SAPR

by Scipio Smith

We're Only Bringing It More (New)

We’re Only Bringing It More

“Arslan!”

Arslan turned in the corridor — this one more brightly lit than the one immediately leading out of or into the battlefield itself — to see Pyrrha walking towards her, her sash trailing a little behind her as she advanced.

“P-money,” Arslan said, turning away from her teammates for a moment — with a slight gesture of her hand to indicate that she’d be back — to walk towards her.

The two met halfway down the pristine, metallic corridor, where the lights from above glinted on Pyrrha’s abundance of metal.

“Congratulations,” Pyrrha said, a bright smile upon her face. “You did well. You did very well. Today, I think that you are the pride of Mistral.”

If Arslan had had a paler complexion, she probably would have blushed; as it was, she let out a sort of embarrassed chuckle and scratched the back of her head with one hand. “Don’t say that yet; the day’s not over. Most importantly we haven’t had your match yet.”

“I doubt that I will be eliminating all four members of the opposing team by myself,” Pyrrha pointed out.

“Probably not, but…” Arslan stopped short of saying that that was because Pyrrha had better teammates than she did, “that’s no reflection on you.”

“No,” Pyrrha agreed. “But it does mean that in raw achievement, you are unlikely to be matched.” She paused. “You did very well. In particular … you did very well against … well, me, for want of a better word.” Her smile became a little mischievous. “Should I wonder if you’ve been holding back against me all these years?”

Arslan’s eyes narrowed. “If I didn’t know you were joking, I’d be very upset with you right now,” she said. “I have never held back against you in my life.” She scowled for a moment. “She wasn’t you. She moved like you, she had copies of your weapons, but she wasn’t you. She didn’t have your speed, for a start, and she didn’t have … there’s only one of each of us, P-money, in all of Remnant and beyond; we’re unique and irreplaceable, and no semblance can change that.”

“Mmm,” Pyrrha murmured, sounding a little bit as though she didn’t believe Arslan, for whatever reason. “If you say so.”

“I do say so,” Arslan replied. “I just did.”

“Nevertheless, I…” Pyrrha trailed before saying what she meant, or what she wanted to say. Instead, she said, “I suppose your parents will be very pleased.”

“My parents don’t watch my matches,” Arslan said.

“Really?” Pyrrha asked.

Arslan nodded. “My mom says they’re too tense. Which is the same reason she doesn’t watch pretty much any dramas on TV these days, so I know it’s nothing personal.”

“And your father?”

“He doesn’t want to make Mom watch, and he doesn’t want to watch it without her,” Arslan said.

“I … see,” Pyrrha murmured. “How does that—?”

“It’s fine,” Arslan said. “I know that they support me, or that they would support me if they could bring themselves to actually watch, and they’re always pleased to find out that I won after the fact — or to console me if I didn’t. I don’t need them to be glued to the TV whenever I’m on it to know that they love me; they showed me that by taking care of me all my life.”

Pyrrha chuckled. “Yes, yes, you’re right, of course. Are you planning to stay and watch the matches or head down to enjoy the fairgrounds?”

“I’m not really interested in Weiss Schnee,” Arslan said. “I’m going to head down. You?”

“Yes,” Pyrrha said. “I thought about giving it a miss, but then … Weiss challenged me, she wishes to meet in the one on one rounds, and while that may or may not happen, I feel it would be bad form not to watch her fight.”

“Yes, that would be a bit of an insult, to act as though you don’t even need to see how she fights.”

“I’ve seen how she fights,” Pyrrha pointed out. “But yes, the circumstances … honour demands it. And I have little doubt that she will put on a good show.”

---

Rainbow sat down with a large tub of popcorn in her hands. Pinkie, Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy weren’t joining them for this match; it was just her and Blake at the moment, with Team SAPR to join them later on — even Jaune, probably because the other three members of his team were all going to be here, which had surprised Rainbow a little bit — and so they didn’t have to go scrambling round for seats with the rest of the crowds; they could take their seats in the places at the front reserved exclusively for contenders. The seats were a little bigger and more comfortable than those behind them, which seemed a little bit of a waste, considering that they weren’t going to be used that often, but at the same time, she wasn’t going to complain too hard because they were very comfortable.

Rainbow held her popcorn tub out towards Blake. “Feel free to take any of this, by the way; I got it for both of us.”

“Thanks,” Blake murmured without looking at Rainbow Dash — but she reached out and plucked a handful of popcorn from out of the tub.

Rainbow grinned and took a couple of pieces of popcorn herself, holding them between her fingers. “I hope this is more like the stuff you get in the movie theatres than the stuff you get in the store,” she said.

“It doesn’t taste great either way,” Blake said, as she put some into her mouth. “But it is … moreish, and strangely satisfying in a sense.”

“Yeah, but the movie theatre quality stuff does taste — or feel, maybe — a lot better,” Rainbow said. She popped the corns she was holding into her mouth, chewing the soft, very chewy, popcorn in her mouth. “Which this is. Score!” She paused a moment. “Did you ask Sun to join you for this?”

“No,” Blake said. “No, I didn’t think that would be right. It sounded as though he was really upset by—”

“Weiss had nothing to do with that,” Rainbow said. “He gets that, right?”

“Yes,” Blake said. “At least, I think.”

Rainbow’s eyes narrowed. “You think?”

“We haven’t talked about Weiss,” Blake pointed out.

“Fair enough, but…” Rainbow paused a moment. “He’s not going to do anything stupid, is he?”

Blake glanced at her. “Sun isn’t going to lash out at Weiss, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“You’re the one who told me that he was upset.”

“He was upset, but you know Sun; he’s not malicious, he doesn’t hold grudges,” Blake said. “What he found out, this view of a world that was different than he’d imagined … it inspired him to do the right thing; it didn’t fill him with a need for vengeance. I think … I think that’s the difference between Sun and Adam. In the end, what Adam wanted most was revenge for the wrongs that had already been committed; Sun wants to try and stop more wrongs from being done, as far as it’s in his power to do.”

Rainbow kept her lips closed, but some trace of a kind of giggling sound slipped out anyway.

Blake turned her head towards her. “What?”

“Nothing,” Rainbow said.

Blake regarded her flatly. “What?”

“Nothing!” Rainbow insisted. “I just think it’s really cute, you know, the way that you’re all hyping up your boyfriend. It’s … cute. A little unexpected, but cute.”

“'Unexpected'?”

“Well…” Rainbow squirmed a little in her seat. “You know. You weren’t exactly—”

“Yeah,” Blake murmured. “I know. But now … I’m doing better by him. That … that’s all there is to it, really. Now that he’s closing the distance between us, I can … see him better.”

“Awww.”

“You sound like my mother,” Blake muttered.

Rainbow snorted. “I can appreciate romance as much as the next girl.”

“Hello again,” Pyrrha said as she led Team SAPR to join them.

“Okay, maybe not the next girl, but the one behind her for sure,” Rainbow said. “Hey, everyone. I wasn’t sure that you were going to join us.”

“We weren’t sure that we were going to join you,” Jaune replied as the four members of the team sat down next to Rainbow.

“Yeah?” Rainbow asked. “Then why did you?”

“A conversation with Weiss on the rooftop,” Pyrrha said. “A reminder of how seriously she’s taking all of this. It would have felt wrong not to watch.”

“Yeah, that’s about the size of it,” Rainbow said. “After all the ways that she helped us in Low Town and in Atlas, it would have been just ungrateful to have let her fight the fight all by herself.”

“How do you think they’ll do?” asked Jaune.

“They’ll win,” Sunset said.

“Weiss certainly seemed confident enough,” Pyrrha added. “Or at least, she felt that she had sufficient grounds to present confidence.”

“She’s got good luck, going up against a Vacuo team,” Rainbow declared. “All— most Vacuans are kind of … full of crap. Ooh, ooh, hard places breed hard people, we’re so tough, ooh, give me a break. They’re full of hot air.”

“It can be true,” Blake said. “I learned how to fight on the road, moving around outside the kingdoms.”

“You learned how to fight because you were brought up by terrorists,” Rainbow said. “You could have been raised in a White Fang base in the middle of Vale and you’d still know how to fight; you didn’t need to grow up sucking on sand to do it. All of that stuff the Vacuans come out with is just sour grapes; they’re not as rich as us, they’re not as advanced as us, so they try and cover up their jealousy by acting like their disadvantages make them better than us. Which it doesn’t. Leave aside our numbers, all our tech, everything else, man for man, we’re still better than they are, because we’re better trained without all of this warrior nonsense filling our heads.” She glanced at Pyrrha. “No offence.”

“None taken,” Pyrrha murmured.

“They do have some reason to be upset,” Blake said softly. “Atlas exploited Vacuo’s natural resources at great cost to the environment and continues to do so today on a smaller scale, which is only a smaller scale because so much was extracted out of Vacuo before the Great War.”

Rainbow was quiet for a moment. “That … is true,” she admitted. “We haven’t always been the nice guys, or the good guys. But Atlas today isn’t Mantle then, you know that, and we could help them if they weren’t so proud. Atlesian technology might be able to help … mitigate some of the damage that Mantle caused way back when.”

“Maybe it could,” Blake said. “But … when people blame you for something … it can be hard to persuade them to let you fix the problem that you caused. I think that’s something we’ll probably both run up against in years to come, in all kinds of ways.”

Rainbow sighed. “You’re a real ray of sunshine sometimes, Blake,” she said. “Anyway, on the question of who is going to win, my point stands: Team Wisteria is going to clean up, and you’ll see it with your own eyes soon enough.”

---

"Are you sure that you two don't want to catch a skybus up to the arena and watch the next match?" Skystar asked. "Because we could. I mean, we might miss the beginning, but we could get there."

"No," Silverstream said firmly. "No, why would we want to do that? To watch Cardin's match? Ugh."

"Why are we here in the first place?" Terramar asked.

"Because Skystar is the Amity Princess, so she has to be here, and we're here so that she doesn't have to be here by herself," Silverstream reminded him. To Skystar, she added, "But just because you have to be here doesn't mean that you have to watch every single match, especially not that guy."

"It's also Weiss' match," Skystar pointed out.

"Yeah, well," Silverstream murmured.

She hadn't … she didn't blame Weiss, exactly … she didn't blame Weiss at all for what had gone on — it seemed like even her father hadn't known, so why should she have known? — but at the same time … it left a sour taste in her mouth. It made it hard to enjoy Weiss' music, or even to appreciate her skill as a huntress, knowing that everything that Silverstream had thought was cool about her: the fashion, the musical talent, the prodigious skill at everything she turned her hand to, had all been paid for by the suffering — the real suffering, not just ordinary hard work but, like, slavery and stuff — of faunus like her and Terramar. Even though she hadn't known about it, it was still hard to look at her the same way.

She hadn't thrown away all of her merch or anything, because it wasn't as though it was all tainted, and maybe she wouldn't feel as strongly about the whole thing later on, but for now … they'd had pictures. They'd had pictures of the people at the camps that the Atlesians had liberated, and some of the people were so thin and sick looking, like they were about to drop dead at any moment, and the markings on their faces, the letters burned into their skin…

It was hard to forget that. There were times, at night, when she'd just finished brushing her teeth, and she went to turn off the bathroom light, and as the light went off, it was as though, in that split second, she could see reflected in the mirror her own face with the letters 'SDC' burned onto it.

It made it hard to cheer for Weiss Schnee, regardless of how little she had known about the whole thing or how little she could have done to stop it.

When you put that together with the fact that Cardin was on Weiss' team, and, well, it wasn't a hard decision to make.

"I'm not feeling Weiss or her match at the moment, especially not when she's fighting alongside that guy," she said. She smiled a little. "Unless you want to cheer for him to get his ass kicked."

Skystar looked as though she might laugh, but didn't. "No," she said. "No, I … I don't hate him like that, but … that doesn't mean that I want to watch him win either, let's do … something else, what do you guys want to do?"

"I'd like to give that shooting gallery a try," said Terramar.

"Okay then," Skystar declared. "Away we go!"

---

"Settle down kids, settle down," Lieutenant Martinez instructed, snapping her fingers as she sat up on the sofa. "This is the one fight that I really want to see."

"Doesn't seem like they've got the crowd on their side," Mike said as the kids quietened down and got out of the way, leaving their parents a better view — at least for the duration of this fight.

"They don't need the crowd on their side," Martinez said. She had never had the crowd on her side in all her years as a police officer, or at least, she'd never felt as though the public was really on her side. It hadn't stopped her yet. "They just need to be better than the other guys."

"And are they?" Mike asked. "Better than the other guys?"

"They'd better be," Martinez muttered. "Or I'll have some words for them once they're done."

---

"Prim! It's about to start!"

"I'll be through in a second," Primrose Seacole called back from out of the kitchen as she continued to squash up the banana slices with the back of a spoon until it was scarcely recognisable as banana at all, more a sort of yellow-ish mush of indeterminate origin, a little bit like baby food, only with less chemicals.

No, the chemicals were all in the Mistralian yoghurt that she poured on top of the mashed banana, half covering the yellow mush beneath a thick layer of white liquid. She stuck the spoon into the bowl of yoghurt and banana and carried it through into the living room.

Their new house in Canterlot was certainly a big improvement on the place where they'd lived in Low Town; in fact, Canterlot was a big improvement on Low Town in every way, except the people. Primrose missed cranky old Grampa Gruff running the store, for one, and Gallus trying to escape; but Canterlot seemed full of very nice people so far, and Prim didn't even know them that well yet.

And in every other way, Canterlot was a huge improvement: the weather was better, the air felt fresher, and their new home wasn't nearly as draughty as the old one had been.

The kitchen was larger, with every modern convenience, and the living room was bigger too, although they didn't really need the extra space. Certainly, they wouldn't once she and Lavender went off to school.

It worried Prim a little what would become of Grandma once that happened; there had already been some arrangements made: a man named Brian came round three times a day to help Grandma get up in the morning, make her dinner in the late afternoon, and wash her and put her to do bed in the evening, and all of that would be vital once her grandchildren weren't around, but … three visits a day wasn't a lot; there was a lot of time in between to be lonely.

Word on the street was that the SDC would soon be bringing out robots capable of cooking and cleaning and caring for people — but even if that was true, it couldn't keep you company the way a real person could.

That was for the future, however; for today, for right now, Grandma was sat enthroned in a huge armchair — a powered one with a little dust engine under the cushions to help her get up out of it — her rheumy eyes glued to the television. A little round robot was quietly vacuuming the carpet, dancing effortlessly around the legs of Grandma, Lavender, and even Prim as she walked in.

"Hey, Grandma," Prim said, kneeling down next to her as she placed the bowl of banana and yoghurt between her grandmother's hands. "I made you something." Unfortunately, Grandma's teeth weren't up to chewing very much, and certainly nothing with too much substance to it.

"Thank you, child," Grandma said.

Prim glanced at the television; it didn't look like there was anything happening, she couldn't see anything, but she didn't know what to expect. "Has it started?"

"No, no," Grandma said. "Miss Weiss hasn't led her team out onto the field yet. You've still got time."

Prim nodded. "Are you going to be okay eating that?"

"I'm gonna be fine," Grandma said, slightly irritably. "Just enjoy the fight."

Prim shook her head. "I wonder if she realises that you're cheering for her."

Or if she appreciates it if she does know.

---

I am the granddaughter of a hero.

I was not born guilty of my father’s crimes.

Weiss opened her eyes and put one hand upon the hilt of her rapier. “Is everyone ready?” she asked.

Cardin was visibly impatient, shifting from one foot to the other, rolling his shoulders. “I’m ready,” he said.

Russel was scratching his knuckles. “Ready.”

Flash was frozen, still, stiff, utterly without movement; beneath his gilded helmet, his face was pale. “I’m ready,” he whispered.

Weiss nodded. She paused, breathing in and out, her chest rising and falling. She didn’t know exactly how the crowd would react to them, but she doubted they would cheer too loudly.

It fell to her, then, to supply the encouragement that the crowd would not.

“I want you all to remember something,” Weiss said. “We’re here for us. Not for them, for us. Ignore the crowd, ignore everyone outside of this arena, ignore anyone who might be watching, ignore whatever they say. We’re here for us, and we’re the only ones who matter, us and our opponents.

“I’m not going to tell you that this battle will be easy. Our opponents are—”

“Windbags,” Cardin said.

“Are huntresses,” Weiss corrected him. “They are students of one of Remnant’s most prestigious academies, just like us. They have trained, just as we have. They are motivated, just as we are. They will fight skillfully to achieve victory.

“But we have skill of our own. We are more coordinated than they realise, more skilled than they realise, more motivated than they realise. And we have a plan.”

“We do?” asked Russel.

“When the fighting begins, I will provide support to the rest of you with my glyphs,” Weiss declared. “None of you have to worry about covering me — I can take care of myself — but in the initial stage, you will advance, and I will provide all necessary support to you. Once I see who is exposed to multiple opponents, I will come to your assistance as soon as the situation on the battlefield allows — rest assured, I won’t leave any of you hanging. I may not be leading you from the front, but you can all count on me.

“However we started out, we’ve shown that we can work together as a team. So long as we continue to do so, then we will win, I’m sure of it.”

Cardin nodded. “Sure we will.”

“We’re with you, Weiss,” Flash added.

Weiss smiled slightly at him. “I know.” She breathed in deeply, and then sighed. “Shall we go, then?”

“Better had, or they’ll start to wonder where we are,” Russel said, a grin flitting across his face.

Weiss nodded. “Remember: it doesn’t matter what they think of us. Heads held high.”

“It doesn’t matter what we think, but show them that we don’t care?” Russel asked.

“Of course,” Weiss replied. “I don’t see the contradiction.”

Russel hesitated for a moment. “Okay,” he said. “Sure, why not. Lead the way, boss.”

Weiss turned upon her toes and kept her hand upon the hilt of Myrtenaster as she led her team out of the tunnel and into the arena.

“Team Wisteria of Beacon!” Professor Port cried as they emerged out of the shadow and into the light, but as much as he tried to inject some enthusiasm into his voice, the professor was half-drowned out by the booing — most prominently from the Shade part of the audience, but not completely absent anywhere — that fell like rain down upon them.

Weiss ignored it. Weiss tried to ignore it. She wished that she could stop up her ears with cotton wool so that she could not hear them booing her, jeering at her, hurling down their curses and their aspersions at her.

I have done nothing wrong. You cannot bring me down.

I will not allow myself to be brought down by the likes of you.

Team WWSR reached the centre of the arena and lined up there, facing—

“Team Indigo of Shade!”

The names of the members of Team NDGO appeared on the board, with a portrait to go along with every name for reference.

Nebula Violette was taller than Weiss — not, unfortunately, that that was particularly difficult — but more or less of a height with all four of her teammates; her skin was lightly tanned, her eyes were olive, and her hair was indigo and brushed across her head onto the left side of her face in a rough wave descending downwards. She wore a modest metal breastplate, so small that it only covered her breasts, over a grey shirt with a high collar, and over her shirt, she wore a lilac jacket with the left sleeve rolled up to reveal the black leather vambrace she was wearing around her wrist. Upon her right shoulder, she wore a grey metal pauldron, her pants and boots alike were dark grey, and similarly, dark grey fingerless gloves enclosed both hands. She was holding it behind her back, making it just a little difficult to see, but it seemed that in her hands she held a crossbow of a dark grey, almost black metal.

Dew Gayl was the tallest member of her team, although there was not much in it, and like her leader, she had a light tan typical of the Vacuans; her eyes were a striking violet, and her hair was a light, sandy brown, worn long past her shoulder but swept entirely to the left side where it fell in rolling waves like sand dunes stretching far away. She was armoured in a bodysuit of golden scales that covered her neck and her entire left arm, but left her right arm bare, protected only by a bronze pauldron on her shoulder, fastened across her body by golden chains. Over her scales, she wore a forest green dress with shoulder straps and a sweetheart neckline, with a sash of lighter green tied around her waist. On her right arm, she wore a golden armband above the elbow, and various bracelets and bangles of gold stacked up on her right wrist, while on her left hand and wrist, she wore what was still called a ‘slave band’ a ring linked by chains to a bracelet around her arm. On her legs, she wore more scales, as armoured stockings this time, with brazen greaves upon her legs. In her hands, she gripped an ornate golden spear with a long shaft and a broad head and a green wind dust crystal set just below the head.

Gwen Darcy was the shortest member of Team NDGO, with that Vacuan tan about her skin and black hair which she wore in curls falling down behind her head to the nape of her neck. Her eyes were brown, but did not seem entirely so because of the purple eyeshadow that she was wearing. She wore a light grey top with a collar of deeper grey and sleeves of black lace that covered just below her elbows; over the top, she wore a black corset dress, the corset hugging her figure tightly up to the bust, while the knee-length skirt spread out in an A-line in all directions, with petticoats of a rich, deep purple just above visible beneath it. She wore a sash of purple around her waist, tied into a bow at the back of the waist, and from her sash, she hung, on either side, a pair of armoured tassets. Of weapons, Weiss could see no sign.

Octavia Ember was the fairest member of the opposing team, with olive eyes and brick red hair left long and loose, hanging down beyond and over her shoulders, with only a slight fringe swept to the right across her forehead. She wore a brown top with a tailed teal waistcoat over it and a short, sleeveless teal jacket over that. Her underskirt was creamy white and somewhat short — it didn’t reach her knees — the overskirt was brown and left a slit down the front to better view the underskirt. A pair of banded spaulders protected both her shoulders. Around her neck was clasped a sky-blue choker. She held a long knife in one hand, a slender bladed, crooked dagger with red markings like flames winding their way up the blade, growing narrower the closer it came to the point.

The two teams faced one another.

A smirk crossed Nebula’s face. “Weiss Schnee, huh? We are honoured, aren’t we, girls?”

Russel rolled his eyes. “Any chance we can skip the trash talk, loves? It’s all been done before, hasn’t it?”

“Do you want to be spared the cliches?” asked Dew. “Or spared your feelings?”

“I bet that you imagined this moment, didn’t you, Miss Schnee?” Nebula asked.

“My name is Weiss,” Weiss muttered stiffly.

“Yeah, but that’s not what your Atlas bootlickers call you, is it?” Nebula responded. “I’ve heard them: yes, Miss Schnee; no, Miss Schnee; can I sharpen your sword for you, Miss Schnee.” She spat on the ground next to her. “You’ve got them all wrapped around your little finger. Or you used to. Like I said, I bet you had this whole thing imagined in your mind, but you could never imagine that you could walk in here and the crowd would be on our side.”

“I bet you could hardly imagine the crowd would be on your side either,” Russel muttered.

“It took long enough,” Nebula went on, “but finally, the world sees your family for what it is.”

“My family?” Weiss squawked. “My family raised Remnant out of the mud and mire to build civilisation—”

“Your family stood on the backs of our people,” Nebula said, “and never cared whose backs broke beneath your weight.”

“Weiss isn’t her father or her family,” Flash said.

“No, but she has their name,” Nebula said. “And what was that dress, that weapon, that tiara paid for but with blood money?”

Weiss’ grip on Myrtenaster tightened somewhat. “I am more than a name,” she said, “as you will soon discover.”

“We’re in trouble now, girls,” Octavia said.

The images representing the different environments appeared, a beeping sound alerting the two teams as the options began to cycle, rotating in and out of view faster and faster until two biomes were selected and began to rise out of the depths of the arena.

Behind Team NDGO arose a savanna of tall grass, taller than most people, and a single crooked tree rising out of the grass; behind Team WWSR, there rose a rocky field, dotted with pools of water and intermittently erupting geysers leaping loudly into the air.

“Three!” cried Doctor Oobleck.

Russel twirled his dust daggers in his hands.

“Two!” cried Professor Port.

Cardin hefted his mace, Executioner, in both hands, bringing it up and then down again upon his open palm as though he were testing the weight for the first time.

“One!” yelled Doctor Oobleck.

Flash settled into a fighting stance, shield held before him, Caliburn in spear mode at the ready.

“Begin!”

Now, Gwen revealed her weapons. Like a magician pulling something out of her sleeve, she produced six throwing knives from out of her spaulders, throwing them towards the members of Team WWSR.

Weiss took a step forward, flourishing Myrtenaster as she drew it from her waist and pointed it towards Gwen, and as she pointed it, she conjured up four black glyphs before her and her three teammates. Gwen's knives struck the glyphs and rebounded backwards off them — although not hard enough to fly back towards the members of Team NDGO who had, in any case, already begun to retreat.

As Gwen's knives clattered to the ground, the Shade students melted away into the long grass of the savannah.

Russel took a step forward after them.

"Hold!" Weiss commanded.

Russel came to a stop, looking at her.

"They want us to follow them," Weiss went on. She was fairly certain that she had divined NDGO's plan: lure Team WWSR into the long grass where they would be unable to see one another, still less support one another, and they could be defeated in detail by the superior — in their own minds, at least — Vacuan warriors.

Obviously, Weiss was disinclined to simply give them what they wanted.

"Okay," Cardin said. "But what do we do?"

Weiss hesitated for a moment, thinking. They needed to flush NDGO out.

And she thought she knew how.

"Stay where you are for now," she said, "but get ready."

Weiss flowed fluidly into a high guard, Myrtenaster raised up to eye level and drawn back for a strike, and as she raised the blade, Weiss cycled through the cartridges of dust she had loaded until she had yellow lightning Dust chambered.

She raised her hand, pointing out towards the long grass, and behind her, she conjured up a row of six blue-white glyphs, turning slowly in the air.

Weiss' ice blue eyes narrowed. "On second thought, you might want to give me a little more room," she said as she opened fire, brilliant white bolts of energy leaping from the centre of her glyphs to land amongst the long grass in a barrage of fire to smoke outtheir adversaries.

That, at least, was Weiss' plan and hope, that her assault would so discomfort Team NDGO, would make their position so untenable, that they would be compelled to emerge and offer battle in the open.

Her bolts of energy flowed into the grass, and Weiss could see them striking the ground, see dust and grass alike leaping up into the air, and if the cry of alarm hadn't told Weiss that she'd hit someone, the drop in Gwen's aura would have.

But it was not a great drop, nothing like enough to put her out of the match and not, it seemed, enough to draw Team NDGO out of their concealment.

Weiss kept firing. The drain upon her aura from each glyph was very minor indeed; she was consuming more dust than aura at present.

But when the lightning dust ran out, well…

A crossbow quarrel erupted out of the long grass, flying straight towards her; Flash pushed her aside, knocking Weiss to the ground — accidentally, she was sure — and took the quarrel upon his shield, Rho Aias. The missile skittered off the shield and skidded along the ground to Cardin's feet; he kicked it away contemptuously.

Flash looked down at Weiss on the floor. "Sorry," he said, "I—"

"It's the thought that counts," Weiss told him as she scrambled back onto her feet.

"Speaking of thought," Cardin said, as he and Russel made their way over to join the other two, "I don't think they want to come out and play."

"Mmm," Weiss murmured. "So it would seem." She paused, and as she paused she cycled Myrtenaster's dust cylinders until she landed on red fire dust. "Loath as I am to straight up copy another student, we are being left with little choice."

She took three steps forward ahead of her teammates, towards the long grass, before she thrust her slender blade forwards, point angled slightly towards the ground.

Fire spat from the rapier's tip, and a line of fire raced along the surface of the central hexagon towards the long grass, which looked dry and yellow.

It began to burn at once, flames and smoke alike rising as they spread outwards.

Now they would see how long NDGO could remain there.

Weiss saw the grass move, saw the tips of the long yellow stalks, barely visible, rustle and sway, before the great gust of wind burst out of the grass to slam into Weiss. Weiss conjured a black glyph in front of her like a windbreak in the split second before she was blasted back into the geyser field, but she could still hear the wind howling around her, feel it gusting through her ponytail as its claws curled around the edges of her glyph — and she could feel the heat of the flames all around her as her own fire was blown back at her with much increased intensity, her simple line of flames roused to an inferno. Weiss conjured up more black glyphs to ward and shield her, but she still felt the heat, and felt the sweat mounting upon her brow.

Weiss closed her eyes, cycling from fire dust to green wind dust of her own, dropping her glyphs in the same moment she swept her sword in a wide arc before her, meeting wind with wind as she sought to turn the fire back upon Team NDGO.

The winds of the east and west strive against one another, with the fire trapped between them, both blowing on the flames, seeking to turn them this way or that.

Instead … they blew the fires out like birthday candles, leaving nothing but scorch marks on the ground and a few smouldering patches and grass that was either burnt out or blown down by the wind.

Either way, its value as concealment was somewhat reduced. Weiss could see Dew Gayl standing before her, her golden spear gripped tightly in her hands.

Before Weiss could react, the other members of Team NDGO charged out of cover, Gwen leading the way, throwing her knives before her.

Weiss conjured more black glyphs to protect herself and her teammates from the blades — how many knives did she have? It was so unfair that disposal weapons were an exception to the limitations — as Nebula and Octavia followed her.

Weiss had planned to hang back and support her teammates with her semblance; instead, she found herself in the front line, with the enemy team descending upon her.

Russel was the first to come to her aid, spinning through the air in a whirl — his semblance was not particularly versatile, but it could come in handy in the right circumstances — to slam into Gwen Darcy and knock her sideways. The Shade student rolled to her feet, daggers glinting in her hands, and then the two of them were locked in combat, daggers clashing with the ring of steel.

Flash planted himself in front of Weiss, Rho Aias held before him, Caliburn drawn back. Nebula — whose crossbow had converted, somewhat crudely in Weiss' view, into an arming sword by virtue of the arms drawing back and a blade emerging — and Octavia hesitated, standing off warily.

Neither made any move to intercept Cardin as he rushed at Dew, swinging his mace at her two-handed.

Dew took the blow upon the head of her spear and parried it, sweeping Executioner down towards the ground even as she struck Cardin on the face with the butt. Cardin growled as his head snapped back and sideways but retaliated with a backhand blow with his left hand that sent Dew reeling. She recoiled, parrying another stroke from Executioner before sweeping Cardin's legs out from underneath him.

"Flash, go help Cardin," Weiss ordered.

"But—"

"I'll be fine," Weiss informed him. "I've got this."

She had expected to enrage Nebula and Octavia, and she wasn't disappointed by the furious scowl on Octavia's face.

"Cocky, aren't you?"

Weiss smiled. "Prove me wrong, if you can."

Flash broke off, running to support Cardin, who was trying to avoid Dew's spear long enough to get up. Neither Nebula or Octavia made any move to stay him; their attention was fixed on Weiss.

Weiss tucked her off hand behind her back and assumed a classical duelling stance, side on, Myrtenaster at the ready in a low guard.

"Dance with me, then," she said softly. "I await your pleasure."

Nebula and Octavia shared a glance; then they attacked, like trained hounds leaping on the noble stag together. Weiss stepped forward to meet them, her sword a silver streak as she lunged at Nebula. Nebula parried, trying to beat Weiss' sword away. Octavia thrust at her, but Weiss pirouetted gracefully to parry her stroke away in turn. Nebula hacked downwards at her with a two-handed stroke, but Weiss danced nimbly backwards and let the sword descend before her before she countered, Myrtenaster leaping forth to strike a touch.

Octavia slashed at the air, a ribbon of flame flying from her crooked knife, but Weiss raised her free hand to conjure up a glyph that kept the flames at bay. She kept the glyph there, a shield between her and Octavia as she focussed upon Nebula.

A glyph of shimmering, shining, brilliant white appeared beneath Weiss's feet, then another behind her, and two mote in front of her, towards Nebula. Weiss glided on these glyphs, back and forth, sliding forward to thrust at Nebula, then retreating before she could counterattack. Her strokes did not always land — Nebula was able to parry her as often as not, their blades clashing a swift succession of strokes and counterstrokes — but Nebula was not once able to hit her either, and Weiss could see the frustration mounting on her opponent's face.

Octavia worked her way around to join Nebula directly facing Weiss, and Weiss released all her glyphs.

Once more, Octavia unleashed a ribbon of fire in Weiss' direction, and once more, Weiss blocked it with a black glyph. The two attacked together, nearly shoulder to shoulder, barely an inch between them. That was advantageous for Weiss in some respects — she did not have to move much to parry the both of them — but less so in others, since they could not easily be separated, and Weiss found herself on the backfoot, driven backwards towards the geyser field, where the columns of hot water hissed aggressively as they rose upwards.

As she parried first Octavia, then Nebula, Weiss risked a glance up at the board: the honours were just about even between Russel and Gwen — she couldn't guess which of them would run out of aura first — but Flash and Cardin were wearing Dew down.

If she could win without losing any of her team, that would be quite an accomplishment, would it not? "Cardin!" Weiss shouted, her voice ringing out across the battlefield, "break off and assist Russel." She paused, becoming aware that a look at the aura levels might not give an accurate reflection of the reality that she dare not take her eyes off her own opponent's long enough to gauge. "If practical," she added.

For herself, Weiss was nearly at the edge of the geyser field; she could hear the spouting of the geysers themselves growing ever louder behind her.

At present, she did not see how she could escape being forced into them — except by venturing there willingly.

Weiss took a step back, conjuring a pair of black glyphs to hold back Octavia and Nebula for a second as Weiss turned her back upon them both and ran into the midst of the geysers.

She conjured up white glyphs beneath her feet, using them to plot a path between the geysers, choosing the narrowest passage between the boiling columns and then leaping from glyph to glyph as though they were stepping stones, stepping stones that disappeared as soon as she had left them behind.

She turned, balanced upon a glyph, to see that Nebula and Octavia pursued her, but the path that Weiss had taken was too narrow for them both abreast; they had either to split up and let the geysers come between them or else go one behind the other.

They chose to split up, just as Weiss had hoped they would.

The shining white glyph disappeared from beneath Weiss' feet, and in its place, as Weiss swept Myrtenaster up before her face in a salute-like gesture, appeared a glyph as grey as quicksilver, a glyph on whose smoky form could just about be made out the gears of a clock.

A time dilation glyph.

The world around Weiss slowed, as if everyone but her were trapped in treacle. As the battle moved so slowly around her she could see Cardin about to reach Russel and Gwen, Executioner already drawn back. She could see Flash knocking Dew's spear away with his shield.

And she could see Nebula, alone and vulnerable. Weiss conjured white glyphs, a dozen, a hundred white glyphs all around Nebula, surrounding her all around and above in a dome of brilliant white, while she, it seemed, could only start reacting.

Weiss leapt to the attack, speeding along her glyphs to skewer and knock her — slowly, it seemed — flying. Weiss darted from glyph to glyph, Myrtenaster outstretched to thrust at Nebula from all sides. She came at from the left and right, she hammered her from above, Weiss was as swift as light itself, a streak of light that raced between her glyphs like dawn's light racing across the world, and as she raced, she struck at Nebula again and again and again, she sent her flying up into the air, and still, she struck at her until she could dimly hear, distorted by the slowness of time, a buzzer sound and Professor Port announce Nebula's elimination in words so drawn out that Weiss could barely comprehend them.

The time dilation effect ended, and it was the turn of Weiss to be trapped in treacle. Her limbs were heavy, so heavy that she could barely move them, while everything around her seemed to be moving so fast in comparison, from Nebula falling to the ground to the ribbon of fire that was speeding towards her.

Weiss yelped in pain as the flames struck her, burning away her aura, hurling her sideways and onto the rocks.

Octavia was on her before she could do anything; even as time normalised for her, she was not quick enough to stop the other girl from hitting her across the face with the hilt of her dagger.

The Shade student's face was a mask of fury, teeth bared like a dog as she punched Weiss on the nose, making Weiss' head snap back as she winced. Octavia grabbed Weiss' wrist and twisted Myrtenaster out of her hand, kicking the sword away.

"What's the matter, princess?" Octavia demanded, as she hit Weiss again. "All out of tricks?"

Weiss could conjure glyphs without her sword — some of them, anyway, the basics — but it was a lot harder to do when someone wouldn't stop hitting you. Plus, she'd never been particularly good at unarmed combat. As Octavia grabbed by her ponytail and used it to slam her face into the rock before dragging towards the nearest geyser, that seemed like a significant gap in her skillset.

Weiss beat at Octavia with both hands, but the other girl barely seemed to feel it as she held Weiss's face out over the geyser.

Doctor Oobleck said something, but Weiss wasn't able to make it out as the water erupted up into her face. Gods, it was so hot! She could feel the scalding heat through her aura, even as she could feel it burning away her aura, the combination of intense heat and immense pressure tearing away her shield like … like dirt being scrubbed off some silverware.

It occurred to Weiss that if her aura broke before the geyser stopped spouting, there was a trap chance she might…

Thankfully, before she'd had much chance to contemplate that, the geyser did stop, and Weiss was left with the knowledge that she had not yet been eliminated.

How long that would last, she couldn't say.

Octavia slammed her down onto the rocks, the impact sending a shockwave through Weiss' aura.

She raised her knife.

Russel yelled wordlessly as he dropped upon them both, holding Flash's Caliburn in spear form in both hands, thrust out in front of him like a lancing thunderbolt.

Octavia stepped back, letting Russel land between her and Weiss. Russel waved the spear wildly, swinging with untutored enthusiasm that was nonetheless sufficient to get Octavia to give ground.

Cardin closed with her from behind, wrapping his arms around Octavia to grip her in a bear hug, lifting her up despite her struggling and flinging her into a nearby geyser just as it erupted.

The water blasted her upwards, shredding her aura before dumping her back down in the central hexagon.

"Octavia Ember has been eliminated by aura depletion," Professor Port cried. "And with that, Team Indigo has been completely eliminated. Team Wisteria takes the match!"

"We…" Weiss looked up at the board. There were crosses covering the faces of all four members of Team NDGO. "I didn't—"

"You were a little preoccupied there at the end," Flash said as he offered her a hand to help. "But yeah: we got them."

"And a good thing too, while we were still in time to rescue you," Russel said.

"Although it would have been a lot harder without you keeping those two busy," Flash pointed out.

"Maybe," Russel admitted. "But we still rescued her."

"Yes," Weiss agreed. "And I am very grateful, thank you." A smile blossomed upon her face. "We won. We won!" She jumped for joy as though she were a child again who had just mastered her first glyph. "We won!"

She couldn't hear the crowd. She genuinely couldn't hear them; their sound didn't reach her ears. What they thought, how vehemently they booed, it didn't matter to her.

She had won. They had won.

And that was all that mattered.

---

Lieutenant Martinez leaned back on the sofa, a slightly smug look in her face as she spread out her arms.

"You look like a proud parent," Mike observed.

"I am a proud parent," Martinez replied.

"I know you are," Mike said. "But they're not your kids."

"No, of course they're not," she said. "But they did well, and I don't know if I had anything to do with it, but … I'm proud of 'em anyway." The approving smile on her face grew broader. "Yeah, they did damn well."

---

Weiss had said that it didn’t matter what the crowd, or anyone, thought. She had said that all that mattered was their own pride in themselves, that they fought the fight and they won it.

She had said all of that, and she had meant it.

But when she led her team back into the tunnel, to see Blake waiting for her, and Rainbow Dash, and Team SAPR, and they had been making the tunnel echo with their applause, well…

That had felt good.

That had felt very good indeed.

Comments

[Stet709]

Nice, they survived without any knockouts this time! Gotta appreciate that they walked in heads held high, ignoring the crowd.

[Mastermind4892]

I hope her brother was watching.

[AdverseFlower95]

So it looks like this time around Weiss wasn’t able to execute her plan, making it so that she didn’t carry the team to victory. It’s not the same as one person almost single-handedly beating an entire team like Arslan, but making it through the round with all 4 members is still a good accomplishment.