Disclaimer: See last chapter.
The Opening Ceremony
Ruby wasn't quite so comfortable surrounded by so many people. It reminded her starkly of the White Fang riots nearly a year ago, complete with people screaming. Although last time they were screaming for faunus rights, this time they were...
Screaming for something a lot less needed. She was on Amity Arena, Lilac gratefully taking over the shop on the the Beacon grounds, or the 'outpost' as she liked to put it, with Jasper taking over the shop main.
Next to her was Taiyang, and beyond that Qrow, both of which had painted their faces gold with Yang's trademark burning flower symbol. If there was ever a time that she needed her dad and Uncle Qrow to not be embarrassing, it would have been now.
On the other hand, no one was screaming at them. Everything was screaming with them as they roared out their lungs for the incoming fights.
The Amity Festival Tournament was starting today. And Team Peabody, or PABY for short, was the second fight of the day.
The tournament had, as explained by Professor Port who for some reason was doing the commentary alongside Professor Oobleck, been separated out into multiple days. The first day was the full team rounds. The younger years in the early hours, and the older years in the later hours.
And they weren't based on how old the fighters were, but rather how many years of Academy education they had. Ruby did notice that the flyer said Team CFVY was going to be in the second year fights, so that'd be exciting. She'd get to see Velvet fight in a more professional manner than a random spar in her shop.
After the full team spars, the following days were the two on two matches for the winners. And Ironwood and Ozpin had introduced a new one set of two on two's, with the two people who weren't picked to go on in the usual rounds. So the entire team would be guaranteed to fight twice. After that, though, they were dropped as well.
The fifth or sixth day, the little handout Ruby had was hard to read, was the first set of one on one's, with the next few days finishing them up. It'd be a round robin based tournament, according to the flyer, for each block before entering the traditional knockout rounds.
Each block consisted of four fighters, they'd get two points for winning, one point for drawing, and zero points for losing. The ones with the most points would move on to the final set, which was the knockout rounds.
It was supposed to be seen as a 'new methodology' for showing everyone how the Hunters are faring, especially after the Breach from a few days ago. It was still fresh in her memory, and would probably remain there for years. The hole had been sealed in the Plaza, with a small plaque that read 'To Those Who Were Lost in the Breach' as the only true memorial.
Vale had been busy.
But it wasn't the first time that Vale had come under that kind of attack, and it wouldn't be the last, either.
Her scroll beeped, a quick message from Ozpin. 'Be ready for weapon maintenance and fixing, people want these rounds to be quick and fast, despite there being a fixed amount of them.'
Right...she was still here for work, not for pleasure. There was a weaponsmith's forge was based in Amity, fortunately, and wasn't too far from the arena. Incidentally, it was right next to the medical bay, almost as if the forge would be the medical bay for the weapons. That thought appealed to her...
The crowd went wild again, and Ruby glanced up. The team were entering now, and she gave a wild cheer when Team PABY came up. "Go Yang go!" she shouted, barely able to hear herself over the loud roar that Taiyang and Qrow gave off. The blonde was able to somehow hear them, and gave a cocky smirk and waved to them.
Pyrrha was standing tall, towering over most of them, with Jaune seemingly much smaller despite that he was the same height. Mors had continued to be nameless of anything unique, although Ruby could see that Jaune had put more decorations on the shield part. He needed some more confidence if he was going to make it.
Blake was also standing tall, Ruby noticed, with the bow that hid her ears nowhere to be seen. Ruby could see both Ghira and Kali next to the Ironwood and Ozpin in the headmaster's area, Kali shouting for her daughter. Ruby hadn't known that they'd be invited to the headmaster's area, although it did make sense, in a way.
Team SILV was next to them, the signature white hair of Weiss standing proud. Ren had seemingly controlled a bit of Nora today, as the hyperactive girl wasn't running around hitting things with her hammer. Instead she was raising it up, promising the pain that it would deal. Cyril was looking bored as he always did, a calming smirk as he surveyed the people.
The other teams, including the one that Ruby didn't know the name of, slowly filtered up. A few she recognized, like that Winchester guy who she beat up for making a mockery of her shop, and who hasn't been back since. Sky has though, he came back to buy a bit of dust and some ammunition, and to talk about the famous weapon designer from Vacuo.
After the first years, came the second years, and Ruby cheered a bit louder as Velvet and the rest of the Team CFVY came onto the stage. Yatsuhashi was towering over the others, and Ruby sworn that he and Ghira were related based solely on how big they were. They were like giants of muscle or something!
Then she saw Team Carmen. The one girl who claimed her name was Mercury stood on the stage, followed by the actual Mercury and Emerald. With them was...Neo? Ruby tilted her head. That couldn't be right. Neo was captured, wasn't she?
"Who's that girl?" Ruby hurriedly asked her dad. The police knew who Neo was, they had given Ruby her name after all, and Ruby knew firsthand how dangerous she was. There was no way she was a second year.
"Oh her? Her name was Rainbow Nowing," her dad responded instantly.
Ruby blinked. Was everyone else blind? How could she see Neo, and everyone else see this Rainbow person? Also, Rainbow Nowing? Maybe she was just reading too much into it but that just screamed a fake name. Then again, so did 'Cinder', but everyone else treated it as normal. Maybe she was just imagining things.
Then Cinder's yellow eyes spotted her, and Ruby knew that no, she wasn't just imagining things. She was glaring, hatefully, towards Ruby with all of her being. So thick it was almost possible to taste and feel it. "I think that team is dangerous..." Ruby muttered.
"All these teams are dangerous. Comes with being at Beacon!" Qrow answered. "Heck, when Team STRQ was up there ooh boy, what were our odds when we were fourth years?"
"About twenty to one that we wouldn't even make it past the first round. We ended up taking the whole thing. We made boatloads!" Taiyang smirked, high fiving towards Qrow.
Ruby didn't want to know what kind of illegal shenanigans her parents had gotten up to in Beacon, and making boatloads off of betting for themselves in the Vytal Festival just screamed of being illegal shenanigans.
The third years, only of which Ruby had recognized as being some of the less talkative of her common customers slowly came out to the field. Apparently the third year was quite difficult, as the four years came out afterwards and she recognized almost half of them as people that have been in her shop for hours at a time talking about the various ammo and guns. One of them had even commissioned her for a unique weapon, in her final year!
That had been a fun commission actually. It was a shotgun spear that fired wires instead of slugs. With a push of the button it could reel in all of the wires and be used as a spear. Ridiculously long reach. When she'd tried to use it as a test the wire had extended all of the way from one side of the shop to the other, causing plenty of havoc.
"Now let's hear it all again for the Vytal Festival combatants! As a reminder, betting pools remain open until ten minutes before the match. That means that our first match will be twenty minutes!" Professor Port's voice called out.
"Yes yes. Special mentions requested of me to call out Ruby Rose as the hosted blacksmith of this Vytal Festival tournament, seeing as how Dr. Plum wanted to retire after the last one hosted at Vale eight years ago!" Oobleck said, almost faster than Ruby could hear it. "Ruby Rose, please stand!" he said just as quick.
Ruby blinked. Had he been talking to her? There were no screens around, and it wasn't until her dad lifted her up, far taller than she was normally, that she realized that yes, Oobleck had in fact been talking about her. "Yes, there she is! Most successful weaponsmith Vale has seen since Dr. Plum opened nearly thirty years ago."
"I remember Dr. Plum, Bart. Why, he was the one that insisted I design my own weapon Blowhard! Absolutely fantastic designer although I can't say much for his customer service."
"Don't speak ill of the not here Peter!Although, he's over there right now why don't we give him a little wave hello there doctor Plum!" Oobleck said. Ruby looked around, trying to see if she could see her predecessor.
"Wait, he's here!? Oh no! I haven't gone to maintain Blowhard for the required two hours yet this week! Bart, don't tell him I'm here!" Peter Port said into the microphone as he hurriedly disappeared.
"Peter?" Oobleck asked. Ruby wasn't sure if this skit was planned or this was just how the two teachers were going to be treating commentary. "Peter? Oh, he disappeared. Well, that's quite disconcerting. Oh well, I'm sure he'll be back by the time of the first match, Team Cardinal versus Team Auburn! After that, we have the infamous Valean team Team Peabody, yes that is a color don't test me on that I will show you, and Team Bronze!"
The fact that the teachers were once again trying to tell everyone that Team PABY's name was in fact aligned to the color rule really made Ruby wonder who made the name, and if she could donate a bit to them. The endless humor that raised from it...
She was fortunate then, that most people's attention hadn't been on her when called out, but on the small juggling act that was taking place in the center of the arena. It was obviously a non-Hunter, but something to entertain people while waiting for the match to start.
Her scroll buzzed again. Another note from Ozpin, it seemed. "I'm gonna go check out the weapon medical bay, be back in a bit!" Ruby said as she carefully extracted herself from her dad.
Amity was built in a central pillar fashion, with everything surrounding the arena. Every fifteen minutes, a bullhead would leave from Beacon grounds or the airport in Vale, to come to one of the four sections. It wasn't that hard to find anyone's way around, but even then there were dozens of maps projected on dust that would tell anyone where they currently were.
The medical bay was well marked, as was the blacksmith's forge. She had set up in it earlier, but here it was also away from the dozens of screaming people...
She turned on the scroll projector and let it play the highlights of the last few Vytal Festivals, before she sat down and proceeded to watch as it changed to the current live one. Team Cardinal versus Team Auburn.
PABY versus Bronze
Ruby slammed the hammer down on some of the armor from the last team's fight. She had her headphones on, connected to her scroll, listening for the fight outside.
They were replaying the highlights from the last fight, the one that just occurred. Team Cardinal versus Team Auburn. Cardinal hadn't been 'crushed' per se, but The Executioner was in a bad place.
Its owner, Winchester, was occupying a similar bed as he waited for his aura to come back. It had broken in the first two minutes. Which Ruby knew was actually quite good, although some of the civilians would probably think he couldn't last long.
Two minutes against a human opponent is equivalent to a lifetime in fighting seconds. But his teammate, Dove something or other, his aura had broken in the first thirty seconds because all four members of Team Auburn had ganged up on him instantly. Ruby knew what she would do in that situation, but she doubted Dove had the ability to use her Semblance.
After that it was almost a parody of a normal fight. An awful opening curbstomp of a match, and Ruby kind of doubted that Team PABY versus Team BRNZ was going to be much different.
But still, she was listening to Port and Oobleck's commentary as they re-watched it for the third or fourth time. Each time they had something new to say or new to point out.
How they managed to stream it to everywhere in Vale, Ruby didn't know. The cameras could do close ups, could do long shots, slowdowns...and Port and Oobleck were masters of the non-sequitur.
It almost made her feel that she should go to Haven or Atlas, but then she'd have to work with someone who wasn't Ozpin, and Ozpin had given her this chance to begin with and Ozpin wanted her in Beacon.
And to be honest, she'd still want to go to Beacon. It was where her parents went, it was where her sister went...there wasn't much tying her to the other Academies.
The armor done, she shelved it behind her. Her trademark red coat had needed to be taken off, the heat from the forge only airing a little bit to the outside, so she was forced to work in a tank top and protective gear.
The Executioner, Cardin Winchester's weapon, had been...well, ravaged. He'd used to block a spear strike and a sword strike at the same time, and then tried to bring it up against an explosion of red dust by using his own red dust. Unfortunately, explosions didn't work like that.
It was a good theory though, and Oobleck tore the poor guy to bits by telling him to 'pay more attention to dust theory than the women next to him'. Ruby thought that was just mean at that point.
Port had responded that Winchester was a decent student for a first year, but a first year team going up against a second year team was a difficult matchup to begin with, and according to Goodwitch's records, which apparently he shouldn't have access to, Team Cardinal was middling in combat class.
He'd then had to run out of the room as Goodwitch herself showed up in the commenter's square, the camera zooming in on Port's wide eyes before he took off running, followed by the bear that was Glynda Goodwitch.
"And now we have Team PABY, Team Peabody for those that don't have pattern recognition with our naming schema, against Team BRNZ! Peter, what can you tell us about these amazing contestants?" Oobleck said.
Silence answered him. "Ah, must still be on the run. Best of luck to you then Peter! I'll start then. Team BRNZ, or Team Bronze. From Shade Academy, and led by Brawnz Ni! An exceptional team for sure, but will they continue to be exceptional against the other exceptional and nearly infamous team Peabody, led by team leader Pyrrha Nikos herself?"
Pyrrha, Yang, Jaune and Blake stepped out onto the platform, with the other side having three well muscled guys and one girl with long black hair coming up to the stand.
Ruby glanced up at their weapons. Shade mostly specialized in multi-purpose weapons, or weapons that had more than just the one or two mechashifts. A good example was Sun's weapon, a pair of shotgun nunchucks that could be combined to create a staff. Three weapons, only one maintenance. That kind of variety was apparently needed out in Vacuo.
She saw three of them with heavy gauntlets, capable of firing...what looked like .45 rounds? Include a bit of elemental dust, and they looked fairly straightforward. The camera wasn't getting the best angles, unfortunately, so Ruby knew they probably weren't nearly as advanced as Ember Celica, although they probably had similar properties.
One of them had what was obviously a sniper rifle, with...no mechashift. Huh. That was weird for a Hunter. Mechashift's were needed out in the field, as running out of ammo was quite common, and melee weapons didn't need it...most of the time.
The girl had the sniper. Oh no, Ruby hoped that didn't mean they abided by the 'guys punch, girls shoot' mentality. She thought she'd beaten that out of people when she'd beaten down Winchester. Oh well, Yang and Pyrrha would show them.
She pushed the Executioner to the side, making sure it was away from the heat. It was mostly fixed now anyways, she only needed to grind away some of the faultier edges.
Peter Port came back to sit down in the commentary box. "Alright, sorry about that, had to grab the records for Team PABY," he explained. The camera zoomed in on Ozpin, whose head was in his hands. "Team PABY is, according to Goodwitch, exceptional fighters of exceptional skill!"
"Quite exceptional then?" Oobleck answered.
"Exceptionally!"
Pyrrha pulled out Mio in its shield form, with Jaune in front with his own shield out. Mors was clicked into gear, Ruby noticed, and it'd be interesting to see what kind of things they came up with.
Brawnz leapt forward as soon as the bell rang, pushed forward by one of his teammates. Jaune came down on him hard, blocking the punch with his shield. Guided by...Pyrrha's Semblance. The other two brawlers were only a step behind, before one was thrown to the ground as Yang stepped up behind Jaune.
Brawnz kept up the assault on Jaune, seeing him as the weak link. His punches hit the shield hard, but didn't leave any dents. Was Jaune focusing solely on defense? He wasn't giving up much room, honestly, his shield aided by Pyrrha's Semblance to block most of the major hits.
Mio herself was doing a lot of work, the spear and shield combination flawlessly putting down the other brawler. "May, I need help!" he cried out as Pyrrha put him down, his aura breaking after only forty five seconds. Ruby honestly didn't blame him, that was a curbstomp.
"And Roy Stallion is down and out from an absolute crushing victory from Pyrrha Nikos, who required absolutely no help from anyone! Even Jaune Arc is pulling his weight, being the shield that his team needs him to be!" Port was commenting.
"And May Zedong is down! You have to keep your eyes on all members of both teams, Ms. Zedong, not just the three obvious ones!" Oobleck said as May fell to the ground. Blake was behind her, the rifle having been cut in half before the faunus had done almost the same thing to May Zedong. Ruby winced as she thought about having to fix that quickly.
"May!?" Brawnz called out as he turned to look. Jaune didn't attack, too busy focusing on defense. He could have, and Ruby knew he could have, but he had a role and he'd play it well.
Instead Pyrrha focused on the one that Yang had charged in on. With both Roy and May down, Ruby had a feeling that this would probably be a quick match. The guy had been matching punches with Yang pretty well, but it was a stacked matchup in Ruby's mind.
The camera zoomed in on Taiyang and Qrow, shouting their lungs out. "And a nasty hit there from Nolan Porfirio towards Yang Xiao Long!" Oobleck pointed out.
Wait, Ruby wanted it to go back. There had been a hit somewhere along the line? "But that just means even worse things for Nolan there! And yep, there it goes," Port pointed out just as Nolan was pushed back ten feet from a single punch. Pyrrha took the moment to trip him up, and Blake came up to kick him out of the arena, his aura breaking a second later.
"Ooh bad luck there! And now it's all of Team Peabody against Brawnz Ni! Can he pull off the eternal victory!?" Oobleck asked. Brawnz kept trying to trip Jaune up, but his shield and strength, combined with Pyrrha's Semblance, made sure that each hit was blocked just long enough for the four members to come together.
The camera blocked it out for a moment, but Ruby knew what was happening. There was a beatdown going on, although it did show Brawnz leaping into the air before targeting Blake.
Jaune shook out his sword and fired a single shot, pushing Brawnz out of the way onto the arena floor and breaking his aura. Ruby smiled. Good on Jaune, he got a hit in. Not just any hit, the winning shot, and he hadn't needed Pyrrha to move his sword into place.
Then the camera zoomed in on the shattered Ember Celica. Yang was commenting something, not that Ruby could hear it. "No, Bart...no he can't!" Port answered.
"Sad, Peter. So sad. Skilled for certain but against the almost unassailable Team Peabody it's no mean feat to say that this team will make it far into the tournament, and quite likely far in life as well!"
"Did they even take a hit there?" Port asked. "I think I only remember the one. Remember, the next match is in half an hour, and it's sure to be a doozy! Stay tuned as we recap this match!"
"There was one hit Peter, exactly the one. Nolan against Yang Xiao Long, in which he, hold on we'll pull it up just right now there we go, you can see he managed to swing his fist right into Yang's Ember Celica, as it was reloading!" Oobleck pointed out.
Oh. Oh no, that'd damage the reloading mechanism, which could mean the small plates guarding the triggers could break, forcing Ember Celica to stay within shotgun mode or risk blowing up entirely!
It wasn't as if Ruby couldn't fix it, it was actually a simple fix. The problem was that it was a time-intensive fix, in that she would need to get within the inner workings, manually look at every trigger and slug shaft for imperfections, before adjusting it to maintenance mode to make sure the plates could slide over each other.
There was a knock on the door. "Come on in!" Ruby yelled out, glancing at the Executioner off to the side. Good, it was in enough condition for her to take a few hours to work on Ember Celica, and Ruby doubted that Team Cardinal would want their stuff back right away.
Yang and Jaune were at the door. The blond haired girl laughed as she slowly slid Ember Celica off her hands. "Ruby! Good to see you here. I thought you'd have been out there roaring with Dad and Qrow. You see our fight?" she asked, sliding Ember Celica on a nearby desk.
Ruby pointed to the screen. "Yeah, I have it playing," she said, taking off her headphones. Jaune stood stock still. "Jaune? Mors okay?" Ruby asked.
"I...yeah, it's fine," he said, staring at Ruby like he'd never seen her before. "Gotta go bye!" Jaune finally said before he ran away as fast as he could. Ruby blinked, tilting her head. What was that about? She glanced over at Yang, who just shared her look and shrugged.
"Alright, that was weird. I'm gonna go talk to him, see what's up. See you tomorrow Rubes!" Yang said as she ran towards her fellow blond.
Ruby looked towards Ember Celica. A thought occurred to her. "Wait, Yang, I haven't been able to scold you yet!" she yelled through the open door. She ignored the telltale laughing from her sister.
Yeah. Volume 3. Amity Tournament. Not a lot of changes yet, but it's getting there. One of the things I wanted to do was to highlight every character that had shown up to this point sometime during these chapters. Expect callbacks. Lots of them.
Until Next Time!