Ep. 25 - Doubles, Talk With Qrow

Ironwood ended up giving Winter a vacation until the day after the tournament. This meant that I had a few more days to make a good impression on her. After hearing Weiss and her talking yesterday, I decided to stop messing with her and actually welcome her at Beacon, maybe she will stop being all stiff and saying 'classified' at most questions.

Anyway, today is the double's round. I am currently watching two teams I won't even bother naming since they aren't that good. Winter was watching the matches next to us, surprisingly having some girls talk with the RWBY, Pyrrha, and Nora. Weiss had asked me for something to guarantee their privacy, so I added a new function to her bracelet. 'I will have to update those things soon. Maybe a portable shield generator and short range phantom drive? A cloaking device is a given for Ren and Blake. I'll do it after the finals.'

A couple of matches went by until Qrow came and sat next to me.

"Hello there, nice fight yesterday. How are you, Qrow? Already talked with Ozzy and the wonder team? Oh, by the way, I am sure Ruby and Yang would love to meet you."

"Hey there, kid. I'm fine. Pissed, but fine. Yesterday I talked with Ozpin. Seems there is more to you than what meets the eye, huh?" He took a swig out of his flask. "About that little 'surprise'… Are you sure it will work? How will you even deliver the 'package'?" He asked, pointing upwards.

"I am pretty sure it will work. Basically, I have a modified bullhead that will be enough to hold the 'surprise' and 'deliver' it. I am sorry you had to continue your mission even though we already knew of the 'rats', but it was needed in case you were being monitored. They have told you of the virus circulating these days at Beacon, right?"

"Yeah, they did. I understand that there were circumstances. Not very happy, but I won't hold it against you." He took another swig. "I am not too happy, putting the future of humanity in a student's hands, but I'll leave it to you. That's the best chance we have to get rid of her."

"Don't worry, Qrow. Saving humanity is kind of my thing, you know. Plus, I've got some friends who would be involved if the situation gets worse. Getting experience is okay, but a war? Like hell I'll let that happen. Oh, look at that, it's almost my turn. Let's meet again, Qrow, I have some good booze in my stash." I told him, starting to get up.

"Aren't you a little young to drink? Oh well, go get them."

Weiss also finished her girl talk with Winter, so we went to the waiting area for combatants.

"Is it nice, meeting your sister while she is not working?"

"It sure is. Thanks, Tula."

"'Until the end of time'. It's a long, long time, but I think we can make something of it. Me, you, Yang and Ruby. Sounds like a fantastic team."

"Hm… It sounds really nice. How do we want to go at it?"

"This time we'll take a page from Jaune's book and wing it. We should first see who our opponents are."

When we entered the arena, we were faced with the jazz guy and roller-blade girl.

"Who do you want? Roller-blades or Jazz man?"

"I'll take on Roller-blades, I want to test my new glyphs on her. You take care of Jazz man. Oh, you suck at naming things."

"Thank you, I'll take that as a compliment. Let's do this."

With that, we waited for the countdown to start calmly. I started gathering Void energy in my body, in preparation to defend an opening attack.

When the fight started, Jazz guy started going ham on his trumpet, so I let the energy I gathered expand outwards, creating the 'Ward of Dawn'.

"Let's wait for the guy to finish his piece, then we start."

Weiss nodded. Nobody wanted to be subjected to ear-rape.

When Jazz ended his performance, we stepped out of the shield bubble.

"Ok, we'll make it easy for you. Surrender or get your ass handed to you." I said.

"Hm��� Interesting options! I choose the third!" Roller-blades said.

"Very well then. Beating it is." said Weiss.

With that we separated, dashing towards our opponents. Weiss had created a glyph that can more or less allow her to blink towards her opponent. Her old glyphs just gave an immense boost to speed.

Anyway, I decided to pummel my opponent with bullets, so I decided to use a Sidearm. I went with a 'Rat King' since I am just playing around.

I shot the guy's trumpet, but he twisted his body to dodge.

"Nice reactions. I'll kick it up a notch."

I closed in the remaining distance, to force him to use the trumpet as a mace.

I shot his legs, making him flinch. He tried striking me with his weapon, but I took a step back and shot his hand.

As a side note, when I got aura, I understood that it will defend any strike until depleted, but the impact of bullets will still be felt. Basically, Aura defends against pain, but blunt force will still be felt, at least to a certain degree.

Jazz man slightly grimaced, but he kept his grip. 'Guess he is better than he let on in the team matches.'

I decided to blink to his right, then I started unloading the mag. Sidearm bullets take less aura than Hand Cannon bullets.

My opponent rolled out of the line of fire, while blowing his trumpet. Did it come out wrong?

I stood my ground. Such small force. That… was not a good idea. Not because it hurt me or something, but it was the first time my aura had actually taken a hit in this tournament, but it being tied to my Akashic Engine means that it didn't even go down a single point. Insane regeneration for the win. Seeing that my aura meter didn't even budge, the public caused an uproar. I perked my ears up, while letting my secondary thought process listen to the commentators giving an explanation.

"Woah there Peter! What's with that student's aura meter?!" I reloaded my weapon while listening to Oobleck.

"Well Bart, from the data we received, it seems that Mr. Tula there has monstrous amounts of Aura and its density is astoundingly high. A hit like that would never faze him." My boy Port gave his explanation while I started chasing Jazz man.

"That would make sense! But just how much Aura and how compressed must it be to not even budge?!" I started shooting again, cutting off the directions in which he could move, bringing him right where I wanted right to a demolished building.

I stopped listening to the comments since it became redundant. I created a scattering void grenade and threw it inside. Then I turned around because cool guys don't look at explosions. In reality I did it because Jazzy's elimination was certain. No ifs or buts.

"Oh, look at that! First elimination! Team RWBY has the advantage in numbers now!"

"Indeed they do Peter! But it looks to me as if Ms. Schnee has been playing with her prey for a while now! Does she really need help?!"

"Maybe they will deal the final blow together? I know for sure that Mr. Tula and Ms. Schnee work well together against Grimm."

Oh my, you're making me blush, professor Port! Like hell Weiss needs help. I decided to with something showy to watch over her battle. I coated my body in Solar energy and activated 'Dawnblade', without the sword. I just wanted the wings. I started flying towards Weiss' position, which caused yet another commotion. I'm showing some of my cards today, so it's normal. Yesterday the public only saw me give cover fire, making me appear weak. 'Oh, such a devilish plan Ruby… Well done! Headpats for you when we're done.'

Arriving a certain distance from the battle, I took my sniper rifle out to watch their faces through the scope and confuse the public. More weapons I show, the less they know about my specialization. 'If only they knew I could use anything and still be effective.'

Going a bit back in time, Weiss had just engaged Roller-blades.

She started with a light jab at the left shoulder with no enchantment. That light tap/jab alone took more than 10% of Rollers' aura.

"Hello. The third option is a beating, so let's get to it!" Weiss said and readied her weapon.

Roller-blades tried putting distance, but Weiss followed. She kept a distance just to give the impression her opponent could leave her behind. She occasionally used her glyphs to blink in front of her and tap her weak points. These were just taps, not even a jab, yet they still took some percentage of aura each time.

Her opponent saw no way to actually put distance between the two, so she tried going for superior mobility. Rollers started circling around Weiss, who was looking on in amusement. 'She is definitely a sadist!' is what everybody who saw her face was thinking.

"Are you done? Because it's my turn then." When Weiss said so, hundreds of glyphs started appearing and circling around them. She used one of them as a launching pad, starting a literal onslaught of… taps.

Roller-blades couldn't see an exit. Worse than that is the fact that Weiss wasn���t even really attacking her. She would sometimes just smile then disappear.

That's when they heard an explosion in the distance and Port announced Jazz guy's elimination.

"Looks like Tula has taken care of your partner. But fear not. He won't attack you. Oh no, you're mine!" Weiss said with a cold, cold smile. Rollers shivered, then she heard an uproar. She looked over to where the explosion occurred and saw Tula look at them through a sniper rifle's scope.

"It doesn't sound convincing when he's aiming here! And take this seriously! Your smile is pissing me off Scarfa-"

'Ah. Shit.' is all Rollers could think of after saying that.

Weiss does not like someone talking shit about her scar. Not. One. Bit.

She used again her glyphs, but this time she went in for the kill. Well, elimination. She could still differentiate trash talk and actual insults. 'If it was an insult, nothing would remain of her after today. Tula would destroy her if he knew.' is what she was thinking.

She used her Arc enchantment to give Roller-blades a 'shocking' experience.

After three actual hits, her aura was gone and she was eliminated. Weiss had mixed in some taps just to shock her.

When I saw the smile disappear from Weiss' face, I thought Rollers was a goner. Luckily, she just gave her a little bit of 'shock therapy' then stopped. I went down to where she was.

"Good job. What happened there? You suddenly ended the fight..."

"Oh, nothing just decided to not let you wait too much. Let's go, they are waiting for us." she said, looking at our friends.

"Yeah, let's go. We still have JNPR and Sun's doubles matches, then we can show your sister to the chalet and have a small celebration in preparation for the finals." We smiled and went outside the arena. "Oh, there's Qrow as well. Maybe we should bring him as well."

"Who?"

"The guy that was giving your sister a run for her money yesterday." I decided to tease her a bit.

��Oh, him. And Winter was obviously winning! Hmph, as if that drunk could beat her."

I just took her hand and went back to the stands.

Long story short, Jaune and Pyrrha won, as did Sun and Neptune. While waiting for these matches, Qrow had a chat with Ruby and Yang. When he came back he had a complicated look on his face.

We decided to start an impromptu barbecue with the gang, SSSN, Winter and Qrow. Since it was a large number of people, I had to use the ship as a relay point. Their faces were frozen stiff when they suddenly found themselves in another place, then blinked and the scenery changed to Forever Fall Forest.

"Get used to it. Stuff like this happens often." is what Jaune said to snap them out of their shocked states. As he said, they didn't think too much about it and started enjoying their time. This time though, I made sure to take the alcohol and put it near the 'adults' aka Qrow, Winter, who is surprisingly a heavy drinker, me, Yang, Weiss and a few others that were actually 18. Pyrrha had her birthday a few days before the tournament. She wanted to wait until after the thing to celebrate with everyone, so no party there. Jaune did ask to give him access to the chalet though, so they did 'celebrate'. Jaune was still 17, but less than a month away, so he joined in. Nora and Ren had their birthdays the same week, but that was still a month or so off. They might or might not have found some stuff for the lightweight drinkers after searching the house. I didn't give it to them, so that is their reward for their efforts. 'Drinking when a few months away from 18 is still fine. Ruby is a big nono though.'

And so the evening passed.

Most of us were… wasted if I have to be completely honest. To follow along with Qrow and Winter's drinking, we had a little too much. I physically can't get drunk, but it's like a psychological thing that kicks in, so I had to be included in the list.

That night Yang and Weiss wanted to become more 'intimate' with me, so it was a long night.