Goodwitch swiped and tapped at her tablet mode scroll. Her gaze swept around the room. "Jaune Arc and Cardin Winchester. Please come down to the floor for your match."

Jaune glanced over at Cardin as he stood to walk to the entrances. Big. Wide shoulders. Probably focused more on upper body strength. He could see that Cardin had similarly sized him up, and was more than mildly offended when the other boy simply snorted and moved on.

Time to see those months of training pay off.

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Jaune grunted as another mace swing skidded off of his shield, and only barely managed to get his shield up again to block a backhand. A quick look at the scoreboard showed that he was losing by about five percent aura.

Right from the start, Jaune had been forced on the defensive, turning the match into a slow grind. The two had clashed weapons repeatedly, each time chipping a little aura off of the other. The only problem was that Cardin took more of his aura with every trade. He simply couldn't afford to risk taking any blows head on lest he lose a massive chunk of aura. Cardin's mace hit hard, and if the dust crystal in the center was any indication, it could hit even harder. It was only a matter of time until he decided to try blitzing Jaune into a smear on the floor.

Think! What are his weaknesses! Despite his heavyset frame and brutish appearance, Cardin twirled his mace around with lightning speed and pinpoint precision. Accurate enough to deflect bullets, as Jaune had quickly found when he tried taking a few potshots at the start of the round.

That's it! They traded on more time, and Jaune backed off, taking another look at the scoreboard. The score was 40-50 in Cardin's favor. Need to take away his weapon.

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Cardin's eyes narrowed as Jaune started edging towards him once more. Though he had tried to keep it off of his face, Cardin noticed the slight eyebrow raise as Jaune appeared to realize something. He wasn't quite sure what to make of the blond. Although his form and general tactics clearly had some logic to them, they were still bare bones basic. What was instinctual for most huntsmen in training took him an extra second to remember and think about.

Suddenly, Jaune tossed his sword in an underhand throw with a quick flick of his wrist. He frowned and batted it aside. The sword clattered to the side harmlessly. A distraction.

He looked over at Jaune, who had used the brief window of time that his sword throw had bought him to draw his pistol. Cardin raised his mace to block more bullets, and was surprised when, instead of keeping his distance, Jaune started moving closer as he fired, keeping his body behind his shield as he advanced. That's four that he used to close the gap. Cardin recognized the model. That plus the three he shot at the beginning. Seventeen total...that makes ten left.

He shifted his stance for close combat. As always, Jaune presented the shield first, and Cardin took an experimental overhand swing at it. As always, Jaune's shield was bashed slightly clockwise. Unlike before however, Jaune didn't need to twist back around to ready a sword swing. Instead, he turned a little further, moving with the blow, and fired at Cardin from underneath his shield arm. Cardin's eyes widened as three bullets crashed into his side, as he was forced to back off.

The two looked up at the scoreboard. Their auras were dead even. Cardin smirked. Good. It was starting to get a little boring. He let some aura flow into the dust crystal, priming it to blow. Still, I can't afford to lose my first match at Beacon. Jaune seemed to be thinking something similar, as he started to shuffle to Cardin's left. Although he tried to make it seem like he was trying to get a better angle on Cardin's weaponless side, it was obvious that he was going for his sword.

"Not so fast!" He roared, smashing his mace into the ground.

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The initial explosion chained into several more towards Jaune. He was forced to dive out of the way. Although he was still just a little too far away from his sword to reach out and grab it, he had other means of acquiring his weapon.

As his body rolled between Cardin and the sword, he reached out with his soul. The sword spun towards his open hand pommel first, skidding across the floor into his palm. He barely had time to get into a defensive stance, and then Cardin was upon him, leaping through the air at him with a powerful two handed downward swing. Sparks flew as Jaune blocked, but this time he added an extra shove to the side. Combined with the amount he had committed to the blow, the shove caused Cardin to tip over.

Cardin flinched. Remembering how Jaune shot him point blank last time, he tried to drag the weapon up to defend his exposed flank. Before he could, Jaune blasted the head of the mace with ice dust bullets. Flowers of ice sprouted from the weapon, effectively freezing the mace to the ground. At the same time, Jaune planted his foot on Cardin's chestplate and shoved him back.

Their auras were still almost even, but now Cardin was weaponless. Jaune switched to his sword, and Cardin hesitantly raised his fists. Now Jaune had a reach advantage, and even if Cardin tried to block with his armored forearms he still couldn't deal nearly as much damage with his fists as Jaune could with a sword.

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"Woo! Go Fearless Leader!" Nora cheered. The first half of the match had been fairly boring, but things were starting to pick up now as Jaune gained the upper hand. Nora typically sought to overwhelm opponents immediately with raw power, so watching the two poke at each other was not something she cared for.

Pyrrha looked on with interest. Jaune's grasp of combat was certainly basic but there was a certain cunning to the way he fought. Although he was severely lacking in terms of physical strength, he was just barely able to make it up with a capacity to plan out long term strategies while adapting on the fly. Not to mention how he had pulled his sword towards him. A semblance like hers perhaps?

Ren was asleep. It wasn't personal or anything-he had always found combat to be more of a pure necessity rather than something to delve into. Well versed in martial arts as he was, he did so more as a matter of formality and a means to stay fit. Besides, very little of what Jaune and Cardin were doing could be applied to his fighting style anyways.

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As much as he wanted to push the offensive, Jaune stayed near the mace, keeping himself between it and Cardin. Cardin shuffled left and right a few times, only to find Jaune intent on playing keepaway with his weapon.

Fine. If that's how you wanna do it then I'll just go through you!

He edged towards Jaune at first, then broke into a charge. Initially his sudden ferocity caught Jaune off guard, but Jaune was already in a stable stance. He caught Cardin's armored shoulder on his shield. Even with the shield between them Jaune found himself sliding back. Pushing some aura into his feet, he anchored himself to the ground. When Cardin found that he wasn't making any more progress, he grabbed Jaune's shield with both hands and twisted in a bid to simply wrench him aside.

Jaune moved with him, using his momentum to shove Cardin to the floor. Now on his hands and knees, Cardin was unable to block or dodge Jaune's attack. He cursed as Jaune tore a good chunk out of his aura with a brutal blow to his exposed back. Jumping at the opportunity, Jaune followed up with two more. Though Cardin had used his forearms to bear the brunt of the damage, he was left with only 20 percent. He scrambled to his feet, panting heavily, and looked at the scoreboard.

Dammit! He had just lost a huge amount of aura on a desperate gamble. Jaune was still standing between him and his weapon, a determined look on his face. Even if he was able to retrieve his weapon and return to the beginning of the match, it wouldn't be enough. Jaune could just whittle him down until…

Screw that. He roared and charged again. This time though, he faked to the left and then darted to the right. Shouldering a surprised Jaune to the side, he grabbed his weapon and wrenched it free. Cardin couldn't afford to give Jaune an opportunity to rest, so he put everything he had into one last assault.

Mace blows rained from every direction. Some were enhanced with dust and some weren't, meaning Jaune had to treat every swing like it was enhanced. Unable to find an opening to counterattack, Jaune quickly found himself staggering under the vicious assault.

Where was this at the start!? Jaune gasped, ducking under a swipe to land a slash at his legs. It wasn't enough to put him down completely, and Cardin retaliated by lashing at his head. Jaune crumpled to the floor, dazed.

"And that's the match." Goodwitch adjusted her glasses. "As you can see, this would appear to be a tie. Cardin used up all of his aura while attacking, but according to tournament rules he wins by virtue of having landed the final blow."

"Aww whaaaat?" Nora pouted.

"Well done mister Arc. That was an excellent display of strategy. That being said, you should work on your reaction and overall speed."

Jaune gave her a weak thumbs up from the floor.

"Heh. Piece of cake." Cardin shouldered his mace.

Goodwitch raised an eyebrow. "Hardly. You certainly did a good job of catching your opponent off guard at the last minute, but it was clearly done out of desperation rather than a plan."

He shrugged. "Worked out in the end."

She sighed. "Be that as it may, I would advise you to keep a better grip on your weapon next time, as well as trying to conserve aura."

"Hmph." He walked off the stage as Jaune got to his feet. "Good fight Arc."

"Huh?" Jaune blinked in surprise. He hadn't expected the boy to say something like that. "Likewise."

Goodwitch gave an announcement about the Vytal Festival while Jaune ambled off the stage, lost in thought about Cardin's attack. Gotta remember that. People will go all out if they feel cornered or desperate.

Reaaaally long fight scene. Hopefully not every fight will be this elaborate or else every chapter with a fight scene in it is gonna be twice as long as every other chapter, especially when you consider team fights. This served mostly as a way to show how Jaune thinks in a fight as well as establish his level of skill compared to the rest of his year: Good enough to go toe to toe with Cardin (who seems to be at least "average").

Cardin seems like a sore loser and a lousy winner in the show, but I reckon it's because 1. Pyrrha absolute stomped his whole team and 2. he absolutely destroyed Jaune. The reason he hated Jaune in the show was because he felt he didn't belong in Beacon and enjoys picking on the weak, but because Jaune actually gave him a good fight here, he's less likely to be as hostile towards him. Plus, because he won he's in a better mood. He's still a racist jackass, just not towards Jaune-at least not yet.

In the show if Jaune was more defensive he might've been able to outlast Cardin because of his larger than average aura size, however, he put some of his aura pool into his sword (which will pay off big time later).