160

"RRAAAH!"

It turned out that Team ZZNCK was stronger than they might have thought.

In fact, it turned out that they were a lot stronger than Team RWBYP thought.

Mostly because Zircon and Zinc Gris, the twin strongmen of Team ZZNCK, were actually, literally, really strong. Which mostly manifested in the form of them being able to rip boulders out of the ground and throw them. 

"Shit! You know, this would be a lot easier if we were allowed to use our big ammo!" Yang grunted, gritting her teeth as she smashed through yet another thrown boulder from the ZZ twins, her hair burning wildly as she punched and kicked and tried to rush forward, only to be thrown back as Nyte Powder blasted her with a cloud of exploding smoke and Crystal Snow fired Ice Dust laced bullets from her dual SMGs that sprouted into spiraling formations of blades that threatened death by a thousand cuts. 

"Yeah, but then they'd die," Blake pointed out, dodging a spray of bullets and grunting as one of the shots scraped off of her Aura. She returned fire with a few pistol shots, bursts of flame erupting in midair as her own shots deflected Crystal's. "I mean, our big ammo is rated for taking down Alpha or Titan class grimm, there's really no way that it'd be tournament legal. I mean, Ruby's only using normal off the shelf fifty cal right now!"

"Yeah, and we're suffering for it!" Yang groaned, grumbling as she sent a pair of exploding shots towards Zinc and Zircon and made the two brothers dive for safety before they fired back with their rocket launcher maces- almost like Junior's but with more flanges. "Gods- fuckin- argh! Hate this! Also, seriously, I'm getting deja vu here!"

"Oh just shush and get to work, it's not like they're actually pushing us back," Weiss huffed, her glyphs flashing brilliantly as she redirected a few shots and dashed around the arena, matching Crystal's attacks one for one with a grunt of annoyance. "Of course we'd fight a team with this kind of composition… what is it with people with white hair and Ice Dust? Is it just a thing?"

"I chose it because I really like winter!" Crystal called out, not that it really mattered. "It's kinda my thing!"

"Right…" Weiss huffed, dodging around a shot from Nyte's grenade launcher sword and letting the momentum of the blast carry her forward even faster as she skated over the rough ground. The arena they were in wasn't exactly favorable - it was rocky and sandy and one side was an ocean type biome and the last quarter was all lava, and that meant there was a lot of ammunition lying around for Zinc and Zircon to fling around.

Ruby and Penny, meanwhile, were doing completely fine… albeit they were a bit irritated because Kin Argent was ridiculously agile and while Ruby had him absolutely beat in straight line velocity, Kin could still dodge her rushes and shots if he saw them coming, and the fourth year was just an absolute menace with his dual revolver daggers to the point that he was leading them all on a chase around the field and harrying the other members of the team with shots from behind.

It would have been much less even of a match if Team RWBYP was fighting at full capacity, but nooo, they'd been told not to use their heavy ammo and Ruby was getting pissed and-

"RAAAAAGH!" Ruby roared, leaping high into the air and deciding to say fuck it to Kin's stupid ability to jump off of thin air, firing a scatter burst of Dust rounds down at the guy and making him duck and roll for cover as a series of explosions rained down upon the field. Things swiftly became chaotic after that, and all of Team RWBY split up to fight one on one with the members of Team ZZNCK.

In the ensuing scuffle, the arena became covered in dust, shots ringing out almost blindly as the desert section all but exploded from a barrage of rockets turning it into a veritable sandstorm- Wind Dust laced explosives kicking up an entire tornado in their wake while Dust effects flashed through the storm and shouts of surprise and anger rang out without pause.

Fire lit up one side of the arena, blasting away the sandstorm from that area and revealing Yang burning bright blue, her fists coated in ultra hot, condensed flames as she sent glimmering explosive shots out of Ember Celica- the shots holding still for a brief moment as she punched rapidly, then flying out even faster than normal as she spun around and kicked them full force with her anklet and let loose with a concussive burst. The blue rounds raced through the air with horrific whistling noises, cutting through the dust and smoke and smashing against everything in a move directly borrowed from Mercury- spiraling in the air until they rained down and glassed the field and blew away the sandstorm entirely, revealing the current state of the battle.

Crystal Snow had been entirely knocked out from the barrage- thrown from the arena entirely as her Aura reached a critically low level by a combination of Yang's barrage and Weiss blasting her in midair with a burst of Dust projectiles. 

Zinc and Zircon were having trouble fighting Blake, neither of them able to actually fight her at such close quarters with their maces given how slow their swings were- forceful and strong, but completely unable to match up to the speed of Blake's slashes and slices as she slowly wore them down.

Weiss herself was running low on Aura- her pool still being the lowest in the team, unfortunately, and having taken a lot more hits than she would have liked earlier.

And then Kin Argent appeared from nearly nowhere and almost kicked Weiss in the back of the neck… until a thrown Penny collided with him and tackled him out of the way with such force that they rolled and tumbled and, in the chaos… a single one of Floating Array's swords pierced through Kin's pants and pinned him to the floor in the center of the arena.

"Shit! I'm pinned!?" Kin shouted in surprise as he tried to rip himself free, only for another sword to fly out of nowhere and pin him further- rendering him entirely unable to move as the cables snapped taut around his legs and fully anchored him while Penny landed there, giving him a serious glare.

"I had wished to save this for later, but I think it is most appropriate that I use it now," Penny stated, holding up her hand as the joints in her fingers began to glow violently with a mix of green and golden Aura, rose petals swirling around her dramatically as Ruby pulled out her scroll and began playing dramatic music at max volume- loud enough that the microphones in the arena picked it up, even.

"You may have those Silver Feet ," Penny stated, glaring heavily as she flexed her fingers and allowed the glow of her Aura to waft off of them like rising smoke. "But I have these GOLD FINGERS!"

Kin blinked, trembling a little in a mix of both amusement and absolute fear . "Oh no… I know exactly where this is going-!"

"HERE I GO! SHINING FINGEEEEEEEEEEEER!" Penny roared , dashing forward with a burst of flames from her boots, her swords blazing behind her as she caught Kin in a flash, her hand grasping around the older boy's forehead with a blaze of light that made his Aura crackle as it began draining rapidly just from the sheer pressure of the contact.

"AAAAARGH!" Kin shouted, throwing his back and screaming dramatically as Penny's hand grabbed his forehead, arching his back and dropping his weapons from the pain.

"Article One of the Vytal Festival International Regulations! A fighter whose Aura is depleted to fifteen percent or whose person has been removed from the Arena is disqualified!" Penny stated, while the entire battlefield fell silent in the wake of the fact that everyone watching was now just staring at her while Ruby helped her do a G-Guntan reference in the middle of a televised match.

"Is she legally allowed to do that?" Professor Oobleck whispered from the announcer's booth to Professor Port, clearing his throat awkwardly and looking back and forth from the camera to his fellow announcer. "This seems like a breach of copyright…"

"I don't know, Barty. I do not know. But it's not an illegal technique, so she's not exactly in danger of being disqualified," Professor Port pointed out dryly, palming his face a little bit. "She's even quoting the regulations properly and everything."

"... How serendipitous that they're formatted the exact same as in G-Guntan." Oobleck deadpanned.

Off to the side of the booth, Glynda just groaned at the fact that this was the first match of the tournament and already Team RWBYP was making a mockery of what was supposed to be a serious combat experience. About as serious as what was essentially a high intensity, televised, prize tournament for a ten thousand lien check and a trophy could be, at least.

"It's time for you to review Article Two of the Vytal Festival International Regulations!" Penny announced loudly, squeezing Kin's head a little harder and drawing a pained groan. 

"A-a competitor m-must never aim for a l-lethal shot w-when an opponent is- is below twenty percent of their Aura capacity! OH GODS!" Kin shouted, twitching violently as Penny squeezed and squeezed and-

Let go of him with a mild push to his midsection.

Kin's fell backwards, stunned for a brief moment… up until Penny punched him in the chest and depleted him down from twenty two Aura points all the way down to exactly fourteen.

The music from Ruby's scroll finished dramatically, and Penny retrieved her swords with a small smile.

"Thank you for following along with my attack! I am very sorry for squeezing your head like that!"

Kin groaned quietly as he laid there on the ground, nursing his newfound headache as he slowly crawled away once the buzzer sounded to mark his disqualification. Less than a minute later, the rest of team ZZNCK was defeated, either thrown from the ring or shot down by Ruby, in the case of Nyte.

"... Well. That was an interesting first match." Oobleck concluded lamely.

"It sure was," Port nodded, looking… somewhat pained. "It… sure was."

Notes:

This entire chapter was a setup for that Shining Finger thing. Don't put too much stock into if any of this makes sense.