We're Not About to Give Up (New)
We’re Not About to Give Up
“Here she comes! Here she comes!” shouted Diana Archer, jumping up and down in front of the TV. “Here she comes, it’s Arslan. This is going be wicked!”
I’ve got no reason to be nervous, Arslan thought, as she waited in the dark to go out — to lead her team out — into the light, into the arena, into the gaze of the cameras and the crowds.
No reason to be nervous at all.
I am the Golden Lion of Mistral; I’ve contested the finals of the Mistral Regional Tournament four years running; I won my first tournament — the Eleusinoi Junior Tournament — when I was just ten years old; I’ve won the Synoikia twice, I won the melee in honour of Lady Swift Foot’s birthday last year, and I won the games held by Councillor Ward to celebrate his wedding, and I’ve won a dozen other games and tournaments up and down Anima. I have fought single combats, and I have fought vast sprawling melees. I have fought in arenas great and small, all the way up to the great Colosseum in Mistral itself. I have no reason to be nervous.
And yet…
It never left her, not completely. No matter how many fights she won, no matter how many trophies she picked up, no matter the prize money that made its way into her bank account, there was a part of her that would always be that kid from the lower slopes shuffling nervously into view, looking around at the ladies and gentlemen with their dust and their armour and their weapons, and feeling like she didn’t belong.
Like she was nothing but a grubby peasant intruding into the domain of princes.
It wasn’t an easy feeling to shake off, no matter how many times she won, no matter how many of her fellow gladiators were just as poor as she’d started off, or more; some of them were even faunus. Nevertheless … the crowd might love you, and Arslan flattered herself that the crowd did love her, but there was always a sense, at least Arslan had felt a sense, that the arena didn’t really belong to people like her. It belonged to P-money, it belonged to Phoebe, it belonged to the bluebloods with the long lines of their ancestors; people like Arslan were admitted upon the sufferance of their talent.
That was why she kept a suitcase full of lien under the bed back home in Mistral in case that sufferance should ever be withdrawn.
Once poor, never rich, as the saying went. They might also have said ‘once lowborn, never high,’ and there would have been even more truth to that.
Some feelings never went away, no matter what.
No matter how much she knew that they made no sense at all.
This wasn’t even Mistral; this was the Amity Colosseum, floating over Vale, where they did things differently, where they had ideas about equality and the like; this space, this battlefield belonged to her as much as it did to anyone else.
And yet still, she felt nervous.
To tell the truth, Arslan wasn’t sure that she would want to banish these nerves even if she could; complacency was the enemy of the greatest of warriors: she had seen gladiators stride into the arena with puffed out chests and heads held high and then proceed to get their asses handed to them with all the trimmings in the space of mere minutes. You invited that kind of thing if you acted like that. Hubris was always followed by nemesis. And more practically, you needed a little edge about you, a little wariness; it was what kept you sharp, kept you on point.
It was what would bring you the win, even if your opponent turned out to be tougher than you expected.
And Arslan expected her opponent to be a little tough. She didn’t know this Team CFVY personally, but she’d asked around, and apparently, they were good. They were second years, and the word was that Professor Ozpin liked them. They were his favourites in the sophomore year, which meant that they got extra training missions and the like, which wasn’t necessarily Arslan’s definition of favouritism, but okay.
Not everyone was a fan of the team personally, but everyone Arslan had spoken to acknowledged their ability.
Of course, a little healthy nervousness wasn’t the same as defeatism; she’d fought tough adversaries before, and beaten some of them. She’d even fought multiple tough opponents at once, usually during melees when a group of contestants had decided to gang up on her to take her out of the running.
It didn’t work.
Arslan took a deep breath in and out. It was important not to swagger into the arena believing that you couldn’t possibly lose, but at the same time, it was just as important to walk in there believing that you could win.
And she could win.
Not least for the crowd above her, seated in the stands, who wanted her to win, who wanted Mistral and Haven to win, who had come a long way to watch a display of superlative skill in combat.
And Arslan, for one, didn’t mean to disappoint them.
She could hear them, up above, as they waited for the match to start. Team CFVY were late arriving, and so Team ABRN was being held here in the tunnel while they waited upon their opponents to finally show up. And while they waited, so the crowd waited too, and while they waited, they clapped their hands together rhythmically; Arslan could hear it like thunderclaps echoing down out of the heavens, clapping their hands, stamping their feet, the unison noises shaking the corridor around them.
And they were singing.
“Sweet Caroline!
Bah Bah Bah!
Good times never seemed so good!”
“I haven’t heard that one before for a Haven team,” Reese observed.
“That’s because it’s one of mine,” Arslan said. “The Arslan Army adopted it. I’m not sure why.”
“Of course it is,” Bolin muttered.
Reese stared at Arslan. “The … Arslan Army?”
“Her fan club,” Bolin said dismissively.
“Don’t sneer just because you’re jealous,” Arslan said.
Bolin shook his head. “I’m not…” He stopped. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t it?” Arslan asked.
“No,” Bolin said.
Arslan took a step towards him. “You’ve got something to say, then say it; come on.”
“Guys, come on,” Reese said, “Let’s not fight amongst ourselves; the enemy is waiting for us on the other side.”
“Or not, which is why we’re stuck waiting here,” Nadir pointed out.
“Well, yeah, but—”
“There are a lot of things that I could say,” Bolin declared. “About you, about your leadership or the lack thereof, about the fact that the only reason you’re team leader is because you’re a famous fighter … I don’t like you, and I’m not ashamed to say so. I’ve got no reason to be ashamed to say so. But I’m also a Mistralian and a Haven student, the latest of three generations of Horis to attend Haven Academy, and I want our kingdom and our school to do well in this tournament. And, with Pyrrha Nikos fighting for Beacon, I think you’re the best chance for Haven to win glory alongside Mistral. And so … use me as you will; I’m at your service.”
Arslan stared up at him for a moment, silent; surprise had temporarily left her silenced. She hadn’t expected him to say that … probably because she hadn’t made much of an effort to get to know him.
You know he’s got a point about the team leader thing.
“I’ll fight to be worthy of your confidence,” she muttered. “As for using you … what I need from the three of you are your best efforts and time. Maybe I can take on all four members of this team at once, but four on one is … tricky.” That was an understatement, at least against skilled opponents. She’d done it — once — at Ochre Gorgoneion’s wedding feast, and it had been a tough fight; only Pyrrha had ever pushed her harder. If she could avoid it, she would. “If you can take any of them out, then great; if not, then just hold them down, chip away at their aura a little bit, and I’ll take care of the rest piece by piece.”
“Where do you plan to start?” asked Reese.
Arslan considered that. Team CFVY. Where to start? Where to start? “The big guy,” she said, “Yatsuhashi.”
If her guess was right, the rest of the team would try and use him as the anvil on which their hammer would break Arslan and the rest of Team ABRN, but Arslan had fought big guys before, and on his own, there was a good chance that he’d be unable to match her speed. She’d take him out before any of his teammates could drive her onto his sword. After that … the faunus girl, Velvet; people whom Arslan had talked to about her said that she hid her weapon, nobody knew what it was, while in combat, she was said to be … from what she’d heard, it was as if the girl had a hundred different styles and none at all. She was their trump card.
Arslan would go for her next.
Reese nodded. “Yatsuhashi, got it. The big guy. Okay, we’ll leave him to you to begin with. Right, fellas?”
Bolin nodded. “If that’s how you want to play it.”
Nadir said nothing.
“Nadir?” Reese asked.
Nadir shrugged.
“Nadir,” Bolin said sharply. “This is about Haven and about Mistral, not about us.”
Nadir glanced at him. “You sound like an Atlesian.”
“I sound like a patriot — and a proud Haven student — which I am,” Bolin replied. “This tournament is bigger than our egos.”
Arslan felt as though his words were needles pricking at her, and not in a pleasant acupuncture sort of way, either. “Listen, I … I know that I haven’t been a very good team leader, and while I say that part of that is because you wound me up … I know that part of it was also because I was just here for the tournament, and I didn’t really care about being a leader, or a huntress, or a good student, or anything like that. But I’ll do better next year. I understand better now; I want to be a huntress.”
“A legendary huntress,” Reese observed.
“Well, duh!” Arslan said. “If you’re going to do something, you might as well try and be famous doing it.”
Bolin snorted. “We’ll see,” he said. “But for now, we’ll cover you as best we can.”
“Will Team Coffee and Team Auburn please make their way out onto the arena to start the match,” Doctor Oobleck phrased it as a demand, not a request.
Arslan cricked her neck to one side. “Looks like this is it. Are we ready?”
“As we’ll ever be,” Nadir murmured.
“Okay then,” Arslan said, and strode out of the darkness and into the light.
Into the light, into the sight, into the view of the cameras. Arslan could see herself in close up on the big screens that were visible from all angles in the coliseum. She smiled for the cameras, she waved to them, she blew a kiss to them as she led Team Auburn out across the grey-white metal.
“Team Auburn of Haven!” Professor Port boomed, but his voice barely carried over the applause and the cheering, the exultant sounds of the crowd that had redoubled when Arslan made her appearance.
I am gonna miss this, Arslan thought as she turned on her toe to face the home crowd behind her, raising her hands in the air to prompt even more and louder cheering, a renewed burst of singing, as though she were a conductor instructing the orchestra to give it a bit more of the old fortissimo.
This … it might not strictly be real, it might not be a substitute for love or anything like that, it might be temporary and would disappear quickly enough, but … but it was still pretty cool.
Maybe I can still fight the odd fight here and there, do just the Synoikia or the Theseia, or the Eleusinoi. Or just do weddings and the like.
No, no, that wouldn’t really be in the spirit of it, would it?
Or would it? Being a huntress is a job at the end of the day, and if I make money from the odd fight here and there, then I can afford to take jobs that I wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise.
That sounds like an excuse.
I can think about all of this later. For now, I need to keep my head in the game.
“And Team Coffee of Beacon!” Professor Port declared as Arslan’s opponents made their way out from the opposite tunnel. People were cheering for them too, but Arslan flattered herself that they weren’t getting so many cheers as Team ABRN was.
The two teams met in the centre of the arena, facing off against one another. The faces of Team CFVY were displayed on the big board on their side of the battlefield, displaying the faces to go alongside the names in case anyone didn’t know.
Coco Adel: the leader of the team, a girl who was about as tall as P-money, with a pale complexion and sunglasses that hid her eyes from view. A black beret sat on her head but didn’t hide the brown hair that was hanging down around her head in a bob cut. She wore black pants and a brown sweater that looked too big at the arms and too small at the waist — as in, Arslan could see her waistline — with a black corset on the outside that Arslan … Arslan was no expert, but she was pretty sure that Coco was wearing it wrong if you could see the seam, which hadn’t been done up properly, from the front. A black scarf enveloped her neck, and a half-dozen or so black chains must have been dangling from there too, although Arslan could only see them when they dropped below the scarf. She had a large, boxy handbag in one hand, and she was swinging it lightly back and forth.
Fox Alistair was as tall as his team leader, a dark-skinned young man with a shock of red hair that was untidy-looking in that very specific way that takes a lot of effort to achieve each morning — Arslan knew that because she’d gone through a hair gel phase herself when she was about thirteen-fourteen, spending time sculpting it every morning to get exactly the look that she wanted; the trouble was the hair gel wreaked havoc on her skin, and she’d eventually realised that whatever coolness she was accruing with great hair, she was losing again thanks to truly terrible acne. Fox was wearing a pair of black pants, just like his leader, and an orange-red sleeveless vest that left his muscular, heavily scarred arms visible to view down to his lower forearms, which were covered by the black fingerless gloves that covered his hands. Around his wrists, he wore a pair of massive blades, sweeping backwards like wings until the point was higher than his shoulders, almost level with his pale, white, sightless eyes.
Velvet Scarlatina looked to be very tall, but mostly because of her rabbit ears sticking up out of the top of her head, which didn’t really count in Arslan’s opinion; without them, she reckoned that she, Arslan, was a bit taller. Velvet was slightly built, and the layers that she was wearing weren’t doing much to change that. She was wearing, or at least Arslan thought she was wearing, a black bodysuit, with brown pants and a muddy brown top over it, with a gap between them at her waist, and gilded, segmented pauldrons on her shoulders and gilded bracers on her wrists. High black boots, very high boots, rose as far as her thighs and her navel, so that very little of her pants could be seen. Her hair was a brown a little darker than her outfit and fell down straight past her waist. Arslan couldn’t see her weapon, but she was wearing a box at the back of her waist, which probably had the weapon in it; she was just waiting to get it out.
Yatsuhashi Daichi was a giant of a man, eight or maybe nine feet tall, absolutely ridiculous, and heavily built to boot with a bull neck and arms like tree trunks. He shaved his dark hair close to the top of his head, and his eyes were dark and a little bit beady. He wore a green robe, on only one shoulder a lot like Arslan herself, over a black muscle shirt, with brown pants and black boots partly covered by grey iron greaves over his legs. He wore chunky olive green vambraces over his wrists and a nice looking manica, of the same colour but tinged with darker green edges, covering his left shoulder and most of his arm with only a slight gap between that and the vambrace. In his right hand, he held a sword that, while it was not quite as big as he was, was quite big enough, a thick, bronze-coloured blade that was broader at the base than the arm of its wielder and curved towards the tip, so that Arslan it almost looked less like a sword and more like the jawbone of some ancient creature like you might see in the Mistral Museum, a sea monster or a dragon or something.
He held it in one hand at the moment, but Arslan expected him to switch to using it two-handed when the battle began in earnest.
“So,” Coco said, “I hear that one of you is some bigshot tournament fighter back in Mistral.”
Arslan wondered if she was being baited by being implied to be not that famous. But, the truth was, that she was really only Mistral-famous. You had to win the Mistral Tournament like Pyrrha to escape from Mistralian fame and become world famous.
“Yeah,” she said, “that’s me, I guess.”
A smirk flashed across Coco’s face. “But you decided to come here and see some real fighting, huh? Don’t worry, kid; we’ll take you to school.”
Arslan didn’t reply. There was no point. She was going to reply with her fists soon enough.
The rings that brought up the different biomes that would divide the arena began to spin around and around. Arslan didn’t see the point of them really; you didn’t need rocks or fake mountains or a lake in the middle to enjoy the ancient art of combat — okay, yes, the Colosseum in Mistral could be flooded, but still — in fact, Arslan would go so far as to say that they were an active detriment; gimmicks like that took away from the essence of the sport, the purity of the combat.
And besides, cameras or not, surely it was better when the audience could see everything?
And it wasn’t as if they’d had the ability to create all these fancy environments eighty years ago when the tournament started, so you couldn’t appeal to its history or anything. No, someone too clever by half — an Atlesian, probably — had sat down and thought that the thing that combat as a sport really, really needed was a forest coming out of the floor.
Idiots.
Still, they were here now, and Arslan was stuck with it the same as anyone else; nobody was listening to her opinion that all an arena needed was a floor to fight on. And so the images spun around and around before settling upon an icy biome for Team CFVY’s half of the arena and a fiery one behind Team ABRN.
An ice shelf, mostly flat but littered here and there by great icy stalactites rising up out of the ground, spikes protruding out of them, bounded by a semicircular wall of ice that curled in on itself like a skating track, rose out of the floor behind Team CFVY.
Behind Team ABRN, the plain metal floor was replaced by something that looked like smouldering lava, if probably not so dangerous to touch; it also had things sticking up out of the ground, although Arslan wasn’t so sure what they were supposed to be.
It didn’t really matter. She didn’t intend to go back.
Arslan cracked her knuckles.
“Three!” Professor Port called out, his voice echoing across the arena.
Yatsuhashi gripped his sword in two hands, just as Arslan had expected he would.
“Two!” Doctor Oobleck cried.
The members of Team CFVY settled into fighting stances, ready to go.
Arslan kept her eyes on Yatsuhashi.
“One!” Professor Port yelled. “Begin!”
Arslan sprang at her opponent like a lion, racing forward, both hands clenched into fists, back hunched to put her low to the ground. She could just about hear the sound of Reese’s pulse pistols going off, the rattle of Nadir’s rifle, and she trusted her teammates to at least buy her a little time before her opponents started ganging up on her.
For now, her focus was Yatsuhashi.
He seemed to know it, because he kept his eyes on her just as she raced towards him. He didn’t advance to meet her, but as she closed the distance between them, he raised that massive jawbone of a sword of his and slashed at her in a great swinging stroke like he was harvesting the barley in the fields or something, a stroke that swung across all the space in front of him.
Arslan leapt over the sword as it swung at her, jumping over it as though it was a skipping rope being swung by her friends, letting the enormous blade pass harmlessly underneath her before she landed back on the ground.
Yatsuhashi reversed his stroke, swinging his sword again, this time with the flat of the blade leading the way because he didn’t have time — or didn’t want to take the time — to turn it around. Obviously, he knew it would still hurt if he smacked Arslan with it. Either way, he swung the blade back, and Arslan jumped over the sword again, but this time, as the sword passed underneath her, she laid one foot down upon the swinging blade and kicked off it, off and upwards and flying straight for Yatsuhashi’s face.
His mouth widened in an O of surprise as Arslan shot towards him. He tried to bring up his sword, but the blade was moving too slowly compared to her. He let go of his sword with one hand and brought up one meaty hand to shield his face.
Arslan reached out and grabbed two of his fingers, wrapping one hand around them — they were big and meaty enough — and using them to swing herself up, over the hand that tried to grab her, so that she could bring her foot straight down onto the top of his head like a ton of bricks.
Yatsuhashi groaned as his head bent forwards. Arslan landed on the ground in front of him, inside his guard, and immediately began to throw punch after punch, a furious flurry of blows all aimed at his gut for the simple reason that she couldn’t really reach much higher than that on this tree of a man, but that didn’t matter because she was hitting him, knocking his aura down, driving him backwards onto the ice.
He swung blindly for her, not with his sword but with his free arm, flailing with it to drive her off. Arslan ducked beneath his swinging arm, rolling along the metal at the centre of the arena, rolling up into a low crouch.
As she rolled, one hand reached up for her necklace of fire dust crystals, ripping one away and igniting it with a touch of her aura, turning the crystal into a fireball that she flung at Yatushashi.
He blocked the fireball with his sword, but although the fire dissipated harmlessly, the explosion blinded him for a second as Arslan closed the distance between them once again.
She had another fire dust crystal clasped between her fingers.
Yatsuhashi didn’t slash at her again; rather, as Arslan charged, he raised his sword and brought it straight down towards her. Arslan rolled, feeling the vibration of the blade hitting the ground.
She came up and threw another fireball at him before he could bring the sword up again.
The fireball hit him square in the chest; he hadn’t been able to defend himself in time. The blast made him recoil backwards, onto the ice.
Arslan leapt at him. Yatsuhashi swung his sword, but Arslan rolled beneath it, rolling sideways, skittering around the bigger man until she flanked him. She closed from the side instead of the front. He skidded on the ice trying to turn to face her, which was when Arslan lashed out with a sweeping kick that cut his trunk legs out from under him.
Yatsuhashi flailed as he fell. Arslan jumped up and punched him square in the chest just to drive him home. He landed on his back on the ice with an almighty crash that seemed to shake the whole arena. Arslan raised his fist to hit him again.
Yatsuhashi locked eyes with her.
And Arslan … what was she … huh, hadn’t she just been about to—?
Yatsuhashi reached for her with one meaty hand. Arslan avoided his grasp upon instinct, years of training and experience kicking in to make her feet move on their own as she danced out of his grasp.
Vytal Festival. First Round. Big Fight. Enemy.
Don’t exactly remember how I got there; I thought I was just about to…
Does his semblance take my memories away?
In spite of my aura?
Okay, that was … that was scary, that was what that was. Scary and unnatural. What kind of a monster had a semblance like that? Think what you could do with a semblance like that. You could make it so that Arslan wasn’t Arslan any more, stripped of all her memories, of all the things that made her who she was.
I’ve got to take this guy out before he does it again.
Yatsuhashi was getting to his feet now, but slowly; that was his problem: he was too slow, at least too slow for her.
Arslan didn’t give him the chance to get up. She threw herself at him, skidding on the ice a little bit, but she got there before he was on his feet, before had the chance to use his semblance on her again. She kicked him in the face, knocking him straight back onto his back where he started, and then she stood on his chest and kicked off the ice, using Yatsuhashi like a sled as he slid across the ice, Arslan squatting on top of him, using her foot kick this way or that, to send him dodging the icy stalactites and keep sliding towards the wall of ice that marked the limits of the battlefield.
She hit him for good measure a couple of times in case he got any ideas.
Arslan kicked off the ice again and again, pushing her human sled faster and faster as they approached the ice wall, leaping off him at the last moment, sliding herself across the ice but still able to watch Yatsuhashi hit the wall hard enough to smash clean through it and drop out of the arena and out of sight.
“A double elimination!” Doctor Oobleck proclaimed. “Yatsuhashi Daichi has been ejected from the arena, and his aura has dropped below the permitted level!”
“Unfortunately, it’s not all plain sailing for Team Auburn,” Professor Port added. “Nadir Shiko has just been eliminated by aura depletion. The two teams are neck and— oh, no, Reese Chloris has also been eliminated! Team Auburn is down two members while Team Coffee has only lost one!”
It won’t stay that way for too long, Arslan thought, as a glance at the board confirmed that — of course — the two teachers were correct. She was two people down; only Bolin remained beside her.
On the plus side, all of the remaining members of Team CFVY had lost some of their aura, if not always very much.
Arslan turned to face her next opponents.
Bolin was still battling it out against Fox Alistair, but Coco Adel and Velvet Scarlatina both seemed now to be focused upon Arslan. Certainly, they were both turning in her direction.
Coco’s purse had unfolded into a rotary machine gun of black and yellow; the six barrels began to turn a split second before she opened fire.
Arslan ran, staying one step ahead of the stream of fire that Coco was throwing in her direction in spite of the way her slippers kept slipping and skidding upon the ice. Coco strafed sideways, tracking Arslan, her rounds shredding the icicle stalagmites and the ice wall surrounding their half of the arena.
But she wasn’t hitting Arslan yet, and Velvet didn’t appear to be doing anything.
No sooner had Arslan thought that then another rotary machine gun appeared in her arms, identical to Coco’s, except that instead of being solid metal and plastic, this one was insubstantial, made of hardlight dust.
But when Velvet opened fire, she started shredding the scenery just like Coco, so obviously, the damage that it did was real enough.
Velvet was firing in front of Arslan and working her way towards her from the other side, to trap her between their fires and leave her with nowhere to run.
Except that she could still run forwards, and she did just that, rushing towards the edge of the ice field and back towards the centre of the battlefield. Coco kept trailing after Arslan with her fire, while Velvet ceased firing — until she started firing in front of Arslan to cut her off that way. So Arslan changed direction to run towards her instead. Velvet tried to track her, but Arslan could move herself faster than either Coco or Velvet could move their weapons, and she was able to keep herself always one step ahead, just one step ahead all the time, and while they demolished the landscape — good, Arslan preferred to fight on the flat ground — they didn’t ever manage to hit her.
Something that they both recognised, as Coco’s machine gun collapsed back into that thick, boxy purse, while Velvet’s weapon disappeared into nothing at all.
They both charged at her before Arslan was out of the ice which crunched beneath their feet as they rushed at her.
Velvet reached her first; she was closer and faster than Coco, throwing a flurry of fast punches that Arslan had to work to dodge. As she punched, two weapons formed out of light upon her arms: the gauntlets that the Xiao Long girl used.
Her weapon is something in that box that lets her copy other people’s weapons, huh? Arslan thought as she dodged both the punches and the fire spitting from the hardlight gauntlets.
No, no, it wasn’t just the weapons, Arslan realised as she dodged the punches and the shots equally, retreating in the face of Velvet’s advance. It wasn’t just Xiao Long’s weapons, it was her fighting style as well; she’d seen the blonde girl fight in combat class a few times, and Velvet was standing like her and throwing punches like her as well.
Arslan backflipped twice, putting a little distance between herself and Velvet. Velvet followed, throwing out her fists one after the other. Arslan let her come as she produced her dagger, Nemean Claw, out of her wrist, attached to a rope wrapped around her hand. Velvet attacked. Arslan backflipped again, throwing Nemean Claw as she did so. Knife and rope wrapped around Velvet’s leg, and Arslan pulled on the rope, yanking Velvet off balance, off her feet, and upwards to where Arslan kicked her square in the chest to send her flying.
Velvet was thrown backwards, but before Arslan could follow up, Coco charged in, purse drawn back, swinging it like a brick aimed at Arslan’s head.
Arslan took the blow on her left forearm — she could feel her aura draining from the strength of the blow, feel the force of it running through her arm, feel her arm tremble at Coco’s strength — while with her right arm, she hit Coco in the face, knocking her sunglasses off — although Arslan couldn’t see her eyes as she was thrown away.
Arslan followed up on her — yeah, she’d intended to deal with Velvet first, but that had assumed that her own team would last a little longer and she wouldn’t be tag-teamed. In the circumstances, getting rid of Coco while she could was a good option.
Plus, having worked out Velvet’s secret, she didn’t seem quite so dangerous.
Arslan bore down on Coco like a lion upon the buffalo. Coco was quicker on her feet than Yatsuhashi had been; she’d gotten up again by the time that Arslan reached her.
She let her weapon hang off her shoulder, facing Arslan with her bare fists, curled up and raised. She must have thought that her purse was too heavy and slow and she stood a better chance unarmed.
Arslan threw a punch, then another; Coco blocked them both with her forearms. Arslan kicked her in the gut, and that, Coco did not block as Arslan knocked her onto the fiery half of the battlefield, Team ABRN’s side.
Arslan was hit by something on the side of the head that knocked her to the ground. She rolled upright just in time to see a hardlight copy of Akoúo̱ soar back onto Velvet’s arm.
Velvet had had a hardlight Miló, in spear form, in her other hand, and now, she was standing like Pyrrha, even standing on her toes in the absence of high heels, looking as if she expected a dramatic wind to blow through her hair and make the sash she wasn’t wearing fly out beside her like a flag.
Oh no, you didn’t, Arslan thought, because that was just … that was just insulting. That was salt in the wound, that was. Utterly and completely … no respect at all. None at all. Just … seriously?
You think that just because P-money has beaten me every time that you can copy her weapons and you’re going to copy her fighting style and you’ll beat me too?
Let me tell you something, Missy, it’ll take a lot more than copied weapons and a copied fighting style to take me down!
Velvet might not be wearing Pyrrha’s sash, but she was definitely showing a red rag to the golden lion.
Arslan snorted out of her nostrils. Some things were just disrespectful, plain and simple, and this was rubbing salt in the wound.
She charged towards Velvet. Velvet charged towards her, arms pumping, long brown hair flying out behind her like a—
Stop it.
It was annoying how uncanny it was.
They came together like two lions clashing for control of the territory and all the lionesses who lived there, and as they made their final approach, Velvet whirled upon her toes, lashing out with her shield at head height, while whipping her spear around at ankle level so that Arslan could neither duck beneath one nor leap over the other but had no choice but to backflip clear and out of the way. Velvet thrust the fake Miló for Arslan’s chest; Arslan parried with Nemean Claw, knocking the spear away before throwing a punch that Velvet took upon the false Akoúo̱. Arslan kicked, but Velvet shuffled back out of the way before driving Arslan back with another thrust of the fake Miló.
Arslan ripped another fire dust crystal off her necklace, ignited it with aura, and threw the ensuing fireball at Velvet.
Velvet charged through the fireball as Pyrrha would have done, taking the blast upon her shield as she rushed forwards, the false Miló thrusting forwards.
Arslan fell back. Getting to grips with Pyrrha was always part of the problem; she had reach on Arslan with her weapons, and she was too fast for Arslan to get around her at all.
Let’s see if you can copy her speed as well as her fighting style.
Arslan sprang to the side, trying to get around Velvet’s flank and past her guard before she could respond, but Velvet was able to turn in time, presenting the fake Miló and Akoúo̱ towards her, shield and spear ever ready.
She wasn’t as fast as Pyrrha — at least, Arslan didn’t think so — but she was fast enough.
Fast enough for that, anyway.
But not quite as fast as Pyrrha, and she didn’t seem to be able to transform her false Miló at all; it was stuck as a spear.
“Bolin Hori has just been eliminated!” Doctor Oobleck declared. “Arslan Altan is now the only member of Team Auburn left standing! Can she pull off an astonishing upset?”
Just you watch, Doctor, Arslan thought, even as she could see Coco and Fox starting to circle around her like wolves. They meant to attack her all at once and bring her down.
Arslan took a moment, while they got themselves into position, and in that moment, she found that she could see a way forward.
She turned her back on Velvet and her Pyrrha cosplay and charged towards Coco.
Coco didn’t fire, probably worried about hitting either of her teammates; she waited. Arslan expected that she thought that if she could just hold Arslan off for a second, then her teammates would be along to back her up. Arslan could already hear them chasing after her.
But, you know, the problem with using Pyrrha’s weapons and Pyrrha’s fighting style is that I can take a pretty good guess what P-money would do in a situation like this.
Arslan dived for the ground, throwing out her hands and turning her dive into a roll along the ice as the false Akoúo̱ flew over her head and — without Pyrrha’s semblance to redirect it anywhere — hit Coco Adel square in the face, knocking her flat onto her back and taking her aura down into the red.
“Coco Adel has been eliminated by friendly fire!” Professor Port boomed. “What an unfortunate turn of events for Team Coffee!”
Velvet gasped. “Coco! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”
Her apologies were cut off as Arslan went for her. Velvet gripped the fake Miló in two hands, whirling it almost like a staff, passing it from hand to hand in front of her, using it to block all of Arslan’s furious punches. Arslan put her on the backfoot for a second, but then she came back at her, spear whirling, lashing out with it at Arslan’s feet and at her face. Velvet’s whole body whirled, hair flying around her.
And Arslan did something that she never would have dared to do with Pyrrha and reached out for Velvet’s long, flying hair and grabbed hold of it.
Pyrrha would have punished her for that; Arslan was halfway convinced that was why she grew it so long, as a challenge: go on, try it, grab my hair, see what happens.
But Velvet wasn’t Pyrrha; she was fast, but she wasn’t fast enough to respond before Arslan had yanked her off her feet off her feet by her hair, and then it was Arslan’s turn to whirl around and hurl Velvet like a hammer in the hammer throw straight for Fox Alistair.
He caught her, taking less damage to his aura than he would have done if he’d let her hit him, but unfortunately for him, that left his hands full as Arslan leapt through the air after her missile to fall upon them both.
With her left hand, she punched Velvet in the gut, knocking her back against Fox’s chest, while with her right, she hit Fox himself, making him half-double over and drop Velvet on the ground at Arslan’s feet. Arslan stepped over her, throwing more punches — one, two, three — at Fox’s face to drive him back.
Velvet leapt upright behind her. Arslan turned as fast as a whipcrack and kicked her hard in the face, taking her aura down into the red.
“Velvet Scarlatina has been eliminated!” Doctor Oobleck proclaimed. “What a reversal of fortune in just a few moments!”
Fox rushed her. Arslan didn’t know what he was hoping to achieve with those awkward blades, but it was like he was throwing his punches short so that the blades would get her instead.
But Bolin had already done most of the work on his aura, and so Arslan fell back, pulling two more fire dust crystals from her necklace, igniting them, and throwing them at him, one after the other.
He held up his arms to protect his face, but she took his aura into the red regardless.
“Fox Alistair, the last member of Team Coffee, has been eliminated!” Professor Port said as the cheers from the Haven section of the crowd rose up like an immense tidal wave sweeping towards the shore. “Team Auburn wins the match!”
“Yeah! That’s right!” Arslan yelled, raising both hands in triumph. “Yeah! And stay tuned, because I promise, there is so much more to come!”
Swift Foot beamed from ear to ear as she leaned forwards in her seat.
“Our gladiators are the pride of Mistral,” she said. “Can it be doubted?”
“No,” Terri-Belle replied, in a voice that was almost a grunt. “It’s just a pity,” she added, as she got to her feet, “that the same cannot be said of our huntsmen and huntresses.”
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I like that Velvet got a good showing at least.
I do like how Velvet used the weapons of the two best first-year fighters at Beacon: Yang, and Pyrrha
Arslan does have a point: some fighters incorporate their semblance (or magic in Sunset's case) into their fighting style.
Velvet would be hard-pressed to copy Sunset, as at best, she could copy Sol Invictus or Soteria, but not Sunset's magic
Well it was nice to see Arslan kick some ass. She really did make Coco eat her words.
Well of course a PvP Specialist would beat a PvE specialist in a tournament.
Personally, I think the lucky break Arslan needed to turn things around was, ironically, Velvet mimicking Pyrrha. Arslan is very familiar with Pyrrha's fighting style so she used that to take Coco out of the game, which in turn, wouldn't have worked if the rest of her team hadn't lowered the Aura levels of Coco, Velvet and Fox before that.
Once Coco was taken out, Arslan latched onto that chance and never let up. It also helped that Velvet's imitation of Pyrrha's weapons minus her Polarity Semblance and imitation!Milo stuck in spear form meant there are limits or holes to Velvet imitating Pyrrha's fighting style. Holes that Arslan exploited due to her previous experiences fighting Pyrrha and facing multiple other opponents with different weapons and fighting styles in previous fighting tournaments.
I think it's those little cracks and the rest of her team lowering the Aura levels of Velvet, Coco and Fox earlier leaving open opportunities for Arslan to exploit.
Marvelous, Arslan. Nothing less than marvelous.
I love that Velvet's asshole move (Copying Arslan's rival (cracked me tf up)) means she earned the disrespect of arslan grabbing her hair. Hilarious match all around