27 Chapter 27 - Tournament continues
Nephrite looked at Ozpin as he finished telling him about the 4 maidens in detail.
"I see... about Amber. Do you then have a candidate in mind?" Nephrite asked and looked Ozpin dead in the eyes.
"Our candidate was Pyrrha Nikos, and she still is. I would like to-."
"Headmaster Ozpin, although I am grateful that you have shared this secret with me. But no one, and I mean not even you, can force Pyrrha. And even if she said she would do it, I know how she is."
The room dropped by a few degrees, and Qrow was ready to subdue Nephrite at Ozpin's notice.
"Your love is admirable Nephrite, very well. I will look at another candidate." Ozpin said and stood up from his chair, looking away in the distance.
Each tick and tack of the huge gears in his office reminded him of his past failures and decisions that led to them.
...
"What did they want? They didn't kick you out of the school, right? Oh! Are you now some super duper secret agent? Or maybe a ninja!"
"I wish, headmaster Ozpin just needed to sort out a few things in regard to our cooperation with Menagerie." He said and looked at Pyrrha for a split second.
"Anyway, team CFVY's battle with second years from Shade Academy begins in 20 minutes, let's get there before it's fully packed!" Nephrite said, and they contacted other teams. Team RWBY was nowhere to be found, and team BRON was already waiting in the colosseum.
After team CFVY, they were next. They smashed together randomly first and Second year tournaments to create more variety. Few first year matches followed by a second year match and vice versa brought more mystery and excitement to the viewers.
It was now team CFVY's turn, and Nephrite was quite worried, even Neo that hung out with them the most thanks to Coco didn't know what had actually happened after they returned from a certain mission.
'What the hell happened in the Lower Cairn? I'll need to ask Ozpin or wait for them to tell the story themselves...' Nephrite thought as they found their seats.
The team CFVY faced off against a famous team from Atlas. It was, however, famous for reasons that surprised him.
Team FLMN was filled with interesting talents... If he wasn't so disconnected from the music industry, he would know them all by heart, even a few of his friends like Pyrrha, Blizzard, Yang, and surprisingly Ren.
Also known as Team Flamboyant.
They were a team of combat dancers, something he had never heard of. It would be difficult for such a team to exist if it wasn't for their 'similar' semblances, something that brought suspicion to Nephrite.
As far as the public is aware, their 'semblance' is related to their dancing. As long as they dance in a rhythm with each other and have some kind of friendship, their aura links up and its strength stacks from theirs as well.
It would be fair to say that they were invincible as long as their semblance was active.
"3!"
"2!"
"1!"
"Begin!"
Port's voice sounded from the microphone, and the two teams engaged in combat.
Team FLMN used whips. Nephrite swore that he heard some girls in the spectator seats whimper whenever they attacked.
The pristine skin and faces of the males brought to mind the Kpop genre when he saw them. They were of western descent though, Flame, their leader, had bright red hair, Light had pure yellow hair, Moon had blue hair, and Nadeshiko had pink hair.
Most of the people present were cheering for team FLMN, and even Velvet seemed to be hesitant for a second.
"Yatsuhashi!" Coco said as the teams were about to clash, team FLMN brought out Moon with what looked like a thick rope, almost a chain, similar to an anchor chain. His mastery of such a heavy whip surprised everyone as it curved before heading for Yatsuhashi like a deadly snake.
What they didn't expect, though, was for Fox to be the one who jumped out. This didn't end here, and commands flew out of Coco's mouth just to be proven wrong. When team FLMN began to ignore her commands, she switched it up and told the truth.
Although they didn't inflict much damage, they got the enemy out of their comfortable rhythm. It was a battle of rhythms, like a general, Coco took their strengths and weaknesses and turned it against them.
If they had to move in rhythm to have their semblances active, then she would control the rhythm herself and trap the enemy. The arena was entirely mountainous, which gave team CFVY an advantage.
Although they couldn't hide behind rocks, as the whips could curve whenever they wanted, it made it much more difficult to keep a consistent rhythm. Soon enough, the battle reached its climax.
Team FLMN had 72% aura, and team CFVY had around 80%.
They took the fight to a small valley in the middle of the arena where their fight began. Flame released his whip, which caught on fire and struck Velvet, almost reducing her aura to red.
At that moment, Coco seemed to snap, and her hype got activated. Bullets rained like hell and in just 2 seconds, the enemy team's aura dropped by 20%.
Yatsuhashi cracked to the ground and appeared next to her, one moment Coco had almost brought their aura to 0%, and the next she stood there frozen for a second before she dropped her mini-gun on the ground.
Silence reigned over the arena.
"Team flamboyant is in the red! Team CFVY are the victors!"
Oobleck's voice broke the silence, and cheers resounded throughout the arena. Although the end might seem quite anti climactic, who wouldn't find a badass girl with sunglasses mowing down the enemy cool?
...
After the match, team CFVY disappeared as soon as they could, not giving their friends time to congratulate them.
They didn't pick up their scrolls, nothing. Only after Nephrite had contacted a professor did they learn that team CFVY had returned to the academy.
Although filled with concern, they had no right to stick their noses in things which they do not wish to talk about.
The tournament, however, continues, and with it came doubles. Nephrite was getting ready to fight with Pyrrha against team BRON, their friends.
They walked up to the stage and saw Fade accompanied by Blizzard.
"Heya! Let's enjoy our match and fight our hearts out!" Blizzard said, and waved at them, totally unconcerned with the tournament.
The countdown approached zero, and Blizzard threw out her little Timmy. A much more advanced Timmy than Nephrite remembered.
Its paws shone in bright red before flames engulfed its paws, creating fire claws. Blizzard wasn't done yet, and a bunch of balls appeared in the air before transforming into little drones.
Those drones bombarded Nephrite and Pyrrha with electric bullets. They didn't wait anymore and dashed at them, Nephrite took on Fade, and Pyrrha Timmy along with Blizzard.
The drones constantly harassed both of them, forcing them to dodge and deflect. Fade cracked the ground beneath her and took Nephrite head on.
Moments before they clashed he sidestepped, but Fade had already predicted such a trick and switched her balance with pure force swinging her club at Nephrite.
Her strike forced him to parry with his sword, pushing him back. His hands trembled for a second after the impact and he lost 4% of his aura from just parrying.
He took the initiative and accelerated his senses to the maximum he could. Her abrupt changes in balance were shown in her muscles tensing for a second before releasing the force hidden within them.
Like an alarm, he used it to dodge her sudden attacks. She wasn't just mindlessly swinging her club, albeit a forceful one, but it was a technique nonetheless. He decided to whittle her down, and used his inventory and AK to annoy her.
One mistake and he would lose more than a quarter of his aura...
Pyrrha was not having it easy either, Timmy's attack patterns were no longer predictable, and had a hint of proper technique imbued in it.
Timmy, with its unrivalled reaction speed, blocked most of Pyrrha's attacks with absolute accuracy. With the drones as a support, she was soon suppressed.
Pyrrha retreated a couple of meters and shot down a few drones before Timmy caught up to her, forcing her to duck.
She used this moment and used her semblance to change Timmy's balance and struck a few clean hits before she retreated.
Blizzard wasn't about to let her creation just suffer, and summoned a bunch of small wheels that charged at Pyrrha.
She used her spear to impale one of the wheel robots. The moment she did, it exploded, and her spear froze.
This didn't end, and another exploded with fire dust in it. Lightning followed after, giving enough time for Timmy to attack once again.
Pyrrha didn't hold back anymore and used her semblance to redirect one of the last remaining wheels to Timmy.
When the ice explosion erupted, she ignored Timmy and closed in on Blizzard.
She clicked her tongue, and took out a wrench, which gathered energy inside of it before it released a blue plasma ball at Pyrrha.
Pyrrha dodged aside and yanked her onto the ground, using her tool belt on her hips.
"And miss Nikos took out miss Blizzard in this amazing match! This isn't over yet, and Miss Fade might just turn the things around!" Oobleck said as he corrected his glasses.
Fade's rampage left behind various craters as they played whack a Nephrite. His bullets did barely any damage, and when he coated them with aura, it was an exchange except that he had to hit every bullet, otherwise he would be the one losing.
Both of them were hanging on with 60% of their aura, she had shaved Nephrite's 15% total aura by hitting his left arm. It knocked him far back.
It was at that moment that Pyrrha finished her fight and joined him. Nephrite took Fade's attention by harassing her from the front, using his movement to its maximum.
Pyrrha coated her bullets with aura, and repeatedly shot Fade into her blind spots. When Fade tried to stop Pyrrha, Nephrite would appear and would attack her from behind. In less than a minute, Fade's aura turned red, and the match ended...
