"Out with a Yang."
And with a final, raucous, and very VERY violent finish on the final enemy who made the HUGE mistake of taking off a strand of Yang's hair, Team JDGS found themselves at the final match at last.
With Yang now sitting in the stands with everyone else, she kept her hands in her lap but noticed there was a bit more space between her and the rest of her friends. "What?" she asked, noticing the unsettled expressions. She didn't seem to realize how nervous she got everyone after letting loose another of her...explosive episodes.
"Yang, there's something I've just never understood about you." Weiss said, trying to keep a composed tone and neutral face "I understand you keep your hair long because you don't like it to be cut. Though I at least hope you trim it up every now and then. I mean, if having it cut bothers you so much, why did you choose to be a huntress or a fighter of any sort? You realize longer hair is more likely to get cut up with something like fighting, don't you?"
"Says the woman with a long side ponytail." Blake interjected dryly, pointing out the flaw of Weiss's argument.
"Oh like you're one to talk, Blake. You let yours hang just as loosely and potentially vulnerably as Yang!" Weiss countered with annoyance.
Before she could say any more, she suddenly found herself face to face with a livid looking Yang. "Weiss?" she spoke up, her voice low and dangerous sounding. Weiss didn't dare to speak as Yang looked right into her eyes, lavenders briefly flashing red again. "I value your opinion and I value our friendship. But never...EVER...suggest that again." With her point made and a very hushed Weiss left in her wake, Yang went to sit beside Blake.
A tense Ruby leaned in and whispered to her partner, "I'd take her advice if I were you, Weiss." as if the little sister spoke from experience similar to what her best friend just went through.
With that display over and done with, Phil cleared his throat and got back to the task at hand. "Alright! We have our winners! Now for the moment you've all been waiting for! Gods and Goddesses, Nymphs and Satyrs of all ages, it's time for our winning junior heroes to come face to face with the champ himself! Hercules!"
Right on cue, from the opposite end of the arena, the tall, broad, muscular hero of the hour marched confidently out into the arena, waving to the stands in an almost practiced gesture. He looked toward the junior heroes in the stand with a cheery and encouraging expression. And when he smiled, the girls seemed on the verge of going wild. Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang, were flushed bright red with expressions that could only be described as "oohs" and "aahs". The only girls who didn't seem to be were Nora and Pyrrha. Almost as if their focuses were more on certain other fellows present. Phil smiled proudly, somewhat looking forward to seeing how his star pupil showed these kids what a REAL hero was like. No better way to learn than the hard way.
As he came face to face with his challengers, Hercules greeted them with a cheerful, "Show me what you got!" He'd clearly been hoping Sora and his friends would get this far. And now that they had, he was even more eager to see if they were truly as strong as their success in the past two cups suggested.
"Hercules, wait. Let's go one-on-one!" Sora said to him, one fist pumped as he smiled confidently.
Everyone looked to him in surprise while giving a collective, "What?!"
Only Donald and Goofy were surprised, the former looking deadpanned while saying, "Oh brother. What a show-off." as the latter seemed contemplative when saying, "What are we gonna do?" prompting Donald to shrug and walk to the stands and respond, "Let him go alone, I guess."
"Wait, seriously?" Jaune said when seeing Goofy join him. "Wait a minute you guys. We're supposed to be a team."
Not seeming to pay his words notice, Goofy looked back with a wave and smiled. "Good luck Sora."
Jaune could not believe they were going through with it. Neither could anyone else watching from the sidelines. He ran to them to try to talk some sense into his friends and some agreed with him, like Weiss.
"Is he crazy? I thought Yang was reckless but this is another level entirely."
"Hey." Yang said to her with some offense.
Ren sighed, shaking his head. "What starts as confidence can quickly become overconfidence."
"Guess the kid is gonna learn the hard way." Phil said like he was disappointed.
"Phil. You're not honestly going to allow this, are you?" Blake said, showing astonishment at him.
The satyr shrugged again. "Sometimes people need to be knocked down a peg to learn."
Nora looked at him accusingly. "You just want to see Sora knocked around, don't you?"
Phil ignored her and announced the final match. "Sora of team JDGS has chosen to fight the final contestant alone. Let the final round begin!"
"I'm not gonna go easy on you." Hercules said, showing the same excitement as he readied himself to the other side of the arena and Sora going to his end. As they rushed to each other, Sora noticed Hercules was glowing with a golden light around his body.
"Wait... that can't be aura, can it?" Ruby muttered.
Power of the gods, Lil Red. Power of the gods." Phil said, his voice brimming with pride.
Ruby looked at the Satyr with confusion. "Gods?" she asked.
Rather than give her a clear answer, Phil simply waved her off, saying, "Nothin' you need to worry about yet."
"Awww, come on, Phil!" Ruby whined pitifully. Why did the tubby Satyr have to be so stingy 24/7?
"Hey, just be satisfied that yer lil friend got far enough for you to see how much I've been teachin' Herc. Showin' him how to become a TRUE hero. Somethin' you clowns still got a long way to go til ya reach it yerselves." Everyone's expressions went deadpan as Phil took that opportunity to once again, belittle them.
But before Sun or Weiss could retort with a bitter comment, Pyrrha's soft voice interjected just in time. "You really are proud of him, aren't you Phil?" she asked.
The question made Phil sputter blush a bit as he struggled to form a response. "W-Well uh...maybe a little. But even Herc still has things to overcome! So don't think you guys can be true heroes even if the squirt there somehow DOES win against him."
Everyone let out a collective groan at Phil's ever stingy attitude. Except for Pyrrha of course. She was instead more focused on Jaune who, along with Goofy and Donald, were cheering Sora on in this seemingly one-sided match. Despite Phil's doubts and pessimism toward Sora's chances, she had a feeling Sora would find a way.
In the midst of the fight, Jaune, Donald, and Goofy noticed something odd. Barrels akin to the ones they had trained with when they first arrived seemed to sporadically appear behind and beside Sora, though he hadn't noticed himself. For the entire time they'd been fighting, Sora hadn't been able to even scratch Hercules. Even when he was sure his Keyblade connected, Hercules didn't even flinch or grunt. It was like he was completely unaffected. "Hey, give up yet?" Hercules asked playfully as he flexed his biceps in front of Sora.
"Uh... where did those come from?" Jaune asked curiously, looking at the barrels.
Sora was a little worried as he saw nothing was working. No amount of his Keyblade strikes, magic or special attacks did anything to Hercules. It was if he was invulnerable. That light surrounding his body might have been why though he had no clue on how to get rid of it. Before he could think of an idea, the young lad saw Hercules draw a sword from his waist. What was more worrying was seeing Hercules move like a spinning top with the blade out as he moved throughout the arena. Sora was trying his best to role out of the way but it was almost like Hercules was targeting him and now just moving erratically around or in any sort of pattern. At one point, Sora was hit. It was just a scrape to his left arm but still enough to make him wince and groan in pain through his teeth as he regained his footing.
"Come on Sora! Don't give up!" Ruby shouted loudly when standing from her seat.
Hercules finished spinning and put his blade away, still smiling cheerfully despite the fact he was in the middle of a fight. It was almost like he was enjoying it. Sora panted, holding the cut to his arm before using a cura spell on himself. "What do I do?" he muttered, looking around and seeing all the barrels from earlier were gone. Probably from Hercules moving around so much and breaking them apart when Sora tried avoiding him. "Huh?"
To his surprise and all the people in the audience, there were new barrels in a different pattern emerging like before: in small geysers of light around the arena. There was something unusual about that. Sora thought about it as Hercules kept himself lowered and ready to fight while shimmying across with attention on Sora. In a desperate run, Sora went to pick one of the barrels up and chucked it at him. Hercules laughed with hands to his hips as the barrel came flying at him. "Come on, Sora. That's not gonna do any-AGH!"
Much to everyone's surprise, amazement, and disbelief, Hercules flinched and stumbled as the barrel impacted him and shattered into splinters. "THAT ACTUALLY WORKED!?" Weiss, Sun, and Phil exclaimed in disbelief as Hercules finally seemed to be affected. Not only that, but everyone noticed something else when the barrel hit.
"Look! His aura just faded!" Ruby exclaimed. Sure enough, the glow surrounding his body had completely vanished!
Phil slapped his hands upon his eyes, unable to believe that a barrel being thrown at him got Hercules vulnerable. "What's goin' on here?!" he bemoaned as Sora went back on the offensive.
Keyblade in hand, Sora began striking Hercules with a combination of attacks. And this time, it registered as Hercules lurched and stumbled in the wake of every blow. Even as he tried to fight back with a fist swinging Haymaker, he didn't have much luck as Sora saw it coming and rolled out of the way. Sora had no idea how this happened, nor did anyone else for that matter, but Sora certainly wasn't going to question it now that he was able to damage his opponent. But that didn't last long as suddenly, Hercules managed to recover, giving a much more successful punch to Sora. The blow sent the boy flying across the arena and tumbling along its floor. "Ooooh, that's gonna leave a mark." Phil said wincing along with everyone else.
Sora thankfully seemed alright, for the most part, but when he shook the dizziness from his head, he looked to see Hercules coming right at him with a smile on his face. "You're not too bad!" Hercules exclaimed as he jumped up in the air. Sora narrowly got out of the way as Hercules slammed his fists on the ground, creating a shockwave of the same golden energy that surrounded his body.
The moment Sora got back up, he saw that not only were the rest of the barrels destroyed, but Hercules surrounded by said light once again. "Fire!" And just like with his strikes, the instant the flaming magic struck Hercules...it did absolutely nothing.
"You can still give up if you want to, Sora." Hercules said, once again flexing his biceps in a showoffish manner.
"Oh no!" Sora said, worried as Hercules gained the invulnerability from earlier again. He was a little worried but saw as the barrels emerged within his opponent's blind spot. He rushed immediately behind him, Hercules merely watching with an amused grin. When he saw Sora pick up another barrel, he was worried and tried stopping him but was hit right in his head and toppled behind, landing face first to the arena and losing the aura from before.
"Way to go, Sora!" Yang, Ruby, Nora and Jaune all exclaimed.
Phil couldn't believe what was going on, holding his face while giving an aggravated "Aiyeeh!" before shouting to Hercules. "Come on, kid! Concentrate!" Hercules was a little dizzy but got up with hands propped to the ground and shook off the hit Sora managed to land. "Use your head!"
An idea clicked in Hercules mind as he smirked and looked back to Sora, making the young man a little unsettled. Especially when hearing the faint murmur of Hercules clearly thinking of something. The worry in Sora turned more into fear as Hercules charged towards him so fast, the big muscled man's legs moved so fast, they seemed to turn into a blurred, very squished down wheel like shape. With his enhanced speed, Hercules... literally, used his head, leaning forward like a human battering ram as he charged at his opponent. Sora felt the scalp of Hercule's head hit him in his gut, knocking the wind right out of him and sending him flying against a pillar. Everyone winced and hissed again as Sora impacted against the pillar followed by him falling face first on the arena ground. . "Jeez... Hercules really isn't going easy on him, is he?" Blake said, feeling really worried for Sora now.
"Alright! Not bad, kid!" Phil said cheerfully at Hercules returning the favor of being knocked down. His expression turned more half-certain as he muttered like it worked out well enough, "Not exactly what I had in mind but not bad."
Sora stumbled to his feet, conscious enough to cast a Cura spell on himself to eliminate the worst of the damage. The dizziness faded just in time as Sora saw Hercules in front of him, rearing his right hand back for another haymaker. He rolled out of the way, recovering just in time to strike him. He couldn't let Hercules have a moment to recover. At this point, Sora was beginning to think that maybe challenging him to a one-on-one wasn't such a good idea, but it was too late to back out now.
As Sora desperately swung a three strike combo upon the Greek Hero, he soon saw Hercules' expression harden. He knew now that Sora wasn't going to back down, even after everything he'd subjected him to thus far. So it seemed he would have to pull out all the stops. "Try this on for size!" Hercules shouted as he shifted his arms in front of himself. A bright of that shimmering golden energy formed around where Hercules stood, with Sora inside of it. Everyone else was on the edge of their seats while Phil was smirking smugly. And before Sora could react, Hercules thrust out his chest and unleashed several beams of energy which crashed into an invisible barrier formed by the ring around him. Sora was sent flying again as he skidded along the floor of the arena.
"SORA!" Ruby, Donald, Goofy, and Jaune yelled, along with the rest of thetir friends in the stands. It seemed that Sora may have lost this match after all.
"Eh, what can ya say? Rookie mistake. Kid bit off more than he could chew." Phil said with a nonchalant shrug.
Hercules let out a small exhale as it seemed his victory was now certain. "Sorry about that, Sora. You fought well." he said, hoping Sora wasn't too down about what seemed to be a clear loss for him.
But before he could turn to Phil and tell him to call the match, the entire coliseum went still as Sora suddenly started to get up. He forced himself to his feet, using his Keyblade. His blue eyes hardened with determination. "No...I'm not...finished yet..." Sora grunted out, fixing his gaze on a surprised Hercules as he gripped the Keyblade tightly. "Ruby...Donald...Goofy...Everyone's counting on me...I won't let them down!"
"No way! He's still up?!" Phil exclaimed with shocked disbelief. "Jeez, this kid's a glutton for punishment."
Weiss looked as worried as she sounded when seeing Sora barely remain on his feet. "He's not in any good condition anymore! Just look at him!"
Suddenly, Ruby stood from her seat and shouted with every ounce of encouragement she could muster. "Come on, Sora! Keeping fighting! I know you can win this! Don't give up! Don't give up! Don't give up! Don't give up!"
Her words were repeatedly shouted, catching everyone by surprise. Eventually everyone was doing the same as her and chanting in unison. Jaune, Goofy, Yang, Nora and Donald were the first to join them one by one. At that point the others became inspired enough to join in. Their combined voices were more than enough for Sora to hear as he stood up straight. His friends cheering never stopped and Hercules watched them in surprise. They had that much faith in Sora?
"What the-What're you mooks doin'!?" Phil asked, looking back and forth between the adolescents, and the duck and dog-man, with an even more befuddled expression than his prize student.
That faith alone was more than enough for him as Sora immediately dashed to another emerging barrel, and wasted no time throwing it at Hercules. The distracted hero had no chance to defend himself from it, and upon impact, he was once again vulnerable. Once he was close enough, Sora acted almost on instinct as he moved faster and with greater power in his swings of the Keyblade. So focused was he on winning, he didn't notice as his weapon glowed with a yellow aura around it and left a blurring image. Six nigh instant slashes were made against Hercules and though the next six were a little slower, they made Hercules jerk about even more. One final slash was made with Sora performing something akin to a jumping midair roll and knocked Hercules across the arena, for a change. When he hit the ground, he wasn't moving.
Silence came over the arena from everyone and everything. They all watched as Hercules remained laying there without any sign he was going to get up. That caused the silence to end when the crowd went wild, knowing they had a winner. "The victor... is... Sora?!" Phil said with a dropped jaw and eyes as wide as could be.
Sora panted and gasped as his final desperate barrage came to a close and Hercules lay on the ground out cold. The realization took a moment to set in, but when it did, Sora's face lit up with absolute joy. He looked to his friends in the stands with a smile, just in time for Jaune, Donald, and Goofy to charge at him, cheerfully. Goofy hugging him, Donald patting him on the back, and Jaune ruffling his hair. And there, presented to the champions was a golden trophy. A symbol of their victory as Sora yelled out for all of Olympus to hear, "We're the champs!"
The group met at the entrance of the Coliseum, congratulating Sora one by one. The most exuberant being Ruby, Nora, and Yang giving the lad a great big group hug which maaay have been crushing him a bit going by the silly noises he let out. Jaune chuckled at the sight at first, though his chuckle shifted to surprise when Pyrrha suddenly hugged him. "Uhh, Pyrrha?" She simply smiled at him and said, "Well done, Jaune. You should be proud of yourself." Suffice it to say, Jaune was confused. Why was Pyrrha congratulating him? He didn't do anything. Sora was the one who won it for them. Jaune knew HE certainly wouldn't have been a match for Hercules...Still, far be it from him to push her away. So he simply accepted the hug and smiled back at Pyrrha.
All that mattered now was that they won! The Hercules Cup was theirs!