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Glynda looked over the assembled students. She had to say she was apprehensive about today. She had seen the footage of the combat between the initiates and the Grimm during initiation. She had seen how well certain students had handled themselves. And others whose abilities were... less impressive. But now, she was going to be forced to throw them together anyway.
'Alright, Children!'
The assembled crowd looked at her. The newly minted team RWBY was gathered at the back, Miss Rose sitting upon Miss Schnee's shoulders, the red cloak draping over the both of them, hiding the silvered armour from view. Miss Xiao-Long was crouched in front of Miss Belladonna, who was laying carelessly over a series of chairs at the back of the room. This was the team whe was going to have to try out today. Sighing, Glynda cleared her throat.
'There are seven students here today that failed to complete the combat entrance test. Mr Arc, Miss Valkyrie, Mr Ren, Miss Rose, Miss Xiao-Long, Miss Belladonna, and Miss Schnee. As you have, fortunately, been grouped into your two teams, we will simply have Team RWBY face off in a series of one on one matches between your members. The fights are until one of you, or the other, is reduced to twenty percent of aura. Divide up, and give me your combat orders.
ROUND 1: Yang Xiao-Long vs Lie Ren
Glynda was interested with this fight. In terms of style, the two couldn't be farther apart. From everything Glynda had seen of Yang, she would easily overpower Mr Ren if she could land any telling hits. However, at the same time, Mr Ren had proved more than capable of dealing with strong opponents before now. As the two took to their sides of the duelling area, Mr Ren looked extremely nervous. Yang simply snarled at him, the fangs on the grimm mask glinting in the weak lights.
'Begin!'
Ren immediately raised his two weapons, firing rapidly at Yang, who simply charged straight through the torrents of energised rounds, before slamming a punch into the area Ren's face had occupied seconds beforehand. continuing to fire into Yang, Ren danced away, before being forced into a leaping pirouette as a wave of fire curved underneath him. Snarling, Yang leaped into the air, coming down fist first, cracking the ground. Although Ren was able to avoid the fist, he was only partially able to avoid the incendiary blast that scorched the ground around the impact site, and he wasn't able to dodge the shock-wave, and he was projected across the arena. Nora screamed from the crowd, but Ren was able to land on his feet. He gathered his whereabouts, only to be forced to leap to the side with a gasp, eyes wide, as Yang barreled over his previous position, shoulder first, a bow wave of fire leading her approach.
Nimbly dancing around, Ren continued to fire into Yang, energised rounds hammering into her aura. Looking at the screen, he saw that she was down to nearly seventy five percent of her aura, while he was still almost full. At the same time, however, she didn't appear to be tiring, while he was already near the end of his tether. He needed to land some meaningful hits, and force her onto the defensive, where she would have to make a judgement between stamina and aura. Interrupting his string of dodges, he broke sequence and launched into a barrage of aura reinforced blows. Yang was obviously suprised by this, and was forced to fall back, raising her arms into a boxing stance, fists closed, keeping her body compact and tight and using small movements to roll with the punches rather than take them full on. Ren was forced to be even more aggressive, keeping up close to her and not allowing her to disengage.
This proved a mistake, as Yang lowered he guard, taking the full hit on her aura, and grasped Ren's striking arm, gripping it in place, twisting his hand until he dropped his stormflower. She raisedher other fist, intending to use one final strike to finish the round. Ren was forced to act fast. Flipping around to allow his trapped arm more movement, he flowed around Yang's strike, and grappled the open arm with his, holding it in tight to his side, before raising stormflower to Yang's face. Her eyes glowed red from behind the mask, as she tried to force her way free with either of her arms. Even with Ren's aura enhanced strength, he was still barely able to keep them in place. Snarling, Yang lunged forward with her head, her jaws snapping at Ren's head. He managed to avoid the fanged teeth, but now he couldn't maneuver stormflower to strike her.
Yang began to heat up. Remembering what he had seen in initiation, Ren disengaged quickly, breaking away from the deathgrip they had been locked in. He managed to escape before she erupted into full body flames. He did not manage to dodge the stream of fire she spat out from her mouth, The tatoos were glowing red, and her armour seemed blinding, and Ren crashed hard into the ground, the front of his body hurting like... well, like he had just been hit with a stream of fire from a seemingly draconic opponent. Ren pushed himself to his hands and knees, standing up unsteadily. Looking at the aura board, his expenditure had cost him, and now the both of them were about balanced in the low thirties. Yang watched him, her glowing red eyes zeroed in on his movements. Looking around, he saw both of his weapons sitting on the ground, closer to her than to him.
They both charged at the same time. They both realised they couldn't take another solid hit from their opponent. Ren focussed his aura into his fist, and struck out. He struck low, aiming for her stomach, expecting her to simply strike for his head or upper chest, as she had many times before. His fist met empty air. With grace someone of her size should never have been able to muster, Yang simply rolled around his strike, before sliding his legs out from beneath him and slamming down into his chest with an open palm strike. Ren left a crater in the floor, and a wall of dust rose around the victorous Yang, even as the alarm for 0% Aura rang aroud the arena.
Glynda had to say, she was impressed. While she knew Miss Xiao-Long's strikes were more than capable of shattering auras in single blows, she had been concerned at the end that she would not be able to restrain herself, and Mr Ren's wounds would be of a more permanent nature. However as Miss Xiao-Long gently pulled Mr Ren from the rubble and walked over to her, she could see that he was merely sufferng from two, far more temporary effects; Aura depletion and bucketloads of pain. Nodding, she sent Miss Xiao Long off to the infirmary with Mr Ren. There were more battles to be had after all.
Round 2: Ruby Rose vs Jaune Arc
Glynda was interested to see this one. During initiation, while she was perfectly capable of fighting herself, Miss Rose had allowed her team-mates to do the lions share of the actual fighting, while she worked more as an organiser and enabler, ensuring that none of her team's individual antics cost them too dearly, such as pulling Miss Xiao-Long back to defend the bridge when Miss Schnee was forced to take the fight underneath, and ensuring team JNPR was able to hold the line against the Grimm that had already made it over the bridge. Her own fights had typically been over in a flash, with Miss Rose delivering a single strike faster than eyes could see with her blade, before continuing to her objective, before the body had even finished evaporating.
Mr Arc meanwhile was anyone's guess. His style was... unique to say the least. While his own aura was massive, he always would withdraw from multiple fights, rarely facing grimm more than one at a time, and then he would dodge the initial attacks before striking at its weak points. An admirable approach, which showed great knowledge of the grimm in question, but not so useful when holding the line or acting as a line of defence.
The two fighters stood across the arena from each other. Ruby's hooksword was grasped in a single, well muscled arm, that emerged from the right side of her volimuous cloak. Nothing else about her was visible. Jaune, meanwhile, was still scared about fighting the leader of a team that included Yang. His shield was up and ready, with his sword held up close beside it. His footing was superb, but spoke of defensive, opportunistic training, not suitable for long bursts of offense.
'Begin!'
Ruby closed the gap in a second, the hooksword coming down at Jaune's head. Jaune's shield managed to catch it on its upper lip, and he lunged forward with a stab at her chest. The point of his sword simply disappeared into her cloak, failing to meet any resistance, so instead he slammed his shield forward, bashing at Ruby. That got her attention, forcing her to disengage, taking a few steps backwards after detaching her hooksword. Leaping forward, Ruby slashed at Jaune's legs, who immediately combat rolled over the blade, before coming up in his defensive posture on the far side of her. Swirling on the floor, her cloak broke Jaune's line of vision, and he was barely able to bat her next strike away with his shield. He responded with a horizontal slash at chest level, which was harmlessly deflected by her cloak.
Ruby lunged at Jaune again, and this time Jaune caught the blade on the flat of his sword, before bashing her headlong with his shield. She couldn't dodge and couldn't evade, and took the hit right to the chest. She stumbled back, hard, but Jaune felt a hard tug on his sword at the same time. Looking at it, he saw that the hooksword had segmented into a long, bladed whip, which was now wrapped around his sword. Tugging hard, Ruby pulled the blade from his grasp, before twilring the whip around herself in huge arcs. Ashing out, Jaune felt multiple impacts along his shield, and no few on his aura. There was very little way to truly stop a whip, and while his armour would protect him in actual combat, his aura would be the one taking the hits now. He needed to close in, not allowing her space to use the whip.
Charging with his shield up, he threw a punch into the hood area of her cloak. While it failed to connect, Ruby was forced backwards, the whip snapping back into hooksword shape. Launching into a flurry of blows, Jaune either blocked or simply absorbed each in turn. The whip snaked out again wrapping around his free arm. He could almost hear his aura dropping, but this time he had a plan. Yanking his arm hard backwards, he pulled Ruby hard towards him. Her feet met his shield, and she pushed off, however, as she landed, she turned, just as Jaune's fist slammed into her face.
Flying to the ground, Ruby pulled herself to her feet. Jaune retrieved his sword, and started moving towards her. Ruby started laughing. Jaune looked confused.
'What's so funny?'
'You're a tricky one. You don't fight like a hunter. You don't fight like an aura user. You took a while to figure out, but it's over now.'
Jaune raised an eyebrow.
'You're right. It is all over.'
Ruby squealed with laughter.
'Look behind you.'
Jaune felt a sharp tugging on his weapons, pulling them backwards. He was forced to relinquish his hold on them, or risk permanent damage to his arms. Turning, he saw they were beig dragged towards one of the devices Team RWBY had used to extract during initiation. His armour was trying to make a getaway.The pulling stopped. Suddenly Jaune felt his feet being yanked out from under him, and then heard Ruby, just next to his ear.
'Game over'
Then everything became red and black and pain.
Glynda was tremendously satisfied with that fight for three reasons. Firstly, it told her Ruby's sembelance. Speed. She was fast. Fast beyond words. When she had started her final beatdown of Jaune, she had barely even been visible as a blur. Secondly, it showed that Mr Arc's style did have its uses, alhough she would have to check with Miss Rose's to see what she meant in their last exchange. And thirdly, it showed the assembled class the value of tactics. A hooksword was not a very helpful weapon against a shielded enemy, so, Miss Rose had changed to her secondary option. Mr Arc had realised the problem in his tactics, and had sought to correct it. And finally, Miss Rose had set up the pieces for her final victory so that Mr Arc was taken entirely by surprise. As Mr Arc limped back to his team, Glynda grabbed Miss Rose.
'What did you mean, he fights like he wasn't an Aura User'
Ruby turned to face her
'Aura users are less careful about intercepting strikes. They tend to dodge more, as they work on the basis that if they mess up, it won't cost them too much. A non aura user dosen't have that luxury, so they have to either dodge or block all attacks. The only time I could hit him before the end was with my whip.'
With that, Miss Rose forced her way out of Glynda's grasp and moved on
Round 3: Blake Belladonna vs Nora Valkyrie
Glynda had been surprised many times in her two decades of teaching at Beacon. She had been suprised as soon as she had arrived by the sheer scale of Beacon. She had been even more suprised by the Headmaster, who hadn't aged a day in all of the years she had known him. She was perpetually suprised by the lack of change around Beacon, with the school still being recognisable as the school she had enrolled in. And today she was surprised by the sheer brutality that Miss Belladonna displayed. Glyda didn't honestly believe she had ever seen such a one sided duel in all of her years as a huntress.
It had started simply enough. Glynda yelled her usual 'Begin'
And then there was pain. Nora had immediately leaped at Blake who simply waited for her. As Nora swung the hammer down, Blake leaped backwards, leaving a fire dust infused clone in her path. As Maginhild made contact, the clone detonated with the force of a thunderbolt, and Blake was on her. Nora wasn't a poor fighter by any stretch. Indeed, many who had laughed at the diminutive girl with the giant hammer had realised just how lethally skilled she was with it just a little too late to save their respective pride. But Blake struck with the ferocity, precision and skill that spoke of years of overpowering highly skilled aura users. Blake managed to actually fly with her, raining blows down with her paired Katanas. Even though Nora was able to parry, or at least block, some of the blows, whe was woefully unable to guard against the lot of them. By the time Nora crashed into the ground, with Blake combat rolling into a crouch behind her, Nora was on 30% of her aura remaining, and could barely stand up. When she did so, however, there was a crazed gleam in her eyes.
'Stand still. Mr Maginhild needs to be introduced to Miss Squishyhead!!!!'
Blake simply smiled, readying herself. Nora charged, swinging the hammer furiously. Blake simply dodged around each strike, sometimes using shadow clones to distract the furious bezerker, sometimes just moving out of reach, taunting the girl. Finally, Nora had enough. Furiously swinging at the elusive black-clad figure, she swung and swung and swung... until her front foot hit nothing. Desperately struggling to rebalance, Nora realised that Blake had goaded her to the edge of the arena. Feeling a finger on her back, Nora turned, wide eyed, to see Blake behind her. Blowing a kiss to the flailing girl, Blake smiled as Nora's eyes narrowed at her, before genty nudging the girl, who then fell face first off the edge of the arena.
Blake grinned at the stands, before leaping into the air and exploding into a profusion of shadow clones. When the clones faded, Blake was gone.
Round 4: Pyrrha Nikos vs Weiss Schnee
Glynda was truly excited about this round. As Pyrrha was the only one of JNPR that had submitted their combat entrance test, Glynda knew exactly how she fought. But then again, everyone in any way connected to tournaments knew exactly how Pyrrha Nikos fought. And yet they lost anyway. Glynda had only seen Miss Schnee during initiation, but watching her carve through Grimm like they were nothing. She buried it deep, though. It would be unprofessional to squee.
'Begin!'
Pyrrha started the fight, closing rapidly with Weiss, only to be met with the business end of Weiss's greatsword. The chain was wrapped around Weiss's wrist, and it was taking the bulk of the strain, allowing the armoured giant to fight with the greatsword one handed. Pyrrha was forced onto the defensive, using a combination of her shield and sword to parry and block Weiss's strikes. Even now, Pyrrha couldn't detect anything about Weiss. Her armour didn't feel like metal at all. There was nothing for Pyrrha to manipulate. Nothing for her to control. On Weiss at least. Catching Weiss's next strike on the rim of her shield, she slid the blade over her head, before bringing Milo up in a strike at Weiss's rib area.
The blade never connected. Something stopped the blade a couple of milimeters from the armour. Pyrrha gasped. That would explain why she couldn't manipulate Weiss's armour. An Electromagnetic force field was projecting around it completely. She didn't have too long to think about it though, as Weiss's sword crushed down on the area of the arena upon which she had previously stood. Rolling to the side, Pyrrha started to think. An EM shield of that strength would be almost impossible to breach through sheer force, with a metal based weapon at least. She would hve to disrupt it. Catching Weiss's sword between Milo and Akoúo̱, before using Akoúo̱ to cast it to the side. Touching her hand to Weiss's chestplate, she started reading the magnetic forces.
Pyrrha was disruped from this by Weiss's armoured fist slamming into her face, hurling her backwards. Pulling herself to her feet, she immediately had to leap to the side as a bow wave of ice crashed across the arena, forming giant spikes as it rose from the ground. Pyrrha cursed to herself. She hadn't managed to read the shield fully in the time she had. She was going to have to brute force disrupt it. This was going to take most of her remaining available aura. Dropping her weapons, Pyrrha pushed out, a wave of magnetic distruption pushing out around her. From the sidelines, Ruby screamed. Weiss's eyes widened, and she fell to her knees, her breaths sounding forced, her sword laying by her side, forgotten.
Pyrrha looked at her, confused. The aura meter was reading her as still basically full. Why was she like this?
Ruby was by Weiss's side in a second. She was fiddling with something on her left wrist, her right hand clad in a black glove of some sort, by the look of it. Miss Goodwitch arrived behind Ruby, looking just as confused as Pyrrha. Ruby was becoming steadily more frantic with her movement, Weiss's breathing ever more laboured. Slowly, and agonisingly, Weiss's breathing started easing, and she started to get up, only for Ruby to put her hand on Weiss's shoulder, before coming over to Glynda and Pyrrha.
'Miss Rose, would you kindly explain what is happening?'
Ruby ignored Glynda entirely, focusing instead on Pyrrha.
'What did you do?'
Pyrrha was worried now. She hadn't meant to hurt Weiss. She had just been trying to disbale her shield. Explaining herself to Ruby, Ruby sighed.
'Please, never use magnetic attacks around Weiss. She was infused with a liberal dose of Ice Dust when she was very young, in a new pattern. However, it went wrong. It boosted her semblance tremendously, but also projected its effects internally. The armour is designed to regulate her internal temperature, and contains the power supply for her arms and internal heating elements. The headpiece is wired in to prevent her brain freezing. The shield was to prevent exactly this from happening.'
Pyrrha gulped, while Glynda just looked interested
'May I ask, does Miss Xiao-Long have the same style of dust infusion?'
Ruby turned to face Glynda, her head hidden beneath the hood.
'Yes. They went through three stages with this style of dust infusion. Weiss was the Beta stage, while Yang recieved the finished product. My sister's semblance works by heat anyway, so the internal effect was negligible, but the first time she breathed fire, her tongue was burned out from her mouth.'
Glynda and Pyrrha both looked shocked at this. However, before they could question Ruby any more, the girl in red had raced back to her partner, helping her get to her feet. Glynda gulped. Sisters, then.
This was going to be an interesting year.