A New Hope Nier

"Welcome to the Vytal Festival being held this year in the great Kingdom of Vale! This year, the officiating for the tournament will be done by Beacon's own Glynda Goodwitch the Vice Headmistress of the illustrious Beacon Academy, and myself ahem one of the premier reporters of Vale's news, Lisa Lavender!"

It was kind of weird how in canon they had Professor Port and Professor Oobleck being announcers when they were both extremely weird with how Port would ramble on and was honestly a bit creepy with how he would bluster about his stories to the younger girls and Oobleck... He literally was a discount Flash with his perpetual super speed powered by semblance that allowed him to channel sugars and caffeine into aura which evolved into a speed semblance on its own which meant no one could understand him in class and every student had recorders that could slow down his voice later on for review.

He actually had a space-expanded coffee mug to carry more coffee and use the telescopic stretching coffee cup as a weapon to show how addicted he was to sugar and caffeine and yet the man was still rail thin.

"Huh, I would have thought a foreign announcer would have been on the panel with how the festival is about international cooperation and such," Ruby said as Glynda and Lisa Lavender went over the teams fighting, their chances of winning and just introducing us to the people of Remnant.

While I looked over at Lisa and Glynda, I did notice how Lisa was using her clearly superior oratory skills to keep up the hype and introduce people while Glynda was speaking more on the technical aspects of Huntsmen without getting into jargon.

"It's probably due to them being probably the most 'neutral' parties involved, especially with how we are opening up the tournament in team-on-team combat and ending the first day's battles in the first two versus two battles," Pyrrha said wryly as she looked to Weiss, and I realized how any international people would probably focus on Weiss or Pyrrha herself with their reputations and backgrounds.

While Jeanne shifted nervously at being part of the opening act my face twitched as a truly irritating piece of news reached me through my earpiece as I heard 9S speaking to me through it. "Jake. Ozpin and his cabal completely failed to capture Cinder, Emerald, and that other illusion-using girl Neopolitan."

At least with YoRHa having slaughtered the White Fang when they attacked YoRHa manufacturing plants, they didn't have the help of the rabid animals to attack the city and likewise, with Salem having killed Arthur Watts herself, I also didn't likely have to worry about some kind of super virus taking over the battleships in the sky as well as all of Atlas's machines of war.

But still... "Hmm, that's interesting," I said in answer to Weiss pointing out our enemy team was a Mistral team that Pyrrha knew as well as the info I got from 9S.

"Girls give me a minute I am going to the restroom to splash some water on my face before our match," I said smiling as Pyrrha nodded in understanding as she thought I was facing nerves at having to fight in front of the record-breaking hundreds of millions of people watching from their scrolls as it was being streamed across the world due to my Oracle app.

But as I entered the empty hallway that led to the locker rooms my smile dropped as I spoke so 9S could hear me. "Nines where the fuck are they?" I hissed.

"Sir they completely fell off the grid and dumped all their old tech thinking that Atlas tech got a lead on them from Qrow managing to identify them. So now it seems that either Emerald or Neo is running around under illusions doing whatever they are planning after Mercury was killed before he could be captured." Nines explained and I frowned before I took a deep breath.

"Very well, get all satellites around Vale right now for intel even if the signal worsens for other areas under investigation. I want every laser battery and munition we have in stock to be watching for a Grimm tide and should it happen forgo the previous secrecy and shoot to kill... Hell empty the factories and tell the girls and gentlemen to arm up and disperse around through the populace as well to protect them." I said finally as I still had a bad feeling about something.

Either way with my orders given and Nines saying she was going to send them on to Commander White I took a breath and did what I said before and threw some water on my face to keep up my facade and rejoin my team.

"And now the team Juniper will be facing Mistral's own registered team with Ruby Rose standing down to make an equal numbered team," Glynda announced and I looked over to Ruby and she smiled as she waved my worry off.

"Don't worry Jake, I stepped down for the team battle that way I can fight during the two versus two battles as Weiss doesn't really care to fight more than a single battle anyway... But I am going to beat you at the finals Pyrrha!" Ruby said trying to be fierce but all I could think of was the two times Ruby spared with Pyrrha and she had her weapon stolen from her by Pyrrha's polarity semblance and was thus rendered helpless.

"I wish you the best in that endeavor Ruby Rose but know I won't go easy on you as my title as the Invincible Woman is well earned," Pyrrha said playing at being snooty and even raising her nose up Ruby before breaking into giggles as she couldn't be that rude at all.

"Alright, girls you can beat each other up in the stadium later so let's get going," I said making Weiss and Jeanne stand up beside me and Pyrrha. Then with Ruby cheering us on we all went down the hallway leading into the heart of the stadium for millions of people to watch us fight almost to the death.

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