AN:

This'll be a great way to date this story - but let's hope and pray that that net neutrality nonsense doesn't get undone here in a few days, because I honestly have no idea what it'll mean for my writing hobbies.

Chapter 24

He didn't know how long, or if any time at all, had passed between his shutting his eyes and when a tentative "Excuse me." made him snap back into awareness, but he knew that Yang was still fighting down in the ring. Considering how stiff his muscles were, he figured he must have been asleep for a few minutes. He groaned, rubbing at his face and sitting back upright, as his radar expanded.

Now that's an interesting sight. Thought Aldric, as he beheld the latest in his run-ins with the main cast. Now what do you want with me? He wondered, as he did Pyyrha Nikos the courtesy of turning to face her. Unlike him, she looked like she wasn't winded at all, as though she hadn't spent the entire morning going through one fight after the other.

"How can I help you?" He asked, in a tone of voice that effectively communicated how much he hadn't been sleeping just then.

"I was..." She began, before trailing off and frowning, as she reconsidered her words. "I saw how you fought." She settled on.

Oh this'll be good. Aldric raised an eyebrow and cracked a grin. "Oh yeah?" He said, "well that makes one of us." He said, raising his glasses and cracking a exaggerated, cartoony smile.

Her expression dropped like a brick, "I -" She said, hastily. "I didn't mean to offend."

You know, I almost forgot that this was before she had experience with the whole people thing. Though that does beg the question of why she's here... Aldric dropped his glasses and snorted, "I wish I could've seen the look on your face." He laughed, "I wasn't mad, don't worry. To offend someone, that person has to be offendable, and it's awfully hard to offend the guy whose icebreaker is to draw attention to the stuff you can make fun of." He said, turning to more fully face her, leaning against the arm of his chair. "What brings you over here? Liked the fight, you said?"

"Yes." She nodded, "I - I noticed how you fought." She repeated, "and I was wondering... If I may ask, what is your semblance?"

Aldric gave her a blank look for a few moments, before he shifted in his seat and rested his chin on his cybernetic fist. "Damn lady, you don't mess around, do you?" He chuckled, "you know, we're all kind of in this to win it." He pointed out, a coy smile gracing his face, as Yang sent her opponent flying down below. "I tell you what my powers are, we fight eachother, suddenly you're wiping the floor with me." He pointed at her, nodding. "I see your game, I see how it is." He snorted.

Pyrrha's expression looked as though she wouldn't have considered that option in a million years, so Aldric decided to backpedal and do a little damage control.

"Lady, it's a joke!" He chuckled, straightening up a bit. "We're all on the same team." He waved at the audience, "I couldn't give an ass rats about the reputation." He extended a hand, "name's Ash, by the way."

She accepted the hand, but wore a look of confusion. "I thought..."

But Aldric's grin remained, only faltering just a bit once it entered his mind just how easy it was, adopting this role. "Yeah, the board says 'Goud', but if the shield and the eyes weren't a dead giveaway, I'm not really a 'use my first name' kind of a guy. I figured out my last name meant 'Ash' and thought it was the coolest thing ever. 'Specially since I set fire to one of my classrooms back in Chancel."

Pyrrha's head tilted as she recognized the name, "Pyrrha... You're from Mistral?"

Aldric laughed, "only the most back of the backwaters, my friend! I didn't know Beacon was a thing until I was graduating and looking for a summer job." He gave her a look, "you are too?"

He would later swear he saw the question 'You don't know my name?' flash across her face, but she crushed it after a moment. "Yes. I graduated from Sanctum, before enrolling here."

Aldric snorted, "well good job lady, you made it, though -" He chuckled, and raised his hands to his sides in a shrugging manner, "- a blind man made it in, so I don't know how high of a benchmark it is..."

She finally seemed to understand that every word coming out of his mouth seemed to service only one goal, and actually afforded him a chuckle, though it amused him to no end the fact that she covered her mouth in front of a blind man. He really wanted to point it out, but his shtick was that he could only really 'see' in the middle of a fight, or if he concentrated hard on what was in front of him, so he crushed that desire as far as he could.

"So..." She said, after lightly clearing her throat. "Your fight."

"Yes!" Aldric exclaimed, "let you know all my secrets." He paused, "ooh! Wait! Is this an illusion right now? I met one of you once before, she actually took video of me talking to an empty room full of illusions only I could see." He pointed at her again, "I like your game!"

She politely waited for him to finish, "I'm afraid not." She said, suppressing another laugh. "I was just wondering what your semblance was, was what made me come over here initially." She finally explained, "your fighting style struck a chord with me... It looked very familiar."

"Pretending to get my ass kicked?" Aldric deadpanned.

"Hiding what is is you can really do, to keep your opponent guessing." She said, with a nod.

"Ah!" Aldric held up a finger, "I see where you're going!" And as he spoke, the buzzer sounded, and he had to wait for the audience's cries to quiet down, which took a bit longer than usual, as the semi-finalists were announced, and the next fighters went to the stage to uproarious applause. "Unfortunately, mine's nothing special." Only powers that literally qualified him for godhood, to these people. "It's just telekinesis." He nodded to her, "how about you?"

Whether it was because Aldric had called her out on it and made a joke about it, or because she felt that, since she'd asked, she may as well return the favor, Pyyrha responded. "Mine is polarity." She said, "I can control objects with magnetic fields."

Man I would love to settle a bet, tear my arm off and freak you out at the same time. Aldric thought wistfully. "So, the question -" He said, as he leaned in closer to her, to be heard better. " - is whether or not you make it seem like you're just that fast, and that nobody can touch you, or you let people score a hit or two on you to make the question of how you do it less prudent." He said, a conspiratorial grin stretching across his face, as he cupped his hands together.

Whereas earlier it appeared she was mostly humoring him, with a hint of genuinely enjoying his antics, now there seemed to be full-on, genuine interest in her eyes. "Considering what I've seen so far -"

"Oh good, rub it in." Aldric interrupted.

She smiled, but kept going. "- would I be correct in thinking you suggest the latter from experience?"

To which, Aldric nodded. "Did you see it just then?" He asked, as he sensed Yang bounding up the stairwell and back to the stands, the next two fighters making their way down. "I managed to hit that perfect balance of pissing Tiny off every time I dodged a successive string of his attacks, and letting him get confident when he'd get me. A lot of anger and a lot of arrogance is a dangerous mixture, my friend. People start making mistakes easier with the former, and start taking chances more with the latter."

Pyrrha nodded, "I see." She said, "though I must admit to something closer to the former." She nodded her head to the side, "I prefer to make it seem as though I cannot be touched... Under the predication that a toxic amount of anger and frustration..." She paused, "and maybe a hint of despair..." She mumbled, "is by far the worst thing that can happen to a fighter in battle."

Aldric shrugged, "I can see the logic in that." He said, as Yang reached the stadium, but was briefly held up by a few of her less-protagonist friends. "So now the question you want to ask is where did I get the idea?" He predicted, another grin stretching across his face, as he leaned back against the arm of his chair.

Pyrrha's expression and half shrug betrayed that she had wanted to ask, but hadn't built up the courage to do so. After a moment of dead silence between the two, she realized her mistake and hastily said, "I - yes."

Aldric chuckled, "you'll figure it out eventually, lady." He said, briefly adopting a posh tone, before dropping it just as quickly. "The idea is that the enemy that doesn't know what you're capable of is an enemy that can't win." He said, "know your enemy and you should never fear losing a battle, and all that." Sun Tsu was probably rolling in his grave for how badly Aldric had butchered his quote.

Pyrrha grew a much wider smile now, "yes!" She said, nodding. "Exactly - though... I liked more to tire my opponents out, than study them by taking their attacks, like you seem to."

"Oh, you like to rope a dope, alright." Aldric nodded, "saving that away for later." He said quickly, before he cleared his throat.

And this was when, "what's this, Beebee?" A certain brash voice called out, attracting the gaze of the red head above him, and a lazy look over the shoulder from him.

"Oh, I'm cheating on you, Yang." He indicated Pyrrha with his thumb. "In five minutes I can tell she knows more about fighting than it took an entire bar fight to get from you."

"Oh, is that right?!" Yang got a hungry look in her eyes as she eyed Pyrrha; she approached the redhead and offered her hand, "Yang."

Pyrrha once again briefly seemed to entertain the fact that someone hadn't recognized her, but also just as quickly seemed to reach the conclusion that such a thing was the entire reason she'd come to Vale in the first place, and it wasn't good to look a gift horse in the mouse. As such, she shook Yang's hand and gave her her name, whereupon Yang climbed over the chairs and plopped down back next to Aldric, digging in a bag she'd stowed underneath it for some water.

"So why're you trying to steal my sparring partner, Pyrrha?" Yang asked, her own snide grin matching Aldric's.

"Oh, I'm -" She shook her head, "- I assure you, I'm -" But her words were drowned out by the buzzer.

Aldric actually managed to predict what happened next. Considering his luck with the universe, and how all signs pointed to him fighting someone in the main cast, the moment Yang said something about it, Aldric just knew what would happen. As a result, he wasn't surprised at all when his picture, and that of Pyrrha's, appeared on the big screen. Pyrrha looked aghast - clearly demonstrating how the universe was good to her, and how this kind of bad (or perhaps it was good?) luck was an outlier. Aldric, having seen it coming a mile away, hardly even flinched when he heard their names get called.

Yang, on the other hand, was busy looking back and forth from the two of them, to the screen showing their pictures, and back, and forth, and back, and forth, her purple eyes as wide as her grin, before, with a flourish, she pointed right at Pyrrha and exclaimed, "I knew it!" She cried, "I knew it! You're taking my blind man from me!" She turned to Aldric, "what do you see in her that I don't have?!" She demanded, a grin firmly stretched across her face.

Aldric chuckled, as he hauled himself to his feet. "I already told you I was cheating on you, Yang!" He said, stooping low to pick up his shield. "You can't claim any credit for it!" He noticed there was a somewhat subdued expression to Pyrrha, as she collected her own weapons, and before Yang could play off of him, he nodded to her. "This your first time tempting fate?" He shouted over the growing roars of the crowds, as it truly dawned on them who were about to fight.

Pyrrha nodded, "yes, actually."

Aldric waved the whole thing away, and again to Yang after promising her a good fight, as the two descended the stairwell. "Well don't worry about it." He said, once the roars of the crowd were muffled by the walls of the stairwell. "That crap happens to me so often, it just bounces off at this point." He beat his chest to prove the point; she nodded, already having begun to adapt. "And besides..." He said, laying it on thick. "I'll never let you live this down. You come over to me to talk strategy, and no sooner do you steal my secrets than do we go up against eachother." He turned around, walking backwards as they exited out into the arena. "I think! -" He pointed at her in a falsely accusatory fashion. "I think your real semblance is probability altering!" But as he began to get drowned out by the crowds, he rolled his eyes. "But we'll finish this later!" He called out, as the two separated, and headed to their own parts of the ring.

When they got to their sides, Aldric decided this would be as good a time as any to take the training wheels off, and he shed his coat, freeing up some mobility.

"Three!" Called out the announcer, and the crowd joined in.

Aldric and Pyrrha dropped into their stances, he clutched his left hand, and his shield raised, a grin playing his features.

"Two!" They all called out.

Now we'll see exactly how 'non-magnetic' my stuff is... He thought, as his muscles tensed.

"One!"

And the buzzer to start the match sounded off.

The two charged eachother, sprinting to the center of the arena so fast that it was as if they thought the mere act of getting there first would determine who won out over who. Pyrrha's tightly bound hair lightly bobbed up and down, in stark contrast to Aldric's wild barbarian mane bouncing about in every direction with every step. Pyrrha's two weapons and several inch size advantage gave her a visual edge over Aldric's one weapon and shorter stature, and from afar, it appeared as though she would easily win out - especially when one considered that Aldric's aura meter was barely three quarters full, and hers was untouched. Were one to draw that conclusion based off of what they had, they may have been right.

But then they wouldn't have been aware that the idiot in black and the warrior in gold had spent twenty minutes spilling their secrets and combat strategies to eachother, suddenly dropping them on even footing. So instead of a slug fest between the two deciding who would win out, it came down to who had superior skill, and who could out think the other.

So one could thusly understand why Aldric felt absolutely fucking terrified at the prospect of fighting Pyrrha Nikos. She had spent her entire life training to get become a huntress, and he'd been going strong for, what, six months? Ish? Yeah he was good at improvising, but seventeen years versus six-ish months. He clearly didn't have the kind of divine luck that would let him win this; the only thing that calmed him down in the few seconds he had before they clashed center-stage, was that unlike all of his fights before today, this wasn't a deathmatch, so losing didn't mean he'd be buried in a ditch somewhere on an alien planet.

So with skill and strategy both clearly on his opponents side, and with the prospect of trying to crack open his full power outlawed by virtue of the computers keeping an eye on him, what did Aldric have that could turn this from a no-holds-barred beatdown, into something at least resembling a fight?

Well, it had been said earlier: He was an idiot, and his opponent was not. He'd have to weaponize the idea of taking refuge in audacity; if he couldn't dazzle her with brilliance, he'd baffle her with bullshit.

It probably wouldn't work, but there was an added benefit, too: There was no way in hell Ozpin or the Justice League would think the clandestine spy from the Legion of Doom would attract attention and like a buffoon in front of a full stadium of people, at what was perhaps the most precarious moment of his act - especially since Ozpin all but outed that he would have fallen for Aldric's idea of sending Goud Etiolate in from a high-end Mistrali school, the fact of which Aldric loathed that he couldn't lord over Cinder, without breaking his cover.

Whether or not he stole such the whole idea from Rooster Teeth's other wildly popular show aside, when they met in the center, Aldric dropped to a knee, thrusting his shield out in front of him. Pyrrha took the bait and attacked as he skidded forward, but the instant he felt her sword hit his shield, he lunged upwards, swinging his left arm out to bat away her sword, and his shield out to the side to rebound hers. With her core open, Aldric sprang into action.

And gave her a big hug.

After giving her just a moment to question what drugs he had taken to think that opening his back, armor aside, to an opponent armed with a sword was a good idea, he then lunged upwards and brought Pyrrha down in a fast and powerful suplex. She hit the ground with a horrible sounding thud, but was able to recover too fast for Aldric's ill-thought out attempt at mounting her. She spun to her hands and leapt to her feet, only to snap her shield up with a pulse of her semblance and drop behind it when Aldric's fist came swinging in; and for the first time in his combat career, Aldric was on the other side of a bell-ringing punch. But unlike his shield, hers didn't absorb impact with such perfect efficiency, and she felt more of it than she didn't.

So as the air was filled with the sound of a loud bell toll, Pyrrha was put on the backfoot from the strength of Aldric's cybernetic hand, a minor, but noticeable, dent left in the center of her shield, with impressions of his knuckles. Her counter was to try and stab up at Aldric from under her shield, but his was there for the blade to scrape off of, and he didn't fail to notice the surprised glance she gave it when his shield failed to obey when she no-doubt tried to influence it with her abilities.

Just as she didn't fail to notice the wide, toothy grin that sprouted across his face as he raised his shield to chop down on her sword. The impact would have jarred it from her grip, had its gun barrel not fired, and she used the recoil to yank it away entirely too fast for him to react to. Aldric kept up the pressure, locking his shield with hers with a wide cross, keeping her immobilized and freeing up his left hand to try and pry her shield off. She, however, found the flaw in his plan: Using his shield to pin hers down meant it wasn't there to protect him, and she capitalized on that instantly.

If his aura shields and his armor hadn't been there, Aldric would have had a new scar to add to the collection, right at the bottom of his ribcage, and angled up, too - she could have taken out a lot of his organs. While she didn't, she certainly got the point across, and he disengaged before she could try to slip the blade in between his armor plates and stress his aura shields more.

With distance between the two, Aldric could tell by the look on her face that she was trying to figure out why exactly she couldn't influence his shield, even as she examined the structural damage he had done to hers. He, meanwhile, was trying not to let it show that he was genuinely flabbergasted his suplex had worked. But while it may have worked, everything that came after didn't, and it only reinforced the idea that he probably wasn't walking out of this with a silver medal.

Or... Hell, we only just hit the semis. He thought, with a frown. I won't even get a bronze. Fuck! He took a quick step forward and threw his shield.

Pyrrha seemed to have predicted this, because her response was to change her sword into a gun in the blink of an eye, and with a single shot, no doubt assisted by a cleverly hidden use of her semblance, she overcame the shield's momentum and it bounced right back to him. No doubt she was also not-so-openly challenging him to try and manipulate its trajectory mid-flight, if he really wanted this to work.

So, obviously, the best answer was to test his inner Neo - that is, 'I know kung fu!', and not, 'date me or die' - and see how well he could block bullets.

Much like he'd done with Cardin before, he sent the shield right back at her, though this time with a punch, as he continued thundering forward. Pyrrha's brow furrowed, and she acquired her target and fired again - but instantly realized something was wrong when her bullet barely left the barrel of the gun before stopping as though it had hit a wall. Aldric had had to sacrifice a bit of his radar to make sure he had the power for that stunt, and having his visual acuity snap back once he got it to work disoriented him, but fortunately Pyrrha was kept too busy by the flying red white and blue Frisbee headed straight for her face. Be it from her own skill, or an application of her semblance on her circlet, Pyrrha dodged the attack and the shield spun right on by, but this gave Aldric the time to close the gap.

The question he had to answer before he reached her was, keeping in mind her skills, what exactly would he do to top his previous stunts, that would - hopefully - have an effect?

Considering the only thing that came to mind in a half second was 'Get rid of her weapons!', Aldric decided to go with that. It seemed like a safe enough bet, his entire combat style was based around hand-to-hand, after all. When he reached her, he threw his hand forward, slamming it into her shield with a more muted bell toll. She fell onto the backfoot from the impact, and he used the brief time in which she was stunned to grab the side of her shield and wrench it to the side, and while he succeeded in opening her core to attack, he wasn't able to disarm her. So, adapting as fast as he could, Aldric followed it up with a brutal front kick that landed right on her chest.

She fell back from the impact, but rolled into it, and when she came up, her blade had morphed into a rifle and she was taking aim. Aldric, however, thrust his cybernetic hand forward just as she fired, and the bullets bounced off of his palm, it appearing to anyone who watched that his armor was just that good. He rushed forward as she fired off two more shots, before giving up and shifting the weapon back to its bladed form. When he closed the distance between the two of them he lunged forward - one hand locking around the edge of her shield and keeping it steady, and the other zipping for her sword. He managed to get his hands on it, but then a roundhouse he hadn't seen coming sent him flying to the close edge of the arena.

He groaned in pain as he slid to a halt. Oh... Right. Any metal at all. And his dumbass had ran right in there with a gun strapped to the very hip she'd kicked. Clever girl... He thought, as he got to his feet and his shield returned to him. Masked shooting me away like a railgun by making it seem like you're mother fucking Wonder Woman. He grunted, feeling a bruise well up on his hip, as he affixed his shield back to his arm.

Pyrrha was waiting on him, either because she was polite, or because he'd displayed such a lack of intelligence that she honestly didn't want to risk charging him, for fear of him biting her sword, or something just as ridiculous.

Well... Thought Aldric, as he clenched his fist. If I really want to baffle her with bullshit, that'd be the way to go, really. And it worked for Saitama, right? He knew that the sheer audacity of biting a sword would - God willing - buy him just enough time to disarm her, and if he could do that, and bring the fight to a hand-to-hand, he may very well actually have a fighting chance.

So, after taking a moment to compose himself, Aldric practically threw himself forward - making sure to make the acceleration as sudden as possible, so he could mask his using his semblance to push the gun off of his hip by making it seem like it fell. He noticed the brief grin play Pyrrha's features when she saw that she'd been made, but this grin vanished when Aldric reached her, and the latter suddenly realized he had no idea how to make her aim for his head, when they weren't trying to kill eachother.

But thinking things through was how he quickly lost whatever control he had in this fight, so he stopped doing that as soon as physically possible and instead lunged forward with a punch from his shield-arm. Pyrrha deflected it with an uppercut, and then spun into her next attack, intending to slice at Aldric's midsection. Seeing his opening, Aldric used Pyrrha's own trick against her, and with a telekinetic push, changed the trajectory of her attack. He felt a good chunk of his aura shields wash away because of this stunt, but it proved to be worth it when he wrenched his mouth open and in one smooth motion, jerked his head around and chomped down on her blade.

It had the desired effect: Not only Pyrrha, but the entire stadium went dead silent when he took a bite out of a solid steel sword. He felt a few cuts on the edges of his mouth where the cutting edge met skin, and tasted a little blood, but the sacrifice was worth it because of the look of utter befuddlement on Pyrrha's face, and how the previous tension in her muscles washed away, leaving only abject, limp, shock. Even her jaw started hanging.

Aldric would admit he might not have thought this all the way through, because he risked making the cuts worse when he side-kicked Pyrrha in her ribs. He built distance between the two, that much was true, but had her grip been any better than 'completely limp', he might have given himself a glasgow smile. But he lucked out in this case, and now Pyrrha was down one sword, which he pried out of his jaw and gingerly tossed into the air, flipping it like a knife.

"Don't worry, don't worry." He assured her, pointing at her with the blade. "I brushed my teeth..." A pause, as it occurred to him: "Yesterday." A downside of a general lack of sleep? He forgot things. Oops.

Regardless of his oral hygiene, he tossed the blade into the air again and caught it in a reverse grip, before ramming it a good foot into the ground, making sure it would take a lot of time and effort to remove the sword from the stone. This action prompted the redhead to recover from her shock, and she took up a decidedly defensive posture behind her shield, clearly having decided that attacking him was an exercise in madness. That meant the plan was working, but only on a technicality. Realistically? He was losing bad, his aura was half gone whereas he'd only landed a few punches on her, and most of that lost aura was self inflicted at this point - all in the efforts of depriving her of a sword that hadn't done nearly as much damage as he had done to himself.

Hopefully the shield will be easier? He thought to himself, wiping the blood from his mouth, and trying to figure out exactly how he would pry her shield out of her hands.

Actually, he had the answer already: Yang had done it to him during their bar fight. So with that in mind, he threw the shield again - but instead of throwing it at Pyrrha, he bounced it right off the ground at his feet, sending it flying straight up into the air. Pyrrha didn't make the same mistake that a lot of the audience did, and instead of tracking the shield, she kept her eyes on Aldric, who sprinted forward.

Pyrrha was fully on the defensive now, using her semblance on herself instead of trying it on Aldric. With all the metal on various parts of her body, she did pretty well with keeping up her image, until she played right into Aldric's hands, and blocked one of his punches with her shield. After another bell toll, she shoved forward with her shield, and Aldric allowed himself to stumble back - prompting her to take her shot and jab at him with her shield arm. But Aldric cheated a bit, using his semblance to catch himself and regain his footing in the blink of an eye, and caught the edge of her shield with his metal hand. Her reaction was almost immediate - she threw an uppercut at him from under her shield, but Aldric caught it with his other hand and pushed it back, before throwing an punch her way from over the shield. She deflected it the same way, but when she shoved his hand back, his fingers caught the edge of her shield.

She realized what he was doing just before he did it, and when he tried to force her arm into a painful position and wrench the shield off of it, she gracefully flipped into it, keeping her grip, but also fully presenting her arm to him - which he took advantage of by chopping at the crook of her elbow. She grunted in pain, and as Aldric started to rip the shield out of her grasp, she responded by clobbering him in the nose. The punch somehow had more force in it than one of Yang's, and it was probably because of that that his next hair-brained scheme was to headbutt Pyrrha as hard as he could.

Which he did.

It made him see stars, yes, but it also stunned Pyrrha long enough to allow him to finally tear the shield off of her arm. The both of them stumbled back now, Aldric pressing the back of his fleshy arm to his nose despite the lack of blood, Pyrrha clutching her reddening forehead with one of her gloved hands. Aldric spared even less thoughts to his next action, and he threw the shield at the ground - but instead of bouncing like the head trauma had convinced him it would, it lodged itself halfway into the ring.

Both of the combatants spared it a glance at this, Pyrrha in confusion, Aldric in dull realization.

"Yours doesn't bounce?" He deadpanned.

"No..." If Aldric didn't know any better, he would have categorized the breathy laugh she let out as she spoke as 'genuine'. Perhaps it was - he was seeing stars, after all, and it should be obvious why that was a problem. "Yours does?"

"Uh-huh." Aldric made a show of looking up to the sky. "Apparently too well, actually." Uh oh. He spared the scoreboard another brief glance before snapping his radar back to the area around him, and the results weren't good: He was dipping below half of his aura, whereas his opponent was barely a quarter of the way through hers.

And it as around now that he was starting to hear how much of the audience was laughing, as they were cheering and applauding. Aldric called that a win, though he would've liked to maybe place a bit higher for pride reasons, he was just happy he was getting to have this kind of fun. It beat the hell out of not sleeping, that was for sure.

Putting those thoughts aside, Aldric darted forward. When he reached Pyrrha he threw at her a wide superman punch, she caught it and twisted his arm around, throwing it over her shoulder and putting herself firmly within his defenses. She managed two elbow strikes to his gut and chest before Aldric crashed into her head with a left hook. She took the hint and let go, but not without a kick to the stomach. Aldric stumbled back, and Pyrrha closed in on him; in the span of three seconds he had to deflect a left hook, dodge a straight jab, and catch her knee. Aldric took his chance and punched down on her thigh, before ramming his elbow upwards into her nose. Now she stumbled back, shaking her head, but otherwise not worse for wear.

As he dropped back into a fighting stance, and she recovered, he noticed Pyrrha cast a glance over his shoulder, to his left. A moment later, he saw what had caught her eye as it entered his radar: A falling red white and blue discus. The both of them watched as it hit the ring, and then bounced right out and over the edge.

"Oh... Yeah. I kind of..." Aldric mumbled, "forgot to... Keep a hold of it." He pursed his lips, "hm."

Pyrrha's knowing smile told him that she understood his pain, likely utilizing a similar trick to get her shield to look like it bounced all over the place. That smile, however, turned into a determined frown when she launched herself forward, starting the fight again in earnest. Aldric knew what she wanted to happen: She wanted to push him back behind her weapons, such that the instant they disengaged, she could make a run for one of them. So he met her charge with one of his own. The two clashed, Pyrrha slapped away a left hook with her right hand, deflected the elbow he followed up with, and dodged Aldric's straight right as fast as he threw them, and he bobbed and weaved to the left and right with each attempted strike.

A wide right cross went over his head as he ducked underneath it, and when she followed it up with a knee, he prevented it from ramming into his nose by catching it with his left hand, and burying his right into her stomach. She, however, twisted her leg around his fleshy arm and then ducked downwards, pinning him to the ground, where she rained elbows on his back. He felt it through his light armor and knew he'd be getting some bruises, but her mistake was in pinning the weaker of his arms.

His mistake was in thinking that she wouldn't catch onto the fact that he liked to play southpaw, and with flexibility only seconded to the tri-haired mute herself, she fully bent out of the way, completely dodging his blind uppercut, before locking his right arm into a painful armbar. Now it was literally a waiting game: Yes, Aldric had a perfect opening to pummel her with lefts, but she was doing more damage to him than he was to her, and his aura was too far down for him to try and beat her into submission, before she broke his shields and got him on a technical knockout; and as appropriately dumb as the idea was, he was pretty sure he wouldn't get far by biting her. He did at least try to break out of it, first by conventional means and then with his semblance, but she'd seen through that and was actively using her own, on herself, to keep her grip locked down. So, as much as he may not have wanted to, after a few minutes of increasingly agonizing pain, Aldric called it.

He tapped out, and a second later the buzzer sounded and Pyrrha let him go.

Man, I fought a Goddess. He thought, and this one kicked my ass. He snorted.

Aldric rolled onto his back, both arms spread wide, as Pyrrha got to her feet, though despite his loss, he had a huge smile on his face. One could spend hours wondering about whether things would have been different had they not tempted fate, one could wonder whether or not it would have gone the same way if Aldric hadn't been under a lot of handicaps, but he thought of it differently. As he'd thought earlier, this hadn't been a deathmatch by any means, neither of them were trying to kill the other, this was, at most, a high-stakes martial arts fight with guns, and that meant it came down to skill to decide who would win this, and the fact of the matter was: She was demonstrably more skilled than him. He had more experience in street fights, but plop them down in an arena and slap rules on them, and then she took home almost all the advantages. He'd tried a little bit of everything: Matching her weapon for weapon, disarming her, bringing it into a melee, but each time she adapted and took control of the fight right back. He straight up lost, but he'd be damned if he didn't have a fun time in so doing.

God help me if I hadn't kept her in mind when picking the arsenal. He thought, as she knelt down and gave him a brief tap on the hand, before standing up.

Aldric raised the hand and groped about wildly for a moment, before he grasped hers, and with her help, was hauled to his feet. The two let the audience cheer for a few moments before they collected their scattered weapons, with Aldric assisting her in prying them out of the arena, and with Pyrrha assisting the 'blind' man in locating his, and once they made it back to the stairwell and the sounds were muffled, they got their first chance to speak.

"And to think my ass thought I'd make it to the finals." He drawled.

Pyrrha tried to ameliorate the situation with, "you did good though, Ash! You should feel proud!"

But Aldric chuckled, "if your definition of 'doing good' is spending half the fight getting the hell beaten out of me, and the other half of the fight helping you out..." He shook his head, "then I'd hate to see your 'doing great'."

Though that did get a grin, she shrugged after a moment. "I think perhaps it was a case of very bad luck."

"Oh?"

"As I said: I saw your fights, Ash. I think you very well could have made it further..." A pause, "had the computers not paired us up so early."

"Says the victor." Aldric grinned, giving her a light punch to the arm. "We're going to have to do that again, sometime." He said, as his scroll vibrated.

Pyrrha looked like she'd like that, but it was also clear she was starting to learn, as her response was, "I don't know, Ash... If we fought again, would you..." She leaned in a little close, an incredulous grin on her face. "Bite my sword?"

Aldric's smile grew, and though he had the opportunity, he decided to let this double entendre slide. "You know what - I'll own that shit, because it seemed like a good idea at the time, and it worked." The two laughed, "acting so ungodly stupid that you wouldn't be able to react was the only thing I had." A pause, "lord help me next time, though. I doubt that'll work."

"I feel there is something to be said for it." She responded, "if I may ask?" She prompted, getting a nod from Aldric. "Why couldn't I push your shield?"

Aldric grinned, "well, it's - not made of metal, now is it?" He said, as they made it back to the stadium seats and back to the noise. "You'd be surprised how many amazing tools there are out there that people just don't use. Take hardlight, for instance. Shaped it into a shield, and suddenly I've got an indestructible defense, and a pretty cool offense, too."

Pyrrha looked like she would have had something to say to that as they sat down, but Yang didn't give them even a microsecond before she pounced. "Beebee! How could you lose before we got to have our round two?" She demanded, a wide grin playing stark contrast to her words.

Aldric shook his head, "tell you what, lady. You can talk shit once you fight her. And if you win, I'll train with you exclusively, instead of the both of you." He said, making a show of leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms behind his head.

"Hold on -" Yang said, pointing at him. "Are you saying you'll train with anyone that comes along?!" She lunged at him, grabbing the lapels of his coat, "I thought I raised you better than that!"

Aldric shook his head. "I was young and I needed the money!" He cried, raising his hands, placatively. "Mama Ember was all - 'You gotta pay for those new eyes yo damn self' and then I cried." He gave Yang a pointed look, "have you ever seen a man with no eyes cry, Yang? Let me tell you, it looks weird." He pointed at himself as Yang dropped him in his chair, "the pits fill up. There are nerve endings in there, it feels as weird as it looks. And if you don't keep your eyes open, it all comes out in one huge splash."

She lost it at that, descending into laughter as she shook her head; even Pyrra behind them was covering her mouth and stifling some laughter. Aldric took this relative silence to reach into his pocket to retrieve his scroll, wondering what it was Cinder wanted. From the glance he got, Yang definitely noticed that the blind man was deftly manipulating a GUI with no assistance, but she looked away, deciding not to point it out. This turned out to be a good thing, because Aldric was pretty sure it would have been difficult to keep up the act after seeing what popped up on the screen:

Why Aldric, I'm surprised! Pleasantly so - I didn't think you were the type to bite!
Why don't you come outside, now that you're all done?
See you soon~! :)

Aldric stifled both a groan of exhaustion and a shriek of terror as he slid the scroll shut.