode to its quicker sickle mode, his aura flashing around his body dangerously; he tried to keep his mind open to seeing an opening in her slices, doing his best to have his armor take the brunt of the damage; he had just about enough when he spotted it; he flashed his hand out, grabbing when Blake had planned to slash him, quickly wrapping the fabric around his hand and yanking her forward, allowing him to score two punches and a headbutt to get her off him, allowing him to-
'Buuuuuzzzz'
Both fighters stopped immediately upon hearing the sound of the buzzer: "Ms. Belladonna and Mr. Lark, Mr. Lark's aura has reached into the red, meaning this match is over. Ms. Belladonna is the winner." There were cheers from the crowd, of course, with the loudest ones coming from the rest of RWY and BOD. After getting the class to get quiet, Glynda looked at Sky and Blake.
"Ms. Belladonna, you did an excellent job of taking advantage of your opponent's long-range weakness. However, you were still able to be surprised by Mr. Lark's use of his own weapon and take advantage of an opening you left with your weapon. Your errors were few and far between. All I can recommend is that you continue your own training." Blake gave the teacher a slight nod. Her face, however, displayed her true intentions. A smile was blooming on her face.
"Now, Mr. Lark, you did decently well to an unknown opponent; however, you were surprised multiple times by her weapon, semblance, and tactics. However, I commend you for fighting even without your weapon; you put up against a rather well fight. However, I wouldn't recommend using things other than your legs and hands as a weapon; I would also recommend learning some other long-range tactics besides your weapons basic gun components, perhaps adding more dust into your arsenal or other options, that are available to you; again, not a bad showing, however you do have more to improve on."
"Yes, Ms. Goodwitch." Goodwitch gave him a nod and watched as the two left for the locker room. "Will the next combatants please come down after the previous two have returned to their teams?"
Dove was beginning to stand to leave when Sky rejoined his team, a smile on his face and smelling faintly of sea salt for some apparent reason. "Dude, you were awesome out there! I didn't expect those last moves. Yanking forward into those hits was so cool!" Orion was gushing over his teammate. Dove gave Sky a nod. "You did good. You'll do better next time." After this, he headed to the locker room to get ready.
"Really though, you were awesome out there, Sky; I didn't think you could spin your axe so fast!" Sky gave Alex a rather odd look, lifting his eyebrow and smirking. "Halberd, Feathers Edge is actually a halberd; they're close to axes but still different, but still, thanks. Blake was a lot tougher than she looked; she basically had control over the whole fight. I was able to get a surprise in here and there, but I doubt I would have won without some kind of surprise up my sleeve."
Sky sat down with a bit of an 'oof' sound. "I'm still pretty sore, though. I'm so glad this is our last class of the day." The cousins raised their eyebrows before looking back towards the arena. Sky looked at the two cousins, who seemed to be thinking about something. "So, who do you guys think will win?" Orion didn't even get to answer when Alex appeared to respond in an instant. "Dove."
Dove's face quickly turned into one of surprise. "That quick? Don't you think Jaune might have a chance? I mean, his weapon isn't the most advanced, but still, he can't be that bad." Alex winced upon hearing this, and he had to figure out what to say without feeling bad about it. "I know some things about Jaune; he won't really put up much of a fight against everyone, at least not for a while." He felt horrible talking about Jaune like this, but it was true; there had to be something he could do to help him earlier, especially since, well, to put it bluntly to himself, he'd replaced Cardin.
He can't do what Cardin did and just straight-up bully Jaune, but maybe he can try to show how badly Jaune needs help now, and perhaps he and Orion or maybe his team could try to help him. Alex and Orion could prove it, having only been training for the last few months.
"Alright, man, but I'm still going to hold out onto some hope for Jauney-boy." Alex couldn't help but chuckle; he didn't think that name would make a comeback without Cardin making a comeback.
Everyone's eyes were once again drawn to the middle of the room. Dove and Jaune were standing in the middle of the arena. Goodwitch stood, looking between the boys. "This match is between Dove Bronzewing of team BOLD and Jaune Arc of team JNPR. The match ends when one of you either forfeits or your aura drops into the red. Am I understood?" She looked between the boys. She got a nod from Dove and a "Yes, ma'am." from Jaune.
"You may begin!"
Dove rushes in towards Jaune, intending to start the fight off as quickly as possible. Jaune quickly yells as he tries to back up from Dove. He ends up just barely backing away from him enough to dodge most of the attacks. The last swing from Dove's sword hits the boy, sending him further backward than he intended, leading him to trip under his own feet.
Trying to take advantage of Jaune's mistake, Dove raised and tried to slam his sword down onto the fallen blonde. Jaune quickly tried to move away from the sword's downward slam by throwing himself to the side, doing his best to stand up and run away to try and gain some type of ground against this guy!
Sky wretched his sword free from the floor. He looked up to see Jaune trying to run from him, probably trying to get an idea of his skills—not a bad idea. He watched Jaune's eyes widen as he realized he had left part of his equipment—his shield. He smiled to himself; this should make the fight easier. Dove quickly kicked the shield behind him; Jaune would have to go through him if he wanted to regain his shield.
"Come on, man. Couldn't you have just kicked my shield back? Where is your sense of sportsmanship?" He really depended on his shield. Sure, his armor could probably take a good few hits, but the shield made things so much easier! Jaune looked around Dove, trying to figure out how to regain his shield. Dove was slowly trying to walk towards him. He knew he was trying to stay away from him, right? That is what he expects him to do! So he won't do that!
Jaune gripped his sword in two hands and rushed forward towards Dove. Dove took a half step back in surprise before raising his own sword and rushing forward to meet Jaune, only to let out a "Huh!" as Jaune quickly jumped to the side and rushed for his shield. Dove didn't kick it nearly as far as he wanted to.
"Ugh." Dove rushed back toward Jaune, deciding he wouldn't give him a chance to get away this time. Jaune had his back to him; wrong move. Dove raised Hallshot, ready to end this; he was pumping aura through his legs and arms to get some more force in his attack! He slammed his sword down on Jaune!
Jaune had just barely raised his sword in time. He loudly grunted as he held his shield, blocking the significant attack and surprising himself that it even worked! He had to take this opportunity! Jaune quickly slammed his shield to the side, forcing Dove's sword to the side. Jaune let out a roar of triumph as he slashed Crocea Mors, going straight for Dove's body.
Fwshhh
Jaune watched in slow-motion horror as his weapon went through Dove. He looked up, only to be met by a punch from Dove. The punch forced Jaune back; he didn't get his aura up in time to block it. Dove followed this up with six quick and hard slashes into Jaune's aura, which quickly flashed before shattering entirely. A loud buzzing rang through the room as the lights flickered back into the arena.
"That's enough. Mr. Arc's aura has depleted far past the red; the winner is Mr. Bronzewing." The class quickly fell into cheers for the fight. Dove couldn't help but see a small smile grace his face when he heard the cheering. It felt nice hearing people call out to him like that.
"Mr. Arc, While I commend you for staying strong against an unknown opponent and trying new tactics to try and surprise or escape Mr. Bronzewing, getting overconfident in your abilities was your downfall, much like many huntsmen. However, you did well against an unknown and more skilled opponent." She gave Jaune a slight nod. "Thank you, ma'am."
"Mr. Bronzewing, you did well against a less skilled opponent. However, once Mr. Arc tried to change tactics, you were caught off guard. Expecting an opponent to try the same thing over and over again is a failed plan. However, you did make good use of Mr. Arcs' surprise upper hand. With that, you are both dismissed to get dressed." The boys both slowly left the arena.
"Once Mr. Bronzewing and Mr. Arc are back in the stands, would the next two come up, Ms. Xiao Long and Ms. Nikos? That would be you two." The room would go silent as if everyone in the area realized just who would be fighting next and were getting excited and nervous to see just who they would have to fight against and how well they stood next to them.
"You know, Jaune actually did better than I expected him to. Props to him." Alex gave the man an acknowledgment nod. Sure, he couldn't see it, but it was the thought that counts.
"I told you, man, Jaune is better than you might think. Sure, sure, he didn't look all that skilled with his weapon, but he did look pretty smart, tactically wise." Alex just rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I know when I'm getting told, I told you so."
"Not really, just pointing out some things, ya know." Alex turned to see Sky watching Jaune come back up from the stands; he didn't look sad, or mad, for that matter. Alex was pretty surprised. He thought that Jaune would be sulking, but instead, he looked, almost energized. Had Dove talked with Jaune already? Or were there already some changes going on?
Dove was coming back to the team now. Alex paused, looking around. Where had Orion gone? It took him a second, but he eventually found him. He was sitting with Team JNPR. He must have moved when he was focused on the fight. Orion was talking with Nora and Ren, then Jaune once he got back to his team; they all looked pleased with each other. He couldn't make out the specifics, but it looked like Nora, Pyrrha, and Orion were trying to encourage Jaune, or give him some type of compliment. Ren seemed to be quiet the entire time, with occasional comments here and there, but he didn't look upset about anything.
"Yo leader, Dove's on his way back." William quickly turned back towards Sky, noticing where he was motioning towards Dove, who still seemed to have a smile on his face, even if it was a tiny one. Alex gave him the best smile he could at the moment. "Nice job, Dove! Was that your semblance in the fight?" Dove seemed to falter, his steps freezing before he continued his walk and sat down with the rest of BLD.
"Yes, that was my semblance. I don't try to use it too often because I want to keep it as an ace in the hole, and so people won't know just what it is."
"Aaah, Okay, okay, it seemed pretty cool, though you must be able to pha-" Dove raised his hand in front of his team leader. "I don't mind talking about this with you; it's just not right here, okay?" Dove motioned to the people around them. It took a few seconds, but Alex finally understood what it meant. "Ah, okay, yeah, later then."
With both Dove and Jaune back in their respective seats, Pyrrha and Yang started to head down to the locker rooms to change. "I'm actually really excited to see this fight. Yang is really strong, and Pyrrha is, well, she's Pyrrha, the invincible girl." Alex was honestly amazed at getting the chance to see this fight; he doesn't remember ever seeing Pyrrha fighting Yang on the show! So that'll help him see how strong they are and get to watch an incredible fight at the same time.
The class quieted down. The whole class was excited about this fight. The first one out of the locker room was Yang. She gave the classroom's audience a bow and flashed them all a bright smile: "Miss Xiao long, I applaud your ability to charm a crowd, but maybe wait and save that for the Vytal festival?" Yang's face turned sheepish. She scratched her arm and said, "Yes, Ms. Goodwitch."
Not too long after this did, Pyrrha walked out; this time, the classroom actually seemed to vibrate as most of them cheered for the champion fighter. Pyrrha appeared to enjoy the applause, or at least her face showed she enjoyed it; Alex could see a few people in the class who seemed to grimace from all the noise and attention. "Man, that has to suck." Sky's head perked up. "Huh? What do you mean?" Alex motioned towards Pyrrha, then waved his arms around a bit. "This, I mean, I know we haven't really talked to JNPR or Pyrrha, but she came here for a reason, right? She probably doesn't want all this attention; she just wants to go to school. Maybe she can try to be normal." Maybe he was slipping up a bit and talking about stuff he doesn't fully understand, but, if he can help the ones around him understand her, maybe it'll help later on.
"That's fair; I bet having all that attention has got to get annoying after a while, right? I could see why she might not like it; then again, like you said, we don't really know her that well, so we probably shouldn't assume stuff about her." Alex motioned as if saying 'fair enough' and turned his attention back to the fight that was about to happen. Should he be calling them fights? They are spars, but still.
"This fight will be between Yang Xiao Long of Team RWBY Versus Pyrrha Nikos of Team JNPR. Are you both ready?" Yang flashes Goodwitch a smile and a thumbs up. Pyrrha gives a small, "Yes, ma'am." Her eyes narrow, and her stance tightens. "Begin."
Yang immediately shot forward, using Ember Celica to fly ahead quicker, hoping to try and start this fight off hard and fast. Pyrrha must have seen her coming as she quickly threw her shield up at Yang, causing her to have to try and change directions. Pyrrha used this to her advantage as she promptly shifted Milo into its rifle form and took some shots at Yang; the blonde grunted as she took the brunt of the attack. She did her best to move around the bullets, but a few did hit her, as seen by her aura flashing. "Dang, Pyrrha, you know how to hit a girl."
Yang continued to rush forward, shooting out blasts from Ember Celica as she approached, causing Pyrrha to have to change Milo back into its Spear form and deflect them. "Come on, Pyrrha, show me what you really got." Pyrrha then surprised Yang by rushing forward. Yang's face broke out into a smile as she realized she was finally getting the chance to get up close and personal with Pyrrha.
Once Pyrrha had rushed Yang, she quickly spun Milo around to deflect more of Yang's shots before finally being able to get close enough to swipe at the blonde brawler's legs. Yang quickly jumped back, allowing her to avoid the hit and for her to try and get a clean punch in, or at least that's what she hoped for, but Pyrrha was able to bring Milo back up and almost cut right into her chin; she did her best to try and back up a bit from the red-haired girl's attacks.
Yang's hair flashed crimson as she was once again nicked by Milo's edge. "Ugh! Come on!" Yang once again rushed forward, Pyrrha expecting this, and once again tried to cut down on Yang's legs, but this time, instead of jumping back like Pyrrha was expecting, Yang slid to the side and landed a punch to Pyrrha's side, throwing the taller girl back a bit, her aura flashing around her. "Hah, and that's not all; I got a whole lot more in the tank waiting for ya." Pyrrha grits her teeth as she slides to a stop; she is still quiet as she pushes herself onto her back foot and launches back, letting Milo slash forward with her.
Pyrrha was a cloud of sharp stabs, slashes, and dodges, yet Yang was like a collapsing building; the more hits Yang took, the harder she fell back onto Pyrrha, her hair growing brighter the more hits she took. Pyrrha knew this had to be something with her semblance, meaning she needed to try to end this faster, or she'd just continue feeding into her power. Pyrrha dodged another of Yang's punches, and more and more were starting to slip through her defenses. Quickly, Pyrrha spun Milo around her, causing Yang to have to back up so as not to get hit by any part of the spear. Using this distraction, Pyrrha rushed towards Yang and then over her. Pyrrha had leaped right over the blonde; the fight had allowed them to move closer to Akoúo̱, allowing Pyrrha to quickly grab her shield, just in time to block Yang's punch. She was aiming for Pyrrha.
Pyrrha slightly used her semblance to launch her shield upwards, causing Yang's arms and the rest of her to be launched slightly into the air. Pyrrha used this to quickly slash Yang as many times as possible. The blonde girl's aura was quickly whittling down from the edge of green into the dark yellow. Still, before Pyrrha could get her into the red, the girl's hair once again exploded, except this time the girl let out a roar as she flung herself down. "Raah!" she said, using her semblance to blast down towards Pyrrha. Pyrrha, not expecting Yang to physically explode out of the air, was taken aback for a second. That's all Yang needed to rush in and smash her fists into Pyrrha. "Ah!" Pyrrha had let out a small gasp and grunt the first time she had said anything the whole fight.
Pyrrha could do almost nothing to block the speed and power of the punches. She did her best to try and dodge or move slightly, but Yang just wouldn't stop. Pyrrha could feel her aura draining more and more after each hit; she needed to end this now! Pyrrha gritted her teeth as she took another punch to the arm. Pyrrha tried not to move her arm, but she focused on Yang's gauntlets and pulled them against each other, causing Yang's arms to be shot away from each other, each one trying to get further away from the other, while still attached to the girl, causing Yang's arms to stretch and pull to her sides. She was grunting as she tried to pull them together, "WHAT? Ugh! Come on!" But before she could make any progress, Pyrrha had brought Akoúo̱ up and slammed the shield down against Yang's face as hard as she could. Yang's head snapped back against the hit, her aura flashing dangerously. Pyrrha let go of her semblance as the buzzing went off.
"That's enough; Miss Xiao Long's aura has fallen into the red; Miss Nikos is the winner of this spar." Yang did her best to stand but had to pause as she had trouble getting up on her own; thankfully, Pyrrha had walked over to help her up and said, "Thank you." With her help, she was able to stand, only to learn that standing was even more challenging. "Miss Xiao Long, I would like to try and talk to you about how you acted in this spar, but it doesn't look like you are in good condition to do so right now, Miss Nikos?"
Pyrrha turned to Goodwitch when she called her name. "Can you help Miss Xiao Long to her team so they can take her to the infirmary?" Pyrrha moved to put her arm around Yang's shoulder to help her walk. "Yes, ma'am." Yang did her best to walk straight on her own. "It's not that bad, really. I can do it on my own." She would then almost immediately trip. "Okay, maybe a little help would be okay." Pyrrha let out a small giggle as she helped the blonde boxer to her team.
"Holy shit, that was intense." That had to have been the most intense fight he's seen since he's been here! It also made him realize how much he needed to grow to even try to stand against someone like either of those girls! "Yeah, I can really see why Pyrrha was a tournament fighter; she had most of the control of the fight; she got surprised a bit, but besides that, she was going ham against Yang." Alex couldn't help but laugh a bit at Sky's comment about going ham, but he wasn't wrong.
Alex watched as Pyrrha had brought Yang to RWBY; Blake had been the one to help her to the infirmary. Once Pyrrha rejoined her team, Orion gave the team a goodbye, saying he didn't want to interrupt any team talk about Pyrrha's fight. Orion joined his team not long after, which was when Alex had begun to get ready to go down for his battle. "Oh boy, time to fight Ruby; this shouldn't be too hard, not like I'm up against a person with super speed, a giant scythe, and way more experience than me or anything nope! Not at all." The boy was rambling to himself as he paced back and forth between the chairs of his team. Ruby and himself hadn't been called back down just yet since Goodwitch had to fix the arena up a little from Yang's explosiveness.
Orion and the rest of his team had just been staring at their leader, who was pacing and muttering like a, well, like their leader. Orion sighed before walking up and smacking him on the back of the head. It didn't hurt much, but it snapped his cousin out of his little trance. "Yo, snap the fuck out of it; you're fighting someone you don't want to or didn't expect to get over it; it's class; just focus on the fight, alright? You're not even down there yet; calm down, man." Alex flinched a bit but did slowly calm down. "And sit down, man, you're making me nervous as hell."
Slowly, Alex sat down. "I know, I know, it's just beside Nora, you, and Ren. I haven't fought against a lot of people, and this," he waved over to where RW was. "It's going to be hard; I think I'm just trying to psych myself up to it; talking to myself kinda helps." Alex took a few breaths before he closed his eyes, and a few of the stray smoke particles that were seen floating around him disappeared. "Alright, I know some of her weaknesses, or at least one, so I guess I can try to go for that."
Sky and Dove gave each other a small look and said, "You know one of Ruby's weaknesses in a fight?" Alex nodded, not thinking about it. "Yeah, she sucks at unarmed combat; without her scythe, she's basically just a normal person with aura." Both boys looked at Alex even harder; it took a second before it clicked for Alex as to what he said. "Oh, that probably sounds weird out of context; I've uh seen Ruby fight before; she went to signal and was on some of their videos of how their students do in fights; she was one of the better ones, so I guess they picked her out to show off." He was pulling all of this out of his ass, and he knew it, and so did Orion, if his look was anything to go off of.
Before anyone could continue the conversation, Glynda's voice would flow throughout the classroom. "The arena is now fixed. Would Ms. Rose and Mr. Britt please come down to start their spar?" Alex looked back down at his team before taking a breath and heading down to the locker room.
The locker room was larger without the crowd of other students being inside. "Alright, we got this; okay, we don't got this, but we can at least try; just try and get her weapon away from her." Alex quickly changed into his combat clothes; the bronze leather had a darker edge when he put it on, and the actual bronze shoulder guards seemed to give off a slight red tint. Alex paused in the mirror, noticing the change. He tried to calm his nerves; he relaxed his mind and calmed his breathing, just doing his best to remember the things Ren told him about controlling his emotions; they were a bit harder to hide since his powers always seemed to pop up when he was emotional, in any sense of the word.
He double-checked his dust pouch. It was mostly filled with fire dust and plant crystals, with a few water crystals scattered inside. He closed the pouch, feeling the magnets holding it closed, and let off a soft 'tink' as it sealed itself. "Alright, let's go."
Slowly, Alex would leave the locker room. Once outside, he would get a bit scared at how dark everything looked from below; it had to be from how the lights were positioned.
Looking across the room, he would see Ruby exiting the other locker room. It took a second, but she would notice him; they stood awkwardly for a second before they both started walking towards Goodwitch, who had let out a small 'ahem' to get both the socially awkward teenagers to come to her. "Now, Mr. Britt, before I start this match, I want to ask you to please register your scroll to the school's aura database; you were supposed to have done that when you linked it with your aura; I assume you forgot?" Alex did his best not to flinch at her words; no, he hadn't forgotten. He had just hoped they wouldn't notice. "Yes, ma'am, sorry, let me do that now."
Alex looked down at his scroll, still a little scared about this. He didn't know what would happen when he tried to link his aura; would it even work with his powers? "Are you okay, Mr. Britt?" This time, Alex did flinch. Ah, yes, ma'am. Sorry, I just got distracted."
Alex cut on his scroll and navigated to the school aura app; it was odd that they had an app for this. Once opened, the same prompt from the days before popped up, telling him to link his aura to his scroll. He hesitated for a second, then selected yes. His scroll screen changed; it looked like a loading bar. A text prompt appeared in front of it.
[Please do not take down your aura shield while your scroll fixes itself to you; doing so might cause damage to you or the scroll.]
Alex read the prompt and then almost dropped his scroll as he felt his arm start to go numb. He looked down in surprise as he saw his powers activate and physically get sucked into his scroll; the loading bar was quickly filling up, the color changing to a dark brown. Alex shuttered slightly. He could feel his powers being drained; it only took a few seconds, but once they were up, his scroll finished, and it gave him a small notification.
[Aura found and synced; enjoy]
Alex showed Goodwitch his scroll and said, "Thank you. Give me a few moments to get your aura from the school systems." With that, she opened her own scroll and started to tap away. Alex would quickly open his pouch and slipped his hand inside. He looked down for a second before making sure he was holding a fire dust crystal, then started to drain it.
The dust crystal, which had started off bright red, was slowly losing color. Once Alex had absorbed enough to where he was before the 'aura,' he let go of the crystal. It was still a red crystal, but with an obvious dull color to it. After that, he removed his hand from his pouch and closed it. He looked up and noticed Ruby staring at him with a raised eyebrow.
Alex coughed before he gave Ruby an answer to her staring: "I was just making sure I had all my stuff." She gave him an odd look: "Okaaaay, but you had a weird look on your face." Alex paused; he didn't really know what to say to that. " That's my thinking face." Thankfully, that was around the same time Glynda had pulled up both of their auras.
Both of their faces and auras were brought up on the big screen. Ruby's was an obvious Ruby red, while Alex's was an odd brown color and had four brown dots under it. Alex noticed Glynda's confused face as she tried to mess with her scrolls. After a few seconds of what he guessed was a failure, she left her scroll alone.
"This match will be between Ruby Rose, team RWBY's leader, and William Britt, team BOLD's leader." She looked at both of them and asked, "Are you both ready?" "Yes, ma'am." "Yes, Ms. Goodwitch." She gave them both one more look before swinging her riding crop down. "You may begin!"
Alex quickly rushed forward, smoke dashing as soon as he heard Glynda say, 'Begin.' This proved to be the right thing to do because Ruby almost immediately went into a spinning, slicing death ball; he was able to smoke dash away and above her, allowing himself the chance to try and shoot down at her; he immediately started it off with one of his strongest attacks, what he learned was the 'rocket' attack. Just a very compact, fast-firing ball of fire and ash, it rocketed towards Ruby, who quickly sped away from the rocket, which quickly smashed into the ground in a giant, smoky explosion that gave off a minor shock wave. Alex was already breathing a bit heavier; he could only use a couple of those without fully draining himself.
Alex did his best to smoke dash down without getting hit by Ruby; he only half accomplished this. Ruby tried to predict how his smoke dashes worked, so when he came out of it, she slashed toward him; thankfully for him, she wasn't totally correct and ended up just barely missing him. Alex tried to exploit her miss by slamming his mace into Ruby's side. He was surprised when his hit was solid, smashing into the girl's aura, but it didn't last long, though, as she quickly spun her scythe and blasted forwards towards him.
Alex was trying his best to block Ruby's attacks, but he just couldn't. She was fast, and so was he, but she was just quicker and more experienced. Every time he thought he had an opening, she would speed away and come back twice as fast. He could feel his skin burning as the cuts started to add up; he could also feel his smoke flowing off him. He was holding his mace sideways in front of him when he less saw, and more felt Ruby's attack being blocked, her scythes enormous blade only inches away from him. Thankfully, something he noticed was that he was stronger than Ruby, which let him block her attacks a bit easier than most should.
He just needed to figure out a way to get her off of him! He needed her to back away; that's it! He did his best to follow Ruby. Then, when he felt her starting to approach him, he quickly dropped a smoke bomb at his feet, using the smoke that was already gathered around his body to let him hide it easier than his other attacks; the smoke didn't bother him in the slightest, but he still didn't fully understand how he could see through it so easily, but he wasn't going to question the advantage, especially since he could hear Ruby coughing!
Quickly, he smoke dashed out of his miniature cancer bomb; he gathered more smoke into his hands again, charging up the rockets, then, as soon as they were ready, he shot them into the smoke cloud! The charged rocket quickly shot through and then into the cloud. A considerable noise and explosion shot the smoke bomb away, revealing Ruby, whose aura was flashing around her body once again; she looked like she had been blown back slightly; she had obviously taken some damage now; and parts of her skin were an obviously burnt pink. He heard her let out some coughs before shifting her stance back into a fighting one. "Ugh! Would you stop moving so much! Your heat's going to hurt my baby!" crap! He had been so focused on actually seeing if he hit her that he allowed her to get ready to fight again!
He did his best to get into his stance quickly and rush forward into a smoke dash, intending to either go through Ruby or meet her halfway. Instead, something else happened; both Ruby and Alex had used their irrespective dashes, which ended up with the two mixing together into a fierce ball of burning smoking rose petals; both of them were quickly thrown out of the fiery mess, Ruby now with smoke and ash freely falling from her form, and coughing up ash and smoke once again, almost gagging on it. The opposite seemed to be happening to Alex; multiple rose petals had fallen off of him, and he was coughing out either burnt or full rose petals. "Ugh!"
Slowly, both fighters would stand back up, still coughing, "Ugh! You're going to give me smoker's lung at this point!" Alex was moving to the side, trying to get a grip on his weapon again. "Ugh, how do you think I feel? Those rose petals don't taste anything like the ones you smell in shampoo." The two both glared at one another, gripping their weapons tight as if on cue. Both of them rushed each other. There was a flash of metal on metal before one weapon obviously won, and there was a soft 'thump' on the ground as something fell down and hit the arena floor; the crowd that had been a bit loud during the fight had gone a ghostly quiet.
On the floor of the arena, was an arm, still grasping a mace.
The screaming began not with the one whose arm was cut off but by the one who cut it off. Ruby had let out a scream of horror as she looked down at just what she had done, the blood still fresh on crescent rose, the yelling from the boy whose arm she just cut off, it was all too much. She couldn't hear anything over her own screaming and the blood rushing to her ears. She dropped her weapon and ran over to Alex, only to be beaten by Ms. Goodwitch; she was a teacher! And Adult! She can help!
"Mr. Britt!, Mr. Britt! I need you to listen to me. Focus on me!" Alex was bent over on the ground; he was yelling, screaming, and probably more! "I know, Mr. Britt! It hurts. Just focus on me!" Goodwitch's voice was that of a worried adult trying to comfort a hurt child. Quickly, she used her semblance to grab a box she had kept nearby for injuries that happened from fights; inside, she pulled out a tourniquet. "Mr. Britt, I'm going to need you to let go of your arm; I need to put this over your arm's shoulder to stop the bleeding. I know it'll hurt, but we need to do this so we can stop the bleeding!" The boy was trying to stop his anguished noises. "Arm."
"Yes, your arm, please!" The boy's body shook as he tried to stand but quickly fell. "No, Mr. Britt, what are you doing? You can't move, right? No, please!" Glynda was just about to have to force the boy to be still with her semblance when she was quickly broken out of her action. "I NEED MY ARM!" The boy, William, was yelling for his arm; he couldn't be serious right now! She shook herself out of the thoughts and quickly brought up her riding crop, ready to hold him down; he was probably going hysterical from the pain and blood loss. "I'm sorry, but-"
There was a burst of petals, and the boy's arm was dropped in front of his legs; it was Ruby. She was ghostly white, and her hands were shaking. "I-I just want to help." She was obviously shaken, but that didn't matter right now! "Ms. Rose, please hold him down if you want to help!" Ruby froze, but William's words broke through both of them: "D-dust, I n-need my dust." The boy was trying to reach for the dust pouch he had on his right side, the side with the missing arm. He was clearly in hysterics, if that was what he was focused on, but before Glynda could do anything, Ruby had dumped the boy's dust pouch onto the ground next to him. "Ms. Rose! Now isn't the time to-"
Glynda was once again interrupted when Alex basically threw himself at the dust, grabbing as many of the fire crystals as she could. What was he doing? He wasn't going to try to cauterize the wound, was he? Glynda was reaching out to stop the boy from making any foolish mistakes when there was a flash as the dust lit up, only to be immediately dragged into the boy; the smoke had started to flow off the boy and around him. She watched as the dust crystal started to light before quickly being draining into the boy, leaving the crystals a dull gray. The cloud of smoke got thicker and thicker as it dropped around him. The boy's arm disappeared, as did the rest of him, into a large cloud of smoke.
He quickly dropped out of the cloud, breathing and sweating heavily and gasping for air, both arms fully intact. "Hah, hah." He was trying to gulp down as much air as possible.
Alex looked over after he felt he had any energy at all to move, only to see a wide-eyed Goodwitch, and a pale, shaken, blood-covered Ruby, or at least that's what he saw before he collapsed back onto the ground, still conscious but just barely. "Get him to the nurse's office now!" He couldn't tell who that was, but he didn't care. He felt himself get lifted off the ground; he sucked when he couldn't move or do anything himself, and he let out a soft sorry' as he was carried away to the nurse's office.
"You're sorry?! You joined a huntsmen academy without aura and tried to fight a fully power aura student, get dismembered in front of your class, and all you have to say for yourself is you're sorry!" Alex was in what he guessed was one of the nurse's beds and was getting lectured by Goodwitch herself, "No! I have aura; it's just different! My aura is always active in my abilities, which is why I can use my semblance, but instead of being able to use it like a shield, I can only use it for my semblance or physical things. I can't shield myself more than what it already does!"
Glynda was glaring at him; this was pissing him off! "If I didn't have aura, I wouldn't have been able to connect to the scrolls, right? If I didn't have aura, how could I have done that?" That only caused Glynda's scowl to deepen. "Don't get angry with me, young man. You should be glad I haven't expelled you for this, this stunt!" A stunt? Does she think that was a stunt?! "My arm got FUCKING CUT OFF; HOW WAS THAT A STUNT?" The bedside was quickly filling up with ash and smoke, and his breathing was growing heavier. Seeing the smoke seemed to cause Glynda to pause.
She took a few breaths, thankfully far enough away to get mostly clean air. "I apologize. I don't usually snap like that, but this situation is difficult for me as a teacher. You must understand, that everyone has unique semblances, but with things like these, it makes it hard to fully train at your full potential and not get more harmed than not, especially with people like Miss Rose. You can still try, and I don't fault you for that. However, you must also think about those you might affect while doing so. I apologize for my sharp words; the event has shaken me a bit as it did for your classmates; once you have fully recovered, we will talk more about trying to find something to help your, situation." Goodwitch gave him a slight bow and left the room.
It's great that now he has to worry about being dismembered, which will make his teachers angry because his powers are different. He is trying to keep things from getting worse, and this is just great.
Alex let out some breaths as he sat on the bed. The nurse forbade anyone besides Goodwitch from entering his room until he got some rest. Actually, resting sounds pretty good right now; maybe he should do that.
Alex turned to his side and went to sleep.