"I hope you're ready for this, Ren. Against this monster, you won't only be testing your skills, but your strategy as well. You'll have to think outside the box in order to fight this enemy." Katana declared as she set everything up.

"That's an excellent idea for Ren." Pyrrha said, turning to her teammate in question. "You've had a few solid ideas on a few of our missions and the first round of the Vytal tournament, but for the most part, despite your skills, your tactics are rather straight-forward." She admitted.

"Cough! Volume Four! Cough!" Razara said in between coughs.

"Cough-cough! Gheist! Cough! Nucklavee! Cough-cough!" Tekko mimicked her sister.

"You two doing alright? You should probably see a doctor about those coughs." Ruby said.

"We're demons, Ruby. We don't get sick." Razara told her.

"I'll try my best to improve my tactics and decision-making skills during this battle." Ren promised.

"Just do your best, buddy. That's all we ask." Jaune said, patting his teammate on the back.

"And don't worry if you get hurt, Ren! I'll be right here waiting to nurse you back to health." Nora told him.

Ren's eyes widened in fear at this. "I must not take ANY form of injury during this fight." He said worriedly, hurrying to the platform.

"Alright, Ren. Good luck!" Katana said, finishing the set up for the battle.

"Good luck, Ren!" Most of the students cheered.

"I will not disappoint me team, my friends, my teachers or my school." Ren said as he stepped into the center of the ring, disappearing into the simulation.


Ren soon reappeared on the shore of a beach, with a boat behind him and a large supply box not too far away. "Is this a Base Camp?" He wondered.

"Yes. Go in the item box. There's a handful of Cool Drinks in there you'll want to grab... And maybe the map, but your team's track record with those isn't great." Katana explained.

"I never bother with them." Tekko said dismissively.

"Which is why you and Uncle Sai always get lost." Razara said in an annoyed tone. She'd clearly gone over this with her sister more than once.

"ANYWAY. The Cool Drinks are the main thing you're going to want. You're in a volcanic region, so it's gonna be hot there, enough to seriously harm someone. The Cool Drink will keep you cooled down and at normal temperatures for a while. Yeah, your aura should protect you, but we want that more focused on making sure the monster doesn't break your bones, not wasted on keeping you cool. You don't have to drink them right away, though. When you do, you'll hear this noise." Katana explained.

"Boop." Nora's voice could be heard.

Ren chuckled at this. "Understood." He said, going to the box, finding a small number of bottles filled with a clear liquid in it. He collected them and then quickly hurried ahead to a path on the right, going up a hill to an open area surrounded by high ledges and a deep ravine in the bottom and a large cropping of rock in the center. He circled the decently-sized area, but found no traces of a monster, so he continued onto the next area. It was similar to the last one, except there were several tall, white rocks around, an opening in the side of the mountain, leading into the volcano and another path that lead higher up the mountain. He also noticed something else in this area, a group of four decently-sized rocks grouped close to each other. Ren finally understood which creature it was he was about to be facing. "Basarios." He declared. He readied his weapons and fired several shots at the base of Basarios' rocky back, hoping to perhaps hit a vulnerable spot.

That caused the rocks to shift and the Rock Wyvern rose from beneath the ground, turning towards the direction it had felt the assault against it and spotted Ren, who had stepped closer to engage the beast, who let out a roar.

Background Music: "Rock You Like A Hurricane" by Scorpions

The rocky beast charged at Ren, who sidestepped it while twirling in a circle with his arms out to try and graze the legs, since the creature's rocky armor seemed to be weakest on its legs and underside, but he still barely chipped some of its rocky exterior and his weapons bounced off. He turned and fired several more rounds at the creature, but these too, did next to nothing. The Basarios turned and shot out its giant fireballs, which Ren skillfully flipped, rolled or sidestepped out of the way of as he made his way in and struck at the beast's face with his blades, once again assuming it was weaker than the more armored places, but his weapons were still repelled. He then noticed the Basarios appeared to be letting out air and remembered what that meant: either explosive gas, poison gas, or sleep gas. Not wanting any of those options, he quickly leapt back before a small explosion was released from the creature. "My blades can't hurt him!" He realized.

The creatures then rushed in again, forcing Ren to jump up, landing on its tallest back rock, leaping into the air and landing behind the creature, turning around and rushing at it while firing bullets. When he got close enough, however, the creature swung its tail back and forth, which knocked him away, since he'd already gone in too far for the attack. He quickly got up and rushed in again, at which point the Basarios shot out more fireballs, forcing him to abandon his attempt to attack and instead baseball slide under the beast. While he was there, he attempted another attack on the beast's underside, but this, too, reflected off. Ren got to his feet and rolled just in time to avoid the beast slamming down on him. He went for another attack on the face, but then the Rock Wyvern rolled in an attempt to crush him, forcing him to jump back. (Dammit! Normally Nora stuns the targets so I can get an opening. This must be what Katana meant by think outside the box.) He thought to himself.

The creature then fired its massive laser at him, forcing him to dive out of the way. But since it was now busy with that, he had an opening to attack, rushing towards the beast's head from the side, remembering his initiation into Beacon and his fight with the King Taijitu, slamming his palm into the side of the creature's head. This didn't cause it to explode like with the Taijitu, but it did stagger the monster into a wall, which knocked it down. Ren held his hand as he thought about the situation. He'd finally done some damage to the creature, but surely it was still more than capable of continuing and taking several more of those, which took a good deal of aura each time. Not to mention, as he'd originally thought, hence his reservations to attempt this first: slamming his hand into essentially, a rock, FREAKING HURT. But while it was down, he took a chance and went for its underbelly, striking at the same spots several times. While his attacks still bounced off, he was at least damaging the underside and breaking through the thinner layers of its armor. Soon, he'd be able to get to the tender stuff. Before he could do anymore, however, he was kicked away and knocked into a large rock.

The Basarios soon got back up and roared angrily at Ren for finally hurting it. Ren quickly jumped up on the rock he'd been knocked into, crouching down on top of it and firing. The Rock Wyvern then charged at Ren, planning on breaking the rock and trampling the Huntsman-in-training. Seeing this, Ren quickly leapt off the rock, landing a safe distance away. But when the Basarios hit the rock, it exploded, causing the beast to stagger back in pain, some of its rocky plating blown away. Ren was amazed at this "The rocks explode! Then that's my ticket." He said, noting the three other rocks just like that one in the area and making his way towards it. Unfortunately, while still young, the Basarios was smart enough to realize it ought not do that again. So instead, it fired its beam, which Ren sidestepped, before realizing it hit the rock. The heat and pressure behind the beam was enough to damage the rock to the point of exploding, causing Ren to roll several times.

"Ren! Be careful, buddy! That explosion really took it out of you. You're down to 15%." Jaune warned him.

"Damn." He cursed. He'd really have to play it cool now. He ran towards the next rock, hoping that the Basarios would choose to charge this time, but still no such luck. It approached slowly and then began shooting its fireballs at him. He ran and dove away from the rock before it exploded, turning and throwing his right gun like a boomerang, staggering the Wyvern, but not making it charge again. It fired it beam just after Ren recovered his gun, allowing him to dive to the side, before he remembered the grappling ability his guns were upgraded with and rushed in. He managed to leap onto the Basarios' back once again and fired Stormflower's blades, wrapping around the Basarios' neck and delivering an aura-filled stomp to the beast's back, causing it to finally charge forward, Ren pulling back on his guns as needed to steer the beast into the last rock in the area, knocking it down again. This time, he used his father's knife to jab away and the cracked and broken armor on the stomach, getting the blade under it, twisting and forcing it away somewhat like a crowbar, finally revealing the soft underside.

However, the Basarios began letting out air again and released its sleep gas, causing Ren to stagger back, fighting as long as he could to stay conscious and grappling up to a tree, getting up onto a ridge where the Basarios could not reach him. The beast then got up and, seeing its attacker asleep and out of range, it simply burrowed into the ground and retreated into the tunnel. After a few moments, Ren soon woke up and looked around. "I can't believe I fell for that." He complained.

"At least you got a quick nap out of that." Pyrrha said to raise his spirits. Ren rolled his eyes, though he couldn't help but smile.

Soon enough, he jumped down and followed the beast into the cave, where he was overwhelmed by the sudden heat wave, due to all the magma around the area. "Boop." Nora declared, giving him the signal to drink his cool drink, although at that point, it was merely a formality as he quickly grabbed the drink and chugged it down, quickly feeling refreshed and having a pleasantly cool sensation pass over him.

Soon enough, he found the creature once again trying to blend in. He quickly jabbed at the base of its rocks with his father's dagger, jumping back as the beast emerged again, quickly releasing a blast of poison gas he luckily avoided. He crouched down and got in several good shot at the beast's vulnerable underside, finally doing some great damage. Unfortunately, with the explosive rocks fewer and far in between, the Basarios felt safe to charge once again. So Ren quickly had to leap and roll to safety once again, this time using his father's dagger as a boomerang and throwing it back at the beast, actually managing to cut off its tail, which had also lost much of its armor at that point. [1]

The beast fired another beam from its mouth which Ren once again raced to the side to avoid. Both of them angry, tired and hot, they were both more than ready to finish this fight. So the beast charged one last time, preparing to trample Ren once and for all as he readied himself. Finally, when it reached the best distance, Ren went through the motions and delivered one more blast of aura to the beast's face, staggering it back several steps, before leaning forward and collapsing dangerously close to Ren and would have crushed him if he hadn't taken a quick step back.

End Music

Ren panted heavily as he leaned against the unconscious beast, before sliding down onto his butt, trying to catch his breath from the battle. "Katana... I believe the fights finished. The Basarios isn't waking up and my aura isn't depleted yet. If I'm not mistaken, that means I've won." He said.

"You did indeed, Ren. Good job, buddy! Bringing you back now!" Katana said as a ring appeared underneath him. Soon enough, a column of light enveloped him and brought him back to the training room.


Ren reappeared in the room and was quickly met by Nora throwing herself into him and hugging him. "You did it! I knew you could do it!" She cried out happily.

"Thank you." He said.

He was then met with a pat on the back from Jaune as he and Pyrrha walked up. "That was awesome, Ren. It may have been a baby, but it was still a giant rock monster. And you took it down like nothing!" Jaune said.

Ren chuckled. "I certainly wouldn't say 'like nothing'." He told his leader.

"Be that as it may, you still won. And your use of tactics was brilliant." Pyrrha stated.

Some of the others began approaching after this as well. "Very impressive, Mr. Ren. You adapted well against an opponent you had several disadvantages against." Ozpin said.

"But despite your victory, there were several things to take away from this battle. Are you aware of what they are?" Glynda asked.

"Yes. I've come to find out I rely on Nora's strength too much against larger opponents to off-set them or provide me with openings. And as a Huntsman, I cannot always rely on the aide of others to defeat larger, more powerful or well armored opponents. To that end, I will likely need some form of stronger secondary weapon to be able to get through tougher armor." He stated.

Ruby perked up at this. "Ooh! I'll get started of some ideas!" Ruby declared.

"I look forward to seeing what you come up with, Ruby." Ren told her.

Everyone said their congratulations or otherwise shared their thoughts while Katana smiled, happy to see everyone getting along and growing together. "So, who's next?" The hostess asked.

"I would like to test my skills next if you don't mind. Although, I would prefer to fight a hero." Penny declared with a smile, which became a bit of a smirk. "And I believe you know who I wish to fight." She stated.

Katana smiled and nodded, ushering everyone off the arena. "I certainly do. Alright, everyone. Back to your seats so we can get the next fight started! Let's see how our metal maiden fares against a man of iron." She declared, summoning the next hero to do battle.


A/N: So, another win for our heroes! True story, those rocks are the only reason I ever beat Basarios in Monster Hunter 2: Freedom. I could never beat him in the swamps until I got high rank weapons. Also, sorry if I made Ren seem a bit weak with his aura getting drained so low after only two hits, but he was never really a tank in the show and never really took more than 5 hits in any fight we've seen him in. I hope that makes sense.

[1] Yes, Basarios' tail actually can be cut off. I only found out by stumbling across a random video of it.