Saturday Night Combat Club
Glynda Goodwitch had broken her fast in her office – instant porridge, made in the plastic bowl that it had come in, with water from the kettle that she kept in one of her desk drawers. Now, she dumped the bowl, and the plastic spoon that had come with it, in the bin and rested her hands upon her desk.
She had a decision to make.
She’d been putting it off for a week already, ever since Miss Xiao Long had come to see her after the end of her mission.
The door hit the wall with an audible bang that would have startled someone with more sensitive nerves than Glynda Goodwitch. She looked up in time to see Miss Xiao Long, faint trails of smoke rising from the top of her hair, standing in the doorway.
Goodwitch raised one eyebrow. “Generally, students knock on my door before they come in, Miss Xiao Long, and then they open the door with a little less brute force.”
Yang stood in the doorway, the smoke continuing to rise from out of her hair, which was gleaming a little brighter than usual. Her eyes flashed red; at least, they did for a moment before she closed her eyes, screwing them up tight. The smoke ceased to rise, and when Yang opened her eyes again, they were her usual lilac shade.
“Can I come in, Professor?” Yang asked, in a voice that she was keeping calm and controlled with what must have taken a lot of effort for her.
Goodwitch gestured to the seat in front of her desk. “Please, Miss Xiao Long, come in and take a seat.” She wasn’t all that happy about the damage that had probably been done to her wall – indeed, as Yang walked in and shut the door behind her, Glynda could see a dent in the plaster – but it wasn’t something she was going to get upset about. For all that the students here were training to be the defenders of the world, they were still young men and women, with all that implied. Sometimes, they got upset; sometimes, they got very upset; sometimes, they even had reason to be out of sorts, and when they did, the best thing a teacher could do was be sympathetic. Even when the reasons were not so good, they were simply acting as they had been fashioned by the gods. There was little point in railing against the fact.
Yang said nothing as she walked inside Goodwitch’s office and sat down on the other side of the desk. Her hands, clenched into fists, were the only sign that she was not as calm as she was now trying to seem.
“Now, Miss Xiao Long,” Goodwitch said, “what is it that you wanted to see me about?”
“I want to know what the hell’s going on, Professor!” Yang cried, her voice rising once again as control of it slipped out of her grasp. She winced, possibly at that same loss of control, and her voice became quieter. “I want to know why Team Sapphire were sent on a mission without a huntsmen supervising them, and I want to know why a mission to repair a railway line ended up with them tangling with Roman Torchwick and the White Fang.” She took a deep breath. “I want to know if that was meant to happen, and why.”
Glynda thanked the gods that she had a good poker face; she kept it thoroughly expressionless as she looked Yang over the top of her spectacles. “I must advise you, Miss Xiao Long, that complaints about so-called special treatment received by another team-”
“This isn’t about me being jealous, Professor!” Yang cried. “This is about me wanting to know the truth. This is about my sister. This is about the fact that the world seems a hell of a lot more dangerous than it was when the year began, and it seems like Ruby is in the middle of it!” She took a deep breath. “I want to know what’s going on, Professor.”
Goodwitch hated the way her voice sounded as she replied: rote, mechanical. Unnatural. Devoid of feeling. And yet, she could make it sound no other way as she answered in an utterly disingenuous fashion. “Team Sapphire were assigned a training mission to accompany a Valish Railtrack repair team and protect them in the course of their work. Upon their return journey, they were ambushed by members of the White Fang and by Roman Torchwick.”
Yang frowned. “With all…” She trailed off, licking her lips. “That’s half the story, Professor, and you know it. Why wasn’t Team Sapphire accompanied by a licensed huntsman like we were?”
Goodwitch felt mildly ill, as if something had disagreed with her stomach. “The danger was not thought severe enough as to require it,” she said softly.
“Not dangerous enough? With the White Fang operating in the Forever Fall?” Yang’s chest rose and fell with her breath. “And they weren’t coming straight home after the job was done. They met up with Team Rosepetal, and they came back together on an Atlesian military train. They were hoping to get ambushed, weren’t they? They were hoping to get into a fight so they could capture Torchwick.”
“You would have to ask the members of Teams Sapphire and Rosepetal-”
“I don’t need to ask; I know my sister,” Yang declared. “What I have to ask is… did Professor Ozpin mean for all of that to happen?”
Even if Glynda had been able to be completely honest with Yang, she would still have struggled to answer that question truthfully. She had worked with Professor Ozpin for many years, for longer than Miss Xiao Long had been alive, and she still wouldn’t claim to know the workings of his mind. Nobody truly understood the way he thought; how could they? The best that they could do was guess.
Her brow furrowed just a little. “Where did you get that idea from, Miss Xiao Long?”
Yang shuffled uncomfortably on her seat. Her fist clenched even tighter, which Glynda wouldn’t have believed was possible. Her voice became a little hoarse as she replied, “Just before the semester started, Raven came to see me.”
Goodwitch’s eyebrows rose. “Your mother-”
“My mother’s name was Summer Rose, Professor, and she’s been dead more than ten years now,” Yang declared.
“Of course,” Goodwitch murmured. “I apologise, Miss Xiao Long.”
“It’s okay, Professor; I shouldn’t have… it’s just a touchy subject, you know?”
“I understand,” Goodwitch said, her voice soft and calm. “But, to be sure I understand you correctly, Raven Branwen was here? In this school?”
Yang nodded. “She spoke to me, and Ruby.”
“I see,” Goodwitch murmured. “And what did she say to you?”
Yang looked up, and met Glynda’s gaze once more. “She warned me,” she said, “warned both of us, about Professor Ozpin. She said that he’d start using Ruby the way that he used Mom. She said… she said that it would start with training missions and favours. And so… thinking about what happened… I can’t help but wonder, you know? Professor, is this what Raven warned us about?”
Glynda was silent for a moment, collecting her thoughts without giving voice to any of them. “It is not my place, Miss Xiao Long, to tell you what to think about Raven Branwen. All I can say is that there is no one in the faculty of this school who harbours any ill intent towards Ruby, or any of her teammates, or any of our other students here. What happened on Team Sapphire’s mission was unfortunate, but it was never intended. Not by Professor Ozpin, and certainly not by me.”
She had sent Yang away without an answer. She had, as much as she disliked thinking about it now, played upon Miss Xiao Long’s trust and persuaded her that there was nothing to worry about.
There was, she hoped, less to fear than Raven might have thought; shame had made her paranoid, in Goodwitch’s opinion as a psychologist… but that was not the same thing as there being nothing to fear.
She, for instance, feared – a little – that Professor Ozpin had intended precisely this. Mister Arc forced to take a life, Miss Shimmer come close to sacrificing hers. Yes, the capture of Torchwick had been an accomplishment, but could it not have been left to some of James’ vaunted specialists?
For that matter, what was James thinking, throwing his own students into the fire like this?
Glynda shook her head. James would do what he thought was best; he always did. The same could be said of Professor Ozpin, but the difference was that she worked for Professor Ozpin; her strength was his, and his honour was hers, as they said in Mistral.
These were her students too. Their fate would rest upon Glynda’s shoulders as much as upon those of Professor Ozpin.
Especially now that Miss Xiao Long had come to see her, asked for the truth from her, and trusted her when she said that there was nothing to be afraid of.
An answer that Glynda had cause to reconsider every day since she had given it.
She got up from her desk and left her office. Left the main school building in which she had her office, walking across the courtyard towards the Emerald Tower that dominated the skyline and loomed above the rest of Beacon. It was a Saturday, traditionally a day on which the students might enjoy a lazier morning than that was usually afforded to them, and so, the courtyard was not as crowded as it might otherwise have been. Nevertheless, there were still some students, from what academy could not be told, as they were out of uniform, headed this way or that, or simply sprawled out at leisure upon the stone like lizards sunning themselves in the heat of the day. None of them paid Goodwitch any mind, nor did she stop to interact with any of them as she walked briskly, her cape billowing out a little behind her and her heels tapping upon the stone.
The number of Atlesian guards upon the tower had increased since the arrival of Ironwood’s forces, but the guard detail knew her well enough not to hinder her progress – the tower was open to the public, in any event – as she climbed the steps and entered the glowing green interior of the tower.
She entered one of the elevators and clasped her hands behind her back as it began the climb upwards towards the highest level, where she had no doubt that she would find Professor Ozpin. He didn’t leave his office much, not nearly as much as he ought to have done, if truth be told; despite all the duties that she had willingly accepted to ease his burdens, he still had far too much to do for any one man.
And yet, she could not help him any more.
In fact, she was on her way up to add to his burdens, not to relieve them.
She had lied to Miss Xiao Long. She would have been lying to herself if she had said that Professor Ozpin had no especial interest in Team SAPR. He saw them as gifted, extraordinary. Glynda could not deny their skill – either individually or as a team – although she felt their synergy was less than the sum of its parts. Professor Ozpin did not see it that way, or else it didn’t concern him. She could not claim to know his whole mind, but she knew enough to say that he saw the four of them as the future.
She had not spoken entirely falsely to Miss Xiao Long. Professor Ozpin’s interest in Team SAPR was, as yet, of a rather distant kind. He had not used them as he had used Team STRQ; he had not sought to take a personal hand in any of their educations as he had with Team STRQ. He had watched them, but from a distance… even the late mission that had Yang so concerned had been first at their own initiative. He knew that they had been talking with James’ Team RSPT, and so, he had provided them with a means to get involved.
It was not what Raven feared it was – yet. She might say that it was bad enough, and in the future.
Glynda’s mind turned to murky depths, to shadowed rooms, and to a girl in a glass coffin.
Not yet. Not… yet.
The elevator juddered to a halt, and the doors opened to admit the light from the great windows on the other side of the office.
Professor Ozpin was exactly where she had expected to see him: at his desk, his back bent as he pored over some report or other. It was a standing joke amongst the faculty that Glynda did all the real work of running the school, but if that was true, it was only to allow Professor Ozpin to concentrate his energies upon running the defence of Vale and the world.
He looked up, alerted to her presence by the sound of her boots upon the office floor. “Ah, Glynda,” he said. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“I hope that I’m not interrupting anything important, Professor,” Glynda said.
“Actually, I was just finished with this particular task,” Professor Ozpin replied. “It appears that contact with Badger’s Drift has been lost. Their relay tower isn’t responding.”
“Technical issues?” Goodwitch asked.
“Hopefully, that’s all it is,” Professor Ozpin agreed. “But… Badger’s Drift was one of the places reporting grimm concentrations nearby. A huntsman agreed to take on the job of guarding it, but…”
“Of course,” Goodwitch replied softly. Sometimes, a huntsman was simply not sufficient. “You’re going to send someone to investigate?”
“Someone will have to,” Professor Ozpin agreed. “I thought that it might make a suitable training mission: get in, discover the truth, get out again.”
“Hmm,” Goodwitch murmured. “And did you have a team in mind?” she asked.
Professor Ozpin hesitated. “I had considered Team Sapphire,” he admitted.
Goodwitch pursed her lips. “I… don’t think that’s a good idea. Not yet.”
Professor Ozpin leaned back in his chair. “I don’t doubt you, Glynda, but I’d be interested in hearing your reasoning?”
“To begin with, they only returned from a mission last week,” Glynda reminded him. “Mister Arc is still working through what happened to him there, and I rather wish Miss Shimmer would pay me a visit too. From what Mister Arc has let slip, I think she’s been more affected by encounters with the White Fang than she would like to admit.”
“You can’t force her to get help,” Professor Ozpin said.
“Unfortunately not, but I can say that I think it’s too soon to send them back out into the field. Besides, it isn’t usual for any one team to monopolise the mission roster like this. People will start to talk.” She hesitated, torn between the desire to maintain confidentiality and the need to get through to Professor Ozpin. “Some people have started to talk already.”
Professor Ozpin blinked. “Who?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.”
“No, of course not, that would be unethical,” Professor Ozpin agreed. “Less unethical than much else that we do, but, nevertheless… I apologise.”
“The point is that the favours that Team Sapphire have already received have not gone unnoticed. If you were to accord a few other teams the treatment that you have shown them, it would go a long way towards dispelling those concerns.”
Professor Ozpin rested his elbows upon his desk and clasped his hands together. “Perhaps you’re right,” he murmured. “Perhaps I am moving too quickly.”
“When the year began, you said you didn’t want to make them your agents, as you had Team Stark,” Glynda reminded him. “Even after the battle at the docks, that was not your intent.”
“Events have only escalated since the battle at the docks,” Professor Ozpin said. “I fear that we are running out of time.”
“Move too quickly, and you may lose them,” Glynda said. “As you lost Raven.”
Professor Ozpin closed his eyes. “I’m aware of the danger,” he murmured. “You don’t think they’re ready?” He shook his head. “Don’t answer that. I know that they’re not ready. Just as I know that nobody is ever ready. This is not what I want.”
“I never said it was,” Goodwitch said, “but is the hour really so late?”
“I don’t know,” Professor Ozpin said wearily. “I… I just don’t know. I have too many fears and far too little information. As you say, I will not offer this particular mission to Team Sapphire. I will find other students able to take on the task.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Goodwitch said. She considered telling him about Raven, but was unable to think of a way to do so that would not betray Miss Xiao Long’s confidence. “My next request may seem perverse in light of what I have just said, but… I would like to give Miss Nikos and Miss Xiao Long some extra tuition.”
Professor Ozpin’s eyebrows rose. “You chide me for taking too much interest in Team Sapphire, and then you wish to take a much greater interest in two students? Perverse comes close to the mark, Glynda.”
“They are two of the best students in my combat class,” Glynda told him. “The two best students in my class who are, in fact, Beacon students. And Miss Nikos is one whom you will want to…”
“Make use of,” Professor Ozpin said. “I will not be offended by your speaking the truth, as unflattering as it may paint me.”
“Hmm,” Glynda said. “The point is, Miss Nikos may have to confront more dangerous enemies than her fellow students before too long.”
“And Miss Xiao Long?”
“Is as fit as any member of Team Sapphire; they are the only two students in this academy who I think can reliably challenge one another. As such, I fear they are both plateauing. You know that Miss Nikos spends every night training Mister Arc?”
Professor Ozpin nodded. “I have seen them. It is very admirable of her to devote so much of her time to him.”
“She is in love with him, or believes herself to be, at least,” Goodwitch said, unable to keep the sniff out of her voice.
Professor Ozpin chuckled. “Ah, youth. Nevertheless, regardless of her exact motivations… it speaks well to her kind heart and gentle spirit. I… I fear she is most well-suited to the task.”
Goodwitch did not wish to think about that overmuch; therefore, she pressed on before her thoughts could dwell upon the notion. “Nevertheless, she isn’t learning anything in the process. I think, I hope, that some instruction from me might benefit them both.”
“There is some force in what you say, Glynda,” Professor Ozpin conceded. “Very well, you may approach them both and see if the idea is of interest to them.”
“Almost private tuition with Professor Goodwitch, huh?” Jaune asked. “I wonder why she decided to offer you that?”
“I’m not sure,” Pyrrha admitted as she adjusted the gilded greave on her right leg, “but it is a great honour to be asked by so renowned a huntress, so great that I can hardly refuse.” She looked up at him. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind?” Jaune repeated. “Why would I mind?”
“You’re losing a training session,” Pyrrha reminded him.
“Yeah, but…” Jaune hesitated for a moment. “I’ve probably been too selfish as it is, letting you spend every single night helping me to improve; if I let you turn down a chance to improve yourself… it wouldn’t be right.”
Pyrrha stood up, fully armoured and attired for battle. “You…”
“Need the help more than you?” Jaune suggested.
Pyrrha winced. “Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but-”
“You’re the best fighter at Beacon, Pyrrha,” Jaune told her. “I know it, everyone knows it. Just like everyone knows you’re going to win the Vytal Festival-”
“There are some other students who shouldn’t be discounted so readily.”
“But the world is a lot bigger than Beacon,” Jaune continued, “and there are bad guys out there like Adam, and maybe even worse than him. If you got hurt because you’d turned down all your chances to train just to help me get stronger… I don’t know if I could live with myself.”
“I… I see,” Pyrrha murmured. “You’re right, I shouldn’t rest upon my laurels. And I must admit, I’m looking forward to seeing what Yang is capable of.”
Jaune grinned. “Go get her.”
Pyrrha covered her mouth with one hand as a giggle escaped. “I’m not sure that’s the right attitude for this.”
“Really? I think it’s the perfect attitude,” Jaune replied.
Pyrrha laughed again. “You don’t have to stick around for this, you know?”
“What if I want to?” Jaune asked.
“Then I’ll be counting on your support.”
“Always,” Jaune whispered.
Pyrrha smiled. She reached up briefly to adjust the way that her circlet sat upon her brow before she turned away from Jaune and left him to follow after her as she walked out of the locker room and into the amphitheatre.
It was dark. Most of the lights were off, and those that were on were focussed upon the stage. Professor Goodwitch stood upon that same raised stage, her scroll out in one hand. As Pyrrha approached, she looked up, the lights glinting off her spectacles.
“Ah, Miss Nikos.” Her eyes narrowed as she saw Jaune follow her in. “Mister Arc, what a surprise to see you.”
As Jaune laughed nervously, Pyrrha said, “With your permission, Professor, I thought that Jaune might get something out of watching… whatever it is you have in store for us.”
“Hmm,” Professor Goodwitch said. “You may remain, Mister Arc, but please try to be quiet and remember that tonight is for the benefit of Miss Nikos, not yourself. If you’re having trouble following or comprehending what you’re seeing, then I’m afraid that’s something you’re going to have to live with until your skills improve.”
“Don’t worry, Professor,” Jaune said, “I’m not going to make this all about me.”
“I will hold you to that, Mister Arc,” Professor Goodwitch said. “Please, take a seat while we wait for- ah, Miss Xiao Long.”
Yang walked in from the other locker room, the one used by most of the first-year teams. In the gloom that consumed the bulk of the amphitheatre ,she shone like a blazing torch, while in her wake trailed Blake, like a pale spectre.
“I see that you also brought a second, Miss Xiao Long,” Professor Goodwitch said. “Miss Belladonna.”
“Good evening, Professor,” Blake said, bowing her head. “I hope you don’t mind. I admit that I was intrigued when I heard about this.”
“As I told Mister Arc, you can remain as long as you’re unobtrusive.”
“You won’t know I’m here, Professor.”
“That might actually be true,” Professor Goodwitch murmured.
“Hey, Pyrrha,” Yang called. “Jaune.”
“Good evening, Yang,” Pyrrha replied. “Good evening, Blake.”
“Pyrrha,” Blake murmured with a respectful nod. “Jaune.”
“Hey, Blake, how’s it going?” Jaune asked.
“Ahem,” Professor Goodwitch said pointedly.
“Right, quiet, sorry,” Jaune said.
He and Blake hastened to find seats somewhere in the dark – Pyrrha found it easier to keep track of Blake in her white blouse than she did Jaune in his dark hoodie – while Pyrrha and Yang climbed up onto the stage.
“Thank you both for joining me here tonight,” Professor Goodwitch said. “As I’m sure you’re both aware, the two of you are the top Beacon students in your year in sparring, and the rest of the top quartile rely very heavily upon their semblances to a degree that isn’t true of you.”
“I assume you’re only talking about Beacon students, Professor,” Pyrrha said.
“Indeed, Miss Nikos, since I am a Beacon instructor,” Professor Goodwitch said. “Although I know that you both take your studies very seriously, at least in my class.”
Yang let out a laugh that mingled nervousness with a trace of discomfort. “That’s not quite fair, Professor; I work hard in all my classes. It just doesn’t do me a whole lot of good in all of them.”
“I hope that Doctor Oobleck agrees, for your sake, Miss Xiao Long,” Professor Goodwitch replied. “In any case, I have become concerned that, for all that you try your best, your supremacy in my class is… not preparing you for life and combat outside the walls of Beacon.”
Yang smirked. “You mean you’re worried we’ll think we’re the bee's knees until we get a short, sharp lesson otherwise?”
“Quite so, Miss Xiao Long,” Professor Goodwitch said. “And in the field, such lessons can easily prove fatal. Which is why I have invited you to these weekly sessions, where you can learn from one another and from me.”
“I’m honoured, Professor, and grateful for you taking the time for our sake,” Pyrrha declared.
“Me too,” Yang added. “Don’t start sucking up already, Pyrrha.”
Pyrrha felt her cheeks flush a little. “I wasn’t! I simply didn’t want to presume to speak for you-”
Yang grinned. “I’m just messing with you! You make it almost too easy. But, yeah, really, Professor, thanks a lot.”
“You can thank me by giving it your all here in these sessions,” Professor Goodwitch declared. “Now,” she added, climbing deftly down from off the stage. “Why don’t you start by showing me what you’re capable of when up against the best that this school has to offer?” She tapped a couple of buttons on her scroll, and the images of Pyrrha and Yang flashed up on artificial banners hanging down the back wall, complete with bars showing their respective aura levels. Both had full bars in the green.
“You want us to spar with one another?” Yang asked.
“To begin with, yes,” Professor Goodwitch confirmed. “However, I would like you to avoid using your semblances, to the greatest extent physically possible.”
“No semblances?” Yang asked. “Why not? Our semblances are a part of us and how we fight.”
“True,” Professor Goodwitch allowed, “but I want to get an idea of how you fare without them; that way, I can see if you’re using your semblance as a crutch and, if so, suggest which areas you need to focus on so that is no longer the case.”
“I see,” Yang murmured, looking downcast for a moment, before the grin returned to her face in full force as she looked at Pyrrha. “Don’t go holding back on me, okay, Pyrrha?”
Pyrrha smiled as she brought Miló and Akoúo̱ down into her hands. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she declared. In truth, she was quite glad that Professor Goodwitch had specified no semblances on this occasion, because it meant that she could promise not to hold back without either being a liar or making a nonsense of the match by picking Yang up by the gauntlets and flinging her out of the ring as soon as the fight began. She could fight using only her finely honed skills and still keep her promise not to hold back.
The two of them stalked to opposite ends of the fighting stage and, there, turned to face one another. Yang assumed a boxing stance, fists raised before her. Her Ember Celica clacked and clicked as they extended down her arms towards her elbows. Pyrrha brought Akoúo̱ up before her face and held Miló in spear mode ready, poised above her shoulder.
She couldn’t hear Jaune, but knowing that he was there and cheering for her in his heart, even if he wasn’t allowed to shout with his voice, gave her more comfort than a throng of thousands cheering her name in the arena ever had.
She wondered who Blake was cheering for, if she was cheering inside at all.
“Begin!” Professor Goodwitch declared.
In Mistral, in the arena, combat began with an exchange of crowd-pleasing banter between the two combatants, or at least, it was crowd-pleasing when it was done well. Arslan was a master of it. Pyrrha, on the other hand, found the whole business rather hard to take and even harder to respond to to the extent where she didn’t bother. Fortunately, that silent rectitude played into her ‘princess’ image with the public: she was too gracious and noble to engage in vulgar taunts.
Fortunately, it seemed that Yang was about as interested in that as she was, because she leapt into action immediately, taking a step forward and throwing punches at her as though she were shadowboxing.
Except she wasn’t shadowboxing; she was firing Ember Celica, the golden gauntlets barking and clicking as shot after shot leapt from the stubby mouths above Yang’s knuckles.
Pyrrha brought Akoúo̱ up before her, deflecting one shot away from her, and then another, leaping out of the path of a third and rolling along the stage surface as Miló switched to rifle mode in her other hand. Pyrrha rolled onto one knee, bringing the rifle to her shoulder, firing off one shot and then another in quick succession. Yang dodged, just as Pyrrha had, doing a cartwheel in mid-air before she landed lightly on her feet, but as she leapt, she stopped shooting, and as she stopped, Pyrrha charged.
She dashed forward, her booted feet tapping lightly upon the floor as she rushed at Yang with Akoúo̱ held before her as Miló shifted fluidly into its sword form. Yang was on the ground and ready for her, fists clenched and ready. As Pyrrha closed, Yang threw a solid right hook, her fist snapping out like a rocket, her gauntlet blazing with fire. Pyrrha took the blow upon her shield, using Akoúo̱ to turn the punch upwards and aside, Yang’s first scraping across the surface of the shield as Pyrrha turned it upwards like a plate towards the ceiling. Yang’s momentum carried her forward; as she surged forth, Pyrrha spun upon her toe, as graceful as a dancer, dropping to one knee as she brought Miló around in a wide arc to cut Yang’s legs out from under her.
Yang leapt straight upwards, and as she jumped, one heavy boot lashed out for Pyrrha’s face. Pyrrha leaned backwards so far that she was on the floor, rolling from back to front and back again as the blasts of Ember Celica pursued her, blowing chunks out of the stage as she went.
As Yang dropped down to the stage once more, Pyrrha threw Akoúo̱ at her, the shield spinning like a discus as it flew unerringly towards its target. Yang caught it with both hands, the spinning weapon coming to a dead halt as Yang’s aura dropped slightly. Pyrrha was on her feet at once, wielding Miló in both hands as she charged, her spear spinning. Yang threw Akoúo̱ back at her; Pyrrha batted it aside with a deft twirl from Miló. She slashed at Yang with the spearpoint; Yang caught the blow on one of her gauntlets and turned it aside, but as she did so, Pyrrha caught her with the butt upon the side of the head. Yang winced in pain, her head snapping around, her back bending, exposing herself for a second blow across the back. Pyrrha twirled the spear above her head.
Yang’s punch caught her directly in the gut, Ember Celica booming. Pyrrha’s breath was driven out of her as she was hurled across the stage, landing near the back of it, not far from being tossed out of the ring completely.
That single hit had dropped her aura into the yellow. It was rather exhilarating.
Yang’s eyes were lilac, but her hair was paler now, as pale as flax, her semblance rising, unbidden to the fore as it was her turn to go on the offensive, charging at Pyrrha, bellowing at her enemy where she lay on her belly on the ground.
Pyrrha’s shield was some distance away – without her semblance, she couldn’t get near it – but she still had Miló in her hands. She lay on the ground, her weapon in spear form, lying and waiting, seemingly helpless as Yang came for her.
Pyrrha knew the time that Miló took to transform from each of its three modes into each of the other two, so she knew exactly when to switch her weapon into rifle mode at just the last minute when Yang, almost on top of her, had no time to react before Pyrrha emptied the last three shots into her gut.
Yang was hurled backwards, though she managed a backflip to land upon her feet as Pyrrha rose up off the floor and charged at her, Miló switching once more into a sword which she swung in a downwards crosswise slash.
Yang grinned as she caught the blow, one hand closing around the blade, and with her other hand, threw a punch for Pyrrha’s face. Pyrrha turned aside, but she felt the heat of the blast from Ember Celica burn away her aura before she twisted her whole body around, grabbing Yang’s outstretched arm with her own free and threw her bodily over Pyrrha’s shoulder and onto her back on the ground.
Yang twisted in place, her legs sweeping Pyrrha’s out from underneath her before the other girl could react and dumping Pyrrha on her backside beside Yang. Yang rolled onto her side, fist shooting forward. Pyrrha caught it, but also caught the blast from Ember Celica that took her aura dangerously close to the red. She rolled, still tightly gripping Yang’s fist, and with all the strength that remained to her, tossed her opponent as far as she could make her fly.
Which turned out to be just out of the arena, once she had finished rolling. Yang disappeared off the stage and descended into the darkness with a thud and a slight ‘oof’ of discomfiture.
“And that’s the match,” Professor Goodwitch declared. “Congratulations on another victory, Miss Nikos.”
“Thank you, Professor,” Pyrrha murmured, as she climbed to her feet. “It was very close.” Enjoyably close, in fact; she’d known that Yang was good, but now she knew just how good she was.
“Indeed,” Professor Goodwitch agreed. “As expected of our other top student.”
Yang groaned. “Rematch,” she muttered as she clambered back up onto the stage.
The faint hint of a smile crossed Professor Goodwitch’s face. “There will be plenty of time for that later, Miss Xiao Long. For now, if you’ll come up here and Miss Nikos will recover her weapons, I’ll go over the areas you both could have improved on…”