A/N: Volume 3 OP: "The World" by Jonathan Young.
Chapter 15
Checkmate
The audience settled back into something close to their former level of excitement as the second match of the finals came to an end. To most people, it would seem as though everything was back to normal but, to those who were paying attention and knew better, it was evident that there was an undercurrent of tension that hadn't been there before the end of the first match. While this reaction was perfectly understandable, it was already starting to cause problems as Atlas' forces were reporting increased Grimm activity outside the City of Vale.
To Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee in particular, things were especially troubling. They were the only members of their team still at the colosseum as it was decided that Yang Xiao Long should return to Beacon with Blake Belladonna going with her. Emiya Shirou had said that he needed to look into things and had subsequently vanished before the second match even began. Their team being scattered like this would normally have only served to heighten their nerves but the two were no longer acting as civilians but as Huntresses; they could keep this much in check easily enough.
After an extended break, the second match of the finals had been Sun Wukong versus someone who Ruby and Weiss honestly couldn't even so much as remember the name of (the only reason they remembered Sun was due to their prior interaction with him). It had apparently been a close match with Sun just barely winning but the two of them had paid the fight no heed as they constantly scanned the crowd for any sign of trouble. They had no solid clue as to what the next step of the enemy's plan was but there was a high likelihood that it would happen sooner rather than later.
When the next match was announced and the crowd went ballistic, Ruby and Weiss shared a worried look. If their hunch had been correct, this match would be the starting gun for whatever was about to happen.
Penny Polendina of Team CPER (Copper) from Atlas versus Pyrrha Nikos of Team JNPR from Beacon.
OoOoOoO
Pyrrha stretched her arms over her head as she walked into the arena to the cheers of the crowd. She had slept better last night than she had in quite some time and that coupled with a hearty breakfast prepared by Lei Ren left her feeling very energized and light on her feet. She had gone back to looking forward to the finals and was hoping to give it her all in front of a crowd again for the first time in what felt like forever. While she had been in a handful of tournaments over the years, there were only two times when she had been forced to put it serious effort and the second time was an incident that she'd very much rather forget.
Of course, her excitement had been more than a little dampened by the surprisingly brutal conclusion to Yang's match. It was so wildly out of character that, once the shock wore off, it was clear that something fishy was going on. Her team had wanted to talk to Yang immediately after it happened but only Yang's team had been allowed in the break room with her and then she had left the colosseum entirely. While Shirou had come to them later, all he had said was that there were some bad people at work and to be ready for anything. While that ominous warning had put them all a bit on edge, Pyrrha had opted to set that aside for the time being and focus on her match.
Penny was a very curious person to Pyrrha. She didn't really know much of anything about the other girl beyond the fact that she was friends with Team RWBYS and that she had been doing about as much nothing during her team's previous matches as Pyrrha had been. While that didn't say much of anything in and of itself (How did Team CRDL make it to the second round?), the giant question mark it left on the other girl's capabilities was more than enough to make Pyrrha excited.
"Sal-u-tations, Pyrrha Nikos! It's an honor to finally meet you!" Penny said brightly with her hands on her hips.
"Likewise. I was wondering when I'd get to meet this mysterious friend of Team RWBYS."
Penny somehow managed to perk up at this, "Oh! Are you also a friend of Ruby's?"
"I am. I'm a friend of the rest of her team and Shirou as well."
"Sen-sational! We'll all have to get together after the tournament and celebrate!"
"That sounds like fun," Pyrrha said as she readied her weapons. "Well, are you ready to get started?"
Penny's backpack opened up and two of the swords of Floating Array came out to rest in her hands. "Indeed! May the best girl win!"
"Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Begin!"
(A/N: Play "Birth of a Wish" from NieR: Automata)
Pyrrha and Penny rushed at each other and immediately entered into a dance of blades, both girls twirling around each other to feel each other out. It didn't take long for Pyrrha to figure out that, while Penny was definitely holding back her strength (when they had locked blades, Penny didn't appear to be putting in any effort no matter how hard Pyrrha pushed), her skill with her twin blades was lacking compared to the last person she fought using them. She reigned in her confidence, though, as she still had no idea what Penny was truly capable of.
The next time Penny went for a double horizontal slash, Pyrrha parried the attack with her shield, pushing the blades up to throw Penny off balance. With the other girl open, Pyrrha quickly stabbed her in the chest to keep her off balance before leaping forward slightly to slam the edge of Akoúo̱ into the top of her head. When she doubled over from the force, Pyrrha followed it up by slamming her shield into the other girl's face before twirling Miló to transform it into its javelin form as she backed up and hit her in the chest with a recoil-boosted throw to knock her back. While she normally would have kept pressing the attack, she had seen Penny's backpack open and so disengaged so as to not be caught by whatever Penny was about to do.
"You really are as good as they say!" Penny said with a smile as two more of Floating Array's swords came out and she let go of the two in her hands. With the four swords now floating around her, she said, "This is going to be fun!"
OoOoOoO
Up in the stands, Ruby and Weiss were barely paying attention to the fight and instead were scanning the crowd, desperately trying to find even a hint of Emerald Sustrai. Trying to pick out one person in a sea of people was obviously more than a little difficult and it made Ruby wish she had learned a spell to locate people only to then realize that Emerald would have likely noticed. It was safe to use something more localized, though, so she had activated her Magic Circuits to reinforce her eyes, letting her pick out more details from farther away. This arrangement meant that Ruby was scanning the crowd on the opposite side of the colosseum while Weiss was scanning the ones near them.
The process was incredibly slow going and had a small likelihood of success but, as frustrating as it was, it was the only thing they could do. Shirou apparently had a familiar that had been following Emerald but he had recalled it whenever she entered the colosseum, stating that the large number of people made it too easy for it to be destroyed by accident or spotted. That being said, it was thanks to it that they knew for a fact that Emerald was, indeed, here. However, even with that knowledge, it was entirely possible that Emerald wasn't in the stands but rather was somewhere else in the colosseum. They could only hope that wasn't the case.
With each second that the battle raged on, their worry only grew. They knew that something was going to happen during this match, they could feel it, but they had no idea what or when nor did they have any ability to tell when Emerald was using her Semblance. All in all, the deck was severely stacked against them but they carried on despite the odds. When lives are at stake, a Hunter never gives up no matter what.
OoOoOoO
Pyrrha found herself dancing through a flurry of blades, weaving this way and that and parrying or blocking what she couldn't dodge. She had tried to reach out with her Semblance multiple times only to be dismayed to find that Penny was controlling Floating Array through electromagnetic fields. Pyrrha could be considered the master of magnetism but electromagentism was something else.
This wasn't to say that Pyrrha was having any particular difficulty. While the number of weapons made up for it somewhat, the fact remained that Pyrrha was faster than Penny in reaction speed, movement speed, and attack speed. Simply put, Penny was still very much outmatched in pretty much every way.
What's more, there was a major weakness to Floating Array: Attack distance. Penny was a mid-to-long range fighter but was nearly powerless at melee range. Pyrrha took advantage of this fact the instant an opening presented itself after she parried one of the blades, rushing in almost faster than Penny could react and tearing down her torso with Miló before following up with a spinning shield bash to her temple and a thrust into her floating rib.
As Penny staggered away, Pyrrha was prevented from pressing her attack when two more blades were rapidly deployed and fired beams of green energy at her. Having to block them with Akoúo̱ gave Penny enough breathing room to retreat to her preferred range and deploy a fourth pair of blades. As she launched into her attacks, Pyrrha found herself on the back foot as she had to put all of her focus on dodging or blocking the blades while also worrying about the odd energy blast. She found herself reaching the limit of her skill as more and more attacks were slipping through her defense, eating away at her Aura.
Penny wasn't the only one who could make weapons float, though. Pyrrha let go of Miló and detached Akoúo̱ before puppeting them with her Semblance. With them having more coverage that way and speed that was greater than Floating Array, the number of attacks that were slipping through was reduced to zero. While it took a fair bit of doing, this allowed Pyrrha to create another opening to rush in.
Penny was ready this time as she blocked Pyrrha's right hook before lashing out with a left jab of her own. Pyrrha was too slow to fully dodge it and the blow struck her side with enough force to make her spin. Pyrrha was too skilled to make this an opening, however, as she borrowed the momentum of that forced spin to return the favor with a roundhouse kick that caught the other girl in the arm before following up with a side kick that caught her in her solar plexus.
Pyrrha's instincts screamed at her and she rolled to the side just in time to avoid energy blasts from two of the blades behind her. As she came to her feet, she paled as a fifth set of blades came from Penny's backpack. She was once again put on the defense with attacks slipping through as her worried mind struggled to find a path to victory.
OoOoOoO
Ruby's eyes were starting to burn from the strain as she scanned every single person on the far side of the colosseum as quickly as she could. Just as she started to feel something flicker within her as her vision started to blur, her attention was broken by Weiss placing a hand on her leg.
"Ruby, I found her!" Weiss said as quietly as she could after leaning in to whisper in her partner's ear.
"Where?" Ruby asked as she stopped reinforcing her eyes. Weiss twisted the hand on Ruby's leg to subtly point in a general direction before flickering her own eyes over there. Ruby followed her partner's gaze and finger, taking a moment to scan that general area before finding their target. While her hair was a shade of brown instead of green, it was clear from the build, skin color, and eyes that this was, indeed, Emerald Sustrai (especially to Ruby and Weiss who had spent a lot of time memorizing her appearance). The second Ruby confirmed her location, she shifted her attention back to the fight so as to not risk alerting her.
"What's the plan?" Weiss asked as she rested her hand back on her leader's leg. Ruby was silent for a long moment, her eyes distant as she looked past the arena and into her thoughts.
"I have an idea," she said at last. "I'll distract her if she starts to do something."
While Weiss couldn't quite guess the details, she trusted Ruby to know what she was doing. It wasn't like she could safely discuss the plan right here, after all. "What do I do?"
"Just keep an eye on her and text me if you think something's up," Ruby said as she started to get up.
"Got it. Good luck and be careful."
"Always am," Ruby said with a wink before making her way out of the colosseum.
OoOoOoO
Pyrrha was struggling and was facing down defeat as the battle went on. No matter what trick she tried, she just couldn't make an opening in Penny's offense to take advantage of. It was the perfect example of a good defense being a good offense. She found herself growing frustrated by this turn of events. If only she could use her Semblance on Floating Array, if only it wasn't powered by electromagnetism, she could turn this around.
A part of Pyrrha's mind stopped as her body continued to react on its own. If she could manipulate Penny's blades even a little, her path to victory would become clear and potentially certain. What had made her mind stop was a very simple question that had sprung up.
Why couldn't she control electromagnetism?
Fundamentally speaking, the difference between electromagnetism and "normal" magnetism was negligible at best for Pyrrha's purposes. Their magnetic properties acted in the exact same way. If the difference between them in fact was virtually nonexistent, was the only reason that controlling it was "impossible" was due to her thinking it was?
As Penny's attacks raged on, Pyrrha narrowed her focus down to a knife's edge. Every time she swatted one of the blades aside, every time she found herself struck by one, she sent out a powerful pulse of her Semblance through it. She was entering the danger zone and that increased need provided her just the push she was looking for. She reached into one of the swords with her Semblance as it came close to her and controlled its magnetic properties just enough to cause it to ghost across her skin. It wasn't complete control but it was more than enough.
Pyrrha recalled Miló and Akoúo̱ to her to conserve energy as Penny was put on the back foot for a change. No matter how hard she tried, the instant one of her blades came close to Pyrrha, she lost nearly all control of it as it was pushed away. While Penny wasn't a master strategist by any stretch of the imagination, she was pretty certain that she had just lost.
OoOoOoO
Ruby ran through the halls of the colosseum as she pulled out her Scroll to summon her locker only to skid to a stop as she rounded a corner and found Mercury Black standing in her way with a nasty smirk on his lips.
"Mercury‽ But you were—" Ruby caught herself as she narrowed her eyes at him. "Prosthetic legs."
Mercury chuckled derisively, "Bingo. You're smarter than I thought you were. Congrats."
Ruby put away her Scroll and slid into a fighting stance as Mercury continued to just stand there with his arms crossed. She knew that she had no real hope of winning hand-to-hand but maybe she could get by if she hit him as hard as she could with prana burst. "I don't know what you and your team are planning but I won't let Emerald do something to Pyrrha with her Semblance!"
Mercury's brow rose in surprise, "I was being a bit sarcastic before but you really are smarter than I thought you were. Doesn't matter, though. You can't do jack shit without getting past me and you're not getting past me."
"I'm pretty certain that she will," a familiar voice said from behind Ruby. Despite herself, Ruby half turned to look behind her to see Emiya Shirou round the corner, his face impassive. She smiled in relief for a moment only to narrow her eyes in suspicion and positioned herself to where she could see both Mercury and Shirou.
"How do I know you're really you?" Ruby asked.
Rather than answer directly, Shirou simply said, "Trace, on. Projection, start."
Ruby let out a sigh of relief as she felt a surge of prana tingle across her skin. Turning back to face Mercury, she was both somewhat surprised and even more relieved to see that his eyes were wide with shock and his skin had gone pale.
"Well, well, well, look who decided to join the party," Mercury said with bravado that was false even to Ruby's ears. "Thanks for saving me the trouble of having to hunt you down later. Now, I can kill both of you and kick back to enjoy the show."
"If you're so confident, why are you sweating?" Shirou asked plainly. Mercury took a half step back in shock but said nothing as he slipped into a fighting stance of his own. "Go on, Ruby. He won't stop you."
"The hell I won't! She gets near me and I'll take her head clean off!"
"If you think you can afford to take your eyes off me then be my guest." Mercury said nothing in response and simply gritted his teeth with a growl. After a moment of hesitation, Ruby rushed forward and passed Mercury without any interference.
"Okay, maybe I couldn't take the both of you but I sure as hell can kill you!" Mercury said.
Rather than wait for a reply, he shot forward with every ounce of speed he had, the guns in his boots firing over and over to push him that much faster. He was on Shirou faster than a blink of an eye and had a feral grin as he brought his right leg around to do what he had promised to do to Ruby. Shirou had no weapon in his hands and hadn't even started to move. It seems that he had overestimated the red-haired bastard. He was just a punk and would go down just like—
The instant before Mercury's kick connected, Shirou seemed to blink out of existence. For a moment, Mercury thought that he had just been some kind of illusion but that hope was shattered and his heart sank into his stomach as he felt the rush of movement by him.
Not one to go down without a fight, Mercury dug his back foot into the ground and struggled to keep his balance as he brought his other leg around to lash out behind him. He had been right in predicting that Shirou would attack from behind but he found his attack effortlessly parried by the golden sword that was now in his hands.
Time seemed to stop for Mercury as he was thrown off balance and he stared transfixed at the sword. It was, without a doubt, the most beautiful weapon he had ever seen and it sat in Shirou's hands almost perfectly as though it wasn't made for him but for someone infinitely close to him. As its steadily growing golden light washed over him, he knew that he was going to die but he was oddly fine with it. All of the pain and trauma of his past was washed away by its soothing light and he found himself smiling peacefully as Shirou raised it over his head.
"Caliburn!"
Shirou brought the Golden Sword of the Victorious down, cutting a golden arc through the air and through Mercury from shoulder to hip. As the sword crumbled to dust, he watched impassively as Mercury collapsed to the ground in two pieces. "I'm sorry," Shirou said simply as Mercury breathed his last and closed his eyes for the final time.
OoOoOoO
Pyrrha once again found herself confidently weaving through Penny's attacks as she made the swords bend to her will. Penny tried to counter this by switching to ranged attacks but the green energy beams couldn't fire quickly enough to keep her pinned down which made it trivial for her to get close enough to manipulate them.
When Penny tried to catch her by bringing all of Floating Array down at her from every angle, Pyrrha just smirked and took one stomp forward while letting her Semblance explode in a dome around her, sending the blades away. With her opening made, she rushed back in and had Penny at her mercy as she danced around her to make it impossible for one of the beams to get a lock on her.
This fight was nearing its end and that fact sent a surge of triumph through Pyrrha that made her redouble her efforts. Penny was completely helpless and slowing and a brief glance at the display hanging overhead showed that her Aura was incredibly close to the red. Just before she could land that decisive blow, however, a sixth set of blades came out of Penny's backpack and fired somewhat blindly at her. Pyrrha managed to dodge the attack just in time but that brief moment let Penny regain herself and bring the other five sets of blades back to her.
As Floating Array spread out and started to glow with green energy, Pyrrha gripped Miló with both hands and took a half step to get ready to launch herself forward with all of her speed and lash out with all of her strength. Her own Aura was also very nearly in the red from all of the attacks that slipped through and using her Semblance so much. A direct hit from even one of those beams would no doubt do her in. It all came down to this moment, to this attack.
Pyrrha held her breath as time came to a crawl. She had to time this just right or it'd be all over for her. The moments passed at an agonizingly slow rate before Pyrrha saw her chance as the green glow reached its brightest. She dashed forward as fast as she could, Miló raised high to finish her off. Another blade seemed to come out of nowhere at her side but she sent it flying with a powerful pulse of her Semblance. Penny's attacks missed her by scant inches and that was it. Pyrrha had won.
OoOoOoO
Penny dropped out of her fighting stance and called back Floating Array as the buzzer blared and Professor Port declared Pyrrha the winner. While she had obviously known Pyrrha's stellar reputation, Penny had still been surprised at the great skill and adaptability that she possessed. It hadn't even been all that close since Pyrrha was comfortably in the yellow. She truly was the model Huntress and she looked forward to talking with her latter.
"Congratulations, Pyrrha! You were incredible!" Penny said with a bright smile as she let her Aura drop only for that smile to turn into a confused frown. Pyrrha was still in a fighting stance and readying a big attack. "Pyrrha? Is everything okay?" Pyrrha answered by rushing at her faster than she could react. She saw Ruby rush in from the side and nearly tackle Pyrrha only to be blown away by what was likely Pyrrha's Semblance. Penny was completely powerless to do anything, even reactivate her Aura, as Pyrrha's blade came down.
OoOoOoO
A tone from her Scroll alerted Ruby to a text message. It was from Weiss and all it said was her name. Ruby actually cursed for the first time in her life at this. Dealing with Mercury had taken too much time. She was nowhere near ready and it'd take far too long for her locker to get here. With no other option left, Ruby changed her course and began heading toward the arena.
Ruby practically flew down the halls as she used her Semblance alongside prana bursts. Since she still couldn't turn while using her Semblance, she bounded off the walls and even ran alongside them, heedless of the damage she was causing from the usage of prana burst against them.
When Ruby rounded the final corner that led to the arena, she poured on every last drop of speed she possibly could, her desperation activating Soul Surge and letting her move faster than she ever had before. Pyrrha was getting ready to strike the confused Penny. There was no way Penny could react in time and calling out to Pyrrha would be pointless since her senses were completely under Emerald's control.
But Ruby Rose was faster than anything else, tearing across the ground like a bolt of lightning. She'd make it in time. She was fast enough to tackle Pyrrha out of the way. She knew this for an absolute fact. She was going to save both her friend's life and the day.
Just before Ruby could make contact, however, she felt Pyrrha's Semblance grab on to the metal parts of her outfit and actually managed to completely reverse her momentum. She reached futilely out to Penny and could only watch in horror as Pyrrha's sword made contact and severed her friend from shoulder to hip.
(A/N: End song)
OoOoOoO
Pyrrha let out a sigh of relief and staggered forward as all the tension left her body, nearly causing her to collapse. She took a deep breath and stood up before turning around to face the other girl with a bright smile on her face. "You did great Pe—" Pyrrha's words stopped as she saw Penny fall backwards, having been cut in two.
It was as though her reality had changed in an instant.
Instead of cheers, Pyrrha heard screams of fear and panic that were louder than she thought possible. Miló fell from her hand as her eyes remained locked on Penny's body, some kind of dark fluid pouring out of her as wires sparked and bits of machinery fell out. She didn't understand. She couldn't understand.
Pyrrha Nikos had killed Penny Polendina.
A/N: Who put the "merc" in "Mercury"? E-MI-YA!
Songs aside, I hope that this pretty drastic change will help assuage those of you who are annoyed at there being no "major" changes even though we're only a quarter of the way through the story. There's going to be a couple more big changes coming up that will make it almost impossible for things to play out exactly how they did in canon.
I really like how my version of this story makes this into a way bigger loss than it was in canon. In canon, Team RWBY had lost a fair number of times up to this point- in fact, that had rarely actually won. Here, however, is a different story. Here, Team RWBY basically never lost. It was just a string on nonstop Ws. Sure, the stuff with Yang and Mercury had messed them up a bit but it was a relatively minor L. This, however? This was a massive L. Team RWBYS' winning streak is officially over and it's now anyone's game. I even made the failure hit harder by having Ruby come within scant moments of saving the day.
Fun fact: Shirou killing Mercury here was a bit of a late addition to my plans. I was planned for well before I actually got to writing this chapter but I had realized earlier on that I needed something to reward our heroes with for all of the hard work Shirou put in to discovering the infiltrators' identities. Given them absolutely nothing would feel empty. As it turned out, Mercury had put himself in the perfect position in canon for me to fix that and I had almost nothing for him in my plans (nothing important, anyway). It truly was the perfect solution.
Mercury's death here will certainly have some knock on effects but, admittedly, not that many since Mercury is largely completely irrelevant in canon after this.
Anyway, I had fun writing this chapter since I knew that everyone both in-universe and out knew that the details of the fight were largely irrelevant. Having the fight be one continuous thing and then cut away to other stuff like I usually do would have been a pretty terrible idea for the sake of tension. Since the tension in this chapter had nothing to do with the fight, I felt that the best course of action would be to intersperse the fight with everything our heroes are doing to try and stop the actually important thing. After all, you lot couldn't be sure if I'd still kill Penny or not. In the end, I chose to still kill Penny off since, if I didn't, there'd just be no climax to Volume 3 and that wouldn't be any fun. Maybe it's just a lack of imagination on my part but the end of the Beacon Saga had to be something massive like in canon and I couldn't think of anything equally as huge. Especially since I can leverage the Battle of Beacon for far more character stuff than canon did in the entire series thus far. For reference, this is Chapter 15 and there are 22 chapters in V3. The Battle of Beacon takes place over the course of seven chapters and a lot happens during them.
No reviews to respond to this time. I'm disappointed.
Well, that's all from me. I'll see you next week for the start of the climax of Volume 3! It's gonna be a doozy!