Chapter 1

For Pyrrha there was something special about spring. From the bench she could see all the gardens of Beacon blooming into new life. The same flowers grew every year and the birds sang the same song but it still felt like something new was coming. Of course, perhaps for the first time in years something new was coming, the Vytal festival!

"Jaune do you have anything planned for the festival?" she asked. Maybe we'll have a wonderful date on the grass watching fireworks? Or maybe we'll get snacks and watch the tournament!

"Oh yeah the festival." Jaune looked a bit groggy today. Jaune seemed so tired, that he was leaning on her a little. Maybe she should go easy on practice tonight. Or maybe him leaning up against her was a good thing. Yeah he should really learn the intricacies of distance running. "I was thinking of seeing if Weiss wanted to go to the festival with me."

Weiss. He still was trying for a girl whose only words to him had been rejection for almost two semesters now. That being said watching him trip over the most basic words was almost funny. Almost. Mostly though she would describe it as soul crushing.

"ooh ooh are you gonna try and serenade her again?" Nora gushed from on the side of the bench she shared with Ren " or maybe shower her with white roses? or are you gonna write a soppy poem and recite it for all the cafeteria to hear?" Nora was always happy to remind Jaune of his failure. Or maybe Nora was just always happy and happened to be reminding Jaune of his failure. "Maybe you're hoping spring has melted the ice queen's heart?"

"Nora, be nice" Ren usually didn't say much unless Nora needed to be guided back into social acceptability, but here she might be on the right path. Jaune needed to learn when to give up, maybe that would be something to cover during training. A true warrior needs to know when to give up, on or off the battlefield.

"aww but Ren he always turns the cutest shade of pink when he's embarrassed!"

It was true, she had brought quite the blush to Jaune's cheeks. He looked even cuter like that, like some sleepy little cherub.

"Look we can all talk about my numerous failures later but I'm pretty sure we need to head to class if we don't want Goodwitch to yell at us" He was right, lunch in the garden had been nice but it wouldn't be worth incurring Goodwitch's wrath.

The four of them hurried down the hallways of Beacon before finally arriving to Goodwitch's class. The lecture hall was packed with students, many of whom were visitors that Pyrrha had never seen before. The four of them quickly took seats next to team RWBY.

"Good afternoon class, I trust you are all prepared for the Vytal festival. Signups for the team tournament will begin at the end of this class. All teams will need to turn in a roster of the four primary team members and list a substitute member in the case that a team member is not able to participate for any reason. As a final reminder the tournament is double elimination with the victors of the tournament receiving a vacation to the island of Dal, east of Vale"

"psst, hey Jaune." Ruby whispered over "Let's cover each other's bases for replacements. You guys can have me and we can use Pyrrha"

"yeah great then we just have to get rid of Blake and we'd have a chance at winning" Yang joked while giving Blake a little punch in the arm.

"Sure that should be fine, but maybe we could borrow Weiss instead?" Jaune whispered back.

"I'd really rather not." Weiss stated in an icy tone.

"Well whatever. It isn't like the substitute is likely to be used at all anyway." Jaune's plan's complete failure left him looking distraught. Seeing it made Pyrrha want to do nothing more than to wrap him up in her arms and tell him it would be okay. Holding him would make the whole day better, hell it would make the semester better but she still wasn't sure how Jaune would react. Jaune was hard to gauge, not the same way as Ren where his face showed nothing, but more in that it seemed like often even Jaune didn't know what he really wanted. If that boy would just get his head together Pyrrha's life would become a lot simpler, more boring perhaps, but simpler.

"Would one of the visiting students like to chose a partner for our next duel?" Goodwitch said. Like lightning, a hand shot up in front of Pyrrha.

"I would love to test my skill versus one of your students here." The student talking looked to be about 5'4" with red hair that was swept forward. " and of course if I want to test my skill who better to test against than Pyrrha Nikos." The student stood, turned and smiled at Pyrrha, gave a slight bow then began to descend to the front of the amphitheater. Once she could see all of his clothing he looked strange, he wore a long orange robe with a red sheet of cloth wrapped around his body and attached to his right arm. Perhaps it's some kind of religious garb? Pyrrha began her own descent to the floor and drew Miló and Akúo.

"My name is Rameses Najem." He bowed again " It is a pleasure to meet you Pyrrha Nikos. May our souls flare like fire in this battle and shine forevermore." After the bow Rameses lifted his arm so that the cloth around his arm obscured most of his body. Wearing clothes like that he hardly looked dangerous, but no one got into an academy by being good at sewing. With most of his body hidden behind that cloth there was no way to tell what he was planning, but it wouldn't matter no amount of trickery could stand up to the amount of training Pyrrha had put in. Now it was Pyrrha's turn.

"Hello Rameses, I hope that we both learn much from our sparring today." Pyrrha readied her sword and shield and started to crouch down. All she had to wait for now was the go from Goodwitch and she could spring into action.

"Very well, let the fight begin." The moment her hand went down and the match began in earnest Pyrrha hurled her shield at Rameses' chest and fired off three quick shots with her rifle. The shield flew straight but at the last moment Rameses dodged to the side and twirled his cloak around it before spinning with its momentum and flinging it back at Pyrrha. A flashy maneuver like that is designed to distract, in this case from the glint of steel as he moved his arms to block her rifle shots.

Her shield was easily caught by guiding it into her hand with polarity, but by the time she had recovered it Ramses had closed on her. When he had run within three feet he swung his right arm out wide and from the depths of his sleeve a dagger on a chain emerged. His cut was easily blocked by Pyrrha's sword, but it provided enough of a distraction for his other arm to swing another dagger up from beneath unnoticed. Pyrrha quickly brought her shield down on the dagger pinning the chain to the ground with her shield before slashing up at its owner with her sword.

It seemed that Rameses was caught off guard by the sudden pinning of his weapon and took a strong hit to the chin draining half of his aura. While Pyrrha recovered from her swing the sound of glass breaking came from beneath her, when she glanced down a bottle of red dust had been broken on the ground between her and Rameses. With a flick of his wrist Rameses sent his pinned dagger swinging to the side flinging the dust into the air. With her vision obstructed Pyrrha could not see the kick that sent her tumbling.

What Pyrrha could see was the conflagration that followed, the fool had engulfed both of them in a cloud of flame. When Pyrrha rolled out of the cloud she could see from the scoreboard that the fire had taken a toll on her aura but that somehow Rameses had emerged from the flames healthier than he started. Somewhere on the opposite side of the cloud was Rameses and while the cloud still raged she had the advantage of range. Quickly switching to her rifle she started shooting at where she assumed he was. Even though the cloud obscured her opponent she could tell when a shot landed when his aura decreased on the scoreboard. Rameses was almost in the red zone by the time he burst out from the cloud. He leaped out swinging his daggers in a wide arc to hit Pyrrha's torso from both sides. The attack was clearly a desperate attempt with both wild swings being easily blocked and a simple counter slash with Pyrrha's sword bringing an end to the match.

"Once again Pyrrha Nikos emerges victorious." Boomed Goodwitch's voice. It is always interesting to fight against a new style, even if Rameses seems to be uninterested in a fair fight. As the two combatants began the ascent back to their seats Rameses tapped her on the shoulder.

"Thank you for granting me that match, when fighting someone as strong as you it is wonderful even to lose." What game was he playing at, and why is he always smiling? It would be a nice smile if it wavered but even in the midst of the fight his face remained plastered with the same grin. At least Nora's smile wavered when Ren wasn't around but this guy might as well be a statue. "Please allow me and my team to take your team to dinner tonight. It is very hard for us to travel all the way from Vacuo, we have very few friends here and would love to make new ones."

"I'm sure my team would love to meet you, or at the very least they've never turned down free food before." Whatever he was aiming to accomplish it couldn't hurt to take his food.

"Wonderful! Let us meet at cafe Amoma in town tonight!" He nodded in reply and Pyrrha returned and sat down next to Nora.

"Well I got us a dinner date tonight at a cafe in town."

"Ooh ooh ooh! You're finally going to tell Jaune how you feel?" Pyrrha turned red as a beet at that.

"Not so loud Nora, and no not that kind of date. Rameses has offered to buy us all dinner."

"Ooh! Dinner! can we go to the pancake house again? They have the best syrup there! It tastes like the kind Ren's mom used to make back home!" Nora bounced as she spoke and certainly wasn't as quiet as she should have been.

"No, Nora no pancakes this time. We're going to some cafe, and anyways that much syrup can't be good for you." Last time they had gone to the pancake house Nora had managed to drink an entire bottle of the syrup straight, not that you could tell from looking at her. Of course swinging a hammer as big as she is must burn a lot of calories.

"Aw but nothing that tastes that good can be bad for me right?" Nora pouted.

"Nora you're seventeen now you need to learn some self control." Apparently Ren had been listening in on the conversation the whole time, hopefully Jaune couldn't hear them too. From the look of it though he had passed out in his seat.

"Well Ren do you have any opinion on this dinner?" Pyrrha asked.

"I was taught it was rude to decline an invitation to a meal, even if the person you are dining with is a stranger." That didn't seem to really be an answer, but it was more than I usually got out of Ren. It was also curiously close to saying "never turn down free food" a sentiment that Ren probably got from Nora but would be embarrassed to admit.

"Well unless Jaune has some strong objection I think we should have dinner with them tonight. It will be fun to go into town at the very least." Going to town would be nice, there was that boutique that Yang had promised would have people turning heads, and at this point I could use all the help I could get to turn Jaune's head. If that boy got any more focused on Weiss I'm not sure his head will be able to turn at all though. But going out to dinner should be fun, Jaune always said that strangers were just friends you hadn't met yet.