Mit Livs Eventyr [RWBY]

You feel like you've been standing around figuring out a follow-up for a week. You furtively glance toward Ren and his duelling partner, approaching the ring – this would be hard even without a time limit, even without Jaune shrieking in your head to say something, anything, quickly.

"So I already read a little about you," you blurt out. "Your dossier, I mean. Us team captains get one on each of our teammates and part of the meeting this morning was reading one and I picked yours."

"And Jaune, my boy..." Nora pats your shoulder with such a solemn look on her face that you honestly can't tell she's being sarcastic or not, "... you chose well."

"O… kay? It was kind of light on details, so I was wondering if you could maybe explain your powers and weapon a little more?" you press on quickly, trying not to let her knock you too far off-balance. "I mean just reading your file I didn't expect you to be flat-out immune to Sky's shock-whip."

"I'm immune to a lot of things. Pain. Fear. Loss, but that's only because I've never failed at anything in my life. I'm pretty much the Mistral of people." She twirls her hammer right-side-up and pats the haft, right next to the lever-and-gear mechanism that sits a handspan away from the head. "This bad boy's a dynamo. I hand-crank it to pump the juice so I can save up for the real lightshow." She shrugs. "Sometimes a girl's just in the mood to beat a guy to death with a warhammer, y'know?"

"I... guess?" you say, even less illuminated than before. You furtively glance at Ren and Blake, finally squaring off at their starting marks. You leap into the breach once more. "But how'd you get your own weapons made and the preliminary training to get to Beacon when you're-"

You trip on a warning pulse from the detective telling you not to be a fucking idiot, too late to stop yourself. The unspoken end to that question hangs in the air, and for a moment you imagine even Ren heard it. But as that moment stretches on you study Nora's face, and realise it didn't seem to register for her at all. Not emotionally, anyway. Her face is the same mask of faintly amused serenity as it has been since you met her.

"It's been ten years since we got here," she replies. "And we spent every day of that training to kill Grimm."

"Begin!"

Blake dashes forward, blade bared high and level with her shoulders. Ren stands his ground, his trick bow spinning a string out of glittering silver Dust as he calmly draws back an arrow. He shoots. A dash to the left, sword sweeping right in a silver arc. The feathered shaft is sent spinning off the razor edge as Blake's pounding feet chew up the last of the distance and she lunges forward. Her blade rings out again, clashing against the bow's bladed limbs. Ren deflected it just enough to avoid injury but she's turning again, faster than he can, hers is a weapon actually made for close quarters so-

The string dissipates as the bow splits in two, coming apart at the grip to become a pair of curved swords.

"No one was gonna look out for us but us," Nora goes on. "Refugee camps packed wall-to-wall. And we were the weird ones. Even faunus kids got adopted over us."

Blake bares pointed canines with effort as she drives forward, pressing the advantage against Ren. The movements of her blade are so quick, so precise, so practised that you don't understand how Ren can weather the assault so easily. He barely seems to be exerting himself, moving as though he knows the angle and speed of each strike before it even falls.

"The Workshop lets you sign up when you're thirteen so we did. I landed a job at a lightning farm. Ren..."

Blake finds a gap in the defence. Her blade flickers out fast as a whip, keening as it slices the air. Catching Ren square on the cheekbone, hard enough to snap his head to the side. His expression doesn't change. He makes no sound. It only becomes an advantage as he turns the tide, driving against Blake's guard in her moment of confusion.

"...well, he creeped people out too much to get a real job. He did what he could and I pulled double shifts - told the foreman I was sixteen and he wasn't getting paid enough to argue with me. We made it work."

Blake grunts in pain. She takes a glancing blow from Ren and feels it. With a deft half-circle of her wrists and more dexterity than you knew someone could have, she binds both of his blades to hers and wrenches them aside, using the same motion to drive her elbow into his other cheek. All her weight's behind it, and you can hear and feel the dull thwack, see Ren's body bow with the strike from the shoulders up.

He turns it into another retaliatory strike, heel scything toward Blake's ankles, and she leaps back with a yelp of surprise and frustration. When he rises he's already snapping his bow together again, and the two fighters take each other's measure once more.

"The weapons. The special Huntsman Academy prelim courses. We shelled out every penny we had."

Blake unhooks the empty sheath from her belt, collapsing it with the tap of a hidden switch. It compresses down to the length of a sword-hilt as a cruel, hooked blade deploys from the solid tip, silver chain clinking and rattling as she lets the slack go and sends it hissing forth.

The chained dagger whirls, links gleaming bright in the noonday sun. It doesn't just spin around: it shifts up and down by degrees, reverses direction, changes angle, all with expert nudges from Blake's blade-wielding hand. You imagine a single line finally creases Ren's brow as he evades, ducking and dipping and darting back and forth, leaning at ever-sharper angles to let the serrated blade pass.

Blake sees her chance and takes it. She wraps the chain around her shoulders to shorten the dagger's reach, practically pirouetting as she darts in for the kill. Ren seems to misjudge her intent, prepared for the sword over the dagger. The latter hooks his right shoulder like a fish, biting deep.

Blake's Semblance gets to work. Black particulates like dust in shadow swarm down the chain in an all-consuming cloud, buzzing around Ren's shoulder like flies as they seek out weaknesses and dive in, sinking into the meat. He glances down at the hooked dagger in surprise, seeming to sag to the right as her power takes hold. Blake's smile is one of both frustration and triumph.

Ren draws and fires anyway. You catch one fleeting glimpse of Blake's anger and disbelief before the arrow strikes home square in her sternum. She sprawls flat on her back with a heavy cough, winded and defeated. Ren exhales once and rolls his shoulders, dislodging the dagger.

"Ren wins!" Jaeger calls. "Trainees, do either of you require medical attention?"

He receives only stubborn silence as his answer, and accepts it all the same. He beckons over another pair to keep things humming along, but your eyes stay with Ren as he takes a handful of steps towards Blake. He stops just short of her, hands remaining by his sides, and watches her find her feet again.

"You did very well," he says.

"Whatever," Blake says irritably, dusting herself down and giving the chain a brisk yank. The weapon reforms into the sheath in mid-flight, practically leaping into her hand as she snatches it out of the air and returns it to her belt. Ren shows no sign of offence, simply returning to Nora's side.

"Hey," he says once he's crossed the edge of the ring. Your grasp on human anatomy is tenuous at best, but even you can tell those lumps on his face must be painful. Blake's elbows left a mark. Before you can even ask how he feels he takes his old place next to Nora, staring stone-faced at the empty ring.

"Oh nooooo Ren, now I'm back to being the pretty one," Nora comments.

"Mhm."

"Gonna steal all the guys here. And the girls too just 'cause I can."

"Mhm."

"Gonna smash Jaune here like a tentpeg."

She glances at you, the look turning to a double-take as she notices your complete lack of reaction.

"Wow, you're boring," she remarks.

"Mhm," Ren adds insightfully.

You furrow your brow in confusion at what just transpired, but decide not to push it any further. You've made a decent amount of headway already, and what a curious little tale is unfolding before you. The detective knows that when you listen to testimony, it's often about what they don't say as much as what they do. What you wouldn't give for an opportunity to just eat the both of them and be done with it, rifle through the strands of story that bind them. But that would lead to a lot of awkward questions and it's almost lunchtime anyway, so you settle down to watch the next bout.

You look at Russell, fumbling with his unfamiliar trick weapon just to get it working. With a final jerk he forces it to spring apart into a pair of jagged daggers, the form he seems more accustomed to. He crouches down, taking a ready stance, but he's nervous. He keeps fiddling with the blades, switching grips, anxious fiddling masquerading as a threat display. You can tell he's already picturing what Ruby will look like in action, dreading how fast she truly is.

You look at Ruby in her ready stance, scythe fully extended and held behind her back. Regin was right, it really is too big for her. She has to lean it on the flat curve of the blade just to support it. It makes her look smaller, like a child playing dress-up, but for her face. But for that empty, cold, distant expression. But for those eyes that seem to pierce straight through Russell, that once seemed to do the same to you.

He's already lost. Even you can tell. All that remains now is the specifics.

"Begin!" Jaeger barks.

Russell shouts with effort, twisting his body and tensing his muscles as he draws deep on his power. A storm of black sand erupts from his pores, swirls and spins around him into an impenetrable dust-devil of darkness. The eye of the tiny storm expands, weakens, sand and shadow dissolving to reveal all four of him. Identical down to the individual droplets of sweat. Spreading out in a semicircle, daggers clutched tight in their taloned hands as they-

Ruby moves.

It's not that you see her move. It's that you notice where she's been. Russell's startled cries, the sound of Crescent Rose scything through the clones like wheat, the puffs of black dust that burst from the 'corpses' in lieu of gore, and the swirling wake of dying rose petals that follows at her heels. She's killed two clones by the time the survivors start to react. She takes the third in the back of the knee as it tries to turn, and this one doesn't disappear. It just falls flat on his back with a cry of pain, stunned and defeated.

Ruby returns to her starting mark in a flash, skidding an inch or two as she returns to a more natural speed. A moment of perfect quiet descends as all observers process the display.

"Woohoo! Yeah, fucked his ass up!" Yang whoops.

All but one, that is. Ruby seems to return to herself, turning to face her sister and waving her arms in triumph. Yang beckons her over and she hurries out of the ring, leaving Russell to sit up and cradle his knee alone.

"Do you require medical attention, Russell?" Jaeger asks.

"M'fine," Russell snaps. The professor accepts his answer and merely watches, stone-faced, as Russell struggles to his feet. It doesn't look like any serious damage thanks to the stasis Dust, but that seems to be a cold comfort.

He looks up to find Blake there, silently offering him a hand. He stills for a long moment, studying her face with a hint of suspicion in his eyes. Blake meets his gaze easily, still as a statue, as long as she has to. At last he takes the offered hand and she hauls him up onto his good leg, murmuring something about making sure to keep bending it so it doesn't lock up while she walks him out of the ring. Jaeger seems unconcerned with the display, only calling the next pair into the ring. Nora raises her hand and snaps her fingers, pointing skywards as she strides forward for her second bout. Pyrrha moves straight in to fill the gap, setting upon Ren with the kind of burning intensity you're coming to expect from her in all aspects of life. You let her work and focus on the bout.

Taube just seems to materialise at his starting mark, towering head and shoulders over Nora and yet stealthier than you ever were even in the deepest shadows of the forest. He's holding his sword too tight, both fists white-knuckle clenched around the hilt when he isn't awkwardly shuffling them up and down and all around trying to find a more comfortable grip. Nora, on the other hand, isn't even looking at him. She's leaning against her hammer and staring up at the clouds, whistling as she idly cranks the dynamo. Subtle blue-white arcs crackle and pop around her flexing hand. Nora might not have the overwhelming speed advantage like Ruby did, but it's still not exactly looking good for her opponent.

"Begin!"

Taube lurches forward, taking the initiative before he can lose the nerve. Nora casually shifts her grip and raises her left hand. Leashed lightning crackles and arcs up her body, leaping from her hammer to her shoulder, flowing down her arm and arcing between the splayed fingertips. She's working harder than she did against Sky, but only in the sense that she had to bother working up this charge herself. It's still clear she thinks the fight's won already.

Taube blocks the bolt with a half-frightened yell. It's a terrible mistake, except for the part where it works: the lightning's pulled into his sword, trapped and absorbed by some kind of aura surrounding it. The bolt clings to his blade like a sheathe, and with it comes an entire storm system, sizzling clouds and howling winds besides. He staggers forward, holding it all at arm's length, as if ready to topple over from its invisible weight. Teeth gritted, he turns it into a spin, shouting with effort as he flings it all right back at Nora with a swing of his sword.

The lightning she absorbs easily. It's everything else that sends her sliding back a few steps, gives her pause. Wet, howling winds buffet her and deafen her, stormclouds blind her, just long enough for Taube to finish closing the gap and bring his sword around in another vicious two-handed strike. He's got plenty of strength in that frame of his, and he uses every drop of it to absolutely flatten her. When the miniature storm clears Nora's flat on her back, limbs askew, hammer still clutched tight in her hand.

"oh s-sorry are you ok?" Taube stammers.

"Huh," Nora says, nonplussed. "Oh dang." She flashes Taube a jaunty thumbs-up with her free hand. "Exquisite hit my man."

"O-oh so you're-?"

"Yeeup." Nora plants her hammer for support, rights herself, and pats Taube on the shoulder. She has to go up on tip-toes to do it. "You go ahead and enjoy that win, big guy."

"Uh... okay?" Taube replies, increasingly confused. For a moment the two are still and silent.

"That means buh-bye now," Nora adds.

"Oh right (sorry)."

Taube hurries back to his team's side of the ring and Nora saunters back to Ren's side. She doesn't overtly muscle Pyrrha out of the way, but Ren almost immediately stops paying attention once she's back in earshot so Pyrrha chooses to retreat on her own. You make eye contact and she offers an ambivalent shrug. You return the gesture – that's about how you feel, too. You turn back and notice Jaeger taking a few notes with a small pad and pen. He looks up from his writing as two more trainees step forward to take their turn.

"One moment." His steel grey eyes focus on Ruby and her team. "Miss Rose. Would you step forward and spar with Miss Yang for me?"

"Uhh..." Ruby hugs her scythe closer, eyes darting nervously left and right. "Why?"

"Because the goal is for everyone to fight everyone at least once," he replies. "And because I said so."

"(Ok)"

Yang gives Ruby a friendly smack on the shoulder and a wink. You can't see Ruby's face in that hood, not from this angle, but – according to the detective anyway – her body language doesn't improve any. They take their marks, one strolling and one shuffling, squaring up for the bout to come. Once again the fight seems over before it starts - Ruby is hunched, tense, chewing her lip and tense as a spring. Yang is loose and unconcerned, even seems to be mouthing a little encouragement to her much younger sister. But even with the confidence gap, surely Ruby should still win handily? Her speed advantage is so overwhelming you can't imagine how any human could defeat her, or even most Grimm.

"Begin!"

Ruby lunges forward to end this quickly.

Yang extends her hand.

"HUGHWAAH- ooff"

Yang's arm remains outstretched, Ruby's scythe clutched tightly in her fist. Ruby, on the other hand, is still busy skidding clear out of the ring and towards the cliffside stairs on her rear. Jaeger and the assembled crowd turn to watch as the diminutive trainee's momentum bleeds off and she slowly, dizzily, slumps flat on her back.

"Y'alright back there Ruby?" Yang calls, collapsing Crescent Rose with an air of familiarity.

"(My butt hurts)" Ruby whines.

"Well that's gonna happen when you skin your ass on ten metres of pavement." Yang tucks the collapsed trick weapon under her arm and turns to catch Jaeger's eye. "Can I take her to the nurse's office?"

The old hunter nods, looking back to the assembled students to continue the lesson. "Next two take your marks! Every pair that does not spar this period will be covered in our next lessons, so expedience is for your own benefit as much as mine."

You watch Yang go to Ruby, catching something along the lines of "You can't just go in hard every time dummy" on the wind. Pyrrha elbows you with a mutter of 'this should be good', drawing your attention back to the ring as the next pair take their marks.

Russell shifting his weight from foot to foot, rolling his shoulders and muttering to himself to psyche himself up. And Weiss, facing away from him, practising a few slashes and thrusts with her thin-bladed sword. You take a moment to savour the scent of Dust in the air - his weapon(s) only gives off the familiar magnetic smell, but there are all sorts in hers. She has a lot of tricks slotted in the revolving cylinder. You aren't too sure of Russell's chances. Weiss turns and extends her blade, left hand and foot forward, point toward the centre of the ring.

"Begin!"

Weiss has an advantage. She knows that Russell's Semblance puts the weight of numbers on his side, so she tries to neutralise that first. She spins the revolver cylinder and locks the hammer down on an ice-blue chamber, frost creeping up the length of her rapier as she flourishes it like Gotthard's wand. A torrent of glacial air rushes forth, a howling gale of snowflakes and blunt chunks of ice that no doubt would destroy all three clones and knock Russell off his feet. Which is why he doesn't stay still. A diving lunge takes him out of the blizzard. A moment later he's on his feet and charging. Weiss' brow furrows but she whirls to face the threat, neatly parrying Russell's inexpert assault and riposting with textbook flair.

Her rapier pierces a clone's forehead and it dissolves into black sand. Her eyes widen. Yours just barely track Russell jinking right, shadowy particulates still streaming from his body as his doppelganger is destroyed before he's even finished making it. He wastes no time. One dagger flashes out, gleaming silver in the sun as it whips across Weiss' cheek. She cries out, more in frustration than pain, lashing out with a retaliatory slash. Russell dies instantly, his severed head sent flying. It dissolves in mid-air as the real Russell crouches down and drives the other dagger home. Weiss folds around the strike, the stasis Dust blunting a mortal thrust into an almighty punch that knocks the wind out of her. From there it's almost too easy for Russell to hook both daggers behind Weiss' ankles and just... trip her. She goes down hard, stunned and winded, only her silver ponytail to cushion her landing.

That performance his team really do cheer for. Russell straightens up, sweating and panting and flushed but triumphant, even allowing himself a satisfied smile as he snaps his daggers back together into one weapon. He makes to walk out of the ring again only to pause, expression clouding. He frowns and turns around again. Weiss is still sitting up, groaning softly as she cradles her head.

"Look..." he sighs softly, extending his free hand. "Sorry if I hurt-"

"Don't touch me," Weiss snaps, slapping his hand away. For a moment Russell is only shocked. Then his expression darkens into a sour scowl.

"Fuck you too then I guess," he mutters through clenched teeth, then turns and storms away. You watch him leave the ring and shoulder his way past his teammates. Taube and Sky make half-hearted attempts to console him, but their words fall on deaf ears. Back in the ring, Jaeger merely watches impassively as Weiss regains her footing and shuffles off to the sidelines.

"Another request," Jaeger calls out. "Valkyrie and Ren, take your marks if you please."

Dammit. You notice Pyrrha scowl out of the corner of your eye and you feel much the same. A whole bout you could spend with either of them, wasted because it's between both of them. But that's alright, you quickly reassure yourself. If everyone needs a total of eleven bouts, you'll still have nine chances to pester Nora, and Pyrrha likewise Ren.

... and you'll have eleven bouts of your own.

That will be... interesting.

Ren and Nora take their marks. They seem more excited for this matchup than their last, subtly but noticeably enough. Ren is testing the draw of his bowblade rather than doing his best impression of a statue. Nora is actually holding her hammer in both hands rather than staring at clouds. Their stances are looser, more ready. More eager to pounce. Jaeger seems to notice it to, going by the scribbling in his notepad.

"Gonna knock your pretty block off, Renny," Nora teases.

"You'll try," Ren replies.

"Begin!"

It doesn't look like a duel. Not really. The previous bouts you watched had a roughness to them, an awkward spontaneity as one fighter took the lead and the other struggled to match the changing beat. This is different. Nora and Ren move as if choreographed - she dodges his first arrow with an almost lazy sway to the left, he moves to block a hammerblow before she finishes telegraphing it, her free hand goes to elbow-block his forearm before he even finishes splitting his bow into dual blades. It's as if Ren is letting himself have close shaves with Nora's close strength, Nora letting him jink away or parry hammerblows that could have flattened him, and yet taken as a whole it still seems like a furious fight to the death. As if they aren't fighting in the present, but six moves into the future. Even Pyrrha seems mesmerised by the display.

Nora steps in close, pirouetting around Ren in a display of her own agility. Ren gets both blades up to guard his neck, forcing the hammer-haft away. She's already leaping, swinging around with all her weight and force. He sways with it, twisting and contorting to find an angle of retaliation as they become a blurred tangle of limbs-

"I forfeit!"

Everything freezes. Ren's down on one knee, off-hand blade half-raised. Nora stops her swing dead, blunt hammerhead hovering a few scant inches from Ren's skull. You wonder if the stasis Dust even would've been enough.

Nora gently taps it to Ren's temple. "Boop."

"Why did you stop the bout?" Jaeger asks, pen poised to record the answer as he stares stone-faced down at Ren.

"I was about to lose," he says simply, standing up and recombining his bowblade. Nora dusts him off and gives him a consoling pat on the shoulder. Jaeger gives a shallow shrug in reply and writes it down, pausing only to shoo the two out of the ring for the next pair.

"Now, who have we not had yet..." Jaeger muses to himself. "Ah. Mister Arc. Step forward, if you will."

Well. Here comes the hard part. You glance at your team, perhaps searching for some sort of encouragement or reassurance. Ren and Nora just shoot you blank looks. Pyrrha just puts her hand to the small of your back and shoves you, stumbling, into the ring. Close enough, you suppose. You heft Jaune's banner as you walk to your mark, giving it a few experimental swings, testing the mechanism to furl or unfurl the embroidered pennant itself. The scent of Dust is definitely a lot stronger unfurled than furled. But it's harder to swing with all that cloth trailing behind it too.

You turn and see that your opponent is Weiss.

You're not precisely sure how you feel about that, but for some reason the memory of the Snow Queen causing a giant spear of ice to sprout from your chest replays in your head over and over and over again.

She turns to face you, taking her proper fencing stance just as you saw her do with Russell. You can't see the revolver cylinder very clearly from here, but she's burned up at least one Dust cartridge. You only saw a brief snippet of how she fights and what the Forgemaster said about Grimm being slow to adapt is true to at least most of your brethren. But by the same token, you've only scratched the surface of what you can do with this stolen body. You can't rightly stay if her advantage is overwhelming or not. Jaune wants you to try your best. The detective thinks you should just shoot her. You don't have a gun, obviously, but he thinks that sounds like your problem, not his.

You're coming at this from the wrong direction. It's not about you, it's not just about her, it's about everyone else. This is about the spotlight you're under, pinned by the watchful eyes of eleven trainees and one seasoned veteran Hunter. Fight too hard and you may expose yourself. Don't fight hard enough and you may expose yourself anyway.

You grip your banner tight and grit your teeth as Jaeger barks to signal the start of the match.

[ ] Fight to win.
[ ] Take a dive.