AN: I decided that if Ozpin was going to be grooming Jaune to join his council then he'd likely want to have a team of other potential council members. I know I'm changing the list of some people who are Beacon students, but I feel this team would be interesting and effective.

Fury of a Lion

Chapter 3

-Ozpin-

Sipping his drink, Ozpin looked over the files for the new student applicants. Originally, he had planned to use his old standby of chess pieces in the ruins and the partners being paired up by eye contact. With potential members of the next generation of his council he couldn't risk it, not this year. He had set up a battery of tests run by his professors from academics to tactics to dust usage and Grimm studies. The scores were tallied up and Glynda was using them to determine the rest of the teams beside the potential recruits for his inner circle and they only had one test left to perform.

"Ozpin," looking up, he saw Bartholomew stepping into his office, "the students are ready for the combat test. You told me you wished to be collected to observe it."

"Thank you Bart." Ozpin smiled and raised his cup in a small toast as his old friend clinked his thermos to the mug, "Let's go watch some young idiots beat the snot out of each other. In a purely academic sense of course."

-Reese Chloris-

Grinning, and throwing a peace sign up at the crowd, Reese walked up the steps onto the stage while her opponent did the same on the opposite side, the giant ox wearing full plate and carrying a bladed mace that looked almost as big as he was. "Damn," she laughed, "compensating much?" Her opponent, Cardin Winchester, growled and swung the mace angrily.

"Students," Professor Goodwitch stepped onto the stage, clicking something on her large tablet Scroll "this is a fight to determine your strengths and weaknesses to finish helping us determine your teams. You will be fighting until aura or ring out so be sure to give it your all, we want to make sure we have the most effective teams we can. Any questions?"

"Rules of engagement?" Cardin was clearly hoping for some violence.

"Standard academy rules. You fight until in the red or I say stop, you don't go for any intentionally lethal or crippling. Now, begin!"

"Wait, what?" Cardin barely got the confused statement out before Reese shot forward, tossing her board like a throwing knife.

"Yeet!" she laughed, running after it even as Cardin quickly brought up an armored arm to block the board from stabbing him in the face, swinging his arm to send it flying away. Reacting quickly, Reese dropped down to slide between his legs, cushioning her legs with aura to prevent any road rash, lashing out with her elbow to her opponent's knee as she slid safely under his swing.

"You little shit!" Cardin snarled as he staggered, the pause giving her time to jump to her feet and grab her board, having never once stopped moving since the fight started. Kicking her board up she jumped on it and sped around the Arena, laughing happily at the wind in her hair, a few other hopeful students in the crowd gasping while others cheered her on.

"Do a flip!" one excitable monkey Faunus called out as she happily obliged, giving Cardin time to get back up, wanting to actually fight to show what she could do. Speeding towards her opponent, she saw him slam his mace onto the ground, the red dust crystal on the head glowing as a wave of explosions began rocketing towards her. Eyes wide, Reese reacting on instinct, slamming her foot hard onto the button that released a wave of energy from the bottom of the board, launching her skyward, not only over the explosions but far higher up than she had intended to.

Cardin, still gaping, just stood there slack jawed. Well, if he wanted to make himself an obvious target who was she to deny him. Still going skyward she separated her board into its bladed pistol form and opened fire. The laser blasts shot forward rapidly as Cardin started cursing again, trying to run to avoid them, his bladed mace being poor for blocking something like this given the spaces between the blades but, but given his armor he couldn't run very fast. Bullet after bullet chipped away at his aura but she stopped before it got to the red. Partly to turn her guns back into a board as she began her descent to Remnant, but also because she had a big finish in mind.

Reaching into her belt pouch she pulled out a dust crystal and stabbed it into her board as the light blue began glowing a dark purple. Giving an eager laugh, she sped up her descent, releasing the wave of pressure from the bottom again, this time the force enhanced by the gravity dust she had just infused into her board and the speed of her fall. "Boom bitch!" Reese cheered as the massive wave of force slammed into Cardin and sent him flying, Aura in the red and his ass out of the arena.

"Winner, Reese Chloris!"

-Sun Wukong-

Bouncing eagerly, Sun Wukong entered the arena, Ruyi Bang and Jingu Bang itching for a good fight. On the other side of the arena, Weiss Schnee stepped up daintily, giving a scowl and a scoff his way although to be fair it might be because of his clothes rather than his tail. Who knew people in Vale were so touchy about a set of abs.

"Are the combatants ready?" Glynda Goodwitch asked, checking her tablet scroll again.

"I am." Weiss Schnee goes into a stance, the dust chamber in her rapier spinning as she selected her element.

"Yep." Sun grinned, having started summoning his clones the second he got onto the stage.

"Begin!" Goodwitch called, stepping off the arena floor. The Second she said that, Weiss shot forward, Rapier aimed at his jugular. In response, two of his light clones burst into being and shot forward to intercept, catching the Dust Empire Heiress off guard as one got skewered and burst apart with a small explosions and the other kicked at her gut before popping as well. Running forward, Sun pulled out his staff and began batting at Weiss, smacking away her Rapier which he saw that she seemed to use less like a sword and more like a wand for her fancy smancy dust magic.

"Stand still!" Weiss snarled, red symbols glowing on her Rapier as she waved it, Glyphs appearing in the air as beams of fire shot forward at him.

Eyes wide, Sun began to jump and spin, dodging the beams as best he could, a couple still managing to graze him, dropping his aura down somewhat although admittedly not as low as Weiss' was from his clones' kick and explosions. Seeing the Atlas native smirk at him, Sun frowned and cracked his neck.

"It's on now." Sun shot forward, breaking his staff into its gun-chuck form, getting up in Weiss' guard as he began swinging and firing, Weiss' lack of armor or defensive equipment let each blast and strike hit as he kept pressing forward even as she tried to retreat from his unending barrage of attacks.

"Match!" Glynda called out, making both Sun and Weiss freeze and look up at the screen to see that Weiss' aura had quickly depleted showing an apparently small reserve of the spiritual energy.

Sun grinned and began cheering even as Weiss stomped off angrily.

-Lie Ren-

Walking forward, feeling completely calm Ren watched as his opponent, one Yang Xiao-Long, swaggered onto the stage, waving at a younger girl in a red hood.

"Are both combatants ready?" the Deputy Headmistress Goodwitch looked between the two of them although Yang didn't seem to be paying that much attention, spending more focus on hyping up the crowd, much to the professors' annoyance.

"I am ma'am." Ren nodded to her respectfully.

"Yeah, sure teach." Yang didn't even bother looking over.

"Begin." Goodwitch cracked her riding crop, eyes narrowed. Instantly, Ren flexed his wrists as StormFlower shot out of his sleeves and into his hands, swinging his wrists hard as they flew like boomerangs, deadly spinning arcs that screamed towards his opponent.

Yang dove forward in a roll to dodge the weapons as they returned to his hands, his opponent punching a bullet towards him as he easily dodged the telegraphed attack. Ren moved and dodged, flowing like water around Yang's powerful but slower attacks, his opponent more interesting in fighting flashy than fighting smart. Flipping back, he aimed StormFlower at Yang and fired. She leapt to the side and dodged most but a few strands of golden hair were snipped off by the bullets.

"Not good!" the small girl in the red cloak yelled, ducking behind the seat in front of her.

"YOU MONSTER!" Yang screamed, eyes blood red and hair ablaze as she screamed and charged at him, murder clear on her mind. Moving quickly, Ren called upon his semblance, focusing on Yang and forcing her to become emotionless, her eyes snapping to lilac and hair fire going out as her semblance, apparently tied to her anger, went away. "What?" the brawler gave a dazed and confused blink at the sudden mood whiplash.

Eyes narrowed, Ren slid into a stance as he focused aura into his palms, silently launching a palm strike to Yang's abdomen while releasing the Aura as his opponent was blasted out of the Arena, taking her out with a single strike as she flew and slammed hard into the stone wall outside the ring.

"Match!" Glynda called as Ren calmly slipped his weapons back into his sleeves as Nora cheered loudly from the stands.

-Jaune-

"You got this Jaune." Hercules cheered him on as he took to the Arena for the final fight of the testing, several people looking eager for the fight as his opponent, the only other person to not fight yet, was apparently a Mistralian tournament champion.

"Are you ready?" Jaune asked his opponent as she gave a strained smile at the cheers and shouts from the stand.

"Yes, I hope we have a good bout." Pyrrah nodded but he could tell she expected to win without any issue.

"Begin!" Goodwitch called out, clearly happy to be almost done for the day with the multitude of bouts that had been going on for the past few hours.

Snapping his claws out, Jaune ran forward eyes narrowed as Pyrrah aimed her riffle at him and fired. With his hardened skin, it only took a faint layer of Aura for the bullets to ping off his forehead, his aura not taking any noticeable dip from the direct attack. That shut up the cheers rather quickly.

Snarling, he slashed at his opponent as she brought up her shield, his claws sparking against the surface. For some reason she had her other hand empty and facing towards me, a look of confusion on her face. Capitalizing on her surprised confusion, Jaune channeled aura to his leg, the spiritual energy manifesting in the appearance of black and white flames due to his and Hercules' auras 'scraping against each other' for lack of a better description. With a swing, his leg caught her in the gut and sent her skidding back. It wasn't a direct blow and kicks weren't his specialty, but it still did some damage and dropped her aura slightly.

The whispers from the stands began once again at that althought he had no idea why landing a single blow was so impressive. Pyrrah quickly turned her riffle into a sword as she slashed at him. Ducking under the slash, Jaune gave an uppercut as she leapt back.

With a hard look, Pyrrah hurled her shield at him, the shield spinning like the world's most dangerous frisbee. Hand held out, he caught the shield, being pushed back only slightly. Instantly, Pyrrah was charging at him, swinging her blade as he batted aside her strikes with the shield, or tried to. He could feel the shield being moved every time he tried to bash her with it.

Channeling aura into his arm, he threw the shield aside as it skittered outside the ring "Can't move my attacks now." He growled.

"You tell her!" Hercules cheered eagerly, always excited to watch Jaune fight, "Hey, she's stunned, get 'er!" Moving forward, he slashed at her. The attack snapped her out of her momentary shock as Pyrrah slashed at him, meeting his clawed hand with a sword's edge. "I got it!" Hercules called out, moving their aura to his palm as Pyrrah used both hands to try and push the sword into his aura but his defenses gave no yield.

Closing his fingers around her weapon he wrenched it out of her grip and tossed it to her shield. With her weapons gone, and his opponent clearly trying to hide her semblance to move metal, he began punching and clawing. With his and Hercules' semblances combined his blows were stronger than hers as she tried to block and dodge his attacks. With a yell, he landed one last final blow as she staggered back, her aura flickering.

"Match!" Goodwitch called out as he looked at the screen, his aura in the yellow from her own strikes and his use of aura to stop them while hers was in the deep red, "Winner Jaune Arc!" The crowd were dead silent.

-Ozpin-

Smirking, Ozpin sipped his drink as he sat back at his desk. Going through his scroll, he began matching up teams. In the garbage was a stack of notes requesting certain partnerships from his applicants, in particular a twelve page paper from Miss Schnee on why she should be partnered with Pyrrah Nikos. Glynda, Bart, and Peter had matched up the rest of the students while his main team were designed by himself. Jaune, Reese Chloris, Lie Ren, and Sun Wukong. Now they were RJRS, team Rangers. Jaune couldn't lead the team as he had too many trust issues and had too much to catch up on for the academic front. The same was true for Lie Ren. Sun Wukong was too flighty to be trusted as a leader at this point. Reese Chloris was a technological genius, having created a hoverboard which could turn into bladed laser pistols and the ability to absorb and add elemental damage from an infusion of even diluted dust, and as a prep student? She had some foresight issues but he felt that being forced into a leadership role would help her with that area. "Well, Rangers, I can't wait to see what you can do."

AN: Don't worry about Pyrrah and Nora, they're still in the story and I've decided on a team for them too. They just won't be on a team with Jaune and Ren.