Ch 79: Finals (2)

*Cling Clang Hya Ha* Ray ducked beneath Jaune's sword swing without turning around. Keeping the blond huntsman-in-training at his back and, more importantly, between him and the nuclear warhead known as Nora as he sparred gauntlet to sword and fist to shield against Pyrrha. Ren raced around the edges of the arena peppering him with gunfire, trying to wear down his Aura while his teammates kept him occupied.

"Get him, Pyrrha!" Ray dodged a stab from Pyrrha that passed close enough to nip a few strands of hair off his bangs.

"Yeah, go, Team JNPR. Kick his butt!" Ren took the opportunity while Ray was distracted by nearly getting stabbed in the face to unload a clip of Dust bullets at him. However, Ray hopped backward into Jaune's chest and used his shoulders to guide the taller huntsman to step back and turn towards Ren, inadvertently putting himself in the line of fire.

"Smash his smug face in, Nora!" A surprised Jaune quickly raised his shield to block the friendly fire, saving himself from being eliminated. However, since Ray had forced Jaune to move between him and Ren, there was now nothing standing between him and Nora's mighty hammer.

"Hang in there!" As Nora charged in from the front, Pyrrha closed in from the right, Jaune readied his shield and raised his sword to block his retreat, and Ren laid down cover fire on his left. They had boxed him in. If Nora could land one good hit, they could take 10% of his Aura out in one hit and win!

Yang, Ruby, Weiss, and Blake all called encouragements from the stands as they cheered their friends on. Finals weren't just about knowledge, after all. It was about combat capabilities and teamwork as well. Today, the first years had their Practical Teams Combat Exam.

And Ray wasn't planning on making it easy on them. He stomped hard on the ground. Cracking the reinforced floor beneath his boot and raising a thick cloud of dust for cover.

*BOOM* Nora's hammer slammed into the ground where he had been standing but hit nothing but dirt, kicking even more dust up into the air, blinding her teammates.

"Above!" Pyrrha shouted in warning, having never lost sight of him thanks to the Aura Sight she had developed over the semester.

"Huh?" Nora looked up just in time to see the heel of a red armored boot rapidly enlarging to block her view.

*Gah* She cried as Ray kicked her out of the dust cloud with one foot and knocked Pyrrha's Javelin-form Milo away with the other, which she had thrust forward at him with in an attempt to cover her teammate. With Pyrrha focused on being her teammates' eyes in the dust cloud, calling out his location so they didn't lose track of him, her attention on herself was lacking.

*Kyaah* She squeaked cutely as Ray used an imitation of her own Semblance against her and used his to repel the metal of her armor away from him and towards the rebar reinforcing the far wall sending her flying out of the dust cloud as well to slam into and stick to the wall surrounding the arena.

"Pyrrha!" Jaune called in alarm. Now alone in the still swirling cloud of dust with the merciless Ray.

"Let's see just how much you've improved." He heard Ray whisper in his ear from his left just before a streak of red came barreling at him from his right.

Jaune ducked the jab and sliced at Ray's waist.

Ray parried the strike with his other hand and used the force of his parry to pull Jaune towards him.

Ray jerked his knee up to hit Jaune in his diaphragm. Jaune maintained his footing and leaned to the side to dodge.

Leaning partway over, Jaune used the straightening of his back to stand up straight again to throw a jab with the edge of his shield at Ray's face. Ray's leg snapped straight and his knee strike turned into a high kick, knocking the shield away.

His leg now straight up in front of him, Ray brought it down in a vicious ax kick towards Jaune's shoulder, left exposed by having his shield knocked away. However, Jaune went with the force of Ray's kick that knocked his shield away rather than fight it and was able to jump backward in time to avoid it.

Not letting up, Ray hunched forward and raised his fists in a boxer's stance as he charged after him. Left, right, hook, jab, uppercut. Ray kept the pressure up on the rapidly retreating Jaune as he desperately parried, blocked, and dodged each of his blows with Crocea Mors.

[Hey, I'm doing it. I'm keeping up with him!] Just as that thought crossed Jaune's mind, he felt the world abruptly shift, and suddenly the floor became the ceiling and the ceiling the floor. All of Jaune's attention had been on Ray's fists, and he had completely missed the snap kick that had knocked his feet out from under him.

*Gaho* "Not bad. But you still need work." Ray said as Jaune's back slammed against the ground, knocking the breath out of him and temporarily stunning the young man.

[Shit!] He thought as he watched Ray's rapidly enlarging fist descend upon him.

*pa pa pa pa pa pa Hyaaaaa* In the nick of time, Ren burst through the dust screen, firing StormFlower furiously at Ray and slashed at him with its blades once he got close, forcing the younger warrior to jump away to dodge, giving Jaune the chance he needed to scramble back to his feet.

A gust of wind blew away the remaining dust as Nora swung herself and her hammer around like a fan revealing Ren and Jaune in front of him, Pyrrha behind him and to his right, and Nora behind him and to his left.

Ray smiled and flexed his fists as he looked at his four friends surrounding him. He was enjoying this. They had all grown so much over these three and a half months. While only Pyrrha was proficient enough in Aura Sight to keep it active constantly during combat, all of their Aura Manipulation abilities were solidly in the Aura Sight realm. In fact, Pyrrha's was only a step or two behind where Ruby had been when she first arrived at Beacon, on the cusp of entering the Aura Weaponization realm. Something Ruby had only been able to achieve after years of studying with Ray.

Then again, Pyrrha had the benefit of learning a more refined system at the right time in her development. In contrast, Ruby had to be a part of the development process from the very beginning, long before her body or Aura were mature enough to benefit from it fully, so one shouldn't really be looking down on Ruby's talent just because Pyrrha achieved in a few months what took her years to accomplish.

Their physical abilities had also improved by leaps and bounds since they had arrived at Beacon, and their skills were far sharper and more efficient thanks to all the training missions they had gotten to go on to refine their styles in real life and death combat. It made Ray's teacher's heart sing with joy as he got to experience their progress first hand. And that fire in his heart made him want to fight them all the harder. So with a maniacal grin on his face, he charged towards Ren, intent on pinning the nimble green ninja down this time and prevent him from taking any more cheap shots at him.

Up in the stands, while Team RWBY was cheering their lungs out for the combatants below, Team SHLD was discussing strategy for their upcoming match. Well, Seig and Lydia were. Dilo was nibbling on a steamed meat bun she had saved from lunch, her cheeks puffed out cutely like a squirrel, and Hime was playing with her hair, braiding and unbraiding it into different designs. It wasn't that the other two didn't care. They were just aware of their own strengths and weaknesses.

Hime was their team's ace in the hole when it came to gathering information or negotiations. However, when it came time to put that information to use and forming a plan, she tended to overthink and worry too much. So she had learned to just leave it to her reliable team leader and his partner, as for Dilo. Dilo is Dilo, and the wings on her back weren't the only thing bird-like about her. And when the time came, Seig and Lydia knew the two of them would follow their plan without question.

In a different part of the arena stands, Cardin was trying to do the same thing with his team. Unfortunately, it wasn't going so well. A few weeks of good intentions couldn't make up for a lifetime of bad habits.

"Relax already, Cardin."

"We'll be fine. We are one of the strongest teams in our year. If they flunk us, they will have to flunk at least half the class. So just take it easy already."

"Yeah, the only people who stress out about grades are pompous idiots and stuck-up overachievers. What difference does it make what grade we get as long as we pass?"

Cardin's teammates didn't see any reason to try hard and waved off his efforts just like they had been doing ever since they had gotten back from the mission where Teams RWBY, JNPR, and SHLD had fought the hydra Grimm.

They were honestly a little disturbed and more than a little annoyed by the sudden changes in their leader. They had all been doing just fine before, so why did he have to start being so annoying, trying to get them to practice and study all the time instead of going out and having fun every night like they used to. He wasn't even picking on the weaker students anymore, which made him a real drag to have around. They couldn't understand what had changed about him or why.

Back down in the arena, after several minutes of playing tag with Ren, Ray had successfully trapped the fleet-footed ninja and delivered him a dynamic punch to his chin for all the trouble he had caused him, sending the dark-haired man spinning through the air and knocking his Aura down to zero.

However, his sacrifice hadn't been in vain. With Jaune and Pyrrha rapidly closing in from the sides and Nora descending upon him like judgment from on high, it didn't look like he would be able to escape. But Ray stood his ground without fear.

Raising his arms, he shot azure lighting out of his hands at his three attackers. Pyrrha and Jaune reinforced their shields with Aura and expanded them with Aura Shaping to block the lightning strikes completely as they crouched behind them, hopeful but afraid. They couldn't believe Ray would make such a careless mistake, but they had faith in Nora. She would absorb his attack and deliver unto him a thundering hammer strike that would win them the match and earn them a perfect grade for their combat class.

Also surprised but confident in her semblance, Nora fell into the storm of lightning without fear. Eager for the power boost. A boost that never came.

*Awawawawawawawa* Nora cried as for the first time in her life she felt what it was like to be electrocuted. Ray had coated his lighting with his Aura preventing Nora's semblance from being able to absorb it so easily. She was able to absorb some of it, but the majority struck her full force. Holding Nora suspended by his lightning in the air for a moment, Ray then hurled her down at the hunkered down Pyrrha below.

Unprepared for her teammate to be suddenly flung at her, Pyrrha reacted on instinct and reinforced herself with Aura to protect herself from the lingering lightning around her as she spread her arms to catch the falling carrot top. It was the wrong decision.

Upon contact with Pyrrha, the ambient lightning dancing around Nora exploded like a grenade. Leaving a black smoking crater in the ground where Pyrrha had been standing as it blew them both away and dropped their Auras into the red. Only Jaune was left standing now to fight for his team.

*A ha ha ha* Jaune chuckled nervously as he slowly backed away from the approaching Ray. Ray smiled pleasantly at him in a way that did nothing to ease Jaune's apprehension as he closed the distance between them, cracking his knuckles.

"Time's up." Glynda called from the sidelines, signaling the end of the match before Ray could reach him. Thankfully, while reducing the instructor's Aura by 10% would grant any team an instant perfect score on their Practical Teams Combat Exam, it wasn't required to pass. Teams that couldn't defeat their instructor would be graded based on how well they fought and worked together throughout the fight and having one man standing at the end would be big points for Team JNPR.

*Whao* *tsk* Jaune let out a sigh of relief as Ray quietly clicked his tongue in annoyance at himself for getting too into enjoying the fight and forgetting about the time. Ray walked over to where Glynda would standing to switch with her as the members of Team JNPR hauled themselves out of the arena to make room for the next team to take their test. Glynda would fight the next round while he refereed and recovered, then they would change again and continue doing so till they had tested all the teams.