– Arena Other team matches–
Jaune winced as he saw team CRDL get absolutely wrecked by team CNDR. As they won with flair and hardly any effort. Jaune would give CRDL credit where it was due, after their loss against him they had trained hard to up their strength.
But even with their efforts bearing some fruits, they were stuck in normal time for training, resting, and growth for their bodies without his guilds resources. So while they did upgrade their abilities, it was pretty much going from Rank D+ to mid C strength. A noticeable increase, but it fails hard against opponents of A and higher strength.
Based on his appraisal of them and the help of the system Cinder was a solid SS- rank, Neo was good at her S rank strength, Emerald was around A rank, and Mercury was also a solid A rank. Team CNDR had a solid line up of fighters but they had one glaring weakness.
They were prideful, arrogant, and not willing to admit they were going to lose or that their plan would be derailed.
Jaune smirked as he was looking forward to the next few days that would shut down all of their plans.
He saw CFVY finish off their opposing team called team LVDR (Lavender). Solid Second year team, but only around B-B+ strength. While CFVY was a solid S-S+ rank strength on average.
Jaune smirked as many other team matches were steam rolls for his guild mates once they had their hands on their opponents.
The next day came and the arena was buzzing with energy as the battle everyone was waiting for was finally going to happen. Vale and Atlas citizen alike were making bets as the ace members for each guild were put up to the stage. The doubles battle had many speculating who was stronger younger Schnee or older Schnee? Who was more skilled the captain of the Specialist guild? Or the 4 time Mistrali champion who was a member of the guild who handled an A ranked gate in the middle of the city of Vale?
It was anyones guess.
Jaune was betting on both Pyrrha and Weiss to come out on top. But it definitely would not be easy. He had sensed out both Winter and Ebi when he saw them meeting with Ironwood near the headmaster viewing box and Winter was a solid A rank strength while Ebi was A+. Neither of them held ranks in the Specialists without having earned it.
He knew it all came down to the field type. Pyrrha after having locked herself in the training gate for days at a time back to back with Weiss to make sure they had been ready to work with each other. It helped that they knew in advance thanks to Ozpin having made arrangements with the Arena staff to make sure it would be interesting. And of course he knew he could get the general to agree to a match between Guilds. He just had to have Ironwood sign off on a paper that said an exhibition match between schools… for each round… following the tournament rules… in fine print.
Let's just say the General now has a new lawyer and leave it at that.
As they were waiting for the match to start yang was torturing them. (I mean entertaining her teammates with her specialty, PUNS!)
Yang brought out a new one, "Man just think, we won that last match by a landslide huh?"
Most groaned, Ruby giggled a bit, Jaune chuckled and Blake brought out her earbuds to listen to some reading lofi.
Yang didn't stop, "Man we really put the pressure on them with a rock solid combination attack eh Simin?"
SLVR was regretting sitting next to Yang and their guild master while Velvet and Blake were blissfully in their earbuds having expected Yang to pull out all the stops when it came to her pun game. Ruby and Jaune continued to be the only ones who had a somewhat positive reaction. Ruby giving her sister either a groan or a giggle. Jaune kept chuckling or simply giving a short but light laugh.
The rest of the guild was begging other students to switch seats with them. (Good luck with that! HAH!)
Yang continued, "Man we really made a Mountain out of that molehill of an arena huh?"
Ruby finally groaned extremely loudly and spoke up while saying, "Yang I enjoy some of your puns, but please for everyone's sanity… PLEASE! STOP!"
Yang looked to everyone and they were all ready to fight her. She looked to her boyfriend and he mouthed, "Pun off against each other later?"
She grinned at that and shrugged in mock surrender to the other audience members, "Alright, alright, I'll granite you a brief respite. Even though I have a whole quarry left to dig through for you all to enjoy."
Que Ruby pouncing on her sister and starting a sibling cat fight with the audience cheering for Ruby to silence the pun machine. Ragora even handed Ruby some military grade duct tape for good measure.
While they sibling fight happened in the stands, in the locker room where Weiss and Pyrrha were waiting, there was a tension.
Weiss was tapping the heel of her combat boots nervously as she wore the new S ranked Armor Jaune bought them from his store. Overall the outfit made her feel like a true magic swordswoman. She even managed to upgrade her weapon through the store!
Weiss now sported full armored boots that went from her feet to her knees with armor plating covering it. Her thighs were covered in thin magic leather. Her dress was more form fitting but had slits on each side to allow for movement. Her dress itself even had armor plates on it in slats from her hips to her knees. Her torso had a class armored corset that allowed flexibility but good overlapping protection. Her chest was covered by an armored breastplate with good coverage to her collar bone and a snowflake on each breast. Her shoulders had paldrons that ended mid upper arm while she had elbow length gloves with some small plating covering her fingers, back of her hand, and the forearm. She even had her tiara hair clip transformed into a proper tiara that covered her forehead to her cheeks in a kind of female half helm which had some plating behind the protectors to protect her head to her ponytail. And the whole armor outfit fit over her dress and allowed her dress to be its normal white color, while the armor was a light winter blue. Her rapier was now also wider but still ended in a thin point. It was twice as thick with an edge on each side, now being a war rapier used for true combat, instead of her older fencing foil model.
Overall her stats had increased by an average of 60 across the board. (or it would if she had a status board. But she feels the difference. This is the closest image I could find for how I imagined her to look with full armor, https://i.pinimg.com/originals/38/4e/0d/384e0db4ae69eec97f605eb6808cde81.jpg)
Her ring shone brilliantly on her ring finger under her glove allowing her to feel its presence and power. This gave her some confidence, but she was also worried about the upcoming match against her sister. She was stronger, but she was worried about how strong. Especially if she was comparing herself to her older sister who she adores.
She hears Pyrrha clank up to her in her new armor and ask, "Nervous about the fight? After all you did say you had that bet with your father. And I know I am nervous to be fighting a captain of the Specialist forces of Atlas. I might be a champion, but many champions fall to new opponents or to unknown factors."
Weiss shakes her head and looks to Pyrrha, "Yeah I am, but not nervous for the bet. It's for how I stack up to my sister in general. I always felt inferior to her you know? But now I can show her my efforts and gain some recognition from her. On my terms! But I am so nervous I feel like I might mess it up."
Weiss takes a breath and glances at Pyrrha, "As for you I know you can do it. Especially after donning that outfit from Jaune for our match. And for what comes after the finals tomorrow."
Pyrrha blushes at being called out as Weiss looks over Pyrrhas full S ranked armor she got from Jaune. On the surface it looks like she simply added onto her base armor. But it definitely has a tasteful flair to it that plays into her gladiator aesthetic.
To start with her boots are now bulkier to accommodate for her control over earth, metals, and minerals, allowing her to move full speed despite the increase in weight. And her heels have been replaced with full on combat boot base with slightly raised heels to keep them feminine but more aligned towards combat. She is wearing magic kevlar leggings beneath them adding to her armor and protection, while also having new pouches on her back hips, full of supplies and small metal parts to use with her abilities. Her armored corset now goes all the way up to her collar bone and merges around her Gorget gift from Jaune allowing the armor and accessory to merge and combine the stat boosts it gives her. The magic kevlar lining beneath the armor is seen around her shoulders and arms now too showing she is protecting the original exposed skin there too. And her left arm is now covered with a paldron that looks like a miniature version of her shield, while also having a vambrace on her upper arm, an elongated forearm brace, and her original glove now magicked to be durable like the kevlar. On her other arm she is wearing a fore arm protector as well and her glove goes all the way to her elbow like normal. The short sleeve of the kevlar body suit though ends half way down the bicep to show she has a magic bangle holding it there and giving her a bit of extra protection. Her tiara grown has widened slightly to cover more of her temples, forehead, and back of her head, giving her more protection as well as full visibility without and peripheral loss. Meanwhile her shield and sword both gleamed with the reforging they went through, new roman like designs danced across her shields edge while also looking thicker now and her sword looked longer while also having a gleam to the red metal of it.
And her stats had increased by a shocking 70 points across the board thanks to the armor having a heritage bonus for the Mistrali champion. Something about the gladiators of old being proud of such a strong warrior honoring their lineage.
(For the pic of how Pyrrha looks here is this pic on google images, https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/029/540/340/large/evan-ruggles-rwby-pyrrha-redesign-v2.jpg?1597868735)
Both girls nod as they remember Neo's warning about Cinder planning to screw over the whole school after a certain match in the finals tomorrow. And they were aiming for a singles match that signed Pyrrha up against a student from an Atlas team called Penny. Apparently Ruby knew her a quirky but also friendly girl who was looking forward to knowing them all better.
Neo warned them all the finer points of the plan and the how they would turn people against the student population during and after the match. Thankfully with the warnings in place, they had countermeasures ready.
Both girls stand up as they hear the arena chime letting them know their match was up next.
They enter the Arena to the huge and loud cheers from the audience. They hear all kinds of whoops, hollers, clapping, and whistles as they step out in their full S ranked gear.
They also hear Coco say, "I could make them more stylish." They look to each other and simply shake their heads with exasperated smiles on their faces from that little quip from the local fashionista.
They refocus as they hear, "And here they are folks! The pride of Beacon academy! The Hunters guild members Pyrrha Nikos! And Weiss Schnee! Two powerful and lovely ladies of Beacon and who have made a name for themselves and their guild despite being first years! Let's see how they fair agianst a pair of powerhouses from the Atlas Guild the Specialists! Here they are!"
For Atlas the cheers are much more subdued as loud clapping and a few cheers are all that are heard. Along with some wolf whistles as Winter Schnee steps out and shakes her hair a bit to ship her long bang out of her face. Her stern visage softens a bit at seeing her sister across the arena before hardening at seeing how much armor her sister has bogged herself down with. But sighs and simply shakes her head at that.
She then mutters to herself, "I better make sure she knows the problems of having so much extra armor on her, it might protect, but it also weighs down her body. Plus she is a better mid line fighter than front line fighter. I better teach her here and now that even with new gear, and some good training, she is still a first year. Can't have her getting in over her head."
(Author: Ooooh, if only you knew about what your sister is doing for fighting for humanity. Hopefully that isn't too far 'over her head' as you say.)
Ebi clover eyes up the winter clone and judges her to be skilled but below her sister and his teammate. But notices Pyrrha Nikos, her outfit, weapons, and how she holds herself and he knows they have a hard fight ahead of themselves. He chuckles at Winter and goes, "We may have trouble against the red head, think you can handle your sister while I handle Red? I might need your help in delivering a decisive blow. Otherwise it will be a battle of atrition for me."
Winter startles at bit at Ebi's words and admittance for needing her help before eyeing up Pyrrha and sensing her aura reserves, analyzes her stance, her weapons, and her gear. And she nods, "Agreed, I can handle Weiss, she mights have had good training, and books to study from, but with how she has formed her new gear, she will be slower, and while skilled, I am the one who taught her fencing and dancing combat. I will have the edge skill wise. I will take care of my sister and join you shortly."
Ebi nods as the announcers finish hyping up the audience for the coming match and announce the field.
The arena shakes and changes to a mountain valley with rock pillars doting the landscape. And a fun feature are the small alcoves and short tunnels going back and forth across the various pieces of this battle field.
Unknown to the pair of specialists, Pyrrha grins evilly at this field.
Weiss sweat drops and prays her sister will forgive her team for winning this match without much trouble.
Of course after seeing this arena they hear, "Go girls! Win by a landslide like last match!"
*CLANG* They wince as a loud bang is heard from a frying pan as they then hear ruby yell out, "Enough rock puns Yang! Now you made me ruin Jaunes best skillet for pancakes!"
Nora yells out, "She made you use Jaune's super pancake maker?! Yang must pay retribution! GET OVER HERE!!"
Both girls flinch as they hear Nora's voice get a demonic edge to it and a scream from a scared out of her mind Yang. But what confuses them is where Nora got the knife tipped chain from?
Questions for later.
They refocus as the countdown for the match begins and counts from 3.
At 2 they are ready to leap. Atlas is ready to leap.
At 1 Pyrrha has charged her Geokenisis, while Winter has readied her summon.
At 0 Pyrrha launches herself and Weiss into the air on a rock platform.
Winter has summoned a Nevermore and is flying up with Ebi as they ascend. Only for her summon to shatter suddenly as a large rock platform smashes through it.
Winter gasps as she is then tackled off to the side by her own sister as Ebi is kicked by Pyrrha to another section of the Arena.
Winter and Weiss both safety roll and stare each other down. Winter is impressed they managed to separate her and Ebi so efficiently while Weiss is looking at her sister with a determined face ready to fight her.
Ebi lands on some stable rocks and leaps down them, much to his good fortune. And then stares down the champion across from him. He grins and readies his weapon while asking, "So your the champion girl of Mistral right?"
With a curt nod he sees Pyrrha ready her shield and spear as he grins wider and says, "Welp I have always wanted to scout you and see what you are made of. But I gotta say, you are still green if you are relying on that much armor."
Pyrrha pauses with a look of confusion.
Ebi elaborates and unknowingly digs his grave right into the Arena floor, "While it does cover more of your body and gives you better protection compared to your old armor, it obviously lessens your flexibility and increases your weight, thus reducing reaction time and speed. So you have bad armor sense and while your semblance of polarity, and don't question it we did our homework on you and your abilities going into this match, gives you an edge of speeding up your body by controlling your armor to move you better and faster. It still costs you aura. So in the end the armor is a detriment compared to your old armor. Man I need to tell you honestly you need to fire and maybe tell your armorer to fuck off and quit his business."
Pyrrha was checking her armor a bit not realing feeling any weight thanks to the magics in it and the fact it was S ranked meant it was enchanted to have little to no weight for the bonded owner. But as soon as she heard that last part, something in her brain snaps with a loud crack.
With her bangs shadowing her eyes she slowly turns her head towards Ebi as he readies his stance and weapon, and with a demonic waver to her voice that made most members of the audience flinch at the tone, even Emerald and Mercury, Pyrrha lets out a truly furious but restrained, "WHAT?"
Ebi shudders from the tone as he continues his thought process thinking he was getting her angry enough to lose control in the fight and give him an edge, "Well it's obvious the one who made that armor for you has no idea what should go into armor, and no idea about weight balance, and no idea for style of for your safety as a whole. I think he scammed you hard champ. You should dump whoever gave you your armor and find a better- why is the ground shaking?!"
He looks down as the entire arena is shaking and cracking as a truly loathing filled Pyrrha stares down Ebi with her emerald eyes shining bright with magic.
Cinder gulps and stands up furious at seeing the hints of a maidens powers coming from Pyrrha. But she sits right back down as the anger she feels from Pyrrha rivals the killing intent she had felt from Salem when she had failed a mission once before. She had prayed never to feel that again.
Jaune was grinning at the display as Pyrrha had decided to let loose and said one thing that summed up the situation, "He done fucked up."
Ebi was thinking the same thing as he saw Pyrha give a truly furious roar at him while yelling an dthorwing her hands up, "THIS ARMOR WAS GIVEN TO ME BY MY BOYFRIEND AND FIANCE YOU SON OF A BITCH! FOR INSULTING HIM YOU WILL FEEL EXACTLY HOW MUCH HE KNOWS ABOUT HOW TO PROTECT ME WITH MY GEAR HE MADE FOR ME HIMSELF!!!!"
Ebi sweats buckets as literal small mountains from the arena lift around him as Pyrrha has her power coursing at full power.
Ebi looks to the many miniature floating islands than looks at the down right manic grin promising pain and torment on Pyrrhas face, and says one thing, "I'm right fucked aren't I?"
Pyrrha nods and says, "Right in the down under!" Right as she pulls up an entire underground mountain from the rocks near them.
And flings her hands forward.
Ebi eeps and runs like crazy.
With Winter and Weiss the sisters were busy fighting and clanging their weapons against each other in a furious and fast paced dance that had Winter truly shocked and actually beginning to sweat as her sister was pushing her to near her full power and skill. She was in disbelief as on one clash the longer and heavier sword Weiss wields now was able to push her twin blade guard of her dagger and saber up and away from Winter. And what truly shocked the older Schnee was the follow up kick that almost crashed into her chin. Winter barely saw it and tilted her head out of the way and back flipped away.
Weiss recovers her stance with only a bit of harder breathing.
Winter was sweating a few drops and had begun to pant from the exertion Weiss was making her use.
Winter was thinking she wouldn't be able to help Ebi any time soon only to hear a loud crash to her right on the other side of the Arena. Both her and Weiss look and see literal mountains flying about trying to smash a blonde haired screaming for his life middle aged man.
Who when asked later, denied any accusations about him sounding like a screaming 5 year old girl at high pitch.
Winter goes wide eyed while her sister sighs and looks to her older sister and says, "Winter! I am enjoying this match! But it looks like my partner has become pissed at your partner. So to not be outdone by her I will need to up my own game! Be ready sister! Don't lose too quickly!"
Weiss begins to gather aura and mana while Winter is in shocked disbelief at her sister claims. She huffs and yells back while gathering her own aura, "You forget sister, I taught you what you know! I can do summons while you struggle to summon even an arm! I have been training 5 years longer than you! I can do many things you cannot! I have done more to master our families semblance! And you say you can out do me? I would like to see you tr-"
Winters rant falters as she summons her squad of ice grimm around her numbering 30.
Winter goes slack jawed as Weiss summons a full platoon of 80 Arma Gigas grimm around herself. 40 swordsmen and 40 archer types.
She giggles at Winters gobsmacked look and simply says, "You were saying sister?"
Winter eeps and sends her grimm out at Weiss as she joins them in the fray to try and show her sister that she is older and more powerful for a reason.
Winter does her best to fight alongside her grimm to make a path to Weiss but Weiss is using a surprising ability. She is casting some sort of empowerment glyph on her summons making them more than a match for her ice Grimm. Winter grits her teeth as she backs up as her summons fall in to make a defensive wall around her. She prepares a counter measure to reach Weiss while her aura will hold out as she has to sacrifice so much of it to repair the rapidly accumulating damage on her ice summons, meanwhile she is sweating as it looks like Weiss has aura to spare thanks to the tournament screens showing her dwindling reserves at 76% already, while Weiss is at a healthy 88%.
She goes for her next plan.
While the battles rage below Vale cheers for their home guild while Atlas is busy slack jawed and in disbelief at the turn of events playing out before them in the arena. Many were pulling their hair or biting their nails as their bets were going down the drain.
None more so than a Certain Jacques Schnee. Who was looking like a tomato from rage and shock as he saw his bet with his daughter spectacularly blowing up in his face. At this rate he can see his shares and control of the company going up in smoke while his daughter will be able to lead them. And he knew she would be making changes he wouldn't like. Like giving those animals called Faunus equal rights to the superior humans who are the rightful masters of such beasts!
He growls as Winter falls back and finds himself for once proud of his disobedient daughter for not giving up and giving him a glimmer of hope for winning at least one round of his bet with his daughter.
- Arena with Winter -
Winter focuses as her summons are falling one by one to the onslaught, but she manages to get the 8 glyphs she was preparing for her gambit to come to fruition as she roars out, "Ice Orochi!"
She summons a king Taijitu grimm with 8 heads on it. A powerful A+ ranked Grimm on its own. She activates the 8 glyphs and each glyph takes on a different color of dust before they connect to each head of the snake grimm she summoned. She smirks at Weiss who in turn looks shocked. But Winters smirk shrinks a bit as Weiss looks not afraid, but excited.
Weiss orders her knights and archers into a siege formation when battling large Grimm and orders them to all out attack.
Winter leaps away from her Grimm summon as it goes all out with its dust enhancement giving it fire, wind, explosion, gravity, ice, water, earth, and lightning breath attacks to use on its foes. Each breath attack takes out one or two knights or archers whenever they are hit by the force and power of the attack. But Weiss seems to summon them right back or summon a completely new one to keep up the assault.
Winter grimaces as she stumbles from the absolute drain her aura took from that summoning, she looks to the aura meters and finds that while Weiss is finally dropping below 70% from her efforts to keep her army in order, Winter has dropped to a concerning 48%. She knew this match due to it being between guilds wouldn't end until they were below 20% but it was still a challenge to keep in mind her reserves were dwindling.
Winter readies her saber and knife and rushes at Weiss as her sister focuses her entire battalion at the Orochi Grimm she summoned.
She uses a few glyphs to jump over the knights and weave between the archers before she finds herself right in her sisters summoning platform she had crafted for herself. She readies herself for an X shaped cross slash on her surprised sister. Only to stutter in her preparations for the strike to see her sister is currently staring right at her eyes as the younger Schnee has a glyph coating her sword and is swinging it at Winter.
Winter goes from an X shaped slash to an X shaped guard against the sudden strike as Weiss swings her blade and a large gout of flames explodes from the larger war Rapier.
Winter gasps in shock at the element used and the power behind it. She felt at least 5% of her aura was gone from that point blank strike, and the sword blade itself never even hit her!
She readies her saber and knife only to suddenly be relieved of her knife as Weiss does a classic disarming maneuver and clangs it right out of Winters hands.
The elder sister grits her teeth in concentration and frustration as she goes for an advanced combo of spinning waltz steps meant to add kinetic force to sword strikes and to effectively use the users flexibility to avoid returning strikes. Winter has used this combo on many skilled opponents and many of them failed to survive it, and those that did were usually too weakened to continue the fight. The first of her strikes go out.
Only for the impossible to happen, Weiss matches Winter with the same force, with a reverse version of the move she used for the opening combo!
Winter is wide eyed as she goes to the next step, a spinning back hand slash, only for her saber and Weiss's war Rapier to clash and ring out. More moves follow, and more counters clang against it. A spinning reverse slash? Clang. A diagonal uppercut followed by a curved wheel cut? Clang, clang. An advanced 15 thrust combo followed by a head cutter? Clang times 15 followed by an overpowering uppercut slash from Weiss that completely breaks Winters combo.
Now winter would have believed that Weiss could learn this move, she had attempted to teach her sister this before. She could even believe that Weiss could have simply read the slashes and cuts and countered them. But to not only pull off both counters and the reverse steps to her effective combo. And then counter her 15 thrusts by meeting her sabers point with the point of her own rapier?!
Now Winter was ready to call bullshit or that Weiss had somehow found an effective training method over the last few months to master these skills. After all it took Winter 3 years to learn this combo and make it as deadly and quick for each step as it was! Weiss had mastered it and countered it in barely 5 months?!
Something wasn't adding up in her head.
And this math problem cost Winter hard.
She gasps as Weiss rushes into Winters broken form and guard and lands many follow up slashes each slash cutting through Winters aura point by point.
Winter lands a few feet from Weiss and sees her aura has dropped to 27%. She also hears a loud pained shriek and looks to see her Orochi summon has finally been beaten as it fades into ice particles.
She glances at Weiss's army and finds they were only 10 of each unit type left, but Weiss was the one coming in with a glyph coating her sword in twin colors.
Winter simply smiles and says to herself, "Well done sister, you have finally surpassed your idol." Winter roars out a challenging attack and goes to meet Weiss in the middle as she powers up her sword with any aura she could muster.
A loud clang is heard as the roar of flames and a burst of wind follows it, and Winter is cloaked in a fire twister around just her. The fire spiral lasts only a few seconds, but it is enough as Winter comes out covered in scorch marks, light burns, and her uniform in tatters revealing her combat suit under it is also fraying and feeling the drain. Weiss catches her sister and hears the buzzer twice as a beaten, bruised, and rather broken Clover Ebi lands not 10 feet from the pair of sisters with a sheepish Pyrrha following the now beaten captain of the Specialists.
Weiss cocks an eyebrow at Pyrrha for how soundly she had crushed Ebi and Pyrrha simply shrugs with an embarrassed look on her face and simply says, "He insulted Jaune and my outfit gifted by him… I couldn't hold back."
Yang, currently sounding bruised and beaten up herself yells out while having a black eye and her hair frayed from lightning burns, "She really Rocked his world I guess!"
Suddenly Nora, Ruby, Velvet, and Coco were all up in arms and chasing the blonde for the pun and for suggesting such a thing. Yang runs away while yelling out, "I REGRET ALMOST NOTHING!"
Weiss rolls her eyes at Yangs antics then gives an understanding nod to Pyrrha for why she went so hard on Ebi then turns her attention to her sister as she hears Winter cough and go, "Yes sister? Are you okay?"
Winter chuckles, shocking Weiss who has never heard Winter laugh in such a way around her, before she settles for a small smile and looks to her younger sister, "Better than okay sister. I can finally stop being so hard on you. You finally got stronger than me. I had built myself up so much over the years to be better than you. To give you a strong roll model to chase after since mother had fallen as the roll model you needed. That I accidentally distanced myself from you. It hurt. It hurt so badly every time I didn't return a hug, or simply gave you a 'good job' when you achieved something. But I knew it would push you to new heights. I just didn't realize how high those heights were. But you reached them sister. I know this won't make up for the distance and the time lost with my need to be a strong female role model for you, but I would like to spend some time as just sisters again with you once this tournament is over. I love you Weiss, and I couldn't be prouder of you!"
Winter manages to roll to her knees and hug Weiss at the end of that talk. Making Weiss's already tearing up face, finally break the dam and outright cry as Weiss blubbers out ot Winter, "YES! I-I would lo-love that si-sister Winter! And I lo-love you tooooo~!"
The crowd awes at the display of love for the two sisters. And Pyrrha who was next to them cries happily for Weiss and Winter. Ebi groans and goes to say something only to be kicked and knocked out by Pyrrha to avoid him ruining the moment.
After another minute the sisters break up the hug, Winter grabs Ebi and carries him back to their locker room for the tournament to clean up and rest up so she can enjoy time with her sister afterwards.
Weiss and Pyrrha flourish and flaunt a bit for the crowd to hype them up for tomorrows match.
Jaune gulps a bit but calms down as he makes plans for his upcoming fight. His fight would be hard. He has his work cut out for him as he faces off against his first SS ranked opponent.
He looks to the roster for tomorrows match up and sees.
Guild Match Finals! Singles round!
Guild master versus Guild Master!
Jaune Arc Versus General James Ironwood!
Up in his box Ironwood grit his teeth in shock but also in bittersweet pride. Pride that students from the first year had grown so strong for their war against Salem, but also in bitterness for his specialists to lose so spectacularly. He knew it was possible but he also had his own pride as the General of atlas and as the Guild master for the Specialists. He would win once victory and bring greatness back to Atlas.
He was wondering why so many students of the Vale Guild were A ranked and B ranked. While their Guild Master was ranked C. Ozpin says to not be fooled as Jaune Arc simply missed the re-evaluation test and was actually higher than A.
Ironwood scoffed at that excuse and simply thought Ozpin was trying to intimidate him or make him too paranoid or cautious. He had seen the students grades, and his combat was definitely up there, but only around B+ at best based on match records and who he fought, and how he won. Ironwood knew he would need to prepare himself for the boys tactical mind.
After all while a strategist could be thrown off their game by doing one expert move that they didn't expect. A Tactician is someone who flourishes and thrives in a changing battlefield. He knew the boy would be able to quickly adapt to whatever the General threw at him. So he knew he would need to bring his true strength and true weapon to bear against the boy to teach him how vast this world truly is.
After all a first year could never defeat someone with over 2 decades of experience in the field and in the harshness of war like himself.
...Right?
Unknown to the general, many light spirits were chuckling at the Generals thoughts thanks to Ozpin reading the generals mind and sending it to the summons of one Jaune arc. They were ready to show the General just how Vast their experience was compared to his own.
- Cinders room -
The soldier to Salem was gritting her teeth in frustration. What was that doubles match?! The Specialists first round could be written off as being caught off guard and not a good match up. But this second round?!
Pyrrha and Weiss crushed two A ranked hunters like they were nothing!
Those two displayed strength on the rank of her own maiden empowered abilities!
They couldn't be maidens themselves though… Right!?
She growls out at the loss that Mercury and Emerald suffered from. They fought against Yastuhashi and Coco. Both amateur second years who were B ranked at the beginning of the year. But displayed strength that also rivaled A to A+ ranked hunters! No one improved that fast!
The only thing she could think of was they were hiding their strength for th tournament! Cause their grades didn't support A ranked hunters! Maybe B+ at best! She was being backed into a corner and knew she would need her mistresses ace in the hole.
She goes over to the trunk as she brings out three glowing orbs of pure magic. One by one she crushes them and feels the magic flow into her. Giving her a temporary strength on par with a full maiden for the next week. While also granting her new skills.
She reaches for the skills and says through her new mind link, "Hollowed! Nidus Worms! Grimm Knights! All of you shall obey me! Prepare for a war on the scale of the old times! And prepare… the Dragon!"
A returning symphony of growls, roars, and rich hums return their understanding and assent to her command. Cinder grins as she knows she will get the maiden powers tomorrow. Especially with so many S ranked Grimm on her side.
She only need to wait for the key moment.